Survival: After It Happened Book 1 (5 page)

Breakfast was early, Penny saw to that as she started cooking the eggs and bacon singing what sounded like hymns.

One by one the survivors came out into the world. When they were all gathered, Penny cleared her throat and called for everyone’s attention.

“Good morning everyone” she paused. Dan wasn’t sure if they were expected to chorus ‘good morning’ back to her.

“I have drawn up plans for today, I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty?” She paused again, scanning the group. On hearing and seeing no exceptions raised she continued with confidence.

“Sit, everyone, please” she fussed

“Now, our immediate supply issues are well catered for as the contents of this supermarket would sustain us for many months. However, we have further considerations if we intend to spend the coming winter in any form of comfort…”

“Daniel here has set us all on a path, to some extent. It’s fair to say that many of us would be wandering without much in the way of purpose had this man not sought to bring us together for a common cause.”

Dan realised that Penny was clearly used to public speaking, even if she did have a tendency to address the group as though they were children in her school. He was half expecting a flip chart to be produced at any moment.

“Our long term survival depends on our ability to seek out more survivors and create a society that can be sustained in the future without the modern comforts we are all accustomed to” Leah and Kev had already lost track of the speech entirely, but seemed glued to Penny’s words anyway, waiting to hear their names. Penny glanced at Dan, who got a sense that she was asking his permission to proceed. He gave a subtle nod as he bent his head to his black coffee, encouraging her to press on.

“Our priority is to find others like us, but the problem in doing so is that we may quickly overrun ourselves with mouths to feed, so to speak. To that end, and in anticipation of further additions, I have tasked everyone as follows:”

Nobody argued, not that they had a choice as Penny went on with her tasking.

“James and Kevin. You two are now our chief recovery agents. You are to empty your vehicle and collect the supplies marked by Daniel on his map. I have prioritised these, and listed them for you. I am assured that you know how to use the new equipment to enter these premises?” She referred to the circular cutting saw recovered yesterday.

“No problem” said Jimmy “me and Kev will have it all back here ready for tea” he added with a smile.

“Wonderful” said Penny “Neil, with your expertise, might I suggest that you be named our head of engineering? Your impressive display with the petrol solution and previous experience make you the ideal candidate.” She carried on, without waiting for agreement or assent, which Dan could tell annoyed Neil. Not because he had any objection but because he knew him well enough already to recognise when he was going to quote a film in a perfect mimic of the actor.

“I’d like you to take Andrew with you today, and collect another caravan from the place you found. With instruction, he should be able to bring it back here in preparation. Another vehicle for him would be in order too. After that, if you could return and continue your search of the industrial area as discussed”

Neil nodded, raising his coffee in salute.

“Andrew, after collecting a vehicle and caravan with Neil and being shown how to arrange it properly, I would be grateful if you would continue to recover and load supplies from the supermarket into our lorry here” she said, indicating Neil’s truck.

Andrew agreed. Dan thought he didn’t seem the type of person to disagree much.

“Daniel” Penny moved on, fixing him with a look. A look that almost pleaded for support, like only he and she knew how very important to was to establish a hierarchy this early and to have an unchallenged leadership.

“If you could kindly continue your search of the area, mark buildings that you wish James and Kevin to empty for the group, and focus your attention towards finding us a permanent site?”

Dan paused. He was genuinely happy that Penny was taking the lead, as he simply didn’t have the patience with people to do this kind of thing every day, but he didn’t think it wise to fold immediately to instruction and be seen as just one of the pawns of the group. He needed to retain or establish a kind of leadership role to the others; the better for making decisions that they would need to listen to if push came to shove. He didn’t want to ride roughshod over Penny’s newly accepted social leadership, so this needed to be worded carefully.

“Good plan Penny, but Jimmy and Kev have enough locally to be getting on with. I need to make a trip to gather some sensitive supplies which are key to our future. I may be away overnight.” He left it there, with a heavy hint of something secret.

“I’ll resume my scouting locally after this unless there are any objections?” Nobody had any.

“Very well. I shall stay here, prepare food for later and assist in the disposal of the spoiled goods.” Dan noticed that she had deliberately given herself a job which would turn most people’s stomachs. Clever move. He reminded himself to offer Penny a gas mask before he went. She continued, “We all have our jobs to do, shall we continue within the hour?”

Everyone went to get up, when Leah said “What about me?”

That stopped everyone where they were, and Penny said “You will stay here and assist me” She went to leave, and everyone took their cues from her.

“I want to help Dan” Leah said.

An air of awkwardness shadowed the group. Penny didn’t know how to squash Leah’s ambition without hurting her feelings and embarrassing her publicly.

“Leah, how about you come with me after I’m back?” said Dan, trying to rescue the situation from the possibility of a teenage strop.

