For Those In Peril (Book 2): The Outbreak (16 page)

We all
nodded.

‘Here
goes.’ Claire gradually removed the dressing and started to pull the tube slowly
out of Tom’s chest. Tom didn’t make a sound, but his face contorted and his body
writhed in pain.

I
glanced at Claire. ‘Can’t you go any faster?’

‘No.
It has to be slow and steady, or I’ll do even more damage.’ She continued to
inch the tube backwards until it finally popped free, causing Tom to cry out.

Claire
held out her hand. ‘Needle and thread, please.’

Sophie
passed them to her, and I watched as Claire threaded the needle and then bent it
until it was almost at a right angle. Then she took the cigarette lighter and
flicked it on, running the flame along the needle before she started to stitch
the gaping wound closed. Each time the needle sank into his skin, Tom grimaced.
Finally, Claire asked for the scissors and snipped the thread close to Tom’s
chest: the black stitches contrasting sharply with his pale skin.

‘Not
exactly my best work, but it’ll do.’ Claire wiped over the wound with some
cotton wool soaked in gin before picking up the surgical pad and taping it in
place. ‘You can let him go now.’

That
evening we sat silently in the cabin catching up on the news. Until we got more
fuel, we had no way to recharge the batteries, but we still needed to know what
was going on. So, while we still watched the TV, we only had it on for short
periods at a time. It seemed the Government — or, as Claire pointed out, more
likely the military — was trying to keep a tight control of all the available
information, but enough was slipping out that we could see how bad things were
getting. People were phoning in locations where they thought they’d seen
infected and the news channel was plotting these on a map. The main
concentration was still around what was left of Glasgow, but there were others
well beyond it and there were several small clusters in Edinburgh, as well as
further afield.

The
army, it seemed, was in the process of pulling back yet again; this time as far
as Hadrian’s Wall in the south. Here, they were hastily erecting barriers to
keep the infected, and anyone else, from getting past. To the north, they were
still trying to keep the disease from spreading, but with no natural features to
help slow the movement of people, there was little they could do. There was a
short piece of footage showing a group of soldiers desperately trying to stop a
large crowd fleeing along the main road to the north, but there were so many of
them that the heavily armed men had no chance.

Even
when they opened fire, it didn’t stop the people pushing forward, forced by the
weight of those behind them. Eventually, the soldiers were simply overrun and
they pulled back, allowing the crowd to surge past. I don’t think the people
knew where they were heading and I don’t think they cared: they just wanted out.
From the grainy footage, you couldn’t tell if any of them had been injured by
the infected, but if they had, and were yet to turn, they’d carry the disease
with them wherever they went.

While
the disease remained confined to Scotland, its effects were already being felt
elsewhere. There were reports of blackouts and panic-buying of food throughout
the country. People in rural villages were setting up their own roadblocks and
were stopping others passing through in the belief that this would mean they
could keep the disease out. As one of them said, it had worked for the Black
Death, so why wouldn’t it work this time? Then there were reports of people
being set upon and killed because others had mistakenly thought they were
infected. It seemed that much of Britain was gradually slipping into anarchy,
even though it was still unclear how far the outbreak would spread.

Other
countries were facing similar problems. Most of the south-eastern US was now
being abandoned to the infected, and it didn’t seem like it would be long before
the north-eastern states succumbed, and with them would go Washington,
Baltimore, New York, Boston and about 200 million people. Further outbreaks were
being reported as far apart as Vancouver, Montevideo and Sydney. In some places,
it seemed the authorities were having some measure of success in keeping it
controlled, but it took just one person who was infected, but had yet to show
any symptoms, to slip through and it would flare up again. Both China and Russia
were claiming they were free of the disease, but seismologists had detected
nuclear explosions emanating from within their borders, suggesting they’d tried
a similar approach to the one the British Government had adopted to try to
extinguish their own outbreaks.

After
fifteen minutes, Claire got up and turned the volume down. ‘We need to start
thinking about what we’re going to do.’ 

