by Frank Tayell
“Every time?”
“Every time I was allowed in the front door. There was this moment of disbelief when I told them there were other survivors, and then there was a debate as to whether I was telling the truth and whether they wanted to come with me. That usually ended in a frantic half hour of packing, and that’s when I looked around. There were always medical supplies, textbooks, pharmacological directories, surgical equipment, you name it, but rarely did anyone know how to use it.”
“Not everyone let you in?” she asked.
“It was the same with Bran and the others who went out,” Chester said. “I suppose it comes down to what experiences people had during the early days of the outbreak as to whether they were hoping for rescue or fearing an attack.”
“How many?”
“You mean how many people might be out there, aside from us and those in Wales? I don’t know. At most, assuming that they all survived, it would just be a few hundred. And I suppose there will be others that no one came across. But this was on the British mainland. You can’t fortify a house against a horde.”
“I suppose the question is how many will have survived when this is over,” Nilda said. “And that won’t be long now. You agree, don’t you? The zombies are dying?”
“I think so.”
“Because if it wasn’t for the undead… well, even then we’d still have to worry about Graham and whatever’s in those cases. Then there’s the radiation and the threat of starvation. And there are the everyday things like the children’s education, and all the rest. But if there was just one less thing for us to worry about…” she trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought, fearing that in doing so she would only confirm the futility of their struggle.
“I know what you mean,” Chester said.
Nilda glanced along the path, and then back towards the castle.
“There are a lot of birds, aren’t there?” she said.
“Are there?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean… I didn’t think…”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind.”
“You can’t see them at all?”
He twisted his head, and squinted. “Yeah. Maybe. There’s a sort of greenish blur, right?”
Nilda closed her eyes. “Yes. That’s right,” she said, but Chester wasn’t even looking in the right direction.
5th October
“Watch out!” Stewart yelled, grabbing the boy and pulling his hand away from the saucepan. “That’s hot! Understand? Hot! It’ll burn you.”
“It’s okay,” Nilda said, putting her hand on Stewart’s. “He understands.”
“You’ve got to be careful,” Stewart muttered. “Dangerous places, kitchens.” Still muttering, he went back to the sink.
“Remember to use a towel or an oven glove,” Nilda said to the boy. “Now, why did you come to the stove?”
“To stir it,” the boy whispered. He looked terrified.
“Well, I’ll do that. You go and help Aisha.”
He ran off. As she stirred the pot, Nilda glanced again at Stewart. She couldn’t tell if he was getting more erratic or if it was just that she was becoming more aware of it. Everyone was on edge since Tuck had returned. Nilda told herself it was nothing more than that as she returned to the apples she was coring for lunch. She was halfway through when Janine came running through the door.
“It’s Sergeant Fogerty,” the girl said. “He’s collapsed.”
The old soldier was lying face down on the floor of the basement room in the Keep. As she ran to him, Nilda nearly tripped on the scores of brass casings scattered around the body, knocked from their regimented lines during the man’s fall. She rolled him over. His face was pale except for a streak of red from a narrow gash on his forehead. She found a pulse, but it was weak.
“Stewart?” The man had followed her from the kitchens. “Help me carry him to his room.”
She almost didn’t need his help. Fogerty wasn’t heavy. Nilda wondered if he’d been eating properly and berated herself for not keeping a better eye on him.
“Should I get someone?” Stewart asked as they laid the old soldier on his bed.
“Who?” Nilda replied, answering with automatic desperation.
“Well, anyone,” Stewart said.
“No,” Nilda said, forcing herself to sound calm. “Just pass the word around.” Not that it would be necessary, enough people had seen them carry the man to his room that by now everyone would know. “Wait. Get a bandage and some sterile wipes.”
Stewart left, and Nilda was alone with the old soldier. His was a small, perfectly neat, immaculately ordered room in one of the homes that had once been occupied by a warder and their family. Successive warders, she thought, and it was a family house, though there was no trace of whoever had lived here before the outbreak. There was, however, a photograph on the small dresser. The colours were faded with age, but the man in the picture was recognisable as Fogerty, though he was at least thirty years younger. Standing next to him was a woman, and between them was a boy of about ten. Nilda hadn’t realised Fogerty had been married, though she should have guessed. A lot of the stories he told the children were about the adventures a child could have growing up in the Tower of London. The child in those stories must have been his son. She picked up the picture. She’d not asked him about his past, but she’d not asked anyone, not really. Part of that was an awareness that nearly everyone that anyone had ever loved was now dead. Another, larger part was her own reclusiveness. The suspicion of her neighbours had begun during her time in the estate in London when she’d known with certainty that they couldn’t be trusted. It had grown after the death of Jay’s father, and blossomed when they’d reached Penrith and she’d discovered a new town and a new job wasn’t the same as a new life with new friends.
There was a groan from the bed.
“Fogerty?” she asked, and felt foolish for using the man’s surname, but she didn’t know his first.
“Betty?”
“No. It’s Nilda.”
“Nilda. Yes. What happened?”
