Surviving The Evacuation (Book 3): Family (21 page)

“The tankers and the airport? Well, let’s say it all works and you get this aviation fuel and rig up the boats, and the tractors and whatever else to burn it. What are you going to do when the fuel runs out?”

“Right, sooner or later we’ll be out of fossil fuels, so we might as well except that now. It’s a good point.” And then he seemed to change the conversation again, “You know Anglesey didn’t get destroyed.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The island of Anglesey. It wasn’t nuked. It was evacuated. Pretty thoroughly, the RAF bases were cleared out. But it wasn’t nuked.”

“I assumed it would have been. So does the nuclear power plant still work?”

“Technically, yes. The Chief from the Vehement went and checked it out. It was switched off, or mothballed or whatever you want to call it. But they can get it running again.”

“Well, surely that’s an easier way of getting power than this whole Belfast Airport business.”

“And I thought you politicians were meant to be clever. There are two options for us. Neither of which involves trying to get a fleet of boats to run on aviation fuel. Donnie doesn’t know this. Leon does, and I don’t know if he’s told Francois. Gwen knows, but mostly because she’s been my driver these last couple of months. The rest, and the ones who died and the ones we left back at home, they think it’s all about fuel. It’s not. You know what else they have at airports? Planes. Enough planes to get us all out of here. Mister Mills took his boat south. Down beyond the equator. There’s an island. Not a big one, not really anything more than a landing strip and some mango trees. There are no undead. None. The climate would be nice, too.”

“You’re thinking of leaving.”

“That is one option. There are three planes more or less ready to go. Leon will take his men in, see to the refuelling, we’ll load everyone else onto buses, and we’ll use those APC’s to clear the route. We’ll get them onto the planes and fly south.”

“Why not just turn on the power station?”

“That’s plan number two. And the reason it’s not our first option is that the Vehement isn’t the only nuclear sub to have survived. There’s another. That’s what’s preventing us from just flicking the switch and turning the lights back on. If we do we stand a very real risk of being nuked.”

“No one would do that, surely? Not now?”

“Wouldn’t you if you were a Captain who had already been damned by your actions when you launched your first missiles. What would another one matter?”

“You’re not seriously telling me that there’s a rogue Captain out there who really would rather see the end of the species rather than some small group actually survive?”

“You see, you’ve forgotten. It’s Mister Mills who went rogue. He was the one who mutinied. And it wouldn’t be the end of the species. Like I said, there are other communities. It’s difficult,” he said, again seemingly changing the subject, “you know, being immune. Have you thought of what that means?”

“I have.”

“Difficult, yes,” he murmured. “Your brother came over here looking for the Doctor, the one who created the virus.”

“Yes. I was leaving tomorrow morning to try and find him.”

“You know where he is?” he asked

“Well, we’ve an address of where he might have been.”

“And where’s that?”

“Here. Wales. Somewhere along the north coast.”

The old man nodded slowly.

“He’s not there,” he said.

“What? How do you know?”

“Because I know exactly where he is. And that brings me back to this submarine and this other little community.”

“And?” I asked.

“The Doctor, he’s there. With them. And that submarine that’s not gone rogue, that’s still following their orders. Orders from the British government. From the Prime Minister.”

“Where?”

“Caulfield Hall.”

My heart sank

“That’s the Masterton’s family home up in Northumberland.”

“Spot on.”

“And Jen’s there?”

“She is.”

“And she’s calling herself PM?”

“Hardly. That honour goes to the right honourable Sir Michael Quigley.”

“Quigley’s alive? At Caulfield Hall. With the Doctor? And Jen’s there? And they have a nuclear submarine?”

“Yes to all of those questions. And we have the Vehement, and they know about us and we know about them. And if we turn that power station back on, then they will launch a missile and destroy us. And maybe they’ll do that anyway. That’s why we’re thinking of flying out of here. We’re not going to subjugate ourselves to the likes of Quigley.”

“You’ve tried to talk to them?”

“Well, yes, of course. I went there myself. I suggested a merger, and they told us to surrender. Since we’re with Mister Mills and he’s a traitor and all that, and since most of us aren’t British, well, you see the problem?”

