Britain's End

by Frank Tayell

  “Hey! What is it?” Cafney said, walking into the middle of the road, trying to get their attention. Gloria grabbed his arm, and dragged him into the comparative cover of the van. Sholto clambered up onto its roof as ten, then twenty, then more ran past.

  “What’s going on? Why are you running?” Gloria called out.

  They got one word in reply. A one-word answer that Sholto could have guessed.

  “Zombies.”

  Around a hundred people ran past before their numbers began to thin.

  “Did you see anything from up there?” Colm asked as the last ran past.

  “Nothing,” Sholto said automatically checking his pouches for ammunition, then the hatchet, machete, and sidearm. “Stay here.”

  “No chance,” Colm said picking up his crowbar.

  “Best to see the danger, and know what we’re facing,” Gloria said.

  “Fine, but be ready to run,” Sholto said. He started down the road. There was one last figure coming towards them. Not running, but limping. Its left hand hung low by its leg, the right hand was raised towards them. Sholto took aim and, a fraction before he fired, realised his mistake. He lowered his rifle. The left hand was clutching the leg, and the right was waving. The man was alive. It was Ronson, the French fisherman.

  “Are you okay?” Colm asked.

  “Zombies,” Ronson said.

  “We guessed. How many?” Sholto asked.

  “Too many,” Ronson said, pushing through them. “C’est fini. Tous est fini!”

  Sholto let him go, and continued up the road. He jogged, but not as fast as he could. He’d learned a lot in the wastes of America, and more still in the wastelands of Britain. He knew to save his strength for the battle that was to come.

  Whitley and his sailors and Marines stood on the roofs of two trucks stalled in the middle of the road. Around them was a ring of the workers, tools swinging into the mass of the undead as the sailors fired down into the creatures. Sholto could only see the undead on the southern side of the encircled group. He could see the sailors on the roofs, but not how many more of the undead were to the north.

  He unscrewed the silencer from the rifle. “Hope this is loud enough. Get ready,” he said. He fired. The shot rang out as a zombie at the back of the pack collapsed. The rest of the undead continued pushing and clawing their way towards the ring of workers.

  “I’ll try again,” Sholto said. Before he could fire, there was a scream from ahead.

  “Come on,” Cafney said. “Cry havoc!”

  “No, wait!” Sholto said. But Cafney ran forward.

  “Damn fool of a man,” Gloria said, and ran after him.

  “Here we go again,” Colm muttered as he charged at the undead. The rest of their small group followed, bellowing an incoherent mixture of fear and rage. As Colm and the others charged at the undead, and across his line of fire, Sholto ran sideways, across the road, and onto the damp gravel marking the top of the embankment. He raised the rifle, found a target, and fired.

  Charging the undead was pointless. He fired. The undead wouldn’t run. He fired. They wouldn’t know fear. He fired, and fired, and with each shot, took a step towards the undead. When the magazine was empty, he searched his pockets for a spare.

  Colm had reached the living dead. The boxer swung his crowbar one-handed in a curving arc. A zombie’s head disintegrated as the metal smashed through rotten bone. The crowbar kept going, cleaving into the skull of a second creature. Colm’s left hand shot out in an open-palm punch that knocked down a third. Then Cafney was at his side, hacking his machete at the legs of the undead. Gloria and the others pushed their way into the fray. Sholto reloaded. He fired again, taking a step towards the undead with each shot, focusing on the enemy until he realised there were more survivors than zombies. They were winning.

  He swung the barrel left and right, looking for a clear shot. He saw Colm grab a one-armed zombie by the throat, hurling it to the ground. He saw Gloria swing her machete down onto its skull. He couldn’t see Cafney, not until he saw Gloria drop her machete, and kneel next to a body. Then he saw a hand rise, four feet from her. The hand was followed by an arm, covered in a rotting shirt. As the zombie rolled to its feet, Sholto fired, but there were too many people to risk any more shots. He ran forward, towards the battle. After ten paces, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. A creature, crawling along the ground towards him. He pivoted, firing as he ran. When he turned his attention ahead, he saw Colm, crowbar raised, but no undead left for the boxer to hit. The undead, at least to the south, were dead.

