Date: 2022-02-19 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: zombie apocalypse

Welcome to the End of the Earth

Surviving the Evacuation

Book 19

Frank Tayell

Reading Order & Copyright

“We must strive to be better, even if that struggle consumes us. But what better purpose can any of us now have?”

Surviving the Evacuation, Book 19

Welcome to the End of the Earth

Published by Frank Tayell

Copyright 2022

All rights reserved

All people, places, and (most) events are fictional.

Post-Apocalyptic Detective Novels

Work. Rest. Repeat.

Strike a Match 1. Serious Crimes

Strike a Match 2. Counterfeit Conspiracy

Strike a Match 3. Endangered Nation

Strike a Match 4. Over By Christmas

Surviving The Evacuation / Here We Stand / Life Goes On

Book 1: London

Book 2: Wasteland

Zombies vs The Living Dead

Book 3: Family

Book 4: Unsafe Haven

Book 5: Reunion

Book 6: Harvest

Book 7: Home

Here We Stand 1: Infected

Here We Stand 2: Divided

Book 8: Anglesey

Book 9: Ireland

Book 10: The Last Candidate

Book 11: Search and Rescue

Book 12: Britain’s End

Book 13: Future’s Beginning

Book 14: Mort Vivant

Book 15: Where There’s Hope

Book 16: Unwanted Visitors, Unwelcome Guests

Life Goes On 1: Outback Outbreak

Life Goes On 2: No More News

Life Goes On 3: While the Lights Are On

Life Goes On 4: If Not Us

Life Goes On 5: No Turning Back

Book 17: There We Stood

Book 18: Rebuilt in a Day

Book 19: Welcome to the End of the Earth

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Synopsis

The old world is gone, but a new era begins.

Fourteen months after the outbreak, thirteen months after the nuclear war, the old world is gone, but a new world is emerging. The evacuation of Britain failed, but other evacuations were a success. In Canberra, a new civilisation is being born, but in Canada, the survivors bid a last and final farewell to the Atlantic.

While a final evacuation of Nova Scotia is planned, the search for lost communities begins. The journey takes Bill and Kim to the very end of the Earth, and to a meeting with familiar strangers.

Crossing the border, Sholto endures a bittersweet return to the country he’d embraced so many decades ago. The United States he remembered is gone, and yet he can see its shadow among the burned ruins and desolate towns of the American Northeast.

But the rains soon turn to a flood that washes away the few bridges not destroyed during the failed quarantine. With no other escape from the deluge, they take to the river. On the Hudson, they sail into the middle of a civil war. When they learn one faction is led by the last surviving member of the political conspiracy that spawned the apocalypse, it is obvious which side to take.

Set among the thawing wilderness of Quebec and Ontario, the swollen rivers and flooded roads of New York, and in the courtrooms of Canberra, this novel includes characters and events from the five-part Pacific-based series Life Goes On.

Table of Contents

Part 1 - The Future to Come

22nd April

Chapter 1 - Some of the Story so Far

23rd March

Chapter 2 - The Avenging Army

Chapter 3 - The Kawasaki Which Broke the Chevy’s Back

24th March

Chapter 4 - Riverside Retreat

26th March

Chapter 5 - The Cracks Appear

Chapter 6 - Reality Check

Chapter 7 - One Hundred Million Reasons to Leave

27th March

Chapter 8 - A Yorkshire Greeting

Chapter 9 - No Fishing

28th March

Chapter 10 - Hot and Cold

Chapter 11 - White for a Funeral

Chapter 12 - Arriving Late to the Gunfight

29th March

Chapter 13 - Polar Bear Air

Chapter 14 - Worse Than Bears

Chapter 15 - A Town Full of Ghosts

22nd April

Chapter 16 - Some of the Story to Come

Chapter 17 - Behind the Curtain

Part 2 - Dinosaurs

23rd March

Chapter 18 - No Stone Unturned

24th March

Chapter 19 - All Holidays End

Part 3 - The Flooded State of a Sinking City

27th March

Chapter 20 - The World As It Is

28th March

Chapter 21 - The Granite Lake Human Sanctuary

29th March

Chapter 22 - Fire From Above

Chapter 23 - Where No Zombie Would Be Seen Dead

Chapter 24 - The Best-Worst Candidate

30th March

Chapter 25 - After the Deluge

Chapter 26 - The Last Salute

Chapter 27 - Sirens

Chapter 28 - Forward, Retreat

31st March

Chapter 29 - Rising Troubles

Chapter 30 - No Horsemen, Plenty of Heads

Chapter 31 - Edington and Normandy

Chapter 32 - Unclear and Present Danger

Chapter 33 - The Wisdom of Solomon

Chapter 34 - Governing a Catastrophe

Chapter 35 - When a Pirate Falls in the Woods, Does Anyone Hear?

Chapter 36 - Avalanche

1st April

Chapter 37 - Battles Won, Battles Lost, and Battles Still to Come

6th April

Chapter 38 - Home is Where You Pack Your Hat

16th April

Epilogue - Leaving the Past Behind

Part 1

The Future to Come

Quebec and Ontario

&

Canberra

23rd - 29th March

&

22nd April

22nd April

Chapter 1 - Some of the Story So Far

The Zombie War Crimes Tribunal, Canberra

“I never thought I’d wear a tie again,” Bill said, undoing the knot for the ninth time.

“I could say the same about make-up,” Kim said. Where he wore a grey suit that was too big in the chest and too narrow in the shoulders with a tie in an angry-sky shade of blue, she’d borrowed a sleeveless dress and a burgundy crop-jacket. That the dress was patterned with daisies was a coincidence, for neither had much choice in their attire. “But high heels have been consigned to the dustbin of history,” she added. “So this new Australian empire isn’t all bad. You need a bit of powder, too. You don’t want to look like a ghoul for the TV cameras.”

“That takes me back,” Bill said, taking her compact out of his pocket. “I used to give similar advice to clients. Always look healthy, especially when you’re sick.”

“Stop talking, or you’ll end up looking like a sick clown,” she said, as she dabbed his forehead and cheeks. “There. I can’t believe they took away my purse.”

“And they took away my cane,” he said, taking the compact and slipping it back into his pocket. “It’s almost like this is a courthouse, and I’m about to stand trial.”

“That’s not even close to funny,” she said, smoothing down his tie.

The windows of the upper floor room in the Canberra courthouse were covered with boards. Outside, what had begun as a scaffolding walkway just after the outbreak had grown into a rickety extension, overshadowing the road. Over the recent southern summer, it had become a trellis supporting a hanging garden which had withered in the heat, but had shielded the building from the worst of the Australian sun. Even in the Pacific, electricity was too scarce for air conditioning, as attested by the occasional flicker of the room’s solitary light bulb. At least the window didn’t have bars.

“What do you think of Canberra?” he asked, trying to distract both her and himself. “You’ve seen more of it than I have.”

“There are too many people here, Bill,” Kim said. “Too many people in too confined a space. Before we came to Australia, I thought I missed cities. Living cities, I mean, not those decaying ruins we have in the north. It turns out, what I really miss are wide-open spaces where the trees stretch for days.”

“Me, I’ve got concrete running my veins,” Bill said. “But I do miss the open road in Canada. Or maybe it’s the just the freedom to go where we want, when we wanted.”

“Except we weren’t really roaming free, were we, dear? We were always hunting for safety and looking for a home. That journey was always bound to come to an end.”

“I didn’t expect it to end here,” he said. “Do you know what the street address of this place is? London Circuit. That’s as close to coming full-circle as I’m going to get.”

“Would you really want to go back?” she asked. “I know I wouldn’t. When I saw my parents’ house, I was in shock for days. Seeing familiar places become so desolate always hurts the worst. The outbreak took so much from us all, I wouldn’t want it to take the last of my old memories, too. Happy and sad, they’re all anyone has at the end.”

“Now you’re the one being maudlin,” he said.

“I mean we lost everything, but gained so much. Okay, stop wrestling with that tie before you hang yourself. Sorry, bad choice of words.” She adjusted his tie. “There. Done, so don’t fiddle with it again. Clean-shaven suits you.”

“The haircut suits you,” he said.

“It’s a bit too 1990s for me,” she said. “I’d prefer shorter all over.”

“Ah, but you’re sporting the latest fashion,” he said.

“Survivor-chic,” she said. “And it cost me five dollars. I’ve no idea if that’s expensive or not.”

“Ten dollars a day is the nominal minimum wage,” Bill said.

“Then it was expensive. There you go, that’s something that hasn’t changed, out-of-towners being ripped off by local shopkeepers. I think we’re running late.”

He took out a pocket watch. It was a real museum piece, but it still kept the time. “Yep. Twenty minutes behind schedule. But rule one of a bureaucracy is that nothing ever runs to time. Not even a televised trial.” He sat down, stretched his leg, and rubbed his knee, and then his shoulder.

“Much pain?” she asked.

“No. I just want to get to the end of this,” he said. “It’s a show trial, with the emphasis on the show. You’ve got to admit, it’s all completely pointless.”

“Whether I do or not won’t bring down the curtain,” she said. “And there’s another bad choice of words. Why does every innocent expression also have a morbid connection?”

“I blame Shakespeare,” Bill said.

She smoothed the dress, gave it a tuck, a tug, and then gave a deep sigh. “I should have worn a suit, too. Well, one last time.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” Bill said. “You look amazing. Like a million stars fallen to Earth.”

“And there’s the man I fell in love with,” she said, leaning forward before remembering. “Ah, best not. Lipstick.”

“And there’s one more thing to hold against this kangaroo court.”

“Just don’t call the judges that,” she said.

Their forced joviality was brought to a merciful end by a knock at the door, accompanied by a tinny, and barely audible, voice announcing, “That’s a beaut of a swing from Ramanathan! Six isn’t enough for such a smooth-contact stroke. If anyone in Queensland’s listening, can we please have our ball back?”

The radio was switched off. “You folks decent?” the police constable asked. His voice was clearer than the radio broadcast, much younger, but just as Australian. After an almost polite pause, he opened the door.

The young man, only introduced to them as Zach, wore the grey uniform of the new Alliance Defence Force, an organisation which included the army, navy, and air-force, though no branch was as numerous as the paramilitary police. On his shoulder, an orange, big-finned fish swam against a deep blue background. Beneath the hand-stitched fish-badge was a blue and gold flash which had been the official colours of the Australian Capital Territory, but which were now the colours for Canberra State. To Bill, they would always be the colours of Lisa Kempton.

“Is it time?” Kim asked.

“It’s time,” Zach said.

Bill wearily stood. “Once more into the breach,” he said.

“But this time, let’s not close the wall with our English dead,” Kim said. “Remember that I’m proud of you, our kids are proud of you, and that you should be proud, too. Now, take my arm. They really shouldn’t have taken your cane.”

That last was directed at the young police officer, but Zach said nothing as he led the way along the corridor, towards the stairs, and to the courtroom.

The Zombie War Crimes Tribunal had been specially reconvened for Bartholomew Wright. Far busier at the beginning of the apocalypse, the tribunal had only sat sporadically in the year and a half since. This building had housed Canberra’s legislative assembly back in the old era, and refugee politicians during the early days of the crisis. It was now halfway through a conversion into an administrative hub for this newest state. The local politicians were being moved to the museum that was Canberra’s Old Parliament House, while the senators of the new Pacific Alliance had taken over New Parliament House. The earlier hearings had taken place in this building, thus so was Bill Wright’s.

Zach led them downstairs to a ground floor corridor where a clerk in razor-creased trousers and an almost-matching jacket menacingly tapped a tablet.

“You’re late,” she said.

“Nah, can’t be,” Zach said with calm equanimity. “It can’t start without him, can it?”

That got a glare from the clerk, who bustled across the corridor to a door marked Private. She stepped through, but returned a moment later.

“The judges are about to enter,” she said. “If you come with me, ma’am, you can take a seat at the back.”

“I’ll enter when Bill does,” Kim said.

“That’s not protocol,” the clerk said.

“It is for us,” Kim said.

The clerk glared, then turned her attention to Zach. “You should be guarding the public entrance.”

Zach shrugged. “G’luck, mate.”

“Thanks,” Bill said.

As Zach sauntered towards the double doors, the young man switched his radio back on. The sound of leather hitting willow, then a loud cheer, briefly filled the corridor. For one glorious second, Bill was transported back to his childhood and a balmy summer in Northumberland, playing a slow few overs with Jen Masterton and some of the tenant farmers’ children. As Zach, and his radio, vanished through the swing doors, the memory was replaced with a more recent one, of his capture, imprisonment, and torture, of Jen’s death, and of the fiery destruction of that ancient estate.

“We can’t keep justice waiting,” the clerk said.

“I love you, Bill,” Kim said.

“I love you, too,” he said. He followed the clerk inside. Kim followed a step behind. As Bill was led to the stand, Kim followed a different clerk to one of the seats set aside for spectators.

The stiff shoes and ill-fitting suit, as much as the lack of a cane, made walking more difficult than usual, so Bill took his time as he picked a path between the jungle of cables to the dock. There, he rested his hands on the wooden bar. Though the courtroom and dock were a post-outbreak addition to this building, the bar was already worn smooth by anxious hands. How many had truly been guilty? How many had really been innocent?

On a raised platform taking up the northern wall were seven empty chairs behind a curved desk. In front of each chair was a microphone. Facing the dais was a single table for the prosecution. Where the defence lawyers should have sat was a stenographer. Behind the lawyers’ tables were the cameras. One faced him. Another faced the judges. A third camera hung above the judges so as to capture reaction shots of the spectators.

Behind the cameras were the technicians, nine in total, most of whom were indiscreetly listening to the cricket over headphones. Behind them was the spectators’ gallery. There was room for about thirty seats. During the first set of hearings, when they were interrogating those involved in the Australian coup, they’d had to allocate seats by an oversubscribed lottery. Now, a year on, the public were more interested in the cricket world cup, and the more mundane, yet more immediate, problems of everyday life. Ten spectator seats remained. Six were occupied. Three journalists were already furiously jotting notes for the radio news. Since the proceedings hadn’t begun, it was likely they’d been looking for somewhere quiet to write up an unrelated story. Of the other spectators, one was Kim, a second was Zach, now listening to the cricket on headphones. The third was an old woman carefully unravelling a woollen jumper.

That about summed up the value and interest in anything he had to say. A year ago, the people of the Pacific had wanted answers. A year ago, they had got them. What he had to say was a footnote to an already written history. It wouldn’t alter the past, was of no interest to those alive in the present, and, thankfully, had no bearing on their collective future.

“All rise,” the clerk said.

Bill turned to face the door as the seven black-robed judges entered. Outwardly, it was a global panel for a species reduced to a handful of islands and one island-continent in the Pacific Ocean. Thus, each judge nominally represented a different continent.

The chief justice, Clarisse Blackwell, took her seat. “Please sit,” she said. Her official title was Justice for Oceania and Zealandia, but she’d been a leading human rights lawyer in Papua New Guinea before the outbreak. She gave a nod to Bill before turning to the cameras. “This is day eighty-three of the official Zombie War Crimes Tribunal. Today, we won’t be hearing testimony, but questioning the author of that testimony. Please could you confirm your name?”

“Bartholomew Wright,” Bill said.

“And you are the author of the journals describing the events in Europe and North America before and immediately after the outbreak?”

“I am,” he said.

“Thank you,” Blackwell said. “Those journals have already been entered into the record, but, Mr Wright, could you tell us when you wrote them, and when you edited them?”

“Usually, they were written at the end of the day, and before bed,” Bill said. “Sometimes, they were written as an alternative to sleep, when rest was made impossible by the undead pounding on the walls. They were edited when they were typed up on Anglesey, and again in Canada over the northern winter. The only changes made were for brevity and clarity.”

“And why did you begin writing them?” Blackwell asked.

“Originally? For my own sanity,” Bill said. “I began on the day the lights finally went out in London. I didn’t know that was the result of an EMP at the time. I didn’t learn about the nuclear war until long after. Back then, when the lights went out, the evacuation of London was complete. I was alone, trapped in my small flat with a broken leg, hoping rescue would come, but increasingly doubtful it would as, outside, the streets filled with the undead.”

“After finding safety, why did you keep writing them?” Blackwell asked.

“Have I found safety even now?” Bill replied. “After escaping the flat, I was alone, and wrote as a way of organising my thoughts, drawing conclusions, and developing an understanding of what had occurred. My need for this became more pressing, more dire, after I learned of the nuclear war, of Quigley’s involvement in the outbreak, and his murderous actions afterwards. At that point, I realised I was writing history. A last history, a final explanation of how our world had come to an end. Sure, there were times I hoped the evidence might be heard in a trial, though I hoped that trial would take place far closer to home.”

The man sitting to the right of Justice Blackwell leaned forward. He’d grown a walrus moustache to distract from his hippo jowls, but the court’s bright lights glinted off his gold-framed spectacles, drawing attention to his piggy eyes. “You hoped to be on trial?” he asked.

Blackwell cleared her throat. “The chair yields to Mr Barnaby Shand, Justice for Antarctica,” she said, “but only for one question.”

“I thought a trial would mean the survival of justice, democracy, and civilisation,” Bill said.

“And so it does,” Blackwell said, addressing the camera. “As copies of your journals have been widely distributed and discussed, we won’t go into the specifics here. Before we continue, can I ask you to clarify how you know Mr Scott Higson?”

“We met on Anglesey,” Bill said. “He was the pilot of the plane which crashed in France with myself and a few others aboard.”

“Thank you, and is that how you met Professor Fontayne?”

“It is,” Bill said.

“And aboard this plane were Salman Khan and Amber Kessler?” Blackwell asked.

“Yes, Khan and Kessler are two U.S. Marines who were with Admiral Janet Gunderson on the U.S.S. Harper’s Ferry,” Bill said. “They reached Anglesey a few months after the nuclear war.”

“The testimony of Mr Higson, Sergeant Khan, Private Kessler, and Professor Fontayne are already in the record,” Blackwell said. “It is from them, and the French and Ukrainian survivors, that we know a good deal about the collapse of Europe and the Middle East. A few other survivors of that calamity did make it to these safe waters, but none had such an influential role in the apocalypse as you.”

“I had no influence at all,” Bill said. “Afterwards, my only role was the same as yours is now. I was an observer and judge. At times I was an executioner. But in times like these, that is a role any true democrat must play.”

“I was referring to your evacuation plan,” Blackwell said. “It became the basis for evacuations across the Pacific, from Tasmania to Madagascar to Japan.”

“I wrote an evacuation plan for British cities,” Bill said, “not for the world.”

“How did you come to write it?” the judge at the far left asked. As an actress, Chieko Tanaka had been rescued from ronin, yakuza, and kaiju during a repetitive decade that had gained her global name-recognition but not, famously, job satisfaction. She’d swapped battling monsters for the theatre of a courtroom, and now acted as chief justice for all of Asia, a continent-constituency whose known population was now less than that of New Zealand.

“And the court recognises Chieko Tanaka,” Blackwell said, unable to keep the exasperation at this second breach of protocol from her voice, “but only for one question. Mr Wright, how and when did you write your evacuation plan?”

“I was in Whitehall when news of the outbreak in Manhattan broke,” Bill said. “During the bustle, I was knocked off a staircase. I fell. I broke my leg. I woke up in hospital a few days later, after surgery, to find out just how much of the world had already fallen. I was dosed on painkillers, but despite that, I could see what had to be done. We had to keep people inside and keep them from getting infected. It was the same protocol as with any pandemic, and I modelled my plan on the worst-case scenario of an Ebola outbreak. I guess that’s ironic, seeing as the zombie-virus was supposed to be a cure for Ebola, among other diseases. But I’m getting ahead of myself. You asked about the evacuation plan. I was a political strategist in the old world. I came up with policies. I wrote speeches. I developed grand ideas. I wasn’t affiliated with any party, but my principal client was Jen Masterton. Her family have been in British politics since the days someone thought red was a smart colour for a soldier’s coat. While her family have never clutched the reins of power for long, they never let go of the whip. Since you’ve got a copy of my journals, you can read those to learn about my childhood, but it was through her I knew a large portion of the front bench, on both sides. Because I knew Jen, and Jen knew the cabinet, when she took them my evacuation plan, they read it, and adopted it, completely unaware I’d written it while buzzing with opiates.”

There was a quiet cough from Kim in the audience.

“Before the outbreak, I had a small policy shop,” Bill said, picking his words with more care. “And I used my brother as a sounding board, at least online, but that’s another detail you can read for yourselves. What matters is why Quigley went along with this plan. He had no intention of carrying out an evacuation, but he needed to present something to the uninitiated members of cabinet and parliament so as to buy time for his real scheme to be carried out. My plan was to evacuate the cities, relocating the populace to the coast where they were closer to fishing grounds, to farmland, and to the power stations. By asking so many to sacrifice everything but their lives, it would then be easier to ask them to make another sacrifice, to willingly be conscripted into a land army, or a new regiment. From the coast, we’d retake the countryside, building walls to keep the farmers safe from the undead. Even then, that wouldn’t be enough. We had to save Ireland and France, and then beyond.”

“What was Quigley’s plan?” Blackwell asked.

“To kill all the city dwellers,” Bill said. “Remember, at this point, we all assumed the initial crisis would be over in a few weeks, perhaps a month or two. The zombies would die, and we’d be facing starvation. My solution was to fish, and find farmland, and to keep on looking until we’d found enough. Quigley’s was to reduce the population. The urbanites were told to walk to a muster point on the outskirts of their city. They were given what they were told was a vaccine. It was a poison. Many died. Many more realised what was going on and fled. They got infected. They became zombies. Britain would have collapsed anyway, even without the bombs.”

Shand cleared his throat.

Blackwell leaned back. “Go on, Barnaby,” she said, with utter informality.

“You know who created the zombie virus,” Shand said.

Since it wasn’t a question, Bill was tempted not to answer. But though he was deeply frustrated with the proceedings, obstruction wouldn’t hasten their end. “I can name the scientist most recently in charge of the project,” he said. “That is not the same as knowing all those who worked on it directly, or indirectly, over the years. Obviously, they weren’t trying to create zombies. Nor did they know that’s what they had created. It all began during the Cold War. Britain was broke. Armies were expensive. In comparison to nuclear bombs, bio-warfare was cheap. At some point, they realised that a super-vaccine could be as effective as a super-weapon. Partly, I expect, it was because they’d need an antidote for any biological agent they dropped on Moscow. Increasingly, it was with the intention of using medical diplomacy as a weapon. Develop a super-vaccine, and then create a plague. Offer the vaccine to friendly nations, or any nations that would become friendly. Watch the rest of the world sicken, and then use nuclear weapons to finish them off. That was the broad strokes of the plan developed decades ago, and broadly the same plan which brought an end to our world. The technical impossibility of creating a super-vaccine is why it was a side-project for so long. It’s why it was so poorly resourced until Dr Singh developed a potential workaround, and that is why his project was so ill-funded that they couldn’t afford proper testing. By this stage, Quigley was leading the political conspiracy, but it had been around so long, it had grown into a cabalistic movement with adherents in many nations. He kept the project secret, thus restricting its funding, and ensuring that only minimal testing could be done. By chance, the few patients they used as guinea pigs were naturally immune. Thus, when they didn’t die, Quigley arranged the demonstration in New York.”

Blackwell leaned forward. “Details of that demonstration are included in the evidence gathered by Commissioner Qwong. What happened to Dr Singh?”

“He died on Anglesey,” Bill said. “He genuinely thought he’d created a universal cure, and regretted his actions to his dying breath. He wouldn’t sleep, barely ate, and spent his remaining days attempting to come up with a cure. I believe your scientists have examined the copies we made of his final work and agreed with our own assessment that everything he wrote, post-outbreak, was gibberish.”

“Dr Avalon used a slightly stronger word to describe it,” Blackwell said. “Mr Shand, you had a question?”

“The Rosewood Cartel,” Shand said, jabbing his finger down on the page. “What do you know about them?”

“Not much,” Bill said. “You have to understand that the conspiracy, in one form or another, has been bubbling away for decades. During those years, it’s had many followers. Some retired, were ousted, or defected. Inevitably, they told others. Meanwhile, new followers were recruited. In the end, it was hardly a secret at all. Hundreds of people, in various parties, and in many different governments, knew of this scheme. Broadly speaking, this iteration had supporters in the senior ranks of each nuclear power. But no one was quite at the top. They were the also-rans. They’d failed to achieve power at the ballot box. And as such, though near the top of government, their resources were limited. Take the naturally immune test patients. They were kidnapped, we believe from Africa, and then flown to a holding facility for testing. You can’t use military or government planes for that. Even mercenaries would ask questions. Criminals wouldn’t. That’s where the cartel came in.”

“We’ve got the testimony of Tess Qwong and her investigation, and the transcripts of the trial following the coup,” Blackwell said. “Mr Shand, I thought you had a question about Quigley?”

“Is he dead?” Shand asked.

“Absolutely,” Bill said. “I doubt many people in this hemisphere will have heard of him, though I’m sure you’re familiar with his type. Maybe you’ve seen that photograph of him riding a tank while wearing a flak jacket. Once, he had a military supply plane delayed so he could fly with it to the front. He sang the praises of the armed forces, and then voted to cut their funding. He was a glory hunter with so many trophies on the wall, there was nothing but skeletons in his closet.”

“But he was prime minister after the outbreak,” Shand said.

“Only after he murdered his predecessor,” Bill said.

“But he was selected by your cabinet?” Shand asked.

Bill frowned. This wasn’t a line of questioning he’d been expecting. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“It’s a simple question,” Shand said.

“Was he a legitimate prime minister?” Tanaka asked.

“Legitimate? I don’t know,” Bill said. “We had a coalition cabinet, and a coalition government. After the last P.M.’s death, they asked him to take over, and the monarch invited him to form a government. I suppose, yes, he was a legitimate prime minister, but only in a purely technical sense. That wouldn’t absolve him from being a criminal.”

“Absolutely not,” Tanaka said. “How did he die?”

“My brother and I killed him,” Bill said. “After I fled London, after I met Kim, and the two girls who would become my daughters. We went north. Again, the journals will provide the details, but we met my brother at the Oxfordshire lab where the zombie virus was made. Intel there, and provided by my brother, and again by Mary O’Leary’s people in Anglesey, confirmed that Quigley was based in Northumberland at the Masterton family estate. We went there, and killed him.”

“And Masterton?” Shand asked.

“Jen Masterton was murdered by Quigley,” Bill said. “She was deliberately infected. Turned into a zombie.”

“In your journals you say she’d claimed the crown,” Shand said.

“Sure,” Bill said.

“So she was queen?” Shand asked.

“Not really,” Bill said. “You’d have to ask a constitutional scholar, but I believe it would have required an Act of Parliament, and the other parliaments in the Commonwealth would then have had to have votes of their own.”

“During the crisis,” Shand said, “your parliament’s authority had been handed to the cabinet Quigley led, after he’d been appointed prime minister by the last monarch.”

“Again, ask a constitutional scholar,” Bill said. “Does it matter?”

“No,” Blackwell said, glaring at Shand. “What happened after you killed Quigley?”

“Our family joined those on Anglesey,” Bill said. “We began the hunt for more survivors in Wales, and anywhere we could reach by sea. Ireland was an obvious place to look, being geographically close, plus we had the reports of those who’d escaped Ireland by sea.”

“Led by a French colonel?” Tanaka asked.

“Yes,” Bill said. “After the outbreak, and as the runways across Europe became clogged with crashed planes, overseas EU military units were redirected to Ireland. Strategically, Ireland is relatively remote, and shielded from mainland Europe by Britain, so it was a logical spot for the forces to gather. But I am confident part of the motivation in deploying military units there was as a bulwark against Quigley. Members of the French government were at the demonstration in New York, while even the least astute observer would have seen Northern Ireland had been abandoned. But, like elsewhere, the European fight-back failed after the lights went out. A few months later, some of the survivors found a home on Anglesey. But we shared the island with a nuclear power station. We had to assume containment would fail. Therein lay our biggest problem. Because everyone knew we’d have to leave, and because they’d all been through such trauma, few wanted to farm. That’s not to say they were lazy, and when volunteers were called for, our quotas were easily met. But why plough a field if the farm will be abandoned before harvest? And because we had few worked fields, we knew we’d have to leave long before harvest.”

“Your leader there was a retired teacher from Ireland,” Shand said.

“Um… yes,” Bill said, again wrong-footed. “She uses a wheelchair, which made her own journey to Anglesey slow. Because of that, she picked up a lot of people on the way. She’d proved to everyone she knew how to keep them safe. Thus, she was the natural choice for leader.”

“But she was from Ireland, and you were in Wales,” Shand said.

“If this is another constitutional question, I’m going to say speak to a lawyer,” Bill said. “She’s our leader.”

“Only until the American admiral arrived,” Shand said.

“Mary O’Leary is still our head of state,” Bill said. “Whatever, and wherever, that state is. Janet Gunderson was only elected after we fled Belfast. She was the surgeon general of the U.S. Navy, and working aboard a hospital ship in the southern Atlantic. She was fortunate enough to escape the ship after it was overrun with the undead. She was picked up by a support ship, the U.S.S. Harper’s Ferry, off Cape Verde. They did their best to continue helping survivors, until we made contact, and they came to Anglesey. From the moment of her arrival, she made it clear that her duty was to return her crew to the United States, so giving them the opportunity to return home. At that point, we were two communities. We lacked both the ships and the fuel for even one vessel to cross the Atlantic, but we could cross to Ireland. We’d planned to relocate to Belfast when the power station was sabotaged. Our departure was rushed. One of the ships ran aground in Dundalk, and our plane ended up crashing in France, but you’ve got Mr Higson’s testimony, and that of the French survivors, for the details of that affair.”

“We do, thank you,” Blackwell said even as Shand opened his mouth to interrupt. “Go on.”

“Belfast was overrun,” Bill said. “Yes, that’s when Janet Gunderson was elected to lead those survivors, but we were scattered. A horde had obliterated Birmingham and was marching on London. A smaller horde was marching on Belfast, and that city was on fire. The reactor on Anglesey was leaking into the Irish Sea. I was stranded in France. We lucked out in Calais, though I wish we’d arrived a little sooner. We found Flora Fielding, a British naval officer who had been guarding a cruise ship and an Albion-class landing platform dock. Those ships weren’t in Calais, and she was being held prisoner. But we freed her, dealt with her captors, and went north while others in our community, looking for us, found her ships.”

“And she’s the legitimate captain of that ship?” Shand asked.

Bill pretended to think on the question, though he was really thinking about the word legitimate. He was starting to understand the real purpose of this tribunal. “She was part of the crew before the outbreak. The ship was stationed in the Southern Atlantic. Afterwards, they joined in the relief effort which was commanded by a retired Russian admiral, Popolov. She was appointed captain of a cruise ship during their journey north. She took command of the Courageous as part of our fleet.”

“On leaving Ireland, you sailed north, not south?” Tanaka asked, before Shand could interject.

“We needed a new home,” Bill said. “We also, now, knew there were survivors in France, and thought they were aiming for the Pyrenees. Meanwhile, Admiral Popolov had gone north towards Russia. Our goal was to find a secure base from which we could look for and rescue other survivors. A salted bomb was used on Copenhagen. There is no safe naval route into the Baltic. Vast swathes of Denmark and the north, like so many other places in that hemisphere, are too radioactive to even approach. Things were getting desperate. Though we wanted to make contact with the French survivors, we were running low on fuel, food, and options.”

“That’s why you went to Canada?” Blackwell asked.

“Hang on, I want to go back to this Gunderson woman,” Shand said. “She was the surgeon general of the U.S. Navy. That’s in the presidential line of succession.”

“We’ve established Mr Wright is not here as a constitutional scholar,” Blackwell said. “Mr Wright, you were telling us about Canada.”

“First we went to Faroe,” Bill said. “There are people there. Perhaps a hundred, though we only met a handful. They weren’t hostile, but they weren’t friendly. While they allowed us to stay, they controlled the power station and made it clear the lights would be turned off if we didn’t leave come spring. We left early, as soon as our scout ship found there were people in Nova Scotia. That some of them, refugees from the U.S., were old friends to some of us was a bonus. It was a hard winter in Canada, but our communities became one, as had happened so many times before. Leading the Canadians was Napatchie Ashoona, an MP in the last Canadian government, so we created a leadership triumvirate. An idea backed by absolutely everyone, so there can be no questions of its legitimacy.”

“This was in Nova Scotia?” Blackwell asked.

“Yes, in Digby and Annapolis Royal,” Bill said. “Our immediate problem in Canada was fuel. We had electricity thanks to a tidal barrage and a small hydro plant in Annapolis Royal, but few electric vehicles. We’d have frozen during the winter if we’d not had diesel-ploughs to dig us out. Plus, the ships needed diesel. We’d found a few reserves on Newfoundland, but these were so small, no one had bothered exploiting them in the century since their discovery. We needed to find more oil. That’s what took us west. Our ships took us as far as Saguenay, but the oilfields of British Columbia, or the Dakotas, were still five thousand kilometres away. We needed more fuel, more vehicles, and a base of operations simply to survey what condition they were in. During that expedition we found a trading post in the town of Alma. It wasn’t really a town, more a hub for family-settlements scattered further north. As we continued our search, we came to Temagami, where we found Scott Higson being held captive.”

“But you first found Herrera,” Blackwell asked.

“Carlos Herrera, yes,” Bill said. “We didn’t know who he was at first, and it wasn’t until reading your commissioner’s account that some of the gaps were filled. Kim and I, and our pilot, Felice, were in a helicopter, conducting an aerial survey, and were shot down. On foot, we came across the tail end of a battle. Herrera killed one of his own people in order to make it look like he was a survivor rather than the perpetrator of a massacre. He said he was part of a group in Temagami, and that’s where he took us, and where we were captured, and met Scott Higson, Andrea MacDonald and her brother, Jerome. We escaped, and split up. Scott took the plane. We went by road, and went back to Alma to gather our troops, and so then returned for revenge…”

23rd March

Chapter 2 - The Avenging Army

Temagami, Ontario

“A biscuit jar,” Bill said, tapping his hand against the revolver’s polymer grip. “Shoe polish. The puzzle-section in the newspaper.”

“Are you playing I can’t spy?” Kim said, not taking her eyes from the road ahead, or her hand from the pump-action rifle.

“I was listing all the things I miss,” Bill said. He reached for the radio before changing his mind. The last message had been to hold position, and there was nothing he could do to hurry along the all-clear, so they waited.

Twenty up-armoured cars were parked on the road leading into the barbarian-ravaged town of Temagami, but this represented only half of the avenging army which had set off from Alma. The other half had taken a more northerly route. Having left their vehicles beyond earshot, Leon and his team had advanced the last three kilometres on foot. Thus, the enemy would be encircled. They’d heard nothing on the radio to say the plan had changed, but they’d not heard much at all. Not even gunfire.

“There’s a nice view here,” Kim said. “If you like lakes, that is. Personally, I’m undecided.”

“I’d prefer a lake to a mountain,” Bill said. “More chance of something happening.”

“Exactly,” Kim said. “There’s more chance of a flood.”

“Mountains have avalanches.”

“But you can climb a mountain,” she said. “Oh, I do miss going for a walk.”

“Hikes have been no fun since the outbreak,” he said.

“There are no zombies here,” she said. “And I don’t mean a hike. I mean a random walk while dinner is in the oven. A brisk twenty minutes up the road and across the park. In the summer, anyway. Couldn’t in winter, not after they shut off the street lights. I never asked, was that you?”

“Was what me?” Bill asked, again reaching for the radio before changing his mind.

“Was it you who decided it was a smart idea to switch off the street lights?”

“Let there be darkness,” Bill said. “No. I advocated keeping them on all night, and doubling the number we had. We’d have saved a fortune on policing. But the treasury accountants said that a crime which didn’t happen wouldn’t pay for electricity which was used.”

“I miss street lights,” Kim said. “How far did we travel?”

“From Alma? Twelve hundred kilometres,” Bill said. “Two hundred more than we planned for.”

He and Kim had taken news of Temagami’s fall back to Alma. To him, the more important news had been that they had found and rescued Scott Higson and two Canadians. The most important news had been that Scott had been sent to Canada as a member of a mission from the Pacific. There were survivors in the southern hemisphere. Millions. But this wasn’t the most important piece of news to the Almans. They might not personally know any of the dead in Temagami, but those people had been their neighbours.

A detective from South Bend, Tom Wilgus, had set up a trading hub in the Quebec town of Alma, on the banks of Lac Saint-Jean. The nearby locals were scattered around the lake and further north, living in fortified farms and extended family units. The Almans had fuel, and so the dispersed settlements were able to travel to the trading post to trade their excess and exchange rumours.

A few weeks ago, Bill and Kim had arrived with the Nova Scotians, Tracy, Ethan, Alice, and Felice. While his group had continued west, the news of their arrival had spread north at the speed of a truck. By the time Bill and Kim returned to Alma with grim tidings of the massacre in Temagami, a large contingent of Quebecois were in the town.

A mob had gathered outside the trading post. It wasn’t an army, and was barely a militia, being armed with hunting rifles, handguns, spears, and axes. There was no leadership in Alma. Truthfully, as few people lived in that town, it would be more accurate to call them Quebecois, though there were as many from south of the Canadian border as those who called this land mon pays. Whatever they should be called, they wanted revenge. The detective, Tom Wilgus, ran the trading post, but he wasn’t their leader. The mob listened to him, but it was clear that no one would be able to talk the crowd down. They were set on revenge. So Bill and Kim, and Wilgus, went with them, picking up Leon and his soldiers en route.

At its peak, the convoy had fifty-three vehicles. Five had broken down. Seven had left to check that outlying settlements hadn’t met the same tragic fate as Temagami. Last night, they had stopped on the roadside when it became too dark to continue. Leon had separated out the best soldiers into an advanced-column to travel ahead. The main column was to be the hammer. The advanced-column was the drill. This raised many questions about Leon’s skills at home-repair, but it was obvious as they approached the walled town that the enemy had fled.

The gates were wide open. Ethan and Alice were waiting inside. The two Canadian Special Forces soldiers had accompanied Bill and Kim through Quebec. Prior to the Europeans’ arrival in Nova Scotia, they had been the twin pillars of the Canadian wall holding back the undead. Thanks to a long-ago battlefield injury, Ethan growled rather than spoke, but usually did neither, preferring to silently loom. As terrifying an impression as that made, Alice eclipsed him. When the ammo had run low, she’d switched to knives, and now carried a dozen hand-crafted throwing blades split between a bandolier across her chest and a thigh-holster, with a hunting knife at one hip, and an even larger Bowie knife at the other.

It was Ethan and Alice who had directed the convoy to wait on the road. The infrequent hold position on the radio was a subtitle to the smoke still rising from inside, but that fire had begun long before their army had arrived.

“Something’s up,” Kim said as Alice jogged towards them. She opened the door. “Is there trouble?” she asked.

“No,” Alice said, as she ran to the black pickup stopped behind. “We found a survivor,” she said to the driver. “You’re now an ambulance. Pick up Ethan at the gate. He’ll take you to the patient. Go.”

Alice stepped back as the truck sped off. Bill got out of the car, joining Kim as she walked over to Alice.

“There’s a survivor?” Bill asked.

“A prisoner,” Alice said. “He was secured inside a roll of chicken-wire, and staked out near the dam.”

“He’s one of the locals?” Bill asked.

“He’s unconscious, but we think so,” Alice said.

“What about the enemy?” Bill asked.

“Gone,” Alice said. “And gone that way.” She pointed along the road down which they’d just driven.

“So we’ve just obliterated the trail?” Bill asked.

“Maybe not,” Alice said. Her radio chirruped. She held it to her ear. “The colonel wants to know the plan.”

“He’s not the only one,” Kim said.

Car doors were opening as, up and down the road, people disembarked from their vehicles.

“Only one survivor?” Bill asked.

“Only one,” Alice said.

“Any traps?” he asked.

“Not yet,” she said.

“Detail everyone here to search the buildings for other prisoners,” Bill said. “Ask them to collect any maps, notes, or other clues as to where the enemy might have gone. In one hour, we’ll be leaving. The clock is ticking, but these people journeyed far. They’ve earned the right to prove to themselves they did all they could. Pass the word.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, speaking into the radio as she began moving up the column.

“Let’s take that walk,” Bill said.

Cars sped towards the gate as he and Kim strolled after them.

“Seven cars disappeared on our way here,” he said.

“They didn’t disappear,” Kim said. “They said where they were going.”

“Sure, to check on friends in remote farms,” Bill said. “And I bet, as we drive back to Alma, a lot of these people will split off on the same mission.”

“You’re using your doom-approaches tone, but I can’t see the problem.”

“Fuel is finite,” Bill said. “We do need to make contact with everyone, and I don’t want to duplicate journeys.”

“Well, sure, it would be far better if you could set up a spreadsheet, and have everyone follow your specific instructions, but sometimes administration has to take a back seat to expediency. What’s the real problem?”

“What happens next,” Bill said. “People will come to Alma. What do we tell them?”

“Whether it’s about the Pacific or what happened here, we tell them the truth,” Kim said.

“Yes, of course. And then what? What is the truth about the Pacific? Ultimately, do we tell people to go back to their farms, or do we tell them to pack up their things? If it’s to pack, when should they leave and where should they go? Up until now, we’ve been hoping for a harvest, but living as if there might not be a tomorrow. The Pacific changes that, but until we know more details, we don’t know how much has changed, or how quickly, and yet people will still come to Alma.”

“You know why politicians lost elections?” she asked. “Every single time, every single politician who lost, do you know why?”

“What? No. I don’t think there was a single unifying reason,” he said, wrong-footed by the apparent change of topic.

“Because you politicians always underestimated the electorate. We’re not stupid, Bill. Well, most of us. And anyone who’s survived this long has to be more than just lucky. People might come to Alma to confirm the news is true, but then they’ll go back home. We’ll tell them to tune in to the radio. I’ll have a word with Tracy when we get back to Alma, and see if she’s well enough to help set up a radio transmitter. We’ll broadcast recorded music as a signal-check, and a bulletin every day at dawn, noon, and sunset. Then, when you’ve figured out the details of the next step, you can let everyone know. How does that sound for a solution?”

“Okay, sure, but it only solves half the problem. The bigger half is that these people in Quebec are all strangers to each other, and most will be strangers to the Almans. Add in us, and no one will really know who anyone is.”

“Are you worried that some of these killers might turn up at the trading post?” she asked.

“That doesn’t bother me nearly so much as what that lot will do if they suspect a stranger of having come from here,” he said. “These killers are survivors, too, and the best way to survive now is to join the biggest community they can find. If they keep their heads down, they could wait for a flight to Oz, where they can disappear into an even larger crowd. No, the killers won’t be the next problem. It’ll be the lynch mob that forms when some unsuspecting soul asks too many questions about what happened in Temagami.”

They stopped at the gates, because Tom Wilgus approached.

“I policed the Indy-500 a few years back,” he said. “That wasn’t as chaotic as this.”

“I didn’t think they’d be willing to turn back without at least seeing there was no vengeance to be had,” Bill said. “How’s the survivor?”

“He’ll make it,” Tom said. “He regained consciousness, but only briefly. He said he’s not from around here, but wants to go home. I didn’t get a specific location on where that is, except it’s to the north, and well beyond a day’s drive. He set out when the snow melted.”

“Did he say anything about this gang, or where they went?” Kim asked.

“They came from the south, and that’s the direction they went. They want to go to Australia where they expect a friendly welcome, travelling via a bunker where they expect to find supplies. He passed out after that.”

“We’ve solved one problem,” Kim said. “Bill was worried an Alman mob would seek retribution from any strangers who arrived in the next few weeks, but we can set minds at rest by saying these killers went south. Presumably, across the border. How long ago did they flee?”

“Yesterday,” Tom said. “It took them a while to get organised.”

“Then we’ll keep up the hunt,” Bill said. “We can send the patient back to Alma along with an escort of anyone who really shouldn’t be in a battle. If we take any extra fuel those vehicles don’t need, we can maintain the chase for a couple of days.”

“That should be long enough to confirm they’ve fled beyond their ability to return,” Wilgus said. “I’ll pass the word.”

Bill turned around, walking back to their car. “Carlos thinks he has friends in Australia. That’s not good.”

“What kind of friends?” Kim asked. “And what does that say about Australia?”

Chapter 3 - The Kawasaki That Broke the Chevy’s Back

Jocko River, Ontario

“When was the last time you saw a zombie?” Bill asked as they stood by the abandoned truck, waiting for the soldiers to return from their search of the nearby forest.

Tom Wilgus had taken the patient and most of the Almans back to the trading post. Only soldiers had been allowed to continue the hunt. Soldiers and Bill and Kim.

“Saw or remember seeing?” Kim asked. “And I’m not sure of the answer to either. Probably days. Why, is there one?” she added, raising her Remington pump-action rifle.

“No, we’re clear,” Bill said.

“Next time, start with that. Honestly, Bill.”

“Sorry, but you did just make my point for me,” he said. “Now that monsters of myth have walked the Earth, fear of them will never go away.”

“As long as they are gone, I won’t mind if the fear, or the stories, linger,” she said. “Now, finish your search before it starts raining again.”

It was three hours since they’d left Temagami. While it was ten degrees too warm for snow, visibility was sinking far faster than the sun. A southerly wind had created an atmospheric pile-up of dense Arctic clouds, but so far the rain had been limited to a few sharp squalls. The roads had been surprisingly free of debris, as well as of the undead, enabling them to average forty kilometres an hour. Perhaps it wasn’t so surprising, since they pursued a similar-sized convoy who’d travelled this way only a day before.

Because of their speed, and the low visibility, they could easily have missed the curving tyre-marks that followed an overgrown muddy track off the road. Despite the bright orange bodywork, and because of the green tarp covering the back, they might not have seen the truck as they sped by. But the driver had cut the low-hanging branches from every nearby tree to use as camouflage. The freshly sawn stubs jutting from the tree trunks were white-yellow beacons as clear as searchlights.

While Kim stood guard, Bill continued his circuit around the vehicle. Large portions of the truck’s trim had been removed, including some of the under-carriage, presumably to reduce weight. In turn, that had given the driver an over-confidence in how heavy a load the truck could haul. On the back, beneath a roped-down tarp, were plastic crates. About forty-litres in capacity, stacked six tall, five deep, and six long, each was full of loot stolen from Temagami.

“They took food and first-aid kits, batteries, and tools,” Bill said. “That explains why it took them so long to flee.”

“From what we saw of them, I doubt they spent as much time packing as they did arguing,” Kim said.

Atop the crates were nine spare tyres, none of which fit the shredded back wheel of the Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle that had been slung atop the tyres. From the haste of the knots, the burdensome motorcycle had been added during the drive, and had been one weight too many. The rear axle was cracked.

“Movement,” Kim said. “It’s Leon.”

The colonel emerged silently from the creaking, blooming forest, managing to avoid every dry branch and rustling leaf.

“There is no one here,” Leon said.

“If they left Temagami at first light, they’d have arrived here around late morning,” Bill said. “How long would it have taken to cut those branches? Thirty minutes?”

“Perhaps longer,” Leon said. “They would have continued before midday.”

“Then they could have managed another two hundred kilometres before nightfall,” Bill said. “But there’s no extra loot here, or bodies. They didn’t lighten the rest of their transport, and some vehicles would now be carrying the extra weight of the truck driver, and the biker. We could find more broken-down trucks ahead.”

“Perhaps,” Leon said. “But not tonight.”

“Agreed,” Bill said. “Gather your people. We’ll move out, and find somewhere to wait for dawn.”

Three kilometres from the abandoned truck, they found a brand-new road sign. A bookshelf had been nailed to two broom-handles buried deep in the verge. On the shelf was painted the word Refuge. The arrow beneath pointed to an overgrown track still bearing deep ruts from heavy traffic. At the end of the track was a cabin. On the porch lay two skeletons, loosely held together by shreds of denim and waterproof plastic. Small beasts, and large insects, had picked the bones clean, but the skulls appeared intact. These people might have been suicides, but it was equally probable they had been murdered. The ten bicycles in the front room suggested this house had been a way-station for the Temagami effort to reconnect Canadian survivors.

“Want to swap?” Kim asked.

“I need to exercise my arm,” Bill said, looking up from the grave he’d begun to dig. “Besides, I don’t like being cooped up in that car. To think we used to do that to ourselves all the time.”

“Sheer madness, right?” she said. “Like how we put such great stock in a solid roof only to then drill holes in the walls for water to be piped inside. Let me take over for a bit. I don’t want you putting your arm back in a cast.”

He stepped up and aside. “Did you find any other bodies?”

“No, just the two,” she said, setting to with the shovel. “Maybe the soldiers will find more nearby in the forest. There wasn’t much loot inside, either, and I don’t think there was much to begin with.”

“I’ll go and gather the bones,” he said.

With a wheelbarrow to carry the remains, dignity took a backseat to haste.

“There, that’s deep enough,” Kim said, as he wheeled the barrow over. “Should we wait for the soldiers to return?”

“There’s no need,” Bill said. “We’ve all done this too many times, in too many places.”

There was no way to gracefully lay the bones in the grave, so they did it quickly, and just as quickly filled it in.

“We don’t know your names,” Bill said as he and Kim stood over the filled grave. “But we know who you were. You came from Temagami. You wanted to set up way-stations across Canada. Each would be a day’s cycle ride from the next. Through this network, you wanted to reconnect settlements from coast to coast. You wanted to bring people back together, to bring hope. We don’t know your names, but we know your deeds. You were among the best of us. We would have been glad to call you our friends.”

Dusk was settling as they entered the house, but they were still among the first there. Leon was using a search of the nearby woods as a training exercise for what might, or might not, come tomorrow. Ethan and Alice, professionals long before the outbreak, had been put on cooking duty.

“Perfect timing,” Alice said.

“For dinner?” Kim asked.

“To make it,” Alice said.

“You really don’t want to try Bill’s cooking,” Kim said. “The best you can say is that he really does try.”

“And I’m happy to cite that as a reason to leave the work to you, dear,” Bill said.

“Can you keep an eye on the fire, then?” Alice asked. “Those pans contain washing water for the troops when they come in. They’ll need to be rotated.”

“Just be careful with your arm,” Kim said.

The pans were made of a composite material rather than metal, collapsible rather than rigid, and an utter marvel. Commercial, rather than military grade, even the brand name didn’t char as they warmed over the roaring log fire. But as warming as the flames were, there was work to be done, so he picked up the bag they’d found in the abandoned truck.

There hadn’t been time to properly search Temagami, but if this bag was anything to go by, a wealth of intelligence would have been left behind. Of course, by the time they returned to that abandoned town, that information would be long out of date. This bag contained so many maps and guidebooks, there was room for little else.

“Annette’s right,” Kim said. “Humans should come with a volume button.”

“Sorry,” Bill said, looking up. “Was I talking aloud?”

“Yes, but not loud enough for us all to hear,” she said.

“Noughts and crosses,” Bill said, holding up a guidebook. “There are a lot of guidebooks here, and a lot of maps, but there are three nearly identical maps of the border region between Canada and the U.S. These three are marked with an almost identical number, and exactly identical position, of circles and circled X’s. The pattern of the circles forms a stretched triangle between Ottawa, Toronto, and Sudbury, with the highest density of marks along the shores of Lake Huron and Lake Ontario, and with very few marks north of Lake Nipissing.” He held out two of the maps. Kim took one and passed the other to Alice.

“Temagami is north of Lake Nipissing, yes?” Kim asked.

“Supplies,” Ethan said, glancing over Alice’s shoulder, before returning to his cook-pot. “Found, or used.”

“That’s what I thought,” Bill said. “But I was wondering in which direction they were travelling. We know some of the motorbikes came from Michigan. Wilgus told us Herrera was a cop in Indiana. We know my brother was shot at in New York at the end of December, and south of Lake Ontario is New York State.”

“That could be a coincidence,” Alice said.

“Sure,” Bill said. “Wilgus confirmed the crossing at Sault Ste Marie was destroyed by General Yoon during the first days of the outbreak, so why doesn’t this map have any marks further west towards Lake Superior, and ultimately, the land border with the U.S.?”

“Ships,” Ethan said.

“Exactly,” Bill said. “I think they crossed the Great Lakes by boat.”

“Plenty of boats on a lake,” Alice said. “And you don’t need a big boat to move a motorcycle.”

“Perhaps,” Bill said.

“That particular tone means he disagrees,” Kim said, holding the map up to the light.

“I’m just unconvinced,” Bill said. “There were hundreds of people in Temagami, and they were setting up bicycle depots along the highways. They wanted to make contact with people. Somewhere, in a house like this, they met a few of those motorcycling scouts. Thus the killers learned about Temagami, regrouped, and went there. But they found too many survivors to control, too many to be assimilated, and so the killers massacred the locals to take their food. We can also assume, I think, that the reason the locals all had to die was so there’d be no witnesses to identify these bikers were killers. But, and this is the crucial bit, they killed the locals before Scott’s plane arrived. Before they learned there were survivors in the Pacific.”

“The prisoner we freed mentioned they were now heading to the Pacific,” Alice said. “Ah, so you think, if they knew about the Pacific before, they’d never have bothered coming north across the lake?”

“Probably not,” Bill said. “But having just massacred all the locals, and presumably already begun torturing Jerome and Andrea, they couldn’t then make nice with Scott. Obviously, they don’t want to farm. They want as easy a life as violence can get them, and that means getting to the Pacific. They can’t go west, to anywhere they might be identified by Scott, Jerome, or Andrea.”

“So they’d choose to go south?” Kim asked. “Didn’t that freed prisoner mention a bunker? I can’t see a clue on the map as to where it might be.”

“I’m going to assume the bunker is somewhere in the U.S.,” Bill said. “But ultimately, their plan must be to get to the coast, have a wash and shave, and impersonate a group of ordinary American survivors.”

“Did your pilot friend mention where on the coast a ship might dock?” Alice asked.

“No,” Bill said. “But we were pressed for time. The killers had longer to question them, and to search the boat-plane.”

“And?” Ethan prompted.

“That’s where I get a bit stuck,” Bill said. “They’re probably retracing the route they took to get to Temagami, intending to reclaim the boats they used to initially cross the lake. If we can figure out where that is, we might be able to cut them off, but there are a lot of marks on these maps.”

“Why, it’s elementary, my dear Bartholomew,” Kim said. She handed her map to Alice. “Hold it up to the light, and look at the ink. The circles all have a purple shine to them. That’s done by the same pen. The X’s are written in different inks.”

“Not all the circles,” Alice said. “There are some by the Ottawa River which are circled in red.”

“Red ink over that purplish-black ink,” Kim said. “Look closer. Wait, you might need a brighter light.”

“No, I’ve got it,” Alice said. “So the locations on the Ottawa River were re-circled.”

“In confirmation,” Kim said. “And you can confirm it with the other maps. The circles mark places copied out of a guidebook, and since they’re mostly along rivers, I think they’re tourist spots. B&Bs, that kind of thing. Somewhere remote enough to have a generator and a private fuel store. They were bikers, weren’t they? They could have driven RVs, but they picked bikes. They’d need a lot of fuel, and be unable to carry much with them. The locations from the guidebook were copied onto the maps. One map was given to each biker. They went out, alone or in groups, to survey them. When they returned, the maps were updated. An X means nothing is there, a second circle means there is.”

“And they left their copies of the maps behind because they no longer need them,” Alice said. “They now need to go to Australia.”

“Boat,” Ethan said, taking the map. “Ottawa.”

“The Ottawa River,” Alice said. “Could be. And there are a lot of circles along the banks. It’s a big river, and flows right into the St Lawrence.”

“Quebec City was radioactive,” Kim said.

“Maybe they don’t know that,” Alice said. “Or maybe they want to go south, into Lake Ontario, and then down to New York State. Maybe this bunker is actually in New York. They left the city because it had food and fuel, but too much concrete to farm. They came north looking for fields, but now are returning to New York for supplies, before heading on to California, Mexico, or Panama, and then Australia.”

“What do you think, Bill?” Kim asked.

“That we’ll continue following the trail tomorrow and see if it leads us to the Ottawa River,” Bill said.

24th March

Chapter 4 - Riverside Retreat

Alexander Lake Forest, The Ottawa River

The sound of flesh sliding across glass dragged Bill back from his nightmare-dreams. Even as he reached for the hunting knife, sheathed in the belt hung on the side table, his brain adjusted. What had been a zombie in his nightmares had, in reality, been a bird perched on the windowsill, enjoying the second-hand heat leaking from the bedroom.

“Don’t tell me it’s morning,” Kim said, pulling the sheet over her head. “Urgh, musty,” she added, throwing the sheet aside. “Well, that woke me up.”

“It’s about six, I think,” Bill said. He limped over to the window. The small bird, sporting a black and white striped face, eyed him balefully, before flapping away.

“I think it was a chickadee,” he said.

“You say that about every bird,” Kim said. “You said it about a robin yesterday.”

“Sooner or later, I’ll be right,” he said. “It looks beautiful out there.”

Kim joined him by the window. The forest rolled and fell from one horizon to the other, seemingly without interruption by house, road, or pylon. They enjoyed a brief moment of shared serenity, where nothing existed but them and nature, where the past was forgotten and the future was unwritten, until a bang from below brought them back to the present.

Breakfast was the remains of the moose that had been shot for their dinner. Each mouthful gave Bill the opportunity to reflect on the many times he’d gone vegan since the outbreak, often immediately after a meal, though sometimes while trying to skin it.

Leon exhibited an over-abundance of caution as they departed, assigning Bill and Kim to the back of a truck with Alice and Ethan as their driver-bodyguards. With Ethan’s head blocking his view, Bill opened one of the guidebooks, beginning at the beginning, and was instantly confronted with a wealth of truly terrifying information.

“Canada has more roads per person than anywhere on Earth except for the Pitcairn Islands,” Bill said.

“Why have I heard that name?” Alice asked.

“Bounty,” Ethan growled.

“Yep. They’re the descendants of the mutineers from the Bounty,” Bill said.

“Ah. So it’s not a big place?” Alice asked.

“Seventy people, I think,” Bill said. “It was a British Overseas Territory in the Pacific.”

“I wonder if they survived,” Kim said. “Maybe the Union Jack is still flying somewhere.”

“I wonder if it’s still flying in the corner of the Australian flag,” Bill said. He turned back to the book, but most of the other facts were now wrong: population size, economy, employment, industry, and tourist attractions. He closed the book and watched the forests.

Bushes scurried, branches shook, but no figures stepped onto the tarmac. A few birds darted to the safety of the topmost canopy: a workshop of woodpeckers, a feast of grouse, and a grumbling grackle. Probably. He was still learning his Canadian birds, but could certainly tell the difference between them and the more daring squirrels who tight-roped along above-road branches to better watch these now unfamiliar metal beasts.

“Cat!” Kim said. “It can’t be. Oh, it’s gone, but it looked like a cat, perched on a branch. Do they have wild cats in Canada?”

“They do now,” Bill said.

“Wolverine?” Ethan suggested.

“They don’t look anything like a cat,” Alice said.

“Moose,” Ethan said, as it skittered across the road, running fast, clearly more terrified of its pursuer than the heavy traffic. Ethan tapped the brakes, but the beast had found a safe path across the road.

“I’ve just invented a new car game,” Kim said. “It’s called bear or zombie. You’ve got to guess which the animal was running from.”

But they drove too fast to ever find out.

Over the radio, Leon warned them when they were about to stop, and the red taillights of the vehicle in front told them when.

Before anyone could tell her not to, Kim was out of the car, carrying her rifle: a pump-action Remington 7600 with a four-round magazine loaded with .308 ammunition. Both rifle and ammo had come from Tom Wilgus’s personal stash. The optical scope had come from Leon. Bill had a revolver and a low-weight hiking stick, also from Alma. The stick lacked the heft needed to crack a skull, and the point was too rounded to pierce bone. It was decidedly too pre-outbreak for his tastes, and so he’d added a hammer and knife to his belt, but if there were zombies in these woods, they would have been summoned by the engines of his avenging convoy, or by the vehicles recently parked in the roadside lot: ten motorcycles, five pickups, and three cars. There were no crates in the backs of the trucks, nor bags in the cars. None were camouflaged. From the lack of gunfire, there were no sentries.

According to the roadside billboard, the car park belonged to Treaty Lodge, the perfect location for corporate retreats and romantic getaways, though that line was in much smaller print than the phone number, website, and email address. This billboard was really just a marker to car-bound guests that they’d reached the remote hideaway. Beneath the sign, and using its supports as struts, was a three-sided weather shelter for paying customers to wait for a shuttle bus. That gave a hint as to how far away the hotel still was, but it must be accessed by the gravel track now guarded by two of Leon’s soldiers.

The colonel himself appeared as quietly as mist, emerging from the trees twenty metres to the west. He jogged to a halt next to their car.

“Have we found them?” Kim asked.

“Perhaps,” the French soldier said. “There is a hotel three kilometres away. It has a boathouse. There are sentries on duty.”

“Were there any here?” Kim asked.

Leon shook his head.

“How many?” Bill asked.

“Twenty to thirty,” Leon said. “We will easily win. It will be a bloody conflict. I can’t promise prisoners.”

“I don’t think we want them,” Kim said.

But Bill had caught the inference. “You’re not sure these people were at Temagami?”

“There are two broken plastic crates in the back of that truck,” Leon said. “They are similar to those in the broken-down auto we found yesterday. There is a map, which appears similar to that which we found in that truck. Mais non, we do not know who these people are. Without asking, it is impossible to know. To ask brings risk. They have four boats. With warning, some could flee. We will be unable to follow. We must act quickly. We can attack, or we can chase them onto those boats and allow them to escape.”

