Surviving The Evacuation (Book 9): Ireland

by Tayell, Frank

  “You were a professional boxer?”

  “Not quite. Almost.”

  “Heavyweight?”

  He laughed softly. “Not even close.”

  I was surprised. The man’s twice my size. “Were you good?”

  “Not good enough,” he said. “But no boxer is, not forever, not for long enough.”

  Tamara sighed in her sleep.

  “How did you end up travelling with Siobhan and the children?” I asked.

  “The same way you met us,” he said. “We ran towards the screaming. That was in March. Or was it the beginning of April? I’m not sure. It’s hard to be sure. The days blur into one. It was when Tam was still with us. Good man, Tam. Don’t know what happened to him. I suppose he’s dead. Yeah, you end up together because you run towards the screaming, then you keep on running until you find somewhere safe for the night. You wait for the infected to turn, then you bury the dead. You stay a night. If you’re lucky, you stay for two, but then you need supplies. Someone goes out. Sometimes they don’t return. Sometimes they return, but the zombies follow, and then you have to flee. You run, and you run in different directions, and wherever you end up, there’s less of you than set out. The plan was to meet at Blarney Castle. The zombies beat us to it. We stayed as long as we could, waiting for Tam. He didn’t turn up. We had to leave. Took shelter in a pub for the night, but had to leave there at dawn. Had to fight our way out. That’s when Avi died. That evening near dusk, we saw smoke. It was Siobhan. Thinking about it, I’m not sure there was any screaming. She was surrounded, though.” He rubbed his knuckles. “It’s how it goes. Dawn’s coming.” He gestured at the thin line caressing the horizon. “You want to wake the others?”

  “Let them sleep a little longer,” I said. “At least until we can see the water beneath the keel.”

  “Do you think it’s like this everywhere? I mean, it’s people like us, not like Anglesey. Groups of a hundred that become fifty, then ten?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Were there many from Ireland on Anglesey?” he asked.

  “A handful. Donnie O’Leary got out of Belfast. He was from Dublin, but working at the international airport. He made it down to… I forget. Somewhere in the south near some mountains.”

  “That doesn’t narrow it down much,” Colm said.

  “No. He had a friend with a cabin, took shelter there, and was discovered by some French Special Forces. They were on a plane that was redirected to Dublin. Donnie went with them, and they picked up some others on the way to the coast.”

  “So not many survivors?”

  “No. What happened in Belfast? Donnie only saw the lockdown at the airport.”

  “The international airport doesn’t count as Belfast, it’s twenty miles outside, but lockdown sums it up. There was a lot of talk about fortifications and some about evacuation, but it wasn’t clear whether the north was being evacuated to Britain or the evacuees were coming to us. The local TV and radio stations stopped broadcasting, replaced by the official line that there’d been no outbreak in the UK or Ireland. I stopped listening to that after I saw my first zombie.” He flexed his hands again. “You know what I did? I went to the police station to report it. The station was almost deserted. The coppers had been deployed somewhere. Don’t know where, neither did the desk officer. She took my report about the zombie, added it to a long pile, then showed me the door and locked it after me. I thought the gym would be safer than my home. I thought there’d be riots, looting. My flat was above shops, you see, I thought they’d be targeted, but who’d loot a gym? There wasn’t any rioting. There wasn’t any looting. Not really. Not then. There was shooting, but it wasn’t people attacking people. It was people killing the undead. There were too many of those damned monsters. If the government had helped just a bit. Barricades, checkpoints… Quigley didn’t want that, did he? He wanted the world to collapse. Well, he got that, all right. So I was in the gym when Dean, Kallie, and Lena arrived with their friends, their families, their neighbours. We decided to get out, to leave. That’s when the dying began. A slow attrition that was paused when we found Mark. Up until then, we were clinging onto this hope that it was just Ireland and Britain that’d been devastated. We thought someone, somewhere, had held civilisation together. Any day, there’d be a plane in the sky which’d drop leaflets with the location of a refuge. Instead we found Mark, and with him was Petrov. He told us what’d happened. He told us about the nuclear war.”

  “Who was he?” I asked.

  “Petrov? A Russian pilot who’d bailed out after his instruments failed,” Colm said. “His target was the Isle of Man. He said he’d ditched his payload in the sea. I don’t know whether to believe him. It doesn’t really matter. He wasn’t apologetic, mind you. At the pre-flight briefing, they were told that America and Britain had a plan to destroy most of the world. When he was in the air, he was told there’d been nuclear attacks on Vladivostok, Kaliningrad, Moscow, and St Petersburg.”

  “And he bailed out?” I asked.

  “When his instruments stopped working.”

  “But his target was the Isle of Man, and he ended up in Ireland? That doesn’t seem right,” I said.

  “So he lied about that, so what? He didn’t lie about the nuclear war.”

  “No.” I thought about that section of coast near the Shannon Estuary, and those people dead in their cars. I wondered if we’d found the cause, if not the person, responsible. “What else did he say?”

  “Petrov? Not much. Not to me. He might have told Mark something else, but he died two days after we arrived. Zombies.”

