No turning back, p.27
No Turning Back, page 27
“Jinx,” he said, while the zombie stumbled, tripped, and splashed back into the brackish ditch.
“If,” Olivia said, “you ever wonder when precisely I began to have misgivings about the wisdom of leaving the ship, it was now. Corrie, did you check the radiation when we set down?”
“We’re fine,” Corrie said. “Just don’t drink the water.”
“Very serious misgivings,” Olivia said, glancing back at the still-splashing zombie.
Pete had never adjusted to how relentlessly fast the icebreaker could move, despite often seeming glacially slow. Now, he felt like a snail, and his shell grew heavier with each step. New York hadn’t been like this, nor Thunderbolt or Delmarva. But they’d no home to return to this time, and the backpack was hardly a protective castle into which he could retreat.
Drawing on memories of New York, Delmarva, and Thunderbolt only brought forth memories of Corn Island. There’d not been much walking there except to go outside for an occasional torture. It was mostly psychological, thanks to Corrie, and even fake executions can become routine.
“The zoms are ignoring us,” Olivia whispered. “No, don’t look. Oh, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Look south, at the far edge of the trees, they’re heading towards the helicopter. I don’t think they’ve seen us.”
Pete looked up at the trees, back at the still visible helicopter, then at the road ahead. “Any who are on the road will be heading straight towards us,” he said.
“Ah. Guess we should hurry,” Olivia said.
“That doesn’t look promising,” Olivia said, as the motorbike showroom came into view.
The roadside signage had given them a clear early warning their destination lay ahead. The giant poster showed Lisa herself astride a low-rider beneath the slogan: Freedom Is for Everyone.
Part showroom, part gas station, part repair shop, it was completely wrecked. The showroom’s floor-to-ceiling windows had been smashed, the stock taken. From how a manual crank was inserted into the pump, the fuel was gone, too.
“We won’t find any wheels here,” Corrie said, giving a discarded and split tyre a kick. “Not which are still attached to an axle.”
“No, and I don’t plan to,” Lisa said. “A track runs north into the woods from just over there. Two kilometres away is a shack. There is a car parked inside, and fuel buried beneath. But first, I need to give Mr and Mrs Guinn their wedding gift.”
“A wedding gift?” Pete asked. “I don’t think this is the time.”
“Surely the lesson from the last three months is that we must sometimes make the time, because none of us know how much of it we have left,” Lisa said. “This way, it won’t take long.”
Rufus gave a warning growl.
“Yes, I’ve seen it,” Lisa said, picking up a discarded pitchfork from among the debris. She stabbed it down into the skull of the zombie crawling across the broken glass. It was far from the only body outside the showroom, and there were even more inside, but no others moved.
At least a dozen, all zombies, all dead, had fallen increasingly close together in a line leading to a rear door. Around them lay discarded shotgun shells, but far more tools to suggest a hard-won victory for any survivors.
“We appear to be alone,” Lisa said, walking through the showroom and to the garage behind. “Rufus, do you agree? Good.”
“Escapees from the town,” Pete said, turning a slow circle, looking for more of the crawling undead. “You’d stay at home as long as you could. But after the bombs, you’d know no help was coming. You’d want to go west, to the mountains. You’d remember there was an out-of-town showroom, so you’d come here hoping to grab some more fuel and wheels.”
“Exactly,” Lisa said, stopping by the sump. “But to go where? There is no purpose in flight without a destination. Corrie, would you mind using that hook to lift the grate?”
“Unless they were fleeing radiation,” Olivia said.
Kempton descended the five short steps into the recessed pit. She drew her knife and attempted to use the blade as a screwdriver to remove the redundant sign warning people against a naked flame. “Ah, this won’t do. Can anyone see a crowbar?”
Corrie passed one of the discarded, and bloody, tools down to her. With a loud crack, the sign split in two. With a little scraping, Lisa found a groove into which the knife fit. With an even louder crack, a concealed panel popped out revealing a mechanical keypad behind.
“The code is 1776,” Lisa said. “My little joke.”
