EDEN

by Dean Crawford

  She smiled, Cody guessed, at his honesty. ‘I know you will. Now go.’

  The wind was gusting from the north east, low clouds spilling a fine drizzle that had dampened the sidewalk and street. Bundles of paper and debris tumbled before the wind along the edge of Boston Common. Cody looked up from Lena to see thick clouds of billowing black smoke spilling from the state house’s upper floors as the senate chamber burned.

  A distant crack of broken glass reached them on the wind. Cody saw two figures emerge on the steps outside the state house’s west wing. Jake and Charlotte searched and pointed. Moments later, the main doors thundered as the prisoners within began ramming their way out, the heavy wood splintering under the blows and shouting voices from within echoing out onto the streets.

  ‘Go!’ Lena snapped with sudden force.

  Cody fled across the street as he heard the main doors split with a deafening crack, the prisoners spilling from within with a ragged cheer behind one of the statues from the Doric Hall as Cody ducked out of sight into a service alley, Jake and Charlotte shouting as they ran in pursuit. Gunshots rang out as Cody sprinted down the alley and out onto an adjoining street. A pair of feral dogs leaped out of Cody’s path, growling with their tails between their legs as they loped away.

  Cody turned right, heading south east and blinking the fine misty rain out of his eyes as he ran. He heard Charlotte shouting at him from far behind.

  ‘This is insane, Cody! Wait for us!’

  Cody kept moving, Maria’s image filling his mind as he raced toward the docks. His legs pounded the moss covered asphalt, his heart thundered in his ears and raw fury drove the blood through his veins.

  ‘Cody, wait!’

  He looked over his shoulder to see Charlotte falling behind and Jake even further back, his gait faltering as he gave up the chase. Cody cried out in desperation as he saw the prisoners flooding the city street behind Jake, but thoughts of Maria filled his mind and his legs kept pumping of their own accord.

  A gunshot cracked the air and Cody saw Jake stagger sideways and collapse against a vehicle as he clutched his shoulder and cried out in pain. Charlotte dodged sideways and hauled him out of the line of fire, tucking in behind a scorched vehicle slumped across the sidewalk as they huddled together, unable to flee any more. Their words flickered accusingly through Cody’s mind. We stick together. Is betrayal your currency now?

  Cody dashed and dodged and fled through the debris and the abandoned cars, hoping that the wind in his ears would deafen him to the terrible screams and cries that echoed in pursuit down the abandoned streets around him.

  Ahead, he saw figures moving down by the harbour, running at a slow jog. Cody squinted into the fine drizzle and saw Hank’s form towering over Sawyer’s, and Bethany between them, Maria in her arms as they followed Sawyer’s henchmen toward the docks. Cody slowed as elation flooded his body. He whirled, looking back toward where Charlotte and Jake were crouched. He raised his rifle at the oncoming mass of prisoners and fired three rounds, sending them scattering for cover.

  Cody ran back up the street toward Charlotte and Jake.

  ‘Jesus,’ Charlotte raged at him as he rushed down alongside them. ‘Could you have left it any goddamned later?’

  Blood stained Jake’s jacket as Charlotte tried to stem the bleeding. Cody peered over the top of the vehicle’s hood and saw a man approaching them with a rifle.

  Cody aimed and fired at the man, who immediately fled back into cover.

  ‘Stay back!’ Cody yelled.

  ‘We just want the guns!’ a voice called back.

  ‘Get us out of here on your ship!’ shouted another.

  Cody shook his head. ‘You’d kill us as soon as help us!’

  ‘Why?!’ the man yelled. ‘You’re the only ones who know how to find Eden!’

  ‘Then why are you shooting?’

  ‘To stop you from leaving without us!’

  Cody looked down at Jake, who managed a grim smile at him. ‘Hurts like hell but no real harm done. Get out of here, both of you.’

  Cody sighed and shook his head. ‘No, we stick together, right? We get back to the ship, we’ll be okay.’

  Jake coughed and chuckled. ‘No, we don’t Cody. This is the end of the line for me. You need to protect your daughter. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘They’ll kill you!’ Cody hissed.

