by Frank Tayell
“You’re going to have to lower the ammo by rope, onto the roof of the hotel’s tower,” she said. “Keep it on standby for now. I’ll have someone call when we’ve got the roof ready.”
“I’ll be waiting for the call,” Sholto said.
Kim hung up. Annette held out the rifle.
“No, no. You’re doing as good a job as I could,” Kim said.
“It’s going to be okay,” Annette said. “We’re safe here, and we’re winning.”
“Maybe,” Kim said. They could retreat upstairs, and barricade the stairwell behind them. She was reasonably certain they would be safe from the undead, at least for a time. But they had no water. Soon they would be out of bullets and bolts. There was no possibility of escape. When night came, they would be in the dark because they couldn’t dare risk lighting a fire.
At a window three rooms along, a wooden cabinet was thrown out of the window. It crashed down on the undead below, knocking one to the ground. The undead behind scrummed forward into the gap, pummelling each other and trampling the fallen creature in their attempt to get to the people inside the hotel.
“Here,” she handed the phone to Mirabelle. “When Annette’s out of ammunition, go to the roof. Call Sholto. Tell him to come.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Mirabelle said. And Kim knew she could trust her to take care of Daisy and Annette, too. There was nowhere to run except up. No escape until the zombies died. So she went back down the stairs, and to the reception area.
Dee-Dee and Ken were by the front doors, though their eyes were focused on the corridors leading from the reception. “After this,” Ken said, not taking his eyes off the corridor. “We’re taking some boats down to Dublin.”
“You are, why?” Kim asked.
“For shortwave radios,” Dee-Dee said.
“Francois told us about Dublin,” Ken said, “about the supplies that were left there. How there were cargo planes loaded with equipment. They opened the crates, hoping for ammo, but found them full of radios. There’s bound to be some radio-sets nearer than that, but where do you start looking? That’s the thing, isn’t it? What we need to survive out here is different to back on Anglesey.”
“He means we know this door is holding,” Dee-Dee said, “but we don’t know what’s going on elsewhere in the hotel.”
Wearily, Kim sat on the one chair that hadn’t been added to the barricade. Outside, the undead beat against brick and glass, against metal and wood. It creaked in distress, cracked under pressure, fractured and broke under the incessant tumult. It wouldn’t hold for much longer.
“You saw the photographs Scott Higson took of Birmingham?” Dee-Dee asked.
“You mean after the horde passed over it?” Kim said.
“There were barely any buildings standing,” Dee-Dee said. There was a creak of metal as the now glass-less doorframe came free from its cement supports. It clattered outward, tangling with the thrashing arms of the undead.
“That was millions of zombies,” Kim said, pushing herself to her feet. “This is just a thousand or so.”
“A thousand, now, today,” Dee-Dee said. “Tomorrow, who knows?”
The entire barricade shuddered.
“Ken’s right,” Kim said. “We need shortwave radios. We need to plan for this happening again. It will happen again. After all, it’s happened before.”
“Back in Brazely Abbey, you mean?” Dee-Dee said, “Didn’t you use platforms hanging over the side of the walls to fight the undead?”
“Platforms and spears,” Kim said. “That was how Chris was bitten. It… it sort of worked.”
“We could try that here,” Dee-Dee said. The barricade shifted again. A chair fell from it. The furniture was strong, solid, durable, but they’d nothing to hold it in place but curtain-cord and wire ripped from the walls. “Ken, round everyone up. This is going to give. We can’t fight on two fronts. Bring everyone back to the stairs.”
He jogged off.
Kim drew her sidearm. A chair fell, and she could see daylight beyond. She raised her weapon, took aim at a socket from which the eye had long since been plucked, and fired. The zombie fell, and its corpse was lost in the sprawling mass. She shifted aim and fired again, and again, killing the undead in that same spot, trying to create an obstacle because she had too few bullets to create a barricade of bodies. All too soon, her gun was empty. She loaded her last magazine, but held her fire.
