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

quickly and swung the pike and finished it. But I didn't.
    I breathed out and lowered my foot, but this time I hadn't checked my footing. As my weight shifted, a branch snapped with a crack that seemed to echo for miles, though probably it only carried a few hundred yards. The zombie heard it, though. It stood and turned in one quick motion. I shifted my stance and brought the pike up. As the blade reached the top of its arc, as sunlight glinted on the blade, as I changed my grip and altered my balance, the creature suddenly collapsed, a bullet through its skull.
    “Don't do that again,” Kim said, reloading the rifle.
     
    Even on the bikes we couldn't travel quickly. Rabbit holes, mounds, and dips concealed by the tall grass continually brought us to a jarring halt. We got bogged down in the forests of weeds that made the corrugated earth of the fields beneath seem deceptively flat. Impenetrable hedges, and sturdy chain-link fences denoting the Ministry of Defence training grounds, forced us to detour and double back. It was agonisingly slow progress, and as the sun rose in the sky and the dawn warmth turned to an early-morning simmer, I began to regret this tourist's detour.
    Then we would come to some small ridge, clear enough of obstructions that we could pump away at the pedals, whilst all about us we could see nothing but a great open expanse of newly-wild splendour. We'd cover half a mile or so in little more time than it takes to write, but then the ridge would twist and we'd be forced to plunge, once more, into the morass of vegetation. Occasionally we'd stop, pause and look behind us at the flattened path we'd ploughed through the long green and yellow grass. As far as the eye could see, this furrow was the only sign of man in the encroaching wilderness.
     
    It had been my decision to go to Stonehenge, at least I suggested it, and Kim didn't object. Actually, she didn't say anything at all, so we went.
    It wasn't much of a detour, being only a few miles off our direct route to the Abbey. The stones may have stood for over five thousand years, and with the decline of our species, they are likely to stand for five thousand years to come, but I felt this might well be the last chance I ever have to see Stonehenge. The world has become much smaller now, stretching no further than the horizon, and often not nearly as far as that. Who knows if I will ever pass this way again? That, and without any barriers or by-laws preventing me, I'd finally be able to get close enough to see the graffiti Christopher Wren carved into the ancient monument a few centuries ago.
     
    There aren't many undead on the Plain. There are a few who have drifted onto the grassland, but until we got closer to Stonehenge we'd seen only a few dozen, and usually from miles away. At first, I was concerned that with all this open space, with no brick walls and shrubberies to hide behind, They would be able to see us from further away, that as soon as one did, we would slowly become surrounded. Images of a last stand on some hill whilst They came staggering towards us in numbers too great to count played across my mind. It turns out we had little to fear. Over distances of more than a few hundred yards They are effectively blind.
    Now I've seen it for myself, I should have realised this earlier. Their bodies become desiccated with time, drying up as the virus absorbs, or converts or burns off or whatever, the fluids within it. Without tears, grit and dirt would build up and scratch corneas, blinding Them.
    In London, when I climbed to the roof of that office block and stood and saw the barricades along the river bank, and the sea of ghoulish turning to stare at me, I was wrong. They weren't staring. They hadn't seen me. They'd heard me.
    I can't really stress how important a discovery this is to us. Knowing that, as long as we keep the bicycle oiled, our gear wrapped and a safe distance from Them, we can pass by unseen, unheard and undetected, is a