by Frank Tayell
Siobhan took the lead, walking quickly, a fraction slower than my maximum top speed. Behind me, I heard feet stagger and splash through the flooded road. I didn’t look back because, ahead, I saw two of the undead stagger out of an overgrown front garden. Dean fired a hasty shot while he was still moving. The bolt sailed past the zombie’s ear, thudding into a rusting car with a tinny thwack. Lena’s aim was closer to true. Her arrow slammed into the zombie’s eye. Siobhan raised her rifle, one of the silenced SA80s from Anglesey. She fired a three-shot burst that blew the second creature’s skull apart.
“Leave it,” Lena said, as Dean ran to the car to retrieve the arrow. It was an odd comment from the young woman, in that it was two words when one would have sufficed. Guessing the cause was anxiety, I finally looked behind. A small pack of the living dead were following us. At least twenty strong, they trailed a path of mud and scum.
“We need somewhere secure,” I said. “Somewhere we can make a stand. Dean, Lena, any ideas?”
“Dunno. The stadium?” Dean suggested.
“That’ll do,” I said. “Lead the way.”
Stadiums had car parks, and that meant space to see the undead coming. They had multiple entrances, and ladders to flat roofs. A ladder would be our saviour, and we’d be safe on a roof, but, should we need it, our ultimate salvation would come from the radio. My hand went automatically to my belt, checking the device was still there. Yes, an elevated position, and the certainty of rescue; a stadium would be perfect. We didn’t reach it.
Dean was in the lead. He charged ahead, bounded around a corner, and then immediately came running back. “Zombies!”
I didn’t ask how many. It was obviously too many to fight. Siobhan darted to the right, through an alley that led between two houses. She slowed as she reached the end, not waiting for us, but scanning for more of the undead. She glanced behind as I reached her. I did the same. Lena and Dean were close behind, but both vying to cover our rear.
“You two know the city,” I said. “Take the lead. Get us away from here.”
“The stadium’s that way,” Dean said, pointing back the way we’d come. I could see the zombies now, dozens of them, pushing and shoving at one another as they scrummed their way closer.
“We’re not going to reach it,” Siobhan said. “We need to get away and get inside, somewhere out of sight. We’ll work out where we are later. Hurry. Go.”
The alley led to a small cobbled courtyard, with another alley leading southwest. Dean sprinted down it, Lena close behind, and Siobhan after her. I limped after them, a little more slowly, dragging a pair of foetid bins into the alley’s mouth, hoping that might impede the zombies’ progress.
The alley became a road, and then another as Dean ran ahead, bow drawn, arrow ready except for when he loosed at the undead. I had difficulty keeping them in sight. If he’d not paused to shoot arrows at the living dead, I would have lost them.
Another turning, another dead zombie, and two more staggered out of a broken doorway as I limped past. They lunged, and I skipped sideways, bringing the sword up and around in a poorly aimed slash that cut through the belt of the first and the coat of the second. Momentum had turned me around. I could see more of the creatures following us. I skipped back a step, raising the sword.
“Bill!” Siobhan called. “Come on!”
She was right. There was no time to finish those undead, and no future in fighting the rest. I skipped out of reach of those grasping arms, turned around, and limped away as fast as I could.
Another road, another alley, through a back garden, onto another street, and I was certain Dean was lost. I began scanning the rows of houses, assessing which might be a suitable refuge while we waited for rescue from the ship. Ahead, abruptly, Siobhan stopped. She swung the barrel of her rifle left and right, then towards me. There was a brief, paranoid frisson of terror, then a far more rational flash of fear. I stole a look behind. Five ragged shapes staggered after me, but the road behind them was empty. Arms waving, hands grasping, shoulders shifting with each lurching step, they drew nearer as I slowed my limping lope to a walk. I angled across the road, trying to give Siobhan a clear shot. She raised an arm, waving behind her and to the right. I’d no idea what that meant, but she wasn’t heading for shelter, nor was she heading towards me. I couldn’t see Dean and Lena, so assumed they were safe. Then I rid my mind of thoughts of anything but the undead, the closest now ten paces away.
