by Frank Tayell
And again they ran, and if anything faster than before.
“Wait! Stop!” Greta grabbed Nilda’s arm. “We’re going the wrong way.” They were a mile from the station.
“No we’re not. We have to go back to the Tower,” Nilda said. “We need to warn people.”
“Just stop a moment,” Greta said. “Think. Please.”
“There isn’t time,” Nilda said. “Graham must have followed you and McInery out of the castle all the way to the station. And he must have heard what you were saying, though I imagine it must have been obvious what you were doing if you had that map in your hands. He knows where we would all try and get to. Probably the only reason the two of us are still alive is that he was following Constance, not us. And that means she’s dead.”
“In which case, he hasn’t followed us. He’s not here. We could still make it to Wales.”
“No, don’t you see?” Nilda started walking again. “You remember the undead this morning? It can’t be a coincidence that there were so many of them. What if we don’t make it to Wales? More importantly, what if we don’t get there quickly enough? The whole point of our exodus was that starvation represented a more imminent threat than he did because we thought he was leaving us alone. But he’s not. He’s just biding his time so he can kill us off, one by one. No, Graham is the greatest danger now, but no one will know it unless we go back.”
The walk turned into a jog.
“Why?” Greta asked. “Why did he do it?”
“Why do killers kill?” Nilda retorted. “There were sadists and serial killers before the outbreak, why should we assume only the good people survived?”
It wasn’t much of an answer, and it offered no comfort to them as they ran south, back towards the Thames.
“Another mile,” Nilda said, taking her water bottle back from Greta and finishing the last drop. It had taken them three hours to cover four miles, and most of that time had been spent running.
“What route do we take?” Greta asked. “We don’t want to lead the undead back to the hotel.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Nilda said. “No one will come this way again. We’ll just follow the road. Ready?”
Nilda hacked the sword at the zombie’s legs. It fell, and she kept running, shifting her grip to swing it wide, smashing into the next creature’s face. The road ahead was clear. She spared a glance towards Greta and saw the woman was following close behind.
She could see the Tower now, but tried to keep her attention on the road, alert to the next threat. There were three in the distance ambling towards her. But she would reach the turning before they did. They weren’t a threat. There was a body in the road. It wasn’t moving but she wasn’t going to take any risks. She raised the sword, ready to hack down as she passed— and stumbled to a halt.
It was Constance. She’d been shot.
Nilda looked at Greta. Wordlessly, the two women ran on.
“He must have been watching me,” McInery said, “and followed as I tried to find a safe route through the ruins. But why didn’t he kill me?”
“Because he saw you coming back here,” Kevin suggested.
“Perhaps,” McInery agreed, “though it doesn’t help us decide what to do next.”
“No,” Nilda said. “It doesn’t. He’s out there, watching, waiting. The only reason Greta and I survived was that he must have been too busy following Constance at the time.”
“So Xiao and the others might have made it?” Jay asked.
“Possibly,” Nilda said. When they had got back to the Tower they found that Xiao and four others had set off not long after she and Greta had.
“Then we can hope they are on their way to Wales,” McInery said. “But it still doesn’t answer the question of what we do now.”
“He wants to stop us from leaving,” Nilda said. “Because if any of us make it to Anglesey, he knows he’ll be tracked down. Well, that gives us the answer, doesn’t it? We still have to leave.”
“Aren’t we going to hunt him down?” McInery asked.
“How? All we know is that he’s watching us. Unless we know where to look, all we’re doing is burning calories. We’ll leave, but we’ll modify our plan. I’ll take a group downriver on a couple of the rafts. We’ll find bicycles and start the journey from there. Say, fourteen of us, and we’ll worry about who’s travelling with whom when we’ve found some bikes. But that will mean half of us have gone. The other half, well, I think you should stay, at least for a week, but no more than ten days. Hopefully, a boat will have arrived, but if it hasn’t then you’ll have to go. It’ll be harder, the days will be shorter, colder. You’ll have to decide for yourselves who goes and who stays, but I’ll be leaving…” She glanced at the window and sighed. “I suppose we won’t be leaving until tomorrow.”
“Do you think he’s given up trying to get the cases open? Nilda asked. She and Tuck were methodically scanning the windows and rooftops of every visible building. Jay sat with the laptop on his knees, the drone overhead, doing much the same thing.
“Or he’s managed to get them open and found they aren’t nukes,” Chester replied. He sat with his back to the wall, offering moral support.
“It’s my fault,” Nilda said. “I shouldn’t have believed he’d leave us alone.”
Tuck signed something.
“Jay?” Nilda prompted. Her son looked up.
“She says everyone’s equally to blame, but that blame doesn’t help, not now.”
“No. It doesn’t. You have to stay,” Nilda said, speaking to Tuck. “Make sure that everyone leaves, but when they do, you have to stay behind in case he tries to get inside.”
Her hands moved.
“She says he won’t get inside,” Jay said, but Nilda felt no reassurance in the words.
