“There are lots of places like this in the highlands. There are parts where they didn’t have proper roads until the sixties and, in some cases, even later. This place was too far off the beaten track to have a road built to it, and it cost me a fortune to get workmen up here. One of my neighbours had to bring them and their materials by a tractor.”
“Sounds like a right pain in the arse.”
“It was, and it wasn’t,” Mila said, looking around. “If it wasn’t this way, I would not wake every morning to see this how it is now.”
“I suppose.”
“Come.” Mila looped her left arm and Robyn took hold of it as the two of them slowly walked down the cobbled path towards the track.
Robyn had only travelled a few metres before she felt out of breath, although she did her best not to show it. When they finally reached the bottom of the incline, she began to cough uncontrollably. Mila stood with her hands on her hips, watching her. “Don’t say it, don’t say it,” Robyn said as the coughing finally subsided.
“Look, this track, it runs for maybe another hundred metres. Then I can go get the car and bring it to you.”
“I don’t understand. If you’re the only one around, why didn’t you just park the car at the end of the track?”
“Ah yes, and tell the world where I am. Very good idea. Because everyone is so friendly now that there is no food in the shops and undead monsters roam the streets. Maybe I shouldn’t stop there. Maybe I should put a big sign up saying, ‘Please drop in for coffee and butter cake.’”
“I thought sarcasm was just a British thing,” Robyn said grudgingly as the two of them began to walk again.
“The British think they invent everything.”
They finally reached the end of the path and stepped out through a narrow gap in the overgrown hedgerow onto the single-track tarmac road. “So, you’ve met other people since everything … you know, turned to crap?”
Mila didn’t answer, and her eyes grew sad again. “Stay behind this hedge. I will be back soon.”
“I don’t have a weapon.”
Mila handed her a hunting knife. “How you are this minute, your best chance is avoidance rather than confrontation. Now, stay hidden and stay quiet.”
Robyn watched as Mila jogged along the road. When she was out of sight, she immediately felt vulnerable. The only sounds to be heard were those of birds and the rest of nature slowly waking up. Robyn realised that this was the first time she had ever felt completely alone. Although Mila was a little bossy and even overbearing at times, her intentions were good, and now she was out of sight the world seemed a little scarier. A few minutes passed, and Robyn became increasingly nervous. The impression she had gathered was that Mila would be back quickly. Had something gone wrong?
Worry lines etched themselves onto Robyn’s face and the bright sun and beautiful morning began to look a little less inviting. When a small, battered, rusty Mini Metro finally chugged around the corner into view, a massive wave of relief swept over Robyn. She walked around to the passenger side and got in. “Nice wheels,” she said, looking at the folded down seats in the back with the shabby tarpaulin draped over.
“I know, right? I come from a country where they make the finest automobiles in the world, and this is the only thing I can find. It is like I am being punished.” She released the handbrake, and they set off.
“I was worried. I thought something had happened.”
“No. This can take some starting.”
Robyn looked in the wing mirror and saw a trail of blue smoke polluting the clean country air. “I’m guessing it would struggle with its MOT.”
They carried on for a while then Mila let out a long breath. “You asked me if I’d met other people since all this began.”
Robyn turned to look at her. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”
“It is alright. It is good you know. The local village, East Crovie. Very small, maybe twenty houses. It avoided infection. There were quite a few older people, and when everything turned bad, nobody was checking on them or running errands for them anymore, so I went to visit them each day and did what I could.”
“That was really kind of you.”
“I thought about my oma … my grandma. If she was in the same position, I would hope someone would do the same. Anyway, I had gone down one day and Mrs Robertson, the lady who owned this car, said she would love to go for a little walk. It was a nice day, and I had checked on everyone else, so I thought, Why not? I got her in her wheelchair and set off. We weren’t gone much more than an hour. On the way back, I heard gunfire. I hid Mrs Robertson and found a good vantage point to find out what was going on. I could see a coach that had been armoured—reinforced with metal sidings. I saw men with guns. I saw others emptying houses. I saw one woman—” Mila pulled the car up by the side of the road.
“What is it?” Robyn asked.
“I saw one woman, the daughter of the postmistress. Half her clothes had been ripped off, and she was bundled into the coach kicking, screaming and crying while all the men laughed. There were bodies on the streets. They didn’t leave a single person alive, and they took everything … including my car. This piece of junk was all they left behind, but they drained the petrol out of it. I managed to find a little on one of my scavenging trips.”
“These men. I know these men.”
“You can’t, they were—”
“I know these men. Wren and I have come up against them a few times. They’re based in Loch Uig.”
Mila turned in her seat to look at Robyn. “How can you know this?”
“There’s a huge camp at Loch Uig. Hundreds … thousands. They raid towns, villages, everywhere. They take everything, killing the men and enslaving the women. A place where we were staying, we repelled one of their attacks, caused them a lot of casualties. They came back and slaughtered every last man, woman and child.” Robyn started coughing and it was a full thirty seconds before she stopped.
“So how are you sat here?”
“It’s a long story. What happened to Mrs Robertson?”
