Tamsin Beech Ch. 06: Ayr

"Uh oh," Ross murmured.

. . .

The tall Russian had to duck down as he moved around the trawler's cramped engine room. Through the hatch from the boat's empty fish hold, a narrow walkway provided access to both sides of the single engine - an oily smelling, noisy piece of machinery over ten feet long that Tamsin guessed might be as much as a hundred years old.

Leonid Denisovich looked up as she stepped over the threshold, then returned to studying an oil pressure gauge.

"Jim's gone. Overboard," Tamsin stated without emotion.

Leonid nodded.

She glared angrily at the side of his head, "Aren't you going to say anything?"

Leonid stared at the patterns of rust on the bulkhead in front of him, "I did what had to be done. He was a good man but he would have slowed us down. You know that. I won't apologise."

"Is that really what you think?" Tamsin demanded.

Leonid turned to face her, keeping his voice level, "What I really think ... is why would the Reivers keep a boat this size? They control the entire border area up as far as Glasgow. Apart from disagreements between clans over territory they can move about freely on land. Why would they need a boat?"

Tamsin gripped the hatchway as realisation dawned, "Oh no ..."

Leonid continued, "Exactly. Your parents' idea when we found the boat was to hide out on one of the islands until we've decided how to proceed. But what if the islands are already swarming with fucking Reivers?"

"We can't stay at sea forever. We'll need food, fresh water and fuel."

Leonid blew out his breath, "Alright, you win. For what it's worth ... I apologise for Matthews. Training overtakes humanity sometimes."

Tamsin looked him in the eye, stinging tears gathering in her eyes, "I sometimes think humanity is all we have left."

. . .

The trawler, which Merida saw fit to christen Novoye Nachalo - 'New Beginning', sailed across Luce Bay, then around the Rhinns of Galloway northward. Past the guano splattered dome of Ailsa Craig, until in the far distance the mountainous island of Arran could be seen on the horizon.

But Tamsin Beech was dreaming ...

It was the evening of her eighteenth birthday back on Lindifarne. She took a tiny sip of the single glass of champagne she'd been allowed, savouring the way the bubbles fizzed on her tongue. Once it was gone she guessed it would be strictly soft drinks for the rest of the evening. General Volk caught her eye from across the room and gave her a curt nod, looking resplendent in his neatly pressed dress uniform with new gold epaulettes. Despite what they'd told her about this being an eighteenth birthday party in her honour, Tamsin knew perfectly well that it was to celebrate Volk's promotion.

She looked around the long candlelit room, the so called Ship Room. The polished black marble floor cleared of furniture to allow space for mingling. Every guest was either a senior Coalition officer or their wife, or else someone from the village brought in to make up the numbers. There was absolutely no-one her own age, the closest being Mr Stanhope, the landlord of the local pub. But even he was in his forties. The villagers stayed in their own little group, as if huddled together for protection against the Coalition officers roaming the castle interior like sharks, desperate to curry favour with Volk.

Something troubled Tamsin about the scene. A minor detail that was somehow vitally important, but hiding just out of sight beneath the surface of her subconscious.

She awoke ...

"Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rave at close of day ..." Tamsin whispered, remembering something she'd read. But where?"

"What was that?" murmured Leonid, handing her a mug of hot tea. The glow of sunset on their second day at sea tinted everything inside the wheelhouse with an orangey glow. Ross had taken the controls with Merida at his side, looking pale and exhausted. Someone, she had no idea who, had draped a threadbare blanket over her.

"Nothing. Something I read ... somewhere. Rage, rage against the dying of the ... where are we?"

Leonid peered out at a rugged coastline of cliffs dotted with heather and scrubby gorse bushes moving slowly past, "Scotland. As far as I can tell from the few scraps of chart we have onboard, we've just passed Culzean Castle and we're coming up on a town ... Ayr?"

"Ayr? I've never heard of it. But we need supplies Leonid. Desperately. We need to go ashore. Mum, dad? What do you think?

Ross nodded silently, twitching the wheel a fraction to steer the Novoye Nachalo in closer to shore.

"Cooper and McTavish are out on deck," Merida announced wearily, "I'll tell them to keep their eyes peeled. After Heysham we don't need any more surprises."

PART TWO: PROJECT CHRONOS

It was agreed the Novoye Nachalo would anchor a mile offshore for the night rather than run the risk of docking at an unfamiliar port in darkness. The town of Ayr might well be inhabited by scared civilians trying their best to rebuild or just as easily by an army of more bloodthirsty Reivers.

