Another hundred yards, and they were close enough to hear Jay call, “What happened?” when behind her there was a sharp popping sound, followed by a rattling clatter. Nilda found herself looking back towards the warehouse in which the emergency vehicles had been stored. The retractable gate had broken. The undead that had been trapped inside spilled out onto the tarmac. She froze.
“Children,” she said. They had to be. Though there were a few taller figures, most were too small to ever have been adults.
“No time for it.” Chester grabbed her arm and tugged her back towards Jay, Tuck, and the waiting lifeboat.
As Chester piloted the boat back out into the Thames, Nilda couldn’t take her eyes from the undead staggering along the runway. Three reached the end almost at the same time and kept on moving, tumbling down into the water
“How many do you think there are?” Jay asked.
“Two hundred. Three. More,” Nilda said, taking out the much depleted first-aid kit to clean the cuts on her legs.
“It’s a shame,” Jay said.
“Yes,” Nilda said. “All those children. All those lives, wasted. Flown all this way in the hope they would find safety, forced to take refuge in that building when the terminal was overrun, only to find that sanctuary was really a mausoleum.”
“No,” Jay said. “I meant it’s a shame because there was probably some useful stuff in the airport.”
She wondered when her son had become so callous. But he hadn’t, not really. He didn’t see the undead as children, but simply as an annoying obstacle to be avoided or overcome.
“I think,” she said, “that with that number of people staying at the airport, they would have used up all the obvious supplies.”
“Yeah, but we’re starting to need the unobvious ones,” Jay said. “Things like brake cables. We didn’t know they were useful until we started making the walkways. Then there’s bleach and string. And paper. Didn’t they have bookshops at airports? And we didn’t look for the fuel.”
“Fuel?”
“Yeah, plane fuel. Tuck says you can use it in a car or boat.”
“Can you?”
“In a diesel engine, sure. And if those people stayed at the airport, I wonder…” Chester began. “Hmm.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s fifty-fifty whether I’m right or not, but thanks to that Jumbo Jet, no planes could take off, right? Perhaps the reason they stayed at the airport was that there were a lot of pilots amongst them, and until that runway was wrecked, they intended to fly out of there. In which case, they’d have had a stash of fuel.”
“That’s just a guess,” Nilda said. “A nice theory that neatly fits some of the facts.”
“Tuck says,” Jay began, “that the planes we went into could be flown. Wait. No. Would have been able to fly. Ah, yeah. Before the birds got in, she means.”
Nilda glanced up. That great green flock was now looping around the airport. Occasionally one would dart down, flying towards the broken planes, then shoot up again before landing.
“What did those birds eat?” she asked. “Because maybe we can eat it too.”
“We can eat birds,” Jay said. “Even parrots, right?”
“Parakeets,” Chester said. “Some people saw them as a bit of a pest. I liked them myself. Made a welcome change from pigeons. I haven’t seen that many birds in a while, not since earlier in the year, and then they always seemed to be migrating. They might have found a perch in a tree or on a roof for a night, but a day or two later, they’d all be gone. It’s a good sign, or I’m going to take it as that. What about you two, did you see many when you were on your way down from Penrith?”
“A few in the countryside. None in the towns,” Jay said. “We did see a fox once. That was near Cambridge.”
“I saw a few birds on the Isle of Scaragh,” Nilda said. “Not many, and none settled on the island. Maybe the people who stayed did have food, and that’s what the birds were eating. Maybe they used the fuel to power a generator, and it all ran out. We don’t know, and now we have no way of finding out. At least we have the life rafts.” She turned away from the airport and looked down at the stack of rafts tied to the deck. Some were orange marked with red, others yellow marked orange, a few an orangey-yellow with red stripes.
“And did you get the Geiger counters?” Jay asked.
Nilda stared at him blankly. She’d been so distracted that she’d completely forgotten about the radiation. She ran over to her pack and pulled one out. It worked. Or she thought it did.
