“So does that mean we can go back on shore?” Tamara asked.
“No, not until Siobhan, Lena, and Kim get back,” Colm said.
The children were disappointed. I was just worried. I kept telling myself I was being paranoid, but the alternative, that the zombies were dying, didn’t make sense either, not when that third zombie had still been moving. My internal debate became moot about fifteen minutes later when Lena, Siobhan, and Kim jogged down the road.
“You’re back,” Kim said. “Good. Did you get the water?”
“No. Why were you running?”
“Zombies, what else,” she said. “There was a long barricade running across the headland. It had been breached, and there were about seventy zombies in the field near the gap. They saw us. They’re heading this way. We’ve got half an hour, maybe an hour. I think we can fight them.”
I told them about the water and the two bodies.
“Then we need to leave,” Siobhan said. “What’s there to stay for? There was no food in any of the homes we looked in. No notes, either. Mark’s gone. We need to do the same.”
22:00 Portaleen, Malin Head (Probably)
“Is it batten down the hatches, or button them down?” Kim asked, shutting the door to the deck behind her. She dropped the bucket in the corner. “The bucket’s had a good rinse, anyway. It filled up with rainwater after I emptied it. Mostly rainwater.” She dropped onto the bench seat next to Siobhan. The water dripping from her clothes joined that already on the floor. “What kind of speed are we making?”
“At the moment, I think we’re moving forward,” I said. I peered out at the stormy sea. “Probably.”
The wind comes in squalls, lashing the boat with a briny cocktail of saltwater and rain. We can’t drink it, and we can’t shelter from it. It gets everywhere. The boat smells of vomit tinged with salt. The weather’s improved in the last hour. Of course, improved is a relative term. The storm began when we were a mile from Portronan. It took most of the afternoon to traverse the headland, with the winds blowing us, and the tide dragging us every way but that which we wanted to go.
“I think we’re near Portaleen,” Siobhan said. “About three miles due east of Portronan.”
“It’s about twelve miles travelled,” I added, glancing at the instruments. “Probably.”
“But how much fuel has that used?” Colm asked.
“About the same as we used getting from Malin Beg,” I said.
“It’s not going to work, is it?” Siobhan said. “We’re not going to get to Anglesey.”
“Right now, I just want to get to the dawn,” I said.
“We’ll have to go ashore for water,” Kim said. “And food. We’ll have to stop in a town. Maybe we’ll find fuel.”
“Not right now, we won’t,” I said. “We can’t risk getting closer to the shore, not without knowing where the shallows are.”
“And it’s unlikely we’ll find fuel so close to Malin Head,” Siobhan said. “Not if Mark was here until August.”
“We can look,” Colm said. “We’ll have to.”
“Unless we forget about Anglesey,” Siobhan said. “At least for now. We need somewhere we can shelter. Somewhere safe. And we need to find it before we run out of fuel.”
“What about Belfast International Airport,” Kim said. “Some people from Anglesey were going there because they thought a plane might be airworthy. There were fuel tankers nearby filled with aviation fuel. You can run that in a diesel engine, can’t you?”
“Assuming they didn’t take it all,” Colm said.
“Not in one plane,” Kim said. “Even if they took a few helicopters, there would be some left.”
“And a whole load of zombies,” Siobhan said. “All woken and animated by the sound of the engines. Assuming that, in their escape, your people didn’t destroy anything they couldn’t take.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” Kim said.
“They might,” I said. “As a distraction. I mean, a fuel tanker blowing up has to be louder than an aeroplane.”
“The international airport?” Colm asked. “That’s at least a hundred miles from here. How would we get there? How would we get back?”
“Find a safe harbour first,” Siobhan said. “And then we’ll work it out.”
First, we have to make it to dawn. I don’t know precisely where we are. We’re all awake. We have the lights on full, searching out into the darkness, looking for the coast. I don’t think I truly understood how dangerous the sea was until today.
But soon, the storm will cease. Probably.
