Surviving the Evacuation 11: Search and Rescue

by Frank Tayell

  “For that, you were paid in a few sachets of sugar?” Locke asked.

  “And the fuel for the stove, and…” He reached under the table and into a small bag, and pulled out two bottles. “Beer. It’s a pub, after all.”

  Locke peered at the label. “Hopvar? Never heard of it. Even so, it’s a finite resource. It’s worth more than a couple of hours of light work.”

  “That’s where the story gets interesting.”

  “You always save the important part to the end,” she said.

  “A story has to be told in a certain way, otherwise it’s just a list of facts, and what fun is there in that?”

  “So what’s the fun part?” she asked.

  “That would be in who’s running the pub.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Rachel Gottlieb.”

  “Who?” Locke asked.

  “Rachel Gottlieb. From the office in Guildford? The one who found out about the redoubts?”

  “Oh, her. She’s running the pub?”

  “She is, and she’s the one who gave me the job and paid me in beer.”

  “She doesn’t bear a grudge?” Locke asked.

  “Not against me,” Sean said. “I think she enjoyed bossing me about, but I also think she was grateful to see a friendly face. There’s a group of mercenaries who’ve camped out in the pub. This guy, Markus, is leading them, and he hasn’t exactly taken over, but she thinks it’s only a matter of time.”

  “Ah. She wants to us to get rid of him?”

  “I think so. Reading between the lines, I think she invited Markus and his people in to secure her hold on the place, and now they’re pushing her out.”

  “Can’t she go to the authorities?” Locke asked.

  “I asked her. She says there aren’t any real authorities. There’re a dozen different factions that pay lip service to the old couple who administer the grain and run the school and hospital. The crew of that submarine and a regiment of French Special Forces mean that no one can pull themselves to the top, but at the same time, they’re not willing to offer her a hand up. Nor does she think anyone will stop her getting rid of these mercenaries.”

  “Beer today, blood tomorrow,” Locke said. “The more things change, the more the violence stays the same. Are they armed?”

  “Sure, but not as well as us,” Sean said. He tapped his foot against the floor, and the compartment in which their own weapons were stored.

  “So what’s your plan?” Locke asked.

  “Simple,” Sean said. “We take over the pub.”

  “And Rachel?”

  “She’s one of us. Or she could have been,” he said.

  Locke leaned back. “She’s not. She wasn’t. She never would have been. She was doing something in accounting, wasn’t she? That was it. She was meant to be auditing the effectiveness of our charity work, but instead she looked at where the rest of the money was going. She found out about Claverton Industrial Supplies and The New World, and tried to blackmail her way into one of the redoubts. We had to buy her silence. No, we can’t trust her. But, okay, let’s say we did this, what’s your plan for after we’ve killed the mercenaries?”

  “I don’t mean we should kill to take the pub,” Sean said. “Think of it more as a hostile takeover. Once we’ve got the pub, we offer to help the people running this island. After all, we ran a multi-billion-dollar business with more employees than there are survivors here.”

  “We helped run a small part of it,” Locke said, “and there’s a difference between a company and a society.”

  “Except there isn’t, not really,” Sean said. “We trained for this. We prepared. We could make something of this place, of these people. Like you said, there’s still Claverton. Maybe not in Deeside, but there are other warehouses, and there’s Portugal, if it wasn’t destroyed. And, of course, there’s Belfast. Rachel’s problems are with mercenaries, but what do they ever want except to be paid? We can pay them with what’s left in Belfast, and use them to get rid of Jasmine.”

  “When have you known a mercenary to accept payment tomorrow for work today?” Locke asked. “How many people does Rachel have that she can rely on?”

  “Two or three, I think,” Sean said.

  “How many mercenaries?”

  “About twenty,” Sean said. “Though it’s hard to be sure.”

  “So six against twenty, or possibly two against twenty-four,” Locke said. “Once it’s done, we’ll be pitting ourselves against the crew of a nuclear submarine, and a detachment of French Special Forces. All for what? Control of a rocky island at the wrong end of Europe?”

