Jamie had taken two plastic crates in with him and made two trips to collect all the jars that were on the shelves. ‘There’s a door at the back up to the store-room. I’m just going to pop up there and see what else there is.’
‘Okay, but be quick. I don’t like hanging around here any longer than we have to.’ He agreed and went back inside. He’d been gone a few minutes when Jane noticed movement further up the street by the pickup. She picked up the binoculars, focussed them, and saw two figures about a hundred and fifty yards away. They were coming out of a building or a shop carrying boxes. She recognised them as two of the guys they had encountered before, but now one had a shotgun over his shoulder. Bugger!
She thought about going into the shop to warn Jamie, but didn’t want to take her eyes off them. Instead, she moved behind the truck’s open door after reaching in to pick up a cushion they had in there for Max. She held it in the open window frame and rested the rifle barrel on it, watching them through the telescopic sight. The two guys put the boxes down next to the truck in the road and stretched their backs. One of them looked her way, saw their truck and spoke to the other. The one with the shotgun took it off his shoulder and the other reached into the back of the pickup and pulled out a baseball bat, then they started walking towards Jane. Oh shit! Max was up on his back legs looking out of the rear window and growling.
She didn’t want to just shoot them on the spot without challenging them, so she shouted ‘Stop there! I’ve got a rifle aimed at you and if you come any closer I’ll shoot.’
They stopped for a few seconds and spoke together. They were now around a hundred and forty yards away and she made a slight adjustment for range on the scope. Maybe they didn’t believe that a woman with a rifle could hit them from there, or maybe they were just stupid, but they carried on coming. Jane took careful aim and pulled the trigger. The .308 Winchester round was the commercial equivalent of the 7.62mm NATO round and its muzzle velocity was around 2,800 feet per second: the thick end of the baseball bat in the guy’s hand shattered and wood shards exploded into his leg. The shot echoed up the High Street. He staggered but stayed upright and Jane worked the bolt, ejecting the spent casing and loading another round into the breach. The guy with the shotgun started raising it to his shoulder so Jane put another well-aimed round barely a foot past his left ear. He ducked and cringed and Jane shouted ‘…And no, I didn’t miss! That was another warning shot. Now fuck off- again!’ Max was barking furiously in the cab.
At that moment Jamie came bursting out of the door with the Smith and Wesson in his hand. He saw that Jane was alright and she said ‘It’s okay, hon, I think they might’ve had enough.’ The two guys hesitated for a second, so Jamie raised the revolver and fired a shot off to their right. They turned and ran off back up the road, the one with the shotgun helping his injured mate.
‘Time to leave, maybe?’ said Jane. He gave her a wry smile then ran back into the shop and picked up the three boxes he’d been carrying. There was the sound of broken glass from two boxes, but he put them in the truck and dashed back in, coming out with another three. They got in the Toyota and drove off, whooping and hollering, with Max barking excitedly.
Jamie leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Jane, I never expected to ever say this in real-life, but you’re a bad-ass!’
She grinned and sniggered. ‘I’ve never thought of myself as a bad-ass before! Mind you; you haven’t done too badly yourself so far. Six months ago neither of us had fired a gun before: how times change!’
In the last two weeks of June they went out for walks every evening to locate fruit trees to harvest when the time came, marking the locations on a street map. The fruit was growing well on most trees due to the good weather they’d had predominantly so far. The cherries would be ready for picking within a few weeks, but the apples and pears would take considerably longer before they were ready. They would have to keep a close watch on the cherry trees in the area and harvest them as soon as was possible, before the birds ate them all.
One evening, in the last week of June, they diverted on the way home and stopped at The Colonnade, on the seafront behind the De La Warr Pavilion. It was a beautiful semi-circular structure supported by pillars, with turrets and balustrades above, built in 1911 to mark the coronation of King George V. In happier times before the plague there had been a popular café there, where locals and tourists would sit and enjoy the view. They had a flask of coffee with them and sat down outside at a table.
‘I often used to come here for coffee and a snack,’ said Jane. ‘I’d sit here reading for an hour when the weather was good… such a shame.’
‘I know: I often used to come here, too, and do the same.’
She gave him a nostalgic smile. ‘You know, it’s possible that at some point we were both sitting here at the same time, oblivious of each other!’
‘And wouldn’t that have been bizarre?’ he replied, smiling. ‘Both of us sitting here at the same time, maybe, not knowing how our lives would become entwined or what would happen in the near future…’
Max was stretched out on the ground beside them, enjoying the early evening sun. They looked at each other wistfully and Jamie poured more coffee.
‘Hello there!’ said a voice from above. Max jumped up and barked. They both jumped in shock and stood up, reaching for their guns. Looking up to the balustrade they saw two women’s faces looking down at them. The one who had spoken smiled nervously.
‘Whoops! Sorry to startle you. Hi; do you mind if we come down and join you?’
Jane recovered first and smiled in response. ‘Yes of course; please do.’ She and Jamie looked at each other in amazement. The two women walked round and down the steps to the promenade then along to The Colonnade. They were in their late forties probably and both had shotguns slung on their shoulders.
