Surviving The Evacuation (Book 6): Harvest (9 page)

McInery hadn’t reached it. She’d paused in the lobby and was pulling at… they were remains, though parts would be a more apt description. It was impossible to tell which limb belonged to which torso, nor even how many had died. It was a last stand, the destruction wrought by landmines or something larger, used when all hope of rescue or escape had gone.

Tuck reached out to grab McInery, uncertain what macabre purpose she had, but the woman straightened with a look of triumph on her face. In her hands was a rifle. The barrel was bent, the stock charred. Before the soldier could protest, McInery had thrust it into Tuck’s hands, and then pushed past her, grabbing another, similarly damaged weapon.

“Rifles,” she mouthed.

Tuck looked at her, wanting to scream. Instead, she ran out of the main doors and down into the street. There were undead there, and there were more on the right, so she went left, using the broken rifle to club a path through the living dead. The roads blurred into one as she swung the rifle, pitching the undead from their feet, no longer caring if they rose again in time to attack McInery.

She saw the river, but there was a zombie right in front of the railings. She kept running as it twisted around to face her, and then turned the run into a leap. Her shoulder hit its face, snapping its head back. She spun, bayonet ready, but the creature had lost its footing, slipped, and fallen onto the spiked railings. One had gone straight through its neck. Its arms thrashed, its legs kicked, and the skin around that gaping wound slowly tore.

Tuck took a step back, looked around for any more imminent threats, and saw McInery not three paces behind. A broken rifle was slung over her shoulder, a second in one hand, and the battle-axe in the other, an almost serene look on her face. Tuck stabbed her bayonet into the eye of the impaled zombie, and then took one last look back at the road. She expected to see a great pack of the undead heading towards them. Whenever she ran from them she always forgot how slow they were. They would be impeded by the rubble and might never get as far as the river. She threw a look towards the Tube station and the bicycle shop hidden behind. Not this trip, she decided.

She clambered over the railing and down the steps to the raft. McInery moved to pull the rope free. Tuck shook her head.

“The tide,” she signed. “It won’t turn for an hour.”

McInery nodded and sat back down. “You said you needed a firing pin,” she said, pointing at the rifles.

Tuck nodded. The only modern weapon in the Tower that wasn’t covered in gems or coated in gold was an SA80 assault rifle that had been part of a display on modern warfare. The firing pin and back spring had been removed. Tuck looked at the weapons with their twisted barrels and melted stocks. She took out one of the cartridges that McInery had taken from that ballroom. It was the right calibre.

“You can make the gun work, can’t you?” McInery asked.

“Maybe,” Tuck signed.

McInery smiled. As they waited for the tide to turn, Tuck tried to work out why.

By the time she stood on the battlement walls, watching Kevin and Aisha bicker, she’d not found the answer. They’d brought back four hundred and sixty-three rounds of 5.56 NATO ammunition. At best, that represented no more than the deaths of three hundred of the undead. She wasn’t sure how much ammunition there was in the ballroom, but even if they went back, collected it all, and planted each bullet in the forehead of one of the living dead, they would only make a shallow dent in the total numbers left in their undead Britain. It was a distraction from the real threats facing them. That was the argument she’d been working on as she’d carried the drone back to Jay’s room, but when she’d found McInery again, the woman seemed to have lost all interest in the rifles and ammunition.

Tuck closed her eyes, seeking a moment of calm in the silent dark. She kept trying to place McInery on a spectrum with the power-mad crook she’d been at one end, and the altruistic philanthropist she’d claimed to be at the other. Perhaps she was wrong, and McInery was just plain mad.

To a greater or lesser extent, and each in their own way, everyone who’d survived this long had developed eccentricities that went far beyond neurotic. Why should McInery be any different? It was a comforting thought because it suggested that, with no reason behind McInery’s actions, there was no subterfuge either. That meant that she could focus on the other, far more pressing problem she’d discovered on their return.

