by Frank Tayell
“Until the zombies are finally dead,” Scott said. “Or until we head to the Pyrenees. And then Belfast, and then… who knows?”
“Forever, then,” Starwind said.
“But for now,” Salman said, “we’ll hold that bridge until relieved.”
Part 2
Power and Diplomacy
Sholto
The Faroe Islands
Day 261 - Day 264
29th November - 2nd December
Day 261, 29th November
Chapter 7 - Missed Rendezvous
The Amundsen, The North Sea
Beneath Thaddeus Sholto’s feet, the deck fell away. He snatched at the railing, forestalling an ignominious fall as the icebreaker pierced another towering wave on its journey north to the Faroe Islands. Holding the rail two-handed, and by the dim light of the occasional bulb illuminating the narrow, windowless corridor, he stared at his feet until he was once again confident which way was up, and which was down.
The last year had been kinder to him than to his younger brother. Two days ago, during his escape from Calais, Bill had added a bullet wound and broken collarbone to his collection of breaks, cuts, and scars. Bill was alive, though. Alive and safe aboard Lisa Kempton’s old ship, The New World. Safety was relative, since that ship was currently sailing back to Calais to confirm the slavers who’d scavenged their name, if not their purpose, from the Rosewood Cartel were gone. But Bill was alive, though his brother was only occasionally conscious, according to the sat-phone message Sholto had battled his way up to the Amundsen’s bridge to collect.
By contrast, over the last year, Sholto had only acquired more grey hairs, deeper worry-canyons, and a throbbing pain in his knees whenever he knelt down. Forty-eight years old. His most recent birthday had gone unmarked, and he struggled to remember whether it had been spent at sea, safe, or struggling for his life. Possibly all three. Never, in the thirty-three years since he’d first left England, had he expected to live this long. Each new day was a gift, though not always a welcome one. And this day, like the previous one, and like many in his near future, was destined to be spent at sea.
Hugging the bulkhead, he hauled himself hand-over-hand to the cabin he shared with the rest of the landing party: Sergeant Thelonious Toussaint, Privates Luca Petrelli, Maya Torres, and Isabella Gonzales, all survivors of the USS Harper’s Ferry. Solid. Reliable. Dutiful. They were witnesses as much as bodyguards, here to silence the increasingly mutinous mutterings of those thousands who’d escaped the inferno in Belfast only to find Dundalk was little better. The homeless survivors wanted a safe harbour, and they wanted it a month ago. If not the Faroe Islands, then America. Either Admiral Gunderson would take them there, or they’d find another leader who would. From what the newly promoted Sergeant Toussaint had told Sholto, there were plenty of willing candidates for that position.
If the Marines were to provide witness for the military contingent, and those former civilians who’d tied their banner to that particular mast, Gloria Rycroft and Reg Cafney represented the other survivors of Anglesey and Belfast. She’d been an actuary, and hadn’t lost her coolly calculating mind during her year-long journey from civilian to survivor to something more. Like Reg, she’d fought at Sholto’s side in Belfast, first at the battle on the road they’d turned into a runway for the plane which had never arrived, then again while holding back the undead as the burning city was finally evacuated.
Reg was an actor, and the closest thing their community had to an old-world celebrity. While his small stature had limited his on-screen roles, his booming voice was recognisable from scores of adverts and radio-plays. Reg himself was most proud of a stand-up routine, of which, among nearly ten thousand survivors who’d found their way to Wales and then Ireland, only Gloria had been aware.
Sholto made three, and Siobhan Murphy made four, giving them an equal balance of Marines and civilian survivors. Siobhan was in charge, though, and the only voice that would officially count. A police officer from the Irish Republic, she’d been instrumental in identifying those who’d sabotaged the nuclear power plant, the grain ship, and Bill’s plane.
Seven people, not counting himself. All of whom Sholto trusted, and who should number one half of the expedition to the Faroe Islands, but their plans had already gone awry.
He opened the cabin door. The chamber beyond was as windowless as the corridor and nearly as dark. To save power, lights had been removed across the entire ship. In this cabin, only two bulbs remained, one in the middle, and one over a bunk on which sat Luca Petrelli, his head half shaved. Private Maya Torres hovered above him, a pair of electric clippers in her hand.
