Supernova EMP Series (Book 1): Dark End

by Hamilton, Grace

  “Okay,” Josh said, and, slinging the Heckler & Koch strap over his shoulder, he climbed into the dumbwaiter shaft. The walls were ribbed and it was small enough for him to steady his back against one smooth wall to climb down the ribs perfectly safely.

  “See?” he called as he went, moving down surprisingly fast.

  Still not convinced any more than before, Poppet hitched up her evening dress and climbed into the shaft, copying Josh’s technique with the wall and the steel ribs. Her arms trembled, and the alcohol in her system might have been making her more unsteady, but it was also giving her a little Dutch courage. She was breathing hard, her face determined and her eyes fearful, but she was making it down the shaft after Josh.

  Josh reached the bottom of the shaft without incident and opened the hatch into the serving area of the second-class dining room. Where the shaft had been almost dark, with only the high portholes in the kitchen wall to throw off illumination, the second-class dining room had nothing like a second-class set of portholes. The walls along the starboard side of the Empress were nearly all glass. And as Josh got his bearings, he could look out over a wide expanse of the sky and the calm curve of the sea… and the approaching sails of the Sea-Hawk cutting across the waves.

  Josh punched the air. Well done, Tally Standing! Well done, indeed!

  Poppet, breathing heavily, came out of the hatch and slid her backside over the stainless- steel work surface. Josh helped her down, and in less than a minute, the other three were through and staring with open-mouthed delight at the Sea-Hawk. Still a mile away at this time, but holding full sail and eating up the distance at a good rate.

  “Sorry, Ten-Foot,” said Banger, “I guess I had you all wrong.”

  Josh let it go. He didn’t have the wherewithal to argue with the boy. He guessed he’d find out what was what when they got back onboard… which was the newest problem they’d have to deal with right now. How indeed were they going to get back to the Sea-Hawk without getting themselves killed in the process?

  “If we go to the decks, they’re bound to have people posted there. If we try to climb down the Jacob’s Ladders or the cargo nets and their sentries see us, they’ll just shoot at us from above.”

  “Can’t we just jump and swim?” Banger asked.

  Josh shook his head. “We’re still about fifty feet above the water here. You jump from this height, and you don’t get it right, you’ll hit the water at about fifty miles an hour, or worse, crash into the hull. There’s a reasonable chance that whichever of your limbs are broken will not be able to assist you in swimming because you’ll be unconscious and already drowned.”

  “Right,” said Banger, “now you put it like that, I guess jumping isn’t the best idea.”

  “The Jet Skis,” said Poppet suddenly. “There’s an open area at the back of the boat. When we’re anchored off an island or beach, they launch Jet Skis from it for people to ride. I saw it on the introductory video playing when we first got to the stateroom.”

  Joey shook his head. “You idiot broad, there’s no power; nothing works. You’re not going to be able to get down there and just kickstart a Jet Ski!”

  Poppet cut daggers at Joey. “I know that, you blue-pill-taking old con-jool-gal fraud! On the video, there was also a rack of dinghies. Big ones. Enough for five people, easy-peasy.”

  Joey boiled.

  Josh nodded. “Okay, but just one problem. No more dumbwaiters to get us down to the Jet Ski stage, and they’re bound to have the stairs staked out. We’re stuck on this level unless we can find a way further down.”

  Joey ruffled his hair, and the boys looked at their guns with expressions to suggest they were doing complicated math.

  Josh looked at the stainless- steel work surface. There were trays of cutlery, several sinks, and deeper trays holding long-handled ladles and serving spoons, and beneath the work surface were piles and piled of neatly folded, white linen tablecloths, neatly embroidered with the monogram of The Empress Line.

  “Okay. It’s a long shot, but I guess that’s all we got left.”

  “Why me?”

  “Poppet, you’re the lightest. We can lower you down and you can see if you can get access to the Jet-Skis.”

  “You really want to hang me over the side of this boat, and lower me down to the waves on a tied-together length of tablecloths?”

