Surviving The Evacuation: Harvest Part 13

"Originally? No one," Styles said. "The place was empty when we arrived. But there were seven hundred and eighty-eight of us when we left the enclave. Men, women, children. Families and orphans, soldiers and civilians. And now its just me and the kids. Everyone else went looking for help. And none of them made it?"

"Im sorry," Chester said.

The man gave a brittle laugh. "Ten thousand in Wales, you say. How many in London?"

"Fifty," Greta said.

"Fifty thousand?" Styles asked, "Well, thats something-"

"No. Just fifty," Greta corrected him.

"Oh. I see. And what about everywhere else? What about America? The kids kept thinking theyd send help. That was Amys fault. She kept saying that their aircraft carriers wouldnt be destroyed. That theyd be the first to get back on their feet, you know?" He tapped the box on the table again. "I buried her last month. It wasnt the undead. It was a fever. She wasnt the first. A lot of people died, but most left, looking for help. And youre sure none of them made it?"

Chester sat back, his appet.i.te gone. "Not that I know of."

"You didnt live around here?" Greta asked.

"Me? No. I was on holiday. In Tankerton, you know it? Its a little seaside place on the north coast. Or was. An off-season break, that was my plan. Something to look forward to as a way of getting through the winter. So I was there when they decided to turn it into an enclave. They planned for it to be a stopover point for s.h.i.+ps going between the Isle of Wight and London. Plans and ideas. They had a lot of those, and they didnt last long. A s.h.i.+p came in. I dont think it was one of ours. It sh.e.l.led the village. We took shelter. Id been given charge of the children. Theyd come from a boarding school, did I tell you that? Their teachers didnt come with them. I dont know if that was by choice or accident or even design. It doesnt matter, does it? I was an adult without responsibilities, and they were children in need of supervision. We hid from the sh.e.l.ling. I dont know how long it went on for, but it seemed..." He tore the film off the pack. "I dont know. When it stopped, when we went outside and looked around to see who was left, there were fewer than a thousand of us. Thats a small fraction of the number thatd been there before. There were no plans then. A lot of people ran. The rest of us followed the screaming, sorting through the wreckage, trying to find survivors. We were making a bad job of a worse situation when Corporal Derry arrived. She told us about the nuclear bombs thatd been dropped along the south coast, how the government had collapsed, and how it was everyone for themselves. More people left, but she stayed, her and the soldiers with her."

"We found her," Chester said. "She was dead. In an empty house on a construction site about a mile from here."

"Yeah, I thought she would be," Styles said, emotionless. "She left last week and was the last to go. Wed had more deaths as we tried to bring in the harvest, and then, well, then it was just me, her, and the kids. The zombies were getting thick around the gates. She tried to lead them away. When she didnt return, I guessed what had happened. A few more days, thats all we needed. If we could have harvested the rest of the food, wed have had enough to last until spring. We could have stayed inside, safe, waiting for the snow, and then for the thaw, and then..." he trailed off again.

"The people who left," Chester asked, "did they go on foot?"

"They drove when we had fuel. They took the bicycles when we ran out. After that, they walked."

"Always going west?" Chester asked.

"We knew there was nothing to the south, east, or north. West was all that was left. Everyone promised theyd send help if they found a larger group, or come back if they found a smaller one. They never did. Around June, after wed stripped all the houses nearby of everything that could be of use, they did stop leaving for a while. I think people really did understand that this, here, was all they had. Then the undead came and in greater numbers than wed seen before. We lost a lot of people fighting them off, and a lot more got sick afterwards. Thats when people started leaving again, but this time no one promised to come back. They just disappeared in the night, never saying goodbye."

"So there are no cars left?" Chester asked.

"There are a couple of coaches," Styles said. "The same ones we drove the kids here in. They were both full when we arrived," he added. "But theres no fuel. No, weve got food here. Weve got a well. Staying isnt safe. The undead come. You saw that for yourself, but its safer than trying to leave. We wont starve, so well wait. We can outlast the undead."

