Surviving The Evacuation: Harvest Part 4

"Seriously?" she asked. "You stole fire engines?"

"Only the one. And it wasnt me who actually drove it off. I reckon theyd be kept in one of those warehouses. The doors are about the right height."

Theyd reached the point where the long ribbon of runway joined the far wider land on which the terminal and other buildings had been constructed. The nearest one had a pair of retractable gates. Both were closed, but next to the nearest was a door. Chester tried the handle.

"Its locked," he said. He pulled out a long hunting knife and was about to lever at the lock when Nilda put a warning hand on his arm and a cautioning finger to her lips.

"Listen," she mouthed. It was soft, almost inaudible, but a dry, almost rhythmic rustling came from inside.

"Zombies?" Chester mouthed.

Nilda gave an uncertain shrug and moved over to the wide retractable gate. Cautiously, she leaned forward, pressing her ear against the cool metal. There was an explosion of sound. She jumped back, drawing her sword in one fluid movement, but the sound hadnt come from inside the building. An irregular green streak poured out of a crashed jet. Out of all the possible explanations her brain started with the worst, cycling from smoke to chlorine gas before it reset, and she realised that she was looking at a flock of birds.

"Are they parrots?"

"Nah, parakeets," Chester muttered. "They were a common sight over the last few years."

"Really?" she asked. "In London?"

"They were taking over from the pigeons," he said. "I always reckoned theyd become the dominant-"

There was a clattering bang from inside the warehouse. In the shock of such an unexpected sight, theyd spoken at an incautious volume. There was no mistaking the rustling of cloth, nor the dry sc.r.a.pe of brittle nails down metal, one at a time, then growing in number and frequency until it was the only sound they could hear.

Nilda gripped her sword more tightly as she took a step back, then another. She was sure that the gate would fall, but it didnt.

"Will it hold?" she asked.

"I was about to ask you that," Chester replied, "but I think so."

"Then we go on."

She didnt want to. She wanted to return to the boat and sail away from this forsaken island, but that was fear speaking. If they left now, they would have to look for the Geiger counter somewhere else. She remembered the faces of those shed buried on the Isle of Scaragh and could too easily picture Jay suffering the same fate. No, they had to go on. There was no one to do the job for them, and nowhere to go if they failed.

"Do you know where customs is?" she asked.

"No."

"Youve not been here before?"

"Just to collect people. Im more an airstrip kind of guy."

"Planes coming in under the radar?" she guessed. "Did you even own a pa.s.sport?"

"I did." He paused. She could tell what was coming. "Lots," he finished.

Most of what Nilda knew about City Airport had been learned in the last hour. What she knew about airports in general didnt add up to much more. Shed only flown twice, once to Dublin, once to Frankfurt. Both were last minute city breaks, and both were with Jays father before their son was born. On those trips shed had no interest in the airport, the flight, the sights, or anything else but him.

The little she did know had come from television, and those programmes came filtered through a producer whose sole job was to make humdrum tedium seem more action packed than the biggest Hollywood blockbuster. There was one episode she remembered where theyd run a Geiger counter over a planes worth of luggage. There had been no threat warning or any other reason to do it that she could see except to add the illusion of action to an otherwise unwatchable half hour.

"That one. Its got to be baggage handling, and thatll lead us to customs," she said, angling towards the nearest of the buildings. There was a set of double-width doors reinforced with a metal kick plate at the bottom. She took out the LED flashlight shed brought from the collection at the Tower and pushed at the door. It swung open. No, she didnt know much about airports, but she was certain all the doors should be kept locked.

It wasnt baggage handling. The light flickered and died. She pressed the b.u.t.ton. Nothing happened. She shook it and swore in frustration. Chesters torch came on, and she saw they were in a long corridor with irregularly s.p.a.ced doorways on both sides. He pushed past her. The double doors closed, and other than his truncated beam of light, they were in darkness.

The nearest door on the right-hand side of the corridor had a transparent window. Nilda stepped closer. It was a control room with a bank of screens, a stack of clipboards, and there wasnt enough light to discern anything more.

"Point the light-" she began, and stopped, suddenly aware of how loud her voice was in such a confined, silent place. She jabbed a finger at the window. Chester shone the light inside. She saw a lantern standing on one of the desks.

The doors handle squeaked as she turned it, the sound grating against already frayed nerves. Automatically she looked about, sword raised, expecting to see the undead, but the corridor was empty except for a fading white dot imprinted on her retina by Chesters torch. Abandoning subtlety, she wrenched the door open.

