by Frank Tayell
“Chester?” Bill called.
“Yep.” Chester’s voice came from the room next to Bill’s, and was followed by six bullets fired at an oblique angle towards him. “That was a tad unnecessary,” Chester added. “Look mate, I don’t know who you are, but I bet you understand English. Fight us and you’ll die. Leave now, with us, and you can escape and live.”
Another barrage of shots came.
“Bill? Five miles from home. Watch the east. Up and under. Got it?”
“Understood,” Bill said, though he hadn’t a clue what Chester meant. Instead, he fired five shots through the doorway. The thug returned fire. Bill emptied the magazine. The moment he was out, there came the roar of the shotgun, once, then twice.
“Clear!” Chester called out.
Bill stood and crossed to the doorway. The thug was dead.
“What was that about five miles from home?” Bill asked.
“Just nonsense,” Chester said. “I wanted him to think we had a plan. It worked, I suppose. Guess this was the third man.”
“Get the sheets, we need two ropes,” Bill said, quickly searching the dead man’s pockets. He found nothing unusual except for a folded piece of paper in the breast pocket. Now stained with blood, only a single number four was legible. “Do you have matches?” he called.
“A few, yes.”
Bill kicked at the table, breaking it into splinters. He smashed one of the paintings, adding the canvas to the broken wood. He went into the next bedroom, dragged the sheets from it, tossed them into the corridor, then took the Bible from the desk. He added that to the pile of kindling, then took the sheets through to Chester who was knotting others into a rope.
“How’s it look outside,” Chester asked.
“Not bad,” Bill said. “About twenty or thirty out there who’ll get close before we hit the ground. We’ll have to fight our way clear, but once we reach the gravestones, we’ll be safe. Relatively speaking.” He rubbed his shoulder. “My bruises are getting bruises.”
“Did you find anything on the body?” Chester asked.
“No. No tattoo. I’d say there are far more than of these people than the professor thought. Assuming these are the same people as at the watchtower and elsewhere.”
“I’ve had enough of France,” Chester said. “It’s been nice to visit, but it’s time we went home.”
“Agreed.” Bill grabbed the first of the improvised ropes and tied one end around the leg of the bed, as Chester tied the other set of sheets to the opposite leg. They dragged the bed against the wall, beneath the window, and took another look outside.
“Start the fire, and let’s go,” Bill said. He double-knotted the laces on his boots and zipped his jacket up to his neck.
“And done,” Chester said. “Fire’s lit. No turning back now.”
Bill smashed the window, propped the rifle on the windowsill, and lined up a shot. “Go! I’m right behind!” he said as he pulled the trigger and hit the zombie’s arm.
Chester threw the sheets outside and clambered after them as Bill fired again. This time the zombie fell backwards, and he hoped it was dead. He aimed at another, then a third, but he couldn’t fire at those close to the knotted sheets for fear of hitting Chester.
He slung the rifle, grabbed the sheets, and climbed out the window, his last sight that of flames licking up the walls of the house.
His head was level with the bottom of the window when he heard the shot. Chester had already reached the ground. The shotgun was in his hands, a dead zombie at his feet. Chester fired again and Bill clambered down. The sheets were nearly impossible to climb. Above, he heard cloth tear. There was a jolt, and he dropped half a metre. He looked down. Chester was hastily reloading the shotgun, the undead approaching too fast, too numerous for him to hold them alone.
“Ah, hell.” He let go of the sheet and fell, landing hard. “Run!” he yelled, but Chester didn’t. He fired.
“Can you run?”
“Good question,” Bill said, getting to his feet. “I can stand, so I can walk. Go!”
He unslung the AK-47 as he limped after Chester. His ribs were bruised. His hand ached around the stumps of his missing fingers. His jaw still screamed from that colossal punch back at the bell-tower.
