Autumn exodus, p.28
Autumn - Exodus, page 28
‘Somebody is still here,’ an instantly recognisable voice said. In that moment, everything else became background noise.
Piotr.
He was standing in the doorway to a storeroom that had been ransacked, its contents chewed up and vomited onto the floor. He was brandishing a pistol. David recognised it as being from the stash of weapons they’d taken from the base in Brentwood.
‘I have to give you credit, old man, I didn’t think you’d make it this far,’ Piotr said. ‘The conditions haven’t exactly been kind to any of us. I’ll admit, I’m almost impressed.’
‘Why don’t you just fuck off and leave us alone?’ Sanjay said, unable to contain his anger. ‘Could you not have found yourself a rock to crawl under somewhere else?’
Piotr just laughed. ‘Nope. Sorry. It pains me to say it, but I’m glad you’re here, I could do with your help.’
‘And what makes you think any of us are going to help you?’
Piotr shot Sanjay in the head.
‘That’s why.’
Though the bloated river still roared in the distance, and despite the gun shot having whipped the nearest of the dead into a frenzy outside, it was as if the rest of the world had stopped, frozen in time. David looked down at Sanjay’s lifeless body in absolute disbelief, unable to even begin to comprehend what had just happened, let alone speak. Omar dropped to his knees next to Sanjay, tears streaming down his face. He glared at Piotr.
‘I know, kid, you hate me. You wish I was dead. You think I’m a despicable cunt. To be fair, you’re probably right.’
David still couldn’t look away from the body of his friend. He was paralyzed, unable to move, barely able to think. Sanjay, who’d quietly fought so hard and who’d given so much for the good of everyone else, who’d never complained, who’d always been among the first to volunteer no matter how hard the task... to have had his life snuffed out with such brutal speed and inconsequence was impossible to process. Piotr had killed him on a whim, with as little thought as if he’d just switched off a light.
Piotr emerged fully from the storeroom, his pistol still pointing into the crowd, and they saw that he was injured. He was dragging a badly busted leg behind him, his trousers soaked with recent blood. He hid it as best he could, but he was clearly in a huge amount of pain. ‘We had a bit of an accident, if anyone’s concerned.’
‘We’re not,’ Sam said.
‘We stopped to check out a fancy big house in the country, just down the road from here. You might have passed it? Anyway, turned out it was full of corpses. Turns out this whole area was until the floods came.’
‘We saw it. Saw your friend Alf, too.’
‘Yeah. He and Kelly got themselves into a bit of trouble there. We got split up.’
‘And you didn’t bother going back to pick them up?’
‘No.’
‘You just abandoned them?’
‘Yep. You didn’t pick anyone up either, I notice. Anyway, I thought they were dead. There were lots of bodies around there and we had to take our chances. Harjinder got us this far before the floods hit.’
‘So where is he?’
‘Gone. Lost. Drowned. He was such a loyal little doggie. He bravely went out in the storms last night to make sure we were safe here and got himself swept away. Idiot.’
‘You really brought your A-team with you, didn’t you?’
‘They got me this far. That was all I needed them to do.’
‘How did you know about this place?’
‘Ah, yes! I had help from the last remaining member of my team.’
He moved to one side. Very reluctantly, Dominic Grove emerged from the inconspicuousness of the shadows.
‘Now isn’t that just perfect,’ Sam said. ‘Shame you two didn’t go swimming with your mate.’
Piotr laughed. Dominic didn’t. ‘Yeah, sorry to disappoint you. After all this time, though, Dom has finally proved his worth. See, you people are too careless, too trusting... You locked him up out of the way, but he heard you talking. He heard you planning your route to Ledsey Cross, and he heard you talk about this village. He remembered the details and shared them with me, and now here we all are. So, it looks like you’re stuck with us now.’
‘Fuck you both.’
‘No, I’m serious. I wouldn’t be having this conversation if I didn’t have to. Like I said, I need your help. And I don’t want to sound overdramatic, but I’ve got more than enough bullets left to kill as many of you as it takes until you decide to play ball. To be honest, though, I don’t think I’ll need that many.’
