by Frank Tayell
I took another right and there it was, the wall around the Gardens and the main road that led past the main gate. I put my foot down. I wanted to dash past the undead, and then stop a few hundred yards up the road until I was sure they were following.
The road curved, and I saw the tops of the gates and the undead in the road in front. That’s when the plan started to fall apart. They were already heading towards me, and They’d spread out across the road. I wasn’t going to be able to drive past Them. I slowed and stopped.
I looked in the mirror. There were only three behind me. I looked up at the buildings. I could see the sheets. I could make out the towels hanging from the tower. I looked back at the road. Pushing and shoving, too many to count, They were getting closer.
I put the car into reverse and did a three point turn. I glanced down at the pistol. How many shots did I have left? It suddenly seemed important.
I edged the car forward, one eye on the three in front, the other on the approaching pack behind. I weaved the car left and right, picking up a bit more speed. Then, with a grimace, I gunned the engine and drove straight at the closest zombie. I swerved at the last moment, hitting it with the right side of the car. The lights smashed, the creature’s arms flew up as it was knocked down and under the wheels. The car rocked as I drove over it. I threw the wheel to the left, aiming the car at the next creature. It lurched at the last minute. I missed. I turned the wheel to the right, but I was going too fast. Another miss. I eased my foot off the pedal and let the car coast to a halt, bumping up onto the curb.
I looked in the mirror as I played my foot up and down on the pedal. The engine sounded fine. Behind me the two creatures were twenty yards away and getting closer. Behind Them the pack was still approaching. Up ahead the road was clear for two hundred yards, up to the next junction where a zombie had just turned onto the main road. I had time.
I lent over and rolled down the passenger side window. Then turned the wheel and edged the car forward so it was at right angles to the road. The two zombies were now less than ten yards away. They were close enough I could see the grey flecks in their eyes.
I picked up the pistol, aimed, fired. Missed. Fired again. One zombie fell, I aimed and fired again. The bullet went low, smashing into the zombie’s thigh. That was good enough. It collapsed to the ground, its good leg kicking out, its hands scrabbling at concrete as it tried to pull itself towards the car.
The pack was still a few hundred yards away. I edged the car round. There were two zombies on the road in front. Then three, then four. I eased the car forward, waiting until I was less than fifty yards from the nearest one, then I put on some speed, aimed the Land Rover straight at it, hitting it square on in an explosion of guts and gore. I missed the next two, but hit the one bringing up the rear. I looked back, the zombie I’d shot in the leg had disappeared under the mass of shambling feet.
And so it went on. Forward a few dozen yards, slowing, stopping, then darting forward to mow one or two down, then pausing to keep the pack in sight. My pied piper routine seemed to be working. I’d covered less than two miles in just over twenty minutes. The car was battered, but the engine sounded fine. The only problem was that I was heading due south, straight for the boat.
I took the first turning I came to, gunned the engine and ran down two zombies heading down the road towards me. I kept going until I reached an intersection. I braked. I waited, playing with the accelerator, letting the engine roar and bark until I was sure the pack was following and then I waited some more. Then I picked the road that had the fewest undead on it, drove forward to the next intersection, and the waiting began again.
All my careful planning and thoughts about which roads might be best went out the window as I drove randomly through south London. Despite the undead, and the obstacles and rubbish that blocked the streets, driving was easy. The idea came to me that I could just keep this up, find an empty road and drive on through and out of London. I could go straight to north Wales and be halfway there before I ran out of fuel. In two days, three at the most I could be at the Doctor’s house. Perhaps I could even make it from there down to the rendezvous before the 2nd August. It was a perilously beguiling idea. Now that we’d separated it wasn’t likely that we’d meet up again until we’d reached that beach. There was little point trekking around the country trying to find some sign of them. But what if they stayed on the river, waiting for me? I had to go and check.
I looked down at my watch. Well over an hour had gone by. I looked around trying to work out where I was. The road was bracketed by the generic mix of fried chicken outlets, mini-marts and betting shops that could be seen in any British city. I drove on until I saw a sign. I misread it and thought I was half a mile from Clapham Common. I thought if I could get to the Common, I could drive straight across it, leave the car, but take the rest of the petrol with me. Then I could cycle down to the boat, check they weren’t waiting, cross the river, find another car and then, next stop, Wales. I put my foot down.
The road bent, went under a bridge I was certain shouldn’t be there, twisted and then I saw a sign. Kew, half a mile.
I don’t know how I got lost or how I got turned around or how I didn’t realise. I suppose without any people the landmarks looked different. Perhaps I just wasn’t paying enough attention. Perhaps it was guilt or something else. Whatever it was I couldn’t turn around, and I couldn’t turn east. I’d got the river to the west so I had no choice but to keep going south, back to Kew.
It wasn’t too much of a problem, I told myself. It had been gone over an hour and a half. They should have got the girls free by then. I decided I’d... I didn’t finish the thought. I turned a corner, saw the high wall around the gardens, saw the apartment block, saw the road was clear of the undead and saw the sheets still hanging from the roof. Then I saw the reason why.
