“Planes might work,” he said, holding the door open for a reluctant Rufus who was enjoying a last minute dash after solitary bees. “If we can get a whole load of 747s to land in Thunder Bay, we could airlift everyone out. But there’s the EMPs, aren’t there? Maybe the planes won’t be able to fly. And there needs to be somewhere to airlift them to.”
“Australia,” Corrie said. “That’s what I’ll assume until we’re proved wrong. And yes, planes would be the answer. For Thunder Bay, and the Saint Lawrence. To take people out, and bring supplies in. Just like the plan was before. Despite the nuclear bombs, the war is still on. The zombies must still be defeated. But the frontline has changed, that’s all.”
They followed the dead-end track back to the trail, and then to a road, and onward. When they saw a house with figures in the open doorway, Olivia slowed.
“No. Zombies,” Corrie said. “They’re zombies. Keep driving.”
“Are you sure?” Olivia asked. “There could be living people inside.”
“Not in there,” Corrie said. “Not this time.”
Olivia didn’t slow, and Pete didn’t ask how Corrie could be so sure. A few miles on, they were overtaken by a trio of motorbikes, on which were five people who studiously avoided making eye contact with the military vehicle as they darted ahead.
Two kilometres later, they were forced to stop. The motorbikes had made it around the upturned truck, but the TAPV wouldn’t. The juggernaut had skewed off the road, and upturned, as had its wide trailer on which it had been carrying massive blue-plastic barrels. They’d survived the crash intact but some recent travellers had ripped open one. Finding only paint inside, they’d tipped the barrel onto the roadway.
“We’ve got a tow cable,” Olivia suggested.
“It’ll take too long,” Corrie said, an edge of agitation in her voice. “It’s already been nearly a day.”
“Then back to the trails and firebreaks it is,” Olivia said.
They reversed back to the first, a recently well-driven logging trail that took them nearly due north before they reached a road, this one leading vaguely westward.
Pete didn’t want to give voice to his feelings, but he guessed Corrie and Olivia must feel the same way, too. They were too late. If a billionaire with all her resources had failed to stop a nuclear war, what chance did they have of salvaging anything afterward?
“There’s people ahead,” Olivia said. “Waving. I think they’ve broken down.”
“We better stop,” Corrie said.
“Oh, that’s odd. Now he’s waving us on,” Olivia said. “Weird. A moment ago he wanted us to stop, now he doesn’t.”
Pete leaned forward, his despair momentarily banished back to its depths. Ahead, yes, there were two young men by the roadside, and two cars, both with their hoods up, parked on the verge. One of the roadside-men had stepped back onto the verge while the other vigorously motioned the TAPV onward.
“They realised we’re in a military vehicle,” Pete said. “That’s why they’re waving us on.”
“You mean they’re bandits?” Corrie asked. “Already? But I think you’re right.”
“Do we stop?” Olivia asked, already slowing.
“Stop and do what?” Corrie asked.
“Something,” Pete said. “Anything. If not us, then who?”
“Fair dinkum,” Corrie said. “Olivia, stay behind the wheel. Pete, go up top. We’ll do something, but we won’t do anything stupid.”
“More stupid than this?” Olivia asked, bringing the vehicle to a halt fifty metres from the two cars.
Pete opened the hatch to the machine gun mount, taking his rifle with him. Two men were by the roadside. Stubbled rather than bearded, and probably younger than him. There were other figures, too, in the shadows, and he couldn’t make out how many. But there were only two cars, so no more than eight.
“G’day,” Corrie called out, having climbed out. Rufus jumped out after her, taking a cautious step towards the strangers before stiffening. “Do you need a hand? A tow? A ride?”
The two men turned to each other, and then to the trees, just as uncertain how to proceed.
“We’re okay,” one of the men said, the closer of the two, wearing an insulated vest over what looked like a white dress shirt in dire need of a wash.
“You heard about the mushroom clouds?” Corrie asked.
“We did,” the man said, after another a hesitant glance at the trees.