Tom
gazed at her blankly. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘We
can’t just float around here for the rest of our lives, can we? We need to work
out where we can go; where it’ll be safe.’

‘Surely nowhere will be safe,’ Tom retorted. ‘This disease seems to be pretty
much everywhere.’

‘There
must be some places that are safer than others, though.’ Daz looked round at the
rest of us.

‘Maybe.’ I thought about it for a few seconds. ‘If we can get out of the Firth
here, there’ll be places where we could go to, like the islands off the west
coast. There aren’t a lot of people up there, and because they’re islands, it’ll
be harder for the infection to reach them.’

Daz
cut in. ‘But there were infected on the island we were on this mornin’.’

‘That’s different; they came down the river after the city was bombed. Out on
the west coast, the currents move in different directions; they won’t carry the
infected that far north.’

‘I
don’t know.’ Tom stared at the silent television as if waiting for an answer to
appear. ‘Maybe we’d be better heading south. If the defences at Hadrian’s Wall
hold, maybe they can keep the infected out. It’d be easier to get food and other
things we might need. I mean, where are we going to find anything to eat on some
remote little island?’

‘That’s a good point,’ Claire interjected, ‘I’ve not got much faith that they’ll
be able to keep the infected out, but if they can, we’d have a much better
chance down south.’

 ‘Yeah, I suppose you’re right.’ I glanced at the screen where the headlines
were scrolling across the bottom of the picture. ‘As long as they can hold the
infection at the wall.’ Like Claire, I had my doubts on this last point, but it
seemed right to hope that it would work.

Daz
turned to me. ‘How d’we get there?’

‘It’s
pretty straightforward, really. We could be there in a day or so,’ I crossed my
arms. ‘But here’s the thing: there’s meant to be some sort of naval blockade
precisely to stop people doing what we’d need to do. They’ve mentioned it a
couple of times on the news. Given what happened the last time we ran into the
military, I don’t know what will happen if we run into them again.’

‘But
if the other option is to stay here, shouldn’t we at least give it a go?’
Claire’s mind seemed set. I turned to Daz, Tom and Sophie. ‘What d’you three
think?’

Tom
was the first to speak. ‘I’m with Claire: we should give it a go.’

Next
was Daz. ‘Yeah, I guess. We can always try somethin’ else if we can’t get
through.’

I
turned to Sophie. ‘What about you?’

Sophie
was slightly nonplussed, not used to being asked for her opinion on such
decisions. She looked from me to her mother and then down to the floor. ‘Yeah,
whatever. I mean, does it really make much difference where we are? Everything’s
pretty messed up anyway.’ She looked up, her eyes glistening. ‘Isn’t it?’

Claire
started to say something, but I held up a hand. ‘Sophie, we’ve got as good a
chance as anyone and probably better than most. I’m not saying anything’s going
to be easy, just that it might be possible.’

Sophie
shrugged and leant her head against her mother’s arm.

***

‘Hey,
Sophie, go and see if Tom’s up yet.’

Now we
had a plan, I was keen to get going as soon as possible. I’d got up at sunrise
and, with Daz’s help, I’d pulled up the anchor. By the time Claire and Sophie
had emerged from the forward cabin, which they’d claimed as their own, we were
already under sail and were making good progress. With nothing for breakfast,
Sophie and Daz were openly grumpy, while Claire and I tried our best to hide the
fact that we felt the same way.

It was
just before nine when I spotted another boat; the first we’d seen since leaving
Glasgow. As we neared, it became clear that it was just drifting with the wind
and the currents, rather than moving under its own power. Tom still hadn’t
appeared by this point so I sent Sophie down to get him. She reappeared a minute
later, looking worried. ‘Mum, something’s wrong with Tom; he won’t wake up.’

‘That’s not good!’ Claire disappeared down the companionway. Leaving Daz to
steer the boat, I followed. In the saloon, Tom lay on the couch, his head moving
listlessly from side to side as the boat rocked back and forth. Claire put her
hand against his forehead and then pulled back the covers. She peeled back the
surgical dressing, revealing that the skin around her stitching was red and
inflamed.

