The station medical team whisked Gareth away as soon as the group arrived at the main gate. The scout was unconscious, pale and had a bandage swathing his upper chest, but seemed to be breathing without trouble. Merryn smiled and greeted Andrew and Tom with a joint hug.
"It's good to see you both. And don't worry, Gareth's in good hands."
"I shot him with a high-power slingshot, I'm so sorry."
Merryn looked over at the teenage boy who had walked through the gate with Tom and Andrew. "If I'd known he wasn't a deer, then I wouldn't have shot him. I'm sorry."
"Merryn, this is Shawn. He lives with his mother Darcey, who we've also brought with us. Darcey is er... non-verbal." Andrew kept his voice calm and quiet, and Merryn took her queue from him.
"It's very nice to meet you Shawn, and your mother too. Don't worry, I'm sure the medical staff here will help Gareth. Would you like something to eat?"
"Yes please."
One of Mark's staff gestured for the boy to follow them, and Shawn plucked at the sleeve on his mother's dress prompting her to follow him.
Tom looked around him. "Quite a setup here isn't it?"
Merryn nodded. "It is. Right, come on you two, we need to sit down in a quiet corner somewhere and have a chat. Then you can bring me up to speed as to why Gareth's unconscious, and why you have teamed up with someone who appears to be somewhat unusually wired, and the female equivalent of Stan."
~
Tom and Andrew sat in the canteen with Merryn, hands clasped around mugs of soup, their gear dropped on a nearby table.
"Well," began Tom. "We did pretty well to start with. Although we were walking, the motorway was easy going and we walked one in each lane, tapping windows as we went to try and gauge how many walkers were trapped in cars. There weren't that many, and the premise there is that once people saw deadheads walking up the road towards them they would've got out and run away if they could.
"We did find another car with grey goop in it though, scared the hell out of me when it slapped back onto the window. We've sent through GPS coordinates for that one to base and they're going to investigate. I found a road traffic cone and put it on the roof of the car so they can find it with a drone if they want to.
"The journey was uneventful and we got all the way up into Somerset, past Taunton and Bridgewater, then we hit the River Parrett and went west, cross country, following field tracks and green lanes.
"Then, in the middle of nowhere, we came across an old farmhouse. It was an amazing old place, with high walls, an old manor house back in the day I guess. Gareth decided to go on ahead to see if it would be a useful place to spend the evening. But, after a couple of hours, he'd not come back so we went looking for him. He'd left tracking sign behind him as he went, just in case, so we followed his trail, and then in the middle of some woods a few hundred yards from the house we found blood on the ground. Two sets of prints were in the mud, so we followed them back to the farmhouse.
"We took it steady, as we assumed that Gareth had been killed or taken hostage, but when we got to the house, there was a warm glow of a log fire in one of the windows. We looked in and there was Gareth, laid out on the couch being tended to by Shawn who was looking worried."
"How did you get him to trust you?" asked Merryn.
"I knocked on the front door," said Andrew. "And he let us in."
Tom laughed at Merryn's expression. "Yup. He did."
"It worked didn't it?" retorted Andrew. "No walker is going to knock on the door, and neither is anyone who means any harm. I wasn't going to try and sell him double glazing.
"Shawn's wired a little differently," said Tom. "But he's kept himself and his mother alive which is no mean feat. From what I've seen of him, he's pretty bright but very shy, and I can only imagine what seeing his mother change and forget him has done to his mental health. He was devastated when he realised he'd shot Gareth. Shawn is one of life's gentle people. He got his mum to carry Gareth back to the house, pack and all."
"Well I'll be," muttered Merryn.
"When we got there he'd done a decent job of cleaning up Gareth," noted Andrew. "We had a look at the wound and I think he may still have a ball bearing in his shoulder somewhere, and he's lost a fair bit of blood, but we patched him up using a first aid kit, then called Control. Captain Summers told us to make our way here, as even if the facility here didn't have medical people, the Cruiser at least could get Gareth home quicker. We watched from the top of the hill to the east as the walkers were cleared out and then came here when it was safe. Darcey carried Gareth all the way."
"Sounds like you've had quite a trip," said Merryn. "Listen, why don't you get yourselves cleaned up, make use of the showers and stuff and I'll see you back here in a couple of hours."
~
Merryn was sitting in the canteen of the power station, surrounded by many of the power station staff when someone called her name and Eddie hurried across the room to give her a hug.
"Hi Ed, how'd your trip down the coast go?" asked Merryn.
"You might want to ask her that," said Eddie, pointing at Captain Sands who was walking across the hall with Sergeant King and Rob the pilot."
The Captain grinned at her, excused herself from the Sergeant and Rob, and enveloped her in a hug. After a few moments, Eddie coughed discretely and the two of them stepped apart blushing.
"Like you'll do anything different when you see Andrew in a moment," muttered Merryn to Eddie who grinned at her.
They took a seat and Merryn moved her empty mug out of the way. "How many do you reckon you took out?"
"I reckon well over a thousand," said Sands. "Some fell into the river, some drifted off back inland, but a good majority followed the noise we were making so we kept firing. We used up a fair bit of ammo."
"Your Sergeant and his team did a great job here of taking out the remnants of the horde that had set up camp outside the fence. I take it you've heard about Tom and Andrew's exploits and that Gareth's unconscious?"
"Yes, Tom found me while I was docking the cruiser and gave me a run down. So we have another semi-walker?"
"We do, and her son who's still human."
Sands shook her head. "We're finding some interesting people in our travels, that's for sure. I've called Control and they've relayed some new orders from the Isle, but I'll wait until we have everyone here so I don't have to go over everything again. The chap on the gate who let me in said the fella who's in charge here is going to meet us here."
