Surviving the Evacuation, Book 14

by Frank Tayell

  “Ask again tomorrow,” Locke said. “If Mr Higson wakes, he was asleep. If he doesn’t, he was unconscious.”

  “Looks like we need more firewood,” Chester said. “I’ll make a start on the kitchen.” He picked up a wine-bottle-candle, and walked through the archway.

  Packed dirt filled the gaps in the floor between rotten concrete. He opened a floor-to-ceiling door, and found a toilet rather than a cupboard. The bowl was filled with dirt, from which grew a withered stem. He closed the door, and opened an ill-fitting cupboard hanging on the peeling, discoloured wall. It was empty, but the door was made of wood, as were the dusty shelves inside. He scraped the rust from the screw-heads bracketing the cupboard to the wall, then began working the entire piece of furniture free.

  “A broken sink makes kitchen as good a name for that room as any other,” he said, propping the detached cupboard next to the fire. “No fridge, no electricity, no insulation unless you count dirt. Speaking of which, they filled the toilet with it, presumably after the plumbing was disconnected. Even the spiders have moved out, but, on balance, I can honestly say that I’ve rented worse places than this back in London.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Kessler said.

  “He’s not,” Locke said. “It would have been illegal, even for London’s already criminal rental market.”

  “Ah, but you’ve knocked the nail on the head there,” Chester said. “The criminal rental market was very different from the legal one. I had to rent from whoever would take the cash and ask no questions, nor ask to see any I.D. As you can imagine, the choice of properties wasn’t vast. Often they’d been condemned, and awaiting demolition. It wasn’t so bad, the last few years, after McInery had set up her shop. I had a genuine salary, and paid taxes and everything. Now, if you want to talk about criminality, we could start there.”

  “You sound proud,” Kessler said.

  “Of my past? I’m not,” Chester said. “I’m neither proud nor ashamed. I won’t claim I was anything other than a crook. I know what I did. I know what lives I ruined. I know what I’ve done in the months since. I know what the world’s become, and what we’ll have to do to ensure our species survives. There’s no time for hiding from our past. No point in it. We’re all very different people to who we were a year ago.”

  “Tell me about it,” Kessler said.

  “Anything useful in those bags?” Locke asked.

  “A few damp books,” Kessler said. “In French,” she added, placing them by the fire to dry. “Fiction. Fantasy. Going by the covers, they’re about vampires.”

  “Vampires? Not zombies?” Chester asked.

  “Who’d want to read about fictional zombies?” Kessler asked.

  “I read a few,” Chester said. “Round about the time all this began. I can’t remember where I’d taken shelter. Somewhere in London, I suppose. Can’t say they helped me understand what was happening, though.”

  “I bet you haven’t bothered with them since,” Kessler said.

  “I’ve stuck with non-fiction,” Chester said. “Making up for the gaps in my education. Do you speak French?”

  “Me?” Kessler asked. “No. What about you, Sorcha?”

  “Enough to get by,” Locke said. “Not enough to want to read about vampires. Let’s call the books kindling.”

  “When they’ve dried out,” Kessler said. “We’ve also got some clothing. Underwear, socks, a couple of scarves and pairs of gloves.”

  “The scarves, what colour are they?” Chester asked.

  “Black,” Kessler said. “Why?”

  “One of the zombies down by the gate had a yellow silk scarf around its neck.”

  “These are wool,” Kessler said. “And they’re damp. We’ll need to dry them out, too.” She pegged the scarf on a rusting nail in the beam running across the ceiling. “That leaves a box of matches that probably won’t dry out, a clasp knife, and some cutlery.”

  “What about food?” Chester asked. “Wasn’t there a tin in one of the bags?”

  “Four cans so far,” Kessler said. “None with labels.”

  “Is there any bread?” Locke asked. “Or anything that would indicate they had access to raw ingredients rather than just what they could salvage from the ruins?”

  “Not yet,” Kessler said. “You’re wondering how far they’ve travelled?”

