by Frank Tayell
Dusk had arrived, though night hadn’t yet completely fallen, but the flickering firelight from behind the garage’s window was brighter than the settling starlight. In those eldritch shadows he could see arms, legs, a bowed head. And… He saw it just before it happened. There was a soft hiss, then a heavy thud as the thug behind him collapsed to the ground.
“Scream,” Locke whispered.
Chester did, while Locke crossed to his side and slashed the ropes, freeing his hands. She gave him the knife. As Chester bent to cut his legs free, Locke went to the thug she’d shot, quickly searching his corpse. Chester staggered over to her, and took the revolver she held out.
“How many?” she whispered.
“Two,” Chester hissed back. “A man and a woman. Woman’s Cavalie. She’s the real danger.”
“I found tyre tracks and footprints,” Locke said. “Behind us and in front. There’s at least seven. Two groups. Using short-wave radio. Get Bill. Get back to the ATV. Drive. Understand?”
“Got it.”
“Take point. Go in shooting. Take cover. Make them scatter. I’ll finish it. Go.”
Chester opened the revolver’s chamber, feeling the cartridges with his thumb. Five rounds. He slid the chamber closed, hoping all five were live. With no more words, he ran to the door, threw it open, and ran inside.
He saw the man first, on the left, leaning against a wooden workbench. One hand held Chester’s AK-47, the barrel dangling by his leg. His other hand was slowly playing with a clamp built into the workbench. As Chester had thrown open the door, the man’s head jerked towards it, but it took another second for the thug to register the threat. Chester had already fired his first shot. He thought it had been a hit, but no, the man had dived sideways, behind the wrecked car. Chester pulled the trigger, firing a second shot, a third, as he skidded over to Bill.
“Can you see ’em?” he asked as he slashed at the ropes with the knife.
“They’re—” Bill began, but then the firing truly commenced. Bullets ricocheted off metal. They thudded into wood. Chester hacked at the ropes, realising that, since he’d not heard the report, those shots belonged to Locke. Cavalie and her goon returned fire. The explosion of propellant added to the din, but he had Bill free.
“Move. The door. Go!” Chester said, pushing Bill in front of him. Locke fired a short burst into the darkness. He heard Cavalie fire back, but the bullets came nowhere close. He realised why when he reached the door. Cavalie and her goon had run to the rear of the garage, and were making their own bid to escape.
“They’re after the ATV!” Chester growled, pulling the trigger, firing the last two rounds.
“Go!” Locke hissed. She let her empty magazine fall to the floor, slotting in a fresh as she followed them out of the now empty garage.
They pushed their way past the fallen tree, slipped over the muddy road, and skidded haphazardly down the incline to the railway.
“Can’t see anyone,” Chester hissed. “You?”
“No. No one,” Bill said. “Can’t hear anyone shooting, either.”
“Cut that ladder free!” Locke said, as they reached the ATV.
“Hostile, twelve o’clock!” Bill said.
“Got him,” Locke said, raising her rifle, then lowered it. “Zombie,” she said. “We have time. Get inside. Quick.”
Bill clambered into the driving seat, while Chester climbed onto the roof and slashed at the cord tying the ladder to the turret. Gunfire roared from somewhere behind just before the engine flared.
Locke dived inside. “They didn’t sabotage it?” she asked.
“You thought they might?” Bill said. The ATV bucked, and charged forward.
“I would have,” she said.
Chester stayed in the turret, peering into the darkness just long enough for a bullet to ping off the vehicle’s armour. Then he dropped inside, sprawling on the cab’s floor. He stayed there, listening to his heart pounding, as the ATV’s treads tore through the sleepers, then thumped over the zombie that had been approaching them.
“Thanks, Sorcha,” he finally said. He pulled himself off the floor, and into a seat.
“It’s what we do, isn’t it, come and help? Is anyone hurt? Shot? Bleeding?”
“Only my ego,” Bill said. “Everything else will heal quickly enough.”
“Just bruised,” Chester said. “What just happened?”
