by Frank Tayell
“It’s okay, Nilda. Kevin and I have this.”
“You sure?”
Aisha nodded. Kevin, slightly more reluctantly, did the same.
As the children were herded below, Nilda caught the first handful of questions about what had just happened, and was grateful she wasn’t the one having to field them.
Tuck stepped into the searchlights’ glare. “Two girls, the same age, the same name, at boarding schools in the same county of England,” she signed. “A coincidence? A bitter twist.”
“Yes,” Nilda said. “Yes. Yes, it is. It’s bitter and cruel. I hope the Duponts will be okay.”
“And Leon,” Tuck signed. “He came looking for her, too.”
“He did, didn’t he? Then you’d better take over here. Can you reorganise who is on which boat? We’ll leave the children where they are until dawn, but move the adults now. Count the supplies, the ammo, see what we’ve got and spread them out. I’m going up to that house. I want to find out precisely where we are before we start planning how we’ll collect the fuel tomorrow.”
Chapter 7 - Life’s Cruel Reality
The Isle of Sheppey
The building beyond the trellis was a one-storey prefab masquerading as a bungalow. A one-brick-deep wall had been laid around the property as camouflage, but it couldn’t conceal the painted wood and aluminium of the original house. The mortar, like the bricks, was cheap and crumbling. Within a year, it would collapse, and it was fifty-fifty whether the wall would fall inwards, bringing down the entire home.
Three wide windows faced the water. Two were intact, but the third had been smashed by a dead branch that lay precariously balanced on the shattered frame. With no tree nearby, the branch must have been hurled there by some recent storm. That storm wasn’t responsible for breaking the front door, though.
Nilda shone her light on the fractured lock, then the door’s frame. The splinters were dark, flecked with mud, as was the door, but she could see the marks the crowbar had left beneath. Cautiously, she pulled the door open. Inside, the carpet was flecked with moss, the pink wallpaper pitted with grey mould.
“I’ll go first,” Jennings said.
“No, there’s not enough room,” she said. “I’ll go in alone. Watch the sides. Watch our retreat.” She didn’t whisper, but nor did she shout. There was no need. Any zombies that hadn’t heard the sound of their arrival would surely have heard them tear down the trellis that had blocked the river-facing steps.
She shone her light along the hallway. The beam didn’t have far to stretch. The house wasn’t deep, but placed face-on to the water so as to maximise the number of windows with a view.
An open door to her right led to a musty toilet and shower room. A door to the left was closed. When she pushed, it stuck halfway. She eased into the room, shining the torch back and forth until she was sure it was empty of the undead.
It was a bedroom, permeated with the smell of damp underlain with rot. The cupboards were open, filled with more empty hangers than hanging garments, but there might be something they could salvage. Mouldy clothes weren’t as good as dry, but they were infinitely better than sea-drenched and sweat-ridden gear.
Beyond that room, the corridor made a right turn, running along the middle of the house. Almost opposite the bedroom door, concealed by a folding-curtain, was a narrow kitchen that took up half the length of the inland-side of the bungalow. Again, the cupboard doors were all open. Beyond a door-less arch at the kitchen’s far end, her light reflected off a TV in a living room that took up the remaining half of that side of the property.
She stepped back into the corridor. There were two rooms left to check, both of which faced the waterfront. The first was smaller than the bedroom, and contained an easel with a half-finished seascape on the frame. Under the window was a black case, larger than a toolbox, smaller than a suitcase. She took a step towards it, and then her light went out.
She swore, slapped the torch against her thigh, then turned, hitting the light against the wall. The beam came back on, and shone straight into a decaying face.
Missing its jawbone from the bottom of its face, most of the skin from both cheeks, a mewling grunt whispered from its ruined skull as it lurched towards her. With no room to swing, she lashed out with her foot. Her boot hit its knee, which crumpled with a dry pop. The zombie toppled even as it clawed an arm towards her. She stepped back as she batted that arm away, raising her sword just as a light shone through the window from outside.
