‘We are just passing through’ said Bernard.
‘On our way to Manchester’ I interrupted, squinting to see through the torchlight shining in my face, as I searched by the side of the road for any abandoned cars. ‘I would avoid Manchester’ said the man by Bernard’s window, clearly in charge of the blockade. ‘You do know it was one of the impact zones? There’s nothing alive within a forty mile radius of that place. Either way, if you are using this motorway for your journey, you are going to have to pay Mr. Torriero a toll for driving on his road.’
‘Pay with what?’ Bernard responded.
‘What are you carrying on the back of this vehicle?’ The man asked, pointing at the load strapped down.
‘Just food, water and our belongings.’
The man never said a word, he just strolled around the car like he was inspecting it to buy. He shone his torch light onto the back, grabbing the rope we had tied everything down with, giving it a pull. He walked back around to Bernard’s window and shone his torch into the cab, ‘Can you both step out of the vehicle’ he said, stepping back from the window. We both slowly opened the doors and got out. ‘Bring him around here’ he shouted to the man watching me, who instigated I should move. I walked around the truck and lined up next to Bernard, I was becoming increasingly worried about what might happen should Emma wake up, she would surely give her position away not knowing she was even hiding. ‘What’s on the back seat?’ The man asked, looking at Bernard, I responded before he had chance.
‘It’s just some plastic sheets to sleep on.’ The rain was now soaking us, I brushed my wet fringe out of my eyes, rain was pouring down my face. I put my hand in my pocket, took the safety off my Welrod and clutched it in my hand, still hiding it in my pocket. The second man walked over to the passenger window and shone his torch in, he rubbed the condensation off the window and moved in closer. ‘Just take one of the barrels of water’ I said, walking towards the back of the truck.
‘Stop there’ said the man guarding us. ‘Get back next to your friend. Take a look in the back’ he shouted to the other man, who acknowledging the order tried the door handle. ‘It’s locked’ he shouted. The man turned to face Bernard, ‘Where’s the key?’ He said. Bernard put his hand into his pocket, ‘It’s here’ he said, lifting it out as the man’s head exploded, spraying blood across my face. It took me a few seconds to realise what had happened, in that time Bernard had put two bullets into the man by the car, he fell backwards against the truck, and then slumped to the floor. I pulled my gun out and turned in the direction of the blockade, the torch lights in two vehicles were dancing as they struggled to get out. I raised my gun and fired in their direction, the rain still causing problems with my visibility. The men climbed out of their vehicles, and started firing their weapons blindly trying to hit anything, but we were hidden in the darkness. Bernard appeared by my side, his gun raised in his right hand with his left steadying his aim. He walked towards the men, and he joined me in shooting, firing six shots, two for each perpetrator. They all crumpled to the floor, within seconds it was over, I would like to think I had played a part in taking the men down, but that might be wishful thinking. Bernard went to check the bodies as I climbed back into the truck to check on Emma, who had slept through the whole thing. When he arrived back at the truck, he said we would have to move one of the vehicles from the blockade, ‘There’s no way through.’ I climbed out of the truck and ran through the rain to the stationary cars, picking a torch up from the floor on route. I shone it through the car windows, hoping to find a key in the ignition or on a seat, but there wasn’t one. I ran back to the two bodies and rolled them over, steam was rising off them as I searched their pockets finding a key. I ran back towards the cars pressing the unlock button, the wet floor lit up orange as the indicator light on the middle car flashed, I put the torch in my pocket and climbed into the vehicle, and started it up. There was no room between the cars, so I reversed into the car behind, and then smash into the vehicle in front and repeated until I was out. I pulled up by the side of the road as Bernard guided the truck through the gap, then climbed out and ran back to the vehicle, thankful to get out of the rain, and we headed off past Carlisle towards the north west. I was on heightened alert now, and checked the map for any other towns or cities on route that might be prime targets for a blockade, possibly Lancaster and definitely Preston. The next hour went by without any incident, the only obstacles we faced were abandoned vehicles and rubbish scattered across the motorway. I had been in need of the toilet since before Penrith, but I finally had to give way to the pressure on my bladder and asked Bernard to pull over so I could take a leak, so he pulled us onto the hard shoulder and I climbed out doubled over in pain. The rain had all but gone, but the ground was still very wet and muddy. I ran up the embankment besides the ‘Welcome to