Dead Ahead (27 page)

“Just the pumps....”

“So the cooling rods are still active?”

“Yes.” Greg said with a petted lip.

“Well thank fuck for your incompetence!”

“So we’re safe?” Sarah said wringing her hands, “We’re not going to start glowing?”

“Glowing? Melting would be more accurate, but no, we are not going to start glowing You see, all of the Nuclear power stations around the UK were shut down once the government realised that they had lost control of the virus, the.... what did you call it Cassie?

“M.L.R.V.” she said with a worried look on her face.

“Yeah, the M.L.R.V; so the reactors had been in constant shutdown for a few weeks, prior to Greg’s interference; which means, that even with the cooling pumps being shut down the cooling rods will still be in effect, giving us more time to get to the plant and sort this problem out!”

There was a brief pause before Greg piped up again, though not so confidently this time, “Well, uh.... the umm.... the reactor isn’t actually still on such a constant shutdown anymore!”

Caleb was amazed by the man’s stupidity, “You fired it up again, didn’t you!”

“Yeah...!” Greg said sheepishly.

“Oh for fuck’s sake...! What else could go wrong?” Caleb exclaimed rhetorically, throwing up his hands.

“Well, umm.... seeing as you asked,” Cassie said equally sheepishly, “there is a good chance that Michaels may be following us!”

“What?” asked Sarah and Greg simultaneously, though Greg sounded more scared than Sarah did.

“Jim said that he thought he saw an army Land Rover pass us on the first night.” Ethan interjected.

“And how come we are just learning this
now?
” Greg asked angrily.

“Didn’t want to panic you, Greg my boy,” Jim said from the window across the room, “besides, it was dark, it could have been any army Land Rover, there are quite a few in this country you know!

You might want to keep an eye on that window there, boss!” Ethan nodded to Jim and moved over to the window that Caleb was supposed to be watching; though he had calmed now, in his astonishment Caleb had completely forgotten his duties.

“If it was dark, how do you know it was an army Land Rover?” Greg asked incredulously.

“Trust me, I know the sound of an army Land Rover, son!” Jim said without turning away from the window.

“Oh, well this is fucking great!” Greg shouted, “We have a psychotic Major with his own private army chasing us, a half melted schizoid armed to the teeth with grenades out there and only four days to save the country! Fuck this! I mean,
fuck
this!”

“Two days!” Caleb said casually, between spoonfuls of his rapidly cooling soup.

“What?”

“Two days! We have two days to reach the plant, max! Any more than that and we will probably start.... glowing!”

“Great!” Greg burst out again, “Well I for one vote that we turn tail and run! Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

“Won’t work...!” Caleb said still chewing.

“What do you mean it
won’t work
?”

Caleb put down the bowl and walked right up to Greg, he stood around a foot away from him and prodded his chest with the spoon, “What
you
have done, my friend,” he said calmly, “is set a
nuclear reactor
into meltdown, the effects of which will spread throughout the
entire globe
unless we do something about it: there is no
‘getting the fuck out of here’
! Unless, of course, you mean leaving the
planet
; which
I
, for one, am all up for!

“But unless you have a rocket in your pocket, can we please just stop jumping to delusions and get to the point?”

“And what point is
that
exactly?” Greg said aggressively: but sat down shortly afterwards when Caleb put pressure into the spoon, pushing him backwards.

Caleb followed him down with the spoon and then examined the tip of it that had made contact with Greg’s jumper with mild disgust, “The point of the matter is,” he turned away from Greg to address the rest of the group, “how the fuck did you plan to deal with the power plant? I mean, what were you planning to do about Captain Dunderhied here’s fuck up?” he gestured over his shoulder with the spoon towards Greg.

The rest of the group just looked at each other clueless, as if they were embarrassed to say anything, apart from the two soldiers of course who seemed to not want to take any part in the conversation; eventually, and wordlessly, the responsibility landed back on Cassie.

“Well,” she said, “Greg....”

“Oh no!” Caleb said turning to him and back again.

“....Greg put together a dongle....”

Caleb looked at her dumbfounded.

“....and we just have to put it into a computer and....”

“A dongle?”

