Surviving The Evacuation (Book 15): Where There's Hope Read online

  Surviving the Evacuation

  Book 15

  Where There’s Hope

  Frank Tayell

  Dedication

  To my readers

  Thanks

  Published by Frank Tayell

  Copyright 2018

  All rights reserved

  All people, places, and (especially) events are fictional.

  Post-Apocalyptic Detective Novels

  Strike a Match 1. Serious Crimes

  Strike a Match 2. Counterfeit Conspiracy

  Strike a Match 3. Endangered Nation

  Work. Rest. Repeat.

  Surviving The Evacuation/Here We Stand

  Book 1: London

  Book 2: Wasteland

  Zombies vs The Living Dead

  Book 3: Family

  Book 4: Unsafe Haven

  Book 5: Reunion

  Book 6: Harvest

  Book 7: Home

  Here We Stand 1: Infected

  Here We Stand 2: Divided

  Book 8: Anglesey

  Book 9: Ireland

  Book 10: The Last Candidate

  Book 11: Search and Rescue

  Book 12: Britain’s End

  Book 13: Future’s Beginning

  Book 14: Mort Vivant

  Book 15: Where There’s Hope

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  Synopsis

  There is always hope.

  Northern France is a frozen morass of mud and snow across which rampages a horde of the undead, a hundred million strong. That won’t stop Chester Carson and his comrades. Seeking a way across the Channel, they make for the coast, unaware that Britain has been abandoned, Belfast is a ruin, and that radiation is seeping into the Irish Sea. If they knew, that wouldn’t stop them either. They’re on a quest to save their family, their friends, and humanity itself; failure is not an option.

  As they journey through war-ravaged ports and storm-wrecked beaches, a new truth becomes clear. The flotilla that found refuge on Anglesey wasn’t the only group of sea-borne refugees to have survived the outbreak. There are other survivors. Some good, some evil, some just determined to do their duty no matter the cost.

  Danger lurks along the French and Belgian coasts. So do answers, and hope that humanity now has a future.

  Table of Contents

  Part One - Captain Flora Fielding

  Day 227, 25th October

  Chapter 1 - Never Volunteer

  Day 228, 26th October

  Chapter 2 - The Scottish Dane

  Part Two - Jay’s First Trip Abroad

  Day 257, 25th November

  Chapter 3 - A Watched Phone Never Rings

  Chapter 4 - The Dying Tide

  Chapter 5 - A Sailor’s Life For Me

  Chapter 6 - Bittersweet Reunion

  Chapter 7 - Life’s Cruel Reality

  Day 258, 26th November

  Chapter 8 - Please Turn Out The Lights

  Chapter 9 - Oh, For Dry Land

  Chapter 10 - Mussels But No Frites; Fish But No Chips

  Day 259, 27th November

  Chapter 11 - The Courageous Ocean Queen

  Chapter 12 - New Port, Old Problems

  Chapter 13 - The Last Word in Luxury

  Part Three - The Journey Home

  Day 257, 25th November

  Chapter 14 - The Road to Amiens

  Chapter 15 - Climbing the Ladder

  Chapter 16 - A Missing Locke

  Chapter 17 - The Danger of Assumptions

  Chapter 18 - The Worst Kind of Death

  Day 258, 26th November

  Chapter 19 - Humanity’s New Home

  Chapter 20 - Look Upon Me and Tremble

  Chapter 21 - The Beach, Red with Rust

  Chapter 22 - Arrivals and Departures

  Chapter 23 - When Darkness Falls

  Day 259, 27th November

  Chapter 24 - A Gunshot Louder Than a Trumpet’s Blast

  Chapter 25 - Money to Burn

  Chapter 26 - Theft and Murder

  Chapter 27 - Summit Conference

  Chapter 28 - The Invisible Destroyer

  Chapter 29 - The Futility of a Frontal Assault

  Chapter 30 - I Can See Your Truck From Up Here

  Chapter 31 - Night Fishing

  Day 260 & 261

  Epilogue - Answer and Question

  Part One

  Captain Flora Fielding

  Day 227

  25th October

  Chapter 1 - Never Volunteer

  Calais

  The diesel stung as it seeped into the welts around Flora Fielding’s cuffed wrists. The fumes burned her eyes, but there was little to see in the barely illuminated corridor beneath Calais Ferry Terminal. The toxic vapour filled her lungs as she hauled the full canister through the propped-open, triple-thick fire doors.

