Surviving the Evacuation, Book 14

by Frank Tayell

  Chester had no qualms about leaving Locke behind, simply because she’d made it clear, in Birmingham, that she was following her own path. That had intersected with theirs for a time, but that she’d left her notebook told him she thought that time had passed. On balance, that was for the best. After Birmingham, he trusted her. After the last week, he thought even Bill did, too. When they reached Belfast, however, the people there would be as suspicious as ever.

  He’d no qualms about leaving Sergeant Khan behind, either. The man was a career Marine. He understood that the mission had to come first, and had volunteered to stay behind. Chester weighed up their parting. The sergeant probably knew he’d volunteered to stay behind, and if he didn’t, he’d realise soon enough, and understand it then. Scott hadn’t realised what he’d volunteered for, but he was old enough, had seen enough, that he would understand. That left Private Kessler. Had she known? Probably not. Nothing could be done except get to the coast, get to Belfast, and come back for them in a helicopter. As for how they would then rescue the French survivors and the people of the convoy, he had no idea.

  The zombie was only twelve feet away. Chester dropped down into the cab. “Either we move, or I’ll have to kill it.”

  “Then we move,” Bill said. “Hold on.”

  Chapter 29 - The Enemy Within

  Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, Northern France

  The gate was made of modern steel fashioned in an ancient style, wide enough for a small service-vehicle with another five feet of ornamental railing on either side. The ATV was far too big. Bill swung the vehicle towards the gate, stopped, reversed to line up, then drove forward, smashing the entrance from its hinges. Briefly, the gate was propped in front of the Viking, acting as a plough, pushing the corpses out of the way. After ten feet, the gate lodged in the broken limbs of the dead and undying, and clattered to the ground. Bill kept his foot down, driving over the gate and the bodies beneath, slowing only when they were ten metres inside the property.

  Chester clambered up into the turret.

  “It’s more of a house than a castle,” he called out. “It’s got two wings. About forty zombies between them, mostly clustered near the main doors. Broken ladder hanging from a window. Looks like that’s what the people were using as an entrance. Five zombies heading around the building to the south. None to the north. Another couple of buildings there. One-storey against the main building’s three.” He rested his shotgun on the empty machine-gun mount. “I’d say servants’ quarters in the eaves, probably fifteen bedrooms below that, and from the size of the windows, the ground floor is big enough for a ballroom in each wing. Bonfire to the south. Long dead. Bill! Movement! The south wing, first floor. Someone’s removing the boards covering the window.”

  “What about the zombies?”

  “We’ve got at least a minute,” Chester said. “Ten are heading towards us, plus those at the side of the house.”

  “And behind?”

  Chester gave it a quick glance. “Clear. Some movement beneath the gate. I don’t think those zombies were entirely dead. No immediate danger from there.” He turned back to the house in time to see a man open the window. Definitely a man judging by the beard that reached halfway down his neck. “Stragglers are getting close,” he said, lining up the shotgun with the nearest of the creatures. “Ten seconds and I’ll open fire, but you need to get ready to reverse.”

  “Got it,” Bill said.

  Chester waved at the man in the window. “Do you hear that?” he called down to Bill. “It’s gunfire. Must be Starwind. You ready?”

  And then he realised. He looked at the window, at the man with a beard. He was no teenager. Then again, Starwind hadn’t said that Adrianna’s people were all teenagers. The man ducked out of sight, reappearing a second later with an assault rifle. Chester ducked back into the ATV just as the man opened fire.

  “Reverse!” he bellowed. The vehicle flew backwards as bullets pinged into the armour.

  “Who’s shooting?” Bill called.

  “A man, about forty, in that window, with an assault rifle,” Chester said. “One of Dernier’s people, I guess.”

  The gate clanged beneath them as the treads pushed it further into the dirt. Bullets pinged against the armour. A loud metallic crunch was followed by a tumult of brick raining like shrapnel as the ATV’s passenger-car mowed through the wall, ripping out five feet of stone-work.

  “Hang on,” Bill muttered, keeping the vehicle in reverse until they were outside.

