Deluge | Book 2 | Phage

by Kevin Partner

  “It’s intended for winter food storage, once we start growing our own crops,” Buzz said. “I see you found a car.”

  “Yeah, we came across it on our way back. But we need to talk, in private.”

  Anna’s expression tightened, but Ellie said, “You go get some sleep. We’ll watch the kids for now.”

  The teacher relaxed and gave a weak smile. “Thank you.” And, without another word, she staggered toward the farmhouse.

  Ellie turned to Buzz. “Did you see the helicopter go over?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We spoke to them.”

  Buzz’s eyebrows shot up. “You did? Government?”

  “Uh-huh. Claimed they’re doing a survey, a census. Trying to get a handle on how many survived and where they are.”

  “Maybe they are,” Patrick said.

  But Ellie saw the look in Buzz’s eyes.

  “Thought so,” she said. “We need to have a conversation about your role in all this. But, right now, we’ve got some kids to look after. Joy.”

  It was dark by the time Buzz sat down again. He’d pulled a deck chair out onto what had once been a kitchen garden, but was now a patch of grass surrounded by weeds. He’d spotted the bright full moon through the window as he made himself a peanut butter sandwich and so he was hiding in the darkness enjoying a little peace and quiet for the first time since…he didn’t know when.

  “Oh, there you are.”

  His head had barely rested against the canvas of the chair, sandwich half-chewed. He groaned.

  “I’m trying to get a little time to think, Max,” he said.

  Buzz rolled his eyes as he heard another chair being dragged across the grass.

  “Me too. I don’t like sick people.”

  “You don’t like people, period.”

  Max gave a quiet chuckle. “I guess that’s true.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Buzz said, relaxing a little. Somehow, he wasn’t quite as annoyed by Max’s intrusion as he expected to be. Perhaps he sensed a kindred spirit.

  “I’ve been thinking about the wave.”

  Now he was irritated. “Oh, come on, Max. We haven’t got time for this!”

  “What else are you doing right now?”

  “Well, I’m focusing on the sickness. I can’t work out why some people get it and others don’t.”

  Max sucked on a straw as he settled into place. “Did you know that the moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of just under one point five inches a year?”

  By now, Buzz had gotten used to the seemingly random meanderings of Max’s mind. “Yes, as it happens. It’s the action of the Earth’s tides on it.”

  “I wonder what’s happened to the tide since the wave?”

  Buzz looked across at the boy’s form, outlined by moonlight. “I’m sure there’s still the twice daily tide. In fact, the tidal bulge is likely bigger given the greater amount of liquid water in the ocean. Perhaps we should start measuring it.”

  “If we measure the tidal range here and compare it with the values from the nearest coast on the same line of latitude, we might be able to approximate the amount of water released in the deluge.”

  Finishing the last of his sandwich, Buzz said, “I’ll leave that to you. I’m no mathematician. But, like I said, I’ve got a more urgent problem. I can’t work out how people are getting sick.”

  “From contaminated water,” Max said.

  “Some of them, certainly, but I can’t see how the kids got it a week after exposure, or how some adults catch it, and others don’t.”

  Max’s deck chair creaked as he turned to look at Buzz. “I think that’s pretty obvious. It’s the water.”

  “But Jo didn’t go swimming, so why did she get it? Unless there’s person-to-person transmission.”

  “I think that’s possible,” Max said.

  “Oh, you do, do you?” Buzz responded, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

  It was lost on Max, however. “Yeah. I’ve been talking to Masie, Anna and Hank and I think I have identified a pattern. It’s a working hypothesis, in any case.”

  “Spoken like a true scientist,” Buzz said. The boy was smart, that was certain. Maybe he had a useful insight. “Go for it.”

  Max leaned across to where Buzz sat. “Some people get it from direct exposure. I think they get it the worst.”

  “Right. Jodi and Lewis were both in the water. They could easily have ingested it directly. But what about everyone else?”

  “Clothes.”

  “What?”

  “It connects everyone. The first cases among the children happened when Jo washed their clothes for the first time. So, they changed into their gym uniforms, and I think some of them had gotten into the water. Then Jo got it bad.”

  Buzz froze. He’d experienced this feeling before—like a flashlight searching a dark cellar and suddenly illuminating the treasure. He sensed that Max was on to something. Something important.

  “And Tom, back on the boat, he got it relatively mildly after caring for Jodi and Lewis,” Buzz said. “I’d be willing to bet that Ellie and Patrick Reid haven’t handled their dirty clothes or done their laundry.”

  Max nodded, his eyes glinting, a hungry look on his face. “And Dom cared for Masie, including washing her clothes. She said when she came around, she found them on a clothes rack in the window. Dom must have done it.”

  “What about Hank?” The old man was snoring in the bedroom he shared with Max after Buzz had stood him down from guard duty. He was almost certain that they were the only survivors on the island now, so he didn’t expect to be surprised by strangers at the gate.

  “He helped with the children’s laundry.”

  “Did he? Good grief, I think you’ve got it! I haven’t done any clothes-washing, and neither have you or Anna.”

  Max was beaming. “It’s still only a hypothesis. We haven’t established whether it’s predictive.”

