Surviving The Evacuation | Life Goes On (Book 2): No More News

by Tayell, Frank

  “I thought he was joking about the donut shop,” Pete said.

  The Tim Hortons’ signage had been partly covered with a sheet on which RCMP and Police had been recently painted. Inside, sadly, there was no sign of either coffee or donuts, but there were plenty of police. One had her head buried in a reassuringly thick stack of paperwork. Another, in a corner, was taking a statement from a pair of teenagers. A third was listening to a pair of younger children while making notes on a map, but a fourth officer was staring at them. Old enough to have more white hair than grey, he wore a bright red Mountie’s dress uniform coat, polished black shoes, and creased, gold-striped blue trousers.

  “You’re the Australians,” he said.

  “Sort of, but we’re Americans really,” Pete said. “How did you recognise us?”

  “You’re travelling with a dog,” the Mountie said. “Not many people are, these days. I’m Superintendent Clive Peterson, formerly retired, currently commissioner of police until someone more senior is found. I wanted to speak to you, but you came here. Was there a reason why?”

  “We were looking for somewhere to sleep,” Corrie said. “And somewhere to wait until we know whether we’re returning to South Bend.”

  “Interesting, because that’s exactly the place I wished to discuss with you,” Peterson said. “I’d like to know a bit more about…” He paused, held up a finger, then reached for a neat stack of notebooks, quickly flipping through the pages until he found the entry. “Vevermee. Is that how you pronounce it?”

  “Then you only need to speak to me,” Olivia said hurriedly. “I was there. I lived through it. They didn’t see much. Go and get some food, Pete. I’ll catch up.”

  “I don’t mind—” Pete began but his sister cut him off.

  “Is there somewhere we can wait, sir? And sleep?” Corrie asked. “Maybe buy a coffee.”

  “Nowhere is selling anything,” Peterson said. “But there’s still some space at the Marshall Hotel. They’ll give you a meal, and I’ll come find you if I have questions.”

  “And bodycams,” Corrie asked. “Do you know where we can find some of those?”

  “What for?” Peterson asked.

  “We flew here from Australia to find out what had happened in North America,” Corrie said. “We recorded footage in Michigan and Indiana. But I’d like to record some interviews with people here, too. Find out what they saw and where they saw it.”

  “You recorded footage of Indiana? Could I see it?” Peterson asked.

  “Sorry,” Corrie said. “We gave it to Officer MacDonald to take back to British Columbia and then send on to Canberra.”

  “Pity,” Peterson said. “But there should be a record of all that’s occurred.” He tapped his stack of notebooks. “And I’ve been creating one, but I like how you think. The police station burned down a few nights ago, hence our current accommodation, but everything we salvaged is in the stockroom. You’re welcome to some cameras but I’d like a copy of whatever you record for my own records.”

  “Olivia doesn’t want you to know what happened,” Corrie said as she, Rufus, and Pete walked away from the coffee shop. “Not yet. Telling you makes it real in a way telling a stranger doesn’t.”

  “Yeah, I think I get it,” Pete said. They stepped back from the edge of the sidewalk as a fuel tanker, followed by a pair of halftracks, rumbled eastwards. In the turret of each halftrack stood a scruffily dressed but heavily armed soldier. “And I know not to make this about me,” he added. “It’s just that we actually got here from Australia. I actually found her, and we escaped from South Bend, but instead of getting a happily-ever-after ending, we’re in limbo. It’s not Olivia’s fault. It’s not mine. It’s just the way the world is now, and it just sucks.”

  “You’re looking at it all wrong, Pete. You rescued the girl from a fire-breathing ogre, and now you need a new quest. And since I think that’s the hotel, I’ll task you to find us some rooms. I’m going to speak to those soldiers.” She tapped the bodycam they’d found in the donut-cop-shop stockroom.

  “Why?”

  “For one thing, they look as uncomfortable in uniform as us,” Corrie said. “For another, that barbershop actually looks open. I don’t know what they’ll accept for currency, but I could do with a trim.”