“Is this right?” she asked, handing it to Tuck.
The soldier took it, looked at the counter, then quizzically up at the sky. Then she nodded.
“What?” Jay and Chester asked, almost as one.
“Normal,” Nilda said. “The reading is normal. Well, it’s a bit higher than before, but not by much. You see on the lid, here, there’s a chart. It gives the background level for London, for tracers in medical procedures, and all the way up to lethal.”
“That’s… I don’t know what that means,” Jay said.
“It means we’re safe,” Nilda said.
“So what’s wrong?” Jay asked, as if sensing her doubt.
“It should be much higher,” she said. “Those people on Anglesey said that it had been spread by the winds. People had gone to Cornwall and got a lethal dose.”
“Wasn’t it Birmingham?” Chester asked. “And they said that those people had to turn back. But both are a long way from London. Maybe the wind’s been blowing out to sea. On the telly, whenever they showed the weather maps, the fronts always—”
“For seven months?” Nilda cut in. “And if it was blowing west in Birmingham, southwest in Cornwall, how was it always blowing east here in London?”
“Yes, fair question,” Chester said. “But the reading is more or less normal, that’s all that matters. Exactly why we’ve not died from radiation poisoning isn’t as important as the fact we haven’t.”
“Yes. Yes, of course. Sorry,” Nilda said. “You’re right. It is good news. It was the sight of those children, I suppose. And that cell. I can’t get that image out of my mind.”
“What cell?” Jay asked.
Nilda briefly summarised what they’d seen in the holding cells at the airport.
“You see,” she finished. “I can understand why you might lock up someone who’d been bitten. That’s safer for everyone. But that window was small, and when we first went down the corridor it was transparent. When we were heading back, it was so covered in that brownish… well, I suppose you can call it blood, but it was so coated in the stuff I couldn’t see the creature at all.”
“You’re saying that we were the first people to go down there since the person died and the zombie came back,” Chester said.
“Exactly,” Nilda said. “They were locked in there and left to die.”
“Maybe not,” Jay said. “Maybe they planned to go back, but they got infected, too.”
“Maybe, but what about the other cell, and the person in there who hadn’t turned?” Nilda asked. “What was it you said about Stewart? Some people shot him and killed the people he was with, all for food. Who’s to say that those people, or people like them, aren’t out there still?”
“You look for the bad in everyone,” Jay said. “Since we’re doing all we can to help others, we should assume others will help us.”
“The Golden Rule’s a nice idea, kid,” Chester said. “But when you’re older, you’ll find out the real world doesn’t work that way.”
“Maybe because it’s full of cynics like you,” Jay said.
“Yeah, maybe I am a cynic. It doesn’t change the fact that someone was locked in that cell. How much do you know about the people at the Tower? How many of them tried to rescue you from the museum? Ask yourself that, and then tell me I’m a cynic.” He turned the engine off. “I think we can let the tide pull us for a bit.”
“Well, we got the Geiger counters,” Jay said. �
�And the rafts will help. Oh, and we found these.” He pulled a can of lemonade from his bag and offered it to his mother. “So what’s next?”
“Kent,” she said. “That was the point of this, wasn’t it? Find a Geiger counter, and if Kent isn’t radioactive, find a coastal farm, and gather the food before it rots. I think we’ve enough fuel to make three trips along the coast. Maybe four. I suppose we could fill up the rafts and tow them behind the boat. We’d get more that way, and then… I don’t know. We’re all running on empty and so on edge the only thing keeping us from falling off is that we’re heading forward at full speed. It can’t go on. We have to stop before we collapse. We all need time to heal. Time to grieve. Time to remember what it means to be human. We can’t do that when each dawn brings new worries, and each night reawakens old fears.”
“Or we just keep going,” Chester said. “Never stop until we’re forced to, and hope that when we do, we realise we’ve found safety. You got anything stronger than lemonade in that bag of yours?”
“There’s Coke,” Jay said.