Corrie turned back to the TAPV. “Okay, guys, what do you want to do?” Before waiting for an answer, she peered along the road.
Pete heard it, too. Engines. A lot of them. Advancing fast.
It was a civilian convoy, mostly consisting of vans and small trucks, onto each of which had been hastily painted a red cross. The first four vehicles drove on, but the fifth, a postal delivery van, stopped in front of the TAPV.
The passenger climbed out. A bearded man in a plaid shirt, jeans, with a holster at his belt, a shotgun in his hands, and a badge around his neck.
“Sergeant Wilgus!” Olivia said, in a snap of recognition as she jumped out. On the roadside, the would-be bandits looked even more confused than ever.
The van’s passenger, Sergeant Wilgus, frowned, then grinned in recognition. “It’s the press corps!” he said. “Talk about a small world. Where are you heading?”
“Good question,” Olivia said. “Originally, we were trying to get to Wawa, or Thunder Bay, but we’re trying to get word to the Pacific. Did you… did you hear about the nuclear bombs?”
“We did,” Wilgus said. “But you don’t want to go to Wawa. We’re evacuating. Pulling back to Thunder Bay. Picking up whomever we can from the forts, and warning the rest. We’re telling them to head for Thunder Bay or Nova Scotia.”
Corrie frowned. “Nova Scotia? But we came from the east. Bombs fell on Ottawa and Montreal. We’re trying to get a message to Thunder Bay, or to the Pacific. To anyone. To everyone. A warning. We think the general is dead. Judge Benton is now in charge. She plans to pull everyone back to the Great Lakes.”
“Ottawa and Montreal?” Wilgus asked, clearly shocked. “We thought it was just the lake.”
“The lake? Which lake?” Corrie asked.
“Lake Superior,” Wilgus said. “Close to the shore with Michigan. On the western side of the lake, that’s where the bomb fell. You say two others fell on Ottawa and Montreal?”
“The lake must have been the mushroom cloud we saw yesterday,” Pete said.
“Yesterday? You’ve been driving east?” Wilgus asked. He turned to look in the direction the convoy was driving. “And you saw a mushroom cloud?”
“It was in the distance, and it can’t have been Lake Superior,” Corrie said. “We’ve been driving by compass when we can, and off road when we must, but it can’t have been the same cloud you saw.”
“We assumed there were more,” Wilgus said. “But… but assumptions kill cops. That’s something my training officer taught me.”
“But you’re evacuating people to Thunder Bay?” Olivia asked.
“From where they’ll be sent east or west,” Wilgus said. “That’s Crawford’s plan. Go west, or go east. Nova Scotia or British Columbia. But we thought the banks of the Saint Lawrence had been secured by General Yoon.”
“Captain Crawford?” Corrie asked. “He’s in charge?”
Wilgus pointed at the column, which had continued on without him. “And I better catch up and warn him.”
“Wait,” Olivia said. “Those people there, by the road. You better take them with you. I think they were about to try to rob us.”
“No problem,” Wilgus said. He waved a hand at the truck which had stopped behind him. “New recruits!” he called and waved towards the roadside. A trio of soldiers jumped out and jogged over to the increasingly shocked would-be bandits. “What about you?” Wilgus asked. “Are you still going to Thunder Bay?”
“There’s no point, is there?” Olivia said. “Can you spare us some dies
el?”
“How much?” Wilgus asked.
“Enough for us to get to Vancouver Island,” Olivia said. “There was talk of an airlift, to bring in troops to support the general. We could use those planes to get people out.”
“I’d heard about that. They said to keep the runway clear. Never saw the first plane, though. You’d drive all the way to British Columbia?”
“This is too big for us to solve here,” Olivia said. “But what else can we do?”
Wilgus nodded. “I don’t know if I can spare you that much fuel, but I’ll give you all I can.”
The two bandits, and their two comrades who’d been hiding in the tree, were hustled into the back of the truck. Wilgus gave them the spare fuel, and then re-joined the column driving west.
