UKD3: UK Dark Series Book 3

by Chris Harris

  It made perfect sense, and in no time at all, we’d broken into the nearest cars and pushed them into position so that they surrounded us.

  Now that we were feeling more secure, some of us took a break behind the barricade while we rotated lookouts.

  The next step was to identify the nearest landing place for the helicopter and mark it out so that it could be seen from the air. Harry sent the coordinates through to the base.

  Now that we had the chance to stop and think, the questions came.

  “What the hell happened?” someone asked.

  “We got sloppy!” I replied angrily, “That’s what happened. All the things we’ve been through, the fights we’ve had, and now all that extra training we’ve been given means nothing. We acted like amateurs out for a Sunday stroll. We thought the mission was over and we were on our way home, and Gary paid for our mistakes.”

  The others listened in silence.

  “Most likely the gang were returning to the warehouse,” I said wearily, “Sod’s law dictated we were going to meet head on. They must have heard us chattering like old women and set up a hasty ambush. The only thing they weren’t expecting was all that firepower we could put down; that scared them and they ran.”

  “No! It was my fault,” interrupted Harry, “I’m in command here; the fault lies with me and no one else. I won’t have it any other way.

  Yes, we messed up, but if the gang was on its way back to the warehouse, then at least we got Isaac and Lottie out in time. Dropping our guard is a mistake I will never make again, but for now we need to concentrate on getting Gary on that helicopter, and the rest of us back to the woods in one piece.”

  Harry raised Pete on the radio and told him what had happened. The shots had been heard up at the woods and they had been going out of their minds with worry. Harry spoke to Emma, Gary’s wife, directly.

  He told her what had happened and tried to be as honest as he could about the injuries he had received. He ended the call with a promise that, if possible, he would arrange for transport for her and their child, Marcie, back to the base as soon as possible.

  Only then would he allow Chris to inspect his leg.

  Although he had been stoically coping with the pain, it was clear that he was in a lot of discomfort. After cutting his left trouser leg and washing away the blood, Chris confirmed that the lower leg had received a good peppering. It looked bad and had bled a lot but thankfully, was mostly superficial. He gave Harry a dose of morphine, and after cleaning the wounds as best he could and applying a liberal dose of antiseptic cream to the entire area, he bandaged him up. Once they were back in the woods he would “have a go” at removing the pellets from his leg.

  The distant but unmistakable thwomp of an approaching helicopter stopped all conversation.

  The helicopter looked huge as it circled above us. We could see the door gunners on either side of the aircraft scanning the area with their machine guns, ready to respond to any threat.

  As soon as it touched down, four soldiers disembarked from it. Two of them moved to the front and rear of the aircraft and crouched down, presumably so that they could cover any blind spots the door gunners might have.

  The other two ran towards us. Ignoring us completely, they started working on Gary. We gave them space so that they could do their job.

  The noise of the helicopter and the fact that they were wearing masks made communication next to impossible. After about five minutes, and following their hand signals, we helped lift Gary on to a collapsible stretcher they had with them and two of us helped carry him to the helicopter.

  As soon as he was strapped in, and after a quick handshake with the medics, the soldiers jumped aboard the helicopter and it lifted off and sped away.

  The silence in the wake of the constant assault of noise from the helicopter was a relief.

  Harry took command again.

  “Right, let’s go home. Keep Lottie and Isaac in the middle of us, keep the chat to a minimum and stay alert. We don’t know where those bastards went.”

  Shouldering our rucksacks, we set off.

  We made it back to the woods with a few hours of daylight left.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Although we were greeted with relief on our return to the camp, everyone’s attention was focused on Gary’s wife, Emma and his daughter Marcie, who were both distraught and desperate to be by his side.

  Harry tried to comfort them by reiterating his promise of getting them to the base as soon as possible. He’d put his gas mask on before his arrival to avoid the possibility of infecting anyone.

  On their arrival, Isaac and Lottie had been set apart from the main group. We’d been careful to explain this to them, and our reasons for doing so, as simply as possible and both children seemed to accept the explanation. Diane, still wearing her mask, had volunteered to stay with them, holding their hands to keep them company while they watched our emotional reunion with the others from a distance.

  Harry took Kim by the hand and led her away from the group. I watched them, knowing that he was going to have to explain that he would be in isolation for a time, just in case. That was likely to be a difficult conversation.

  We had talked it through earlier and he had been philosophical about it. He still maintained that the risk he had taken had been worth it. He also pointed out that someone would have to look after Isaac and Lottie, and he was now the ideal candidate for the job and that this way, there would be no danger to anyone else.

  His logic was sound. Apart from the fact that he now had to tell Kim.

  I watched as Kim went through a variety of different emotions in a few seconds. Shock at the news, worry about what might happen to him, and anger at what he had done. Finally, to his surprise and mine, she took her revenge.

  Without warning, she grabbed his gas mask and pulled it from his face, removed her own and wrapped her arms around his neck. Before he could stop her, she kissed him.

