Supernova EMP Series (Book 1): Dark End

by Hamilton, Grace

  Storm was doing his best, but he needed to rest and stop at regular intervals to get his breath. The medication helped with the symptoms, and once the next ten days were over, he should start to see an improvement as the effects of the chemo wore off, but for now, going was slow.

  The dream residue flashed behind her eyes again, and Maxine got up from her sleeping bag, shaking her head to clear the thoughts and the sudden panic. The roadhouse was chilly but bearable on her bedding-warmed skin, and she rested her elbows on the bar, cracking open a bottle of still water and slaking her night thirst.

  The stress of the last few days must be getting to me, she thought. She’d believed the recurring dreams of that night had long ago fallen into deep memory, never to return to the fore, but when she thought about it logically, she saw she was in a vulnerable position now, just as she had been back then when Gabe had been pushing to take her to that no-star, no-tell motel.

  Maxine shivered. Drank again.

  She was going to have to get used to this, she thought.

  This was the new normal.

  They made steady progress as they hiked away from the roadhouse. A good night’s sleep had replenished Storm’s energy, and he seemed in better spirits all round. Maxine found herself envying the resilience of the young man. Storm was adjusting to all the crazy around them much better than Maxine could have hoped for.

  “You don’t hate me?” he asked as they walked the blacktop. There were verdant woods on both sides of the highway, slopes of trees working their way down into a valley on one side and up onto hills on the other.

  She hadn’t been expecting such a left-field question, it seemed so at odds with what she’d assumed was Storm’s current level of adjustment. “Hate you? Of course not. Why would I hate you?”

  “For killing McCready.”

  Ah.

  “No.”

  “Because I could have just tied him up. I could have just left him unconscious.”

  “You did what you had to do, Storm. I was coming back to shoot him. Don’t blame yourself. We were in a bad situation, and we had to get out of it.”

  Storm walked on a little further before he stopped and said, “But when I started, when I hit him, that’s all I wanted to do. Just get him down. Unconscious, or surrendered. But… something rose up inside me. Something dark and horrible. I couldn’t stop. I just kept hitting him and hitting him… I didn’t feel I was in control at all.”

  Maxine put an arm across his shoulder. “Storm, there’s a whole lot of things going on here that I don’t understand. We’ve all been changed by what’s happened. All of us. You did okay. We’re both alive. It’s okay.”

  “So, you don’t hate me, not even a little bit?”

  “Not even a little bit.” She kissed the side of his head and squeezed him. “Come on. It’s a long way to Iowa.”

  The trotting horse and buggy were sitting by the side of the road. A dead man rested in the seat under the black fabric hood.

  Maxine checked him over. He was maybe in his mid-fifties, with black hair and a face gray with death. There were no visible signs of injury about him, and he was still a little warm.

  “Cardiac arrest or stroke, at a guess. Not that long ago.”

  The brindle horse was waiting patiently in its bridle and tack. Nodding its head occasionally and huffing impatiently through its nostrils, as if anticipating its next command.

  “What should we do?” Storm asked.

  “Never look a gift horse in the mouth, obviously,” Maxine replied.

  This was the first stroke of luck they’d had since leaving Boston. No so lucky for the horseman, who’d survived this long only to succumb to the ravages of his own health problems. In what seemed like another time, there would have been passersby to administer CPR, an ambulance, and a dash to the emergency room, where someone like Maxine would have worked with a team of doctors to save the man’s life. There couldn’t have been a starker representation of the way everything had changed than this one dead man by the side of the road. Storm helped Maxine to heft the limp body from the buggy and place it by the side of the highway. They didn’t have a spare blanket to cover the body with and provide it some dignity, and Maxine felt bad about that. But Storm bent, closed the man’s half-open eyes, and crossed his arms across his chest.

  “Sorry, man,” the boy said, and it damn near broke Maxine’s heart.

  They made good progress for the rest of the day. The horse was young and enthusiastic, but also well-trained and spirited.

  Riding in the buggy gave Storm the necessary time to recoup further energy, too. Maxine had been around horses growing up on her family farm, and felt comfortable controlling the horse with long-remembered commands and the reins, which fitted neatly into her hands.

