Phage: Deluge Book 2: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story)

by Kevin Partner

  Buzz looked out over the bay and shook his head. “We can’t keep taking people in.” Warm sunlight glinted off the waves of the “Arkansas Sea” as he tried to count how many tiny islands he could see in that direction. At least three or four. And they were probably the last specks of land between here and the mountains of east Cuba.

  “Look, Buzz, we can’t leave them to fend for themselves. Masie’s gettin’ better, but I reckon Dom’s comin’ down with it hisself. Now’s the time to make the move—before he gets too sick to walk.”

  Buzz ignored the old man. He had no intention of letting Dom, Masie and their nine-year-old daughter Crystal into his compound. It wasn’t just that they would further erode his stock of supplies; it was the threat of disease that bothered him the most.

  Dom had said that Masie had fallen into the water, which seemed a reasonable explanation for how she’d gotten the sickness. Billions of human and animal bodies all decomposing at once was almost certain to bring on a phage. But if it turned out that he was also ill, then either he’d gone into the water without telling them, or he’d contracted it from his wife. Which would mean the disease was contagious. And that made it an existential threat to Buzz and everyone in the compound.

  “Buzz, you hear me?”

  “They’re not coming back to the compound, and that’s final. Have you forgotten the kids there? Look,” he said as Hank’s shoulders sagged, “I’ll tend them here. At least the antibiotics seem to be working, so we can treat it.”

  “Yeah, so why not…”

  “Because we’ve only got limited stock. We’ve been over this, Hank. I put aside enough for no more than half a dozen and we’ve already got three times that. If Jodi gets here, then that’s another three or four.”

  Hank shook his head. “So you’ll find space for your niece, but not Dom and his family?”

  “Yes, that’s it exactly.” Buzz turned back toward the white house. “But in the meantime, I’m going to do my best to make sure Masie gets better.”

  He left Hank standing where the road curved around the summit of the hill, looking out over the ocean. Max sat in the rocking chair on the porch, but Buzz paid him no attention. The decision was his and he wasn’t about to feel guilty about reserving a seat at the table for his family. His rational mind knew that his hope was illogical, but he couldn’t let it go. To do that would be to acknowledge that all he’d done had been in vain. If she were coming, he’d have been alerted—the same trojan he’d installed on her cellphone to send the text message to come to him would also trigger an alert when she came within range. He could spend days looking out over the ocean and it wouldn’t bring her to him any more quickly. The harsh truth was she’d likely perished. Everything relied on a has-been movie actor exerting more control over her than either her father or, indeed, her uncle had ever managed.

  But he had to keep on hoping. In the meantime, to soften his guilt, he would tend the sick.

  There was no doubt about it, Dom was now ill. He lay in an upstairs bedroom, one moment wrapped tight in blankets, the next kicking them off. Buzz gave him one of his precious stock of Amoxil, trying hard not to resent it as he swallowed. His attempts to prepare for this disaster were coming apart at the seams. Not enough food, questions about water, and already putting a dent in the drug supply.

  “Did you go into the water, Dom?”

  Dom put the glass down, wiped his mouth and forehead, then pulled the blankets tight around him again and fell back into the pillow. “No,” he said, his voice croaky.

  Buzz pulled the curtain back on the window and looked out over the lawn, shaking his head. “What about when you got Masie out?”

  “Uh? No. She fell in… not deep. I helped…”

  “Did you get wet at all?”

  “I… guess. A little. I helped her. Gotta sleep.”

  Leaving him, Buzz went into the other room where Masie lay looking at the window. He’d spent his professional life conducting controlled experiments and yet here was a mystery with too many variables. Had Masie become ill from the water? Probably. Had Dom gotten it by helping her out, or when he’d tended her? If the former, then avoiding open water would prevent further infections. If the latter, then even Buzz himself might now have it. He’d taken as much care as possible, but who knew how contagious it was?

