‘As much as I can be,’ I sigh.
‘We can send you back to County Hall if you prefer.’
‘No, I’d rather stick with the mission. It’ll be easier not to think about it if I can keep busy.’
She nods. ‘As you wish.’ She hesitates, then decides to press on. ‘You were the only one who saw the blood strike her. If you had not reacted as fast as you did, she might have infected Declan before we could get to them.’
‘I know. But still . . .’
‘Yes,’ Ashtat says. ‘Still . . .’
She offers me a brief, weary smile, then goes to check on the humans. I spend a few more minutes thinking about Liz, then put the morbid thoughts behind me and crack on with the job at hand. There’s never much time for reflection these days. You roll with the punches or you fall to the ground and weep until the flesh drops from your bones. There’s no place in between.
The sleep has done the living good, and although the loss of Liz has scarred them, they do their best to soldier on as if nothing has happened. They’re excited about the prospect of finding safe haven in New Kirkham, and we have to keep reminding them not to talk to one another. They want to discuss their new home and what life will be like once they’ve settled in, if they’ll find any friends or family members among the townsfolk. We’re only concerned with getting them there alive and well. We don’t believe in looking too far ahead.
Finally, shortly before midday, we crest a hill and spot New Kirkham. It’s a converted town. The people who decided to turn it into a base built several tall, steel-plated walls round the perimeter, topped with spikes and barbed wire. There are small platforms situated along the walls at regular intervals, manned by guards with guns, flame-throwers and whatever other weapons they’ve managed to scavenge.
Thousands of zombies mill around the compound. They scratch at the walls, snarl at the guards, leap at the spikes.
The humans among us gasp at the sight of the beleaguered town. A couple cross themselves.
‘Why the hell have you brought us here?’ one of the men growls angrily.
‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ Vinyl says.
‘You’re kidding me,’ the man retorts. ‘That’s a disaster waiting to happen. You think we’re going to lock ourselves into a death trap like that? We were a million times better off where we were. Take us back to London.’
‘We can if you want,’ Vinyl shrugs. ‘We’re not gonna force you to stay. But I suggest you enter with us and have a look round before you decide. This is one of the safest places in the country. We’ve studied the zombies. We know their strengths and limits, and built the walls to those specifications. They can’t punch through. They can’t leap over or climb them. They can’t dig under them. We keep watch on the living dead every minute of the day and night, from every angle. I’m not saying our barriers are impenetrable – only a fool makes those sorts of boasts – but in all my months here, not a single zombie has breached our defences.’
‘But if they did break through?’ Emma asks, clutching Declan close—he’s retreated into his customary silent shell since the incident with Liz yesterday, and I think it will be a long time before he comes out of it again.
‘There are escape tunnels,’ Vinyl says. ‘Nine already dug, six more under construction. They run for hundreds of metres deep underground and open up far from the sight of any nearby zombies.
‘We grow our own crops,’ Vinyl continues, pointing to tilled plots within the walls. ‘There are two wells. We also grow crops elsewhere and transport them in through the tunnels, along with other supplies which we forage for. But if the worst came to pass, and we got penned in, we could survive on what we harvest inside.’
‘What I don’t understand,’ Carl mutters, ‘is why your guards aren’t picking off targets. There are thousands of zombies lined up outside the walls. Why don’t you shoot them all?’
‘Other survivors made that mistake,’ Vinyl says grimly. ‘We did too, at the compound we established before New Kirkham. It seemed so easy—the zombies came in their masses, we picked them off with ease, we thought we could keep going indefinitely. We planned to rid England of tens of thousands of zombies all by ourselves.
‘The first problem we encountered made us wary, but wasn’t enough to merit a change of plan. Lots of corpses create mounds. Other zombies can use those as springboards to leap the walls. You’d have to build a wall several storeys high to stop them getting over, or else go out regularly in some sort of armoured bulldozer to clear the stacks of corpses.
‘We might have explored those possibilities in greater detail, but then we hit the second problem and that was the real killer—the insects. No wall in the world can be built high enough to keep those buggers out.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I frown.
