Surviving the Evacuation, Book 17

by Frank Tayell

  What the hell was he doing? His sheer idiocy struck him harder than a blow. Sneaking around the billionaire’s house with no backup, no proper supplies, no real plan of escape, or proper route map left behind for his rescue? It was time to leave.

  He holstered the gun and retrieved the hatchet. There were two doors from the room, and he picked the one he thought furthest from the main entrance, hoping it might lead him towards the kitchens and thus the service entrance.

  Another corridor later, and he found a sitting room over seventy feet long, hung with silk, lined with sofas, and carpeted with the undead. Scores of monstrous bodies littered every surface, tangled together, making it impossible to tell where one ended and another began. But were they dead? Had they been killed?

  No.

  As he stepped backwards, the backpack knocked against the door. Something inside of it clinked. The monstrous blanket of bodies moved. An undulating wave that swept from wall to wall as they tore and pushed themselves upright. The room filled with the ripping swish of cloth, the dry rustle of cracking skin, the sharper snap of breaking bone. The nightmare susurrus rose to an ocean’s roar of indistinguishable horror as the creatures crawled and climbed over and up one other, and towards the door. Towards him.

  Sholto ran. Back along the corridor, into the piano room. Behind him, he heard a distant thump and clatter as the woken undead pushed and barged their way after him. Keep running, he told himself, and he’d be safe. Keep running and he’d outpace them. What he needed was a way out. He tried one door and found it locked, but the next opened into another unidentifiably long room, this one with bullet holes on the walls and bodies on the floor. Bodies in blue and gold, and two others in camouflage green. There wasn’t time to search them, to find out who they’d once been, or whether they’d died as human or undead. Instead, he ran on. Tucking the hatchet back into his belt, he drew the pistol, stumbling through one large door, then another, until he found himself back in the entrance hall. Outside, beyond the bolted doors, it still sounded quiet, but there was no way he was going to risk using the main entrance. Instead he returned the way he’d come, back up the stairs, to the hidden bedroom, and the rope leading down.

  Outside, on the ground, he ran from the house, slowing his run to a jog only when he reached the trees. He looked back, but from the outside, the mansion looked just like before he’d entered. The figures were still standing, motionless, by the main entrance.

  When he got back in the truck, he slung the survivor’s pack onto the passenger seat and drove. After half an hour, he turned on the lights. After another half hour, he turned the beams up. He considered stopping for the night, but not yet. At the next house, he’d stop. But each time he came to a building, a gas station, a hamlet, a town, he kept on driving, until, long after dark, he drove into Lewes.

  The boat was gone, but he saw the lights out at sea. Driving his car right up to the jetty, he left the headlights on. Only when he saw a light on the ship coming closer, did he turn around to peer into the darkness. The harbour town was dark, empty, and quiet. But he knew better. Not everywhere was like Newfoundland. Not yet.

  “There were dead soldiers in the mansion?” Nilda asked, when Sholto was back aboard the ship, his story told.

  “A couple of people in camouflage,” Sholto said. “Which isn’t quite the same thing. Others were dressed in Kempton’s blue and gold, which isn’t to say they were her employees.”

  “True,” Nilda said. “And there were zombies inside and out? Except a battle had been fought inside, but not outside?”

  “More than one battle I think,” Sholto said. “I think the first was fought months ago, and that’s what ended with the zombies inside. A few were dead, but there were maybe a hundred that were still active. As for the battle, that part of the story is much the same as anywhere else, and so not of much interest to us. It’s the people who came afterwards. I think they arrived by helicopter, and the sound of the rotors woke the undead in the grounds. The helicopter’s passengers went to the house, were surprised, attacked, and one was injured, but they escaped.”

  “Leaving their bag behind,” Nilda said. “Is there anything interesting inside it?”

  Chester finished emptying the contents onto the bridge’s map table. “The clothes belong to a woman,” he said. “The notebook belongs to a mathematician. It’s full of the kind of equations that are mostly letters. We’ll have to ask those programmers to take a look at it. Otherwise, we’ve got a water bottle, a few tools, mess-tin, mug, and the usual bits and pieces we all carry. Not much food, though. Just these energy bars.”

