Zombielandia Read online

  Chapter Twenty one

  We all met up in the evening as planned in Gav and Lia’s quarters. I went through my plan with them. I didn’t think that it was wise to wait until we got to Faslane to attempt our escape; we had all agreed that escape was our only option earlier. I also thought it was too risky to split our group up as none of us knew the area and the chances of us meeting up again if we were too far apart would be slim.

  I showed the guys the maps. My plan was to get off the Somerset as we entered Loch Gare. I knew we were going to enter the Loch via the Firth of Clyde. Keith agreed that the water would probably be at its calmest in the Loch, certainly calmer than the open Ocean. Paul and David had access to the Hope and had been maintaining it and doing test runs all day, so it wouldn’t be unusual for it to move away from the main fleet at any time. The only problem was it would probably only carry a maximum of twelve people at any one time and there was twenty six of us.

  Gav and Lia said that they wouldn’t be joining us, they felt safe where they were and although they didn’t agree with the treatment of some on board, they had to do what was best for their young family and at present that was aboard the Somerset. This left twenty two of us, still too many for the Hope.

  Keith said that he couldn’t risk coming with us yet. His family had been aboard another Royal Navy vessel and he hoped that they too had headed to the safe zone at Faslane once the one in Portsmouth had been compromised. He had to stay to find out and didn’t want any repercussions for them if he was no longer part of the Royal Navy. I understood his reasons, but it still didn’t make it any easier to take.

  David said that the Salt Wind was still part of the fleet and was being maintained by other sashes, but was not away from the main ship very often and hence spent a lot of time tied up and unmanned. It was the perfect solution to our problem. The Salt Wind could hold about the same as the Hope.

  It was agreed that David would take the Salt Wind and Paul would take the Hope. My family and I and Sophie and Paul could easily get onto the Hope without too many questions now that we were sashes. Lia said that she would be able to get the girls to medical as it wasn’t unusual for them to do checks on the working girls, then Sophie and the girls could stage an attack on her and escape to the Hope with the rest of us. That made nine of us on the Hope, meaning the remaining Twelve could get on the Salt Wind.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  The plan for our guys in the hold, if they agreed, was for them to escape through the rubbish chute where David would be waiting to pick them up in the Salt Wind.

  Gav and Keith agreed to come with me later that evening and tell our guys the plan. Timing was going to be crucial if it was to work. The Somerset was due into Faslane around 18.00 hours the following evening, so David would need to be ready to pick the guys up around 16.00 hours. We all agreed that 16.00 hours was to be the pickup time and synchronised our watches. We had to ensure that David was there first to be ready for our guys coming out the rubbish chute, even if it meant him having to take the Salt Wind much earlier than this. There was too big a risk for them to be in the sea, especially with young children. We knew from our site that the adults could swim, but the three children certainly wouldn’t be able to hold their own for long in the water without adult support.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  There were a lot of risks in our plan, but other than wait and take our chances at Faslane, what option did we have if we were to get our group back together again and the guys out of that hell hole below.

  David and Paul were going to get as much fuel as possible, but there was no way we’d ever get back to Devon and our site in two small fishing boats. The maps that we had showed a canal route from the Clyde at Glasgow right across Scotland to Falkirk and the Firth of Forth, the Forth and Clyde Canal. I remembered seeing a program about it on the Discovery Channel not long before the outbreak. From the Firth of Forth you entered the North Sea and from there it wasn’t far down the coast to the North East of England and Northumberland, my home county, somewhere I knew very well and I was sure this would be an advantage in finding somewhere safe again.

  Chapter Twenty Four

  The plan was that David would board the Salt Wind at the earliest opportunity after its daily maintenance and lay low until it was time to leave. He would be waiting ready to pick up our Guys at the rubbish chute just before 16.00 hours.

  The rest of us were to carry out our duties as normal, and then at 17.00 hours we would board the Hope with Paul. Sophie would have the girls with her. Lia would arrange the girls medical to as close to 17.00 hours as possible.

  We arranged to meet up at the mouth of the Loch where David was picking up the guys from. David and Paul agreed coordinates from the maps. Keith, Gav and I then headed down to where the rest of our group was. It had been two days since we’d last seen them, so I was praying they were all okay.

  They were more or less where we had left them two evenings ago. Their mood wasn’t good, but they seemed pleased to see me. Kathy had been sleeping all day and wasn’t well at all. Liz and Alan were really worried about her. None of them had had anything to eat for three days now and had struggled to get water. Ken seemed in a bad way too.

  On the plus side, they all were up for our plan, anything was better than dying a slow death down here. The rubbish chute was in the same room as them so they could easily get to it. Apparently other people had went out of it already, they had no idea if they had a plan on the other side, or if it was just better than being down here, at least there was hope of something better on the other side. With the adults being able to swim it was decided the children would go either side of an adult so they could be supported through the chute from both sides and someone would be in the water ready for them. If it all went to plan, David would be on the other side waiting for them. We synchronised watches, had a group hug and I left them with a heavy heart again. At least if everything went as planned, we’d all be together again the following evening.

