Surviving The Evacuation (Book 1): London (26 page)

I was barely above walking speed when I came to the one in the trench coat. It grabbed at me, missing my arm by inches, its hand tangling in the bag I'd hung from the handlebars. I almost went over. With my good leg on the ground, one hand balancing the front, my bad leg in the air, I kicked it squarely in the chest with my bad leg, the weight of the brace adding the extra heft needed to knock it to the ground, my bag still in its grip.

That's the A-Z, a bottle of water and a day's worth of food gone. I'll find another map somewhere round here, then get an idea of where I am, but without the map I got lost in the side streets and couldn’t find the churches I was looking for. That's no real setback I've
passed
a dozen today, none where I felt I could stop, but I'll find one sooner or later.

I'm still in London, I’m not sure exactly where, but about two miles from Croydon according to the road signs. A few streets back I caught sight of the towering office blocks. Even without the road signs I'd have known which way to look, the largest plume of smoke in south London is coming from there. Croydon is burning down again. The two tower blocks I could see were unaffected, but it can't be long before that fire spreads and then, well, then it'd be a good idea not to be anywhere near here.

I've managed about ten miles so far today, not quite the forty I'd hoped for but better than I've managed in all the weeks I've been travelling. I'd forgotten how many hills there are in London, I'm trying to avoid the undead as much as possible, and that's adding something to the journey time, but with no specific place to go, why hurry? I've found roads blocked by trees, others by stalled cars, others crowded with the undead.

I have seen countless storm drains blocked, overflowing gutters, broken windows, and an abundance of wallflowers taking root in the Victorian red brick. I have seen birds, squirrels and even, I think, a cat, but no humans. No survivors. All I can see is desolation, all I can smell is decay, all I can hear is the creaking, cracking sigh of undead voices on the wind, yet all I feel is hope.

18:00, near Reigate, Surrey.

I'm at a garden centre, though after months of inattention most of the plants have died. A few trees and bushes in the larger pots in the outside area open to the sky have survived, and shoots are peeking through some of the cracks in the concrete, but it's a pretty grim place. Someone has been here before, most of the sharper and heavier tools are gone, the break room and vending machine have been cleared out, but they had a selection of water butts, part of a display on water conservation, all outside, all open to the elements, all full.

The rear backs onto a railway line, it's a pretty steep embankment, too steep for one of the undead to climb, I think. It's too steep for me to climb without using my hands, and since They don't have that level of co-ordination I don't need to worry about any coming up that way whilst I sleep. I’m not taking any risks though, the front's closed off and I’m hidden near the back. If I need to I can push the fencing aside and the bank isn't so steep that I won't be able to get down to the train line without injury.

I did find a church and got a directory that lists (I think) all the institutions in the south of England. It's a handwritten address book that doesn't differentiate between churches and monasteries, but I suppose I shouldn't expect to find a book titled “In the event of the apocalypse head here”, not in a church at least.

It would have made a decent enough place to hide out for a few days. Possibly longer. Maybe months. It was all old heavy stone and thick oak doors, with high windows that started well above head height. There was a house with an entrance into the church and a secluded garden with fruit trees and high walls. Land to grow, walls to keep you safe. It was almost perfect. There were none of Them in there, but the pews weren't empty.

There was no sign of struggle or violence, just row upon row of bodies. I'm guessing they'd taken some kind of poison, who knows. From the level of decomposition it can't have been long after the outbreak. I don't know if this was the original congregation or some group that had banded together after the evacuation, I didn't see any point in trying to find out.

I closed the doors and left them there. I don't resent them, nor do I pity their final hours. It was their choice and it's not for me to judge, but I think that priest in Colombia had the right of it, that what we should fear most in this terrible world is fear itself.

I've had to tighten the leg brace. The kick I gave that one this morning didn't seem to hurt in the slightest, but the constant peddling, even at my sedate pace, that's loosened the straps. As for my leg itself, well, I’m not sure it has healed properly. Let me rephrase that, I know it's not going to have healed properly. It aches incessantly with a dull heat that's barely dented by paracetamol, but that's all I've got. There's no point dwelling on it. The water is almost boiling. Tonight I sleep, tomorrow I go on.

Day 72, near Alton, Surrey.

18:00

I passed a sign post a few miles back. London is now forty miles away to north east. The town of Alton is about two miles away to the south east. I was aiming due south, towards the coast but about three miles from the garden centre I saw a pack of Them hovering around a lorry.

My first instinct was to turn round and get out of there, so was my second, but there had to be someone inside that lorry, why else would They be gathered there, banging and scraping at the metal? I had to do something to help. If I could.

The road I was on travelled along a hill whose crest was to my left at the top of a field. To my right there was another field and beyond that a cluster of houses, and beyond that a railway and a commuter town. The lorry had swerved across the road at a junction where this road, a two lane one, met a smaller one at a crossroads that narrowed to one lane as it led up and over the hill.

Even if I ignored the occupants of the lorry there was no way that I could cycle past the undead crowding around it. There were too many to fight, and too narrow a stretch of road between the lorry and the thick hedgerow. I looked over at the town for a moment, somewhere inside there would be food, but I could see scores of the undead scattered across the roads even from that distance. That only left getting to the top of the hill and following the old farm road down to wherever it led, and if I was doing that why shouldn't I try and get Them to follow?

