She was nearing the town centre when she heard it. At first she thought it was a car backfiring. Then she heard it again. It was a shot. Someone was shooting. She didn’t know if she wanted to help. Anyone who was armed was probably a representative of the government and thus to be avoided. But whoever they were, they’d be able to see the smoke from the bonfire. She headed towards the sound.
The shooter was definitely not police. And though she was standing on the roof of an Army Armoured Personnel Carrier, the blue and silver streaks in her hair were definitely non-regulation. But in the woman’s hands was a pump-action shotgun with a folding stock that Nilda guessed was as military as the vehicle. Surrounding the vehicle were the undead. Nine were still standing, the remains of three more lay on the ground. As Nilda watched from the shelter of an alley three hundred yards away, the woman fired again, messily decapitating a zombie in a blue and white ski jacket.
That left eight, but as she glanced down the street, Nilda saw four more heading towards them. And there would be more coming, she was sure of that. Each shot would be like a siren to them, but Nilda was reluctant to help the woman. The undead were gathered around one side of the vehicle. The woman could easily jump down the other side and escape. Why hadn’t she? The only explanation was that whatever was inside had to be something of value. These days that meant ammunition, fuel, or food.
The four undead were getting closer. They were now only fifty yards from the alleyway. Whatever Nilda was going to do, she had to do now.
Nilda got on the bike and cycled out into the road. She glanced back. The four undead behind had seen her and become more aggressively animated at her appearance. She glanced at the truck. The undead there were still pawing and clawing at the windows and frame of the vehicle. Pushing down on the pedals with all her strength, she sprinted towards the APC.
“I’ll lure them away,” Nilda called out to the woman standing on the vehicle’s roof. “You see the smoke? Head towards it, okay?” The woman didn’t respond.
Nilda cycled past, slowed, and then stopped about fifty yards further down the road. She turned in the saddle, checking that the undead were following. They were. She kicked off and, darting frequent glances behind, kept a slow and steady pace until a ragged creature in a tattered dress lurched out of a side road. The zombie tripped on the dress’s torn hem and fell in a stumbling dive with its arms outstretched. Its clawing fingers brushed against the front spokes of Nilda’s bicycle. She swerved, put on a burst of speed, and angled to the next side road. She headed down a narrow one-way street, pausing at the end just until she was sure the undead were following. Then she cycled on, leading the undead away from the truck. She took another turn, another side road, and then decided that she was far enough away. Checking the undead were out of sight, she ducked down an alley, then another, doubling back towards the APC. More than ever, she wanted to know what was inside.
When she got there, she found the woman still there, filling a bag with something from the back of the vehicle. Judging from the broken glass scattered around a nearby shop front, the bag was a new acquisition.
Nilda came to a stop. The woman didn’t turn.
“Hi,” Nilda said.
The woman didn’t reply, she just kept filling the bag. Nilda thought of just cycling away - she’d had enough of selfish ingratitude from those whom she’d rescued - but then saw what was in the back of the truck. Box upon box of military rations. She dismounted, letting the bike fall to the ground. Grabbing the shotgun, the woman swung around, but relaxed when she saw it was Nilda.
“Hi,” Nilda said again, softly, trying not to stare at the scars running up from the woman’s neck and across the left side of her face. The woman nodded back.
“Um…” Nilda was uncertain what to say. “That’s a lot of food.”
The woman nodded again.
“If you’re coming to the school… I mean. We’ve water and shelter, and we’ve got food, though this would be a welcome addition to it. You can’t carry it all. I mean…” She stopped. She realised she’d been babbling. It was the gun in the woman’s hands coupled with the way her scar turned a bemused smile on one side of her face into a sneer on the other.
“I’m Nilda.” She held out her hand.
“Tuck,” the woman said taking the hand. Her grip was firm.
“Tuck?” Nilda said, trying to think of what to say next. “Um. Is that short for something?”
