Surviving the Evacuation, Book 18: Rebuilt in a Day: Surviving The Evacuation, #18

By Frank Tayell

It took three weeks to destroy civilisation. It won't be rebuilt in a day.

A year after the outbreak, a sharp winter is followed by a sudden thaw. Spring has come early to Nova Scotia, bringing new hope. For the thirteen thousand survivors who've found sanctuary in northern Canada, and for the first time since the apocalypse, extinction isn't imminent. But it looms large in the near future, a legacy of the nuclear war that destroyed civilisation.

As the weather improves, some survivors quit the small community. Even more plan their departure. The old-world supplies of food, oil, and ammunition have been consumed. More will have to be grown, drilled, and made. Medicine, paper, clothes: in a few years there will be none left to salvage. If it can't be manufactured, it will have to be forgone. What knowledge can't be preserved will be lost.

Humanity's future appears bleak unless more people can be found. Hoping there is some truth in the rumours of a redoubt in Vancouver, an expedition to the Pacific is launched. The journey will be perilous as North America was ground zero for the outbreak, and for the nuclear war.

 

Set in Canada and beyond, as survivors from the Atlantic and Pacific meet.

Please note: this book features places and events, and heroes and villains from Life Goes On Books 1-3, the saga of survivors in the Pacific.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frank Tayell
• Release date: Jan 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393835660

Frank Tayell

Frank Tayell is the author of post-apocalyptic fiction including the series Surviving the Evacuation and it’s North American spin-off, Here We Stand. "The outbreak began in New York, but they said Britain was safe. They lied. Nowhere is safe from the undead." He’s also the author of Strike a Match, a police procedural set twenty years after a nuclear war. The series chronicles the cases of the Serious Crimes Unit as they unravel a conspiracy threatening to turn their struggling democracy into a dystopia. For more information about Frank Tayell, visit http://blog.franktayell.com or http://www.facebook.com/FrankTayell

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21st March, Day 9, Year One

Prologue - Author’s Note

During the three months since we arrived in Canada, I’ve jotted a few notes with the intention, one day, of turning them into a history book. I didn’t realise that day would be so soon.

I wrote it as a journal, because that’s what I’m familiar with. I’d be a rival to Sam Pepys, I thought. It would be an everyday account of thirteen thousand people, and how we laid the foundation stones of a new civilisation. Instead, the world has changed again, and as completely as it did after the outbreak and the nuclear war of a year ago. Of course it isn’t really the world that’s changed. Rather, our understanding of the world in which we live has become more complete.

And what does that mean? For one thing, it means I won’t waste time editing the more bucolic passages, or trimming the stories of our brief, but happy, family life. I’ll include every relevant entry, and a few notes for those days where writing was impossible.

It is easy to be consumed by nihilistic self-doubt. Easy to ask whether the sacrifices were in vain, whether the pain was for nothing, the planning for naught. Easy to dream of turning the clock back, and imagining all that could be done differently or not done at all. But that doesn’t change the real perils in our immediate future, or the existential uncertainty in the year ahead. No, if there is a question to be answered, it is what do we do now? What should we do? Is there anything we can do? Or is our fate decided, set in stone, and utterly beyond our control?

Part One

The Cost of Oil and Lead

Extracts from Bill Wright’s Journal

Nova Scotia

January & February, Year Zero

7th January, Day 300, Year Zero

Chapter 1 - Launch Party

Digby, Nova Scotia

Oh, Bill, you shaved! Kim said with mock disappointment. Oh, that is a shame. Your evil-twin beard was growing on me nearly as fast as it was growing on you.

You calling it that is why it’s gone, I said, taking my scarf from the hat-rack cut in the silhouette of a moose, albeit one painted with a fedora and sunglasses. How cold is it out there?

Still snowing, Kim said. Here, let me, she added, taking the scarf and wrapping it around my neck.

Four days, I said. We’ve been here four days and it still hasn’t stopped snowing. Come on, Annette, I added, raising my voice. Time to make history! Annette?

Just a sec, she called back from the living room, from where a special effects-laden space battle was underway.

We can’t be late! Kim called, as she pinned my coat around my neck like a cloak.

During the battle in Calais, on the 27th November, I’d taken a bullet to the shoulder. As a result, my upper arm and shoulder had been placed in a cast made with what materials had been available. Mostly that had been cement. I’d worn that cast during our journey up the European coast to Denmark, and then across to the questionable safety of Faroe. The admiral had replaced the cast, but again with a temporary fix which barely survived our crossing to real safety here in Canada. Here, once again, the cast was replaced.

Surgery has always been dangerous, and more so now, but the admiral is concerned a corrective procedure might be necessary. Hopefully this new cast will prevent it, and rectify what she described as a worrying slump. Personally, I prefer it when doctors use indecipherable Latin. Wrapping around my chest, the cast fixes my upper arm in place, and my elbow at a ninety-degree angle, with my hand jutting out in front. I can rotate my wrist, and make some use of the hand, but there are remarkably few tasks aided by having a hand in that position. Dressing is certainly not one of them.