‘Insects aren’t especially attracted to mobile zombies,’ he explains. ‘They don’t draw much distinction between the living and the undead. But if I fired a bullet through your head . . .’ he cocks a finger and pretends to shoot me ‘. . . your corpse would start to break down. Flies, maggots and other creepy-crawlies would rush to gorge themselves on your gooey remains. Rats and mice would burrow through your flesh. Birds and bats would pick at you. All sorts of creatures would feast on you until they’d nibbled you down to the bone, however long that might take.
‘The thing we fear more than anything else is infection,’ Vinyl says quietly. ‘Like we saw yesterday, with Liz. We can deal with direct assaults. But insects, rodents and birds can spread the undead disease too. A fly could be eating its fill on a zombie corpse. Some blood sticks to its legs. It buzzes over the wall into New Kirkham, looking for fresh pickings. Settles on someone’s lips while they’re asleep. The blood rubs off. The person transforms. Trouble in paradise.
‘Now a single fly and a lone zombie on the loose aren’t that big a deal. Again, yesterday’s tragedy with Liz shows that we can limit the damage when it’s an isolated incident. But millions of flies, feasting on thousands of zombie corpses, drifting our way on a nice cool breeze . . . That would be the end of life as we know it.’
‘So you don’t dare kill the zombies?’ I ask.
‘Not loads of them,’ he says. ‘Others have tried, and their compounds fell. If there were less of them, we could mow them down, cart them off and burn them somewhere distant. But there are too many, and more coming all the time. So we leave them be, let them pound on the walls and circle the compound endlessly. The noise is a pain, especially when hundreds of them howl at the same time – that usually happens a few times a day, thankfully never for more than a couple of minutes – but you start to tune it out after a while.’
Vinyl turns to face the Hammersmith posse. ‘I’m not trying to con you. Life is hard here, but easier than it is most places. We’re experienced and wily. We haven’t survived this long just by luck. We know a lot about zombies and we’re constantly studying them, finding out new information, using that against them.
‘We’re also more liberal than in other camps. You’ll be treated fairly. We share food and water equally. In some places the leaders and soldiers get more. That isn’t the case in New Kirkham. We have regular meetings to decide the laws we’re gonna live by. Anyone can run for office and you can be voted out at any time. We make use of people’s strengths – if you’re an architect, we’ll ask you to work on new buildings, if you’re a farmer, we’ll ask you to help with the crops – but we don’t force anyone to do anything.’
Rage grunts cynically. ‘It sounds like Utopia.’
Vinyl nods. ‘Except for the threat of the zombies, it is. I don’t know if we can keep it that way forever, but at the moment it’s pretty sweet. Everyone’s united, working towards the same goal, for the good of the majority. In a way I’m almost glad the apocalypse happened, because I’d never have got to experience a place like this if it hadn’t.’
‘You make it sound enticing,’ Emma says, smiling nervously.
‘Come and check it out
,’ Vinyl says. ‘If I’m lying, or if you don’t like the look of the set-up, you’re free to leave and we’ll escort you back to Hammersmith.’
‘Is that true?’ Emma asks Carl, trusting him more than Vinyl, having spent the past few months in County Hall.
Carl nods. ‘We’re here to do whatever you want. If that means taking you back to Hammersmith or somewhere else, so be it. We won’t abandon you. You have our word.’
‘OK,’ Emma sighs. ‘I’ll give it a go.’
‘Excellent,’ Vinyl beams. ‘And the rest of you?’ The humans look uneasy, but they all nod grudgingly. ‘You won’t regret it,’ Vinyl tells them. ‘This is the best decision you’ll ever make.’
I wince at that – it’s like he’s personally inviting Lady Luck to strike us down on the spot – but Vinyl winks at me and mouths the words, ‘Have faith.’ And because he looks so confident and cocky, like the Vinyl of old, I find myself trusting him, the same as the others.