  “Yes, Poppet. That’s exactly what I want to do.”

  Poppet looked at Joey. “You want me to do this?”

  Joey glanced at Josh, who nodded and then fixed his eyes on his wife. “Yes, Poppet, I want you to do this.”

  “Joey, I want a divorce.”

  “As soon as you get down to the Jet Ski level, I will be happy to sign away half of everything I have.”

  “Seventy-five percent.”

  “Sixty.”

  “Sixty-five.”

  “Done. But I get the house in the Hamptons and the gold clubs.”

  “Whatever. Done.”

  Josh and the boys had finished tying the tablecloths together and had a length of material near fifty feet long. They’d left the second-class dining room and travelled as far as they could along the corridor, until they’d reached the stern of the Empress.

  If the remaining crew and passengers were hunting them, they weren’t making a very good try of it, because they reached the back area of decking without incident. From here, they could no longer see the Sea-Hawk, but when they’d left the dining room, it had been just three quarters of a mile off the starboard bow, heading on a direct line to the prow of the liner.

  Josh looped the cotton rope under Poppet’s arms and secured it with three thick knots in the material.

  “You’re gonna be fine,” he said.

  “There’s too much hopefully in your tone, Mr. Interloper, far too much hopefully. Gimme some certainty. Hopefully, I got coming out of my wazoo. I’m up to here with hopefullys, and I’m sick to the stomach on maybes.”

  “You’ll be fine, Poppet. We will not let you go. All you have to do is get onto the Jet Ski deck, and tell us that it’s okay to climb down. That’s it.”

  The boys and Joey held onto the makeshift rope. “Over you go,” said Josh as Poppet pressed her body against the rail.

  “The sea looks an awfully long way away,” she said quietly.

  “The faster you go, the nearer it’ll get,” Josh said.

  With one last sharp look, Poppet hooked a leg over the side and allowed herself to be lowered.

  As the boys and Joey played out the tablecloths, Josh went back across the lower deck to see if anyone was approaching down any of the three corridors that fed onto their vantage point.

  Nothing to see here.

  Josh went back to the rail and looked over the side. Poppet was digging her fingers into the rope, and she had both of her eyes screwed shut like Lemming had on the Jacob’s ladder. She was already a good thirty feet down, though, sliding over the smooth metal of the hull, gently turning on the improvised cotton rope.

  “What can you see?” Josh called down.

  “Nothing! I have my eyes closed, you idiot!”

  Josh shook his head. “Open them, please. You’ve gotta be near the opening by now.”

  As he watched, Poppet opened one eye and took in her surroundings. Below her, the waves lapped lazily at the base of the hull. There was no breeze to speak of and the waves which broke against the metal ship were weak and tame. Josh thanked whichever facet of Neptune was looking after them today.

  “I can see it!” Poppet called. “Another five feet and I’ll be able to get inside!”

  The boys and Joey played out more of the makeshift rope. They were getting dangerously close to the end of it. It was secured against a metal pole that went up to the ceiling which covered back of the deck. The pole was bolted into the deck at top and bottom, and looked sturdy enough for the job in hand, but they were running out of line.

  “I’m in!” were the last words they heard from Poppet as the line went
slack and was pushed out of the opening to dangle above the waves. “Okay, boys, make like Spiderman!” The color drained from Banger’s face at the thought of going over the side.

  “It’s this or we’ll leave you to the crazies,” Joey said, pushing the boy to the edge.

  With a gulp, and a prayer to the heavens, Banger went over the side and began to lower himself down, hand over hand.

  Lemming went next as Banger slithered inside the ship on the lower deck.

  When the rope was finally clear, Joey pushed Josh to the side. “You go next.”

  “No, Joey, you go.”

  “Don’t make me shoot you, Mr. Interloper.”

  Suddenly, bullets crashed into the deck and tore up the wood near their feet, spitting from the corridor to their right. Joey returned fire at the same time, kicking Josh towards the rail.

