Free Surviving The Evacuation (Book 3): Family by Frank Tayell

Please!” It was Annette. Where nothing I said seemed to be reaching her, that did. Her expression changed ever so subtly, not softening, if anything it became far harder, colder and deeper than any I’d seen her wear before.
    “Alright,” she said, taking a step towards the car.
    There was another shot. Paint flew from the bonnet. I turned. I saw him. Stewart was standing on one of the ticket kiosks. I don’t know how he managed to get up there that fast.
    He yelled something else. I didn’t hear what. He half raised the shotgun. It went off, before it could bear on us, blowing the scalp off one of the zombies beneath him. He opened the breach, his hand going to a pocket. I raised the pistol. I hesitated, but only for a moment. There wasn’t time. We wouldn’t get away. That’s what I thought. I pulled the trigger.
    He stopped moving. He stood there for a moment, motionless. Then he half raised a hand, his head rocking left and right. Then he looked at me and I’ll remember that look. It was puzzled confusion. He shook his head slightly, took a step forward, His foot was over the edge of the ticket kiosk. He fell down into the mass of zombies waiting below.
    “It’s done,” I murmured, wishing I could think of something more appropriate. There was another screech of metal, this time accompanied by a cracking of cement as two of the barrier’s supports moved under the weight of the undead. I ran back to the car.
    “We all in? Everyone OK?” I asked as I got back in the car. “Kim? Annette? How’s Daisy.”
    “Daisy’s fine,” Sholto said. The engine started.
    “Of course she is,” Annette said. “She’s a fighter. You took your time.”
    “Sorry about that,” I said, as we moved off
    “Kim?” I glanced over at her. She was staring ahead, eyes unblinking. “You alright?”
    “Yeah.” She said slowly. “Yeah. Seems so.”
    “What went wrong?” Sholto asked
    “I got lost,” I said.
    “Right.”
    “What about you?” I asked
    “You saw,” Kim said. “The car only got rid of the undead out on the road, and that didn’t happen immediately. You remember how fast a zombie walks? And a zombie at the back of a pack can’t move until those at the front have cleared off. It took an hour before enough of Them had disappeared that we could go out on the street.”
    Like I said, it would have been better if we’d slept before coming up with a plan.
     
    It had been less than two hours since I’d started driving around south London. As we headed south, I was trying to work out how much of that time had been spent driving on that same road, between Kew and the boat, and how many zombies might still be in front of us.
    I swore.
    “This is going to be tight.”
    “What does that mean?” Kim asked.
    “We might not be able to go straight to the boat.”
    “What’s this about a boat?” Annette asked.
    “It’s about a mile away. We’ve got enough food for months and enough petrol to get us to the coast.”
    “That’s good.”
    “Yeah, yeah it’s just...”
    “Up ahead,” Sholto interrupted softly. There were seven in the road, heading towards us.
    “Hold on,” I said, angling the car towards the curb.
    “No, behind Them.” He pointed.
    I took another look. Behind the seven were at least a dozen more. I cursed as I slammed my foot down on the brake. There was a yell of protest from the back.
    “Sorry,” I muttered, as I threw the car into reverse, backed up fifty yards and turned into a side road.
     
    The undead were everywhere now. Five here, a dozen there. On every road and every side street and it seemed like arms were stretching down from every window. And there was no longer any chance of avoiding Them.
    “This isn’t going to work Bill,” Kim said. Daisy whimpered as we thumped over another body.
    “I know.”
    Heading north or east into London was no good. All the undead I’d been luring away from Kew were there. We couldn’t go south. That left west, and west was the