“Without computer analysis, it’s hard to say. I don’t suppose she can date these as she does them?” Candace frowned, so he continued. “Within these lines and scratches there may be treasure, but it’s hard to make sense of it.”

  Footsteps came from the stairs, the General appearing at the bottom. She looked around the room, nodding in approval. “Good work.”

  “Without the right equipment, it’s just a creepy storage room,” said Candace. “I presume things went well?”

  The sound of grunts came from the stairs, Mathew’s boots then the rest of him coming into view, as he heaved something down the steps. “The old man gave… us… some… things,” he said, struggling to hold the computer tower.

  Jacob got up, helping him place it on one of the beds. “Perfect timing,” said the older man. “But how are we going to power it? With dry leaves and twigs?”

  Mathew smiled. “This computer wasn’t the only thing we brought back. He also gave us a small gasoline generator and one of his batteries back-ups. It’s upstairs… and cameras…”

  Candace looked confused. “This the same man who shot at Baldwin and took in Joe?”

  Jenn nodded. “He’s former military. Had a lot of intel on what went down before we got here. There’s a lot you need to know.”

  “Why’s he helping?” said Jacob.

  “Because we’re going to help him get his daughter back.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  JOE

  Joe looked up at the magnificent building, with its impressive towers and stone walls. Tia was sitting on his shoulders, while Liz held Hope’s hand.

  “It’s a fairytale castle!” said Tia, as the family began walking again in the noonday sun. They switched their attention to the river, snaking its way through the landscape. From this distance it was not possible to see any movement on the opposite bank, but Joe knew the undead were out there, and that the few hundred feet of water was the only thing stopping those that once lived in the local town from making their way here.

  He lowered his daughter to the ground, keeping an eye on the nearby wall of trees and the pathway that led down through them. He and Liz sat on the wall, while the two children moved a little distance away to Join Owen who was sitting on a small grassy area.

  “How you feeling?” he said to his wife.

  She briefly gripped his hand. “We’re together. The sun’s shining. I’m… okay. You?”

  “Happier when we’ve got the grounds a bit more secure… and we’ve got Clara back.”

  “We’ll get her back. You believe what the old man said? About the wall, and the military not coming back to his part of the country?”

  “There’s no reason for them to come here. But we will keep a low profile.”

  She followed his gaze to Hope, sitting with the two other kids. “You think they have given up looking for her?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. We can hope.”

  Footsteps on the gravel made them both look at Grace. “You’re needed inside.”

  He took his rifle from his shoulder and handed it to Liz. “Aaron and Anita are patrolling the perimeter but just in case… Safety’s off. Just point and shoot.”

  “I got it.”

  He jogged to the entrance to the sunroom and pulled open the internal door, instantly hearing Swanson’s voice. Five people were standing near the large fireplace, including the London gangster and Jenn.

  “You want to risk one of us, to find Clara? You know that’s crazy, right?” said Swanson to the General. Before she could respond, he looked at Joe. “You can’t be agreeing to this shite?”

  “She’s one of us. And it’s more complicated now.”

  “Because of what the old man told you? How do you know he wasn’t the one that took Clara, and he’s got her locked up in that dungeon he’s in?”

  “We saw the video… Ellie was taken, and Aiden said he saw the same—”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Everyone looked at the middle-aged woman, who, despite it being the end of the world, always managed to apply some makeup to her face. Lydia was sitting on a high backed chair against the wall.

  Swanson looked bemused. “You’ll do what?”

  She put her nail file on her lap. “You want a woman to be bait. I’ll do it.”

  “What!” said her husband. “You’re not doing—”

  She suddenly stood, an act which made Swanson lean back a little. “I know you think I’m useless, and… and… maybe I can’t fight like a soldier, or know how to cook or stuff like that, but I can walk about, and pretend, so those people try to take me.” Before her husband could respond, she looked at Joe then Jenn. “You’ll protect me, right? You’ll have like people with guns out there with me?”

  Swanson whipped around to the General. “These people, don’t they want young women?”

  Lydia rolled her eyes. “Thank’s Saul.”

  Jenn ignored Swanson’s question, instead looking at his wife. “You’ll be in no danger, and if the undead start to group, we’ll just leave and try another time.” She looked at Swanson. “You have my word, Saul. No one will harm her, dead or alive.”

  He looked away, shaking his head, then let out a long, slow breath. “Fine.”

  “That’s settled then,” said Jenn. “We’ll go to the same spot where Clara was taken, on the north road, tonight.”

  “So what do we do if we capture who’s been taking people?” said Aiden.

  Swanson looked at him. “We make the fuckers talk.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CLARA

  The room was large enough to be called a hall and was full of people, except was almost completely silent. The expensive windows revealed the aquamarine shoreline beneath the blue sky, and the sunlight they allowed inside, gave the rows of long tables and those sitting at them a feeling of celebration. As if the forty or so women, seated, were at a wedding where only the bridesmaids were invited. The only men in the room were standing against the walls, and at the two doors, all with rifles over their shoulders.

