Nilda nodded. “And none on the ships. Of course there isn’t. Maybe it’s food they ran out of, or water, or hope. We won’t find anyone alive aboard. I have to say, I’m mostly glad the sailing is over. It is over, isn’t it? Even if Leon finds zombies aboard the ship, it’s the engines that matter, and we can’t really know if they work until we’ve refuelled. So here is where we wait for The New World. I thought we’d have more time.”
“To look for Chester?” Tuck signed.
“Or for me to accept that, no matter how hard we look, we won’t find him.”
“We might.”
“The satellites haven’t even found the plane yet,” Nilda said. “No, I don’t want to think about that. Not yet. One ship, though, not a fleet from Calais. It’ll be different to what they were planning. Will it be better? At least we’ll have electricity.”
“Until the fuel runs out,” Tuck signed. “It won’t be Anglesey, and it won’t be London. It won’t be home, but it might take us there.”
The seawall bent backwards as they entered the river, becoming an embankment wall that dropped towards the water level, then vanished.
“Grassland, either side of the channel,” Nilda said. “Doesn’t look like fields.”
“Too many rooftops,” Tuck signed. “Too many trees.”
“They’re parks, I suppose. And there’s a beach coming up on the northern bank,” Nilda said. “Are those… yes, there’s a pair of lifeboats. How many were missing from the ship?”
“About forty,” Tuck signed.
“But I suppose that doesn’t tell us much,” Nilda said. “Not since we don’t know how many people were aboard, or how many trips they made back and forth, or how many people used the military transports.”
Tuck shrugged. “You’re worrying too much.”
Nilda scanned the rooftops. There were a lot of them. Among and behind some of the two-and-three-storey roofs were the balconies of apartment buildings and a few church spires, but nothing akin to the towering apartment blocks of London. “I can’t see anything taller than seven storeys. It doesn’t look like an industrial port. A tourist town?”
Tuck nodded. “Docks ahead,” she signed. “And more lifeboats.”
Nilda squinted, and a snowflake landed in her eye. She blinked it away. “A marina? Or is this place usually home to a fishing fleet? The channel’s too small for cargo ships. Keep watch. I need to speak to Norm.”
As she entered, the heat from the cabin hit her like a damp wall.
“No sign of zombies. No sign of people, either,” Nilda said. “Norm, there are lifeboats ahead, moored to the south. Take us beyond those boats. Find us somewhere to tie up.”
Chapter 12 - New Port, Old Problems
Nieuwpoort
“And that,” Jennings said, “is how you tie a knot.”
“That’s a useful lesson,” Nilda said. “Maybe you could show the children. Let everyone have a turn. Grown-ups, too,” she added. She scanned the marina. There were berths for hundreds of small boats, perhaps a thousand. Angular concrete walkways ran like branches from the shore. All were empty except for the thirty-two closest to the river-mouth where the cruise ship’s lifeboats were tied. To reach those abandoned vessels, they’d have to walk a hundred metres inland, then out again on a different branch of the concrete quay. The same was true for any undead that had heard their arrival, though she couldn’t spot any zombies ashore.
“No smoke,” Tuck signed. “No flags. No fires. No barricades. It’s as lifeless as Zeebrugge.”
“But intact, untouched except by weather and time,” Nilda said. “Norm, take a couple of people to check those lifeboats. See… well, see if they tell you anything about the people who last used them.”
“Pity we haven’t got Pierre and his fishing rods,” Jennings said. “Looks like a good spot for a bit of angling.”
“There’ll be time enough,” Nilda said. “I think we’ll be here for a few days. Best we know whether there’s anything to salvage in the town.”
“You’re going inland?” Jennings said. “I’ll get my gear.”
“No, I’ll take Tuck. You keep an eye on everyone here. Jay, what word from Leon?”
“None,” Jay said. “I mean, I spoke to George. Leon’s on the cruise ship. Him, Hugo, Gabriel, and Viola.”
