by Frank Tayell
“I’ll come with you,” Locke said. “Sergeant, do you have that grenade? Fish are the answer to our food situation, not scavenged cans.”
The sergeant looked to Bill.
“Why not?” Bill said. “Though I’ll add a fishing rod to the list of supplies we need.”
“She’s an odd fish, that Sorcha Locke,” Chester said, after Bill and Locke had left. “Poor choice of words, I suppose.” He looked about the kitchen. “Has anyone looked in the garages yet? I’ll go and take a look.”
“You help him, Private,” Khan said.
“I can manage,” Chester said.
“I believe Mr Higson could do with a hand and a little privacy for a few minutes,” Khan said.
“Ah, right. Come on, Amber,” Chester said. He checked that his machete was loose in its scabbard. “Did you always want to be a soldier?” he asked as they made their way through the sliding doors and back outside.
“Me? No way,” Kessler said. “My parents dreamed I’d be an artist.”
“Really? Seems like an odd aspiration for their child,” Chester said. “Artists never made much money.”
“We had money,” Kessler said. “A lot of money. So much that younger children didn’t need careers, just full-time hobbies that were respectable.”
“Oh, yes?” Chester said, trying the garage gates. “So how did your family get rich? We’re not going to open these doors. Let’s try around the back.”
“Crime, but the legal kind,” Kessler said. “During the Gold Rush in California, an ancestor bought and re-sold spent claims. His eldest son bought up farmland around Los Angeles during the Civil War while his younger brothers died at Gettysburg. After the war, he bought land along the railroad. Built entire towns, and repeated the gold-rush trick up north. When Mark Twain said buy land because no one’s making it anymore, he was talking about my family. He really didn’t like them. That’s who we were, a footnote in history, hated by the great and good until they found oil beneath the farms in California. That’s when they became rich enough to become the great and good, as long as you stretch the definition of good to mean utter indifference.”
“That’s a rough legacy to carry. Ah, now we’re talking,” Chester said. At the side of the garage was a door. Unlike the front door and the gate that led onto the road, this had an old-fashioned key which was still in the lock. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Kessler said.
He opened the door, and stepped back. Nothing appeared. He took out his torch and shone it into the gloom, then knocked his machete against the door’s frame. Still, no sound came from the shadowy depths.
They went inside. It took less than a minute to confirm the double garage was empty of the undead, and empty of nearly everything else.
“The car’s electric,” Chester said.
“There’s a rake and broom over here,” Kessler said. “I can’t see any other tools, but if she could afford a four-million-dollar painting, she could afford a gardener.”
“It’s really worth that much?”
“Ms Locke says it’s fake,” Kessler said. “That Lisa Kempton bought the original. Did you… did you steal much artwork?”
“Me? No, not really. Anything famous enough to be worth something is usually too famous to sell on. I did a few burglaries-to-order where the prize was the art, but I was only ever the wheelman on those operations. It was a case of me knowing the area. They’d have a specialist to take the pictures or statues, to make sure that the right objects were stolen. A job like that, you’d only get one shot to pull it off.”
“Huh.”
Chester picked up the rake. “The handle’s wood. That’ll burn. Not sure there’s anything else in here that will. Pity. We’ll give Scott a few more minutes. So, your parents didn’t want you going into finance or something?”
“Not me, but my older brother did,” Kessler said. “That’s how it was in our family. The oldest inherited everything. Siblings got a small trust. Enough for a comfortable life.”
“And that’s why you signed up?”
“Me? Ha! I didn’t sign up. I was drafted.”
“I didn’t think the U.S. government did that anymore,” Chester said.