  “Hey, wait!” Jay said. “I’ve seen those before.”

  “Have them if you like,” Chester said.

  “No, I mean I saw them in New York,” Jay said. “Those are the weird bars I found in the subway. Look at them. There’s no logo, the packaging’s all plain, and there’s no ingredients, or website, or weight, or anything. It just says oat and fruit fibre bar, one dollar. Totally weird.”

  Nilda picked one up. “One dollar. No weight. No manufacturing address. That’s not right, is it, Thaddeus? I mean, it’s not usual in America. If you wanted to sell something in a shop, it would need an address just in case you wanted to complain.”

  “Weight and ingredients are a requirement, yes,” he said. “But it could have been made for sale at the farm gate. Something homemade, but by a farmer who also had their own packaging machine.”

  “And sold for only one dollar?” Nilda asked. “It’s a hefty size. No one could make a profit on this if it was sold that cheap. Not unless it was mass produced.”

  “I think you’re missing the important point,” Jay said. “I found some in New York.”

  “No, Jay,” Nilda said. “That’s important, yes, but the bigger point is where did this come from. Something homemade wouldn’t have survived this long.” She opened the wrapper and gave the bar a sniff, then a visual exam. “I won’t taste it, but I think it’s okay to eat. So, fine. Let’s say it was made since the outbreak. If you were camped in a small farm that had its own packaging equipment, why not use it? But why stick the price on the label unless it was actually to be sold?”

  “You think people are selling them?” Jay asked. “Maybe in New York, I guess.”

  “Nope. Guam,” Chester said, holding up the closed notebook. “That’s where this came from. A souvenir from Guam, it says on the back. Wasn’t that part of the Pacific Alliance?”

  “You mean the Pacific Alliance is real?” Jay asked.

  “It was real,” Nilda said. “And for long enough that they turned packaged surplus food into ration bars before they spoiled. Probably fruit and oats from grain ships sailing across the Pacific that were brought into Guam’s harbour. It was a military base, wasn’t it?”

  “And a tourist resort,” Sholto said. “But yes, it was an important port for the U.S. Pacific Fleet.”

  “Maybe they’re still there,” Jay said, picking up the bar. “But why were they selling it? And how come some of these bars ended up in New York?”

  “Sorry, Jay,” Nilda said. “I still think that’s the wrong question. A more pressing question for us is how come, a few weeks ago, people flew a helicopter to Lisa Kempton’s mansion.”

  Day 291, 29th December

  Epilogue - Our Future

  The Ocean Queen, The North Atlantic

  We left Faroe this morning, two days ahead of schedule. The prospect of a drink and a show at New Year’s Eve had lost the attraction it had once held. Instead, people were asking what plans we had for our community in the coming year. Since honesty is generally the best policy, especially when one has been lying, we announced an early departure for Canada. This time, leaving was almost as easy as writing.

  We began boarding at first light. The first to disembark was the first to re-board. The last to leave, aboard a launch that followed us out of the harbour, was an armed rear-guard that was, fortunately, not needed.

  We didn’t tell the
locals we were leaving. I wanted to, but Kim said no. She also ruled out leaving a note. Specifically, copies of a message hidden where they’d be found by everyday scavengers rather than the Faroese leadership group. Again, that was my idea, but she’s correct, of course. I see it now. If we can make contact with the New Yorkers, and if we can find some of the Irish who escaped from Faroe and so learn the story of what really happened on the frozen archipelago, we could return armed with the truth. I don’t think we ever will go back, but I’ve learned not to predict the future. However, I’m getting ahead of myself.

