Last Stand For Man

by Ryan, Nicholas

  Tremaine said nothing.

  Camille threw the little Peugeot into a right-angled turn and suddenly they were racing along a narrow street with flower stalls on one side and another open air plaza on the opposite side. The square was filled with crowds of people dining at outdoor cafes. A flock of pigeons took to startled flight and the faces of the diners turned to watch the car flash past.

  “Place Pie,” Camille said, pronouncing the word ‘pee’. “It is a popular place for the University students to come to eat.”

  Tremaine nodded. Then Camille turned again and Tremaine felt his heart leap into his throat as a crowd of pedestrians flashed past the windshield in a panicked scatter. Camille pointed ahead.

  “The university is at the end of this street,” she said casually. “It is the first place you should see. Just a few more moments.”

  The road became choked. Parked cars lined the sidewalk. They sped past an orange-vested crew of workmen who were digging up part of the blacktop. Camille put the car to the narrow gap without slowing and Tremaine felt himself instinctively stiffen and brace for collision.

  “The University security guard should be expecting us,” Camille glanced at Tremaine, her voice almost conversational. “The gates, they should be open.”

  She swung the wheel over and then came back on the clutch and accelerator, her feet dancing as the Peugeot gathered speed. Ahead, Tremaine could see the narrow road hook into a sharp left turn. He held his breath.

  Camille eased her foot off the accelerator and a wide iron gate swung open directly ahead of the Peugeot. Camille put the little car into the gap and then stomped hard on the brake. The surface was gravel and the back tires juddered and skidded for traction. Trees flashed past and then the car came to a halt in a billowing cloud of dust. A dozen young people came slowly, unconcerned, towards the vehicle. Camille killed the engine and kicked her door open.

  “We’re here,” she glanced across at Tremaine.

  They were parked inside the gates of the University between two huge buildings. One was a massive two story edifice built in the grand tradition of French architecture with rows of windows and columns either side of vast doors. The other building was a more modern structure, featuring lots of grey tinted glass. Between them – where the car sat parked – ran a slash of concrete paths and grass. At the far end of the open space Tremaine could see the continuation of the ancient wall and a wide archway. He went towards it with Camille at his side.

  “Is that one of the traffic gates into the old city?” Tremaine pointed ahead, his voice confused.

  “No,” Camille swept hair away from her forehead. “It is only used to gain entrance to the University by students who live outside the walls. No cars are allowed.”

  “There are iron bars across the gates.”

  “Yes,” Camille said. They brushed past a cluster of students sitting in a circle on the grass, their heads bowed over their textbooks. Tremaine quickened his stride.

  The vaulted stone entrance had been built into a gatehouse, the same as the Porte Saint Roch gate he had seen from the police car, except this entrance had a motorized set of steel barred gates that opened and closed. Tremaine ran his hand over the cold metal and shook it. He turned back to Camille.

  “Are any of the other gateways like this one – do they have the same steel gate system?”

  “No,” Camille shook her head. “Only this one.”

  Tremaine grunted. These gates could be chained. There would be no need for barricades. He stood back from the vast limestone wall and stared up to the top, studying the crenellations. It was the first time he had seen the wall from the inside and he marveled at the good condition of the stonework and the sheer monumental size of the structure. The wall had a platform built along the inside for firing down at attackers with narrow stone steps leading up into the heart of the tower. The steps were covered in moss and weeds and the walls were streaked with dirt, the masonry chipped and rounded in places by antiquity. But there seemed no way to quickly access the upper level of the wall.

  They would need ladders.

  Tremaine stood and turned a full circle. The great bulwark muted the hum of traffic beyond the University. To the west he could see the sun setting behind the glass-faced building. He stared at the milling University students for a long moment, watching them as they went from class to class or just lazed on the wooden benches without a care in their worlds.

  “If only they understood what was happening,” he grunted.

  Beside him Camille remained silent. She had grown up in Avignon. The great walls had been part of her life since childhood. She saw no particular fascination with them. Instead, she watched Tremaine’s face, studying his features as he frowned in calculating thought.

  “Do you know anything about Avignon’s history?” she asked at last. Some of the surly edge had gone from her voice, the tranquility of the location seeming to soften her attitude.

  Tremaine shook his head. “Just a little,” he said vaguely. “I wrote a research paper about Avignon, but it was a long time ago, and it didn’t relate to the city’s history as much as its suitability as a stronghold against pandemic infection,” he admitted. “But I think these walls were built in the 14th century, right?”

  Camille nodded conditional agreement. “Avignon’s history reaches back into antiquity,” she said. Some of the natural huskiness had come back into her voice. “Its foundations can be traced back to the time of Roman Emperor Augustus when this part of the world was known as Gaul. It’s always been of strategic importance – and armies and rulers have always fought for its control. During the 8th century it was controlled by the Arabs. They invaded the Provence region and turned the city into a stronghold. It took two sieges for them to be ousted, but the city’s history is drenched in blood, right up until the 14th century – as you suggested – when Avignon experienced almost two hundred years of prosperity.”

  “Because of the Popes, right?”

