He was sweating at the effort too, feeling out of shape. Glancing at Neil trying to recover made him feel better about his physical condition, and recognising the cruelty in that didn’t bother him one bit.

  Throwing his bag against a plastic tub lashed to the railings he settled himself into a comfortable standing spot and turned back to face the docks at the call of his name.

  Mitch, the only other person to know the true reason for their trip, stood holding something in his left hand that still looked odd on him. Since he and Alita had finally managed to have a little girl, the tough Scot had softened in so many ways. Unless his home or his family was threatened, that was, then he became capable of worse savagery than Dan had previously known but understood on a cellular level. The two of them had felt awkward around one another for a few weeks after they’d come to blows borne of stress and an excess of adrenaline, but neither of them were the type to hold a grudge against a friend for something so small as a punch-up.

  Dan watched as he tenderly kissed the mostly bald head of the pink and white bundle before turning to hand her over to Alita. The baby’s mother took her carefully, settling her in the crook of her right arm as she reached her left hand around the back of Mitch’s head to pull him towards her.

  Normally such a quiet, timid woman, Alita had evolved like so many of them had.

  Leah had become a strong, capable fighter who was brave and charismatic. Neil had put on more weight and enjoyed running what passed for the town’s first brewery. Alita had been transformed by motherhood, on top of the traumatic experience of defending her baby against an attacker, and had found a strength that she projected everywhere she went. She was still a quiet person, but behind that mask of meekness was a woman every bit as fierce and protective as the soldier she had married.

  Dan turned away, giving them their moment just as he had enjoyed his own in private, but inside he was awash with joy and relief that Mitch had agreed to come along after all.

  He’d been undecided for the last week since Dan had first decided he was going and began the campaign to wear Marie down into agreeing. Neil had willingly dropped everything and been prepared to leave the same afternoon, and Dan marvelled at how he never actually did anything fully for himself; he relied on one of the many people to follow him around and learn to do the things he did. Leaving the delicate task of managing the wooden casks of light ale and the noxiously strong cider made from the fruit of the apple orchards nearby in the hands of an understudy, Neil expressed his opinion that they needed another gun they could trust.

  “Mitch won’t want to go,” Dan had told him. “Not with the baby.”

  And he didn’t, not at first, but the evident eleventh-hour change of heart filled Dan with an immense feeling of relief.

  “I put your toys on the big boat yesterday,” Neil said, shooting a wry smile at Dan who he’d kept in the dark about Mitch joining them.

  “And more supplies?” Dan asked, logic and logistics taking over.

  “And more supplies,” Neil promised. Dan met Mitch’s gaze as the soldier climbed aboard and offered him his hand. Mitch took it, squeezing with his own as he smiled at Dan.

  “Back on the road again,” he said.

  “Like a reunion tour,” Neil said as he leaned back against the rail to extend his large belly in their direction. “You know, like we were in a band in the early nineties or something. Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if a group set up shop in an old Butlins resort?”

  Dan and Mitch ignored him, recognising his turbo-talking and bad jokes as a cover for his excitement and trepidation, as the boat’s engine barked and revved.

  “Knock, knock,” Neil blurted out after a chuckle that told Dan he already found himself hilarious.

  “Who’s there?” he replied reluctantly, knowing he’d likely regret playing along.

  “Maia.”

  “Maia who?”

  “Maia hee, maia haa, maia HA-haa.”

  Dan did well to hide the embarrassed laugh that threatened to escape his mouth and turned to give Mitch a withering look, recognising the same suppressed laughter in his expression. Neil, evidently satisfied with himself, walked off still humming the rest of the tune.

  Mateo was steering the boat from the controls on deck, as using the comfortable captain’s seat inside the cabin would mean releasing the dog who had his face pressed up to the glass fixing his owner with a death stare.

