It's Grim Up North (Book 2): The Island Read online

  I watched from the cliff as he expertly sailed the boat in the moonlight, just far enough away from the rocks so as to not be damaged. He dropped the small anchor over the side and then I watched intently as he dived in after it. He surfaced and swam for the base of the cliff. I had no idea how he was going to get back up but then spotted, a little to the right of where I was standing, a rope that had been set up at the top of the crag. He must have done this earlier in preparation for hiding the sailboat.

  I’d done a bit of traditional climbing in my time and recognised the set up he’d used. Set back away from the edge of the crag, he’d used a couple of nuts for two anchor points and a sling that had been threaded through a hole in a rock. A rope had been threaded through carabiners that were attached to the three anchors. The rope between each of the carabiners had then been pulled through, making a W shape. The two loops of rope this made were tied with an overhand knot and dangled over the edge of the cliff top. In the loop were two screw gate carabiners, and threaded through those was a climbing rope that trailed off down to the bottom of the cliff. After around five minutes, Darren topped out, looking wet and very tired. He’d belayed himself up using a bit of kit called a grigri, which is a self-locking device that would activate if Darren fell.

  ‘Come on, action man, let’s get you some food and get you out of those wet clothes,’ I said.

  ‘I fucking knew it!’ Darren proclaimed.

  ‘Don’t fucking say it mate. I know what you were hoping, but that was not an offer of man-on-man sexy time,’ I replied before he could get a quip in. And just like that the humour was back. I’d just watched two men die and had practically forgotten about it already. Proof of this was when we walked back to the house, past the tarp that now covered three dead men. I didn’t even give it a glance. Just another day in the ZA.

  Chapter 15

  On the way back to the house I asked Darren a question that had been bouncing around in my head since we left the beach after the reconnaissance of Gippa’s compound.

  ‘Did you notice they were all laupers?’

  ‘Laupers? What the fuck does that mean? Is that even a word mate?’ he replied.

  ‘You know what I mean, the dead, not quite running but not walking. They all used to be walkers when it first started. It’s like they’re getting used to being dead and learning shit. I mean, the fucker tonight at the beach. Did you see it’s face when it realised it could walk in the sea?’ I said, stopping and turning to look at Darren.

  ‘Yeah, that freaked the fuck out of me to be honest,’ Darren replied. ‘He looked a bit like Bub, the soldier from Day of the Dead. First time I’ve seen any of them display emotion. And they stopped advancing when they saw the other fuckers disappear below the waves. Not a good sign I’m afraid. If they’re learning then we’re proper fucked. As for the ‘lauping’ thing – which is a fucking made up word, by the way – they are getting faster. If they’d been any quicker tonight, we’d have been chum. If it wasn’t bad enough already. They’ll be fucking flying next knowing our luck.’

  We carried on back to the house, a thousand questions in our minds.

  The food that Andy had prepared almost moved me to tears again, but with what happened between Andy and me earlier in the day, I did my best to hide my emotions. Afterwards Darren took the leftovers out for our prisoners and allowed them to relieve themselves. Bobby was still on the landing, upstairs, watching the beach from the window, as she had been since we arrived back at the house. She’d stormed up there when she saw me, still angry with me about attacking her father earlier that day. I asked Andy if she was OK.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘she’ll come around.’ And with that, he left the room and took her food up to her. Darren shouted for him to come back. He handed Andy the magic scope, asking him to tell Bobby to keep it on and watch the beach at all times. Andy gave us both a puzzled look and left the room. Darren gave me a knowing look and returned to his plate.

  When Andy reappeared we had finished eating. After we’d cleaned the plates the three of us settled down in the living room to discuss the best course of action for the next day. We chose to withhold the information about what had just happened with Adam on the doorstep. Darren and I had guessed that Andy would be none too pleased about the execution of the two men. It turned out we were right, because Andy was against everything Darren and I had discussed on the roof overlooking the enemy base.

