Safe Haven (Book 6): Is This The End of Everything?

by Artinian, Christopher

  He felt a presence on either side of him, and the familiar report of Lucy’s Glock 17 followed by the blurring glint of a metal bolt launching from one of Wren’s pistol crossbows announced their arrival to the battle. Mike tensed, ready to strike as soon as any of the creatures were in distance, but it was over before it had even begun.

  He stood there with Wren and Lucy by his side. All three of them looked towards the already rotten corpses lying still in front of them. “What now?” asked Wren as Mike retrieved his shotgun from the ground.

  “Now we head back inside and wait for further instructions from Shaw,” Lucy said.

  The siren continued to howl, but the gunfire was gradually becoming more sporadic. “You made that look easy,” one of the nurses said as the three of them walked back in.

  “Oh yeah,” Lucy replied, “it was a real walk in the park. Can I see you for a second?” she said, turning to Mike.

  “Sounds ominous,” he replied with a smile, but even though he could not see Lucy’s face, he could sense she wasn’t smiling. She grabbed him by the wrist, picked up a lantern and the two of them walked through the dark interior of the static caravan, down the short corridor and into the bathroom. Lucy clicked the small lamp on. “Look, before you say anything, we were going to have to attract their attention somehow, and I thought getting a shot off first would give us the adv—”

  “I’m not worried about that. Listen to me. Did you notice anything strange about those RAMs?”

  “What, other than them being reanimated corpses? You mean there’s something stranger than that?”

  “Don’t be a wiseass.”

  “Sorry.” He thought for a moment then answered her. “No, no, I didn’t.”

  “I didn’t recognise a single one of them, and judging by the smell and state of decomposition, some of those things had been dead a long time.”

  In the throes of battle, he had not even thought about who the creatures had once been, only that they needed to be killed once and for all. “So… I don’t understand; where did they come from?”

  “That’s the question we need to be asking, and I bet when we head to the village hall, we’re going to see the same thing over there.”

  “Shit!”

  “Yeah.”

  The pair sat down on the edge of the bath, the siren and gunfire just white noise to them now. “So, what are you thinking?”

  Lucy leaned forward. “Okay, so there are only two routes into Safe Haven by road, the North Ridge and the East Ridge. Provided neither of those has been hijacked there’s only one other possibility.”

  “Those fucking boats!” Mike said, jumping to his feet.

  “Exactly!”

  They burst out of the bathroom, and Lucy immediately turned the lantern off. Mike almost ran to the radio and plucked it from the cradle. “George! Richard! David! Anyone at the Barricade! It’s Mike. Over.”

  The Barricade was what they called the elevated site where the mangonels stood. It had been key in securing victory the night the madman, Fry, had waged war against the town. Now, if Lucy’s suspicions were correct, they were at war again. The radio crackled. “Mike, it’s George. Go ahead. Over.”

  “There was a tall ship offshore earlier on with some smaller boats around it. Are they still there? Over.”

  “You noticed them as well, did you? When the air raid siren started, they headed out to sea. Over.”

  Mike paused before pressing the talk button again. “Any sign of anyone on the roads? Over.”

  “Everything’s quiet here, Mike. I think all the action’s in town. Over.”

  “Okay. Thanks, George. Over and out.” He waited a few seconds then brought the radio up to his mouth again. “North Ridge, East Ridge, are you seeing anything on the roads? Over.”

  “All quiet on the eastern front. Over.”

  “This is North Ridge. Nothing to report here. Over.”

  “Okay. Keep your eyes peeled. Over and out.” Mike was about to place the radio back in the cradle, but it crackled to life once more.

  “Mike, it’s Shaw. Over.”

  “Shaw. Mike. Go ahead. Over.”

  “What was all that about? Over.”

  “We’ll tell you when we see you. Over.”

  “We’re mopping up here. I’m going to organise roving patrols in the Land Rovers through the night, and I’ll sort out a full sweep tomorrow morning, but I think we’re almost done. When I cut the siren, that’ll be the all-clear. I’ll see you then. Over and out.”

  A few minutes later, the warbling siren fell silent and as soon as the last vibrations had dissipated Lucy flicked the lights back on in the static caravan and turned to the nurses. “Get everyone back to their respective wards,” she said and started walking towards the hallway.

  “Where are you going?” Mike asked, chasing after her.

  “I need to get some sedatives.”

  “What for?”

  “Because we’re about to tell Beth that her little brother is dead.”

  chapter 5

  Mike had volunteered to be in one of the Land Rovers for the first shift of patrols. By the time Jules had reached the Barricade from dropping off supplies at the North Ridge, the pandemonium had ended, but always keen to do her bit, she volunteered too. The mood was sombre in the car as they travelled up the coastline, pulling into every small cove along the way. The temperature had dropped dramatically and it was a bad time to discover the heater had developed an intermittent fault. Mike stared out of the window, scouring the shadows for any out of place shapes as Jules drove.

  “So what do we do next?” Jules asked.

  “Well, I’m guessing there’ll be a council meeting, and you’ll all decide,” Mike replied distantly.