‘You two really are peas in a pod,’ Ruth said, advancing towards him. ‘We should have got rid of both of you a long time ago.’
With predatory speed, Piotr reached out and grabbed Omar by the shoulder. He dragged him closer and rested the pistol against the back of the boy’s head. ‘Try it. You know I’ll do it, so it’s just a question of how many more of you you’re prepared to lose before you realise I’m serious.’
Dominic edged forward and cleared his throat. ‘Look, I know what you all think of me, and I realise how hard this must be, but we’re going to have to work together if we want to get to Ledsey Cross.’
David looked up from Sanjay’s body and faced Piotr, ignoring Dominic completely. ‘I don’t get it. You’ve come this far. Why do you think you need us?’
‘Have you not seen the size of the crowds out there?’ He gestured in the general direction of the corpses outside. Many of them had begun to drift over towards the store, peeling away from the main mass in dribs and drabs in response to the raised voices and gunshot noise. ‘I’m not going to be able to get through that lot on my own.’
Sam shook his head. ‘I’ve got news for you. We were going to struggle as it is. If we’re lumbered with a cripple, I don’t reckon we’ll make it either.’
‘The irony is I only need you because my leg is fucked. I can’t drive.’
‘So you’ve got a vehicle?’
He nodded. ‘One of yours, actually. Your van is in the carpark. Did you not notice?’ He paused, giving them chance to look outside. It wasn’t immediately obvious, tucked away neatly between two other abandoned vehicles, but Sam recognised it as the van they’d taken from the barracks in Brentwood. The same van that had disappeared from outside the warehouse after the Yaxley people had ambushed Piotr’s group.
David looked at Dominic. ‘What about you? Can’t you do it?’
‘I don’t drive,’ he said, sheepish.
‘Fucking useless.’
‘This is good news for you,’ Piotr said. ‘It’s a win-win situation. Let’s be honest, you were never going to make it out of here on foot.’
Ruth was still fuming. ‘He’s a cold-blooded killer. I don’t know why we’re wasting our time with him.’
‘Because he’ll do it again,’ Dominic said quickly. ‘And again and again. At least this way some of you have half a chance.’
‘Bit more of a chance than Sanjay, eh? More of a chance than Lynette?’
At the mention of Lynette’s name, Dominic shifted his weight uncomfortably. Piotr picked up on his obvious unease and grinned. ‘What did Dominic tell you about Lynette?’
‘That you pushed her off a roof by the Tower,’ Ruth answered, barely able to contain her anger now.
Unfazed, Piotr looked across at Dominic. ‘Seriously? Is that right, Dom? You told them I killed Lynette?’
‘I-I didn’t, I didn’t say that,’ he stammered. ‘What I meant was, it was one of those situations when no one can be exactly sure what happened and—’
Selena, who’d been trying to melt into the shadows and shield Vicky from the violence, shouted up. ‘I know you were both up on the roof with her when she died.’
Dominic shook his head furiously. ‘No. It wasn’t like that. What happened to Lynette was a tragic accident. She’d had enough and she, she...’
His voice trailed away. Behind him, Piotr was laughing. ‘Seriously? You just can’t help yourself, can you. Once a politician, always a politician. You could just shut up, ignore the bitch, but no. You have to keep digging and digging and digging. Always making things worse.’
‘It’s not like that,’ he said again.
‘Let’s sort this out once and for all. Dominic, did you tell these people that I killed Lynette?’
Dominic’s eyes were wild now, constantly flitting around but never settling on anything or anyone long enough to focus. His mouth opened and closed, his mind racing as he tried to spin his way out of trouble. But all he came up with was dead end after dead end. ‘Yes,’ he eventually admitted, barely audible. ‘I’m sorry. I was wrong and was afraid and I should never have—’
‘And did I kill her?’
Another pause, followed by another admission. ‘No.’
‘There,’ Piotr smiled. ‘Was that so hard? Now then. Did she jump to her death because the poor cunt couldn’t face going on any longer?’
‘No.’
‘No. Right. Now, why don’t you clear things up once and for all? Tell everyone what really happened.’
