Surviving the Evacuation 06 Harvest by Frank Tayell

Author:Frank Tayell [Tayell, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Butch
Published: 2015-07-01T03:00:00+00:00

The address book was easily found, and it listed a number of properties nearby, but the names alone gave no indication of what they might find there. The more Chester thought on it, the more convinced he was that even had there been an entry for an orchard, they’d find it stripped clean. Whoever had come to this farm had so thoroughly removed everything of use that Chester couldn’t imagine they’d have left any of the neighbouring properties untouched.

He pulled a stack of recipe books from the kitchen shelf and took them into the front room, dropping them next to a chair as he fell into it.

“In my experience, survivors can be split into four groups,” he said. “You had people like Tuck who were in the enclaves and got out. There aren’t many of them. Then there are the ones who survived the evacuation. There are even fewer of those. Then there are those who stayed at home. Either they couldn’t go, or they didn’t want to. I take it you lot fall into that last camp?”

“Not really,” Greta said. “I was on holiday. In London.”

“Staying in one of the hotels?”

“I wish. If I had, I might have got food. No, I was subletting a flat. One of those internet deals, you know? I tried lining up at the supermarket, but they said that without a TV licence they wouldn’t give me anything. They didn’t tell me what a TV licence was, just that they couldn’t trust that I hadn’t already collected my food for the day. Whoever’s bright idea that was…” she trailed off. “In order to survive, to eat, I had to…” she trailed off again. “Well, if that was your compassionate society, then I wanted no part in it. I stayed in London because I wanted to go back home, and it would be easier to do that without being surrounded by millions of people in an enclave. I thought the zombies would stop after a week. Or two. Or four. And instead…” She glanced down at Reece’s leg and shrugged.

“And now you’re one of the last people left alive on Earth,” Finnegan said, his voice filled an unexpected sadness.

“And what about you,” Chester asked Reece to fill the silence. “Why didn’t you trust the government?”

“Did you ever meet our government? No, I was prepared. I knew something was going to happen, and it would all collapse. Not this, I mean, how could anyone expect this? But you remember what this country was like; how if there was even a hint the fuel duty was going to rise, all the petrol stations would be pumped dry. How a few months of rain caused flooding which ruined half the farms? Or those riots, you remember them? The country was shut down for three days.”

“I remember,” Chester said, “all those stories about farmers pulling together and helping one another out. I remember when there was rioting, and the streets were on fire at night, how the shops still opened the next morning.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.