He fired a burst into the pack of undead to the left, as Chester fired a shot ahead of them. The zombies were too numerous to count, but that was another way of saying even he, with his terrible aim, and Chester with his terrible eyesight, couldn’t miss. Until his gun jammed. He dropped it among the tombstones, drew the pistol, and quickly emptied the handful of rounds in the magazine. He let it fall and drew his machete. “I’m out.”
Chester fired again. “Me, too, unless you’ve got any spare.”
“Sorry. Just run. Sprint through them,” Bill said. “Go first. Keep going, you’ll reach the wall.”
Chester might make it, but Bill knew he wouldn’t. They were almost surrounded, and his body had taken too great a battering to fight for much longer. He smelled smoke. He didn’t look behind because he could hear the groaning wheeze of air being dragged into undead lungs. The zombies were close, and getting closer.
Chester increased his pace, but not by more than Bill could match.
“Run!” Bill bellowed, but Chester ignored him.
A zombie was directly in their path. Red coat, red trousers, a shredded black shirt beneath; its clothing showed no sign of weather damage. Either it had spent the last few months trapped inside, or it had been a living person not that long ago.
A shot echoed across the churchyard. The zombie fell. Red-brown gore splattered across the tombstones. Had Chester been keeping a shell back? No, he was holding the shotgun by the barrel. Bill looked to the right, in time to see a far more raggedly dressed creature crumple to the ground. Someone was firing, somewhere close, but not close enough.
A zombie lurched across their path to the left. Chester swung the shotgun. The grip smashed into the creature’s jaw, pitching it from its feet. Chester kept going, and so did Bill, leaping over the zombie’s grasping arms, and almost straight into the clawing reach of another creature, slouching towards them from their right. Bill ducked, swinging the machete up and around, slicing through the ghoul’s decaying cheek and nose. Momentum spun the zombie around, but the wound hadn’t killed it. Bill didn’t stop to finish it, but ran on.
Ahead, immediately in front, were four of the undead. One collapsed. Then another. And then the last two, simultaneously.
“Don’t stop!” Bill said.
“Wasn’t planning to,” Chester said.
Immediately ahead was the wall. Beyond it, a figure rose from a crouch. Not a zombie, but a person carrying a carbine. Bill didn’t recognise him, but right then and there, he didn’t care whether he was one of Dernier’s thugs or not. The next figure to stand, he did recognise.
“It’s Sorcha!” Chester said.
“Watch your right!” Bill replied.
Chester spun in time, though not in time to swing the shotgun. Instead he launched his left hand, palm out, into the creature’s jaw. It fell onto its back, and scrabbled to its side before Chester brought his boot down on its skull. Bill spun left, then right, in time to see another distant zombie collapse. Only then did he look ahead. He saw Locke, her rifle raised, and another five figures beside her. Ignoring everything else, they sprinted for the wall, and safety.
“Never has a sight been so sorely welcome,” Chester said as he threw himself over the wall.
“Looks like we got here just in time,” Locke said.
Bill fell down next to Chester, while, on either side, the survivors fired at the approaching undead.
“I take it the plan worked?” Bill asked.
“Not especially,” Locke said. “The undead had already dispersed. But you’re both alive.”
“Then we need to get to the airfield, collect Scott,” Bill said, pushing himself to his feet.
“Claire’s gone to get him,” Locke said. “Rat
her, she took two hundred people with her to get more ammunition.”
“Two hundred?” Chester said. “Then there are a thousand of them on the island?”
Locke glanced at the people with her. “A few more than that, I think. We were to collect you, then return. Unless there’s any reason we should stay?”
Smoke billowed from the house’s windows, and was already seeping out from beneath the roof of the church. A flurry of gunfire came from the French survivors, aimed along the road.
“No, there’s no reason to stay,” Bill said.
