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

by Kevin Partner

  She’d gone below to check on Jodi. Standing in the doorway, she leaned forward and put a plastic cup of water into the recess on her bedside table. Patrick had been doing his best to force water down the throats of both Jodi and Lewis, but, while Ellie hadn’t yet seen the boy, she imagined he looked much like Jodi. Her skin was slicked with sweat, her lips thin and her eyes withdrawn into her face. She hadn’t been to the bathroom in days and yet the towel Patrick had put beneath her was dry. She needed hydration, but without antibiotics, that would only help a little. Whatever the cause of her sickness, Ellie prayed it was bacterial, because if it was viral then she was truly lost.

  And how come Patrick hadn’t come down with it? As soon as she’d woken up and remembered how she’d gotten there, she’d prepared herself to get the disease—she’d swallowed enough seawater, after all. And yet, Patrick had been in the water at the same time and in the same place as Ellie, and he’d looked after all the patients for days. If anyone was going to get it, it ought to be him.

  Talk of the devil. “Ellie! Come on up!”

  She left Jodi there and, not stopping to look at Lewis and Hector, she hurried up to the main deck. Patrick pointed ahead. “Brace yourself,” he said. “We’re coming in hot.”

  Idiot. She said to herself. But she held on to the railing as Patrick swung the wheel to the right, bringing Kujira around in a wide arc.

  “What the hell?”

  “Tom told me to do it. He’s down on the starboard bow with a rope.”

  Ellie gripped tight as the boat seemed to be trying to throw her into the sea.

  Then, with a crunching sound, the keel hit something, throwing her the other way before it righted itself.

  “Tom!” Patrick called. “You okay?”

  Ellie let go of the railing and ran down the ladders onto the bow. Tom was sitting in the water. “Oh my God!”

  “No, don’t come near,” he said. “Just in case. Give me the rope and I’ll tie it up.”

  He raised himself wearily out of the water, mud smearing his backside and down his legs. She threw the rope to him and he looped it over a stop sign and fastened the knot before climbing back onboard.

  “You’d better get a shower,” she said.

  “I’ll use a bucket to get the worst off me,” he replied. “We haven’t got much clean water left.”

  She avoided his eyes as she edged past him and jumped onto the road surface, her heel clipping the water. She’d been as quick as possible in the shower and it had been essential, after all. She made a note to look for any sources of untainted fresh water up here and then watched as Tom clambered clumsily back onto the bow, leaving muddy footprints along the white fiberglass as he made his way back inside.

  Patrick passed him in the opposite direction, stopping for a moment to pat him on the shoulder and speak to him for a few moments.

  “He’s going to take the boat out a hundred yards and drop anchor,” he said as he jumped across the gap.

  “Good idea.”

  “Yeah, though he didn’t seem to appreciate it,” Reid said with a shrug.

  Ellie smiled as she unhitched the rope from the road sign and threw it into the water. “He would probably have appreciated the suggestion before he fell in the mud.”

  Patrick slung the shotgun over his shoulder and they followed the road up the slope then looked back as it turned a bend, winding its way up the hill. Kujira eased its way back, trailing the rope in the water, and Tom let it drift away from the shore before climbing down to the stern and throwing the anchor overboard. The last thing they saw as the road took them inland was his exhausted climb back up the stern ladder and into the saloon.

  “I hope he’s capable of looking after the others,” Ellie said.

  “I’m more worried about pirates. Anyone with a rowboat could take Kujira unless he’s keeping watch.”

  Ellie groaned. “Thanks, I hadn’t thought about that. As if we don’t have enough to worry about. But, we have to take the chance or Jodi…well…”

  “Yeah, I know. And Lewis. Poor kids. Funny how it was the ones who should be healthiest who’ve got it worst. I mean, I was in the water longer than Jodi, and I’ve looked after her. By rights, I should be sick myself. I keep checking my temperature just in case.”

  Ellie pulled the strap of her pack straight. “Let’s just be grateful we’re okay for now. We’ve got to keep it that way if we can.”

