I looked at some of the nearer islands. The large ones — Lewis, Harris, the Uists, Barra, Skye, Mull — were all well-populated and well-connected to the mainland by ferries and flights, and it was likely people fleeing from the infected would have carried the disease there before everything fell apart completely. The medium-sized islands — places like Coll, Tiree, Islay, Jura, Gigha, Raasay — were potentially different. Yes, they were inhabited, but they were more sparsely populated, and they weren’t as well-connected. It was just possible the disease hadn’t reached there yet. Even if it had reached some of them, it was unlikely to be able to spread between them. There were also islands like Iona and the Small Isles; home to small, tight-knit communities. If they hadn’t yet been affected, would we be welcome if we suddenly turned up out of the blue? Or would we be seen as dangerous strangers; people who could bring the infection to them? Would this be an issue anywhere where there were groups who had so far survived the outbreak unscathed?
Finally, I considered the smallest islands, the ones where no one lived: places like the Shiants and the Treshnish Isles. All were capable of supporting communities, and had done for hundreds and possibly thousands of years before they had been finally abandoned in the twentieth century. Many were sheltered from the worst that the sea and the wind could throw at them. They, too, would have birds and seals to eat, as well as access to shorelines and seas to fish.
There were so many possibilities to choose from: which one was best? Any decision I made would affect not only my survival, but the survival of the others, too. I was used to being in charge on board, to making decisions which affected people’s immediate future; not ones which would affect the rest of their lives. This was life or death, and getting it wrong would probably be fatal to some, if not all of us. Out of nowhere, a fear unlike any I’d ever felt before gripped me: what if I made the wrong decision? Before, we only had one aim: to get out alive. Now we’d finally escaped, there were a myriad of possibilities before us and I was paralysed by the choice.
Tom emerged from the companionway, a rolled-up cigarette between his lips. He sat down opposite me and lit it, before taking a long drag and exhaling the smoke into the growing darkness. He looked at the cigarette in his hand. ‘I think it’s about time I gave these up once and for all.’
Lost in my own thoughts, I wasn’t really listening to him. ‘What?’
‘I said,’ he took another long drag, ‘I think it’s about time I gave up smoking.’
I knew Tom had smoked since he was sixteen, and I’d seen him try to give up before: the longest he’d lasted was a couple of days. I looked at him curiously. ‘Why now?’
‘Haven’t you heard? It’s bad for your health.’
Despite everything, this made me laugh. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, there are a lot worse things for your health going around these days.’
‘That’s just the point. I’ve run out of tobacco and it’s going to be a real killer nipping out to the shops for more!’ Tom took a final draw on his last cigarette and threw the end over the side. ‘I feel healthier already.’
Again, I couldn’t help but laugh. Tom glanced at the chart. ‘So, have you worked out what we’re going to do?’
Instantly, I felt my insides tie themselves in knots again as the fear returned. I couldn’t get any words out, and all I could do was shake my head.
Tom smiled. ‘Don’t worry. You’ll come up with something.’ He’d always been able to read me like an open book and no matter how hard I tried, he could see what was really going on in my head. ‘You always do.’
I said nothing. Instead, I just stared at the chart, and all the possible options, unable to find a way to choose between them.
Tom leant forward. ‘D’you remember after Aaron and Jane died? D’you remember what you told me?’
Jane had been Tom’s girlfriend since before I’d known him, and Aaron was born the year after I’d left to work in the Azores. When Aaron was eighteen months old, Tom had arrived home after working at a late-night event to find their flat in flames. Despite his frantic efforts to get inside, there was nothing he could do. His mother had been the one who’d called me, and I’d caught the first flight home. It was the only time I’d ever seen Tom lose his will to live, and it took months to bring him back. Later, he told me that it was something I’d said to him the morning after I’d found him slumped on the floor, having mixed too much vodka with sleeping pills, dried vomit streaking his t-shirt, that made him finally want to live again.
