Zom-B Mission (13 page)

Owl Man
.

The sheepdog races to its master’s side and sits to attention. Owl Man bends and strokes the dog as it licks his face. He casts his gaze over the trees of the park. He shouldn’t be able to see me from
where he is, through all the trees and bushes, but I’m sure his gaze lingers on me for a moment, that his lips lift at the corners, that he nods imperceptibly towards me.

Or maybe I just imagine that.

What isn’t in doubt is that he’s real and he’s here, in league with the KKK. As I stare, stunned, one of the masked men approaches Owl Man and hands him a hood. Owl Man studies it, smiling
thinly, then sticks it on the dog’s head. The men around him laugh.

Owl Man stands, claps his hands and barks a command. The men climb back into the jeeps and trucks. They turn on the engines and pull out, one by one, heading after the truck with the rams.

Owl Man is last to board. He climbs in the back of one of the few open jeeps. He settles the dog beside him, then bangs on the side
of the jeep and points ahead. The driver nods and presses his horn. The jeep picks up speed and overtakes the other vehicles, carrying Owl Man to the head of the convoy.

As the motorcade trundles out of sight, I retrace my steps. I should be running, but I can only stumble along in a daze. I’ve no evidence to base it on, but I’m certain I know where the hate-mongering vultures are going.

Owl Man has been following me. The dog is his. He tracked me when I first left County Hall and went to Timothy’s gallery. He was hot on my heels all the way to Hammersmith. He must have dogged our trail as we worked our way out of London, then doubled back. He had the KKK on standby. He didn’t ride out here with them—he must have got in touch with them, maybe last night or early this morning,
and told them to meet him here, so that he could guide them the last leg of the way.

Owl Man is leading the KKK to New Kirkham. I don’t know why he’s interested in me or those who are close to me, but I’m as sure as I ever was about anything that, regardless of the broader aims of his Klan buddies, he’s going there to target my friend.

He’s going there for Vinyl.

TWENTY-ONE

The others are sceptical when I tell them what I’ve seen and what I believe.

Carl — ‘You can’t know that they’re going to New Kirkham.’

Ashtat — ‘It is probably coincidence that our paths have crossed.’

Shane — ‘You might have imagined Owl Man being with them.’

Rage — ‘Hell, you might have imagined the whole thing. Vinyl told you the KKK were running wild, you
spot a group of people on the move, your brain puts two and two together and comes up with five.’

‘Believe what you want,’ I snarl. ‘I’m going back. I’ve got to help them.’

‘How?’ Carl asks. ‘Even if you’re right, and that
was
the KKK, and they
are
going to New Kirkham, what can we do about it? They’re in trucks and jeeps. We can outpace humans on foot, but we can’t match the speed
of a car. They’ll get there before us.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I argue. ‘They might run into roadblocks. Or they might take it easy, figuring there’s no need to rush. Anyway, we have to try. Even if they get there first, we can pitch in and help the people of New Kirkham fight back.’

The Angels are unconvinced.

‘Come on,’ I groan. ‘This is what we’re here for. What’s the point of escorting
humans safely to the compound if we’re going to leave them to the mercies of a load of racist scumbags?’

Pearse scratches the back of his neck. ‘I suppose it couldn’t hurt to check.’

‘It would only delay us by a matter of hours,’ Conall agrees.

‘And if B is right . . .’ Jakob murmurs.

‘OK,’ Rage says. ‘I can see she’s won you over. I must admit, I’m curious. And if it really
is the KKK, and they attack, well, it will make a change to kill living people instead of zombies.’

‘You’re all heart,’ I sneer, then pull on the rest of my clothes and hat and set off. The others aren’t far behind. They grumble about me being deluded, about the sun and how much they’re itching, but they follow.

We make good time. Because we don’t need oxygen, we don’t get tired the
way humans do. We’re able to maintain a constant pace. We could even talk while we’re jogging, but nobody’s in the mood for a conversation.

It takes maybe an hour to retrace our steps, and soon we come to the top of the hill overlooking New Kirkham, the spot where we first caught sight of the walled town earlier this morning.