  It took them only a few minutes to reach the yacht. Dan looked up at it and thought it was less than half the size of the one they’d all packed into so long ago, but given that it was only going to be five men and a dog they hardly needed the extra rooms.

  As the engine idled and they bobbed alongside the bigger vessel in its shadow, Dan picked up the life jacket he’d brought for a specific purpose and let Ash out on deck.

  The response was immediate, and he felt bad at his involuntary laugh at the dog’s expense. Ash tumbled from the small cabin and weaved left and right like he was escaping an unstable structure. Dan caught him before he meandered too close to the side of the boat and knelt to lift his front paws in turn and zip the vest up along his back being careful not to catch the thick fur. In addition to the moving deck that destabilised the unfortunate animal, Ash now had to contend with being forced to wear clothing.

  “For your own good, mate,” Dan said, standing and using the straps on the vest to haul him up. Ash had never been a small dog, but feeling as out of shape as Dan did and trying to lift over a third of his own body weight as it thrashed and struggled against him made him far heavier than he was. With Neil’s help from the deck of their ride, Ash was pulled aboard and the others followed. Mateo, the last man aboard, turned and spoke in slow Spanish to the French-speaking man on the deck of the fishing boat before dropping his own bag inside and climbing up to what Neil still called the flight deck to start the engines and pull up the anchor.

  PLAIN SAILING

  Ash, true to form, bolted for the lower decks as soon as he was onboard, catching his life jacket on every doorway as he yelped and skittered his way to find somewhere dark and enclosed to vomit in peace.

  Dan, heaving his own bag off the deck as the wind began to pick up, lifted Mateo’s pack and carried it down the narrow stairs to the lower deck to drop it on one of the bunks. Other rooms, or cabins as people insisted on calling a room when it was on a boat, had been given over to storing their gear and the additional fuel their journey would require.

  He opened one door, seeing a sight laid out on one of the beds that made his body tingle with a mixture of excitement and appreciation. He picked up his own gun, as individual as it was courtesy of the additions he’d made, checking it and resting it back down to lift the old plate-carrying vest he’d worn so many times.

  He hadn’t worn it since the day he’d piloted a small boat out into the deep water near their home and given himself up to the people – if they could even be called that – who had besieged their coastline.

  It felt heavier than he remembered, as he went through the natural routine of filling his lungs with air to give the measure of how tight it needed to be, sucking in his gut at the same time as all the Velcro fasteners found their perfect fit. Settling the spare, loaded magazines for his carbine into the pouches, he added one to the weapon which he clipped to the sling attached to the vest. The gun from his hip went into the holster on the chest after he added the fat suppressor to the end of the barrel. He popped the clasp on the sheath attached to the left shoulder strap and pulled the knife from it before replacing and securing it.

  Finally, and with a degree of reverence which others would have found bizarre to watch, he lifted the short, fat shotgun from where it sat and carefully loaded it with heavy shot before reversing it and slotting it into the elasticated holder sewn to the back of his vest.

  Dressed for war, and feeling a little more like the person he recognised himself to be, he went back outside onto the deck where he pulled a tin from his leg pocket and struggled to strike a flame in the breeze of the open water. He was forced back inside the main cabin to light the smoke before stepping smartly outside and letting out the cloud from his mouth and nostrils.

  “Not even past the end of the road and he’s already changed into a mini-skirt,” Neil quipped, raising his voice over the rush of air as they sailed into the wind.

  “Well,” Dan shot back, playing along, “you’re not going out dressed like that, missy.”

  Neil looked down at his T-shirt, loose trousers and comfortable shoes.

  “Fair point,” he admitted, walking past Dan to go and change. Dan saw Mitch at the aft rail, staring back at their home as it grew smaller and became obscured by the shoreline.

  Eventually, he knew, Sanctuary would disappear into the rocky cliffs that made it such an easy place to defend, and the only unnatural blemish on the landscape would be the straight edges of their sky fort overlooking their home. He decided to leave Mitch to his own thoughts, knowing that he wouldn’t be there if he didn’t want to be.

