Over the next half-hour, we moved slowly along the shore, spread out in a rough line, picking up more butterfish, crabs, mussels and periwinkles as we went. Suddenly, there was a shriek from my left; I turned to see Sophie stumble backwards and trip over a rock, sending her spilling onto the ground. Daz and I sprinted over to her.
I was the first to reach her. ‘What happened?’
‘Look!’ Sophie pointed at what I’d presumed was a log. Examining it closer, I saw it was a blackened body: the skin burned from the skull and the features charred beyond recognition.
‘Fuck!’ Daz had arrived and was staring at the remains. ‘Where d’you think that came from?’
I helped Sophie to her feet. ‘I guess it must have floated down the river.’
‘Hey, someone’s comin’!’ Daz was looking along the beach to where a figure was moving towards us. ‘It doesn’t look like they’ve got a gun or anythin’. Maybe they’ve got some real food they could give us.’
Daz waved and called out, but the figure didn’t answer; it just started moving faster. That was when it hit me: if a dead body had been washed up here, then it was possible that some of the still-living infected we’d seen clinging to debris from the devastated city had also ended up on the same beach.
‘Quick, back to the boat!’ I grabbed the bucket and pulled Sophie after me as I stumbled as fast as I could over the uneven shore.
Daz stayed where he was. ‘But what about them givin’ us some food?’
I called out to him. ‘Daz, I don’t think that’s a person … at least not anymore.’
Daz stared at the approaching figure. ‘How d’you know?’
I shouted back. ‘It’s the way it’s moving; it’s just not right. Just trust me and get going.’
Sophie and I were almost at the dinghy, but Daz was still watching the figure. As it neared, it was increasing its speed, moving over the slippery rocks faster than seemed safe, and certainly faster than any thinking person would move.
‘Daz, come on!’ Sophie implored him.
He finally turned and ran after us. I dropped the bucket into the dinghy and started to man-handle it back into the water. A second later, Daz joined me. The tide had dropped further while we’d been on the shore and it was now a good ten feet from the water’s edge. As we lifted the dinghy over the rocks, I looked over my shoulder and saw the figure was closing rapidly. ‘Come on, Daz, put your back into it!’
‘I’m goin’ as fast as I can!’ As he spoke, Daz slipped on a clump of seaweed, dropping the dinghy and falling onto the rocks. I glanced back at the figure: it was no more than forty feet away and at the speed it was going, it would be on us in seconds. Daz scrambled back to his feet and started to lift the dinghy again. A few feet further on and he stumbled again. The infected was now close enough that I could hear its feet slapping against the rocks as it sprinted towards us.
Sophie cried out, clearly terrified, ‘Ben, do something!’
Realising we’d never get the dinghy into the water before the infected got to us, I started searching for something I could use as a weapon. My eyes settled on the short wooden paddles I kept in the dinghy in case there was a problem with the engine. Pushing Daz and Sophie out of the way, I grabbed the nearest oar and turned just as the infected launched itself towards me, mouth open; face contorted with rage. I swung the paddle, catching it on the side of its head and sending it spinning to the ground. It snarled as it struggled back to its feet and threw itself at Sophie. Daz pulled her out of the way just in time and I hit it again, this time from the side. Again it went down, but only momentarily. It whirled round to face me, what was left of its badly burned clothes flapping in the breeze, and roared. Before it could move, I lashed out, the oar smashing into its left cheek. It tumbled onto the rocks, and I fell on it, hitting it again and again until it finally stopped moving.
As I tried to regain my breath I stared at what remained of the infected. I’d killed some the night Glasgow was bombed, but it had been too dark to see the damage I’d inflicted. Here, in the harsh light of day, I could see every detail: the head no longer looked human; instead, it was little more than a mush of flesh and bone fragments; there was blood everywhere, dripping from its body, running down my arms, spilling on to the rocks and splashed across the side of the dinghy. Even though I knew I’d had to do it, I was revolted by what I’d just done, but before I could react, there was a shout from Daz. ‘There’s another one!’
I straightened up. Sure enough, a second figure was now fast-approaching, and then a third appeared behind it. I dropped the blood-covered paddle, and Daz and I hurriedly lifted the dinghy the remaining few feet back to the water. The nearest figure was close enough that I could now see it had once been a woman and while the first infected looked like it might have been swept downstream from what was left of Glasgow, this one was too clean and well-dressed to have come from the city, which meant the infection must have reached the island.
Sophie and Daz scrambled into the dinghy as I pushed it away from the shore. When the water was deep enough, I climbed in and started the engine. As we motored back to the yacht, I surveyed the shoreline. There were now five infected converging on the spot where we’d been standing just moments before, pacing around, trying to work out where we’d gone.
‘I wonder how they knew we were there.’ Sophie was staring back at the beach.
It was Daz that answered. ‘It was probably you screamin’.’
‘No, it wasn’t!’ Sophie retorted defensively; then, with less certainty, ‘Was it?’
She turned to me for an answer, but I didn’t have one; I was too busy thinking about how close we’d come to being attacked and what I’d done in response. It had saved our lives, but it was something I’d never have thought I was capable of and I found it deeply unsettling.
