The Undead | Day 25 [The Heat]

by Haywood, RR

  ‘Very kind, Mr Leeson, but we are otherwise committed.’

  ‘Committed? What with?’ Mr Leeson asked.

  ‘Major Dillington means they have a mission, Mr Leeson,’ Tilda said.

  ‘Ah! Understood,’ Mr Leeson said with a nod at Henry. ‘Well. I’m sure we shan’t ask any more questions. Hush hush no doubt. But good on you though chaps. Eh, I said good on you chaps,’ he added with a thumbs up to everyone else. ‘Doing God’s work, eh?’

  ‘God’s work?’ Howie asked. ‘This isn’t God’s work.’

  ‘We’re all of God’s creation my good man,’ Mr Leeson said.

  ‘You’re saying God did this?’ Howie asked.

  ‘The Lord works in mysterious ways. We are all within His plan.’

  ‘Indeed! But my word,’ Henry said before Howie could reply, and after seeing that dark look in his eyes, which also suggested Henry was starting to read Howie, which was also a good sign. ‘What’s all this?’ Henry asked, nodding to the checkpoints then beyond to the militarised square within the fence line.

  ‘You found a time machine or something?’ Frank asked. ‘Why’s it all look so old.’

  ‘Ah, now that was our stroke of luck,’ Mr Leeson said.

  ‘You won’t believe it,’ Tilda said with a smirk at Frank.

  ‘Go on. Impress me,’ Frank said.

  ‘Ah. It’s a movie set!’ Henry said before she could speak, which in turn prompted Mr Leeson to grin with a look of delight. ‘Yes,’ Henry continued as he looked this way and that. ‘Those white trucks over there have got production company logos on the side. And those lighting sets aren’t security lighting. I’d suggest someone was filming a war time movie. Most likely world war two judging by the style of things. Ah. Yes. That would account for the electric fences. Movie sets need generators and wiring, and they use metal security fencing. Put them together and you’ve got instant security.’

  ‘Good show, Major!’ Mr Leeson said, pumping his hand with another shake. ‘Eh kids. Did you see that? Observation and deduction. A good lesson for us all. And yes, Major. You are absolutely right.’

  ‘Big set though,’ Henry remarked as everyone else looked around in surprise.

  ‘Netflix money,’ Tilda said. ‘Huge budget! They were producing an alternative history piece on the German’s invading England after Dunkirk. Hence the heavy fortifications.’

  ‘What about the guns?’ Howie asked with a nod at the child soldiers. ‘They didn’t use SA80’s in the 1940’s.’

  ‘No. But our military cadets did,’ Tilda replied.

  ‘The school is connected to the military, Howie,’ Henry said. ‘Navy and air force mainly I believe, but I gather they would have had a firing range and cadet college on campus.’

  ‘Affirmative,’ Tilda said. ‘I was head instructor. Tilda Tanners. Captain. RLC.’

  ‘Now Major Tanners of Christ’s Hospital defence force,’ Mr Leeson added.

  ‘And now I’m feeling like a fraud in front of a real SAS Major,’ Tilda said.

  Now I don’t know why, but something about it all irritated me slightly, and there was no way I was going to let Henry soak all the glory up.

  ‘A pleasure to meet you, Major Tanners. Mr Leeson. My name is Reginald. I serve under Mr Howie who has been leading the fight back since the outbreak started, and who also set the fort up. Do you know it? Fort Spitbank. It’s on the coast. We’ve got a thousand plus refugees in there now.’

  ‘Good gosh!’ Mr Leeson said with a fresh look at Howie.

  ‘Ah yes. We’ve been very hard at work,’ I continued while shaking hands with Major Tanners. ‘We’ve cleared that area and we’re now moving out to gain a greater view, and we are most fortunate that Major Dillington has joined us after a strategic period of non-combative observation.’

  ‘Under a table,’ someone muttered to a few laughs.

  ‘Ah! The banter of the troops, eh Major,’ Mr Leeson said with a hearty nod at Henry. ‘My lot are cheeky too. Eh, Rogers? Cheeky wotsit, aren’t you.’ He said to the spotty corporal in his P.E kit standing to attention. ‘But still. Good to see you out and doing God’s work.’

  ‘Indeed!’ I said loudly before Howie could erupt at the mention of religion. ‘Whatever our motivations are, I am sure we are all working to the same objective. Which is to keep people safe,’ I added with a look at Howie.

