A collective gasp followed in the wake of the gunshots. Hale and the rifle lady began walking back, Bailey following closely behind.
‘Oh my…’ Claire whispered to herself, putting a hand on her chest. She was beginning to hyperventilate again.
‘No no, steady breaths, come on,’ I said, standing in front of her and reaching to put hands on her shoulders.
‘I’m not having another panic attack!’ she protested, swatting at my hands. ‘Fucksake I’m not that much of a delicate little flower! But thank you for your concern…’ she hurriedly added.
‘Alright everyone, settle down!’ Hale shouted, cutting through the grumblings of the assembled crowd. He was stood a lane’s width away, where everyone could get a good look at him.
‘We gave those three men a choice. You saw which one Paul took. The other two, they didn’t want to turn back. We had to do what was necessary. Those of you joining us, you need to understand that’s the kind of operation we are running here. We will make it to Sydow. We will survive. To do that, we may have to make hard choices, but those choices will carry us through, together.
‘With that messy business behind us, we’ll be carrying on. Mrs Lowe speaks for the group over there and they’ll be joining as part of the security team. Mrs Lowe has past experience in the theatre of war and has vouched that her people have completed national service, and hold firearms licences. Any questions?’
There weren’t.
‘Then let’s get moving. SySec, GFPD, defensive perimeter front and left, Mrs Lowe, I’d like your people to spread amongst the non-combatants, we’ll call on you as reinforcements. Don’t engage unless required.’
Mrs Lowe gave a curt nod, then skirted the edge of the crowd to relay the orders to her people, who’d waited patiently on the other side of the barrier.
‘There’s like a dozen guys there, they can’t have all been travelling together, surely?’ Gavin asked.
‘I don’t like it.’ I nodded.
‘You don’t like anything.’
‘I was trying to agree with you!’
‘Oh, sorry. I thought you still meant you wanted to go home.’
‘Hah, well, there’s that too…’ I said. ‘But I don’t like how big this mob is getting. More guns, more people, and we’re encountering infected. It doesn’t bode well.’
The head of the group began moving forwards, and we were pulled along behind. Mrs Lowe’s people spread themselves out amongst us as we went, and I rather fancied they thought highly of themselves, smiling as they said hello, guns couched in their arms while all we had were flashlights and batons – but of course, I was down on the whole operation to begin with.
True to our plan, we all tried to keep in sight of each other. I was walking beside Claire, with Emile just a few steps in front, chatting away with one of Lowe’s riflemen.
‘So you all know each other?’ he asked.
‘Yes, Elise and I are neighbours,’ the man said, ‘we’re all from Beauchief Park actually, or its environs. Some live a little ways further on, but we’re all patrons of the same pub.’
‘You are all drinking buddies?’ Emile almost laughed. ‘Are you on a pub crawl?’
‘Aha! I wish…’ the man shook his head. ‘No, we’ve taken this very seriously, which is most unlike us. Had to abandon a lot of supplies, down to our rucksacks, like yourselves. Elise is formerly of the Territorial Army so she’s led the whole thing with, you might say, military precision.’ He added, making a precise little gesture.
I’d had her down as a farmer or construction worker, but solider was another outdoor profession that’d put lines on your face. The Territorial Army was the Voison Republic’s standing force. It was small, made up mainly of people putting their national service in, with people earmarked for leadership being offered permanent positions further up the ladder.
The Private Military Companies, organisations like Sydow Security, they paid more for career soldiers, but they had to do a lot more actual fighting out in the big bad world – Rojas shared borders with some pretty unstable regions, and conflicts there were a goldmine for businesses like SySec. Mercenaries had been a primary export of Voison long before it was all one country, and the PMCs around today were better equipped and better funded than the Territorials.
People who stayed for a career in the TA are either patriots or, as a cynical view might take it, cowards. They manned a small number of foreign border garrisons, domestic military installations and did the lion’s share of grunt security work for the government, but when Voison sent soldiers out into the world, into real warzones, they were generally mercenaries.
‘She had a career in the Territorials then?’ Emile asked our tagalong.
‘Oh yes. Fairly high up. Colonel Lowe, according to the medals on her mantelpiece.’
‘Does that mean she is ranked higher than Captain Hale? Even though she is from a different military organisation? I’m not sure how it works in Voison.’
‘I don’t remember the command structure all that well either to be honest, but I believe so.’ The man shrugged.
‘Explains why Hale’s taken her in so quick, if she was above him.’ I said to Claire.
‘Hmm?’ Claire said, turning to face me. She’d been looking the other way, out over the river as we crossed the carriageway bridge.
‘Nevermind…’ I said, going back to eavesdropping.
I’d heard all the juiciest gossip apparently, as the topic had moved onto Mrs Lowe’s holiday home slash bug-out fortress and what sort of supplies she had there. I found myself zoning out too, looking over at the river as it ran beneath us.
Kelly and I had done a canal tour once. More of an excuse to visit a few bars we hadn’t been to, but it was quite fun. Industrial Age Greenfield had tamed the river and used a network of canals to ferry cargo back and forth – not an uncommon story in an industrial city, but unlike some places, they’d covered up most of the canals now, built over them or filled them in. There wasn’t much of a boating community anymore.
