by Frank Tayell
A letter had arrived that morning from Riley. She was working the investigation into the Railway Company. Five arrests had been made, and Riley expected to make at least five more, but not many more than that. The Railway Company had been nationalised, but nothing had obviously changed. The trains still ran on time. Telegrams were still delivered. The war in France continued.
“Life goes on,” she said.
“It finds a way, doesn’t it,” Isaac said. “We’re reaching the end of the road, at least as far as it runs in this square on your grid. Are we continuing, or going back?”
“No,” Ruth said. “We’ll go… that way.” She pointed eastward, mostly because the ferns looked less dense than the bracken dotting the land to the west. “Are you going to build your antenna?” Ruth asked as she pushed a path through the damp fronds.
“I am not going to build it,” Isaac said. “But a radio antenna is going to be built in the grounds of the castle.”
“And you’ll use it for your phone network?”
“I will.”
“And who’s going to have access to that?” Ruth asked.
“In time, everyone.”
“How much time?” she asked.
“How swift does a river flow?” Isaac replied.
Ruth didn’t press. Isaac was, for the most part, actually answering her questions. The answers weren’t always complete, and they were rarely in depth, but they were answers.
The ferns thinned as the trees grew taller. They passed the remains of a wall, and then the ruin of a house. A fire had gutted it decades before, perhaps even before the Blackout. Ravens had taken nest therein, and they scattered as Ruth and Isaac approached, taking to the low branches of a towering oak. Beyond the house was a road, and beyond that was an old stone bridge that ran over a dry riverbed.
“That bridge,” Ruth said. “That’s familiar. Where are we?”
“The garden centre where we found Illyakov is about a quarter mile northwest of here,” Isaac said.
“Did we come near here during the chase?”
“Here, no,” Isaac said.
“So why is it familiar?” Ruth said.
“Perhaps it isn’t,” Isaac said. “I saw Marines practicing in the small-arms range with those AK-47s we found with Illyakov.”
“You did?”
“It’s a worrying development,” Isaac said.
“Why?” Ruth asked. She crossed to the broken balustrade, and peered up and down the dry riverbed. “I mean, there’s no point wasting that ammunition, is there?”
“It means we’re so short of ammunition we have to take it from the enemy,” Isaac said.
The riverbed was covered in shrubs and a few stubby saplings struggling to reach daylight under the shadow of the far larger trees on either side of the embankment.
“You have a store of ammunition, don’t you?” Ruth said. “Maybe you should donate that to the cause.” Hands grabbing for branches and roots, she slid down the embankment.
“And this was a new suit,” Isaac muttered as he skidded down the bank after her. “I do have ammunition, but not enough to supply a war.”
“Hmm. Is this familiar?” Ruth peered at cracked pillar supporting the bridge.
“You tell me,” Isaac said.
“Probably not,” Ruth said. “Which way is Dover? That way?” She set off along the riverbed. “What about your people, like Kelly and Mrs Zhang, why don’t you get them to join the Marines?”
“They are not suited to taking orders,” Isaac said, following her.
“They take orders from you,” Ruth said.
“The people who… listen to me do so because I have offered them a refuge in a world where no other could be found. They are fighters, not soldiers.”
Ruth let it go.
“I saw Mr Watanabe yesterday,” she said. “There’s nothing to charge him with. Not yet, anyway, but Sprocket and Sprung has been shut down while the Naval Intelligence Office and Commissioner Weaver battle over which one of them has the jurisdiction to continue the investigation.”
“How is Mr Watanabe?” Isaac asked.
“Busy,” Ruth said. “He’s taken over a room near the railway station, him and the rest of his old co-workers. They’re back to repairing everything that needs to be fixed. But you know what he said?”
“Tell me,” Isaac said.
“That after the radio broadcast, after they said Cavendish’s confession was recorded on a tablet, people have been coming in with battered phones and computers, asking if they can be repaired.”