  I chuckled to myself and said to the world in general, “Well that’s another one in isolation then!”

  After Chris had worked on his leg and removed as many pellets as he could, Chris, Russ and I helped Harry move enough equipment to create a new camp for them on the other side of the woods. We figured they might as well be comfortable in their isolation, particularly as they now had two young children to look after. In the end, we had quite a pile to transport and it took a few runs to complete the operation.

  After building their shelters and setting up a cooking area, we left them to it. We would be checking in on them daily (in other words, shouting to them from a distance to see if everything was OK or if they needed anything). We’d agreed on a four-day isolation period.

  He had received a severe reprimand from Colonel Moore about the position in which he had placed himself. But given that it had already happened, it was taken no further. Aware that he had got off very lightly, Harry bore the dressing-down with good grace, aware that the Colonel’s fury stemmed as much from his concern about the Prince’s welfare as it did from any disobedience he had shown.

  The medical staff at the base were very interested in Isaac and Lottie. Other people had fallen ill and recovered from the disease, but to their knowledge, they were the first subjects to have been in prolonged and close contact with the disease and shown no ill-effects whatsoever. They had to be immune.

  We knew that serious consideration had been given to whisking them off to the base for further testing, in the hope of developing a potential cure and using them as test subjects.

  Thankfully, the realisation that the plague was probably burning itself out by now, and the fact that the equipment they had at their disposal would make it impossible to produce a viable vaccine in time, led to the project being shelved.

  As things stood, we would have been reluctant to let them go anyway. They had suffered enough and although we could see the logic in the proposal, the thought of two traumatised children being used for medical research was something none o
f us were comfortable with. We were greatly relieved to hear that the plan had been dropped.

  While we waited for Harry and Kim’s isolation period to end, life carried on at our temporary home.

  News of further deaths at home was now received with quiet acceptance. Given the appallingly high mortality rate, bad news was now to be expected. Every evening we raised a glass and shed a tear for someone who was no longer with us.

  The harsh reality of the life we now led and the amount of death we had already experienced had inured us to much of the pain.

  I felt blessed that none of my family had been affected. In fact, our household had been the only one to escape the disease. I had no idea why. Perhaps luck, or fate had had a hand in it. Who knows.

  The day came when, except for Allan, every member of our community who’d fallen sick had died and their bodies had been disposed of. As an extra precaution, the decision was taken to burn down the house that Jerry had been using as a hospital. We all agreed that this would be the best way of wiping out any final traces of the disease. And besides, no one relished the idea of returning to a house full of ghosts and bad memories.

  Jerry imposed a further week of isolation, to rule out any possibility that he or any of his exhausted carers might be carrying the bacteria. We were disappointed, but a few more days wouldn’t make much difference.

  The news from the base was no better. There had been no new cases since we’d last spoken, and they were cautiously optimistic about having it under control, but over fifty percent of the new arrivals had died along with a number of the original occupants. Despite this, the fact that they’d received an early warning from us meant that the death toll wasn’t as catastrophic as it might have been.

  The news from Balmoral couldn’t have been worse. I had the sad task of informing Harry that his father had succumbed to the disease. The rescue party sent to Balmoral had arrived to find that the entire household had been wiped out. The Prince of Wales was laid to rest alongside his wife and other family members in the grounds of their Scottish estate, with as much ceremony as the small party of soldiers could manage.

  Steve and his family had settled in easily and were readily accepted as part of our small community. After a few days, it felt as if they had always been with us.

  The medics at the base had worked hard on Gary to remove the shotgun pellets from his face and to repair as much of the damage as possible. Despite all their efforts, he had lost an eye and his face had been left horribly scarred, but he would recover.

  We had made one brief trip to the warehouse the day after we’d left, primarily to recover the weapons stored there. We didn’t want to take the chance that they might fall into the wrong hands.

  As far as we’d been able to tell, the men who had ambushed us had only had shotguns and we wanted to keep it that way. Had they possessed modern assault weapons when they attacked, the ending might have been rather different.

  With this in mind, we had taken the Land Rover and lost no time in getting there. Once we were inside, we followed Isaac’s directions to where they had been hidden, and before long we had collected every weapon we could find.

  We locked the building up as best we could and closed and secured the main gate.

  Back at the base, planning was now in its final stage for Colonel Moore and his team to empty the warehouse and transfer its contents back there. This was good news for Emma and her daughter, as they would be returning to the base on one of the lorries, so that they could be with Gary.

  Some of Moore’s staff had visited the warehouse in the past during their stay with us, so their familiarity with it made the planning relatively easy.

  The proposal was quite clever and would involve exposing as few people as possible to the risk of infection.

  A small contingent of soldiers would be based at the warehouse. Their initial priority would be to bury the occupants, partly out of respect but also for practical reasons.

  Most of the corpses were in the loading bay and they would have to be moved to allow passage for the forklifts and lifting equipment.