The river that ran beneath us was wide, and I found myself wondering how deep it was. As we walked, Claire and I found ourselves drifting over to get a clearer view. We weren’t the only ones who’d found ourselves admiring the scenery, and for a moment it was possible to forget why we were here. Just a moment.
‘I wonder if Jerry made it out,’ I said, kicking a battered soda can along as we went.
‘He still running that place?’ Claire asked. ‘I’d have thought they’d have promoted him by now, sucked him into the adminisphere. That or sacked him. I don’t know how he got that arrangement with the Wireless provider.’
‘He’s good guy.’ I sighed. ‘Just seemed to go missing. Only saw him when I first got in. Something must have happened to him after.’
Claire nodded. ‘It was the same with some of my colleagues in paediatrics. It didn’t seem like it at the time, too busy to really stop and think about it, but looking back, it’s like we were being picked off, one by one.’
‘Si, which is why we do not wander off.’ Emile said, appearing beside us with Mrs Lowe’s rifleman.
‘Lo siento,’ I apologised. ‘It’s just not a very inspiring view, is it?’
I pointed towards the hill ahead, a gentle incline but one that stretched away for quite some distance. On one side of the lane divider was the mass of stationary traffic, and on the other, the long expanse of empty road.
‘Keep your wits about you.’ The rifleman warned, ‘From what we understand, there were gunshots in the direction of the checkpoint earlier. A sizable group of people went to investigate but never came back – part of the reason there’s so many empty cars. Something’s afoot, mark my words.’
He was an older gentleman, probably not collecting his pension yet, but he had a neat little moustache and glasses that immediately cemented him in my mind as an accountant – though I’d been wrong about Elise Lowe, so he may very well have been a race car driver.
He extended his
hand to me, and we shook.
‘Reginald Law.’
‘Katy Cox.’
He shook with Claire next, and she introduced herself.
‘Claire Fielding.’
‘Nice to meet you ladies. I understand the hospital was overrun?’
‘Let me tell you about it, Reg,’ Emile said, diverting his attention, ‘I think we are interrupting.’
Emile steered him a couple steps away, and began to tell him about the hospital’s troubles, right from when he was on gate duty. I hadn’t thought they’d been interrupting, but Claire seemed eager to chat.
‘Keeping your name then, by the sounds of it?’ she asked, clearly hesitant, but ploughing right through the awkward. Maybe we’d reach the other side if we just kept going.
‘I don’t know…’ I confessed. ‘Katy Kelly doesn’t have a bad ring to it, but I don’t like the idea of overriding my identity by taking someone else’s name, and it’s not that I’m even keen on my name anyway, familial associations and all…’
‘Go double barrelled?’
‘Then there’s the question of which way around? Katy Kelly-Cox sounds weird, too many syllables in too short a space. Katy Cox-Kelly just has a bad rhythm to it, like I’m doing a mic check. One-two, one, one-two…’
I flailed my hands, exasperated. It’s been a cause of much concern to me for a while, long before he actually proposed. I hadn’t exactly been doodling our names in the margin of my schoolbooks or anything, but you think about these things.
Claire was fighting back a smile.
‘Don’t you laugh! If I’d have stayed with you it’d have been Cox-Fielding, which sounds like some kind of sexual euphemism, or Fielding-Cox, and that’d be even worse.’
This was apparently too much for Claire, who burst out laughing, head back, shoulders heaving. She reigned it in pretty quick as people turned to look, covering her mouth with the back of her hand and hunching her shoulders. She had a most undignified laugh, and there may even have been a snort.
I couldn’t help but grin myself.
We walked on, our ragtag band of travellers. Once we’d passed the river, the scenery turned back into woodland, and I found my attention – and feet – wandering back over to the left. It was too gloomy to see much in the woodland, and the longer I tried to peer into that gloom the more I managed to convince myself that something was looking back.
Ignoring that shiver, I started to look at the cars, wondering if there was some kind of road trip game we could play to pass the time. Make amusing acronyms out of the licence plates or something.
I couldn’t see a single driver in any of the cars on this side of the river. People hadn’t been in a hurry to leave – their doors were closed and windows wound up, only the occasional discarded bag was there as evidence the cars didn’t just park themselves.
Every now and then however, we saw a car that wasn’t empty. The first one I noticed was a tiny little runabout, a green hatchback that’d rolled back into the car behind.
The driver was still belted into her seat, but was leaning across as much as she could, arms extended, fingers just brushing the glass. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was drunk, or half asleep. But I did know better. From the pale of her skin to the emptiness in her eyes.
A few minutes later, as we began to climb the hill, there were more. We moved past them, and few comments were made. Some of the new civilians shuffled a bit further to the right, putting some distance between themselves and the trapped undead, even though the lane barriers, SySec and the cops were already forming a pretty solid butter between them.
The further on we moved, the longer the cars had been here. The first people to be infected, the first to try and leave, they were here. Clammy grey fists beat down onto rear windows and passenger sides, faces pressed up to get a better look, breath fogging the glass.
