Surviving the Evacuation, Book 16

by Frank Tayell

  “Mine,” Chester said, pushing his way between the cars to the door. Mace raised, he paused in the doorway. Beyond, the corridor was pitch black. There was nothing but darkness until the shadows moved, and a zombie staggered outside. Chester swung the mace, one-handed and quick, but he’d not expected the creature to be so close. His blow slammed into its arm, sending the zombie sprawling against the doorframe until it lurched forward again, pushed by the zombie behind. “There’s more!” Chester yelled as one zombie, then the second, collapsed, shot.

  He unclipped his torch, sending the beam into the corridor. “Clear. I think, I hope.”

  “Then let us seek more salubrious surroundings,” Locke said.

  The next turning was no better than the first. The road after that marked the end of the barbed wire. They knew it was the end, rather than the beginning, because only half the road was covered in the sharpened strands. They’d clearly run out before the task could be completed, but not before death had come to the city, evidenced by the rusting shotgun lying among the rag-covered ossuary littering the gutter.

  The third turning led to a wider eastbound road, down which a heavy vehicle had forced a path. Cars had been pushed into one another and, in more than one case, through the front walls of the small houses and tall apartment buildings.

  “Narrow roads, narrower pavement, and no front gardens to speak of,” Chester muttered, as they circumnavigated a Saab, which had come to rest with its engine inside the front room of an end-of-terrace cottage.

  “Something Siobhan said over the sat-phone about Tórshavn is applicable here,” Nilda said. “We don’t know anything about the places we’re visiting. We’re sorely lacking in intelligence.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, Mum,” Jay said. “I always thought you were pretty smart.”

  “Ha ha,” Nilda said flatly. “Eyes front, and don’t think I won’t remember you said that come Christmas.”

  A strip of communal shrubs marked the end of the terraced cottages. Beyond, incongruously, were towering four-storey red-bricks that must have been built as warehouses for the docks, but which had been converted into apartments.

  “Norgesgade,” Nilda said. “The road sign, there. That must be the name of this road. North something, maybe? And what do you think that is at the end of the road, because whatever it is, that’s as far as we’re going.”

  “It’s almost like a castle,” Jay said. “A small one. Not like the Tower. I mean, it’s red brick and its only got two towers either side of the main building.”

  “Those are follies, not towers,” Locke said.

  “You mean fakes?” Jay said.

  “Architectural additions,” Locke said. “But yes, fake towers. And a wide square before it, and a hundred metres more of road before that. I would guess at a government building of some kind. Perhaps a town hall.”

  “Shh,” Nilda said. “Were those footsteps?”

  Water dripped from fractured pipes. Broken gutters twisted in the wind. Sodden wood creaked, and flaking metal pinged, but he couldn’t hear footsteps. As he adjusted his glasses, he couldn’t see much of the building to which they were heading. It was long, taking up the full expanse of the area opposite the square. He could tell it was red, and he could make out the pair of towers. It appeared perfectly symmetrical, and the towers’ conical roofs appeared no taller than the broader roof behind. If he were to guess as to its purpose, he’d have chosen prison rather than town hall.

  Locke suddenly froze. Just as suddenly, she sprinted down the road towards the square outside the building. Jay made to run after her, but Nilda grabbed his arm.

  “Wait,” she said. “I don’t know what she’s running towards, and nor do you. We follow, but slowly, cautiously, ready for danger.”

  The square had some car parking, some benches, a small shelter, and was mostly wide open and empty. Locke had run to a cluster of vans. Not parked, and not turned to a barricade, but abandoned. Nearer, he saw the vans all had the same matching colour scheme. It was faded, grime-coated, and battle-scarred, but still obviously blue and pale yellow.

  Locke moved from cab to cab, then to the rear of each, stopping with one hand on a closed door. A bang broke the spell. Another bang, and then a third followed, all coming from inside the van’s cab.

  “Sorcha, get back,” Nilda said, grabbing the woman’s shoulder, pulling her back from the mud-covered window.

