“To blow?” Pete asked.
“Blow up,” Kempton said. “That was my plan-C. Plan-A was to escape. Plan-B is the two-seater helicopter I shall be flying eastward. It is also wired to blow, but I can disable the device. The devices in the safe, I cannot. The codes were changed after the outbreak.”
“That’s why you really brought Winters and Trowbridge here?” Olivia asked. “So you could blow them up.”
“I hoped I could persuade them to blow themselves up,” Kempton said.
“Dirt bikes won’t work,” Olivia said. “Not for Rufus. We’ll have to see if we can get the TAPV fixed.”
“There isn’t time,” Kempton said. “But it is a two-seater helicopter. He can come with me. How do you feel about flying, Rufus?”
The dog twitched his head.
“You want me to give you Rufus?” Olivia asked.
“I am preventing you from having to make a very hard decision ten kilometres down the road,” Kempton said.
Olivia shook her head. “You took my job, then you took my boyfriend, and now you’re taking my dog.”
“Mr Guinn has been returned to you, and so shall your dog be. British Columbia, you say?”
“British Columbia and Nova Scotia,” Corrie said. “They’re pulling back to the Great Lakes, to Thunder Bay, but then pulling out.”
“West or east. Understood. Rufus, come. Ms Guinn, Mr Guinn, Ms Preston, until we meet again.”
Epilogue - Rule Five
Ontario
“She took my dog,” Olivia said as they trudged through the forest, looking for the river.
“He seemed to go willingly,” Pete said.
“I know, that’s what bugs me,” Olivia said. “Rufus was never my dog. It was always more that I was his human. I’m going to miss him, that’s all. What are you doing, Corrie?”
She’d taken out her phone. “Just deleting some footage,” she said.
“You were recording?” Olivia asked.
“Yep. Not intentionally. I had it on while we were driving, and now I want to delete anything that might be incriminating.”
“Maybe you should throw it away,” Olivia said.
“No, we need footage to show that Winters and Trowbridge are dead,” Corrie said. “For all that Kempton said, all that she assumed, people in Guam think Trowbridge is the president.”
“Assuming Guam survived the nuclear attack,” Pete said.
“Assuming that,” Corrie said.
They walked on.
“So that was Lisa Kempton,” Olivia said. “I actually met her.”
“She’s weird, isn’t she?” Pete asked.
“She’s not like normal people, no,” Olivia said. “It was like… I don’t know.”
“Like she’s already had half the conversation in her head, and expects you to still have heard it,” Corrie said.
“I wonder how she ended up in Wawa,” Pete said.
“I wonder where she’s going next,” Corrie said.
“I wonder if we’ll really see her again,” Olivia said. “By which I really mean Rufus.”
“There, done,” Corrie said. “But that’ll do as proof Trowbridge is dead. I think that’s the river.”
The ground levelled, and the trees thinned, revealing a shallow bank and a wide river.
“We’re going to have to cross it, aren’t we?” Pete said. “Which means getting our feet wet.”
“Let’s leave that until we’re closer to the hut,” Corrie said. “Maybe there’ll be a towel there. I left mine in the TAPV.”
“I left the food,” Olivia said.
“I’ve got the ration packs,” Pete said. “Maybe we’ll find some food with the dirt bikes.”
“Assuming there is a hut,” Olivia said.
Pete said nothing. He was sure there would be. If Kempton had simply wanted to get rid of them, she wouldn’t have offered Rufus a ride. Probably. Almost certainly. It was difficult to know.
“Pine Dock next, yeah?” he said.
“I guess so,” Corrie said.
“We should have asked her how she knew the bombs had fallen,” Olivia said. “And we should have asked her where else they’d fallen. We should have asked her so much. But none of it really matters, does it? Not now. Not really. Trowbridge is dead. There won’t be another president.”
“There’ll be someone in charge down in Guam,” Pete said, clambering over a fallen log.