Part 4:
The End
14th October
“A knight watching his armour in a lonely vigil the night before battle,” Chester murmured. “Now where did I read that?” He couldn’t remember. “Perhaps it was one of old Fogerty’s stories.” Yes, he decided that was it. As far as armour went, his wouldn’t be recognised by any of the castle’s ancient inhabitants. The Kevlar plates had come from an exhibit on the equipment bomb disposal teams had used in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. He assumed it was Kevlar, but it might just be a mock up. It was a risk he’d have to take, and in a way, it didn’t really matter. The bomb disposal suit itself was far too obvious for him to wear, so he’d dismantled the body armour, and stitched the plates into a long overcoat. When he’d paced his small chamber wearing it, he’d found it cumbersome and heavy, but as far as he could tell, it wasn’t obvious.
“People see what they want to see,” he said, trying to convince himself that it was true. He hadn’t worn it outside, not yet. He didn’t want Nilda to guess what he intended to do, and so dwell on whether he was alive or dead during her trek to Wales.
He ran his hand down the coat one last time, and then sat down in the chair, opposite the bed. He’d been sleeping in the chair since he’d woken after being shot. Sleeping wasn’t the right word. Fitfully dozing whilst waiting came closer, though what he’d been waiting for had changed over the past two weeks. At first it was for his eyesight to come back, or in those darker moments when it seemed as if the night would never end, for it to disappear completely. Then he’d thought that McInery might come and kill him. He wasn’t sure where that fear had come from, though he suspected it was from the memories that often visited him during those sleepless nights. When she hadn’t, he’d expected Graham to come and finish the job he’d started near the hotel. And now…
“It’s waiting for death, isn’t it?” he murmured. “The inevitable end to my sad little tale.” He’d felt it coming. Ever since that first time he’d been bitten, when he’d spent a night alone with his conscience and finally realised of what little worth his life had been. Death had been following him ever since. Many times he’d thought he would die. He’d wanted it. Welco
med it. Now he knew it couldn’t be avoided, and he truly wished it could.
Without his eyesight he couldn’t hunt the man, so he wouldn’t. He knew Graham would come to the castle to kill again. Hana, Styles, Constance, the man wouldn’t be able to stop. Not now. Chester would give himself up as a target, a decoy. He’d walk the walls, waiting to be shot. The purpose of the jacket was to ensure he’d survive the first shot and so encourage Graham to fire again, and again, and thus give away his position. After that it would be down to Tuck to finish the man off with the grenade launcher. There. Simple. It was the sacrifice he was destined to make.
The only question was when it would happen. It could be in a day or a week, but he had his money on the first clear day after a prolonged period of rain. Let Graham get bored, let him sit alone with his own thoughts, fears, and regrets for a few long, lonely hours. Yes, Graham would come. It wouldn’t be long now.
Chester had no happy childhood memories, nor triumphs in adulthood to regret not passing on to children he’d never had. It was as Nilda had said, every story he had involved hurting, robbing, or otherwise ruining the life of someone else. It was a wasted existence, a cautionary tale in a world without listeners to hear it.
“But,” he said, “the last month hasn’t been bad.”
A smile crept across his lips as he remembered the journey down from Hull. Then Jay and Nilda’s reunion on the roof opposite the British Museum, and that look of joyful relief on her face when he’d returned from Kent.
Still smiling, he fell asleep.
15th October
The soldier
Tuck carefully positioned the filed-down nail in the holster. The candle flickered and went out. She took out a match and held it to the wick of another. She wasn’t going to sit in the dark. Not again. Never again. That was something of which she was determined.
She had sincerely believed Graham when he’d said that he wanted to be left alone. Or was it just that she’d wanted to? She wasn’t sure. At the time, his proposed detente had made sense. Now she realised that they were dealing with someone utterly devoid of reason. There was no logic or rationality that could be applied to his actions or his intent, and that made him too dangerous to live.
She took out the grenade that a night’s patient work had turned into mine. A suicide bomb might be a better word, though when it went off she would already be dead.
Ever since she’d returned, she had been trying to conceive of some course of action that would guarantee Graham’s death. Actively searching for him with some, or all, of the adults in the Tower offered no certainty of success. On her own, there was even less. During the day she could only track that which she could see. At night he could be in the same building as her, and she wouldn’t know it. What they needed was a lure, bait. It wasn’t a person. Constance’s death had confirmed it. Graham had wanted McInery dead outside the hospital, but hadn’t killed her at the train station. Instead he’d killed Constance. He was picking his targets, taking the easy ones first. But even if Tuck had been certain he would shoot McInery, that wouldn’t mean she could use the woman as bait. Graham could fire his rifle, kill her, and then disappear down some emergency stairs, or off across a rooftop. No, there was only one thing that might lure him to a particular spot – the grenade launcher. It was the only equaliser they had. They couldn’t leave it lying in a mined street. He would never believe it had simply been dropped. But he would try and kill whoever was carrying it. More than that, having killed her, he would come and claim it before anyone else did.