"And here he comes," said Merryn. "Along with what looks like the rest of his senior staff."
Mark seated himself on the edge of a table and addressed the room. "I've had a rather nice chat with the prime minister via the radio in the last hour. She's happy we've been reconnected and she's promised to help us maintain the facility so we can begin to supply power to the grid again and assist as the government regains control of the country. That will take time, collaboration, and people. All of us here, working together with the base in Exeter and the government on the Isle of Wight.
"To do that, one of the first things we need to do is connect this facility with the base at Exeter. We've got good information from the scouts who arrived today, and we will be working to clear the building site next door of walkers, and then the roads between here and Exeter.
"The fences are still off, but Sergeant King and his excellent team have cleared the remnants of the horde outside our gates so we have time to check our systems, and make sure we're ready for when we might need them again. Captain Sands and her crew led the large crowd who gathered outside our gates for a free bagpipe concert down the coast and the majority of them have now been dealt with. I'm hoping we will not need to unleash the pipes on any more unsuspecting zombies in the near future."
Mark paused as a ripple of laughs spread through the crowd, followed by a minor note of protest from Marjorie.
"This site is strategically important. We have power, we have large reserves of fuel and construction machinery next door, and we have engineering knowledge and supplies. With the workshops here at our disposal and our inventiveness, together with the government and our new friends, we can help rebuild and take this country back from the walkers."
Mark looked around the room and smiled. "We're safer now than we have been for some time. Enjoy that feeling, relax, have a breather, and put on some music. Then tomorrow, let's get to work."
As people filed from the canteen, Mark walked over to Merryn and Lily and sat down heavily. He looked older and more careworn, but he mustered a smile. "I feel like today is the first time I've relaxed in I don't know how long. Thank you. You've saved us. We were at the point where as soon as one thing went wrong we were dead."
"It's our pleasure Mark," said Lily. "We're glad we got here in time. It's nice to meet you in person too."
"You speak well Mark," added Merryn. "You mentioned equipment next door, could you clue us in a little more there?"
"Where we are now is 'B site'. 'A site' on the eastern side of us has been decommissioned. 'C site' to the west was under construction, nearing completion when the outbreak happened. There's a huge amount of construction materials there, as well as machinery, fuel, and supplies. And they'd not long taken delivery of a massive amount of cabling equipment which means we should be able to check, repair, connect and maintain the power grid between here and your base. And, in time, power a good chunk of the country including the Isle of Wight. We can also look at reconnecting the various hydroelectric dams, wind farms, solar farms, and geothermal power units dotted around the southwest too. We have them all on record.
"I've had a good chat with Marjorie, our most inventive engineer here, and she's agreed to help you clear a path from here to your base in Exeter. She's a little chaotic, but her skillsets at the moment are perfect to help you and she's already talking about how she can modify some of the excavation equipment next door to help you clear roads. This morning for example she suggested adding a sort of ramscoop affair to one of the massive dump trucks so it can act as a sort of snow plough, and she's also come up with the idea of a mobile compactor so you can crush cars as you go and make metal bricks from them so we can line the motorways with walls to keep the walkers out. It won't work against the larger swarms, but it should help a bit and it'll clear the roads. In her spare time, she's been working on some compressed air weaponry for the site too. That lady loves being an engineer, and has never been constrained by cost, what other people think of her, or anything else."
"She sounds bloody awesome," said Eddie.
"She is that young lady," replied Mark. "You'd do well to learn from her if you like a bit of engineering yourself."
A young-looking man in medical overalls approached the table and whispered into Mark's ear for a moment. As he left, Mark cleared his throat and addressed Merryn. "Gareth is awake and comfortable, and is also insisting he'll be okay and has decided to leave his bed." Mark looked over her shoulder.
Merryn followed Mark's gaze and gave a whoop, bounding out of her seat to hug her friend who winced in pain but hugged her back. As she did, Eddie sped past her and slammed into Andrew who had walked in behind Gareth.
"Good to see you alive my friend," said Merryn.
"Well, the lad winged me," said Gareth, walking past the young couple kissing. "But it seems I've been given a free ride here so I shouldn't complain too much perhaps."
"Geez, can't those two get a room or something?" muttered Tom as he sat down, largely unnoticed in the commotion.
Merryn grinned at him. "Don't worry, they'll have to disengage at some point so they can breathe."
Gareth took a seat and grimaced. Merryn cast him a worried glance. "What did the nurse say?"
"It's going to take a while to heal, but I'll be okay. I'm just glad to still be here."
Conversation in the room dipped as Shawn and his mother walked in. Shawn seemed ambivalent to the change in atmosphere though and walked over to Gareth, his mother in tow.
Shawn held out a hand which Gareth shook with a faint smile. "I'm sorry I shot you," he said.
"That's okay Shawn, I would've done the same in your situation. No harm done."
"Except to your shoulder," pointed out Shawn.
"Yes, true." Gareth changed the subject. "Is everything ok? You seem to be a little distracted."
"Oh yes, that's why we came in here. Mum says something is going on. Lots and lots of walkers are moving. Not close, but that way somewhere." Shawn pointed to the northwest.
"How do you know when Darcey is worried?" asked Andrew who had appeared at Merryn's side.
"She stands differently. Not so relaxed. And when she does I can ask her questions and she will nod. Or not."
"Fair enough." Andrew shrugged.
Merryn stood. "It's time we checked in with base and the Isle too."
Mark nodded. "Agreed. I'll come with you. Captain?"
Lily stood. "Yup, I'm there. This could be interesting..."