Yellow Death: Arrival: Surviving the plague was only the beginning (The Yellow Death Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  He turned his attention to an Ordnance Survey map of the local area. Many marks and notations had been added to it. These showed the locations of the caches he had created since the Death. Looking at the various symbols gave him a sense of satisfaction.

  After surviving the terrible fever, Cal was weak and could do little more than think. So he thought and thought. Not about the past and what had been lost, but the possibilities for the future. Everything had changed. Having studied military history for most of his life, he knew how fast society would turn nasty, now that the mechanisms of the law were swept away.

  Most folk would be reasonable, friendly and cooperative—at least whilst food remained plentiful. Yet some would see this as an excuse to live out their violent dreams. It would be nice if only decent people survived the plague, but surely psychopaths, rapists and other undesirables would be waking up from their delirium into this shiny new world.

  Law and order would now be enforced by the barrel of a gun, so best make sure the good guys owned the guns. Unfortunately, the low-lives would be quick to arm themselves. Cal saw the opportunity to swing the balance. He knew about weaponry—perhaps more than any other survivor. His mission became to find and hide as many armaments as possible. When respectable people were under threat, he could give them weapons and the training to use them.

  He wasted no time beginning his self-appointed task. Whilst most survivors spent the early weeks wallowing in grief, or shocked into inactivity, he had been busy. In fact, he visited an army base as soon as he regained enough strength to stand for more than a few minutes.

  Finding suitable hiding places proved to be the toughest part. They had to be secure and protected from the weather—the same locations that survivors might seek out refuge—so he chose them carefully. One of his largest caches was in the basement of a village church. The stench from the decaying corpses of those who had taken shelter to pray and die, would deter anyone stumbling upon the building.

  After a few weeks, he changed tack. He noted that most travellers formed small groups, which scavenged from shops and houses, taking just what they needed with no thought for the years ahead. Often, he would discover stores broken into with only a few items taken. After the windows were smashed, the remaining stock was exposed to the elements and roaming animals. A shocking waste of an irreplaceable resource. Eventually, most people would settle down and make new permanent homes. When that happened, they would need reserves of supplies until they became self-sufficient. Yet nobody was preparing for this.

  On the occasions Cal met with others on the road, he hinted they should also be storing and conserving. There was little enthusiasm for his ideas. Most survivors existed in a depressive fug with barely enough energy to get out of bed in the morning.

  Thus, he began urgently gathering and storing irreplaceable supplies, such as petrol, medicine, army ration packs and even toothpaste. These would be given out when times became hard—something he felt sure would happen sooner than anyone imagined.

  Perhaps today he might seem like an obsessive, pessimistic jerk, but he hoped that before long, others would wake up to reality and praise his foresight.

  Cal was driving a Lexus hybrid SUV that he had ‘borrowed’ from a dealer in Exeter. He liked it because, for a four-wheel-drive SUV, it was frugal with fuel. In fact, Cal worried how he would manage when forced to use true horsepower for transport—horses seemed so unpredictable. The hybrid gave another advantage—stealth. When approaching a town or village, Cal would switch to silent mode, then creep through the streets using the electric motors. When meeting strangers, he wanted to have the initiative.

  It was mid-morning and Cal was driving east along the A303 towards Salisbury Plain. So far, he had made good time. The sun was high in the sky and the roads were dry. The flat countryside with endless fields separated by hedgerows and copses looked remarkably unchanged in the six months since the Yellow Death. That would soon change. Now that Spring had arrived, the hedges and verges were about to burst forth with new vegetation. There would be no farmers or council workers to hold back nature’s fecundity.

  The road was only a single carriageway, but was wide and straight. With the exception of a few abandoned vehicles and occasional pot-holes, the way was clear. He kept his speed under fifty, since he was in no particular hurry and wanted plenty of time to react to anyone coming from the opposite direction—his biggest concern.

