Surviving The Evacuation (Book 8): Anglesey

by Frank Tayell

  “Safety,” Kim reminded me.

  I found it. Pulled the trigger. A dozen bullets sprayed from the gun before I’d time to let go.

  “Selector switch,” Kim said.

  I took aim as Kim returned to her robotic second-by-second shoot-aim-shoot. I fired, and wasn’t certain I hit anything, but it was a single shot, and the bullet did leave the barrel. That was a small victory. From above, all I could see was a mass of dirt-covered mud-coloured shapes, bobbing and knocking and banging into one another. I picked a target, and heard the sound of Kim reloading. The zombie was moving more violently than the others, its arms waving with such vigour it was knocking those near it this way and that. I thought if I could kill it, the others would move less, and so be easier to shoot. I aimed at its head and pulled the trigger. It must have been a miss because there was no change in its rag-doll movement. I fired again, and again, and again. Shot after shot, all aimed at that lanky, thrashing shape that just wouldn’t stop jerking and dancing. The gun clicked empty. The zombie kept moving. I ejected the magazine and reached for a spare. I reloaded and found Kim was doing the same.

  “I’m wasting bullets,” I said. “I’ll check the other side of the house.”

  She nodded. The expressionless mask she’d worn the first time we’d met had returned to her face. There was a set to the jaw, a depth to the eyes, a tension to the muscles that, when added to the shadows in the room, made me think of her as an avenging angel, irrevocably set on a course that would lead to death, but it wouldn’t be hers.

  “Just like old times,” I murmured as I walked back along the corridor. It was obvious the simple trick was working before I reached the far end. Zombies from around the garage were already drifting towards the sound of the gunfire and the milling mass of the undead beneath Kim’s window. Not all of them were moving. Three were still pawing at the garage’s metal doors. Near the silent, ornamental fountain, a zombie stood almost motionless. Another, near the far edge of the house was slowly clawing at the brickwork. Perhaps they were blind or deaf. It didn’t matter. Immediately outside the room by which we were going to escape there were ten zombies, with another twenty close enough that they would surround us as we climbed out. Two were already drifting away. Then three. Then four. How many had to leave? Kim was a good shot, but was she that good? Five. Six. There were still too many. Beyond the creatures, the fir trees moved, but not with the breeze. I walked further along the corridor, around the perimeter of the house, until I could see the road that led to the main gate. It looked free of the undead and that meant it was time to go.

  I limped back along the corridor to Kim.

  “About fifteen left outside near the window,” I said. “But the road looks empty.”

  She ceased fire, and slung the MP5. “Count to twenty, and shoot,” she said. “One shot, then count to five before firing the next. When the magazine is empty, go downstairs. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Where are you going?”

  She unslung her silenced rifle. “To deal with those fifteen.”

  I watched her leave, counted to twenty, and fired a shot out of the window. A zombie spun backwards, but it wasn’t the creature I was aiming at.

  “How many zombies in Ireland?” I murmured as I tapped my finger against the trigger guard, counting out five seconds. “One million? Five? More? Less?” I fired. In that squirming, swarming mass of undulating death it was impossible to tell where the bullet went. There had to be at least two hundred zombies out there, but there was no point counting them. I fired again.

  It was a fool’s errand, leaving safety, going after Rob in the slim hope that the boat was still there, but it wasn’t empty-minded revenge that was driving us both. That phrase of George’s has been buzzing around my head since I first heard it: we’re the help that comes to others.

  I fired again.

  On the surface, it seemed an idealistically simple statement. As the weeks had gone by, I saw what the old man meant by it. There is no one else. We are alone. There’s another fantasy we’ve all been clinging to, one deeper than that of a farmhouse and family. We keep expecting to find some last bastion of civilisation, a city or culture that’s survived intact. A navy and air force ready to come to our aid. The satellites proved what we knew in our hearts. We are it. If any help is going to come, it will have to come from ourselves. We have no choice but to act, and no time to rest.

