Surviving the Evacuation
Book 13:
Future’s Beginning
Frank Tayell
Dedication
To my readers, thank you
Published by Frank Tayell
Copyright 2018
All rights reserved
All people, places, and (especially) events are fictional.
Other titles:
Post-Apocalyptic Detective Novels
Strike a Match 1. Serious Crimes
Strike a Match 2. Counterfeit Conspiracy
Strike a Match 3. Endangered Nation
Work. Rest. Repeat.
Surviving The Evacuation/Here We Stand
Book 1: London
Book 2: Wasteland
Zombies vs The Living Dead
Book 3: Family
Book 4: Unsafe Haven
Book 5: Reunion
Book 6: Harvest
Book 7: Home
Here We Stand 1: Infected
Here We Stand 2: Divided
Book 8: Anglesey
Book 9: Ireland
Book 10: The Last Candidate
Book 11: Search and Rescue
Book 12: Britain’s End
Book 13: Future’s Beginning
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Synopsis
For good or ill, the future has begun.
After the outbreak came the nuclear war. The blasts killed millions. Chaos followed. Most of those unlucky enough not to succumb to starvation and disease joined the ranks of the living dead.
Fleeing the impossible nightmare, ten thousand, from nations across the Atlantic seaboard, found refuge on the Welsh island of Anglesey. There, they should have been safe. There, they should have been able to rebuild. There, they were betrayed.
Forced to flee once more, a hasty exodus was planned, but those plans were sabotaged. The survivors became scattered across the island of Ireland. Old-world supplies are scarce, hope is running out, and safety is just a memory. The snow has come, and though rain will soon follow, winter has truly begun.
In Dundalk, eight hundred survivors have occupied a local college, but the campus is too dispersed to defend. As they scour the snow-covered town for a safe route to the sea, they find signs of long-fled survivors and answers to a question they hadn’t asked.
In Belfast, the situation is increasingly precarious. There are saboteurs in their midst. As the investigation into their identity slowly progresses, the terrorists continue to plot. Rumours of a mutiny escalate into a riot, while an unseen clock ticks ever closer towards humanity’s destruction.
Set in Belfast and Dundalk, over three days that change everything.
Table of Contents
Part 1 - Day 255 - A Ticking Clock
The Story So Far
Chapter 1 - Photographs & Confessions
Chapter 2 - Surveillance
Chapter 3 - Silt and Tide
Chapter 4 - The Point of Maps
Chapter 5 - The Barracks
Chapter 6 - Dead Soldiers
Chapter 7 - None Shall Pass
Chapter 8 - Meeting a Consensus
Part 2 - Day 256 - The Day of Reckoning
Chapter 9 - The Dying Ship
Chapter 10 - All That Was Sought
Chapter 11 - Lost Friends
Chapter 12 - Bags
Chapter 13 - Road Side
Chapter 14 - Evidence, Examined
Chapter 15 - Disorderly
Chapter 16 - The Unconscious Clue
Chapter 17 - Night Arrest
Chapter 18 - Fighting Retreat
Chapter 19 - The Saboteurs
Chapter 20 - One Minute to Midnight
Chapter 21 - The Final Defence
Chapter 22 - A Liar’s Confession
Part 3 - Day 257 - Endings and Beginnings
Chapter 23 - One Person, One Vote
Chapter 24 - A Glimpse of the Future to Come
Epilogue
Part 1 - Day 255
23rd November
A Ticking Clock
Belfast & Dundalk
The Story So Far
Dundalk
“Can’t stop, can’t stop, can’t stop,” Annette muttered as she ran through the corridors of the Dundalk Technology College and into the small office near the canteen. There she did stop, just before tripping on the hundreds of crayons arrayed in a fan across the floor. “Woah!”
Mary O’Leary looked up from the sheaf of papers in her hand. Daisy, colouring the wall with a yellow crayon, gave Annette barely a glance.
“Something wrong, dear?” Mary O’Leary asked.
“What? No, I just don’t have long,” Annette said. “What are you doing?”
“Well, I am calculating our vitamin intake,” Mary said. “Daisy is drawing a mural. What are you doing that requires such a flap?”
“I’ve only got ten minutes, then Kim and I have to find somewhere along the waterfront where The New World can dock.”
“Ah, and was that the helicopter I heard?” Mary asked.
“Yeah, it’s just taken off. Sholto’s returned to Belfast,” Annette said as she stepped over the crayons and across to her bag. Daisy stopped colouring, frowned, and then toddled over to where Annette’s foot had knocked four crayons out of position. The infant angrily replaced them before returning to her mural.
“What’s up with her?” Annette asked.
“Daisy is a little annoyed you aren’t spending as much time with her as you used to,” Mary said. “That’s right, isn’t it, dear?”
Daisy didn’t reply, but just continued colouring the wall.
Annette shrugged. “Sorry, Daze, but I’ve got to help Kim. Now where is it… where is it?”
“Where’s what?” Mary asked.
“My journal.”
“That can wait until evening, surely,” Mary said.
