by Frank Tayell
The criminal fraternity wasn’t large, but it was secretive. A member of a crew might be arrested before a job. A new driver or lookout would be needed, and a call would be put in, usually via the fence purchasing the haul after the deed. Sometimes it had been Chester seeking an extra body, and sometimes he’d been the man filling in at the last minute. In those latter instances, it wasn’t a case of whether he could trust the others, but how much he distrusted them. The risk of betrayal, of a grass, had to be spotted before he’d done or said anything so incriminating it could lead to incarceration. He’d learned to look for the little clues, to listen for the subtle signs. Unfortunately, neither his hearing nor his eyesight were what they used to be.
The building to which they’d relocated had been a two-storey set of offices built in the shadow of the control tower. According to Claire, before the conversation had switched entirely to French, an incoming freight-plane had made an ill-judged dodge as a fighter made an unauthorised take-off. The freighter’s wing had clipped the tower, bringing down the building and causing the plane to tumble across the runway, effectively taking it out of commission. That hadn’t stopped other planes attempting to land. Within a few hours, the runway was a ruin, but the smoke from the burning wrecks had warned off further incoming traffic. Once the runway was out of action, the general abandoned the airfield. Chester wasn’t sure who the general was, whether the officer was still alive, or where this group now called home except that it was obviously within walking distance.
The building had four offices below, four above, with latrines on both floors, and a water tower built above the flat roof. Debris from the control tower’s collapse had nearly demolished the ground floor, but in the months since, they’d added a ladder, giving access to the upper floor, which, aside from a few broken windows, had survived the intervening months unscathed. Getting Scott up the ladder had, in the end, involved hauling him up by rope, leaving the pilot as exhausted as everyone else. At some point in the past, someone had converted a filing cabinet into a crude wood-burning stove. The chimney only funnelled two-thirds of the smoke outside, but the heat was welcome.
Cut firewood was stacked floor-to-ceiling in one of the building’s other rooms. That told him a lot. What it didn’t tell him was precisely why these people would come so often to the airfield that they’d make such preparations. If the runway was out of action, the answer might be supplies, but there was no evidence of them in this refuge.
The professor walked over to the improvised stove and took the small saucepan off the heat, doling out equally small portions into four mess tins. She passed one to Scott, one to Khan on watch by the window, one to Kessler, and the last to Bill. She gave Chester an apologetic smile before refilling the saucepan from a Thermos flask, and placing it back on the stove.
Something was wrong, but Chester had realised that from the moment he’d first seen these people. The French were different from the survivors on Anglesey, and those he’d met in the wastelands of England and Wales. Those meetings had always been tense affairs. To one degree or another, in order to survive the outbreak, everyone had acted out of self-preservation. Guilt fed a survivor’s inner demons, breeding doubt and suspicion that was turned outward when meeting strangers. Sometimes that turned to violence, though more often it had led to indifference. Neither appeared to be the case here.
The conversation reached another lull. The professor stood, filled a mess tin, and gave it to Chester.
“Thanks,” Chester said. He looked down into the bowl. It was green and red. It might have been cabbage, but it was definitely fresh.
Locke occasionally mentioned a place-name in English. From that, it seemed as if they were discussing the world beyond France’s borders. Chester wondered if they’d get around to discussing events far closer. Claire and the professor sat opposite Locke and Bill. Gaston and the young woman, Starwind, sat by the window. It was an odd name. A character from anime, apparently, but he was in no position to judge someone for reinventing themselves.
When Bill had come to inform them that he’d found other survivors, they’d not had much time to talk, but one word had stood out. The farm in which Bill and Locke had found the killers had been called a watchtower by Claire.
He took another mouthful, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then rattled the spoon on the edge of the mess-tin until he had everyone’s attention. “Who are you expecting to attack you here?” he asked. “Let me put that another way. Is it the same people who held Ms Starwind captive?”
The professor smiled, though the expression didn’t reach her eyes. “I don’t understand.”
“The vegetables are fresh,” Chester said. “So the food has to have come from a greenhouse. You came from somewhere nearby. Your gear confirms it. You’ve got enough to feed the six of us as well as yourselves, but you don’t have any cooking implements. You clearly don’t fear us, so there’s more of your people close by. Starwind called that farm a watchtower, so who are the rest of your people, the ones not in this room, watching for?”
Sergeant Khan stiffened. In turn, that had Gaston finally turn away from the window.
“Oui. Yes,” the professor said. “There are more of us. The rest of our patrol are watching for our enemy, the people who captured Starwind, who killed her friends. We do not know if they are still alive, or if they have fled the area. If they come, if they attack, it will be here.”
“Perhaps you could tell us who they are then,” Chester said.
“Tell them,” Claire said. “They can’t hurt us, but perhaps they can help.”
“As the government collapsed,” the professor said, “this airfield was fortified. A plan was devised to secure military bases, repatriate troops, secure towns. How can you plan for walking nightmares? Planes arrived from everywhere. There were too many. Landings became crashes. When we lost the runway, the general moved everyone to the town, Creil, of which we are on the outskirts. The town is bisected by the River Oise. In the middle of the river is an island, Île Saint-Maurice. The general fortified the town, but the island became our… our… en anglais? A keep? A castle? Fortress? Yes. Our fortress. When the ghouls came, we retreated there. When they left, we were able to venture out, to the town, and to the fields.”
