Surviving The Evacuation (Book 9): Ireland

by Tayell, Frank

  “I think so. A nerve agent or something.”

  “By the British government?”

  I spent a hundred yards considering that. “No, I doubt it. I can’t see any reason they would. I suppose it’s possible that one of the military units that took refuge in Ireland brought a stock of chemical weapons with them, but I can’t imagine a single reason the Irish government would drop them on its people here. You know what I think? I think it was a mistake. So many of those nuclear missiles went off target, why not other ordnance? I think a plane had a cargo of bombs or missiles, and perhaps had been ordered to drop them on the military units around Dublin Airport.”

  “People like Francois?”

  “Exactly. It was the Russians or the Chinese, or, yes, perhaps it was Quigley. He went after the people in Elysium, didn’t he, so why not the rest of Ireland? Either way, someone wanted to stop those soldiers turning this island into a redoubt. They sent a plane to bomb them, but the pilot rebelled, and dropped them in the sea. They detonated, and the wind caused the toxin to be dispersed among all of these refugees who were going to Limerick.”

  We stopped talking as we picked our way between the cars, but silence didn’t reign. Birds erupted from vehicles in front, one after the other as we drew near. It was reassuring in that it meant it was unlikely there were zombies lying in wait, but a flock circling the air a mile behind and a little to the south told us that the undead from which we’d fled were still following.

  “I’m going to believe that story is true,” Kim said. “It was an accident. And regardless of the nationality of the pilot, it was Quigley’s fault.”

  “It does beg the question of why these people were heading to Limerick,” I said. “And you know what?” I added, only just realising. “You know what it means? There’ll be fuel in these vehicles’ tanks.”

  “Haven’t you noticed?” she asked.

  I hadn’t. The fuel caps were open. Someone had been down this road before us with much the same thought.

  After a mile, almost level with the point where we’d seen those three battered ships, gaps began to appear in the stalled traffic. That meant at least two square miles had been affected by the chemical weapon. After another hundred yards of intermittent traffic, the road cleared. All that lay ahead was a coach that might have been parked.

  “Zombies,” Kim whispered. “Two.”

  I spared a quick glance behind where the banging of rotten flesh into car door, decaying foot crunching on broken glass, and the snap of dead bone was growing in volume. My hope had been that, on reaching the lookout point, the undead would continue straight on and tumble down into the sea. That might have happened to a few, but the vehicles that had made our journey so difficult had funnelled most of them after us.

  “Bill.”

  I turned my attention ahead, to the more immediate danger of the two zombies lurching around the side of the coach. I moved to the left, as Kim went to the right. The nearest zombie’s shuffling gait was made slower by a loop of rope tied around its ankle to a black holdall, dragging along the ground after it. I raised the crowbar, waited… waited… waited, and swung. The zombie fell. I stepped back, looking for the next threat. Kim swung the tyre-iron down. It crunched into bone, far louder than I’d have liked, but the zombie collapsed. Silence settled, at least in our immediate vicinity. Kim went to the coach as I went to look at the holdall. It was empty. The bottom had been worn away by friction with the road.

  “Nothing,” Kim said, after a brief look inside the vehicle. She put one foot on the door’s handrail and hoisted herself up to the roof. I went inside, double-checked there were no stray creatures hiding beneath the seats, and went to the driver’s seat. I rummaged underneath and beside it in search of a note, a map, a message, or some other clue as to where they had come from, and where they’d been heading. There was nothing. From what we’d seen, Ireland met a similar fate to Britain and everywhere else. Some of the details were different, sure, but there were no hidden refuges. No sanctuaries. No redoubts. The truth, I think, is that the coach, and all the other vehicles, were just driving to get away. One followed another until they were all heading in the same direction, a direction that would have taken them nowhere fast. Had the chemical weapon not killed them, the traffic would have stalled, the people would have been on foot, easy prey for the undead that couldn’t have been far behind.

  “Bill?”

  “What?”

  “You need to come up here.”

