Surviving The Evacuation (Book 6): Harvest by Frank Tayell Page A

had been ripped apart, others had been shot, and only by the head wounds was it possible to discern the human from the undead.
    There was a brass plaque on the wall with an arrow pointing towards reception. Tuck started moving more quickly, ignoring the doors to either side, her attention on getting out of the building. A zombie reared out of a side room, its snarling face inches from Tuck’s own. Only the axe held across her body prevented the creature’s teeth from tearing at her face. Tuck twisted, shoved, but those clawing hands were pushing her back. She let go of the axe and dropped to the floor, scything her leg out, knocking the zombie down as her hand went to her belt. She pulled out her bayonet, but McInery was in the way, not attacking the creature but jumping over it, running past. Tuck stabbed down, and pulled the knife free. She couldn’t see the axe. No time, she thought, and ran towards the exit.
    McInery hadn’t reached it. She’d paused in the lobby and was pulling at… they were remains, though parts would be a more apt description. It was impossible to tell which limb belonged to which torso, nor even how many had died. It was a last stand, the destruction wrought by landmines or something larger, used when all hope of rescue or escape had gone.
    Tuck reached out to grab McInery, uncertain what macabre purpose she had, but the woman straightened with a look of triumph on her face. In her hands was a rifle. The barrel was bent, the stock charred. Before the soldier could protest, McInery had thrust it into Tuck’s hands, and then pushed past her, grabbing another, similarly damaged weapon.
    “Rifles,” she mouthed.
    Tuck looked at her, wanting to scream. Instead, she ran out of the main doors and down into the street. There were undead there, and there were more on the right, so she went left, using the broken rifle to club a path through the living dead. The roads blurred into one as she swung the rifle, pitching the undead from their feet, no longer caring if they rose again in time to attack McInery.
    She saw the river, but there was a zombie right in front of the railings. She kept running as it twisted around to face her, and then turned the run into a leap. Her shoulder hit its face, snapping its head back. She spun, bayonet ready, but the creature had lost its footing, slipped, and fallen onto the spiked railings. One had gone straight through its neck. Its arms thrashed, its legs kicked, and the skin around that gaping wound slowly tore.
    Tuck took a step back, looked around for any more imminent threats, and saw McInery not three paces behind. A broken rifle was slung over her shoulder, a second in one hand, and the battle-axe in the other, an almost serene look on her face. Tuck stabbed her bayonet into the eye of the impaled zombie, and then took one last look back at the road. She expected to see a great pack of the undead heading towards them. Whenever she ran from them she always forgot how slow they were. They would be impeded by the rubble and might never get as far as the river. She threw a look towards the Tube station and the bicycle shop hidden behind. Not this trip, she decided.
    She clambered over the railing and down the steps to the raft. McInery moved to pull the rope free. Tuck shook her head.
    “The tide,” she signed. “It won’t turn for an hour.”
    McInery nodded and sat back down. “You said you needed a firing pin,” she said, pointing at the rifles.
    Tuck nodded. The only modern weapon in the Tower that wasn’t covered in gems or coated in gold was an SA80 assault rifle that had been part of a display on modern warfare. The firing pin and back spring had been removed. Tuck looked at the weapons with their twisted barrels and melted stocks. She took out one of the cartridges that McInery had taken from that ballroom. It was the right calibre.
    “You can make the gun work, can’t you?” McInery asked.
    “Maybe,” Tuck signed.
    McInery smiled. As they