  Chapter 16

  ‘Kill them? Thirty people? Are you fucking serious?’

  ‘Andy, law and order are gone, these vicious fucks have preyed on the weak and taken everything they own, right down to their daughters and wives,’ Darren said passionately.

  ‘But killing them? For all we know they’ve stolen a few things and let everyone go. For all we know the women who are there have chosen to be there in return for safety,’ Andy stated weakly, knowing deep down this wasn’t true.

  On hearing this last statement from Andy, Darren blew his stack.

  ‘You fucking heard it from Josh with your own ears! These men are killers, rapists and thieves. I’ve seen for myself their path of destruction right outside of their gates. Family cars riddled with bullets, blood on the car seats and windows. Daughters and wives torn from the arms of loved ones and kept for sexual gratification. What if it was Bobby, Andy?’

  ‘Don’t even go there Darren,’ Andy warned.

  Darren proceeded anyway.

  ‘Let’s set the scene. You get to the boatyard at Cambois on your first visit and its destroyed. There may be boats to the south at Blyth, but it’s far too dangerous. Too many people. Your next move is to load up your truck and head north to the next closest harbour. Amble!’

  ‘That’s enough Darren,’ Andy sighed, knowing full well where this was going.

  Darren continued in a higher voice, ‘ “Look daddy, a sign saying safe zone. Maybe they’ll let us join them.”

  “That’s a great idea Bobby. Strength in numbers and all that” ’ he said in his best Andy voice.

  He continued, ‘Do you think they’d have been scared off with that useless fucking shotgun of yours Andy? Do you think they’d have said, “Sorry for bothering you, you and your beautiful daughter are free to go”? No Andy. They’d have fucking killed you, taken your shit and Bobby would be there now being abused till she either died or took her own life.’

  ‘Darren, please stop,’ Andy begged. ‘I get it. You’re right. That’s exactly what would have happened,’ he said, and he looked at the floor for a few moments. ‘Listen, I’m with you Darren. I’m just scared, that’s all. I’m that scared if anything happens to me, who’ll look after Bobby?’

  Darren’s hackles came down and he put a hand on Andy’s shoulder. ‘Listen mate, I give my word that I will do everything in my power to keep us all safe. If anything does ever happen to you, I promise to protect Bobby until my dying breath.’

  ‘I’d take that promise Andy, this motherfucker is un-killable,’ I said, hoping to break the tension in the room with a little profanity. It worked and got a half smile out of Andy.

  Chapter 17

  Now that we were all on board, we spent most of the night planning our next course of action. Even though we’d procured weapons from the recent invaders of the island, Darren established that the weapons and ammo we had were not enough to take on over thirty armed men, so the plan was to get hold of some more. Darren had told Andy we’d ‘found’ the weapons we’d ‘confiscated’ from Adam and his associate, on the mainland. Andy didn’t seem very convinced by this explanation of the where the weapons had appeared from but didn’t take it any further. I think he was just pleased with the extra fire power.

  Darren laid out one of my maps on the coffee table and we huddled around it. He then stabbed it with one of his thick calloused fingers.

  ‘Boulmer!’

  RAF Boulmer to be precise. It was approximately eight miles north of our current position. Darren had been there before as a soldier. It was for an
inter-military shooting competition that was held on the 25-metre indoor shooting range, which of course he won hands down.

  RAF Boulmer is a Royal Airforce base and is home to Aerospace Surveillance and Control System (ASACS) Force Command, and the School of Aerospace Battle Management and support staff.

  This base, Darren informed us, had a security detail of around twelve RAF regiment soldiers and also had a small armoury to outfit the soldiers and other personnel in case of an attack or war.

  It was approximately two miles west of the natural harbour where the village of Boulmer was located. The small fishing village, which consisted of a long single row of houses and a pub, was the quickest way to get to the airforce radar station and was deemed ‘doable’ by Darren. We’d approach this mission as we had the previous mission and do it at night. Hopefully without the deedaz chasing us through the surf this time.

