Britain's End

by Frank Tayell

  “A little drizzle to dampen the cobbles,” Rahinder said.

  “Then we need to collect the rainwater,” she said. “Grab some of these saucepans. Take them outside, let them fill with water. Then make sure the ground floor is empty of the undead. Keep a guard on the stairwell, and we’ll check upstairs when there’s more of us here. Mirabelle—”

  “I’m coming with you,” she said.

  “Good,” Kim said, and she meant it.

  “This is more like mist than rain,” Kim said as they jogged along the road back towards the beach. “It’ll be next-to-impossible to collect.”

  “Rahinder will know what to do,” Mirabelle said. “I told him about the fog-nets in Peru.”

  “What are they?” Kim asked.

  “What I was working on before the outbreak,” Mirabelle said. “I mean, the company I was working for was building fog-nets around Lima. Basically, it’s plastic sheeting on which condensation can form. The water drips into a tray, that into a tank, and that into pipes which can irrigate fields.”

  “How does that link to coding?”

  “Smart nets,” Mirabelle said. “Smart pipes, smart tanks, and smart taps. Wastage can mean death in some places, so reduce wastage and save lives.”

  “Ah, but— wait.” She stopped dead in her tracks.

  “What?” Mirabelle asked, raising her machete, and shining her light left and right into the darkness.

  “No, there’s no danger, but if you were working on a water system, could you have fixed the treatment plant?”

  “We were writing the software,” Mirabelle said, “and working out what kind of hardware we’d need to create. If you know the length of pipe, the volume of water, and the angle of flow, you can calculate what the pressure should be. Monitor that, and you can tell if there’s a leak, and roughly where that leak is. It’s digital plumbing, not particle physics, which, basically, is what you’re talking about with a nuclear power plant.”

  “Ah. And I made coffee. What a difference a year makes.” They started walking, and Kim knew she wasn’t going to run again for a while. Her body had decided that the immediate danger was over, and hunger was added to the pangs of thirst moving from her tongue to the back of her throat. She opened her mouth, sucking in the mist. She shone her light to her left, over grassland flat enough to be a pitch, but there were no goalposts.

  “Paddocks and pastures,” she said. “We’re exposed in the hotel. Too exposed. We can’t barricade these roads. But it’ll be two days before the ship comes. Rather, it’ll be dawn plus twenty-four hours before we get our first sight of the ship. Realistically, it’ll take another day to load people aboard. And that’s once we’ve got them to the harbour.”

  “Kim, look!” Mirabelle said.

  At the edge of her beam of light, a zombie traipsed across the grassland, purposefully heading north. The zombie noticed the light shining on it. Slowly, it turned to face them. Its leg jerked, its hips pivoted, its arms were thrown forward and the rest of its body followed as it lurched towards them.

  “There’s something about it,” Kim murmured. “Something different.” She rolled her fingers across the grip of the machete, watching the zombie, uncertain what had caught her eye.

  The creature reached the ditch at the field’s edge, lost its footing, and toppled into the mud. It squirmed, rolled, and thrashed its way upright, spraying dank water onto the road.

  As it reached its knees, Kim realised what was wrong. At the same time, Mirabelle launched herself forward, her machete cleaving down. Her first blow cut deep into the zombie’s arm. She dragged it free, and swung again, this time the blade hacked into its neck, but there wasn’t enough force behind it. The blade sunk an inch into rotten flesh. The zombie shuddered, but its hands came up, clawing at Mirabelle’s coat. She lashed out with her foot, kicking the zombie back into the ditch. She brought the machete up again, and down one last time.

  Kim knew that rage. She’d felt it herself many times. She scanned the light across the field, then up and down the road. They seemed to be alone.

  “Save your strength,” she said. “Save the rage. The hard part is yet to come.” She shone the light back on the corpse. Now covered in mud, its skull split open, it was impossible to be certain, but she thought it had looked recently turned. “One problem at a time. Come on. We need to get to the beach.”

  Chapter 25 - The Beach

  Dundalk

  “Movement!” a voice called from ahead.

