Surviving The Evacuation (Book 6): Harvest

by Tayell, Frank

  She opened her eyes. Kevin and Aisha were still bickering in that way only two people in love could. Tuck watched them, trying to leech some of the happiness from the scene. Then she caught a few very unexpected words cross Aisha’s lips. She looked at the woman, this time more carefully, and realised they shouldn’t have been unexpected at all. Then she realised she was staring, and turned her attention back to the shopping list.

  That was the name Jay had given it. It was a piece of paper he’d pinned to the door next to the kitchen on which anyone could write down essential items they would like the next outgoing expedition to look for. At the top, underlined and surrounded by a small box, were the words firewood, food, and water. Underneath and in the varied handwriting of whoever had added it were soap, detergent, blankets, gloves, coffee, tea – that had been underlined as well – then toothbrush. Next to that, and in a different pen, the letters ‘es’ had been added. Someone else had added ‘x 3’. That had been crossed out, with the word ‘lots’ scrawled in its place.

  Halfway down was ‘bicycles’. She crossed it out. They knew where to find those now. At the bottom of the list, just below toilet paper – which had been underlined a dozen times – was ‘1 pair shoes, size 12.’ That was in Stewart’s chicken-scratch scrawl. Under that, and again in his handwriting, was written ‘or boots’, and under that ‘or sandals.’

  Chester had arrived at the Tower barefoot. He’d needed a pair of shoes for the rescue mission to the British Museum, and Stewart had volunteered his. Yesterday, it had transpired that those were the man’s only pair. He’d been padding about with a couple of layers of cardboard between a pair of thick socks, and no one had noticed.

  She checked the ropes were secure and the sword was loose in its scabbard. If they did go back to Westminster, she’d reclaim the fire-axe. It was a familiar weapon, even a reassuring one, but Nilda seemed happy with a sword, so when Tuck was looking for a replacement, she’d taken one for herself. It was a hanger, designed to be worn at the belt of a ceremonial uniform, and had belonged to King George III. That’s what Fogerty had said, though the metal looked suspiciously new to Tuck’s eyes. At least the blade was sharp. The old warder had had little else to do during his time trapped in the Tower but hone the edges of the exhibits.

  The happily bickering couple put a pause on their argument as Graham climbed onto the battlements. Tuck nodded a greeting. Graham was a hard man to read. He’d walked off the work detail barricading the souvenir shop yesterday apparently because Stewart was on it, choosing instead to go out beyond the walls. Most people assumed the enmity was a product of Stewart replacing Graham as the group’s cook. Tuck didn’t think so. In her opinion, he was firmly in the ‘finding it impossible to adjust’ group of survivors. Willing to work today, but always holding onto the hope that tomorrow would turn out to be a yesterday now forever gone. Stewart was simply an easy target for his misplaced rage. But Graham was one of the few people who didn’t seem to mind leaving the safety of the castle’s walls. After him came… Hana? Tuck looked at her quizzically.

  “I know Constance was meant to come,” Hana said, speaking with a now-practiced over-pronounced enunciation. “But I said I’d go instead. She’s not… she’s not well.”

  Tuck nodded, understanding. There were two mothers and three fathers amongst the small group, though none from the same family. The appearance of Nilda and her reunion with her son had kindled the hope that that their own children may still be alive. And then there was Constance. She’d seen her children die. She’d seen them come back. And she’d given them that final peace.

  “You shouldn’t come,” Tuck signed slowly, and then had to repeat it.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Aisha said, either finally understanding or just guessing Tuck’s meaning. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “I have to learn,” Hana said, gripping her halberd more firmly. “There’s no room for passengers. We all must do all that we can, all of the time.”

  There were only three undead in sight. The risk wasn’t great, and perhaps it would do the woman good. Tuck shrugged, grabbed a rope, waved the vet to one of the others, and climbed down the wall.

  When her feet hit the ground she released the harness and looked up. Kevin was halfway down, Aisha following, helping a far slower Hana. Tuck drew the sword and gave a practice swing, trying to get used to the balance as she walked towards the souvenir shop.