Chapter Seven
Back on the yacht, I showed Sophie and Daz how to cook the sea creatures we’d collected by throwing them into a large frying pan along with some butter, olive oil and a couple of cloves of garlic I’d found in the door of the fridge. The mussels and the periwinkles went in first. As they were cooking, I killed the crabs and removed their legs and claws before tossing them in as well. Lastly, in went the butterfish: they were small enough that I didn’t need to worry about gutting them first or removing any bones. Once the mussels had opened and the butterfish had crisped up, I emptied the contents of the pan into a large bowl and set it on the table in the saloon. I passed plates out to the others and we sat down to eat. Daz regarded the food with suspicion and seemed at a loss as to where to start; Sophie didn’t seem too keen either.
‘Come on, you two, it’s just seafood.’ Claire spooned a mix of mussels, butterfish and crab claws onto her plate as she spoke. She picked up one of the butterfish and after breaking its head off, she ate the rest in one go. ‘You know, this is really quite good.’ She eyed me curiously. ‘How’d you know about this stuff?’
‘I learned it as a kid. When we went on holiday, I’d sneak out in the morning, before anyone else was up, and go down to the beach. I’d collect stuff like this and then make a fire out of driftwood so I could have it for breakfast.’
Sophie was intrigued. ‘How old were you?’
I thought back. ‘Eleven, maybe twelve.’
‘And you were allowed out on your own? Mum won’t even let me walk home from school with my friends.’
Claire cracked open a crab claw. ‘Things were different back then.’
‘I was allowed out on my own when I was a lot younger than that.’ Daz took a tentative bite of one of the butterfish. ‘Well, it wasn’t so much bein’ allowed out; more that my mum was usually so blootered she never really noticed.’ Daz stopped suddenly, realising he’d revealed something about himself that he hadn’t meant to. His face burned red and he shifted awkwardly in his seat.
I quickly changed the subject. ‘How’s the food?’
‘It’s no’ bad.’ Daz took another small mouthful, ‘I didn’t th
ink I’d like it, but it’s quite tasty really … as long as you don’t think too much about what it is.’
‘Spoken like a true gourmet.’ Tom laughed and then let out a yelp of pain.
‘You need to be careful, Tom.’ Claire scooped the inside out of a mussel and popped it into her mouth. ‘I think maybe we should take out that chest drain later; it’ll make it easier for you to get around, and the sooner you’re closed up, the less likely it is you’ll get an infection.’
I picked a periwinkle out of its shell. ‘We can do it after lunch. It’s not like we have anywhere else we need to be.’ I looked at Tom. ‘That okay with you?’
Tom shrugged. ‘Might as well get it over and done with.’
‘Okay, I’m not going to lie to you, this is going to hurt, and it’s going to hurt a lot. I’d give you some of the gin, but I need what’s left to keep everything sterile.’ Tom was lying on his back on the floor and Claire was kneeling beside him. Laid out on a nearby towel was the last of her surgical pads, a pair of scissors, Tom’s cigarette lighter, and a needle and thread I’d found in the drawer under the chart table.
‘Ben, you’ll need to hold him down so he doesn’t move. Can you come down here and push on his shoulders? Daz, you do the same with his legs. Sophie, I’ll need you to pass me things when I ask for them.’ Claire looked round. ‘Everyone ready?’
We all nodded.
‘Here goes.’ Claire gradually removed the dressing and started to pull the tube slowly out of Tom’s chest. Tom didn’t make a sound, but his face contorted and his body writhed in pain.
I glanced at Claire. ‘Can’t you go any faster?’
‘No. It has to be slow and steady, or I’ll do even more damage.’ She continued to inch the tube backwards until it finally popped free, causing Tom to cry out.
Claire held out her hand. ‘Needle and thread, please.’
Sophie passed them to her, and I watched as Claire threaded the needle and then bent it until it was almost at a right angle. Then she took the cigarette lighter and flicked it on, running the flame along the needle before she started to stitch the gaping wound closed. Each time the needle sank into his skin, Tom grimaced. Finally, Claire asked for the scissors and snipped the thread close to Tom’s chest: the black stitches contrasting sharply with his pale skin.
‘Not exactly my best work, but it’ll do.’ Claire wiped over the wound with some cotton wool soaked in gin before picking up the surgical pad and taping it in place. ‘You can let him go now.’
That evening we sat silently in the cabin catching up on the news. Until we got more fuel, we had no way to recharge the batteries, but we still needed to know what was going on. So, while we still watched the TV, we only had it on for short periods at a time. It seemed the Government — or, as Claire pointed out, more likely the military — was trying to keep a tight control of all the available information, but enough was slipping out that we could see how bad things were getting. People were phoning in locations where they thought they’d seen infected and the news channel was plotting these on a map. The main concentration was still around what was left of Glasgow, but there were others well beyond it and there were several small clusters in Edinburgh, as well as further afield.
The army, it seemed, was in the process of pulling back yet again; this time as far as Hadrian’s Wall in the south. Here, they were hastily erecting barriers to keep the infected, and anyone else, from getting past. To the north, they were still trying to keep the disease from spreading, but with no natural features to help slow the movement of people, there was little they could do. There was a short piece of footage showing a group of soldiers desperately trying to stop a large crowd fleeing along the main road to the north, but there were so many of them that the heavily armed men had no chance.
