SALT: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

by Colin F. Barnes

  Stepping closer like a conspirator, Annette whispered, “So who else do you think it might be?”

  Given the way she was looking past her shoulder, Eva thought the girl was considering it could have been one of Graves’ firm. “I don’t know yet,” Eva said, genuinely unsure who could be a suspect now. She’d have to go through her notes again and see if she could see any new patterns, any reason to suggest someone else.

  “Well, if I can be of any more help, just let me know,” Annette said. “And come by later today, and I’ll check on your wound.”

  “Thanks, Anne. I appreciate that. Be careful over there,” she said, referring to the medical facility.

  “It’s okay,” Annette said as she turned to walk away. “Stanic and Ahmed have been coming by often, making sure I’m all right.”

  Eva stayed in place, leaning her weight on the bollard.

  She rested her head on her hands and closed her eyes. Her ribs and lungs hurt. She was tired, hungry and wanted to just curl into a ball and sleep for eternity. She thought back to idea of finding Emily.

  That seemed increasingly appealing.

  For the first time since she arrived, she could relate to those that had thrown themselves overboard. The weight of surviving was growing too heavy.

  And the results of surviving were not necessarily outweighing the cost of doing so.

  When she opened her eyes, she focused on the wooden boards of Marcus’s yacht. A wet, dirty footprint caught her attention. She stepped back and noticed another print. Turning around, she saw, against the low raking sunlight, the prints heading into the cabin.

  Without any shadow of a doubt, she knew these to be the prints from the fishing boat where Jean had been thrown over and, of course, from the medical facility.

  The chunky grip pattern was unmistakable.

  Like a bloodhound on a trail, Eva followed the prints, getting fainter now, through the cabin door, down the steps, and… they led to Marcus, still standing against the counter. She looked at his feet: boots.

  How didn’t she notice before?

  Marcus was joking with Shaley when he looked up at Eva.

  His smile dropped.

  Chapter 38

  With tired arms, Jim pulled his boat up to the second flotilla.

  A ship, similar to a cruise liner, the name Excelsior adorning its port side, formed the centre of the group. Painted in white and navy blue, it cut an elegant sight, almost out of place when compared to the general bad condition of most of the boats on what he used to call his flotilla. Ten smaller fishing vessels lined its perimeter. He recognised them as those he had sent away. Each one brought back the images of those volunteers heading off.

  It hadn’t been easy to send any of them, despite what the others thought about him, but his correspondence with Angelina gave him the strength to do it. Each volunteer was to help with the cause, the search for the cure to the infection. He never knew exactly what happened to them when they arrived at this ship, but he had been assured they were treated humanely and with respect.

  That had always reminded Jim of watching old news reports talking about how cattle were slaughtered humanely. A cold chill slithered down his neck and back as he tied off his boat and turned to face the ship.

  How many dead would be on there?

  If anyone was alive, would they be like Mike? Or worse?

  Jim stood and for a moment considered taking one of the fishing boats and heading as far north as he could, leaving all this behind. But the need to know was too strong. Curiosity was a powerful force; it had been making people do stupid things for thousands of years, and he knew that, like them, he couldn’t resist. The desire to see the truth for himself was greater than the desire to flee, to save himself.

  If these were indeed his last days, he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to go out with the full knowledge of what his complicity and actions had wrought.

  Clambering from boat to boat, Jim approached the Excelsior.

  A steel ladder hung down from the deck. He gripped the handrail and gave it a yank to see if it would take his weight. It seemed solid. He placed his first weary leg on the rung and lifted his weight up. With each step up, he left the relative safety of the known world behind.

  He reached the top and realised he was holding his breath. He was expecting the deck to be littered with bodies. There were none. Just the sound of the wind making the ship’s mast lines whistle and hum and a ship’s bell tolling a dread beat.

  The ship was well made, expensive. It had a generous-sized bridge with large open windows. He pressed his hands to the surface but couldn’t make out anything within the gloom. The bow had a crane and winch and a platform that he knew would have once carried a number of life rafts.

  He made his way down the side until he found an entrance.

  Placing his hand on the handle, Jim hesitated, bracing himself for what might be on the other side. He rued not stopping on one of the fishing boats to find a knife or some other weapon, but one didn’t need a weapon against the dead, so he opened the door.

  He breathed in and gagged. The stench of rot made him vomit, each subsequent breath reactivating his gag reflex. He had to step back outside to get some fresh air. Sweat had covered his face from the sudden exertion.

  Although the place was in darkness, he had caught a brief glimpse of unmoving shadows. Once he had recovered, he decided to return, this time leaving the door open so that the sun would bring some light into the blackness.

  With his shirt over his mouth and nose, Jim waited for his vision to adapt. Every passing second brought more clarity, and he wished it didn’t.

  The bridge section of the ship looked as if there had been a fire. All the computer monitors, navigation screens and various control panels were charred. Beneath the sweet, putrid rotting smell, he could detect smoke and sulphur. It couldn’t have been long ago. When he approached a desk, he could still feel a degree of warmth from the melted plastic chair.