In another month or two, which is a month or two longer than it would have been in the old world, the cast will be gone. Whatever healing, or damage, has been done, will have been done permanently. With snow forecast to last for two more months, I’m not the only person whose movements will be restricted until spring.

Is Daisy with Nilda? I asked.

"No, Daisy is with Chester, Kim said. But Nilda’s watching them both."

Shame they didn’t want to come. We’ll be making history.

Which will happen if they’re there or not, Kim said, pulling on her own hat. "For that matter, it’ll happen if we’re there or not. Annette, come on, that’s been far longer than a minute."

The sound of the battle paused. Annette dashed out of the living room, tugging on hat, scarf, and coat far quicker than me. It’s at a good bit, she said. They’re about to test the starship’s engines.

Which we’re about to do in real life, I said. Her interest in space operas stemmed from our house having two bookcases full of sci-fi novels and another crammed with DVDs. It made a change from vampires, her previous all-encompassing obsession.

"But we’re not going to watch the satellites dock, Annette said. Mirabelle said there’d be nothing to see."

Ken doesn’t want anyone watching him work, Kim said. But it is a historic moment, and a nice opportunity for us to mingle with the Canadians.

Locals, not Canadians, Annette said. Because a quarter are from the U.S.

Fine, an opportunity to mingle with the Americans, then, Kim said.

Nah, Annette said, "because all those people from the Harper’s Ferry were American."

If the people living here last month are locals, what does that make us? Kim asked, attempting a different approach.

Atlantians, Annette said.

As in Atlantis? I asked.

No, as in the Atlantic, Annette said.

Pretty sure Nova Scotia borders the Atlantic, too, Kim said. Everyone ready for a nice family afternoon adventure?

I picked up the long-handled ice-axe I’d selected as a walking stick in our frost-bound world. With an axe-head and pick, and with a sharpened point at the base of the shaft, it had been used as a weapon since the outbreak. Used and discarded when our house’s previous owner had fled aboard a ship.

Call them Canadians, Americans, or locals, their smiths have made some great weapons, on par with the jewelled-antiques from the Tower of London. Even so, and even with so much choice, I found it deeply satisfying using the ice-axe for its designed purpose.

You call this nice? Annette said as we stepped outside. It’s freezing!

Hence the clothes, I said. What, you were expecting it had turned tropical while we were inside?

Ha-ha, Annette said, pulling her hood down and her collar up, almost disappearing inside her fur-lined coat.

Even now, when I imagine snow, my brain conjures a perfect postcard image of a city’s steep rooftops dusted in a powder-white blanket. I picture drifts no more than ankle high, just deep enough to deaden the sound and cover the muck. Forget the snow in France. Forget the cold in Faroe. Those were amateur efforts compared to Canada. Yes, I could see the pale gravel beneath a white dusting of fresh snow, but only because Sholto had cleared our path at dawn, and Kim had cleared it yesterday. On the pavement beyond, the snow lay in drifts deep enough to lose Daisy in. We had. Twice so far. She found it hilarious, up until she got too cold. But her crying at least gave us a way of finding her again.

Our home, though I’m not sure for how long, is on King Street in Digby. It’s a four-bed, with a three-room annex built behind and above the garage. Collectively, the property is too large for the four of us, but Sholto has claimed the annex for himself and the four Marines with whom he’d first gone ashore in Faroe and Newfoundland: Sergeant Thelonious Toussaint, Privates Luca Petrelli, Isabella ‘Gonzo’ Gonzales, and Maya ‘Rulz’ Torres. Even sharing the garden, downstairs bathroom, kitchen, and the big TV, it was still more space than most newcomers have been allocated.

On the other side of the street from us is a sprawling, mostly two-storey, apartment building where the children, and some adults, from the Tower of London live two to a room. They’ve sacrificed space in order to stay together, but even they have more space than some.

Digby was a town of two thousand during what Annette calls the olden days. It’s only two kilometres from the wall built along the Harvest Highway. Beyond that wall are the undead. Probably.

After the outbreak, Nova Scotia became a redoubt for millions of Canadians, with many tall walls built from shore to shore across the province. As General Yoon continued her relentless march towards the U.S. border, she sent refugees east to Nova Scotia and west to distant Vancouver. After the nuclear bombs fell, the slow exodus began until, by harvest, too few remained to stand guard on the walls. The undead breached their outer defences. Before the crops were gathered, the locals had been forced to retreat behind the final defensive line, running outside Digby. Most of the remaining Canadians fled by ship, taking all the remaining fuel.

Four thousand had stayed in Digby and the peninsula to the south. Twenty kilometres to the north, across the wide bay, they’d fought costly street-battles to retain control of the twin towns of Granville Ferry and Annapolis Royal, which contain the tidal barrage and a small hydroelectric dam. Those transmitted electricity to Digby through power lines running behind the wall built on the highway. It was a precarious existence.

