“I’m not sure,” Locke said. “But one of them said it will take them days to inspect their entire motor-pool.”
As the tractor moved further away, they heard another engine start below.
“They’ve got fuel to spare,” Chester said.
Bill motioned they should start walking, but waited until they were out of earshot before he spoke. “What do you make of them?”
“The same as you, I suspect,” Locke said. “There’s more going on than we were told, yet a lot of what we were told was the truth.”
“They’ve been here since the beginning, and most haven’t strayed far,” Chester said. “You can tell that by the gear. But they’re used to strangers turning up. That’s different to England, and because it’s different I won’t draw conclusions beyond that. I tell you one thing that worries me; how the zombies all ended up here. Locke’s right, these barricades created a funnel. The first time a pack of the undead lurched into the town, they’d have had this problem. That means this is the first major attack since the defences were built. In which case, where did the zombies come from?”
“And the hundreds that gathered around the plane,” Locke said. “Where did those creatures come from? If these zombies were lured here with music, I wonder whether we misread why those two young men died in that barn. They escaped from the watchtower, yes, but weren’t running away since if they’d been fleeing, they would have come to Creil. I think they aimed to stop Dernier’s people. Perhaps they intended to destroy the trucks, or steal one in order to lure the undead to trap Dernier.”
“Starwind will be able to shine some light on that,” Bill said.
“If she’s willing to talk,” Locke said.
“I take it we’re agreed on something else,” Chester said. “That Dernier’s attack required more than twenty people. Add in the radio set, and I can’t fathom what they hoped to achieve.”
“Supposition is like an itch,” Locke said. “Start scratching, and you can’t stop, but you rarely get deeper than the surface. Ah, time for a detour. That’s an optician’s. It’s time you had some glasses, Mr Carson.”
The optician’s was sandwiched between two near-derelict cafes. The short windows suggested it was a recently converted house rather than a purpose-built shop. Warped plywood covered the windows, while a ship’s worth of planks had been inexpertly nailed to the wooden door. Since the door opened inward, and the sturdier of the planks were nailed across the frame, it only took a hefty kick to open the door. Another kick, and the lowermost plank came free, leaving enough space for them to crouch and enter.
Chester moved quickly inside, his machete raised. He searched behind the counter before moving to the doorway leading to the back room.
“Empty,” he called, barely before Bill had followed Locke inside. “Smells damp, but not of death.” He moved to a rack of designer frames.
“Try behind the counter,” Locke said. “You want the prescriptions which weren’t collected.”
“Fair point. There’s a lot of empty cases down here,” he added, as he stepped behind the counter. “Looks like I’m not the first customer since the outbreak.” He opened a drawer, took out a case, and then a set of black-rimmed frames. “Not bad,” he said, holding them up. He tried them on. “But not even close.” He put them back in the box and tried the next.
“What now, Mr Wright?” Locke asked, taking a seat.
“Now? Same as since we crashed, get back to Belfast.”
“And beyond that?” Locke said. “Obviously the presence of these people changes things.”
“Yes and no,” Bill said. “If we can, we’ll fly the helicopter here with a sat-phone and some suppressors, perhaps in trade for ammunition. Beyond that, it’ll be easier to assess after we’ve seen the island.”
“Oh, I like these,” Chester said. “Very Hollywood. Ah. No. Not unless I wear them upside down.”
“By the time we get back to Belfast,” Locke said, “and then back here, perhaps we’ll be able to tell whether the professor is correct or not about the undead.”
“There’s Elysium too,” Chester said, trying on a pair of over-large and overly pink frames. “Nope.”
“There is,” Bill said.
“Ah, perfect,” Chester added. He’d found a pair of half-moon, wire-rimmed glasses. “Not perfect.” He pressed them high on his nose. “Good enough for now, I’d say. Yes, we need to have a think about what we can trade.”
Bill nodded, but his mind had already moved on to what they needed from these French survivors, and whether it would be willingly given.