  He fought against momentary panic and forced himself to focus on the woman in the bed. She was looking a little better, and her fever had dropped, but she was still weak and it had taken a ton of Amoxil to get her to this stage. Whatever this contagion was, it had to be kept out of the compound. Which meant quarantining himself until he could be sure he hadn’t gotten it.

  Just coming out of the bedroom, he heard the front door slam.

  “Buzz! Someone’s coming!” Max called out from the bottom of the stairs.

  Buzz ran down to the hallway and drew his handgun. “How many?”

  “Just one. It’s Jo.”

  Rolling his eyes, Buzz pulled the door open. “Why didn’t you say that?” Then he panicked. Why would she be here?

  Jo Rosenberg walked along the path, her trademark smile noticeably absent. “Thank God I’ve found you!”

  “What’s going on? Don’t get any closer,” he said, as she approached. She might even have welcomed a hug, but this was not hugging time.

  “Two of the kids have gotten sick.”

  “Sick in what way? Food poisoning?”

  She shook her head. “Some sort of fever. They’re burning up.”

  Buzz’s jaw opened. “But Hank and Max were only there yesterday!” He spun around. “Max! Keep back.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to check your temperature; see if you’re carrying it.” Buzz couldn’t imagine how Max could have it unless he also had it. It was turning into a plague. And they didn’t have enough drugs to treat everyone.

  He pulled the digital thermometer out of Max’s mouth. 98 degrees. “You’re okay. Go fetch Hank, will you?”

  Max ran off as Buzz turned back to Jo. “We were sleeping here two nights ago, planning to set off around the island the following day, when a family broke in. The mother was sick, so we treated her. She’d fallen in the water, so I assumed that’s how she got infected, but now the father’s come down with it.”

  “What is it, boss? Oh, hi, Jo. What you doin’ here?”

  “Hank,” Jo said, nodding as he came puffing through the open door.

  Buzz wiped down the digital thermometer and gave it to Hank. “Here, I need to take your temperature.”

  The older man looked surprised, then put the tip under his tongue.

  “Mildly elevated,” Buzz said, taking it out after it beeped. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Sure. Could do with some sleep, but none of us has gotten much rest these past few days.”

  He looked at Jo. “The children who’ve come down with it—did they come into contact with Hank?”

  She shrugged. “Pretty much all the kids did. You know what they’re like with him.”

  Buzz cleaned his hands with a disinfectant wipe. “Hank, I think you’ve got it. Maybe you’ve had it a couple of days, but the symptoms are mild for some reason. You need to keep your distance. Jo, we’ve got to head straight back. Those kids need to be separated from the others and we’ve just got to hope they haven’t given it to each other.”

  This was in danger of going out of control. Maybe it was already too late, but he knew his place was back at the compound. It could all be falling apart around him, but his place was at the center of it all.

  “What about Dom, Masie and the kid?” Hank said, feeling his forehead as if trying to confirm Buzz’s diagnosis.

  “We’ll leave the amoxycillin here. Masie’s well enough to look after Dom.”

  “And the kid?”

  “She’ll have to help look after them both.”

  This time, Hank didn’t argue, he simply called Max over and told him to pack his things.

  #

 
Foreboding rose like a great wave in Buzz’s heart as he accelerated down the tree-lined slope of the valley’s lip toward the compound. His first glance had shown nothing obvious wrong, but then what did he expect?

  Fear drove him on, but over it all lurked a terrifying guilt. Oh, how he’d resented these newcomers when they’d turned up over a week ago, ruining all his careful calculations as they descended on his stockpiles like locusts.

  The words of Ebenezer Scrooge taunted him as he scrambled down the slope, the others struggling to keep up with him. “Die? They had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

  And he couldn’t be sure that even his guilt was entirely honest. Perhaps his real concern was that they would survive having drained his drug supplies of every last antibiotic. But no, he wasn’t that callous and calculating.

  Why did he care? What did it matter if a dozen children survived when tens, maybe hundreds, of millions had perished in a catastrophe he’d failed to prevent? It mattered because he knew them, he’d met them—they were not the faceless casualties of negligence.