Chapter 21 - Thomas Allan Murphy
Creil
It was an anxious walk to the island, at least for the French survivors, and their nervousness rubbed off on Bill. Rifles were raised and lowered, with more than a few bullets fired into the shadows. Some of those shadows kept moving, lurching out of broken doors or from behind wrecked cars. In turn, their appearance brought a roaring fusillade, the shots echoing, fading, merging with the gunfire coming from deeper in the town. After two hundred metres, Locke stopped issuing commands for the firing to stop, replacing them with a near constant reminder to keep the weapons aimed outwards. Friendly fire was added to worries over being surrounded by the undead. A memory of the radio set raised the additional concern about how friendly that fire actually was.
In the town, windows were boarded up. Doors were nailed shut. Where the main road was a shallow river of murky brown water, the side roads were blocked with concrete, cement, vehicles, tree-trunks, and whatever junk had been scavenged locally. Above some buildings, and occasionally across the roads, scaffolding linked the roofs. Even more occasionally, they passed a long ladder pinned to the side of a wall, though they were so coated in rust, he wouldn’t trust them in anything but the most desperate of escapes.
After another half kilometre, Locke gave an exasperated shrug, and gestured they should fall to the rear of the group, where they’d only risk being shot from in front.
“They aren’t soldiers,” Chester whispered.
“No,” Locke said. “Not yet.”
A trio of shots came from near the front, seemingly echoed from a distant street to the right.
“They need suppressors,” Chester said.
“Which gives us something to trade,” Bill said.
“My read of the situation,” Locke said, “is that they blocked the alleyways and ground-floor entrances, and built walkways above, as a way of reducing the risk of attack from zombies at street-level. However, soon after these defences were complete, they stopped maintaining them, presumably because all efforts were needed in the fields. More recently, with those music-lures close to the island, these blocked alleys funnelled the undead to the bridge. Unfortunately, because they’ve not been maintained, many of the barriers have broken, and the undead are now spread throughout the town. Ringing the bell only worsened that dispersal.”
“Hang on a mo,” Chester said, stalking over to the remains of the corrugated barrier. He pushed at the corpses with his shotgun, then examined the wall.
“What are you looking for?” Bill asked.
“Ah. This,” Chester said. He held up a thin piece of moss-coated cord. One end was still tied to a wrought-iron bracket at the side of the house. Presumably that had originally held a hanging basket. More recently, it had held the corrugated sheet in place. “The rope’s been deliberately cut,” Chester said. “I’d say this was the plan all along. Summon the undead to trap people on the island, and when they dispersed, ensure the zombies stayed in the town.”
“Why?” Locke asked. “What possible good would that do anyone? From everything the professor said, from what little I’ve seen, these people were quite content staying put on their island.”
Ahead, the French patrol had stopped where a pile of tyres and barbed wire lay half-submerged in the flooded road.
“Was this a barricade?” Bill asked.
Before he could ask Locke to translate, a barrage erupted to their left. Two of the French survivors had slung their weapons and begun re-stacking the tyres. At a curt command from a tall man in a ragged trench coat, they abandoned them, rejoining the others now hurrying along the road.
“We’d best not fall behind,” Bill said, hurrying to keep up. “There were three of them in the church,” he added.
“Dernier’s people?” Locke asked.
“Has to be,” Bill said. “They had a radio set. I think they were in the bell-tower so they could take advantage of its height to send and receive messages. Do you remember seeing a radio in Starwind’s watchtower, or at the house by the bridge?”
“Not that I can recall,” Locke said. “What kind of radio?”
“A bulky thing with an external power supply,” Bill said. “One person could carry it in a pack, but they’d not have much room for anything else.”
“I see,” Locke said. She said no more because they’d caught up with the rest of the survivors.
It was impossible to tell whether Dernier’s plan had succeeded since it was still unclear what that plan was. The result, however, was indisputable. The undead were trapped in houses and side roads throughout the town. The islanders had been re-supplied, and would be able to gather more ammunition. However, a good portion of those bullets would be expended over the coming weeks before the town could be called safe again. Weeks? Perhaps months, depending on the weather.