  “And whether they came from somewhere close,” Locke said. “To put that another way, they clearly didn’t live on this farm, so where did they come from, and which way did their killer go?”

  “Beats me,” Kessler said.

  The stairs creaked. A moment later, Bill appeared.

  “Everything all right up there?” Chester asked.

  “For now, yes,” Bill said. “We can’t see the plane, but there’s enough starlight to see the trees. The zombies aren’t approaching us, yet. They’re gathered by the plane. A few hundred of them, but I think we’ll be safe here for the night.” He walked over to the fire, holding out his hands to the flames.

  Chester went back into the kitchen, and worked another cupboard free. He took it over to the fire, laying it next to the small blaze. “We’ll need a bit more firewood to last us until dawn. The door to the stairs might do the job, otherwise we’ll have to start on the timbers upstairs.”

  “The roof’s long since collapsed,” Bill said. “Everything up there’s sodden and covered in moss. We might get more joy from the barn. How are we doing otherwise?”

  “Except for any weapons you might be concealing from me,” Locke said, “we have three rifles, a few side-arms, machetes, and hunting knives.”

  “Why would anyone be concealing weapons?” Kessler asked.

  “No one is,” Bill said. “What about ammo?”

  “A few hundred rounds of ammunition for the rifles, a few spare magazines for the handguns,” Locke said. “We have the suppressors, of course, without which firearms would be more danger than aid.”

  “The… um… the sergeant has a grenade,” Kessler said. “Does that help?”

  “Probably not,” Bill said. “What about food?”

  “Enough for a small meal tonight and a smaller breakfast,” Locke said. “No blankets. No bedding. Very little in the way of medical gear. A few stitches of spare clothing, but it’s not suited to this weather. What about those two bodies?”

  “The coats were ruined,” Chester said. “I checked. The boots didn’t look much better.”

  “This morning we had electricity and a plane,” Kessler said. “And now we’re robbing the dead. Doesn’t that say it all?”

  “Are we staying here for a few days, then?” Chester asked. “If we are, I’ll go and gather some branches from outside. They should dry out overnight. Best we do that in case the undead cross the stream.”

  “No,” Bill said. “Because of the undead, I don’t think we can stay here. At the very least, tomorrow, we should venture beyond that fence and gate. That should offer us some protection from the zombies by the plane.”

  “Assuming that there aren’t even more undead in the countryside beyond,” Locke said.

  “What’s the alternative?” Bill said. “Before we crashed, I saw smoke. I think I spied a river, perhaps a few buildings.”

  “How long before we crashed?” Chester asked. “How far away was the smoke?”

  “Five miles. Perhaps ten,” Bill said.

  “Considering the bodies in the barn,” Locke said, “is it wise to look for people?”

  “I’ve asked myself the same question,” Bill said. “Tomorrow, we haven’t got much choice. We’ll follow that road by the gate. Since it’s running east-west, we’ll go west, towards the coast. That’s where they’ll come looking for us. As for the people, the smoke, we’ll make a decision tomorrow after we’ve seen what lies beyond the gate.”

  “You want to walk a hundred miles,” Locke said. “In a snowstorm. With Mr Higson unconscious.”

  “Do you have a better suggestion?” Bill asked.

 
; “It’s academic, isn’t it?” Chester said quickly, wanting to forestall an unwinnable argument. “We’ll follow the road west until we find a better supplied property than this. Our speed will be determined by Scott, so until we find some bikes or, if we’re lucky, a car, we won’t get far. I don’t suppose there’s any chance of getting that sat-phone fixed?”

  “Not by me,” Bill said. “Locke?”

  “No. I don’t think those devices were built to be fixed.”

  “What if we found another sat-phone?” Chester asked. “Or a satellite uplink of some kind. Could you get access to the satellites or upload a message to them? They were yours originally, weren’t they?”

  “They were Lisa’s,” Locke said. “But no, Mr Tom Clemens locked me out of the system just after the outbreak.”

  “Who?” Kessler asked.

  “She means Sholto,” Bill said.

