Many had died, sure, but there were still many more left. Weaker, perhaps slower, definitely starving and all the more dangerous for that. It didn’t help that hordes had been forming around Reapers that were waging war on one another.
The mainland was in chaos and the information provided by those survivors still there who had radios to contact us, it was more dangerous than ever before. And I had just sent Ryan there.
“You okay?” Evie asked.
She held my baby boy as I cradled my daughter, holding on to her like a drowning woman would a reaching hand.
“Just worried.”
“Understandable.” She gave me a considering look, pursing her lips. “Any news on these infiltrators?”
“Three are dead and the fourth should be caught or killed today.”
At least I hoped he would. The information the prisoner had provided wasn’t much to go on. Sure, he had the location of where the boats were being launched from, but the best he could do about the infiltrator was list the targets they had been told would cause the most chaos.
It had been a depressing list and showed that they knew far too much about us. That could only mean that they had working satellites and all the other things that we’d had before the fall of the world.
They could probably make medicine and electronics that we might never regain, and they were keeping that knowledge to themselves. I could see ahead into the future and it was fairly bleak. Every day that passed, more knowledge was lost.
Books rotting in libraries, electronic databases being lost or destroyed, people with skills and knowledge, dying.
We had spent months settling on the Isle of Man, and for many people that had meant starting by cleaning out the homes that they were going to live in. Then it was getting water and sewage back online, along with power.
The fleet was supplied with fuel and we were producing enough to keep the vehicles on the island going too, but when machinery on the oil rigs began to break down, we wouldn’t necessarily be able to replace them.
Even if we could make them, we didn’t know how.
I was afraid that our people were becoming complacent, imagining that things were going to go back to normal. They weren’t. At best, we had bought ourselves a few years, a decade at most, but in time we would be learning how to be blacksmiths and herbalists.
Genpact had the knowledge we needed to avoid that, and they didn’t seem inclined to share it. Only a few of us knew that the real objective in our war with them was to gain access to that treasure trove of knowledge that they had.
“Lily.”
I glanced back at the sound of the familiar voice and smiled as Lisa, my personal bodyguard, entered the apartment.
She wasn’t wearing the black hood like the other cultists were, but she still wore all black. Her clothing was worn and soiled from travel. She reached up and swept stray strands of greasy hair from her face as she approached.
“It’s done?”
“Yes.”
A little bit of good news then. I had given her a task that I couldn’t trust many others with, and she had been away long enough that I was beginning to worry that she wouldn’t have good news when she returned.
“We should go then. Charlie will want to know.”
I leant down, brushing my lips against my gorgeous daughter’s forehead and then carefully rose and placed her in her bassinet. She didn’t cry or fuss, just looked up at me with her father’s eyes.
“When will you be back?” Evie asked and I forced out a smile.
“Tonight, hopefully.”
“Take your pump then because there’s only a few bottles of milk left in the fridge.”
“Will do.” I gave her a considering look. “Thank you for your help. I really do appreciate it.”
“Any time.”
I hated how I was spending so much time away from them so soon after they had been born, but I couldn’t refuse to do my duty. I hoped that they would understand that.
Lisa, sensing my mood, walked beside me in silence. More acolytes fell in behind us as we left the building and headed towards the command centre.
The roads of the town were quiet, with few people out and about, which was unsurprising really. I would have been concerned if I saw people wandering around like it were any other day. Fortunately, the Admiral was good at his job and had managed to get word out to keep people inside wherever possible.
It helped that each home had an emergency stockpile of food stored away that was there for just such a situation. Each family then should have a couple of days of food. It would be basic stuff, but enough to keep them alive until we had dealt with the problem.
The guards parted before us at the command centre doors and I went upstairs with just Lisa following me. Inside the main room, it was much the same as it had been earlier, though there were empty plates and cups at every desk, indicating the techs had been working non-stop to find the last infiltrator.
Charlie came to meet us when she saw Lisa and greeted her with a nod. She took a cautious look around and then gestured for us to follow her before making her way through the technician's desks to an office.
Once inside, we seated ourselves at the table as the door was closed.
“Should we wait for the Admiral?” I asked.
“Nah, he’s off doing something with his navy guys.”
“What?”
“No idea. One of them came and spoke with him and they rushed off upstairs.”
I felt a frown forming at that because the only thing above the command centre was the long-range communications station.
We had a pretty good coverage over the island and could even speak with people in the mainland UK and Ireland, but that was about as far as we could reach. Too many communications systems had been damaged or destroyed.
Added to that was the interference. Theoretically, with short-wave radio, we should be able to transmit and receive globally, but that wasn’t happening. We suspected Genpact, as they had taken control of the satellites and internet too, it wasn’t hard to guess they were actively working to make it difficult for us.