Nilda glanced at the children, then the adults. And then she smiled. “I always hated waiting,” she said. “But we’ll know what the cruise ship is like in an hour or so. That’s just enough time for everyone to stretch their legs. Norm, keep an eye on them.”
“Aye, aye, boss.”
She and Tuck had only managed twenty metres when she heard running footsteps behind her. It was Jay.
“I thought I’d come,” he said. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”
“You and just you?” Nilda asked, looking back at their yacht. None of the children had followed Jay, but they were all watching him.
Jay followed her gaze. “I just wanted a few minutes away from the kids,” he said.
Nilda struggled not to laugh. “Come on, then. Another pair of hands would help. But no more running. The snow’s making this jetty treacherous.”
The flakes weren’t settling, but melting as they landed on the salt-slick walkway. A one-degree temperature rise, and the snow would turn to rain. A one-degree drop, and they’d have to worry about ice.
“So what’s the plan, Mum?” Jay asked.
“For your first trip abroad? I thought we’d get a bite to eat, do a little sight-seeing, maybe take in a show.”
“Ha-ha, but we could look for food,” he said. “I think we’ve been eating a bit too much since we left London.”
“We’ve enough for today,” Nilda said. “But we’ll look for clues as to whether the passengers on the cruise ship left any behind. I can’t imagine they had much food aboard. We’ll start there, that blocky building at the end of the jetty. Let’s look for a map, hopefully one that tells us where the shops are.”
Tuck lowered her gun barrel, and took three steps down the stairs before turning around and signalling the all-clear. Nilda eased her finger from the trigger, and lowered her submachine gun, but left the safety off.
“Come inside, Jay,” she said. “But stay here by the front door. I want you to listen as much as watch, and if you hear anything, you yell. Okay?”
“Sure, Mum. Belgium, England, it’s the same routine, right? Unless… hey, do you think zombies groan differently in French?”
“Seriously, Jay, focus.”
“Okay, Mum. Sorry.”
The building was a gloomy, two-storey prefab built on a pontoon. Against the windowless eastern wall was the staircase. Furthest from the door, the room was subdivided with doors to toilets, and another to either a kitchen or an office, situated behind a counter that seemed to serve both as a cafe and as an information point. Signed photographs of racing yachts perched between the spray-smeared windows, while occasional-chairs and easy-tables dotted the damp and buckling floor.
“Bar upstairs,” Tuck signed from the staircase.
“See if there’s any flavours we can add to our snowmelt,” Nilda said. “I’ll look downstairs.”
As the soldier climbed the remaining stairs, Nilda walked behind the counter and into the room beyond. It was both a kitchen and an office. One wall had a counter, a sink, and a coffee machine, while a desk dominated the middle of the room. Against the other wall were rows of filing cabinets.
“Pretty sure that’s breaking some health and safety regulations,” she said as she slung her submachine gun, and took out her torch. Her second, slower, inspection didn’t add much to her first glance. A map hung on the wall, marking the berths out in the marina, numbering each. What was more interesting was how there were further jetties and quays inland. Interesting, but not useful. The cupboards contained nothing edible, but in a drawer of the desk she found a small hessian bag containing coffee beans. They’d need to be shaved before they were ground, and that would be a lab
orious process, but they were about to acquire a lot of free time. She took the bag, and returned to the main room.
“Find anything?” Jay asked.
“Only some mouldy coffee beans,” Nilda said. “But no clues as to whether people came into this building recently. Hmm. I wonder…” She crossed to the other door, leading to the toilets. “Ah, now this is more like it, and confirmation that no one from that ship lingered here for long.”
“What?”
“Toilet paper,” Nilda said, opening the supply cupboard just inside the door. “And there’s soap, too.”
Tuck climbed back down the stairs. “As many bottles missing as are left,” Tuck signed. “Found some mixers.”
“Interesting,” Nilda said. “Good. We can pick them up on our way back. Come on, then, we’ve a beach to visit.”
“Why’s it good?” Jay asked as they went back outside.