I raised the sword, gauged the distance, and lunged. The blade slammed into the creature’s already-ruined eye socket, smashing easily through bone. It staggered forward a pace as I drew my arm back, though its hands fell to its side. I swung up, turning the blade so it hacked through the zombie’s chin. Its jaw broke, but it still staggered on. With the downward swing, I slammed the blade into its skull. Finally, it fell, but the other four had drawn closer. I backed up a step, then another, and almost slipped on a moss-covered sheet of metal. I raised the sword high, muttered a silent roar of defiance and fear, and charged. I hacked down, once, twice, splitting a skull, and stepped sideways around the zombie as it fell. I swung low, aiming at the third zombie’s legs, but it toppled forward just as I got within reach. It fell almost in a dive with its arms outstretched. Its hand smashed into the side of my face. I staggered, shaking my head, trying to regain my vision. When I did, I saw the zombie was on the ground, crawling towards me, but then it was overtaken by the last two creatures. I stepped back, my sight still blurred. There was a whistle in the air. An arrow flew close enough that I could almost touch it. Another followed a moment later. Almost before the first had sprouted from one zombie’s eye, the second arrow slammed into the other’s temple. Both creatures fell. There was a rasp from the ground, a meaningless sigh from the fallen zombie. With two hands on the pommel, I rammed the sword down into its brain.
Lena stood where Siobhan had been. She’d lowered her bow. The road we’d come down was empty. We weren’t safe, but there was no more immediate threat. Sword dripping a trail of black-brown gore on the road, I limped up to her.
“Where’s Dean? Where’s Siobhan?” I asked.
“Kallie’s,” Lena said, nodding up the road.
I couldn’t see them, nor any sign as to which of the small houses might have been Kallie’s home. Lena led the way.
It was a mid-terrace, three-up two-down with a proper front garden. Two rose bushes took pride of place, rosehips sprouting from uncut flower heads. Siobhan stood in the doorway, and stepped aside as Lena entered. I followed, and pushed the door to. Bright splinters showed around the freshly broken lock.
“When I said Dean should lead us somewhere,” I said, “I didn’t think he’d bring us here.”
“It’s Dean,” Siobhan said, with a shrug that explained everything.
I could hear him upstairs. He wasn’t being loud; rather, I could tell he was trying to be careful with Kallie’s possessions. Lena went upstairs to assist.
With Siobhan’s help, I moved a lacquered table in front of the door. It would hold it closed, but not against the determined undead should they find us.
“I called the ship on the sat-phone,” Siobhan said. “Told them where we are. I said we’d call again when we leave or in half an hour, whichever came first.”
Increasingly conscious of the trail of mud my boots left on the pale-grey carpet, I followed Siobhan into the front room.
Kallie hadn’t talked much about her home, her family, or her life in Belfast, though she’d talked more than Dean, and far more than Lena. From the cheerful, almost exuberant way she’d reminisced about her childhood, I’d expected a far grander house, not this starter home for a family that had never reached the finish line.
“She’s got no brothers, no sisters?” I asked, as I looked at the photographs on the mantelpiece.
“Only child,” Siobhan said, taking up station by the net curtains.
“I didn’t know,” I said, picking up a photograph of a younger Kallie standing with her parents.
There was a birthday cake on the table, though it wasn’t obvious whose birthday it was. I wondered who’d taken the photograph. I put the picture down. “I didn’t ask. I try not to. Everyone has lost so many, it’s better not to bring up the past.”
“That only leaves the future to discuss,” Siobhan said. “As that’s uncertain, it offers little comfort.”
Above, floorboards creaked.
“Was it a mistake coming here?” I asked.
Siobhan turned around. “What do you mean?”
“Was it a mistake bringing Dean and Lena?”
“This trip was for them, not for Kallie,” Siobhan said. “You’ll note that we didn’t go to where either of them lived. This is their way of going home by proxy. A way of saying goodbye without having to see their parents’ corpses again.”
