by Frank Tayell
“Your jokes are worse than Chester’s,” Jay said. “Good universities mean good libraries.”
“Boston’s famous for them,” Chester said. “MIT, isn’t it?”
“And Harvard, and Tufts,” Sholto said. “Then there’s Boston University and Northeastern. Yep, we’ll find a book or two.”
“A map of Boston comes first,” Jay said, sorting through their odd collection of charts. “The city is big, though, right? I mean, I’ve heard of it, so it’s not that small. Ah, here’s Boston. Right. So where exactly are we?”
“I’ll go tell Nilda we’ve got ourselves a destination,” Chester said.
He found her not in bed, but in the galley.
“You’re feeling better?” he asked.
“Much,” she said. “And famished. Talk while you work. This pan needs to be a good deal cleaner before we cook in it again.”
“We’ve other pans, don’t we?”
“Not that are in better condition,” she said. “We’re too used to using once, throwing away, and looting some more.”
By the time he’d recapped the radio call with the admiral, he’d scrubbed the worst of the encrusted grime off the pan. “There, that looks all right,” he said.
“But is it clean enough for you to eat your tea off?” she asked. “Specifically, dessert. More specific than that…” She held up a magazine, folded to a page. “I picked this up at Martha’s.”
“Traditional English Bread Pudding,” he read, scanning the ingredients. “That sounds all right, and a spot of custard would make it perfect. Ah, but we don’t have half of what we need.”
“We’ll improvise,” Nilda said. “So keep scrubbing. I’m going to get Jay. This is something he should learn, too.”
“Yeah, no. We can’t make this,” Jay said, looking through the ingredients.
“We’ve got bread,” Nilda said. “And we’ve got fruit, and we’ve got sugar.”
“We’ve apples and maple syrup,” Jay said, sceptically.
“Don’t tell me you’re giving up,” Nilda said. “The bread is already going a little stale. Of course, we should have asked when it was baked, but I bet it wasn’t Christmas morning. I’ve put most of it into the freezer, but we all deserve a treat. You can cut up the bread, put it in to water to soak. Drinking water,” she added quickly. “I’m going to see what we brought from Newfoundland that might be a help.”
She was arraying the smattering of potential ingredients on the galley counter when the chief came in. The cat slunk in behind, sneaking over to the vent in front of the oven where it curled into a faux-sleeping curl, its eyes on the table where the food was being prepared.
“Something wrong?” Nilda asked.
“Message from the bridge,” the chief said. “We’ve identified Cape Ann Peninsula.”
“Where’s that?” Jay asked.
“About fifty miles from Boston,” the chief said.
“We’re rounding the cape?” Chester asked.
“That’s what I said,” the chief said.
“What’s the scenery like?” Jay asked.
“Bleak,” the chief said. “Reminds me of Norfolk.”
“You mean it’s flat?” Chester asked.
“I mean after the nuclear war,” the chief said. “Lifeless. Ruined. The harbours are gone.”
“Thanks for letting us know.”
“We should have asked the Canadians for walkie-talkies,” the chief said.
“Speaking of that,” Nilda said quickly, and before Chester could say something more direct, “when do you think the intercom will be fixed?”
“June,” the chief said. “Maybe July. After we’ve found a dry dock.”
“I don’t think we need an intercom that urgently,” Nilda said.
“It’s not just the intercom,” the chief said. “The hull is sound, and the engines are top-notch. It’s everything else. Your billionaire designed her ship like it was a hotel. If it had stayed in harbour, there’d be no problems. It’s not engineered for life at sea.”
“How much danger are we in?” Chester asked.
“Danger? None,” the chief said. “But if you want this ship to ever do more than a quick jaunt across the Bay of Fundy, it needs to be docked, stripped, and completely refitted. I want to replace the wiring. All of it.”
“Tell me where we find a dry dock, and we’ll go there,” Nilda said.
“Charlestown,” Jay said. “That’s the name of the harbour in Boston. It was in a book about the American Revolution.”