“Are you finished?” Petrelli asked, while Reg and Gloria looked up from the book they’d been reading by the light of a tablet that was the only other illumination in the room.
“If I’d wanted to cut hair, I’d have stayed in Boyle Heights,” Private Torres said. She stepped back. “But for you, Luca, absolutely I’m done.”
Isabella Gonzales snickered. Petrelli ran a hand across his head. “Hey! Don’t leave me a mope with a mop. Finish the job!”
“You sure? It could be a new style for a new era,” Torres said.
“Like my pop always said, ladies first,” Petrelli said.
“I was first,” Torres said, raising the clippers to her already shaved head.
“Put him out of his misery,” Siobhan said. “Any news, Thaddeus?”
“Not really,” Sholto said, opting to soften the worst of it. “I’ve a message for you from Colm. He’s declared himself chief constable and outlawed unicycling.”
“Unicycling?” Petrelli asked. “Like a bike with one wheel?”
“Dean found one, apparently,” Sholto said. “He’s been terrorising the town.”
“And if that’s all they have to say, there really is no bad news,” Siobhan said, visibly relaxing.
“Not as such,” Sholto said. “Tamara has designed a new uniform for you when you get back. It has a bit of a unicorn theme.”
“Multi-coloured, you mean?” Siobhan asked. “She did something similar after we left Blarney. No, it was after we left Malin Head and the people there. She gathered every brightly coloured piece of cloth she could find. I was worried for a while, after what happened with Mark, after we were virtually kicked out of that community in Ireland’s far north. I thought Tamara was turning inward. But no. Zombies are covered in mud. Bright colours indicate the wearers are human. And so it was an indication for Lena who not to fire her arrows at.”
“Smart move,” Private Torres said. “We should do the same.”
“Not if we’re worried about people as well as the undead,” Sergeant Toussaint said.
The ship bucked. Sholto grabbed the nearest bunk, and pulled himself over to his bed. The cabin had originally been designed as a flexible-use storage room. Lining the walls were pairs of bunks that could be stowed flush against the bulkhead when the room was being used for storage, or folded down when needed by sailors the icebreaker had rescued. It wasn’t designed to be comfortable, but at least it was warmer than the bridge.
“How soon until the rendezvous?” Private Gonzales asked. Like Torres, she hailed from the City of Angels. Both were a similar age, had lived barely a mile apart, but had never met until they joined the Marines.
“That’s been abandoned,” Sholto said. “The waves are too high. If we try to bring Chief Watts and his people aboard, we risk capsizing their boat. We’re continuing without him, and he’s heading south, to Ireland.”
“But isn’t he the whole point of this trip?” Gonzales asked. “Without an engineer, how will we know if the hydroelectric plant works?”
“If it’s been destroyed, we’ll know as soon as we locate it,” Sholto said. “It won’t be much harder to tell if it’s been significantly damaged. If it was mothballed when the island was abandoned, we might even be able to switch the power station back on. Otherwise, engineers from this ship can come ashore when the Amundsen retur
ns to Faroe. But they’ll need their full complement for the journey north. This ship is far more valuable than we are. Without it, we can’t refuel the Ocean Queen.”
“And that’s performing well?” Siobhan asked.
“It is. And on its way to Elysium,” Sholto said. “They’re awaiting its arrival. Dundalk is quiet. In Calais, the colonel has taken teams ashore to look for the cartel slavers, but the first reports indicate the port has been deserted. The HMS Courageous reported no sightings of them in Belgium, so it looks like the enemy has vanished.”
“And the people your brother found in Creil?” Gonzales asked.
“They’ll have left that town by now, and be somewhere down in the Pyrenees,” Sholto said. “But cloud cover is still too dense for the satellites to be useful. And the same is true above our heads.”
“We’re back to using mark-one eyeball,” Toussaint said, and sounded pleased. “At least you don’t worry about that breaking down. You finished with that book, Gloria?”
“Almost,” she said. “I just want to finish this story about a sheep farmer.”
The paperback was the sole book about the Faroe Islands in the Dundalk Technology College’s library. No doubt there were other books about Faroe in the town, but none had been found before the mission’s announcement and hasty departure.
