by Frank Tayell
“We look at the images, and then we mark them off on the maps.” Annette gestured to the stack of atlases and road maps on the table near the wall. “Anything that looks like it might be people gets noted down. We’re going to draw up a list so, when we can change the orbit of the satellite, we’ll know where to look.”
“Why here?” Kim asked. “Why not at home?”
Annette pointed to the crowd outside. “I thought people might be interested. I was right.”
“We have to start somewhere,” Sholto said. “So let’s start with what we’ve got.” I sensed he wasn’t talking about the satellites. I’d not seen much of him after the shooting. In retrospect, I realised that I should have made time. He was the one who’d almost been shot, after all. Whether this was how he was dealing with it, or whether he’d come to some deeper understanding of our situation, he’d found a way to work through it. And what he was working on was far more productive than my fretting over the future.
“You did this yourself?” I asked.
“Oh no,” Annette said. “Thaddeus helped.”
“Helped?” he muttered, taking a pair of wire-strippers to the cable’s plastic coating.
I glanced around the room again, then out the window. It had seemed like a lot of people. In truth it was about thirty, but that was still significant. People were looking at the screens, writing down a location on the board, and then drifting away. I remembered what Lorraine had said on our boat ride to Caernarfon, that a few weeks before, everyone had feared Quigley’s submarine would kill them all. What people had needed was hope. I, George, Mary, all of us who had claimed some portion of leadership, had failed to provide it. Here it was. It was small, almost to the point of insignificance. Almost, but it was tangible. It wasn’t the hope that some relative’s home might be found intact and full of life. It was simply the knowledge that there was a world beyond the island. Ruined, wrecked, yet still there. All those grand schemes for elections and economies, currency and constitutions, they were important, but too abstract. The images shone a light on the terror that had gripped each of us since the power first went out. It was why the journal had been so popular. It provided proof, of a sort, where before there had only been rumours and hearsay. An image on a screen was believable. It was understandable. The image on the screen immediately in front of us certainly was.
“Which airport is that?” Kim asked.
“Belfast International,” an Australian voice said. I realised the man standing right in front of me was Scott Higson, the baker.
“That’s where there’s helicopters, and tankers full of aviation fuel?” I asked.
“That’s it,” he said. “You can’t see them from here, they’re a mile to the south.”
“Can we drag the image—” I began, reaching for the mouse.
“Of course not,” Annette said, in her almost perfect imitation of Kim. “Honestly, Bill. It’s not like an internet map. It’s just pictures that we’ve downloaded. We need special software to stitch them together before you can…” Her eyes narrowed as she tried to remember the explanation she’d been given. “You know, before you can click and drag and stuff. You can’t expect us to have done that as well.”
“Fair enough,” Kim said. “So what’s so interesting about the runway?”
“Do you see it?” Higson asked.
“The runway? Sure,” I said.
“That’s my point,” Higson said. “You can see it.”
“Not all of it,” Kim said. “A couple of jets have crashed halfway along.”
“That’s a Boeing 757, and that one, that’s an Airbus A320,” Higson said. “So the question is how wide is the gap between the wings. You can see the damage to the Boeing’s tail section. And do you see the shadow under the Airbus? Its undercarriage has collapsed.”
I peered at the screen, uncertain which shadow I was looking at.
“You mean you can’t fly them?” Kim asked.
“I can fly anything,” Higson said, “as long as it’s airworthy, but those two aren’t. No, it’s a matter of clearance. That’s why I was looking here, at the hangar. I’m positive that’s an old VC10.”
“I’m lost,” I said, and realised that everyone inside the room was listening.
“It’s a supply plane,” Higson said. “The RAF used them for refuelling and transport. They were retired from service a few years back, but I’m sure that’s what it is. Begs the question of how it ended up there, of course. Must have arrived during the quarantine, otherwise why’d it be in a hangar? I reckon someone started taxiing it out onto the runway, then changed their mind.”
Now conscious of my audience, I chose my words with care. “And why is that plane important?”
