Surviving The Evacuation, Book 0.5: Zombies vs The Living Dead

by Frank Tayell



  Surviving The Evacuation

  Book 0.5:

  Zombies vs The Living Dead

  Frank Tayell

  All places, people, and (especially) events are fictional.

  Dedicated to my family

  Published by Frank Tayell

  Copyright 2013

  All rights reserved

  Other titles:

  Work. Rest. Repeat.

  A Post-Apocalyptic Detective Novel

  Surviving The Evacuation

  Book 0.5: Zombies vs The Living Dead

  Book 1: London

  Book 2: Wasteland

  Book 3: Family

  Book 4: Unsafe Haven

  Book 5: Reunion

  Book 6: Harvest

  Book 7: Home

  Undead Britain

  (In the charity anthology, ‘At Hell’s Gates 1’)

  History’s End

  (In the charity anthology, ‘At Hell’s Gates 2’)

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  Synopsis

  The outbreak began in New York. Within days it had spread throughout the world. No one is safe from the undead.

  As anarchy and civil war took grip across the globe, Britain was quarantined. The press was nationalized. Martial law, curfews and rationing were implemented. It wasn’t enough. An evacuation was planned. The inland towns and cities of the United Kingdom were to be evacuated to defensive enclaves being built around the coast, the Scottish Highlands, and in the Irish Republic.

  For George Tull and the other residents of the Waverly-Price Retirement Home, walking to the coast is not an option. Abandoned by the staff, they wait for rescue. It doesn’t come. When George leaves the illusory security of the home and ventures into the nearby village, he finds it deserted, but not empty. His unhappy retirement is broken by the undead and George is left with a terrible choice; stay and fight to save the people he loathes, or leave and abandon the woman he has come to love.

  Contents

  Part 1, 5th March

  Part 2, 6th March

  Part 3, 7th - 10th March

  Part 4, 11th March

  Waverly-Price Retirement Home, England

  5th March

  George Tull glared at the television. On the screen, the Foreign Secretary, Sir Michael Quigley, was pontificating on the need for… George wasn’t sure. He’d turned the set on hoping to hear the news but expecting to hear nothing more than the oft-repeated phrase, “There are no major outbreaks in the UK or Ireland”. Instead he’d had to endure yet another rambling speech from the ageing politician.

  “What’s happened to the PM?” George asked himself quietly. “Haven’t heard from him in, what, a week?”

  The Prime Minister had appeared on television on the evening of the 20th February, as the world was reeling from the news of the outbreak in New York, but George couldn’t recall having seen or heard of him since. Not when the curfew was announced. Not when the Army started patrolling the streets shooting anyone they found out at night. Not when the supermarkets were closed and the rationing began. Not even after the BBC broadcast the video of that plane the RAF shot down over the Channel. Now he thought about it, all the government announcements had been made either by the Foreign Secretary or, since the establishment of the cross-party emergency coalition, Jennifer Masterton. George had always thought she seemed trustworthy, honest even, at least for a politician. Now though, he wasn’t so sure.

  A small part of him – the part George liked to think of as his internal optimist – had been surprised at how quickly Britain had been turned into an armed camp. The cynical part, which had grown much larger since his wife died and he’d had to move into the home, was surprised they’d waited until the undead walked the streets before they’d abolished the rule of law.

  “The Super-Rabies Pandemic is a challenge to us all…” Sir Michael Quigley continued.

  “Bloody liar,” George muttered as loudly as he dared. “Call it what it is. They’re zombies. Even I know that.”

  He’d only learned what a zombie was after he’d persuaded Mr McGuffrey, the home’s manager, to allow him to have a television in his room. That was about a month after his arrival, two years ago. The rule forbidding them in residents’ rooms was bent for George on the strict understanding that this would keep him out of the Sun Room and away from the other residents. Watching the plethora of late night films was one of the few new pleasures he’d discovered since his wife’s death. Before, when he’d had a house of his own, he hadn’t watched horror movies. His wife hadn’t liked them. Even old Hitchcock films had her leaving the room.

  “Poor Dora,” he murmured.

  His wife had died four years earlier, when he was sixty-three and she fifty-nine. He’d lost his job a few months later when the company he’d worked for went under. It was just one more victim of the recession whose demise rated no more fanfare than a few lines on the local news. Most of their savings had been spent on every unapproved procedure, foreign specialist and overpriced herbal remedy the internet could discover. He’d even, unbeknownst to his wife, re-mortgaged the house. When it was repossessed, he’d sold almost everything they had owned, scraping together just enough to cover the road tax, petrol and the monthly payments for his private health insurance.

