by Frank Tayell
Chester was long past second and third thoughts as the launch lurched towards the shore. It might or might not be East Ferry, but that didn’t matter anymore. There were lights ashore, with more coming on every minute. Was that because night approached, or because people ashore had spotted the ship, and the now-approaching launch? They’d find out soon. Some of those lights stretched out into the sea, marking what had to be a jetty. And it was that jetty towards which they now sped.
He wasn’t sure Jay and Nilda should both be on the launch. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be, either. It could have been left to Norm Jennings and Sholto. Except there was no way Jay would miss the chance to add another landfall to his growing list of places visited. Nor would Nilda, not here and now. They were driven by curiosity, sure. A desire to dispel fear of the unknown. A desire to get the danger over with. This was where Diana Fenton came from, and they were bringing her home, so there shouldn’t be danger. Except they’d been wrong about Faroe, but it was too late to turn back because they were nearing the jetty.
Sholto jumped out first, Jay a step behind, and they quickly secured the boat to the ring.
“No other boats here,” Chester said, as he helped Nilda off the swaying ship.
“No people,” Nilda said. “Not that I can see. Norm, you stay here, we’ll take a quick look around. Only as far as the buildings nearest the jetty. If they’re empty, we’ll go back to the ship and leave a proper search until the morning.”
“They look empty,” Jay said. “Except for the lights.”
The snow had been cleared from the central walkway, brushed aside. He grasped the implication just as Jay shouted.
“There’s someone!” Jay called. “A… a bloke. I think. I mean… wait. Is that a zombie?”
It was a man, yes. But a live one? There was nothing in the man’s hands, but a hat was on his head. A ten-gallon Stetson that had sprung a leak, lying floppy-rimmed over eyes and ears. He wore a waist-length coat, the fur collar raised, concealing more of his face. From the way the man walked, he was alive, but at his belt, near his gloved right hand, was a holstered gun. Too near his hand for Chester’s comfort.
Nilda broke the silence. “Hello. Hi. Do you know Diana Fenton?”
The man paused. He pushed his hat brim up from over his eyes. Still he said nothing, but he began walking forward again.
Chester wanted to reach for his mace, his gun, but though it might give him comfort, it wouldn’t help; there was no knowing how many rifles might be aimed at them from above.
“Diana Fenton,” Nilda said, taking a step towards the approaching man. “Do you know her? Is this East Ferry? Are we near Annapolis?”
The man stopped some twenty feet away. Again he raised a hand, pushing his hat up off his eyes, then he pushed again, tipping it from his head completely, letting it fall to hang by a lanyard around his neck. At least sixty years old, his storm-weathered skin was recently scarred. Grey-white stubble grew out from his scalp, but not his shaved chin that moved slowly as his lips formed words that couldn’t be heard. He shook his head, then tried again.
“Tom?” he asked. “Tom Clemens? Is that really you?”
Chapter 22 - Root Beer Afloat
East Ferry, Nova Scotia
Chester let himself melt into the comfortable armchair, luxuriating in the warm cloud billowing from the electric space-heater, savouring another sip of his mostly-apple drink. “I could get used to this,” he said.
“I don’t understand it,” Jay said in reply.
The two of them were alone in the cosy living room of the three-storey, cliff-top, harbour-facing, wood-boarded house that belonged to the respectably aged Martha Greene, Jonas Jeffries, and a dozen children who were at a nearby village hall, rehearsing for their Christmas play. The room, like what little else Chester had seen of the house, and the seafront village, was cosy, clean, welcoming, well lived-in, and well loved, but not exactly tidy. A battlefield of toys had been pushed beneath the windowsill. Luminescent beanbags with a multi-coloured patchwork of repairs lurked behind the blanket-covered sofa. Magazines lay strewn over the coffee table. Tucked into each ran a loom’s worth of threads, obviously marking potentially useful articles, while the stacks of periodicals on the floor were either waiting to be read, or had been found utterly empty of any worthy knowledge. He began to lean forward in an attempt to get a closer look at the journals, but gave up. The chair was just too comfortable, and so was he.
