The wind had picked up. Beth stood outside the house with the rest of the solar panel recovery team and pulled her hood over her head to protect her ears. Helen tried putting up some scaffolding to act as a windbreak for them, but it wasn’t solid enough to have much of an effect.

  “Look,” said Assistant-Tech. “Why don’t we just call it a day?”

  “We have to do whatever we can,” said Lead-Tech. “You know how they got last time we went back to the boat early.”

  “We are doing everything we can. And we can’t go up on the roof in this weather. It won’t be safe.”

  “It hasn’t even started raining yet,” said Lead-Tech. “And we have safety harnesses. We only have another two panels to bring down on this house. We should just hurry up and finish these last bits. It won’t take very long.”

  The Assistant-Tech huffed but did not protest any further. They sped up as much as they could, but it wasn’t as if they normally dawdled. It took as long as it took. By the time they had brought down the last panel, a dark band of clouds had crept over their heads. Rain introduced itself in brief gusting bursts.

  “So now can we head back?” asked Assistant-Tech.

  Lead-Tech didn’t immediately respond.

  “It’s only going to get worse,” said Beth in support. “This doesn’t feel like just rain. This feels like it’s shaping up to be a full-blown storm.”

  “I guess it might be,” said Lead-Tech.

  Beth pressed a little harder. “How about we return to the dock and ask them what they want us to do? It isn’t much of a detour to our next location anyway. When in doubt, isn’t it better to get the official guidance? We don’t want to be punished for running afoul of some health and safety guideline either.”

  It would actually be about as big a detour as was possible, but that wasn’t the point. The point was it was a reasonable sounding excuse for the Lead-Tech to do what they all wanted to do anyway – get out of the weather.

  “Yes,” said Lead-Tech. “Yes, let’s report in and get official guidance.”

  They hurried back, hoping to make it to the boat before the rain got even heavier. It was a doomed attempt. The wind gusted so unpredictably that they were forced to push the bicycles rather than ride. The trailers had to be rescued twice after being blown off their wheels, even with extra monitoring. Every recovery took minutes, and every minute made the weather worse.

  When they finally arrived at the dock, the boat was missing.

  “They’ve left without us?” asked Helen.

  Beth looked around and spotted a message scrawled out under the nearby beach hut. “Over there.”

  Rejoin at harbour, with an arrow, like they weren’t all perfectly aware of the direction of the harbour.

  “They moved the boat? Why’d they move the boat?” asked Assistant -Tech, his voice taking on the edge of panic.

  “The waves have picked up,” said Beth, with some dread of her own. “Maybe they decided it wasn’t safe for the boat to be tied up to such a little dock.”

  “Well, we’ll find out when we get to the harbour,” said Lead-Tech pragmatically.

  Beth hadn’t checked The Book in … quite some time, actually. The daily work had been so safe and so steady that nothing had ever changed, and Beth had slipped out of the habit. She skimmed to find the appropriate addition.

  Just that line, but that line was enough. The threat was more serious than just getting wet. They would have to reach the harbour faster than The Book predicted, or they won’t make it at all.

  “Leave the trailers,” suggested Beth. “We’re just damaging the panels every time they tip over. They can load them up the next time the boat stops here.”

  “Leave the bicycles as well,” said Assistant-Tech. “It’s not like we’re going to be able to ride them.”

  Lead-Tech nodded but then spent agonising slow minutes packing them against the beach hut and tying them in place. They backtracked to take the coastal road in the direction of the harbour. A sheet of rain hurtled down. Beth was wearing a raincoat, but it was quickly becoming useless as the water dripped through every opening. And with every drop of water, she could feel herself losing heat. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to pull the clinging fabric away from her back.

  “Shall we wait it out?” shouted Helen, as they came to a building with a little bit of an overhang.

  “No,” said Beth. “It’s just going to get worse. I think we should hurry as much as we can.”

