Britain's End

by Frank Tayell

  “It’s unguarded at the moment,” Bill said. “There are fifty scientists and ten Marines. They can’t hold off an assault. Nor can we send anyone to fight for the fuel. And, come on, who do we think our enemy is going to be?”

  “Someone like…” Fenwick began. “What was the name of that chap in Birmingham?”

  “Barclay,” Chester said.

  Fenwick turned around, seemingly surprised to see Chester. “Barclay, yes. And he wasn’t the first since the outbreak. We don’t know where the next threat will come from. Evil didn’t die of radiation poisoning.”

  “I’m sorry, Leo,” Mary said. “We simply can’t afford the food. The decision has been made. We’ll bring them south the next time a ship goes to refuel. Moving on. Leon has taken some ships to London. Heather, are you ready to depart for Belfast?”

  “We’re ready to depart, yes,” Heather said.

  Chester caught the omission, but he wasn’t sure anyone else had.

  “Sholto’s on his way to Belfast to clear a road to be used as a runway,” Mary said, running a finger down a handwritten sheet in front of her. “The Amundsen is on its way to Svalbard. The New World should be leaving the Shannon Estuary about…” She glanced at the clock. “About now. It’ll be here in a few days, and they’ll let us know how many when after they’ve given the engines a proper run. The Vehement, Harper’s Ferry, and their escorts are almost at Kenmare Bay.”

  “That leaves the exodus from Holyhead,” Fenwick said. “I have some questions…”

  Chester slipped outside. The meeting would likely continue for hours, but despite what Fenwick might think, the decisions had already been made. That bothered Chester. Rather, he finally understood Nilda’s concern about their small group being subsumed into a larger community. That was now inevitable, and, if he was honest with himself, that was the root of his concern.

  The previous day, after returning from Menai Bridge, he’d asked Bill when the next ship would leave for Belfast, only to find Thaddeus Sholto had set sail a few hours before. The next boat wouldn’t be for a few days, and that meant he had little to do but wait. Higson had taken the helicopter up again that morning, but Chester had only needed a second to decide he didn’t want to be on the flight. The news the pilot brought back was as good as they could hope for. The horde was on the southwestern edge of Birmingham, having moved only a few miles in the past twenty-four hours. As for the city, there were barely even ruins left. London would fare little better, though they had no idea when the horde would reach the capital.

  He’d called Nilda, warning her that Leon was on his way. He’d told her about Leon’s connection with Simone, and she’d said that there was no point saying anything to the girl until the ships arrived. Chester had also explained that the ships’ crews had no plans to linger. Nilda, surprisingly, had agreed. Everyone in the Tower, adults and children alike, were looking forward to the glories of abundant electricity, if only for a few weeks. And at that point in the phone call, Mirabelle, Dee-Dee, Ken, Annette, and half-a-dozen others had come into the terrace. In the absence of privacy, Chester had ended the call. There was little more to say that wouldn’t wait, and right now, that was all he could do.

  He pulled his hat low, and his coat high. The wind was picking up, catching the rain and turning it into a street-level cloud of mist. Winter was truly on its way. He didn’t mind the weather. It was glorious walking outside without fear of attack. Not that he walked unarmed. He had a rifle on his shoulder, and a machete hanging from his belt. He’d have to speak to Jay, and make sure the lad packed some proper weapons when they left the Tower. He brushed the mist from his forehead. He should get his eyes checked. His vision had never properly recovered after he’d been shot, and he was now reconciled that it never would.

  There was a road sign ahead. When he was close enough to read it, he realised he was already half a mile from Holyhead. He really needed to get those glasses. As he turned around, he caught sight of a figure on the hillside. He squinted. The figure waved. Chester waved back, uncertain with whom he was communicating. There was a path leading from the road up the hill. It wasn’t a paved track, but a muddy-rut caused by the frequent passage of feet. Chester headed up it, and towards the figure. As he drew nearer, he saw that it was Rahinder Singh, and that the man was standing by a recently filled grave.

  Chester pulled off his hat. He could guess whose grave it was.

