Surviving The Evacuation (Book 5): Reunion (20 page)

“The cream’s gone off,” he said. “And there’s no coffee, so you’ll have to make do with tea. Sorry. The ice cream’s melted.” He looked genuinely disappointed at that. “But…” He went back into the storeroom, and came out a few seconds later carrying a large box. “There are wafers.” He grinned.

Wafers and jam. Not a mixed diet, but better than dog-food stew.

“Nothing else?” she signed.

He just shrugged. Ten minutes later they were sitting out in the sunshine, spooning jam from the jar with the ice cream cones. She tried to enjoy the moment – there were so few like it – but as her gaze drifted lazily across the surrounding parkland, she saw a distant figure stumbling awkwardly across a strip of road. It was over a kilometre away, and wasn’t heading in their direction, but it fractured the illusion of tranquillity. She took out the map.

“Hull is here.” She pointed.

“Didn’t Bran say we should avoid the cities?” Jay half signed and half mumbled through a mouthful of crumbs.

“Yes. So we can’t go there.” She’d hoped they might find a boat and follow the coast down, sleeping on board out of reach of the undead, only going ashore to find food. It would have been even slower than walking, but they would have been able to sleep safely. She circled her finger at a spot on the table a few inches below the bottom of the map. “Norfolk is here. To avoid it, either we go out to sea or stay inland.”

“So we go straight to London?” he asked, drawing a line down the map and onto the table.

“We go to the east of London, find a boat and follow the Thames. The river,” she added. “A ship will be safer than sleeping on land.”

“And what about food?”

She pointed at the jar of jam “We’ll find it,” she signed. “And there’s a house in Richmond. Near Kew Gardens.” Jay now just looked confused. “Near the river.” she signed. “It belonged to a Major.” Another look of confusion “To a friend. He had fruit trees in his garden. It’s almost the right time of year to pick fresh fruit.”

She had to take out her notepad to explain a few words, but he got the message.

“Fruit sounds good. Were there oranges? I like oranges.”

She shook her head, smiling. “Not in England. It’s the wrong climate. Not hot enough. There were apples. Pears.”

“Apples?” he repeated the sign back. “Okay.” He looked disappointed, and her smile turned into a genuine, silent chuckle.

The jam added a reassuring weight to their bags. To Jay’s consternation, she had to crush the wafers in order that they would fit. Before they left, Jay wrote a note on the board advertising cream teas.

“Mum. We came this way. Jay & Tuck. 27
th
May”

He propped the board up under the skylight where it was most likely to be seen, then copied the message onto the glass doors of the cafe itself.

“We’ll find more bikes,” Tuck signed as they took to the road once more. “And if we’re lucky, we could be in London before June.”

20
th
July - nr Teddington Lock

London

Tuck stared across the river. To the east she could see Teddington Lock, and it was blocked by the wreckage of scores of vessels. From their appearance, they had been left unmoored further upstream and dragged downriver by the current. Now they formed a thick blockade through which no boat could possibly pass.

That was doubly frustrating. Not only did it ruin any plans of following the river to Westminster, and probably beyond, but it meant they’d wasted the previous day. She’d led them across London towards the lock itself, her principal concern being whether the mechanism could be opened without electricity. Having satisfied herself that it could, they’d started searching for a boat, only to find the river thoroughly blocked five minutes later. That equal mix of good and bad fortune chimed perfectly with their journey down from the Moors.

On leaving that cafe, they had found bikes in the first house they had come to, only to be forced to abandon them less than an hour later when Jay heard heavy vehicles approaching. Three military trucks with a police motorbike outrider and a Land Rover bringing up the rear were heading south, heedless of speed and the undead. It was the zombies woken by the convoy’s passage that had forced them off the roads once more. They’d spent another two days, and three sleepless nights, cutting across fields and footpaths, dashing across roads, and keeping to the cover of woodland before the need to boil up more drinking water had forced them back into the relative cover of an abandoned house.

After that, it was nearly two months of travelling a few miles each day, spending as much time scavenging for food and water as they had getting closer to London. Finally, they had reached the M25 orbital motorway that ringed the capital, and two days later, they now stood on the roof of a warehouse – part of a film studio, according to the plaque on the gate – overlooking the Thames.

On the southern bank she could see two boats moored a few metres from one another. Judging by how they bobbed up and down in the current, both were sea-worthy, but they were on the wrong side of the river.

She put that problem to one side. It wasn’t why they had come up onto the roof. Jay had heard an engine. Probably. He was certain he’d heard something. Probably certain.

“It took us too long,” Jay signed. “It’s gone. Whatever it was, wherever it came from, it’s gone.”

Tuck nodded her agreement. It had been at least thirty minutes since he’d first reported hearing it. Less than five minutes of that was spent climbing the wall, then the rickety metal staircase running up the side of the building. Most of the lost time came from making sure there wasn’t some legion of the undead lurking inside the studio compound.

“In which direction did you hear it?” she asked again.

He pointed eastwards, across the river towards Kew Gardens. “Probably,” he added. “But I can’t be certain, I mean, sound echoes doesn’t it?”

It did. Again she surveyed the river’s southern bank. There was no sign of life, but there was movement. Ragged scarecrow figures shambled along a distant road. She pointed.

“See them?” she signed. “They must be following the engine.”

“Then it is gone?”

She nodded, then walked over to the edge of the building and sat down, her legs dangling over the side. Could they cross the river? The easiest way would be to find a bridge further upstream or perhaps at a lock downstream. It would be time-consuming, but not difficult, not when compared to the journey down from Penrith. Getting back to the northern side of the river would be much easier. They could just use one of the two boats moored on the bank opposite. No, it wouldn’t be difficult, but it wouldn’t be safe either. Not completely. Was it worth the risk when the only reward was a garden’s worth of unripe fruit? No, of course not.

