“Yeah, are you all just a great bunch of guys or something?” Al added, just as anxious as Tina to find out why Stan and his men were willing to risk their lives for them.
“We’re not on an island,” Taff replied from behind. “We’re living on a ship at the moment, and have been for the past eleven years. And just like everything else around here, it’s beginning to fall apart around us. It won’t hold up to another stormy season, and we need to look elsewhere for something more solid and less sinkable.”
“Why did you say you were on an island?”
“We’ve had our own troubles in the past. Trust is a hard thing to come by these days,” Stan replied.
He thought back to Gibson and the man’s quest to retrieve the launch codes for the missiles that were still sitting in their silos on the UK mainland. It had been many years since he and his rogue units launched their assault on the Isle of Wight, but the memory remained freshly embossed upon the minds of his surviving team members. Many people had been slaughtered by Gibson and his troops. Most of their own group had been killed when they were attempting to escape the trap, including Bobby and Danny.
“You mean that you want to move into the base with us?” Flash asked perplexedly.
He was walking at the rear of the group, two of the militia troops close by. It was hard for him to tell who was speaking, but he could hear the conversation clearly as the words bounced along the walls of the tunnel.
“No. But you have people in your group who might be useful to us,” Stan replied. “Some served in the merchant navy. Is that correct?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Tina answered.
She remembered the vague questions that had been asked over the radio. They had never specifically asked about people with naval experience, but had worded their questions so that the answers would give them an idea of what skillsets and experience they had amongst them. Naturally Tina and Al had exaggerated their numbers and capabilities when it came to military personnel. As far as Stan was concerned, there was a company strength group of regular troops within the base, but she doubted that they still believed that.
“Well, I’ll be honest with you. We have no idea how to move the ship, but we were hoping that maybe you or some of your people do.”
“Then what?”
“If we can get the engines working again, then our plan is to head south for the Azores islands.”
“In a ferry?” Al asked. “Can that be done?”
“No idea, but we reckon it’s worth a try,” Kyle replied.
Tina thought about the islands and their position in relation to the nearest landmass. The Azores were remote and surrounded by water. Portugal and Africa were to the east with nothing but vast ocean to the west, north, and south. With enough people and a great deal of planning, any one of the islands could be cleared of the infected and made habitable again. Of course, there was always the chance that people were already there having done the exact same thing for themselves, but with no other way of knowing, it was a chance that they would have to take and react to on the move.
“Your group and ours both need a new home. You can’t stay here, and we can’t stay in the Irish Sea. I doubt that there are many living people left on the entire planet, but if we join our groups together, we can find a place to start over.”
“There are more of you?” Tina asked.
“About seventy of us, altogether. The rest have stayed aboard the ship.”
“And you want us to start a colony together?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Are they all soldiers?” Al asked.
“Most are civilians.”
Stan came to an abrupt halt and the rest of them followed suit, turning their attention towards him. For a moment there was nothing but silence except for the steady drip of water seeping through the ceiling of the tunnel and the nervous breathing of a few of the less sturdy members of the group.
“Look, we’re not here to fanny about with you. We can either help each other or not. If you’re not interested, we’ll bug-out and go our separate ways. But with the amount of pus-bags out there, I doubt that you’ll last for much longer.”
“We’ve lasted for long enough in here,” Flash spat defiantly.
Stan turned to him, his expressionless face making Flash suddenly feel uneasy. Staring back into the man’s empty eyes he began to wish that he had kept his mouth shut. It was as if Stan was some kind of demon, able to suck a person’s courage from him and replace it with fear and apprehension before devouring his soul.
“We know that you can’t stay in here for much longer,” Charlie spoke up from within the group. “So don’t play dumb and treat us with the same contempt. We know your situation and that your base is crumbling around you.”
Up until that point he had remained quiet, weighing up the situation and the people that were around them. Flash looked back at him, wondering how he could possibly be so aware of their dire circumstances. He immediately felt psychologically knocked off balance and out of his depth with the expertise of the new arrivals.
“Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted, son,” Charlie shrugged, answering the young man’s questioning eyes.
Tina and Al glanced at one another. Stan seemed to be very forthcoming with information, and he did not seem to be holding anything back or hiding an ulterior motive. Tina still felt uneasy when she looked at him; the man never seemed to blink or show any kind of indication to what he was feeling, but she sensed that he was speaking openly and with honesty.
“Well, what’s it to be?” Taff pushed the question, standing his ground and unwilling to follow them any further.
“We can work together on this,” Tina finally spoke with an affirmative nod. She turned and continued to walk with Stan by her side. “Paul’s the man you need to speak to about your ship. He served on merchant ships as a mechanical engineer.”
“Sounds better than what we’ve got at the moment,” Kyle noted. “Steve doesn’t know his arse from his elbow when it comes to the engines.”
“We bug-out through the sewers, head across land, get you to our ship, and from there you get us up and running and headed south for the Azores. That’s the bargain in a nutshell,” Stan concluded.
Tina stopped as they reached a large iron gate that spanned the entire width and height of the passage, blocking their path. Once everyone was through, Flash secured it against the wall behind them, leaving it open and keeping the tunnel unobstructed. The clang of the bars crashing against its wall mounts reverberated loudly, seemingly lasting a long time after the bolt had been slid into place. A hundred metres further on, Tina paused again and pointed to one of the demolition charges that had been placed in order to collapse the supports in the event of the base becoming overrun or the tunnel being breached.
