by Frank Tayell
“That’s it,” I said. “That’s the bungalow we sheltered behind. Agatha was up there.” I pointed up the road, just as a zombie staggered out of the undergrowth. “About where that zombie was. Though that was the last time I saw her. When she first started shooting, she was a little further up the road.”
Kim raised her rifle, tracking the creature as it stumbled towards us. She fired. The retort was muffled, though louder than the sound of the distant zombie collapsing.
“In the annals of crime scene contamination, that’s a new one,” Siobhan said. “You three stay here.”
“Can’t we help?” I asked.
“And risk destroying more evidence? No. Though you can make yourself useful and find another bullet. We’ve the one I extracted from Kallie, but a few more won’t hurt.”
Kim climbed onto the minivan’s roof to stand watch. Colm sat on its bumper, and the car creaked in protest. Kim staggered and almost lost her balance.
“Sorry,” Colm muttered. He laid his axe between his feet, turning and twisting the shaft so the head dug into the soil. I levered the door open, and looked in the footwell for a spent bullet.
“Jack Dempsey lived near here,” Colm said.
“Who was he?” Kim asked.
“No one, really,” Colm said. “An impresario of a sort. Organised fetes and fairs and small-scale concerts. Knew which permits to submit, and which clerks to file them with. I knew him when I was young, when he was just starting out. You know how it is, you keep track of the people you’re at school with. You follow their lives with a mixture of jealousy and pride.”
“I didn’t,” Kim said.
“You’re too young,” Colm said. “If the old world had gone on for a few more years, you might have done. Siobhan and I talked.”
“She mentioned it,” I said. “You’re going to Elysium.”
“We’re not sure about that,” he said, “but we’re not going to settle in Anglesey. It isn’t about what we want. It’s the kids. And it’s the dead. Sister Mary-Theresa and all the others who died to protect the children. That’s our job now. Mine and Siobhan’s, and Dean, Lena, and Kallie’s, as much as protecting those three is our task as well. Six of them, three teenagers, three children. It’s easy to talk about some sense of nationalistic duty to centuries of history and tradition, but that’s only fireside talk to keep us entertained during the dark months ahead. You’re staying in Anglesey?”
“To see the election through,” I said. “It’s unfortunate that it’s played out this way, but I think something can be salvaged from it. Unfortunate, or maybe inevitable, either way, we can’t leave yet.”
“If you leave, wherever we’ve gone, there’ll be a welcome for you,” Colm said. “A—”
There was a metallic clatter from behind the bungalow. Colm stood up, Kim jumped down. Sword raised, I edged towards the side of the wall. Something small and furry darted from behind the house and into the undergrowth on the other side of the road.
“A cat,” I said. “Or maybe a fox.”
“It was too large,” Colm said. “Considering how close the zoo is. I’d say it was something far more exotic.”
There was a whistle from further up the road. Siobhan was heading towards us.
“I got a palm print from the side of a parked car, photographs of some boot prints, and this.” She held up a plastic carrier bag.
“What’s inside?” I asked.
“An empty magazine and a few spent casings. The magazine will give us a print, the casings will match the spent magazine to the gun that fired them. That’s more than enough evidence to convict.”
“Time to go back, then,” I said, looking towards the undergrowth. I hoped, whatever it was, that there was a breeding pair. “Time to go back, and go back to Anglesey. Time to get this election over with.”
“What about the plastic boxes?” Siobhan asked. “Didn’t you want to get some prints from those?”
“Yes, I…” I was about to say that there was no point. That this search for proof was just displacement, a distraction from the far more pressing challenge ahead. But we had come all this way, and the food the previous evening had been particularly revolting.
“Why not,” I said. “We could do with some variety in our diet.”
Chapter 7 - Oncoming Traffic
I took a quick look at the photos of the map I’d taken from Agatha’s corpse, and picked Arthur Road. There were three properties marked with ‘CF’, and a fourth marked ‘PF’. More importantly, it was close to the bombed-out shopping centre in Newtownabbey. We’d travelled close to there just before I’d shot Agatha, and I wanted another look. Though my current obsession was for the election first, food second, we would need other supplies soon enough. Belfast still presented the easiest opportunity to get them. Of course, what was left unsaid was whether those supplies would be for Anglesey, or for Elysium.
