by Frank Tayell
“I’ve got it,” Sholto said. He fired. It fell. In unspoken agreement, we began to jog. It was a shared desire to find shelter, to reach a place where we could regroup and rethink. We reached the main entrance, but were stopped by a chain running through the door’s handles.
“It’s new,” Sholto said, lifting the padlock. “Your work?”
“Not mine,” Jones said, her back to the door, her rifle raised, her eyes on the dark windows opposite. “And it wasn’t here in April. That’s when we last came this far.”
“So someone has been here since,” I murmured. “And why did they lock the door? To keep the zombies out, or to keep them in?”
Lorraine cupped her hands over the glass window and peered inside. “Can’t see any. Just a corridor. Looks empty.”
“What’s in the supply room?” Sholto asked.
“Digital scales that are accurate to a microgram,” Jones said. “And microscopes with the magnification to see something that small.”
“And we need that, do we?” Sholto asked, slinging his rifle. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather case.
“It’s the difference between regressing to the turn of the century,” Jones said, “or returning to before the turn of the last one.”
“So, yes,” Lorraine added.
Sholto extracted two thin lengths of metal. “I lost my original set of lock picks somewhere in the Atlantic,” he said, inserting them into the padlock. “I took to making them of an evening as I travelled through Britain. There’s not much else you can do without light but work away at… at a length of… metal.” He gave a twist. The padlock opened. “But everyone needs a hobby, and that’s a cheap lock.”
Lorraine pulled the chain free. We went inside. There was a smell of damp to the building. The problem with that smell is that it’s indistinguishable from the slow decay of the undead. Once again I was at the rear, the pike held across my chest so the pole didn’t knock on the floor. It was a bad weapon for this kind of work. Too cumbersome when you didn’t know from what direction danger would come.
An occasional pool of second-hand daylight spilled through the windows of closed doors, but that only emphasised the gloom. We stabbed our torches into every recess and corner. They were all empty, but when the light moved, the returning shadows seemed more sinister than before.
“You said the basement?” Sholto asked, swinging torch and rifle left and right with a pendulous regularity.
“That’s where the supply room is,” Jones whispered “There are stairs just after the corridor branches. Look to your left, it’s the door with no windows.”
“No windows? Great,” Lorraine muttered.
We reached the door to the stairwell. Sholto pushed it open. The hinges creaked. Collectively holding our breath, we waited, listening. There was a distant, irregular banging from somewhere, though not close, and not from inside the stairwell.
“It sounds like a window shutter,” I said, more wishful than confident.
“Let’s get this over with,” Lorraine said, pushing past my brother. Jones quickly followed, then Sholto. I stepped inside, letting the door close quietly behind me.
I shone the torch at the stairs leading up, more than half expecting a torrent of the undead to pour down from above. There were scuffmarks near the landing, eleven steps above. On the wall parallel to them, three jagged gashes had been scored through the paintwork. They were roughly at shoulder height, so probably meant a fight, though there was no blood, no body.
“Bill!” Sholto called softly.
I went down. Lorraine was standing by a blue painted door. Jones had her rifle trained on it, the light shining on the no-admittance notice.
“Locked?” I asked.
“No. It was electric,” Jones whispered. “Ready?”
Sholto raised his rifle. There wasn’t room for me to do anything with my pike except keep it out of the way. Lorraine pulled the door open. The corridor beyond was narrower than the one above. The ceiling was lower, tiled with polystyrene panels interspersed with the vents from the now-defunct air-conditioning system. Off the corridor on either side were closed doors painted the same blue as the stairwell’s handrail. Each had a window, but the glass was opaque.
“Shall we?” Lorraine said. “And can we be quick?”
Jones led us down the corridor, stopping two doors from the entrance. “It’s here,” she said. There were no markings on the door. “Sholto?”
He shone his light on the lock. “Sorry. You can’t pick that lock. Or I can’t, at least. We’ll have to force it open.”