“But if we attack, there’ll be no prisoners?” Bill asked.

“Very few,” Leon said.

“Attack,” Kim said. “For the sake of peace in Alma, we have to.”

“Agreed,” Bill said.

Leon nodded. “Bien sûr. Wait here. It will be over in thirty minutes.”

Leon marshalled his soldiers and disappeared into the trees. Ethan and Alice began a patrol of the roadside woods.

“I don’t know whether to stand, sit, crouch, or walk,” Bill said.

“As entertaining as it would be to watch you attempt a squat, there’s a bench in that rain-shelter,” Kim said.

“We should take a look at the vehicles,” Bill said. “Make certain they belong to the killers from Temagami.”

“Two of the bikes came from Michigan,” she said. “Check out the licence plates, but don’t do it now. The order’s been given. We don’t have a war-room in which to wait for the after-action report, but we can take a seat in that shelter.”

The seat was hard, shallow, and not even remotely comfortable.

“At what point did I become a general, ordering others into battle?” he asked.

“Leon’s the general. You’re the war-leader.”

“I’d prefer to be called a politician, but I’m not even that,” he said.

“Maybe there’s a better way of doing things,” she said, “but we won’t find it today.”

He leaned back, listening for gunfire, but heard an engine instead.

“Incoming,” Kim said, standing up. “Motorbike, I think. We can’t shoot, remember, not until Leon engages the enemy.”

A Yamaha street bike with a high face shield pulled into the lot. The rider, wearing muddy jeans and a dusty leather jacket, set her feet down, before taking off her helmet.

“Hey there,” Kim called, raising a hand as she offered a smile. She began walking towards the biker, who set her helmet down in front of her.

“I hoped you hadn’t left,” the biker said. “You can’t believe what’s happening among—” She stopped. She frowned. “Who are you?”

“I’m Kim, hi!” she said. “We’re tourists, more or less. It’s a very long story, but we’re looking for boats.”

The biker nodded. Her hand dropped to her thigh-holster even as a blade flew through the air. Alice followed it, running from the trees almost as fast as the woman slumped forward, then sideways, toppling the bike with her as she fell.

“Take cover in the trees,” Alice said, as she grabbed the dead woman’s boots and began hauling the corpse behind the parked cars. In the distance, a burst of gunfire echoed above the trees.

“It’s begun,” Kim said.

Bill drew his pistol, and followed Kim between the cars and into the trees far from the path, and almost straight into a building site.

“Too far,” Kim said, backing up a step.

A hundred metres of forest had been cleared. Four rectangles of cement foundations had been laid, but that was as far as construction had progressed before the outbreak. Tree trunks had been trimmed and stacked, waiting for removal, while an equally tall stack of pipes was waiting for installation and connection to the small hotel’s water supply. The pipes’ route through the forest was marked by tall poles topped with red flags, and had been cleared of brush and branches, making it the perfect escape route for someone fleeing the fight by the river.

That fleeing man, with wild eyes, unkempt hair, and a pistol in his hand, saw them at the same time Bill saw him. The man fired without aiming. His shots went wide as he dove into the brush while Kim and Bill ducked behind the pile of tree trunks.

“Play decoy,” Kim said. Keeping low, she moved along the line of sawn trunks.

Bill limped around the trees, firing a shot towards the trimmed trail where he’d last seen the shooter. He fired again, and managed a third shot before a bullet came in reply, and much nearer than he’d expected, whistling past his ear.

Instinctively, he fell to the mud, rolling to his side and then to the cover of the stack of pipes. He kicked and pushed himself into a sitting position, looking for Kim. He couldn’t see her, but nor could he see the trail along which the shooter had run, and so certainly couldn’t be seen by their foe. One hand in the mud, he rolled to his knees. A barrage of shots smacked into the pipes, which rocked with the impact, banging into each other and the brackets holding the stack together. Again, Bill ducked, before realising that was exactly what their enemy wanted. So, he stood, gun raised, and aimed straight at the chest of a man with oil-stained overalls, a mud-splattered face, and a leaf-flecked beard. The assailant stood ten metres away, at the very edge of the forest, and some twenty metres from the path. His hands were balled in fists. There was no gun in sight.

“Freeze,” Bill said, and felt foolish for saying it. “Please,” he added, and felt even more foolish. “Put your hands behind your head. It’s over. You’re under arrest.”

At first, Bill thought the man was complying. But at first, he’d thought the man was unarmed. As the man pulled his balled hands apart, Bill realised that one contained a grenade, and the other now held the pin.

“Don’t—” Bill began, but was cut short by the gunshot, a perfect bull’s-eye that entered his enemy’s ear, and ripped through his face. “Grenade!” Bill yelled even as the corpse fell. He dropped into the mud, and counted four before the explosion. The blast was over in seconds. The rain of bloody viscera lasted longer, as flesh and bone pattered across the construction site.

“Clear!” Kim called. “You okay?”

“Clear,” Bill replied, picking himself up once again, and looking beyond the stacked pipes at a painter’s nightmare of red and brown, flecked with white.

Kim appeared from among the trees. “Wowzer,” she said. “I think that path leads straight to the hotel.”

“Me, too. So come take cover,” he said.

She came to join him, resting the rifle on the topmost of the pipes, but the next person to appear along the trail was Leon.

“It is over,” the colonel said. “L’explosion?”

“A grenade,” Kim said. “Got him before he threw it.”

Leon nodded. “Then you should see what we have found.”

“Were they at Temagami?” Bill asked.

“Most certainly,” Leon said. “But where were they going?”

The colonel led them along the trail until they reached an old path that zigged around boulders and zagged across an absurdly picturesque wooden bridge above a stream barely a stride wide. The path rose into a clearing ringed with wooden picnic benches, then dropped into a dell occupied by a corpse, shot while failing to escape. But beyond the body, the trees thinned, and they reached the hotel.

The hotel’s builders had cleared an acre of land adjacent to the river. After the outbreak, someone had built a felled-tree wall at the edge of the forest, reinforced with rotting bracken. There was no gate, but there was a rope ladder, suspended from the crane-arm of a digger parked inside the wall. The rope ladder led to a rope bridge.

“Can you climb?” Leon asked.

“No problem,” Bill said. “But it’ll take a while. You go first, Kim.”

There were no bones among the mud. No battle against the undead had been fought here. The parking lot shelter had mentioned romantic retreats. While coming to such a place wasn’t his idea of romantic, it was certainly remote. Regardless of how many guests had been resident during the outbreak, and how many of them had stayed afterwards, there would have been staff on site. Surely they had built this wall and then placed the rope ladder. But then what had become of them?

The main building was an over-sized three-storey chalet with a steep snow-proof roof and a solid stone base. Every upper-floor window had a balcony, suggesting one window per room. Even so, and assuming two guests per room, no more than thirty would be able to stay at a time. Most of the guests, at least in the warmer months, would occupy one of the cabins nestled among the strategically planted gardens. An enclosed ground-floor walkway connected the hotel with a boathouse, while gravel paths linked the house to the cabins. Other paths ran to the river and disappeared into the forest, each occasionally marked with a colour-coded post.

“Okay, hon?” Kim asked.

“My rehab starts tonight with some weight training,” Bill said, stretching his arm. “How many dead, Leon?”

“Twenty-four inside the wall,” he said. “But we only killed eighteen. You should begin at the boathouse.”

Four boats were secured outside: two sailing boats and two fully enclosed motor-cruisers with drinking decks behind the cockpit. A body lay on the jetty, with another on the deck of a sailing boat, but it wasn’t those Leon wanted them to see.

The boathouse would be better named a canoe-cabin, as kayaks lined one entire wall. At the back of the building were dressing rooms for guests to don hired wetsuits. Gaps on the other wall marked where climbing ropes and axes had been looted. In the middle of the floor were the bodies. Six. Shot in the head.

“They weren’t zombies,” Kim said. “It was an execution. Four guys, two women. Their hands were tied behind their backs. They were all shot in the back of the head. I can’t recognise anyone. Bill?”

“We’d need facial reconstruction software,” Bill said. “How many people did you say were found?”

“Eighteen active hostiles,” Leon said. “No non-combatants. I have a team searching the outlying cabins.” He pointed upriver. “The map lists three clusters of six cabins, only used during the warmer months. But why would the enemy split their forces? They weren’t intending to stay.”

“Are the boats ready to leave?” Bill asked.

“Loaded with supplies,” Leon said. “Excuse me, I must check on my people.”

“What do you want to see?” Kim asked after the colonel had left.

“Everything, but briefly,” Bill said. “I think it’s obvious what happened here, so I suppose we’re looking for anything which would disprove it.”

An hour later, they’d searched the boats, they’d examined the kitchens, they’d checked the bar-restaurant with a shared sense of regret which only grew when they saw the bedrooms. It really had been a beautiful hotel. A hidden treasure he would so dearly have loved to find in better times.

“There is no one here,” Leon said.

“No, I imagine not,” Bill said. “There were around fifty at Temagami. It’s possible there were more, but there weren’t fewer, and we can get a more accurate headcount from the freed prisoner if he survives. We killed a few during our escape, but we’ve only accounted for about half.”

“It is possible there were other boats,” Leon said. “The rest arrived first, left first.”

“Perhaps,” Bill said.

“You don’t think so?” Kim asked.

“In favour of that theory is that there aren’t enough boats here for fifty people and their bikes,” Bill said. “Did you find a fuel tank?”

“Diesel, oui, behind the boathouse,” Leon said. “A fifth remains.”

“If there were more than four boats, why didn’t everyone leave together?” Bill asked.

“Because the group has split,” Kim said.

“Sure,” Bill said. “Let me phrase it the other way, why hadn’t this group already left? The boats are packed, but there’s a lot of food left in the kitchen, plus the spare fuel in the main tank. But if they intended to stay here until the food ran out, then why didn’t they hide their cars? If they were one large group, happy to trust that some could travel ahead and that the boats would return for the rest, why not make an extra trip to bring the remaining fuel and food? They clearly weren’t in a rush because they didn’t think they’d been chased, but they hadn’t bothered to move the bodies. I think this lot arrived together and planned to leave together, within the next twenty-four hours.”

“And there’s that biker,” Kim said. “Before she realised she didn’t know us, she said something about being glad everyone hadn’t left. But that was after she’d seen our trucks, plus the killers’ vehicles. Collectively, all those vehicles are enough to carry everyone from Temagami, yes? She can’t have been travelling with the other half of this group, not if she thought they got here first.”

“Perhaps she stopped to look for fuel,” Leon said.

“Okay, yes, it’s not impossible,” Kim said. “But I’m saying the group split in Temagami. Some decided to come here. On arriving, some shot those they didn’t trust.”

“Where did the others go?” Leon asked.

“Perhaps west,” Bill said. “Perhaps to their bunker in the south. I don’t know. We’ve grabbed what maps and notes we could, and I’ll go through them later. Maybe we’ll figure it out. But I think they planned to go somewhere there are supplies.”

“Maybe New York,” Kim said.

“Maybe,” Bill said. “We need to secure this site, and keep an eye out for other stragglers. We should also bury the dead. These boats, this fuel, that food, and the vehicles could all be useful to us.”

“Do you want me to detail some people to stay behind?” Leo asked.

“Actually, no,” Bill said. “How do you fancy taking a look at Ottawa?”

“No,” Kim said. “Absolutely not.”

“We have the Geiger counters,” Bill said. “We can keep tabs on the radiation.”

“Why do you wish to go to Ottawa?” the colonel asked.

“To look for bridges, and to map radiation south of Quebec City,” Bill said. “A few million people in the Pacific might remove our burden of saving the species, but we’re still short on oil. We’ve got to go west. If that can be overland, there are so many more options. But overland, we have so many rivers to cross. So many bridges to find. It seems like it’d be easier to find them if we just sail.”

“I will go,” Leon said. “I will take one boat, and will leave one team here. The rest will escort you to Alma.”

“Perfect,” Kim said.

26th March

Chapter 5 - The Cracks Appear

L’Isle-Maligne, Alma, Quebec

It was two days since they’d departed the Ottawa River, and bid Leon bonne chasse, but only five hours since they’d arrived back in Alma. The trading post seemed busier than before, and had gained another thirty permanent residents. Twelve had fled their winter-homes when news of the Temagami massacre reached them. Ten had arrived chasing news of survivors in the Pacific. The remaining eight, survivors of three different settlements, hadn’t even heard there were survivors in Digby. Their remote homesteads had failed over winter and collapsed with the thaw. Now, they were four weeks into malnutrition, and days away from starvation. They had been sent straight to the small clinic, a repurposed home equipped for dentistry and check-ups. Everyone else was put to work.

Fields had to be planted. Fish had to be caught. Forage had to be gathered, but in groups as the threat of the undead was still present even if zombies themselves were now a rare sight. The road to Saguenay had to be patched and cleared. Abandoned homes had to be aired and repaired for the new arrivals.

When they’d returned, they’d found Chrissie K waiting with a stack of questions from Nova Scotia relayed by radio to Saguenay and which she’d driven to Alma. Some of the answers were in the letter he’d given Sholto to deliver on his way to New York. The rest, though, couldn’t be answered without more data, none of which was provided by the expedition to Temagami and the Ottawa River. As Kim began planning a radio antenna so messages could be relayed over the airwaves, Bill had conscripted Chrissie as his driver for the short trip to the nearby L’Isle-Maligne Hydroelectric Dam.

The dam was dying. The crack was already a many-veined monster with a growing wound in the very centre. Water pulsed. Surged. Trickled. Another surge. On the deep side of the dam, some piece of wreckage was acting as a valve. He couldn’t imagine what it was and had been unable to see from the riverbank. He certainly wasn’t going to dare venturing onto the dam’s sagging causeway to get a closer look.

“This is really called L’Isle-Maligne?” Bill asked.

“Yes,” Chrissie K said. “I’ve told you twice. I’m not sure why you don’t believe me.”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Bill said. “But I’ve learned more than enough French to be able to translate the name.”

“Ah, I see the misunderstanding,” Chrissie said. “The dam wasn’t named first. It was named for the old town that was here before Alma.”

“Alma used to be called the Malign Island?” Bill asked. “Who would call a town that?”

Chrissie shrugged. “Someone who’s travelled so long they’re too tired to do anything but settle down? But I’ve heard of worse. Isn’t there a place called Bishop’s Itch in England?”

“Bishop’s Itchington,” Bill said. “It’s named for the River Itchen which, now I say it, isn’t much better. How do you know about Bishop’s Itchington?”

“We’re drivers,” Chrissie said. “We like maps. Looking at all the exotic places helped us through dark times last year.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard Warwickshire called exotic,” Bill said. He tapped his fingers against the walking stick’s handle; while made of hand-carved walnut, and heftier than the ski-pole, it was three inches too short. In turn, that was creating an ache in the small of his back, and that was distracting him from coming to a conclusion.

While Alma was the hub for these survivors, their settlements were spread along the northern shores of Lac Saint-Jean, and much further north. People here lived in extended family groups that were more akin to tribes than hamlets. In the beginning, neighbours had banded together, occasionally taking in a stray, but rarely more than a couple. New arrivals, like Tom Wilgus and his survivors from General Yoon’s advance, had not been invited to move into the pre-existing hamlets, but had been allowed to settle nearby.

Some settlements had small wind turbines or a few solar panels, but most still got their electricity from generators, and their heat from open fires. The infrastructure had been stretched taut during the winter. The arrival of his people from Digby had tightened things further. It wouldn’t take many more curious arrivals from the north before the whole edifice snapped. Fuel reserves were dwindling, and demand could never be met by Newfoundland’s scant production.

An obvious, though partial, solution was to draw electricity from a hydroelectric dam, but it wouldn’t be from here at L’Isle-Maligne. Wilgus had said as much, but Bill had wanted to see for himself.

At Alma, the River Saguenay was shaped like a Y. Technically, a sideways Y as it was fed by Lac Saint-Jean, and flowed west to east, and ultimately into the St Lawrence. The dam had been built on the northern arm of that sideways Y, drawing power from water held back in the lake. When operational, the hydroelectric power station could generate 450MW. As the dam was operated by the same conglomerate who owned the bauxite refinery near Saguenay City, the primary customer was the aluminium works, but it was enough electricity to power nearly a million homes.

“I bet we could fix it,” Chrissie K said. “Temporarily, anyway. Don’t you have engineers who can fix a nuclear power station?”

“They knew how to maintain it,” Bill said. “It’s not quite the same thing. But yes, we could probably repair a dam.”

“I can look for concrete in Saguenay,” she said. “There are plenty of construction sites. Maybe I could ask the soldier, Bran, to help me?”

“Hmm. Perhaps,” Bill said.

“You don’t sound enthusiastic,” she said. “We can only try. Sometimes, it’s all we can do.”

“I suppose we’d need cement and concrete and some kind of frame,” Bill said. “But what we need first is someone who knows what they’re doing. We can ask around here, and we could send a radio message back to Digby. But most of our engineers are on Newfoundland. It could be two or three weeks before we can get them here. We could ask, over the radio, what supplies to find. We can draw on the Almans for drivers and labourers, and most have trucks. We do have the fuel reserve nearby. We could probably have the repair finished within a month, depending on when the specialists get here.”

“There’s a caveat,” she said. “My uncle talked the same way, listing all the points in favour before explaining the reason why not. He ran the delivery firm,” she added, and as she lost herself in the past, she also lost her habit of talking in triplicate. “It was only supposed to be a temporary job. Just some summer money. It was so freeing, just being able to drive, alone, on the road.”

“This was after high school?” Bill asked.

“Oh, ya. I completely flubbed my exams,” she said. “Mom got sick. We needed the money. Home got complicated. The future was uncertain. But my uncle offered me work. Just the small van and local deliveries to start with. Then I got to do the weddings and events. We did the baked goods, and the tables and chairs. I’d wear a suit and a smile. It was nice, meeting new people on the happiest day of their lives. Great tips, too.”

He didn’t know much about the Christinas, but nor did anyone. There were three of them. They were probably Canadians, though Chrissie K had the hint of a twang he associated with Minnesota. The three had, probably, all been called Christina before the outbreak. Probably, they’d all been drivers, because that was what they’d become during General Yoon’s advance. As a result, they’d been lucky enough not to be beneath the bombs when they fell. The Christinas had been sent east to make contact with other survivors, and that was how they’d ended up in Nova Scotia.

They worked together, lived together, survived together, and even spoke together, talking in triplicate when they were together, and in sets of three sentences on the rare occasions they were apart. During a storm in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Chrissie M had nearly been crushed by an insufficiently secured truck. Chrissie L had broken her arm. Those two had returned to Digby for medical treatment, but Chrissie K had refused the easy duty of accompanying them. Instead, she’d taken an assignment at the radio post in Saguenay from where she ferried messages to this very end of the known world.

“Yes, there’s a caveat,” Bill said, leaning on the stick after taking a few steps along the footpath at the edge of the parking lot, and so closer to the cracked dam. “Any repair work will only delay when the dam finally bursts, and it won’t fix the turbines.”

“Tom told me the fire in the turbine hall was caused by a crashing helicopter,” Chrissie said. “The pilot was infected mid-flight. But Tom heard that second-hand.”

“It must have been something bigger than a helicopter,” Bill said. “Or it hit a petrol tanker when it came down. I wanted to take a look for myself, but I think this is as close a look as I need. No, this dam will never produce power, and I don’t think we should waste time shoring up the crack.”

“Do you mean we’ll let it break?” she asked. “Won’t that cause a flood downriver? Won’t it wreck the fields?”

“The fields? No. I don’t think so. Most of the cleared land is along the lake, while the surge will move along the River Saguenay. My concern is the bridges. Not just that crossing down there, or that rail bridge, but every bridge over the river between here and Saguenay City.”

“Not the suspension bridges?” she said. “You mean bridges with towers and river-bed supports. Do you think the surge could wash them away?”

“It is a potential problem, yes,” Bill said. “We came to Quebec on the hunt for a more reliable source of oil and electricity, though we expected that search to properly begin in the far west. A few million survivors in Australia changes a lot, but it doesn’t change our immediate needs.”

“But they will help,” Chrissie said with an edge of uncertainty. “Of course they’ll help. Isn’t the pilot your friend?”

“He is, and they will help, but we must remain realistic,” Bill said. “It’s taken them months to come looking for us. There wasn’t time for Scott to say much while we were escaping, but he did say that he’d overflown Belfast as soon as he found a plane. He’d guessed we’d crossed the Atlantic, but help ultimately came from the Pacific, and in a very small plane. We should expect any future help to be of a similar kind.”

“The kind of help which can fit into a small plane?” she asked. “So you mean no big supplies? But a small plane could be followed by a big plane.”

“Even the biggest plane wouldn’t be big enough,” Bill said. “Australia will help us, but it would be dangerous to think they can solve all our problems. Ultimately, we need oil, at least in the short term. We’re burning through everything we produce on Newfoundland, and we’re tapping into the local supply. I don’t know how much the locals have—”

“About two hundred thousand litres,” Chrissie cut in. “They have four tankers left. Three diesel, one gasoline.”

“Oh. Two hundred thousand?” He began patting his pockets in search of his notebook. “That’s a lot for driving, not so much for farming. How do you know?”

“I asked Ms Bakker. She set up the depot. The tankers were the spring delivery for the more northerly communities, and were sitting in the depot until she claimed them.”

“And this is at Saint Monique? Good. Rather, it’s not good. I was hoping there was a lot more. But it’s good to know the amount.”

“Tom gave fuel to anyone who came in,” Chrissie said. “He wanted to make sure that people could survive the winter. He also wanted to make sure no one knew where the fuel was hidden.”

“Smart man, that cop,” Bill said, jotting a few notes. “Yep, it’s not nearly enough to last us through harvest if we’re also tapping it for expeditions. That harvest is not going to be very impressive, either here or in Digby. We’ll be relying on what we can hunt and fish through winter, which will require freezers, which require electricity. There are other dams around the lake. I think transmission would be an insuperable difficulty, but let’s take a look. Better we know for certain before I send my report back to the admiral and Napatchie.”

“I’m not authorised,” Chrissie said. “I was told to bring you here, and then take you straight back. Kim’s orders.”

“Ah. Then we shall obey,” Bill said. “Did you say there was hot chocolate?”

“Another great American invention,” she said. “Like satnav and winter tyres. And peanut butter.”

“I thought hot chocolate developed from one of the Quaker confectioners’ quests for an alternative to alcohol.”

“Maybe. But it developed out of what the Aztecs drank long before Europeans crossed the Atlantic,” Chrissie said, as she took out a flask. “You didn’t invent tea, either.”

“Heresy,” he said.

Sadly, this brew was one of the avowedly healthier brands with no powdered milk, no sugar, and with an acrid sweetener that only emphasised the chocolate’s bitterness. Each sandpaper mouthful had only an echo of the liquid velvet drinks he so fondly remembered as a meal-in-a-mug alternative to soup.

“Wherever it was invented, milk chocolate existed before electricity was widespread, and that gives me hope,” Bill said. “We are, more or less, on the correct continent to find cocoa beans. We’ll forget checking the other dams around this lake. Transmission wasn’t a problem we could solve in Digby, so we won’t crack it here. Then there’s that nuclear power station in New Brunswick. No, we’ve got to evacuate Digby, and Nova Scotia. Perhaps we can find a land route to Alma, but we should have a back-up plan to start the journey on ships sailing to Saguenay. I’d best talk with Tom before…” He trailed into silence as he looked up at the cloud-scattered sky. “Plane!” he said, half spilling his cocoa as he stood, peering upwards, turning around, trying to spot the aircraft.

A twin-engine jet flew low overhead, turning in a slow circle.

“Is that your friend?” Chrissie asked. “I thought they were flying a water-bomber. That’s just an ordinary plane.”

“I hope it’s them,” Bill said. “Because I’m sure they’re landing.”

Chapter 6 - Reality Check

Alma, Quebec

The plane was landing. By the time he and Chrissie reached Alma’s small, and yesterday-cleared, runway, the passengers had already disembarked. Surprisingly, the airport was almost deserted. Three people stood by the steps of the small business jet. He recognised Kim immediately and Scott second. Bill didn’t recognise the diminutive woman next to him, though like Scott, she wore a pilot’s uniform.

“Look who came to tea!” Kim said, as Bill limped over.

“G’day, mate!” Scott called. “Let me introduce my wife, Liu.”

“G’day,” she said, holding out a hand. “It’s a true pleasure to finally meet ya.”

Where Scott’s accent had been tempered by decades of international cargo travel, hers was one-hundred-percent outback. Her grandparents had escaped Korea during the war, and had settled in Western Australia. Bill wasn’t sure where she and Scott had met, but they’d spent most of their married life travelling between one small airfield and another. Though both could fly, she was usually the mechanic, particularly after their later-in-life son was born. Before the outbreak, they’d settled in Broken Hill, a place Bill had heard of primarily because it was famous for being remote. About five-one, but only in boots, she wore a battered jumpsuit on the sleeve of which was a hand-stitched badge depicting an orange fish on a black background. Scott wore the same style of jumpsuit, though sporting the European flag on his shoulder.

“Good on ya for saving this lummox,” Liu said. “Three times, I hear.”

“He saved my life just as often,” Bill said. “How did you find us?”

“We followed your radio beacon,” Scott said.

“We have a beacon?” Bill asked.

“Tom set it up while we were on our way to the Ottawa River,” Kim said.

Chrissie coughed.

“Sorry, this is Chrissie K. One of our drivers, and a soldier in General Yoon’s army.”

“G’day,” Liu said, just as there was a thump from inside the plane, and a crate landed in the doorway.

“Am I the only one working?” said a boy surely too young to be called a man, even if he was dressed as a soldier. Like Liu, his jacket bore the orange-fish badge.

“This is Zach,” Liu said. “One of the heroes of Canberra. He helped stop the coup.”

“We brought ten Special Forces with us,” Scott said.

“Eleven,” Zach said.

“Eleven,” Scott said. “And a hundred M4s, fifty thousand rounds, and a few other toys with which to hunt down those murderous bastards.”

“But they’re dead, yes?” Liu said, laying a calming hand on her husband’s arm.

“Some might have escaped alone,” Bill said. “But we chased the largest group south. Some killed the others, and we killed the rest. It’s possible a few might have survived, but I doubt they’ll survive long.”

“Revenge has been served,” Liu said to her husband. “The soldiers have gone for a drink, but we can’t have a bevvy if we’re flying out this afternoon. Looks like you’ve got a storm inbound. If we take off within two hours, we’ll be able to fly above it. I don’t like landing at night, but flying in a blow is even worse.”

“Where are you flying to?” Bill asked.

“Ultimately, Bowerman Field, just off Puget Sound,” Scott said. “It’s a bit south and west of Seattle, and is the temporary runway we’re using for this mission.”

“How come such a small plane?” Bill asked. “Not that we’re not grateful, but eleven is quite a small army.”

“We’ve got to ship in the fuel, and fly in the planes,” Scott said.

“So now I’ve got another question,” Bill said.

“We’ve all got loads,” Kim said. “But there’s three of you, and three of us, so let’s split up. Chrissie, help Zach unload the plane. Bill, take Scott to the house and get him a copy of the journal. That should answer most of their questions about what happened since you two last saw each other. Liu, if we’re going to get regular incoming flights, I’ve a ton of questions about this airfield. Oh, and Bill, you need to change.”

“Why?”

“For the interview,” Kim said.

“You know what I’ll ask next,” Bill said.

“You’re a bit famous down in the Pacific,” Scott said. “Lots of places borrowed your evacuation plan. Because no local politicians wanted the blame, you got the credit. After I turned up, with Professor Fontayne, and your yarn about Quigley and about Anglesey, absolutely everyone will want to know more about the mad English bloke and his crazy ideas.”

“See, dear, you’re famous,” Kim said.

“There were evacuations in the Pacific, then?” Bill asked.

“Let me grab my bag and we can talk as we walk,” Scott said.

“This way,” Bill said, pointing the way with his stick. “Does this mean you have TV in the Pacific?”

“And radio,” Scott said. “Two channels of each, and each broadcasting pre-recorded shows. It’s mostly music and movies, and a news and weather bulletin, but there are some new educational programmes, too. There’s a paper shortage, so there are no newspapers or new books, but we’re okay for electricity right now. How about yourselves, do you have power here?”

“Only if we turn on a generator,” Bill said. “And I think your arrival warrants that kind of extravagance. Are all the soldiers as young as that kid?”

“Zach? Nah, the rest are old enough to bemoan his youthful enthusiasm. They were all professionals before the outbreak, but Zach’s seen a lot of action. He helped stop the coup, and went on the first survey mission to Africa. He’s seen a lot of the world, but had never been to Japan, so the commissioner said he could come on this trip to keep an eye on Liu. He was going to guard the plane if we had to go into battle, you understand.”

“Only about one percent of what you just said,” Bill said. “But start with Japan. Or this commissioner. Is he in charge in the Pacific?”

“She,” Scott said. “Commissioner Qwong is just a cop, but she’s is in charge of Special Projects, which covers anything not immediately connected to the day-to-day administration. Zach’s spent a lot of time being driver and bag-carrier to the scientists working in Special Projects, so was offered a place on the trip to British Columbia as a reward. For him, it’s a holiday. If you meet the scientists, you’ll know why he’s earned one.”

“I thought you said you flew out of the U.S.,” Bill said.

“We’re spread out a bit at the moment, because we’re still surveying the territory, but we intended to make landfall on Vancouver Island,” Scott said. “Last year, that was the hub for the evacuation of Vancouver City, Seattle, and everywhere between. It was known territory, but we needed a harbour, and the best harbour we could find was Puget Sound.”

“That just begs more questions,” Bill said. “And far more than can be answered in two hours. Who’s running things in Australia?”

“Oswald Owen. He became prime minister after the coup failed.”

“That’s a familiar name,” Bill said.

“For all the wrong reasons,” Scott said. “He’s the kind of bloke who’ll sell you insurance just to find out if it’s worth robbing your house. But what’s that saying, cometh the hour? He’s done all right. Mostly because the deputy is Anna Dodson. Anna’s dad, Mick, was a flying doctor in Broken Hill. He’s been a mate of ours for years. So has Tess, so that puts us in with the top nobs, which is how we swung getting authorisation for this trip.”

“Ah, okay. Now I think I’m getting a handle on how it’s you that’s here, though I’d like to come back to the government in a bit, but there’s one question more important than any other. How many people made it, Scott? How many people are alive down there?”

“About a hundred million,” Scott said.

“How many?” Bill asked, stopping dead in his tracks.

Fifteen minutes later, they were at the small house which he and Kim had been loaned.

“Let me put the kettle on,” Bill said, though he first made his way to the generator parked in the house’s rear porch. “There is some coffee, though I’d recommend the hot chocolate.”

“I think I can top that, mate,” Scott said. He reached into the bag, and took out a small metal tin. “Happy belated Christmas.”

“Is that tea?” Bill asked.

“It’s called Pacific Sunrise, if you trust the label. Some idiot spoiled it with cardamom and nutmeg, but it’s still mostly black tea.”

“Real tea,” Bill said. His hands shook.

“Maybe I should make the tea,” Scott said.

“Absolutely not,” Bill said, putting the tin on the counter. “It’s just hitting me. One hundred million?”

“Thereabouts,” Scott said, leaning against the wall. “We’ve not done a headcount, so it’s more of a guess than a census. There was a successful evacuation of the northern Pacific. By successful, I mean about fifty million people who’d fled from there were still alive a month after the bombs fell.”

“Where do you mean by the northern Pacific? Does that include China?”

“Just the island nations and some of the coastal mainland,” Scott said. “China and Russia were as big a mess as Britain and France. Same holds true for India and Pakistan. Maybe two million made it out of Japan, and there’s a Japanese settlement that managed to cling on until they could be resupplied. On our way here, I flew over Tokyo,” he added. “The advance team had secured an airport where a Gulfstream had been left in the hangar.”

“How was it?” Bill asked.

“A beaut,” he said. “Took off like a feather, but flew like a tornado.”

“I mean Tokyo.”

“Oh. Bad. Worse than Birmingham.”

“It’s been demolished?” Bill asked.

“In places. Probably not by zoms. Japan was hit by a few small earthquakes last year. Nothing too major, but there’s no one to carry out repairs. Buildings are collapsing. We’re worried about a big earthquake. Not for what it’ll do to the buildings, because the city is well and truly lost. No, our worry is for the nuclear power stations. My story of what happened in Anglesey lit a fire under the politicos, and they put together this expedition to Japan to make sure the power plants are as safe as they can be. That’s the secret half of the mission. The public half is to bring back TVs, consoles, tablets, and other consumer electronics. That overstuffed sofa we call prime minister promised a TV in every home by Christmas.”

“Is that really a priority?” Bill asked.

“Australia’s bursting with a population of about fifty mil,” Scott said. “New Zealand is at twelve, New Guinea is at ten. The rest are strung out across islands in what was Indonesia or the Philippines.”

“Was? Those nations are no more?”

“Nor is Australia,” Scott said. “Nowhere’s the same, but we’re still figuring out what they’ll become. Australia and New Zealand and Papua all had very high death tolls. Some of that was the zoms. Murder was high, though we’re pretending anyone who died was undead, killed in self-defence. Radiation was a problem, and there are a lot of hot zones, particularly further north. But disease was the real killer. Refugees outnumber locals everywhere.”

“But everything is being run by Australia?”

“Don’t let the Kiwis hear you say that,” Scott said. “The assembly meets in Canberra, and Australia has become the production hub; roughly every million inhabitants get two senators. New Britain gets the same number of senators as New South Wales. But so does New North Wales.”

“So the old state of New South Wales has split?”

“So has Western Australia, but Perth has five million people, now. Perth took the brunt of the ship-borne refugees from India and the survivors of the Madagascan evacuation.”

“Where’s New Britain? I feel I should know, but I can’t place it.”

“It was part of Papua New Guinea. One of the large islands to the west. The New Britain Administrative Zone covers a string of islands. Our new political system is supposed to move us away from the old world, but it’s only temporary while we all catch our breath. Anna Dodson says there’s not much point fighting over the planet until we’re certain how much of it is still inhabitable. She’s the speaker for the senate.”

“And she’s a friend of yours?” Bill asked.

“She’s what, in this new world, we call family,” Scott said. “My family have been living at Canberra airport. Right now, Mick Dodson is keeping an eye on our youngest, Bobby.”

“You’ve a daughter, too, don’t you?” Bill asked. “Did she make it?”

“She’s well. Or she was last time I saw her. Only briefly, sadly, but she was about to set sail on a scientific survey mission of the Pacific. They delayed the departure after we were picked up from the Andaman Islands. That’s… that’s an interesting yarn, but I don’t think we’ve got time for it.”

Bill emptied the warm water from the pot, and added two spoons of the priceless leaves. “Is the Pacific democratic?”

“No,” Scott said. “Not even close. But it has the potential to become democratic. There’s free speech, but there isn’t a free press because paper is so damn expensive. Electricity is more abundant, but we’ve still got shortages. Another reason to go to Japan was to pick up some specialist parts, machines, and handbooks on nuclear power stations. We’re building a couple of our own, but until they’re finished, brownouts will be common. There are laws, and a right to a jury trial, but there’s a death penalty, and the sentences are carried out within months of the trial. I’m making it sound bad, and I suppose it is, compared to the world of before. But I wouldn’t leave, and not just because it’s all we have. Nor just because I’m living as close to a life of luxury as anyone in the cabinet. No, I’ll stay to make it better, because I know we can, and I know that everyone wants it to be better than it is, and better than everything that went before.”

“What more can we hope for?” Bill asked. He took down a pair of mugs. “This moment truly deserves the ceremony that only comes with a teacup and saucer, but we must make do.”

“It’s a nice house,” Scott said politely. “But I thought you were further east.”

“Digby in Nova Scotia, though it’s a while since we were back there.” He poured a mug for Scott, and then one for himself. In lieu of a cosy, he wrapped a tea towel around the pot to keep it warm. “I’m not sure what my next question should be.”

“Hold that thought,” Scott said. “I hadn’t finished answering your first. Shall we sit? How’s your leg?”

“Better than my arm,” Bill said. He took one of the window chairs in the neat, and nearly vacant living room. “The locals loaned us this house, and the two on either side, to use as a sort of embassy. Being so close to their fortified homestead, they’d stripped it of furniture and the like. On the plus side, there was little here to rot over winter, except the carpet.” He tapped his foot on the bare boards. “We brought in a bit of furniture, and we’re already running out of room. Still, it’s far better than some places we’ve slept.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Scott said, raising his mug “May we never sleep anywhere so grim as we were once forced to.”

“Amen,” Bill said, raising his mug. “You said you’d not finished answering my first question, though I’ve forgotten what it was.”

“Population,” Scott said. “As I said, we’re not sure of the total population, but we’re estimating it at around a hundred million. We’re not sure of the birth rate, either, but we think it’s a bit above five percent for the first year.”

“Do you mean five percent of a hundred million? That’s… that’s huge. In the U.K., it was about one-point-one percent before the outbreak.”

“Love finds a way,” Scott said. “Or what’s that other saying, the one about idle hands? But as a percentage of total population, it hides the demographic shift. Medicines ran out. People died, especially the elderly, and the very young.”

“It’s still a huge number of births,” Bill said.

“There was no contraception to speak of until a couple of months ago, and it’ll take a long while for production to match demand. In hindsight, people in the Southern Pacific were safe, but they didn’t know it. They thought they only had a few hours to live so weren’t too worried about nine months later.”

“Five million babies,” Bill murmured. “Wow.”

“Ah, no. Five million pregnancies,” Scott said. “And it’s an estimate. There were a lot of miscarriages, and a lot of deaths during or shortly after birth, both of child and mother. The antibiotics ran out, so infection was a big problem. So was malnutrition, and disease more broadly. But antibiotics are available everywhere now, and so are vitamins.”

“Food, too,” Bill said. “If you’re able to support that many children and new mothers.”

“They culled the herds, and planted wheat and corn,” he said. “But we’ve still got warehouses filled with canned beef. Food’s not been a problem, not compared to what we faced in Europe. That doesn’t stop people whinging, of course. Officially, conscription is long over, but when there were no more zoms to fight, they shunted the civilians into agriculture, the factories, or the mines. Everyone works. Everyone’s paid. Ten dollars a day is the minimum, with food priced so three dollars buys you your daily needs. Kids get three meals at school. Younger kids get a supplementary voucher from their nurse when the parent brings them in for a weekly check-up. Now, here’s a cautionary tale I bet you could have guessed. About six months ago, in Wollongong, a nurse realised she’d been seeing the same infant twice a day for three weeks. The parents were hiring the nipper out so that childless adults could claim the food vouchers.”

“Where there’s money there’s always a con,” Bill said. “So there’s money and jobs, food and medicine, TV and radio. But there are shortages of paper and electricity. What else?”

“Everything,” Scott said. “There was a lot of damage, a lot of waste, and Australia is now overcrowded. Water’s a big problem, so cotton production has been cut, and reserved for purely medical purposes. When they culled the herds, they didn’t think to store the leather and wool. They kept some breeding stock, so sheep will return, but it’ll take a decade before we’ve got enough wool for everyone to wear. The first thing they did when they set down in Japan was to raid a clothes store, and the apartment block next door. An entire regiment is searching Japanese harbours for shipping containers full of clothing.”

“Why not raid California?” Bill asked.

“It’s too far,” Scott said. “Hawaii’s gone, so we’d have to sail straight across the Pacific into the unknown. And… well, this brings me to the bad news.”

“An authoritarian police state is the good news?”

“Sorry, mate. It’s the reason why the Pacific didn’t become a bloodbath. We’ve crime and sickness, and frontier conditions slap-bang in the middle of Sydney, but it’s mostly calm, because none of us know how long the planet has left. There’s two problems, and the first is the zoms.”

“But the undead are dying,” Bill said.

“Not everywhere, not yet,” Scott said. “Western India is still plagued by hordes. The same is true of the Mongolian Steppe. There’s a horde in Texas. We’ve seen smaller packs in Argentina, and…” He took a sip of his tea. “British Columbia. Saw it this morning as we flew over. Spotted a group of at least a thousand.”

“And where there’s one,” Bill muttered. “Damn. We’ve seen so many die. Then again, we keep coming across one here, another there.”

“The scientists have theories, and the civilians have a million more,” Scott said. “The zoms are dying. It’s just not at the same pace across the world. In places where hordes formed, the survivors are still mooching about, tearing up the landscape. A thousand might die, but you’d not notice it in a million-strong horde. Of course, nor will anyone notice the one or two inside a house until they rear up and bite you. Five years was the original estimate of how long it might be before they’re all gone everywhere, and it’s increasingly looking like that estimate was accurate.”

“Where’s bad?” Bill asked. “Where’s not?”

“That’s just it,” Scott said. “We don’t know. We’ve got very little real data. We can use planes for aerial surveys, but only within range of a Pacific airport. To get more data, we need to send in scouts, and that requires an expedition. The shortage is ships. Has been since the very beginning. The tsunami wrecked the boats in port. The EMP crippled those at sea. The tsunami wrecked those that were in any of the western ports, or anchored at the islands. The traitor-navies sank a few more, and time has sunk a few since then.”

“How many ships do you have now?”

“Two hundred big vessels,” Scott said. “There’s a lot of inshore sailing boats, but the big ships are busy running bulk supplies, and fuel, to the more ramshackle communities. We’re building a new fleet of cargo-ferries using a rotor-sail design that’ll keep their fuel requirement low. The prototype overturned in a typhoon. Mark-Two is being trialled with this Japan trip. All being well, we’ll have five by August, and twenty by the end of the year, but that’s using old hulls laid down before the outbreak. We should get another twenty next year, but don’t quote me on that. It’ll be three years until we have a semi-regular delivery fleet.”

“Compared to how we’ve been living, that’s amazing,” Bill said.

“You should mention that during your interview,” Scott said. “The lack of ships is why so few of us came to North America, and why we only brought a small plane east. It’s why you shouldn’t expect too many more planes flying these skies anytime soon.”

“So there’ll be no aerial evacuation?” Bill asked.

“Do you need one?” Scott asked.

“I don’t think so,” Bill said. “Before we found you in Temagami, we were looking for a route west to an oil field close to the Pacific. And I think that still stands. How’s Andrea’s brother, Jerome, wasn’t it?”

“Stable,” Scott said. “But we’ll probably airlift him back to Australia. With the stopovers, the flight will take days. Night flying is too dangerous to make a habit of it.”

“Jerome and Andrea are Canadians, aren’t they?” Bill said. “And you said there was an evacuation of Vancouver and Seattle. So there are a lot of North Americans in Australia?”

“Not so many, no. Vancouver was nuked. It was just an ordinary bomb, thankfully, and it landed north of the city, but it took out a lot of planes. Things became crazy. Clemmie got out, though. I’ll let her tell you the story when you meet her.”

“I look forward to it,” Bill said. “But there are some survivors from Canada and the U.S.? Some might think Puget Sound is close enough to where they used to live to call home that it’s worth returning.”

“Ah, gotcha. Perhaps. But they’ve got no means of getting there, and probably not for a couple of years. That’s if we make a permanent base there, and that’ll be decided by the politicians in the assembly.”

“Right, of course,” Bill said, mentally tagging that as a problem to be returned to later. “Did you say Hawaii’s gone?”

“A large fleet gathered at Pearl Harbour as part of the relief effort,” Scott said. “The passengers were mostly unarmed conscripts. A sub nuked them. Some people would have survived, but there were zoms on the islands. Still are, last time a plane flew over them.”

“So there’s no short route to the Pacific? No harbour in Mexico or California?”

“Not yet,” Scott said. “The Panama Canal was wrecked. It’ll take weeks to repair, but months to clear, and we’ve not seen a reason to.”

“Sure, of course,” Bill said. “This is all going to take me a while to get my head around.”

“Sorry, mate, you’ve only got an hour until we’ve got to take off,” Scott said.

“Time for another cup, then,” Bill said. “You said there were two problems. Zombies are one. Was the other the lack of ships?”

“Can you believe I almost forgot?” Scott said. He laughed. “Sorry, it’s not funny, but it’s been buzzing around my head since I was told, and this is the first time it’s slipped my mind. Sorry, no, it’s not the ships. It’s the climate.”

“Do you mean nuclear winter?”

“Because the majority of the bombs detonated in the oceans, we’ve been saved from that,” Scott said. “No, it’s the same problem we had two years ago. The optimists hope that killing seven billion people has solved the climate crisis, but the facts on the ground disprove it. Most of the ruminants have died, but that’s more than counter-balanced by an increase in methane from the decaying cities, and the decay of their former inhabitants.”

“That’ll ease,” Bill said. “Methane’s short-lived.”

“Carbon isn’t. Even though we avoided nuclear winter, many cities burned. Early data shows very few particulates seeped up into the stratosphere where they could have had a cooling effect. Nope, it looks like we’ve just added a ton of carbon to our already sooty ledger. Gathering data is difficult, and thus so is building a model of how bad things will get. For now, they’re predicting the weather will become even more erratic, more extreme, than it was. And at least for a decade.”

“Australia was on fire a few summers ago,” Bill said. “Are you worried you might need to evacuate?”

“We physically can’t, but we’ve all seen Mad Max, and there’s no way we want to live like that, hence the relative calm. I still hadn’t got to the bad bit.”

“How is there anything worse than that?” Bill said. “What is it?”

“The oceans,” he said. “The toxic run-off, plus the massive doses of radiation, have created huge oceanic dead-zones. In those places, there’s no algae, no oxygen, no life. Some of those regions are growing. We don’t know what the tipping point will be before this becomes irreparable.”

“No algae, no oxygen, no life on Earth,” Bill said. “That is a big problem.”

“There are terraforming solutions that Clemmie calls geo-engineering,” Scott said. “They require better modelling, and that means grabbing data, and that’ll take time.”

“How much time?”

“We’re told up to five years to gather data and develop a theoretical fix, but I think that’s just so it matches the estimate for when the zoms are gone, and the ships are finished.”

“I always worried the planet would either freeze or burn,” Bill said. “I can’t believe there’s a worse scenario. We’ve got some ships, and the Pacific is welcome to them, if they’ll help.”

“Good on ya, but are you sure?”

“Our situation is precarious,” Bill said. “We’re relying on oil from Newfoundland, but we’ll never drill enough. Thus, if we go west, we have to leave the ships behind. No, better you take them, though we’ll have to figure out how to get them down to the Pacific. We found three Ospreys, too, and about a hundred other helicopters. Would they be of use?”

“Absolutely. For parts if nothing else.”

“I’ll get you a list,” Bill said. “I was up at the nearby dam this morning. It’s about to burst. This town isn’t in immediate danger, but without power, no one can live here this winter. No, we have to move, and it would make sense to move everyone to somewhere around Puget Sound. We’ll set up a refinery somewhere up in Peace River Country if we can, or over in the Dakotas if we can’t. Maybe somewhere closer if we can find it. Either way, we’ll refuel any ships and planes as they come in. And we’ll figure out the rest as we go. Let me get you those lists, and a copy of the journal.”

“And don’t forget to change for your interview,” Scott said.

Chapter 7 - One Hundred Million Reasons to Leave

Alma, Quebec

“Buses,” Bill said, as Scott’s plane took off.

“What’s that, hon?” Kim asked, as the cheers subsided, and the burr of the plane’s engine was lost in the clouds.

“I forgot to ask if they had public transport in Australia,” Bill said.

“Is that one of those hidden indicators that can secretly reveal the inner workings of a nation?” she asked.

“Not really,” Bill said. “But if they have buses, they’ll have spare parts. It’d be useful to know the specs before we go on the hunt for vehicles of our own.”

“You can ask Scott when he returns,” Kim said.

“When is that?” asked Peggy Jebboa, the publican of Alma’s newest and only bar.

“Eight days,” Kim said. “Depending on the weather.”

“And ours looks like rain,” Wilgus said. “Let’s all get inside, and we can go through what we were told, make sure everyone knows everything before anyone heads home.”

“Addresses,” Kim said. “Before anyone leaves, we need everyone’s addresses, and the addresses of any settlements they can think of. We’ll get a radio working in the next couple of days, and we’ll broadcast an update over the air. But if we know where everyone is, we can set up a mobile trading route, bringing news and supplies to you. What do you say, Tom?”

“That it’s an interesting idea,” he said. “Let’s go discuss it.”

While he shepherded the crowd off the runway, Bill watched the sky.

“You’re watching the clouds as if you expect the plane to return,” Kim said. “But I doubt they will.”

“Not for eight days,” Bill said. “We should task some people with keeping the runway clear. Maybe that family who turned up yesterday.”

“They were filthy, Bill. Not just their clothes, but hands and faces, too. Sure, dirty clothes is understandable. But in a land of lakes, there’s no excuse not to make an attempt at looking presentable. A couple of Leon’s soldiers are on the walking wounded list, and we can ask Tracy to oversee things. She can select some labourers from among the new arrivals. Oh, it’s wonderful.”

“That so many have survived?” he asked.

“That, yes,” she said. “But more personally that we’ve got overseas friends who asked us to visit! It’s so… so un-apocalyptic. So normal. Liu’s lovely.”

“Her son’s about Annette’s age,” Bill said.

“Yes, and they can be friends for us,” Kim said. “We can visit them, and they can visit us. We can have holidays and… and I don’t know what, but it’s so much better than anything I’ve allowed myself to dream.”

“Did Liu tell you about the oceans?”

“How they’re so toxic, we could almost call them a swamp? Sure. Her eldest is on an icebreaker in the South Pacific, taking readings. But there are scientists working on a fix, so I’m happy to let them worry about that, while I worry about shoes.”

“Why shoes?” he asked, looking down.

“For dancing,” she said, taking his hand. She led him in a slow trot across the tarmac. “How does that song go, there may be trouble ahead?” She began humming the tune. “C’mon. We’ve got music, so let’s dance.”

Bill laughed. “But which of us is facing the music?” he asked.

“All of us,” she said, spinning away a pace. “I did some tap when I was much younger, and I’ve forgotten it all. I’m going to re-learn. And why not, because we have a future, Bill! Isn’t it glorious?”

“Sure, but there is still trouble ahead,” he said. “The next few months are going to be chaotic even if we do everything right. I’ve got to send a message to Janet, Napatchie, and Mary.”

“Lots of people will hear the message before it reaches them,” Kim said.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful in my choice of words, and tone down my optimism.”

“I was more querying what you’ll advise,” Kim said. “Because so many will hear it, and because so many here will hear the same message as soon as you get to the bar, your suggestion will become official policy regardless of what Napatchie or Janet think.”

“Thankfully, I don’t see we have many options,” Bill said. “The plan from a month ago still stands. We need oil wells and a refinery in the west, not just for us, but also to refuel ships and planes from the Pacific. I don’t think we can expect much help from the Pacific, but we can expect supplies that can fit in a small plane. Ammo and medicine are at the top of my list, but so are specialist parts.”

“Like spares for a bus,” Kim said. “I hope they can throw in some food. Did you see the cereal bricks?”

“No, what are they?”

“Just what they sound. They’re densely packed bricks of maize, oats, barley, and wheat. Roasted and toasted, and fortified with vitamins. You can mix them with meat to make a stew, or with water to call it cereal. It’s the modern equivalent of a bread ration.”

“That’s all people are eating down there?”

“No. The soldiers were carrying them as emergency rations. There isn’t much of a surplus at the moment because everyone is putting things aside for their midwinter festival.”

“Winter? Oh, yes, they have reversed seasons.” Bill sighed. “You see? There’s so much more we need to ask them.”

“Then I won’t confuse you by telling you any more of what Liu told me,” Kim said. “So you’re going to tell Janet, Mary, and Napatchie we need to go west?”

“Yes. But we should aim to leave together in large convoys travelling after harvest. We’ll say the same thing to everyone in the bar, and tell them to pass the message on. We’ll need more Geiger counters, and ammunition, but food is going to be the real problem.”

“It always is,” she said. “I remember reading that in a book someone I love once wrote. See, I do read what you write. Focus on what you’re going to tell the people in Digby, and worry about the details afterwards. Are you going to Saguenay? Chrissie can take you.” She gestured towards the gate where Chrissie, and her truck, were still waiting, though the vehicle was now surrounded by crates.

“I’ll send her with a message,” Bill said.

“Then you do that, and I’ll meet you in the bar,” she said. “I really do want to make sure we get everyone’s address before they leave. We did it, Bill. We really did!”

She skipped and danced her way across the runway. More slowly, he limped after her, smiling as he, too, enjoyed the sheer pleasure of knowing their species had survived. Step by step, utter joy was weighed down by the responsibility of making sure the people within his personal sphere of influence remained that way.

“What do you want to do with these boxes?” Chrissie asked. “There’s too many for the truck. Shall I take them to the house?”

“What’s inside?” Bill asked.

“Ammo. Rifles. Medicine. Food,” she said. There was a brief pause, as she considered how to complete the quartet. “There’s not much of anything. But it’s all very valuable.”

“The rifles can stay here,” Bill said. “The med-kits can go to the clinic. We’ll send half the ammo to Saguenay, along with the food. That’ll save us having to resupply Bran’s team with anything from here. Leon can then redistribute it when he returns.”

“Great. So, are you giving me a hand?” she asked. “I know you’ve only got one.”

“Ha-ha,” he said. “I’ve got to send a message to Digby.”

“You’re writing a message?” she asked. “For Bran to send over the radio, yes? Why not just record it?” She took out a phone, closed down the music player, and opened the voice memo app.

“That would be more sensible, yes,” Bill said. “Thank you. Now, what to say?”

It took four takes before he had a draft he was happy with, and another two before he’d recorded a five-minute version.

“Technology,” he said, as he finished. “I could get used to you.”

“I could get used to having some help,” Chrissie said. “Not you,” she added as he began to roll up his sleeve. “Kim would kill me if you broke your other arm.”

“I’ll grab someone from the bar,” he said.

The airport was half a kilometre from the trading post. He took his time, barely noticing the collection of well-looted car showrooms, stripped-bare tool shops, salvaged marine outfitters, and rescued farm equipment stores clustered along Route 169. The trading post was at the corner of Route 169 and Rue de Lac, and the bar was directly opposite.

Until the Digby expedition had arrived in Alma, the bar had been a storehouse. A year ago, it had been a farm equipment specialist, selling small tractors, large mowers, and monstrous threshers. The lot behind, and the car park of the hardware mega-store next door, had become a dumping ground for sheet metal, barbed wire, fence posts, and other barricade necessities that now, hopefully, would never be needed.

The office-showroom for the equipment shop had become the bar, named in stereotypically ironic Quebecois fashion, La Fin de la Terre. Calling it a bar was simply habit. While Alma wasn’t dry, it was a long time since the last keg had rolled into town. Over the long dark winter, when anticipation of a cold beer was more enjoyable than the reality of the colder nights, a modest homebrew operation had begun. Limited by how much wheat or maize could be spared from the daily menu, there was currently a two-beer maximum until Friday-week when the next batch would be tapped. Thus, it was no surprise to see the crowds outside the bar weren’t carrying glasses. Most were carrying weapons, though. He wondered how long that habit would last. Among those who’d been chased outside by the full-volume strains of “Waltzing Matilda” was Alice, who jogged over.

“Bit loud, is it?” Bill asked.

Alice shook her head. “I was at the clinic, and I was looking for you. The patient from Temagami is awake and talking.”

“I’ll go straight there,” Bill said. “Chrissie is at the airport standing guard over the supplies offloaded from the plane. Half are to stay here, half are to resupply Saguenay. Can you help her move the supplies for here into our embassy, and I’ll get Tom to collect them later. Then escort Chrissie to Saguenay. She’s got a recording for Digby that needs to be sent via radio.”

Alice snapped a salute, and marched over to the nearest group of music-critics. With each step, her back stiffened, her pose shifted from survivor back to soldier, and so it was with martial authority that she volunteered the civilians into a work detail.

Bill turned on his heels, and headed up to the clinic.

Tom Wilgus had built the trading post on the corner of Route de Lac and Highway 169 primarily to keep it a safe distance away from the barricaded settlement he, and his extended survivor-family, had claimed as their home. Including the large fishing hamlet two kilometres west on the shores of Lac Saint-Jean, and the farming collective to the south, as well as the reclusive religious commune to the north, two hundred people lived within walking distance of the bar. Extending the boundaries to a lazy-bicycle ride doubled it. Another two hundred, in close-knit clusters of ten to twenty, were dotted along the western shores of the lake.

Collectively, the people living near the lake, and the trading post, were the survivors with more dependents than workers. They were the people who’d arrived needing help. Implicit was a question over the character of those who’d voluntarily moved north. If they were the people who’d opted to abandon their homes and start over in order to avoid expending time and effort helping the more desperate newcomers, how much help would they give during the coming endeavour? How many would prefer to stay in the homes they’d recently made than risk an uncertain journey west?

Wilgus had built a high wall around the buildings he’d turned into his hamlet. Three homes just outside the wall had been given to Bill for the informal embassy. Just inside the gate was the clinic, established in a wood-frame two-storey opposite an old abattoir now used a curing shed.

Before today, Bill had still not formed any definite conclusions about the Almans, or the Quebecois more generally. Scott’s arrival had muddied the waters, but during the walk from airport to bar to clinic, he had at least found a new way to frame the problem: how many of the locals would want to leave?

Like all buildings inside the walls, the clinic had been modified and extended during the quiet months. The front porch had become a wide veranda. At present, only one patient was taking the air: Tracy Mossburger, the commander of the defence of Annapolis during the desperate months after the Nova Scotian ships were stolen. Next to her, temporarily demoted to orderly, was Ethan.

“Have you heard the news?” Bill called as he approached.

“We heard the plane,” Tracy said, shifting in her wheelchair.

“One hundred million people survived in the Pacific,” Bill said.

“We heard that, too,” Tracy said. “Ethan, can you help me up? Thank you.”

The soldier helped her stand. She leaned on the unseasoned rail that topped the solid-metal barrier ringing the veranda. “Standing is fine,” she said. “Sitting is okay. Moving is a real bother.”

“I remember that well from London,” Bill said. “Alice said the freed prisoner was awake.”

“He’s sleeping now,” Tracy said. “Conversation exhausted him. His name is Captain Johnny Stahl. He was regular army before the outbreak.”

“Which army?” Bill asked.

“The army,” Ethan said in his hoarse rumble.

“Canadian,” Tracy said. “He was in logistics. After the outbreak, he organised the placement of supply dumps for General Yoon. After the nuclear war, he had some troubles. He was a little fuzzy on the details, and slushy in his speech, but he somehow ended up south of the border, on the other side of the lakes. He was captured, then rescued, and then he returned north.”

“Captured by whom?” Bill asked.

“That he didn’t say,” Tracy said.

“Cannibals,” Ethan said.

“He didn’t say,” Tracy said, half turning, before wincing, and returned her gaze forwards. “Not everything’s cannibals, Ethan. You need to read some different books.”

“Where’s he been more recently?” Bill asked.

“Otter Rapids,” Tracy said.

“Where’s that?”

“The end of the earth,” Ethan said.

“The end of the road,” Tracy said. “I know that’s what some of the locals call this place, but they’re kidding themselves if they think Alma is remote. Otter Rapids is the end of the road, and the location of a hydroelectric dam that feeds the forestry and mining settlements further north. To reach them, you have to fly or sail, though in winter, you’d have to drive over ice. They used to cut an ice road up to Moosonee. That’s a saltwater port used to supply the settlements that truly are beyond the end of the Earth.”

“I’ve heard of Moosonee,” Bill said. “But why?”

“General Yoon,” Ethan said.

“That’s it,” Bill said. “She established a garrison there.”

“Moosonee was the northern end of her first defensive line, on the shores of Hudson Bay,” Tracy said. “Wawa, near Lake Ontario, marked the southern bastion. Between Wawa and Moosonee, the front would only be five hundred kilometres long.”

“Only,” Bill muttered. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to Canadian distances. Is General Yoon there?”

“No, but their leaders have some link to the Pacific,” Tracy said. “They must be soldiers, and of a higher rank than the captain. After the outbreak, it was Captain Stahl’s job to ensure the supplies were moved to Otter Rapids, but the army advanced too quickly for them to be used. The drivers took the vehicles to follow the army. Now, there are three thousand, some are from the army, some are locals.”

“Three thousand?” Bill said. “And they still have some supplies.”

“Enough to survive last winter,” Tracy said. “He was fuzzy on the specifics, but they were using the diesel from a train to keep the lights on, so I think there’s a problem with the dam.”

“They have a train?” Bill asked. “What kind?”

“The Polar Bear Express,” Tracy said.

“Isn’t that a Christmas film?” he asked.

“It’s a real ice-crusher,” Tracy said. “It was famous, at least here in Canada. If it wasn’t the sturdiest train in the world before the outbreak, it certainly is now.”

“This all sounds very promising,” Bill said. “Why did the captain leave Otter Rapids, and when?”

“Last fall, they heard a third-hand story about Temagami and how they were setting up roadside way-stations further to the south. As soon as the snow began to melt, his team set off to make contact, and to find out where this route was and how far west it ran.”

“So they ultimately wanted to make contact with the Pacific?” Bill said. “He was captured, and since he was pegged out in chicken wire to die, we must assume the rest of his team was killed. I suppose we must also assume his people think he’s dead and no hope will come from Temagami. They certainly would if they went to Temagami looking for him.”

“The killers questioned him,” Tracy said. “He says he told them nothing, but they had his maps, and they had the rest of his team.”