“Anything useful in there?” Sholto asked.
“Not immediately,” Gloria said. “It’s more a collection of anecdotes about the families who lived on Faroe for generations. Since it was published forty years ago, I’m not sure how relevant it will be. The author was Irish, and I wonder if he might have worked at the college. That’s the only explanation I can think of for why they would have kept it.”
“It’s a shame that book of your brother’s is still on Anglesey,” Gonzales said.
“And a shame that island’s glowing with radiation,” Torres added.
“Perhaps we should go through the plan again,” Siobhan said. “It is Bill’s plan, and developed by him on Anglesey during the summer. And yes, it’s a pity we don’t have more information, but we can find it when we arrive. Our goal is to learn whether the Faroe Islands will make a safe harbour for the Ocean Queen, and the other ships.”
“And whether the islands can be our new home,” Reg added.
“Not really,” Toussaint said. “That decision will be made by the admiral, by Mrs O’Leary, and by whoever else is in charge. Not by us.”
All eyes went to Sholto. “And not by me,” he said. “I’m an advisor, that’s all I’ve ever been.”
“That’s not what your brother wrote in that journal,” Gonzales said.
“How long did they say the Ocean Queen will take to reach Elysium?” Siobhan cut in loudly. “Do they have a better idea of the ship’s performance?”
“Captain Fielding kept the ship in good working order,” Sholto said. “About three days, depending on the weather and how wide a berth they need to give the radiation seeping around the Cornish coast.”
“Okay, three days,” Siobhan said. “Then one to load all the people from Elysium. On the fifth day they’ll head north. They’ll reach Malin Head around nightfall, so get to Dundalk on the sixth, but let’s call it the seventh day, assuming they haven’t run out of fuel by then. The Amundsen will have returned from Svalbard, so they can refuel the ship at sea, or in Dundalk. Let’s say that, eight days from now, they’ll begin loading people in Dundalk. Give it another two days for the cruise ship to get to Faroe. That’s ten days before the Ocean Queen will arrive in Faroe. At least ten days. Whatever we find, the admiral will want to look for herself before she makes a final decision. And there’s a question about the people in the Pyrenees, and what happened to Captain Fielding’s people who went east towards Ukraine. Nor must we forget those murderers who were in Calais. Two weeks is a long time. Considering what’s happened during the last two, I don’t want to even guess at what might happen in the next fortnight.”
“And there’s the Harper’s Ferry and the Vehement,” Toussaint added. “If we cross the Atlantic, we’ll be leaving them behind. Those vessels may be broken, but they haven’t sunk yet.”
“And their fate won’t be decided by us, either,” Siobhan said. “Tonight we’ll stop around thirty miles south of Faroe. That hasn’t changed, has it?”
“Not that I was told,” Sholto said.
“Good. At dawn, the Amundsen will approach the islands, arriving off the coast around ten a.m., at the town of Tórshavn.”
“The largest town on the largest island, Streymoy,” Gloria said. “Says so here, and that can’t have changed.”
“As the Amundsen approaches the harbour,” Siobhan continued, “we’ll learn whether the anchorage is deep and secure enough for the Ocean Queen. If it is, we’ll take a boat and go ashore, making landfall around midday. Without Chief Watts… no, I don’t think our plans will change too much. Night comes early this far north. We’ll only have a few hours before dark. Was the town bombed to oblivion, is it radioactive, is it full of the undead? If the answer to those is no, we’ll have to decide whether we can survive there for four nights, maybe five, while the Amundsen goes north to Svalbard to refuel and return. We’ll plan the rest tomorrow evening, when we’re ashore.”
“And then we’ll look for the wind turbines and the hydroelectric plant?” Petrelli asked. “If that book has stories about sheep farmers, maybe we’ll find some lambs on the islands.”
“Mutton,” Torres said.
“We’ll look,” Siobhan said. “And we’ll search the hospital, the shops, the houses, and the airfield. We’ll look for diesel and marine oil in the harbour, and whether the radio mast is intact, but it’s the hydroelectric plant that’s key. With it, we’ll have a fresh water supply and a constant supply of electricity. With that, we can set up the hydroponics.”
