Surviving The Evacuation (Book 7): Home

by Frank Tayell

  “Is Jay all right?” Nilda asked. “And Graham, is he dead?”

  “Jay’s fine. Graham’s dead. Tuck’s been shot. It’s bad, but she’s still alive.”

  “How much of that did you hear?” Nilda asked.

  “Not much,” Chester said. “Not that it matters.”

  “It does. I saw you at the bottom of the stairs. You two weren’t alone.”

  “Of course not. How else would we have caught up with you? But twelve people row faster than two, and—”

  “The water bottles. The ones we were meant to take with us when we left today, she poisoned them. It’s how she killed Styles. How she’s killed Xiao and the others.”

  “Well, let me give you a hand,” Chester said. “We’ll go straight—”

  “No, it’ll take me too long to get back to the raft. Greta? Take everyone else. Go back to the Tower. Get rid of the bottled water. In fact, get rid of all the water, and any food that McInery couldn’t have been certain she wouldn’t have eaten herself.” She remembered what McInery had said about a cup. “The crockery, too. All of it. Then bring a raft back, as soon as you can.”

  Greta nodded, and Nilda was grateful she didn’t ask any questions.

  “Tuck’s been shot?” Nilda asked, limping over to the sofa. She collapsed onto it.

  “Upper arm and thigh,” Chester said. “I don’t think it hit an artery, but I’m basing that on the fact she hadn’t bled out before we left.”

  “That’s not good.” She looked at Chester properly. “What happened to your face?”

  “Graham. Is it that bad?”

  “It looks like you’ve run through a sieve.”

  “Thanks, is that a decanter over there?” He gestured towards a small table by a tall window.

  “Yes,” she said, closing her eyes again.

  Chester walked over to it. “Brandy,” he said, sniffing the contents. “You want one?”

  “Not yet. Not until it’s over.”

  “Isn’t it?” he asked. “Graham’s dead. McInery’s dead. What more needs to be done?”

  “Someone needs to get to Wales.”

  Chester came to sit next to her on the sofa. “It won’t be you,” he said. “Nor Tuck.”

  “No,” she said. Her eyes felt heavy. She wanted to sleep. “How did you know to come here?”

  “Greta saw you getting in the boat.”

  “No, I mean how did you know McInery had betrayed us?”

  “Graham had a radio,” Chester said. “Who else was he going to talk to? Did she tell you why she did it?”

  “To make the people in Anglesey think she’d saved them,” Nilda said. “She would be the one who vanquished the last vestiges of Quigley’s guard. Or something like that. I think she was going to keep some people alive so as to provide proof that there was an actual threat to the people in Wales.”

  “Oh?”

  “She said that she would have preferred to have set off at least one bomb.”

  “Really?” he asked.

  “But that it didn’t matter that she couldn’t,” she said.

  “Oh.” Chester seemed to be mulling that over. “Do you think they are bombs?”

  “McInery thought so. She said they need a password, and that Graham hadn’t found it.”

  “Or hadn’t told her he had. We’ll search his body just in case.”

  “What for?” Nilda asked. “It’s not like we’ll ever use them.”

  Silence settled. Chester stood and made his slow way back over to the decanter.

  “I think she broke the grenade launcher,” he said. “Tuck tried to fire it, but it didn’t work. I… she…” he trailed off.

  Nilda opened her eyes and looked at him, wondering whether he’d continue. He didn’t. “Graham only wanted to kill Stewart,” Nilda said, leaning her head back once more. “McInery killed everyone else.”

  “He said something about that to me.”

  “He did?” she asked.

  “Before he died. Yeah.”

  “McInery mentioned something about a farm in Hampshire,” Nilda said. “I don’t suppose it matters now.”

  “No.” There was a clink as a glass was put down. “It really doesn’t.”

