Tipping Point (Project Renova Book 1)

by Terry Tyler

  "I'm not talking bloody Dior, just a Marks and Sparks would be nice." Alas, she has to make do with Peacocks and New Look. Lottie, Kara and I enjoy watching her holding garments in cheap fabrics at arm's length, as if she might catch something from them.

  Bad joke.

  We've parked outside the burnt out shell that used to be Morrisons. As we return to the car, laden with bags filled with gear for all nine of us, we see some familiar faces.

  Joel and his father. They're a few car lengths away, but close enough to make my heart thud with panic. Joel gives us a huge, swooping finger, while his father, that monster who held the knife to my throat, stands there with his arms folded, and stares.

  "Ignore them," Kara says, dragging me by the arm. "Bullies like that just want a reaction."

  No, that was in the old world. Bullies want more than that, now.

  "Wonder where the others are," says Lottie. "Hope they've got the virus and died."

  "Too much to hope for," says Rowan.

  I can't help looking up.

  Joel's dad makes his fingers into a gun and aims them at Kara, then locks eyes with me and drags his forefinger across his throat, grinning all over his face

  My body crumples; Rowan grips me under the armpit. "He's only trying to intimidate you, darling."

  He's succeeding.

  "Don't look, Mum," says Lottie, as we pile into the car. I don't, but I can feel their eyes boring into us until we turn the corner out of their sight.

  We're not leaving for a few days yet. Can't come soon enough.

  In Lower Ashby, Leicestershire, Travis watches Aria emptying the kitchen cupboards, packing up boxes.

  "We agreed on the tenth of February," he says. "Your birthday. That's a month away."

  She doesn't look up. "I know, but I need something to do. I'm going crazy with boredom."

  He's tried so hard to keep her happy. He understands why she needs people other than him, but her words still hurt. "Is being here that much of a hardship?"

  She pauses what she's doing, and meets his eyes. She's not smiling. "No, but we agreed, didn't we?"

  "We did."

  "Don't you want to go? Find some more people? Have a life again?"

  "Of course I do."

  She turns back to her boxes. "I don't think you do. I think you'd be perfectly happy to stay here, rotting away, the two of us, forever."

  He feels a flash of anger. Rotting away, indeed. But he gives her the benefit of the doubt; things haven't been easy between them, this last week or so. Her restlessness is apparent from morning until night. If he loves her, he must accept her fickle nature. Loving someone doesn't mean trying to mould them into what you want them to be, like his parents did with him.

  He takes her hand. "Of course I want to go. But can we enjoy the time we have together, here? Because we're safe and warm, and we don't know what's out there."

  She gives him a smile, pecks him on the cheek and says, "Sure." But ever since they decided to head for that little island off the Northumbrian coast, she's lost interest in anything else. All she wants to do is prepare for their departure.

  "Let's not wait," she continues. "Let's go as soon as we've cleared out the rest of the houses in the village."

  Outside, it's snowing. Travis gestures at the window. "In this? Why would we want to drive in this?"

  "Oh, okay," she says, folding her arms. "But I don't want to wait for my birthday. As soon as the snow's cleared, I want to be off."

  He notices she says 'I' want to be off, not 'we'. Like she's going anyway, whether he joins her or not. When they find other people, will he lose her?

  She has still never told him she loves him.

  "Fine," he says, folding his arms. "Okay. How about we meet halfway? I want to wait until spring, you want to go yesterday." He wants to see her happy again. "So shall we say the last week in January, weather permitting? And that's my final offer!"

  She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him. "Really? Oh, thank you, thank you! I know I've been a bit grouchy lately, but I do love you, honest I do!" She looks surprised to have said this, and puts her hand to her mouth. "Oh! I've never said that before, have I?" She lays her head on his broad chest, and he strokes her hair, winding his fingers into the curls. "I do love you, though," she says.

  He doesn't think she does. She may even think she does, but he suspects that, to her, love means little more than great sex, and the goodwill you feel towards a person who has just given you what you want.

