"Are you keeping track of the route?" she asked Jay. Shed insisted he come with her. This time he hadnt protested. And since all Chester knew were the roads not to take, and those had been marked down on the map, shed insisted on taking the lead. She didnt know Kent at all, and wasnt sure that being in front was actually safer, but it did mean that she could see danger coming.

"Yeah, I think so," Jay replied, lazily.

"Jenner Drive. Thats the name on the sign there on the left," she said. "Did you mark that one down?"

"Jenner Drive. Ive got it, Mum," he said, just as casually.

"But youve marked it off? You know where we are?"

Jay sighed.

"Okay. Fine. Sorry," Nilda said.

Jay leaned forward and rummaged in the glove box.

"What are you looking for?" she asked.

"Music. It cant hurt, right? This is not the quietest..." He was drowned out as Nilda swerved left, then right, angling the plough into a hatchback that blocked half the road. There was a grind as she changed gears and another from the car as she pushed it out of the way.

"Like I said," Jay continued, "its not the quietest vehicle."

"Fine. Music. Yes," Nilda muttered. "Check in your mirror first. Can you see Chester and Xiao?"

"Um... No. Just Tuck."

"We should have arranged a signal," she muttered.

"What?" Jay asked.

"Nothing."

The road ahead was clear for three hundred yards. She turned her attention to the fuel gauge and milometer.

"How long has it been?" she asked.

"Since we turned the engines on? Thirty minutes."

"And weve done nearly ten miles."

"On the map its six," Jay said. "But itll get easier as we get further out into the countryside."

"Yes, of course it will," she said, knowing it wasnt true. As time wore on, her worst fears were realised. There were fewer undead, at least in front, and she dared not even think how many were now in relentless pursuit, but the roads got steadily worse. Even with the plough gouging a path through the decaying ma.s.s of litter and vegetation, the thick tyres often lost traction.

"Dont go left here!" Jay snapped. "Thats one of the roads Chester marked off."

"Fine." They were half a mile from a crossroads, and beyond it was an overturned flatbed. "But we cant go straight on."

"So turn right," he said.

"Theres nowhere to turn right into," she said.

"The field! Turn into the field."

She saw the gate almost too late. She threw the steering wheel to the right. The ploughs blade wrenched the gate from its hinges, and they drove up into the field.

"Bad idea!" Nilda said, wrenching at the steering wheel. "Too much mud. Not good. The hedge. Thatll give us something to grip." She slammed the plough into the hedgerow. Branches and leaves flew up to cover the windscreen. The truck slowed, and she was terrified it was going to stall, but then she caught sight of the flatbed that had been blocking the way. She threw the wheel hard left and drove back onto the road.

"We need to stop," she said, after fifty rea.s.suring yards of driving on almost un.o.bstructed asphalt.

"Why?"

"To check the others are still there.

"Slow down a bit," Jay said as he wound down his window. "And try to stick to the road." Hed climbed out before Nilda could protest, and was back down again before she could pull him in.

"Theyre there. I saw Chester. He waved, not with all his fingers, but it still counts."

"We should stop anyway," Nilda said.

"Why? Do we need to refuel?"

"No. Not yet. Probably not until we get to the mansion."

"Then," he said slotting a CD into the dash, "dont. Its only another ten miles."

The music began to play. After ten seconds Nilda wound down her window, pressed eject, and tossed the disc outside.

"Mum! Why did you do that?"

"I never liked that song."

They reached the mansion without having to stop, and with the fuel gauge a quarter full. Finnegan and Greta were pulling the gate open as they arrived.

"Keep going," Greta called out. "You can turn around up by the house."

Nilda did, cracking great chips out of the marble lining the drive, and barely slowed until she had the truck facing the gates. She saw Tuck jump out of her cab and run to the gate, standing sentry with the rifle as Finnegan pulled it closed. Greta came running up.

"You started to have us worried," she said.

Nilda nodded; there wasnt time for pleasantries. She looked at the plough, at the vehicles dented sides and cracked windows. Then at the other three vehicles.

