“That was by bike and on foot,” Graham said.
“Exactly my point. Even if you start by driving, you’ll be on foot soon after. By bike, I think fifty miles in a day is as much as anyone’s going to manage, and that’s not all going to be travelled in the direction you want to go. Assuming you don’t end up like I did yesterday, watching the sun track from overhead to the horizon as you hide from the undead. And assuming you don’t walk straight into one of those hordes. That’s something else we need talk about, but one problem at a time. If someone manages to get there, it’ll be at least a couple of weeks before they sail up the Thames, and then they’d still be sitting on a boat miles from where the children are. I don’t think those kids have that kind of time. So I’m going back as soon as I’ve caught my breath.”
“I’ll go with him,” Jay said.
“And what if we can’t save them?” Graham asked. “What if we go down there, and we’re the ones who die?”
“Then we die,” Jay said. “But we have to try because there’s no one else, right Mum?”
Nilda met her son’s eyes, but before she could answer, Hana spoke. She sat by the fire, her eyes fixed on the flames, and her voice seemed far away, as if she was speaking to her own distant memories.
“Yes,” she said. “We have to help one another. That was the point of Radio Free England. Perhaps if we’d had a way of broadcasting a stronger signal, they would have heard us. We could have made contact with them earlier. We could have done so much. All those people at the airport… We didn’t know, and now this is our last chance to act. If we do not, then all those who died will have made that sacrifice in vain. We do this, not for ourselves, but for those who sacrificed. For…” she stammered, stopped. “We do it so their deaths have meaning in the hope that when we die ours won’t be such a futile passing.”
Silence settled, though it wasn’t one of agreement, just of politeness for a well-liked leader who had yet to realise she had become little more than a figurehead.
Nilda thought of the airport and of those undead children. She remembered Sebastian, and how he’d died trying to save two more on those railway tracks back in Penrith. She thought of her own quest to find Jay, and how Tuck had protected him while she was still bent on revenge. What was humanity if not the acceptance of responsibility for a child not one’s own?
“How do we do it?” she asked.
“Well, I spent most of yesterday working that out,” Chester said. “We keep it simple, right? There’s a pier still standing outside the Littlebrook Power Station. That’s by the QE2 Bridge. We leave the boat there. And it seems to me, if we can’t find a route that’s clear, we need to make our own. There’s a vehicle park near there full of trucks and lorries. We can take one of those, something heavy enough to clear a path along a road, and with wheels tall and thick enough to find traction in the mud. We drive down there with all the diesel we have left, load the kids into a coach and drive them back to the boat. The biggest problem is going to be the batteries. I don’t have a clue how you charge them.”
“That’s easy,” Jay said. “We worked out how to do that before we left Kirkman House. So, we have a plan. Who else is coming?”
They left an hour later. It would have been sooner, but Nilda insisted Chester wash. There was a slight delay after that when Chester went to retrieve his revolver from the jacket he’d discarded on the battlements. The revolver was gone.
“It must have fallen out as I was running back,” he said. Nilda could see the loss in his eyes. She felt that way about the sword. Or perhaps she felt completely differently. The sword was a connection to Sebastian and a past that, as it faded to memory, seemed one of happiness and a missed opportunity more than it was of struggle.
There were ten of them on the boat. Fogerty and Hana were going to stay on board, ready for their return. Nilda, Chester, Tuck, Stewart, Kevin, Aisha, Xiao, and Jay would go ashore. Nilda wasn’t happy about her son being with them. She had seen that he knew how to handle himself. He seemed to have grown another few inches in height and at least the same in breadth over the last few days. Her problem was in how much depth he’d gained. She was pining for that stroppy teenager who hid away in his bedroom, oblivious to the world.
23rd September
By turning the engine on at Greenwich and not switching it off until they reached Rainham, they arrived at Littlebrook Power Station an hour before dawn. And that hour dragged.
“Not long now,” Chester said.
“You should sleep,” Nilda said.
“I’ve had a couple of hours. It’s more than enough. According to the map, it’s only twenty-five miles from here to the farm. It seemed like a lot longer.” He was staring at the fuel cans. “Aisha, how many miles to the gallon did you say a coach could make?”
“I said it depended on the coach and the roads. Fifteen would be a reasonable guess.”
“Then we need two gallons for the coach, so let’s call it three, and four for a truck to get there and back,” he said. “So we’ve got more than three times what we need.”
“And you’re happy with the controls?” Nilda asked Fogerty.
“I may be old, but I can manage this. We’ll stay close by the jetty and listen for sounds.”
Hana nodded. “And the gunfire,” she said. “If we hear it further up or down the coast we’ll move accordingly.”
They would have to be within a couple of miles to hear the shot. Hana didn’t seem to realise that. Fogerty did.
“And what about you?” the old soldier asked. “You happy with your part of the plan?”
“Of course,” Nilda lied. “It’s all straightforward. We go ashore, drive south, then come back.”
“You remind me of a general I once knew,” Fogerty said. “He told me, well, he told us, that since no plan survives contact with the enemy, there wasn’t much point to planning. Better just to rush in blindly, and hope for the best.”