After tapping it in, the entire floor at the base of the sump began to retract, slowly clicking into the wall. The drift of leaves and oil dripped down onto stairs that continued down into darkness.
“Another tunnel? No way,” Pete said.
“Not a tunnel, no,” Lisa said, taking a flashlight from her belt. “It’s a cellar. You will want to see this. Please.”
“Best do it,” Corrie said. “It’ll be the quickest way out of here.”
The tunnel led into a low-roofed, cement-walled cellar, barely two metres high, but five wide, and ten deep, running underneath the showroom. The chamber contained boxes, but Lisa made for the largest, just over two metres long, and one and a half tall, but only half a metre deep. She pressed a catch at the top, and the front of the box swung down. Inside, was a long, tall, and thin transparent Perspex box. Inside the box, a desperate crew of sailors struggled to save their ship from a tumultuous storm.
“It’s a painting,” Olivia said.
“It is Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” Lisa said.
“This is a weird place to keep pictures,” Pete said.
“Would it be so weird were I to tell you they were stolen?” Lisa said. “Here, you will also find Van Gogh’s Poppy Flowers, Vermeer’s The Concert, and a few other missing treasures. They are now yours.”
Pete shone his light on the picture, but between the gloom of the cave, and the reflection off the plastic, it was hard to make out more than a few brushstrokes. “Thanks,” he said uncertainly.
Kempton closed the box. “Now, they are no more, or less, valuable than any artwork hanging in any museum. However, I suspect these will be easier for you to recover in good time.”
“Corrie, do you want to come see?” Pete called up.
“Nope. I want to find some wheels,” she said.
“A wise choice,” Lisa said.
Outside, Kempton tapped four zeros on the keypad. The gate swung closed. She returned the grating to the sump. “I doubt anyone will come this way again, and if they do, what will they find?”
“So why bring us?” Olivia asked.
“Can we talk as we walk?” Corrie asked. “The day is already getting away from us.”
“Certainly,” Lisa said. “There’s a track on the other side of the road. Come.”
Pete picked up his bag. “Those paintings are all stolen?”
“Indeed,” Lisa said.
“By you?”
“I would prefer to describe my actions as recovering and preserving them. I owe all three of you more than I can possible repay, but I must try.”
“They’re big paintings, so I guess we should start shopping for a big house,” Olivia said.
“At least Australia isn’t short on room,” Pete said.
“I doubt Ms Qwong will allow you to keep the paintings,” Lisa said. “However, when you return to Australia, you should tell the press that you know the location of the world’s most famous missing art work. You should publicly demand an expedition to retrieve them so they can be put on display. That is your gift.”
“That’s an odd gift,” Pete said.
“Where’s this track?” Corrie asked. “You said there was a track leading to a cabin.”
“Just beyond that tow-truck,” Lisa said.
“Careful, there’s a zom beneath the tyres,” Olivia said.
The zombie was mostly beneath the tyres, but already ripping its guts to shreds as it pulled and twisted, trying to reach the warm-bloods. Pete hacked the axe down in a vicious overhead swing, and missed completely. The blade dug deep into the dirt. He jumped sideways, out of its reach, adjusting his aim before stabbing the short spear point into the pinned zombie’s skull.
“Next modification should be to flatten the underside of the blade, and widen it, so you can stamp down like on a shovel,” he said.
Though the truck’s keys were in the ignition, the fuel cap had been removed. Presumably after the zombie had been run over, which begged the question of why the driver hadn’t finished the pitiful creature.
They followed the rutted track away from the highway. Last night’s rain glistened on the shaded ferns huddled beneath the overgrown canopy.
“Someone’s driven this way recently,” Corrie said, pointing at a dusting of leaves and twigs ripped from a zealous thicket encroaching onto the track.
“Yes, that was a possibility,” Lisa said.
“How many people knew about this fuel stash?” Corrie asked as ahead, Rufus paused, before dashing on a few feet. Corrie dashed after him, but waved them to follow.
