‘Something called the zombies down on you?’ he asked.
‘I’m sorry?’
Lydia set a tray of mugs down on the table. ‘Zombies, de ones out there, them hollow men.’ She added, leaving again to fetch another tray with a steaming pot and all the tea-making gear.
People began helping themselves to tea, Claire and I sharing the briefest look of sadness as no coffee was offered. We made do.
‘Zombies, eh? As good a name for the infected as groaners.’ Mrs Lowe said.
‘Aye, you say infected. But to me, they look like old monsters me mother used to tell me about.’ Rob said, ‘Nightmares out there, walking around. Lot easier to kill in real life than in those stories. Didn’t have to stake anyone to their coffins, or stuff their mouths with herbs.’
‘You’ve fought them?’ Hale asked.
Rob nodded.
‘Overbridge isn’t so far away. Things were bad there, I think. Saw one this morning, in one of me pastures. Scared the sheep, but they just kept running whenever it got close. Spooked the goat too, and he’s had a run at me, couple times. Tried talking to it, but there’s no talking to a zombie. I stabbed it with a pitchfork, right through the heart. But, didn’t do a thing, not like it did in the stories. So me boy put a pickaxe in its head. Now, that worked.’ He added, with a proud little nod.
‘How much are you aware of, with regards to the infection?’ Captain Hale asked.
‘What was on TV. One of the channels made an unusual little broadcast before they went off air. You get bit, you zombie. Blood in your mouth, you zombie. Nobody on TV said anything about the running ones though, or the duppy.’
‘What’s a duppy?’ Hale asked.
‘In the stories they’re just bad spirits, pure evil. Don’t know if you had any tied down at the hospital. They’re the ones who think. The ones who aren’t as hollow as the rest.’
‘We’ve had reports of such things...’ Sgt Bailey said, glancing briefly in my direction, her lips tight.
‘We’ve been calling the thinking ones ghouls.’ Claire added.
‘That be them. ’ Mr Grant nodded, snapping his fingers. ‘And a better name for them than duppy. One of me guests came from his house outside Overbridge, says he seen one zombie, walking around more like a person? Then it saw him, smiled something wicked, an screamed loud enough to rouse the rest of the dead. I thought maybe he was seeing things, crazy...’
‘Don’t write your man off just yet,’ I said, hesitant to throw my hat in the ring for a craziness nomination. ‘We’ve seen ghouls do a lot of crap the zombies can’t. They’re smarter…and I think I’ve seen that smile too. When it screamed, it knew it’d bring them down on us. Fucker was smug.’
I wondered if the “screamer” aberration I’d tested in Dr Lines’ ward was related to the ghoul. I hadn’t seen a trace of intelligence behind its eyes yesterday, but they both loved their loud noises, and Yanis figured the screamer’s function was to direct the others.
‘They bad news then.’ Rob said, nodding along. ‘But enough guessing. You no rides, all on foot, an tired. How many of you are there?’
‘Fourteen soldiers from SySec, eight GFPD officers, ten medical staff from the hospital, eleven patients but no serious conditions. We picked up about twenty folk on the road as well, just started following us and we couldn’t turn them away. Fortunately a militia group joined as well, there’s another dozen of them.’
‘That’d be us.’ Mrs Lowe said, putting her hand up.
Rob had been keeping count in his head. ‘About sixty out there then, and only half of you fighters?’
Hale hesitated to answer.
‘I not asking so I can ambush you. Should be me being afraid, having all these guns in my house.’
‘Is there a reason the police would make you afraid, Mr Grant?’ Emile asked. ‘Hidden cameras on your driveway…who is it you are watching for?’
‘Please, Rob,’ the man said, giving a big genuine smile, ‘Some of those cameras are part of a wildlife monitoring scheme. Also had a problem with off-road bikes a while back, kids from the villages around here. Let me assure you officer, there’s nothing here you need to worry about. Not compared to what’s out there.’
Emile sat back in his chair and folded his arms, giving Rob a stern, searching look. ‘I have no warrant, Rob. But if you have something here that is…dangerous, we must know about it so we can avoid it. There are children out there.’
