FIFTEEN

The slope leads down into a dip, then the ground rises again. When we come to the crest of the ridge, Vinyl tells us to lie flat. He inches forward on his stomach and pulls out a small mirror. He waits for the clouds to part, then starts flashing in the direction of New Kirkham, a series of short and long bursts.

‘Must be Morse code,’ Rage says.

‘You reckon?’ I jeer. ‘Thanks for pointing out the obvious. The rest of us would have been scratching our heads for hours trying to figure that out.’

Rage gives me the finger. Vinyl finishes signalling and waits for a response. When it comes, he flashes another message then wriggles back beside us. ‘I’ve told them we’re coming. They’ll create a diversion.’

‘Why not send a smoke signal while you’re at it?’ Rage asks sourly.

Vinyl chuckles. ‘Don’t knock the old ways. Phones don’t work any more. We could use walkie-talkies, but they can be temperamental, and we’d have to lug them around everywhere, and zombies might hear the crackle.’

‘Isn’t there a danger they might spot the flashes and investigate?’ Ashtat asks.

‘It happens occasionally,’ Vinyl says. ‘Far less than you’d expect. Most of them can’t connect the lights with human activity. They’re dumb that way. Let’s hope they never wise up.’

‘I learnt Morse code in hospital,’ Jakob says quietly, surprising us as he always does when he breaks his customary silence. ‘It helped pass the time.’

‘What were you in for?’ Vinyl asks.

‘Cancer.’

‘Ouch. That sucks. Did you beat it?’

‘No.’

‘Does it hurt?’

Rage laughs shortly and cocks an eyebrow at me. ‘Now who’s asking dumb questions? Your little friend’s not as smart as he thinks he is.’

Vinyl blinks. He doesn’t know about the bad blood between Rage and me.

‘Anyway,’ Vinyl says heavily, ‘we’ll be making a dash for it soon. Get ready to run. If anyone falls, the Angels will try to protect you, but obviously they won’t be able to help you back to your feet, in case they scrape you.

‘The rest of us need to keep moving. Don’t stop or go back for a fallen friend. If you disobey that order, you’ll become a liability because it means the Angels have to try and protect you too, so instead of being able to focus and do a lot for one, they’ll have to split up and do less for two. Don’t be a hero. That’s what the Angels are here for.’

‘Hear that?’ Shane beams. ‘He called us heroes.’

‘They’ll be pinning medals on us soon,’ Rage sniffs.

‘What about Declan?’ Emma asks.

‘Pass him around as you go,’ Vinyl says. ‘I know you probably want to take him by yourself, but it will be easier if you share the load. That way you won’t get tired and lag behind.’

Emma frowns. ‘Hold on. What about the tunnels you mentioned? Why aren’t we sneaking in through one of those?’

‘Hey, yeah,’ Shane says. ‘I didn’t think about that. Why are we doing this the hard way?’

Vinyl shifts uncomfortably. ‘Rules of New Kirkham. We don’t reveal the location of the tunnels to anyone except those who are trusted members of the community.’

‘You have got to be kidding,’ Ashtat groans.

‘Rules,’ Vinyl repeats with a shrug.

‘That doesn’t seem fair,’ Emma scowls.

‘It’s a safety measure,’ Vinyl says. He looks around and notices us eyeing him darkly. ‘Hey, don’t blame me, I’m just following orders. And don’t forget, I’m running the same risk as you guys. If it all goes wrong, I’m in the same boat.’

‘It’s always this way,’ Pearse says.

‘Yeah,’ Conall backs him up. ‘Don’t take it personally.’

‘Come on,’ Vinyl says, trying to win back our confidence with a smile. ‘Let’s get ready to fly.’

After some dubious grumbling, we bunch up beside Vinyl and study the scene below. For a couple of minutes nothing happens. Then a group of people climb the wall inside the compound, to a large platform on the far side of town. They start hammering drums and blowing whistles. A few throw scraps over the wall.

‘Brains,’ Vinyl notes. ‘We harvest them from our dead and keep some in stock for times like this.’

The zombies are attracted to the commotion. They race as fast as they can, or drag themselves by their fingers if they lack legs. As a mob forms, they pound on the wall, scream wordlessly for more brains, tear up the grass in search of scraps that the others might have missed.

