by Frank Tayell
“What was?”
“His Sixth Republic. He said it was the guardian of European democracy. It was nothing. It was words. It was a reason to work every day for little food and less safety. You think building this was easy? You think it was safe? People died. Fell, crushed, drowned. Bitten.”
“Sure, I can imagine. You mean the general didn’t believe in what he was saying?”
“Of course not. It was what people needed to hear. But the general started believing it. That was when we left. Preserving the old, like that, like this, it isn’t how we should live. It isn’t how we will create a future, because that future is here. It’s now, you see?”
“I think so,” he said. “Though some days it’s hard to even imagine there’ll be a future. Enzio and Baptiste, they didn’t run away from the watchtower, did they?”
“They escaped. That was when Dernier told me about how he’d escaped from prison. He said he was an expert. An expert in escape, so he was an expert in finding them.”
“He hunted them himself?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say they’d been caught or killed. If he had, it would have changed nothing. I would never help him.”
“You were being held separately from them, weren’t you, from the rest of your clan?” Chester said. “I think Enzio and Baptiste went looking for another truck with speakers. We crashed near where we found their bodies. Within an hour, the undead had appeared. The zombies had to have been within a few miles. It puzzled us how so many undead had gathered there. More so when the professor told us how few you’d seen nearby in the last months.”
“So few because we were killing them,” Starwind said. “That is why the general’s plan was so foolish. We hunted them. That is how the general stayed safe.”
“How many was that?”
“Was what?”
“How many zombies did you kill?” Chester asked.
“At least one a day. Sometimes more. Sometimes a lot more.”
A lot less than in Britain. He didn’t say it aloud. “What about your bonfire? You built it, right? It wasn’t Dernier?”
“A signal fire,” she said. “That was what we agreed. If we lit the fire, we needed help. Someone should have been here, up here, watching. No one was. No help came.”
“Your mother did,” he said.
“She came looking for help for herself, not to help us,” Starwind said.
“You know what’s been puzzling me?”
“A lot?”
“True, but this is a puzzle to which I’ve found an answer. Dernier collected the undead, using that trick with trucks and music. He collected them from the surrounding countryside to the east and west. He trapped everyone here on the island, but he’d also cut off his access to fuel and food. That’s one of the reasons he went to your watchtower. He’d have known where it was, and known it had fuel.”
“We took a tanker each when we started the watchtowers,” Starwind said. “We found the tankers. It was our fuel.”
“Right, but Dernier needed that fuel for the next part of his plan. Now, I don’t know what that was, but your friends, Enzio and Baptiste, must have overheard the guards talking. They escaped so they could deal with the undead, steal the trucks and their speakers, and, in my opinion, drive them back to the watchtower to kill Dernier, and rescue the rest of you.”
“They died. What does it matter why?”
“The story of our lives, our deaths, is all that we leave behind, so ultimately it’s the only thing that matters. They died as heroes and that’s how they should be remembered. I think you understand that better than most.”
She stood. “It’s getting dark. They’ll be serving dinner soon. You don’t want to be late. There’s never enough for everyone.”
She crossed to the ladder.
“One last thing,” Chester said. “When Dernier told you he escaped, he meant he’d escaped after the outbreak?”
“During, I think, why?”
“And he was told he’d rule the world? By whom? Who told him?”
“I don’t know. Men like that, they think they have a right to rule.” She climbed down. Chester let it go. Starwind was unlikely to know the answer, but Sorcha Locke might. He still wasn’t entirely sure of the question, but the shape of it, the nature of his suspicion, stemmed from how he and McInery had survived the outbreak back in London. How Quigley had engineered for so many career-crooks to remain in the city, there to die. Had something similar happened in a prison in France? If so, had something similar happened elsewhere in the world? Had a mass escape been the price Quigley’s cabal paid for the Rosewood Cartel’s assistance? Locke might know, but if she did, it wouldn’t change the past, and would barely influence the future. Tomorrow, they would return home. Tonight, they would eat.