“Yeah, a dongle. We just have to put it into a computer and hit return!” she looked abashed at what she had had to say.

Caleb couldn’t contain himself; he just broke down and erupted into tears of laughter, “Hahaha! A fucking dongle...? Oh my fucking God! Hahaaa! What? Just boopitty boop click, click, click, hit return and save the world? Fuck me, that’s gold that is! hehee! Oh I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t help it, oh hoho it hurts, it hurts!” By the time he was done, the rest of the group was either laughing along or at least smiling; apart from Greg that is.

“I take it that a dongle won’t cut it?” Sarah asked with that beautiful smile that reached all the way up to her eyes.

“Oh no, no don’t get me started again,” he chuckled, “no, a dongle won’t cut it, not by a long shot! Just starting the cooling pumps up again and shutting down the reactor won’t contain this thing, we got to bury it!”

“How do you bury a nuclear power station?” Sarah asked.

“Not the whole station, just the reactor! After what happened to the Fukushima plant in the wake of the tsunami, the NDA have been building pits beneath the reactor and the pools in Thorp which they can be dropped into and capped with cement and reinforcement, should any kind of natural – or unnatural – disaster strike. The NDA were supposed to be the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, but they’re not, they’re the Nuclear Defence Agency. Sellafield was never going to be decommissioned, it’s just another of the governments dirty little secrets. But anyway, the pits can be activated through the control centre in Thorp”

“What’s Thorp?” Sarah asked.

“That’s where they keep all the plutonium!” Greg answered for Caleb.

“That’s right,” Caleb said, slightly more condescendingly than he intended, “It doesn’t look like the plutonium will be any trouble to us, but it would probably be for the best if we dropped it anyway; better safe than sorry!”

“And you know how to activate the pits?” Ethan asked keenly.

“That I do! Though Greg’s dongle may come in handy too, again, better safe than sorry!”

“Well then, I guess that makes you our priority number one. Sorry Greg but you are back of the line,” Ethan said with a smile.

“No offense mate, but that boy right there is my priority number one,” Caleb said pointing to Brandon, “the rest of the world can fucking burn for all I care!”

“I can take care of myself, Dad!” Brandon said as if he had insulted him.

“All I’m saying is: yes, we will help you, but I want him well out of the way when the shit goes down!”

“I couldn’t agree more! We will draw up a plan when we get a proper view of what we are up against, but for now, I think it would be best if those that
can
sleep
should
sleep: we have another early start in the morning!”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Caleb said in a slight mocking tone as he walked over to Ethan, “and I think that you need sleep more than you realise,” Ethan looked hesitantly over to Jim at the comment, “It’s ok, Jim can keep an eye on me while you sleep, trust me, I know how hard it is to trust new people!” he laughed.

     The rain didn’t stop all night, it poured down in a way that Caleb had only seen when he was growing up in Scotland, it didn’t comfort him in the way it should have though. Despite all of his jokes and laughter, he was still hurting badly from the loss of his parents, it had been such a pathetic hope that they had survived this horror, but it had kept him going for a while, he still had to fight the urge to go back and look at his dad’s corpse in the other room, in the vain hope that he wouldn’t be the hideous mess that he had become.

At around three on the morning, Ethan appeared by his side with a cup of coffee: Caleb had smelled the bitter scent as it was brewing and was overjoyed when it was presented to him; it had been too long since he had even tasted a cup of coffee, he truly was forgetting some of the basic pleasures of life before the outbreak, spending time with some people who hadn’t yet been crushed by it was refreshing.

“I would offer to take your watch, but I have a feeling that you wouldn’t accept anyway,” Ethan whispered in the darkness, “So I’m just going to swap with Jim. There’s more coffee by the fire if you want some more.” Caleb nodded his thanks and Ethan disappeared into the dark of the other corner of the room to trade places with Jim. Caleb couldn’t be sure, but he felt like the soldiers were people that he could trust; the same for everyone else in the group, even Greg. He just hoped that they could learn to trust him too.

The rain eased off as the sun was only just showing signs of its self over the horizon, and to Caleb’s surprise, Cassie appeared with another cup of coffee for him.

“I’d forgotten how good this stuff tastes,” he said while warming his hands and blowing across the top of his cup.

