Surviving the Evacuation, Book 17

by Frank Tayell

  “You mean there’s more planes?” Toussaint asked.

  “A lot more,” Sholto said. “What’s missing are fires. The trees were ploughed aside during the crashes, and there’s scorch marks on a handful of trunks, but nothing more. Sure, the ice, snow, mud, and bodies obscure a lot of the ground, but those planes must have been flying on fumes. I went inside a third aircraft this morning, and it’s the same as the two I inspected yesterday. It flew out of Atlanta. Considering the paintjob, I think all those planes did. After the outbreak, they shared the fuel in Atlanta among all those planes, and had just enough to reach here. Compared to the mainland, I can see why they’d think it was safer. But it wasn’t safe enough. The virus was already here. My theory is that the infection arrived on planes that first landed at St John’s, then on planes which landed at Gander. By the time those planes from Atlanta arrived, some weeks after the outbreak, the runways were ruins. They must have turned around, but with only fumes in their tanks, they had to land somewhere. With no tower, and no one on the ground, they had to eyeball a landing site, and picked that section of pasture and road. On landing, some people left the planes. Those that didn’t flee became trapped when the undead came.”

  “Can you show me where on the map this was?” Sergeant Toussaint asked.

  “Sure, the map’s in the truck,” Sholto said. “But we should wait until the storm passes before we head back there.”

  “Not all of us,” Nilda said. “Did Chester tell you about our patient?”

  “That you found a hospital, and that she’s recovering.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Nilda said. “But she did regain consciousness for long enough to confirm she is Diana Fenton. She came from a community that has no ships, no fuel. That’s why she came here. She thought the diesel could save them. I don’t know how exactly, because she lost consciousness at that point. She departed just after Thanksgiving, which isn’t that long ago. We can save her by taking her back to Faroe for the admiral to treat her, or we can head south, to save her people.”

  “The calculus of survival, the needs of the many,” Sholto said. “We’re going south?”

  “Not all of us,” Sergeant Toussaint said. “There’s the needs of our people, too. I’m staying here, with the squad, a medic and an engineer.”

  “The rest of us will take her home,” Nilda said. “She wasn’t completely lucid, but there were thousands of them at the beginning of the outbreak, and they had electricity and food. The ships were stolen, along with the fuel. I assume that was being used to keep the lights on. Hence her desperation as winter approached, and she truly was desperate to come here, alone. She asked we help her people, so we will, unless you saw anything that suggests our priority is remaining here.”

  “When you say she left her people after Thanksgiving, did she mean Canadian Thanksgiving, because that’s in October,” Sholto said.

  “Then we might already be too late. Thaddeus, can you run through what you saw, and where, with the sergeant, and then we’ll depart.”

  “Give me ten minutes,” Sholto said. “But it’ll be good to see Maryland again.”

  “Oh, we’re not going to the United States,” Nilda said.

  “I thought she sailed up from Annapolis,” Sholto said.

  “Oh, she did,” Nilda said. “Brief the sergeant on what he should know. I’ll tell you the rest when we’re aboard.”

  The ship rocked, the saucepans clattered, but Chester caught them before they fell to the galley’s impossible-to-keep-clean deck.

  “Put the map down and give us a hand, Jay,” he said. He looked over the selection of ingredients and baulked at the possibilities. “Today’s special is… porridge, I think.”

  “Did you know there was an Annapolis in Canada?” Jay asked.

  “I barely knew there was one in the United States,” Chester said.

  “It’s a shame we don’t have one of those waterproof tanks you had in France.”

  “Why’s that?” Chester asked.

  “Because we’re going the long way around,” Jay said. He held up the chart taken from the beached Frobisher. It was the only map they’d found which listed the Nova Scotian town of Annapolis Royal. “There’s neck of land here, you see? I guess this is Nova Scotia to the east, and all this to the west is proper Canada. If we had the tank, we could go ashore near this town, Amhurst. Then we could drive down. We’d be there by tomorrow.”

  “I guess we could go ashore anyway, fix up a car,” Chester said.

