Chapter Forty Nine
We headed off not long after. We’d been traveling for about an hour when the river started to narrow again as we approached Edinburgh. I felt closer to home than I had for a long time. Edinburgh was only forty five minutes on a train to where we lived. We used to go there Christmas shopping this time of year and had visited the zoo the summer before the outbreak; I wondered what had happened to the animals there. Did someone let them go and if so, were there penguins and panda bears in Scotland now? We passed under the Forth bridges which still amazed me every time I saw them; they truly were amazing feats of civil engineering.
We saw movement on the road bridge, but there was nothing to worry about, unless rotters had learned how to climb again! We hadn’t encountered any people with the exception of Edd since Dalmuir. We passed under them without any problems and the river immediately opened up again.
The weather wasn’t great, but we pushed on to Inchkeith Island. We arrived at early evening, just when it was starting to turn to dusk at that time of the year.
Luckily for us there was a small harbour where we were able to moor the boats and where we were able to get ashore. The Forth had been starting to swell quite badly and the Gamebird had been struggling. The last few miles had been quite nerve racking, especially for us aboard the Gamebird. However, the harbour did its job of sheltering our three small boats from the swell of the Forth. There were no other boats in the harbour and we could still see the Forth Bridges and Edinburgh in the distance.
There was no sign of life or rotters on the island so we decided to send a few of us out to explore the island further and make sure it was abandoned still like our map had indicated.
Becky, Amy, John, Lia and I set off as usual. There was an old gun emplacement just above the harbour which we had made our way up to. I guessed it must have been left over from World War two. When we got to the gun emplacement we could see an old fort to the west, so we went to explore that too. The fort too had long since been abandoned, but you were still able to climb to the top of it by means of an external steel staircase.
From the top of the fort we were able to look across the whole island, the view was spectacular even in the fading light, but more importantly we had been able to see the highest point of the island on which sat a lighthouse. There was another gun emplacement next to the fort which looked up the river towards the Forth Bridges, that Island had certainly been well fortified at some point in its recent past.
From the fort we made our way to the centre of the island and the lighthouse which we had seen from the fort. As we reached the top of the hill we were met by a number of old houses. The houses were in fairly bad condition, probably abandoned since the war, the same as the gun emplacements.
The wooden roof frames were still in place along with the window frames, but the glass had long since gone. We went cautiously inside, only to find that they had long since been abandoned too and weren’t harbouring any stray rotters. The insides weren’t in too bad shape, with fire places still in tack. We left the houses behind and continued up the hill to the lighthouse.
The lighthouse looked in good order; it had no doubt been automated in the eighties like most lighthouses across the United Kingdom. The good thing for us though was although they were automated, they were still routinely maintained and hence the good condition of the Inchkeith light house. The light house had long since stopped working; it no doubt ran off a generator which would have run out of fuel long ago. There was an inscription on the front of the light house which read:-
“For the direction of mariners, and for the benefit of commerce, this light house was erected by order of the commissioners of the northern light houses. It was founded on the 18
th
day of May in the year 1803, and lighted on the 14
th
of September 1804. Thomas Smith, Engineer”.
I guessed Thomas Smith never thought to add, “And for the refuge of survivors of the zombie apocalypse”. Maybe we’d add that bit for him later I’d thought.
There was a large concreted area in front of the light house which we assumed used to be a helicopter pad. Maybe one day we’d recruit a pilot into our group I thought that would be better than pissing about in boats!
There were what looked like service buildings next to the helicopter pad, they were in good shape and clearly had been maintained until recent times along with the light house.
The light house had been well secured, but we were confident by then that the island was well and truly abandoned. We used a combination of crowbars and shot guns to get into it. We radioed back to the guys on the boats in advance so that they weren’t alarmed by the sound of shot gun fire.
The noise that we made getting in would have certainly woken the dead, so to speak and any humans for the next hundred miles or so! So we were even more confident then that the light house and the rest of the island were definitely abandoned.
The light house was like any other, a spiral staircase leading to a light room at the top. It all looked well maintained and as it was starting to get dark, the lights would have been lit if they were still operational.
We couldn’t see a lot from the top of the light house that evening due to the fact it was getting dark outside. We struggled to find our way around in the dark. There was fairly large living quarters attached to the light house. I guessed at one time there would have been more than one light keeper by the size of the living quarters. There was probably enough room for three families. There were six good sized bedrooms; at least that was what we had assumed they had once been as the furniture had long since gone from them. However the living and kitchen areas had still been sparsely furnished no doubt for the engineers that came to maintain the light house so they had somewhere to take their breaks and stuff. There was a large bathroom with cold running water too.
Chapter Fifty
We radioed the guys on the boats to give them the all clear. There was wood and coal for the many fire places and a few chairs and sofas in the living area as well a large dining table with more chairs, so we agreed it would be a good place to spend the night.
Becky and I had gone back to the boats to collect the rest of the guys. It was pitch black by then, but fortunately we could see the light coming from our boats in the harbour so we at least had somewhere to aim for, I remember it being a good laugh trying to stumble our way back to the boats in the dark!
Once back at the boats, we got the guys together and told them about what we had found and they all jumped at the chance to spend the night in the light house. We all gathered up what we’d need for the night, bedding, food, etc. We had a few torches that had been left on the Gamebird by its former residents, so we had been able to use them to help find our way back up the hill to the light house. By the time we had all got back, the other guys had a roaring fire going in the living area and the Aga was alight in the kitchen too.
