by Frank Tayell
Sailing off into the sunset, a new name, a new life, a new American dream, it's just another fantasy.
20:00, 5th July.
“Forget the where,” Kim said. “You have a plan to go somewhere, but Annette's right. A road is blocked so you turn south instead of north. Plans change, where we go matters less than just going, so focus on the how.”
As I was climbing down Barrett, Liz and Stewart pointedly went back inside the dormitory. A few minutes later, equally pointedly, Daphne came out and joined Chris by the fire. So I went to talk to Kim. She was showing Annette how to drive the truck. With the engine off it was very much a theoretical lesson, and perhaps of not much practical value, but it keeps the girl happy, and that's more than I've been doing.
“So,” Kim went on, “how do we escape?” I hadn't realised it was an actual question.
“There's at least a hundred on the track between here and the road,” I said, thinking out loud. “When the engines start they'll hear and come running. Well, not running, but you know what I mean.”
“And?” Kim prompted.
“And They'd block the road,” Annette answered for me. “They'd gather outside the gate, and we'd never get the cars out. We need to distract them. So Bill,” she added in a fair imitation of Kim's interrogative tone, “how do we do that?”
“Fire?” I suggested, thinking out loud. “We could set a fire outside the walls. Throw out some Molotovs, or something. But we couldn't control the fire. The trees would catch, or the remains of their clothing would, then they would set fire to the walls. Not to the Abbey, but the dormitory, the kitchen, the shower block and all that timber I threw up in between. No, fire's out.”
“Sound,” Kim said with a shrug. “It's all we know that works.”
“If we could get everyone to be quiet. If we could lure Them to one side, away from the gates. Or at least get enough away we can get up enough speed to drive out of here.”
“Not everyone has to go,” Kim said, quietly. “One car could escape. Leave the rest of the food behind. The people who stay can create a diversion.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Then whoever stays would have to know, would have to be ready to close the gates, otherwise it would just be murder,” I said carefully, “and I’m not volunteering to stay. Are you?”
“Yeah, right,” Annette said. Kim didn't bother to reply.
“I doubt any of the others would either,” I said. “So it's all or none.” The silence stretched for a moment. “If we could call Them here, to the Abbey, it needs to be to the walls, to the side furthest from the gate.”
“Right.” Kim said. “Any ideas?”
“I was thinking about shark cages. You remember the TV shows where they'd send a cameraman down into shark infested waters, and they'd film from inside a cage.”
“Sure. No cages here, though.”
“Right. But we could try some kind of platform we lower over the side of the walls. Something wide enough for someone to stand on. It wouldn't have to be big. One of the doors would probably do. Reinforced.” I added “Lower it, then lower someone down, kill the undead until there's a pile of Them, raise the person up, then raise up the platform, then lower it a bit further along.”
“Sound to attract Them to the Abbey,” Kim said. “Then someone standing on a platform to get Them away from the gate. Then kill some to make space for more. OK. You'll need spears, attached to bungee cord. No, we haven't got any of that. Elastic? No, not strong enough. Spears attached by rope, then. Use one, pull it back up and use it again. It might work. How long before your arm gets tired?”
“An hour? Two? We could take it in shifts. But we're not trying to kill Them all, just make enough space for those around the gate...” I stopped to think for a moment. “How many could we kill before their bodies become a ramp others could climb up?”
“A prone body is, what, about twenty centimetres high?” Kim said “Bodies falling on top of one another don't stack neatly, but for every seven that fall in one spot say you create a ramp of about one metre. The platform is in front of the walls, so there is a gap behind this wall of the dead zombies, but gravity will fill that in.” She thought for a moment. “How high's the wall?”
“About thirty feet,” I replied
“Nine metres,” she thought a moment more “I'd say, moving the platform along the wall... you could get between three hundred fifty and five hundred, depending on how They fell, but after that...” she didn't need to finish the sentence
“How many zombies are out there, do you think?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“A lot more than that,” Annette replied. Kim nodded her agreement.
“It might work,” I said. “I really can't think of anything else.”
“You should see what the others say,” Kim said. “There's a chance they might have a better idea. I doubt it, but maybe this is one of those times that if we're going to do it, then it's best to get it done quickly.”
They didn't have a better idea. That isn't to say they didn't suggest anything.
“We could stay,” Liz insisted again. “Shoot most of Them, then you could go out and kill the rest with that pike of yours.”
“No,” Kim said softly.
“But he says he's immune. So why not?” Liz demanded.
“No,” Kim repeated.
“No,” Annette echoed.
“Hey,” Daphne said, “No, it's a fair point. I mean, why not?”
“Because I’m immune, not bite proof. They'd kill me. Probably very quickly,” I said angrily before Kim had a chance to say anything. “Then I'd be dead and you'd still be stuck here, out of bullets and running out of food. And that's to say nothing of the radiation.”
“Rocks. We just throw rocks down on Them,” Barrett said.
“No rocks here,” Kim said.
“Don't you know how to improvise? We can use some of the stones from the Abbey!” Barrett snapped back.