  “Right,” Camille nodded and the faintest hint of friendliness crept back into her smile. “The installation of the papacy within the walls of Avignon turned our little town into the capital of Christendom. Quickly life changed. There were maybe five thousand people in the city, and the walls that had been built over the previous centuries were crumbling. But when the Popes turned Avignon into the papal city, a great palace was built called the Palais des Papes – the Palace of the Popes – and the walls that you see now were constructed.”

  Tremaine watched the way the young Frenchwoman gestured with her hands to emphasize a point as she spoke. They were pale mobile hands with gracefully tapered fingers. The nails were short and painted pale pink. She wore no rings.

  Tell me about the palace,” Tremaine became suddenly interested.

  Camille shrugged her shoulders. “When the Popes came to Avignon, the population of the city grew to maybe thirty thousand. There was a crumbling old Roman wall around the city at the time, but there was no room to house the new businesses and the courtesans who were needed to support the papacy. In the middle of the 14th century the Pope Innocent VI became worried about the vicious gangs of marauding bandits that roamed the countryside. A new wall was begun in 1355, which included all the new businesses and homes. That’s the same wall you are looking at right now.”

  “And the Papal Palace still stands?”

  “Yes,” Camille said. “Of course. Now it is a tourist attraction on the other side of the city. The stone walls of the palace are seventeen feet thick.”

  Tremaine arched his brows in surprise. “I would like to see it.”

  Camille nodded. “My father told me to take you wherever you would like to go. I am at your beck and call, monsieur,” her mood changed again. Now her eyes were sparkling with a hint of provocative amusement, and an impish dimple appeared in her cheeks.

  Tremaine said nothing. He turned and stared back up at the top of the walls and when he spoke, his voice sounded distant and detached, as though he was talki
ng to the sky. “They’re going to come,” he said gravely. “Thousands of them – maybe hundreds of thousands of infected. They’re going to come, and these walls are the only chance the people of Avignon have to survive. If we don’t barricade them and find a way to defend the city against a siege of the undead…”

  He turned round at last, the dreadful sense of foreboding still upon him and seemed startled that Camille was still standing close by, watching him curiously. Tremaine shook himself and smiled, but it was a poor effort, his expression shadowed by a profound fear that hung draped about him like a black shroud.

  Death was coming to Avignon.

  Tremaine knew it with utter certainty.

  * * *

  They drove around the city’s walls, eventually abandoning the car when they reached the western wall to inspect several small breaches which were like doorways cut into the thick stone. By the time Tremaine had seen most of the gates that entered the city night had fallen. He stood watching the traffic swarm past under the yellow street lights. On the far side of the road was the Rhône River, shimmering like a silver thread under a rising moon.

  “The Palace will be closed,” Camille said. “You will not be able to see it tonight.”

  Tremaine grunted. “What’s that?” he pointed suddenly to a high rise of ground far across the river, hazed by distance and smog, where some vast slab of solid stone reflected the last of the day’s dying light like a mirror.

  Camille turned. “That is Fort Saint-Andre,” she said. “Phillippe le Bel, who was the king of France, commissioned it in 1292. The fort commands the entire valley.”

  “Is it still intact?”

  “Oui,” Camille said. “The watchtowers and fortifications still stand, and the gateway to the fort was restored several years ago by local historians.”

  “How far away is the fort?”

  Camille shrugged and pouted her lips in a moment of thought. “Maybe three kilometers,” she guessed. “A bus route exists between here and the fort. It takes about ten minutes.”

  Tremaine nodded, distracted, and his thoughts came back to barricading the ancient city. Defending the western wall worried him. There were four wide traffic gates here and just as many pedestrian entrances, serving the snarl of heavy traffic that bypassed the city. Two of the traffic gates were carved into the base of battlements, but two others were wide breaches that even an overturned bus would not span. He frowned into the darkness until he felt a gentle tug at his elbow and turned around, distracted.

  “I asked if you are hungry?” Camille repeated herself, with a little frown on her brow.

  “Sorry,” Tremaine apologized. “I was just thinking…”

  “Thinking or worrying?”

  “Panicking, actually,” Tremaine admitted. “Barricading the breaches in this western wall – I just don’t know how we would do it.”

  Camille shrugged. “The pedestrian entrances are easy,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “The wall was not only built to defend against marauding bands of criminals. It was also built to protect Avignon from the River Rhône flooding. We have boards and doors to barricade the narrow entrances.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course.”

  “And the wide traffic entrances? What about them?”

  “The two entrances built through the gatehouses also have boards that can be used,” she said. “This one…?” she looked about where they were standing on a traffic island with cars flowing past and others diverting into and out of the city, “is less easy.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Tremaine muttered.

  Camille seemed not to have heard him. She turned on her heel like a ballerina and started to walk back along the narrow cobblestoned roadway towards where the car was parked. Tall dark buildings crowded the sidewalk so they were cast in dark shadow. Tremaine followed.

  On the next street corner something moved and then groaned in the night. Camille stopped mid-stride and went stiff with alarm. Tremaine caught up to her and they stood silent for a second. Camille pointed into the shadows.

  “Who’s there?” Tremaine gruffed his voice.