Homemade, and child-made, decorations were strung across the wall, made of plastic and metal, cut and trimmed into stars, bells, and trees. While there was no real and decorated tree in the room, a close approximation of tinsel had been strung outside on two pines and a leafless ten-foot, blanket-wrapped trunk.
On top of the magazines was a bookmarked copy of Anne of Green Gables. He’d caught Tuck surreptitiously reading that story back in London, and had intended to give it a glance, but he’d been shot before he’d found the time. Since then, and since his eyesight had recovered, he’d picked up many books, finished few, but not seen a copy of that particular title. Here and now, the book was too far away, the chair too comfortable, the heater too warm, and the mostly-apple drink far too soporific.
“Yeah, I just don’t get it,” Jay repeated, holding up his old world, but electrically chilled, bottle of soda to the light.
“Nor me,” Chester said. “Not really. But what I gathered is that bloke who met us by the shore is Jonas Jeffries. He’s an old mate of Thaddeus’s. A retired cop, I think. Used to live in that place in Maine, Crossfields Landing, where Thaddeus had his cabin, and from which he set off to cross the Atlantic. The woman, Martha, she lives here with Jonas and those kids, who are, I think, recent acquisitions. Though it sounded like some of them knew Thaddeus. Or Tom Clemens, as he’s known to them. I think he helped rescue a few of the kids on his way out of New York. And what was it Martha said, that the children live around here because it’s safer, this far south of the barricades? That’s something I’d like to know a bit more about.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Jay said. “I get all that. I mean I don’t understand this.” He held up his bottle. “It says it’s root beer, but it tastes like antiseptic.”
“Ah. Well, I can’t help you there,” Chester said. “But I’ll finish it if you don’t want to.”
“No way!” Jay said. “I’m not saying I don’t like it, just that I don’t understand it.”
“Ah, sure,” Chester said, not certain he understood Jay. But the room was warm, the chairs comfortable, and his drink, though now nearly drunk, was homemade. Recently, he hoped. His nose told him he might be correct, as there was a gloriously wondrous scent of cooking seeping through the door. “Ah, apples. That takes me back. Reminds me of Kent, and that truly is a distant memory here and now.”
“You see, I’d heard of root beer,” Jay said, clearly not listening. “They drink it in all the movies and shows, so everyone must like it as much as cola. But it tastes like antiseptic. I mean, it’s identical. So… I mean… well, why?”
“You’re really not going to let it go, are you?”
“I guess it’s just weird. I mean, sure, this explains why you couldn’t buy it in England. Mum did ask, once. I mean, I made her ask, when she worked at that supermarket. They said they wouldn’t stock it because there was no market for it. We thought that was weird because, well, it was mentioned in all the movies ever made in America, which is like, at least half of them.”
“I suppose,” Chester said, “at a guess, in Canada and the U.S., they use those herbs or whatever for flavouring drinks. In Britain, it went into antiseptic.”
“Exactly, but which came first?” Jay said. “Did an American doctor in Britain think, oh, everyone likes root beer, but hates the smell of antiseptic. I’ll make the lotion smell like a nice, friendly drink? There’s logic there, right? There’s sense in that. Because there’s no sense in some Brit arriving in America, inventing a soft drink that tastes like medicine.”
Chester laughed.
“What?” Jay said.
“Sorry,” Chester said. “It’s… no, it’s a good question. It’s one I’d love to be able to answer. Maybe we could go on a road trip when the weather clears. Find the factory where it was made, and see if they’ve a history book or three.”
“Maybe,” Jay said. “Speaking of that, do you think they have a library here?”
Chester finished his drink. “Probably. Now, pass me that book, would you?”
But as Jay reached for it, the door opened. Martha entered with a tray in her hands.
While her long bangs and cropped-pate hairstyle would be more familiar on a woman in her twenties, the fiery red colour came from a bottle. The skin was taut from work done before the outbreak, but the eyes were those of someone who’d swerved as she approached retirement. Her smile was as broad as Nilda’s, who entered next. Last came a woman carrying a baby in a carry-chair.