“I don’t suppose that matters,” Bill said.

“It does,” Ethan said.

“That’s what we were discussing,” Tracy said. “You think there were about fifty in Temagami. Captain Stahl thought there were around sixty. But you only found half by the Ottawa River. The group split up. I think some went north, because they thought it was their quickest way to get south, on a plane, after these Otter Rapids people made contact with the Pacific. Stahl overheard them saying they had powerful friends in Australia. Before you escaped, their goal was to get to the Pacific, but they couldn’t travel with your Australian pilot because they’d already begun torturing the Mountie. Some went south, retracing their steps, and probably aiming to resupply at a bunker in New York.”

“If you’re summarising my theory rather than any concrete evidence from Stahl, it’s possibly rather than probably,” Bill said. “And I think this was the goal of the minority who were executed rather than the majority who were still alive when we found them at the Ottawa River.”

“Whether the plan was to hide in a bunker for a year,” Tracy said, “or to head southwest immediately, ultimately, they’d want to reach the Pacific. Stahl told them of a much quicker way of reaching it.”

“By heading north, connecting with these people in Otter Rapids who might be expecting an airlift,” Bill said. “So you think, before Kim and I arrived and escaped, the killers were debating whether to head to the bunker or to go north. Our escape led them to hasten the departure and split. That would tally with the stray biker who drove into the parking lot of that hotel. It doesn’t mean any did actually go north. It would be as likely they headed due west.”

“But we have to go to Otter Rapids to warn them,” Tracy said.

“After all this time, we’d be warning them that there are snakes in their midst,” Bill said. “That could get tricky. We’ll need a message from Captain Stahl. Video, for preference. Something we can use to convince his people we’re to be trusted. That should be enough to get any newcomers detained until Captain Stahl is well enough to identify the guilty.”

“How did you leave things with the Australians?” Tracy asked. “Are they coming back?”

“In eight days,” Bill said. “It’ll take four to fly a message to Canberra. They have to stop in Japan, and I don’t know where else. Eight days, if the weather holds, and another eight to get a reply to our reply. Communication will be slow for a long while, so I sent a message to Digby to say, for now, we’re sticking with the plan to go west, and to leave after harvest. I just hope eight days is long enough to get to Otter Rapids and back.”

Two hours later, after a protracted detour to the bar, Bill finally sank into the armchair next to the half of the lounge window not covered in plyboard. “What a day,” he said.

“What a distance,” Kim said, looking at the map. “Otter Rapids is twelve hundred kilometres away.”

“We’ll still be back before Scott returns,” Bill said.

“J’accuse!” Kim said. “I knew you wanted to go to Otter Rapids.”

“The expedition has to be led by someone with authority,” Bill said. “Leon’s not returned from the Ottawa River, Tom Wilgus can’t leave Alma. Tracy can’t stand without help. That leaves us. It’s a slim chance we’d recognise any of the Temagami murderers, but slim is better than nothing.”

“That’s an argument for me to go,” Kim said. “Unless you can give me a better reason, I’ll go, and you’ll stay here. Go on, what is it?”

“Those people in the bar,” he said.

“What about them? They seemed friendly enough. Terrible singers, and since they were mostly sober, I dread to think what they’ll sound like when drunk, but they were nice, happy, even enthusiastic.”

“Exactly,” Bill said. “They kept asking me what we’ll do next.”

“You told them. Plan for a move after harvest, and after we know where we’re going.”

“Do you want to know the details?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said.

“Exactly,” he said. “And so will they. So will Digby. So will Scott. There’s a limit to how much we can plan until Sholto gets back from New York, and Leon returns from the Ottawa River, and until we know specifically what help the Pacific can provide, but that doesn’t mean I can’t start planning.”

“And you think you’ll do more planning in a car than here in a nice warm house?” she asked.

“No, but if I’m away, people won’t pester me so much,” he said.

“I think you just want an adventure,” she said. “But I won’t argue, on the condition it’s the last one for a while. The ship should return in about two weeks, and I’m going back to Digby to collect the girls. They should come and live with us here, near the airport, because someday soon, someone is going down to Australia to brief them in person. That’s going to be us, and we’re all going together.”

27th March

Chapter 8 - A Yorkshire Greeting

Alma, Quebec

His sleep was broken not by dawn, but by an engine.

“I bet that’s for you,” Kim said, dragging a pillow over her face before pulling it straight off. “Damp! There’s too much damp, everywhere!”

“It’s easier to find than coffee,” Bill muttered, pulling himself out of bed. He walked to the window. Outside was Chrissie’s SUV and she was behind the wheel, though the Yorkshire soldier, Bran, was standing by the open passenger door.

“I heard you had tea,” Bran said as Bill opened the front door to their house.

“Please tell me that’s not the only reason you’re here,” Bill said.

“Please tell me it is,” Kim said.

“I bring a reply from the government,” the soldier said, holding out a leather document case.

“That looks official,” Kim said.

“Aye, it is,” Bran said. “And too important for a brown envelope.”

“And that sounds ominous,” Bill said.

“Well, tell us over tea,” Kim said. “Come on in.”

“There’s only one page,” Bill said, as he looked inside the document case while Kim retreated to the kitchen. “Only one paragraph. Handwritten. I’m an ambassador?”

“With the authority to negotiate a trade deal on behalf of Canada and the United States,” Bran said. “Appointed by Napatchie Ashoona in her position as the last remaining member of the Canadian cabinet, and Janet Gunderson, Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy, and Mrs Mary O’Leary, elected head of state of all those who found refuge in Anglesey and Ireland.”

“Does he get a hat?” Kim called.

“No,” Bill said.

“He should have a hat,” Kim said. “Something with lots of gold braid.” She came out of the kitchen with a tray in hand. “Why are you lurking in the hall? Go and sit down. Did Chrissie not want to come in?”

“She doesn’t have clearance,” Bran said.

“Clearance?” Bill asked. “Since when did we have security levels? Since when did we need them?”

“It was a joke,” the taciturn soldier said. “The car rattles when it hits thirty. She’s on a hunt to find out why.”

“I’ll take her some tea in a moment,” Bill said. “How’s Saguenay?”

“Can’t complain,” Bran said, as he followed Bill into the living room. “The survey teams made contact with solitary hostiles during seven separate incidents. One was hot.”

“Seven zombies and one was radioactive?” Kim asked.

Bran nodded. “This was ten klicks south of Saguenay. Must have come from Quebec. Slow-moving beast, it was. Radiation takes its toll on them, too, if not as quickly as it does on us.”

“And not quickly enough,” Kim said. “Your patrols have been going out quite far.”

“There’s nowt to find near the harbour,” Bran said. “Our shopping list was based on our needs before the koalas arrived. Has it changed?”

“Bill’s still working that out,” Kim said.

“But right now, I’m working out the subtext of this letter,” Bill said. “With whom did you speak?”

“The team in Bathurst,” Bran said. “They relayed your message to Digby, and this one back to us.”

“That’s the team of sailors checking harbours and industrial sites for fuel, yes?” Kim asked, taking out her notebook. “Here we are. Bathurst. New Brunswick. Chaleur Bay. Got it. What was the signal like?”

“Mustn’t grumble,” Bran said. “But we need a proper transmitter.”

“Who sent the message?” Bill asked.

“Mrs O’Leary wrote it, if that’s what you’re asking,” Bran said.

“It is,” Bill said, “and I think I can make a bit more sense of the game being played here. A lot of people were listening in, so a lot of people will know my message to Digby included that I promised Scott all of our ships and the helicopters. But Mary wants it to be clear that we’re trading the vehicles, not giving them away, and she wants to remind me that we can stake a claim on anything this side of the Mexican border.”

“She can’t mean we’re claiming almost an entire continent,” Kim said.

“I think it’s just a reminder we’ve got some cards to play,” Bill said.

“The way I see it,” Bran said, gulping his tea, “Scott’s one of us. As long as he’s running the negotiations on their end, we’ll get a fair deal. Might be better digs down in Oz. Might be better guns flown here to Canada. Either way, it’s better than negotiating with a stranger. One other thing, I’m your protection detail.”

“Why?” Bill asked.

“Look at your arm, and then tell me whether he really needs to answer that,” Kim said. “We’re going north today, Bran. To a place called Otter Rapids. The prisoner we freed in Temagami came from a community of three thousand, run by some soldiers with a link to the Pacific. We’re worried that some of the killers might have taken refuge there, so we’re taking them a warning, news of the Pacific, and news that their friend is still alive.”

“We’ll need a guide,” Bran said.

Dressing took longer than packing, and that took longer than writing a short reply for Digby. Composing a message for their daughters took much longer, but finding a guide was as simple as asking Chrissie. She’d frequently driven through both Cochrane and Smooth Rock Falls, the two nearest settlements on the last proper east-west road. Less than an hour after waking, they were driving west.

“Our car should have a code name,” Kim said. “Don’t they do that for dignitaries?”

“Only for American presidents,” Bill said.

“An ambassador is pretty close to a president,” Kim said. “And Canada is close enough to the U.S.”

“The message from Mary was really about managing the expectations of people in Digby,” Bill said.

“But you are an ambassador,” Kim said. “That should come with some perks. So if we’re not getting the big house, big salary, or bigger expense account, we’ll take a fun name. How about Teapot-One?”

“How about Excalibur?”

“How about Crumpet?” she said.

“We’ll stick with car-two,” Bill said.

There were only three cars, and six people: Chrissie and Bran were in the lead car. Bill and Kim were following, with Ethan and Alice bringing up the rear.

It was Bran’s decision not to bring an army. Alice and Ethan had concurred. Even if Leon had been in Alma, diplomacy demanded they recruit additional soldiers from among the locals. Some of the Almans had served, and all had survived, but, to quote Bran, they were unknown quantities. From how vigorously Ethan had nodded his head, Bill had taken this to be international soldier-speak for potentially unreliable. Besides, any murderers who’d set out from Temagami would have reached Otter Rapids by now. That made this mission less of a hunt and more of a request for an arrest.

On a practical note, in the event of a double-breakdown, six people could easily fit into one of the up-armoured SUVs, while three vehicles didn’t place too stiff a demand on the diminishing Alman fuel supply. They were well armed, and if they encountered hostility along the route, they would turn back, but violence was unlikely. This was a diplomatic mission, and not just to Otter Rapids. Any struggling groups they met would be directed to Alma. If those stray survivors lacked the means to travel there, the SUVs would become buses. Any would-be bandits would certainly lose interest in petty theft when they learned that a real civilisation existed on the other side of the world, and was accessible via the Alma airport. Yes, there was danger, but it was already significantly different from the perils of last year. If anything, it was now more akin to the dangers of a thousand years ago, but the news they carried was an invisible shield allowing them to travel as freely as a poet had in Ireland or a monk had in France. Probably. Assuming he had a chance to put their case.

“Sing,” Kim said.

“I’m sorry?”

“I forgot that the CDs are all in Chrissie’s car,” Kim said. “I deleted the songs from my phone so I’d have more space for photos and videos. So, since I’m driving, you should sing, or entertain me some other way.”

“I was just thinking about poets and monks,” Bill said.

“Oh, yes,” she said, “if I were a killer-biker trying to inveigle my way into a pre-established community without anyone asking questions, dressing up as a monk might work. Or a nun, I suppose. Then again, people are more likely to remember a group of twenty monks who rolled in a few days ago.”

“I suppose they would,” Bill said. He picked up his notebook to record the speed, distance, and time. Sixty-five kilometres an hour, one hundred and seven kilometres already travelled, over a span of two hours and ten minutes. About as long remained until the first planned stop of the day.

Chrissie had wanted them to travel due west in a nearly straight line, but her route involved unmarked back roads and forgotten bridges through Quebec’s vast région sauvage. Instead, they were taking the road twice travelled, retracing the first part of the journey which had led them to Temagami. They would drive northwest to Chibougamau, then west beyond Waswanipi, but then head down towards Val D’Or. As they neared the bombed city, they’d be guided by their Geiger counters, but it was Bill’s hope that the deep valleys and steeper mountains would have contained any lingering radiation in the city’s immediate vicinity. After skirting the suburbs, and surveying outlying runways for a potential landing site for Scott, they would head north to Cochrane, and hunt for the last road north.

“You’ve gone quiet again,” Kim said.

“Like grief, joy has its own five stages,” Bill said.

“Is this a guessing game?” she asked.

“Disbelief, ecstasy, understanding, rationalisation, and happiness,” Bill said. “I’m at stage three. I don’t think we can wait until harvest before we leave. But I don’t think we should tell anyone that. Everyone will have to leave together, and as soon as we pull our people from Newfoundland, we’ll have to begin the evacuation of Digby. Alma can’t provide the food to support us, and once we move west, we can’t support Alma. We’ll all have to move together, and relatively soon.”

“That’s a change since this morning,” she said. “Do you mean we need an airlift? Liu asked if we did, and I said no. She said it was possible, though we’d have to travel without baggage. They did it before in Cape Town, Mozambique, and Hengchun. But we wouldn’t go to Australia, Papua, or New Zealand. It would probably be to an enclave on an outlying Japanese island, assuming they decide it’s viable to maintain a settlement there. Some of our people will definitely want a fresh start, but most would prefer to stay in the English-reading world, assuming it’s an option.”

“Exactly,” Bill said. “Is it an option? We can only expect minimal assistance from the Pacific. Ammo, some bulk food, vitamins, basic medicine, and maybe one or two specialist passengers. We can beg more while we’re getting set up, but only if we promise we will, shortly, become a net-producer. Even then, we can’t expect much support to arrive by ship. Did Liu tell you much about this mission of theirs to Japan?”

“A bit,” Kim said. “It’s partly to make safe the nuclear facilities, and partly to steal some specialist parts needed to make a few reactors in Australia. Oh, but most people think it’s to get them TVs. It sounds like they have a six-star halfwit running the place.”

“Oswald Owen? That’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about him,” Bill said. “Scott implied the mission to Japan is using up all their spare resources. Ships are very scarce, and will remain so for at least two years.”

“Which makes our ships very valuable,” Kim said. “That’s what Mary implied in her message, no?”

“Yes, but they’re valuable only if we can provide the ships with enough fuel to reach the Pacific. I assume they’ll have to sail around Cape Horn.”

“What about using the Panama Canal?” she asked.

“It’s blocked, and will take months to clear,” Bill said.

“Oh, that’s a pity,” Kim said. “Still, I’m happy to leave that problem to the sailors. Will the Pacific supply their own, or will it be our people?”

“Good question. With so few ships, they must have sailors to spare. I think we’ll ask whether any of ours want to come ashore. And we’ll tell the Pacific the rest are being seconded to their command, but can’t be summarily dismissed or transferred.”

“And their families should go with them,” Kim said. “They’re to be provided with housing wherever the ships will make their home port. Make sure you add that. And if there are people who want to leave, they can do so aboard the ships. I can think of a few people I’m sure don’t want to be any nearer to me than I do to them.”

“What if half of Digby asks for a ticket?” Bill said.

“They won’t,” Kim said. “Not just because our time as sea people wasn’t much fun. The Canadians and Statesians will prefer the almost-familiar surroundings of Puget Sound, and most of the Europeans will want to stay near their friends. Trust me. There, did I solve your problem?”

The radio chirruped. “Flood ahead. Half speed, over,” Bran said.

In the background, Chrissie sang, “Ground control to Major Tom,” before the radio cut out.

Half speed became a quarter, then a slow five kilometres an hour as they splashed through the edge of a flooded lake. Bill jotted down time and total distance before trying to locate where they were. Finally, as the road rose above the flood, Bill checked the radiation reading.

“We’re fine,” he said.

“Excellent, so if the problem is solved, let’s have a sing-song. It sounds like at least half the lead-car already is.”

“I mean the radiation reading is fine,” Bill said. “The rest of our troubles are slowly unfolding before me. We have to make contact with all of the remote-dwelling Quebecois. Until we do, and until we can tell them precisely where to go, we need them to remain in place so we can easily find them.”

“Assuming they have the resources to stay put,” Kim said. “But surely that’s why telling them we’re moving after harvest makes sense. We’ll drive west, yes?”

“I think so,” Bill said. “Definitely from Alma, but hopefully from Digby if we can find a safe land route.”

“How will the Pacific get fuel to the ships?” Kim asked. “It must be road.”

“If we can find the tankers,” Bill said.

“Let them find the tankers,” Kim said. “And the fuel, and the route. We’ll help, obviously, but they have planes to scout roads and bridges. Whatever route they use to bring the tankers east, we can use to drive west. In RVs, I think, so everyone can bring their home with them. Then, when we get to Puget Sound, we don’t have to worry about where we’ll live until we’ve sorted out what we’ll eat. Maybe some of those tanker-rigs can drive back from Nova Scotia with our fishing boats aboard. Hang on, those helicopters, they’ll be driven back west, yes?”

“Absolutely,” Bill said. “Since they’re half our trade goods, I’m not going to risk finding out none will ever fly. Caveat emptor, because we’re selling them as is.”

“Then we’ll definitely have some flatbeds to carry fishing boats. Yes, those trucks will be in Puget Sound, but if we know the route, it’ll only be an extra couple of weeks of driving. Did Scott say anything about electricity there?”

“No, I didn’t ask.”

“It’s something to look up,” she said. “Did I solve your problem?”

“Most of it,” Bill said. “Thank you.”

“But not all?”

“Only Nova Scotia and Newfoundland,” Bill said. “We know where everyone is, and can make contact with them all in a matter of days. We don’t know how many people live north of Alma. We didn’t know about Otter Rapids until yesterday. Even if we announced we were going west tomorrow, we don’t know how long it will take to spread the word to everyone, or how long it will take them all to arrive in Alma. When they do, they’ll need to be fed, and then provided with transport to the west. But we can’t do that until we’ve secured our evacuation route.”

“Is there anything we can do about that?” she asked.

“Beyond keeping food in Alma, and running a bus service, no,” Bill said.

“A bus service? You should ask George to run it. I think he’d like that.”

“But what about the people who don’t want to leave?” Bill asked.

“What about them? We won’t force them.”

“No, but for how long should we run the bus?”

“Until the bridges are gone,” she said. “But you’re getting a bit far ahead, no? Moose! Wait, no, it’s just a deer,” she said as the beast changed its mind and scampered back into the woodland. “We can send Bran west with Scott when the plane next lands. Maybe Tracy, if she’s well enough. She’d be good at scouting the oil fields, and she’d have a plane to help her. I suppose a lot depends on how many zombies are in British Columbia, but it’s not such a huge distance to the oil fields in the Dakotas, and I’m sure there are reserves closer to Puget Sound.”

“If there aren’t, and if we have to evacuate everyone, it will be easier from the West Coast,” Bill said. “But we’ll do all we can to make this settlement work, and we will, for once, have some support. They ran an evacuation from Vancouver.”

“Liu said her daughter was studying there. Her escape sounds impossible.”

“Scott wouldn’t tell me the details,” Bill said. “He said Clemmie would want to tell me herself.”

“Then I won’t spoil the story,” Kim said.

“Did Liu tell you how many people made it out of Canada?”

“Hundreds of thousands, though I don’t know how many of them made it all the way to safety.”

“Some will want to return,” Bill said. “They don’t have ships to move great numbers of people, but they do have planes. The only way you can transport migrants by plane is if they have food, shelter, and clothing waiting when they arrive. They would have that in Puget Sound.”

“And we have Janet and Napatchie so there won’t be any question as to who is in charge. That’s why Mary mentioned it, yes?”

“Possibly,” Bill said. “But it’s also a reminder we can stake a claim to more than just the land we can see from our windows. A claim we won’t make, obviously. When Scott told me about this mission to Japan, and how the publicly stated reason is to provide TVs to the masses, I thought of bread, circuses, and the decline of Rome. The forcible migration of two hundred thousand Canadians and West-Coasters back to Puget Sound will make no real difference to the strain on resources in Australia, but there’s definite propaganda value in a newsreel clip of Canadians waving and smiling as they board a plane to go home.”

“Wow. I didn’t think of that,” she said. “My view of Australia has suddenly turned bleak. That settles it, we’ll be on the next plane so we can see it for ourselves.”

Chrissie’s brake lights flashed. The radio chirruped. “Contact. Prepare to stop. Remain in your vehicles,” Bran said. In the background, Chrissie was still singing.

“And I spoke too soon,” Kim said. “Where are you going?”

“The roof,” Bill said, squirming into the back. “That still counts as inside the car.”

The four-door, four-wheel-drive, high clearance mini-truck had been utilised before the outbreak to pick the kids up after sports. Over the winter in Digby it had been stripped of all excess weight, including padding, and battery-draining electronics like the skylight’s button-activated motor. As he dragged the sunroof back, it jammed halfway, but with a shove and a swear, he got it open. Outside, a rectangular steel turret had been welded onto the roof, thirty centimetres high. To Bill’s mind, it had no practical purpose beyond making the car less fuel-efficient. The footholds below were in the wrong position, at least for his twisted leg, making him have to balance on his one good arm.

Grills had been installed over the windows, a ram had been attached to the front, and a new winch installed at the back. The chain-link skirts built to hang over the wheel-arch had been removed as they too easily snagged on fallen branches while redirecting tyre-flung debris towards the wheel. The modification work had begun with the undead in mind, but was as heavily influenced by boredom as by fear. Now, it seemed overly cautious if not utterly unnecessary.

He breathed deeply. A soup-thick blast of forest odours entered his lungs: fresh pine and rising sap, sweet early blossom, thriving despite a late frost. Beneath was the bitter bouquet of rotting leaves, stagnant pools of near-road water, and thriving mushrooms gorging on the fallen trees. And, of course, as with everywhere on the planet, the lingering tang of walking death.

Three people approached. Three day-tripping hikers returning home. A weary family anticipating journey’s end. Two parents and a child. The child’s trousers were belted and scissor-cut at the ankles rather than hemmed. Over the impossibly pink, puffy coat hung a sapphire the size of an egg. Since the weight didn’t seem to bother the kid, it was more likely to be costume than a museum-piece.

The parents’ clothing was a timid drab grey with reflective flashes at the sleeves. They carried light packs on their backs. Identical water bottles hung from the left of their belts, next to hunting knives. On the right were holsters. But those holsters were empty. Their clothing was mud-splattered and torn. Their faces were sunken and sallow. The hands of these three undead pilgrims rose in violent invitation, seeking unwilling supplicants to join them in death. Bran fired three quick shots, bringing their lonely purgatory to an end.

“Drive on!” Bran said, over the radio.

Bill dropped back into the truck.

“Recently turned?” Kim asked.

“A few months,” Bill said.

“Do you remember that zombie book? Oh, actually, even I forget which one. But up here in Canada, the undead froze solid every winter and came alive every spring. Do you think that’s what happened?”

“I’d guess it’s the other way around,” Bill said. “The undead outside froze. Their cells burst, the virus died. But those who’d found a bit of shelter went into that odd stasis we saw a lot of back in England.”

“We haven’t seen much of that here in America,” she said. “Then again, we’ve not seen that much of America, or really that many undead. It’s one for the scientists.”

“Five years,” Bill said. “That’s what we’ve got to remember. Not that it’ll definitely all be over by then, but that it certainly isn’t over now.”

“Three and a bit years, now,” Kim said.

“That’s something else to ask the Pacific scientists.”

He picked up his notebook, and wrote down the question, then another, filling a page and a half before they stopped to refuel. He took over driving duties, while Kim took half the CDs from Chrissie. From Bran’s expression, he’d have been glad if she’d taken them all.

Chapter 9 - No Fishing

Lebel-sur-Quévillon, Quebec

As Ethan and Alice checked the airport’s office-cabin, and Bran walked onto Lebel-sur-Quévillon’s runway, Bill checked through the notes he’d made during the journey. They’d set off at six, according to the car’s clock, and now it read half four. During those ten and a half hours, they’d driven for at least nine. But according to the odometer, they’d clocked five hundred and fifty kilometres. Sixty kilometres an hour was a good estimate for their average speed. Which was impressive until he did the conversion.

Thirty-seven miles per hour, and along roads they knew were clear, and relatively free of the undead. It was barely faster than he’d dared risk in England at the beginning of the outbreak.

“Bran’s waving the all-clear,” Kim said. “C’mon, your excellency, let’s see if the staff have drawn you a bath. Ooh, moose,” she said as she stepped outside.

“They’re mices,” Bran said, walking back from the two-bar gate which reminded vehicle traffic to keep off the runway. This warning had been ignored by the family of moose who’d been grazing at the runway’s far end until the vehicles’ arrival. Now the beasts warily watched the newcomers. “One mouse, two mice. One moose, four mices,” the soldier said. “So why haven’t they bolted?”

Even as he spoke, the animals did, with the impressively racked bull leaving last.

“They’re the survivors,” Kim said. “They’ve learned that two-legged danger can’t see that far, or attack from afar, but can lurk in the shadows.”

“Could be,” Bran said, but he turned a slow circle scanning for other trouble. “Chrissie, with me, and bring the camera. We’ll be back in an hour. Radio if there’s trouble.”

“And you radio if you get into trouble,” Bill said.

Bran snorted, and got into the truck.

“Quick,” Chrissie hissed to Kim. “Give me that Prince CD. I swear I saw Bran’s lips twitch when Raspberry Beret came on.”

“Shake a leg, Chrissie,” Bran called.

“Never mind,” Chrissie said, and muttering a pair of profanities, she climbed into the driver’s seat.

“I better get busy pressing his excellency’s clothes,” Kim said. “Is it white tie and medals tonight?”

“Very funny,” Bill said.

“My fun’s barely begun,” she said, and held out her phone. “I’ll refuel the trucks if you want to film the runway.”

By his urban standards, this rural aerodrome didn’t qualify as an airport. The runway was twelve hundred metres long, and a companion to a two-hundred-metre apron, an office, and a storage shed too small to be a hangar. There was no fuel storage, and no tower. Lebel-sur-Quévillon was ninety kilometres north of Senneterre where they had found the helicopters, and that was the reason it had qualified for a visit on this trip. But if the Pacific ever wanted to use the runway to fly in mechanics, or even pilots, they would first have to clear the wreckage.

Two planes had crashed on the runway. One at the southern end, one halfway along. Neither plane was large, both being twin-engine, ten-seater, cloud-skipping buses. Half an hour with a winch and half a day with a broom, and the debris would be cleared. It was hard to gauge how much cement they’d need to smooth the craters, but they’d surely find enough at any abandoned construction site between here and Senneterre.

He had no idea whether the Pacific would ever want to send a plane here, rather than drive their mechanics from Alma, but he wanted to present them with options. Thus, he would show Canberra that his people would always give more help than they’d take, and so could, would, and should remain autonomous.

Back at the trucks, Ethan was reheating dinner.

“Microwaves and a portable freezer,” Bill said. “If only survival was always like this.”

“Five-star soldiering,” Ethan said. “Doesn’t extend to the accommodation.”

“What’s it like in there?”

“Offices,” Ethan said. The microwave pinged.

“I’ll take a look,” Bill said, though his gaze lingered on the freezer. With a shake of his head, he walked towards the cabin.

Fish had been ninety percent of their diet in Digby over the winter. Despite abundant electricity, due to the near constant travels of the previous year, hydroponics was still very much a hobby, and farming was an aspiration. The commercial orchards had provided some dried variety for the children, the old, and the dying, but the Nova Scotians had been close to starvation when the Europeans had arrived. Thanks to the zombies, there was little hunting near to the Digby redoubt.

Some old-world supplies had been found on Newfoundland, and some deer, though that had been consumed by the roughnecks and engineers scratching oil from the frozen ground. Now spring was here, the moose were proof their diet could become more varied, if not more balanced.

The door to the cabin opened. Kim and Alice came out.

“I’ve a new definition for when normality will be restored,” Alice said. “It’s when you can buy a new mattress.”

“There are some inside?” Bill asked.

“Twelve,” Alice said. “But not used since last May. You didn’t leave Ethan cooking? When that man starts cooking, he starts eating, and never stops.”

“Your forehead is wearing its trouble-ahead wrinkles,” Kim said, as Alice jogged over to the cars. “How’s the runway?”

“We could clear and repair it in an afternoon, if we can find some quick-drying cement. I’m assuming there wouldn’t be more than a couple of flights here, so we wouldn’t need anything more permanent. But we’ll need to find that cement, so we should send our scouting teams to find the local construction supply firm. Not just for cement, but materials to build temporary bridges, too.”

“If you’re still worrying about bridges, I have a solution,” she said. “Well, it was Alice who suggested it, but since she’s out of earshot, I’ll claim credit. Jerome and Andrea. He’s a Mountie, and she’s a firefighter, yes? So when a storm would wash away a bridge, they’d know the procedure for putting up a temporary crossing. Only for their patch, sure, but it’ll be similar for the rest of Canada.”

“And probably involves the use of a military bridge flown in by helicopter,” Bill said. “While we’ve got the heavy-lift helicopters parked a hundred kilometres to the south, we don’t have the fuel, or the mechanics, to get them in the air. Or, as yet, the bridges for them to haul. Looking for a construction site is more sensible, but an alternate route is more sensible still. All of which adds up to time.”

“And is that what’s making your forehead impersonate a prune?” she asked.

“Food and time,” he said. “It’s the same thing, really. We’ll be relying on frozen pre-cooked fish, same as we are now, but we’ll need an industrial operation to supply everyone from Digby and Alma with enough to last until the Pacific.”

“Which is no difficulty at all compared to what we went through last year,” she said, holding up the radio handset. “Bran and Chrissie have gone to inspect the lake. The town was the usual mix of bones and ruins, and looted buildings, but the lake should be large enough for fishing. And then there are moose. If we’re driving RVs, we’ve got kitchens. We’ll have bows for hunting, and we could easily have shot those moose, or mices, or whatever Bran makes us call them.”

“Sure, so do we bring some generators to places like this, and some hunters, to fill up a few chest freezers before the convoy arrives? Or do we stagger the journey so animals that flee have a chance to return to our hunting ground? Do we take alternate routes so as not to overhunt and over-fish? Or do we spend a couple of extra weeks in Digby, stocking up on pre-cooked fish, even though that’d be extra weight, and so extra fuel? It’s not an insurmountable problem, but it is a mathematical one, and it’ll begin to solve itself as we see more of the countryside. Speaking of which, what’s it like inside?”

“Like an office to which someone brought mattresses,” she said. “Twelve mattresses, all singles, but probably because they were easier to sling onto the roof of a car. No cars here, so I bet that’s how they left after the plane crashed. It’s not too messy in there, but other than having a roof, it’s not much better than our trucks.”

Her radio crackled.

“Hi Bran, what’s up?” Kim said, completely eschewing radio discipline.

“You better see for yourselves,” Bran replied. “Look for the motel by the lake.”

The half-heated dinner was stowed, and both remaining trucks were on the move within three minutes. Ethan and Alice took the lead, following Chrissie’s radioed directions until she and Bran, and their car, came into sight.

Chrissie and Bran had parked on the road outside a pair of barracks-style one-storey buildings, built in a V facing the lake. The sign said this was a motel, though it was so functional it looked almost institutional. Bran had his finger on the rifle’s trigger-guard, while Chrissie had her pistol in hand.

“Trouble?” Kim asked, as she stepped out of the truck.

“Hope not,” Bran said. “Tracks,” he added. “Cars and bikes. You can see them more clearly at the turning. At least three cars, one large truck, a few motorbikes. Could be twice as many vehicles.”

“On it,” Ethan said, his eyes on the ground while Alice walked beside, eyes alert for danger.

“But no people?” Kim asked.

“Nope. Not sure they stayed here long,” Bran said. “I know I wouldn’t. You’ll understand when you see the lake.”

The water was a dull rainbow, glistening as it caught the late afternoon sun. Amber rivulets curved around violet circles. Turquoise rings surrounded mauve islands. Undisturbed from below, they rippled gently in the soft breeze which wafted an eye-stinging vapour shoreward.

“We won’t be fishing in that,” Kim said. “A spilled oil tanker, do you think?”

“Or industrial runoff from a nearby factory,” Bill said. He trudged back across the field of muddy dead grass, too polluted even for weeds. He checked one room in the small hotel, then its neighbour, but the blistering vapour soon forced them to retreat back to the road.

“Rendezvous,” Ethan said. “Pre-arranged.”

“How many?” Kim asked even while Bill mentally slotted some nouns and verbs into the soldier’s sparse report.

“Four bikers, three cars, and three pickups or heavily loaded cars,” Alice said. “They arrived together, drove behind the motel, but drove off again.”

“When was this?” Kim asked.

“Three days,” Ethan said.

“Give or take,” Alice added.

“They didn’t stay here,” Bran said. “We checked the rooms.”

“Would you stay here?” Chrissie asked. “I wouldn’t. I’d want to get far, far away.”

“If this was a planned rendezvous, they’d have had a fallback location,” Bran said.

“We won’t look for it,” Bill said. “But why do you think this is a pre-arranged rendezvous?”

“Why else drive behind the motel?” Bran asked. “There’s a few bars on the town’s high street. I’d stop there, or at the petrol station. I might send a couple of scouts to collect fresh water from the lake, but they all arrived here together.”

“At a motel,” Bill said. “Like that hotel on the Ottawa River, this place would be listed in a guidebook. So, let’s assume it’s the other half of the killers from Temagami. Were they expecting to meet someone here, or were they supposed to wait?”

“How about we return to the airport, and discuss this somewhere each breath doesn’t take a day off our lives?” Kim said.

28th March

Chapter 10 - Hot and Cold

Amos, Quebec

Bill was woken by a hand over his mouth.

“Quiet,” Kim whispered.

“Zombie or killer?” he asked.

“Bear,” she said.

There wasn’t just one, but eleven shaggy brown bears. Five adults and six cubs padded across the runway, following the track the moose had used yesterday.

“That’s not normal, is it?” Bill asked, his voice low as he watched from the window. “Bears don’t hunt in packs.”

“Not really normal,” Kim whispered. “Maybe, to survive last year, they banded together to keep an eye out for the undead.”

“And now they’re hunting the moose?” he asked.

“Or migrating,” Kim said.

By the time Bill was dressed, the bears were gone. He left their semi-private partition-wall office, and joined the others in the wide waiting room that, in somewhere so rural, would be a hub for gossip as much as for aerial through-traffic.

“Did the bears come near our trucks?” Bill asked.

“Not even close,” Alice said.

“What about the cooked fish, they must have been able to smell it,” Bill said.

“They weren’t interested,” Alice said.

“Maybe they’ve had their fill of human,” Chrissie said. “The killers from Temagami. I bet they ate them.”

“Between the polluted lake and the wandering bears, I think we’ll find Scott a different runway,” Bill said. “If we can get to Smooth Rock Falls tonight, we can be at Otter Rapids by lunch, roads allowing, and be out of there an hour later, and far away before nightfall. Let’s have a look at the map. We’ll need to check out another airport. Hmm, too far. Too close. Ah, here. Cochrane. That’s about four hundred kilometres from here, and not too far from Otter Rapids. That’ll do as the next major waypoint.”

“Ethan will wither if he waits that long for breakfast,” Alice said.

Ethan nodded.

“We’ll stop in an hour,” Kim said. “Somewhere with a view.”

“Somewhere without bears,” Bran said.

Bill had quietly worried the road trip was an indulgence to sate his wanderlust, but it had become a useful visual tool to plan the specifics, and problems, of the last great evacuation. He wouldn’t call it that aloud. The taboo over using the e-word had been diluted through the merger with various groups of non-British survivors. Calling it the last, though, was tempting fate when it was entirely possible that a new ice age, or worse, could force them to leave Canada. Putting thoughts of that, and indeed of any future evacuation of Australia, from his mind, he focused instead on the minutiae of food, water, spare parts, and how much extra fuel they’d have to request from the Pacific.

The radio clicked, but Bran’s voice was lost beneath the music.

“Say again,” Kim said.

“The bridge is down,” Bran said. His truck was already slowing.

“Where are we?” Bill asked, picking up the map.

“This is the 395,” Kim said. “We just turned off the 397.”

“Right, so we’re now heading due west, and that river is the Ruisseau Anctil,” Bill said. He picked up the radio. “We’ll go back to the 397, and try the crossing near Rochebaucourt.”

“A more southerly route takes us closer to Val D’Or,” Bran said.

“It’s only by another ten kilometres or so,” Bill said. “We’re still fifty kilometres from Val D’Or.”

Radio silence stretched long enough to make Bill wonder if the handset was broken.

“Agreed,” Bran finally said.

Once again, Bill lost himself in his notes, until they reached Landrienne. Outside a wood-porch pub named La Dernière Chance that he would have called a saloon if it were south of the border, was a blue Michigan state police motorcycle. It wasn’t alone, but sharing company with two lowriders and a street bike.

That, though, wasn’t what first caught Bill’s eye, nor was it why Bran had stopped, or why he issued a curt command to “Stay in your cars. Windows up.”

On the road, across the front of the bar, and on the road signs next to it, were the spray-painted words Hot Zone. The author had attempted to paint a radiation symbol, but it had come out looking like mouse-ears and a tie. To make up for it, they’d added the words radiation and danger before, presumably, fleeing.

The radio clicked. “I’m not reading any elevated radiation readings,” Alice said.

Bill listened for Bran’s reply, but the soldier, instead, got out of his truck.

“Wait here,” Bran called. Geiger counter in one hand, sidearm in the other, Bran walked towards the bar, sweeping the bikes, and then the porch before moving to the doors. “So far, so clean,” he called out, before stepping inside.

He was gone less than a minute, and came out walking fast. “Alice, your Geiger counter? Ta.”

“What is it?” Kim asked.

“Hold position,” Bran said, and repeated his sweep of bikes, porch, doors, and then inside. This time, when he came outside, it was more slowly, with a puzzled look on his face. He motioned they could disembark.

“We’re cold,” he said. “The reading is higher on the bikes, but it’s not dangerous.”

“The radiation must have dissipated,” Kim said.

Bran shook his head. “There are four bodies inside. You can take a look, but touch nothing. Alice, watch the road. Ethan, on me.”

“You coming, Chrissie?” Kim asked.

“I’ve seen bodies before,” Chrissie said. “Too many bodies. Way too many.”

The door’s creak set the tone for what they found inside. Four people, each shot in the face: one at the bar, one at a table, one on the floor near the door, and one halfway behind the counter. On the bar was a cardboard box containing eleven bottles of Kentucky bourbon, with a twelfth, open, next to four glasses.

“Do you recognise them?” Kim asked.

“No one could,” Bill said.

“They look like bikers, though,” Kim said. “Beards and beer guts, tattoos, leather and denim.”

“Holstered pistols,” Bill said. “Sheathed knives.”

“I’ve seen enough,” Kim said, and returned to the door. “Are you coming?”

“Just a second,” Bill said, taking one last look around the bar before following her outside. “Fresh air never smelled so sweet.”

“That’s murder, yes?” Kim asked. “And by someone they knew.”

“I think so,” Bill said. “Maybe two shooters. The guy at the bar, and at the table, were shot first, but that other guy made it halfway to the cover of the bar before dying.”

“From how one was trying to get outside, the killers must have been inside,” Kim said. “Okay, so one or two killers shot the four of them, and then painted these warning signs outside. Why?”

“Because they look like bikers,” Bill said. “They’re walking stereotypes. That blue police bike is as memorable as a blimp. But, surely, if they’re heading to Otter Rapids, they want to blend in with all the other survivors. Why not ditch the bikes, shave the beards, and find something other than leather to wear?”

“Like a monk’s robes,” Kim said. “Or just a flannel shirt. Okay, but that doesn’t explain why they were shot, or why these warnings signs were put up.”

“Because none of this fleeing group of killers is in command,” Bill said. “No one has the authority to tell anyone what to wear, or drive. That made these four a liability.”

“That explains why they were shot, not why someone made these signs,” she said.

“They were poisoned first,” Bill said. “Something in the whisky made them vomit. It’s an easy-to-fake symptom of radiation poisoning.”

“But it’s not enough on its own,” Kim said.

Alice, who’d been walking a slow patrol up the street whistled and waved them over. In the gutter, just beyond the bar, was a pile of clothes and a discarded Geiger counter.

“Don’t touch it,” Kim said, returning to the truck to get a Geiger counter of her own and a pair of gloves. Only after sweeping the clothes did she turn on the abandoned Geiger counter. It went haywire.

“If that’s to be believed,” Alice said, “we’re inside a reactor.”

“They rigged the Geiger counter,” Kim said. “That’s evil.”

“Diabolical,” Bill said. “How many other vehicles did they have? Three cars and three trucks? So there are twelve to twenty more fleeing killers? That’s way too many to expect them all to stick to the same story in Otter Rapids and beyond. These people are fleeing a murder charge and they know it. They know there are witnesses. Two or three, maybe four, could keep the secret long enough for them to vanish into the Pacific crowd, which means a lot more of them still have to die. In the end it would have got bloody, but first they wanted to thin the herd. Here you had four guys who’d apparently taken a lethal dose of radiation. The Geiger counter proved it. Shooting them was the apparently merciful act. Further up the road, we’ll find more bodies.”

“Unless those bodies are somewhere behind us,” Kim said.

Chapter 11 - White for a Funeral

Amos, Quebec

Rivers, rivers, rivers. And where there weren’t rivers, there were lakes. Most weren’t on the map, so his own had grown a forest of capital-I’s, marking the bridges they’d crossed, and X’s over those which had been demolished. There weren’t so many of the latter, and though the radiation was higher here than in Digby, it would be safe to travel these roads again, at least once. The route was far from direct, but while they could find shortcuts, and alternates, whether they came this way again would depend on the friendliness of the people in Otter Rapids. If they really were Australian soldiers, a visit from the general in Puget Sound should settle the situation. Hopefully.

In Amos, Route 111 vanished. The bridge over the Harricana River had gone. After a brief radio-discussion, they reversed, then headed north, staying as close to the river as the rusting wreckage would allow. If the railway bridge, or the new road bridge at the north of the city, had similarly been demolished, they’d have to drive nearly seventy kilometres south, and almost to Val D’Or itself, to find a route west. Or they could venture north, trusting in Chrissie’s memory of forgotten bridges not on anyone’s maps. Or they could turn around.

The railway bridge still stood. The new bridge, just to the north, was experiencing existential uncertainty. The demolition attempt had only taken out the southerly third. On the far side of the crumbling road bridge, a tank had been abandoned.

On the tank, and the reason they had stopped, sat a bride. Bill had not seen a zombie in a wedding dress before, and never seen one clutching a champagne bottle. The bride slowly stood, unsteadily jumped, staggered, and took a swig.

“Stay back!” she called.

“So she is alive,” Kim said.

“Any reason to expect snipers?” Bill asked.

“Always,” Bran said. “But it’s unlikely. Alice, Ethan, scout this side of the river. Chrissie, you be ready to drive forward. Kim be ready to reverse. Whichever direction danger comes from, we’ll block the road and advance with all speed. Sir, I take it you want talk to the woman?”

“No offence, Bran,” Kim said, “but I think it would be better if I went with Bill.”

“Agreed,” Bill said.

“Make it quick,” Bran said.

“It’s a nice dress,” Kim said. “Not too puffy below the waist, and the hem’s a sensible length above the ankle. It’s made to measure, but not made for her.”

“You can tell that?” Bill asked.

“Sure. Look at the shoulders.”

The bride took a few steps towards the bridge. “Stay back!” she bellowed, raising her bottle like a gun. “Stay back! Wait until dark, then you’ll see!”

“We’re friendly!” Kim called. “We’re trying to go west.”

“Can’t you see? I’m glowing green!” the bride yelled.

“Geiger counter?” Kim asked.

“The reading’s up, but we’re still safe,” Bill said.

At the far side of the bridge, on either side of the tank, were sandbagged machine gun batteries, from which the weapons had been removed. The spent cartridges hadn’t. A battle had been fought here, but he could see no bones, no bodies. Having guessed they had been pushed off the bridge, guessing the rest of the town’s story was easy. Yes, a battle had been fought to hold the bridge, with the undead lured to this position by music played on the speaker stack crushed beneath the tank’s treads. The demolition charges had failed. The battle became desperate. The tank had been brought up, and victory had been claimed. What happened next, retreat or advance, was less important than the more recent story of the drunken bride.

By the time he and Kim had crossed the bridge, the bride had abandoned the tank and had staggered over to a sofa in the parking lot of a small riverside B&B. The wood-framed, double-fronted two-storey had the look of an over-large home, probably built as a private dwelling, then extended when it had been repurposed. From how there was a wrap-around parking lot rather than a garden, the guests must have tended towards the commercial rather than tourists.

The ground-floor windows had been boarded up. Behind the sofa, a ladder had been pinned to the wall, allowing access to a balcony shared by two upper-floor rooms, but he doubted the bride would be able to climb the ladder in that dress.

The radio chirruped. “Sit-rep?” Bran asked.

“She seems to be alone,” Kim said.

“Of course I’m alone,” the bride said. “Everyone’s alone at the end.”

“Hold position,” Bran said. “We’ll come and join you.”

In front of the sofa was a small table on which had been a TV before it had taken a shotgun blast to the screen. That shotgun lay against the sofa within reach of the bride, but so was the wine crate from which she pulled a fresh bottle of champagne. A power cable ran from the broken TV back to the hotel, disappearing through a window where a section of board had been removed.

“Stay back!” the bride yelled, waving her bottle.

“We don’t mean any harm,” Bill said.

“How many times have I heard that?” she asked.

“Maybe we can help you,” Bill said.

“It’s radiation,” she said. “Have a drink if you want, but it’ll kill you.”

Bill checked the Geiger counter. “The reading is up, but it’s not lethal.”

The bride laughed. “That’s not how radiation works,” she said, waving the bottle towards the pickup truck parked askew in the riverside corner of the lot. “Go on. Go take a look. I just hope you’ve had all the kids you want.”

As Bill approached the vehicle, the reading rose fast. He stopped, and backed away.

“Told you,” the bride said, and popped the champagne. “Do you know what a lethal dose is?” she asked.

“Just under one gray, or about seventy rads,” Bill said.

“I got twenty,” she said.

“Then you’ll live,” Bill said. “But not if you hang around that truck.”

“Twenty grays,” she said. “I’ll be dead by tomorrow.”

“How do you know?” Bill asked.

“If you had this headache, you’d know,” she said, and took a swig. “Val D’Or,” she added. “North of the city. Not the bomb, either. That’s the joke of it. It wasn’t the radiation from the bomb! Can you believe it?”

“What was it, then?” Kim asked.

“Someone was transporting radioactive material,” the bride said “Fuel rods, I think. They were driving right through when the bomb went off. Now that’s ironic. The radiation went everywhere.” She raised her arms wide. The champagne fizzed, sloshing over her hands. She took a swig. “Ironic. Ha!”

“Did you drive through it?” Kim asked.

“Check the truck,” she said. “Wait, no, don’t. It’d kill you. The Geiger counter was broken. My fuel was slush. Stank of chlorine. But I realised before I put it in the tank. He said go get some more. He said there was fuel aboard a military supply tanker on the roadside near Val D’Or. He gave me the map and said go get it. So I did. Damn Geiger counter was broken. When I got back here, his lit up like Christmas. So that was that. He must have sabotaged the fuel.”

“Who?” Bill asked.

“When we got back, he said to check the dosimeter,” she said, ignoring the question as she continued her disjointed story. “What dosimeter? He’d hidden it in the back. He polluted the fuel. Must have done. Then broke the Geiger counter. Then sent us off to die.”

“There were more of you?” Kim asked.

“Each vehicle had its own fuel. Not much left to find in these parts. Didn’t think he’d do this to me! Me! How else does chlorine end up in a gas can? He loaned us enough to get to Val D’Or. Enough to get back. Bet he didn’t think we would, but he planted that dosimeter in case. He left. We died.”

“Are there more of you?” Kim asked.

She waved a hand towards the truck. “I shot them. They wouldn’t stop crying. Who wants to hear that in your last hours?”

Bill took a guess, though it wasn’t much of a leap. “You were at Temagami,” he said. “You’re with Herrera.”

The question cut through her drunken misery. “Your accent, Australian?”

“Close enough,” Bill said. “We’re the English prisoners Carlos Herrera brought in.”

“Yeah, I knew you’d return for revenge. If you leave someone alive, they always do. It’s the only constant since society collapsed. Revenge, betrayal, more revenge. More betrayal.” She hurled the champagne bottle at the broken TV. With a bitter laugh, she reached down and picked up another fresh bottle.

“Who tampered with your fuel?” Kim asked. “Who sent you to Val D’Or?”

“Who do you think?” she asked. “Herrera. I wouldn’t have thought it. Why else would I be wearing this dress?”

“You loved him?” Kim asked.

“Absolutely in the past tense,” she said. “He said we’d get married. Rule Australia together. It was the plan. His aunts are dead. We were going to take over.”

“Where did he go?” Kim asked.

“To meet your people,” she said. “The Pacific people.”

“But where?”

“Dunno. Obviously,” she said. “If he’d said, he’d have been shot weeks ago. Should have shot him myself. He knows where General Yoon is. But he wouldn’t tell us. Knows that’s where the Pacific are going to fly lots of planes. Somewhere up north. Can you believe there’s more north beyond this? I should never have left New York. They always said leaving was a mistake. Should have listened.”

“You’re from New York City?” Bill asked.

“Upstate,” she said. “I ran the post office in Oswegon on Lake Ontario. That’s where I met him. Him and his friends. Said they’d escaped New York. Said his people were still in the city. Betrayed him. But he knew where the bunkers were. We just had to outwait the undead. Then we’d go to the bunker and live like kings. Then we learned Australia had survived. He says his friends are running it now. He said we’d take over. But he didn’t mean me. Should have realised when he started killing the others. Shouldn’t have helped. Should have killed him, but I didn’t know where we were going. Only he knew.”

“I think that’s all we need to know,” Kim said.

“Hang on,” Bill said. “Did you help him kill those four bikers in a bar in Landrienne with the poisoned whisky?”

“Sure. But those four, they wouldn’t leave their bikes. Too damned noisy. Too obvious. They wouldn’t give them up. They were going to get us killed, so we killed them.”

“And Herrera sent you to Val D’Or?” Bill asked.

“I just said. Didn’t I say?”

“When you got back, he checked the dosimeter himself?”

“Yeah, why?”

“He didn’t know that you were driving into a hot zone,” Bill said. “He knew how to rig a Geiger counter, but if he even suspected that truck was hot, he wouldn’t have gone to check the dosimeter himself. I don’t think he sabotaged the fuel.”

“Pierre,” she said. “That’s what he was talking about.”

“Who’s Pierre?” Kim asked.

The bride waved towards the truck. “I shot him. He wouldn’t stop saying it was unfair.”

“I guess that means Herrera isn’t really in command of this group?” Bill said. “And it sounds like he got a high dose when he went to check the truck.”

“He should have said,” the bride said. “I guess he did. Huh. Maybe he did love me.”

“How many people left here, and when?” Bill asked.

“Two cars, seven people, three days,” she said. “Maybe it’s two. Is it Sunday?”

“Who knows?” Bill said. “I think that’s all we need to ask.”

“Great, so you can do me a favour,” she said. She put down the bottle and reached for the shotgun.

“Don’t,” Kim said.

But the bride picked up the gun.

Bill already had his hand on the hilt of his revolver. He drew and fired two shots. The white dress turned red as the dead bride slumped sideways onto the sofa.

Bill lowered his revolver. “Well, that’s that,” he said, and holstered his gun.

Chapter 12 - Arriving Late to the Gunfight

Cochrane, Ontario

As Kim drove, Bill picked up his pen, but found his mind preoccupied. So was Kim’s. She switched off the music, mid-track.

“I wasn’t expecting you to shoot her,” she said.

“She reached for the shotgun,” he said.

“Because she wanted to be shot,” Kim said. “But if the gun was loaded, she’d have killed herself.”

“You can’t know that,” he said. “I couldn’t. Besides, we couldn’t have brought her with us.”

“We could,” Kim said. “Or if she really was glowing, which I doubt, we could have left her there to die, and maybe even repent.”

“She was at Temagami,” Bill said. “She admitted it.”

“I’m not rebuking you,” she said. “Or not you alone. If you hadn’t shot her, I would have. My rebuke is to us both. Two years ago, we wouldn’t have considered execution as an answer to anything. It’s not just her, Bill. It’s all of them. It’s everything we did. Everything we had to do. But we can do better. At that hotel on the Ottawa River, we attacked without knowing who we faced when we could just as easily have let them flee. The outbreak brutalised us, but we’re not fighting for survival anymore. Now we know about the Pacific, we’re not battling extinction. Mary saw the necessity of an amnesty in Anglesey. I think we need another amnesty now. We must have laws, and justice, and an end to summary judgements.”

“If we’d taken her prisoner—” he began.

“Arrested her,” Kim cut in.

“Fine. If we’d arrested her,” Bill said, “and assuming she’d have let us, she would have been executed by the Almans for the death of those in Temagami. That’s assuming the people in Otter Rapids didn’t hang her for complicity in the death of Captain Stahl’s team.”

“Yes, but there would have been a trial.”

“Not a fair trial,” Bill said. “Unless Stahl, or Jerome, could attest she was involved in their torture, it would be our word against hers. Any half decent lawyer would say that, talking while drunk, she took responsibility for something she witnessed rather than in which she was complicit. There’s no way we can spare the time to gather evidence from Temagami.”

“Why can’t we spare it?” Kim said. “We’re not trying to save the species anymore, so what do we need the time for? Why don’t we just drive off into the wilderness and find a riverside cabin where we can live alone, and in peace?”

“I’m pretty sure Annette would veto anywhere so remote,” Bill said.

“Then let’s take the girls to Australia,” Kim said. “I’m sure the Pacific people will want to hear our story first-hand, so let’s go and tell them, and once there, we’ll stay. The girls will have schools, we’ll have a house, and civil service jobs in Canberra.”

“What about Sholto, and Mary, George, and everyone else?” he asked.

“Exactly,” Kim said. “We could vanish into the wilderness. We could move to the big city. Instead, we’re sticking with our tribe and building a new society. The foundation has to be rules and laws. We’ve talked about this before, but we’ve been buffeted from one crisis to another too swiftly to implement anything. Now, the biggest crises are over. Humanity will not become extinct. A new civilisation will emerge in the far south. We might be worrying that the zombies aren’t all dead yet, but you know what we skipped? That they are all dying, and in some places, they truly have died out. This journey across America is when our new lives begin. We’re leaving the Atlantic, and journeying to the Pacific, and during the journey, leaving behind all the baggage we don’t want, and the ideas we don’t need.”

“I agree with all of that,” Bill said. “But after this mission is over. We couldn’t have taken her with us.”

“We absolutely could have left her there,” Kim said.

“And if she didn’t die, when the champagne ran out she’d have changed her clothes and driven on,” Bill said.

“And maybe done some good with the remainder of her life,” Kim said. “Look, I did say that if you’d not fired, I would have. I’m not disputing that she had a shotgun. And when we retell the story of what happened there, we should be firm that she was a torturing killer from Temagami with a loaded shotgun close to hand. I can foresee multiple different futures for us, and they’re all far better than my best hopes of the last year. But after we get back to Alma, and from now on, we have to… we have to do things better. I can’t think of any other way of putting it. Better than the last couple of years, and far better than the broken world we had before. We must try.”

The town of Macamic had grown around the southern edge of an eponymous lake, but with most of the development on the western side of the Lois River. The bridge crossing the river had been demolished. This time, there was no question as to who had done it, or why and when, as they had signed their work. Yoon’s 1st Brigade, Next Stop Zom Vegas had been painted across the road signs.

Just before the bridge, however, was a sign of a very different sort. An ocean-green minivan had been abandoned with its doors open. Bullet holes riddled the windscreen and the body of a woman in the driver’s seat. A second woman lay dead just behind the van, while a man lay dead in a doorway opposite.

“Shoot out,” Ethan said.

“A bit over a day ago,” Alice said. “Rigor’s set in.”

The birds had already claimed the eyes and tongues, while something larger had made a start on the passenger’s guts, leaving a trail of intestines halfway to the broken windows of a coffee shop.

All three corpses wore holsters on their belts, though each was empty. There were no guns nearby, and the back of the minivan was open.

“Clothes. Mostly clothes,” Chrissie said, going through one bag in the back of the minivan before moving onto the next. “Soap. Bedding. A stove. It’s all camping gear.”

“What about food?” Kim asked.

“Nope. And no fuel, either,” Chrissie said. “But there is that.” She pointed at the length of hosepipe lying next to the open fuel tank.

“They’re short of fuel,” Bran said. “Any ideas, Bill?”

“Only that I need to junk some of my earlier ones,” he said. “If they left Amos between two and three days ago, but only got here thirty-six hours ago, where were they in-between?”

“They took a different route to us, and found a different bridge down,” Bran said. “Speaking of which, where’s the next one, Chrissie?”

“We should go north, around the lake,” Chrissie said. “But we need to return east first. Back along the road we just travelled.”

“Where’s the nearest airport?” Bill asked. “Is it Cochrane?

“La Serre. It’s northwest. Sort of,” Chrissie said.

“Here’s what I can’t figure out,” Bill said. “If Herrera is the only person who knows Otter Rapids is their destination, why didn’t he ditch the rest of them and head off alone?”

“In case they asked Stahl, got the address, and came after Herrera,” Bran said.

“Why not kill Stahl, then?” Bill asked. “That one still puzzles me. But I think I have an answer to the other riddle. He’s not the only one in this crew with information. He’s not a prisoner, the bride made that clear. Yet he’s clearly been killing off, with help, a large portion of this group. One reason could be to reduce the odds of one of them, on reaching Otter Rapids, getting drunk and spilling the truth of their identity. The other could be to do with the capacity of a plane.”

“Do you think they could have a plane up here?” Alice asked.

“Not exactly,” Bill said. “Like the rumour of a fuel convoy near Val D’Or, they heard a story of a plane sitting on a runway somewhere in northern Quebec. A rumour that probably came from the Temagami survivors’ efforts to link survivors across Canada. They don’t know whether the plane works, but among their number is a pilot and a mechanic. Perhaps they assume the plane is a small one, and so they can only take a few people with them.”

“Perhaps to New York,” Kim said. “To a runway that those people on the Ottawa River were supposed to clear. Except the majority decided they stood a better chance if they made a break on their own.”

“Right, so a plane is their plan-A. Plan-B is Otter Rapids,” Bill said.

“That doesn’t explain why they went to such elaborate efforts to kill the bride and those four bikers,” Bran said.

“It does,” Bill said. “They’re short of fuel. That’s why they had to send someone to Val D’Or. Someone who would return. The woman who loved Herrera. He didn’t betray her, but wasn’t trusted to head off on his own.”

“That doesn’t explain the bikers they killed,” Alice said.

“And we’re not going to get any more of an explanation standing here,” Bran said. “You think they’re looking for airports so we’ll make for La Serre. Ethan, Alice, you take point. Bill, you’re driving. Kim, you’re on overwatch whenever we stop. Chrissie and I’ll follow. If we meet trouble, listen for the order, and expect it to be that we retreat.”

“You’re right,” Bill said as he put the truck into gear. “I shouldn’t have shot that woman. Not because I don’t think she deserved it. Not because I think she might have repented. Whether we can be better than the old world is something the historians will have to debate, but we can be better than those killers. We must strive to be better, even if that struggle consumes us.”

“It will become us,” Kim said. “But what better purpose can any of us now have?”

The tempest was unleashed as they approached La Serre, but the tumult wasn’t so intense he couldn’t see the two fighter jets at the edge of the airfield.

“Hold position,” Bran called over the radio, though the soldier didn’t follow his own instruction. Chrissie drove him through the gates between the hangars, and onto the runway. Their taillights flashed on, and the radio chirruped a second later. “More bones than a butcher’s shop,” Bran said. “No planes have taken off from here in months. We’ll stop here until the storm passes.”

While Ethan and Alice checked the hangars and sheds, and while Bran and Chrissie continued their vehicular patrol, Bill joined Kim in searching the office.

They weren’t the first to have come to this airport, nor the first to have stayed, though few had stayed for long. Boards had been placed on the outside of the windows, and later, on the inside. Someone had brought in a ladder, and had cut a hole in the roof. Someone else had then sealed the hole and rain-proofed the gaps with heavy-duty glue. A metal sink had been brought inside for use as a fire pit. Someone had even added a sliding stopper beneath the plughole to allow ash to escape and oxygen to enter. Beneath was a metal tray to collect the cinders, but it was empty, as was the sink. Not exactly clean, but certainly ready for use after the last visitors had moved on. They’d left behind some split wood, but no written log of who they were, or where they’d gone. From the empty cocoons behind a neat row of cushions on a bench seat beneath the window, it had been months since they’d left.

As Kim set a fire, the door opened. Bran and Chrissie entered, both dripping wet.

“We found a body,” Bran said.

“Some of a body,” Chrissie said. “Bear attack, I think. Ethan’s gone to check.”

“Was it one of Herrera’s people?” Bill asked.

“Most of the face is gone,” Bran said.

“And the left leg and right hand,” Chrissie said. “But there was a gun in the holster. Weird, right?”

“You mean why didn’t they shoot the bear?” Kim asked. “What about vehicles?”

“Only the two F-18s,” Bran said. “Looks like they fired their weapons while on stand. Might be the recoil which knocked them off their pins. They were shooting the undead and left the corpses on the runway.”

“What happened to the pilots?” Bill asked, turning to look again at the office.

“I’ll bet you a roast dinner that the pilots intended to take off, but the undead arrived, so flight became fight on the ground,” Bran said. “But we can ask in Otter Rapids. Those two fighter jets must be linked to General Yoon, either in the advance, or the retreat.”