  “I got it. No snogging.”

  “No what?”

  Reid flashed a bashful smile. “Never mind. Come on, let’s get going.”

  The road leveled out after a hundred yards or so and emerged onto what looked like a flat ridge. To their left, aspen, birch and larch trees, not yet fully clothed with leaves, formed a rock-dotted fence. On the right, fir and pine trees, less densely planted, marched into the distance, picnic benches sitting deserted beneath them.

  “This place gives me the creeps,” Ellie said. They’d been walking for an hour and Patrick had hardly said a word for most of that time. The silence was starting to get to her.

  He was a step ahead and she saw him straighten up in surprise, as if woken from a dream. “Uh?”

  “I said, this place gives me the creeps. I’m starting to wonder if I imagined those houses I saw. The place seems deserted.”

  “No, I saw them too, once you’d pointed them out. And this road looks fairly recent. My guess is this is a state park, so there should be a campground at the very least.”

  They trudged on for a few more minutes. “You’re very quiet,” Ellie said. “What’s on your mind?”

  He shook his head. “Oh, I was just thinking how much this reminds me of a place I took Brandon to. Jeez, it must be more than twenty-five years ago now.”

  “Brandon? Is he your son?”

  Patrick swung his pack onto the top of a sawn tree trunk, pulled out a water bottle and sat down. Ellie followed suit, allowing her legs to dangle over the side as she looked across the road at the forest.

  “Yeah. Tracey and me had a holiday on the Isle of Wight. Took him to a place called Robin Hill Country Park. Something about all these trees reminds me of it. I was trying to remember whether that was the last time we were ever happy together.”

  “Tracey was your first wife?” Suddenly, it seemed, he was opening up and Ellie was grateful for the distraction.

  Patrick nodded. “Met her at school. Pretty girl with long curly hair. A bit like a petite Minnie Driver. Tiny, she was, but she walloped me more than once. I should never have let her down.”

  He looked out at the forest with such a forlorn expression that, perhaps for the first time, Ellie thought she was looking at the real man, the one behind the mask. Everyone wore a disguise; she knew that well enough from looking in the mirror. As an actor, Patrick was particularly adept. But here and now, as he examined his own past, he revealed who he truly was; who he had become.

  “We’ve all made mistakes,” she said as, without thinking, she slid her hand under his arm and hugged it. “God knows I’ve been an idiot more than once. I’ve got a daughter on the other side of the country and I don’t know if she’s alive or dead.” She wondered to hear herself say those words, and her head dropped as her throat tightened.

  She felt Patrick’s arm around her shoulders and she pulled herself closer. The skin of her scalp tickled as he spoke. “Brandon’s thirty-five now. I want to believe that he might be alive, but if the whole world is under a thousand feet of water, I don’t imagine there’s much of England left.”

  “And Tracey?”

  “She died ten years ago.” And he said it in a voice like a lock snapping shut.

  Ellie leaned back a little and looked up at him. He didn’t get any more handsome the closer you got. From this range, she could detect where the skin around his eyes had been tightened, and his teeth had obviously been worked on. Without a, no doubt, rigorous regime of cosmetics, shaving and plucking, his face was beginning to resemble a stuffed toy coming apart at the s
eams.

  And yet she found herself running her hands up his rough cheeks and drawing him to her. Their lips met, just for a few moments, and when they drew back, they each wiped tears away and, as they realized what they’d done, withdrew their gazes and stared into the trees.

  The silence between them was now total. Ellie’s face felt warm as she strode along the road, heading for an intersection, and she didn’t dare look at Patrick. Her mind was whirring like a pinball machine, firing off in multiple trajectories as it tried to process what had happened and what might become of it.

  For now, however, they had their mission. Both had their regrets for the past, but neither wanted to add the deaths of Jodi and Lewis to the list.

  The intersection turned out to be a turn in the road, with a smaller track heading off into the woods. As they followed the road around, they saw a row of white wood houses peeking out from between the trees, forming a haphazard avenue.