“I took her to my house. I told her she could live with me. She went to sleep that night and did not wake up. She had lived in that village all of her life. I’m guessing she died of a broken heart.” Mila turned back towards the road and eased the handbrake off. The car began to move again.
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry? We have both had bad times. It is the end of the world, after all.”
“Yeah, but I had someone to share the burden with. You had to do everything yourself.”
“If what you say is true, then I am incredibly lucky. I think back to the poor woman who got dragged into that coach. I have no right to complain about anything.”
“You’ll like my sister. She’s a very positive person too.”
A figure came into view on the road up ahead. From a distance, it appeared black from head to foot. Robyn and Mila both squinted, convinced their eyes were deceiving them. It looked like it had been dipped in tar. As they got closer, they could see tell-tale patches of red, clothing fused to skin, almost bare bone in places; this undead thing had been burnt—not just burnt, barbecued.
It struggled towards them, the mere fact that it was upright at all was nothing short of a miracle. It extended its desperate arms, charcoal digits flaking charred skin as they grasped at the air.
Mila pulled on the handbrake and climbed out. She walked up to the pathetic beast, its growls barely audible due to the damage it had sustained. Normally these creatures moved like lightning, this one merely drifted like a black snowflake on a gentle breeze. She walked around it, looking it up and down as if it was a sculpture in a gallery. All the time, the monster tried to turn its body to keep up with her. Mila placed her fingers around the grip of her knife then let go. Instead, she unleashed a mighty kick, and the beast almost flew to the verge crumpling into a pathetic mass.
It began to struggle to its f
eet once again, but Mila was bored now. She returned to the vehicle before it had even climbed to its knees. “I don’t know how that thing is still moving. It is burnt to crisps.”
“Why didn’t you kill it?”
“What is the point? It poses no threat.”
They set off once again, and Robyn stared at the pitiful beast as they drove by. “I wonder how it ended up like that.”
“Who knows. I have been seeing plumes of smoke in the sky ever since this thing started. In summer, moor fires are very common up here, and with no fire brigades now, they can grow fierce.”
“I suppose.”
They continued the drive for a few more minutes; then it became clear where the blackened figure had come from. “Don’t worry, there is still a distance to travel before we get to the farm,” Mila said, sensing Robyn’s anxiety.
The forest on either side of the road was burnt black. Giant pines had been stripped bare as they protruded from the charred earth like colossal ebony pencils. Robyn began to cough again as the fumes of the burnt woodland still lay heavy in the air.
“Scheisse!” Mila hissed as she brought the car to a sudden halt. Robyn had been so preoccupied with surveying her surroundings that she had not seen the massive tree that had fallen, blocking the road ahead.
“What do we do?”
“I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do. We are running on fumes, to get to the farm from the other direction would mean a fifteen-mile detour and—” On cue, the engine began to splutter before cutting out. “Nein! Nein! Nein!” Mila cried, smashing the car horn with her fist three times. She turned the key then tried to start the car up again. It coughed, almost as much as Robyn, but it failed to start. “Scheisse!”
Robyn brought the jumper up to her mouth to filter the air, and her spluttering subsided for a moment. “I’m sorry. This is my fault. If I hadn’t insisted—”
“It is my fault. I should never have mentioned the car.”
“So, I guess we’re walking?”
“I am walking, I brought the wheelchair for you,” she said, leaning into the back and pulling the tarpaulin across.
“Oh great, so I can feel even more useless than I already do.”
“Robyn, you do realise we can’t carry on to the farm? We have to head home.”
Robyn nodded reluctantly. “Yes, but when I’m back to fitness, I need to come back. Maybe the fire didn’t get as far as the house, maybe—”
“Yes, yes, yes. We will come back, but now we have the very real problem of crossing several miles on foot.”
“I need you to promise me something.”
“Haven’t I made enough promises for now?” Mila asked. She looked into Robyn’s sad eyes and let out a long sigh. “What is it?”
“If we run into trouble – I mean, y’know, a pack of zombies or something – you don’t risk your life to save me. I’ve already put you in danger by demanding you bring me out here. I don’t want to think that—”
“It was my choice to come out here. I have free will. Stop this nonsense talk; otherwise, you will make me angry.” Mila climbed out of the car and opened the hatchback. She removed the wheelchair, grabbed her rucksack and placed the straps over each handle. Then she slid on the leather bands supporting her samurai scabbards and finally pushed first one then the other sword into the crisscrossed sheaths.
Robyn climbed out of the car, still holding the jumper to her mouth and nose. For the time being, it was working. She begrudgingly climbed into the waiting wheelchair, and before she knew what was happening, their journey was underway.
“You don’t have to wheel me all the way.”
“Cross-country the journey is around eight miles from the farm to my house. By road, I guess we have about eleven miles to travel. It is still only early. I estimate that even pushing you I can cover between three and a half to four miles each hour, so hopefully we will be back home by early afternoon.”
“I said you don’t—”
“Yes, yes, I heard what you said. Now just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
✽ ✽ ✽
They had not eaten for several days. When they had seen the vast plumes of smoke swirling into the air in the distance, they were compelled to follow them. Now they were stuck in the middle of a monochrome charcoal wilderness. Occasionally they came across some of their own kind, but they were different. They were slow, their bodies were black. Some of them moved in varying degrees, but many lay still.
