Zombies vs The Living Dead (An Evacuation Story #1) (4 page)

“Well that's just terrible” Miss Conner cried, “I'm
going to complain. I’m going to write to my MP!” It was
said with a finality indicating there was no greater threat or
sanction.

“Well, yes, you could do that,” George said as patiently
as he could manage, “but there's no post any more, no phone
lines either. And even if you could get through, this is a government
plan. Your MP knows. They've signed off on it.”

“What about our rights?” Mr Pappadopolis said.

“What about them?” George replied. “Look, there's
food for now, and I'll cook it up for you, but it won't last forever.
You need to decide if you can make it to Benwick. Maybe if you head
out someone will help you. There'll be other people, all heading the
same way. Or you can stay here, but the food will run out and then...
”

“What about you? What are you going to do?” Mr Grayson
asked.

“I don't know” George replied, and, dispirited once more,
he left the dining room.

6
^th
March.

The next day, after the promised fried breakfast, the residents split
themselves into two groups. Half embedded themselves in the sun room,
staring avidly at the television trying to extract any and all
information that they'd disregarded over the past two weeks. The
other half stayed in the dining hall, playing bridge, patience or
talking loudly and desperately about anything other than the absence
of staff, the outbreak or the undead.

“You missed the announcement today” Mrs O'Leary said when
he brought her dinner that evening. He'd moved his television into
her room so that she'd have something to do during her long hours of
solitude. “Made by that young MP you fancy.”

“Masterton?” He said the name too quickly and she
laughed. “I never said I fancied her” he went on “I
said it's nice to see an attractive young woman in Parliament.”

“That might have been what you said, but it's not what you
meant!”

“So what did she say?” he asked, trying to move the
conversation along.

“They're evacuating the cities. Starting tomorrow. All the
inland ones. London too, All to be emptied in twenty four hours.”

“Oh” he said, “so it is actually happening.”

“Seems so.”

“You think it'll work?” he asked.

“I think.” Mrs O'Leary said after a moment's
consideration “That what they're telling us is the tip of an
iceberg so big it could sink the world. And you know what they say,
you can't sink an iceberg, you can only ride it till it melts.”

George smiled, “That's a good one. You come up with that this
afternoon?”

“There wasn't much else to do” she admitted. “After
your girl gave that speech they stopped all other programming. It's
just the same stuff on what you should take with you. Reminders to
wear two pairs of socks, take a spare pair of shoes. Bring bedding,
stay with your family, bring water and food for at least two nights.
And on and on for about half an hour, and then it repeats.”

“And the radio?”

“The same thing. Just the audio of course, but it's the same
programme.”

“Nothing about us?”

“Nothing about anywhere specific. Any sign of McGuffrey today?”
she asked

“No.”

“He might have told them, you know. Someone might come to get
us all” she said, but without much conviction.

“You want to watch a film or something?” he asked after a
while

“Would you mind?”

He leafed through the meagre collection of DVD's he'd bought second
hand from the charity shop. “Brief Encounter?” he
suggested

“Oh, that would be fantastic.”

7
^th,
to 10
^th
March.

On the seventh, the morning of the evacuation, he was woken by the
sound of an engine and hurried outside to see the small ambulance
disappearing down the lane. It wasn't a real ambulance, just a
minibus that had been converted to take a stretcher. It was only ever
used to take residents to the Hospital or the funeral home.

He'd thought about loading Mrs O'Leary into the back and just driving
them away, but when he'd tried the engine he'd found the fuel gauge
was on empty. He'd fed a piece of wire into the tank, and from the
length that was damp when he pulled it out, he thought there was just
enough petrol to get over the hills, but it would be free-wheeling
down the other side. After that, whichever way you looked at it, it
was going to be a very long walk.

At breakfast, a previously prohibited quantity of bacon and eggs,
fried bread and the last of the fresh tomatoes, he'd found four of
the residents were missing. None of those who remained had any idea
where they had gone or that they had been planning an escape. After
he'd finished the washing up he went outside to sit on the wall by
the gates. He stayed there for most of the day, coming inside only to
put together a simple lunch for the residents. He saw no sign of the
missing ambulance nor was there any sign of Mr McGuffrey beyond an
occasional oddly shaped shadow at the window.

What he was really watching out for, though he wouldn't admit it even
to Mrs O'Leary, was a bus or truck or any other vehicle that might
have been sent to evacuate the home. None came.

The next three days were consumed with cooking and washing up and
caring as best he could for Mrs O'Leary. He checked the doors at
night and unlocked them first thing in the morning. Occasionally he'd
glance up towards the cottage on the hill, wondering what McGuffrey
was up to. He was certain the man was there. The conclusion George
had reached was that McGuffrey was waiting for everyone in the home
to starve to death so he could head off to one of the enclaves
claiming the residents had been left behind but that he had tried to
save them.

At lunch on the 9
^th
he used up the last of the bread. At
dinner on the 10
^th
he used up the last of the beef, and,
with the last of the fresh milk gone off, he opened one of the four
cases of UHT.

11
^th
March.

George had woken after a restless night. He couldn't see what course
of action he should take. He couldn't leave the others, nor could
they all stay there in the home, not without more food. After
breakfast, and after he had deputised Mr Grayson and Miss Conner to
do the washing up, he examined the store room.

There were now only three and a half cases of milk left. The biscuits
and cake he'd found in the staff break room had lasted less than a
day. He looked at the rows of packets and cans, trying to estimate
how long it would be before they too were gone. Perhaps two weeks, he
thought, perhaps less. He decided to go down to the village. He knew
that there wouldn't be much there, not if the Vicar and the Singh's
had been relying on his hand-outs, but he had to at least look.