  “No, but I don’t intend to go washing some dirty linen to find out if I come down with it. For once, being an undomesticated slob has paid off. Well done, Max.”

  He slapped the boy on the arm, but instantly regretted it as Max withdrew into the depths of the deck chair.

  “Sorry. I forgot. But well done, anyway.”

  “I had to work it out so I could get back to the more important problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your role in the deluge.”

  Chapter 16

  Needle in a…

  He was lying on his back looking up as the sky scrolled past. Then darkness. Then heads silhouetted against white clouds, looking down on him as he tried to get up, tried to see where he was.

  Some part of his mind remained independent of the dream. Let me see! he begged over and over. Time and time again he’d see the sky, the silhouettes, he’d hear the sound of voices, but he could make out nothing more. Nothing specific. And yet he knew with a ridiculous certainty that there was more to it.

  He heard a cry echoing in his mind. No! I don’t want to go! He needed to stay asleep for a few moments longer. The dream wasn’t over.

  He felt consciousness seep back. No!

  He cried out, sitting up, eyes straining against utter darkness.

  “Give me a break, buddy,” a voice said.

  Bobby calmed his breathing, waited until his pulse settled down, and then turned his head to the right. “Sorry.”

  “You need to see a shrink.”

  “Maybe. It’s this damn dream. Can’t shake it. What d’you think I should do?”

  “Find another place to sleep.”

  Bobby listened to the sound of a man turning over, and sat up. He would have to find somewhere else to sleep, that was true enough. He’d left Michael to his reunion and wandered farther into the camp, following the signs for unaccompanied males until he’d ended up here. It was, essentially, a recruitment camp. They would give men somewhere to sleep (a concrete floor in an old office building in his case) if they
signed up to help, each according to their skills. As soon as Bobby had mentioned his engineering background, he’d found himself attached to the maintenance and repair crew and had spent the previous day fixing electrical and water systems in the dubious company of Duke Lewis. Duey, as he insisted on being called, was a plumber from New York who had all the social skills of a monkey with a migraine.

  He couldn’t blame the man too much, though. This was only their second night in each other’s company and Bobby had been awoken by this repeating nightmare at least four times. He’d dreamed variations of it for days, but his walk through the market had sparked some hidden fragment of his subconscious that seemed to be trying to attract his attention like a frustrated ghost.

  He breathed in the fetid air of the long-unused office building and tried to force his mind to focus on the dream. But it was no good. As always, his conscious brain was now in control. And all he could think about was what to do next. He was back at the camp with no idea of where Maria might be except that she’d made it across to Pam’s house. Jacob Westbay, her protector, had been shot, and Bobby’s only other clue had been the taunts of Hamish.

  He’d resolved to go look in the Haystack the following day, even though the chances of discovering anything were next to zero. The Haystack was the long concrete wall of a shopping mall that was now covered with photos and notes from desperate people seeking loved ones who’d almost certainly died in the initial flood.

  Bobby knew that Maria had survived the initial event, but he had nothing more than desperate hope that she’d found safety since. She might have come through this camp—it was the obvious place to head for—but even if she had, she might have been traveling under an assumed name if someone had taken her. Bobby didn’t want to think what purpose they might have. Revenge could wait until he knew who was going to suffer it.

  He was falling asleep as these dark thoughts coalesced, sliding down the wall onto the rolled-up pants that served as his pillow.

  And then, as he put his hands out to unconsciously steady himself, he heard the echo of a voice in his memory.

  Papa!

  He crept out of the office, through the reception foyer and out into the muggy air of a day that promised thunderstorms. The sun was still below the horizon, so he took care to keep out of sight. This would not be a good time to be caught breaking curfew.

  He could see her now, in his mind’s eye. He was being pushed on the gurney toward the hospital. Faces looked down on him while others ignored him. He’d floated in and out of consciousness, through darkness and light, and on the cusp of the two he’d heard her voice. It hadn’t been a dream, he had to hold on to that belief. She’d called his name for an instant.

  Maria had been here.

  And, frankly, if it was a dream then it seemed a whole lot better to follow his hope down a rabbit hole than to stay here knowing that he hadn’t taken the chance, however remote.

  He hadn’t slept a wink since he’d heard her voice. When the first traces of light trickled through the window, he’d gotten himself dressed and snuck out.

  The curfew ended at 7:59 a.m., and he was hiding in a dark corner opposite the Haystack when the clock ticked over. He ran across the road and found the first photo. He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t rush it—he had to be sure that if he made it to the far end of the wall without seeing her, it was because she wasn’t there, not because he’d missed her.

  The photo was of a young boy wearing a scout uniform and smiling. Jeez, this was going to be tough. Looking at hundreds, thousands of photos of people who were, in almost every case, dead. Almost every case except Maria’s, hopefully. Each photo had a serial number on the back, and Bobby had learned that the camp administrators added photos of every person who came through and left the camp here, as well as any who were being actively sought. It was like a photographic database of lost souls. At some point, he didn’t doubt that they’d be taken down and digitized but, for now, he would have to make do with Mark One Eyeballs.