‘Does this always work?’ I ask Vinyl.

‘Yeah. You’d think they’d have twigged by now – we distract them like this fairly regularly – but zombies are the dumbest creatures I’ve ever seen. No offence intended.’

‘Plenty taken,’ I growl, but jokingly.

We wait until the majority of the zombies are out of sight. Then, at a signal from Vinyl, we get to our feet and run.

Revitaliseds can run faster than humans, especially over a long distance. We could easily outpace Emma, Vinyl and the others. But that’s not why we’re here, so we hold ourselves in check and flank them, shepherding them towards a large steel gate that nestles in the wall directly ahead of us.

Some of the humans start to sob as we draw close to the gate. They’re sure we won’t make it, that they’ll trip and be left behind, or that the gate won’t open, or that hundreds of zombies will spring up from the earth in front of us. It’s hard, daring to hope in a world where most of your hopes have been dashed and ground to dust in front of you.

We bat back a few stray zombies without slowing. One of the teenagers falls, but is back on her feet straight away. One of the men twists an ankle and goes down with a curse. The other two men hesitate, share a worried look, then return to pick him up. They scurry forward with him as fast as they can.

I scowl at Vinyl. ‘So much for your instructions.’

He grunts. ‘That always happens. People are too decent for their own good. I warn them out of habit more than anything else.’

Some of the zombies have started to return, figuring they’re not going to get anything since they’re at the back of the crowd. When they spot us, they pick up speed and lumber closer, fingers twitching, fangs glinting as they howl with hunger, alerting more of their kind.

Pretty much all of the humans are whimpering now, moaning aloud as the zombies rumble towards us, their stench thick in the air, more joining their ranks every second, a wall of undead threat.

I cast a desperate glance at the gate. It hasn’t opened yet. This will be a close-run race. If the gate doesn’t open in time …

‘Do you need to signal again?’ I yell at Vinyl.

He shakes his head. ‘They’ll open the gate when we get there,’ he pants.

‘You’re sure?’

‘They always have before.’

‘What if they don’t?’

He glares at me. ‘Ever the pessimist.’

‘I just want to know if you’d rather I kill you before some nameless zombie rips into your skull.’

‘You can’t fool me,’ Vinyl huffs. ‘You want my brain all to yourself.’

‘What can I say?’ I laugh, trying to fight fear with humour. ‘I always had a thing for ugly, clever guys.’

The gate looms closer. So do the zombies, and there are hundreds on either side now, if not thousands, pouring towards us like two waves that are poised to meet and clash and destroy everything and anything caught between. It’s not looking good. Maybe the operators inside ran into a problem with the locks and have decided it’s too late to help us. I prepare myself to fight, even though I know it will be a lost cause. I see the others reach the same conclusion and get ready for the end. Rage catches my eye and snarls, ‘Bloody humans!’

Then, as we’re almost within touching distance of the gate, it swings open far more quickly than I assumed it could, startling almost all of us.

‘I told you to trust me,’ Vinyl cries out boastfully as the humans are hauled inside by the people they’ve travelled all this way to join. ‘We have a guy who used to design theme-park rides. He was able to rig up fast-opening gates.’

‘You could have warned us,’ I growl.

‘Didn’t want to ruin the surprise.’ Vinyl smirks and crosses the finishing line with his hands over his head, like a champion accepting the applause of the crowd at the end of a marathon. Flash git!

I pause in the open entrance and make sure all of the humans have made it through. Ashtat pulls up beside me.

‘Don’t linger,’ she snaps. ‘The people on the gate are alive. They wouldn’t shed a tear if they had to shut out the likes of you and me.’

‘Sound advice,’ I grunt, then jog in with her. We’re the last two of the group. As soon as we’re inside, the gate slams shut with less of a clang than I expected, blocking the way for the screeching zombies, locking us in with the residents of New Kirkham. As I stare around at them, standing well back from us, armed with guns of all shapes and sizes, looking more unwelcoming than villains in a cowboy film, I start to wonder if maybe I wouldn’t have been safer on the other side of the gate with the undead.