  I fired, paused, fired, barely aiming, barely looking at the mass of the undead, until the rifle clicked empty. I pulled the window closed and walked away, kicking a path through the drift of cartridge cases.

  Kim was waiting by the top of the stairs.

  “I got them,” she said.

  “I think I got four,” I said.

  “You’re improving.”

  We walked downstairs in silence. There was nothing that needed to be said. Outside the broken-windowed room, we shared a look.

  “We’re the help that comes to others,” I said, voicing what I thought we were both thinking.

  “I love you, too,” she replied, with the flash of a grin.

  I opened the door, spared a glance at Simon’s body, made a quiet promise to return for him, and crossed to the window. I dragged the table away. A zombie crawled across the grass twenty feet away, but otherwise only the twice-dead lay outside.

  I climbed onto the sill and dropped down, landing with one foot on an undead corpse. I hopped, stepped, and staggered away from the house as Kim dropped down behind me. I drew my hatchet, she her machete. Pausing to hack down on the crawling zombie, and giving the creature no more thought than that, we headed towards the road.

  I felt exposed. Inside the house, it was easy to forget my injured leg. Out in the open, I was quickly reminded how slow I can be. Kim easily kept pace. As for the undead, we were spotted by two that had been lurking near the corner of the house. They began a pursuit, but I was certain they wouldn’t catch us. The road was a hundred yards away. The ground between it and us was filled with two-foot high overgrown grass. I twisted around, looking behind.

  “Stop looking,” Kim said. “It slows you down. Focus on the road.”

  I tried. The trees screening the farmland from the mansion were moving and undulating, and I knew the undead were behind them. I tried to discern a pattern in the waving branches, looking for some indication of which direction the creatures were moving. Because I wasn’t looking ahead, I didn’t see it. Kim did. She darted forward as an undead arm, barely three feet ahead of me, reached up. She slammed her machete down, splitting its skull.

  “Thanks,” I murmured. The zombie’s legs were missing below the knees. Run over, perhaps? Then my brain changed gears, processing what it meant. I turned around. The path we’d cut through the long grass was marked with a trail where we’d pushed the vegetation out of the way. Three other trails were slowly converging as unseen undead crawled and squirmed towards us. I limped, she ran, faster than before.

  “There!” she said, pointing to her left, and then started running in that direction. I followed, and we were now running parallel to the road.

  I saw the next creature before she did. A clawing hand rose through the wispy, seeding fronds. I swung the hatchet down, and jumped over the fallen creature, uncertain that I’d killed it. Kim changed direction again, once more angling for the road. She leaped sideways, then stepped back, hacking the machete down.

  “Almost there!” she yelled, just as something caught around my foot. I fell, hard. My chin hit the ground. Everything went white and quiet for a second that lasted a decade. My vision spun, so I closed my eyes, pushing myself forward, kicking my legs, feebly at first, then with vigour, until they were free. A hand reached down and grabbed my arm. I twisted, trying to free myself from the iron grip.

  “Bill! It’s me!”

  I let Kim help me up, and help me on as my vision cleared, and we ran the last dozen feet to the road. The feel of that hard surface was wonderful.

  “Never again,” I said, l
ooking at the long grass, still waving and moving as the crawling creatures dragged themselves towards us.

  “We’ve said that before,” Kim said.

  Once more I began the limp-hop-step that was as close to a run as I could manage, and she jogged along beside me.

  “I lost my hatchet,” I said.

  “You could have lost your leg,” she replied.

  “Good—” I began and stopped.

  The road didn’t run straight through the farmland. It dipped and curved as it led towards the perimeter and the main entrance. We’d reached the top of a shallow rise. Below us, on the road, were two zombies. Both were turning around.

  “You see that,” I said. “They were heading towards the main gate.” I spared a glance towards the house. Surely it was close enough for these zombies to have heard the gunfire. Evidently not, but they’d heard us. They turned around and lurched our way.

  “They seem slow,” Kim said, drawing her machete. She eyed the farmland either side. I did the same.

  “It’s just those two,” I said, drawing my hunting knife.

