Surviving The Evacuation (Book 5): Reunion by Frank Tayell Read Free Book Online Page A

There was always food there. We get it, and we take it. See how Quigley and Cannock like that!”
    “Right,” Chester said, careful to keep the scepticism from his voice. “First thing tomorrow. But I’m not sleeping here,” he nodded towards the entrance. “There are flats over there above those shops. One of them will do for tonight.”
    The first one wouldn’t. Chester wrinkled his nose at the smell. The couple had been dead for weeks. Judging by the syringe, spoon, and other paraphernalia, they’d overdosed. It was impossible to tell whether it was accidental or not. He picked up an open bag of tortilla chips from the grubby kitchen counter. It moved disconcertingly. He put it down.
    “Let’s try the one next door.”
    It was reasonably clean, at least by contrast. The fridge was empty though not unplugged. The occupants might have left on the evacuation or perhaps gone on holiday before that, and been stranded after the outbreak. McInery took the bedroom, Chester the sofa. He didn’t complain. He didn’t say anything. He’d noticed how McInery was increasingly using the words ‘my’ and ‘I’; how her plans were so vague and fanciful they couldn’t really be called that. Most importantly, he noticed how she hadn’t mentioned the undead once. As he lay in the dark, he tried to recall where he might find a truck and enough fuel to get him away from London. But where would he go? He turned his mind to McInery’s list. If only it wasn’t written in her own private code, he could have taken it, gone through the addresses, filling the truck with supplies, and then just driven away. He knew he wouldn’t give the city a backward glance. But if she didn’t want to go scavenging for food herself, then it was only a matter of time before she gave him the list. Yes, he thought, time. He just had to be patient. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
     
     
    8 th March - Smithfield’s Farm
    London
     
    “I’m not sure we’ll find weapons,” Chester said, as they left the house the next morning. “I mean, who’s going to leave them behind? And if they did, it’s not like they’ll have left them neatly stacked up, ready for us to take. They’ll be in a gun safe. To get into one of those we’ll need proper tools. For that matter, we’ll need proper tools just to get into the buildings. I mean, you’re talking about Whitehall, the Ministry of Defence, and Number 10. As long as there’s electricity, the anti-terrorism locks are going to work.”
    “So it’ll take us time, so what? It’s not as if we don’t have that to spare,” McInery said. “But it’s what else we might find that I’m really after. There’s medical supplies, and the food for all those diplomats and foreign potentates. There’s just too much for it to have been taken away.”
    “I don’t know, I really don’t,” Chester said, hefting the crowbar that he’d found to replace the cumbersome sledgehammer. “Those are going to be items of real value now. If they’ve left them behind, then they’ll come back for them.”
    “And when he does, Quigley will find them gone,” she said, a malicious smile creeping across her face.
    Revenge, Chester thought, that was what she was after. She wanted to beat Quigley. And that was how she was thinking of it; her against him. Chester saw it as going up against a world leader with a functional army. That was a different proposition entirely, one that his old man would have described as tragically terminal for the health. But he kept his own counsel as they trudged through the streets, his thoughts once more on his own escape. There were some people he’d done business with, though not recently, who sold agricultural diesel to commercial customers on the edge of an estate south of the river. He was trying to remember exactly where they stored it.
    So focused on dredging his own memories, he hadn’t noticed the noise. When he did, he realised it must have been audible for at least