‘I pushed her.’
Other than the sound of corpses slamming up against the windows, there was a numb stillness throughout the store.
David broke the silence. ‘You were both up there. Why should we trust either of you?’
Piotr blew the top of Dominic’s head off. What was left of his body slid heavily to the floor.
‘Looks like you’ll have to take my word for it,’ Piotr said. ‘Right, now bloody Lynette’s no longer a worry, let’s get to work. We can finish this fascinating conversation when we get to Ledsey Cross.’
‘And how exactly do you think we’re going to get through that crowd out there?’
Piotr adjusted his position and grunted with pain as he momentarily took his full weight on his busted leg. He tightened his grip on Omar. ‘I’m glad you asked. I’ve been sitting here all night working it out. Got it all planned.’
51
To his credit, Piotr’s plan seemed sensible. To a point. ‘This will split the crowd in two. We’ll drive straight up through the middle of them,’ he told the rest of the group huddled in the back of the van. He was on the front seat with David behind the wheel. Between them sat Omar, trembling. He’d not spoken a word since he’d been collared, Piotr’s pistol resting against his chest.
‘You do realise how hard it’s going to be to distract so many of them at once?’ David said. ‘The noise of the river is too much. You fired that frigging gun and only a few of them reacted, or did you not notice?’
‘You think I hadn’t thought of that? That’s why it’s not noise we’re using, mate, it’s light. Two explosions at the same time, in different parts of the village. Remember how much trouble a bit of fire caused back in London?’
‘We remember,’ Ruth said from the back. ‘We also remember whose fault it was and who it was who fucked off and left us to deal with the consequences.’
He shook his head. ‘Give me a break. Look, I get it, we’re never going to be friends; I’m all broke up about it. Just do me a favour and put a fucking lid on your whining until this is done. Do this right and there will be plenty of time later to squabble about who did what.’
‘Leave it,’ Vicky told her softly. ‘Don’t react. Fighting is all he’s got left. The more ammunition you give him, the stronger he’ll be.’
Piotr sat up in his seat, grimacing with the excruciating pain of his mangled leg. ‘You look in a bad way,’ David said.
‘I am.’
‘Is it broken?’
‘Maybe. Probably. Doesn’t matter. Again, plenty of time to worry about it later. Right now, you just need to focus. Things are going to get a bit hectic around here.’
David shook his head. This grim new world of theirs was a bizarre place. He was staring into a milling crowd of thousands of bedraggled creatures, with not a single heartbeat among them, on the banks of a flooded village in the middle of nowhere, being held at gunpoint by a psychopathic ex-construction worker... never mind things getting hectic, they were already absolutely fucking insane.
The van had been abandoned facing the enormous undead gathering. Harjinder had left it there by chance, but its position was just about perfect. They were midway between the hardware store where they’d sheltered after crossing the bridge, and the fuel station they’d seen. From here they had a relatively clear run onto the road to Ledsey Cross. Piotr’s orders were simple: when the time came and the dead crowds parted, drawn in two directions at once by the mad-made distractions, David was to drive the van through the gap in the middle before it closed up again around them.
A classic Moses in the Red Sea scenario.
It sounded straightforward. It was anything but.
‘What is taking them so long?’ Piotr asked. ‘Those kids you sent down there, do they know what they’re doing?’
He turned his head to look over his left shoulder and, for a fraction of a second, David considered snatching the pistol from him. Clearly sensing his urge, Piotr tightened his grip on both Omar and his weapon. He pressed the muzzle of the gun so hard against the side of Omar’s head that the kid whimpered in pain. Piotr chuckled then grimaced, slightly relaxing back the gun and giving Omar a shake like a scruffed pup.
‘Chill out, Piotr,’ David said. ‘Mia and Ollie know what they’re doing. They’re experienced. They won’t let us down.’
‘They’d better not.’
David just looked at him. ‘Or else? Fuck me, Piotr, you’re beginning to sound like a fucking pantomime villain.’
He glared back and, for just a second, David thought he might truly have overstepped the mark. But then Piotr’s face cracked into a broad grin, and he laughed out loud. ‘Pantomime villain! That’s me alright! I’ll take that as a complement!’
