by Frank Tayell
“No,” he said. “The decision was that you stay on this island.”
“A broken runway is no use to anyone,” Siobhan said.
“Nor is a runway with no plane,” he said.
“We have people who’ve done this sort of work before,” Siobhan said. “Let us repair the runway, maybe even repair a plane for you. As payment for your hospitality.”
Gunnar glanced down at the sheet of paper. He shrugged. “Perhaps. I shall take it to the Løgting.”
“Is there anything else?” Siobhan asked.
“One thing,” Gunnar said. “This arrangement will last until the first of March. On that date, or before, you will leave.”
“I’m sorry?” Siobhan said.
“You told us that you wished a place to wait until spring. That is what you will get. A safe harbour until then. On the first of March, you will leave. There is marine-oil and diesel in the tanks at the harbour. You may use it to ensure that you can reach your next destination.”
“The first of March?” Sholto asked.
Siobhan squeezed his arm again. “That’s fine,” she said. “Understood. What about trading? We’ll probably catch more fish than we can eat. And we have doctors. We’ll ask nothing in return. Should we bring our excess catch here?”
“If you catch more fish than you need, stop fishing,” Gunnar said. “As for doctors, you are a few months too late.” He tapped his leg. “But if you wish to talk, come here. Someone will be here. Your messages will be taken to the Løgting. They will make the decisions.”
“Thank you,” Siobhan said. “And thank them for us.” With a tug on Sholto’s arm, she headed back to the car.
“Thanks,” Sholto said, and followed.
Only when the engine was on and the car had been turned around did Sholto breathe out. “That could have gone a lot worse.”
“It might have gone better, but yes,” she said. “Yes, I think that went well.”
“Only until the first of March, though,” Sholto said.
“Give them time to get to know us,” Siobhan said.
“You mean they’ll kick us out long before then?” Sholto said.
“Ha-ha. But they might. They don’t want us sailing a boat to any other island. Clearly, they’re based along the coast.”
“Probably that place with the hydroelectric dam,” Sholto said. “The satellites will be our friend there.”
“Not that it matters,” Siobhan said. “We have electricity, and a safe harbour, on an island nearly empty of the undead.”
“Until March,” Sholto said.
“Which is more than we had last week,” Siobhan said. “It’ll be long enough to send an expedition to North America. And to the Baltic. To the Mediterranean. And to the Pyrenees. We’ll find the French and the Ukrainians, and along the way, we’ll find ourselves a new home, or we’ll reach a longer-term agreement with the Faroese.”
“We know what America was like from the satellites,” Sholto said. “And the report Bill and Chester got from those people in Creil was that at least some of the Mediterranean was ground zero for the nukes.”
“Then they’ll be short voyages,” Siobhan said. She slowed the car.
“Why are you stopping?”
“I want to enjoy the view for a moment,” she said, bringing the car to a halt on the empty road. She got out. He did the same.
“It’s quite something, isn’t it,” he said, taking in the towering volcanic outcrops, the sloping grass strewn with boulders, the sunlight dancing across the frothing waves.
“It’s home,” she said. “Maybe not forever, but it’s everything we were looking for. For me, for us, this is what we were trying to find. Somewhere I could breathe the air, watch the water, listen to the wind, without worrying about where we’d sleep tonight, what we’d eat, and how many more might be dead by tomorrow. Yes. It’s home.”
Part 3
Unexpected Guests
Chester & Nilda
Northern Europe
Day 261 - 266
29th November - 4th December
Day 261, 29th November
Chapter 16 - A Question Interrupted
Calais, France
Chester knelt in the foot-deep snow at the edge of Calais’s seawall. “I don’t have a ring,” he said. “I don’t have what anyone could call a job. My prospects aren’t great, but whose are? I don’t own anything except the clothes on my back. I want to give you the world, but all I can give is the promise that I love you, now and always.” He looked up at Nilda expectantly.
Nilda laughed. “I’m not the most traditional of people,” she said, “but if you’re going to ask, you do actually have to ask.”
