Surviving The Evacuation (Book 2): Wasteland (14 page)

“I found food. It took a while,” She went on, “but I mustn't have closed the door properly when I left. They had gotten into the school, dozens of Them. Daisy was safe. I grabbed her and again we had to run. I tried to make for the house with the flag. I tried to remember where it was, but it wasn't like I had a choice which way to go. When Daisy stopped crying, when I found somewhere to hide for the night, I'd become completely lost.

“I found a new buggy and we went off looking for the house. I’m sure we'd have found it eventually, but we kept running out of food. It was too heavy to take much with us and I didn't like leaving her. That's why we were in the restaurant. I had a new plan. This time I wanted the zombies to hear Daisy cry, I wanted Them to all gather outside the chip shop, then we were going to sneak out through the attics to the end of the street. We'd have been able to take enough food to last us weeks. Enough time to find that house.” She paused and took a breath. “So, you see, we didn't need rescuing, but thank you anyway.”

22:00, 1
st
July.

Annette has gone to sleep now, so she's no longer reading over my shoulder. She had less than a week's worth of baby food left for the two of them. That's more food than Kim and I were carrying, but still, it's not much. Whether she'd have been able to escape or not, I can't say. She had more of a plan than I did when I climbed through that window at the Manor, and she's survived well enough so far. It's not my place to criticise, certainly not to judge. I doubt I'd have done nearly as well in her position, nor acted half as calmly. Luck, I suppose that was it. The luck to be immune, but there's something else as well. What's that word they used in those old war movies? Grit, that's it. Luck and grit.

Before she turned in, we had a discussion about what we should do next, none of us quite sure whether it was “we” or not.

“I think we should find the house with the flag. That's what I’m going to do, anyway. Find other survivors. That's important.” Annette said. She sounded determined. I didn't know that I could stop her, either. Not if I was intending on leaving her and Kim and going off to Lenham.

“But, after the Manor...” I began.

“I've got the rifle now,” Kim said flatly. “From the sound of it, there's fresh water, and food at the Abbey. We'd just need more people and it could work. For all of us.”

“There's food now,” I said, “but in the winter, it's going to be cold and hungry just like anywhere else.”

“Here,” Kim said, pulling a small sachet out of her pocket. “Vinegar. To preserve the food through the winter.”

“Right,” I said, taking it sceptically. “Of course, we'd need more. A lot more. Perhaps we could cycle back there. Perhaps in a week or two the zombies would have dispersed.”

“The point,” Kim said, exasperatedly, “I was making, is chip shops. There's one in every street of every town, near enough. Salt and vinegar in every one, and who'd've looted it? Sugar too. Except Annette had eaten all that there was in that place.”

“We should find her a toothbrush,” I muttered, automatically, but I was thinking about that house, about how easy it would be to find. All we needed to do was go to a library and find a directory of private schools, then drive or cycle round until we found one with a tower. It wouldn't take long, just a couple of days. Then, as Kim said, with more people the Abbey could be turned into a fortress. The walls could be extended, more crops planted, the fruit preserved, furniture and fittings could be brought up from the houses in the village. It could be turned into so much more than just a pile of ruins. And all it would take was a just a little more time.

It seems the sensible thing to do, but it also seems like just another diversion, just a few more days of putting off what I have to do.

Part 2 – Escape

Day 112, Brazely Abbey, Hampshire.

20:00, 2
nd
July.

This morning, I know it sounds crazy and I wouldn't have said it out loud, I wouldn't even be writing it now if things hadn't changed, but as we drove off all that kept running through my head was “Man, Woman, two children. We should have got one of those bumper stickers.”

Early this morning, so early it was really still night, unable to sleep for Daisy's crying, I went outside and finished siphoning off the fuel in the cars we weren't going to take. In the end we left with twenty ten litre jerry-cans, close to forty gallons and a full tank of petrol. Take a map of Britain, stick a pin in anywhere and we had enough fuel to get there.

It was my choice to take the giant yellow 4x4 pick-up truck. It was closest to the gates, the easiest to get out, and I liked how it seemed to loom over the other cars. According to the log book it's been sitting on the lot for two years. I can't imagine who thought something like that would sell in rural England. It seemed sturdy enough back in the garage, bur after a day's driving I’m not so sure. It's got a high clearance, though, and I did find that useful.

Baby seats weren't a problem, either. Three of the smaller cars near the entrance, each emblazoned with an optimistic “Family Friendly” sticker, had them fitted in the back seat.

“You know where we're going. You drive. I'll open the gate,” Kim said after we'd strapped Daisy in.

“You drive, and I'll do the gate,” I said, trying to make it sound not like some chauvinistic chivalric response.

“I'll drive, you both open the gate,” Annette said.

“You know how to drive?” I asked.