Max was tense at first, ready to jump to the defence of his family, but soon relaxed when no threat was detected. The two women introduced themselves as Sarah and Georgie; it was obvious they were sisters and they shook hands all round. Sarah was around five years older than Georgie and maybe into her fifties: both were dressed in classic country clothing and they had an air of elegance and robust good health about them. They had strong faces that in earlier times might have been called handsome, rather than pretty, and both bore a passing resemblance to Katharine Hepburn, especially Sarah.
‘Goodness me!’ said Sarah, ‘You’re almost the first people we’ve seen in months. It’s nice to meet you, and to see there are some other people left!’
‘Likewise,’ said Jamie. ‘Until fairly recently we’d seen only six people in several months- and two of those encounters were bad ones. We met a nice family near Hooe six or seven weeks ago, and also we’ve seen four more in Battle, and that was a bad encounter as well.’
‘I know what you mean.’ said Georgie. ‘The two people we saw some time ago gave us trouble- a man and a woman. They raided our place and killed two chickens, then came into our house and started ransacking the place. I came downstairs with my gun and the woman cut me with a knife and knocked me down. I was lying on the floor when Sarah came back in from the farm and shot them both. We burned the bodies and buried the remains. The sad and ironic thing is that if they’d been decent people and had knocked on the door asking for help, we would gladly have helped them.’
‘A nasty business and not something I’m proud of, but I won’t dwell on it,’ said Sarah. ‘We drove down here this evening for a look around. We parked the Land Rover in the car park, wandered over and were amazed to see you two sitting here drinking coffee! You looked decent so we thought we’d say hello.’
Jamie and Jane had been sharing a cup and he had a spare one, so offered them some coffee. They accepted gladly and sat down with them to talk. The two sisters lived along Watermill Lane, a mile or two north of Sidley, which was on the northern edge of Bexhill. They kept chickens and bees and grew vegetables that they used to sell from the farm shop. They had seve
ral hives, and before the plague they had run courses on beekeeping and looking after poultry. They had run the place with their father until he’d become sick with the plague and died.
‘It was horrible,’ Georgie said. ‘He came back one day from a visit into town and went straight into one of the outbuildings and locked himself in. When we went out to see what was going on he spoke to us through the door and said that a man had sneezed on him in town and he didn’t want to take any chances, so he quarantined himself. Within two days he had all the symptoms and by the fourth day he was dead. There was nothing we could do. He refused to let us bring food in for him, but we poked a hosepipe through a gap in the wall so he had water.’
‘After he died,’ continued Sarah, ‘we had to drag him out with a rake in case he was still contaminated and burn his body; it was awful.’ Jamie and Jane said how sorry they were.
They had been surviving pretty well on their own so far. They had chickens and, therefore, eggs, a pair of goats for milk, and had stores of preserved fruit and veg’ from the previous season, along with lots of other food they had stockpiled when it all started. They had planted vegetables the previous autumn and early this year and were harvesting some now, and there were many fruit trees on their property.
Jane and Jamie took turns in telling them about their own deeds and adventures since it had begun, and how they had met and joined together. Sarah and Georgie were interested in all they had to say and listened attentively. Both were amazed at Jane’s account of how Jamie had saved her and then removed the pellets from her leg, and congratulated him. They were especially interested in the different preserving techniques they were using, including the making of jerky.
The light started to fade and the sisters said they should be heading back home. They gave each other their addresses and directions, and both couples told each other they were welcome to visit any time they wanted. Jamie and Jane accompanied them back to their truck in front of the De La Warr Pavilion and they all shook hands. Sarah and Georgie stroked Max and then started the truck and drove off, waving. They walked home discussing the encounter and feeling happy. It looked like there might be more survivors out there that they would meet in time, but they knew from experience that they weren’t all going to be as friendly as Sarah and Georgie. They now had another two friends in the wilderness that Bexhill had become and didn’t feel quite so alone.
Eighteen
The first two weeks of July were very busy for them, harvesting and preserving the cherries from the area. Many were a little under-ripe and rather tart, but they thought that if they left them to fully ripen on the trees they might lose most of them to the birds. Some trees were easily accessible from the road or from the front gardens of houses, while others were located in back gardens and involved climbing over walls and gates to gain access to them. They used leaf-collecting rakes sometimes for the fruits that were out of reach. On two occasions Jane was reduced to laughter watching Jamie struggle to climb the trees and shake the branches, while cherries rained down on her. After the second time he came down with his face covered in scratches from branches, looking rather annoyed.
She stifled a laugh behind her hand and said ‘Oh, look at my poor baby’s face!’ then proceeded to kiss it better, trying not to smirk.
‘Okay, clever-clogs, you can go up the next one and see how you get on!’
She proved a much more nimble climber than him and came down afterwards without a scratch on her. He said ‘Hmph! Beginner’s luck!’ She just smiled smugly and stuck her tongue out at him.