‘Do I have your word? That I am in no trouble?’ Rob leaned forward again, doubly serious, elbows on the table.
‘I promise.’ Emile said, sitting forward slightly in his chair. ‘So long as the world-ending plague of walking corpses and undead nightmares is in effect, I will file no reports.’
Rob nodded, mulling it over, then cracked a grin again. ‘Alright. I brew booze. No licence. I sometimes sell to friends, and guests. Not commercial though, seen? But if you see the still, you’d think I sell to a wider market. I make a lot of it, yeah?’
‘Damn. I was hoping you were an illegal weapon smuggler. We could have done with a resupply.’ Emile tutted, ‘You let me down hermano.’
‘My apologies.’ Rob said, hands palm-up in surrender. ‘I’m not lying about the birdwatching or the bikes either. Kids drive in through me side gates and scare me horses. Tried calling for the law, but by the time you get here they already gone, all I can do is pass on footage.’
‘I have to know,’ Emile said, hand waving the hooligan kids, ‘Is it just you have no distillery brewing licence, or is it a counterfeit product?’
Rob seemed to bristle slightly at that, his shoulders hunching a little as he leaned back again. ‘Just no license. But I figure, I not selling it to the supermarket, everyone who buys it knows me, knows the only white spirit is the end product, not an ingredient. I drink it too.’ He added with a little shrug and a roguish smile.
‘Glad we could be honest. Don’t worry. It is more a grey area in that case…’ Emile said, raising an eyebrow. ‘You know I will have to try a sip with you later, make sure it is safe – you understand?’ he added with a winsome smile of his own.
‘Police in Voison, police in Islands, police from Rojas. You all the same.’ Rob laughed. ‘The homebrew, that’s just part of me business. Everything else, on the level, no grey areas. I have guestrooms upstairs, guesthouses out in me lanes, a camping field every year, little folk music festival, an the equestrian stabling. Only dangers you find on me farm are from farm equipment, or moody horses.’
‘I have no problem with your moonshine,’ Captain Hale shook his head, casting a glance at Emile. ‘Even if I did, it’s not our place to do anything about it, nor is it really the time.’
Emile tilted his head in apology.
‘I’m going to be upset if I’m not invited to the bar, Mr Rob.’ Mrs Lowe said, moving her fingers from pointing at her eyes, to Rob. ‘I was stationed on the Isles for a while, back in the war and my younger years. Hope you’re following your granny’s recipe.’
The outdoor leisure businessman and part-time liquor baron smiled again. ‘I’ll let you know when the bottle’s open.’
He sipped his tea before picking back up where we left off. ‘Now, Captain. Half you are fighters, yeah? An half are tag-alongs?’
‘That’s the sum of it.’ Hale nodded, glad to be back on track. You’d think he had places to be.
‘Where you going?’ he asked. ‘And how you getting there on foot?’
‘Sydow, planning to anyway. It’s the “on foot” part we were hoping you’d be able to help with. You say Overbridge is bad? Then we might be able to take some vehicles from there that nobody will miss. I want to get everyone to Sydow alive, and I’ll need those vehicles to do it. But it’d be a lot safer if I could borrow some of your cars to drive to Overbridge in. I expect the town will be swarming with the dead.’
‘Aye, aye. But what if you don’t come back? I’m down some cars, an they’re not mine to lend. Not most of them. I just got me truck, less you can tal
k Lydia into borrowing her keys or feel like riding there in a tractor.’
‘I swear to you, we wouldn’t run off with them, and I’d leave men behind here, so you know I’d come back.’ Hale added, the beginnings of a negotiation.
‘Nah, nah, not what I’m saying. I can see you’re trustworthy, bossman. Got four ladies in your ear, an ladies know if you’re no good.’ He added with a wink at Sergeant Bailey, who with Rob’s greying hairs I assumed to be half his age. ‘I trust you come back with the cars if you could. I just asking…could you? It’ll be a dangerous little run.’
‘I’d go in with a plan, and weapons for if that plan doesn’t work. I don’t know Overbridge well though. Any advice you could give, it’d be greatly appreciated.’
‘I got your back brother.’ Rob nodded. ‘But this a favour. You good to do me one back?’
