Humanity: After It Happened Book 2 (19 page)

MAIN SEASON

Spring was in full flow, and the farms and gardens were full of activity from breakfast until evening.

Lambs were born, which meant that Chris and Ana lived in a caravan they had towed up to the farm so that they were on hand to help the ewes give birth.

The gardens team under Cedric and Maggie had adopted a routine of planting new crops weekly, to try and ensure a steady supply of fresh food without wastage.

Scouting missions went out, with Dan and Steve taking Leah on a few to keep her boredom levels down. There was very little training left for her to do, and Steve suggested testing her E&E skills soon by seeing if she can make it home whilst they hunted her. He thought that was a good idea, but needed fine tuning as he didn't really want her to kill him by accident.

The pigs raised a difficult question, and Kerry's biology and genetics knowledge paid off. They marked their herd according to the family tree she had created. To ensure they didn't have inbred livestock, the piglets from last year were separated to keep a couple of boars ready for the breeding program, mixing the different breeds of pigs to create their own hybrid. Three generations were deemed enough to prevent any unwanted side effects, and the plan was checked over twice; they had enough variety to breed and sustain a herd for the future.

Luckily the bull was young and had plenty of years left in him. The future of the cows was dependent on finding another one at some point. Some joked that he had the best job of everyone there.

The egg collections had been stopped, and the chickens had become broody. Soon a multitude of fuzzy yellow chicks were running around making peeping noises. Ewan had reinforced the fences with extra layers of tight mesh then requested the help of the Rangers. Dan and Steve spent the night awake on the farm using their suppressed carbines with ambient light optics.

The following morning they proudly displayed the ranks of six dead foxes for the Welshman.

He was happy, and the carcasses were swiftly skinned and fed to the pigs before anyone more squeamish saw them.

Dan's freshly shaved face was noticed, but not commented on. He realised how lazy he had become having spent months just using a set of clippers to trim his whole head every few weeks.

He finally moved his room upstairs, after stubbing his toe for the last time on the boxes of ammunition stored in his draughty quarters. He gave up and moved into what was the Governor's office. The big desk was moved to a corner and the filing cabinets went into medical; there were still plenty of spare rooms as the offices had been cleared out. He moved his double bed in, and soon found that someone else was adding some more feminine touches occasionally.

He had given up his old room to be a proper armoury, using the cupboard in Ops as the store for the farming and hunting weapons. Rich had got himself into a routine, going for a run before breakfast. He had asked for a wetsuit and was taken on a scavenging run. He added a swim of the lake to his fitness regime which others had taken to copying. Within a few weeks he seemed much better, both physically and mentally. Dan decided to officially declare him recruited on a restricted basis. He spent his days sorting the armoury out as there were still bags of weaponry taken from various places that had not been sorted. Leah took him to their clothing stores and pointed him towards the black section.

Dan had asked him to show Leah all the weaponry and check her skills at cleaning and maintaining them. This served not only to keep her busy with a new skill, but on Dan's request he spoke freely when he could of the horrors he had seen during his service. He still wouldn't talk of the incident that took two people he knew like brothers and left him crippled, but his descriptions of dead Taliban were detailed enough to remove the romantic thoughts in her head about what she was training to be.

He watched them from the doorway one morning, sat at a bench with a rack of guns in front of them.

Rich pointed at one, and Leah recited the statistics.

"Heckler and Koch 416 carbine, police model which isn't automatic. Fires NATO five-five-six from a thirty round mag. Mags are interchangeable with the M4’s."

Chris moved on to other weapons, receiving similar reports. When she hefted the full length Remington shotgun with a pistol grip, she looked ridiculous. Rich heard his small laugh and perked up.

"Boss. Didn't see you there" he said.

"I was just looking at Nikita here carrying an artillery piece" Dan replied, smiling at the girl.

She had been given the book, but he doubted she had read it yet. In reply she stuck her tongue out at him.

