by Frank Tayell
A muffled shot came from inside, but the volume of gunfire had distinctly slackened. That didn’t explain why no one was firing at them from the windows. Despite the ATV’s armour, they presented a perfect target. Since the Viking represented an obvious means of escape, he doubted Dernier’s people would simply give up. His eyes fell on the door toward the building’s rear. He’d taken two steps towards it when metal screeched behind him. Reflexively, he turned around. The garage doors were opening. When he turned his gaze back to the small door at the side of the house, he saw it flung ajar.
Chester was already running before the man darted outside; long beard, shaved head, tactical vest, black trousers, heavy boots, rifle whose barrel was swivelling towards the ATV.
“Hoy!” Chester called, not daring to risk a shot at such a range. The man turned his head, saw Chester, and began shifting aim until blood fountained from the side of his head. He collapsed to the ground. The woman in red turned her gaze, and rifle, back to the first floor window. Chester reached the corpse just as another shadow appeared in the now open doorway. He fired into the cavernous darkness beyond the door, pumped in his last round, and fired that too. He snatched up the assault rifle from the corpse, ran the last few feet to the door, and slammed it closed, leaning against it.
“What a day.”
The door thudded into his shoulder as someone tried to get outside. He shoved back.
The young man who’d been second to climb down the ladder ran over, gesticulating at the door, yelling in French.
“Sorry, mate, you don’t speak English, do you?” Chester asked as the door was pushed again.
“Adrianna! Inside!” the man said.
“She’s inside?” He doubted she was pushing against the door. “How many others? People? Friends?”
“Ah… Huit.” He raised five fingers then three.
“Eight, still inside?” Chester asked.
“No. Adrianna inside. Eight here. All.” He made a circling motion pointing at the ATV.
“Eight in total. Only Adrianna left inside? She stayed behind. Covering your rear. A distraction?”
He gave a nod and a shrug.
“How many of them?” Chester asked pointing at the corpse.
Again the young man shrugged. Again the person on the other side of the door shoved. Then the pressure stopped.
“Down!” Chester bellowed, diving forward, knocking the young man from his feet just before bullets slammed into the door. None penetrated the thick wood, but without Chester holding it closed, the fusillade threw the door open. Chester rolled onto his back, bringing up the scavenged rifle, firing into the shadows inside.
The young man sprawled to his feet, and made to run inside.
Chester grabbed his arm. “No. I’ve got this. Tell Bill, five minutes. Got it? Five minutes. He’ll understand. Five? Yes? Go.”
Chester ran down the steps and to the door. On a hinge, it had swung closed. Crouching down, he pulled it open, and caught a quick glimpse of the interior as he rolled into the room. A kitchen. Sinks. Cupboards. Cookers. Table in the middle. Not old-fashioned. Not entirely modern. A long room. Two doors at the far end. Both in the corner. One on the left hand wall, one on the wall opposite the door he’d entered. Both were open.
Behind him, the door swung closed, leaving the room in near darkness. High up in the wall to the right, where they were barely above ground level, was a row of windows. They’d been covered by boards which, in turn, had warped, but when coupled with the mud and leaves coating the exterior glass, barely a glimmer entered the kitchen.
Cautiously, crouching, he edged forwards. His foot slipped. He stuck out a hand to catch himself, and found it touched something warm, wet. He stretched out a searching hand, and found the body. He inched forwards, towards the doors. A shot came from deeper inside the house, then another, and then silence, broken by the heavy patter of feet running across the floor above.
Now what? Since at least one friendly was inside the house, darkness gave him no advantage. Unable to think of anything better, he opted for the direct approach.
“Adrianna!” he called. “Whenever you’re ready, we’re waiting to leave!”
He hoped she’d understand. More than that, he hoped she’d realise the safest way out was one of the first floor windows.
He was about to shout again when he heard a sound from beyond one of the doors. With both of them so close together, he couldn’t tell from behind which it came.
