Spackman was up and staggering towards the mast with the flapping sail, his concern for the ship’s tack overtaking his physical abilities in the moment. Josh’s head was too swimmy right now to even attempt to stand, so his admiration for Spackman grew exponentially as he watched the man haul on one set of ropes while releasing other ropes tied to halyards, and the flapping sail was raised up and held in place with yet another set of ropes locked into place with complicated seamans’ knots. It looked like a terrible lash-up that Spackman had achieved through necessity rather than tidiness, but at least the sail was stilled and no longer in danger of ripping away from its moorings any further.
When he had finished, Spackman fell to his knees, head bowed. Exhausted.
By this time, Ten-Foot had recovered somewhat and begun walking towards Josh.
The ex-policeman stiffened, not knowing where Ten-Foot currently sat on his own personal violence-o-meter. Although Ten-Foot didn’t have the knife any longer, Josh knew he was in no shape yet to resist a physical attack.
Ten-Foot held out his hand.
“Sorry, man… I… I don’t know… what…” he stumbled, shaking his head.
Josh grabbed the proffered hand and let Ten-Foot haul him to his feet. “I don’t know either, son, but whatever it was is still happening, and we need to make sure we’re on our guard.”
“And…” Spackman said, raising his head and taking in a huge gulp of air, “we still need to find the captain.”
“Buddy up,” Josh said to the others on deck. “Pick a friend, someone you know well enough. Keep your eyes on each other. If you start to see anything out of the ordinary, a change in behavior, however small—and, Tally, I include me in this—call the others. Fast. Before things get out of hand, get that person restrained and leave them be until it passes. If Ten-Foot here is anything to go by, it comes on fast and doesn’t last.”
Ten-Foot looked shamed, but nodded his agreement. “I dunno what happened; it was like someone flicked a switch in my head. Suddenly, it was full of thoughts… hate, and the desire to kill or destroy. I’ve done some bad things in my past, I know that, but nothing went through my head like this. It was horrible, man…”
Ten-Foot’s voice trailed off and he cast his eyes down. He’d already apologized to Tally half a dozen times, and he did so again now. It was like, along with the bout of violent paranoia, the boy’s standard-issue attitude against authority had dissipated at the same time. All that negativity had been drained out of him, as well.
It’s an ill wind…
The probationers finished getting into pairs, boys with boys and girls with girls, which left Tally, Ten-Foot, Spackman, and Josh.
Petersen had been brought up from the girls’ cabin to the deck, still bound and gagged. He strained at his bonds, his eyes rolling rabidly. He had not come down from his murderous rage yet and didn’t look like he would any time soon.
Josh twinned himself with Ten-Foot, and Spackman with Tally.
“We have no idea if Rollins has come through it like Ten-Foot or is still under the influence like Petersen. The fact that he’s not made himself known suggests that he hasn’t returned to how he was before, or he was injured and he can’t make himself known. I want all of you to stay up here on deck.”
There were groans about the spray and the cold.
“I know, but the alternative is, you get trapped in the cabin like last time. And that’s not safe. At least up here you have good lines of sight and can see what’s coming. It’s not going to take us long to find Rollins and flush him out. Not with four of us looking.”
Josh gave a loaded flare gun to Tally and kept one for himself. Axes were handed to Spackman and Ten-Foot.
“We’re armed and we’re going to be careful. Just stay up here and make sure you holler if there’s any trouble.”
Tally and Spackman took the middle deck as Ten-Foot and Josh went down two levels and began in the engine room.
It was dark down there, apart from the wan gray light coming in through a couple of small portholes. The engine, a huge many-cylindered diesel—all green painted metal, with big rivets and thick black grease—was silent and stank of fuel. There was no reason why it shouldn’t be in full working order, and when he checked the fuel tanks’ levels, the gauges suggested both the main tank and the reserve were almost at full capacity. That certainly gave Josh a welcome tingle of relief. Perhaps they weren’t so stuck out here after all.
Ten-Foot returned from the far side of the engine, holding his ax in the hollow of his shoulder and shaking his head. “He’s not back there.”
“Not this side, either. We go on.”
They made their way out of the engine room, through two watertight metal hatches that compartmentalized the lower deck in case of flood, and found themselves in the first of the holds. The air was thick and bitter. There were many sacks of ballast—rocks and stones used to weigh the Sea-Hawk lower in the water in lieu of cargo. She was a replica of a merchantman after all, and the hold, on long voyages from the orient, would have been full to the gunnels with exotic goods and wares, giving the ship the necessary draught to keep it stable. When a ship like this, Josh remembered Rollins telling him, traveled without cargo, they would fill the holds like this with rocks from huge piles of ballast kept at the docksides.
“So, why ‘Ten-Foot’? There’s nothing on your file, and I’ve asked you a dozen times before; now seems like good a time as any to tell me. Why do they call you Ten-Foot?”
Ten-Foot smiled for the first time in an age. “That’s just between me and the ladies, bossman.”
Josh snorted. “Very good, but you and I both know that’s not true. Come on. Why ‘Ten-Foot’?”
