‘You lie back down’ I said, walking over to the bookcase. ‘I would always read a story to Emma, before bed. But she fell asleep on the journey, what type of books do you like Josh?’
‘Ones with great white sharks in or big robots.’
‘Okay’ I laughed, ‘I cannot promise you that, what about ‘The magnificent adventures of Danny’ I said, showing him the cover.
‘Yeah that looks good’ he said, as I sat on the edge of the bed. The story was about a boy whose father was a superhero, I read it to him before he asked me some questions about his own dad. ‘Will he be in heaven now?’
‘Yeah, with your mum, they’ll be together.’
‘No, my mums not dead, dad said we would see her again. I’m not going to see my dad again though am I?’
‘No you’re not, I’m sorry. Did you say goodbye to him?’
‘Yes, then James covered him up with a blanket. He said we had to keep walking, not to look back. But I did, I couldn’t help it.’ I gave him a hug and tucked him back into bed next to his brother and went to find Bernard, who was asleep in an armchair in the adjacent bedroom. I got a couple of blankets out of his rucksack, and covered him up, then went back into the other bedroom and looked out of the window. The storm was over the top of us, the room lit up sporadically with flashes of lighting. I took my wet clothes off, dried my legs with the towels and got into bed next to Emma to write up the days events. The more time I have had to think about it, the more I think I have met James and Josh before. I’m sure they are the same boys Roy and I met shortly after leaving Steve and Simon at the b&b. They were walking with their dad, and their sister. We gave them some food and water, I think their father said they were from Bedford. I’m thankful we have crossed paths with the boys again, and we’re able to doing something good for once.
Chapter eleven
24/11/2027 - Time 22:10
Ice cold hands and feet woke me up this morning, I opened my groggy eyes for a few seconds to look at Emma, and then shut them again. ‘Dad?’
‘What’s up Emma?’
‘Are James and Josh still here?’
‘Yeah they are, go back to sleep.’
‘Where are they?’
‘In the bed opposite, now go back to sleep, it’s still sleep time.’ I heard her mutter something about Bernard being up, before I dozed back off, but not for long.
‘Dad?’
‘What do you want now?’ I said, rolling over to face the other bed.
‘Do you know what today’s date is?’
‘I don’t care what date it is, I just want to sleep. Keep your freezing cold hands to yourself.’
‘But do you know what day it is?’
‘Do you know what time it is?’ There was a short pause, before I felt her start to climb over the top of me, with very little grace. A knee in the ribs, an elbow in the face, I rolled onto my back as she left the room, the sleep draining from my body. ‘I might as well bloody get up then’ I thought to myself, sitting up and having a look at the brothers, who were still asleep in the opposite bed. I listened carefully for their breathing, to make sure they were OK, their breath wheezed as they inhaled and exhaled. I couldn’t hear the weather, which was promising, the rainwater that had been pouring from the ceiling overnight, keeping me awake, had stopped. I climbed out of bed, putting my feet onto the soaking carpet and got dressed. I walked into the hallway, where I could hear voices coming from the bedroom missing its wall and ceiling, so I walked in. Emma and Bernard were standing together in the middle of the room, around the bucket, which was now full of burning wood, their beaming faces lit by the firelight. Emma came bounding over to me with her arms out wide, wrapping them around me, giving me a hug. ‘Happy birthday daddy’ she said, refusing to let go.
‘Oh thanks Emma’ I said, hugging her back, while not quite believing she had remembered with all that’s been going on. She let go of me to hand me a card,
‘I made it all by myself dad, when we were at Bernard’s, do you like it?’
‘It’s beautiful Emma, you know I love everything you make.’
‘What’s your favourite bit?’
‘Well its got a great drawing of me and you on it, together, and the message you have written is lovely.’ The brothers must have been woken by the noise, they came into the room holding hands, and walking rather gingerly. ‘Come and sit down boys’ said Bernard, ‘And have a bit of breakfast.’ I checked the chair in the corner of the room was dry before moving it closer to the fire, that was bellowing smoke out of the hole in the roof. ‘Is it your birthday?’ James asked, helping his brother onto the seat.