  I thought she wanted me to see the undead that were following us. I could make out the flock of seagulls circling above them, but the zombies themselves were lost to the curvature of the coastal road.

  “No, Bill. There!” Kim said, turning me a hundred and fifty degrees. Out in the estuary was a ship. A large ship. I’d have called it a luxury yacht, but that’s how I thought of The Smuggler’s Salvation. This ship was vastly bigger. As big as a cruise ship, it was almost entirely sky blue, with three rows of portholes between the water line and the deck. It was hard to make an accurate guess at its size, but I’d say at least a hundred and fifty metres long. At the stern was probably a helipad and what was certainly a helicopter. Next to it was a large covered shape, and a small crane. In the centre of the ship was a four-storey superstructure, sixty metres long at the top, tapered fore and aft.

  “I’m not seeing things, am I?” Kim asked. “You can see it, too, right?”

  The hull was mostly sky blue. Mostly. The colour hadn’t been chosen as camouflage, and wouldn’t have been effective if it had. It had been chosen to make the logo on the prow stand out.

  “A golden wave,” I said.

  “That’s Kempton’s boat?” Kim asked.

  “I guess so. In fact, I’d guess that’s exactly correct. That boat is hers. Her own personal boat. Embarkation? That usually means a plane or a ship, right? And who’d use a plane during a nuclear war? But a ship, far out at sea, that would be the place to survive the fallout.”

  “And then she came here,” Kim said. “Why?” She unslung the sniper’s rifle, and raised it to her shoulder, peering through the optical scope. “No smoke. No lights, but the sun’s catching the glass.”

  “And it’s time to get moving,” I said, because as she’d looked at the ship, I’d looked behind. The cloud of birds was moving closer.

  “We’re going to the ship, right?” Kim asked.

  “I guess so,” I said.

  “You know she might be there,” Kim said. “And if she is, she probably won’t be alone.”

  “I know.”

  Uncertain what we’d do when we got there, we hurried down the hill, away from the undead, and towards the ship.

  “I can’t see anyone. You want to look?” Kim asked.

  I took the rifle from her and trained it on the ship, about four hundred metres from where we were perched on the roof of a warehouse. The building was part of an agricultural supplies business. Below us was a varied assortment of rotavators, drillers, excavators, and other machinery. The doors had been broken down, presumably by whoever had stripped the smaller warehouse on the other side of the car park. The note on the door said that was a seed store, but birds had taken whatever people had left. Next to the agricultural supply business was a road that followed the coast. Four hundred metres to the east was an industrial site with a chain-link fence, four warehouses, and a concrete jetty that jutted out into the Shannon Estuary.

  “The ship’s by a jetty,” I said. “The front’s facing east, so it presumably sailed this far and no further. It didn’t try to turn around.”

  “But do you see the ropes?” Kim asked.

  “Two of them, hanging down the side, looped into a chain on the jetty. They’re too thin to hold the ship in place.”

  “No, you can see the anchor chains at fore and aft,” Kim said. “The ropes are by the ladder built into the side, do you see it? So they used the ropes to disembark. Or did they use them to get back on, sort of swinging across to the ladder?”
>
  “Good question. How shallow is that water? Do you think the ship ran aground?”

  “The jetty’s pretty long,” Kim said. “Fifty metres? Maybe a bit longer? What about the warehouses, can you see anyone?”

  “No people. I see the zombies. Three of them on the road by the gate to the industrial unit. And about…” I gave a quick count, but from that angle, precision was difficult. “About twelve bodies lying on the road. Hard to be sure how many.”

  “Bodies mean someone killed them,” Kim said. “Maybe someone from the ship. Maybe Kempton. Maybe those three are the zombies who followed her back, and she hasn’t been out since to kill them.”

  “Maybe.” I passed the rifle back. “I can’t see anyone, or evidence of anyone, but I’m not sure what to look for. Smoke? Laundry drying on deck? Its absence doesn’t mean it wasn’t there in the past.”

  “And that’s the issue, isn’t it? Are the supplies gone? Are the people? Is Kempton?”

