Surviving The Evacuation (Book 3): Family (12 page)

We found this farmhouse just before it started getting dark. There wasn’t much food here, though. Someone’s been here to loot the place before us. We did find a few dozen tomatoes growing around the back of a summerhouse and a couple of olive trees by the front door. The tomatoes were green and the olives were so small and tough I think they must have been a purely ornamental variety, but food is food.

I feel bad that we couldn’t stop to help whoever was down in Worcester. I think we all do, but Daisy and Annette have to come first. We have to get them somewhere safe. If there is such a place.

Day 134, Ludhill Tunnel, 10 miles east of Welsh border

16:00, 24
^th
July

It was around noon that we first heard it.

“Thunder?” Kim asked.

“Must be,” I answered automatically, whilst my eyes scanned the sky. Thunder meant rain. If it was another storm then we needed to find shelter, but the sky was clear.

“We should look for somewhere to stop,” Kim said, though there was a trace of doubt in her voice.

“Can you hear it?” Annette asked, as she, with Sholto just behind, came to a stop next to Kim and I. “It sounds like the wind is ripping up the trees. Sholto’s been telling me all about tornado alley, haven’t you?” She turned, and Sholto smiled and nodded, but the moment she looked away a puzzled look returned to his face. “Sounds terrifying. Come on,” she added with a grin, “no point stopping here.”

She was right. We headed on. The sound must have been there for some time. I’d just been so focused on Daisy I hadn’t noticed it. Nor had I noticed that we’d not seen any zombies for a while, either. I knew that meant something, but I couldn’t focus on what. Daisy was alternating between crying and wailing and it was all I could do to keep hold of her and the bike heading in a straight line.

Kim reached the top of the hill first. I couldn’t see her expression, but her shoulders slumped.

“What is it?” I called out, as I neared the top. She turned to look at me. I’ve seen her scared, I’ve seen her angry, I’ve seen her triumphant. I’ve even seen her happy a few times. I’d never seen that expression of horrified disbelief before. She didn’t answer me. She didn’t need to. I reached the top of the hill and saw it for myself.

At first I thought it was just a massive cloud of dust, a freak weather phenomenon caused by the nuclear bombs. It stretched for miles, the dust seeming to carry right to the horizon. Then I looked down at the edge nearest us, barely five miles away down in the valley. That’s when I saw the dot like figures moving back and forth at the ragged edges of a horde millions upon millions of zombies strong.

“That’s it. That’s everyone,” she whispered, “That’s the undead of England.”

It explained why we’d seen so few today. It explained, in part, why the only times I’ve really seen more than a few thousand in one place it had been at the barricades in London or on the M4. It explained it all. They were all here, turning grass and fields, trees and stone, houses and cars and all the rest into dust and mud.

“What...” Annette began when she and Sholto reached the top of the hill. She didn’t finish the question.

“Five million? Ten? Twenty?” Kim muttered.

“It’s... impossible.” Sholto’s voice was hoarse, without a trace of his usual careless cheerfulness.

“Where are they going? Are they coming this way?” Annette asked, then the edge of desperation turned to panic as she croaked, “Can they see us?”

“No. We’re too far away.” I hoped. “We should go.”

“Where?” Kim asked, “There’s no escaping that. Where on this whole wretched little island can we go to get away from that?”

“Well, for starters, we can go back down the hill.”

We’d no idea how many there were. We’d no idea what direction they were going, except that the land around us looked untouched. We went back down the hill and headed west, because that’s the direction the first track we came to led.

“Farms are out,” Sholto said. “Houses too, They’d just knock them down.”

We were cycling nearly abreast, pedalling hard though none of us knew where we were going.

“Is it getting louder?” Annette asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“That’s good, right?”

“Not really, I don’t think it’s getting any quieter, either. That means we’re heading in roughly the same direction.”

“Do we go back, then?” Kim asked, frustration in her eyes.

“Let’s stop a moment.”

I brought the bike to a halt and took out the map.

