Surviving The Evacuation (Book 7): Home (17 page)

She stood and began the trek back to the room with the broken window. Knowing that the darkness would soon be vanquished, she moved with more confidence than before. By the time she reached it, there was enough light to see the bin still wedged in the window. There were only a few inches of water inside, but the rain still fell. She began a search of the building, this time opening doors and pulling back curtains. She found a supply closet near the stairs, and in it some bleach. Even diluted, it would kill off most bacteria. It would do nothing for the radiation, of course, but that didn’t matter. A break room provided some mugs. She decanted the rainwater, returned the bin to its perch, then went back to her window, and continued her vigil.

29
th
September

Any minute now, she thought, any minute now, but the minutes passed and there was no sign of Graham. The undead continued to mill about in the road, some motionless, others slouching off towards the northwest, though where they were going she couldn’t tell.

As the sun was reaching its zenith, a zombie in a studded leather jacket staggered through the propped open doorway. She leaned forward, eyes trained on that dark portal, almost wishing she might see a flash betraying a gunshot. After half an hour she leaned back. An hour after that she found her gaze had drifted up to the fractured skyline. She sighed and turned her attention back to the doorway. Any minute now…

30
th
September

She woke with a start. The sky was clear, the sun well above the horizon. How long had she slept? Eight hours? Nine? Too long, but the door was still open. There was no sign of Graham. Was he waiting for her to return? How long could he wait? How long could she?

1
st
October

Why hadn’t he shot her? It didn’t make sense. Nothing he’d done, from the thefts to Hana’s murder, made sense. There was some piece of the puzzle that she was missing. Or perhaps it was that she had more than one puzzle, and she had the pieces mixed up. It didn’t matter.

There was a litre of bleachy rainwater, but she was down to the last of the MREs she’d found in the hotel. She could go back for more, of course, but what if Graham came out while she wasn’t there to watch. No, if she left, it would only be to go down into that building. She’d confront him and end it. He must have supplies in there, she realised, enough to keep him going for weeks. Perhaps he was being honest when he’d said that he’d leave them alone. She didn’t believe it, and it was too great a risk. No, she would have to go in there and finish it, but not today. She still had water. She could wait a little longer. Patience, she told herself.

2
nd
October

One more day, she decided when she woke. There was a stiffness to her shoulders and legs that suggested something more than just tense muscles. She was tired, hungry, and the last of the MREs was gone. She was down to half a litre of water, and it was only because it tasted so strongly of bleach that she hadn’t downed it in one go. One more day, then she’d—

There was movement in the doorway. It wasn’t Graham. It was the zombie with the leather jacket. She stared at the creature. Graham had let it wander around the building. Had he left? Possibly, but why? Surely he had everything he needed there. Did he have a camera in the corridor, or even one out in the street? Maybe he’d seen the door was wedged open and realised it was a trap. Except, surely he hadn’t had time to set up any cameras. And where would he have found them? No, there were only two possibilities. He was still up in that room waiting for her, or he had come down to close that door and one of the undead that she’d let inside had attacked him. There was an obvious way to find out which.

She went along the corridor to the room in which she’d broken the window, picked up the chair, and threw it outside. A screen followed it, then the bin in which she’d collected the rainwater, and then a set of shelves. She checked up and down the street, making sure that the undead were moving towards the sound, and then went back to her post, watching as the zombies outside Graham’s lair slowly turned away from it and moved towards the building she was in. When they were gone, she went downstairs, and outside.

Except for that zombie in the leather jacket, the road was empty. Its hands pawed at the shoe, still pinned to the door. Couldn’t it tell the noise wasn’t being made by something living? It didn’t even turn around as she stepped closer, and rammed the bayonet through its ear.

It took less than a minute to move the corpses out of the way, allowing the door to close behind her, and then another thirty seconds for her eyesight to adjust to the gloom. It was almost a second too long. A zombie lurched out of a doorway to her right. She grabbed its lank hair, slammed its face into the wall, and stamped down on the back of its knee, feeling the bone break. It slid sideways, arms still thrashing. She kicked it again, this time in the shoulder, and then smashed her heel down on its head. The skull cracked open, spreading a putrid black pus over the already stained floor. If Graham was still alive and still inside, he would definitely have heard that.

Grenade launcher raised, she dashed to the stairs. There wasn’t a new barricade. She looked up, down, but could see no trip wires or traps. Cautiously, she went up. By the time she reached the floor he’d been on, there was still no sign of Graham. She looked down the corridor’s forbidding length. Could he really still be waiting for her in that room? Wasn’t it more likely he’d gone down to the ground floor only to have been killed or infected? She wanted to believe it, but knew she dared not until she’d seen proof.

