After It Happened (Book 1): Survival Read online

  He met Neil at the back of his trailer and thanked him for last night.

  “Scary shit, mate” Neil said with a sigh of relief “Think they made us?”

  “No” Dan replied “They would’ve been on us like a rash if they had, they didn’t strike me as the recce and dawn raid kind of people”

  He did the rounds, accepting thanks and hugs from others. They were all frazzled, but a sense of relief was starting to wake them up – they had survived their flight. He found Maggie leading the girl out of their caravan.

  She saw Dan and led the girl gently towards him.

  “This is Alice. Her Dad is called Mike. I’ll tell you the rest later” she said quietly. Alice looked at him, he decided her face said thankyou and he didn’t push for anything more.

  “Your Dad is alive. Kate worked on him all night by the look of it. He’s lost a lot of blood but…” he stopped, not wanting to say that he might pull through.

  Maggie led Alice over to the ambulance where she stared blankly at her father.

  Dan called everyone together and accepted a cup of coffee from an unusually dishevelled Penny.

  “I’m sure we weren’t followed” he announced loudly “We’ve put well over ten miles between us and them, and I think they were scouting far from home to be where we were” that got some nervous smiles and nods.

  “I wanted to do this with a little more ceremony, but welcome to our new home” he said as he gestured towards the ornate front of the big manor house.

  “That said,” he continued “we have a lot of work to do before we can move in. It’s something of a fixer-upper”

  “In need of modernisation?” asked Neil, attempting to lighten the mood.

  “Something like that” Dan replied with a tired smile “I need every adult male – sorry ladies, this is no time to claim sexism or shout about equality…” he said, holding a hand up to ward off the protests “…to be ready for some dirty work as soon as we’ve eaten. Ladies, don’t think there will be easy work for you, you will need to keep an eye out whilst we’re inside.”

  Dan walked to the area to the side of the main entrance where the lorries were abandoned. This part was more modern than the old building, a modern attachment to accept large deliveries into the kitchens and stores. He went into the building and opened a cleaning store. He found cleaning products, but not the kind of protective gear he wanted. He thought the farm would provide that.

  He walked up, asking Jimmy to come with him. Neil followed with a starter pack, reading his mind again.

  “We left our tipper truck, so I’m guessing we need a replacement to move the bodies” he said

  “We do, thanks. You should get some rest first though” said Dan.

  “I will” Neil replied “When you do”

  As Neil got a tractor started, luckily still attached to a large trailer, Jimmy helped Dan load up some rubber overalls and wellington boots. A box of paper facemasks was in the room so they came too. They only had three gas masks.

  “Mate...” started Jimmy “Can I ask a favour?”

  “You want me to say that Kev doesn’t have to help” said Dan.

  Jimmy looked relieved “Yeah, please, it’s just that he gets scared by dead people a bit and I don’t want him freaking out”

  “I know, when I said ‘adult’ males I was leaving Kev out in my head. I wouldn’t expect a young kid to do it and Kev’s in that boat in this sense” he replied.

  They sat in the muddy trailer on the short ride down to the house, and Neil parked it directly in front of the main doors.

  After a mixed breakfast of whatever they had in their personal kit and cars, Dan took his recruits to the tractor. He had left Penny with a shotgun, and offered a weapon to Kate. She flatly refused, saying that she had enough injuries to deal with without causing more.

  Dan stood there with Neil, Jimmy, Cedric, Adam, Ian, Kyle – who looked pale – Andrew and Jay. To everyone’s surprise, Liam wandered up in silence to join them.

  “Right, this isn’t going to be pleasant but it has to be done. Pair off, and get some protective gear on. We carry them out, clearing rooms from the front door in, put them in the trailer and when it’s full we drive it to the tennis courts and start a fire” Neil helpfully raised a jerrycan of petrol to underline the point.

  “When we think it’s clear, we search again. When we’re absolutely sure, we bleach and scrub where the bodies were. Lots of them are in bed, so carry them out on the mattresses with the bedding and burn the lot. Open the windows as we go. The quicker we work, the quicker we are done.”