  They stopped regularly for the horse to nibble at grass by the roadside and to drink from puddles caused by the rain that came on in the afternoon. It wasn’t a terrible torrent, but it was enough to collect in depressions and give the horse something with which to refresh itself.

  Storm put himself in charge of collecting water and boiling it on a small fire to make it safe to drink when they took a longer stop. Maxine caught him singing under his breath and smiling to himself as he worked. Still nowhere near full capacity, but it was good to see him enjoying making a contribution to their progress.

  The horse and buggy were indeed a godsend. Looking at the road signs, she estimated they had less than a thousand miles to go to the family farm near Oskaloosa. With the horse and buggy, providing their new animal stayed healthy and fit, they could be there in twenty-five days. Maybe less. The horse was fit and healthy right now, so reducing that figure down seemed more than reasonable.

  And twenty-five days didn’t sound so long if you said it fast, she thought. That had been a riff on one of her mother’s favorite sayings about saying something quick to get it done. As the horse walked on pulling the buggy, wanting to go faster than she was allowing because it really was keen to pound the miles, she thought of her mother, Maria Jefferson. A strong, wise capable woman, who had always been suffused with love for her only child. That wasn’t something Maxine could say about her father Donald, who looked like he was built from granite, and certainly behaved like he was, too. Her leaving Oskaloosa to go to college in North Carolina hadn’t been so much an act of rebellion, although her father had described it as such, but more an attempt to prove to her daddy that she could be as strong and resourceful as any son he might have had. It hadn’t been the raising of a middle finger. More a fist of defiance.

  She’d missed her momma terribly in the first few months on campus in her freshman year, but had adjusted to life there gradually—making friends, working hard in class, and studying hard outside it. Knowing her grades would do well towards setting her course of getting her associate’s degree in nursing. That was the career trajectory she’d chosen for herself—again, to do something as far removed from growing up a farm girl in Bumfart Nowhere, USA.

  Storm christened the horse Tally-Two because she was female, attractive, energetic, and as he said, “I miss her. It’s cool to have someone like her around us again. Also, I don’t see why I should be the only one in the family with an alliterative nickname.”

  “I’m not sure Tally will appreciate being compared to a horse, Tic-tac.”

  “Well, if you don’t tell her, I won’t,” he said, winking.

  And they laughed.

  The puff of dust on the tarmac next to the horse made no sound as it jetted up, but it startled Tally-Two enough to throw her off-course, and caused Maxine to have to pull on the reins and get her to slow to a stop.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Storm shook his head. “No idea.”

  The next puff of dust was counterpointed by the sharp report of a rifle.

  Someone was shooting at them.

  Storm pulled out his pistol and looked back through the rear window of the buggy. Maxine didn’t stop to consider any other course of ac
tion, and slapped the reins on Tally-Two’s flank to get the horse up to trotting speed. The two rifle shots had been warnings. That much was clear. Perhaps to make them stop, so that whoever was shooting at them could catch up. But if there was distance between them already, Maxine wanted to keep it that way.

  “Keep down. Don’t give them a shot,” Maxine found herself saying as if she was in a damn cowboy movie. She didn’t even know if it was the right thing to say. It had just come out.

  Storm hunkered down, but kept one eye on the window.

  “Can you see anything?”

  “Nothing,” said Storm. “The road is empty as far as I can see. Do you think we can outrun them?”

  “Not if they’re in a car, but that’s unlikely. If they’re on foot, yes, but if they’re on horseback… I don’t know. We’ve got to find a way off the road and see if we can hide somewhere.”

  Another crack and another puff of disintegrated highway belched up into the air.

  This time Tally-Two carried on without getting startled. “Good girl,” Maxine called to her, willing her on with her hands.

  Two more cracks. Two more puffs.

  “Why aren’t they shooting at us? I mean right at us? In the buggy.”

  “I guess they want the buggy and the horse. Otherwise, they would be, I’m sure.”

  “Then keep going.”

  “I intend to.”