“We shouldn’t stop,” Annette said. “We should hurry before They catch us.”

“We’re hours ahead of it.” I tried to keep my voice calm.

“So we can outpace Them?” she asked.

“We’re managing about six miles an hour. Which is double what They are. Probably more.”

“So there’s no problem,” Annette said, sighing with relief, “We just cycle south for a day, then west tomorrow and find a way around Them.”

“Wouldn’t work. We need to sleep. They don’t.”

“I got caught up by one of these down near Lenham,” Sholto said. “It wasn’t as big as this, though. You saw what it did to the land around there. I hid in a church. Say what you like about England, but you’re not short on churches.”

“That won’t do,” I said, tracing a line on the map.

“No, I mean I was in the crypt. Some of the church was knocked down, sure, and I ended up drinking the water from the font, but I survived there, underground.”

“No. It’s Daisy. She’ll cry. No matter what we do. And whilst They may not hear when They’re passing overhead, once it’s down to just a few hundred or a few thousand stragglers, They will.”

“Then we go back south,” Kim said.

“And then what? Perhaps if we only sleep for a few hours we might out distance Them, but then what? We’ll still need to find food, and still have to look after a baby crying all the time, in a land full of the undead.”

“A tower block, then?”

“That means a city,” I said, tracing a line along the map “One night in London thousands went by. Perhaps more. I don’t know. The next day there were dozens left, still all heading off in the same direction. It took days before They’d dispersed. We’d need a tower block right in the middle of a city and we’d need food for weeks, and even then...” I found it.

“So where then?” Annette whined plaintively.

“Here. The train line. You see it. The grey line.” I pointed to the map. “There’s an old branch line about here.”

“Where?”

“Between here and here.” I pointed. “It’s not marked because that branch was closed years ago. But it leads to a tunnel, here. That was closed as well, but they were going to open it up again. They’d sent engineers in to assess it. That’s where we go. Then we’ll wait until They’ve passed over us, then we wait some more, and then we keep going. We’re going to get to Wales and to that beach and I’m going to get you onto that boat.” I was determined now.

“That’s thirty miles away,” Kim said.

“Then we should get moving.”

It took an hour to find the train line. It was a terrifying hour. We came across a large pack of the undead, heading in the same direction that we were. They were strung out in ones and twos a hundred yards apart, and on the road we needed to travel along. The thundering roar of the horde that was acting like a siren to this smaller pack drowned out any noise we made. They didn’t notice us until we’d cycled past. Then They snarled and dived and sometimes just fell forwards in their eagerness to get at this fresh prey that had so wittingly appeared in their midst.

Then, we reached the old train tracks, and as they curved away from the road we escaped the pack and were alone once more.

The tunnel was exactly where it should have been. The entrance was sealed with sheet metal bolted to the brickwork. In the middle stood a small door, held closed with bolts and three padlocks. We used the powder from two of the remaining cartridges to blow the locks.

Kim pulled aside the door. I don’t think I ever really knew what pitch black really meant until I stared into that dark tunnel.

“It’s empty?” Kim half said, half asked.

“Wait. Listen,” I said. We all did.

“I can’t hear anything,” Annette said after a tense thirty seconds.

“No,” I said, “and the sound of that gunpowder going off would have drawn Them here if there were any inside.”

“Still, I, I don’t know,” Kim said. “We could get back to London or...”

“It’s too late. Look,” I pointed at the grey cloud on the horizon. “The horde is getting closer. It’s this or nothing.”

“He’s right, come on,” Sholto said, stepping inside. “Pass me the bikes.”

I waited until he and Annette were inside, then handed Daisy to Kim.

“Here, take her for a moment.” Then I emptied my bag onto the ground. “And take that stuff inside, Grab some wood from out here to burn. I’ll be back in an hour.”

I ignored the questions and shouts of protest, grabbed a bike and cycled back the way we’d come.

It wasn’t anger, frustration, irritation or insanity or anything else, not this time. It was just mathematics.