Rich stood, bringing a new weapon from a shelf across the room. "I thought you might be interested in this" he said handing it to Leah and nodding at her.

"Walther P99.  Nine mil parabelum, semi auto, fourteen round mag" she parroted.

"In itself, nothing that special" said Rich with an echo of the professional soldier he once was "but it's the only weapon which fits these" he finished, twisting on a short suppressor to the end of the gun. He showed Dan an empty chamber and handed it over. It felt a little top heavy as he was used to the weight of the short Sig, but the suppressor was a very useful addition.

He turned it around, weighed it in his hands and checked the action.  The gun felt good in his hands.  Solid and chunky. "Any spare mags?" He asked

"Thought you might like it" Rich said smiling, and produced two spares

Dan loaded the weapon, keeping it pointed at the floor. It felt good. He put his Sig on the table and tried the Walther in the holster. It was a universal one, and needed a slight adjustment, but the nearly silent weapon fit ok.

"Nice." He said. "I'll take it!"

“You might want to take a look at these too then” said Rich as he gently tipped out a box of attachments and sorting through them before he found the stubby torch attachment to fit the gun.  He offered Dan an extended magazine, but with the suppressor on the end and the mag sticking out the bottom be may as well be carrying the shotgun.  He also took a holster designed to slip inside a belt which was custom made to fit the weapon. 

Something casual for the weekends.

He left his Sig for cleaning and stowing, and took the new toy with him.

"Keep up the good work" he said as he left them "and grab Neil when you see him to ask about reinforcing these windows now I'm not sleeping down here"

“Oh, and Leah?” he said from outside the doorway.

“Yeah” she answered slowly, fearing that he was setting her up for a joke at her expense.

“Driving assessment tomorrow” he said before walking off to find Lou and trade for more needlework.  She tweaked the holster perfectly to draw more from under his left arm than across his chest.  He preferred that, and it left extra room for two more pouches; one to take a small notebook and pencil and the other the perfect size for a box of twenty and a lighter.

The world turned, the sun rose and fell, and progress was made.

BURN THE ‘L’ PLATES

A driving lesson from Dan was not a relaxing experience.  He rattled on and on about gear changes and how to assess a bend and what to look out for and what certain things meant.  He seemed to forget himself sometimes and told stories of car chases and spectacular crashes, but when she asked him more he clammed up.  She guessed he used to have an exciting job before it happened, but he wouldn’t tell her any more about it.

He made her talk him through checking the vehicle over first, explaining everything she should look for and the reasons why.  Dan always drummed into her that she shouldn’t just be able to perform a skill; she should understand why she was doing it. 

“If you only know one way to do something then you’re already out of options” she mimicked back to him during the time he had spent training her.

She gave a good run down of the vehicle; a Defender 90, in a deep metallic red colour with chunky tyres and a big bull-bar on the front.  It wasn’t modified like some of the others, but she had heavy tow ropes looped on both bumpers.  She didn’t know it was hers, and Steve had thought he was funny by sticking learner plates in the rear window.

She got in and depressed the clutch before starting the engine, going through all the checks she was taught.  The first part of her assessment was done on the roads around the house and farm before she drove on to the gardens.  Dan made her drive into the narrow sections between the greenhouses and polytunnels to practice her manoeuvring in cramped areas and she performed well.

He took her out onto faster roads and made her push the speed up.  Her reactions and observations were good, but Dan still offered pointers for improvement.  He forced himself to be quiet and objective.  She saw obstructions and assessed them well, especially when Dan made her drag a car out of the way as though it was blocking the road.  She connected the tow rope securely and reversed her Land Rover away under control.

He took her over rough terrain and watched her technique critically.  He couldn’t really fault her, but then she was just replicating what he had shown her.

She drove him back to the house after over an hour and Dan gave her the final test.

“Ok.  Imagine you’ve got a flat tyre.  Change the wheel” he said, pointing at the passenger side at the front.