  There was another groan. Tremaine looked a question at Camille and then a shaky voice called out of the shadows, speaking in French.

  Camille’s tense poise loosened. She let out a little sigh of relief.

  “It is only a beggar,” she said to Tremaine. “For a moment I thought we would be mugged.”

  “A beggar?”

  “Of course,” Camille said. “There are many in the city.” She plucked at Tremaine’s elbow to steer him onto the opposite side of the narrow path but he shook her off. He went into the darkness and crouched down before a middle-aged man with a grey scruffy beard. He sat slumped on a piece of cardboard with a white Styrofoam cup at his feet. His back was propped against a wall and he was dressed in tattered soiled rags. Beside him lay a plastic shopping bag, crammed with all his worldly possessions.

  Tremaine reached into his pocket and felt for loose change.

  “What are you doing?” Camille’s voice became edged with impatience. “Please, do not give him money. It encourages them.”

  Tremaine looked over his shoulder and frowned. “Camille, this man has no food, no water and nowhere to sleep except on the street. We have to be charitable to those less fortunate than ourselves.”

  Camille folded her arms across her chest. The little spark of temper came back, glinting in her eyes. “He is homeless. It is a fact of life.”

  “It’s not a fact of life,” Tremaine’s own voice turned stony. “And remember this,” he thrust a finger at her. “In just a couple of days we are all going to become homeless. We’re all going to struggle for food and water and shelter. We’re going to be no better than this man. Homelessness and hunger and thirst won’t be a fact of life. It will be a way of life for everyone who remains inside these walls.”

  * * *

  At the end of the street, crouched under the south-west corner of the high wall, was a pizza restaurant. Camille led Tremaine up the steps and they found a table for two near a high serving counter that separated the dining area from the kitchen. There were French posters and small works of art on the walls. Clarinet music played in the background. Bustling behind the countertop, Tremaine saw two young chefs hard at work. One of the men gave Camille a familiar smile and friendly wink. The restaurant was filled with the aromas of pizza and wood smoke.

  “Do you come here often?” Tremaine asked. Set out on the table before him were brown paper placemats.

  Camille nodded. “I am a regular,” she said lightly. “The pizza here is the best in all of Avignon.” She glanced over her shoulder. The tables and chairs were an eclectic gathering of mismatched pieces. “Normally it is very busy,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “But it is still early.”

  Tremaine had the peculiar sense that the ceiling in the restaurant had been lowered; the atmosphere felt intimate and close. The lighting was soft, and lit candles flickered on each table. He picked up a menu and glanced at it. “What do you recommend?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Starving.”

  Camille nodded. She caught the eye of one of the chefs and he came through an open side door to the edge of the table. They spoke quickly in French and the chef nodded. He scribbled notes onto his pad with an elegant flourish and disappeared again.

  Camille turned back to Tremaine. She clasped her hands together and set them down on the table. “So…” her expression turned solemn. “Do you think Avignon can be barricaded?”

  “Yes,” Tremaine said with more conviction than he actually held. “If we act quickly enough.”

  Camille smiled wanly. Her eyes swept the walls like she was looking for inspiration. She seemed unaware that he still watched her. He wondered what she was thinking about – what secret thoughts and fears were lurking below the outwardly calm exterior. At last Tremaine filled the awkward silence with a question of his own.

  �
�Where is the hotel that you manage?”

  Camille looked around at him quickly. For a few seconds they stared into each other’s eyes. Color blushed on her skin and a tendril of hair fell forward against her cheek. She swept it away with the back of her hand, and then she pointed airily. “Just on the other side of this wall,” she said. “I am the night manager at the Grande Hotel. It is one of the biggest in Avignon. One hundred and twenty rooms.”

  Tremaine was impressed. “And you are the manager?”

  “The night manager,” she corrected him.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I start work at 10 pm each evening and run the reception desk and all the service staff until the morning when the day managers arrive. It’s a great responsibility.”

  Tremaine listened attentively, but his expression turned grave. He reached across the table impulsively and snatched at Camille’s hands. “Don’t go into work tonight,” he urged her. “Call in sick. Make any excuse you want. Just don’t go outside the city walls this evening.”

  “What?” Camille blanched as if she had been slapped.

  “I mean it,” Tremaine’s eyes became fierce. “Camille, you have no idea – no concept – of how imminent the spread of this contagion is. If your father gives his approval, then tomorrow morning the gates into the old city will be barricaded, if it’s not already too late. Anyone trapped outside the walls isn’t going to get in again… and that means they will die.”

  “But I must go to work,” Camille’s sense of duty and pride was bruised. “People are relying on me.”

  “To hell with them,” Tremaine snapped. A blaze of fanatical desperation filled his eyes. Camille leaned back in her chair, putting space between them. Tremaine hunched over the table, his voice hushed but intense. “They will be dead in twenty-four hours,” he said brutally. “And unless you listen to me – unless you do as I tell you to – you will be dead also. This contagion doesn’t care who you are, or how much money you have… or if you’re a nice person or not. It’s not called the Raptor virus for no reason. By this time tomorrow, France will be overwhelmed by the infected. No one will be left alive, Camille. No one.”