Part 5
The Last Watchtower
Day 257
25th November
Chapter 25 - A Ten-Thousand-Seater Farm
Creil
Chester lay in the dark, eyes wide open, staring at the faded pillow case curtaining the window as he waited for dawn. He’d slept well. Surprisingly well. Better than he had since he’d left London. He’d woken in a good mood, and refreshed, while night still reigned outside.
There’d been more than enough for everyone to eat the previous evening. From the surprise on many of the French survivors’ faces, extra rations had been issued, which partly confirmed Starwind’s warning. The eighty-nine people who’d died since the first attack on the armoury were named before the meal began, and because of that, few questions had been thrown in the newcomers’ direction. Bill had been asked to tell them about life in Britain in the aftermath of the outbreak. He hadn’t; instead, he’d told the story of Siobhan and Colm, and how he and Kim had met them in Ireland. Bill had finished by prompting Tam to fill in the events of which he was a part. He’d kept that brief, since the audience’s indifference made it clear that those who were interested already knew. Tam had finished by asking Sorcha to recount how she’d escaped Ireland. Instead, Chester had stood.
Taking his prompt from Bill, he’d told of how he’d rescued the children from Kent. In an attempt to avoid all mention of Quigley, he’d not realised his mistake until he was too far into the tale to stop. The children had survived by virtue of successive individuals leaving, leading the undead westward, away from Kent. Their unwitting sacrifice had saved the children, but it had led to a quiet debate among the French survivors over the fates of those who’d left the island.
No more questions had been asked, nor stories asked for. The newcomers were given a pair of tow-behind caravans, both on street-level, both recently emptied of all trace of their previous inhabitants.
Together, alone, they’d had a brief conference where they’d agreed to keep the cause of the outbreak to themselves for now. They’d shared what they’d seen and learned, surmised and suspected, and then turned in. Chester hadn’t expected to sleep with so many worries and fears washing around his skull, but he’d woken to find those concerns neatly packaged in a box labelled ‘not his problem’ from which dangled a post-it reading ‘at least not for now’. They knew where they’d find boats. Scott had been confident in his ability to repair one, with the right tools. By all accounts they were being given a vehicle with enough fuel to reach Ireland, and enough space to carry food, ammo, tools, and whatever else they could scrounge. Ahead of them were many opportunities for disaster to rear its malicious head, but they’d all made tougher journeys with fewer supplies.
He watched the curtain, but dawn wouldn’t be rushed. As quietly as he could, he eased his way to his feet, but knocked into the table that separated his bench-bed from Bill’s.
“Mmph,” Bill muttered. At the rear of the caravan, Scott snored.
“Sorry,” Chester whispered, picked up his boots, belt, and coat, and tiptoed outside.
The air was stale, smoky, but warm. It was still coat-weather, but it felt like summer compared to the snow of a few days before. His though
ts were interrupted by a child’s cry, which was muted by a lullaby then silenced with the closing of a door.
Mentally, he opened the box in which he’d placed the island’s difficulties. Though nothing could be done until they reached Belfast, they would have to do something.
From what he’d seen, what Starwind had said, and what she hadn’t, and what the others had learned, the general had been the force knitting the island together. After his death, it was the undead who’d trapped the survivors here. The prospect of more storms might prevent an exodus until spring, but not beyond. It was still unclear precisely how they’d farmed so much food, but even with tractors, it would be a labour-intensive chore. Could they replace the departing French survivors with people from Ireland, or would that be viewed as an invasion and only heighten the speed at which Creil was abandoned? Perhaps they could offer travel to Ireland for anyone here who wanted it, though that would require more helicopters. A plane? Maybe a train? Maybe that was the answer. They could run a diesel locomotive from the town to the coast, bringing people and supplies back and forth. It would make the world seem bigger, safer. As long as the railway line remained passable, and only after they’d found a train.
