Beth had a simple task to save her family’s lives. Get them to the evacuation boat in time for the first trip. No more, and no less. What would help was that she had already convinced her father to leave. What wouldn’t, was that she had no way of explaining just how urgent it was. To them, missing the first trip would involve no more than a mild inconvenience. Only Beth knew it would end in their deaths. Beth scoured The Book for every hint she could unearth about why it predicted they’d be late, and took it person by person.

  Her little brother, Oakley, was the clear worst offender. It described him as doing everything he could to drag his feet. It was more than his usual lateness and irritability. It was a calculated weaponisation of every frustration he could cause. Beth paused over a particular paragraph.

  Could it be that simple?

  She joined Oakley where he was reluctantly setting the table. Sophie and her father were still in the kitchen, making elaborate plans about what they’d be doing with Peter once they arrived. Oakley was visibly unhappy.

  “Excited to see Peter soon?” asked Beth, as if she hadn’t noticed Oakley’s expression.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “You have mixed feelings,” said Beth. “I understand. It is a pity that it will delay restarting your schooling. And just when they’re allowing you to go back.”

  Mention school, and not Oakley’s chances to see his friends. Well, his horde of playmates, at any rate, she hardly ever met the same one twice.

  Oakley dropped a fork. “Delay?”

  Beth deliberately misinterpreted him. “Well, yeah, delay. It’s not like it would prevent it forever. At least, probably not prevent forever. I’m sure they’ll figure out something eventually. They’d more-or-less have to, wouldn’t they?”

  Oakley tried to play it cool. “But not as quickly as if we don’t go, you don’t think?”

  “If we stay here then we’ll have priority in flying home,” invented Beth shamelessly. “But if we’re ‘back in the country’, as it were, even if on an outlying island, they won’t prioritise us. We might very well have to stay in Pines until everything blows over. Sounds like Dad has plans to stay months by the sound of all the things he has planned.”

  “Peter has a proper computer,” said Oakley, with some suspicion. “They’ll offer online classes.”

  “Oh, a computer, sure,” said Beth. “But not a proper internet connection. You know how flaky he’s been about video calls recently. You might get lucky and manage some of your classes online. But you’d never know when, or for how long.”

  And neither would the teachers, so faking a lack of connection would be easy. Beth didn’t say that out loud, but she knew she didn’t have to.

  “How long do you think it would take?” asked Oakley. “If we went to Pines instead of directly home?”

  “I’m sure it wouldn’t be that long,” said Beth. “Maybe only a few weeks. I can’t imagine it really taking months.”

  Oakley was suddenly greatly interested in lining up the cutlery to be the same height. Beth wasn’t even exaggerating how long it might take. She didn’t have to. With how bad she knew the infection was going to get, she suspected it was going to be a considerable time before things stabilised enough to get them home. Sophie called them through to grab the food, so Beth left it at that. Perhaps yes, it was that simple. She’d check in with The Book later.

  They sat down, and Sophie frowned at the empty place. “Calley!”

  “I’m on the phone!” came the distant voice.

  Sophie sighed. “Beth, could you…?”

  Beth began to get up, but her father waved at her to stay seated. “If she doesn’t want to come, then clearly, she isn’t hungry. Everyone, help yourselves. And whose phone is she using anyway? Beth?”

  “You did say she could use it every day while we were on holiday,” reminded Beth.

  “Utter nonsense. In my day, you didn’t find us living in each other’s pockets like that.”

  “Wait,” asked Oakley. “You guys didn’t have phones? I thought phones were, like a hundred years old already. You can’t be that old.”

  “We only phoned each other for important matters,” said her father, with dignity.

  Beth was willing to bet they hadn’t. She bet they called each other to discuss any random nonsense that crossed their minds.

  “Eat,” Sophie ordered Oakley, and he reluctantly dropped it.

  By the time Calley arrived, she was left with some half-burnt chips, tuna without mayonnaise, but as much wilted salad as she could stand.

  “Looking forward to tomorrow?” asked Beth.

  In The Book, Calley had threatened to delay them mainly by being disorganised. There had been bits and pieces all over their shared room that she’d objected to Beth touching. Calley even had a painting out that she’d absolutely refused to pack until it had finished drying. In the end, the fuss with Oakley had given her plenty of time to handle it herself, but Calley would have made them late if not for that.

