For Those In Peril (Book 2): The Outbreak (13 page)

‘I
don’t think they’re ever going to let us pass, not if they see us.’ Claire was
right. It seemed there was no way they would let us under the bridge if they saw
us, and it seemed there was no way we could get past without being seen. We were
trapped between the bridge and the remains of the city. To the east, flames
still rose high into the air; above them, the sky was jet-black; not a single
star was visible. As I watched, lightning flashed across the sky; the rumble of
the thunder arrived a fraction of a second later.

Sophie
stuck her head out of the cabin where she’d been keeping an eye on Tom, spooked
by the unexpected noise. ‘What was that?’

I
wrestled with the wheel as I answered. ‘Nothing to worry about, just a
thunderstorm. How’s he doing?’

‘He’s
still the same; just lying there.’ She turned to Claire, her forehead creased
with concern. ‘Is he ever going to get better?’

Claire
glanced at me and then back to Sophie, ‘I don’t know, honey. I hope so, but I
can’t tell how badly he’s hurt, not without taking an X-ray or an MRI scan.’

I
stared ahead, trying not to let the worry show on my face. Sometimes, it felt
like I’d known Tom all of my life, and now I’d lost everything else, I couldn’t
face losing him, too.

There
was another flash, followed immediately by a crash that reverberated through the
boat. Sophie flinched and disappeared back into the cabin.

‘It’s
getting closer. I’d better go down. Sophie’s never been good with thunder.’
Claire climbed down into the cabin leaving me and Daz in the cockpit.

Daz
frowned. ‘How come there’s lightnin’ all of a sudden? There wasn’t a cloud in
the sky earlier.’

I
looked up. ‘A fire that big starts to make its own weather. All that soot and
ash in the air helps the clouds form and the heat gives it all energy.’

There
was an almighty flash of light and then a crashing
boom
that I felt deep
in my chest. ‘The storm’s drifting over us; it’s going to get wet up here. Daz,
if you go down below you’ll find some waterproofs under the bunk in the front
cabin. Get one for yourself and then bring one up for me.’

Daz
got back just as the rain started to fall in earnest, but it wasn’t normal rain:
it was black and oily, and it clung to us rather than running off onto the deck.
Whenever we moved, it slithered down our necks and worked its way up our
sleeves, staining our faces and our clothes. With it, came fierce gusts that
pushed and pummelled the boat, meaning I had to fight to keep it pointing in the
right direction. I adjusted the throttle so that we weren’t really going
anywhere, just holding our position against the current. Around us, the waters
were thick with burnt and melted debris. The smaller pieces weren’t much of a
problem, but I had to keep an eye out for larger ones and move out of their way
if it looked like they might hit us.

With
the detritus from the ruined city, came infected; some were so badly injured,
they could barely move; others were almost unharmed. I wondered how this had
happened: whether it was just the way the bombs had fallen or whether some had
been shielded from the blasts while others hadn’t.

Suddenly, a blackened and blistered hand, the tips of its fingers missing,
appeared over the side of the boat.

‘Daz,
boathook.’

Daz
grabbed his weapon and ran forward; there was a sickening crunch as he made
contact, but it took several blows before the infected finally let go.

‘Daz.
There!’ I pointed to the other side where another hand had appeared over the
gunnels. Daz ran across, barely managing to keep his footing on the increasingly
slippery deck, and laid into the new infected. Even as he did, more grasping
hands were appearing out of the darkness that surrounded us. With Daz already
busy, I let go of the wheel, grabbed the other boathook and ran forward, but
before I could get there, the boat struck something in the water, the impact
sending me spilling onto the deck. I struggled back to my feet, looking around
desperately for my boathook, but it had skidded beyond my reach. With no time to
retrieve it, I kicked out hard at a badly scorched head which appeared between
the guard rails, sending it spinning into the river. I just had time to see it
disappear in a swirl of inky black water before the boat juddered again as we
hit yet more of the wreckage. I picked up my boathook and looked round to find
Daz was back on the right side of the boat, bringing his makeshift weapon down
onto the head of yet another infected, while Claire and Sophie had emerged from
the cabin.