  “Yeah, but a tank would be better for driving down all those flooded roads,” Jay said. “Besides, it’d be easier if we had a vehicle aboard we could use. I was thinking about that ferry ramp, and how hard it was getting The New World anywhere near the shore in Newfoundland. So, if we had one of those waterproof tanks—”

  “ATVs,” Chester said.

  “Yeah, them, we could lower it over the side by crane, drive ashore, and then keep going. It’s going to take us days to get there.”

  “Two days, one night,” Chester said. “Hopefully. If we can outrace the storm.”

  There was another clatter, and this time he didn’t move quickly enough to catch the falling pans. “Make yourself useful, put some water on to boil. No, use the kettle, not the stove. And hold onto it while it boils.”

  “What are we having for lunch?”

  “Porridge, I just said.”

  “Seriously? With all this loot we gathered, we could have cake.”

  “And you can bake one for dinner, just don’t ask me how. Seeing as we’re battling the waves as well as ignorance, let’s keep it simple.”

  “Yeah, maybe you’re right. Mum probably couldn’t keep it down. She’s been sick a lot, hasn’t she?”

  “I wouldn’t say a lot,” Chester said. “And the seas have been pretty rough.”

  “I guess. Can we add some nutmeg?”

  “Do we have any?”

  “Yeah, I found a jar yesterday. There’s not much left, but it’s a Christmas spice, isn’t it? And it’s almost Christmas.”

  “I suppose it is.”

  Even boiling grains and water was a Herculean undertaking in the surging seas that had grown more tumultuous in the hour since they’d left Newfoundland. Where the chief had disappeared below to his engines, and Nilda had stayed on the bridge, hunger had dragged Chester and Jay to the galley.

  “I don’t think these are oats,” Jay said.

  “Me neither, but I can’t think of a better way to find out than cooking—” The ship lurched, and he upended the label-less plastic jar, tipping out nearly all its contents into the saucepan.

  “There was another place on that map. Prince Edward Island,” Jay said. “It’s southwest of Newfoundland. Smaller, but it’s still an island.”

  “Hmm?” Chester murmured, only half listening as he spooned the excess grains back into the jar.

  “Not long ago, we were looking for islands, weren’t we?” Jay said. “But if the zombies are all dead, we could go to the mainland. We could go anywhere.”

  “True. But don’t forget the horde,” Chester said. “Is that kettle boiled?”

  “Hmm? Oh, yeah. Here. Yeah, no, I’m not going to forget leaving London,” Jay said. “Although… I mean, we didn’t actually see it. Not really. I mean, obviously we didn’t see the horde. If we had, if all those millions of zombies had caught up with us, we’d have been dead. We saw the undead, on the riverbanks, but we didn’t see the horde.”

  “Don’t overthink it, and don’t think the mainland is safe. Not yet.” He turned on the stove. “It’ll never be as safe as it was before the outbreak, and we should remember that. Now, keep the lid on, and keep stirring.”

  “How can I do both at the same time?”

  “You’re a bright lad, you’ll figure it out.”

  “You in there?” the chief called out from the mess hall.

  “Depends who you’re looking for,” Chester said. “And what for.”

  “You’re wan
ted on the bridge,” the chief said. Though there was rarely any humour in his tone, this time, there was nothing but concern.

  “It’s serious?”

  “Very,” the chief said.

  “Bad news from Faroe?”

  “Very bad.”

  “The sunset is beautiful, isn’t it?” Chester said, as he stared out the bridge’s wide windows. “Are we going to cut our speed tonight?”

  “I think we’ll keep on, as fast as we can,” Nilda said. “For as long as we can see the stars.”

  “Should be a clear night,” Chester said, before returning to his chair. “For us, anyway. Poor old Sergeant Toussaint, having to make his road trip in a blizzard.”

  “If the snow gets that bad, the Marines will have to turn back,” Nilda said. “They should have told us sooner.”

  “You mean Bill and the admiral? Yeah, I’m with you on that. They shouldn’t have kept us in the dark. Felicity’s sick, the locals murdered the survivors from Malin Head, and the French and Ukrainians might have gone to the Alps. That’s quite some news to dump on us all in one go. And why do I think there’s still more going on that they’ve not told us?”