  "I love you, too," he says, though he knows she has no understanding of what the word means to him. That she's the beat of his heart, and he would kill to keep her safe. And possibly to keep her with him, too.

  The depth of his emotion shocks him.

  She pulls away from him, and reaches across the table for the half-filled bottle of wine, left over from dinner last night. She pours some into two glasses, hands one to him and clinks hers against his.

  "To Lindisfarne," he says.

  "To Lindisfarne!" she says, and her face bears the same expression he saw when they were walking along that road in London, when she announced that she was coming with him to Ashby Grange.

  At that moment, all is clear. What he saw then, and what he sees now, is the relief that getting what she wants has not been as difficult as she feared; he realises she has only ever been using him for what he can give her, and she has never really cared for him at all.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Safe House

  January 10th, 2025

  Tonight, we talk of nothing but Lindisfarne. We can't help feeling optimistic, even Rowan. She's convinced herself that at least one of the hotels must have a generator, and is talking warm bathrooms and sumptuous beds. I have a feeling she's going to be horribly disappointed (they looked modest in the picture), but it was so good not to have her harping on that we let her get on with it.

  "We'll be out of the way of Jarrow pond life, as well," she says, patting me on the arm.

  "Don't get your hopes up too much," Phil warns her. "We don't know who else is there. A group might have taken the hotels already, for a start."

  "Yes, but most of the lowlifes will be dead, won't they? It was only decent people who were given the vaccine."

  Kara opens her eyes wide.

  "Anyone can be immune to it," Heath says. "I haven't had the shot, or Jax, or Ozzy."

  "Damn," I say, "and there was me thinking you were decent!"

  Rowan purses her lips. "You know what I mean."

  "And," says Heath, "although the vaccination units didn't hold a stock, there must have been some hanging around, and we've never found any. They could have been nicked by axe murderers." He winks at me. "Or Sun readers."

  Plans and lists over wine and olives, and slightly stale crackers with tubes of Primula cheese, make for a fine night. We're going the day after tomorrow; we'll spend tomorrow packing the vehicles up, while Kara, Scott and Heath go out to scour any and every place they can find for medical supplies. We have remedies for every ailment you can think of.

  "Almost makes you wish you could get piles, conjunctivitis and gonorrhoea, just so you could try 'em all out!" Ozzy said, the other day, when he was looking in our boxes.

  "Got to cover every eventuality," Heath said. "You go down with something on the island, it's a long way to find medicine. 'Specially if it's high tide; you can't leave for eight hours." Having worked through his doubts, Heath is now raring to go. Ozzy is still giving it large about yurts. Like Rowan, he's unaware of how life will actually be on an island; he keeps comparing it to some awesome commune he lived in when he was in 'SoCal' (southern California). We suspect this is largely fantasy; whether it is or not, Lindisfarne will be slightly more 'challenging' than San Diego. I'm sure when he first came here he said it was in Santa Cruz. You understand our scepticism.

  Both he and Rowan appear to have forgotten that food is going to become our focal point. By this time next year, a lot of the stuff we're finding
that's still edible will be inedible. Fuel's getting scarce, too. Still, thirty-six hours, and we'll be gone. I just hope it's somewhere we can settle, and we don't end up having to come back, though we all keep tempering our excitement with this possibility.

  I feel as though everything that's happened since that first day of Shipden's quarantine has just been treading water, making do, getting by; we haven't settled into a new way of living yet. But we've survived it, my daughter and I, we've made new friends who now feel as close as any I knew before (even Rowan and Ozzy, to some extent), and the evil bastards who created Project Renova haven't stopped us breathing, haven't stopped us talking, laughing, living. Even if we're forgotten, left to rot, even if the world will never be what it once was, it means some of the bad stuff has gone, too. We will make a new community, somewhere, if not Lindisfarne. Lottie and Jax are going to grow up, fall in love, have children of their own. They are.

  And thinking about that makes me think about Dex, and his child.