  “The Great Square Castle?” Calley asked in confusion. “I thought that was closed now.”

  Beth winced internally. The Book had suggested that Calley had been so unorganised because she had no idea there was any plan at all. Which was absurd. Someone would have said something at some point. The family wouldn’t have just forgotten to tell her at all.

  “Not the castle,” replied their father impatiently. “Don’t you listen to anything anyone says? Too busy chatting to your little buddies, no doubt. Really, Beth, you can’t just go lending your phone to her all the time. She’ll never learn any limits that way.”

  “What is happening tomorrow?” asked Calley.

  “We’re picking up sticks and moving to Pines,” said Oakley. “Catching an early evacuation boat from the harbour. Going to join Peter, you see.”

  Calley was silent for a moment. Then she asked cautiously, “Does Peter know we’re coming?”

  “Yes,” said her father. “I managed to get hold of him earlier. He’s thrilled of course. This is all working out so perfectly.”

  Calley’s expression looked like she disagreed. But why wouldn’t he be thrilled? Peter had told Beth himself how upset he had been that he couldn’t join them. Now they were getting a second chance.

  “We have to leave very early tomorrow,” said Beth. “Do you need any help in packing tonight?”

  “No, thank you,” said Calley. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  Beth wouldn’t push it just yet. If Calley hadn’t finished by bedtime, Beth would step in more forcefully than it appeared she had in The Book.

  That was two down, and two to go. The last pair were simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult. The easiest, because there hadn’t been anything other than indifference that had made them tolerate being late. The hardest, because there wasn’t any straightforward way to correct that. Beth was helping with washing the dishes when an idea struck her.

  “We should probably pack the rest of the food for us to eat tomorrow,” she suggested to Sophie. “We might need to eat breakfast on the boat, and who knows how long it will take to buy some when we arrive.”

  Which was actually an excellent point. They’d be on that boat for three solid days. The Book hadn’t mentioned food during the quarantine one way or the other. Beth assumed that a lack would have been important enough to merit a mention, whereas the presence was just normal. But who could be sure?

  Sophie looked around a little blankly. “There isn’t much left. We’ve eaten our way through all our snacks already.”

  “We still have some ‘healthy’ stuff left, don’t we? Probably better for us to eat that than our normal snacks anyway.”

  Beth knew that her father would absolutely hate that. For all that he complained about not being served healthier meals, he was also the first to protest about rabbit food.

  “We can still pick up food tomorrow morning,” said Sophie. “There are takeaway places still open, especially at the harbour. I’m sure they serve breakfast.”

  Beth sighed theatrically. “With the restrictions on supplies, they never have enough food to last very long. The fishermen get it all.”

  “We are aiming to be at the docks quite early,” said Sophie. “We can just… leave a little earlier.”

  “If we leave on time. Really, what are our chances of that? Might as well pack the food up. At least that way it won’t go to waste.”

  “I suppose so,” agreed Sophie.

  Beth knew that Sophie would immediately turn around and point this all out to her father. With any luck, that would be all the incentive he would need.

  Once they had converted all the contents of the fridge, freezer and cupboards into avant-garde lunchboxes, Beth returned to her room to finish packing. Calley was already busy sorting things out on her bed. Perfect. Surely, by now Beth had done everything she needed to succeed. She made sure that Calley was too involved to pay attention, and, with soft quiet reverence, Beth opened The Book.

  No change.

  Don’t panic, Beth told herself. It hadn’t changed when she’d done things slightly differently from stated in all these weeks. It hadn’t changed when she’d decided to do something if the prediction about Uncle Alex came true. Maybe it only changed when she made a big enough action. Maybe it only changed when there was something she needed to be warned about. All Beth could do was remain alert.

  She spent every minute on edge. Checking and re-checking everyone was ready. Booking a ride in good time on her own account. Actively moving their suitcases out as soon as it arrived. She had a wild vision of picking up her family members, but fortunately that proved unnecessary. Sophie returned the keys to the lockbox, and they all left promptly. While in the car, she stealthily checked The Book.

  Updating.

  Updating? Updating?? What did updating mean?

