“We don’t have to,” Nilda said. “We get the children into the boat, and we’ll drive the coaches over the bridge.”
“We won’t make it to the Tower,” he said. “Not all the way.”
“And we don’t have to do that, either. We just need to get as close as we can, but close to the river, too. We leave the coaches, and then go back for the food tomorrow or whenever. It could work, Chester. It really could.”
“And the people driving them?”
“The lifeboat can follow the sound of the engines. When we can’t drive any further, we jump into the river.”
“And swim? I think I’d rather run.” But he didn’t disagree, just dashed into the house and grabbed a quartet of bags.
There were twenty minutes of frantic activity before the man, Styles, ran up to her.
“This isn’t safe,” he said. “We should leave.”
“Yes. Yes, you’re right,” she said. She wasn’t sure how much food they had, but each seat in the two coaches now had a bag on it, with many more underneath and in the aisle between. They weren’t full, but weight meant fuel, and it meant time for the undead to make their slow lumbering way towards the mansion. As if to punctuate that thought, there was a sudden flurry of shots.
“You can drive a coach?” Nilda asked Styles.
“I drove one of them here,” he said.
“Fine. We’re going to—”
“Mum!” It was Jay. “Tuck says it’s time to leave.”
“Into the trucks!” Styles yelled. The children dropped the bags they’d been carrying and ran to the vehicles. The smaller ones needed help. It was five minutes, each irregularly punctuated by Tuck and her rifle, before they were all on board.
“Greta, how do we get that gate open?”
“I’ll do it,” Finnegan said. “Give me thirty seconds. When you see me running, you start driving.”
She sat in the cab, eyes darting between her son, the mirror, and the curving drive. There was a shot, then a short burst, and ten seconds later Tuck and Finnegan were running towards them. Nilda gritted her teeth, put her foot down, and drove the plough down the drive and at the undead crowding through the open gate.
24th September
Nilda leaned against the cold stone in the ancient doorway, looking out on the Tower’s courtyard. The rain that had started pounding down during their drive from the mansion had stopped, though the densely packed clouds stubbornly refused to clear. Whether more rain came or not, the solar panels were useless. Fortunately, if you looked at it that way, with nearly a hundred of them now in the old castle, the only part left uneaten of a slaughtered pig would be the squeal, and you didn’t need an electric freezer to store that.
There was a shriek of delight, followed by a small boy belting out of an archway, his hands over his head holding an iron helmet in place. Four seconds later, eight more children pelted after him. Nilda smiled. It was only a momentary oasis in a world of peril, but she was happy to pretend it would last forever.
She moved away from the arch and crossed the courtyard, nodding to the similarly happy groups she passed. Hana was in her element, explaining about diet and lifespan and a hundred other porcine facts to a group of children who, Nilda was sure, saw the pigs as nothing more than walking slabs of bacon. It didn’t matter that they weren’t really listening; they were happy, and so was Hana. And so even, was Constance, the mother who’d seen her own children die. She was systematically fussing over each child, drawing up a list of who needed new shoes or clothes or anything else. It all added up to a feeling of victory. A genuine triumph when compared to everything that had gone before, when the most they wished for was that they would live to see another dawn.
With hindsight, the return journey from the mansion to the river had been far easier than the outward-bound leg. Partly because she was familiar with what the snowplough could do, but mostly out of the knowledge that every mile travelled meant one closer to safety. Twice they’d had to go off road, and once a coach got stuck. They’d had to push it clear using the plough, and for a tense few seconds that seemed to stretch for an hour, she thought they’d have to abandon it. But they got it free, and there had been no real problems until they’d reached the old power station.
Once again, they’d outpaced the undead, and Tuck had shot the handful that slouched towards them as the children were shepherded onto the boat. Nilda had pushed Jay on board as well and made sure that Fogerty had a hand clamped on her son’s arm to stop him from following her, and then she’d gone back to the plough. It wouldn’t start. They’d left it there, the bags of food still in its hopper. She’d driven one of the now empty high-sided trucks, with Chester driving his plough next to her. Together the two of them cleared a path over the bridge. The coaches followed behind, and they and the plough had made it. Her truck hadn’t. The engine had coughed and died. Gravity and the bridges slight incline kept it moving while she jumped out. She’d drawn the sword, cutting a slashing path through the undead, and managed to leap into a coach’s emergency exit just before the road levelled out and the vehicles sped up once more.
She’d kept the sword drawn for the rest of the journey, but hadn’t needed to use it until they’d reached the Tower. Or until they almost reached the Tower.
She stood leaning on the wall and stared at the barricade the government had built all those months before. That was the one thing she’d forgotten. The two coaches, the last snowplough, and all the food therein were on the other side of it, about a kilometre away.
“But we’re not going to starve.”
Tuck had taken the lifeboat out first thing that morning. Nilda hadn’t been on it. She’d slept in and woken to find the soldier had led an expedition to the power station to collect the food that had been in the hopper at the back of the plough. What had surprised her was that Jay hadn’t gone, either.