Finally feeling like I served some purpose on the trip, I rammed the pike between frame and door, and levered until the wood splintered. Jones went inside. Sholto followed.
“I’m staying out here,” Lorraine said.
I was glad to wait with her. “Are you thinking about the chain on the front door?” I asked.
“Aren’t you?” she replied.
“Well?” I heard Sholto ask from inside. “Is it all here?”
“Hard to be sure,” Jones said. “I think so. The scales. The microscopes. Slides. Ah, the micrometres.” There was the sound of something being stuffed into a bag. A moment later she came out.
“Are we done?” Lorraine asked, her earlier bonhomie gone.
“For now,” Jones said. “We’ll need to come back for everything else.”
“Good.” Lorraine walked briskly back to the stairwell.
It was a relief to get back to the ground floor and its irregular second-hand light. The knocking we’d heard earlier had ceased. I hoped it was just an open window, caught in the breeze, but I kept the pike ready.
“Back outside, yes?” Lorraine asked.
“Not that way,” Jones said. “I want to check something.”
I didn’t ask what. It was clear there were other rooms she wanted to check, and equally clear that she wasn’t sharing that with Lorraine so as not to ramp up the woman’s fears. That did nothing for my own fears of course, but they had shifted from what might be inside the building to what we’d found outside.
“Why chain up the front door?” I murmured, as we followed Jones away from the stairwell.
“To keep it clear of the undead so it could be used as a refuge,” Sholto suggested.
“It would only be a refuge for someone who had the key,” I said. “Perhaps we should have looked for one. In London, I left a notice on the doors of secure buildings for anyone who might come after me.”
“I did that in America,” he said. “Left notes, I mean. I’ve had a lot of time to think about why. The conclusion I reached was that it was a rejection of solitude, a quiet plea to the universe that there should be some other survivors. It’s odd, isn’t it, the things solitude makes you do? Not that it explains why the chain was on the door.”
“Heather?” Lorraine asked, a thesaurus of meaning within the name.
“Yes, fine, we’ll go,” Jones said. “There was a chemical storeroom somewhere on the ground floor. I thought it was down here, but it’s not. I’m misremembering. I didn’t come inside here that often. We’ll go, but not through the front door. We’ll check if the back is chained. This way, I think.”
I paused to shine the light through a dark window. The room inside had whiteboards and workbenches, but it didn’t look like a classroom. Then again, the last time I’d spent any time in a science classroom had been in school, and those hadn’t been updated since the 1950s. I’m not exaggerating; they’d still had wooden benches etched with the graffiti of generations of bored children. Since then, the only labs into which I’d ventured had been of the high-tech clean-room variety. Usually, that was when taking a dim parliamentary candidate for the obligatory photo-op among very smart people.
I moved on to the next door. It was windowless. I tried the handle. The door was locked. I was about to call for my brother to come and pick it, but closed my mouth on the unspoken words. There was no reason to assume a sinister motive in the cha
in through the door outside, nor any reason to check a locked room.
The next window showed a room with a long table at one end, and four islands in the middle. Each had a sink and cupboards, but it was too dark to see any more.
It was fear that was making me think the worst. Not fear of the undead, but fear of all the unknowns that lay in our future. There was a nearly insurmountable task ahead for which no one’s life before the outbreak could count as preparation.
The next door had no windows. I tried the handle. It was unlocked. I pushed the door open, shining the light inside for no reason greater than curiosity. The beam caught an empty room and a zombie’s open mouth. The creature was two feet away and staggering towards me. A swinging hand knocked the torch from my grip. I limped back a step, trying to pivot the pike between us. The zombie swung its hand again, banging it into the doorframe. One-handed, I thrust the pike forward. The point sliced through its thigh. I must have severed a tendon as, when the creature took a step, it toppled forward, knocking me down. I landed hard, but was already kicking out, trying to get my legs away from its snapping mouth. My arm was pinned by the pike trapped between our bodies, and I couldn’t get the purchase to lever the zombie away. Its mouth snapped closer and closer. Its clawed hand gripped my thigh. I grabbed the knife from my belt, awkwardly stabbing at its scalp, but I didn’t have the reach to do more than tear a ragged line through its skin. I was about to scream when a boot slammed into the zombie’s head. My brother was there. He kicked the creature off me, then, stamping on its chest, aimed his rifle at its head. He fired, and I breathed out.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Damn,” I muttered.