She placed the grenade in the holster she’d made, and then carefully slid the launcher into the slot next to it. The contact clicked. She smiled. If he pulled it out, the grenade would detonate. To be sure that would kill him she’d laced the holster with gunpowder from the 5.56mm rounds they’d brought back from the hotel.
Carefully, she disarmed the device. All she needed now was to let Graham shoot her when she was somewhere out in the open. He was close, and there was no point in any further delays. Tomorrow, then, just as soon as Nilda had left. Ideally she would have done it before so the woman had known there was one less danger for her son to face while she headed north, but that would lead to more talk and more delays.
Not tomorrow, she realised as she glanced up at the window. Dawn was on its way. Today, then. She picked up the grenade launcher and left her small room.
The one-eyed man
Chester picked up his coat from the bed, and then put it back. There would be time to get it later. Making sure Nilda left in the best possible frame of mind was all that mattered for the next few hours. He found the door and went outside. It was cold, bracing, with a crisp feel to the air that promised snow in weeks to come. He took a breath, allowing himself to enjoy and remember the sensation, and then he headed to the dining hall.
“I don’t want to finish it,” Nilda said. “The coffee, I mean. It feels like a last ceremonial cup.”
“I wish it were otherwise,” Chester said. “But dawn’s coming. There’s a job in front of you, and it’s one that can’t be put off. I… I’ve wished for a lot of things in my time. Hoped and prayed, too, and on more than one occasion. Can’t say for sure, looking at where I am, that anything came of it, but if I want anything now, it’s to see you again. I—”
“I know.” She laid a hand on his arm, and smiled. He opened his mouth to speak. “No,” she said. “Save it until I come back.”
He nodded, forced a smile he hoped didn’t look too fake. “Good luck,” he said, and stood. Nilda did the same.
“It’s time,” Nilda said loudly. “Those who are leaving, collect the food and water from the kitchens.”
Mugs were drained, bowls were emptied, bags were checked, and latrines were visited, all for one last time.
“The children are getting underfoot,” Chester muttered as he and Nilda walked down to the river.
“They do that,” she replied. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Yeah,” he grunted, and decided to change the subject. “You decided who’s going with you?”
“Not really. It’ll be easier to find food if we all travel on our own, but easier to fight off the undead if we’re travelling together. I think the decision will be made for us when we see how many bikes we find and what time it is when we find them.”
“Nilda!”
Chester recognised Stewart’s voice.
“I’m going with you,” Stewart said.
“There’s no need,” Nilda replied. “There’s a space for you here in the castle.”
“I can’t stay. It’s not safe. Not if the food runs out.”
“It won’t,” Nilda said. “Not until spring.”
“No,” Stewart repeated. “It’s not safe. Not here. Not if I stay. Terrible things will happen. They always do. They can’t happen again.”
“You understand it will be dangerous,” Nilda said. “That we will all probably die.”
“We shouldn’t be afraid of death,” Stewart said. “Just of what comes before.”
“Okay,” Nilda said, her voice calm and light. “Go and get your gear and meet with everyone else by the river.” When he’d hurried away, she turned to Chester. “I did that more for your sake than mine. I worry about him. He always seems on the verge of breaking, and I don’t know what shape the pieces will be in when he does.”
They continued down to the river in silence, Stewart catching up with them just as they reached it. As Nilda went to say another goodbye to her son, Chester grabbed a boat hook to haul in a raft.
“Come on, Stewart,” he said. “Give me a hand.”
There were two rafts in the river and both were now stocked with extra water. If Nilda did find bikes close to the river, then that meant she’d be taking enough water for five days. More than enough to get to Anglesey. If the weather was good. If the roads weren’t covered in moss, fallen branches, leaf mould, and the muddy run off from the untended fields. And if the undead would let them travel in peace.
<
br /> “There’s nothing more you can do,” he murmured.
“What’s that?” Stewart asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Chester said. “It’s just an—”
There was a sudden hiss of air and a shout of dismay from Stewart. Then a soft thud, then another, then four in quick succession, and Chester saw the bright orange of the raft’s rubber hull collapse into the dark black slime of the Thames. There was a splash and then the sound of something hitting stone.
“Take cover!” Chester yelled. “It’s Graham! He’s shooting!”
The next few seconds were chaos. Children screamed as adults shouted variations on a theme of “get under cover,” yet there was more yelling than movement. Chester ignored it. He stood stock still, his head turning slowly, his eyes not seeing the chaos around him, but the memory he had of it.
“The children!” someone was yelling. It was Stewart, bawling over and over and louder than anyone else.
Chester tried to blank it out as he remembered the height of the buildings, the view from their windows, calculating the distance the raft had been from the steps, and so the position Graham had taken up.
There was a hand tugging at his arm.
“Chester!” Nilda hissed. “Come on.”
“He’s got to be in Tower Bridge or the office block,” Chester said.
“I know,” she said. “Jay’s gone to get the drone. We’ll use it to find out.”
“There’s not enough time,” Chester said, but let himself be dragged back towards the relative safety of the gateway. Shapes moved this way and that, and about him he could hear the screaming of children. It was taking too long.