We check to make sure everything is in order, steel ourselves for the dangerous run to come, then head towards New Kirkham and the start of what will hopefully be a long and happy life for the humans under our care. Although if it all goes wrong, their future could end here, on the outskirts of the compound, with safety all too cruelly in their sights.
FIFTEEN
The slope leads down into a dip, then the ground rises again. When we come to the crest of the ridge, Vinyl tells us to lie flat. He inches forward on his stomach and pulls out a small mirror. He waits for the clouds to part, then starts flashing in the direction of New Kirkham, a series of short and long bursts.
‘Must be Morse code,’ Rage says.
‘You reckon?’ I jeer. ‘Thanks for pointing out the obvious. The rest of us would have been scratching our heads for hours trying to figure that out.’
Rage gives me the finger. Vinyl finishes signalling and waits for a response. When it comes, he flashes another message then wriggles back beside us. ‘I’ve told them we’re coming. They’ll create a diversion.’
‘Why not send a smoke signal while you’re at it?’ Rage asks sourly.
Vinyl chuckles. ‘Don’t knock the old ways. Phones don’t work any more. We could use walkie-talkies, but they can be temperamental, and we’d have to lug them around everywhere, and zombies might hear the crackle.’
‘Isn’t there a danger they might spot the flashes and investigate?’ Ashtat asks.
‘It happens occasionally,’ Vinyl says. ‘Far less than you’d expect. Most of them can’t connect the lights with human activity. They’re dumb that way. Let’s hope they never wise up.’
‘I learnt Morse code in hospital,’ Jakob says quietly, surprising us as he always does when he breaks his customary silence. ‘It helped pass the time.’
‘What were you in for?’ Vinyl asks.
‘Cancer.’
‘Ouch. That sucks. Did you beat it?’
‘No.’
‘Does it hurt?’
Rage laughs shortly and cocks an eyebrow at me. ‘Now who’s asking dumb questions? Your little friend’s not as smart as he thinks he is.’
Vinyl blinks. He doesn’t know about the bad blood between Rage and me.
‘Anyway,’ Vinyl says heavily, ‘we’ll be making a dash for it soon. Get ready to run. If anyone falls, the Angels will try to protect you, but obviously they won’t be able to help you back to your feet, in case they scrape you.
‘The rest of us need to keep moving. Don’t stop or go back for a fallen friend. If you disobey that order, you’ll become a liability because it means the Angels have to try and protect you too, so instead of being able to focus and do a lot for one, they’ll have to split up and do less for two. Don’t be a hero. That’s what the Angels are here for.’
‘Hear that?’ Shane beams. ‘He called us heroes.’
‘They’ll be pinning medals on us soon,’ Rage sniffs.
‘What about Declan?’ Emma asks.
‘Pass him around as you go,’ Vinyl says. ‘I know you probably want to take him by yourself, but it will be easier if you share the load. That way you won’t get tired and lag behind.’
Emma frowns. ‘Hold on. What about the tunnels you mentioned? Why aren’t we sneaking in through one of those?’
‘Hey, yeah,’ Shane says. ‘I didn’t think about that. Why are we doing this the hard way?’
Vinyl shifts uncomfortably. ‘Rules of New Kirkham. We don’t reveal the location of the tunnels to anyone except those who are trusted members of the community.’
‘You have got to be kidding,’ Ashtat groans.
‘Rules,’ Vinyl repeats with a shrug.
‘That doesn’t seem fair,’ Emma scowls.
‘It’s a safety measure,’ Vinyl says. He looks around and notices us eyeing him darkly. ‘Hey, don’t blame me, I’m just following orders. And don’t forget, I’m running the same risk as you guys. If it all goes wrong, I’m in the same boat.’
‘It’s always this way,’ Pearse says.
‘Yeah,’ Conall backs him up. ‘Don’t take it personally.’
‘Come on,’ Vinyl says, trying to win back our confidence with a smile. ‘Let’s get ready to fly.’
After some dubious grumbling, we bunch up beside Vinyl and study the scene below. For a couple of minutes nothing happens. Then a group of people climb the wall inside the compound, to a large platform on the far side of town. They start hammering drums and blowing whistles. A few throw scraps over the wall.