Bill returned to the fire, while Kim returned outside to gather water, and came back with Ethan and Alice.

“Bear,” Ethan said.

“We found a shotgun about five metres from the corpse,” Alice said.

“There’s a bear here?” Bill asked.

“No, but there was,” Alice said.

“All winter,” Ethan said.

“The large shed halfway down the runway was used as a den,” Alice said. “They’ve gone now, but first they tore that poor guy’s face off.”

“Then let’s hope they don’t decide to come back,” Kim said.

29th March

Chapter 13 - Polar Bear Air

Cochrane, Ontario

In the early hours, the storm took its fury eastwards, allowing the stars to glimmer briefly before dawn claimed the sky. With no reason to linger, they left as the potholes began to steam. Cochrane was to be their next waypoint primarily because it had a waterdrome, while the Pacific had access to a seaplane. Whether Scott, or Andrea, would bring the water-bomber this far eastward again was an open question, but until he could give the Pacific actual supplies, he wanted to give them options.

The road less travelled took them north above Lake Abitibi, and was a theoretical hundred and forty kilometres shorter than heading south. The roads were increasingly narrow, increasingly overgrown, and increasingly undeserving of any name other than track. Even that was often too generous, but none of the bridges had been destroyed.

Since none of the trees had been cleared, and they often had to stop to haul a trunk from their path, he wasn’t sure this route was quicker. But the day was so gloriously warm after the previous night’s deluge, he didn’t mind the delay, or the extra labour, until, as they were attaching the chain to a fallen trunk, a zombie reached a hand from beneath the dying branches.

They reached Cochrane in the late morning. The city bus with deflated tyres and smashed windows, askew across the airport’s access road, blocked most of their view, but he could make out the roofs of two hangars and an almost-as-big warehouse. With hangars, width was more telling than height, and these two could easily fit the business jet on which Scott had arrived in Alma.

Chrissie stopped before the stalled bus. Bran motioned they should stay in the cars, but then changed his mind, and beckoned them out.

“I’ll scout the perimeter,” he said. “Refuel the trucks, be ready to leave. Ethan, what is it?”

The Canadian shook his head, motioned toward the runway, then led Bran towards a hangar.

“That’s not reassuring,” Alice said. “Hurry up refuelling.”

“And that’s not reassuring, either,” Kim said.

They topped up the tanks as Alice stood guard on the roof of her truck.

“Hold the funnel steady,” Kim said.

“Sorry,” Bill said. “I was just looking at the bus. It looks like it was torn apart.”

“Zoms, probably,” Kim said. “There. Done. Chrissie, get back behind the wheel. Bill?”

“Just a second,” he said, and began walking towards the bus. It truly had been torn apart, but as much damage was done from inside as out. He made his way around the vehicle. There were no barricades at the airport, but there’d been none at La Serre, either. There were tracks, and they made him stop dead in his own. The storm had churned and softened the mud, creating a blank canvas upon which terror had been etched in the sets of four round pads with five toes, each ending in talons.

A bellow came from the nearest hangar, followed by a half-metre-high, metre-long, long-necked, white-furred monster. The polar bear had run from the hangar, but slowed as it saw Bill. It was only a cub. Which didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. The opposite, in fact, since its parent marched out of the hangar in pursuit. Twice the height, and twice the length, but infinitely more lethal, the polar bear reared up onto its hind legs, but didn’t roar.

Bill had already taken a step back, and now took another. His hand dropped to his holster, uncertain whether to draw or not, but absolutely positive a revolver’s bullet wasn’t going to stop this apex beast.

“Keep walking,” Bran said, so close behind that Bill jumped.

“Polar bear,” Bill said.

“Seems so,” Bran said. “Don’t run. There are two more on the far side of the hangar. Ethan said he smelled them.”

“Wish he’d said it a bit louder,” Bill said.

The bears, though, didn’t follow the humans. When Bran and Bill reached the cars, the engines came on, and the convoy reversed down the road and back to the highway. The bears didn’t follow, nor was there any sign of them when they stopped a further twenty kilometres up the road.

“What’s the collective noun for a group of bears?” Kim asked.

“A slaughterhouse,” Bran said.

“Why airports?” Chrissie said, as she took a turn peering back at the road. “I can understand why bears might move to the cities. But why would they claim the airports?”

“For the runway,” Alice said. “Airfields have nice big hangar-caves, forests nearby, and the open space of the runway to keep watch for approaching two-legged danger.”

“So much for Scott landing anywhere near here,” Bill said. “But let’s hope the bears tell the fate of Herrera. Next stop is Smooth Rock Falls, and then we head north to Otter Rapids. I think we can get there before lunch.”

Chapter 14 - Worse Than Bears

Smooth Rock Falls, Ontario

For the first time in a long while, Bill missed home. Not his cubby-hole flat, nor the grand homes in which he was only a tolerated guest. Not Sydenham. Not Britain. He missed London. The sprawling parks, the streets dripping with more history than any tour guide could remember, and the suburbs which went on for days. He even missed the smell, the traffic, the tourists, the takeaway tea that required a bank loan, and pints that required a bank robbery. London had a lot of problems, but polar bears weren’t one of them, despite being on the same latitude as Moosonee. Right now, they were at the same latitude as the Isle of Wight, and yet the landscape was so different it verged on the alien.

They had entered a forested moonscape where life was in hiding. An occasional shadow moved through the budding trunks, but never made it to the road. Whether those shadows belonged to dogs or bears, they certainly weren’t people, undead or otherwise. Had the grizzlies in Lebel been pushed south by the polar bears? Was the bears’ presence evidence of environmental collapse further north, or was it simply opportunistic reclamation of land abandoned by humanity?

“Smoke ahead,” Bran’s voice came through over the radio. “Small fire. Probably cooking. We’re approaching Smooth Rock Falls.”

Bill picked up the radio to reply. “Probably the Otter Rapids people,” he said.

“Aye, probably,” Bran said. “But not definitely. We’ll approach with caution. Sign for a hospital,” he added. “I think this is them. Assume trouble, but look friendly.”

He clicked off. Ahead, Chrissie cut her speed.

“A hospital? Good choice for a winter redoubt,” Kim said. “They’d be better built for cold weather, with lots of generators. Lots of bathrooms. Lots of cleaning supplies. Beds, too.”

The signs grew more frequent, indicating that the turning to the hospital neared, but when the parking came into view, the hospital did not. There were trees by the road and more trees in the distance, with a few low buildings between, and smoke rising from those.

“Is this it?” Bill asked.

“Must be,” Kim said. “How many people lived in the north?”

“It was just under forty million for Canada, and half of them lived along the Quebec City to Windsor corridor.”

“Which is basically the St Lawrence to Detroit corridor, yes?” Kim asked, as ahead, Chrissie took a left onto Kelly Road. “Loads lived around Vancouver, and weren’t there loads more working the oil-sands of Alberta? So… nope. I don’t even know how to begin guessing at how few people shared the wilderness here.” She stopped just behind Chrissie. “Ready to play ambassador? We don’t want to overwhelm them, so I’ll hang back. Just let me know when you want me to bring over the tray of chocolates.”

He picked up his walking stick, and stepped outside. The brisk breeze carried the wood-smoke, the whiff of burning petrol, and the hint of charring meat, up and above the silent forest. Silent, yes, but waiting to advance and reclaim this outpost of civilisation.

Alice was behind him, but Ethan remained in his truck. Bran and Chrissie had both left their truck and walked ahead, with rifles slung on their backs.

The hospital had been built in an X, with the main entrance at the intersection. One storey high at the wings, it grew to three storeys at the centre of that X. While a few outlying outpatient buildings added to its capacity, the H with which the facility was signposted could as easily have stood for helipad. The large landing-site was just beyond the parking lot, empty, but clearly signposted.

This facility’s purpose was triage, with an emergency room for minor injuries, an outpatient clinic for regular appointments, and a helicopter to airlift the serious cases to Val D’Or or beyond. That spoke volumes about the hardships of everyday life here, and told a library about the lives of those even further north.

Outside the front entrance, where, in better years, an ambulance might have parked, was an orange digger. Its bucket was raised to the level of an upper floor window. An aluminium ladder had been bolted to the front of the digger allowing relatively easy access to the bucket, and then to the rope bridge running into that window. On either side of digger’s tyres, and then running around the perimeter of the hospital, was a red-metal fence. About two metres high, some sections bore a yellow letter, but the fence had been reassembled out of order, making an anagram of the former business from whom the barrier had been claimed.

Next to the digger was an open gate, and a barbecue which had been generating the smoke and the smell of roasting meat. The chef was a man of about twenty-five, clean-shaven, so sun-starved as to be nearly translucent, and wearing a green baseball cap over closely clipped hair. He wore no jacket, and no apron, but a long-sleeved t-shirt, bearing a band’s logo which had been washed to obscurity. His trousers were heavy-duty, with a reflector strip at the knee, and loops at the side. He held tongs in his hand, but carried a holster on his belt. He made no attempt to reach for his gun, but raised the tongs in salute, before using them to turn a slab of meat.

“Are you open?” Chrissie called. “Do we need a reservation? We tried to call ahead, but the phone lines were jammed.”

The accent, or the joke, relaxed the chef. “Howdy,” he called, flipping one last slab of meat before hanging the tongs on the barbecue’s edge. Wiping his hands on his shirt, he stepped around the barbecue, and Bill saw his shoes. Trainers. Big and bulky. Gleaming white and blue. The kind of shoes which were collected rather than worn, and so must have been recently looted.

“Hope you don’t mind us borrowing your grill,” the chef said.

“Oh, we thought it was yours,” Chrissie said.

“We heard there was a settlement around here,” Bill said.

“Us too,” the chef said. “You don’t sound local.”

“Tell me about it,” Bill said. “It has been a very long journey.”

In politicking, unlike the rest of life, it was more important to make a quick decision than a correct one. Instant impressions had to be drawn and acted on without due time for consideration of the consequences. Even when snap judgements led to a mistake, they’d rarely linger longer than tomorrow’s headlines. Here, their actions, this mission, was based on a false premise. He’d assumed the freed prisoner, Johnny Stahl, had told the killers where he’d come from. Of course, Stahl hadn’t otherwise he would have been killed. Thus, none of Stahl’s companions had talked either.

Snap judgements led to mistakes that, in politics, rarely lasted long enough to become a problem, at least not to the politicians who made them. In real life, it was different. That earlier mistake now forced him to make another snap judgement. Right or wrong, it would have immediate and terrible consequences.

“Quigley,” Bill said.

“What’s that?” the chef asked. But Bran had caught the inference, shifting his stance.

Bill sighed. “Sometimes I hate who’ve I’ve been forced to become. You’re under arrest for your involvement in the massacre at Temagami.”

The chef’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t speak. His hand dropped to his holstered revolver. Barely had his fingers touched the grip before a blade sprouted from his neck. As Alice drew another blade, the chef stumbled, his revolver forgotten. Blood pulsed from his neck, and over his recently found shoes.

“Chrissie, get Bill back to the car!” Bran said even as he raised his rifle. The soldier didn’t give an order to Alice; she was already on his heels as they both ran to the hospital’s entrance.

Bill dropped his stick, and drew his revolver. “Back to the trucks, then,” he said, backing up a step.

“We’re not going in?” Chrissie asked. “We could go in. We’ve done this before.”

“Not you and I together,” Bill said. “Let’s keep out of the way of the professionals.”

A shot rang out from inside. Glass shattered and fell, cascading to the entrance from a now broken upper-floor window. As Bill looked up, he saw the rifle, the face, and then the mist of blood and bone as it disintegrated.

“Back!” Ethan yelled, his rifle’s barrel sweeping the upstairs windows as he sprinted past.

“I don’t need to be told thrice,” Bill said, and limped back to their trio of cars where Kim stood in the sunroof turret with her pump-action Remington aimed at the hospital entrance.

“What kind of trouble?” Kim asked, as Bill opened the door.

“The killers from Temagami,” Chrissie said, pushing Bill inside. “Come on. Don’t stand on ceremony.”

As she climbed into the driver’s seat, Bill found a window from where he could see the hospital.

“Was it Herrera?” Kim asked.

“No, but he was wearing new trainers,” Bill said.

“And?” Kim asked.

“And when I said he was under arrest for being in Temagami, he went for his gun,” Bill said. “Now I say it, it’s not much.”

“Chrissie, put the car in gear,” Kim said. “I can’t see their vehicles, so we won’t know if they’re making a break for them, but that’s what I’d do. Get ready to chase.”

“Chase? Okay,” Chrissie said. “Just say when.”

Bill was half watching the hospital, replaying the encounter, but his post-action replay kept being interrupted by gunfire from inside.

“He thought we were from Otter Rapids,” Bill said.

“Engine,” Kim said.

A silver pickup swung around from the rear of the hospital, and was already outside the wall-barrier. The truck drove across the parking lot, across the helipad, taking a shortcut to the road.

“Chrissie, back to the highway!” Kim said, as she ducked back inside. Only then did she ask, “Bill, are you sure these are the killers?”

“We’ll finish what we’ve started,” he said.

“That’s not a yes,” Kim said, as she clambered into the front passenger seat. She picked up the radio while Bill pulled himself onto the bench seat, holding on while Chrissie reversed back to the highway. Where a lot of the padding had been removed from the front two seats, in the back, even the seats had been removed, and replaced with two bare-metal benches.

By the time they reached the highway, and Chrissie had switched gears so they were advancing once more, the silver pickup was already speeding west.

“Did you hear that, Bill?” Kim asked.

“Hear what?” he said, his bones rattling as Chrissie slammed her foot down.

“The hospital is clear,” Kim said. “Chrissie, hold her steady, but keep your distance. Don’t try to ram them. We’re taking prisoners.” She clambered into the back.

Bill didn’t need to ask what she was planning as she looped the rifle’s shoulder strap around her wrist before standing up in the sunroof. She yelled something, but the words were lost beneath the roar of air through the open sunroof. Even the rifle’s crack sounded distant as Kim fired. Again. Again, emptying the four-round-magazine before ducking back inside. “Reload!” she said, thrusting the Remington at him while unclipping the bolt-action .308 from the bracket by the door.

“They’re faster!” Chrissie said. “I can’t keep up. This truck’s not built for speed.”

“No problem,” Kim said, and stood up in the turret.

Bill slotted the magazine into the Remington, but nearly dropped it as he was thrown from the bench when Chrissie slammed on the brakes. Kim yelled.

“Sorry!” Chrissie said. “They stopped! They hit something!”

“Rifle!” Kim said, still standing in the turret. “I dropped mine.”

Bill passed her the Remington, and edged around her legs to see past the passenger headrest, and the road beyond.

The silver pickup hadn’t stopped; it had crashed. The truck was still on its wheels, but it had spun sideways, and into a near-road tree which had brought it to a final halt, but now at ninety degrees to the road. Every window was cracked making it impossible to see inside, but though smoke wisped from the engine, the doors remained closed.

“Something ran out of the trees,” Chrissie said. “The car hit it and spun. I don’t see movement.”

“What did they hit?” Bill asked. “Zombie? Moose?”

“Bear,” Kim said. “They hit a bear.”

It was only a small bear, a polar bear cub whose white fur was now flecked red as it limped from the sprawling bushes. The injury, and the blood, were concentrated on its rear right haunch. Either because the pickup had swerved, or the cub had been fast, the truck had clipped it. The bone couldn’t be broken, but such a bloody injury was surely both life-threatening and agonising. The cub uttered an anguished howl. A whine came from the silver pickup’s engine.

“Someone’s alive in there,” Kim said. “They’re trying the engine. If they can’t drive, they’ll run. Chrissie, don’t touch the pedals until I say.”

Bill could picture the gangster inside the truck, gathering his weapons, collecting his breath, getting ready to sprint for the cover of the trees. He’d exit via the far side of the truck, and run south, into the nearest cover. Aware Kim would only get one shot, Bill held his breath, but let it out in one go when one ton of vengeance roared onto the road.

This bear’s fur was more yellow than white, aged with experience, scarred with victories. Its front paws slammed onto the pickup’s hood as it bounded up onto the vehicle, ripping at the windshield, then the roof.

The passenger door on the near side of the truck opened. A man fell out, firing a handgun wildly and one-handed. Kim held back. The ancient bear did not. It leaped, jaws open, tearing into the gangster’s head even as its weight knocked the dead man to the ground. With a casual swipe, the corpse was disembowelled. The bear turned its bloody head towards their truck, but paused as the cub let out another anguished howl. The living monster bellowed at them, then bounded over to the cub, nuzzling the wound, before using its muzzle to usher the bear into the safety of the trees.

Silence descended.

“Wow,” Chrissie said, and seemed to have no more to say.

“Wowzer,” Kim said. She dropped back inside. “I think I bruised a rib,” she said, wincing. “Maybe even fractured it.”

“It was your turn,” Bill said. “Chrissie, edge us forward.”

“Why?” she asked, and for once was too shocked to finish the triplet.

“I want to see who was in that car,” Bill said. “And I don’t want to have far to run if I need to get back to safety.”

“Rather you than me,” Kim said, wincing again as she straightened, and climbed back to the turret. “Pass me the rifle. Thanks. Okay. Slowly, Chrissie, please.”

Chrissie edged the car forward, stopping ten feet from the disembowelled corpse.

Bill drew his revolver, and got out.

It would take a DNA test to identify the remains left by the bear, but a second man lay slumped in the truck’s passenger seat, his head almost touching the dash. Bill leaned forward, pushing on the man’s shoulder. The face was abraded, and covered in blood from the crash, but that wasn’t what had killed him. In his neck was a knife. The placement of the wound had the advantage of leaving the face recognisable.

Bill hurried as fast as his leg would allow back to their truck.

“It’s him,” Bill said. “It’s Herrera. The driver killed him before getting out. Stabbed him in the neck.”

“The back would have been more poetic, but dead is dead,” Kim said. “Take us to the hospital, please, Chrissie, and drive slow.”

When they reached the hospital, the three soldiers were waiting by the two cars.

“Polar bears,” Bill said, even as he got out of the truck. “Their truck clipped a cub, and crashed. The driver stabbed Herrera, then bolted, and was torn apart by the mother.”

“The grandmother,” Chrissie said. “The fur yellows as they age, and that fur was nearly golden.”

“Why are there so many bears this far south?” Bran asked, reflexively looking north. “What happened up there?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Bill said.

“There were five people here,” Bran said. “No intel left behind, but they had two cars and the one they left here is clean. So are their clothes. Any incriminating documents were ditched with their old duds.”

“Then I suggest we get out of here, and away from that meat,” Kim said.

“Do you mean the bodies, or the slabs on the grill?” Alice asked.

“Both,” Kim said. “We’re less than a hundred kilometres from Otter Rapids. Let’s complete our mission, and then go home.”

Chapter 15 - A Town Full of Ghosts

The Abitibi Canyon Dam, Ontario

When Bill thought of ghost towns, he pictured tumbleweed rolling over buckled railway lines, sun-scorched wooden shacks, and derelict silos half-buried in sand. Abitibi Canyon was different. Decades ago, when the hydroelectric dam was modernised, and the cost of maintaining even the most basic of electrical, sewerage, and water infrastructure cut too deep into the bottom line, the worker-hamlet had been abandoned. Anything of value had long since been removed, though the ghosts of the inhabitants remained.

A roadside mailbox marked where the woodland had been utterly victorious, though opposite, a concrete island had yet to be submerged beneath the arboreal sea. A broken swing dangled above head-height in front of a two-walled bungalow, and just before the yellow digger blocking the patchwork road.

The construction machine was a different model to that which had been at the hospital, though it must have arrived here at a similar time. Rather than forming part of a defence, it had been used to excavate a root-free patch of yard. The pit had been filled, and then covered, and had since acquired a shroud of purple-leafed daisies.

Chrissie stopped by the digger. Bill waited for Bran to disembark before he did the same.

“Looks like a war grave,” the soldier said. “Chrissie says there’s a dam up ahead, with a bridge-way across to the far side. We’ll confirm, on foot, we can cross before we push a way through the undergrowth.”

The air smelled clean and fresh, despite the obvious mass grave. Though a bird hovered above, he could see no life at ground level, yet he had that gut-churning sense of eyes watching from the shadows.

“How far are we from Otter Rapids?” Kim asked.

“Fifty klicks,” Bran said.

“And how fast can a polar bear run?” Bill asked.

“Faster than you,” Bran said. “Faster than me. How many bears are still in the north and about to head south, that’s what you want to know. So let’s all stick close because we’re nearing the end of the road.”

“But not the end of the railway,” Kim said.

The tracks had joined the road at the last turning. While the road looked like it was a decade overdue for repair, the steel tracks had only a frosting of rust.

“They have a train, don’t they?” Chrissie asked. “The Polar Bear Express. I wish it was called something else.”

Bill looked up. The bird was still there. Except… “Hang on a sec,” he said. “Is that a drone?”

Even as they all looked up, the drone descended, disappearing into the trees further north.

“Yep, that’s a drone,” Bran said.

“Should we guard the transport?” Alice asked.

“No point,” Bran said. “They just counted how many we are.”

“It can’t be any more of the killers,” Bill said as they followed the tracks towards where the drone had disappeared. “And I’m reasonably confident the drone wasn’t flown by a bear.”

“Do you mean you’re not absolutely certain?” Kim asked.

As they neared the artificial lake by the dam, the forest retreated. By the lake, a woman and a girl had been fishing using three rods on a stand, with the lines flung far across the wind-rippled waters. The older woman wore a long skirt, a military camouflage jacket, though without any rank or unit markings, and a blue cotton scarf around her neck. On her head was a broad-brimmed felt hat on which was stitched a crude skull and crossbones, but she didn’t look hostile, especially when she raised an empty hand in greeting.

With her was a lanky teenager. A girl of around fifteen or sixteen, though she, too, wore a military jacket and the trousers to match. The boots were civilian. Blue and red, and made for hiking. The girl had a rifle on her shoulder, while the older woman had one propped against a metal folding chair next to her rods.

“C7,” Ethan said.

“Canadian Colt C7 rifles,” Alice added. “Standard issue in the Canadian army.”

“That’s a good start,” Bill said.

“It’s a good rifle,” Bran said.

“Movement,” Kim said.

A ball of golden-yellow fur bounded through the trees, running to a halt halfway between the newcomers and the two fisher-women.

“You’re a nice dog, aren’t you?” Chrissie said. The dog gave a scoffing growl, taking a step towards her as he sniffed. He sniffed again, approaching with confused curiosity, circling Chrissie. “Yep, I knew you were a nice dog,” Chrissie continued. “Kind of familiar, though.”

The dog yipped, and bounded off into the trees on the far side of the dam.

“He approves,” the teenage girl said. “That’s rare.”

Bill smiled. What he’d noticed, and what he was sure the soldiers must have done, was that neither of these women held any means of controlling the drone.

“Are you chaps from Otter Rapids, by any chance?” he asked, in his best impression of Mr Darcy. “We met a fellow called Captain Johnny Stahl. He said there was a town up here.”

“You met Johnny?” the older woman asked, brushing her hands on her tunic before hitching up her skirt, and climbing up the shallow embankment towards them.

“We’ve a video of introduction from him,” Bill said, reaching into his coat. “He was banged up a bit before we met, and he’s still recovering. It’ll be a week or three before he’s on his feet.”

“Can I see?” the teenager asked.

“Sure,” he said, handing her the phone. “The video’s cued. I’m Bill, this is Kim, Chrissie, Bran, Alice, and Ethan.”

“Sally,” the teenager said. “This is Missy.”

“A nickname I can’t seem to shift,” Missy said. “Yet, when that is the worst the young folk can come up with, should one worry about the future?” She leaned sideways to look at the screen as, in the video, Captain Stahl began to talk. It wasn’t a long video, but Missy only need to view a few seconds before she smiled. “He is alive. I’m so glad. You can tell your soldiers to relax. We’re all friends here.”

“If we’re friends, why don’t the rest of your people come out of the trees?” Bran said.

Missy removed her amateur pirate hat, and waved it above her head. As she did, Bill saw her face properly.

She wasn’t old, yet her face was wizened by more than one lifetime’s usual allotted share of troubles. Her eyes were like diamonds, while her smile was like a sunrise, and as it rose, it dawned on Bill that he’d seen those features before, but he couldn’t place where.

From the trees, a squad of four emerged. Like Sally, they wore uniforms. And like her, they were too young to have served. The tallest, a beanpole youth approaching seven feet tall, was probably the oldest, and probably still in high school when the outbreak hit. Further evidence against them having taken the Queen’s shilling, or the governor-general’s loonie, was the pink-dyed hair on all except the bean-pole, who’d opted for a shaved head, perhaps in the hope it would make his thin moustache appear bushier. Despite their youth, all four carried Colt C7 assault rifles with evident familiarity. Again, none of them carried a drone. While it was possible they’d left it in the trees, he wasn’t entirely convinced those trees were now empty.

“Do you have other videos?” Sally asked.

“Only of the route we travelled,” Bill said.

“I believe she means of the other members of Captain Stahl’s team,” Missy said.

“Ah. No, sorry,” Bill said. “He was the only survivor we found in Temagami.”

“They’re dead?” Sally asked. “No.”

The dog bounded over to Sally, trailing after the girl as she walked back towards the lakeshore.

Missy handed the phone back to Bill. “What happened to his captors?”

“We hunted them,” Bill said. “We chased some down to the Ottawa River, and some we followed to Smooth Rock Falls. They were killing each other on the journey, and we got the rest.”

“Smooth Rock?” Missy asked. “They were coming here, then?”

“I think so,” Bill said. “But I don’t think they knew precisely where you were. Captain Stahl kept that to himself, and the rest of his team took the secret to the grave.”

“Thank you,” Missy said. “It is small comfort knowing that they died, but it is a comfort, nonetheless. Where are you from? Your accent tells me you’ve travelled quite some distance.”

“Now, that is a long story,” Bill said. “But most recently we came from Alma, a small town on the shores of Lac Saint-Jean, not too far from the St Lawrence. There’s a trading post there, and a clinic in which Captain Stahl is being treated. It will be a few weeks before he’s able to travel, but we can take a message to him for you.”

“The only message would be that we are glad he is alive, and will see him soon,” Missy said. “But how did a group of English soldiers end up in Quebec?”

“As I say, it’s a long story,” Bill said. “Though Bran’s the only English soldier here.” He handed the phone to Kim. “Could you put a copy of the journal on the phone, then bring up a map so we can share the route we took? Chrissie, refuel the trucks, we’ll be leaving shortly.”

“You’ve only just arrived,” Missy said, as Kim and Chrissie walked off. Bill did his best not to stare at the shadows moving among the trees.

“Our mission was to make contact with Captain Stahl’s people at Otter Rapids, which we have,” Bill said. “And now that we have, I’d like to get out of bear country before it gets dark.”

“Ah, yes. You said you visited Smooth Rock,” Missy said. “We struck a deal with the polar bears. We let them have Smooth Rock Falls, and in exchange, we stay far away.”

“They’re in Cochrane, too,” Bill said. “And a family of grizzlies marched through the runway at Lebel-sur-Quévillon.”

“They’ve been migrating south since last fall,” Missy said. “We suspect their usual fishing grounds have become contaminated, though it is only a theory.”

“We wondered about that, too,” Bill said. “More importantly, though, we made contact with the Pacific a few days ago. It was actually in Temagami. Captain Stahl wasn’t their only prisoner. We helped the Pacific people escape. A few days later, a few days ago, a plane from the Pacific set down in Alma. They went back to Canberra to report in, but they’ll return, and we’d like to be back before then.”

“Australia survived, then?” Missy asked.

“More or less,” Bill said.

“How many?” she asked. “How many survived in the Pacific?”

“About one hundred million people,” Bill said. “But that’s an estimate.”

“That few?” she asked. “Well, that is a bitter pill, but not so hard to swallow as it might have been. Who is in charge in the Pacific?”

“From what I understand, they’re still figuring it out, but Australia is being run by Oswald Owen.”

“Still? Interesting, and that degree of stability is probably a good sign. While I never ventured that far south, there are some in our group who came from Australia. Our plan, in brief, was to unite with the Pacific. To that end, we crossed the Great Lakes, collecting survivors on the way. Circumstance and near-starvation forced us east rather than west, and so we came to Otter Rapids. Between the supplies left behind by General Yoon, the Cree further north and the Mennonites in the south, we managed to survive. Did these Pacific people mention a runway called Pine Dock?”

“No, sorry,” Bill said. “They flew out of the Puget Sound.”

“Pine Dock is on Lake Winnipeg,” Missy said. “An expedition is on the way there now. Perhaps you’d be so kind as to ask your pilot friends to overfly it and attempt radio contact with our advance team.”

“Sure, we can ask,” Bill said.

“We are intending to leave,” Missy said. “The news you bring does not alter that.” She looked over at the teenagers before turning back to Bill. “What now? Does the Pacific have a plan?”

“Not really,” Bill said. “They came to Canada on a hunch, but their main focus is Japan. Our goal is to find a land route west to Puget Sound, and to move everyone there immediately after harvest, if not before.”

“I see,” she said. “Well, when our team returns from Pine Dock, we will have a route from here to there, and you obviously have one from here to… where was it you came from?”

“Alma,” Bill said. “Though a lot of us are in Nova Scotia, and some are in Newfoundland. Collectively, we’ve travelled a lot further than that.”

“From England,” she said.

“And Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and France,” he said. “And from Ascension to Svalbard, and quite a few places between.”

“You really have seen the world,” she said. “What was Ireland like? I had friends there.”

“As bad as anywhere, I’m afraid,” Bill said. “Believe it or not, Canada survived far better than Europe.”

“Oh, I can believe that,” she said. “But we must look to the future, mustn’t we? The decision won’t be mine, but I’m sure, once told, our leaders will want to send an expedition to Alma. They can then discuss the sharing of resources and information to collectively get everyone further west.”

“I’ve got the phone,” Kim said, holding it out as she returned. “Bill kept a journal from the very beginning of the outbreak. It became a history of our people, and our journeys. It’ll explain who started the outbreak, and what happened to them. I hope it won’t spoil the ending if I say that they got what they truly deserved.”

“In my experience, people always do,” Missy said. “Then we shall see you in Alma. Until we meet again.”

“You kept that brief,” Bran said, as they walked back to the trucks.

“The long version would take a week,” Bill said.

“It wasn’t a criticism,” the soldier said. “We’re heading back, then?”

“Why did you give them the journal?” Alice asked.

“Have you read it?” Kim asked.

“Sure. You know I have,” Alice said. “It’s why I’m surprised you’re handing it out.”

“We’re handing it out because you’ve read it,” Kim said. “Everyone’s read it. Before we left Digby, there were copies in the bar. Bill was even asked for an autograph.”

“I’d have preferred being given royalties,” Bill said. “We can’t keep the story secret. It might begin as my tale, but it’s ultimately the story of everyone, so we might as well own the past, warts and all.”

“I did edit out a few of my warts,” Kim said. “What is it, Bran? Why do you keep turning around?”

“They’re not following,” Bran said. “The hidden snipers were only protecting the kids. Can’t say I approve of that, sending kids out to be seen.”

“Depends how old the snipers were,” Alice said.

“Bill?” Kim asked.

Bill looked back again, but he could only see trees. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I just thought I recognised her.”

“Over a year, John,” Missy said, as she carried her fishing gear up to the van. “Even after a year and a bit without a phone, the moment a teenager is given a device, he’s glued to the screen.”

“It’s this journal,” John said. “I saw your name. Your real name.”

“You did?” Missy asked. She took the phone and scanned the page. “Well, that is a curiosity. Help finish loading the van.”

“Over a year,” John muttered, and went to help gather their team’s gear.

Missy finished scanning the page, then hunted for the search function. Her name did appear a few times, but she was more interested in other names.

“Quigley’s dead? Good. Tom Clemens… oh, so that is who Mr Bill is.” She flipped to the beginning. “Bill Wright. Bartholomew Wright. Of course.”

“We’re ready if you are,” Sally said. “But John wants to know if we’re all going back, or whether we should finish fishing first. We haven’t met the quota.”

“We’ll tap into our stores tonight,” Missy said. “This news is far too important to wait.”

“What news?” Sally asked

“It is a story which should be begun at the beginning,” Missy said. “Even if it does begin a lot earlier than the date on the first page. It is good news, though. Better than Mr Wright even knows.”

“Who?”

“The man with the limp, the author,” Missy said. “I wonder, though…” She returned to the search function, and typed in a different name, and was shocked when she got a result. When she read the entry, she dropped the tablet.

“What is it?” Sally asked, taking her arm.

“My worst fears,” Missy said. “My very worst fears. But what did I just say? People get what they deserve. Tamika didn’t deserve that fate. But I do deserve this one. Oh, I won, but what value is there in victory when you lose the love that is your life?”

22nd April

Chapter 16 - Some of the Story to Come

Canberra, Australian Capital State

“Thank you, Mr Wright,” Chief Justice Clarisse Blackwell said. She leaned forward in her chair, and turned her face to the cameras, rather than Bill. “At this juncture, I’ll refer the court to the—”

Justice Chieko Tanaka, the representative for Asia, gave a discreet cough that barely carried to the dock in which Bill stood.

“Yes, of course,” Blackwell continued, “I’ll refer the tribunal to the testimony of Commissioner Tess Qwong as to the fate of the cartel, and their associates. We can happily close the book on the Herrera family and on the conspirators who destroyed civilisation.”

Shand, the Auckland judge technically representing the penguins of Antarctica, leaned forward, his pen moving to the first of a long list of questions he’d written while Bill gave his testimony. Before he could speak, Blackwell continued.

“Mr Wright,” Blackwell said. “I’d like to express my gratitude, and that of the entire tribunal, to you for having travelled so far and for having given up so much of your time to speak to us. But greater thanks are owed for your evacuation plan, which in modified form was used to such effect here in the Pacific. You should also be thanked for your efforts in saving so many in Europe. In another era, and in another place, you might be told that the nation is grateful for what you did. Here, now, as we are building a new civilisation, I will instead say that humanity itself is now, and forever will be, in your debt.” Blackwell banged her gavel. “This session of the tribunal is concluded.”

“And we’re out!” a technician called.

“I wanted—” Shand began.

“Oh, leave it out, Barney,” Blackwell said. “It’s all in the record. It might not have been said by you, but everything has been said twice over. Now, if we hurry, we’ve just enough time to catch the second innings.”

“No, but…” Shand began, but whatever else he said was lost in the bustle as the judges stood and hurried away through the door behind the dais.

“I think you’re done, dear,” Kim said, walking over. “C’mon, I don’t want you getting used to standing in the dock.”

Bill made his way around and down, and into the court. “I didn’t get to finish,” he said.

“But they think you said enough,” she said. “Let’s get out of here before they change their minds. Zach’s bringing the car up front for us.”

No one attempted to stop them from leaving. The court clerk had opened a paperback. The technicians were already dismantling the cameras, while the journalist was pecking at a laptop, working on the copy for the evening news. As Bill looked over the reporter’s shoulder, he saw the headline: Grizzly Death for Last Coup Plotter. The words death and for were correct, but the rest was utterly wrong. Still, thirty-three percent accuracy was a good score for any journalist.

“How does it feel to be single-handedly responsible for saving civilisation, Mr Wright?” Kim said, taking his arm as they walked to the door.

“Yes, I’m sorry you weren’t acknowledged.”

“I’m quite happy with my anonymity,” she said. “Annette, on the other hand, is going to be furious when she finds out she barely got a mention in the official record.”

“Perhaps I should apply for political asylum,” he said.

Outside the courtroom, they walked into a queue of local couples. Everyone was dressed in their best. In a few cases that was a borrowed suit or a dress. Others simply wore something clean, but everyone had made as much of an effort as time, and rationing, allowed. This queue was for the marriage office. Ceremonies could be conducted absolutely anywhere, but the official licence was granted here, at least for citizens of Canberra. What should have been a simple exercise in bureaucracy had clearly morphed into a semi-social ceremony of its own.

“Congratulations,” a smiling woman in a grey police uniform said, clearly mistaking Bill and Kim for a happy couple.

“And to you,” Kim said with a smile. “Cricket and marriage,” she added as they weaved their way through the couples. “That’s the priority for these Pacific peoples, and that’s as it should be. We can’t forget the past, but we can put it aside for a year or three, and enjoy as much of the future as we can.”

“Life goes on,” he said.

“It does,” she said. “It really does.”

The line for marriage licences wasn’t the only queue through which they had to weave as they hunted for the exit to the administrative labyrinth. The line for registering adoptions was shorter, but noisier, containing both parent and child. At a staircase, signs pointed downstairs for business licences. Applications for the recognition of qualification equivalency were to be made upstairs. Successful applicants would, eventually, undergo a proficiency test at the university. Those who passed would then undergo six weeks of probationary testing at an airport, construction site, hospital, or school, prior to their qualifications finally being recognised, with the pay and promotion prospects that would bring.

At a T-junction, a large sign pointed towards the more sombre half of the building where dwelled the divorce court, register of wills, and application for disputes.

“I think we want the other way,” Kim said. “Is bureaucracy a sign of civilisation?”

“I’ve heard it described as an alternative,” Bill said. “But this is a good way to conduct a census. Scott said, when Canberra became a state and took that land from New South Wales, part of the deal was they accepted a quarter of a million refugees from Perth. I don’t know if that’s who these people are, or if they’re longer-established locals who want to get their paperwork finished before the newcomers arrive.”

“Liu mentioned there was a lot of internal shuffling within Australia,” Kim said. “But there’s not been much movement northward to Indonesia and the Philippines, despite the promises. She seemed to think the people here now are here to stay. Ah, the exit!”

She reclaimed her purse from the bag-check, and he collected his new cane. It wasn’t a pike, but weapons were banned except in the hands, or holsters, of the police. Tools weren’t banned, so almost everyone bore a hammer, hatchet, or knife at their belt. Guns were different. The two grey-uniformed police officers by the main doors carried handguns, while the two outside both held rifles. So did Zach, waiting by the door of the Hawkei PMV. The old army vehicle had lost its military paint. Like the young police officer, the vehicle now wore grey, though with a blue stripe across the sides.

“You all done?” Zach asked, leaning into the window to turn down the radio.

“Seem to be,” Kim said. “Is it usually this busy?”

“Not nearly,” Zach said. “It was a public holiday last Monday. Anyone who had to work then got today off instead. Do you want to go to the cricket? Bet you two can get in, and probably have VIP seats.”

“Why’s everyone so obsessed with cricket?” Kim asked.

“It’s the Cinders, isn’t it?” Zach said, as if that explained everything. “The world cup. This week, it’s Auckland versus Canberra. It’s a real grudge match.”

“Who’s winning?” Bill asked.

“The Kiwis are up seventy runs,” Zach said. “But only because they’re cheating. You know they hired a ringer from Honduras who used to be the fastest pitcher in baseball. Who knew he could bowl, too?”

“Liu Higson told me that Canberra gave three members of the old Indian national squad teaching jobs so they’d qualify to play for your state,” Kim said.

“Exactly,” Zach said. “They qualified. But getting a baseballer to bowl is just twisted.”

“Let’s go see our kids,” Kim said. “And I’d like to change. But we’ll ask Liu whether we had tickets for tomorrow, and if we do, you can have them both.”

“Really? Good on ya, ma’am,” Zach said, opening the door.

“I could seriously get used to this,” Kim said, as she climbed inside.

With a click of his cane, Bill followed.

The military vehicle wasn’t designed to be a limo, but a most-terrain pursuit vehicle. While it might have been lacking in comfort, its height and smaller windows offered welcome anonymity, allowing him to watch the traffic as they drove slowly through the city.

Motor vehicles had been reduced to a single lane of traffic, which the cyclists had invaded. There were no other cars or military trucks in sight. From what he’d been told on their quick tour during the forty-eight hours since their plane landed, private cars hadn’t been banned, but the sale of fuel had.

Frequent signs reminded cyclists, and drivers, that delivery trucks used the roads between nine and eleven a.m., and again between seven and ten p.m. Other signs warned of public buses, though in an echo of the old-world, those signs didn’t commit to a timetable.

A lot of people cycled, though just as many walked, and from the bags and panniers, they were heading to or from the shops. Despite the increase in foot traffic, the pavement hadn’t been extended, just shunted onto the road. Canberra had run short of space within weeks of the outbreak. Shops had become homes. Ground-floor barricades had become walls, then extended upwards and outwards with whatever materials were to hand. Cars, trucks, and shipping containers were as common as corrugated steel, and far more common than brick.

They overtook a three-wheeler overloaded with salvaged copper wire, and were then overtaken in turn by a trio of cycling youths, wearing military-grade helmets, all late for a shift at a construction site.

In some ways, Australia was a static mirror image of their loot-and-move-on lifestyle in Canada. Where, in the northern hemisphere, the population had collapsed, here it had doubled. Canberra hummed. Canberra thrived. But was it an artificial tranquillity? Not only were clothes scarce, so was cloth. So were shoes. So was leather, now the great herds had been culled. There wasn’t enough rubber for bicycle tyres, let alone to spare for footwear. There was an abundance of fossil fuels, but a shortage of factories to convert hydrocarbons to artificial thread.

Water was short, and plumbing was stretched. Electricity was unofficially rationed by regular brownouts. The new roadside extensions had no glass for windows, so instead had shutters that let in the dirt along with the light. There were shortages of so much it was easier to sum it up as time, because every minute was packed with cleaning, travelling, making, mending, sewing, fetching, carrying, and working. Life went on, and it would keep going on because though the shortages were almost universal, the most precious resource remained abundant. Hope steadied every slogging footstep and lightened every over-burned back.

Whereas elsewhere in the city the past was scavenged, at the university the future was made. A three-metre-high steel fence encircled the university campus, but though it had originally been built as part of the block-to-block city-wide defences, the wall had long since become the scaffolding for solar panels and wind turbines. The open gate was guarded by two grey-clad peelers whose shoulder badges depicted a scroll. With a wave of recognition at their driver, or perhaps just recognising the military vehicle, they were waved through, and into a world far stranger than fiction.

Everyone was naked. Nearly. Probably. It was hard to tell because of the academic gowns, but Bill was certain few people wore much beneath. Some had tailored the gown into a kilt, skirt, or dress. Others had made do with a belt, and those were festooned with tools. If those gowns had ever once been black, they were now mostly washed-to-grey, but each was edged with a coloured trim denoting their particular scholarly discipline. The most common were brown for the agriculturalists and blue for the electricians. The practical scientists, working in field or on scaffolding, wore boots and hard hats, while the theoreticians settled for flip-flops and straw hats.

It was weird, but also wyrd, in that very ancient sense of the word. These academics had seen how life was lived beyond their wall. Better than most, they knew of the even stricter privations in the outback and the battle-scarred island enclaves further north. They knew precisely how good they had it, and so had fully embraced their different reality by using theatricality as a shield, but innovation as a sword.

Agriculturalists experimented with entirely new methods of farming, trialling mechanically controlled planting and digitally managed irrigation. They worked in semi-enclosed greenhouses, completely covered glasshouses, and the plastic domes built by material scientists developing alternatives to glass.

On the roads, finally, they saw automobiles, though calling them cars would be a stretch. They had a combustion engine and four wheels, but often no cab. Modern vehicles, and the modern factories which had built them, required too much complex electronics developed over too dispersed a supply chain. But these academics weren’t satisfied with just dusting off designs from the 1940s. Perhaps they weren’t truly inventing something new, but nor were they entirely reinventing the past.

Zach parked outside the Umberto Tapia Centre, which had been the Medical Sciences Building, but now housed Special Projects. Here, again, there were guards, and these two looked like career professionals, armed with Tasers at their belts, and with shotguns in their hands.

Zach gave an unmartial wave, which got a wry shake of the head from the corporal.

“You don’t need me to show you the way, do you?” Zach asked, his hand reaching for the radio.

“We’ll manage,” Kim said.

“Ace,” Zach said as he switched the cricket commentary back on. “I’ll be waiting when you’re done.”

At the door, the soldiers not only recognised them, but the corporal opened the door.

“Thank you,” Kim said. “Oh, I so could get used to this.”

“I could get used to air conditioning,” Bill said, lingering under the jet of cool air, buzzing from just inside. But the receptionist had already left her desk, and was making her way over. Again, this was no academic in a gown, but a soldier in an immaculately pressed uniform, with a meticulously maintained sidearm, and a sergeant’s stripes just beneath her stylised scroll unit badge. But on her lapel was a golden bird of paradise, the emblem of Papua New Guinea. Despite the near universal changes, not everyone had forgotten everything about the past.

The sergeant-receptionist used a magnetic card to take them through a set of locked fireproof security doors. Beyond lay a subdued study room. In the old world, it had been a glass-walled reception area for students to hang out, and for guests to wait. Outside, a trellis had been set against the windows up which grape vines curled. Inside, in planter boxes, a control-group of vines was already rampaging halfway to the ceiling. Among the vines, and surreptitiously plucking unripe grapes until the sergeant had appeared, were students. A few diligently worked in pencil, not ink, or at tablet or laptop, but most were quietly bemoaning how they’d never finish their un-begun assignments. These students, not yet graduated to gowns, wore jeans or shorts, t-shirts, and an occasional dress, but like elsewhere in the city, and unlike any pre-apocalyptic campus, they all carried at least a knife at their belts.

Kim took his arm. “Oh, so normal,” she whispered.

“Normal-ish,” Bill said, as they were overtaken by an academic in a split-hem gown with white trim and white-painted cork-heeled clogs.

“Normal for Australia,” Kim said.

The sergeant swiped them into another corridor, at the end of which another sergeant sat in front of a door marked Special Projects. This second sergeant tapped a code into a mechanical keypad. Beyond, a classroom had been completely removed. In its place were rows of CCTV monitors, watched by four corporals. The screens all faced away from the corridor, so Bill couldn’t tell if the security was to protect the staff, or their work, but if the university was where the future was made, Special Projects was where it was planned.

Two doors down was the classroom where they had left the children that morning, before they had gone on to the tribunal. Their sergeant receptionist opened the door, nodding to the uniformed soldier inside. Happy that her duty was done, she hurried away, and back to her post.

“Hey, gang,” Kim said.

“Hi, Mum, hey, Dad,” Annette said. Jay, his mouth full of ice cream, gave a nod. Daisy, drawing on the walls, didn’t even turn around.

“You all done?” Sergeant Elaina Slater asked. Like Zach, she was another uniformed soldier-cop who worked as a driver-assistant to the upper echelons of the scientists and politicians at the heart of Canberra. Before the outbreak, she’d been a teacher, and it was that experience which had seen her volunteered for child-minding duties while Bill and Kim were in court.

“Busy morning, I see,” Kim said, ruffling Annette’s hair before nodding at the pile of empty bowls on the table in front of the girl.

“That was all Jay,” Annette said.

“Not all,” Jay said.

“Mostly Jay,” Annette said.

Kim walked over to Daisy, who allowed herself to be given a brief hug before returning to painting the walls. It was a habit Daisy had begun in Digby during the winter. They’d tried giving her paper, but that wasn’t a big enough canvas for her ideas. This idea, of letters and lines, had already filled two and a half walls.

“How did it go?” Jay asked.

“Well enough,” Bill said. “It was mostly a formality so they could get a few clips for the news. Where’s Dr Avalon?”

“She was called away,” Elaina said. “One of the more time-sensitive projects required her input.”

“But it’s top secret so she won’t tell us what,” Annette said.

“What’s Daisy drawing?” Kim asked, diplomatically changing the subject.

“Chemical flavours,” Annette said. “That wall is strawberry, and she’s doing mango now.”

“The flavours for the sorbet,” Jay added.

“Doc Flo was explaining the chemistry behind artificial flavours,” Elaina said. “Your girl saw the chemical formula, and now she’s copying it. One hundred percent correct so far, and from a three-second glance.”

“That’s a chemical compound?” Bill asked, staring at the pattern covering the wall, at least as far as their toddler daughter could stretch.

“Did she do the test?” Kim asked.

“In like five minutes,” Annette said. “That’s why she started painting the walls. This grumpy bloke came in and told us to move, but Daisy wasn’t finished, and you know how she can get if she’s interrupted.”

“Does someone else need the room?” Kim asked.

“No worries,” Elaina said. “Professor DeSouza was making a land-grab on behalf of the meteorology department, but I told him to take it up with Doc Flo. He won’t.”

Bill looked at the lines and shapes filling the walls. They meant little to him. He wondered how much they meant to their toddler daughter. Daisy could talk a little, though she rarely did. Being quiet was how she and Annette had survived London when so many millions hadn’t. The habit had stuck, while this new one had developed. Whether it was a feat of memory or understanding was still a few years away from being revealed.

“You okay, Bill?” Kim whispered.

“She’ll have a chance to fulfil her potential,” he said. “What more could we hope for?”

She squeezed his hand. “Sorbet,” Kim said. “Is that really what you’re eating, Jay?”

“This one’s mango,” he said, finishing the cup. “Want some?”

“I’d prefer a real mango,” Kim said.

“Nah, this isn’t real fruit,” Jay said. “It’s all chemicals from the food science lab, but they added vitamins, so it’s healthy.”

Bill again looked at the wall. Their daughter painted big. Even so, that was a giant chemical. “I’ll pass,” he said. “Anyway, we’re done for the day, and mostly done with official business. Zach wanted to see if we could smuggle him into the cricket.”

Jay’s face fell.

“Is it compulsory?” Annette asked.

“Not even a little,” Kim said. “And Liu did ask if we’d like an aerial tour of the city this afternoon.”

“I don’t think Daisy would like that,” Jay said a little too quickly. “But I can look after her while you go.”

“He doesn’t like flying,” Annette said.

Jay threw her a glare. “Only when I don’t have to,” he said.

“Very wise,” Bill said.

“The agriculture school has a sort of museum,” Elaina said. “They’ve got exhibits on the history of farming which are pretty interesting, and it’s right next to the university cafeteria. I can take the kids there, if you like.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind?” Kim asked.

Elaina smiled. “For a free lunch? No worries.”

“Then you can borrow Zach and the truck,” Kim said. “But you kids need to be back at the airport by four so you can wash and change before our dinner with Professor Fontayne.”

“Do we have to go to that?” Annette asked.

“Absolutely,” Kim said. “It’s an official engagement.”

“You’re going to walk to the airport?” Elaina asked.

“We’re used to walking,” Kim said. “It’ll be a good opportunity to see the city.”

“Well, make sure you stick to the main road,” Elaina said.

Chapter 17 - Behind the Curtain

Canberra

“Are you sure you want to walk?” Zach asked when Bill and Kim got outside and told him of their plan.

“I’ve been stuck inside interview rooms of one kind or another since we arrived,” Bill said. “Every single time, one of the first things I’m asked is what I think of Australia, and I’ve not seen much more than walls.”

“Stick to the bus route,” Zach said. “And be careful if you’re still out and about at shift-change. Things get busy.”

“Daisy seems happy,” Bill said as they strolled their way through the campus.

“She didn’t like the plane,” Kim said. “But kids generally don’t.”

“Annette did,” Bill said.

“It’s the novelty,” Kim said. “And the bragging rights. She’s turning into a real president-bee.”

“A few years at university will knock that out of her,” Bill said.

“I don’t think they’re taking applicants,” Kim said. “Not like in the old days.”

“Ah, but remember what that judge said? The world owes me, so we should take our payment in a future for the girls.”

“Daisy’s at least five years away from being able to concentrate through a lesson, let alone a lecture,” Kim said. “But that’s not really what I was worrying about.”

Ahead, a glasshouse farm had spilled onto the pavement, while the road was full of smoke spewing from a test-model auto.

“This way, I think,” Bill said, pointing to a narrow alley leading behind the glasshouse.

“That is definitely not the way to the main entrance,” Kim said.

“No, but there’s a side gate behind the computer engineering factory which I’m sure is down here.”

“You want to take a short cut? Both Zach and Elaina just told us to stick to the busy roads.”

“There’s a bus stop by the gate,” Bill said. “What were you saying about Daisy?”

“Only that it’s not her I’m worried about. It’s Annette.”

“I don’t think she wants to go to university.”

“She doesn’t know what she wants because none of us know what the options are,” Kim said. “You saw that sign in the courthouse for people who want to apply for testing so their qualifications can be recognised? Do you know what that tells me? That they have far more professionals than they need. Annette’s basically a primary school drop-out.”

“Qualifications aren’t everything,” Bill said.

“You had a private education, Bill, and walked into a nepotistic job at the centre of government. I went to uni, even if I didn’t make much out of my degree. Annette’s fantastic. She’s one of the best people I’ve ever met. Most adults wouldn’t have escaped London with an infant in tow. But this isn’t London.”

“Mary was talking about apprenticeships,” Bill said, feeling defensive but uncertain why. “Something in engineering might suit her.”

“If she were to do an apprenticeship, it would be with you, and she’ll learn how to run a government,” Kim said. “But that’s not my point, either. Assuming this doesn’t all come crashing down, Daisy will come to this university one day. Maybe in ten years, maybe sooner, maybe not, but as far away in our future as that seems, it’s not far enough away in hers. Someone will have to take care of her, and you and I might not be able to.”

“If it falls to Annette, she won’t mind,” Bill said.

“I know,” Kim said. “That’s what’s so… so… well, so upsetting. Annette won’t complain. Well, not loudly and not for very long. But she’ll give up whatever life she’s built in the north. She’ll know it, too, and so I worry she won’t live as full a life as she could between now and then if she knows she’ll have to put it aside for her sister. Despite the luxuries they have here, or perhaps because of them, I feel sad for Annette. Seeing Canberra, I think I’ve finally laid to rest dreams I didn’t know I was clinging to.”

“That, somehow, the old world would come back?” Bill asked.

“Right. Exactly. Or that we could pick and choose the best bits and make that the future. It was a fantasy, but because it seemed so impossible, it was okay to indulge ourselves in imagining it. Here we are, having arrived at the future, and it’s nothing at all like I pictured. It’s great, in its way, but it’s not paradise, and I don’t see any way we can really change it. Maybe that’s what it is. In Anglesey, and Belfast, and Canada, we helped run things. I could imagine Annette taking on that role.”

“I thought you were against nepotism,” he said.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “I could picture her becoming our replacement. But in Canberra, we’re just provincial outsiders.”

The side gate, like the main entrance, was guarded, though the two sentries were only interested in the people trying to get in. Immediately outside was a bus stop with an awning. Pinned to two of its uprights was a flat metal sheet on which was etched a new map of Canberra. The roads were the same as before, but the bus routes had changed while the suburbs had exploded.

“That’s nicely touristy,” Kim said.

“But they used metal because there’s no spare ink or paper,” Bill said.

“Sure, but look at the intricacy of the fish swimming in Lake Burley Griffin.”

“Pretty sure that’s a shark,” Bill said.

“And you wonder where Annette’s cynical streak comes from,” she said. “We want to catch the thirteen, then change to the seven at Commonwealth Farm. Odd name.”

“Or we could head east-south-east, straight across the road,” Bill said. He pointed upward at a twin-engine prop descending to land. “And if we get lost, we can always follow the planes.”

“I’m happy with a stroll, but I’m really not dressed for a hike,” Kim said. “It’s not like we can break into a house for a rest if we get tired.”

“But we could try a pub,” Bill said, before patting his pockets. “Do you have any money?”

She opened her purse. “I’ve… hmm. About two hundred blue-backs. Which I think is a lot. Liu said the minimum wage is ten dollars a day, but the average is already heading towards twenty.”

“How are they collecting taxes, that’s what I want to know,” Bill said, as they crossed North Road, and ventured down University Avenue. “Ha,” he added, pointing with his cane.

“You’re scaring people, dear,” she said.

“No one out here is wearing a gown,” he said.

“Of course not,” she said. “Didn’t you notice that before?”

“I was too preoccupied with my testimony,” he said. “But yes, I suppose I should have realised everyone else in this city was wearing clothes.”

“So are the academics,” Kim said. “Most of them. The gown is a work-uniform, that’s all. Since most of them are working with oil or soil, it makes sense not to wear their normal clothes. With water so tight, who can afford extra laundry?”

“But you’ve got to admit the academics were showing off,” Bill said. “Figuratively and literally.”

“You’re being stuffily old-fashioned,” she said. “A gown’s little different to a dress.”

“I was actually thinking there are plenty of clothes in Canada,” Bill said. “And there are definitely potential customers here.”

“Yes, but there are even more clothes in Vietnam, boxed and bagged at some abandoned port. Vietnam is only five thousand kilometres away, a third of the distance to us. If you’re planning to become a profiteer, you’ll need a different scheme.”

“I guess this is why I was broke back in the old-world,” Bill said.

The verge still bore evidence of last year’s hasty planting, but those unproductively small strips had been recently replaced with hardy shrubs. Larger patches had acquired clusters of saplings. Having to pay sentries to guard the crops was one consideration, as was the effort-to-time ratio of employing a farmer to till solitary square metres here and there rather than a square mile beyond the old city limits. But air quality was a factor, too.

Despite the lack of road traffic, the air was acrid. In a world with few shops and no home deliveries, there was far less rubbish. They’d already seen two pairs of broom-toting street-sweepers, but they were mostly gathering soot and ash. Every building had a rooftop extension, and they’d often developed extensions of their own. Office buildings and car parks had been converted into hasty homes. Though waste management was both frequent and well managed, light and heat were luxuries to many. Trash was burned. Sometimes for cooking. Sometimes for light. Sometimes just for company. Sometimes, it got out of control.

Alison Street bore the smoke-charred skeleton of an office block. The devastation looked to be only weeks old, but the building was already being torn down. On the road, a neat line of skips waited to take the pre-sorted debris away for re-use. Next to the skips stood a shotgun-carrying guard.

“Let’s take a detour,” Kim said. “Did you notice the workers?”

Bill looked around. “There’s a lot, aren’t there? And they seem to know what they’re doing.”

“That’s what I was going to ask,” she said. “Liu said that most criminals get sentenced to hard labour, but those people are working like they’re on the clock.”

“They’re dressed like it, too,” he said.

“You don’t think their tubular jumpsuits look like prison garb?” she asked.

“Maybe, but the gaiters and over-sleeves indicate people who can’t get clothing re-issued. No, I’d say they’re paid labourers.”

“I think so, too,” she said. “And the people sweeping the streets were clearly municipal employees, so what work do the convicts actually do?”

“That’s something to ask Liu and Scott,” Bill said.

They continued through the administrative heart of the Pacific’s struggling civilisation, but once they’d crossed Cooyong Street, they entered the real city, where people lived, worked, and shopped.

Currency was, currently, blue bank notes and triangular metal change. Thanks to his own tentative experiments with currency, Bill was confident that the shape and colour were chosen to generate curiosity rather than as an anti-fraud measure. But people clearly had confidence in the currency as there was a bank at the corner of this road, sharing space with a post office.

The length of the queue made him slow, until Kim tugged his arm.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I was just reading the sign,” he said. “I mean, if paper’s so scarce you have to apply in person just to get an interview to get a form to apply to get married, how come people are sending each other post? Except they’re not. It’s messages by radio.”

“To whom?” she asked, now looking around and back at the line.

“People in other cities, it looks like,” he said.

“Couldn’t you just scrounge your own radio?”

“Why do that if you can send ten messages for a penny?” Bill said. “That’s how little they were charging. Then again, with such an influx of newcomers, I bet every building has been picked over. Any radios that were there, have been claimed.”

“I suppose power is an issue, too,” Kim said. “Though I don’t think anywhere is metered. Or charged for it. I should ask Liu.”

“Eighteen months,” Bill said.

“What about them?”

“It’ll take eighteen months until they’ve enough ferries to run a regular cargo ship to the forests of Indonesia, or the paper factory they’ll build there. But they’ll solve the paper shortage before they solve the power crisis.”

A health clinic was doing a brisker business than the post office. He hoped the double-length line was for the dentist, though the overly large sign proclaimed they were open late for cancer screenings.

A launderette shared space with a tailor, and offered to buy and sell buttons, thread, and elastic. A bicycle repair shop also advertised electrical repairs. A jeweller’s had a sign reading: It’s not a marriage without a ring. The neighbouring tattooist had a sign of their own: Our rings really do last forever! Buy one, get one free.

Taking up the entire ground floor of the next block was the grocery store. Children got three meals a day at school, and so did their teachers. So did the faculty at the university. Factories had canteens providing at least one meal a day. For everyone else, food was rationed. Choice was limited. Custom at any supermarket was only allowed for those people whose ration card listed their address as within a designated radius. Even so, there was a queue. Old paper posters had been replaced by sheet metal on which had been painted today’s available staples: dragon fruit, kiwis, lychees, limes, and pawpaw; sweet potatoes, kale, onions, and cauliflower.

It was truly exotic to his northern eyes, but advertising couldn’t entirely be trusted, even now. While boutique fruit farms might have been hastily expanded, trees didn’t grow overnight, making the words on the sheet-metal boards optimistic predictions rather than accurate depictions of the bounty available for sale.

For the short term, and perhaps for a few years, brassicas and tubers would be everyone’s staple, topped up with a fortified grain brick which could be called breakfast cereal or bulk for stew, but which absolutely wasn’t bread. Vitamin tablets were mass produced, and issued free, but for true variety in the next few years, everyone was relying on the university’s work on artificial flavours.

“Oh, that looks like a pub,” Kim said.

“Is it a garage? There’s a battered tyre hanging from the awning.”

“It’s a bar,” she said. “There are no private cars in Canberra, remember?”