  “It’s just a zombie,” Jay said.

  “It’s Ida,” Locke said. “It’s Ida Hansen.”

  Chester stepped closer. To him, the figure trapped inside the cab was just another unrecognisable humanoid. Rotten clothing, peeling skin, a hole where the nose had been, scraps of hair hanging from its scalp, a mouth that snapped as it pressed its face against the window, a hand that clawed at the door panel as it tried to escape.

  “Are you sure this is someone you know?” Nilda asked.

  “These are my vans,” Locke said.

  Nilda raised the submachine gun, and fired through the closed window. Glass shattered. The zombie slumped to the seat. “I’m sorry, Sorcha.” She gave Chester a meaningful look.

  “Come on, Sorcha, let’s go over there,” Chester said, walking Locke away from the vans. “You say these are your vans. Do you mean they came from Haderslev?”

  “Yes,” Locke said.

  “And you’re sure about who that was?”

  “Ida Hansen. Director of the Marine Institute. She wasn’t a scientist, just a very good manager. She was excellent with people. Not just in getting people to do what you wanted, but to make them want to do it themselves. It’s why we hired her for Haderslev. She was on our list. The embarkation list. She didn’t know it, of course. She knew nothing of what we planned. She was far too honest. Far too good. She would have smiled politely, and then gone straight to the authorities. But we had her pegged as a potential leader after the crisis. One of five in various parts of the world. Lisa didn’t want the job for herself, and I certainly didn’t. We were the guides, that was all. The world would have been left to people like Ida.”

  Nilda came over. “The other vans are empty,” she said. “There’s no one else here, and nothing unusual in the back of the vans. There’s a few bags, some personal possessions, and a few ration-packs. They packed their vehicles in haste, and abandoned them just as hastily.”

  “Rations?” Locke asked. “Let me see.”

  Jay held out a small foil bag.

  “These are part of our emergency supplies,” Locke said. “They were kept in the same place as the weapons. If they found these, they found the guns. Except they wouldn’t have found them. They would have had to know where they were.”

  “Are you sure she didn’t know about your plans, about the supplies?” Chester asked.

  “Positive,” Locke said. “But the leaders of the extraction teams would have known. This is where it failed, and it failed because of me. People from Germany, from Poland, from France, perhaps, they came to Denmark, expecting to embark aboard The New World, but the ship never arrived. Tamika never arrived because Quigley came to Elysium. Because the undead came. Because I ran. I failed, and they died. No one came to rescue them, and so they came here, hoping to find a ship. Clearly they weren’t the only people praying this city would be a gateway to salvation.”

  “And there was one zombie, but more than one van,” Nilda said. “Maybe the rest found a way out. I wonder what that building is? Come on, our job’s not done.”

  “Isn’t it?” Locke asked. “There is no purpose going to Haderslev now.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Nilda said. “But that isn’t the only reason we came to Denmark.”

  They were halfway to the building when Jay called out. “Look at the signs, it’s a railway station,” he said.

  “Talk about serendipity,” Chester said.

  “You mean like a coincidence?” Jay asked.

  “It’s neither,” Nilda said. “The vans must have driven here along the railway line, and
then were left there because of the stalled traffic throughout the town. Sorcha, Jay, stay outside and on guard. We’ll be ten minutes.”

  The main doors led to an artificially low-ceilinged ticket hall that was carpeted with bullet casings. Tuck bent, picked up a casing, and held it to the light.

  “Check that Geiger counter,” Chester said.

  “The reading’s fine,” Nilda said. “Look, there’s some bicycles over there, thirteen of them, by the ticket booth.”

  “And some bones, but I can only count three skulls,” Chester said. “Too many bullets here, and too many bones in the town.”

  “What do you mean?” Nilda asked.

  “They weren’t zombies, were they?” Chester said. Using his mace, he pointed at the nearest of the skulls. “It’s not damaged, not shot. It wasn’t a zombie.”

