“They went home?” Pete asked.

  “I would say they drove towards Texas,” Lisa said. “Which does bring us to the most important question, the answer to which is no, there is almost no fuel aboard.”

  “Pity,” Pete said.

  “Not especially,” Lisa said. “We have the kerosene in the plane, and the sixty gallons you found yesterday. We can look for more here, or we can use the van to search nearby.”

  “If today is anything to go by, we won’t find much,” Pete said.

  “I saw a fish outside,” Lisa said. “In the fresh water lake. The toilet cisterns can be filled by hand. There’s a small shower down in the engine room, again with a water tank which can be fed by hand. We will have a queue all day long, but it is a shower.”

  “Wouldn’t the outflow be immediately outside the ship, from which we’d be drawing water and catching fish?” Olivia asked.

  “This is not a problem if we move,” Lisa said. “And we don’t need to move far, not if we can find a sailing boat. We can anchor this ship in a remote bay which doesn’t have road access, then use a sailing boat to scout for fuel and fish. We can sail a little further to look for vehicles on the northern shore. General Yoon was evacuating people by ship from the east to Thunder Bay. Where they boarded the ships, we will find their vehicles. I’m uncertain as to Thunder Bay’s fate, though my initial reading of that log was that it was no better than anywhere else, but perhaps we can find vehicles there. Aboard, while we search, we will have food, water, and some basic comforts, and we will have security.”

  “As long as we have fuel and some working engines,” Pete said.

  “Let’s do it,” Olivia said. “We can get away from the cartel, and when we’re on the other side of the lake, the two of us can drive off to Pine Dock. We can see if there’s anyone still there before we bring the kids. We can even leave a message there for Tess and Doc Flo, and go back later in the summer to see if there’s been a reply. Oh, Pete, we have to. It might not be permanent, but nowhere is.”

  “What if the engines don’t work?” Pete asked.

  “We can’t test them now, due to the noise,” Lisa said. “But they must have worked a week ago. There is no reason they wouldn’t work still. If they don’t, though, we are still further away from Sidnaw.”

  “We’ll put it to a vote,” Pete said. “Not here,” he added. “I mean we’ll see what Abraham and Aqsa say, though I can guess what that’ll be. It’s still early. Should we check the rest of the ship for zoms?”

  “I can’t imagine how a zombie could have found its way aboard,” Lisa said.

  “This upper deck seems safe,” Olivia said. “Let’s bring the kids here and do a proper search of below decks afterwards. It’s still early. We could probably get the kids up here today, but I’d like to spend a bit of time checking some other vehicles on the way back. We’ll have to return by a different route, so maybe we’ll get lucky, and find enough diesel to get us all the way to Canada tonight.”

  “How much trouble are we in?” Abraham asked, as Pete jumped out of the van.

  “None,” Pete said. “Oh,” he added as he saw the front of the van. “That was zoms. We stopped to check out twenty or so cars parked by a house. A pack of about a hundred lurched onto the road. Didn’t realise the damage was so bad, but the engine sounds fine.”

  “Did you get much fuel?” Abraham asked.

  “Better. We found a ship,” Lisa said. “And we think we should relocate there this afternoon.”

  “Not until Corrie returns with the cars,” Abraham said. “Tell me about this ship.”

  “You do that, we’ll go help Corrie,” Pete said.

  “Let’s put the van on to charge, first,” Olivia said. “Wow, we’re really going to need to give it a clean.”

  With a new spear in hand, he and Olivia went to find Corrie, though Rufus found them first. The dog darted out to meet them, before leading them back to an open garage where Aqsa and Sally stood guard, while John and Corrie changed a tyre.

  “You’re back early,” Corrie said.

  “How close are you to being finished?” Pete asked.

  “Why, is there trouble?” Corrie asked.

  “We found a ship,” Olivia said, and quickly explained.

  “We could sail to Canada?” John asked.

  “Yes, once we find more fuel,” Olivia said.

  “We’ve got six vehicles,” Corrie said.

  “That’s good,” Olivia said. “We’ll only need five if we’re taking the van.”