  I won't allow myself to feel silly for hoping he's there. I've loved him for six years, and I want to see him again, whatever his situation.

  When I go to sleep, I dream I see him walking along a beach. I call to him, I run faster and faster to catch him up, I shout his name and he turns to look at me. When he sees me, his face lights up.

  I wake up, alone in that cold little room, and I'm smiling.

  It's daylight; Lottie must already be up.

  There is a knock on the door. It's a cup of coffee with Heath's arm attached to it, and the sight of him confuses me; I think back to my dream and realise that the person who turned around was not Dex, not Heath, but a curious mixture of the two.

  He sits on the side of my bed, puts my coffee down, and leans over to kiss me on the cheek.

  "This time tomorrow!" He's all smiles. Bright white teeth; no, Rowan, he doesn't need your mouthwash and dental floss.

  "I know. I'm really happy about it." I go to kiss him back and he moves so that my lips meet his.

  Ohh.

  I think we're both startled by how good it feels.

  "I've been wanting to do that for ages," he whispers.

  "Me too."

  We gaze at each other, and he takes both my hands in his.

  "Kara told me about Dex and the other woman and the kid."

  "Mm." I don't know what to say.

  "So I was just thinking ... " He smiles. "I was thinking that maybe you're, you know, able to let go of it, now."

  I shut my eyes. I'm not. I don't want to lie to him. When I open my eyes, he's waiting for my answer.

  "Not quite," I whisper. "But very nearly. Almost."

  He kisses me on the mouth, just lightly. "That's good. I just wanted to make sure."

  I feel myself smiling; I can't help it. "Before what?"

  "You know. New starts and all that."

  I wonder if he's been thinking about the possibility of Dex being on the island. Establishing us, just in case he is. Well, that's okay by me.

  "New starts," I whisper.

  "We'll be happy, won't we?"

  "We will."

  I move my hand up to his neck, my fingers caught up in his long curls, and he's just moving in to kiss me when we hear footsteps, chattering and laughter on the landing, and Lottie's face appears at the door.

  "Whoops, sorry!" she says, and edges her way back out.

  Heath and I laugh; the moment is gone.

  I don't care if I have to sleep in a garage, Lottie and I are definitely having separate bedrooms when we get to our new home.

  Tomorrow. We'll be there tomorrow.

  I can't wait.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Rampage

  Newcastle

  September 2024 ~ January 2025

  Some arsehole had smashed the front window of his mam's house, and the place had been trashed. A damp chill blew in through the open back door, and a deathly silence filled the shell that had been his home, a long, long time ago.

  Wedge presumed the two bodies wrapped in black bin liners in the front garden were those of his mam and the bairn, though as to who'd wrapped them up there was no clue. Judging by the stink of them as he walked past, he imagined they'd been there a while. Byker Wall was no more, but the house where he'd grown up had been spared. He wondered, briefly, if anyone in the flats had been alive when they were demolished, and chuckled to himself; must've had a canny shock if they were.

  He moved around the house, chucking items into a carrier to stow in the saddlebags on his bike. Antibiotics and strong painkillers from his mam's bedside drawer, the stash of whizz his fifteen-year-old half-brother kept under his mattress. Whoever had ransacked the house had taken anything else he might have wanted, but Wedge didn't care. He'd find stuff as he needed it.

  Outside, he poured lighter fuel over the bodies and set fire to them, scaring the shit out of two grubby looking fuckers scurrying past, then he got back into the prison governor's car and drove towards Walker, gripping the steering wheel as he thought about what he might find back at the flat.

  If Bette was dead, so be it. If she wasn't, she'd be waiting for him. She would. She knew him. She'd know he'd find a way to break out.

  Wedge scarcely noticed the devastation around him as he manoeuvred his way through the streets. The fires, the burned out cars, the rubble, piles of bin bags, the military and police presence. One skinny cunt in camouflage gear who looked like he should still be in school uniform had the nerve to stop him at some makeshift barrier; Wedge wound his window down and told him to let him the fuck through or he'd kill him. The kid shook as he pointed the gun at him—all Wedge had to do was lean out of the window, grab the muzzle and knock the little twat on the ground. Snivelling tosser looked like he was going to crap himself as he hurried to let him pass.

