After It Happened (Book 1): Survival

by Devon C. Ford

  “Boss” she said “Meet Lizzie” as a woman climbed out of the passenger seat. Sarah smiled nervously at him. “And this is Cara” said Lexi as she opened the rear doors “and Josh”

  Dan saw that Cara was young, and placed Josh at about three. He was a good-looking boy with blue eyes and bright blonde hair. Dan stifled a choked cry; he looked too much like his own boy for him to cope just now.

  He mumbled a welcome and excused himself, letting Penny take over and welcome them in. He stripped off his boots and got into the grey tracksuit again, then lay on his cot. Ash watched him closely, making him feel slightly uncomfortable after a while. He held his hand out to the dog who recoiled at first, then sniffed and licked at his hand. He finally lay down with Dan’s hand resting on the back of his head, and slept.

  He always envied dogs that ability. Two speeds; flat out and spark out.

  He took Ash out again about an hour later, walking him at heel whilst he ked, and shut him away again before dinner. The mood was high throughout the meal, and Penny had invited the new arrivals to say a bit about themselves. Lizzie was a nursing assistant who worked for a care company. She spent her days visiting people at home and helping them, changing dressings and the like. As she said this, Kate said loudly “MINE!” everyone laughed.

  Cara was in college having had Josh in her late teens to an absent boyfriend. Dan imagined that some people would have had an opinion on that two weeks ago, but those kind of grievances were void now. Josh was quiet and nervous, understandably.

  Penny called for departmental heads to stay, whilst the others had been escorted through to the lounge area. Penny made a short speech about how happy she was with the way the group was holding together and growing.

  “We now have twenty-seven members” she said proudly

  “Twenty-eight” said Dan with a smile, referring to Ash. His mood was improving now he had got used to the presence of Josh enough to see lots of differences between him and Michael.

  “Lizzie has obviously been taken by medical – no arguments there I think?” she said. Kate looked relieved to have some backup.

  “Cara has expressed experience in catering. I propose to have her cooking for now, with Eve attached for training. The children should be fine with them. All agreed?” she continued. All did agree and Penny’s obvious look of relief made it clear just how stressed she was at producing meals on top of organising.

  “Joe has asked to join the Rangers” she said, looking at Dan. That was no surprise, he seemed a bit of an army nut.

  “Pending assessment, yes” said Dan, and reminded them that he had the final say on whether someone gets a gun or not. He saw an eagerness in Joe that appeared not to be bolstered by arrogance and felt happy to be patient with him. The skills could be taught, but the temperament needed to be the solid foundation for teaching.

  “Mark has offered his services wherever they may be required, as he has no children to teach sports to” she finished

  Jimmy straightened in his seat “I’ll take him” he said hopefully.

  “Logistics it is then” she declared.

  DEVELOPMENTS

  The next month moved on quickly for them.

  Dan spent time each morning for the first five days working with Ash, making sure he was ok around the others and getting obedient. He made sure he was fine with Joe as he spent that first week teaching him weapon drills; building searches, maintenance and target practice. He had kitted him out with Neil’s Glock and leg holster as they were custom made for the weapons, and the scavenged webbing was fitted to him. They used the gym for the building drills, making Joe drive up and search with Dan observing and pointing out where he made mistakes. He resisted the urge to yell ‘BANG’ every time he left himself open.

  He had given Joe a standard M4 with a reflex sight as he wasn’t that accurate through a scope. He worked with him until he was over average accurate at forty metres. Good enough. The first time he’d got him to shoot he had left the gun empty deliberately. As he had expected, Joe flinched when he pulled the trigger. They worked to eradicate that instinct, and moved onto live rounds. He couldn’t afford to expend too much ammo in training without getting more stockpiled.

  As they worked, Ash sat some distance back where he had been told to stay and watched them. He was getting bigger every day and responded to English commands now, but Dan still used the German sometimes to show off. Joe was ok behind the wheel, and had even done a day off-roading recently with a Land Rover instructor. He showed him how to use the front and rear tow ropes too.