  “It’s Kim and Mirabelle,” Kim called. A pair of lights shone straight into her eyes, blinding her. “Put the lights down!”

  The lights were held by two of a group of twenty. Led by Donnie, they were gathered on the coastal road at the junction where it met the road that headed inland. A car had been pushed from the driveway of the bungalow, and left in the middle of the road to the south. Furniture had been added to that, with more lined up to the north of the junction. It was a line, rather than a proper barricade, and it wouldn’t offer much protection in the event of an attack, but the ground was too open for the road to be defended, and certainly not by so few. It would slow the undead for a few minutes. Kim hoped that would be long enough.

  “Did Rahinder make it to the hotel?” Donnie asked.

  “He did,” Kim said.

  “And it’s okay there?” a man asked. Kim had seen him before, helping out in the hospital. Heston? No. Hanson. Steve Hanson, originally from Stoke.

  “The ground floor is secure,” Kim said. “Not sure about the upper floors, but it should be okay. There’s some food there. Not much but some. What’s it like here?”

  A light was shone out beyond the flimsy barrier. There were corpses there. She didn’t count how many as her eyes were caught by the gleam of steel crossbow bolts embedded in the zombies’ bodies. It was probably no worse a ratio than with a gun, but being able to count the bolts really brought home how precarious their situation was.

  “I better get to the beach,” she said. “We’ll be moving people through here in a few minutes. Get ready.” There was nothing more to say.

  Where the coastal road was an example of nervous expectation, the beach was chaos under a thin veneer of hope. Around the crates that had fallen from the ship’s deck, an erratic semi-circle had been formed. Hundreds of dimly lit people stood, gripping machetes and lengths of metal, stalwartly out-staring the darkness. On the crates were sailors and some civilians, armed with rifles and holding the only lights. Those beams didn’t move as Kim and Mirabelle approached, but stayed fixed on a specific patch of rocky shore.

  “It’s Kim!” a voice called before she could announce herself.

  As she and Mirabelle drew nearer, questions flew thick and fast, all a variation on what the hotel was like.

  “Quiet down!” Bran’s voice carried easily above the crowd.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” Kim said, pushing her way through them, heading towards where Bran’s voice had come. “It’s a hotel. It’s good. Not far to walk. We’ll be in the warm soon.” She repeated the words over and over, in as calm and confident a tone as she could manage until she saw Bran. He stood on a crate near the ship. Mary sat on the crate itself, with Daisy in her arms. Annette stood on a rock next to them, a machete held in both hands.

  “I’ve booked us a room at the hotel,” Kim said smiling at the girls.

  “Roo,” Daisy said. Annette gave a shrug.

  “How is it?” Mary asked.

  “Good enough,” Kim said. “We’ve stayed in far worse. It’s about half a mile away, maybe three-quarters, and on a road that’s surrounded by open spaces.” She looked back at the sparse line of passengers and sailors. “Where’s everyone else?”

  “Dead,” Annette said.

  “We’ve eight hundred and ten alive,” Mary said.

  “I… I’m sorry.” It was the automatic thing to say, but the time for regret, remorse, and recrimination would come later. “Bran, I think it’s time to go. Do you know what to
do? I mean, how we do it?”

  “I’m two steps ahead,” he said. “Let me pass out the lights. I took them off people because it was only causing a distraction.”

  “Movement!” The cry came from the south.

  “Lots of them!” someone else called out.

  “They’re coming!”

  “Hold the line!” Bran said, his voice utterly calm. He jumped down from the crate. “Hold the line! Stand your ground!” He ran south.

  Kim looked at Annette and Daisy. Again, there was nothing to say. “Stay here. I’ll be back.” And she ran after Bran.

  The undead advanced from the south, the nearest being at the extreme range of the lights being shone from the top of the crates. Their thin grim line extended from the edge of the surf to two hundred metres up the rocky shore, with the ghoulish shadows spaced around six feet apart. As the front rank splashed through shallow waves or slipped on sea-drenched rocks, another row emerged from the darkness. Were there fifty? A hundred? More?