  “You haven’t seen them yet,” Corrie said. “Two SUVs and four pickups, and this is the largest of them.”

  Pete took in the rusted blue beast. The cab had space for two people sitting behind the driver, but not if one of them was John.

  “We’ll have to ride in the back,” Olivia said.

  “Not you,” Corrie said. “You’ll be driving. So it’ll be the kids in the back.”

  “Me and Sally, we can drive,” John said.

  “Even then, most of the kids are going to ride in the open,” Corrie said.

  “Can we rig some walls to the rear of the pickups?” Pete asked.

  “Maybe,” Corrie said. “Plus, we’ve still got all our gear to carry.”

  “We found some gasoline,” Olivia said. “Are there any gas-powered vehicles which are larger?”

  “Not that I’ve seen,” Corrie said. “How much more time should we spend looking?”

  “None,” Pete said. “Let’s get these back to the compound and figure it out.”

  Pete stood alone in the gathering dark, watching the undead approach the fence. Fifteen, so far. They’d appeared as they’d driven the second trio of cars back to the compound, but had surely been following the sound of the first three. Above, the sky had grown artificially black, though the storm had yet to break. Was the impeding tempest the omen, or was it the undead? Either way, the weather would be worse for that ship on the lake. There was nothing he could do about that, so he just lined up the spear, and waited for the zombie to lurch close enough to strike.

  As he killed his eighteenth, the rain began to fall. Heavy droplets, large and cold. He stood a moment longer, while visibility dropped further, and the rain fell heavier, pattering on the new corpses lying outside.

  “You’re wet,” Princess said, when he entered the garage where Corrie and Abraham were working.

  “Rain can have that effect,” Pete said. “Need a hand?”

  “Nope,” Abraham said. “Go dry off. Get some food. Get yourself packed.”

  “Have we reached a decision?” Pete asked.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow,” Abraham said. “We’re all travelling together. So we’ve got to finish adding some walls to the trucks.”

  “You’re distracting them,” Princess said. She had her bag with her, so wasn’t there just for the company, but out of anxiety.

  That same anxiety was worn on Olivia’s face when Pete ran into her at the doors to the office building.

  “Is there trouble?” Pete asked.

  “Absolutely,” Olivia said. “But no, not really. Lisa’s telling her life story, though she’s framing it as a fairy tale. Aqsa’s packing up the store room.”

  “I didn’t think we’d have room for much.”

  “No, but we might risk a second trip back here for supplies,” Olivia said. “We decided, or Abraham did, that we’ll make one trip, all of us together. People take priority. We’ll fill all the extra space with food. But depending on how the journey goes, maybe we’ll come back with the van to pick up the rest of the pantry.” She looked behind her, down the dim corridor lit by a sole hanging flashlight. “I don’t think we will come back. I think we should. It’ll use up fuel, of course, and be dangerous driving down roads full of woken zoms, but we won’t find much food in some remote house up on the peninsula.”

  “We won’t catch much fish until we find a rod,” he said.

  “Exactly. I was thinking about the trouble we had in Thunderbolt, and there we had Tess and Clyde, and the sailors nearby. Here, we’ve got kids. It’ll be twice as dangerous for them, twice as terrifying for us.”

  “But even if we brought all the food, it won’t last us long,” Pete said. “Fish has to be the answer. We’ll find some rods in Baraga before we leave.”

  “And we’ll have to empty the trucks’ fuel tanks,” she said. “That’s how we’ll be transporting a lot of the diesel. Assuming the ship hasn’t been sunk by this storm.”

  “I was worrying about that,” Pete said. The world went briefly bright as lightning speared through the sky. “That was close.”

  “We never collected the kerosene from the plane,” she said, “so watch for the bang.”

  “Can we use that in a ship, do you think?”

  “Corrie said there wasn’t enough left in the plane for it to be worth the risk. We’ll take four pickups, one SUV, and the van.”

  “We’re taking the electric van?”

  “It’s got enough charge,” Olivia said. “And we’ll take the charging point, and the solar panels. Because if the ship has been sunk by this storm, or if the engines don’t work, we can use the van to drive around looking for fuel. It’ll be quieter than a truck.”