  Wedge grinned to himself as he drove off. Respect, that was what it was all about.

  Bette wasn't there. The brand new, four-storey block was in silence, but she was still alive. She'd gone, that was all, and this he knew because her bike boots and leathers were missing, along with her helmet and her backpack. He rooted through the boxes on her dressing table, and saw that she'd taken odds and sods of sentimental value, too. Her rings. The Celtic cross he'd given her. She'd taken his jewellery, but she couldn't so much as leave him a note to say where she was. Bitch.

  If her helmet was gone, it meant she was on some other twat's bike.

  It'd better be some other twat's bike, anyway.

  If anyone had taken his old lady and his bike—

  Wedge slammed his fist into the bedroom door, swept his arm across the crap littering the dressing table, tore her remaining clothes out of the wardrobe and stormed through the flat, kicking, punching and smashing as he went, but the rampage didn't soothe his anger. Made him feel worse, if anything. Bette had always kept the flat nice; he'd liked that. Now, she'd made him destroy it. On the kitchen worktop was a half bottle of JD. What was that, a consolation prize? Fuck her. He drank half of it down, wiping his mouth on his sleeve between gulps, then threw the bottle across the room, smashing the back window.

  He needed to find her, and when he did she was going to regret not waiting for him.

  First things first. Whatever else had gone down, he was still President of the Hadrian Motorcycle Club, and he was confident his bike would still be at the clubhouse where he'd left it when the cops picked him up six months earlier. None of the lads would've dared nick it. Once he'd got his beloved steed back, he'd be up to full strength. Be scared, Bette. And whoever had offered her a ride.

  The bike was there, but that was all. No sign of anyone. Empty bottles and glasses all around, as if they'd had one last party then scarpered.

  A pool game had been abandoned. The other bikes were gone from outside. Everyone, gone. Cunts hadn't even thought to scrawl, 'Wedge. Gone to Whitby' (or wherever it was they'd fucked off to) on the darts scoreboard, like they normally did.

  Wedge grabbed a bottle of Scotch and perched
himself on a stool at the bar.

  Out of sight, out of fucking mind, then. Where was the respect? So much for brotherhood.

  He drank, he smoked, he stormed around the building, but nothing he did, no matter how much he drank, how many dabs of his brother's weak gear he swallowed down, made him feel any better. The whizz was useless. Young 'un had always been the kind of dumb fuck who got ripped off by the scum who cut it with three parts glucose.

  Weariness overcame him. He lurched into one of the bedrooms and slept.

  Wedge stayed in the clubhouse for two days, until the crisps, nuts and Scotch ran out. He needed the rest. Mostly, he drank and slept. Once refreshed, he went out and about to see if he could find any of his people, but they were all gone. In most of their homes he found death; in a few, evidence of departure. Around him the virus raged, but it was no match for him; he had survived it at close quarters in the prison, so he would survive it now.

  As the golden leaves of early autumn withered into heaps of soggy mush at the sides of pavements, as the nights grew shorter and the mornings sharp with frost while the virus galloped on, the amount of people on the street faded away, and chaos became quiet, but he scarcely noticed the change in the wind as he moved from place to place in a state of anger and inebriation. He stayed for a while in a pub, inhabited by a random group of others who had managed to avoid dying. He slept, he drank, he played cards for currency that didn't involve money, he fought, he killed, once, when some piece of shit tried to steal his bike, and when the booze ran out he moved on. He stayed in another place for longer, where a black guy called Darnell had a supply of good gear that he was willing to trade for just about anything, and for a time he raged around the city and surrounding towns searching for Bette, thinking he saw that cute arse and long, yellow hair everywhere he looked. He looted, he destroyed, he killed twice more, he fucked, sometimes by force, until they said he must leave. They barricaded themselves in, with Wedge outside.