by Frank Tayell
“What else do you know about the planes?” Sholto asked.
“On Newfoundland? It was the same story as everywhere else,” Jonas said. “The airports on Newfoundland were closed a few hours after the outbreak. They accepted most of the transatlantic flights that couldn’t land in New York. A couple of days later, more planes arrived. Some landed. Some crashed. Some had the infection aboard. Even more planes came. Can’t tell you when, but you can ask around, find one of the passengers if you want the dates.”
“I acquired a niece a few months back. She’s writing a history, and I can guarantee she’ll ask for all the details. That’s when the planes from Georgia arrived?”
“In our own histories, in our stories, we call that The Last Flight,” Jonas said. “Don’t know that it was, but it was two days after the nuclear war that they flew overhead, and over to Newfoundland. Phoenix Air, they called themselves before they took off. Rising from the ashes of an atomic apocalypse. Seeing how it ended, Icarus Air would have been more appropriate.”
“But they took off after the nuclear war? Atlanta wasn’t hit?”
“Guess not,” Jonas said. “But it was the final straw for Newfoundland. The people in St John’s had seen a mushroom cloud. Out at sea. To the east.”
“Good thing we didn’t go there first,” Sholto said.
“In this ship? You wouldn’t get into the harbour,” Jonas said.
“There’s a narrow entrance?”
“Famously so,” he said.
“Then it’s a very good thing we took the long route around,” Sholto said. “Was it just one mushroom cloud they saw?”
“Isn’t one enough?” Jonas asked. “And we know more were seen on the mainland. All over the continent. Of course you know. You saw them. Oh, it really does feel like history now.” He turned and ran his hand across the counter, then stepped out into the empty mess hall. “This really is Lisa Kempton’s ship?”
“It is.”
“She found you, then?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Ms Kempton,” Jonas said. “She found you?”
“No, her captain was aboard. Undead. My brother found the ship anchored off Ireland. Lisa wasn’t aboard. But what do you mean by found?”
“She was looking for you,” Jonas said. “That’s how we came to be here. Why we came here. She told us about the tidal barrage. Told us this place with its renewable energy source, its fishing hamlets and small farms, was the place to come. The one place in North America we might survive. She told us that in Maine when she came looking for you.”
“Lisa Kempton came looking for me?”
“A few days after you set sail for England,” Jonas said. “And she wasn’t the only one.”
Day 12, March 24th
Chapter 24 - First Glimpse of Spring
Cherryfield, Maine
“Are those the cherry bushes?” Luke asked as Jonas slowly drove the pick-up along the rain-kissed streets of the small Maine town.
The spring shower had filled the shallow winter potholes, which, almost two weeks after the mushroom clouds blighted their skies, would now never be repaired. But the nuclear war had begun, and just as swiftly ended, three weeks after the outbreak of an impossible, and evidently unstoppable, virus. There were far more pressing dangers than the future condition of the road.
“Cherries don’t grow on bushes,” Soanna replied.
“I knew that,” Luke said. “Where do they grow?”
“Trees, obviously,” Soanna said.
“Oh. Like those?” Luke asked.
“Those are pine trees.”
They weren’t, but Jonas didn’t want to join in the bickering debate between the two city-children sharing the pick-up truck’s front passenger seat. He kept his eyes ahead and his speed low as they followed the road as it followed the river, hoping against hope that the town’s northern bridge still stood.
“But the town is called Cherryfield,” Luke said, like a dog with a mammoth’s tibia. “That means fields of cherries. Trees don’t grow in fields. I know that.”
“What about apples?” Soanna said.
“I thought we agreed stowaways don’t talk while they’re being punished,” Jonas said.
“But you said we’d be punished when we got back to Crossfields Landing,” Luke said. “And we’re not there yet.”
“Shh!” Soanna said. “Sorry, Jonas.”