The two zombies she’d seen pawing at the barrier on the far side of the moat when they’d set out for Westminster were still there, and they’d been joined by a third. It wasn’t that anyone had spent the morning relaxing, just that they’d opted for the backbreaking but safer chores inside the Tower’s walls. Filtering, boiling, desalinating, and purifying the water, splitting the firewood, mucking out livestock, and all the rest added up to full-time work for two-dozen people. Then there was the never-ending toil of laundering and mending the clothes that could be salvaged and burning those that couldn’t. It all had to be done, of course, but those were tasks that used up their stores, not ones that added to them. And after all that was done, and after all that they’d been through, didn’t people deserve some time to relax?

No, was Tuck’s answer to that. Clearly, she was in the minority. Her concern was that despite, or perhaps because of, Hana’s talk the night before, it was turning into Kirkman House all over again. It was too easy to confuse intent and action, particularly when they were all waiting for Nilda to return with news of whether or not they would be starving before winter set in. But anxiety wouldn’t hurry her return, so Tuck had organised a small group to get rid of those undead and at least make a start at crossing things off the shopping list.

She opened her eyes. Kevin and Aisha were still bickering in that way only two people in love could. Tuck watched them, trying to leech some of the happiness from the scene. Then she caught a few very unexpected words cross Aisha’s lips. She looked at the woman, this time more carefully, and realised they shouldn’t have been unexpected at all. Then she realised she was staring, and turned her attention back to the shopping list.

That was the name Jay had given it. It was a piece of paper he’d pinned to the door next to the kitchen on which anyone could write down essential items they would like the next outgoing expedition to look for. At the top, underlined and surrounded by a small box, were the words firewood, food, and water. Underneath and in the varied handwriting of whoever had added it were soap, detergent, blankets, gloves, coffee, tea – that had been underlined as well – then toothbrush. Next to that, and in a different pen, the letters ‘es’ had been added. Someone else had added ‘x 3’. That had been crossed out, with the word ‘lots’ scrawled in its place.

Halfway down was ‘bicycles’. She crossed it out. They knew where to find those now. At the bottom of the list, just below toilet paper – which had been underlined a dozen times – was ‘1 pair shoes, size 12.’ That was in Stewart’s chicken-scratch scrawl. Under that, and again in his handwriting, was written ‘or boots’, and under that ‘or sandals.’

Chester had arrived at the Tower barefoot. He’d needed a pair of shoes for the rescue mission to the British Museum, and Stewart had volunteered his. Yesterday, it had transpired that those were the man’s only pair. He’d been padding about with a couple of layers of cardboard between a pair of thick socks, and no one had noticed.

She checked the ropes were secure and the sword was loose in its scabbard. If they did go back to Westminster, she’d reclaim the fire-axe. It was a familiar weapon, even a reassuring one, but Nilda seemed happy with a sword, so when Tuck was looking for a replacement, she’d taken one for herself. It was a hanger, designed to be worn at the belt of a ceremonial uniform, and had belonged to King George III. That’s what Fogerty had said, though the metal looked suspiciously new to Tuck’s eyes. At least the blade was sharp. The old warder had had little else to do during his time trapped in the Tower but hone the edges of the exhibits.

The happily bickering couple put a pause on their argument as Graham climbed onto the battlements. Tuck nodded a greeting. Graham was a hard man to read. He’d walked off the work detail barricading the souvenir shop yesterday apparently because Stewart was on it, choosing instead to go out beyond the walls. Most people assumed the enmity was a product of Stewart replacing Graham as the group’s cook. Tuck didn’t think so. In her opinion, he was firmly in the ‘finding it impossible to adjust’ group of survivors. Willing to work today, but always holding onto the hope that tomorrow would turn out to be a yesterday now forever gone. Stewart was simply an easy target for his misplaced rage. But Graham was one of the few people who didn’t seem to mind leaving the safety of the castle’s walls. After him came… Hana? Tuck looked at her quizzically.

“I know Constance was meant to come,” Hana said, speaking with a now-practiced over-pronounced enunciation. “But I said I’d go instead. She’s not… she’s not well.”