Tamsin, Leonid and Cooper would go ashore at first light in the Novoye Nachalo's battered dinghy, leaving Ross, Merida and McTavish guarding the boat. If it appeared safe to do so, the trawler would then sail into the narrow harbour to take on whatever supplies and fuel they could find. If any.

. . .

Ludmila Mudak sipped her wine. President Zakhvatchikov had it imported especially from the small Coalition colony in France for her, knowing that she couldn't bear the warm English ale. She stretched lazily and leaned back against the soft goose down pillows.

Vladimir Zakhvatchikov, the 'Old Wolf' his own men called him affectionately. She remembered how he had first looked at her, cool and challenging, as she'd stood to attention after first being assigned to the aircraft carrier Lenin. An impressionable young lieutenant recruited from a refugee camp on the Black Sea. Ludmila's breasts tingled beneath the silk of her kimono at the memory. Thoughtfully she slipped her hand inside, coaxing her darkening nipples into a pleasurable stiffness with her fingertips. The wine was starting to course warmly through her bloodstream.

Zakhvatchikov had left to attend a meeting onboard the Baekdusan leaving her alone in his quarters to entertain herself. Entertain herself? Alone? The very ridiculousness of the idea brought a smile to her lips.

Ludmila sank back onto the bed. The light from the oil lamps flickered crazily over the bookshelves and paintings that adorned the steel bulkheads. She closed her eyes. If she couldn't be at the centre of one of Vladimir Zakhvatchikov's private little orgies, she would unfortunately just have to make the most of being alone. Her fingers fluttered slightly on the soft swell of her breasts.

She remembered their first night together, and parted her warm thighs beneath the covers. It had been humid ... a quiet night in late spring with the invasion fleet on its way here to the UK. Ludmila had felt her heart thudding painfully as the president had invited her into his quarters and without preamble undressed in front of her, still surprisingly fit for a man who'd been in his late sixties back then. She'd wanted to run her fingertips over every inch of him, but held back. Partly from respect for his position, but also out of fear ...

Even now, at the memory of it, Ludmila's lips parted in a soft little groan. Her fingers trailed along her open thighs, gently caressing the smooth flesh above her holdups, reaching up carefully to touch the tender parts that she knew would be swollen and moist already. She ran her tongue over her lips.

Zakhvatchikov had smiled, his grey eyes glittering. He'd walked slowly towards her and torn open the velcro on her uniform jacket. Slipping it from her shoulders, he'd let it fall to the floor. Then he'd bent his head to take each of her breasts in his mouth, feasting on them, suckling with his tongue as she thrust them towards him.

As Ludmila Mudak sprawled on the bed, her fingers stroked her clitoris with increasing urgency. She cupped her mound with one palm, feeling how engorged the flesh felt. But it wasn't enough. She needed something inside. Something thick, and firm ...

She slid impatiently from the president's bed and scanned his desk and bookshelves for anything that might suit her needs. At last, with a sigh of satisfaction, she reached up onto a high shelf and took down an antique spyglass - polished brass wrapped in leather to provide the user with a better grip.

Smiling, Ludmila poured some scented massage oil from a small bottle into her hand, then ran her palm up and down the leather encased cylinder until it was slick and moist. Then she curled herself back on the bed, resting her shoulders against the pillows. Her tongue glistened between white teeth as she parted her legs and began to slowly and sensuously stroke her pouting lips with the spyglass. It glided sweetly across her flesh. Her cheeks grew flushed as she uttered a sigh of contentment.

She remembered how Zakhvatchikov had eased her back and removed her boots and uniform trousers. Ludmila, already quivering with a combination of fear and desire, had reached out desperately for him as he crouched over her. She'd nervously covered his chest with kisses, run her hands over his muscular arms, and when he'd placed her hand on his cock, she'd gasped and felt her cheeks burn. She'd let out a cry, and rubbed herself against his body, begging wordlessly for his attention.

At first he'd teased her, rubbing tantalisingly at her entrance with his throbbing erection, until she'd practically pleaded with him. Then, her pleas had become cries of delight as he impaled her, easing the whole of his length into her, only pausing long enough to let her grip it deep within herself. Zakhvatchikov had toyed with her, sliding the shaft slowly out again so that Ludmila had cried out with loss, only to thrust it back in deeply, as she clutched at him and gasped. She'd orgasmed quickly.