‘Name it.’ Hale nodded.
‘Good, good. We’re staying put, see? Me and mine. I can extend this invitation to you too, if any want it – still got the last crop to harvest, still got some not taken to market, so feeding you won’t be a problem. But this place…’ he sucked his teeth and shook his head, ‘It not strong on all sides, and I figure that zombie I seen this morning is gonna be the first of many, these next few weeks.
‘My front gate is fine, maybe not hold back a hundred, but it’s strong. Side gates though, forget about it. Told you about them kids on the bikes. Other places too. Gaps in hedges, fences I never got round to fixing. I need to get ready, dig in, in case your ghouls bring the zombies this way.’
‘You just want help fortifying your position here?’ Captain Hale clarified, a slow smile beginning to spread across his face. ‘Mr Grant – Rob – I think we can be of great help to each other.’
Rob tilted his head back like a man having his prayers answered. ‘Then let’s get to work! We can fortify for tonight, then in the morning, you can set off for Overbridge.’
‘Actually, I was hoping to take a team to Overbridge as soon as possible. Night, if we have to. Cover of darkness might make it easier to sneak by the…zombies.’ Hale faltered, trying the word out for himself.
For me, it came off the tongue better than “the infected”, and put some distance between the sick people they once were, and the shells they’d become. I liked Lydia’s “hollow men” too, but it was a bit too poetic to throw out in conversation.
‘You’re sure?’ Rob asked, eyes wide open. ‘I wouldn’t want to be out after dark, fighting the dead.’
‘I don’t plan on fighting them. I just want to be back home in Sydow as soon as possible, get these people where I promised I would.’
‘If that’s what you want, then aye, done.’ He clapped his hands. ‘But, let’s get to work first. When we underway, I’ll have a talk with all me people, an get you those car keys.’
Twenty Five
Dave had said that Sydow Security were the fortification specialists back in The War. You found that with the mercenary companies. They each had their little areas of expertise. Unfortunately for us, SySec weren’t the tanks and trucks guys. They didn’t have the vehicles that could carry us to Sydow. But our loss was to be Rob Grant’s gain.
Captain Hale delegated the side gates to Sergeant Bailey, while he and Rob went for a ride around the acreage, taking with him a notepad and a tape measure. Hale might not have had a great many tools to work with – they were probably on that truck he sent to Sydow on the side roads – but Grant Farm, alongside its diverse portfolio of interests, was still a working farm. Tools were aplenty.
The bedrooms in the main house were taken up by Rob’s family and guests, who seemed to fall into two categories; seasonal farmhands lodging for work, and refugees, like us. They weren’t as bedraggled, not having travelled so far, or been dragged out of bed to the sounds of gunfire that morning.
They probably knew Rob from the farmer’s market and had driven from Overbridge. I could only guess at what made them leave in the end, but if they were covering up zombie attacks three or four days ago, things would be pretty grim now.
On the way out of Rob’s kitchen, having put my mug in the sink, I glimpsed a few black and white photos hanging on the wall – taken not long after the war. There’d been a lot of jobs to fill in the aftermath, and it looked like Rob’s parents had answered the Republic’s call for immigration.
Above the post-war photos, in a silver frame, was another picture. A slightly younger Rob in a crisp white suit stood beneath an ivy archway with another Islander woman in a peach dress.
I twisted my ring idly on my finger as I headed for the door, following behind everyone else. Rob’s wife hadn’t been with him to greet us. Was she here, somewhere? And if she was…what state would she be in?
Nah. Paranoia. If she was here somewhere he’d have given us some kind of warning – “Don’t go in that securely chained barn. Why? Oh, no reason.”
More likely, since Rob still wore a gold wedding band, she’d died before all this started, and he’d been left to raise a kid and run a farm on his own. No wonder his shoulders were so broad.
He’d given us a mostly-empty barn in the courtyard through the side gates. It was a sturdy old building, more of the brick and beam walls but with wooden floors. The back of the barn was piled high with hay bales, taking up maybe a third of the space – but it was still plenty of room for everyone.