  His former secretary had let him live in her summerhouse for most of that year, but when illness had forced her mother to move into the three-bedroom semi, George had moved out. He didn’t want to be a burden, not to anyone. He’d left in the middle of the night and drifted south. He’d travelled slowly, revisiting old haunts he’d once been to with his wife, and sleeping in his car at grubby lay-bys until, on his sixty-fourth birthday, he’d arrived at Dover. It was only the sturdy construction of the barriers that had stopped him driving his car over the cliffs.

  George had taken it as a sign. Of what and from whom, even now he wasn’t sure. He’d spent that year living in his car, stretching the little that he had, waiting for his sixty-fifth birthday. His insurance policy, the one he’d maintained even when he didn’t have enough to eat, guaranteed him a place in a retirement home at the age of sixty-five, subject to a medical exam. After a year of little food and virtually no sleep he’d failed the physical with flying colours.

  “Liars!” George muttered as the picture changed to a segment on a former supermarket, now part of the nationalised chain of Food Distribution Centres. “That’s the same one as yesterday. Same people too. That one there, that woman with the scars and the streak in her hair, I remember her. And yesterday you said it was Crewe and today you say it’s Bournemouth. Liars,” he muttered again.

  He hated muttering. He wanted to shout. He loved to shout at the TV. That used to be one of the few pleasures he’d allow himself. Always make sure your desires are attainable, his old man had told him. It was almost the last thing he’d said before dropping dead from a heart attack aged forty-one. George had lived his life by that aphorism, eschewing dreams of sun-kissed islands for less lofty, but more easily attainable homely comforts.

  Whenever he’d start ranting at the weatherman or some hapless presenter, Dora would head off into the kitchen “to make some tea”. She knew it was a sign of a bad day at work needing to be vented away, but the sight of his blustering tirades always made her laugh and whenever she’d start laughing, so w
ould he. That had been the secret of their happy marriage, knowing when to laugh together, and when to do it alone. Thirty happy years, he thought, and two thoroughly miserable ones as he helplessly watched her waste away.

  He checked the time, 11:30. Lunch was served at 12:10 sharp. You weren’t allowed to be early, that was frowned upon. Over the last few days, though, if you turned up after quarter past, you’d probably find the staff had disappeared back to their lounge, leaving those residents who were there to freely help themselves to food meant for the latecomers.

  “Bloody thieves. Carrion, that’s what they are, picking over the carcass whilst it’s still warm,” he muttered, but more quietly than before. He wasn’t sure if they could kick him out now there was a travel ban, but he wasn’t going to risk it. He knew for certain that there was enough food in the home to last everyone for weeks. He’d seen the storeroom.

  “We’ve got to prepare, Mr Tull,” McGuffrey had said. “We don’t know how long it will have to last. This crisis could go on for weeks. Months even, and what will we do then, eh?”

  Except that George had seen McGuffrey load a tray of tinned sweetcorn and another of broad beans into a suitcase, and wheel it down the drive and up the path towards the grace and favour cottage he had at the top of the cliffs. George tried to remember when that had been. The twenty-fourth, he thought. Time was so hard to keep track of in the home, where weeks just merged into one another and months weren’t as important as seasons. He’d watched McGuffrey go back and forth three times that day, and twice the next. On the twenty-seventh, George had confronted him.

  “Just keeping it safe, Mr Tull. Besides,” McGuffrey had added with a wink, “it’s not like the old dears need all these calories, is it, eh?”

  Then he’d just smiled, and walked off. That evening there had been a knock at George’s door.

  “Your medicine Mr Tull,” the nurse had said. Thanks to a private exam, courtesy of his insurance plan, George had ensured he was prescribed nothing stronger than vitamin tablets, which he got from the chemists at the shopping centre in Lower Wentley. He didn’t have medicine, certainly none in the evening when all they doled out were sleeping pills to keep the residents quiet. The nurse had walked in carrying a tray covered with a metal warming dish.

  “Mr McGuffrey says you’re to take this, as required, before bed.” She’d lifted the cover, as if she was a magician doing a trick, and there on the tray was a half bottle of Scotch. He didn’t drink, not since the week after he’d arrived at the home and began to work out a plan of escape. He’d given the bottle to Mrs O’Leary instead.

  George changed the channel again. ITV was showing a match. He bent forward and peered at the top left hand corner of the screen. Arsenal, one. West Ham, two. The elapsed time read 56:18. He leaned back in his chair and tried to lose himself in the rest of the game. It was hard. His mind kept turning to the world beyond the Channel and across the Atlantic. There wasn’t much news coming in from overseas any more, but reading between the lines it seemed as if Britain was one of the few functioning societies left.