“Will you marry me?” Chester asked.
Nilda laughed louder.
“Can’t say I was expecting that,” Chester said.
“Get up off the ground, you,” she said, taking his hands, and helping him out of the thick snow. She brushed the ice from his knees, then leaned in close, and gave him the merest, briefest kiss.
“Is that a yes?” Chester asked.
“Not so fast,” she said, tilting her head to the side. “This is a momentous decision. There are so many things to consider. Our careers, for one thing. And will we live in my mansion or on your estate? Should we get a pre-nup? After all, we’re both so fabulously wealthy.”
“Oh, come on, don’t leave me hanging like this,” he said.
She grinned. “Chester, I—” But before she could finish, a gunshot rang out, distant but clear. “Where did that come from?” Nilda said, serious once more.
“Inland,” Chester said, peering at the towering terminal buildings, but they were a blur despite the glasses he’d taped to his face. The harbour-town beyond was nothing but the hint of a shadow. “Must be one of Leon’s people, or Bran’s.”
“It’s an un-silenced gun, Chester,” Nilda said. “There must be so many zombies, they’ve used up all their other ammo already. Come on, we better get Jay and the others.”
They’d brought The New World to Calais to confirm that Rhoskovski, Cavalie, and the rest of the drug-dealers turned slavers had left the port. Bran and his soldiers who’d travelled with The New World from Dundalk had joined Leon and his troops who’d sailed with Nilda from London in a search of the terminal buildings. The all-clear had come hours ago, allowing Chester, Nilda, Jay, Jennings, and Sorcha Locke to come ashore to confirm whether the slavers’ leaders were among those who’d died during the running battle as Chester and the others had escaped Calais.
The woman dead on the seawall was not Cavalie, the leader of the gang whom Chester and Bill had come face-to-evil-face with a few kilometres north of Creil. Chester had taken a photograph of the corpse to show to Flora Fielding, to see if the Royal Navy captain could identify the dead woman as one of her captors. To get a few minutes of privacy with Nilda, he’d asked Sorcha, Norm, and Jay to head a little deeper into the port to take a photograph of the corpse they assumed was Rhoskovski. Thus he’d gained a few minutes to ask the question which had been burning a hole in his soul since his search for Eamonn had taken him to Birmingham, Anglesey, then through the snowy wastes of Northern France. A question which still had no answer.
Chester followed Nilda along the frozen harbour wall, his head turned downward as he picked a route through the treacherous puddles where salt-laden spray had melted the snow and ice. He kept his ears pricked for another shot, but his hearing hadn’t recovered from the bullet that had grazed his scalp months before and a country away. His eyesight hadn’t recovered, either. The pair of children’s glasses he’d taped to his head helped. But the prescription wasn’t perfect, and the lenses were too small, narrowing his field of vision to a few feet of slippery melting ice.
When the next shot came, Nilda stopped, and so did he. Both peered towards the ruined harbour, before Nilda turned to look due east at the three figures jogging towards them. Her teenage son, Jay, was in the lead. The British submariner, Norm Jennings, was clo
se behind. Sorcha Locke, Lisa Kempton’s former deputy, brought up the rear.
“Four shots, yes?” Nilda said.
“Four?” Chester asked. “I only heard two.”
“Four shots,” Jennings said. “A high-powered rifle. Large calibre. Unsuppressed.”
“Our people are in trouble,” Nilda said. “The zombies must have come. We should have expected it. Between the explosives you detonated during your escape, and the sound of the tanks as they drove away, there’s been more than enough sound to summon the undead for miles around.”
“We’re going to help, aren’t we, Mum?” Jay asked.
“Of course,” Nilda said. “Jay, you’re to go back to the ship. First, make sure everyone who came ashore to stretch their legs is back aboard. Then get a headcount of everyone in Leon and Bran’s groups who went ashore, and where, roughly, they were heading. Time for us to pull anchor, but we won’t leave anyone behind. Norm, go with him. Get Tuck and at least twenty people who can shoot and run. Chester, did you say there were only two ways through the fencing around the harbour?”