  “Gunfire’s stopped, right?” Chester said. Without waiting for a reply, and hoping it had, he pulled himself up into the turret.

  A dozen zombies staggered across the fallen gate, tripping when their feet lodged in the gaps between the steel uprights. As the undead fell, more bricks tumbled from the fractured masonry around the edges of the wall.

  “Can you see the shooter?” Bill asked.

  “Can’t even see the window,” Chester said. He pushed himself further out of the turret. “Yes, I can see the other wing of the house. Just the eaves and the roof. There’s a flag! Someone’s waving a flag. Damn.” He dropped inside. “Drive forward. Crush the zombies around the gate, then take the vehicle to the northern side of the house. When the window was opened to hang out that flag, I heard gunfire.”

  “Are you sure? Your hearing isn’t the best.”

  “I’m positive,” Chester said. “It came from inside. I heard something similar when that first window was opened. People are shooting at targets inside. There’s a flag, Bill. Someone’s signalling or surrendering. My money’s on them being Starwind’s people. They’re in there, along with Dernier’s thugs. The zombies stopped them from escaping, and since they can’t escape, they can’t burn each other out. Who knows what kind of truce they had going on, but it ended when we arrived.”

  Bill gunned the engine. “Behind the northern wing, here we go. I hope you’re right.”

  Eight zombies had lurched onto the pavement outside the estate. The ATV roared forward, crushing six and knocking the other two flying. Beyond them were a dozen more. The fallen gate had acted as a cattle grid, trapping the living dead in place. Chester made a mental note to remember that trick for the months ahead as the vehicle bounced, rocked, and skidded over the ghouls, churning brain, bone, and gore over the windscreen.

  “I can’t see!” Bill said.

  “On it,” Chester said. A half-remembered anecdote from a war film watched with his father came back to him, but a chest wound was as lethal as a head shot in their world. He ducked his head up, only long enough to check the route, and then dropped back down again. “Ten degrees to the right, then straight on for sixty yards. There’s a lot of gunfire coming from inside the building. Don’t think any of it’s aimed at us. Starwind’s people must have recognised the ATV.”

  Bill grunted, turned the wheel, and drove forward, blind, as the vehicle filled with the sound of bullets smacking against the armour, and bones crunching beneath its treads.

  “I’m taking a look,” Chester said, this time thrusting head and shoulders outside. They were heading straight toward the northern wing of the house. “Right! Right! Right!” he bellowed.

  Bill braked.

  “Right twenty degrees!” Chester called. “There. Now straight.”

  The sound of gunfire grew, but it was still muffled, the shots aimed at targets inside the house. One hand gripping the edge of the turret, the other holding the half-moon glasses in place, Chester scanned the windows. Starting with the southern wing, he tracked along and then up. Three windows on the first floor were open, but empty of people. Up in the eaves, only the window with the flag was open, and a person stood there, a woman. She waved until an explosion inside caused her to duck out of sight. Ducked or fell, Chester couldn’t tell. Smoke began seeping around a window in the eaves and from a larger window on the floor below.

  The battle had grown so loud that the undead gathered between the two wings couldn’t decide whether that or the ATV rep
resented the nearest prey. Twenty of them remained on their feet, with at least four bodies lying on the ground. Behind the Viking, another two zombies had appeared in the gateway. They tripped, falling on the mound of crushed flesh. The danger came from the undead who’d been to the south of the house. Seven zombies, slouching nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, were only twenty feet away.

  Chester braced the shotgun on the turret’s edge and then he waited… waited… waited… fired. A slug tore through the closest zombie’s threadbare jacket. He ratcheted in another shell, changed angle, fired again as the ATV bounced over a corpse. The round smashed through an exposed knee. The zombie fell, tripping the two behind. Taking that as inspiration, he pumped another round, and lowered his aim. This shell was buckshot, and it scattered a wall of lead into calf and ankle. As the zombies lurched on, putting weight onto shredded limbs, three fell, tripping the zombies behind.

  “Where now? Directions!” Bill called.

  Chester spun around. “Straight on!” He ducked inside the vehicle. “Straight on. Twenty yards and stop.” He reached for the turret’s edge, just as a bullet pinged against the hatch’s rim, an inch from his hand. He pulled it down, using the opportunity to reload. “Keep going!”