Arthur Road crossed the motorway at a bridge, and we were halfway across when there was a strangely alien beeping from Kim’s pack.
“The sat-phone,” Colm said, almost with wonder. Kim took out the phone, and handed it to me.
“Hello?” I asked hesitantly, though I’m not sure why.
“Where are you?” Sholto asked.
“You sound odd on the phone,” I said.
“Bill, where are you?” he repeated, his tone utterly serious.
“On a bridge over the motorway, near Arthur Road,” I said. “We’re—”
“Listen,” he cut in. “There are two fuel tankers heading towards you. They’re driving them back from the airport. They’re using the motorway. Understand?”
I didn’t, not immediately. I looked northwest, up the length of the road. I couldn’t see any vehicles. I could see a few spindly outlines of the undead gathered near a rubbish lorry driven half into the ditch at the motorway’s edge.
“How long?” I asked.
“How long do you have? I don’t know,” Sholto said. “Five minutes. Ten. The undead are following the trucks. Find somewhere to shelter, and call us back.”
“You heard that?” I asked.
“I’ve some questions,” Kim said, “but they can wait. Where can we shelter?”
“How about the first house we come to,” I suggested.
It wasn’t quite that, but five too-long minutes later we were outside a house that offered a clear view of the cemetery and the roads approaching it.
The door was already broken, held closed with a trio of wedges lodged into the jamb.
“Probably Agatha, yes?” Colm said as he worked them free.
“Zombie,” Kim said. “Only one, I think.”
I glanced over my shoulder. It was heading towards us, but was still two hundred yards away. Kim knelt, but waited, holding her fire until Colm had the door open. She fired. The zombie crumpled.
“Only one,” she said again. We went inside, and pushed the door closed.
From the plastic crate on the kitchen table, it looked as if Colm was right. The house had been searched by Agatha, but it wasn’t marked on the map.
“I wonder if Agatha did create this map,” I said. “In fact, I wonder if the map was made before Agatha got to Belfast. Maybe by Locke. Maybe by someone Agatha or Locke killed.”
“The fingerprints will tell us,” Siobhan said, opening her pack. She paused. “I assume we’re staying here for a while?”
“Speaking of which,” Kim said. She took out the sat-phone, then went to stand by the window for a clear signal. I followed, trying not to look at the young couple and infant in the photographs strategically placed so that anyone coming into the house would see them.
“Opposite a cemetery is an odd place for a young couple to pick for their first home,” Kim said as she dialled. “I wonder if it was because it was quieter than most roads. Less noise for the baby. Or was it because it was cheaper. Hello? Sholto?”
I leaned close so that I could hear.
“Are you safe?” Sholto’s first words were to the po
int.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Kim said. “We’re indoors. Can’t see any undead. Not now. What’s going on? What’s wrong with the plane?”
“Nothing,” Sholto said. “The plane’s going to take off in about twenty minutes, give or take. They took two tankers to the airport. Another two are heading to the harbour.”
“Why?” Kim asked.
“The admiral wants the fuel,” Sholto said. “There’s too much for the plane’s tanks, so she’s ordered her Marines to drive half of it straight here.”
“Why?” Kim asked again.
“Yeah, good question,” Sholto said. He sighed. “Look I— hang on. What?” he asked, though he wasn’t talking to us. “Right. Okay. Kim, you there?”
“Still here,” she said.
“I need to reposition the satellites. You said you were on Arthur Road, over the motorway?”
“We’re about three hundred metres northeast of that,” Kim said. “In a house opposite a cemetery.”
“Then sit tight. The tankers will be driving past in about four minutes. Give them another twenty to get to the harbour. We’ll see what the undead are doing, and then we’ll find you a safe route out. I’ve got to go.”
“Huh.” Kim said, as the line went dead. She looked at the phone, then at me. “The admiral didn’t say anything to you about bringing back fuel?” she asked.