That food would probably last for more than a meal, but no more than two. The trip to Kent had proved that there was nowhere east of London that they could escape to. Confirmed was a better way of putting it. She supposed that each of them had held onto the hope that they might stumble across some utopian society eager and willing to help them.
“Instead, we’ve got Anglesey,” she muttered.
She caught sight of something green out of the corner of her eye. A parakeet had landed on the crenelated stone less than ten feet away. It hopped forward an inch and then took off. She turned to watch as it flew up to land on the top of a tower next to another bird.
“No, we won’t starve,” she said again. “We’ll find a way. Birds and fish, and who knows what else?” Her mind was flitting between possible recipes for parakeet pie when she heard footsteps behind her. It was Jay and Tuck.
“We think the food out in the coaches won’t last more than a couple of days,” he said.
“We?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Okay, so Tuck thinks. But that’s about right isn’t it?”
“Sealed up in those bags, yes.”
“So we’re going to use the drone to get rid of the zombies around there. Tuck said that when she was flying it around Westminster they all followed the sound of the rotors. That should work here. If we fly it out once tonight, and again in the morning, there shouldn’t be many left tomorrow afternoon. What do you think?”
“I think that’s a brilliant plan,” she said, smiling.
“Okay,” he said, sceptically. “What’s up?”
“What do you mean?”
“You seem… I dunno. Happy.”
“I think I am. I really am. It’s…” It was easy to explain why, but she wasn’t sure that she should share it with Jay. In rescuing the children and bringing them to the Tower’s relative safety she had completed something she had failed to do so many months before, something that she had even failed to do with her own son. “We decided to do something, and we went out and did it,” she said. “Most importantly, we all came back. Nobody died.”
Tuck gave a wry s
mile. Her hands moved. Nilda looked to Jay.
“She said it really was a good day.”
Still riding that wave of stolen euphoria, she went looking for Chester. She found him sitting in the king’s bedchamber in St Thomas’ Tower, a pile of maps at his feet, his attention on the view of south London visible through his window.
“That was a good deed well done,” she said.
“It was a small enough deed. Another few people safe for another few days.”
“But they’re children, Chester.”
“Children or adults, a life is a life,” he said. “Each one saved brings into sharp relief the number who died. We’re losing a couple of people each month. And you know what I think? It’s not like a war where even the defeated have the prospect of a future once it’s over. This is life. This gradual attrition, a few here, a few there. This week, next month, soon we’ll each die.”
“Can’t you just enjoy the moment?” she asked, his mood finally killing her own.
“Honestly, when a day like today is the best we can hope for? I’m exhausted, Nilda. I truly am. There’s only so many times you can tell yourself tomorrow will be better than today and still believe the lie.”
“We rescued the children. No one died. There’s the food in the coaches, and we’ll have that inside by nightfall tomorrow. We’ve water. We’ve strong walls. We’ve—”
“Reece died. I didn’t know him very well, but then who amongst us really knows anyone that well? We’re all strangers who’ve no choice but to be in one another’s company.”
“That’s called a family, Chester. And I’m not going to allow you to bring me down. Not today.”
“Fair enough. But there something else you need to know. The lifeboat’s fuel tank has a leak. We can’t use the engine again.”
“Oh. Well, that’s for the best,” she said.
“It is?”
“Yes, without the illusory hope of an escape route, with the knowledge that this, here, is it, people will have to work harder.”
“Maybe,” he said, although his tone suggested he disagreed. “I drained the tank. Added to what we’ve got left there’s enough to get a car about a hundred miles, but I’m not banking on it getting me any further than the outskirts of London. I might reach Wales in a week. It might take a month. Have you decided what you’ll do then?”
“When the boat comes? I don’t know. Do you think we can rely on them for food?”
“Probably. There’s an obvious advantage in not having all the human beings on the planet nestled up against a nuclear power plant. They had grain to spare, and they’ll need a fairly decent sized ship to take all those kids away, so there’s not much point bringing it here empty. But what I meant was, well, do you think you’ll stay in London?”
“I think so. They may have electricity, but otherwise not much else that we don’t, or that we can’t, have. And they have some ideas that I think we can do without. With a little work, and if we don’t have to worry about every single meal, I think we can make something new here. Maybe something better, even if it looks a lot like something very old.”
“You’d rather Jay be the penniless King of London than the rich peasant? No, I get that. I really do. Parents always want to give their kids the best possible chance in life.” He sighed. “And it’s not my place to tell you whether you’re right or wrong. Time will do that. They’ll want to send people here. Doctors. Soldiers. The kind of people you need to make a place like this work, but they’re also the kind more used to giving orders than taking them. You ready for that?”
“If you pick them. Make sure they’re… well, the right kind of people. You know what I mean?”
“Sure. And what about Mac?” he asked.
“She’ll leave. I’m certain of it. I’m surprised she hasn’t volunteered to go with you.”
“A journey through an undead land? That’s not her kind of risk. But yeah, you’re probably right. And Hana? You think she’ll mind you taking over.”
“I think she’d probably be safer in Wales,” Nilda said. “I don’t know if she’ll stay. If she does, well, I haven’t forgotten how this all came about, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s my own limitations. Hana, Tuck, and myself, we’ll run the place together.”