‘It is’ replied Emma, before I had chance to speak. ‘Look at the card I made for him.’ She said, snatching it off me and handing it over to the brothers, who inspected her artistic skills. ‘It’s really good’ said Josh, handing it to James. ‘For my last birthday, my mum and dad got me a dinosaur whose mouth goes to its tummy’ he said.
‘Really? ‘ I replied, ‘So when it eats something, it ends up in its tummy. That’s really cool.’
‘Yeah it’s well good, it eats all my toy cars.’ Bernard told me to sit down while he made some breakfast, after only eating cold food for the past few days, we took the opportunity to have something warm. He fried up some tinned sausages in beans, corn beef and peas, we feasted like kings. While we ate, I walked over to the hole in the front wall and looked out over the properties garden. The wet ground had started to react with the warmer air coming in off the sea, steam rising all around and mixing with the ash. On the horizon, it was impossible to tell where the land met the sky, it looked like the black ash clouds were forming straight off the top of the landscape. Before we left, Bernard cleaned and dressed the blisters around my neck and shoulder, and padded them for extra protection. He explained, fortunately the gun strap he was wearing over his shoulder had protected him from a similar injury. When everyone had been fed, I cleaned the plates and cutlery with a little bottled water and packed everything back into my rucksack. We tidied the bedrooms up a bit, ready for the next walkers in need of a place to stay, and carried the rucksacks downstairs into the knee deep water and packed them onto the boat. The water looked deeper than when we arrived last night, the weather getting worse before it got better. We pulled the boat out of the building the same way we came in, and laid it up on the garden. One by one, we carried the children out of the house and onto the boat, packing them together on the back seat like sardines. The weather was cold but the constant rain had ceased, leaving huge bodies of water remaining, higher up the landscape than previously. We didn’t see anything identifiable for the first few hours, we followed a road I assumed was the A588 for miles, sticking to the hills and higher land to the side. The road itself was under a metre and a half of water, stray cars sat submerged in long oil slicks, with the odd dead body floating face down. At the first sighting of a possible town, submersed in a sea of filth, I took my binoculars out to have a closer look. The water had destroyed most of the buildings within the town, only four remained standing, two of them churches. On the biggest building I could just make out a sign that read ‘Pilling Town Hall.’ The water was flowing past the top windows, and it looked flooded inside. To the right of the town was a bunch of caravans, bobbing up and down in the water like tin cans, great big static ones, they looked like they belonged to a holiday park. After checking the map for the right direction to go, we walked through the fields towards Pilling, the ground becoming more sodden the closer to the waters edge we got. Soon it was knee deep again, and remained like that for some time, not deep enough to sail, but too deep for our boots to keep our feet dry. When it did get deep enough for us to sail, we climbed in and slowly floated into the town. I tried to dry my legs and pants, but it was futile, they’re going to remain wet and cold. In the town, there was no sign of life until we reached a row of terraced house
s in between the first church and the Town Hall. One house, in roughly the middle of the row, had a piece of paper attached to the bedroom window with masking tape. We slowed the speed of the boat down, with our hands on the brickwork, so I could see what it read ‘Jeff and Jane Gibson live here, missing since the storms in mid November. If you have any information about their whereabouts, please contact Debra Gibson at Camp Blue.’ We pushed on towards the town centre, as we past a side street before the town hall, Emma and the boys started yelling. ‘Look, look, did you see that?’
‘See what?’ I replied.
‘Move back, move back. There was a picture on that wall, a big colourful one.’
We pushed the boat back, until we could turn into the back street and then let it float through. We sailed towards the huge mural, bouncing off the stone walls, until we stopped the boat opposite. There was a painting the size of the entire building, it was striking, beautiful. Even without the help of any natural light, the colours were bouncing off the wall. Reds, yellows, blues, the picture was an illustration of Camp Blue with its tag line ‘Come, if you want to live.’ I have to say, they did a great job in selling the place, it looked great in paint, but just like those photographs of burgers in the fast food hall, sometimes what you are sold, isn’t what you get. ‘Is that where we are going?’ Asked James excitedly.