  ‘How many are here?’ Paula asked.

  ‘Nearly one hundred and fifty children between eight and eighteen,’ Tilda replied. ‘Plus, staff and some locals who got inside when it started. All in all, we’re just over two hundred. That’s not counting the old chaps though.’

  ‘Old chaps?’ Henry asked.

  ‘For the Netflix thing,’ Tilda said. ‘They brought in a load of former second world war soldiers and airmen to advise the actors and crew. And I think they were doing a behind the scenes documentary and interviewing the soldiers that served and fought.’

  ‘And they’re here?’ Paula asked.

  Tilda nodded as Mr Leeson grimaced. ‘Nearly fifty of them,’ Mr Leeson said quietly.

  ‘Fifty?!’ Clarence asked. ‘How old are they?’

  ‘Most of them are pushing a hundred,’ Tilda replied.

  ‘They were only meant to be here for the weekend,’ Mr Leeson said.

  ‘What could we do?’ Tilda asked.

  ‘And we’ve already lost a good twenty in the last month,’ Mr Leeson added.

  ‘Fuck!’ Howie said.

  ‘Language!’ Mr Leeson said.

  ‘That’s so sad,’ Paula said.

  ‘Most of them were on meds,’ Tilda said. ‘They had enough for a day or two, but…’ she trailed off. Not needing to finish the sentence. ‘It’s hard on the kids seeing them dying. And we have to take them out to bury them.’

  ‘Plus the food,’ Mr Leeson said. ‘We’re okay on supplies, but the extra mouths and dietary needs are hard work. And some have got very confused in the last month. You know. Dementia and what not.’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ Paula said. ‘But thank you for looking after them.’

  ‘It’s God’s work,’ Mr Leeson said.

  ‘Not a word,’ Paula said, holding a hand up to Howie without looking at him.

  ‘But at least they had that last day,’ Tilda said. ‘The Friday when it happened, I mean. The old boys got to see the Spitfire and Hurricane and the tanks, and that old bomber. They loved it. Especially the live firing. Should have seen them. And the kids loved it!’

  ‘Whoa. Stop,’ Nick said, starting forward with Roy and Tappy. ‘Spitfires? You’ve got Spitfires?’

  ‘What tank is it?’ Tappy asked.

  ‘Live firing?’ Roy asked.

  ‘Chaps. We need to push on,’ Henry said.

  ‘Mr Henry! Spitfires,’ Nick said, doing his doe-eyed thing that he normally reserved for Paula when he was hungry.

  ‘And a tank, boss,’ Tappy said.

  It should have been awkward with Nick and Tappy deferring to Henry as an authoritative decision-maker as that was Mr Howie, Clarence, and Paula’s role. But strangely, it wasn’t. And again, I noted the organic shift of the dynamic flow between them all. Which were all very good signs.

  ‘Henry, come on,’ Paula said. ‘Jesus. Nick’s dribbling. Have you really got a Spitfire?’

  ‘They’re right over there,’ Tilda said, nodding towards the grounds beyond the road on the other side of some more buildings.

  ‘Paula. We really cannot keep stopping,’ Henry said, but the vehemence wasn’t there this time, or the brutal goading tone he used with Howie.

  ‘Ten minutes, Henry!’ Paula said. ‘Give them ten minutes. You’ve seen what they have to do. Actually. Stuff this. I’m pulling XO rank. Can my lot have a quick look? Not a word, Henry,’ she added, giving him the same hand she’d given Howie.

  ‘I’d love to see a Spitfire,’ Clarence said.

  ‘And me,’ Frank added with a nod to Henry.

  ‘Fine. Ten minutes max then we’re movin
g out,’ Henry said. ‘Oh, and don’t touch the bodies. Use a digger or something to pile them up and burn them. And I would say head for the fort but perhaps you’re doing okay where you are.’

  ‘The words eggs and basket spring to mind, Henry,’ I said.

  ‘Concurred,’ he said. ‘Right. Load up. Let’s see this Spitfire.’

  35

  Diary of Charlotte Doyle

  I managed to get Jess hosed off again before popping her back into the air-conditioned trailer, because by then the heat was just incredible.

  She was coping with it very well though. Horses can often wilt when the temperature goes too high. The same with dogs, but both Jess and Meredith, although very obviously hot, seemed to be okay. That said – we were watering them constantly and doing what we could to cool them down.