  “Don’t fire!” Bran called out. “Hold your fire!”

  Kim made her way through to the front of their line. Had six hundred really died in the wreck? They’d lost too many. They must not run. They had the sea at their backs and no way for help to come soon enough. They were alone. No, there was nowhere left to retreat.

  “On my command, rifles only!” Bran called. “Single shot. Take aim. Fire!”

  There was a fusillade of suppressed shots, a tinkling as spent cartridges dropped to the rocks, then splashes and thumps as the undead fell. Then came the cheer as the crowd saw the zombies die. The cheer died as more living dead emerged from the darkness. More shots came, more undead fell, but no more cheers came.

  “Stay where you are!” Commander Crawley called from somewhere behind her. Kim didn’t turn to look. “Hold the line,” the commander called. “Eyes forward. Watch. Wait. Get ready!”

  Kim was waiting, and the undead were getting nearer.

  Without an order being given, a crossbow was fired. She heard the thrum of the string, but didn’t see where the bolt went. Then another bolt was loosed, then dozens. The metal darts skittered off rock, and into the surf. She saw one hit a zombie in the chest, and the creature kept coming. The crossbows were a work in progress, and a day might come when they would be grateful for the weapon, but that wasn’t today.

  “Leave the crossbows!” Bran called. “Rifles, aim for the flanks.”

  He wanted the undead to be thinned out, Kim thought. She’d done the same when fighting alone with Bill. She’d shoot every other creature, leaving him time to recover after each kill. Now she was on the other end, waiting ankle deep in water for the undead to advance. And they were getting closer. She raised the machete.

  “When do we run?” someone asked to her left.

  “Never,” Kim said, though to herself. “Never again.”

  She concentrated on the zombie that would reach her first. It was tall, well over six-foot-six, even bent forward. As its mouth snapped and bit, the skin tore around a gash in its cheek. That wound ran down its neck, disappearing beneath its shredded overcoat. Its right arm swung out, the two remaining fingers curling, almost beckoning. The coat’s sleeve was missing, but a shin-guard had been taped to its arm. That hadn’t saved the person, though it was impossible to tell which of the many wounds had caused its infection. An eye was missing, and so was a shoe, but still it had managed to keep in front of the pack.

  Kim stepped forward, giving herself room to swing.

  “We should have made pikes,” she said, as she swung low, bending with the blow so that the zombie’s arm swept over her head while the heavy blade cut deep into its knee. Keeping low, she stepped back, sawing the blade free. The creature toppled, its arms still swinging. Kim curled her wrist, angling the blade up and then down on its skull. The bone was hard, but it cracked apart. The creature’s arms fell limp by its side, and Kim looked for the next threat; a zombie still wearing a red baseball cap that flew off as someone on a crate took the shot.

  “Aim at the rear!” Bran called, but Kim barely heard him. There were so many in front of her. So many and nowhere left to run.

  She hacked the blade low, then high, cutting the zombies down. She wouldn’t retreat. She couldn’t. There was nowhere on Earth to retreat to.

  Another zombie fell with her machete embedded in its brain, and the blade was stuck. As she tried to withdraw it, she slipped, fell, and landed hard on the rock. A hand caught around her arm. She spun to her feet, pushing the zombie away, and saw that it was Bran.

  “Easy!” he said. “Easy.”

  “Is that it? Do we retreat?” she asked.

  “I thought you were saying we couldn’t,” he said.

  “I was?” She hadn’t realised she’d said it aloud.

  “Yelling more than saying,” Bran said.

  There was a scream from her left. Bran bounded away towards it. Kim dragged her machete free from the zombie’s skull, and realised she’d dropped her torch. There was plenty of light, though. Too much, coming from too many people, sending dancing beams that scattered across the landscape, casting eldritch shadows among the advancing undead.

  She hacked. She cut. She stabbed. She slipped. She stood. She hacked again. The random beams of light made it impossible to see how many living dead there still were. She swung, cutting the blade deep into a zombie’s ruined face. The blade stuck. She let go, drew her sidearm, waited until the next random light illuminated the undead. She fired. And again. She had six shots left in the magazine, and then she’d have to reload. She thought she had a spare magazine. She hoped she did. She fired. She looked for her next target. But there were none. Was it over?

