Paul Hardy - The Last Man on Earth Club

“Nobody’d tried explosives on revenants before. We never usually met them in those kinds of numbers, not then, not until the last outbreak. Somebody must have thought dropping a shell into a pack of ’em would do a world of good. And yeh, some of ’em dropped. But the rest stayed up. Didn’t matter how much you ripped out their guts, they kept coming. And the shelling made them worse. The blast wave, the pressure, it did something to their nerves. Didn’t knock ’em down at all. It hurt them. Drove ’em mad. They didn’t moan any more, they screamed . They came at you running . They never ran if they could help it otherwise, just kept coming at a walk. And now we had hundreds in the square still on their feet, only thing stopping them getting us was the shells still coming down and tossing them about until they got up and tried it again.

“There’s two things you can do in that kind of nonsense. Freeze up or run for it. Best thing I did that day was shout at all my marines and tell them to run for it with me. Couldn’t stay out there. Nobody was going to get out of that square alive if they stayed.

“The shells had cleared one of the streets so we made for that. Couldn’t call it much of a street — buildings on both sides blown out, rubble everywhere, bits of revenants in the wreckage, arms coming out and grasping at you. Lieutenant Miller was there — torn in half, one good arm still holding his pistol but no idea what to do with it. I put him down and took it for myself, and his ammo. Needed ’em both just to get down the road. Somebody did a drawing of me for the papers after it was over. The Fury in the White Coat, they called me, with my two pistols. Kept on carrying two after that as well, even at Tringarrick. You can never have too many.

“The town hall was still standing. Don’t know what happened to the mayor and corporation. Don’t care. I’d have probably put them down if I saw them. I got twenty men past the revenants and the shells — not enough to defend the place but there wasn’t anything else left standing. Nice strong stone building, harder to blow apart than all the timber ones and they hadn’t targeted it directly so we blockaded it best we could, took one corner over the cellar entrance and holed up there. Nobody got through without some kind of injury. I had gashes all down my left side from shrapnel. Two of the men died within an hour and we put ’em down again when they got up.”

She went quiet for a few moments.

“What happened then?” I asked.

“Long night. Longest I ever knew. We escaped in all the shelling so the revenants didn’t know where we were at first, meant we had time to get some barricades up. And they kept on shelling all the time. Ten hours, it went on. Must have been more than one dreadnought out there. They were trying to level the place. Didn’t work. Just made things worse.

“Revenants kept coming, soon as one of ’em knew where we were, they all bloody knew or seemed like. We only had the ammo we brought with us and it wasn’t enough. We blocked all the windows so they had to come in through the courtyard. We could get good range on them there but we ran out of rounds in three hours. After that it was hand to hand. Good thing it was one of those places with halberds, and swords and all that hanging on the wall. I kept a few bullets back for the end and let the boys take the cutlery. We formed a line in a corridor, the ones with pole arms would pin the revenants while the ones with swords and axes smashed their heads. We blocked up the corridor with the corpses and then they found another way in and we set it up again. Must have been hundreds, between those we put down in the courtyard and the ones in the corridors. Most of them shrieking at us, still bloody mad because of the shelling.

“We couldn’t keep that up. We were down to eight and we were exhausted. A fair few of the ones coming at us had revenned in the square as well, that was the worst. Sticking a knife in the eye of someone you’d been eating at the same table with for weeks. I didn’t let the men see the look on my face. Just got it done and moved on. But we had to go. There was only the cellar left. We’d taken a look earlier — opened it up, went down, had a good yell, so we knew there wasn’t anything coming after us from down there. But there wasn’t any way out, either, or that’s what we thought. MacDonalt found a door to the sewers, brand new sewers, they were still digging to try and improve public hygiene and beat the cholera. I went out first because I was the last one with bullets in my guns. I’d been saving them for us. We saw a couple of revenants in there but that was all. I put them down. We barred the door behind us. Wouldn’t last forever, not against the ones gone mad from the shelling but it was all we had. Ran for it and found a way out, and all it did was take us back into the streets.

“But there weren’t any streets. They’d been shelling all night and the sun had come up. All we could see was smoke and rubble. Some buildings still on fire, making the smoke glow orange. Didn’t see any revenants — not in one piece, anyway. There were bits of them everywhere. We had to stick a few that still had heads. We thought the ones with legs wouldn’t be far behind.

“We heard footsteps — close, somewhere in the smoke. Couldn’t tell who or what. I told the men to form a line. They still had all the old mediaeval weapons, whatever they could fit down the cellar. I still had a couple of bullets. There wasn’t anywhere to go so we held our ground.

“Twenty marines came out of the smoke, rifles pointed at us — us with our halberds and swords and a couple of pistols. Nobody knew what to do for a moment, until the Marine Lieutenant on the other side told his men to stand down and I did the same. They were the reserves from the Indefatigable . They’d been landed once the shelling stopped. Tanymouth was still crawling with revenants but a lot of them were buried and the reserves were going round trying to find them. They weren’t expecting survivors.”

A crash came from elsewhere in the infirmary, probably Elsbet’s room. For a moment I thought she might have hurt someone, but then I heard Veofol calling for a mop to clean up a spill. She’d thrown a cup at a wall, nothing more. I turned my attention back to Olivia.

“What happened next?” I asked.

“Slept for a couple of days once they got me back to the ship. They gave me some leave. Hah. And a medal. The Star of Juno. Their way of covering up after the shelling — try and make me a hero. Fury in a White Coat and all that.”

“It sounds like you deserved it.”

“The ones who died deserved it as well, but all they got was a lovely spot in a mass grave.”

“Hm.”

“And no bloody death-shock, or PTSD, or whatever you call it. Not even a touch. Nothing. No nightmares. I slept fine, thank you very much.”

“So if I’d crept up on you after the first outbreak…”

“I’d have jumped. Like anyone else. But I’d have put you down if you were a revenant.”

“And what about the marines?”

“What about ’em?”

“How did they do?”

She scowled at me. “Yeh. They got it. Some of them. Most of them.”

“What happened to them?”

“They got put in madhouses. Or left on the streets. I wasn’t one of ’em. What’s your point?”

“It hits different people in different ways, Olivia. For some, they get it after the first experience of trauma. But for others it takes years of repeated exposure. Like, say, being surrounded by revenants for twelve years…”

She glared back at me. She’d had enough for today.

“How’s your arm?”

“Can’t feel a thing.”

She stood. “Well if you’re better, then I’m getting back out in the garden.”