Surviving The Evacuation (Book 3): Family (22 page)

The next field was the same, and the one after. In those fields the cremation had been incomplete. An arm or leg stuck out here or there and I could tell that these were zombies. But as for that first field, at that point, I could not say whether they were the bones of the living or the undead.

Then I came to the first barrier. It wasn’t a particularly impressive affair. Four cars had been turned on their side, lined up in a V-shape across the road with two overturned skips adding their weight behind them. The skips themselves were filled with an odd mixture of metal and tyres, which, I realised, must have come from the cars I’d passed earlier. The hedgerows on either side had been reinforced with a mismatched assortment of barbed wire and wood. Some old, some new, some weather proofed, some already beginning to rot.

The barricade looked like it would stop a pack of the undead. It didn’t look like it would hold up against a horde. What I was immediately struck by was the question of how the people inside, got out. Presumably there had to be another entrance, one where the barrier could be moved, but where? And why go to the trouble of clearing the road I’d just travelled along, if there wasn’t.

There were no bodies. No undead either. All was still and quiet save the cawing of a murder of crows. It was a grimly appropriate word for such an ill omen. I left the bike there and clambered up onto the barricade.

The fields beyond were full of wheat. Perhaps it was maize. Or oats. Unless it comes packaged in neatly labelled plastic, I can’t tell the difference. I think it was wheat, but there was something indefinable odd about it. Whilst I tried to work out what, I understood why the barricades had been built on that road. The fields inside the barrier belonged to Caulfield Hall, were farmed by the tenants living at Grovely Cross and watered by the irrigation system running under all the Masterton’s land. State of the art when it was installed in the 1960’s, there’d been talk of replacing it for as long as I can remember. Judging by the patchwork of wilted stalks and withered leaves dotted through the field, the system was finally falling apart.

I climbed down and, trying to work out what was wrong with the scene, headed towards Grovely Cross. It sounds as if it should be a village. If you looked at it on the map you might even think it was. In a place with fewer historical pretentions it would have been called Home Farm. Even that was too generous a description for the cluster of one-room flats, dormitories and, in recent years, mobile homes, bracketed by sheds, garages and barns, occupied by the legion of seasonal and temporary workers employed by the estate.

I didn’t go inside or linger too long, not with that balloon watching my every move. I didn’t want them to think I was a looter. I took just long enough to note the place was unoccupied and the farming machinery was parked up neatly in the yard around the back of the sheds, before continuing up towards the hall.

It was that machinery that gave me the key to understanding what was wrong about the place. I’d not seen a single soul. I may not know much about farming, but I do know it’s a lot of work, even more so now. Judging by the patches of withered crops and the weeds encroaching from the hedgerows no one was tending the crops, and hadn’t been for months.

Then I reached the second barricade. It was nothing like the first. I didn’t think that outer barrier would withstand the undead. I could be certain about this inner one. It was made of two rows of double linked chain fencing topped with razor wire sunk into three feet high concrete supports. It certainly looked impressive, but it had looked impressive on the M4. That barrier had broken. So would this one. But it was sturdy enough to keep me out. I turned north and followed the fence along.

It had come from the same stockpile used to reinforce the motorway. Or, to put it another way, diverted from reinforcing some other evacuation route. At most there couldn’t be more than a few miles worth ringing the Hall, but that’s not the point. Nor is that any evacuees safely reaching a muster point would have been poisoned anyway. Whoever had stolen it couldn’t have known that. And then I remembered who owned the land and wondered if, perhaps, they did.

Lost in that angry thought I didn’t hear the people behind me until a voice called out, “Alright mate. That’s close enough. Most people see the walls and take a hint.”

I turned around, slowly.

Reunion

Three men in army uniform stood twenty feet away. To be clear, they weren’t just wearing camouflage, they were in uniform, all matching, all relatively clean, with boots polished and not a strap out of place. The weapons were the only concession to the changed times. They carried rifles, all of which were pointed at me, but across their backs were slung felling axes. And again, the uniformity of that was disturbing.