  On the roof of a van, he saw Whitley give an order. The sailors jumped down, heading north. Sholto turned his attention back to the road, watching for the crawling undead as he headed over to Colm.

  “I’m fine,” Cafney said, as Gloria helped him to his feet. “Had a lot worse than this.” He had scratches on his arm, and a jagged cut on his forehead, but it was already clotting.

  Sholto nodded to Colm. The boxer nodded back, then stepped swiftly to his left, hacking the crowbar down on a twitching corpse.

  “Hold the line here,” Sholto said, and went to find the lieutenant.

  “Get the injured back to the shelter of the vans,” Whitley called out. Toussaint copied the command, bellowing it more loudly.

  “What happened?” Sholto asked.

  “They came from the north,” Whitley said, turning his gaze that way. “Must have heard us clearing the road. We’d seen a few dozen. Thirty-four, I think, before that large group arrived. They were spread out over about a quarter mile, but still, they had to have come from the same place, right?”

  “Probably,” Sholto said. He looked north. The road was empty, and relatively clear. The crash barriers and signs had been removed, though the bodies of the undead now littered the ground.

  “Twenty lightly wounded, sir,” Toussaint said, reporting back. “Johnson’s dead. Neck wound.”

  “She’s dead? I thought she’d outlive us all,” Whitley said. “Wait, is that it?”

  “Aye, sir. One fatality.”

  “How many of the enemy? Two thousand?”

  “About seventeen hundred,” Toussaint said.

  “One dead for seventeen hundred,” Whitely said. “Can we win with that ratio?”

  “One dead so far,” Toussaint said. “I didn’t want to ask the wounded whether they were immune. I’ve got someone watching each of them.”

  “How many ran?” Sholto asked. “I counted around a hundred.”

  “I make it ninety-two,” Toussaint said.

  “And they’ll run back to the harbour,” Whitley said. “The admiral will send reinforcements. Let’s get back to work. Clear the road of the undead. Put them into the ditch.”

  Sholto was about to pick up his third corpse, when a cry went up.

  “Zombie!”

  The creature was to the west of the road, in the brackish marshland between the motorway and shore.

  “Hold your fire!” Toussaint barked. “It’s mine.”

  “No, watch. Look,” Colm said.

  The zombie took a step towards them. It staggered, slipped to its knees, then fell, face-first in the mud.

  “It’s dead,” Cafney said. “It died. It did, right?”

  “I think so,” Gloria said.

  “From its wounds, maybe,” Toussaint said.

  “Dying is dying,” Cafney said. “I just saw a zombie die! I saw it! We all did.”

  Sholto drew his machete from its sheath, and slid down the embankment.

  “Where are you going?” Gloria called out.

  ‘To make sure it’s dead,” Sholto said. He prodded it. The creature didn’t move. “Dead” he called out. And then, to be sure, hacked the machete down on the back of its skull.

  An hour later, the undead had been dragged from the road, but there was no sign of the admiral or any reinforcements from the harbour.

  “We’ve waited long enough,” Whitley said. “Too long.”

  “Agr
eed,” Sholto said. The lack of a patrol coming to check on the work gang meant either the harbour had been overrun, or those who’d fled had died. It was the latter.

  They found most of Ronson’s body half a mile from the barricade on Dargan Road. Beyond were a line of corpses leading towards the harbour. Some of the corpses still moved. Machetes were swung, crowbars were hacked, as they marched in uneven formation towards the harbour. As they neared the checkpoint, the undead grew more numerous. The Marines and sailors moved to the front, and Sholto went with them. A sense of dire urgency grew as the full import dawned of what lay ahead, but that fear was misplaced. They reached the checkpoint as the battle drew to a close.

  The ground around and under the motorway was littered with corpses, and their numbers were greatest around the barricade itself.

  “Clear!” came the shout from the basket slung beneath the overpass.

