Surviving The Evacuation (Book 8): Anglesey (24 page)

My first thought was that it was a TV room. There were enough screens. Fourteen of them were positioned in the middle of the room, in three curving rows around a central desk. My second thought was that it was a security room. I’d seen a few surveillance cameras, and they would have to be monitored from somewhere, though it seemed odd that it should be done from one of the house’s master-rooms. My third thought was satellites. By the time we left Anglesey, Annette and Sholto had taken over a small gym, lining up screens in not too dissimilar a fashion.

Despite that our satellites were once owned and operated by Kempton, it’s odd that she’d have a room like this. It suggests that Sholto was wrong, and the presence of the cameras wasn’t an afterthought or part of Kempton’s attempt to camouflage the satellites’ true purpose. Perhaps the satellites had been designed for some post-apocalyptic plan. In which case, Kempton’s preparations went back a lot further than my brother thought. Like the bodies in the garage, it was an interesting addition to a footnote in history, and one to be investigated later. The room was empty of the living and the undead, so I closed the door and tried the one on the opposite side of the corridor.

It was an office with two leather chairs almost the same shade as the red-oak desk between them. The matching effect was spoiled by the pine filing cabinet against the far wall. The top drawer was open. On the desk was a folder embossed with Kempton’s logo, a stylised golden wave. The folder was empty. On the tag was a single word: Embarkation.

“Embark for where?” I murmured. “And paper files. Kempton didn’t rely on digital, not entirely.” The reason was obvious, but there was something else I was missing. “No dust,” I realised. The folder had been placed on the desk recently. Presumably by Kim, and she was no longer there. I left the office.

The other two doors off the landing led onto corridors. I was tempted to search them, but the room from which Kim had hung the sheets was on the next floor. I decided to assume that the crosses marking the doors meant that Kim had already confirmed there were no undead beyond, and so I was unlikely to find her there. I returned to the stairwell and went up.

This landing was different. Again, there were scars on the walls, and they were joined by splits in the wood, by a trio of bullet holes in the ceiling, and a deluge of dried brown blood stains. A battle had been fought here. Twenty-five cheap, identical cabinets were stacked at the top of the stairs. Just over two feet high and a foot and a half deep, they could have come from any flat-pack furniture store. They’d been piled around the stairwell as a barricade, though it was hard to tell on which side the defenders had stood. The ground under my foot felt tacky. Then I realised. It wasn’t
a
battle that had been fought there, but two, and the second had been so recent the gore and blood had yet to dry.

“Hello,” I called. There was no response.

Beyond the barricade was a landing, similar to the floor below. However, the corridor that ran alongside the exterior windows wasn’t sealed behind a door. There were only two doors, each a foot from the landing. Both led to bedrooms, furnished with queen-sized beds, a small desk, a wardrobe, and an easy chair. There was no TV, though one room had a stack of books on the table, the other an e-reader still plugged into a defunct wall socket. On the desk in the room with the books was a photograph of a suited and smiling couple. Going by the blurry white shape of a bride in the background, it had been taken at a wedding. I hate photographs like that, the reminders of the happiness that used to fill the world.

I closed the door to the bedroom, and walked along the landing to the corridor. I looked up and down it, and saw two things. First, the garage was visible through the windows. Second, there was a thick trail of blood leading to a closed door halfway down the corridor. I knew what I’d find there, and I was right.

There were twelve bodies, all undead. Eight had been killed recently, the other four died months ago. It’s hard to say when, but it would be more useful to know when those eight had become infected. Of those eight, seven were women. It was a similar ratio among those I’d killed in the garage, and they wore the same hardwearing, cold-weather gear. I wasn’t sure whether that was important, or whether I was searching for an absent significance in the hope it would bring understanding.

“They were shot,” I murmured. “Probably by Kim.”

Her body wasn’t among the undead, nor was Rob’s. The fight must have occurred shortly after they got inside. Kempton’s people had to have been responsible for the barricade. That didn’t explain why they’d built it on the second floor. One of them had been infected, turned, and attacked the others. That meant the zombies had got inside, and I wasn’t going to learn how by staring at their twisted remains.