“Well, it’s not, not really. It’s neither good or bad,” Nilda said. “There’s a chance that the people from those ships came ashore, were infected, and are still infesting the town. That’s our worst-case scenario. The second worst is that they lingered long enough to take everything of use in the town, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. The third is that they departed overland, with at least one of them ending up in Zeebrugge.”
“And that’s the best case scenario?” Jay asked.
“The best case is that we find some of them alive,” Nilda said. She looked up at the rooftops. “But I don’t think we will.”
“They drove out of here using the diesel from the Courageous,” Tuck signed.
“You reckon?” Jay asked.
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Nilda said. “And hopefully we’ll find out where they went, why they came ashore here rather than Britain, not to mention where they came from. Think it through, Jay. Those ships can’t have been there for long, so where did they come from? And why abandon them?”
“Because the cruise ship ran out of fuel,” he said.
“Sure, but why did everyone leave? If they needed more fuel, I can understand sending one or two vehicles to Ostend and Zeebrugge, and to other ports, but everyone else would surely have stayed aboard. Instead, enough people to fill over thirty lifeboats, not to mention those military transports, came ashore. That’s hundreds of people, Jay. They had to have known of somewhere better than this. Maybe they were a scouting expedition and when they ran out of fuel, they decided to drive home. Maybe to somewhere in the Mediterranean, maybe to the Baltic, but maybe, just maybe, it’s somewhere that could be a new home for us all.”
“Oh, cool,” Jay said. “Yeah, that’d be good. And it’d explain why they didn’t go to England.” He peered at the buildings built by the shore. “Nice place. Very… what’s the word?”
“Pretty? Picturesque? Picture-postcard?” Nilda said.
“Touristy,” Jay said. “That’s it. Very touristy.”
Tuck aimed her rifle at the rooftops, then lowered the weapon, and waved them on.
From the marina office, they went properly ashore, following a narrow road as it curved inland. After a hundred metres, they met a road dotted with wooden buildings painted pastel shades and white. Steep roofed, with more balconies than sheer walls, at least five storeys tall, they were nothing like anything Nilda had seen in England.
“This is the way to live,” she said.
“It’s as cold as Penrith,” Jay said loyally. “And I liked our house. But… okay, yeah, I wouldn’t mind living in one of these.”
The upper floors were apartments, or possibly hotel rooms, with the ground floor taken up with shops, though Nilda was tempted to use the word boutique.
“Wait,” Jay said. “That’s cheating!”
“What is?”
“That shop. In the window. It says The Latest in Luxuries. That’s English!”
“So?” Nilda asked.
“Well, we’re abroad, aren’t we? Shouldn’t it be in French or something?”
“They must have had a lot of visitors from Britain. Considering its location, that’s not too surprising.”
“Yeah, but it shouldn’t be allowed,” Jay said. He peered into the window. “Belts. Handbags. About half of the racks are empty. Think they had coats on them.”
“And they would have been winter-wear, wouldn’t they?” Nilda said. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say they were taken by the people from the cruise ship.”
“We could check the back,” Jay said. “See if there are any left.”
“Not just now,” Nilda said. “There’ll be time enough. The snow is getting a bit heavier, and I think it’s starting to settle. Let’s get to the beach, then back to our yacht so we can find out what Leon has to say.”
Tuck had walked a little way ahead, and across the road. She pointed down. “Tracks,” she signed.
Three deep ruts had been gouged into the narrow strip of withered grass separating the road from the wooden boardwalk. Each rut criss-crossed the others. An inch of water filled the base, and snow dotted the sides, but they’d been created by tyres.
“Military?” Nilda asked.
Tuck shook her head, then shrugged.
“You’re right, it doesn’t really matter. But they are recent,” Nilda said.
One high-end shop followed the next. Boutique was the right word for them. She recognised some of the brands. Not from Penrith, but from the more expensive areas of London.
“A wooden walkway, I like that,” Jay said.
“It’s called a boardwalk,” Nilda said.
“Cool. Yeah. Trees for shade, benches to watch the boats. I could see myself holidaying here. Where are the hotels? Are they inland, do you think?”
