I tell Vinyl about my life since I was killed. The bit he enjoys most is when I describe climbing the London Eye.
‘You really scaled it using just your hands?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Wicked.’
When I’m done, it’s Vinyl’s turn. He was at his new school the day of the attacks. By luck he was outside for a phys-ed class when the world went haywire. He fled with some of his classmates, then headed home. He couldn’t find his mum and dad.
‘So maybe they’re alive, in another compound,’ I suggest.
‘Nah,’ he says sadly. ‘I met a neighbour of ours a few months later. He saw them get killed. He said both were properly slaughtered, their brains ripped out, so at least I don’t have to worry about them stumbling around in a monstrous state.’
Vinyl survived that first night by locking himself into a bank vault.
‘You what?’ I hoot.
‘I figured a bank would be as safe a place as any,’ he grins. ‘The vaults are operated by time locks. As long as we could keep out the zombies until the vaults were due to shut, we could slip inside and they wouldn’t be able to get at us.’
‘You were always oozing with brains,’ I mutter.
‘Yeah, baby,’ he crows. ‘I’d be a prize scalp for one of your crowd.’
Vinyl found refuge in one of our local banks, spent that first night locked up nice and tight – he says he slept on a bed of banknotes that must have been worth a million pounds, but I think he’s making that bit up – then struck out for the countryside in the morning.
‘Most of the people in the bank stayed behind,’ he snorts. ‘They thought the army would rescue them. I figured there wasn’t a hope of that. When a city like London falls, there’s no quick recovery.’
Vinyl roughed it for a few weeks in the country, avoiding contact with anyone. Then he stumbled across one of the first compounds to be set up and threw in his lot with them.
‘It fell less than a week later,’ he sighs. ‘We underestimated the sheer bloody determination of the undead. They kept coming and coming. They wore us down, picked holes in our barriers, and next thing we knew they were swarming the place.’
He made it out with a few others and went looking for another compound. He found New Kirkham – though it didn’t have a name then – and he’s been there ever since, only leaving it at times like this, to guide other humans to sanctuary.
‘I got closely involved in the running of the place,’ he says. ‘Age doesn’t matter any more. Qualifications are irrelevant. It all boils down to what you know and how you operate under pressure. I’d learnt a lot of lessons from the collapse of the first compound and I was able to make suggestions to shore up our defences.’
‘So you’re a Big Chief now?’ I grin. ‘Power, a throne, a harem?’
‘Yeah,’ he deadpans. ‘A gold-rimmed toilet, caviar for breakfast, the works.’
The army rolled by a month or so after Vinyl had arrived in New Kirkham. They wanted to put their stamp on the place, but the residents were happy with things the way they were. They rejected the offer of help and have remained one of the few truly independent mainland compounds.
‘Were the soldiers pissed?’ I ask.
He shrugs. ‘They thought we were fools, but they left us in peace. Told us not to come crying to them when it all broke down. But so far it hasn’t.’
One day, out of the blue, Billy Burke came calling. He was with a group of survivors. He’d led them out of London with the help of a few Angels. The newcomers were accepted gratefully—there’s plenty of space in the compound, so the locals are happy to admit stragglers as long as they’re willing to toe the line and work hard.
‘Burke asked for volunteers to come back with the Angels and act as guides for future groups,’ Vinyl says. ‘A lot of the survivors in London don’t trust the Angels. They’re more likely to accept an invitation of help if someone living is involved.’
Not many people offered to become guides. Life was hard enough as it was. They faced assaults every night. They’d seen horrors in the towns and cities that they’d never forget. They were loath to return. Vinyl was one of the few who said he’d help.
‘Fancied yourself as a hero?’ I chuckle.
He pulls a face. ‘It just seemed like the right thing to do.’ I raise a mocking eyebrow and he sighs. ‘OK, the truth is, I’ve had really bad nightmares since I escaped. The sort where I piss myself and wake up screaming and shaking. I thought I might be able to stop the bad dreams if I confronted my fears.’
My smile fades. I’m sorry now that I teased him. ‘Has it helped?’ I ask.