I closed the door, and saw the sheets, and saw I’d been wrong. I’d thought they’d been hung from a room, but they were hung out of the corridor window. From there I could see the garage, but not the hatch in the roof. It was just one more shadow among dozens created by the rows of panels raised and angled so they’d catch the sun. Had Kim even known I was there? Had she seen the light? Perhaps not. Perhaps she’d thought I’d died during the scrabble to reach safety after the zombies appeared. Dark thoughts piled into one another, and I pushed them down. I’d waved at her and seen her wave back. I’d seen the light at night. She’d seen mine. I hadn’t found her body. That’s what mattered. It was all that mattered.

“Confirm Kim’s really not here,” I said, letting my voice carry to the other closed doors. “If she’s not, then she escaped. She’ll come back, or radio for help.” But no matter how loudly I spoke, I couldn’t believe the words.

I opened the next door. It was another bedroom. There was a familiar pack on the floor. It was Kim’s. Against the wall were two guns. Not the SA80s we’d brought with us from Anglesey, but the same model of stubbier submachine guns I’d found in the garage. They were unloaded.

“Her rifle isn’t here,” I said, grasping for the only thread left. “You’ve not found her body.” The words brought no relief.

“There’s no one here,” I said, almost shouting. There was no response, just the muffled shuffling rustle from outside.

Simon. The shots. His rifle. A wave of relief washed over me. There was no rifle in the room in which I’d killed Simon. Nor had I seen one immediately outside the window. Someone had fired those shots. If it wasn’t Simon, it had to be Kim. I seriously doubted it would be Rob. In which case, she
had
escaped. I headed for the stairs, telling myself I had proof she was alive.

In the entrance hall, I could hear the thumping of undead fists against brick, but not against the front door itself. I fished out the torch and followed its beam down to the basement.

There were twelve steps to a landing, and another twelve after that. They ended in a small corridor with a windowless sliding door of a design that completely failed to match the wood and paintwork upstairs. I gave it a tap with the knife and listened. Nothing. I slid the door open. It led to a hall with a ten-foot high ceiling. About thirty feet long, it extended far beyond the front door.

I wondered if I was wrong about there being a tunnel, then remembered the zombies in the garage. Had there been a tunnel, those people would not have been trapped there. A better question was why this property had been extended underground.

Leading from the subterranean vestibule are two doors, one on either side. Half expecting to discover an underground lab like at Lenham Hill, I tried the one to the left, and found myself in a spectacularly equipped kitchen. Six identical workstations, all with sinks, counters, cupboards, and ovens, were arranged in a fashion that reminded me of a reality cooking show. Along the walls were more ovens and hobs, except where there were floor-to-ceiling doors. I assumed they were cupboards and cold rooms, and that at last one would lead to a walk-in freezer. There was no sign of Kim. I allowed myself to breathe out.

I closed the door to the kitchen and tried the door on the opposite side of the vestibule. It led to a narrow corridor, eight feet wide. I shone the light up and down, and thought its beam caught the far end, but couldn’t be certain. On either side were cheap plyboard doors. All were closed. My mind whirred, trying to figure out what this place was. The answer was behind the first door. It was unlocked. In fact, there was no lock at all. Inside were two sets of bunk beds, with four narrow, metal lockers opposite the door. The beds were made, and untouched. The lockers were empty. Whoever was meant to sleep there had never arrived at the house.

My impression of this underground lair wasn’t quite military, but it was definitely not civilian. That fit the image of Lisa Kempton that I’d developed from conversations with my brother. She’d wanted a base in rural Ireland in case the conspirators’ plan for world domination went sour. The turbines, the solar panels, the farmland, all of those could be explained away to the world. Building cottages for… I stepped back outside and quickly counted the doors. Building cottages for at least forty full-time employees, who presumably didn’t come from the local area, was going to arouse attention.

