“You’re forgetting one thing,” Lucy said. “Zombies. If we go to any town, it’s going to be crawling with zombies.”
I nodded. She was right but what choice did we have? “We either risk it or end up being captured by the military.”
“Not much of a choice, Dude.” Sam turned towards the shore. “If we study the map, we should find a good place to land. There’s bound to be a harbour somewhere around here. I’ll check it out.” He went up to the bridge to talk to Tanya.
“You okay?” I asked Lucy.
She looked at me with eyes that betrayed no emotion. “Well, our boat’s totalled and we’re on the run from the army, so no, I’m not okay.”
“Sorry, I was only asking.”
“And what did you expect me to say? That I’m fine with all this? If you’d listened to me and not gone ashore to answer that radio call, we’d be happily sailing around without a care in the world right now.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “We wouldn’t. You grabbed those pills weeks ago so you hardly had no care in the world. You were already depressed. And I get it. This situation we’re in—“
“Shut up about the fucking pills, Alex. They help me, okay? Is that so fucking bad?”
“No, of course not. It’s just that—“
“So we’re agreed. Now leave the pills out of it. What I choose to do is none of your damned business.”
I held up my hands, telling I wasn’t going to interfere anymore. She was right that it was none of my business what she did to handle her emotions, although I’d thought our relationship meant we would probably talk about such things before resorting to drugs.
My biggest fear was that taking the pills meant Lucy didn’t have her head in the game and she might endanger herself or others. In this new world, survival meant having your head on a swivel and staying alert. The pills Lucy had been taking were dulling her edge.
Sam came back down the ladder. “Guys, there’s a small harbour a couple of miles ahead. We can’t all fit in the Zodiac with Vess so Tanya is going to take the Escape right up to the jetty. You guys get Vess off the boat while Tanya and I grab a car. Simple.”
I hoped it was going to be as easy as Sam thought.
“What about a nearby town?” I asked.
He nodded. “There’s a seaside town called Frinton-on-Sea.”
“Sounds ideal.” Being a seaside town, Frinton would have hotels and shops close to the beach. We could be undercover quite quickly.
“Let’s lock and load,” Sam said, going inside to get the weapons.
Unfortunately, we’d lost the guns that were on board the Big Easy, which meant we now had two M16s, and two Walther PPKs between us. And the ammo for these guns was running dangerously low. Each M16 had a spare magazine but the Walthers had only the bullets that were already loaded.
“Let’s hope we don’t run into too many zombies,” Sam said, examining the remaining ammunition.
That was a hope I definitely shared. We’d seen a few towns during our travels and all of them had been swarming with undead creatures. The army was rounding up people for the survivors camps from villages and isolated communities but they seemed to be leaving larger towns alone. It was probably too dangerous to mount a rescue mission in an area where thousands of zombies roamed the streets.
I had no idea what the population of Frinton-on-Sea was but there was no doubt in my mind that most of the people who lived there were now infected.
The bridge door opened and Tanya shouted down to us. “The harbour is dead ahead.”
I wished she’d used different words.
12
The Lucky Escape glided into the harbour and Sam jumped off. After hastily tying the mooring rope, he sprinted away in search of a vehicle. Lucy and I grabbed an end each of Vess's crate and heaved it off the boat and onto the cement jetty. Tanya followed us, carrying the footlocker.
We'd distributed the weapons so that Tanya and Sam had the M16s and Lucy and I had the handguns. I also had my baseball bat slung over my shoulder. We weren't exactly equipped to take on a large number of enemies—be they soldiers or zombies—but this was an escape mission and we'd agreed that if we got into trouble, we'd run rather than fight.
"Come on," Tanya said, heading along the jetty. "That boat won't be far behind us."
We made our way to the end to land, where Sam had already hotwired an RV and was waiting for us with the engine running.
He climbed out and helped us load Patient Zero into the vehicle. He was grinning the entire time, obviously pleased with himself. "Good thinking on my part, huh? Something large enough to carry us all."
"Also easier for the drone to spot," I said. I didn't mean it maliciously but I also thought that this wasn't the time for self-congratulation. We were still in danger and until we'd found somewhere safe, I couldn't relax.
Sam looked crestfallen but he perked himself up and said, "We're not going far in it, man. The town is just there." He pointed at Frinton-on-Sea, which was no more than a couple of miles away.
"Okay," I said. "Let's go." I climbed into the back of the RV with Lucy while Sam got behind the wheel and Tanya took the passenger seat. We rumbled away from the harbour and I looked seaward. The military vessel, which looked more like a civilian boat the army had commandeered, was landing at the harbour.
"Don't worry," Sam said, putting his foot down. "We'll be long gone before they find a vehicle. I slashed the tyres of all the other cars in the car park."
"Good thinking," I said, in part because I felt a little guilty about my earlier jab at him but also because it was a smart thing he'd done. We might actually have a chance of escape.
Tanya turned around in her seat and asked, "What exactly is the plan, Alex? If we hole up in a building, they'll find us eventually."