He nodded, and glanced in the mirror to check the other two cars were following behind. They were. And they were alone. The houses of the small town were as deserted as the road. To their right was the Narraguagus River. Behind them, at the southern edge of the town, were the remains of the bridge they’d planned to cross. Ahead, as the road curved, he saw the smaller, northern bridge was still intact. He brought the car to a halt.
“Are we there?” Luke asked.
“Does this look like home?” Soanna said.
“You two stay here,” Jonas said. Inside his head, an alarm bell sounded. “Stay inside the truck. With the doors closed. Windows, too. I just want to check the bridge can still take the weight of a car.”
He unbuttoned his holster and stepped outside. He caught sight of the M16 in the rack behind the driver seat and, after a microsecond’s thought, took that, too.
The fully automatic assault rifle had come from a stash laid down by Tom Clemens. Prior to a week ago, Jonas had only known him as a reclusive lobbyist who had a cabin north of Crossfields Landing, and after whom the FBI had come asking questions in January. In February had come the outbreak. Then had come Luke, Soanna, and the other children, brought by Helena and Kaitlin, and sent to Maine by Tom Clemens. A few days later, Tom had come himself, but death had followed behind.
It was nearly a week since Tom had gone east, across the sea in a rickety boat on a reckless mission to find the source of the outbreak. He’d left behind answers as to how the outbreak had happened, and why the nuclear war had followed. He’d left behind his stash of weapons, too. And a lot more questions. And he’d left the children.
Jonas walked across the bridge towards an open-doored car, rusting on the other side. Below, the river raged, far wider and faster than was usual for this time of year, submerging the shrubs growing on either bank, but there was a solidly deep ring to his steps. The bridge would stand the weight of their convoy.
He crossed to the barrier, and peered at the rushing torrent below. Debris rode the frothing white-capped water, catching around the pillars where planks, plastic sheeting, branches, and netting were forming a dam. Was that the cause of the southern bridge’s collapse? It was the obvious explanation, and any other year, he’d have assumed it, but their world had been turned upside down and inside out. Nightmares had become reality, while old, everyday reality had become an unachievable dream.
As if to prove him right, from beneath the rusting car stalled at the bridge’s northern end crawled one of the living nightmares. The never-dying dead. The zombies of late-night fiction that were even worse in the light of day. But he’d fought them nearly every waking hour since the outbreak. He’d killed more than he could remember. Individually, as long as they remained on their own, and as long as he didn’t panic, didn’t rush, they weren’t a great threat.
He undid the clasp of his bowie knife. Zombies followed sound. That was a lesson they’d learned too slow. It wasn’t noise that had him leave his .45 holstered; their three trucks’ engines had been far louder than any gun’s report. It was ammunition, or the lack thereof. A bullet could only be fired once.
Behind him, Martha and Jimmy had both stopped the trucks they’d been driving, but only Kaitlin had climbed out. The soldier had clambered up onto the back of the vehicle, and now stood sentry with rifle raised.
His wickedly long, devilishly sharp bowie knife in hand, he paced towards the crawling zombie. The jeans and a not-warm-enough jacket it wore suggested a city dweller who’d fled to the countryside. The shoes would have confirmed it, but its feet were missing. The legs ende
d in stumps at its ankles. Probably the result of being run over by some fleeing vehicle in the horrific month since the outbreak.
Without breaking his stride, Jonas bent at the knee, swinging the bowie knife down on the zombie’s skull before continuing on, beyond the car, but the road was clear. He backed up five paces before bending, but there was nothing beneath the car, either.
“Clear!” he called, louder than necessary, turning to look at the street beyond the bridge. He counted to five, listening for a slamming door, a squeaking screen, a staggering footstep, but all was silence, save for the river below.
“You finished your sightseeing?” Martha asked when Jonas re-joined the rest of the convoy.
“For now,” Jonas said. “The bridge seems sturdy. It’ll take our weight.”
“The grocery store is on the far side?” Kaitlin asked. Growing up in a foster home had saved the soldier. Joining the army had been her way of giving something back. After the outbreak, she’d returned to the foster home to save the next generation. She’d led the children until they’d crossed paths with Tom Clemens, and he’d directed them all to Crossfields Landing.