“Around twenty knew of the fuel,” Lisa said. “Realistically, there are only three who might have used it, John, Loretta, or Emma-Lee.”
“John the hostage? And Loretta was the FBI agent, right?” Olivia said. “Who was Emma-Lee?”
“The owner of the showroom, and my agent in these parts,” Lisa said. “She knew nothing at all of my wider plans, but was simply a guard for those paintings who would ensure, when the time came, they were revealed to the world.”
“Okay, so explain that,” Pete said. “And the paintings.”
“They are your get out of jail free card,” Lisa said. “When we get to Australia, assuming it hasn’t collapsed, journalists will be sent to gather your stories. Yours in particular, Mr Guinn. It is inspiring, even aspirational, in that it will give hope to many that their loved ones abroad might still be alive.”
“I wouldn’t call hiking through zom-land aspirational,” Pete said.
“But it won’t be your words they print,” Lisa said. “The journalists will use hyperbole and bombast to create a readership-boosting narrative, probably serialised and stretched over many weeks as a preventative against they themselves being sent out to find a new story. But what happens when your tale is told?”
“We tell them about the paintings,” Olivia said. “I get it. It’s propaganda. It’s a fable. Coming to rescue some famous paintings is a pretty good sequel.”
“Those paintings aren’t just famous,” Lisa said. “They were famously stolen and missing for decades.”
“Seeing the trouble they had sending that one ship, I can’t see them sending another just for some pictures,” Pete said. “Not even if a newspaper tells them to.”
“Really?” Lisa asked. “You underestimate our need for gossip, myth, and legend. And it won’t be a newspaper. It will be the radio. Perhaps the TV, depending on how tightly rationed electricity becomes. Wood and linen will be too scarce to turn into paper when sanitary, medical, and building demands will be so much higher. That is what life will become in that final bastion of our species: unsanitary, of poor health, and poorly housed. We shall all be cold in the winter, baking in the summer, and exhausted all year round. Radio will once again be a worker’s lifeline to a world beyond factory and dormitory, a picture-less window to a world they will never again visit. Yet they will want something more. They will settle for a story, but it will have to be a compelling one, and this is the best I can provide. Because it is your story, you three will accompany the expedition. You will be the heroes when it returns, and so there will be no repercussions for any association you had with me.”
Rufus paused, eyes narrowed at the sprawling undergrowth.
Corrie raised a cautioning hand, then shook her head. “Squirrel,” she said and trudged on.
“And what happens to you?” Pete asked.
“House arrest, I imagine,” Lisa said. “Until my ship comes in.”
Pete mulled that over, as they trudged on, and uphill. “So why are the paintings hidden there? Why did you steal them?”
“They were stolen to order, and not by, or for, me,” Lisa said. “But I stole them from the crooks who’d paid for that original theft. The heist was a whim. Call it a manifestation of my mid-life crisis. Or call it revenge, but it was surprisingly enjoyable. I will save the specifics until we have time to enjoy them, as it is definitely a tale worthy of the details. Having acquired the paintings, I was then at a loss as to what to do with them.”
“You could have returned them to their proper owners,” Olivia said.
“Yes, and I might have done that had events transpired otherwise,” Lisa said. “I navigated a narrow crevasse between the cartel and the authorities. A wrong move would have led either, or both, to fall on me. If I were arrested, I would have been dead before dawn. But death doesn’t have to mean defeat. Whatever story the cartel and their pet politicians told, it was essential to prove it was a lie. How to ensure that? By gaining the attention of journalists, and so the public, from across the world.”
“By letting them think you were an art thief as well?” Pete asked.
“I am an art thief,” Lisa said. “But art of that infamy requires authentication. I was reasonably confident the FBI’s art crime division was of no interest to the cartel. Nor were any of the major galleries, and every single curator would want to view those paintings. Amelia Court House has a well-funded local newspaper. They would ensure the story of the paintings’ discovery was printed.”
“Did you fund the local paper?” Olivia asked.
“Indirectly, yes,” Lisa said. “But questions about the paintings would lead to questions about this escape route I so obviously organised. It would lead to questions about Denmark.”
