by Perrin Briar
“We could check each road,” Vasquez said. “Look for recent oil leaks.”
“And what happens when we come to the next roundabout? The next crossroads? The next T-junction? We’ll be in the same situation all over again. I keep feeling like we’ve missed something, something that will tell us where to go.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” Vasquez said, an edge to her voice.
Phillips sighed and shook his head.
“Whatever we do, we need to hurry,” he said. “Time is against us. The bikers are chasing them, no doubt gaining.”
Phillips hissed through his teeth.
“Where could they be heading?” he said out loud. He turned to Vasquez. “Where would you go if you were armed with the cure?”
“The Maldives. Go somewhere warm. A paradise, like The Swiss Family Robinson.”
“In the real world?”
“I have a helicopter. It is the real world for me.”
“They don’t have a helicopter. Where would you go?”
“To wherever the safest place is.”
“Safety is subjective. We don’t know anything about these people. We don’t know who they are, their history, nothing.”
“I suppose I would head to my grandparents’ house, out in the sticks,” Vasquez said. “It’s enclosed enough that I could defend myself, plenty of fields to grow whatever I need. And my grandfather used to have homing pigeons, so they’ll be good company for a while.
“Have you ever seen a flock of homing pigeons find their way back home? It’s pretty impressive. My grandfather used to raise and race them. He was on his way to a competition in Dover when this whole thing kicked off. He never came back. He’s probably out there now, wandering around. I often wonder what happened to his birds. Did they get released from their cage? Did they fly back to my grandfather’s house? Are they there now, waiting for him? Or will they keep flying around, lost? Looking for another home? Sometimes we just know which way to go. It’s instinctive.”
Phillips raised his head, eyes shifting left to right in deep thought. He stood up.
“Give me the images you copied from the research facility,” he said.
Vasquez handed him the notepad with her drawings on. He turned it around, upside down, and then stopped. A big smile spread across his face.
“They’re not letters,” he said. “It’s a map!”
Phillips laid the map on the ground. Vasquez peered over his shoulder at it.
“Doesn’t look much like a map to me,” she said.
“That’s because you’re not looking at it right. In her final moments this was all Dr Kahn could recall of the UK. This circle is Stonehenge, this triangle is Salisbury Cathedral, and this line with the star next to it is…”
His eyes widened.
“Get us in the air now,” he said.
“Why? Where are we headed?”
“I know where they’re going,” Phillips said, jumping into the cockpit. “They’re heading for us. This whole time they were going to Brighton pier!”
Z-MINUS: 5 HOURS 37 MINUTES
The fog, thick as pea soup, had swept onto the land, coming in great sheets that obscured and then revealed sporadic scenes of the English countryside. The house emerged like it were playing peek-a-boo, a single-storey bungalow with wonky red tiles and shiny white walls. The kind of house people go to retire. A fixer-upper, but pleasant in a rustic kind of way.
Chris’s heart raced and thumped in his chest as he reached forward and pushed the front door open with heavy fingers. It squealed open. The floorboards creaked under his clumsy boots, and his breath hitched in his throat.
“If you’re trying to creep in here without anyone knowing, you’re doing a God-awful job of it,” a voice said.
“Thankfully I’m not,” Chris said, a smile rising to his face. “Nice to see you, Zora.”
Chris extended his hand, but Zora ignored it and wrapped her arms around him.
“It’s good to see you,” she said.
She pulled away from him and looked him over.
“But you’re not looking too hot.”
“You know how it is,” he said. “You push yourself until you have nothing left and by the time you realise you’re running on empty it’s too late to do anything about it.”
“Let’s get you inside and fed,” Zora said, sliding her arm through his. “I want to hear everything that’s happened.”
“Wait, there’s someone outside dying to meet you.”
“George made it too? That old dog!”
But the shadow that entered through the doorway was smaller than Zora expected. Maisie’s skin shone with a radiance akin to the rising sun of a new dawn after a long bitter cold night.
“Maisie?” Zora said, her expression incredulous.
“Hi Zora.”
Z-MINUS: 5 HOURS 33 MINUTES
The kitchen was large, with an AGA cooker along one wall, and a broad dining table along the other. Chris grimaced as he took a seat on one of the benches, the pain of the saddle still fresh. Zora turned a hob on, heating a pot on the stove.
“My parents always kept a healthy stock of gas tanks,” she said. “Enough to last for a while, anyway.”
“Where are they?” Chris said. “I’d love to meet them.”
Zora’s smile faded into one full of sadness.
“They’re not here,” Chris said. “Sorry.”
“They were here,” Zora said. “There are a few graves out back. They’ve been emptied, something bursting out from inside by the look of it. Someone must have buried them without knowing what was wrong with them, not knowing they would come back.”
“The rest of your family…?”
Zora shook her head, the pain still raw.
“What will be, will be,” she said.
Then Zora smiled and squeezed Maisie’s chubby hand.
“But at least you’re all right!” she said. “You look so big and grown up!”
“It’s only been a few hours,” Maisie said.
