Surviving The Evacuation (Book 8): Anglesey by Frank Tayell Page B

her.
    “You okay going after these other three?” Lorraine asked after twenty yards.
    “It won’t take long,” I said. “If they disappeared last night, either they’re dead, gone, or dead drunk in some caravan.”
    “One hour,” Sholto said, checking his watch. “Then we go back. Is it safe to leave them with the boat?”
    “Simon’s there,” Lorraine said. “He’ll shoot them rather than leave without us.”
    “Maybe that would be for the best,” Sholto said.
    I glanced at my brother. He had a thoughtful expression.
    “Penny for them?” I said.
    “What?”
    “Your thoughts,” I said.
    “If they spent the night in a ruined castle and then ran out of ammo, why are their bags so full?” he said.
    “Because Paul was lying,” Lorraine said. “He’s probably loaded up on spirits from some abandoned pub.”
    “They were running pretty fast to be loaded down with anything heavy,” Sholto said.
    “Then it’s something else,” Lorraine said. “And if you want to know what, go to the pub tonight and see what they’re selling. I bet he’s hoping Markus is dead so he can take over the inn for himself.”
    “Where’s this trailer park?” Sholto asked.
    “There’s a caravan site a few hundred metres that way,” Lorraine said, gesturing inland. “We came over in the spring. Heather Jones saw some smoke when she was fishing. It was just a house fire, but that got her thinking we should grab everything we could while we could. There were too many zombies in Caernarfon, so we stripped the houses this side of the River Seiont. There aren’t many and it wasn’t long before we ended up at the caravan park. It’s a holiday place, and it was mostly empty and shuttered. There were a few odds and ends, but anything valuable enough to be stolen had been removed at the end of the summer season. There was a restaurant, and a path that leads to the site through the fields somewhere…. there, I think.”
    Ivy coiled around a battered signpost and over a broken stile that marked a footpath’s beginning. After months of unchecked growth, the blackthorn and bramble hedge constricted the path to a narrow two feet.
    “You see it?” Sholto asked, raising his rifle.
    “I do. It’s mine,” I said, lowering my voice. “Those rifles are quiet, but not silent.” Nor were we.
    Perhaps it was the weeks of safety, or the relative ease with which the zombies around the clubhouse had been dispatched, or the sight of the island just a churning stretch of water away, but months of experience had been forgotten. The zombie had heard us approach and was beginning to stand. It hadn’t been on the path long enough for the undergrowth to ensnare it, nor had it been undead for much longer. Its red jeans, blue shirt, and thick cracked-leather boots were free of the mud that coated those who’d been infected before the stormy spring settled into this stifling summer.
    I hauled myself over the stile and raised the fire axe over my head. There wasn’t room to swing it any direction but straight down. Bravado had made me volunteer, and as I pushed my way through the thicket of thorny spikes, I knew that was a foolish motivation. I had nothing to prove, not even to myself, not anymore, and I vowed to never be driven by such cavalier recklessness again. It was a vow that didn’t last long.
    I focused my attention on the creature’s lumbering gait. Watched its arms catch in the vines and branches. Listened to the sound of cloth ripping on the blackthorn’s inch-long barbs. Saw its mouth gape open, and I brought the axe down, splitting its skull. It fell into the hedge, stripping leaves from breaking branches.
    “I’d say that was as loud as a gunshot,” Sholto said.
    “Loud enough to wake the undead,” Lorraine muttered, climbing over the stile.
    After another hundred metres, the path ended in a thicket of blackberries that almost completely concealed a varnished gate. Two downward strokes of the axe, and we had a route