Even when they opened fire, it didn’t stop the people pushing forward, forced by the weight of those behind them. Eventually, the soldiers were simply overrun and they pulled back, allowing the crowd to surge past. I don’t think the people knew where they were heading and I don’t think they cared: they just wanted out. From the grainy footage, you couldn’t tell if any of them had been injured by the infected, but if they had, and were yet to turn, they’d carry the disease with them wherever they went.
While the disease remained confined to Scotland, its effects were already being felt elsewhere. There were reports of blackouts and panic-buying of food throughout the country. People in rural villages were setting up their own roadblocks and were stopping others passing through in the belief that this would mean they could keep the disease out. As one of them said, it had worked for the Black Death, so why wouldn’t it work this time? Then there were reports of people being set upon and killed because others had mistakenly thought they were infected. It seemed that much of Britain was gradually slipping into anarchy, even though it was still unclear how far the outbreak would spread.
Other countries were facing similar problems. Most of the south-eastern US was now being abandoned to the infected, and it didn’t seem like it would be long before the north-eastern states succumbed, and with them would go Washington, Baltimore, New York, Boston and about 200 million people. Further outbreaks were being reported as far apart as Vancouver, Montevideo and Sydney. In some places, it seemed the authorities were having some measure of success in keeping it controlled, but it took just one person who was infected, but had yet to show any symptoms, to slip through and it would flare up again. Both China and Russia were claiming they were free of the disease, but seismologists had detected nuclear explosions emanating from within their borders, suggesting they’d tried a similar approach to the one the British Government had adopted to try to extinguish their own outbreaks.
After fifteen minutes, Claire got up and turned the volume down. ‘We need to start thinking about what we’re going to do.’
Tom gazed at her blankly. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘We can’t just float around here for the rest of our lives, can we? We need to work out where we can go; where it’ll be safe.’
‘Surely nowhere will be safe,’ Tom retorted. ‘This disease seems to be pretty much everywhere.’
‘There must be some places that are safer than others, though.’ Daz looked round at the rest of us.
‘Maybe.’ I thought about it for a few seconds. ‘If we can get out of the Firth here, there’ll be places where we could go to, like the islands off the west coast. There aren’t a lot of people up there, and because they’re islands, it’ll be harder for the infection to reach them.’
Daz cut in. ‘But there were infected on the island we were on this mornin’.’
‘That’s different; they came down the river after the city was bombed. Out on the west coast, the currents move in different directions; they won’t carry the infected that far north.’
‘I don’t know.’ Tom stared at the silent television as if waiting for an answer to appear. ‘Maybe we’d be better heading south. If the defences at Hadrian’s Wall hold, maybe they can keep the infected out. It’d be easier to get food and other things we might need. I mean, where are we going to find anything to eat on some remote little island?’
‘That’s a good point,’ Claire interjected, ‘I’ve not got much faith that they’ll be able to keep the infected out, but if they can, we’d have a much better chance down south.’
‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right.’ I glanced at the screen where the headlines were scrolling across the bottom of the picture. ‘As long as they can hold the infection at the wall.’ Like Claire, I had my doubts on this last point, but it seemed right to hope that it would work.
Daz turned to me. ‘How d’we get there?’
‘It’s pretty straightforward, really. We could be there in a day or so,’ I crossed my arms. ‘But here’s the thing: there’s meant to be some sort of naval blockade precisely to stop people doing what we’d need to do. They’ve mentioned it a couple of times on the news. Given what happened the last time we ran into the milit
ary, I don’t know what will happen if we run into them again.’
‘But if the other option is to stay here, shouldn’t we at least give it a go?’ Claire’s mind seemed set. I turned to Daz, Tom and Sophie. ‘What d’you three think?’
Tom was the first to speak. ‘I’m with Claire: we should give it a go.’
Next was Daz. ‘Yeah, I guess. We can always try somethin’ else if we can’t get through.’
I turned to Sophie. ‘What about you?’
Sophie was slightly nonplussed, not used to being asked for her opinion on such decisions. She looked from me to her mother and then down to the floor. ‘Yeah, whatever. I mean, does it really make much difference where we are? Everything’s pretty messed up anyway.’ She looked up, her eyes glistening. ‘Isn’t it?’
Claire started to say something, but I held up a hand. ‘Sophie, we’ve got as good a chance as anyone and probably better than most. I’m not saying anything’s going to be easy, just that it might be possible.’
Sophie shrugged and leant her head against her mother’s arm.
***
‘Hey, Sophie, go and see if Tom’s up yet.’
Now we had a plan, I was keen to get going as soon as possible. I’d got up at sunrise and, with Daz’s help, I’d pulled up the anchor. By the time Claire and Sophie had emerged from the forward cabin, which they’d claimed as their own, we were already under sail and were making good progress. With nothing for breakfast, Sophie and Daz were openly grumpy, while Claire and I tried our best to hide the fact that we felt the same way.
For Those In Peril (Book 2): The Outbreak Page 11