Surviving The Evacuation (Book 1): London (8 page)
Either she'd lost it (how?) or taken it with her (why?) but all that was there was an empty chain, dangling forlornly against the water mark. I tried the shower, but it was so caked in limescale only the thinnest trickle of water acme out. It's baffling, where did she wash? Why didn't she say something?
The cupboards were pretty bare. I found a few more herbs to brighten up my boiled rice, and a few more sets of batteries, beyond that there's nothing I can see an immediate use for. What was even stranger was the complete absence of golf clubs. I mean, I asked her about that once, about a year after she'd moved in, she'd said that they were kept at the driving range, but I’m starting to wonder.
Juan's was a little more promising. He was an aspiring actor who might have made it one day. His kitchen was worthy of the name, lots of flour, pulses, sugar, baking powder, spices and the like. If I had an oven I'd be fine.
And books! He had books. Lots and lots of books, none of which have anything to do with zombies! And yes, from where I sit that is worthy of an exclamation mark. From the way they were organised he must have bought them as background reading to parts he was auditioning for. There are lots of travelogues and local and regional histories, true crime books and biographies of writers and actors. They're the sort of diverting books I'd love to have read on the beach sometime. I brought up a selection, I’m sure I can imagine the beach.
The problem lay in getting my haul up the stairs. The real problem was getting me up the stairs, but I can see no easy solution to that. What I did realise is that it is a lot simpler if I only have myself to worry about, not my loot as well. I cut up one of Juan's sheets (they seemed far cleaner than Grace's) into long strips, twisted and tied them together into an impromptu rope. I doubt it would take my weight, but with one end tied around my belt the other around the bag I could make my way back upstairs and then pull my haul up afterwards.
I didn’t bring much up, just the books, the batteries, a few different spices and the real find of the day, a tiny camping stove. No, that's far too glamorous a way to describe it. In one of Jessica's books it'd be a proper camping stove, one with gas cylinders and an oven attachment (and it'd be found next to a stash of freeze dried food with enough spare fuel to last the rest of the apocalypse). Really it's nothing more than a small tripod upon which a saucepan can sit and underneath there's a little tray for fuel pellets. It's basically the sort of thing you can build yourself with stuff lying around if you think of it, which, I’ll admit, I didn't.
Now I can have tea, oh what joy! What true blue Englishman wouldn't rejoice at such a prospect? There was no sign of any fuel pellets though, so I’m making do with what I’ve got to hand, namely the wooden handles of my cutlery.
It takes an age though. I stuck the small saucepan on before I started writing this entry and the water still hasn't boiled. Oh, how I’m looking forward to that first cup of tea!
All in all things are slightly better than this morning. If I can come up with a way of using the flour. (Can you make cakes with just flour and water? I suppose I'll find out) I think I've about fifty days worth of food. It's far from a balanced diet, but it is calories. How long does it take for scurvy to develop?
03:00, 18
th
March.
I can't sleep. Of course I can't sleep. What the hell did I think, that some moment of serene acceptance of my fate was going to come upon me after I'd had a cup of tea?
What if no one comes? There. I've written it down. I didn’t want to, out of some bloody stupid fear that writing it down would make it more real. Of course it doesn't. The reality is I've fifty days of food, which means sooner, not later, I'm going to have to go out into that living hell. Christ! I want to stomp and smash and swear and shout with the sheer unfairness of it all. But I can't. They might hear me. Have you ever tried to vent your frustration by writing down swear words? Try it, it's just not the same.
If I could walk properly I'd be fine. I've not seen any of Them move faster than a brisk walk, not outside and not on the footage I saw online. I saw those shots from the traffic cameras in Rio, you won't have seen those, I bet, hours upon hours as millions slouched slowly passed. The military summary, and you won't have seen that either I’m guessing, reported their maximum speed at about five miles an hour and I can walk faster than that, any true Londoner can. Marching along, sidestepping traffic, tourists and taxis whilst drinking a latte and making a phone call is practically in the citizenship test.
That's without a broken leg. Even when the leg's healed I’m not going to manage more than three or four miles an hour at best. Probably less. Definitely less. If the cast is due off in seventy two days then I'll need physio for a few months just to build up the muscles again. At least for a few months, and how am I meant to survive that long? It just can't be done. When hunger forces me out how am I meant to outpace the undead? I'll be slower than Them, and it's not like They're all going to be behind me. They'll be in front, to the sides, in the buildings above me, even in the sewers for all I know.
If I’m being honest, and why the hell shouldn't I be honest, being forced out of here by hunger in fifty days is the best case scenario. Forty nine days three hours now, since I'd be best heading out at first light. There are at least a dozen plumes of smoke in the sky. None are close enough that I can make out exactly where they are coming from, but that's hardly reassuring. If it turns into another dry year then how long before the whole city catches fire.
Then there's the chance They spot me and start trying to get in. It's easy enough for you to say “make sure They don't see you.” What about hear me? What about smell me? They might as well have those senses as sight. Besides if the zombies can't see me then neither can whoever Jen sends.
That is the problem, because, you see,
I heard an engine. It definitely was an engine this time, and one that was quite close. It wasn't moving fast, just steadily as if, and maybe it's just wishful thinking, but as if someone inside was travelling slow enough to read the house numbers. Since I can't see much from my window, just the street immediately below and a lot of roof tops beyond, I hurried downstairs to get a view from the other side of the house.
Except, of course, for me hurrying means moving agonisingly slowly.