Trying to see by the occasional flashes of light as Chester moved back and forth, she eased forward, hand outstretched. She found the lantern. Grabbed it. Found the switch. Pressed it. Nothing happened.

"Thats about right," she muttered. When Chester turned and the room was again bathed in light, she waved him inside. With the dim and wavering aid of his torch, she inspected the lantern. It was a cheap model, the sort designed to be kept in a car and used in case of a breakdown on some unlit stretch of road. When she checked the batteries, she found one had leaked.

"Its not what youd use on a runway," she whispered. "Its not powerful enough. You wouldnt even use it inside. This plastic is too cheap."

Chester turned away, and she was thrust into darkness once more.

"Here, look at this," he said before she could swear.

Affixed to the wall was a cabinet. On it were two maps, one showing an escape route in case there was a fire on the runway, the other if the terminal building itself was ablaze. The rooms were clearly marked. Judging by the labels, the area they were in was used by the planes cleaning crews. Chester pointed at a spot on the map.

"See that?" he asked. "Holding cells. How much do you want to bet that customs is nearby?"

"Thats where we go," Nilda said. "Down the corridor, right at the end, then straight on. Third door on the right." She repeated the directions to herself, and then ran them backwards so shed know how to get out in the pitch dark.

They left the room and followed the corridor, Chester on the left, she on the right. After twenty paces, she stuck a hand out to stop him. Shed heard something. There was no way that the undead could be in that warehouse by the runway and not inside the terminal itself, no one was that lucky, but the sound didnt come again. They continued down to the junction and turned right.

This corridor was narrower, and the left-hand wall was lined with suitcases. As they walked past them, Nilda saw the occasional tail of cloth protruding from between the seal. The cases had been searched, then hastily repacked and moved out of the way. That made sense. What didnt was why anyone would have been searching them in the first place. Clothing and other personal items could be found behind the windows on any high street, there for the taking by anyone with half a brick and enough wits to know how to throw it. That the cases had been searched suggested that people had stayed in the airport, living there long after the undead had taken to the streets outside. Why? It was obvious. They had flown in from all over the world in the hope they would find safety here. When theyd seen it was no different to wherever theyd come from, what reason did they have to go any further? Obvious, and depressing.

She raised a hand, pointing to the right. One more door and they should reach the holding cells.

But those people would have left when they got hungry, right? She told herself that surely they would. But if so, then they hadnt made it to the walkways above Oxford Street, let alone to Anglesey. Did that mean they were still here?

They reached the door. It was reinforced. Access was via a key-card and number-pad system. Nilda mouthed a silent 'thank you as she pushed at the door, and the now long-defunct electrical locks clicked open.

Chester stepped through first, mace in one hand, torch in the other, turning quickly as he swept the room. By the flashes of illumination, Nilda saw it wasnt actually a cell, though she should have guessed that, but an office. Along the rear wall was a row of blank screens. In the middle were two desks, back to back, and- and Chester had moved off towards the left, and the rest of the room was plunged into darkness. She stepped inside.

Hed opened a metal cupboard. Inside was a row of lamps. He took one out. The light came on, and it was brighter than his rechargeable LED. She took it and instantly relaxed as she felt control over darkness once more.

A slow sweep of the room confirmed it was an office, and other than the lamps, had little of interest except a second door leading, she guessed, to- There was a hand on her shoulder. She spun around. It was only Chester. He was pointing at the door to the metal cupboard. On it were printed instructions. She stepped closer. It was a long list of the procedures to take in the event of almost all imaginable emergencies. Zombies, she noted, were not mentioned, but third from the top was 'In the case of a radiological event, and next to it was an instruction to look for supplies in 'Locker C1.3.

"Well, what does that mean?" she hissed.

His response was one of those shrugs she found increasingly frustrating. She gave the room a quick but more thorough examination. Wherever that locker was, it was somewhere else. Her light fell on the rooms other door.

Chester turned the handle. Lamp in one hand, sword in the other, she stepped through. It was another narrow corridor. There were three doors to the right, each with a small window at head height.

There was a sudden banging from the closest door. Nilda spun, raising both sword and lamp. The pounding kept on, but the door didnt move. She shone the light inside, knowing what she would see.