Now, alone on his bed, her breath coming in short gasps, she guided the thick brass and leather shaft of the spyglass into her yearning vagina. Her inner muscles clutched with relief at it, her straying fingers coaxing her clitoris as she imagined Zakhvatchikov plunging himself deep within her, filling her as two of his bodyguards knelt on either side of her head and offered themselves to her mouth.

Ludmila rolled onto her side, her hips thrusting desperately against the spyglass as her whole body spasmed. With furious fingers she slid the shaft hungrily into herself, over and over again, as waves of pleasure engulfed her. She lay back exhausted on the damp cotton sheets, her legs splayed, the spyglass cold and unresponsive within.

The 'Old Wolf' Zakhvatchikov was getting old. Ludmila wondered for how much longer he'd be able to pleasure her that well.

. . .

Tamsin and Leonid dragged the dinghy up onto the north end of Ayr's sweeping curve of sandy beach, while Cooper stood watch. Behind them, silhouetted against the distant hills of Arran, the Novoye Nachalo bobbed on the swell. They'd left Ross, Merida and McTavish onboard, waiting to steer the trawler into Ayr's harbour at an agreed signal.

As they turned off the crumbling Esplanade onto South Harbour Street, the town was silent but for the sound of the incoming tide disturbing plastic bottles and other debris that littered the oily sand. A few turnstones stopped their foraging for molluscs to eye the newcomers warily. The River Ayr flowed sluggishly around banks of silt that had accumulated over forty years, the water surprisingly clear as swallows and housemartins swooped in low over the surface to snatch up midges and sand flies.

"No sign of Reivers," Leonid observed.

"How did you figure that out?" Cooper asked, looking around.

"No skull cairns to mark their territory. We can start in the harbour," Leonid suggested, "if we don't find fuel there, we'll be looking for anywhere that might have had a backup generator in the basement. Hospitals, schools and so on."

Tamsin nodded. She'd brought her bow, ice axe and handgun. Though the latter was now down to its last few rounds of ammunition, so would be of little use in any combat situation. If it looked as if capture by the Reivers was imminent she knew what she'd be doing with her last bullet.

The three of them passed a gutted leisure centre, the wreckage of two apartment blocks where it looked as if one had collapsed into the other, both now overgrown with ivy and bramble thickets as tall as a house and stalks as thick as Tamsin's wrist. New Bridge took them to the north side of the town and on to North Harbour Street. Though meteorite damage seemed minimal, many of the buildings had suffered from fire and shelling at some point in the past. Riverside properties were peppered with bullet holes and old bones littered the cracked and cratered road.

"I've seen photos of how this place used to look," Cooper whispered, "before Thanatos. It was a nice looking town once to be sure. Robert Burns was born just down the road."

Tamsin looked at him, "Who?"

"Auld Lang Syne? Tam O' Shanter?"

Tamsin shrugged.

"Never mind eh," Cooper hunkered down behind a crumbled wall to provide cover for Leonid and Tamsin as they reached Ayr's once busy harbour complex. They'd equipped him with a Kalashnikov loaded with one of their last full magazines.

"You really think we'll find enough diesel to get us any further north?" Tamsin asked her second in command as they picked their way through the rubble, pausing every few steps to listen.

Leonid shook his head, "In all honesty, no. I think we're wasting our time. But if we give up now the last six months will have been for nothing. And the resistance WILL be dead."

A half submerged coaster lay rusting against the south side of the harbour, slowly disintegrating into the water one flake at a time. Tamsin wondered how long it had been there, where had it come from, what had become of its crew. The world was full of a million questions, most of which would never be answered.

The harbour's diesel tanks had been drained long ago. By townsfolk desperate to evacuate the mainland and perhaps try their luck on Arran or one of the islands of the Inner Hebrides they guessed. But sealed in a couple of airtight blue plastic barrels in the darkest corner of a derelict warehouse, they discovered something else of value. Vacuum packed bags of white rice.

"These must have been here since Thanatos," Leonid looked astounded.

"Will it be edible?" Tamsin asked. She'd only eaten rice once or twice back on Lindisfarne and found it bland but filling. Supplemented by hunting and foraging, this would be enough food to last them weeks.

"In theory ... yes," Leonid nodded, "it should keep indefinitely under the right conditions."