  “Ah.” There was more than enough light now to see that the islands either side of us were empty. “Where are we?”

  “That’s Caher Island. Inishturk is the larger one to the south. Achill Island is about ten kilometres north of here. I’d say that’s our last, best hope of finding someone alive.”

  “Better turn on the engine, then,” I said, “and wake everyone up.”

  11:00

  “No milk. No sugar,” Siobhan said, passing me a mug.

  “Just how I’ve learned to like it, thanks,” I said. I was stuck in the cockpit again, while almost everyone else was occupying their own few square feet of deck, lost in gloomy thoughts.

  “You’re wrong about the murders,” Siobhan said.

  “Murders?”

  “On Anglesey. Kim showed me the notes you made. I hope that’s okay, she said it was all right.”

  “I suppose so,” I said. “After all, everyone on Anglesey has read the first three volumes. What do you mean wrong?”

  “If your facts are correct,” Siobhan said, “you missed an important feature of the murder at the university.”

  It took me a moment to remember. “Sholto found a body hidden behind a vending machine under a stairwell at Bangor University. The man had been stabbed. He’d—”

  “He’d not gone there alone,” Siobhan said. “The woman, Lorraine, she identified the victim as having been in the company of a zombie that you killed in a laboratory, one corridor down from the corpse, yes?”

  “Um, yes, I think so. Lorraine said that she’d seen the two men in Markus’s pub,” I said.

  “No,” Siobhan said. “You wrote that she saw the victim in the company of three men in the pub. One became a zombie, one was stabbed in the neck. What happened to the other two? You were looking for a someone who could link Rob to Lisa Kempton, that’s distracted you from the evidence.”

  “There has to be a link,” I said. “Rob had to have known about the tunnel linking the mansion in Elysium with the garage, and someone had to have told him about the embarkation list he found in the office.”

  “Why?” Siobhan asked. “Why did someone have to tell him? Why does there have to be a link? Kim said that Rob disappeared while she and Simon were on watch. What did Rob do? Where did he go? There was plenty of time for him to discover the tunnel. More than enough time for him to rummage through the fil
es in the office. You haven’t met many criminals, have you?”

  “Well, I did work in politics,” I said.

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “If Rob knew about the tunnel, and the list, he would have found them within the first hour. From what you wrote, what he said in your final confrontation, he’d decided to kill you before you came ashore. In which case, the only reason he didn’t do it immediately was because he was looking for a way out, both physically and psychologically. The only meaning in the list was that it contained addresses. I can imagine him thinking those places would be like that mansion. He’d assume they had walls and supplies, and if he took the list away with him, how would anyone know where he’d gone? As for the tunnel, he guessed it was there. He just had to find it.”

  “He guessed?”

  “He knew that the garage you were in had a basement, yes? And he would have seen that there was a basement in the house, so wouldn’t he assume they were connected? You did, after all.”

  “Good point. So he stumbled across it?”

  “I think it most likely he went looking for it,” Siobhan said. “And it’s not important. Rob is a distraction. I can see why he’s playing on your mind. You want there to be reason behind his actions, and since you can’t find it, you’ll settle for a conspiracy. It’s a distraction from the real crime, the real mystery, the real danger. Four people were seen in company together at a pub with a bad reputation. Two of them were found dead in the university. What happened to the others?”

  I sipped the tea, mulling that over. “Paul killed them,” I said. “Just as he killed the other two.”

  “No,” Siobhan said. She opened her pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. She’d made notes. “You said that when you first met Paul and Rob they were on their way to the university to get rid of the body. Rob confirmed this?”

  “Not in so many words,” I said. “But yes, just before he died.”

  “But you also say that was the first opportunity they’d had to do it.” She waited, triumph in her eyes.

  “What am I missing?” I asked.

  “You said that Markus, the guy who runs the pub, volunteered for that supply run to Caernarfon because he didn’t have a way to get to the mainland,” she said. “He didn’t have a boat, and he wanted supplies. Tea and coffee, I think you wrote.”

  “That’s what he claimed,” I said. “But I don’t that was all he was—”

  “No, listen. Between when Lorraine saw those men in the pub, and that supply mission to Caernarfon, Markus had no access to a boat. That means that Paul had no access to a boat. In which case, how did he get over to Bangor? It’s fair to assume that he went with those people, yes? That he killed two of them then and there. In which case, how did Paul get back to Anglesey?”

  “One of the others had a boat? Well, Paul must have killed him, left the body in the boat and set it adrift. That’s why he couldn’t go back.”

  “In which case,” Siobhan said, “why was Paul trying to return to the university? Why did he care if someone found the corpse? It’s not like there’s a shortage of them.”

  “He was worried about an investigation,” I said. “That the bodies would be found, they’d be recognised and—”

  “No, he wasn’t,” she said. “At the time, there was no police, no law, no courts. Am I wrong? Paul knew that there were no police to carry out an investigation. That wasn’t what he was worried about, but he was worried about the bodies being discovered. He was worried about being caught, but not by police.”

  “By the third man?”

  “The third man,” Siobhan said. “Or the fourth. The one of whom Paul was terrified. Was Paul told to kill the other two and get rid of the bodies, or did he say they ran off? I don’t know, but that is the real danger on Anglesey, not some link with Kempton.”

