Deluge | Book 1 | The Drowned

by Partner, Kevin

  The boy nodded, tears encircling his eyes.

  Bobby put on his soaking hoodie and then helped Joshua into his before picking him up and lurching as fast as he could manage across the kitchen floor. It was tough enough to walk in a straight line at the moment without the weight of a boy and the suffocating heat of an inferno to negotiate, but he mustn’t fall.

  He wrenched the door open. “Hold your breath!”

  Bobby moved forward, hoodie pulled over his head, leaving just enough vision to pick his way. Smoke clawed at his eyes and invaded his nose as he held the trembling boy to his chest and picked his way along the hallway. The cabin roared and crackled as it was consumed from within.

  Joshua squirmed, crying out that the heat was burning the backs of his calves, and Bobby felt as though thousands of needles were being pricked into his legs and hands. Suddenly, the air seemed to ignite, as if a furnace door had been opened, and he cursed himself for leaving the kitchen door open. He made one final effort, crying out in agony as he shoved through the wall of flame and then beyond it.

  He made it to the first stair and began to climb, flames licking the banister as he pushed himself up the wall as far from the heat as possible. He put his foot down, and it broke through the step. He staggered sideways, almost casting Joshua into the firestorm below, but just catching himself in time as he yanked his foot out again and pitched away from the heat.

  He dropped the boy when they reached the landing, examining him in the licking amber and yellow light coming up from below. The boy’s face was wet with tears and he was coughing convulsively. “Josh, we gotta get out of here now. This place is going to fall apart.”

  Josh nodded and took his hand as they ran to the spare room at the end of the landing. Every step Bobby took was agony as he felt as though the skin of his legs would peel away. He looked down to see that his jeans were blackened and smoking, cooking him. But there was no time to do anything about them. They had to get out.

  He leaned out of the window, peering into the fire-licked darkness. The beer crates were still there, but scattered across the ground.

  He cursed, then turned to the boy. “I’m going to lower myself down, but you gotta promise to jump when I tell you.”

  Joshua shook his head, steam rising from his sweatshirt. Beyond him, the stairway crashed to ruin.

  “I’ll catch you, I promise!”

  “What about Mommy?”

  Bobby froze, feeling the hand of fate on his shoulder. For a moment, he wished he was the sort of man who could simply save himself and leave the kid to die and his mother to …whatever the criminals intended.

  But he wasn’t that kind of man. Maria was waiting for him, but Joshua was here and now, and Bobby couldn’t leave him.

  He grabbed the boy and pulled him tight to his chest. “We’ll go after your mom,” he said. “I promise. But you gotta do as I say.”

  This time, he got a nod as he released the boy.

  Bobby climbed onto the window sill, then lowered himself down until he was a dozen feet from the ground before dropping. A moment’s relief as the cold wind played over his body, then he hit the ground, his knees buckled and the air knocked out of his lungs.

  He got onto his knees and looked up. The boy stood framed by yellow and orange flickering light. He leaned out of the window and Bobby put his hands up.

  “Come on, Josh. I’ll catch you!”

  Josh looked down at him, a vision of terror. Tears fell into the dark night air as he shook his head.

  “Now, Josh! You gotta be brave. I can’t find your mommy on my own. I need your help. Come on, now!”

  Bobby looked helplessly up as the boy stood there, the house disintegrating behind him. They only had minutes, perhaps seconds.

  And then the light behind Joshua brightened, and he turned around, screaming. He backed away, teetered with his back to the windowsill, and then dropped.

  Bobby fell forward, arms out to take the boy’s weight as he hit the ground. Ignoring the agony in every single part of his body, Bobby hauled the boy to his feet and dragged him away from the burning cabin just as, with a dull crash, the roof collapsed, sending the log walls rolling out and down the slope.

  Bobby picked Joshua up again and stumbled down the slope, not daring to look over his shoulder at the burning tree trunks that followed.

  Then they were in the water. He cried out at the shock of the cold water on his tortured legs then plunged them both under the surface before emerging and turning to watch the cabin die in a final burst of flame.

  Chapter 14

  The High Seas

  Ellie leaned against the galley work surface and took in the entirety of their supplies, running her hands down her face. They’d covered every last inch of the boat, from the crew cabins in the bows—so small she wouldn’t keep a dog down there—to the captain’s cabin she’d handed over to Jodi before this all happened.

