E Virus: The Diary of a Modern Day Girl (Book 2): The Path of Destruction (9 page)

George led the way out the kitchen as he stood behind the counter. He addressed the rest of the group.

“We will spend the remainder of the night here. We leave first thing in the morning” He announced.

It was clear. With the Sergeant gone, and with no willing leader to replace him, George had assumed the role. None of us fought or argued we just went along with it. After all, none of us wanted the job. We needed someone to look towards to guide us in the right direction. Since George knew the area so well, it seemed fitting that he would be the rightful leader.

But that was then. Now, we were outside the area of George’s expertise. There was no doubt about it; he had
lead us down the right path so far. But I was starting to doubt his leadership skills. He seemed quick to brush off the Professor's findings, and mine for that matter. I couldn’t help but think he was wrong about this.

We finished off our tea and cakes and made our way back into the observatory. The day’s events still played on my mind.

I noticed the Professor and George kept their distance from each other. They clearly both had very different opinions to how we all should proceed.

The more I thought about it, the more I sided with the Professor, maybe not for the same reasons. The Professor seemed genuinely intrigued with the infected and the behavioural traits they showed. I was intrigued as I figured it would help us to understand and avoid the threat they seemed to possess.

We hadn’t revealed our findings to the rest of the group. George had decided it wasn’t worth mentioning. He didn’t want anyone to panic. He was thinking purely of the present.  To him all we should be focusing on his how to get from here to the marina. He wanted to spend as little time as possible at
Jodrell Bank.

I have to say I did agree with him on that one. I felt like we were being led into a false sense of security. It was easy to get comfortable where we were. We had a huge supply of food, and our eating habits were as normal as they had been in a long time.

In times such as these, you don’t realise how grateful you can be of something as simple as a cooked meal. When you go without certain comforts for a large amount of time, you learn to appreciate them a lot more when you do have them. It makes it even harder to give those things up.

The good thing was; we weren’t thinking like that. The next morning, we stocked the cars full of food. The area around us stayed as quiet as ever so we were able to take our time, rather than rush. We took all the drinks out of the fridge in the café and piled into the cars.

It wasn’t long before we were back on the road, leaving Undead Pete behind.

Even though we hadn’t been at
Jodrell Bank for long, I was still sad to see it fading away in the distance. It provided us with security, a warm place to sleep at night and we even had electricity.  Granted, we still lacked showering facilities, but we had running water in the sinks and real toilets.

After a conversation between Lacey and I, we discovered our toilet habits seemed to be a struggle for us both.
Whilst number ones were relatively easy to relieve. It was the number twos we struggled with. I'll put it this way; Lacey refused to relieve her bowels if Paul was even in the same house. She just couldn't do it, and that was before the virus.

I had issues with relieving myself in public toilets, as did she. Let's just say over the last few weeks there's been a lot of holding in on our parts. We were relatively OK when we had real toilets to go to, but squatting in the woods, no matter what the circumstances, just wasn't going to happen.

The Professor was now in the car with us, as the 1 series was full of new supplies. He seemed grateful for the different company.

Sensing something wasn’t quite right between the Professor and George, Lacey decided to press the issue with the Professor.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s going on with you and George? You don’t seem to be as friendly as you have been before?” She speculated.

I cringed as I lent down further into my seat. I knew why the Professor had kept his distance, but I hadn’t even told Nick what had happened that night in the kitchen. I eagerly anticipated the Professor's response.

“Oh, nothing at all dear. George is a fine fellow, and I have simply been putting a lot more of my efforts into my research. Well, what little of it I have” He replied smoothly.

I shifted up my seat a little bit. He handled it well. I was never sure of the response from the Professor he was a hard character to figure out.

“Oh, OK. So how’s your research going? Any new findings to declare?” She asked. I didn’t know if she was just making conversation, or she had figured out something was up. Either way I kept my head down. I was terrible at lying, I knew if I opened my mouth she would see through me instantly. I just waited and listened; the Professor was on his own.

“Not as of yet.
I merely have a few theories. It is not something I wish to discuss until I have a little more evidence to back up my claims.” He replied clutching his notes firmly to his chest.

“Nothing to worry about sweetheart, please don’t worry” He added in for good measure.

I breathed a sigh of relief. As much as I hated keeping secrets, I knew it was the right thing to do.

Lacey decided not to push any further. She drew her attention back to the window as we all took in the scenery around us.

Trees whizzed past as we pushed on towards our destination. We were in the back end of autumn now; most of the leaves had fallen off the trees, and the weather was its usual miserable self. As we neared the marina, the rain started to pour blurring our once clear vision.

“Great, just what we need, more rain.” Paul complained.

“Only a few more miles to go” Nick replied, unfazed by the new weather conditions.

Our wipers were now going at full blast; visibility was starting to become a real issue.

“Slow down a bit babe, Ryan might not be able to keep up in this weather.” I told him.

Nick eased off the accelerator as the rain started to slow.

“Better?” He asked.

I nodded.
“Much better.” I answered back.

The countryside started to disappear as we entered the rural village of Church
Minshull. The whole place seemed abandoned. Rubbish littered the streets as smashed glass covered the pavements.

Houses stood, completely inhabitable. The curtains protruded out of broken windows flowing freely in the wind.

There was all but one infected, stood at the side of the road. The rain had started to die down leaving huge puddles where the underground draining system had already flooded.

Nick pushed down on the accelerator as he drove through a particularly large puddle, just next to where the infected stood.

Water pushed up against the car as a wave came up and splashed down straight onto the infected man, stood on the pavement. Nick and Paul cheered as the infected man, drenched in dirty water simply looked on in our direction.