“I… oh, of course.” And I realised I’d never asked precisely what had happened during their escape from Belfast. Colm had mentioned that they’d gone to his gym because Dean’s brother had worked there in an odd-job sort of way. I’d not considered that his parents, and Lena’s, and Kallie’s for that matter, must have gone with them.
“Kim and I talked about going home,” I said. “Or rather… well, I talked about going back to London. I wanted to see it again, but that’s a bit of a vanity. An indulgence. I’m curious as to what it would look like, but going there would serve no other purpose. I don’t think I was ever attached to the city, it wasn’t a home, not like this.”
“When this is all over, I’m going home,” Siobhan said. “Not to stay. Not forever. For closure. Mark’s dead. Wherever he went after Malin Head, I’ll never find him now. The only way I won’t spend the rest of my life thinking I should look for him is if I remember the bad times.” She turned back to the window. “There were a lot of those with him, but right now, I can just see his smiling face, hear his laugh, smell that weird spice-tea he used to make. I have to remember the past as it actually was, because I’ll never forget it entirely. Yes, the future is a far safer topic to discuss, gloomy though it might be.”
I looked again at the photographs. There was nothing remarkable about them. The same pictures of an apparently happy family could be found in almost every house in every country in the world.
“Yes,” I said, “the future is far less gloomy than the past.”
“Speaking of which,” Siobhan said. “The admiral came to speak to me again.”
“Oh?”
“To me and Colm,” Siobhan said. “She was fishing for information about Ireland. The places we’d been, the places we’d fled. She has plans. Grand plans. Too grand, I think. Too grand for the resources she has available. That worries me.”
I didn’t share what I knew about those plans. I trusted Siobhan, but worried the children might overhear her talking to Colm. If news of the admiral’s intentions became known on Anglesey, our fragile society would collapse before we even held the election.
“Anything specific that worries you?” I asked.
“Just what she’s not telling me,” Siobhan said, “and the general sense that she’d never tell me everything. I think, in part, she wants the children in Elysium because their presence would give her something close to a legitimate claim on Ireland. I’m not sure to whom that claim would be made other than Anglesey, nor how it could be contested except in blood.”
“That won’t happen,” I said.
“Not today, but next year? Next decade? Like I said, the future is full of uncertainty. If I’m right, and we’re to provide legitimacy to a claim on the Irish Republic, that means her interest in Colm, Kallie, Dean, and Lena is to provide the same legitimacy for Northern Ireland. You saw the shovels that those two sailors had. You know what that means?”
“I think so,” I said.
“The admiral’s planning for a world after the undead, while we’re still trying to survive it,” Siobhan said. “Afterwards, Colm and I talked. Now, that’s not strictly true. We sat together thinking because there truly wasn’t much to say. We’re going to stay on the ship. We’ll let the children out on Anglesey. A few days running around on dry ground will be good for them, but when the ship leaves, we’ll go with it. Publicly, we’ll say it’s because we want to stay close to Kallie, not that I think anyone will ask, and it’s not entirely a lie. Kallie will recover more swiftly if she isn’t moved. Between you and me, it’s the children. I don’t know what the future will bring, but if I have to choose a place for them, then I’d rather it was surrounded by soldiers and sailors. I don’t know if we’ll go ashore in Elysium, but though we’ll go ashore in Anglesey, we won’t make our home there. I’m sorry, Bill. It’s not the politics. It’s the murders.”
“The— Oh, you mean the people Paul killed.” I’d almost forgotten about those events of a few weeks previously. There was a creak on the stairs. Lena stood there, and I think she’d been there for a while.
“Have you got everything?” Siobhan asked.
Lena shrugged. “All we need.”
“Then let’s go—” I began. I sighed. “Let’s go back to the ship.”
Chapter 5 - Unpalatable Truths
Kim raised her spoon halfway to her mouth, eyed the contents, and then lowered it back into her bowl.
“Do you think the plane will take off tomorrow?” she asked.