  “Allez! Vite!” Paulo called from the top of the steep stairs.

  Flora would put money on him being the one who’d propped open the fire doors. Either Paulo or Rhoskovski. From what she’d seen of the group of multinational slavers who’d taken root in Calais, both were so lazy they’d risk an explosion rather than descend the stairs to keep a more careful watch on their prisoners.

  “Allez!” Paulo called again.

  She didn’t look up, and she didn’t rush, but carefully hauled the fuel up the steep stairs. Her captors had called it a pump-room, but it wasn’t that. The small chamber was situated beneath the waterline, halfway between the inland fuel tanks and the quayside bunkering platform where the car ferries bound for Dover could be refuelled. Filled with consoles and gauges, the room was a place for monitoring rate of flow, with pride of place given to a comically large red button that would shut down the entire system in case of fire. A small valve allowed an equally small amount of fuel to be run off for testing. It wasn’t designed for litre after litre to be dripped into a mismatch of containers salvaged from who knew where. After only a few minutes in the chamber, her clothes were as saturated as the air. Her skin was as slick as the steps. When she stepped past a scowling Paulo, she’d never been so grateful to breathe fresh air.

  Avoiding eye contact with her glowering captor, she trudged over to the other prisoners. She added her container to those already on the cart, and took her place next to Pietr. The young artist from Vienna gave her a conspiratorial grin. She replied with a nod, rubbing her cuffed wrists. The long chain gave her almost complete freedom of movement, but it was rubbing her skin raw.

  Twenty metres away, a sign in English and French instructed drivers to remain in their vehicles at all times. No ship was at that berth, giving her an unobstructed view of the seawall protecting the entrance to Calais’s harbour. Beyond that, lost to the horizon and the sea mist, were Dover’s white cliffs. She was closer to home than she’d been since the nightmare began, though Dover wasn’t home. Nor was Portsmouth. No, even eight years after she’d enlisted, home was her parents’ house in Aberdeen.

  Such maudlin thoughts wouldn’t help her escape. No. She was a sailor in the Royal Navy, a second lieutenant on the HMS Courageous. Or, if a promotion from a retired Russian admiral had any value, she was now the captain of the Ocean Queen. And she was the prisoner of this multinational mix of slavers and murderers.

  Paulo scuffed at the mud-coated asphalt, turned away, and walked over to the water’s edge. None of the prisoners moved. The corpse twenty feet away was proof of what
would happen if they did. Flora didn’t know the woman’s name. She’d been shot simply as proof a sniper was watching them. Flora hadn’t located the sniper’s position. Most of this section of the harbour was an asphalt car park for the trucks and cars boarding the ferries bound for Dover, but there were dozens of small, low buildings on which a sniper could perch. Or, if the shooter was that good a shot, perhaps they were on the roof of one of the terminal buildings inland. It didn’t matter. The sniper was real, and there was nowhere from here to run.

  Paulo reached into his small backpack, and took out a plastic package. She couldn’t see what he was eating except it was so pink it had to be mostly sugar. Her stomach growled. She forced herself to look away. Paulo was in his mid-twenties, the same age as her, but there the similarities ended. His hair was long and lank. Hers was slowly growing out from the buzz-cut she’d insisted on for all her crew and passengers. He was short while she was tall. Well fed to her gnawing hunger. Warmly dressed compared to the ragged jeans and jumper she’d taken from that Belgian boutique before she’d decided to launch the ill-fated expedition south.

  The Ocean Queen and the Courageous had dropped anchor eighty kilometres northeast of Calais, by the small Belgian marina-town of Nieuwpoort. Admiral Popolov had taken most of the crew and passengers east, chasing the radio signal purporting to be from a group of millions of survivors based in Ukraine. That broadcast had been relayed across two continents via commercial broadcasters, ham-operators, and military installations until it reached a group of students in Cape Town. It was the students’ signal that she’d heard, but that had been in March. Now it was October. There’d been no one in Cape Town when they’d gone ashore. No one anywhere in Africa, Spain, or Portugal. No one, except here in the prison camp called Calais.

