Surviving The Evacuation (Book 2): Wasteland (11 page)

As a guitar squealed, and the bass beat sped to a cacophonous crescendo, one by one the heads of the undead turned. I knew They weren't looking at me, not really, but it did seem like it. As the sound, surely the loudest heard since the death of our society, certainly the loudest in our silent world, seemed to bounce off the clouds themselves, the undead started moving towards the hill.

It wasn't an orderly march, as a director might have gotten from a cast of extras. Rather it was the shoving, pushing scrum of the mob. Some at the back, what had been the front of the crowd gathered around the baby and its refuge, now pushed through to the front. By dint of being less desiccated, or with fewer injuries or just by virtue of being younger when They turned, They now had the greater strength. Some zombies were pushed down. Some were trampled underfoot. Others staggered, and were pushed along as the pack shifted and started to flow away from the village.

I was standing, about thirty metres higher than, and two fields and a scraggly hedge away from the road. I watched as the first zombie walked straight into the gate at the bottom of the hill. It was a small creature, possibly a child when it had turned. Its arms waved through the gate, not trying to push it open but trying to walk through it. The gate held. I hadn't considered that. I watched another walk into the hedge and become stuck in the brambles and thorns. I hadn't considered that either.

I panicked. I took two steps down the hill, as another zombie, a much larger one, walked into the gate. This time it moved with a jarring clang I could hear even over the music. Then another, and another and another, then the weight of a dozen bodies was pushing at the gate.

The track finished. I saw the gate start to shift and twist. The next song started and, as a saxophone began a soulful lament, the gate toppled into the field.

I turned and started to walk along the crest of the hill back towards the shed. I didn't hurry, though. I didn't feel any need. I thought I was safe, and I didn't want to tax my leg, not until I had to. Then I spotted another creature coming from the north east, angling across the fields towards the music. That was just one more thing I hadn't considered, of course, that I'd be calling the undead not just from the village, but from every direction around. That was when I began to hurry.

I was half way across the field, still half a mile from the shed by the time the first zombie from the village reached the weather station. It stopped. It wasn't intelligence. I know it looked like it at the time. That's something I keep looking out for, some sign that perhaps They are learning, even evolving, and when that zombie stopped I thought it had. I've thought about it since, and now realise that it had heard the sound, but now it was close enough to use its eyes and it could see no prey. I’m sure that's what it was. Others reached the top of the hill, some stopping closer to the music, some further away. More arrived, and a weird milling about began as They looked, or seemed to look, for the cause of the noise.

I hurried now, running in that skipping lope that my leg brace forces upon me. It took five minutes, maybe more, to reach the shed, long enough for another track to finish and the next one to start. After I'd climbed up onto the roof, I could see at least a hundred gathered around the meteorological gear. It wasn't nearly enough.

I set the speakers to full and turned the music on. I didn't bother to select a playlist, just continued playing from wherever its previous owner had left off. It was an upbeat piece about love in the summertime. Thoroughly depressing under the circumstances and totally unsuited to my darkening mood, but it was loud enough to carry to the weather station. Heads turned. Then about a quarter of Them started heading towards me. This time They moved more slowly, I watched as a zombie stopped and turned back. It walked for a few paces towards the monitoring station, before turning once more and began, with a more purposeful stride, heading to the shed.

I counted to twenty, watching as some of the slower undead only reached half way up the hill before changing direction. Then I climbed down and headed back towards the road.

I don't know how far that music was carrying. Miles at least. The discordant battle between the two playlists would have, in the old world, been drowned out by traffic and tractors, people and planes and all the other symphonies of life. Now, it reverberated off the landscape in a discordant jumble of sound. It was beginning to give me a headache.

Worse, it was calling in the undead from every direction. None that I could see were close. I think all the zombies nearby had drifted into the village over the last few months. The ones heading my way were from much further afield. They were still too far away to see me, or so I hoped, but if I stayed out in the open, one would spot and then pursue me. And where there's one...

I picked up my pace, and made for a tumbledown cottage that had been on the verge of collapse long before the outbreak. I didn't have time to check whether the house was occupied, I just dived into a gap between a woodpile and a broken-down shed. Then I waited.

Sometimes, during the occasional quiet sections of music I heard the shuffling sound of the undead walking along the road mere feet away. Occasionally I would hear rotten cloth tear or dead branches crack as They tried to walk through the impenetrable thickets of brambles and briers bordering the fields. Sometimes, during the brief gaps between songs I thought I heard something else, a knocking sound close by. I sat. I listened. I waited.

It took a bit under two hours, for the batteries at the weather station to run out. Then there was a brief, glorious and wonderful time, when it was just the music from the old shed. Crouched there, hidden, my leg aching from cramp, my whole body tensed to spring up if I heard any sound closer than a few yards, I got to listen to seven songs.

I couldn't tell you their names. I couldn't even tell you if they were objectively any good. To me it was sublime. It was beautiful. It was transcendent. Music's always done strange things to me, and after so long with nothing but my thoughts playing inside my head, the effect seemed amplified tenfold. It was a watershed moment for me. The moment when I started to think that we could do this, we could do more than survive, we could actually live. It was as if these songs were shining a light onto the world that was and the parts of it that one day we could have again. Like I said, music does strange things to me.

And then, as the batteries died, the music stopped. I waited. Without any other sounds, except that of the undead, I could hear the knocking more clearly. It was coming from the cottage. Now it was the loudest sound I could hear.