By the time we arrived, the town of Digby was nearly empty, and so we moved most of our ship’s passengers into the town’s vacant homes. Not all of us are in Digby. Aisha and Kevin, and their ship-born baby, Cosima, share a house in East Ferry. That small harbour town is a sanctuary for the Canadian newborns and their families. On the very southern tip of the Digby Peninsula, it’s forty kilometres south of Digby-town, and the undead outside the wall.

Yesterday, the Courageous sailed for Newfoundland. Four hundred people, mostly us newcomers, are aboard. They will join the hunt for oil, and for a working plane. Weather allowing, we’ll send more people north in a few weeks. The rest of us will remain here. For now.

The snow helps to deaden sound, but if the undead do break through the walls, we can re-board the cruise ship. It won’t sail far, but the sea-moat surrounding the ship will offer us some measure of protection. Assuming the zombies are, for want of a better word, alive.

My brother, aboard The New World, reached Canada before us, acting as a scout ahead of our main group. On arriving, he and a few others, and a few locals, made a brief westward expedition beyond the wall. There, within a half hour hike through the snowy forests, the zombies were mostly dead. Not entirely, but though they’d fought a small handful, they’d discovered thousands dead in a pit at an old saw mill. But what of the undead further from the wall? What of those gathered around the ruins of the other walls further north? What of the undead across North America? Until the weather clears, we cannot know, and so will keep the cruise ship close as a potential last refuge.

There is a nuclear power station across the Bay of Fundy, on the New Brunswick shores. The Canadians had the foresight to decommission it prior to the nuclear war. Containment should hold for decades, but like the undead, its very presence adds to the debate over Digby’s long-term viability.

We have a roof over our heads. We have electricity thanks to Annapolis, albeit a limited supply. The plumbing is a little erratic, but the homes without working toilets and taps have neighbours whose do. We have food, thanks to the stores laid in by the Canadians and the fish caught by Heather and Lorraine. Those, at least, are plentiful. Yes, we are alive. Safe. Happy. Freezing.

Pesanagig, I said.

Ten dollars in the swear-jar, Annette said.

The snow, I said, tugging my hood down. Flurries of light snow, falling in a near mist. The Mi’kmaq people describe that as pesanagig.

I bet they don’t pronounce it like that, Kim said, as we trudged through the deeper snow of the sidewalk, and into the middle of the road. This morning, a plough burning some of our very precious diesel had cleared a pathway through the town, but the driven-over and well-trodden slush was already solidifying into a treacherous rink.

Bill? Kim asked. Did your book have a word for when the snow gets under your skin, making your veins freeze?

I haven’t got that far, I said. Though the dust-jacket did say the author lost a hand to frostbite, so ask me again when I’ve read a few more chapters.

The book in question, The Perils of the North, was written in 1820. Part travelogue, part dictionary and guide book, written by a miner-explorer working for one of those quasi-governmental British corporations. It was a title everyone had heard of, but mostly from one of the movie adaptations. And, yes, that was how I’d heard of it, too.

I’d found the book on the single bookshelf in our house not dedicated to science fiction. The title had caught my attention. The dust-jacket comment about the hand lost to frostbite had caught my interest. But the discussions with the Mi’kmaq guide about language had captivated me.

It’s a good book, I said. Surprisingly relevant, and refreshingly equitable except for the parts where they arbitrarily seized whatever bits of land they liked the look of. I guess that’s of relevance to us, too. It makes a change from trying to learn French.

It’s weird how Canadians have to speak French, Annette said.

Reading it properly will be enough, I said. My time in France is proof I don’t know it nearly as well as I thought.

This weather is a reminder of those bleak and desperate weeks in France. It reminds me of Scott, Amber, and Salman, of Starwind, her mother Claire, and Professor Fontayne, and of the other French and Ukrainians still stranded somewhere in Europe. One day we’ll look for them. One day.

While our house has many shortcomings, it has the significant advantage of being central to everywhere important. Though, really, Digby isn’t large enough for anywhere to be remote. King Street runs north to south through the town, a few roads west of the bay, and a few roads east of the countryside. The high school, soon to re-open, takes up a block of its own between Church Street and Mount Street. Other than the diesel snowplough, the car park was empty. Other than Luca Petrelli, barely visible behind the plough’s foggy windows, there was no one else in sight.

Are we early? Kim asked.

Late, I said, as we made our way up the steps to the front entrance.

Inside, through a second set of double doors, were three long coat racks, a table, and a pair of muscled, smiling youths.

Tapessa, Jay, hi, I said as they stood.

Mr Wright, Mrs Wright, welcome, Tapessa said with a smile as bright as the sun. Hi, Annette.

S’up, Jay said, with his best attempt at an aloof chin-jut.