“Nope. Then again, I didn’t tell her where we were going,” I said. “I’m not too clear who’s at fault here.”
“Her,” Kim said. “Definitely her.” She peered at the silent road, and then went into the kitchen. “Sholto didn’t have much to say,” she said. “Not more than what he’d already told us. We’re to sit tight and wait.” She summarised the call.
“Why does the admiral want fuel?” Colm asked.
“I guess to fly the plane,” I said. “Or maybe it’s for the helicopter on the Amundsen.”
“We can ask her when we get back,” Siobhan said. “The food’s spoiled,” she added. “Nothing in here we can eat.”
The box contained a few cardboard packets, and a lot of fuzzy green-white mould.
“Looks like that was a chocolate pancake mix,” Colm said. “It’s a shame. The kids would have—”
The phone beeped again. All four of us leaned in to listen.
“The first tanker’s made it through,” Sholto said, his voice loud over a background of raised voices in the ship’s command centre. “It’s nearing the harbour. The other truck acted as a diversion. Major Lewis drove it into a… probably some kind of playing field or park. Can’t really tell. It’s bogged down.”
“Where?” Colm asked.
“Major Lewis isn’t sure. He can see a sign above a shop that reads ‘Bright and Light’.”
“Bright and Light Furnishings,” Colm said. “That’s in the Valley Retail Park. It’s about a kilometre from here.”
“Right,” Sholto said. “At the moment they’re on the roof of the tanker, in a playing field opposite. You’re going to have to sit tight.”
“Hang on,” I said. “The roof of a tanker doesn’t sound safe. How many people?”
“Two,” Sholto said. “The major and Private Kessler.”
“On a metal container filled with flammable fuel?” I asked.
“Valuable fuel, too,” Siobhan said.
I looked at Colm. “Give me that tablet, let me look at those maps. How many zombies are there?” I asked Sholto.
“About fifty at the moment,” he said. “The admiral’s putting a team together now. We’ll be there in half an hour.”
“How many zombies followed that first tanker?” I asked. “Because you’ll have to fight your way through them if you want to travel straight through the city.”
“Don’t do that,” Colm said. “Bring a boat north to Hazelbank Park, where we brought the boat when we first went to the zoo. Tell him to ask Dean where it is.”
“You heard that?” I asked.
“I did. And you?” Sholto asked.
I looked at the other three. Colm nodded. Siobhan shrugged. Kim gave a rueful smile.
“We’re the help that comes to others,” I said.
Chapter 8 - The Help That Comes
Colm took the lead, Siobhan and Kim close on his heels, while I struggled to keep up. Fear returned as they ran and I loped through the empty streets. It was that same fear that had kept me in my London flat for so long, a tight knot of terror about heading into unknown danger. But we are the help that comes to others. The admiral came to our aid, albeit bringing news of new problems, but we couldn’t not help. Whether that is who we are, I believe it is who we must become.
Kim pivoted and spun, raising her rifle, and firing a shot before running onward again. Ten seconds later, I passed the front garden, saw the corpse, but there wasn’t time to stop and see any more.
The street became a crescent, and Colm gestured ahead. We slowed as we approached the alley leading to the back garden. I listened. The birds were absent, but I couldn’t recall if I’d heard or seen any since we’d left Agatha’s corpse. The gate was already broken open, the splinters dull. Cautiously we went through.
“There’s some warehouses,” Colm said, pointing at the fence. “Then it’s the leisure centre. Grass, tennis courts, football pitches, that kind of thing. Then you’ve got the retail park.”
“So, open space?” Kim asked. “Then we should see the truck before the undead see us. Ready?”
I don’t think any of us truly was. The fence broke easily, and we trekked through and out the other side. The silence was getting to me. It was like a slow wave, rising and falling, and filling my ears with nothing. The silence grew in volume until I realised it was sound, the sound of the undead ahead of us. We reached the edge of the leisure centre’s grounds and saw a zombie trudging across the dull-green grass. It didn’t turn around, but it forced us to hurry because where there’s one…
We took cover behind a concrete all-weather shelter at the side of an unmarked pitch.
