Free Zombies vs The Living Dead (An Evacuation Story #1) by Frank Tayell Page B

the channel again. ITV were showing a match. He bent forward
and peered at the top left hand corner of the screen. Arsenal 1 -
West Ham 2. The elapsed time read 56:18. He lent back in his chair
and tried to lose himself in
the rest of the game. It was hard. His mind kept turning to the world
beyond the Channel and the Atlantic. There wasn't much news coming in
from overseas any more, but reading between the lines it seemed as if
Britain was one of only a handful of functioning societies left.
    It
was a week since McGuffrey and the nurse had tried to bribe him, as
if a cheap bottle of whisky was going to keep his silence. He'd tried
to complain. He'd waited till he was sure the staff had either gone
home or had retreated to their break room for the evening and then
he'd called the hospital. He'd called Help the Aged, he'd called his
MP, the police, the local paper and the BBC. At least he'd tried to.
None of the numbers worked.

    He
checked his watch again. He'd never been one for eating lunch,
preferring to work through and leave work early to spend more time
with his wife. He didn't want to be late, though, because the food
wasn't for him, it was for Mrs O'Leary.
    She'd
gone in for an operation in January. The week she was away was the
loneliest of George's new life. He'd visited her twice, the first
time he'd got a lift from the Vicar, the second time he'd taken the
bus. Or, to be precise, three buses and a long wait in the rain. When
he'd arrived he'd been soaked. The nurses had made such a fuss he
wasn't sure they were going to let him leave. In the end one of them
took him home at the end of her shift. Mrs O'Leary had found the
whole thing hilarious and not a day went by since then that she
hadn't reminded him of it.
    Since
her return from the hospital, she had been confined to bed except on
the days when the physio visited. After he left and before having to
suffer through the indignity of the hoist to return her to bed,
George would take her for a walk in one of the home's wheelchairs.
She could manage pushing herself a short distance, but after a couple
of circuits of the one storey complex George would have to take over.
The visits by the physio and their promenades outside had stopped
after the petrol stations had been closed. Since then the only staff
who came in were the ones who lived in the village. He'd asked them
to move her out of the bed, but, hiding behind some non-existent
health and safety regulation, they'd refused.
    He'd
been hoping that perhaps someone would come and collect her. She had
a grandson in Ireland who had visited just before Christmas. He'd
stayed for a week at the pub in the village, hired a car and taken
them both out every day. George had tried calling him too, but to no
avail. He wasn't sure what the grandson would have been able to do
anyway, now that the airports and ferries had been closed.
    He
had tried, on his own, to lift her into the wheelchair and he thought
he could manage it, but; “If you can barely lift me down, how
on Earth are you going to get me back up to the bed?” she'd
asked, in her soft Irish brogue.
    Arsenal
scored an equaliser. He checked the time again. 11:47. Still too
early.

    There
were seventeen residents
left in the home. The living dead, he'd called them up until a few
weeks ago, but only within Mrs O'Leary's hearing. That didn't seem
quite so funny now.
    She
was sixty nine years old and the only resident confined to a bed. George, at sixty seven was the youngest. The others were old
enough to remember the War, but young enough that none of them had
had an active part in it. To them it was a time of rose tinted
rationing and halcyon summers where adults had far more to concern
themselves with than truant delinquents. They'd grown up in a time
when it was more than acceptable for places like the home to display
signs reading “No dogs, no blacks, no Irish”. By the
disdainful way that he and Mrs O'Leary were treated it was clear that
they wished they were