  “And he’ll be looking for us, won’t he?” Kessler said.

  “Yes, but not here,” Bill said. “Not yet. They’ll start at the coast, and then move inland. It’ll be days before they find the plane. At least there are plenty of people in Belfast now, all with time on their hands to look through the images. The factor which will slow down the search is the weather. I’d say the earliest they’ll spot the wreck is about three days from now.”

  “And then they’ll send the helicopter,” Kessler said.

  “Does it have the range?” Chester asked. “I suppose that depends on where we are.”

  “George took some fuel down to London,” Bill said. “It was in case, when they got to the Tower, they found that some people needed an emergency airlift to Anglesey. Belfast is what, another hundred miles? The chopper should have the range to get to London. From there it can refuel. Call it eighty miles to Folkestone, another thirty from there to the French coast, and a hundred miles here. I’d say it has the range.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Chester said. “As soon as Nilda learns the plane’s crashed, she’ll take those ships Leon was bringing around the coast, and head for France. I doubt they’ll risk losing the helicopter by sending it to the Tower once they’ve all left.”

  “In which case,” Locke said, “either we go to the coast, or we have to find somewhere we can wait until the helicopter can be brought to the coast by ship. Since we have no way of communicating with Belfast, we’ll have no way of knowing if the helicopter is on its way until it arrives. As such, staying put anywhere is not an option.”

  “A moment ago, I thought you were saying we should stay in one place,” Bill said.

  “Then you misunderstood,” Locke said. “The last call you made, you told them we were twenty miles from the coast, yes? And that was an estimate based on flight time? And was that at the beginning of the call, or the end?”

  “The beginning.”

  “And what was the duration of the call?” she asked. “How long after you hung up before we began our descent? Twenty minutes? We were travelling at around four hundred knots. That’s about eight miles a minute. Twenty minutes is a hundred and sixty miles. The margin of error on that is immense, since I don’t know our exact speed. Do you?”

  “No, but I get your point. We could be a lot further than a hundred miles from the coast.”

  “And beyond the helicopter’s range,” Locke said. “It may take far longer than a few days before the satellites find us. We cannot expect rescue. Nor can we expect Mr Higson to survive trekking hundreds of miles through the snow, nor can we realistically manage to carry him.”

  “We’re not leaving him behind,” Bill said.

  “And again, you misunderstand,” Locke said. “I am simply trying to point out the difficulty in our situation. Suggesting we can simply walk to the coast where a boat will be waiting for us would be difficult without the undead, without the snow, without the danger of some murderous killers nearby.”

  “So where do we go?” Kessler asked. “Where can we go? Did you have a base in France? A bunker or something?”

  “In France? No, not really,” Locke said. “There is a safe house on the outskirts of Paris. Beneath the floorboards are iodine tablets, firearms, and ammunition. If Lisa had been stranded in the city during the nuclear war, she would have gone there, then north to where The New World would have collected her.”

  “Where in the north?” Chester asked.

  “Denmark, a place called Haderslev on the eastern side of Jutland, about sixty kilometres north of the border with Germany.”

  “Why there?” Kessler asked.

  “Because Russia was unlikely to nuke Denmark for fear of irradiating its exit from the Baltic Sea,” Locke said. “It wasn’t impossible, but it wasn’t likely. As to why Haderslev, the University of Copenhagen wanted funding for a tidal research centre. They chose Haderslev, we provided the funding, and made a few suggestions as to the site’s construction. It is reachable by road, and there are very good roads running north from Paris to Germany and then to Denmark, but we stipulated the addition of a helipad, claiming Lisa preferred flying to driving.”

  “It’s still a long way, though,” Chester said.

  “From Paris, yes, but Lisa rarely visited France,” Locke said. “She was more frequently in Germany, Poland, and Sweden, all of which made Haderslev a convenient location. However, she wasn’t in any frequently enough that it was economical investing in a proper redoubt. She had to maintain her public persona. She couldn’t hide in a bunker while also attempting to save the world. As such, we didn’t know with any certainty where she or our teams would be when the balloon went up.” She gave a shrug. “It’s all academic now, of course. Since we don’t know where we are, we don’t know how far away Paris is, let alone Denmark.”