“I’m not sure. You collapsed.”
“It’s the weather,” he murmured.
“You’ll be okay. You just need to rest.”
“Mmm.”
“Betty, was she your wife?” Nilda asked, wanting to keep the man talking.
“She was. Yes.”
“And your son?” she asked, thinking of the boy in the picture.
“Enlisted like his old man. And in his dad’s old regiment. He died in Iraq. Betty followed soon after.”
“I’m sorry,” Nilda said.
“So it goes. He grew up here. In this house. Happy times,” Fogerty murmured. “Happy times.” And the memories brought a smile to his lips as he fell asleep.
“Stewart said you needed bandages,” Kevin said, coming in a few minutes later. “He looks like he needs more than that. What’s wrong with him?”
“It’s not a stroke,” Nilda said. “Or I don’t think it is. He collapsed and hit his head in the fall. Maybe it’s his heart. It might be anything. Exhaustion? Old age? Maybe it’s malnutrition.”
“We should have expected this,” Kevin said.
“That he’d get sick?” she asked.
“That people would,” Kevin replied. “They used to, didn’t they? Just get sick, I mean.”
“I suppose so. And standing here isn’t going to help him recover. Would you sit with him for a while? I want to get those medical texts. If nothing else we can try and work out what’s wrong with him. Then maybe we can find a way of curing it.”
“Of course,” Kevin said.
“I can see that you think it’s a waste of time,” Nilda said. “But we have to do something. We have to try. There was something McInery said when Yvonne was dying. That she could see herself lying in a bed like that, with others around her, offering nothing but pity.”
“I know, believe me, I do. I’ve spent days worrying over
what will happen if something goes wrong with Aisha’s pregnancy and days more dreading the birth. I’ve gone through the books over and over again, and they don’t help. But you’re right, we can’t do nothing.”
“That’s it,” Kevin said. “It’s too dark to read. What time is it?”
Nilda glanced at her watch. “About six.” She closed her own book, grateful for the excuse. “It could be anything. Or nothing.” It didn’t help that the books used a vocabulary that came from a decade’s worth of training and at least that many years’ worth of practice. Chester was right; having the books wasn’t enough. But so was McInery; sitting by a bedside waiting for someone to die was just as unacceptable. “We can keep him comfortable, warm, and hydrated. Realistically, even if we knew what was wrong with him, what more could we do?” She stood, stretched. “Do you want to go to dinner first, and I’ll sit with him?”
“No, you go. People will have questions, and I’m more than happy not to be the one who has to try and answer them.”
Parakeet tasted gamey, Nilda decided. Not like chicken. Not really like anything she’d ever had before. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but coupled with the cabbage that was the stew’s main ingredient it added up to something that she was trying to eat without letting it touch her taste buds.
McInery and Greta came in just as Nilda was mechanically finishing her last mouthful.
“We found some bicycles,” Greta said, pulling out a chair opposite. “Have you got the map?” she added, speaking to McInery.
“Have you been out all day?” Nilda asked.
“Most of it,” Greta said. “Why?”
“Fogerty’s sick,” Nilda said.
“He is? What with?” McInery asked.
“I don’t know. Old age, I think,” Nilda said. Her eyes fell on the map in front of her. It was taken from a road atlas with a scale of one double page to five square miles. At the bottom was the Thames, and zigzagging its way erratically across the page was a thick red line. “What is it?”
“A route north,” Greta said. “A safe one.”
“North to where?” Nilda asked. The route seemed to end at Haringey railway station.
“Eventually, out of London,” Greta said. “But specifically to bicycles. Then we can follow the train tracks north to… where was it?”
“Bedford,” McInery said. “And there’s a junction twenty miles before you reach it that will take you to Bristol. Here.” She took out another map, this one with a far smaller scale, and no markings except a circle drawn around a train junction a few miles south of an industrial estate. “After that, I don’t know where we should go. Perhaps to one of Chester’s safe houses.”
“If Eamonn’s dead,” Greta said, “then someone else will have to go to Wales. And this time, they need to be prepared.”
Nilda looked back at the first map. The beginning of the route, near the Tower, was similar to the one McInery had shown her a few days before. She traced her finger along the marked line. The further north it went, the more erratic the route became, and in some places it doubled back on itself.
“It’s a roundabout way of getting there,” she said.
“But it’s safe,” Greta said.
“It took Tuck a day and a half to get here from Westminster,” McInery said. “We can’t afford that kind of delay. Or worse, imagine someone going out, only to return three days later having run out of supplies before they reached the M25.”
“And there’s a bicycle shop at the station?” Nilda asked.
“No, there are lockers. You probably moved out before they put these in. The type available for commuters to hire.”
“It’ll take three or four hours to get there,” Greta said, “but after a few hours of cycling, we’ll be well on our way to Anglesey.”
Nilda nodded, looked at the map, and then at the two women.