"And what if a horde comes?" Chester asked. "You havent seen one of those. Millions of undead trampling through the countryside, destroying everything in their path. The only safe places are islands or cities. The buildings act like breakwaters, splitting them up."

"Like you said, weve not seen one yet. There havent been many zombies around here until recently. Thirty-eight was the most we saw in a day, and that was about the same time as the sickness came. Ill take my chances that no horde will ever come this far south over the certain death that the children will face if they try walking to the coast. Eat your meal. Sleep. Leave tomorrow if you want. Id rather you stayed because the children need your help, but its your choice. Excuse me." He stood up and left the three of them alone.

Chester took a mouthful of the soup. It was good, but he had no appet.i.te.

"What about helicopters?" Finnegan asked. "Could they fly them down from Anglesey?"

"To here? Ive no idea if they would have the range," Chester said.

"We cant leave the children alone," Greta said.

"Theyve survived okay for all these months," Finnegan said. "They can last a few more weeks."

"They wont," Chester said. "And they havent. Theres only forty-four of them left, and you know how they managed it? You heard what he said. The undead appeared when people stopped leaving. Just think about it, all those hundreds of people leaving every other day or so, and all heading west. They lured the zombies away. Now theres no one left to make that unwitting sacrifice, the undead will come back. Theyll gather at the walls. Their numbers will grow until the gates break, and then every last one of those children will die."

"Then we have to get them out," Greta said.

"Yeah, we do," Chester said. He was thinking about Anglesey and how so few children had reached the sanctuary there. Of how Jay was the youngest of the survivors in London. He remembered the airport, and all those tiny undead creatures tripping and staggering along the runway. "And well do it the only way we can. Well drive one of those coaches to the coast, load them onto the lifeboat, then get Anglesey to send help. They will, for children. I guarantee that."

"He said there was no fuel," Greta said.

"So Ill go back to London. Ill get the boat to come back upriver, and well return with enough diesel to drive to the sea. There, thats a simple enough plan. You two can stay here, and well, you dont need me to tell you what to do. Excuse me." And he left the room, going outside to look for Styles.

He found the man in a battered deckchair a quarter way through the pack of cigarettes, the b.u.t.ts lying amidst a thin pile of ash at his feet.

"Smoke?" He offered the pack to Chester, who took one.

"Im going to leave tomorrow," Chester said, "and come back with enough diesel to drive those kids to the coast. Well rendezvous with the boat and take them to London. Then to Wales."

"Really?" Styles sounded distant.

"Greta and Finnegan are solid. Reliable. Theyll help you with the kids."

"You know," Styles said, dropping the half-smoked cigarette to the floor, "youre not the first person to have said that." He took another from the pack. "Its what everyone says. Theyll leave, but theyll come back, and when they do, everything will be fine." He took out a battered silver lighter. "But where are they now? You want a light?"

"No, I think Ill keep this. The last one. Ill give it back to you when we get to London."

"Ah, I see, youre of a metaphorical frame of mind. Dont worry. Im not going anywhere. This garden is what humanity has been reduced to. Our Eden has become purgatory, a-"

"Harry?" It was Janine, shed come from inside the house. "Its Marko," she said. "Hes having nightmares again."

Styles took a long look at the unlit cigarette, then put it away and stood up. "I know my duty," he said. "Look around, and tell me you know yours." He went back into the house.

Chester took a walk through the grounds, looking at the plants, then at the trees, and the greenhouses. Most of those were sheets of gla.s.s propped against frames improvised from shelving units. From the uniformity of the brackets, he wondered whether theyd all come from one of those self-a.s.sembly furniture stores. Of course, it didnt matter.

He picked a path between the beds until he reached the rear of the house and found the two coaches. After a brief examination, he decided both were drivable, though the tyres were tending towards flat.

It was thirty miles to the coast in a straight line. Two gallons of diesel would be all theyd need. Call it forty miles and three gallons to be safe. He gave one of the tyres a kick.