Tuck nodded, understanding. There were two mothers and three fathers amongst the small group, though none from the same family. The appearance of Nilda and her reunion with her son had kindled the hope that that their own children may still be alive. And then there was Constance. She’d seen her children die. She’d seen them come back. And she’d given them that final peace.

“You shouldn’t come,” Tuck signed slowly, and then had to repeat it.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Aisha said, either finally understanding or just guessing Tuck’s meaning. “It’s too dangerous.”

“I have to learn,” Hana said, gripping her halberd more firmly. “There’s no room for passengers. We all must do all that we can, all of the time.”

There were only three undead in sight. The risk wasn’t great, and perhaps it would do the woman good. Tuck shrugged, grabbed a rope, waved the vet to one of the others, and climbed down the wall.

When her feet hit the ground she released the harness and looked up. Kevin was halfway down, Aisha following, helping a far slower Hana. Tuck drew the sword and gave a practice swing, trying to get used to the balance as she walked towards the souvenir shop.

Ignoring the undead on the other side of the wide gate, she looked inside the shop. Reece and the others had done a good job. The door that had let the undead in the day before was now firmly sealed and the shelves were bare, but those shelves were still there. That wood could burn, and if it didn’t, it would rot. But collecting it would be a safe and easy job, and one that could wait.

When she looked past the gate to the broad piazza beyond, she saw the zombies slouching towards her. To encourage them, she ran the sword along the iron railings, watching almost curiously as their movement became more vigorous. Or was it frantic? Eager, perhaps? And then she stopped herself. Those thoughts only acted as a reminder that the creatures had once been human.

She looked back at the castle. Perhaps they could plant seeds in the grass moat. Not fruit, it would take too long for the trees to grow. Vegetables, perhaps, but all that separated the moat from the undead was that chest-high transparent barrier. That would have to be reinforced. Or would the moat flood again now that the Thames Barrier was forever down? She didn’t know and suspected no one else could give an answer any better than a guess.

She turned back to the approaching undead. They’d probably come through the gap in the government barricade near the old Billingsgate fish market, the same one that Chester and Nilda had used when they had driven to the British Museum. Sealing it was just one more problem that would have to be faced. So many questions. So many problems.

The first of the creatures was two metres away, and they were a problem she knew how to deal with. She braced herself, right foot forward, the sword tip hovering between two railings, the left braced on the hilt, ready to push.

The zombie jerked forward, its palm slapping against the gate. Tuck waited, timing her strike, watching the forehead, and never looking into those near blind eyes.

It lurched a final step, its mouth opening in a hissing snarl, its head bobbing back and forth. She lunged. The blade ripped through skin and muscle, tearing a huge gash across the creature’s face as it moved into the cut and slammed its wrecked face against the railings. Tuck pulled the sword back, and then aimed the point until it was almost touching that grey-flecked eye. She stabbed, hit resistance, and kept pushing, twisting and turning the sword, breaking bone as the blade sank deep into its brain. The zombie’s arms went limp, and for a moment she was holding it up until, with a wrench, she pulled the sword free.

Her opinion of Nilda rose another notch. The long, curved hanger was an utterly impractical weapon against the undead. Perhaps the wider, shorter blade of the gladius made it more effective at crushing, but this sword was only good for slashing. It was too late to change the weapon now. She made do with mentally cursing mad King George and felt a little better for it.

The other two zombies had reached the gate. So had Hana, Aisha, and Kevin. Graham stood a little way back, his head turning left and right. Hana looked nervous. Aisha looked angry, and Kevin looked tense, though Tuck suspected that had nothing to do with the undead. She motioned the vet forward.

The long halberd wavering in her trembling hands, Hana jabbed at one of the zombies without aiming first. The spear’s point hit the railings. Hana made another half-hearted stab, but the weapon had twisted in her grip. The angle was now wrong, and this time it was the broad blade that hit metal. Conscious of the onward march of time, Tuck gently moved her out of the way, and motioned for Kevin and Aisha to step forward and finish the creatures. They did, not with ease, nor without obvious distaste, but it was over quickly.