by Frank Tayell
“And Dr Harabi wants antibiotics?” Sholto asked. “I’m going to take a look in that town to the west. A place with a ferry port will have a hospital. And I’ll take a look for the undead as I go.”
“Can I go, too?” Jay asked. “It’ll be as much danger there as here.”
“I don’t know about that,” Nilda said.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Chester said. “And if Thaddeus is correct, it’d be good for the lad to see it for himself.”
“Fine, but keep an eye on the time,” Nilda said. “One hour, then be back here. Whatever you find, we’re sleeping aboard the ship tonight.”
Sholto, Chester, and Jay followed the access road back to the expansive car park. Following the reflected torch-gleam on the road signs, they found the exit. Turning left, they trudged up the road that ran south, rising above the harbour, and towards the peninsula-town they’d viewed as they’d entered the bay. As the road climbed, the wind dropped, and the temperature sank with it as the rain turned to sleet.
“Savage Cove was more fun than this,” Jay said, pulling his hood lower.
“Having second thoughts, Jay?” Chester called.
“Up ahead!” Sholto said, pointing. “Hotel, I think.”
“What’s the sign say?” Chester asked, peering into the white-dashed distance.
“Chris’s View,” Jay said. “Wait, no, underneath, in smaller letters, it says And Hotel.”
Sholto stopped at the snaking driveway that led up the hillside to the dark, two-storey complex. “You see what I see?”
“Nope,” Chester said.
“A body,” Jay hissed.
“Not just one,” Sholto said, pointing at the sloping hillside occasionally dotted with grass, and frequently dotted with muddy mounds. As they climbed the hill, they found more fallen corpses, lying on the hillside and in the road as well.
When he reached fifty, Chester switched from counting to estimating, but abandoned that when they reached the hotel’s relatively flat parking lot.
“There’s hundreds,” Jay said.
“Not quite that many,” Sholto said. “Maybe a hundred and eighty.”
“Yeah, but what was that thing your brother said? Where there’s one, there’s always more. That’s got to be true for the dead as well as the living dead.” Chester picked his way between the corpses until he reached a solitary pick-up truck abandoned with its doors open, ten metres inside the hotel’s drive. The corpses were zombies. And none moved. Not an inch. Even so, a shiver ran down his spine as he heard footsteps splash behind him, but it was only Jay.
“What are you looking for?” the young man asked.
“I don’t know until I find it,” Chester said. “But there’s no corpses beneath the truck’s tyres. The zombies came after the vehicle did.”
“The door to the hotel’s been broken open,” Sholto called from another twenty paces closer to the building. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m beginning to freeze,” Chester said, peering into the truck’s sodden interior. “Nah. We need more time than we’ve got, and drier weather, to prove more than a guess.”
“What guess?” Jay said.
“That this was someone’s last stand. They drove here in the truck. Got inside, but the zombies followed. In the end, they were outnumbered by far, far too many.”
“But they might have escaped,” Jay said. “Hey, maybe one of them was Diana Fenton. Or maybe the vehicle’s drivers came here with her.”
“These zombies have been here a lot longer than she was,” Chester said. “Thaddeus, what do you reckon? Want to take a look inside?”
“Yes, but not today,” he said. He’d turned around and was looking south, across the parking lot, to the town below the hillside and the harbour beyond. The sleet was growing thicker, harder, turning to snow, but if anything, it was easier to peer through than the rain. “I want to confirm that, down there, is what I think it is.”
“What?” Jay asked, tripping as he tried to step over a corpse.
Chester grabbed his arm. “Nope. Back the way we came.”
“Yeah, but what do you think’s down there?” Jay asked.
“I think that’s the town,” Sholto said, unslinging his rifle. “And I think they barricaded it. And I think the barricade is where these zombies came from.”
Chester didn’t need to ask any more. “Back to the road, Jay, quick now. Go.”
And Jay had been fighting the undead as long as anyone else. He grasped the cues, unslinging his own rifle as all three picked their way through the field of the undead, back down the snaking pathway to Marine Drive.