  ‘No, they won’t’ Charlotte insisted. ‘I’m staying here too. It’s time to end this and bring back something that people recognise. You were right, Cody. The only way to survive this is to start working together. If the Amish can do it then so can we. Maybe we could even find them. You get aboard the ship with Maria and come back for us if you can convince Hank it’s worth it. We’ll try to hold the prisoners back, convince them that there’s a better way. You go do what you have to do.’

  Cody stared at her for a long beat. ‘Why?’

  Charlotte looked down at Jake again and sighed.

  ‘I don’t have anybody else. If the voice you heard was my father’s then I know that he’s safe. If he abandoned these people then I’ll stay in his place and do what he should have done. If it wasn’t him in the message you heard then he’s probably dead. You have Maria, and she needs you as much as I know you need her. Find her, Cody.’ She gripped his jacket and glared up at him. ‘Make this worth it and come back for us.’

  Cody was unable to find words before Charlotte stood up in plain view of their pursuers and walked out into the street amid the debris tumbling on the wind.

  ‘I’m coming out!’ she yelled. ‘I just want to talk!’

  Jake tugged at Cody’s arm. ‘Get moving!’

  Cody turned to run, but then turned back and reached into his jacket. He pulled out the two flares he had found outside the state house and handed them to Jake along with his pistol.

  ‘One flare for distress, two for success,’ Cody said. ‘Try to signal the ship. I’ll come back for you if I can.’

  Cody turned and ran low between the abandoned vehicles until he found another service alley and ducked down it. He listened as he ran but could hear no gunfire from behind him as he sprinted through puddles of slimy water and vaulted over discarded store karts and the carcasses of dogs.

  It took him a full ten minutes to reach the shore, where Boston’s harbour walk rounded the city’s financial district. He ran out onto the quay, searching for a boat as he squinted across the channel.

  There, in the distance, he could see the Phoenix at anchor in the choppy waters of the bay. She had been cast off and then the crew must have realised that she was rudderless. Anchoring her again was the only way to prevent a catastrophe.

  Cody shielded his eyes with his hands against the fine drizzle and saw a small launch making its way to the Phoenix. Sawyer, Hank and Bethany occupied the launch, Maria huddled in her arms.

  Cody turned and ran along the quay, looking for a boat.

  He found the body moments later, sprawled on the quay with a pool of blood glistening beneath it. Cody slowed until he stood over the corpse, felt his guts squirm with disbelief.

  Saunders stared unblinkingly up into the cold sky. Droplets of rain fell onto his face as though the universe were spitting at him even in death. The asphalt beneath his leg was covered in a sea of blood that had leaked from a deep wound in his thigh. Cody knelt down alongside the old man and closed his eyes for the last time with one hand. He looked up along the quay and saw a small boat rocking on the swells.

  Cosy sprinted to the boat and unmoored her, then jumped inside and grabbed the pair of oars lying along her keel. He pushed away from the quay and hoped that he could reach the Phoenix before they jury rigged the rudder.

  Behind him, a rush of cries and shouts filled the quay as people ran in pursuit of him and saw for the first time the ship anchored nearby on the choppy water. They flooded the quay and some leapt directly into the cold grey water as others took aim and fired shots at Cody.

  Cody ducked and flinched as shots hit t
he water around him and smacked into the hull of his boat. Cold water seeped in around his feet.

  Cody began pulling harder on the oars as some of the escaped prisoners began running toward other parts of the harbour and hauling boats toward the water.

  ***

  39

  Hank rowed most of the way through the choppy water, Sawyer watching him with a pistol aimed lazily at the captain’s belly. Sawyer’s three men sat between them with Beth. But as they neared the ship Hank knew that he would have to take control of negotiations with his crew.

  ‘Your turn,’ he said abruptly and relinquished the oars.

  Sawyer smiled faintly and cocked his pistol, aimed it at Hank’s head. ‘I insist, you row.’

  ‘I’ll need to do the talking,’ Hank went on. ‘They see you holding a gun to me they’ll shoot you on sight.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Sawyer murmured, ‘maybe not. You don’t appear to be much of a captain if your crew has mutinied.’

  ‘They haven’t sailed away, have they?’

  ‘Shut up!’