  Normally, he would be looking out for approaching vehicles, but his attention was drawn to the ancient monumental stone circle of Stonehenge as it passed by on his left. The road passed within a hundred metres of the iconic landmark and the massive stone pillars stood proudly above the flat grassy plain.

  Although he had seen it many times, it always gave him a buzz. Five thousand years ago, primitives with nothing better than stone tools had lifted rocks weighing hundreds of tons and placed them with such extreme precision they still stood today. Stonehenge had permanence and solidity, which he could sense. It almost seemed as if they stood in judgement—mocking the upstart humans who had placed them here.

  When his eyes returned to the road, his worst fear materialised. In the distance, coming straight at him, was another vehicle. It looked like a red mini-bus, straining under a huge overflowing roof-rack.

  Cal panicked and braked hard as he pulled over to the side of the road. He grabbed his rifle and combat shotgun, jumped out of the car and went around the rear, stepping over the trailer’s tow bar. The mini-bus was a couple of hundred metres away now. He crawled along the verge until the hedgerow was dense enough to give cover and moved behind it. Brambles scratched the back of his hand as he pushed through the hedge. He crouched down where he had a clear view of the road and his SUV.

  Cal took a few seconds to catch his breath and assess the situation while watching the mini-bus come closer. If he was lucky, they would not have seen his car moving and would pass by, assuming it was just another abandoned vehicle. He hoped so. They could not see him hiding behind the hedgerow, but bushes would not stop bullets.

  Dammit! This is exactly why I hate travelling.

  He checked all his weapons and made sure they were ready to fire.

  The mini-bus slowed and finally stopped a few yards from his SUV. It had sliding doors and looked like it would carry about fifteen people, although the rear two-thirds were stuffed to the roof with supplies. The bus sported a collection of dents and rusty patches, which was incongruous with the brightly painted ‘Rainbow Tours’ logo on the side. The roof-rack was a poor fit, with ropes tied to the back door handles helping to secure it. Cal saw four people inside, but since it was packed with belongings, there might be others not visible to him.

  The engine died and a man in his forties, sporting a bushy beard and noticeable paunch, climbed out and walked up to Cal’s Lexus. Cal noted he carried a double-barrelled shotgun. If that was the extent of their weapons, he had little to fear. The bearded man peered into the SUV, then strode around it suspiciously. He put his hand on the bonnet.

  “Engine’s warm,” he shouted to the mini-bus. “You were right, Mia. It was moving. But there’s nobody here now. It doesn’t look damaged. The tyres are okay. I don’t reckon anyone would have just left it here.” He shielded his eyes from the sun and looked around, pausing for a moment at the bushes where Cal hid. Cal gripped his rifle and reminded himself he was invisible to them.

  A woman’s voice called from the bus. “Let’s move on, George. Whoever it is, obviously doesn’t want to meet us.”

  That’s excellent advice. Listen to her, George.

  Somebody inside the bus had other ideas. The big sliding side door opened and a young woman nimbly jumped out. She could not have been a bigger contrast to George. Cal reckoned she was in her mid-twenties and had short blonde hair. She wore faded jeans and a white T-shirt that sported the slogan ‘In Training For The Zombie Apocalypse’.

  “Get back on the bus,” George shouted. “It might be dangerous.”

  �
��For God’s sake, George, you’re not my dad,” she said. “I wish you and Mia would stop telling me what to do.”

  “Look, you agreed to do what we told you if we brought you along.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  “Sharon! Do as George says,” a hysterical voice shouted from the bus. That must have been Mia.

  Sharon ignored her two older companions and looked around her. “Hey, you out there. Why not come out and meet us? We don’t bite.”

  Cal suddenly felt foolish lurking behind the bushes. Was he over cautious? It could be a trick. Who else was in the mini-bus, and were they armed? It was best to go ahead with discretion and take no chances.

  “Okay,” Cal shouted. “Listen carefully. I want everyone on the bus to come out with your hands on your head. No sudden moves. You, with the beard, lay down that shotgun, very, very slowly.”

  “Why should I?” George said, the tremor in his voice giving away his false bravado.

