Hurst - Robin Crumby (bookreader TXT) 📗

believed everyone deserved a chance. In his experience, giving people a little responsibility at an early age transformed them. Tommy was something of a protégé to him. He had the making of a leader, a good heart, knew what made people tick. Two ears, one mouth, and he used them in the right proportions. With the right direction, he showed promise. Tommy was from the school of hard knocks. Had grown up quickly when his dad died. Jack had a long history of similar nurturing projects during his time in the service. He believed even the bad apples, the most delinquent and wayward individuals, could be brought back to the straight and narrow. There was good in everyone, you just had to find it and cultivate it.

His military background, management skills and grey hairs had made Jack an obvious candidate for leader. Sure, there had been others, wannabes making a grab for power and position. They had spoken with passion and conviction about their plans, their hopes for the future. But in the end, Jack’s pragmatism and composure, not to mention his strong belief in pastoral care, won the vote. He had been one of the first to arrive at Hurst and the group had never forgotten the warmth of his welcome. He had provided sanctuary for them in their hour of need.

When the sickness had first appeared, Jack calmly packed his old grey Land Rover with tools, food, a shotgun and his fishing gear as if he was going to sea on the Nipper, but this time headed straight to Hurst.

After years of cruising past the castle on his way out to sea to pick up his lobster pots, he had always admired the impressive fortifications. He made a mental note that should the world end any time soon, there were worse places to hole up and wait things out.

Hurst had much to recommend it. It had its own generator, was only reachable by boat or by four-wheel drive vehicles along a mile and a half of shingle spit. It could sustain a large group of people in relative comfort. The thirty-feet-high walls would keep out any undesirables and with a bit of luck, they could rebuild again from here.

In the first few weeks, Jack had welcomed successive survivor groups from the local area. He had established a quarantine zone in the inner courtyard where new arrivals could wait the forty-eight hours to show they were clear of infection. He provided them with shelter, warmth and what little food they had in the early days. Hurst Castle had quickly become a sanctuary from the chaos outside.

Jack wasn’t everybody’s first choice for leader. He was fond of rules, which others disagreed with or saw as petty and unnecessary. He insisted that all weapons be surrendered at the gate and put in the castle armoury for safe storage. All food was placed in the dry storerooms beneath the castle walls, where shells and ammunition had once been housed. Food was rationed out equally. Everybody worked their fair share. Everyone had a role to play, including all but the youngest children. No freeloaders, no passengers. It wasn’t much, but people respected Jack and rewarded his trust with their loyalty and hard work. As a result, the community had grown, swelling to a size where their resources were stretched.

He had made Terra his second in command. Together with an inner circle of advisers and lieutenants, subdividing responsibility for food, accommodation, and animal welfare for their small herd of cows, pigs and sheep. If Jack was the patriarch, then Terra was Hurst’s unofficial matriarch. She was a capable woman. She had been reticent about sharing too much about her story when she first arrived. Everyone assumed it was too difficult for her to talk about, some personal tragedy. They had all suffered in some way.

Terra had confided in Jack that she revelled in her anonymity here. A clean break from the mistakes of her past. Her slate wiped clean. She could be anyone she wanted to be. The new Terra she chose for herself was authoritative yet likeable, confident and sassy, accessible yet complex. For the first time in a long while, she looked in the mirror and said she liked who she saw. She had adopted the name Terra. She said it sounded earthy and fearful.

The whole place ran like clockwork, thanks to Terra. She cared for the sick, helped run the kitchen canteen, looked after the kids and kept things organised. She had hit it off early with Jack and they had a close friendship.

In the goldfish bowl that was life at Hurst, people whispered. The pair’s mannerisms and body language were scrutinised intensely. When they exchanged stolen glances, or sat together, talking conspiratorially in hushed tones, most likely about planning and operations, people noticed and winked.

Jack chose Zed to be in charge of defence. What Zed lacked in discipline, he made up for in survival skills and what Jack called “bush craft”. Though he had never admitted as much, Jack suspected Zed had spent time in the military.

Hurst Castle had provided a rich cache of weaponry from its museum displays covering five hundred years of history. From ornate swords, axes, and maces through to whole suits of armour dating back to Tudor times when Henry VIII had the castle built. The museum also had an impressive collection of World War II weaponry, including Sten guns, Bren guns, rifles and pistols. Most of them were useless without their firing mechanisms.

The scavenging parties that Zed led in search of food and supplies made a curious spectacle. A motley crew standing ready for inspection before they headed out, carried a smorgasbord of knuckledusters, helmets, firearms and swords. Zed had kept the best for himself: a double-headed axe, sharpened daily, that split logs with a single blow. On trips to the forest tracking deer and rabbits, gathering mushrooms and berries, he liked to keep the axe strapped between his shoulder blades, like a hunter.