  Now all we had to do was lock the place up tight and hide. A search party was surely being organised to come and find the five missing personnel the next day.

  Chapter 18

  I took the first watch that night which went by quickly and without drama. Andy relieved me and after a quick wash, I climbed into bed as quietly as I could next to Darren.

  ‘Fancy a spoon, lover?’ was all I heard once I’d settled.

  ‘I fucking worry about you mate. All those years sleeping in barracks with hairy-arsed men has done something to you,’ I whispered.

  ‘Eewww! I always make sure my men are back, sack and cracked,’ he whispered back in a camp voice.

  I couldn’t understand how he did it to be honest. The humour thing that is. I’ll admit, I like a good laugh, but the situation we were in was dire. Totally and absolutely dire. A couple of hours ago we’d killed two men and were planning on executing approximately thirty more. The gravity of the summary executions we’d dealt out, and also our planned actions for the rest of their ‘friends’, weighed heavily on my shoulders like nothing I’d ever felt before. But a few words from Darren and the worries alleviated. I still couldn’t get my head around how much I laughed with him. After all the horror I’d seen and been through I should be a gibbering wreck. He had a golden aura of calm that surrounded him and projected such an air confidence that the people around him unknowingly soaked it up and used it as their own. He also had a fucked-up sense of humour which helped a lot. Yes, I know this all sounds a bit lovey-dovey, but I owed this man so much. He’d saved my life so many times and had utterly restored my faith in the fact that we could actually survive this hell we all now lived in.

  ‘Do you think all of this is going to work Darren?’ I asked after a while.

  ‘Well that’s the thing Carter mate. I don’t know. All we can do is take each step as it comes. Plans very rarely work to the letter. Especially when there are as many moving parts as the one we’ve got planned. The good thing is, if there are thirty of them, we’ve decreased their numbers by around sixteen percent. First things first though, we get past the hurdle of the search party that’s definitely going to come tomorrow; next we go get the weapons and then we execute every motherfucking last one of them.’

  ‘Sounds good to me Honey Bunny,’ I replied, recognising Darren’s nod to the Tarentino classic, Pulp Fiction.

  ‘Ha, love that film,’ Darren said as he turned over.

  As I lay there in the dark staring at the ceiling, I realised it was that time again. For some reason I’d developed a ritual of thinking about the ex before falling asleep. This had happened every night since the apocalypse started, even though I knew full well this wasn’t healthy for my mental wellbeing. Each day that passed, the guilt of not running to her aid on the day the dead didn’t die, slowly but surely chipped away at my resolve and my will to live.

  What could I have done though? There was no doubt he’d have been with her. From what I’d heard, he was always with her.

  Not long before the holocaust I’d bumped into one of her friends. She’d practically broken her neck to come over to stab me in the heart, telling me all about how the ex was ‘so happy’. ’Joined at the hip’ was one of the lovely quotes she’d used to twist the knife and finish me off.

  That had been us, inseparable from day one. The ten years we were together were the happiest of my life. She’d been the only girl since I’d left school who hadn’t seen me sing. All of my adult years had been taken up with women who had been attracted by the person I was on the stage. In real life I was nothing like that person and when they realised that they usually left. She hadn’t. She loved the real me and didn’t much like the person I became for an audience. She could see through the false smiles and cheese. But that was then and I had single-handedly messed things up. So I knew deep down it would have been futile to make my way to her. She’d moved on without me and there was nothing I could do about it, apocalypse or not.

  To be honest, I’d always had a sneaky feeling that she’d try and make her way to me. She’d known about all my ‘quirky’ paranoia about end-of-the-world scenarios. She’d known about the supplies I had stored away in the garage for such eventualities. She’d known about all the weapons and training I’d put myself through. She’d even known about all the mental planning and preparation I did and the survival games I’d play in my head. She’d sometimes play them with me if we were ever out and about, but that was all in the past.