“Ghouls? You mean zombies?” Kessler said. “And what do you mean they left?”
“One day they were there, the next they drifted away,” Claire said. “And when they were gone, people left, too. Some went to find their loved ones, others said they sought other survivors, but some people just wanted to leave.”
“Did many return?” Chester asked.
“Oui,” Claire said. “Including some from Ireland, that is why I was surprised when you said that is where you came from. You should speak with Tam. He may have information useful to you. Not all who arrived were as friendly, though we didn’t realise it at first. Abel Dernier was among them. I think you met him,” she added, turning to Sorcha and Bill. “A man with a long scar on his arm.”
“Him? Yes,” Locke said.
“And he is dead?” the professor asked.
“Very much so,” Locke said.
“Dernier told us he first headed towards the western coast with the intention of reaching England,” Bill said. “That he met some survivors from Britain who told him that the vaccine was a lie.”
“That is what he told us, too,” the professor said.
“He also said a nuclear bomb was detonated over Marseilles,” Bill said.
“It was,” the professor said. “We had four different sources including an eye-witness who was, unfortunately, too close to the blast. He died a week after he arrived.”
“Do you know of anywhere else that was destroyed?” Bill asked.
“Not with any certainty,” the professor said. “We have second-hand reports that Corsica was hit, as were the Greek islands. Which Greek islands, we’re not certain. Bombs fell on cities, and bombs fell on farmland. The targets appear random. We have a map in the town.”
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“Earlier, did you say you had fields?” Chester asked.
“Of course,” Claire said. She frowned. “How else could we eat?”
“Sorry, I’m sure this is a language thing,” Chester said. “When you say fields, do you mean growing crops in the ground?”
“How else would you grow them?” Now it was Claire’s turn to look confused.
“It’s just that, in Britain, there are too many undead to farm in the open countryside,” Bill said. “Are you saying it wasn’t the same here?”
“Of course there were ghouls,” the professor said. “One or two each day. Some days more, but never so many we couldn’t bring in a harvest. Tam brought an idea with him from Ireland. We used speakers in trucks to lure the undead to a fortified position where they could be more easily killed. That, and barbed wire, kept us safe during harvest. Not all of our food was grown in the fields. We grew it on rooftops. We built raised vegetable plots on scaffolding. The fields were an exercise in the urbanised re-learning agriculture for next year, and for the year after that. After the harvest, the general formalised our settlement. We’d heard nothing from anywhere in France, or beyond, for so long, he decided that we should declare ourselves something new. The Sixth Republic. Not everyone agreed with our new constitution.”
“You mean like Abel Dernier?” Bill asked.
“I mean Starwind and her friends,” the professor said. The young woman just gave a shake of her head, then turned her gaze back outside. “They left to establish their watchtowers. It was their choice, and it worked well for us. With an outpost to the east, another to the west, even fewer ghouls arrived in our town. Our days became safer, and, of course, each passing day was a day closer to when the nightmare would end.”
“Sorry,” Chester said. “You’ve lost me again. What do you mean?”
“The zombies are dying,” the professor said. “Surely you’ve realised?”
“We’ve seen some die,” Bill said. “But we’ve also seen some that are very much alive.”
“They are like a parasite,” the professor said. “Like a parasite, they are only as strong as their host. A sick host produces a sick ghoul. When newly infected, the host’s fluids are a red-brown colour. When exhausted, it turns black, yes? You’ve seen this, yes? Thus survival is a matter of patience.”
“I take it you’ve not seen a horde, then?” Chester asked. “In Britain, they’ve massed into a pack ten million strong that was heading for London. It had already obliterated Birmingham. Utterly obliterated. They ground the bricks into dust.”
“We’ve seen nothing like that,” the professor said.
“And we didn’t see a horde in Ireland,” Bill said. “Maybe it’s something unique to Britain. Something to do with the island’s topography and population density. But it was this idea, that the zombies were dying, that caused your problems with Dernier?”
“Sadly, unwittingly, we witnessed a living experiment,” the professor said. “Katrina Prideux had been diagnosed with a brain tumour before the outbreak and given three months to live. She was still alive in August. I thought her original diagnosis was incorrect. In September, her vision began to fade. She had headaches, slurred speech, blackouts. She would have survived another month, but no more. I had already presented my theory on the life expectancy of the undead. She decided to test it. She left, allowed herself to get infected. The zombie died three days later. That bittersweet announcement caused Dernier to act. His first assault was on our armoury, but they were defeated. Dozens of good people died, and we lost most of our ammunition. Dernier escaped with twenty followers. I thought he would keep running. He came back. Our island is small. Our vehicle and fuel store is to the east of the river. This is where they attacked. They killed the guards, and took the trucks we used during the summer to lure the undead away from the fields. With those, they lured the ghouls to the town. The undead have surrounded the island. We have little ammunition. Our food and fuel are trapped in buildings now surrounded by the undead. That is why we’re here. We travelled along the river, then came inland. Millions of rounds of ammunition and other munitions were brought to the airfield at the beginning of the outbreak. Too much for us to carry to the island. Why should we? We left it here. I never trusted Dernier. When he arrived, I brought some people here to move the ammunition.”