  Beth couldn’t explain the potential consequences, but her urgency was enough to infect the rest of them. They pressed on. But much like their walk to the dock, their desire didn’t match their abilities. The wind was blowing hard against them, turning every step into a workout. The path was an obstacle course. They were walking down the middle of a major road, but that road hadn’t been empty or smooth for months. It wasn’t night, but with the heavy clouds, it wasn’t much lighter. Beth tried to watch her footing, but everything had already washed out to varying shades of grey. Over and over, she failed to avoid the puddles, soaking her shoes. Her socks were sopping and she squelched with every step. What should have been a ten-minute walk took them closer to half an hour.

  They arrived just as a wave crashed over the far wall of the harbour, billowing up and across, obscuring the wall and the buildings in a curtain of white. When it cleared, Beth was left with the bitter taste of failure. The boat wasn’t in the harbour either.

  They separated to search for a message, perhaps in some forlorn hope that they’d just moved the meet up spot somewhere else. Helen was the one who found the whiteboard, secured underneath a bright-red waterproof cloth and a rock.

  Will return for you when safe.

  They huddled under the shelter with their heads together.

  “Look what’s happened! If we’d come back when I first said,” said Assistant-Tech, in between the roars of the waves. “We wouldn’t be stuck here.”

  “It might already have been too late,” said Beth. “The storm is moving in from the sea and getting into and out of the harbour is tricky at the best of times. The waves have probably been unsafe for hours.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything about this before?” asked Assistant-Tech.

  “I didn’t think about it before!” protested Beth. “You’re the ones who’ve lived on the coast all your lives. This is all theoretical information for me. What are winter storms normally like?”

  Beth didn’t want to think that she could have prevented all of this if she’d just checked The Book when Assistant-Tech had first complained. It was bad enough that she could have done something if she’d checked at the beginning of the day.

  Assistant-Tech was equally indignant about being accused. “We’re normally protected by the mainland!”

  Beth gestured to another wave cresting noisily over the top of the five-meter wall.

  “This is like the storm of ‘87,” said Assistant-Tech in dawning horror.

  “This is nothing like the storm of ‘87!” objected Lead-Tech.

  “How do you know?”

  “You aren’t old enough to remember it, but I remember.” Lead-Tech ignored the muttering of ‘sure you do, grandpa.’ “This is just a normal storm.”

  Beth half expected him to start on a long anecdote about exactly what he had been doing in the storm of 1987. Half her relatives would, whenever it was mentioned. She remembered, with a pang, her Uncle Alex’s extended tale of how he’d been camping with his friends when fallen trees cut them off from civilisation, and how they’d hiked miles through unknown forests to find safety. A tale she had only started to suspect was somewhat exaggerated when he’d died. Beth now had stories of her own to rival every one of his, and she’d never have the chance to tell him any of them.

  “Then why did the boat have to run away?” demanded Assistant-Tech.

  “It’s just a baby little sailboat they’ve converted into a ferry. It isn’t an ocean cruising liner. It’ll be fine. We’ll just have to wait it out, and they’ll be straight back to pick us up.”

  “Why didn’t they wait out the storm here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” asked Helen. “They didn’t want to be stuck eating supps until the storm clears.”

  “How nice for them,” he replied sourly.

  Beth wasn’t offended that the boat crew wouldn’t be sharing their suffering. She wouldn’t have wanted to wait on the boat anyway – she couldn’t imagine the sea-sickness. She was disappointed they hadn’t waited to chance a crossing with everyone, despite her earlier words about safety.

  “We just need to find shelter tonight,” said Lead-Tech. “We can grab a building away from the shore.”

  “Well back from the shore,” said Assistant-Tech. “Just in case.”

  “Not too far,” said Beth. “We’ll want to keep an eye on the harbour for when the boat returns.”

  “At least we know there aren’t zombies,” said Helen.

  “Can you be sure?” asked Assistant-Tech. “How far does your zombie sense extend?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Helen. “We’ve been over every inch of this area. There are no zombies.”

  “Lucky it happened now, really,” said Lead-Tech. “In a few weeks we’ll have moved on further down the coast.”

  Beth and Helen drew maps in the ground and decided on an older building with setback windows and wooden shutters that would have the required view. The second floor was high enough to see the harbour – well, in theory, to see the harbour in better weather – but not so high as to be exposed to the winds.