It might solve Ireland’s food crisis, assuming Creil really had any food to spare. It wouldn’t solve Creil’s real problem, that Dernier’s people might lurk inside their walls as well as without. Perhaps, now their leader was dead and contact had been made with the wider world, they’d put all schemes for murder and conquest on hold. Perhaps.
Ahead, a woman lowered a sealed bucket through a gap in the scaffolding. Below, his arms outstretched, his head tilted far out of the way, a man steadied the rope. That was one half of another puzzle solved. After a brief question, which was fortunately understood, the other half was solved with directions to continue along the alley, and climb the next ladder to reach the latrine.
An early breakfast was easier to find. He went to the kitchens and smiled, pretending he didn’t understand the obvious commands to go away until one of the cooks gave him a near-full bowl. Afterward, he wandered back to the bridge to wait for the dawn.
As it arrived, his eyes were fixed, unseeing, on the riverbank opposite, his mind on the recent past, on Nilda, on Jay, on the children and friends whom he’d see again soon, and so he wasn’t paying attention to his ears. A shout came from the guard platform on top of the gates. Another came from somewhere high up on the scaffolding. There was a third shout, a fourth, and then he heard it for himself. A brief moment of confusion was replaced with blessed relief as he realised that the buzzing drone came from a helicopter. Nilda had found them!
Raising the half-moon glasses, he tilted his head back, peering between the infrequent gaps in the scaffolding, trying to spy the machine. The sound of its engine grew louder. So did the number of people around him as survivors clambered down from the walkways, and came out into the open air.
“English, is this you?” a woman in a red scarf asked.
“My people? It must be,” Chester said.
Above, the sentry on the gates barked an urgent order. Before Chester could ask for a translation, metal rasped, wheels creaked, and the giant gate groaned open.
“Allez!”
As people ran through, Chester followed. It was a small group, twenty strong, less than half those who’d gathered near the bridge. As soon as they were through, the gate was closed once more. Chester craned his head up in time to see the helicopter fly towards them from the north, following the line of the river. It was a bubble-cabbed machine, with room for pilot and passenger. As it approached the bridge, it rose, turned, twisted until it was a dozen feet above the fast-flowing river.
“They’re looking for somewhere to land!” Chester called, but could barely hear himself, so he knew that no one else would be able to. The machine rose, twisted again, and then headed toward the eastern bank of the river.
Without hesitation, the survivors sprinted towards the bridge’s other gate. Chester ran after them. They were stopped by a stern-faced sentry who yelled and shouted, sending those without weapons back to the island.
“What’s going on?” Chester asked.
“Morts vivants,” the woman in a red scarf said as she drew a long and ancient sabre from a sheath at her back.
“Ah. Got it,” Chester said. “Chester Carson,” he added. “My name. What’s yours?”
“Anouk.” She pointed at the machete at his belt.
“Understood.” He grinned as he drew the blade. She gave it a professionally approving nod.
A shout came from above. The sentry barked a string of commands. The guards on the gantry opened fire, shooting at targets on the eastern side of the gate. Chester raised a hand to his glasses, tilting them up as he tilted his head back. The guards had their weapons angled almost vertically. The undead were far closer than he’d realised.
The sound of gunfire had drowned out the sound of the helicopter. In turn, it was lost beneath the grinding creak of the gates shuddering open. The French survivors sprinted forward.
“When in France,” Chester muttered, and ran after them.
The gap was only two metres wide when the gate stopped. Gunfire stopped a moment later. Chester was the ninth through the gate. Scores of bodies littered the bridge. So many that the corpse-clearance work of the night before must have been halted before the task was complete. Among them, a handful of freshly killed zombies oozed dark black pus. Beyond those were at least two dozen of the moving undead, strung out along the bridge. Before the helicopter’s arrival, they must have been close to the gate. As the machine buzzed overhead, they’d turned on their heels, slouching into the town after it. The sentry and four others armed with rifles fired. The zombies danced as bullets thudded into their undead flesh, while those survivors armed with blunt or blade fanned out, following some oft-practiced manoeuvre.