  They’d sailed past the harbour on their journey north, and had hoped to venture inside until they saw the stray mine floating in the harbour’s entrance. They’d seen no lights, no smoke, and so assumed the port was abandoned. She’d argued they should go ashore. With the mine in the harbour preventing scavenging by sea, she’d thought there was a chance other ship-borne looters had avoided the port. They might find food in the harbour, perhaps even fuel. Admiral Popolov had overruled her. They’d continued north, hoping to find shelter in Dunkirk, but it was as bad a ruin as any they’d seen. They’d reached Nieuwpoort with barely any fuel remaining in the Ocean Queen. Admiral Popolov had left her a skeleton crew of three, and had promised to send for them once he’d arrived safely in Ukraine. After two days, still refusing to believe the admiral was chasing ghosts, and with boredom fuelling curiosity, she’d brought her three crew-members south. They had been murdered. Killed in an ambush on the city’s outskirts. She’d survived, but now she was just another prisoner.

  “Told you,” Pietr hissed. “An easy duty, yes? Better than killing zombies.”

  “Easy enough,” Fielding replied, her voice just as low. “How many times have they had you collecting fuel?”

  “Once a week, every week, since the summer,” he whispered. “This is the first time they brought anyone else. Do what they say, you stay alive.”

  Her gaze went to the woman whose blood now mingled with the sea-spray puddle in which she lay.

  “How many snipers are there?” Flora asked.

  “Two,” Pietr said. “The women in white, yes? You’ve seen them with Rhoskovski? But they’re all good shots.”

  The prisoners came from across Europe, though they had one thing in common; they’d been trying to find a boat with which to reach England. From the languages she’d overheard, their captors came from France, Hungary, and Germany. Except for Rhoskovski, who was as Russian as the Udaloy-class destroyer in the harbour. She guessed that destroyer was the source of the mine floating in the harbour entrance, and the AK-74Ms that some of the guards carried. The rest carried a mixture of hunting rifles, farmer’s shotguns, and police-issue sidearms. Pietr thought there were over fifty guards, but she’d only counted fourteen so far, a mixture of ages and genders that, like the weapons and accents, gave no clue as to how they’d coalesced into a murderous band here in Calais.

  She’d caught a glimpse of the destroyer, and the other dozen mid-sized vessels, as she and the other prisoners were brought to the harbour, but couldn’t see the warship from where she stood.

  “Do they live aboard the destroyer?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Pietr replied. He seemed to realise what she was saying. “No, don’t think about it. Everyone who tries to escape, they shoot. Keep your head down, you live. Four months, I’ve survived.”

  Except his existence wasn’t survival, and it certainly wasn’t living. She asked no more questions, but took in the harbour. Aside from Paulo, two guards loitered near a rusting forklift. That man and woman were more interested in each other than the prisoners. The danger came from the sniper. Even so, and despite the long-chained handcuffs around her wrists, if she got the opportunity to escape, she’d take it. If she could get out of Calais, get back to her ship, and if some of her crew had returned, then she could bring them south and free the remaining prisoners. If any were still alive. If, if, if…

  “Watch out, he’s coming,” Pietr hissed.

  She didn’t need to ask who he was. A squat man carrying an AK-74M and four-stone of extra fat sauntered towards them. The man was Rhoskovski. He called himself commander, but he was barely a sailor, and certainly not someone any navy would give a commission. His three-cornered hat had to have come from a museum, while his grey fur coat was so long it trailed in the mud. Behind him walked a pair of women, both head and shoulders taller than Rhoskovski. They wore matching white-fur coats and hats, and utterly blank expressions beneath thick make-up. The women in white. The snipers. Then, maybe, there were no more on the rooftops, watching.

  Rhoskovski stopped in front of Flora and smiled. “Want one?” he asked, holding out a packet of cigarettes.

  She shook her head.