“Ah, so is that a case of the more things change the more they stay the same, or is it more an example of the wheel of time returning us to our—”
“What’s that?” Ruth cut in, as she pushed through a dense patch of rhododendrons.
Ahead, covered in moss and ivy was a rusting truck. The doors at the back were open. The interior was empty except for a thin layer of mulch.
“How did they get it down here,” Isaac said. “There must be a road or track up there. They can’t have seen the gulch, and so drove right into it.”
Ruth pushed her way along the vehicle, to the cab. The windows were smashed, the glass gone.
“Oh,” she said, and took a step back.
“What?” Isaac said, coming up to join her.
“There are bones in here,” Ruth said. “Pecked clean.”
“By birds and foxes,” Isaac said. “The drivers, I suppose.”
“I suppose,” Ruth said. She was getting that feeling of déjà-vu again. She gripped the grab-bar next to the cab. It came away in her hand along with a few inches of rusting metal around the bolts. Ruth tried the door. It was jammed shut.
“What are you trying to do?” Isaac asked.
“There’s a… a wallet or something. It’s on the floor, do you see, next to that skull.”
“So?” Isaac asked.
“So this truck had to have come here after the Blackout, right? But we didn’t have money until recently. Not money you could put in a wallet. So why is there one on the floor of the cab?”
“Hang on, then.” Isaac pulled on the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “We need Gregory for this,” he said.
“How is he?” Ruth asked, as she braced her foot on the rotting rubber tyre and pulled herself onto the bonnet. The metal creaked, then dropped an inch.
“He’s getting better,” Isaac said. “Careful.”
“I’m almost… there,” Ruth said as she reached through the broken windscreen. “Got it,” she said, as she grabbed the wallet. She jumped off the cab. “Oh, it’s not a wallet. It’s a photo album. There’s an old couple in this picture, I think. And another in this one. Those are definitely pre-Blackout. And… oh. It’s a family. A man, a woman, a girl. A young girl. I guess… I guess it’s their daughter.” The picture was faded, the features indistinct. She took the photograph out of the thin plastic sleeve. The paper felt brittle. She peered at the three people, then turned the picture over. “Oh,” she said.
“What?” Isaac asked.
“Here,” Ruth said. “There are three names on the back, and a date that’s after the Blackout.”
“Hassan, Saleema, Sameen,” Isaac said. “Sameen. That girl in the picture is Sameen.” He looked from the picture to Ruth. “There’s no way of knowing that it’s you.”
“Isaac, I was here before,” Ruth said. “I remember now. I do.” She smiled. “I really do. I knew there was something familiar about this place. It’s just… it’s changed so much.”
2019
Saleema Hafiz tried to move her head, but it felt like lead. It was hard to tell how long had passed since they’d taken shelter in the ruined truck. Minutes? Hours? She wasn’t sure, but the rain had finally stopped. Hassan’s eyes were open. His head was nodding back and forth as if he was trying to speak, but no words came out. Sameen’s eyes were closed. She was twitching. Again, Saleema tried to move. Again, she found she couldn’t.
There was a loud bang as of s
omething hitting the cab. There was a rustle of leaves outside. Again, Saleema tried to move, tried to turn her head towards the feral animal that had found them and which would find them such easy prey. The cab door opened. It wasn’t an animal. It was a girl, around Sameen’s age and not too dissimilar in appearance. She had Sameen’s bear in her hand.
“Get help,” Saleema whispered.
The girl held the bear up towards Sameen.
“Go, girl, go! Get…. get help,” Saleema said. “The… The Five Bells… Go there. Please.”
Slowly, the girl lowered her hand, still holding the bear.
“Go. The Five Bells. There’s a man,” Saleema said. “He has… has medicine. Go. Please. Get… get help. The Five Bells… Five…” But the words were lost in a coughing fit.
