by Frank Tayell
“Thank you,” I said.
“Thank George,” Gwen said. “He said it was either an apology, a thank-you, or a welcome, and he wasn’t quite sure which. I think he was really looking for an excuse to try out the lathe. Now I’ve got to get going. I’ll see you in a few days.”
“Safe journey and safe return,” Jones said, and then turned to us. “We’re taking the rowing boats.” She gestured up the coast to where a group of eleven were talking quietly, sipping at mugs. We’d been introduced to them the previous night, but there had been such a whirlwind of names, I could only remember those of the three I’d met before. Lorraine waved. Simon raised a hand to his forehead in an un-martial salute. Lilith gave a nod with the edge of a smile to it. Will, not going with us due to his bandaged leg, sat on a bench a little further down the quay, brooding.
“That’s a large group just for some phones,” Sholto said, as we walked over to meet them.
“It would be if we were all going into the city,” Jones said, “and if we were only interested in your phones. I’ve grander plans than that. Four hundred metres across the strait is the mainland. Do you see the houses? We’ve rowed over to empty the homes by the shore, but it’s months since we went into Bangor.”
“It was a horde,” Simon said. “Almost caught us.”
“Almost caught you,” Lorraine said. Simon blushed.
“It wasn’t a horde,” Jones said. “There were barely more than a thousand of them, but Bangor’s got the sea to the west and north. There was nowhere to run but to our boats. We were going to return, but there was the question of Quigley and whether we’d be scattering to the four winds.”
“Not that we were going to leave,” Simon said. “This is our home. We were going to fight.”
“Speak for yourself,” Lorraine said. “Cowardice is always the better part of valour.”
There were a few sniggers. From the way Simon blushed, that was a private joke at his expense.
“Settle down,” Jones said. “We’re wasting the tide.” Everyone went instantly still. I’d noticed it the previous night. Jones was in her mid-twenties, yet spoke with a possessive and protective authority. Regardless of their age, and some of the town’s residents were at least twice hers, she acted as if she was something between their captain, parent, and pirate queen.
“Do you see over there?” Jones continued. “That’s Bangor football club. The rooftops beyond are the university. Lorraine, Bill, Sholto, and I will go ashore there, and leave our boat. Everyone else, you’re heading up to the pier.” She gestured northwards. “You’ll secure it, and put up a barricade around Garth Point. That’ll make the next trip easier.”
“The next trip?” Sholto asked. “What else are we after other than the sat-phones?”
Jones pulled a long list from her pocket. “Micrometres, scales, glassware. Anything we can’t easily make. Everything, ideally, but we have priorities. We’ve been through the high schools, and the School of Ocean Sciences, but there’s not enough.” She gestured at the campus building that dominated the small town. “We need vitamins, antibiotics, and fertilizers. Finding them is dangerous. Transporting them to the island requires more labour than we have, and with little fuel, more time than we can spare. But making them, that’s something we can do if we have the right equipment. I daresay there are some who’d welcome a day in a heated laboratory when the weather turns, but first we need to build the lab. There’s no point doing that if we can’t equip it. This trip, we’ll see what’s there and what’s salvageable. The sat-phones will be a bonus we’ll collect on our way out. Check your straps. Make sure they’re not loose. Check your laces. Tape them down. Check your ammo. Be certain you’ve got enough.”
It took less than ten minutes for everyone to get in their boats and cast off. Our boat took the lead, the other two fell into formation behind. I offered to help row.
“You’ll be more hindrance than help,” Jones said.
“Wish she’d say that about me,” Lorraine said, picking up her own oar.
Facing forward, I could see Gwen’s twin-masted schooner taking advantage of tide and wind to speed northward.
“Is that the pier?” I asked.
“Probably,” Jones said without turning around.
“Yes, at Garth Point,” Lorraine said. “It’s a kilometre long and was one of the largest piers in the world.”
“It’s not even five hundred metres,” Jones said, “and is only one of the largest piers in Wales.”
Lorraine rolled her eyes. “And isn’t that about as big as the world is now?”
“You’re a local, right?” Sholto asked.
“Not even close,” Lorraine said. “I’m from the land of jute, jam, and journalism.”
“I’m Welsh, if that’s what you mean,” Jones said. “Born and raised in Glamorgan. But I lived here before the outbreak.”
“In Menai Bridge?” I asked.
“On the outskirts,” Jones said. “I worked at the university while I studied. Employees got a discount on fees, see? That’s how I knew about the sat-phones. It was a bit of a scandal. They were meant to be given to the oceanographic research teams as a way of keeping the insurance costs down. You know, by making sure they would always be in contact? Unfortunately, when the first bill arrived, it was full of calls to Australia. That’s why the sat-phones are kept locked up in the finance department. I read your journal,” she added.
“Who hasn’t?”
“The evacuation was a good idea,” she said. “In theory, it could have worked. The thoroughness with which they emptied Anglesey is testament to what they might have achieved if only it had been a different politician in charge. On two, let it run!”
The two women gave another stroke and raised their oars out of the water. As the boat glided, Jones looked at the seaweed caught on her oar’s blade. “Hmm. You see the bloom?”