Kim was walking backward, out of the gates, Sholto’s M-16 in her hands. I shifted gear, trying to coax another couple of seconds of speed out of the engine, my eyes scanning every which way for any sign of the girls or my brother. Kim paused, shifted her position and fired. And then I saw Sholto. He darted out past the wall, Daisy under one arm, Annette being half pushed, half carried in the other. I smashed my fist down on the horn.
“In. In!” I yelled. They must have heard me. Sholto, at least, had seen me. He darted out into the road angling towards the car, as Kim let loose a burst from the semi-automatic rifle. I brought the car to a stop, Sholto and the girls between it and the gates.
They opened the doors at the same time as I opened mine.
“Kim!” I yelled.
There was the far louder explosion of a shotgun. Kim stood her ground and fired again.
“Kim!” I bellowed, but I was already running towards her. I rounded the wall, and staggered to a halt. There seemed to be zombies everywhere. A forest of hands all reaching out, grasping towards us, just feet away. Then I realised that, no, we were safe. They were stuck on the other side of the ticket barrier, and there were only a few dozen of Them. There was a metallic screech as a bracket gave, and the top of the barrier jerked forward a couple of inches. Kim fired again. She wasn’t aiming at the undead. She was shooting into the building.
“It’s over. We’ve won.” It was a fatuous thing to say. “Just leave...” There was another shot, a loud percussive blast from a shotgun. I didn’t see where the shot went or who had fired it.
“Not now Bill,” Kim said, as calm as the eye of a hurricane. “Not yet.”
I grabbed her and started pulling her back toward the car. She didn’t seem to notice, just fired again. Annette had already opened the rear door.
“Just get...” There was another shot, this time hitting the gate with a plinking of paint and iron.
Kim raised the gun, pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
“Now, Kim! Let’s go!” My voice was hoarse and desperate.
“Stewart’s still in there! He’s still alive!” she screamed back.
“Kim! Please!” It was Annette. Where nothing I said seemed to be reaching her, that did. Her expression changed ever so subtly, not softening, if anything it became far harder, colder and deeper than any I’d seen her wear before.
“Alright,” she said, taking a step towards the car.
There was another shot. Paint flew from the bonnet. I turned. I saw him. Stewart was standing on one of the ticket kiosks. I don’t know how he managed to get up there that fast.
He yelled something else. I didn’t hear what. He half raised the shotgun. It went off, before it could bear on us, blowing the scalp off one of the zombies beneath him. He opened the breach, his hand going to a pocket. I raised the pistol. I hesitated, but only for a moment. There wasn’t time. We wouldn’t get away. That’s what I thought. I pulled the trigger.
He stopped moving. He stood there for a moment, motionless. Then he half raised a hand, his head rocking left and right. Then he looked at me and I’ll remember that look. It was puzzled confusion. He shook his head slightly, took a step forward, His foot was over the edge of the ticket kiosk. He fell down into the mass of zombies waiting below.
“It’s done,” I murmured, wishing I could think of something more appropriate. There was another screech of metal, this time accompanied by a cracking of cement as two of the barrier’s supports moved under the weight of the undead. I ran back to the car.
“We all in? Everyone OK?” I asked as I got back in the car. “Kim? Annette? How’s Daisy.”
“Daisy’s fine,” Sholto said. The engine started.
“Of course she is,” Annette said. “She’s a fighter. You took your time.”
“Sorry about that,” I said, as we moved off
“Kim?” I glanced over at her. She was staring ahead, eyes unblinking. “You alright?”
“Yeah.” She said slowly. “Yeah. Seems so.”
“What went wrong?” Sholto asked
“I got lost,” I said.
“Right.”
“What about you?” I asked
“You saw,” Kim said. “The car only got rid of the undead out on the road, and that didn’t happen immediately. You remember how fast a zombie walks? And a zombie at the back of a pack can’t move until those at the front have cleared off. It took an hour before enough of Them had disappeared that we could go out on the street.”
Like I said, it would have been better if we’d slept before coming up with a plan.
It had been less than two hours since I’d started driving around south London. As we headed south, I was trying to work out how much of that time had been spent driving on that same road, between Kew and the boat, and how many zombies might still be in front of us.
I swore.
“This is going to be tight.”
“What does that mean?” Kim asked.
“We might not be able to go straight to the boat.”
“What’s this about a boat?” Annette asked.
“It’s about a mile away. We’ve got enough food for months and enough petrol to get us to the coast.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, yeah it’s just...”
“Up ahead,” Sholto interrupted softly. There were seven in the road, heading towards us.
“Hold on,” I said, angling the car towards the curb.
“No, behind Them.” He pointed.
I took another look. Behind the seven were at least a dozen more. I cursed as I slammed my foot down on the brake. There was a yell of protest from the back.
“Sorry,” I muttered, as I threw the car into reverse, backed up fifty yards and turned into a side road.
The undead were everywhere now. Five here, a dozen there. On every road and every side street and it seemed like arms were stretching down from every window. And there was no longer any chance of avoiding Them.