  “There’s only one broken window in this one,” said Helen, trying to sound optimistic.

  “When we close the shutters, not much water will get in. It’ll be fine.”

  They removed the broken glass and Assistant-Tech started closing the shutters. There was a clattering from above them, followed by a brief silence until a loud crash below.

  “What was that?” said Assistant-Tech.

  “A roof tile?” guessed Beth.

  “No, not the noise. That! There’re zombies moving out there.”

  They all joined him at the window and saw the silhouettes of four people walking along the harbour road.

  “That’s Ted’s team,” said Lead-Tech flatly. “They must have come back even later than us. Honestly, John, they’re not acting anything like zombies.”

  “Should we try to meet up with them?” asked Beth.

  None of them replied. It was cold and wet out there, and they had only just started to dry out. Beth looked down at her own feet, which were starting to sting badly as they warmed up, and regretted even suggesting it.

  “They’ll probably have moved on before we can even get down,” said Lead-Tech, unconvincingly.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Yeah. Not much we can do for them, anyway, or them for us.”

  Assistant-Tech decisively closed the shutter, and after a brief pause, Lead-Tech followed suit with the other windows. Beth excused herself to swap her wet clothes with something out of the nearby wardrobes. She sat on a dusty bed to remove her shoes and painfully peeled off her socks. With the way her feet had been slipping in her shoes, she’d picked up some impressively sized blisters. She hissed under her breath as she bandaged them. Plasters were a long-lost relic of the past, but everyone kept some first aid supplies. It would at least keep them from being infected.

  By the time she returned, someone had set up a small sunstone. Helen had found them each a mug and used her skill to fill them up with water. Beth passed out the blankets and duvets she’d grabbed, and for a moment, it was pleasantly cosy.

  “Does anyone have any skills to light a fire?” asked Lead-Tech. “Or a heat-stone?”

  They all shrugged.

  “I wish I’d bid on that skill, now,” mourned Assistant-Tech. “Then we’d be set.”

  Beth didn’t point out that water and supps were only marginally better tasting hot than cold. Beth was tempted to skip it, but then reluctantly added them. She’d sleep better if she wasn’t hungry. They sat in silence as they forced down the tasteless gunk.

  “I miss my phone,” said Assistant-Tech.

  Beth hadn’t carried her phone with her for months, and there was nowhere to charge it on the mainland. Still, she understood him. He didn’t miss the physical object. He missed the internet and the entertainment and the casual life they’d all had. Helen brought out a pack of well-worn cards instead. At least in the dim light, they couldn’t instantly recognise the cards simply from the wear and tear on the backs.

  At last, Lead-Tech suggested they all try to sleep. Helen and Beth took one bedroom while the men took the other. The bed was comfortable enough after a brief beating and sharing with Helen at least helped to keep Beth warm. But the unfamiliarity had Beth rousing to consciousness over and over again, hearing the deep beats of the sea against the harbour, the clapping of the shutters rattling in their frames, and the higher pitched taps of sideways-blown rain.

  The next day it was still raining and windy, and they returned to huddling around the little table for another meal of supps.

  “Do you think they’ll be back today?” asked Assistant-Tech.

  “I doubt it,” said Beth.

  “No,” said Lead-Tech. “The storm isn’t over yet.”

  With the long day stretching out in front of them, and nothing else to do, Beth and Helen returned to their original occupation of scavenging. They slipped from house to house, timing their movements to avoid the worst of the wind and the rain. The houses were mostly picked clean, but Beth was thrilled to find some emergency candles and a box of matches that had escaped previous notice. She also added what she could to her smuggling stock. Her inner space was once again more than she could fill. It had increased to Stage Five – she could now optionally apply gravity and a sense of direction. While that wasn’t immediately useful, it was very promising for future developments.

  When Helen’s sunstone came to the end of its life that night and disappeared into glimmers, Beth set the candle out on the table in a saucer.

  The storm continued. The noisiest shutter picked up volume and slammed open with a crash. Rain started splattering in through the missing window. After a few complaints and passing around the responsibility, Assistant-Tech went to the window and leaned out. He came back with a curse.