“Sure,” Sholto said, though I just saw a green, slimy plant.
“It’s wrong for this time of year, and in far too shallow a depth,” Jones said.
“Is that a bad sign?” I asked.
“Everything is a bad sign, these days,” Jones said.
“Sheesh,” Lorraine murmured.
“On two, back it down,” Jones said, a little forcefully.
“You can just say ‘row’ and ‘stop’,” Lorraine said.
I couldn’t help but smile.
“They evacuated Anglesey?” Sholto asked. “I was curious about why there weren’t many locals.”
“The government went house-to-house,” Jones said. “They emptied it utterly and thoroughly. Do you know why?”
“I know Anglesey was meant to be a target,” Sholto said. “Because of the power plant.”
“If they thought it would be hit by a nuclear bomb,” Jones asked, “why go to the trouble of removing the people, since they were only planning to kill them at the muster points? They were, you see. They took us out by train, but it would have been quicker to walk. We made about thirty miles before dark, and the trains came to a complete stop. There was no food, no water, no information about where we were going or when we might get there. We forced open the carriage doors, but it wasn’t a rebellion. We wanted to get to the muster point, and that’s the direction we started walking. Some soldiers started shouting at us. There weren’t many of them. Two dozen, maybe. Then they started shooting. We ran. Sixty-five of us made it out of there. The next day, I went back. There was no muster point. They were gassing the people in the trains. I don’t know what with, but the evacuees were all dead. When I got back to where I’d left the group, most of them had gone. Of those who were left, three were dead, and two were zombies. I headed home. There were twenty of us, out of eighty thousand, who made it back to Anglesey. All for what? So Quigley could play king?”
“I wonder what happened to them,” Lorraine said.
“Who?” I asked.
“The royals. Coast’s coming up.”
The road leading east and inland from
Bangor’s small football stadium was lined with cars on both sides of the carriageway, though their engines were all pointing towards the sea. Often parked bumper-to-bumper or door-to-door, they were rust-mottled, paint-scratched, and dirt-smeared with drifts of leaves gathered around the wheels and against the windscreens. A jet-black open-top had failed to shunt a family four-door out of the way, but had broken its windows in the attempt. The backseat was covered in mould and rotten cardboard almost the same shade as the paintwork. It was a desolate picture, a reminder of the desperate horror of those early months after the outbreak, and one that had been absent in our brief glimpse of Caernarfon. Every few steps, I found myself turning around, looking back at the sea, wondering how many of the drivers had made it to the island. After twenty yards, the gaps between the vehicles grew fewer and narrower, and I had to keep my eyes on the road ahead.
“There’s a black cab,” Lorraine hissed. “Do you think it’s from London?”
A low, rasping sigh answered before any of us could.
“I’ve got it,” I whispered, levelling the pike as the zombie rose from behind the taxi. Hair sprouted from a patchwork scalp of cracked skin. Withered arms extended from a crimson blazer turned pink by sun and black by dirt. I stepped forward as its receding lips pulled back from the broken stumps of rotting teeth. It gasped, letting forth a plume of foetid air a tone richer than the damp decay enveloping the stalled cars. As it lunged, I stabbed the spear into its eye. The zombie collapsed with a thump. There was a moment of silence quickly broken by the sound of flesh against glass. It came again, and this time I knew where to look. A three-fingered hand dragged against the grimy window of the black cab, drawing lines through the months’ old dirt.
“What do you think?” Sholto asked. “Would the sound of a gunshot breaking glass be louder than that creature?”
“Probably not,” Jones said. She levelled her rifle and fired. The sound fractured the deceptively still morning. We stood, waiting, listening, but all was silent save the distant waves and rustling trees.
“I can’t abide the trapped zombies,” Jones said. “It’s like they’ve been buried alive.”
It was a reminder that this wasn’t a holiday, a piratical search for abandoned treasure, or even a day at work. It was a journey into an undead city, with all the unknown dangers that held. I eyed the gore dripping from the pike’s blade. At least I’d learned the weapon was well made. It was a little heavier than the old replica from Longshanks Manor, and the balance was a few inches off, but it was reassuring having a weapon I knew how to use.
“If we’d been completely silent,” Lorraine said, climbing up onto the roof of the cab, “we might have walked straight into that zombie. I guess we need to be quiet and noisy at the same time.” She peered around and ahead. “I shared a house with someone like that. She could make tiptoeing up the stairs sound like a stampeding herd of elephants. I considered setting up cameras and putting it on the internet as a spoof wildlife documentary, but moved out instead. I can’t see anything. Just more cars.” She jumped down.
Her brittle cheerfulness barely hid the nervousness underneath. Something Lorraine had told us during our trip to Caernarfon clicked into place next to what Jones had said. They’d raided the coastal houses, but not come into the towns for months. This was as new an experience for them as it was for us.
“Onward?” I suggested, and Jones and her rifle took the lead.
The lane met the coastal road by a church that had been partially burned to the ground. A multi-vehicle pile-up almost blocked the junction, but I couldn’t tell whether that was where the fire had begun, or to where it had spread. Jones paused at the remains of a bright blue coupé. In the driver’s seat was a charred skeleton.