Still clutching the bear, the girl turned, and ran away through the forest. Saleema tried to keep her eyes open, but couldn’t. They slid closed. It didn’t matter. She could rest now. The girl would get help. They would find Mr Emmitt, and arrest him. They would get the antidote and her family would be safe. They would reach Twynham, and then America. They would go to the wide plains. Their daughter would run barefoot through the waist high grass, knowing nothing but peace and love in a world without fear.
And then, like Hassan five minutes before, and her daughter a minute before that, Saleema Hafiz died.
2039
“I was here before,” Ruth said.
Isaac frowned. “I don’t understand why you’re smiling.”
“It’s not funny,” Ruth said. “I mean, this is sad. It’s tragic, but look. Look at that skull. It’s not an adult’s skull.” She pointed through the window. “Look at the bones. There were two adults and a child who died in that cab.” She held up the photograph. “Hassan, Saleema, and Sameen. The girl Emmitt was looking for, she died in this truck.”
“You’re not Sameen,” Isaac said. “What else do you remember?”
“A woman telling me to go to the Five Bells,” Ruth said. “No. No, I remember her saying The Five Bells. That’s it, really. Then I remember running. Then… it’s a blur, really. I remember Maggie. I remember, finally, feeling safe. That’s all. I don’t think it matters, not really, because I was just the person who found them. I went to get help, so I ran to the camp. There, Maggie found me, but no one found these people. Not until now. I’m not Sameen. The girl Emmitt was looking for is dead. It’s over, Isaac. It really is. Come on, we need to follow this river bed and mark exactly where it is, because we’ll need to find this truck again.”
“We will?” Isaac asked.
“We have to bury the bodies,” Ruth said. “But not here. And not at the old refugee camp. We should bury them at a cemetery in Dover where they won’t be forgotten.”
She trudged back along the riverbed, towards the city.
The war wouldn’t be over by Christmas, but Christmas would come. 2039 would end, and a new year would begin. It would bring sadness and joy, work and pain, but she would face it as a new person. A great burden had been lifted from her, one she’d not realised she was carrying. For the first time in her life, she knew who she was. She was Ruth Deering. She was Maggie Deering’s daughter. She was an officer in the British constabulary. Life goes on, and she felt like hers was about to begin.
The end.
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Surviving The Evacuation & Here We Stand
The outbreak began in New York. Within days, it spread throughout the world. Nowhere is safe from the undead. Books 1-3 are the journals of Bill Wright, a political operative trapped in London after the city is evacuated. Books 4-7 tell of Nilda, a mother searching the wasteland for her son, and Chester, a criminal in search of repentance. Books 8 onwards recount the last ten thousand survivors of humanity’s attempt to build a new society out of the ashes of the old world.
Here We Stand is the story of the North American survivors, and the collapse of the United States.
1: London, 2: Wasteland, Zombies vs The Living Dead, 3: Family, 4: Unsafe Haven, 5: Reunion, 6: Harvest, 7: Home, Here We Stand 1: Infected, Here We Stand 2: Divided, Book 8: Anglesey, 9: Ireland, 10: The Last Candidate, 11: Search and Rescue
Post-apocalyptic Detective novels:
Strike a Match
In 2019, the AIs went to war. Millions died before a nuclear holocaust brought an end to their brief reign of terror. Billions more succumbed to radiation poisoning, disease, and the chaotic violence of that apocalypse. Some survived. They rebuilt.
Twenty years later, civilization is a dim shadow of its former self. Crime is on the rise, aided by a shadowy conspiracy. It is down to Detectives Mitchell, Riley, and Deering of the Serious Crimes Unit to unmask the conspirators and save their fragile democracy.
1. Serious Crimes, 2. Counterfeit Conspiracy, 3. Endangered Nation
Work Rest Repeat
Sixty years after The Great War, the last survivors of humanity have taken shelter in giant towers. The colony ships that will allow them to leave the diseased Earth are nearing completion when two murders are discovered. For our species to survive, the criminals must be caught, and the launch must go ahead.
Thanks for reading.