Zed and Jack had fallen out publicly over the smallest of things, from castle rules to food rationing. Zed held that the guys who took the risks deserved the lion’s share of the rewards. Terra had never trusted Zed. She made sure that one of her own people kept an eye on him and reported back. Zed was the source of many of their discussions. In the end Jack argued that Zed’s good deeds outweighed the bad. They both knew that a time would come when Zed's loyalty would be tested, and she knew he would put his own interests before those of the community.

Chapter Six

Zed loaded the last of the gear into the Land Rover and wandered back to join his group of seven. Lucky seven, Zed thought to himself. Two teams, two cars, the way they had done things for weeks. He unfolded the ordinance survey map and rechecked today’s search area marked with large red and black felt-tip crosses and blocks, showing where teams had already searched. Red circles highlighted supermarkets, hardware stores, pharmacies or other areas of potential interest. Most of the obvious places had been looted some time ago. Black circles with skull and crossbones were areas to be avoided, where rival groups had set up camp or where pockets of infection remained.

There was a relaxed air of normality about their conversation this morning, as they huddled together, smoking and laughing. Bob, Riley and Joe had made these trips dozens of times. To them it was routine, but it remained Zed’s job to prepare them properly for each and every trip and remind them of the very real dangers ahead.

Each three-man team carried water, food, torches, rope, and a handheld radio with a range of about two kilometres. The seventh team member stayed with the vehicles while the two teams conducted house-to-house searches or systemically swept larger stores. If one of the teams got into trouble they could radio the others for support. Every team member carried a weapon. Several of them had both blade and firearm, chosen from the armoury.

Zed had trained them well. Riley, in particular, knew how to handle herself. He watched her tie back her long brown hair in a ponytail, sharing a joke with Bob. She wore a grey Puffa jacket, jeans and ankle-high walking boots. Once she’d rechecked her rucksack, she inserted a long-handled machete in the sheath attached to the front of her webbing and jumped up and down a couple of times to check for any rattles.

The rest of today’s team was made up of three recent arrivals, whose turn it was on the camp rota system. Will was a jovial thirty-something builder, originally from South Africa. He was a bear of a man with a luxurious beard. He looked in good shape, despite months of living out there, before coming to Hurst. The other two were younger, probably in their late teens. Mila and Sean had arrived together. They were bold as brass, cocksure in their youthful arrogance, but underneath the bravado, Zed could tell they were bricking it. Everyone did on their first trip.

Zed did his best to settle their nerves, brief them and assign them roles, teaming them up with the more experienced guys. Zed would drive Mila and Sean in the Land Rover. Will would stick with Bob and Riley in the Mitsubishi Land Cruiser with Joe as their driver and seventh man.

As the two-car convoy rounded the wall and headed out west, a silhouetted figure on the battlements waved them off with a mock salute and a smile to Zed, which he acknowledged with minimal effort by raising a single index finger off the steering wheel.

After bumping along the spit at a steady crawl they joined the coastal road that ran along the seafront at Milford. They turned on to the main road out towards Lymington, passing dozens of abandoned cars. Many had their doors open, some burned-out, others with bodies still visible inside. They had cleared the road some time ago and pushed the cars on to the grass verges and pavements. In places, the convoy had to slow to walking pace to navigate the resulting obstacles and rusting metal chicanes.

Today their search area was a row of houses on Lymington high street, some five or six kilometres away. They would be outside of radio contact with home base. That meant that they were on their own if things went “turbo”, as Joe was fond of saying. That didn’t worry Zed. They had made these trips dozens of times, in and out, with few complications.

Coming along the main road through a fire-damaged Pennington and into Lymington town centre, they passed a supermarket, swept clean in the first few days of the outbreak. Nothing now remained, except shopping trolleys, smashed together at one end of the car park by the recent storms.

“People would have paid good money for that back in the day,” joked Joe, pointing at the twisted pile of rusting metal.

“Yeah. Deserves to be in the Tate Modern. ‘Shopping trolley sculpture’ by Damien Hirst. Price tag two million pounds,” added Sean, with no small degree of sarcasm.

They all laughed, despite their nerves.

“Never again. Those times are gone,” said Zed. “Good riddance.”

“The only thing money is good for is burning,” said Sean, laconically.

“Right on, brother. Citizen Sean here has spoken,” mocked Joe.

Along the high street they inched forward, watching for movement on either side. The car in front pulled up in a side street so they could start their search on foot.

There was an eerie quiet at street level. A lone seagull soared on the breeze, scanning for scraps. A cardboard box skated along the pavement. Newspaper rustled, caught on the railings of the local bank, its ATM screen dark and lifeless.

There was widespread evidence of a rapid exodus. Unchecked looting, storefronts smashed in, doors kicked down. Loss of power had silenced the alarms and blinded CCTV systems. Some storekeepers and homeowners had stayed behind to protect their property, shouting impotently at