She was right. The board outside boldly proclaimed Tyre Makers’ Union Social Club. Live Music Every Night. Stand Up on Sunday. Members Only.

“I bet we could blag a drink if we say who we are,” Bill said.

“It looks seedy enough to solve the food shortage, so we’ll keep going,” Kim said. “Is there a tyre factory around here?”

“There must be,” Bill said. “And it must be a big one if that bar can afford to turn away everyone else. I wonder where the brewery is.”

“Scott said there were three official ones, and an entire police squad tasked with shutting down illegal stills,” she said. “Go on, then, what’s your opinion of Canberra?”

“It was being held together by spit and shoestring, but as laces are so scarce, now it’s just spit.”

“That sounds rehearsed. C’mon, seriously?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Everything was rebuilt to cope with the outbreak, then the nuclear war, and it’s being rebuilt again. But with none of us knowing how long the planet has left, it’s impossible to gauge how much of what we see are the seeds of a realistic long-term plan, and how much of it is a whim which’ll vanish when the seasons change.”

“I think I preferred your rehearsed answer,” she said.

Chowne Street bordered Hasset Farm, a former green-space surrounded by ominous apartments which had been converted into a farmed field, and more recently subdivided into allotments. At the corner, and a little way from the fence ringing the private plots, a large bulletin board had been set up. On it, and behind a wire-mesh grill, was pinned a paper copy of that morning’s news bulletin. While Kim scanned the bulletin, Bill took in the reinforced glass and the heavy padlock protecting the five sheets of paper.

It was a long time since he’d bothered picking a lock, but he could probably pick this one in under a minute. If he had the right tools, he could break the clasp in two seconds. But the padlock was a deterrent, a sign to the neighbourhood that if the paper was stolen too frequently, the bulletin wouldn’t be posted here. In turn, that told him how common analogue radio sets were in this corner of the capital.

“Too much digital,” Bill said.

“What’s that?” Kim asked.

“Oh, I was just bemoaning my lack of foresight,” Bill said. “Mine and every other member of the political class. Anything interesting?”

“The headline is Kiwis Storm Towards Victory,” Kim said. “I hope that’s about the cricket. The second story is confirming that the national cafe will open next week. The menu will depend on local supplies, but all will serve a selection of off-ration items at pocket-friendly prices. We’ve a few paragraphs of propaganda about not wasting food or power. Ah, and here’s a reminder that education is compulsory for all under-sixteens, and that all schools provide three meals a day. I can’t imagine many people skipping. Have we seen any schools?”

“There’s a couple at the university,” Bill said.

“They’d need more than two for Canberra,” Kim said. “How many do you think? Sixty?”

“Depends on the class size,” Bill said.

“Oh, this is interesting, a pod of blue whales was sighted by a fishing fleet, fifty kilometres from Perth. It doesn’t say if the sighting paused the fishing, or increased its tempo. Huh, weird. Wait, no, I misread it. The senator for New Britain has died. That’s the island in Papua New Guinea, yes?”

“To the west of Papua. And which was relatively sheltered from the Pacific tsunami,” Bill said. “It’s another place where population doubled. It’s up to about a million, now. That was in the official briefing packet. I saw the name and got curious.”

“Ah. Well, there’s to be an election in three months, and until then the Deputy Senator will assume the seat. How does that work?”

“One senator is elected,” Bill said. “They appoint a deputy so there’s one representative resident in the constituency, and another one here in Canberra.”

“And they have one senator for a million people in New Britain. Canberra’s population is about one and a half. How many live in Perth?”

“I think it’s six million,” Bill said. “And more in the metropolitan area.”

“No wonder they want another seat. But I suppose that’s what happens in every federal system. Oh, look at this. There’s been a murder.”

“Where?” he asked.

“Second page, second column,” Kim said.

“I meant where was the murder?” Bill asked.

“In Snowy River, two months ago. A potato truck was hijacked. The driver and navigator were murdered. The culprits were arrested a week later. A gang of four were turned in by a concerned citizen suspicious of being offered off-the-ration food. The four have been sentenced to death. Same for a rapist. Three attacks are known to have occurred in the Toowoomba resettlement camp. They’re asking for other victims to come forward. Execution is due to take place next month. Huh. Hang on.” She quickly scanned the rest of the bulletin. “There are no crimes listed.”

“You just mentioned two,” he said. “Or four, really.”

“Those are convictions,” she said. “And where the guilty have been sentenced to death. This is a big continent, Bill, and it’s a fractious, terrified, hungry, bored, exhausted, thirsty, and angry one. There’s no way those are the only two recent crimes. It’s propaganda, a warning to criminals that justice is swift and sharp, even if it probably isn’t.”

They weren’t the only people interested in the news. A group of eleven, who’d been loitering near the gate to the fenced allotments, approached. As they neared, Bill revised his assessment. They weren’t a group, but a gang. Eight boys, all late teens, and three adults who should have sought friends their own age.

The leader, a pickled sot in his late forties, had managed to keep his potbelly despite the near universal privations. He nodded at Kim. “You taking your sheila somewhere fancy?”

“We’ve been testifying at the war crimes tribunal,” Bill said.

“I was talking to her,” the sot said, glancing around to ensure that received a loyal bray from his hangers-on. “You’re Pohms, right?”

“We’re from Canada,” Kim said.

“You want the tour?” he asked. “It won’t cost you much.”

“No thanks,” Kim said.

“That’s not friendly, is it,” the sot said. “Here we are, opening up our country to your mob, and you treat us like dirt.” His hand dropped to the long knife at his belt. “I’ll ask you again, and I’ll ask you nice, why not take the tour?”

Bill twisted the handle of his cane, drawing the handle back to reveal three inches of the steel blade.

Kim sighed, reached into her purse, and drew a compact revolver. “You have a knife. He has a sword. I have a Smith and Wesson 640. There are only five rounds in the chamber, but I am a very good shot.”

“Bloody Pohms,” the sot muttered. “No guns in Australia!” he added, turning around. “Might just call the cops on you. Kids play around here.” His pride-preserving self-justification changed tack again, but was lost to hearing as he marched off.

Kim waited until the gang were a hundred metres away before putting the gun back into her purse.

“Call that a knife,” Bill murmured, sliding the sword back into the cane.

“I knew you wanted to say that,” she said. “And I’m so glad you didn’t. When was the last time you saw a cop?”

“At that construction site where they were dismantling the burned building,” he said.

“I think that was just a guard,” she said. “The university had sentries on the gates. We saw them at the municipal buildings. I think I know why, and why Zach and Elaina told us to stick to the busier streets. Some things really don’t change, do they?”

“Not even after the end of the world,” Bill said.

The next turn had them back on a bus route, and soon after that, they were at the airport. There, once again, they saw the police. Four grey-clad paramilitaries stood by the airport’s main entrance, with a fifth standing behind the roof-mounted machine gun atop a Hawkei PMV.

“Home at last,” Kim said.

A bike-shaw had parked by the checkpoint. The driver was in shirtsleeves, but wore a black cap. As Bill and Kim approached, the passenger disembarked from the cab. His egg-head and wire-frame glasses reminded Bill of Himmler, and was perhaps why the man had opted for a Panama hat and white-linen suit as his official dress. His face was swollen, almost waxy, as a result of over-eating and under-exercising now the crisis conditions had eased.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Kim said, as the man approached while the gate-officer disappeared inside the sentry post

“Must be,” Bill said. “I suppose it was inevitable. I couldn’t avoid him forever. Ambassador Jenkins!” he called out when the man was still a dozen metres away. “Good to see you.”

“Mr Wright, Mrs Wright. Glad I could finally catch you,” said Sir Paul Jenkins, the former ambassador to Australia from the Court of St James’s.

“We had to give evidence to the tribunal,” Bill said.

“Our embassy is always willing to provide legal assistance,” Jenkins said. “Now, or in the future.”

“And we’ve got an aerial tour of the city this afternoon,” Kim said.

“Indeed,” Jenkins said. “You are having quite the royal tour. All that’s lacking are the digs. We have some far superior rooms at the embassy.”

“The caravan is more our speed,” Kim said.

“Of course, yes, I’ve read the journals. Quite the adventure you both had.”

“You cycled all the way out here,” Bill said. “It’s not just for pleasantries.”

“Oh, but it was,” Jenkins said. “I wanted to introduce myself, as I suspect we will be conducting much business in future.”

“How’s that?” Bill asked.

“Because Britain had many overseas territories. Don’t you think it unjust, even undemocratic, that we don’t have a single senator in this new alliance?”

“I have no opinions on politics,” Bill said.

“Now that, sir, is a lie,” Jenkins said.

“You want Bill to put in a good word for you?” Kim asked.

“No, I am offering to put in a good word for you. Both of you,” Jenkins said. “You are, for want of a better word, celebrities thanks to your journal. Celebrity fades, and so we must strike while the iron is hot. In recognition of our warship which has now joined the Pacific fleet, in acknowledgement of the British Overseas Territories, and that the new power currently resides in Commonwealth nations, Britain should have two senators. You.”

“Nope, sorry,” Bill said. “We’re not even running things in Canada. We just came south to testify, and to meet our old friends. We’ll be returning north, where we’ll farm like everyone else.”

“And in Canada you have both the Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy, and a Canadian MP who never abandoned her country. Imagine how you could help them, and your friends, if you were to take a formal post in government here. You would lead a bloc. Wouldn’t that be a better way to ensure the future for your family and friends? Wouldn’t that be the best way to guide the future of our species? Think on it.” Jenkins tipped his hat before turning and walking back to his cab.

Liu Higson was waiting for them just inside the gate. Unlike the guards towering behind her, she didn’t wear a grey police uniform, but a broad-brimmed hat, jeans, t-shirt, and well-worn sneakers. Unlike every other civilian they’d seen, she carried a firearm, holstered on her left hip.

“Strewth, that was the longest hour of my life since Clemmie learned to drive,” she said. “Another five minutes and my heart would have turned to a puddle.”

“Gosh, sorry. We just took a walk, and left Zach to drive the kids around this afternoon,” Kim said, while the officer in charge of the guard smirked.

“Zach called to tell us,” Liu said.

“I’d forgotten you have phones,” Bill said.

“Only landlines, and only between key buildings. We’ve radio, too,” she added. “I called Scott. He’s just landed, and we were about to go look for you. It can be dangerous out there.”

“Lesson learned,” Kim said. “But we barely saw a soul.”

“We did see a lot that was very interesting,” Bill said. “I’ve got a ton of questions.”

“Then you can start asking them as we drive to the compound,” Liu said. “How did it go?”

“The tribunal?” Bill asked, as they walked towards the electric cart. “There were a lot of questions about Jen Masterton and the monarchy, and Janet Gunderson and Napatchie Ashoona, and not so many about the cartel or the politicians. But they have Scott’s testimony.”

“They spent a week talking to him,” Liu said. “And about the same to the professor. What did Jenkins try to sell you? The guard called me when he turned up. He wanted to wait inside. I said no.”

“Good call,” Kim said. “He wants us, by which he really means Bill, to become a British senator, governing the old British Overseas Territories. It was only Pitcairn in the Pacific, wasn’t it?”

“There’s Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean,” Bill said.

“That was swamped by a tsunami during the crisis,” Liu said. “Did he ask for an expedition back to England?”

“Not yet,” Kim said.

“I bet he will,” Liu said. “They’re still ironing out the constituencies, but once that’s done, there’ll be a presidential election. O.O. will win, and that’ll mark the end of the old Australian government, and the end of the ambassadors who spied on it. He’ll have to surrender the embassy and get a real job. This is his last bid for power.”

“I hope it’ll be his last,” Bill said.

The cart had been a baggage hauler from the days of international passenger travel, but which had been converted into a slow, but electric, bus that buzzed across the tarmac and to the caravans hidden behind a hangar.

There were seven caravans. Two belonged to the Higson family, connected by a concertina walkway. Scott and Liu’s twenty-year-old daughter, Clemmie, was currently aboard an oceanographic survey ship somewhere in the Pacific. Annette was borrowing her room, and her make-up. Jay was bunking with Bobby, Scott and Liu’s son. Though a couple of years apart in age, they seemed to be getting on well, if the midnight laughter was any guide.

Mick Dodson had a cabin of his own. A former medic and pilot for the Flying Doctor Service, he was also the father of Anna Dodson, a rural MP who, by being on the right side of the coup, was now Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, and Speaker of the Pacific Assembly. Mick was supposed to be retired, but he now managed the airport, mostly as a way of ensuring he stayed on the active-pilot list. Anna had a cabin next to her father, though apparently slept in her office when she wasn’t on her near-permanent tour of factories, refugee camps, and harbours. Police Commissioner Tess Qwong had a caravan of her own, with the others used on a rotating basis by members of her team who weren’t permanently stationed in the capital. It was one of those that Bill and Kim had been given.

On seeing his accommodation, and learning who lived next door, Bill was initially puzzled. If Canberra had an elite, Mick Dodson and Tess Qwong were it. They should be living in a mansion, or something akin to a palace. But then he’d seen inside. He’d noticed the air conditioning first, and then the plumbed toilets, and reasonably spacious shower with both cold and hot water. The airport had its own generator, and its own solar panels. It always had electricity. Most importantly of all, these caravans were out of sight.

Canberra had to lead by example. That was doubly true for its leaders. Because life in Canberra was so much easier than elsewhere in this new empire, there were no frills on display, and fewer luxuries. But Mick and Liu, and now Scott, frequently flew to the outlying, and more agricultural, regions. Here, with guards on the main gates, and with a second gate and fence between the caravans and the rest of the airport, there was no chance anyone would notice a bag of fruit or box of veg being surreptitiously smuggled in.

Bill collapsed in the chair in their bedroom and groaned.

“Trouble?” Kim asked as she hung up her borrowed dress.

“Only that I should have taken my shoes off before I sat down,” he said. “I think we’ll give the aerial tour a miss.”

“Suits me,” she said. “What do you want to do about Jenkins?”

“Less than nothing,” Bill said. “My days of politicking are over. In fact, I’d say that his offer was the icing on the cement. I’d much rather spend the next few years in Canada than machinating down here.”

“Assuming Canada pans out,” she said. “We’ve still so much work to do there. And we’re assuming that the north will remain habitable. But I agree, though for different reasons. I’ve been thinking about it, us, our journey. What we did, and how we led people there. We’ve a responsibility to stay with our people until they’re properly settled, and until we know that they can stay there indefinitely. That’s three years or so, I suppose, and by then, we’ll know whether Daisy should be getting specialist schooling, or if she’ll be happy enough herding potatoes.” She pulled on a t-shirt. “You’re sitting on my jeans. Thanks. We’ll also know, in three years or so, whether things here in the southern hemisphere have got better, or whether we’d be glad to live at the other end of the planet. You should change before you rumple Scott’s suit into a mountain. I’ll tell Liu we’re going to have an easy afternoon. I’d say we should have a drink, but we’ve got that function with the professor tonight. Do you think Jenkins will be there?”

“Probably,” Bill said. “He has a point, though. Fame does fade. In a few months, we’ll be forgotten. We really will become just a pair of administrators up in the most northerly outpost.”

“You’re changing your mind about his offer?” she asked.

“No, I’m just acknowledging this is one of those crossroads moments,” Bill said. “But, like with most times on reaching a crossroads, we only have to look at the signpost to know which way to go. There’s no choice, really. Britain, old Britain, doesn’t warrant a seat in this new alliance on the basis of Flora’s ship and the Pitcairn Islands. Even if we pushed for it, the Australians couldn’t possibly agree due to the precedent it would set for China, Russia, and who knows where else. We could become representatives for Puget Sound, or we could take a job here with the Pacific administration.” He picked up the tablet given to him by Anna Dodson. “I’ve read their briefing notes, and have nothing to add. Their civil servants saved millions while we only managed to save a few thousand.”

“Which is still something, Bill,” she said. “And a lot more than most.”

“Agreed,” he said. “But you’re right. We started something. Not us alone, but we were key to it. We got everyone to Canada. We can’t leave them now. We’ll see this through to the end, and that means letting go of that little bit of the past we were clinging to. You’re right about that, too. Let’s put aside our fantasies, and embrace reality, and make of it the very best that we can.”

“You’re agreeing with me twice in one day?” she said. “Miracles do happen. Get changed. I think we can probably risk one drink.”

Slowly, Bill took off the suit, wondering if this might well be the last time he ever wore one. Yes, it was a crossroads moment, but he’d arrived with a map in his hands. And it was a crossroads, rather than the end of his journey, even if he’d given an ending to the press. All their struggles, pain, anguish, and loss had been reduced to two minutes on the news that few would hear, and even fewer would remember. Two minutes, almost all of which would focus on how Herrera was murdered by a confederate, only for the killer to be torn apart by a polar bear.

It was such a shocking death that, even in the twilight of the outbreak’s visceral horror, it was worthy of being called news. But it would soon be forgotten, as would the rest of his testimony, his journals, and the trials of his family and friends.

That was okay. That was fine. He didn’t mind that.

But one day, assuming the oceans didn’t die, the sky didn’t burn, and the members of this last bastion of hope didn’t kill one another over land and oil, a historian would stumble across his complete testimony. On that day, when history was written, they would listen to what he’d said, they would read what he’d written, and they’d watch the testimony of Scott, and the commissioner, and so many others. But that wasn’t the full story. It couldn’t be, because it would miss out the final chapter of their own tale. It would miss out what happened in New York.

The judges hadn’t asked him about that. Then again, it wasn’t his story to tell…

Part 2

Dinosaurs

Newfoundland

23rd & 24th March

23rd March

Chapter 18 - No Stone Unturned

Grand Falls Windsor, Newfoundland

Tuck swatted Sorcha’s arm. Sorcha braked, checking the mirrors as she asked, “What, where?”

“No danger,” Tuck signed. “Gate.”

Sorcha swung in the seat, bobbing her head in an attempt to peer through the narrow gap in the sheet metal that had replaced the car’s broken side window.

“Clear,” Tuck signed, when Sorcha turned back to face her. “Ready?”

Sorcha drew the shotgun from the leather door-holster, which, before she’d attacked it with a sewing machine, had been a golf bag. Tuck picked up her hand-bow, cocked the string, and loaded a dart-like bolt.

“Ready,” Sorcha signed.

With the synchronicity that only comes from practice, the two women disembarked from the RCMP cruiser. Tuck swept low, looking for crawlers. Sorcha checked the trees, listening for hibernating undead who’d been woken by the sound of their engine.

“Clear,” Tuck signed.

“Clear,” Sorcha agreed.

Bow and shotgun were lowered and the women approached the gate. Made of chain-link metal in a tubular frame, it had been installed recently enough that rust had barely claimed a foothold, and was still sturdy despite last winter’s blizzards and thaws. The gate bisected a gravel track leading south from the highway.

“No ruts,” Tuck signed, then pointed at the roadside. “No mailbox. No name. No address.”

“No trespassing,” Sorcha said, pointing at the solitary sign on the gate. “Shall we bother with the key?”

Tuck shook her head, and high-stepped through the bushes. While the gate ran across the track, there was a single fence panel on either side. Beyond, there was just brush and bushes, struggling to grab the few rays of daylight that made it through the ancient forest’s dense canopy.

A minute later, they knew this wasn’t the place. The track ended at a prefab wooden cabin. More of a hunting lodge than a home, it was functional, twee, and structurally flawed. Built on wood-pillar stilts a metre above the ground, it had a noticeable tilt towards the west. A sloping roof extended over both front and back porch, with two small windows on either side of the door, and a stovepipe jutting out from under the eaves.

“No car,” Tuck signed.

“Padlock,” Sorcha said. “Let’s try the back.”

The rear door was unlocked. Inside, they found walls covered in dinosaurs, and a floor covered in bones. Flesh and muscle were long gone. Even the marrow had been sucked dry, but the skull was fragmented. A hole in the wall, and the shotgun on the ground, explained the body, though it was impossible now to explain the suicide.

There were only four rooms to search; it didn’t take long. A small store contained a water tank, a cupboard with general cleaning supplies, and space for an absent generator. A smaller bathroom contained a toilet, sink, and shower, all fed from the water tank next door. The bedroom contained two pairs of bunk beds, but only the lower two bunks had mattresses. In the main room, two armchairs faced the stove, a dining table faced the window, while the walls were laden with books.

“Children’s books,” Tuck signed, as she ran a hand along the shelf.

“Nothing about oil?” Sorcha asked.

“Technically, yes,” Tuck signed, then picked up a book on whose cover a pair of teens rode on the back of a diplodocus.

Sorcha turned to the cupboards. One contained a kettle and a microwave. Another contained a few pieces of crockery. None contained food. “Not even a consolation prize,” she said. “Whoever owned this cabin had nothing to do with the oil well.”

“Weekend custody,” Tuck signed.

“You think?”

“Two bunks. Dad and son,” Tuck signed. “Too many dinosaurs. Dad was trying too hard.”

“You’re neglecting the evidence of the bathroom,” Sorcha said.

“What evidence?”

“The flush toilet,” Sorcha said. “And the more obvious evidence that this cabin is sinking. We absolutely aren’t on the grid here, and I can’t imagine they dug a cesspit. Not properly, hence the cabin’s tilt. This cabin is a prefab, purchased in haste, online and unseen, and installed by unscrupulous labour being paid by the hour.”

“Supporting my theory,” Tuck signed.

“I think not, my dear Ms Watson,” Sorcha said. “I believe the child had become addicted to his phone, and this cabin was bought so that weekends could be enjoyed offline.”

“Kid was too young for a phone,” Tuck signed. “So I win, Ms Lestrade.”

“Too young doesn’t mean they didn’t have one,” Sorcha said. “Marketing smartphones to children was the sad yet inevitable end-stage of unbridled capitalism. Whatever happened to hanging around the cemetery on a Friday until your friends showed up, or the Garda sent you home?”

“You hung around a cemetery?” Tuck signed.

“There were few other options,” Sorcha said. “Where did you go?”

“Gym before school,” Tuck signed. “Rowing after.”

“You clearly weren’t a normal girl,” Sorcha said.

“No such thing as normal,” Tuck signed. “Continue?”

“We might as well.”

Pulling the door closed behind them, they returned to the car.

Sorcha picked up the map. “We are definitely beyond Badger, and not yet at Grand Falls Windsor. This oil well must be nearby.”

Tuck shrugged. There was nothing more to say.

For Sorcha, silence settled. For Tuck, it had moved in long ago. For them both, life was great. Sure, there were times when it had been better, and it could be better now. These carefree days wouldn’t last, but good times never did, and because of that, they were both able to treat this sojourn on Newfoundland as a holiday.

The winter had been long. If either woman had viewed it as the start of their new lives, it would have been lonely because most of their small community were already members of a tribe. The former submariners of the Vehement, like Chief Watts, now worked as roughnecks, sucking the scant onshore oil reserves from the ground. Anglesey survivors like the civilian engineer Rahinder Singh, and the affable warrior, Donnie O’Leary, ran the refinery. The Canadians from Digby had become the truckers running crude to the refinery, and oil to the harbour. There was little need for a soldier when their battles were against the elements. There was even less need for a socialite spy. But little and less wasn’t none.

Among the luggage abandoned during the evacuation of Newfoundland, they had found a document case containing the employment details of a Mr Jeremiah Wade. A resident of Houston, and a graduate of Austin, Wade was an oil engineer hired to assess ten thousand acres situated between Badger and Grand Falls Windsor. The documents didn’t list precisely where the potential oil field might be, nor give an indication as to how much oil might be there, but they did list the house in Grand Falls Windsor rented for him and to where his equipment would be sent. The odds of finding the exploration site were marginal, while the chance of finding oil there was fractionally slim, but the good thing about a wild goose chase in Canada was the abundance of geese.

Grand Falls Windsor had taken a beating during the outbreak and a battering over the winter. Trees were down, and so were some of the roofs, spilling shingles and timbers onto flooded yards. Some houses were barricaded, while others had burned. But the roads were wide, raised, and built to withstand blizzards and thaws. Slowly, they navigated their way to the RCMP station. The unprepossessing barn would have been easy to miss if it weren’t for the mound of bones in the parking lot.

Leaving their car on the Trans-Canada Highway, but bringing their weapons with them, they picked their way through the bones and to the police station’s entrance.

“Chewed,” Tuck signed.

“I can see a few birds, but they don’t chew, and nor do zombies,” Sorcha said, scanning the overgrown shadows behind them. “So what did?”

Tuck, though, had kept walking, and had now reached the barricade around the doors.

A battle had certainly been fought at the police station. Among the rain-rinsed brass cartridges were four empty nine-millimetre magazines and two discarded shotguns.

“Atlanta passengers,” Tuck signed.

“Probably,” Sorcha said. “Yes, they were probably passengers from that ill-fated airlift from Georgia, but were they simply the defenders, or, once infected, did they become the attackers, too?”

Tuck shrugged, and pulled a table aside so they could enter. There were no bodies inside, though there were more empty magazines, more discharged shotguns, and three magazine-less Colt C7 assault rifles. There was no ammunition, however.

“A fighting retreat,” Tuck signed. “They made a stand so others could escape. Drew the undead here. Fought. Fled.”

“One hopes so,” Sorcha said.

As they stepped into the large office, that theory seemed to be confirmed by the neat line of unused hand-to-hand weapons: axes and knives, sledgehammers, metal bars, improvised spears, sharpened boat-hooks, a ceremonial sabre, and even a scythe. None had been used, nor had the fighting reached the zigzag of barricades that ran through the open-plan office.

Whoever had fought here, whether they were Newfoundlanders, or survivors of the ill-fated Atlanta airlift, none had made it to Nova Scotia. While that didn’t guarantee they were dead, it was increasingly likely.

They found a town-and-region patrol map in the captain’s office which gave them the location of the oil engineer’s house. In the top drawer of the desk, in what was surely a breach of data security if not the law, they found an address book listing every member of the department, and about half of the town. Back outside, they found they had company.

A muddy retriever waited on the highway, ten metres from their car. Its muzzle and forehead were marked with recent scars. Its muscles were lean, while its eyes were wary, roaming from Tuck to Sorcha. It didn’t approach, but nor did it back away.

“Would you like to join us for dinner?” Sorcha asked.

The dog tensed at the sound of a voice. It retreated a step, then walked, not ran, disappearing among the rusting heaps in the old car dealership opposite.

“Perhaps I should have clarified I didn’t intend either of us to be the other’s dinner,” Sorcha said. “Shall we?”

The mining conglomerate had rented Mr Wade a hundred-square-metre one-storey wood-clad home, which had an external garage that was twice as large. The garage was empty and the house was waiting to be unpacked. The sofas were covered in plastic, while the TV was still boxed in cardboard. A real estate agent’s card was on the counter, with a note to say the fridge had been filled. While Tuck checked the cupboards, Sorcha quickly checked the rest of the small home.

“He never moved in,” Sorcha said, while Tuck lined up the salvageable food on the counter. “The mining company rented the house for six months, specifying furnished in the contract, and paying extra for the privilege. The agent arranged the furniture. A new sofa, a new TV, and a new bed. The dining table looks second-hand, but still worth at least five hundred dollars.”

“So?” Tuck signed.

“It’s profligate,” Sorcha said. “More was spent on the furniture than on rent. I would have purchased a fleet of RVs for the exploration phase, which could be more easily moved from one location to the next. Mr Wade could have lived on site. If he found something worth extending his contract, then property could have been purchased, going on the books as an asset rather than a loss in rent.”

“So?” Tuck signed again.

“So accountants never waste money,” Sorcha said. “This property, and the hire of one Texas oil engineer, had an ulterior purpose. I suspect he was never expected to find oil here, but the search was to be used as a bargaining chip in the legal wrangling over that off-shore facility.”

“Why?” Tuck signed.

“They would offer to suspend all onshore exploration in exchange for a green light to exploit those reserves off the coast. The historical record tells us the onshore reserves are pitiful, while the public record of the court battles tell us there is a lake of black gold offshore.”

“So no usable oil nearby?” Tuck signed.

“It seems not,” Sorcha said.

Tuck held up a metal tin, then another.

“Maple brittle?” Sorcha said. “You found sweets?”

“Check the bathroom for toothpaste,” Tuck signed.

“There was only soap and toilet paper,” Sorcha said. “Odd, isn’t it? When it comes to stocking a house, toilet paper was a necessity, but toothpaste was deemed too personal.”

Tuck picked up a tin of hot chocolate, carefully opening the lid. She grinned as she placed the tin back on the counter. “Go back?”

“Tomorrow,” Sorcha said. “I think we should drive slowly back along the highway, check a few more turnings, so we can say we exhausted this lead.”

“Stay here?” Tuck signed.

“No stove,” Sorcha said. “It would be a cold night.”

“A local police officer would have a winter-proof home,” Tuck signed.

Sorcha took out the address book she’d brought from the police station. “It is unlikely a police captain would have written down his own address.”

Tuck laid a finger on the page, tapping an entry.

“Staff Sergeant Major Marlene Perlin,” Sorcha read. “Why her?”

“One address. Faded,” Tuck signed.

“Ah, an older officer, who had never found a reason to upgrade or downsize her home. And according to the map, Masters Avenue isn’t that far.”

While Sorcha fetched the toilet paper and soap, Tuck bagged the groceries. Within two minutes, they were back at the door, where both women paused.

“Rot-poodles,” Sorcha said.

As spring bloomed, wild dogs were an increasingly common sight on the road. The feral packs stayed away from the harbour settlement in Port aux Basques, but they occasionally came to watch the drilling operations in Port au Port. The dogs hadn’t sought companionship, nor, so far, had any pack attacked. These dogs were the survivors. Abandoned by humans, then attacked by zombies, they had learned to survive by avoiding all things on two legs. Now that the undead were gone, they had emerged from the shadows to claim this island as their own.

The nickname of rot-poodle was Tuck’s, a one-handed sign redolent of danger, and utterly appropriate to describe the two dozen mixed-breed canines blocking the road. The muddy retriever appeared to be the leader, though it was far from the largest among the assortment of breeds: sled-dogs, Labradors, Shepherds, a few terriers and boutique pets, but all were dwarfed by the pair of Newfoundland bear-dogs. While not as big as their namesakes, these towering canines looked just as ferocious.

“Try not to look like dinner,” Sorcha said.

“Fire,” Tuck signed.

Sorcha aimed her shotgun into the sky. As the blast echoed off the cabins, most of the dogs scattered, but not the muddy retriever, or its bear-dog bodyguards. Slowly, deliberately, the retriever turned its back on the two humans and disappeared into the suburban ruins.

Staff Sergeant Major Perlin had dwelled almost at the top of a hill. From where they parked on the road, a single rooftop broke the otherwise unending view of rolling forests, stretching to infinity. The house itself, built on a slope, was accessed up a short flight of steps.

To anyone’s eyes, it was an obvious place to hide from the undead, and someone had clearly had that idea before them. The front door was broken, but though the house had been searched, it hadn’t been ransacked.

“I’m having second thoughts,” Sorcha said as they carried their bags inside.

Tuck shook her head, and pushed the door closed. “It’s one hour until dark,” she signed. “We’d drive beyond range of the dogs, not whatever is keeping them from hunting in the forests.”

“Do you think that’s zombies?” Sorcha asked.

“Moose. Bear. Lions,” Tuck signed.

“There were never lions in Newfoundland,” Sorcha said.

“Go outside and prove it,” Tuck signed.

While the kitchen cupboards, and hallway gun-safe, were empty, there were split logs on the rear porch, and an iron stove in the kitchen. The clothes in the closet were utterly functional, and though a tad musty, cleaner than what either woman had been wearing.

The kitchen already had one comfortable chair close to the stove, so they only had to bring another in. Tuck watched the fire flicker as the water slowly boiled. Hot chocolate, canned fruit, a change of clothes, and a comfortable chair. Yes, life really was great.

24th March

Chapter 19 - All Holidays End

Grand Falls Windsor, Newfoundland

Tuck woke when dawn washed through the open living room curtains. She sat up and saw Sorcha breaking a dining-room chair.

“Cold?” Tuck signed.

“I would have burned some of the logs you were sawing in your sleep, but this should produce a bit more heat,” Sorcha said. “We have company outside.”

Tuck walked to the windows. The dogs were back. The pack had grown. The retriever, and the two bear-dog bodyguards, sat in the yard between the house and their car.

“Like a gang, aren’t they?” Sorcha said, wrapping a strip of curtain around the chair leg. “A few shots, and a few waves of a burning torch should get rid of them.”

“Didn’t you sleep?” Tuck signed.

“I was too engrossed in a book,” Sorcha said.

“Fiction?”

“Biography,” Sorcha said. “The autobiography of our host. At least, that’s how it began. Sergeant Perlin clearly grew bored reliving her own life and switched to fiction after the first few chapters. Quite an interesting fiction, too. An eco-thriller about an activist battling oil drillers on the land neighbouring his.”

“Oil? How fictional is it?”

“And therein lies the question,” Sorcha said. “The name first given to this activist is Henry Schultz, but this is circled, with a note reading must change. In the biographical early chapters, Schultz was arrested twice: once for breaking into the town hall, and once for barricading the doors on a Sunday, preventing anyone from getting in on Monday. I believe this reminiscence triggered the author’s switch to fiction. Whether there’s any truth in the oil exploration part of the story is another matter.”

“Address?” Tuck signed.

Sorcha held up the police captain’s address book. “It seems it wasn’t just the agents of good who warranted an entry. We’ve Mr Schultz’s address and phone number, and the phone number for Mr Schultz’s lawyer. What is most interesting is that Schultz lived very close to that dinosaur-cabin we found yesterday. I do wonder if someone who’d learned of the conglomerate’s interest in the land had purchased that patch and was hoping for an above-value buy-out. The dinosaur decorations were simply to tug on the heartstrings of any judge or adjudicator.”

“Cynic,” Tuck signed. “Breakfast?”

“Tinned fruit and warm chocolate,” Sorcha said. “We need more water, though.”

“None for washing?”

“Not anymore,” Sorcha said. “There are some penalties for sleeping half the morning away.”

Within ten minutes, they were ready to leave. The dogs were still outside. None had moved. Would dogs attack zombies? Would they attack people? Was this the moment the final transition from feral to wild would be made?

After lighting two burning torches, they closed the stove door and flue, and went to the front door. When they stepped outside, the dogs rose. They didn’t back away.

Sorcha threw one burning chair leg. It tumbled through the air. The retriever darted back a few paces, but was still between them and the car.

“Maybe we should try a different approach,” Sorcha said.

Tuck threw her torch, then reached for her revolver. She only had five rounds, and knew Sorcha had four left for the shotgun. The question, then, was whether to try a warning shot, or to simply kill the leader.

It was a difficult decision. And one she was saved from having to make as the dogs bolted as a pack, sprinting off into the sprawling undergrowth.

“Car,” Sorcha said and signed.

Tuck nodded and ran to their cruiser. She opened the door, waiting until Sorcha was behind the driver’s seat before she got in.

“I heard a car,” Sorcha said. “An engine.”

Tuck signed her belated understanding. “That’s what the dogs heard? Where?”

“It must be the highway,” Sorcha said. She reached for the radio, trying the different frequencies used by the truckers and roughnecks in the south.

“Anyone out there?” she asked, even as she put the car into gear.

“Sorcha?” the familiar voice of Donnie O’Leary said. “Finally. Where are you?”

“We’re heading to the Trans-Canada Highway,” Sorcha said. “Meet us there.”

The young Irishman was waiting by his car: a completely non-modified RCMP truck, taken from the harbour.

“I brought diesel,” Donnie said. “I thought you must have run out.”

“Very kind of you,” Sorcha said. “But we’re fine, and about to begin the journey back. Were you worried?”

Donnie shook his head. “We got word from Digby over the radio. Good news,” he added. “Bill found Scott Higson. Remember him from Anglesey?”

“I would hardly forget him from France,” Sorcha said. “How did he end up in Canada?”

“He flew,” Donnie said. “That’s not all. He was being held prisoner, and Bill and Kim freed him. But he was with these two Canadian cop-pilots. They flew west, back to their people. And they came from Australia! There’s other survivors. Lots.”

“How many?” Sorcha asked.

“Millions,” Donnie said. “No one knows how many. But that’s the word.”

“Millions?” Sorcha asked, then translated it to sign.

“In Australia?” Tuck signed. “That’s as far from here as anywhere can be.”

“There’s more,” Donnie said. “Sholto’s going to New York. You have to go with him.”

“Do we now?” Sorcha asked.

“I mean, I guess, if you want to,” Donnie said. “But it sounded like an order more than a request.”

“We’re going to New York?” Tuck signed. It seemed their holiday was over.

Part 3

The Flooded State of a Sinking City

The American Northeast

27th March - 16th April

27th March

Chapter 20 - The World As It Is

The Northeastern Atlantic

One million. Five million. It changed nothing. It changed everything. Each syllable matched a footfall as Sholto ran clockwise around the ship. He picked up his pace, turning the jog into a sprint, hoping speed might bring a few new lines to his paradoxical marching song. When he reached the stern, breathless, he stopped, leaning against the rail, watching the waves churn as the Courageous ploughed southward.

Were there one million survivors in the Pacific, or five million? That was the question he’d been asking himself since Bill had returned to Alma from Temagami. Precisely where were these people based? How fair and free were their lives? On the drive to Saguenay, and then during the sprinting sea-voyage up and around to Newfoundland, he’d asked himself a hundred variations of the same question. So had the rest of the crew.

They’d not made landfall in Nova Scotia, though he’d spent most of the time they were in radio-range speaking with Mary, Janet Gunderson, and Napatchie Ashoona. He had no answers for them, since their questions were the same as his. Until Scott returned, there was nothing to do but guess and watch the skies. And so, the Courageous had collected fuel and passengers from Newfoundland, and sailed on, south, and towards the old United States.

At the tail end of last year, during their first foray south from Digby, when he, Chester, and Jay had gone ashore in New York City, they’d been attacked. As they were leaving the city, their ship had been attacked, too. Since then, New York City had been an anchor dragging their thoughts southwards. Were the New Yorkers hostile, or had they merely been attempting to scare off the outsiders? Did it matter?

The onshore oil reserves in Newfoundland were pitiful. The nuclear power station in New Brunswick had been powered down, but containment wouldn’t hold without maintenance they couldn’t provide. The New Yorkers might have been protecting their territory, but they certainly weren’t friendly. Thus, the debate over the winter, and especially after the ice storm had knocked out the transmission lines, was whether they could find a better home elsewhere.

Their eyes had turned westward, and ultimately to the oil fields in British Columbia, with the Dakotas as a backup. The journey began with a foray to the St Lawrence. They’d hoped they could sail through the Great Lakes, but radiation had forced them to detour to Saguenay. Thus, they had found Alma, and then Temagami, but there were still thousands of kilometres of mountains, lakes, rivers, plains, and desolation between there and the West Coast.

During the winter, while making their plans, they’d had to assume that the land to the west might be irradiated, or still filled with the undead. While that was still a possibility, Scott’s presence in Temagami, and his news of millions of survivors somewhere in the Pacific, was proof that there was an alternative to staying in Digby.

Sholto was almost certain they would now leave, but New York couldn’t be left as a mystery, especially now they worried the Temagami killers might have emerged from that city.

New York City was one thousand kilometres due south of the Canadian city of Saguenay. In other times, it was reachable in a day’s driving, assuming the traffic was light, and crossing the border presented no problems. Of course, in the old days, the traffic was never light near New York, while he was always wary of borders. Ironically, the delays now began a lot further north as they still didn’t know of a safe route across the St Lawrence. If the butchers of Temagami had come from New York, they absolutely would know of a road-route.

He jogged on a few steps. One million. Five million. How much had changed? How much hadn’t?

It was a thousand kilometres from New York City to Digby. Last year, long before the Europeans arrived, there’d been a revolt in Nova Scotia. The ships, and the fuel, had been stolen. During the first voyage to New York, they’d seen a few of those ships run aground. It was likely some of the Canadians had survived, though who knew for how long. If tortured, or simply asked after being given a few meals, they’d have mentioned Annapolis Royal and its tidal barrage. Now the winter was over, the weather was warming, and the city was stinking, would the New Yorkers look north for cleaner air and reliable power?

Yes, he was increasingly certain they had to leave Digby, but how soon?

Finding his run had slowed to a walk, he decided to declare exercise over for the day, but as he headed for the bulkhead, a sailor sprinted towards him.

“Captain wants you on the bridge, sir,” the sailor said.

The bridge was hushed. The pilot watched the waves. Everyone else was watching the captain, though her eyes turned to Sholto as he entered.

“Trouble?” he asked.

Flora shook her head. “Play it for him,” she said.

The words were garbled by static, but the voice was recognisable as Ken’s, the English physicist turned radio engineer. “Plane landed… Alma… One hundred million survivors in the Pacific… Scott… Democracy… Now based in Puget Sound… Australia… Japan… Zombies in India. Scott brought soldiers and guns, but has now returned… Will return to Alma in eight days. No change to… mission.”

“That was relayed from Digby?” Sholto asked.

“It was,” Captain Flora Fielding said. “One hundred million survivors with a forward operating base in the Puget Sound.” She picked up a sheet of paper. “They’re broadcasting on a loop. This is a transcript, which adds a few words, but doesn’t fill in the gaps. The immediate question is whether we should turn around and sail north, back into radio range.”

Sholto glanced at the instruments, and realised they were still sailing south. “I take it we’re now out of radio range?”

“We are now, and were originally,” she said. “I think they must have realised, and boosted the signal so we could hear that fractured message.”

Sholto rubbed his bristles. He’d taken to shaving again as often as he could find the blades, but for this mission, where his team would masquerade as straggling survivors, he’d let the beard grow. To the amusement of his team of much younger Marines, the beard had returned in a skunk-patterned black and white.

“How long would it take to get back within radio range?” he asked.

“Half a day,” Flora said. “Assuming clement weather.”

“But we’d then have to wait for our questions to be relayed to Alma, and wait for the reply,” Sholto said. He walked over to the chart. “Whatever they say, we still need to survey New York. The original plan was to sail into the Long Island Sound, but the problem is the Boston dead-zone, and we’re still only at Maine. What about Saco Bay? To the south of Saco Bay is the Saco River which runs inland, and into Biddeford. Drop us off on the southern edge of that river. We can drive inland to the Hudson, then south to New York. We’ll avoid Boston.”

“That would be a long drive, and a lot of it through the unknown,” Flora said.

“But Boston is a known problem,” Sholto said. “You can drop us off, return north, get more details, then return to Saco Bay. I guess that’d be in two or three days. Either we’ll be there with news there’s no shortcut south, or we’ll have found one and so won’t be there. In which case, continue south, as planned, and pick us up on the northern shores of the Long Island Sound. Here. Old Saybrook. It’s just west of the Connecticut River, and most of the bridges are way upriver. If you’re not there, we’ll go north, retracing our route back to Saco Bay. If we miss you there, we’ll make our own way back to Digby.”

Doubt filled Flora’s eyes, but she didn’t argue.

“Brief your team,” she said. “I’ll brief the ship, and then change course.”

A stunned silence settled over the commandos’ mess, formerly a storage bay for the helicopter.

“One hundred million?” Luca Petrelli asked.

“What happened to Pearl Harbour?” Isabella ‘Gonzo’ Gonzales asked.

“What about California?” Maya ‘Rulz’ Torres asked.

“Hospitals?” Tuck signed.

“What was that?” Sholto asked.

“She was enquiring whether, and what kind, of hospitals the Pacific might have,” Sorcha said. “Though I’d like to make a similar enquiry about courts.”

The six of them amounted to the entire team going to New York. Luca, Gonzo, and Rulz were all U.S. Marines, and had all been in Sholto’s advance team in Belfast, Faroe, Nova Scotia, and beyond. Luca was a Brooklyn native, while Rulz and Gonzo had both escaped L.A. through enlistment. Sorcha was there for her experience with espionage and because, like Sholto, she was expendable. Lucy Tucker had been waiting with Sorcha at the harbour in Newfoundland. But her use of sign language, and Sorcha’s accent, would add to the camouflage of them being just another band of survivors, rather than being an armed band of soldier-scouts.

“I don’t know any more than it says on that slip of paper,” Sholto said.

“What about the Panama Canal?” Tuck signed and Sorcha translated.

Sholto pointed at the piece of paper. “That’s all anyone knows until the ship turns north.”

Tuck shook her head, signing again more slowly.

“Ah, apologies,” Sorcha said. “She means it all depends on the Panama Canal. And, yes, whether they have a base in California, or Hawaii, but mostly the canal. And by it, she means whether this news immediately impacts our mission to New York.”

“Which was to be my next question,” Sholto said. “I don’t think this changes anything for Digby, or Alma. After last winter, I think we all need a more reliable home. Whether that’s out west, or down south, will depend on these people in the Pacific, but I don’t think it changes that we need to move. Meaning this mission is still supposed to determine how dangerous New York is, how easily people from there might drive north, and so how soon we must leave Digby.”

Gonzo unfolded a map of north and central America. “If the canal’s open, and New York have ships, they could be a threat to the Pacific.”

“Australia had a navy,” Rulz said.

“There’s no point speculating,” Sholto said.

“Which doesn’t mean we won’t,” Sorcha said.

“Fair enough,” Sholto said. “We’re going ashore at Saco Bay. We’ll drive west to the Hudson River, then go south, thus avoiding Boston, while giving us a chance to survey the land. If it’s impassable to us, it’s impassable to the New Yorkers. If it’s not impassable, we’ll survey New York, then meet the ship in the Long Island Sound. If the radiation is high all the way to the Hudson, we’ll return to Saco Bay.”

“What if New York does represent an imminent threat?” Gonzo asked. “What if the killers from Temagami came from there?”

“Then we’ll liaise with the Pacific about how to deal with them,” Sholto said. “That’s one thing that definitely has changed. It sounds like we’ve got allies we can call on for help.”

As the soldiers left, Sorcha Locke hung back. “Do you think they’ll be hostile?” she asked.

“The New Yorkers will be desperate,” Sholto said. “Their winter can’t have been better than ours.”

“I was referring to the Pacific,” she said.

“Probably not,” Sholto said. “Scott would have warned my brother, and might not have returned west. In fact, Scott probably wouldn’t have come looking for us in the first place, unless it was to seek asylum. No, I think they’re no better, or worse, than us. Who they’ll become is a different question entirely.”

“One hundred million?” Sorcha said. “They will have courts. Laws. Justice. Baying mobs wanting scapegoats. You and I do rather fit that label.”

“I’ve been thinking about that ever since Bill came back with his news about Scott,” Sholto said. “But I disappeared into America once. If that’s the cost of buying a decent future for everyone else, I’m happy to do it again.”

Three hours after receiving the garbled radio message, the Courageous returned north, leaving behind the six commandos and their three stripped-down SUVs. While most of their vehicle fleet had been up-armoured over the winter, these three had been modified for range. They had some of the standard anti-zombie features like window-grills and a sky-roof-turret, but the barbed wire and ram had been removed. They’d debated flying flags, but couldn’t decide on which would be viewed with suspicion. Instead, they’d settled on painting the cars. He’d picked the colours: blue, red, and white. This wasn’t to honour any old national colours, but was a homage to The Italian Job, a movie he remembered watching long, long ago with his father. The memory was hazy, like most of his childhood, but there was a pleasing symmetry in opting for colours that reminded him of the distant past. He’d not been much older when he’d first fled to America. On arriving, he’d travelled east to west, north to south, seeking himself, and seeking a future. Now, he seemed to be on the precipice of a similar quest.

On Anglesey, he’d tried farming. It had taken him a furrow and a half to accept that life wasn’t for him. He liked boats, but fishing had lost its pleasures when it became essential to survival. Fighting, hopefully, would become no more common than it was in the past. Thus, his future would become one of exploration. One hundred million people absolutely didn’t change that.

He would prefer to be driving, but Luca had insisted. Tuck and Sorcha were behind, in the red car, with Gonzo and Rulz bringing up the rear in white. With nothing to occupy his mind he found it settling on the view, and found that too unsettling to watch for long. The devastation was no greater or worse than he’d seen in Canada or Britain, and too many other places to remember. Here it felt different as one familiar name, then another, was marked on a road sign.

These were places his candidates had contested seats. They were places he’d driven through during campaigns. Places he’d written off as unwinnable, and others that he’d won. If he’d been given photographs of their Main Streets, he’d not have been able to pick out one from the other. But each name was a candidate, a family, and a life story, which he’d usually rewritten for the press-packet. Those people weren’t friends, but through no fault of theirs. No, he’d not allowed himself to get truly close because of his own baggage, his own past. But in a different universe, a different time…

At the Merrimack River, they almost had to turn around. The first bridge they attempted had been destroyed, and so they turned south, driving towards Concord. The Sewalls Falls Bridge still stood, though the roadway was blocked by a pair of garbage trucks, buried to their tyres in bones. It took an hour to clear a wide enough lane.

With the sun already low, they stopped for the night barely a kilometre beyond the bridge at the third house they came to; the first had burned down, while the second had an even larger moat of bodies than the garbage trucks. The devastation, and their memories of times when the world was otherwise, led to a subdued evening. One hundred million survivors: it wasn’t just a record of how many had survived, but final and utter confirmation of how many had been lost.

28th March

Chapter 21 - The Granite Lake Human Sanctuary

Granite Lake, New Hampshire

One hundred million? Of course it mattered. Of course it changed everything. The realisation overtook shock somewhere around three, and kept him company until dawn.

He’d always preferred blankets to sleeping bags, and fully heated hotel rooms to camping. He’d tolerated his boat because the discomfort was, like the escape offered during his hours at sea, temporary. Without noticing, that discomfort had become permanent. Unoccupied houses out in the wilderness were increasingly little more than a shelter from wind and rain. Home, a proper, permanent home with all the associated comforts, was increasingly mythical, while a hotel was something from legend.

One hundred million? The Pacific would surely have guesthouses for travellers that could become hotels for tourists. They could have air conditioning, heated pools, room service, and restaurants. The wish list grew until dawn, when he slid out of the sleeping bag, pulled on his boots, and went to check the perimeter.

Posting a night-time sentry was a habit lost somewhere between Faroe and the friendlier shores of Nova Scotia. It took him three steps outside to confirm they were still alone. Except they weren’t. One hundred million? The breeze felt sharper this morning, while the sound of the birds singing each other awake sounded more poignant.

“Fish or hunt for our breakfast, sir?” Gonzo asked, as he returned to the front door after his slow circuit of the house.

“I was thinking of ordering room service,” Sholto said. “I bet they have that in Australia.”

Gonzo nodded. “I was going to ask, sir.”

“You want to go?”

“Maybe. One day,” she said. “But you said we’d go to L.A.”

“I did. And we will. But Brooklyn first, for Luca,” Sholto said. “Or as close to it as we can reach. Then L.A. I want to see the rest of this continent, even if seeing it takes the rest of my life. But California will be our ultimate destination.”

“Don’t say that, sir,” she said. “Just call it our next port of call. I’ll go warm up the fish.”

The sight of breakfast sharpened the truth of their reality: there might be room service in Australia, but it was still spring in the U.S. Northeast. There wasn’t much forage, and even less hunting. They had frozen cooked fish, twice-baked wheat blocks that crumbled rather than sliced, and the last of the dried apple rings, which required so much chewing, they didn’t just break their nocturnal fast, but nearly broke their teeth. With the universal hope they’d find time to scavenge or forage before nightfall, they boarded their trucks and continued west.

With too many unanswerable questions over the future, he lost himself in the past, remembering how these desolate roads had looked during his long years of campaigning, until Luca tapped on the brakes.

“Do you see that road sign, sir?” the soldier asked.

The original directions were lost beneath thick red spray-paint reading: Granite Lake Human Sanctuary. Underneath, in blue paint and a more rounded hand, someone else had added Munsonville.

“Have you heard of Granite Lake?” Luca asked.

“Can’t say I have,” Sholto said. “Munsonville rings a bell. No, I’m thinking of Pennsylvania. We seem to be heading the right way, so we’ll check it out.”

He picked up the radio to alert the others.

Every other sign along the Franklin Pierce Highway was marked with the same amended directions, and sometimes with an arrow, until they came to the Jeeps.

The cars were side-on to the road, with rolls of barbed wire around them, each extending a quarter way across the road. On the verge, and atop a heap of bones, was a battered sheet of corrugated steel that had been sealing the gap between the vehicles. Presumably, those bones came from the undead killed in front of the barrier. From the green tinge of moss atop the discarded sheet metal, that battle had been fought long ago.

The radio clicked. “Sit-rep?” Gonzo asked.

“We’ve arrived two seasons too late,” Sholto replied. “We’ll keep going to the lake.”

“You’ve gotta hope those were zombies,” Luca said, as the heavy tyres crunched over bone.

Beyond the cars, the human remains continued, ultimately leading to a second barricade. A log wall ran across a side road, and continued into the trees on either side. A five-bar metal gate, just wider than a car, had been placed in the centre. Repurposed from a farm, reinforced with barbed wire, topped with spikes, the gate was open, but on it was painted Granite Lake, Welcome Home.

As they drove through, beneath their tyres, the crunch of bone was replaced with the grind of brass.

A roof came into view. The rest of the property was hidden by a wall of felled trees, corrugated metal, an upturned car, and two thirds of a shipping container.

“Slow here,” Sholto said as he slipped into the back of the truck, and then up through the sky-roof, but there was no sign of life inside the walled house. Behind him, Rulz had climbed into the turret of her car. Tuck stood in the turret of the car behind, crossbow in hand.

Sholto ducked back inside. “Keep driving,” he said. “But I think they left long ago.”

“Not all of them,” Luca said as a figure fell over the broken wall of a second barricaded house.

Her football jersey, ripped jeans, and fur-lined slipper boots weren’t exactly looter-chic, but they were the kind of clothes picked by a survivor who had little time and less choice. The unsuitable footwear wasn’t the only reason she had difficulty standing.

“Zombie,” Luca said, the word tinged with regret rather than fear.

“I’ve got it,” Sholto said, reaching for the door handle even as a crossbow bolt whistled overhead. The zombie fell flat on the collapsed barricade, the bolt deep in her brain.

Sholto hesitated, but opened the door anyway, and took the short-handled war axe from its bracket. The axe was one of the weapons argued into existence over the winter. The Canadian smiths had advocated for a Viking-style butterfly axe. Jonas Jeffries had wanted more spears. Bill had requested a pike. But Sholto had wanted something you could use one-handed. The result was a weapon conceived as much by disagreement as committee, and was probably as dangerous to those wielding it as to the enemy. He’d not had a chance to use it in battle. He’d hoped he never would, but that was one more hope seemingly dashed as he walked over to the zombie. The woman had turned recently enough for the bandage on the leg not to have unravelled. Two weeks? A month? Maybe, but certainly no longer. Certainly after the battle at the road barricade.

“Try the horn,” he called, walking back to the car. The echo lasted as long as the blare, but soon both had faded, leaving only a soft rustle among the trees.

“We need to refuel, sir,” Gonzo said.

“We’ll take half an hour here,” Sholto said. “We’ve time to check a few houses but our mission is New York.”

Tuck was out of the car before Sorcha had finished translating. The English soldier took the left side of the road, while Rulz and Gonzo headed for the house with the broken barricade from which the zombie had emerged.

“I guess I’m playing gas station attendant,” Sholto said, taking a fuel can from the back.

Half an hour came. Then forty minutes. Then forty-five. The only word received over the radio was in the negative. No survivors. No zombies. No clue as to where one had gone, or where the other had come from.

After an hour, Sholto called the two pairs back. “Can you tell me anything I can’t guess?” he asked.

“All we can say is that they departed in haste, and did so before winter,” Sorcha said.

“But when they quit here, they did it professionally,” Gonzo said. “They packed their food and weapons.”

“Or had it already packed and ready to go,” Rulz added.

“Figures,” Sholto said. “Whoever they were, wherever they went, New York has to be our priority. After New York, maybe we can come back this way and look around some more. Let’s move out.”

The unspoken truth of which they were all aware was that, whatever the odds were of returning, the chance of finding any survivors was nil.

They continued driving along the lake, passing one barricaded and deserted house after another. While they caught glimpses of the small lake, they saw no boats. As they returned to the highway, they kept their speed low with everyone alert for signs of the living, or of the undead.

“That radio message from Digby said there was a horde in India, didn’t it?” Luca asked.

“Yep. I suppose it was inevitable we’d find a few zombies closer to home.”

“Will they have hospitals?”

“In the Pacific? Almost certainly,” Sholto said. “Why, are you sick?”

“No. I’m trying to picture what it’ll be like down there, Down Under. They didn’t mention which countries survived, or which cities?”

“No. Why?”

“Capital cities had embassies,” Luca said. “Embassies have Marines. Then there’s Guam and Samoa, and Hawaii. Where there are Marines, there’s a Corps, and you don’t quit the Corps.”

“Ah. Well, when we find out, you’ll have to decide where your duty lies,” Sholto said. “Me, I promised Gonzo and Rulz we’d head to California. After that, there are other survivors out here. Zombies too. We’ve got to find one, and deal with the other. I’d say that’s a duty that can’t be left to anyone else. Slow down.”

“Why?”

“That sign’s for Brattleboro. The Connecticut River is first, and would make a good spot to stop for a break. We might even try breaking out the fishing rods.”

But when they reached the bridge, they saw a river running red, and foaming pink. They stopped on the bridge. Eschewing the turret, Sholto opened the door, but pulled it shut barely a second later.

“Drive on!” he coughed, his eyes stinging. He punched the air-control buttons, trying to suck the noxious fumes out of the car and hopefully his lungs, but that was one of the many systems removed during the vehicle’s refit.

A mile down the highway, Luca stopped. Again Sholto got out, taking a cautious breath before a deeper one.

“What was that?” Rulz asked, leaning out the car window.

“That was going to be my question,” Sholto said. “Must be a factory leak. At least I hope that’s all it is.”

“Isn’t our rendezvous on the Connecticut River?” Rulz asked.

“A long, long way downriver,” Sholto said, hoping it was far enough.

29th March

Chapter 22 - Fire From Above

Pittsfield, Massachusetts

Rain pattered against the food-truck’s awning, dribbled to a corner, and trickled down into a bucket. From beneath the sodden canopy, Sholto watched the bucket fill.

The rain had come on suddenly, a howling storm that was more wind than rain, and while they changed a tyre. Since they had stopped adjacent to a construction site, from where it was likely the tyre-piercing nail had come, they took shelter in an onsite porta-cabin, waiting for the storm to abate. It hadn’t. Afternoon became evening, became night, and now a new day.

Sorcha jogged across to him from the cabin in which they’d spent the night.

“I brought you some of Luca’s soap if you want a wash,” Sorcha said.

“Look at that awning and tell me what you see,” Sholto said.

“A pipe and a bucket,” she said.

“And a bracket covered in paint,” Sholto said. “The rainwater barrel was installed before the outbreak.”

“So?” Sorcha asked.

“So I’m wondering what they used the water for,” he said.

“Never buy food anywhere the chef can’t wash her hands,” Sorcha said. “That was one of my mother’s life lessons I took to heart. In this cook’s case, as in our own, rainwater is better than nothing. I’d certainly trust it more than I’d trust river water in these parts. Thank you.”

“For?” he asked.

“For winning me ten dollars, or whatever the modern Australian equivalent is,” she said. “Tuck and I had a bet on what was preoccupying you.”

“And you guessed it was something to do with washing?” he asked.

“She thought it was the past, I suspected it was something more prosaic.”

“You should split your winnings with her,” Sholto said. “Because I was thinking that we’d won, Sorcha. You, me, Lisa. This is what our victory looks like.”

“I hope it might one day look a little more inviting than a damp construction site,” she said. “While I’m not expecting an award, I wouldn’t mind the ceremony, or at least an opportunity to wear a frock again.”

“You’re kidding,” he said.

“I’m deadly serious,” she said. “I dreamed of dresses last night. Of all the gowns and shoes Lisa gave me, and the events to which I accompanied her. Ours was a most peculiar relationship, and must have seemed stranger to an outsider. Stranger still to an insider who knew of her love for Tamika. At first, and with the arrogant vanity of youth, I assumed she must have had an infatuation. As I acquired a little more insight, I thought she was treating me as the sister, or daughter, she’d never had. But no. Now that experience has gifted me a modicum of wisdom, I can see she was pre-emptively apologising for this future that we might end up living. When we weren’t risking death or imprisonment, she made sure we lived every million-dollar minute as fully as if it were the last. Frankly, it was exhausting. If the world hadn’t ended, I think I’d have had a heart attack. By comparison, this is tranquillity itself.”

“What do you think happened to her?” Sholto asked.

“She’s dead,” Sorcha said. “There was a time we might hold onto the hope that those whose fates were unknown might be alive. Now we must assume they are gone. We can set aside a day of the year to remember them, but we must move on. We must live as best we can, as much as we can, and as often as we can. We have one hundred million proofs that we’ve earned it. Yes, we won, Mr Clemens. We truly did. But that doesn’t negate the need for a morning wash.”

Half an hour later, they were on the highway. Ten minutes after that, a jack-knifed truck forced them to backtrack and detour onto a smaller road. Soon, they were surrounded by trees, and heading uphill.

Twenty-five minutes after departing, Sholto abandoned politeness, and wound down the window. “If you don’t mind some constructive criticism, there’s too much lavender in that soap.”

“No sir,” Luca said. “There’s just enough lavender to mask the fish smell. That’s where we got the fat. We’re going to try corn oil with next fall’s batch, that’s what my sister used. That’s assuming we can find some growing wild in a field somewhere.”

“Your sister taught you how to make soap?” Sholto asked.