  Calm down, she told herself. This was a good sign. It meant that something had changed, and that meant they probably had escaped. She had no idea whether The Book had taken some time to update after registering the evacuation in the first place, and she just hadn’t checked during then. She had no idea whether The Book had limitations like distance, or too many decisions not made, or Beth not having met the right people to propel the story. Beth would discover the limits of The Book in time, or she wouldn’t. She switched off her reader. She just had to focus on the here-and-now.

  Her father got to order his greasy breakfast, and Beth sent the twins off to the little corner convenience store to buy as many chocolates, biscuits and crisps as they would allow. Even with all that, they were early. The family joined the queue just as it started to form, and Beth finally allowed herself to believe they would make it. They shuffled through a conveyor belt of processes. Verification of their identity. Checks that their luggage was under the maximum weight and didn’t contain anything banned. Testing to make sure none of them were stage two of infection, questions to hope none of them were stage one. Beth was impressed at the organisation.

  She was less impressed at the boat. It felt hostile to humans. It was a cargo ship that also acted as a car ferry, not that cars were being allowed for the evacuation. There would be no access to the sky, with the top deck full of industrial-looking cubes. Only half a deck was configured for the guest cabins and lounges normally provided for the HGV drivers, but Beth and her family weren’t influential enough to be assigned there. The rest of the decks were sterile and open warehouses, all subtly the wrong height – the car decks uncomfortably low, the truck decks uncomfortably high. Beth looked around in discomfort. Having to stay there for three days was already disturbing enough. The thought of people being trapped here, with no sun to run to, just waiting for people to enter stage four…

  But the organisers had done their best. Even for a trip they hadn’t expected to take more than an hour and a half, they had installed additional portable toilets on every deck, water dispensers, and even large urns for hot water, coffee and tea. And this was the first trip, not the disastrous second. They were on board, and safe. Beth had succeeded. It might have taken a little fudging of the truth, but really, not much. And it wasn’t like she was doing it maliciously. She was sure that if her family knew all the information she did, they’d have agreed.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  It wasn’t long at all until they reached Pines. Beth was already bracing for it when the announcement came down that they wouldn’t be allowed to disembark. The uproar was audible even between the decks. The authorities were unmoved. Beth had some sympathy for the sheer incredulity the various passengers were showing. But there wasn’t much point. The people in charge simply didn’t care about who they were, who they knew or how they intended to vote. Beth didn’t know one way or the other whether the quarantine was legal. She did know that it didn’t matter. The only laws that ever mattered were the ones someone was prepared to enforce.

  Beth did notice that people were complaining about their own comfort, but almost no-one was advocating for the people left behind on the other side of the strait. In a small shameful way, as someone who soon expected to be on the other side of those draconian measures, Beth was glad they would be protecting her as well. If Beth had more power and influence, then she’d have to wrestle with the ethics of pulling up the ladder behind her as soon as her family was personally safe. But she had no influence either way, so she could just be glad they were.

  Eventually, and probably more to the credit of the evacuation co-ordinators than the protesting evacuees, some amenities were offered. Camp cots and additional toilets would be brought over, and ‘they’d see’ about food. They didn’t get around to seeing on that first day. Anything available in the lounges disappeared before anyone could even think to argue how it should be distributed. Their family was still okay. They polished off the packed meals Beth had made, even the despised lettuce. They also consumed a higher percentage of the snacks than she was comfortable with. It wasn’t that she disagreed with her father. She did think they would sort something out. She just wanted to conserve their own supplies for as long as possible, just in case.

  Beth periodically checked The Book, but it was unchanged. Updating. Knowing that she couldn’t recharge the reader for days, she had to ration her usage. It meant sacrificing reading her normal books as well. She constantly found herself with the reader inexplicably already in her hands and had to force herself to return it to her bag. Her phone also had limited lifespan, but if that ran out of charge, that just changed whether she used it earlier or later. She checked that instead, and saw an email come through from Aunty Mary. She took a few deep breaths before she opened it.

  It is with heavy hearts that we announce the death of Alex Palmer, taken from us too soon by super-rabies.

  Government safety guidelines require the body be cremated, and unfortunately the services are currently overwhelmed. We have been given us a tracking number, and we hope to have a better idea of when the ashes will be released within the next few days. The family has decided to postpone the memorial service until that time. We will provide the details as soon as we know them, including all the information needed to attend remotely.

