by Frank Tayell
The snap of a breaking branch brought him back to the present. He peered around, listening, but no more sounds came.
“Find that cord,” he muttered.
When he returned to the bridge, Chester was by the ATV, a dead zombie at his feet. There was no sign of Locke. By the time he’d clambered down to the railway, there was still no sign of her, but nor were there any more zombies.
“Strange,” he murmured. “The undead should have caught up with us by now.”
“Like I tell Jay often enough, never look a gift horse in the mouth, unless you mind getting your nose bitten off,” Chester said. “Pass us that cord. Ta. Not sure whether that applies to a gift pony.” He clambered up to the turret to secure the bottom of the ladder. A sudden cold wind surged across the tracks, sweeping a wave of recently fallen leaves from the verge to join the sodden mess rotting between the rails. “Can you give us a hand? Damn thing won’t stay still.”
A fumbling, finger-freezing ten minutes later, they had the bottom of the ladder tied to the machine-gun mount.
“The ladder’s a foot too short,” Chester said. “Or the bridge is a foot too tall. Still, the ladder won’t bang during the night.” He gave it a shove. “Seems secure enough. It’ll work in a pinch, and that’s the only time we’ll need it.”
“Still no sign of Sorcha,” Bill said. “And her bag’s still in the back so she’s not returned. She was going to check both sides of the road, and if she was checking the western side, she might be back at the house. We’ll check there before we look for her.”
She wasn’t at the house.
Bill stood in the door of the garage, looking at the skyline. “We have to get ourselves some short-wave radios. Well, nothing for it. We better search.”
“Help me start a fire first,” Chester said, gathering wood from the pile in the corner. “That way she’ll know we’ve been here, and that we’re coming back. The last thing we want is to spend the night outside, following each other in circles.”
It only took a moment to set a blaze in a metal bucket.
“I’m having second thoughts about this,” Chester said. “And third thoughts about leaving a fire unattended. There’s so much dry wood here, odds are a spark will ignite the entire building.”
“Locke will certainly see that,” Bill said. “Worst case is we end up sleeping in the ATV. Hang on. Shh.” He reached for his machete, pointing outside.
“Sorcha?” Chester mouthed
Bill shrugged. He heard branches move. Footsteps crunched loose gravel into the mud coating the house’s driveway, but it didn’t sound like a zombie.
It wasn’t.
It was a woman Bill had never seen before. Tall, angular, thin, sallow faced, and narrow-eyed. A green woollen hat covered her head. An almost matching silk scarf was knotted around her neck, the ends tucked into a camel-coloured, thigh-length jacket that, like her blue utility trousers, was stained with blood.
“Hello,” Bill said. “Are you alive? Are you hurt?”
The woman blinked. “You are… English?” The accent was French, the words pronounced with cautious deliberation.
“For my sins,” Bill said. “And you’re not a zombie.”
“Non.” She shook her head. “Can… can you help? Aidez moi? Please? Ah… mon frère, il est blessé. Hurt. Injured. Oui? A tree. His leg.” Her fingers trembled as she pointed vaguely to the south.
“Of course,” Bill said. “Show us the way.”
“Merci,” she said. “Merci.” She led them around the fallen tree.
“I’m Bill. Bill Wright. This is Chester Carson.”
“Ah. Dominique,” she said. “Dominique Cavalie.”
Bill stopped, tightening his grip on his machete as Chester reached for his slung rifle. With her back to them, there was no way Cavalie could have seen the movement, but her two guards did. They must have accompanied Cavalie to the house, then hidden in the shadows while she entered the garage.
“Non! Stop!” one said.
Cavalie sprang around, dragging her hand out of her pocket, a pistol already in it.
Chester had his rifle half raised. He took a glance to his left, to his right, taking in the guns now pointing at him. He lowered his weapon.
Bill sighed. “So you’re Cavalie.”
