Undead at Heart (7 page)

“I’m Stan, by the
way.” He held out his hand.

She took it and shook
it. “I know, I remember.”
Nice!
thought
Stan.
“I’m Nicola.” She smiled again. “But I guess I’ve been loud-mouthed and
annoyingly assertive enough for you to remember that too.”

Stan was about to
respond with something complimentary which would let her know that she didn’t
need to be so hard on herself, when Dave walked up and ruined the moment, as
usual.

“Stan? Erm… Nicola? I
think we’ve found somewhere.” He pointed over to the left and Stan saw the edge
of a path which seemed to have simply appeared in the woods. Small posts with
swags of rope linking them headed off into the undergrowth and a few of the
group were already milling around a sign at the end. Dave led the three of them
over, and Stan was impressed to see how the group parted to let Nicola through.
He moved in behind her, stealing some of her authority by his proximity to her,
and so was able to see the sign. It was a rustic board with an arrow pointing
along the path. It said ‘Downside Outdoor Pursuits Centre.’

Despite being able to
do forty wrist curls, with 15 kilos, three times a week at the gym, Tony was
only able to manage about twenty yards over the uneven ground before he needed
to set Sam back onto her feet. The large lump of twisted metal had been
followed by a rain of smaller pieces, some of which had fallen heavily into the
undergrowth sending up small streamers of dark smoke. Others had drifted down
around him, sparks in the darkness, like being inside the descending cloud from
a firework. One had lit on his hand, like a hot needle digging into his flesh,
and for a moment he nearly dropped the girl, but he’d managed a few more steps
as the rain came to an end.

Finally, unable to go
any further with his burden he let her slide from his arms and was grateful to
see that she was able to stand now. She had stopped screaming when he picked
her up, but she was still making small whimpering noises. He tried rubbing her
shoulder and making shushing noises, but he wasn’t sure that he was really
having any effect.

He’d never been good
with crying women. When they started it was usually his cue to leave. And, if
he could manage it, the crying would only happen when he was long gone. Or so
he assumed. He had so little contact with the women he saw, that he could only
imagine their heartbreak and sobbing when they realised he was never coming
back, and that his initial promises had all been false.

Sam slowly came back
to reality, reaching into the small handbag which Tony only now noticed she had
been clutching, for a tissue to dry her eyes. She wiped them, and her face, and
blew her nose. Her hand dipped back into her bag, disappearing the tissue, and
came out with an even smaller bag. From that she extracted a compact mirror,
which she used to inspect her face. Then, with
a tut
,
she started to pull out small items of makeup with which she started to
reconstruct the mask which had been disturbed by her tears.

Tony stood and watched
her, wanting to tell her to hurry up. The urge to get away from whatever
cataclysm they had been caught up in had finally taken him over and he wished
he had gone with the others. At least they would have had someone who could
have taken care of Sam for him. He’d known her for such a short while but was
already resenting the responsibility she represented. He didn’t know the words,
however, to ask her to put her makeup away and come with him away from the zone
of fallout, so he simply watched her.

With each dab of
foundation and each sweep of a brush she seemed to grow more composed, and he
started to reason that letting her have this time to rebuild her façade was
probably the best answer to her distress. At least, he thought, as long as
nothing else blows up while we’re standing here.

Finally she seemed
satisfied with her repair job. She put her tools back into their pouch, and the
pouch back into her bag, and turned to him. He could still see the redness
around her eyes, but he had to admit she looked a lot better. In fact, she
looked a lot more than simply ‘better’. She might not have red hair, but Tony
was suddenly glad to be responsible for her. This whole event might not turn
out to be a complete washout after all.

“I’m so sorry, Tony. I
know I need to keep my head if we’re going to be okay, but it was just such a shock.
I mean, I was talking to them and then… then…”

Tony could see she was
on the edge of tears again, and moved to head them off. “I know.
Terrible shock.
Terrible business all round. I don’t know
what the world’s coming to. But what else were you going to do?
Terrible shock.
Terrible business.
But you’re okay now. I’m okay.
We’re
okay. Still, I think, maybe, the
others were right. Whatever’s going on over there,” he pointed in the direction
in which he thought the road lay, though he honestly was no longer sure, “is
obviously still going on and might even be spreading. We need to get somewhere
safe, somewhere where we can contact the authorities and get help. I think we
should see if we can catch up to them.”

Sam took all this in,
and Tony was pleased to see the way her composure came back as he spoke. Maybe
this responsibility lark was not as hard as it was cracked up to be.

“You’re right, Tony.
So right.
I’m so glad I stayed with you.”

Tony nodded, and
smiled, looked around them and then, taking her hand, led her off into the
woods.

The path very quickly
turned into a trail which led through woods which became more and more
manicured as they progressed. It was hemmed in on both sides by more of the
stake and rope fences, causing them to walk side by side. Nicola found herself
at the front, of course, with Alyssa at her side. The girl seemed remarkably
unaffected by the day, although she had been quieter than usual. She looked
around her as they
walked,
seemingly enjoying this
unscheduled trip into the countryside, and Nicola wondered how much of what had
happened she was actually taking in.

Stan and his friend,
who she seemed to think was called Dave, and actually might be his brother now
she thought about it, walked behind her. Stan seemed to have decided to be her
bodyguard, or consort, or something, since he had first guided her entrance to
the forest. Behind them the rest of the group had paired up. Some were nursing
wounds from the falling debris, but each of these had found someone to help
them, to keep pressure on wounds or help them walk where the injury was to feet
or legs. It was a model of altruism that, to be honest, she didn’t expect. Not
in England, anyway. She had encountered some nice people, sure, people who
would willingly help each other for no personal gain. But she had also met many
selfish people who just wanted to keep their heads down and wait for someone
else to take responsibility. People like Tony. She hadn’t been able to believe
the show he’d put on. What was he hoping to prove? What was he hoping to
achieve? All he’d managed to do in the end was convince three other people to
risk their lives with him. She knew he was scared, but where was the basic
human desire to run away. Only an Englishman, she thought, even as she cringed
at her mental voice sounding like a typical American.