‘Damn!’ Claire glanced up at me. ‘He’s got an infection.’

She
opened her medical bag and rummaged through it. After a couple of minutes, she
still hadn’t found what she was looking for and resorted to emptying its entire
contents onto the table before going through each item one by one. After she’d
finished, she looked up at me again. ‘No antibiotics. I usually carry some, but
I must have forgotten to refill my bag last time I ran out. I don’t suppose
you’ve any on board, do you?’

‘No,
nothing like that.’

‘In
that case, we’ve got a big problem. I’ve seen infections like this before. If we
don’t get him on antibiotics within the next twenty-four hours, he’s unlikely to
recover.’

Sophie
let out a gasp. ‘You mean he’s going to die? Mum, there must be something you
can do, isn’t there?’

‘Not
without the right medicines.’

I
stared down at Tom, and the redness that was radiating out from around the
stitches. I couldn’t believe he was going to die just because we lacked
something as simple as a few pills.

‘Ben,
are you okay?’ Claire was watching me, concerned.

‘Yeah.’ I swallowed. ‘I’ll be okay.’

Sophie’s brow furrowed. ‘Is there anywhere we can get some antibiotics?’

I
slumped dejectedly onto the seat opposite Tom. ‘Not without going ashore, and it
would need to be in a town somewhere, which would be too dangerous. We almost
got killed yesterday when we were on an empty beach. In a town, there are going
to be infected everywhere.’ I looked across and saw Sophie’s bottom lip was
trembling. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘No,
it’s okay. It’s  ...’ she sniffed, ‘I was just thinking about Jake ... and about
all my friends: they’re all dead, aren’t they? It’s like I’m the only one left.
We all had these great plans, the things we all wanted to do, and now they’re
all gone, and I’m stuck on this boat. I’m never going to get to do any of it, am
I? I mean, this is it; this is my life from now on: sitting here, waiting for
the people around me to die.’

As
Sophie descended into tears, Claire held her tightly and gently stroked her
hair. I left them alone in the saloon and returned to the cockpit, wondering
where we could possibly get antibiotics from.

‘Is
everythin’ okay?’ Daz enquired.

‘No,
not really.’ My voice sounded flat.

‘What’s up?’

‘Tom’s
got an infection. Claire reckons if he doesn’t get some antibiotics soon, he’s
probably going to die.’

Daz
put his hands behind his head. ‘An’ Claire’s no’ got any?’

‘No.’

‘Where’re we goin’ to get some from then?’

Looking off into the distance, my eyes fell on the drifting boat: it was now
only about 500 yards away, and a thought struck me. I wondered if there might be
some antibiotics on board. After all, it wasn’t unusual for sailors to keep some
in their first-aid kits just in case. Even if there weren’t any antibiotics, it
was worth checking just to make sure, and there might even be some food we could
scavenge.

‘We’re
going to try there.’ I took the wheel from Daz and turned it to the right. I
readjusted the sails and soon we were converging on it. It was a yacht, about
ten feet shorter than ours. It looked in good condition and there was no
evidence of any damage. I wondered what had happened to the crew: it wasn’t the
first time I’d found an unmanned boat drifting around at sea, and it was
something most sailors had either encountered or heard stories about. Sometimes
you found out what happened; sometimes you didn’t; it was just a part of life at
sea. The rules were also clear: once a boat became unmanned, it was very much a
case of finders keepers.

Getting alongside a drifting yacht while under sail would be difficult, so once
we were close enough I chose, instead, to heave to and use the dinghy to ferry
myself across. I didn’t want to waste what little petrol we had left for the
outboard motor, so leaving Daz in charge, I paddled across using the remaining
oar. On reaching the drifting boat, I tied the dinghy onto the back and pulled
myself on board, taking the oar with me, just in case. The cabin was sealed, but
not locked, and I cautiously pushed back the hatch before reaching inside to
open the doors.