  Ignoring the undead on the other side of the wide gate, she looked inside the shop. Reece and the others had done a good job. The door that had let the undead in the day before was now firmly sealed and the shelves were bare, but those shelves were still there. That wood could burn, and if it didn’t, it would rot. But collecting it would be a safe and easy job, and one that could wait.

  When she looked past the gate to the broad piazza beyond, she saw the zombies slouching towards her. To encourage them, she ran the sword along the iron railings, watching almost curiously as their movement became more vigorous. Or was it frantic? Eager, perhaps? And then she stopped herself. Those thoughts only acted as a reminder that the creatures had once been human.

  She looked back at the castle. Perhaps they could plant seeds in the grass moat. Not fruit, it would take too long for the trees to grow. Vegetables, perhaps, but all that separated the moat from the undead was that chest-high transparent barrier. That would have to be reinforced. Or would the moat flood again now that the Thames Barrier was forever down? She didn’t know and suspected no one else could give an answer any better than a guess.

  She turned back to the approaching undead. They’d probably come through the gap in the government barricade near the old Billingsgate fish market, the same one that Chester and Nilda had used when they had driven to the British Museum. Sealing it was just one more problem that would have to be faced. So many questions. So many problems.

  The first of the creatures was two metres away, and they were a problem she knew how to deal with. She braced herself, right foot forward, the sword tip hovering between two railings, the left braced on the hilt, ready to push.

  The zombie jerked forward, its palm slapping against the gate. Tuck waited, timing her strike, watching the forehead, and never looking into those near blind eyes.

  It lurched a final step, its mouth opening in a hissing snarl, its head bobbing back and forth. She lunged. The blade ripped through skin and muscle, tearing a huge gash across the creature’s face as it moved into the cut and slammed its wrecked face against the railings. Tuck pulled the sword back, and then aimed the point until it was almost touching that grey-flecked eye. She stabbed, hit resistance, and kept pushing, twisting and turning the sword, breaking bone as the blade sank deep into its brain. The zombie’s arms went limp, and for a moment she was holding it up until, with a wrench, she pulled the sword free.

  Her opinion of Nilda rose another notch. The long, curved hanger was an utterly impractical weapon against the undead. Perhaps the wider, shorter blade of the gladius made it more effective at crushing, but this sword was only good for slashing. It was too late to change the weapon now. She made do with mentally cursing mad King George and felt a little better for it.

  The other two zombies had reached the gate. So had Hana, Aisha, and Kevin. Graham stood a little way back, his head turning left and right. Hana looked nervous. Aisha looked angry, and Kevin looked tense, though Tuck suspected that had nothing to do with the undead. She motioned the vet forward.

  The long halberd wavering in her trembling hands, Hana jabbed at one of the zombies without aiming first. The spear’s point hit the railings. Hana made another half-hearted stab, but the weapon had twisted in her grip. The angle was now wrong, and this time it was the broad blade that hit metal. Conscious of the onward march of time, Tuck gently moved her out of the way, and motioned for Kevin and Aisha to step forward and finish the creatures. They did, not with ease, nor without obvious distaste, but it was over quickly.

  The river path to the east was clear. So was the wi
de piazza to the north. Tuck pointed to the buildings in between, and led them up the ladder, down the other side, and out beyond the safety of their fortress.

  She walked slowly, tracking her gaze across the buildings, trying to pick out which might be worth investigating. There was a block of mostly one-room studio apartments overlooking the river and a cluster of office blocks behind that. The ground floors of those were emblazoned with the logos of every fast food and slow meal franchise the country had to offer. If it could be fried, baked, sandwiched, or grilled, it could be bought within a raven’s caw of the Tower. She raised a hand to grab Graham’s attention, and then waved at the restaurants.

  “Empty?” she mouthed.

  “I’ve checked them all,” he said. “There’s nothing there.”