“Wish I’d brought the rifle with me,” Kim said, lowering the sniper’s scope from her eye. “But I’m glad I brought this. Take a look.”
Around forty of the undead were gathered close to the tanker. Two figures moved back and forth on top of it. I didn’t hear the gunshot, but I saw a zombie fall as one of the figures fired a suppressed round into the mass of the undead. I took out the sat-phone.
“We can see the tanker,” I said when Sholto answered. “Can you connect us to them?”
“I can’t reach them,” he said. “They’re not answering. You can see them?”
“Yeah, they’re there,” I said.
“We’re still fighting the undead in the harbour,” he said. “A boat’s on its way. It’ll get to Hazelbank Park in about fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes to Hazelbank Park? We’ll call you back.”
“It’ll take them another half hour for them to get here,” Colm said.
“Assuming they don’t get lost, or get delayed fighting the undead,” Siobhan said. “I don’t think those two have that long.”
The tanker was shifting, shaking as the undead battered into it. With each second, more zombies arrived, the first of the long tail that had followed the tanker from the airport.
“Can’t shoot them,” Kim said, taking the scope back, and putting it away. “A 5.56 millimetre round will go straight through the undead, and straight into the tanker. The second shot will create a spark, igniting the vapour.”
“How sure are you of that?” Colm asked.
She shrugged. “Sure enough that I won’t risk it.”
“I think they’re out of ammo,” Siobhan said. “We’re running out of time.”
Kim sighed. She began unscrewing the silencer from her rifle. “We should have planned for this,” she said. “We should have had a strategy. Some… I don’t know, some flash-bangs or something. As it is, we’ve got the rifles. Siobhan, take the silencer off. We’re going to be the prey. We’ll
lure the undead away from the truck, or at least stop more from coming. Bill, Colm, you go in, get the Marines out, lead them away. When you’re a safe distance, fire a shot from your pistol.”
My hand went to the belt where the sidearm was holstered, and often forgotten. “And you?” I asked.
Kim eyed the expanse of the leisure centre. “It’s a large building. There’ll be plenty of exits. Worst case, I’ll fire a few rounds into that tanker. If I can get it to explode, that should be loud enough to distract all the undead in this entire county. Unless you’ve got a better idea, we’ve no time for arguments.”
“Good luck,” I said.
“Same to you both,” she said. “Siobhan?”
Together, they jogged towards the leisure centre.
“Well, this isn’t quite how I thought I’d be saying goodbye to the city,” Colm said, flexing his wrists. “How long do we give them?”
“Until we hear the first shot,” I said. “Then I guess we start walking.”
Colm’s lips moved, as if he was trying to find something to say. Finally, they curled in a smile of regretful resignation. “What an odd life this city has led.”
A minute quickly passed. Then two. Then five. Then came the shot, loud and clear, echoing across the park. A second followed soon after. I didn’t see where the bullets hit, nor could I tell if Kim and Siobhan were even aiming at the zombies, but I saw some undead heads turn while other lurching creatures abruptly stopped.
“I think that’s our cue,” Colm said, and we started walking towards the tanker.
For the first few feet, I waved the sword above my head. My arm was already growing tired from having carried it for so long, so I let it fall to my side. The Marines would know we were alive soon enough.
“I’m trying to think how many times I’ve done this,” I said. “Kim’s right, we need a better way. Better tactics.”
“We need for people not to try driving trucks through unfamiliar cities,” Colm said.
As we drew nearer to the tanker, more of the undead that had followed the vehicle became visible. It wasn’t a horde, but more like a series of long, thin lines that, as the firing continued, slowly changed direction, heading towards the leisure centre. So were some of the creatures near the tanker, but not all of them. I could see the undead coming from the direction of the retail park, and along the road to the west. In five minutes, maybe less, there would be a hundred undead surrounding the vehicle. More immediately, two zombies that had been staggering towards the truck turned towards the shots and saw us.