Surviving The Evacuation (Book 2): Wasteland (6 page)

She laughed. I didn't think it was that funny. Perhaps she was so highly strung, she was looking for, needed, any kind of release. The shooting was a manifestation of that, I think. The laugh was another, and I guess I also needed a release, because I started laughing too.

We found a bedroom that, going by the thick smell of mothballs and even thicker layer of dust, had lain empty since long before the outbreak. I opened the flu, letting out a shower of dirt and soot onto the ornate rug, doused the coal stacked decoratively in the grate with lighter fluid, and lit it. Despite the warmth of the day, we each pulled a chair close to the fire and sat.

“Cold toast,” I muttered after a while.

“What?” Kim asked.

“Cold toast. I was looking around the room and thinking. Imagining what it would have been like a century ago. Picturing the Dowager Countess lying in bed, spreading warm butter on cold toast whilst listening to a maids 'downstairs' gossip.”

“Oh,” she replied. “Why's the toast cold?”

“Toasted in the kitchen. By the time it gets up to the bedroom it's always cold. It's one of the things they used to say about the Lords and Ladies of those times. They didn’t know toast came out hot.”

“Huh.” She poked the fire.

“The Duke, he told me that. Said it was why he had a toaster on the sideboard in the dining room. The Duchess hated it of course, said it wasn't in keeping with an ambience of stately nobility. That didn't stop her using it of course.”

“The Duke of this place? You knew him?” she asked with genuine curiosity.

“Sort of. I spent a summer here with someone. Her family knew the Duke's family. I tagged along. It's... complicated.”

“Right,” she said.

Wanting to steer the conversation away from the past and the inevitable question of who that girl grew up to be, I changed the subject. “No water. I mean there's the water they were bringing up from the Lake, but I didn't know how safe it would be to drink, even after boiling.”

“So you're making tea with lemonade?” she asked as I cracked open a tin and poured it into a small saucepan I'd brought up from the kitchen.

“Yup. It works well. Think of it as tea with sugar and lemon,” I added, pouring in a second can. The saucepan went onto the fire, and I sat back.

“It's old fashioned,” I said, as we waited for the saucepan to boil.

“Sorry?”

“The scene. Us. The fire, the saucepan, the setting, the whole thing. It's like the last two hundred years never happened. Thousands of years, even.” I said. “I found some bones in the kitchen. One of them was at least three foot long. Giraffe, or Elephant, perhaps. I think they were eating the animals from the wildlife park.”

“Wasn't us,” she said. “Them. Those two, I mean. Whichever.” She stared into the fire.

“You knew them? Before,” I asked. There was a long pause before she answered.

“They thought we were the last,” she said, and the words came out in a rush. “That of all the people in the whole world, only the three of us were left. They were certain of it, so convinced I think it drove them crazy.”

“You knew Sanders?” I asked.

“Yes. Sort of. Not really.” She grimaced. “That's exactly how to describe him. He was a friend of a friend of someone I used to work with. He was the kind of guy you'd just see around. I think Sanders was a nickname, but when you've been saying hello to someone for years you can't suddenly ask 'What's your real name?' Then he moved into a place on the next street, and I'd nod to him at the bus stop, or say 'Hi' when I saw him at the supermarket, you know? Nothing more than that. When the evacuation started, when they said everyone had to leave, we decided to head off together. Or he did. There wasn't anyone else close by, and he was familiar. He was safe, I guess that's what I thought. That’s why I went along. And it was safe. Safer than if I'd been on my own.” She stirred the fire with the poker until sparks danced up the chimney.

“We got trapped on the motorway. The M3. About five hours out of London. I don't know how far that was, there were so many people, all trying to go the same way, no one could get very far very fast. There was meant to be a lane free for buses and coaches to collect the stragglers, but the road was clogged. This great heaving, sobbing, swearing, shouting, mewling mob, all heading out to who knew where and who knew what.

“Then the screaming started. I think it was from in front at first, but a few minutes later it was coming from behind as well. Then everyone was screaming. Most of them, I don’t think they knew why. They were screaming because everyone else was screaming. You know how people are. Were. Then it changed. Everyone started pushing. Everyone. Those behind, in front, to the sides, it seemed like every single refugee in that column, all wanted to be exactly where we were standing.

“Sanders saved my life. He dragged me through the crowd, over to the fence and practically threw me up it. I managed to claw my way to the top. It wasn't difficult, I mean, they'd not built this thing to stop people getting out. I got to the other side and didn't know what to do. I watched him as he helped other people climb up and over, and I was just standing there, unable to decide if I should wait for him or run or what. Then the screaming changed. Or maybe that was when it really started. Pain and terror, that's what it sounded like. Before it had been anger and fear, but now, now it was filled with desperation, and it seemed to be echoing up the entire length of the motorway.

“I worked it out, since. Thought about it a lot. Didn't have much else to do, but think. Those first screams, that's when the infected died. Someone standing next to one, when the body dropped, they screamed. Then the pushing, the shoving, that was when they realised what it meant. They wanted to get away, before the bodies turned. That last lot of screaming, that was from the people who hadn't managed to escape when those zombies started standing up.

“All those people who'd been infected, the ones who thought they were special. Who thought they were different, immune,” she glanced at me, “if they'd just stayed at home, then maybe the evacuation would have worked. Of course if they'd done that we'd have made it to the Muster Point and the vaccine. So, small mercies, right?

“Sanders managed to climb up and over, and then we ran. The last time I looked back I saw this huge section of fence just collapse outwards under the weight of about two dozen people. Or zombies. Or both. I couldn't tell.

“We kept running, kept hiding up when we found food and water and moved on when we ran out. Then we met Cannock. That's when it went wrong. Some people are good, some people are bad, most though, they live their lives with their souls balanced on a knife's edge, just waiting for circumstance to push them one way or the other. Cannock was different. He wasn't just bad, he was truly evil. When he pushed, well, I guess Sanders didn't really stand a chance.