  He came in through the hidden rear entrance, unlocking the padlocked steel gate with shaking hands as he heard hurrying feet behind him.

  “Where’s Hank?” he asked, seeing that Jo was the only one who’d kept up.

  “He’s struggling. Max is helping him. You go ahead; I’ll wait up and lock the gate once they’re inside.”

  The gate opened onto a narrow patch of ground where the valley met the hills that ran west to east, sealing it off. The main buildings were only fifty yards away and Buzz ran across the grass, low scrub and gravel, heading for the main entrance. It was the suspense that was torturing him. Give him data and he could work with it; come up with solutions. In the fog of ignorance, he was as helpless as…well, everyone else.

  The door swung open before he was halfway across the gap and Anna emerged into the warm spring sunshine, her face etched with concern.

  “Where’s Jo? Did she find you?”

  Buzz stood with his hands on his knees as he caught his breath and pointed behind him. “At…the gate…waiting for Hank and…Max.”

  “Well, at least something’s gone right today.” She put a hand out as if to help support him, but he straightened up and stepped back.

  “No,” he said, taking a final deep breath. “We have to keep some distance between us until we break out the masks and gloves.”

  Anna’s face betrayed her shock. “Seriously? It’s just a cold, isn’t it? You’re acting as if it’s 2020.”

  “Thing is, Anna, we’ve got no backup here. Those kids depend on us, so the adults have got to stay healthy,” he said. “Now, what’s the latest?”

  She nodded her understanding. “Another one came down with it a couple of hours ago. I’ve separated the sick ones into…look, I’m sorry, I had to use your niece’s room.”

  “It’s okay,” Buzz said, abandoning that particular faint hope.

  “And I’ve split the others evenly throughout the house. With any luck, that’ll mean they won’t all get it.”

  Buzz turned to see Jo approaching, with Max and Hank following. The old man was walking slowly, but otherwise looked better than Buzz had feared he might. “Have any kids been near the water?”

  “Of course not. Well, not since the school bus got caught in the wave. But that was, what, nine or ten days ago? Could it take that long to incubate?”

  Buzz shrugged. “Maybe, but it could just as easily be that one person catches it from the water, then others spread it by contact or through the air.”

  “So, how did the kids get it?”

  “From Hank. He got it from Masie, a woman we found on the other side of the island. She got it from the water.”

  Anna swayed from side to side a little, something she always did when pondering, Buzz had noticed. “What now, then?”

  “The good news is that antibiotics work,” Buzz said, turning to address them all. “The bad news is that our stocks are limited, so we have to use them in the most efficient way.”

  “And what’s that?”

  Buzz shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. Maybe we should give a dose as soon as a person gets a fever, but then we might be using it unnecessarily with people who’d get better anyway. On the other hand, if we leave it too late, then we might need to use a ton of meds.”

  He glanced over at the house, then took in the whole compound. “We need more room. Experience says that it’s likely spread by close contact and, probably, aerosol. So, healthy kids need to be kept outside as much as possible, but the more space between them when they come inside, the better.”

  “How do we do that? There’s no more room in the house.”

  Buzz gestured across to the long row of buildings opposite. “We’ll have to convert…”

  “The cowshed?”

  “No. There’s extra space in the stockrooms. We’ll have to move some shelving around and rig up some beds, but it’ll do. We keep the sick in the house and bring the healthy there.”

  “I’ll help,” Jo said.

  Buzz gave a tired smile. “Thanks. Max, you too.”

  “And me,” Hank said.

  “No, you’ve got to keep your distance,” Buzz said. “If you feel up to it, go man the gate. But if you start feeling ill, radio immediately. Okay?”

  Hank gave a half-mocking salute, but the relief in his face was obvious. “Sure, boss.” He turned on his heels and made his slow way to the ATV parked by the farmhouse door.

  “Who looks after the children?” Jo asked.

  Anna sighed. “I’ll look after the sick ones for now, if you handle the others. But I’m going to need to take a break at some point.”