“The three of you? Yeah. I figured it’d be something like that.”
She knew instantly what he meant, but clamped her mouth down on a rushed amendment. Backtracking would make it worse. More than that, any comment would lead to a question, one that she wasn’t sure how to answer.
“I suppose the radiation from those bombs in Kent must have been blown out to sea,” she said instead.
“Maybe,” he said, closing his eyes. “Probably.”
“But it’s still odd, though,” she said, speaking quickly to fill the now uncomfortable silence. “I mean it doesn’t tally with what they said over the sat-phone.”
“No, well I’ve an idea about that. It’s not really an idea. More a hypothesis, I suppose. But it’s not important. Not now. When I get to Anglesey, they can get their satellites to prove it.”
“Prove what?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Telling you would just give you something else to worry over. Now, if I’m to leave tomorrow, I really need to sleep.”
Disconsolate, confused, almost wishing life was back to being as simple as worrying about whether they’d live through the next hour, Nilda left Chester and found herself wandering aimlessly through the courtyard.
“Nilda? Nilda!”
“Constance? What’s the matter?”
“It’s the children. They have so little, and they need so much.”
“Show me.”
Nilda took the proffered list. She turned the page. And another. It was extensive.
“They don’t need half these things.” Nilda raised a hand. “They may want them, but they don’t need them. Like I said yesterday. Shoes, clothes, toothbrushes. We just need to know if we’ve got the essentials.”
“Yes, there are enough clothes left by the warders’ families, and there’s always those costumes they sold in the gift shops. Not that I like the idea of dressing them as princes and princesses, but that’s not what I’m worried about. It’s medicines. That’s this page here.”
Nilda looked at the list. She recognised a few of the brand names and recognised a few others whose names the children had misremembered.
“This is an anti-depressant,” she said, pointing at one half way down.
“Is it?” Constance asked.
“Next to… is that Simone or Simon?”
“Simone,” Constance said. “She was very definite about it being important.”
“She’s survived the last eight months without it. I think she’ll be fine. How old is she?”
“Eight.”
“And on anti-depressants? What kind of school was that?”
“Well…” Constance stammered, defensive by proxy. “What about these. Antihistamines.”
“Do any of the kids seem like they have allergies?”
“Not really.”
“Then they’re fine,” Nilda said. “When I mentioned it, I really meant things like insulin for diabetes. Did you ask Inspector Styles?”
“I did. He said they hadn’t had access to anything stronger than aspirin since March.”
“Well, take that list to Hana. If she thinks any are important, then we’ll see what we can do, but really, the children seem fine. And as for everything else,” she added kindly, quickly detaching the rest of the list, “we’ll organise a looting expedition just as soon as we’ve brought that food in from the coaches. Okay?”
Mollified, Constance left.
It would make a nice change going out looking for clothes and shoes, and yes, perhaps some toys for the children. Secure the food supply first, and then get people organised. Get them working in teams with specific tasks and set goals. There was certainly more than enough work to keep everyone occupied. What she needed was a pen and s
ome paper. Actually, what she really wanted was something to eat. They had enough food now that some could be spared. She set off towards the dining hall. Stewart was there, scrubbing at tables.
“Got to keep it clean,” he said as she entered. “Can’t have the kids getting sick.”
“No. No. Of course not,” Nilda said. “Are you here on your own?”
“Constance was meant to be helping, but she’s disappeared. Aisha, too, but she said she felt like she wanted to throw up. That’s why I’m cleaning. In case there’s a bug.”
“She’s…” Nilda began, but stopped. It was Tuck who’d confirmed Aisha’s pregnancy when they had got back from Kent. Nilda had suspected as much, but if Aisha wanted to keep it a secret, it wasn’t her place to start telling everyone. “I’ll give you a hand,” she offered. “But I could do with something to eat. Is there anything left?”
“From lunch? No. Those kids ate it all. They eat a lot don’t they, children? Always eating. There should be some biscuits in the storeroom.”
“Enough to spare?” she asked, her stomach growling eagerly.
“Oh yeah, we’re still a few days away from having to use any of the stores. They came from Liverpool Street. The train station,” Stewart mumbled. “Dev. He found ‘em. One per person. In first class. There’s a list.”
Nilda parsed that until she’d deciphered the meaning. She went into the kitchen and found a clipboard hanging from the wall. It was a reassuringly long list. Some entries were short, containing little more than a name and a number such as ‘rice 25kg’. Others gave mouth-wateringly precise detail such as ‘Lovvit & Baker, Chocolate Chip, Biscuits, 2 boxes x 100 packets x 2 biscuits per pack.’
She looked around the kitchen. It was immaculate. The steel gleamed, the fresh fruit and vegetables were neatly arranged on the counter, and the packets on the shelves were well organised. Even the knives were neatly ordered, aligned perfectly with the well-scrubbed chopping boards they sat on. It was all very reassuring.
Stewart came into the kitchen, the disinfectant spray dangling from his hand.
Surviving The Evacuation (Book 6): Harvest Page 19
