Surviving The Evacuation (Book 1): London (5 page)

But I don't have a torch. I went back to my lists; the next thing I wrote down was hot water. A torch and hot water. The first may be downstairs, the second definitely is, or at least the fireplaces are.

Going downstairs scares me. I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m scared, and it's not some nameless fear of the unknown, it's a fear of slipping on the stairs and breaking my other leg. Of being woken in the middle of the night by the sound of the front door breaking. Of being trapped up here with the undead on the stairs outside, left with nothing but the choice between starvation and suicide.

11:12, 14
th
March.

I didn’t check the front door. Or the back door for that matter. I think they're closed, but I can't be certain. There have been a few times when I got home at some ungodly hour to find the front door open. It sticks a bit and needs to be lifted closed. Clearly that was too much effort for my tenants, that's why I've got a sturdy lock on the door to my room. If they didn’t bother telling me they were leaving then what are the chances they shut the door when they left?

So, do I go downstairs? I know I have to eventually, but if the door is unlocked and if one of the undead has got inside, then can I deal with it? If one has, then it clearly doesn't know I’m up here. I’m safe here. Safe until the car comes. Then what? There's at least twenty in the street now, how many people would Jen send? Last time she just sent the one guy, what if next time she only sends one? What if he waits in the street? I can't expect him to hold off twenty of Them, then climb up the stairs, carry me down and deal with a threat in the house as well.

When the car comes I've got to be ready to meet it. I've got to be able to get at least as far as the front door. Of course, if it's locked I've got to be able to unlock it. Damn. I didn’t think of that. That settles it. I've got to make sure that the doors are closed. I'm going downstairs.

15:30, 14
th
March.

I've never looted before. It's rather fun. I have returned with a net gain of a half kilo of sugar (thank you Jezzelle), a torch (thank you Tom) and another 10 zombie books. I've been more selective this time, picking the ones that look like they contain some vaguely useful survival techniques (one got four stars from Survivalist Quarterly. I wonder if that’s out of five or ten).

First I went hunting for a weapon. I've not done that before either, I've never needed to. Never thought I'd ever have to either. The best thing I could find was the out-sized metal handled hammer
I'd bought out of desperation when a I needed to put down a carpet to hide the disturbing stains a newly ex-tenant had left on the polished wooden floor. It was the only one in the only open hardware shop I could find and ended up leaving a series of dents, a quarter inch deep around each of the tacs.
It's a far cry from the machete or shotgun that feature in all these books, but it was all I could find. Fortunately I didn’t have to use it.

I couldn't bring much back upstairs but sadly that's not a problem because it looks like whatever my tenants thought would be useful they've taken with them.

Tom and Jezzelle had the smaller two-room flats, each with a modest bedroom, a living room/kitchen dining area and separate bathroom. They're not huge rooms, but they were reasonably priced, at least for London, and far bigger than the space I lived in. The working fireplace wa
s what clinched the deal in both cases. Tom's from Macau, on a two year post-grad archaeology placement at UCL. He seemed like a nice enough guy when I met him, not that I saw him that often, just in the hallway every so often.

I kept away from the tenants, partly because I was the landlord and partly because I didn't want to hear, see or know anything that someone working at Whitehall shouldn't. Tom made that easy by spending most of his time away on digs or on secondment to other universities. At least that was what it said in the emails he sent letting me know he'd be away for a week or three. I always thought he was a nice guy, but like me, he kept few possessions here. There are some textbooks on ancient cultures, some others in Mandarin or Cantonese, a massive collection of DVD box sets, and the usual bric-a-brac we all collect. Almost none of it of any use.

Almost. I said almost. He had a torch, a Superman one. By which I don't mean it's super strong with a beam that can travel a thousand miles and set fire to nearby bushes. I mean it's red and blue plastic with “The Man of Steel” printed on the handle. It's either a cheap kids toy or a geeks very expensive collectable, which I guess is why he left it. He was used to camping out in the middle of fields, he probably had a very good field kit with a very good torch and he took it all with him. This, I don't know why he had it, it'd be useless outside, but for me, reading in the dark, it works perfectly.

In the kitchen was the half bag of sugar, some herbs and spices, some dried apricots and a few tins. I assume they're herbs and spices. They're in little bags stamped with Chinese writing on them. I’m pretty sure one of them is oregano. Probably.

As for Jezzelle's flat, well, that was mostly garish purple. I never said she could repaint it, which means her deposit is mine! Ah-ha, he says rubbing his hands together gleefully. There wasn't much there, she clearly spent all her money on costume jewellery and bath salts. Oh, and her real name is Jessica, I wonder why she didn't use it.

Then there's the fire. I decided not to light it, not tonight anyway, it's getting late and there's a limited amount of coal up here. The coal is kept in the shed outside, the tenants get a coal scuttle and a key. They've been burning through it this winter, though. Free coal is in the contract, I thought that would be a sweetener after charging them more for the room. Wish I'd known what the weather was going to be like. Outside I've got three sacks, but outside might as well be Newcastle. Inside I've got two scuttles, each less than half full. That's enough fuel for about four fires.

I laid the fireplace in Tom's room, so I’m prepared. I prefer his room, less clutter, less purple. Then I brought my haul up here. All in all a good day.

17:00, 14
th
March.

I forgot to check the doors.

18:00, 14
th
March.

That wasn't fun. The first time I went downstairs today it was an expedition, an escape even. I'd been distracted, so focused on what I was doing I'd forgotten why I'd gone down there in the first place. Stupid! Stupid! Oh how I wish I dared scream!