  She closed her eyes again, and this time McInery’s words replayed in her head. “No,” she said, opening her eyes, all tiredness gone, “it truly doesn’t matter, not compared to this. She wanted the people on Anglesey to think she’d saved them, well how would they ever know? If she was poisoning those water bottles, then none of us would ever reach there. She certainly wasn’t going to try and make the journey herself.”

  “You think she might have found a radio here or something?” Chester asked.

  “No,” she said. “Not a radio. Help me up.”

  “Why?”

  “Stop asking questions and help me, Thanks. No, it wasn’t a radio. I mean, it might have been. This way, outside,” she said, leaning on Chester for support. “It might have been a radio, but I don’t think it was. That’s not dramatic enough. Not for what McInery was planning. Either there’s petrol or there’s enough supplies here to last until those people in Anglesey find us. I mean, how long is it going to be before they send a boat around the coast just to see what’s still left standing?”

  “And you want to find the supplies?”

  “We have to. How much of that food are we going to throw out? We thought that there would be some supplies here, didn’t we? Enough that Graham didn’t have to worry about food. And McInery said something else. About saving the children from starvation. That has to be it. There has to be food here somewhere.”

  There was. Not in the Foreign Office, but in an old, ivy covered bunker next door.

  “It was a Royal Navy place. A stone frigate,” Chester said.

  Nilda ignored him as she opened another crate. Like the others in the room, and the room next door, and every other room on the corridor, it was full of military rations.

  “It’s enough for an army. Enough for thousands of soldiers,” she said.

  “Enough to last us until spring?” Chester asked.

  “And for long after that,” she said.

  Epilogue:

  Cases

  17th October

  “Is that it?” Jay asked, as Chester dropped the crate by the steps.

  “That should be a month’s worth of supplies,” Greta said, looking at her clipboard. “Assuming we’ve added it up right. And it’s the last load for the day.”

  “We really need to find a better way of getting them back to the Tower,” Jay said. “The rafts are too slow. I think walkways would be a good idea.”

  “Hand carts are going to be quicker to make,” Chester said. “And the more roads we block off, the safer the city will become.”

  “And you two can continue that debate back at the Tower,” Greta said.

  “There’s still the matter of those six cases,” Chester said.

  “And I’m adamant that we can’t bring them back to the castle,” Kevin said. “Not with Aisha and the children there. It would be too dangerous if the casing breaks and there’s a radiation leak.”

  “It would be just as dangerous if that happens and we’ve left them where they are,” Jay said.

  “You see,” Chester said. “That’s the thing, isn’t it? We ran the Geiger counter over them and didn’t get a single click. They don’t feel big and heavy enough to be full of lead shielding as well as a bomb.”

  “And what kind of bomb has a keyboard and a display screen?” Greta asked. They had opened the cases and found they had a screen built into the lid and a keyboard built on top of the larger, lower part. “It’s more like a computer than anything else.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Chester said. “Maybe something to control a satellite system.”

  “When Tuck’s back on her feet, she can come and check,” Jay said.

  “She didn’t recognise them the first time she saw them,” Chester said. “I doubt her guess is g
oing to be any more informed than ours. What’s the sky look like?”

  “Clear,” Greta said. “No rain before sunset.”

  “Which gives us a couple of hours,” Chester said. “I want to go back and check something.”

  “What?” Kevin asked.

  “Where?” Jay asked.

  “The Foreign Office. Quigley’s room. There was something I saw. Or I thought I saw. It won’t take long.”

  “And exactly how long is that?” Jay asked.

  “You’re sounding more like your mother each day,” Chester said. “Once we’re there, it’ll only take a couple of minutes.”

  “We can give you half an hour,” Greta said. “But you can’t go on your own.” She looked over at the larger part of the group, all of whom were waiting in the raft or on the steps leading down to it. “Does anyone want to add another half hour’s work to their day?”

  “I’ll go,” Jay said.

  “Me too,” Kevin said.

  “And you?” Chester asked Greta.

  “No, you boys go and have fun,” she said. “And if you’re not back in half an hour, you can walk home.”

