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  As we approached the lock, we cut our engines and let the boat’s momentums carry them slowly forward. There were high rise blocks of flats to one side of the lock and a main road blocking it at water level. I guessed this was why they had called it a drop lock. We tied the boats up on one side of the canal. Paul, David, Amy Becky, John, Ken and I climbed off the boats. Paul and David were still armed with their guns that they’d been given on board the Somerset. Becky and I had our trusty boat hook and axe, the rest of the guys had various tools that they had found aboard the boats.

  There was a small brick built building near the lock where a safety barrier prevented any boats sailing into the lock and straight into the side of the road. The lock looked large enough to hold our four small boats quite comfortably in one go, which was a bit of a relief as we could clearly see that it was going to be a long process getting to the other side of the road.

  We checked on the other side of the road first in case there were any vessels we could use which would save us a lot of time and hassle with the lock, but there was nothing to be seen. We went back to the small building. We peered inside, there was no one or no rotters about, and so we went in.

  Paul had a good look around and decided it was a fairly simple system to operate the lock, the only problem being, it couldn’t be operated manually. There was however a generator that was used to power the system, but it was going to make a lot of noise and for a long time. With the houses to our left, the high rise flats to our right and the main road in front of us, we were going to attract a lot of attention to ourselves.

  Paul checked out the small generator hut next to the canal, it was fuelled up and had been maintained recently he said. So if someone else had worked out how to use it, surely we could I thought, it may even have been the former residents of the Gamebird.

  We all boarded the Hue in order to come up with a plan of action. We wanted to stick with the waterways as we still felt it was our safest option and we’d known we were going to have to overcome obstacles along the way, we just needed to find the quickest and safest way through it.

  We decided we were going to send a few of us ahead first on foot to find somewhere safe to take the majority of our group, especially the children, then a small group of us would stay behind and get the boats through the lock system and under the road.

  Paul reckoned it was going to take a minimum of forty five minutes to get the boats through. There was a lot of water that needed to be pumped out and then back in again once the boats were on the other side of the road.

  Becky, John, and I set off along the tow path that ran alongside the canal; it wasn’t long until we came across two small stone cottages at the canal side. They were both locked up. We went around the back and managed to break in through a rear window of the first cottage. It was unoccupied and it didn’t look like there had been anyone there in a long time.

  We moved on to the adjoining cottage, we wanted to make sure that no one or rotters were going to disturb our guys once we got them here. It was the same as the first one, unoccupied for a long time as well. There was a dusty note left on the kitchen table for the parents of the home owner saying that if they’d come looking for them, that they’d been evacuated to the safe zone at Faslane, this gave me hope that my brother had found this safe zone and it was still secure. I also felt sorry for the home owners; I guessed no one ever came looking for them.

  Both Cottages were small; both had two bedrooms with a kitchen-diner, bathroom and small living room.

  We went back to the boats and got everyone to gather up enough supplies to get them through the night if needed, I hoped that they wouldn’t need it and we’d all soon be back on the boats and on our way. We all headed back to the cottages without any problems.

  We got the guys settled in and secured. We reminded them where we were and so minimal noise and no lights after dark, we didn’t want anyone or anything to know they were there. We wanted to do what we had to and be on our journey as quickly as possible.

  Chapter Thirty Six

  Paul, David, Ken, Becky and I went back to the boats. David waited on the Saltwind and Ken on the Gamebird. Paul fired up the generator and lifted the safety barrier before jumping aboard the Hope. The three guys manoeuvred the boats into the lock. Paul jumped back off and lowered the safety barrier again and started the pumps. The boats slowly started to lower. I remember thinking, so far, so good. We’d seen movement in the distance, but nothing nearby. We were quite exposed where we were. But this also had the advantage that we could see anything approaching us from quite some way away and so we had a chance to prepare.

  Then we saw them coming. Becky spotted them first, they weren’t rotters, and they were in vehicles, four wheel drive vehicles by the looks of it. I counted three of them altogether and they came at us at quite some speed. This may have explained the lack of rotters we’d encountered so far in such a large built up area.

  BANG, BANG, BANG! They were taking out any stray rotters that they came across, but they were clearly heading in our direction along the road that was blocking the waterway in front of us. I alerted the three guys on the boats. I just prayed that the rest of our group stayed put, we had told them not to come out, no matter what they heard.

  Becky and I hid out of site in the small building, but where we could see what was going on. The three vehicles pulled up on the road at the point that it spanned the canal, so they were directly above the slowly descending boats, looking down on them.

  Chapter Thirty Seven

  They all got out of their vehicles at the same time. They were all armed with what looked like shot guns and rifles. There were Ten of them altogether, from what we could see anyway, both male and female, all pointing their guns directly at our guys on the boats below them. They were dressed head to toe in camouflage gear and looked pretty pissed off to see our guys.

  Hey, what you Fuckers doing in our river? One of them shouted in a broad Scottish accent.