Chapter 22 - An Island Unto Themselves
Île Saint-Maurice, Creil
As they drew closer to the bridge, the clusters of mud-coated corpses grew more numerous, interspersed with a colourful flash marking the more recently infected, and the more sombre sight of survivors collecting a slain comrade. About them were other survivors, easily divided into two groups: sentries armed with carbine or rifle, and workers levering, sweeping, and shovelling the twice-dead to the side of the road. Thankfully, gratefully, the workers were armed, too, though usually only with knife or hatchet. When they paused to watch the newcomers pass, none of the guards hurried them back to their labours.
They were workers, not prisoners or slaves, and like the patrol who’d collected them from the church and the guards at the vehicle-park, they weren’t surprised to see newcomers in their midst. Bill offered a few friendly greetings, but got barely a word in reply. Whether anything should to be read into that was utterly forgotten when they finally reached the bridge.
“Now that is what I call a barricade,” Chester said.
Two massive gates, over thirty feet high and twenty feet wide, made of welded sheet metal, had been erected on the mainland side of the bridge. At the top ran a pair of girders, a mass of chains, and a small platform on which stood three people, each holding a telescope, each peering into the distance. Undead corpses were piled three deep around the gates except where a narrow corridor had been cleared leading to the currently open right-hand gate. Inside, beyond another group of armed sentries, a second set of gates marked the far end of the bridge and the beginning of the island. Though it was shrouded in smoke from dozens of cooking fires, Bill’s overriding impression was of a shanty-town.
“Bill, it’s the professor,” Locke said.
Bill tore his gaze away and down. To the north of the gates, next to a jumble of scaffolding, the professor was in conversation with a diminutive woman holding a clipboard.
As the three newcomers approached, the professor saw them and waved them over. She smiled. “Bien. Bien. Vous êtes en vie! Welcome.”
Bill smiled back, though the expression didn’t reach his eyes. The surprised relief in the professor’s tone was unmistakeable.
“Mr Wright, Ms Locke, Mr Carson, this is Dr Brita VanHausen, our chief engineer,” the professor said.
“Nice to meet you,” Chester said.
The diminutive woman’s eyes moved from Bill to her clipboard, to Locke, to her clipboard, to Chester, and back to her clipboard before finally nodding. For some reason Bill thought it was with approval. “Do you have any experience in construction?” she asked, her accent Germanic.
“Not especially,” Bill said.
“I have to work,” Dr VanHausen said, and with no more ceremony, marched over to the pile of scaffolding. A gang of six others, who’d been idly talking, sprang to attention and rushed over to her.
“It is the remains of our footbridge,” the professor said, gesturing at the scaffolding. “We constructed it after we built the gates. With a ladder at either end, it was secure from the undead. Dernier destroyed it after the assault on the armoury.”
“Ah,” Bill said, another piece of the puzzle slotting into place. “That’s why you took the boat upriver?”
“We had plans to run a cable car from the island to the warehouse,” the professor said. “Construction was due to begin this week. It will get built, bu
t not until the footbridge is repaired. In turn, that will have to wait until the ghouls have been dispatched, their bodies cleared. Ah, we are in a race against time, and have fallen into second place.”
“From the number of corpses, I take it the bells didn’t summon as many as we’d hoped,” Bill said.
“It was enough,” she said. “The island has been resupplied.”
“Well, that’s a good day’s work,” Chester said. “There’s got to be at least five hundred corpses.”
The professor shrugged.
“It is a lot of dead zombies,” Bill said. “With those at the church, and the bodies we’ve seen on our way here, and—” He was interrupted by a distant gunshot. “And with the undead still trapped in the town, that’s a lot more zombies than you thought.”
“It is hard to count the enemy you cannot see,” the professor said. “And we could only see those immediately in front of the gate.”