Milnthorpe’ sign, just managing to keep my feet, and stood over looking a huge field as I had a piss. I don’t know what made me climb the banking, and not just have a piss by the car, maybe I was just interested in the view. But as I looked out over the fields ahead of me, just as the sun behind the ash cloud started to fight the darkness, something struck me as odd. The field seemed to be glistening, and rippling, but there was no light. I looked back at the truck, Bernard was studying the map, so I carefully stepped down the slippery embankment to investigate. The field was entirely covered by an inch, maybe two, of water. It had been raining hard so it shouldn’t have been that odd, but it didn’t look like a build up of rain water, it moved like it had a tide. It was too dark to see how far back it extended, but I couldn’t see an end to it. I decided to walk further into the field to get a better look, I had only walked around ten metres when I kicked something so big, I almost ended up on my face. I took the torch from my pocket, turned it on and shone it down at my feet. Laid on the floor was a fish, close to a metre in size. I bent down to take a closer look, it looked like a pollock or a coal-fish, either way it was enormous. How the hell had that got there? We are not talking about a river fish here, this was a large sea fish, how could it be this far inland? It didn’t appear to have any bite wounds or claw marks, and looked like it had died from lack of oxygen. I walked back to the car and we continued on our way, Bernard seemed as perplexed about the pollock as I was, I’m not sure he believed me. With the day approaching, we tried to make as much ground as we could before Emma woke up. There was a noticeable increase in abandoned vehicles on the stretch of motorway after Milnthorpe, cars only recently vacated, with their tyres still pumped up. Many with the owners belongings still inside the car, as though they had run out of petrol and took only what they could carry. As we approached the turn off for Carnforth, we had to stop due to abandoned vehicles. The road often had multiple vehicles to manoeuvre around at any given time, but we never had to stop completely. This was a traffic jam, well and truly, we pulled the car over behind an articulated lorry that had jackknifed across the carriageway. Bernard told me to go and see if I could find a route through, so I got out and walked around to the other side of the lorry. The trucks metal bodywork had rusted badly, in fact, all the vehicles seemed to be suffering from rust, a mass of brown and red flaking metal. The traffic was taking up both sides of the motorway, I walked back until I could see Bernard, and indicated I was going to get a better look. From the back of the traffic jam I couldn’t see what had caused it, hundreds of cars had been abandoned, and there was no sign of any occupants. I walked in between the vehicles for a few minutes until I saw something in the road ahead. The motorway was taking a route down through a picturesque valley, flanked on both sides by hills, the one to our left was particularly large. In front of me, I could see something on the floor by the vehicle’s wheels, as I got closer it became clear it was water, stretching out in front of me. The water was around two inches deep, but as I walked further in, it quickly rose. When it was halfway up my boots, it touched the hubcaps on the car next to me, rotting the metal. It was black and dirty, seawee
d and mud was floating around in it, gathering around the wheels on the vehicles. The water was nearing the top of my boots, so I lifted them out and climbed up onto the bonnet of the car to my left. The front depressed as the suspension took my weight, and I slipped across the bonnet trying to get a better footing. I put my hands out and grabbed the vehicle in front, putting my foot on its back bumper, and shifted my weight across. It was a family estate car, through the window I could see it had been recently lived out of, full of random objects, toys, clothes, empty bottles and food containers. I climbed onto the roof, and peered out over the mass of vehicles ahead of me. It was a quagmire of sinking cars and household waste, all compacted together. I jumped across to the next vehicle and then the next, making my way towards the end of the traffic jam, trying to be as careful as you can when jumping from one wet metal bonnet to another. The water slowly crept up the sides of the cars until it was high enough to submerge them, with the owners belongings floating around inside. It got deeper and deeper until the vehicles in front of me were completely underwater, doors left open as panicking families tried to escape their sinking cars. The drivers must have thought they could make it, all that was visible now was their roofs. The hills to my left looked like the only way forward, and it would have to be on foot. I carefully made my way back to our truck to find Emma sat up in the front seat with Bernard, dressing herself, ‘Are we really going to Blackpool daddy? Will we be able to go on the beach again? Will I be able to go on the donkeys? I love the donkey rides.’