  They worked quickly. In some areas the smell wasn’t too bad, in others it was stomach churning. Dan dragged out large buckets, mops and stiff brushes. He poured bleach liberally into the buckets and asked Liam to fetch bottles of water. The trailer filled quickly, and he called a break for everyone as he and Neil rode down to the tennis courts. Dan sat on the tool box as he rode up front with Neil, not wanting to share the trailer with the rotting load. The gas masks had left deep, red lines in their faces. The trailer was backed in, straight through the fence felling a section of it, and the two set to work unceremoniously dumping the former inhabitants of their new home to the concrete.

  “Still a bloody drain on the working man” Neil quipped about the now dead former guests of Her Majesty. Dan was too tired to respond.

  They decided to wait setting the flame until all the bodies were out, and rode the tractor back to the house. The others were nowhere to be seen, so they went inside to find a large pile of bodies wrapped in blankets and resting on thin single mattresses in the atrium. They must have decided not to enjoy their break and just get it done. Later it turned out that Jimmy had shamed them all by pointing out that the only two people not taking a break were the ones who had been up all night keeping watch over them.

  Liam was scrubbing at the floor where the dead prison officer had sat, the chair he had occupied was by the pile for burning.

  They repeated this twice more, until the pile was sickeningly high. Dan called a forced break and suggested lunch, but nobody had the stomach for food. He felt a little callous, but ate a nutty chocolate bar despite the pale looks he received. Truth was, he felt dead on his feet. The adrenaline of the shooting, the panicked flight and a night spent cold, cramped and on edge had taken a toll on him physically and mentally.

  He reckoned one more trip would finish it. Liam struggled with the weight of carrying bodies, and by the look of him had also been sick, so had busied himself to the result that the place smelt of bleach – like a swimming pool with too much chlorine in. Bleach was good; bleach killed bacteria from dead people. Bleach didn’t smell like rotten guts.

  By late afternoon the last trailer was loaded, and before Dan and Neil set off to burn the bodies he called out to his sweaty, tired group.

  “Thankyou. This was hard work that will haunt us for a long time, but it’s nearly done. We can have a proper roof over our heads tonight. Please make another search of every room, every cupboard, and make sure we haven’t missed anything. Open all the windows you can find, and help Liam get the cleaning done. Neil and I will go and get the bodies from the gym and be back after”

  They rode the tractor again, carried the men from the gym and went back for the chairs they had leaked into in the week since they last sat down. All of it went onto the bonfire, and Neil stood on the rear of the trailer for added height to pour twenty litres of petrol over the foul pile. It looked like pictures he had seen of mass graves following some foreign genocide.

  They stood well clear and stripped off their overalls, adding them to the pile. Dan lit a smoke and the two just stood in silence for a while. He took another cigarette, lit it from the last one and threw the red hot end towards a creeping tendril of petrol heading in his direction.

  Even from ten metres away the WHUMPH of the petrol catching sent a shockwave out. The fire caught quickly, and neither had the stomach to wait for the sizzling and crackling of burning
humans.

  The tractor was driven back to the house, where it was parked ready for any more rubbish to be piled into for burning.

  Dan strolled in to the house. The smell of bleach was thick in his throat and he reassessed whether he should move people in tonight. He decided to ask Kate, who said that they should let the place air overnight. The term ‘off-gassing’ leapt into his mind, from a life left far behind.

  The workers were subdued as they stripped and washed behind one of the lorries, a thought by Penny who had been boiling water for hours and emptying it onto a large plastic bin with a whole bottle of shower gel. Towels had been brought out of the house; small green ones that didn’t seem to do much in the way of drying them. Dan certainly felt the cloying stink of bodies still clung to him.

  Food was cooked, and he ate hungrily. He had barely slept or even closed his eyes in thirty-six hours, and he was starting to feel it. He was worrying that he would have to organise a watch again for the night, and looked around for Lexi. He realised she wasn’t with the group.