“The rebellion, you mean?” the chief said. “Charlestown is a museum now.”
“Oh,” Jay said. Then he smiled. “Cool. Can we go?”
“That might actually be useful,” Nilda said. “Where were you thinking for making the repairs, Chief, Annapolis Royal?”
“Halifax, I think,” the chief said. “Unless the Canucks can recommend an alternative.”
“That’s the city in Nova Scotia close to Newfoundland, where the ferry was supposed to go, right?” Nilda asked. “But that’s far beyond their walls.”
The chief shrugged. “I’m open to alternatives.”
“And when I call the admiral later, I’ll ask her to ask Dr Harabi to speak to Ms Ashoona and we’ll see what they say.”
“Probably that we need a proper phone system,” the chief said. “Commodore, you coming?”
The cat gave Nilda a brief glance, as if weighing up the chances of being fed, stood, and padded over to the chief. Watts sketched a salute, and engineer and cat left the galley together.
“I never thought I’d see a miracle,” Chester said. “But the cat actually listens to him.”
“And he’s softening a little,” Nilda said. “Speaking of which, how’s that bread?”
“Soggy and horrid,” Jay said. “It’s thoroughly ruined.”
“Hmm. Maybe there’s a bit too much water. We needed to soak it, not give it a swim. I’ll drain some off. See if there’s any cinnamon or nutmeg in those jars. Then sort a few fistfuls of those sunflowers.”
“Halifax would have to be secured,” Chester said. “Do we prioritise that over the farmland?”
“I think…” Nilda said, slowly. “I think we should forget farming this year. On a large scale, I mean. There just isn’t time.”
“I thought we had until spring,” Jay said. “Isn’t that the whole point of this trip?”
“One of the points, yes,” Nilda said. “But we’ve got to wait for the snow to melt before we can survey the land they used last year. We’ll have to prepare it, which means tractors, which means repairing the tractors because I think Jonas said that most, if not all, were abandoned in the fields when they were overrun. In fact, we might stand more chance of planting in Newfoundland.”
“We’ll have to wait for the snow to melt first,” Chester said.
“And the soil’s rubbish there,” Jay said. “Ashley told me.”
“Who?” Chester asked.
“One of Tapessa’s friends,” Jay said. “Nova Scotia is way better than Newfoundland.”
“She’s from Nova Scotia, is she?” Chester asked, and grinned at Nilda over Jay’s head.
“I think so,” Jay said.
“Once the snow melts,” Nilda said. “If we find tractors near where the diesel is in Port-Aux-Basques, or where the oil should be in Port au Port, that’s where we’ll plough. Maybe we can farm a few fields around Digby, and a few more around Halifax. We’ll plant some vegetables in the gardens by our homes, but it’ll be summer before the fields are ready, so we’re planning for the year after. Assuming the zombies are dead. And if they are, then we’ll have to bury them. We should abandon our grand plans for some sweeping sea of golden wheat from horizon to horizon for another year. We’ll have fish. We’ll have bird. And there’ll be apples and maple syrup, and what veg we can grow. We won’t grow hungry, not like this last year. But our diet will become a little predictable.”
“After this last year, predictable would be go
od,” Jay said.
“You liked the Canadians, didn’t you, Jay?” Nilda asked.
“They seemed a bit weird, I guess. But that’s a good thing. You need a bit of weirdness so you can recognise normality.”
“I think we’re going to stay there,” Nilda said. “Chester and me, and you. And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. What we wanted to talk to you about. Jay, I’m pregnant.”
“Oh. Yeah, I kinda guessed,” Jay said, utterly indifferent.
“You did?”
“Yeah, I’m not stupid, Mum. I know how it works. I guessed a while ago.”
“Oh.”
“So what do I do with these sunflowers?”
“Um…”
“That’s not bad,” Chester said, taking the tray out of the oven.
“It’s not a bread and butter pudding,” Jay said. “It looks more like a sponge cake.”
“It’s the golden brown crust, isn’t it?” Chester said.