  The net result: a packet of spaghetti that had rolled down the back of a cupboard, Jodi’s secret stash of chocolate that had somehow evaded Patrick’s searches, and an assortment of likely inedible dregs found in drawers, under beds and in random corners throughout the boat. The only piece of good luck they’d had was that the Coast Guard hadn’t taken the emergency kit, so they had a few small bottles of water and some energy bars. She almost tossed the flare gun over the side—who did they think they’d be asking to rescue them, the Coast Guard?—but it wasn’t as if they were short of space now, so she put it back in the box and stowed it away in the dinghy.

  “Right, it’s time for some straight talking.”

  Patrick suppressed a snigger.

  “What about this situation is funny?” Ellie snapped, rounding on him.

  “Sorry. But I’ve never got the impression you’re a shrinking violet.” His smile faded as she continued to stare at him. “Sorry.”

  She turned back to the others. “Tom, how long will it take us to get to…where was it?”

  “Douglasville, Georgia. I can’t say. It depends on the direction and strength of the prevailing winds. And remember, we don’t have power anymore, so even if the weather service was still working, I wouldn’t be able to download the satellite images.”

  “We’ve got batteries, though?”

  “Sure, but they won’t last long and we’ll have to keep them in reserve so we can check our heading every twenty-four hours or so. In between, we’ll have to navigate by dead reckoning.”

  Patrick cast a glance out at the open sea through the galley window. “Looks pretty calm out there. Not much wind for the sails.”

  “No.”

  Ellie followed their gaze. “So, how long?”

  Tom shrugged. “It’s about four hundred nautical miles, but if I’m handling the sailing alone then we won’t cover more than eighty nautical a day. In a straight line.”

  “So, that’s five days?” Patrick said as the sound of Hector the dog’s barking floated in from the trampoline where Lewis was playing with him, Jodi watching the two of them.

  “I said, in a straight line. We can’t hope to get there in less than a week,” Tom said. “And that’s if everything goes to plan. Which it won’t.”

  Patrick groaned. “You’re a barrel of laughs, that’s for sure.”

  Ellie threw herself onto a seat on the banquette and rubbed her eyes. “To summarize, then, we need enough food, water and fuel to last a week and we actually have how much?”

  “You know about the rule of threes?” Patrick said.

  “What?”

  “Well, in our case, it means we can survive without food for three weeks, at a pinch, but we’ll die of thirst in three days if we don’t drink. You’ll swallow a fly if you don’t close your mouth,” he said as Ellie and Tom did tandem clownfish impressions. “Do you remember Delta Five?”

  He was so obviously disappointed that Ellie jumped in, “Yeah. It was the one with the…err, five…”

  “Special Ops, that’s right,” Patrick said, brightening aga
in. “I played this SAS bloke with a chip on his shoulder about Yanks.”

  “Sounds lifelike,” Ellie said, unable to resist. In truth, she was relieved to have someone else lead the conversation. Ten minutes in Patrick’s movie memories before they returned to grim reality wouldn’t do them any harm.

  He grunted assent. “Yeah. There was me and Gerard…”

  “Butler?”

  “Ahuh. Against Joel, Brad and Leonardo.”

  “Get out of here!”

  Patrick looked surprised, but pressed on. “Anyway, Gerry and I got sent on an SAS survival course for a few days up in the Highlands. Jeez, did it rain. But we spent some time on an island in the Mull of Kintyre.”

  “Are you going to get to the point?” Ellie said, beginning to regret allowing him to tell his story.

  Annoyance flickered across his face. “Well, yeah. We learned how to catch fish and how to purify seawater.”

  Tom scratched his chin. “Where’s this mull place?”

  “Scotland.”

  “Isn’t it cold there?”

  Patrick nodded. “You bet. Brass monkeys, it was.”

  “So, nothing like here then?”

  “Look,” Patrick said, wagging his finger. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “How did you purify the water?”

  “We used a sheet of plastic hung over a pan of boiling water.”

  Ellie sighed, not bothering to hide her exasperation. “Oh, that’s alright then. Now, if only we had a way of boiling water. What a pity all our fuel was stolen!”