Like the rest of the working parts of the farmstead, it smelled vaguely of livestock and manure. It was an honest smell, if not exactly pleasant, but with a roof over our heads tonight, it’d be hard to complain about.
Lydia, Rob’s niece, came out with blankets and sleeping bags, handy spares or just temporarily pilfered from the campsite’s lost & found. The place seemed to be doing so well for itself, with all the different revenue streams coming in. That or Rob needed it all to tick by, but the kitchen refurb said otherwise. Either way, Rob must have been quite the businessman.
Between the bags and blankets, over half of us would have something to sleep on tonight. A surprising number of the civilians proved the worth of carrying their luggage by sharing out clothes for the few patients who’d been dragged out of bed in their gowns.
They also provided coats and sweaters to stave off the chill, and rolled up jeans folks could use as pillows. Nobody was going to risk a splinter by sleeping on bare boards, at least not without something under their head and a fleece to wrap up in. It actually made me smile, seeing people coming together like that, even after everything they’d been through today.
While the parents looking after kids settled in, the others were determined not to let Rob Grant’s kindness pass without notice. Though SySec were making the calls on where to erect the defences, they had a couple dozen labourers ready to pitch in with the lifting, carrying and digging.
For the next few hours, the sounds of sawing wood, whirring drills, hammering metal and scraping earth filled the air. People were bustling left and right, carrying timbers and tools, and I felt something of a spare part in it all.
If anyone had wanted to perform basic engine repair I might have been able to lend a hand, but DIY was not my speciality. I tried to stay out of the way, but kept my medical bag to hand in case someone slipped up sawed their finger off.
The farmhouse courtyard was already pretty secure, with that medieval ironbound gate, but it was a simple matter for Sydow to further reinforce it with an even more medieval looking pair of bars that could be dropped across the width, and a set of removable braces that matched up to carefully measured holes dug in the driveway. It looked like overkill to me, probably solid enough to withstand a collision with anything short of an eighteen-wheel truck.
The side gates got a makeover in the form of some fashionable, timber cladding, cut, drilled and tailored like a bespoke suit. With a set of hooks to go over the ladder-like bars of the gate, it turned the whole affair into a wooden wall, taller than the original gate and impossible to climb from the outside, as well as being easy to take off when the ga
te needed using, and put back on afterwards. While they were at it, the gates got a pair of braces too.
Just so nothing could squeeze through the gap between the new gate and the hedgerow, they’d dug a post-hole and filled it, unsurprisingly, with a thick wooden post. Grant Farm’s extensive tool selection stretched to a cement mixer wheeled over from the guesthouse construction site, and the post was deemed secure in its three feet of foundation. To further plug the gap, they thrust boards deep into the hedgerow, and nailed them to the post to keep them anchored.
From the road, the side gate was now a flush wooden wall, and like the front gate, it’d take considerable force to get through. Any hypothetical zombie hordes probably had a better chance trying to climb over the tall, broad tangle of hedge and brambles than taking the gates head on.
The third approach into the two connected courtyards led into the fields, the cluster of buildings that formed the guesthouses were out that way, which I’d briefly glimpsed from atop the walking stile earlier. I’d vacationed at places like them before, old agricultural structures converted into holiday cottages. I bet if he asked them nicely, SySec would help Rob plumb the bathrooms in if we stuck around.
The fields and pastures were all separated from each other by a network of hedges and narrow lanes, each with their own gates wide enough for ploughs or tractors, or whatever else Rob and his farmhands had to drive in the course of their labours. I wonder if his kid knew how to drive a tractor? I’d have loved that, growing up.
I’d seen who I took to be Rob’s son in the lineup when we first entered, the young boy with a mop of dreads. He must have been sixteen, seventeen? About Morgan’s age. She might have just been Kelly’s neighbour, but I now realised she’d become a closer friend over the last couple years than I thought.
Morgan had a sharp mind, and was light on her feet when it came to hoofing it downfield when we played hockey together. I hoped she wouldn’t need those quick feet to run away from zombies, safe up in the tower block with Kelly. What world would these kids have to grow up in, if Greenfield was gone?
The Suburban Dead (Book 2): Emergency Page 22