“No,” Kim replied at the same time. “Get inside, Annette. You too, Bill. Yesterday you could barely stand.” She turned and walked up the driveway toward the gate and its waving sea of hands. “Well?” she asked, her back to us.

We got into the truck. I turned the key. The engine roared. I hadn't expected that. I'd expected it to be loud. I'd half realised it would sound louder, since the only background noise was the low gnashing snap of the undead by the gates. It was far louder than that. It sounded louder than the music had been. We should have taken a different car, but overnight close to forty of the undead had gathered around the gates. I wanted to leave, and I liked the power the sound of the engine represented.

I watched as, with her axe in her right hand, Kim walked up the drive, and pulled up the bolts pinning the gate into the concrete of the road. Teeth snapped and hands clawed, as she unlocked the padlock. She hesitated, glanced back. I revved the engine. She pulled out the chain, and threw back the central bar holding the gate closed. Under the pushing weight of the undead it began to swing open.

She took a pace back, swung the axe into the widening gap, half severing the arm of the nearest zombie. I edged the car forwards, as she took another pace back, turned and started running down the slope towards the car. I eased forward, an inch at a time, waiting for her to get out of the way, waiting for her to move to the left or the right. She didn't. She kept running straight at the cab. One foot went onto the tow bar, the other up onto the bonnet and then there was a thud as she rolled over the cab and into the truck bed behind us.

“Drive!” she shouted, slapping her hand against the rear window.

I did. I put my foot down and the truck barrelled forward. There wasn’t enough speed to do more than push the undead out of the way. As we crept up the incline toward the road, undead hands banged down on the glass, grotesque faces slammed into the window and Annette screamed. One of the side windows cracked and Daisy started to cry. Kim shouted “Drive, Drive, Drive!” as I glanced at the rear view mirror and saw her swinging the axe at encroaching hands and arms, and snapping mouths.

With a bump, we drove onto the road. The wheels were pointing slightly towards the right, so that was the way that we went. As the car straightened, I put the pedal to the floor. The speedometer edged upwards. Then the garage was behind us. We were through Them, and there was only one more zombie in front of us. It was coming out of an old bridle path at the edge of a field. I couldn't dodge it. The road was too narrow. I shifted gear, and accelerated again. The needle vibrated, getting higher, edging up towards thirty as I gunned the engine and hit the creature square on. It went down and under the truck. The car rocked, then nearly skidded off the road as we drove over it. Annette screamed again.

“It's OK. We're through,” I said, as much to myself as to her. I glanced backwards. They couldn't keep up, but They were following. We came to a junction. I turned left and drove on for about a mile, until we came to a slight rise. Then, after checking and double checking the rear mirror I stopped. Kim didn't get in immediately. She got down of the back of the truck, and took a moment to walk around the car.

“Much damage?” I asked, when she got inside.

“Not really. The cracked window's the worst of it. Some dents. Looks like we've lost a few lights.”

“Right.” I breathed out. Then I breathed out again, I felt like I was about to throw up. “Another hour, we'll be at the Abbey.”

“Then let's get going,” Kim said. We got in and I started the engine again.

“South, then east, then north and we'll loop around the Abbey and come at it from the west,” I said, glancing over my shoulder and through the window. I saw a solitary zombie lurch out of a field and into the road three hundred yards behind us. “Where there's one,” I muttered, as we drove off.

Ten miles an hour. That's how fast it's safe to go. I had visions of putting my foot down, letting the engine sing, of hurtling down country roads, of putting the brakes on less than an hour later outside the gates to the Abbey. But the undead are everywhere. They hear the car coming, They head out into the middle of the road, and They come at us. At ten miles an hour, perhaps a little more, you can hit a zombie, knock it down and drive right over it. When I tried driving faster, a few times when the road ahead looked clear, we almost crashed.

It's a twofold problem. When a body falls out of the hedgerow towards the car, instinct takes over and I start to break. I catch myself, but only when after it's too late. We hit those zombies with the side of the car, pulling the creature under the rear tyres. As we drove over it, we'd lose traction, start to skid, and then Annette would scream, and Daisy would start to cry and Kim would sigh.

If we hit Them head on, there's a fifty fifty chance of the zombie rolling up the bonnet to hit the windscreen. The zombie isn't dead, of course, and whilst its legs might be broken, its snapping teeth are just a few millimetres of glass away. Having that happen once was one time too many, so we stuck to ten miles an hour. That's a lot slower than cycling. Worse, at that speed we had no hope of outdistancing the zombies following us.

Annette bounced from seat to seat, peering out each window in turn, counting the zombies following us whilst looking out for that house with the flag. She kept up a constant litany of “No flag there... Twenty eight...No flag there... Thirty two... No flag... Thirty five... No flag... Forty six...” As long as it was distracting the girl more than she was distracting me, I didn't feel I could complain.