“I didn’t mean I was doubting your word,” Bill said. “It’s that I believe it, that you didn’t have many zombies in the area over recent months, and now there are thousands. How did Dernier summon so many? For how long was he planning this attack?”
“It is over. Does it matter?” the professor asked.
“I’m afraid so,” Bill said. “We found something in the church. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“The National Assembly will meet when Claire returns. Can it wait an hour?”
“I think so.”
“Good. They will have as many questions for you as you do for them. Come, I’ll take you there. You can wash and eat before the session.”
They followed the professor to the gap between the gates, stepping around the corpses, and over deep drainage channels dug into the roadway, now filled with gore and bloody scum.
“Welcome,” she said. “I don’t call this paradise, but we aim to make it paradise on Earth.”
“Le paradis terrestre est où je suis,” Locke said.
“Paradise is where I am,” the professor said. “Yes, Voltaire still has something to teach us. This is where we are, and where we have learned to become who we truly might be.”
“I’m more of a Shakespeare man, myself,” Chester said.
“Bien sûr, vous êtes Anglais,” the professor said.
With the second set of gates looming ahead, it was impossible to properly form an impression of what lay beyond. From what lay southward, it evidently wasn’t a large island. A few hundred metres long at most, the remains of a second bridge near the southern end languished in the fast-flowing, snowmelt-fed river. What couldn’t be seen were buildings, not as such. A forest of scaffolding, wood, and metal panels obscured any chimney or rooftop that might dwell below.
The second set of gates was open, but only by the width of a person, and a sentry stood in that gap. The gangly teen with a scruffy attempt at a beard made an equally scruffy attempt to stand to attention, but he was more elbows and knees than a stiff back. The professor patted him kindly on the shoulder as they went through the gates.
Walkways ran across and over a road where caravans and campervans, trucks and lorries had been parked bumper to bumper, and even stacked on top of one another. Scaffolding ran to and through and above the vehicles, though it was impossible to tell which supported the other. Planks and panelling had been laid on the scaffolding to create floors and walls.
Little natural light made it down to the roadway, making it difficult to pick out specific details, but immediately ahead was a giant crane, explaining how the campervans had been placed on top of each other. The chains running from the crane to the gates explained how those were opened. Beneath the crane, the old road had been reduced to a narrow alley, an inch deep in water. One storey above, on a walkway that ran behind the crane, a woman with two young children paused to watch them. The professor gave a friendly wave.
“You actually did it,” Chester said. “You built a walkway city.”
The professor gave a bemused smile. “A town, at best.”
“No, I’m impressed,” Chester said. “Back in London, a group of us took shelter in a broadcasting station near Oxford Street. We were trapped by the undead, but had this idea of building walkways across the rooftops. Around there, the buildings are pretty close together. Lots of those old Victorian alleyways. I ended up separated from that group. When I returned, months later, they’d relocated to the Tower of London, but not before they’d linked up hundreds of buildings. We talked about doing something similar around the Tower. Dreaming of it is more accurate. Stay above the undead, stay safe. You managed it here, though.”
“Initially, we had no choice,” the professor said. “When choices became available, we had already adapted to our new way of life. Up here, please.”
They followed the professor up a set of metal steps, then a sloping ramp of irregularly sized aluminium sheets until it met wooden planking laid on a bed of crudely cut waste-water pipes.
Now five feet above the ground, the professor led them along the walkway, then down another that branched to the left. This section was enclosed, with more planking above and wooden panelling on either side. When they reached the next narrow junction, Bill realised it wasn’t panelling, but the walls of someone’s home. Not the most pleasant of homes, sure, but security from the undead was as great an aid to sleep as insulation. Another turning, and they finally had stone walls and windows on one side. It was through one of the windows that the walkway led, and through which the professor led them.
“Welcome to the town hall,” she said. “Here you will find our doctors, our workshop, school, theatre, library, and our shops.”
“Shops?” Chester asked.