  The hotel didn’t have any empty rooms, but it did have an empty gym, which Pete was given, along with the promise of a few sheets and mattresses. But not even that was free. Money was worth no more in Thunder Bay than in Broken Hill, but the kitchen was understaffed, while the overworked cook, Renatta LeMouk, was handing out meals nearly as fast as they could be eaten.

  “Two Michelin stars,” she muttered, as Pete scrubbed pans. “I had two Michelin stars and now I’m making tray-bake lasagne.”

  And she was making a lot of it. Through the swing doors, as they opened for the empty trays to come in, the full to go out, Pete saw glimpses of the packed dining room. The tables were arranged in regimented lines, while a long line had formed by the door. An old man dressed in tails and a bow tie was acting as maître d’. As soon as someone finished, the old man ushered a new diner to their seat, prompting the finished soldier to stand and bus their plate to the long racks near the door. From there, an exhausted teenager with blaring headphones propped on her blonde-frosted hair, dragged the cart inside, and then loaded the dishwasher.

  Her name was Christina, but Pete got that from the chef, not from the young woman who didn’t even bother asking Pete his name. As the chef was only interested in complaining and cooking, Pete concentrated on scrubbing the giant metal trays.

  Though she was not in uniform, he got the impression that Christina, like him, had been drafted into this work. So too had the chef. LeMouk was another refugee who’d found safety and hoped for a hot meal. Having made the ill-advised comment that she could prepare a better meal than she’d been given, she’d been drafted into the kitchen. The maître d’ was actually the hotel’s owner, and was willing to talk, but the constant stream of customers kept him too busy to share more than a few words.

  Those customers, or diners since no money exchanged hands, each wore a uniform. Not always Canadian, and not all were military. Some were in neatly pressed hunting gear, who must be retired and recalled locals. Others, wearing nondescript tactical gear, he pegged as Special Forces, but whose? From among them he caught snippets of conversation in English, Spanish, Arabic, and what he was reasonably certain was French. But there were other languages, too. Were these not-so-recent immigrants, vacationing foreign military personnel stranded in Canada, or had they been recently deployed as part of some co-ordinated effort?

  “Hey, no! No dogs in here!” the chef said.

  “Sorry,” Olivia said. “I was looking for him.”

  “Well, he’s working,” LeMouk said. “You can work, too. But that can not come in here.”

  “He’s a he, not a that,” Olivia said.

  The exhausted mask Christina had been wearing fell from her eyes as she knelt by Rufus. “You’re a nice dog. A friendly dog. Like my dog.”

  “And he can’t come in here. Not in a kitchen,” the chef called.

  “The children would like to see him,” Christina said. “I can take him there. If he likes children?”

  “He does,” Olivia said.

  “As long as he isn’t here,” the chef said. “And you, whoever you are—”

  “Olivia.”

  “You can load the dishwasher.”

  They worked. They scrubbed. They loaded and cleaned. There wasn’t time to talk, but in an odd way, Pete relaxed and Olivia seemed to brighten. Working together again wasn’t quite like old times, but it did suggest better times ahead.

  When the rush finally ended, Olivia and Pete got the last third of the tray-bake all to themselves, and were kicked out of the kitchen while the chef began swearing her way around the remaining ingredients.

  “Welcome to the army,” Olivia said. “As jobs go, it’s a bit too much like restaurant wor
k for me.”

  Pete picked his words with care. “Everything okay with… I mean… Look, I know you don’t want to talk about what happened. That’s cool. I get it.”

  “No, you don’t,” Olivia said, giving a wan smile. “You can’t, unless I tell you what happened. And I will. It’s just… You coming all this way, looking for me, it’s my very own fairy tale. Telling you about Notre Dame will destroy it, and right now, I want to cling on to the fantasy just a little bit longer.”

  “Did the cop tell you anything about what’s going on here?” Pete asked. “I didn’t get much out of the cook. Well, you met her yourself. But the closest I’ve seen that compares was Broken Hill.”