“Why don’t they just destroy you anyway?”

“Because Mister Mills still does have his submarine. We know where they are, they know where we are. If they fire, so do we, and vice versa. Whoever fires first, it’s only the submarines that’ll survive. Mutually Assured Destruction. It’s the whole premise of nuclear war, isn’t it? But maybe there’s an alternative.”

“You want me to go to Caulfield Hall?”

“What I want doesn’t come into it. I’m too old to have wants and desires. This is a chance for those girls of yours to have a future. Think what it would be like without electricity. Oh sure, you can romanticise a life of candles and farming. But have you thought about what it would really be like? A third of the day in the fields, a third of the day on guard and the other third asleep, because you’ll be working so hard that you won’t be able to stay awake a moment longer. Have you thought about the decisions we’ll have to make in the next few months? The crops we pick to grow, those will be the ones our descendants, or yours anyway, will have to eat. Forget chocolate and tea and coffee, pineapples, oranges and bananas. There’ll be no sugar because sugar beet takes up too much land and too much processing. Since there won’t be any dentists, that’s probably a blessing. We’re not talking about a glamorised Blitz-spirit, wartime rationing, we’re talking about a life of pre-famine Irish serfdom. Worse, since we’ve got no pigs. It’ll be potatoes and eggs and maybe a chicken at Christmas and each year there’ll be less food, but that won’t matter because each year there’ll be fewer people to eat it. Do you know how to make candles? Because when the batteries go that’s all the light we’ll have. Do you know how to spin wool? Because when the moths and mildew destroy what we’re wearing you’ll have to.”

“There are the supplies on land,” I said, “just waiting to be taken.”

“They won’t last for ever, and you know that. In a few years, I’ll be dead. Donnie, he’s funny, you know. Him and Ronnie they talk all the time about what life will be like for them when they reach my age. I don’t like to tell them that they probably never will. It’s the same for your girls. Each year there will be fewer supplies from the old world left, and fewer people to go out and collect them. The zombies haven’t stopped yet, so why should They ever? And you’re not going to be the only people out trying to grab the scraps from the old world. Bitten, shot or stabbed, from sickness and suicide and exhaustion, each year there will be more to do and fewer people to do it. The doctors will die, the medicines will run out, the tools will rust, the ammunition will be used up. With electricity, maybe it’ll be different. Maybe we’ll have a chance. Without it, then the only hope is somewhere a bit warmer with a better climate and a longer day. Otherwise our only legacy is going to be barbarism and despair.”

“So,” I asked again, “you want me to go to Caulfield Hall?”

“Alright, yes. I want you to go there.”

“And do what? Burn it down?”

“Hardly. They must have some kind of signal to send out to their submarine, a way of each letting the other know they’re still alive. You destroy their radio set then the sub will assume they’re dead and then they might launch their missiles.”

“What is it you want then?”

“Just talk to Jennifer Masterton. If she’ll listen to anyone, it’s you. Tell her to talk to the sub and call it off, or stand it down or whatever. We’ll combine the two communities, we’ll re-open the power station. There will be no arrests, no trials, no punishments. We won’t even bother with truth and reconciliation. She can even stand for election if she wants.”

“And Quigley?”

“He won’t listen. That’s why you’ve got to speak to Masterton.”

“You want me to kill him?”

“Someone should. But no, if I want anything, it’s that submarine gone. Get it to stand down and let us get on with our lives. And whilst you’re there you can find this Doctor, and see if you can find out what you need to know.”

I ignored the obvious appeal to my own self-interest.

“And if Jen won’t help?” I asked.

“Then find the radio and try and talk to the sub yourself. Tell them it’s just women and children. Tell them to go and look for themselves. Probably they won’t listen, but you can try. There’s no time for half-measures now, it’s all or nothing, every minute of every day, doing until we die. Maybe, just maybe, if enough of us do that, then in a hundred years your descendants will have the luxury of leaving a dirty job for someone else to do. Here and now, that someone is you. So, will you try?”

I didn’t bother to answer. I’d already made up my mind, and the old man knew it. I will go to Caulfield Hall. I’ll find the Doctor and I’ll try and stop Quigley, but I have to go alone. I’m sorry, Sholto, but Quigley might recognise you and even if he didn’t, he’s bound to guess who you are. I can’t risk it.