“Back to the stairs,” Kim said. “We’ll hold them in the stairwell.” She backed away from the door, Dee-Dee at her side, only turning around when she heard running footsteps.
“They’re in the restaurant!” Ken called. “They’re inside!”
“The stairs!” Kim said. “Get to the stairwell, pass word for everyone to go to the upper floors. Go!” Ken managed two steps towards the stairs, and Kim had managed one towards the restaurant, when there was an almighty crash from behind. She swung around in time to see the barricade break and the undead pour into the hotel’s reception. The first four creatures inside were crushed under the weight of those behind, and there were too many of those to count.
Kim raised her pistol and fired every last bullet. There was no point in a reserve, but when the magazine was empty the undead still streamed into the hotel, their numbers seemingly undiminished.
“Back!” she screamed at Dee-Dee and Ken. She dropped the pistol and drew her machete. “Back! Get back!”
She swung, cleaving the blade through a rotten cheek. As she drew it free, she took a step backward. “Get back!”
The living dead surged forward as she hacked again. The machetes were the wrong type of weapon. They required too much room between each fighter. Bill had been right. A pike would be better. Bullets would be best of all. She sliced the blade at another necrotic head, then stepped back a pace. Before she could swing again, Ken darted forward, cleaving his machete in an efficient up-and-down. Dee-Dee moved past Kim, and there was no room between them for her. She turned around and saw more people, streaming away from the restaurant. It wasn’t a rout, but a fighting retreat. Bran brought up the rear, a fire axe in his hands. He swung it low, left and right, smashing it into shin and calf, felling the undead as if they were trees, scything through them as if they were weeds.
“Up!” Kim barked at the people now milling around the stairs. “Go up! Pass the word. Carry the injured up and keep going up. Everyone, move! Go up! We need space to fight!”
She could see the danger, but couldn’t find the words to articulate it. Four people, perhaps five at the most, could fight the undead at any one time. Once they were pushed back into the stairwell, that number would be reduced to two. They would need room to retreat, and right now almost eight hundred people were only one floor above.
“We did this wrong,” she muttered. “We always do it wrong. Go! Move!” she chivvied the people back into the stairwell, turning around when she heard Ken yell in pain. He stepped back, clutching his arm. A zombie stepped after him. Before Kim could move, Yasmina darted past, shoulder-charging the zombie. She knocked it from its feet, then hacking her blade down on its head before taking up station next to Dee-Dee. Kim grabbed Ken, dragging him back to the stairwell.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Immune,” he said.
“You’re bleeding. Go upstairs. Get it bandaged.” She turned back to the fighting.
The undead were pushing inside. She could no longer tell how many were outside, but there had to be hundreds. They were creating a bottleneck around the broken doorway, but for every one that was killed, another was making its way inside. From the restaurant, it was worse. Bran swung the axe left and right, right and left, felling the zombies, but they weren’t dead. She saw a hand curl around his foot. She stepped forward as he leaped back, and the undead came on.
“On three!” she yelled. “Go to the stairs. Bran, Dee-Dee, Yasmina. Three! Move!” They stepped back, running behind her.
“Now what?” Dee-Dee asked.<
br />
“Hold them in the stairwell,” Kim said. “The helicopter will be on its way. It’s bringing ammo. We hold them in the stairs. The helicopter will—” But she’d run out of time, the zombies had pushed their way through the corridor, and were almost at the stairs. Kim stepped forward, swinging her machete up, but before she could strike, the zombie’s head exploded as a bullet slammed into it. She turned around and saw Annette, rifle raised in her small hands.
“Go back, up the stairs,” Kim called.
“Watch the floor!” Annette said, “I don’t have a shot!” Instead, she fired into the zombies pushing their way through the reception area.
Kim turned around and saw the zombie on the ground just as Bran swung his axe down.