Chapter 17 - The Danger of Assumptions
Chateau des Fleurs, Chemin de la Grimpette
“This is my fault,” Bill said, stretching his arms, then his legs. The cords tying him to the chair were too expertly tied. There was no give. “I thought Cavalie was a man. I just assumed all of Dernier’s people were.”
“What’s that thing Americans say about assumptions?” Chester said. “Any slack on your ropes?”
“No. You?”
“None. They’ve done this before.”
He and Bill were each tied to a wooden chair. In turn, those chairs were tied back to back, but with the ropes then secured to a rusting bracket bolted to the floor. Having searched them, taken their weapons and bags, and tied them up, Cavalie and her two goons had gone outside.
“Any chance you have a knife in your pocket?” Bill asked.
“Nope. You?”
“No. Can’t be many of them,” Bill added. “Not if one didn’t stay inside.”
“Probably not,” Chester said.
“Any idea why they tied us up?”
“Only the obvious,” Chester said. “They have questions. Otherwise, they’d have shot us.”
“Okay. We can’t cut the ropes, nor wriggle free. I say we topple the chairs over, breaking them in the fall.”
“Nah,” Chester said. “That never works in real life. Trust me. Seriously, think about it, how many chairs have you knocked over, and how many of those have splintered when they fell? Besides, the noise always brings the guards.”
“You’ve done this before?”
“That’s a conversation for another time,” Chester said. “But, listen, there is something I want to talk to you about.”
“Oh, yes?” Bill said, again heaving against the ropes with fruitless optimism.
“I wanted to tell you back on Anglesey,” Chester said. “There was never the right moment. There hasn’t been since we crashed, either.”
“Whatever it is, I don’t think this is the moment either. But if it’s about London, back at the beginning of the outbreak, forget about it.”
“Nah, it’s not that,” Chester said. “That was just one of those unfortunate twists of circumstance. Both of us were too caught up in our own personal misery to know how to do what needed to be done. No, it’s about Stewart, the guy who kidnapped your two girls.”
“Stewart?”
“Yeah. You see, back in London, there was a guy with us called Stewart.”
“It’s hardly an uncommon name,” Bill said. “And I killed Stewart.”
“You shot him,” Chester said. “Near Kew Gardens. He didn’t die. He managed to get to the river. Tuck and Jay found him there in a boat filled with supplies. The boat you, Kim, and your brother used to travel down the Thames. You left it tied up on the river.”
“He told you this?”
“No. After you shot him, the zombies took a few bites out of him. He never properly recovered from that. He became… disconnected from the present. I pieced together what little he did say with what you wrote in your journal. He was shot, bitten, bleeding out when he made it to that boat. He was dying, but that was about the same time as Tuck and Jay were on the other side of the Thames. They heard gunfire, which must have been you and your battle at Kew. They found Stewart in the river, patched him up, and took him with them. That’s how he ended up at the Tower.”
“I… I see. And he’s still alive?”
“No. Graham shot him,” Chester said. “Graham had the high ground. He had us pinned down. Stewart ran out from cover to save some of the kids. It wasn’t the first time he’d risked his life for them. That’s how Stewart died, saving the children. His last words were a sort of apology
, a pledge that didn’t make sense at the time. Putting it all together, I don’t think he wanted to hurt your girls. I think he was trying to keep them safe from the other two kidnappers.”
“Right.”
“Or maybe that was just the story he was telling himself,” Chester said. “Either way, I figured you should know.”
“You did? I don’t, and I don’t know why you’re telling me now.”
“There shouldn’t be any more secrets,” Chester said. “No more secrets and lies. There were too many of them in the world before.”
“Fine. You’ve told me. And like I said, it’s a common enough name. It could have been a different person. That’s what I’m choosing to believe, and I think that’s what everyone else will prefer to believe, assuming we ever get out of this damn place.”
“That won’t work,” Chester said. “When our people meet yours, they’ll read that journal. They’ll put two and two together. Stewart’s a hero to our kids, and a villain to yours. The whole truth is the only way we’ll avoid resentment and worse. How someone dies matters, as much as how they lived. And in the end, Stewart died so others could live. That’s got to count for something.”