“Kerry Schultz,” Lorraine muttered.
“She’s the driver?” I asked.
“No,” Jones said. “She was a survivor. She died. She made it this far and a little further, but not to the island. We saw the fire when we were looting the houses further south. We came up this way and found her, about half a mile over there. She was trying to reach Anglesey.”
“She’d found a map in one of the safe houses,” Lorraine said. “She and some other people. They didn’t make it, but she died before she could tell us how many or where they’d come from.”
“She did say that she’d fought her way out of the church with Molotov cocktails,” Jones said. “Burns and blood loss, that’s what killed her. If she’d hung on for another hour, we’d have got her to the clinic. I don’t know if they could have saved her. Maybe even in the old world, she’d have died. But she got so close.”
“Onward, ever onward,” Lorraine murmured. “Because that’s all that’s left.”
Beyond the pyrrhic church, the road lay empty. To our left were scrubby fields, to our right was a six-foot stone wall and an embankment covered in trees. It can’t have looked much different a year before, except that the road was now tinged green. Without the passage of cars, there was nothing to stop a thin film of moss from spreading across the dimpled and cracked asphalt.
Jones pointed her rifle barrel at a side road. No words were spoken. The silence had grown, and we were all aware of it. There was no birdsong, and only one thing that could mean. One house, then two, then detached houses lined the road on either side. The gardens got smaller as the houses got closer together, but if anything, the bushes grew wilder and taller. Perhaps it was because the roofs and towering trees blocked out the sunlight. In comparison with the wide horizon of the open road, the sepulchral gloom only heightened the sense of impending danger.
After a hundred and fifty yards we came to a white van, stopped at ninety-degrees to the road. It looked as if it had reversed out of a driveway and slammed into the stone wall in front of the house opposite. A black minivan had followed it, but had been abandoned with its doors open, halfway out of the drive.
“Post-grad accommodation,” Jones whispered, gesturing at the house.
As we squeezed cautiously between the two vehicles, I spared a glance at the property. The top floor windows had been broken. Below them lay toasters, microwaves, TVs, cabinets, bookcases, chairs, crockery, cutlery, tools, and unidentifiable pieces of metal of every shape and size. Underneath those were three twisted bodies. I couldn’t tell if they’d been undead and there wasn’t time to investigate. A dozen zombies crouched, nearly motionless, thirty yards down the road.
“On three,” Jones said, raising her rifle. As she spoke, a zombie in a voluminous coat raised its head. At least, it raised its forehead and eyes. Its jaw, hanging by a shred of skin, stayed flush against its chest.
“Three.” Jones fired. Lorraine and Sholto did the same. I tried to count the shots, but there were too many and it was over too quickly. The zombies were dead before the nearest had managed more than a step.
“What did you—” Lorraine began.
“Shh!” Jones hissed. We listened. There was nothing. “What were you saying?” Jones asked.
“Well, I was going to ask them what they did with the bodies,” Lorraine said.
“What bodies?” I asked.
“You know, the zombies. There weren’t many by that house, and that got me thinking about all the undead you’ve killed. I wondered what you did with the bodies.”
“In the States, we dragged them away,” Sholto said. “Out in the wasteland, we left them where they fell.”
“Quigley burned his,” I added. “We’ll have to do the same.”
“Focus,” Jones said. “There’s a lane leading to the university up ahead. No more talking until we’re inside.”
Chapter 5 - Bangor
10:00, 19th August, Day 160
Bangor’s history stretched back centuries, though its modern reputation was as the quintessential university town. Half its population of twenty thousand were students. Before the outbreak, I’d been familiar with the train station, the hall where my candidate had given a speech, and the street where the radio-car had been parked. T
he speech had been forgettable, the interview anything but. She’d read a statement in Welsh under the assumption that it followed the same pronunciation rules as English. According to the internet, it was the seventh worst interview in history, though it gained her enough name recognition to forge a career at one of the more nationalistic English newspapers.
To make up for my lack of personal knowledge, I’d spent the previous evening memorising the road map. The city had seemed small. Actually walking through it reminded me of a maze. There was no central campus. Different faculties occupied buildings on seemingly random patches of land, divided by roads and interspersed with houses and occasional shops.
Jones pointed at a road far too narrow for the white line running down its middle, and almost too narrow for most modern cars. A moped lay on its side, twenty yards from the entrance. On either side of the road were stocky terraced houses with single-glazed windows and pebble-dashed facades. Jones took the lead. I took the rear. The going was agonisingly slow as we paused at every broken window, checking the house hadn’t become a home for the undead. My heart skipped when a shadow flittered across the road.
“Seagull,” I muttered.
Jones threw me a cautioning glance, then gestured ahead. The street ended in a T-junction with a red brick building, taller than the terraced houses.
“The Faculty of Biological Sciences,” she whispered. “The supply room is in the basement.”
We followed the road to the building’s main entrance. One seagull didn’t mean the town was safe, but I found myself looking over my shoulder, trying to catch sight of the bird. There was the soft sound of a silenced shot. I spun around. Lorraine had fired at a zombie staggering around the edge of the faculty building. She’d missed.