  The two men stopped talking as Bethany stared at them, her face twisted with restrained fury as she sheltered the child from the rain with her arms. ‘Just get us aboard and then get us out of here! You can have your cock fight once we’re all safe!’

  Sawyer watched Hank for a long moment and then looked at the ship looming nearby. Heads were already appearing over the bulwarks to watch the approaching boat and Hank figured that they were holding weapons. Whichever side Sawyer chose he was outgunned and outnumbered.

  Sawyer shoved his pistol down by his side and grabbed the oars from Hank. Hank glanced at Bethany and the child that she held close to her, then stood up in the boat and turned to face the Phoenix as they drew alongside.

  Several of the watching faces stared down the barrel of rifles at the captain. At their head was the tattooed killer, Seth.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ Seth shouted from the deck.

  Hank bellowed back loudly enough to make Bethany flinch beside him.

  ‘I want your ass on a stake, Seth! I’ll get me a look at your spine before we sail from here!’

  ‘That so?’ Seth yelled. ‘Seems to me that this ship no longer wants you as its captain!’

  Hank smiled, balancing easily in the boat despite the squalls and choppy waves.

  ‘I think that it’s you that doesn’t want me as a captain, Seth,’ he replied. ‘But the ship needs me, and I can see right now that she’s going nowhere! You’re still anchored against the current, which means something’s wrong with the ship.’

  The other crew members looked at their new leader. Seth’s face twisted with rage.

  ‘Nothin’ we can’t handle,’ he shouted back, and then looked at Hank’s companions in the boat. ‘Who are these assholes? What happened to Ryan and the others?’

  ‘They ran into some bother,’ Hank said, and then turned his attention to the rest of the crew. ‘Right now I’ve got with me the coordinates of Eden and I can have this ship sailing within the hour. Right behind us are several hundred raging lunatics who will burn this ship as soon as they board it. What’s it going to be, gentlemen? Your lives in Seth’s barely capable hands? Or in mine?’

  ‘Don’t listen to him!’ Seth yelled at his men. ‘We’re done chasing his goddamned Eden, it doesn’t exist! Almost got all of us killed, chasing his fantasies.’

  The crew watched Seth silently, some looking at Hank and then back at their mutinous shipmate. Hank grinned at them.

  ‘You think Seth here’s going to do any better? Last I saw, he couldn’t walk and talk at the same time.’

  Seth raised the rifle in his grasp to point at Hank. Several of the crew whirled and levelled their weapons at Seth. Hank saw the crewman’s features twist into implacable fury, and suddenly Seth hurled his unfired weapon across the decks and flung an arm to point at Hank.

  ‘You’d better get us out of this!’

  Hank did not dignify him with a reply as Sawyer guided the boat alongside the Phoenix’s hull. The crew tossed a rope ladder down, and Hank lifted the child from Bethany as he guided her up the ladder. Hank followed her up, Sawyer behind with his three henchmen.

  Hank handed the child back to Bethany and directed her to the wheelhouse for shelter as he turned back to his crew. Seth stood in silence alongside them. Hank decided that he would be best served by dealing with mutinous crewman later. Right now, he needed numbers on his side to protect against Sawyer’s henchmen.

  ‘Get the launch up and stowed!’ he ordered.

  A gunshot froze the crew in motion on the deck as Sawyer fired his pistol into the air. He looked at the crew of the Phoenix. ‘New boss in town, boys. You won’t be needing your guns!’

  Sawyer’s three henchmen levelled their shotguns at the crewmen. They crew all looked instinctively at Hank, who nodded once. Slowly, the crew lowered their weapons and stood back. Sawyer’s men scooped up the rifles and pistols.

  Sawyer jabbed his heavy pistol into Hank’s side and sneered up at him.

  ‘How about you find those coordinates and get us out of here?’

  Hank did not look down at Sawyer and instead turned to Seth. Give the mutinous crewman responsibility and he might serve once more.

  ‘Why is the ship still at anchor?’

  ‘Rudder’s out!’ Seth snapped. ‘The sea’s too rough to send somebody over the side to check it out.’

  Hank shook his head. ‘If somebody disabled the rudder, don’t you think they might also have been unable to do so underwater?’