  Two more warning shots, and Maxine yelped as one threw a spray of ricocheting grit up into the cab. “Damn it! They’re losing patience. We’ve got to get off the road!”

  15

  She was called the Empress, and she was astonishing. Her sides rose like sheer cliffs as Tally steered the Sea-Hawk as near as she dared, then instructed the probationers to take in all of the sails and put out the sea-anchors so that the swell and current which had taken hold of the enormous liner would carry the Sea-Hawk with it and keep it in sight at all times.

  There were at least fifteen decks, with lines and lines of cabins along them. Some with sun verandahs and some with just windows as the decks descended. The massive smoke stacks on top of the ship were surrounded by a forest of aerials, radar equipment, and satellite dishes. There were snares of knotted-rope Jacob’s ladders hanging over the side of the ship almost to the water line, and gantries had been swung out amidships from which ropes and chains dangled—from where, Josh assumed, a fleet of lifeboats had been dropped into the water.

  There were no lifeboats near the Empress, so that suggested that whatever passengers had left the ship had done so some time ago. The ropes and the chains dangled limply, swung by the rise and fall of the sea.

  As he craned his neck up to look into the windows of the cabins, he could see that they were all dark and in shadow. The Empress had as much power as the Sea-Hawk did, but unlike the clipper, it also had no sail to offer at least some progress. It had been struck down in the mid-Atlantic like the Sea-Hawk, and left entirely to its own devices and the mercy of the current.

  “Can you see anyone?” Tally asked, shielding her eyes and scanning the decks. Even though they were some distance away from the stricken vessel, it was stunning in size. Perhaps a thousand feet from stem to stern, and wider than a football field is long. It was so hefty and solid, it felt to Josh like it was transmitting gravity.

  “No,” said Josh with grim disappointment. “Not a soul.”

  The probationers’ initial excitement had been quelled degree by degree as the Sea-Hawk had changed course and tacked towards it. The absence of smoke from the stacks, the lack of any lights—and, the closer they got, the lack of any signs of occupation—had taken the wind from their sails, as surely as it had been taken from the Sea-Hawk as Tally had commanded them to winch the sails up to the spars with the winders.

  The Sea-Hawk was dwarfed by the hulk of the Empress, but it was a thousand times more alive.

  Ten-Foot thumped the railing on the side of the Sea-Hawk. “Damn, damn, dammit.”

  Dotty-B had quieted down with the rest of them. She sat on a deck hold with her chin resting on her hands, face stiff with disappointment. Josh could see that she was trying not to cry. He decided against comforting her, if Ten-Foot’s dominance over the crew was to be maintained for now, Josh knew that taking on that role wouldn’t help the situation right at the moment. But he felt sorry for her. She’d been so excited, so full of hope that they were about to be rescued.

  Ten-Foot wasn’t concerned with her at all.

  In the end, Tally gave the wheel to Josh, and she went and sat by Dotty-B. Ten-Foot didn’t bat an eyelid, so that was a fair conclusion to the conundrum.

  Josh kept the Sea-Hawk pointing parallel to the Empress. The currents matched their speed of drift, but there were local variations, and an occasional wash caused by the waves slapping into the hull of the liner that wanted to twist the Sea-Hawk around. He didn’t think there was much chance of the two vessels colliding, but it was better to keep the two of them pointing in the same direction. It certainly felt safer.

  What didn’t feel safer was that Ten-Foot seemed more wired and edgy since they’d sighted the liner. He was pacing, and snapping his fingers. Eyes darting. The change in him, a regressive change, suggested that whatever had intensified his aggressive streak had not settled in one direction or the other. If the change in Rollins and the others had been anything to go by, Ten-Foot was wavering on the cusp of some internal madness. The presence of the liner was seemingly knocking him off kilter again.

  Goober approached Ten-Foot and put a hand on his shoulder, which Ten-Foot shrugged off immediately as he fixed Goober with a razor stare. Goober held up both his hands in supplication.

  “Hey, sorry, man. I just wanna know what we gonna do.” Goober and the others were increasingly bypassing Josh. They were reading Ten-Foot’s unpredictability, too, and setting him up as their putative leader to keep him sweet. Josh said nothing for now.