There was another reason she wanted to go to the Major’s house. She wanted to know that he was dead. That, too, she hadn’t shared with Jay. But she couldn’t risk his life on her own quest for reassurance.

And then she saw what she’d been looking at for the last five minutes. There were three bodies lying in front of one of the boats. They were clearly those of the undead. Who had killed them? Probably whoever had used that boat. They must have travelled from somewhere upstream and stopped there when they saw the river was blocked. There was a certain logic to that. What didn’t make sense was why they would have moored the boat at a spot where the undead were waiting. She could be wrong, but the only reason she could come up with was that there were supplies on the boat, someone had moored it, gone ashore, and come back with the undead following, then killed three of them and then… died or gone away. It didn’t matter which. All that mattered was that there might be supplies still inside.

She waved Jay over and pointed out the boat.

“You want to see if someone comes back?” he asked.

“You heard an engine from that side of the river. That’s the first one since we left Yorkshire. It’s too much of a coincidence. They might be connected,” she amended. “Let’s wait for a few hours. It’s safe enough up here.”

Jay shrugged, sat down, and rummaged in his pack for food. He was always hungry, she thought, trying to remember if she was like that when she’d been his age, or whether it was the product of irregular meals and even more irregular menus. She allowed herself to relax in the unaccustomed feeling of momentary security. She felt safer than she had in weeks. Months, really. It was the tall roof and the wide wall around the perimeter. Perhaps they could stay in the studio for a few days. Some rest would do them both good. They’d have to find food, of course, but that could wait for a few more hours. Yes, she thought, a couple of hours watching the river would be a welcome vacation from horrific reality.

Half an hour later, Tuck spotted movement in the distant treeline. So did Jay, and his arm shot out, obscuring her view. She pushed it down. A figure stumbled across the grass and down towards the boat.

“He’s hurt,” Jay murmured. Tuck didn’t hear, but she was thinking the same thing. The figure had one hand on a shoulder, the other clamped under an armpit. He or she… No, he. As the man staggered closer she could make out the patchy beard. And he was stumbling, not running. He had that eternally falling-forward run of someone who just had enough energy left to get a foot out in front. At any minute he would collapse and then… Her eyes went to the near riverbank again, looking for a boat she might have impossibly missed. But there wasn’t one. There was nothing she could do to help the man. And as her eyes tracked back to him and she saw the undead emerging from the trees, she regretted that even more.

Agitated concern causing her to stand, she watched as the man faltered, tripped, fell, and managed to get back to his feet, and she wished she’d taken Bran up on the offer of one of the rifles. The breadth of the river, the distance between her and the north bank, and the too-slowly shrinking distance between the man and the boat, added up to a shot well beyond the rifle’s effective range. She just wished there was something she could do.

“What’s he doing? Where’s he going?” Jay asked. Then had to tug at her sleeve to get her attention before signing the question. She shook her head. He was going to the boat, that was obvious. Probably because it was his boat and the only safety he knew. And even then, there was still nothing they could do.

The undead got closer. The man had slowed. He was barely keeping ahead of them when he reached the shore and fell into the boat.

“Cut the rope! Cut the rope!” Jay hissed.

The nearest zombie was eight feet from the bank. Seven. The boat was drifting out with the current, but not quickly enough. The undead, on reaching the quay, would step off and fall into the boat. Six. And the man was at the boat’s side. The rope came free. Four. The zombie lurched forward, tripping on the rope and fell, but only its head and grasping arms went over the edge of the concrete quay. Its body stayed on land. The man was safe, for now, as the boat slowly drifted out into the river.

“We have to do something,” Jay signed.

“Wait! Watch!”

The boat had been caught by the current and twisted around. For a moment Tuck thought it was going to be tugged down to the wreckage of boats massed in front of the lock, but it wasn’t. She pointed at a section of the riverbank about a hundred metres upstream. “There!” she signed. “That’s where it will hit the bank.”

Jay needed no further encouragement, he was already running to the studio’s fire escape.

Eight long minutes later they reached the river and once more gained sight of the boat. It had been caught by another current, pulled fifty metres further downriver, and though it was still heading towards the northern bank, it was certain to collide with a half-submerged cruiser. But they weren’t alone on the waterfront. Two zombies, woken from torpor either by the boat or the two of them running down to meet it, slouched out from behind a stone balustrade. Jay was in front, knives and crowbar still in his belt, seemingly oblivious to everything but the injured man in the boat.

Tuck wanted to yell. She tried to scream, but only managed a guttural cough. Gritting her teeth against frustration, she unslung the crossbow, aimed, and fired. The bolt went straight through the zombie’s forearm, spinning the creature around without doing any real damage but Jay caught the sudden erratic motion. He turned his head and saw the danger.

Walking forward, Tuck reloaded. She stopped, aimed, fired. The second bolt punched through the creature’s head. It fell, and Jay, who’d paused ready to fight, glanced back once, then sprinted on, heading straight to the boat.

As she reloaded, Tuck allowed herself a brief glance downriver. The boat had hit the submerged cruiser and become entangled in the wreckage of steel and carbon fibre. It seemed to be stuck, but there was no sign of the injured man.

The remaining zombie was following Jay, but he was running now, way beyond its clawing reach. She aimed, and pulled the trigger. The bolt sailed through the air, but dropped a quarter metre in flight, and punched through the creature’s chest. It kept stumbling forward, seemingly heedless of the half metre length of wood and steel running through its lung.

She pulled out a knife, and got within a metre before the zombie finally heard her. It spun around just as she stabbed forward, one of its arms windmilling against her shoulder. She ignored it as she plunged the blade through the creature’s open mouth, up into its brain. It fell.