“This isn’t going to work Bill,” Kim said. Daisy whimpered as we thumped over another body.
“I know.”
Heading north or east into London was no good. All the undead I’d been luring away from Kew were there. We couldn’t go south. That left west, and west was the River.
I looked at the fuel gauge. It was still more than half full.
“It was Richmond Bridge, you said you crossed? You think we can get the car over it?”
“Sure, it was pretty empty,” Sholto said, with confidence I’m sure was meant to reassure. It just made me think he couldn’t remember.
“Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll see if we can get away from the undead, then get back to the boat later.” I knew we wouldn’t as soon as I said it.
The bridge was empty and clear. I don’t know why it wasn’t demolished, but then I don’t know why the other bridges were. It doesn’t matter, it’s just another one of those questions we’ll never know the answer to.
Once we’d crossed the river the going was easier. Not easy though. The undead began to fill the road behind us, and often up ahead. The way to drive in the city was to bomb down the roads as fast as the car would allow, stop at each junction, then wait and listen and then pick which turning to take. Even so, we ended up running over at least one of the undead every few hundred yards. The real difficulty lay in finding a route that was clear of obstructions. Every fourth or fifth junction we’d be forced down some road half blocked with a car or van, and we’d have to force our way through with a screech of metal, flecks and sparks flying as the paint was scraped away.
“It’s no good,” I said.
“What?” Kim asked
“The roads. If we keep doing this we’re going to end up in Westminster, back at the river, or completely broken down.”
“We can’t turn around,” she said flatly.
“There’s a hotel at Charing Cross,” Sholto said. “I stayed there for a couple of days on my way to Lenham. It’s a good spot. Doors on each side and easy access to the rooftops.”
“No.” I said, “We need to get out of London.”
“Then stop here,” Kim said, “Just for a few minutes. Until you know where you’re going.”
I did, on a narrow alley with warehouses either side. Daisy started to cry. Not loudly, not that full-blown wail of an infant in torment, but with a persistence that said she wasn’t going to stop until her needs had been met.
“We can get out here,” Kim suggested. “Continue on foot, find some bikes, get back to the boat, take it up stream, and find another car somewhere else.”
“No,” I said. I was trying to think. “We’re across the river. Finally. I don’t want to go back.”
“The food and the fuel’s back on that boat,” Kim said.
“And it’ll be days before the zombies around there go back into that dormant state. Two days, three, four. It doesn’t matter. Listen to Daisy, we can’t stay in London.”
“Well where then? We can’t stay here.”
“No. No. I think... I think I know. The fastest way out, right? OK. This is going to get bumpy.”
“What is?”
I put my foot down and pulled off once more.
“Bill?” she asked, warningly. “What’s going to get bumpy?”
“The train lines. That’s the only way. Where are we?” I lent and peered at the meagre patch of skyline visible above the tall warehouses. “Right, it’s about a mile.”
I turned the corner and angled the car around.
“To where? A level crossing?”
“A bridge.”
A couple of years ago, Jen had had to do a piece for the news. It was a segment on constituency boundary changes. In that particular constituency the boundary was being moved from one side of the railway line to the other. Since no one actually lived on the tracks no one was actually being affected. Her interview was making a point out of how much parliamentary time was being wasted.
The bridge was a good spot for the interview. It was also a great spot to get down the tracks themselves, as the only thing separating the railway from the road was a steep slope and a flimsy chain link fence.
I remember it well because, when the journalist asked where we’d like to record the piece, neither of us considered that with a train going by every thirty seconds it would be next to impossible to record a two minute interview.
“Eyes open. We’re looking for three tower blocks,” I said, as I took turning after turning, trying to get out from that mass of warehouses and side streets and back towards somewhere more familiar. “They’re on the east side of the bridge, about half a mile from it.”
“Like those ones?” Annette asked, her hand darting forward from the back seat to point straight ahead.
“No. It’s three tower blocks, close together,” I said, after glancing at the skyline.
“Oh. Those ones, then?” she said, pointing of to the left.
“No, not them either.”
“Oh. How about those?”
“No.”
It took half an hour to find the railway line, it took another fifteen minutes to find the bridge. By then I had stopped looking in the rear view mirror. The road was packed with the undead, more than I could easily count.
“Seat belts on,” I said, eyeing the fence.
“It looks solid,” Kim said.
It wasn’t.
The front bumper had barely connected before the fence collapsed. The car slid down the embankment, coming to a halt on the tracks. I looked left and right. I could see for a mile in either direction and nothing moved. I looked behind. A zombie appeared at the top of the embankment.
I put the car back into gear, and drove up and over the rails, just as the creature tumbled head first down the slope. The Land Rover slewed left and right as the wheels tried to find purchase on the loose gravel. I glanced behind. The top of the slope was now full of the undead. There were dozens of zombies at the top of the embankment. Dozens more were tumbling down onto the tracks and who knows how many were close behind.
I shifted gears again, got the wheels straight and we drove off. After ten minutes the undead behind us were lost to sight. We left London.
