Zombielandia (14 page)

We threw a few lines in the water in the hope of a few mackerel to go with our tinned beans and rice we’d bought with us. We had got lucky and dragged a few into the boat.

Chapter Sixty Two

It must have been the smell of our meal cooking that had bought them out. But the light house door had opened and a man walked out with his hands in the air. He was followed by two teenage boys. They walked down towards the Hope. I had put my gun down and told the guys to cover me discreetly. I put my hands in the air too and walked towards them. When we met, I offered my hand and he shook it. All three of them had looked in bad shape, almost skin and bone.

I repeated what I’d said earlier, that we just needed somewhere safe to spend the night and we’d be on our way. I indicated to the guys on the Hope to drop their weapons too. The man then waved at the light house and a woman about the same age as him and a young girl of about ten came out.

He had introduced himself as Simon and his wife Lorna along with their daughter Lucy and teenage twins Daniel and Scott. We asked if they wanted to join us for something to eat and they thanked us. Lorna had asked if we wanted to take it inside the light house to eat. I guess a camping stove on the back of the Hope wasn’t the best place for nine people to enjoy a meal, although I imagined those guys would have eaten off the floor by the state they were in. So we had thanked her for the offer and moved everything inside.

The boy’s eyes almost popped out their heads when we handed around the bottles of coke to accompany their meals. David produced a bottle of whiskey, which Lorna got glasses for. It had been awkward at first, but the whisky helped to loosen people up a bit.

It turned out they’d been living on the island for over a year now, surviving on birds and fish that they’d caught mostly, but the seas had been too bad at the time for them to take their small boats out. They were a local family that had travelled down the Coquet from Walkworth in their small boats when the village church that they’d been hiding out in with other survivors had been compromised by rotters and those that could had fled. They hadn’t seen or heard from any other people in almost a year now. There had been a few supplies in the light house and some fishing gear, but basically they were starving and had been too afraid to go into Amble to look for supplies.

I was pleased that we’d been able to give them a hot meal that night. I hadn’t let on where we’d come from, just that we were on our way home to look for survivors. I asked if they knew of any other groups as I didn’t recognise any of the names of the people who’d been in the church with them at Walkworth. They’d said that they’d heard of a group of survivors at Broomhill at about the same time they had been staying in the church.

BROOMHILL! My heart sank, Togston was adjoined to North Broomhill and South Broomhill was only a mile further down the road. This was the first time I’d heard of actual other survivors from home! I pressed them for more details, but all they knew was that someone passing through their village had mentioned that they’d seen another group at Broomhill around a year ago. We had told them of our plans to go to Togston. Lorna said that there were loads of rotters milling around the harbour area that they had seen through  their binoculars from the light room at the top of the light house and that they had no weapons or experience at dealing with them, hence the reason they had been terrified of going there. She said that there were still a few boats moored in the river and harbour that had survived the winter before, but they had never seen any other people in all the time they’d been on the island. She had also said that there were still vehicles in the car parks and in the streets.

Rotters didn’t worry me anymore and especially this close to the outbreak, they’d be well decomposed in Amble and the surrounding areas. I’d rather have dealt with rotters than people, so I had been quite hopefully for the following day.

Simon and Lorna had invited us to spend the night in the light house rather than on the Hope, an opportunity that we’d all jumped at. A night on a sofa was better than a night under tarp on the back of the Hope any day.

Chapter Sixty Three

We had a comfortable night thanks to Simon and Lorna and we thanked them by preparing breakfast for everyone. We had plenty of supplies as we’d planned for a four day trip and not two. Simon had offered to come with us to Togston, but we didn’t know if we’d be returning to Coquet Island and we wanted as much room as possible in the hold for supplies and fuel. Besides, I wanted to speak to the other three guys alone.

We left later that morning, thanking the family for their hospitality. When we had been away from the island I had discussed with the guys about whether or not we should invite them back to May with us. After all, the low light house was unoccupied and I was sure they would be an asset to the group. The bigger we became, the better chance we had of protecting ourselves in the future against people and it was people that we feared most of all. We had agreed to wait until we’d been to Togston, if we found what we were hoping for, we may have ended up with a boat full anyway and no more room. It sounds harsh thinking about it now, but we had to do what was best for our group and families survival.

We had to be careful as we headed into port, there was a lot of sunken boats in the harbour, but it did give me an idea of how we could block one of the harbours back in May though, which would make it easier to protect our island if there was only one way in.

The rotters heard us coming and were soon lined up along the pier and harbour, like some sort of ghastly welcoming home party, God I hoped I didn’t recognise anyone, I hadn’t had that experience at that point of meeting a rotter that was once family or close friend, unless you count the nightmares!

I knew where I was going then and thought the best place to land at high tide was next to the boat club further up river where Billy used to pick me up from and drop me off at rather than having to row the two of us in his small skip. That way we’d missed the centre of Amble and hoped that there would be less Rotters.

We moored the Hope against the jetty and all went ashore. We’d need to be back within a few hours or we’d have risked being grounded and have to wait until the next high tide, something that didn’t really appeal to me.

Chapter Sixty Four

We had walked towards the boat house, CRUNCH, CRUNCH, we quietly dispatched a couple of rotters on our way. We had been out of luck, there were no cars parked outside as had normally been the case. I could see Billy’s boat, The Sea Warrior, up on its trailer, he must have been able to get it out in time. It looked in good shape, I checked inside just in case, but there was no one in there. I would have loved to have took it with us back to May as it was the one boat I’d ever driven myself, but if Billy was still alive and I was sure he would be, he may have been needing it himself one day.