They moaned, one after the other, a sad and hollow sound, made worse by being muffled in the vehicles. It followed us as we made our way along the road, trailing behind us and being picked up ahead. The more I listened, the more I thought I could hear hunger in that moan. Hunger for us. Hunger for flesh.
‘Can’t stand that noise...’ someone up ahead muttered.
‘It’s doing my head in…’ another agreed.
‘Shouldn’t have come…’ one thought aloud.
‘Shall we sing a song?’ someone else suggested.
There was a short, tense little chuckle from the few people around them, but then, someone actually did start singing.
It was Tony. Because of course it was.
‘When I wake up…’ he started, loud but faltering. Like he thought it was a good idea, but when the words left his mouth he’d thought better of it. But he was committed now. He shouted the rest of it out, drowning out the undead for anyone who hadn’t heard him yet.
‘Well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who wakes up next to you!’
A little round of laughter came again, and sensing he was onto something, Tony tuned his voice in and started to sing in earnest.
‘When I go out, yeah I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who goes along with you…’ by the time he’d finished the line, a few faltering singers were joining him, further ahead in the crowd they were picking it up.
‘If I get drunk!’ Dave bellowed, giving them encouragement.
‘Well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you!’ Tucker followed up.
‘And if I haver, yeah I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who’s havering to you!’
‘But aaaah would walk five hundred miles, and aaaah would walk five hundred more!’ came the chorus.
On it went. Bloody hell. It was weird, but one of those moments you just kind of get swept up by. I found myself singing along with the rest, this bunch of refugees from Greenfield, singing a song from Kilmister as they travelled south to Sydow.
The dead, grey eyes of former passengers watched us from their cars, presumably as bemused as Emile was. I don’t think he’d ever heard this song – and it didn’t help that not everyone knew all the words, and that at certain parts it devolved into a lot of uncoordinated shouting, but it was carried to those shouty parts by the likes of Tony and Dave, who must have done this on the karaoke or something.
By the end of it, spirits had been lifted. Dave put his arm around Tony’s shoulders and gave the much smaller man a sort of moving, sideways hug.
Nobody led a new song, but there was a lot more chatter as we went further up the hill, not enough that you could forget the moaning dead in their cars, but enough that you could ignore them. Eventually, the low metal barriers at the side of the road turned into tall, green fences, and we were back on even ground.
In the modern world, you’re never far from civilisation, but we were leaving the outskirts of Greenfield behind, heading into the countryside. It’d be a while until we hit the next thing you could call a town. Maybe only an hour in a car, going at motorway speeds, but a hell of a lot longer on foot.
Between the major cities and their smaller neighbours were stretches of semi-tame wilderness, like the woodland around us. There wouldn’t be any large predators, no bears or cougars to worry about, but when you’re driving at eighty on the motorway you don’t want to hit a deer, or swerve for a fox.
Hence the fences. They stopped animals from getting onto the road. Disruptive to their habitats, certainly. That’s why there were wildlife bridges here and there. Some of them were just twists of rope for squirrels to clamber across, while underneath the road they’d left little tunnels for skittish burrowers. But the main bridges were a thing of genuine beauty. Up ahead, the checkpoint was built within one.
The bridge spanned all eight lanes, built in two gently curving arches, overhanging with wild flowers and leafy ivies. Unlike most bridges, where roads cross roads, nobody had covered it in graffiti – no gang tags or urban artwork. Perhaps out of respect for nature, accessibility of the site, or m
aybe Highway Maintenance has just scrubbed it off recently.
I knew that behind the flowers and vines, on top the bridge would just be long grass, twigs and deer droppings, but from the ground level I found each bridge to be gorgeous, a little green oasis on an otherwise grey and featureless stretch of motorcycling speedway.
The checkpoint however, was not so much an oasis as an eyesore. All we could make out of it from here were the red site cabins, portable buildings the size of shipping containers that lock together like kids’ building bricks.
But there were no people. No people anywhere.
Twenty
‘This is not right,’ Emile muttered, ‘there should be SySec here. Doctors, nurses, angry people shouting to get through. Someone. Anyone.’
The group had come to a standstill, and while it was nice that nobody was looking to me for all their decision-making needs, I felt my own need to know what the hell was going on. Whatever else I thought of Captain Hale, there were no flies on him.
‘Mrs Lowe!’ he barked, ’Your people stay here, protect the non-combatants. SySec, GFPD, with me!’
‘Fuck that!’ I spat, making to move, but Claire grabbed my arm.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Something’s happened here, people could be hurt. It’d be stupid not to take a medic – or two?’
She thought about it for maybe half a second.
We followed behind Emile and Dave, leaving Tony with Gavin, Tucker and Reg, who I passed my bag to hold. I didn’t just dump it on him, he held his hand out, must have known what we were doing.
I felt a few pairs of eyes on us as we made our way through the crowd, leaving a trail of questions. Well, the same question really.
‘Where are they going?’
Emerging on the other side, we found ourselves standing between a loose group of cops and a more organised lineup of SySec. We came to a stop firmly in Captain Hale’s stern gaze, and I had to remind myself that court marshals were something that happened to soldiers.
The Suburban Dead (Book 2): Emergency Page 17