“Oh, yeah,” Jimmy said. “The grocery store is just down that street, there.”
Where Jonas had retired to Crossfields Landing, Jimmy had sought his fortune in this sleepily far-away corner of America. His older brother, Andy, had been a college quarterback. During training, a bad tackle and worse fall had led to a brain injury. When he was out of hospital, Jimmy had brought his brother to Maine. With a couple of friends from high school, who to Jonas looked too young to have graduated, they set up a restaurant in a town that was dead for three months of the year, and barely awake for another six. In the town-wide sweepstake on when they’d go bust, Jonas had picked Memorial Day, but only because he liked the kids. He’d have been surprised if they made it through Easter, but the outbreak had come instead.
He climbed back into his truck, and drove across the river. The children, once again, were silent. The two foster-home city kids had seen death before, more often than most, and far too often these last few weeks, but it was still a shocking sight. Soanna might do a passable impression of a forty-year-old, but she was only eleven. Why they’d decided to stow away on this scavenging mission was still a mystery the old detective hadn’t quite solved. According to Soanna, she’d climbed under the tarp to persuade Luke to stop hiding there. Quite why he’d decided to hide in the truck, he’d yet to confess.
Jonas blamed himself, though. It hadn’t occurred to him to do a headcount before leaving. He’d never had children, let alone the grandchildren that would be more appropriate to his sixty years. He’d joined the force too young. Seen too much, too soon. Looking back, as he often had after he’d retired to Maine, there’d been only one love in his life he regretted getting away. But that would never have worked, not after Jonas had shot her fugitive husband to stop him getting away from a life sentence. Except now she was in the truck behind. Martha Greene had sailed her boat north after the outbreak, all the way from Florida. Jonas revised his earlier opinion. This year truly was one of surprises, and not all of them were bad.
There was nothing good to be said about the grocery store.
“Looted down to the shelves,” Jonas said. Beneath his boots, the torn-down doors creaked as he climbed over them and back out onto the sidewalk. Kaitlin followed. Everyone else had stayed with the vehicles: Soanna and Luke, Martha, Jimmy and his brother, Andy.
“Where next?” Kaitlin asked.
“That bridge gives me the jeebies,” Martha said. “Did you see the dam that’s growing around the supports? If the increased weight of water doesn’t snap the bridge’s legs, they’ll be washed away in the deluge when the dam breaks.”
“But it’ll hold today,” Jonas said.
“You never were one to think about tomorrow,” Martha said. “The same thing will be happening to every other bridge up and down the county, all across the country. We’re not ready to be cut off. If our plan is to hide until the zombies are gone, we need more supplies. We might be waiting a month. Two months, even. Driving around the countryside to one town after another is getting us nowhere.”
“It got us here,” Andy rumbled. Despite the head injury, or perhaps because of it, he’d kept up his quarterback’s training regime, even in the wilds of Maine, even in the depths of winter. He didn’t just cast a shadow, but caused an eclipse. “Here’s somewhere.”
“Exactly right,” Martha said. “But where we should go is the First Lady’s home in Vermont. Tom said there was gas there, and an arsenal.”
“Was there food?” Jimmy asked.
“If there isn’t, we can look for some along the way,” Martha said.
“We can’t get there today,” Jonas said. “And we wouldn’t start from here. We can discuss it tonight.”
“So we’re looking for somewhere nearby?” Jimmy asked. “Somewhere to loot so we don’t return empty-handed? I think I know a place.”
“Around here?” Jonas asked.
“Not a store,” Jimmy said. “There’s a… best call it a farm. It’s south of Beddington, and that’s not far. It’s just up that road.”
“What kind of farm?” Jonas asked, suspicion growing.
“Now, Jonas, you’re not a flat-foot anymore,” Martha said. “What do they have that we could use, Jimmy?”
“Maple syrup,” Jimmy said.
“Yes, please,” Andy added.
“Those little clay jugs you have?” Martha asked. “That’s where it comes from?”