  “It could have died from a blade through an eye socket,” Nilda said. “Or, yes, maybe you’re right. But people must have come from every direction to this port. All hoping to escape by sea. And when they couldn’t, they found themselves trapped. They would have fought each other to escape. As depressing as that is, it’s ancient history and we’re not forensic archaeologists. Thirteen bikes? They’re a little rusty, but I think we can get a couple back on the road. Is there a pump? Ah, yes, good.”

  “Locke’s people left them here,” Tuck signed, then had to repeat it after they shone their lights on her hands. “They drove along the railway, found the harbour like this, and planned a new escape. Not by sea, and not back the way they’d come. Bicycles are best on narrow roads.”

  “Leading where?” Nilda asked.

  Tuck shrugged. “Wrong question. Where did they go if they didn’t need the bikes?”

  “Good point,” Nilda said. “They didn’t go back to Haderslev, so there’s no reason for Locke to go there. And I’m not sure there’s much reason for us to go, either. Not to Kempton’s old compound, anyway. We still need helicopters, and fuel for them. I think the airport might be worth exploring.”

  “I can’t imagine it’d be much better than this place,” Chester said.

  “Exactly,” Nilda said. “I’d rather we confirm it now, rule it out as an option before everyone gets to Faroe and the debate as to where next begins. Then—”

  A loud clang came from behind the windowless door next to the Perspex-windowed ticket booth. A clattering rattle followed.

  “Thirteen bikes,” Chester muttered, as he examined the door. “Doesn’t look forced. Locked, though.”

  “Can you pick it?”

  Tuck tapped the suppressed barrel of her submachine gun against the plastic window to get their attention. “Shadows,” she signed, one-handed, and pointed at an open door behind the enclosed ticket booth.

  “The door leads to an access corridor, and then to the ticket booth, and to the staff-side of the station,” Nilda said. “Chester?”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “None,” Nilda said.

  “Then I’ll force it. The door opens outward. The zombies will come tumbling our way. Get ready.” As he stepped closer, Tuck and Nilda stepped back, weapons raised, fingers braced near the triggers.

  “Should have been a fishmonger,” Chester muttered. He clipped the mace to his belt and drew his knife. He knew this type of lock well enough, and had picked its kind many times. A metal plate shielded the lock-bar, while the double-jointed hinges were recessed into the frame. A strong door, certainly. One designed to stop people breaking in for any cash left in the tills overnight. The weak point wasn’t the door, but the frame, where the metal guard didn’t extend to cover the strike plate. He had it loose in a minute, and almost free a minute after that. “On three,” he called out, gripping the handle. “One. Two…”

  He wrenched the door open, stepping back as he let go of the opening door. He kept stepping back as Tuck fired, once, but had to detour around a row of stained oak benches until he could see the corridor for himself.

  “Only one zombie?” he asked.

  “Looks like it,” Nilda said. “Shine your light in there.”

  There was only one corpse. The corridor beyond was long, dark, and covered in a foul-smelling green slime.

  “Yeah, looks like only one,” he said. “Don’t fancy going down there to confirm it, mind. Doesn’t look like the other doors are open, except that one right at the end.”

  “Hold that thought,” Nilda said. “Do you see what she’s wearing? That jacket’s blue and gold. I think this is one of Locke’s friends. One of her people, anyway. That’s settled it. Chester, keep an eye on this door, but don’t go any further until I come back.”

  “Stay here and don’t do any work, I can manage that,” he said.

  Nilda and Tuck headed back outside, and Chester looked at the corpse. It had been undead for five months, maybe six, but not since the outbreak. Not unless it had spent all that time locked up in the corridor. He sat on the nearest of the benches, and mulled that over. He’d reached no firm conclusion before Nilda returned.

  “I sent the others back,” she said.

  “To the ship?”

  “We’ll head to the airport tomorrow,” Nilda said. “Just the two of us. It’s only sixty kilometres, so we should be back before dark, but I said they should give us thirty-six hours. If we’re not back by lunch the following day, they should come looking for us.”

  “Is that wise?” Chester asked.