He turned his attention to the survivors themselves. They were dressed much like those he’d met at the airfield. Their clothing was slightly less uniform, slightly more colourful, but it was just as patched and oft-repaired. As many feet wore trainers as boots, and all looked worn. Their packs were of varying sizes, and only two were of a military design, but he couldn’t tell whether the women carrying them had a similar background. The weapons were mostly carbines, though an older man carried a rifle. It wasn’t a military style, but far sleeker than a hunting tool. Was it for sport? Perhaps so, but that didn’t mean the man had owned the gun a year before. That was the overarching impression he got from the survivors; whatever they wore, held, and had, it had been collected and shared out according to need over recent months. Of course, if they’d stayed put in this small town for all those months, with no major city close enough to loot, they would have had no choice but to make-and-mend.
The deeper they pushed into the town, the louder gunfire raged across the alleys, lanes, and streets. Undead corpses became a common sight. The barricades grew sturdier. Blockades around the alleys grew denser. Equally, the artificial walls sealing those alleys were more often broken, confirming Locke’s hypothesis. In securing the town, the islanders had created a funnel down which the undead had slouched to the bridge. But before the survivors reached the island, they came to a heavily defended warehouse.
Guards stood sentry on the road outside, behind a hasty barrier of upturned four-wheeled handcarts ringed by the bodies of the undead. The guards’ clothing was more uniform than their escort, though still raggedly repaired. Their weapons were slightly cleaner, their stances slightly more rigid, their gazes disinterested in the arrival of the living. It was a safe bet, when combined with the lack of questions from those accompanying Locke, that newcomers weren’t an uncommon sight for the islanders. Bill filed that thought away as a wiry, redheaded man stepped forward, issuing orders in accented and faltering French.
Four storeys tall, the building had a trio of water towers perched on the roof. The ground-floor windows had been sealed shut with welded plates. The upper windows were narrow, but closely spaced. To the left of a battered truck, dented and pummelled almost beyond recognition, were two five-metre-wide sets of shutters, one of which was open. Inside was a tightly curving driveway leading to a basement chamber. Bill was still trying to work out what the building had been before the outbreak when the redheaded man walked over to them.
“Welcome,” he said. His English was perfect, his accent Irish. “I’m Thomas Allan Murphy. Most people call me Tam. You must be the Irish survivors I’ve he
ard about.”
“Not quite,” Bill said. “Sorcha’s from Ireland. Chester and I are from London originally. Our pilot is from Australia, while the other two in our party came from the United States. Though, when we leave here, we will be making for Ireland. For Belfast, specifically.”
“That’s close enough to call you kin,” Tam said. “We left via Dundalk. That’s across the border, but not too far from Belfast. I might have some information useful to you. We left some supplies behind. This was back in—” He was interrupted by a loud clatter, then the roar of an engine. The sound grew. Lights appeared in the curving tunnel, resolving into headlights as a tractor and trailer chugged out of the underground car park. “Excuse me,” Tam said. “There’s work to be done.”
“Can we help?” Bill asked.
“You’ve done your part for the day,” he said. “Go to the island. Get some food inside you. We’ll talk later.”
They stepped aside as the tractor growled its way outside. Handcarts were dragged out of the way, and the tractor and trailer chugged down the road, a squad of guards jogging to keep up.
When Bill looked again, he saw Tam disappearing down into the tunnel.
“Their vehicle store, I suppose,” Bill said.
“Reckon so,” Chester said. “So what are they doing with the tractor? Do you think it’s to move the bodies?”
“It’s going to the airfield,” Locke said. She gestured at a pair of the guards. “That’s what they said to one another. They’re bringing all the ammunition back here. Do you see that lorry that looks as if it’s been rejected by a scrap merchant? That was Dernier’s people. They put speakers in the back, drove it here, bringing the undead with them.”
Again Bill looked at the entrance to the underground car park. “Their vehicle and fuel store? It can’t be that large. What is it, a government office or something?”