My family took one of the bedrooms, Lia’s family took one, Hayley and her family took the third one, John and Amy took one, Paul and Sophie took one and David and Anthony took the last one. Becky, Maddison, Sandier and Margaret took the living area, which to be honest, was the best place to be with the comfy sofas and the roaring fire!
We dropped our gear off in our rooms and then all gradually gathered back in the living area. Margaret took charge of preparing an evening meal for all of us. On the menu that night was pasta bolognaise. Something we had plenty tins of. I wondered if an island as small as Inchkeith supported any kind of wildlife other than the obvious sea birds. I doubted whether we needed to consider wildlife conservation anymore as animals would soon reclaim many of their territories again. I also wondered what percentage of the human population had actually survived the outbreak.
We all sat around the table; there were more than enough chairs for everyone, when the light house was built way back in 1803, light house keepers would have had five or six children at least in their families. The atmosphere was jovial, like the old days back on our site in Devon. That seemed like a lifetime ago to us then, but in fact had only been a matter of weeks. God, what we’d been through to get to where we were that day. We ate and drank and nobody took watch that night. Why would they have? The island had clearly been unvisited since before the outbreak and how many other people were getting around using boats. We were lucky to have people in our group with the experience and knowledge to use them in these kinds of waters. Not every Tom, Dick or Harry could jump on a boat and navigate two hours to an island in the middle of nowhere in the dark. We drank and celebrated into the early hours of the following morning.
Chapter Fifty One
When we stirred the following morning, not many of us adults had actually made it to our rooms. It took me back to one of the many Christmas party’s that we’d had back at work. We had all booked hotel rooms at the venue, but we’d gone back to someone’s room for an after party and all just ended up crashing out there. I missed those nights out with the Aspers crew as we used to call ourselves. I wondered what had happened to the rest of those guys in the Aspers crew, I just hoped that they’d survived and maybe they were even back at work with my supervisor and still enjoying life as we had been before the outbreak. After all we’d already planned for a zombie apocalypse!
Becky and Maddison were already up. God, I wished I was nineteen again, how did they do it? Up until the early hours of the morning and then still fresh as a daisy the next day. It took me a week to recover from a night out with the Aspers crew back in the day! It was times like this that I missed technology. I could sometimes spend hours on social media talking with friends and family and sharing photographs and experiences.
We all eventually emerged that morning, most of us resembling the rotters we’d been avoiding for the past two years, if a helicopter had landed outside at that point, they’d have probably just shot us on site, thinking we were rotters!
Becky and Maddison served us a feast of beans and tinned tomatoes. If only we had the rest of the full English, or was that full Scottish, who cared, I missed bacon. Maybe one day we’d keep pigs and chickens and other animals, I could only hope back then.
Once we’d all eaten, we didn’t really discuss what we were going to do that day. I said that I was going to take Babs and the kids down to the Gamebird for a shower as at least we had hot water there and then after that we were going to explore the rest of the island.
After we’d all showered we ventured down to the south side of the island which we hadn’t managed to explore the night before due to the failing light. We had to negotiate a very over grown cliff top path that hadn’t been used for years. Not far along it we reached yet another gun emplacement and then more housing. These were in a worse state than the ones we’d found the night before. Nature had made a hardy attempt at reclaiming these buildings with small trees growing inside a few of them.
We continued on to the south of the island where we found another gun emplacement. This island had clearly been of some importance at some point in its recent history. There was also various storage areas actually cut into the rock itself, all of which hadn’t been used for years. We walked back to the light house, picking the last of the autumn black berries that were still in abundance along the way.
When we got back to the light house most of the group were out and about exploring the island the same as we had been doing. I heard Becky on the radio. Rabbits down here at the west end, I’m going to see if we can get some fresh meat for supper tonight. I took it from that, that we were here for the day at least. BANG! BANG! I heard in the distance, but for once it didn’t send a shiver down my spine. The radio crackled into life again, it was Becky, Yep, rabbit for supper, going to see what else we can find out here.
David radioed in too, I’m going to drop a few pots and do bit fishing whilst I’m out there if anyone wants to join me. Sandie, replied, count me in, I’ll see you down on the Saltwind in five.
Paul and Sophie were still at the light house; Paul said he was going to have a look around some of the buildings next to the helicopter pad to see if he could locate the generator. I told him if he wanted any help, just to give us a shout on the radio.
I was happy for the group, but worried at the same time. I just hoped the guys didn’t think we’d found what we were looking for. Yes, the island was about fifty acres, but it was exposed, how many rabbits and berries would it take to sustain twenty people. If it was a good place to live, why was it abandoned when there had clearly been so many good homes and so close to Scotland’s capital city? We could have made runs to the mainland for supplies as we had done back on our site in Devon. There were loads of smaller ports too, so we could avoid the more populated areas. But I wanted to find somewhere where we could be self-sustainable and I didn’t think Inchkeith was that place. I didn’t want to split our group up and piss on anyone’s bonfire just yet. After all everyone deserved a little bit of respite. So I decided to leave it for a bit and maybe speak with Sandie and Lia later and see what their take was on things.
Chapter Fifty Two
That day seamed to fly by. We left the kids to roam around the light house. Hayley had fetched the mattress from the Gamebird into their room, so I figured she thought they were there for the duration. The rest of the guys had brought all the supplies from the boats into the light house. I felt nervous for the first time thinking about what I was going to tell them, but they had followed my lead so far and it had been my plan to get off the Somerset, so why wouldn’t they listen to what I wanted to do next. I just had to come up with a detailed plan before I spoke to them all.