  “You’re back early,” Siobhan said from the top of the barricade. She had a machete in her hand, covered in gore. “What happened?”

  “I could ask you the same,” Colm said. “A couple of thousand zombies attacked us.”

  “The same thing happened here,” Siobhan said. “Maybe not quite so many, but it sorely seemed like it.” She flexed her wrist.

  “It’s over?” someone called out from the crowd.

  “Not yet,” Siobhan said. “Not until these bodies are cleared away.”

  Sholto scraped the foam off his face, and stared at the man in the mirror. He didn’t recognise him. He began to shave his scalp.

  There was plenty of shaving foam and razors, and plenty of shower gel, shampoo, and all the other varieties of soap by another name. What they lacked was enough water to wash. Instead, he shaved, and so did everyone else, men and women alike. Wearing the grey trousers and off-blue jacket, he would look like any other of the admiral’s recruits. Though he’d don the uniform tonight, he wouldn’t tomorrow. Nor would anyone else who was going to clear the rest of the road. The job was only half done, and it had to be completed for the sake of morale, if nothing else.

  He paused, the razor above his ear. His brain whirred, seeking an alternative to the harsh truth that faced them. There wasn’t one. The truth was that ninety-six people had died. Most had been those who’d fled, but three had died at the barricades. Two had died when the undead had first swarmed the checkpoint, the third had died at sunset. She’d been infected, and she’d turned.

  An argument could be made that, had those people not run, they would still be alive, but it didn’t change that they had died. Today they’d attempted to clear a motorway, but the effort and method to clear scrubland for farming would be much the same. They wouldn’t be able to use the land either side of the motorway, either, not now that so much of it was lined with the corpses of the undead. That was a shame, because it was some of the most promising land in the area. Not because of the soil, but because its proximity to the sea offered an easy escape, and because the hard surface of the motorway offered an easy way to get produce back to the settlement at the harbour. The harsh, final, ultimate truth was that there would be no harvest brought back to the harbour. There would be no permanent settlement in Belfast.

  He looked for something with which to wipe away the last of the foam. There was nothing but the uniform.

  “And isn’t that a perfect metaphor?” he said, as he rubbed the sleeve across his bare head.

  They’d taken clean clothes from the cars they’d searched, but those clothes had been ruined in the skirmish. He’d wear those stained clothes again tomorrow, then throw them away. Other than the uniform, there would be nothing to replace them until they organised a looting expedition of Belfast’s homes. Call that a day’s labour, and perhaps they’d find a few more cans and jars to add variety to their fish-diet, but it was more time not planting, not making, not moving on.

  Belfast wasn’t going to work. They’d wanted it to be a winter stopgap while they waited for the undead to die. They wouldn’t die. Not all of them. Not in sufficient numbers. So what was the alternative? He could only think of one. Sorcha Locke, and Kempton’s vault. He’d make sure that the motorway was cleared tomorrow in case the plane did have to land in Belfast, but then he would go back to the bunker here in Belfast. He’d search it again, and perhaps the buildings nearby. Perhaps there was some clue as to where in the U.S. Kempton’s main vault was. If there wasn’t, he’d return to Anglesey, confront Locke, and make her tell him.

  He wasn’t so naive as to assume she would confess without some price being paid, but he knew what she wanted, and he was prepared to pay it. He’d take her with him, and they would take Higson and his plane across the Atlantic.

  The helicopter had arrived from Anglesey that afternoon. If he’d been ten years younger, he would have gone straight to it, bribed or threatened the pilot to fly him back to Wales. He’d have frogmarched Locke to the airport, and had Higson get them in the air by midnight. If he was honest, that was the kind of thing he’d have done a year ago. Now he knew better. The satellites had to be moved first, they had to know where they were going to land, and there had to be a way of communicating their progress with Bill and the others. This mission was too important to be rushed into. The very fate of humanity was at stake, and with it, that of the family he’d spent most of his life thinking he’d never have. Tomorrow, then, they would finish clearing the road. Tonight, though, he’d call Bill and let him know what had just happened.