A drop of rain fell from the sky. Then another. He took that as a sign and went to join Greta and Finnegan in the small building near the pool.

20th September When morning came, Finnegan was still alive. Out of the three of them, he was the one who seemed most surprised.

"It should take a day to get back to London," Chester said, standing by the ladder leaning against the wall. "So give me two, and another two to return."

"And if youre not back in four days?" Greta asked.

"Youll have to use your best judgement. Theres the raft back on that beach. Or maybe you could try and find fuel for those coaches. I dont think you can stay here. You feel that chill in the air. You saw the rain last night? Its going to get worse. The weathers changing, and if I dont make it, I cant imagine anyone else ever stumbling across this place."

"Dont worry about us," Finnegan said. "Weve got the easy job."

"Yeah, alright." He supposed he should talk to Greta alone, but tact seemed out of place. "Its been well over twelve hours. You should be fine. On the other hand, I thought Reece was going to be fine. Keep an eye on him," he added to Greta. "Just in case." They both nodded. "Right. So, if all goes well," he added, speaking quickly to brush over the awkward moment, "be ready to leave in four days."

"Youll be coming back by bike?" Greta asked.

"Possibly. If I see a car somewhere by the Thames, then perhaps well drive. But however we get here well be wanting to leave straight away. Right. Any questions. No?" He flexed his arms, and then his legs. Hed taped thin strips of hard plastic taken from the window blinds in the solarium to the inside of his jacket. They made movement more difficult, but his mind was on the journey over the QE2 Bridge. "Well, good luck."

He turned and climbed over the wall.

He made no attempt at keeping quiet as he set off. In fact, he did the opposite. Walking slowly, whistling loudly, he wheeled the bike to the junction, and then sat watching the undead. When the nearest was close enough that he could discern its lank strands of hair drifting with the wind, he pushed off.

Occasionally checking to make sure the undead were following him, he rode away from the mansion. There were twenty-five of the creatures immediately behind him when he stopped on a rise a quarter of a mile from the walled house. His eyes tracked back to the mansion and he caught sight of the word 'Help painted on the roof of the one-storey extension. Hed not asked when Styles had done that. He looked up. Didnt Anglesey have three satellites? Two for monitoring the horde, and one to survey the country. Or was it the other way round? It didnt matter. Hed seen signs like that before on more empty houses than he could remember. Even if the satellite was overhead, even if it saw that sign, no one would a.s.sume it meant there was life inside.

He took one last look at the house. "Does sort of look like a guitar," he murmured. "How the other half did live." And he let gravity carry him down the hill.

After a frustrating two hours of cutting through fields, he switched to a railway line, managing five miles in quick time before he found a huge pack of the undead cl.u.s.tered around a dozen stalled locomotives. There were hundreds of them, most motionless. From the trampled gardens, broken fences, and battered doors, theyd milled through the town trying to get to those trains. Perhaps someone had been chased there and taken refuge on top. Or maybe theyd driven one of the trains, and that was the point at which they had stalled. Chester couldnt tell, except that it must have happened months before. He turned the bike around. Surely there couldnt be anyone still on a trains roof, starving, dehydrated, and just wis.h.i.+ng for that slow death as an alternative to...

"Oy!" he yelled. He yelled again. The zombies turned. He found he was laughing as he set off, the undead trailing after him.

Ten miles later and completely lost, he was cycling along a road parallel to a small river. He was nearly certain it wasnt the Medway, and was wracking his memory trying to come up with the name of any other river in Kent, when a zombie toppled down on him from the roof of a parked van.

Its open mouth clamped onto on his arm, and Chester, the bike, and the zombie fell in a tangled heap. He was trapped with one leg under the bike, and the squirming, thras.h.i.+ng weight of the creature, still biting down on his arm, on top. Its jaw squeezed tighter and tighter, its clawed hands flailed and plucked at the bicycle spokes, and its dead eyes met his in a look vacant of thought or meaning. Chester pulled out the revolver and shot it at point blank range.

