by Frank Tayell
I looked over at Bill. He was still surrounded by the undead, and he seemed to be holding them off, but he'd already been forced to retreat a half dozen paces. I fired again. Another one fell, but the undead seemed to be coming from everywhere. I knew it couldn't go on. One misstep, one slip, and he would fall under their numbers. I fired again, then glanced towards the river, to see if the boat was close enough yet.
Liz was at the water's edge, half walking, half crawling down the slipway into the river. She was screaming at the boat, shouting at them. I couldn't hear what she said, or maybe I just can't remember. I glanced back to Bill, looked at the pack surrounding him, fired, and made a decision.
“Fancy a swim, Bill?” I called out, as I reloaded the rifle. It took him a moment to answer.
“Right,” was all he grunted back in reply.
“Or float,” I added, turning around to look at the boat, once more. Something was wrong. I could make out Barrett behind the wheel. She was staring resolutely ahead, not looking at us, but that wasn't what was causing my anxiety. The boat was in the middle of the river, but it wasn't turning towards the shore. Then the boat's engine was turned off, and I thought I heard Daisy's faint cry. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Liz was in the water now, swimming. Her arms thrashing frantically, but she would make it to the boat, that was clear enough. But could we?
She had been bitten at least twice. Probably more. I don't know how the virus works, but surely each time you get bitten increases the chance you'd turn immediately, unless you are immune. I’m sure that was it, looking back on it, I’m certain that she was immune. Even if she wasn't, if she was infected, right then, there would have been no way for anyone to have known.
“Bill. We've got to go. Count of five,” I said, firing once again. I missed. The shot grazed the zombie and ploughed into the chest of the creature behind. “Four. Three.” I reloaded. Bill swung his pike, nearly decapitating the zombie my bullet had missed. I wanted one more shot before we left. I looked down again at the fuel. “Two.” There was no way of taking it. “One.” A gun fired, but it wasn't mine.
The shot echoed across the landscape. Bouncing off buildings and reverberating around our little world. I turned to look over my shoulder. Stewart stood in the boat, shotgun in hand. Where Liz had been, now there was nothing but a growing reddish stain in the water.
Stewart stared at me. I stared back. He began to raise the shotgun. From that distance I doubt it would have done any damage. I could have shot him, though, and easily enough. I don’t know why I didn't. The engine started again, and the blood stained water churned as the boat picked up speed.
As the boat pulled away down the river, I thought I saw Annette, Daisy in her arms, trying to get up onto the deck. Then she was pushed back down into the cabin. I knew there was no way we could swim out to the boat, no way we could reach the girls.
“Kim!” Bill called up at me, and he must have been calling at me all that time. I looked back the way we'd come. The undead were still flowing towards us, their numbers growing as they drifted in from the countryside, down the road we'd driven along and around the houses and offices along the river bank. From every direction they came and behind them, not yet visible, I knew came the horde from the motorway.
I fired, again and again and again. I kept firing, as quick as I could, venting my anger and frustration and despair. Minutes passed. I don't know how many, I just know that when I searched my pockets for ammunition, more and more of them were empty.
“Kim!” Bill called again. I looked down. His shoulders were stooped as if suddenly he was carrying too great a weight. He was bleeding. I couldn't see from where, but his hands were slick with blood. He was hurt, he was tiring and we were running out of time.
“Bill? Bill!” I cried, and then it sunk in. We were trapped, doomed unless we could escape. “The boathouse. I'll see if there's another boat.”
“Where there's one...” he muttered.
I jumped off the back of the truck, and ran along the water front. The door was barricaded from the inside. I ran over to the window, smashed the glass, cleared off the fragments then pulled myself up and through. The doors by the river had been pulled back, allowing sunlight to dance eerily on the collection of boats hanging from the rafters.