“We don’t give hand-outs. We don’t provide shelter. We don’t offer sanctuary. If you came here looking for that then you’re out of luck.” The soldier wore the chevrons of a sergeant on his sleeve.

“I grew up here,” I said.

“You a farmer, then?” the sergeant asked.

“No. No I worked in London.”

“That’s a pity. For you. We might have made an exception for a farmer.”

“But I grew up here. This is my home.”

“Not any more. It’s ours now.”

“No, you’re not getting it. I don’t mean I grew up on one of these farms. I mean I grew up there.” I pointed up the hill towards the house. “I’m Bill Wright. I grew up in the Hall with Jennifer Masterton.”

The sergeant’s eyes turned wary for a moment. “You sure? We will check that out, and if you’re lying then you’d be better off leaving now.”

From the way the guns were pointed at me, I doubted they would actually let me go.

“No, really. I grew up here. Just ask someone, they’ll vouch for me. There are people from before the outbreak still here, aren’t there?”

“Turn around, keep walking. We’ll follow,” he said, ignoring the question.

I didn’t say anything as we walked. I couldn’t think of anything I could ask that this sergeant might answer. The entrance was through a set of gates, made of that same prefabricated design, situated around an old track that led to the back of the estate.

We went through the gates, around the old stables, and in front of me lay the grounds and the Hall itself. The house was much the same, the old stone with its small windows, tall towers, wings and conservatories, all tacked on by successive generations with no thought for architecture, just driven by a need to die leaving the house larger than when they’d inherited it.

It was the grounds that had changed. The once manicured lawn that required a team of gardeners to keep clear of weeds was now covered in tents, washing lines, and men doing nothing more than lounging about. And they were all men. It wasn’t a settlement. It wasn’t even a redoubt. It was an army camp.

“Round to the front,” the sergeant barked, loud enough that every head in the camp turned to watch.

As I walked down the path and around the house, I tried to take it all in, and work out what it all meant. Around the front, were parked, if that’s the right word, two helicopters. Next to them, half on the gravel driveway, half with its tracks sunk deep into the grass, was a tank.

“Sir! Says he’s Bill Wright. Friend of Jennifer Masterton, sir!” the sergeant barked. I turned around. He’d addressed a man wearing the insignia of a full General in the British Army. Before the outbreak, there were only a handful of men who held that rank. I’d been to enough dreary functions to recognise them all. I’d never seen this man before.

“Does he?” the General replied. “Wait here.”

He went inside the house, leaving me to look over the camp. It was the right word. They’d been here sometime, going by how far that tank’s tracks had sunk into the grass, but everything appeared temporary. That begged the question of where they thought they’d be going to next, and when. But those and all other thoughts were silenced by the next voice I heard.

“Bill?” Jen stood in the doorway, frozen. “Bill?” she asked again. My heart turned over at the sight of this far too familiar face. She hadn’t changed. I mean that literally. Dressed in the sensible suit and impractical shoes, she looked ready for an appearance on the six o’clock news. By comparison, I was dressed in rags that were burnt, singed and encrusted with mud yet were still more practical than the clothes she wore.

I don’t know what emotions were churned up in her by my sudden appearance by the memories of childhood games, shared secrets, happy regrets and wistful missed chances. When I looked at her, all I felt was an incomprehensible sadness. She hadn’t changed, but I had. She’d returned home, but all in one moment I finally understood that it had never been a home to me.

“Bill? It is... is it?”

“Hi Jen. Sorry it took me so long.” I tried to fill my voice with casual understatement. “The driver, the guy you sent to rescue me, he died. He was attacked before I could reach him. I didn’t know his name.”

“Driver?” She asked, and seemed genuinely confused.

“I was outside the flat then,” I said, watching her reaction, “Couldn’t get back in. Went from house to house, limping.” I tapped my leg brace, “Just moving on when I ran out of food and water. I went to the river. Tried to find a boat. Couldn’t. So I kept on, from one place to another until I was strong enough to ride a bike. I tried to get down to the coast, but that didn’t work out either. You know what it’s like, with the undead.” From the look of her I wasn’t certain she did. “I ended up doing a tour of the Home Counties.  Hampshire, Wiltshire, Surrey, Sussex. I found my boat in the end, near Windsor. But I couldn’t get it past Teddington Lock. The last few weeks I’ve just been heading north. This was the only place I could think of. I hoped everyone would have survived and thought at least someone would. Turns out I was right. It’s good to see you.”