  I caught up with the other guys when we got back and told them that the plan was going ahead tomorrow. I spent the rest of the evening with Keith and my family. He said that if he found his fiancé and children at Faslane he wanted to join up with our group. I hugged him, this was great news. I was planning on going home at some point, so I told him if we weren’t there I would leave a note as to where we were going and do the same every time we had to move location so he would be able to track us easier, he already knew of the plan to follow the Forth and Clyde Canal, so would probably come across us there first.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Finally the morning came. It had been a rough night, but we’d managed a little bit of sleep. I’d dreamt of home back in Togston, our small terrace house, the children had been playing on their trampoline in the garden. I’d been tending to my leeks and other vegetables as I did whenever I had time off from work, Babs had been seeing to things in our home and feeding our ginger cat, Jaffa. She shouted over to tell us that her mother was coming over to see us, which she often did several times a day. This was the beauty of living in a small countryside village and all the family being so close together. I shouted over to Luke and Emily to tell them that Grandma was coming over with sweets for them and they ran to the gate, excitedly waiting for her to arrive. I think it must have been the fright I got when the children started screaming that woke me, Grandma’s a rotter Emily was screaming, and she’s eating Luke! That’s when I woke, sweating, shit I thought, talk about scary mother in laws!

  The morning went by as usual; everyone was a little bit nervous and excited at the same time. The Somerset was due to dock at Faslane that evening and no one on board knew what to expect.

  I heard that they were planning on sending out some of the smaller vessels to go ahead and scout out the area first before taking the Somerset into port. I just hoped that the Saltwind and Hope weren’t one of these vessels. At least with all the activity going on and boats coming and going, it was going to be less likely
that our two boats would be missed.

  Keith was at lunch with us, which was nice as it may have been the last time we saw him, at least for a while anyway. He had managed to find out that the Saltwind had been out on a scouting mission that morning, but was back and tied up now, which was great news. The Hope was out now, scouting the shoreline next to the Somerset, but was never too far away. It all sounded promising, maybe our plan would work out, the excitement and anticipation was really starting to build now.

  We all went back to our duties after saying our last good byes to Keith and wishing him good luck in the search for his family. I hoped that he found them at Faslane, or at least found out where the ship was that they were on. Paul and David had already managed to get everyone’s few possessions on board the Hope. We knew that we had little to no supplies as the only food we had access to was at meal times and Babs was very heavily supervised in the kitchens. So we knew that we were going to have to stop somewhere for supplies fairly early into our journey.

  I spent the afternoon studying maps of the areas we were planning on travelling through. I was looking for possible places to pick up supplies and places we could moor safely. It was at times like this that you realised how much you missed computers and particularly Google!

  The Forth and Clyde canal itself was only thirty five miles long, linking the Clyde on the West coast of Scotland with the Forth on the East coast. There was however thirty nine locks that we’d have to navigate along the way as well as several low bridges in Clydebank that would need to be raised. I just hoped they could be raised manually, as I doubted there would be any power to them. We would also have to travel through a lot of built up areas in the earlier stages of our journey, but hey, we would deal with that later, our priority was getting off this dam ship and getting our group back together.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Five O’clock finally came, I met Babs and the children back at our quarters, if everything had gone as planned, David and the Saltwind would be well on its way to the rendezvous point with the rest of our guys.

  Sophie showed up a few minutes later with the two girls, they all embraced Babs and there were a few tears, but I had to part them, they would have plenty of time later for all that, we had to get moving straight away.

  Gav met us in the corridor and took us through several locked doors until we were finally outside. There were dozens of small vessels milling about and a fair few more strapped to the side of the Somerset. We had never been outside at this level before. There were rope ladders hanging alongside the length of the ship.

  It was a massive hive of activity. Gav showed us to a rope ladder and instructed us to climb down it. Paul will be at the bottom with the Hope he said. I shook his hand and thanked him for all the help he had given us. This was as far as he was going and I couldn’t help but respect him for what he was doing for us and for his family.

  Becky went first and was followed closely by Maddison and Sophie. Babs went next and Luke followed her, he was great on the climbing frame back in the park at Broomhill, so this would be easy for him. I could see the Hope about twenty foot below. I waited until everyone was safely down and then got Emily to climb onto my back like we’d done many times before when we’d been out walking back home. She was always the first to get tired, but I’m sure she just liked having a ride on Dad’s back. We climbed slowly and carefully down the ladder and the guys at the bottom helped us onto the hope.

  Sophie had joined Paul in the cab, the rest of us huddled down in the small hold area and I threw a tarp over all of us so no one could see us and also to protect us from the rain which, by the look of the grey clouds overhead, wasn’t far away.