  “Dressed to impress,” Mitch announced softly as he approached. Dan hadn’t seen him leave the railing, hadn’t seen him turn his back on their home and take a breath to transform himself into the person he’d been before his life had grown comfortable there.

  “Yeah,” Dan answered, not sure how else to respond. “They’ll be fine, mate,” he said, making the statement so close to a question that he needed to clear his throat and repeat it more firmly. “They’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, I know they will,” Mitch told him. “We’ve trained a good bunch, and there’s more than one person there capable of keeping it all on the rails when we’re away.”

  Dan’s mind ran through the lists of people assigned to ensure the safety and security of Sanctuary remained intact and unmolested in their absence, and he was sure of the man left in charge.

  He had better be, he told himself, given that the man was his son-in-law now.

  “All your stuff’s down below,” Dan told him, meaning his personal weapon which he assumed Neil had smuggled onboard. Mitch nodded his thanks or his understanding, Dan couldn’t tell which, and walked inside.

  Looking down at the rolled cigarette between this forefinger and thumb, Dan was annoyed to see that half of it had burned down to leave a curled tube of ash attached to it. He shook it away, lifting it to his mouth to take a long, final draw on it before flicking it away over the side. He climbed the ladder to the flight deck, careful not to knock the suppressor against the metal rungs, and joined Mateo.

  “We make Barcelona later today,” he said after glancing over his shoulder to see who it was climbing the ladder. He showed no reaction to Dan being in his full gear; it was a sight he’d seen plenty of times before and had even played taxi to some of their more dangerous activities earlier that year.

  “Valencia the morning after if we are having lucky. In two days is your Gibraltar. Another two and we will be passing by the coast of Galicia.”

  Dan thought he made hundreds of miles hugging the south coast of mainland Europe sound easy. To him, a man who had spent his life in coastal waters, it was.

  To Dan, well, he nearly got everyone killed crossing the Channel in summer.

  “And after that?”

  “After that we cross into deeper water for a day, then we find France.”

  “Then we head into the Channel and get to the east coast,” Dan finished, sounding less certain than Mateo had done.

  “Yes, then we follow our noses for the smell…”

  Dan responded to the weak jab at the country of his birth with all the aloof condescension he could learn from both Leah and Marie combined by pointedly ignoring it. Mateo smirked, daring Dan to bite back, but Dan decided that a few days spent at the controls with Neil for company would be all the payback he would need.

  “And we’re good for fuel?” Dan asked, for about the tenth time since Mateo had first mapped out their route.

  “So long as your friend has fuel for us at the places, then yes. We keep the speed only as fast as we need to, okay?”

  Dan nodded. He’d had the long explanation from Neil which he’d switched off part of his hearing to when it became overly technical just for the sake of it. Long story short, Mateo had tested their yacht up the coast towards Marseille and back to find the optimum cruising speed with fuel economy in mind. Dan had to agree that it was better to turn up a day or two after they technically could have arrived if they made sure they didn’t have to worry about a refuelling stop along the way. That didn’t qualify as a plan in his mind, and would likely result in him making it back to Sanctuary on a rusty pedal bike in time for Leah’s baby’s first birthday.

  Dan lapsed into silence, treating himself to another of his cigarettes and begrudgingly offering one to Mateo who he had seen smoking a pipe on occasion. He thought as he smoked, wondering if he should get a pipe too as it was far easier than rolling his own. He abandoned the thought as he wouldn’t be able to get used to not having it between his fingers, and wasn’t exactly in short supply of them.

  Neil called out as he climbed the ladder, this time putting on an appallingly extravagant and, Dan had to admit, mildly racist stereotypical French accent.

  “Permission to come on deck?” he drawled sleazily.

  He didn’t turn, but part of him expected the man to appear dressed as a mime wearing a beret with a string of onions around his neck and holding a stick of French bread like a firearm.