  “For now,” she said. We slowed our pace and waited for the zombies to pick up theirs. They didn’t. One threw an arm out and staggered sideways with the motion. The other raised a leg and sagged forward at the waist. It’s hard to describe, but it’s almost as if they were tired.

  I moved to the left, Kim to the right. As I drew nearer, the zombie lurched forward. Its arms raised up, but only a few inches above its waist. I grabbed the shoulder of its rotten suede jacket for balance, and plunged the knife into its eye. It fell easily into a heap. I glanced at Kim. She was wiping her blade clean on the other creature’s ruined clothes. We shared another look, one of mutual puzzlement at the zombies’ odd behaviour. It lasted until we saw movement to our right. Coming across the furrowed dirt of an empty field were four more of the creatures. Baked hard by the sun, the ground offered no obstacle. Unlike the two we’d just killed, they moved just fine. The one in the lead wore a fleece, of the same cut and style as those I’d killed in the garage. Was this the last of Kempton’s people? Had none of them escaped? I don’t know why, but I felt sorry for them, though only for a heartbeat.

  We continued down the road, increasingly aware of the zombies now following us. There was no way we’d be able to return to the house. The only direction was onward.

  Time goes slowly when I try to run, so I don’t know how long it took before the pillars on either side of the gate came into view. After another ten steps up the road’s shallow incline, the metal gate became visible.

  Where the wall ringing the property was fifteen feet high, the pillars either side of the entrance were twenty feet high. The gate was barely twelve feet wide, and hardly formidable. Made of metal railings on a trio of hinges, there was a bolt in the ground, and another in the middle. From the way it was shaking back and forth, only the bolt in the middle had been thrown. There was no gatehouse, or postern gate for pedestrians, just a post box on the outside. Anything more sturdy would have been noticed and discussed until it had reached the ears of the local TD who’d backed the project. Going by what Yolinda Day had said in her letter, I guessed they didn’t have many visitors, and the gate was principally there to keep the employees inside.

  When we’d arrived, we’d found the gate closed, with an un-padlocked chain running through it. Now there were over twenty zombies pushing and shoving at it.

  “Rob must have come this way,” I said, as we came to a stop, two hundred yards from our only route of escape.

  “Must have,” Kim said, unslinging the MP5. “No point being quiet.”

  I reached for my own gun, but changed my mind. I took the machete from her belt. “I’ll watch our rear.”

  She fired, and I couldn’t help but turn and look.

  “Damn it!”

  It was a miss, but it got the zombies’ attention. All but one turned around. She fired again. This time a zombie spun backwards as the bullet blew the back off its skull.

  “Better,” she muttered.

  To our right, I could see for a quarter mile. There was a ploughed field now filled with weeds, then an overgrown paddock that had a screen of trees shielding whatever lay beyond. To our left was half a mile of dirt, weeds, and the undead. Dozens of them. Immediately behind us, I could only see for four hundred yards. The undulating road was clear, but I knew the zombies had followed us from the mansion. It wouldn’t be long before they caught up. I looked again at the zombies lurching across the sun-baked mud. How many undead were inside the estate? Five hundred? A thousand? Again, I wondered how they had come to be there. Not how they’d got in, but why so many had found their way to this remote corner of Ireland. They’d followed someone or something here, but who? Why?

  “Damn. No. I did get it. Thought I’d missed,” Kim muttered.

  I turned my attention back to the present, and to our near future. We had five minutes, and then we’d be surrounded. Within ten minutes, we’d be overwhelmed. There was no escape behind us, nor to either side. The only way out was forward, and that was full of zombies, getting nearer with each second. Eight were down, eleven staggered on, with one left by the gate.

  Kim fired. The nearest fell. The others lurched closer. She fired again, and this time it was a miss. The gap closed. The nearest zombie was less than a hundred feet away. I took a step to my left. Kim fired again. Again, she missed.

  “Take your time,” I said. “We’ve got plenty. Thin them out.”

  She grunted. Aimed. Fired. Aimed. Fired. The nearest was twenty feet away. I took a step forward, staying out of her line of fire, but giving myself room to swing.