“You’ve met Martha,” Nilda said with a smile, and in a whisper. “This is Napatchie Ashoona, the MP and elder. Their leader.”
“Welcome to our home,” Napatchie said with as quiet a tone and as broad a smile as Nilda’s. In her early thirties, barely five feet tall, her camouflage snow-pants and boots had almost certainly come from a military depot, while the bright pink all-weather jacket most certainly had not. “And can I introduce my son, Siqiniq. We’ll be forever grateful to you for bringing Diana back to us. And Tom, as well. The children have talked about him. Luke especially. He said Tom would come back, and he did. What a tale, and I’ve only heard the highlights.”
“Napatchie and I are returning to our ship,” Nilda said. “We’ll see if Diana can be brought ashore. With their doctor and ours, and with Jonas and Thaddeus, and with the stretcher, the launch will be cramped. Would you two mind waiting here?”
“Hmm?” Jay murmured. His eyes were glued to the tray on which stood a half-cut loaf, a pottery jar, a couple of bowls, and something being kept warm beneath a metal dish.
“I think we’ll cope,” Chester said.
“We’ll be back in an hour or so,” Nilda said.
Napatchie placed the carry-chair on the floor.
“Bye, Jay,” Nilda said.
“Hmm? Yeah, bye, Mum,” Jay said, not taking his eyes from the tray as Martha laid it on the coffee table. Nilda gave a theatrical shrug and grin, Chester gave her a wave, and the two women left.
Where Jay’s laser-beam focus was entirely on the tray of food Martha was laying out, Chester’s attention went to the infant. “How old is he?”
“Eight months,” Martha said softly. “Born after the outbreak, but that’s why Napatchie stayed here rather than going to Ottawa when the crisis began.”
“Is that real bread?” Jay asked.
“It is. Fresh baked this afternoon,” Martha said. “That’s apple jelly, and that’s an apple and pumpkin pie.”
“Jelly?” Delighted, Jay raised the lid of the small pottery jar. His eyebrows rose with it, in growing confusion. “Oh, yeah. Of course. Jelly is jam, isn’t it? Yeah, I dunno. I guess it’s just the culture shock. First root beer, now this.”
“It’s his first time abroad,” Chester said.
“It is not,” Jay said indignantly. “There was Belgium and Denmark. And Calais.”
“And this is a better welcome than we got there,” Chester said. “The last few weeks, we’ve seen a lot of places, but this is truly a welcome sight.”
“You haven’t been to many welcoming places if you’re so shocked by the offer of a hot meal on a cold night,” Martha said.
“I suppose we haven’t,” Jay said, a little too loudly. The baby stirred. “Sorry,” he whispered.
“Your wife told us some of your story,” Martha said. “And I’d like to hear the rest, but I’m sure you’ve some questions.” She handed Jay a slice of pie so large it overlapped the plate.
“Yeah, like how come you’ve got pies and bread,” Jay said. “And apples.”
“We grew them,” Martha said. “The apples came from a commercial orchard, planted decades ago. We’ve been refining sugar from maple syrup, again from ancient trees. The wheat we planted and harvested ourselves. There’s no butter in the pastry, and we have no dairy. We did grow sunflowers from which we extracted some oil. We only had enough for a little baking for this holiday, but I think your arrival is worth the largest celebration we can provide.”
“Wow,” Jay said, his mouth half full.
“I don’t know if he’s talking about the pie or your efforts, but all that farming impresses me,” Chester said. “You were able to grow a lot, then?”
Martha gave a frown, and a slight tilt of her head. “We grew less than we planted, and harvested less than that. The corn was a disaster. Potatoes came up far smaller than we expected. The squashes did well, but the cabbages didn’t. We think, like with most of the corn, that was some variety of blight. We’ve enough to last until next summer.”
“This is good,” Jay said. “I mean it’s seriously good.”
“Thank you,” Martha said. “It’s the maple syrup.”
Chester took a bite of his own. It was good. Very good, and twice as welcome, but he was more interested in how the plant oil had been extracted, how the sugar had been refined. There was one question more pressing than all the others. “Where does the electricity come from?”