  It was a week since McGuffrey and the nurse had tried to bribe him, as if a cheap bottle of whisky was going to keep his silence. He’d tried to complain. He’d waited until he was sure the staff had either gone home, or retreated to their break room for the evening, and then he’d called the hospital. He’d called his MP, the police, the local paper and the BBC. At least he’d tried to. None of the numbers worked.

  He checked his watch again. He’d never been one for eating lunch, preferring to work through and leave work early to spend more time with his wife. He didn’t want to be late, though, because the food wasn’t for him, it was for Mrs O’Leary.

  She’d gone in for an operation in January. The week she was away was the loneliest of George’s new life. He’d visited her twice, the first time he'd got a lift from the Vicar, the second time he’d taken the bus. Or, to be precise, three buses and a long wait in the rain. When he’d arrived he’d been soaked. The nurses had made such a fuss, he wasn’t sure they were going to let him leave. In the end one of them drove him back to the home when her shift was over. Mrs O’Leary had found the whole thing hilarious, and not a day went by since then that she hadn’t reminded him of it.

  Since her return from the hospital, she’d been confined to bed except on the days when the physio visited. After he left, and before having to suffer through the indignity of the hoist to return her to bed, George would take her for a walk in one of the home’s wheelchairs. She could manage pushing herself a short distance, but after a couple of circuits of the one-storey complex, George would have to take over. The visits by the physio and their promenades outside had stopped after the petrol stations had been closed. Since then, only the staff who lived in the village came into work. He’d asked them to move her out of the bed but, hiding behind some non-existent health and safety regulation, they had refused.

  He’d been hoping that perhaps someone would come and collect her. She had a grandson, Donald, in Ireland who had visited just before Christmas. He’d stayed for a week at the pub in the village, hired a car and taken them both out every day. George had tried calling him too, but to no avail. Not that there was anything Donald would have been able to do, now that the airports and ferry terminals had been closed.

  George had tried, on his own, to lift her into the wheelchair and he thought he could manage it, but; “If you can barely lift me down, how on Earth are you going to get me back up to the bed?” she’d asked, in her soft Irish brogue.

  Arsenal scored an equaliser. He checked the time again. 11:47. Still too early.

  There were seventeen residents left in the home. The living dead, he’d called them up until a few weeks ago, but only within Mrs O’Leary’s hearing. That didn’t seem quite so funny now.

  She was sixty-nine years old, and the only resident confined to a bed. George, at sixty-seven was the youngest. The others were old enough to remember the War, but young enough that none of them had had an active part in it. To them it was a time of rose tinted rationing and halcyon summers where adults had far more to concern themselves with than truant delinquents. They’d grown up in a time when it was more than acceptable for places like the home to display signs reading “No dogs, no blacks, no Irish”. By the disdainful way that he and Mrs O’Leary were treated it was clear that they wished they were still living in them. George didn’t mind so much, not since he’d come up with his plan.

  On Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, George worked for four hours a day in the back room of Mr Singh’s electrical shop in the village, learning how to fix computers and home appliances. He didn’t get paid because that would have invalidated his insurance, but he got fed. They were proper meals too, not like the textureless, tasteless mush the home served up three times a day. It had taken months, but he’d finally learned enough to get an interview lined up at the refurbishment company in the business park at Lower Wentley. If he got the job he would earn enough to rent a place of his own. It would only be something small, nothing like the house he and Dora had had, probably one of the pokey little studio flats they were building out by the train station. It would be small, but it would be his.

  Then there had been New York. The 20th February. Dora’s birthday. He’d been in the shop, and watched the television with Mr Singh and his wife as the unbelievable events unfolded. Everyone in the country had watched that, everyone except the residents of the home. They’d not even known about it until he’d got back. He’d told them or, rather, he’d tried to.

  The only television in the home, other than his, was in the Sun Room, a dreary den of easy-clean sofas and Formica tables. He’d raced in and turned the set on. Old Mr Roberts had turned it off after a few minutes, saying scenes like that “were an unwarranted disturbance”. But it had been on long enough for everyone there to see a blood stained creature, its back broken, its legs twisted, tear a woman apart outside a shopping centre.

  When George had started
to protest at Roberts turning it off, McGuffrey had just said, “What does it matter? That’s far away. Not our concern, is it?” So George had retreated back to his room and watched the reports as they came in. He stayed up all night, sitting bare inches from the screen the volume on low, pausing only to walk down the corridor to keep Mrs O’Leary informed.