Sprinting unsteadily back to the cockpit, I threw the boathook to Claire and
went back to the wheel. Claire immediately ran forward and joined Daz as he
fended off the ever-increasing number of infected trying to get on board. Ahead,
I saw the burned-out remains of a large boat drifting directly towards us. I
turned the wheel to the left, trying to keep the movements smooth enough to
avoid sending Daz or Claire over the side, and missed the wreckage by a matter
of inches. Knowing we’d just got very lucky, I turned to Sophie. ‘Take the
spotlight and go up to the bow. I need you to keep it shining forward and shout
if it looks like we’re going to hit anything.’

‘Okay.’ Sophie, her wet hair plastered to the side of her face, trembled with
fear as she tentatively made her way past where Daz was striking out at yet
another attacker. As the lightning flashed again, illuminating Daz and Claire as
they kept up their assault on any infected who tried to haul themselves on
board, I wondered how long we could continue to hold them back. If it was just
the storm, or the debris, or the infected, we could probably deal with it, but
all three at once was just too much. We wouldn’t be able to rest, not for a
second, and we couldn’t carry on like that for long.

Chapter Six

By
dawn, the fires where Glasgow had once stood were beginning to subside and the
storm had passed. We’d made it through the night, but we were exhausted. The
infected had attacked us relentlessly, latching onto the boat as they were swept
past us by the flow of the river. There were so many of them in the water that
no matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to avoid them all. None had got on
board, but only because we’d been constantly on guard against them. Now the sun
was rising, we could see more clearly what was going on around us, and this made
it easier to keep well away from any debris which had infected clinging to it.
It helped that the wreckage was beginning to thin out, too, and finally I felt
we could start to relax.

Suddenly, the engine spluttered and died. I checked the fuel gauge: we were out
of diesel. There was no wind, so the sails were useless, and we began to drift
slowly along with all the other flotsam and jetsam that surrounded us, towards
the bridge.

Claire
shouted back from her position on the left hand side of the boat. ‘Why’ve you
turned the engine off?’

‘I
didn’t. We’re out of fuel,’ I called back.

Claire
frowned.  ‘So what happens now?’

‘The
current will carry us down to the bridge, whether we like it or not; there’s
nothing we can do about it.’

‘Can
we no’ drop the anchor?’ Daz was making his way towards the cockpit along the
other side.

‘If we
do that, we won’t be able to move out of the way if anything big comes towards
us, and we’d risk getting holed. If that happens, we’ll end up in the water and
we won’t last long in there.’

‘But
what about the soldiers?’ Sophie’s voice trembled with fear.

I
stared grimly downstream. ‘We’re just going to have to take our chances.’

We
waited nervously as the bridge slowly grew larger, but Daz was the first to spot
that things were different this time. ‘Somethin’s wrong.’

I
shaded my eyes with my hand as I looked up at it. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Last
time, the soldiers were strung out along it; now they’re all crowded in the
middle.’

Sure
enough, the men were huddled in the centre of the bridge and their vehicles had
been rearranged to form barriers across it. They started firing; not at us, not
into the water, but along the bridge itself. It took a moment to work out what
they were shooting at, then I saw them, the infected, swarming onto the bridge
from both ends. 

Daz
gazed upwards. ‘The fire must’ve driven them out of the city.’

‘The
law of unintended consequences!’ Claire snorted. ‘Bet that was another part of
their plan they didn’t think through properly.’

‘Claire, this isn’t the time or the place for that.’ I pointed to the bridge.
‘Not when people are dying up there.’