“That would actually make our walls lower,” Kim said slowly, “and would help Them build their ramp.”
“The advantage of using a platform,” I cut in, “is that their bodies will fall away from the walls, not directly up against it. That nearly doubles the number we can theoretically kill before They can climb up and get inside. Look, we've no choice. We'll be out of food in two weeks. We have to escape, so unless anyone has a better idea?” I looked around, hopefully. “Then we need to create some noise to lure them away from the track.”
“And just how do we that?” Liz asked “You want us banging saucepans together on the battlements?”
“Music,” Annette said. “Like you did in the village.”
“No mp3 players. No speakers,” I said. “I mean we don't do we? You guys didn't bring any with that stuff you brought here?”
“The cars,” Annette replied. “Car's have speakers. Cars have music.”
“That's true,” Chris said.
“We'd need to dismantle the speakers, rewire them, run them up to the walls, away from the gate,” I replied.
“You know how to rewire car speakers?” Barrett asked
“I reckon I know enough to take the wires out and splice them together,” I said.
I didn't. However, with Stewart's initially reluctant help, we managed it. It took all day, with most of that time spent making sure we weren't pulling out anything important. I can't say we bonded, not exactly. That's too much of a Hollywood montage kind of word. By the end of it, though, we were talking about football and cricket and movies and the usual stuff people talk about when they're trying to avoid talking about anything serious.
Whilst we were doing that, Chris and Daphne made the platforms. Most of the sturdier beams had already gone to reinforce the walls, but there was enough left over to reinforce a couple of doors. They seem strong enough.
Kim made the spears. Rough and ready, for the most part, knives stuck on poles with a weight added near the blade so we'll get gravity to assist with the force of the thrust.
We pushed the cars up to the walls and checked that the speakers work. All in all, it was a productive day's work. It was only natural, therefore, that conversation this evening turned to where we would be escaping to.
“London should be our fall back. I've seen the cities. I know what they're like,” Stewart said, adding in a grudging but conciliatory tone “You do too, Bill.”
“If it's still there,” Liz said. “We don't know. We can't know. It's too much of a risk.”
All afternoon she had made no secret that she still wanted me to go out and face the undead on my own, preferably dying after killing the last zombie trapping us here. It wasn't that she'd said it openly, at least not to my face, but all afternoon she kept finding opportunities to ask what we'd do if the plans didn't work.
“North, then. Across the M4,” Chris said. “Then Wales, maybe?”
“But where in Wales?” Daphne said. “We're less than an hour's drive from the farm, a lot less, and we didn't even know that anyone was here.”
“And the flag house,” Annette said, continuing angrily when it was clear that the others weren't following. “The house I saw from the top of the school, the one with the flags. There's people there too.”
“But we don't know where that is, dear,” Barrett said, in syrupy tones that made her sound less like a concerned adult and more like a pantomime wicked witch.
“I know, my point,” Annette replied, sounding more like Kim with each passing hour, “is that there's other people. Other survivors. Dozens. Hundreds. Probably more, and they're going to be everywhere, just holding on. We could find them.”
“Not easily,” Chris said, before Barrett could say anything. “And where would we start? We have to look after ourselves. We need somewhere concrete to go to after this. Somewhere we know we'll be safe.”
“Scotland. One of the islands.” Daphne said “Far enough away from anywhere anyone would want to nuke.”
“Why not New Zealand?” Kim muttered. Unfortunately she said it loudly enough the others heard. “Because,” she went on, carefully, “it's the same difference. No ferries, no planes, so how would you get there?”
“The Thames,” Stewart said. “If we had a boat, sail along through London and out the other side. Then we can follow up the coast, towards Scotland. That's got to be easiest.”
“You know how to sail?” Kim asked
“Don't need to,” Stewart said smugly. “We've got petrol here, haven’t we? We get ourselves a motor boat and chug our way along the coast.”
“What about the zombies in the water?” Annette asked
“The Thames is pretty deep, even this side of London,” Stewart said. “We'll be going at speed, right over their heads.”
“And if we let the tide pull us out, the fuel will go further. Much further than on land,” Daphne added. I didn't think she was correct. The friction of the water would surely be greater than that of tyres on a road. How long would the fuel last? Not as far as it would driving a car, I'm sure of that.
“What if you run out of fuel and end up adrift at sea?” I asked.
“Is that any worse than being stuck here?” Barrett snapped back.
Personally I thought it was, but I didn't want to argue. I was starting to get a feel of the direction this conference was taking.
“Alright,” I said, leaving that point. “Where do you find a boat? I went up and down the Thames looking for one. They'd all gone, even the houseboats were gone.”
“Ah,” Daphne said, “Stewart knows a place.”
So they'd been talking, planning it. Kim and I exchanged a glance.
“Well?” Kim asked.
“I knew this guy. He did boat hires in the summer. On the Thames, near Oxford. Day trips mostly, up and down the river. Usually, the punters'd get stuck somewhere, not be able to turn the boat, and have to call up for a lift back. That's how he made his profit...”
“But you don't actually know,” Kim interrupted, “that there are any boats there now?”