“Can you accelerate a little?” Locke asked. “Aim for over thirty kilometres an hour. They only have dirt bikes, and in the dark, at that speed, a tumble should incapacitate them, if not kill them.”
Bill accelerated. “We’ll be at Amiens soon. Do we want to go through it, or avoid it?”
“Avoid,” Locke said. “Definitely avoid. We want the open country. Look for a branch line.”
“Seriously, what happened?” Chester asked. “I mean, I know what happened to us, but what about you?”
“I found a route from the railway line, through a field, that led to the road,” Locke said curtly and succinctly. “To the east of the bridge, I saw a rooftop. I went to see if there was food or water. As I approached, I saw a flash of light. I heard someone talking, seemingly to themselves. A man stood guard over seven dirt bikes, speaking into a radio. I had to kill him before I could ask any questions. Afterward, I went north, then south, to confirm my suspicions. What I didn’t do was disable their vehicles. I thought that they might surround the ATV and we might require an alternate method of escape.”
“What suspicions did you confirm?” Chester asked.
“Some were ahead of us, some were behind,” she said. “The two groups stayed in contact with their radios. That suggests one of two things. Either the lead group was waking up the undead, hoping to attract so many onto the railway line our ATV would be forced to stop, and we would expend all of our ammunition killing the zombies surrounding us. Or they were leaving a trail they thought we were following. Did they tell you?”
“No,” Bill said. “She didn’t say much that was useful, and nothing that can’t wait.”
“Pity,” Locke said. “In case they were leaving a trail for us to follow, I propose we do our utmost to avoid Amiens. There’s a junction ahead.”
“I can’t see it.”
“There was a signalman’s signpost,” Locke said. “The turning is ahead.”
“Did you say you saw seven bikes?” Chester said. “And you got the guy guarding them, plus the thug at the house.”
“Sorry, I didn’t make myself clear,” Locke said. “The person on the radio was communicating with the rear guard, telling them to come in.”
“So there’s more than five left?” Bill said.
“At least another two in the rear guard,” Locke said. “We should assume a lot more.”
The ATV rocked as Bill turned onto the branch line. “Keep an eye on that compass. I think we’re heading northeast.”
“The woman was Cavalie?” Locke asked.
“Yep,” Chester said. “And she was Dernier’s boss. Or she said she was.”
“She said she was one of Dernier’s bosses,” Bill said.
“And she said she was the cartel, too,” Chester said. “As if she was in charge of it now. Which I would guess means she’s killed her rivals.”
“Those radios would only have a range of a few kilometres,” Locke said. “The woman can call herself the almighty empress of the universe if she wants, it won’t make it true.”
“You know what we didn’t do when we stopped?” Bill said. “We didn’t refuel. We’ve an hour, tops, before we grind to a halt.”
“Fuel’s still here,” Chester said. He hefted one of their few remaining cans, salvaged by Starwind from Adrianna’s watchtower. “Don’t think they touched it. Come to that, don’t think they knew you were with us, Sorcha. Must have seen the ATV at Adrianna’s watchtower, but not afterward, when we went our separate ways. But on the other side of the ledger, Bill and I have lost our weapons and the bags with our food and tools.”
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“Ah.” Locke sorted through her pockets. “I’ve one magazine and perhaps ten loose rounds. In my bag I have clothing, some water and food, but it’ll be gone by morning shared between the three of us.”
“We’ll be at Dunkirk by then,” Chester said.
“No,” Bill said. “We’re heading northeast, not west. Speaking of which, we can’t stop on the railway. It’s too straight a route, too easy to follow. Can you go up into the turret and check for any lights behind?”
Locke climbed up, looked out, then dropped down. “No lights.”
“Then we need a road,” Bill said. “The railway ran due north to Amiens. We planned to head westward from there, yes? So we want a road heading north for about thirty kilometres, then we’ll cut west once we’re beyond the city.”
“Perhaps look for road signs to the border,” Locke said. “There. To the right. There’s an avenue of trees beyond that next field. Could be a road.”
“Can’t see a bridge,” Bill said. “Unless the railway goes over the bridge. I think… okay, yep. Hold on.”