  “No? Go on. Smoke. Cancer is a good way to die. Long and slow.” Rhoskovski laughed, pointedly staring at her diesel-drenched clothes. He dragged a cigarette from the packet, placed it between his lips, and extracted a lighter. “Perhaps you would light it for me, yes?” he asked, and held out the lighter.

  Surely he could smell the diesel fumes. Of course he could. She was tempted to spark the lighter. There was a very good chance she’d go up in flames, but if she could grab him and hold on… but no, his death alone wouldn’t free the other prisoners. She bowed her head, and shuffled a penitent step backwards.

  Rhoskovski barked a cruel braying laugh, then turned to the other prisoners. “I want a volunteer,” he yelled, and was met by mostly blank stares. “You don’t speak Russian. You don’t speak English. Peasants,” he spat. “I want a volunteer. Translate!”

  Pietr did, in French, and then German, Spanish, and Arabic.

  “Who can drive a boat?” Rhoskovski continued, finally lighting the cigarette dangling between his lips.

  “I can sail,” Pietr said.

  Rhoskovski looked at the emaciated man, more bone than muscle. “And you?” he asked, turning to Fielding. “Can you drive?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, of course not,” he said. “You can drive?” he added, turning back to Pietr. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-nine,” Pietr said.

  “Twenty-nine? Ha! You’re lying. I like that. Good. I have a job. You do the job, you join us. You understand?”

  Pietr nodded.

  “Hold out your wrists.” Rhoskovski pulled a key from a chain attached to his belt and un-cuffed Pietr. “And payment in advance,” Rhoskovski added. He waved Paulo over, and then held out his hand. The guard frowned. “Paulo,” Rhoskovski growled, his tone as menacing as when he spoke to the prisoners.

  Paulo gave a scornful shake of his head, but reached into his bag and pulled out a crushed half-packet of fluorescent-pink marshmallow biscuits.

  Rhoskovski snatched them, and hande
d them to Pietr. “See? You work with us, you get paid. When you return, you get clothes. More food. Maybe Paulo will give you his brand, yes? Some women like tattoos, yes?” He leered at Paulo. The guard stared back, emotionless.

  “Je peux naviguer,” Magda, a middle-aged Frenchwoman, said.

  “What did she say?” Rhoskovski asked.

  “That she can sail a boat,” Pietr said.

  Rhoskovski grinned. “But I need a driver, not a sailor. Tomorrow? Maybe,” he said. He took out the cigarette, and flicked it towards Flora, but the butt tumbled in the air, landing in a sea-spray puddle. “Maybe tomorrow,” Rhoskovski said, his grin returning. He walked over to the cart, picked up a container, and thrust it into Pietr’s arms. He turned back to Flora. “You. Take the cart to the building with the red door. Go. Everyone else, wait.”

  Flora grabbed the handle and began hauling the cart away before Rhoskovski changed his mind.

  Despite the handcuffs, with both of the snipers on the waterfront, now was the time to escape. It would mean leaving Pietr and the other prisoners to face Rhoskovski’s wrath, but that was the reality of war. She’d thought she’d left that behind in February. In March, when they heard of the nuclear war, she’d thrown her identification discs into the sea. That, it turned out, had saved her life. Rhoskovski never took military personnel as slaves; he’d told her that himself. While that might have saved her life, it was the sight of the Courageous and the Ocean Queen so close to Calais’s harbour that had doomed these prisoners. Rhoskovski had seen their vessels. He’d recognised the HMS Courageous as a Royal Navy ship, and he now assumed that the British were coming. From what Pietr had said, the one-man, once-a-week chore of collecting diesel had become a daily labour. Putting two and two together, Rhoskovski was plotting his escape, but she would escape first.

  The building to which she’d been directed was a long one-storey on the opposite side of the spit of tarmacked concrete that jutted into the harbour. From the signs, the docks primarily serviced commercial traffic, though probably not the partially sunken car transporter wallowing some ten metres from the quay. It wasn’t immediately obvious what purpose the building served. A prominent sign for toilets pointed to the far side, while a skeletal antenna was propped on the roof. Whatever the building was, it had more than one entrance, so more than one exit, one of which would be beyond sight of the snipers.