Britain's End Read online

  They reached the edge of the playing fields. “I’ll take the left, you take the right,” Kim said, taking a pair of spray-paint cans from her bag. “How long do we have?”

  “Ten minutes,” he said without needing to glance at his watch.

  Within five, they had four red arrows marked on the snow. Kim was trudging back towards the path, when she saw figures coming from the college towards them. It was Donnie, Mirabelle, and twenty other volunteers, and they were right on time. They weren’t Bran’s handpicked squad, though. The members of that group had left before first light, half to retrieve Yasmina’s body, the other half to hack a grave out of the frozen ground. Her burial was another grim task for later that day, but Kim had resolved it would be the last grave they dug in Dundalk. Not that she thought Yasmina would be their last fatality, but they couldn’t afford the time or calories required to bury the dead. After Yasmina, abandoned homes would become the tombs of the lost. It was a sad truth that the best they could hope for was that those deaths were the results of equally tragic accidents rather than brutal evisceration at the gnarled hands of the undead. And there would be accidents in the months to come; the weather would see to that. People would slip, and bones would break. Frostbite and hypothermia would be added to the dangers of dysentery and scurvy, malnutrition and depression, not to mention childbirth, though the latter shouldn’t present too much difficulty until March.

  “Has a cup of tea ever tasted so good?” Donnie asked with a grin, and loud enough for his voice to carry. “You know, I think I might write a new history book, about how the collapse of the Roman Empire to the Mongol Hordes was because the latter had tea.”

  “I’m not sure the Mongols had tea,” Mirabelle said.

  “Didn’t Kublai Khan conquer China?” Donnie said.

  “About seven hundred years after Rome fell,” Mirabelle said. “You’re mixing up the Mongols and the Huns. I think you should read a few history books before you try to write one.”

  Kim smiled. Life was what they made it, and they would make a life of some kind, even here in these darkest of times.

  “Two minutes,” Bran said. “We should hear it approach.”

  “It’s coming in from the east, isn’t it?” Donnie asked.

  “Its flight path will bring it in over the sea,” Bran said. “There shouldn’t be too many undead summoned by the rotors, but keep your eyes open from now on.”

  “There it is,” Mirabelle said, a fraction of a second before Kim heard it. It was a background hum at first, but in the snow-deadened silence, quickly grew into an all-encompassing roar long before it appeared over the horizon. The helicopter came in low and fast, abruptly bucking upwards before dropping down to the snow. As it descended, Kim thought it was falling, then lost sight of it as its rotors kicked up a flurry. She was forced to turn around, shielding her eyes. Twenty seconds later, she turned around to see the helicopter already ascending. A solitary figure stood on the snow, surrounded by ten rucksacks.

  “Go!” Bran said. “Get the bags, quick now!”

  Kim followed, though not as fast as Donnie and the others. She recognised the figure; it was Sholto. He made a show of brushing snow off his light blue coat, then picked up a bag, and trudged towards them. He gave a cheery greeting to Donnie, Mirabelle, and every one else as he passed, but when he reached Kim, he hugged her.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” she said. “It’s been a long time since my last shower.”

  “Me, too,” he said. “How are the girls?”

  “Daisy is enjoying herself, go figure. Annette is… she’s grown up another two years in the last two days. I worry about her, but she’s alive and healthy. I thought the helicopter was staying.”

  “It’ll be back in an hour,” Sholto said. “It’s going to scout the coast south of here. The satellites are no use right now, and that’s something we need to talk about. There are a few things, actually.”

  “And there’s some things we need to talk about with you,” Kim said. “But we’ll do that inside. Only ten bags?”

  “Ten thousand rounds, it’s all we can spare. I’ve brought medical supplies as well.”

  “It sounds like there is a lot to talk about, come on. We’ve got the kettle on. Or the saucepan over the fire, at least”

  “Thaddeus, you’re a sight for old and tired eyes,” Mary said. “Come, we’ll talk in here. And,” she added, raising her voice so that everyone else could hear, “there’s not much daylight this time of year, and plenty that needs to be done before lunch, let alone before dark. Bran?”