“I was thinking how those sunflower seeds sort of look like roasted almonds,” Jay said.
“Considering the ingredients,” Nilda said, quickly grabbing the counter as the ship swayed, “and the limitations of our kitchen, I’d say it’s not a bad job.”
“They say proof is in the eating,” Chester said. “Jay, fancy doing the honours?”
After a small spoonful, then a larger one, Jay grinned. “Okay, so it’s good. Very good. But next time, we need to wash the salt off the sunflower seeds.”
“Ah. A useful lesson learned,” Nilda said.
“And it looks like the smell’s carried,” Chester said as Sholto entered the galley. “Fancy a slice, mate?”
Sholto shook his head. “You better come see.”
“What is it?” Nilda asked.
“It’s Boston,” Sholto said.
“Where is it?” Jay asked, five minutes later, on the bridge. “Where are the tower blocks? It must have had them. All cities did.”
“They’re gone,” Sholto said. “Boston is gone.”
The roiling sea battered a barren shore. Between there and the horizon was nothing except an occasional steel girder, forlornly pointing towards the indifferent sky. There were no trees, no buildings, no cars, no streets. The city had been wiped from the face of the earth.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Nilda asked.
Sholto shrugged. “Yes.” He walked off the bridge.
Chester crossed to the console and checked the Geiger counter. “Reading is rising,” he said. “Time we left.”
“Take us out to sea, Norm,” Nilda said. “Jay, what are you doing?”
“Taking photographs,” he said. “People will want to know, won’t they? They’ll want to see. And they should see the photographs, because they can’t come back here. No one can. No one should.”
As the ship turned, Chester made his way out onto the deck. He found Sholto by the rail, watching the vanished city.
“You had friends there?” Chester asked, raising his voice over the rising wind.
“I didn’t have many friends anywhere,” Sholto said. “I had some fond memories of the city, but those can’t be taken from me. I’d forgotten, that’s all. I’d forgotten how much devastation there was. After Ireland, Faroe, Newfoundland, I’d forgotten the true legacy of the nuclear war.”
It was a sombre crew who reconvened on the bridge twenty minutes later.
“Reading on the Geiger counter’s dropping,” Chester said. “Not as quickly as I’d like, but it’s falling. Why would they want to target Boston?”
“How many bombs do you think it was?” Jay asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Nilda said.
“We’re heading back to Canada, then?” Jay asked.
“No,” Nilda said. “Not yet. We’ve still got fuel in our tanks and time on our hands. Besides, I don’t want to return with this being our only news. Thaddeus, what do you think?”
He shrugged. “It was a second-wave target, and it was hit by multiple bombs, at least one of which was something truly nasty if it’s still seeping radiation into the sea.”
“The same as Cornwall?” Jay asked. “So the bomb was dropped by the same people?”
“Maybe,” Sholto said. “There was no specific military installation there, but MIT worked on projects with the US military. Theorising doesn’t help us.”
Jay held up a map. “We wanted a university, right? There’s one here. Stamford. That’s a university, isn’t it?”
“You’re thinking of Stanford with an ‘n’, and that’s in California,” Sholto said.
“We’ll keep going south and we’ll keep an eye on that Geiger counter,” Nilda said. “Either we return to Canada with the news that the rest of America is an ash heap, or we learn that Boston is a one-off.”
“That’s it!” Sholto said.
“What?” Nilda asked.
“New York,” he said. “It’s where we have to go. We had a satellite image of Manhattan back during the summer. Central Park was overgrown, but it wasn’t a crater.”
“What about the rest of the city?” Chester asked.
“I’m not sure,” Sholto said. “But there’s another reason to go there.”
“Libraries?” Jay asked. “There was one in that film, wasn’t there. That little library surrounded by all those tower blocks.”
“Oh, sure there are libraries, but that’s not why we need to go there,” Sholto said. “We want confirmation the zombies are dead. The best place to check is where it began.”
“Manhattan?” Nilda asked.