Leah thought about this for a few seconds before saying, “Ok, but you promised so you have to take me.” She said with a beaming smile.

That seemed fair.

Penny came to find him a short time later, and saw him in conversation with Neil.

“Gentlemen, I do hope you don’t think me too forward?” she asked hopefully.

“Not at all, Penny” said Dan. “We were just saying how glad we are that you are taking control; we need your organisational skills to keep this group together and moving with a purpose. I didn’t want to say in front of everyone, but I’m going to an army camp I know and it’s a couple of hours away at least. To do this properly I’ll need time to recce the area and make sure it’s safe.”

Both Penny and Neil started to raise objections simultaneously, but Dan held up his hands.

“Trust me, I’m capable. And I’m going to be very careful.” Dan reasoned, “We need to be aware that people may want to take what we have, and until we are strong enough as a group then we need to consider some kind of guard. I’d like Neil to stay home for now, unless we find someone able to protect the camp when I’m away. In the interim I don’t want him far from the camp. If someone turns up again like Andrew did, then I want you two” he pointed at Neil and Penny in turn “to stay in radio contact using the walkie-talkies. If you can’t get him, blast the horn on the truck and he’ll come back”

Neil had already run through this with Dan before Penny showed up, and he nodded her agreement to her.

“Very well, that seems sensible. But I want you to think of excuses for not taking Leah with you. I don’t want her seeing things that she shouldn’t”

Dan wanted to say that she has already seen things that no young girl should have to see, but gently deferred that conversation for another time.

Neil again tried to reason with Dan that he should come with him, but he flatly refused. “If we’re both away until tomorrow night, there’s no way of knowing that we would come back to anyone here. It’s too risky to have us both leave. Face it; until we get more people here we can trust to protect the camp then you have to stay here or very nearby. End of.”

No objections. Penny deftly changed the subject.

“As we recruit more, we won’t be able to give everyone jobs over breakfast. We need to have departmental heads and delegate as we see fit. As Chief Engineer and First Ranger I expect you to consider this seriously”

First Ranger? Thought Dan. Well, that job title didn’t work out well in Game of Thrones, did it. A glance at Neil told him that he would have to suffer some film referenced jokes and impressions after he had been dubbed that.

He stayed where he was and lit a smoke as the other two walked back, talking. Dan wanted the group to be protected and organised. At the same time he craved some solitude.

He finished his smoke and went to his Defender. He topped off the tank, loaded two extra jerrycans and checked his equipment. He took extra food and water, obviously there would be plenty of places to loot on the way, a camp cooker and his sleeping bag. Sleeping in the back of a Land Rover didn’t qualify to Dan as a hardship. His dad used to call it a night in the Mootel. Farming joke.

As he went to set off, Leah was stood by his car door. She seemed to want to say something, but just stood there.

“I’ll be back tomorrow” he said.

“Promise?” she asked, her eyes full of innocence. Dan was raised never to make a promise he couldn’t keep, and there were just too many variables.

“I said I’d take you out on a trip. You can be Second Ranger as soon as I can make it happen.” That would have to do.

“What did you used to be?” she asked, surprising him.

“Tell you what” Dan replied, “When you can figure it out I’ll take you with me.” She frowned at him, clearly thinking this was unfair, but he drove on before she could say anything else.

“Take care beyond the wall, Stark…” called Neil, solemnly as he drove past.

“Nob” replied Dan with a smile, leaving the camp behind. He felt better. Better to be out on his own, unburdened by the responsibility of protecting them even for a short time, but more confident that they would be safe without him.

Dan moved along the roads steadily, with confidence as he had driven them many times before. He passed bodies, days old car crashes and even evidence of a house fire. Not a sign of anybody. He didn’t stop to paint the messages he had the day before; he had a purpose, a goal, and he needed a plan to do this safely. The payday he was after was serious. Military armouries were likely to be far more popular than a Morrisons, and would probably be defended if anyone was still alive around there.

As he drove, he thought of the society that Penny envisaged based on the thoughts they shared. He was obviously marked as the head of operations.

‘Ops commander Dan; First Ranger’. It sounded a little too American for his liking in honesty. He had a Society Leader; head of basecamp, in Penny. She could assess new recruits and set work tasks, keep everyone busy.

Head of Engineering was now Neil, although he wasn’t really interested in a leadership role it seemed. Maybe he could get Neil to teach some of the younger ones in the future. Maybe some science geeks survived, and they could work out things like manufacturing bio-diesel and using solar panels to heat water.

Scavenging teams needed to be beefed up; Dan liked Jimmy and Kev, he just needed more like them.

He needed to find farmers; people who could grow crops as well as rear animals. He needed animals for that matter. He needed people who knew how to cut down trees for firewood, people who knew how to hunt and fish – not just for now but to teach people in the future. Dan could teach the basics of shooting and fishing, but he already had too little time.

