Surviving The Evacuation (Book 2): Wasteland (3 page)

Each time I tried to say something, they fired. Then I realised what they were doing. They didn't want me to talk. They wanted me to shout. They wanted the undead to come here and finish the job for them, but they were out of luck.

What's the longest you've gone without speaking? All I managed was a throaty rasp, barely intelligible as words even to my own ears. So now I’m silent again, and trying to come up with a new plan.

I could wait until nightfall and hope they were lying about the night sight, but if they were why waste so much ammo? Why do they want me dead? No, those kinds of questions can't be answered from here.

How long did the exchange go on for? I wish I'd checked my watch. Say it was fifteen minutes. Was that too long, did the undead hear us? The rifle might be silenced, but the impacts of the bullets aren't. How long before They come?

It seems I've a choice between heading towards the lake and being shot in the back, or staying put and hoping the undead don't find me. Neither is particularly appealing.

19:00, 25
th
June.

Or I could head towards them. Or towards the house, at least. I’m almost positive they are in one of the bedrooms, which means they've got a pretty limited angle of fire. If I can make it to the house, and follow the wall around, I can make a run for the tree-line from either the north side or the west. They won't know which side of the building I’m on until they've picked a bedroom and looked. So I've a fifty-fifty chance they'll pick the wrong one. Or, to put it another way, a fifty-fifty chance that I'll make it to the trees before they shoot me.

Are they good enough to be able to shoot a moving target? One of them probably is. Too many guesses and assumptions. What I do I know?

The only thing I know about night-sights is that they don't work in daytime. Obvious, right? But nor do they work in well lit buildings or when a light is shining on them. Do you remember all those movies where the bank robbers would use a flash-bang to blind the SWAT teams? Well, I've no flash bangs, and with no electricity except in a thunderstorm, there's no prospect of the floodlights suddenly coming on, but I do have my torch.

It's about a hundred yards of lawn between the edge of the maze and the house. Probably about the same distance on the other side of the building. Perhaps more. Probably more, I don't know.

My right leg didn't heal properly from the break I sustained on the same day the outbreak started in New York. Now it's slightly twisted, an inch so shorter than the left, and I have to wear the leg brace for support. I can walk, I can hop, I can skip out of the way of the grasping arms of the undead, but I can't really run. The limping lope I manage instead is still faster than any zombie can manage and up until now that is all that has mattered.

Day 106, Longshanks Manor.

10:00, 26
th
June.

Last night, I waited until about half past nine. It wasn't fully dark, but in the still night air I heard something approaching. The undead were coming. Fighting off one, or even two, whilst staying hidden from the snipers would be possible, not easy, but possible. Except, when it comes to the undead, where there is one, soon after, there are more. If it's a choice between a bullet and being torn apart, well, what choice is that?

I took off my coat, wrapped it around the pike and raised it so it was just peeking above the corner at the other end of the gazebo. I moved it about for less than a second, then pulled it down just as a shot was fired. They weren't lying about the night-sight, but clearly it wasn't powerful enough to distinguish between a person and the oldest trick in the book.

Trying not to expose anything more than the tips of my fingers, I reached up and placed the torch on the gazebo's wooden handrail, pointing it towards the house. Then I tried the trick with the coat once more, this time raising it higher in a sudden jerking motion that I hoped would be interpreted as an attempt to clamber up over the railing. A bullet flew through the jacket, hitting it dead centre. It folded over in what, even to me, looked like a fair imitation of a collapsing body. I let go of the pike, reached up and turned the torch on. Then I dived from cover towards the hedge.

In the near dark, with so much new growth, there was no point wasting time looking for a path through the maze. Three seconds after I'd left the shelter of the gazebo I heard a bullet striking wood. I dived at the hedge, shoving and pushing as the branches tore at my hands and face. Five long seconds later and I was through, just, as another shot was fired. This time it must have hit the railing because the torch moved, rolling so its light now shone directly on the branches above my head.

I dropped to the ground and began to crawl, my hands outstretched, searching for a gap in the undergrowth. I found it as a third shot was fired, and the light went out.

As darkness suddenly returned, it seemed as if a deathly stillness settled on the grounds through which every last little sound seemed amplified. The water lapping against the shore of the lake, the trumpeting call of some far off animal, the wheeze of the approaching undead, even the click-clack of the next round being chambered in the rifle. I crawled on.

I was on my hands and knees, halfway out of a hedge when a sudden weight pushed me down. My chin smashed into the soft leaf litter, my teeth jarred upwards biting into my tongue. I could taste blood but I ignored this small pain, waiting for the agonising spasm when my brain realised I had been shot. It didn't come.

I breathed in, and it hurt to do so, but there was no bubbling rasp of a punctured lung, no numb collapse of a severed spine, no spreading cold of a mortal wound. I began to pull myself along, faster and faster. I was surprised to find that as my hands pulled at the branches and weeds dragging me closer to the next wall of the maze, my legs and feet started kicking out, pushing me along. I was sure I'd been shot but, somehow, I was still alive. Everything still worked, and though it ached to breathe, I knew I wasn't going to die. Not then, not yet.

At the next hedgerow I crawled along it a dozen feet, before forcing a path through, and this time I didn't rush. Fighting my instincts, I forced myself to carefully brush the branches out of my way, trying to make the hedge move as little as possible. When I heard a bullet whistling through the leaves, I breathed a sigh of relief. It was nowhere near me, they didn't know where I was.

I kept crawling, my hands constantly searching out for gaps through which I could squeeze. Then I heard the sound of a body hitting gravel. The undead must have reached the grounds and the snipers must have seen Them. Perhaps they thought I was dead, perhaps they hoped the undead heading towards the maze would flush me out. Either way I knew I was no longer the focus of their attention. I waited until I heard another body thump to the ground, then I stood up and half dived, half fell through that hedge and the next and the next, until I fell flat on cool grass.