“We have another charge further up and two more gates,” Al informed them as they continued on their way.
By now, they could see a faint rectangle of light far off along the tunnel. It was the door leading out into the base.
“What happens once we’ve made it through the sewers? How do we get to the coast? We have nearly two hundred people here, and walking that sort of distance isn’t a realistic option,” Tina stated.
“I assume that you have an evac plan of your own?” Taff asked.
“Yeah,” Al nodded. “But headed for the coast was never a part of it. We once had a number of options, including routes, vehicles, and safe havens, but over the years they’ve become obsolete. Every vehicle we had in place for an evac is fucked, and all the safe havens are overrun. Everything is crumbling out there, and these walls have been the only safe place that we’ve come across for years.”
“Then we need to find vehicles, clear a route, and get this place evacuated,” Stan answered plainly.
“The bus depot,” Tina replied, remembering that they had still not confirmed whether there were vehicles there that could still be of any use to them. “We could still check on the bus depot. There may be some vehicles there that’ve been kept secure and away from the elements.”
“If there isn’t, then I guess we’re walking,” Al grunted.
The conversations continued. Tina asked more about what they had experienced over the years and the people aboard their ship. Stan replied to her questions, but it was Taff and Kyle who were forced to elaborate on his succinct answers. Now that Stan had confirmed that there were certain members within Tina’s group that could be of assistance to him and his people, he showed no further interest in the rest of the base’s population. He asked about their ammunition status and fighting strength, but after that he fell silent for the remainder of the journey through the tunnel, making his own appreciations in his head and seemingly working over a plan of action that would get them safely out of there.
Tina watched him from the corner of her eye and feeling uncomfortable in his presence. When he was talking, although to the point and not exactly generous with speech, he at least seemed human. However, when silent, she could not help but get the impression that he was a hollow shell, with only his own interests and those of his men being of any concern to him. She wanted to know more about him, intrigued by his enigmatic manner and unreadable face, but at the same time, there was a part of her that was terrified to know anything more than what she could already see.
“Three kilometres?” Taff asked as they reached the door at the far end.
“Roughly that, yeah,” Al replied.
He eyed Taff with quiet respect. The man had been pacing the route the entire time, measuring the distance with great accuracy despite the lack of visibility and even being fully involved in the conversations along the way.
“Quite an accomplishment, considering the circumstances,” Charlie added with genuine admiration and staring back into the dark tunnel behind them.
“It took us five years to dig it out. We scrounged what we could from around the inner complex of the base, but we had to travel further afield for the gates and the larger support beams that are holding up the walls.”
“How did you manage that with all those things out there?” Kyle asked, nodding his head towards the ceiling of the tunnel. “It’s not as though you could fight your way through them, carrying logs.”
“We had some air support once upon a time,” Tina replied, a hint of sadness in her voice as she remembered how they had once been much richer in assets and resources. “But those days are long gone I’m afraid.”
“Yeah, the good old days,” Al agreed nostalgically.
Emerging from the darkness the team were led out into the bright morning light, forcing them all to squint and shield their eyes. They were standing in an open area that was approximately fifty metres wide and appeared to run along the entire length of the inner walls. To their front was a number of buildings that made up the central complex, and at their backs were the high, protective walls. What they could see as they exited from the tunnel suddenly gave them a better insight into the scale of the base. They had been aware that the FOB was of a considerable size, but now it seemed much larger than they had expected.
Out in the open again, the atmosphere and sound changed abruptly in stark contrast to the claustrophobic and damp tunnels that Stan and his men had become accustomed to over the past few hours. A cold wind was blowing into their faces, and the roar of the dead could be heard from just beyond the perimeter. It had been many years since any of them had heard the infected in such vast numbers.
“Jesus. Will you listen to that?” Kyle gasped.
In another time and place, and if the voices had been coming from the living, he could have imagined himself having walked out from one of the Coliseum archways and into the arena during the times of the Roman Empire’s gladiatorial games. Only now the crowds did not only want to see his blood, they wanted to taste it. The relative safety of the tunnel suddenly seemed to beckon him back into its protective confines. He looked at the walls and began to feel exposed and open to attack.
“There’s thousands of them out there, and more and more of them are arriving by the hour. We beat the bastards back years ago, but over the past couple of days they’ve become brave again,” Al replied as he stared up at the walls.
“No one can explain why or how, and personally I couldn’t give a shit,” Tina added. “All we know is that there are too many of them for us to deal with, and eventually the bastards will find a way in.”
Stan looked around them and then up at the T-walls. They reminded him of his time in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. He had spent years operating from similar fortifications in those countries. Such bases were always strong and reliable and capable of withstanding many attacks, but they were always built by the lowest bidder and intended as short-term forts, designed to sustain the troops within for only a few years. They were never constructed to be permanent defensive positions and even when civilisation was collapsing, Stan doubted the government would have changed their ideas on the building of such structures.
He turned his body in a circle and counted the gun towers that were visible on the north eastern section. He could see the barrels poking out from behind the sandbags and saw that they were a mixture of Browning .50 heavy machineguns and the smaller, but equally devastating 7.62mm General Purpose Machineguns - GPMGs. In between the towers, he noted the guard force that were manning their positions and he instantly saw that they seemed a little lighter on the ground than they had been led to believe.