“Save the bullets!” Kim called, though she wasn’t sure what they were saving them for. She stepped forward, swung, stepped back, and found Ken was at her side, a new machete in his hand a torn strip of curtain inexpertly tied around his wrist.
“Like you said, no retreat,” he said. “Back,” he yelled, screaming at the undead. “Get back!”
Dee-Dee stepped in front of her, and Kim found herself being pushed back and into the stairwell. She turned to Annette. “How much ammo do you have left?”
“Dunno.”
“Make sure. You’re doing good.” Then something else dawned. “Why are you here?”
“There are no more targets outside,” Annette said. “I thought you knew.”
Kim looked again at the group by the stairwell. “None?”
“Not really.”
“Then it’s almost over.”
She raised the machete, and waited for her turn to step into the breach.
Chapter 30 - Aftermath
Dundalk
Kim hacked her machete down on the crawling creature. There were eight bolts in its body, another five in its legs. Someone had decided to kill this particular zombie, and had wasted time and ammo in doing it. Ultimately, they’d failed. Those shots had been fired from above, and when the zombie was outside. Even with the bolts lodged in its body, the creature had managed to get through the broken window and into the meeting room.
She pulled her machete free, and wiped it clean on the zombie’s tattered dress. She went back out into the corridor, and saw Bran coming towards her. His face was grim.
“Go on,” she said. “Tell me the bad news.”
“What bad news?” he replied.
“Exactly. So start with the worst. How many died?”
“No one,” he said.
“I’m sorry?” Kim asked.
“No one died,” he said. “Everyone’s accounted for.”
“Seriously? Are you sure?”
“Most of the fighting was done at a distance,” he said. “And our enemy can’t shoot back.”
“So what is the bad news?”
“We’re almost out of ammunition. Annette was the only one with any left.”
“Right, of course. I gave her the stash I’d brought from Anglesey.”
“I’ve left her with a magazine, and shared out the rest among our best people. It’s only a hundred and fifty rounds. There might be a few dozen more rounds in sidearms, but I’ll put our total number of bullets at under two hundred.”
“And the crossbow bolts?” she asked.
“All fired, every last arrow.”
“I suppose we can retrieve some of the bolts. Well, that’s something to work on. What else?”
“There isn’t anything else,” he said. “And no bad news, as such, except that which you can see. We’re almost out of water. The kitchens will need to be decontaminated. And we’ll have to clear these bodies before we can collect water from outside.”
“And we’ll need new containers to collect it in,” Kim said. “We won’t find them here. What time is it?”
“There’s about an hour until dark,” Bran said.
“An hour? That’s long enough. We’ll go to the college. It’s the right decision, isn’t it? We used the better materials to make the first barricade, but the zombies still managed to get inside. We can retreat upstairs, but next time, we’ll have no ammunition to stop the undead while they’re outside.”
“That’s not going to change if we move,” Bran said.
“No. I suppose it won’t change until the helicopter comes. It can land on one of the roofs at the college.”
“It probably can’t,” Bran said. “They’re heavy things, helicopters. It would be best not to risk it.”
“There’s space in the college’s car park,” Kim said. “Or do you think we should stay here?”
“No, we have to move. Mary and I agree on that. I say we move now while everyone is still charged from the victory. You should be the one to tell them. Everyone’s talking about the way you charged the zombies, telling them to get back.”
“They are? I wasn’t talking to the undead.”
“People think you were. Or they want to believe you were. It’s a good story. You think the college, then?”
“For tonight,” Kim said. “We’ll take stock in the morning, and decide whether to move again. Is the helicopter on its way?”
“I don’t think so,” Bran said. “If it is, no one told me.”
“And if it was, it should be here by now,” Kim said. “Let’s get people up and moving.”
“You told Mirabelle not to call Belfast until all the ammo was gone,” Annette said. “That’s why I went to the stairwell. I still had loads of bullets left.”
“That’s not quite what I meant,” Kim said, looking down from the window at the twice-dead corpses below. “But if you were to ask me now, I’m not sure I know exactly what I meant.”
