Deluge | Book 2 | Phage

by Kevin Partner

  Patrick disappeared below and Ellie enjoyed a few minutes peace before she heard the heavy tread of Tom’s sneakers on the ladder. He emerged into the fly bridge with a tired, “Yo.”

  “Time to brace the yard arm and unfurl the jolly roger, me hearty.”

  Tom uttered a curse under his breath.

  “What’s up with you? Good grief, you look like sh—”

  “I know. I think I’m just tired. Lewis, though. I think he’s got it. He’s burning up.”

  Now it was Ellie’s turn to curse. “How did that happen? He hasn’t been in the water since we pulled him out. That was, what, eleven days ago?”

  “I dunno. Maybe it was the dog. Lewis spent long enough cleaning him.”

  Ellie groaned. It seemed every merciful action they took kicked them in the backside. She looked up at the wind direction indicator. “Windex says it’s shifted around to the southwest.”

  Hauling himself up, Tom wet his finger and held it in the air. “I’ll run up the mainsail.”

  Ellie switched the engine off. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’ll sort out the sail and head down below for some shut-eye. You know the situation.”

  “Yeah, too many miles, too little gas.”

  Ellie kept her eye on Tom as he slumped off. He looked as though he’d aged twenty years overnight. She sure hoped he wasn’t coming down with whatever Jodi and, it now seemed, Lewis had caught. Jodi had presumably gotten it from the water when she’d waded over to help rescue them from the hijackers, and it made sense that Lewis might have picked it up from the dog. But she couldn’t imagine how Tom had contracted it, unless it could be transmitted some other way. And that thought terrified her. If he came down with it, the crew would be reduced to her and Patrick, neither of whom knew how to sail the boat. And what if Patrick then got it? She’d be on her own.

  She stamped her foot in an attempt to snap out of this catastrophic line of thought. She left the helm and took a seat on the deck behind, watching as Tom brought the boom around. They really could have been in the middle of the Atlantic. She could see no sign of land in any direction. From up here she guessed she could see for about ten miles, and she knew that they were now passing over what had once been the Mississippi and entering Arkansas, although the Natural State was now an ocean. Beneath the Kujira’s keel was around six hundred feet of water and, within that, the wreckage of a civilization.

  According to Jodi’s flood map, the only parts of the state above water were the Ouachitas, whose peaks formed a series of narrow islands running east to west, and the Ozarks in the north that formed a large island encompassing the southern part of Missouri. Her uncle’s place, if it was above water, was on a small island off the Ouachitas. Ellie couldn’t help thinking that if she were planning to escape a flooded world, she’d pick somewhere like that. Assuming the ocean hadn’t risen higher than expected. But there was no denying the text message Jodi had received. She only hoped that Jodi was right, and that the girl would recover from this illness—she doubted the uncle would welcome the arrival of a plague ship.

  The sail flapped in the breeze before Tom pulled it tight and she grabbed the handrail as the ship lurched forward.

  “Not bad,” he said, appearing beside her at the helm, the wind ruffling his dark brown hair. “No need to tack for now. It’ll take us a bit farther north than we’d like, but once we get closer, we can turn and use the engine for the last miles.”

  She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Cool, I can handle it from here. Go get some sleep. I’ll come get you if I need to lower the sail.”

  Ellie kept the boat heading north, a warm southerly breeze at her back. She focused on the water ahead, searching for anything that might damage the hulls or the keel. She’d have been more comfortable if Jodi were lying on the trampoline keeping watch, but the girl was burning up in her bed.

  Still, when she took her gaze from the ocean’s surface and looked around, she could almost imagine that this was a normal cruise off the coast of Florida. Except for the floating detritus and the occasional whiff of death that bubbled up from below.

  As they’d gone north and west, they’d gradually encountered more shipping, though they’d kept their distance where they could. They’d seen several naval vessels—mainly Coast Guard—and Ellie’s blood had frozen every time. Kujira wouldn’t be able to outrun them or outfight them, and they’d already been stripped of their food and fuel once. The sooner they found Jodi’s uncle, the better. It was out on the open water that they were at their most vulnerable.