‘You told me that as long as I remembered them, they’d always be with me, and that no matter what happened, I needed to live on to keep their memory alive. You said that if I didn’t, then it was like letting them die all over again.’
I avoided looking at him. ‘Yeah, I remember.’ I’d had no idea if he’d meant to do it, or whether it was just an accident, but either way, I’d known I had to do something or he would slip away into a place he’d never be able to come back from. At the time, I didn’t know if it would help or not, but it had turned out to be the push he needed to get his life back on track.
‘Well, I’m going to tell you something similar now.’ Tom sat back. ‘The only reason we’re all still here is because of you. You’ve kept us alive longer than any of us could have survived without you. You’ve given us a chance. Anything you do from now on, no matter what, will still be better than anything we could’ve done on our own.’
He got up and walked over to the companionway, stopping before he climbed down. ‘Just remember that, Ben. We all owe you our lives, but that doesn’t mean we’ll blame you if something goes wrong.’ With that, he disappeared inside.
As I sat there, I felt some of the panic ease inside of me. I still didn’t know what to do, but somehow it didn’t matter quite so much.
***
‘You doin’ okay?’ Startled, I looked up at Daz and then at my watch: it was one o’clock in the morning and we were still hoved to, drifting slowly in the darkness. After Tom had gone below, I’d spent another hour staring at the chart, considering every possibility open to us, but I’d still been unable to come up with a definitive plan of action. Instead, I’d put the chart away and left the decision-making until another time; I knew I’d have to do it at some point, but I figured that if I left it for now, by the time the decision had to be made, I might have some more information which would help me decide what was best.
Since then, I’d sat in the cockpit staring out at the sea, trying to get my head round all that had happened. My mind wandered back to thoughts of my friends and family again: had any of them managed, like I had, to get out? Were any of them still alive? If so, where were they now? Were they looking up at the same night sky, wondering the same about me?
Earlier in the day, I’d checked my mobile phone yet again, just as I’d done every few hours since we’d left the dock in Glasgow, but still there was no signal, meaning there was no way for me to even try to get in touch with anyone. I wondered if I’d ever find out what happened to them; it seemed unlikely and this uncertainty was starting to eat away at me like acid eating into my very soul.
I got up and stretched before finally answering Daz’s question. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ For some reason I didn’t want to admit how I was really feeling: not to Daz; not to anyone, even though Tom had already guessed. ‘Anyway, what are you doing up at this time of night?’
‘Can’t sleep.’ Daz yawned. ‘I’m absolutely knackered, but I just can’t seem to get to sleep; no’ even for a minute.’ He sat down opposite me.
I watched him for a few seconds; even though he was only seventeen, at times he seemed so much older. ‘It’ll be the stress; your body’s all keyed up, full of adrenaline. I think we all are.’
‘Tom doesn’t seem to have much of a problem; he’s been asleep for hours.’ Daz almost sounded jealous.
‘He’s been through a lot; more than the rest of us. It’ll have taken a lot out of him.’
‘Still …’ Daz leaned back
and looked up at the sky. ‘Wow! I’ve never seen so many stars before; they’re amazin’.’
I looked up, too: I was so used to being far from the bright lights of human habitation that I was no longer surprised by the multitude of stars you could see when it was truly dark all around you.
I glanced at Daz. ‘Have you never been out in the middle of nowhere like this before?’
Daz shifted on his seat, trying to find a more comfortable position. ‘I went campin’ once, out at Loch Lomond.’
I knew the place well: just half-an-hour’s drive north of Glasgow; it gave many of its residents their first experience of the wilds of the countryside beyond the city. ‘Didn’t you see the stars there?’
‘Naw. I was with some pals and we were all pretty drunk by the time it got dark.’ Daz chuckled at the memory. ‘To be honest, I was that out of it, I think I’d’ve struggled to see the moon properly.’
