Deluge | Book 1 | The Drowned

by Partner, Kevin

  He smiled and handed the revolver to her. “I think this is yours. I saw you’d left it, so I followed you to give it back.” His soft northern English accent had returned, and he was back to the ordinary Patrick Reid, though he was shaking gently.

  “Well, I’ll never suggest any actor gets a real job again after that,” she said, before turning to Jodi. “How are you?”

  The young girl shrugged, and Reid gently tilted her chin to reveal a row of cuts to her neck. “Jeez, that was close.”

  “I don’t want to think about it,” Reid said. “Maybe I should have let them come aboard.”

  Ellie shook her head. “Along with everyone else? We could all sink together.”

  “It wouldn’t matter how many you took, Kujira wouldn’t sink,” Tom said. “We’ve got to do something for them.”

  “I know. But we can only take a fraction of them, and the rest would never make it across to Florida, even if that’s still there.”

  “Can we take them to the high ground on Cuba?” Patrick asked.

  Ellie shrugged. “We don’t know how high the sea level is now, and I don’t know where to head for on the island.”

  Jodi looked up at Patrick and then to Ellie. “I’ve got an idea.”

  And the boats closed in.

  They sat on the banquettes in the saloon as Jodi’s fingers moved over the surface of her iPad. Tom was in the cockpit, keeping watch on the little boats while scanning the channels on the satellite phone. They seemed to have given up trying to approach the boat and were simply bobbing up and down in the gentle swell, waiting to see what Kujira was going to do.

  “It’s just Google Earth,” Jodi said. “But look, it shows, like, how high things are. These mountains are four hundred meters high.”

  “How can you tell those are mountains?” Ellie asked. “It all looks the same to me.”

  Jodi sighed. “Well, duh, I just said it shows the elevation right here. It’s some sort of national park.”

  “What’s the distance?”

  “How am I supposed to know? I don’t know where we are!”

  Forcing down a retort, Ellie got up and paced over to the instrument panel before reading out the coordinates.

  After a moment, Jodi said, “A hundred and fifteen kilometers.”

  “How far’s that in old-fashioned money?” Patrick asked, screwing his eyes as he peered down at the tablet.

  “About seventy miles.”

  Patrick leaned back on the banquette. “So, what are we going to do?”

  “We can give them the coordinates of the mountain range,” Ellie said. “Most of them will have navigation equipment, and those who don’t can follow those who do.”

  “Is that it?”

  “What do you suggest? That we pile them all onboard? There’s hundreds of them!”

  Patrick made that grunting sound again. “No, but couldn’t we shepherd them to safety? You know, in case any boat sinks? Maybe run a line between them?”

  “This isn’t Battlestar Galactica, Patrick. We can’t afford a hundred-fifty-mile round trip. We don’t know what’s going on back home.”

  “But those people!”

  “Are not my responsibility.”

  “Ellie!”

  “No!” She slammed her fist on the table. “Tell me this. If you were in a lifeboat that was already full, and someone was in the water begging to be rescued, but you knew that if you hauled her in, the boat might sink and drown you all, what would you do?”

  “This isn’t like that!”

  “Yes, it is. We have only so much fuel, and Jodi’s already come close to having her throat slit. We have to care for ourselves, at least until we know more about the situation in Florida. We’ll help them all we can, but we’re not leading a convoy of fishing boats into what’s left of Cuba.”

  Reid looked as though he wanted to continue his protest, but Ellie leaped up and strode out of the saloon. As she emerged onto the deck, she uttered a curse into the warm evening air. The lights had come on, and the flotilla was reduced to shadows, merging and separating again as they moved with the gentle waves. She could almost imagine they weren’t there at all.

  “Hey, Skip!”

  She climbed to the cockpit where Tom stood with the handset held out. “I’ve got someone. A cruise ship captain.”

  Heart in her mouth, Ellie took the handset. “This is Kujira out of Clearwater. Captain Ellen Fischer. Please identify.”