“You know the way back if we’ve got to run?” Chester asked.
“I’m not quitting a fight,” Jay said.
“I need to keep you safe,” Chester said. “Which means if you don’t run, I won’t run. So if you want to keep me alive, when I say run, you do. No arguments.”
“Yeah, fine,” Jay said.
“Safeties off,” Sholto said.
Chester drew his handgun. He’d been a competent shot before his head injury, but a terrible one since. He’d refused one of the suppressed assault rifles on the grounds he’d burn through the ammo far too quickly. But his Colt .45, borrowed from George Tull, would be the signal to Nilda and the others. Assuming the gunshot’s echo would carry through the snowstorm to the shore. A minute later, he holstered the weapon, the shot unfired.
“They’re dead,” Jay said. “They are, right?”
The corpses lay eight, nine, ten deep against the barricade.
“I think so,” Chester said.
“And there are hundreds here. There have to be,” Jay said. To the east was the sea. To the west the barricade continued along the road, joining with houses that had been suborned into this defensive line. Between the harbour wall and the first of the houses, across the road, four cars had been parked bumper to bumper. Behind them was a wall of chain link and wooden boards, but behind and above those was the top of a cement truck whose load had been added to this defensive line.
“They’re dead,” Sholto said. But as if to test his own words, he stepped forward and nudged the nearest corpse. Then the body next to it. “Yep, they’re dead. Heads are undamaged.”
“Not this one,” Jay said, kicking at the mud. “There’s a skull here. Definitely been shot. You can see the hole and everything.”
“There’s bones over here, too,” Sholto said. “Okay, for now, we can assume they’re dead. From up at the hotel, it looked like there was a jetty over there, just on the other side of this barricade.”
“Big enough for The New World?” Jay asked.
“I don’t think so, but big enough for our launch,” Sholto said. “Do you reckon they used one of those buildings as their gate?”
“Dunno, but there’s a ladder there,” Jay said, pointing. Only the topmost rungs were visible, the rest were buried beneath the corpses.
“Right, out the way, you two,” Chester said, and grabbed, pushed, and pulled the bodies aside. “That proves it,” he said a minute later. “They are definitely dead. My gloves are ruined. My coat needs to be binned, and my boots need to be burned, but they are absolutely, certainly, dead.” Chester climbed over first, jumped down to the mud, and slipped as he landed. His first thought was ice, but as he looked down, he saw the casings. “Careful on this side,” he said, scuffing at the freezing mud, kicking at the puddles in which brass lay thicker than gravel. “There’s shell casings here. Thousands of them.”
“They fought a battle,” Jay said. “But they didn’t kill all of the zombies. So did the survivors all die? They can’t have. I mean, if they did, there’d be bodies this side of the barricade, right?”
“I can’t see any,” Sholto said.
“Change of plans,” Chester said. “I need some new clothes. That’s priority number one. One of those houses inland will do. Any boats down there?”
“None,” Sholto said. “No wrecks either, not that I can see
. No bodies, anywhere. Not people. Not zombies.”
But there were cars in the street, parked side-on to the roadway with occasional stacks of tyres or furniture filling the gaps.
“Jay, check the ground for casings,” Chester said as he toppled a wardrobe to make a space in the hasty, and unused, barricade.
“None,” Jay said. “So they didn’t fight here.”
“Probably not,” Chester said. “But I reckon they shoved parked cars into the road. They prepared to fight for every foot of ground. But they didn’t have to.”
“Metre,” Jay said.
“Meet who?”
“No, every metre of ground,” Jay said. “Canada’s metric.”
A bang came from inland, so loud it shredded the silent shroud enveloping the town.
“We spoke too soon. Guns ready,” Chester said. “We’re not going get back over that barricade any time quick.”
The banging repeated again and again, seeming to grow louder. But it came from inland, and not far away.
Slowly, in a line, they walked up the road, scanning each and every boarded door, each dark window, each smoke-less chimney. The sharp bang came again, from their left, behind a white wood-clad house with red trim.