‘D’you know anything about them?’
‘What? The stars? Nah, not really. I always wanted to, though; just never got round to it. Don’t suppose I’ll ever get the chance now.’ There was sadness in his voice.
‘Did no one ever tell you about them? Not your teachers or your family?’
‘My teachers?’ Daz huffed dismissively. ‘They took one look at my family an’ where I came from, an’ they gave up on me straightaway. An’ Mum, all she ever cared about was where her next bottle of vodka was comin’ from.’
‘What about your dad?’
‘Never knew him. I’m no’ even sure my mum knew who he was.’ Daz huffed again. ‘I dunno why she ever had me if she didn’t want to look after me.’
Daz sank down in the seat, arms crossed defensively; I wished I’d never asked and decided to change the subject. ‘Maybe it’s not too late.’
Daz frowned. ‘No’ too late for what?’
‘For learning about the stars.’ I pointed upwards. ‘See those ones up there? The ones that would look like a saucepan if you joined them together?’
I watched as Daz’s eyes flicked around for a few second before they locked onto the right set of stars. ‘Yeah.’
‘That’s the Big Dipper; it’s part of a constellation called Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Now, if you imagine a line connecting the two stars at the end and continuing across the sky, that takes you to another star; that one there, out on its own. That’s Polaris; the Pole Star. It’s directly over the North Pole and it’s the only star in the sky which doesn’t seem to move. That means you can use it to navigate and work out where you are.’
‘Just from that one star?’ Daz shook his head gently. ‘That’s fuckin’ mental!’ He stared at the sky for a few seconds before he carried on. ‘How d’you know all that?’
The back of my neck was starting to hurt and I rubbed it gently. ‘If you spend enough time out here, it’s just something you pick up.’
‘What else d’you know?’ There was an eagerness in Daz’s voice.
‘See that really bright star there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s Sirius, the Dog Star. It’s the brightest star in the sky, but its light takes eight and a half years to reach us, and that’s with the light travelling at almost seven million miles an hour.’
Daz let out a long, low whistle. He cast his eyes back and forth across the sky and then they fixed on something. ‘What about that one?’ Daz pointed to a faint object which looked a little out of focus. ‘That one’s no’ very bright. It must be a lot further away. How long does its light take to get here?’
‘That’s not a star. It’s another galaxy: the Andromeda galaxy. There’s something like 300 billion stars in it and it’s two and a half million light years away; the light we’re seeing now left there about a million years before anything we’d even vaguely recognise as human walked the Earth.’
‘Mental!’ Daz paused for a moment. ‘Mind you, with this disease thing, it mightn’t be very long before it’s like that again.’
It was a depressing thought; that humans had evolved, spread to every corner of the planet, created great civilisations, fought great wars, and then wiped themselves out: all in less time that it took for light to travel between two neighbouring galaxies. In the history of the universe, we were a mere blip; a momentary flash worthy of little more than a footnote.
Chapter Ten
‘Mum, I can’t get the TV to work.’
I’d stayed in the cockpit all night, unable to fall into any sort of restful sleep. The worry of what we should do next gnawed away at me, keeping me awake. I’d dozed now and then, but only briefly and Sophie’s shout woke me from one of these naps. I checked the sails and went below, presuming the batteries had finally run out of power, but I was wrong. In the saloon, Sophie was pointing the remote at the television as she stabbed repeatedly at its buttons: it was on, but there was no picture … not on any of the channels she selected.
I went out and checked the alignment of the antenna, and then the wire which took the signal down into the cabin; they both seemed fine. Back inside, I took the remote from Sophie and made sure the right input was selected.
‘What’s up?’ Claire came into the saloon, her hand covering her mouth as she yawned. From the bags under her eyes, it was clear she’d slept as badly as I had.
Sophie flopped onto one of the seats. ‘The TV’s broken.’