Tuck closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath. “Lu. Cy. Tuck. Er.” The words came out slow, stilted as if each movement of her vocal chords had to be dragged out of some deep recess of memory.
Nilda took in the scars and the woman’s obvious discomfort.
“You’re deaf?” she asked.
Tuck nodded.
“But you can lip-read?”
Tuck gave her a look that seemed to say ‘obviously’.
“O.K,” Nilda said, over-enunciating each syllable. “There. Is. A. School. The Smoke. See?” She pointed.
Tuck rolled her eyes. Nilda flushed with sudden embarrassment, but then Tuck gave a crooked smile.
“Sorry,” Nilda murmured.
Tuck shook her head, pointed at Nilda’s bag, then at the vehicle, and then returned to grabbing at ration packs. Nilda joined her. The two bags were quickly filled.
“We’ll come back with the others,” Nilda said, “to collect the rest.”
Tuck stopped filling her bag, took Nilda by the arm, and gently turned her so that she could see her lips.
“Sorry. We’ll come back with more people to collect the rest,” Nilda repeated. She looked back up the road. The zombies were gone, but they might return.
“Did you drive here?” she asked.
The woman nodded, then pointed at the fuel cap, then shook her head.
“Ran out of petrol?”
Tuck nodded.
“Where did it come from? I mean, I can see it’s military, but you don’t…” she stopped, and once again took in in the scars only partially hidden by the blue and white streaked hair and buttoned-up coat. “You were a soldier?”
Tuck nodded, then gave a shrug, accompanied by a quick movement of her hands, before returning to finish filling her bag. Nilda took that to mean that there was a time and a place, and that wasn’t here and now.
The bike laden with bags, they headed back towards St Lucian’s. Even though she was cycling, Nilda had difficulty keeping up with Tuck running briskly by her side.
“Nilda, I see you’ve found someone,” Sebastian called out, when they reached the school. “And another three arrived here whilst you were gone. All from out of town. They saw the smoke and were heading to the Lake District. I—”
“There’s no time for that,” Nilda said. “I want everyone.” And she looked around and saw that they were all standing there watching. “Except Sylvia and the kids and… Mark, you stay here too. Everyone else grab a bike, grab a bag, and get a weapon.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Mr Harper asked.
“This is Tuck,” Nilda said. “She drove here in an Army truck and ran out of fuel in the middle of town. It’s laden with food.” She emptied one of the bags onto the ground. “Enough to keep us going for a couple of months.” She looked around at Tuck and the other three new faces. “Maybe six weeks. No more questions. Come on.”
And they did. The only delay came when she had to tell some people to put down the cricket bats they’d taken from the pavilion and take an axe or crowbar instead.
Half an hour later, having only seen one zombie, and that one in the distance, they arrived back at the APC. They found it empty.
“Who did this?” one of the newcomers asked. Nilda didn’t know his name. She didn’t bother to ask. She thought there would be plenty of time to find out later. But she knew the answer to his question. On the ground, near the rear tyre was the stub of a black-papered roll-up.
“Rob,” she said flatly.
“Are you sure?” Sebastian asked.
She pointed at the roll up. “It’s not evidence, but how many other people can there be left in this town?”
“And what do you want to do?” Tracy asked. Nilda looked from her to Sebastian, to Jay, and then to Tuck. Only the former soldier didn’t seem nervous.
“There’s no point hanging around—” she began.
“Zombies!” one of the newcomers whose name she didn’t know, called out. Nilda turned to look. Seven of them were coming up the road towards them. Nilda wasn’t sure, but she thought that at least one had been part of the group she’d led away from the APC barely an hour before.
Before Nilda could open her mouth, Jay had drawn his sword and started running towards them. She was stunned, unable to move for a long moment. Tuck didn’t hesitate. She sprinted after the boy, Nilda following close behind.
Tuck reached him first, barrelling into him, grabbing the back of his jacket. He turned, the sword in his hand swinging in a glittering arc. Tuck jerked back out of the blade’s reach, grabbed him again, and pushed him back along the road. Then Nilda was there.