  She nodded, though through the window of a French cafe she could see wooden stools stacked on equally wooden tables. It was at least a day’s worth of firewood.

  Ahead, just past the glass and steel ticket office was a compact circular building about six feet in diameter. According to Fogerty, it was a subway tunnel that led under the Thames. This news had elicited great excitement amongst the group until they realised that it didn’t lead anywhere that any of them wanted to go. The pool of volunteers willing to venture down its length shrank when the old warder had explained that a bomb during the Second World War had compressed its diameter to less than four feet. Now that they had the rafts, Tuck suspected no one would be prepared to crawl through a pitch-black tube, trusting their lives to the hope that the other end had been sealed from the undead.

  The block near the entrance to the subway had a sign with that universally recognised stick-figure silhouette indicating a public convenience. She turned to ask Graham whether he’d searched the toilets, but he’d fallen back, his eyes on the skyline south of the river. It didn’t matter. Tuck was sure Fogerty had said he’d stripped the place of toilet paper just after he’d returned to the Tower during the early weeks of the outbreak. But there would be detergents and bleach there, and no harm looking. Then they could try one of the larger offices further to the east and—

  Kevin moved forward, overtaking her. A pair of creatures had moved out from behind the ticket office and were shambling towards them. One of the undead wore a suit. It always baffled her that when told to leave their homes and bring nothing but that which they could carry, some people would insist on wearing their best jacket and tie. As she got closer she realised that it wasn’t a suit, but the remains of a dress uniform. The peeling sole of the one scuffed shoe flapped up and down as the undead soldier staggered towards them. All indications of rank were torn off or obscured by dirt, but Tuck could make out three medals hanging loosely from the tattered breast of the jacket. She raised her sword, and then changed her mind, waving Hana towards it, and Kevin and Aisha towards the other, a creature in tattered tweeds.

  Hana tensed but looked determined as she raised her halberd. Tuck took an instinctive two paces back. She’d been right. The vet mistimed the blow, and swung the long-handled weapon around in a great sweeping arc. The narrow point cut through the zombie’s jacket but left the creature unharmed. The blade kept moving, slicing through the air inches from Tuck’s knees. Hana, however, was undeterred. Her mouth moved in curse, apology, or Tuck didn’t know what, as she changed her grip and, holding the halberd more like a broom than a weapon, jabbed it forward. She missed. Took a step closer. Jabbed again. Missed again. Another step, another jab. This time the foot-long point sliced across the creature’s cheek. The vet didn’t withdraw the weapon to try again; she just kept pushing as the zombie kept advancing. As it twisted its head, the spear point tore through flesh but did no real damage. By accident, though it looked like design, the zombie’s arm batted at the halberd, knocking it out of Hana’s grip.

  Enough, Tuck thought. She stepped forward, raised the sword, and hacked at the creature’s leg. Once. Twice. She felt bone break. It collapsed. She stabbed down at its head.

  A quick check confirmed Kevin and Aisha stood over the unmoving corpse of the second zombie. Tuck half bent over the body of the dead soldier intending to look for an identity disc, but stopped when she saw the single crown on the remaining ragged epaulette and which three medals it was that remained on his chest. In itself that didn’t mean anything. There were lots of majors who’d served in those conflicts. She peered at the face, but it was unrecognisable, twisted in death, wracked by decay, and ruined this one final time. Perhaps it was because she’d been thinking of the major earlier. Perhaps it had been the sight of all those uniformed bodies back in the hotel. Perhaps not, but only someone who knew they were going to die would have donned their blues for one final time. Was it her old friend? There was an easy way of finding out. Her hand moved closer to the collar, then stopped again. She remembered what she’d told Jay back at the airport. It was better not to know, she decided, and in ignorance let cherished memory remain untarnished by truth.

  She picked up the fallen halberd and held it out to Hana. The woman’s eyes were unfocused. Tuck clicked her fingers. Hana shivered, shrugged, and mouthed an apology before taking the weapon.

