Surviving The Evacuation (Book 4): Unsafe Haven (27 page)

“And what he did afterwards.” And she told him about their flight from the town.

“For what it’s worth,” he said when she’d finished, “I believe you. But it’s not worth very much. We’ll have to see what the old man has to say, but at the very least I reckon Mr Tull will let you keep the sword.”

“What about Rob. There needs to be justice. There needs to be a trial.”

“Well, that might be a bit tricky,” he said slowly.

“Why?”

“Lack of evidence. It’s your word against his.”

“He left me to die!”

“A lot of people have done that,” Chester said. “Self-preservation isn’t a crime. Not here. The sins of the past are ignored, if not forgotten. Take me, I wasn’t exactly the world’s most honest citizen, and now I’m a pillar of the community. To be frank, you’d have done better to wait until there was no one around and dealt with him yourself. And you can’t,” he added pointedly, “do that now.”

She’d thought much the same herself.

“He said there were laws. It doesn’t seem like there are. I mean, how did he get to be in charge, then?”

“You mean Mr Tull?”

“Yeah, why isn’t it a General or… well, someone younger?”

“Well, he’s not in charge. Mary O’Leary is. She’s the Mayor. And she’s older than him. Spends most of her time in a wheelchair.”

“And that makes even less sense.”

Chester laughed.

“Really? You expect sense in a world turned upside down and inside out? Who’d trust a General? Who’d trust a politician? Who do you trust to run the place except the people who don’t want the job, but have proven they can do it?”

“I’ve heard that expression, and I’ve never believed it. How
did
they get the job?”

“Well, broadly speaking, you had a lot of different groups arriving here about the same time. You had Mister Mills and the crew of the HMS Vehement. That’s a hundred or so submariners who’d just fought a pretty nasty naval battle a few hundred feet beneath the waves. Then you had Sophia Augusto, the captain of a fishing trawler, who’d just rescued a few thousand people out of the ill-fated flotilla that tried to cross the Atlantic. Then there was Leon and Francois and their ragtag military unit made up of the survivors who’d made out of Ireland. And those were the units who’d made it out of the nightmare in Europe and Africa. And then there was Mr Tull, Mrs O’Leary, and Bran, leading this procession of survivors up through England and Wales. They were travelling slowly, and perhaps because of that or perhaps not, they’d had to fight their way across the country. Throughout it all, Mrs O’Leary was the one who had the ideas. I guess people looked at her and said to themselves that if she could find the strength to keep going then so could they. And here’s the thing, they all did. The ones who stuck with her, they all lived. But not everyone did stick with her. Quite a few took one look at this very civilian group of the old and young and headed off on their own, and they died. And when you come across someone who’s now undead, but who a couple of days ago was going on about how they could make it on their own, that makes it starkly obvious which is the winning team.”

“That doesn’t explain why she’s in charge.”

“After they got here you mean? Well, that’s pretty obvious really. None of the others wanted to lead, but at the same time someone had to. You just had hundreds of nuclear bombs being dropped. Civilisation had collapsed. Half the world had tried to kill the other half, and no one had a clue whether anyone was going to wake up the next morning. Amidst all that you had Mrs O’Leary, who comes across as a sweet old grandmother, and like all sweet old grandmothers she’s as hard as nails. They set up a council, all the groups are represented on it. Not that there’s much by the way of politics going on. Even here it’s all about survival.”

“That sounds… I don’t know. Ramshackle.”

“Well, it works. More or less. If you ask him, Mr Tull will give you a history lesson on how all countries were founded that way. Me, I don’t think it matters. I don’t think we need leaders. Everyone just has to do all they can, eat no more than their fill, and take nothing they don’t need. If everyone did that, we might still be sitting here this time next year. And that is as much as anyone can hope for.”

“What about these safe houses, what are they?”

“Pretty much what they sound like. We find a place that has a good escape route, rig up some flags outside, and leave some food and a map to the next one along the road. A lot of people had food for a few weeks or could find that much in the buildings nearby. They stuck it out as long as they could, but it always ran out. They took to the road with no real notion of where to go or how to survive. Left on their own out there in the wasteland, they’d just fight amongst themselves. Anyone left standing would be killed by the undead. The safe houses are about giving people another option; come to Anglesey and get as close to a normal life as you’d get anywhere else.”

“Do many come?”

“A few. Not as many as there were. People can feel that winter’s coming. There are a few still hold up in Castles and stately homes or in the cities. And we know about some of them, but there’s not much we can do to help. And there are some who don’t want help and others who don’t want to be found.” He shrugged. “We do what we can because that’s all that we’ve got left. And it’s not going to be enough. Electricity’s great, and it makes life easier, but it doesn’t make staying alive any easier. But that’s not my problem. I just go where I get sent. That’s enough for me.”

Silence settled. Chester made no further attempts at conversation. He seemed happy enough watching the waves.

An hour later, George returned. He didn’t come alone. A boy of about twelve was pushing a wheelchair. In it was an old woman.

“That’s the Mayor,” Chester whispered.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Sit tight. I better go and have a word.” Chester stood up and walked to meet them. As he approached the woman spoke to the boy. He wandered off towards the sea front. After a few minutes of quiet conversation, Chester wheeled the Mayor, with George walking alongside, to the table at which Nilda sat.

“Nilda, welcome to Anglesey. I’m Mary O’Leary. Elected Mayor because no one objected too strongly.”

Nilda nodded, waiting for the woman to go on.

“George?” the Mayor said.

“Right,” the old man took out the sword and handed it to Nilda. “That’s yours, I believe.

“And Rob? What’s going to happen to him?”