"We're not going to hole up," I told her. "The drone will probably watch us enter a building but then it will lose visual. We'll slip into the next building, and then the next, until it loses us. If we can get into the sewers, we should be able to get far enough away that we can get back to street level and find another vehicle while the army is still searching for us in the wrong area."
"Sounds great except for the zombies," Sam said. "There's bound to be a shitload of them in town."
"We'll just have to deal with them as we encounter them," I told him. "I can't account for everything and I never said this would be easy."
He nodded. "Fair enough, man."
We reached the outskirts of Frinton a few minutes later. Sam slammed on the brakes and the RV juddered to a stop.
"What's wrong?" I asked, looking between the front seats at the sight beyond the windscreen. When I saw what was there, it was obvious that my question was moot.
The streets of Frinton were full of shambling zombies. I'd feared that the town would be full of the creatures and unfortunately I'd been correct. There must be at least a thousand undead monsters roaming the streets.
"What now?" Sam asked.
"Get us out of here," I said. "We'll have to find another town."
But before Sam could put the RV into reverse, an explosion rocked the vehicle. My ears rang from the sound. Rocks and bricks rained down on top of the RV, clanging off the metal roof.
"Fuck!" Sam said. "There's no road behind us anymore. They blew the fucker up!"
"They're trying to trap us," I said.
The zombies ahead of us began to turn in our direction and shamble towards us. We couldn't stay in the vehicle; we'd be surrounded by a thousand zombies in less than a minute.
I looked desperately through the windows for a place to go. The only option was a five-storey block of flats. "Let's get inside there," I said.
No one argued or questioned that decision. We couldn't go backwards, we couldn't go forwards, and we couldn't stay where we were. We unloaded the crate and footlocker and carried them to the flats.
When we got to the main door, my heart sank. It had been smashed and pulled off its hinges. The zombies would be able to fo
llow us inside.
"This isn't good, man," Sam said as he stepped over broken glass and into the building.
There was a ground floor flat here but its door had also been smashed open.
A set of cement steps led up to the next level.
I looked back at the RV. A dozen zombies had already reached it and were clawing at the vehicle as if they thought we were still inside. The rest of the horde had seen us enter the block of flats and were coming this way.
I prayed that we'd find a flat on one of the upper floors with an intact door. If we didn't, then we were finished.
Sam took the lead, M16 braced against his shoulder, and Tanya took the rear—M16 in one hand, footlocker in the other— while Lucy and I manhandled the crate up the steps.
We reached the first floor to find the doors similarly broken.
"The place has been looted," Sam said.
"We'll keep going up," I said. "If we can't find a flat with an intact door, we'll have to barricade ourselves inside a bedroom or something. Any room that has a door we can defend."
Sam sighed and ascended the stairs to the next level. When the rest of us arrived, he'd already gone up to the level after that because every flat door down here was smashed.
"We're going to die in here," Lucy said calmly and with a certainty that unnerved me.
"No, we're not," I assured her, although I knew I was probably lying. I could hear the zombies on the steps below us.
There was no way down.
13
As we reached the fourth floor and found more broken doors, Sam came down the steps and said, “Come on, we can get onto the roof. That door is the only one that isn’t fucked up.”
I wasn’t sure how great a plan going out onto the roof was. The drone would have no problem spotting us up there. But what other choice did we have? At least we could close the door on the zombies that were shuffling up the steps below us.
What we’d do after that, I had no idea but anything was better than being ripped apart by the undead on these concrete steps.
Sam helped us with the crate and we managed to get through the door and out onto the flat roof. Sam closed the door behind us.
We put the crate down on the gravelled roof and Tanya put the footlocker next to it. “Now what?” she asked.
I went to the roof’s edge and looked down, immediately wishing I hadn’t. The building was totally surrounded with zombies and from here, I realised that my estimate of a thousand undead was inadequate. There must have been at least three thousand zombies roaming around down there.
They’d left the RV alone and now they were all focused on the flats but there were so many of them that they couldn’t all fit in the building so some of them wandered aimlessly around while others got stuck in tight clusters.
I raised my head and looked for the drone. There was no cover up here. As soon as the aircraft flew overhead, it would spot us easily.
A loud bang sounded on the door. Through a small glass window in the door, I saw a rotting face appear. It was joined by another and then another. The banging continued.
“Can they break through?” Tanya asked.
I didn’t answer her. I was thinking about the force that many bodies would exert on the wood until eventually the hinges gave way. What the hell would we do when that happened?
I heard the drone somewhere in the distance. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I searched the skies until I saw the black shape coming this way. Once the drone got a visual on us, Gordon would send his men to deal with the zombies and take us off the roof.
They’d have a problem dealing with the horde, though, which meant that by the time they got to us, we might be already dead if that door gave way.
“What do we do?” Tanya asked. “What’s our exit strategy?”
“We don’t have one,” I admitted. “We’re stuck here.”
“That isn’t what I wanted to hear, Alex.”
“I know. I’m sorry,”
The drone was getting closer. I looked in its direction and wondered if shooting at it would do any good. Probably not; we’d just be prolonging the inevitable. Gordon would realise where we were anyway when he saw the number of zombies milling around this particular building.