“Yeah, figures.”
“But the reading is normal?” Finnegan asked.
“That’s right. Or a little higher than normal,” Nilda said, repeating what she’d told everyone when she and the others had returned to the Tower. Once the initial good news had been passed on, Hana had said that further details could be given at the meeting after the evening’s meal. As Nilda went off to wash, change, and throw another set of ruined clothes on the pile to be incinerated, she’d tried to think of what additional details there were to give. By the time she’d walked into the two-storey red brick building that had once been the Tower’s restaurant, she’d thought of nothing. Nor had she found any inspiration in the few mouthfuls of over seasoned stew that she’d managed to swallow before Finnegan had asked his question. She stared down at the unidentifiable contents of her bowl. She wasn’t sure she would have finished the meal, but she’d have liked to have had the chance.
“But it’s safe, right?” Finnegan continued. “I mean, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?”
“Please. Everyone,” Hana said, standing up. “If we’re to start the meeting now, please remember the rules. You must wait to be recognised before speaking.” The room went mostly quiet. “Um. Right. Well. Yes. Well, the radiation. The reading is above normal. But…” She glanced down at a stack of ledgers she’d brought with her into the dining hall, and which she’d spread out over the table, her own meal forgotten and congealing to one side. “Yes, it’s safe. That is the important part, though in this context ‘safe’ is hard to define. We have to rely on the figures given in a couple of textbooks, and they all seem to base their conclusions on the same studies of Chernobyl. The professor would have known, of course.” A wave of sorrow fluttered across her face. “But perhaps the details aren’t important. We, here, do not have to worry about radiation. There are, however, plenty of things we do need to worry about. Water, food, and heat are at the top of the list, along, of course, with safety.” She closed the ledger and opened the next. “Things aren’t as good as any of us would like. We lost a lot of supplies with those vehicles we left at the British Museum. But it isn’t all bad news. The pigs and the chickens…”
Hana began an overlong explanation of feed stores, energy requirements, how much water the animals required, and how much human energy and time was needed to prepare it. Nilda looked over at McInery. The woman was sitting hands folded, listening intently. She was one of the few. Most had returned to their meals or sat with eyes glazed, not really taking in the details of what the young vet was saying, but seemingly comforted by the scientific summary.
“Which means,” Hana finished, closing the ledger, “that unless circumstances change, we will need to slaughter one pig in five day’s time, and another a week after that. If we can stockpile water, and not have to use all our electricity on purification and sterilisation, then I think we could keep a freezer running for a total of eight days. But this would not be ideal. I know that pork chops are an appealing prospect, but what we eat now, we can’t eat this winter.” There were a few nods, a few grumbles, but no real dissent.
They would follow the young vet, Nilda thought, and do what she said because they’d been fed and told that there would be food tomorrow.
“Winter is the real problem,” Hana continued, “and autumn has yet to truly begin. Stewart? Do you have the list?”
Stewart stood, and waved a clipboard.
“It comes to about two weeks of stores?” Hana asked.
“That’s it,” Stewart said. “About a week of fresh in the kitchens, then we’re on to the stores. Two weeks. Everything on here. I added it up when we brought it in from Kirkman House.”
“So,” Hana said, “including the livestock and their feed, we’ll be starving before December.”
That news was meant with stony silence.
“What about Anglesey?” a voice called. Nilda turned to see who’d spoken. It was that man that McInery had gone to help earlier that day. Graham, wasn’t it?
“They’ll have food won’t they?” Graham continued. “And they’ve a power station, so isn’t all this planning a bit pointless?”
“Graham, please. We will be coming to that, but we have rules. You can speak when I’ve finished,” Hana said. Nilda was surprised to see that, after a brief pause, the man did actually retake his seat. “But, yes. Anglesey. It will take Chester a day to drive to Wales and perhaps two more to get to the island, is that right?”
“At best,” Chester said.
“At best, yes. At worst, it… um…” she stammered to a halt.