Claire
opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it and remained silent.
As we drifted closer, I watched the infected descend on the soldiers, clambering
over their makeshift barricades and weaving between the vehicles. No matter how
fast the soldiers fired, it made no difference; more infected simply replaced
those that fell. As the bridge passed directly overhead, we could no longer see
what was happening, but we could hear the guns, and the shouts and screams of
the terrified soldiers high above us as they fought for their lives. Rather than
face the inevitable, some chose to leap, but from that height they might as well
have been landing on concrete and we heard them hit the water with a deep,
bone-shattering smack as they disappeared from sight. Few resurfaced, but those
that did were so badly broken that they were barely recognisable as something
which had once been human.

By the
time we reached the far side of the bridge, the battle was over, and the only
movements were from the infected feeding on the bodies of those they’d killed.
Despite their training and their weapons, it had taken less than five minutes
for the soldiers to be decimated. There must have been several hundred of them
there, and now they were all dead. If they couldn’t hold off the infected, what
hope did we have?

Once
clear of the bridge, we did our best to clean the boat. The detritus from the
city had been carried out to sea by the flow of the river and it had returned to
its usual state. We sloshed buckets of water across the deck and scrubbed until
the worst of the oily grime which coated every surface had been removed. Yet it
remained grubby in comparison to the pristine white it had been before. Then we
turned our attention to ourselves: we were as dirty as the boat, our clothes,
even through waterproof jackets, were caked with the fallout from the bombs and
stained with blood from the infected; our faces and hands were smeared with the
greasy, sticky ash.

Making
sure there were no infected nearby, we removed our waterproofs and took turns to
drop into the river, finding the cold, clear water refreshing after the long,
sleepless night. It quickly became obvious that while we could clean ourselves,
our clothes were beyond saving and that the best option would be to discard them
altogether. This wasn’t a problem for me, but the others were faced with having
to make do with the limited range of clothes in my wardrobe. Daz faired best,
since we were closest in size, and Claire somehow managed to still look smart,
even dressed in slightly oversized men’s clothes. Sophie came out worst, being
swamped by the shirt and jeans Claire picked out for her. Claire rolled up the
legs and sleeves, and tied the front of the shirt in a knot: it improved the
fit, but I could tell it was far from Sophie’s usual style. She stood in the
middle of the saloon, her arms held out to the side, glaring at Claire. ‘I look
like a scarecrow!’

Claire
took a step backwards. ‘It’s not that bad.’

‘I
want my own clothes back!’ Sophie yelled in response.

‘You
can’t; they’re just too dirty.’

‘Can’t
we clean them?’

‘Sophie,’ Claire ran her fingers through her still damp hair, exasperated by her
daughter’s outburst, ‘this is a boat; it doesn’t have a washing machine. These
clothes are your only option; you’ll just need to make the best of it.’

Sophie
said nothing. Instead, she turned and stormed off into the forward cabin.

As the
morning wore on, the wind started to pick up, meaning we could finally use the
sails. Claire stayed below with Tom, who remained unconscious, while Sophie and
Daz helped me on deck. I showed them how to undo the sail ties and raise the
larger main sail in the middle of the boat, then the smaller mizzen sail at the
back. Sophie’s strop over having to wear my clothes had passed, and having dug
around, she’d found an old woollen jumper to cover the shirt. She was now making
the most of it, pulling the sleeves down over her hands to keep them warm as she
moved around the boat.

Once
the sails were up, I demonstrated how to use the winches to crank them tight.
Then I showed them how to unfurl the triangular jib at the front of the boat,
and use the sheets to set it in the right position.

Both
Daz and Sophie seemed to enjoy the challenge of learning how to do something
new, and I guessed it took their mind off the events of the last twenty-four
hours. I glanced at my watch just to double-check; I couldn’t believe that only
eighteen hours ago I’d been sitting on the steps at the top of Buchanan Street,
watching the people go by. Now Glasgow was gone, and I couldn’t see how anyone
would be able to stop the rest of the country going the same way.