“You okay?” Jones asked
I ran my hands down my legs. The material was torn, my leg was bruised, but it didn’t look like the skin was broken. “There’s no damage to anything but my ego,” I said.
Sholto went into the room to retrieve my torch and took that time to look around.
“There’s nothing in here,” he said. “No desks, no chairs. It’s a completely empty room. Why’s there a zombie in an empty room?”
Lorraine nudged at the body with her rifle’s barrel, opening the dirt-and-worse-smeared coat.
“What is it?” Jones asked.
“I… I think I know him,” Lorraine said. “Or… I sort of think I might.”
The bullet had done its work well. Too little of the face remained to discern any features. The clothing was reasonably intact. There was a rip on the trouser leg, under which was a ragged wound. That was presumably how the man had been infected. The jacket was of a thin, lightweight, breathable fabric. The T-shirt underneath was embossed with one of those meaningless vintage logos of a car at a beach.
“It’s the belt,” Lorraine said. “Or the buckle, anyway. I know I’ve seen it before.”
Whereas the clothing was the definition of nondescript, the buckle was anything but. Made of steel, it was eight inches by five inches, and showed a snarling lion fashioned in an almost baroque style.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.
“No, I don’t mean I know him,” Lorraine said. “I remember the buckle, and sort of vaguely remember its owner from the island.”
“Where?” Jones asked.
“The inn,” Lorraine said. “It was about a month ago. I went looking for Darjeeling.”
“Why?” Sholto asked.
“It’s my favourite,” Jones said.
“He was at the bar, him and three others,” Lorraine said.
“Do you remember who?” Jones asked. “Or maybe a name?”
“No,” Lorraine said. “I’d barely stepped inside before I wanted to get out again.”
“Where’s this rear door?” Sholto asked. “I want to know if it’s chained.”
Jones led the way. We went more slowly. I just wanted to get outside, and was sure the others felt the same, but we stopped at each door and checked each room, whether it was locked or not. They were all empty. At the end of that corridor was a wide set of stairs leading up. There were none going down. In the alcove underneath where the stairs bent upwards was a vending machine.
“I wouldn’t mind some chocolate,” Sholto said, shining his torch on the glass doors.
“Bad luck for you, then,” Jones said. “The on-campus machines only had healthy snacks.”
“Just my luck,” Sholto muttered, shifting the light to play up the stairs, then at the corridor beyond. “Maybe that explains the smell. It’s gotten worse. A lot worse.” He stepped closer, shining the light on something almost hidden behind the machine. “Okay. That’s new.”
I peered around him so that I could see. Behind the machine was a pair of feet. They weren’t moving, but I gave them a prod with the pike to be sure. I eased my way around the machine for a better look.
“It’s a man,” I said. “Not a zombie. He wasn’t shot in the head, but he’s dead and decomposing.” I stepped back so Sholto could get a view. He crouched down, getting far closer to the rotting corpse than I’d wanted.
“He’s been stabbed in the side of the neck,” he said. “I’d say this happened at least a month ago. Maybe two. It’s hard to pin a time frame on it, and it’ll be just as hard identifying him. I’d say he was twenty to forty, but I’m not putting money on it. The only distinguishing mark is a tattoo that runs around his neck and up to his ear, starting just above where he was stabbed. It’s a sort of… almost Celtic pattern, but not quite. It’s too blocky.”
“Let me see,” Lorraine said, squeezing past. “Oh.” She backed away again. “Yes. Definitely. I definitely know him. He was with the other guy. Both of them, they were at the inn.”