As the creature thrashed, it became tangled in what had once been a painter’s smock. The hooped earring on its one remaining ear tore loose and bounced into the darkness. The wood-effect plastic clogs fell from its feet as it kicked and bucked, rolled and scrambled, trying to simultaneously attack and stand. Nilda stabbed her sword down, piercing the skin beneath its ear. The blade snagged against bone, slicing downward into its neck, severing its tattered vocal cords, releasing a last, whispered gasping wheeze. She drew the sword back, and stabbed again.
The light moved away from the window, reappearing a few seconds later in the hallway, accompanied by the sound of Jennings’ heavy boots thumping along the corridor.
“Told you I should have gone first,” he said from the doorway.
“Then, first, you can check that room next door,” she said. “Quick now, we’re wasting time.”
Nilda opened the last of the kitchen drawers, and found it full of utensils. “Three ladles?” she muttered as she rummaged at the back. “Who needs three ladles?”
There were no batteries, no matches, nothing of any real use. Footsteps squelched across the carpet outside. She spun around, reaching for the sword she’d laid on the table, her hand curling around the grip even as she saw the light. She relaxed, and relaxed further when the figure spoke.
“I thought I’d lend a hand,” George said.
“Your timing is perfect,” Nilda said. “Because I think we’re done.”
“There’s nothing more to salvage?”
“Not really,” she said, playing her light across the narrow room. “Some furniture we could burn, but we’ll be warmer aboard the boats, and I don’t think we should risk an open fire on deck. We could take the chairs down to the jetty to sit on, but I don’t think the sentries should get too comfortable. Some mugs and plates, and a few knives and forks, but they need to be boiled before use, which defeats the purpose of taking them as replacements. I found a plastic box that had sheets and pillowcases, and a drawer with a few t-shirts, but most of the clothing has been taken. No, we won’t find anything more here. How’s everyone taking the news about Simone?”
“With sadness for the most part,” George said. “It’s brought back memories for everyone about the people they’ve lost. I don’t think those children of yours really had an opportunity to grieve before now. I’d say this is as good a time as any, though it’ll make the next few days a fraught affair.”
“They were going to be that already,” Nilda said. “What about the Duponts?”
“Quiet,” he said. “They lost their granddaughter for a second time. They’ll recover, though. They’ve been through this before. I think they went through something similar before the outbreak. It is a sad turn, and it’s a wound that time won’t heal, but I don’t think it’ll fester.”
“And Leon?”
“Aged a year in a minute,” George said. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Nilda picked up her sword. There didn’t seem anything more to say. “There’s a half-finished painting in that room over there. I think that woman, that zombie, I killed was trying to finish it before she… turned. I don’t think she owned the house, though. Must have been someone who got this far and decided she’d come far enough. What I can’t figure out is if she came from Kent, or from the sea.”
“Do you think that’s important?” George asked.
“Maybe not,” Nilda said. She pointed at a faded letter she’d found in a drawer. “There’s a Sheerness postcode on the elect
ricity bill. We can’t be more than a mile or two from the port. How long until dawn?”
“I’d say it’s another hour until midnight, so another six or so until it’s light enough to see.”
“I’ll check with Tuck how many torches we’ve brought, but I suppose we’ve no choice but to wait until dawn before we head to the port. What about the undead, in the water, I mean?”
“Dragged down by the tide? None that anyone’s noticed. I think Canary Wharf and the Greenwich Peninsula are acting as breakwaters against which they’ll be dashed, though I wouldn’t put money on that, either.”
“I—” she began and stopped. “I was going to say that time will tell, but it won’t. We won’t be here long enough to find out.” She moved to the door.
“Hang on,” George said, finally getting to the real reason he’d come up to the bungalow. “We had a call.”
“Is it good news or bad?” she asked.