I refuse to call us Atlantians, so will say we’re newcomers, and among us the median age of our children is ten, but the age-range is skewed by those boarding-school kids whom Chester and Nilda rescued from Kent. There aren’t many children among the survivors. Due to a fear and starvation related drop in fertility last year, there weren’t many births. Among the Canadians, the birth rate is higher, but so were infant mortality and the number of new parents who took their children away during one of the many exoduses. Subtracting those, they are barely into double-digits for the last six months, but that still distorts the age-graph I have pinned to my wall. Excluding the newborns, the median age of the Canadian children is fourteen, and Tapessa is their undisputed leader.

At fifteen, she was a risen star in the minor hockey league, looking forward to rising through the junior league. If you speak to her, that’s the second thing you learn. The first is that she was a national spelling bee champion. Apparently that’s a big deal in North America. Not realising its importance when she’d first told me resulted in a polysyllabic, though polite, explanation of its importance to society, relevance to on-going education, and significance to a community’s cultural growth. Fearing she might challenge me to a spell-off or, worse, skating, I let Kim carry the conversation while in her company.

Can we take your coats? Tapessa asked.

That’d be kind, thank you, Kim said. How did you two get lumped with this chore?

Oh, we volunteered, Jay said, taking my coat, and then Kim’s. That’ll be two dollars, please.

Two dollars? What for? Kim asked.

For looking after your coats, Jay said.

Seriously? I asked.

Oh, would you like them back? Tapessa asked, her smile even brighter than before as she held up our dripping jackets.

Two days we’ve had the currency, Jay, Kim said, patting her pockets. I don’t have any on me. Bill?

Oh, the joy of pockets, I said. Even over my good shoulder, I find a bag a burden. Instead, I have grown to love what my brother and the Marines vexingly insist on calling cargo-pants. The more pockets the better, especially when you can only reach those on one side. I extracted the envelope containing the banknotes I’d printed that morning, and handed it to Annette.

Two dollars each, Jay said. That’s six dollars, please.

I’m keeping my coat, Annette said, handing over four of our new banknotes and pocketing two. So I’ll keep my two dollars, and I’ll stay here, if that’s cool?

I thought you were going to help me get some interviews, Kim said.

Sure, and I’ll start by interviewing Jay and Essa, Annette said.

Make sure you come in for the big event, I said. I’ll have the envelope back, thank you.

And the two dollars, Kim said.

Seriously? Annette asked.

Kim just held out her hand.

How much have you two made so far? I asked.

Only ten dollars, Jay said with a rueful shrug, but we got a lot of IOUs.

And a lecture about income tax from Mr Sholto, Tapessa said.

Income tax, now there’s an idea, I said.

Essa! Jay hissed.

Leave your ice-axe as well, Bill, Kim said. We’d better not muck up the floors.

I was reluctant to leave it. Sure, I had a knife at my belt, as did Kim, and Annette. The broad-bladed spear leaning against the wall behind the coat-check was Tapessa’s, the short-handled spear was Jay’s. The dozen spears in the bin by the door were for anyone who found themselves short. Even so, giving up the walking stick left me feeling twitchy as Kim took my arm and we walked towards the noise.

How much money is in the envelope? Kim asked.

One thousand dollars, I said. In fifties and ones.

I hope it was singles Annette gave Jay, she said. Why have you got so much?

To pay Heather for this week’s fish, I said.

Then you shouldn’t be giving any of it to Jay, Kim said.

I’ll just subtract a few dollars from what Heather would have paid us for the diesel, I said. If the goal is to get money into circulation, and so to encourage enterprise and innovation, why not pay a couple of kids who had the bright idea of running a coat-check?

Because it’s a hustle, not a business, Kim said. This is why people didn’t trust central banks.

Are you going to report this as evidence of governmental corruption in the news bulletin? I asked, mostly as a joke.

I don’t suppose I can, since I’m complicit, she said. No, it’ll be satellites all night long.

The school’s gym was humming, though most of the noise came from the two-table bar set up at the back. Around and near it, mug or glass in hand, people mingled and talked. About a hundred people in total, about eighty percent newcomers to twenty percent locals. Closer to the front were eight tables, around each were ten chairs, but most of those were empty. At the front, a small stage had been set up. On it, Ken lurked behind a laptop, ignoring everything and everyone except the code dancing across his display, which was being projected onto a screen behind him. To the side, at computers of their own, sat Dee-Dee and Mirabelle.

Grab a seat with George and Napatchie, Kim said. I’ll get us some drinks.

George Tull and Napatchie Ashoona had taken the table nearest the stage, and furthest from the increasingly raucous crowd around the bar.

Not a bad turn-out, I said, taking a chair. More than I was expecting. Sorry we’re late.

You’ve not missed the show, George said. Did you bring the girls?

Annette’s chatting with Tapessa and Jay, I said. We left Daisy with Chester. He’s having a hands-on class in changing a nappy.

A total immersion lesson, eh? Napatchie said. Oh, that reminds me, we need to arrange a full inspection of the water treatment plant. Tomorrow?

I’ll pull a few mechanics from the ship-repair detail, I said, taking out my notebook.

We must discuss production of detergent and disinfectants, Napatchie said.