  We deeply regret having to inform you by email, but we have been having difficulty contacting everyone by phone. As we have no idea when that will get fixed, we didn’t want to leave you all uninformed longer than necessary.

  In lieu of flowers, we ask that donations can be made in his memory to your local relief fund for victims of this tragic disease.

  Always in my heart,

  Mary Palmer.

  Beth already knew it had happened. She knew. But until she received this confirmation, she had somehow hoped. Beth painfully typed a reply email with condolences. Her words were clunky and awkward, but nothing she wrote would be good enough. All she could give them was company in their grief.

  Did Beth have to inform anyone herself? Beth had seen her father check his own email earlier, and he hadn’t said anything to her. She scrolled over the ‘To’ list and was relieved that he was already included. Sophie and the twins weren’t. That was fair, Beth supposed. They weren’t related to Uncle Alex in anyway and had never really gotten to know him. Her father probably didn’t want to say anything while things were already so tense. Beth decided not follow suit. In was a hole in her life that wouldn’t be helped by surface-level sympathy, no matter how well meaning. Might as well not burden them with that.

  Beth’s hands itched for a distraction, picking up and putting down her reader and her phone in turn. In the end, all she could do was pace, from one end of the deck to the other, dodging all the impromptu huddles of camp beds and people. Most were complaining about hunger, but there were a few exceptions. The children of one family were thrilled and delighted by everything. The parents actively encouraged that outlook, hiding their own discomfort well away from them. The children of another were too pale and black-eyed with exhaustion to complain. Beth wondered just how far they had already travelled, and how early they had woken up to get to the boat for the first trip.

  The night was even more miserable. Even with the boat securely moored, the deck swayed and rolled. The camp beds were hard ropes and crossbars under too-thin padding. The air was dense with the smell of fear and anger. The space echoed with the noises of hundreds of people turning over, going to the toilet, coughing, and speaking quietly. Just after midnight, some unidentifiable engine noise throbbed to life. A baby started crying, shrill and painful. It soon triggered other babies, and then upset children, and then overtired parents. As soon as one was exhausted, another took its place. The sounds merged into Beth’s dreams, flickers of nightmares of lost souls wandering hell, of being crushed underfoot by a screeching horde of giant foxes, of being trapped inside a metal box with an infected. Beth got up the next morning feeling like she hadn’t had any sleep at all.

  That morning, deck by deck, they lined up for testing. The testing team came aboard in full hazmat outfits, despite not needing anything near that level of protection. In unnecessary protection of another sort, they were accompanied by riot police. It was if they imagined one of the evacuees would suddenly jump all the way to stage four and start mindlessly attacking. Beth almost wanted to repeat her father’s words from earlier in the week to them. It’s still daylight. We’re in no danger here.

  By lunch, the family had finished the snacks, hiding their consumption from the rest of the evacuees. A fellow evacuee, more nobly minded, had given a chocolate to a child. She had promptly been swamped with pleas and demands. After that, everyone ate privately. Things were heading in the direction of being truly dangerous when the organisers finally came through for them. Each person was allocated a bag, with grave warnings that it would have to last them for the rest of the quarantine. The zip-lock bags, ironically labelled “24-hour ration pack”, were at least reassuringly large. Protected by a circle of their cots, the family carefully opened them up and spread out the individual bags inside. Breakfast, lunch, supper, dessert, biscuits, fruits, nuts, snack bars, and enough drink flavourings for a week.

  “How long is this supposed to last us?” asked her father.

  “Quarantine should be over day after tomorrow, if no-one tests positive. This is four thousand calories. That’s more than we usually eat in forty-eight hours anyway.”

  “Hmmm,” he said. “Is it really safe to eat cold? The instructions, right here, says to boil them. If they can’t even give us real food, you’d think they’d at least allow us to heat them up.”

  Beth tried to think of a way to heat many hundreds of meals without asphyxiating everyone in the process, and with only the equipment they were allowed to carry through the quarantine line. She failed.

  “We could try submerging it in hot water,” suggested Oakley. “We have our lunch boxes.”

  Half hot was more dangerous than fully hot or fully cold, wasn’t it? Although maybe that didn’t apply when the food was originally room temperature anyway.

