by Frank Tayell
Bill knocked at a door and then paused, uncertain how long he should wait. A few seconds would do. He walked back down the path, onto the road, and then up the path to the next house. Opposite, Chester did the same. At the end of the street, they walked into the middle of the road to meet one another.
“There’s no one here,” Bill said.
“Who’d want to stay behind?” Chester said.
“Let’s try a few more,” Bill said. “Have you decided on what to recommend to your people from London?”
“I’d like to see Belfast first,” Chester said. “Personally, I’d feel happier in a city, but I think it’ll come down to Eamonn. If he’s going to stay in Elysium, that’s where we’ll go. I think it’s important for the kids to know that we’ll stick together, come what may.”
“Fair enough.” He didn’t ask how Chester planned to get there from Belfast. Either he’d already arranged something with Heather Jones, or he was unaware that he might have a long walk ahead of him. That was Chester’s problem to solve.
They continued down the street, pausing halfway when there was a blast from the ship’s horn.
Bill turned to look back towards the harbour. “I guess they’re leaving,” he said. “That really was quicker than I was expecting.”
“No safety checks,” Chester said. “No boarding calls. No customs. Just get on and leave. There’s something to be said for post-apocalyptic travel.”
Bill looked up and down the street. Still no one had come to a door. “This is pointless. Everyone’s known we were going to leave. They’ve known for weeks. I can’t knock on every door. I can’t save everyone. I have to try.” He thought of the woman burned alive in Bishop’s campsite. “But I have to learn when to say that I have tried. I’ve done all I can here. There’s work in Belfast that needs doing.”
But, first, he had to collect Sorcha Locke.
No one came to meet him at the power plant. There was no guard at the gate, no sign of Chief Watts or his team, or of any life until he climbed the stairs and found the two Marine guards in the constabulary office.
“It’s time to leave,” Bill said.
“Settle up, private,” Khan said. “You’re down… let’s see… another two hundred thousand.”
Private Kessler pushed a stack of notes towards him. “I’m short. I’ll have to owe you the rest.”
“I’ll just take it out of your pay,” Khan said. “Locke thought you’d left us behind,” he added.
“Not quite,” Bill said. “I just didn’t think it was a good idea having her trapped on a boat for a couple of days with a lot of tired, hungry, and uncomfortable people. Pack your gear.”
Khan gave his bag a kick. “We’re ready,” he said, picking up his rifle. He left the money on the table. “Dollars next time, Private.”
“Aye, Sarge,” Kessler said.
Locke was at her desk, the exercise book in front of her, but it was closed.
“Is it time?” she asked.
“The water treatment plant has failed,” Bill said.
“I heard,” Locke said. “We’re leaving, I take it?”
“By plane,” Bill said. “We’ll land on the motorway outside of Belfast Harbour. When we get there… Look, I can’t promise you’ll be safe. We can hold back the mob, but there’s little we can do about a knife in the dark. Either help us, or leave. There are a few small boats left for Chief Watts and his team. Take one, go wherever you like.”
“When given the choice,” Locke said, “I always prefer to fly.”
“Then tell us where these facilities of yours are,” Bill said. “At some point, my patience is going to run out. At some point, I’m going to let the mob have its way.”
“I don’t think you will,” Locke said. “You say we’re going to Belfast, not Elysium?”
“Belfast, that’s right,” Bill said.
“I see. And some ships are going to Elysium?”
“Why?”
“I’ve lived in Belfast, I’ve lived in Elysium; I know which I’d prefer.”
“Well, for now we’re going to Belfast,” he said. “If we survive the next month, who knows?” He didn’t let the triumph show as he walked out of the door. “Take her to the airport,” he said to Khan and Kessler. “We’ll be there in an hour. I want to check in with the Chief.”
“You look happy,” Chester said when they were outside.
“I think I am,” Bill said. “You know how it is, when everything’s so desperate that the most meagre scrap of news counts as good, well, this is the most meagre scrap of them all. I think Locke left something in Elysium. It has to be a clue to where Kempton’s vaults and bunkers are.”
“That explains why she’s not left,” Chester said. “I wondered about that. Surely she’d know what the locations of the bunkers were, though. So is it just that she wants to stop us finding out where they are? She wants to destroy some clue as to their location.”
Bill frowned. “When Elysium was overrun by the undead, she left this… whatever it is, she left it behind. It wasn’t of use to her then, but it is now. Maybe you’re right, maybe she just wants to stop us getting our hands on it. It’s a meagre scrap, the thinnest of threads, but it is something. When we get to Belfast, I’ll put an ultimatum to Locke.”
“Can’t you get word to Elysium, get them to look for it?” Chester asked.
“Sure,” Bill said. Though he wasn’t sure he would. The admiral’s people were in Elysium. If the list contained the exact co-ordinates of a bunker in the United States, he didn’t want the admiral to take that, take her people, and disappear. No, Kim was right, they had to stay together. It was the only way. Even if that meant they all travelled to America together, it would be better than dying apart.
Chapter 19 - Airborne
Anglesey and Above
Bill stood on the runway, watching the rain.