  Such was the force that Joey pushed him with, the rail bit into Josh’s back and he cartwheeled directly over it.

  22

  “Mom, I just want to die.”

  On the outskirts of Cumberland, Maryland, Storm was so unwell that Maxine thought she was going to lose him there and then. Without the medication needed to ward off the side effects from the chemotherapy, Storm’s condition had worsened over the last few days—to the point where it was as much as he could do to lift his chin off his chest as the buggy ran along the highway, and this only to tell her that he would rather be dead than alive like this.

  Maxine squeezed his hand, and told him not to worry. They would find him replacement drugs, and they would find them soon. They had taken several detours off the road to check out pharmacies and small county hospitals along the way. Those that hadn’t been completely looted of their precious boxes of antibiotics and painkillers and been burned out. The local populace, when they weren’t hiding or outside killing each other, had made the calculations that there might not be any new drugs coming any time soon—a situation that might persist for many years—and so any looting missions they’d carried out for food, ammo, and survival equipment had also included sweeps for drugs and first aid gear.

  The buggy had made good progress, though, and Maxine reckoned they were maybe five days out from her parents’ farm, but it was painfully clear that unless she got something to help her son’s deteriorating condition, Storm might just crawl away into a corner to die.

  His mouth and lips were a mass of sores, and his weakened immune system had allowed a flu-like virus to hit him hard on the second day after their gear had been stolen. This infection was in danger of moving down into his lungs, and threatened pneumonia. A scratch on Storm’s arm was also going bad. The flesh around it had become cherry red with infection, with a blister of pus forming in the center. The loss of his prophylactic antibiotics had been the greatest loss, even worse than the painkillers and steroids.

  The world was doing its best to get under both their skins and do away with them in the pre-industrial condition they found it in. Life expectancy two hundred years ago had been a damn sight worse than it was now, and with good reason—the added complication of a body made extra vulnerable by the hit Storm’s immune system had taken with the chemo for his Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma had dealt him the crappiest of hands from the get-go.

  As his fatigue, infections, and pain had increased, so his inability to make any useful physical contribution to the journey had increased.

  Maxine was left to find places to camp for the night, tend to Tally-Two, go searching in derelict houses and farmsteads for any food that hadn’t been looted, find water, and then light a fire to boil it. There hadn’t been any lucky finds for several days now, and every new day presented the same challenges as the last except in one respect… Storm’s condition wasn’t staying the same. It was worsening considerably.

  Along with all their supplies of food, they’d lost their knives, spare ammo, and firelighters. All they had by way of protection was the clip they’d had in each of their pistols, and Maxine thought them lucky to have had them on their persons when the looter had come through. Not that Storm would in any way be able to lift and fire a gun if he was called upon to do so.

  Maxine drove the horse on as fast as she could, but knew that if it threw a shoe, or went lame, even as close as they were to the farm, they might as well be a million miles away, and so she erred on the side of caution for the most part. Tally-Two was getting enough feed from the roadside when they stopped, at least, and Maxine felt her legs every stop to make sure there was no heat or tenderness. “You’ll rest when we get there, I promise,” she’d whispered in the horse’s ear, but if she’d been asked, she wouldn’t have been able to conclusively say if she was talking to the horse or to herself.

  The desperate search for drugs in the last few mid-sized towns and hamlets along the I-68—with her leaving Storm and the buggy in a secluded area of forest while she hiked in, past smoldering buildings and along deserted streets—had proved just as fruitless as her other attempts. She’d scored two tins of soup and an empty canteen they’d be able to use to carry some water once it had been thoroughly cleaned, but of any useful medication to treat Storm, there had been not sign at all.

  On her way back, she’d had to shoot a snarling mongrel dog that had shot out from a burnt-out house to bark and threaten her. The kill had wasted a precious bullet, but there’d been foam and blood around the dog’s jaws. Even if it had only nipped her, God knew what infections the near-starved creature could have transmitted.