I showed the guys to the diesel pump, it was still padlocked shut, but we soon got the lock off with the crowbar and started to fill as many empty barrels as we could lay our hands on before rolling them down to the jetty and onto the Hope. We’d though it was better to get as many supplies as we could first before going to Togston just in case we had to leave in a hurry, at least we wouldn’t be going home empty handed. We had broken into the clubs work room next and took as many tools as we could and random boat bits that we thought might be of use to Paul. There was nothing much worth taking in the club house itself, but we took what was there.

After clearing out the boat club we walked towards the main road, the next car park was empty too. When we reached the road there were vehicles abandoned everywhere which meant that even if we could start one up the road would be unpassable due to all the debris. It looks like were taking Shanks’ pony David had said. If that’s the case I’d said, we’ll take the back road to the bridleway and go in from the back via the fields. We still needed to skirt past Amble though, but this was the only way we were going to get any worthwhile supplies anyway, we couldn’t just rely on what we might be able to scavenge from people’s houses.

There were quite a few rotters wondering around on the road, we just walked quickly and took out any that got in our way, they had been in an advanced state of decomposition and so had been easy to evade, but I felt we were doing them a favour by ending their misery. Who would want to spend eternity walking around dead? Unless they eventually decomposed so far that they could no longer function, then that would be worse again I thought. What if the brain remained active after the body had seized to function? I guessed only time would tell. CRUNCH, Becky axed another one through the head.

We had eventually made our way to the top COOP. The shutters had been down at the front, but this was a good sign. We hoped that it meant that it was undisturbed inside. I could only assume that we were so close to the outbreak point that people hadn’t had time to panic and prepare, they’d probably had no idea what was happening in the early days and all just succumbed to the virus.

We had broken in through the fire exit at the top of the escape stairs in the car park at the rear. The place had been completely undisturbed by both people and rotters. We all grabbed a trolley each and started to load them up. Don’t forget what the guys had wanted I told the rest of the guys, anyone got a quid for the trolley, Becky had chipped in, before smashing the chain with her axe.

We all loaded up a trolley each before carrying them one at a time down the fire escape. We secured the door again, that place was going to be as good as a gold mine to survivors like us and I told the rest of the guys that whatever happened we needed to tell the family back on Coquet Island about how easy it had been to get to.

We hid the four trolleys in some over grown shrubbery at the side of the road, we’d had to return back that way again on the way back to the Hope, so we had planned on collecting them later that day.

Chapter Sixty Five

We had headed to the garage next, I knew that they sold motorbikes and if there were some there that we could use we’d have been able to save a lot of time. They’d make a hell of a racket, but you could have out crawled those rotters, it had been time that was our biggest enemy then.

Sure enough, there had been two bikes. Sandie and David knew how to ride them, so I got on the back of Sandie’s and Becky on the back of David’s. We must have looked like something from Mad Max, fleeing down Acklington road with boat hooks and axes in hand, dispatching rotters on our way. I instructed Sandie to turn off when we reached the farm house at Togston. The bridleway was fairly overgrown then, put we pushed our way through on the bikes. I’d spent many a happy hour with the kids down there, picking blackberries to make jam and pies and sloes for the gin!

We soon reached the wooded area which was at the rear of the field that backed onto Togston. The bridleway continued along the side of the field and finally into the back lane that ran along the back of my street.

We cut the engines. If we went any closer with the bikes we’d have been heard, that’s assuming they hadn’t heard us already. We didn’t want to be mistaken for raiders and shot. A lot of people around where I lived owned shot guns for game hunting.

I had felt sick to my stomach when I dismounted the bike, I knew as soon as I looked out from those trees I’d see home again for the first time in about two years. I took a bit of time, but eventually I had built up enough courage to take a look, it had still been there! In fact Togston looked almost as if nothing had happened for the last two years and in fairness not a lot has happened in Togston for the last hundred years which is one of the reasons why we loved the place so much. You could see the water tower dominating the land scape as always. If there was anyone there then I imagined the water tower would be the safest place to be and you’d have a view for miles around, if there had been anyone up there when we’d approached, they definitely know about us.

The bridleway was still over grown, so no one had been back there recently, which had given us great cover right up to the back lane.

Chapter Sixty Six

When we had reached the back lane everything had looked as I’d remembered, just a little bit more over grown. Nature was starting to reclaim the road and had already reclaimed all the allotments that ran along the length of the lane.

We quickly moved along the lane to the point where it bends sharply and where there is a small access road that cuts through the two rows of houses to allow access to the garages and drive ways at the rear. All of the houses had looked abandoned and most had been cleared of anything of use.

Then when we had turned the bend, everything changed. All the windows and doors on the ground floor at the rear of the houses in my street had been bricked up. Yard walls had been knocked down, no doubt to get the bricks to block up the doorways and windows. The first floor windows were all boarded up too, there had been no way in through the back of the houses. There had been no signs of people or rotters and no remains either, nothing. We walked careful to the bottom of the street, weapons at the ready just in case. We walked past the back of my house and past my garage and garden. I noticed my green house, shed and poly tunnel had been taken which I had found very strange. It had felt as if I was in some kind of weird nightmare. I was home, but everything was different, you know the kind of nightmares I mean! I remember thinking, what has happened here, what the hell is going on?

We had walked around the corner and to the front of the houses. Clever Bastards! I’d thought. They’d blocked the end of the street with construction vehicles from the building site on the edge of our village. I guessed that they’d done the same with the other end and bricked up the back of the houses that faced ours too! Sure enough as I had run around, they had! They had created an almost impregnable street. My street! My house! They would have known we were there by then. Clearly someone had been out there taking care of rotters as we hadn’t seen any and something like that was sure to attract them.