“People like Starwind?” Bill asked. “That’s why she was being tortured?”
“And why she was left alive until last,” Claire said. “We will gather the ammunition, return to the boat, take the ammunition back to the island, and then safely kill the undead from a distance.”
“How many of Dernier’s people are still out there?” Chester asked.
“Maybe none, maybe eight,” the professor said. “They might have followed you here, they might have followed us. In which case, let them attack and they will be trapped between us and my people outside.”
The conversation switched to French, and Chester turned his gaze back to the window, and to the outside. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and with the undead no longer perceived as the greatest threat, that uneasy alliance had collapsed among the people of Creil.
Whether the undead were dying or not, Chester doubted he’d ever believe they were all dead, not even if he lived for another fifty years. No, what he was more worried about was the location of the nuclear blasts. If the islands of the Mediterranean had been targeted, then where could they go after Belfast?
Part 4
The Summoning Bells
Day 256
24th November
Chapter 14 - The Long Road To A Small Boat
The River Oise, Creil
Bill threw a last glance up at Chester, standing on the narrow platform by the ladder. His foot splashed ankle deep in a muddy mix of gravel and storm-water. He turned his attention to the front. Khan and Claire had taken point. Kessler and Locke were ten feet behind them, while Gaston had disappeared among the ruined hulks of the wrecked planes to collect the hidden sentries.
Bill fell in next to the professor. He knew what he wanted to ask, but they were still on the boundary between trust and distrust. From Bill’s perspective, the worst-case scenario was that they’d leave this corner of France on foot but with as much ammo and food as they could carry. The best-case scenario was a solution to feeding all the people now in Belfast, thus making caution the better friend of necessity.
“From the state of this runway,” he said, for want of anything else with which to break the ice, “we can forget flying a plane out of here any time soon.”
“Do you think your pilot could repair one of the jets?” the professor asked.
“Probably. He’s a good pilot, and a better mechanic,” Bill said. “Without a plane, it’ll be a long, slow slog to the sea. Still, the weather’s warming up.”
The professor was unable to stop a snort of laughter. “You English and the weather. I used to think that was a stereotype before I went to Cambridge.”
Bill had to detour around a pothole. When he looked up, two people were jogging towards them from behind a wrecked truck.
“Yours, I take it?” he asked.
“Gaston’s,” the professor said. “And now they are mine, too, yes.”
“And no sign of Dernier’s gang during the night,” Bill said. “Do you really think they’d linger around here?”
“With their leader dead? No, they will run east. Dernier was a man consumed by bitterness who ruled by fear. The story he told was that his brother was in prison when the outbreak occurred. Dernier went to rescue him, and found the cells locked, the prisoners all dead. Perhaps he had no brother and that was his story. Who can say? Now he is dead, his people will seek better fortunes elsewhere. They know they aren’t welcome on the island, and after the snow, the storm, they will realise this good weather is their best chance to get far, far away.”
Another figure ran towards them from a small hut. Gaston was a few steps behind, angling across the runway, but he wasn’t hurryi
ng.
“Where’s the ammunition?” Bill asked.
“The plane,” the professor said, gesturing to the wrecked airliner near the far end of the runway.
“A good hiding spot,” Bill said, eying the mammoth plane. “It’s an Airbus?”
“From Dubai,” the professor said. “The plane wasn’t in service, but being delivered to the airline. It had refugees from the airport on board, and no fuel in reserve when it reached us. It couldn’t reach the assembly-line runway. They told us over the radio before attempting to land.”
“You saw the crash?”
“Ah, no. I was in Paris. I arrived after they had relocated to the town hall on the Île Saint-Maurice.”
“You taught in Paris?”
“For the last two years. I was at Cambridge before that.”
“Teaching what?” Bill asked.
“Botany.”
Which partly explained how they’d been able to grow so much food. He knew what the next question was expected to be, so didn’t ask it. Instead, he turned his attention to the plane. The wings had sheared off during the crash. The starboard wing stuck upward, wedged between the cabin and a trio of fire trucks that hadn’t been moved from the runway in time.
“I take it no one survived the plane crash?” Bill asked.
“No.”
By the time they reached the wreck, ten sentries had joined them, and Bill was ninety percent certain no others lurked in the shadows. Gaston led six of them inside the plane. Unbidden, Khan walked a little way to the north, Kessler by his side, watching for the undead. Locke went over to Claire, and struck up a conversation in French.
Bill’s suspicions of Locke, his anger at Kempton, had vanished during the night. When she’d said that she’d tried to save the world, he believed that was the story she told herself. Whether it was true, whether she’d been in it for glory, power, or money no longer mattered. Chester was correct. They’d had a rule on Anglesey, what went before was forgotten. Perhaps they should amend it now that they had abandoned Wales. Perhaps what went before should be forgiven.