“A market might be a better description,” the professor said. “It is a place for trade, though we closed it during the crisis. It will open again soon.”
“And here’s me having left all my traveller’s cheques on the plane,” Chester said.
The window-door led to a reception area, run by a stern-faced elderly man. His long moustache drooped almost at the exact angle of the battered beret on his head, but the unit badge had been polished to a shine. He wore a jacket, shiny at the lapels, and a tie that was dull at the edges but had a gleaming pin holding it in place. When he saw the professor, he rose, and offered her an arthritic salute. She replied with a kindly smile, and a few words in French.
“You can wait in my office while the Assembly gathers,” the professor said.
They didn’t have far to go and saw no one else until they reached her office. Three tables had been crammed into a space that really only had room for one. A woman sat at the desk closest to the door. When she saw the professor, she jumped to her feet. Somewhat incongruously, she wore a suit. The material was faded and patched, but it was the distinctly impractical style of the pre-outbreak world.
“Please, make yourselves comfortable,” the professor said. “Lauren will bring you some refreshments.” Without needing a translation, the woman darted from the room. “If you’ll excuse me.” The professor left.
Chester sat in the room’s only armchair, leaving office chairs for Bill and Locke.
“It’s tempting to read some of these papers, isn’t it?” Locke said.
“I can guess what they say,” Bill said. “Food levels, water consumption, warnings from the doctors about disease and malnutrition. Complaints and suggestions from anyone not too exhausted to pick up a pen. It’ll be the same as back on Anglesey.”
The door opened and the suited woman entered, carrying a tray of hot drinks.
Chester sniffed. “That’s coffee. Is this really coffee?”
Lauren gave a brief smile, placed the tray on the desk, and left without speaking.
“She must be more of a tea drinker,” Chester said. He picked up a mug. “It is coffee. Bit weak, but it’s real. Well, now, this isn’t too bad.” Mug in hand, he leaned back. “Not too bad at all, considering how the day began.”
“It’s not over yet,” Bill said.
Chapter 23 - The National Assembly of the Sixth Republic
Île Saint-Maurice, Creil
The coffee was long since drunk when Lauren returned. She led them to a room barely larger than the office, and made to seem smaller by the cloth-covered tables that nearly filled it. The professor sat in a padded oak-and-brass high-backed chair facing the door. Behind her was a French Tricolour and the flag of the European Union. Claire sat on her right. The chair to her left was empty. Five other people sat at the table, but that left another four empty chairs.
“Welcome,” Claire said. “Please sit down.”
“Good to see you, Claire,” Bill said. “Did you make it to the airfield?”
“And we made it back with Monsieur Higson,” Claire said. “He is with our doctor. Sergeant Khan and Private Kessler volunteered to join the patrols clearing the town to the west of the river.”
“We should help them,” Bill said, taking a seat opposite the professor. “First, we have a few things to discuss. Sorry, I assume this is your leadership group?”
That got a derisive snort from a jowly man, about fifty years old, with sagging skin underneath two days of stubble.
“This is the National Assembly of the Sixth Republic,” Claire said. “Professor Victoria Fontayne is our president. General DeHaupstraad was our Prime Minister.” She gestured to the empty chair next to the professor. “He died during Dernier’s attack on our armoury.”
“As you can see,” the professor said, indicating the other empty chairs, “his was not the only death. Our Assembly is much depleted, but the Republic lives on. Mr Wright is the leader of the people in Belfast.”
A grey-haired woman frowned. “Le président? Le roi? L’empereur?”
“I’m just an advisor to our mayor and our council,” Bill said.
“But we can negotiate with you,” the professor said, again in English.
“Before we decide whether there is anything to negotiate,” Bill said, “there are a few matters we must discuss. At the church, we were attacked by people. Three men. They had a radio set. With the height of the bell-tower, and the church’s elevation, the signal could have reached for miles.”
Surviving The Evacuation (Book 14): Mort Vivant Page 19