We looked behind us at the white one series as Ryan followed Nicks lead and did the same. I could see from the grin on their faces they were equally as excited as the boys.

“Mate that was epic” Paul announced patting Nick on the shoulder.

“I know
, can we do that again?” Nick asked the rest of us.

Lacey and I looked at one another. “Don’t even think about it.” I told Nick sternly.

I couldn’t help but feel they were getting a little too cocky for their own good. The Professor had a concerned look on his face. He didn’t seem very happy with the way the boys were behaving. In all honesty neither was I. As the saying goes ‘don’t poke the bear.'

I saw the Professor out the corner of my eye shaking his head. We carried on with our journey. A few minutes later we were back in the countryside.

“Not far at all now” Nick announced trying to change the subject.

We were now on the home straight. Signs for the Marina were just up ahead. Luckily we didn’t pass any more villages or towns, it was pure countryside.

We drove over the final bridge as the marina opened out in front of us. Rows upon rows of canal boats floated on top of the water, moored and completely unattended.

We slowly pulled into the marina car park. There were only one or two other cars. The whole place seemed abandoned. This was good news for us, if only we could find the boat.

Nick looked out into the marina and turned to the rest of us.

“You guys stay here; me and Paul will check out the marina and see if we can find the right boat.” he told us.

Lacey, the Professor and I stayed in the car as they scoped out the area in front of us. By this time, Ryan, Leon and George had also got out their car and were heading in the same direction.

“What was the name of that boat again?” Lacey asked.

“I believe it is called Lion Heart” the Professor answered simply.

“What an odd name for a boat” I replied.

Lacey started to laugh. “That’s nothing, have you seen the name on that blue one over there? It says Lost Grockle.”

The Professor started to chuckle. “How peculiar” he laughed.

“Oh, I like the sound of that one” Lacey pointed over to a small black and white boat. “The Shiraz” she read aloud.

“I wonder what that could contain” I joked.

Our minds swiftly wondered back to wine. In all honesty, it didn’t take much. We sounded like recovering alcoholics; this is the longest we had ever been sober for. I had a feeling the Professor enjoyed a drink or two; his mind seemed to wonder just as much as ours did.

We watched the boys as they hopped from pier to pier endlessly searching for the right boat. With each boat they passed, they shook their heads in dismay.

“Are you sure it’s called Lion Heart?” I asked the Professor.

“Yes, I am absolutely certain dear.” The Professor responded. “In fact, I have the original letter right here.” he replied.

He flicked through his many notes and pulled out the original letter George had found in the sorting office.

“Here we are, see it says just here Lion Heart” The Professor pointed out. “It says here, that it is docked in bay V43.”

“Do the rest of them know this?” Lacey asked.

“They should do, we all saw the note” The Professor responded.

As soon as the Professor said that, I knew what the problem was. For one reason or another, the boys had overlooked the fact we had been given the exact spot. The bright sparks that they were had just wandered around, hoping to come across the right boat.

“Hang on, one second.” I told the Professor. I opened the car door and stood up. I looked around to make sure we were clear and shouted over to the boys.

“You need to look for bay V43” I shouted. The boys looked up understanding their new instructions. They began scanning the numbers along the side of the pier hoping to find the right one.

“I’m at V27” Paul shouted.

“I’m V15, complete wrong way” Leon shouted.

“I got V31” Ryan joined in.

Nick was the last one to reply. “I’m V7, well off” he responded.

I looked out in front of me at the rows of boats. They were all in the complete opposite direction. George was the first to realise.

“Over there” He pointed to the last row of boats. Sure enough, there it was. It was the biggest of them all. Painted blue and red I couldn’t help but notice how much it stood out from the rest.

How could they have possibly missed it? George was the first to get to the pier. He leaped onto the boat and made his way inside, using the key.

Nick and Ryan ran back up to the cars just as I went to sit back inside. They moved the cars as close to the pier as possible, ready to unload the supplies.

Lacey and I hopped out the car, eager to take a look at our new home. We left the boys to do the heavy lifting, it was traditional, even before the virus began, and who were we to break that trend.

George helped us aboard as we went down the steps leading inside the boat.

There was pine everywhere. It covered the walls, floors and ceilings. I was pleasantly surprised, for such an old boat it had a fairly modern interior. As we walked through the small passageway, we passed a double bed and two singles, one on top of the other, a little bit like a bunk bed.

As we carried on down, the passageway thinned further as a wall protruded outwards. A side fold door sat in the middle of the wall; this was the bathroom. I pulled the door back and came across a small toilet and shower cubicle. It wasn’t much, but I was evermore grateful for a warm shower. Although given our current state, we would each need at least three just to get rid of the dirt and grime that had built up. It had been nearly two weeks since my last shower. We were all starting to smell as bad as the infected. It wasn’t a pleasant smell at all.

We pushed on past the bathroom and came across another double bed and another set of singles. It was starting to feel a lot like Groundhog Day, but at least it was looking like we all had a bed to sleep in.

Past the second lot of beds, towards the back end of the boat, was a small kitchen. It could barely fit two people in there, but it had a small oven, a single and twin gas burner hob. I looked over to my right; there was even a fridge and a small freezer.

All in all, it was extremely small and cramped. But we would be much safer on the water than we would on land. Plus, we were just grateful for a warm bed to sleep at night.

George took a seat in the small kitchen area which backed onto the kitchen.

“Well, it’s a tight squeeze, but we’ll be just fine.” he told us.

Nick and Paul were the first ones to join us, their hands full of food, which we took from the freezer at Jodrell Bank. They placed them on the table and went straight back out, ready for another trip.

Lacey and I made our way into the kitchen; we needed to get the food in the fridge and freezer before it became inedible.