Surviving The Evacuation (Book 5): Reunion Read Online Free PDF

with him until his death.
    It wasn’t the first time he’d killed someone. It was the fourth. Once it had been one of his colleagues – McInery refused to call their organisation a gang. That had been a fight though not a fair one. Before that there had been the night of confusion on the docks over a missing shipment, and that had been an overly fair fight, one he’d been lucky to limp away from. Then there had been that time with Cannock, back when he was a kid… he shook his head, ridding it of that memory. Now wasn’t the time. He grabbed the folder and ran back up to the hallway, reaching it at the same time as McInery, now dressed, came running down the stairs.
    “Give me that. Quick.” She took the folder and opened it. “Let’s see.” She made no effort to hide the writing. Everything she wrote was in code. That oft-displayed lack of trust was the reason their relationship had never advanced beyond business-like co-operation. “The nearest is a flat off Onslow Square,” she said. “And there are two more close to Earl’s Court. Are you armed?”
    Chester realised he wasn’t sure. He checked his pockets. The ornate revolver Cannock had given him was still there. He’d been keeping it as a reminder as much as a weapon. He took it out and checked it was loaded. That, Chester thought, was a true sign of the times, when the punishment for carrying a firearm was nothing when set against the risk of being caught unarmed.
     
    They didn’t run to the first address, the fashionable street off an equally fashionable square was only a few blocks from McInery’s house. Nor did they talk. That he wasn’t the only person left alive was enough of a comfort that Chester could, for the first time, properly take in the silent city.
    Except it wasn’t silent, not completely, but the sounds were all wrong. It had been dying since the outbreak and now it was in its death throes. Yes, he decided, that was the way to describe it. The few people he’d seen on the streets were always hurrying to somewhere from somewhere else. Usually that had been one of the Food Distribution Centres, and it had always been during daylight. At night the only people out, other than him and his brethren, were those in uniform. Then had come the evacuation, and the city had bustled once more and for one last time. And as they walked, he began to understand that it truly had been the last time.
    “What if all of the vaccine is poison?” he asked, voicing his fears.
    “All of it? You mean including that given to the evacuees?”
    “That’s what I’m thinking.”
    “There’s no point speculating,” McInery said. “Not yet. Here. Onslow Gardens. Number 12A, Ginny Whiteacre.”
    “I don’t know her.”
    “She was before your time. Retired, but before that, she was a safebreaker. She got out when things started to go digital.”
    They reached the front door, and he was about to break it open when she raised a hand to stop him.
    “If she’s still alive, she won’t thank you for a broken door.” She nodded towards the ground floor window. “Check inside.”
    The curtains were pulled back. Cupping his hands against the reflected glare of the early morning sun, Chester peered in.
    “A body. Female. Five-nine. Black hair, but I’d say she was at least in her late fifties.”
    “That’s her. And she’s dead?” McInery asked. She didn’t look for herself.
    “Definitely.”
    Without another word, she walked off towards Earl’s Court. Chester followed, pausing two streets away when they passed a boarded up property whose cellar was being dug out before the outbreak. Behind the railings, next to a stack of timbers, he’d seen a sledgehammer. He jumped over the wrought iron fence and picked it up.
    “Are you coming?” McInery asked. She’d stopped a few yards further down the street. Chester hefted the hammer. It was heavy and unwieldy, but if felt more like a weapon than the small revolver did.
    “Yeah,” he muttered.