  “We’ve got a two-hour lead on the zombies following us,” I said. “We can probably extend it to three hours before nightfall, but that only means the undead will reach wherever we take shelter some point this evening. If we don’t want to risk being surrounded, we’ll have to head due south from here. Tomorrow we won’t be able to come back to this road, nor to Limerick, because that’s where those zombies are going to end up, waking the creatures already in the city. We’ll have no choice but to head through the heart of Ireland to the east coast.”

  “And even if we board the ship, we’ll have to do that tomorrow. Limerick’s out, as is crossing the Shannon at a bridge there. I doubt there’s a working satellite uplink on board, or that we’d be able to recognise one if there is, but if we’re going to head to the east coast, we need supplies. More than that…” She trailed off as her eyes went to the ship.

  “More than that, Kempton might be there,” I said, finishing the sentence for her.

  “It’s not really a choice, is it, Bill? We’ve come this far. We’ve found the ship. We can’t not go on board.”

  I won’t say I was reluctant. I was wary. We’d found the meaning of the embarkation list. If Ireland became untenable, the people in Elysium were meant to go to the house in Pallaskenry. The helicopter on the deck of the ship would fly in to collect them, and the ship would depart for… for somewhere more secure. Quite where was still a mystery. As to why Pallaskenry was chosen for embarkation, I think I have that answer, too.

  “Nuclear war,” I murmured.

  “What?”

  “An EMP. That was the danger. That was why Kempton couldn’t keep a helicopter on retainer at the airport, or even keep one in Elysium. An electromagnetic pulse would fry the circuitry. That’s why it’s a ship, why she planned to embark. She planned for the ship to arrive after the apocalypse.”

  “Which it did,” Kim said. “But now we need to focus.”

  “You’re right, we do. Keep me covered. I’ll signal when it’s clear.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “If Kempton is on board, we don’t want to both be out in the open.” I clambered down from the roof before she could argue.

  When the gates came into sight, I was still fifty-fifty as to whether the ship was occupied.

  “Hey!” I called at the trio of zombies. “Hey!” I spared a glance up at the ship, but I couldn’t see anyone. I turned my head forward, and watched the zombies approach.

  They weren’t wearing fleeces. They were just another group of the undead. The closest had a gaping wound on its cheek. The one behind had an arm hanging limp by its side. The creature at the rear looked as if it had walked through a threshing machine. Its clothes and skin were shredded. There wasn’t time to see more, because I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. A figure walked through the empty space between the warehouses. Not walking, lurching. It wasn’t a person, not a living one.

  I sidestepped left, towards the edge of the road. The closest zombie staggered, throwing out its arms as it changed direction. I walked back to the middle of the road, then to the right-hand side. As it changed direction again, it lurched forward another two steps, getting further from the slower creature behind. Twelve feet separated them, and that was enough. I skipped forward, ducking down and swinging low. The crowbar thudded into the zombie’s shin. It was an odd sound, muffled, not the crack of bone I’d been expecting. The zombie didn’t fall. It was wearing shin-guards under its trousers. I skipped sideways as its hand clawed out, scratching the top of my shaved scalp. I changed my grip, and stabbed the crowbar forward. The sharpened point plunged into its eye. It fell as I twisted the length of metal free, but it had taken too long. The second creature was eight feet away, the tips of its out-stretched fingers half that distance. There wasn’t time to swing, so I charged, twisting sideways to slam my shoulder into its snapping jaw. There was a satisfying crack of bone, followed by a stab of pain in my arm. Hoping I’d done nothing too serious to myself, I ducked backwards, and lashed out with the crowbar. The metal rod finished the work my shoulder had begun. Its jaw shattered. Bone and gore flew across the muddy road. I shifted my grip, and with the backswing, split its skull. It fell.

