No turning back, p.39
No Turning Back, page 39
Keeping his eyes on that questing hand, he eased himself up and onto the tractor, dragging his legs in, and his knees up, so he was sitting in the footwell with his head well below the steering wheel. He turned the key. The juddering engine shook the new walls on either side of him. The zombie’s hand thrust forward, and he could now see the head, but he didn’t reach for his gun. Instead, he reached for the pedals.
The tractor jerked forward, surprisingly quickly, surprisingly far, easily ploughing a route through the shed’s fallen roof and thinner walls. Everything went white as he drove into daylight, and then a different kind of white as the tractor slammed into the remains of the plane’s wing, which now lay on the overlong grass. Pete was flung sideways, ripping his coat, and his arm, on the debris as he clambered to his feet. He drew his gun, looking for the zombie, but it was still hidden in the wreckage. He spun around, looking for more, and only saw three figures, running towards him: Olivia, Sally, and John. He waved even as he backed away from the wreck.
“Are you okay?” Olivia asked, as she reached him.
“A few scratches, that’s all,” Pete said.
“Let me see,” Olivia said. “That cut will need glue, and maybe stitches, and definitely needs a clean. The med-kit’s by the cart.”
“There’s a zom in there,” Pete said.
“We found a few behind the other shed,” Olivia said. “But we also found diesel, so let’s go get the cart.”
“What happened to you?” Corrie asked when she opened the compound’s gate for them.
“The sky fell on my head,” Pete said. “A shed did, anyway.”
“Good thing his head’s full of rocks,” Olivia said. “How’s Candice?”
“Sleeping. And genuinely a little better,” Corrie said. “Is that fuel?”
“Diesel, maybe,” Olivia said. “We’re not sure.”
“Guess how much,” John said.
“Sixty gallons!” Sally said, before Corrie could answer.
“It’s enough, isn’t it?” John asked.
“It’s a start,” Corrie said. “A really, really good start. Take it to the garage, I’ll come test it.”
“And take the food to the kitchens,” Olivia said. “And remember to wash up,” she added as Sally and John wheeled the cart inside.
“Abraham went to kill some zoms on the far side of the compound,” Corrie said. “Three of them.”
“Oh. There were a few crawlers up at the airfield,” Olivia said. “But we didn’t fire a shot, and we found fuel, and a bit more food. Candice is really okay?”
“She seems to be,” Corrie said. “We’ll know for sure in a few days. You brought back a bicycle.”
“We found it around the back of the post office,” Olivia said. “There were a couple more in the yard of a house just this side of the junction. I was going to take Sally and John out again to pick them up after they’ve eaten. Then, tomorrow, I think we need to cycle out to search some farms. This town’s been picked over too often. We got lucky with that fuel, but only because it was hidden beneath some corpses after the plane crashed. We gave the containers a bit of a clean, but they need another scrub.”
“Then you take over the watch here. I’ll take care of those,” Corrie said.
26th April
Chapter 49 - Passing Sorrows
Sidnaw, Michigan
They were woken with tragic news.
“It’s Candice,” Abraham said, his voice a half-whisper from the doorway to their office-bedroom. “She’s passed.”
Pete pulled himself out of bed, quickly dressing.
“How and when?” Olivia asked.
“She stopped breathing,” Abraham said. “It was peaceful. I didn’t notice. Not at first. That was about two hours ago. I didn’t want to wake anyone early, but the kids should know before breakfast.” He paused. “I don’t know what to do with her body. I don’t want to throw her out with the zoms, but I don’t want her grave to be a reminder to the kids. It’s only a few weeks since they all lost their parents.”
“What do you usually do?” Olivia asked.
“She’s the first to have died under my watch,” he said.
“We could bury her next to Glenda,” Olivia said.
“You mean the house in town belonging to the woman in the wheelchair?” Abraham asked.