Chapter 17 - The North Channel, The Irish Sea
8th October, Day 210
“That’s Scotland,” I said, gesturing out the window.
“I can’t see anything,” Kim said.
“Wait for the clouds to break. There’s land out there.”
“You sure?”
I glanced at the compass. “Positive.”
“What part of Scotland,” Kim asked.
“It should be Islay. We’ll be coming up to Kintyre soon, if you fancied a sing-song.”
“I think I’m okay,” she said. “No sign of any other boats?”
“None yet, but anyone going to Svalbard will travel through here.”
At best, there might be two ships on their way to or from the Arctic archipelago. It’s statistically unlikely that they’ll be travelling this way at the same time as us, and blindly optimistic to think they’d spot us if they were. I found my eyes drawn to the emergency VHF radio. Checking it had become a compulsion during the interminable night, not because I thought I’d get a reply, but because it gave me something to look at other than the pitch black that might conceal jagged and unavoidable rocks. We’d not been dashed against them when dawn arrived. The rain had ceased soon after, though the clouds looked as if it was only a temporary reprieve while they gathered their strength for the next onslaught.
“Um…” Kim moved in closer, and spoke low. “How far to Anglesey?”
“A hundred and fifty miles. A bit less, hopefully. It all depends on precisely where we are.”
“It seems like we’re never getting any closer,” she said. “In three days, four at the most, we could be there. But we won’t, will we?”
“Two days and we’ll be out of fuel,” I said. “Perhaps sooner.”
“A hundred miles?”
“Probably less,” I said.
A wave, larger than those that had preceded it, caught the ship and dragged us up its crest before the vessel slammed down into the trough. I kept my footing purely because I’d been holding onto the wheel, but Kim was thrown against the bulkhead. There were a series of cries from below, but they sounded more frustrated than in pain.
Charlie’s pale face appeared in the doorway to the cabin. “Can’t you drive smoother?” he asked.
“Sorry,” I said. “Do you want to come up?”
He glanced behind, then clambered up, into the control room. He’s recovered well from his injuries. Perhaps that’s overstating it. As long as he doesn’t have to do much more than sit and sleep, he does it well. He’s weak, and won’t properly recover until he can walk and run around, but he can’t do that here.
“Keep looking to the left,” I said as Kim helped him onto the bench seat. “You might see Scotland.”
“Oh. Okay. I went there.”
“Scotland?” Kim asked.
“My da’ took me,” Charlie said. “We got the ferry.”
“What was it like?” I asked.
“Less bumpy than this,” Charlie said.
“And Scotland?” Kim asked.
“Oh. Okay, I guess. We had sausages. They weren’t as good as the ones we got at home.”
“They never are,” I said.
Chapter 18 - Portstewart, Northern Ireland
9th October, Day 211
Yesterday, whatever shadow I saw and thought was Scotland almost certainly wasn’t. I’m half inclined to think the compass went haywire an
d what I thought was east was actually west, and we ended up travelling back the way we’d come. Either that, or we travelled nowhere at all.
We’ve stopped in the private harbour of a hotel on the outskirts of the town of Portstewart, a few miles from the Giant’s Causeway. The weather worsened yesterday, and we spent another night surrounded by dark, crashing waves. When dawn came, we were about twenty seconds from being beached on a sandy shore. We got the engine on, and far enough out to sea that… well, we made it here. It’s about twenty-five miles east of Portronan as the seagull flies, maybe thirty-five as the dolphin swims. I’ve no idea how far we’ve travelled to get here, but it feels like five times that.
I don’t want to fill this book with complaints. We’re alive, we’re safe. More or less. The weather’s settled, so I’d say we’ll easily make it to the Giant’s Causeway, and beyond. Precisely where, I don’t know. What I do know is that we won’t stay here.
“Back,” Kim said closing the hotel’s door. “Back. Now. Go.” Her tone was stern, but not fearful as she shooed the three children towards the steep stairs built into the side of the cliffs and which led down from the hotel to the dock.