Canoe’s, punts, rowing boats, it looked like Barrett and the others had taken the only motor launch. I didn't have time to be picky. There was a punt close to the water's edge, the sort you would hire for picnicking along the river on a summer's day, or at least it was the kind they used in the movies. It wasn't the kind of boat you'd take out on the sea, it wasn't the kind you'd take anywhere except on a calm day, but it was the closest and time was pressing.
I spent a long few seconds trying to work out how to release the buckles and levers hanging it from the ceiling, before I gave up and just sliced through the canvas straps. The punt fell to the concrete floor, with a loud bang, splinters of wood flew off in every direction, but I didn't think it had cracked or broken. I grabbed a couple of oars, threw them, the rifle and the axe in. I shoved and pushed and then dragged it, until I was wading hip deep in the water. Then I climbed in.
Kneeling on the punt, I pulled myself around the boat house, trying to grip the slick corrugated steel, scrabbling for hand holds, desperate not to let go, knowing that if I got caught by the current, then Bill was dead.
“Bill.” I wasn't calling to him, it was more like a mantra I repeated to myself. “Bill, Bill, Bill.” over and over, as I inched around the building. “Bill, Bill, Bi...” I rounded the corner and saw him sagging, leaning on his pike now as another zombie approached. Bent double he glanced towards me and I saw a face masked with blood. He straightened. I think he tried to grin, but I couldn't tell.
I pulled on the building, tugging the boat closer as he swept the pike up. There was little force to the blow, the zombie staggered backwards, but only half a step. Bill tried to lift the pike, but he couldn't. His hand went into his pocket and came out with the pistol. He fired. The bullet hit the zombie in the chest. He fired again. And again. And again. And he missed. And I couldn't help him.
“Run!” I screamed, I know I screamed. He didn't run. He fired again and the zombie collapsed. Now I’m sure he was grinning as he turned and, pike cradled in one arm, pistol in hand, he half limped, half fell down the slipway and into the water.
I grabbed a paddle, thrusting it deep into the water, pushing the boat along as much by will as by strength. Ten metres away and the first zombie was through the gap by the truck. Eight metres and Bill was standing chest deep on the slipway, holding himself up with the pike. The gun in his left hand waved back and forth as he fired again and again. Six metres and he fired and two more zombies were through the gap, with a dozen more behind them. Four metres and he fired again. Three metres and something thumped against the bottom of the boat.
I looked down. I could see the concrete edge of the slipway, about a pace away from Bill, but nothing else. Bill fired again. There was another thump against the flat hull and the boat rocked. I couldn't look down, not directly down, not whilst paddling, and the current was strong and the front of the boat was turning and Bill was so close. He pulled the trigger once more but there was no explosion of gunfire. The magazine was empty.
The boat rocked again, and this time I knew what it was.
“Don't jump!” I screamed. “Pull me closer. With the pike. With the blade. Pull me closer. Don't try and swim!” I screamed it over and over, as I paddled furiously, but now my effort was focused on keeping the boat from being caught by the current and dragged away.
Bill looked and he saw, and he understood and he grinned, and this time I saw that smile properly. He slipped the gun back into his pocket, and swung the pike up and over and down in a huge one-handed arc, his other arm flying out behind him for balance. The blade bit deep into the wooden slatted seat, the wooden shaft landing on the boat's edge with enough force to throw up a cloud of dust and splinters. The b
oat rocked violently, as filthy water sloshed over the sides. Bill pulled. The jetty drifted closer. His eyes were on mine, his smile creeping upwards in relief at his approaching salvation, when a zombie snapped its jaws down on the hand outstretched behind him. He screamed. He slipped. He fell, half into the water half into the boat.
I grabbed the strap on his backpack and hauled him up into the boat, smashed the paddle into the zombie's face, then pushed against the jetty, propelling us into the middle of the river, where the only thing rocking the boat was the gentle motion of the tide.
Bill was barely conscious. He'd lost a lot of blood and one and a half fingers. His arm and legs, were covered in cuts and bites.