  Tuck was tempted to send her back to the Tower, but that would have done Hana no good. Perhaps on Anglesey, if everything Chester had said was true – and a lot of that had been filtered through Jay and tempered with his mother’s distrust of the place – then perhaps the vet could grow old without having to fight another of the undead, but not here. Not if they ever had to abandon the castle.

  She turned to Kevin and Aisha, but in that moment, seeing the couple standing so close together was more than depressing. She waved a hand towards the sign for the public toilets, letting them lead the way.

  There was no toilet paper, but there was detergent. Six five-gallon containers of a concentrated deep-purple cleaner with a label that had more hazard signs than it did ingredients. They carried those back to the castle and left them by the barrier to the moat. It was a start, Tuck thought. Not a great one, but each time they went out and killed the undead, people, weapons, and clothes all had to be cleaned. The detergent would save on water, and that would save on firewood, and that would save them time.

  After that, and since one road was as good as any other, she pointed to the nearest, checked that Kevin and Aisha had eyes for Hana as well as each other, and gestured for Graham to take the lead.

  As they went past the lurid bright signs and their faded posters of impossibly stuffed burgers, she made a mental note to ask Graham whether he’d checked inside for soda syrup. During her and Jay’s trip down from Penrith, those jugs had been their principle source of sugar, found undisturbed in nearly every pub, restaurant, take-away, and anywhere else there’d been a soda fountain. There wasn’t much you could do with it beyond dilute and drink it, but calories were calories. They might as well check now, she decided, though it would move toothbrushes right to the top of the list for the next scavenging mission. She jogged forward, reaching out to grab Graham’s arm. He turned before she reached him. There was shock on his face, but he wasn’t looking at her. She turned around.

  A zombie had fallen through a second storey window to land in the roadway just in front of Hana. Glass rained down as a second creature toppled out of the building. The first creature’s legs were twisted at an impossible angle, but its body broke the fall of the second zombie, and that creature slowly stood. Tuck started to run as a third tumbled out of the broken window.

  Aisha and Kevin had jumped back out of the way of the falling undead. Hana just froze as glass carpeted the ground at her feet. The creature with the broken legs was stretching out its uninjured hand towards her. The one standing had already turned its snapping mouth her way. Tuck turned her run into a sprint, but there was no way she’d reach the young vet in time.

  Aisha snarled back at the creature and hurled her axe like an Olympic hammer. The handle hit the zombie in the face. It staggered back a pace, and that was far enough because Aisha had started running as soon a
s the weapon left her hand. She launched herself across the intervening few feet, tackling the creature around its waist. They fell in a heap.

  Kevin, ever close behind, didn’t leap. He shoved Hana out of the way with one hand, the other awkwardly slamming his axe down on the head of the partially immobile creature, but he didn’t pause to check if it was dead. He kept on running, grabbed Aisha’s jacket, and pulled her up. The zombie grasped her arm, and it rose with her.

  Tuck slammed a shoulder into the creature, knocking Aisha and Kevin free and the zombie back to the ground. Momentum kept her moving past it, but she turned that into a pivot as she raised the sword and hacked at its neck, half-severing it. She changed her grip and thrust down. The blade stuck and she let go, pulling out the long bayonet as she turned to face the third of the creatures. Its arms came up and she leaped, bellowing an inarticulate yell of rage as she stabbed at its head over and over again.

  When she stood, the zombies were unmoving. So was Hana. Kevin was yelling at Aisha, Graham had gone to check the door to the building, and Tuck felt that familiar burning ache in her throat as her damaged vocal chords protested at having been used. The rage that had overtaken her was caused in part by the figure in the uniform. The other part was the presence of the woman out here and what it would mean to their group if she were to die.

  “You. Back,” she rasped, pointing first at Aisha, then at the Tower. Then, almost as an afterthought, at Hana.

  “Hell, no!” Aisha growled.

  Tuck shook her head warningly. She wasn’t going to argue. She pointed again at the Tower, and then at Aisha, this time slowly lowering her finger to halt just below the woman’s stomach. Then she pointed at the Tower again.