  I saw it in the children at Christ’s Hospital too. How hot they were. Which is why they were all in their P.E kit and looking all sweaty with rosy cheeks. I didn’t say anything at the time, but it reminded me of my own boarding school.

  Interestingly, I did wonder why Reginald hadn’t observed the location was so well fortified before we rushed to give aid. That is most unlike Reginald. But then again, one cannot express enough just how unbearable that heat was, and I guess it was affecting us all in different ways.

  I for one was certainly becoming most pre-occupied with Cookey, and in a way, the point of needing to know had been reached for me. We were either going to connect, or we were not, and I wanted to know.

  I do accept that sounds pushy, and if a man were to demand attention from a woman he had been trying to court in such a fashion it could be perceived as predatory, but it wasn’t like that, and time is different now. Things seem to move faster, and the constant fear of death changes how you think. It makes you take chances you might not otherwise take. It makes you want to live and feel and - forgive me being blunt - but it makes you want to fuck before it’s too late.

  That is a recognised thing. People within war-torn countries have accounted for that same desperate desire to connect physically, as though their days are numbered and they are trying to cram as much into whatever time they have left.

  As it was, we gained a short respite with a rather interesting interlude, and after a quick scrub down, while taking into account none of us had any spare kit, we followed Major Tilda Tanners and Mr Leeson through the square and out the other side onto a road known as The Avenue.

  From there we cut between some buildings onto what was formerly a car park leading onto playing fields, but now the whole area had been taken over and adapted for the Netflix production, and my word, what an experience it was.

  It was like we’d walked through a time machine and had been transported into the 1940’s with military checkpoints, sentry huts, swinging road barriers and sandbag machine gun posts all over the place.

  Then of course, we stepped out onto the airfield and good gosh. I think we were all astonished, but Nick, Tappy and Roy showed absolute delight at the machinery in front of us.

  There were two aircraft parked close. Low and sleek with beautiful symmetry. To me, and I think to most, they looked identical, but they were not. One was a Spitfire. The other was a Hurricane. Both of which were iconic fighter aircraft used to defend the skies during the Blitz and the Battle of Britain.

  ‘I thought this was meant to be just after Dunkirk,’ Roy said as we all walked around the Spitfire. ‘This is the Mark 5 which didn’t really come into mass production until 1941.’

  ‘And?’ Paula asked.

  ‘The Dunkirk evacuation was in 1940,’ Roy said with a tut. ‘Typical bloody Hollywood. They spend all that money then get a key detail like that wrong. Might as well have Mel Gibson painting his face and shouting freedom bonza.’

  ‘Who gives a shit. It’s a Spitfire!’ Nick said.

  ‘I give a shit. Details matter,’ Roy said. ‘You’ll be telling me they’ve got a Churchill tank here next, and they definitely weren’t in service until 1941.’

  ‘You’d best not turn around then,’ Tappy said from behind him before running off as Roy duly turned and groaned.

  ‘I take it that’s a Churchill tank then?’ Paula asked as Tappy clambered over the top to peer inside the turret.

  ‘It’s not even a Mark 1,’ Roy said. ‘What is it? Mark 6? That wasn’t developed until 1944.’

  ‘It’s bloody gorgeous though,’ Tappy said, her voice muffled from leaning head first into the tank.

  ‘The old boys told them the same thing,’ Tilda said. ‘About the wrong details here and there. But the production crew said they were lucky to get what they could seeing as it was over seventy years ago and re-building the original chassis’ on the tank and the fighters to get them running cost millions.’

  ‘They’re not just props?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Nope. They filmed the three aircraft flying and the tank running on the Friday morning when it happened,’ Tilda said.

  ‘They were readying for the live fire scenes on Saturday,’ Mr Leeson said. ‘Which sadly never happened.’

  ‘You said that before,’ Henry said. ‘Live fire? Surely not with live rounds.’

  ‘Live rounds,’ Tilda said. ‘They wanted authenticity.’

  ‘Fuck. No way,’ Howie said.

  ‘Language!’ Mr Leeson said.

  ‘No. I refuse to accept any governing body would give consent for two fighter jets to fire live ammunition over such populated areas,’ Henry said. ‘You must mean blank firing for the effect of it.’

  ‘That’s what we thought when they approached the school to book the location,’ Mr Leeson said. ‘The EP was a Head Girl here. But no. They were going to use live rounds. But not in the air. Only on the ground. The Germans were attacking the base and the scene called for the two aircraft and the tank to fire in a line at the advancing soldiers. See the big earth banks down the end of the landing strip they made? They were built to take the rounds.’