“Of course, it’s the runway, isn’t it,” Kim said. “I’m sorry, we didn’t tell you, Bill. So much happened that I forgot.”
“I didn’t,” Annette said.
“We went to the runway yesterday,” Kim said. “While you were…” And she hesitated as if she’d just become aware of all the people listening. “While you were investigating the murder, Annette and I went to the runway.”
“And you should have just come and asked,” Higson said. “There’s a few pot-holes to fill, and some debris to clear, but give me a couple of days and a few strong backs, and it’ll be fine for your drones. More importantly, it’ll be perfect for a VC10. They were originally designed for ramshackle runways.”
“I still don’t follow,” I said. “Why do we need a plane?”
“It’s the fuel,” Higson said. “Those fuel tankers near the airport. The plan was to bring it back in helicopters, but what do we need them for? We want to fly drones, right? That’s the plan, isn’t it? Well a drone needs far less fuel than a helicopter, so why not fly it in? We send some people in, secure the runway, fill up the plane, and fly it back. Simple. It’ll be no more than a day’s work, and an hour’s flight.”
It would be more work than that, but I didn’t say so. There had been a muttered agreement from the people in the room, and it was edged with enthusiasm.
“I… I suppose,” I said slowly. “But… hmm. I’m not sure we can spare the Special Forces and sailors for this. And we can’t ask the Americans, not yet. They’re going to need a few weeks to get used to dry land. We’d have to get volunteers.”
“Yeah, no worries,” Higson said, addressing the room. “So who’s up for it?”
And there was an almost enthusiastic response. Almost. That enthusiasm might disappear before there was a boat ready to leave. A large portion of it would disappear as soon as everyone left the shop. Perhaps it was because departure wasn’t imminent that people were happy to volunteer. It didn’t matter. It was something, and it was more than we’d had a week before, and infinitely more than either Kim or I had expected to find when we’d left the house.
“So what about it, then,” Higson asked. “Is it a goer?”
I had no authority. But they’d all read the journal. They knew me and what I’d done, and knew that I was, if not in power, at least in close proximity to it.
“At the moment the satellites are tracking the hordes for the groups that are on the mainland,” I said. “As soon as they’re back, we’ll get some more pictures of Belfast, and the airport. We’ll need a route in, and a route out, and a lot more planning besides that if we’re going to do it safely. But I think so. I’ll take the idea to Mary and see what she says.”
“That was unexpected,” I said to Kim when we were outside.
“Was it?” Kim said. “Why should we be the only people worrying about the future? In fact, when you think about it, those people on the boats must do little else, otherwise they really would come ashore. As for Annette, she must have heard us talking last night. It must have terrified her, though she’ll never admit it. She wants to control her fears, I think. Though I’m saying that because it’s what I try to do. She felt she had to do something, so she ran with the idea that we discussed.”
“The radio, t
he drones, that was just idle talk,” I said.
“I don’t think she knows what that is,” Kim said, “and, to be honest, that’s for the best. There’s an opportunity here. Something we can build on, a moment that could become a movement.”
“Then we better speak to Mary and George,” I said.
“You do that,” Kim said. “I’m going to find some more screens. Some more computers, too. Maybe see if Scott will provide bread and coffee for all these people, and then see if I can get them to help clear the runway before their enthusiasm fades. Yes, Bill, this really could become something.”
George was in the clinic, and still in his hospital bed. Mary was by his side, and tried to shoo me away, but the old man welcomed me in.
“That girl of yours has hidden widths as well as depths,” Mary said after I’d explained what Annette had done and how people had reacted. “We were planning a trip to Belfast, but not like this. What do you think George?”
“As you keep reminding me,” he said, “know your weaknesses, know your strengths, and know them in others, too. I don’t know where we’ll find any drones, or whether there’s really any point looking, but that fuel could power some tractors.”
“Not many,” Mary said.