  “Charming,” Chester said with a grin.

  With Jay leading the way and Kevin bringing up the rear, they headed back through London. They carried rifles, but kept them slung on their backs. After the discovery of the food, and with it thousands of rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition, everyone carried a gun. They’d all swiftly learned that having one and knowing how to use it wasn’t the same thing. That hadn’t been a problem so far, Chester thought. Graham had done a good job of clearing the undead from the streets of Westminster. Some creatures had found their way in through the gaps in the barricade to the north, but so far their numbers had been few enough to be easily dealt with.

  “What is it you’re looking for?” Jay asked.

  “Those cases require a password, yes?” When they’d opened the cases, they found they’d turned on automatically, and each displayed an identical welcome screen that asked for a password. “And Quigley left them here in case London survived but everywhere else was destroyed, right?”

  “Just get to the point,” Jay said.

  “Exactly like your mother,” Chester said. “Well, it was a backup plan. Something he thought he’d probably never need. If there ever was a secret weapon here, it was the army, the weapons, the supplies. It wasn’t the cases. My point being, what are the odds he’d memorise that password?”

  “In the movies they had them on plastic cards, didn’t they?” Kevin asked. “Usually in a safe or hanging round their necks. Zombie,” he added. “Wait. I’ve got it.” He unslung his rifle. Aimed. Fired. The bullet hit the creature in the chest. The zombie kept moving. Kevin fired again. This time the bullet slammed into its leg. The zombie collapsed. Kevin moved closer and fired from ten feet away. This time he hit its head.

  “Good shot,” Jay said.

  “It’s not like you’re any better,” Kevin replied.

  “There wasn’t time to get a password embossed on a laminated card,” Chester said, as they continued walking. “And he wouldn’t have carried it with him. What if he had to ditch his clothes after he went through a hot zone, or he had to jump in a river? I doubt he’d risk trying to memorise it. From what I remember, every time that man gave a speech, he had a page of notes held in one hand.”

  “So you think it’s in his office?” Jay asked.

  “Yes,” Chester said. “And written down somewhere, but Graham would have looked for it, so it can’t be anywhere obvious.”

  “Where does that leave?” Kevin asked.

  “I’ll show you when we get there.”

  “So, here we are,” Jay said. “What are we looking for?”

  Chester turned his head this way and that, and then headed for the large, bright blur that was the window, with the drinks table underneath. Next to the decanter was an ashtray complete with silver lighter. He picked it up.

  “The password is in the lighter?” Kevin asked.

  “I doubt we’d be that lucky. But have a look.” He handed it to the man.

  “There’s nothing on the outside. Nothing engraved anyway. Hang on. And… No, there’s nothing inside, either. Even the fuel’s evaporated.”

  “Right.” Chester had his head down, but he wasn’t looking at the ashtray.

  “Is that it?” Jay asked. “Are we done?”

  “No. Hang on. Quigley wasn’t a smoker, not that any politicians were, not publicly, but the man was an athlete, and he wasn’t the kind who’d allow anyone else to indulge. In fact, I’d say he was the opposite. He’d relish the discomfort of someone craving a fix. So why have the ashtray? Why have the lighter?”

  “Seriously, Chester,” Jay said. “You’ve had your two minutes, and it’s getting late.”

  “Okay. The ashtray is just an excuse for the lighter to be here. So what else doesn’t belong?” Chester continued. “Are there any certificates on the wall?”

  “There are a couple of paintings,” Kevin said. “Of old politicians, I suppose.”

  “They’re probably too large. Is there anything else?”

  “There’s a photograph behind his desk,” Jay said.

  “Who’s in the picture?” Chester asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jay said.

  “That’s Quigley,” Kevin said.

  “Hand it to me,” Chester said.

  Kevin handed Chester the picture. He held it close to his face, staring at the photograph of the now dead politician. “Odd,” Chester said. “I could understand why he might have a picture of himself in uniform, or maybe one from when he was younger, but this one can’t have been taken more than a year ago.” He turned the frame over, opened it, took the photo out, and turned it over.