Since she’d come back
she’d done her best to fit in. She knew how people in this country thought of
Americans and, hell, she agreed with most of them. It didn’t help that Rob had
embodied all of those things that people hated most about Americans. He was
loud, brash, opinionated, and ignorant of anything outside his corner of the
world. His concession to exoticism and worldly-wisdom was to have married a
once-English woman. She wasn’t sure which she hated most: that she had been a
trophy wife, or that it had taken her six years to realise it.

On her return she had
tried to fit back into English society, regain the accent she had worked so hard
to lose at fourteen, when she had found herself as the ‘foreign’ girl in her
class, tried to remember what it was to be quiet, and to keep her opinions to
herself, and to complain only about the weather. She had tried, but somehow the
second half of her life was proving much harder to shed than the first.

Still, she reflected,
if it was the dreaded influence of Americanisation – an international infection
which she was accused of spreading by anyone with more than one drink in them –
that had led to the cooperation between this random
group
of strangers, then she was finally pleased to have been a carrier of the virus.

As the path wound
through the woods, occasional breaks in the ropes led to activity areas: a
platform with a zip-wire running from it, a rope net slung from a tree, a
rickety bridge over a large mud puddle. But something was wrong. The zip wire
sagged in the middle almost to the ground, ready to guide anyone stupid enough
to use it straight into the floor. The net had come loose at one corner and
hung down like a malevolently winking eye. Slats had fallen from the bridge
giving it a gap-toothed smile. It had seemed such a find: an Outdoors Centre
would be well-stocked with first aid materials, and who knew, they might be far
enough away from the EMP for working phones or at least a radio.  Now
Nicola was starting to realise that what they would find would be an empty
building, its sign hanging loose, and no help to be found.

At least, she thought,
if it was empty and abandoned they could break in and find shelter while they
did what they could with the injuries and protect themselves from any more
falling debris. If they were lucky there might be some abandoned supplies. Even
some old sheets would help as makeshift bandages.

They weren’t lucky.

They rounded the final
corner into a wide clearing and Nicola discovered that even her carefully
studied, bleak outlook had been hopelessly optimistic. At some point there had
been a fire which had reduced the Centre to a few blackened shards of metal framing:
rotted fingers grasping at the sky; and a pile of ashes and molten glass. Small
streams of smoke emerging from leaves which had piled in the debris of the
buildings showed that the rain of burning that they had endured in the forest
had reached at least this far, the clearing providing no barrier to the sky.

Nicola took only a few
steps into the clearing and the group formed into a semicircle behind her,
lining the boundary between trees and space. A low moan came from a few who had
not realised the significance of the broken-down activity areas.

Nicola thought that
she should probably say something to them. These people had followed her, and
she had led them away from their original direction in the hope of finding help
at this Centre. Although it wasn’t her fault, she felt that she had in some way
let them down.

Before she could say
anything, however, she heard Stan clear his throat. “Ah well, it was worth a
try.” His voice was conversational but loud enough to reach them all. “At least
we’ve found a road.”

Nicola turned in
surprise and saw him pointing past the burned wreckage of the buildings which
had captured her vision, to where a tarmacked road, covered by the fallen
leaves and branches of who knew how many years, led away from what would once have
been the car park for the Centre.

Her heart lifted. She
might not have found help, but she had helped them find a route that might lead
them to somewhere better. Where there was a road, there would be – eventually –
civilisation.

She set off to circle
the shell of the Centre, but was pulled up short by Alyssa who still held her
hand, but refused to move. Nicola looked down at her daughter and saw her
pointing above the trees on the far side of the clearing. Following the
pointing finger with her gaze, Nicola could see three shapes in the sky. They
were vaguely triangular, but these were no jets. They were hovering like
helicopters, but there were no rotors. As she watched, they zigged and zagged
from side to side, contrails of missiles fired from the ground passing between
them, and Nicola realised they were hovering somewhere over the burning field
from which they’d fled.

From their bases,
thick green streams of light shot out, parallel to the paths of the missiles. A
few moments after the appearance of the beams, Nicola could hear a singing,
whining noise which was accompanied by a rumbling, roaring, crumbling noise
like a distant rock-fall. The three UFOs started to move closer, and so did the
noise. If they kept on in a straight line it wouldn’t be very long before the
beams, and the steadily loudening noise, would arrive at the clearing in which
they were standing.

Once more she scooped
Alyssa into her arms, turned to face all the people who were still staring at
the apparitions in the sky, and screamed, “
Run
!”

Tony hated the
countryside. He always had. He’d been brought up in North Manchester where
grass was for parks and trees were the things which they periodically planted
on the edges of pavements and left to die. He’d never seen the attraction of
walking the hills or wandering by the sides of rivers. He was a creature of the
city-centre; of clubs and pubs, shops and restaurants, paving stones and
tarmac. He wasn’t sure he’d ever really thought about it, but he hadn’t known
that such places as this really existed. This was not the kind of woods that
you saw on television with rosy-cheeked couples walking hand in hand, their
over-sized dog bounding around them looking for sheep to worry. There were no
paths in this forest, just trees and fallen leaves, mud and stone and moss. His
city shoes slid on the slickness under foot, a crust of mud forming around the
leather sole. Sam stumbled after him, the heels of her shoes, admittedly
shorter than they might have been, either sinking into the soft ground, or
skittering on stone. She hung onto his arm and he half-guided, half-carried her
through the dimness.