“I can't be certain, of course, but he was out of the country in February. Off sailing around Australia, so he won't have taken any of them. As for someone else, well, he had two boat houses. One was for the hire boats. The other was for repairs. The hire boats probably are gone, but in his repair yard he kept his own boat. A nice one, always drained the engine of fuel, but otherwise it was ready to go.”
“We'd have gone there weeks ago,” Chris said. “But without the petrol and the...”
“Sounds perfect, doesn't it,” Daphne cut in, loudly.
“Perfect? It's mad.” I hadn't meant to say the words, they just came out.
“Oh really? And what's your great idea,” Barrett asked
“There's the bridges around central London, I doubt you'll get a boat through those ruins, but let's say you do, then what? You'll just drift down the river and out to sea with no chance of rescue. You'll die of dehydration drifting around the North Sea.”
“That is,” Barrett said softly, “A possibility. But we don't think it's a great one. We stick close to the shore, when we're down to our last few gallons of fuel we'll find a spot to get out.”
“That's easy to say,” I shouted, “but you know, you must know, it won't be like that. It can't be, not any more.”
“Right.” Barrett said, her voice still deathly soft, “so what's the alternative.”
“You're hoping that the engine works, hoping there's enough fuel, hoping there's enough water and food, hoping the boat doesn't sink, that somewhere along the coast there'll be somewhere safe. What if all the enclaves were nuked? What if this is it, this here. This small corner of England, what if it turns out this is all that's left of the entire world,” I stopped. My voice had become nearly hysterical at the end as I expressed my secret fear, one that up until now I hadn't dared think, let alone express.
“So suggest an alternative,” Barrett said, loudly this time, “or shut up.”
“She does have a point,” Kim said. “Of a sort. What is the alternative?”
To me there was really only one choice “Lenham Hill. If it's abandoned there'll be supplies. If it's occupied, well, we'll see. But we need answers. We need to...”
“That's it, is it? Either join you on your mad quest no one else cares about, or go to an almost certain watery grave? What a choice!”
“Well, what do you want?” I asked, shocked at her sudden venom.
“What I want you can't give,” she replied. “I want to know that there'll be a tomorrow.”
What do you say to that? If I don't go there now, then I never will. We'll find a cottage in Wales or we'll end up on some boat trying to get out and away from this Island and we'll never come back. Am I carrier? How else can I find out? I should feel guilty that this now seems more important than making sure Lenham Hill is no threat to any future generations, but I don't.
Day 116, Brazely Abbey, Hampshire.
07:45, 6th July.
To get to the boat house we'll have to cross the M4. I've drawn up a route from here to the motorway, on the roads I remember being the most passable. After that, from there to the river, we're travelling through unknown territory. I thought of adding a little “here be dragons” notation to the road atlas, but didn't think anyone but Annette would find it funny. Possibly she wouldn't either.
I slept little last night. The night before battle. I suppose I should have been standing watch over my armour but since I don't wear any, I sat and watched the stars instead. It's odd, those little bits of history that you learn, but never really understand because you have no frame of reference. Knights and armour and castles and battles. It was all just words and movies. It was never real, not until I learnt the smell and touch and taste and fear that goes with it all. Is this a new Dark Age? Will there, one day, be some myth told about our flight from this Abbey? No, this isn't the time for that type of introspection.
The gantries are ready. Chris and I are to go up onto them. Though no one said it, not out loud at least, the
y clearly wanted Kim to be the other person to go up, but I just don't trust the others. I swung the argument by saying we would need her to use the rifle to kill any zombies that still lingered on the track. Their quick acquiescence suggests, well, I’m not sure, not exactly. They're all acting oddly. Then again, we're all nervous.
It's going to be a tough few hours, but it's almost over. The truck and the car have been loaded. Fuel, water, and the rest of the space goes to the food. I'd liked to have packed differently, but that would have been too obvious a sign we're heading off on our own, once we reach the river. And it is “we”. I spoke briefly to Kim this morning.
“Annette and I have talked,” she said.
“Yes?”
“The boat's a bad idea. So is Lenham Hill. But it's the least worst option.”
“You don't have to come with me.”
“Annette was right,” she said, tilting her head to one side. “You really don't get it. We're not going with you. You're coming with us. Lenham Hill, then keep going north. Out of the radiation zone, wherever that is.”
And that was that, and since everything is in place so, if 'twere done...
16:40, 6th July.
My part of the operation went exactly as we'd hoped. More or less. The rest of it, well, we're still at the Abbey.
As soon as we lowered the platforms over the edge of the wall, the undead began pushing and shoving, their hands reaching up to claw at empty air as They tried to reach across the four feet or so between the gantry and their heads.
Half way down the rope, I paused to watch as a zombie lost its footing and fell. Somehow, it had managed to get this far still wearing a green baseball cap. When it stumbled and slipped, the hat flew off, disappearing into the crowd as the prone zombie was crushed underfoot by that great grasping mass of the undead. I saw the same thing happen again as I reached the platform, and again as I was testing my footing. I didn't think we would need to do any more than just stand and wait.