  Jay and Liam were making good progress with the tree, and Dan reckoned they already had a few tonnes of logs ready for winter. They would have to triple that before the weather got any worse, and it was already getting colder. A few storms had made them all take cover inside for hours at a time. They started to plan scavenging for the onset of bad weather, getting hot water bottles and cold weather gear.

  Mark had taken a shine to Lexi, which thankfully kept her away from him a bit. Neil and Ian had retrieved three more Defenders, two of which went into a shed on the farm until they were needed and the other was presented to Joe when he was officially declared a Ranger, albeit on probation.

  Cara had been a godsend in the kitchen, and was the one person Eve didn’t complain to. She was skilled at making cakes, and also baked some bread and made pastry for game pies as Pete had been bringing back a steady supply of rabbits and pigeons daily. Cara was named acting head of catering, as she was reluctant to take on a leadership role, and agreed to stay in that post until someone better was found. She was just happy to cook and be with the kids; the former making her popular overnight.

  Pete maintained that there were plenty of other things to hunt, but he knew about the breeding seasons and wanted the populations to stay healthy. He had been allocated a workshop as such over on ‘the gardens’ as they were now being called, which had previously been a butchers’ area. Good quality knives were found and the old gamekeeper settled into a routine of getting out after breakfast to check the snares he had left the night before. There was no sign of his drinking being and issue, although Dan did find a couple of bottles stashed in his butcher’s shop.

  Cedric and Maggie were the happiest of all. They left every day for the gardens to clear the greenhouses and polytunnels, ready to plant some vegetables after Christmas – Maggie had studied a book from the library in depth and knew what they had to do each month.

  As he expected, Leah had got bored after the initial phase of planning everything, and Dan decided to give her something new to learn; Neil had started teaching the members of the group who were either too young or unqualified to drive. Liam did well and Ana was picking it up slowly. Kyle and Leah struggled; Leah because she was young and Kyle because he was lazy. Jimmy kept Kyle in check, and Dan worried that he was working him too hard at times.

  Jimmy and Kev still made scavenging trips, but as the stores were almost full it wasn’t the top priority. They helped out on the farm and the gardens, then spent a few hours hauling logs before dinner. Everyone got into a good routine and the general mood was one of happiness and hope.

  Mike was moving around well but still tired quickly. Every day he built his strength up a little more by walking the grounds, often joining Dan as he worked Ash. He declared the solar panel project viable, but needed scaffolding and skilled people like builders. Dan agreed it should go on hold until next summer. In the meantime, Mike was working on rainwater collection and had already asked Jimmy and Kev to get a lorry load of materials ready for when he was fitter.

  They had a new addition after a few days; a young man from one of the farms Dan had visited found his message and had come calling on a quad bike. Chris, he was called, and he was excited at the prospect of joining. He knew about maintaining livestock, which made him a valuable person to the cause. He had left hat morning with a promise to return, and came back hours later on the quad bike herding some sheep. He made numerous return trips over
the next few days, bringing other animals using the cattle box from the gardens. He took over on the farm and moved animals around. Nobody argued with him as nobody had the knowledge. He was a hardworking man, thin as a rake and ginger – so much so that he got sunburn whenever the cloud cover broke - but he had a seemingly endless energy supply and enjoyed life every day.

  He was named head of agriculture and given a seat on ‘the council’ as Penny called it. She had offered Cedric and Maggie a place also, but they declined politely. They were just happy to be together and garden all day. Dan suspected that they would want to move over there eventually, but he worried that they were exposed enough as it was. He didn’t have the spare bodies to post a guard, and said as much to Andrew who suggested an alarm system.

  “How about a big box of fireworks?” he said during a meeting “Light fuse and hide until help comes!”