  “It’s broken off entirely. We’ll need to block the window with something else.”

  They got wet again as they tried to cover it with something, but without tape, it was a doomed affair. Eventually they just moved a free-standing cabinet into the way. The wind now whistled around it, but it helped a little. They resolved to find another place to stay the next day if the storm continued, but none of them were willing to face the outdoors in the dark. By the next morning, the waves were still hitting the harbour walls with loud crashes and drawn-out hisses, but the rain had cleared up to beautiful skies. They moved away the cabinet and opened all the remaining shutters to enjoy the mild sun.

  Most of them, at any rate. Assistant-Tech alternated between monitoring the harbour and pacing.

  “Come sit down,” said Lead-Tech.

  “They should be here already,” Assistant-Tech. “You can’t tell me there’s literally no boat that can make the crossing! We don’t just close down the whole island every time there’s a little storm. Something must have gone wrong.”

  “We kinda did, though,” said Helen. “Getting fresh groceries was always a nightmare in bad weather.”

  The two techs ignored her.

  “We didn’t,” agreed Lead-Tech. “But we used to have near-infinite diesel to burn.”

  “They’ve got skills, these days, don’t they?”

  “Not enough to just ignore nature that way. Not yet.”

  “Then they could have used some of the emergency fuel to get us back.”

  “They were never going to do that,” said Lead-Tech, getting impatient. “Do you really think they would?”

  They made plans for what to do with their time, from retrieving the bicycles and solar panels, to finding an un-scavenged area to strip. But every time they almost came to a decision, someone would voice the question of what if the boat did return that day? What if they missed it? They didn’t end up leaving the house, not even to search for one with intact windows.

  Once the candles burnt out that night, they had no alternative. Helen and Beth went to their bedroom early and lay talking idly in the moonlight. They spoke of their pasts, of Beth’s extended gap years and Helen’s romance with her boyfriend and her insecurity now that she could no longer trust it had all been real. They spoke of the dreams for the future they’d had before the infection, and how far away that felt.

  Then Helen spoke of her new dreams. She had plans to expand her brewing business when the allotment job ‘inevitably fell through’.

  “Theo said we’ll start clearing out some of the abandoned farms when we run out of potential allotment sites,” said Beth. “It might mean living on site, though.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that, at the moment,” said Helen. “But even so, that’s just an extension. Even the scavenging is going to stop being reasonable, eventually. Even if we don’t run out of places to loot, we’ll run out of things it makes any sense to take. We’re going to have to start thinking about the rest of our lives, some day or another.”

  They were going to have to think about the rest of their lives. Beth was going to have to think about it.

  Helen continued, “And not just jobs. I need to decide whether I’m staying with my boyfriend, and it’s not like you’re going to want to live with your family forever, either.”

  No, Beth supposed that was true.

  Beth didn’t know when she fell asleep, but when she woke, the morning was perfect. Bright and calm, with the sea a low murmur. They gathered for their tasteless breakfast with enthusiasm.

  “Come on,” urged Assistant-Tech. “Let’s get down to the harbour. What if they come and leave without us again?”

  That seemed like paranoia, but it also didn’t seem like an idea that could do any harm. There were a few streets that would take them out of sight of the harbour. If they waited, Beth imagined it would be unpleasant to have to hurry down those, hoping that the boat didn’t depart without them. Never mind that the authorities knew they were still out. Never mind that if it was safe for one boat, it would be safe for many, so it would hardly be their only chance. They’d been stranded for long enough that the fear of being abandoned no longer felt so irrational.

  Maybe the storm had been even worse on Pines. Maybe the infection had mutated, and there had been an outbreak. Maybe Pines had just, from one moment to the next, ceased to exist. With all that had happened, could they really claim anything was impossible?

  Beth opened The Book again, only mildly reassured when it displayed no changes.

  They picked their way through the wreckage of the storm as they walked down newly unfamiliar streets. Tiles and branches and pieces of dry wall added to the existing litter. Without pumps, the underpasses and low points had already transformed into lakes, and those now flooded into the surrounding streets. The remnants of temporary dams showed in the tangles of branches and plastic bags and children’s toys.