"Cooper?" Tamsin called, "signal my dad to bring the Novoye Nachalo into the harbour. We won't be able to get all this in the dinghy without sinking it. Keep your eyes peeled for any other movement."

. . .

As the morning wore on, the Novoye Nachalo docked and the barrels were loaded onboard. Leaving Ross, Merida and McTavish with their vessel once more, Tamsin, Leonid and Cooper turned east. A faded tourist map of the town indicated there had once been a college and university campus not far away, either of which might have had a generator.

All along John Street the three of them stayed alert, expecting at any second to encounter a horde of screaming Reivers to burst from one of the abandoned buildings. But there was no-one. It seemed that the entire town had simply been left for nature to re-establish herself.

Ornamental trees had grown unchecked, their roots splitting the dusty pavement slabs apart. Waist high weeds sprouted from every gutter and crack in the road. It was late morning when Tamsin spotted movement near Dam Park Stadium. Cooper dropped to one knee and with a single shot from his AK felled a scrawny but fully grown red deer stag.

"Good shooting Coop," Tamsin slapped the Irishman on the shoulder, "stay here with the carcass. We don't want any predators stealing our prize."

"Predators?" Cooper asked nervously.

"Yeah. Wolves, bears. My Aunt Jessamy even told me there were crocodiles down in Cumbria years ago. Any sign of trouble, come find us. We won't be long."

Cooper nodded.

. . .

The University of the West of Scotland campus spread along the north bank of the River Ayr. Without huge amounts of food, clothing or potential weapons to plunder, its buildings had been largely ignored by looters. Apart from structural damage from seismic activity at some point in the past they appeared surprisingly intact. Tamsin and Leonid picked their way across a slippery lake of broken glass fragments where it looked as if hundreds of the university's windows had simultaneously shattered.

Tamsin stopped suddenly, peering up at the silent accommodation blocks around them.

"What is it?" Leonid whispered urgently.

Tamsin looked at him wide eyed, "I don't know. I just had a feeling like ..."

"Like what?"

She shook her head, "Someone ... walked over my grave. It's nothing."

"Do you want to go back? Look elsewhere?"

Tamsin forced a smile, "I'll be fine. Let's carry on."

They found their way into the main building, an enormous slab of a structure that had been built to be environmentally friendly at the beginning of the century. Solar panels from the roof now lay in shattered heaps in the car parks outside, blown off by the freak storms that had followed Thanatos. Doors hung drunkenly on twisted hinges, the internal corridors littered with collapsed ceilings and picture frames - the artwork that had once decorated the walls long disintegrated.

How many students had walked these corridors at the beginning of the twenty first century, Tamsin wondered, oblivious to the apocalypse about to engulf the planet? Hundreds, thousands of young men and women only a few years younger than herself, but none of them equipped with the same skills. How many had killed at only eighteen?

"So this place was like a ... a school?" asked Tamsin.

"University," Leonid nodded, "for the brightest of the bright. All the universities in Russia were already gone, well before I was born."

"The same here I think. I had school in Berwick Upon Tweed," Tamsin explained, "then when they took me to Lindisfarne I had a tutor."

"To prepare you no doubt."

"Prepare me?" Tamsin asked.

"To marry the North Korean's leader and cement the alliance. Kim Napp Gylan wouldn't have wanted to marry an ignorant peasant girl. Now, let's find the basement. If there's a generator, that's where it'll be," Leonid whispered.

Tamsin glanced at the Russian. Why was he whispering? Did he have the same sense of unease and impending danger she had? "Let's hurry it up. This place is starting to give me the fucking creeps."

It took another half an hour of searching in the semi darkness, shifting debris away from doors and trying to make sense of faded signage and floorplans. But eventually, Leonid shouldered his way through a heavy set of double doors and found concrete steps leading down, "Ladies first."

Tamsin quickly lit one of the battered lanterns they'd brought along for just such an eventuality and cautiously descended into the darkness.

Rat droppings littered the gritty steps, thick cobwebs festooned the low ceiling above, catching in Tamsin's thick red hair as they proceeded one step at a time. They scanned the way ahead for footprints, handprints, anything that might suggest someone had been there recently. But there was nothing.

The silence grew profound like a smothering blanket, making Tamsin want to speak aloud. But if she did, what else might be down there with them to hear it? They continued, past cupboards stocked with cleaning supplies, mops and buckets. Past lockers where the maintenance staff would have once left their coats and personal effects. Until finally they arrived at another set of double doors ...