A broken-fingered hand curled around Chester’s ankle. He slashed the machete down, severing the arm, and lashed out with his foot, kicking teeth from the creature’s opening mouth before bringing his heel down on its bare-scalped skull.
“Practiced, but not preached,” he muttered. “How much fighting have you lot actually done?”
No one replied. No one had heard him. But who would be awake before dawn, those who’d spent the previous day in battle, or those who’d been on lighter duties?
The sentry issued a new string of commands as the firing line reloaded. The undead were falling, but far too slowly. The helicopter hovered over the city to the southeast. When it landed, it would be surrounded. His friends needed help. Chester charged.
He jumped over corpses, skipped over broken limbs, raising the machete as he overtook the French survivors. Further from the gate, the bridge-way was clearer of corpses, but pocked and potholed, slick with dew and gory slime. He slipped, almost fell, righted himself, and ran on, raising the machete above his head, and marked his first foe.
The creature wore black, so covered in moss it appeared green. The plant had already spread to its skin after months spent idle in some rain-soaked ditch. It wasn’t dying, though. Not even close. Its arms thrust forward as its mouth fell open. Its head bucked forward, right into the path of Chester’s blade. As the blow landed, he pivoted, spinning to the right, dragging the machete free. As the corpse fell, he was already skipping past, marking his next target, five feet ahead.
He ignored the ruined faces and wrecked bodies as he hacked low at legs, then high at their heads, carving a path through the undead, now all lurching towards him. One thought cut through all the others. Nilda and George had found them.
“Nilda!” he yelled as he swung the blade at a zombie’s legs. The blade stuck as the creature toppled. Momentarily unarmed, he ducked underneath a fingerless hand sailing towards his face. He reached out, grabbed two fists of rotting cloth, and hurled the walking corpse up and over the side of the bridge before spinning around, stamping his boot down on the downed zombie’s skull, and dragging his blade free.
>
It had to be Nilda and George. Of course it was. George had taken fuel to London, and when they knew a rescue had to be effected, they would have taken it with them. But who was the pilot?
“Leon?” he muttered as he swung the blade high, slicing through an upraised arm and into the zombie’s temple. “Tuck?”
Did Tuck know how to fly? A colonel of Special Forces surely did. They’d found a helicopter on a ship or on shore, and flown it inland. Of course they had. They were the help that came to others. Nothing would stop Nilda, nor George.
“Nilda,” he said, swinging the machete to the right. “George,” he yelled as he hacked to the left. “Ah, hell,” he added when the blade slipped from his grip and skittered across the roadway. The zombie lurched onward, mouth open. Chester raised his fists, but the zombie’s skull disintegrated as a bullet slammed through its temple.
The gunfire had been there all along. Three-shot bursts angled along the bridge as the French survivors marched forward in formation. Chester stepped back as they overtook him.
Anouk paused, picked up Chester’s machete, and handed it to him. “George?” she said. “Shakespeare, yes? Harry, England, and Saint George?”
“Ah, right, no,” Chester said. “George is a mate of mine. I think he’s in the helicopter.”
The woman gave him a quizzical look, either not understanding, or not quite believing. “Les Anglais.”
“I’m hearing that a lot,” he said.
She joined the line marching slowly but purposefully across the bridge, adding her sabre to the blades cutting down the undead. Chester fell in at the rear, uncertain whether his charge had achieved anything, uncertain of everything except that the helicopter had to be sent by Nilda and George. Their help had come.
At the end of the bridge, the number of the undead thinned, and the sentry leading their group picked up the pace. By Chester’s count, they’d killed thirty, not including those shot by the guards on the platform. Another five walking ghouls were dispatched before they reached the fuel store. Chester didn’t attempt to count the corpses outside the warehouse. Over twenty guards stood by the gates, with dozens more perched on the roof. The sentry exchanged a few brief words with their commander, before leading the patrol deeper into the city. None of the guards from the warehouse joined them. It appeared that at least one lesson had been learned from the recent crisis.