  Beth caught motion from the corner of her eyes, and they all turned. Helen placed a quick fence, and Beth was ready with a push-back.

  “Gary!” called one of the figures.

  “Ted!” Lead-Tech greeted back. “Good to see you. Is your team alright?”

  Helen vanished the fence and Beth relaxed, a little embarrassed to have reacted that way when they were in full daylight.

  The team lead continued cheerfully, “One sprained ankle, but otherwise all present and accounted for. Yours?”

  “Safe, but miserable.”

  “Oh, same, same. Think the boat will be back today?”

  “It had better be,” said Assistant-Tech.

  They found a convenient wall to sit on and started comparing experiences. Just having different people around made the situation feel abruptly more normal. They competed in who had had a more miserable time of it, but the injury gave the other team the clear win. Their delay of only a half-an-hour before they’d tried to return had snowballed into a much more unpleasant four days. Some of which could have been prevented if Beth’s team had gone out to help. With unspoken agreement, none of them mentioned having caught sight of the other team on that first night.

  Within an hour, the boat sailed in, to much cheering and hollering.

  All of sudden, everything was official, with clipboards and checklists and serious attitudes. They and Ted’s team were the only ones on the mainland unaccounted for, but two of the fishing boats hadn’t made it back. People still had hope. They might just have been pushed off course. They might still limp back.

  But there were also half-whispered words that the captains of the fishing boats hadn’t intended to go out at all, and dangerous rumours about why they had anyway.

  “I guess we should be glad the boat didn’t wait for us,” said Assistant-Tech. “If something had happened to us at sea…”

  Beth could likewise feel her stomach twist. She’d actively tried to get them to the harbour early in order to take the boat, even though The Book had indicated no harm would come to them remaining on land. She had placed her comfort above her safety. There were worse outcomes than being miserable.

  They left the boat at Pines with instructions to wait at home to hear about future schedules. There were still traces of the storm even on Pines, but nothing like it had been on the mainland. It might have been less serious there, but more importantly, they’d had time to begin the clean-up effort. No-one would be cleaning up on the mainland ever again.

  Beth dragged herself up the stairs to Peter’s place and removed her shoes with relief. Her blisters had had a few days to recover, but they hadn’t fully healed and the walk home had reignited them.

  “Finally back?” called Sophie from the kitchen.

  Beth sighed and joined her. Calley was at the table weaving a belt from fabric scraps using some home-made tablets. Cheap clothes could only be patched for so long before they fell apart entirely, but people were finding ways to use what was left.

  “Yes,” said Beth. “I was trapped by the storm. Hey Calley.”

  “I’m glad you’re home safe,” said Calley.

  “Yes,” said Sophie. “That’s what they said. I didn’t even know you were going to the mainland.”

  “I’ve been going to the mainland regularly,” said Beth. “We’ve had this exact discussion before, that time when I was quarantined. Remember?”

  Sophie huffed, somehow making the sound elegant. “Well, wash up and come help with cheesemaking while the electricity is still on. We’ve already had to do most of your chores this week, and that hasn’t been fair.”

  “You mean I’ve had to do most of her chores,” muttered Calley, and Beth mouthed a ‘sorry’ in her direction.

  Beth cleaned up using a small basin of water and a washcloth. When she left the bathroom, she hesitated for a moment, undecided between going to find her father and announce her return, going to her bedroom, and simply doing as asked without arguing. Her father must have heard her come in if he was home, so he could come out himself if he wanted to talk. She was tempted to spend the rest of the day lying in bed, but she couldn't honestly say that she was tired. She returned to the kitchen and went through the familiar steps – bringing the milk to a boil, reducing heat and adding the crab-apple vinegar, pouring the curds and whey into a cheesecloth lined colander to separate them. The mindless work was somewhat calming in its triviality.

  “Mum!” shouted Oakley from further in the house.

  “No shouting,” said their father from his bedroom, in a tone that wasn’t very far away from being a shout itself. He had been home, after all.

  “Muuuuuum,” shouted Oakley again, ignoring him. “Mum, I need help.”