I don’t know if I’d been thinking clearly when I remembered the tunnel, but I had been since we’d set out for it. It was instinct that said turning back just wasn’t going to work. Running into that horde was as good a sign as any other that our luck had run out. Another week or more roaming the countryside would only end with us trapped or dead or worse. That’s why I was sure the tunnel was the right place to be. If we could survive just a few days we’d be able to continue on to Wales in knowledge that all the undead were behind us.

Reading it back it does seem like I might be hoping for too much. But as we were cycling along the railway track I didn’t have time to think about what would happen when we left the tunnel. I was fixated on the number of days we’d have to spend there. We’d enough food for three adults one child and one baby for four days. Assuming none of the adults ate much.

I’d tried to work out how big the horde was, but there were just too many variables. All I had to go on was gut instinct based on what I’ve experienced so far and that said we needed enough food for a week. At least. Wherever that horde has been, nothing will grow. There will be nothing left intact to loot. There will be nothing but a dusty barren desert.

That I can’t do much about. Enough food for the five of us for four days is a different way of saying enough food for four people for nearly six. And six days is nearly a week and that might be nearly long enough. And if the girls make it to the beach they won’t need any more than that. We needed more food or fewer mouths.

That’s why I cycled away, simple mathematics. I had to look for more food and not return if I didn’t find it. Don’t get me wrong. I planned to get back to that tunnel. I’d spotted the farm on our way here. The sight of those trees laden with fruit had been what had started me calculating.

The farm turned out not to be a farm, but a small family home built on the edge of farmland. A huge fence separated it from the fields, belonging, I assumed to the much grander, much older building on the crest of the hill half a mile away. I took that in and discounted it as unimportant compared to the rising dust cloud approaching from the east.

I jumped off the bike and dragged back the iron gate covering the drive. Inside, on a lawn dotted with a rotting trampoline and a rusting swing set, were three apple and two wizened pear trees. Perfect. I shook one, and started gathering the fallen fruit. The bag was filled in a matter of seconds. It wasn’t a large bag. I needed another. There was only one place I’d find one. Inside.

I looked up at the sky. I couldn’t be certain but the dust cloud seemed nearer. There was no time for stealth. There was no time for thought. I crossed the lawn, reached the back door and threw it open. The door led into a utility room crammed with tumble driers and washing machines and a long oak table. On the other side of it was a zombie.

Its mouth was already snapping at me as it tried to walk through the wooden table. I’d left the pike back at the tunnel, but it wouldn’t have been much use in a room with such a low ceiling, anyway. I pulled out the hatchet with my right hand, whilst my left went to the edge of the table. I slammed it back a few inches. That was enough to push the creature back. It stumbled and was off balance just long enough for me to edge round the table, bring the axe up and then bring it down.

There was a noise behind me. Another creature stumbled through the doorway, its hands flailing in front of it. The blade came up, then it came down on the creature’s temple, splitting its head in two. The second zombie died.

I took a breath, then kicked at the body, moving it away from the doorway so I could get past. But it was a family house, and a family is made up of more than just adults.

There were two children. A boy and a girl and neither could have been much younger than Annette. Back in London, when I’d found a house like that, I’d turned and ran. But now I understand. They had been children. They weren’t any more.

It wasn’t killing, that’s what I’m telling myself. I know that it is the truth, I just find it hard to accept.

There were two other bodies in the house. A young child and an old woman. They were properly dead. The child had been laid out in a cot, perhaps dead of some natural cause. The old woman was locked in an upstairs room. After I broke down the door, and saw her body on the bed, unmoving, I didn’t investigate any further. There wasn’t time.

I found an old sports bag at the bottom of a wardrobe and threw in some of the clothes hanging above it. I went back down to the kitchen and filled the rest of the bag with every packet and half-filled jar there was left. There weren’t many. I opened the drawers until I found some green plastic bin bags. I opened one and threw in matches, toilet paper, tea-towels and anything else I saw and thought might help us through the next week. Dragging the bags behind me I went outside, pulling a couple of jackets off a hook as I went.