On returning to the ship, I’d learned that Scott Higson and his team had confirmed the plane could fly, and that the wreckage on the airfield could be moved. What was left was to actually do it. The Australian had sounded optimistic, but he always did.
“Hopefully,” I said. “It’ll be nice to see a plane again, don’t you think, Annette?”
“It’d be nice to have proper food again,” Annette said. She didn’t stop eating. That was a sign of the times. Daisy alone looked happy, but that was because she was eating some of the reconstituted military rations. And that was another sign, when ration-packs were considered a luxury reserved for the infirm and the very young.
“Are you sure there’s no more bread?” Annette asked.
“You ate the last of it yesterday,” Sholto said. He seemed to actually be enjoying the thin fish stew. Perhaps he was better at hiding his true feelings about the food as he was about everything else.
“What about the jam?” Annette asked, clearly not willing to give up so easily.
“You can’t eat jam for dinner,” Kim said.
“I can,” Annette said. “You just mean that I shouldn’t.”
Daisy stopped eating, her eyes darted left and right. “Jam?” she burbled.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” Annette said. “There’s no jam.”
Daisy’s face fell as she returned her gaze to her bowl. Now she looked as disheartened as the rest of us.
There were enough military rations for everyone on the ship, but they were being kept in reserve. The fish had been freshly caught that morning, but there wasn’t quite enough. It was being bulked out with the last of the food pellets that Kim and I had found in Belfast Zoo prior to the Amundsen’s arrival.
“What have you been eating on Anglesey while we’ve been away?” Kim asked.
“Bread,” Annette said.
“Bread?” Daisy asked, her eyes lighting up again.
“When we get back,” Annette said. “Remember, Mr Higson’s gone to fly the plane. He can’t bake bread while flying a plane, can he?”
Daisy gave a cautious shake of her head. I don’t think she understood, and wondered if she even remembered what a plane was, but Annette’s tone brooked no disagreement.
“And we’ve been eating fish,” Sholto added. “Lots of fish, with a side of vitamin tablets for the kids.”
“Nothing fresh?” Kim asked.
“A little,” Sholto said. “Under the table, as it were. Lorraine’s been helping with Dr Umbert’s campaign. Heather’s been sending her care-packages from Menai Bridge. Radishes, some lettuce, other greens. They’ve set up some of the terraced houses in the town as indoor farms. What they lack at this time of
year is daylight. They’ve been improvising with some UV lamps, but they weren’t designed for agriculture. Still, it’s better than nothing.”
“Precisely how much better?” Kim asked. “How much have they grown?”
“That’s the sticking point,” Sholto said. “Supplemented by fish and a bit of grain, it’s enough for everyone in Menai Bridge. Without the supplement, they can support half that number. It’ll be more if they can crack the potato problem.”
“That’s only about fifty people, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Fifty?” Annette grinned. “You’re out of touch, Bill.”
“It’s closer to a thousand, now,” Sholto said. “They’ve been recruiting. That’s the good news.”
I actually brightened up at that. It was good news. Enough food for five hundred people, and using a method that could be scaled upward over the winter months. Come spring, we could transfer the plants outside, letting them grow wild, perhaps even on the mainland. After all, if the admiral was planning to grow food in a Belfast park, why couldn’t we do the same in the golf course in Caernarfon? And then I remembered the election. My face fell, my eyes returned to the bowl, and I saw it for what it was: a half-ration of weak gruel bulked out with irreplaceable vitamin-enriched food pellets.
“How much is being grown elsewhere on the island?” Kim asked.
“At the moment, not much,” Sholto said. “It’s the wrong time of year, but there’s the potential for more than our needs. The Parsons have about the same number of people on their farm as there are in Menai Bridge. They’re focusing more on larger scale agriculture, on ploughing and clearing land for a spring planting.”
“The chickens are doing well,” Annette added.
“Keeping them is less efficient than if we were to eat the feed ourselves,” Sholto said. “There’s the possibility of a cull, which would at least give us some meat to eat this Christmas.”
“Things are that bad? What about Willow Farm?” Kim asked.