  “I had to kill eighteen zoms by the fence,” Pete said. “They were summoned by the combustion engines, but that van wasn’t as quiet as a whisper.”

  “I know,” Olivia said. “If the ship is there, it won’t be better than this. There’ll be nowhere to run around, and a lot of seasickness if the weather’s like this. We’ll have flushing toilets, but no paper. We’ll have a shower, but no way to launder towels. It gets us away from the cartel, but they don’t have a monopoly on violence. We don’t know who we’ll meet in Canada, assuming we ever get that far.”

  “We’ll make it work,” Pete said.

  “I know. But this is only the beginning of the journey,” she said. “I just so wish we could have begun it this afternoon.”

  29th April

  Chapter 55 - Waiting on the Weather

  Sidnaw, Michigan

  Pete wasn’t woken by the storm, but only because he’d barely slept. He could blame the thunder crash and lightning flash, but they were just a proxy for his fears of what the next few hours could bring. At three, and hearing footsteps outside, he went down to the cafeteria. There he found a small pack of younger children, and Sally, checking their previously packed bags.

  “Where’s Abraham?” Pete asked, as the tap-thud-tap of his crutches usually came soon after the patter of feet in the corridor.

  “Still working on the trucks,” Sally said. “Missy Lisa’s helping.”

  Pete nodded. “I guess if they needed our assistance, they’d ask for it.”

  “You think those two would ever ask for help?” Sally asked.

  “Good point. Fetch some of those blue cleaning cloths from the storeroom,” Pete said. “Clean ones,” he added. “Bring a box. I’ll check the bags. If everything’s there, I’ll tie a cloth to the top, and we’ll take it over to the corner. When we’ve done all of them, we’ll cook up all the food we can.”

  He picked the most anxious child to begin with; a ten-year-old called Kyle who’d lost his parents in Chicago. The neighbours who’d rescued him had died on the journey west. Captain Stahl had found him some fifty miles to the east. His story was far from unique among the children, and far from the most horrific.

  “One change of clothes,” Pete said, moving the disordered items into a neat pile. “Soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, and two bandages. One book. Truckers? Good choice. One can of fruit. One can of stew. No cans of pink ham.” That got a nervous chuckle. “One water bottle. One blanket. One hammer. A can opener, flashlight, and a waterproof coat. Pencil. Paper. Spare batteries. And a giraffe. Cool. How are your shoes?”

  “Fine.”

  “Let’s see. Great. So let’s get this all back in the bag,” Pete said, carefully repacking the bag. It all fit. Just. “Now put it on. Let’s check it’s not too heavy. Great. So we’ll tie a cloth to that, and call it done. Who’s next?”

  It didn’t amount to a great wealth of worldly possessions. There had been a lot of supplies left aboard that ship, so the clothes and soap could be replaced with a few more cans of food. But food alone wouldn’t save this child, nor the many others like him. Better they maintain this thinnest veneer of normality for as long as they could.

  It didn’t take long to check the other children’s bags. Leaving Sally to supervise breakfast with half the children, and setting the others to tidy the cafeteria as busy-work, he went outside. The thunder and lightning had ceased, but the rain still fell. Though it was less heavy than last night, it was pooling into a swamp to the left of the gates. Checking those were still closed, he followed the lights to the garage where Abraham and Lisa were inspecting the pickups.

  “Great job,” Pete said.

  “It’s not,” Abraham said. “We’ve got four walls, but no roof. Walls ain’t that high, neither.”

  “They are higher than a zombie can reach,” Lisa said.

  Rusty corrugated steel sheets had been bolted to the inside of each truck’s bed, with a metal support pole for extra rigidity running diagonally to the opposite side.

  “Where did you find the corrugated sheets?” Pete asked.

  “Behind that server building,” Abraham said. “Still raining out there?”

  “It’s easing,” Pete said.