  Part 4

  Exodus

  20th - 21st November

  Anglesey

  Chapter 17 - The Night Before

  20th November, Anglesey, Day 252

  Bill ended the call from his brother.

  “Are things in Belfast as bad as they sound?” Leo Fenwick asked.

  That was the downside with the calls coming through the switchboard; there was little chance of privacy. Certainly, there had been no way to stop Leo Fenwick, Mary, and Donnie from listening into his side of the conversation.

  Bill shrugged. “It’s bad. They were attacked while clearing the road. Ninety-six people are dead. Most of them died after they ran in search of safety. Somewhere between four and eight thousand zombies were killed. Over twenty-thousand rounds of ammunition have been expended.”

  “That ratio is unsustainable,” Fenwick said. “I mean, the number of people lost. We can find more ammunition, but not people.”

  “I agree,” Mary said. “And isn’t that what we were discussing, the alternatives? You called the meeting, Leo. Did you have something you wanted to suggest?”

  “I called a meeting, yes,” Fenwick said. “But since you and I are the only members of the council here, we don’t even have a quorum.”

  The man had a point. Sophia Augusto had departed that morning, sailing north toward Loch Broom. A satellite image taken a month before showed what might be a small freighter floating in the bay. It was a sign of their desperation that the small chance of success was worth the risk of the journey. Heather Jones had also left that morning, along with everyone from Menai Bridge. That had been a sight to behold, hundreds of small sailing craft, travelling in slow unison away from the island. With the other members of the council now in Ireland, that left only Mary O’Leary and Leo Fenwick on Anglesey. Bill had asked Chester to attend as the representative of an almost-foreign power. The Londoner hadn’t laughed, not exactly, but he had begged off, claiming a prior invitation to spend the evening with Rahinder Singh. Annette was supremely uninterested, and had taken Daisy to bed. Even the collective of hackers and coders had gone out to enjoy an evening walking safely beneath the stars while they could.

  That left Bill to keep notes, Kim to listen, with Donnie as a fifth, having wheeled Mary to the meeting. Since then, he’d sat in the corner, headphones in his ears, his eyes glued to a tablet.

  “No, we have no quorum,” Fenwick said.

  “You could have brought your sister,” Mary said.

  “Though she’s one of our judges, she is unelecte
d,” Fenwick said pointedly. “I’d hoped Chief Watts could be here. A council member should have the ability to summon and question anyone.”

  “What did you want to ask him?” Mary asked.

  “Quite simply, how much radiation will be leaked from that power station.”

  “I don’t think he knows,” Mary said.

  “It’s a function of time more than quantity,” Kim said. “For how long will radiation leak from the power plant? The answer to that lies in Chernobyl.”

  “A theory,” Fenwick said. “Your theory. I would like that of an expert.”

  “There are no experts,” Kim said, far more calmly than Bill would have. “Not for this, not really. We’re all relying on the same case studies from the same textbooks.”

  “What is it you want to say, Leo?” Mary asked.

  “That Belfast is clearly a disaster we’re expecting to happen,” Fenwick said. “That phone call confirms it. In which case, let us look for an alternative. The grain ships are still here, so is half our population. Let’s not move them straight into the jaws of death. We have until the 7th January, yes? So let us use that time to find somewhere we are more likely to thrive.”

  “Like where?” Mary said. “Give us a suggestion.”

  “The Scottish islands,” Fenwick said. “Orkney for preference, Shetland for second.”

  “They are too far north,” Kim said. “We’d lose another hour of daylight until the spring. It’s too cold, too.”

  “And it’s the unknown,” Mary said.

  “Sophia Augusto is sailing near there,” Fenwick said. “Tell her to go and look.”

  “She’s not that near,” Bill said.

  “No, but Leo has a point,” Mary said. “Depending on what condition the freighter is in, what the weather is like, and what supplies Sophia has left, she can sail a few miles further north. It will be at her discretion, of course.”