“The tidal barrage up at Annapolis Royal,” Martha said. “It provides just enough for our needs. We keep the lights on, the houses warm, and our three electric cars on the road. We had more electric vehicles, of course, but they are the devil’s own demons to fix.”
“But no diesel or petrol?” Chester asked. “Did I get that right?”
“No, that was stolen during the summer. Just before harvest. What little we had left, we used in the tractors. That was our mistake, I suppose. But yes, the fuel, and our ships, were taken. The thieves waited until they were certain there would be a harvest and we wouldn’t starve, but they left us with no way to escape. That’s why Diana took our one remaining ship and went to Newfoundland. Among the ships here, among the people who found a home here, were ferries from Newfoundland. That is how we, and Diana, knew there was fuel there. Personally, I didn’t think it would be there still. I certainly knew, as we all did, there were no ships in the harbour. I said it wasn’t worth the risk, but when Diana gets an idea in her head, it won’t be dislodged by good sense. And she was right. There was fuel, and she has returned, and with you. Did I hear right, you have a ship large enough for us all?”
“How many is that?” Chester asked.
“Four thousand, one hundred and twenty-three. By dawn, we hope it’ll be twenty-four.”
“We’ve a cruise ship,” Chester said. “One of those round-the-world types. Has about eight thousand passenger berths, half as many again for crew.”
“Then this is a good day indeed,” Martha said.
The door opened. A small face appeared around the frame. The rest of the boy appeared a moment later. “Is he here? Everyone said he’s back. Is Tom really back?”
“This is Luke,” Martha said.
“But is he here?” Luke asked, insistent.
“Tom is back, yes,” Martha said. “But he’s gone with the doctor to get Diana from their ship. He’ll come say hello when he’s back ashore.”
“See, I told you he’d come back,” Luke said. “Tom always comes back.”
“And how did you know?” Martha asked. “Weren’t you at the schoolhouse?”
“Oh, Mrs Ashoona’s driver came and told us,” Luke said.
“If the rehearsal is over, go and put the kettle on. I’ll be down in a moment and you can test the next pie is properly cooked.”
Luke left, still grinning.
“We keep all the children here in East Ferry,” Martha said. “And the expectant mothers approaching full-term. The rest of our people are spread between here and Digby, with some up at Annapolis Royal, and Granville Ferry, but we keep the chil
dren here. It’s far enough away from the barricades that the sound won’t be heard. Some people say that isn’t safe enough. They went to Long Island, and to Brier Island, even though that necessitated travelling in rowboats and rafts. They can’t row back in this weather, let alone get re-supplied. But they seem happy.”
“Why does not making sound matter?” Jay asked.
“Because of the zombies, of course,” Martha said. “They’re just the other side of our walls. Hundreds of thousands of them.”
Chester leaned back in his chair, hunger forgotten.
Chapter 23 - When Old Friends Meet
East Ferry, Nova Scotia
After the illumination of the harbour, with thick clouds blocking the stars, the lights aboard The New World were a welcome guide. The inability to talk over the roaring engine and pounding waves was a welcome relief to Sholto. It gave him time to process the unexpected reunion. He’d last seen Jonas and Martha when he’d departed Maine in the spring. Was it strange, though? Was it even unexpected? Not that he’d met some people he knew, but that he’d met so few? Before he could reach a conclusion, they reached the ship.
As Nilda led the doctor and politician down to the medical bay, Sholto led Jonas to the galley. The cat was curled close to the scorchingly hot water pipe. She opened an eye as they entered, gave a half-hearted purr, then closed her eye again. Clearly the certainty of warmth was worth far more than the off-chance of trading food for affection with these two.
“There’s not many people about,” Jonas said.
“We didn’t bring many people on this expedition,” Sholto said. “And we left some up in Newfoundland. Did I tell you about that? How the zombies seem to be dead.”
“You did,” Jonas said, leaning against the counter. “We knew about Newfoundland. Not about the zombies. About the planes. We had a few thousand refugees here from Port-Aux-Basques. Arrived aboard the ferry, and a few of the freighters. That’s how Diana knew there was fuel there, months ago. She gambled, and beat the house.”