“You ready, mate?” Higson called from the plane’s doorway.
“Just a minute,” Bill said. He wanted to say goodbye. He just wasn’t sure to whom he was bidding that farewell. Looking back on it, Anglesey had never been his home. Not their home. It was a place they’d stumbled across. Like everyone else, like all those survivors who’d stayed on their boats rather than step ashore, it was a pause. A gap between the horrors of the outbreak and the labours that were to come. No, looking back on the conversations he’d had with Kim and the girls, the dreams and fantasies of a life after the undead, their dreams weren’t of somewhere like Anglesey. The island had been a haven, but not a home.
Maybe the same could be said of wherever they went if he based his idea of a functioning society on a world that was now gone. They wouldn’t return to the Dark Ages, because that was in the past. The future was going to be different. Not necessarily worse, but there was no certainty it would be any better. Perhaps it was time to think more like Locke, or more like Heather Jones. Perhaps not everyone could survive. Perhaps not even democracy could survive. Perhaps it was all he could do to keep his family safe. Perhaps.
“I want to land her before the storm,” Higson called. “The wind’s picking up, and it’ll be worse on that motorway so close to the sea.”
“Just a minute.”
Bill took one last look at the Welsh island. The roofs. The trees. The ruins. No one would ever come back to Anglesey. Not for five hundred years. Maybe not even then. That was the one certainty he had. Anglesey was a place that would only exist in legends and myths. The place where they’d stopped being survivors, and began their journey towards something new.
“Thank you,” he whispered. He turned his back on the past, and climbed aboard the plane that would take him to the future.
Despite being virtually empty, the plane seemed even smaller than it had from the outside. All bar ten seats had been removed, and they were mostly unoccupied.
“Is this it?” Chester asked.
“Other than the chief and his people, we’re the last,” Bill said. “Chief Watts has a couple of fixed-
RHIB boats, and Sophia Augusto is on her way back to collect them if they need to leave early. Otherwise, they’ll stay until the bitter end, whenever that is. So, yes, we’re ready to go.”
“Any chance a steward’s going to bring round some drinks?” Sergeant Khan asked.
“I’ll ask the pilot,” Bill said.
Neither Locke nor Kessler said anything. The Irishwoman wore that frustratingly bemused smile. The private looked nervous. Perhaps it had been indelicate to put her on the plane. Bill had first met her during the admiral’s ill-fated attempt to drive fuel-tankers from Belfast airport to the harbour. Kessler had been with Major Lewis, and he’d been infected, died. She’d had to kill the zombie the major became. She’d taken that hard, and been guarding Locke as a form of light duties while she recovered. But it was too late to put her on a ship now.
“Next stop, Belfast,” Bill said, and made his way up to the cockpit.
“Sit yourself down,” Higson said. “The view’s better from up here.”
“I’ve never sat in a cockpit before,” Bill said, strapping himself in. He took in the instruments. “What do I do?”
“Nothing,” Higson said. “And I mean it. Don’t touch a thing.”
“Right. Sure.” Bill sat with his hands on his lap, watching the runway. He almost wished he was in the back, where there would be less to see. That would mean conversation, perhaps with Locke, but certainly with Chester. They had talked a little since Chester had arrived from Birmingham, mostly over meals, and never about anything too deep. In some ways, they were both avoiding the topic of their first almost-meeting. It was something they should discuss. Kim certainly thought so. Now wasn’t the time. No, now all he wanted was to get to Belfast, speak to the admiral, then to Locke, and then find what was hidden in Elysium. He knew better than to let himself believe it would be the answer to all their problems, but it might stop a few new ones from developing. America? Why not? In fact, now he thought about it, it might be the only way to stave off disaster. Not just disaster, but it might prevent their extinction.
Kim was right on that score. They had to stay together. All of them, for as long as they could. The alternative was withering and fracturing until there were too few people left to repopulate. There were many books with many different theories on the minimum size of a viable population. Most of those books had been found among Dr Umbert’s possessions. What none of the books addressed was how radiation exposure would impact on the birth rate. Equally, the books pre-supposed a population of adults in their early twenties. The people on Anglesey skewed older. Theories only got you so far. In practice, they would assume the worst and that was why they had to stick together for as long as possible.
As much as Kim was right, so was Mary. The grain was all going to Belfast. What would they do if Heather Jones asked for some of it? The medical equipment and most of the doctors were in Elysium. Would grain buy healthcare? It wouldn’t happen immediately, because, yes, the admiral was still in Belfast, but it would happen. The time would come, and in a short few months, when there was no grain left. No fish, either, not if the better sailing boats were all in the south. No, they had to keep the people of Anglesey together for as long as possible, even if all they were sailing towards was a memory of an old New World and a dream of hope.
“Not Anglesey,” Bill murmured.
“What’s that?” Higson asked.
“I keep thinking of us collectively as the people of Anglesey. We’ll need a new name.”
“You should run a competition in that newssheet you put out,” Higson said. “You ready, because here we go. Buckle up!” he yelled into the back.
“Don’t you have a intercom?” Bill asked as the plane juddered.