The door to the large room was still open, and before she’d stepped inside she could see the cases were gone. Abandoning all caution, she ran through to the door on the far side and pushed the table out of the doorway. The room beyond had sofas, chairs, and desks, all in the same old wood, polished leather, and tarnished brass she’d seen in the rest of the building, but there was no sign of Graham nor that he’d spent any time in there. There was no discarded bedding, no stray food wrappers, and no empty water bottles.

Disconsolate, confused, she searched the two rooms. All she found were a handful of casings by the solitary broken window. She checked the next room, and the next, and then the floor above. He wasn’t there. He never had been, not really. There were no cameras. He hadn’t lain in wait nor set up some elaborate trap. Either he was moving the cases here, or he’d found them here, and by pure luck done so minutes before she’d chanced upon him. He’d thrown up that hasty barricade, and probably left soon after their confrontation.

By now he could be anywhere, and he’d had time to dig in and prepare. She could continue searching for him, but she had no food, no water, and hadn’t had any proper sleep in days. She might find him but was more likely to find a bullet. It was time to go back and warn the Tower. And then she realised that might be where he had gone. She left the building and started running north.

Tuck gagged on the sickly sweet syrup. She’d never liked cola and was suspicious of anyone who said they did. Sugar, yes. Caffeine, yes. Cola, no. She took another mouthful. There was nothing to dilute or mix it with other than salt, but it was all that was left in the burger joint four miles to the north of Westminster.

The rain had got heavier during the day, and the undead had seemed to grow more numerous as she’d run from Whitehall. At some point she’d become disorientated, though she wouldn’t go so far as to say she was lost.

The sugar was wonderful, glorious. She could feel it seeping into her bones. She was about to take another sip, but the syrup was more sugar than water. She put the jug down. Night wasn’t far off, and her system wasn’t used to so much concentrated caffeine.

She’d spent the day hiding more often than running, and running more often than fighting. Tomorrow she’d be back at the Tower, and once everyone was informed, a decision had to be made. As the day had worn on, her mind had cleared. It was unlikely that Graham would have returned to the Tower. Even more unlikely that he would have done so with one of those cases. If they were bombs, they would require a code to activate them, and there had been something in the way that he’d acted that told her he didn’t have it.

He could find explosives. After all there was a crate full of rounds for the grenade launcher in the hotel, so he might be able to create a dirty bomb, but she doubted he could create a timer. From what she knew of him during their time in Kirkman House, he wasn’t that mechanically minded. But if he found that code…

Had he known the cases were there? Was that what he’d been searching for during his excursions from the Tower? He would look for it, she was sure of that. Until he found it, or he gave up, he would keep to his word and leave them alone. But how long would that be?

Part 3:

The Long Goodbye

3
rd
October

The crowded dining room was silent as Jay finished translating Tuck’s story.

“If we leave him alone, he’ll leave us alone?” Nilda repeated, looking at the soldier. “You think he means it?”

“Even if he means it now, he might not next week,” Tuck signed.

“And those cases,” Aisha asked. “Are they really nuclear weapons?”

Sign language had a distinct advantage here, Nilda thought. Everyone had to wait for the translation, and that meant they were forced to think rather than just say the first fear that came to mind. Everyone except Jay and McInery, of course.

“They must be,” McInery said before Jay had finished translating. “Having a London stronghold was always part of Quigley’s plan. There had to be more to it than just building the barricades.”

“Was that why you wanted to go to that hotel?” Greta asked. “Did you know they were there?”

“What use would a nuclear warhead be to me?” McInery asked. “I suspected that there had to be something left in London. Why else would thousands of soldiers be stationed here? You saw the images Tuck and I recorded of that vehicle park in Horse Guards? That was what I thought would be there. Vehicles. Ammunition. Fuel. Enough for an army in case London survived but everywhere else didn’t. But nuclear weapons? No, I didn’t suspect that, nor can I conceive of any use to which Quigley could have put them.”

“Quigley’s the past,” Nilda said, speaking loudly to cut across the chatter. “We need to forget about him and his old world conspiracies. Graham is the problem.”

“It’s obvious what we have to do,” McInery said. “We kill him.”

“That’s easy to say,” Kevin said. “But how?”

“We use the rafts,” McInery replied, “and go upriver. All of us, or…” Her eyes settled on Constance. “Nearly all of us. It would be forty against one.”

“And how many will die?” Nilda asked. “How many will the undead kill while we search for him? He has a rifle. He has ammunition.”

“He’s probably got more than that,” Chester said. “You said it wasn’t the same rifle that you repaired?”

Tuck nodded. There was a moment of silence.

“Was that a yes or a no?” Chester asked.

“It was a different gun,” Jay said.

“Right, so who’s to say what else he’s found,” Chester continued. “Grenades? Landmines? Won’t he expect us to go after him? Won’t he have set up some traps? It’s what I’d do. He’s got the weapons and the high ground, and we’ve got swords and spears.”