“Sure, she used to work at an eco-cosmetics store,” Luca said. “Most of their goo was homemade and the opposite of effective, but the soap was okay. I lived with her for a bit, just before I joined the Marines. Her turning the apartment into a chemistry lab wasn’t the entire reason I joined up, but it helped. While I was still at Parris Island, one of her regular customers offered her the assistant manager job at a jewellery store. She agonised over selling out her principles, but everyone’s got to make rent.”

“Did she leave Brooklyn?” Sholto asked.

“No, but she moved to a nicer apartment, just a block from our folks. Safer, too, or I thought it was.”

A regretful, and familiar, silence settled for another mile.

“I thought you three were making a still in Digby,” Sholto finally said. “Why did you switch to soap?”

“We did make a still,” Luca said. “But you can’t make moonshine without grain, and everyone else had built a still. Everyone except Sergeant Toussaint. He said he was going to open a store, sell what everyone made, and make more money than any of the rest of us. He said we could work for him if we wanted, but we wanted to work for ourselves. With hooch off the table, we needed a new idea, and soap won. But that was before we knew about the Pacific.”

“They’ll need soap, too,” Sholto said. “Canadian soap might even attract a premium. You’ve got a hundred million potential customers just an ocean away.”

“Still got to grow the corn,” Luca said. “Because there won’t ever be many customers who want to step out of the shower smelling like a fish.”

He’d not noticed they were in Massachusetts until he realised they were in the Berkshires. The curving roads, winding through forested mountains, had once been thought idyllic. Now, they were too often blocked by fallen trees, half buried beneath topsoil and scree. They winched the trees clear where they could, detoured where they couldn’t, and watched the delays clock up.

At the first opportunity, and eschewing their earlier caution, they returned to the larger highways, and the inevitable danger of the more densely packed urban centres through which they travelled. The broader roads barely proved faster. Fallen trees were replaced with stalled cars, long-abandoned barricades, and the partially charred debris from burned ruins. Fed by the ash, saplings emerged from the already tall grass sprouting along verge and yard, marking how the forests had begun their slow reclamation of the continent.

As they neared the border with New York State, they entered Pittsfield. The highway became First Street, and the road turned green with undisturbed moss. Some windows were broken. Some houses had collapsed. Others were barricaded, yet obviously abandoned. Enough of the old city remained that they could glimpse the life once lived here, and the fate which had befallen the inhabitants. Though not all of them.

“Look ahead and to the right,” Sholto said. “That’s smoke!”

Off First Street was North Street, and on that was a multi-building hospital campus. The smoke came from outside a four-storey English-style redbrick camouflaged with Greek columns. At first sight, it appeared as if the survivors had only recently arrived, abandoning their vehicles outside: a school bus, two mini-vans, a windowless parcel truck, an ambulance, and an RV. Around them lay the dead. Most were zombies, but not all. Nor were all the zombies dead.

The survivors had fled inside the building, and the undead had followed. Even now, the clashing slash and hack of battle echoed through the broken doors. From above, on the topmost floor, the defenders had broken the windows and had resorted to throwing firebombs down onto the milling undead, and their own vehicles.

Flames licked around the tyres of an ambulance and the legs of half a dozen zombies as they traipsed inside. More smoke billowed out through the broken door as those burning zombies spread the fire indoors. But not all the survivors were inside. Some were still aboard the yellow school bus, beating their hands at the windows in desperation as the wind wafted the flames in their direction.

“They’re on the fire-escape,” Sorcha said over the radio. “South side of the building.”

“Fire escape? You go there,” Sholto said. “Luca, take the turret.” He grabbed his axe, threw open the door, and ran into the battle.

“Watch the left!” Gonzo yelled as she fired her crossbow from the turret of her own SUV.

At least fifty zombies were in front of them: ten on this side of the abandoned vehicles, another forty between the vehicles and the entrance. Presumably, there were even more inside, but he could only kill them one at a time. The first was a veteran of this final civil war, bearing a bayonet in the shoulder and kitchen knife in the thigh. Flames licked up the camouflage trousers, catching on the jacket’s frayed sleeve.

He swung high, two-handed, the axe blade knocking aside the raised hand before skimming through temple and forehead. The zombie fell, and he kept moving.

Overhead, a crossbow bolt soared. From above, a petrol bomb dropped. The glass bottle shattered as it hit the hard ground, splattering burning liquid onto indifferent zombies now turning away from the hospital, and towards the newly arrived attackers.

He hacked the axe low, speared it high, carving a path towards the school bus. One at a time, he felled the undead, but the last firebomb had fallen too close. Flames were licking around the front tyres of the yellow bus. He reached for his holster, and was about to draw his gun when he saw the face pressed against the school bus’s rear window. The boy’s cherubic cheeks had become waif-thin during the hungry winter, but there was still a hint of angelic innocence beneath the demonic visage as the undead child beat his fists against the glass. A second monster joined him, just as young, just as recently turned: a girl with a bow in her hair and a borrowed soldier’s jacket for warmth. A third child, a fourth.

A crossbow bolt whistled through the air close enough to make him duck.

“Zombies!” he yelled, backing up a step. “Zombies in the bus!”

He turned, and nearly tripped on the rising arm of a crawling soldier. He hacked the axe down, and then ran.

“Go!” he yelled at Luca, dropping the axe as he grabbed the open car door. “After them!”

The other two cars had already stopped at the side of the building where there was a fire escape. Survivors had already emerged at the top. But the undead were climbing to meet them. Tuck was fighting her way towards them, Rulz at her side. A gunshot sounded. Sholto jumped down from the truck, drawing his revolver as he covered the rear.

Battle was always chaotic, but fighting was simple; he just found the nearest target, fired, and looked for the next. A teenager. No more than seventeen, with a tool-belt full of unused blades. Too young. Too recently turned. He fired again.

“Sir! Time!” Gonzo yelled.

“Move yourself, Thaddeus!” Sorcha called.

The rescued survivors were crammed inside the three trucks, with Tuck and Gonzo firing crossbows from the roofs of their trucks, and a young man with a tombstone tattoo on his cheek firing Luca’s crossbow from his vehicle. He raised his gun one last time, but there was no one left to save. Sholto ran back to the car and fell in.

Chapter 23 - Where No Zombie Would Be Seen Dead

Pittsfield Cemetery, Massachusetts

The rear of the truck was a jumble of elbows and knees, but as they disentangled themselves, he realised there were only five people in the back, with two kids sharing the front passenger seat.

“Gracias,” the man with the tombstone tattoo said.

“De nada. The name’s Sholto,” he said.

“Antonio,” the man said.

He recognised the style of the man’s tattoos, and some of their meaning. It was prison ink, especially the tombstone which listed the year of sentencing, and the year this man was supposed to be released, but only if he lived to be over two hundred. Beneath the ink, though, was a man in his late twenties who offered his hand to help Sholto up, before checking on each of the other passengers in turn.

“Luca, eyes open for anywhere with a clear line of fire we can refuel and reload,” Sholto said.

“Yes, sir,” Luca snapped. “Clear ground ahead. Says it’s a cemetery.”

“Perfect. That’s one place we won’t find more undead.”

Which only brought to the forefront of his mind the far more pressing question of how so many had appeared in that small town.

The cemetery gates were open, but there was no movement beyond. As soon as Luca stopped, Sholto squeezed outside, and turned to help one of the passengers, but before he could extend his hand, an explosion shook the trees and rattled the clouds. A fiery pillar of smoke rose above the centre of Pittsfield.

“Now, it is over,” Antonio said, having followed him out.

“You did that?” Sholto asked.

“I couldn’t let anyone else fall into the trap,” Antonio said.

“Are you saying someone deliberately set a trap for you?”

“Not a person,” Antonio said. “No person would do this.”

“Help everyone out,” Sholto said, buying himself a bit of time to think. “We’ll organise the trucks. Luca, I want Tuck on overwatch, and Gonzo and Rulz on the perimeter. Get Sorcha to… Luca? What is it?”

The Marine wasn’t looking at him, or at the smoke, but at a thin man who’d climbed from the back of Sorcha’s car.

“Mr Mahmoud?” Luca said, walking over to a man with a century of worries carried on a frame that had only seen half those years. The man was dressed in hunter’s garb, though he’d added a diamond-pattern tie to the collar of his camouflage shirt. “Mustafa Mahmoud, it’s me,” Luca continued as the older man’s face crinkled in puzzlement. “You ran Cleopatra Coffee. It’s Luca. Luca Petrelli. Mary-Angela’s brother!”

“Luca Petrelli,” Mr Mahmoud repeated, stepping forward. He took Luca’s hands. “Luca Petrelli!” He sobbed, then laughed. “Even now, in our darkest moment, we can be blessed with good fortune.”

Everyone turned to watch the reunion. Everyone except Tuck who’d climbed onto the roof of her truck, from where she watched the road.

“What happened to Brooklyn?” Luca asked.

“Your sister left,” Mr Mahmoud said. “She came to my home the day after the outbreak and said she was leaving. She asked us to come, too. But we stayed to protect the store.”

“Do you know where she went?” Luca asked.

Mr Mahmoud shook his head. “Thirty, maybe forty, people all left together that very hour. I watched them go.”

“Your wife? Your family?” Luca asked.

Mr Mahmoud shook his head again. “Your sister was alive. She left. Your entire family left. Mine died. Brooklyn is gone.”

“Mr Mahmoud, is it?” Sholto asked, speaking to the broken man, though pitching his voice to carry to the crowd.

“Mustafa, please,” he said.

“Hi, I’m Sholto. It’s good to meet you. It’s good to meet all of you,” he added. “We came from Europe, but we wintered in Nova Scotia. There are twenty thousand of us, and we’ve a ship waiting for us in Saco Bay. There are about ten thousand more in Quebec, but we just made contact with the Pacific, with Australia. In the southern hemisphere, there are a hundred million survivors from all across the Pacific. We’ll take you back to Saco Bay, to our ship. You’ll be taken to safety. But we were heading to New York. Our mission was to learn what had become of it.”

“Los piratas,” Antonio said. “They took Long Island.”

“Pirates? What kind of pirates?” Luca asked.

“From Florida,” Antonio said. “The governor invited them in. They pushed us out. So we were going to Granite Lake. There is a refuge there.”

“Granite Lake is empty,” Sholto said. “We just drove through there. There was a battle last year, after which the survivors fled, but we found no clue as to where they went. The safest option now is to get you to Saco Bay. Is there anyone else to be saved?”

“Yes, at West Point,” Mr Mahmoud said. “Everyone else is there. Last fall, the pirates arrived, claiming they just wanted a harbour for the winter. We were too few to stop them, so they were given the northern half of Long Island. But they wanted more. People died. Others disappeared. Some deserted. Some fled. We fought a battle. We held our own, but we couldn’t defeat them. The governor struck a deal. They would have New York, we would leave, and they would let us leave.”

“Some deal,” Luca said.

“It was better than a battle,” Mr Mahmoud said. “Everyone else planned to sail up the river to West Point, then sail on. Scouts were supposed to find a safe route north, and a safe place to call home. But we had lost so much. We thought it safer to make for Granite Lake, but then we found the zombies. Hundreds in the basement of the police station. It was like they were sleeping. One of the children must have been infected. The rest…” He looked over to the only two surviving children in the small group.

“How many survivors are at West Point?” Sholto asked.

“Five hundred,” Mr Mahmoud said. “They want to use the canal to reach the St Lawrence.”

“Quebec City is too radioactive to approach,” Sholto said. “We tried, by sea and land. We’ll have to make contact with these people. First, we’ve got to get you to safety. Luca, can you dump the excess weight?”

“No problem, sir,” Luca said. “Gonzo, Rulz, give me a hand.”

Sholto stepped back, letting the Marines take over.

“You came from Canada?” Mr Mahmoud asked.

“From England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, and from Cape Verde,” Sholto said. “We saw Denmark and the Faroe Islands before we reached Nova Scotia. Haven’t seen so many zombies in one place since last year.”

“We killed most of them on Long Island,” Mr Mahmoud said. “This was in late spring, early summer, after our gasoline was stolen.”

“By these pirates?”

“By other pirates,” Mr Mahmoud said. “Perhaps they are the same group. Does it matter? We used up the last of our ammunition killing the undead. Then the pirates arrived from Florida, wanting to take what we had created. There was enough to share, but they refused to share leadership.”

“Sounds like we can write off New York,” Sholto said. “That was our mission, to see if there were survivors there. But you say they’re all in West Point?”

“They should be, by now,” Mr Mahmoud said. “But the governor promised we would reach Canada before the snow fell.”

“The governor of New York was in charge?” Sholto asked.

“No, Governor Pruitt, of Michigan,” Mr Mahmoud said.

“Pruitt?” Sholto asked.

“You know her?”

“Our paths crossed a few times, a lifetime ago,” Sholto said.

“Ready, sir!” Luca called.

“Can we get everyone into two SUVs?” Sholto asked.

“No trouble,” Luca said. “Why?”

“We’ve got to make contact with West Point,” Sholto said. “Gonzo, Rulz, on me.”

He walked away from the group. Sorcha and Luca came over as well, leaving only Tuck on guard.

“We’ve got ten zombies approaching the main gate,” Sorcha said.

“I want you to escort these people back to Granite Lake, then to Saco Bay,” Sholto said. “I’m not sure if you’ll arrive at the coast before the ship continues south, so you might have to wait until the captain returns from the Long Island Sound, but it’s the only route to safety we’ve got.”

“You’re not coming?” Sorcha asked.

“Governor Pruitt was running New York,” Sholto said. “She’s one of the cartel’s politicians. Last year, they sent some people, by ship, up the Hudson, to confirm the canal to the St Lawrence was navigable. It’s not far from there to Lake Ontario, and so to Temagami. It’s not proof that this is who commanded the killers, and it’s possible these pirates could be our killers, but we have to know. Our mission is far from over.”

“Who’s going with you?” Gonzo asked.

“Luca, I don’t think we’ll get to Brooklyn, but if you want to come, you can. I’d prefer you stay with these people because you know Mr Mahmoud, and that’ll help with trust, both ways.”

“My family escaped,” Luca said. “That’s all I wanted to know. I don’t need to see what remains.”

“Then our two Marines should accompany him,” Sorcha said. “Tuck and I are a team, and I know of Pruitt, too.”

“Then as soon as I’ve got a letter of introduction from Mr Mahmoud, and I’ve written a letter for Captain Fielding, we’ll leave,” Sholto said.

Chapter 24 - The Best-Worst Candidate

Taconic State Parkway, New York State

As the group split, and Sholto, Tuck, and Sorcha drove away from the cemetery, a storm arrived. Suddenly, with no warning, the sky darkened. Visibility dropped, and the rain came with it, hammering on the car, quickly washing mud from the asphalt. Driving through the rubble-strewn city, the need for concentration rose, and it didn’t diminish when they returned to the highway. Tuck was in the front passenger seat, her left hand raised and ready to drop if she saw a reason they should brake. With Sholto driving, and Sorcha in the back, muttering as she leaned forward to catch a view between them, there was little concentration to spare for discussion. When a branch flew into the grill covering the windscreen, it was time to take shelter.

The diner was the first building they saw, so they parked next to the main door. Five cars were abandoned in the lot, but the tyres were flat, while the bodywork had gathered a layer of moss. Two of the diner’s windows were broken, and so was the lock on the front door.

Tuck switched on a torch, holding that against her hand-bow as she swept beneath the booths, and then the kitchen.

“Clear,” she signed.

“And damp,” Sorcha said. “Help me cover this window, Sholto.”

He looked around for panelling, sheet metal, or any of the other salvage usually used to build a barricade. There was none here. He bent down, inspecting the underside of the table. “I’ll get my wrench,” he said.

Outside, the wind had risen to a hurricane. Back inside the diner, an orange glow came from the kitchen, accompanying the chemical odour of burning gas.

“We found some propane stoves,” Sorcha explained. “Not the best thing to dry us out, but far better than flapping our arms. Someone put together quite a stockpile of stoves and gas canisters.”

“But they didn’t build any defences,” Sholto said.

“This was their stash,” Tuck signed. The flickering flames cast ethereal shadow puppets as her hands danced. “No barricades, because they didn’t want to signpost they stored supplies here.”

“More pressingly,” Sorcha asked, “is there food?”

Tuck shook her head. “Not yet. I’ll keep looking. Lots of spray cleaners.”

“And there’s water outside,” Sorcha said. “I’ll catch a few raindrops while you finish blocking the windows.”

Ten minutes later, they had four saucepans of rainwater atop the propane burners, restricting the flames, and caging the malevolent shadows. With the broken windows blocked, the door closed, and the storm mostly kept outside, a thoughtful silence settled over the diner.

“Pruitt is running New York,” Sorcha said.

“It sounds like she’s now only running West Point,” Sholto said.

“Who is Pruitt?” Tuck signed.

“The Governor of Michigan who was the cartel’s candidate at the last presidential election,” Sorcha said.

“One of the cartel’s candidates,” Sholto said. “But the only contender I thought could actually win. Considering the quality of the others, in both parties, I’m certain they selected her opponents to ensure she won the nomination, and then the presidency.”

“How many candidates did they have?” Tuck asked.

“Six Republicans, five Democrats,” Sholto said. “That was before the New Hampshire primary. Their strategy was to swamp the field and take the money. All bar one, in both parties, would then drop out before Super Tuesday and endorse the one remaining candidate. Thus they’d have an early frontrunner whose position could be strengthened through bribery and blackmail. Imagine it, an un-contentious election seemingly won by a candidate even their opponents respected. The nation would have been brought together under a false banner of hope.”

“And Pruitt?” Tuck signed.

“If you were to read her official bio, she’s a Midwestern churchgoer who dipped into her own pocket to pay for a foster home for unaccompanied asylum seekers,” Sholto said. “But back when she was running for the state house, she murdered a nineteen-year-old student in a hit-and-run. The cartel covered it up, then set up her opponent as trying to frame her. She won a seat in the state house, and then the governorship, on a platform of better education and police funding, all while getting her funding from the cartel.”

“How did you beat her?” Tuck signed.

“With every single dirty trick I could think of,” Sholto said. “I forced her to withdraw early. By then, the cartel had already thrown all they had into making her look the most presidential of their bunch, and had tanked the innocent alternatives. They played their hand early, lost, and had no real back-up plan.”

“Or so you thought,” Sorcha said. “But so did we.”

“Explain?” Tuck signed.

“Lisa and I, and I suspect Mr Sholto, too, believed that, having lost this race, the cartel would wait another four years, and for the next election, before making another attempt. Lisa knew that Thaddeus was running Grant Maxwell, and so we knew we’d have a fellow traveller in the White House and four years to dismantle the cartel’s operation, and to eliminate their agents in the official agencies. Four years would be more than enough to finally neutralise a conspiracy we believed was on its last legs. Have I told you my theory on belief?”

Tuck signed her impatience. “What happened?”

“The outbreak was their back-up plan,” Sorcha said. “Rather, the nuclear war, and the demonstration of their wonder-vaccine in New York was. The cartel had no intention of waiting. But instead of them, and the likes of Pruitt, running a radioactive world, we got zombies. The rest, as they say, is the end of the world.”

“Pruitt is a leader in this plot?” Tuck signed.

“The Herrera sisters were the leaders of the cartel,” Sorcha said. “Of the politicians, it is unclear whether any would have bowed to the others, or to the sisters themselves. To the cartel, Pruitt was a tool, and no doubt this is why she was their favourite pick to be president. She would be easier to manipulate than someone more independently minded.”

“English devil?” Tuck signed, the sign-nickname for Quigley.

“Whoever ran Britain, France, or India was never going to be as important in the cabal as whoever ran the U.S.,” Sholto said. “That’s why this election was so important. They could have opted for someone they could influence, but the cartel was determined to have their own candidate. Thus, they had to pick the best option from a bad bunch. Meanwhile, the politicians who had helped the sisters acquire power were getting old. Four years would have been long enough to end this.”

“Four more years,” Tuck signed. “If Pruitt was governor in Michigan, why did she go to New York?”

“Exactly,” Sorcha said. “If the group we just met is representative of the New Yorkers as a whole, they are not all killers like those in Temagami.”

“Antonio?” Tuck signed.

“Reform isn’t unusual after the end of the world,” Sorcha said. “Look at Sholto, or Mr Carson.”

“I’m looking at you,” Tuck signed. “But one person is not representative of those we didn’t meet.”

“They said there were five hundred in West Point,” Sorcha said. “I think it likely there is a link between Pruitt and the killers of Temagami, and again with these Floridian pirates who pushed everyone out of New York.”

“Why?” Tuck signed. “If the pirates are friends, why leave?”

“Mr Mahmoud said they sent patrols upriver to confirm the canal was navigable,” Sholto said. “And he said that they’ve been promised a move for months. Why the delay? Maybe so an advance team could find a route to Canada, and to a hydroelectric dam.”

Tuck shook her head. “Plausible, but only a theory. That group we rescued seemed like any other survivors. Maybe they would kill to protect each other, but not murder. If there was a link, it has been broken.”

“Ah, you suspect an internal coup?” Sorcha asked. “Plausible, and certainly possible.”

“But does it matter?” Tuck signed, and then answered her own question. “We’ll find out at West Point. That’s our next stop?”

“When the storm eases,” Sholto said.

“What do we tell them?” Tuck signed.

“The same as we told Mr Mahmoud,” Sholto said. “There are a hundred million survivors in the Pacific.”

“We should tell them to stay in West Point from where we can arrange their transfer to the coast, and then to Newfoundland, and then Alma,” Sorcha said.

“What if they had a hand in Temagami?” Tuck signed.

“It won’t be all of them,” Sorcha said. “We must hope the guilty choose to disappear into the wilderness. Let them seek repentance wherever they may find it by implying justice’s long arm is holding a noose.”

Tuck silently voiced her disagreement by heading back into the kitchen to check on the boiling rainwater.

30th March

Chapter 25 - After the Deluge

The Hudson River, New York State

The wind dropped around midnight, though the rain continued for another hour. By dawn, the deluge had dropped to a drizzle, but the road had become a river, and the parking lot had become a lake. Though the water level was now below the truck, the interior was damp. Sholto left the engine to drip dry, not wanting to tempt capricious fate any sooner than he must. A plastic sundial floated down the side of the road, twisting, turning, then stopping when it became stranded in the shallower waters at the road’s raised centre.

The water level was dropping. Or it was dropping here. It had to go somewhere. Downhill, the water level must still be rising. He didn’t worry about the rain’s impact on this journey; West Point wasn’t far, an extra day or two of driving wouldn’t make any real difference. He certainly didn’t worry about what they’d do at West Point; experience said it would come down to a series of snap decisions, and maybe a snap execution. No, he was concerned about the impact of this storm, and all of last year’s storms, and all of the storms to come, on the terrain out west.

Back in Digby, after that winter ice storm had knocked out the transmission lines, they’d spent weeks looking into the feasibility of replacing the power cables and of installing new ones. The conclusion was that it was technically possible, but practical only within ten kilometres of the generating station. In the long term, they’d need local watermills and wind turbines. In the medium term, solar was a possibility, if they could salvage the panels. In the short term, they’d need to live close to a hydroelectric dam. Fortunately, Canada had those in abundance.

Until it became an everyday concern, he’d not noticed how, with its currents and flows, the language used to describe electricity was similar to water. The logistical problems were similar, too. Bridges would fail first, but the roads wouldn’t last forever. Ploughs were essential for farming, but perhaps diesel tractors could be replaced with horses, if the Pacific could provide them.

Surely, in the Pacific, they’d have so many broken bridges they would have at least one factory producing a pre-fabricated solution. Couldn’t those prefabs be shipped to North America? Couldn’t horses? How many supply ships could be sent? At what point would it become untenable, leaving the Pacific no alternative but to offer an evacuation instead?

As final outcomes went, it was better than a slow death on a failing farm, but it was frustrating knowing the decision wouldn’t be his. Nor would it be Janet’s or Napatchie’s, or even Bill’s. The decision would be made by a bean counter down in Australia. But that was how civilisation worked, and so, in an odd way, further proof they had won.

He took out the Geiger counter. The atmospheric reading was up three points. Not bad. Not bad at all. It was as he waded through the receding flood to the driver’s door that he thought to lower the probe towards the slowly draining lake. The reading jumped.

One more problem, and one surely replicated across the continent, and one neither he nor the Pacific could do anything about.

After a terrifying, but brief, hesitation, the engine started. With Sorcha’s hands on the steering wheel, and Tuck’s eyes on the road ahead, conversation was as stop-start as their progress.

On either side of the road, old trees were islands in muddy lakes, while the highway had become a giant drainage ditch for the cloudburst until the road led them uphill. Above the water, they picked up speed, though they still barely made double digits as they navigated around and between the storm-dumped debris. They were too far south to call these hills part of the Adirondack Mountain Range, though no doubt there were estate agents who’d try, while the Catskills were further west, on the far side of the Hudson. But the hilltops were everywhere, seemingly unchanged by the apocalypse, while the roads were half-buried. The wilderness was returning swiftly to this temporarily tamed corner of the world.

At the sixth uprooted tree, and the third time he snagged his hand on the winch’s chain, he roared his anger to the sky.

“That’s one way to learn if there are zombies in these parts,” Sorcha said.

“We should turn around,” Tuck signed.

“We can’t,” Sholto said. “Not while Pruitt has her own private army.”

Tuck shook her head, picked up the map, and drew her finger along it in a loop.

“She means we should turn back and find a proper highway,” Sorcha said.

“West Point is on the western shore of the Hudson,” Sholto said.

“Then we need a bridge,” Sorcha said. “We can go north to the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge, or south to cross at Bear Mountain. The western shores of the Hudson appear far more urbanised, and we can hope the river acted as something of a boundary for the flood, if not the storm.”

Tuck tapped the northern bridge.

“Newburgh-Beacon it is,” Sorcha said.

The Newburgh-Beacon Bridge sagged. In the old era, two parallel cantilever bridges had crossed the Hudson River halfway between New York City and the state capital of Albany, itself halfway to Canada. The four-lane eastbound bridge was missing a four-metre section. It was clearly a professional demolition job, while the effort on the three-lane westbound lane was distinctly amateur. The sappers had attempted to bring down two of the supporting pillars, but had only managed to bend one, creating a sag in the roadway across which no wise car would travel.

At the eastern end of the bridge, the road was blocked by a police car barricade, behind which was a Humvee with a machine gun mount, though the weapon had been removed.

“Clear,” Tuck signed, before getting out. Hand-bow cocked and loaded, she walked a circle around their SUV, before signing again. “Clear.”

Sholto got out, bringing an axe.

“Agreed,” Sorcha said.

“What was that?” Sholto asked, pausing as he picked his way between the storm-washed and rodent-chewed corpses.

“She says it was a hasty demolition job,” Sorcha said. “They had one expert sapper, but didn’t have time for her to blow both bridges. Whoever was let loose on this one thought she was felling a tree. They didn’t have time to correct the error before they fled.”

“Or were overrun,” Sholto said.

“One assumes they were on the far side of the barrier when the explosives were detonated,” Sorcha said.

“Maybe they caught a boat,” Sholto said, as he used the axe to push the leaves away from a ribcage still encased in a jacket.

“Can we agree this happened a long time ago?” Sorcha asked.

“We can,” Sholto said. “Around the beginning of the outbreak. This is a West Point cadet’s jacket.”

“Where is the academy?” Tuck signed.

Sholto pointed across the river, and south. “About ten miles downriver.”

“The academy was commanded by a general,” Tuck signed. “Always a general with a solid reputation and an honourable record. They would have taken command of the relief effort in this region.”

“Most likely,” Sholto said, after a brief back-and-forth translation. “Destroying the bridges makes a smart defensive move. Doesn’t help us, though.” He took a step closer to the bridge, though his eyes were on the river. “No boats. And the river looks swollen. Could be that we’ve arrived after Pruitt has left. We should be able to tell that from what we can see of the academy from this shore of the river. I say we head south, following this bank of the river, aiming for the bridge at Bear Mountain. If we don’t see any boats, or signs of life at West Point as we pass, we’ll head straight down to the Long Island Sound and the rendezvous.”

“No arguments from me,” Sorcha said.

A railway used to run along the river’s eastern bank, and would have offered them an obvious route south except it was covered in debris. So was the road. After detouring inland, they found themselves back at the river, almost opposite Pollepel Island, where, again they found a landslide blocking the road.

“Where are you going?” Sorcha asked as Sholto got out and made his way over the crash barrier.

“I’m trying to get a view of the railway,” Sholto said. “It might be easier going than the road.”

“I doubt it,” Sorcha said, wading up the mud-heap the storm had dragged onto the asphalt. “This isn’t so deep as it looks.”

Tuck clapped her hands, and then pointed to the island on which an imposing crenelated mansion loomed over the river.

“That’s Bannerman Castle,” Sholto said, making his way back up to the road, and repeated it when he reached the car.

“For fighting the British?” Tuck signed.

“It’s a military surplus warehouse,” Sholto said. “But from back in the days when surplus meant guns. An explosion in the powder works destroyed a lot of the building. Fires and neglect did the rest. But it was never built for defence, just as an advert for the guy’s gun firm. If he’d not sold weapons, it would have been called a folly. I guess it still was, because the place had become a death trap before the outbreak. I doubt floods, zombies, and nuclear war will have done much to improve it.”

“Even so, good refuge,” Tuck signed, and pointed. “Boat.” She took out an optical scope, holding it to her eye like a telescope, before handing it to Sholto. “On the shore. Southern edge of the island.”

He raised the scope to his eye. “Two boats. No masts. Must be motor launches. Can’t see people.” He handed the scope back to the soldier, who raised a questioning eyebrow.

“No smoke,” Sholto said. “No people.”

“We could signal,” Sorcha said, stamping mud from her boots as she returned to firmer ground. “But I can’t see an easy way down to the river, let alone a way across to the island. I think we can get through this mud if we use the winch and that tree up on the slope as a fulcrum. Assuming we don’t topple the tree atop us, and then get buried in scree, we’ll be back on firm tarmac in five minutes.”

Sholto looked down at the island, then at the soldier. “You’re the expert,” he said.

Tuck shook her head. “Stick to the mission,” she signed. “The mission is Pruitt.”

It took twenty minutes to get through the landslide, though most of that time was spent wading through mud. Beyond, they were able to drive down to the railway line. Though the going was bumpier, it was more direct, taking them into the ruins of Cold Spring Station where they stopped when they saw five boats in the muddy river adjacent to the tracks. None were moored. Two were semi-submerged, listing, and on the verge of sinking. Of the other three, one had a mast, and the other two were motor launches, one large, one small.

“The people gathering in West Point were intending to head north by ship,” Sholto said. “This must be their fleet. As are the two boats we saw beached up on Pollepel Island.”

“Scattered by the storm, you think?” Sorcha asked. “Where is West Point?”

“On the other side of the river, not more than a few miles away,” Sholto said. “I think we could rescue these boats, take them back to West Point.”

“Arrive bearing gifts?” Sorcha asked.

“And leaving our vehicle safe,” Tuck signed. “Agreed. Hide handguns and knives. No shooting until we’ve secured our escape route.”

“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Sorcha said.

Tuck shook her head. “Pruitt is dangerous. Like Quigley. She needs to be stopped.”

“Agreed,” Sholto said.

The large flat-bottomed cruiser, with a viewing deck at the front, and another at the rear, was the closest boat to shore. Sholto made it across almost without getting wet. Misjudging the jump, he landed with his chest on the rail, and his legs in the storm-fed river. The impact was enough to dislodge the boat, pushing it out of the sheltered dip into which it had been dragged, but before it could drift with the current, he hauled himself aboard and caught the rope thrown by Sorcha.

“We got it wrong,” he said. “The river’s flowing north to south. These boats didn’t come from West Point, but further north.”

“Then maybe we’re too late,” Sorcha said. “Catch the bags.”

There was fuel in the tank. Not much, though certainly enough for a few miles across river, towing the other two afloat boats. In five minutes, the engine rumbled, and they moved out into the swift-flowing river.

Sholto let Tuck pilot, and relaxed on the U-shaped bench seat, beneath the canopy at the rear of the boat. “I think this is a tour boat,” he said. “It’s too small to be a river-ferry. What do you think, fifteen passengers up front, ten back here?”

“If it’s a tour boat, then you should be our guide,” Sorcha said.

“If you look to your right, you’ll see a corpse,” Sholto said, twisting sideways to get a better look. “Bloated. Probably not a zombie. You realise we’ve not seen any since Pittsfield?”

“I do, but those weren’t the sights I was hoping you’d describe,” Sorcha said.

“I don’t know the Hudson,” Sholto said. “I took the train once, up to the border, and I did sail this river, up to the canal, but my mind was on other things at the time.”

“You didn’t campaign around here?” Sorcha asked.

“Only a couple of small races in off-years,” Sholto said. “Iowa and New Hampshire, Maine, and the Dakotas were where I made my bread and butter. Georgia is where I cut my teeth. Down in Savannah, I met this decent guy, but even the journalists couldn’t remember his name.”

Before he could settle into his reminiscence, Tuck waved, then pointed ahead at Constitution Island. The marshland which had linked it to the mainland was now utterly submerged. This widened river allowed the river’s pace to slow to a wallow. But on the island’s western shores were a dozen storm-damaged boats, and one canoe paddled by a woman in a wetsuit.

“Honk the horn,” Sorcha said. “Let the sailor know we’re here.”

Tuck cut the speed as Sorcha and Sholto moved to the rail, waving, and generally doing their best to look friendly. The canoeist, perhaps recognising the boat, began paddling towards them.

“Can we offer you a hand?” Sholto asked, lowering a rope to her.

She took it, but held it as she looked up at them. In her early thirties, she had wary eyes set in a weary face atop which tufts of black hair jutted from beneath what clearly wasn’t a waterproof hat.

“You look half frozen,” Sorcha said. “Come aboard. We can’t offer you tea, but I think we’ve a towel.”

“Where did you find these ships?” she asked. Her Brooklyn accent was far deeper than Luca’s.

“Just upriver,” Sholto said. “Do you know a guy called Mustafa Mahmoud? He told us we’d find you at West Point.”

“Mustafa’s alive?” she asked.

“And a few others are,” Sorcha said. “We asked him to give us a letter for you.”

She nodded, quickly tied her boat. The canoe rocked as she stood, using the rope to pull herself up to the rail. She jumped onto the deck. She took the note, read it quickly, refolded it, then frowned as she realised she’d nowhere to put it. In the end, she stuck it in the brim of her hat. “Thank you for helping him. You’re from Ireland?”

“For my sins,” Sorcha said. “And for my many more joys. We’re friendly, I promise. I’m Sorcha. This is Sholto. Our captain is Tuck. She’s a soldier from England, but now on a much deserved holiday.”

“Demarkos,” the woman said. “Detective Leah Demarkos. How many made it to Granite Lake?”

“We found Mr Mahmoud in Pittsfield,” Sorcha said. “We travelled through Granite Lake but it had been abandoned.”

“Mustafa wrote in his letter they were attacked by zombies,” Demarkos said.

“They were looking for shelter in a police station, and found a pack of them in the basement,” Sorcha said. “There wasn’t too much time to talk as the undead had followed our vehicles, and we didn’t see a reason for another fight. We sent the survivors east with three Marines to meet our ship. But Mr Mahmoud said you had a flotilla and were planning to sail to Quebec. We came to warn you not to. Earlier this year, we approached Quebec from the north, along the St Lawrence, but the radiation was so high, we had to turn around. Speaking of which, we really should check.” She opened her bag to take out the Geiger counter.

“Those things only ever chirp bad news,” Demarkos said, “but swimming in the Hudson wasn’t good for your health two years ago. Most people left the day before yesterday. Since you’re in one of their boats, I guess they got hit by the storm.”

“We found these three boats, and two wrecks, a little way upriver,” Sorcha said. “But there’s no blood aboard, no bodies. Wherever they anchored, they may still be ashore.”

Demarkos shook her head. “We’re making this exodus in stages because we don’t have the ships to do it in one go. We expected these boats to return, but to do so with pilot and crew. You folks sailed across the Atlantic?”

“Our Marines came from ships stationed off Africa,” Sorcha said. “The rest are from Ireland, Britain, France, and a few more places besides. We wintered in Newfoundland.”

“Sounds like you’ve got a tale I’d like to hear, but can you help me secure these boats first? One way or another, we’ll need them.”

Chapter 26 - The Last Salute

West Point, New York State

With the salvaged ships in tow, Demarkos directed them around the peninsula on which the granite walls of the fortress academy loomed. What was lacking was a harbour, a marina, or even a pier. Instead, they sailed towards a battered fleet huddled against a short jetty. At least thirty boats were docked there, a mix of pleasure cruisers and sailing yachts, with about half of those having lost their masts during the storm.

An exhausted dozen laboured among the boats, untangling wreckage, pumping out flooded bilges, and repairing the masts. About the same number busily worked on the shore-side defences. Not repairing, but removing to make an easier passage for the handcarts being pushed down the steep slope. It was impossible to know how many people laboured out of sight, but he estimated fifty, split between the waterfront and the slopes. Fifty adults, that was. There were also two children. Eight, maybe nine years old, using tennis rackets to hit golf balls against the cement defensive wall, clearly trying to ricochet them into the river.

Of the adults, only one stopped work as their boat bumped into the jetty. A short man, about sixty, with seven fingers, but three hatchets propped in the belt securing his too-big dungarees.

“I told you cops could float,” he said, throwing Demarkos a rope. “And you found some friends,” he added, though there was the edge of a question in that last sentence.

“Friends from Ireland, who came via Granite Lake, and met Mustafa along the way,” Demarkos said, pitching her voice to carry. “Help them secure these boats. I’ll speak with the patrol.”

“Trust her,” Tuck signed after Demarkos had leaped ashore.

It was one of the pidgin soldier-signs Sholto had learned during their slow lessons on the equally slow voyage. “Not yet,” he signed back.

“Is that sign language?” the dungareed man asked. “My nephew…” he began, then stopped, and slowly signed.

Sorcha laughed. “Now that, I know. And if I did have an ice cream, I promise I’d offer you some. But we’re from the other side of the Pond. Tuck here knows British Sign Language. The both of us learned a bit of your American version last winter. After all, no matter how much we’ve lost, there’s always time to learn something new.”

“There is,” he said, holding out his deficiently digited hand. “Jason Fellman. I’m from Syracuse, but you’re really from Ireland?”

“She is,” Sholto said. “Tuck’s from England. I’m from Maine, but I was over in England for the outbreak.”

“How did you end up here?” Jason asked.

“We sailed,” Sorcha said. “But we took the wrong way. Started in Ireland, and went via Calais, Denmark, then Faroe and Iceland. Quite a little fleet we had by the time we reached Nova Scotia last winter.”

“We heard Nova Scotia had fallen,” Jason said, glancing around as if to look for the person who’d originally spread that rumour.

“Almost,” Sorcha said. “We understand some people from there set off for New York last summer.”

“And with news Canada was no better than anywhere else, but when nowhere is better, nowhere is worse,” Jason said.

Tuck tapped Sorcha’s arm, and pointed at the boats, then up at the fortress. “We can help here. He can take the tour,” she signed.

“The soldier is right,” Sorcha said. “Sholto, go have a word with the detective, and find out if we’re going back or going on together. We’ll help here, and work up an appetite before dinner. Or would it be too indecorous to ask whether a meal might be forthcoming?”

“Oh, we’ve got plenty of food,” Jason said. “More food than we can fit in the boats, and there ain’t much point leaving it behind.”

Sholto jumped ashore, taking in the survivors as he strolled towards Demarkos. The boats were civilian, and so was most of the clothing. The exceptions were the two women now listening to Demarkos. The pair wore academy grey, though they were at least a decade too old to have been cadets here at the time of the outbreak. Perhaps they’d been active-service soldiers before the outbreak, and this was the only uniform available. Certainly, they were soldiers now even if their rifles, lovingly polished M1 Garands, belonged in a museum.

The civilians working on the ship had a few holstered pistols, and plenty of bayonets, but no modern assault rifles, let alone anything heavier. Stacked ashore, waiting to be loaded onto the boats, were stacks of military supply crates. Each one-person handcart carried four crates, and he counted ten people slowly wheeling them down the hill.

A relatively new defensive concrete ring encircled a shore-side boathouse and its parking lot. Storm-stained, frost-cracked, and tinged dark green in the south, he’d bet those concrete defences were built during the early days of the apocalypse to protect against the undead.

The two cadets saluted Demarkos, then ran up the hill. Sholto made a point of not looking at them, but up at the towering walls of the hillside school, built at the turn of a different century but in the style of ancient fortresses of a millennium before that. He was looking for a sniper, but if there was one, they were well concealed.

“We need to discuss what to do,” Demarkos said without preamble. “I’ve got five hundred people upriver, and they’ve lost their boats. Some will be dead. Some must be injured. Some can still be saved.”

“Where do you think they might be?” he asked.

“Hyde Park,” Demarkos said. “Could be they got to Saugerties, maybe some even reached Castleton, but no one was supposed to go through Albany until the rear guard had caught up with us, because they were keeping the pirates at bay.”

“You intend to go north and rescue your people,” he said.

“How could I not?” she said. “Without the boats, they’ll be stranded. You say that Quebec City is a hot zone?”

“We sailed along the St Lawrence River,” he said. “The radiation was rising. When we reached the River Saguenay, we branched west. Teams then went ashore, and found the radiation readings spiked near Quebec City. Which isn’t to say that it’s any safer at Trois-Rivières, Montreal, or even Toronto.”

“I’ve still got to look for them,” she said. “Where is safe?”

“Digby in Nova Scotia,” Sholto said.

“Why do I know that name?” she asked. “Oh, we had some arrivals from there last summer.”

“They took the last of the ships, and the last of the fuel,” Sholto said. “Can’t say I blame them, but that stranded the few who were left behind until we turned up. But we all survived the winter.”

“Right,” she said, looking about. “Some of the Canadians stayed. Some fled. Some joined up with the damn pirates. We can’t sail to Nova Scotia. The pirates control the waterways around New York. The canal was passable last year. But if our people lost their boats, they might well have lost their supplies. I’m open to suggestions.”

“Drive,” Sholto said. “Diesel stretches a lot further in a truck than a ship. Drive to Nova Scotia if you can. If you can’t, but if you can get beyond Lake Ontario, aim for Alma in Quebec. There’s a trading post there we’ll use as a transit hub, but ultimately, we’re going west. We made contact with people from the Pacific. There are millions of survivors down there. They have planes and ships, and we can expect some supplies. If you can’t get to Digby or Alma, drive to Puget Sound. Watch the radiation, but also watch the skies. Listen on the radio. We’ll be talking.”

“Puget Sound? That’s near Seattle, right? We’d need a lot of fuel. A lot of trucks.”

“We don’t know where the Pacific people will be,” Sholto said, “or where, precisely, we’ll go. That’s why the radio will be important.”

“This is not the rescue I was expecting,” she said. “But it’s a help, thanks.”

“How much fuel do you have?” he asked.

“Good question,” she said. “More further south than up north. Our original supply was destroyed, that which wasn’t stolen. We spent most of last year building up a new reserve. A lot of it was stored here. We just haven’t had time to move the rest north. We would have, but the pirates broke the truce much earlier than we were expecting. Digby, Alma, or Seattle? And Alma is in Quebec?”

“Near Saguenay,” Sholto said.

“That’s in Quebec?” she asked.

“It is,”

“I know every alley in the borough,” she said. “Beyond, it might as well be mist. Other than a wedding in Vegas, this is the furthest I’ve ever travelled, and I only got here ten days ago.”

“You weren’t based here before?”

“I was sent to take command as we pushed north,” she said. “Do you want the tour?”

“I guess it’s now or never,” Sholto said. “Never did have a reason to come here before the outbreak.”

“What line were you in?”

“Management and HR,” Sholto said. “I did a lot of travelling, saw a lot of hotel rooms, but never had time to see the sights.”

“I never thought of West Point as a tourist hot spot,” she said. “You came from Europe?”

“I set out from Maine in my boat,” Sholto said. “I had family in England. After the outbreak, I sailed across to get them.”

“Seriously? Must have been a good boat.”

“Nope. It sank. But I was picked up by other sailors. That was the start of our efforts to find people and ships, and to find a new home.”

“How was it?” she asked as they made their way up the hill, following the people pushing handcarts.

“Europe? Worse than America,” he said.

“That’s hard to believe.”

“Over there, the collapse was quicker, the chaos more complete,” he said. “There are probably a few thousand people hiding in bunkers or the mountains, but we looked hard for a refuge, and the best we’ve found so far turned out to be in Canada. Do you know what happened here?”

“In West Point? Most of the cadets, and their officer-instructors, were long gone by the time we arrived, but the superintendent left a letter. Only one page. In New York, they ordered the cops out of Manhattan before the bridges were demolished. We got a similar order on Long Island, but some of us had joined the police to serve our neighbourhoods. No way were we leaving. Here, with the police gone, with no National Guard to call on, the superintendent deployed the cadets. They defended the bridges, and the suburbs on either side. He issued a local stay-at-home order, and a general call-up for anyone who’d served.”

“Did they get many refugees from New York?”

“I’m sure there were some, but the city is fifty miles away,” she said. “If anyone found a clear road, they kept driving much further away than this. After the bombs fell, things got worse.”

“Here or on Long Island?” Sholto asked.

“Both,” she said. “But it was probably worse here. Further south, anyone who could leave Long Island, and New York, had. No one wanted to go there, not back then. We had homes to loot, big homes with big pantries stocked by the biggest stores. Being an island, we had a finite number of zombies to worry about. Here, they just kept coming. The superintendent organised a retreat northwards, by road. The impetus for departure was a shortage of food. They left a lot behind, though. A lot by my standards, but there were over twenty thousand in the convoy that left.”

“That many? Where did they go?”

“North, that’s all we know. They were attempting to link with a Canadian general co-ordinating a defensive position on the border.”

“Do you mean General Yoon?” Sholto asked.

“You’ve heard of her? She was real?”

“She was,” Sholto said. “We’ve a few survivors of her army among our people, but the bulk of her force was right beneath an atomic bomb. They were wiped out.”

“After the superintendent left,” Demarkos said, “a couple of cadets and a few locals stayed behind, waiting on family who never arrived. They brought word of all this to us in New York, though that wasn’t until the summer.”

“I guess none of the superintendent’s people ever returned here?” Sholto asked.

“Not even one,” Demarkos said. “There was maybe a month’s gap between the stay-behind cadets reaching New York and us arriving. By then, Long Island was close to collapse. With the bridges down and few boats, we were trapped and became easy prey for strangers peddling stories about redoubts and bunkers. Half of our gas was stolen. Most of our diesel was contaminated. But people kept on arriving. When the stay-behind cadets arrived, by boat, and with news there were supplies here, we took it as a sign. Here, there was fuel, food, even some rifles and ammo.”

“The M1 Garands?” Sholto asked.

“Sure, they’re old rifles, ceremonial, but they still work. The only real shortage was boats. There were six here, we had less, and we still had a couple of thousand people in Long Island needing transport. We considered using what we had as ferries to cross to the mainland and then to drive, but one of the cadets had seen a few boats further upriver, so we thought we’d hunt for a few more before trying anything more desperate. Our fleet had hit twenty craft, with another five being repaired, when the pirates arrived.”

“By sea?”

“Yep, by boat from Florida,” she said. “They’d staked a claim to the Kennedy Space Centre where they’d found plenty of fuel, and plenty of weapons, and even more in the neighbourhood. We were outgunned, but at first, we thought they were friendly.”

“Do you know why they left Florida?” Sholto asked.

“They said they were forced out by radiation, but I don’t believe a word they say. I think some of them are still there, but they want to control this entire seaboard. At first, they offered to trade fuel for a safe harbour. They took the harbour, and gave us nothing. That’s when the fighting began. Yep, we were outgunned, but we weren’t helpless. We held them off, and negotiated a truce. We said we’d leave New York, if they’d let us leave. Thing is, I think we got the better end of that deal.”

“New York is that bad?” he asked.

“Without power to the pumps, the subway flooded, and so did most of the basements,” she said. “The towers are falling. Sure, it’s only the densest, and so the deepest dug, parts of the city that are toppling like dominoes, but where you find the most apartments, you find the most pantries. No, they’re welcome to their poisoned chalice. Of course, we still had to find the boats, and we did, just. But Mustafa wasn’t the only one who didn’t wait for us to leave. A lot of people disappeared over the last six months, and it’s better to assume they upped and quit on us than they were murdered by those Floridian swamp rats.”

Silence settled as the pair continued their climb up the curving paths.

While forts had stood on the riverside plain, and the overlooking hills, since the Revolution, this campus only dated back to 1906. The inspiration for the site clearly stretched back a lot further. Towering granite walls topped with crenellations and breached by arched wooden doors aped the Tower of London, Masada, and Aleppo. But there were far, far too many windows for a real castle, and these were all glazed. The windows were also arrayed in parallel lines, betraying that the floors inside were all on the same level rather than the haphazard approximations that came from a millennium of victorious repairs and ignominious reconstruction. The handcarts were being wheeled through a wide arched wooden door marked Washington Hall, which sorely lacked a portcullis.

“Your storehouse?” he asked.

“And the superintendent’s before us,” she said. “I have to assume our advance party sheltered too close to the shore, and so lost their supplies when they lost their boats. Once we’ve loaded enough for a few days, we’ll leave, and leave the rest behind. The rear guard will have a feast when they get here, but they won’t even make a dent in the stores. We’re leaving behind quite a prize for anyone who wants to take it. A far better prize than a few scalps.”

“I’m not with the Floridians,” he said.

“I hope you’re not,” she said. “And you don’t seem like one of them. But we’ve been betrayed before and too many times to take a chance.”

“So you won’t take my word on Nova Scotia being safe?” he asked.

“If you were in my position, would you?”

Sholto turned to look across the wide grass parade ground, marked for planting. Like he’d seen elsewhere, and like he’d spent a back-breaking few days placing in Anglesey, poles and string marked furrows. Though the earth had been turned over, nothing had been planted. Beyond the field was a sports stadium, with the river beyond that. It was called an academy, though it was really a university which had become a town. Though the buildings had been built primarily as classrooms, the defensive potential was among the greatest he’d seen.

“Why didn’t the cadets and generals stay?” he asked.

“For the same reason we’re leaving,” Demarkos said. “One field doesn’t make a farm. You can see it more clearly at the front line.”

“Tuck would like to see this,” Sholto said, as they followed the path north. “She spent a lot of last year in the Tower of London. Hers was a smaller group, mind you, and a lot of their food came from the loot left behind by the Londoners after the evacuation. Did you find anything growing in the fields when you arrived?”

“Jason and his team ploughed the parade ground,” she said. “They wintered here to guard the boats and the fuel, and to keep watch for any new survivors heading down to New York. They had an idea we could stay here. But this college commands the approach to New York, and our presence guarantees a battle with the Floridians. We don’t want that. We don’t need it. We can find ourselves a farming town safely beyond anyone’s reach.”

“You’ve been sailing this river, looking for boats, yes?” he asked.

“Last year, sure,” she said.

“How many survivors did you meet?” he asked.

“Maybe thirty. Mostly in the suburbs.”

“But along the river?” he asked. “How many sailed south?”

“None. I hear what you’re saying,” she said. “I should have gone to Lake Champlain to confirm the route for myself. I should have traversed the canal. But there was no time.”

He thought he had a sense of her now. Even if she was the world’s greatest actor, the people pushing carts and carrying belongings weren’t extras. She was telling the truth, though keeping a lot back, but even if she’d been working with Pruitt and the cartel once, she was now commanding a community, belatedly beginning an exodus which mirrored their own departure from Anglesey.

Chapter 27 - Sirens

West Point, New York

Demarkos led Sholto away from the main campus, and up the curving Washington Road. It snaked up a hill which, in turn, offered a truly commanding view of the river, and the barricade.

Cement and concrete barriers, designed for deployment during times of heightened terrorist concern, blocked the road itself. A single roller-gate ran across the central span while zippered cement blocks further down the road would slow any approaching traffic. On either side, loops of barbed wire ran up the hill towards the historic ruins of Fort Putnam, down to Ruger Road and, ultimately, to the shore. Steel posts, and the trees themselves, held the barbed wire in place.

“Is this the front line?” Sholto asked.

“The last line,” Demarkos said. “In the east, they set up bastions on the bridges. In the west, they barricaded the town. Despite how imposing those buildings look, the superintendent must have realised quicker than most that if the zombies got this far, there was no hope, and no purpose, saving West Point. Did you see the bastion at the shore when we came in? According to the cadets who reached New York, that defence was in case zombies came by water, up the river from Manhattan. At first, the superintendent thought he’d be holding the line against the undead rising from the infected city.”

“I guess none of us knew what we were facing at first,” Sholto said as he walked over to an ancient howitzer. “We had to rely on books, and from the layout of those zippered concrete blocks on the road, the superintendent relied on the anti-terrorist playbook.”

Sholto bent down to inspect the split barrel of the museum-piece gun. The howitzer, an M114 155mm gun, had been a stalwart of the Second World War, but in recent years would only have been used to fire a ceremonial salute. If there were any live shells at the academy, once they’d been fired, the weapon had been converted to a blunderbuss, firing shrapnel at an oblique angle, down-slope. The gun’s principal design flaw, at least in this type of defence, was its inability to traverse more than a few degrees downward. From the heaped bones, gravity had led the undead towards the base of the hill. In desperation, the defenders here, above, had balanced the rear of the gun on the hood of a car. Maybe it had only fired one last shot, or maybe it had fired a dozen, but the barrel had split with the final load.

The gun had bought enough time for the one-shot rockets to be brought to the front. Built out of six-inch drainpipe, they were fixed to the wheeled and weighted sleds usually used for team weight-training. He counted ten racks, and would place a dozen people’s life savings on there being more rockets further along the line, producing a ball-bearing blast that shredded the undead. The line had held, but such weapons represented a once-and-done barrage, consuming the last reserves of explosives. While there were small-arms casings mixed in with the ball bearings, there were no discarded magazines. The superintendent had organised a retreat, rather than being subjected to a rout. When the rocket barrage had sounded, the explosion would have shaken the bedrock, and been a signal to all in the fortress that it was time to depart.

“Yes,” he said. “I understand now. They drew the undead here, didn’t they? And they left by road, but not from here.”

“From Camp Buckner,” Demarkos said. “It’s a parade field to the southwest, beyond the firing ranges and training grounds. They massed their vehicles, civilian and military, and departed together. That’s as much of their story as I know. How certain are you about the radiation readings on the St Lawrence?”

“Positive,” he said. “It could be a leak from a nuclear power station, but parts of Europe were hit with salted bombs and will be uninhabitable for centuries.”

“I asked the wrong question,” she said. “I’m not sure what the right question is. I’m not sure there is a right question, or any answer that could change what I have to do. A calamity clearly befell the advance party, and no one can help them but us. Once I make contact, and once the rear-guard catches up, our path will be determined by our amount of fuel and food. It could be another week before we’re in a position to make a decision, but it sounds like a choice between road or boat.”

“You’d be sailing into radiation,” he said.

“Can you guarantee we wouldn’t be driving into it?” she asked.

“No, I can’t,” he said.

Sholto didn’t distrust Demarkos. He wouldn’t go so far as to say he trusted her, either. Not yet, and not enough to tell her the fuller story of their battles against the cartel, but her primary concern was the fate of her people, those to the north, and those still further south. Her questioning, and this tour, was a way of presenting the difficulties this dispersed group faced, challenging him to present something more than just hope.

As he was marshalling his thoughts, an alien wail shook the hillside, resolving into a siren more slowly than the mud-smeared, fire department ambulance sped up the road towards them.

“You have an ambulance?” he asked.

“Not me,” Demarkos said, tugging the gate open. “It must be some of my people returning from upriver.”

Sholto followed Demarkos through the gate, over the bones, across the mud, and around the concrete speed barriers. The ambulance slowed as it neared, spraying mud as it steered around the first of the concrete barriers. Before attempting to turn around the second, the driver braked, and the vehicle stopped. The siren died. The doors opened.

“Can you help?” the passenger called: a woman in grey multi-pocketed trousers, and a yellow bandana, beneath which her head appeared shaved. Her diamond earrings glinted, but so did the metal loops on the over-the shoulder tool-harness that contained more gaps than tools.

“We can try,” Demarkos said, frowning as she looked from the passenger to the driver. “Who are you?”

“Tierna. That’s Dawson,” she said, pointing at the driver. “We heard there were still people here.”

“Just about,” Demarkos said. “Is someone injured?”

Tierna slapped the side of the bus as Dawson got out. “Someone left a roadside bomb. A trap, you know? For humans, not zombies, because it was baited with canned apricots. It’s sick what some people do, right?”

Sholto followed Demarkos as she followed Tierna towards the rear of the ambulance. The rear doors opened from the inside before the detective reached them, but Sholto’s gaze was caught by moving shadows further down the hill.

“Zombies at the treeline,” he said. “Must have followed your siren.”

“It can’t be,” Tierna said, stepping wide around the back door. “I thought they were all dead.”

“Hey, guys,” Demarkos said, as she looked into the rear of the ambulance. “Is this the patient?”

In the back, a woman lay on a stretcher. A blanket covered her from neck to boots. Her eyes were closed. Her face was covered in blood, with even more on the boots. With her were two men. One in his twenties, one in his fifties. Their jeans and shirts were so clean they must be recent loot. The younger man had pulled his beanie down almost over his eyes, and he kept those on the stretcher. The older man had the rope-neck and taut skin of a former athlete who was starting to lose the battle against time.

“We’ve stabilised her,” Tierna said. “But we couldn’t get all the shrapnel out, and we can’t operate out in the wilderness. We just need somewhere clean with some light.”

“I think we can find that,” Demarkos said. “You won’t get the ambulance around the debris, so let’s get the stretcher out of here, but you heard what my sergeant said, there are zombies inbound.”

Sholto turned back to the ambulance, but his suspicions were already meteoric. Why would an injury to a femoral artery require a head-to-toe blanket?

As the older man jumped down, Demarkos stepped back. The younger man pushed the stretcher, and the older man took the weight, until the first set of wheels automatically clicked down into place. While his hands were still on the stretcher, Demarkos drew her gun. With no warning, she shot the woman in the stretcher first. One shot. A second at Tierna, before firing three shots into the back of the ambulance.

The older man had jumped back, reaching for the small of his back, pulling up his shirt to reach for the gun holstered there. But Sholto struck first. He’d learned new instincts in this last year. He’d palmed the knife the moment he’d seen the stretcher, and now he stabbed it deep into the man’s side before his assailant was able to raise his gun. Sholto twisted the blade, pulling it out as he pushed the man down, dropping the blade while he reached for his own gun. The dying man gasped, tried to roll into position for a clear shot, but Sholto fired first.

Demarkos had disappeared around the side of the ambulance. Two shots sounded, fired from two different guns, but it was the detective who returned to the rear of the ambulance, her gun aimed straight at Sholto.

Slowly, the detective lowered the weapon. “Pirates,” she said, breathing hard as she rubbed her shoulder. She walked over to the fallen stretcher, and pulled the blanket away from the corpse, revealing the clothing beneath. The dead woman’s overalls were stained, worn, and blue, and had a NASA patch on the arm. “Pirates.”

Next to the woman, and which had been concealed beneath the blanket, were an M-16 and two shotguns. While Demarkos climbed into the back of the ambulance, Sholto picked up the assault rifle, checking the magazine, before turning his gaze down the hill, looking for the undead. Weirdly, there were none in sight.

“Are you telling me these pirates worked for NASA?” he asked.

“An advanced degree doesn’t make you a nice guy,” she said. “But we tell the kids they stole the uniforms while the astronauts were busy helping civilians escape. How far away are the undead?”

“There are none in sight,” Sholto said, scanning the distant trees. “But I’m sure I saw them.”

“Haven’t seen any in a week,” Demarkos said. “I’m going to—”

An explosion rocked the hillside. Sholto was thrown back as dirt and leaves pattered on the road while smoke rose from a new crater some forty metres up the hill.

Rifle in hand, he pushed Demarkos forward, and in front of the ambulance.

“Mortar,” he said. “It’s people, not zombies!”

“The ambulance was just the advance wave,” Demarkos said. “Figures.”

“It does?” he asked.

A second shell landed, this one down-slope, but only twenty metres away. Shrapnel joined the dirt and leaves pattering against the rear of the ambulance.

“Whoever’s aiming that mortar clearly isn’t a rocket scientist, but they’ll find the range soon,” Sholto said. “Do you have a contingency plan?”

“For a mortar attack?” Demarkos asked. “No. The only plan we’ve got is to escape. Follow me.”

In a crouch, ending in a dive, she ran to the pair of concrete barriers just in front of the gate. Sholto followed for ten paces, before turning and firing a three-shot burst down the hill, then took cover behind a different cement bastion, diagonally downhill from the detective.

A shell exploded, but this time uphill, beyond the gate.

“They’re waiting for reinforcements,” Demarkos called. “They don’t want to blow up the ambulance. The gate by the shore is blocked by a truck. This is the easiest way in, but not if they scatter that ambulance across the road.”

“So this is where your people will come?” Sholto asked, just before another explosion hit the hillside, this time further north. “They’ll come to this gate, here? Just where those people landed a shell? Hell, I think they know exactly where the bombs are going to land, and they’ll be able to wipe out your soldiers the moment they arrive.”

“How much ammo have you got?” she asked.