“What is it?” Tamara asked.
“You don’t want to see,” Kim said. “Take the children back.”
“See what?” Dean asked.
Kim hesitated. “You can look if you want, but you don’t want to. Believe me. You really don’t.”
Dean hesitated, and I thought he was going to follow her advice. Youthful curiosity got the better of him. He crossed to the hotel’s large oak double-doors, and opened one further than Kim had. I got a stronger gust of the stench. Dean jumped back, letting the door swing shut. He walked away, his face pale. I thought he was going to throw up.
“What is it?” Billy asked.
“Take them back to the ship, Kallie,” I said. “Quick, now.” She chivvied the three children back to the steps. Dean followed, leaving Kim and I alone in the hotel’s once-sculpted garden. The centrepiece was a pond over-full with water. Green lilies and leaves had blocked the drainage pipe. An almost-blue moss was creeping up the silent fountain. Two pine trees, which had been carefully sculpted into squares, had sent shoots out in every direction, but the trees were among the few plants that thrived. The majority of the garden was dead.
Deciding that the children were safely out of earshot, I turned back to Kim.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Bodies,” she said. “Looks like a massacre.”
“Zombies?” I asked.
“No. People.”
Siobhan came up the steps.
“What is it?”
“Bodies,” Kim said. “Thirty or forty. Dead at least a month.” Her speech slowed as she spoke, and then she stopped. I realised why as Siobhan’s mouth tightened.
“Okay,” she said. “You ready?”
Kim gave a short, curt nod. I opened the door.
The bodies lay in a lobby too large to be called a hall. It was at least thirty feet wide. The windows were six feet above the ground on the outside, but the interior was raised so, on the inside, they were at around four feet. They would have offered a wonderful view of the sea for anyone sitting in the armchairs and sofas dotting the wide space. There were bodies in them now, not sitting, but strewn across them and the floor.
I saw what Kim meant. It did look like a battle had been fought. I’m not going to grade the more terrible of my memories, but this was up there with the worst of them. There were around thirty bodies. It would take a forensics team to be certain. Near the door lay a severed hand. It didn’t belong to the woman who lay closest to it, as she still had both of hers. Her throat had been cut, her head almost severed. Other people had been stabbed, hacked, and hewed. And they were all people, that was clear enough. The ground was sticky, coated in an odd blue-white mould over a dark stain.
“Do you recognise anyone?” Kim asked.
“No,” Siobhan said. “No I don’t.” She breathed out, relaxing. “No, I don’t know any of these people.”
“Can you be sure?” I said. It was a tactless comment, certainly, but I felt it was important.
“Yes,” Siobhan said.
That left one other question. “Could Mark have done this?” I asked.
“Mark? No. This wasn’t him. This was an internal squabble. The group fought among themselves. Whoever they were, some of them got out. Look at the ground. There’re knives and screwdrivers, hammers and wrenches, but where are the axes? The swords? Where’s whatever severed that hand? Someone gathered up the weapons. That means some people survived this. You see that mould? It’s been at least two months. Possibly four. I can’t be that certain. We need to leave. It’s not safe in here.”
She went outside. We followed, and stopped by the stairs leading down to where we’d tied the boat.
“I’m not going to draw any conclusions from that scene,” Siobhan said. “A fight starts, you do what you need to survive. We don’t know why it began. It could be they were delirious after a bad batch of food. They picked the wrong mushrooms or… or anything. I’m not going to assume that what happened was the result of some psychopath.”
“One inference we can draw,” I said. “Is that the houses around here will have been stripped bare. We won’t find food.”
“Water’s more pressing,” Siobhan said.
“We need some electric kettles,” Kim said. “Look, we’re not going to make it back to Anglesey. We need drinking water. We can’t light a fire on the boat. We need a few electric kettles, and to run them on the ship’s battery. It’ll use up fuel, but at least we can drink something hot. Bill and I will get some. We’ll take a look at the houses, see if there’s… I don’t know. Anything, I suppose.”