  Once aboard, we held a press conference in the largest of the ballrooms, with the words relayed ship-wide through the P.A. system. Finally we revealed Siobhan’s discovery of the bodies of the dead survivors from Malin Head. The initial response was one of confusion and questions, beginning with why we’d not told everyone before. The admiral answered that as best she could, taking as much blame as she could, before handing over to Siobhan. While the detective displayed, and explained, the crime scene photographs, Kim, the admiral, and myself retreated to the administration office next to the bridge. We’d barely begun our discussion of what to do next when we were interrupted by John Whitley. The former mutineer had been doing duty as radio operator, and had transcribed a message from my brother that, in turn, Thaddeus had recorded and uploaded to the satellite.

  As Whitley finished, I leaned back in my chair, a forest of questions filling my mind faster than my lips could frame them.

  “Shall I repeat it, ma’am?” Lieutenant Whitley asked.

  “No, thank you, Lieutenant,” the admiral said. “If you give me the transcript, that will be all.”

  “Aye, aye, Admiral,” Whitley said, handed over the copy of the message, gave a perfect salute, and left the small office. While not as sumptuous as some of the now over-full staterooms and suites, the cabin had comfortable chairs, a view of the sea, and a modicum of privacy for our little trio.

  “I thought you were putting Whitley on restricted duties,” Kim said.

  “That would have raised questions from among the crew as to why,” the admiral said. “I assigned him to command our radio room. Alone. I thought, with so few messages coming in, and with our inability to do anything other than acknowledge receipt, it would do no harm.” She glanced again at the transcript of the message recorded by Thaddeus, uploaded to the satellite, then downloaded by Whitley, and handed it to Kim.

  “When will Ken be ready to try refuelling the satellite?” I asked.

  “This morning,” the admiral said. “But I said it shouldn’t take place while we are at sea. He says it will make no difference, but since we’ll only get one chance at refuelling, I don’t want to begin until we reach Newfoundland and have firm ground beneath our feet.”

  “And communication will be easier when we’ve two satellites again,” I said.

  “It won’t be two satellites,” the admiral said. “Two wouldn’t be much more useful than one, and three haven’t been of much use so far. If he can refuel one satellite in orbit, then I want him to reactivate others. But that is a discussion for when we arrive in Canada.”

  “Whitley won’t keep this to himself,” Kim said, offering the copied message to me.

  “He might,” the admiral said. “But we must assume he won’t.”

  “Let’s take it one piece at a time,” I said. “There are zombies in Delaware.”

  “On the Delmarva Peninsula,” the admiral said. “But inside the mansion. There were none seen at the harbour, nor during the journey to or from the mansion. Nonetheless, yes, there are active zombies on the peninsula.”

  I glanced at the piece of paper. “We’ve no data from Boston or Atlantic City,” I said. “Long Island tells us nothing since the locals killed the living dead.”

  “Not all of them, by the sound of it,” Kim said.

  “But the undead are on the peninsula,” I said. “What about the mainland? Perhaps there are more, perhaps there are hordes trampling up and down the coast.”

  “We have to assume the worst,” Kim said. “Newfoundland is the exception. The undead in Nova Scotia are not all dead yet. We have to assume, come spring, hundreds of thousands will just wake up if we venture beyond the walls surrounding Digby and Annapolis.”

  “Exactly,” the admiral said. “Though I dislike using the word assume. I’d prefer to use prepare. I hope we’ll be proved wrong, but we must prepare for a fight to keep Nova Scotia.”

  “So we’re sticking with the plan?” Kim asked.

  “Either we evacuate Nova Scotia now, or we prepare to do it, in extremis, during the spring,” the admiral said. “As this morning demonstrated, when pushed, we can embark within a few hours. However, the faster we evacuate, the more we leave behind. In Canada, that would be the food. A round trip from Digby to Port-Aux-Basques will take a week. We don’t know how many trips would be required to transport all their food, so we don’t know how long before it is all safely in Newfoundland. Then there is the question of storage in Port-Aux-Basques, and whether that would have to be built, or simply prepared.”

  “Assuming the Canadians don’t object to us taking their food reserves from them,” I said. “But if the worst case scenario facing us is that, sometime over this coming year, we have to transport everyone to Newfoundland, that’s not so bad.”