  Turning away, following the sunbeam, he saw five dark lumps in the middle of the open space of the bridge. Although knowing what they were at a fundamental level, the curiosity that had gripped him made him move forward, carrying him closer. He didn’t want to see them, but he knew he had to.

  Using a plastic arm broken off one of the chairs, he prodded the nearest lump. Meaty. Nothing moved. He pushed against it, turning the body over. The face stared back at him with a tight grimace. Jim spun away, unable to bear it. A tide of grief threatened to drown him as he considered the others there. Whatever had killed them had done so with extreme pain and terror.

  Jim didn’t really know why he had to do this, but he felt compelled to explore further as though seeing everything would dispel the horror, even though he doubted it would. Still, he carried on, walking through the passageways, inspecting the ship’s various cabins and rooms.

  Most of them appeared to be laboratories with white furniture, desks, and racks of equipment: glass flasks, test tubes, racks of slides, and electronic equipment that he presumed were used in testing and analysis.

  Other rooms were clearly quarantine zones. Only these weren’t like the temporary ones set up on the Alonsa; these had thick, multi-glazed plastic doors, more white furniture and proper beds for the sick to live out their remaining lives in some semblance of comfort and dignity. Though the first few he encountered were empty, the next nine were not.

  He recognised every single one of them, each flotilla volunteer that he had sent over during the year. Each one dead.

  This time, though, he knew the cause of death.

  The quarantine doors were closed but unlocked. He didn’t go inside, but through the clear doors he could see that each person had either been sitting on the bed or sleeping. Dark red blood, not dry and clotted, was sprayed across the wall behind their heads
. The entry wounds were all in the same place: their foreheads.

  They were executed, Jim thought, though whether by the same person who had killed the bridge officers he couldn’t tell. He thought that if it was, then others would have likely been killed in a similar fashion to these in the quarantine rooms.

  Shaking his head and saying a prayer for them, Jim pressed on, going down further into the ship via a hatch and a ladder. He guessed he was in the lowest or second lowest deck, as it started to resemble the Bravo with its exposed ducting and pipework. The galley came next, through a steel door, and a communal mess beyond that.

  It felt strange for it to be empty.

  The place was tidy as though it had never been inhabited.

  A desire bubbled up inside him to shout out, to call for anyone, in that most British of ways, “Hello there.”

  No words came forth, however, for when he walked through the mess hall, he came to a wide storage room where a number of tall fridges stood across the rear wall. In front of them was a bench that extended almost the full width of the room, around which were a dozen stools, and on those stools, slumped over the desk, were a dozen men and women in white lab coats.

  Something told him these were the ones his curiosity was looking for.

  One woman in particular sat in the middle with her back to him. Long, curly brown hair spread out on the desk.

  It was her, he knew it.

  She had once described herself in very brief terms, during one of their communications. Angelina… As though acting on their own behalf, his legs brought him closer, and their twins in this conspiracy, his arms, reached out to pull her hair back, wanting to expose her face, but as he felt her hair against the palms of his hands, he heard a rush of footsteps from behind him.

  Before Jim could turn, a thick arm wrapped around his neck, constricting his throat. Jim struggled, trying to throw off his attacker, but he was too quick and pulled Jim backwards until he lost balance.

  Jim felt the arms tighten still further.

  A mix of anger and fear filled his mind as he was being dragged back out of the room. He kicked his legs, trying to get purchase on something to stop his progress, but it was useless; his attacker was too strong.

  A door slammed open, bouncing against the side of the passageway.

  Jim’s attacker dragged him into a darkened room. His vision had started to fail, the lack of oxygen bringing with it a nebula of colours and flashing lights.

  With a thud, Jim landed on the floor, the back of his head bouncing off what felt like tiles, hard and cold. A shadow covered him as a light suddenly blazed. Gasping for breath, Jim looked up, squinting against the light. He couldn’t make out the face of the person standing over him, but saw they were wielding a claw hammer.

  Chapter 39

  Eva and Marcus stared at each other like gunslingers in an old Western.

  “What?” Marcus said, breaking the silent tension. Frank and Shaley had turned their attention from the files to watch Eva and Marcus. “Well?” Marcus added. “What’s the problem? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  “You fucking liar,” Eva said, keeping her voice low, not wanting to wake Danny, who had spread out on the settee, his head on a cushion. She took a step closer, looking at Graves’ boots again. There was no mistaking them; they were the ones that had made the footprints. “It was you all along, wasn’t it? Pulling the strings, obscuring the truth? You set Frank up for the attack on Jim! There was no American, was there?”

  Frank stood up from the table to intercept her as she jabbed a finger into Marcus’s chest. The fury was building inside her. How could she have trusted him? She knew what he was like, but he’d manipulated her all along.

  Taking a step back, Marcus held out his hand to Frank, signalling him to sit back. “Look, love, I don’t know what’s going on here. Where’s all this coming from?”