  “Come on!” Ellie said, suddenly rediscovering her energy. She heard Patrick’s heavy boots following her off the road and onto the grass.

  “Be careful,” he said. “We don’t know if anyone’s at home.”

  He was right, but she found herself resenting it. She waited for him as he took the Glock from his pocket.

  The wooden stairs creaked under their feet as they stepped up onto the porch and stood still, listening. It was utterly silent save for the wailing of gulls high in the sky above them and the rustle of wind in the leaves of the surrounding trees.

  She looked at Patrick for the first time and he gave a bashful shrug before trying the door handle.

  “Locked,” he whispered.

  “You don’t say?” she said with more venom than she’d intended. She saw the hurt in his expression. “Sorry. Look can we put a pin in…in what happened until we get back to the boat?”

  He smiled and nodded. “Sure. Better go around the side, see if there’s a window we can force.”

  She led the way, keeping herself pressed up against the wooden slats, her ears straining for any signs of movement inside.

  Then, without warning, a side door burst open and the small figure of a young girl ran out onto the porch, leaping on the grass and throwing a ball in the air.

  Ellie froze, trying to retreat into the shadows, but as the girl spun around, she spotted them, stopped suddenly, put her hands to her cheeks and screamed.

  “It’s okay!” Ellie said, waving her hands at the child in an attempt to calm her.

  Patrick stepped forward. “Are your parents home, love?”

  She saw him and shrieked again, running behind a water barrel and peeking out at them.

  A voice called from inside. “Crystal? What’s going on?” Ellie heard steps from inside, approaching the door and, finally, a kitchen knife appeared, glinting in the sunlight, followed by a woman who stood leaning against the door and looking around.

  She saw the child, who pointed to where Ellie stood, Patrick beside her, his gun aimed at the woman.

  “Who are you?” she said, breathing heavily. “We haven’t got anything!” She looked dreadfully pale, except for the dark rings around her eyes.

  Patrick lowered the weapon. “That’s okay, because we don’t want anything. Unless you’ve got medication.”

  “Have you got the sickness?” the woman said, as the girl ran out from hiding and wrapped herself around her hips.

  Ellie stepped toward her, hands wide. “You know about it? We’re fine, but two kids on our boat are in a bad way. They won’t survive without medicine—have you got any?”

  The woman looked from one to the other of them, took a deep breath and collapsed to the floor.

  Chapter 11

  Arrival

  With a grunt, Patrick lowered the woman onto the bed as gently as he could manage as the girl shifted the pillow until it was cushioning her head.

  “There you are, Mommy,” she said, before looking up at Patrick. “Will she be okay?”

  He kneeled beside her. “I’m sure she’s just tired.”

  “She got sick. Daddy looked after her, and then he got sick. I tried to help them, and Mommy said she’s better now, so I went to play outside.”

  Ellie bent down to look at the child. “Where’s Daddy? He’s not…”

  “In the next room.”

  She left Patrick comforting the girl and went through the internal door and across a hallway into an ornate living room. A man lay on the couch. She stood across from him, not willing to get any closer. He looked just like Jodi, except that his eyes hadn’t retreated into his face. So, he hadn’t been as ill for as long.

  Then she saw it. A pill bottle sat on a coffee table beside his head. She’d bet dollars to doughnuts it contained antibiotics. If the mother had been ill but recovered, then chances were she’d given her husband what remained of her drugs.

  Ellie held her breath and dashed across the room. The label said it was amoxycillin, and the lid was gone, so she tipped the pills into her palm. She counted twelve. Maybe enough to turn the tide. She poured them back into the bottle, fastened the lid and put it in her pocket.

  When she got back to the other room, she found Patrick sitting in a chair beside the bed with the girl on his lap talking to him.

  “How is she?” Ellie asked, pointing at the woman.

  He nodded at the prone figure. “She’s hot, but not like Jodi. I think Crystal’s right—she’s had it but she’s recovering.”