The Klan convoy has made it there ahead of us. The jeeps and
trucks are parked inside the compound. As I stand, looking down, I see figures in white dashing round the buildings, herding people ahead of them. There are gunshots. Someone blows a horn, over and over.

‘Bloody hell,’ Carl gasps, surveying the chaos.

‘Believe me now?’ I ask grimly.

‘How did they take over so quickly?’ Ashtat asks. ‘Why did the people on the gates let them in?’

‘We’ll quiz them about that later,’ I grunt. ‘Right now we’ve got to focus on just stopping this if we can.’

Carl instinctively runs his tongue over his lips. ‘How?’

I shrug. ‘We get stuck in.’

‘But there are dozens of them and it looks like they’re packing serious hardware.’

‘Doesn’t matter. We’re Angels. We fight. Screw the odds.’

‘She’s right,’ Shane mutters. ‘We didn’t
train for battle with humans, but we can take them. We have to.’

‘I’m not sure what Dr Oystein would think of this,’ Carl says. ‘He wouldn’t want us to get captured or killed. Perhaps we should observe and follow them, then report back to him, try to rescue them later with the help of the other Angels.’

‘You do that,’ Ashtat snorts. ‘But what you are going to be observing is me kicking
arse and hammering their hood-covered heads into the dirt.’ I stare at Ashtat, surprised to hear her use such language. She smiles grimly. ‘I was already angry about the racists inside the compound. Now I am royally pissed.’

Rage hoots. ‘That’s the kind of fighting talk I like! Count me in. I could never resist a good scrap.’

Carl sighs. ‘I think it’s a mistake, but OK, if the rest of
you are game, so am I.’

‘Then we’re going in,’ Pearse sniffs. ‘Any plan other than that?’

‘We don’t need one,’ I tell him, trying to sound more confident than I feel. ‘Hit them fast. Hit them hard. And if you kill any of them, mash their brains while you’re at it. We don’t want those bigoted buggers coming back to life and causing even more trouble.’

I look round. ‘Everybody up for
this?’

They nod, Carl reluctantly.

‘Then let’s go show those bastards what we’re made of.’

To a roar of approval, we head down the hill and make a beeline for the besieged compound.

TWENTY-TWO

The zombies are in a frenzy, howling and hammering on the wall. I know why they’re so excited. They can smell fresh-spilled blood. It wafts across to us like a heavenly scent that would set my mouth watering if those glands worked. In the world of the living dead, where there’s fresh blood, there’s fresh brains. They know they’re missing out on a feast and they want in.

The walls and gate stand as firmly as they did before. I thought the KKK might have had to batter their way in, but they were evidently admitted without a struggle. Maybe they had spies working on the inside, or else the locals let them in because they were alive and apparently seeking refuge—perhaps they hid the hoods when they pulled up outside.

‘You said earlier that you could jump
this baby,’ I remind Carl.

‘If I had a clear run at it,’ he growls, nodding at the zombies packed tight around us.

‘There’s space further along,’ Pearse says, pointing to our left. ‘The wall is extra-thick there. The reviveds don’t normally mass around that section, as they can tell it’s their least likely point of entry.’

‘Lead on, Macduff,’ Carl grunts.

We push through the
ranks of the screeching undead and come to the relatively deserted spot that Pearse told us about. It’s not a complete zombie-free zone, but there are less here than in most areas.

‘How are we going to work this?’ Carl asks, eyeing the wall and measuring his angles. ‘I can get up there but what then? Do I search for a rope?’

‘No,’ Rage says. ‘The reviveds would swamp us if they saw us
climbing a rope. They’d want up too.’ He thinks for a moment, then cracks his knuckles and grins. ‘Let’s do it like they do in the circus. You do your leaping trick and clear the barbed wire out of the way. I’ll give this lot a leg-up, one by one—I reckon I can throw each of them several metres into the air. You catch them as they come within range. Shane waits till last. He can climb the wall
and give me a piggyback ride.’