“But we did good, didn’t we?” Annette asked. “It was a victory, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Kim said. “We’re still alive, but is that victory or survival? How many zombies are dead. Three thousand?”
“Mirabelle thought it was at least four,” Annette said. “If this was back in England, we’d have said this was a victory.”
“But this isn’t England,” Kim said. “Back then, after Kew Gardens, we knew that if we could reach the Welsh beach, we’d be safe. Now we know that nowhere will be safe unless we make it so. What have we achieved, what have we really achieved since we left Anglesey? We’ve lost a ship. We’ve lost a radio antenna, a lot of tools, and machines for making the crossbows. We’ve lost a lot of those crossbows, too, and have used up all of the bolts. Above all, we lost nearly half our people in the wreck.” She shook her head, unwilling to express her fears. Instead, she smiled. “But we are alive, and you did a good job today. When we get to the college, I’ll show you how to clean the rifle.”
“I know how to clean it.”
“And I’ve seen how you clean. I’ll show you a few tricks.”
Chapter 31 - Snow and Bricks
Dundalk
By the time they reached the college, Kim had begun to question the decision to leave the hotel. It had taken far longer than she’d expected to walk the short distance, and dusk was turning to night. Part of the delay had been in getting everyone down the hotel’s narrow stairwell. The other part had been getting everyone through the undead littering the car park and road. Not all the zombies were dead, and the terror that came from continuous vigilance sapped the good cheer over a battle fought with no casualties taken. But no one had died on the journey to the college, either, though they had come across another three of the walking ghouls.
“Does everyone have a working light and a spare?” Kim asked. Lights came on, dazzling her. “You could have said yes,” she said with a laugh that was only partially forced. She got a few chuckles in return. “And everyone’s got weapons?” This time she got a chorus of yesses. “Good. We’re going to the hospital. We need to confirm that the undead have all left, or at least that most of them did. I’m reasonably certain of that, but breaking firewood, building barricades, that’s noisy work. If there are any zombies left, if they hear us, they’ll
find us during the night, so I’d rather we found them first. The helicopter is on standby. It can be here in half an hour, loaded with ammunition, but the sound of it will bring in undead from the countryside. If we can avoid it, we’ll leave resupply until the morning, when we can see the zombies coming. But, it’s more important we avoid another pitched battle. If the hospital is still infested with the undead, we’re going to retreat back here, call the helicopter, and take it from there. Bran?”
“Caution is our watchword,” he said. “Yasmina, take the lead. Pete, you take the rear.”
He began issuing orders, getting the group to form two lines either side of the road. They were same group that Bran had led outside the hotel. He trusted them, and so she would, too. Mirabelle was joining the expedition, but Kim had insisted Annette stay behind.
“And maybe, when we get back, Rahinder will have the wind turbine working,” Mirabelle said.
“Maybe,” Kim said. She fell in at the middle of the group, and said no more. No one did. Silence reigned as they walked the dark street. It wasn’t silent enough. She didn’t hear the zombie approach, but she heard Yasmina dart forward, swinging her machete high, then low, knocking it to the ground, then splitting its skull.
“Hold!” Bran hissed. Everyone stopped. Listened. All Kim could hear was the sound of her breath, now turning to vapour with each shallow exhale.
“Clear,” Bran said, and they continued.
It was unlikely Rahinder would get the turbine working tonight, but he might manage it in the early morning. For tonight, they would need fires. That meant burning the furniture they weren’t using to build a new barricade. Everyone was pitching in, though. Everyone knew that their lives really did depend on it, but exhaustion was already taking grip. In an hour, give or take, they would have done as much as they could for the night. She glanced up at the sky. The clouds completely blocked the stars, but it felt too cold to rain. That was the real reason they were going to the hospital. It wasn’t about whether it was safe for the helicopter to come, but whether it should bring ammunition or water.