“One by the terminal building, the other over there, beyond the Russian destroyer,” he said.
“Good. Chester, Sorcha, and I will use that entrance by the destroyer. We’ll make our way around to the front of the building and we’ll distract the zombies. Norm, you and Tuck are to go to the entrance near the terminal. Clear it of zombies, lead everyone back through there and to the ship. Oh, I wish we had radios. When we hear three blasts on the ship’s horn, we’ll retreat. Tell them that.” Another shot echoed across the snowy harbour. “And we’ve run out of time. Go.”
“Come on, soldier,” Norm said to Jay. “Let me show you how a sailor runs.” With Jay in front, the submariner a step behind, the two ran towards the berthed luxury cruise ship.
“This way,” Sorcha said, taking the lead before Chester had a chance to volunteer. “And remember to touch nothing near the Russian destroyer,” she added.
Chester didn’t need the reminder. Their theory was that the ship’s previous captain, to stop Rhoskovski stealing his ship, had coated the deck with a toxic nerve agent after he’d mined the harbour. It was only a theory, based on a Royal Navy legend, but the corpses they’d found on the icy deck made it one that Chester was in no mind to test.
Locke set a brisk pace, but the treacherous conditions kept it closer to a quickstep than a run. Chester kept his eyes on Nilda’s coat as the mace clipped to his belt knocked against his leg. The weapon had been a gift from Jay. Two centuries before, it had been a gift from a Prussian prince to a British king. Forged at a time when memories of the English Republic were feverishly fresh, it was a weaponised version of the ceremonial maces-of-state, scaled down to three feet in length, and made of steel rather than gold. Jay had cleaned, polished, and then sharpened the flatter edges. A kind gift, a thoughtful one, but now it banged into his leg with every other slipping step. He fumbled with the clasp, detaching it, and felt a wave of reassuring relief at the heft of a reliable weapon in his hand. He checked that the Colt .45, loaned from George Tull, was still in its holster, and wished he’d brought a rifle as he followed Nilda and Locke to the harbour’s perimeter fence.
Another shot sounded. Duller. Flatter. The report was muffled by the shore-side buildings.
“Who’s your sniper?” Locke asked.
“Denby, Bran, the colonel, take your pick,” Nilda said. “A better question is whether they’re out of ammo for their suppressed weapons, or whether the gunfire is a signal they’re in danger. This way, yes?”
They headed northeast up snow-lined tarmac that was more a lorry-park than a road. The fence divided the customs-cleared vehicles from those which were not, rather than marking where the port truly ended. Around and about them, the buildings were short, stocky, modern, official in design and purpose.
Chester had no interest in the buildings, or the signs, the signposts, the occasional rusting truck or open shipping container. He was focusing on finding firm footing in the ankle-deep snow. He’d first arrived in Calais during a lull in the blizzard, and fled as the storm abated. Indeed, their footprints in the fresh carpet of pristine snow had been such a clear trail for the slavers to follow, it had precipitated their hasty escape. Here, away from wind-borne salt-spray, the drifts were thickly piled and still stubbornly frozen, but glistening as they were warmed by the day’s heat.
Ahead, Locke slowed her pace as she raised her rifle. “Zombies,” she said.
“I count three,” Nilda said. “Heading… not towards us. Towards the tall building. Is that where the tanks were stored?”
“Yes, the square building with the grey cladding,” Locke said. “There’s a garage at ground level. The sniper we killed was on the roof.”
“Only three zombies?” Chester asked, tilting his glasses in an attempt to bring them into focus.
“About a hundred metres ahead of us,” Nilda said. “Look beyond that squat, windowless two-storey building.”
Chester could make out the shape of the building, and the towering block behind it, but not the undead. “Where did they come from? Can you see their tracks?”
“They came from the east,” Locke said. “From across the road, and from that industrial park, I think. I think… I think…” She turned back towards the undead, then looked up. “Move,” she hissed. “Quick!”
The urgency in her voice was enough explanation for Nilda and Chester. All three ran to the side of the road, to the cover of an open-sided shelter.