  “You know your groups,” the soldier said. “We’ve got a couple of hours of hard labour ahead of us, so let’s get it done before the next snowfall.”

  As Bran organised the survivors into those going to the shore, those breaking firewood, and those searching the houses nearby, Kim pushed Mary into the office. Sholto followed.

  “I’ve a thermos of hot water, which isn’t the same as a teapot, but it’ll do in a pinch,” Mary said. “Would you like some tea?”

  “In a bit.” Sholto turned to Kim. “There’s something I need to tell you. It’s about Bill.”

  “What is it?” Kim asked.

  “I didn’t want to say on the sat-phone,” he said. “Since there’s nothing anyone can do—”

  “What?” she asked again. “Just tell me.”

  “They couldn’t see anywhere to land in England,” Sholto said. “They kept flying, over the Channel. The last call we had from them, they were thirty miles into France, and were going to attempt to land. We’ve not heard from them since.”

  Kim collapsed into a chair.

  “It’ll be the sat-phone that’s broken,” Mary said.

  “We can hope that,” Kim said. “We can’t guarantee it. There’s been no word?”

  “And the clouds are too dense for the satellites,” Sholto said. “We’ve got one over France. As soon as the weather breaks, we’ll find the plane, and then we’ll find him.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t take a helicopter and go to look for him yourself,” Kim said.

  “I thought about it,” Sholto said. “George took some fuel to London, so I’d be able to refuel there, but it would have been a one-way trip, stranding myself and an unlucky Marine pilot in France. Bill wouldn’t have thanked me for that. Besides, he’s with Chester. Locke, too. They’re about as experienced as anyone can be in surviving in this world.”

  “And if he didn’t survive the crash, then what point would there be in going there?” Kim said. “So is Leon looking for him?”

  “No,” Sholto said. He sat down opposite Kim. “That’s the next bit of bad news. One of the other satellites is over England. The clouds there did clear a bit. The horde turned south. It’s heading towards London.”

  “How long do they have?” Mary asked.

  “A couple of days,” Sholto said. “It depends on how much the suburbs slow the undead. Leon’s making for the city with all best speed, but the weather is atrocious. He should be there tomorrow evening, but they might have to leave on rafts and in Lorraine’s boat. I told Nilda about the plane, because of Chester being on it. As soon as Leon arrives, Nilda is going to take one of the boats and some of her people, and go to look for them.”

  “If Nilda and Leon are going to search for Bill and the others,” Mary said, “then as much is being done as we could conceive of. What about the saboteurs, how is the investigation progressing?”

  “Siobhan has taken charge of it,” he said. “There’s plenty of evidence, but no suspects.”

  “Not even Markus?” Kim asked.

  “Siobhan doesn’t think so, but he’s being watched. There’s not much more I can say, I’m afraid, and it’s not the most pressing of problems. Elysium was attacked. That’s why I’ve only brought ten thousand rounds, and why the helicopter’s flying south. Down in Kenmare Bay, they faced about twenty thousand undead over twenty hours. The last report I had before we set off was that the worst seemed to be ov
er, but they’ve burned through nearly a hundred thousand rounds. We’re running low. That’s why the helicopter is heading towards Dublin. They’re going to take some photographs so we can plan for a proper expedition. We’re hoping to find some ammo among the equipment the EU forces brought over.”

  “Unlikely,” Kim said. “A lot of the undead we killed here wore uniforms. We think that, after Dublin fell, at least some of them rendezvoused here in Dundalk. We haven’t seen a single discarded rifle, and that suggests they ran out of ammo long before they arrived.”

  “It would be worth looking,” Mary said, “though if we find none, we will have to look elsewhere. Our own battle here confirmed it. We can’t fight the undead hand-to-hand. We need firearms.”

  “It does confirm that we’ve made the right choice, Mary,” Kim said. “Was there anything else?”