‘It wasn’t meant to be. I was just making an observation because—’
Part of the hardware store exploded. How Mia and Ollie had managed it was unclear, but there was no doubt that they’d fulfilled their brief: find everything flammable in the store – gas cylinders, fuel, whatever else – then set it alight and get the hell out. David twisted around and craned his neck to see what was happening. ‘I see them,’ Marcus shouted from the very back of the van. ‘They’re on their way.’
The two kids were racing towards the carpark as a tsunami of rot began to slip and slide back the other way. They pushed back against the corpse tide, safe in the knowledge that the huge explosion they’d caused behind them was enough of a distraction to render the two of them almost completely invisible. With an enormous burst of yellow-orange flame belching up into the grey behind them, to the weakened eyes of the dead everything else had become background noise.
And then another massive detonation.
Cued up by the first blast, Sam and Callum executed their part of the plan with relative ease. Despite months of inactivity, enough flammable liquid remained in the petrol station pumps and tanks, and in the vehicles abandoned mid-fill on its forecourt, to fuel a second explosion which dwarfed the first. The two men had to take the long way around, splashing through the outermost streets of the flooded village, then climbing back up towards the van.
David moved his hand towards the ignition in readiness. ‘Hold steady,’ Piotr warned. ‘Give our dead friends a bit longer to really get moving.’
‘It’s not our dead friends I’m worried about. My people are out there.’
‘Hold,’ Piotr said again.
Ahead of them, David could see movement stirring deep within the undead hordes. Hundreds of them were already drifting away from the fringes, but the expected chain reaction hadn’t yet worked its way to the centre. Piotr’s stated intent had been to divide them, to send one half one way and the rest the other, but there was confusion at the heart of the crowd. Some of the lethargic figures that had started to drift towards the burning ruin of the hardware store had now been distracted by the fuel station blast and were moving the other way. And at the centre of it all, the dumb bastards were colliding with each other as they tried to go in opposite directions, blocking the way through. Much activity, little movement. The road to Ledsey Cross remained congested with rotting flesh.
‘This isn’t going to work, Piotr,’ David said.
‘It is.’
‘It isn’t. Look, will you? Can’t you see what’s happening? The fuel station is closer, and the blast was bigger. There are more of them moving that way. We were never going to equally split the crowd. I think we need to—’
‘You think! You think! Bloody stop talking and get ready to drive when I give you the fucking word.’
Behind them, Mia and Ollie reached the van and were let inside by Orla. Sam and Callum were also closing in fast, but David was struggling to keep track of them in the constantly shifting crowds.
‘Go,’ Piotr said.
David shook his head. ‘Sam and Callum aren’t in yet.’
‘I said go!’ Piotr yelled, and he cocked back the pistol and jabbed the barrel so hard against Omar’s chest that the kid yelped in fear.
David started the van, revved the engine hard, then swung out onto the congested road.
#
‘Now there’s a fucking surprise,’ Callum cursed as he and Sam raced back towards the van. He pulled up slightly. Sam shoved him in the back to keep him moving.
‘Don’t slow up,’ he said, manhandling bodies out of the way. ‘The fires are dying down. It’s only going to get worse.’
Through a momentary gap in the confusion of criss-crossing figures now swarming all around them, Sam saw the van ploughing into the crowd. Though the glimpses of movement were intermittent and irregular, the vehicle seemed to be making progress. David was maintaining enough speed to keep pushing through the undead.
‘Ignore everything else. Just focus on the van.’
‘Yeah, hadn’t thought of that,’ Callum said under his breath. Truth was, he was too scared to focus on anything else, certainly too scared to focus on the vastness of the crowd that they’d now become a part of. There were dead bodies coming at them from every conceivable direction, all angles at once. Even those that had been maimed by the van and lay damaged on the ground still wouldn’t give up. Flailing arms reached out for them as they sprinted through the mire, broken stumps swiping at their feet. One caught Callum’s ankle and he went down hard. Before he’d fully realised what had happened, Sam had dragged him back up again.