  ‘It was very clever really,’ Tilda then said. ‘They’d already filmed the Germans attacking the day before. We had hundreds of extras running towards us all getting shot down. Then they were going to film the living firing and merge the footage.’

  ‘So, let me get this right,’ Roy said. ‘They were going to all the trouble of authenticity of firing guns but in the wrong planes and on the wrong tank. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

  ‘Stop being so bloody pedantic, Roy!’ Paula said.

  ‘I’m just saying,’ Roy said.

  ‘Which is the most passive aggressive comment ever used,’ Paula snapped. ‘I’m just saying,’ she said, mimicking in a whiny voice. ‘I’m just saying they got everything wrong. I’m just saying I know better than everyone else. You’re a bloody troll, Roy.’

  ‘I never said that,’ Roy said. ‘I just like things being correct.’

  ‘Just shut up! How about being nice instead of moaning that something isn’t good enough, or, get this, shut the fuck up and fuck off and shut up! Fuck me this fucking heat! Not a word!’ she snapped at Mr Leeson, giving him the hand. ‘I’m going into the van to cool off. Hurry up and wank over the things that are wrong, Roy.’

  ‘Paula!’ Roy called as she stormed off. ‘I was only saying,’ he told everyone else.

  ‘Yeah, that phrase is really annoying,’ Marcy said. ‘Anyway. Awesome. Nice tank and nice planes. Can we go now?’

  ‘Jesus, Marcy. Give me a minute,’ Nick said. ‘It’s a Spitfire. And that’s a Hurricane!’

  ‘Honestly. I love this tank!’ Tappy’s muffled voice floated from the big gun.

  ‘So?’ Marcy asked. ‘We’ve seen them. Let’s go.’

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Howie asked.

  ‘I’m hot, Howie, and I don’t want to stand in the heat praying to a thing that was used to kill people. Fuck me! We’re doing that ourselves every bloody two minutes. Why don’t we pray to our gimpy, or our rifles? How about Dave’s knives?’

  ‘I think Dave does that already,’ Howie said.<
br />
  ‘It’s not about what they did. It’s about what they represent,’ Clarence said.

  ‘They’re still guns, Clarence. Guns on a plane. Guns on a tank. We use guns to kill people. They’re just tools. No, I get it. Don’t all start moaning at me. I said I get it. They dug us out of the shit when the Germans were winning or bombing us or whatever. But don’t honour them. Fuck me. Honour the people that used them. Whatever. I’m going into the van.’

  ‘We did honour the people that used them,’ Henry said as she walked off.

  ‘How?’ she called back without looking. ‘By stuffing them in care homes? My fucking grandfather fought in that war,’ she added, turning back to point at him. ‘He came back with one arm and couldn’t work cos of his injuries and my mum grew up in poverty, and my dad’s grandad came back and hung himself which meant his family almost starved too. How is that honouring them? How did that feed their children? Howie was right. That’s the old world where men glorified war and taught their kids to hate.’

  ‘No,’ Nick said simply, making her cut off and look at him. ‘It’s about the engineering, Marcy. The Spitfire was an incredible machine. It’s got an elliptical wing design with sunken rivets to give it the thinnest cross section possible. Which meant it was faster and more agile than anything else. These things went toe to toe with Messerschmitt’s, Marcy, and Germany had fucking thousands of them. It’s like… It’s like us taking on the infection. We’re tiny. It’s huge. We’re the Spitfire. The infection is Nazi Germany.’

  ‘They killed people, Nick.’

  ‘They defended us against a bigger force, Marcy,’ Nick replied. ‘They started it. Hitler fucking started it. And those planes and that tank said fuck you.’

  ‘Nick, the people said fuck you. Not the tools they used.’

  ‘Where are the people, Marcy? They’re all dead or getting dementia. They’re all gone.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘No! You don’t get it. We’re not honouring the machines for the death they caused. We’re honouring the people for the sacrifices they made by using them. We don’t kill zombies cos we want to. We do it because we have to, and when we’re all chomped up some fucking cunts will look at the Saxon and be like, oh wow, they did it in that? Just them? Just those few. And they can see the link to history so they don’t forget what we did. It matters, Marcy. You don’t get it then whatever but don’t fucking piss on my parade because I do. How is that different to Roy?’