Surviving The Evacuation (Book 4): Unsafe Haven by Frank Tayell Page B

neck and across the left side of her face. The woman nodded back.
    “Um…” Nilda was uncertain what to say. “That’s a lot of food.”
    The woman nodded again.
    “If you’re coming to the school… I mean. We’ve water and shelter, and we’ve got food, though this would be a welcome addition to it. You can’t carry it all. I mean…” She stopped. She realised she’d been babbling. It was the gun in the woman’s hands coupled with the way her scar turned a bemused smile on one side of her face into a sneer on the other.
    “I’m Nilda.” She held out her hand.
    “Tuck,” the woman said taking the hand. Her grip was firm.
    “Tuck?” Nilda said, trying to think of what to say next. “Um. Is that short for something?”
    Tuck closed her eyes for a moment and took a breath. “Lu. Cy. Tuck. Er.” The words came out slow, stilted as if each movement of her vocal chords had to be dragged out of some deep recess of memory.
    Nilda took in the scars and the woman’s obvious discomfort.
    “You’re deaf?” she asked.
    Tuck nodded.
    “But you can lip-read?”
    Tuck gave her a look that seemed to say ‘obviously’.
    “O.K,” Nilda said, over-enunciating each syllable. “There. Is. A. School. The Smoke. See?” She pointed.
    Tuck rolled her eyes. Nilda flushed with sudden embarrassment, but then Tuck gave a crooked smile.
    “Sorry,” Nilda murmured.
    Tuck shook her head, pointed at Nilda’s bag, then at the vehicle, and then returned to grabbing at ration packs. Nilda joined her. The two bags were quickly filled.
    “We’ll come back with the others,” Nilda said, “to collect the rest.”
    Tuck stopped filling her bag, took Nilda by the arm, and gently turned her so that she could see her lips.
    “Sorry. We’ll come back with more people to collect the rest,” Nilda repeated. She looked back up the road. The zombies were gone, but they might return.
    “Did you drive here?” she asked.
    The woman nodded, then pointed at the fuel cap, then shook her head.
    “Ran out of petrol?”
    Tuck nodded.
    “Where did it come from? I mean, I can see it’s military, but you don’t…” she stopped, and once again took in in the scars only partially hidden by the blue and white streaked hair and buttoned-up coat. “You were a soldier?”
    Tuck nodded, then gave a shrug, accompanied by a quick movement of her hands, before returning to finish filling her bag. Nilda took that to mean that there was a time and a place, and that wasn’t here and now.
     
    The bike laden with bags, they headed back towards St Lucian’s. Even though she was cycling, Nilda had difficulty keeping up with Tuck running briskly by her side.
    “Nilda, I see you’ve found someone,” Sebastian called out, when they reached the school. “And another three arrived here whilst you were gone. All from out of town. They saw the smoke and were heading to the Lake District. I—”
    “There’s no time for that,” Nilda said. “I want everyone.” And she looked around and saw that they were all standing there watching. “Except Sylvia and the kids and… Mark, you stay here too. Everyone else grab a bike, grab a bag, and get a weapon.”
    “Why? What’s going on?” Mr Harper asked.
    “This is Tuck,” Nilda said. “She drove here in an Army truck and ran out of fuel in the middle of town. It’s laden with food.” She emptied one of the bags onto the ground. “Enough to keep us going for a couple of months.” She looked around at Tuck and the other three new faces. “Maybe six weeks. No more questions. Come on.”
    And they did. The only delay came when she had to tell some people to put down the cricket bats they’d taken from the pavilion and take an axe or crowbar instead.
     
    Half an hour later, having only seen one zombie, and that one in the distance, they arrived back at the APC. They found it empty.
    “Who did this?” one of the newcomers asked. Nilda didn’t know his name. She didn’t bother to ask. She