‘I don’t think the donkeys are going to be there love, we will see, we’ve got a long walk before that.’ I explained to Bernard what I had seen, and there was no chance of finding a route through. We laid the map out across the bonnet of the truck, and made a rough calculation of how far we still had to walk. It was around twenty four miles as the crow flies, if there were any crows, maybe two days walk for us with child. Emma and I searched the cars in close proximity for any small bottles we could fill with water, while Bernard made us all a bit of cold breakfast. We came back with six bottles, emptied out any liquid, washed them out and filled them with water from the barrel on the trailer. We packed the rucksack with tinned food and water, by the time we had eaten our breakfast, my watch said it was close to seven a.m. We climbed over the bollards, crossed to the other side of the motorway and started to climb the hill to our left. It was very steep, and layered with trees. The first clump we past, at the bottom of the hill, had seaweed hanging from the branches. It was hard to tell if the water had been that high at some point, or if it had just been thrown up there. The mud caused us problems while climbing, we would sink in the middle of the path, so we stuck to the edge, next to the old broken fence. The path looked like it had seen many feet over the past few months, it was littered with rubbish and discarded objects. I didn’t pay any attention to the scene slowly unveiling on our right, I kept my eyes fixed on where I was going and my mind on how I would get there. Each muddy step hurt my calf muscles, sending shooting pains up my legs, the grey and dying grass a metre ahead the only thing I could focus on. Emma did really well, the only time she stopped was when we reached the summit. ‘Look dad’ she said, ‘I can see the sea.’ I turned to my right and looked out over the town of Carnforth, that was completely under water. The only areas still visible were the hills with high points, and the tops of some buildings, I would roughly estimate sixty percent of the town was below sea level. The traffic jam I had followed was directly below us, and where the road disappeared under a mass of water, it was never visible again. Around sixty percent of the towns buildings had been destroyed, knocked over by a torrent of water. The only buildings still standing were the larger ones, too big to collapse, and we could use them as a yardstick to how deep the water was. There was no ground floors visible, the water reaching the roof on many of the houses it toppled, and the third floor on any still standing. I couldn’t tell if it was the sea from here or not, the far distance was covered by a thick grey fog. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it’ said Bernard, and I had to agree. The town had just been washed away, trees uprooted, cars overturned and carried down the street until they were dumped in a pile like toys. The only way of identifying what used to be the road system, was the channels of water too straight to be natural landscape. After spending a few minutes taking in what we were looking at, we continued along the muddy hill as it started its descent towards the water. We walked past a huge fishing trawler, sat miles inland, crumpled in a heap as though dropped from a great height. We needed to find a way to cross the water, and move past Carnforth on towards Blackpool. There was further high land beyond the town, which we aimed for. I held Emma’s hand tight and helped her through the mud, over a wooden sty and down the final field before the water. The three of us walked up to the edge, as though we were at the beach going for a paddle, it stretched out in front of us like an ocean, into the fog at the edge of our sight. The only way across it would be on a boat, or something that would float. I searched the debris floating nearby for something big enough, but couldn’t find anything. We walked along side the water, continuing to search until something caught my eye, around twenty yards out. The head of a lamppost was sticking out of the water and, with the help of the building behind it, had accumulated a built up of debris. Amongst which was what looked like a boat, alongside a shopping trolley and a collection of wood. I took my rucksack off and put it at Bernard’s feet, he picked it up and carried it towards a wooden gate that was laid, in pieces by the waters edge. ‘Come and sit here’ he said to Emma, ‘Your dad is going to go and get that boat.’ I took my boots off and stuffed my socks into the holes, I then took the rest of my clothes off, except my underpants, folded them and put them in a pile on top of the gate. It was extremely cold, I was shivering as I walked to the edge of the water, the mud oozing between my toes. I decided to just go for it, the water was going to be freezing, and if I spent too long in it, it would get the better of me, so I waded in. It was dark brown in colour and cloudy, it felt thick as I tried to walk in. Soon it was waist high so I tried to swim, hoping to keep my head out of the water. I kicked what I suspected was a stonewall, somewhere down in the murky depths. Maybe the gate Bernard and Emma were sat on had belonged to it at one time, but it hurt like hell, and knocked me out of my rhythm. The salty water was splashing into my eyes and mouth, it tasted disgusting. The floor was soon out of reach and I had to constantly tread water, finding it really hard to swim, I couldn’t get any kind of momentum going, having to continually stop to avoid debris and move pieces of wood. The smell was terrible, rotting plant life and food. Worse still was the bloated, waterlogged bodies, floating around, I swam past my first as I approached the debris. It was lying face down in the water, I made my way around it and reached the lamppost, thankful for something to hang on to, and take the strain off my tired arms. The freezing cold had started to take a hold of my body, my face was stinging, it felt tight and painful. It was a boat amongst the debris, so I moved over to it using the pieces of wood to help guide me through the water, and grabbed hold of it with my left hand. A rotting face lurched out of the water at me, attached to the bottom of the boat, its skin a home for a multitude of bacteria. I picked up a hand size piece of wood, and pushed it away, the smell was truly horrendous. I tried to climb into the boat, but I didn’t have the strength to get up the side without it flicking over. I didn’t want to tire myself so much that I drowned through exhaustion, so I held onto the wood to regain my strength for a few seconds and then started to pull the boat back to shore. There was a two metre piece of rope attached to the front of the boat, which I held as I swam on my back towards land. I had to stop a few times, to manoeuvre myself around the debris, but I made it back. Bernard had removed his boots and pants and waded into the water to help me, realising I was struggling. The cold had finally got the better of me, my body had seized up, I crawled through the mud towards Emma, who wrapped a towel around me and Bernard helped me to the fire he had made. He the
n went back to the edge of the water and pulled the boat onto the field. I was unable to move for twenty minutes, until some warmth had returned to my body. I dried myself, as Bernard packed all our stuff into the boat. It was damaged, and had lost most of its exterior green paint, but it would still float. It was around three to four metres in length, plenty big enough to hold the three of us and our bags. I got myself dressed, except for my boots and socks, which I put in the boat. Bernard scoured the edge of the water for pieces of wood suitable for us to use as oars, he came back with two that looked a bit chunky but they would have to do. I helped Emma into the boat and then Bernard and I pushed it through the mud into the water, I held it steady as he got in and I then handed him the pieces of wood. I pulled my pant legs up as high as I could, like my dad when we went paddling in the sea on holiday, and walked the boat into the water until it was up to my knees. Bernard steadied the boat with a piece of wood, as I climbed in and sat down. He put the makeshift oars into the water and tried to row with them, as I dried my feet and put my boots on, but he quickly ditched that idea for just using the wood to push us. It was easier to navigate the water using the debris lying around in it, walls and overturned cars were particularly useful. We had soon pushed on past the motorway, and headed into Carnforth, the water seemed to be flowing in that direction which helped us. We were accompanied by the continuous sound of trickling water, like it was draining, slowly finding its way back to the sea. There were lots of dead bodies, all of them looked to have been in the water some time, I would move them carefully out of Emma’s sight with the wood. Carnforth was completely underwater, we floated down the high street, passing buildings whose bottom floors were completely submerged. I grabbed the brickwork with my right hand and guided the boat along as I peered in through the bedroom window of a family home, now completely uninhabitable, water had been sat in there sometime with damp and fungus spreading across walls and ceilings. We moved on to the next house, which was the same. Oil was leaking out of submerged vehicles, floating across the top of the muddy water, as we came out into the open, the current took us briskly towards a bridge half submerged in the water. It’s hard to say what this area would have looked like before the floods, but the bridge looked like a humpback bridge possibly over a river, that had now been lost. The water moved us towards it quite fast, but bar a few bumps and bangs, we managed to navigate our way over the top using the wood. Once past the bridge, the water slowed down and we drifted towards the higher ground beyond Carnforth, which was covered by a thick fog. ‘Are we here?’ Emma asked, as the boat hit land, and I jumped out onto the muddy grass. ‘We are a long way from Blackpool’ I replied. ‘We have a couple of days walking ahead.’ I made sure the boat was packed tightly, so nothing would fall out when we pulled it though the mud, Emma ran ahead, jumping in the air trying to touch the fog. I had to call her back, concerned we could only see a few metres in front of us. When we set off, it was disconcerting walking with so little visibility, we could hear strange noises in the darkness, but couldn’t identify them. Bernard and I both held one side of the rope over our shoulder to pull it through the mud while Emma walked between us. We tried to keep to a good pace even though we were struggling to see, the next hour consisted of walking over the hilly landscape, and avoiding the water, that had covered the roads. We followed one such road, the A6, as it headed towards Lancaster. The fog that had hindered us for the past sixty minutes suddenly lifted, leaving an unrestricted view of the sea to our right, although it seemed very far out. This was the closest we had been, I could see the indentations in the landscape where the water was finding its way back to the sea. The few downpours we had to walk through were strong but short, the winds coming in off the sea to our right, could knock a grown man off his feet, and often did. In one of the short but violent storms, we took shelter in an abandoned building that we happened upon, somewhere that had avoided the rampaging waters, but the owners had believed to dangerous to stay in. We sat undercover, listening to the rain and wind on the roof as I pulled the splinters out of my hands from the pieces of wood we had used as oars, and Bernard passed around a bottle of water. We also checked the map to make sure we were still heading in the right direction, before pushing on for a further few hours walking before dinner. Emma sat on her own in the boat for the next thirty minutes, until we reached a large body of water that stretched out ahead of us. It flowed in the same direction we were walking, so we climbed in and let it dictate our direction, sailing over the top of the A6 as it created a waterway similar to a canal. But with no hills to protect us, we were battered by the wind and rain coming off the sea. Emma had been pestering me for food for some time, but I had my heart set on reaching Lancaster first, and that’s what I was determined to do. When we reached land, she started pestering me again, so I told her we would stop soon. I put her in the boat and we walked through the fields towards the city, the water was around shin deep, which after a while made the walking tiring, and our legs cold. I think the water we were trudging through was the overflow from the river Lune, stretching out across the flat landscape. As it became more hilly, we were able to lift ourselves out of it, leaving our wet and dirty legs to the mercy of the cold. In the distance, I picked out a small tower as the place to stop for food, I pointed it out to Emma so she had something to aim for. The only tower I can think of in Lancaster was the Jubilee Tower, but I don’t think it was that. It was at the highest point visible from our location, a small, rectangular, dark stone tower, overlooking the city to its left. The trees around it had all been uprooted, black soil and roots ripping out of the ground, they had no way of hiding from the winds coming off the ocean. As we got to within twenty yards, Emma jumped out of the boat and ran towards the tower with her hands in the air. She went straight through the entrance, so I let go of the rope and jogged after her, not comfortable with her going in without me checking it first. The downstairs was split into two rooms, with stairs in the centre ascending to a stone roof, Emma went straight up the stairs as I checked the rooms. The first was full of rubbish and an area where someone had slept, the second room was behind the column that carried the stairs to the roof, inside it I found the bodies of two children. My heart sank when I saw them, they looked like they had died from starvation, their pale white faces looked bony and frail. I didn’t really want Emma to see them, so I headed to the roof to give her some food, and keep her away. Bernard had left the boat by the side of the tower, and was now standing next to her looking out over the land. ‘Look dad’ she said, as I climbed up the final stone steps to the roof. ‘Look at the view, it’s brilliant. I bet we can see the sea from here.’
Aftermath: The complete collection Page 22