  “Good,” Ellie said, patting her pocket. “We’ve got what we came for; let’s head back.”

  Patrick put the child down and strode over to where Ellie stood. “What do you mean?” he said, keeping his voice low.

  Ellie lifted the pill bottle out of her pocket.

  “That’s Daddy’s medicine!” the girl cried out. “You can’t take that or he won’t get better!”

  Patrick’s face tightened. “Is she right?” He saw the answer in Ellie’s eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me! We can’t take her father’s drugs!”

  Ellie grabbed him by the arm and pulled him from the room out onto the porch. “What about Jodi? If we don’t get some antibiotics in her and fast, she’ll die. We can’t save everyone, Patrick, and we came here to help our own.”

  “No, that’s not right,” he said, shaking his head. “We can’t trade one life for another. For the love of God, what are you thinking? What have you become, to steal from a sick man?”

  “A survivor, Patrick. But if you’re prepared to see Jodi die, then take the pills back and give them to that stranger.” Her shoulders slumped. “Look, there are no easy choices. It’s this kid’s dad—who may survive anyway—or Jodi, who certainly won’t.”

  He put out his hand and she handed the bottle to him. Reid opened it and counted the pills. “Twelve. We’ll take half.”

  “If we do that, they may all die because none of them gets enough!”

  He shook his head. “It’s the only fair way.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Maybe, but I’m not about to steal drugs from this family just so ours could survive.”

  “What if it was Brandon?”

  He flushed and, for a moment, she thought he’d lash out as he bunched his fists and his face twisted with pain.

  “I’m…I’m sorry.”

  He sighed, pocketed six pills and handed the others to Ellie. “Look, I told you Brandon’s thirty-five.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, he would have been,” he said, looking down at the pill bottle in his fist. “But the truth is, he died. Five years ago.”

  “Oh, Patrick, I’m so sorry.” She wanted to hug him, but he looked so fragile she feared she might break him.

  “Drug overdose.”

  “Uncle Pat?”

  He looked down at the child who’d wrapped an arm around his leg. “Yes, love?” he croaked.

  “Don’t take Daddy’s pills.”

  “We won’t.”

  “Have you got sick friends?”
/>   He got down onto his haunches and turned her to face him. “Yeah. A boy a little older than you, and a girl called Jodi.”

  “And they need medicine?”

  He nodded. “They’re very ill.”

  “Why don’t you ask Hank?”

  “Hank?”

  She shrugged as if stating the obvious. “Yeah, he was here before, with Max and another man. I like him and Max, they’re nice. The other man isn’t.”

  “And they have medicine?”

  She nodded. “They’ve got loads.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know where they live. Maybe Mommy does.”

  Ellie and Patrick followed the child inside and waited for the woman to wake up.

  #

  Ellie stumbled along the trail, convinced she was lost. Patrick should have been back at the boat by now, giving Jodi and Lewis their first dose of antibiotics. How he would manage it, she had no idea, but she also had no doubt he would get it down them. She’d learned a lot about him these past couple of weeks—and especially the last few days—and her initial impression of a washed-up shallow actor had been swept away. He was a good man. She only hoped that he thought as well of her after her attempt to steal the antibiotics. It had been wrong, she knew, but it had also been the only rational course, given what she knew at the time.

  Now she knew more.

  Somewhere on this island was a settlement that had supplies, including drugs. So, she’d sent Patrick back and gone on alone to find it. It wasn’t necessarily that she thought she’d be more likely to succeed. No, it was that she had to succeed. To prove to herself that she wasn’t as heartless as Patrick had believed her to be.

  Crystal’s mother was called Masie, and they’d come across three men sleeping in this house. The men had argued, but eventually their leader had agreed to send two of them to fetch medicine and some basic supplies. Her husband, Dom, had told her they’d headed toward the center of the island. Crystal said Hank—an older man—had said it had been quite a climb to get back to them. So, Ellie was walking blindly along the road, looking for routes that headed down and hoping the island wasn’t too large.