“It was Cannock's idea to come here. When we arrived there was an old couple here. Not
old
old, but maybe sixties, seventies, made a lot older by the rationing and the power cut and the fear of the undead, you know? Cannock killed the woman. Made Sanders kill the man. Said it was survival of the fittest. Said there was no room for passengers. Afterwards, he said it was the merciful thing to do. Sanders believed him, he wanted to. He needed to.”

“The, uh, the man. Did he have a fussy little moustache? A Poirot sort of thing?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “You knew him?”

“And the woman,” I said, ignoring the question, “was she short, rake thin, with a mole on her left cheek?”

“I think so. Who were they?”

“The butler and housekeeper.” I sighed. “Good people. They didn't deserve to die.”

“No one does,” she said. “Not like that. I think that's when they both started to go mad, Sanders and Cannock, when the whole last men on Earth thing started. It got worse, each day that no one came, each day they had nothing to look at but the empty skies. That's when I should have run, but where to? As days went by and we didn't see anyone, didn't hear anyone, I think I started to believe it too.” She stabbed the poker into the fire.

“They'd go out sometimes for supplies in that first week or so we were here. That's when Cannock brought back the rifle. I can't remember what it's called, but he knew the name and everything. He said it was the one the British army sharpshooters had, said he'd used one of them in Iraq. I think he was lying, I don't think he was ever in the army. He said he found it in the MOD Armoury on Salisbury Plain and I think he was lying about that too. He was a good shot, though. He knew about the suppressor, knew it would make the rifle less accurate, but he also knew enough that silence was important. Everything had to be done quietly. Everything.

“The rifle made him happy, kept him... occupied, I suppose is the best way to describe it. Right up until they went out hunting. They made a big deal out of it, how they were the last people on the planet who'd ever bag themselves a Rhino. I wasn't to go with them. I had to stay, prepare the fire, get everything ready for a feast that evening. Woman's work!” she said, bitterly. “I should have run. They came back empty handed and soaked through. I said I should go out. That I'd been hunting, that I knew how to use a rifle. Cannock hit me. Then... well, you saw the cell, the handcuffs, you can work out the rest.”

She stopped, lifted the saucepan off the fire and poured the boiling liquid into the antique china teapot we'd liberated from a glass display stand on the ground floor.

“Last men on Earth, Ha!” she went on. “That's one too many. They didn't go out after that, just stayed in the house, day after day. Cannock would have killed Sanders soon enough. Or maybe it would have been the other way around. Then I would've killed whoever was left.” She poured the tea, and, as she handed me a cup, our eyes met. There was no point putting it off any longer.

“I need to tell you something,” I began. “About the evacuation...”

“That you came up with the idea. I know, Mr Bartholomew Wright, I read your journal,” she shrugged. “Some of it anyway. Whilst you were sleeping.” She sipped at her tea “Too much angst for my taste.” She took another sip. “It's how I knew about the vaccine. Cannock wasn't interested in it. I wondered what had happened to all the people, why no one had come. A house like this, I mean, fresh water, walls, I think I was expecting someone to come. Helicopters and army or something. Maybe that's why I didn't run when I could.” She shrugged. “I thought about killing you, I mean, that's what I’m meant to do, isn't it? I’m meant to blame you for everything. I’m meant to take it all out on you. At the very least I should be conflicted or something... something.” She took another sip “I think,” she said slowly, “that whatever happened, it was bigger than you. You were just another pawn, and me? I didn't even make it onto the board. I should say thank you, for rescuing me.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I am, for everything.”

“Save it,” she said, but not unkindly. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. After a while, eyes still closed, she said “So. Bart.”

“I prefer Bill.”

“Hmm, yes, I can see why. Bill, then. What are your plans now?”

I hesitated. I didn't know whether I should tell her, but for some reason I trusted her, and besides that, she'd already read the journal.

“I'm going to Lenham Hill,” I said. “I have to.”

“OK. Why?”

“It's hard to explain. There's a video on the laptop, it would be easier if I just showed you,” I said, standing up.

“But didn't you realise?” she asked. “You were shot, or your bag was. Your laptop's broken.”

I didn't reply, just hurried from the room. My pack still lay where I had dropped it. She was right. That blow that had knocked me to the ground, when I thought I had been shot, I
had
been shot. It was just that the bullet had come in at an angle and had been deflected by the bag and its contents. The laptop was broken in two. Shards of plastic and circuitry were mixed up with the dirt and grime at the bottom of the pack. I knew at once it was broken beyond repair. The files on it were lost forever.

I emptied the bag out onto the bed. The external hard drive looked fine, I turned it this way and that, and couldn't see any damage, but without a computer to plug it into I had no way of knowing. I glanced over once more at the pile of mp3 players, net-books, tablets and laptops that lay discarded amongst the shell casings. I tried every device that had a USB port. The batteries were all dead.

“They kept their haul somewhere downstairs. I don't know where, but they brought back a lot of stuff,” Kim said from the doorway.

It didn't take long to find the room she was talking about. It was filled with electronic gadgets, jewellery and even clothes. I remembered the house I had spent the night in, how it had been stripped of anything that might once have been considered valuable. It must have ended up here, amongst this pile of worthless wealth.

I tore through the piles until, finally, I found an Apple laptop. I turned it on. Victory! It had power. I rushed back upstairs.

Click-clack. I heard the rifle being reloaded as I approached the bedroom.

I ignored Kim, as she fired off another shot, grabbed the hard drive and plugged it in. I waited, my fingers crossed until I heard the drive starting to whir. It was working. The green power light came on. A dialogue box came up on the screen.