I squinted at the black airborne shape I’d thought was the drone, realising suddenly that it was in fact a Chinook helicopter. Its twin rotors were impossible to mistake. So we were going to be captured after all, assuming the helicopter got here before the door broke. We might as well surrender. Better to be captured by the army than torn apart by undead teeth and nails.
The four of us stood together while the Chinook descended. The wind whipped up by the twin rotors scattered gravel across the roof and made it an effort to stand in the same place without being blown away.
The helicopter didn’t land; it hovered at the edge of the roof and the ramp at its rear opened up. A man stepped forward. He wasn’t wearing an army uniform. Instead he wore black cargo pants and a tight blue T-shirt over his heavily-muscled frame. An assault rifle was slung over his shoulder. When I saw his face and buzz cut hair, I recognised him immediately.
Ian Hart, head of security at Apocalypse Island. He was the man who’d overseen our mission when we’d worked for the government facility. I’d never been happier to see him than I was at this moment.
He gestured for us to come aboard the Chinook and said, “Come with me if you want to live.”
We grabbed the crate and footlocker and took them up the ramp and into the interior of the helicopter. The rear ramp closed and I felt the floor beneath my feet move as we ascended.
“You said that exact same line the first time we met,” I told Hart.
“Did I? Take a seat and we’ll get the hell out of here. Looks like you’ve got yourselves into a spot of bother.”
We sat in the seats that were attached to the walls and strapped ourselves in. The interior of the aircraft was noisy and the only way to be heard was to shout so we remained silent.
I wondered what Hart was doing here. Apocalypse Island was off the coast of Scotland, hundreds of miles north of here. How had he found us?
I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. My questions could wait.
We flew for half an hour before I felt a twinge in my stomach due to the helicopter descending. We touched down and the engines were switched off.
“Here we are,” Hart said, unstrapping himself from his seat and standing by the ramp as it opened. “Site Bravo One. Before we go into the facility, I have one question. What’s in those boxes?”
“The small one contains papers and documents,” I told him. “The large crate has the body of Patient Zero inside. If you have a secure room, you’ll want to lock the crate inside it.”
He frowned, confused. “You said it was his body.”
I nodded. “But I didn’t say he was dead.”
Hart raised a questioning eyebrow.
“The virus might be bringing him back to life,” I said.
Two men armed with assault rifles and dressed similarly had appeared at the foot of the ramp. “Get this crate into one of the cells,” Hart told them. “And make sure it’s guarded around the clock.”
I knew why he was being so cautious. When we’d been at Apocalypse Island, our friend Jax had turned and taken out a number of personnel before she’d escaped the facility.
“Follow me,” he said. “I take it you’ve had some adventures since we last spoke.”
“You can say that again, man,” Sam said.
We followed Hart down the ramp and found ourselves standing on the tarmac of a small runway near two aircraft hangars. Beyond the hangars, a large three-storey building that had the unmistakable boxy look of a government facility stood in the sunshine. The morning light reflected off the building’s windows, which seemed to have been treated with some sort of silver-coloured reflective material.
“Site Bravo One,” Hart said, gesturing to the building. “We had to abandon Apocalypse Isl
and in the end. Too many bloody zombies on the island. We don’t have that problem here. This island is free of the bastards.”
“We’re on an island?” The area around the complex was covered with trees so from this vantage point, it looked like we were in the middle of a forest.
“Yes, we are,” Hart said, leading us across the tarmac to the silver-windowed building. “It’s not as big as Apocalypse Island and it’s mostly trees apart from what you see here. There’s a harbour on the west side. That road there leads to it.” He pointed at a road that led into the trees. “What do you think?”
“Looks pretty cool,” I said. “And the lack of zombies makes it better than the old place.”
“That’s a definite plus,” he said. “So, I was going to ask what you lot have been up to but since you told me what’s in that crate, I think the answer is obvious.”
“How did you find us?” I asked him.
“We’ve been monitoring the military radio channels for a while now. The chatter at Camp Victor went off the charts. We knew something big was happening but had no idea what. Then we saw that you were in the area and we put two and two together.”
Now I was confused. “What do you mean you saw we were in the area?”
He showed me his Ministry of Defence ID badge. “Remember when we issued you with one of these? All these badges have tracking chips installed. So when we discovered something was going down at Camp Victor, we consulted the computer to see which operatives we had in the area. And there you were. We tracked you as far as the harbour.”
We reached the door to the building and he swiped his ID badge through the digital lock. “When we realised you’d left your boat, we followed the explosions and the smoke.” He chuckled. “We knew we’d find you there.”
“Well you didn’t come a moment too soon,” Tanya told him. “A few more minutes on that roof and we’d have been zombie chow.”
“Glad to help,” he said, leading us through a large tiled foyer and through another locked door which he opened with his badge. “Now perhaps you can help us. We’ve suspected for a while that something dodgy has been going on at Camp Victor but we haven’t been able to collect any useable info. We’re short-staffed, due to the fact that most of our employees became zombies. You know how it is. So I’d be grateful for any intelligence you might have.”
Survival- Revenge of the Living Dead Page 7