“It’s on the coast, and only a day’s sailing away,” Sholto said. “Why not?”
Day 289, 27th December
Chapter 30 - So Long, They Named It Twice
Long Island, New York
“There it is,” Sholto said. “There’s New York.”
“Where?” Jay asked. “Where’s the Statue of Liberty?”
“That’s further south, in New York Bay, near Manhattan,” Sholto said. “Ahead of us is Long Island.”
“It looks like Canada,” Jay said.
“You mean the Long Island near Annapolis?” Nilda asked.
“No, I mean, there’s nothing there,” Jay said. “I can see a lighthouse and a lot of trees, but not many buildings or anything. It’s not what I was expecting.”
“This far north is mostly large areas of parkland, and large homes belonging to people with large sailing boats,” Sholto said. “But I’d describe it as remote rather than rural.”
“There’s one thing that’s different from Canada,” Nilda said. “The lighthouse is dark. Jay, can you fetch us some breakfast?”
“It’s too late for breakfast,” Jay said. “Too early for lunch, and you always said brunch was only a way of charging twice as much for half a portion.”
“Then it’s a good thing meals are included in this cruise,” Nilda said.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Chester said. He peered one last time at the distant shore, then followed Jay down the broad steps, then the narrow ladder that led below. “You’re right, Jay,” he added, as they descended.
“I am? About what?”
“It does look like Canada. The trees are alive.”
“So it didn’t get hit by a bomb? Cool.”
“We’ll save the celebrations until we’re… I don’t know where we’ll be.”
“At an airport,” Jay said as they entered the galley.
“An airport?”
“Yeah, you know how you and Mum and Tuck found one in Denmark? Tuck told me about it, how you thought, maybe, we could fly planes to places. Because we’ve got an airport now. And planes.”
“You mean in Newfoundland? From what I saw, the planes were all wrecks.”
“Not the very first planes that landed,” Jay said. “Because they would actually have landed, and if no planes took off, then there should be fuel there.”
“Maybe.”
“And if there isn’t, we can make some, ri
ght? I mean, if we’re making petrol and stuff, why not jet fuel?”
“I bet it’s a lot more complicated than refining diesel,” Chester said. “But okay, maybe. It’d be a lot of work just clearing a runway, repairing it, and repairing a plane. Question is, why would we want to?”
“To find out if the factories are there before we send the trucks,” Jay said. “You know, the factories that made the guns, and the others that made the antibiotics. We use the plane to find a route a truck can take.”
“It’d almost certainly be quicker for us just to send a truck,” Chester said. “But maybe you’re on to something. Maybe we could find a factory near an airport, or the nearest airport to the factory, and maybe that’s how we bring the machinery back. That’s something to think about. Now, let’s see about making some food.”
Without ever settling on what to call the meal, it was quickly prepared, and just as quickly eaten. Cleaning up took longer, but Chester had just finished when the ship gave a monumental shudder as the engines were thrown into reverse. He hurried up to the bridge.
“There a problem?” he asked. Ahead of them, water crashed and foamed around the unseen ruin of a mostly demolished suspension bridge.
“Ahead of us is the Verrazano-Narrows,” Sholto said. “That bridge linked Staten Island and Long Island.”
“Manhattan is beyond that?” Chester asked.
“And the Statue of Liberty,” Jay said despondently.
“I knew the bridges to Manhattan had been demolished,” Sholto said. “I didn’t think… I’m sorry. This is my fault. I just didn’t consider they’d take out the other bridges, too.”
“No matter,” Nilda said. “And it’s no problem. In fact, it might be the opposite. The bridges to Manhattan were destroyed, yes? Where’s that map? There are some bays on the northern shore of Long Island. How many bridges link Long Island to other parts of New York? Looks like twelve. And which is the most northerly?”
“Throgs Point,” Sholto said.
“Then if all the bridges were destroyed, Long Island is cut off from the rest of the city and the mainland.” She grinned. “Everyone would have fled, wouldn’t they?”