  “They certainly should have told us about Felicity, but I understand Bill’s point of view. With so much bad news, they were worried this business with the Faroese and the people from Malin Head might be the final straw. He didn’t want to risk anyone overhearing, so didn’t want to tell us until he knew no one was listening. I get that. Clearly, after we called yesterday, telling them about the loot in Port-Aux-Basques and the undead corpses, and Sholto called to tell them about the planes, they must have discussed their options. They’ve more or less decided that Newfoundland could be our new home.”

  “Regardless of what Diana’s people are like?” Chester asked.

  “If they really are without ships, then yes,” Nilda said. “But if Bill had told us yesterday, or even this morning, we could have stayed on Newfoundland. We could have taken the ship to St John’s, helped the sergeant search Newfoundland to confirm the zombies truly are dead.”

  “Like you said,” Chester said. “If they’ve made up their minds to cross the Atlantic, does it matter? I agree they’ve got to quit Faroe, but I don’t like abandoning Scott, Amber, and Salman in Europe.”

  “To find them, we’d have to go to the Mediterranean, and be ready to fight the remains of the cartel,” Nilda said.

  “I don’t think we’d find the cartel,” Chester said. “They’ll starve before they reach the sea.”

  “But if we begin this coming year preparing for war, I’d worry we’d end it looking for an enemy. And we might not find the cartel in the Mediterranean, but would we find Scott?”

  “We’ve got to think longer term, haven’t we?” Chester said. “Fair enough. You’ve got a point. So, Newfoundland?”

  “I think so,” she said.

  “It didn’t seem so bad,” Chester said.

  “High praise indeed,” Nilda said. “I don’t think I’d call it Eldorado, but it could be better than London.”

  “Not as good as Anglesey,” Chester said. “There’s no electricity.”

  “We’ve got diesel, so we can run a few generators,” Nilda said. “Like Bill said, we need oil.”

  “Will we find it in Newfoundland? Thaddeus said something about all the Canadian oil being in tar sands over in Alberta, somewhere in the middle of the country.”

  “We’ll look for oil,” Nilda said. “We’ll look for maps first, but as long as we have the ships, we can find it. We’ll find wind turbines, too, I’m sure. We’ll find… I don’t know. A different way of living, better in some ways, worse in others, but I think it will be there, on Newfoundland, that we’ll build our home. Something with a sea view, and room for four.”

  Day 286 - 24th December

  Chapter 21 - A Post-Apocalyptic Eve

  East Ferry, Nova Scotia

  “Mink Cove, Sandy Cove,” Jay read aloud from the chart they’d taken from the beached Frobisher. “Oh, there’s a Gulliver’s Cove. Still no Pirate’s Cove.”

  “What about the name of the place the lights are coming from?” Chester asked as patiently as he could manage. Night was descending doubly swift as they continued northward through the Bay of Fundy. Their current location was a guess based on clock and compass. But ahead, indisputably, was a slowly turning light.

  “It could be Brier Island,” Jay said. “Yeah. Yeah, I think it could be. There’s a lighthouse marked on this map.”

  “And that’s definitely a lighthouse,” Nilda said. “No, there’s two. Do you see? To the north, there’s a second light.”

  “Then this has to be Brier Island,” Jay said. “It says there are two lighthouses.”

  “But probably automated,” Nilda said. “So there might not be people there, but there is electricity. Fine, Jay, if that’s Brier Island, is there somewhere we can go ashore?”

  “Dunno,” Jay said. “Hang on, let me look.”

  “We can’t go ashore beneath a lighthouse,” Chester said. “Isn’t the whole point of those lights to warn ships against a treacherous coast?”

  “Here,” Jay said. “There’s another island above Brier. Long Island, apparently. I thought that was in New York. I don’t think it’s right, more than one place having the same name.”

  “Let me see,” Nilda said, walking over to where Jay had laid the charts on the illuminated map table. “No, not Long Island. To the north, on what I think is the mainland, is a place called East Ferry.”

  “Don’t we want an island?” Jay asked.

