7th, to 10th March
On the seventh, the morning of the evacuation, George was woken by the sound of an engine. He hurried outside, just in time to see the small ambulance disappearing down the lane. It wasn’t a real ambulance, just a minibus that had been converted to take a stretcher that was only ever used to take residents to the hospital or the funeral home.
He’d thought about loading Mrs O’Leary into the back and just driving them away, but when he’d tried the engine he’d seen the fuel gauge was on empty. He’d fed a piece of wire into the tank, and from the length that was damp when he pulled it out, he thought there was just enough petrol to get over the hills, but it would be free-wheeling down the other side. After that, whichever way you looked at it, it was going to be a very long walk.
At breakfast, a previously prohibited quantity of bacon and eggs, fried bread and the last of the fresh tomatoes, he’d found four of the residents were missing. None of those who remained had any idea where they had gone or that they’d been planning an escape. After he’d finished the washing up, he went outside to sit on the wall by the gates. He stayed there for most of the day, coming inside only to put together a simple lunch for the residents. He saw no sign of the missing ambulance, and beyond an occasional and oddly shaped shadow at the cottage’s window, there was no sign of Mr McGuffrey.
What he was really watching out for, though he wouldn’t admit it even to Mrs O’Leary, was a bus or truck or any other vehicle that might have been sent to evacuate the home. None came.
The next three days were consumed with cooking and washing up and caring as best he could for Mrs O’Leary. He checked the doors at night and unlocked them first thing in the morning. Occasionally he’d glance up towards the cottage on the hill, wondering what McGuffrey was up to. He was certain the man was there. The conclusion George had reached was that McGuffrey was waiting for everyone in the home to starve to death. Then he could head off to one of the enclaves, claiming the residents had died, but that he had tried to save them.
At lunch on the ninth, he used up the last of the bread. At dinner on the tenth he used up the last of the beef, and, with the last of the fresh milk gone off, he opened one of the four cases of UHT.