“It isn’t bad news,” George said. “Not really good, either. The New World has lost sight of Ireland. It’s heading southwest to avoid the radiation off Cornwall, but will then head northeast, aiming for the cliffs of Dover as a marker before heading for Calais. They’ve slowed now that night’s come, but they’ll pick up speed at dawn, and that’ll give us an indication of when they’ll reach France, but it won’t be much behind us.”
“Hmm. No, that isn’t good news or bad. What about the admiral?”
“Still in Dundalk, and she’s doing a bit of re-organising of her own. She’ll stay there for as long as she can. Hopefully until after The New World has reached Calais.”
“And then?”
“It depends on how many ships can be repaired, how long that’ll take, and what number of passengers they can carry,” George said. “And there’s the question of whether Dundalk or Elysium have to be abandoned in the meantime. Either they’ll move everyone from Dundalk to Elysium, or Elysium to Dundalk, or everyone to the islands off Connemara. It’s a deliberately vague plan, one that implies options and opportunities when, really, they are at the mercy of events beyond anyone’s control.”
“And if we can’t salvage ships from Calais?” Nilda asked.
“I don’t know, and I didn’t ask,” George said. “There are too many people listening in at both ends. After all that’s happened, we’ve got to remain outwardly optimistic even when pessimism is bubbling out our ears. Ah, listen to me. I’m turning into a parody of the grumpy old man. It’s the cold, seeping into my bones. The admiral has a handle on things in Dundalk. Considering how she came to leave Belfast, all is still relatively calm. And the horde in London notwithstanding, there is a chance the dead zombies in that hospital mean time is finally on our side. However, that does present an issue. The admiral might need transportation in order to evacuate Dundalk. It might be, even if the ships are wrecks but Calais is liveable, we have to send The New World back to Ireland.”
“After unloading the people aboard?” Nilda asked. “And because we think the zombies are dying, we have to focus only on the immediate dangers, and the admiral’s are greater than ours. We’d be trapped in Calais, with our yachts and nothing else. And once the admiral had The New World, what if she simply takes it across the Atlantic?”
“That’s a worry, yes,” George said. “All I’ve found to cheer myself is that the ships in Calais are still afloat. Most of them. We’d be safer aboard than on dry land.”
“So, Calais or bust,” Nilda said. “And if Calais is a bust, we’re all in big trouble.”
“That’s the way it’s looking,” George said.
Day 258
26th November
Chapter 8 - Please Turn Out the Lights
The Isle of Sheppey
Nilda slept little. From the whispered conversations below, and carrying across from the other yachts, few were managing to sleep. It was cold, it was damp, and it was still cramped, even with the adults distributed between the five yachts, and with others guarding the jetty. She’d turned down a bunk herself, opting for the relatively more uncomfortable bench-seat in the cockpit. Each time she heard a sound on shore, her eyes sprang open. The suppressed shots were inaudible over the sloshing waves and creaking rigging, but the rustling thumps as the dead zombies fell to the leaf-littered ground were all too recognisable.
When the cockpit’s clock clicked over to four, she finally gave up, got out, and went ashore, sending Leon back to the boat to get some sleep. She wondered whether he would.
She motioned for Tuck to step back a pace, and into the light from the searchlight. “How is he?” she signed.
“Doesn’t talk much,” Tuck signed, and gave a smile that her scars and the shadows made look more sinister than the soldier intended. “Give him time.”
A creak came from inland, followed by a caw from the boat.
“Just the weather,” Nilda said quickly. When no more sounds came from inland, she took that as confirmation her guess was correct. Tuck gave a placid shrug.
A heavy footstep crunched ahead of her, but she’d not brought her submachine gun to bear before Jennings spoke.
“Friendly,” he said. “Sounds like the birds are awake. Dawn can’t be far off.”
Nilda scanned the sky. A vague sliver of gold lay behind the clouds. “It’ll be light by the time we get to the port,” she said. “There’s no point putting it off.”