  “Rahinder, hello,” he said. “Is that…” He nodded towards the grave, but was uncertain how to finish.

  “My brother, yes,” Rahinder said.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Chester said. “I heard that he’d died. Four days ago, wasn’t it?”

  “On the twelfth,” Rahinder said. “It was to be expected. They said he went to sleep, and never woke up. They’d sedated him, but that is not the same as sleep. I… I wanted him to come back to me, but I lost him long ago. He didn’t want to live, not after creating the undead. Not after he destroyed the world.”

  “It wasn’t his fault,” Chester said. “It was an accident.”

  “Accident or not,” Rahinder said, “he claimed the burden of guilt as his own, and was unable to lay it aside.” He took a breath. “I would like to say he is at peace. Perhaps he is, but I can’t help think he deserted me. Come, let’s get out of the rain.” He reached down and laid a hand on the soil, then trudged back down the hillside towards the road. Chester followed.

  Rahinder Singh’s story was, in many ways, the saddest of the miserable tales on the island. He’d run an electrical repair shop in the same village in which George and Mary had lived. After the outbreak, Rahinder and his wife had ignored the government’s evacuation orders and gone to Wales. Dr Singh had a cottage there, on the coast. The scientist had used it as a weekend retreat, but not since he’d become the chief scientist for Quigley’s super-vaccine project. Rahinder reached Wales, but his wife hadn’t. He’d been reunited with his brother, only to discover that he was unwittingly responsible for the outbreak. In the months since, Rahinder had then had to watch his brother be driven mad by that knowledge.

  “Life goes on,” Rahinder said. “Up until it doesn’t, but until then…” He shrugged. “Were you looking for me?”

  “I was just getting some air,” Chester said. “I’ve not much to do until the next boat leaves for Belfast.”

  “Then you can come and help pack machine tools,” Rahinder said.

  “What kind of tools?” Chester asked.

  “To make crossbow bolts,” Rahinder said. “The bows aren’t as accurate as I’d like, but there isn’t the time to improve them. Perhaps over winter. Until then, we’ll have to make the best of what we have.” He glanced over his shoulder, back towards his brother’s grave, gave a rueful shrug, and turned towards Holyhead. “Crossbows and machetes, it’s a change from the electrical shop.”

  “There’s the radio,” Chester said. “I hear that’s ready to broadcast.”

  “Not yet,” Rahinder said. “We’re ready to set up the antennas on the ships, but that’s hardly complicated.”

  “We tried to build one,” Chester said.

  “In London?”

  “Yeah, using one of the tall buildings as an antenna.”

  “I’m not sure anyone would have been listening.”

  “Hmm. No, and it was sabotaged, anyway. The person who knew how to do it was murdered. So many died, but maybe the worst of it’s over. Or it soon will be.”

  “Soon?” Rahinder asked. “I don’t know. Even if they don’t say it aloud, everyone thinks it, but I’m not sure. My brother wasn’t either.”

  “He wasn’t? I thought he… I thought he didn’t talk.”

  “You can say it,” Rahinder said. “He was mad. I know. But a few months ago, during one of his more lucid moments, he wrote a letter. It was his last testament, a summary of all the research he’d done since arriving on Anglesey. That was my brother through-and-through. Some people might recall a happy childhood moment, or a recent
but precious memory. They might think of those they are leaving behind, not their work, their research. I say research, but he was making guesses based on what he’d seen, just as the rest of us do. Once he’d arrived on Anglesey, he never left his… his room. Or was it a cell? He conducted no experiments, nor did he ask for others to conduct them. He had the evidence of his eyes, and he replayed the same scenes over and over again. Perhaps that is what killed him. We shouldn’t read too much into anything he wrote. It’s why I didn’t make it public. There’s nothing useful in the letter, just more confusion.”

  “But his would have been a more educated guess than yours or mine, surely,” Chester said. “What did it say?”

  “Nothing of any real use,” Rahinder said. “You want to know? Fine. Firstly, we shouldn’t think of it as a virus, but a parasite.”