“We don’t know. Not yet,” the Mayor said. “It’s your word against his.”

“I see,” Nilda said.

“I’m sorry,” George said, “but all we know he did, was abandon you to die. And,” he added, looking over at Chester, “we can’t hold that against anyone.”

“So you’re letting him go?”

“For now,” the Mayor said.

“Tell me,” Nilda asked, slowly, “how many people voted for you?”

“I was elected when our numbers were fewer,” she allowed.

“Which isn’t what I asked. Was there a real election? Or was it just that you were appointed by others, and everyone else went along with it.”

The Mayor sighed, but she didn’t answer.

“As much as things change,” Nilda said, “they always stay the same. That woman, what was her name? Kim. She told me about the outbreak. Said it was all about some small group of politicians wanting power. Seems to me like it’s much the same here. You’ve no justice. No laws. No mandate to govern. But everyone is frightened. They’re all scared. They’ll do whatever you ask because they’ve nowhere else in the world to go. No matter how bad life is here, it’s better than what they had out there. There’s no freedom here. This,” she waved her hands. “All this, it’s just a prison, only one where the inmates don’t want to escape.”

“Yes. Yes,” the Mayor said. “That’s broadly true and completely wrong at the same time. We have a chance to build something new, something different. Something better than all that went before. That has to start with forgiveness.”

“Oh yeah? You’re saying that if you had the person responsible, the person who created the zombies, here, right here on this island, you wouldn’t just put them up against the wall?”

There was an uncomfortable shuffling of feet.

“What?” Nilda asked. “No, wait. You’re not… you’re telling me you
do
have the person responsible here?”

“He’s quite mad,” the Mayor said. “And quite harmless. He thought he was creating a cure for all the world’s—”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. What is this place? You have the undead outside, but you’ve let the monsters inside the walls!”

“It’s not quite like—” George began.

“I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear anything more. You can keep this place. With your electricity and your militia and your gentile tyranny. I want no part of it.”

She grabbed the sword and stormed off.

“That,” the Mayor said, “went as well as could be expected. Chester, you go after her.”

“You want me to keep her from going after that man?”

“No, Bartholomew and Thaddeus are watching him.”

“Who?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Mary O’Leary said. “I want to you to follow that woman and keep her safe. I think she’s serious. I think she’s going to leave. Go with her.”

“Back to the mainland?” he asked, wearily.

“Yes. I suspect she’ll head north, back towards where she lived. There’s a job we need doing. It’ll be on the way.”

“Another one? Well, fine. What?”

“There’s a wind turbine factory in Hull. George, give him the address.”

“Hull? That’s nowhere near Cumbria,” Chester said, taking a folded map from the old man.

“It’s closer than here. We want you to see if the turbines are still there.”

“Turbines? You’re talking about the factory they built at the port. I remember reading about that. Why not just send a ship?”

“If we knew the factory was still there, we might. Hull took a beating. Only conventional weapons—”

“We
think
it was only conventional weapons,” the Mayor cut in. “You’ll need to take a Geiger counter with you.”

“I’m liking this less and less,” Chester muttered.

“Well, that’s the extent of the bad news,” George said. “Mister Mills reckons it was just conventional weapons, and I’ll take his word for it. What we don’t know is whether the factory is still intact. If it is, and if the turbines inside are undamaged, then we want to bring them out.”

“What for?” Chester asked.

“Did you hear about Svalbard?”

“Not really.”

“There are survivors there,” the Mayor said. “And they have oil thanks to a NATO supply dump on the island. It’s all refined, and there’s enough of it to get the North Atlantic Fleet all the way down to some haven in the Southern Hemisphere. They won’t give it away because they’ve been using it to keep the generators running for the seed vault. To describe their stewardship of that place as zealous doesn’t even come close. But they are willing to trade. If we can give them another power source, they’ll give us the oil. All of it. For now we’re having to make do with a few barrels, just enough to take a tender up to the north with a doctor and a dozen chickens. In exchange we’ll get…” she shook her head, “that doesn’t matter. The important point is that those wind turbines in Hull represent our best chance of trading for all we need.”

“If they haven’t been blown up,” Chester said, flatly. “And what’ll you do if they have? Send in some of us up to Svalbard to take the oil by force?”

“No,” the Mayor said flatly. “There’s been enough killing. You’re not the only person we’re sending out, but if none of you find anything we can use then we’ll give them the Vehement and its nuclear power plant. But I’d rather not do that. Not yet. We still need that submarine.”

“Alright, fine. So I’ll go to Hull. And if the factory is intact, what then?”

“Now we’re on to the second part of the operation and why we can’t just send a sailing boat in to have a look from the harbour. We need to know whether there are any survivors in the city. Any signs of life at all.”

Chester mulled that over for a minute.

“Why?” he finally asked.

“Because the turbines are large,” the Mayor said slowly. “The only way of getting them out will be with some heavy lifting equipment. Right now the only thing we have that meets that are helicopters. We were planning on using them to rid Britain of the undead, so we’ll combine the two missions. The helicopters will take off from various spots off the west coast and fly east to converge on Hull. When they get there, we’ll use them to load those turbines onto some barges. Following close behind will be the undead. And we’ll destroy them. Not all of them, we would never get that lucky, but we’ll be able to eliminate enough that going out into the mainland turns from downright suicidal into only almost-certain death.”

“Wait.” Chester suddenly understood. “That’s why you want the submarine. You’re planning on using the nuclear missiles?”

“Can you think of any other way to get rid of all those zombies?”

“Well, no, but give me time and I would. You can’t drop more bombs on the mainland. What about the fallout? You’ll be irradiating a whole swathe of the countryside.”