Which meant that for anything long range, we had needed to go back to setting up receiving towers and bouncing the signal along them in short bursts. It worked, kind of, but was limited to what we could set up.
I rubbed at my temples because I knew exactly why the Admiral had been called upstairs and it wasn’t good news.
“So,” Charlie said. “What’s the news?”
“The data centre is powered and operational. All servers are running without any problems.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic!” Charlie said as she punched the air with one fist. “Now all we need is to get access to the internet and we can download pretty much everything we will ever need.”
“Won’t be quite that easy,” I muttered, and Charlie looked at me almost pityingly.
“C’mon, dude. Will be great. Your boy can go and do his thing at one of these bunkers. With my techs along, we can get access to their system and we win.”
I just didn’t think it would be that easy. We knew that Genpact could broadcast and we knew they had the satellites working. They were behind the message that was playing on a loop for anyone to see if they turned on a TV.
A message claiming to be from the real government of the UK, a message designed to create confusion and sow doubt about our government. If Ryan hadn’t come back home and seen it, confirming the man in the broadcast was the same man that had had him tortured, we might have actually believed it to be real.
“All we need to do,” I said, slowly. “Is break into a hidden bunker, capture or kill everyone inside before they destroy their systems and then persuade one of them to show us how to gain access. Yeah, will be easy.”
“Never said it wouldn’t be hard,” Charlie said, sounding a little hurt. “But if we can do it, at least we’ll have a shit load of server space to download everything we can.”
It could work and if it did, we might
be saved from being dragged back to dark age living conditions. If it worked.
“Okay, fine, draw up a list of people who can do what you need if we get them into the bunker. After that, we’ll see what we can do.”
“Will do, boss.”
Charlie headed for the door and was met by Admiral Stuart. He held the door open for her and stepped aside to allow her past before coming into the room and closing the door behind him. Which wasn’t a great sign.
“What’s the news?”
He gave a pointed look at Lisa and I just waved my hand impatiently.
“She’s fine. Just speak.”
“As you will, ma’am.”
Formal, great, I thought, that’s never a good sign.
“We have received a communication from Commander Lowery.”
“And what terrible news has our submarine commander got to add to my already unpleasant day?”
“The pirate fleet is in the Bay of Biscay and heading north. They will be approaching the English Channel in two weeks.”
“Great.”
Chapter 18
“How’s it looking?” Gregg asked for what seemed like the tenth time in as many minutes.
I scowled at him but he just laughed, hiding his nervousness. I went back to staring at the small screen on the controller I held, navigating the tiny drone as best I could.
We’d come ashore just to the north of Liverpool, at a small town whose name I had already forgotten, barely three kilometres from the dockyards that filled a great length of the River Mersey. From where it emptied out into the sea and all the way back to the other side of Liverpool. A couple of hours march, and we found ourselves on the edge of the city, crouched in the snow.
Isaac swore as he watched the screen over my shoulder. The outskirts of the city still seemed to have a substantial number of the undead walking through the snow-covered streets. Singly, or in small packs, they moved sluggishly, aimlessly, but they definitely moved at the sound of the little drone I was flying above them.
“That’s a lot of zombies, Clever Bastard. Gonna be a tough job getting through them unseen.”
That was true enough, though it could be done. We could follow the coast all the way to the docks since that would have the least zombies, but any reasonably intelligent person would post lookouts to watch that route.
Similarly, they would be watching the mouth of the river, so any boat approaching would be met with a well-prepared defence. Moving through the housing developments that formed the suburbs, into the city proper, would result in attracting the attention of the zombies which would alert the mercenaries.
“Ah, fuck!” Isaac muttered as the drone reached the edge of the dockyards.
I stared at the screen, wondering what had caused the exclamation, determined to find it myself before asking him.
“What is it?” Gregg asked, apparently not having the same reluctance that I had.
“Ah,” I said as I finally saw it. “The ship.”
“Aye, Clever Bastard. The fucking ship.”
“What ship?” Gregg asked, giving the two of us a confused look.
I tapped on the screen with one finger and he squinted down at it with his one good eye. It was distant, at the maximum zoom on the little drone’s camera, but just visible. A man walking slowly along the length of a tanker that was anchored out in the centre of the river.
“That’s a zombie.”
“Not unless zombies have started smoking,” Isaac muttered.
The battery icon began to flash on the screen, and I kept the drone’s camera focused on the ship for as long as I could before the screen went dark and the drone fell from the sky.
Approx. two hundred and fifty metres in length and forty wide, it sat in the centre of the river with an easy two hundred metres or more of open water at either side. A couple of smaller boats had been tied up alongside it and I guessed that they had been taken from the docks and were being refuelled and readied for taking more people to my island.
It wasn’t a bad idea. They had a base that was mobile if needed and with smaller craft, they could make trips out to gather the other small boats that were tied up along the length of the docks. There would be no zombies attacking them and they could see anyone approaching.