  “It’s a parasite?”

  “No, but we should think of it as one,” Rahinder said.

  “I don’t think I understand,” Chester said.

  “Nor do I,” Rahinder said. “You see what I mean?”

  “Was there anything else?” Chester asked.

  “That their main weakness is prolonged immersion in salt water,” Rahinder said. “Which we knew anyway, and which will dissolve a person as easily as one of the living dead.”

  “There was something else, though?” Chester guessed.

  “There was,” Rahinder said slowly. “One thing repeated four times. At the beginning, at the end, and twice in the middle. I should add that this was only a four-page document, half of which was unfinished equations. He had a theory on how long the undead will last. That was the main gist of his last testament.”

  “How long did he say?”

  Rahinder shook his head. “That’s just it. Either it’s one year or it’s a hundred years. He alternated the figures throughout. He might have written it during one of his more lucid moments, but that doesn’t mean he was entirely lucid.”

  “So we might have to wait a century for the zombies to stop? That doesn’t seem right. I’ve seen them collapse. Then again, I saw those photos Higson took of Birmingham this morning.”

  “Exactly. This is why I told no one about the letter. I don’t think my brother knew. He was guessing, just like we all are. I went back through the notes he made, the scribblings he daubed on the white boards and blackboards, on the sheets of paper, and even on the floor and walls when he ran out of anywhere else to write. It was the same there. Some days, some weeks, he would conclude the undead would be gone within a year. Some days, he believed they would last for eternity. No, his guess was no better than mine. I’d go further. I am certain my brother didn’t even know how he had created the undead. I think it was finally accepting that which drove him insane.”

  Chester could sense what was coming. He’d been around many a person who wanted to confess. It was one of the odd quirks of being a career criminal. There were some who couldn’t help boast of what they’d done, and whom could they tell but another con? This, though, this was something else.

  “There was…” Rahinder began, but whatever he’d been about to say, he seemed to change his mind. “No, there was nothing useful in there, and what does it matter? There are a little over nine thousand of us left, and no reason to think that there’s any larger group left on this planet. Let him die. Let him be forgotten. That is all I can ask.”

  “Fair enough.” Chester mulled it over. “It can’t be a century. You just have to look at a zombie to know it couldn’t last that long.”

  “And yet they exist,” Rahinder said. “You are probably right, but this is precisely why I kept it to myself. People think that the undead are going to drop dead any day. They wait for the great news as if that will fundamentally change our situation. It won’t. It won’t change the weather. It won’t fill a net with fish, or a fuel tank with petrol. It won’t fill a magazine with bullets, or a cupboard with food. No, the end of the living dead will only mean that our real struggle is beginning.”

  Part 3

  Runways and Recruits

  18th - 20th November

  Belfast

  Chapter 14 - A New Navy

  18th November, Belfast, Day 250

  Sholto winced as he pulled himself up the steel rungs embedded in Belfast’s harbour wall. It was a stretch to call the slick concrete of the quayside ‘dry-ground’, but at least it wasn’t swaying. He was getting sick of boats, partly because he knew they were going to play a larger part in his future than they had in his past. His right shoulder, left leg, and the entirety of his lower back ached after the crossing. He’d left Holyhead shortly after his fruitless interview with Sorcha Locke. Though Belfast was less than a hundred nautical miles from Anglesey, the voyage had taken over a day. In fairness to Gwen and her crew, that was entirely due to the wind being in the wrong direction. They’d managed to reach the Isle of Man before nightfall, and had sheltered off Port St Mary, but hadn’t gone ashore. With the last light of the dying day, they had seen the undead staggering through the town. At dawn, they’d left, but the weather had worsened before it had improved, and dusk was settling before they’d finally reached Belfast.

  “It’s getting busy here, isn’t it?” Gwen said, following Sholto up the ladder and onto the concrete dockside.

  “It is,” he said. It would only get busier. About two thousand now called Belfast home. Around fifty of those were on the narrow ribbon of concrete that jutted out of the harbour wall. Most were squaring away their small sailing craft, but, ten yards away and watching him, half a dozen huddled around two dozen fishing rods.

