Zombielandia by Lee Wade Read Free Book Online Page A

the corridor and took us through several locked doors until we were finally outside. There were dozens of small vessels milling about and a fair few more strapped to the side of the Somerset. We had never been outside at this level before. There were rope ladders hanging alongside the length of the ship.
    It was a massive hive of activity. Gav showed us to a rope ladder and instructed us to climb down it. Paul will be at the bottom with the Hope he said. I shook his hand and thanked him for all the help he had given us. This was as far as he was going and I couldn’t help but respect him for what he was doing for us and for his family.
    Becky went first and was followed closely by Maddison and Sophie. Babs went next and Luke followed her, he was great on the climbing frame back in the park at Broomhill, so this would be easy for him. I could see the Hope about twenty foot below. I waited until everyone was safely down and then got Emily to climb onto my back like we’d done many times before when we’d been out walking back home. She was always the first to get tired, but I’m sure she just liked having a ride on Dad’s back. We climbed slowly and carefully down the ladder and the guys at the bottom helped us onto the hope.
    Sophie had joined Paul in the cab, the rest of us huddled down in the small hold area and I threw a tarp over all of us so no one could see us and also to protect us from the rain which, by the look of the grey clouds overhead, wasn’t far away.
    We couldn’t see anything, we were all huddled together, and the children were frightened, but we told them that we were going on an adventure and we had to hide very quietly until we got there. We heard the engines starting up and felt the Hope starting to move forward. The water felt choppy despite being in the loch and we could hear the pitter patter of rain on the tarp above.
     
     
    Chapter Twenty Seven
    We’d been huddling together to keep warm for what seemed like hours, but was probably no more than twenty minutes when suddenly the tarp was lifted in one corner, I strained to see as my eyes adjusted to the light, but I could make Sophie holding up the tarp, smiling. You can all come out now guys if you want to, she said, we’re out of site of the Somerset. We moved the tarp back, it was raining hard now, but we didn’t care, we were free from that ship. We could finally celebrate and embrace each other. I took the children to the small cab to keep dry, there was only room for a couple of adults, but the children could lie down quite comfortably, not that they wanted to, they were too busy asking Paul a thousand questions and enjoying their adventure now.
    I managed to get a few words in with Paul; we were about fifteen minutes away from the rendezvous coordinates and we could see a small vessel on the Hope’s radar where we would expect the Saltwind to be. Had our plan actually worked? Were we all free, our group all back together again? I guessed we would find out in about fifteen minutes.
    Chapter Twenty Eight
    The rendezvous point was on the Clyde, not far from Dumbarton. After a while we could make out a vessel in the distance, it was the Saltwind, they’d made it! We were all shouting and cheering, but we couldn’t see or hear anything aboard the Saltwind. Then as we drew closer we could see people in the water, some were in a life ring, but all hanging desperately to the side of the boat. It was raining hard now and the water was rough in the Clyde. It must have been difficult to hang on, how long had they been in there and why?
    As we got closer we could make out faces, it was our group at least. I could see John, Amy and Anthony all hanging onto the rear of the boat. Hayley was hanging onto a rope on the side of the boat and to a rope attached to the life ring with little Alfie and Britney inside it, Christ I thought, hadn’t that family been through enough. There was no sign of anyone else though; hopefully they were still on board