“We’re not alone,” Pete said. “For a minute there, I forgot that we’re not the only people left in the world. So we’re going to British Columbia?”
“Pine Dock first, I think,” Corrie said. “It’s only the message that has to get to Vancouver Island.”
“A message about planes,” Pete said. “Assuming there still are any that can fly.”
Chapter 39 - Beginnings and Endings
Kowkash
After they left Sergeant Wilgus and his convoy, they drove by a remote home with people watching from the windows. They didn’t stop, though they debated whether they should have until they reached another house, again with a living human watching from the window. Again, they didn’t stop. Again, they debated whether they should. The third house had zombies outside, with the windows and doors all broken. Again, they didn’t stop. This time there was no debate.
The decision to head north, pick up the railroad, and then follow it west, was an easy one since no one had an alternative suggestion, and the railroad was easy to find. Though a rattling ride when the occasionally steep embankment forced them to drive along the tracks, at least they had solitude.
“What happens when a nuclear bomb is dropped on a lake?” Pete asked. “The water becomes radioactive, right, and the water that’s vaporised becomes rain?”
“It’s the wrong question,” Corrie said. “The right question is how many other bombs were dropped.”
“No, I was thinking about the general’s plan,” Pete said. “To turn the centre of America into a giant farm to feed the world as we fought the zombies. If the rainwater is radioactive, if the ground water is contaminated, the crops will die.”
“That’s why they’re pulling back to British Columbia and Nova Scotia,” Corrie said.
“Not Nova Scotia,” Pete said. “Not anymore. And is it British Columbia, or just Vancouver Island?” But it was a question none of them could answer.
The lonely railroad offered few distractions from their grim thoughts. The isolated houses and infrequent small hamlets through which they travelled appeared deserted, both of people, and the undead. The vastness beyond was just as unforgiving. Just as empty of life. Pete turned his gaze from the tracks to the trees, and then to the sky, hoping to spot a bird, a bee, anything that might confirm they weren’t the last beings alive. But, instead, he saw something utterly out of place in the rural woodland.
“Is that a crane?” he asked, peering forward.
“Nope. Three cranes,” Olivia said.
Far taller than the trees, two were painted blue and one a yellow that might be charitably described as gold. They loomed above the ancient pines, less than a mile further along the tracks.
“It’s Kempton’s telescope,” Corrie said. “That was Kowkash back down the tracks.”
“When?” Pete asked. “You mean that siding was the town?”
“I don’t think it’s a town,” Corrie said.
“And I don’t think this is a telescope,” Olivia said.
As they drew nearer, it became clear the cranes weren’t as large as they’d first appeared. They still loomed over the massive pines, but a wide swathe of woodland had been cleared and levelled around them.
“This doesn’t look like a telescope,” Pete said. “It’s more like a railroad junction.”
The rail line split into five sets of tracks. The outermost each had at two sidings, with a further branch line leading to the north. Even more rails were placed in two-metre high stacks beneath the cranes. Lining either side of the newly laid tracks, and sometimes dotted between, were prefab huts, all sky blue or golden yellow, complete with guttering, and a forest of signage. Some of the huts on the forest-facing southern side were double-wide, made of two joined together, with curtains hanging on the windows, a porch over the door, and a plank sidewalk ringing the outside. From how the porch was painted white, and the sidewalk was unseasoned, that was the relatively recent work of whoever had been stationed at the construction site over the winter.
“It is a railroad junction,” Pete said as the TAPV idled at the edge of the site. “She wasn’t building a telescope after all.”
“No, she was,” Corrie said. “But it would have taken a decade to finish. They had to build the junction so they could bring in the equipment and materials to build a train line up to the site before they could even lay the foundations.”
“Why?” Olivia whispered. “Ten billion dollars. That’s what the news report said. But why? Why here? I bet there was another reason.”
“Do you really think this is where they caught her?” Pete asked. “How would she have gotten here? How would they?”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Corrie said. “When looking at the map, it made sense, but looking at this place, I’m not sure. There’s no locomotive.”
“Should there be?” Pete asked.