  That night, he’d not slept. Early on the 21st February he’d opened his box and taken out the remains of his life savings. He’d gone to the reception area and waited anxiously for the doors to be unlocked. Then he’d walked down the drive to the footpath that led through the woods and down to the village. He’d been waiting outside when Pauline Fellows came to open the organic grocers. He’d spent £150 on tins and packets of food. She wouldn’t sell him any more.

  It had taken him five trips to carry the food the hundred yards to the flat Mr and Mrs Singh had over their shop. By the time he had collected his last few bags, Pauline had thrown the closed sign over the door and was emptying the shelves into the back of her car.

  He got back from his seventh trip to town at half past five, just as the dinner bell was sounding. Exhausted, and with the doors to the home about to close for the day, he’d deposited his haul in his room and gone to the dining hall. He’d toyed dispiritedly with his lacklustre shepherd’s pie, then visited with Mrs O’Leary for half an hour before heading back to his room and collapsing in front of the television. He was just in time to hear the news that there were zombies in Paris and that France was being torn apart by riots. They had nationalised the press soon after that.

  West Ham scored. It was a marvellous goal. The striker tackled a mid-fielder just outside the West Ham goal, ran with the ball all the way up to the half way line and then kicked it all the way down the pitch. The goalie didn’t see it coming until too late. He dived. George wasn't sure that the ball was going in, but, with less than an inch to spare, it slammed into the bottom left corner of the net. That should have had supporters from both sides leaping to their feet. It was the sort of thing you paid the astronomical price of a season ticket for. But there was no crowd. The stands were empty. The matches were played, but no one was there to watch. He didn’t even know who the players were, it certainly wasn’t the team they’d been fielding a month before.

  He checked the time. 11:51. Stiffly, he got out of his chair and turned the set off. He’d like to see the final score, but the match would be replayed later. He could watch it then. Or he could watch a different game. Who won, who lost or even who played the game didn’t matter, not any more.

  The dining hall wasn’t empty. Mr Pappadopolis, Mrs Ackroyd, Mr Carter and Miss Conner were there. They were always the first in the queue because they spent most of their waking hours playing an eternal game of bridge at the long table by the never-opened French doors. As long as they vacated the room just long enough for Janice to slop a mop around the floor, their cards were never disturbed. By some unfair rule of possession, they now got that table for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They always started queuing as soon as they heard the clatter of serving trays and the laying out of the plates.

  George nodded a polite greeting, even managing a slight smile, but they ignored him. They always did. That infuriated him. Was he the only one who realised that the world had changed? Maybe they did realise, maybe that was why they were clinging to their routine. George checked his watch 12:05, almost feeding time. It was odd though. He couldn’t hear any sounds from the kitchen.

  The food in the storeroom was now supplemented by a ration from their Local Food Distribution Centre, or, as he knew it better, the two-storey supermarket in the shopping centre at Lower Wentley, ten miles away. Everyone got a ration, and according to Mrs Singh it wasn't very much.

  On the afternoon of the 24th, planning on collecting the rest of his tins and packets from the Singhs’, he’d gone down to the village. He’d had to sneak out of the home as McGuffrey had issued a stern warning, unnecessary for all bar George, that no one should stray further than the plinth at the bottom of the drive. When he’d arrived, he’d found the couple sharing a meal with the Vicar.

  For a meagre ration of two hundred grams of rice, a jar of bolognese sauce and two vitamin tablets, the Singhs had stood in line for four hours. According to the Vicar they had been the lucky ones. She’d gone to collect her ration after an extended morning service and hadn't arrived at the supermarket until midday. By two o’clock, when she’d been halfway along the queue, the food had run out. She’d said there would have been a riot if the soldiers hadn’t been there.

  12:10. He shook his watch and glanced towards the door.

  The Vicar was notorious in the village for her inability to cook, and the Singhs didn’t keep much food in the flat, using most of the space as an annex for their repair business, but they’d not touched his stack of tins. He’d gruffly told them to take what they needed. They’d tried to demure, but not for long. Mr Singh told him that they were thinking of leaving, all three of them, regardless of the travel restrictions. He had a brother, a government scientist, who owned a house in North Wales which he rarely used as he spent most of his time living and working at a lab. Mr Singh said the three of them were going there. He’d asked if George wanted to go with them.

  On his way back up the hill, George had been so focused on an internal debate over whether or not he should take them up on their offer that he’d almost been shot. He’d been stunned to see that the group he had first taken to be from the Army was being led by Police Constable Elkombe, dressed in camouflage and carrying a rifle as if he was a soldier. George had not gone down to the village since.