And fertilizer, George added.

Chemicals, right, I said, taking out my pen. Ah, the joy of pockets. I looked to see if the admiral was present; she was, but talking with my brother, close to the bar.

We were discussing making sodium hydroxide through electrolysis, George said.

I thought fertilizers were usually nitrogen-based, I said.

For detergent, George said. I wondered if we could get the kids to make it in chemistry class. The electrolysis of sodium chloride would be a very practical lesson for them.

It would produce chlorine gas, Napatchie said. Hence my concern at production within a classroom setting.

This is only for the older kids, George said. They all learned the importance of following safety precautions with the undead, and they’d have supervision. By the time we want to scale up production, they’ll have graduated. They’ll be able to run the factories themselves.

I’ll make a note, I said, as an alternative to giving an opinion. This was clearly an idea of Mary O’Leary’s, being delivered via proxy.

Leadership among our two groups is complicated. Admiral Janet Gunderson was elected leader after the nightmare of Belfast, but only by those who escaped the conflagration which destroyed the city. Mary had been appointed head-of-state in deference to her being the de-facto leader while we were on Anglesey. Colm, who’d been the runner-up of the ship-wide election, had become the unofficial leader of a non-existent opposition. Kim had finally fulfilled her dream of running a radio station and was now, almost single-handedly, running our press corps. I’d slotted into a role that was half chief-of-staff, half head of the civil service.

As for the Canadians, Napatchie Ashoona had been the Member of Parliament for Nunavut before the outbreak. She’d run Nova Scotia before the nuclear bombs fell, when it was being used as a refugee-hub for eastern Canada. Back then, there’d been millions of refugees. Just over four thousand remained, while us newcomers numbered twice that.

To confuse it further, while Janet had only been elected by those escaping Belfast, she’d been the Surgeon General of the United States Navy before the outbreak. It was a cabinet position in the presidential line of succession, even if she stalwartly refused to stake a claim on that defunct office.

No one wanted another election, so we’d settled on a compromise of running everything by committee. Napatchie and Janet were the joint executives, while I as the head of the civil service, and Mary as head-of-state, shared the third vote in our four-person triumvirate. Since the snow made getting about a slog for Mary in her wheelchair, George had been acting as her in-person proxy.

Shall we start a sweepstake on how long it’ll take before the kids blow up the lab? I asked.

Best way to learn chemistry, George said. The only science lessons I remember from school were those when the fire alarms went off.

I’ll make a note we’ll need more fire extinguishers, I said. And breathing apparatuses as well. Plus we’ll need to work out how much electricity the lab would need. Could we wait until the weather’s a bit warmer?

That would be a long wait, Napatchie said.

This weather’s going to last? I asked.

The winter’s barely begun, she said.

I sighed, and dog-eared the corner of the page as a reminder to make it a priority. George laughed, and took another sip.

Hey, little brother, Sholto said, coming over with a tray on which were six glasses. Kim sent these over. It’s maple punch. He gave one to George.

Napatchie held up a hand. One was enough for me, she said, though her glass was still more than half full.

It’s a bit early, I said.

You’ve got big plans for the rest of the day? Sholto asked.

Printing more bank notes, I said. But punch is mostly fruit, isn’t it? I suppose that’s healthy.

As I swallowed, I belatedly wondered where the fruit had come from. That question was forgotten as the raw alcohol set fire to my throat and began dripping molten lava down to my stomach.

I thought you said it was punch, I hissed, sucking in air in an attempt to quench the fire.

It’s got a bit of a kick as well, hasn’t it? Sholto said, laughing. "I said it’s called maple punch, because it’s made from maple syrup and… well, you can guess the rest. It’s a good vintage. Aged for twelve hours."

We’ll water it down in future, Napatchie said.

Oh, for a cup of tea, I said. This is from Jimmy’s still, then? Are we giving it out for free?

Jimmy’s selling it for a dollar a glass, Sholto said. Using the new currency, but he’s mostly taking IOUs.

Oh, speaking of that, is Heather here? I asked, pulling out the envelope.

Her boat is still out, Sholto said.

In this weather? I asked.

She wanted to get a haul in before the weather worsened, Sholto said.

Worsened? Don’t you start, I said. I handed him the envelope. Can you drop that round to her when she docks? It’s four dollars light, but I’ll deduct that from the cost of the diesel.

What goes around comes around and never too soon, Sholto said, slipping the envelope into his pocket.

You know people will print their own banknotes? George said.

Let them, I said. It’ll save me staying up half the night trying to unblock a paper jam with one hand. There might be an old printer in nearly every house, but there’s a finite amount of ink in the town, and no way of scavenging more until the weather clears. With a finite amount of goods for sale, if someone wants to print a million bucks, it’ll be obvious quickly enough. Inflation might actually be useful at that point, but we can always switch to a new design of banknote, or to the digital currency. The local network will be up and running soon.

So you hope, Sholto said. He downed his glass. I’ll go see what’s taking Ken so long.