  “What’s the alternative?” Sean asked. “What’s the real alternative? We might reach Greenland, but we’ll never make it to America, not now. The mission’s over, Sorcha. Lisa’s dead.”

  Locke knew that Sean was probably right. Ireland had fallen, as had so many of Lisa Kempton’s plans. After Belfast, Locke knew it was time to make the best of their terrible situation. Even so, she couldn’t give up all hope.

  “How did you leave it with Rachel?” Locke asked.

  “I said I’d consider it. She said to come back tomorrow, and she’d find some more work for me.”

  “Then I’ve a day of gutting fish to think about it,” Locke said.

  Chapter 8 - Blood Tomorrow

  Anglesey, 9th May, Day 59

  “Another day, another dollar,” Locke said, dropping the bag on the table. “Or another fish, at least.”

  “I can top that,” Sean said. “I have the option on a house.”

  “A house?”

  “With a chimney and fireplace. It’s next to the pub.”

  “But it’s only the option?” Locke asked.

  “We get the house if we take the job with Rachel Gottlieb,” Sean said. “Both of us. We’re to become bar staff.”

  “Really? I haven’t pulled a pint since I was at Trinity, but I don’t suppose that’s what Rachel really wants us for.”

  “No, she hinted as much,” Sean said. “You’re the boss, so it’s your decision, but I know where they keep the canned food they get in trade. So, if you decide we should leave, I know where we can steal supplies.”

  “You’ve changed your tune,” Locke said.

  “Yeah, I have,” he said. “I guess Rachel didn’t think I was being sufficiently enthusiastic. She dropped a less than subtle hint that she might start telling people who we were, and what Ms Kempton knew.”

  “Rachel doesn’t know anything, not really,” Locke said. “She only knows that Lisa built a few farms with high walls.”

  “She knows enough to rouse a mob,” Sean said. “I’d rather slink away than get chased out of here.”

  “And if she’s willing to threaten us today,” Locke said, “she’ll be more than willing to do it a few months from now. There is an alternative, because I’ve revised my own opinion, too, at least as far as the authorities here are concerned. They seem a bit more organised than it first appeared. It is very ramshackle. I’ve still got my doubts. What little structure there is could evaporate in the first crisis, but when the old couple give orders, people listen even if they don’t immediately obey. Forget Rachel, her pub, and those mercenaries. We’ll tell the old couple about the Claverton warehouses, though it would mean telling them about Lisa. If we did it, rather than have Rachel blow the whistle on us, we’ll get a hearing.”

  “How sympathetic do you think that hearing would be?” Sean asked.

  “That would depend on what we told them,” Locke said. “There’s no escaping that Jasmine is in Belfast, or that, sooner or later, a ship is going to sail there. Perhaps that’s how we approach it. We take them a warning of a mad woman with a bunker and guns holed up in that city. We could tell them of Deeside.”

  “And Elysium? And what about The New World?”

  “I suppose we’d have to,” Locke said. “It’s an alternative to slinking away, as you put it, and you’re right, we’re never going to make it to America, but we did prepare for this. I
f this is to be our new home, then it’s best that we’re the ones who shape it. How did you leave it with Rachel?”

  “That you were the boss, so it was your decision to make,” Sean said. “She’s expecting us in about an hour.”

  “Then I’ll meet her first, and make a decision afterwards.”

  “Sorcha Locke! Welcome, please,” Rachel said warmly.

  “Rachel, I’m glad to see you’re alive,” Locke said, and gave a smile she’d practiced on prime ministers and presidents. She took in the dimly lit pub. “This is a nice place you have, though it’s quiet for this time of night.” There was only one customer. A blond-haired man sat at the bar, a coffee cup in front of him.

  “We’re more a trading post than a bar, at least at the moment,” Rachel said. “After all, there’s little for people to sell, and not much beer for us to trade. I’d like to change that before the nights shorten.”

  There was still a trace of the last light of day streaking through the windows, supplemented by a score of candles on a shelf behind the bar.