“You forgot about coffee? My god, you really have been out here too long!”

“Ha! Tell me about it!”

Cassie joined him in watching the sun rise through the broken window; a soft breeze joined the warm rays as they crept over the horizon, bathing the land in light.

“What are your plans, Caleb?” she asked tenderly.

“Well, I know I just kind’a invited us along, but I was planning on joining you’s, stopping the reactor, saving the world, that sort of thing!” he said with a smile.

“No,” she laughed, “I mean after. Where were you heading before we came along?”

“I have no idea, we’ve just been surviving, Cassie. We did try to head north, into Scotland, we tried to make it to the coast, but we got chewed up and spat out and ended up here. I guess we are headed back towards the coast now though.”

“That was where my father wanted me to go, Scotland. He said there were some pretty remote islands up there where we could be safe. Maybe we could go together?”

“I would like that. But first things first, let’s go save the world.

Chapter

20

Fresh Meat

His words nearly caught in his throat as he spoke to her, and he prayed that his voice wouldn’t break when he did. He had seen her in the dim light of the fire the night before, but only now could he see her true beauty; her black hair flowed over her shoulder in waves and her dark skin made her remarkable green eyes even more beautiful. Brandon built up enough courage to finally talk to her.

“Hi, Zoe, I’m Brandon!”

“Hey, Brandon,” She said with a smile, “Would you like some coffee?”

“Yes please, two sugars, thanks.”

“It’s only UHT I’m afraid” She said in her sweet Irish accent.

“That’s fine; it’s the steak that I’m more pissed off about!”

“Steak...?”

“Yeah, the zombies are eating all the cows; no more steak!”

“Aww, what...? I love steak!” she said as she handed him the cup.

“Umm.... How many shells do you have for that shotgun? If you don’t mind me asking”

“No, it’s fine; I have loads, like three boxes in my bag. Why?”

“Well, umm.... there was a guy here when we got here, he was up in the attic, but he kind’a shot himself, he had a shotgun but it was his last shot.”

“Oh god...!”

“Yeah, but we left the shotgun with him.”

“Oh, right. Are you going to go back up and get it? I don’t mind giving you some rounds if you are.”

“Yeah...? That would be great!” he said excitedly, “I better go get it before we head off!”

“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked as he was turning away, “You said it was pretty bad up there!”

“I dunno, it is pretty gross, but if we stick to the stairs we should be ok!”

“Let’s go then!”

Zoe grabbed her shotgun and Brandon slid his axe into his belt, they slipped out of the door without anyone seeing them leave and made their way upstairs; no doubt one of the adults would have demanded that they went with them, had they seen, and Brandon relished the thought of spending just a little time alone with Zoe.

“What was it like being stuck in that bunker?” Brandon asked.

“Oh, I wasn’t in the bunker, they only found me a couple of days ago. I was in a hotel till then.”

“You survived all this time on your own?”

“Ha! No! I was with a bunch of people, but they all slowly died off, Mr Crawley was the last to go, and he died the day I met that lot in there.”

“Oh, man! You haven’t had it easy at all, have you?”

“Easier than some; I’m still alive at least. It sounds like you have had it pretty rough too though.”

“Yeah, it ain’t been easy; it’s all the moving around, you never seem to get a chance to rest.”

“Being stuck in one place isn’t all it’s cracked up to be either; I swear I was going mad in that hotel!”

“I think this place is perfect; it’s a huge house and it’s on an island not too far away from good scavenging grounds, all it needs is a decent wall around the shoreline and it will be top notch!”

“Top notch, eh?”

“Aye! Top fuckin notch!” he laughed, “Here we are!”

They stood at the bottom of the slim staircase leading up to the loft; the door was still hanging open and off of its hinges and up there it still looked dark. An image of the man laying there with half of his head missing flashed into Brandon’s memory, “I don’t mind if you wanna wait here, it’s pretty messy up there; I’ll be two sec’s!”

“No way, I’m coming. I’m not staying down here on my own!”