“Nope. Not if today is anything like yesterday. Stuff changes too quickly, so I have to write it down now before it’s all different. Got it. Okay. Now… um… um… where should I start?”
“Not with the outbreak, not if you’ve only got ten minutes,” Mary said.
“Yeah, no, that’s all ancient history,” Annette said. “No, it’s the shipwreck and the sabotage and Belfast and us here in Dundalk, that’s what people will want to know about. I guess I should start on Anglesey with the sabotage. Yeah, that’s it. I should start with a summary of the crimes.”
“And what are those crimes?” Mary asked, as she picked up a pen of her own and scribbled a calculation on the page. Vitamin-C was the deficiency uppermost in people’s minds, but when safety and warmth were to be found indoors, a lack of vitamin-D would be as big an issue. Though one more easily solved than the absence of calcium in their diets.
“Well, I guess it started… actually, I’m not sure where it started,” Annette said.
“Do you mean where or when, dear?” Mary O’Leary, long retired but ever the teacher, said. “If you’re not sure, begin with that of which you are certain.”
“Okay, well… we knew that the nuclear power station on Anglesey was going to blow up.”
“Melt down, not blow up,” Mary said. “And how did that alter our plans?”
“Before that, we were all going to Belfast,” Annette said. “Sholto and the admiral were already there with about a thousand people. A bit less after those hundred died when they were cleari
ng obstacles from the motorway so the plane could use it as a runway.”
“And where was everyone else?”
“Captain Devine was in Elysium with a few hundred Marines and other people. Mostly sailors and battlefield medics from the Harper’s Ferry. The Vehement is there, too, but both of the ships are broken.”
“The Harper’s Ferry’s hull is intact, but its engines are broken,” Mary said. “With the Vehement, it’s the other way around. Its engines are functional, but the hull was cracked, and short of putting the submarine into a dry dock, it’s doubtful it’ll ever submerge again. For the sake of accuracy you should say they are in Kenmare Bay, just north of Kempton’s old mansion-farm.”
“Right, yes, got it,” Annette said, scribbling furiously. “And George was in London.”
“He still is,” Mary said. “And enjoying himself rather too much, from what I hear.”
“He is?”
“He does enjoy his excursions out into the wasteland,” Mary said. “They’ve given him a new lease on life. Now, personally, I’d prefer living where hot water comes out of a tap, but it would be a boring world if we were all the same.”
“Speaking of hot water,” Annette said, “do you think Rahinder will get the wind turbine working?”
“It would take a lot more than that for us to have indoor plumbing again,” Mary said. “Now, didn’t you say you only had ten minutes? You’ll run out of time if we spend it chattering.”
“Good point,” Annette said, putting pen to paper once more. “George, Lorraine, and her ship’s crew are in the Tower of London where there’s about a hundred others, half adults, half children. That’s Chester’s community.”
“It’s Nilda’s community, from what I understand,” Mary said. “And I think it’s ninety, not a hundred. The figures are in the blue document case on the table over there.”
“You know, I met her,” Annette said. “Nilda, I mean. When Kim and I were returning from Svalbard months ago. We found her on a rocky island off the coast of Scotland.”
“I think you might have mentioned it once or thrice,” Mary said, jotting down a note to ask the admiral how best to monitor iron deficiency.
“Chester painted a message on the roof of the Tower. I saw it. I should put that in. It was my idea to move the satellites over London. That’s why we saw the message on the roof.”
“Wasn’t it Mirabelle who spotted the message?” Mary said.
“She was just helping,” Annette said. “Yeah, so George, Lorraine, and a couple of sailors went to London with Dr Harabi. Chester went north, looking for one of his friends. What was his name?”
“Eamonn Finnegan,” Mary said.
“Chester found him, didn’t he? Eamonn was in Birmingham, being held prisoner by some of Quigley’s soldiers. I… no, I won’t put that in.”
“You won’t?”
“Quigley’s the past,” Annette said. “I don’t think he should be remembered. Not by name.”
“An interesting philosophical conundrum,” Mary said. “Do we glorify those who are evil by naming them, or are we rewriting history by omitting their names; that has always been the chronicler’s dilemma.”
“Um… okay. So Chester found his friend, and he found Sorcha Locke, Kempton’s… I don’t know quite what she is. Deputy, I suppose. They rescued Eamonn and some other survivors, and then came back here.”
“I think Bran might like you to mention that he had a role to play in that rescue,” Mary said.
“Yeah, good point. Don’t want to get on the wrong side of him,” Annette said. “So Chester and Bran came back to Anglesey with Locke and the survivors from Birmingham. George, Lorraine, and Nilda and her people were in London. Who else? Oh, yeah, the Amundsen was halfway between Svalbard and Anglesey, collecting fuel. You know, we really need a fuel tanker.”
“We do indeed,” Mary said. “But we won’t find one in Dundalk.”
“I guess not. Heather Jones was in Menai Bridge with about three thousand people who’d volunteered to farm, fish, or loot the towns on the Welsh mainland. Everyone else had moved to the ferry port in Holyhead because of the electricity and running water. It was an easier life, I guess, until we had to leave.”
“And why did we have to leave?” Mary prompted.