  “Because you’re standing out in the open and I’m hidden with an assault rifle.”

  “H-How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  Cal fired a burst from his rifle into the air. The staccato shots caused George to flinch, and he promptly knelt down, placing his shotgun on the ground. Sharon casually placed her hands on her head, seemingly unconcerned by the gunfire. A middle-aged woman with a wild explosion of ginger hair came out first. An older man who gripped a walking stick followed her. His free hand was on his head.

  “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” Mia said, holding her arms up high.

  Cal stepped through the hedgerow and, keeping his assault rifle trained on the small group, walked past the bus, glancing inside it. There was nobody else in there, so he shouldered his rifle.

  “Relax everyone, I’m friendly,” he said, and bent to pick up George’s shotgun and break it open.

  “This is empty, you’ve got no cartridges.” Cal said to George.

  “I—I ran out a couple of weeks ago, I just carry it for show.”

  “I see. Well, I can give you some shells.” Cal resisted the urge to point out that by carrying a gun, George was likely to get himself shot on sight. George may as well have been wearing a sign saying ‘shoot me’ around his neck.

  “Okay, everyone, you can all put your hands down. Sorry if I scared you. I just needed to make sure of your intentions. I get jittery when people start waving shotguns around.” He handed the shotgun back to George. “Here you go. My name’s Cal. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Oh Lord.” Cal said. “This bread is absolutely gorgeous. I didn’t realise how much I missed proper fresh-baked bread. How do you manage to make it?”

  Mia beamed at Cal’s exuberant compliments. “It’s quite easy, really. I’ve rigged a bread-maker to run off the bus power point. We’ve got plenty of flour. The only problem is that yeast has a short shelf life and I don’t know where I’ll get some more.”

  “Me neither, but I suggest you make it a priority.”

  Once they had got past the pointing guns at each other situation, they all relaxed and introduced themselves properly. It was midday, so George suggested they all had lunch together and share news. Cal agreed, but was uncomfortable staying on the road. Stonehenge was a stone’s throw away—an opportunity too good to miss. The five of them sat in a circle on the grass, eating and drinking. The food included cold beer, canned meat, fruit, and the pièce de résistance was Mia’s crusty, malty bread.

  The impromptu picnic had a surreal feeling since they were sitting in the centre of the ancient monument, surrounded by the immense pillars of stone looking down upon them. Although the landscape was flat, Stonehenge was built on a slight rise, giving a panoramic view of the Wiltshire countryside.

  The sky was almost cloudless, and the warmth from the March sun encouraged a relaxed atmosphere. Cal was sitting back against one of the massive standing stones while George and Mia related their story.

  All four of them had lived and worked in London before the Yellow Death.

  “The plague decimated the population,” George said. “But there were enough alive in the city for groups to form up quickly. Government buildings and some big corporations had generators, so were popular as bases. Some folk raided hospitals to steal their generators. As long as fuel was available, people lived comfortably.” George swigged from a bottle. “That’s good beer. Wonder how long it’ll be before somebody starts making that again?” He belched.

  “Get on with the story, George,” Mia said.

  “Sorry. Anyway, the biggest problem was the bodies. Bodies everywhere. For a couple of months, a foul stench seemed to hang over the city. There was no escaping it, even wearing a face mask. After a while, we sort of got used to it. When the cold weather came, it disappeared.”

  “Or we stopped noticing it,” Mia said.

  “Yeah, possibly,” George said, nodding thoughtfully. “Anyway, there were vast supplies all around London. Not just in shops and supermarkets, but in restaurants and people’s houses. Fresh and frozen food spoiled straight away, but there was plenty of other stuff which would last ages… at least we thought it would.” He sipped his beer before continuing.

  “It was the same with fuel. When the petrol stations ran dry, we started syphoning the tanks of the thousands of cars left in the streets. So it seemed we’d be okay for a long time.”