‘Brains,’ Vinyl notes. ‘We harvest them from our dead and keep some in stock for times like this.’
The zombies are attracted to the commotion. They race as fast as they can, or drag themselves by their fingers if they lack legs. As a mob forms, they pound on the wall, scream wordlessly for more brains, tear up the grass in search of scraps that the others might have missed.
‘Does this always work?’ I ask Vinyl.
‘Yeah. You’d think they’d have twigged by now – we distract them like this fairly regularly – but zombies are the dumbest creatures I’ve ever seen. No offence intended.’
‘Plenty taken,’ I growl, but jokingly.
We wait until the majority of the zombies are out of sight. Then, at a signal from Vinyl, we get to our feet and run.
Revitaliseds can run faster than humans, especially over a long distance. We could easily outpace Emma, Vinyl and the others. But that’s not why we’re here, so we hold ourselves in check and flank them, shepherding them towards a large steel gate that nestles in the wall directly ahead of us.
Some of the humans start to sob as we draw close to the gate. They’re sure we won’t make it, that they’ll trip and be left behind, or that the gate won’t open, or that hundreds of zombies will spring up from the earth in front of us. It’s hard, daring to hope in a world where most of your hopes have been dashed and ground to dust in front of you.
We bat back a few stray zombies without slowing. One of the teenagers falls, but is back on her feet straight away. One of the men twists an ankle and goes down with a curse. The other two men hesitate, share a worried look, then return to pick him up. They scurry forward with him as fast as they can.
I scowl at Vinyl. ‘So much for your instructions.’
He grunts. ‘That always happens. People are too decent for their own good. I warn them out of habit more than anything else.’
Some of the zombies have started to return, figuring they’re not going to get anything since they’re at the back of the crowd. When they spot us, they pick up speed and lumber closer, fingers twitching, fangs glinting as they howl with hunger, alerting more of their kind.
Pretty much all of the humans are whimpering now, moaning aloud as the zombies rumble towards us, their stench thick in the air, more joining their ranks every second, a wall of undead threat.
I cast a desperate glance at the gate. It hasn’t opened yet. This will be a close-run race. If the gate doesn’t open in time . . .
‘Do you need to signa
l again?’ I yell at Vinyl.
He shakes his head. ‘They’ll open the gate when we get there,’ he pants.
‘You’re sure?’
‘They always have before.’
‘What if they don’t?’
He glares at me. ‘Ever the pessimist.’
‘I just want to know if you’d rather I kill you before some nameless zombie rips into your skull.’
‘You can’t fool me,’ Vinyl huffs. ‘You want my brain all to yourself.’
‘What can I say?’ I laugh, trying to fight fear with humour. ‘I always had a thing for ugly, clever guys.’
The gate looms closer. So do the zombies, and there are hundreds on either side now, if not thousands, pouring towards us like two waves that are poised to meet and clash and destroy everything and anything caught between. It’s not looking good. Maybe the operators inside ran into a problem with the locks and have decided it’s too late to help us. I prepare myself to fight, even though I know it will be a lost cause. I see the others reach the same conclusion and get ready for the end. Rage catches my eye and snarls, ‘Bloody humans!’
Then, as we’re almost within touching distance of the gate, it swings open far more quickly than I assumed it could, startling almost all of us.
‘I told you to trust me,’ Vinyl cries out boastfully as the humans are hauled inside by the people they’ve travelled all this way to join. ‘We have a guy who used to design theme-park rides. He was able to rig up fast-opening gates.’
‘You could have warned us,’ I growl.
‘Didn’t want to ruin the surprise.’ Vinyl smirks and crosses the finishing line with his hands over his head, like a champion accepting the applause of the crowd at the end of a marathon. Flash git!
I pause in the open entrance and make sure all of the humans have made it through. Ashtat pulls up beside me.
‘Don’t linger,’ she snaps. ‘The people on the gate are alive. They wouldn’t shed a tear if they had to shut out the likes of you and me.’