Undead at Heart (5 page)

Her voice was soft,
but not breathy or girlish, and it calmed him. He felt a sheepish grin form on
his lips, only a shadow of his normal charmer’s smile, but a step back towards
normality nonetheless. “Yeah, sorry, I guess I’m more out of shape than I
thought.” He saw her quizzical look and explained. “I was wheezing, you know,
from running. I wanted to get away before. Well, before whatever happened
next.”

“What did happen?” she
asked.

“I have no fucking
idea. There was a helicopter which, I think, blew up a truck. And then all the
electrics went down – and, and I still don’t know how that happened.” He lifted
his Blackberry up again, pressing all the buttons and shaking it, trying to
find the combination of button-presses and agitation which would resurrect the
dead device. “And then fighter jets flew in and blew up a field.”

There was silence for
a moment and then he laughed. “Now that was a collection of words that I never
expected to hear myself say. ‘
Fighter jets flew in and blew up a field
’!”
He laughed louder, ignoring the rise of his gorge and the sting of tears that
he could feel accompanying it. The girl started to laugh too, but a little more
uncertainly. Tony just laughed louder. “They must really
hate
the
countryside!”

His laughter was
howling now, and he was aware it was going on too long, but he couldn’t stop
it. Eventually it caught in his tightening throat and he started coughing.

The girl came to his
side again, slapping his back, and when he could breathe properly again, the
laughter had gone and taken the urge to cry or vomit away with it.

He looked up at her
and smiled, aware that his eyes were watering, but not caring as these were
from coughing, certainly not crying. He was about to ask her name when other
people started to appear through the trees. They were walking, rather than
running, and some of them had started to talk to each other, comparing their
experiences, trying to work out what was going on. Some of them spotted Tony
and the girl and a group formed around them. It seemed, for the moment, that
everyone felt comfortable being this far inside the forest, and many of them
sat down on the ground until it started to look like some bizarre family
outing.

Although they were all
talking about what they had just seen, no consensus could be formed on what was
happening. The subject of the electrics was mentioned and Tony heard a voice
say, “I think it was an EMP: an electro-magnetic pulse.” He looked up to see
who it was who had silenced the group, and saw Nicola. “It’s one of the
side-effects of a nuclear bomb.” Tony heard somebody gasp at this, and saw
Nicola turn her head to look at the culprit like a teacher with an unruly
student. “It
wasn’t
a nuclear bomb, of course, or we’d all be dead. But
that’s where they’re usually found. It knocks out all the electrical equipment
in the vicinity. So no cars will work, no phones, no radios, nothing.”

Everyone was silent
for a moment after this, absorbing the information. Many people slipped phones
which they had been holding, or fiddling with back into their pockets or bags.
Tony held onto his. He wasn’t quite ready to give up on it yet. After all,
maybe this American woman was wrong. Maybe it just needed a few minutes rest.

“Can they do that sort
of thing?” a man at the edge of the circle asked Nicola.

She shrugged, and it
was only then that Tony realised that the dark shape in her arms was her
daughter. “I thought it was just a thing on movies, something good to move
along the plot. They used it in
Ocean’s Eleven
. But, obviously, it looks
like somebody can.”

“Somebody?
Who? Are we being attacked?” asked
another voice, and then everyone seemed to be speaking at once.

“Is it the Russians?”

“The
Chinese?”

“Aliens?”

A few people laughed
at this last one, but again Nicola shrugged. “Who knows?
Could
be.”

“Yeah,
right!”
Tony was
surprised that this last voice was his. “Aliens are going to come down and
attack rural Oxfordshire. They really hate wheat and barley. No, I know, the
colour of oilseed rape offends their eyes so they have come to wipe it off the
earth!”

“Oh, shut up,” a man
nearby told him, weariness in his voice. “There’s no need for that!”

“Isn’t there? Well,
who died and made her the leader?” Tony was on his feet, pointing his phone at
Nicola as though brandishing a weapon.

Nicola looked at him
blankly.
“Leader of what?”

“Of… of…” Tony looked around,
trying to work out what he had meant, but it seemed to slip away from him. He
sank back down onto the ground, and continued pressing the buttons of his phone
where he held it in his lap. The blonde girl, who was still next to him, gave
him a reassuring pat on the knee.

The
man
who had told Tony to shut up, then turned to Nicola. “So, he asked her. What do
we do now?”

Nicola gaped. Why was
he asking her that? Hell, why was he asking her anything?

She had just pointed
out to Tony that there was nothing to be a leader of. They were just a band of
people who had been caught up in a terrible accident and were taking shelter in
the woods to escape a fire. Soon enough there would be police and ambulances
and fire engines and people to tell them where to go, what to do, and who to
claim from for their insurance. She wasn’t the leader of anything, as there
wasn’t anything to be a leader of.

Ah yes,
said a voice in her head
, but
what about the fighter jets. This isn’t just an accident. Those were military
planes firing rockets at something. Who says anyone’s coming? Who says there’s
anyone out there to come? All bets are off, I reckon.

It was a voice best
ignored, she decided. She pulled her mouth closed and took a long breath through
her nose. “I have no idea,” she finally replied. “I know no more about this
situation that any of you. What do
you
think we should do?”

The man looked back at
her and said nothing. She could see that his inner voice was relaying the same
information to him as hers had, and he no more wanted to appoint himself the
decision maker than she did.

Nicola had a sinking
feeling though. She remembered doing jury service a few years ago in Boston.
The first job of the jury had been to choose a foreman, and she had
determinedly not volunteered. As she might have expected, it was the most
loud-mouthed and most reactionary of the group, a large guy called Bob, who
wore red suspenders over a blue plaid shirt, who had asked for the job. That
had been fine by her. She just hadn’t wanted to be responsible for standing up
and delivering a verdict in full view of the plaintiff and the defendant.