“Perhaps. As to any friction when the story gets out, that’s a problem I look forward to being in a position to manage,” Bill said. He suddenly realised why Chester had told him. “Can you really not see a way out of this?”
“Not yet,” Chester said.
The door opened. From the moment Cavalie entered, flanked by her two guards, the earlier supposition was confirmed. They truly were her guards. But that they all came in brought a small ray of hope that they had only three enemies to face. Of course, one was too many as long as he and Chester were tied up.
“Good evening,” Cavalie said, in precise and perfect English, making a deliberate distinction from the broken form she’d used earlier. “I believe you know my name.”
“Cavalie,” Bill said.
“Yes.”
“You’re one of Dernier’s captains?” Bill asked.
“One of his superiors, yes,” she said.
Bill mentally cursed at another assumption wrongly made. “What do you want?” he asked.
“I apologise for this inconvenience,” she said. “I have questions. You were at Clermont, yes? I recognise your vehicle.”
“We were there, yes,” Bill said.
“Why?” she asked.
Bill considered his answer. It was dark outside now. There was no way Cavalie could reach Creil before the town was abandoned at dawn. The question, then, was whether she was in radio contact with someone in the town. There was an obvious way to find out.
“Don’t you know?” he said. “Creil is being abandoned. We went to the watchtower to collect Adrianna and her people.”
“I see,” she said. “Then why are you here?”
“It’s a scouting mission,” Bill said. “Did you hear the plane? Did you see the helicopter? People came from a convoy up in the north, and told us there’s a massive horde of the undead heading south. Tens of millions of them. That’s why they’re leaving Creil. We’ve been tasked with finding out whether this horde of zombies is real.”
“Tens of millions? Really?” she asked, a disbelieving smile creasing her lips.
“I don’t know,” Bill said. “That’s why we’ve come north.”
“And they are abandoning Creil before they know?” Cavalie asked.
Bill nodded. She didn’t know they had come from the plane. She’d not heard of the helicopter. That was a start. “The helicopter brought photographs,” Bill said. “That was good enough for most people.”
“Photographs? Do you have these photographs?”
“Nope,” Bill said. “They’re back in Creil.”
“I see,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she believed him. “And who are you? Why did they give this mission to you?”
“The Viking’s a British vehicle,” Bill said. “We know how to operate it.”
“It’s Swedish, not British,” she said. “You are soldiers?”
“Can anyone call themselves a civilian, these days?” Bill replied.
“I loathe when people answer questions with another question,” Cavalie said. “You would do well to remember that. So you are English soldiers, are you? Yes, English soldiers with their English arrogance. British is best you say, and therefore you claim everything as yours.” She turned to her guards, and spoke in French. One of them went outside. She turned back to Bill. “What happened to Abel and Marcel?”
“Who?”
“Abel Dernier, Marcel Bisset. What happened to them?”
“Ah. They’re dead.” Bill said, wondering which of the thugs they’d killed was Marcel Bisset. “Was that your plan, then? Attack the watchtowers, lure the undead to the island? Why? That’s what we’ve been asking ourselves. The best we can come up with is that you wanted to trap people there long enough that the vehicles would rust, that they’d have no way of leaving.”
From outside, came a shot. Bill’s heart leaped, but neither Cavalie nor her guard moved. Nor did they move when another shot came. They had been expecting the shots, and these were un-suppressed.
“You like asking questions, don’t you? You remind me a lot of—” She stopped. “Yes, but I ask the questions now. And you will answer them. Or perhaps your friend will. Chester, yes? He said that was your name. You don’t speak, why not?”
“I’ve nothing to say. Nothing to ask, either. I know you’re Rosewood Cartel. I know what’s going to happen next, and I’d rather just get it over and done with.”
“Yes. Yes, I am the Rosewood Cartel. It is my organisation now,” she said. “You have heard of us in the English army? I know we had some friends there, but who told you?”