I unplugged the wire for the antenna, blew on it and plugged it back in. ‘The television’s fine; it’s just that it doesn’t seem to be picking anything up.’
‘How?’ Daz had come into the main cabin as well. Shortly after, Tom appeared, stretching and then grunting in pain. Instinctively, his hand went to his bandaged side.
‘I’m not sure.’ Then a thought struck me. I went over to the FM radio and turned it on, but I couldn’t find any of my usual stations. ‘Hmmm ...’
‘What’s going on?’ By this time Tom had sat down opposite Sophie and was watching me intently.
I reached up and turned the television off. ‘It looks like nothing’s broadcasting anymore.’
‘Nothing at all?’ Claire sounded incredulous.
I looked at her. ‘Not on the television, or on the radio.’
‘You sure?’ Tom got up and started fiddling with the settings on the radio. ‘Not even an emergency broadcast of some kind?’
‘What does it mean?’ Sophie’s gaze shifted from Claire to me, and then to Tom.
‘I don’t know.’ I turned to Claire, ‘D’you and Tom want to come up on deck with me for a minute?’
‘Hey, you’re going to talk about it. That’s not fair!’ Sophie leapt to her feet. ‘Me and Daz have a right to know what’s going on. We’re not little kids!’
The more time I spent with Sophie, the more I was beginning to realise I’d underestimated her. I’d thought, given her sheltered upbringing, that she wouldn’t be able to cope with all that was happening, but she was holding up much better than I’d expected, and she seemed willing to meet our situation head-on. I glanced at Claire. ‘Your decision.’
‘I suppose she’s right.’ Claire sat down beside Sophie. ‘After all, we’re all in this together.’
‘So? What does it mean?’ Sophie looked at us all again.
I took a deep breath. ‘We can’t know for certain, but I think it means London’s been overrun. I think it means there’s no one left in charge.’
Daz’s brow furrowed. ‘What does that mean for us?’
Claire stared straight ahead. ‘It means we’re really on our own now. Britain isn’t coming back from this. Not any time soon; possibly not ever.’
There was silence as Claire’s words sank in.
After a few minutes, Tom spoke. ‘So what’s your plan?’
I felt every eye in the room fall on me. They were looking to me to make a decision and yet I couldn’t. Then I remembered Tom’s words from the night before and I felt a wave of relief wash over me. Suddenly my brain was no longer paralysed with fear and I knew what to do. ‘I can lay out the
options, but I think we should make any decisions as a group.’
Daz sat down at the table. ‘So what’re the options?’
‘There are really only two: we can try to find an island which is uninhabited and set ourselves up there; or we can see if we can find other survivors and join up with them.’
‘How likely is it that we can find an uninhabited island?’ Claire was clearly leaning towards that option.
‘Very. A lot of islands around here don’t have anyone living on them anymore, especially the smaller ones.’
‘But where’re we goin’ to get food from?’ Daz was thinking with his stomach.
‘There’s plenty around, if you know where to look. It just might not be what you’re used to.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Daz glanced at me curiously.
‘Well …’ It took me a couple of seconds to come up with a good example. ‘We’re a lot more likely to be able to find puffins than chickens.’
Daz looked startled. ‘What the fuck’s a puffin?’
‘I think that’s getting away from the point.’ Tom leant forward, placing his elbows on the table and clasping his hands together. ‘If we find other survivors, do you think they’ll be happy to have us turn up?’
‘I’m really not too sure.’ I’d already given this some thought, but I had yet to come to any firm conclusions. ‘Some might; some might not. Either way, I think our chances will be better in the long run if there’s more than just the five of us.’
‘Why?’ Sophie was staring at me, eyes narrowed.
I wondered how to explain this, and settled for just being honest. ‘Because if something goes wrong, there’d be more people to help out. Think about it: if something happened to me, if I got ill or got infected, would the rest of you be able to handle the boat on your own?’
For Those In Peril (Book 2): The Outbreak Page 16