I pushed the bike up the side of the field, then along the ridge to the road and looked down on the junction. From there I had a better view. Both the cab and the lorry were on their sides. I couldn’t see inside the cab or make out what the cargo had been. Maybe it was food. It had to be valuable to take such a risk travelling on such narrow roads. If there were fewer of Them around the cab, then the driver could get out through the passenger side door, and if he or she were nimble enough, jump onto the back of the lorry and run along its edge and over and down into the field beyond. It was a reasonably decent escape route, by my reckoning, as long as the driver wasn't injured, and if they were, there was nothing I could do about it. I counted forty zombies that I could see, who knows how many more there were on the far side of the vehicle.

I raised my arms and started waving. They didn't notice me, and that was annoying. As long as I was at the top of the hill all I had to do was get on the bike and let gravity do the rest. I didn’t want to have to walk down towards the lorry only to have to run back up hill to escape, but after a few minutes I realised that was exactly what I had to do.

I walked forward ten paces, raised my arms and waved again. Nothing. I went another ten paces and waved again. Still nothing. I didn’t want to shout. I knew that would get their attention but it would also alert any of the undead that were on my escape route. I have found that as long as there are only one or two I have no problem getting past. All I have to do is aim at one side of the road and the zombie will head towards me, then I wait until I’m within twenty feet of it before I swerve to the opposite side. On the few occasions there have been more and when I can't avoid Them, it has only been my monumental luck that's kept me safe.

I was about fifty paces from the top of the hill when, finally, one spotted me. I waited as it turned and started moving towards me. I kept waiting whilst a second, then a third, began a slow march up the hill. I waited until about twenty of Them were making their way toward me, then I turned and trudged back up the hill. I didn't move fast, not even fast by my standards, I kept turning around to check They were following. By the time I was at the top of the hill the nearest was where I'd been standing when it had spotted me and there were none left around the lorry. I waited a few seconds more, hoping I would see the cab door open, see some sign of life from inside, but there was no movement. I got on the bike, turned in the saddle and then I waited some more.

The one in the lead started to move, not faster, but more frenetically, as if it was trying to speed up but the camber of the hill and its own dried up muscles prevented it. I took one more look at the lorry, raised my hand in a final farewell and, with the closest one no more than twenty paces away, I released the brake and kicked off from the ground. I didn't even have to pedal.

I was twenty metres down the road when the first one got to the top of the hill. When I glanced behind next there were a dozen following me but I was at least a hundred metres ahead. By the time I got to the junction three miles down the road the zombies were no longer in sight.

Maybe They didn't all follow me and maybe when I disappeared over the top of the hill They turned back to the poor soul in the cab of that lorry, someone who was perhaps too scared, to act quickly enough to get away. But I don't think so. It's hard to tell which sounds are real and which are imagined, at least when it comes to those sounds of the old world, but I think I heard a long blast of the horn. I think they seized the moment and got away and that was their final salute, a goodbye and thank you. I gave them a chance and I reckon anyone who's survived this long would recognise one and know when to take it.

It was about an hour later that I had to take my second detour. I'd wanted to stick to the wider multi-lane roads, where it was easier to dodge the undead, and which would lead me to the coast in less than a day, but I'd found most of the larger roads were encased in metal fences, a remnant of the evacuation route.

Even though the barriers had already been broken in a few places, which was how I'd crossed those roads when I've come to them. I didn't like the way the place felt. It was like crossing a bridge over a deep dark pit, with whatever was at the end, waiting to jump out and pull me down.

That's why I have stuck to the old, winding, hedge enclosed roads, ones whose width had been determined long ago by the size horse drawn carts, where there often wasn't enough space to try and outrun Them. Twice already I'd had to stop, dismount and dispatch zombies which blocked the road. Then I reached a point where a car had swerved and crashed head on into the hedge leaving only a narrow two foot gap between its boot and the impenetrable hedge on the other side. A gap that was filled with two zombies, who'd woken and were now heading towards me.

I got off the bike, turned it to face the other way in case there were more and I needed to make an escape, then turned to face Them. One was smaller, maybe a teenager, the other, probably male, was much older. Their clothes were little more than rags leaving their dried out skin exposed to the elements. They were barely recognisable as having once been human.

I took a step forward, braced my leg, and launched the pike forward in a scything motion, the blade cutting deep into the older zombie's skull. I gave my wrist a now much practised twist, pulled it free and swung again, killing the other before the first body had fully collapsed.

I took a moment to check there were no more, then levered the bodies out into the middle of the road. I cleaned the blade, and was about to remount the bike when I saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. Instinctively, and it had to be instinct because I would never knowingly have moved so fast, I swung the butt of my pike round towards it, hitting it in the chest, knocking it flying at least ten feet.

A rabbit!

I'd killed it, that was clear. And not, I think, from a head wound. At this point, as it's roasting on the fire, I don't really care whether it's infected or not. I thought about it a long while on my ride here, but I don't think it is. It's blood looked normal enough when I skinned it, or did my best at skinning it. I think if the birds are unaffected then so to are the animals. I’m going to make sure it's well cooked, though.

The smell of roasting meat! Not just roasting meat, but meat I killed myself. That's something I've never done before. It officially makes me a Hunter, very definitely with a capital H.

I've got to get better at the butchering and find out what parts of the insides of animals you can eat, which you can't and how to tell the difference. That's another book to find.

Not much eating on a single rabbit. Still, no complaints tonight.

After the rabbit I had to take one more diversion, this time around a blocked coach. It was stuck in the middle of the road, at a steep bend. When I stopped I was close enough to read the garage's name on the licence plate, more than close enough for the zombies in the back seat to see me.