Blood Roots: Are the roots strong enough to save the pandemic survivors? Read Free Page A

she pressed.
    Mark scratched his chin. ‘The best time to head away from New Zealand to avoid hurricanes is May or June.’
    ‘That’s nine months away!’
    ‘We’ll need that long. In fact we’ll be lucky to be ready that soon.’
    ‘We’ll be ready,’ Jessica said firmly. ‘There’s no way I’m waiting yet another year.’
    ‘Assuming we get away in May, we should be back in England for Christmas next year,’ Fergus said, keen to keep his partner happy.
    Mark shook his head.
    ‘Surely we can be there by Christmas.’
    ‘I want to visit the west coast of America on the way.’
    Suddenly Mark realised why the invisible force had allowed Steven to sail without him. There was no way, given the influence of Penny, that he could have convinced his headstrong son to divert to America on the way back to England. ‘We know from Aunt Margaret’s revelations that we had relatives in America carrying the same gene as we do. We have to try to find any other survivors of the pandemic.’
    ‘It’ll be like hunting for a needle in a haystack.’
    ‘Aunt Margaret told me Uncle William had settled in San Francisco.’
    ‘Aunt Margaret told you she
thought
he had settled in San Francisco, or San Diego, or San something or other,’ Fergus corrected him. ‘She couldn’t remember. There are a hell of a lot of places starting with San on the west coast of America and Mexico.’
    ‘He was a merchant seaman. Chances are he settled in a major seaport. It’s almost certainly San Francisco.’
    ‘Even assuming you’re right, what are the chances his descendants will still be living there?’
    It was clear to Mark he was going to have his work cut out convincing Jessica and Fergus so he changed the subject. ‘Planning our route is the least of our problems. First we’ve got to find a suitable yacht.’
     
    A week later the search party was ready. It was agreed that Mark, Zach and Nicole would conduct the search, while Fergus and Jessica remained at the community and looked after the younger children. Mark, Zach and Nicole each had two horses, one a packhorse to carry provisions. Mark carried a rifle, but only a dozen rounds of ammunition.
    As the horses plodded up the hill away from the ruins of the canal-side houses, Zach and Nicole chatted excitedly. They hadn’t left the peninsula for almost six years. Their grandfather had promised them that in addition to searching for a yacht, they could visit their old home and their father’s grave in the Auckland suburb of Epsom.
    Sticking out of the pannier of Zach’s packhorse was a wooden cross he had carved, inscribed with the words ‘In memory of Jane Donna Owen, beloved wife of Bruce Owen’. Zach was determined that while his mother’s body had never been found, her memory would be preserved alongside the cross on his father’s grave.
    The party made good progress along the road that followed the spine of the peninsula.  They could see gannets dive-bombing into the sea off Arkles Bay and dolphins playing in the sheltered waters of Stanmore Bay. Several times they had to divert around landslips and trees that had fallen across the road, but they knew the ground well and reached the end of the peninsula in less than two hours.
    ‘Which way are we going, Granddad?’ Nicole asked, as they turned off the peninsula and headed south towards the settlement of Silverdale.
    ‘I don’t think we’ll be able to get over the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Your Uncle Steven said the bridge had been wrecked by the tsunami, but I’m hoping the Greenhithe Bridge will have survived. The force of the waves should have dissipated by the time they got that far up the harbour.’
    They heard dogs barking in the distance. Mark’s hand nervously reached for the rifle case strapped to his saddle. Packs of vicious dogs had become a major problem in the aftermath of the pandemic. That threat was one of the reasons none of the community’s children had been allowed to leave the