He took his coat, went down the drive and out to the footpath that
led through the woods and down to the village. After a half hour he
came round a bend and caught a glimpse of the river and the houses
nestled alongside it. He slowed his pace, with each step nearer his
view of the village improved and his sense of unease grew.

Hesitantly, feeling like he was being watched though he could neither
see nor hear anyone, he walked off the path and into the trees. He
found a secluded spot a little further down the hill where he could
watch the village, hidden from view.

When he had looked down at the village from the home, he'd been able
to make out little more than the rooftops and the patchwork colours
delineating flowerbeds from lawns. Now he was only a few hundred
metres from the Vicarage, he saw that the windows of the shop, the
pub and the tea room had been broken. Shattered glass now littered
the streets in front of them.

It was a little over a week since Mr Singh had said that they were
planning on leaving. He tried to remember how many other people he'd
seen on that visit. There had been the armed police patrolling in
camouflage gear, but none of them lived in the village, he was sure
of that. Had he seen anyone else? He didn't think so. The village was
deserted, that was clear, and going by which windows had been broken
he doubted he would find any food there.

“So we're on our own. Can't stay, Can't go” he mused, “or
can we?” There were cars in the village, at least a dozen that
he could count. None would contain much petrol, but pooled together
there would be some. “Enough for one car, at least.”

What did he need then? The keys, obviously. Mrs O'Leary had joked
about him breaking into a house to look for them, but why not? He'd
also need some tubing to siphon the fuel out of the other cars. His
eyes were drawn to a small red run-about that belonged to Daphne, the
cook from the pub.

In the summers her disabled sister would visit. A childhood accident
had left her in a wheelchair and George remembered being amazed at
how the chair and a full load of shopping could fit in the boot of
such a small car. He could get that car, drive it back up to the
home, get Mrs O'Leary in and just drive away. Except he knew she
wouldn't leave the others behind. Now that he came to it, he wasn't
sure he could either. Which meant he needed drivers. He did a rough
calculation in his head. At a pinch they could manage with just three
cars, four would be better, but they could manage with just three. He
was sure that at least two of the other residents would remember how
to drive. And then they would go... go where? He thought for a
moment. Cornwall was the obvious choice, that was where the letter
said they were eventually going to go. His mind made up he turned and
headed back up the hill.

“What's
he
up to?” George asked himself when he got to the top
of the footpath and saw that t
he
front door to McGuffrey's cottage was wide open.

Expecting to see the manager and preparing himself for at least some
kind of confrontation with the man, he walked up the drive to the
main doors of the home. There he was stopped in his tracks by a
reddish brown stain slashing across the off-white paintwork.

Gingerly,
he pushed open the door and stepped inside. The signs of a struggle
were unmistakable. The never-read magazines, usually arrayed neatly
on the coffee table, were strewn across the floor. A solitary lilac
slipper lay on the floor next to the fire extinguisher which had been
pulled down and used, judging by the thin film of foam covering part
of the reception desk.

Automatically
he bent over to pick up the empty coat stand which was lying across
his path. Then he stopped himself, and listened. The home wasn't
silent. There was a strange sound, something he couldn't quite place,
something he wasn't sure he'd heard before. It was coming, he
thought, from the dining hall. Slowly he headed down the corridor,
his heart racing faster the closer he got. With each step the noise
got louder until he was only a few feet from the pea-green double
doors with their porthole windows. Uncertainly he took a last final
step, cautiously twisting his neck so he could peer through the glass
window into the dining hall.

The sight froze him to the quick. A trail of blood led from the
kitchen to two bodies lying face down near the windows. In the centre
of the room lay Mr Pappadopolis, his legs still twitching as
McGuffrey, kneeling above him, chewed on the old man's shoulder.

George
backed away from the doors. He'd never liked Mr Pappadopolis. There
was something about the way that the man with the comic-opera accent
was accepted where he wasn't that had created an enmity between them.
But no one deserved that fate. The uncertainty that had been gnawing
at him since the outbreak evaporated. He knew what had to be done and
knew it was he that had to do it.

He
returned to his room, closed the door and wished, not for the first
time, that residents were allowed locks. He bent down and pulled out
his box.

“Destroy
the brain, they said” he muttered, trying to recall all that
the news bulletins had said. “Didn't say how or what with,
though, did they?”

He
pulled out the chain that hung around his neck. On it hung Dora's
engagement ring and the key to the box. He unlocked it and, with a
grunt of effort, turned it onto its side. The meagre contents spilled
out onto the floor. He laid the box down and carefully removed the
false bottom. Inside lay a bundle almost as long as the box. He took
it out and carefully unwrapped the Assegai.

His father had brought it back from the Second World War. He'd taken
it from the effects of a blundering Captain who'd died during a night
time offensive that had killed the rest of the squad. It had been in
the Captain's family for generations, ever since it had been brought
back as a macabre souvenir of a massacre in South Africa, and had
been taken to this new desert war as an outsized and ultimately
ineffective lucky charm.

After the war, George's father, a citizen of Empire and a decorated
war hero, had immigrated to Britain. He'd brought the Assegai with
him, wrapped in canvas and strapped to the outside of the old kit bag
he carried his worldly possessions in. It was hardly hidden but
during the immigration process he received such a thorough
examination it would have been discovered regardless. “Family
heirloom is it? A spear for a spear-chucker?” The senior
immigration officer had said, laughing, “Let 'im keep it.”

Dora
had thought he'd thrown it out and he would have done had it not been
the only thing he had of his fathers. Instead George had replaced the
broken shaft, fitted the false bottom to the box, and hidden it
there, almost forgetting he'd had it when he'd moved into the home.

He
hefted the spear tentatively, gauging its balance. He had held it
before, but never like this. He gripped it with both hands. It was
almost like a sword, with an elongated handle.