“By the admiral. In Cape Verde,” she said. “Before the outbreak, I went to Africa to… I don’t know, to find myself, I guess. Find who I was, what I wanted. Don’t get me wrong, my parents were nice people. Okay, no, they weren’t nice, not really, but they weren’t cruel. They had views on what was appropriate. God, I hate that word. Their houses, their clothes, their… their things, they had to be ultra-modern, but their views could be so old-fashioned. Life revolved around balls and garden parties and that damned country club. Winters at the ski lodge, summers at the coast, it was all so pointless, but regimented. It was hard work not having to work. I’m not naive, or maybe I was. Maybe I didn’t know how good I had it. I don’t know.”
“But you went to Africa?”
“Yeah. Out of revenge, I suppose. Or… well, I don’t know anymore. But I went. Last summer. No, I mean, the summer before the outbreak. I lose track of time sometimes.”
“Me, too,” Chester said. “Where in Africa did you go?”
“Kenya. I was a teaching assistant at a school. A good one. And it was terrible. It was a nice school, the kids were nice. It was a peaceful, safe, and secure place. It was the job. It made me miserable. It wasn’t just that it was hard work. That was a shock, I guess. It was how supportive my parents were, that was the worst.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“It’s hard to explain,” Kessler said. “I guess it was that my parents didn’t mind that I was volunteering at a school halfway around the world. They just didn’t care. I wasn’t going to inherit, and in our family, the inheritance, the tradition, the business, that was everything. As long as I didn’t get in the way, cause trouble, create a scandal, I could do anything I wanted. In Kenya, I realised that I had no idea what that was. After three months, I quit and went travelling. In luxury. I’m not talking backpacks and hiking boots. I hitched rides on private trains and private jets, until I ended up in Cape Verde. I was going to get a yacht-ride home in March. Then came the outbreak. The people with the yacht, friends of my parents, they left without me. I was stranded there. The hotel staff took the food from the kitchens. It was… it was terrible. But then I met Major Lewis.”
“Major Lewis? I don’t think I met him.”
“He was on leave. His sister-in-law came from Cape Verde, and he was visiting her family. They couldn’t get to the wedding. Too expensive. He’d gone over to welcome them to the family. He was a good person.”
“He died?”
“In Belfast. When we salvaged the fuel from the airport. He was bitten. Infected. I had to shoot him.”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
“It’s the way of the world,” she said. “It’s what it’s become. Killing our friends. It’s what we’ve learned to do, learned to be. Major Lewis kept me alive on Cape Verde, and got me onto the admiral’s ship. That’s how I ended up in the Marines. I don’t have to be. Back on Anglesey, the admiral said I could quit. But what difference would it make? I’d be doing the exact same thing, fighting to survive.”
“That’s it, isn’t it? There aren’t any civilians anymore. No soldiers, either. It’s just that some people have been fighting a little longer than others.”
“And I’m still alive,” she said. “I doubt my family survived. They lived like that woman did in this house. Other people did the cooking, the shopping, the work. Without them, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Without Major Lewis, I wouldn’t have.”
“Best not to think about it,” Chester said. “And I’d say that we’ve given Scott long enough. We’ll get a fire going, and see if we can figure out how to cook an owl. Despite that I agree with Locke about where we need to look for more food, I do hope she and Bill might scrounge up something a little more familiar to eat.”
Chapter 6 - Footprints in the Snow
Somewhere in France
Bill clambered up the recliner leaning against the mansion’s gate. At the top, he checked the road was still empty, jumped down the other side, and slipped on the slush, drenching his already soaked feet.
“Boots, food, and clothes,” he said as Locke jumped down. “That’s what we need, and in that order.” He sniffed. “They’ve got the fire started. Good. We’ll have a warm hearth when we return.”
Locke unslung her rifle. “After you, Mr Wright.”
“Why does it sound like a challenge when you say that?”
“Because you have an innately suspicious mind,” she said.
He let it go. “Is that painting really a forgery?”
“I doubt Lisa’s is a forgery,” Locke said. “Then again, perhaps I’m wrong. It will be impossible to confirm now.”
“And it’s worth four million?”
“That is what Lisa paid for the original.”
“Huh.”