“It’s a nice spot,” Olivia said. “Tranquil. Peaceful. Pete and me can dig the grave after breakfast. We’ll bury her this afternoon. If the kids want to say goodbye, we can take them down there in groups. If they don’t, there’s no pressure.”
“That might do,” Abraham said, he began pulling the door closed, but paused. “Thank you,” he added, before limping down the corridor.
“I guess it was inevitable,” Olivia said.
“And we still don’t know what was wrong with her,” Pete said.
“That’s something we’re going to have to get used to,” Olivia said. “Let me see your arm. Hmm. It needs a new dressing, so we better look for more of those. And more antiseptic. More glue, too. And then we should look for some proper sutures.”
“You think it needs stitches?”
“I don’t know if that glue will hold, so yep. No anaesthetic, either, so it’ll sting. And that’s something else we’ll have to get used to. C’mon, brave face for the kids.”
Two hours later, Pete stood over the dug grave. “That’s something else we’ll have to get used to.”
“Hopefully not too often,” Olivia said. “No zoms?”
“Not yet,” Pete said, glancing at Rufus who had his eyes on an occasionally rustling juniper bush. Though the plant was taking full advantage of sun, rain and a lack of pruning to sprout in every direction, it was far too small to conceal even a child, undead or not. “Sun’s high. I think we’ve left it too late to go to any farms today.”
“It’ll wait until tomorrow,” Olivia said. “And we found sixty gallons yesterday. That’s a lot. Time’s not so pressing we can’t spare a few hours for this. Memorialising our friends is important. Did you see John this morning? He might be as tall as a giant, but he’s only fourteen. I don’t think he slept a wink last night.”
“You mean I should remember they’re just kids?” Pete said.
“And remember what they’ve lost,” Olivia said.
“You mean their parents?”
“And the younger kids. You must have noticed they’re missing.”
“Sure. Do you know what happened to them?”
“They were evacuated to St Paul,” she said.
“Where Aqsa and Abraham came from?”
“Exactly. Everyone knows what happened to St Paul, and so what happened to the younger children. They know what happened to their own parents. Then we came along, speaking of craters and cartels. Yollie and her people left. Now Candice has died. That’s a lot to deal with, even without the zoms.”
“You think the kids will break?” he asked.
“They’re already broken,” she said. “We all are. But what’s stopping them from cracking is the belief that we’ve got a plan. That and Abraham.”
John and Sally helped bring the body to the grave. Aqsa and Abraham didn’t. They both wanted to be there, but their absence gave the rest of the children an excuse not to attend.
Olivia said a few words, and a brief prayer Abraham had handwritten. “Thank you, Candice,” she finished. “You kept the children safe. We’ll remember that, and continue the work.”
“Thank you, Candice,” Pete said, uncertain what else to say. John echoed him. Sally simply shook her head.
“Let’s get back,” Olivia said. “C’mon, Rufus. Home.”
Pete gestured towards the houses. Olivia shook her head. He nodded, but reluctantly. Time really was running out. When they got back to the compound, they found it was running out a lot faster than they’d realised.
Abraham was overseeing the children as they carried containers from inside the rarely used buildings further from the entrance. As they pulled the gate closed, he limped his way over.
“Sally, John, help straighten those lines,” Abraham said. “We’re setting out anything which can hold water. It’s going to rain later.”
“What’s happened?” Olivia asked.
“Corrie used that diesel you found to power up the pump,” Abraham said. “We got a surge, then a trickle, then nothing. She’s gone up to the reservoir to find out why. Took Aqsa and Lisa with her.”
“Are we short of water?” Pete asked.
“Always,” Abraham said. “That storage tank is holding, but I thought this would keep the kids busy.”
When the rain came, it was more a trickle than a shower. With Corrie not back, and with the children increasingly subdued, Olivia declared it bath time. It was a lacklustre effort that ended up with everyone soapy rather than scrubbed, and damp rather than clean, but it filled the time until Corrie and Lisa returned. They didn’t bring good news.
“We’ve got nineteen days of water,” Corrie said.