I’ll leave this journal here. It’s too dangerous to risk taking. Dawn’s coming up and I have to leave. I’m not going to write any parting words. That would be tempting fate. Instead I will just wish you good luck, and see you down the road, soon.

Part 3:

Return, Reunion & Retribution

Day 136, Somewhere over Northeast England

Dawn, 5
^th
August

It’s only been three days, so much has happened and I don’t know whether anything has changed. Where shall I start? At the safe house, I suppose.

The Return

The old man took me down from the safe house to where Gwen and Leon were keeping watch over the APC’s. I took a beat up Jaguar from a farmhouse down the road, and enough diesel to get me to Northumberland and back twice over. Gwen gave me a map with two routes marked on it, one that I should take, and one to very definitely avoid. She also marked a safe house about thirty miles from Caulfield Hall.

“Stick to the route. Stay in the safe house,” she said. “And don’t try any of your own shortcuts.”

Leon didn’t say anything at all. He just handed me a pistol, a little snub-nosed thing he’d had hidden in an ankle holster. The bike went onto the roof and I drove off without a backward glance.

It took almost exactly twelve hours to get thirty miles from Caulfield. It would have been quicker but, particularly as I got closer, I did try a few of my own half remembered shortcuts. I got lost twice, and once found the road abruptly disappeared amidst the detritus of where a horde had passed. I left the car five miles from the safe house, on a crest of a hill. I hoped that any undead that were attracted by the engine noise would have been dispersed downhill by gravity by the time I returned.

I didn’t stay in the safe house. Unlike the others, this one wasn’t marked out by flags. It was just an anonymous house in a dilapidated housing development, on the edge of a once prosperous mining town. I took one look at it and kept on for another hour until I was once again lost amongst the fields and hills.

The next morning, yesterday, I cycled the last twenty miles or so to Caulfield Hall. Usually my eyes stayed fixed to the road ahead, charting a route between the ubiquitous rubbish and occasional undead. The only time I glanced up was when a startled flock of birds would suddenly erupt from a tree or hedge. I’d make a note of the place and decide whether I should stop and fight, take a detour or just try and cycle past.

That’s why I didn’t see the hot air balloon until long after its occupants must have spotted me. That red dot against the blue background was somehow more terrifying than that first sight of the horde. The old man hadn’t mentioned it, and I’d not asked. I’d not asked him for any details about Caulfield. It was too late to do anything about it. Using the balloon as a marker, I cycled on.

The road I was on had two generous lanes with a grass verge on the left, and a three feet wide pedestrian footpath on the right. I remember when the footpath was put in. Ostensibly it was a safety measure, to reduce the danger to hikers forced to walk on the road. In reality the motivation behind it was to close down the footpaths that ran through nearby farmland, all of which belonged to the local party chairman.

At the time I had honestly admired the way that local funds were diverted and a pedestrian thoroughfare, marked down on the earliest of maps, was closed down. I saw the world as a game, one where no one knew the rules, but all was there to be won and lost just the same.

After half a mile on that road, I noticed a small but significant change. The few vehicles in the road had been pushed to the verge, leaving enough space for a vehicle far larger than a car, to drive through. After a brief examination I realised that tyres, wires, cables and anything else easily carried had been removed.

I kept glancing up at the balloon, on the lookout for some flash of light. I assumed they’d be using a heliograph or something equally primitive. It was stupid, seeing as I knew they had a radio that could communicate with a submarine. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Everything I saw brought back a dozen old memories, some good, some bad, all perilously distracting. That was why I almost missed the first field.

A chain was wrapped around the gate, a gleaming new padlock holding it closed. The key was attached to a piece of wire hanging from one of the gates crossbars. The implications of that were disturbing enough, what I saw inside made it worse. A heavy lorry had gouged deep ruts into the field. Those ruts, the ground about them and the inside of the hedge, were coated in a thin layer of ash, blown from the pyre in the fields centre. The bones were unmistakably human. The foot high grass growing wild in the tracks left by the lorry, suggested it had been done months ago.