“It really is you,” she said, taking a step forward.

“It is me,” I said, trying not to let my exasperation at her repetition show. “In the flesh. More or less,” I added, waving my injured hand.

“My god, what happened to you?” she asked.

“Oh, well, you know about the leg of course. I lost the cast somewhere around Greenwich. I think it needed surgery. I’ve lost a few inches. That makes running a tad difficult.”

“What about your hand?”

“What? Oh, that was the undead. One of those zombies took a bite... Whoah!” suddenly the guns were all levelled, all pointing at my head. “Calm down. Lower the guns.”

“You were bitten?” The sergeant asked.

“Months ago,” I said quickly. “Dozens of times. I’m immune.”

“You’re what?” the General barked, pushing Jen aside.

“Immune.” I looked around at the soldiers. None of them knew. “You do realise that some people are immune, right?”

The gun barrels wavered slightly as heads all turned to look between me, Jen and the General.

“Maybe it’s just you. Maybe you’re the only one,” a young corporal said.

“No. There are others,” I said slowly as I thought fast. “There was a house, down near the coast. A policeman, he’d been bitten. He locked himself into the house, waiting to die, except he didn’t. He committed suicide in the end, but he left a note.”

“A note? That’s not proof,” the soldier closest to me, said, as he stepped forward, the barrel of his rifle now only a few inches from my face. “If he was dead it doesn’t count. I mean, you don’t know he was telling the truth do you?”

What I next said was cruel, but it was necessary. I was starting to get a measure of this place, and it was dawning on me that I’d made a big mistake going there so unprepared.

“There was an old man and his grandaughter,” I said. “This was down in Hampshire. She was staying with him, down on a farm. They’d both been bitten. Both had survived. They were going round the country with their old address book, searching for their relatives.”

“And you saw them?” Another soldier asked.

“Yes,” I lied.

“And talked to him?”

“Yes.”

“And they were alive?”

“Both of them, when we went our separate ways, yes.”

“So, this immunity,” the corporal asked, “you’re saying it’s inherited?” the barrel had lowered slightly.

“That’s one possibility. I don’t have any family, not blood relations, so I’d no one to come and look for except Jen. But I saw bodies, people who’d been attacked and trapped and who’d starved to death. I saw...” I stopped myself. “I’m not the only one,” I finished, lamely.

“We have a strict policy,” the General began. “A Quarantine. It’s how we keep safe. How we...”

“We should get the Doctor, though,” the corporal said, “And have him checked out. Didn’t the Doc say that he was looking for some kind of key, something to create a cure?”

“Immunity isn’t the same as...” I began, but they weren’t listening to me anymore. The guns were still pointed at me, but their attention was on one another, as if each was prepared to back someone else’s challenge to authority just as long as it wasn’t them.

“Yes,” Jen said, slowly. “We’ll take him to the Doctor and get this settled.”

The Camp

But first I was escorted to a shower. It was not inside. Around the side of the house, where white tents had once been erected for the annual harvest supper festival, was an improvised shower block. The water came from the same supply that fed the fields, pumped, I learnt, by hand. The water went into a black painted tank, you then stood under the showerhead, turned a tap and did the best you could under the slow drip.

Canvas and almost-opaque plastic sheeting offered the illusion of privacy. That didn’t bother me. What did was the transparent way in which all of my possessions, including the weapons, were taken away ‘for cleaning’. The pistol Leon had given me raised a few eyebrows. I made up some story about a dead body at a supermarket.

The water was tepid and far from refreshing, but it gave me time to think. The presence of the soldiers changed everything. I should have expected them, of course. Had they not been here, there was nothing stopping Leon and Francois just storming the place. What that meant for me, I wasn’t sure.