“Ok then, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

They crept up the creaky stairs and into the loft; Brandon pulled a small torch out of his pocket and hefted the axe from his belt. A beam of red light was streaming in from the round window that pointed directly at the sunrise, it bathed the room in crimson and black shadows that Brandon’s torch struggled to penetrate. They rounded the chimney stack in the centre of the room and headed for the man and the shotgun. Brandon tried not to shine the light directly at the corpses head as he moved to pick up the gun: but something was wrong, this wasn’t how they had left the man; there was a deep cavity where his stomach was and his clothes were torn and tattered, something had been eating him.

A shrill squeal came from behind him and Brandon spun around to see a Husk latched on to Zoe’s back, its teeth bared and ready to sink into her shoulder. Brandon leapt to his feet as Zoe dipped down, desperately trying to keep herself from being bitten, the zombie dipped with her, salivating at the prospect of some fresh meat. Brandon flew at the fetid creature, ramming the top of the hatchet blade into its mouth, snapping its head backwards and loosening its grip on Zoe. The Husk staggered backwards as Brandon landed on his feet, still moving forwards he ducked down and swung the hatchet at its knee severing the leg in two, spinning and jumping up he cleaved the Husk’s head from its shoulders sending it tumbling across the floor.

Brandon turned to check on Zoe but found her stood pointing a shaking shotgun in his direction.

“Whoa, it’s ok, it didn’t get me! Are you ok, it didn’t get you did it?” he asked.

“No! No, no it didn’t get me,” she paused, “That was pretty impressive, Brandon!”

“Thanks!” he said shyly, abashed at the compliment, but also because, where the Husk had grabbed her had torn her white shirt, exposing part of her bra. He took his jacket off and handed it to her. “Your shirt is torn,” he said, looking to her eyes and then to the floor.

“Oh, thanks!” she said hugging the jacket to her chest.

Brandon ducked around her to pick up the shotgun and when he turned back she was just zipping the jacket up to the top, looking at him and smiling. He could feel his cheeks blushing and tried to cover it up with movement.

“We had better be getting back!” he said and they headed for the door.

They thudded their way back down the stairs and got just outside the dining room door just before it opened. Jim’s face appeared through the crack and called “Here they are!” to the others in the room. As they entered they got a lot of funny looks from them, especially Sarah, who was frowning at them with distaste. Brandon walked over to his dad who gave him a sly bump on the shoulder with a smile and a wink; but it turned to an uncomfortable puzzled frown when he noticed him carrying the shotgun.

“We had better be heading off then, I suppose,” his dad said.

“Yeah, if everybody’s ready,” Ethan said over the top of his father, “Cassie, Sarah and Zoe, you’re with me; Caleb, Brandon and Greg, you’re with Jim! Everybody good?” he asked, not waiting for a response, “Then let’s go!”

Everyone filed out of the room giving Brandon little chance to grab his spare coat from his pack, the overly large army jacket he had got from Frank. Jim just hopped lithely through the window; Brandon was tempted to follow him but thought better of it and followed the others out of the front door and round the side of the house, where the olive green Argo Cat’s that he had heard people talking about were sat. Jim was mopping down the rain soaked seats with one of the purple curtains from the dining room and presented Brandon’s seat in the back to him.

“What the fuck is that?” Jim asked Brandon’s dad.

“It’s a Naginata!”

“Handy is it?”

“More than you know!” His dad unscrewed the shaft of the blade and tucked it between the front seats and took his place in the front; he looked all too comfortable with the rifle on his lap, Brandon was worried that it would get in the way when he had to use the blade.

Greg was slow to take his place beside Brandon and didn’t look much of a conversationalist, so he just ignored him. Just before they left, Zoe came running up to him and handed him a box of shotgun shells, as she handed the box over their fingers met for just a second, but long enough to send shivers down his spine; he said “Thanks,” and got a smile in return; he took pleasure in watching her jog away. When he turned around, his dad was giving him another of his knowing smiles, which irked him.

“You know what you’re doing with that, son?” his dad asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, Dad; the shells go in here,” He broke the barrel, replaced the two rounds and closed it again, “and this is the safety!” he flicked the catch to make the shotgun safe.

“I wasn’t talking about the shotgun, son!” his dad said with a smile, making Brandon blush just a little and Jim laugh out loud.