I was about two miles from where we'd stashed the bikes. The plan was that if I arrived first I'd backtrack into the village to find out what was delaying Kim. If she arrived first she'd wait as long as she thought prudent, depending on who it was she'd rescued and, if necessary, we'd meet up at Brazely. We'd mapped out a route, and the assumption was that since it was unlikely that whoever she rescued would happen to have a bike, or that there was likely to be one in the restaurant, they would use mine and I would have to find another one somewhere else. It wasn't much of a plan, but there hadn't been the time and there were too many unknowns to come up with a better one. The question for me then was, had Kim managed to get out of the village?

The knocking got louder. I crawled out from my hiding spot, and looked over at the cottage. The windows were smeared with something a lot worse than dirt, but behind it I could just make out the humanoid outline of at least two undead. That wasn't the worrying part. It was the way that the window was partially boarded up, with tape stuck to each pane of glass. I looked over at the door. It too showed signs of reinforcement. I wasn't getting in, They weren't getting out, so there was nothing I could do to stop the noise. I had to go, somewhere, anywhere, before more zombies came.

The rendezvous was two miles away, but that was two miles in a straight line. I could make out the sound of the undead, still moving through the countryside. A straight line wasn't going to be possible. The Abbey was closer to forty miles away than thirty. On foot, with the undead now roused from their torpor, that suddenly seemed a lot further than it had earlier in the day. I needed speed.

There was nothing but weeds in the cottage's driveway and I couldn't see any sign of a bike amongst the detritus strewn about the garden. Going by the state of the shed and the roof, if I did find one it would be more rust than metal. I had to look elsewhere.

I crawled away to a gap between two pine trees that marked the edge of the property. I vaguely remembered spotting a cluster of newer looking houses near a wider road on the other side of the hill. It was less than a mile. I glanced up and around. I could see movement in the hedges where the undead had become entangled. The idea of trying to head across the fields didn't appeal. If I stuck to the roads, then I would only have to face those zombies that had managed to push through the hedges. Of course those were the tougher, stronger ones, but what other choice was there?

I made sure the pistol was loaded, the safety was on, and that it was secure in my pocket. Easy enough to get out in need, but not likely to fall out. I checked my gear was tight, that there were no easy-to-grab straps, then I got up and I ran.

Running, or as close to it as I can get with my twisted leg, turns a mile into a marathon. It's a never ending cycle of one more step, one more step, one more step, just to push through the pain. I can't fight whilst I’m running. The pike has to be a staff, a third leg, it becomes all that's keeping me up. The further I get, the more the brace jars and rubs and abrades my skin, until blood mixes with the sweat seeping down my leg.

There weren't many of Them at first, just one every fifty yards or so. A hop-skip sideways was all I needed, then it was a straight bit of road until the next zombie. Then there were two, then three, then five, and then I stopped counting.

My vision narrowed. My world closed in. I danced left to right, right to left, forward and even backwards to avoid the grasping hands and snapping teeth. They seemed to be everywhere. A forest of arms. A sea of teeth. In front. Behind. Coming through the hedges to the sides. I waved my free left arm, punching at their faces, pushing at their bodies, clawing back at Them. I screamed with the pain shooting up my leg. I yelled as I felt their hands tug at my clothing. I swore as nails clawed at my hands and face. I roared my anger and hatred at all They represented, all They had done to me, to my world, until my voice was hoarse and I needed all my effort just to keep going. One more step, then just more, then one more after that.

Then there were no more zombies. I glanced around. They were all behind me. I looked ahead, the road seemed clear. I looked down and saw the surface of the road had changed, becoming darker, the lines less faded. I saw the turning into the small development. There were six five-bedroom houses, clustered in a crescent around a pair of converted barns. Not a large development, far smaller than I had remembered it being. I ran down the cul-de-sac, stopping by the small round-about, turning a full circle, looking about for a bike. I saw none. What was I expecting?

The garages, I thought. In February bikes weren't left outside, they'd be locked up in a garage. I turned around once more, looking with an indecision borne of desperation. I had so little time, barely enough to look in one garage, but which?

“Act,” I told myself. “Just pick one.”

I ran to the nearest and slammed my fist against the metal garage door. All I achieved was a resounding echoing gong and a bloody smear on the flaking paint work. Of course it didn't move, didn't open. The keys would be somewhere inside the house. I glanced back towards the road. They were close behind me. Two hundred yards, getting closer. I didn't have time to search for keys.

I could stay and fight, except I knew I would lose and I would die. I could keep running, except now that I had stopped I didn't know I'd be able to start again. Desperate, terrified, angry at having come so far, having gained so much, determined not to lose it, not so soon, I stuck the tip of the pike in the gap between the bottom of the garage door and the ground. I heaved.

The door didn't move. What was it Archimedes said? Give me a lever long enough and somewhere firm to stand, and I'll move the world. I looked around. I made the mistake of looking back along the road. They were one hundred and fifty yards away. Almost too close. I spotted an old zinc-galvanised watering can by the drainpipe. Fulcrum, I thought. I grabbed it, threw it close to the door and tried again. Something snapped. For a moment I thought it was the pike, but no, it was something inside, some part of the mechanism. The door shifted, clunked forward a few inches. I grabbed the bottom, scraping my knuckles on the concrete drive, and heaved at the door. It swung up and inwards, sticking about halfway. There was a gap of about three feet. I looked behind, They were less than a hundred yards away. My hand went to my pocket, checking the now reassuring weight of the pistol was still in easy reach, as I ducked into the gloom of the garage.

There was a bike. The garage was packed with boxes and old time junk that would, in my universe count as a looters paradise, but there was no time for it. No time for anything but the bike. I half dragged, half threw it outside. It wasn't even an adult's frame, it was one of those cheap BMX knock-offs, the kind you gave to placate a kid for Christmas, when you know they'll have outgrown it before Spring.