  “What do you think we should do?” Mike turned in his seat to look at her. No words came out of his mouth, but even in the darkness, Jules knew what he was thinking. “Okay, stupid question.”

  “Actually, it’s not,” he said, returning his gaze to the shores and inlets below.

  “Okay, you’ve got my attention, what do you mean?”

  Mike turned back towards her. “It’s not like we can just jump into a car and head after them, is it?”

  “Well, maybe not, but we’ve got boats, Raj and Talikha are—”

  “And which way do we go? They could have gone anywhere.”

  Jules turned back to the road. “So, what do we do?”

  “I don’t know, Jules. All I know is that we were attacked tonight and one of my best friends lost her little brother.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “You didn’t really just ask me that.”

  “I mean will she be okay?”

  “Luce gave her sedatives and Barney took her straight home. Beth’s been through more than most here. She’s tough, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so crushed. This place is meant to be safe. We’ve taken such precautions, but we never seriously considered an attack coming from the sea.”

  “I suppose we’re going to have to put some measures in place so it can’t happen again,” Jules said.

  “How? This is a long stretch of coastline. It’s easy to put barricades up on the roads, but how the hell do we plan for an attack from the sea that could arrive anywhere along the coast at any time? Maybe Shaw and Hughes have some ideas.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I don’t have the answers.”

  “Jesus, I wish I had a witness here ’cause nobody would fuckin’ believe me if I said to them those words came from your mouth.”

  As dire as the situation was, a smile cracked on Mike’s face. “Funny cow, aren’t you?”

  “Less of the cow, you cheeky little shite.”

  “I meant it as a term of endearment.”

  “Yeah, well, when we stop the car, I’ll give you a kick in the bollocks and I’ll mean that as a term of endearment too.”

  Mike sniggered. “I don’t know, Jules, we seem to have put up an awful lot
of fights to protect this place. Maybe it will never be the fortress I hoped it would.”

  They drove in silence for a little while then Jules reached across and took Mike’s hand. “Listen to me, no joking. I’ve been where you are now. I’ve been in a place where everybody has looked to me for answers and I haven’t had any to give. I know what it’s like for someone to die and for you to feel responsible even though it wasn’t your fault. It’s a shitty feeling. You and Lucy know me as well as anyone, you know I don’t bullshit, so when I tell you none of this is on you, I mean it.” She squeezed his hand tightly before letting go.

  “Thanks, Jules. That means a lot.”

  “Yeah well, nobody could have seen this coming. We’ll do what we always do. We’ll rebuild, and we’ll learn from our mistakes.”

  “There are only so many times people are going to do that before wondering whether they’re better off somewhere else.”

  “There you go again, taking responsibility for things that are outside of your control. What others do is up to them; you cannot control it; you cannot take responsibility for it. All you can do is react when it happens.”

  “That’s … actually scarily coherent thinking for you.”

  “You are such a gobby twat. I’m trying—”

  “I’m kidding.”

  “Yeah well. You’re not wrong; those weren’t my words. They’re the words George said to me.”

  “This place could do worse than have him in charge.”

  “No, I think the current system works well. The council makes the important decisions then you go off on one, completely ignore them and do what you want. It’s balanced perfectly.”

  “Hey. If memory serves, I did that for you.”

  Jules smiled. “And it worked out so well.”

  “We saved a lot of people from that psychopath, Webb.”

  The smile left Jules’s face. “I can’t even imagine what they went through.”

  “You don’t need to.”

  “We can’t ever be sure there aren’t people even more twisted out there.”

  “Err, aren’t you meant to be giving me a pep talk?”

  “Pep talk’s over. My point is tonight was a bad night. There’ll be plenty more. Suck it up and carry on doing what you’re doing. This place needs you.”

  “Bossy, aren’t you?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “And you swear a lot.”

  “I swear an appropriate amount depending on the company I’m in and you, you mouthy, arrogant little twat-faced bollock head can fuck right off because in my life nobody has been a bigger pain in my tits. You actually get off lightly. If I swore as much as you deserved, my sentences would just be nothing but a long line of fuckin’ fucks separated by the odd punctuation mark with a prick thrown in here and a wanker thrown in there for good measure. So fuckin’ shut your fuckin’ gob, piss dick.”

  “You do realise all this hostility is just your way of coping with the suffocating sexual longing you have for me, don’t you?”

  “Jesus Christ! Hold on to Lucy with all you’ve got ’cause I swear there isn’t another woman on the planet who would suffer you for more than five minutes without placing a pillow over your fucking face while you were sleeping.”

  There was a pause; then they both burst out laughing. “Thanks, Jules, I needed that.”

  “Me too.” She brought the car to a stop at the Barricade. The moon was high over the bay, and the water shimmered and glinted in its beams. “We’d better head back. I’m pretty certain any stragglers would have been drawn to the siren.”

  “Yeah. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.” Mike looked at his watch. “Well, today.” He picked up the handset. “Shaw, this is Mike. Over.”

  “Go ahead. Over.”

  “We’ve reached the Barricade—nothing to report. We’re heading back now. Over.”