George finished his own glass, then reached for another. Don’t tell Mary, he said. How do you feel about buses, Bill?

I always preferred the train, I said. You can get a lot of work done on a train.

Mary and I were talking about opening up a university, George said.

How does that link to buses? Napatchie asked.

Ah, because it’s a correspondence course, George said. So we’ll need the buses to run the coursework back and forth. We can run the lectures on the radio until we launch a TV station. Give Kim something to broadcast other than music.

How much homework are you planning for your students if you require a bus to transport it? Napatchie asked.

There’d be other post, too, George said. "A weekly assessment provides you, the government, a reason to guarantee a once-a-week service. Other people can hop on the back of it, metaphorically, to send their own post. So why not let people hop on the back literally? Let them travel a bit. See Annapolis and East Ferry, and let the people there come here to the big city. As the currency takes off, it’d pay for itself. Might even generate a bit of revenue for the government."

But it would require fuel, I said.

You’re going to drill for it, George said. Unless you’re going to sell the petrol to everyone, there won’t be any privately owned cars, so we’ll need a mass transit alternative.

I agree, Napatchie said. Though more about the university than the bus. If schooling stops at sixteen, we must ensure learning doesn’t. Bill?

I’ll draw up a proposal, I said, once again opening my notebook. How many courses were you thinking of?

Mary and I thought we’d begin with geology, fluid dynamics, and astronomy. Still got to find some telescopes, and get someone to gather the rock samples.

Tracy Mossburger used to be a history teacher, Napatchie said.

She’s the woman running the defence of Annapolis? I asked. Wouldn’t she prefer teaching a class in the high school?

Napatchie shook her head. I asked, but she doesn’t want to live in Digby. She might assist with a few correspondence courses.

Wonderful, George said. I’ll get on with finding the perfect bus.

I didn’t agree to the bus, Napatchie said.

Not yet, but when you do, and when Bill’s found the petrol, I’ll have the bus ready to go.

The old man seemed happy. Everyone was, and not just because of the absurdly strong alcohol. Everyone except the trio up on the stage. I blame the Heisenbergian nature of our immediate security. We had fuel and ships. The Canadians had food. Between us, and when consumed by all of us, we didn’t have enough to see us through to harvest, but it would be enough to last until the weather cleared and we could find out what the world was like beyond the wall. If enough of the zombies were dead, we’d open a school, a university, a bus route, and so much more. Whether they were still open this time next year hardly mattered when set against the idea we could, finally, plan for a future.

But if too many zombies were alive, no one knew whether we’d fight or flee. We didn’t even know how many were too many to fight. So, instead, we’re hoping for the best and trying not to think of the worst.

On paper, we’ve achieved a lot in a bare few days, but most of it was the result of extensive planning during the sea voyage. Schooling in Canada was as informal as it had been in Anglesey, so Mary, before we’d stepped ashore, had declared the school would re-open. The weather had prevented it so far, but wouldn’t for much longer. How education would be provided for the children in outlying communities like East Ferry was a problem still to be solved. But we would.

Kim had wanted to run a radio station since Anglesey as a way of fostering a sense of community, but for one reason or another, we’d never quite found the time. Aboard the ship, Kim had inquired how the technical difficulties could be overcome. The radio mast on the Ocean Queen had been dismantled before it had docked.

We needed a currency to facilitate our journey from a band of survivors into a community, a state, a people. Recruiting for the oil exploration on Newfoundland, for the fishing fleet, for the farm labour when the weather clears; recruiting snow-sweepers, a repair crew for the Ocean Queen, Amundsen, and The New World; organising who was being billeted where, and more, had all been achieved before we’d sighted land.

Of course, planning was the easy part. As much as others viewed today as an opportunity to celebrate, I viewed the event as the beginning of something infinitely more difficult.

Thank you! Kim called from the stage. Hi. Hello. Can we have quiet? Thanks. Ken’s ready to begin. From now on, he’d like silence, please. She turned to Mirabelle, but she was hunched over a laptop, typing furiously.

Kim shrugged. I guess it’s up to me to explain this as best I can. If you heard yesterday’s inaugural radio broadcast, you should know what’s about to happen. If you didn’t, why not? That received an alcohol-infused chuckle. In a few minutes, Ken will use one of Lisa Kempton’s satellites to refuel another. The orbit of the satellite without fuel will decay, and it will burn up in the atmosphere. So why are we celebrating? Because we’ll lose all three of the satellites soon anyway. They weren’t designed for all this constant manoeuvring, but they were designed to refuel and repair other satellites in orbit.

Reboot, Mirabelle said.

Kim paused, waiting to see if the programmer would contribute anything more. When she didn’t, Kim continued. If we’re successful today, we can use these remaining two satellites to restore many of the commercial satellites still in orbit. We’ll have a proper satellite network. Proper communications for us, but more importantly, we’ll have images from around the world. We can find Scott Higson and the French survivors, and so many others. She turned to Mirabelle and Dee-Dee. Perhaps you could tell us a little more about how we’ll do this?