“Then we’ll be clever,” McInery said. “We don’t go rushing in, we take our time.”

“Wait!” Jay shouted to quiet the sudden babble. “Wait,” he said again, this time more quietly. “Tuck wants to know exactly where we’re going to look. He could be in Whitehall, Westminster, or Victoria. Or he could have gone beyond the barricade and be in…” Jay stalled, there was a minute’s back and forth “Somewhere north of the M25,” he continued with a shrug. “If there were rifles, if there was ammo, why not petrol? Whether he’s stayed or not, Tuck doesn’t think he wants to kill us. He had the opportunity and didn’t. Oh. No, sorry. She doesn’t think he wants to kill us
yet.
It’s not far from here to Westminster. If he’s stayed in London, there is little stopping him coming here. But if we go and attack him, even if we kill him, most of us will die.”

“Speaking of which,” Styles said. “Why did he kill Hana?”

“I don’t know,” Tuck signed.

“Would one of those grenades set off a nuke?” Kevin asked.

“Probably not,” Tuck signed.

“But if one did go off, that would irradiate the river?” Aisha asked.

This question resulted in a longer back and forth between Tuck and Jay than before.

“Probably,” Jay summarised. “But she says it might not. It’s like if you’re attacked by the undead; there’s a chance that the virus wouldn’t get into your system, but you wouldn’t want to risk it.”

“And we can’t risk it,” Nilda said. “We can’t risk the river becoming undrinkable.”

“Becoming?” Styles scoffed, his laugh brittle. The attempt at levity failed to lighten the mood.

“When you have nothing else, attack is the only form of defence,” McInery said. “As you say, it’s not far from here to Westminster. We could set out in small groups, each coming in from a different direction and—”

“No,” Nilda said. “We’re not soldiers, and this isn’t the same as fighting the undead. As Tuck says, we don’t know where he is, or if he is still in London.

“Then we should go and see for ourselves,” McInery said. “And if not, then what would you suggest? That we take the rafts and leave?”

“No,” Nilda said, forcing herself to sound calm. “There is nowhere for us to go. We shouldn’t rush blindly into anything. He could have killed us all by that hotel. From what you say, Tuck, he could have killed you. He didn’t, so whatever his plans are, we should take him at his word. We’ll leave him alone and hope he does the same for us.”

“After he killed Hana? After he shot Chester?” Constance asked.

“For now,” Nilda continued. “Just for now. Until we can come up with a scheme that won’t leave us all dead.”

Sombre didn’t come close to describing the mood as Tuck ended the meeting by signing that she was going to find the closest thing to a hot shower the Tower had. No, Nilda thought, it wasn’t sombre, it was expectant, but it was the expectation of the noose.

“So what are our options?” Nilda asked, her voice low. She, Jay, Tuck and Chester stood on the top of the Wakefield Tower, near the soldier’s bivouac which had collapsed after a week of storms and neglect.

“I suppose it depends what we’re facing,” Chester said. “Suitcase nukes were a bit of a myth, weren’t they? The sort of thing they had in movies but not in real life. And weren’t the ones they actually developed far larger than a suitcase? Didn’t they take two people to carry and operate?”

“What the world knew and what weapons actually were developed are two different things,” Tuck signed. “The virus proved that.”

“That was an accident,” Chester said. “The scientist was trying to cure disease, not create the living dead.”

“By accident or design,” Tuck signed, “no one knew the project existed.” There was another silent back and forth as Jay stumbled over an unfamiliar word.

“I don’t know the word,” Jay said. “Making a warhead for a missile small enough to fit in one of those cases.”

“Miniaturisation?” Nilda guessed.

Tuck nodded. “Miniaturising a warhead isn’t as farfetched as the undead. But what if they aren’t nuclear weapons. What if they’re something worse?”

“What’s worse than nuclear bombs or the undead?” Jay asked.

“Beats me,” Chester said. “This is Quigley we’re talking about. The man who sat down and worked out a plan that would destroy civilisation. It’s probably some doomsday device, a real Strangelove system that’ll wipe anything more complex than moss off the face of the planet.”

“That doesn’t help, Chester,” Nilda said. “And it’s not funny.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t think it matters,” Tuck signed. “Because I don’t think Graham knew what was inside. I didn’t want to say, not to everyone, but whatever is inside, a code or a key would be needed to operate it. I don’t think he has it.”

“He doesn’t have the code?” Nilda repeated, wanting to make sure that Jay had translated that properly. “You’re certain?”

“No to both questions,” Tuck signed. “There was something he said, or that he didn’t say.” She shrugged. “I can’t say what. There was too little light and too many shadows to read his lips properly. Really, it’s nothing more than an impression, a feeling if you like.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Chester said. “So you don’t think he’s left London?”