  “Yeah. We haven’t seen a thing either. I’ve posted three lookouts up and down the coast to keep their eyes on the water, and I’ve called a council meeting first thing tomorrow. Head back to the hall and your replacements will be waiting. Over and out.”

  Jules turned the Land Rover around, and they started back to the village. She had made this journey a thousand times before, and she could do it blindfolded. Despite the narrow and winding cliff top track, they made good time, and the adrenaline that had been surging through both of them started to dissipate. She took the final bend before the descent into the village and jammed on the brakes, stalling the car.

  A naked woman was standing in the middle of the road with her back to them. Jules looked at Mike, and he looked back at her before they returned their attention to the figure in the headlights’ beams.

  “This fuckin’ night just gets weirder and weirder.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Emma had remained on the patio despite everyone else turning in for the night several hours back. She had viewed the silhouettes of the boats through the binoculars. A number of the smaller ones had been taxiing back and forth between two tall ships. She had once been down in Portsmouth visiting Michelle and seen ships like those during a display. Dozens of them with enormous masts had wowed tourists with their grandeur.

  At first, the vessels had seemed to be from a bygone age, but when she and Michelle had stepped on board for a guided tour, it was clear that was not the case. They were equipped with all mod cons to make the crew as comfortable as possible. As Emma looked out to these grand black silhouettes floating on the dark mirror of water she was convinced that the two sailboats she now looked at were from that display, or, if not, definitely from the same boatyard.

  “Aren’t you coming to bed? It’s really late,” Tabby said as she came up behind Emma.

  “Not really in the mood for sleeping.”

  “At least don’t freeze to death,” she replied, placing a thick coat around Emma’s shoulders.

  The crash alarm had finally gone quiet about an hour before and now the night was virtually silent, but the glow of the fire out of town remained as a stark reminder of what had happened. “What time is it?”

  “What?”

  “What time is it?”

  Tabby looked at her watch. “Three thirty. Why?”

  “We should set off soon.”

  “This early? What’s wrong with waiting for daylight?”

  “A feeling.”

  “What feeling?”

  “I’ve been watching them all night. This was really well planned. I’m guessing they’ve done this a lot and I’m guessing they’ll continue to do it. All the bows are pointing north, so it’s reasonable to assume that’s where they’re heading next. The sooner we get to Safe Haven to warn them the better.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this? Are you sure you’re ready to see your brother again?”

  “Whatever problems I have with Mike don’t matter right now. Sammy and Jake are in Safe Haven. I have friends I love who I have to warn. I can’t allow what happened here to happen there.”

  “Will we come back here when we’ve warned them?” Tabby asked.

  “Come back to what? There are hundreds of infected just a few miles away. When the embers of that fire burn black, they’ll start spreading out to look for food. What we had here has gone.”

  “So where will we go?”

  “One thing at a time, Tabby. One thing at a time.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Jules and Mike remained in their seats for a moment, just looking at the naked woman as she continued towards town. She seemed oblivious to the fact that the headlights were pointing directly at her rear.

  “Err... I know it was a warm day, but—”

  “It’s Beth,” Mike said, opening the car door.

  “Careful,” Jules said, “she could be sleepwalking. You’ve got to be really careful.”

  “Beth … Beth!” Mike called softly after her, but she continued to head towards the village. Mike and Jules looked at one another before running to catch up with their friend.


  Jules was about to say something to her when she stopped. Beth was speaking. It was hard to hear at first, but as they got closer the whispered words made the already chilly night air positively Baltic. “This is the end of everything. This is the end of everything. This is the end of everything.”

  “Beth. Beth, sweetheart,” Jules said as she and Mike walked along by her side, farther away from the parked Land Rover and drifting into the darkness beyond the edge of the headlights’ beams.

  Beth’s eyes were wide open, and Jules almost recoiled as the cold of her friend’s naked skin took her by surprise. She placed a gentle hand on Beth’s back to try to get her attention without startling her. “This is the end of everything. This is the end of everything. This is the end of everything.”

  Mike waved a hand up and down in front of Beth’s face. Her body looked blue in the moon’s glow, and not all of that was due to the light cast. They were nearly a mile from Beth’s house and the temperature was still dropping.

  “Beth … Beth,” Mike said this time, but she just kept on walking and whispering. “What do we do?” He looked over towards Jules.

  “Believe it or not, this isn’t a situation I’ve ever dealt with before. I mean when I did my management training at the Home and Garden Depot, I must have missed the fuckin’ module on waking up naked sleepwalkers who keep repeating apocalyptic prophecies over and over.”

  Mike got in front of Beth and started walking backwards, all the time waving his hands in front of her face in the hope that the movement would somehow break her trance. “Beth. Come on, we need to get you home. Annie needs you more than ever.”

  “This is the end of everything. This is the end of everything.”

  “Okay. I don’t mind telling you this is creeping me the fuck out,” Jules said.

  “Beth! Beth! Please stop,” Mike said as Beth glared right through him towards the road beyond. He looked again towards Jules and finally placed his hands on Beth’s shoulders. “Fuck! She’s going to get hyperthermia.” He stopped dead, and Beth walked straight into him.