He crept forward, weighing up whether to shout again. The shadows around the doors moved, changed. Gunfire erupted. Bullets slammed into tables and doors, the walls, the ceiling, and then the boards covering the window. One of the boards came free. A ray of light speared into the room. Chester saw his assailant, standing in the doorway. Chester fired. The man fell. Chester moved back, away from the corner of the room that was now illuminated.
“Adrianna!” he called.
A muffled grunt came from the door on the left. Chester strode towards it, into the illuminated part of the room.
“Adrianna?” he called.
A figure leaped from around the other door, colliding with Chester before he could bring the gun to bear. A fist slammed into his side, another into his neck. The gun fell from his grip as he stepped back, trying to get some distance, but the man stepped with him, raining a flurry of blows on Chester’s arms, his chest, his head. Roaring in angry pain, Chester charged forward, arms swinging. The man was strong and fast, but not fast enough. Chester caught a fistful of hair, grabbed, pulled, twisted, and slammed the man’s head towards the table, but his foe ducked and turned at the last second, slamming his palm into the side of Chester’s head. His glasses flew off into the gloom, but Chester didn’t need them with his opponent so close. He went for a headlock, and the two men fell to the floor, the enemy on top.
Chester slammed his fist into the man’s side, but he wore something heavy and thick beneath his sweat and dirt-stained shirt. The man reached out, his hands on Chester’s neck, squeezing, pushing.
As abruptly as the fight began, the man hissed and went limp, collapsing on top of Chester, warm liquid oozing from his chest onto Chester’s. The dead weight was hauled off. The woman with the ragged mohawk reached a hand down.
“Adrianna, I presume,” Chester said. “Are there any more to be rescued?”
“Just you,” she said, helping him to his feet.
“What about the enemy?” he asked, but she ran to the door without answering. He looked around, hoping to spy his glasses or the rifle, but could see neither. Taking his cue from Adrianna, he followed her outside.
Adrianna was sprinting for the garage. The Viking was waiting by the edge of the house. Locke stood in the turret, her rifle aimed upwards at the building. Deep gouges marred the mud from where the ATV had turned a wide one-eighty. Outside the garage was the yellow minibus. The woman in red stood by the door. When she saw Chester, she yelled at the ATV. Locke looked around, raised a hand, then dropped down into the vehicle. A moment later the Viking chugged forward. The minibus followed it, driving towards the gates.
Chester angled towards the minibus. The woman in red stood inside, by the minibus’s open side-door. Legs braced, rifle barrel wavering as the vehicle churned across the mud and corpse strewn grounds, she fired a shot at the house. Chester kept running, but stopped when he heard the roar of another heavy engine. The fuel tanker leaped out of the garage, and Chester had to dash forward to get out of the way. He spun around in time to see Adrianna behind the wheel. Chester reached out a hand, aiming to catch hold of one of the grab-bars at the rear of the tanker the moment the vehicle began its turn. When Adrianna turned the tanker, she aimed it the other way, directly at the house. Chester lowered his arm as the vehicle drove straight at the building. A burst from an automatic weapon shattered the passenger-side wing mirror as Adrianna finally spun the steering wheel and stamped on the brake, but she’d left it too late. The cab crunched into the building’s side wall.
“Oh, hell,” Chester muttered, and ran to the cab. Smoke billowed from the engine. From above, he heard the sound of glass breaking. He didn’t look up, but reached for the cab’s door. It wouldn’t move. The impact had deformed the chassis. Inside, Adrianna waved him away. He ignored her. She yelled at him in French. He ignored that, too, and climbed onto the smoking engine. When gunfire erupted above, he couldn’t ignore that. He looked up. On the second floor, a man leaned half out of the window, a rifle in his hands, aiming it straight down at Chester. There was a volley of gunfire, and the man slumped onto the windowsill, dead. Chester didn’t look to see who’d fired, but turned his attention back to the cab.
Adrianna was still gesturing he should leave. Ignoring her, he kicked at the windscreen. Again. Again. A bullet slammed into the cab’s roof. This time, he didn’t look up. As Locke and the French survivors returned fire, he kept kicking until the windscreen gave. He reached down, and hauled Adrianna outside.