“Let’s get this done,” Chester said, unclipping his mace, certain he knew what he’d find. He jogged around the side of the house, already swinging the ancient and sharpened octagon of steel up and around and… And he let the weapon fall as he rounded the corner and saw the porch door swing shut with a loud bang.
“That was all it was?” Jay asked. “Just a door?”
“Well, we wanted to go inside,” Chester said. He climbed up the porch, pulled the door open, and then tried the door to the house. “Unlocked,” he said, and, following his torch’s beam, he went inside.
The door led to a utility room with washing machine, dryer, and a long peg-rack. Two coats hung at one end, with a single pair of boots beneath. A trio of battered hats hung at the other. In the corner, a set of rusting ski-poles kept company with an equally battered fishing rod. Two doors led from the utility room; one had a frosted glass panel, the other was solidly wooden. He tried the glass-panelled door and found himself in a kitchen.
“That’s a rifle, isn’t it?” Jay said, pointing at the dismantled weapon on the kitchen table.
“I’d say so,” Chester said. “Check the cupboards. See if there’s any bullets.”
He moved along the corridor from the kitchen into the living room. Whether you described the furniture as well loved or well used, it had grown old with its owner, assuming that was the white-haired man in a handful of photographs, most of which were of eight different children, with an occasional family portrait in between.
“Chester, you better come and look at this!” Jay called.
He headed back to the kitchen where Jay held a large plastic box in his hands. “It’s biscuits,” he said.
“Cookies,” Chester said. “This is Canada.”
“Who cares what they’re called?” Jay lifted the lid. Inside, still sealed in their plastic wrapper, were two unopened packs.
“Now that is treasure,” Chester said.
“You both want to come and look at this!” Sholto called. Where Jay had followed Chester into the kitchen, Sholto had taken the other door. It led to a long garage, half of which was occupied with a tarpaulin-covered car. Tool racks lined the outer wall, and it was obvious from first glance that a lot were missing. That wasn’t what had caused Sholto to call out. Against the rear wall was a row of homemade cupboards.
“Tins!” Jay said, picking up a can. “With a label, too. Awesome! There’s, like, forty tins here. Cherries. Can’t remember what they even taste like.”
“You’re stepping on the punch-line,” Sholto said, holding out the tub he’d opened.
“What are they?” Jay asked.
“Sunflower seeds,” Sholto said. “Covered in salt and sugar.”
“Will that help them grow?”
“They’re for eating. For snacking,” Sholto said. “There’s rice in that tub. Pasta in those.”
Chester stepped back, taking it in. “This was a remote little town that existed because of the ferry. You’d have to keep some food in for winter, in case the weather prevented a delivery by sea.”
“And this is what he had left,” Sholto said. “Enough for a few months, for one person.”
“Can I try some?” Jay asked.
“Help yourself,” Sholto said. “A place like this, you’d get used to the shops sometimes having empty shelves.”
“But the townsfolk didn’t stay until the food was all gone,” Chester said. “And they left before their outer barricade broke. Must have been by ship. And no one’s come back here since.”
“Except Diana,” Jay said.
“Assuming that’s her name,” Chester said.
“And except for whoever ended up at the hotel,” Sholto said. “I bet they came here hoping to find a boat, but found the barricade and the undead instead.”
“Do you want some, Chester?” Jay asked, holding out the tub.
“Now you mention it.” Chester reached out a hand, then saw the gore and mud on glove and sleeve. “I’m going to change first. If he didn’t take the food with him, he’ll have left some clothes. Maybe some soap, too.”
Upstairs, he found the bedroom first, and guessed the room opposite was the bathroom. The door was locked. He rapped his knuckles against the wood. There was no reply. He reached for the mace, hesitated, and changed his mind. He stepped back and kicked. The lock splintered and the door opened by forty degrees. The remains of the corpse stopped it from opening any further.
“What was that?” Sholto called, running out from the garage, rifle raised.
“Sorry. Just me. Locked bathroom door,” Chester said. “The owner was inside.”