Tuck tapped her arm, then stepped sideways back into the light. “In three hours, the tide will be in our favour. If we want to make use of it, that’s when we should leave.”
“Three hours to get to the port and back? That should be long enough.”
Leon seemed happy to take the lead, and Nilda was happy to let him. The colonel had volunteered Camille, and two of his Special Forces soldiers, Hugo and Gabriel, for the expedition. Leaving Tuck in charge of the boats’ defence, she’d added Norm, Viola, Kevin, and Jay. Soldier and civilian; Leon was right, what was the difference? Dressed in second-hand clothes now drenched with river spray, carrying submachine gun or suppressed rifle, they all looked alike. The only real difference between the groups was in the edged weapons. Where Leon’s people carried Anglesey-made machetes and modern bayonets, hers carried ancient spears, swords, and axes brought from the Tower.
She worried she was taking too many people, leaving the quay insufficiently defended. She also worried she wasn’t taking enough to get the job done quickly. More than both of those, she worried about Leon. The colonel had said barely a dozen words that morning, and had seemed almost indifferent to the expedition. He was dwelling on the fate of Simone, his Simone, a girl who must have died in some boarding school, evacuation route, muster point, or enclave not that far from Sheppey. Other than watching and worrying, there was little she could do, and since she had so much else to worry over, it was best to do nothing.
Torchlight cast a glittering arc on the frost-covered grass. Icy rivulets snaked across the over-full ditch at the side of the road. Even a lightning-struck tree had icicles forming on its one remaining branch.
“I wonder if there’ll be snow,” Jay said.
“Soon enough,” Nilda said. “They had it in Dundalk.”
“Yeah, I’m kind of jealous. I always liked snow.”
“You did not,” she said. “Not when we were in Penrith. You never went outside after a snowfall.”
“Doesn’t mean I didn’t like snow. I just didn’t like being outside in it. Oh,” he added, realising what he’d just said.
“Exactly,” Nilda said, adding hypothermia to the long list of ways humanity might be wiped out before spring.
“At least dawn’s properly on its way,” Jay said. “I can see the—”
“Shh!” Leon hissed.
Jay shrugged. Jennings turned around, giving an enlisted man’s grin. In return, Jay signed, one-handed, a word Nilda pretended she didn’t know. But it was bright enough to see his hand move. A thin glow marked the edges of distant clouds on the equally distant horizon. Another half hour, and they wouldn’t
need the torches. Almost as if it could read her thoughts, her light flickered.
Leon abruptly paused, fired, then fired again. Nilda raised her own gun, shining the torch into the darkness, but Leon had already moved on. Fifteen paces later, when she reached the point where Leon had stopped, she paused herself. Shining her light onto the ice-covered grass, she settled the beam on the pair of corpses, oozing black pus over the frosty ground.
“What is it?” Jay whispered. “Are you looking to see if their blood melts the ice? I think it is. Wait, is it?”
“I hadn’t even wondered that,” Nilda said. “No, I was thinking that there are undead here in Sheppey.”
“Well, of course there are,” Jay said. “We know that from last night. It’s because of the explosion when we destroyed the bridge,” he added.
“I was thinking more of what they found in the hospital in Dundalk,” Nilda said. “Perhaps only the zombies in Ireland are dying.”
“Well that doesn’t make sense at all,” Jay said. “I mean, we’ve seen some who are dead or dying ourselves. So we don’t know how long it will take for them all to die, but we’ve been saying that for weeks. For months. Since it all began.”
“Right. Yes. Of course,” she said. “Come on, we’re falling behind.”
Jay was right, they had been asking themselves that question for months, and knew there would be no real answer for months more, perhaps years. In many ways, that question was a mask for her real fear, of what would happen if they reached Calais and found the ships couldn’t be repaired. The New World would return to Ireland, to rescue a besieged admiral, leaving them stranded in that harbour. Rather than having left the Tower to voyage to a new, safer, better refuge, their nightmare might only be beginning.