  “This is Diamond Queen out of Trinidad. Captain Marcus Kuznetsov. What is your status and position?”

  Ellie paused for a moment. “First, please update me on the general situation. We have been running blind for two days.”

  “You don’t know? There has been a global tsunami—at least, that is what I believe from what I hear. Trinidad is gone. Cuba is gone. The Caribbean is under water.”

  “Global? What about the US?”

  “I am sorry, I do not know. But I think you will not find your country the same when you return. I think, perhaps, you should go home.”

  Ellie lowered the handset and looked out to see where the little boats were bobbing in the dark sea. And then she saw, in her mind’s eye, her daughter Maria. The daughter she hadn’t seen for more than six months. The daughter who lived on the West Coast with her father. The daughter she might never see again.

  Chapter 5

  The Hills are Alive

  “Don’t look, Princess,” Bobby said as he gently twisted her shoulders away from the water’s edge. Bodies scattered what had once been a hillside, all of them at the tide line. Men, women and children. The worst were those who were floating on their backs, dead eyes looking into the perfect blue sky. Soon, they would start to bloat, and a nightmare situation would get even worse.

  He hadn’t wanted to bring her here, but she’d begged, so he had her walk a few yards up the slope while he searched the wreck for any useful flotsam. Around fifty people had made it to the high ground above Ventura and, after a day spent in shock, they were now turning their attention to food and clean water. And it was the water he was most concerned about. He prayed they wouldn’t be reduced to drinking the seawater that bodies had been floating in. But then, none of his prayers had been answered so far.

  Reaching down, he picked up a bag of chips. It was sealed, and he dropped it into his shopping bag along with three bottles of water, a couple of cans of soda, a six-pack of Marlboro Lights and a loaf of white bread.

  He straightened himself up and gazed around, looking first to the west. Yesterday, he’d have been looking down over Ventura to San Buenaventura State Beach and beyond it to the sea. Now, all he could see was water that lapped a few yards below his feet as he stood on the slope. The ocean now stretched to the south, and he looked that way, ignoring the things gently bobbing in the water. Near the horizon he could just make out a low island, the top of another finger of whatever range of hills had loomed over Ventura just hours before. He imagined people over there, gathered on that tiny sliver of land, wondering what they would do now.

  Earlier that morning, he and Maria had trekked the full extent of their new island. On its eastern side, they could see nothing but water—and the things the water contained—with no hint of anything beyond. Under that new sea lay Casitas Springs and Oak View. But at the northern tip, an entire archipelago spread to the limit of their vision. That would make sense, Bobby realized, as the land became more mountainous as it went east. He thought of his parents, who lived just outside Las Vegas. They would be safe from the water, surely? He would take Maria there, when the sea retreated.

  “Papa, are we going to be okay?”

  He kneeled beside her, pulling her close.

  “Of course, princesa. Don’t I always look after you?”

  She gave a reluctant nod, and he could see her thinking.

  “What is it? Do you want to ask me something?”

  Maria looked at him, her brown eyes seeming to penetrate into the depths of his soul. “What about Mommy? Sh
e’s a long way away, isn’t she? She’s okay too?”

  He felt his throat thicken, but he did his best to hide his fear. “Mommy will be okay.”

  “She’s got a big boat, hasn’t she?”

  “Yeah.”

  Maria seemed to brighten. “Maybe she’ll come and pick us up.”

  He smiled. “Maybe she will.” No chance, she was over two thousand miles away. But Maria had given voice to the tiny crumb of hope that was gnawing away at his heart. Ellie might have been out at sea when this had happened. The chances were slim, but greater than zero. Just enough to keep him from despair. For now.

  “What does Uncle Rex want, Papa?” Maria pointed up the slope to where someone was waving at them. It was the old man in the white hat who had rescued them the previous day. His name was Rex Hollick, and he had been a music executive specializing in country music acts. Although he’d been the one to lead them all to safety, there was something about the man Bobby didn’t trust. He smiled like a crocodile, and Bobby wondered if he was just as sincere. There was a touch of the snake oil about him.