“It feels a lot longer than that though, don’t you think?”
The soup bubbled away and the lid of the pot clattered under the pressure, a thin wisp of steam rising off it. Zora turned the hob off and used a ladle to fill two bowls.
“Sorry it’s so watery,” Zora said, giving them each a bowl. “I’m running low on supplies.”
“It tastes good,” Chris said. “Nice to have something hot for a change.”
“It was better a few hours ago. There was actually meat in it. Don’t ask me what kind.”
Chris blew on a hot piece of potato.
“Zora, we’re here because we need your help,” he said.
“What can I do for you?”
“We need to get to Brighton pier.”
“So, walk there.”
“Without heading through town.”
“Is there a reason we can’t just go for a nice stroll?”
“Yes, twelve reasons. Some of our mutual friends followed us here.”
Zora’s expression turned ashen.
“The Reavers?” she said. “How?”
“I don’t know. They must have followed us somehow, or they knew we were coming here. Either way, they’re in Brighton now and we need to get past them to the pier. They’re here, looking for us.”
“Are you sure they’re looking for you?”
“They dropped enough hints.”
“You met them?”
“We saw them not twenty minutes ago.”
Zora shivered.
“I’m glad you came to me,” she said.
“Can I use your toilet?” Maisie said.
“Of course you can,” Zora said, turning on her bench and pointing out the window to the back of the property. “You see that small building over there? The toilet is in there. It’s just a hole, nothing fancy. Try not to fall in.”
Maisie left by the backdoor. Zora watched her as she went, waiting until she was out of earshot. She turned to Chri
s.
“Quickly, tell me what happened,” she said. “Where’s George?”
“He didn’t make it.”
“He couldn’t have turned already?”
“He’d been bitten about the same time as Maisie.”
“What?”
“Believe me, it was as much a shock to me.”
“That’s a shame. He was a good man.”
“The best.”
“He died for something he believed in, though. We should all be so lucky.”
Zora checked over her shoulder, casting a look at the backdoor.
“Maisie’s looking remarkably well for someone who’s meant to be a walking rotting corpse right about now,” she said.
“We got her to the cure just in time.”
“So there is a cure! Do you know what this means? It means everything can go back to the way they were!”
“There was a cure. Maisie got the last of it. I had a choice: either give it to her and have eight hours to get it to researchers at Brighton pier, or let her die and have forever to get it to them.”
“A tough decision, unless you’re a father. Where are these scientists, exactly?”
“On a boat called Tomorrow. I guess they’re off the coast of Brighton. A scientist at the research centre said to get the cure to Brighton pier within eight hours. That’s why we’re here.”
“How long has it been so far?”
“Just over two and a half hours.”
“You were bitten at the same time?”
“About twenty minutes earlier.”
Zora let out a puff of air.
“Maisie’s glowing like she’s full of life,” she said. “Whereas you…”
“I had to be infected to get past the zombies in the research facility.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“I have five and a half hours left before I turn.”
“They probably won’t be able to make more of the cure in time to save you.”
“That doesn’t matter. If I can get Maisie to them she will be safe. And she’ll have the cure in her blood and they can do whatever they need to make more. We need to get to that pier. Can you help us? It’s foggy, so maybe we can sneak through the streets? Or take them out one by one?”
“Maybe,” Zora said. “But it’s risky, especially with Maisie being as important as she is. But there is another way.”
“How?”
“Did I ever tell you what my father used to do for a living?”
“No, funnily enough.”
Z-MINUS: 5 HOURS 18 MINUTES
“My father and grandfather were shipbuilders. Been doing it their whole lives. They worked on oil freighters, merchant vessels, aircraft carriers, you name it. When my grandfather was on his deathbed my father wondered how a man who had helped build such large things could have died so small. He quit the shipbuilding company the day after my grandfather’s funeral. He set up his own company making small boats for the rich. He could make them so precisely that he’s had a competition for the past forty years: if anyone can turn one of his boats over while driving it my father will give them the boat for free. He never lost a bet.”
The boatyard was on a slipway of concrete, a large barn-like structure with wooden struts. It was by itself, a lone warehouse separate from any other enterprise.
Zora opened the door. Nesting pigeons in the roof flapped their wings and clattered through a broken window. A sea of metal frames with boats in various stages of assembly lined the huge space. Zora moved to the boat at the far end and drew the cover off. It was the closest to being finished, with graceful curves and smooth lines.
“This one isn’t quite finished yet,” Zora said. “It was meant to go to a rich Arab in the Middle East, but I suppose he won’t be needing it anymore. It needs another rub-down, and to be varnished, but the engine is in, and it will work well enough. My father would go mad if he knew I was going to take it out without finishing it. In fact, he’d rather let the world burn and die before letting one of his creations go out there unfinished.”
“Your father did beautiful work,” Chris said.
“Yes, he did. One of the best. Let’s get it into the water.”
Zora pulled the whole front wall aside. It was built on a track embedded in the concrete. Zora attached a winch to the back of the metal frame.