“What the hell are you doing?” she yelled.
“I was…” he began, but stumbled to a halt uncertain how to finish the sentence.
Nilda shoved him back towards the increasingly nervous group by the Army vehicle, Tuck walking slowly behind them, shotgun in hands, eyes on the undead. After that, they headed straight back to the school.
When they arrived, she scolded Jay. That hadn’t helped. She’d been treating him like an adult, and he’d been acting like one. Even his foolhardy dash towards danger had been a very grown-up response to the insane world they found themselves in. Sebastian had suggested he go and talk to him, but Tuck had reached out a hand and stopped the old teacher and indicated she’d go.
“What can you say to him?” Nilda asked, and regretted the ill-chosen remark.
Tuck took out her pad.
“That there’s a time to fight and a time to run, and the trick is to know which is which,” she had scrawled.
Now Nilda stood at the front gate, axe in hand, Sebastian next to her, watching her son and the soldier. They seemed to be getting along. Whatever had caused Tuck to lose her hearing - something she resolutely refused to discuss beyond that it had happened some years before - had also damaged her vocal chords. She could talk. She just didn’t like to. But Jay, it turned out, knew some sign language. Judging from the expression on Tuck’s face, the phrases he knew weren’t ones he would dare use around his mother.
Nilda turned her attention back to their small settlement. Sylvia Harper, with her two children, was working on digging up the playing fields under the direction of Marjory Stowe. Two of the newcomers went to join them. One, a lanky man who seemed all elbows and knees, didn’t seem to know which end of the shovel went in the ground. Nilda made a mental note to ask him his name. And then she looked around properly and wondered whether there was much point.
“How long will the food last, Seb?” she asked.
“Until July. Perhaps we can stretch it into August. Just in time for harvest. If there is anything to harvest. But at least those two children seem to be getting on well. They’re helping a fair bit.”
“Opening cans and stirring pots.”
“They do anything they’re asked and don’t need to be told twice. Sylvia’s the same, just as long as her husband isn’t around.”
“Hmm,” she grunted. “But they’ll need protecting. So will she. That means we’ve got one person doing that. And we’ll need another just keeping an eye on the food. You or Tracy or Mark, I don’t trust any of the others. So half of us stay here, the other half go out to gather food. That’s not sustainable.”
“Be patient. That new chap, Clive,” Sebastian nodded towards the beanpole-thin man in the field. “He saw the smoke from about twenty miles away. More people will come.”
“And they’ll be coming in on foot. They won’t bring anything with them.”
“You think we should stop lighting the bonfire? You don’t want any more people here?” he asked.
“No, I’m thinking the opposite,” Nilda replied. “July or August or even September, it doesn’t matter because there won’t be a harvest. Not this year. All we’ll manage to grow is enough food to add some variety to our diet. No, unless we have enough food to last through winter we might as well give up now. One person, or three, can survive better than this group. We’ve got too many people for the food, but not enough to go out and find more. And then there’s the other problem.”
“The undead?”
“No, I meant Rob. He’ll see the smoke. He’ll come and investigate. We can probably scare him off at first. But he’ll get hungry. And then what’s he more likely to do, go out scavenging for himself or just come and take what we have?”
“There’s enough of us to see him off,” Sebastian said, confidently.
“If we’re all here, and if we’re prepared to fight. But we’re not ready for a fight. Tuck’s the only professional amongst us. I think Harper can handle himself, but he’s likely to run as stand his ground. Jay…” She didn’t want to think what might happen to her son. “You, Tracy, Mark, and me, if we have numbers on our side, we’re fine, but Rob’s not going to come when we’re all here. He’ll sit and watch and wait until we go out, then he’ll attack. And then people will die and we’ll lose the food. You see the problem? We go out, we risk losing the food we have here. We stay, we end up starving. There’s just so much to do and too few of us to do it.”