Leah hesitated.  She got the tyre wrench from inside the back door and tried to loosen the nuts on the spare wheel mounted high on the back door.

She struggled, eventually removing them but she couldn’t lift the wheel down without risking damage to the wheel or herself.

It finally dawned on her that she wasn’t physically capable of doing it, and she sagged with the failure.

Dan rested a hand on her shoulder kindly.

“Don’t worry about it for now.  We’ll have to figure something out” he said.

Leah cuffed a tear away from her cheek and nodded.  She went inside and Dan put the spare wheel back on, feeling bad for disappointing her.  If she couldn’t do the most basic repair then it wasn’t safe for her to go out alone yet.

THE LEAH SHOW

Dan felt bad for her.  She had learnt so much and trained so hard only to be denied her independence because she was too small to change a wheel.

He couldn't, in good conscience, let her go out alone.  What he could do is take her on a run and be her backup.

A food run was planned.  They had to go much further afield now as they'd picked clean the supermarkets within a short radius of home.  With the distance being longer the danger increased.  Other than that it would be business as usual; two scavenging trucks and a Ranger escort.

Their target was on the outskirts of the city to their north, about as close to the fetid population centre as he dared go. 

Jimmy and Mark were in one lorry, with Laura and one of the Bronson survivors in another.  Dan's feelings of shallowness returned briefly as he again realised he didn't know half of the people who relied on him and his team for protection.

He told Leah that she was on the protection team for the operation, making her day but trying to sound casual about it so as not to be seen to be throwing her a sympathy party.  He justified the additional firepower by making a point about the proximity to the city.

She loaded up her G36 and took three spare magazines.  She tried to be casual about it too; hiding her excitement at a live deployment well.  Right up until Dan threw her the keys to his discovery. 

She drove well, leading the convoy north with the huge head of a slobbering dog over her left shoulder.  Dan had to tell her to keep her speed down to take the pressure off the following heavy trucks.  It took them almost an hour to reach the target and on instruction she drove slowly into the car park.  No recent signs of activity were evident, so Dan called in the others to wait as they cleared the shop.

They forced open the sliding doors and stalked in, crouching low.  Even Ash mimicked the search pose, dropping his body weight like a panther as he sniffed the ground.  He was restless.  He didn't like something he smelt.  His low growl interspersed with a throaty whine which Dan hadn't heard before. 

"What's the matter with you?" He asked the uneasy dog as they checked each aisle and finding the shop devoid of life.

Ash continued to whine and even let out an uncharacteristic bark.  Dan wasn't impressed as he'd worked for hours on keeping Ash silent when on the job.  His instincts were to trust the animal, but his eyes told him there was nothing there.  Literally, no sign of human life at all. 

He ignored his instincts and put him back in the Discovery after they had cleared the shop floor.  They returned to do another sweep and found a fire exit wide open after they passed through the plastic curtains leading to the stock room.

Dan and Leah came back outside and called the others in to clear what was left.  Only about a quarter of the contents were of use any more; the rest having spoiled way beyond salvage.

The four scavengers moved fast.  Most bizarrely, Jimmy used a handful of pound coins to release trolleys for them to use.  Why he didn't just cut them away with bolt croppers amused Dan greatly.  Jimmy liked those small intricacies of life.

Ash barked again from the inside of the 4x4 and the muted sound made Dan turn. 

"What's wrong with that bloody dog today?" He asked Leah.  She shrugged and turned back to the shop.

Ash whined and scratched at the windows, unseen by the absent Dan.  Movement in the car park made him turn and watch in sudden silence before his frantic barked started again.  Dan came back out into the car park, striding angrily onwards the car and the ill-behaved animal.

A scream rang out from inside the shop.  A scream of pain and fear.  Somehow guttural and primeval.  Ignoring his ballistic companion, he turned in his heel and sprinted for the entrance.