They searched and they sniffed. The black clouds still rose in places but nowhere near as many as when they first saw them. They didn’t know why they followed the billowing towers; they didn’t really know anything. Everything was primal instinct. They only had one purpose, but while ever they stumbled around in this lifeless jungle, they couldn’t even do that.
Beeeep! Beeeep! Beeeep!
Like a flock of birds, the small army of creatures shifted in one direction and began to run as one towards the sound. They sniffed at the air as they went. For now, all they could smell was ash, but soon … soon their hunger would be satisfied.
chapter 6
Mila and Robyn had not travelled more than a hundred metres when the creatures appeared like a small swarm of black bees from the trees in front of them. “Oh shit!” Robyn screamed as the pack began to charge.
Mila immediately turned the wheelchair around and started running back to the car. “Scheisse! Scheisse! Scheisse!”
“You have to leave me,” Robyn shouted, taking the jumper down from her mouth and coughing again.
“That is not going to happen. I was stupid hitting the horn. I did it in anger, and it was stupid. My mutter always warned me about my temper.”
In between spluttering rasps, Robyn said again, “Leave me.”
“Sei ruhig—be quiet.” They reached the small car, and Mila pulled Robyn from the wheelchair like she was hefting a bag of coal. She threw her into the already open hatchback and slammed the door down. A chunk of rusted metal fell from it, but the locking mechanism clicked into place, and Robyn immediately turned, pressing her face and hands against the window like some kind of toy with suction pads.
“Mila!” she shouted, but Mila had run around to the front of the vehicle. She climbed onto the bonnet then the roof. “What are you doing?” She’s got up there to take the attention away from me. But they’re going to get her. They’re going to get her and then they’re going to turn their attention to me. They’ll just keep pounding and pounding on this rusted body until they find a way in and I’m going to—
The first two creatures hit the car at the same time. They stretched their arms towards Mila who remained like a statue. Her fingers were resting on the grips of both swords, her eyes surveying the small horde of rabid beasts, weighing them up. Twenty. There are twenty. She took a breath, the smell of necrotic flesh gradually replacing that of smoke and ash as the rest of the monsters got near. Wait. Wait. She closed her eyes, and a feeling of calm came over her. She could not hear the noise of their growls; she could not hear their pounding feet. All she could hear was her own breathing. Her own heart. She felt the vibrations as more beasts flung themselves at the small vehicle, but it didn’t matter. Wait. Wait.
A hand wrapped around her ankle and her eyes flicked open. She withdrew both swords simultaneously. Like flashes of lighting, the blades arced down, the first removing the left arm of the beast who had grabbed her, the second cutting another limb off at the elbow. More hands thrust in her direction, but Mila sliced and chopped and hacked like some kind of human threshing machine. Bones, sinew, muscles, ligaments were severed, some remaining on the roof of the car, others sliding down the hatchback, more still rolling down the windscreen.
It all happened in a matter of seconds. The first row of creatures remained in position. This had been Mila’s intention all along. A zombie barrier, making it twice as difficult for the others to reach her. She felt the front end of the car dip and spun around to see two beasts as yet untouched by her blade
s clambering towards her. The swords seemed to helicopter as she advanced, whistling down in perfect synchronicity, slicing through the skulls as if they were overripe melons. The two figures instantly collapsed, and Mila twirled around, keeping the blades low but not too low. She carved through the heads of four more reaching monsters from the second row.
Another pair of arms extended towards her, and with balletic grace, she brought her blades down, rendering the creature incapable of causing her harm while ever she remained in her elevated position.
✽ ✽ ✽
Who the hell is this woman? Robyn asked herself as she sat cross-legged watching the gruesome 3D picture show. Severed limbs kept raining, briefly appearing at the side windows or rolling down the glass of the hatchback in gory splendour. The small car swayed from side to side and bounced up and down as the beasts desperately tried to reach Mila. For the moment, they had no interest in Robyn, they were only concerned with the pink-fleshed young woman on top of the vehicle who was almost literally making mincemeat of them.
Robyn swivelled around, the effort reducing her to another coughing fit. There didn’t seem to be a single beast remaining that had its upper limbs. “I am really going to have to get her to teach me how to use those swords.”
✽ ✽ ✽
Mila raised her blades as if she was some magnificent bird of prey spreading its wings. She turned in a slow circle, carefully observing the creatures. Their jaws snapped wildly, frantically trying to latch on to her supple flesh, but it was in vain. Unless she fell to the ground, there was no way they could reach her. She took a deep breath. Now to finish them off.
Rather than the slashes and swipes that had dismembered limbs and even partially decapitated some of the foul-smelling monsters, Mila went about this job with the precision of a surgeon. The cold red blades plunged into eye sockets with pinpoint accuracy despite the heads of the creatures moving up and down and side to side. One by one they fell until there was just one beast left. In life, he had been in a job that required a suit and tie. He had clearly been turned for a long time, but somehow the corporate noose had remained around his neck.
The End of Everything (Book 7): The End of Everything Page 4