  I raised my arm, fixing my eyes on the open mouth, the snarling grimace, the inhuman face. I ducked under its outflung arms, hacking low at its legs. The blade bit deep, almost severing its limb. It toppled forward as I jumped back, out of the way. There were four left. My brain hadn’t registered the sound of the shots. I hacked the machete onto the fallen creature’s skull, and then swung it up, then down, hacking at the next creature’s head. It fell, I stepped back. There were two, then one, then none except the zombie still standing by the gate.

  “Okay?” I asked.

  Kim nodded. We both turned around. The zombies following us were getting closer. I could count twenty bobbing heads less than two hundred yards away, and more than twice that number behind. We headed to the gate. I don’t know why, but some part of me thought that last zombie would be Rob. It wasn’t. It was just another grime-coated creature in unidentifiable rags. I hacked the machete down on its skull. We pulled the bolts, opened the gate, and left Kempton’s apocalyptic retreat. We closed the gate and pushed the bolts to.

  Outside, on the road, were two bodies, both undead. They were riddled with bullets.

  “Rob must have come this way,” Kim said, shouldering the MP5 and unslinging the sniper rifle.

  “Yeah.” I looked at the zombies lurching towards us. Soon they’d reach the gate. I wondered if it would hold. We’d find out when we returned. And we would return. The solar panels were intact, as were the electric cars and the turbines. When we returned, we’d kill the zombies, and properly investigate the house and its former occupants. First, we had to get back to the boat, though as we hurried along that old country road, I was certain we’d find it was gone.

  It wasn’t. It was still there, tied up to the concrete jetty. But there was no sign of Will or Lilith, nor Rob, come to that. Just two zombies, standing on the quay, ten feet from the boat.

  Kim unslung the rifle, taking out the two creatures before I could tell her to stop. I’d wanted to see whether they were heading to the boat, or following the coast. I was hoping, you see, that Lilith and Will had set off in pursuit of Rob. They hadn’t.

  We’d come over in a sailing boat. A one-masted racing yacht bearing a picture of a setting sun next to its inauspicious name, Sleepless Dream. Lilith and Will lay inside. Both were dead, riddled with bullets. So was the boat, and it looked as if
the rounds had struck the hull below the waterline. Their bodies were already surrounded by water, tinged red with their blood. I jumped down. The yacht rocked and sank an inch. I searched for a pulse though I knew there was no point.

  “They’re dead,” I said.

  “Rob,” Kim said from the jetty. “It had to be. But why?”

  “Because Lilith and Will didn’t believe we were dead?” I said. “Or because they didn’t believe Rob at all.”

  I saw the sat-phone, underwater, and a few inches from Will’s outstretched hand. Bearing in mind why the university had originally bought them, the device must have been waterproof. Perhaps it was, but a bullet had passed straight through the keypad. I dropped the broken phone back in the water. “He must have been calling Anglesey,” I said. “That’s why Rob opened fire.” I could be wrong, but it didn’t matter. The end result was the same. Will and Lilith were dead. The boat was sinking.

  “Their rifles are missing,” Kim said. “Check the ammunition.”

  It was gone. As was a large portion of the food we’d brought with us. We’d left it on the boat, not wanting to be over-encumbered when we’d gone to the house. There’d been enough supplies for all of us for a week.

  “He can’t have taken it all,” I said.

  “Let’s hope he has,” Kim said. “He won’t be able to walk fast carrying it. Do you think Will got through to Anglesey before he died?”

  “Perhaps. If he did…” I glanced at the sun. It was heading towards the horizon. Dusk couldn’t be more than three hours away. “They won’t get here until tomorrow at the earliest.”

  “Rob will have headed inland,” Kim said. “Away from any ship that might come.”

  “And away from the house,” I said, looking along the coast. There was no path, just ragged patches of green grass and bare rock. “And he’s nowhere in sight. If he was, he’d have shot at us. We’re going after him?” It was barely a question.

  Kim nodded.

  I climbed back onto the jetty, took out the journal, and tore off a page.