  He didn’t, luckily, although Dan couldn’t quite shake the mental image. Dan did however have to stifle a smile, as Neil had obviously neglected to update his sizing in the tactical gear. His growing belly, a thing Neil was quick to show people he was proud of, strained at the black shirt he wore and threatened to expose a flash of pasty white skin at the midriff. The trousers were a little snug in the seat – something he was obviously conscious of as he tugged and fussed at the affected area in discomfort – and when combined with the weapons and vest Dan couldn’t contain himself any longer. He cracked, laughing at the sight of his friend.

  “What?” Neil challenged him with narrowing eyes. “Come on, get it off your chest.” He leaned back, inviting Dan to give him his best with beckoning hands.

  “We…we need to give you a callsign…” He sobbed through laughter he was still trying to hold back. He was sure it wasn’t the wind in his face, but tears began to leak from his eyes with the effort of keeping it all inside.

  “Wait, wait,” he gasped, “I’ve got one…” He doubled over with laughter just as Mitch joined them and almost fell off the ladder as he fought the urge to point as he laughed.

  “Meal…” he gasped, snorting involuntarily which made them all laugh harder. “Meal Team Six!” he wailed, clutching at his side.

  “No, wait,” Mitch squeaked. “How about Hambo?”

  Dan squealed, catching Neil’s blank expression and knowing that he would crack eventually.

  “Spets—” Dan stopped, cutting himself off with a hacking cough that he fought to control. When he could speak again his voice was hoarse. “Spetsnacks!”

  Mitch let out a roaring belly laugh in response and almost lost his footing a second time.

  “Alright,” Neil said. “You’ve had your fun.” He tried to squeeze past them to descend the ladder and get changed, retaining his dignity as both Dan and Mitch still laughed when they got out of his way. Neil made everything infinitely worse when he swung his leg out first to spin and face the correct way for the ladder, filling the tiny silence with the pitch-perfect kkkkrtch of ripping material.

  They were still laughing intermittently over an hour later. One would chuckle, either dreaming up another comment to deploy when the time came or simply recalling the incident, then the other would catch the hilarity like an infection and it would spread uncontrollably until both were collapsed in fits of laughter again.

  Neil tutted loudly at them, decrying them as children whenever he passed their sniggering to bring Mateo food and drinks.

  By late afternoon they had passed by Barcelona. Dan stared north over the railing on the aft deck, seeing nothing but a distant sprawl of dead and decaying buildings. He thought for a moment about how bad things would’ve been in the early days with so many people packed into the big cities. How any survivor would likely go out of their minds surrounded by so many dead.

  His mind turned back to that time, and how they’d somehow all made a conscious decision never to go anywhere near the city. He knew it was the right call, especially given as the one time they got close to it they’d been attacked by a pack of dogs. He shivered at the memory, his back convulsing as the shudder ran down his spine.

  “Cold?” Mitch asked from behind him, staggering towards the rail as an unexpected swell of water forced the deck to wobble. Reaching the railing he clamped his left hand on to it and tried to steady his right hand to bring the mug to his lips. He slurped loudly, adding a satisfied aaah, and turned to Dan wearing a light brown moustache of froth over his salt-and-pepper beard.

  “Where’d you find hot chocolate?” Dan demanded jealously.

  “In the kitchen. Great big tub of the stuff.”

  “Galley,” Dan corrected him for no real reason. “And it must be out of date by now.”

  “Only by a year,” Mitch countered evenly, as if the standards of whether something so rare was spoiled or not existed on a sliding scale instead of something absolute. “And so long as you break up the lumpy bits you’d never know.”

  Dan pulled a face that said he wasn’t entirely convinced, but knew he’d probably try it anyway.

  “We should be stopping in about three hours, Mateo reckons,” he said to change the subject. “Stretch our legs and see if Ash has forgiven me yet.”

 

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