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

“Not me,” Clyde said. “Target was a corpse, moving with the waves. Defenders are all civilians. Poorly trained and poorly armed. One always makes the other worse. Everyone who had a vehicle, or who could steal one, has already fled.”

“What’s the resolve of the people who remain?” Hawker asked. “Will they stand?”

“For as long as they have bullets,” Clyde said. “So not for very long.”

Minutes became hours, marked by the irregular roar of the ship’s cannon. Driftwood was gathered and stacked outside their restaurant, ready to be lit when the undead came. Night came first. The stars followed. The only humanoid shadows belonged to skulking refugee-defenders who’d decided survival lay elsewhere. With spotlights and lamps rigged about its deck, the frigate became a new star, as deadly, as life-giving, and as impossibly far away.

Dinner was eaten in silence, hurriedly, and, despite the surrounding rot, left Tess wanting more.

“This darkness is absurd,” Avalon said, standing up. “Leo, be useful and help me.”

“Back in a bit,” Leo said, handing his own half-finished bowl to Zach.

“Where are you going?” Tess asked.

“We will commune with Joseph Swan,” Avalon said.

“Is that Canuck for painting the dunny?” Oakes asked.

But the scientists were already disappearing among the shadows. They weren’t gone long.

“Mind your eyes,” Leo said, raising his hands. A dull yellow beam stretched southward across the beach. “It’s one of the bus’s headlamps rigged to the laptop’s spare battery pack.”

“How long will it last?” Hawker asked.

“A couple of hours,” Leo said.

“Zach, take it up to the restaurant’s roof,” Hawker said. “Nicko, give him a boost. Zach, stick to the central beams, they’ll take your weight. Don’t switch on the lamp until you get the order. When you do, aim it at the shallows, not at us.”

“Don’t forget your weapon,” Nicko said.

“Take these,” Avalon said, handing Zach a notebook, pen, and a small reading light.

“What is it?”

“Homework,” Avalon said. “Education should never wait.”

Zach turned the light on, and opened the notebook. “If a train is travelling at— You seriously want me to do equations?”

“We don’t want you falling asleep,” Avalon said.

“Bet I will now,” Zach grumbled as he followed Sergeant Oakes back to the restaurant.

The ship’s cannon roared. The sky briefly glowed orange as the shell impacted somewhere beyond the horizon. More lights sprang from the ship, followed by two flares, fired fore and aft, then a third, fired shoreward, creating ominously stretched shadows among the floating wreckage.

“Danger is still a long time away,” Clyde said, his voice low and calm, but so close to her ear Tess jumped.

“Strewth, mate, you made me spring high enough to leave my boots behind,” she said.

The warship fired again, followed by a sharper staccato burst from a machine gun. To their left and right, single shots joined the distant automatic fire. But those bullets, fired blind into a roiling sea, did no harm to the waves.

Two lights detached themselves from the warship.

“They’re sending out a boat,” Clyde said. “But they can’t approach too close to shore, not while the civilians are shooting at shadows.”

“But what are they shooting at?” Tess asked.

The warship’s main gun ceased fire, while the machine gun had switched to short, irregular bursts. Another flare turned the sea crimson, though some patches appeared more red than others. From the ship came a put-put-put almost instantly followed by a triplet of at-surface explosions.

“Grenade launcher,” Clyde said. “Part of a close-combat weapons system in case pirates, in fast boats, try to swarm the ship.”

“You think there are pirates out there?” Tess asked.

“Nope,” Clyde said. “It’s all zoms.”

Ship-plates and twisted hulls clanked and groaned as waves surged over the shore-side wreckage. But above that, distant and indistinct, she could hear the sound of gunfire from the warship.

“Are they using rifles?” she asked.

“Could be,” Clyde said. “The small boat’s stopped firing. It’s heading north, towards the two diesel freighters, I guess.”

“Running away?” Tess asked. “Or are they running towards a new danger?”

“Neither, they’re getting clear of the crossfire,” Clyde said.

Another flare rose from the ship, illuminating the sea, now scattered with reflective-red strips and dotted with small lights.

“Is it just me, or are there lights at sea? Lots of them?” she said.

“Yep,” Clyde said.

“They’re life jackets, aren’t they?” she said. “People in life jackets, but the ship is firing. Zombies! Zombies in life jackets.”

“Floaters inbound!” Clyde called. “Ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes? That long?” Tess asked.

“With this tide? Ten minutes, and then for a couple of hours,” Clyde said, still utterly calm. “Must have been a cruise ship for them to have so many life jackets to hand out. The frigate didn’t sink the ship, she burst it.”

“We’re forming a line,” the colonel called. “Us and the nurses, five metres apart. You deal with your section, and let your neighbour deal with theirs. I’ve got the north. Nicko, get Zach to turn on the spotlight, then you take the south. If I set fire to that pile of kindling, it’s time to retreat to the bus, and back to Inhambane.”

Tess knew enough to keep her rifle lowered as she watched the crimson shadows creep into the beam of the bus’s removed headlamp. Flare light glinted from the life jacket’s reflective strips, overwhelming the vest’s weakly flashing light. This was worse than the bridge. There she’d been one part of an improvised killing machine, effective as long as the ammo lasted, and the dozers remained in position. It was worse than Broken Hill where the principal enemy had been familiarly human. It was worse than the coup, for then there had been no time for fear.

The floater’s arm languidly rose. He had a beard, mostly grey. His head was close-shaved. Beneath the vest, his shirt was green and red. Not a uniform. Just