Life Goes On by Tayell, Frank (large ebook reader txt) 📗

driving distance. There’s no secondary position we can escape to, and no way we can surrender. No, we’ll hold the line until everyone’s safe. If it’s not by air, it’ll be aboard a ship. Either way, I’d say twenty-four to thirty-six hours, and we’ll be out of here.”

“I wish I had your certainty.”

He shrugged. “I know how to take a ship. Confined corridors will work to our advantage against the zoms. We can go deck-by-deck, clearing and sealing them as we go.”

“You’ve done that before?”

“Ship-work? Sure. Hostage situations. But zoms don’t hide, and they don’t shoot back. Won’t say it’ll be a cool breeze on a December day, but I’d prefer it to a battle in the open.”

“You, me, Oakes, and Clyde,” Tess said. “What about the nurses?”

“They’re fierce enough, but this will be relentless. Metal bulkheads bring a risk of ricochets. Better to pick people who’ve been trained in when not to pull the trigger. We can ask the commander who on their crew could assist. This is the reason we’re supposed to be here.”

“You believe in destiny?” Tess asked.

“I wouldn’t call it that,” he said. “Every life has moments where the future of the many turns on the actions of a few. In jobs like yours and mine, those moments happen more often than most. Doesn’t mean we’re guaranteed success, but I’m confident in our ability to pull this off. We all end up where we’re supposed to be. Speaking of which, I’ll find out where we’re supposed to be now.”

He went inside, while Tess turned her gaze to the people sheltering on the nearby rooftops. The zoms at the bridge had pulped their hands to the bone against the dozers’ steel blades. In the process, they’d pushed one back five centimetres. Once the ammo was gone, once the spears had been thrown, the masonry dropped, the defenders would be able to do nothing but watch the zoms beat and claw at the walls below. How sturdy were the houses in this sleepy backwater city? Not sturdy enough.

Hawker returned outside with Laila at his side, Elaina just behind.

“Look who I found,” Hawker said.

“I thought you were with Mick,” Tess said.

“We’d have taken a seat from a kid,” Elaina said. “After Dr Dodson took off, Bianca and I came here to help.”

“Bianca’s inside?” Tess asked.

“Watching the wounded,” Elaina said. “You know, the bitten people. We’re not nurses, but we’re doing what we can. We’ll stay here, if that’s okay, because we’re not soldiers, either. The colonel told us about the battle on the bridge.”

“If we’re not together,” Tess said, “I can’t guarantee there’s a way out for you.”

“I don’t think anyone can guarantee that, Commissioner,” Elaina said.

“It’s where they’re supposed to be,” Hawker said with a shrug and smile.

“We should go to Tofo Beach,” Laila said. “It’s under-defended.”

“The beach needs defending?” Tess asked.

“Oh, yes,” Laila said. “The beach is the front line.”

According to Clyde, Tofo Beach was famous. Molten gold sands met azure seas so packed with mantas you could use them as stepping stones to reach Madagascar. Well, perhaps. Once. Before the war. Oil-black waves frothed greenish-red foam as they broke against the grounded hulks. Broken ships filled the shallows. A mix of single-masted dhows and metal-hulled freighters created a nearly solid wall of steel and wood for as far as she could see. Around them, waves surged, dragging rope, cloth, and plastic ashore. The sands were stained every hue of the chemical rainbow, covered in the bodies of fish and birds, people and the undead.

The smell of decay, as much as the vision of Armageddon, made them all grateful to get inside the restaurant which would be their base for the night.

“Never been in a grass-roofed restaurant before,” Zach said.

“There should be sentries here,” Laila said. “This is the front line.”

“I thought that was the bridge,” Zach said.

“The ships sailed to Madagascar from Mozambique and South Africa, from Tanzania and Kenya,” Laila said. “But the island was overrun with infected arriving by plane. Refugees re-boarded the ships. Some were infected. When the ports were attacked, the ships put to sea. Those who didn’t succumb to the virus took the boats, leaving only the dead aboard, and the ships adrift. Now those ships drift with the tide, until they run aground.”

“It’s not a virus,” Avalon muttered.

“The general should be here,” Laila said, looking at the half-ruined restaurant.

“Which general?” Tess asked.

“I think that is now you,” Laila said. “We shall go ask. Watch the water.”

“Would you ladies like an escort?” Oakes asked.

Which was met with a string of Portuguese and then Arabic as Laila translated, and then elaborated. Tess didn’t understand the words, but the nurse’s exaggeratedly appraising gaze, stage bow, and stifled laughter was universal.

“No harm in asking,” Oakes said.

Sand lay ankle-deep across the restaurant’s floor, rising to a knee-height embankment by the bar. Some furniture lay beneath the partially collapsed roof, while the rest had joined a jumbled entanglement between this property and the next.

“I’ve seen worse kitchens,” Toppley said. “But not many. It’s a playground for bugs, and they’ll form a plague-sized graduation class by dawn. Between what’s in there and what’s on the beach, I wouldn’t want to dine here, so we’re fortunate the cupboards have been completely emptied.”

“Congratulations, Zach,” Hawker said, as he picked up a broom. “You’re promoted to sweeper, first-class. Shift some of the sand for us, mate.”

“No worries, sir,” Zach said. “Does the promotion mean I get extra pay?”

“If you do a good job, why not?” Hawker said, extracting an oat-bar from his pocket. “Let’s say an extra dollar a day.” He threw the bar to Zach who grabbed it, tore the wrapper open, and inhaled the bar before, carefully, folding the wrapper up and pocketing it.

“With us wading through muck,