‘Not really. But once I’d made a few runs with the Angels, I felt compelled to carry on. I saw how they risked their lives for people who in some cases openly despised them. Once I was part of the gang, I didn’t feel like it would be fair to pull out.’ Vinyl grimaces. ‘Burke probably bet on that. He’s a clever sod. Not much gets by him. I’m sure he knew that once he’d got me to do one run, I wouldn’t be able to …’
Vinyl catches my expression and trails off into silence. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asks quietly, although he can probably guess.
I tell him about Burke, how Mr Dowling must have messed with his mind and sent him to kill Dr Oystein, the way I scratched him while I was disarming him, holding him in my arms while he died. I can’t cry, but my voice shakes and I moan during the telling.
Vinyl stares at the ceiling glumly when I’m finished. ‘That sucks. Burke always said he’d be taken down sooner rather than later, that you couldn’t throw in your lot with the undead and expect to last very long. That didn’t bother him. But to be turned by one of your own, on your home turf …’
‘I had to do it,’ I snap. ‘He was shooting at Dr Oystein. He had to be stopped. I didn’t want to kill him. It was an accident. But he left me no choice.’
‘Easy,’ Vinyl soothes me. ‘I wasn’t having a go. I just mean it’s a pity that he couldn’t have been killed by zombies, out in the field, fighting to help a group of people to freedom. He deserved a hell of an end, not to go meekly.’
‘Yeah, well, few of us get what we deserve,’ I sniff.
‘Tell me about it,’ Vinyl sighs.
We’re silent for a while. I think about telling Vinyl that Burke was vaccinated, that we’re keeping him locked up in case he ever recovers, but I’m not sure how he’d take that. Remembering what he said about his parents, I figure he might be of the opinion that it would be better to execute our old teacher. I don’t want to argue with him, so it’s easier to say nothing about it.
‘Does it change anything, Burke being dead?’ I finally ask.
‘Nah,’ Vinyl says. ‘I never saw much of him anyway. I’ll carry on the same as usual. But I’ll miss him. He was a star.’
‘Yeah,’ I mumble. I know I shouldn’t feel horrible or guilty, but I do.
‘You couldn’t help it, B,’ Vinyl says softly, seeing the self-hatred in my eyes.
‘I know.’
‘But you feel bad anyway?’
I nod stiffly.
‘Best way to make up for it is to do what Burke would have wanted,’ Vinyl says. ‘See this lot to safety. Then return and rescue some more of the living.’
‘Yeah. But how many more good deeds do I have to do before I stop feeling like a rat?’ I ask.
Vinyl shrugs. ‘If I knew that, I’d be a very wise man. But I’m just a guy who likes old records and hanging out with racist birds.’
‘Less of it,’ I growl as he stands and yawns, but I’m grinning.
We return to the atrium and spend the rest of the evening and early part of the night with the other Angels. Pearse and Conall have done this run a few times and they’ve become good friends with Vinyl. He gets to know the rest of the gang and amuses them with some stories about me from the distant past. We play cards – all of us careful never to pass cards directly to Vinyl or come within scraping distance of him – and Vinyl downs a couple of beers.
Emma comes to see us later, carrying a tray of sandwiches. She tries to make small talk. I think she feels bad for having deserted us. Vinyl munches a few of the sandwiches, chats with Emma, makes her laugh. She leaves looking less solemn.
‘You’re a real man of the people, aren’t you?’ I smirk.
‘A Big Chief has to be,’ he winks. ‘I plan on running for prime minister when we get this world back in order. I might need her vote.’
‘You really think we can knock the world back into shape?’ I ask sceptically.
‘With people like you and me on the case, how can we fail?’ he laughs.
Eventually Vinyl bids us goodnight. ‘I know you guys don’t need any shut-eye, but this boy soldier needs his beauty sleep.’
‘Will you bed down with the others?’ I ask.
‘No, I’ll be sleeping by myself, the way I always do.’
‘Because nobody wants to share a bed with you?’ I joke.
Vinyl winces. ‘No. Because I don’t want to scare anyone when I wake up screaming.’
With a short wave he heads for bed, leaving the darkest, most twisted hours of the night to those of us best suited to them.