Surviving The Evacuation (Book 8): Anglesey by Frank Tayell Page A

like a criminal. The bigger question is whether they were telling the truth about not having any sat-phones, and why they were looking for them in the first place.”
    Taking the bag of pills to the hospital took care of an hour. We killed another speculating whether they represented the only pharmaceuticals Markus had been given.
    When we got back to the school, a redheaded woman was deep in conversation with George Tull. When she turned around, I saw a jagged scar running from her temple down to her chin. It gave a sardonic edge to her thoughtful expression.
    “Heather,” George said, “this is Bill and Thaddeus.”
    “The two brothers,” she said with a far less pronounced Welsh accent than I was expecting. “George said you can get some satellites working?”
    “If we had some sat-phones,” Sholto said.
    “Then you want to go to Bangor. There’s ten at the university,” she said. “When do you want to leave?”
     

Chapter 4 - Menai Bridge
    07:30, 19 th August, Day 160
     
    “I like it here,” I said to Sholto as we headed down to the shore.
    “Anglesey?”
    “Menai Bridge,” I said.
    “Yeah, me too,” he said, glancing back at the small town. “It’s a bit like Crossfields Landing. I mean, that’s a two-street village, but the people are similar. Eager. Enthusiastic. No, that’s not the right word. They haven’t given up. And there’s the view of the sea. Not as wide here as in Maine, mind you.”
    I waited for him to go on, but as was often the case when he remembered that village in America, he’d lost himself in the past.
    When Heather Jones asked when we wanted to leave, my instinct was to say immediately, but there was Daisy to consider. If I’m honest, I felt as restless as my brother. Organising an election was too much like my old life, but without all the digital distractions and electronic assistance that would have made it routine. After all, the election doesn’t only mean new leadership and, perhaps, a new direction for our community. It also represents the beginning of a new state. If I do the job correctly, it might mean the opportunity for a new kind of state. Added to that was the new burden of parenting. I hadn’t realised how much of the work Kim and Annette had done out on the mainland. As such, I was quite happy to bring Daisy with us to Menai Bridge, and to let the Duponts dote over her.
    We’d arrived late, had a good meal where barely any ingredients came from the old world, and listened to other people’s stories that had nothing to do with the outbreak. It was pleasant, different, and the kind of atmosphere I hoped would become our new normal. If anything, and after an astonishingly good night’s sleep, the view of the small town only reinforced that opinion.
    “They’ve got it together,” Sholto said, echoing my thoughts. “It’s not just that it’s organised. It’s not just that they planted food back in the spring, or even that they keep the streets clean, but that they intend to keep on doing it.”
    We were walking down a narrow terrace of boarded-up houses. On each front door was a plastic envelope inside of which was a list of the property’s contents. Some had an additional mark in large chalk lettering noting some item that might be of more immediate use, though that use wasn’t always obviously practical. ‘Piano’ was chalked on one door, and I was surprised the small cottages had room even for a stand-up model. Another door was marked with ‘twin-tub washing machine’, another with ‘children’s clothes’. A fourth, with a red and green chalk sketch added to the front wall, proclaimed the wonderful words ‘apple tree, September!’
    “They really want to make the place work,” I said. “I know that this road and the parts they took us to see yesterday are the exception. I mean, this was a town of about three thousand, and there’s only fifty people here. But they really are trying. If everyone was like this, just imagine what we