‘That’s it’ said Bernard ‘A place you will all be safe.’ The children all looked happy, with smiles on their faces, and they haven’t had much to smile about for such a long time, I do hope this place turns out to be what we are all expecting. We kicked on past Pilling with a new purpose driving us forward, the children were excited, and the weather was reasonable if still cold. On the edge of the town, we went past a mass burial site, but opposed to being something sinister, I think it was part of a clean up operation. The bodies looked like they had been treated with respect, not just thrown about like pieces of meat. They had been carefully laid out in rows, side by side and then covered with blankets, I couldn’t help but wonder if Jeff and Jane Gibson could be found amongst them. As we floated past, I noticed some bodies had pieces of paper taped to their chests. On closer inspection, I discovered they had names scrolled across in black pen. Past Pilling, we continued to follow the A588, until we reached Head Dyke Ln, where we had agreed to leave the road on a short cut across the countryside. We thought it would cut around an hour off the journey, and we would re-join the A588 again when it came back into a more north-easterly direction again. Our arms were also getting tired, so it was good to mix up the journey a bit, with walking and sailing, it kept us from burning ourselves out. We climbed out of the boat onto the sodden ground and pulled it onto the field, we walked parallel to the water until we found a break in the barbed wire fence big enough to fit the boat through. The fields were hard to traverse, muddy and slippery with the foot holes of thousands of feet. The first obstacle we came to was a steep incline, the top of which was clouded in ash. It took around twenty minutes to get the boat to the top, where we paused for a breather. There was a large area under our feet that looked like it had been ploughed, Bernard knelt down next to it and ran his hands over it, ‘It’s frozen solid underneath’ he said. ‘Under the layer of mud and ash, like something heavy moved across it.’ Long pieces of twisted white metal lay scattered across the ground, I went over to one piece to get a better look. It had no recognisable features, and could have come from anything, brought here by the storms. We took a rough guess at the direction to walk in, to hopefully pick up the A588 again, by turning the map around in our hands, and set off again on foot. After passing a few more pieces of shredded metal, the land started a slow decline towards another large body of water. Around thirty yards before we reached it, there was a line of white poles, standing a metre out of the ground, in long symmetrical rows. They looked like a war memorial, structured and precise, each row moving closer to the water like an army marching into no man’s land. As we reached them, I put the rope down and knelt at the side of one pole to see what it was. Each white rod had a young tree attached, only continuing to remain in a upright position because it was fastened to the pole. A small plastic sign was attached to each one that read: This Japanese Maple was planted in October/November 2025, as part of the Woodland Commission’s aim of planting five million new trees by 2030. None of these trees are going to see beyond this year, with no sunlight they have no future, much like the children of our planet. They will pay for the mistakes of our generation, the planet they inherit may never recover. We had to knock a few rows of trees down to get the boat into the water, and then struggled to get going, as the bottom of the boat was catching on the poles below, but once the water had risen enough, we moved past and settled into a leisurely sail. It didn’t take long for land to appear ahead, but as we got closer we made another grim discovery. About thirty yards from the edge of the water, amongst the murky darkness, were the bodies of hundreds of cattle. They had been hidden from us at distance, there were so many carcases we had to push them away with our makeshift paddles, to get the boat through. I could see mainly sheep and cows, there must have been over a hundred corpses. They looked like they had been in the water some time, their partly decomposed bodies swelling and waterlogged, with flies crawling over their rotting flesh. As we approached land, the bottom of the boat hit something underwater and wouldn’t budge, I got out to help manoeuvre it over a metre high stonewall, hidden beneath the waves. The water was up to my waist, and freezing, but there was no way forward if I didn’t get in to help us past. I proceeded to pull the boat over the wall, the hull scraped across the stone top and then released as it got free. I pushed it up onto the banking and started to strip my wet and dirty clothing off. This wall must have been the reason all the cattle died, all in the same place, running out of room as they tried to escape the increasing water level. I rummaged around in my rucksack to find a change of clothes and some towels to dry my frozen legs, as everyone sat in the boat to have some food and water. While I had my top off, Bernard took the first aid kit out and treated the blisters around my neck again, which had torn and were oozing blood and water. He patched me back up again before I put a new set of clothes on, I rung out the wet ones and wrapped them in a piece of plastic, putting them in my rucksack. Any wood lying around was too wet to make a fire with, and