The tide that had seemed so strong when I was trying to reach the shore now seemed glacial slow as I tried to stem the bleeding. Every few minutes I would have to leave Bill and paddle for half a dozen strokes, to keep us moving faster than the zombies pacing us on the bank.
We drifted for about ten miles, and that took the best part of a day. Either the fall onto the concrete floor of the boat house, or the blow from the pike or half a year's storage in a damp shed or all of those things combined, had caused the boat to leak. That day became a repetition of bailing, paddling, fending off from the shore and tending to Bill. There was no sign of the motor boat. Of course there wasn't. We'd no chance of catching it.
We came ashore at the golf course simply because I couldn't go any further. I dragged Bill up here, and did what I could for his wounds. I had to cauterise the stumps where his fingers had been with a paperweight, heated over a fire of old trophies and broken barstools. I don't think I'll ever forget that smell. He's been delirious since then.
It's four days now, since we left the Abbey. Sometimes he talks, but I prefer it when he's quiet. I don't want any more of his secrets. I can't leave him. At first I worried about that, about what I would do if I found a boat with fuel, and whether I could risk taking him with me to follow after the boat to find Annette and Daisy. But I found no fuel, now all I can do is wait for him to recover.
Did they think Liz was infected? It's hard to say. I've re-read what I just wrote, and I think that it is how it all happened. My memories of that day, or what can really have been only a few minutes, seem like photographs, individual snapshots with no emotion or sound or depth to them. They probably knew Liz had been injured, but there was no way for them to know she was infected. Maybe she called something out. It's possible.
Let's say that they did know that she had been infected, though personally I’m convinced she was immune, they were in no danger. There was no way that she could have climbed up onto the deck without help. It was clear when they didn't turn the boat towards the shore that they had no intention of letting anyone else aboard. No, killing her was unnecessary. There is no way, no story I can concoct, no excuses I can give that can justify it as revenge or self-defence, or anything other than cold-blooded murder.
To me, that is nothing though, compared to taking the children. Barrett must have planned it. Her and Stewart and maybe Daphne and Liz. From some point when they decided on heading to the river, they planned on getting rid of Bill and I. Why?
Did they judge themselves better than us? Well, obviously, but that's not it. Was it because we were a threat, some type of insidious danger to Annette and Daisy? No, those are the answers they would give, the justifications they will tell themselves at night, but it's not why. I think it was because we didn't fit into their vision for a new world, because their idea of a new world looks remarkably similar to the world that is now forever gone.
They took the children. I don't think the girls are in danger, at least not in any greater danger than any of us face these days, but how can I truly know? There was that strange moment at the Abbey, when they started talking about that old farmer and his granddaughter. They were hiding something there, but what? Why should I care so much? Maternal instinct? No, that's the easy answer and it's not that. It's because someone has to, because the old world is gone, and all that is left is us. If we can't be the best people we can be, right here, right now, then really, what is the point?
But Bill won't wake, not properly. It's all I can do to get a mouthful of soup down his throat. I can't leave him, but there's no fuel here, and without it I can't rescue Annette and Daisy.
11th July – 7pm.
I think his fever has gone down a little. His mutterings are slightly less intelligible, if that means anything.
I never wanted to go into nursing. My mother tried to convince me on many occasions that nursing was a good choice of career. Not medicine, nursing. There was never any ambition I should be a doctor, not even when I was applying for university. Nursing was the career for me, and it was that old fashioned thinking that put me off it. Stupid really, since I ended up working in a coffee shop instead. Maybe my mother was right. Maybe that was the point. I never had the grades for medical school. Maybe I would have been a good nurse. Probably not. Anyway, it's not like it would have made much difference in the end. The outbreak would still have happened.
I do my best to keep Bill hydrated, and to keep his wounds clean. For the rest of the time I just work on getting us out of here. I found a motor boat, outside a house down by the shore. It looks sound, though by the look of the flower pots and curtains, it wasn't used as a boat, but as someone's home. Some relative who'd fallen on hard times maybe, but who didn’t quite rate one of the dozen bedrooms in the house.