  “We want to find Diana’s people,” Nilda said. “Annapolis Royal is on the mainland. Quite a way north, it’s true, but we won’t reach it today. We can reach East Ferry, and with a name like that, we’ll find a harbour. Chester’s right, we don’t want to risk running aground. We can reach East Ferry just before complete dark, and if its name matches its appearance, we’ll go ashore. At dawn, we’ll head overland to Annapolis.”

  “I wish Diana was awake,” Jay said. “She could tell us where to go.”

  “And if wishes were courses, I’d have seven of them at each meal, three times a day,” Chester said. “But they ain’t, so you can come help me get the launch ready.”

  They had sailed through the night, nearly at full speed, out-racing the storm, and kept that pace up during the cold but clear new day as they had turned north, into the Bay of Fundy. Though they’d beaten one storm south, when they’d first sighted the rocky shores of western Nova Scotia, they’d found another blizzard had arrived before them. The snow lay thick, a mottled carpet of ice-white out of which frequent trees and infrequent buildings occasionally emerged. From the odd patches of exposed soil, the storms hadn’t been as heavy here as in northern Europe, not yet, but there was a permanence to the sea-wind’s chill. Winter had taken up residence in Canada, and had already extended its stay for the season.

  They found Sholto by the starboard rail, watching the snow-covered shore.

  “Do you see the lights?” Sholto said.

  “But are lighthouses occupied?” Chester asked. “It could be they didn’t turn those circuits off.”

  “No, not the lighthouse,” Sholto said. “Wait for the searchlight to turn. There. Behind. Do you see those? Those are house windows, I’m positive. We’ll see them more clearly as we sail north.”

  “Huh. But do lights mean people?” Chester murmured.

  “It does!” Jay exclaimed. “On the hillside. I see figures among the snow!”

  “Where?” Chester asked.

  “Oh, no, the ship’s moved on,” Jay said. “They’re gone now. I mean, you can’t see them. But they were there. Like twelve of them.”

  “People or zombies, that’s the question,” Sholto said.

  “Yeah, good point,” Jay said. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

  “Where are you going?” Chester asked.

  “To get a camera,” Jay said, barely pausing. “It’s stupid us guessing wha
t we’re looking at when we can just take a picture.”

  “Fair point,” Chester said. As Jay disappeared inside, and Sholto peered at the shore, he moved back from the rail and leaned against the bulkhead. “If I’d been Lisa Kempton, I’d have stuck an awning here, maybe a little sentry post. Somewhere so a lookout could be out of the wind.”

  “She didn’t plan this far ahead,” Sholto said. “At no point did she consider that she’d need lookouts on deck, sheltering from the weather, and in all weather. I take some comfort in that.”

  “That she didn’t plan this far ahead? Seems a bit perverse.”

  “It’s that she didn’t really think the apocalypse would happen,” Sholto said. “Remember Haderslev?”

  “You bet. It’s not every day you try to take out a tank.”

  “The bomb beneath the facility was in case she was betrayed. That was what she feared, yes? She expected to be betrayed, or captured by the authorities. The real effort went into making sure the truth would come out. That’s what Sorcha said. I didn’t believe her at first. But I do now.”

  “Because there’s no awning on this part of the ship?”

  “Yep. And because there’s only one ship. Kempton’s efforts went into stopping the apocalypse, so she thought preventing it was possible.”

  “I don’t know how that helps,” Chester said. “That next island, that must be Long Island. There’s another lighthouse, that’s good. Means there’s power there as well, so it’s likely to be coming from a grid. We’re going ashore soon. A place called East Ferry. That’s on the southern shore of the mainland that begins where Long Island ends. No, I still don’t get it. You’re glad Lisa didn’t plan as much for the end of the world as she might have done? I don’t get your thinking. Do you mean that you now trust Sorcha?”

  “I trust her because of everything she’s done,” Sholto said. “France, Denmark, Birmingham. Yes, I trust her. This is more about me. How everything I was doing fitted into a wider picture. I… I wasn’t alone. I guess that’s what it comes down to. I wasn’t a flamethrower taken to the weeds, but nor was I a solitary candle illuminating the world. Which makes the past not quite as dark as I remember. In turn, that gives me hope for the future.”