Her left arm hung limp as she jumped down from the cab. She slipped, falling to the mud. Chester reached down, helping her up, leading her towards the minibus, but she shook away his hand, angling to the rear of the tanker. About and above them, gunfire rose to a crescendo as Adrianna’s people shot at the house, and Dernier’s people shot at everyone.
At the rear of the tanker, Adrianna attempted to turn the release-wheel one-handed, but it barely moved.
“Dump the fuel, stop them from using it? Right, got it,” Chester said. He grabbed the wheel, turned it, and jumped back as fuel spilled out, gushing over the ground. “Okay? Can we go now?”
Adrianna pulled a flare from under her coat. Again, one-handed, she fumbled as she tried to ignite it.
Chester snatched it from her. “Not yet, not when we’re both so close! Run! Go!” he snapped. “Go!” He ignited the flare. She nodded, and ran for the minibus as a bullet slammed into the tanker’s nearest wheel arch. Chester stamped a divot out of the mud, and slammed the lit flare into the ground. From the direction and speed that fuel poured from the tanker, he had about twenty seconds. He ran.
The ATV was already driving towards the gate. Adrianna had reached the minibus, and was by the sliding side doors. Bullets flew from the house, pinging off the metal sheets covering the windows. Adrianna ducked inside. The doors closed. The minibus drove off, accelerated, and swerved ninety degrees, aiming for the gates.
Chester picked up his pace, refusing to believe he was being left behind.
The rear of the minibus was as wrapped in barbed wire as the rest, with sheet metal covering the rear door. With no warning, the sheet metal fell, and he realised it was a ramp. The rear door swung open. The woman in red stood there, a hunting rifle in her hands. She fired. Chester sprinted. When he was five feet away, the flare finally ignited the fumes from the fuel truck. A whoomph. A whoosh, and Chester was thrown from his feet, arms and chest landing on the metal ramp.
“Allez!” the woman in red called.
Chester scratched at the smooth metal, trying to find purchase as his feet dragged against dirt, gravel, bones, and bodies. The woman in red reached down, grabbing his collar just as a clawing hand curled around his foot. As the zombie’s grip tightened, Chester sagged backwards, almost off the ramp, pulling the woman in red with him. She fell. Still gripping his collar, she raised her rifle, firing one-handed over Chester. The recoil knocked the weapon from her grasp, but the bullet dislodged the zombie clawing at Chester’s leg. More hands appeared at the minibus’s door, hauling both the woman and Chester inside.
The door was pulled closed behind them. By tugging on a pair of chains, the ramp was retracted. The minibus rattled over the gate, and out onto the road. Chester pushed himself to the corner.
Except for the driver, the seats had all been removed. Part of the explanation had to be for maximising space. The other part, and the reason for the ramp, was the wheelchair buckled to the floor. It was unoccupied.
Epilogue - Journey’s End, Journey’s Beginning
Northern France
Chester kicked at a cracked sleeper. “I think we broke that on our way to the watchtower,” he said. He and Bill stood on the railway line a little distance from the French survivors while Starwind and Locke explained what had happened in Creil over the last few days. “Can’t have been the vehicle’s weight,” Chester said. “Surely the ATV isn’t heavier than a fully loaded train. Must have been the pressure of the treads applied directly to the sleeper. No train will ever travel this way now.”
“Are you sure you don’t need a bandage?” Bill asked.
“It’s not my blood,” Chester said. He turned to look north. “I suppose the horde would have destroyed the rail line anyway.”
“Even if it didn’t,” Bill said, “with Creil abandoned, no one will travel this way again for years.”
“Which brings us to what we’re going to do next,” Chester said. “I won’t fight Starwind and Adrianna so we can steal the ATV.”
“No,” Bill said. “I like what they’ve done with the minibus. That armoured roof rack looks pretty secure. We could sleep up there at night.”
“But they won’t give it to us,” Chester said.
“I doubt it. Even if they did, I don’t think it’d make it to the coast.”