  “She’s sleeping,” Patrick said, handing her a bottle of water. “I’m worried Tom might be coming down with it—I just saw him slink off to bed looking like death warmed up.”

  Ellie groaned. “We’ll be right up a certain creek if he does—we need him to sort the sails out.”

  “How much fuel do we have?” The only thing Fletcher and the other pirates had done when they’d taken over Kujira was to siphon all the fuel from their river cruiser into her tanks.

  “No more than a hundred miles’ worth. Not near enough. And I’m worried we’re going to hit something in the water. I can’t steer and watch.”

  “I can…”

  “I know, but you and I can’t manage on our own. Someone needs to be on watch all the time and I don’t know about you, but I’m going to need to get some sleep soon.”

  He yawned. “Yeah, I’m knackered. But you go get some shut-eye while I steer for a bit.”

  “You know how to steer a boat?”

  “Well, I’ve pretended a couple of times. Acting, you know? I mean, how hard can it be? I just use the steering wheel, don’t I?”

  “The helm,” she said. “And, yes. There’s our heading. If the wind shifts, come and get me.”

  She left him standing at the helm like Captain Cook, went into her cabin and collapsed on the bed, instantly asleep.

  “Ellie!”

  She snorted awake, flailed around for a moment and then recognized Patrick as he lifted the porthole blind. “What is it?”

  “How do I stop the boat?”

  “What?”

  She was instantly awake and, not stopping to hear his response, she ran through the blackened mess of the saloon and up the steps to the fly deck. “Good God! Get Tom up, now!”

  Patrick said, “I tried. He’s not responding!”

  Ahead, pine trees rose out of the sea in a line that swept left to right like welcoming arms and Kujira was heading directly into them, propelled by a stiffening breeze.

  “We’re gonna hit it!”

  “Calm down, Patrick!” But he was right. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to work out how to lower the mainsail at the best of times, much less with the pressure of imminently running aground.

  There was nothing else for it. She fired up the engine and, as soon as she felt the power engage, swung the helm around, all the time resisted by the wind as the sail creaked.

  “Watch it! There’s a bit sticking out!”

  “I know,” Ellie snapped. She’d seen it—a small ridge of higher ground no more than a few yards across that projected at right angles to the main bar of land, like a natural jetty. If she could bring the boat to a rest there, it would be sheltered from the wind by the trees running along it. Any closer to the ridge and the keel would be ripped apart by the tops of submerged pines.

  The boat lurched to one side, spinning on its axis as the wind gave one final push. Ellie shut off the engine and momentum pushed them against the tree line where Kujira sat, bobbing up and down, back and forth in the swell. “You keep her as steady as you can while I tie her up.”

  “Tie her to what?”

  “One tree aft, one tree forward. Front and back.”

  “I’ll do it. You stay here.”

  And he was gone before she could answer.

  She fought with the helm as the wind, confused by the trees, shifted first one way, then the other. Foot by foot, the boat was being pushed toward the
main ridge and crippling damage.

  The dinghy appeared below, dragging a rope from each end toward the little strip of dry land. The outboard motor struggled against the currents that crisscrossed the tortured bay. He propelled the dinghy onto the dirt and clambered out, pulling the ropes with him. He wrapped one around the nearest pine, then pulled tight, using it as a lever to try to bring the boat closer. He was making no headway; the ship was just too heavy and the current too strong.

  Ellie gave the engine a burst, timing it so it pushed in the same direction that Patrick was pulling and, with a sudden leap forward, the port bow plowed into soil, before easing back again.

  Patrick tied up the first rope, then ran along the little row of trees and pulled on the second, but couldn’t bring the stern around. There was nothing else for it. Ellie cut the engine, locked off the helm and slid down the ladders, along the bow and onto the land. She made her way along to where Patrick toiled, the rope slung over his shoulder. She grabbed it and hauled with him. But, for all their effort, they made no headway.