  The last creature, the one in the shredded clothing, had barely moved. It was three paces from the gate. It shuffled forward an inch, then another. My first thought was that it was old, certainly it was moving like an arthritic octogenarian, but I’d seen zombies that had been old people, and they moved no differently to any others of the undead. It wasn’t just its clothing that was in tatters. Its skin had been flayed, too. Threshed, that was my first thought, and I think it must be the correct one. Some piece of farm machinery, operated by a survivor who was trying to get away in the only vehicle with fuel. Or perhaps it was by someone who thought a thresher was an easy way to kill the undead. That this one still stood, albeit barely, was evidence that farmer had been wrong. Its arms twitched as I drew nearer. Its mouth opened, and seemed to stick. I stabbed the crowbar up, under its chin and into its brain, ending its pitiful mockery of an afterlife. And I did feel pity, but only until I turned to the gate, and to the creature on the other side of it.

  It wore a fleece with a golden wave embossed on the left breast. I don’t know why that shocked me. Towering over me was a giant ship with the same logo painted a thousand times larger. The person the zombie had been was female. Young, or youngish. Somewhere between twenty and forty, I think. The desiccated features made that vague count nothing more than an educated guess.

  “What is it?” Kim asked.

  I spun around. I honestly hadn’t heard her approach.

  “The fleece,” I said, and then released how foolish a comment it was. “You followed me.” And I realised how pointless that comment was, too.

  “I couldn’t see anyone on deck,” Kim said. “That doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone on the ship, but if they saw you walk down the road, they didn’t come to watch. I think the ship’s empty. Do you see the lock?”

  The fence was a single layer of wire, coated in white plastic. The posts attaching it to the ground looked sturdy enough for something twice as thick. The gate was closed and padlocked, but a key hung from a long loop of wire next to it.

  “They left the key,” Kim said. “No. She did.” She gestured at the snarling zombie on the other side of the gate. “Kill it, Bill. It’s making too much noise.”

  I laid the edge of the crowbar against the wire, stepped closer as the zombie did the same, and stabbed the metal into its eye.

  “If there was someone alive on the boat, they’d have dealt with the zombie,” Kim said, taking the key and unlocking the padlock. “And they wouldn’t have locked this gate, leaving a zombie inside here.”

  I looked down at the ruined face of the dead zombie. Of course, it was harder now to make out the features, and living death gives everyone a greyish pallor, but I was sure it wasn’t Lisa Kempton.

  The four warehouses were built two on either side of a concrete loading dock, about forty feet wide.
Each warehouse was fifty feet wide, about sixty feet long, and with a ten-foot gap running between each pair. Beyond the warehouse was the concrete jetty, about ten feet wide.

  “I wonder if this place was built for the ship,” I said.

  “The sign’s no clue,” Kim said. It was attached to the wire, facing the road, and had the anonymous name of ‘Claverton Industrial Supplies’, with a phone number underneath. There was no gatehouse, no reception area, just the four warehouses. Each had a number, one to four, a pair of steel shutters over the entrance, and a door.

  “Steel shutters like at the garage at Elysium,” I said. “And a concrete jetty. That’s the same, too.”

  “Similar, maybe,” Kim said, crossing to the door of the nearest warehouse. She tried the door. “Unlocked,” she said, raising the tyre-iron. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  She threw the door open and stepped back. Nothing appeared. She took out her torch, and stepped inside. It was a windowless room that contained chemicals. There were rows of floor to ceiling shelves, on which stood four-litre jugs. She ran the torch over a row. “Hydrogen Perchlorate? What’s that?”

  “Something with chlorine in it,” I said.

  “Do you think it’s dangerous?” she asked.

  “I’m not going to drink it,” I said.

  “I meant, if you think Kempton built the jetty so the ship could dock here, then she owned this warehouse. In which case, are these chemicals here for a reason? Or are they just generic, harmless things, here for show and nothing else.” She flashed her light onto the next shelf. “Could you use it as a fuel, maybe?”

  “In a diesel engine? I’m ninety-nine percent sure you couldn’t.”

  “Maybe it was a real business,” Kim said as we headed across the loading bay to Warehouse-2. “If I were a master criminal, plotting the destruction of the world, I’d want as few questions possible asked about a place like this. Running a chemical supplies company would allow you to have people coming and going at all hours. Ready?”