the children looked very cold. The weather was far from the worst we have experienced, maybe their lack of exercise was a telling factor, Emma could walk up front with us for a bit, but I wasn’t sure the boys were capable of it. The colour had started to come back into their faces, and they seemed to have regained a little energy, but they still looked too weak to be walking very far. Everyone seemed to have permanent shiver, tormenting their battered bodies, refusing to let go. But at least they looked healthier than when we found them, we would just have to wrap them up a bit better. After some rest and recuperation, we set off again with Emma now walking up front with Bernard and myself. After about twenty minutes, a white object appeared out of the muggy fog ahead. It was hard to tell what it was at first, my initial thought was a fallen wind turbine. The countryside was littered with them after the push for wind as an alternative electricity supply. It was around the right size, and colour, but as we got closer it became apparent it was something else. The metal twisted into the ground, working its way up another steep incline, of which was too high to see the top. There were dark blue markings on the white sheets, but it wasn’t until we got to within six or seven feet that I final saw the numbers on it, and realised what I was looking at. The numbers seven four seven were printed in large black letters across the crumpled sheet. The pieces of metal had huge rips in them, torn apart like they had hit the ground with some force. There was a thirty foot crater left after the impact, the weather had ravaged it, leaving it too slippery to climb up, we got everyone out of the boat and pulled it around the edge. What was on the other side of the hill was never going to be a surprise, but without wanting to sound like a sadist, it was an incredib
le sight. The plane must have bounced off the top of this hill, tearing the tail off, the remaining body was scattered across the next field. We all stood staring at the wreckage in front of us in disbelief, I have always had a strange fascination in plane crashes, or how one can stay in the sky in the first place. But I had never had the opportunity, if that’s the right word, to see a crash site first hand. There may also be an opportunity to scavenge, and we could do with some extra clothes for the kids, and some pants for me. There was a trail of debris around sixty yards long before the plane, which was broken in three. The pilot had tried to make an emergency landing, it was hard to say if anyone could have survived from where we were standing, but I wanted to take a closer look. The crash must have taken place around the time the bombs were being dropped, there will have been thousands of planes in the sky that morning, the electrical pulse explosions proceeding the main event will have turned them into four hundred thousand kilogram bombs with wings. The children were on their feet and didn’t want to get back in the boat, so we headed down the muddy embankment towards the debris trail. Broken pieces of metal and plastic were strewn across the ground, open suitcases with clothes scattered across the floor. They ran between it, picking up toys and bits of hand luggage. ‘Be careful’ I shouted, ‘There’s sharp metal you could injury yourself on.’ I continued towards the wreckage, leaving Emma and the boys gathered around a bag of unopened sweets they had found. I could see an aeroplane seat in front of me, with a body still strapped in. It had decomposed beyond recognition, but I still didn’t want the children to see it. I looked around the floor and noticing other burnt body parts, told them to go and join Bernard, who was making his way around the crash site with the boat. They weren’t very happy about it, but made their way back, satisfied with their bag of sweets. I continued to search for a suitcase that might contain children’s clothes, looking at all the luggage labels as I walked between them. My eyes were drawn to a large, blue moulded plastic suitcase that had cracked open at the side, spilling some of its contents across the field. I had a look at the label which read: Edinburgh - Florida. 16/08/2027. Flight time 8:40-3:00. Farrell, Peter. Farrell, Nicole. Farrell, George. Farrell, Samuel. If this plane had set off from Edinburgh on the morning of the attack, and was in the air as the bombs started to drop, the nearest airport would have been Blackpool, should the pilot have needed to perform an emergency landing. It would also have been full of fuel, which would explain the burned out carcass of the plane. I lifted the suitcase up and put it back down on its wheels, putting my foot in the hole, I forced the plastic back until it buckled and snapped. I pulled the clothes out and lay them on the top of the suitcase, unfolding them as I searched for any we could use. They were mostly clothes for a hotter climate, T-shirts, shorts and swimming costumes, but I did find a single pair of pants that will fit me and a couple of long sleeve tops for the boys. I left them on top of the suitcase, as I went to investigate the plane. The back had crumpled into the ground, with the middle piece standing on its right wing, and the left wing raised off the ground. The front of the plane was around forty yards further into the field, sat like it had performed a perfect landing. All the grass around the wreckage had been burnt away, nothing remained, the ground scorched from the blistering heat. The fires must