  Mia huffed. “We should’ve known better. After a few months, supplies became short and things turned nasty. By then, most people had joined groups with established territories. Some groups had nicer patches than others. Disputes started up over where one territory ended and another began. Fights broke out—especially at night. Most nights after dark, we could hear gunfire and see the sky glowing with flames.”

  Sharon laughed. “Bloody typical. Ninety-nine per cent of the population gets killed by a plague and, within months, those left are fighting each other.”

  George took over the story. “Mia and I were in a group of twenty, living in what was a private clinic. It was a great place—once we’d cleared out the bodies. There was a working well for drinking water, and gardens, which we planted out with veggies. We tried to keep a low profile. No lights after dark, no fires before dark. But it was no good. One night we were raided. The bastards were quick and brutal. They had no plans to take prisoners, and they shot anyone who resisted. Mia and I ran for our lives. I thought my lungs would burst. The next day we went back, only to find it was burnt to the ground. We saw nobody from our group again.”

  Mia put down her food and held her head in her hands. “It was terrible. We’d lost everyone we loved in the plague and just when we started making friends again…”

  George put his arm around her and continued. “Next day we were cold, hungry and homeless. It pissed down all day. I’ll tell you we were ready to give up, to throw in the towel. Both of us had enough. If it wasn’t for James…”

  James was the fourth member of the group. He smiled. “I saw them opposite my house, crouched in a doorway. And a sorry sight they were. I’m not sure why I took them in. Since the plague, I’d been living on my own and doing very well―existing in the shadows, not attracting attention.”

  “Oh, come on now,” George said. “You helped us because you wanted out of London.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe,” James said. “It was getting obvious there was no future staying in the capital. I’d stored up plenty of food and stuff, but it was only a stop gap. Thing is, I couldn’t drive. I was in a terrible car crash a few years ago. Hence the walking stick. I never felt the need for a car in London—not before the plague, anyway. Of course, everything’s different now.”

  “James took us both in,” George said. “Convinced us to leave the capital with him for the West Country. We needed a big vehicle for all of James’ supplies. After a bit of a search, we found the mini-bus. We were fitting the roof-rack when we met Sharon.”

  George glanced at Sharon, giving her the chance to take over the story. She was chewing a Mar
s bar and motioned with her hand for George to continue.

  “Sharon was leading a foraging team sent out to scavenge and rob for a larger group. Luckily, the mini-bus was empty, so we had nothing to steal, and they left us alone. No doubt if we had some supplies, they’d have thieved everything. Anyway, half-an-hour later, Sharon appeared again. She’d doubled back and asked if she could join us. Like us, she realised living in London was not feasible and it was best to get out sooner rather than later. She was charming and promised to do what she was told—hah!—so we agreed to take her along. The next day we left London and, after a few hours of driving, we ran into you.”

  “That’s not quite how it was,” Sharon said, licking chocolate off her fingers. “When my scrounge team found them, it was obvious they were fitting out the van to carry supplies. Standard procedure was to beat them up until they blabbed where they’d hidden their stash, but I saw them as a way to get out of London. So I ordered my team to move on and slipped back later. My crew were suspicious, but knew better than to disobey my orders.”

  During the uncomfortable silence that followed, Cal noted the friction between Sharon and the others.

  “That’s quite a story,” he said. “I find it hard to believe you all stayed in London for so long.”

  “The city was our home,” Mia said. “It was all we had left. At the start, it seemed bursting with everything we needed. We would’ve been crazy leaving early on, with food around everywhere for the taking. Things became worse so slowly we didn’t notice. Honestly, I shudder now when I think of how we lived towards the end.”

  “Bit by bit we turned into animals,” George said. “Every day, a bit more of our humanity got eaten away. Nobody cared. We became used to the stench of death. We moved around corpses without a second thought. Rat stew was a delicacy. When I look at all this beautiful countryside, I think we were mad to stay there. But there are still hundreds, maybe thousands, too scared to leave. I guess if you’ve spent your entire life in a metropolis, the great outdoors is like another planet. Most city folk wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to survive out here.”