“You do understand that someone needs to go to Wales?” McInery asked. “We need doctors. First Yvonne, now Fogerty—”
“And there’s Aisha to think about, not to mention the children,” Nilda finished. “I know. They have soldiers who can deal with Graham. We don’t. Yes, someone needs to go Wales.” She looked at Greta. “It’s been nearly a week and a half. We can wait a few more days, but not much longer”
Greta nodded. McInery shook her head. “There’s no point delaying.”
“It’s not for Eamonn,” Nilda said. “It’s for us. Whoever leaves has to do so with the belief that there’s a chance that they’ll make it.”
“There isn’t time for that kind of sentimentality,” McInery said.
“I don’t think we can afford for there not to be. Now, excuse me, I need to get back to Fogerty.” She headed to the infirmary worrying that McInery was correct.
6th October
It was dark. Nilda reached out and touched Fogerty’s hand. It was cold. She struck a match and lit the candle. She reached for his neck, and searched for a pulse. She couldn’t find one. It was four-thirty. She blew out the candle, sat in the dark, and wept.
The funeral was a depressing affair, and far worse than Yvonne’s. Janine tried to retell a story that Fogerty had told them but couldn’t get past the first few words before breaking out into sobs. The other children soon followed, and Constance had to take them inside.
“We remember those we’ve lost,” Nilda finished, “and we remember that life goes on.”
There were as a smattering of amens, yesses, and nods of agreement before most people drifted back towards the welcome shelter of the Tower.
“Another grave,” Nilda said, as she picked up a shovel. “I’ve dug too many.”
“People die,” Chester said. “It happens.”
“I know, but not like this. Not quietly in their sleep. Not anymore.”
“Life goes on,” Styles said. “I always hated that expression and how utterly useless it was when you’re trying to deal with grief. But it’s true.” He shrugged. “At some point, we’ll find the time to properly grieve. It just won’t be here and now. Does anyone know if he actually finished one of those suppressors?”
Tuck began to sign.
“She says no,” Jay said.
“What about the rifles?” McInery asked.
Tuck shook her head.
“And can you do it?” Styles asked the soldier.
“She says she could in time,” Jay said.
“How much time?” McInery asked.
“Two weeks,” Tuck signed. “Or one, or a month. It would be trial and guesswork. I think I know what he was trying to do, but I can’t say how long it will take until it’s done.”
“And what difference would they make if we had them now?” Styles asked. “We’re not going hunting for Graham. I mean we’re not are we?”
“No,” Nilda said. “We’re not.”
“And you know I think that’s the wrong decision,” McInery said, “but since he’s leaving us alone, perhaps it is best we don’t poke the hornet’s nest.”
“Then nothing’s going to change, is it?” Styles said. “We’re not going to find a huge supply of food in some basement somewhere. And you’re not going to find a stack of rifles in some foyer of a bank,” he added, looking at McInery. “Nothing’s going to change. This is it, all we have. It won’t be enough. I’m going to Wales.”
“You?” Nilda began. “But the children—”
“Will do fine without me,” Styles said. “Everyone died trying to keep them safe. Everyone. Do you know what kind of a burden that is? I have to go. It’s my duty.”
“It doesn’t have to be you,” Nilda said.
“It does.”
“I’ve mapped out a route that will take you to a railway line,” McInery said. “There’s a bicycle storage unit at the station.”
“That might work,” Styles said. “Where does the railway lead?”
“North. To Bedfordshire.”
“I can give you the addresses of some safe houses,” Chester said. “A lot of them were in the path of
the horde, but there might be a few still standing. You might find food there.”
“Well then, this might work,” Styles said. “You get me those maps. I’m going to get my gear.”
“You’re leaving now?” Nilda asked.
“I packed earlier,” he said.
“You’re not going to say goodbye to the children?”
“It’ll upset them either way. Call me a coward, but I’d rather forego that.”
“You have the map?” Nilda asked. They stood by the north gate as Styles went through his pack one last time.
“From McInery, yes. And she gave me some extra water.” He took out a bottle. “Possibly too much. Still, it’s better to be safe. I’ve got a dosimeter and the addresses of Chester’s safe houses. Give me four days to get to Wales. Three days to get back. One week, that’s how long you should wait. If there’s no sign of a boat, assume I’m dead and send someone else. Keep the children safe.”
“I will,” Nilda said, taking the man’s outstretched hand. “Good luck.”
She opened the gate and watched him leave.
7th October
Nilda stretched. The chair was uncomfortable, and she was glad for dawn if only that it meant she could go outside. The children had noticed Styles’ absence, but Nilda had waited until after they’d eaten before telling them where he’d gone. They hadn’t taken it well. There had been tears, tantrums, and then a refusal to sleep. So she’d spent the night sitting on a chair outside their dormitories. She’d had as little sleep as they had.
When she went for breakfast, she found the mood among the adults not much better than the children’s.
“It should have been me that went,” Greta said.
“Why?” Nilda asked.
“Because of Eamonn,” she replied.
“Yes, but why? For poetry or symmetry? Someone had to go, and Styles wanted to. It doesn’t mean Eamonn is dead. A boat may arrive tomorrow or next week.”