  Dan had to admit, that was actually a pretty good plan in the absence of any real time communications. Jimmy and Kev were dispatched and did a fine job of bringing back an all-in-one box – light fuse and stand clear as forty small rockets shot up one by one. Cedric set it up on a raised platform with a solid cover over the top; all they had to do was remove the cover and light the paper.

  At the end of the first week Lexi brought back another two people; Donna was mid-thirties and had been out of work for a while. She was assigned to Penny to help with cleaning and did not complain. Matt, or Matty as he preferred, was still overweight somehow. It seemed that he had survived on chocolate bars and fizzy drinks for two months (and probably longer before), and he was assigned to help Cedric and Maggie on the gardens. He was happy with this, and happier still to be fed every day.

  Lexi was ranging every other day, and on the second week Joe was sent on a few missions close to home. Dan had spent time with both of them, drumming into their heads what to do if they were attacked or compromised. What to do with a vehicle failure. What to do if they were lost. What to do if they had to abandon their vehicles and start escape and evade, or E&E protocols. He checked their kit at random intervals; inspecting weapon readiness and cleanliness and emptying their rucksacks out to see that they had everything they needed if they had to go on the run.

  He started to go out on his own again, working with Ash to use him as backup on building searches and developing a deep bond with the dog. He reasoned that Ash was a tool which increased his effectiveness but he knew that the dog kept him company. It was someone he could talk to, as he did often, who wouldn’t tell his secrets or judge. Ash listened intently, with both ears up facing him and his head cocked over slightly.

  Dan was planning to find another source of weapons and ammo, as the 5.56 stocks were almost a quarter gone. He decided, without telling the others, that he was going to head south again. He avoided Leah who would ask people leaving home where they were going to be, and told the council that he may be away overnight.

  He set off after breakfast with his E&E bag containing the right maps and an extra bag of kit with food and water for him and Ash. Ash seemed excited, like he sensed they were going somewhere new this time.

  Clouds gathered as he left home; giving a sense of foreboding.

  RETURN TRIP

  He went slowly, cautiously, retracing their steps of over a month ago. Nothing much seemed to have changed, Dan thought, as he wound past their former camp. The gazebo had collapsed; one loose side flapping against the abandoned caravan. Either nobody had found the place, or nobody had stayed.

  His planned course would be deemed reckless by some people, but he considered the chance of finding ‘them’ at the same place he did previously was slim. He drove gently, not forcing the engine note much higher than tick over and parked the Land Rover under a tree off the road. A new vehicle dumped on the tarmac would set his alarm bells going and he hoped his small deception would keep them safe.

  He got out and readied his weapon; checking chamber and flicking the safety catch to full auto then back to safe. Ash bounded out with him, happy to be back on the ground. He ran in two small circles of the Land Rover before cocking his leg against the back wheel. Dan fixed him with a stern look and held his flat palm out towards the dog, before slowly moving it down.

  Ash got the message; his tail stopped wagging and he lowered himself into a stalking crouch. He turned the gesture into a quiet pat on his thigh and Ash loped to his left heel. Dan had worked hard on this, and it paid off. He could work Ash with hand signals most of the time unless he got bored or overexcited. He was trying to stop him barking too, but needed a live subject to help with that. He didn’t want to set Ash on any of the group in case Ash didn’t realise it was training.

  They went slowly, moving between cover to minimize the risk of exposure before they came to the place where he and Lexi had saved Mike and Alice. Everything was just as he had left it, apart from the decomposing bodies and small rivers of maggots coming from both dead men. The new addition to his kit was useful then; a black bandanna knotted around his neck was pulled up to cover his mouth and nose.

  Ash went forward to sniff, and a click of Dan’s fingers brought him back obediently. He decided that the friends of these two arseholes either never found them, or just left them there to rot. Either was highly likely.

  Hanging around to explore wasn’t the point of this trip, and he still had some distance to cover. They got back in the Land Rover, Dan still not entirely convinced they were safe from those they had run to hide from. He again followed the road he had been down many times before, trying to recall the journey to see if anything had changed; another car abandoned, a sign or a message, anything.