“Oh, for a hot bath,” Gloria said. “My kingdom for a hot bath.”
“Speaking of which,” Reg said. “You’ve not seen my Tempest, and I believe this is the definition of a captive audience.” He jumped down to the deck, then caught the edge of the lower bunk as the ship bucked.
“You know some of the play by heart?” Siobhan asked.
“I know all of all the plays,” Reg said. “In fact, I wrote a one-man play improving on Shakespeare’s work. No, don’t groan. It went down very well at the Edinburgh Fringe. For our former colonial cousins in the audience, that’s a comedy festival. And, indeed, mine is a transatlantic tragicomedy. Our story begins in 1936 aboard a steam-powered liner approaching Ellis Island…”
Day 262, 30th November
Chapter 8 - Refuge of the Gods
Tórshavn, The Faroe Islands
When the motor launch banged into the side of Tórshavn’s seawall, Sholto almost dropped the Geiger counter he’d been holding since they’d left the Amundsen, but he didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Reading is fine,” he said. “All clear.”
“Go!” Toussaint said, the order whispered rather than shouted, but loud enough for all to hear. The sergeant bolted from the boat; Petrelli was second with a rope in his hand. As he secured the small launch, Torres and Gonzales followed the sergeant onto land and across the empty expanse of spray-drenched concrete. Siobhan climbed out, then Reg and Gloria, leaving Sholto the last to step ashore. But the surface onto which he set foot was neither dry nor land.
A thin rain had begun falling as the Amundsen had made its final approach. With that added to the salt spray from the battering waves, the concrete quayside was slick for a hundred metres east until it met land proper, a road, and then a steeply sloping, dark green hillside dotted with occasional buildings. They were almost certainly houses, but their roofs were lost in the mist, and there was no sign of the lighthouse their book told them should be perched somewhere above.
To the south were a pair of angular warehouses, built so close to a broad slipway that they had to service large ships. Perhaps they were terminal buildings, perhaps they were storage; Torres and Gon
zales, already jogging towards them, would find out. To the north of the artificially expanded harbour lay an increasingly dense smattering of three and four-storey buildings.
“Interesting architecture,” Reg mused. “Blocky. Angular. Painted in light blue and faded red. The designer’s struggle is writ large in the shape of those windows, a battle between natural illumination and insulation. No, that’s not paint, it’s cladding. Well, of course it is. Paint would have to be imported every few years, while cladding would offer a cheaper and more permanent solution.”
“You retraining as an estate agent, Reg?” Gloria asked. “There’s no chimneys on the newer buildings, but more importantly, there are no lights, no smoke. So there are no people here. That’s a shame.”
“Unless they’re hiding,” Siobhan said. “They saw our ship and decided to watch first, speak later. Did you notice there are no cars in this car park? That’s what we’re standing on, and in. Look at the signs. Look at the painted lines, dividing it into lanes leading… leading over there, near those warehouses. That’s where they’d drive onto a Ro-Ro ferry.”
“But no significant damage to any of the buildings,” Reg said. “While most of the town is lost in the mist, the hillside looks green. Dark green, yes, but that grass is alive. Should we radio the Amundsen?”
Sholto waved at the icebreaker. “I can see the ship, and so they can see us, and that we’ve come ashore. That’s good enough for now. Let’s go join the Marines.”
He hung the Geiger counter around his neck, cinched his pack tight, and checked the safety on his rifle. They each carried an SA80 fitted with a suppressor built on Anglesey, and four full magazines. At their belts, each had a Berretta M9, with three full magazines. In addition, each had a bayonet or blade, and whatever other weapons they’d saved, found, or scrounged. They were well armed, but the ammunition represented nearly the last Dundalk had in store. Similarly, they were well provisioned. Most of their calories came from twice-baked hard-cakes, though to that had been added a couple of tins of baked beans each, and two more of fruit. A slab of cement-hard toffee, a jar of cinnamon, another of cumin, and a tub of powdered milk rounded off their store-cupboard. Again, those represented all that Ireland could spare. They’d brought net and rods with which to fish, and hoped to find some old-world supplies in the town, but otherwise, if the worst happened, they had enough supplies to stay alive for five days until the Amundsen’s return.