“What’s in Denmark?”
“That is another story for another time,” Lisa said. “But questions would lead to answers, and perhaps to the exposure of the cartel and their plot. I believe we’re here.”
They clearly weren’t the first.
The track led to an almost derelict cabin with a garage of about the same size, set inside a clearing.
“You said there was a car here?” Corrie asked, stepping out of the empty garage. “It’s gone. But I’m pretty positive that’s what drove down the track. Where did you keep the fuel?”
“There should be a concealed storage area hidden beneath a junction box,” Lisa said.
“We’ll keep watch,” Olivia said, though she turned her eyes to Rufus who sat on the cabin’s porch, watching the way they’d come.
“Here,” Corrie said, exiting the garage a minute later with a red plastic fuel can in her hands. “We can use that to refuel the tow truck at the bottom of the hill, then bring the vehicle up here for the rest, if it’ll work.”
“We’ve got fuel?” Pete asked.
“Enough for a thousand miles,” Corrie said. “We’ll be able to reach West Virginia, but not Savannah.”
“One problem at a time,” Pete said.
Chapter 34 - Jam Today
Cumberland County, Virginia
By the time they had the truck fuelled, three more corpses lay on the road, while above, the sun was already approaching its zenith.
When it came to sharing out driving duties, Pete won. As each mile slipped by, he wondered if he’d lost, and was just chasing a memory of happy days from a world which was gone. Slipping into his very-careful-load posture, he gripped the wheel tight, leaning forward, eyes flitting between the rear-mirror and the one remaining side mirror. Lisa shared the rear bench-seat with Rufus, while Corrie rode shotgun, and Olivia sat beside her, cycling through the radio stations.
“Just static,” Olivia said, finally giving up and switching the radio off.
“There are some Johnny Cash CDs back here,” Lisa said.
“Not here,” Olivia said, picking up the map. “Not yet. It’s about two hundred miles to the trap. I guess we could make that tonight.”
“Doubt it,” Pete said, slowing to navigate around another open-door car, abandoned on the road.
“We shouldn’t try,” Lisa said. “We’ll stop in two hours. Tomorrow, we’ll make our final approach, but stop about ten miles out. If possible, tonight, we might look for at least one bicycle. Otherwise, tomorrow, we’ll hike the final distance on foot, and cross-country. We’ll spend the afternoon surveying the trap, as you call it. We’ll make our move at night. The deed will be done before dawn, leaving you two full days to drive to Savannah, with one day to spare before the ship departs.”
“And what will you be doing?” Corrie asked.
“That will depend on who and how many we find in West Virginia,” Lisa said.
“We should have asked Tess for more time,” Olivia said. “But okay, so what happens when we get to the trap?”
“We spring it,” Lisa said. “We have gasoline. We have carbines. We’ll use an explosion, or a fire, to draw them out, then we’ll shoot them. Beyond that, until we can see what awaits us, we can’t plan the details.”
“Two hundred miles,” Olivia said. “Pete, we’re going north now. We need to be heading northwest.”
“Blame the road builders,” Pete said.
“There are no straight roads in Virginia,” Lisa said. “It is the indisputable proof that the Romans never crossed the Atlantic.”
“I don’t think that was in doubt,” Corrie said.
“Oh, it was,” Lisa said. “I knew a manganese magnate who built a Roman villa on the banks of the Mississippi. Originally a Latter Day Saint, he couldn’t stomach the abstemious lifestyle, and opted for a more bacchanalian belief system of his own devising. The central tenet was the notion that an entire Roman legion once crossed the Atlantic, sailed up the Miss, and came ashore exactly where he had built his house. I assumed there was something sinister going on, but aside from an over-fondness in speaking in Latin, he was a harmless eccentric who’d suffered a break from reality. Unlike most, he had the money to enjoy his fantasy without causing harm to others, except to his poor staff whom he insisted wear togas. I mention it because he also built a rather sturdy wall around his property. If we are delayed on our way to Savannah, it might be a suitable redoubt in the south.”