  Each day that passed by was another nail in her coffin. The odds that she’d survived the initial outbreak were astronomical anyway. She was a nine-to-fiver and would always be in bed sleeping before 10pm. She’d have woken up on that fateful day, just as the rest of the world had, and been caught unawares of the fatal and unbelievable situation she was in.

  I mentally kicked myself for not trying to get at least a word of warning to her. I was reminded again of my inability to make quick decisions.

  ‘Who is she?’ Darren asked from the darkness.

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘The girl you’re always thinking about.’ Again, Darren had read me like a book. But this was a book I really didn’t want to open.

  Instead of confiding in him, I deflected the question by saying, ‘Don’t worry mate, I only have I eyes for you,’ hoping to get some banter going instead of the serious talk that would surely follow if I opened up to him.

  Darren picked up on this immediately. ‘Listen Carter mate, we’ve all made decisions we regret since this shitty situation started. There are things I wish I’d done. But I didn’t. We can’t change anything that has happened; it’s done and it’s gone. Regret is only useful if we learn from it and do our damnedest not to repeat it. You’ve just got to leave the past where it is, in the past. We both have.’

  He was right of course. The self-flagellation I engaged in every night was not helping me at all. I had to get through the denial phase I was in at that moment in time and move on to the mourning phase. If I was ever going to survive this nightmare of a predicament we lived in, I would have to exorcise my demons, walk away from the past and focus all my attention upon the future. I knew then what I had to do, but for the life of me couldn’t extinguish the spark of hope that still burned brightly in my heart. Sadly, I knew it would burn there until I’d found out for certain what had happened to her. I also realised it would end up being the death of me, when I could take no more and journeyed to her home town, to find out for myself.

  Chapter 19

  I awoke the next morning to nothing. Not a sound could be heard, no wonderful smells coming from the kitchen. Nothing. The house seemed deserted. My heart sank and panic started to spread throughout my body. I was just about to shout downstairs to ask what was going on when Andy popped his head around his bedroom door, his face a picture of fear and distress.

  ‘Shhhh, they’re here,’ he whispered.

  ‘What? Where the fuck is Darren?’ I whispered back, eyes wide with alarm.

  ‘I think he’s hiding somewhere on the island. He’s moved the two boys from next door and put them in the kitchen down
stairs and locked us in the house from outside.’ He said, with a tremble in his voice.

  I stalked into Andy’s room, quickly glancing to see if Bobby was awake, which she was. She sat on the bed, huddled in a blanket with only her large brown doe-like eyes on show.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered. ‘Everything will be OK?’ I tried to say this as confidently as I could, but for some reason it came out as a question. Darren would have pissed himself laughing if he’d heard me.

  I slowly edged my way to the side of the window. I knew that the dirty nets hanging there would hide me from searching eyes, so I peeked out around the curtain with my right eye. There were two men pulling up what seemed to be a speedboat on to the beach. I noticed that for some reason the outboard motor on the back was tiny. No more than ten horse power. It was obviously being used to save fuel. The original twin outboard motors that had been attached to the speedboat would have used all the fuel we owned on the island in about an hour. No wonder I didn’t hear them as they approached.

  The two men who stalked up to the house couldn’t have been more different. The small one looked to be quite young from what I could see. The wispy bum-fluff moustache was a dead giveaway. The other guy, however, was absolutely fucking enormous. And was as wide as he was tall, well over six foot, and must have been tipping the scales well past thirty stone. He was a fucking man-mountain. Most of his facial features were obscured by the bushiest ginger beard I’d ever seen. The rifle hanging from a sling around his shoulder looked like a toy in comparison to him.

  I rushed down to the kitchen as quickly and as quietly as I could and opened the door. Josh stared at me with wide frightened eyes. Damien’s eyes bore into mine and were full of contempt. Darren had hog tied them both and gagged them for good measure. I picked up a knife from the kitchen table and approached Josh. At seeing this he panicked, obviously thinking I was there to do him harm.