I picked myself up and hurried across the parched meadow that had once been a manicured lawn. I kept my eyes fixed on the house, holding my breath, gritting my teeth against the pain I knew must come when the bullet hit. But it didn't. I made it to the wall.

Standing with my back against it, I listened. I heard more gravel scatter, as another body fell. I gave a silent cheer. I was safe. Relatively speaking, of course. It sounded as if the undead were approaching from the same direction I had left my bike, which meant that I was leaving the Manor on foot. It dawned on me that with my pike broken, still wrapped in my jacket at the centre of the maze, I would also be leaving virtually unarmed.

I checked my belt. I had my hatchet and chisel and an empty water bottle. I was still wearing my pack, with a day's worth of food left, the laptop, the hard drive, the first volume of my journal, a rope and a few other essential supplies. All in all it wasn't much, but it was enough. I could find another bicycle, I could find more tools and make another weapon, I just had to get away.

I crept along the wall, listening carefully now to the noises around me, expecting at any moment to hear the sound of the approaching undead. When I heard a soft scratching sound, it took me a moment to realise it was coming from inside the Manor, from a room just a few windows away. I slowed as I got closer, and I saw that one set of windows was boarded up, not from the inside like the others, but from the outside.

Someone, or something, was trying to lever a window open. One of the undead, perhaps, trapped in the room for some macabre purpose. It had heard my approach and was now scrabbling at the glass, scraping at the paintwork, trying to get out. Except, what zombie would do that? Wouldn't it just hit at the glass until it broke? It made no sense. Then I heard a more familiar sound. The undead were coming. They were close.

I stopped a couple of yards away from the window. The sounds inside ceased but the sounds of the approaching zombies were getting closer. Whatever was inside, I didn't want to know. I was more than half way around the building, in a spot as good as any other. I braced myself and got ready to dash to the tree-line. It was, I judged, less than two hundred yards away, if I could just...

“Hello?” a voice called from inside the room. A woman's voice. I paused. “Hi.” The voice came again, slightly louder this time.

“Hi?” I replied and then closed my mouth, unsure what to say next, uncertain even how to say it.

“Can you help me?” the woman asked.

“You were shooting!” I replied, the words barrelling out in a rushed slur.

“You think if I had a gun I'd be trying to break out of here?” That was a fair point. I was having difficulty processing all of this, though. People, conversation, they're not what I’m used to.

“Would you mind?” There was an edge of impatience in her voice. “Let me expand on that. Would you mind levering off the board blocking this window?”

“Right. Sorry. Yes.” I said, still off balance. I took out the chisel, raised it to the board covering the window frame and hesitated. I tried to work out whether or not she was a prisoner. If she was, should I let her out? The other windows were all boarded up from the inside, but if she was in league with the...

“Whenever you're ready.” This time the impatience was coupled with sarcasm. That sealed it, I don't know why, but there's just something trustworthy about anyone who can be sarcastic in the face of adversity. I pushed the chisel into the gap between the wooden board and the window, hammering it into place with the hatchet.

“I meant quietly!” she hissed. “I assumed you'd understand.”

“No time,” I said. “Zombies.” I heaved at the chisel, levering the board back. I repeated the action on the other corner. In the distance another body thumped to the ground, somewhere far closer I heard the shuffling dragging step of a foot on gravel.

I had both of the corners free, and began to pull and tug at the bottom of the board until there was a foot wide gap. I reached as high as I could and hammered the chisel in once more. There was another thump. I started counting.

The nails gave and the board fell to the ground. Now all that was between us was the glass window.

“Stand back,” I said. It was too dark to see, I just had to hope that she'd heard me. I swung the hatchet at the window. It broke. The tinkling of glass on the floor of the room seemed to echo all around the grounds.

“Well,” I said. “Climb out.”

“Can't. Chains. Wouldn't get far,” she replied, stepping closer to the window. Under the reflected moonlight, I glimpsed an unkempt, haggard face. “Here, give me that.” Her hand snaked out and snatched the hatchet.

I stood there, uncertain. Then there was a shot and the sound of a bullet hitting stone, but there was no corresponding thump of a body falling. I peered out into the night, wishing she'd hurry up. It was fifteen seconds before the next shot, and again it was a miss. The snipers had switched. I didn't know what that meant. I didn't like it though.

“Hurry,” I said, turning back to the room, but it was too dark, too filled with shadows to make out more than her outline.

“Stand by the window,” she hissed back. “Get ready.”

I couldn't see what she was doing, nor could I hear any sound of her breaking whatever chains were holding her. Unsure what I was getting ready for and because I had no better plan, I did what she said.

Close by, I heard the tread of a foot on dry grass. I turned to stare out into the night just as the door to the room opened. The light of a torch shone out onto the back of my head and out around the window frame, into the night. Behind me, I heard a meaty thwock, and a man screamed, but I didn't turn to look. Before the light disappeared, as the torch was dropped, it had illuminated a zombie, less than three feet away from me.

The torchlight had taken away my night vision. I was blind. I swung the chisel in a violent sweeping arc in front of me. Left to right. There was a second wet crunching sound from inside and the screaming stopped. Right to left, left to... It scored against something soft. I swiped again, slightly lower, and the chisel jarred against flesh. I pulled my hand back, ready to thrust it forward into where I thought the zombie's face was, but then it was on me.

Its mouth clamped down on my wrist. The chisel fell from my grasp. I pounded my free hand down on its skull. I pushed and I shoved and I pulled my wrist free. I grabbed at the creature, my hand closed around a handful of dank rotting hair. I twisted my grip, half turned and slammed its head into the brick wall of the house, again and again and again until it stopped moving.