The Captain was sat at his chair, Lt Jacks was sat to his right. Nia and Will were sat opposite them. There were around eight of nine other uniformed men and women scattered around the room including Billy. They all stood up as the doctor and I entered.
“Ah there she is, we’ve been waiting on you Annabelle. Welcome George” The captain smiled warmly at us. He pointed to a chair next to Nia for me and the doctor walked around and sat in the chair on his left.
“We wanted to talk to both you and Will, George, Miss Perry here would leave her uncles side.” I sensed that the captain was not too happy about that fact but I knew that nobody would change Nia’s mind once it was set. She hadn’t seen him in hours and had been worried about him, she wasn’t about to let him out of her sight for the moment.
“I’ll bet” I looked at Nia and grinned. She just shrugged her shoulders, she had a stubborn look on her face and her eyes flashed, daring me to challenge her.
“Oh then” the captain said a little louder than usual, “We need to get this talk going, I have to leave first thing” he paused letting this information sink in.
“Leave?” I knew that the captain often went on rescue missions with his men when they were short on hands to help but it had been decided by the camp that no more rescue missions could go ahead until the second compound was ready as we just didn’t have enough room. The Rescue mission that the men had saved our group was supposed to be their last for a few months.
“Yes, I’m afraid that I must. Let me tell you a little of our back ground” he shook his finger between himself and Lt. Jacks. We were both under the same Colonel, Colonel Rees. Now, for a year before this whole apocalypse started. Even before patient zero attacked that plane full of people over in New Orleans there was chatter in certain military groups. It was said that governments abroad had engineered a mass weapon. Able to kill millions and that nowhere would be safe from this virus.” He paused, looking gravely at each of us, in turn, before continuing. “Colonel Rees believed what they were saying and started to order extra supplies for our camp; Ammo and weapons came first. Then six extra generators, extra food and water, clothes and boots even extra bedding. He told his superiors, that the stuff we had was worn and no good anymore”
The Captain paused again, this time to take a sip of water. None of us spoke a word, we were too caught up in his story.
“To be honest, I thought him mad. But I went along with it because we could always use extra supplies at camp. He only ordered bits here and there so as not to raise suspicion. We set the new generators up and placed the old ones into storage. When disaster struck, and blockades started to fall, people were coming to our camp to ask for help. Of course, we took in as many people as we could but we were soon at maximum capacity and had to expand. Within a month the second place was thriving, extra garden patches were made to start growing more produce and people were settling in. We decided that we would try to set up camps across. This is the second one that we have tried away from base. The plan is to stay for three months after which a team of five military men would move on with a few trained and skilled survivors to a new place. We bring the basics with us, but mostly we try to get stuff when we are out and about on recuse missions. We also planned to leave at least three military trained men at each base to help to continue training and keeps things running smoothly.”
“But Billy had other ideas?” my eyes flickered to Billy stood on the left of the captain.
The Captain smiled warmly “Yes. Billy has proposed that we leave this camp up to the survivors to run. Fully trained personnel are getting rarer and rarer, they would be of more benefit to me out on the road setting up new camps than just sat around here.”
It made perfect sense; leave the professionals go head first into danger as they were trained to do and let the amateurs stay safely behind the high fences and brick walls of the compound.
I nodded and gave Billy a double thumbs up.
Anyway, we were supposed to be having a shipment of goods from the main base, ready for the next camp we are to set up. It’s about a seven-hour drive from here in Inverness. That shipment was supposed to arrive three days ago” The captain finished.
“What was the cargo?” Will asked. The captain’s eyes flickered to the Lt just for a second but I caught it. There was something that he wasn’t telling us.
“Just a few chickens, some medication, some vegetables that they had managed to grow. They are doing extremely well there, it’s what we hope to achieve with this place.”
“Ok so maybe they got lost or maybe there’s been some hold ups on the road? “Nia replied. She was right, anything could happen out on the roads these days. What may be a few hours’ drive could now turn into days.
“Yes indeed, but the strange thing is that we have lost all communication with the other site. Again, this could be nothing but I would like to go and check. These are my friends”
“Ok I get that, if it were these guys I’d be right there with you already planning the mission. But here’s my question and please don’t feel that I’m trying to be rude
