by Frank Tayell
“Until we hold another election, a proper election, you’re it,” I said. “The contest for the cabinet posts can still go ahead, and that should give the illusion of legitimacy until we can find something more permanent. We’ll have to deal with Markus, too, but first there are the people on Willow Farm. Dust off those judges, George, there’ll have to be a trial. Captain, you’ll need to hunt for evidence. At the pub, at Willow Farm, and at that caravan site. There was a middle-aged woman there, the one who was responsible for abducting both me and Lorraine. She was presenting evidence, and she had that evidence written down, I think. It might have the names of all those who died. I regret setting fire to that building now, but what’s done is done. But we will need evidence, because there is only one punishment for those complicit in that particular crime.”
“And if the evidence has all been destroyed?” Devine asked. “Because I haven’t found anything in that pub.”
“Unless you want to press gang some into the navy, Admiral, we’ll move them to Menai Bridge. Some, at least, went to Willow Farm seeking an agricultural life. Heather Jones can provide it, and her modular indoor farms should make it easy to keep them under watch and apart from one another.”
“That still leaves Markus,” the admiral said.
“Leave him to me,” Kim said. Everyone turned to look at her. She shrugged. “What matters now is where we go and how we get there. Markus is a distraction until we have a crime to pin on him and the evidence to prove his guilt. Until then, we have to contain him, yes? Make sure he doesn’t create a new power base? I think I know how.”
“Oh?” Mary asked, and I was just as curious.
“In an investigation, you ask for known associates, yes?” Kim asked, looking at the captain. Devine nodded. “Then that’s what we do. We write down the name of everyone who speaks to Markus, everyone who goes to his pub, and for how long they’re there. We do it publicly and meticulously, and we say it’s for his own safety. After all, our two other candidates died, didn’t they? That’s how I’ll start, anyway.”
“That should stem the immediate crisis,” I said. “We can reconvene this evening to discuss the power plant and where we’re to move to. You raised a valid point, Admiral, we don’t have enough ships. I hate to even suggest it, but finding survivors is no longer as important as finding more boats in which we save the people here. Large ones, ones like The New World. I—” I stopped. “When Rob fled Elysium, he took two sheets of paper with him. One had the address of that house in Pallaskenry, the other was a list of numbers. We’ve no idea what they mean. Captain Keynes of The New World said something about a woman who came from Elysium. Someone who got bitten, but was bringing a file to the ship. The file was left somewhere out in the wasteland near the ship.”
“Keynes said it was evidence that proved Quigley’s guilt,” Kim said.
“What if it was something more?” I said. “Before she died, Rachel said something about a secret that Sorcha Locke knew. Well, what if there was one? Kempton prepared for a nuclear war, and planned to survive after it. Not just her, but her people. She had a ship, those redoubts dotted around the world, and a fallout shelter in Belfast. They would help her survive the first year, but surely she made plans for what came next. We should investigate Elysium properly, see if there’s a clue as to where she might have stockpiled other resources. Then we should consider locating the other redoubts.”
“It all comes down to the undead,” the admiral said. “If they are dying, then the world is ours. We could relocate to coal-fired mining town in Virginia.”
“We’re not going to pick a destination out of a hat,” George said. “Bill’s right, first we’re going to need the ships. Before that, we’ve got to address the people. There’s got to be at least a hundred outside now.”
“That’s a task for you, Mary,” I said. “Me, I have an account to write, and I did tell Markus I wouldn’t implicate him in Bishop’s madness, but I didn’t say I’d exonerate him from his own crimes.”
And that is what I did. I wrote an account of what happened. If you read it, then what you read was true, but it wasn’t the complete truth, and that is why I wrote this. I don’t know if this account will be read, who will read it, or where, when it is read, humanity will call its home.
I am mindful of what Dr Umbert said about the future and the past. We are at a crossroads now, with a million different branches at our feet, most of which will take our species to its doom. In a hundred years, if there are people alive who can debate whether we chose the correct path, it will look like a straight line. To me, now, it’s anything but.
We could go almost anywhere, but here on Anglesey we have survivors from almost everywhere on the globe. We’ve seen recent satellite images of New York, we’ve travelled to the Arctic, and have the accounts of the admiral’s escape from North Africa. Yes, we could go almost anywhere, but we know of nowhere that we will be safe. Yet there is no safety in remaining here. We have to leave, and so we shall.
Under very different circumstances, when I was a very different person, I planned the evacuation of a nation. It failed. This next one can’t, but that is what it is, that is the task ahead of me. Except, this time, it is not the fate of a nation at stake. It is the fate of our entire species. We need ships, we need the oil from Svalbard, we need a destination. When we leave, we will have to take everything we need with us, for we don’t know whether we will find them again. There are some things we should leave behind, some ideas that we can do without, but not people. Not even Markus or those from Willow Farm. The outbreak, and our survival since, has taught us that the road to redemption is a long one, but it is one that we all deserve a chance to walk.
That is the account of the events leading up to our election, and I will end it here, though I won’t put down my pen. I must plan another evacuation. This time, it can’t fail.
To be continued…
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Other novels:
Surviving The Evacuation & Here We Stand
The outbreak began in New York. Within days, it spread throughout the world. Nowhere is safe from the undead. Books 1-3 are the journals of Bill Wright, a political operative trapped in London after the city is evacuated. Books 4-7 tell of Nilda, a mother searching the wasteland for her son, and Chester, a criminal in search of repentance. Books 8-10 recount the last ten thousand survivors of humanity’s attempt to build a new society out of the ashes of the old world.
Here We Stand is the story of the North American survivors, and the collapse of the United States.
1: London, 2: Wasteland, Zombies vs The Living Dead, 3: Family, 4: Unsafe Haven, 5: Reunion, 6: Harvest, 7: Home, Here We Stand 1: Infected, Here We Stand 2: Divided, Book 8: Anglesey, 9: Ireland, 10: The Last Candidate
Post-apocalyptic Detective novels:
Strike a Match
In 2019, the AIs went to war. Millions died before a nuclear holocaust brought an end to their brief reign of terror. Billions more succumbed to radiation poisoning, disease, and the chaotic violence of that apocalypse. Some survived. They rebuilt.
Twenty years later, civilization is a dim shadow of its former self. Crime is on the rise, aided by a shadowy conspiracy. It is down to Detectives Mitchell, Riley, and Deering of the Serious Crimes Unit to unmask the conspirators and save their fragile democracy.
1. Serious Crimes, 2. Counterfeit Conspiracy
Work Rest Repeat
Sixty years after The Great War, the last survivors of humanity have taken shelter in giant towers. The colony ships that will allow them to leave the diseased Earth are nearing completion when two murders are discovered. For our species to survive, the criminals must be caught, and the launch must go ahead.
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