“Meaning it certainly won’t reach the Pyrenees,” Chester said.
A growing plume of smoke rose in the north from the burning watchtower.
“That fire’s really caught. It’s Romero, isn’t it?” Chester said.
“I’m sorry?”
“The minibus,” Chester said. “In the film it was a school bus, but that has to be their inspiration.”
“I suppose it makes as much sense as a cartoon about vampires,” Bill said. “Which makes as much sense as anything else.”
“Yeah, you find sense and reason where you can. You think we should go back to Creil, then?”
“We don’t have enough fuel for the ATV to reach the coast,” Bill said. “Shame about that tanker.”
“I think it contained petrol, not diesel,” Chester said.
“Still, it’s a shame. They’ll have got out. Dernier’s people, I mean.”
“When the fire started, yes,” Chester said. “Or they’ll have tried to. Still, I’m not going to worry about them. I’m going to worry about the long road ahead.”
“You’re going to the coast?” Bill asked.
“Aren’t you?”
“I suppose so,” Bill said. “Let’s see if they know where we can find some bicycles.”
They wandered back to the group where the conversation was winding down.
“It was our plane, Bill,” Locke said. “Dernier’s thugs had talked their way inside the watchtower. They had them all captive, but when our plane appeared overhead, the zombies in the town woke. Some came to the house. Dernier’s people fired. The shots summoned more. The house became surrounded. With the thugs distracted, Adrianna had the opportunity to fight back. They took control of the top floor, Dernier’s people were below.”
“And you agreed a truce?” Bill asked.
Adrianna spat on the ground.
Starwind shrugged. “You don’t make a truce with Cavalie.”
“Cavalie?”
“Dernier’s captain,” Starwind said.
“Ah.” Bill looked across the group, and then to the vehicles. “I take it that you’ve filled them in on what’s happened? Then could you ask where around here we’ll find some bicycles? Chester and I are heading to the coast. We’ve got to reach our people.”
Starwind laughed.
“What’s funny?” Chester asked.
Starwind shook her head, then climbed up onto the roof of the minibus. She reached down into the shielded roof-rack and pulled out a fuel can. “Here. I brought these from the watchtower. Help,” she added, lowering the can.
Chester took it. “Diesel?” he asked.
“For the Viking,” Starwind said, reaching for another can. “I’m not stupid. I knew that you weren
’t coming back to Creil. I know what you have to do. I would do the same.”
“You aren’t going to stop us?” Bill asked.
Starwind reached for a third fuel can. “Adrianna only recognised Cavalie and three others. The rest of the killers were strangers to her. No one in Creil was watching for our signal-fire. No one watched for Adrianna’s. She lit her bonfire before she was captured. No one came to her aid. There is evil in Creil, and evil outside. I don’t trust the helicopter pilot. I don’t trust the Assembly. I don’t trust strangers. But you? I think I can trust you.” She reached for another fuel can. “No, I can trust that you will return for your three friends. Yes. We will need help. From where else will it come?”
Bill, Chester, and Locke stood on the railway line, watching the minibus drive away.
“Do we have enough fuel to reach Dunkirk?” Chester asked.
“I don’t know,” Bill said. “Maybe. We’ll have to detach the passenger-car. There’s no point taking the dead weight.”
“We can get more diesel at Sheppey,” Chester said. “If we can reach it.”
“We’ll have to find a boat first,” Bill said. “We won’t reach Dunkirk today. Tomorrow, certainly. Hopefully.”
“I’m more worried about ammunition,” Locke said. “They only had two magazines for my rifle.”
“How much for that AK-47?” Bill asked.
“About a hundred rounds,” Chester said. “My vote is for us avoiding all fighting for a while.”
“Let’s hope the zombies will oblige,” Bill said. “Food will be an issue. It always is. That stuff we scavenged in Creil won’t last long.”
“Foraging, Mr Wright,” Locke said. “We shall look and the Earth shall provide. Zombies,” she added. “Coming from the west. A few more approaching from the north. That fire really is spreading. I would suggest we continue the discussion as we drive.”
