Surviving The Evacuation (Book 2): Wasteland by Frank Tayell

ear, had a ribbon around its neck that read, “Love, Grandma Gertie”.
    We took half the water, left the keys and I added a message of my own. I apologised for the theft and broken door and included a note about the Manor and the supplies there. I doubt, after all this time, anyone will ever come looking, but even so, I felt I couldn't do any less.
     
    Day 109, Stonehenge.
    20:00 29 th June.
    I woke as the first light of dawn was playing through the avenue of trees by the edge of the road, causing eldritch shadows to dance along the walls of the bedroom. In that moment of half-sleep, staring at that immaculate white painted ceiling in that strangely quiet house, everything seemed, for one blissful second, to be normal once more.
    Then my leg began its morning round of twitching, forcing me to get up. Kim was already awake. I don't know if she slept. Perhaps she can't. I didn't ask.
    We breakfasted on pasta with redcurrants, blackcurrants and some not quite ripe blueberries we'd harvested from the gardens of the neighbouring houses. Truly, the breakfast of champions! At least we had some coffee to go with it.
     
    There was a narrow lane at the bottom of the garden that meandered vaguely in the direction we wanted. We followed it for a half or mile or so, sometimes surrounded by trees, occasionally by fences, and sometimes by once cultivated hedges now grown ragged with a season's unchecked growth. We were quiet. We were cautious. We took our time. There was something in the air that made me reluctant to hurry up and leave it behind. I wanted to drink it all in, to saturate myself in this beautifully peaceful English summer's day.
    Eventually we did reach the end of the lane, and a small cottage whose garden backed onto Salisbury Plain. There were no signs of life, or the undead, about the house, but out in the rear garden, nestled between a mountain of flower pots and a folded up cold-frame was a chicken coup. The wire was intact, no foxes or cats or anything bigger had come to prey on these animals. They had starved or died from dehydration when no one was left to care for them.
    That brought us back to Earth, or at least it did me. Kim had maintained a stolid silence all morning. I stood looking at the dead birds for a moment, thinking about all that they represented. Then, as I turned to Kim, I spotted a gate half buried in the hedgerow. It was an old wooden affair, the supports tinged green with moss, which added an ominous shadow to the faces still visible in the once ornately carved pattern. It was ajar. Through it I could see fields and the wide expanse of the Plain beyond, but between us and the grassland squatted a solitary, stationary zombie.
    It hadn't heard us and I don't think Kim had spotted it. I had, I wanted to test my new pike and here was the perfect opportunity. No, that's just an excuse and a weak one at that. I could say that it was some subconscious response to finally finding company and realising that everything, or nothing, had changed, but in truth I don't know what came over me. Perhaps it was just another one of those weird compulsions, something that doesn't have a reason, or if it does, where the reason doesn't matter. I motioned for Kim to stay where she was and, cautiously, stalked through the gate and into the field.
     
    I was bent over, with the pike held parallel to the ground just a few inches above the grass. The zombie had its back to me, the tattered remnants of a red thigh length jacket blowing in the morning breeze. I kept my breathing shallow, as I took step after cautious step toward it.
    I was twenty paces away when it's back straightened. I stopped, counted slowly to five, then took another step. The creature didn't move. My eyes fixed upon the back of its head. I took another pace forward. It's head tilted suddenly to one side. I froze, my foot in the air. I couldn't hold the position for long, but I wanted to get closer. I could have attacked, right then, I could have moved