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

wasteland.”
    “Like the people setting up the safe houses, you mean?” Sholto said.
    “Oh no,” Lorraine said. “Those people are damaged. I mean,” she added hurriedly, “the outbreak changed them. It changed us all, didn’t it? But they had to examine their own souls and found themselves wanting. They’re on a private mission for repentance or forgiveness, even though they know they’ll never find it. Markus is different.”
    “How?” I asked.
    “He runs this pub,” Lorraine said. “Except he doesn’t do any of the work, and you can’t really say he owns it, not legally, except by possession. He ransacked Anglesey, stockpiling the booze. I guess he’s running out, and I think the only reason he wanted to come over here was to restock.”
    “There’s a baker down by the waterfront that’s trading bread for batteries, tea, coffee, and a whole list of sundries,” I said.
    “Scott Higson? Yeah, that’s one of the government stores,” Lorraine said. “It’d have to be, wouldn’t it? You know, because the grain is still stored on the ships. It’s the same with the launderette, and the music shop. That’s all Mrs O’Leary’s doing. Partly it’s to make sure people get a balanced diet. You can’t force people to eat vitamin tablets, but you can fortify the bread. They also stop Markus from setting the prices, while allowing us to build up a national surplus from the things people looted when they raided the empty homes. Markus is just out for profit. His big mistake was selling the booze before he realised how much it was worth. I mean… Okay, do you know the first thing he did when the electricity was restored? He put on a film night. He found the biggest TV he could, rigged up a load of speakers, and set it up in the back room of the pub.”
    “A cold beer and a movie?” Sholto said. “That sounds pleasant.”
    “They were zombie films!” Lorraine said. “And after each of them, he ran a Q&A session about what the characters did wrong. That’s kind of guy he is.”
    “Ah. And this is tolerated?” I asked.
    “Mrs O’Leary says it has to be. It’s a democracy, isn’t it? That’s the thing about survivors. In the depths of danger, you think everyone is like yourself. It’s only when things settle down you realise that not all survivors are selfless or good or even nice. I mean, okay, he’s not evil,” she added. “Not like… what was the name of those people who kidnapped your kids? Barrett and Stewart?”
    “You really did read the journal,” I said.
    “There’s not much else to read,” she said. “Crime fiction, anything contemporary come to that, it’s all out of date. Horror doesn’t scare, not any more. Science fiction stories about space exploration and aliens seem like they’re taunting us with a future we’ll never have. Anyway, yeah, that’s Markus. He’s the very definition of self-centred. I think he still believes the universe revolves around him. Not evil, just not the kind of guy you want to be around.”
    The words hung in the air, but there was no mood for them to spoil. The road leading to Caernarfon hugged the coast, and so Anglesey was visible to us across the Menai Strait. It looked lush, but the paddocks immediately to our left gave the lie to that. They were overgrown with seeding grasses and flowering weeds. Like those on Anglesey, they’d be good for grazing, but we had very little livestock.
    “I suppose there’s not much chance of taking a boat down to Kent,” I said.
    “What for?” Sholto asked.
    “The fruit in the trees,” I said. “The apples will be ripe soon. Even if this field was full of ripening wheat, I doubt we’d be able to harvest it, but we could pick apples.”
    “That’d be nice,” Lorraine said. “I miss apples. And peaches. Oh, and remember bananas?”
    “I miss ribs,” Sholto said. “A big plate of them on Monday night, with the game playing in the background.”
    Each of us was lost in our own private