“Ten rounds for the revolver, and twenty-seven in the rifle,” he said, switching the selector to single shot. When the next sound was an engine rather than an explosion, he dared a brief glance downhill, and saw a pickup truck turning at the very bottom of the hill. Two people stood in the back. Probably the mortar team. Were they retreating? No. Just getting into a better position.

The enemy had a plan. They must have surveyed the terrain. Why they were bothering to attack an enemy that was already fleeing was a mystery to solve later. A bullet whistled overhead. Infantry was joining the mortar teams. Time was running out.

“I’ve got a plan,” he said.

“Is it a good one?” she asked.

“Depends on how good a shot you are,” he said. “I’m going to throw you the rifle. Cover me.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“Ram them,” he said.

He engaged the safety, then threw the rifle up and over the barrier to the detective. The movement caused a flurry of gunshots, and the launch of a mortar shell, but it landed well beyond the gate.

Taking that to be his signal, he sprinted sideways and dove, changing direction so he rolled in front of the ambulance’s cab. Demarkos opened fire: three shots, and then another three, before she sprinted from behind the barrier and halfway down the slope. She took shelter by a shattered tree trunk just in front of the barbed wire barrier.

As the pirates aimed at her, Sholto ran to the ambulance’s door, and fell into the cab. Someone had seen him. A bullet whistled through the open rear doors and slammed through the wall behind the cab. He ducked lower.

“Keys, keys, handbrake!” he muttered, releasing it even as he switched the engine on.

Gravity began tugging the ambulance downhill, but the new corpses slowed his descent. He shifted gears, and slammed his foot on the gas, lurching backwards over the newly fallen bodies. More bullets hit the ambulance, but the mortar team were slow to the mark, aiming high rather than low, having assumed he was taking the van forward not back.

As the shell exploded, gravel and shrapnel splintered the windscreen and shattered the wing mirror, leaving him only a sliver for guidance. He turned in the cab, looking through the small window behind his head, and through the flapping doors at the back as he sped down the slope and towards the mortar-truck. Sholto grabbed the seatbelt, plugged it in, and had enough time to brace himself on the steering wheel before the rear of the ambulance slammed into the enemy truck.

The airbag exploded as he was thrown forward. Air was sucked from his lungs, replaced by smoke and powder as he tried to remember how to breathe. Get out. Get out. Get out. He thought the words, not sure if he’d said them, but found himself trapped. The air was turning black from smoke even as he remembered the seatbelt. Crawling over shattered glass, he pulled himself through the passenger door; falling to the road, he rolled, wincing with the pain of drawing his revolver.

He heard gunshots. He heard screaming. He couldn’t see any targets. Just bodies. One on the road, one in the back of the mortar truck. A third lay beneath the front left tyres.

Then he saw her, a woman aiming a twelve-gauge right at him. Her head exploded. He looked for another target, and saw a figure running for the trees. As he raised his still shaking hand, the man dropped.

“You okay?” Demarkos asked, sprinting to a halt next to him.

“Been worse,” he said.

Another shot rang out. He didn’t see the target, but it had been fired from up the hill. An engine roared to life, out of sight, and grew more distant as the pirates retreated into the suburbs to the north.

Chapter 28 - Forward, Retreat

West Point, New York

“Ammo and weapons!” Demarkos called as the cadets ran down the hill. They were led, however, by a familiar soldier and an equally familiar civilian, both of whom, like those in grey cadet uniform, carried M1 Garand rifles.

“What possessed you to play dodgems with a mortar team?” Sorcha asked.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Sholto said, holstering his revolver on the second try.

“You should take a look in the mirror before you say that again,” Sorcha said.

“I look that bad?” Sholto asked, counting his fingers before checking for blood, but though his hands came away wet, it was mostly mud from when he’d rolled along the ground.

“Don’t touch your forehead,” Sorcha said.

Reflexively, he did, and winced.

“What did I just say? You’ve got a bit of glass above your eye. I’ve some tweezers somewhere. Try not to blind yourself before I find them.”

Tuck walked back over. “Gone,” she signed. “One car. One truck. Homemade mortar. Professional engineering.”

“What was that?” Demarkos asked.

“She says they’re gone for now,” Sorcha said.

“But they’ll return, so we’ll leave,” Demarkos said.

“Why did they attack?” Sholto asked.

“Because it’s what they do,” Demarkos said. “Fall back!” she called, waving her troops back up the hill.

“Apparently they came from the Kennedy Space Centre,” Sholto said.

“Making them space pirates,” Sorcha said. “We heard that tale at the docks.”

“Impressive mortar,” Tuck signed. “Two flat plates, pinned together, with the lower pinned to the truck. The upper is pinned to the mortar. It can turn. Elevation is limited to ten degrees.”

“That’s what they were up to,” Sholto said. “The first barrage wasn’t really aimed at me and Demarkos. The terrorists were testing the field of fire for when the reinforcements arrived. Clearly, they decided they needed more elevation so they turned the truck around.”

“They aren’t terrorists, they’re space pirates,” Sorcha said.

Tuck shook her head. “I’m not signing it.”

“But how else will I learn?” Sorcha said.

“Why?” Sholto said.

“Because life should be full of whimsy, particularly after a battle when none on our side died,” Sorcha said.

“No, why attack West Point?” Sholto said. “They must have surveyed the ground, so they would have known this group would leave soon.”

“They want a home,” Tuck signed.

“They want New York,” Sholto said.

“New York is gone,” Tuck signed.

“That’s the word at the docks,” Sorcha said. “The pumps have stopped working, the frost cracked the foundations. The city is not safe. The towers are already falling and the streets are flooded. Living there would be dangerous, but from here, a sailor can follow the current down to the city to loot all the treasure left behind. Yes, I can see this making for a formidable pirate’s cove. Or do pirates dwell in lairs? The only kind I ever met were in Mogadishu, and they lived in a squalid compound. Ah, the detective approaches.”

“You should get your eye looked at,” Demarkos said. “My scouts saw two zombies, both following the retreating engines. The zombies will return, and so will the pirates. There are no bags in these vehicles. No food. No water. While the pirates might have hoped to capture our supplies, they must have some of their own, and within ten or twenty miles. They’ll attack again, and probably tonight. I’m sending a team south to warn our rear-guard, but we’re pulling out now. The new rendezvous will be north of Albany.”

“We’ll take the warning south for you,” Sholto said. “If you’ll trust us.”

“Why would you volunteer?” she asked.

“Because we both know you’ve got to keep moving,” Sholto said. “At some point, you will leave the river, and when you do, the odds of your rear-guard catching up with you are beyond slim until you both reach the ocean. For us, these pirates are an on-going threat to our people in Nova Scotia, we’ll have to neutralise them. For that, we need intel. Either the three of us fetch it now, or we’d have to send more people into danger later. I never like leaving a job for someone else. We’ll take a boat, if you’ll lend us one, and can pass the word to your rear-guard on the way.”

She looked at his blood-speckled, mud-splattered face, then down towards the trees, before turning back to him. “I’m going to take everyone north of Albany,” she said. “The new rendezvous will be Troy. There’s a couple of islands where the Mohawk River meets the Hudson. We’ll regroup there, and there we can decide whether to go north, or west.”

“West up the Mohawk?” Sholto asked.

“Possibly,” Demarkos said. “It was always an option. Whether we do, or whether we switch to the road, will depend on what we find to the north, and if we find anyone still alive. You’re right, we can’t wait long for the rear-guard. There’s a garrison at Sleepy Hollow. The rear-guard were on Manhattan at Inwood Hill Park, overlooking the Harlem River. If they’ve retreated to Sleepy Hollow, and they should have by now, then the pirates control all the waterways around New York. It wouldn’t be safe to sail there with anything smaller than a warship.”

“When we find the rear-guard, we’ll switch to the road,” Sholto said.

Demarkos nodded. “Thank you. And good luck.”

Leaving took longer than saying it, but not by much. Everyone grabbed what they could carry and headed down to the river where they were counted onto the boats. There was a short delay when one of the twenty children who’d been sheltering in the upper floors of Washington Hall realised a beloved stuffed dinosaur had been left behind. But sooner than expected, the New Yorkers were departing West Point, and he, Sorcha, and Tuck were sailing downriver in the same tour-boat in which they’d arrived.

As Sorcha piloted them out into the wider waters, Tuck cleaned the Garand, and Sholto sorted through the supplies he’d grabbed from shore.

“Enough hats for a regiment, and enough t-shirts for a class, but only if they were kindergarteners. I think this crate was supposed to go with the kids.” He pushed it aside, and opened the next. “MREs! Now we’re talking. There’s more than enough to see us to the Long Island Sound, and to make a few new best friends on the Courageous.”

“I wonder how much was left behind,” Sorcha said. “Though I think the answer is another reason the pirates want to take West Point.”

“They will take it tonight,” Tuck signed. “Will it be all of them? Are there some in Florida, some in New York, and now some in West Point? Do they have a combined command, or are they separate groups? Or is it one group, now aiming to claim West Point alone?”

“Yes, those are interesting questions,” Sorcha said. “Any guess at the answer?”

Tuck shook her head, then returned to cleaning her rifle.

“And here’s another question,” Sholto said. “We still don’t know if Pruitt’s running the pirates, or if she had a hand in the massacre at Temagami.”

“I think we can guess at her plans,” Sorcha said. “The Kennedy Space Centre had more fuel than could be stolen by those wishing to flee, and an arsenal which might have been overlooked by the National Guard. But that area is massively urbanised. New York is a treasure house, but there’s no fresh water. Fuel and loot will keep people alive for a while, but this year, and certainly next, they need farmland.”

“And farmers,” Tuck signed. “So why attack the New Yorkers?”

“Because they are New Yorkers,” Sorcha said. “Those city folk wouldn’t know a tomato unless it came in a squeeze bottle. West Point provides the pirates with a castle and a waterway they can use to raid the big cities. But it also gives them control of the farmland further upriver. They don’t need sailors, or fighters, but they need farmers. Skilled farmers. And where are they found? At farms. Wherever a farmer might have gone to survive last year, this spring they will return to the fields. Those are the people the pirates want.”

“There’s a grim thought,” Sholto said.

“No,” Tuck signed. “We can stop them, because we know they will operate from West Point.”

“Do you think we could take the fortress?” Sholto asked.

Tuck shook her head. “Our mission is Pruitt. Ask the Pacific for a fighter-bomber. Aerial bombardment.”

“Now that is one of those things which is easy to sign, but difficult to do,” Sorcha said, though after a brief back-and-forth translation.

“It’s a pilot’s problem, not ours,” Tuck signed. “How far to Sleepy Hollow?”

“We can be there before dusk,” Sholto said.

“No,” Tuck signed. “Arrive at dawn. We should watch for boats following us.”

“Don’t you trust Demarkos?” Sorcha asked.

“Her? Yes,” Tuck signed. “Most of them? Yes. All of them? No.”

31st March

Chapter 29 - Rising Troubles

The Hudson River

“Tell me there’s breakfast,” Sorcha said as she entered the cockpit.

“So far, only coffee,” Sholto said. “Did I wake you?”

“No, that’s just the world’s most uncomfortable bed,” she said. “I have sampled enough in the last year to say that with utter certainty. Is there coffee to spare?”

“In the flask,” Sholto said. “I wanted the steam to open the envelope Demarkos gave me for her team at Sleepy Hollow, and since I’d boiled the water, there was no point wasting it.”

“What was in the letter?” Sorcha asked, as she poured herself a mug.

“Nothing suspicious,” Sholto said. “I didn’t re-seal it, so take a look.” He leaned forward to pluck the letter from the map-bracket, wincing as his torn muscles voiced a protest.

“Are you okay?”

“Nothing’s broken,” he said. “Everything’s bruised, but I’ve had worse. What do you think?”

“Of the letter?” she asked, unfolding the single sheet. “Dear Catherine,” she read. “The storm brought half of Mia’s boats downriver. Their team must have been hit by a storm. I’m going north. Pirates attacked us here. These people helped in the defence, and say there is help in Digby, Nova Scotia, Alma, Quebec, and on the Pacific coast at Puget Sound. There are survivors in the Pacific with planes, but we’ve seen none above. Be careful around West Point. Consider driving to Digby. When you see the blossom fall, think of me, and I will be thinking of you.”

“It’s a code, isn’t it?” Sholto said.

“You have been on the run too long,” Sorcha said. “Though I’m one to talk. If Demarkos wanted us dead, she’d have done it herself.”

“Not that kind of code,” Sholto said. “She’s warning the people in Sleepy Hollow to forget Pruitt, and to forget the people who travelled ahead of them, and to now focus on saving themselves.”

“Suggesting it, perhaps,” Sorcha said. “But I wouldn’t read more into it than that. Have you seen any lights?”

“No, nor heard any engines. We weren’t followed.”

“Then we can take this letter at face value. Demarkos was a police officer in Brooklyn. Pruitt was the governor of Michigan. I doubt there was a pre-outbreak connection, so Pruitt’s leadership was a matter of deference to archaic constitutionality rather than any personal loyalty. In the time since, with the New Yorkers being pushed into retreat, Pruitt’s stock will have fallen. I doubt anyone without a personal connection to her, or the cartel, will follow her now, but we’ll learn that for ourselves when we reach Sleepy Hollow. Have you ever been?”

“When I first arrived,” Sholto said.

“Because of the legend?” she asked.

“Because of the legend,” he said. “The reality was underwhelming, but it often is.”

“Do you mean to say there aren’t any headless horsemen roaming the streets at night?” Sorcha said.

“Not back then,” he said. “These days, who knows?”

“How far is it?” she asked.

“Twenty miles,” Sholto said. “So, about four hours slow sailing, but we can’t wait for dawn. Take a look at the rope.”

“That sounds ominous,” she said, and crossed to the door. After a minute on deck, she returned. “I can’t see the post to which we secured the rope. Do you have a flashlight?” She took it, and went back outside. This time, she was gone for five minutes. “The water has risen at least a metre,” she said when she returned. “Maybe two.”

“I guess some of it is the run-off from that flash-flood,” he said. “But I’m wondering if a dam’s burst upriver, or if that storm is lingering over the Hudson further north.”

“Then I better make a coffee for Tuck,” Sorcha said.

With Tuck awake, and Sorcha piloting, Sholto retreated to the tour boat’s small cabin. The bench-beds were too short, too narrow, and too uncomfortable for his bruised bones that were now coursing with way too much caffeine. He made his way up on deck in time to see dawn rise over Bear Mountain Bridge.

On either side of the Hudson, two giant towers supported the suspension bridge, but their cement base was completely submerged. It was impossible to tell how high the river had risen, but the depth would be best measured in metres. Naturally, the bridge had been constructed at a narrow point in the river, but the increased volume of water would still be measured in lakes.

That water was treacle-black, foaming grey around their hull, and rippling around subsurface debris. On either side, the tree-covered slopes gave a false impression of constancy, but the damage by the deluge wouldn’t be restricted to the waterway.

“Did Americans build storm drains in rural areas like this?” Sorcha asked.

“Hard to call this rural,” Sholto said. “We’re less than fifty miles from New York City. But no, not really. There’d be some in towns, of course. Why?”

“We were trying to establish a reason why the river has risen so quickly, and by so vastly much,” she said.

Tuck took her hands from the wheel, but only managed to sign one word before the quick current began tugging the boat to port. She gripped the wheel again, until Sholto took the wheel himself.

“Can you really sail up the Hudson to Quebec?” Tuck signed.

“Sure,” Sholto said. “Construction on the Champlain Canal began even while the ashes of the White House were still warm.”

“And someone who’s less of a cynic would say that was in what year?” Sorcha asked.

“Around 1812,” he said. “Not sure when it was finished, but the canal’s been around a long time. It has locks, though. I’m mindful of the journey from Lenham Hill to London, down the Thames. We got through most, but Teddington had become a magnet for wreckage. Even if they can operate the locks, it would take an age for a flotilla of small ships to get through.”

“That’s why they were taking their time,” Sorcha said. “And taking the time to bring as much food with them as they could.”

“But with no destination in mind,” Sholto said.

“Unless their destination was Temagami,” Tuck signed.

The ship rocked. Sholto steadied the boat, and cut their speed. “Log, I think.”

“Now, Demarkos will spend three days finding survivors upriver, and then go west at Albany,” Tuck signed. “Digby is east, but she didn’t trust us.”

“You think she was working with Pruitt or the pirates?” Sholto asked.

Tuck shook her head. “No. I trust her because she didn’t trust us. She’s been betrayed so often, she’s cautious. Whether she believes there are people in the Pacific or not, west is her only option. How big is the canal? Could a bomb have turned it into a river?”

“To explain the sudden increase in water?” Sholto asked. “Not if the increase is happening now. I don’t think it would have explained it a year ago, either. There are a dozen locks, all to correct for elevation, and there’s Lake Champlain. No, I don’t think this water came from the Great Lakes.”

“Then a dam burst,” Tuck signed. “Must be.”

They travelled slowly to avoid the near invisible debris, then sped up to overtake the wallowing trees, sinking caravans, and wreckage too indiscernible to name. With his eyes on the river, he only caught glimpses of the shore. A river-side mine had been submerged, leaving only its silos above water. Croton Point had almost become an island. But there were no boats. No smoke. Barely any birds. Why? Was it just that there’d be slim pickings in these parts until the water subsided, or had the birds led by example and fled this region last year?

Chapter 30 - No Horseman, Plenty of Heads

Sleepy Hollow, New York State

The Philipse Manor Marina was underwater, with only a few struggling treetops as markers for the submerged breakwater. The Sleepy Hollow lighthouse had been reduced to a dark bungalow. In a brand-new apartment complex, built behind the lighthouse, water lapped at the second-storey windows. Perhaps due to the vibrations of their engine, as they sailed past, an entire wall-sized window slid from its rotten frame, slipping into the water with barely a ripple. The Governor Cuomo Bridge, still a kilometre downriver, appeared intact, but the shore on either side appeared deserted. Flooded. Ruined.

Just beyond Ichabod’s Landing was the fishing pier given as the address of the waypoint where they would find Catherine Klein. The pier was underwater, and so were three small boats, but a fishing trawler was secured to the top of a shore-side lamppost, now only a metre above the waves.

A rope ran from the trawler’s mast to another lamppost now at the edge of the new shoreline. On the deck of the trawler, two sailors watched them. Neither appeared armed, though both did appear puzzled.

Sorcha left the cockpit, waving as she called out “Hello!”

In reply, a woman with wild hair barely contained by a yellow baseball cap gave a wave. She was about thirty, and average in height, wearing shapeless fishing dungarees. The man with her raised a hand to his eyes, already shielded by a straw hat. He raised the hat in brief greeting before heading to the other side of the boat.

“If you’re looking for a harbour, you’re a storm too late,” the trawler-woman called.

“We’re looking for Catherine Klein,” Sholto called. “We’ve got a message for her from West Point.”

“Ah. She’s ashore,” the woman called. “Tie up alongside.”

They secured their boat to the side of the trawler, and climbed up to the deck of the larger craft. Though about thirty metres long, it had the familiar lines of a ship built for close-to-shore work rather than the deep ocean. Whatever it had once fished, it had clearly become a floating bastion, with racks of spears filling the space where nets and line would once have been coiled.

“Getting ready to leave?” Sholto asked, nodding towards the stack of plastic crates next to the open deck hatch.

“It was the storm,” the woman said. “Do you know how many dams there are on the Hudson?”

“A dozen,” Sholto said.

“Over two thousand,” she said, her smile broadening with enthusiasm. “And do you know how many of those are actually on a chart? I’ll give you a hint, not as many as you’d think. Go on. Guess.”

“Um… half?” Sholto guessed.

“Sixteen hundred,” she said. “Over the last seventy-two hours we experienced a cascading failure. The water level appears to be dropping now, and once that’s been confirmed, I’ll be able to estimate the total increased volume of water. Adjusted for near-river rainfall, that should give an indication of in which region the dams failed.” She grinned, expectantly.

“That’s great,” Sholto said, mostly because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“You think the water level’s dropping?” Sorcha asked.

“Oh, I just love your accent!” the woman said. “You’re from Ireland, yes? Hi, I’m Tippy. That’s Hiram.”

“I’m Sorcha, that’s Tuck, and he’s Sholto.”

“Great to meet you, and yes, I think the water level’s ebbing, but we’ll know for certain when we’re ready to leave.”

After the bittersweet rescue of Mustafa, and Demarkos’s caution, Tippy’s exuberance was both disarming and refreshing. Both she and Hiram had stripped to t-shirts beneath their waterproof waders. Both had tattoos, but hers was a mermaid, while his had possibly been a baseball before he’d lost fat, gained muscle, turning the inked circle into an ellipse.

“Did you leave Ireland before or after?” Tippy asked.

“Just before winter,” Sorcha said. “We sailed the ocean, wintered in Canada, and drove overland to the Hudson where we found your friends up at West Point.”

“How greatly were they impacted by the storm?” Tippy asked.

“Not so bad as the boats further upriver,” Sorcha said. “We’ve got a letter for Catherine Klein. It’s probably easier if we hand that over and explain it all in one go.”

“Absolutely,” Tippy said. “We better go ashore. We’re leaving soon, but until we do, most people are on guard. Zombies. Can you believe it? We saw two yesterday.”

“We came across a lot more than that up in New Hampshire,” Sholto said. “But not so many any further north of that.”

“It appears random, doesn’t it?” Tippy said. “But obviously it isn’t. Infection follows a logical progression, but it’s difficult to backwards-plot the spread when one’s running away.”

“You’re a mathematician?” Sorcha asked.

“A meteorologist,” she said. “But we’ve all had to branch out in the last year. There’s not going to be space for you in the boat, Hiram. Finish stowing those crates.”

The rowing boat didn’t have oars, but a line and pulley was attached to the rope running from mast to shore. With four of them aboard, it was crowded, but provided a relatively easy passage through the new shallows. When the wooden hull slid into mud, which had once been a riverside grass lawn, Tippy jumped out.

“The red rope marks the path,” she said. “You’ll get your feet wet. Sorry. I’d lay a walkway, but the water level is dropping so fast, there’s really no need. There, see? It’s down five centimetres in an hour. I went to Ireland once. My family’s from Donegal, though that was before the civil war. The American Civil War,” she added. “Lovely place. I suppose it’s changed now.”

“Everywhere has,” Sorcha said.

After ten metres of splashing, and with his legs thoroughly wet, they reached firmer ground. It wasn’t dry, and didn’t feel solid, but it was beneath his shoes rather than surrounding them.

The garrison had made their home in a municipal recycling plant, just inland. Considering the apartments on either side, it was an odd choice of refuge, though it did have a tall and sturdy fence. Reinforcing it were refuse trucks, and even sections of the semi-dismantled waste-sorting warehouse. In that large parking lot were a few free-standing basketball hoops, some picnic tables, and a grill. The garrison had clearly been here for a while, but those touches weren’t enough to make this place a home.

Perhaps that was the point, because there was also a fuel tanker in the parking lot, while immediately outside the warehouse were stacks of plastic crates. Yes, it was an odd choice for a refuge, but a great place to hide supplies the New Yorkers had wanted to keep secret from the pirates.

“This way,” Tippy said, leading them to an open truck-sized door. She waved to a pair of men checking crates before loading them onto a handcart.

Inside, there were no vehicles, just a row of tables where a man and a woman were sorting through weapons. Rifles. Shotguns. Handguns. No two seemed alike, and few looked military. They seemed to be unloading the guns rather than stripping them, dividing the bullets and magazines between small bags and one of the ubiquitous plastic crates.

“Checking for rain damage?” Sorcha asked.

“Seeing what we’ll take with us,” Tippy said. “Mason, these people have come from West Point, looking for Catherine.”

“Um. Oh,” the young man said, seemingly nonplussed.

Tippy sighed. “Everyone’s tired, of course. But it’s been a long war. I suppose all wars are. Do you know which was the shortest war in history? Britain versus Zanzibar. Thirty-eight minutes.” She picked up a shotgun, and levelled it at them.

Sholto’s hand dropped to his revolver.

“Two guns behind you,” Tippy said. “Mason, take a step to the right or you’ll be caught in the crossfire. Good boy.” She smiled.

“You’re pirates,” Sorcha said.

“No, I’m a meteorologist,” Tippy said.

“From Florida, who used to work at the Kennedy Space Centre?” Sorcha asked.

“I’m so glad you aren’t as slow as the airheads I had to talk with yesterday,” Tippy said. “I’d call them dumb, but I wouldn’t wish to seem insensitive. You’re deaf, yes?”

Tuck gave a brief nod.

“But you can read lips? Fantastic! Put your hands on your heads. All of you. Thank you. Mason, put your gun on the table, then relieve them of their weapons belts.” She smiled. “Awkward, aren’t they, moments like this? One never knows quite what to say. Ah, of course! You said you had a letter for Catherine Klein. Obviously, she isn’t going to read it, but I would like to. Who has the letter?”

“I do,” Sholto said. “In my pocket.”

“Then give it to Mason. Don’t try to be a hero, I’d regret killing him in the crossfire.”

Sholto gave the man the letter, taking the opportunity to look him in the eyes. In his mid-twenties, so not much younger than Tippy, he was terrified. It was obvious of whom he was afraid.

Tippy took the letter, and quickly read it. “That wasn’t nearly as edifying as I’d hoped. How many are left in West Point?”

“No one,” Sholto said. “The New Yorkers left at the same time as us. You’ve won. Your first attack was repulsed, but they fled before the second. You control West Point.”

“You’ll understand if I don’t take your word for it,” she said. “I hope you’ve left it tidy for us.”

“We’re not with Demarkos, or Pruitt,” Sorcha said.

“Sure, okay, but again, you do understand why I can’t believe you?” Tippy said. “It’s nothing personal.”

“You didn’t ask why we came to New York,” Sorcha said.

“Should I?”

“We’re looking to trade,” Sorcha said. “It was obvious New York would become a hub for survivors from across the world. We’ve got fresh food in surplus, but we’re short of medicine.”

“You want to trade?” Tippy asked.

“It’s better than war,” Sorcha said.

“That isn’t always true,” Tippy said. “Look at the economic boom that World War Two created here in the U.S.”

“I’ve a list of trade goods, and photographs,” Sorcha said. “We’ve a video explaining our intentions, and our production capacity. It’s on the ship. Let me go get it, and then we can negotiate.”

“Oh, see, now I think you’re trying to trick me,” Tippy said. “I want to believe you, oh, I surely do, but I think you know that. What kind of video?”

“Digital,” Sorcha said. “It’s on a phone.”

“Obviously,” Tippy said. “You made a video of production capacity, what do you mean?”

“The fish processing plant, the hydro dam, the metal works where our smiths make their weapons.”

“Oh.” Tippy stared at Sorcha, unblinking as if trying to read her mind. “This is on your ship?”

“It is,” Sorcha said. “I can get it, and in half an hour, we’ll all be friends.”

“That would be nice,” Tippy said. “But I don’t trust you. Mason, take the deaf lady, but don’t let her go onto their ship. She’ll have to tell you where it is.”

“How?” Mason asked. “She’s deaf.”

“I’m so sorry,” Tippy said, addressing Tuck, before walking over to Mason and slamming the stock of the shotgun into his stomach. “She can write instructions. Tell Hiram to watch the river. Oh, and get Eloy and Sancho to go with you. Just in case. While we wait, why don’t you two sit. No, over there. Against the wall. Chelsea, watch them. If they try to run, just shoot their legs. I do have more questions for them, but time is pressing. We’re leaving in thirty minutes. The big mystery, of course, is what happens to you three.”

“She seems nice,” Sorcha said, as Tuck was led away and Tippy disappeared through a door at the rear of the warehouse.

“Very funny,” Sholto said. “Any ideas what we do now?”

“We wait for Tuck,” Sorcha said.

Chapter 31 - Edington and Normandy

Sleepy Hollow, New York

Tuck had been bottling her anger for years, and this current batch of fury was enough to fill a cask. Sadly, this latest vintage would have no time to mature into regret because she’d need to uncork it very soon.

As she left the warehouse, she kept her head down and her steps short but brisk, and so quickly outpaced her captors. The angry tug on her shoulder was expected. She cowered as Mason yelled, and didn’t need to look at his face to know he’d be shouting at her to slow down. Now he’d be yelling at her to stand up. Wait, she told herself. Wait. Her time would come.

Mason gripped her arm, hauling her onward. He’d used his left hand, and kept it on her arm, just above the elbow. In his right hand was a wavering semi-automatic handgun. Aimed sideways, it had a forty-percent chance of hitting her, a forty-percent chance of hitting the man to her left, and a twenty percent chance of missing them both. Not bad odds, but she could do better.

They’d picked up both goons from the parking lot. The man to the right and in front of Mason she labelled Pig, based on his upturned nose and beady, close-set eyes. The man to her left she labelled Moose, based on his stink. Neither man was big, but both were stocky, muscled, and lean from a year-long struggle to survive. Pig carried a short-barrelled pump-action shotgun: a favourite tool of poor farmers and cheap robbers. Moose had two revolvers: a long-barrelled .45 at the hip and a .357 beneath his left shoulder. Mason, though, carried a nine-millimetre Glock.

She doubted the lack of uniformity in calibre was a choice. Rather, when combined with how they were stripping guns of their bullets at the warehouse, it suggested the pirates were running low. However, they still had far, far more ammo than Digby.

When they reached the new shore, Pig walked ahead, making straight for the boat. Mason pushed Tuck after him. She splashed through the rising water, getting a sense for the footing. It wasn’t grass beneath her boots, but a footpath covered in settling silt. She slipped as she neared the boat, and fell to one knee, letting both hands fall into the cold mud, and falling low enough that water soaked her tunic-top. Slowly, she stood, knowing she looked bedraggled and pitiful. Pig’s mouth fell open in laughter. He’d regret that soon, but not for long.

She climbed into the boat, sitting opposite Pig, keeping her arms folded in front of her, making herself seem as small as possible. Mason sat next to Pig. Moose sat next to her. A short debate erupted. With her eyes down, she missed the words, but it was obvious they were arguing over who would haul on the rope, and so pull the boat to the ship. Moose finally stood, deliberately rocking the boat as he took hold of the rope, tugging them forcefully, jerkily, out across the new shallows.

Pig and Mason both had their guns on their laps, the barrels nominally aimed in her direction. She could take Mason’s gun from him easily, push Pig’s shotgun wide and, while doing so, unbalance the boat and so topple Moose over the side. If she let herself fall backward, she would have time to flip Mason’s handgun, and shoot him and Pig. Moose, assuming he didn’t sink, would be next. But that still left Hiram on the trawler, plus the gunfire would alert all the people ashore. No. She would bide her time.

Pig and Mason talked. From the minimal shuffling of knee, leg, and foot, the conversation was subdued. Probably speculation on what changes the new arrivals made to the pirates’ grand plans. She made no effort to read their lips; it would have been too obvious.

At the trawler, Moose climbed the ladder first. From how Mason used his gun to motion her up, he was very definitely a civilian. So was Moose. Pig, she wasn’t sure about. There was a hint of wariness in his eyes, a tautening of the neck muscles, a general growing of suspicion. Perhaps she’d overdone her damsel impression. No matter. She took hold of the ladder, and hauled herself up to the deck.

It seemed Moose had already briefed Hiram on recent events, but Mason insisted on doing the same when he came aboard. That gave Tuck time to scan the ship. Only three crates had been moved below decks, while the small boat clearly hadn’t been used to bring more to the ship during the last half hour. Hiram was on the ship alone. Moose and Pig, alone, had been moving the boxes in the parking lot. Two had been sorting through the captured firearms. Some would be on guard, but she’d bet they could all fit inside this trawler. Assume twenty hostiles in total, and she might be happily surprised to find there were as few as ten. Right now, she had four to deal with. She’d faced far worse odds.

Mason waved his gun at her and then the far rail, and their cruise-boat beyond. She walked over, and made to climb down before an arm took hers and dragged her back.

“Tell us where!” Mason said, his demand made almost unintelligible through over-enunciation.

She pointed at the ship, and began signing and miming until, finally, Hiram produced a pen and notepad.

“Cabin. Bench seat,” she wrote, and handed the notepad to Mason. He handed it to Hiram, but it was Moose who began climbing down the ladder. From the speed with which Mason followed, it seemed both wanted the prize, and the praise, that would come from returning with the trophy in hand.

Again, she made to climb over the ship’s rail. Pig grabbed her, hauling her back.

She cowered, covering one hand with the other, shifting her left foot forward, and slammed her right hand, flat, into Pig’s throat. As he gasped for air, she swung her left palm into Hiram’s nose. Not with much force. Just enough to momentarily stun him while she grabbed the knife from his belt. Long, heavy. Good for cutting boat-rope, and perfect for slashing his throat. As Hiram fell, she turned to her next foe.

Pig had dropped his shotgun after she’d punched him, but was now reaching for his holster. Still gasping for air, he probably wasn’t yelling, not yet. She flicked the knife slashing his outstretched hands with the upstroke, before stabbing the blade down into his neck.

As he fell, she grabbed the bayonet from his belt. Holding it underhand, she stepped to the rail. Below, she saw Moose. He’d clearly heard something, and was looking up. He saw her. He began raising his gun.

She leaped, springing over the rail, falling with arm outstretched, knife gripped, point down, and straight into Moose’s upturned face. She’d missed the brain. The blade’s point punctured his cheek, palate, and mouth. Leaving the knife where it was, and Moose choking on the blood filling his throat, she entered the cabin where a bewildered Mason was reaching for the gun he’d placed on the bunk-bench. She grabbed his wrist, twisting it, turning him, easily pinning him. With her arm around his neck and her knee in his back, she pushed him forward, so his feet were behind his knees. He scrabbled and clawed, but she had her forearm across his neck, her left bracing her right wrist. She tightened her grip as she pushed him down, suffocating him even as he tried to stand. As he went limp, she let go, drew his knife, and plunged it into his eye.

People were a lot easier to kill than zombies. Messier, though.

Beneath the bunk was her hand-bow and five bolts, and a spare bayonet. She still had her boot-knife, which thankfully, it hadn’t been necessary to draw. Mason’s Glock looked in good condition, and had a full magazine. A few minutes submersion wouldn’t do it too much harm, but she slipped it into the zip-lock bag in which she kept her toothbrush, taking that out first.

She left the cockpit, checked Moose had died, and then made her way around to the front of the boat, and slipped over the side. She swam steadily, keeping close to the vessel, cautious not to be dragged out into the swollen river. At the trawler’s edge, she scanned the shore. No movement. The rowing boat was still attached to the trawler. Good. These rocket scientists had been complacent. So had she. She’d known they were sailing into danger, but she’d let her guard down after West Point. Foolish.

Uncorking her anger gave her the energy to swim ashore. As she drew near, something caught against her boots. And again. A submerged bush, she told herself as she rolled in the water, kicked on, then let her foot reach for the ground. It was nearer than she’d expected. She stood, chest deep in water, and waded ashore.

The current had dragged her south, and she was now on the other side of the shore-side buildings from the path down which they’d been led. She took out the bow, loading a bolt before slipping the pistol into her belt. Bow first. Knife second. The noisy gun would be her last resort.

Last year, she’d had to learn how to soldier in a silent world. Against zombies, you moved slow, constantly checking a complete field of view. Against people, you moved faster than sound could be investigated.

There were no guards at the warehouse gate, nor any at the wide-open doors. She jogged across the parking lot until she was able to press her back flat against the side of the building. She drew the bayonet, holding it loosely in her left hand, before spinning around the open door with her hand-bow aimed forward.

Two hostiles. New people. Two men. But only two. Only one after she fired, dropping the bow even as she drew her hand back to throw the knife, but Sholto reared up, diving forward, tackling the guard. Running, she flipped the knife to her right hand, dragging the thug’s head back by the hair, and plunged the blade into his throat.

Sorcha had made a beeline for the table of guns.

Tuck pulled Sholto up, then fetched her bow, slotting in a new bolt.

“Come,” she signed.

Sorcha picked up a rifle, and then grabbed a bag into which loose bullets had been sorted while Sholto picked up a revolver from the man she’d stabbed.

“No guns,” Tuck signed. “Come. Quick.”

“The others,” Sholto said, and continued speaking, but annoyingly turned his head away.

Tuck shook her head. “Now,” she signed. “Zombies inbound.” That was another newly created sign, a one-handed signal that subbed for approaching danger.

They reached the shore before the alarm had been sounded.

Sorcha, from among the weapons, had claimed an AR-15 with a camouflage stock. Tuck took it from her. “Swim,” she signed one-handed, then pointed at the trawler. “Go.”

Sorcha pushed Sholto before her. Tuck turned, rifle raised, scanning for danger. A flock of birds erupted from the trees to the southeast. More took off from a rooftop to the north. There must have been a gunshot. Possibly aimed at a zombie. Probably the signal by Tippy that the bodies had been found. Rifle raised, Tuck began walking backwards, letting her feet tell her when she reached water. She crouched, but kept moving backwards, kept the rifle aimed forward, scanning left and right, until she saw movement. She fired. Two shots. But the rifle pulled to the right. She fired again, and backed up another dozen paces. Water was up to her thighs. Her waist. She fired another three shots before dropping the rifle, turning, and swimming after the other two.

As she rounded the trawler, water rippled with the impact of bullets, but the enemy wasn’t thinking. They weren’t aiming, just firing. Quickly, the steel hull of the fishing vessel was between her and them. Ahead, Sorcha and Sholto had already reached their flat-hulled tour-boat.

Sholto held out his hand, reaching down to help her aboard. Sorcha was already at the wheel. Tuck ran past her, stepped over Mason’s body, and took her M1 Garand from the corner and a spare magazine from her bag. She returned to the rear of the boat even as Sorcha took them out into the river.

Tuck crouched, watching the trawler’s deck, then the shore. But she held her fire. They were soon out of range. For now. But the river followed a known path. She stepped over Moose’s body, and entered the cockpit.

“I see you had some excitement aboard this ship,” Sorcha said.

Tuck shook her head, not in disagreement, but exhaustion. “If they have a car, they’ll catch up in twenty minutes. Maybe the next bridge. Maybe the bridge after that. Shoot from above.”

“Then you should rest while you can,” Sorcha said.

Tuck nodded, sitting on the bench seat. Her eyes fell on the now damp bag by Sorcha’s feet. She tapped Sorcha’s arm to get her attention. “Did you bring the bag of bullets?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“Better to bring them than leave the bullets to be fired at us,” Sorcha said.

Tuck picked up the bag to see if there was any ammunition they could use.

Chapter 32 - Unclear and Present Danger

The Hudson River

Sholto bent over the corpse of the man who’d been stabbed through the face. He couldn’t tell if the man had bled to death, or choked on his own blood. Neither was a pleasant way to go, but was any? He checked the man’s pockets, then arms, and found the tattoo on the man’s left shoulder. In a different era, he’d have called it prison-ink, because the pattern had a homemade, needle and pen-ink appearance. It wasn’t a three-leafed branch, though. The tattoo was a simple four letters. NASA. Somehow, that was a lot, lot worse.

He gathered the man’s meagre effects, and then heaved the corpse over the side, before heading below to do the same with Mason.

“Did you disable the trawler?” he asked, when he returned to the cockpit.

“Didn’t want to,” Tuck signed. “If the trawler works, they’ll use it. Ships are easy to outrace.”

“Not in this barge,” Sholto said.

“If they catch us, we go ashore,” Tuck signed. “But if they are ashore, following in cars, they could set an ambush at the next bridge. If they follow. If. Maybe they will go to West Point. Fifty-fifty.”

“That isn’t how maths works,” Sorcha said, attempting to sign while holding the wheel.

“Let me take the wheel while we plan,” Sholto said. “I want to run through our options. We could turn around, make for the truck we left opposite West Point.”

“The ambushers will have entered West Point,” Tuck signed. “If we turn around, we have to sail past the trawler. If the trawler isn’t there, it has gone north. If we go north, we’ll sail into a fight, or we’ll be trapped between a bigger ship and a fortress.”

There was a pause in Sorcha’s translation. “No, you’ve lost me. Ah. The Rock is Gibraltar, isn’t it? Are you attempting to give a history lesson?”

Tuck gave an exasperated shrug. “It was a joke. Forget it. Did you find anything on the bodies?”

“Just a crude NASA tattoo,” Sholto said. “No three-leaf branch.”

“We’re about twenty kilometres from Inwood Hill and the northern tip of Manhattan,” Sorcha said, picking up the chart. “Ah, no, sorry. This map is in miles, isn’t it? It’s another five miles through the Harlem River to the East River and into the Long Island Sound. In a straight line, overland, the Long Island Sound is about five miles from here.”

“And it’s still another eighty miles to the rendezvous,” Sholto said. “We have… yes, we’ve enough diesel. Probably.”

Tuck shook her head. “Only to get to the rendezvous at the Connecticut River. But we won’t have enough to drive to Saco Bay.”

“Then we’ll find bicycles,” Sholto said.

“And the first bridge we can,” Sorcha said. “When we crossed that river further north, it was blood-red with a chemical spill.”

“The New York rear-guard is dead,” Tuck signed. “We sail until we’re shot at. Then we go ashore. See who follows. Look for signs of Pruitt. She is the mission, and the mission isn’t over. We must finish our mission so no one else has to be sent to complete it.” She took the map, holding it in both hands, with her head bowed.

“I think she’s implying the conversation is over,” Sorcha said.

“Then I’m going to find a mop to clean the deck,” Sholto said.

“Why bother?” Sorcha asked.

“A question I ask myself too often these days,” Sholto said.

Finding a bucket was easy, but a mop was elusive. In a locker, he found a Stars and Stripes, folded into a triangle. The obsession with the right to burn or protect a flag was one element of his adopted country that he’d never understood, except when the debate was used as a distraction from the far more pressing attacks on liberty. But this flag flew on the moon. For better and worse, and especially now, that had to mean something. Using it to clean up the blood of brigands who’d stolen the once-cherished acronym of Armstrong’s agency felt like he’d be desecrating one of humanity’s greatest achievements.

With a boathook as a handle, and his spare t-shirt for a mop, he filled a bucket with muddy river water, and began scrubbing the deck. After ten minutes he gave it up as a bad job, and saw symbolism in that, too. He was seeing it everywhere on this trip, perhaps because solid information was so scarce. He retreated to the deck, watching their wake, waiting for the trawler to catch up.

“Any sign of them?” Sorcha asked, coming to join him.

“Not yet,” Sholto said. “But they’d have to call in their guard before they can begin the pursuit. The trawler will be faster, but we’ll still reach Inwood Hill Park before them.”

“And what will we find?” Sorcha asked. “Who will we find?”

“They’re not cartel,” Sholto said. “Not that cartel. Not anymore, and perhaps never. I can’t think of a reason why the cartel would have employed a NASA meteorologist, and Tippy didn’t seem like the kind of person to take orders.”

“She is unlikely to be in overall command,” Sorcha said. “Unless we have grossly overestimated their numbers. In which case, it would be unlikely so few would have been able to push the New Yorkers out.”

“Exactly, there must be a few hundred, and maybe Pruitt is at the top of the pyramid. Maybe she’s dead. But this is a new organisation.”

“I was thinking much the same,” Sorcha said. “Our original mission was to assess whether New York represented a threat to Digby. The answer is a clear yes.”

“But how much of a threat, and how imminent?” Sholto asked. “Having just won New York and West Point, they’ll want some time to enjoy their spoils.”

“It’s immaterial,” Sorcha said. “Our original plan was to enter the city masquerading as traders, then to send in a few ships, aweing them with our superior numbers, hoping they didn’t notice the magazines in our rifles were suspiciously light. We could still do that, and bring them word that there are survivors in the Pacific.”

“It’s a risk,” Sholto said. “They might still attack. Or they might attack before we have a chance to talk.”

“Exactly,” she said. “But there is risk in a bombing mission to West Point. We’d have to send in some spotters first, and fly the plane to Alma. The fuel, too. Is Alma close enough? Do the Pacific have war planes, and do they have the ability to transport them this far? Perhaps not. Even if they could, would they want to? Should we ask them to?”

“You’d prefer sending in a team of sappers to demolish West Point?” he asked.

“We could drop some leaflets, full colour, with a recent photograph of ships in Sydney Harbour, or something similar,” she said. “Or we could just leave them be. If the Pacific want to claim New York, let them, because we can’t stop them. But for us, we have answered the question of whether we should leave Digby.”

“And leave Pruitt in New York?”

“If we’d not found Mr Mahmoud, would we have gone on to West Point?” she asked. “If we hadn’t learned Pruitt was in New York, would we have turned around? It is impossible to know, but I think, in both cases, the answer is that we would have returned north before now. Thus I ask myself what harm can Pruitt do that someone like Tippy couldn’t? Sadly, there’ll be too many people like these pirates, the world over. But though they may wrestle for control of the ruins, they will have no position of power in the new world being built in the Pacific. That is our victory.”

Chapter 33 - The Wisdom of Solomon

Marble Hill, The Bronx

Somewhere between Yonkers and the Bronx, Sholto stopped watching the river behind them. There was no sign of the trawler, and though it might still catch up, the greater potential danger lay ahead. Now they were well and truly within New York’s urban sprawl, there were frequent shore-side buildings stained by the deluge-tide. The flood was definitely receding, although, from how jetties were still submerged to their rails, it would be at least another day before the water level returned to its once normal height.

Never go home again. New York hadn’t been his home, though he’d visited often enough. He’d returned once, last winter, and clearly not learned the lesson. It had been Luca’s home, but the Marine had wisely taken Mustafa Mahmoud’s word that nothing but memories remained of the old city.

The waterways around the multi-island city were unfamiliar enough that the buildings on either side struck no chord, but their designs bore echoes of more familiar landmarks and beloved haunts.

As the outbreak had spread from Manhattan, people had fled; he’d seen that with his own eyes. The same would be true of the Bronx, the only mainland borough out of New York’s famous five. The virus would have crossed the bridges from Manhattan at the speed of panic. The Bronx natives would have fled north to Yonkers, filling the roads, creating new traffic jams, more chaos, and countless victims for the undead. By the time Manhattan was quarantined, every road for forty miles would have been packed solid with abandoned cars. With the boats gone, or sunk by the coastal patrols, there would be no easy escape from New York. He knew too well how few had escaped the hard way.

He’d thought he’d won. That had been his mistake. He’d seen Grant Maxwell’s presidential victory as a defeat for the cabal and the cartel. If only…

The words hung in his mind as an unfinished shorthand for everything he wished he’d done differently. This was what his victory looked like, and as they approached the ruins of the closest thing the planet had to a global capital, it sure looked like defeat.

He returned to the cockpit. “We’re getting close,” he said. “The river’s about to branch, and we want to go east, into the Spuyten Duyvil Creek which will take us into the Harlem River, and that’ll get us to the Long Island Sound.”

“Indeed, we were just looking at the map and counting the bridges,” Sorcha said. “The rear-guard were based at Inwood Hill Park, on the Manhattan side of the creek. Tuck’s suggestion is that, at the first sign of trouble we can’t outrace, we beach the boat on the Bronx shore, hide, and then hunt for bicycles.”

Tuck tapped her arm. “It was an instruction, not a suggestion,” the soldier signed.

“Then I’ll go make sure my bag’s packed,” Sholto said.

The first bridge linking Manhattan to the Bronx was the Spuyten Duyvil Rail Bridge, which had been built with a swing gate section that could open for river traffic and then close to allow trains to pass. During the outbreak, it had been opened, but that hadn’t saved it from being a target of the demolition efforts which had sealed Manhattan’s fate. The uprights and supports were buckled while the swing-section tilted towards the east, with three metres fully submerged where they gathered a moat of floating debris.

Tuck cut their speed as they neared the frothing, churning breakwater of these new narrows, and didn’t pick up speed when they were through. Storm-ripped branches and plastic flotsam banged against the hull as she charted a course towards the Henry Hudson Bridge, which had now almost become a dam.

Rather than demolishing a central section, the sappers had targeted the iron supports, creating white-water rapids out of the debris, against which had gathered a year’s worth of up-river junk from the banks of the Hudson.

“South,” Sorcha said, pointing. “I think we can get through at the south.”

“Boat!” Sholto said. “There!”

“Where?”

“Listen,” Sholto said, just as the boat rumbled into view. A slow-moving motor launch had crossed the river, on the far side of the ruined bridge.

“Are they coming or going?” Sorcha asked.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sholto said. “We don’t want to go to Manhattan.”

Tuck clearly had an opinion of her own as she opened the throttle, picking up speed as she launched the boat through the rapids. The banging grew louder. The scraping against the hull sounded sharper. The soldier might not have been able to hear it, but she’d be able to feel the protesting rattle from the engines, and sense the tilt as the boat rocked to the left. Her response, though, was to accelerate and not to slow until they were beyond the bridge, and the small motor launch, which was left rocking in their wake.

“That was fun,” Sorcha said.

“Sniper on tower,” Tuck signed, then pointed back and up to the remains of the bridge looming above them.

“And a boat on the water,” Sorcha said. “Shall we start with them?”

Tuck nodded, but stayed by the controls. Sholto made his way to the deck. The motor launch had only one passenger who, now he’d righted his boat, was bringing it slowly towards them.

The man’s boat was a motor launch in only the literal sense, being an oversized rowing boat with an outboard motor. The sailor was young, though Sholto was getting to the age where that description applied to most of the population. Somewhere in his early twenties, the sailor wore exhaustion and puzzlement on his face, and a yellow fluorescent jacket on his back.

Sholto waved as the young man brought his boat alongside.

“Hey, are you okay?” Sholto asked. “I’m sorry about that. We just wanted to get through the narrows.”

“No problem,” the young man said. His accent was American, with hints of Brooklyn, though without any clues to his broader identity. “Where are you from?”

“Ireland,” Sorcha said. “Or I am. But we recently came from Canada.”

“Got a little off course, didn’t you?” the young man asked, his eyes on the boat, growing suspicious. He pulled himself over the rail, his eyes settling on the bloodstain. His hand twitched as it moved towards his holstered sidearm.

“Mustafa Mahmoud,” Sholto said.

The young man frowned. “What about him?”

“What does the name mean to you?” Sholto said.

“What does it mean to you?” the young man said, his hand inching closer to his gun.

“We’ve reached an impasse,” Sholto said. “But it doesn’t need to turn into a showdown. You recognise this boat. We found it near West Point. Before that, we found Mustafa, and he was on his way to Granite Lake. He ran Cleopatra Coffee in Brooklyn.”

“Was Detective Demarkos at West Point?” the young man asked.

“She was,” Sholto said. “The storm scattered the boats of the people further north. That’s how we got this boat.”

“Oh.” The young man didn’t relax, but his eyes narrowed as he began calculating.

“Pirates attacked West Point,” Sorcha said. “We were there for that, and took this boat south, bringing word to Sleepy Hollow of that attack, but we arrived too late. The pirates took Sleepy Hollow.”

“Did anyone survive?” the young man asked, fear now in his voice.

“We don’t think so,” Sorcha said.

“Cat’s dead?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Catherine. Catherine Klein,” he said, remorse bringing youth back to his face. “She ran Sleepy Hollow. I was going to help, but there just weren’t enough of us.”

“I’m sorry,” Sholto said. “She might have escaped Sleepy Hollow.”

“She wouldn’t leave her post,” the young man said. “None of us would. Not after we’ve lost so much.” He looked at the ship again, then took a deep breath. “Thank you for bringing the news. I’m Solomon.”

“Sholto. This is Sorcha and that’s Tuck.”

Solomon gave a short nod. “Mustafa’s alive? That’s good. That’s something people will want to hear.”

“We’ve got more bad news,” Sholto said. “The St Lawrence is radioactive. The pirates control Sleepy Hollow and West Point. There is no point sailing north. Even if you got past the pirates, you’d be sailing into radioactive waters. Demarkos, when she finishes rescuing those stranded by the storm, is going to cut overland to our people in Nova Scotia, or west, to the Pacific.”

“West?” Solomon asked, then shook his head. “We can’t sail anywhere. That storm wrecked most of our boats. We had a ten-foot-high wave at the peak. We’ve spent the last day just ferrying everyone to the northern shore. There’s a We-Carry depot a quarter mile north. A plane crashed on the highway, blocking the roads, so no one was able to take the trucks. We’ve got about five working so far, and should have the rest ready within the hour.”

“You’re leaving by road?” Sholto asked.

“We are. We’ve got the fuel. But we were going to drive to Sleepy Hollow, and maybe pick up boats to go north, or continue north until we found those boats.”

“You should steer clear of the Hudson,” Sholto said.

“It won’t be my decision,” Solomon said. “Can you take me ashore, over there, on the northern bank? We better speak with Governor Pruitt. She’s in charge.”

Chapter 34 - Governing a Catastrophe

Inwood Hill Park, Manhattan

Following Solomon’s instructions, they went ashore just east of the ruined bridge, and at the Bronx shore, where the flood had created a new shallow bay. Wood planking created a path up to Edsall Avenue where a We-Carry truck was being loaded with crates by three labourers while a larger, rifle-carrying man stood guard. That rifle was held forward, at the low-ready, but that civility was clearly granted them only because they were with Solomon.

“I don’t know you,” the guard said. “Who are they, Solomon?”

“They’re with us, Deke. They came from West Point. It’s fallen. The pirates own it now. It’s the same with Sleepy Hollow. Where’s the governor?”

“I thought she was with you,” Deke said.

“No, I dropped her here this morning,” Solomon said.

“Yeah, but then she went back to say goodbye to her treasure,” Deke said.

“Not again,” Solomon said.

“What’s wrong?” Sorcha asked.

“We moved all the paintings and artefacts we saved to a management building up by the bridge,” Solomon said. “We can’t take it with us, and we didn’t want to leave it on Long Island, so we moved it to Manhattan. It was the governor’s idea.”

“She’s up there?” Sholto asked, pointing at the ruins of the Henry Hudson Bridge, and the hill from which it emerged.

“Seems so,” Solomon said. “Hey, where’s your friend going? Come back!”

Tuck was walking back to the boat.

“She’s deaf,” Sorcha said. “Shouting will do you no good. Why don’t we fetch the governor, while you get everyone ready to leave? Haste is our friend if we’re all to get out of here alive.”

“You don’t mind?” Solomon asked. “We’ll be at the high school, just at the top of the hill. But not for long. She knows we can’t delay departure.”

“So I am going back to Manhattan,” Sholto said, as he returned down the hill, and to where Tuck had already re-boarded the boat.

“Watch for a tail,” Tuck signed as she undid the rope securing them to the new shore.

No one was following, but it sounded as if these people were ready to leave, with or without the governor.

On the Manhattan side of the river, the small bay below Inwood Hill, and the two-hundred-acre public park occupying the slopes, was a soup of debris. Moored to a floating pontoon made of barrels and planks was another wooden rowing boat with an outboard motor, a blue-hulled river-pilot’s boat, and the upturned hull of a cruiser which hadn’t survived the storms. Other boats had been deliberately sunk, creating a forest of masts in the shallows to the west. Shallows that would soon be dry ground, if the river continued to recede.

“It’s a set-up,” Sholto said.

“Where?” Sorcha asked, scanning the slopes for a sniper.

“No, not us,” Sholto said. “They sank the sailing boats to stop the pirates getting them, except they did it in the shallows from where the boats can easily be recovered. I bet Pruitt picked the spot. And now the New Yorkers are ready to go, she’s vanished. Meanwhile, her people are abandoning their supplies, just like at West Point.”

“Ah, so you believe this was Pruitt’s plan to ensure she and her pirates got the city, and the supplies, with as few shots fired, and as few hungry mouths left behind, as possible.”

“Tell me that doesn’t sound plausible,” Sholto said.

“Oh, it’s plausible,” Sorcha said. “And possible, and even probable. But it means we only have until Solomon leads his people away before the pirates will come to claim their treasure.”

Sholto re-entered the cabin, and picked up his spare semi-automatic pistol. It only had a six-round magazine, and had been two-thirds empty before they’d grabbed the bag of bullets from Sleepy Hollow, but it was better to be prepared. A spare knife went into his boot, and an extra bayonet went onto his belt. Even so, he felt overwhelmingly under-armed as they left the boat and began climbing the hill.

The park, designated as such to protect Manhattan’s last remaining ancient woodland, was overgrown and thriving. The old hiking trail was nearly lost beneath fallen branches and spreading bushes, and now dotted with eagerly sprouting shoots. The slope was steep, and so they quickly rose beyond the floodwater’s highest reach. But the ground was still slick from the recent storms, and buzzing with insects, while the canopies hummed with birds. This forest was more alive than anywhere he remembered being since the outbreak. Yet, with a highway driving straight through the park, this was the most artificial wilderness in the world.

Tuck gestured to the left of the path, keeping her other hand on the stock of her slung Garand. They were armed, and they were expecting trouble, but they didn’t want to be mistaken for pirates. That assumed the pirates weren’t already ahead of them. The footprints in the mud suggested they were. Three sets. Fresh.

“Pruitt might not be alone,” Sorcha said.

“Exactly,” Tuck signed.

“I mean she might have come here with people from the other side of the river,” Sorcha said.

Tuck nodded.

“We don’t know who’s friendly,” Sorcha said, trying a different tack.

Again, Tuck nodded.

“Let’s go find out,” Sholto said, and took the lead.

The fact that this forest was the last swathe of ancient woodland hadn’t been enough to prevent some development. As Inwood Hill towered over the creek opposite Marble Hill and the Bronx, it was an obvious location for a bridge, and so for a highway. The Henry Hudson Bridge had been a double-decker, with a lower level for those entering the island of Manhattan, and an upper for those wise souls escaping it. At the crest of the hill, the two lanes diverged, becoming two separate freeways, one for inbound traffic, the other for outbound. At that point of divergence, where one lane rose above the other, was a municipal office for bridge and highway maintenance, and a parking lot for their vehicles. Among the cherry-pickers once used to change bulbs in street lamps, three lonely road-washers, a gritter, and a mobile lane-closed sign, were four motorised handcarts.

“This is hardly a secret storehouse,” Sorcha whispered as they lingered in the spreading treeline at the parking lot’s perimeter. “Those handcarts stick out like gravestones in a grocery. They might as well have put up a signpost saying X marks the spot.”

“Pirates like treasure,” Tuck signed.

“You think the carts carried a bribe?” Sorcha signed back.

“Or a gift,” Tuck signed.

“Do you see any people?” Sholto asked, not understanding the back and forth.

“None yet,” Sorcha said.

“Inside,” Tuck signed, and pointed to the multi-storey office. “Draw them out.” She patted her rifle.

“They might not be hostile,” Sholto said.

“Exactly,” Tuck signed.

“She’s right,” Sorcha said. “Saying hello is safer than subterfuge. The only other option is waiting until they come outside, and wouldn’t we feel foolish if there’s no one there? You go. We’ll cover you. Draw them outside. If they’re hostile, I’ll shout zombie, they’ll scatter, and we can retreat to the boat. No heroics, though.”

“Now, that sounds contradictory,” Sholto said, but picked himself up and made his way through the bracken so he emerged from the shrubs a safe distance from the sniper and her spotter.

He moved quietly through the last of the trees, and to the beginning of the parking lot. There, he straightened, and began to walk, not run. It was unlikely either side would fire without first identifying whom they were shooting at. It wasn’t impossible, but he was banking on both sides thinking they’d won.

It was a terrible location for a treasure house. Yes, it was high up, and so safe from storms. The concrete building was a three-storey with the small-window, thick-walled, over-engineered design of somewhere expected not to require much maintenance. But it was also the last building before the bridge, and it occupied the high ground. From the roof, a spotter would have a view of the Hudson, and the creek, not to mention the suburbs beyond. This was the largest unpaved patch of Manhattan Island, not counting Central Park. Any last survivor trying to escape the island, or any scavenger coming south, would certainly come to this building for the rooftop view of the surrounding countryside. Of course they’d take a look inside, and from that very first glance, they would know what they’d found.

The windowless door led into a waiting area for visitors that was also a break room for the on-duty maintenance crews. The site manager had an office behind a glass wall, currently occupied by Vincent Van Gogh. There were many other paintings inside, but the straw-hatted self-portrait had been positioned facing the door, where it was impossible to miss.

A quick count gave him a total of about thirty paintings, which, collectively, would have easily fit on a single cart. Through the double doors at the end of the waiting area, he found enough treasure to fill a hundred handcarts. The doors had led him into what had been an equipment store, with a loading bay at the far end. The space between was dotted with bags, with boxes, and with loose artefacts.

Gold, silver, and gems glittered and sparkled in the thin light making its way through the small windows. Candlesticks, chalices, chains, golden plates, and gold-plated boxes concealing even more treasure inside; in crates and atop them, and on the floor around them, spilling from canvas bags, and heaped in piles where they’d been dumped. Mixed in with this obvious loot were old sneakers, leather football pads, and a wooden tennis racket.

Understanding dawned. He scanned the glittering piles until he saw a trophy, then another. They’d gathered what they could from the museums and galleries they could easily reach. One of those places must have had an exhibit on the history of sport. Without context, the artefacts were meaningless, their value only determined by the interest of the beholder.

Cloth rustled behind him. He’d not heard footsteps. He slowly raised his hands, turned around, and found himself at the wrong end of a long-barrelled revolver. The apocalypse hadn’t been kind to anyone, but it had taken twice the toll on this woman. Her thinning hair was completely grey and scissor-cut into a boyish parting that almost covered the burn on her forehead. Her skin was pulled taut by the canyon-lines at her lips and eyes which stared, unblinking, at him. If it weren’t for the factory-fresh tracksuit and trainers, the leather holdall in one hand, and the revolver in the other, he might have assumed her to be a zombie. But he’d stared at the face too often during the campaign not to recognise Governor Pruitt instantly.