  “What do you use for currency?” Locke asked.

  “Mostly candles and batteries,” Rachel said. “Come through to the back, it’s more comfortable there. Paul, give a yell if Markus returns.”

  “Who’s Markus?” Locke asked.

  “Muscle,” Rachel said. “A role he volunteered for.” She led them into a small kitchen behind the bar. “Please, have a seat,” she said, indicating the padded chairs around the scrubbed pine table. “I’ll get us a drink.”

  Locke sat. The kitchen was so clean that it was obvious no cooking took place in it.

  “You don’t want a barmaid, do you?” Locke asked.

  “Oh, I do,” Rachel said, “but that’s not what I’d like you to do.”

  “And what is it that you want us to do?” Locke asked as if she couldn’t guess.

  Rachel placed three glasses and a bottle of clear liquid on the table. “It’s vodka. Well, no, technically it’s moonshine, but we call it vodka.”

  “Why am I here, Rachel?” Locke asked.

  “You were Lisa Kempton’s number-two, yes? Her deputy?” Rachel asked.

  “Not quite,” Locke said. “I oversaw her operations in Ireland, Britain, and some parts of continental Europe.”

  “You knew about the refuges she was setting up, yes?” Rachel said. “You know where they are.”

  “I know where one of them is,” Locke said. “The one in southern Ireland from which I escaped. It was overrun by the living dead.”

  “But there are supplies there,” Rachel said. “Enough to keep people alive for years. What I’m proposing is that we go and get them.”

  “Oh.” Locke looked at Sean. He shrugged, and looked as nonplussed as Locke.

  “I don’t know whether I should first ask why or how,” Locke replied.

  “Anglesey is a temporary home for a temporary community,” Rachel said. “There’s talk of turning the power plant back on, and talk of digging over every patch of grass, but that’s all it is, talk. When the submarine goes out, no one knows if it will return. The French soldiers are already planning a mission to Paris. Without them, there’s no strength behind the weak throne. Without strength, there’s no government, only a veneer of peace while the knives are sharpened. Once those soldiers are gone, the knives will come out. Anglesey could become the future, but it will have to change, and change from the top.”

  “When you’re in charge?” Locke asked, wondering whether it was Rachel who was sharpening the knives.

  “Someone has to be,” Rachel said. “You know it. Lisa Kempton knew it, didn’t she?”

  “How do you see the redoubt in Ireland fitting into this?” Sean asked.

  “It has the supplies we need,” Rachel said. “Ammunition, food, fuel. Whoever can bring that back can show everyone that there’s a different way, a better way, that there’s treasure to be found out there in the world. Treasure that’s there for the taking, and of far more value than the rotting trinkets we can find in terraced two-up two-downs.”

  “I’m sorry,” Locke said. “I’m sorry, but there isn’t. There was, yes. There were enough supplies for a few dozen for a few years, but before the undead came, so did some locals. We offered them sanctuary and they used up our food. The ammunition was expended keeping the zombies back, but there weren’t enough people or ammunition, and far too many of the undead. They got inside. Everyone died. There might be a few hundred rounds left, a few cans, a few bottles, but less than we’d use clearing the place of the living dead.”

  “What about Claverton Industrial Supplies?” Rachel asked.

  Locke kept her expression blank. “We used those to store the composite components for rocket fuel, fertilizer, and other chemicals,” she said. “There truly isn’t much need for them. Not now, not yet. They are what we’d need in a year or three after our immediate survival had been secured, but we didn’t plan for the undead. We thought it was going to be a limited nuclear war that would see either North America and northern Europe destroyed or the only places left. No, I’m sorry, I can see what you want to do, but I don’t think there’s anything we can offer which will help.”

  Rachel opened the bottle and poured a large measure into each of the glasses. “I had to ask. I should have expected it. If there were supplies in Ireland, you wouldn’t have left.”

  “The idea is sound,” Sean said. “Perhaps there’s a military supply depot in Wales.”

  “There isn’t,” Locke said. “Not that anyone has found intact. We heard that Dublin was overrun, but what about the rest of Ireland?”

