Surviving The Evacuation (Book 5): Reunion (12 page)

“So why do you want to go to the supermarket if there won’t be supplies there?”

“There’ll be supplies on the boat,” he said, with an unnerving certainty.

“Answer the question,” she said.

“Didn’t I tell you? I thought I… sorry. I know we’re in a hurry, but there’s no need to rush. We’ve still got a day to give ourselves the best chance we can, so I’d like to find something that floats.”

“What?” And this time she nearly screamed.

“No, no,” he added hastily. “I mean as a backup plan. If we can get straight through the city, and to the factory, it’ll be a short run to the boat. But if we can’t, it’d be far easier to get into the estuary and float our way down to it. For that we need something plastic or hollow, and I thought the supermarket would be the obvious place to look. It’s going to be too dangerous when we get into the city. A couple of the delivery crates would be perfect. And whilst we’re there, we can get some phones.”

“Phones?” Now anger settled back into confusion.

“Here,” he fished inside his pack, bringing out a small metal canister.

“Is that some kind of explosive?”

“Well, it is pressurised,” he said with a grin. “So I dare say if you threw it into a fire you’d get a nice bang, but no. That’s not even flammable. It’s helium.”

“Helium? Like in balloons?”

He took out a small, silver-foiled rectangle. “Exactly like balloons,” he said. “We tie a phone to a couple of balloons, set whatever track comes preloaded to play on repeat, and let the wind carry it away. The zombies follow.”

“Does that work?”

“It’s worked before. Look, out here in the open if you see a zombie coming, you just run in the other direction. In a city it’s different. They’re everywhere. You kick over a bin, and an empty street fills up. They hear you, and break through windows to topple out behind and in front and on top. You can’t travel in a straight line, so the bikes’ll be no use once we get into the alleys and side roads. We don’t have time to do anything but run as fast as we can. Cars are out. Even if we could find one that didn’t have a dead battery, empty tank, or a flat tyre, they’ll hear us coming and fill the roads. You have to run ‘em down, and each time you end up with more of their remains clogging the wheels and engine until you grind to a halt. We’ve got the time now, you see, but once we get to the city there’ll be no time to do anything but run. For that, we need an edge. This one works.”

She took a moment to visualise it. “Alright. We go to the supermarket, get a couple of crates or something that’ll float, and how many phones do we need?”

“We’ve enough balloons for ten,” he said as he repacked his bag.

“This is insane,” Nilda said as she kicked off, and they cycled off towards the supermarket. And it was, but there was little sanity to be found in a journey across an undead wasteland with an unrepentant criminal, all in the hope her son was waiting at Westminster Cathedral. She knew true madness would come were she to think about it. The trick was to take it one step at a time. Get to the supermarket. Cross the city, get to the boat. Get out to sea. Follow the coast, then the River Thames. Get to London and then… she put on a burst of speed, hoping the activity would prevent her thinking about a journey that could realistically end in nothing but death.

It wasn’t just a supermarket, it was a vast retail park. From the grass verge of a roundabout, Nilda scanned the signs above the warehouse-like units opposite them. Fast-food chains, clothing stores, the catalogue stores that had bafflingly flourished in the internet age, and an assortment of what had once been called high street names, before shopping had moved online and out of town.

There were a few vehicles, some parked neatly, others haphazardly, two were clearly abandoned with their doors wide open, and one had been driven into the front of a sports-fashion outlet. But what had caught her eye were the living dead, moving listlessly between the cars and the buildings.

Chester unslung the rifle. “I’ve twenty-five rounds left, but it jammed back on the moor. I won’t know if it works until I try it.”

“It doesn’t matter. Twenty-five won’t be enough.” She could count at least thirty undead. There would be more hidden from view, and from the broken glass in front of many of the windows, more still inside. Far too many to reach the supermarket on the other side of the retail park. “No, there’s no way we’re going to fight our way through that lot.”

“We can try somewhere else,” Chester said. “Maybe some house in the suburbs.” His lack of enthusiasm was matched by Nilda’s own reluctance to do anything but reach that boat and get safely out to sea
.