  Sophie sighed. “Calley, dear, please go see what your brother wants.”

  Calley passed her strip of fabric in front of the tablets and rotated them. “Mum, I’m right in the middle of this. Oakley has legs if he needs anything.”

  “Sophie, please just do what I ask. You know how your father gets about the noise, and none of us want that, do we?”

  “Alright, alright, whatever.”

  Calley untied herself from her weaving and stalked off. Beth continued squeezing out the whey, the liquid oozing between her fingers. The whey would go into the ‘bread’ the next day, while they would eat the cheese with the next few meals. The rooftop was doubling as an extra refrigerator, but they ate through their food at a rate too fast to be seriously concerned about it going off anyway.

  Calley stalked back into the kitchen a few minutes later. “He just lost his towel. It had fallen behind the door. I told you it wasn’t going to be anything important.”

  “Thank you for helping,” said Sophie serenely.

  Calley snorted and detangled her belt with harsh movements. She worked with intensity and without any apparent enjoyment, but she recovered her position.

  “Oh,” said Sophie, in that particular way that signalled unpleasant news. “You wouldn’t have heard, Beth. We’ll be going to the de la Hayes for Christmas lunch.”

  “The de la Hayes… invited us?” asked Beth. “I wasn’t aware we were that close.”

  “Neither was I,” said Sophie with a thinned smile. “But your father and Peter assure me that they deeply feel the family connection and do not wish us to be alone on such a special day.”

  Her father was Up-To-Something and pressured Peter into the invitation. Beth would bet on it, and it was clear Sophie thought the same.

  “We will have to plan what dishes we need to take with us.”

  “Have they asked for anything in particular?” asked Beth.

  “Your father says we don’t need to bring anything.”

  That was not helpful. They absolutely did need to bring something and would now have to guess themselves. It would be unspeakably rude to use up their host’s food rations without offering anything in return. It did not matter that the de la Hayes were probably not constrained by the same limits as everyone else.

  “We should take things that can be stored easily,” said Beth. “Or re-gifted, if it comes to that.”

  “Yes, let’s plan for that. We need at least one side-dish, though.”

  “Braised cabbage and crab?” suggested Beth. “I still have two cabbages in my rooftop garden we can pull, and there’s plenty of spider crabs for sale.”

  “Good idea,” agreed Sophie. “Let’s try for that, then, and the rest can be longer lasting foods. Are you almost done with that, Calley? I need the table.”

  “Two more rows and I can hem off,” Calley promised.

  That night Beth thought she could still hear the sea, but she knew that was an illusion. They were too far away from the shore. What she was hearing was the wind in the trees. It wasn’t as if Beth needed to talk to anyone about what had happened, but it would have been nice to be asked.

  Calley started snorting rhythmically in her sleep, and Beth reached down to nudge her into rolling over. Beth laughed at herself. It hadn’t even been a day, and she was already romanticising those nights with Helen on the mainland.

  Two days later, Beth was once again the proud recipient of an actual letter. The schedule turned out to be no schedule.

  All mainland operations temporarily suspended. All workers with alternative or permanent roles on the island to report to those roles. Others…

  Closing the door after the horse had already bolted, perhaps, but it was something.

  From the gossip Beth managed to track down, Pines had been forced to make amends with the fishing community. It was understood that fishing boats sometimes failed to come home. That had been true even in the days of global weather forecasts and national search-and-rescue organisations. But with the rumours that the men had been sent out against their will, effectively forced to commit suicide? That had infuriated them. And the ancient and interconnected profession still had a great deal of power it could bring to bear when it mobilised every relative and friend and ancestral favour. Even the boat crews of the scavenging teams had spoken of a strike in solidarity with the fishermen. The talk had quickly been silenced, but the boats stayed at dock.

  And so, the letters went out, halting operations to the mainland for the rest of the ‘winter storm season’. Beth was back at her allotment job. Which fortunately did give her more time in the evenings. Acorn-coffee and crab-apple vinegar wouldn’t cut it as appropriate gifts for the de la Hayes. She would need to make purchases with her rapidly dwindling savings.