"I think were going to make it," she said as much to herself as to Greta.

There was the sound of pattering feet behind her. Nilda turned and saw children running out of the house. There were so many that she wanted to weep. Not yet, she told herself. Not until they were all safe. The children werent empty-handed. Each carried a bag of one sort or another.

"We dont have room for their possessions," Nilda said to Greta. "Well find them clothes or-"

"The bags are full of food," Greta said. "Some of its preserved, most is fresh. Weve been picking everything we can, night and day, since Chester left."

"We still dont have room," Nilda said, almost automatically. Then she looked at the other woman. Greta looked exhausted. Nilda turned her gaze to the children. There was a girl wearing a ragged dress, with a frayed blue bow perched on straggly hair framing a face that was dirty and tired, yet the eyes were full of hope. The girl clutched a bag twice her own size, struggling under the weight as she dragged it towards the trucks.

"How much food have you packed?" Nilda asked.

"More than youve got s.p.a.ce for," Greta replied.

"Chester?" Nilda called. "Do we have enough diesel for the coaches as well?"

"Both coaches, and the four trucks? Theoretically. Probably."

That thin glimmer of hope, the one that there might be a future for her and her son outside of those people in Anglesey was kindled once more.

"Fill the hoppers on the back of the two ploughs first. The rest of the food goes into the coaches. The children ride in the trucks." There was a shot from the front gates. "Jay, find out how long weve got."

"We wont get all that food into the lifeboat," Chester said. "And there wont be time to unload it at the jetty."

"We dont have to," Nilda said. "We get the children into the boat, and well drive the coaches over the bridge."

"We wont make it to the Tower," he said. "Not all the way."

"And we dont have to do that, either. We just need to get as close as we can, but close to the river, too. We leave the coaches, and then go back for the food tomorrow or whenever. It could work, Chester. It really could."

"And the people driving them?"

"The lifeboat can follow the sound of the engines. When we cant drive any further, we jump into the river."

"And swim? I think Id rather run." But he didnt disagree, just dashed into the house and grabbed a quartet of bags.

There were twenty minutes of frantic activity before the man, Styles, ran up to her.

"This isnt safe," he said. "We should leave."

"Yes. Yes, youre right," she said. She wasnt sure how much food they had, but each seat in the two coaches now had a bag on it, with many more underneath and in the aisle between. They werent full, but weight meant fuel, and it meant time for the undead to make their slow lumbering way towards the mansion. As if to punctuate that thought, there was a sudden flurry of shots.

"You can drive a coach?" Nilda asked Styles.

"I drove one of them here," he said.

"Fine. Were going to-"

"Mum!" It was Jay. "Tuck says its time to leave."

"Into the trucks!" Styles yelled. The children dropped the bags theyd been carrying and ran to the vehicles. The smaller ones needed help. It was five minutes, each irregularly punctuated by Tuck and her rifle, before they were all on board.

"Greta, how do we get that gate open?"

"Ill do it," Finnegan said. "Give me thirty seconds. When you see me running, you start driving."

She sat in the cab, eyes darting between her son, the mirror, and the curving drive. There was a shot, then a short burst, and ten seconds later Tuck and Finnegan were running towards them. Nilda gritted her teeth, put her foot down, and drove the plough down the drive and at the undead crowding through the open gate.

24th September Nilda leaned against the cold stone in the ancient doorway, looking out on the Towers courtyard. The rain that had started pounding down during their drive from the mansion had stopped, though the densely packed clouds stubbornly refused to clear. Whether more rain came or not, the solar panels were useless. Fortunately, if you looked at it that way, with nearly a hundred of them now in the old castle, the only part left uneaten of a slaughtered pig would be the squeal, and you didnt need an electric freezer to store that.

There was a shriek of delight, followed by a small boy belting out of an archway, his hands over his head holding an iron helmet in place. Four seconds later, eight more children pelted after him. Nilda smiled. It was only a momentary oasis in a world of peril, but she was happy to pretend it would last forever.