The next room was just as empty, and just as small. As I scanned the light on the regimental precision of the sheets, I revised my opinion again. The rooms upstairs had beds, books, and comfortable chairs. These basement rooms were temporary dorms, not semi-permanent homes for the estate’s everyday staff. Or was I wrong? Was this basement room some kind of fallout shelter?

“Stop speculating,” I murmured as I pushed at the next door. Something pushed back. There was a whistling moan.

“Hello?” I said, stepping back apace. The moan came again, and this time I was sure it was undead. Do it quick, I thought. I raised the knife, lowered my left hand, and awkwardly turned the handle while kicking the door open an inch. I brought the light up to what I thought was head height. Nothing appeared in the narrow gap. I shone the light down until it illuminated a withered, three-fingered hand, clawing around the door. Unable to manage the simple combination of pushing the handle down and stepping out of the way, the zombie had pawed at the wooden door until its fingernails were worn and broken stumps.

It banged into the door, and that slammed into the sole of my boot. I kicked back, then shoulder-barged the door. It flew open. The creature fell down as I slashed the blade through empty air where its head had been. I waved the light around until I found its battered, withered face. I screamed then, an echoing bellow of rage and regret. I dropped onto its chest, stabbing over and over at the head until it was still and my hands were covered in gore.

I pushed myself up and drew the gun. I was still screaming, but rage had coalesced into a single word, barked over and over.

“Kim!”

It wasn’t a call for her, but a plea, a mournful lament. That zombie
wasn’t
her, but for a moment, I’d thought it was. She could be the next one, or the one after that. During the outbreak, I’d been alone in my flat with no friends to fret over. When I’d left, I’d had no family to search for. I’d seen no loved ones die. I’d
had
no loved ones to watch die. Yes, there had been Jen, but that had been different. By then, whatever love I’d held for her was in the past, replaced and superseded by Kim.

Finally, I understood the horror, the fear, the nightmare that those people on the boats had suffered. They had escaped the outbreak, yes, but they had done so with their families, their friends. The infection had gone with them, and there, out on the empty ocean, they’d seen those they loved become the impossibly inhuman monsters they had to kill. Yes, finally, I understood their torment, and knew they would never be rid of it. Nor would I, not in life, not until I found Kim or the zombie she had become.

Pistol raised, I went from door to door, kicking open one, then the next, until again I found resistance. I kicked the door with all my strength, and the weight of the leg brace, and depth of my fear, gave the blow extra force. The hinges snapped, and the door pivoted sideways as the zombie tried to get out from behind it. I aimed at a face that wasn’t Kim’s. I fired. It fell, but the sound of the shot brought me out of my rage.

I was at the last room on that stretch of hallway. I’d reached a T-junction. The corridor stretched off in either direction, with dozens more doors along it. There’s a time for rage, and there’s a time for caution. My blood was cooling from a boil to a simmer, and I wanted to see daylight again. I stalked slowly back along the corridor, retrieved my knife from the dead zombie’s skull, and went back to the vestibule. My mouth was dry. My water bottle was empty. If there was water to be found anywhere, it was likely to be in one of the store cupboards in the kitchen. I opened the door.

Something was wrong. One of the doors at the far end of the room was open. I moved the light left and right, knowing the zombie was in there. A leathery sound echoed. I stabbed the light into the darkness. Cupboards, taps, counters, and shadows; I found nothing else. I forced my teeth closed against the yell of frustration and terror forcing its way up my throat. I listened, and heard a slithering sound, drawing nearer, and I thought I knew from where. I swung the light across the workstations, realising almost too late that the sound was coming from the ground. I stepped back, shining the torch on a creature four feet away, crawling towards me. One arm, then the other, slapped into the floor as it pulled itself along, dragging its useless feet after it. For a moment, I saw a different face in that wrecked visage. Not Kim’s, but I imagined it as Mary O’Leary. Then the moment was gone. I fired and blew off the creature’s ear. It snarled, and squirmed, and I fired again. This time, the bullet blew its head apart.