“Get in,” Zora said.
Chris and Maisie climbed on board and sat on the leather seat.
“What about you?” Chris said.
“I’ll join you in a sec.”
Zora released the clasps linking the boat to the metal frame. Then she pushed the boat forward. It began to roll down the slipway. The winch caught and lowered it at a slow pace, gently into the water. The boat slid off the metal frame and into the shallows.
Zora climbed aboard pressed a button on the dashboard. The engine started up, chugging. She turned the steering wheel and they pushed through the water, the fog becoming thicker until they couldn’t see much more than a few yards in front of the bow.
“Do you know where the pier is?” Chris said. “We might miss it.”
“I’ve driven there a hundred times, a thousand, maybe. I could find it with my eyes closed.”
“That’s pretty much what we’re doing now, isn’t it?”
The fog thinned for a moment, and a fresh curtain of fog sailed past them like they were moving through a cloud.
“I’ll turn the engine off now,” Zora said. “We don’t want them to hear us coming. Sound carries in the fog.”
The powerful thrumming of the engine cut off and the boat sailed forward, silent, the ripples spreading out from the prow. Zora picked up a pair of oars that hung from hooks on the inner side.
“Let me,” Chris said, reaching to take the oars.
“I’m Charon here,” Zora said. “It’s my job to get you there safely. You sit back and enjoy the side.”
Zora placed the oars into the holders, bent forward, and pulled back, drawing them through the water with broad, technically perfect strokes. After two dozen, she pulled the oars back into the boat, laying them in the floor with deliberate silence. Then she moved up and stood on the prow in her bare feet and waited.
Large wooden struts like a forest of tree trunks rose up to meet them. Zora stepped forward like she was going to step off the boat, but instead pressed her foot against the pier, her weight slowing the boat down so there was no collision. She held on tight to the pier with her hands.
“You should get off now,” she said in a whisper.
“Thank you for this,” Chris said.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you?”
“You’ve done enough already. And I don’t know what these science people are going to do to us when they come. I’d rather not get you involved. If something good happens I’ll make sure you’re thanked.”
“A quiet life is reward enough.”
Zora took a hand off the pier to shake, but Chris wrapped his arms around her instead. Then Maisie hugged her.
“Saviour of the whole world,” Zora said. “Why am I not surprised?”
Chris lifted Maisie up and helped her onto the pier. He climbed up next, the wood beneath his feet slippery. They waved to Zora as she pushed off the pier, turned the boat around and rowed herself into the thick fog, disappearing from view.
Z-MINUS: 4 HOURS 53 MINUTES
The deck space of the pier was large and square with a streetlamp on each corner. Theme park rides took up most of the area, with wide walkways separating them. Arranged around the edges were square machines stuffed with teddy bears and toys, claws perched above them like alien spacecraft preparing to descend. Maisie eyed a cute pink dragon with love hearts on the bottom of its feet in the bottom of one particular machine. Coin-operated binoculars perched like buzzards.
Chris peered around at the space but couldn’t for the life of him identify what he was meant to do there. And then he noticed one display that was not worn and used like the oth
ers, but shiny and new, and it was not perfectly in line like the other apparatus.
It was a 1920s-style phone with the receiver hanging from the hook. Written in Tip-ex around the body of the phone was ‘Dial 1’. The telephone wire ran from the bottom of the box, snaked around a pier leg, and dipped into the water.
Chris picked up the receiver and dialled the number, bringing the number around full-circle, and waited for it to wind back. There was a tapping on the end of the line like a chipmunk chewing on the wire. He waited, but nothing happened. He put his finger into the number one again and brought it around.
“Come on, somebody,” Chris said. “Pick up.”
He felt Maisie’s tiny hand squeeze his own.
“Not now, Maisie,” he said. “I’ll get you a toy in a minute.”
Maisie’s grip grew tight, like she had a bionic limb.
“Ow!” Chris said. “Maisie!”
He looked down at her. Her face had lost its rosy glow. She was looking at something back down the pier.
A large figure stood in the midst of the thick fog like he belonged there, calm and at ease, as if he had brought the fog himself. He had broad shoulders and long spikes on the top of his head that made him look like an escaped demon.
“Nice to see you again,” the man with the Spiky Mohawk said.
“I’ve never met you before,” Chris said.
“No, but I’ve seen you perform,” Spiky said. “You did very well in the zompit. Too well in fact. You’ve had your freedom, but now it’s time for you to go back.”
“How did you find us?”
“We’ve been tracking you ever since you escaped. You’ve certainly been busy. Wherever we went there was destruction. You were easy to follow. That is until we got to London and the research centre. But help was on hand in the form of the pretty scientist who told us what we wanted to know. All it took was a few drops of blood. Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell us everything, her mind was too far gone for that, but she did give us the word ‘Brighton’.
“We still followed your trail as best we could, of course, to make sure you were heading the way you were supposed to be. You’ve given us quite the run-around, Chris. But it ends now. Put the phone down. No one’s going to answer anyway.”