“But maybe it’d be enough,” George said. “Bringing back one plane is easier than a squadron of helicopters that might not have the range. I think it’s time to accept our old plans need to be torn up. Even if we persuade Svalbard to hand over their oil, how are we going to bring it down here? How long will it take? No, one trip, one plane, and we might have enough fuel to get the fields ploughed before the first frost. What else do we need the oil for right now? We can row to Caernarfon and Bangor, and sail to the Isle of Man and Ireland. If the admiral wants to leave, let her, and let her have Svalbard’s oil. She can’t possibly use it all. And what does it matter if she goes, as long as she knows she’ll always find a safe harbour here?”
“She’s talking about leaving?” I asked.
“She is,” Mary said. “Until her ship is repaired, it’s a threat more than a promise, but it has been made. Hmm.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ll be glad when someone else is doing this job. Drones? I can’t see how they would help us rescue anyone.”
“It was an idle conversation,” I said, “but I don’t think Annette realised that.”
“If we find signs of people, we’ll launch a rescue mission,” George said. “Of course we will. And if we manage to get some drones, we’ll find a use for them. Right now, what’s important is taking advantage of people’s enthusiasm. It’s better than forcing them into action through fear, and that’s what we were planning to do with this trial.”
“You don’t think we should have a trial?” I asked.
He raised his hand to his bandaged shoulder. “An inch lower and I wouldn’t be saying anything at all, not ever again, but no, there has to be a trial. I’ve got a list of lawyers in my notebook at home. There’s a star by the name of those I think could be judges. They’re impartial,” he added. “Or as close to it as you can get. Hold a trial and do it quickly. Don’t cover it up, but let it be overshadowed by all of this.”
Mary mulled it over. “I wanted people to leave their boats. I wanted them to come ashore, to live without fear. To farm. To live an older style of life.”
“But they don’t want to, Mary,” George said. “Not yet, at least.”
“No,” she agreed. “Then let’s put out another statement. We’ll ask for volunteers to report to the airport. Then we’ll know how deep this enthusiasm runs.”
“Belfast won’t be enough,” I said. “We can use the satellites to survey the coast. We could dispatch sailing boats to anywhere there might be supplies or people. It doesn’t matter whether any are found. What matters is that people go, return, and are willing to venture out again.”
“The lad has a point,” George said, “but as it’s important that people return, we should pick the places we send them with care.”
“Nowhere too far from the coast,” Mary said. “The Isle of Man, perhaps. That emergency beacon that Kim saw as they were sailing north to Svalbard didn’t turn itself on. And then there’s the woman she found, Nilda. How many others are clinging on to some barren rock in the middle of an angry ocean? I wanted people to leave their boats, but perhaps we can make use of their desire to live afloat.”
“What about that house in Ireland, the one with the turbines and solar panels,” George said. “Didn’t Sholto say it was close to the coast? I daresay people would enjoy looting a billionaires mansion.”
“I daresay they would,” Mary said. “But not you, George. You heard what the doctor said. Yes, we’ll abandon our old plans, but we’ve got the beginnings of a new one.”
Chapter 12 - Elysium, The Republic of Ireland
09:30, 21st September, Day 193
That was far from the end of it. There was a trial in which Rachel was found not guilty. Dozens of expeditions were organised, but that wasn’t the only by-product of Llewellyn’s murder and Paul’s death. There is a lot more to tell, but it will have to wait because, as I was writing, I heard gunfire.
I left the small office, climbed up onto the garage’s roof, and crawled along to its edge. The zombies by the sheet metal shutters had already begun drifting away. They moved in such an erratic fashion that it was hard to pinpoint precisely where they were heading, but it wasn’t directly towards the mansion. I waited, half-hoping for more shots. They didn’t come.
I saw two possible explanations for the gunfire. It might be deliberate, an attempt to distract the undead as Kim, Simon, and Rob made an attempt at rescue. I lay there, watching, waiting, hoping, but saw no one. The other, darker, and more plausible reason for the shots was that they had run out of ammunition for the assault rifles. Simon and Rob’s SA80s, and Kim’s sniper rifle, have suppressors. An unsilenced shot meant they’d resorted to their sidearms. To me, that spoke of desperation.