  Maxine felt ashamed that the thought of carrying the dog back to the camp to eat had even crossed her mind. And if it hadn’t been for the foam and the rabid look in its eyes, she may have done more than consider it.

  They had been avoiding the larger cities on purpose. Small towns were bad enough, but cities they passed had been burning still, great black clouds of smoke and ash belching into the sky. There had been some signs of people leaving those cities, hollow-eyed and too frightened to speak to Maxine and her son. She was glad that none of those they’d encountered had tried to take what little they did have by force. Everyone looked beaten and used up, walking along the side of the road aimlessly in little crocodile lines of refugees. Maxine had spotted a couple of riders in silhouette on a high ridge two days ago, but they’d disappeared into the haze.

  But today, Storm was unfit to travel even by buggy. They were close to Cumberland, Maxine knew. There was a large hospital there, and the possibility that things might not have broken down as badly as the other towns… Maxine knew she was just trying to talk herself into going in to check, even knowing there was very little chance that what she was saying could be true—but Storm’s grayness, rattling chest, and the leaking wound were showing her she had no choice whatsoever about venturing in. It was just that a little whistling in the dark never hurt anyone.

  With Storm and Tally-Two hidden off the highway near a brackish stream that curled sluggishly through the trees, Maxine began her hike into Cumberland.

  From a small rise, she could see all the way to the downtown area. The tall buildings there, with their glinting, high-mirrored windows and asymmetric angles, were mostly intact, but there were scars of black running up their sides from fires that had occurred below. The streets she walked down now had been quiet residential blocks, where the gardens were still neat and the driveways still held their cars, as if the suburbanites who lived there were just waiting for their ordinary lives to kick back in. If it hadn’t been for the burned-out roofs, the broken windows, and the occasional dead bodies lying in various states of decomposition on the sidewalk, it could have been any Sunday morning in Happyville. A thousand moms indoors making dinner, a thousand dads rummaging in their garages for the pieces to fix their cars, and two thousand kids leaping around their lawns and front yards throwing Frisbees for their dogs.

  That feeling wrenched at both her heart and her guts.

  Would they ever see the likes of those simple suburban pleasures again? Would anything return to the way it had been before?

&n
bsp; Maxine had to conclude that it would not. A population, leaderless and without the skills to survive, would be as far away from the life they’d had before the disaster had hit as a caveman would have been from the Wright brothers.

  The global village had exploded into a billion South-Sea islands—uncontacted and uncontactable—so that humanity was now just a series of tribes or individuals concerned almost exclusively with meeting the needs of the first rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

  Pushing these thoughts out of her head so that she could stay as sharp and focused as she needed to be, she made her way towards the hospital she knew to be on the west side of the city.

  Western Maryland Regional Medical Center was Cumberland’s largest hospital. Maxine had been there twice before for wound care conferences. First as an attendee and then as a speaker, delivering a nurses’ case study on preoperative wound management and care after surgical debridement of necrotic tissue. She had a general idea of the direction she should walk in, and soon found herself in an area she recognized. A burnt-out Denny’s on the corner two blocks from the hospital gave her final bearings. She’d enjoyed pancakes and coffees there with some of her fellow nursing delegates—preferring it to the stuffy, hi-falutin’ atmosphere of the venue refectory. Stuffed as it had been with medicos who not only thought they were Gods, but Gods who had deigned reluctantly to come down to this Earth and be surgeons. Give her a table of dark-humored, irreverent nurses over doctors anytime. She’d often wondered if there’d been special classes in med school where doctors had learned the easiest way to insert broom handles up their own backsides, because she was pretty sure she’d not yet managed to meet a doctor who didn’t have one already supplied.

  The burnt-out Denny’s echoed with the raucous laughter of days past as Maxine walked by, turned the corner, and saw the sign for the Regional Medical Center.

  The hospital itself was a modern six-story facility set back from the street, with a generous parking lot behind a chain link fence. There were many cars still dotted around the space. They’d been left over from the night shift workers who’d been on duty when the first event had crippled their vehicles.