  “Broken Hill was like this? Cool. That is good news,” she said. “Peterson told me a little, but he wanted to listen rather than talk. Thunder Bay isn’t just a military hub, it’s the capital now. Ottawa’s a nightmare of fires and zombies and trapped civilians.”

  “It sounds like Vancouver,” Pete said.

  “And Toronto and Detroit, and every other city,” Olivia said. “Anyone who is, or was, military is being drafted into General Yoon’s army. She’s in charge. Not just of the army, but all of Canada from what the commissioner was saying. There’s some politicians in Nova Scotia, and a couple here, even a governor. I didn’t think Canada had those, so maybe he’s one of ours, but the general is running things.”

  “And she’s out east somewhere?”

  “Securing the farmland, apparently,” Olivia said. “A lot of American armoured units made it across the border somehow. Tanks and helicopters, and that’s what she’s commandeered. Everyone else, the people who were here and the refugees who come through, are being sent to build forts around towns and hamlets and intersections. I think they’re trying to push the frontline closer to the border and then beyond.”

  “That’s good,” Pete said. “What happens to the other refugees? The ones who aren’t soldiers?”

  “Unless they’re farmers, or have some specific specialist knowledge, everyone is now a soldier.”

  “Ah. Yeah, I thought so.”

  “But the old, the injured, the children, they’re being sent to a couple of islands of the coast. McKellar Island and… and… I forget the other one. They’re turning those into farms, too, but an island needs fewer defences. They’re going to secure more farmland here and across the border. The old border. That’s how he described it. All across the American Plains. Everything between the mountains, north of the desert and south of the ice, will become one giant farm.”

  “Wow.”

  “It’s… ambitious,” she said. “I guess that’s a good thing. But is it too ambitious? They’re worried about food, fuel, ammo, and every other type of supply. The hospital is full. They’ve turned a school into an overflow-jail, and that’s full, too. They think it’ll get easier now most of the quarantine is taking place further east and west and south, but it still seems…” She sighed. “You know that expression, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing? I wish I hadn’t asked him.” She raised the empty tray. “Do you want to see if we can get some more?”

  As if on cue, a barrage of clashing pans, punctuated by a thesaurus of synonymic swearing, erupted from the kitchen.

  “How about we go find Rufus,” Pete said.

  4th March

  Chapter 23 - Apocalyptic Dating

  Thunder Bay

  “Why are people staring?” Pete asked as he and Olivia strolled through the streets bustling with uniforms, busy with military vehicles, bristling with the weapons everyone now carried.

  “It’s because soldiers don’t usually hold hands,” Olivia said, gripping his more tightly.

  Even though they were nearly bumping shoulders with the passing soldiers, and knocking elbows against the slowly moving line of half-tracks and trucks, they were experiencing wonderfully more solitude than they’d had the night before. They’d had to share the hotel’s gym with a squad of firefighters who’d escaped the nightmare of Detroit and a chaotically circuitous journey north. When they learned that Corrie was collecting the stories of how people had escaped the outbreak, they’d wanted to share theirs. But their grim tale had made for a sombre evening and sleepless night.

  Dawn had arrived bright and sunny, with even a hint of warmth in the early morning rays. Going in search of breakfast, they’d found the octogenarian maître d’ on duty at the door, the chef in the kitchens, and themselves quickly assigned to serving duties. The young woman, Christina, made the briefest of appearances, but only long enough to grab a bowl which she scurried away with.

  Serving became clearing, which became washing up. When the rush was over, Olivia had led Pete outside by the hand, and not let go of it since.

  “I’m giving the hotel two stars,” Olivia said. “We got a shower this morning, and we got fed, but I don’t like sharing a room with other guests. And their policy on dogs is absurd.” Not allowed in the kitchen, Rufus had joined Corrie as she collected interviews with the refugee-soldiers.

  “I’d give it one star,” Pete said. “The shower was cold.”

  “Hmm, that’s true. But there was hot water in the kitchens.”

  “Tell me about it. I’ve never done so much washing up in my life.”