“Aim for the—” Locke began, but the rest of her advice was lost as Bill wrenched the ATV to the left, and down a steep embankment. They thudded into the ground at the bottom. The beam from the ATV’s lights was abruptly truncated as a headlamp broke, but, mercifully, the engine didn’t die.
“There, found us a road,” Bill said. “What were you about to say?”
“Never mind,” Locke said.
They were on a narrow laneway hemmed in by hedges that abruptly morphed into open fields on either side, and, just as abruptly, directly in front. Bill stamped on the brakes, just before they drove off the road.
“Sorry. Sorry,” he said. “T-junction.”
Locke reached for the door handle. “Since we’ve stopped, we might as well refuel.”
Chester followed the other two outside. The air smelled surprisingly fresh. Clear, almost crisp. “What a week.”
“I’ve had worse,” Locke said, as she began pouring the diesel into the tank.
“I’m not sure I have,” Chester said. “Days, yes, but not an entire week.”
“The ATV looks fine,” Bill said. “A bit more battered, a few more dents. I think it’ll manage another few hundred miles.” He climbed up onto the roof. “I can’t see any lights behind us.”
“Earlier,” Locke said, “you said you learned something from Cavalie, but that it would wait. We appear to be waiting now.”
“Cavalie didn’t know that Creil was being abandoned,” Bill said.
“That’s good,” Locke said. “But you told her? Then I imagine she is debating whether to head back there to confirm it, or to follow us. Either way, as long as the professor sticks to her plan of leaving Creil in the morning, Cavalie won’t reach them before they are gone.”
“Yes, but she’s a woman, not a man,” Bill said.
“Meaning?” Locke asked.
“Meaning did Adrianna know that?”
“By which you mean was Adrianna in league with Cavalie, deliberately trying to mislead us?” Locke asked.
“Nah,” Chester said. “Trust me on that. During that fight in the kitchen, Adrianna had a choice of killing me or Cavalie’s man. She chose the latter. If Adrianna was working with Cavalie, she’d have killed me.”
“Fine,” Bill said. “Then we can put that particular confusion down to the language barrier and the haste with which we departed. That’s one question answered, but there are dozens of others. We don’t know how many of these cartel thugs are out there, or out here, or anywhere else, including how many are back in Creil.”
“What exactly is your point?” Locke asked.
“It’s a question rather than a point,” Bill said. “Do we go back to Creil and warn them? And if so, what exactly are we warning them of?”
“What else did she say?” Locke asked. “Anything of use?”
Bill shivered. “Nothing really. She thought we were British Army at first, then sailors. To be honest, I’m not sure what that was about. Probably paranoia. She didn’t seem to know about the horde, or the helicopter. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can trust the pilot, just that she wasn’t part of this particular scheme. Cavalie was in radio contact with someone in Creil, but not recently. Not since we arrived there.”
“Our arrival coincided with the liberation of Creil from the zombies surrounding it,” Locke said. “If one of her people was to decide that discretion was the better path to survival, it was that moment, when the attack failed.”
“We think the crane was the antenna, right?” Chester said. “And our chief suspect is that engineer. It could just be she didn’t have time between the battle, and the pilot arriving the next morning. Equally, it’s a fair bet she might expect her boss was close enough to witness the drama for herself, so why bother calling? Particularly if she felt she’d been left to hang.”
“It’s possible,” Locke said. “It’s likely, yet I am disinclined to believe our fortunes have turned. Cavalie doesn’t know about Belfast?”
“Nope. Nor about our plane,” Bill said. “But everyone in Creil does. If that engineer does send a message before they depart, I’m sure it’ll get mentioned.”
“The fuel can’s empty.” Locke sealed the clasp in place, and put the container back in the ATV. “There’s no point leaving any further clues we were here.”
“It won’t be hard to follow our trail,” Bill said. “The question is whether Cavalie will bother. There’s too much we don’t know. Why did they follow the ATV? Why didn’t they finish Adrianna’s people at the watchtower? Why not put all their resources into an attack on Creil? Damn. I shouldn’t have told her about the convoy.”