He needed to find people who could cook large meals from limited supplies, he needed people with medical expertise as his own training was good for first aid and bullet wounds. A surgeon would be good.

He needed to find people with skills like his own; what good is a ‘First Ranger’ without other rangers?

So many mental notes were made that he had to stop for a break and make actual ones. Coffee and smoke time. There was a time not too long ago, five days in fact, when he called that breakfast.

The more he thought about it, the more rabbit holes he fell down. He would need hundreds of people with a range of experience and expertise to get this easy idea of a new society going. It seemed an impossible task at the time, so he tried to push it all from his mind and concentrate on the immediate.

Go and get some serious weaponry – three clips for a Glock and a small calibre rifle weren’t going to protect much. After that, worry about recruitment and training.

He thought about where they were going to set up this utopian cooperative society, he had an idea forming but this would require an in-depth local recce when he was back to camp, and probably a lot more bodies to make it happen.

Ok, maybe ‘bodies’ wasn’t the best choice of words.

He arrived in the area of the camp after three hours, and decided to scout around slowly. He marked a huge camping store on his map for a priority clearance sale, and doubted whether Jimmy and Kev could fit it all in one truck – maybe a group outing soon?

He parked well away from the base, and walked a long way round to approach it from higher ground. He’d brought a small rucksack of gear, and the hardwearing waterproof sleeping bag with him. He didn’t think it was going to rain, but realised it had been years since he had really studied the weather and not checked a forecast app.

Damn technology; it had made him soft and lazy.

He settled in, watching the base from the scope, at around four in the afternoon. He figured that if he watched from now until day break and saw nobody then the camp was safe to approach.

Just as the sun dropped behind him, he reconsidered waiting through the night. There was no sign of movement at all, and the place definitely looked deserted. He could clearly make out the shape of the now deceased Ministry of Defence policeman in the small booth on the still closed gate, and was impatient to get more in the way of munitions.

He shuffled back from the small ridge, collected his gear and slung his rifle on his back. He decided to use the last of the light to get into the base.

Too many thoughts must have been going through his head. He was complacent. Lazy. Foolish to have insisted he went alone.

“Stop right there, laddie” called a gravelly Scottish voice from nowhere, heavily punctuated by the sound of a large round being chambered.

“Guns on the ground and I’ll be knowing your business here”

“Ok, let’s just take it easy” said Dan slowly as he held the rifle away from his body by the barrel with his left hand and lowered his body. This was intentional, as it freed the right hand to be near the Glock holstered on is right leg. He couldn’t see the owner of the voice and thought that there may still be a chance to get the drop on him.

That idea was quickly crushed when the man appeared behind his right shoulder. “Don’t. Finger and thumb, on the ground”

Dan slowly removed the Glock using only his thumb and forefinger as instructed. Either this guy knew his business, or he’d seen lots of films. Dan worryingly suspected the former, as the man wouldn’t come within ten feet of him – too far away to rush him, too close to move and have him miss with the first shots. He was carrying an automatic rifle, and was dressed in camouflage clothing.

Dan slowly turned to face him. Everything about the man screamed professional soldier. Early forties he would guess, lean, not very big, but something behind the eyes made him believe this guy was figuring out whether to kill him now or later.

“Talk” he barked. Dan decided that nothing other than full disclosure would get him out of this.

“I’m from a group of survivors, we have women and children and they need protecting. I came here to try and find better weapons and hopefully more people to join us” Dan rattled off “we need your help”.

The man considered this for a time, and gestured with the muzzle of his rifle for Dan to walk. He went slowly and kept his hands up and away from the knife visible on his rucksack strap. He tried a few times to get the man to speak, but he was just ignored. Dan found himself back at his Land Rover, where he was ordered to produce the keys. He was sure he was going to get robbed, and faced a cold night with an uncertain journey back, but to his surprise he was told “Wait here, I’ll be back in an hour”

“What?” said Dan, and looked back over his shoulder but the man was gone. Where he was stood were his rifle and Glock.

He considered the situation he was in, and decided that it was worth the risk to wait. If an ambush was planned, nobody would take the risk of arming their intended victim. It made no logical sense so Dan stowed his gear, poured a lukewarm coffee and lit a cigarette.

Just under an hour later he heard an engine. He put himself on the other side of his Defender and waited. A military roofless version of his own car arrived towing a small covered box trailer painted in military colours with netting tied up on the sides. The man got out of his own vehicle which was left running, quickly scanned a three hundred and sixty-degree sweep and unhitched the trailer in silence.

He climbed back into his own Land Rover, looked at Dan and said “You’ll not come back here again” It was a statement, not a question.

He hitched up the trailer and made his way down the road, not wanting to consider the consequences of attempting a refund or exchange.