  “Anything biting?” Sholto asked.

  “Only the undead,” a bearded man replied. His accent was French and that was a surprise because Sholto recognised the face from the photographs that Kim had taken. His name was Ronson, and he was one of those who’d continued to seek out Markus after the pub had been closed. Up until now, the only French accents he’d heard belonged to the Special Forces and those fellow nationals who’d fallen in with Leon and his people. But why should they all opt for a soldier’s life? It wasn’t as if the English all clustered around Mister Mills and his crew.

  “You’re really getting zombies on the end of your line?” Sholto asked, unable to think of anything better, but wanting to keep the conversation going.

  The angler didn’t reply, nor did any of his comrades. They didn’t turn away, though, but watched Sholto and Gwen with evident suspicion tinged with distaste.

  “I’ll show you to headquarters,” Gwen said. She turned to her crew. “Offload, resupply, be ready to depart when I get back.”

  “You won’t stay?” Sholto asked, as they picked there way along the quay.

  “The Hedd is one of the few craft that can safely make a sea crossing,” she said. “And there’s too much to bring over. Everything we leave behind will be gone forever. No, we’ve got to keep working, day and night until January. Then we’ll rest.”

  Sholto held back his opinion on that. “When I was here with Bill, after we rescued him and Kim,” he began, and was uncertain how to finish. “Things have changed.”

  “It’s the people,” Gwen said. “We let too many come over, in my view. Too many, too soon.”

  There were lights out at sea, coming from the container ship, The John Cabot, but illumination on land mainly came from fires inside oil-drums and metal trays outside the least damaged of the harbour buildings. Even without those fires, it was obvious which buildings were occupied by the plastic sheeting covering the broken windows and shell-holes. The harbour had taken a beating during the chaos after the outbreak. Some buildings had burned down, a few looked as if they had been blown up, and many were pocked with bullet holes. It wasn’t clear whether the damage was caused during the global civil war that had followed the outbreak, or whether it was during the frantic flight as people fled the city.

  From the nearest of the warehouses, a solitary voice sang a soulful Scottish lament, while someone else tapped out a funereal beat on an
empty bucket. The wind changed direction, wiping a plume of smoke into Sholto’s face. He coughed, gagging on the acrid scent of rubber and plastic. He picked up his pace, walking hurriedly past, slowing only when he came to the next building. There was no oil drum outside, only a solitary candle. On the doors themselves, a prayerful missive was painted in a neat copper plate. The dead lie within. Leave them to rest, undisturbed. We shall not forget, nor will their memories let us.

  When he’d told Gwen that things had changed, it hadn’t been the truth. It was just an automatic response to fill the uncomfortable silence as his brain processed the scene. In truth, very little had changed. Yes, there were oil-drum-fires. Yes, there were more people. Mostly, Belfast remained exactly the same as when he’d first seen it during the mission to rescue Bill and Kim. The only major difference was that the corpses were gone. Some had been the undead, others had been nothing more than bones, picked clean by gulls and insects, but there had been dozens of bodies, the last remains of so many desperate survivors.

  “We can’t throw them in the sea,” Gwen said, “or spare the wood for a funeral pyre.”

  “And can’t spare the people to take them inland for burial,” Sholto said. He turned his back on the warehouse-tomb, and saw a shadow detach itself from the wall opposite. It was Siobhan. With her was the young Belfaster, Kallie. Both were, ostensibly, unarmed, but no doubt there was a weapon or three hidden beneath their identical black utility-jackets. With equally dark and equally matching trousers, it was almost a uniform, except for the stick on which Kallie leaned.

  “Good to see you up and about,” Sholto said.

  Kallie gave a small smile and a half nod.

  “Céad mílle fáilte,” Siobhan said.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Gwen said. “I’ve got to report that floating wreck we nearly hit last night.”

  “What floating wreck,” Sholto asked, but Gwen was already gone. “I didn’t see one.”

  “She said it was at night,” Siobhan said. “Kallie will take you to the admiral.”