  Clara sat close to the windows. The scene outside, ugly in its beauty and suggestion of freedom.

  She had no idea what was about to happen, but the air was thick with anticipation. Without making it too obvious she scanned across the surrounding faces. They were young and old. All races. If ‘Michael’ had a type, she wasn’t seeing it.

  One of the two exits, a set of double doors opened in unison, and more burly looking individuals entered, with two at the front and two at the back of a well groomed, suited man with grey hair, walking in between. He moved to the top of the room, where a table was positioned with some empty places and stood behind the chair in its centre, while the four men stood against the wall behind him.

  He raised his arms. “We are all gracious, in the eyes of he who sees us!”

  Suddenly and without prompting, the entire room repeated the words, Clara mumbling along with them.

  He continued. “We are all thankful for those that we serve!” The women in the room voiced the same, and again after the final message. “We will all delight in our final days!” He looked around the room. “Daughter’s of eden. It feels me with happiness to see our ranks growing and that there have been no more incidents. There will be no more snakes on our island, within our eden. The fallen will not be allowed to degrade the efforts we are making here. This land will be pure. We will be pure! Work has already begun on the birthing chambers on the east side of the island. So soon, very soon, some of you can look forward to helping us create a future.”

  Clara wasn’t sure she could eat. Her stomach wanted to escape out of her mouth as her mind desperately tried to think of a way out of this madness.

  Something knocked her foot. She ignored it at first, thinking it was an accident, but it happened again. She subtly looked beneath the table edge, then back up to the auburn-haired forty something woman opposite, whose left eye was slightly swollen, the surrounding skin yellow and blue. The woman flicked her eyes downwards, Clara just catching her pushing something with her boot across the floor. It was a tiny piece of paper. She looked back at the woman, who was now looking away, back towards Michael, who was seated, enjoying some kind of meal, despite there not being any food on any of the other tables across the room.

  Clara’s eyes shifted to the closest of the armed guards, then being sure they were not paying any attention to her, dipped a little, grabbing the fragment of paper, and without lifting it from her lap, opened it and began reading.

  ‘I’m Ellie. I know you are new. Please help me escape.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  HEATHER

  Heather wanted to laugh, something she had not done for a while, but she suppressed the emotion, instead merely smiling. Mathew carefully edged along the wall, cable in his hand, obviously not wanting to look down.

  “You’re doing good!” she shouted at him, sweat obvious across his forehead.

  He might not be the most agile, she thought, as she watched him trying to get to the pole, where he would attach the wires to hopefully allow them to receive signals and images from the outside world, but she couldn’t fault his willingness to face his fears.

  He stopped, looked down then closed his eyes.

  “Almost there!”

  “Survive a virus, survive zombies, cross the ocean and then die by falling from the ramparts of a fake castle. Perfect way—” He grabbed hold of the corner of the tower in front of him, holding the metal clasp of the large aerial then pulled himself upright. “— to bow out.”

  “You should write a book!”

  He pulled some wire cutters from his pocket and set about attaching the new cabling to the old. He was brave, that much was certainly true, and bright. Not more intelligent than her, of course, but he knew enough to have a decent conversation with about the things that interested her, and in a world where dating options were severely limited, that was the one thing above all else, she appreciated.

  She had been on a hiking holiday in the highlands when the virus struck. A break from work on her thesis for her PHD in physics. Being so remote, it had only been after a few days of roaming the mountains alone, that she came back to the small village she had a hotel room in, when the enormity of what was happening truly hit home. Before then, the reports she had picked up on her small radio, appeared to be manageable events. Then the evacuations began, and mass communication networks failed and it became obvious whatever this was, there was no fixing it soon. Being an orphan with no siblings, she had no one to worry about, but was soon swept up in the relief effort across the uplands of Scotland to try to keep the remote communities safe. Soon, even that became impossible and she took one of the evacuation ferries across the strait to the Scottish island to try and rebuild there, her intelligence being spotted by the school headmaster that was in charge of the place.

  “Done!” said Mathew. “Now, I just need to get down without breaking my neck…” He stood up a little, the breeze rustling his hair, and looked over Heather to the expanse of deep green forest and river. “Hopefully this is high enough to receive a signal, although the trees might give us issues.” He absorbed the scene for a moment.

  “What you doing?”

  “I have to admit, it’s some view from up here.” He looked at her. “You should join me.”

  “I’m good, thanks!”

  With some direction, he was back on the rooftop, which was empty of the others, the chairs, seats and boxes left behind. Without warning he suddenly moved closer and kissed her. She blinked.

  “Sorry… it’s just being up there… death is always… so close to—”

  She leaned in and kissed him again, lingering before noises began to filter up from the stairwell. Jacob appeared, a man that she never cared for that much.

  The older man nodded to the thick cable, which ran across the roof and through the open door. “We should be able to receive quite a wide spectrum of frequencies. Maybe even pickup some of the military channels. Good idea about the cameras. They all in place?”