“Probably,” Corrie said. “For shunting the construction equipment around after it arrived. And there’s no people. Whoever hung the curtains in that cabin’s window, they’ve left. I guess by train. Probably after the outbreak. I don’t think we’ll find any more diesel here.”
“Do we need it?” Olivia asked.
“If we have to keep going west after we reach Pine Dock, maybe,” Corrie said. “And we do need food and water.”
Cautiously, Pete opened the door. Before he could climb out, Rufus jumped over him and outside, circling the TAPV before giving a satisfied bark.
“He seems happy enough,” Corrie said. “I suppose it’s too far from anywhere for any zombies to be nearby. I’ll fill up the truck if you two want to look for some food.”
With Rufus happily bounding back and forth at their side, Pete and Olivia picked their way over the newly laid train tracks, and towards the forest-facing cabins with the curtains and wooden boardwalk.
“Footprints,” Pete said, pointing down at the muddy track, half-filled with water.
“Must have belonged to someone in the construction crew,” Olivia said.
“I can’t smell smoke, though,” Pete said. “And if you were stuck out here, after the end of the world, you’d light a fire, wouldn’t you?”
“I think I’d leave,” Olivia said. “It’d be like the cabin in Michigan, but worse. More remote, so safer in that respect. But whoever was stranded here after the outbreak had been living here before. Probably on a shift system, one week on, one off, here to supervise the unloading of materials for construction in the spring. But even with a porch and sidewalk and curtains, this can’t have been a fun place to live. And after the outbreak, they’d have wanted to return to their families.”
“Just before they used so much diesel they wouldn’t get their locomotive to… to wherever,” Pete said. “You think they left after the outbreak, then?”
“About a week after, I guess,” she said. “After the relief shift didn’t arrive, and so when it was clear things weren’t going to get back to normal.”
Neat pre-printed signs, in English and French, adorned each cabin, though the words bore little relation to what was inside. The double-long cabin with an extended awning over an equally long porch wasn’t a canteen and first-aid post, but a storage room filled with sacks of sand and neat stacks of tra
ck-ties. Conversely, the smaller cabin marked as a store had been turned into a two-room bunkhouse, with curtains on the recently added windows, foam panelling to provide insulation, and a neat chimney affixed to the wall.
“Two people remained to watch the site over winter,” Olivia said. “From how the beds are neatly made, I think they left soon after the outbreak. So soon, they thought things would get back to normal, and they might want their old jobs back.”
“There’s nothing useful in the cupboards,” Pete said. “Two beds. No chairs. A stove, but no cooking utensils. No sink. I guess we’ll find that somewhere else.”
They went back outside and continued along the warped wooden boards to the next cabin, another store. After that, the boardwalk ended, and they were back to walking in the mud as they picked their way around a stack of rails next to a swathe of levelled ground on which, presumably, it was intended they be laid.
“Maybe this is the answer,” Olivia said.
“Hmm? For us? If we’re living somewhere this remote, my vote’s for a cabin in the outback.”
“No, we could use the railroad to evacuate the survivors from the Saint Lawrence,” she said. “And use the tracks to move them wherever we need to afterwards. It won’t be easy, but if the planes were all damaged by an EMP or knocked out of the sky, we need an alternative. We can still get through this, all of us. We can still stop the undead. We just have to think differently, that’s all.”
“Pull them back to Pine Dock or somewhere, build the forts along the train tracks,” Pete said, trying to warm to the idea. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Yeah,” she echoed. “Maybe. We’ll try two more cabins, then head back. That large one first?”
Beyond the levelled ground was another neat row of recently decorated cabins. The first was another pair of single units, joined together. Steel trim covered the seam, from which oxidised orange streaks now spread onto the chipped blue walls. The plastic secondary glazing was another on-site addition, with more steel trim holding the almost-transparent sheet in place. Floral print curtains hung, closed, inside. A mostly metal porch stood above the door, next to a distinctly uncomfortable looking metal bench.
Surviving The Evacuation | Life Goes On (Book 2): No More News Page 32