“How much did you tell her?” Locke asked.
“Too much,” Bill said. “I was trying to draw her out, but it didn’t work. If she finds the convoy, she could lose herself in their ranks. And if the convoy has been travelling for months, taking a circuitous route from Ukraine, I bet they’ve been picking up survivors along the way. How well do they know each other?”
“Do you want to go back, find her, finish her off?” Chester asked.
“A pleasing idea,” Locke said. “But impractical. We’re heavily armoured, but distinctly under-armed for such an enterprise. We’re too far away to lay an ambush, and they’ll hear us before we hear them, assuming they haven’t already abandoned that farmhouse.”
“If I were them,” Chester said, “I’d make a quick search, confirm we’d gone, then head back to Creil, hoping to make contact with that engineer to confirm the story about the horde.”
“We won’t reach Creil before the town is abandoned,” Locke said. “In fact, I don’t know how much further we can risk travelling tonight. It’s not yet midnight. It’s probably no later than eight p.m. It’s a long time until dawn.”
“We could follow a compass bearing southward,” Bill said.
“Until we reach a bridge that’s been washed away, or a field filled with the undead,” Locke said. “Nothing has changed since we left Creil. We knew that there were more of these gangsters roaming the countryside. Now we have a face to add to a name. Beyond that, the only way we can truly rescue Amber, Salman, and Scott, the only way we can help the thousand in Creil, and confirm that this convoy is real, is to get to Belfast.”
“Chester?” Bill asked.
“I don’t like it,” Chester said. “But I don’t know that we have an alternative. Dunkirk first, then Belfast. Let’s leave Cavalie to the horde.”
Day 258
26th November
(The survivors from the Tower travel from Sheppey to Zeebrugge)
Chapter 19 - Humanity’s New Home
Somewhere in Northern France
“It’s midnight,” Chester said, holding the watch close to the torch’s beam, double-checking that the second hand was slowly ticking towards infinity. Sorcha and Bill were too far away for to hear him, but the words weren’t intended for them; they were for the undead. He
placed the watch in his pocket and listened. The wind whistled, the metalwork creaked, and he couldn’t be positive nothing else lurked amid the long line of cars.
They’d been forced to stop when they found the road ahead blocked with stalled cars for as far as the ATV’s one remaining headlamp reached. Cars, trucks, lorries, and vans snaked up a shallow hill, with more stalled in ditches and the fields on either side. The vehicles’ intended destination, what had stopped them, whether they were travelling together; there were many questions. The answers would be similar to the near identical tableaux he’d seen in England and Wales, and just as irrelevant so long after the tragedy. How the drivers and passengers had died was a question answered by the bones scattered between the vehicles. People had been torn apart as they’d fled. But not the driver of the blue Beetle, from around whose desiccated wrist Chester had plucked the still ticking watch. Whether a heart attack had offered a merciful alternative to suicide for the watch’s former owner, it was impossible to tell.
Chester rifled through the glove-box, grabbed the handful of maps, the real reason he’d opened the door, then pulled the boot’s quick-release. Lurking among the decayed packets and mildewed clothing, thrown in haphazardly without even a bag, he found his prize: a can-opener.
“Where you find a can-opener, you usually find cans,” he muttered. With the tyre-iron he’d found in an upturned four-by-four, he pushed at the rotting mess. The chiselled tip knocked against something metallic just as he heard leaves shuffle aside. He stepped back, raising the torch and the tyre-iron, tilting his head, trying to locate the sound. It came again. From close to the ground. And it was behind him.
He spun around, stepping back and kicking out at the same time. His boot’s toe slammed into the crawling zombie’s mouth. Teeth flew from the flensed jaw as the zombie curled its outstretched hand around Chester’s leg. Ignoring the skin-less fingers closing like a vice, he speared the tyre-iron down into the ghoul’s skull. It was a tool, not a weapon, the chisel-tip unsharpened, rusted after being so long neglected. But the steel was still strong, his blow stiffened by exhausted rage. The creature went limp.