“What about the reservoir?” Abraham asked.
“Is there a zom in the pipe?” Princess asked, having come over with half of the semi-clean children.
“Don’t say things like that,” Little John said.
“It’s dinner time,” Abraham said. “John, get everyone inside. We’ll come tell you everything in a minute. Go on. Don’t make me say it twice.” The children drifted off. Abraham turned back to Corrie. “You were saying?”
“The reservoir, and filtration system, was carved out of a small lake,” Corrie said. “Sometime before the power failed, someone opened the valves so the pipes leading here became an enclosed stream. But, between the reservoir and the lake proper, there’s a dam. The sluices are closed. To open them, we’d need power. The trickle we got earlier was the rain and surface run-off which had filled the reservoir. When I turned on the pump, we sucked it dry. This storm will have refilled it a bit, but not enough. Nineteen days, and that storage tank you built will be empty.”
“Unless it rains,” Abraham said.
“Yep,” Corrie said. “And when it rains, the reservoir fills, but we can’t use solar panels to charge the electric van on a cloudy day. We can ration water, and we could build some more rainwater collection tanks in the town linked to roofs and guttering. Or we could just drive the van up to the lake, and fill up some barrels. Water is a problem, but not an insurmountable one.”
“Food will be,” Abraham said. “We can’t make more of that. Not here. How long do we have before it’s gone?”
“Thirty-five days,” Lisa said. “We can fish in that lake, but we can’t live there. We can cycle to nearby towns, or drive that van. However, food is no more a problem than water. Our shortage isn’t in water, or food, or labour, but in time. Our plane set down a week ago. I still haven’t taken it up again to scout Duluth and the land between. The flight should take place soon before we leave, but the longer we wait, the greater the chance a heavy storm could wreck the aircraft. But why do we want to scout Duluth?”
“To get to Canada,” Abraham said.
“Indeed,” Lisa said. “Though I was speaking rhetorically. Ultimately, we want to get to Pine Dock because it is a possible contact-point with the Pacific. Otherwise, we want a lake for fresh water, and for fishing. There is one such place a lot closer than the border. Lake Superior is only twenty miles north.”
“What about the radiation?” Abraham asked. “Didn’t you say the lakes had been bombed?”
“We can check the readings as we search for a suitable redoubt,” Lisa said. “The van’s log book says the vehicle has a theoretical range of a hundred and twenty miles. That would be in a wind tunnel at the factory. On good roads, in good conditions, I would expect one hundred. We should hope for eighty, which gives us a forty-mile driving radius. Duluth is a hundred and eighty miles away, but L’Anse is twenty. We could easily ferry everyone there. Say ten per trip, and we’d have it done in ten days. We can then return for the crops in those planters. We’ll have lost nothing, but gained a lot.”
“You want to give up on Canada?” Abraham asked.
“No,” Lisa said. “Canada should be plan-A, but we don’t need to travel there in one go. We need a fresh water source, and a food source. So let us relocate to Lake Superior, and then continue our search. However, before we drive north, let us confirm there is no fuel in the one obvious place nearby. Florence.”
“Where the kids’ parents didn’t return from?” Abraham asked.
“But I went and came back,” Aqsa said. “There were lots of vehicles, but they were all driven into a sort of wall, like a fortress. There were lots of zombies, too.”
“But after those vehicles were driven into position to form that wall, were the fuel tanks drained?” Lisa asked. “Perhaps they were, and that is why Captain Stahl continued his search. Perhaps they weren’t, but there just wasn’t enough for the captain’s needs. Perhaps he didn’t look.”
“That’s a long shot,” Abraham said.
“Yet a necessary one,” Lisa said. “Once we go north, it will be harder to search anywhere to the south. Around here, the fuel was seized in the early days of the outbreak. The same must be true near Florence. Thus, if we find nothing in that redoubt, we’ll find nothing anywhere near it. Now is the time to look. We are still relatively close, and we still have bullets.”
“How much fuel do we need?” Pete asked.