I counted to five, then to ten. Twenty. Thirty. A minute. Two. All the time, I told myself to watch and wait, that I’d see a zombie fall and the rescue begin. Five minutes passed, and I’d seen nothing except the undead slowly lurching away. Whether the worst had happened or not, the zombies were distracted, and that gave me an opportunity that I had to take. I had to get to the mansion. If Kim had escaped, I wouldn’t be able to catch up with her. If she was in danger, I might already be too late.
A hasty survey of each of the roof’s four sides gave me a rough estimate of the danger I was about to throw myself into. There were still twenty zombies within a grasping arm’s reach of the metal shutters. Another ten were drifting towards the fountain twenty metres to the north. There were none directly between the garage and the western side of the mansion. However, there were many more near the tennis court, pushing their way through the branches of the fir hedge. I ignored them. The mansion was my goal.
As quietly as I could, I climbed back down into the office, and moved the filing cabinet from where it was blocking the door. Agonising over the rasp of rusting metal, I slid back the bolts. I wasn’t going to escape through that door, but I’ve been trapped too often not to leave an escape route prepared. If I couldn’t get inside the house, I’d need somewhere to which I could retreat. I climbed up onto the roof and pulled the ladder up after me.
There were only two zombies on the western side of the garage, and I’d already decided that was where I would descend. The creature furthest from the mansion was bareheaded and scalped. Otherwise, it was so covered in mud I couldn’t tell if it was wearing the outdoor gear of one of Kempton’s people. It was squatting, chin against chest, with its knuckles lying languidly on the ground. The other, the zombie closest to the mansion, wore a black and white fur hat and an American-style baseball jacket. It had heard me. At least, it had heard something. It had risen from its somnolent crouch and now stood, back bent, head swivelling from side to side, but its attention was on the house. I’d have about three seconds’ advant
age. I positioned the ladder on the roof, ten feet from the scalped zombie, and then crept back along the edge. I dropped the pike so it landed spear-point first in front of the jacketed creature. With a snarl, the zombie swiped at the weapon. I ran back to the ladder, dropped it over the side, and hop-jumped down. I spared half a second to stamp on the bottom rung, digging the ladder’s legs deep into the loose soil. The scalped zombie was only just beginning to stand, so I ignored it. Drawing the hatchet, I raised it above my head as the jacketed zombie staggered towards me. There was just enough time to register the receding-lipped snarl on a sunken face, the mud-coated jeans, and the nape-to-navel rip in its red-chequered shirt. It lurched a final step, and I swung the axe down. The blade split skin, cracked bone, and destroyed brain. For the fleetest of moments its expression froze and almost, almost, looked human. It fell. I tore the axe free and jammed it back in my belt as I limped over to the pike, still vibrating back and forth in the soil. I ripped it free, twirling it round and up in a fountain of mud and grass.
Keep moving, I thought, and don’t look back. That was easy to think, hard to do. I could hear the zombie lumbering behind me, but there wasn’t time to fight. I reached the garage’s edge. The zombies beating against the shutters had heard me. They were bumping into one another as they staggered my way, arms outstretched, mouths gaping open.
Don’t look, I thought and fixed my eyes on the house. To my right came the sound of two dozen sets of decaying lungs expelling unbreathed air. I limped on. My eyes stayed glued to the ten marble steps leading up to the door of the mansion until I sensed movement to my right. Three zombies rounded the corner, walking so close together it was almost as if they had their arms on one another’s shoulders.
I reached the steps. Using the pike as a crutch, I hauled myself up the steep, worn stones, dragging my bad leg after me. The brace, which made walking almost as easy as it had been a year ago, made the steps as much of an obstacle for me as they were for the undead. I reached the top. The door was locked. I pushed. I slammed a fist into the wood. It didn’t move. Of course it was locked. I’d spent so much time debating the fate of Kim, Simon, and Rob I’d not given thought to the obvious.