  The dead would be buried in a mass grave and the base chaplain would be in attendance to perform a burial service.

  Every lorry and vehicle capable of carrying goods would be used to make the runs between the base and the warehouse until the contents were finally cleared. To avoid any possibility of infection, the drivers would not be permitted to leave their vehicles while they were being loaded. It was estimated that this process would take two to three days.

  As soon as Gary was well enough, he and his family would return to us once the regular vehicle runs between the base and our compound had re-commenced.

  The men who had attacked were still a concern. Once the current situation had resolved itself and the remaining members of our community were together again, it would be necessary to find them and wipe them out. As things stood, we weren’t in a position to mount patrols to find them, but we were careful to avoid being taken by surprise again.

  The defensive positions we had built and the amount of firepower we had available to us would, ordinarily, be more than enough to protect us. But without people on lookout duty, they would be useless.

  As usual, Pete managed to put together a perfect rota which gave everyone some time with their families but ensured that someone was always on the lookout.

  Apart from the sadness that still weighed heavily on us for the people we had lost, that time we spent there could almost be described as a holiday. The weather was warm and the children spent whole days exploring and playing in the woods. Now that there were people constantly on lookout duty, we were happy enough to let them run free within the confines of the trees. It seemed unlikely that they would come to any harm. Saying that, when we managed to corral them up for meal times, there were always enough bruises and scrapes to send worried mothers running for the antiseptic cream and plasters.

  Aside from guard duty, the adult contingent had very little to do. We had ample food and, thanks to Russ, running water. His ingenuity never ceased to amaze us. He’d invented a very simple device that used the power of the flowing water to somehow pump it back up to us in the wood.

  It did need sterilising, but as firewood was in plentiful supply this was not a problem at all.

  Poor Russ. He kept trying to explain how it worked, but after about the fifth attempt we all agreed that it was magic, and if he had performed such sorcery in the Middle Ages, he would surely have been burned at the stake.

  By now we had dispensed with the health checks we’d put in place, as it was clear that no one had developed any symptoms and there was no danger. When not on guard duty or carrying out the light chores necessary to keep the camp functioning, we spent the days resting and chatting around the fire, which we kept burning constantly.

  Cooking had become a communal affair; more of an activity than a chore, because we all chipped in to help.

  It did take a day or two to adjust to this enforced rest.

  We were all used to constant activity and hard work, and just as it had always taken a few days to adapt to the pace of a summer holiday, it took us a while to get used to it. It was hard not to feel guilty about having so little to do, but we comforted ourselves with the knowledge that we’d worked virtually nonstop to survive for the past six months and there was little we could do about the current situation. We might as well enjoy it while it lasted.

  Three days later Harry, Kim, Isaac and Lottie were declared free of infection and re-joined us.

  We had been careful to prepare our own children and they readily and gently included them in the day’s activities. Before long Isaac was tearing around with the older kids and Lottie was having the time of her life playing imaginary games with the younger ones.

  Harry and Kim seemed to have thoroughly enjoyed their isolation and had clearly grown much closer.

  It struck me that despite her youth and her fresh-faced prettiness, Kim had a toughness and determination that w
asn’t immediately apparent on meeting her. In spite of everything she had been through prior to our rescuing her, she’d won the love of a handsome, young prince. The fact that he was also kind, brave and surprisingly down to earth was an added bonus.

  I smiled to myself and shook my head. In normal circumstances, the chances of their paths crossing and their falling in love would have been infinitesimal.

  Fate was a strange thing.

  They had formed strong bonds with Isaac and Lottie, and were adamant that they still wanted to help look after them and be involved in their lives. It came as no surprise to us to hear that the children suffered nightmares most nights. Kim could readily understand what they were going through and wanted to play a part in helping them to recover.

  As the day of our departure approached, we sorted through what we planned to take with us and what we would leave.

  Emma and Marcie finally received the news they had been longing for: a suitable vehicle had been made available to take them back to the base. Russ and I used the Land Rover to drop them off at the warehouse. We didn’t prolong our goodbyes, because we knew we would be seeing them again as soon as Gary was fit enough to travel.

  It wouldn’t be possible for us to take all the food. Steve still had an enormous quantity buried at various locations around the wood, so we decided to make a careful note of them and leave them in place. He had waterproofed the storage holes to the best of his ability, so we were confident that the contents would be preserved for a good while at least.

  After some discussion, we had decided to keep the campsite as a fall-back location in case we were forced to evacuate the compound again.

  It made sense. It was reasonably close to home, it was familiar to us and there would be food and equipment there if we needed it. In the worst-case scenario, we could just leave everything behind and head back to the woods, knowing that we would have enough there to enable us to survive.

  We gave careful consideration to the things we would leave, and how best to conceal them. Hopefully, the woods would remain undiscovered, but that could not be taken for granted, so we hid caches of camping and cooking equipment in various places around the woods.