  “It’s hopeless!” she cried.

  “No, we’ve got to! We can’t leave it like that, it’ll get ripped apart. Come on, we can do it!”

  She braced her legs against the next tree and hauled, growling to stop her head exploding with the effort. Nothing. They had no chance.

  And then the pressure dropped. “Ah!" she yelled, falling to the ground. She scrambled back to her feet and they quickly brought the stern around.

  “What the hell?” Patrick said.

  Ellie looked across at the boat. There, a figure staggered alongside the boom. The mainsail was down. “Tom.”

  Ellie tucked him into bed again, keeping her distance as much as possible. Though it seemed likely that Jodi and Lewis had gotten ill from contaminated water, she couldn’t explain why Tom had come down with it. That meant it was possible the disease was contagious and, therefore, so was he. She’d had some medical training as part of her marine biology degree, and she was beginning to wonder if it was some kind of typhoid. That was normally only seen in third-world countries, but then…

  “Well done, Pat,” she said as he climbed back onto the boat.

  “I don’t think it’s done my hernia any favors,” he said, “but we got there, didn’t we? Not a bad team effort.”

  She smiled at him and took another rope before clambering onto the muddy spit of land they were tied to. “I want this as stable as possible. If you give me a hand, we’ll have it done and we can rest for a bit.”

  The sun was setting by the time they both clambered back onto the boat. Kujira was lashed to the trees facing down the little spit of land and Ellie flipped open the lid to the crew cabin on the starboard bow. “One of us has to be on watch at all times,” she said. “This is the only way to approach the boat from land.”

  “What if they’re in a boat themselves?”

  Ellie ran her hands over her eyes and down her cheeks. “Then we’re in trouble, Pat. There’s only two of us and we can’t be both on guard all the time. We need to sleep, and look after the sick. Frankly, being a plague ship might put them off. Look, you can stand on the ladder and only the top part of you sticks out. It’s good cover.”

  “Do we turn on the lights?”

  “No, we need to stay hidden.”

  “Then how do we see if anything’s coming?”

  “We don’t see, we hear. And if you do hear anything, use the flashlight.”

  He nodded. “And if it goes really pear shaped, I could fire a flare into the trees. That’d scare anything.”

  “Don’t do that, Pat. Use the shotgun if you have to, but don’t set fire to my boat.”

  She clambered out of the tiny cabin and went over to the galley, returning with a mug of strong coffee. “You head off for some sleep. Check on the others, but have yourself a couple of hours.”

  He went to argue, but clearly didn’t have the energy, which proved her point. Four hours later, he found her sound asleep, propped up in the hatch to the crew cabin with a blanket wrapped around her. He left her there and sat on the end of the bow, straining to hear for any signs of movement over the sound of her snoring.

  Chapter 4

  The Return

  Bobby jumped out of the Chinook before the ramp hit the ground. He knew it was stupid. There was no urgency. Maria hadn’t been here when the rescue crew had first landed over a week ago, and she wouldn’t be here now they’d come to bury the dead.

  A hand grabbed his shoulder. “Hold on, Bob. Let us do our job, will ya?”

  Sergeant Kravitz overtook him, leading four others onto the dry, stony ground. Bobby trailed behind them, looking up at the GN-FM Radio sign, remembering the last time he was here and searching for anything that might explain what had happened. Anything that might give him hope.

  Kravitz gestured to him from a position just beyond the station building. “Are you sure you want to see this? It’s not a pretty sight.”

  “Yeah. Maybe I can identify them.”

  Kravitz shrugged. “Identify, fine, but we’re not here to investigate, you know. No time for it. We’re here to tidy up and bury the bodies.”

  Bobby took the paper mask and followed Kravitz and the others. They found the first bodies behind the station building. Bobby, already shaking with fear and repulsed by the foul stench of decay, almost completely lost his mind when he recognized the white hair of Rex Hollick as the man who’d held Maria hostage, arms splayed wide. His back was black with congealed blood and Bobby could see how carrion birds had pecked at the back of his neck and ears, taking the revenge Bobby had sought for himself.