  Seth frowned as Hank turned and strode toward the wheelhouse. He heard Sawyer bellowing orders of his own to his men as he walked.

  ‘Take up positions, stay alert!’

  He heard Sawyer following him as he burst into the wheelhouse. Bethany shielded the child from both himself and Sawyer as they hurried in.

  Hank looked at the wheel, knelt down and yanked off the steerage cover. In a moment he saw the frayed cable, barely holding up the steerage chain. Hank got to his feet and rushed over to a cabinet, throwing the doors open and grabbing a bunch of plastic cable ties. He hurried back and secured the chain before the weakened cordage failed.

  ‘Will that hold?’ Sawyer asked.

  Hank shook his head. ‘Not a chance against rough seas,’ he said. ‘Somebody sabotaged this and took the main link and I know we don’t have a spare steerage-chain aboard.’

  ‘Then you’d better think fast.’

  Hank stood up straight and towered over Sawyer. He saw a flicker of apprehension in the smaller man’s eyes as he growled down at him.

  ‘You may have the weapons but aboard this ship I give the orders, because without me nobody’s going anywhere. Is that clear?’

  Sawyer stood his ground and smirked as he gestured to the broken wheel chain. ‘Chop chop, captain.’

  Hank turned to Bethany. ‘Do you remember the coordinates clearly?’

  Bethany nodded, still clutching the child to her.

  ‘Write them down in the log for me then get below to your cabin,’ Hank told her.

  Bethany crossed the wheelhouse and picked up a pen from the map table. Sawyer moved closer to her, watching as she scribbled a line of figures and then eased her way past, giving him as much space as possible as she climbed down the steps into the ‘tween decks. Hank turned to the wheel and gripped the handles.

  ‘We’ll need to strip the rudder chain out and lower the position of the wheel to compensate for the missing link,’ he said. ‘Quicker and safer to do that than to risk going to sea in a blow like this.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ Sawyer demanded.

  ‘An hour or two.’

  ‘We don’t have that much time. Those prisoners will reach us long before that.’

  Hank looked down at him. ‘Then you’d better think fast because they’re your problem. I can’t fix this and defend the ship at the same time.’

  Sawyer scowled at Hank and cocked the pistol.


  ‘We sail now,’ he snapped. ‘Stick to the coast and get clear of Boston. We can do the repairs later.’

  Hank shook his head. ‘We’ll beach within minutes, you idiot,’ he replied. ‘The tides here are already turning against us. The crew missed their chance.’

  ‘You’ve got engines, right?’ Sawyer challenged. ‘Use them.’

  ‘They’re not powerful enough to fight currents or these winds,’ Hank snapped. ‘You’re not a sailor and you don’t know shit about this ship, Sawyer. Get over it and start making yourself useful because if you don’t, we’ll never leave this city!’

  Sawyer was about to reply when Seth burst into the wheelhouse.

  ‘There are boats coming!’

  *

  Cody rowed like a man possessed, the little boat heaving and plunging on the rolling waves as the wind whipped them up into a frenzy of churning dark water and flying spray. Salt water tainted his lips and a buffeting wind chilled his bones but he hauled on the oars with long, powerful strokes. All the while, dull green water swilled through the belly of his boat as it seeped through the damaged hull.

  He was aware of a buzzing in his brain and a dull ache in his belly. He had not slept in forty-eight hours and not eaten for at least eighteen. He forced the weakness from his mind as he pulled on the oars, checking over his shoulder every couple of minutes to ensure he was heading toward the ship.

  As he rowed he could see following him on the rolling waves a flotilla of tiny boats, their oars crashing in pursuit. Cries and shouts reached out to be snatched away by the wind that buffeted them, a mutating chorus of anger and desperation, pleas warring with threats. A gunshot snapped on the wind. Cody heard the shot whistle by somewhere out to his right, hopelessly off target.

  He glanced over his shoulder again and saw the Phoenix looming large, saw heads appearing at the bulwarks as he heaved and strained on the oars against the rolling waves and the current that now seemed to be trying to pull him away from the ship. His shoulders burned and his thighs ached with each and every stroke, and at the first opportunity he dredged a cry from his laboured lungs.