“Because the power plant was going to explode,” Annette said.
“Not quite,” Mary said. “Something went wrong at the water treatment plant. No fresh water was reaching the nuclear power station. Without water, there was no way to cool the reactor. Chief Watts thought he could repair the water treatment plant, but it would have required his complete attention, and that of all his engineers. There would be no one left to monitor the power plant itself. Thus there would have been no warning if another system had broken down. That was the danger; that was the reason we had to leave. The power station had been plagued with problems ever since it was brought back online. The Chief had been working flat out, making one critical repair and then the next. Since we couldn’t decommission the power plant properly, nor prevent a containment breach when it was switched off, we’d decided to leave Anglesey by January. The failure at the water treatment plant was the last straw. We decided to cut our losses, and leave immediately.”
“Hmm. Okay…” Annette muttered as she scribbled in her book. “Hey, you don’t think that the saboteurs were behind all those problems with the power station, do you?”
“I think they might have been, yes,” Mary said. “It’s unlikely we’ll ever prove it.”
Daisy toddled over to her fan of crayons, placed the yellow she’d been using between two others, crouched down, leaned forward, and ran a hand over the multi-coloured rainbow.
“Hey, I just noticed,” Annette said, “the crayons are all arranged by colour.”
“She’s a smart girl, Daisy,” Mary said. “Very smart. Do you see what she’s drawn?”
“It’s yellow at the bottom, blue above,” Annette said. “It’s a beach?”
“A sandy beach,” Mary said. “But look at the blue. There are two shades. A darker blue for the sea, a lighter one for the sky. That’s very advanced for her age.”
“That black blob, is that a ship? Daisy, is that a ship?”
Daisy picked up a green crayon, and returned to the wall.
“You’re running out of time, dear,” Mary said. “What happened next?”
“Well, everyone was supposed to go to Belfast,” Annette said. “The plane should have landed on the motorway, while the grain ships were to go to the harbour. Heather Jones should have gone there, too, except she didn’t. She took her people from Menai Bridge, and most of our fishing boats, all in a large flotilla down to Elysium. You don’t think she had something to do with the sabotage?”
“Heather, no, not at all,” Mary said. “For the sake of accuracy, you should use the present tense and say that her flotilla is sailing towards Elysium.”
“I thought she’d arrived,” Annette said.
“Not all of her boats have,” Mary said. “She had some fast sailing yachts, but just as many fishing boats. A ship’s speed isn’t determined purely by the quality of the hull. The sails are just as important, and a lot of hers are a patchwork quilt of whatever cloth was available.”
“I never thought of that. Okay, so we were all planning to leave Anglesey anyway, and then the water treatment plant broke. That’s when we decided to depart. It was all done really quickly. Pretty much overnight. We had the grain that was on the ships, and the weapons, but otherwise only took what we could carry. We left a lot behind on Anglesey.”
“But we’d all arrived there with nothing,” Mary said. “So what had we lost?”
“Personally? My favourite bag,” Annette said. “The ships left first. Our three grain ships, I mean. There were a few small boats, but it’s the grain ships that are important. People were crammed everywhere, in the corridors, and below decks with the crates of grain. Once we’d left, the plane took off.”
“You should
write down who was on board,” Mary said.
“Bill, Chester, and Sorcha Locke,” Annette said. “Then there was Sergeant Khan and Private Kessler because they were Locke’s jailers.”
“Bodyguards more than jailers,” Mary said.
“You don’t think she had anything to do with the sabotage, then?” Annette asked.
“No, because if she had, she wouldn’t have been on the plane. You’ve forgotten someone.”
“I have?”
“Who was flying the plane, dear?”
“Oh, yeah. Scott Higson.”
Daisy looked around. “B’red,” she said.
“Okay,” Annette said. “Is that smart, or is it just that she’s hungry?”
“I would say both,” Mary said. “Now, finish what you’re writing; it’s already been ten minutes.”
“The plane took off, and Mr Higson couldn’t turn it. Something had gone wrong with the… what do you call it?”
“Avionics?” Mary said. “Except we don’t know what went wrong with the plane. He couldn’t turn more than a few degrees, so he flew the plane southeast, over Wales, England, and then the Channel. According to their last sat-phone call, they were over France and looking for somewhere to land. Either the phone broke during the landing, or they’re out of contact with the satellites. There’s too much cloud over France right now, but we’ll find the plane soon.”
“Yeah, but Bill won’t be there,” Annette said. “By now, he’ll be on his way back.”
Again, Daisy paused.
“Yes, he will,” Mary said. “Now, back to your journal. What happened after Mr Higson radioed in there was a problem with the plane?”
“That’s when we realised that there was a problem with the ship, too. Well, no, it was about an hour later. We tried to turn the ship and the navigation system sort of crashed. Then Commander Crawley discovered there was something wrong with the ballast tanks. If we stopped, we’d capsize in a strong wind. And then… well, then something else went wrong, and we couldn’t stop. We were trying to get close to the shore, but instead, we ran aground here in Dundalk. The ship fell on its side. Lots of people died. It was… was…”
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