  “I’ll break out the protective equipment,” Buzz said.

  “And I’ll do the swing shift,” Jo continued.

  Buzz felt a moment of disappointment as the prospect of spending more time with her disappeared, to be replaced with the task of looking after the healthy kids on his own.

  “I’ll help,” Max said.

  Buzz considered this for a moment, weighing the risk that Max had caught the disease from Hank with the undeniable help he’d be in managing the children.

  “Sure,” he said. “Thanks. Now, let’s get the storeroom fixed.”

  Chapter 10

  Crystal

  Ellie woke up, stinking of salt and sea and sewage. She was lying on a blanket thrown across the bed in her cabin, a spear of light across her face. It took a few minutes to come around enough to bring events back to the present.

  She breathed in through her nose, sneezing as salt crystals tickled her nostrils. Yes, she could see the rope, her hands clasped around it as she tried to resist the efforts of the ocean to rip her from it and claim another victim.

  She saw a hand reaching out to haul her aboard. She felt Patrick’s gray-stubbled face rubbing against her cheek. She tasted the vomit as she emptied her stomach all over him. She heard his disgust, but allowed herself to be led away to lie in the ruins of the saloon where someone else waited. Tom?

  Now she’d awakened on her own bed, and she rolled over, her nose poking a piece of paper.

  Good morning/afternoon. Have a shower for the love of God. I’d rather die of thirst.

  Pat.

  PS: make it a navy shower. We’re not made of water.

  She grunted. He really was a smartass, but he’d saved her life, and she truly reeked, so she climbed wearily out of the bed and made her way into the shower.

  As her discarded clothes lay like an injured beast on the floor, she climbed into the cubicle, turned on the water and shivered for a count of thirty, rubbing herself vigorously to get all the filth off her. She stopped the water flow and lathered herself up, enjoying the sense of cleansing and renewal as she did so, extending the suds into her gritty brown hair, getting herself as clean as possible before turning on the clean, cool water again to rinse the crud away.

  As she opened the door of the cubicle, she sto
od for a moment, breathing deeply and appreciating the sense of being clean. The only thing that stank now was the pile of putrid rags she’d been wearing. She gathered them up—making sure to touch them as little as possible—then climbed the forward ladder and flipped the top. She poked her head out of the opening, checking for any sign of Patrick, then threw the bundle into the sea and returned to her cabin.

  “That’s better,” Patrick said as she emerged to stand beside him at the helm. “You looked, and smelled, like something the cat might drag in.”

  She smiled. “Thanks for saving me.”

  “You’re welcome. Couldn’t leave the captain behind,” he said, bowing.

  “Where are we headed?”

  “We’re back on our original course. I used the last of the gas to get us away from that last island. Luckily the wind is being kind to us.”

  She glanced up at the sails as they strained against their ropes. Then she remembered. “Good grief, how’s Tom and the others?”

  Patrick’s face darkened. “He’s doing okay. Past the worst, I think, but Jodi and Lewis are fading fast. That bloody dog just sits with his paws over the boy’s legs, whining.”

  “Jeez. They need treatment.”

  “Where? There’s no cities above sea level for a hundred miles, according to Jodi’s map.”

  She pointed ahead to where a thin strip of land cut across the horizon. “Any idea what’s over that way?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s too small to show up on the map. But chances are it’s just the tops of some hills, like the last place.”

  “We seem to be heading for it.”

  “Yeah, I’m going to have to get Tom up soon to sort the sails out so we don’t go aground.”

  Ellie put her hand to her forehead. “Maybe we should find somewhere to anchor up rather than skirting by.”

  “Why? What would the point be?”

  “Look,” she said, pointing at the slowly growing line of hills. “I can see houses.”

  #

  Ellie had managed to rouse Tom enough so he could supervise her efforts to take the mainsail down as they approached the muddy bank being eroded by ocean waves. A road wound up out of the water and, where it climbed onto dry land, a tiny harbor had been created. That was where they were heading for, Tom at the helm.