Nope, not yet, Mirabelle said, not looking up from her screen. Dee-Dee simply scowled.

Kim turned back to the audience. There won’t be anything to see except code, she said, pointing at the pull-down screen displaying the indecipherable stream from Ken’s laptop. The wonder, the glory, of Kempton’s satellites is that they were designed to do this automatically. Now, I’m sure you have some questions about why she had a space programme to hack into commercial satellites. So do I, and we’re going to devote at least one radio programme to that, so stay tuned. Because it’s an automatic process, we’ll have to rely on the code-feed to know what’s going on, and when it’s complete. She paused, turning again in the hope one of the three coders might say something. When they didn’t, she continued extemporising. Satellite-A has a forward-facing camera, but—

Done, Ken said, leaning back in his chair, hands raised above his head. Mirabelle stood. Dee-Dee walked to the corner of the stage, hands raised to her mouth.

It was successful? Kim asked.

"No, we are done, Ken said. The operation is underway. Wait. Watch."

The screen displayed two boxes. The largest showed a set of code, now unmoving. On the right, a smaller box displayed code moving too fast to be read. What any of it did, I had no idea. No one in the room did, except our three engineers.

What’s happening now? Admiral Janet Gunderson asked from the crowd.

The satellites are about to dock, Ken said.

The room hushed. We’d all learned to be quiet out in the zombie-infested wasteland, but this was a silence even more complete.

The code in the smaller screen stopped moving. Ken rushed back to his chair, as did Dee-Dee and Mirabelle.

Is it done? Kim asked as Ken bent over his keyboard.

No, it… Ken began, and then stopped typing. It didn’t work.

Report, in more detail, please, the admiral said.

We lost the satellites, Ken said. Both of them. It was a risk, of course. It’s why I said it was pointless you all coming to watch.

How will this impact us? the admiral asked, skipping through denial and recrimination and jumping to the consequences.

We’re down to one satellite rather than three, Mirabelle said. The radius within which communications are possible has been reduced. We were going to lose satellite-B within ten days, and C within two months. It’s why we never bothered giving them better names.

And satellite-A? the admiral asked.

We call her Astrid, Mirabelle said. She’s got six months.

So we still have satellite communications? We still have a camera? the admiral asked.

Locally, overhead, yes, Mirabelle said.

How will you prevent us losing that in six months? Napatchie asked.

We can manually dock with a commercial satellite, Mirabelle said. We couldn’t do that with B or C because the cameras were broken, but we can try with Astrid.

Then it’s no great loss, the admiral said.

Which wasn’t at all true.

The first loss was immediate, and to Kim’s broadcasting schedule. Despite the sheer number of newcomers, there simply wasn’t very much new news in our community. As such, the news bulletin about the satellites had been widely advertised, often as households collected their ration of fish, as a reason to tune in to a radio station broadcasting music and guesses at the weather. We couldn’t avoid broadcasting this latest disaster. Kim needed something uplifting to add as a distracting discussion point. Leaving her to interview the slightly inebriated George about his plans for a university, I walked Annette home.

Essa and Jay and some others are going to come over later and watch the TV, Annette said. That’s cool, isn’t it?

Sure, I said, before I thought to ask, How many?

Dunno until they arrive, she said. Do we need to get some more fish?

I have to feed them, too?

Of course, Annette said. But maybe we get Luca and Gonzo to cook.

Luca’s on plough duty and Private Gonzales is in Conway watching the CCTV feeds of the wall. Since Kim will be busy in the radio studio, it’ll be us two in the kitchen.

Maybe I’ll ask Essa to help cook, Annette said. Clouds are getting thicker. I bet there’s more snow coming.

Desperate not to end up with another limb in plaster, I’d been concentrating on where I put my feet, but I glanced up at the gathering clouds. Could be. That’ll mean another delay in reopening the school.

Yeah. I guess, Annette said. But she wasn’t looking at the clouds; she was imagining what lay beyond. If docking the satellites manually was easy, they’d have done it by now, right?

You should ask Ken, I said.

Which isn’t a no, Annette said.

"I genuinely have no idea. Ken tried to explain it to me, but he gave up in frustration before I did. I do know we’ve been throwing those satellites around up there like they were toys, and we’d have lost all three by the middle of the year regardless of what we tried. From my point of view, risking losing coverage a few months early is worth it if we might get some satellites we can use for the next decade."

"Except we have lost them, Annette said. Two of them, and we’ll lose the third, right?"

It’s a possibility, I said. But we’ll have radio for short-range comms. Telephone, too. An internet of sorts before too long. I don’t think we’ll miss the satellites.

We will, Annette said. Because we won’t ever be able to put one in orbit again, will we?

I didn’t want to lie, so I said nothing.

13th January, Day 306

Chapter 2 - Grand Re-Opening

Water Street, Digby

The waist-high snowdrifts sparkled in the dazzlingly bright afternoon sun as Kim and I shuffled through the world’s largest walk-in freezer, also known as the cleared corridor ploughed through the road outside our house.