It wasn’t long before they were leaving; Jim took the lead with Ethan in the rear, they trundled slowly through the garden and round to the back of the house to a slipway and plunged the Argo Cats into the water; Brandon was amazed at how well they floated, and how well they moved through the water considering it was only the eight wheels spinning that propelled them.

The other side of the island shielded what looked to be at least a hundred boats and yachts anchored in the lake, Jim and Brandon’s dad discussed how easy it would be to get one of the yachts to the sea from here and the condition of the river leading away from the lake; they also discussed the fact that Frank had told them about the navy blowing up any other boats that they discovered on the shore line.

“Can’t say I heard anything about that, mate; but that’s not to say it isn’t true, those navy boys can go a bit hyper when you give them something to shoot at, they don’t see as much action as the rest of us these days; well, didn’t should I say?” Jim said.

“I don’t know, Frank was a bit gun ho too, but he was TA!”

“Ha! Same goes for that lot! Bunch of crazy bastards! I take it that’s where you got the SA80?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit tatty but it works ok!”

“But for how long though? That’s an old model, a lot of flaws with that one, don’t rely on it too much; if it jams up, just drop it and use the blade”

“Will do, cheers...!”

_____________________________

The journey was slow but easy, the Argo Cats could cover pretty much any terrain, which led them high up into the hills again, but they could only go around twenty miles an hour which made the trip very tedious. The one saving grace was that there were no Firsts and very few Seconds roaming around the hills; which made Greg feel a lot safer about his situation. The fact that he was stuck looking at the back of that smartarse bastard Caleb’s head the entire journey was almost as bad as the inane chatter coming from him and Jim, Greg would have happily wrapped his hands around Caleb’s throat for the embarrassment he caused him the night before, that is if it wasn’t for the shotgun toting vermin sat beside him, the bastard’s seed, Brandon.

Greg took to staring out of the left hand side of the vehicle at the passing scenery; they were just passing through a large patch of dense pine trees up towards yet another peak where they would be blessed with a resplendent view of the valleys below. Greg had had trepidations about entering the woods but had kept them to himself to save losing yet more face, but now that they were here he couldn’t have been happier, despite the company he kept, the recent rainfall had awoken the forest with a myriad of colours and scents; Greg wasn’t scared to admit that he was a city boy, he had spent most of his life stuck behind a computer and little experience with nature; sure, he knew a lot about nature but he had never really been interested in being part of it. Maybe this is what his ex-wife meant about all that ‘not being outgoing enough’ crap! Bitch!

“Alright, Greg?” Caleb asked. He was turned in his seat so as his knees were pointing out into the forest and he had his back to Jim; he rested his arm around the back of his seat and looked quite comfortable in doing it.

“Yeah, I suppose!” Greg said, trying not to make conversation.

“Look, mate, I’m sorry about what I said last night, I went a bit OTT; I was just shocked, y’know?”

“Hmmph!” Greg grunted and looked away; it would take more than that to appease him.

“And I’m sorry I made you look daft, I know you’re not daft; but you have to admit that what you did was a bit stupid!”

“Stupid? Do you know how difficult it is to hack into a government facility? It wasn’t stupidity, it was genius!”

“I don’t mean the process of the act, I mean the act it’s self! How you did it may have been genius, but actually putting a nuclear power plant into meltdown is just plain stupid,” Caleb said, not in an angry way but like a man struggling to comprehend, “You are quite clearly intelligent, Greg, but what I don’t understand is why you didn’t do something else and pretend that you had set the core to meltdown? You could have set the gents hand dryer to heat up and made it look like the core was melting to a man like Michaels!”

“Did I mention he had a gun pointed at me?”

“You did, mate. But you can’t tell me that it didn’t cross your mind to trick him!”

“It did, but Knox was there and.... well, he’s smarter than he looks!”

Caleb looked at him with a knowing smile, “It was a challenge wasn’t it?” Greg said nothing, “It’s understandable, bud. You had been cooped up in that bunker for how long? Nothing to do but twiddle your thumbs; then Michaels gives you a challenge and you leap on it! Smart guys like you need a challenge, if they aren’t being challenged they get.... irritable!”