  Ken answered back, we don’t want any trouble, we are just trying to find somewhere safe to stay, we just want passage through the lock and we’ll be on our way.

  How many of you Fuckers are in there? He shouted back. There cannae just be you three ugly bastards, I wanna see everyone up top now!

  There’s just the three of us. Ken replied. honestly.

  Three!? What the fuck would three morons like you be doing on your own with four boats?

  Fair point, I thought to myself. I wondered how Ken was going to explain that one.

  We’re on our way to Falkirk, were hoping to meet up with friends there and then were heading up north to hopefully find an island to settle on. Ken replied.

  Don’t fucking lie to me you Southern twat. Get the rest of those bastards up on deck now or no one is gannin anywhere! Why the fucking hell do you fuckers think you can use wor river, gan through wor fucking town and using wor fucking fuel to do it?! I wanna see all you bastards now!

  I loved how the Scottish managed to use obscenities in almost every sentence!

  It’s just us three. Ken shouted, Why would I lie?

  BANG! Ken fell to the deck, they had shot him! They’d shot Ken, oh my God!

  David and Paul hit the deck and started to fire back. They managed to hit one of them and they fell from the road and into the water below. Then all hell broke loose. Everyone on the road was firing at our two guys on the boats below. Becky and I felt useless, what were we going to do with a boat hook and an axe, all we could do was stay put and we hoped that we’d be able to get back to the cottages at some point to warn the rest of the group. We had been warned on the Somerset that it was people we needed to be more afraid of than rotters. I hadn’t believed that until that point.

  It must have been the noise from the pumps and the gun fire, but we hadn’t heard the vehicle coming up the tow path from Bowling until they opened fire from it with machine guns. The rest of the gang on the road were dead almost instantly, their shot guns and rifles were no match for the
automatic weapons in the vehicle on the tow path.

  We hadn’t been able to see who had been firing from where we were hiding in the building. We heard the vehicle pull up outside and voices shouting towards the boats. They knew the guy’s names! David! Paul! You guys alright down there?

  Oh my God! It was Lia and another sash from the Somerset! We rushed without thinking from where we were hiding and called out Lia’s name. I think we must have took her by surprise, because she spun around, gun pointed directly at us! But as soon as she had recognised us she had lowered it. We ran to her and we hugged. Paul and David emerged from the boats and joined us on the bank. Thank fuck for that, you’re a sight for sore eyes and just at the bloody nick of time too. David had said.

  I jumped aboard the Hue, Ken was gone, blasted in the head with a high powered rifle, he had had no chance, at least he wouldn’t turn I remember thinking; he had been spared that indignity at least.

  I jumped back off and went back to the rest of the guys on the bank. He’s gone, I said, poor old bugger, we’re going to have to go back and tell Margret. I don’t know why I showed so little emotion. Maybe we just accepted this was the way of the world now. I guessed it would hit me later when I had time to think about it properly.

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  I recognised the other sash from the Somerset; it was warrant officer Rigby, not a sash at all, but a Royal Navy officer. Its okay Lia said, she’s with me.

  Warrant officer Rigby introduced herself as Sandra. Or Sandie if you like, she smiled. I remembered how kind she had been to us aboard the Somerset and shook her hand and thanked her. Where’s Gav? I asked Lia.

  He turned, I shot him, was all she said. She didn’t go into any detail and I hadn’t pressed her for it. I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it, at least not there and then anyway.

  Becky and I went and checked on the dead guys that were still on the road and gathered all weapons and ammo we could find on them and in their vehicles. Becky smashed them all through the skull with her axe. Just in case she said and smirked at me.

  The vehicles were pretty shot up, so of no use to us. We stripped them of anything that was of use to us and the fuel of course.

  When we had finished, I asked Lia about my brother and his family. She said she would explain later, but he was not with them. There was just Michael and Holly in the vehicle that they’d been driving.

  We thought about draining the pumps of the fuel in them too after we’d shut them down, but thought better of it. My brother or other survivors could be following us or using the same route, so we left it. We didn’t know then if we would need to use it again ourselves too if things didn’t work out on our journey ahead of us.

  We could see movement in the distance so decided to head back to the cottages. David and Paul had already taken the boats under the road and back up the other side whilst we’d been scavenging for supplies.

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Back at the cottages we tied up the boats and Lia parked up their vehicle.

  David broke the news to Margaret privately whilst I told the rest of the guys. She wanted to see him, so David had taken her out to the Hue where we had left him covered up for now. David had done his best to comfort her.

  We had discussed staying at the cottages for the night, but decided it was too risky. We didn’t know if the ten people back on the road that we had just killed were part of a larger group that may have come looking for them and then us. So we thought the best plan of action would be to get a few miles between ourselves and the lock at Dalmuir, find somewhere safe to moor up for the night and contend with what Clydebank had in store for us the following morning.

  Lia, Sandie and her kids went ahead in their four by four Jeep. We had managed to scavenge walkie talkies from the dead guys back on the road, so we had a means of contact between everyone.