“What are you thinking?” Kim asked. “Because I’m thinking that if you took refuge in a hotel here on the Northern Irish coast, you’d make sure you had a boat. Four months ago? When did Paul arrive on Anglesey?”
“He was English,” I said.
“He had an English accent,” Kim said, “Which doesn’t mean he didn’t start off in Northern Ireland.”
“No, but we’re positive he tied up David Llewellyn somewhere on the British mainland.”
“No, you’re positive he handcuffed Llewellyn to a bed near the beginning of the outbreak. That’s doesn’t mean Paul didn’t end up here, or start here. Look, Bill, what I’m saying is that I’d prefer there not to be two psychopaths kicking around this corner of the North Atlantic.”
“We can ask Captain Devine to come over and have a look,” I said, almost automatically. “Of course, it’s not as simple as that. We’ll need a boat and crew, and fuel, and is it worth it? Can she tell us anything that Siobhan couldn’t?”
“Shh!” Kim raised a hand. “No. Nothing, it’s just a door banging open and closed with the wind.”
As to which door, it could have been any of them. Most of the front doors on the terrace were open. “They really did strip this place, didn’t they?” I said. “So what do we need?”
“Whatever can find,” Kim said. “A couple of kettles. Some clothes. Some—”
The banging came again, louder this time, loud enough I could pinpoint it. It was a cream-painted house three doors from us.
“Probably a zombie,” I said.
“Yeah. And should I hope that it isn’t, or, after that hotel, hope that it is?” She raised the tyre-iron, hesitated, then clipped it back on her belt and unslung the rifle. “Just in case,” she said.
I raised the cutlass and walked softly to the house. The banging came again. It was a double thud followed by a pause of unequal length before the banging came again. Thud-thud, pause, thud-thud, pause. I don’t know if a four feet wide strip of paving slabs can really be called a front garden, but the gate was wedged open by a drift of fallen leaves. The front door was ajar, the wood splintered where the lock had been broken.
Thud-thud, pause. Thud-thud.
I pushed the door. The hing
es squeaked, a loud and grating metallic wail. Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud. The banging came over and again, growing in volume and tempo.
“Front room,” Kim said.
But I was already walking towards it. There was a door to my right. A closed door that was shaking and shuddering with every banging thud.
“You better—” I began, and the wood split. An arm reached through the broken panelling. There was a hand at the end, but it was missing its fingers. It stretched through, skin tearing on splinters.
“Can you kill it?” Kim asked.
“No. Can’t see its—” There was a crack of wood, and a snarling head appeared in the gap. Taut skin around its receded lips exposed a mouth missing all its teeth except one golden crown. I stabbed the sword forward, but its head jerked down, and my blade scored a line through its putrescent scalp. There was a near-silent shot. Its skull almost exploded as the bullet ripped into its brain. The zombie sagged, shredding its neck on the jagged splinters of the door, almost decapitating the remains of its head.
I pushed at the door. The corpse moved.
“What are you doing?” Kim asked.
“I just wanted to see what was in there,” I said. “There’s something around its neck, you see? A rope.” I gave the door another shove. The zombie moved. “The rope’s tied to the door. Oh.”
“What?”
I didn’t want to say, but that wouldn’t undo what had happened. “There’s a chair in the room. A lot of plaster on the floor. A chunk of it’s been torn out of the ceiling. It looks like the rope was tied to the door handle, and then through a bracket on the ceiling.”
“He tried to hang himself… or is it a she? No, I think he. He tried to hang himself?”
“Tried to, or was about to, but he turned. Must have been bitten.” I stepped around the growing puddle of black gore, and headed along the narrow hallway to the door at the far end.
“Where are you going?” Kim asked.
“We need a kettle,” I said, and pushed the door open. “We need— Oh.”
“What?”
Surviving The Evacuation (Book 9): Ireland Page 21