  He had decided, despite the veiled warning, to check the army base again. Just a drive past, nothing too intrusive. As he went by, he saw the gates were open. He turned around and came past again, still no sign of life. “Fuck it” he thought aloud, receiving a silent questioning look from Ash, and drove in.

  Nobody showed themselves. Nobody took a shot at him, more importantly he felt. He drove slowly between the buildings, finding the doors left wide open to most. He began to suspect that the occupant he had met previously was no longer here. He found the armoury by chance; not because it was marked ‘armoury’ but because he went inside to investigate the pair of boots attached to the pair of legs he could see from the doorway.

  He had only seen a thing like this once before. A shotgun will make an horrendous mess of a person at short range. At point blank range, and using heavy ammunition, it will literally dismember.

  The soldier, he assumed the same one he met before but could not tell as there was no head, must have had enough. He was sat with an empty bottle of gin next to him, slumped against the wall which had been sprayed with a grotesque fan of blood, brains and bone. The wall was deeply gouged by shot. Flies were thick on the man, and Dan thought twice about disturbing his final resting place.

  Save for retrieving the shotgun; it was a chunky short-barrelled one with a folding parachute stock which went over the top of it. That was just too valuable to leave behind. A note was in his left hand, but had fallen into the congealed puddle of blood. Dan was grateful that he wasn’t able to read the note as he felt compelled to do; the contents would likely be more upsetting than the gore in front of him. He apologized sincerely to the now headless soldier as he took his sidearm and spare ammunition. He stripped the body armour, similar to his own but in green camouflage colours. It badly needed a wash. He found some plastic wrapping and bundled everything he had taken off the man together. The shotgun wasn’t too bad, so it went on the dash of the Land Rover.

  With a shudder he turned away and tried to focus; find more ammo. He searched boxes and shelves as Ash walked patiently beside him. Finally he struck lucky in one of the now unlocked secure rooms. He took thousands of rounds of 5.56, box after box. He took another three boxes of link ammo for the GPMG – it would be a bad day if they ever had to use that, but still. He found more 9mm and took as much as he could load into the rear of the Land Rov
er, so much so that the rear-view mirror was useless. A box of heavy twelve bore cartridges was left out from when the soldier had decided on his exit strategy.

  Dan reminded himself to keep those separate to all the other shotgun ammo; if Pete hit a pigeon with one of these he would atomise it.

  He considered staying for more, but thought that greed might blind him to the risks; this was not a place to hang around in. He took one last look around the lockers, but could find no more weapons, only more locked doors. This place would no doubt be a goldmine; he knew there were military vehicles here as well as lots of guns. He was, however, way too strung out and nervous to stay any longer. He had a bad feeling about this place and wanted to get out of there. Dan opened the door of the Land Rover, telling Ash “HUP” softly. A quick scan around showed no overt sign of people, but the feeling was still there. As if to underline his point, Ash began to growl quietly and look around. He was nervous too.

  He drove hard at first, struggling as the vehicle was weighed down, then stopped away from the road and waited with his carbine pointed towards the direction his fear was coming from. He drove on, repeating this twice more before he relaxed enough to convince himself that they were not being followed. His alertness had tired him greatly, and Ash had already given up and lay down on the seat, annoyed that the comfortable part of the car was full of boxes. He stopped at the forecourt where he had stayed after his last trip to the area, where he had marvelled at his new toys. He poured himself a coffee and lit up – Ash grumbled and growled if he smoked in the car with him.

  In a way, it was nice to be nagged from the passenger seat again.

  He caught his reflection in the glass of the shop window. He needed to sort his hair out, he thought, as his wild homeless looking image stared back at him. Ash trotted around the forecourt sniffing at things before coming to sit in front of Dan. He pulled off his signature move; ears up, pointy tips almost meeting in the middle and head cocked to one side.