  He made it no more than a few feet before people began appearing alongside him. Soon enough, they’d be shoulder to shoulder, hundreds of eyes desperately scanning for hope.

  “It was you! I didn’t believe it when Josh told me.”

  He turned to see Eve standing beside him.

  “Your turn for a shower?” he said, smiling at her scrubbed, reddened skin and tied-back hair.

  She crinkled her nose. “Not yours, though. Are you looking for Maria?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What makes you think she might be here?”

  He wasn’t about to tell her that he’d seen his daughter in a dream. “It just seems logical she’d come through here.”

  Eve wrapped her hands around his arm and pulled herself close, her face resting against his shoulder. “You shouldn’t have just run off the other day. I didn’t get a chance to thank you for saving Michael. Josh is beside himself.”

  “Only Josh?” Bobby said, moving onto the next photo.

  She hugged his arm even tighter. Boy, she smelled good. “Things are complicated with me and Michael.”

  He gave up looking now that his attention had been entirely diverted. “What do you mean?”

  “We were in the middle of a divorce when the wave came. We’d planned a vacation in the cabin as a sort of last time together as a family.”

  “Jeez, are you serious? Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  He guided her around the corner as more and more people gathered at the long wall of the Haystack.

  “What’s this all about? You seemed pretty relieved when you saw him.”

  She wiped a tear away and looked up at Bobby. “I was. I’d been grieving and there, beyond hope, I saw him. Just because we were getting divorced, that doesn’t mean I don’t care for him.”

  “I guess it must be hard to care for a disabled man… Ow!” He put his hand to his face to rub the pain out of it.

  “You…you…how can you think that of me?”

  “I’m sorry, I just—”

  “—thought I was leaving him because of his condition? No. It was a joint decision. If anything, he wanted to leave me more than the other way around. We only stayed together for Josh’s sake. But, finally, we figured he was old enough to know the truth.”

  “But you never told him?”

  She shook her head. “We were going to do it after the trip. One last happy family memory for him. So, he’s obviously overjoyed to have Michael back. Me, not so much. Does that make me a bad person?”

  “Of course not. But, look. Michael wanted me to leave him back at Castaic.”

  “Why?”

  “He thought he’d be nothing but a burden, but I guess, after what you’ve just said…”

  She shook her head. “What would he have done on his own?”

  “There was a doctor there…”

  Her mouth dropped open. “What? Oh my God! How can anyone be so callous?”

  “Michael? Or the doctor?”

  “Both.”

  Bobby shrugged. “I can understand Michael’s point of view. Feeling so powerless, so useless. The doctor, though…” He shook his head.

  “Let me help you find Maria,” she said, changing the subject in an instant. “Surely two pairs of eyes are better than one?”

  Bobby looked around the corner at the Haystack wall where the crowd was now shoulder to shoulder.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Eve said. “Let’s make a start and see how far we get.”

  The answer was around halfway. By the time the crowds began to thin out, Bobby felt as though every inch of his upper body had been pinched or poked by someone’s elbow, his toes sore from being trodden on. What frustrated him the most was that, despite his best intentions, he couldn’t be absolutely certain he’d carefully examined every single photo. It was just too chaotic. So, if he didn’t find her the next day, he’d have to start again just to be sure.

  Finally, only Eve remained as the last of the crowd hurri
ed away ahead of the curfew, the warning siren echoing off the concrete walls. “Come on, you’d better get back,” he said. “You don’t want to have to spend a night in the cages.”

  “Okay, I’m just memorizing the last one we looked at so we know where to begin again tomorrow.”

  He smiled as she scampered toward him. She’d been through a lot since the night when she’d knocked him out in the kitchen of her cabin. She was an appealing mix of strength and vulnerability, though he got the impression that she was only keeping herself together by not thinking beyond today. She’d focused her energy on looking after Josh and, when he’d been injured, Bobby himself. He wondered how she would cope with carving out some sort of existence here with her son and estranged husband.

  Bobby peered around the corner of a boarded-up grocery store. The siren sounded for the final time and they were still outside. Eve pushed in beside him. “I don’t think I can make it without running into a patrol,” she said.

  He looked down into her brown eyes. “I suppose you could shelter with me. But it’s not exactly suitable for a woman.”

  “Is it better than a cell?”

  “Barely.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “What about Michael and Josh?”

  She shook her head as if to dismiss the thought. “They’ll survive.”

  He felt the warmth of her hand folding into his as they crept along in the fading light until they reached the grimy office building.

  Dim yellow light leaked out the cracks of closed doors as they went. Bobby had no intention of taking Eve back to the room he shared with Duey, not least because he didn’t want her to judge his living conditions. The offices nearer the front entrance were all occupied, but beyond those they emerged into a wide open-plan area and felt their way through the cubicles until they reached the final one beside the padlocked back door.

  He found an old couch that had been abandoned unseen in one corner and pulled all the seat cushions off it, making something approximating a bed within their cubicle. He slipped away back to his room and fetched his pack, handing over a bottle of water to her when he returned. Half an hour later, he escorted her to the communal bathroom and, having checked there was no one inside, stood guard while she used it.