They moved beyond the sacks of ballast to where there were two large catering freezers. Stainless steel all around, and bolted to the hull so they couldn’t move around in a storm. Each was big enough to hold a man. Josh and Ten-Foot exchanged glances. Ten-Foot shrugged.
Josh reached out to the door of the first freezer, but kept his voice conversational so as not to alert anyone hiding inside the metal box of his intentions, “Come on. Tell me. After the last few hours, I reckon you owe me at least that.”
Ten-Foot reached for the door of the other freezer, their hands resting on the handles at the same time. Josh held the flare gun up. Ten-Foot held his ax three quarters of the way up the shaft, and high above his shoulder, ready to bring it down in a swift arc.
“I was nine years old. I stole a carton of Marlboros from the convenience store next to the school…”
“Nine? Marlboros? You started early.”
“I was a cono-sewer.”
Josh mouthed Three.
“The fat asshat owner ran out after me. I was fast, but man, I ain’t ever seen a fat man run that fast. He really wanted those cigarettes back bad.”
Two.
“I ran into an alley. Buncha kids from the school were skipping lessons, shooting some hoops without a hoop and hanging out. I burst through them kids with Fatman behind me like a bowling ball.”
One.
“End of the alley was a concrete wall. Smooth as you like, no hand-holds, nothing to grab onto, just graffiti. It was ten feet tall. Fatman almost had his hand on my shoulder, but I went for it, man. I leaped. I have no idea how I made it, but I did, up to the top of the wall like I was flying; held on, rolled over, and BAM! I’s gone. Ever since then. Ten-Foot. That’s me.”
NOW!
They opened the doors simultaneously and a near wall of defrosted water sloshed out of both freezers, soaking their feet and shins. Josh was so shocked that he fired the flare gun into the freezer and they both had to dive away as the charge exploded and filled the hold with dazzling glare, then smoke.
As they made their way out of the hold, dripping and cold, Ten-Foot said, “Only, no one else knows, so don’t you go telling, on the other side of the wall was Officers Horrigan and O’Shea. I landed on the hood of their patrol car and dented it in the shape of my
backside. They whupped me good and sent me on my way, but not before they’d taken the Marlboros as tax.”
Tally and Spackman found Rollins in his cabin, hanging from a beam, face blackened by strangulation and eyes bulging. Next to him on a table was a piece of paper, on which he had written just one word.
SORRY.
8
Maxine ducked as Gabby swung the baton. The smoke was streaming past them, the light from the fires scattering and flaming. Maxine’s lungs burned, and her legs, even though she could breathe some welcome oxygen from the hot air, weren’t moving as they should.
Gabby’s face was a mask of vengeance and murder, her lips drawn back in exemplar of hatred and rage. And her eyes burned like Boston, reflecting the skyline, spittle streaming across her chin. She raised the baton to strike down again, and Maxine tried to roll, but she was locked between the girders at the bottom of the escape stairs and the wall. She had nowhere to go.
All she could do was hold up her hands.
A dash of white, and a yell of anger flew out of nowhere.
Sudhindra crashed into Gabby as she began to bring the baton down. They both went sideways, smashing into the wall. Maxine heard a distinct and sickening crunch as one of those tangled bodies smashed their skull against the brickwork.
Maxine tried to scramble to her feet, but Gabby was quicker, rising from the tangle of limbs like a killer in a slasher movie returning from the dead. Suddenly, she was above Sudhindra and slashing down with the baton upon his already injured head.
One.
Two.
Three.
Stunningly effective blows hit home, and Sudhindra’s head deformed.
“No!” Maxine screamed and reached for Gabby with her despairing hands.
Gabby turned, the blood dripping from the baton, her eyes wide and wild, her mouth a circle of pure frenzy.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
Gabby smashed back into the wall. Two bullet holes appearing in her chest, head snapped back.
McCready had only fired two shots.
The third BOOM signaled the lancing return of the headache crashing through Maxine’s head, bringing pain and horror to cover the anguish she already felt at seeing Sudhindra’s lifeblood leaking from the wounds of his beautiful head.
When Maxine awoke, it was daylight.
The city was still aflame. The night sky had been replaced by a glut of colliding clouds that were heavy with the promise of rain, which she immediately hoped would torrent down, extinguishing the burning city but also cooling the heat of grief in her heart.
Storm sat with his back to the wall of the institute, hugging his knees, coughing. McCready was pacing, biting at his thumbnail, occasionally taking off his cap and scratching at his head. Looking up at the sky and then muttering darkly to himself.
When she was able, Maxine smashed the window of a parked Suburban and then, after pulling a plaid blanket from the back seat, covered Sudhindra’s body with it.
She left Gabby’s corpse where it lay, pausing only to pick up the baton and wipe it clean on a handkerchief from her coat pocket. She closed the baton and offered it to McCready.
McCready shook his head, and so Maxine put it in her pants pocket.
“What are we gonna do, Mom?”
Storm looked wasted. It was nearly a day since the last round of chemo, and Maxine knew this would be when the worst side effects were starting to kick in. She gave him some antibiotics and painkillers from the medical bag, which he had to swallow dry, and she shook her head upon looking at the rising smoke all around, listening to the occasional crump of explosions off in the distance.