“Six hundred gallons,” Abraham said. “Assume one thousand miles to get us to the northern end of Lake Winnipeg with a detour or two. A bus can make five miles to the gallon. We’ll need three buses, so six hundred gallons is the bare minimum.”
“In the week since we landed, we’ve only found sixty gallons which someone else had syphoned, stored, and forgotten,” Lisa said. “We’ll find no more within walking range.”
“Florence isn’t within driving range,” Abraham said. “Not of that van.”
“So we’ll cycle,” Olivia said. “Just me and Pete. If there’s no diesel there, we’ll know by nightfall tomorrow. But Aqsa, you went there, you tell us if we’re wasting our time.”
“I didn’t look for fuel,” she said. “I was just looking for our people. For anyone. There was no one, but there could be fuel. It’s possible.”
“Sixty miles, we can manage that in a day,” Pete said.
“May I remind you, if you wish to return, it will be twice that distance,” Lisa said.
“We can still manage it in a day,” Olivia said. “You guys can finish clearing out the town. We might as well get all the supplies up here. Sorting and packing will keep the kids busy.”
“But we’ll tell them you’re going to look at some farms,” Abraham said. “Florence is the place no one comes back from. I don’t want them worrying about you two as well.”
27th April
Chapter 50 - Twisted Weather
Michigan and Wisconsin
The sun was reluctant to rise, hiding behind yellow-tinged skies as rain drizzled against the office-bedroom window. But by the time Pete and Olivia got downstairs, the rain had ceased, though storm clouds still hovered overhead.
“Do you have everything you need?” Corrie asked, as Pete checked the improvised saddlebags slung behind the bike.
“Handgun and suppressor, and three mags,” Pete said. “Spear and crowbar, and a knife.”
“And a carbine, water, a map, lunch, and a med-kit,” Olivia said, tapping the bags slung on her bike. “We’re set, Corrie.”
“And the Geiger counter?” Corrie asked.
“No worries, sis,” Pete said. “We’ll be back before dark.”
“But if we’re not, don’t start worrying until around midday tomorrow,” Olivia said. “We’ll take it slow and steady, and we’ll hide from the rain.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” Corrie said.
“There’s just not enough adults here,” Olivia said. “We’ll be fine.”
“You’re clear,” Abraham called, limping back from the gate. “If you’re going, get going. But come back safe, you hear?”
Once they were away from the highway, and heading south, Pete began to enjoy the ride, mostly because the air was fresher. The ever-increasing pile of zombies outside the compound had created a miasma over the entire neighbourhood. Which wasn’t to say that the countryside beyond was pristine. The fields were overgrown, except where the bare earth had yet to, and would never again, be planted. The fields were dotted with stagnant puddles, which often spilled onto the roads. While the water was never more than a few inches deep, it slowed them to near walking pace. Infrequently, the fields were dotted with sun-bleached ribcages from the cattle which hadn’t survived long enough to be slaughtered. They’d died in clusters, never alone.
Pete puzzled over that for a few miles. Had the farmers released the cows into the fields before they’d fled? Or had they died while grazing before the utter irreversibility of the apocalypse had become apparent?
“No zoms on the road,” Olivia said, slowing to pull alongside him.
“Yeah, I hadn’t noticed,” Pete said. “Should have, but I was too busy looking at the cows. No zoms. Maybe they’re dead.”
“Well, I’m not going to bank on it,” Olivia said. “It might seem like a year, but it’s only a week since we flew over that massive horde. I wonder if the lack of zoms is linked to the lack of cars. You realise we haven’t seen one for at least a mile?”
As he turned to look over his shoulder, a brake cable detached from his handlebar, rattling as the loose end caught against the spinning front wheel. Reflexively, he clenched the brakes, and nearly went flying as only the front wheel ceased turning.
“You okay, hon?” Olivia asked.
“It’s just the brake cable,” Pete said, reaching into his bag for some tape. “I guess we go slower from now on.”