It was a cell. In it, a zombie smacked its fists against the reinforced viewing window. Up and down, up and down. The hardened gla.s.s didnt break. It didnt even fracture, but with each blow it left a brown-red smear that was slowly obscuring the view.

"Ready?" she asked, her hand going to the recessed handle.

"Theres no point," Chester said.

"Im not leaving it in there," she said as she twisted the handle and pulled. The door stayed closed.

"Thats what I meant," Chester said. "Theres no point having a cell with doors that can be opened simply by staging a blackout."

She moved to the next cell. By lamplight, she could see another body. This one was a corpse and it was long dead. There were stains on the gla.s.s, these dried and flaking. The body lay with one hand outstretched, fingernails torn and broken, palm open, almost as if asking for help.

"Left in there to die," Chester said, darkly.

"Enough," Nilda said, walking briskly to the end of the corridor. Another door. Another corridor. An interrogation room to the right, a storeroom to the left. She walked inside, still able to hear that zombie clawing at that reinforced window.

"Quickly," she said. "Locker C1.3 wasnt it?"

It was obvious which one that was. There was a bright yellow sticker in the middle, a thick yellow band painted at the top and bottom, and it was the only locker that hadnt been emptied. Inside they found two Geiger counters, a pair of yellow all-in-one protective suits, two rebreathers and a long box. She opened it. Twelve dosimeters lay nestled inside.

She pulled off her pack and stuffed those inside, and then the Geiger counters. For good measure and for no reason other than they were there, she grabbed the rebreathers and yellow suits. They went into Chesters pack.

"I want to see blue skies again," she said.

"Agreed."

The trapped creatures pounding intensified when they made their way past the cells. As they headed down the corridor beyond, Nilda thought she could still hear it, then realised that this was a new sound. It was as if something metallic was being slowly dragged along the ground. It was hard to identify and even harder to pinpoint from where it came. She turned around, trying to peer into the shadows beyond the few dozen yards illuminated by the lamp.

"Ignore it," Chester said, grabbing her arm. But she couldnt, and the noise didnt stop.

It was almost a relief, twenty yards further on, when a set of doors on their right flew open and a zombie stumbled out. It managed two lurching steps before the doors swung closed, hitting it in the face and pitching it back into the room. It was like a scene from one of those bad sitcoms broadcast late at night for an audience too tired, drunk, or indifferent to change the channel. And with that image, the flash of fear vanished.

The doors pushed open again, and the creature staggered out into the corridor. And it did so with a metallic sc.r.a.pe. Attached to its right ankle was a handcuff. The other end of the 'cuffs was attached to a twisted section of metal tubing belonging to Nilda didnt know what. Calmly, she stepped forward and swiped the sword at the zombies out-flung hand, severing three of its fingers as it clawed towards her. As she brought her sword arm back, she ducked, and then struck again, slicing the blade through the tendons at the back of its knees. She cut through stained fabric and desiccated flesh, and as it tried to snap its mouth down on her outstretched wrist, it toppled sideways. Its head hit the double doors, knocking them inward. Before they could swing closed again, shed stabbed the sword down, spearing the point through the zombies temple. It stopped moving. Pitiful, she thought, truly pitiful.

"Lets get out of here," Chester said.

"Yeah. Ive had-" She stopped. There it was again. That metallic sc.r.a.ping sound. And it seemed to be coming from every direction at once.

"Now!" he barked, but she didnt need any encouragement.

They jogged to the junction where the corridor met the one that led outside. At the far end she could make out the double doors, silhouetted by a faint halo of daylight. She managed one step towards the light when that sound grew, suddenly amplified tenfold. She looked left and right and back and forth and saw nothing. Then she realised why. She looked up.

"Its above us!" she screamed, grabbing Chesters arm, pulling him back, just as the false ceiling above them collapsed.

Zombies fell to the floor. Blue coats. White coats. A man. Two women. A child. Those facts vaguely registered as she kept backing away. Four more fell, and then another section of ceiling and a score tumbled out. Some hit the ground with the soft crack of rotting bone, others with a crunch of plaster and Styrofoam as they found their feet and moved towards the light. As one, Nilda and Chester turned and ran.

Behind them, she could hear more falling thumps, more crunching of plaster, and then a harsher metallic jangling as the light fittings and ventilation that the false ceiling had been built to hide were torn loose. Just run, she told herself, because they couldnt. All she had to do was keep moving, but before she could seek any comfort in that thought, the ceiling ahead of them collapsed. Plaster and dust erupted in a thick cloud, turning visibility to nothing. Coughing, spluttering, retching, she could make out the squirming forms of the undead thras.h.i.+ng on the ground, all struggling to stand.