They trudged on.
“I’m worried about Mr Higson,” Locke said. “We won’t get far with him in this state.”
“And I’ve already told you that we’re not leaving him behind,” Bill said.
“I wasn’t proposing to,” Locke said. “I don’t leave people behind.”
“You did in Ireland, in Elysium,” Bill said.
“Only because I thought they were dead,” Locke said. “Had I known I— I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
“But who else is left?” Bill replied.
Silence settled for the length of time it took to pass the end of the house’s perimeter wall and the next four lampposts beyond.
“What I was trying to ensure you understand,” Locke said, “is that we’ve managed three miles today. That is an optimistic estimate. With warmer clothes and better shoes, and with food inside us, we might manage five miles tomorrow. Even if the weather improves, we’ll cover less than ten miles a day over the next week. Meaning, if we continue like this it will take us at least a fortnight to reach the coast. We can’t expect Mr Tull to wait offshore for that long. Nor can we hope to reach the same stretch of coast at the same time.”
“We’ll look for bikes,” Bill said. “Perhaps, if the snow melts, we might search for fuel and a car. Unless you have a better plan.”
“At present, no,” Locke said. “Considering the density of those clouds, we might consider looking for skis. What I’m trying to say, what I’m trying to make sure you understand, is that unless we reach the coast before Mr Tull, and leave signs and messages at likely landing sites, there is very little chance that we will stumble across the search party. The further we get from the plane wreck, the less the chance of an aerial rescue.”
“Meaning you want to go to Denmark?”
“No, that would be twice the distance,” Locke said.
“Then what are you proposing?”
“Nothing,” Locke said. “I have no better suggestion. Rescue is unlikely, either here, or once we reach the coast.”
They trudged onward. “What about Paris?” Bill asked. “You said you have a house there.”
“An overnight refuge. Its resources have probably been expended. We’ll find nothing there.”
“We’ll find food,” Bill said. “We found food in London, in Belfast. We’ll find it in Paris. But I was really thinking about the satellites. Even if they find the plane, they’ll have difficulty pinpointing its location in relation to the coast. What they might do is look for a landmark. The Eiffel Tower would be an obvious one. We could—”
“Zombie,” Locke cut in. “It’s dead.”
The corpse was partially buried in snow. Its head, shoulder, and one arm stuck out above the drift.
“Its head isn’t—” Bill began, but was interrupted by a guttural groan and then a cracking creak as the zombie dragged itself out of the ice. “It’s not quite dead yet,” Bill said, swinging his machete in a sweeping uppercut that sliced into the slowly moving creature’s skull. It collapsed, the dark gore leaching into the ice.
“My mistake,” Locke said. “I apologise.”
“Not entirely a mistake,” Bill said. “Another few days, it’d be frozen solid.”
“Perhaps,” Locke said. “But as that would just defer the danger until spring, it’s not as cheering a thought as you might think. The Eiffel Tower, or any other landmark, presents a similar problem to reaching the coast. We’d have to reach Paris before the satellite is overhead. Once they’ve orientated the satellites, they’ll move them away from Paris, but we won’t know whether we arrived in time until or unless the helicopter arrives. That said, if we get to the point where we decide rescue is unlikely, and we are to spend any considerable time in France, I would vote we go to Paris.”
“Why?” Bill asked, suspicion returning.
“The Mona Lisa, Mr Wright. If there is a piece of art worth risking our lives to save, it is that. There’s a house behind those bushes. Shall we see if we can find out where we are?”
Unlike the mansion in which they’d taken refuge, this home was of a far more traditional design: an L-shaped, one-storey dwelling with a red-tiled roof and cream-white painted walls. The windows were intact, but the front door was open. So, too, were the doors of the runabout parked outside.
“My French isn’t great,” Bill said, “but does that bumper sticker mean this car came from Lille?”