  Bobby gestured back at Hollick and began climbing what had become a virtual cliff face, pulling Maria up behind him until he emerged beneath an antenna mast and headed toward the squat white building. Hollick stood beneath a sign that said “GN-FM: Good News Radio”. He was talking to a group of others, silencing them as Bobby approached.

  “There’s somebody in there,” Rex said, nodding at the door.

  The radio station had been the obvious meeting place when they’d started climbing, as it was at the highest point above Ventura. They’d all been relieved when the water finally stopped climbing, but the station was locked up tight when they arrived. A thick steel door formed the only entrance, and metal shutters protected every window. Without specialist equipment, there was no way they could get in since every one of them had escaped with little more than the clothes on their backs. Bobby had left them to it while he explored the tide line, looking for supplies. They’d tried knocking before, but they’d gotten no answer.

  “Hey, can you still hear me?” Hollick called.

  A muffled voice emerged from behind the door. “I ain’t got nothin’!”

  “We’re not here to hurt you. If you’ve worked here long, you’ll know my voice; I’m on the show often enough, and I’m a sponsor. Name’s Rex Hollick. Now why don’t you just open the door and let us in?”

  “Was that you praying?”

  “It was.” Hollick had led a prayer soon after the sun rose as people gathered in the parking lot. Bobby had kept his distance. He recognized that some of the folks chanting the beatitudes truly believed, and others did it for comfort. But he looked at the ocean where a city had once been and could see no evidence of a benign Father.

  They were trapped on an island, surrounded by the dead.

  “This is the end-times, ain’t it?” the voice said through the door.

  “I don’t know, son,” Hollick said.

  “Have you seen anyone ascend?”

  Hollick shook his head. “Not physically, but there’s plenty floating in the sea who are now in paradise. Leastways, I hope so. But look, son, there’s no point in hiding yourself away. You’ve got things in there that we might be able to use.”

  “How many of you are out there?”

  Looking around, Hollick said, “Six. Come on, we can help you.”

  He stepped back as he heard the lock turn and bolts being drawn back. The door opened, and the barrel of a shotgun emerged from the pitch-black interior. Behind the gun, Bobby saw the wide eyes of a young man. “Just you,” he said, looking at Hollick.

  “Very well,” the old man said, raising his hands. “But can my friend come with us? He’s an engineer. I’m sure he can be helpful.”

  The young man looked at Bobby. “The generator’s busted. Can you fix the lights?”

  “Maybe,” Bobby said.

  “You can come in. Just the two of you, though.”

  “I’m not leaving my daughter out here.”

  The young man deflated and nodded, so Bobby and Maria followed Hollick into the darkness inside. Bobby pulled the smartphone from his pocket and activated the flashlight. They halted in the reception area as their host locked the door behind them.

  “This here’s Bobby…”

  “Rodriguez,” Bobby said. He thought about offering his hand, but the young man still held the shotgun half pointed at them. “And this is Maria.”

  “I’m Jacob Westbay,” he said. “I work at the station. Behind the desk, you know. Can you take a look at the generator? It went off halfway through the night.”

  Bobby nodded and followed Westbay down a single flight of stairs and into a room off to one side with a door that opened on the top of the hill. With one look at the fuel gauge, he knew what had happened. He found a fuel can behind a steel door and, after getting the others to step back, carefully poured diesel into the generator’s tank, filling the little room with the thick smell of oil. Then he switched the ignition and pulled the cord. The generator coughed into life on the second attempt, and the room lit up. “You let it run out of gas.”

  Westbay looked sheepishly through the door at the humming generator. If Hollick had wanted to take the shotgun from him, it would have been easy enough.

  The young man led them back up to ground level and into the studio. It looked a pretty modern setup, with a broadcast area behind a glass window that shielded the presenters from the bank of equipment that sent their shows along the coast.

  Hollick said, “Tell me, son, have you been able to get in touch with any other stations?”