“They sell in bulk up to Canada,” Jimmy said.
“You mean smuggle,” Jonas asked, relaxing a little as he decided these farmers were located on the more harmless end of the criminal fraternity.
“I never asked,” Jimmy said. “But they sold the small jugs at food fairs. They sold food, too. Preserves, pickles, fruit-leather, all made from their own harvest, on their own small organic farm.”
“That’s more useful,” Jonas said. “You should have mentioned this before. Beddington’s what, about an hour north of here? We should get moving, and we can be back before dark.”
“Um… no,” Jimmy said. “Not you, I think.”
“Why not?”
“Because they know you’re a cop,” Jimmy said. “It’s why they wouldn’t deliver, and I had to go collect. And the kids shouldn’t come either.”
Jonas’s eyes narrowed. “What else did they grow on this farm, or is grow the wrong word?”
Jimmy shrugged. “They know us. And they like Andy. Me and him, if we go up there, they’ll talk. If they see you, they might… they might not.”
“That explains why you don’t want me there. Why not the kids? Why didn’t you mention this place before?”
“They’re good people,” Jimmy said. “But they have friends. The kind of people you’d call associates.”
“Ah.”
“I’ll go with them,” Martha said.
“I dunno,” Jimmy said.
Martha laughed. “Son, do you not remember who I was married to? I think I can handle myself.”
“Take Kaitlin as well,” Jonas said. “The kids and I’ll take a look around here. Be back in two hours.”
“Why can’t we go with them?” Luke asked as the other two trucks drove away.
“Because we’re being punished,” Soanna said.
“Nope,” Jonas said. “You don’t get off that lightly. Punishment will come later. You two are here because there’s work to be done. The back of this truck is only an eighth full. That’s not much to show for a day of labour. They might not find anything up at this old farm, and they might find less than nothing, which means it’s down to us to find something.”
“How can anyone find less than nothing?” Luke asked.
Jonas sighed. “We’ve got to fill the truck with salvage,” he said. “We’ll take a drive through town. Keep your eyes open for somewhere promising.”
“Promising what?” Luke asked.
“Shh,” Soanna said. “Food and stuff. You’ll know it when we see it.”
She was right. Two minutes later, Luke jumped up in the seat, his arm waving across Jonas’s face. “A library!” the boy said. “There’s a sign for a library!”
“You can’t eat books,” Soanna said.
“But they don’t go bad,” Jonas said. “That will do nicely to start with. When Martha and the others come back, if they’ve not found food, we’ll look for some around here.”
It was unlikely they’d find any. Not if that grocery store was anything to go by. Maybe in that church? He pulled into the parking lot it shared with the library, and switched off the engine.
“Wait,” he said, as Luke reached across Soanna for the door handle. “Stop, look, listen.” He let a moment pass as he checked and then triple-checked. “We’re okay. We’re alone. I’m going into the library first. You’ll stay here. If there’s trouble, honk the horn, but only once. Got that?”
“What kind of trouble?” Luke asked.
“He means zombies,” Soanna said. “I’ve got it.”
“Good. Wait here.”
Jonas climbed out, scanning for broken windows, looking for recent footprints, listening for the sound of dragging steps. A bird cawed, close but out of sight. He took that as a good sign, and walked up to the library.
It was locked, but easily opened with the bowie knife. Inside, there was nothing but the peacefully dusty scent of old books. He checked the exits, two of them, and they were secure. Two minutes after he’d entered, he came back outside. The street was still empty, the children still in the car.
“Listen up,” he said, when he’d got them inside. “We’ve got an hour. No more. Then we’re going to search that church next door.”
“Why?” Luke asked.
“Fifty-nine minutes, fifty seconds,” Jonas said. “You see that book cart? I want you to fill it up four times. Once with reference books. Once with non-fiction. Once with fiction. Once with children’s books. See if you can find books about farming, or how people lived a hundred years ago. No horror, no murder mysteries, but don’t spend too long looking. Go on.”