  “We’ve travelled twenty yards,” Bill said.

  “Keep going!”

  “Until when?” Bill replied.

  “Until they stop shooting!” Chester said. He fixed Nilda’s face in his mind, and stood up, outside of the vehicle. He couldn’t see the southern wing. The undead had followed them, some on their feet, others crawling across the mud.

  “Stop!” he yelled.

  Bill did. The engine idled.

  “Hold it here a mo,” Chester said.

  “Are we clear?”

  “Not sure,” Chester said. They were between the northern wing and the cluster of one-storey buildings, with the bulk of the main house now shielding them from any shooter in the southern wing. He quickly scanned the windows, but none were open. With no immediate threat from above, he looked for the undead.

  Based on the doors and paved entrance, two of the smaller buildings were side-to-side garages. Next to those was a prefab tool-shed, with a far older red-roofed stone building beyond. All were covered in trailing roses and withered climbers, as well as a good measure of recently installed barbed wire. Crucially, he saw no zombies either around the buildings or in the narrow vista of flooded grassland between the house and the treeline.

  He looked back at the main house. The ground-floor windows on this side of the building were narrow and blocked. The first floor windows were closed, but the one immediately above them was un-curtained and un-barricaded. Above that was the roof. Nowhere could he see signs of life.

  “Now what?” Bill called.

  “Good question,” Chester said. “Near the rear of this wing, about as far from the main entrance as you could get, there’s a door. Small, set down three steps, it might be a kitchen entrance. That’s where they’ll escape the house.”

  He was wrong. Glass shattered above them, raining down from a window in the eaves. A gun barrel swept the shards from the broken frame. Chester raised the shotgun.

  “Get ready to reverse! Reverse straight on my word!”

  A woman, hair cropped in a scruffy mohawk, stuck her head through the window. She waved. Called out. Chester only heard half the words, and didn’t understand a single one. Was she a friend of Starwind’s? A foe? Had he utterly misread the situation inside?

  “Life’s a gamble, but she didn’t shoot,” he muttered. “We’re stopping here!” he yelled to Bill, and jumped out. The cab door opened and Bill followed, sweeping his sleeve over the windscreen to remove the worst of the gore.

  “What’s happening?” Bill asked.

  “Zombies coming from around the front of the house. None coming from behind. People up in the eaves. Hopefully friendly. Hostiles on the first floor. Door on the ground floor at the rear.” Chester spoke quickly, patting his coat pockets, checking he had spare cartridges.

  “Got it,” Bill said, grabbing his shotgun from next to the driver seat.

  Chester took up position by the rear of the ATV, keeping the bulk of the armoured vehicle between himself and the house.

  “No movement at the door,” Bill called from the front of the vehicle. “No movement at the rear. Nothing above. Wait. Yes. From the eaves. They’re throwing down a rope ladder. It’s not quite long enough. I’m going to bring the Viking alongside.”

  The first of the walking undead had reached the side of the house. Chester fired. The slug ripped through the zombie’s neck, tearing its head from its shoulders. “Go. I’ve got you covered out here,” Chester said.

  Bill ducked back inside.

  The ATV juddered forward. Chester stepped away from the vehicle, firing at the undead. The shotgun was too inaccurate, even from such a short distance, with accuracy reduced further by the mix of slug and shot. One by one, the undead fell, not always dead, but a crawling zombie was a problem that could wait.

  The hammer clicked on an empty chamber. He reached into his pocket, hastily reloading as he looked to his right, and up at the building. Bill had stopped the vehicle closer to the house. The ladder was three feet too short, but a woman was already climbing down. She wasn’t the woman he’d seen at the window before, but someone far older.

  “Keep going!” he called. “Not far to safety. Just keep climbing down. We’ve got you!”

  The woman glanced down. Her expression was puzzled.

  “Starwind sent us!” Chester called. “We’ve come from Creil. The professor.” He doubted she understood, but he hoped the English words would convince her that they weren’t a threat.