“At worst, I’ll die along the way,” Chester said with a disarming smile. “But it could take longer than three weeks. If the boat comes, it might bring food, but we’re assuming that they still have food to spare, of course, and they may not. And when we left they had a real problem with fuel. They might only send a sailing boat with a sat-phone.”
“Thank you,” Hana said. “And as such we must plan as if they don’t exist. And that means we must go out and find more food, more firewood—”
“There’s plenty of that in the old church,” McInery interrupted. “A pew burns as well as a shelf.”
“You know my feelings on that, Mrs McInery.” And Nilda noted that Hana didn’t berate her for interrupting. “But perhaps in an emergency we must forego those considerations. As I was saying, we need more clothes, more candles, more wind-up torches, and anything else that will allow us to save our firewood for boiling water. With those rafts, we should start thinking about trips across the river to south London and places that…”
As Hana spoke, Nilda got a better idea of her leadership style, or rather her lack thereof. She clearly had no interest in power and had fallen into the role with the deaths back in Kirkman House. She acted like a schoolteacher and treated everyone as if they were children. Perhaps because of the horrors surrounding them, people welcomed that regression back to those halcyon days where the greatest danger lay in the playground. As long as Hana was spelling out what had to be done, by whom, and by when, few people took the initiative. Therein lay the danger. Nilda had no intention of formally challenging Hana for leadership. As long as everything was being done that could be done, it didn’t matter whom people considered the group’s highest authority. She threw a glance over at McInery. It almost didn’t matter.
“And that brings us to Kent,” Hana finished. “If there is fruit still on those trees and—”
“And why should there be?” it was Graham, again.
“Because,” Chester snapped before Hana had a chance to remonstrate, “it was called the Garden of England for a reason. Sorry,” he added. “I forgot I was meant to wait for my turn.”
“Yes. Um, Well, Kent.” Hana looked down again. “I’ve made a list of farms I know of, and which are close to the coast. We have enough diesel for the boat to make about three hundred miles whilst leaving enough for a car to get to Wales, and a
small reserve in case we need to abandon this castle. I propose we send a small group down to Kent to find some suitable farms. Once we know how much food is there, we can devise a safe way to bring it back. Obviously, this should happen immediately.”
“We’ll need better weapons than we have here if we want everyone who leaves to come back,” McInery said. “Swords and spears are a recipe for death. I’ll take one of those rafts upriver to Westminster. When the government was finally overrun, the few who escaped wouldn’t have been able to take all their weapons and munitions with them. With those, we could collect all the food we need and do it safely.”
Nilda looked over at Tuck. Her and Jay’s hands were moving in an intense back and forth conversation.
“Yes, um…” Hana stammered, looking down at her ledgers again as if one of those might find a clue as to how she should respond.
“Tuck’ll go too,” Jay said, loudly. “She says you’ll need someone with you who knows about guns.”
“And if she’s going upriver,” Chester said, speaking before McInery could reply, “and since Nilda’s not going to be doing any running for a couple of days, I’ll go down to Kent.”
“What about Anglesey?” Graham asked.
“You heard what Hana said,” Chester answered. “Without that food you’ll starve before I get back. I’m more used to travelling around the wasteland than most, and Anglesey can wait until this is done. Of course, you can always go to Wales yourself. Just head north for a hundred miles, then take a left. When you hit the sea, follow the coast until you see the electric lights.”
“So, we have a plan,” Hana said in an attempt to regain control of the meeting.
“Looks like it,” Chester said. “And it’s a clear night, not much point waiting for dawn. So, who wants an autumn getaway to the seaside?”
“Let’s go,” Nilda said to Jay as Chester handed out pieces of paper for everyone to write their names on.
“What? Where?” Jay asked. “We haven’t put our names in.”
“And we’re not going to. Chester’s right. I’m not going to be running anywhere for a day or two.”
Surviving The Evacuation (Book 6): Harvest Page 6