Processing the cherries for preserving was extremely labour-intensive and took them ages. The ones that were to be dried had to be pitted and halved. They lowered the drying racks in the conservatory by their ropes and spread the fruit out over the mesh, before raising them again. The racks were completely full of cherries for two weeks. Once dried, which took around five days, they resembled large raisins. They had lost some of their tartness in the drying process and became nicer to eat, and were packed away in airtight containers and stored for future use. They preserved others in alcohol, using the cheap vodka they’d got from the warehouse, and some were made into compotes and sealed in preserving jars. Those cherries destined for alcohol preserving only needed pitting and went in whole, which saved a lot of time.
On top of the cherry harvesting and processing they also had to make regular trips to check the rabbit snares they had in various locations, which then involved cooking and preserving any they caught and making jerky also. They found they could speed up the jerky-making process by drying the meat in the Rayburn’s warming oven with the door left open a crack. Another regular task was to collect the salt from the containers in the garden as the sea water evaporated and then refill them. All-in-all it was a pretty hectic time for them, involving long days.
There hadn’t been much heavy rainfall during June, so they took water from the pond in the garden and also had to make regular trips to the lake at Egerton Park to fill water containers. Although the duck population there had diminished and those that were left were more wary, they managed sometimes to get one or two with the shotguns. On Friday of the second week, in late afternoon, they had a visit from Sarah and Georgie. They were washing-up in the kitchen and heard a truck pull up in the road: Jamie picked up his sawn-off and went to look, but put it down when he saw who it was. He called out to Jane and they welcomed them into the house, with Max jumping up at both women, barking and wagging his tail. They came bearing gifts; a plump pheasant they’d shot that morning, along with some eggs, onions, young carrots and some honey from their hives. Jamie and Jane were delighted and thanked them both.
‘We thought we’d be presumptuous and see if we could come for an evening meal!’ said Georgie.
Jane said that would be great and put some water on to heat for tea. They showed the sisters around the house and the two gardens, explaining the modifications they’d made and the things they’d built, along with the planting they had done between them. Sarah and Georgie were impressed and said they were doing a great job, especially as it was, predominantly, all new to them. Jane admitted, though, that it definitely wasn’t all plain sailing and they were having plenty of failures as well. At the bottom of the garden they opened the gate, showing them their access to the beach and the boat tied up to the railings.
‘Well,’ said Sarah, ‘you’ve got a good setup here and I’m really pleased you’re doing okay. Good for you!’
They went back inside and sat at the table talking about themselves. Both sisters had divorced many years before and had started the business together at their dad’s farm: well, they called it “The Farm”, but it was more a smallholding, really. Only Sarah had had children; a daughter who had been away at university in London when the plague had hit, and had died there. Sarah had been informed by phone as there hadn’t been the manpower for a personal visit by the authorities due to the huge number of deaths occurring everywhere. Sarah cried as she related the story to them and her sister hugged her. Georgie had remained friendly with her ex and her step-daughter, both of whom had died. Jane and Jamie told them about the loss of their own families, too: all four had their own stories of loss and tragedy, as was to be expected. Jamie opened a bottle of wine and they toasted those no longer with them.
‘I don’t mind admitting,’ said Georgie, ‘that there have been many occasions over the last four months when we’ve been terrified and worried about the future…’
‘… But what can you do except to just carry on, deal with it as best you can and survive?’ added Sarah, and the others agreed with her.
To lighten the mood Jane told them how they had found Max on the beach at death’s-door and had nursed him back to health, and what a great companion and working dog he had become to them. She told them how great he was at locating rabbit burrows for them to lay snares. Max stirred and looked up from his bed on hearing his name, but was far too comfortable to bother getting up.
They decided it w
as time to cook, so Jane went outside to pluck the pheasant while Jamie picked some beans and peas. After the pheasant was prepared and the lead shot removed she put it in the oven to roast with some herbs, while Jamie prepared a vegetable casserole to accompany it. While the food cooked he showed them the cellar that was filling up nicely with dried fish, jerky and other preserved food, then Jane took the sisters next door to show them her home. Georgie asked why they had two places and Jane explained how things had begun. She grinned, though, and admitted that since she and Jamie had fallen in love she spent most of her time at his place.
‘We have disagreements on things sometimes, of course, but nothing that could be called an argument so far. It’s just nice, sometimes, to come back here to sleep on my own and have my own space for a night. Besides,’ she added with an impish grin, ‘Jamie farts a lot in bed,’ and all three of them giggled.
As it was a lovely evening they ate outside on the patio; the kitchen was often too warm now once the range or the stove was lit for cooking on. Jamie brought his MP3 player outside and put on some Spanish guitar music by John Williams. It was a relaxed occasion and they drank two bottles of wine between them. Sarah and Georgie were great company and, for a short while at least, they almost forgot the terrible situation they were all living in.
It came time for the sisters to leave and they hugged each other warmly. As they had no means of communicating with each other they arranged a date in two weeks’ time for Jane and Jamie to go over to their place for lunch. They had told the sisters about Bill and Emma and said how nice it would be for them to meet each other if they could arrange it. Both women agreed that would be lovely then got in their truck, waved and drove off. They cleared up for the night and went to bed with a nice warm glow from the company that evening.
The Hoffmann Plague Page 16