  “For want of any other suggestions,” Bill said, “we’ll leave at first light, head to the road, and then go westward. Let’s take a look at the food, and see what we can manage for dinner. Cans first, I suppose, since they’re the heaviest.”

  “Anyone want to place a bet on what we’ll find in them?” Chester asked.

  “I’ll give you better odds on the contents being inedible,” Kessler said.

  Part 2

  The Watchtower

  Day 254

  22nd November

  Chapter 4 - First Light, Second Thoughts

  The Ruined Farm, Somewhere in France

  Bill dug his shoulder blades into the chimney’s crumbling brickwork, trying to absorb some of the dying heat from the fire below. It was two hours since Locke had dragged him from his fitful doze to begin the last watch of the night. He’d thrown a cupboard door onto the fire, before climbing up to his draughty perch. From the brick’s cold chill, either Locke had gone to sleep, or there was nothing left to burn. No matter, dawn was well and truly on its way.

  The sky had been brightening for twenty minutes, confirming his earlier fear. For once, that fear had nothing to do with the undead. He could already see the wall and treeline, and, so far, no zombies had reached the farm’s yard. No, his fear was over the density of the clouds, and each passing second only brought forward the moment he had to accept the bitter truth. The sky was covered in a thick blanket of dirty-grey cumulus clouds through which the satellite’s cameras would never penetrate. A storm was brewing, and that had him pondering the wisdom of moving. The lack of food and firewood, and the proximity to the undead surrounding the crashed plane made leaving the farm the obvious choice, but they wouldn’t get far carrying Scott. The more rest the pilot had, the further he’d be able to move in a day. In fact, in a couple of days, he’d probably be able to travel further than they’d be able to carry him during that time. They could split up, of course, but the dead men in the barn told him that the undead weren’t the only nearby threat. No, on balance, it was best they travelled together, even if they only managed as far as the next farm.

  He turned his gaze from the clouds to the plane. He could see it now, and he could see some of the undead. Hundreds of black specks surrounded the cockpit and wings, with mor
e around the tail-section. Far more than he could count. He looked towards the fence and the gate, but the trees were too dense to see whether they, too, were surrounded by the undead. Yes, it was time to leave, if they could. He eased himself up, and went downstairs.

  Kessler snored softly, her head lying against the mouldering sofa’s arm. Locke lay with her back against the wall, her eyes closed. Chester sat by the dying fire, while Khan methodically reloaded a magazine. He paused, and looked up.

  “Is there a problem?” the sergeant asked.

  “Not really,” Bill said. “Dawn’s arrived. The cloud cover is complete. No satellite will spot us today.”

  Locke opened her eyes and sat up. Kessler grumbled softly, though she kept her eyes closed. Scott moaned.

  “Sergeant, can you get everyone up?” Bill said. “Chester and I will check the gate. There are no zombies immediately outside, so we have that going for us. It’s not snowing at the moment, so there’s that as well. If this is the old farmhouse, the new one has to be around here somewhere.”

  “Understood, sir,” Khan said.

  “People always told me it was best to start the day with exercise,” Chester said, pushing himself to his feet. “Never really believed it. Always preferred starting it with a pint of tea and a bacon sandwich.”

  Bill leaned against the tree, watching the undead around the plane, listening to Chester’s soft breathing ten feet behind him. The zombies weren’t moving, but there were more than he’d thought from the upper floor of the ruined farmhouse. At present, none were traipsing across the fields towards the farm, but it was only a matter of time.

  He eased himself back from the tree, retracing his steps to where Chester waited. Just as quietly, together, they edged across the farmyard. Only when they were level with the house did he speak, and even then, he kept his voice low. “Maybe a thousand of them.”

  “I wonder where they came from,” Chester said. “It has to be close. That begs the question of what’s there that caused so many zombies to gather.”