‘Sounds good,’ Carl nods. ‘Shane? Still think your bones are up to the task?’

Shane cocks an eyebrow at Carl, then drives the fingerbones of his right hand through the steel plate covering the wall, deep into the concrete beneath. ‘Child’s play,’ he boasts.

Carl starts to back up. ‘Form a guard of honour,’ he tells us. ‘Keep any stray zombies out of
my way.’

He stops, studies the wall, backs up another couple of metres, then propels himself forward without a word. He runs fast, head down. A few zombies crowd around us, but we push them away.

Carl races past me in a blur. For a second I think he’s going to forget to jump, that he’ll run smack into the wall and knock himself out. But then he hurls himself into the air like an arrow,
tucking his arms in tight by his side, legs together, head angled back. He soars high above the rest of us, then slows and hangs in the air like a bird. I expect him to grab for the spikes above him, but instead he drops and lands gracefully in the middle of us.

‘Too high for you?’ I ask.

Carl withers me with a look. ‘That was a trial jump. Now watch me do it for real.’

He backs
up, waits for a zombie to get out of his way, then races towards the wall again. This time he jumps a step earlier than before and thrusts into the air more like a bullet than an arrow. He sails way overhead, past the top of the wall. I thought he was going to have to land on the wire or spikes and endure the stabs, but Carl has a different idea. He arcs over both obstacles and lands on the platform
on the inside.

‘Bloody hell!’ Shane gasps.

‘He should have been a gymnast,’ Ashtat smiles.

Nobody challenges Carl, so I guess the guards who are usually on duty have been drawn away by events in the heart of New Kirkham. He has the wall to himself.

Carl quickly unhooks a length of barbed wire and slips between two of the spikes. He lies down and slithers forward. I think he’s going to fall off, but he wraps his legs round the spikes at the last second, catching them with the backs of his knees, so he can hang with both arms free, lower than any of us anticipated.

‘Never mind being a gymnast,’ Rage chuckles. ‘He should
have been in a freak show. Right. Who’s first?’

Pearse steps forward. Rage crouches and locks his hands together. Pearse puts a foot on them and the pair count to three. Pearse pushes off with his other foot and Rage jerks himself to full attention, hurling Pearse high into the air.

It works like a dream. Carl catches Pearse and lets him swing for a moment. Then Pearse pulls himself
up the length of Carl’s body and clambers on to the platform.

Conall is next, then Ashtat, then Jakob. As I step forward, I squint at Rage. ‘Make sure you don’t
misaim
and throw me at the barbed wire,’ I growl.

‘It must be a terrible thing to spend your whole life expecting the worst of people,’ Rage smiles. ‘Don’t worry. There’s no time for fun and games. I’ll throw you true.’

He’s good to his word and seconds later I’m on the platform with the others. As I’m steadying myself, I spot a group of zombies below. They’re trying to copy us. A large guy in overalls puts his hands together and gives a leg-up to a woman in a nurse’s uniform. She falls short of the top of the wall – the guy isn’t as strong as Rage, and the woman lacks our sense of coordination – but seeing them
try makes me pause.

‘Look,’ I tell Rage and Shane.

They glance round. Rage laughs when he sees the zombies try again and fail. ‘Monkey see, monkey
don’t
. Now let’s leave them to their failures and –’

‘No!’ I bark as Shane steps forward to drive his fingerbones into the wall.

‘What’s up with you?’ Rage snaps.

‘They’re following our example.’

‘So what? That guy throws like
a girl. They won’t make it.’

‘Not that way,’ I agree. ‘But when they see you two climbing the wall, they’ll try that too.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Shane says. ‘They won’t be able to drive their fingers in like I can.’

‘Sure,’ I sneer. ‘But they
will
be able to dig them into the holes that you’ve left behind.’

Shane’s face falls. So does Rage’s. ‘I never thought of that,’ he mutters.

‘Well, think of it now,’ I tell him. ‘You guys can’t come up that way.’

‘So what’s the alternative?’ he asks.

I look to the others for suggestions.