  He looked at his watch. 12:15. The kitchen should now be filled with the sounds of slapdash washing up. He glanced over his shoulder, another five of the home’s residents stood patiently waiting behind him.

  “Bit late, aren’t they?” he said, just loudly enough for the other residents to hear, but not so loudly that they’d be forced to acknowledge his existence.

  “Hmm,” Miss Conner muttered. The others stayed silent.

  “Janice been around this morning?” he asked. This time there was no reply.

  “Then perhaps one of us should go and check,” George muttered acidly. He stepped behind the counter and through the swing doors beyond. The kitchen was empty, save for the unwashed breakfast dishes stacked haphazardly by the sink. He checked the ovens. They were cold.

  Priorities, he thought. His biggest had to be Mrs O’Leary. Every morning over the past week he’d taken breakfast to her, helped her use the bedpan and given her as much of a wash as her rigid values would allow. Then he would let her sleep until he brought her lunch. Usually he found she was already awake, waiting for him. He didn’t want her to panic, that wouldn’t be fair. Nor did he want her to go hungry.

  The fridge was locked, so too were most of the cupboards. The ones that weren’t held little more than tea, sugar and flour. He had a couple of tins of rice pudding in his box and half a pack of digestives. That would do, at least for now. When he left the kitchen, the residents waiting outside looked at him expectantly.

  “No sign of anyone,” he said, tersely. “Haven’t even done the washing up. I think they’ve gone.” Then he turned and walked back to his room.

  His box was an ancient, pitted, wooden trunk, three feet wide, by two feet tall by and one and a half feet deep. He’d seen it in a junk shop on the weekend in Truro he and Dora had had in lieu of a Honeymoon. It had once belonged to a Napoleonic naval Captain who'd stored his souvenirs of war in it, at least that’s what the shopkeeper had claimed whilst Dora was haggling over the price. Other than a few carrier bags, it was the only piece of luggage George had brought with him when he’d arrived at the home.

  All that he’d owned which had any real worth had been sold during that bleak year he’d been counting down until his sixty-fifth birthday He had kept a few items, though, keepsakes and mementos of value only to himself. There were a few tarnished Roman coins he’d bought when they were tryin
g out retirement hobbies during the period when it looked like Dora would recover. There was the wedding photograph of the two of them with her aunt and his uncle, the only family who would acknowledge them after they’d announced their engagement. Then there were Dora’s journals, carefully wrapped in the silk scarf he’d bought on the holiday they’d taken after they found out they would never have children. He’d never read them, never opened them, not even during his darkest of times.

  When he’d arrived at the home he’d undergone a humiliating examination of his personal effects, each item, including the journals, laboriously examined out of a need “to maintain the safety and comfort of all our residents.” But McGuffrey hadn’t discovered that the box had a secret compartment, hidden by a false bottom.

  The box was now filled with the food he’d bought from the village. He took out a tin of rice pudding, the half pack of digestives and two decently sized metal spoons he’d stolen from the cafe in the shopping centre. It wasn’t much, he knew, but it was better than nothing.

  “Rice pudding for lunch. Very decadent, Mr Tull,” Mrs O’Leary said, after he’d explained the situation. “So what are we to do, now?”

  “I’m not sure,” he replied. She let her spoon clink meaningfully on the side of the tin and gave him a look that had silenced even the most unruly of classrooms during her nearly fifty years of teaching. “I suppose I should look for the staff,” he said.

  “Or try McGuffrey up at his cottage,” she suggested. “Then you’re to report back here with what you’ve found.”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said with a smile.

  He checked the Sun Room first, and then the conservatory. Then he wandered along the corridors that led to the bedrooms, and re-checked the dining hall and the kitchen. Some of the residents were still queuing for lunch, most were now walking the corridors on a similar quest to his own. Of the staff there was no sign. Finally he went to the reception area at the front of the building.

  He baulked at the idea of crossing the invisible line behind the desk that led to the staff area, a place residents were not allowed, ostensibly due to the presence of the pharmacy. Instead he walked over to the front doors and pushed. They were unlocked. He stepped outside.

  It was cold, with a thin fog blowing in off the sea. He thought about going back inside for his coat, but stopped when his eyes caught sight of McGuffrey’s cottage on top of the cliffs.

  “The man must be there, where else is he going to go?” George muttered, slightly louder than he’d normally have dared. “And if he’s not, then, well… Then…” he thought for a moment. “Then I’ll just go into town and report the lot of them!”