He pulled himself to his feet and tore off the ripped sleeve. Spots of blood p.r.i.c.ked up from where the plastic had scored deep lines into his skin. He removed the spent cartridge and reloaded the revolver, then he realised that hed left the first-aid kit back at the mansion.

"Fresh airs the best disinfectant," he muttered. "Where did I read that? Probably not in a doctors office."

An hour later, and he was forced to take a road that led south. An hour after that, and he was heading west, then north, then south again, and then...

The closer he got to London the worse the roads got. The frequency of mudslides and field-slips didnt change, but the number of abandoned vehicles increased dramatically. Some were parked on the verge, others abandoned in the middle of the road. Around those ditched cars and lorries, occasional motorbikes and anything else with wheels and engine, the undead frequently congregated. Chester couldnt summon the energy or the interest in fighting his way through, so took to the fields and footpaths.

As the day wore on, the persistent drizzle turned dirt into mud, and Chester soon found he was making little better progress than the zombies closely d.o.g.g.i.ng his heels.

Even where the living dead had left the vehicles to rust in peace, the roads were often blocked. Drifts of plastic, metal, and blood-stained sc.r.a.ps of clothing mixed with leaves and branches around the slowly deflating tyres. Muddy run-off, baked hard in the sun of earlier months, turned those drifts into shallow walls surrounding stagnant pools. And it would get worse, he thought, as he carried the bike over a long stretch of swampy quagmire. Year by year, the winter rains would spread the soil to further cover the concrete. Hedges would branch from their neat lines set centuries before, and the only trace the roads ever existed would be the rusting roofs of the cars. There would be no trips to Kent in years to come. The fields and orchards where crops now grew wild would only provide food for animals small or wily enough to evade the undead. More importantly, there was no way of getting a coach through, not on this route. He reached the end of the quagmire, mounted, and set off, damp feet pus.h.i.+ng against slick pedals.

Barely five hundred yards further on he braked hard. A river had burst its banks. The road was flooded. So were the fields next to it, and by the look of them, the pair of houses on the opposite bank. A zombie on the far side of the road saw him. It staggered into the floodwater. Feet, then ankles, then knees were submerged. It slipped. Fell. Got up. Stumbled forward until it was hip deep, fell again. Stood. Fell. Stood again. Chester turned the bike around and headed back the way hed come.

His watch said it was twelve, but it had been saying that for at least the last two hours, ever since hed backhanded a zombie trying to pull him off the bike. He was somewhere on the edge of the Kent downs, and if the signpost on the roadside was to be believed, the Dartford Tunnel and QE2 Bridge were ten miles away. Judging by the sun, it was between late afternoon and early evening, and that was as specific as he was prepared to be.

"Ten miles, then the bridge, then twenty more miles after that," he murmured, glancing up. The drizzle had stopped, but the clouds kept piling into one another, suggesting the respite was temporary.

"Thirty miles. That should be no more than a couple of hours." It might have been if he knew which road led where.

Hed lost the map a few miles after the watch had been broken. Hed had it propped on the handlebars as hed pounded his way up a hill. His legs had burned with the effort and screamed at his brain that he should stop. Hed pushed on, reaching the top to find the road on the other side of the hill was... empty. Hed been expecting it to be full of snarling, biting faces. When it wasnt hed kept pedalling and rocketed down the other side. The undead had been lurking around a bend a mile further on. Hed not had time to brake nor even slow, so he sped up, cycling straight through them, leaving the map and a few more inches of skin behind.

Hed noticed that those zombies were cl.u.s.tered around a green four-by-four. He wondered whether he should ask Styles whether that car had belonged to someone who had set out from the mansion. Perhaps not, the man might say yes.