“Where would he go?” Tuck asked. “He can’t go to Anglesey, not while we’re still alive. When we make contact with them, we’ll tell them who he is, and what he’s done. He won’t find refuge there.”

“He won’t, will he?” Nilda asked Chester. “They let Rob live after he left Jay and Tuck for dead”

“At the time, that was your word against his,” Chester said. “This is different. No, he won’t find sanctuary there.”

“So he can’t go to Wales as long as we’re alive,” Tuck continued. “But he’s had the opportunity to kill some of us and he hasn’t taken it. I don’t think he wants to, though I don’t know why. He’ll stay in London at least until he’s found the codes. Unless there’s some other reason he hasn’t left. A person maybe.”

“You mean McInery?” Chester asked. “I don’t think so. Nuclear weapons aren’t her style. She wants power just like she always has, but it’s not to be found here. I think it’s like she said, she went to that hotel looking for guns and ammo, but she was going to use them to take control of Anglesey.”

“With what army?” Jay asked. “No one here would take up arms against them.”

“No army,” Chester said. “She’d use them as a bargaining chip, a way to get control of one faction or another. It wouldn’t work, that place isn’t short of firearms or people who know how to use them, but that’s the way she thinks. Like I said, she hasn’t really changed.”

“Personally I think we can trust her,” Jay said. “She went out and found bandages for Chester, didn’t she? And the bullet that killed Hana could have been meant for her, right?”

“Probably,” Nilda agreed. “It certainly makes more sense than Graham wanting to kill Hana. No, I won’t say McInery can be trusted, not exactly, but I don’t think she had anything to do with this. And I really doubt it was anyone else.”

“Then Graham is acting on his own for reasons we don’t understand,” Tuck signed. “What’s your eyesight like?”

“The right is just shapes and shadows,” Chester said. “But the left is improving.”

“And how far can you see?” Tuck asked.

“Clearly? Well, if I stick a book under my nose I can read it. From here, I can just about make out your features.”

“But can you differentiate between a person and one of the undead?” Tuck signed, and there was a pause as Jay stumbled over ‘differentiate’.

“Dunno,” Chester said. “There hasn’t been an opportunity to try that yet. With practice, I think so.”

“Then we have a problem,” Tuck signed. “If you could see then I’d propose you and I hunt him down. But since you can’t, you’d be a liability. There’s no one else here I would take on a mission like this.”

“I’ll go,” Nilda said. From the way Jay’s hands moved, she suspected he was volunteering himself.

“No,” Tuck signed. “Like you said, this isn’t the same as killing the undead.”

“So there’s nothing we can do?” Jay asked.

“Not quite,” Chester said. “Graham wanted this message passed on, and whatever his reason, that means we’ve got time.”

“Time for what?” Jay asked.

“For Finnegan to reach Anglesey, for one,” Chester said. “There’s Francois, Leon, and their Special Forces unit there, and that’s the kind of team we need to go in and flush him out.”

“And if Eamonn’s dead?” Jay asked.

“Then,” Chester said, “it gives us time to come up with something better than just rushing in and hoping we don’t all get shot.”

4
th
October

Nilda took her morning coffee with her to the battlements. She wasn’t the only one. It seemed like half the castle were out standing sentry. Chester was the odd one out. He sat in a battered deck chair, his back to the river, his head turned towards the Keep.

“I feel like he’s out there, watching us,” she said.

“Like we’re under siege? It reminds me of this time I robbed a post office.”

“Why is it most of your stories start or end with a robbery?” she asked.

“It’s what I did,” he replied, with a shrug. “This particular job, and probably why it came to mind this morning, was one of the last ones I did with Cannock before the man disappeared and I fell in with McInery.”

“Was it in London?”

“Golders Green. It was about half two in the morning. That was always a good time for a burglary. The streets weren’t quite empty, but the people who were up and about were rarely able to see the road beneath their feet. And if you did have the misfortunate of bumping into a cop, you could legitimately say you were heading home after a night out. On this occasion, we were fine going in, but someone spotted us as we were coming out. We split up and ran. And the trick with running from the police isn’t about distance but time. You don’t want to run for too long, because you don’t know from what direction the cop car’s going to come. But you need to get out of the area the first responders are going to feel comfortable searching. You never hide in the first construction site you come to. The third or fourth is about right. I broke into a house covered in scaffolding just before the street filled with blue flashing lights. It turned out that the Chief Constable had a house four doors down, and the response was what a taxpayer like yourself would call over the top. There was no way out. No escape. I had this burning desire to stand by the window despite knowing that it wouldn’t help. If they were going to come through the door, I wanted to know before it happened. If they searched the house they would find me, and if I stood up and looked, it was a near certainty they’d spot me. It’s like that here. We don’t want Graham to be out there, but if he is, we want to see him despite there being nothing we can do about it.”