Crutch in hand, hammer tucked into my belt I went back downstairs. Those last few steps were the worst. I was so tense I was shaking. Sitting down, sliding forwards, bracing my good leg, lowering myself onto the next step whilst trying to hold the cast up, straining not to let it bang down on the steps. Each agonising inch took me further into the dark shadows, as the leg got heavier until it was a burning impossible weight. I tried not to make a sound but the harder I tried the more noise I seemed to make. Each creak of the stairs, each thud of the cast, each ragged heaving breath seemed amplified tenfold.

The doors were closed. As quietly as I could I slid across the deadbolts. It'll slow me down when rescue arrives but I won't need to worry about noise then. It'll stop my tenants getting back in if they try and return, but if they do and they end up stuck outside with the living dead, well that's tough. They should have told me they were going.

I do feel safer now, almost calm. My hearts still thumping away, but that's probably the adrenaline. The doors to the ground floor flats are locked, so are the front and back doors. I had to double check the upstairs flats. I mean, I knew no one was in there, but I had to check anyway. Does that count as paranoia, or caution? Either way it's got to be healthy.

Day 3, 75 days to go.

09:00, 15
th
March.

There's one out there walking along the road slightly faster than the others. It's moving along at an easy two or three miles an hour, almost as if it was heading off on the morning commute. Not that it's dressed for that, it's wearing thick trousers tucked into socks, sturdy boots, and a thick jacket that's torn and stained brown around the shoulders. It's even wearing a backpack. I wonder if it was going to join the evacuation, but changed its mind, thinking it'd be safer on its own, so turned back, maybe heading home, only to end up as the thing it had wanted to avoid.

Just then it stopped, turned and looked, as if it had heard something. Now it's walking off, crossing the street, angling towards a house at the end of the road. It's walking faster now, almost with that same determined speed I've seen when They are about to attack.

It's stopped again. It's been standing there for about twenty minutes now, and its head is turning slowly from side to side. Is it looking around? Can They see? Or can it hear something but can't pinpoint where it is?

11:00, 15
th
March.

I’m bored. Bored and hungry. The hiker is still just standing there, unmoving except for its head which slowly shifts from side to side. Why it's doing that I can't tell. Watching it is about a notch more interesting than daytime TV, and a notch below watching paint dry. Isn't there a saying that fear breeds boredom, or is it the other way around? Well, either way, it's true.

Dinner last night was a cold tin of beans. I hate beans. I've always hated them. Jen knows I hate them, she used to taunt me with them when we were kids, she didn’t like them much either but she'd always ask for extra and when her parents weren't looking she'd take a big spoonful and hold it just over my plate, silently threatening to drop it. We spent a lot of time together when we were younger. Her father had known my parents before they died. I think it was he, not my uncle, who paid for my schooling, though I never dared ask. Anyway that's why I think the food had to come from her flat. If it was from a government storeroom and she could choose what to include then she wouldn't have included beans.

I was thinking about stringing together a bunch of cans and sticking them halfway down the stairs as a sort of early warning device. I don't think They will be able to get through the front doors, but the windows down there would be easy enough to break. Would the sound of rattling tins attract more of Them? I think I could deal with one, on its own. Yes, I could mange that, but what if there were two, or three?

17:00, 15
th
March.

I wonder where the car was going to take me. Not to one of the muster points, that's what we called the temporary evacuation centres, where people would be physically examined, given the vaccine and then sent onward to an Island or Enclave. When Jen said a car was coming to take me away I asked if I was being evacuated, she said no. She was going to send me somewhere safe. She'd replied by text, a lot of our communication was by text after the outbreak, but I could imagine the sarcasm and hollow laugh. I'd asked about getting a permit for one of the trains leaving London during that week before the evacuation proper started. I was entitled, what with the leg and all, but she'd said no to that too. It makes sense, I mean, of all the places I don't want to be, in an evacuee centre with tens of thousands of others is near the top of the list. Then again, nor do I want to be stuck in a flat in south London.

The muster points will all be closed now anyway, they were only meant to be open for twenty four hours, at least that's what people were told. It was always going to take longer than that, just because of the sheer number of people getting out, slowing each other down and causing choke points of pedestrians on the motorways. It was hoped the evacuation could be achieved in twenty four hours, but they were going to give it forty eight, after that they were going to close.

Maybe the car was going to take me to a bunker somewhere, to one of the decommissioned Cold War ones that was refurbished in the panic at the beginning of the millennium. Maybe I'd have ended up on a cot next to the Windsors. I don't think I'd have enjoyed that any more than they would.

19:00, 15
th
March

It's seventy five days until the cast can come off. It's forty days until the food runs out.

Day 4, 74 days to go.

07:00, 16
th
March

I can see twenty two of Them from the window. That's two more than yesterday. I think. I’m not sure. There's one wearing a blue jacket that I might have seen yesterday except then it had a hat. It was one of those cheap pork pie hats that everyone seemed to be wearing last year. Today there's no hat, not on it, or any of the others. So did the hat fall off, or is it a different zombie?

I need to start keeping a better count. They might call before they send a car, and they'll want to know how many are here. Assuming a roughly equal distribution around the entire house then there's sixty to seventy within shouting distance. That seems like a lot.

It can't be like this everywhere can it? Surely not after the evacuation, not if... unless... It would mean that about half the country's population was out on the streets and that can't be right. The only other explanation is that They are gathering here for some reason. No, not gathering, that suggests intelligence, drawn, perhaps? But if They are being drawn here, then by what?