It was getting dark, though that might just have been the approaching storm and encroaching rooftops. There was a road sign ahead advising drivers to get in the right lane for the Dartford Tunnel or the QE2 Bridge. If all went well, hed be across the river in half an hour. He looked at his arm. The small cuts had scabbed over. Then he looked down at his leg.

The undead had grown too numerous to avoid, and hed been pulled from the bike twice as hed left the countryside behind. Sometimes they were motionless, other times already moving, sometimes towards him, sometimes not, and he was now too tired to care what that meant.

On the first occasion, hed managed to kill the creature, get back on the bike, and get away before the rest of the pack surrounded him. The second time, hed not been so lucky. The zombie hadnt so much pulled him off as pushed him over. The bike had fallen on top, his pocketed revolver was out of reach, and hed had to punch and kick his way free.

Hed got to his feet, swinging the mace, but hed been too hasty. The first blow had missed the creatures head, landing hard on its collarbone. Hed swung again, crus.h.i.+ng its skull, but then hed been surrounded. Hed cleaved and hacked, left and right, until an undead weight smashed into his back, and the mace had gone flying. Hed grabbed the bike, and used it to push the zombies back, giving him time to pull out the revolver and shoot a clear path through them.

When hed reached an empty stretch of road, hed been surprised to find the bike still worked, and more surprised when hed stopped to get his bearings and a sharp chill rose up his leg. Hed looked down to find his trousers ripped mid-calf, with a thin gash trickling blood down to a foot now missing a shoe.

He flexed his hand. It was sore, but he didnt think the bones were broken. He opened the revolver and let the spent cartridges fall to the ground. As they rolled across the pavement, tinkling to a halt in an overfull gutter, there was a corresponding, and far louder, cras.h.i.+ng rattle from a nearby street. Chester fished out a couple of rounds from a pocket that was now nearly empty. There was the hunting knife, but he didnt want to get that close to the undead. He needed another weapon. He needed another shoe. He needed a few hours of calm and quiet. The noise from the neighbouring road got louder, closer. The bike wobbled as he pushed off, his eyes on the houses around him, looking for one that would provide a sanctuary for the night. The rear wheel slipped. His foot went down and again was soaked. He dismounted. Limping, he wheeled the bike away from the growing cacophony behind.

Five minutes later he spotted a promising looking alley that ran between the back gardens of a pre-War row of houses and a post-War parade of shops. What attracted him was the wooden gate across the alleys mouth. He checked to make sure he was alone, then stuck the knife into the gap between lock and jamb, and levered the gate open.

In under a minute he was inside, the gate was closed, and had a battered chest freezer propping it shut. An old familiar thrill swept over him, a memory of those times following a break-in gone right or short-con gone wrong, when the danger was still high, but he knew hed reached a brief and temporary safety. An old reflex had him raising a sleeve to wipe down the side of the freezer. A slow smile slid across his face.

"Dont need to worry about fingerprints now," he murmured. As he took a pace back, the mess of decaying leaves and sodden cardboard s.h.i.+fted beneath his socked foot. "But I do need shoes."

The rear doors to the shops were too st.u.r.dy to risk the knife on, and the windows were thickly reinforced with stout bars too closely s.p.a.ced for him to climb through. There were no fire escapes that he could see, and any conveniently placed drainpipes had been removed in the last round of renovations.

"One of the houses, then."

He picked one near the end of the alley with no broken gla.s.s on the lawn or childrens toys scattered about the garden. He wasnt in the mood to be confronted with the animated ghosts of a once-happy family. The gate had a bolt at the top that was easily reached and a padlock on the inside that wasnt. But the wood surrounding it was old and soft, and broke with barely more than a twist from the knife. He propped the door closed, crossed the garden, and listened at the rear door. He heard nothing. He forced the lock.

A rea.s.suring smell of damp pervaded the house. He relaxed when he realised he couldnt smell the necrotic odour of the undead. His sodden sock squelching uncomfortably, he limped through the narrow laundry room and into the kitchen. Flaking paint spoke of a property overdue for work long before the evacuation. He opened a cupboard. It was empty. He closed it, and saw a rota pinned to the outside. There wasnt enough light to read the details, but taken with everything else, he guessed the occupants had been students. He tried another cupboard, and another, but found nothing.