“Forget the supermarket,” she said. “We want that catalogue store. They’d have sold kids’ floats for swimming. Maybe even accessories for surfing. They’d definitely have phones, and it’ll all be kept in the warehouse behind the shop.” She pointed to the nearest edge of the closest building. “If we follow this verge, then that ditch there - you see it? Right, so then we’d just have to jog across the loading bay. I can’t see any…” She scanned the exposed patch of asphalt. “No, there aren’t any undead there. Twenty minutes to get inside, ten to find what we need, another twenty to get back to the bikes, okay?”

It took only fifteen minutes to get to the store’s loading bay, and they reached it undetected. Nilda looked back and forth in anxious expectation of discovery whilst Chester tried the handle to the access door. It was unlocked. Nilda breathed out with relief and stepped inside first.

It was dark. The only illumination came from a row of narrow windows running along the top of the exterior wall, half of which were blocked by densely packed shelves that ran from floor to ceiling. Bracing herself, expecting to be attacked at any moment, she switched on her flashlight. The warehouse seemed empty. Listening for any sound, she moved gingerly away from the door.

Chester tapped her arm. He pointed towards a shelf near the entrance, on which were plastic bottles of water. Chester picked one up, pointed towards the missing cap, and turned it upside down. He met her eyes, making sure she understood. She did. Someone had held out in the warehouse until all the bottles were empty. And now that she was looking for it she saw that the boxes on that one shelf were different to the others. Some bore the logo of a fast-food outlet, others of a pharmacy. There wasn’t time to investigate and find out the story of the people who’d taken refuge here. Whoever they were, their supplies were all used up. She moved down the nearest aisle and towards the warehouse’s interior, playing the light up and down the boxes.

Children’s play-sets shared space with widescreen televisions and flat-pack furniture. In between, seemingly crammed at random, were smaller items, mostly cheap toys and cheaper jewellery
.
She aimed the light through a gap at the items in the next aisle along. It was the same as the previous one except with boxes of crockery on the lower shelves. The few things that would float were too bulky to carry, and the only expensive items were those too large to be easily stolen. It made her think that…

“There.” She pointed to a metal staircase. Underneath was a cage door. “The valuable stock will be kept in there. Trust me, when it comes to stockrooms I really do know what I’m talking about.”

The door to the cage was unlocked, the room beyond unoccupied. They found the phones, stuffing them into their packs, choosing them based on which had the least packaging.

“And something that floats,” Chester murmured, looking first at the shelves in the cage, then at those in the nearest aisle outside. There was a clatter to her left. Nilda pivoted, the light pinned to her chest turning with her, falling on a zombie’s snarling maw.

As its talon-like fingers grasped towards her, she stepped back, tripped, and fell as the creature’s other hand swiped through the air above her. She brought the sword up in front, but with her weight on her elbow she couldn’t swing. Kicking with her feet, scrabbling backward, she tried to put some space between her and the zombie.

Then Chester was there, standing right above her, the revolver in his hand, an empty plastic bottle stuck onto the muzzle. He pulled the trigger. There was a bright flash as the gunpowder ignited, a sharp pop as the improvised silencer exploded, and a spray of blood and brain as the creature’s head was blown apart.

“Always wanted to try that,” Chester murmured, holding out his hand. Nilda took it and let the man pull her up, but she didn’t reply. She was listening. The shot had been muffled, but the sound was still louder than the warehouse’s previous silence. Whether it was that, or that of the zombie’s attack, or of Nilda hitting the ground, there had been too much noise. She heard a snarling wheeze. No, she realised, two of them.

She peered into the gloom, readying herself as the creatures lurched forward, banging against shelves, knocking over boxes. They were coming from the front left hand side of the store. She gripped her sword tightly and whispered, “Have you got any more of those bottles?”

“I wish I did,” Chester grunted back.

Nilda bit back a sarcastic retort about escape plans. Two zombies, she told herself, that was all they were facing. She’d killed more than that before. It was the forbidding gloom that was throwing her; the weak beam from the flashlight’s LED did little more than add depth to the darkness.