She moved away from the arch and crossed the courtyard, nodding to the similarly happy groups she pa.s.sed. Hana was in her element, explaining about diet and lifespan and a hundred other porcine facts to a group of children who, Nilda was sure, saw the pigs as nothing more than walking slabs of bacon. It didnt matter that they werent really listening; they were happy, and so was Hana. And so even, was Constance, the mother whod seen her own children die. She was systematically fussing over each child, drawing up a list of who needed new shoes or clothes or anything else. It all added up to a feeling of victory. A genuine triumph when compared to everything that had gone before, when the most they wished for was that they would live to see another dawn.

With hindsight, the return journey from the mansion to the river had been far easier than the outward-bound leg. Partly because she was familiar with what the snowplough could do, but mostly out of the knowledge that every mile travelled meant one closer to safety. Twice theyd had to go off road, and once a coach got stuck. Theyd had to push it clear using the plough, and for a tense few seconds that seemed to stretch for an hour, she thought theyd have to abandon it. But they got it free, and there had been no real problems until theyd reached the old power station.

Once again, theyd outpaced the undead, and Tuck had shot the handful that slouched towards them as the children were shepherded onto the boat. Nilda had pushed Jay on board as well and made sure that Fogerty had a hand clamped on her sons arm to stop him from following her, and then shed gone back to the plough. It wouldnt start. Theyd left it there, the bags of food still in its hopper. Shed driven one of the now empty high-sided trucks, with Chester driving his plough next to her. Together the two of them cleared a path over the bridge. The coaches followed behind, and they and the plough had made it. Her truck hadnt. The engine had coughed and died. Gravity and the bridges slight incline kept it moving while she jumped out. Shed drawn the sword, cutting a slashing path through the undead, and managed to leap into a coachs emergency exit just before the road levelled out and the vehicles sped up once more.

Shed kept the sword drawn for the rest of the journey, but hadnt needed to use it until theyd reached the Tower. Or until they almost reached the Tower.

She stood leaning on the wall and stared at the barricade the government had built all those months before. That was the one thing shed forgotten. The two coaches, the last snowplough, and all the food therein were on the other side of it, about a kilometre away.

"But were not going to starve."

Tuck had taken the lifeboat out first thing that morning. Nilda hadnt been on it. Shed slept in and woken to find the soldier had led an expedition to the power station to collect the food that had been in the hopper at the back of the plough. What had surprised her was that Jay hadnt gone, either.

That food would probably last for more than a meal, but no more than two. The trip to Kent had proved that there was nowhere east of London that they could escape to. Confirmed was a better way of putting it. She supposed that each of them had held onto the hope that they might stumble across some utopian society eager and willing to help them.

"Instead, weve got Anglesey," she muttered.

She caught sight of something green out of the corner of her eye. A parakeet had landed on the crenelated stone less than ten feet away. It hopped forward an inch and then took off. She turned to watch as it flew up to land on the top of a tower next to another bird.

"No, we wont starve," she said again. "Well find a way. Birds and fish, and who knows what else?" Her mind was flitting between possible recipes for parakeet pie when she heard footsteps behind her. It was Jay and Tuck.

"We think the food out in the coaches wont last more than a couple of days," he said.

"We?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, so Tuck thinks. But thats about right isnt it?"

"Sealed up in those bags, yes."

"So were going to use the drone to get rid of the zombies around there. Tuck said that when she was flying it around Westminster they all followed the sound of the rotors. That should work here. If we fly it out once tonight, and again in the morning, there shouldnt be many left tomorrow afternoon. What do you think?"

"I think thats a brilliant plan," she said, smiling.

"Okay," he said, sceptically. "Whats up?"

"What do you mean?"

"You seem... I dunno. Happy."

"I think I am. I really am. Its..." It was easy to explain why, but she wasnt sure that she should share it with Jay. In rescuing the children and bringing them to the Towers relative safety she had completed something she had failed to do so many months before, something that she had even failed to do with her own son. "We decided to do something, and we went out and did it," she said. "Most importantly, we all came back. n.o.body died."

Tuck gave a wry smile. Her hands moved. Nilda looked to Jay.

"She said it really was a good day."