Beyond the kitchen was a small dining area. Beyond that was a small lounge and a downstairs bedroom. He tried the door. Locked. He rattled the handle. Listened. There was nothing. He broke the lock. The room was empty. He went upstairs, and only when he was certain that he was truly alone did he begin his search for shoes.

The closest to a fit that he found were a pair of trainers two sizes too small. He ripped out the insoles and hacked at the heels until he had something that would, if not keep his feet dry, save them from being lacerated on broken gla.s.s and shards of metal. He used up nearly an entire roll of tape and two extra pairs of laces before hed strapped them onto his feet in such a way he was reasonably sure they wouldnt fly off. A bottle of anti-bacterial spray found under the kitchen sink cleaned the wounds on his arms, legs, and a narrow gash on his forehead he didnt remember getting. A torn up pillowcase did duty as bandages.

He sat down on the sofa in the living room with his half-empty water bottle on the table in front, the revolver in his hand, and the knife loose in his belt. He tried to sleep.

21st September Chester woke surrounded by darkness. He didnt move. He just listened. There was a sound out in the street. There it was again. Was it something being blown by the wind? He listened until the noise faded into the distance.

He turned his mind to the children in that house and how they might get them to the coast. Once they were on the lifeboat they would be safe. It was the miles before then that were the problem. Except it wasnt really a problem. There were no alternatives to be chosen from. They would have to find bicycles and then split into teams, each carrying a few gallons of diesel, each team cycling a different zigzagging route south to the mansion. Whichever group arrived first, that would be the route the coach would take. When they arrived at the beach, the adults would have to hold off the undead and hope that there was someone left to take the news to Anglesey. No, there was no alternative, no subterfuge that could be played out, no point to finesse when dealing with the brutal mindlessness of the undead.

He closed his eyes again, willing himself to sleep. He couldnt. Images of those childrens faces came back to him, replaced sometimes by Reeces, sometimes by others whod died, and then by Cannock. He opened his eyes.

"What about that Inspector Styles?" he whispered, trying to force his mind onto a different track. He didnt look like police, although these days, who looked like anything but a heavily armed tramp? Nor did he act like one. He acted like a man defeated. Chester supposed he was.

"By a mans deeds ye shall judge him." That was something Chesters father had said to him. "And wasnt that a dark night?"

His father had been enjoying one of his brief holidays from Her Majestys pleasure, and had walked in on Chester bent over the kitchen sink, trying to scrub the bloodstains out of a s.h.i.+rt. Chester was sure hed made no noise, but hed turned around to see his old man there, wearing a sad but knowing expression on his face.

Theyd lit a fire. As his father had shown him how to make sure that every shred of cloth burned, it had all come pouring out; Cannock, the burglaries, the fight, the death. Looking back from the safety of years and with the wisdom of practice, it was shock that had made him tell his father the truth. Hed been in a state of it ever since that moment in the underpa.s.s when hed felt the knife cut deep into flesh.

"But you didnt hold it over me," Chester said. There was a clatter from outside, and he was brought back to the present. He let his fingers curl round the revolver, seeking rea.s.surance in the familiar weight.

No, his father hadnt held it over him. Hed never mentioned it again. When hed talked about judgement and deeds, Chester had thought he was talking about Cannock. But then he remembered his fathers deathbed and that look of sorrowful disappointment in his eyes.

He sighed. Hed often blamed his father for his own path in life, but now he saw that the old man had done the best he could. He just hadnt a clue about how to raise a child to succeed in any world other than the criminal one.

The clatter came again from outside, but this time it was farther away. Again, he closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.

To Chester, there had always been something depressing about dawn. People always spoke of a new day with a new promise. It only ever reminded him of work left undone the day before.