Aftermath

“Look, will one of you please tell us what the hell is going on?”

“Michael, Harry, and Richard are fine,” Cooper explained. “We found more survivors. We were hoping to bring them back with us, but there was a complication.”

“A complication?”

“A couple of egos facing off against each other. Nothing too serious.”

“Nothing serious?” Donna protested. “Fuck, were you listening to the same radio message as me? Harry said someone had been killed.”

A ripple of low noise spread through the crowd gathered on the jetty.

“So where exactly are the others?” Jackie asked.

“They’ve gone back to try and get them out,” Cooper replied. “There’s no point us going back to help. There’s nothing we can do. They’ve got enough room and by the time we get there they’ll be on their way over.”

“Jesus,” Jackie said. “And Michael’s gone too? Bloody hell, what will poor Emma say?”

“Do we have to tell her? I mean, they should be back sometime tomorrow and—”

“Of course we have to tell her,” Donna yelled at him, barely able to believe what she was hearing. “Michael’s the father of her child. She’s got a right to know.”

“Did you bring me back any fags, Cooper?” Jackie asked.

“Plenty, why?”

“And booze?”

“Loads, as ordered.”

“Good, because I think I need a drink. Anybody care to join me?”

“Not for me,” Cooper said. “You’re right, Donna, I’ll go and see Emma and let her know what—”

“You stay away from her,” Donna interrupted, pushing past Cooper and moving through the crowd on the jetty. “Leave her alone. I’ll go.”

37

It was dark and cold. A full moon illuminated far too much of Chadwick and its dead population for Michael’s liking. He was standing on the car park roof, looking out towardcean and doing his best to ignore everything that lay between him and the edge of the water.

“We ready?” Richard asked, hanging out of the helicopter door.

“Go for it,” Harry said, and he climbed into the seat next to the pilot’s. Harte was already in the back. Michael got in, sat down next to him and buckled up.

“You’re all completely sure about this?” Richard said as he ran through his preflight checks and started the powerful machine. “Hell of a risk, this.”

“I don’t see we have much choice,” Michael said as the noise and vibration increased. “We have to try.”

“Fair enough.”

Richard pulled back on the controls and took off. The helicopter rapidly climbed up into the night.

*   *   *

The helicopter was over the castle in no time at all. Richard banked around and peered down into the courtyard. He could already see people down there, looking up, following the aircraft as it circled. He switched on his searchlight, both to help him and make it more difficult for those on the ground to track his movements. There weren’t as many people out in the open as he’d expected to see. Where were the rest of them? They’d already ruled out trying to touch down within the castle wall, but that was academic now because much of the courtyard below was filled with rubbish and clutter. The bus occupied the area where he’d set down previously. He couldn’t land there even if he wanted to.

He completed another circuit, a little lower this time, sweeping around the castle and trying to distract and confuse the people down below. He could see figures up on the top of the gatehouse. When he saw one of them lift a rifle then fire it, he knew it was time to leave. He broke off from his flight path and flew back toward Chadwick, climbing rapidly, not about to risk being hit.

*   *   *

In an overgrown field a mile and a half farther north, Michael, Harte, and Harry stood and watched the lights of the helicopter disappear. Between them they carried a mass of mountaineering equipment which had been looted from Chadwick in the hours prior to them setting out again. Harry already had much of it prepared. While most people who had survived had cast off virtually all remnants of the lives they used to lead, others had found new outlets for the skills they’d previously employed. As an outdoor activities instructor, many of the things Harry had spent his time teaching to school kids and corporate employees on team building weekends were still proving useful. Sailing for one. Mountain craft and rock climbing another.

They clambered over a low dry-stone wall which ran around the perimeter of the field where Richard had set them down before flying over the castle. The moon highlighted everything with its ice-white light, but Michael wished it would disappear as they approached the outermost edge of part of the vast crowd of bodies which had encircled the castle. Although the immediate threat the dead once posed had now been substantially reduced, and the plummeting temperature had restricted them further tonight, crossing this immense sea of decay was still a daunting prospect. The three men stood together on the last patch of clear grass they could find, each of them looking for reasons to delay the next step forward.

Harry hoisted a long coil of heavy climbing rope up onto his shoulder and looked toward the castle up ahead.

“There’s nothing much in the way of cover out here,” he said, “but I don’t think anyone’s going to be expecting us to walk through this lot.”

“I don’t think they’re expecting anything,” Michael said, sounding more confident than he felt. “I think they’ll have fallen for Richard’s little bluff. They’ll think we’re all still in the helicopter.”

“Is this going to work?” Harte mumbled, far less confident than the others. Everything had made sense back at the port, but the nearer they’d got to the castle, the more uncertain he’d begun to feel.

“If we’re careful it should,” Michael replied. “Like I said, Jas won’t be expecting this. And if you’re right and more of them want to leave than want to stay, then he’s going to be well outnumbered too.”

“Suppose,” he said, still not convinced.

“Come on, ladies,” Harry said, tired of dawdling, “let’s just get this done, shall we? Opposite end to the gatehouse, you reckon?”

“That’s our best bet,” Harte replied. “No caravans or anything else around there as far as I can remember. There’s the cesspit, but that’s all. The bloody stink from that keeps most folk away.”

“That’ll do, then.”

Harry took his hesitant first step into the remains of the dead. His boot cracked a thin sheen of ice, then sank into a layer of mud and decay that was several inches thick. The ground—what he could see of it—was unexpectedly uneven. The mulch they were going to have to walk through was filled with buried bones and other less obvious obstacles. He stopped walking as suddenly as he’d started, and tried to work out the physics of the crowd. There were shapes that were more recognizable as human up ahead, but out here on the fringes everything appeared to have been reduced to a featureless sludge. That made sense. New arrivals to the massive gathering would have been less restricted and, over time, would have crushed their weaker brethren under their feet as they’d advanced toward the castle, creating a compacted layer of dirt and gore. The situation would no doubt change as they got deeper into the decay.

They walked in single file. Harry attempted to lead them in a relatively straight line through the unending muck, but it was next to impossible given what they were trying to walk through. Michael brought up the rear, the gruesome mire making his stomach churn. It was ankle-deep now, and there were more recognisable remains around them: a half-buried corpse still trying to crawl, another stood upright with its foot stuck, unable to get free, another lying flat on its back, spindly arms occasionally thrashing like a drowning swimmer. Teir boots snapped bones like twigs, and whenever Michael lifted a foot and looked down, he saw teeming movement where his boot had just been. The viscous sludge was alive with worms, maggots, and all manner of other creatures which gorged themselves on this proliferation of putrefying flesh. He was thankful it had hardly rained over the last few days. A couple of heavy downpours was all it would have taken to turn this place into an impassable quagmire.