“Yes,” Olivia said. “A leader of the survivors, but not a president of America. Not a prime minister of Canada, or Australia. Kempton’s correct about that.”
“It won’t be us, though,” Pete said. “But maybe, in Canada, it’ll be Judge Benton. And maybe we’ll get to be journalists after all.”
“One day,” Olivia said. “After the fallout’s settled. Oh, and it can only have just begun to fall. The road ahead, it does seem long. That’s something else Kempton got right, we’re only at the very beginning.”
Despite that, Pete found himself smiling. “I’m calling that rule five,” he said.
“I thought you were up to rule fifty-something,” Olivia said.
“I decided to start again at the beginning,” Pete said.
“What are the first four?” Corrie asked.
“Rule one, check your boots,” Pete said. “Rule two, remember rule one. Rule three, not everyone is special. Rule four, but some people are. Rule five, appreciate what you have. And I’ve got you two. I love you, Olivia. Love you, Corrie.”
“I love you, too,” Olivia said.
“You sure you’re feeling okay, mate?” Corrie said. She smiled. “Love you, too.”
Pete grinned, but then ruined the moment by tripping on a broken branch.
Despite everything, or perhaps because of it, he was happy. Trowbridge and Winters were dead. Kempton had gone to deal with the cartel. That part of his past was over. Done. Leaving him, walking through vast, empty woodlands with his once-lost sister and the woman he loved.
Life could be worse. A lot worse. And it had been. And it would be again, as the twin fangs of the outbreak and the nuclear war truly made themselves known across the world. But for him, now, walking away from a battle, in the company of those he loved, and who loved him, he truly appreciated how good life could be.
The End.
Other Titles
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Other novels:
Surviving The Evacuation & Here We Stand
The outbreak began in New York. Within days, it had spread throughout the world. Nowhere is safe from the living dead. Books 1-3 are the journals of Bill Wright, a political operative trapped in London after the city is evacuated. Books 4-7 follow Nilda, a mother searching the wasteland for her son, and Chester, a criminal in search of repentance. Books 8 onward recount how humanity’s last survivors build a new society out of the ashes of the old world.
Here We Stand is the story of Tom Clemens, Jonas Jeffries, Martha Greene, and the other North American survivors, and the collapse of the United States. The struggles of the survivors in the Pacific are told in Life Goes On, beginning with Outback Outbreak.
1: London, 2: Wasteland, Zombies vs The Living Dead, 3: Family, 4: Unsafe Haven, 5: Reunion, 6: Harvest, 7: Home, Here We Stand 1: Infected, Here We Stand 2: Divided, Book 8: Anglesey, 9: Ireland, 10: The Last Candidate, 11: Search and Rescue, 12: Britain’s End, 13: Future’s Beginning, 14: Mort Vivant, 15: Where There’s Hope 16: Unwanted Visitors, Unwelcome Guests, 17: There We Stood, Outback Outbreak, & No More News
Post-apocalyptic Detective novels:
Strike a Match
In 2019, the AIs went to war. Millions died before a nuclear holocaust brought an end to their brief reign of terror. Billions more succumbed
to radiation poisoning, disease, and the chaotic violence of that apocalypse. Some survived. They rebuilt.
Twenty years later, civilization is a dim shadow of its former self. Crime is on the rise, aided by a shadowy conspiracy. It is down to Detectives Mitchell, Riley, and Deering of the Serious Crimes Unit to unmask the conspirators and save their fragile democracy.
1. Serious Crimes, 2. Counterfeit Conspiracy, 3. Endangered Nation
Work Rest Repeat
Sixty years after The Great War, the last survivors of humanity have taken shelter in giant towers. The colony ships that will allow them to leave the diseased Earth are nearing completion when two murders are discovered. For our species to survive, the criminals must be caught, and the launch must go ahead.
Thanks for reading.
Surviving The Evacuation | Life Goes On (Book 2): No More News Page 35