“And the moral of the story is in how he died?” Nilda guessed.
“Hardly. Like I said, they promoted him all the way to general.”
Nilda forced a smile and looked over at Jay. He appeared neither scared nor excited, just eager to get a job done. She sighed, and realised that if it was light enough to see his expression, there was enough light to go ashore.
“It’s time,” she said.
“You know what the worst part’s going to be?” Chester asked, as he climbed up onto the deck. “We’re going to get to the mansion at about eight o’clock. And that means the journey back’s going to be during rush hour.”
Chester led the way. Tuck followed close behind, the rifle slung on her back. The soldier presented an oddly comforting sight, though the reassurance wasn’t in the weapon or in the martial way that she carried it. Nor was it in the familiar ease with which she darted forward, checking behind broken walls, occasionally hacking down to abruptly end a wheezing snarl. It was in the way that movement was copied by the others, though with a lesser degree of practiced familiarity. Except for Stewart. He stalked forward, shoulders braced, almost as if he was eager to fight. He’d spent the journey down river ominously muttering about keeping the children safe. Nilda had considered leaving him on the boat but wasn’t sure they’d be able to stop him from going ashore.
She paused to kill one of the partially trapped undead. There was another behind it. She took a step and swung again, and then spotted a third. As she moved towards it, Jay grabbed her arm.
“There are too many,” he hissed. “There’s no point, and no time.”
He was right on both counts, yet she couldn’t stop thinking of the undead as people trapped inside those decaying bodies. It didn’t seem right to her that they should just be left. However, they gave the answer to a question that had been bothering her since Hull. She’d wondered how so many zombies had become trapped in the ruins of the wind turbine factory. They hadn’t. It was people that had been trapped in the rubble. As she stepped over broken masonry, following Ches
ter and Tuck towards the far end of the site, she also stepped over the remains of the many people who had died in the attack. It was hard not to think of those as the lucky ones, whose deaths had been instantaneous. The others, those who had survived, had found their calls for help answered only by the undead.
After the first half an hour of driving, Nilda found being behind the wheel almost… not enjoyable. That wasn’t the right word. Nor was it at all satisfying to hit one or two or six of the undead with the plough and see them torn apart as they were caught between the hard asphalt and harder blade. She had always enjoyed driving, and once she’d overcome that unfamiliar familiarity as she searched for gears and overcompensated turns, she found it… not relaxing, either. There was no chance of that when they were surrounded by a symphony of bone being crushed beneath the wheels and a screeching sparking grind as abandoned cars were pushed out of the way. But there was no fear, either. Seeing an upper storey window break and a zombie toppling out, but then driving past before it was able to stand, knowing that those necrotic arms couldn’t reach them, nor the myriad debris of civilisation’s demise halt them was… comforting, she decided. Particularly after she’d changed the plan at the last minute. Now it was quite literally in motion, there was no way of changing it.
Originally, she’d intended to take just two trucks down to the mansion in Kent. One for pushing a way through all the obstacles, the other in case the first broke down. Everyone else would stay at the power station and ensure that the path from there to the jetty remained clear of the undead.
When Nilda had seen the rubble littering the vehicle park and the detritus strewn about the roads beyond, she’d changed her mind. She drove a snowplough at the front of a convoy with Tuck and Stewart, and Kevin and Aisha driving a pair of high-sided trucks behind. Chester and Xiao brought up the rear in another plough.
They were going to bring the children back on those trucks. They were double tyred, with a high clearance and higher sides that offered far more protection than a single coach, and had less chance of getting stuck. She’d not said that two vehicles meant twice the chance that at least half of the children would reach safety. She’d not had to.
There had been a tense moment after they’d filled the tanks, loaded up the spare fuel, and turned the engines on. They’d neglected to secure the entrance to the vehicle park. The undead had heard them and pawed and clawed at the fence until they’d found the chain link gate. It had pushed open, and they’d tumbled into the lot. It wasn’t the numbers that had caused her to freeze halfway into the cab. It was the enormity of what they had to do and how many lives rested on their success. Jay had called for her to hurry and was shifting into the driving seat when there was a shot. Then a second, a third, a fourth, and more. Tuck stood on the roof of a truck’s cab, firing methodically into the undead until all that were around the gate were dead.
With the rifle raised and only the scarred side of her face visible, she appeared totally emotionless, an avenging angel that vanquished all their demons. And then Nilda looked at Jay, then over at Chester, and saw they wore that same expression. As she climbed into the cab, she caught a glimpse of her own face, and saw it mirrored there, too.
She glanced down at the speedometer. The needle floated around the ten mile an hour mark.
“Are you keeping track of the route?” she asked Jay. She’d insisted he come with her. This time he hadn’t protested. And since all Chester knew were the roads not to take, and those had been marked down on the map, she’d insisted on taking the lead. She didn’t know Kent at all, and wasn’t sure that being in front was actually safer, but it did mean that she could see danger coming.
“Yeah, I think so,” Jay replied, lazily.
“Jenner Drive. That’s the name on the sign there on the left,” she said. “Did you mark that one down?”
“Jenner Drive. I’ve got it, Mum,” he said, just as casually.
“But you’ve marked it off? You know where we are?”