  The rest of us had boarded the boats, as before, except John and Amy had now moved onto the Gamebird so John could take Ken’s place as main driver. We had buried Ken in the garden of one of the cottages before we’d left. Margaret hadn’t wanted to leave him and had wanted to stay at the cottages as she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him yet. We had had to drag her physically onto the Gamebird and Hayley had done her best to comfort her.

  We heard the odd shot being fired in the distance ahead of us. The radio message came through from Sandie to tell us that it was nothing to worry about, they had just been taking out any rotters they’d disturbed so we didn’t have to encounter them.

  We didn’t go far, just a mile or so and then we had moored up for the night. Lia, Sandie and the kids joined us on the Hue. It was a bit of a squash, but we coped. We arranged for two people to keep watch throughout the night as we were still nervous about what had happened back at Dalmuir. We kept the lights and stoves off that night and just ate cold food straight out of the cans. We hadn’t moved that far from Dalmuir and couldn’t take the risk of going through Clydebank at night, so tried to stay as inconspicuous as possible. David and Becky took first watch.

  Chapter Forty

  Lia told us about what had happened after we had left the Somerset. Apparently there was so much going on with boats being sent all over on scouting missions and so on that no one had even noticed us missing and had just assumed the two boats had been compromised.

  When they had neared Faslane the scout ships had discovered utter chaos and despair. They had learned that the Royal Navy had used it as a safe zone early on in the outbreak, but had long since abandoned it, the same as they had done in Portsmouth. However, survivors had continued to arrive, only to find there was no sanctuary. The base had been secured from the rotters and the people that were left there had been doing their best to survive, but basically it had been anarchy with constant in fighting, with different groups trying to take control of the base. Some of the groups had managed to take control of some of the scout ships and had headed to the Somerset, intent on taking it for themselves. They had however been way outnumbered and out gunned, so the Navy had had no problems taking their boats back again. The Navy commanders had made the decision not to dock in Faslane and to leave the people there to their own devices and had turned around. Gav and Lia had decided at this point that they regretted the decision to stay and had managed to get to shore with the aid of Sandie amongst the chaos. Sandie had been disgusted with the treatment of some of the survivors aboard the Somerset, so had only been too happy to help Lia and Gav out.

  They had managed to get to Bowling the morning after we had left, but didn’t know how to operate the locks, so had gone in search of alternative transport. This is when they had been outnumbered by the rotters of Bowling and Gav had been bitten. They had managed to escape in the Jeep they had acquired from one of the garages in Bowling and had come after us down the canals tow paths which run alongside it. Gav had died not long after from his injuries and it hadn’t been long after that when he’d turned. I’d already taken his gun, Lia said, so I used it as soon as he died. It was the least I could do for him. We burned him at the side of the lock, Michael was too young to understand, but Holly was taking it bad, she had been close to her Dad. I just hoped that Emily would never have to go through the same thing.

  She had said that my brother had been on one of the scout boats that had went to Faslane. Apparently he had volunteered as he was desperate to find out if his family were there as this was the last place he had known that they were heading for. Had their ship turned around the same as the Somerset had, I guessed that he needed to find that out. Lia did say that his boat had been one of the one’s that hadn’t returned before they had left. So this may have meant that it hadn’t been captured, but also that he could have returned to the Somerset after Lia and Gav had left. So basically I had been none the wiser as to where he was and could only hope he was coming after us with his family. I had to carry on as if they were all still alive and following us at some point and carry on with the plan as we’d already discussed with him.

/>   Chapter Forty One

  I remember that night being pretty uneventful. I had taken my Two hour watch shift with Sandie just after midnight. She was only twenty seven years old and had joined the Royal navy three years ago after doing her medical degree at the university of Portsmouth, followed by a stint in the NHS. It hadn’t taken her long to become disillusioned with the NHS and after the breakup of a long term relationship, she had decided that she needed a new challenge and wanted to see a bit of the world. Her parents were both Doctors and hadn’t been overly enthusiastic when she’d first told them after paying her way through medical school, they thought that joining the Navy was a waste of her talents, but they had supported her none the less.

  She didn’t know where they were now. They’d continued to work at Portsmouth hospital long after the outbreak and had refused, along with a lot of the other medical staff, to be evacuated to the safe zone, but had chosen to stay behind and continue to care for their patients at the hospital.

  I felt lucky that I had my close family with me at the time of the outbreak and still had hope that my brother and his family were alive. I didn’t know of what had happened to the rest of my family back home. I had a sister in Blyth and three nieces. My mum and Dad lived in Acklington which was the next village along from Togston. Babs was an only child and her parents lived just across the road from ourselves, behind the club. I had hoped at the time that it wouldn’t be long before we found out what had happened to them.

  I knew nothing of what had happened in the North East of England, whether there had been any safe zones or not. I guessed that they may have been hit the hardest since this was where the outbreak had originated. Our village was only about twenty five miles from Newcastle.