  A few yards farther on, he spotted a pair of legs clothed in a filthy zebra onesie sticking out from beneath another body.

  But no sign of Maria.

  After a quick tour around the killing ground, Kravitz pointed out a spot on the lee of the little hill that had become an island and gestured to his team before beckoning to Bobby. “We’re gonna dig the grave here,” he said. “Ground’s softer. No sign of your daughter, which I guess is good news of a sort.”

  “Thank God,” Bobby said, feeling the knot in his gut unwind just a little. “I’m going to take a look around, but I’ll come back in time to help with the…” He cast a hand out at the murderous scene behind him without looking over his shoulder.

  Kravitz nodded. “Sure. Take your time. This is the worst I’ve seen, and I hope I don’t see nothin’ like it again. Looks to me as though those folks were gunned down without warning, like they were surprised. Sad thing is, we’ve got so much goin’ on that it’s all we can do to come out here and bury them. We can’t go after whoever did it.”

  Keeping his distance from the bodies gathered behind the station, Bobby made his way to the shoreline. He’d decided to begin by following the water around the island. Unless they’d come in by helicopter, which seemed incredibly unlikely, they must have arrived by boat. He thought of the thugs who’d attacked the radio station. They’d seemed harmless enough, but they were also the prime suspects in his mind.

  Whoever had taken Maria, he would find them and he would kill them.

  He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. He still wasn’t a hundred percent even after three days in hospital being pumped full of antibiotics. It had only been yesterday that an officer from the Santa Clarita camp came and told him that he could go on the next reconnaissance mission to the west. His recklessness in going to the aid of Specialist Schmidt armed with nothing more than a stick had paid off. Bobby reckoned it was fueled by the poison circulating through his bloodstream more than anything but, just for once, he’d had a break. A ride in a Chinook might not be much of a break, but he’d take it.

  Tanta still languished in a jail cell, but Eve was doing all she could to browbeat the base commander into letting him go. Colonel Kirby was, by all accounts, a tough veteran used to dealing with the variety of emergencies typical of a long career, but he reckoned Eve could wear her down. She was like the s
ea washing against the shore, smoothing the pebbles over millennia.

  The sea.

  He looked out west, trying to comprehend that beneath the horizon lay the city of Ventura along with most of its people. The surface was less disturbed by the floating wreckage than when he’d last been here, and it was a little easier to pretend that this was a normal vista. If it weren’t for the stench. He followed the water around the side of what had once been a hill looking over the city, walking along the tide line where most of the detritus gathered. Gentle waves rolled in from the wider ocean as, up to his left, figures moved among the dead, preparing them for their final resting place.

  Here was where he’d searched for flotsam, Maria watching him from a few feet away. Now the water was largely clear, with just the occasional sodden cardboard box and random castoff littering that part of the beach. Finally, he made his way around to where he’d launched his makeshift raft. He looked up to where Maria had stood to watch him, hand in hand with Rex Hollick. She’d watched him float out, but he’d never come back. Until now.

  Bobby sat on the ground beside the point where she’d stood and ran his fingers over the gritty surface as if he might be able to connect with her, as if the time between hadn’t happened. He saw the wet tears turning the light soil to dark and fell forward onto his elbows as the terror, guilt and rage finally broke through and he lost himself to them.

  #

  “Come on now, Bob.”

  A hand gripped him by the shoulder. He had no idea how long he’d been there, convulsively sobbing, all shreds of civilization cast away. But however long it was, he wanted to stay here, to die as she surely had.

  “Bob? There’s no sign of any little girls among the bodies,” Kravitz said. “You hear me? We’ve checked everywhere.”

  Bobby allowed the pilot to help him up. He opened his eyes and saw sympathy there. Heaven knew how many loved ones Kravitz had lost in the flood, and yet he found room to be compassionate. That, more than anything, brought Bobby around. “Thanks…”