  The young man’s face fell. “Yeah, I was just getting set up for a show when I got a call from…from my mom. About the wave. Lester—the host, he ran down the hill. Wanted to get to his family. I guess he didn’t make it. I watched the water come on. Got down on my knees and prayed. Then I saw folks climbing the hill, and I locked myself in here.”

  “Okay, but did you call any other stations?”

  “What? Oh. Yeah. We’ve got a direct link to GID-A1 in LA. The water was coming in there, then they went dead. I haven’t tried any others—I’m a studio engineer, I don’t know how to contact other stations.”

  Bobby sighed. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll try and figure it out.”

  “Emergency alert. The president has declared a state of national emergency following a series of tsunamis affecting all coastal areas. FEMA is coordinating our response. Citizens are advised to seek high ground and shelter. Cooperate with the authorities. Keep safe. Further messages to follow. God bless America.

  “Emergency alert. The…”

  “All coastal areas?” Bobby said as he shut off the broadcast, his voice almost a whisper. It hadn’t occurred to him that the wave would affect the east and south. Good God, Florida was barely above sea level. Ellie.

  “We’ve got to find out what’s going on out there,” Hollick said. “We can’t stay on this…well, it’s an island now, isn’t it? I mean, even though the water’s stopped rising, there’s nothing to eat and drink.”

  “There’s a vending machine in reception, and some other supplies,” Jacob said. “We’ve got some bottled water and a few branded jackets.”

  Hollick slapped him on the shoulder. “That’ll help. But we can’t stay put for long.”

  “D’you think the water will go down soon?”

  The old man glanced at Bobby, who shrugged. “I don’t know, son. But I don’t plan on waiting.”

  “I’m going east,” Bobby said, “with Maria. If I can get over to those islands to the north.”

  They headed back into the reception area, and Hollick opened the main door, then fell to the floor as a big man Bobby hadn’t seen before pushed past him. “Show me what food you got, or I’ll break some heads.”

  Bobby pushed Maria behind Westbay. “Look, there’s no need for threats. We’ll share everything fairly.”

  “Yeah, but you don’t seem to have gotte
n the message. I don’t want fair. I want first pickins. You stand back, old timer,” he said, gesturing at Hollick, who’d picked himself up. Then he looked past Westbury. “Well, lookie here, who’s this pretty one?”

  He pointed the end of the baseball bat at Maria.

  “Touch my daughter and I’ll kill you,” Bobby hissed.

  “Yeah, of course she’s yours,” the man said, a filthy white T-shirt visible beneath a sodden denim jacket. Then he half turned to the door. “Harlan! Come in here.”

  The door widened to admit a younger, leaner man. His face was so narrow it looked as though someone had stuck his head in a vise. “What is it, boss?”

  “You take this little girl outta here and keep her real safe so her pappy behaves hisself.”

  Harlan’s weasel face split in a gap-toothed grin. “Sure will, boss.” He reached out exaggeratedly as Maria shrunk behind Westbay.

  Bobby leaped, wrapping his arms around Harlan’s greasy neck, and the two of them tumbled to the ground. Above him, he heard a roar of anger, followed by a skirmish as Hollick grappled with the boss. As Bobby wrestled with Harlan, he saw Westbay’s feet disappear, taking Maria with him.

  Bobby had his opponent on his back, but a boot connected with the side of his head and he rolled over, giving Harlan the chance to pin him down. He thrust up with the palm of his hand, pushing Harlan’s jaw upwards, feeling the rough stubble of his scraggly beard pushing into his palm. Then, a knife appeared above him and he desperately tried to fend the man off with his free hand.

  Hollick yelled, and Bobby registered the old man’s body falling beside him.

  “You need help, boss?” Another voice from the doorway. How many of them were there?

  “No. I got this under control. Now stop fooling around Harlan; finish him off.”

  “You get off him, you hear?” It was Jacob Westbay. Bobby couldn’t see what was happening from where he lay, but he felt Harlan’s grip loosen as he turned to look.