  She patted his hand. “Get used to it, mister, because I was thinking that there is some electricity at the moment. To some places. Somehow. Wonderfully. Gloriously. Thankfully, the lights are still on. But though there was hot water in the kitchens, there wasn’t in the gym’s locker room. I think they’re restricting its use.”

  “Hot water?”

  “Electricity. What kind of power station did they have here? Are they running low on coal or gas?”

  “I thought it was all hydroelectric in Canada,” Pete said.

  “It can’t be all hydroelectric, can it?” she asked. “We should find someone who knows. But not today. Or maybe we shouldn’t ask since we can’t do anything about it. A little knowledge really is a dangerous thing, isn’t it? Maybe I’ll be happier living in ignorance. But we have to expect the electricity to be cut, that’s what I’m saying. Not forever, and maybe not everywhere. But some times, some places. Not today, though. So, what would you like to do? We worked last night. We worked this morning. I don’t know how it goes in the military, but I think we’re entitled to a few hours off.”

  “We should have a date. A proper one,” Pete said. “Or as proper as we can find, at least until someone yells us into doing some more work.”

  “I like how you think. But it’s too early for the movies. Too early for lunch, too, and I don’t want to spend the afternoon scrubbing more pans, not when we’ll probably do that most of the evening. Do you think they have museums here? We could break in if it’s not open. Or maybe go ask the commissioner for permission first. I think he’d say yes.”

  “I thought we could go to the ornamental gardens,” Pete said. “I found a brochure at the hotel. The pictures made it look like a quiet place.”

  “Oh, that sounds perfect,” Olivia said as they had to step back, hugging the wall as a double row of trucks rolled down the street. Aboard were soldiers in a mismatched collection of uniforms, though all clutched identical C7 assault rifles.

  “I wonder where they’re going,” Olivia said.

  “No,” Pete said decisively, leading her on. “Let’s not think about it. Because now, we’re on a date. Our first date.”

  “You’re not counting last night?”

  “With those firefighters talking about fighting zombies street-by-street in Detroit? Definitely not.”

  “Fair point,” she said. “And Michigan doesn’t count either. Call me old-fashioned, but it’s not a date when you keep one hand on a loaded rifle. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. But I think the short cut leads us up there, through a golf course. Did I tell you about the golf course in Australia? It’s where we found the bodies of the pilots.”

  “You didn’t go into any detail,” she said. “And I don�
�t think you should. We can go another way.”

  “There’s too many trucks,” Pete said. “Too many soldiers, which means officers, which means, sooner or later, they’ll give us a job to do. No, we’ll go through the golf course. It’s fine. I’m just being irrational.”

  “Easily done at the moment,” she said. “Ever since the news first broke, I’ve had this nagging voice telling me superstition is suddenly important.”

  “Right? Me too! It’s like there’s a string of rituals that could ward off the zombies, if only I knew them.”

  “You’re getting that from a movie,” she said.

  “I am?”

  “The one with the helicopter rescue at the beginning. With the guy who was in the movie about the lighthouse and the woman who was in that thing about witches.”

  “That’s not very helpful.”

  “It wasn’t a very good movie,” she said.

  They strolled across the lawn.

  “I wonder what happened to them, the actors,” he said.

  “Same as everyone else,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to be in L.A. with desert and mountains and sea surrounding you. No, I’m glad I’m here. A soldier. Which is probably not as good as working in a care home in Florida.”

  “What do you mean? I wouldn’t want to be down in Florida either.”

  “No, I suppose you’re right. Can you hear that?”

  It was the sound of vehicles, but not traffic. This was something deeper, far louder, a crunching, clattering, growling rattle of industrial machinery. Another few metres and they reached the crest of the rolling greens. Before them, yellow-coloured, mud-covered construction machines were ripping apart the verdant links.

  “They’re prepping farmland,” Pete said. “So much for our date.”

  “No, I think… Let’s go and take a closer look, because I don’t think they’re making fields. Look at those cranes. I think those are going to be giant greenhouses.”

  “Can I help you?” a towering, barrel-chested soldier asked as they approached. Mud covered most of his uniform except the three stripes, which were suspiciously clean.