  “A squad went looking for that gravedigger who worked for Kempton,” Sholto said. “They missed their pick-up on the Shannon Estuary this morning. But I’m not worried yet. What choice are you talking about?”

  “As mayor and leader of our people, I have made an executive decision,” Mary said, looking at Kim as she spoke. “We can’t survive the winter like this. Dundalk, Belfast, or Elysium, the undead will come, and we will die. On the islands of Connemara, we might be safe from the living dead, but we will have burned every tree, and every stick of furniture, before Christmas. We will freeze, and we will starve. We had hoped to find somewhere that we could dig fields and plant a crop come spring. The time for hopes and dreams is over. Instead, we shall live aboard ships. We shall go from town to town, to places like this, scavenging what we need, discarding what we have used. We have the oil in Svalbard, and that will last us a year, by which time the undead might have died, or we might have found a new home as welcoming as Anglesey. On board the ships, it will be cramped, but we will have light, heat, and sanitation. We will not have to fear the undead.”

  “Do you mean the grain ships?” Sholto asked.

  “If necessary,” Mary said. “We can fit everyone here onto The New World, though we’ll have some sleeping in the corridors. Everyone in Belfast can fit onto the grain ships, the John Cabot and the Amundsen, though it will be even more unpleasant. That leaves Elysium, and I don’t know if Heather’s small craft can manage another long voyage. We must stick together, however. Our experience here, and that of those in Elysium, and in Belfast, proves it. Ideally, we’ll find more ships, better ships, larger ships, but if we can’t, we’ll make do with what we have.”

  “There’s no point in any of the people from London coming here,” Kim said. “They should stick together, and cross the Channel. While some go ashore to look for Bill and the others, the rest can look along the coast for a cruise ship or destroyer or something. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find one in Calais or Dunkirk.”

  “And if we don’t get lucky?” Chester asked.

  “As Mary says, we’ll make do with what we’ve got,” Kim said. “There’s really no other choice.”

  “We’re going to stay in Dundalk for now,” Mary said. “We’ll fill The New World with all the food we have space for, and then we’ll stay ashore until the rest is eaten or the undead force us to flee. Whether that’s a day, a week, or a month, I can’t say, but we’ll be able to make an educated guess after Bran has returned from the wreck.”

  “And I think,” Kim added, looking at Mary, “that if we do have to flee sooner, we shouldn’t go to Belfast. We’ll go south. Depending on what the helicopter finds today, we’ll make Dublin our first port of call. After that, we’ll take The New World down to the France to meet up with Bill and Nilda. Maybe, by then, they’ll have found a ship, or the weather will have cleared and we’ll spot one on the satellite images. Otherwise, we’ll just keep looking. We found few ships around the British coast because every captain knew the Royal Navy was sinking all shipping, but those craft had to have gone somewhere. Perhaps we’ll find a cruise ship outside Monaco or a frigate moored in Valetta.”

  “Right,” Sholto said. He leaned his head back, resting it against the wall, and closed his eyes. “What if there are no ships, or none that can be repaired?”

  “We’ll find at least one,” Kim said. “We have to.”

  “But if we can’t?”

  Kim glanced at the door. She lowered her voice. “If we can’t, we’ll die.”

  Sholto sighed. “And you know what? I agree. After a few days in Belfast, I’ve more or less come to the same conclusion. In fact, I’d say it only really took a few hours. The biggest fly in the ointment is going to be the admiral.”

  “Because she wants to go back to America?” Mary asked.

  “Because her crew will insist on it,” Sholto said. “For a lot of them, the idea of seeing their home again is the thread-and-string fence holding back utter despair.”

  “Then we’ll go with her,” Kim said. “All of us. Europe or the U.S., it hardly matters which.”

  “If the admiral thinks that is best for humanity,” Mary said. “Then that is where we shall go. Tell her that. Ask her that, and tell her it’s time she made a choice.”

  “You’re not coming back with me?” Sholto asked.