And I found fuel. Not much, but enough to check that the engine worked. It took an age to find it though. Most of the cars are so smashed together that the tanks have been punctured and any petrol in them has evaporated. I found enough to check the boat's engine worked, but there's no more fuel anywhere within walking distance. I've looked.
There aren't many zombies left around here either. At least, there aren't many which can still walk, but still not a day goes by that I don't have to kill at least one. When I turned the engine on, the noise was loud enough to call half a dozen of the undead. That used up four more bullets to kill three of them. I had to use the axe on the others.
The ammunition all fits into one pocket now. Twenty rounds for the rifle, eleven for the pistol. It's not much. I suppose I shouldn't waste the rest of it on the undead.
Around the truck and the boathouse I was driven by adrenaline, and back at the Manor, and at the Abbey, I'd been safe behind the walls. Out there on my own, it was completely different. I've never felt so alone, not even during that time back at the Manor when I was locked up in that room, with nothing to do but wait.
So now I just need to find fuel. I can carry Bill down to the boat easily enough, I mean, I carried him up here. But what's the point of moving him until we can actually leave?
Sometimes life is like a river, pulling you along a long defined path. All you can do is hold on and try and stay afloat. Sometimes you come to rapids and all you can do is hold your breath and hope you resurface. I read that somewhere, in one of those supremely mistitled self-help books. I always wondered, when you hit rapids, why you didn't have a third metaphorical choice, why you couldn't twist the boat or raft or whatever, get it lodged in the rocks and try and jump across from stone to stone until you reached the shore. Apparently, I was told when I asked, metaphors don't work that way. But why shouldn't they?
Where do you find fuel? How would I get it back here? I'd drive, I suppose. If I took Bill down to the boat first, would he be safe there if I went off for a day or two? Sometimes he screams in his sleep. Do I have a choice? I could find another car showroom, find more fuel and drive a car back here. But how long would it take? Maybe I could leave him for a day, but no longer. There has to be something I missed.
There are the fuel-cans we left in the truck and the car. Could I make it back there? There's no way I could paddle up stream, but we went by a couple of bridges as we drifted down the river. They hadn't been demolished, but were crammed with makeshift barricades. The undead couldn't get through, but I could easily
get over them. Then what? What of the undead from the motorway? How many hundreds of thousands of undead are now surrounding that bank of the river? No. That's not going to work. What though? What have I missed?
12th July – 11am.
I shaved my head. It seemed sensible. Easier to manage. I started by cutting it short, but then the mirror slipped and broke on the floor. That's when I cut it all off.
It's meant to mean something, isn't it, when a woman is shorn of her hair. Well it doesn't. Without being able to see what I was doing, it was easier just to get rid of it all. Besides, the only thing to wash with here is the industrial strength detergent they had for cleaning the toilets. No hair is better than pouring that stuff on my head. A broken mirror, that's bad luck isn't it? Well, luck doesn't exist and hair grows back.
I suppose mirrors don't. I mean, glass and silver industries will need to be created first, but so what? How many mirrors are there in every house? A dozen, at least. How many houses per survivor in the world? How long before we run out, before we even need to bother thinking about how to make new ones. Centuries, probably. Which makes it someone else's problem. I've enough of my own.
Speaking of which, and the reason I took some time off this morning, I've solved how to get the fuel to the boat. I’m not going to write it down, not yet, that would add a level of confidence in the plan that I don't feel just yet. All I need to do now is work out where I can find some petrol. I took a bike out, as soon as it was daylight, and cycled about fifteen miles. The ground was so churned up I couldn't tell whether they had been fields or parks or football pitches.
I'd found the address of a garage on the broken rear window of a car, located the address on the map and thought it was worth trying. No such luck. The roof had collapsed, crushing everything beneath it. So where to look next? That's the puzzle.