  “The third man,” I murmured.

  “Or the fourth,” Siobhan said. “But don’t call him either. Whoever he is, he’s dangerous enough without ascribing him a mystical name.”

  Chapter 13 - County Mayo

  4th October, Day 206

  10:00, Portnahalla

  Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink. Well, not quite. We’re just back from gathering water from a stream and searching a house. We wanted some more crockery, because washing it wastes water and that means more time ashore collecting it. Another kettle would be nice. Toilet paper is always welcome. As is bleach and— well, our wish list is almost infinitely long.

  A thin layer of fluffy white mould coated everything in the house’s kitchen. A thicker layer of a darker, oilier fungus had spread over the rest of the house. It’s academic, really, as we weren’t the first people to have reached the property. They took the petrol from the Land Rover that was parked outside, but left no clue as to who they were or when they came. Before we could investigate further inland, we saw a pack of zombies trudging over the scrubland towards us, and so we retreated back to the boat. The undead must have followed the sound of the boat’s engine. Killing them would only burn calories, ruin clothes, and consume time. We don’t have enough of any to waste. We got water, and that’s what we went ashore for. Getting back on board, however, only brought to the fore the discussion about where we should go next.

  We are at one of those chunks the sea has bitten out of the western coast of Ireland. To our east is Donegal, though I don’t know if the water we’re currently in counts as Donegal Bay or whether it’s still classified as the Atlantic. The northern edge of the bay is about thirty miles away. If we set off now, we could cross the wide empty ocean, and reach Malin Beg before nightfall. The alternative is to continue following the coast. It’s thirty miles eastward to Sligo, twenty northeast to Donegal, and then twenty west. Thirty miles of empty ocean, or at least seventy following the coast. Less than a day, or at least two. It should be a simple decision. Yes, crossing thirty miles of the Atlantic would be dangerous, but the real danger lies on land, and it’s one we’ll have to face if we run out of food or fuel before reaching safety. The complication is the chance of finding other survivors from Siobhan’s group. Could they have got this far? Not if they rowed, but a couple of the missing boats had sails. I won’t say it’s probable, but it’s not impossible.

  We are the help that comes to others. If we don’t attempt to go to their aid, can we, ourselves, expect others to help us? And we will need their help. When we get to Malin Head, we’ll need fuel, and most of us will need a refuge until help arrives from Anglesey. Can we expect Mark and his people to offer that kindness if we don’t do all we can to search for these missing survivors?

  11:00

  We held a vote. It was unanimous. We’re going east, continuing our search.

  Chapter 14 - Somewhere Between Donegal & Malin Beg

  5th October, Day 207

  21:00

  The rain came. It came hard. It didn’t come alone. The wind picked up. Visibility dropped. The boat rocked, sawing left and right as we bounced over the dark waves. By mid afternoon, we had the lights on and were looking for anywhere we could shelter from the storm. We gave up following the coast and headed due north, out to sea so as to avoid being run aground. That only presented a new problem, that of being capsized.

  In the end, it was being dashed on the rocks that almost killed us. The storm eased around dusk, and we found that we were less than five hundred metres from the shore. We’ve stopped, now, and we’re not sure precisely where.

  We weren’t able to go ashore to gather water, nor could we spy any survivors. The rainwater is laced with wind-thrown spray, and so doused with salt that we can’t drink it. Added to that, except for Kim and Lena, we’ve all had a dose of seasickness. Poor Kallie got the worst of it. She was trying to soothe Charlie and Tamara, when a huge wave hit us. They threw up all over her. We had to ditch her camouflage over the side; there was no salvaging it. Kallie was more upset about that than anything else. Fortunately, we’ve still got some of Kempton’s uniforms to spare, but we’ll nee
d to look for new clothes soon. Food, clothes, water; the list grows longer, our need more urgent. Can’t do it now, though. Can’t do anything until dawn, and that is a long way off.

  Chapter 15 - Malin Beg to Arranmore

  6th October, Day 208

  We went ashore at a seaside restaurant on the edge of a small harbour at the edge of an equally small village. From the sign chained to the railings, tours of the bay had replaced fishing as the village’s principal source of income. There were no boats in the harbour, but nor was there much floating debris. It took only a few minutes to be pushed out of the way before we tied the boat and went ashore.

  “Looks nice,” I said, standing on the quayside.

  “Looks quiet,” Kim said.

  “Looks empty,” Colm said.

  “Looks abandoned,” Siobhan said.

  “Can we come ashore?” Tamara asked from down in the boat.

  “No,” Siobhan said. “Not yet.”

  There was a grumbled protest and muted huffing from the children.

  “Where are we going to find water?” Colm asked.

  “A river?” Siobhan said. “A well?”

  “We’ll find one,” Colm said. “Lena, Kallie, you’re with me.”

  “I’ll go, too,” Kim said, checking the mechanism on her rifle. “Bill?”

  “You see that sign? Fresh caught, fresh fried fish and chips. I’ve always been partial to some freshly caught chips. I’ll see if they’re open.”