“Who are you?” she asked. The revolver’s barrel trembled with each syllable.

“Solomon sent me here, but Demarkos sent us downriver. West Point was attacked.”

“Pirates?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sholto said. “Demarkos has quit West Point. Sleepy Hollow has fallen. Solomon is about to pull out. I’m not sure he’ll wait for you.”

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “But he will. That doesn’t answer my question. Who are you?”

“You had some people arrive from Canada last year. They told you that Nova Scotia had fallen. They were wrong. It almost fell after they took the ships and fuel, but we found some more. Now we’re looking for more survivors. We came overland, and bumped into a guy called Mustafa Mahmoud up near Granite Lake. He directed us to West Point, and Demarkos sent us downriver. We said we’d bring you the message before heading back home.”

“Canada?” she asked. The gun dropped, but the barrel didn’t. Holding it at her hip, she kept it aimed in his direction. “You’ll understand if I don’t believe you.”

“Demarkos said much the same thing,” Sholto said.

“It’s those damn pirates,” Pruitt said. “We had a deal. A truce. They kept breaking it. You’d think you could trust astronauts.”

“Are they actually astronauts?” Sholto asked. “We fought a few upriver, and they seemed like everyday thugs run by a sociopathic scientist.”

“Some of them worked for NASA,” Pruitt said. “But it was a big agency with a lot of employees. I’m done, so we can go. You can lead the way.”

“What is all this?” Sholto asked, reluctant to turn his back on her.

“The collected wealth of New York. Some of it. We moved as much as we could salvage to Long Island. We brought what we could here. Survival has to mean more than just saving our skins. It has to be ideas, too. We brought what we could here where it will be safe from the flooding, collapsing city, and where it will be easily found by whoever, one day, returns. The pirates said they wanted it, but I hope they’ll take what they can carry and leave the rest. Maybe they’ll burn it all, but…” She shook her head. “We couldn’t save everything, but we preserved what we could, and now we must save ourselves, though there were a few items I couldn’t leave behind.” She raised the bag, then frowned. She stepped forward. The gun rose until the barrel pointed directly between his eyes. “I do know you! Clemens!”

Sholto shrugged. “I was, once,” he said.

“You began this,” she said.

“Nope. I tried to stop it. It was the cartel and the politicians who backed them who began it. People like you, Governor.”

“You rigged the election,” she said. “You rigged a presidential election. You can’t honestly claim to be innocent.”

“Can you?” he asked. “The cartel engineered your rise, and won you every seat. They wanted you in the White House.”

“Which doesn’t mean that was my destination,” she said. “Yes, they wanted me to run, but they had other candidates. I couldn’t simply drop out. I had to win until I was certain that, when I lost, the victor would be someone beyond their influence. Instead you stepped in and rigged the whole damn thing for your candidate. How did that work out?”

“Not as well as I’d hoped,” Sholto said. “But it was better than the alternative.”

“You think that zombies, and nuclear war, and the end of the species, is better?”

“I said better, not best,” Sholto said. “But it is better than it might have been.”

“Huh. So not even a nuclear war can dent your arrogance? I had a family. I knew I was risking their lives. They couldn’t run. They couldn’t hide. They were destined to be murdered as soon as the cartel learned what I planned. That was the sacrifice I made to save the world. What did you sacrifice? Nothing of yours, and everything of everyone else. All gone on the altar of your own ego.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?” Sholto asked. “Why didn’t you see if we could work together?”

“You still don’t understand,” she said. “You’re so utterly blinkered, you can’t understand what you did. You engineered a coup. The only reason it was successful was because it suited the aims of the cartel. You did their work for them. Why didn’t I go to you? Why didn’t you come to me? Together, we could have stopped this. Instead, you committed treason, and facilitated the worst crime against humanity. Had you done nothing, had you never been born, the world would not be in such a parlous state.”

“That’s not the full story,” Sholto said. “Not even close.”

“Well, you can tell me the rest later,” she said.

“You don’t want to go for justice now?” he asked, nodding at the gun.

“This?” She held up the revolver. “This was Teddy Roosevelt’s. Even if it were loaded, I doubt it would work. It isn’t the artefact I wanted. There was a cane belonging to Harriet Tubman, but it’s impossible to find anything in this mess. So I’ll settle for the sword, and the pen, so to speak. The truce with the pirates expires at sunset. I got this extension by trading everything here, so we should be gone before they arrive. You came from Canada?”

“I did.”

“Then that is where we will go. I will tell your friends precisely who you are, and let them pick your fate.”

Chapter 35 - When a Pirate Falls in the Woods, Does Anyone Hear?

Inwood Hill Park, Manhattan

As Sorcha watched Sholto walk across the parking lot, Tuck watched the trees. When Sorcha began to stand, Tuck laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Wait,” Tuck signed.

“Sniper?” Sorcha signed.

Tuck scanned the rooftops, then the shadows on the far side of the parking lot. “Not zombies. Maybe just sunlight,” the soldier signed. “Could be a scout. Change position. Move slow, quiet, back to the path, then over to that fallen tree.”

The tree in question was only twenty metres away. It had fallen almost directly into the parking lot, but had been prevented from falling the last few metres by a van-sized metal cube. Probably an electrical substation. However, with the large cube having arrested the tree’s fall, enough of its root system had maintained a grip in the soil. At an angle, with more branches exposed, the tree bloomed, and that oblique canopy offered the perfect cover from any rooftop sniper, while the substation’s metal walls would offer protection from ground-level fire.

“Move,” Tuck signed, then followed her own order. Slowly, she eased back from the treeline. Two trunks back, she slung the rifle and drew a bayonet.

Sorcha’s eyes fell on the blade. With a rueful shake of her head, she drew a blade of her own.

Letting the Irishwoman lead with her ears, they retreated to the overgrown path, pausing every few steps for Sorcha to listen. At the path, they paused again. Sorcha cricked her head. With a furious speed, which could only have one cause, Sorcha dashed along the path. From a standing start, Tuck was slow to catch up, and reached Sorcha only after she’d plunged a knife into the throat of a man in windbreaker and jeans. Catching him as he fell, Tuck wrestled the dying man to the ground. He wore an Uzi strapped across his chest and, even before Sorcha pointed, Tuck saw the NASA patch on the coat’s thin sleeve.

“Take the gun,” Tuck signed, then sheathed her bayonet and unslung her Garand.

No sniper used a machine pistol. Nor did any scout. No, this man had been waiting to ambush. But whom, and why here?

“Radio,” Sorcha signed, before opening the man’s coat, and plucking a radio from his belt.

“Off,” Tuck signed one-handed.

“Sit-rep,” Sorcha said.

Tuck shook her head. “Off,” she signed again, then grabbed the man’s left leg, dragging him a little further into the brush. Anyone who came walking along the path would see the glistening blood, and the trail, but there was no time to do more.

Without waiting, Tuck continued, moving obliquely towards the parking lot, mentally making a note of where the corpse was, and where the path was, and so what angle to take during their retreat.

There was no sniper by the substation and fallen tree. Nor were there any footprints suggesting any had been here recently. She crouched so as to find a position from which she could see through the angled canopy, but there didn’t appear to be anyone on the roof of the municipal building. She stood, and let her eyes roam from one abandoned vehicle to another. Roofs and enclosed cabs were the best places for a sentry to lurk in their zombie-infested world, but those abandoned service vehicles all appeared empty.

Sorcha tapped her leg. The Irishwoman had crouched low, next to Tuck.

“Spotter?” Sorcha signed.

Tuck shook her head.

“Five minutes,” Sorcha signed.

Tuck shrugged. “I’ll take the main doors. You fire at the treeline,” she signed.

What she wanted to say was that they’d walked into an ambush as it was being set up. That the enemy were getting into position. Why didn’t matter. What would happen next would depend upon Sholto, and whether he returned outside. They’d cover Sholto, cause a distraction, give the old crook time to reach cover, and then they would sprint back to the boat. There was no sniper on the rooftop, none waiting by this substation, and as that now-dead ambusher was alone, the enemy numbers were low. There was a chance they wouldn’t have people by the shore. It might be possible to get back to the boat, and so back onto the river, and away from this island of death. But, equally, it might be necessary to turn tail and take to the ruins.

She wanted to say that battle would begin soon, and it would be chaotic. Snap decisions would be required, and instinct would have to be relied on. She wanted to say that and so much more, but with both hands on the rifle, and her eyes scanning the building, and the shadows among the trees, she couldn’t.

She had the measure of the pirates now. In the Tower of London, she’d been surrounded by the Crown Jewels, albeit most were the display-only replicas. But elsewhere in the castle had been enough bejewelled weapons to buy a small town. Since the outbreak, they were worth less than a bayonet. Surely everyone on this side of the Pond would realise that, too. In which case, setting up this treasure house, and here on Manhattan rather than Long Island, had been a ruse to delay departure while pirate killers got into place at West Point and Sleepy Hollow, and here.

The pirates’ longer-term strategy was still impossible to discern without knowing their numbers, and whether they had permanently abandoned Florida. Regardless, and despite the storm and their trio’s intervention in West Point, the pirates had so far won.

Sorcha tapped Tuck’s arm. “Movement. Trees,” Sorcha signed, and then pointed.

Tuck saw it. Beyond the parked cherry-pickers, the shadows among the treeline were moving. They stopped. Moved again. Not a zombie, then. Another ambusher.

Tuck pointed at the machine pistol. She gestured towards the shadows. She tapped her rifle, then pointed towards the door. “You distract,” she signed. “I’ll aim.”

Sorcha nodded her understanding.

Tuck slowed her breathing, preparing for the next five minutes. One way or another, it wouldn’t take longer than that. She’d been in a situation like this before. Once. Long ago. Far away. On one of those policing missions that were classified as training and support. Her foe, then, had been terrorists, but that was just piracy by another name. A power line had been cut. She’d taken her squad to inspect it, but spotted the ambush in time. They’d taken cover, and called in an air strike. She wished that was an option now.

They’d get ten seconds of chaos in which to extract Sholto and fall back. After that…

Thankfully, before fear could drag any more treacherous doubts to mind, the door to the office building opened. Sholto came out. Behind him was a woman in a tracksuit, holding a revolver. Tuck raised her rifle; it was the only signal Sorcha needed.

Chapter 36 - Avalanche

The Harlem River, New York

Sholto was only a few metres from the office building’s door when he heard the rifle crack. His first instinct was to duck. When he heard the death-beckoning burr of a fully automatic machine pistol, he ran for cover. The nearest was the abandoned gritter. From shelter behind its wheel, he drew his gun, looking for danger, and only then remembered Pruitt. He looked around. She was lying near the building, blood pooling beneath her chest.

The firing had stopped almost as soon as it had begun, so he ran back to the governor, but she was dead. Sensing movement, he turned again, raising his revolver before he saw Sorcha at the treeline, waving him over. The rifle cracked loud again. Tuck and her Garand, he assumed.

Pausing only to grab Pruitt’s leather bag, Sholto ran to the trees.

“Are you okay?” Sorcha asked, even as Tuck motioned them back.

“That was Pruitt,” Sholto said.

“It was? I didn’t even recognise her,” Sorcha said. “Tuck. You got her! You got Pruitt!”

“Later,” Tuck signed. She pointed ahead, then left.

In hindsight, it was an easy run as any nearby pirates would instinctively have headed towards the gunfire, and the building. Or, just as likely, they would have kept their heads down until the battle was long over. But because any brave, or foolhardy, pirates would surely make use of the path, as soon as they reached it, Tuck led them across, and back into the woodland.

They skittered down the mulch and moss-covered slope, moving from one stout trunk to another, using those to slow their skidding descent. When Sholto heard a gunshot, he paused, looking up and back, but Tuck didn’t stop, so Sorcha hurried on, and Sholto had no choice but to follow.

By the time they reached their boat, the gunfire had ceased. The moment they were aboard, Sorcha pulled a small radio handset from her pocket. “We took this from one of their guards,” she said, switching it on.

“There’s a boat!” a voice said, almost immediately.

“They’ve seen us,” Sholto said, crouching by the rail, aiming his gun up the hill. “Go!”

Tuck hadn’t been waiting for the command, and had already turned on the engine. Sorcha hacked the rope with her knife. The brackish water foamed brown as the boat pulled away. A pistol cracked. A shotgun barked. A rifle rattled, and a bullet ricocheted from the metal railing at the bow. Sholto shifted aim, looking for a target, but he could see no one, and the enemy were clearly too far away to properly aim. He retreated to the cockpit.

“That was Pruitt?” Sorcha asked. “Truly?”

“Truly,” Sholto said.

“There you are, Tuck, the mission is certainly over now,” Sorcha said.

But Tuck was concentrating on the turn as she navigated out into the river.

“Let me take the wheel,” Sholto said. “You’d better pick up your rifle in case they follow.”

“Don’t cross the river,” Tuck signed, her hands now free. “Follow the river. Too many shooters on the high ground.”

“Understood,” Sholto said.

Tuck picked up her rifle, but didn’t leave the cockpit. Instead, she sat where she had a view of the river behind.

“How many pirates were with Pruitt inside?” Sorcha asked.

“None,” Sholto said. “It was just her.”

“Was it really a treasure house?” Sorcha asked.

“It was,” Sholto said. “There was a Van Gogh. Quite a lot of other paintings. A lot of other artefacts I couldn’t begin to name.”

“Tuck wants to know if there was gold and jewels,” Sorcha said.

“Sure. Lots,” Sholto said.

“What was Pruitt doing there?” Sorcha asked.

“She said she was…” Sholto began, then paused. He picked his words with care. “The New Yorkers don’t know about the cartel connection. It’d be better if we tell them the pirates killed Pruitt.”

“Understood,” Sorcha said. “Had she sold out the locals?”

“It’s hard to know who was playing whom,” Sholto said. “I would say her old position didn’t carry much weight with anyone nowadays. What’s the plan?”

“To find somewhere we can go ashore and warn Solomon to leave,” Sorcha said. “Though this gunfire should be warning enough.”

An explosion rent the air, exploding mud and fibreglass from the artificial bay to the north of the river where Solomon had left his boat.

“Fast!” Tuck signed. “Missile! Stay!” She ran onto the deck.

“If they have missiles, it hardly matters if I’m inside or out,” Sorcha said, and followed the soldier outside.

Sholto pushed the boat faster. Getting away from the next missile was all that mattered now. But a second blast didn’t come.

“We have a problem,” Sorcha said, returning inside.

“Only one?” Sholto asked.

“It’s the trawler from Sleepy Hollow,” Sorcha said. “It’s just traversed the Henry Hudson Bridge. If this truce was pre-arranged, it would have a pre-arranged end point. Didn’t Tippy say she didn’t have much time? I think we’ve learned why.”

“You mean the plan was to clear out West Point and Sleepy Hollow before launching a final attack here?” Sholto said, keeping his gaze ahead. “And they’ve got missiles?”

“An RPG, we think, though if they get close enough to confirm it, we’ll be close enough to be hit.”

“We better get ashore soon as we can,” Sholto said.

“I would say the opposite,” Sorcha said. “If this trap was timed to spring now, the pirates will already be on the Bronx shore. It is possible Solomon is beset, or he’s escaped, but his people will not know we are friends. Nor will we be able to identify a New Yorker from a pirate.”

“Then we’ll keep going as long as possible. Got it,” Sholto said.

To the north, the swollen river lapped over the tracks of the riverside railway. To the south, storm-dashed trees lined the perimeter of Satow Stadium. Ahead was the Broadway Bridge. The southern half of the bridge was missing. The northern half was angled down, forming a semi-submerged ramp that offered a potential path into the anonymity of the urban ruins. The thought of using it as an escape route vanished when a rocket streaked overhead, passed the northern bridge tower, and impacted against a distant apartment, turning the sign reading Help into a cloud of flame, smoke, and falling rubble.

There was no rear-view mirror in the cockpit. There was a screen for a camera, but the screen was cracked, and the camera was missing. But there were windows in every wall. He let go of the wheel, turned, ducked down, and was just able to see the trawler. He turned again, grabbing hold of the wheel, trying to gauge how far behind the trawler was. Five hundred metres? Maybe. Regardless, the trawler had pursued them from Sleepy Hollow, and with a delayed start. His little boat had no more acceleration to give. The pirates would catch them, that was indisputable.

“Inconceivable,” he muttered.

Tuck fired. The missile team didn’t. While he might hope they’d run out of rockets, it was far more likely they’d realised what he’d only just twigged: this boat would be easily caught in more open waters.

“We can jump here!” Sholto called out as they came adjacent to the bridge-ramp.

“Not yet,” Sorcha said.

Sholto searched his memory for the next best option, but he wasn’t used to seeing New York from this angle. Instead, he dared another look behind. The trawler was slowing as it neared the bridge, meaning he was able to gain a few metres, but it only emphasised how close their pursuers were.

Tuck and Sorcha returned to the cockpit.

“Ideas?” Sorcha asked.

“Is there any way we can sink that ship?” Sholto asked.

“They have missiles, Thaddeus,” Sorcha said. “We have a World War Two rifle, a wonderful selection of handguns, and a machine pistol with no bullets, unless we can find some spare in that bag of ammo we took from Sleepy Hollow. I suppose we could turn that bag into a bomb, but we’d need to get close enough to throw it. So close, they would easily be able to shoot us.”

“So that’s a no,” Sholto said. “We’ll lead them down the river. There were about ten bridges on the Harlem River. We’ve got a flat hull. They don’t. Let’s hope they get stuck before we do.”

“I’d prefer to hope we can find somewhere to go ashore,” Sorcha said.

“That bridge was our best option,” Sholto said.

“Not now it’s behind us,” Sorcha said.

Ahead, the river straightened, travelling almost due south, and he saw the flaw in his plan. The pirates had come to New York last year by boat. They knew this waterway was traversable by their trawler. A bullet thumped into the cockpit’s roof, evidence of another flaw.

“We better not go outside to give them a target,” Sorcha said.

Tuck began emptying her pockets. “Get ready to swim,” she signed.

At the University Heights Bridge, the road had gone, but the islands, and their towers which had once supported the bridge, remained. Hopefully, the bridgeway had been dropped into the river, where it might tear at the trawler’s hull. He dismissed the idea even before they’d sailed through. Maybe in drier months, but not when the river was still so swollen.

A burst of gunfire rattled into the cockpit’s roof. Tuck pushed Sorcha down. Sholto kept his hands on the wheel, but his eyes scouting for somewhere they could go ashore.

“How far to the next bridge?” Sorcha asked.

“I’m not sure,” Sholto said. “But most of them are further south, near where the river curves east.”

“Making this a nice, clear, wide stretch where it would be perfect to overtake us,” Sorcha said. “I say that, because I think they’re accelerating.”

“We can’t,” Sholto said.

“Then it is time to abandon ship,” Sorcha said. “You know, I’ve always wanted to say that.”

To the right was Manhattan, and there was no way he’d set foot there again. To the left was Morris Heights, and more immediately, the four river-fronting monster apartments that made up River Park Towers. Two thirty-eight-storey towers were dwarfed by the looming pair of forty-four-storey giants. They were the tallest buildings in the Bronx, though from the deep crack running up the river-facing facade, that might not be the case for long. From the smoke stains, two buildings had been hit by fire, while one had been hit by something in mid-air. Probably a helicopter, since it hadn’t brought the building down. Inland, sheets flapped from the broken windows of the one building which had not succumbed to a blaze.

“There’s no way we’ll make a quick escape through roads heaped with broken glass and rubble,” he said. “We’ll go ashore when we’re beyond the tower blocks. Five minutes, I think.”

Tuck braced her rifle on the broken window at the rear of the cockpit, using that as a stand as she aimed at the trawler’s deck. She took her time, allowing instinct and experience to correct for the motion of their boat, and that of their pursuers. Even so, and even though each of her shots came close, each missed.

She slotted in the last magazine, and let her field of view widen.

“Trouble,” she signed, before returning her hand to the rifle, and since she never took her eyes from the boat, she didn’t see Sorcha’s question.

“What kind of trouble?” Sholto asked.

“No idea,” Sorcha said. “No, wait. Ah. RPG. They are not out of rockets yet, it seems. May I suggest we brace?”

Sholto banked left as Tuck fired. The ship turned slowly. The bullet flew fast, grazing the Floridian pirate as he fired. The rocket went wide, slamming into the nearest of the riverside monoliths.

“Right!” Sorcha yelled as bricks began to tumble.

Sholto was already changing direction, weaving the boat left and right.

“No! Straight!” Sorcha yelled, grabbing the wheel. “Straight!”

Sholto stepped back as Sorcha took over. He crossed to the rear of the cockpit, looking back at the trawler before a falling-tree creak dragged his eyes to the shore, and to the tower block the rocket had hit. With an avalanche rumble, bricks fell. Windows, frames, walls, carpets, sinks; the entire tower slid down, cascading into the river as a dust cloud rose over the shore. The river surged as the debris disrupted the flow. The trawler appeared to be slowing, but was then lost to sight as the dust cloud spread over the river.

“Gun!” Tuck signed. “Gun!”

He drew his, waiting for the trawler to emerge from the dust, but it didn’t.

“Don’t slow,” Tuck signed, then stood and crossed to Sorcha, tapping her arm, and repeating the message when she had the woman’s attention.

“I had no intention of slowing,” Sorcha said. “All that damage with only one rocket? I am at a loss for what word best describes it. Staggering, perhaps?”

“That seems a fitting description for the building before the explosion,” Sholto said. “It was about to fall anyway. The explosion was the final straw.”

“It’s not the only domino,” Sorcha said. “There’s a tower there on Manhattan which I’m sure wasn’t built with a sideways lean. Which building is that, do you think?”

But Sholto’s attention was entirely fixed on the river behind. It was only when they reached the next bridge, and with the trawler still not in sight, that he began to relax. He returned to the bench seat, and briefly closed his eyes. “Anyone think the trawler was sunk?”

“We used up our year’s allotment of wishes getting out of there alive,” Sorcha said. “No, I don’t think the ship will be in any worse condition than us. But they will return to the battleground, and surely assess the situation before travelling the long way around Manhattan. That is assuming they bother. We might make it to the rendezvous. We’ll certainly make it to the Long Island Sound.”

“I’ll check the fuel,” Sholto said, though he didn’t get up. His gaze briefly returned to the windows, and to the view of the sinking city beyond. Pruitt’s words rang in his ears, and with them came shame. Was he responsible for all of this? Was he more or less responsible than Pruitt? Did the distinction matter?

He’d thought he’d laid that guilt to rest on Anglesey. Here in New York, it had awoken. The consequences of his actions would be with him in every ruin he saw, every day, for the remainder of his life. This, for good and ill, was his victory. His gaze fell on the leather bag Pruitt had been carrying, and which his looter’s instinct had told him to grab.

Inside were books. First editions. Signed by the author, Mark Twain.

1st April

Chapter 37 - Battles Won, Battles Lost, and Battles Still to Come

The Bronx and Manhattan, New York

Twenty-eight hours later, Sholto returned to New York with an army. Well, with a soldier, a former socialite, three Marines, twenty sailors, and Antonio, the former inmate from Riker’s who was with them so they’d be recognised as friends by Solomon. With those facial tattoos, he was certainly a recognisable figure, even dressed in spare naval fatigues.

Antonio, and everyone else aboard, believed that Pruitt had been shot by the pirates. Tuck and Sorcha believed Pruitt had been about to shoot Sholto. He wasn’t sure what to believe, so had kept the details of their conversation to himself.

The Courageous had returned north for clarification of the radio message, then headed south, collected the Marines and the New York refugees from Saco Bay, then continued south to the Long Island Sound. He, Tuck, and Sorcha had found the ship waiting for them, west of the Connecticut River and its noxious out-flow.

After a debrief, the ship continued west towards the sinking city. At night, they stopped, watching the radar, listening for lights, and listening to the radio. Mustafa and the other New Yorkers had wanted to continue regardless, but it would be impossible to tell friend from foe in the dark, and so they had spent the last hours of daylight hunting for somewhere they could safely disembark. They finally picked Pelham Bay, which should rightly be renamed Pelham Swamp, but the ground was sturdy enough that, at dawn, they drove the last few miles west, to Marble Hill, and the high school in which the New Yorkers had been waiting prior to their departure.

Sholto moved from one upstairs classroom to the next. But three was enough to confirm the New Yorkers had gone. They’d left behind pillows and blankets, and half-finished plates in the cafeteria. There weren’t many mattresses, suggesting they’d not had time to properly settle in. No, the school was a very temporary refuge, and was now utterly abandoned by friend and foe alike.

He returned to the entrance where he found Luca Petrelli waiting by their car.

“Got a radio report from the rental depot,” Luca said. “They can’t tell how many vans are missing, but there’s a lot of cracked tyres and engine parts from where they repaired the vehicles they took.”

“Any sign of the pirates?” Sholto asked.

“No, sir,” Petrelli said. “Did you find anything inside?”

Sholto shook his head. “There are no mattresses inside. This school was a temporary refuge. Used for a day or two as they ferried people up and across the river. They knew the pirates were on their heels, so wouldn’t leave behind clues as to where they went. Assuming they even knew where they were going.”

He saw Antonio and Gonzales making their way across the parking lot.

“Anything?” he asked, even though he knew there was no possible way the answer would be yes.

“I’d like to cross the river,” Antonio said. “See Pruitt’s body.”

“We don’t have time,” Gonzo said.

“We can make time,” Sholto said. “If we can find a boat.”

“Sir?” Gonzo said. She didn’t say any more, but the single word carried a lot of subtext.

“Call everyone in,” Sholto said. “Radio Captain Fielding to tell her we’re launching an assault across the river. If the pirates are there, we’ve a duty to deal with them.”

There were three rowing boats in the bay, each with a small outboard motor. From how they were intact, and neatly secured, they had certainly arrived after the trawler had blown up Solomon’s vessel. Leaving only four sailors to guard their transport against the return of the pirates who’d piloted the boats to the Bronx, he took his small army across the river, launching the final invasion of Manhattan.

While the Marines secured the office building, Sholto made a beeline for Pruitt’s body. She lay where she’d fallen, though the antique revolver was gone.

“She was a good person,” Antonio said, standing above the dead governor. “Hard. But hard times need hard people. We respected her.”

“Do you want to bury her?” Sholto asked. “I don’t think we’ve time to do it here, but we can carry her back with us.”

“Above ground or below makes no difference in the end,” Antonio said. “I must go after Solomon.”

“Why?” Sholto asked.

Antonio finally looked up, and looked across at him. The younger man’s eyes narrowed. “I owe him.”

“Fair enough,” Sholto said. “I’ve paid a few of those debts myself. But it looks like the pirates have gone, and at least some went ashore in the north. You’ll have to fight your way through them before you reach Solomon, assuming you can catch up with him.”

“So?”

“So we spent most of last year doing something similar,” Sholto said. “It didn’t get us very far. Demarkos mentioned an island north of Troy, where the Hudson meets the Mohawk River. That’s the most likely place to look for him, and her. But if he gets there before Demarkos leaves, and that’s a distinct possibility, they’ll surely head west. We won’t catch them. We need fuel, ammo, and food. We need to arrange a rendezvous with our people, because it’s not just your friends who are out there. There’ll be hundreds, maybe thousands, of people. Some will need help, but they all need to know that they aren’t alone.”

Luca came out of the office and signalled the all-clear.

Sholto left Antonio by Pruitt’s body, uncertain whether the ex-con would be waiting when he came out.

“The paintings are still here, sir,” Luca said. “I don’t think they took anything.”

“Any pirates?”

“No, sir.”

The Van Gogh was still in the glass-walled office, facing the door where it would be visible to anyone who came inside. It was probable, immediately after the gunfight in which Pruitt had died, the pirates had gone inside to confirm the building was empty. But if Tippy had lingered in these waters, she’d surely have taken the Van Gogh. He certainly wasn’t going to leave it for her. Bringing the self-portrait, and as many other paintings as they could carry, they returned to the rowing boats. When the reached the Bronx, and after sinking the boats, they returned to the cars, and drove back to the ship.

Two hours later, Sholto paced the deck. He didn’t have the energy to run, but was too restless to stand still.

“There you are,” Sorcha said. “You’re missing the exhibition.”

“There’s a fight?” he asked.

“Tell your brain to switch off from battle,” she said. “It’s an art exhibition. We set up a gallery in the mess. You should come and see what we rescued.”

“Paintings, not people,” Sholto said.

“Paintings and people,” Sorcha said. “We saved some, and I wager that we saved a few more by having that trawler chase us rather than engage Solomon ashore. Our mission is over. Pruitt is dead. We won, Thaddeus. Our victory is as complete as it could be.”

“I’ll be down in a few minutes,” Sholto said. “I’ll just finish this circuit.”

With a knowing smile, she returned inside. He walked on, until he reached the rear of the ship. There, he stopped, looking back at the open sea. The trawler couldn’t catch the Courageous. No, it was over. Sorcha was right, though not in the way she thought. Their victory was as complete as it would ever be. His mission was over. He’d thought that before, but this time it was certainly true. All the scheming and machinating, the manipulating and outright lying, begun in service to a very personal revenge, but which became a battle for civilisation, and then a fight for survival. Victorious or not, the war was over.

The future would be written in the Pacific, and not by him. But not by Lisa Kempton, either, nor by the cartel, or Pruitt, or any of the other corrupt politicians.

He smiled. Yes, that was a victory.

6th April

Chapter 38 - Home Is Where You Pack Your Hat

Digby, Nova Scotia

The house in Digby echoed with ghosts, none of them recent.

“We never did have time to settle in,” Sholto said, taking the suitcase from the chair.

“That suitcase is mine,” Bill said. “I don’t think Annette dared raid your quarters.”

“She did the packing?” Sholto asked, putting the case down before planting himself in the chair. He stretched. “Ah, bliss. I’ve spent too much time in cars and on boats these last few weeks. How long until the meeting?”

“About two hours. You’ve time to shower and change.”

“Or I can keep that as an excuse to escape the meeting early,” he said.

“I doubt that’ll work,” Bill said. “That was a very brief briefing you gave Janet and Napatchie. I bet you’ve got more to tell.”

“Only a tale of oil, mud, and sweat,” Sholto said. “Is Annette home?”

“No, she wanted to take Daisy and Kim on a walk along the shore,” Bill said. “They’re saying goodbye to the Atlantic.”

“Sounds like you don’t think you’re coming back,” Sholto said.

“Annette might get a chance to go back to Europe one day,” Bill said. “But even if I were asked, I don’t think I’d say yes.”

“By here, I meant Digby,” Sholto said. “But hold that thought because there is one thing I didn’t say to Janet and Napatchie, and one thing I won’t. Tuck shot Pruitt. It wasn’t the pirates. Pruitt followed me out of the building with a gun in her hand. But it was an antique, and it wasn’t loaded. Tuck and Sorcha don’t know that. Tuck shot her because she thought Pruitt had a gun on me.”

“Ah. So Pruitt died from friendly fire?”

“More or less,” Sholto said. “Because Mustafa and the other New Yorkers were on the Courageous, we said the pirates killed the governor and went along with their version of events, that she was just the governor of Michigan, and more recently, had been trying to save these New Yorkers.”

“Right. But what’s the truth?” Bill asked.

“That I can’t figure out,” Sholto said. “When we were alone, inside, Pruitt and I had a chance to talk. She claimed to have always planned to drop out of the presidential election, but only after she’d knocked out the other cartel candidates. That way, she thought she could guarantee an innocent contender would win the nomination. She knew this would lead to the death of her family, and herself, but she said she was willing to make that sacrifice.”

“Easy to say when she never had the chance,” Bill said. “Actions count more than intentions.”

“Right. And she worked for the cartel once, but most recently, she probably was helping the New Yorkers. I don’t think there was a link between her and the pirates. It’s probably simpler to assume there wasn’t.”

“Then we’ll say that, during Pruitt’s journey to New York, she also began a journey of repentance,” Bill said. “Did you find out why she was in New York?”

“That’s a mystery,” Sholto said.

“And likely to remain so,” Bill said. “Was there anything else, beyond details, of course?”

“She went back to collect a few artefacts from the treasure house,” Sholto said. “The antique revolver was one of them. In the bag, there were a pair of his and hers pocket watches. The revolver belonged to Teddy Roosevelt.” He reached into his pocket. “I thought you and Kim might like the watches.”

Bill took them, holding them by the chain. “Silver, I think. Identical, too. Very nice, but not that ornate.”

“Look at the inscription,” Sholto said.

“This one’s to Sam,” Bill said. “I feel I should give it to Chester. It’s dated 1900.” He held it close. “The inscription is quite small. Ah. 1900, An End Is Also A Beginning, For My Beloved Sam, O. And this one says My Beloved Livy, Always My Beginning, Until the End. S. I sense there’s something I’m missing.”

“Sam and Livy,” Sholto said. “Sam and Olivia?”

“Nope, I’m not getting it,” Bill said.

“Samuel and Olivia Clemens,” Sholto said. “I found them in a bag of loot that Pruitt had claimed from her treasure house. In the bag, as well, were first editions all by Mark Twain, all signed.”

“So it’s safe to assume these watches came from the same place?”

“The same museum,” Sholto said. “I couldn’t tell you which, but that’s Mark Twain’s watch, bought for him by his wife, Olivia. Their life was a rollercoaster of triumph and tragedy, and I’m not sure what personal disaster befell them in 1899, but I think, on receiving the watch from her, he went to the very same watchmaker and asked for an identical one for his wife.”

“You don’t want to keep the watches for yourself?” Bill asked.

“I’m keeping the books,” Sholto said. “It’s impossible not to view them as a sign, though of what, I can’t tell. And I can’t tell how truly repentant Pruitt was, or how innocent she might once have been, so we might as well agree with the New Yorkers and say, while we had suspicions about Pruitt, she had repented and had negotiated a truce to protect the New Yorkers, which the pirates broke.”

“That seems for the best,” Bill said. “Don’t they say truth is a three-edged sword?”

“I always preferred the saying about it being best served with honey. Speaking of which, what do you have in the kitchen?”

“Only mice,” Bill said. “With us away, and you and your Marines deployed, Nilda claimed what little we’d left behind. It’s only fair, since she was looking after the girls.”

“What about my stash of whisky?” Sholto asked.

“If you mean the bottle of maple spirit you’d hidden in the toolbox, Annette told George where it was, and he thanks you very much for the gift. I can offer you tea, though.”

“I want a cocktail,” Sholto said, reaching down to unlace his boots. He kicked them off. “I want a recliner by a pool, beneath the shade of a palm tree.”

“You need some clean socks,” Bill said. “And that shower.”

“But a cup of tea would be great,” Sholto said, leaning back in the chair. “The shower will wait, though. It’s traditional for a returning hero to appear in the public forum with his battle scars on display.”

“Two thousand years ago,” Bill said, making his way to the kitchen. “And that was scars, not smells.”

Sholto let his eyes roam from the suitcases to the bookshelves. Before they’d arrived, Napatchie, Tracy, Jonas, and the other locals had raided the empty houses for furniture, for firewood, for entertainment, and, of course, food. Even so, he didn’t remember it seeming so empty when they first arrived. For that matter, nowhere they’d previously left had seemed so empty immediately prior to departure. In this instance, the packing had been done by Annette, and in anxiety at being left behind while her new parents were out of sight, out of contact, and up to their necks in unknown danger.

They shouldn’t have left Annette behind. That rebuke wasn’t just for Bill and Kim, but himself and the Marines who’d shared this house over the winter. They’d become a family, and yet when the first hint of spring glistened on the still thawing ice, they’d driven off. That was wrong. But it had been essential. It would have been too dangerous bringing the kids with them. Instead, Annette and Daisy had been left with loving people who truly cared. So had he, Bill, and Kim really done anything wrong, or was he simply retroactively judging their actions by old standards?

“The last of the tea,” Bill said. “It’s a bit weak, I’m afraid, but I gave most of it to Mary.”

“Being head of our state has to come with some perks. You guys aren’t coming back here, are you?”

“To Digby? No. Though we definitely will be returning to Canada. That’s why we asked Jay to come with us. His inclusion in the trip to Canberra should be an obvious sign we’ll return.”

“Did you discuss staying in Australia?” Sholto asked.

“Do you mean me and Kim? A little. At some point on Anglesey, or maybe after we fled the island, or perhaps it was long before, we took on responsibility for ensuring everyone gets to safety. We’re not quite there yet, and neither of us wants to give up before the job is properly done. That’s assuming there’s an option of moving to Australia, or that we’d even want to. We’ve had to make a lot of assumptions about life in the far south based on a few very brief conversations with Scott. For one thing, we’re assuming he’ll even allow us to fly with him to Puget Sound, and that the leaders there will allow us to travel south. My mind is running wild with the possibilities, no matter how hard I try to rein myself in, so it’s absolutely best to make this a brief trip, with time afterwards to digest how good and bad it really is. Speaking of reality checks, and before you fall asleep in that chair, I’d like to clear up a few points.”

“About New York?”

“Yes, as I said, that talk with Janet and Napatchie was a very brief briefing.”

“And you want to be certain of the public meeting’s outcome before it begins,” Sholto said.

“Well, yes,” Bill said. “Once we leave tomorrow, and certainly once we catch Scott’s plane, the ball will begin rolling. We can alter its path, and maybe the speed, but not the destination.”

“No, I get it. So shoot, what do you want to know?”

“Well, to start with, the size of the enemy. You weren’t clear on how many pirates there are.”

“Because nor are the New Yorkers,” Sholto said. “Antonio thought there were a thousand. Mustafa said five hundred. They think the first wave carried about two hundred people on twelve ships, but aren’t sure how many of those were aboard the ships when they returned to Florida, nor how many came back with the second group, or if there was a third or fourth wave. Plus, they don’t know how many New Yorkers deserted to join the Floridian ranks, and how many just vanished, or were murdered. Even if we knew, that’d tell us how many were there at the peak, not how many were there after the battle.”

“You mean when the New Yorkers fought the Floridians to a standstill. When was this?”

“It sounds like it was brewing from the minute the Floridians arrived,” Sholto said. “But the street battle began soon after we first snuck ashore. The locals thought we were pirates, and the pirates must have thought we were locals who’d found a warship. I’ve got to guess at the Floridians’ original intentions, but I’d bet it was to kill the leadership and assume control. It went wrong for them when they tried to use the subways and sewers. Because of us, the New Yorkers were watching. A battle underground turned into a fight for the streets. Add a few zombies to the mix, and it sounds like utter chaos. After eight days, Pruitt brokered a cease-fire, and then a treaty. The Floridians could have New York, but she’d get until spring before the New Yorkers had to leave.”

“How many died?” Bill asked.

“Four hundred New Yorkers,” Sholto said. “Antonio says it was about the same number of pirates, but there’s no way of knowing.”

“And all for nothing,” Bill said.

“Not at first,” Sholto said. “But once it began, they were fighting for survival. That tells us a fair bit about the Floridians.”

“So does their interest in treasure,” Bill said. “Those paintings you brought back were intended as a pay-off?”

“Yes and no,” Sholto said. “Pruitt said she’d moved the treasure there so it would be safe from rising waters and falling buildings, but also so it would be found by anyone who came to Manhattan via the Bronx. Originally, according to her, she wanted the treasure to be found. But then she bargained for an extension to the truce by handing the treasure, or its location, to the pirates. The Floridians, though, had no interest in art. I’m positive they were only interested in granting that extension because it also gave them a precise time when the New Yorkers would leave. That was supposed to be by ship, so the locals would be spread out along the Hudson, making them easy targets. The storm changed the plans, though not by much. The pirates still attacked on schedule. My turn for a question. What I’m curious to know is whether these extensions had any link to Temagami.”

“There’s no obvious link between Temagami and these NASA people,” Bill said. “That bride we found reported Herrera saying he’d been thrown out of New York, so that’s the story I’ll tell at the public meeting. We know, when Herrera reached upstate New York, he had just a handful of supporters. He must have picked up a few more people between upstate New York and Temagami. It was probably from somewhere along the lakes, though where, and on which side of the border, is a mystery they took to the grave. But because he arrived in upstate New York with so few, I don’t think there are any solid links between Pruitt, or the pirates, and the massacre at Temagami. There is probably some tangential connection now lost beneath the mud of history. Pruitt is dead. Herrera is dead. The cartel is gone, but the Floridians are still alive, and you say there are hundreds of them?”

“There were, before the storm,” Sholto said. “That has to have slammed into them as hard as it hit the New Yorkers. We only saw one pirate ship, the old fishing trawler. I’m going to assume they lost some of their vessels, and maybe some people, to the flood. According to Antonio, back when the Floridians first arrived and were acting friendly, they said that a string of nukes were detonated across the panhandle, effectively cutting Florida off from the rest of the U.S. Add to that that they arrived last year, and were looking for a new home. The Kennedy Space Centre might have provided fuel, but it was a finite resource, and that entire region is massively urbanised. Did I mention the Connecticut River?”

“You said it was foaming red,” Bill said.

“That wasn’t hyperbole,” Sholto said. “Anywhere massively urbanised will have had a similar problem. Add in a few storms, and some polluted groundwater, and I could see why the Floridians wanted to leave. Soon after they reached New York, and this wasn’t long after the Canadian deserters brought their premature news everyone up here was dead, the last group from West Point arrived with news that the fortress-school was intact, and contained supplies. Thus, I can see how the pirate leaders reasoned that if they controlled West Point, they would control the Hudson, and so rule from New York to Albany.”

“But you said you don’t think the pirates are an immediate threat,” Bill said.

“Not to us here, and not within the next few weeks,” Sholto said. “But they are dangerous. When Tuck, Sorcha, and I first left, we talked about an airstrike, or sending in a team of Special Forces, to blow up West Point. I’m guessing that’s not an option.”

“If you mean can the Pacific provide us with a military solution, no,” Bill said. “Scott and his wife are old friends of the current Deputy Prime Minister of Australia who also holds the position of Speaker of the Assembly. It sounds like her dad is babysitting Scott’s son while he and Liu are on this trip. That makes them the elite in the Pacific. And because of that, they got permission to search for us. But that mission had to piggyback off an expedition to Japan, and so had to begin in the Pacific. When Scott came to Alma, thinking that he had to help attack Temagami, he did so with ten soldiers and some spare rifles. That’s the kind of immediate assistance we’ll get. In time, I’m sure that the Pacific could put together a truly awesome strike force, but it would take months to reach us, and maybe as long to assemble.”

“The pirates will be gone in weeks,” Sholto said.

“Are you sure? You didn’t say that to Janet.”

“On the ship, Tuck, Flora, and I were discussing military options,” he said. “But it was what Janet said about the fishing that crystallised the idea.”

“Do you mean how she said the fishing around here has been terrible since the storm?”

“Pretty much, and the tempest was far worse further south,” Sholto said. “The Hudson was massively polluted before the outbreak. While the waters might have settled, that storm, that flood, will have made it truly toxic. It’ll take weeks to settle again, and a season for the fish to return. Thanks to the flood, the groundwater will have been contaminated. In turn, that’ll kill off any fruit-bearing trees or bushes. There won’t be much forage. The pirates might be able to hunt, but if birds and deer can’t find forage, the wildlife will flee. Plus, there were zombies in that area. Game will be scarce. Water will be low. Ammo’s non-existent. Meanwhile, the danger remains high.”

“You said you grabbed a bag of bullets.”

“Exactly,” Sholto said. “They were stripping civilian weapons.”

“There are two words which should never belong together,” Bill said.

“You really are a Londoner at heart,” Sholto said. “But that tells me that they weren’t just stockpiling guns and ammo, but creating a cache for immediate use. With the way things turned out, and when that trawler turned up, they were always going to break the truce, and had co-ordinated the time for the attack, but they were short on ammo. Maybe their ammo was stored on a ship lost in the storm, who knows? It’s unlikely they’ll find any more.”

“There was none left in West Point?” Bill asked.

“No,” Sholto said. “The New Yorkers were using ceremonial rifles. The superintendent, when he left, took most of the ammo with him, even taking the machine guns from their defences at the bridge. There was enough food left at the academy for a couple of weeks, depending on how many Floridians survive. But no ammo, not that much fuel, and no drinking water. Yes, it’s built like a fortress, but who are they defending against?”

“Not us,” Bill said. “They could be an even bigger problem if they leave.”

“Yes and no,” Sholto said. “From what I saw, they rule by fear, probably seasoned with a splash of collective guilt. The storm wrecked their plans, and will have ruined their cohesion. They’ll add up the fuel, and the ships’ captains will weigh the benefits of returning to Florida against taking a truck into the unknown.”

“Would that bring them north?” Bill asked.

“Maybe,” Sholto said. “We told that psycho, Tippy, we’d come from Nova Scotia. But she knows we got out alive, and will be looking for her trawler. If she can, she’ll head south to somewhere with fresh water. If she can’t, she might cull her people so the supplies will last until the rivers run clear. But there is a chance she thinks they can replicate their plan for New York up here in Nova Scotia.”

“Now we know about the Pacific, there’s no reason to fight for Digby,” Bill said. “Of course, we do know about the Pacific and will tell everyone who arrives, so perhaps those pirates won’t want to fight for it, either.”

“Not if we’re leaving,” Sholto said. “And if we are leaving, they may decide to wait until we’re gone before they claim this land as their own.”

“I don’t suppose the New Yorkers can give any firmer idea of what the Floridians might do?” Bill asked.

“Nope,” Sholto said, “because it’ll come down to how many ships they still have, how much fuel, and whether they have more people and supplies left in Florida, or anywhere between.”

“That’s frustrating,” Bill said. “But I suppose it’s not really different to Anglesey, or Faroe, or what it’ll be like in Puget Sound. We won’t know the people who we collect along the way, or those who’ll drift in over the coming years. We won’t know what they did to survive, and we are in no position to judge. We’ll need an amnesty, like on Anglesey.”

“Even for the Floridians?” Sholto asked.

“An amnesty has to be universal,” Bill said. “Kim and I talked about this. The outbreak brutalised us all. Everyone here, and everyone out there in the wilderness. None of us are innocent, but so very few of us are truly guilty. It is always difficult to predict the future, but this coming exodus, this evacuation, should mark the end of that time of violent self-preservation. We’ll have to do better. We’ll have to be better. We’ll have an amnesty. We’ll have laws. I’m glad we’ve got Colm with us. We’ll need cops, but we’ll need reconciliation even more.”

“I take it we are leaving, then? All of us? It’s been decided?” Sholto asked.

“Yes. And it would have been the same decision even if you’d brought different news from New York, and if we’d not met Scott,” Bill said. “The decision was made on Newfoundland. We’re extracting barely more oil than we use to transport it. Right now, we’re tapping into the Alman supply, and that is getting dangerously low. We’re moving to Puget Sound. Precisely where is a question to be answered. Since the Pacific want our ships, they’ll have to send oil to fill their engines. Unless I misunderstood Scott, they don’t have the ability to ship it by sea, so it’ll have to come overland. If they’re sending fuel for the ships, they can send us some diesel for RVs. This time, everyone will take their homes with them. That way, we take our time searching for a new home when we arrive.”

“We’re giving the Pacific the helicopters, too?” Sholto asked.

“Yep. I assume those will be transported by road to the Pacific, and then moved by ship from there, but that’s up to their engineers. And that’s assuming they want all the helicopters. We’ve got a land route from Alma to Smooth Rock Falls, and the people from Otter Rapids were looking for a route to Lake Winnipeg. There’s still half of Canada to cross, but we can get Scott to scout the western roads from the air. From that, we can calculate the minimum amount of fuel the Pacific needs to send.”

“Do they know of any oil fields?” Sholto asked. “Before you found Scott, we were talking about sending an expedition west to look for oilfields, and only leaving here if we found them.”

“Right. No, I don’t think his people were looking for oilfields. He did overfly some zombies in British Columbia, so this is not going to be an easy journey.”

“It wasn’t going to be that anyway,” Sholto said. “But this time, we’re leaving rather than fleeing, and not travelling into the complete unknown. When do we depart?”

“Impossible to tell,” Bill said.

“Because didn’t Napatchie say no one was farming?”

“I suppose it was inevitable, and it happened on Anglesey, too,” Bill said. “As word about the Pacific spread, people stopped working so hard clearing the fields. We won’t get much of a harvest here.”

“And the fishing has become terrible,” Sholto said.

“Yes, but we can rely on the Pacific for some bulk supplies,” Bill said. “I think we can. I hope we can. There will be hunting, as long as no one minds eating bear. The Almans have prepped a few fields, so we might get a harvest there, but I think we’ll have to hunt and forage, and put some real effort into hydroponics next winter.”

“We said that last year,” Sholto said. “I’d say it’s a ten-day drive. But even with RVs, there’ll be too many people to travel in one convoy. We’ll want to stagger departure, and set up refuelling stations along the way. There’s no point wasting diesel carrying it all the way here only to carry it half the way back again.”

“Right, and those petrol stations will have to be guarded,” Bill said. “We’ll have to send an advance team, but even so, I think we can move everyone within a month of the fuel arriving. It’s probably a month until that can arrive, depending on where it’s coming from, and whether the ships are available, but that’ll give us time to find the vehicles.”

“So we’re leaving without a vote?” Sholto asked.

“Look around,” Bill said. “Annette began packing the moment she heard about Alma, and she wasn’t the only one. When they heard the news about the Pacific, everyone else started looking for bags. No one will be forced to leave, but I don’t think anyone wants to stay here, not even those who called it home before the outbreak.”

“Sounds like you’ve got the future well planned.”

“Not even close,” Bill said. “Even if we can produce enough oil to refuel a cargo ship, and fill its hold with loot, our presence in Puget Sound is predicated on the Pacific maintaining a presence in Japan, which depends on them decommissioning the nuclear power stations. Chief Watts is sceptical they will. The admiral, in response, wants Flora to command our ships as they sail south, and for them to refuel near the Panama Canal.”

“Is it open?”

“No. It’s blocked, but repairable,” Bill said. “That’s as much as Scott told me. But if we can drive fuel tankers six thousand kilometres across Canada, they can certainly be driven the sixty kilometres across Panama. But Janet also wants Flora to assess whether a permanent base can be established there. If humanity survives the next decade, we will need that shortcut between the oceans. Easier to repair it than rebuild it, and better we control it than allow one group of pirates or another to seize it.”

“Right, and if Japan falls, we’d have a potential alternate home in Central America.”

“Another home, another harbour,” Bill said. “Maybe we can set one up in California or Mexico, and so have a string of harbours, within sailing distance of one another. With the future so uncertain, it’s good to have options. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, we need a land route to Alma. I was hoping you’d return to the road.”

“I was going to anyway,” Sholto said. “I can’t stop Antonio from searching for Demarkos and Solomon, so I was going to go with him. Luca volunteered, so of course Gonzo and Rulz did, too.”

“It’s been too long,” Bill said. “You won’t find them.”

“Not if we don’t look,” Sholto said.

“Sure, but they knew they were being pursued by the pirates. They won’t have left any clues as to where they were heading. Any clues you do find will probably be bluffs.”

“Someone has to make the effort,” Sholto said.

Bill drummed his fingers on his cup. “I need a map. Hang on.” He walked back to the door, and to the hook on which his bag was hung. “Right,” he said, returning to the living room. “Where would you look?”

“Look north of Albany until you find Troy. North of that there’s an island which Demarkos mentioned as a fallback rendezvous.”

Bill ran his finger along the Hudson until he reached Albany. Then he continued running it north. “First, you’re going to drive due west to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. You’ll keep an eye on the Geiger counter, and drive north to Montreal. Can we cross the St Lawrence there? If not, you’ll drive south, and find us a bridge across the Richelieu River. If there’s none, you’ll keep going south, until you get to that island, noting the bridges along the way. Leon was scouting the Ottawa River. The radio reported he got back yesterday and his mission was a success, though I don’t know whether that just means everyone who set out returned alive. I’m going to ask him to approach Montreal from the north, and then wait for you to make contact via radio. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and we can cross there. Either way, you are to report what you’ve found to him before you turn south. And you are to return here within ten days of setting out, because that’s when the real mission begins.”

“You mean the next couple of weeks will be a holiday?” he asked.

“I need you to go west,” Bill said. “When you get there, you’ll need to go south and then north. We need to know what’s out there, where the zombies are, and how many there are. We need… we need so much, because we’re starting again, but this time, we’ll do it right. We’ll make it work. We have to.”

16th April

Epilogue - Leaving the Past Behind

Alma, Quebec

“All aboard who’s going aboard,” Scott said. “Tickets at the ready.”

“Can I fly up front?” Jay asked.

“No, but you can sit on the wing if you like,” Scott said.

“C’mon, Mum!” Annette called.

“It’s Bill we’re waiting on,” Kim said.

“I’m almost done,” Bill said, adding one last line to the radio message which would be relayed back to Digby. “There.” He handed it to Chrissie who saluted, and dashed off.

“What did you say?” Kim asked, handing him back his new cane, a gift from George and Mary with a sword concealed inside and the profile of a pen etched on the handle. “For that matter, what did the message from Digby say?”

“They reported that there is a bridge in Montreal,” Bill said.

“Where?” she asked.

“The message didn’t say.”

“What about the radiation?” she asked.

“Too high to linger, but maybe not so high we can’t drive through,” Bill said. “What’s not clear is whether it’s so high that, on having driven through, the vehicles would have to be abandoned, which would defeat the point of driving from Digby with our possessions. I’ve asked Leon to clarify.”

“Not Sholto?”

“The message is a day old,” Bill said. “Sholto moved south two days ago, which is still behind schedule.”

“Has he found anyone?”

“Not yet,” Bill said.

Alma’s airport was fuller than ever, the hangars having become service-yards for the RVs, trucks, and buses found nearby and claimed by the locals for the final exodus. If the airport was busier, so was the town, with people arriving from outlying settlements every day. Tom Wilgus had put them to work foraging, since that would be more immediately beneficial than farming, but it was clear the stretched resources of this settlement would soon break. The hope now was that the rest of the evacuation plans would come together before everything fell apart.

Conspicuous by their absence, however, were the people from Otter Rapids. Ethan and Alice had set out yesterday, taking Captain Stahl and some of the newly arrived locals familiar with the roads.

“You ready to go?” Scott asked. He’d arrived yesterday, and with an invitation for someone from Canada to return with him, all the way to Canberra. Clearly, the politicians Down Under were as frustrated by the slow pace of communication as the people of the north.

“Absolutely ready,” Kim said. “I can’t remember the last time I was on a plane.”

“I can,” Bill said.

“I promise we won’t crash this time,” Scott said.

“Can you really promise that?” Bill asked.

“Now there’s a question you should never ask a pilot,” Scott said. “I’ve got to admit, it’s not a bad job you’ve begun here. D’you know the prime minister reckoned you’d ask for an airlift in exchange for your ships? That’s why he sent you the invite to come meet him in person.”

“So he can tell us no to an airlift?” Kim asked.

“To ask you not to ask,” Scott said. “I don’t think the Alliance Senate would vote no. But if you’re making a go of it here in Canada you can ask them for whatever you want.”

“Good thing it’s a long journey for us to write that list,” Kim said. “Bill?”

“Yep,” he said, looking around for one last time, wondering if it would be the last time, or if he’d return to Alma once more. If he’d learned anything from his journeys since the outbreak it was that you could take a guess at the future, but never predict it.

He followed Kim aboard, and into the latest round of an argument which had been raging since they left Alma. The executive jet had ten individual seats at the front, equally split on each side of the narrow aisle, with the front pair facing backwards. Jay and Annette had taken the rear pair, while Daisy, currently asleep, was strapped into a travel chair at the very front.

“I didn’t say Americans,” Jay said. “We should call ourselves Ameri-Cans, like America and Canada mooshed together.”

“That’s absurdly confusing,” Annette said. “And we’re not being Can-icans, either.”

“I like the idea of being Pugeteers,” Bill said.

“Dad, please, this is serious,” Annette said.

Kim took his hand, and pulled him to his seat. “Leave the wise minds to decide,” she said. “Woah!” she added as the plane began to bump along the runway. “I forgot there wouldn’t be any pre-flight delays. Kids, you’re buckled in?”

“We’re fine,” Annette said.

Kim quickly buckled herself into the chair opposite Daisy. As the plane soared into the sky, their daughter began to stir.

“I hope she doesn’t mind flying,” Kim said.

“It’s not a long flight,” Bill said.

“Yes, but if she hates it, which of us is going to be left behind in Puget Sound?” Kim said. “I do so want to see Australia.”

Reflexively, Bill turned to the window, to look down on Canada, and its trees, its lakes, and its ruins. Even from above, the damage was obvious, so he turned away and took out his notebook.

“You’ve had an idea?” Kim asked.

“Not really,” Bill said. “I feel like I should. But everything seems to be falling into place more quickly and efficiently than I hoped.”

“Everyone’s done it before,” Kim said. “Now, if you’ve nothing else to write down, you can begin with the list of our demands for Canberra. Start with diesel, obviously. We’ll want some bulk foods and medicine to get us through the next few months. Some ammo, too. Probably a plane, and maybe we should keep a few helicopters until we’ve been to the oil wells. A lot of that would be in Puget Sound with the Pacific advance team, so what else do we need to make it into a self-sustaining community?”

“A string of communities,” Bill said. “If the zombies are gone, or when they finally are, we’ll have no need to keep people hemmed together.”

“Okay, sure, so what else do we need?”

Bill closed his book. “Nothing more than to be left alone, except for an occasional ship or plane bringing medicine and some bulk food. It’s not much.”

“You think we should ask for more?” she asked.

“No, I mean we have all we want. Having lost absolutely everything and everyone, and more than once, we know what holds true value in life. Love and friendship.”

“And tea,” Kim said. “By which I mean home comforts. Just a few of them, and just enough spare time in the day to enjoy them without constantly worrying about death and doom.”

“It isn’t much,” Bill said.

“But it’s more than enough, and no less than we’ve earned,” Kim said. “We did it, Bill. Thanks to each other.”

“Thanks to hope,” Bill said. “Hope kept us alive. Hope in a future. Hope in each other, in the girls, in our friends. Hope in strangers we’d not yet met, and some we never did meet in person. We had hope that, in a world wrecked by an unrepresentative handful of evil souls, everyone else would be good and kind and generous, just as long as we were the same. Yes, we can do better, but we were still the best we could be, and so we survived.”

“We did,” Kim said. “We survived. And now it’s time that we lived.”

The end.

Other Titles

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Other novels:

Surviving The Evacuation & Here We Stand

The outbreak began in New York. Within days, it had spread throughout the world. Nowhere is safe from the living dead. Books 1-3 are the journals of Bill Wright, a political operative trapped in London after the city is evacuated. Books 4-7 follow Nilda, a mother searching the wasteland for her son, and Chester, a criminal in search of repentance. Books 8 onward recount how humanity’s last survivors build a new society out of the ashes of the old world.

Here We Stand is the story of Tom Clemens, Jonas Jeffries, Martha Greene, and the other North American survivors, and the collapse of the United States. The struggles of the survivors in the Pacific are told in Life Goes On, beginning with Outback Outbreak.

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, 11: Search and Rescue, 12: Britain’s End, 13: Future’s Beginning, 14: Mort Vivant, 15: Where There’s Hope 16: Unwanted Visitors, Unwelcome Guests,

Life Goes On 1: Outback Outbreak, 2: No More News, 3: While the Lights Are On, 4: If Not Us, 5: No Turning Back

Surviving the Evacuation 17: There We Stood, 18: Rebuilt in a Day, 19: Welcome to the End of the Earth

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, 3: Endangered Nation, 4: Over by Christmas

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.

Thanks for reading.

Table of Contents

- Welcome to the End of the Earth Surviving the Evacuation Book 19 Frank Tayell

- Part 1
- Chapter 1 - Some of the Story So Far
- Chapter 2 - The Avenging Army

- Chapter 3 - The Kawasaki That Broke the Chevy’s Back

- Chapter 4 - Riverside Retreat
- Chapter 5 - The Cracks Appear
- Chapter 6 - Reality Check

- Chapter 7 - One Hundred Million Reasons to Leave

- Chapter 8 - A Yorkshire Greeting
- Chapter 9 - No Fishing
- Chapter 10 - Hot and Cold
- Chapter 11 - White for a Funeral
- Chapter 12 - Arriving Late to the Gunfight
- Chapter 13 - Polar Bear Air
- Chapter 14 - Worse Than Bears
- Chapter 15 - A Town Full of Ghosts
- Chapter 16 - Some of the Story to Come
- Chapter 17 - Behind the Curtain
- Part 2
- Chapter 18 - No Stone Unturned
- Chapter 19 - All Holidays End
- Part 3
- Chapter 20 - The World As It Is

- Chapter 21 - The Granite Lake Human Sanctuary

- Chapter 22 - Fire From Above

- Chapter 23 - Where No Zombie Would Be Seen Dead

- Chapter 24 - The Best-Worst Candidate
- Chapter 25 - After the Deluge
- Chapter 26 - The Last Salute
- Chapter 27 - Sirens
- Chapter 28 - Forward, Retreat
- Chapter 29 - Rising Troubles
- Chapter 30 - No Horseman, Plenty of Heads
- Chapter 31 - Edington and Normandy
- Chapter 32 - Unclear and Present Danger
- Chapter 33 - The Wisdom of Solomon
- Chapter 34 - Governing a Catastrophe

- Chapter 35 - When a Pirate Falls in the Woods, Does Anyone Hear?

- Chapter 36 - Avalanche

- Chapter 37 - Battles Won, Battles Lost, and Battles Still to Come

- Chapter 38 - Home Is Where You Pack Your Hat