We should have taken up Tapessa’s offer and borrowed her ice skates, Kim said.

I’ve a new life-rule, I said. Only one broken limb at a time.

That’s a good rule.

After yesterday’s ice-storm, the pavements were drift-bound except for the shovel-cleared front paths. Neglected signposts had grown icicle branches, while wind-sculpted frost-waves huddled around tree trunks. Glistening snowdrifts towered waist-high, while more sunlight glinted off the few inches of ice beneath our feet. We walked slow, taking our time, seemingly alone in the world.

Skis, Kim said. Or snow shoes.

Crampons, I said, taking another slow step.

Same to you, she said. How about a sled?

We’ve no dogs, I said.

True, she said. Diesel makes all the difference. Because we had power for enough generators to keep the radio station working, we knew we weren’t alone. Yesterday was reduced from a terrifying natural disaster into a simple storm.

Simple? I asked, glancing up at the blades of ice dragging on the overhead power line. The vertical icicles had, in the high wind, acquired horizontal branches of their own.

You know what I mean, she said. Having diesel allowed us to run the plough last night and this morning. Without that we’d barely have dug our way as far as the New Tower.

Aha! I said. I knew you’d give in and call it that.

Well, if that’s the name the London kids want to use, it’s inevitable we all will, she said. "I know when to cave. My point, as much as I was making one, is that it’s great we’ve got some diesel. As comforting as it was seeing a few lights in the windows across the street, it’s the plough and the radio station that turn a battle for survival into a snow-day. We know we’re not alone. We know society continues. Functions. The plough and radio prove there is a society, that we’re not all alone."

Fair point. But we’re using up fuel we could have used for the ships, I said. We’ll use more in the next couple of days. Unless we shift this ice down to the waterfront, we’ll end up living in a swamp as it melts. As it is, the ice will play merry hell with the guttering and facades, but I suppose we can hope Canadians thought of ice-storms when they built their homes.

They didn’t think of them when they put together their communications system, Kim said. But I suppose that was because they were thinking of the undead. The storm brought down the phone lines, but those weren’t really more than an alarm system. The shortwave radios helped.

Sure, but it was the national radio station which helped the most, I said.

It’s not really national, is it? Kim said. But that’s a debate for another day.

A debate for Annette, I said. We should give Dean and Lena a medal for broadcasting through the storm. Or possibly a prison sentence for torturing us with such an odd collection of music.

Our new radio station was based in the school, with the antenna added to its roof. Since that’s also home to our library, and to the computers monitoring our one remaining satellite, we’d allocated them a generator and a fuel supply. After the storm cut the power to the town, the radio station continued to broadcast. Faint. Crackly. Comforting. A reminder that we were not alone. Dean and Lena had been trapped inside the school and so had made the best of it by launching two competing radio stations, sharing the same frequency. Fortunately for our sanity, they’d alternated songs rather than playing two at a time. Just knowing that someone else was out there was enough to dull fear’s edge.

Petrelli had been on plough-duty when the storm arrived, sleeping in the cab. As the snow fell, he’d cleared a path to our house. He’d picked up my brother and the other Marines, before driving to the harbour where three other ploughs were parked. Dawn came. Kim had hitched a ride to the school to take over as host on the morning walk-time show. When she returned home, it was with the news a plough had made it all the way up to Annapolis, and another had reached East Ferry. She’d also brought news that people were flocking to the shops. Thus so were we.

Land is cheap, I said, as we turned onto Church Street, heading east towards the waterfront and the newly re-opened shops.

I like our house, Kim said, catching my arm as I stumbled on a patch of ice. I don’t fancy moving just yet.

No, sorry. I don’t mean we should find somewhere else to live. Though sharing with the Marines is… interesting.

It’s got Annette off vampires, Kim said.

And doing far more sit-ups than can be healthy, I said. But I was thinking about what you were saying last night, about how we should think of the architecture as different rather than odd, though the houses seem very strange to me.

The land was cheap, you mean? Kim said. Which explains how the buildings are huge. Wood is plentiful, hence why they used it for construction. But that doesn’t explain the windows. There are just so many. Somewhere this cold. Somewhere that got as cold as yesterday on an annual basis, should have small windows, and not so many of them.

You know why? I said. No one here was idiotic enough to try to implement a window tax.

That’s thinking like a Londoner, she said. Think like someone who’s spent an entire winter here, not just two weeks. Even after just one ice-storm, I’d want thicker walls and fewer draughts. Though having the big windows did help during the power-cut.

True, I said. Maybe the frequency of power cuts explains the windows. I suppose my point is that the architecture here is so very different to Faroe. And I thought it was cold there. I’m clearly not cut out to be a Canadian.

Give it time, eh? Kim said, hugging my arm as we stopped at the junction. A gang of the London and Birmingham children were gathered around a monstrous pile of plough-pushed ice, cleared from the road down which we’d walked, and left