Chester bellowed and sprang, his mace cleaving up and down, up and down. He wasnt aiming at heads; there was too much dust to aim at anything. He just hacked and hewed with furious abandon, metal smas.h.i.+ng into the floor as often as it crushed necrotic flesh. Nilda ran, swinging the lamp back and forth in one hand, the sword stabbing and slicing in the other. She screamed a bellow of incandescent fury and fear as fingers clawed at her legs and tugged at her feet. Cold pain ran up from her calf, and she danced sideways, half-tripping as a hand caught at her ankle. Then there was a hand at her shoulder, yanking her forward. It was Chester, grunting with the effort as he pulled her free of that heaving heap of death.

As her eyes cleared and her brain focused, she saw the corridor ahead was clear. She tried to run, but that turned into a limp. Chester threw an arm under hers, roughly dragging her onward, and then right at the next junction. There, ahead, was the bright outline of daylight on the other side of a door. In front of it, heading towards them, were four of the undead. She hurled the lamp at them, taking quick shallow breaths, trying to recover, preparing herself to fight.

"Never stops, does it?" Chester muttered. There was an eruption of light and sound. Once. Twice. He fired. Again and again. Four shots, then five, then six, emptying the revolver. Three fell. The fourth staggered with the impact as the bullet hit its collarbone. Nilda hobbled forward, slicing the sword at the creatures legs, knocking it down to one knee, bringing her hand back, stabbing it through an eye before it had a chance to stand.

They pushed the door open. The light was blinding. The air was cool, and for a brief moment all seemed well, but then her eyes adjusted. She saw the mechanical graveyard in front, and to her right she saw the other door, the one theyd used to enter the terminal, and out of which came a slow procession of the undead.

"Can you run?" Chester asked as he grabbed her arm.

"Lets find out."

With Chester half dragging her, she limped away from the terminal building. Those green birds seemed to be everywhere now, all flying up and away from them and the slow and inexorable death that followed.

"The boat." She waved an arm towards the southeast, but they were running to the north.

"Well be fine. Just a bit further."

And he was right. They ran around a broken section of wing and found themselves on the relatively clear stretch of runway. The terminal was now to their right. The zombies were following them but were getting caught in the wreckage. Chester, his hand a vice on Nildas arm, didnt slow. Ahead she could see two figures. One waved.

Another hundred yards, and they were close enough to hear Jay call, "What happened?" when behind her there was a sharp popping sound, followed by a rattling clatter. Nilda found herself looking back towards the warehouse in which the emergency vehicles had been stored. The retractable gate had broken. The undead that had been trapped inside spilled out onto the tarmac. She froze.

"Children," she said. They had to be. Though there were a few taller figures, most were too small to ever have been adults.

"No time for it." Chester grabbed her arm and tugged her back towards Jay, Tuck, and the waiting lifeboat.

As Chester piloted the boat back out into the Thames, Nilda couldnt take her eyes from the undead staggering along the runway. Three reached the end almost at the same time and kept on moving, tumbling down into the water "How many do you think there are?" Jay asked.

"Two hundred. Three. More," Nilda said, taking out the much depleted first-aid kit to clean the cuts on her legs.

"Its a shame," Jay said.

"Yes," Nilda said. "All those children. All those lives, wasted. Flown all this way in the hope they would find safety, forced to take refuge in that building when the terminal was overrun, only to find that sanctuary was really a mausoleum."

"No," Jay said. "I meant its a shame because there was probably some useful stuff in the airport."

She wondered when her son had become so callous. But he hadnt, not really. He didnt see the undead as children, but simply as an annoying obstacle to be avoided or overcome.

"I think," she said, "that with that number of people staying at the airport, they would have used up all the obvious supplies."

"Yeah, but were starting to need the un.o.bvious ones," Jay said. "Things like brake cables. We didnt know they were useful until we started making the walkways. Then theres bleach and string. And paper. Didnt they have bookshops at airports? And we didnt look for the fuel."

"Fuel?"

"Yeah, plane fuel. Tuck says you can use it in a car or boat."

"Can you?"

"In a diesel engine, sure. And if those people stayed at the airport, I wonder..." Chester began. "Hmm."

"What?"