  “It’s blank,” Jay said, stepping closer so he could see the back of the photograph.

  “Right,” Chester said. “Because this was Quigley. Have you got a match?”

  “You want to burn it?”

  “If I’m wrong, yes. The least we can do is make sure history never knows what he looked like. But first, hold the flame underneath, just to heat it. It’s the oldest trick in the book,” he added as Jay lit a match. “One every con knows. ‘Course, I reckon Quigley will have used lemon juice or something far more exotic than his own—”

  “There’s numbers,” Jay said. “And letters. Nine of them. No, ten.”

  “And that,” Chester said, “is our password.”

  “Shall we try it?” Jay said.

  “I think we have to,” Chester said.

  “I…” Kevin began. “Fine. Okay.” He relented.

  Jay laid down one of the cases and opened the lid. The machine came on, and he entered the code.

  “Well?” Chester asked.

  “It’s… I’m not sure what it is,” Jay said.

  “It’s a directory,” Kevin said. “Or part of one. It’s got the letters A through D.”

  “Click on one.”

  Jay laughed.

  “What?” Chester asked.

  “So much for a secret weapon,” Kevin said.

  “Well what is it?” Chester asked again.

  “What I’m looking at right now,” Jay said, “is everything you could ever want to know about an aardvark.”

  “It’s an encyclopaedia?” Chester asked.

  “Looks like it,” Kevin said.

  “So much for McInery’s plans,” Chester said, and found he was laughing, too.

  A New Career

  18th October

  Tuck rapped the metal spoon down on the saucepan lid. Almost instantly Simone and Marko dropped the book they were squabbling over, sat bolt upright in their chairs, and returned to studious colouring. Tuck turned back to her own book, trying to hide a smile.

  She now lived in a corner of the dining hall. It was too cold to sleep outside, and her wounds required warmth and dry. Stairs were beyond her, and someone had to keep herd on the children. Despite her best instinc
ts, she’d volunteered. Perhaps because she couldn’t hear the constant bickering, so only intervened when the situation escalated, the children obeyed her. Or they obeyed the gonging sound of the spoon. Or perhaps it was just that they were, at heart, good kids.

  She sighed as she remembered Styles. He’d been a good man, one who hadn’t deserved a death like that. It would have been better if his body had never been found. Then the children could have believed he’d lived and spent his days wandering the countryside rescuing others. He would have become a myth, another legend, and they had many of those springing up. But he was dead, as were so many.

  She shifted in her chair, trying to find a more comfortable position, but she’d tried every one and knew that there would be no relief from the dull itch in her shoulder, nor the throbbing ache in her leg, not this side of the New Year.

  A girl, Alice, turned in her chair, holding up her picture.

  “Very good,” Tuck signed, her immobile arm making the movement awkward and clumsy, but the girl grinned before returning to her work.

  Tuck smiled. They weren’t learning much, but they’d already picked up more sign language than most of the adults had. The smile turned into a grin. Looking after the children was surprisingly enjoyable. She’d not thought of having children of her own, at least not between leaving school and waking up in the hospital after the explosion. When she was a girl, children and family had been a pro forma part of her future, and one easily forgotten when she joined the Army. After she’d woken in hospital, the idea of family had returned, but as part of the package of regrets that her future was then never destined to have. And now… Out of the corner of her eye she saw Marko stand up. She raised the spoon. He sat down again.

  She glanced at the book and realised she’d been on the same page for the last half hour. She closed it, and as she was picking up another, she saw Jay come in. Water dripped from his poncho as he took it off and hung it next to the others by the door.

  “How are you feeling?” he signed, walking over to them.

  “Better,” she replied. She was sore, and it hurt to move, and she was still concerned the wound on her leg would turn septic, but there was no need to share that with him. “You did a good job,” she signed. “Though you need more practice at sewing.”