“We kill them, and we get out, get back to the bikes, and go straight to this boat,” she said. But she was speaking to herself, too softly for Chester to hear. Then she rid her mind of all thoughts of escape, of the future, and that there even was a world outside the grim warehouse. She focused on the sounds of the undead, and stalked towards them.

They saw her light before she saw them, and she knew they’d spotted her by the sudden increase in clattering boxes falling from the shelves. They were heading towards her. She braced herself, raised the sword, half-closed her eyes, listening, gauging distance. She took a breath, pulled the sword back, and stabbed it forward as the first creature lurched into the shallow pool of light. The zombie was taller than she’d expected. Much taller. The blade cut through the creature’s throat. She twisted, stepping sideways out of the way of an out-flung hand. The blade came free. The zombie’s head tilted sideways. Brown-red pus dripped slowly out of the gaping wound yet, improbably, impossibly, it still lurched towards her. She pulled her arm back once more, stabbed forward, spearing the sword straight through its neck. Her left hand now on the pommel, she pushed and twisted upwards to break through sinew and bone and into its brain. Its arms fell to its sides as it finally died, and Nilda found she was holding the corpse up. She twisted the blade, trying to free it. There was a ripping of skin, spine and gristle as its body fell whilst its head stayed impaled on her sword.

Frozen in shock, she looked at the twice-dead face, eyes reflecting the light of her torch. Somehow, out of all the horrors since the outbreak, this was the worst. Transfixed, she had forgotten about the second creature. China smashed to the floor. She saw the zombie, its gaping maw snapping open and shut, just three feet away. She tried to move. She couldn’t.

There was an explosion of light and sound right next to her. The zombie’s face exploded.

“Figured we didn’t need to worry about noise anymore,” Chester said, gun in hand. He saw the head impaled on her sword, and knocked it free with the butt of his revolver. It rolled off, into the darkness, but she knew the image of that decaying head on the tip of her sword was one she would never forget.

“You’re alright,” Chester stated, grabbing her arm and dragging her with him until she remembered how to use her legs.

“Okay,” she said. The word came out weakly. She had to swallow, and for a moment thought she was going to throw up. “I’m okay,” she said. “Let’s get out of here. Like you said, a couple of plastic boxes will do, or maybe some bicycle inner tyres or… I don’t know. Let’s just leave. Get to the estuary, and get away from all this death.”

He nodded. They headed back towards the rear door. Chester kicked it open.

Whether it was shock, exhaustion, that they were still partly deafened from the gunshot, or from the blood singing in their ears, they hadn’t heard the undead on the other side of the door. Nilda couldn’t count how many, she just saw snapping teeth, flailing arms, and open mouths. Chester raised the revolver and fired again as he tried to grab the door’s handle, but he’d fired too quickly. The bullet missed. The nearest creature had stepped forward, its leg now in front of the door.

“Back! Back!” Chester yelled, grabbing at Nilda’s arm. But this time she didn’t need his prompting. Letting fear take over, she ran. There was another shot, and then she heard Chester running after her.

Down the aisles, banging into shelves, slipping on the brown-red gore of the twice-dead, tripping on fallen boxes, stumbling back to her feet, she ran to the front of the warehouse. There was a double set of reinforced doors with a number pad and a pair of locks. She grabbed the handle, but the door was closed fast.

“There,” Chester barked, trying to point whilst he reloaded the revolver.

She saw what he was gesturing at. A stationary conveyor belt led through a set of plastic flaps. That, she guessed was to take the larger items from the warehouse out to the collection points at the front of the shop. She ran onto it, pushing the hard plastic apart. The flaps slapped against her as she fell to her knees and dragged herself through the dark, narrow tunnel. More plastic. The belt led upward. There was a heavy gate in front, and she panicked for a moment before she realised it was propped open. Two tower-computers stood on either side, taking its weight. She kicked her way through, trying not to think about what might be on the other side. Another set of flaps, these brightly coloured and embossed with the stores logo, and she fell down onto the shop floor behind the tills. She rolled to her feet, sword in hand, swivelling left and right and left again, looking for the undead. There weren’t any. She turned back to the conveyor belt. Where was Chester? She could hear him, still cursing. She pushed the plastic out of the way, and saw him struggling through the narrow gap. His pack was caught on the top.