But it hadn’t been
that simple. Once they’d heard the case, a disturbing one about a man who was
‘uncle’ to a couple of mid-teen girls and was accused of behaving
‘irresponsibly’, they’d retired to the jury room to discuss it. She tried her
best to just sit and listen, but the foreman kept quoting evidence incorrectly
and leading people to conclusions that just weren’t borne out by the evidence.
Eventually, she had started to interject, and then a little more. By the time a
verdict was reached she was aware that she had managed to lead them to
her
conclusion,
and one or two had asked her, in the breaks, why
she
wasn’t the foreman.

It wasn’t that she had
wanted to take control, it was just that she couldn’t just sit back and let
others let their stupidity or their prejudices talk for them. She just had to
speak up.

She could feel that
same thing creeping over her now, especially as Tony looked up from his phone
and said. “Well, I think we should just stay here.”

She bit her tongue and
waited. She had no desire to claim any kind of leadership role here, especially
when one was already being tendered towards her.

“Something’s going on.
We know that,” Tony continued. “But the
fire’s
on the
other side of that nice wide road, and it surely can’t be too long before
police and ambulances and all that turn up. After all, that’s a major road out
there, blocked with our cars. I think we stay in here where it’s cool, and
dark, and not on fire, and we take turns to pop back and look out for the
authorities. Then, when they turn up, we can just head out to them.” He nodded
and looked around. Nicola could tell from his expression that he was waiting
for everyone to applaud or something.

Before she said
anything she checked inside for any sense of jealousy. She didn’t want to speak
up. God knows she had no desire to appoint herself as a leader of this group of
people. She had enough to look after with the – now-sleeping – bundle in her
arms that was Alyssa. But she couldn’t sit back and let these people listen to
the cowardly crap that Tony was talking.

“No, you’re wrong.”
Her voice came out as little more than a whisper, but a few heads turned to face
her.

She tried again.
“You’re wrong.” Her voice was louder this time and she felt it carry, turning
every head towards her this time. “If we stay here, I think there’s every
chance that we might just die.”

“Die? Die! What the
fuck are you talking about?” Tony wasn’t sure why he was getting so agitated by
Nicola, but he couldn’t stop himself from arguing. “There’s been an accident,
sure. And something weird is going on. But, come on, this isn’t one of your
blockbuster movies with the world coming to an end. It’ll be sorted soon and
then they’ll come and help us.”

One or two people made
noises of agreement, but many more were looking at him with consternation,
confusion, or downright hostility on their faces. He looked around, hoping that
common sense would win out, but as he saw the looks on their faces, he started
to lose hope. He felt the blonde girl give his leg a reassuring squeeze.

Nicola hadn’t taken
her eyes off him. She seemed to be holding back from whatever it was she wanted
to say. They were facing each other across about twenty yards of forest, with
thirty or so other people arrayed around and between them, but for a moment it
seemed as though it was just the two of them. Finally, she broke.
“Maybe.
Maybe not.
Maybe it’s a
training exercise gone wrong and soon there will be flashing blue lights and
mugs of tea. But, look at what just happened. A bunch of fighter jets just
fired missiles over your head into an ordinary field. This isn’t Iraq or
Afghanistan. This is England. If they’re doing that, then something is going
on. And even if it’s going on here and nowhere else, it seems to me that the
‘authorities’ are far too busy to bother with us. We need to move away before
the fire spreads over to this side of the road. Or before whatever they’re
firing missiles at moves over here and they feel the need to fire missiles in
this direction.”

Oh God
, thought Tony,
she’s making a
bloody speech!
“You said it yourself. Something’s going on here, and we
don’t know what it is. But if we don’t take some control, take some
responsibility for ourselves
,
then we have no-one to
blame if anything happens to us.”

People were making
more noises of agreement, and there was a lot of nodding. Tony wanted to
disagree, but couldn’t find the words, just a stubborn seething.

“So, if we’re going to
do something. I think we just head away from whatever’s happening over there.”
She pointed back towards the road.” And we find somewhere where we can be safe.
If we move far enough maybe we can find somewhere with a working phone, or at
least a radio or television. Something which might tell us what to
do,
or what the hell’s going on.”

All faces were looking
at Nicola now. Although nobody was moving, he could feel them drawing away from
him. He was left sitting alone in his pool of shadow. Then Nicola turned from
where she had been addressing the group, and looked straight at him. “What do
you think?”

Tony was taken aback.
He hadn’t expected her to throw it back at him like that. He said nothing for a
moment, and then rose to his feet, looking around at the faces that were now
all pointing at him.

“I’m staying,” he
said. “This is not a Hollywood movie where the creeping terror is going to come
and attack us. This is real life. And, this is England. Leave if you want to, and
ten minutes after you’ve gone, when the accumulated weight of the emergency
services arrive, I’ll make sure to tell them where you’ve gone. If you’ve not
got lost in the woods, or fallen off a cliff, or whatever, I’m sure they’ll
find you soon. Me, I’m going to wait, and I’d be happy to have any of you with
me.”

He nodded at Nicola as
if to say: your turn. He looked assured and confident but his mind was reeling.
This was all happening too quickly. One minute he was driving along thinking of
Susanne, the next he found himself forming a splinter group of people stranded
by an accident. He wanted to say this. He wanted to admit that he was scared
and didn’t know what he was doing. He wanted someone to just tell him what the
fuck was going on. But instead he set his face against this woman that he
didn’t know from Eve, and took his stand.