“What is it?” Nilda said.
“The sniper is on the roof,” Locke said. “On the same roof we killed that woman in white during our escape from here. Unless all but one of our people are dead, I can think of no reason an ally would fire one measured shot after another, and from the same perch our enemy used.”
The shelter’s cover was opaque, blocking his view of the distant building’s roof, but he could see the three lurching figures a hundred metres further along the road.
“Do you think the shooter is one of the cartel?” Nilda asked.
“I fear so,” Locke said. “What did Bran say, that there were tank tracks and evidence of snowploughs leaving? Perhaps some stayed behind. Now they’re firing shots to gather the undead to where Bran and Leon are pinned down.”
“Why?” Nilda asked.
“Because they spent months here,” Locke said. “Perhaps there is a cache of supplies. Or perhaps they simply want revenge. Our soldiers will have taken cover, and they are well-enough armed to handle a few straggling undead, but in about ten minutes, that submariner will run through the harbour in clear view of that sniper. I hope I’m wrong. If I’m not, then the rescue party could all be slaughtered.”
“We need to get closer,” Nilda said. “And higher. Fire at the sniper, distract them, alert Norm that all’s not what we first thought. The two-storey ahead of us. I can’t see any windows on this side, but maybe we can get on the roof. Unless anyone has a better idea?”
The door was halfway along, and it was chained and padlocked. They reached it without being shot at by the rooftop sniper, but not without being heard by the undead. One of the trio pivoted around, slipped, and fell onto arms and knees. It pushed itself halfway upright, walking on all fours until it found its feet and stumbled forward in what was nearly a run. A shiver of fear ran down Chester’s spine. Ever since the outbreak, the silent prayer of all survivors was in thanks that the undead couldn’t run. And they still couldn’t. The accidentally lumbering lurch slowed into an ungainly gait.
“How long with that door?” Chester asked.
“Just a minute,” Locke said. “My… my usual method of getting into a locked room was to bribe someone who had a key. Picking locks was… it was more of a hobby for Tamika than myself. No.” She stepped back.
“It’s open?” Nilda said.
“It’s rusted solid,” Locke said. “Mr Carson, you were ever more the professional in this area than I.”
“With
proper tools and a little time, I might manage it,” he said.
“We don’t have time,” Nilda said. “Thirty seconds, and those zombies will be at our throats. Try shooting the padlock.”
“Hang on,” Chester said, hefting his mace. “Let me try knocking.”
“That will be loud,” Locke said.
“Safer than risking a ricochet,” Chester said.
“In twenty seconds, I’ll have to shoot those zombies,” Nilda said.
Chester’s first blow was long, slamming into more of the chain than the padlock. Flecks of the door’s blue plastic coating sprinkled over the snow-white drifts while the chain clinked and clanked. Chester swung again. This time, he had the feel for the ancient weapon. The steel head slammed into the padlock, smashing the lock-bar from the mechanism.
“Old weapons and old ways,” Chester said, grinning with satisfaction. “Always knew they were the best. Now, let’s have a word with those zombies.”
Nilda fired. One shot. Another. A third. The zombies tumbled to the snow. “I’ll stick with the modern,” she said.
Locke peeled the broken padlock from the chain, and unthreaded that from the door’s handles. They went inside.
Chapter 17 - Vertical Tunnels
Calais
The padlocked door led to a corridor that was certainly no exit, and barely an entrance. Rows of cardboard boxes had been stacked, two deep, along the left-hand wall. In the months since February, rain had seeped around the door and been absorbed by the bottom-most boxes. They’d rotted and collapsed, bringing down the containers stacked above. From those, shrink-wrapped bundles of leaflets had spilled, brick-like, creating a nearly impenetrable barrier.
Chester pulled the door closed, and fished in his shoulder bag for the torch that, like his clothing and weapons, had been gifted or borrowed from the passengers aboard The New World. His beam was added to Locke’s and Nilda’s as they pushed, climbed, and clambered their way along the corridor.