  Calley said, “They’re rationing the hot water now. I just saw them put up a sign. You have to take the individual meal up, if it needs it, and they’ll add the required amount.”

  “It’s perfectly fine cold,” said Sophie with uncharacteristic firmness. “There’s plenty here for five meals. We’ll eat the breakfast tomorrow. One main each for lunch today and tomorrow. We can split all the snacks to eat with the desserts for the suppers.”

  All around them was a brisk trade in meal options. From the sounds of it, there were more vegetable curries on offer than people who wanted them. Oakley disappeared with his own all-day-breakfast and returned with potato curry and an extra sticky toffee pudding. Beth was jealous, but not jealous enough to give up her pork sausages and beans. She dug in with her comically large spork, which at least did help to reach to the bottom of the package without getting her hands dirty. Perhaps it was the hunger speaking, but it tasted fine. It was easily filling enough for a full meal. Once the queues shrunk, they took their chances on drinks. The twins mixed cold drinks, and Beth tried the mint hot chocolate. It was also surprisingly okay. She’d certainly had worse at high-street coffee shops.

  With some food in them, it was like the previous day’s misery had never happened. Objectively, the smell must have been worse, with people and a wild mix of curries and meats both, but Beth was no longer bothered by it. Everyone relaxed and settled in. The tone of interactions became festive. A bunch of kids moved aside the small camps to create some space for a ballgame, and Oakley dragged Calley away from her sketching to join in. Beth could predict they’d be spending more time rescuing the ball than actually playing the game, but either way it would keep them entertained.

  Beth checked The Book. Just once. Updating.

  There was a time when she wouldn’t have left the house without at least one paper book on her, but she’d become reliant on her e-reader. Beth entertained herself instead by analysing the relationships of the various groups she could see from their own little camp, writing down the more interesting of them.

  The sound of raised voices brought her on her feet in panic. She could trust The Book that there weren’t any infected onboard, but the fear alone was enough to be dangerous. The failed shopping trip was proof enough of that. Beth was going to retreat when she realised she could hear Oakley’s voice in the mess. She had no choice but to go closer, hoping all the while that it wouldn’t go catastrophically wrong. Once she was close enough, she could also hear Calley’s voice, deliberately pitched to be soothing.

  “Why don’t we just have a vote?” asked Calley. “Then we can play again with rules that everyone has agreed to.”

  “He called me a cheater!”

  “Because you were,” insisted Oakley. “You don’t get to just claim it as ‘house rules’ every time you get caught.”

  “I didn’t just claim— everyone plays this way.”

  “I don’t, so clearly not everyone.”

  Beth called loudly, “Oakley, Calley, Dad wants you back now.”

  The onlookers parted enough to give them a clear pathway between them. Good. It hadn’t reached the stage where people were hoping for a fight. Oakley was still glowering, but he allowed Calley to push him in the right direction.

  “Sorry everyone,” said Calley. “We have to go. Thanks for the game.”

  On their way back, Oakley burst out again. “He was cheating, though.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Calley. “It’s just a casual game. We weren’t even keeping score.”

  “Why are you defending them?”

  “Because there were more of them than there are of us. The next time you want to get yourself beaten up, don’t do it when I’m not in the line of fire.”

  “Oakley, you do need to be more careful,” said Beth. “It doesn’t matter if you’re right if—”

  “I might have known you were caught up in all that,” interrupted their father, glowering at Oakley. “Can you just stop causing us problems for a single minute? And Beth. I am very disappointed in you. You should have been there. You can’t just be wandering off all the time. Your family needs your support.”

  Oakley looked like he wanted to defend himself, but Calley stopped him. “It wasn’t anything to worry about. Just normal high spirits.”

  “Hmm,” replied their father ominously.

  Calley and Oakley settled themselves on the other side of Sophie, and Sophie spoke up to distract their father. Beth returned to her journal, feeling light-headed with relief. Just a normal childish squabble. Nothing to risk anyone’s lives. It was fine.