  It was only a short distance, but the hill was steep, the paving stones oddly spaced and slippery from the wintry coastal mist. He was breathing heavily as he climbed the path.

  “McGuffrey!” he half yelled, half wheezed when he reached the door. “McGuffrey!”

  There was no answer. He thought he saw a curtain twitch, but he couldn’t be sure. He walked a few metres back down the path to the small plinth by the road side and sat down. His joints ached. He didn’t used to get so tired so quickly. It had been creeping up on him over the past few months. He had found it taking him longer to get down to the village and even longer to get back up. He hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, since it would have ended his dream of one day leaving this place, but he was starting to feel old.

  He glanced back at the cottage and again he thought he saw a shadow pass across the window. He got up and walked back to the house and banged on the door until his knuckles were red and the paintwork was scuffed. There was no answer. He was certain now that he could hear an odd thumping and shuffling sound from inside. Slowly, stiffly, he walked around the property looking for an open window, but they were all closed, their net curtains drawn.

  As frustration replaced anger, he became aware of how truly quiet the world was. There were no tractors in the fields, no vehicles on the roads, no planes overhead or even ships out at sea. As he turned around on the spot, looking for any small sign of life, he was gripped by a strange fear that he and those in the home were now alone in the world.

  He wanted to get away from this place. He wanted to go back to his room, he wanted to close the door, lie down, sleep and wake up to find the world was back the way it should be. But that would never happen, could never happen, not now. And there was Mrs O’Leary to think of, and what she’d think of him if he went back now with more questions and no answers.

  He turned to look down the hill to the picture-postcard hamlet that straddled the river. It was an odd little place. The same steep hills on either side that had kept away the property developers had also kept away the tourists. It was only in the last decade when the single-track road had finally been replaced with a two-lane carriageway that the village had bucked the recessionary trend and begun to prosper.

  He carefully walked back along the icy path. On the other side of the road lay the woods, through which a footpath ran, leading down to the vicarage and the ancient church that marked the beginning of the village. He knew he could get down there, but getting back up would be difficult. Even if there was anyone with any petrol left still living there, he knew they wouldn’t waste it on him. To his knowledge, the only local who ever came up to the home, other than those who worked there, was the Vicar.

  He hadn’t approved of the whole women-vicars business though, as he was never more than a weddings and funerals type of churchgoer, he now wasn’t sure why. He liked the Reverend Stevens. She’d made a point of visiting the home once a month despite the frosty reception she received from most of the residents. Even Mrs O’Leary liked the company, since the last diocesan merger meant her priest only made house calls for the last rites. From where George was standing he could just see the vicar’s driveway. It was empty, her Land Rover gone. The car could be parked somewhere else, of course, and he couldn’t quite see the electrical shop from where he stood, but George was sure that she and the Singhs had left.

  He looked back at the cottage. Perhaps he could break down the door, drag McGuffrey out and force him to come back to work. A bitter chuckle escaped from his lips. If he was getting out of breath walking a few hundred yards up the hill, then breaking down doors was beyond him. Besides, as Mrs O’Leary had loudly pointed out when the roads were closed during the heavy snow the previous year and McGuffrey had been forced into the kitchen, “The man could burn water and sour toast”. Dispirited by how little he’d accomplished, he walked back to the home.

  He stopped in the reception hall. There were rigorous strictures against residents straying across into the staff area, but what did they matter if McGuffrey wasn’t going to come out of his house? He stepped around the reception desk and through the door to the nurses’ station. The room contained a desk against the long wall, filing cabinets along the short, a few chairs and little else except the closed door that he assumed led to the offices, pharmacy and the staff break room. He turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  Conscious of the rules he was breaking, he walked slowly down the corridor, opening each door in turn. The staff bathrooms were clean, smelling faintly of a more aromatic disinfectant than the cheaper brand George was familiar with from the residents’ side of the building. The staff break room was a mess, but in such a way that he thought it might always have looked that way.

  The pharmacy had been ransacked. He could find no painkillers or sleeping tablets. As to what else the staff had taken when they left, he was unsure. They had been selective, taking just over half of the medication stored in the large glass fronted cabinets. Raising his finger he methodically went through those that remained, but could find none of the pills that Mrs O’Leary was prescribed.

  The last room in the corridor had a brass plaque on the door, ‘Mr RJ McGuffrey BA, BSc, Director of Care’. Inside, on an otherwise spotless desk he found a map and the letter.

  “Due to its relative isolation and low population density, it h
as been decided to evacuate this area. Leaving no earlier than six a.m. on the 7th March and arriving no later than nine a.m. on the 8th March, all residents within this zone should make their way to The Benwick Hill Outdoor Sports and Activity Centre, one mile west of Longfield Junction.”