There was even a helicopter pad, complete with helicopter, which I guessed was how they had made their way through the city. They simply flew over it and landed on a ship that was already there. All they would have had to do was move it out into the centre of the river for security.
“Smart move,” Isaac conceded as he settled back against the stone wall we were using as cover.
“Now what do we do?” Gregg asked. “Even if we could get through the city, find a small boat and row out to it unnoticed, what? We sit there and hope they throw us a ladder down? That thing must be a good thirty metres above the waterline.”
“Then,” he continued. “If we manage to get to the deck, there’s almost a clear view for anyone in the control tower to pick us off.”
“There’s another option,” I said quietly.
“What’s that?”
“We sink it.”
The two men exchanged looks and then turned to stare at me at the same time. I grinned at their stunned expressions.
“How exactly do you plan to do that, then? Not like we have a load of explosives with us.”
“We don’t need any. That boats an explosive device all on its own. Hit it hard enough and you could punch a hole in the hull.”
“You won’t get near it with a boat, Clever Bastard. They’ll be prepared for that.”
“Aye, no doubt. Unless it’s one of their own approaching.”
Isaac scratched at the thick stubble on his chin as he pondered that. It made sense to me, of course. They had some boats tied up alongside the tanker so it was clear that they were going out and gathering them ready to send to the island.
All we needed to do was wait for them to send one out and intercept it at the docks. We could then travel back on the boat, all the way to the tanker. We didn’t even need to ram it, just rig an explosion on a boat right next to it and we could do some damage.
“Might work. Risky as hell and too much luck needed, but it might work.”
“We still need to get through the city,” Gregg pointed out. “Then there’s a long arse stretch of dockyards to fight our way through.”
“Nothing else to do,” I said with a grin.
And that was pretty much that. As rough a plan as we were going to get, but a plan none the less. I cast an eye over my waiting minions and smiled slyly. I had plenty of cannon fodder should the need arise.
The sky was grey but there was no snow falling, a small blessing as the chill wind was enough to deal with. Each of us carried a pack with food for a week, and water for a couple of days at least.
Not ideal, but there were limits to how much water we could effectively carry with us. We did have the requirements to build a fire and purify some boiled snow, which would help. Food was harder to come by.
I climbed over the wall and led the way through the garden and down the driveway to the gate at the far end. Once there, I paused for a moment to check the way was clear and then headed out onto the silent street.
There was no chatter from my minions and both Isaac and Gregg were experienced enough to keep silent while surrounded by enemies. I kept a careful watch on the houses as we passed them by, alert for danger.
It was a somewhat surreal feeling. The last time I had been in a city was Glasgow. That had been a constant battle to survive and the streets had teemed with the undead. In Liverpool though, or at least on the outskirts, that was not the case.
I had no doubt that beneath the thick blanket of snow would be bodies and that was something to be watchful for. Every step had to be placed carefully to ensure I didn’t trip over some rotting corpse of a zombie.
After ten minutes, Isaac tapped me on the shoulder and gestured with one hand. My eyes narrowed, but I nodded a
nd stepped aside, allowing him to take the lead. He ploughed through the snow leaving a wide wake and I dropped to the rear.
I could admit that it was a much easier experience, travelling at the back. Whoever led had to plough a furrow through the snow, while the next one in line would only need to widen the trail the lead had left. It was a tiring role to play and after another ten minutes, it was Isaacs turn to drop back, taking up position at the rear while Gregg took point.
And so it went, each of us taking it in turns to lead the others, ensuring that we all conserved as much energy as we could.
Half an hour after we had entered the boundary of the city, we came upon our first zombie. It slumped against a garden wall, snow covering much of its body. For a moment I thought it dead, but it lifted its head, as though sniffing at the air.
Isaacs thrown knife caught it in the side of its skull before it could utter a moan that would summon more of its kind. Gregg clapped him quietly on the back and on we went.
The buildings that lined the road were red brick with slate rooves and large gardens. They were each several storeys high and had most likely cost a pretty penny at one time. Then, though, with the gardens grown wild and the paint peeling from the doors, it seemed that nature would soon win out and they would begin to crumble.
By the time there were enough people left to reclaim the cities, there would be no point. The buildings would be ruins, with weeds and bushes growing everywhere. We had already seen it over the summer, the tarmac of the roads cracking, with plants growing there.
Cars that had been used in the exodus as people fled the city had been abandoned on the roads, snow covering them. I wiped the snow from one side window as we passed and peered inside, only to jerk back as a corpse turned its head towards me when I bumped the window.
“A world that belongs to the dead,” Isaac intoned quietly. “This is no longer our place, just a monument to a world that no longer exists.”
Killing The Dead (Book 17): Siege Page 11