  That night, Beth was tired enough to sleep. She had the vague impression of things happening, including that midnight engine noise, but none of it was enough to bring her to full wakefulness. The food selection on that third day might have been a little odd, but it was plenty filling enough. Oakley found a different group to play with, and either they were less objectionable, or Calley was keeping a firmer eye on him. The day was long, but unremarkable. Everyone was bored together, so Beth even had opportunities to chat with the neighbours. She had previously felt too awkward to talk to strangers, but the situation was permission to disregard social conventions. She took the chance to ask about their circumstances, confirming or contradicting the assumptions she’d made the previous day. She was a little taken aback at the sheer enthusiasm most had in telling her their life stories. It was fascinating.

  One last night.

  After their fourth test in as many days, the authorities finally conceded that they were safe. But they didn’t immediately let them free. First, they had to stand through a presentation. Beth imagined that the smell of the portable toilets and all the evacuees – none of whom had a real chance to clean themselves in days – must have been a subtle torture to the representative from Pines. While it was probably blaming entirely the wrong person, Beth couldn’t help being a little satisfied about that.

  The presentation included the requirements for health reporting. The severe consequences for anyone caught looting. The options for registering for transport onwards. The registration process in place for any families intending on remaining in Pines for more than a few days.

  Then, the bad news. There were no hotels, inns or any type of rentals left available anywhere in Pines. Anyone coming off the boat would either have to sign a declaration about which friend of family member they would be staying with, or they would be taken to temporary shelters. They were reassured that the schools, churches and halls were all very comfortable and safe. After a few shouted questions, it was clarified that no, they wouldn’t get to choose which shelter. They’d go where they were told, and like it.

  “Did we book a place before we left?” asked Beth, with a cold feeling in her stomach.

  Sophie and her father stared at her and then at each other. “No.”

  Beth should have checked. Or perhaps, no. Perhaps they wouldn’t have found a place, and it would have discouraged them from coming at all.

  “Which one do you hope we’ll get?” asked Beth, trying to sound upbeat about the whole affair.

  “Nonsense,” said her father. “We’re not refugees. We’ll be moving in with Peter.”

  “Into his… shared apartment?” asked Calley.

  Beth couldn’t help but agree with her this time. Obviously, Peter would love to host them if it was at all practical, but it didn’t strike Beth as particularly practical.

  “The flatmate isn’t even there,” said her father. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Would he be okay with us using his room?” asked Beth.

  “That’s still only two bedrooms for six of us,” said Calley.

  “We’ll make do. This is hardly a time to be fussy. We all need to make sacrifices. I’m sure Peter’s roommate will appreciate that. Or do you want to spend more nights in the same room as hundreds of other people? No privacy, and no peace? No-one decent would leave us to that if they could do something about it.”

  Without any further discussion, their father went to put down their names against Peter’s address. They could see later, Beth supposed. It was another queue to disembark, and Beth took a quick peek at The Book.

  Version 1.2.0. It had updated.

  They exited into the small marina. Beth’s father looked around like he was expecting Peter to waiting for them. He even tried a phone call. One by one the busses to the shelters left, leaving the family standing there with their bags. What few cars were available were booked up without a trace.

  “It’s not that far,” said Sophie. “We can walk.”

  They walked. It was easy enough to position herself at the back of the group, backpack over her shoulders and pulling her wheeled suitcase. Beth used her free hand to quickly skim through the content of The Book. Unlike the previous short story, this was closer to novel length. Which said very reassuring things about their life expectancies. An unexpected phrase jumped out at her.

  Beth stifled an incredulous laugh. Aliens. Why not. After magical predictive books and zombie apocalypses, were aliens really too much for her to believe? But did higher-dimension abilities mean… super-powers? Beth knew how vague The Book could be, but there’d be some hints. This could change everything. Peter would have some ideas of what to do, she knew. And she was just minutes away from seeing him again.

  “What do you think, Beth?”

  “Well,” said Beth drawing out the word. “I guess it—”

  As expected, Oakley started speaking over her, saving Beth from having to admit she had no idea what she’d been asked. She slid her reader into her coat pocket. In a little bit, she’d finally have someone to discuss it with. Deep inside, she was a little scared about whether he’d believe her. This was even more outlandish than the original story had been. Peter would only have her word that the original versions had been written before the events they described. But this was Peter, and Peter knew her. He’d take it seriously because she was taking it seriously.

  “How much further to Peter’s place?”

  Not much longer.