“I really have no idea. Other than, if we don’t get inside somewhere warm and dry soon, we’re going to get caught in one hell of a storm.”
The clouds were building now, bubbling up almost as if the rising smoke was adding to their threat, coloring them blacker and expanding them with dark energy. The last vestiges of clear sky disappeared as they looked up. The apartment building that had produced the worst of the smoke as she and Sudhindra had descended the fire escape had all but burnt itself out, and was now just a smoldering tower of grayish fumes from which occasionally pieces of concrete would fall away and crash down to the street beyond the institute.
McCready still paced, looking up, looking down, and chewing at a nail which Maxine could see was bleeding along the edges.
“I don’t get it,” he said. “It’s been twelve hours, easy. Where is everyone? Where’s the fire department? Where are the news helicopters, and the cops? Christ, where’s the Army? It’s like we’ve been left to fend for ourselves.”
There was a childish whine to McCready’s voice. Although he’d been able to use his gun twice now to save Maxine and Storm from injury, nothing else about him inspired confidence. She remembered back to Josh talking about his colleagues, back when he’d been a cop. There were those you could rely on to back you up whatever was going down, and there were some, a minority, who were more interested in their donuts and paychecks than allowing themselves to get in harm’s way. McCready seemed to be one of the latter, when what Maxine really needed now was a dose of the former.
She bitterly thought of Josh again, on his insisting on going on that fool boat trip with the probationers, and taking Tally along as a female cover for the girls. If he hadn’t gone, hadn’t been such a damn boy scout and stand-up guy, he’d have been with them now. They’d have been together as a family, and whatever their differences, Maxine knew that Josh was always a good guy to have around in a crisis.
When McCready ran out of bullets, she imagined he wouldn’t be a lot of use. Which meant someone was going to have to be the designated driver right now, and that person was going to have to be her.
“Officer McCready, I think we can assume that if the authorities and Army aren’t here by now, they’re not coming any time soon. I also think we can assume that whatever has happened in Boston might also have happened over a wider area. Before, Sudhindra said… well, before we left the institute, he thought it might have been an EMP attack, which I guess is possible, but that doesn’t explain the behavior of the people in the city. The killings, the destruction and fire-starting.”
McCready blinked as if this was too much information for him to be taking in at once. He stopped biting his thumbnail and puffed out his cheeks, but didn’t offer up any theories or suggestions.
“So. Officer McCready, we’re going to need somewhere to hunker down for at least tonight. Any ideas?”
McCready blinked again. Maxine could almost see the cogs whirring behind his eyes.
“Maybe we should try the police department building?” she suggested. “Where is it?”
McCready’s lips were tight. His eyes watery.
“Where’s your station? What building do you work out of? Which district?”
McCready’s eyes fluttered as his mouth caught up with his brain. “Sorry. Just… you know… Umm. District 4, Harrison Avenue…” McCready turned around and pointed to the west. “About two miles over there.”
Maxine bit her lip. Two miles. Was Storm up to it? She looked at her son, his features ghostly and his eyes sunken. He looked wretched, like he couldn’t walk two yards, let alone two miles.
Maxine shook her head. “Never mind. That’s too far for Storm without transport, and I haven’t heard a car or anything since we woke. Anywhere nearer?”
McCready sighed. Maxine couldn’t tell if it was from frustration or relief. “Well, about a mile in that direction…” McCready pointed to the east. “…is my place. We could hold up there until your boy is ready to travel further, I guess. I got food, a spare room. If the block hasn’t been torched, that is.”
Maxine pointed at McCready’s pistol. “You got more ammo for that?”
McCready nodded. “Yeah, plenty.”
Maxine held out a hand to Storm. He took it, and she helped him to his feet. “Then let’s get going. The sooner we’re under
cover, the better.”
She hefted the medication bag onto her shoulder and they headed off in the direction McCready had indicated.
The Boston streets were not entirely deserted, but it was reasonable to assume that, like Maxine, the inhabitants of the city had been laid low by the mass induced headaches, and had spent a similar amount of time unconscious. Maxine herself felt wrecked, and couldn’t imagine how awful Storm must be feeling right now, so perhaps the inhabitants of the city were either staying out of trouble or recovering their strength before they made some more. Fires burned sporadically. There were dead bodies in burned-out cars, and some that had been murdered on the sidewalk. Too many dead people to count, really, and there was a funereal stillness to the air that not even flying birds would dare to break.
Maxine was startled a couple of times by falling glass from broken window frames, pushed out by wind. There were crashes in the distance that echoed eerily down the streets, and they heard a number of screams that carried through the air from directions unknown. As they threaded their way through garbage littered streets, the patter of rain began gently, but soon became heavier, making their going all the more uncomfortable, and by the time they arrived at McCready’s apartment block, they were drenched.
McCready’s building hadn’t been torched yet, but many of the windows in its face were broken. And the front doors at the top of a short flight of stone steps looked like they’d been kicked in.
Supernova EMP Series (Book 1): Dark End Page 8