“Now, that is a long story,” Chester said. “Actually, there is something I wanted to ask. It’s connected, you see. At the beginning of the outbreak, Dernier was in prison, right? But after the outbreak, he was let out, yes? He didn’t escape, he was released, right?”
“If he is dead,” Cavalie said, “it doesn’t matter. Where are the people of Creil going?”
“Don’t you know?” Bill said.
Cavalie smiled. “Ah, you know about our radio? I see. What else do you know?”
“I know you’re pretty desperate,” Bill said.
“He doesn’t know anything,” Chester said.
“And do you know something?” Cavalie asked.
“I know that I regret coming to France,” Chester said.
“It was a beautiful country, once,” Cavalie said. “I plan to make it so again. Professor Fontayne believed the zombies are dying. I agree with her. That is why you are here, yes? If the zombies are dying, then this horde of millions is a lie. The professor thinks this plane, this helicopter, they belong to me, yes? There is no radio in your vehicle, which means you have no way of communicating with them. She is waiting for your return before they leave, yes?”
“Something like that,” Chester said.
“Yes, I can see it is. And I can see what you plan afterwards. English soldiers, or are you English sailors? Ah, yes, I see from your expression that I have it. Then I know more about you than you think.”
The door opened. The guard entered, and spoke to Cavalie in a brief whisper.
“Ah, good,” Cavalie said. “The zombies have arrived. Take the big one outside.”
“Wait,” Bill said.
“Why?” Cavalie said. “I only need one of you, and you seem the most talkative.”
“Just ask your questions,” Bill said, as the guards moved to the chairs. “I’ll answer them.”
“Yes, you will,” Cavalie said. “But I like to provide incentives.”
It took a moment for the two chairs to be detached from one another. Chester didn’t struggle as the two guards lifted him, and the chair, to the door.
“Just ask,” Bill said.
“Don’t mind me,” Chester said. “How you die matters, right, Bill?�
��
They took Chester outside. A moment later, one of the guards returned.
“Just ask!” Bill yelled. “Stop this!”
“Just wait,” Cavalie said calmly. A second later, a visceral scream came from outside. “Ah,” she said. “There.” She smiled. “Now we can talk.”
Chapter 18 - The Worst Kind of Death
Chateau des Fleurs, Chemin de la Grimpette
Chester didn’t struggle as he was carried outside. There was no point, not yet. He closed his eyes, waiting, concentrating, listening, but couldn’t stop the memory of his induction into McInery’s inner-circle from bubbling to the surface. A chair. Ropes. A gun’s barrel pressed against the back of his head. A click as the hammer hit an empty chamber. As it always did, a second memory soon replaced it. A cellar, just after the outbreak, when Cannock and McInery had both been present. That time, Chester hadn’t been the one tied to the chair. That time, he’d been handed the gun. And that time, the chamber hadn’t been empty. Chester hadn’t known, but he’d not checked. It was a salutary lesson, applicable now, because he could tell these thugs weren’t bluffing.
There was no point bargaining with them. Language barrier aside, pleading wouldn’t change their minds. It hadn’t changed his. No, he just had to wait until they left him alone. Outside. In the growing darkness. With the undead so near.
They dropped the chair. It wobbled on the uneven ground, but settled, upright. He heard feet grind gravel into mud as one of the guards returned inside. He could also hear the slow and heavy breathing of the other guard who stood only a few feet behind. Chester tested his bonds as surreptitiously as he could. Now he’d been detached from the other chair, there was a little give. Not much, but enough to work with, just as soon as he was alone. There was a sniff from the guard behind. No, not from behind. From ahead, followed by a rasping wheeze. He heard feet drag across gravel. A soft whisper as rotting cloth caught on dead wood. A sharper crack as a branch snapped.
Chester heaved. Pulled. Strained his legs, his arms. With the guard so close, even if he got free, he’d get a bullet, but that would be better than rotten teeth ripping into his flesh. Fear rose, bitter acid in the back of his throat, a thumping beat in the centre of his chest. He clamped his lips closed. He wouldn’t scream. He wouldn’t!