have burned for weeks, until there was nothing left to burn, there was nobody putting fires out that morning. On any other day, this crash scene would have had a fleet of fire engines working to put out the fires, and look for survivors. I approached the back piece, hoping to find a way inside, but it looked unsafe. The passageway had folded in on itself, wires were hanging out of the roof and the floor looked like it was covered in plastic, that had melted and re-hardened once the heat had died down. Where it had leaked onto the floor, it cracked and snapped under my feet as I shuffled to get a better look, the heat must have been incredible, everything had bubbled and blistered, or just burnt to ash. I moved past the first break in the planes body, and up onto the right wing, which had dug into the ground on impact, and was taking the weight of the body. You could still see the white of the original paint work around the edges of the wing, but everything else was black. It cracked as I walked across, with bits of ash and burnt metal breaking away and tumbling down the wing to the floor. Some of the panels had collapsed, and others were missing, but the frame took my weight as I climbed up to the windows. I tried to look through, rubbing the ash off them, but the insides were covered in black charcoal. I carefully walked across the wing, as tight against the body as possible, reaching the main door. It was open, hanging off on its lower hinge, below it I could see a pile of burnt bodies, possibly passengers who survived the initial landing only to burn to death in the inferno that followed, there must have been around thirty bodies in close proximity. I hovered over the drop, trying to hold onto the door frame, and placed my right foot in the plane, easing myself across. I had to steady myself against the first row of blackened seats, as the floor sloped back out of the door, it creaked and groaned with my weight. The smell was overpowering, burnt meat, but more than that, it was the mixture of different things that had burnt, that made the smell so foul. I walked into the aisle, each foot sinking further into the ash covered floor, it must have been a foot deep. I was acutely aware I was most likely standing on dead bodies, along with anything else that had been on the plane, all dissolved into black dust. I only got as far as the first row, and saw the remains of humans scorched into the seats, with their belts still fastened, and I decided I had seen enough death and horror, I didn’t need to see any more The floor shuddered as I made my way back, the smell was getting the better of me and I needed to get out of the plane. I was coughing from the pit of my stomach as I reached the door, I jumped onto the wing and stumbled down to the ground. I took a few minutes to cough and splutter the black tar clogging up my throat, and then headed back to the boat, picking up the clothes I had scavenged on route. When I got back, Bernard was telling the children a story, they were all sat on the edge of the boat, passing a bottle of water around while eating their sweets. I packed the tops into my rucksack, and changed into the new pants. Emma and the boys seemed up for walking, so we set off on foot looking for the A588, I think they just wanted to get a better look at the planes cockpit as we past it. They all stared open mouthed, fascinated by the sight, the huge piece of burned out metal sat just metres away from us, an image I don’t think any of them will forget. We picked up the A588 near Stalmine, identifying it through binoculars, it seemed mostly free of water but we didn’t venture into the town, it wasn’t in our path. The ground was fairly flat for the next hour, the only obstacles we faced, were the many waterways and canals, fortunately most still had there locks, complete with wooden bridges. The water was high in all the rivers and canals we past, but it wasn’t until we reached Hambleton that they started overflowing again, and effecting where we could walk. We put the children back in the boat to make sure they didn’t get wet, and trudged through the knee deep water that was still too shallow to sail in. The town had definitely had some form of a clean up, it was still partly underwater but there was noticeable attempts to drain it. All the manhole covers had been lifted off, with pieces of metal protruding out of them, likely used to try and unblock the sewer. The buildings that had collapsed during the floods had been sorted through, with the towns multi storey car park used to house all the wood and metal, sorted into separate piles, the wood kept undercover on the second floor, helping it to dry. Some of the building’s that had only partly collapsed, had warnings fixed to the walls, large pieces of wood with hand painted signs. Having said all this, there was absolutely no sign of life, not even the collection of dead bodies found at most towns we have walked through, maybe they had already been removed. There were also more signs for Camp Blue, something we would always point out to the children, to keep their spirits up. I wasn’t feeling too bad on the road, my feet and lower legs the only thing concerning me, they had been wet and cold for some time. Hambleton was only small, we