I knew where we were, but only in relation to the main roads and larger towns, not the smaller lanes where we might lose this comet's tail of death trailing behind us. After about thirty miles of circling, detouring and back tracking we were barely any closer than when we'd started. I considered, then, of just forgetting about the Abbey and trying to cross the motorway instead. I almost did it, but it wasn't my place to make that decision for Kim and Annette.

“I'm turning towards the Abbey at the next junction,” I said. “We can't lose Them. Either we head for safety or...”

“Fine,” Kim said cutting me off.

I took a left, then a right a mile later. An hour after that we were twenty miles from, and heading straight towards, the Abbey. Then I saw it, running out of the field in front of us and heading towards the car.

My blood ran cold. I'd never seen one run before, nor seen one wave its arms so frantically. They didn't tire, They didn't need to sleep, speed was one of the few advantages we had, but if They could run, then what chance did we have?

“Hold on,” I said gritting my teeth and putting my foot down on the accelerator as I aimed the car straight at it.

“Stop! You'll hit her!” Annette screamed. Kim grabbed the steering wheel, shoving it hard left, then pulling it right again, missing the woman by inches.

“Break!” Kim yelled. I did, but mostly out of reflex. Only when we had stopped, and I looked in the mirror and saw the woman jogging towards the car, did I realise that she wasn't a zombie.

I glanced around, looking for others. I spotted a figure falling through a hedge into the road two hundred yards further up. From the way it's arms thrashed and spasmed, I was certain it was one of the undead.

“Drive, then!” the woman said, climbing into the back, next to Annette.

“There's no one else?” I asked.

“No. Just me. Drive,” she snapped back. “You need to make a left half a mile ahead,” she added, after looking around the cab. “The farm with the green roofed barn. You see it? There's five of us. We've a car, but no fuel. No food either. Zombies got in, ruined our crop. Where were you heading?”

“An Abbey with an orchard and fruit and vegetables,” Annette said.

“Brazely,” I added.

“Right,” she said, firmly. “Strong walls?”

“Strong enough.”

“You've spare fuel?”

“About forty gallons. In the back,” I said.

“More than enough,” she replied.

“What for?”

“I just told you. We've a car but no fuel,” she said, as if that was explanation enough. Perhaps it was.

Even without the woman directing me, I would have known which farm was occupied. Rough timber boards had been crudely cemented along an old stone wall. Standing around ten feet high, topped with an occasional strand of barbed wire, it stood in stark contrast to the overgrown garden of the cottage opposite. It was the bodies, however, that were most striking. There weren't many, just eight or nine of Them, and They definitely were the bodies of the undead, scattered along the lane leading up to the farm house.

The woman opened the door before the car came to a stop, jumped out, and started pulling at the cords tying the fuel-cans to their place in the truck bed.

“Stay here,” I said to Annette, before getting out myself. I grabbed my pike and ran to stand in front of the truck, just by the road. In the distance I could see the undead coming.

A few were heading towards us across the neighbouring fields, but it was the larger mass, still in the distance, heading along the road that scared me most. They were minutes away, but if this inhuman mob, at least hundreds strong, reached us, we wouldn't stand a chance. I gripped the pike. My hand ached. I shifted my footing, trying to take the weight off my injured leg.

“We need to get out of here,” I yelled. There was no response, except that now familiar click-clack of the rifle. I glanced behind, saw the woman grab a can of fuel from the truck, saw Kim standing in the truck bed, the rifle in her hands, tracking back and forth across the undead. As I watched she swung the rifle to the right.

“Over there,” she yelled. I turned my attention back to the road.

They were in front of us. Seven zombies, coming along the road from the opposite direction, the one we would have to travel. Then there were eight, as a zombie pushed through what looked from that distance to be an impenetrable hedge.

The closest one doubled over. Click-clack. I glanced over at Kim who was reloading, then back down the road. The bullet had struck the zombie in the chest. It was already straightening up, a brownish stain almost invisible amongst the dirt and grime encrusted on its rotting clothing. It made only another three steps before it pinwheeled backwards, shot in the head.

“Hurry,” I yelled, this time without turning my head.

Another zombie fell. The next shot was a miss. And the next. The next one hit, and then I realised that Kim wasn't shooting at those which were closest, rather, I realised, she was trying to thin Them out. Ensuring I had time to recover between killing one and facing the next. I turned towards the truck, intending to shout a bitterly sarcastic word of thanks at Kim, when I saw Annette. She was standing by the truck's open door, a kitchen knife in her hand, looking nervous but determined.

“Back inside!” I yelled, and for the first time the girl obeyed me. I looked at the road, at the brick wall surrounding the drive. I tried to work out if we could just drive. If we could just go, leave these people, whoever they were. I glanced at the car to see what the delay was. The woman we'd rescued was still filling the car with petrol. At the back a man was loading some boxes into the boot. Another man stood just in front of the car, holding a shotgun. From there he would be able to protect the car, but not the truck, not us.