  “I think it’s the same as Britain,” Locke said. “What little wasn’t consumed has been lost to the weather and the undead.”

  “I thought there might be a shortcut to success,” Rachel said. “I suppose that’s as unlikely now as it was a year ago. It’s the hard way instead, then. Cheers.” She downed her glass. Locke did the same, as did Sean. The fiery liquid burned.

  “Wooh!” Sean hissed.

  “We’ve still got a ways to go with that,” Rachel said. She put her glass on the table. “The thing is, Ms Locke, I know that you’re lying. I know that you purchased a food canning business in Salford, and that you dismantled the factory and shipped the entire thing away two years ago. Why do that unless you were canning supplies? So where are they?”

  “The factory was sold to Saudi Arabia,” Locke said. “One of the royal family wanted to try his hand at being a food baron. He didn’t want to… to start from the ground up.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Rachel said.

  “Then I’m sorry we… we can’t help,” Locke said. “Thank you for the drink.” She tried to stand, but found she couldn’t. Her legs were like concrete.

  “It was in the glass,” Rachel said, as she opened the bottle and poured herself another shot. Locke and O’Brian passed out.

  Chapter 9 - Chalets and Caravans

  Wales, 10th May, Day 60

  “Sorcha? Sorcha?”

  Someone was calling her name. Her mother? Was it time for school? The haze of dreams faded to memory. The present returned, and she remembered to whom the voice belonged.

  “Sean?”

  “You’re awake, good,” he said.

  Sorcha tried to raise her hand, but couldn’t. Her arm was tied at the wrist. So was the other. Her legs were secured at the ankles. She was tied to a chair. Tied or chained? She couldn’t see, as the room was almost pitch black, but it felt like rope.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Don’t know,” Sean said. “It’s a room about twelve feet square. Looks like a wooden cabin. There are two bunk beds opposite me, a sink to my left. There’s a window above it, but it’s mostly blocked. There was a ray of light coming through it earlier, but that’s gone, so it must be night.”

  “A wooden chalet with bunk beds? Some kind of holiday camp, then?” Locke asked. “Why?”

  “Rachel drugged us, remember?”

>   “I’m starting to,” Locke said. “Has she said anything, asked anything?”

  “Nothing,” Sean said. “I haven’t seen her. I haven’t seen anyone, but I’ve only been conscious for an hour or so.”

  “And it’s night now, but there was daylight?” An entire day must have gone by. With that realisation came another, how thirsty she was. She licked her dry lips with a dry tongue. To distract herself, she tried to raise her hands. “Are you tied to a chair?”

  “Which is tied to the back of yours, and bolted to the ground,” Sean said. “I saw fresh splinters around the bolt pinning it to the floorboard, so it was recent.”

  “Done for our benefit?” Locke said. “Great.”

  “So, boss, any ideas?” Sean asked. “Because I’m all out.”

  “Give me a minute,” Locke said.

  But before the minute was up, the door opened. The blond man who’d been sitting at the bar came in. He had an electric lantern in one hand, a small leather bag in the other.

  “Evening,” he said. He grinned, showing a mouth of overly white teeth. “Please accept my apologies for the conditions.” He placed the lantern on the counter by the sink.

  “Why are we here?” Locke asked.

  “Why are any of us?” the man replied. “I guess the answer depends on whether you believe in God or not. I’m a little uncertain on that topic myself, though I’ve a friend hereabouts who’d be more than happy to discuss the eternal verities.”

  Locke thought back, dredging up memories of the previous evening. “You’re Paul, yes?”

  “I am,” he said. He opened the bag and took out a bottle. “It’s water,” he said, and held it to her lips.

  She took a mouthful and almost gagged.

  “Moonshine is mostly water,” Paul said. “Don’t worry, you’ll get water soon. More than enough.”

  “What do you want?” Sean asked.

  “Ah, the pit-bull speaks,” Paul said. “Good. What I want is some answers. The questions are pretty simple. Where did Lisa Kempton keep her supplies?”