“Zombie?” Jay called out.
“No. I don’t think so,” Chester said, taking a quick look inside. “The lid to the toilet is down. Next to it, there’s a large hunting knife. I think he came in, locked the door, sat down, and slit his wrist. Hard to be sure, but that might explain the rifle downstairs. The gun jammed and he was trying to fix it, but decided he didn’t have time.”
“He was immune and didn’t know it? That’s a sad ending,” Jay said.
Chester opened the mirrored cabinet above the sink. “There’s pills in here,” he said. “No idea what they’ll do, mind. Ah, vitamin-D, I know that one.”
“Yep, very sad,” Jay said.
“Why sad?” Chester asked, coming back out into the corridor.
“Because of the red and white trim on the house,” Jay said, with the tone of a young man who’d not fully abandoned youth. “In the photo, he’s this white-haired old man, and it’s so close to Christmas. I thought this was Santa’s grotto.”
“Sad or not, I tell you what I think this place is,” Sholto said. “It is Eldorado.”
Day 284, 22nd December
Chapter 19 - Phoenix Air
The TransCanada Highway, Newfoundland
Sholto shivered himself awake. A dot of sunlight had shimmered through a hole in the window shade and was inching its way across the bulkhead. If the sun was up, then he should have been an hour ago. He hurled himself upright and towards the new day. There was little warmth in his bunk, and even less on the cold metal of the deck, but he ran through his morning regime of stretches to test everything still worked. An almost touch of his toes and… and yes, the swirling throb in his knee had subsided. What had begun as a twinge in Belfast had grown into an ache when he’d first reached Faroe, and then into a burning fire every time he knelt. He was long, long overdue for a check-up, and pushing aside the fear of what a medic might find, had been about to book one when the admiral had announced the mission to North America. Not wanting to be benched, he’d kept a smile on his face, even while his knee screamed. But the pain had receded, and now it was gone. He grinned.
“The cold’s good for something,
then.”
Or was it the result of a proper meal?
They’d brought three stuffed-to-bursting bags of food aboard from the harbour town. Last night, they must have eaten most of it. Hoping that some had been left for breakfast, he jumped into the en-suite shower, then jumped out when the ice-cold water hammered into his skin.
“I’m awake already!” he hissed. The pipework clanged ominously. The showerhead shook. The streaming water suddenly turned from a spray to a mist, raising a cloud of steam as boiling water mingled with the near-freezing dregs filling the shower-tray. He switched the water off. There’d been entire weeks earlier in the year where he’d had no choice but to skip washing entirely, he could manage another morning.
Ten minutes later, when he walked into the mess deck, all thoughts of speaking to the chief about the shower-temperature were forgotten as his nostrils filled with the wondrous scent of the most welcome of old friends.
“Is that coffee?” he asked. “Or am I still dreaming?”
“Jay must have stuck it in his bag without realising what it was,” Nilda said. “It’s beans, rather than instant. Took me an age to grind it up, though. An electric grinder is one more thing to look for this morning. Two cups each is the ration. Those are doctor’s orders, not a matter of supply. I think we can manage two cups a day for three days before we run out.”
“Or find more. Speaking of the doctor, how is the patient?” he asked.
“Not well,” Nilda said. “You didn’t hear her during the night? Nor did we. Our cabins truly are well insulated. Jay heard her. She was screaming in pain.”
“Ah. She’s worse?”
“She isn’t better,” Nilda said. “And I don’t think she’ll recover without treatment. Dr Harabi tried to be positive, but it’s serious, and yes, I think she’s getting worse. Other than searching the harbour for medical supplies, what can you or I do? It’s the same with the heating. I learned how to fix the boiler at home, but a ship, it’s beyond me. The chief says he’s got it in hand. Maybe he has, maybe he hasn’t, but there’s no hot air coming out of the vents.”
“I got boiling water coming out of the shower this morning,” Sholto said. “Good thing I’m not a lobster, I almost boiled alive. We can make do for a few days.”