  The letter was printed except for the place names, those were handwritten.

  “At this muster point, evacuees will be given a physical examination, assessed for suitability for vaccination and then transported to the enclave being established in Cornwall.”

  Again the name was handwritten.

  “Due to the need to keep roads clear for evacuation traffic, evacuees must depart on foot or by bicycle. You may bring with you as much as you can carry, but this should include any medicines you require, and enough food and water for at least two days. In addition you should bring blankets, sleeping bags or other warm bedding as well as spare clothing, as these items will not be provided during resettlement. Further advice and details of what to expect at the enclave will be provided on the Emergency Broadcasts, to which you are strongly advised to watch or listen.

  “A limited bus service will be provided to the muster point for those unable to make the journey themselves due to age, ill health or other significant factors. This service is available only if those factors were registered with the local authorities before the crisis and with your designated Resettlement Officer prior to the 4th March.

  “If you are a Designated Carer for one or more persons, then you must inform the Resettlement Officer on or prior to the 4th March as to how many dependants will require transportation. Please note that for the purposes of the evacuation, an individual is deemed a Designated Carer if, and only if, they have been licensed by the local civil authority to claim the ration on another’s behalf.

  “If you are unsure whether your property lies within the evacuation zone or if you have any further questions you should address them to your Resettlement Officer who will be located at your local Food Distribution Centre until the 5th March.

  Signed…”

  George couldn’t read the signature. Not that he tried too hard, his eyes were drawn to the date. It was dated the 2nd March, three days ago. He glanced at the map. It was a photocopy of a road map with a crudely drawn circle about ten miles in diameter that took in the home, the village, a dozen farms and a good portion of the sea. He looked at the envelope. There was no stamp. It must have been hand delivered.

  “They knew,” he said. “They bloody well knew!” he shouted this time. “They left us. They cooked breakfast and went, stealing our pills on the way. Well I’ll…” What? What would he do? What could he do?

  He picked up the phone on the desk and dialled 9 for an outside line and then 999. There was no answer. He dialled 9125, the number for the speaking clock. Nothing. He tried dialling his old office number at work, the customer service number printed on the box of bandages, the mobile phone number written down on a yellow post it note with a poorly drawn heart next to it. Nothing, not even a dial tone.

  “You don’t think he’s arranged for us to be evacuated?” George asked half an hour later, when he was drinking tea with Mrs O’Leary in her room.

  “Do you?” she asked.

  “No,” George admitted. “That’s why the other staff have gone. They don’t want to be the ones left holding the baby. Probably they reckoned someone would show up here, some patrol or, well, someone, and whoever was would be delegated in charge of us. So they all scarpered.”

  “It’s McGuffrey,” Mrs O’Leary said flatly. “He’s the one responsible, not all these part timers who never bothered to learn our names.” She took another sip of tea “I bet he doesn’t fancy the idea of swapping his cottage for a cot in some warehouse.”

  “Doesn’t want to go with us, can’t go without us and can't show his face around here, neither, not now the pills are gone.”

  “Nonsense,” she tutted. “Of course he could. He could have been open and honest about it all from the start. We’d not have judged him any the worse for it. Not that that’s saying much. All that can be expected of anyone is that they do the job that’s in front of them. No more than that. Now drink your tea. It’s getting cold. And then make me another cup. I’m enjoying the indulgence.”

  George stood up and walked over to the kettle. He’d liberated it from the staff break room, a far more salubrious place than the Sun Room. It was filled with comfortable armchairs, a well-stocked fridge, and a mountain of biscuits and slightly stale cakes that he suspected had been donated for the residents’ consumption.

  He was feeling calmer than he had after first reading the letter. It was the tea, not the drink itself, but being able to have as much of it as he wanted, when he wanted. It was a type of freedom, he supposed, one he’d given up when he’d chosen an existence in the home over a lonely suicide.

  “Yesterday was the fourth,” George said, after handing Mrs O’Leary a fresh cup.

  “You’re thinking of going down to Lower Wentley? Yesterday was the deadline. Besides, how would you get there? You said even the Vicar’s gone.”

  “Probably gone. Anyway, it’s only ten miles. I could walk it,” he said stubbornly.

  “Really?” she asked, taking a pointedly slow sip of tea. They sat in silence for a while.

  “If I went down to the village, maybe I could find a car…” George began.

  “And then you’d hotwire it, would you? Or would you just break into the houses until you found a key? And,” she said raising an admonitory finger, “what then? They said no cars on the evacuation, didn’t they?”