  “I can’t,” Mary said. “As long as I’m not there, then no council meeting can take place, and no alternative plan can be put to a vote. We are doing this, Thaddeus. There is no purpose to discussion. People will gripe and complain, but as long as I’m not there, that is all they can do.”

  “And tell Siobhan she has to find the saboteurs,” Kim added.

  “And what if she can’t?” Sholto asked. “Whoever did this is in Belfast. They’re not here, or in Elysium, or London.”

  “You’re asking whether we abandon Belfast?” Mary asked. “No. We will abandon no one. We shall not punish the innocent just to ensure that the guilty face retribution. Perhaps hoping that we could preserve democracy was a wishful fantasy, but we must remain a just society, otherwise we might as well give up now, walk out into the snow, and wait to die.”

  “Do you think she can find them?” Kim asked.

  “I think so,” Sholto said. “I have an idea how we might flush them out.”

  “Then you have to do it,” Kim said. “You have to find them. Within a few weeks, we need to all be heading south.”

  “Then I best get back to the landing site,” he said. “Do you want me to take Annette and Daisy with me?”

  “I don’t think either of them would let you,” Kim said. “But you should say hello before you go, I know they’ll both want to talk to you.”

  Kim and Annette stood on the playing field, watching the helicopter fly away. They hadn’t brought Daisy with them, but nor had they come alone. Ken and Dee-Dee stood a polite distance away, newly loaded rifles held ready in their arms.

  “It’s an adventure, isn’t it?” Annette said.

  “You think?” Kim said.

  “Well, it’s better to think of this as an adventure than as a nightmare,” Annette said. “I mean, imagine being taught this in a history class. Imagine how children will feel about me, about us. I bet they’ll be jealous.”

  “You think there’ll be history classes?”

  “Oh, sure,” Annette said. “Not for me, though.” She grinned. “Nope, I’m done with school. I get to write the history books. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to write up everyone’s story. Not just Bill’s, but people like the Irish survivors as well. Everyone, and every account we find. It’s going to be important, I think.”

  “Maybe,” Kim said. “We better go back in, and then we’ve got to go out again.”

  “Where to?”

  “The harbour,” Kim said. “We need a route down to the ship. And we should take a look at the town, see if there are more zombies like in the hospital, or more boxed-up supplies like we found here and in the hotel. We should look for cold-weather clothing, too. Maybe no one looted it, since the outbreak happened at the tail-end of winter. Maybe. We’ll look and see what we find. D
o you want to come?”

  “You mean I don’t have to stay in the college? Cool. Um… Kim?”

  “What?”

  “Bill’s going to be okay, isn’t he?”

  “I…” She hesitated. There was no point lying. “I don’t know. If he survived the crash, then probably.”

  “But will we be able to find him, because if we leave here, he won’t be able to find us.”

  “We’ll do all we can for as long as we can,” Kim said. “That’s as much as I can promise. Now, come on, we’ve a long day ahead of us.” She took one last look eastwards, towards the distant sea, and the island beyond which had been their home. She turned around, facing west. “We might be going to America,” she said. “I think you’d like it. Let me tell you about the time I spent there…”

  Epilogue - Britain’s End

  24th November, London, Day 256

  The wind wiped around Nilda’s throat. Keeping one hand on her submachine gun, and the barrel pointing towards the open dry-riser door on the far side of the piazza, she used the other to pull her zip up and her hat down. The door banged against the wall, then swung back to thud into the skull that prevented it from properly closing. She assumed the rest of the skeleton was somewhere beyond the door, but she had no interest in checking, nor in anything in Westminster Cathedral or any of the shops or offices overlooking the open courtyard just off the western end of Victoria Street. Their ultimate destination was the Houses of Parliament at the far eastern end of that road, but they had taken a circuitous route to reach it.

  “Here we are, Jay, the piazza outside Westminster Cathedral,” she said. “This is where I met your father.”

  Jay half turned away from the partially open door. “I thought you said there was a bench.”