“I think they’re above the shops,” Nilda said. “Assuming Belgium was anything like England, they’d have rented them out to tourists. And tourists would have paid.”
“Do you think you would?” Jay asked.
“We’re beyond my realm of experience here, Jay,” Nilda said.
Tuck stepped back from the doorway of a cafe. “Hastily looted,” she signed. “Cups still behind the counter. Might find more supplies inside.”
Between the cafe and a clothes shop where naked mannequins sprawled in the empty window was a windowless door, a slightly deeper shade of orange than that of the building’s wooden panelling.
“Splinters are fresh,” Tuck signed. She pushed at the door. It creaked open, revealing a long hallway the length of the shop-front, but which then widened to a vestibule with a long counter.
“And here’s your hotel, Jay,” Nilda said. “We’ll leave it for now. The snow really is starting to come down.” She headed back to the road.
“Wait, hang on, there’s a shopping trolley down this alley,” Jay called.
“Is it full?”
“No.”
“Then leave it,” Nilda said. “It’s not like we have anything to carry.”
“Yeah, but it’s for that supermarket you worked for,” Jay said, stepping into the alley. “What’s that doing all the way out here?”
“They were a European-wide chain, Jay,” Nilda said. “They had stores all over the continent. All over the world, I think.”
“Oh. Well, maybe if there’s an— Woah!” He jumped back out the alley mouth as a loud bang echoed. Nilda turned around, as Tuck raised her submachine gun. A handle-less door, halfway along the alley, had swung open. A ragged figure stepped out.
“Hey, are you—” Jay began, but was interrupted by a snarl, as the zombie twitched and lurched towards its prey. Tuck fired. Red-brown pus sprayed from its skull, splattering the pale blue-painted wood. The zombie collapsed.
“Back to the road,” Nilda said. “And then the beach. Weapons out and eyes open from now on.”
“Looked almost human,” Jay said. “I mean, I think it was recently alive. Must have been one of the passengers on the ship.”
“You think? Keep watch.” She walked over to the corpse, bent down, and checked. �
��No ID,” she said.
They saw no more undead before they reached the seafront. There, the military transports appeared much as they’d seen them from the sea.
“Shall we go aboard?” Jay asked.
“No,” Nilda said, refusing to let herself shiver. “I think we’ve seen enough. Those are heavy tyre-treads, aren’t they? Military vehicles?”
“From the transports, yes,” Tuck signed.
“And they drove into that lamppost, I suppose, but then they drove away,” Nilda said. “Drove away and out of here, with civilian vehicles to supplement what they had aboard.”
“Don’t you want to check whether there’s diesel left?” Jay asked.
“Not now,” Nilda said. “The snow is getting heavier. We need to find out if it’s safe to board the cruise ship or not, but it’s certainly not safe to sail in this weather. I think… yes, I think we’ll have time enough to search those transports, and the Courageous, and the rest of this town.”
When they reached the yacht, everyone was already aboard. The snowfall was turning from a storm to a blizzard.
“Might be some salvage ashore, but not much,” Nilda said. “Any word from Leon?”
“From George,” Jennings said. He grinned. “Guess what? It’s good news.”
“There are people aboard?” Jay asked.
“Ah, no. Sorry. I built that up a bit too much. Next best thing.”
“Food?” Jay asked.
“I built this up way too much,” Jennings said. “The cruise ship’s emergency generator works. We’ve got power. Only for a few hours, mind you.”
“The cruise ship is safe?” Nilda asked.
“Leon thinks so,” Jennings said.
“Then let’s get there before the electricity runs out.”
Chapter 13 - The Last Word in Luxury
Nieuwpoort
“Can I take your coat?” Simone said.
“Can I ask why?” Nilda asked, looking around the dimly lit lounge.
“To dry it,” Simone said. “Giselle says we don’t want mushrooms growing on the carpet.”
Surviving The Evacuation (Book 15): Where There's Hope Page 12