“Stabbed in the neck?” Jones asked. “Do we call that murder?”
“We can call it homicide,” I said, “but without knowing the circumstances, we can’t say any more.”
“One stabbed, the other infected and locked in a room. Who did it?” Sholto asked, easing out of the narrow alcove. “Are there any cops on the island?”
“No,” Jones said. “Or none who’ll admit it, not after the police’s involvement in murdering the evacuees.”
“Pity,” Sholto said.
“Why?” Lorraine asked. “Someone’s dead. So what?”
“The man was stabbed in the neck, but it wasn’t done behind that machine,” Sholto said, shining his light on the floor. “The body was moved. Why? If you want to hide a murder, just stab the corpse in the brain. No one would question it. Then there’s the wound itself.” He eased back around the machine, shining the torch on the body. “Yeah, it’s hard to be sure, but it looks as if the blade went in about three inches below his ear. One blow, and there was some force to it, so it’s hard to imagine the circumstances where it could have been an accident. And don’t forget that chain on the front door.”
“Markus,” Lorraine said. “I bet it’s him.”
“Maybe,” Jones said. “Maybe not. We’ve no evidence.”
“Fine,” Lorraine said. “Then there’s no reason to linger. When we come back for the equipment downstairs we’ll bring Dr Knight with us, and bring some more lights. We’ll investigate properly, but we’re not going to find anything here now, so let’s get outside, get those sat-phones, and get back.”
“Yeah,” Sholto said. “Get the sat-phones. There was a cop running things in Maine. A homicide detective. This would be right up his street. That body’s been here a while. I think this mystery will wait long enough for us to get a boat there and back.”
The rear door wasn’t padlocked, but it was bolted from the inside. After the discovery of the body, I couldn’t help but think of that as another clue. To what, and what it meant, I didn’t know.
Outside, the soft breeze did little more than move hot air around. It was refreshing after the darkness, and it put the new fears into perspective. A dead body, albeit belonging to someone seen on Anglesey, didn’t mean anything. The wound didn’t mean it was murder. What counted as accidental ha
d surely changed in the last few months. The most likely explanation was that a group had come over to loot the university. They must have split up. One had been infected. Perhaps after locking that person in the lab, another had heard a noise. Expecting the zombie that had infected his friend, he’d spun around, lashing out with the knife, and stabbed his comrade. It was an accident. A stupid, tragic mistake. There was probably even an innocent explanation for the body being moved. Shame and fear could have propelled the killer to do that. I rolled the idea around and found it fit most of the facts. Not all of them, but I felt it was close to the truth.
“Zombie!” Jones hissed. She ducked behind a post-office van stalled a hundred yards from the faculty building. Lorraine took cover behind her. Sholto and I, a few yards behind, hurried to catch up. The zombie was small. Smaller than Annette. I glanced at Lorraine. Her rifle was down, her eyes fixed, almost glazed.
“I’ve got it,” Sholto said, as Jones tried to turn Lorraine away from the pitiful sight. Lorraine wouldn’t move. Sholto fired. The child collapsed.
“It’s gone, Lorraine,” Jones said. “It’s over.”
“It was over a long time ago,” Lorraine said. She took a deep breath. “And it will never be over.” She shook away the memory and stood. “Let’s go.”
The side door to the university’s administrative building wasn’t chained, though it was locked. Sholto had it open in a few seconds, and we went inside. The air felt stuffy, as if it had been trapped in there for months, but there was no odour of decay. It just emphasised that we should have realised what had lain in wait for us in the faculty building.
“They’re in here,” Jones said, pointing at a door marked Bursar. It was locked.
“It’s too heavy to pick with these tools,” Sholto said after a moment’s toying with the mechanism. He tapped the door and then leaned his ear against it. “I’d say it’s empty. You want to give it a go?”
I stuck the pike in, splintered the wood, and thought a crowbar would have done the job while making a less cumbersome weapon.