“Les professeurs de Lille sont l'exception à toutes les règles. Teachers from Lille are the exception to every rule,” Locke translated. “I don’t think it means anything.”
“The driver-side door has been forced open,” Bill said. “The car was hotwired. Came here after the outbreak, and without much in the back. We’ll check inside.”
“You take point,” Locke said, as she slung the rifle, and drew the hunting knife.
Bill crossed to the front door, and knocked with the machete. He was growing to dislike the blade. Rahinder Singh’s design had been determined by what pre-cut steel was available, but the blade was too long for narrow internal corridors, yet not long enough to keep the undead at a safe distance. He knocked the blade against the door again. The hinges screeched as the door juddered open. From somewhere inside came an echoing creak. It was probably just the building settling. Probably, but perhaps not. More alert than before, he stepped over the threshold.
From the photographs lining the hallway, the house had belonged to an older couple with one daughter. They’d owned a farm when they’d married, and when they’d had their only child somewhat later in life. In the living room, a cosy den of bright rugs, blankets, and a wood-burning stove, the photographs of the farm were replaced with those of the girl at school, the young woman at college, then somewhere far hotter than France, before, finally, looking somewhat abashed in the centre of a class photograph surrounded by mostly smiling children.
He crossed to the nearest doorway, quickly scanning one room then the next. Lounge, kitchen, toilet, semi-enclosed sun-room, master bedroom, bathroom, another bedroom, a third.
“Empty,” he said, finally lowering the heavy blade. “If you start with the kitchen, I’ll start with the bedrooms. We’ll see what’s here that we can use.”
The master bedroom wardrobe provided a pair of walking boots. They were a size too big, but he found socks in the drawer. After the briefest hesitation, he decided to be selfish, kicked off his sodden shoes and dragged off his soaking socks, almost relishing the cold air on his feet. When his hands caught against his drenched trousers, he decided to go the whole hog. Three minutes later, he’d completely changed. The clothing wasn’t a perfect fit, but it was clean, dry, and far more suited to the outdoors than the gear he’d brought with him. He laced the boots and left the room, returning to the entrance hall where he found Locke.
“There’s clothes,” Bill said. “And a normal assortment of the usual possessions. Did you find anything in the kitchen?”
“It’s empty,” Locke said. “Stripped bare.”
“Interesting,” Bill said. “No one touched the rest of the house. There’s a couple of suitcases in the back of the cupboard. I’d say the daughter came back for her parents, and they all left together.”
“You like doing that, don’t you?”
“Doing what?”
“Coming up with a happy ending.”
“It’s better than the alternative,” Bill said. “But if that car out front belonged to the daughter, then who hotwired it?”
“Tried to hotwire it,” Locke said. “And the answer is the same people who looted the kitchen. I imagine they wanted an easier method of carrying their loot than shank’s pony, but discovered the car’s battery was dead.”
“Perhaps,” Bill said. “No zombies outside. No obvious piles of corpses. There could be some buried beneath the snow, of course, but it doesn’t look like a battle was fought here, or anywhere along this stretch of road. Without many zombies in the area, the sound of an engine might be a risk worth taking to save the effort. Did they take everything?”
“Even the salt and pepper,” Locke said.
“Then they walked here, and walked back. Let’s fill up a suitcase with clothing, then check a few more houses.”
“You understand that we might need a new plan?” Locke said.
“Yes,” Bill said. “Whoever it is, they might still be in the area. It might be connected to the smoke we saw before we crashed, and they might be the people who killed those two in the barn. They might be dangerous, they might not, but they’ve probably searched every house nearby. I say we check a few more houses, see what we can find, and see if we can find any answers to all these questions that are stacking up.”
“Or we could look for a river,” Locke said. “We could fish and forage.”
“Easy to say.”
Five minutes later, they had two suitcases by the door, containing enough clothing for their entire party.
“No letters,” Bill said. “No address book. Someone must have taken them for kindling. It’s frustrating because I’d like to know where we are.”