  Kim pointed at the piece of paper. “I think it is. I don’t know what else this means, but I’ll tell you one thing, this proves there really is nowhere else we can go other than Newfoundland. What will we do if there isn’t any oil left in Port au Port?”

  “We’ll know within a few weeks, and we can discuss it then,” the admiral said. “That is one debate I’m happy to delay until we have more information.”

  “Which brings us to point number two,” Kim said. “How dangerous are the people in New York?”

  “Potentially, no more so than Faroe,” the admiral said.

  “That’s not very reassuring,” Kim said. “No, considering we just had to sneak away from Faroe in the middle of the night, albeit departing at dawn.”

  “The New Yorkers won’t be a threat to us, in Canada, this winter, no matter how hungry they get,” the admiral said. “Come spring, it depends upon the undead. If we’re surrounded by zombies, we don’t have to worry about the living.”

  “That’s even less comforting,” Kim said. “Can we send a team to New York to… well, to spy on them?”

  “We shall wait for Ken and his satellites,” the admiral said. “But yes, we’ll send people to New York. Perhaps to spy, and perhaps to make contact. From the earlier report Nilda sent us, the New Yorkers only have one small boat and no sentries along the shoreline. It is possible they number a hundred or less, in which case, they are far from a threat to us. I still hold out hope we can trade with them, given time. Until then, until spring, I won’t give them much thought.”

  “So our plan stays the same,” I said. “Harbour in Port-Aux-Basques this winter. Speculate for oil while the Courageous brings food from Digby. Depending on the weather, we’ll investigate St John’s, Gander, Grand Falls, and anywhere else we might find food, fuel, and other supplies. Look into repairing a runway and plane. Get people ashore, so we can free up the Ocean Queen to evacuate the Canadians if necessary. But also prepare for transporting all our people to Nova Scotia to retake the farmland.”

  “What about the rest of Thaddeus’s message?” Kim said. “He saw zombies down south in Maryland. It has to be the weather. I don’t mean the cold is responsible for killing the undead, but it has to be connected. Could we find out, do you think?”

  “By conducting a study?” the admiral asked. “I would advise against it. Whatever conclusions we reached would have to be tested. There is a danger that, in the laboratory, we create something worse.”

  “We don’t want that,” I said. “We’re agreed we should send people to New York in the spring, to assess how dangerous they are? During that expedition, we can go ashore to the north and so
uth and count the undead beyond the reach of those on Long Island.”

  “I will ask the colonel to plan an operation,” the admiral said. “Hopefully, we’ll have more, and more complete, satellite coverage by then.”

  “Which brings us to the energy bars,” Kim said. “And the connection between Kempton’s mansion and Long Island. I suppose that’s two questions.”

  “Ration bars,” I said.

  “They sounded like flapjacks,” Kim said.

  “No, I mean they were distributed as part of a post-outbreak ration,” I said. “That’s what the price means. It’s the food-standard. Paper notes, metal coins, they’re all worthless, too easy to find and forge. A currency is only effective if it’s trusted. How do you make trust? You back the notes against a tangible asset. In this case, food. That’s what these bars are.”

  “They’re not for eating?” Kim asked.

  “No, they are,” I said. “This is more or less the system I was about to suggest we institute on Faroe. Wherever these bars were made, people are paid for work. The unit of payment is calculated based on one of those bars. One bar, one dollar, one day’s work. Or maybe it’s an hourly wage. The more food available, the more can be distributed, and so the higher the salary, and the wealth can be spread around. To put it another way, the harder you work, the more food is produced, and so the more you get paid. If you’re paid more than you can consume, you’ve some excess to trade. Perhaps for babysitting or laundry. Or you can stockpile enough for a week, a month, and take a risk at starting your own business in the knowledge that your customers have something with which they can pay. Scavengers who find their own food can beat the system, thus allowing a secondary market to be established, but it’ll trade using the official currency, so the grey and black markets prop up the official system, thus ensuring the critical jobs are still done.”