were through it within twenty minutes, out into the open countryside again, where the water started to deepen further. We found the source of the problem shortly after, the River Wyre was a large river in places, due to its close proximity to the sea, and it cut right across our path. I could feel the difference in the water we were walking through, it seemed to have a purpose, somewhere it wanted to be. The ground was now covered in knee deep water, it was flowing across us from left to right and it was starting to pull. The boat was still touching the floor, but it was drifting in the direction of the current. Our decision making would have to be sound, one false move in this aggressive water could be fatal. I could see the top of the metal railings where the bridge crossed the river, it was a long bridge, and our only way across. The water around our feet was treacherous, we watched it rushing against the concrete wall of the bridge, and spraying into the air. We started to slowly make our way across, holding tight onto the rope attached to the boat, which was pulling to our right as the mist from the spray covered us. The pressure on our legs was incredible, I could only make small, deliberate steps, just trying to keep control of the boat. By the time we were halfway across, it was bouncing off the walls and railings, we were seriously struggling, if we lost our grip, we would lose the boat, and the children. We were lucky the bridge was still intact, and hadn’t been washed away, it made some disconcerting noises at certain points, and took around an hour to pass, but we made it across. The water level rose to over a metre and a half deep during the next couple of hours walking towards Poulton Le Fylde, forcing us all into the boat. Poulton had been hit hard by the floods, I don’t know what made certain areas more prone, close proximity to the coast or a river connected to the sea probably played the biggest part, but why some towns were still underwater and some were not was a mystery, the sewer system must have been strained beyond breaking point. The town’s people had tried to prepare for the water, sandbags were piled high along the river bank and outside houses, the windows and glass doors on lower floors had been boarded up, but it had still found a way through. It took a few hours to navigate the built up streets of Poulton Le Fylde, following the A588 towards the junction with the A586. The streets were compact and claustrophobic, filled with water they resembled Venice, but a foul smelling one, the sewerage having overflowed into the water through which we were sailing. The children kept putting their hands into the water at the side of the boat, making trail lines, I had to keep reminding them to stop, and then washing their hands with the bottled water. By avoiding the town centre I thought we would avert the chance of any threat or confrontations, but as we joined the A586 we were spotted by a gang of men. As we approached the T junction, we had no idea what was around the right turn ahead, and that was the direction we were going whether we wanted to or not. The water coming along the A586 was moving at some pace, and where it met there was a violent cascade of spray and swirling currents. When we hit it, our boat spun out of control, lurching to and fro, dirty water spraying up at us. The kids thought it was great, like the log flume at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, but as Bernard and I fought to regain control of the boat, out of the corner of my eye I saw people further down the road. I was frantically trying to locate them again, as the boat was rotating, but by the time I did we were in full sight. There was a large wooden raft around seventy yards down the street, with a large group of people on it, in front of that were three other boats, one of which was heading in our direction. The speedboat was bouncing across the water towards us, and we were still drifting, unable to stop. At that point, my understanding of the situation was limited, were they a danger to us? I really had no idea, Bernard bundled the children under the plastic sheets and rucksacks, while I stood at the front of the boat, obstructing the view. He then sat down on the seat directly in front of them, our boat had slowed down, bumping off the stone walls as the man arrived. He cut the engine around five metres away, and stood up as his boat drifted toward us. ‘Hi fellas, do you need any help’ he said, lifting his foot up onto the bow of his boat, and leaning on his knee. He was wearing what looked like a grey army uniform, with an assault rifle hanging from around his neck. He was clean shaven, and his clothes looked smart. We both stood up and drew our guns at the same time, aiming directly at him. ‘Hey calm down, I don’t mean you any harm’ he said, putting both his hands in the air and stepping back. ‘We are not the enemy, we’re here to help people. I’m going to slowly put my hands into my coat pocket, and show you my papers’ he said, lowering his hands. I nodded my approval as he pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket with the tips of his fingers, and handed it to me. ‘All the people on that raft’ he said, pointing down the street. ‘Are people like you, who needed help, and we are taking them to the camp.’ I opened up the paper and read its contents, it said he was Captain Paul Riddle, twenty seven, Preston Fulwood, British Army Second Reserve. I folded it up and gave it back to him, lowering my gun. He made a hand gesture to the men in the other boats, letting them know the situation was in hand. ‘We’ve been on the road for several weeks’ I said. ‘Trying to find Camp Blue. I need somewhere safe for these children.’
Aftermath: The complete collection Page 24