  “Good,” Abraham said. “We’ll carry most of the fuel in the tanks, and will syphon it when we arrive. The older kids will ride in the front, so they can get out to fight if they have to. Younger ones, they’ll be stuck in the back. I’ll promote one older kid to NCO in charge of the others, but it’s not going to be a fun drive for anyone.”

  “It will be a short one,” Lisa said.

  “About a third of the kids are already up,” Pete said.

  “Figured they might be,” Abraham said. “What about the zoms?”

  “Two outside that I could see,” Pete said. “I was going to wait until light before dealing with them. You two should get some rest.”

  “Plenty of time for that when we’re on the ship,” Abraham said. “I want to load up the spears and tools, and other bulk supplies. It won’t take long. We can’t bring many.”

  “Then I’ll go keep the kids quiet,” Pete said.

  Breakfast came, breakfast went, and still the rain fell. By nine, they’d taken the bags to the garage, allocating each, and so each child, to a vehicle. And still the rain fell.

  He and Olivia trekked out to the fence to kill the zombies that had arrived during the night, though there were only three around the entire perimeter. This time, they didn’t bother moving the bodies to the graveyard. When they returned to the office building, they found Abraham waiting by the doors.

  “We’ll wait until two,” he declared. “If the rain hasn’t stopped, we’ll leave anyway.”

  “You should get some sleep,” Olivia said.

  “Never could sleep during the day,” Abraham said. “Reminds me too much of the hospital. You’d sleep during the day because there was nothing much to do, but then you’d be awake at night, and be alone with your thoughts. No, better to keep active. What about the plane?”

  “No way it can fly in this weather,” Pete said.

  “I was talking about the fuel,” Abraham said.

  “It’s too dangerous,” Olivia said. “I slipped in the mud when killing those zombies earlier, but I had the fence between me and them. There’ll be enough fighting out in the open when we get to Baraga. If you won’t sleep, at least sit down for a bit. If you do that, maybe the kids will, too.”

  Abraham grunted, but limped away.

  “He’s worried,” Pete said. “But so am I.”

  “For us, it’s the waiting,” she said. “For him, it’s that the waiting is finally over, but the destination is as fraught with danger as here. I think the sky might be brightening a bit, there in the south.”

  They watched the clouds for a minute. Another.

  “Maybe,” Pete said.

  “Great. Time for one last meal,” Olivia said.

  The deluge dropped to a drizzle, and Pete began a patrol of the fence, but quickly gave up and returned to the gates. The zombies along the perimeter were unlikely to be a problem. On the track leading to the highway, though, were three. He made his way inside the fence, squelching through the sodden, well-trodden mud, dreaming of dry boots.

  “Over here, then,” he called, tapping the spear against the wire.

  He didn’t like talking to the undead. It seemed wrong, in so many ways, and always left him wondering what he’d do if one ever replied. This one didn’t. It pawed at the fence, nearly tugging its fingers off as they caught in the chain link. The rain had rinsed streaks into the mud on its face, giving it a near camouflaged look, offset by the bright blue waterproof, shredded front and back during the attack which surely must have caused infection. Pete aimed, and thrust, twisting the spear up as the zombie fell, letting gravity free the body from the weapon.

  “C’mon,” he called to the other two. “Let’s get this over with.”

  And it was over, in only a few minutes, and so was the storm. The sky truly was brightening now as the sun barged through the clouds. There was even a little warmth in the rays, a harbinger of the summer about to begin.

  It was an omen, he decided. A portent of better things to come. He made his way back to the gates, and then back into the compound, just as Sally came running out. Rufus quickly overtook her, splashing to a halt in one of the deeper puddles.

  “You’re worse than the kids,” Pete said, before turning to Sally. “Is there trouble?”

  “I was going to ask you that,” she said. “And if you wanted any lunch.”

  “I think I’m done with pink ham,” he said.

  “Missy Lisa wanted to know whether we’re still leaving at two.”

  “I’d say so,” Pete said. “What did Abraham say?”

  “He’s asleep,” Sally said.

  “Good. He needs it. In a few hours, the roads will be a bit dryer. Let’s get the trucks out front, and we can get the kids aboard.”

 

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