I could hear the car getting closer, heading this way down the street, down
this
street, a slow rumbling sound interspersed with an odd muffled thumping
. I was saved! Except it was getting closer and I was still hobbling down the stairs. I limped faster, giving no heed to the racket I was making, nor about any extra injury to my leg, not caring about anything except getting to the window and seeing that car. Jessica's room was closest, I hurried in and pulled back the curtain and stood there, peering out into the gloom that lay down the road, looking in the direction I was sure that it was coming from.
Nothing. I twisted my head and there, I saw it. The most beautiful and terrible sight I've ever seen, red glowing lights slowly receding as the car drove away. It was an SUV of some kind and it was already a hundred yards down the street. It wasn't moving fast, barely faster than walking speed, but that's still faster than I can manage.
What to do? What could I do? I had to let them know I was here. I could be at the car in seconds. Minutes at most. I could go with them, I could escape, all I had to do was get outside and cross the few hundred yards that separated us. All I had to do... I tore my gaze from the car and looked down at the street below. There were dozens of Them, more than I could easily count. The car was pulling Them along in its wake. The odd thumping sound was caused when it hit one of the undead. I'd not noticed, because I'd been looking for the car, but where there had been a handful a few days ago, now the street was packed.
Some reflexive self preservation mechanism kicked in and I dropped to the floor. I actually dropped, that was impressive, at least I'm impressed at the way my body reacted whilst my brain was busy being an idiot. The pain in my leg was immense, it sent needles of fire right up my spine, and I bit my tongue trying to stop myself from screaming out loud
I'd only been at the window a few seconds and I can only hope that the noise and the lights were such a distraction that They didn't see me. I retreated back upstairs as quietly as I could. I can't hear the car any more. It's disappeared off to the west somewhere. So close. So far.
I don't think I was spotted, but I can't be sure. It's nosier outside now, that pervasive sound of shuffling has been joined by a banging clatter as They knock into cars, bins and one another. I can't hear any sound from the doors down stairs, but I don't dare go and see. I don't even dare look out the window. If They know I’m here, then what? I'll be trapped, dead from starvation in under two months.
That was my rescue. I’m sure of it. Even if that car wasn't sent by Jen, even if it only came along my road by accident, that was my chance to get out. Now I feel that I’m completely on my own.
06:00, 18
th
March.
Oh, and it looks like They are just as active at night as in the day. So that’s good...
16:00, 18
th
March.
I fell asleep reading a book this morning. It's called “Death Comes To All” by an E.R.K. Daley. I’m sure that the title is a quote, but without the internet I couldn’t tell you whose. Probably it's something Churchill said, either him or Shakespeare. Most quotes are. The book was written in the 1960's and is about a post-apocalyptic dystopian society surviving in a tower block and, as the story progresses, in underground farms beneath it. Each chapter advances the story five years, and at the end, well, no, I won't spoil it, you might want to read it someday.
It's an interesting enough book, an allegorical take on isolationism, but what's grabbed my attention are the ideas on farming. In the story, since the inhabitants are trapped inside with no access to land, and with their only resource being the light constantly streaming through their windows, they turn to hydroponics. They make a good fist of it too, but I think only because the author wanted generations who'd never been outside to grow old enough to rule.
What I’m wondering is how we're going to manage farming in the days to come. It's March now. Isn't that when crops should be planted? Who exactly is going to do the planting?
My focus was always on getting people out of the cities. Evacuees like my tenants, at least the ones who made it to an enclave would have found themselves crammed into a warehouse, church, community hall, pub, shop or whatever other space was available and not absolutely essential to our immediate survival. They could look for a hotel room, or even a spare room in someone's house to stay in, but they wouldn't find one. By the time they reached Folkestone they would have found those taken by the evacuees from the nearby villages and towns deemed too difficult to re-supply or defend.
Housing Officers were appointed from the ample stock of now redundant civil servants to ensure that every room was being used. Hotels, B&B's, dining rooms, summer-houses, even garages. If it had a roof over it and plumbing within walking distance then someone could sleep there.
Families were to be kept together, and were to be billeted in the schools, this would allow some teaching to take place, but as the teachers were able bodied adults more useful in other work, the lessons would be taken by those too old to wield a shovel.
Sports centres would become hospitals staffed by evacuees, though they wouldn't have the resources to provide anything other than the most rudimentary level of care. The largest of the restaurants were to become kitchens for the masses, at least for the first few weeks and months until the situation had stabilised and everyone had been secured. It was hoped that after a week or so each house, or group of families could allocate a cook who would take on the responsibility for catering to the twenty or thirty people they lived with. People had to improvise, everyone was in the same situation, facing the same hardships and the same dangers and everyone would have to work together.
Once everyone was within the enclaves then the redistribution would begin. A mass forced migration of labour, both skilled and unskilled, some to the inland farms, some to the Irish Republic and the Scottish Islands, some to the Isles of Man, or Wight. Others would be conscripted into either a fishing industry that I can only hope will provide enough for this first year, or the overseas reclamation operations, scouring the ruins of foreign civilisations for anything that can be salvaged.
There were some areas, such as between Lostwithiel and Wadebridge in Cornwall, where the rivers Fowey and Camel create a narrow stretch of land where defensive walls were to be built. The area inside this perimeter, once it had been secured would be turned into a single massive intensive farm. Ancient hedges were going to be removed, the concrete ripped up and replaced with fields saturated with whatever pesticides and industrial fertilisers could be found. How the wall was to be built, and what with, I do not know. It surely can't be beyond us, can it?
Inland farms where supplies could come in and out by helicopter were to be fenced in. They were meant to be selected during that second week, between the announcement of the evacuation and the evacuation itself, but I have no idea whether this task was completed. Workers, and now there would be no shortage of those, would live in walled Hamlets at the farms centre with each Hamlet to have either a nurse or doctor, a mechanic and a member of the armed forces to co-ordinate defence.