  Eva grabbed a kitchen knife lying on the counter and held it out in front of her, keeping an eye on Frank and Shaley, who were sat at the table but facing her. She wouldn’t be able to take all three of them, and she’d have to somehow get Danny out. Catherine had gone, probably into a berth or the bathroom. She swung the knife in a slow arc encompassing all three of them.

  “The boots,” she finally said. “They’re the same prints I found at the two murder scenes. You can’t deny that; they’re right there.” She pointed to the deck and the steps where the muddy prints were clearly visible.

  “You stupid bitch,” Marcus said. “These aren’t even my boots.”

  “And I suppose you’re telling me that you’re not wearing them either? Don’t take me for a fool, Graves.” She noticed Frank edging closer to the edge of his seat as though ready to pounce. Eva took a step back so that she could bolt out of the cabin if necessary.

  “Listen to me,” Marcus said, inching forward and pointing to the boots. “I traded these yesterday. I needed to do some mucky jobs this morning, and my other pair had long since worn out.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Shaley said. “I was there when he got ’em. I borrowed a pair too.” Shaley held out a foot, showing a work boot of a similar style, but slightly different.

  “I haven’t lied to you, Eva. On my dear old ma’s body. I can even prove it if you aren’t convinced.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll take a trip to engineering right now and you can ask Stanic. I traded some tobacco for them. Who’s got tobacco on the flotilla any more? I don’t smoke, so gave him some for the work boots. We’ll go there now and prove it.”

  “Shut up!” Eva said, holding the knife out. She had to think. It didn’t make any sense. She hadn’t found any of those kinds of boots when she and Duncan had visited engineering before. It wasn’t beyond possibility that they were hidden or in some other place, but why trade them? Perhaps there were multiple pairs, and the killer just happened to have the same ones. Or perhaps Marcus was being fitted up…

  “Okay,” Eva said, “someone needs to stay here with Danny. The rest of you are coming with me to speak with Stanic. We’re getting to the bottom of this, one way or another.”

  “Frank? You and Caff do the honours?”

  “Sure, we’ll keep an eye on the lad.”

  “And find somewhere safe for those files,” Eva said. “I don’t want to put Danny in any more danger if possible.”

  “I’ll take them to the Bravo,” Frank said, “and take Danny to my place.”

  With the plan set, Eva made sure Shaley and Marcus walked in front of her while she kept the knife. She didn’t want to rule anything out right now.

  As they headed for engineering, she wished she had Duncan with her.

  She remembered him saying he was going to see Stanic. Hopefully he’d be there when she arrived. She wanted someone to back her up. She felt this was the critical moment. Something would shake out and give her the lead she needed.

  Chapter 40

  Jim opened his eyes, expecting the claw end of the hammer to crash into his face.

  The attacker, however, had stood back out of the light. With no silhouette to disrupt Jim’s view, he saw that it was a man, mid to late thirties, crazy wide eyes, unkempt beard. His body looked gaunt, wasted away, yet he was functionally strong. Jim worried for a moment that he might have been someone who had escaped from one of the empty quarantine rooms he’d seen earlier, but unlike the others, he wasn’t wearing a pale blue gown.

  Jim tried to speak, ask who the man was, but his throat was still painful, and he only managed to croak out a few unintelligible syllables. He started when the claw hammer hit the floor with a sharp clang.

  “You’re not one of them,” the man said, kneeling down on his haunches, inspecting Jim, looking him over like a predator assessing a meal. The man touched Jim’s jacket, running his fingers over the brass button
s and the embroidered badges.

  Badges and medals awarded to Jim for his performance as a captain.

  “You’re from the other place. You shouldn’t be here.”

  Jim backed away from the man, whose breath reeked of bad eggs.

  The man stood up and turned his back. He seemed to open a low cupboard or some other piece of furniture. When he returned, he held a scalpel in his left hand.

  The blade caught the light. Jim pictured it slicing through his skin. His heart thumped, the fear driving him to back up, get some distance between them, but he just came to a wall, his back pressing against it. “No,” Jim croaked out as the man stepped closer, bringing the razor-sharp blade down to Jim’s face. With his free hand, the man pushed Jim’s face against the cold, tiled wall.

  “Stay still,” he said.

  Before Jim could react, the blade had struck, cutting him across the cheek.

  The sharp pain of sliced skin burned for a few seconds. The man rubbed something against the wound. Within seconds the cut felt like nothing more than the merest of scratches. The man held a piece of cotton wool to Jim’s cheek. “Hold it,” he said. “It’ll stop bleeding shortly.”

  With that, he stepped back and placed a swab into a plastic container of clear liquid. He held it up to the light, flicking the bottom of the tube with his free hand. The liquid turned a dark purple colour, and the man turned to face Jim with a smile on his face.

  “Lucky for you,” the man said. “You’re not one of them.”

  Jim didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing and just stayed sitting against the wall waiting for his pulse to slow, for rational thought to take over.

  “Call me Tom.” The man held out his right hand.