  We couldn’t see anything, we were all huddled together, and the children were frightened, but we told them that we were going on an adventure and we had to hide very quietly until we got there. We heard the engines starting up and felt the Hope starting to move forward. The water felt choppy despite being in the loch and we could hear the pitter patter of rain on the tarp above.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  We’d been huddling together to keep warm for what seemed like hours, but was probably no more than twenty minutes when suddenly the tarp was lifted in one corner, I strained to see as my eyes adjusted to the light, but I could make Sophie holding up the tarp, smiling. You can all come out now guys if you want to, she said, we’re out of site of the Somerset. We moved the tarp back, it was raining hard now, but we didn’t care, we were free from that ship. We could finally celebrate and embrace each other. I took the children to the small cab to keep dry, there was only room for a couple of adults, but the children could lie down quite comfortably, not that they wanted to, they were too busy asking Paul a thousand questions and enjoying their adventure now.

  I managed to get a few words in with Paul; we were about fifteen minutes away from the rendezvous coordinates and we could see a small vessel on the Hope’s radar where we would expect the Saltwind to be. Had our plan actually worked? Were we all free, our group all back together again? I guessed we would find out in about fifteen minutes.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  The rendezvous point was on the Clyde, not far from Dumbarton. After a while we could make out a vessel in the distance, it was the Saltwind, they’d made it! We were all shouting and cheering, but we couldn’t see or hear anything aboard the Saltwind. Then as we drew closer we could see people in the water, some were in a life ring, but all hanging desperately to the side of the boat. It was raining hard now and the water was rough in the Clyde. It must have been difficult to hang on, how long had they been in there and why?

  As we got closer we could make out faces, it was our group at least. I could see John, Amy and Anthony all hanging onto the rear of the boat. Hayley was hanging onto a rope on the side of the boat and to a rope attached to the life ring with little Alfie and Britney inside it, Christ I thought, hadn’t that family been through enough. There was no sign of anyone else though; hopefully they were still on board or on the far side of the Saltwind and out of site. Something had clearly gone horribly wrong, but what?

  As we got near, the guys in the water heard us or our engines and started to wave frantically at us. John started to swim towards us and when we got to him we dragged him on board. Don’t go on the boat; don’t go on the boat he kept repeating over and over again. He was soaked and freezing, who knows how long they’d all been in the water. We approached close enough for us to haul the rest of the guys on board safely. Amy started to tell us what was happening.

  David was trapped in the Saltwind’s cabin area with Ken and Margaret. Apparently young Kathy had turned! Nobody knew how or when, but Liz and Alan had been hiding it and protecting her by saying that she was unwell and sleeping. When we all actually thought about it, no one had seen her for days now. It had all come to light when it came to their turn to go through the rubbish chute on the Somerset. They had insisted on going last and Amy had realised there was something seriously wrong when she had seen Alan and Liz desperately trying to get Kathy aboard the Saltwind without any one seeing the state that she was in.

  They had all been hiding under a tarp similar to us as they distanced themselves from the Somerset. When they had lifted the tarp when David had told them they were a safe distance away, Liz had attacked Alan, she was biting him, tearing at his flesh, consuming him! Little Kathy had joined in too, happily chewing on her father’s leg. Alan had been screaming in pain, but not wanting to harm his family, was trying to get them off without much force. Amy had been the first to react by grabbing a boat hook that was used for raising the anchor. She was about to start using it to hook Liz and try to pull her off Alan, but he had started shouting at her to stop, he was still desperately trying to protect his family, despite the fact that they were consuming him alive!

  Margaret and Ken had been at the front of the boat, so had been able to get into the cab area with David.

  Liz and Kathy had eventually started to turn on the rest of the g
uys still in the hold area. Amy had started to fend them off best she could with the boat hook, but Alan had started to attack her too, despite not turning yet. David had come out of the cab and shot Liz through the head, “killing” her instantly. Alan had Kathy behind him and had managed to wrestle the boat hook off Amy and was starting to attack her and the others with the hook and all the time little Kathy continued to chew on his leg. They had all had to jump into the water to get away from him, Amy had thrown the life ring over board to help the children and they had all managed to find a decent hold on the side of the boat.

  This had been almost an hour ago. David, Margaret and Ken were locked in the cab area and had continued slowly to the rendezvous point, fortunately they hadn’t been too far away from it and the guys in the water had managed to hang on.

  Amy said that she had shouted to David to shoot Alan and Kathy several times, but Alan had been shielding his daughter and was still alive and conscious and David couldn’t bring himself to kill another human being.

  Eventually it had gone quite aboard and Alan had stopped trying to smash his way into the cab with the boat hook and was now huddled under the tarp they thought with little Kathy. And that it how it was when we’d met up with them.

  I couldn’t understand how young Kathy had gone unnoticed through quarantine. Had it been because she was so young and only just started to communicate anyway? Did the virus take longer to effect the very young? Had she been bitten or become infected whilst below decks on the Somerset? Had she been a carrier all along and something had triggered her to change? Maybe her body had been fighting it, but when she’d weakened from lack of food and water, it had taken hold? Who was I to Guess, I was a mathematician, not a biologist. We’d probably never know. But it worried me. Could we all be carrying this inside us, in our blood? Was it only a matter of time before we all turned? So many questions .But for now we had to find a way to survive and get the rest of our guys safe again.