  “Two people is safer than a dozen,” Nilda said. “And I’m not looking for danger. I want to confirm the rest of Denmark is as devastated as this city. When the expedition from America returns, confirming it’s as desolate as we expect, I don’t want someone suggesting we inspect the Baltic. The people from Ukraine must have done that. And I’ve got a theory, based on the geography, based on the bridge to Sweden. Essentially, everyone from the north headed south, and from the south, they headed north, all meeting here. No, let’s not delay confirming the bad news.”

  “Fair enough,” he said.

  “You’re not going to give a speech about how this is a risk I shouldn’t be taking?”

  “A cycling tour of Denmark? We’ll call it our honeymoon.”

  “You don’t get off that lightly,” she said. “Our honeymoon will be in a house with electricity and a stocked fridge, just as soon as we get to Faroe. We should check that corridor, then get a fire started before dark.”

  “Should have been a fishmonger,” Chester said, as he stepped over the corpse and entered the corridor.

  “Really? You wanted to sell fish.”

  “Door to the ticket office is locked. It’s not budging. Shh. No, can’t hear anything. Door opposite is… locked. Yeah, no, not really. It was just an old memory that came back to me. Something I’ve been thinking about these last few days. I suppose because fish has become such a common feature of our routine.”

  “Was it an attempt at an honest living?” Nilda asked.

  “More a casual job offer than a living,” he said. “This door’s locked. So is this. Two more to go, then the door at the end.”

  “It’s pretty grim in this corridor,” Nilda said. “There must be a broken pipe. We’ll collect rainwater, I think. The clouds had that look about them. You really wanted to be a fishmonger?”

  “No, which is why I didn’t take the job,” Chester said. “This door’s locked. So’s this one. Just one left. It’s ajar. You ready?”

  “Always,” she said.

  The door was open an inch. He pushed it inward, but it stuck halfway. He put his shoulder to it, letting the light fall onto the rotting arm. “Body,” he said, and stepped inside. “One corpse. A stockroom. Yeah, only one corpse. There’s another door in the corner. Closed and covered in fallen boxes.”

  “Let’s see?” Nilda said, easing around the door to see for herself. “I guess this is how that woman got infected,” she said, shining her own light on the dead zombie with a knife protruding from its skull. “There’s nothing for us here.”

  They
stepped back into the corridor, pulling that door closed. Back in the ticket hall, Chester used his boot to roll the undead woman inside the corridor before pushing the door closed. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I reckon she must have been tasked with keeping an eye on the bikes, her and that woman in the van. They did a search, got infected. The woman in the van locked that woman in there, then locked herself in the van.”

  “But there are thirteen bikes,” Nilda said. “So where did the other eleven go? Anyway, what was that about you being a fishmonger?”

  “Technically, the job was delivery driver. There was this old woman who ran a fish shop. Kept crazy hours. Started work at three in the morning. She caught me sorting through my night-time haul around the back of her shop. Offered me a driving job.”

  “She didn’t call the police?”

  “Nah. Said she wanted to get ahead of the supermarkets, so wanted to get the catch to her shop straight from the trawlers. She needed someone to drive from the docks to London, every night.”

  “But you didn’t take it.”

  “Sounded too much like hard work.”

  “And you regret it now?”

  “Hmm. Nope. She got nicked a couple of months later. The trawlers were bringing in guns smuggled from Eastern Europe, transferred to the fishing boats out at sea. Lucky escape for me.”

  “So why’d you say you wish you were a fishmonger?”

  “It’s what Jay was saying about what life will be like from now on. I figure it’s time I found myself a new career. Fishmonger seems like something we’ll have a use for. Assuming we still have fish a few years from now.”

  “Here’s hoping,” Nilda said. “Let’s take a look at these bikes.”

  Chester was pumping the tyres on the second when a pair of lights shone through the main doors. They were opened by Tuck and Locke.

  “What are you doing back?” Nilda asked.

  “There’s news from Kim,” Tuck signed. “Good news. There are supplies in the hospital.”

  “Medical supplies?” Chester asked.