Surviving The Evacuation (Book 8): Anglesey by Frank Tayell Read Free Book Online Page A

Sholto threw himself up onto the seawall. On his knees, he raised his rifle, and fired off a shot. The suppressed retort wasn’t nearly as loud as the sound of the zombie falling. Another shot and the second zombie flew backwards.
    “Impressive,” Simon said.
    “No, it wasn’t,” Sholto said, standing. “I hit the shoulder.”
    The zombie pushed itself to its feet. Sholto took his time, letting the creature take a step. Its head bobbed up. Its mouth opened, exposing a row of broken teeth. Its arm reached up, grasping towards us. Sholto fired. The creature’s head exploded in a spray of black-brown pus and off-white bone. With the sight came a flood of memories of the undead that I’d killed. My mood, already sombre, turned dark.
    “Up. Out,” Gwen barked.
    “Tie her off, Bill,” George said. Simon, Gwen, and Lorraine clambered out of the boat. I awkwardly followed, and rolled more than climbed onto the concrete jetty.
    “Here, catch,” George said, throwing a rope. Behind me, I heard thick boots running along concrete, and a few warning commands from Gwen. I tied the rope, though not expertly. The boat was secure, but if we were forced to make a quick retreat, we’d have to hack through it.
    “Pass me my axe,” I said.
    George held it up, and then his rifle. “Give me a hand,” he said.
    I helped him out of the boat.
    “Good thing, those suppressers,” he said. “Not quite perfect yet, though.”
    My brother and the others were now out of sight, and though I wasn’t sure I could hear the sound of the shots, I could hear the occasional thump of a body hitting the ground. I hoped that was the undead.
    “I feel useless,” I said.
    “Know your limitations,” George said. “That’s a lesson I learned early, but most people never grasp. We can’t excel at everything, and when we try, here and now, it’ll only get others into trouble.”
    “I know, it’s just… I guess it’s not being able to see what’s going on.”
    “People scream when they’re hurt,” George said, which was no comfort. I resolved to put in some hours on the firing range when we got back to the island.
    “You say they came over to get electric golf carts,” I said, trying to distract myself from the unseen danger that the others were in. “That sailing boat can’t be large enough to transport them back.”
    The boat in the artificial dock was a single-sail yacht, sleek and expensive, with room for perhaps ten people with their bags, but not much more. Certainly not a four-wheeled buggy about the size of a small car.
    “We’ll use the rafts for that,” George said. “This was just a scouting expedition. We wanted to see what damage the zombies had done. That would tell us whether it was worth expending the effort to send a larger group here to empty the golf course and town, or whether we should just secure the golf carts and get them at a later stage. Like I said, it’s a question of people and resources. We don’t have the time to let things wait, but equally don’t have the people to do everything we want all at once. There. I told you’d they’d be okay.”
    Simon had appeared around the scrubby bushes and was waving us forward.
    “Twenty-four of them,” he said when we drew level. “The clubhouse is clear.”
    It was over so quickly. I can’t say why, but that didn’t fill me with relief.
    “Watch the boat, Simon,” George said. “Come on, Bill.”
     

Chapter 2 - Caernarfon
    11:30, 15 th August, Day 156
     
    When planning the clubhouse, the builders had taken one look at the stunning vista of the Irish Sea, and then no doubt a second and third, and decided not to compete with it. The building had a simple, unpretentious style, suggesting this was a course where people came to play the game without needing some marble and glass edifice that would only have marred the view.
    My brother was walking between the corpses in the car park, checking each one was truly dead. Lorraine was by the door to the