  “Nothing to do, fool,” Ten-Foot said without taking his eyes off the liner. “It’s dead as dead. We might as well just carry on.”

  Josh couldn’t let that go, and blurted, “That’s crazy.”

  Ten-Foot’s eyes blazed. “You got something to say, bossman?”

  When he responded, Josh kept his voice level, but steely. Ten-Foot’s volatility couldn’t be the excuse that left the liner and what it might contain behind. “There might be tons of stuff we can use on there. Might be more food, maybe water. Maybe a working compass. Who knows? We should at least go aboard and have a look.”

  Ten-Foot’s lips were thin. He crossed his thick arms across his barrel chest.

  “I mean, if that’s okay with you Ten-Foot.” Josh said half-sarcastically, but with some motivation not to ramp up the tension. All good conflict resolution smarts. He had to keep reminding himself that although Ten-Foot was a bad apple, his thought processes had been changed, and keeping him on his side was the best policy, however much it stuck in his craw.

  Ten-Foot’s shoulders relaxed a little, but he kept the defensive arms across his chest. “Okay, you wanna go over there, you go over there.”

  Josh nodded. “Okay, I’ll do that. But I’ll need someone to come with me if we’re gonna bring back anything useful.”

  “I’ll come,” Tally said.

  “No!” Ten-Foot barked. “You stay here, girl. You know more about steering the ship and the sails than anyone. You stay. Right, bossman?”

  Josh nodded stiffly. One of the things he might be able to find on a ship of that size would be guns. There would be an armory, he was sure. Modern-day pirates would find rich pickings on a luxury liner, and he felt sure that the crew would have had a way to defend themselves.

  “Banger and Lemming, you go with bossman over to the boat. You have a look around and see what you can lift. Don’t let him get any guns, okay? If there are guns, you bring them back.”

  Banger and Lemming didn’t look ecstatic to be volunteered in such a fashion, but neither had the balls to argue with Ten-Foot, and so they just
nodded their assent.

  Ten-Foot pointed at Josh. “You bring my boys back in one piece, bossman, or your little girl might not be complete when you get back, understand? There’s plenty I can cut off and her still be able to steer.”

  Ten-Foot reached behind his back and brought out a chef’s knife that had been in the back of his pants, hidden by his shirt. Josh found it hard to keep the shock off his face. Ten-Foot held up the blade, point towards Josh. “I guess this one didn’t make your inventory, eh, bossman?”

  Josh said nothing, but licked his dry lips.

  The Sea-Hawk was equipped not just with lifeboats, both solid-hulled and inflatable for quick deployment if there was a man overboard emergency, but also two large, open-hulled wooden dinghies with paddles for pleasure-boating when the ship dropped anchor off secluded bays or beaches. They were launched over the side of the Sea-Hawk on lines from winches, and accessed by a ladder over the side. Josh went first after telling Tally he would be back, for sure, in an hour or so, and he passed the key to the captain’s cabin to her when his hand was out of sight of Ten-Foot, having already told her about the axes and flare guns he’d hidden there. If anything went south while he was gone, she was to lock herself in there with the weaponry until he got back.

  Tally nodded, took the key, and hugged the breath from out of his body.

  Once the three of them were in the dinghy, the boys paddled the boat towards the Empress. Josh was glad the sea was relatively calm today, because even as they approached the liner, the wash created by its bulk and the complex crisscrossing of the waves bouncing off its hull made the dinghy heel and yaw crazily, causing Josh—who was at the prow of the dinghy, hoping to reach and hang onto the nearest Jacob’s ladder—to grip the wooden side of the boat with grim determination.

  It took Josh five swings of his arm to get hold of a sodden rope ladder and tie the dinghy to it with a line. As he pulled it tight, the dinghy bobbed and twisted, but it was near enough for him to step onto the sea-slicked wooden slats and start to haul himself up. Behind him, he heard the two probationers arguing as to who was going to go first out of the two of them, neither seemingly wanting to put himself forward. In the end, Josh was halfway up the side of the Empress before Banger found enough courage to climb onto the rope and begin his ascent.