  Penny saw him looking, and said “I sent her to sleep for the day. She’ll watch tonight” Dan was pleased; he would’ve sorted exactly that if he hadn’t been so tired. He finished his food and found Lexi kitting up for the night. She had dressed warmly and was struggling to loosen her body armour to fit over her coat. He helped her, and had a thought. He unlocked his trailer and searched the box of attachments for the M4’s. He found what he hoped was in there; passive night scope that didn’t require batteries. It amplified ambient light; not as bright as the green glow of the goggles but it would give her an advantage. She set herself up where Neil had been the night before, and told Dan to get some rest.

  “I’ve got this. You need to sleep” she instructed him firmly but kindly.

  Utterly exhausted, he crawled into his sleeping bag, stretched out in the back of the Land Rover and slept.

  NEW PLAN

  Dan slept until he heard the door of the Land Rover being opened. Neil greeted him with coffee, and was awkwardly offering him one of his own cigarettes.

  He shuffled in his sleeping bag towards to tail gate and sat, rubbing his eyes. He took a gulp of the coffee and lit the cigarette. A few more seconds passed before he could make words “Breakfast?” he asked with a questioning inflection.

  Neil laughed “I had mine about five hours ago, boyo!” he boomed in a Welsh valleys accent. Dan was confused.

  “Lunch will be in about half an hour mate. Nobody wanted to wake you, so I got volunteered because they all thought I was the least likely person to get shot”

  Dan took a moment to process that; he’d slept from dusk until lunchtime without stirring. He felt guilty, and also worried that things needed doing and the group would have wasted a morning without direction.

  He needn’t have worried, Penny had roused them all in silence at breakfast, and they had agreed quietly to leave Dan where he was. Neil was up, a little tired but functioning, and Lexi returned reporting a quiet night. She went to get her head down for a few hours and was still up before him.

  Penny had deployed the girls into the house to start emptying, cleaning and occupying rooms. Already the trailer was full of bedding and rubbish which needed taking to the still smouldering bonfire that Dan could smell. The men had been set to emptying the stores onto the shelves in the small warehouse attached to the kitchens, the bedding and clothing removed to a room in the house and laid on tables in approximate size order. By the time Dan finished his caffeine and nicotine wake up and slid his feet into his boots, the second of the three small lorries was almost empty.

  Penny breezed him along with her for a tour, starting as they entered the main door.

  “Your offices” she said, indicating the security office on their right. Dan thought this was a good idea; maps on the wall and tasks/targets on the white board. There was also a large cupboard at the far end with a sturdy lockable door; that had to be better than keeping an alarming amount of weaponry in the trailer. He realised with a flash of excitement that he hadn’t even had a chance to check the full contents yet.

  They walked through to the main reception area which had been used as a temporary storage site for bags and boxes, then through to a large canteen complete with hot plate serveries. Already plans were being made to bring in one of the gas hob cookers as the kitchen was lacking in natural light – better to not use all their fuel on running generators – and gas tanks were in good supply if you went to the right places.

  They went through the kitchen – well stocked with large pots and pans – and into the stores area. Dan was impressed that they had enough food and water to last a few weeks and plenty of space for more stock.

  Back inside, Penny led him upstairs.

  “Single men” she announced pointing to a large dormitory where Kyle and Liam were looking through and clearing away the personal effects of the previous occupants. There were eight single beds and accompanying large lockers.

  “Smaller dormitories have been kept aside for married couples” she indicated a room where Maggie was arranging two single beds to make one double. He noticed curious marks on the floor and realised that someone must have used a heavy socket and wrench set to take out the large bolts holding it down. He thought that the new occupants were trusted not to use the beds as barricades, unlike the previous tenants.

  At the very opposite end of the corridor Penny had placed the single females, pointing out that she added herself to this category for now to ensure proper behaviour. The room was being similarly sorted by a few of the girls. He was happy to see Alice sat on the bed with Leah whilst she folded clothes into bags for disposal. She seemed better; no longer catatonic with fear.