Jay sighed.
“Okay. Fine. Sorry,” Nilda said.
Jay leaned forward and rummaged in the glove box.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
“Music. It can’t hurt, right? This is not the quietest…” He was drowned out as Nilda swerved left, then right, angling the plough into a hatchback that blocked half the road. There was a grind as she changed gears and another from the car as she pushed it out of the way.
“Like I said,” Jay continued, “it’s not the quietest vehicle.”
“Fine. Music. Yes,” Nilda muttered. “Check in your mirror first. Can you see Chester and Xiao?”
“Um… No. Just Tuck.”
“We should have arranged a signal,” she muttered.
“What?” Jay asked.
“Nothing.”
The road ahead was clear for three hundred yards. She turned her attention to the fuel gauge and milometer.
“How long has it been?” she asked.
“Since we turned the engines on? Thirty minutes.”
“And we’ve done nearly ten miles.”
“On the map it’s six,” Jay said. “But it’ll get easier as we get further out into the countryside.”
“Yes, of course it will,” she said, knowing it wasn’t true. As time wore on, her worst fears were realised. There were fewer undead, at least in front, and she dared not even think how many were now in relentless pursuit, but the roads got steadily worse. Even with the plough gouging a path through the decaying mass of litter and vegetation, the thick tyres often lost traction.
“Don’t go left here!” Jay snapped. “That’s one of the roads Chester marked off.”
“Fine.” They were half a mile from a crossroads, and beyond it was an overturned flatbed. “But we can’t go straight on.”
“So turn right,” he said.
“There’s nowhere to turn right into,” she said.
“The field! Turn into the field.”
She saw the gate almost too late. She threw the steering wheel to the right. The plough’s blade wrenched the gate from its hinges, and they drove up into the field.
“Bad idea!” Nilda said, wrenching at the steering wheel. “Too much mud. Not good. The hedge. That’ll give us something to grip.” She slammed the plough into the hedgerow. Branches and leaves flew up to cover the windscreen. The truck slowed, and she was terrified it was going to stall, but then she caught sight of the flatbed that had been blocking the way. She threw the wheel hard left and drove back onto the road.
“We need to stop,” she said, after fifty reassuring yards of driving on almost unobstructed asphalt.
“Why?”
“To check the others are still there.
“Slow down a bit,” Jay said as he wound down his window. “And try to stick to the road.” He’d climbed out before Nilda could protest, and was back down again before she could pull him in.
“They’re there. I saw Chester. He waved, not with all his fingers, but it still counts.”
“We should stop anyway,” Nilda said.
“Why? Do we need to refuel?”
“No. Not yet. Probably not until we get to the mansion.”
“Then,” he said slotting a CD into the dash, “don’t. It’s only another ten miles.”
The music began to play. After ten seconds Nilda wound down her window, pressed eject, and tossed the disc outside.
“Mum! Why did you do that?”
“I never liked that song.”
They reached the mansion without having to stop, and with the fuel gauge a quarter full. Finnegan and Greta were pulling the gate open as they arrived.
“Keep going,” Greta called out. “You can turn around up by the house.”
Nilda did, cracking great chips out of the marble lining the drive, and barely slowed until she had the truck facing the gates. She saw Tuck jump out of her cab and run to the gate, standing sentry with the rifle as Finnegan pulled it closed. Greta came running up.
�
�You started to have us worried,” she said.
Nilda nodded; there wasn’t time for pleasantries. She looked at the plough, at the vehicle’s dented sides and cracked windows. Then at the other three vehicles.
“I think we’re going to make it,” she said as much to herself as to Greta.
There was the sound of pattering feet behind her. Nilda turned and saw children running out of the house. There were so many that she wanted to weep. Not yet, she told herself. Not until they were all safe. The children weren’t empty-handed. Each carried a bag of one sort or another.
“We don’t have room for their possessions,” Nilda said to Greta. “We’ll find them clothes or—”
“The bags are full of food,” Greta said. “Some of it’s preserved, most is fresh. We’ve been picking everything we can, night and day, since Chester left.”
“We still don’t have room,” Nilda said, almost automatically. Then she looked at the other woman. Greta looked exhausted. Nilda turned her gaze to the children. There was a girl wearing a ragged dress, with a frayed blue bow perched on straggly hair framing a face that was dirty and tired, yet the eyes were full of hope. The girl clutched a bag twice her own size, struggling under the weight as she dragged it towards the trucks.
“How much food have you packed?” Nilda asked.
“More than you’ve got space for,” Greta replied.
“Chester?” Nilda called. “Do we have enough diesel for the coaches as well?”
“Both coaches, and the four trucks? Theoretically. Probably.”
That thin glimmer of hope, the one that there might be a future for her and her son outside of those people in Anglesey was kindled once more.
“Fill the hoppers on the back of the two ploughs first. The rest of the food goes into the coaches. The children ride in the trucks.” There was a shot from the front gates. “Jay, find out how long we’ve got.”
“We won’t get all that food into the lifeboat,” Chester said. “And there won’t be time to unload it at the jetty.”
Surviving The Evacuation (Book 6): Harvest Page 18