  A window on the first floor, just to the left of the ladder, opened. A gun barrel appeared. Chester raised the shotgun. Fired. Mercifully, it was a slug, not buckshot. The round smashed into the window’s frame, raining splinters and glass over the woman climbing down the ladder.

  “Hurry!” he yelled.

  “I’ve got them covered!” Bill called as he climbed out of the turret. “Watch for the undead!”

  Chester did.

  One of the more mobile living dead tripped on the clawing hands of a crawling zombie. Chester forced himself to take his time. A startling burst of automatic gunfire came from behind him, making him miss the shot. His shell slammed into the dirt, spraying a fountain of mud onto the crawling zombie’s flayed back. Chester stepped forward, kicked the zombie’s grasping hand clear, and stamped on its skull. Only then did he look around.

  Bill was in the ATV’s turret, his weapon aimed upward at the house. The old woman had reached the vehicle. She stood on the roof, arms outstretched, gripping the ladder’s lower-most rung while a young man awkwardly descended, a rucksack on his front and another on his back making it a perilous climb.

  Automatic gunfire filled the air, drowning the moaning hiss of the undead. Chester couldn’t place where the shots came from until he realised they were coming from outside as well as inside. Were Dernier’s people making a break for the rear of the house? If so, they had one less problem to worry about.

  “Watch the rear, Bill!” Chester called, as he turned back to the undead lurching towards them. He reached in his pocket for shells, and found he was already running low.

  “On it!” Bill called back. “It’s Locke! It’s Locke and Starwind!”

  The two women ran around the rear of the house, and over to the ATV. Starwind yelled up at the old woman anchoring the ladder, at the young man climbing down, and at the window above.

  Locke ran over to Chester.

  “Any idea what’s going on?” he asked.

  “Other than Starwind knows them, not really,” Locke said with utter calm. “Oh, and there are hostiles inside the house. On the first floor, though I suspect you’ve realised.”

  “Hard not to when someone’s shooting at you.”

  “How much ammunition do you have left?” Locke asked.

  “Two s
hells.”

  “Then I’ll deal with these zombies. Help the others. Get them down.”

  As Chester spun around, he saw Starwind sprinting for the rose-covered garage. The man with the backpacks had reached the bottom of the ladder. At the window a woman dressed in red dungarees and a red ski-jacket, with a red scarf tied around her head, began her descent. The old woman’s arms trembled as she held the ladder steady, but her face was a study in determination. Bill and the young man had the building covered. The rear looked clear. Chester jogged after Starwind, to see what new threat she’d spied.

  Starwind reached the garage’s eastern edge, next to a forest of sand-coloured, five-inch diameter vines, and then disappeared through a door hidden behind the leafless growth.

  Chester jogged to the garage. The decades’ old vines in front of the door were so densely packed they left a gap barely a foot wide through which to squeeze. He pushed and pulled in an attempt to force a gap, but their roots were deep, their branches suckered to the building more strongly than the crumbling mortar holding the bricks in place.

  He moved his head closer, trying to see inside. From the forest of folding tables and broken display cases it had been an exhibition room before the outbreak, but it was a garage now. Lined up beneath the fractured skylights were a trio of quad bikes, a squad of dirt bikes, and a fuel tanker. Next to that was a yellow minibus covered in barbed wire, with a sheet-metal ramp welded to the front, more metal covering the windows, and a wooden-sided platform on the roof.

  “Starwind, you okay?” he called.

  “Always,” she replied, stepping out from behind the tanker.

  “I can’t squeeze in,” he said. “It’s too narrow.”

  “I’ll open the main doors,” she said.

  He stepped back, scanning the grounds to the rear of the house. The once-manicured lawn ended at a regimented row of spindly aspens standing sentry in front of a dozen wide beeches whose branches moved unnaturally. Zombies. Three lurched out of the treeline. They had a few minutes, but no more than that. Locke walked backwards, towards the Viking, but not in retreat. The immediate threat at the front of the house had been eliminated. Five people had already reached the ATV, with a sixth clambering down the rungs. The older woman still stalwartly held the ladder steady. The woman in red knelt next to her, her weapon trained at the first floor windows. Bill had returned to the driver’s seat.