  She backed up a pace, and felt hands claw around her leg. She jumped back, dropping her aim, and fired into the zombie’s skull.

  “Lights! Lights!” she called. The cry was taken up, echoing across the battlefield. One by one, torches came on. Figures were crawling along the ground. One, ten feet from Kim raised its arm. Kim raised her gun.

  “Please!” the woman said.

  Kim ran over, grabbed her, and hauled her toward the ship.

  “Help her!” she barked. Hands reached down, helping the injured woman back. Back towards what, though?

  She grabbed a machete from the beach, but it wasn’t hers. She didn’t look for her torch. Instead she followed the light from Bran’s rifle as he swept it across the beach. There were figures moving across the rocky expanse, but they carried lights and blades, occasionally cleaving them down at the still twitching undead.

  “It’s over? So soon?” she said.

  “Usually it’s like that,” Bran said. “Either it’s over in minutes or it goes on for days. This… this though, it’s not like anything I’ve done before.”

  “They must have been clustered together, somewhere along the coast. Maybe around a ship or something. There was a zombie, earlier, one that was recently turned. But these, at least that one there…” She pointed at the zombie by their feet. “That woman died months ago. The summer, I’d say, by the clothes.”

  “You saw one that was recently turned?” Bran asked, moving the torch from one dead zombie to the next. “Maybe that was one of the people who left Anglesey in the last few weeks. Perhaps they came ashore, saw the undead, and tried to retreat back to their boat. Not all made it, and the rest of the undead followed them here, to the beach. That’ll do as an explanation for me until we’ve got more evidence.”

  “Then it’s time to go to the hotel,” Kim said.

  That took more effort than the brief skirmish. First, they formed a rough column with the injured and Mary in the centre, carried in improvised slings.

  “No retreat,” Annette said. She held Daisy in one arm, but clutched the machete in the other. The blade looked damp.

  “You… you fought them?” Kim asked.

  “Like you said. No retreat.”

  “You heard that?” Kim said. She leaned forward. “Don’t tell anyone, but
I thought I was talking to myself.”

  Annette cracked a thin smile.

  “What about the dead?” Dee-Dee asked. “Our dead.”

  “Leave them for now,” Mary said. “We’ll come back for them.”

  The mist grew heavier as they left the beach, though it still refused to turn into proper rain. The air was saturated, and the cold seeped deep into her bones.

  A cry came from ahead. “Zombies.”

  Kim was almost too exhausted to her push her way to the front. It wasn’t the living dead. It was Donnie and his group on the coastal road.

  Twenty seconds later, the cry came up again. This time, it was the undead.

  Chapter 26 - Fortress Dundalk

  Dundalk

  “Seven hundred and sixty eight survived?” Kim asked, disbelieving.

  “That’s how many made it here,” Rahinder said. “I had the sentries count as you came in. All three gave the same figure.”

  “Then we over-counted on the beach,” Mary said. “Or lost some along the way.”

  Kim eased herself out of dining room’s chair. “I’ll go and look for them.”

  “No,” Bran said. “You and I were at the front, Commander Crawley brought up the rear. We didn’t lose anyone, or leave anyone behind on the beach. Anyone who left, did so voluntarily.”

  Kim slowly sat down again. Now that the immediate danger was over, her muscles were singing, her cuts stinging, and her brain was throbbing. She reached for the coffee cup, and the miserly few millimetres of water inside. She downed it all.

  They were holding the meeting semi-publicly, in the hotel’s dining room. That had been Mary’s suggestion, a way of demonstrating that no secrets were being kept because, whoever was behind the sabotage, it was no one now in Dundalk.

  “For now,” Mary said, “we shall assume that anyone who didn’t come with us chose to walk to Belfast. If they change their mind, they’ll see our lights, and be able to find us. Rahinder, tell me about the food in the storeroom.”