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

If I can. I’d have to, sooner or later.”
    “OK,” she said, softly as she put her hand on my arm. It was only the briefest of touches.
    “OK,” she said again, letting her hand fall, her tone now rigid once more. “We’ll hang out flags at every house we go to. And we’ll leave a note with the date when we were there. You do the same. If you don’t make it to the beach, well, we’ll be back. I’ll be back. On the last day of every month, until you turn up.”
    “Right. I...”
    “Give me thirty minutes to get in position. See you, Bill.” She turned and jogged off, before I could say the words.
     
    Words left unspoken are often the most treacherous. You’re never sure if what you were going to say is what the other person thought you were. I pondered that as I stood by the Land Rover, just waiting for time to pass.
    After five minutes I started to feel self-conscious, so I got inside the car. I checked the time. Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty five. Thirty. I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. I tried again. The engine turned over and then turned itself off. I tried again. The engine roared to life, then whimpered to a stop.
     
    I forced my hands away from the dashboard and my feet away from the pedals. I took a breath, then another, and told myself to calm down, wait, count to five and then try again. I’d reached three when I had the metallic banging of something being knocked over. It came from the street, to the right. I couldn’t see the zombie, there was a wall in the way, but I knew it was there. I muttered ‘four, five’ under my breath as quickly as I could, tried the key. The engine spluttered.
    “Come on, come on,” I muttered, coaxing the pedals, my eyes darting around, seeing if, somehow, there might be another car I could take. There was a bang, a cough and the engine spluttered and gasped into an arrhythmic roar just as an arm windmilled around the edge of the wall. It was followed a moment later by a zombie wearing nothing but a pair of lurid blue shorts. It must have been outside during the storms earlier in the year because the dye had run, staining its legs.
    I put the car into gear and pulled out, the creature stumbled into the road directly ahead. I’d only reached five miles an hour, when I hit it. The creature twisted around, as it was shoved backwards, turning a full three hundred and sixty degrees before slamming its arms down on the bonnet. Its bulging uncomprehending eyes met mine. I slammed my foot down, trying to force the car to accelerate as much by willpower as by mechanics. Its head slammed, face first, into the bonnet with a crack of breaking teeth. Fingernails scratched and broke, flecks of paint flew up, and the creature just refused to be dragged under the wheels.
    The road was too narrow, too hemmed in by other cars to get up enough speed. After thirty yards I braked, changed gears and reversed. It slipped, fell, stumbled back to its feet and staggered towards me. I pulled out the gun, unwound the window, stuck the barrel out and fired.
    “Sorry,” I muttered, as its body collapsed to the ground.
     
    I wound the window back up and edged the car forward. I took a left, then right then right again, trying to pick up some speed. I ignored the zombies that appeared from side roads and from behind parked cars. I ignored the sound of breaking glass from windows behind and to the sides and out in front. I ignored everything but the road in front as I made my way to Kew.
    I took another right and there it was, the wall around the Gardens and the main road that led past the main gate. I put my foot down. I wanted to dash past the undead, and then stop a few hundred yards up the road until I was sure they were following.
    The road curved, and I saw the tops of the gates and the undead in the road in front. That’s when the plan started to fall apart. They were already heading towards me, and They’d spread out across the road. I wasn’t going to be able