  Mathew nodded. “Yup. We did it on the way back. Three positions, one covering the north road.”

  “Good. Anyway, Maggie and Liz have been making food. It smells like chicken soup, but who knows. It’s being put out in the main hall.”

  He began to leave but Heather wanted his thoughts on something that had been bothering her. “You think it’s a good idea, what we’re doing tonight? Trying to snare one of those people?”

  Jacob held a hand up. “That’s a question for the General.”

  “But we’ve only been in this country for a day, and we’re already looking to make enemies.”

  Mathew looked at her. “They took Clara, and that man’s daughter. What if they come back with more people?”

  She frowned. “I just think we need to be careful until we know what’s going on.”

  Jacob nodded but left without further comment. Mathew though seemed agitated. “What if it were you that had been taken? We should just say, to hell with her. And get on with our lives?”

  She turned away. “You know that’s not what I mean…” She turned back. “We want to keep a low profile, right? How is kidnaping one of these people, doing that?”

  Mathew frowned. “I’m hungry.” He walked to the door. “You coming?”

  “I’ll be down in a bit.”

  She walked to the wall and looked out over the hills and glistening waterway trying to calm her thoughts. They were already picking a fight with who knows what. Crazy people that abducted others. What if they were armed? What if they wanted to take the castle? Would the General and the…

  Something sparkled in the sky, just above the horizon. A flash of light which was quickly replaced with a tiny dark speck. She leaned against the wall, squinting to better see this object which had taken on some form…

  The air was vibrating or perhaps it was the stones she was standing on. Her eyes enlarged as her mind grasped what was gliding across the forest treetops towards the building she was standing on top of. She whipped around, seeing the assortment of furniture that had been dragged upstairs to give the castle’s new inhabitants something to relax on and realised anybody looking down from a helicopter might see the items and realise the building was no longer empty. As the repeating thundering sound of blades grew in volume, she grabbed the smaller of the chairs, cushions and blankets and heaved them with her into the stairwell, then looked back to what remained. Even the newly installed cable looked conspicuous.

  “There’s a helicopter coming!” she shouted over the wooden handrail to anyone within earshot. Closing the door to the roof, she quickly descended, getting to the first floor landing of the grand hall without a need to repeat her warning for everyone was frozen in their actions, looking upwards at the arched ceiling as the aircraft passed overhead.

  Jenn frowned. “So the military is not done with this area then…”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CLARA

  The piece of paper with the secret message felt like a pebble in Clara’s boot. The place she had stashed it. She could have, perhaps should have thrown it back to the tiled floor, let someone else find it, someone else be implicated, but the red-headed woman’s eyes were full of desperation. So instead she slid it down the side of her boot, a place where hopefully it would never be found.

  As she sat on the bench, marked with a plaque detailing the life and death of someone a few years earlier, she wondered if perhaps it had all been a setup. Perhaps this was how they tested the newbies. See if they took the bait.

  If that was the case, it was already too late. She had already been found out. They knew she wanted out. Either way, what could she do?

  She looked out across the short cut grass, which sloped down to a wall of trees, which itself descended to the sea, perhaps with a bank of sand in-between. Higher, the southern coast of Connecticut was visible, although shrouded in a heat haze. If she managed to escape the grounds, she was going to need some kind of boat to get across the channel. But as she sat there, observing others, in their long flowing white dresses, she wondered how bad things really could be? Everyone looked happy… nervous perhaps, but there were no women running for the borders, no one screaming or fighting with the men with guns. It was as if they wanted to be there and the idea of ‘birthing chambers’ didn’t appear to scare them either. She did wonder when they ate though, as the only person she saw eating at lunch was the old man with the grand words.

  “There you are!” Matron looked out across the bay. “I love this spot as well. Beautiful isn’t it?”

  Clara briefly smiled with a nod. “Um…”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “When can I eat something?”

  “Oh, I’m afraid there will be no more eating today. As you—”

  “But I never ate at lunch? I don’t think—”

  “You never ate? Oh, that’s unfortunate. Yes, many did so, and I’m afraid we are all out of meals for today. As you can imagine, supplies are very low. We are only a small island. There will be a supply run tomorrow, so today, I can’t offer you anything.”

  “Oh… okay…” Clara spotted the black aircraft floating across the ocean, before it seemed anyone else did, including Matron.

  The older woman looked away from the helicopter, back to Clara. “So perhaps we can talk about your history?”

  Clara was too distracted by the aircraft which was now breaking the peaceful scene with its loud, vibrating engine as it drifted along the coast, heading eastwards. She looked back at the older woman. “There’s a helicopter? You are in contact with the government?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. That’s not my business. I just look after the women, make sure they are safe and content for Michael. So your—”

  “Who is he? This Michael, person?”

  “A very important man! An outstanding citizen of this island, before the judgement came upon us! We are so thankful that he took all of us under his wing.” She opened her hands. “And saved all of us, from literal hell on earth!”