  Other rooms were left as they were, as they weren’t in need of the space.

  Yet, Dan hoped.

  “I hope you don’t mind me setting myself apart, Penny” he said “but I’d like to find some quarters closer to the front door”

  Penny didn’t object “There is a similar sized office opposite your new operations centre, perhaps you could take residence if there if you wished?” Dan thanked her and said he’d check it out.

  ‘Operations Centre’ he thought with a chuckle to himself, Penny did love to give formal titles to everyone and everything. He’d probably wake up to a carved plaque outside his door indicating the primary residence of the First Ranger.

  Dan walked back to the main reception room with Penny and was shown through to a nurse’s office. Kate had wasted no time at all, and had already set up a field hospital and had started to turn the waiting area into a ward. Boxes and boxes of looted medication were waiting to be sorted and stored. Kate was tending to Mike, who had been moved inside on the ambulance stretcher – mental note, a few beds need bringing to their new hospital suite – who was propped up and awake. Kate was feeding him sips of what smelled like soup.

  Kate smiled when she saw them, and introduced them.

  “Mike, this is Dan. The one who found you and Alice and brought you back” she beamed proudly.

  Mike’s eyes glazed a little, but he tried his hardest to straighten up and offer a firm hand to Dan. He was desperately weak and clearly in lots of pain. Kate had spent all night gluing and binding his wounds. He really needed stitches, but what little suture equipment Kate had already found was not enough. Mike was going to have a lot of scars, but he and Alice were alive.

  “Thankyou” Mike croaked as he winced and shook Dan’s hand. He repeated it again three times and just didn’t know what else to say yet.

  “Rest now Mike” Kate said and turned to Dan “I’ve given him pain meds which should knock him out soon. He needs to stay in here for probably a week until he can move”

  Dan nodded to her, and asked if she needed help.

  “Not yet, but if you find a surgeon or another paramedic or a GP or a long-legged blonde model then PLEASE bring them to me. Gagged and bound if needs be!” she said with a crooked smile.

  Dan laughed and pr
omised to do that. He noticed how Penny was perplexed by the blonde model comment, but too polite to allow herself to ask.

  He opened the door to what would be his own room, and found it full of boxes. He pulled them out and opened them using his knife, finding brand new quilted blankets. He grabbed the next two people to walk past, Adam and Cedric, and asked them to pile them in the reception room as he opened them all to check the contents. The blankets would need to go into a bedroom somewhere, and the boxes would be useful for scavenging.

  Once his room was empty, he sorted out the few bits of furniture. The large office desk and chair were pushed into the corner to give more floor space, and he brought in his own kit from the Land Rover. He had two large sash windows which could be opened up to almost head height – useful for defence. And smoking.

  He set up his camp cot, not having the energy to find a metal framed bed and carry it down, threw down his roll mat and sleeping bag before adding a couple of the new blankets to the pile.

  Dan opened the cupboards and removed armfuls of ring binders containing reports on inmate activity and working hours. Useful fire lighting for the future, but the folders would be useful to compile reports in his ‘operations centre’, he chuckled again at himself as he was starting to be infected by Penny’s terminology.

  His spare clothes were stacked onto the shelves, along with toiletries and water. Two bottles of single malt were tucked in there too, along with numerous cartons of cigarettes. He walked through to the office opposite, and started to pull down all the posters and notices, piling them on the central desk. All the CCTV monitors were useless, but removing them was more hassle than it was worth and besides, they may find someone who could get them working again. All this paper went outside onto the rubbish trailer which gave Dan an involuntary shudder when he remembered the last cargo he had moved with it. The cupboard was emptied and the bunches of keys that would open it were locked inside. He looked around for either Neil or Lexi, but couldn’t see either. Everyone was busy working on something under Penny’s instruction so he carefully carried every item from his trailer into the new armoury.