  “But if they stopped us, I’d explain,” George said.

  “Us, is it? And what about the others?” Mrs O’Leary asked. “Our companions in misfortune?”

  “Who? The living dead? What of them?” George asked without thinking. Mrs O’Leary said nothing. She just gave him a stern look.

  “Right. Sorry. That was in bad taste,” George said.

  “The way I see it,” Mrs O’Leary said, after setting the cup down with studied deliberation, “the government people know we’re here. They know McGuffrey was collecting our ration, even if he was squirrelling it away for himself. If they know we’re here, then they’ll send someone. Now,” she added, forestalling his objection, “they may not, I agree, but there’s a greater chance of that, than of you making it all the way to Lower Wentley on foot or, for that matter, of stealing someone’s car without getting shot by one of the patrols. No, we stay here. And as for our compatriots, well, you can’t let them starve, now, can you?”

  “I…” George was about to say he could, but then he saw the look on her face. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Good lad. Nothing fancy. They don’t deserve pheasant, just warm up a few cans. And,” she added as he got up to leave, “be a dear and make sure the doors and windows are all properly closed. Just in case.”

  “Well this isn’t much,” Mrs Kennedy sniffed.

  “It’s what I could find,” George said. “It was either stew or a fry up.”

  “I’d have liked a fry up,” Mr Pappadopolis said. “Haven’t had one in years.”

  “Well, you’ll like breakfast tomorrow then,” George said as equably as he could manage.

  “But it’s Lasagne on Tuesdays,” Miss Conner said, staring with suspicion at the inexpertly chopped beef and carrots swimming in thick gravy.

  “Today isn’t Tuesday, and tonight it’s stew. Beef, carrots, onions, some peppers and tomatoes. More than enough to keep you going.”

  “Probably all night long,” Mr Grayson snickered. And the others, some with a furtive glance to make really sure that there were no staff present, laughed too.

  “Come on,” Mr Parker said, pushing his way to the front of the crowd. “Out the way. Some of us are hungry.”

  They didn’t say ‘thank you’, but George did get a nod or two of acknowledgement. In the rarefied atmosphere of the home that was as good as an honour from the Queen. George wen
t back into the kitchen to finish the washing up, leaving them to serve themselves. When he returned to the cafeteria everyone was sitting down, eating and making occasional small talk.

  “Look,” he began. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say, but all eyes were on him now “The thing is…”

  “Spit it out, man,” Mr Grayson said.

  “They’ve gone. The staff. You’ve realised that, I suppose. There’s an evacuation. You might have heard about that on the news.” He remembered to whom he was speaking. “No. OK. They’re emptying the cities and the towns inland, pulling everyone back to the coast. London, Birmingham, Glasgow, here too.”

  “But we’re on the coast,” Mr Roberts said in a tone that suggested that this should settle the matter.

  “So’s Glasgow,” Mr Carter chimed in. “Or it’s on the Clyde, which is—”

  “The letter,” George interrupted loudly, before they began one of their pointless debates, “said they were evacuating the village too, the area is indefensible. That’s what it said. The evacuation is meant to start on the seventh, but the staff have left early, taking about half your medication with them.” There was an uncomfortable stirring amongst the group at this revelation. “McGuffrey is meant to have told a resettlement bod in Lower Wentley that we’re here, and then they’re meant to send a bus for us. If he told them.” George paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. “The evacuation muster point, that’s where we have to get to, is in Benwick, at that big sports centre there, the one with the go-kart track. There’ll be no buses, no cabs, no help. If you want to go, then that’s where you have to get to. It’s about thirty miles. I’ll leave the letter here. You can look at it yourselves. Make up your own mind what you want to do…”

  “Well that’s just terrible!” Miss Conner cried. “I’m going to complain. I’m going to write to my MP!” It was said with a finality indicating there was no greater threat or sanction.

  “Well, yes, you could do that,” George said as patiently as he could manage, “but there’s no post anymore, no phone lines either. And even if you could get through, this is a government plan. Your MP knows. They’ve signed off on it.”

  “What about our rights?” Mr Pappadopolis said.

  “What about them?” George replied. “Look, there’s food for now, and I’ll cook it up for you, but it won’t last forever. You need to decide if you can make it to Benwick. Maybe if you head out someone will help you. There’ll be other people, all heading the same way. Or you can stay here, but the food will run out.”

  “What about you? What are you going to do?” Mr Grayson asked.

  “I don’t know,” George replied, and, dispirited once more, he left the dining room.