“Nah, I took it out,” Higson said. “It was just extra weight.”
The plane shuddered. Bill closed his eyes. The plane shook. He opened his eyes again in time to see the buildings speed past.
“And… up!” Higson pulled on the stick.
Bill shut his eyes, more firmly this time.
“I knew she had it in her,” Higson said.
“You weren’t sure?” Bill asked through gritted teeth.
“Never am,” Higson said. “Not until I’m in the clouds. Right, that’s the hard part mostly done. Just got to pick up some height, then we’ll turn. Do you want to see some of Wales first?”
“Not especially,” Bill said. “Did it always feel this terrifying?”
“When was the last time you flew?” Higson asked.
“August. In a hot air balloon when Sholto and I escaped from Quigley,” Bill said. “Before that, I don’t know. A year ago, I suppose. To Frankfurt, maybe. No, it was Finland. For a conference on basic income.”
“Bill, we’ve got a problem,” Higson said, all good cheer gone from his voice.
“What kind of problem?” Bill asked.
“I can’t turn,” Higson said. “Look.” He wrenched the stick left, then right. “See?”
“Is there… I mean… What does it mean?” Bill asked.
“It means the controls are unresponsive.”
“Can we stop going up?”
“Good question.” Higson eased the stick forward. The plane levelled. “Yep. We can go down, and…” He eased back on the stick. “And we can go up. We can’t turn. I’m going to bring her up a bit more.”
“What’s gone wrong?” Bill asked. “Why’s this happened?”
“There’s three possibilities,” Higson said, “none of which I can check while we’re in the air. We’re flying more or less due southeast. In about twenty minutes, we’ll be over the Snowdonia National Park.” He looked again at the instruments. “Actually, we’ll be a pile of smoking wreckage halfway up Snowdon. I’ll give her some more height. Fingers crossed.”
“What for?’
“That we can level off again after the climb. There are some maps in the pouch next to your seat. Take ’em out, see where we’re heading.”
The map at the top was Australia. Bill glanced over at Higson. He didn’t need a map to picture a line running southeast across the planet. “Did you do this?” he asked.
“Do what?” Higson asked.
“Sabotage the plane,” Bill said. “Southeast of Anglesey is Australia.”
“Not on this bearing; we’re ten degrees off,” Higson said. He bent forward and flipped a switch on the control panel. “But no, I didn’t do this. We’ve got fuel for four-thousand miles. Maybe four and a half depending on the wind. That’ll bring us down somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Do me a favour and work out where.”
Bill sorted through the maps until he found Wales. “We’re flying southeast?”
“Give or take a few degrees,” Higson said. “Give or take a few more because of the wind, and your guess is as good as mine as to what that’ll be like.”
“So, we’ll pass over Caernarfon first.”
“We already have, mate,” Higson said. “We’re at four hundred knots right now. I’m going to slow her down a bit, give us some thinking time.”
“Right. We’ll fly over Snowdonia, and into England. Then over Worcester, Oxford, then London, more or less. We’ll cross the coast somewhere between Eastbourne and Hastings. Then there’s the Channel, and then France. We’ll fly over Paris, I think.” He sorted through the maps, searching for ones of Europe and beyond.
“I can picture the rest,” Higson said. “Switzerland, then Italy, though we’ll skim the eastern edge. We’ll skip over some of the Greek islands before hitting the southern shore of the Mediterranean. Egypt, maybe over the Suez Canal, then either the Red Sea, or over Saudi. Then it’s Yemen, and then we’ll be in the drink. In the Arabian Gulf if we’re lucky, the Indian Ocean if we’re not. Either way, we won’t reach Oz.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Bill asked.
“Depends on whether there’s somewhere we can land,” Higson said. “And it won’t be Belfast. Not Anglesey either. I might be able to manage a degree or two of turn, but not more than
that.”
“Right,” Bill unbuckled his belt. “See if you can… can do something. I’ll tell the others.” He pulled himself up and through to the cabin.
The passengers looked calm. Chester was asleep; at least, his eyes were closed. Locke was jotting notes in her exercise book. Khan was reading, while Private Kessler was listening to a battered phone through an equally battered pair of earbuds. She saw his face, and pulled them out.
“What is it?” Kessler asked.
“We can’t turn the plane,” Bill said, and all eyes turned to him. His own eyes were on the private, but his focus was on Locke. If his first suspicion was of Higson, his second was of her. “Higson can’t work out why until we set down. Right now, we’re heading roughly southeast. We’re going to fly over England, London, the Channel, and then France. Italy, the Med, the Red Sea, and into the Arabian Gulf.” He turned to Chester. “Any ideas where we can land near London?”
“You mean like a road?” Chester asked.
“Or a field,” Bill said. “I know Nilda couldn’t find a landing site, but we don’t need the plane to fly again.”
“I can’t think of one where we’d survive the crash,” Chester said. “Roads are out, what with most of them being fenced in during the evacuation.”
“What about fields?” Sergeant Khan asked.
“I can think of a few,” Chester said. “I don’t know that I could pinpoint them on a map, let alone from up here.”