  Patrick opened his mouth as Hector bounded in, followed by Lewis and, finally, Jodi.

  Lewis went over to the sink and put a glass under the faucet.

  “Stop!” Ellie called.

  The boy froze and looked over his shoulder.

  “We haven’t got much water,” Ellie said, “only what’s in the pipes. The Coast Guard took it all, remember?”

  “Oh, sorry. But Hector’s thirsty.”

  “I know. We’re trying to figure it out.”

  Jodi threw herself onto the banquette. “Has Pat told you his SAS story? Where was it? Loch Ness?”

  Flushing, Reid mumbled, “It was the Mull of Kintyre.”

  “The bottom line,” Ellie said, “is that we need water for four adults and a child…”

  “And a dog.”

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “Yes, and a dog. They’ve taken our fuel and almost all the food.”

  “So you guys are out of ideas? Time to ask the kids?”

  “No, I just didn’t think…”

  Jodi sneered. “Yeah, right. The adults were gonna come up with a plan and then let us know. Is that it?”

  “Look, Jodi, if you’ve got anything useful to say…”

  She glanced at Reid. “Well, obviously you gotta use evaporation.”

  “Obviously.”

  She leaped up. “Where do you keep the trash? Bottles? You know, once you’ve thrown it down the chute?”

  Ellie joined her in the galley and gestured behind the sink. “Down there. We empty it when we get back. Why do you ask?”

  “I got an idea. But we need bottles.”

  She knew it was a matter of life and death, but Ellie couldn’t help but wince at the transformation that had come over the aft deck. The seating area that had accommodated many famous butts was now home to what looked like some sort of illegal drugs operation. Once Jodi had explained her idea, they’d scoured the boat from stem to stern for every last bottle or container they could use for storing water.

  They’d separated out those that had narrow necks and sorted them into pairs. Jodi had squealed with joy when Tom found a roll of duct tape at the bottom of the tool bag kept in the engine bay.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said, holding two empty water bottles. “We cut holes through the caps and then stick them together back-to-back. Then we fill up one bottle and screw the pair of caps onto it with the empty bottle at the top. Then we prop them up on the cushions so the sun makes the seawater evaporate. We keep the top bottle wrapped in damp towels so the fresh water distills into the top bottle.”

  Ellie rubbed her chin as she visualized Jodi’s contraption. “But won’t the fresh water just roll back down into the bottom bottle? Even if we keep them at an angle, the motion of the boat will…”

  “I got it! Cut a hole in the top bottle!” Lewis said, jumping up and down with his hand in the air. “Then put another bottle under to catch the water!”

  Jodi gave the boy a high five. “Yeah! We can use any container for that, as long as it’s clean.”

  The first, experimental container was in place within five minutes. The toughest part had been making the holes in each of the caps—in the end they’d resorted to hand-cutting them with the sharpest knives in the galley; an accident waiting to happen, and no emergency room. Tom half filled the bottle with seawater skimmed from the top few inches and screwed it into place before securing it on the floor in front of the seating area between two cushions.

  While they left Jodi monitoring the experiment, the others went into the galley, taking the largest containers and opening each faucet in turn. Ellie estimated they had, perhaps, salvaged half a gallon in total. Enough for one person for one day in normal times. They could, possibly, eke it out to keep three people barely functional, but they depended entirely on Jodi’s contraption for anything more.

  “It’s working!” Lewis called, through the open window, twenty minutes later.

  Sure enough, clear water was dripping into the capture container which sat beneath the upper condenser bottle on the floor beside the dirty water container. Ellie peeled the wet towel from the condenser to see the mist covering the inside.

  “It’s slow,” Jodi said. “We’re gonna need to make as many of these as possible, but I still don’t reckon it’ll be enough. And it all depends on keeping the sun on this part of the boat.”

  “Then we should scatter them around, so at least some of them will be working whichever way the boat is facing.”

  Tom nodded. “We will be sailing north, generally, but I will have to tack, so we should have them on the aft decks out of the way of the sails.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Ellie said. “You get on with making some more of these condensers. Oh, and nice one, Jodi. And Lewis.”

  Jodi’s mouth opened in the first completely genuine smile Ellie had seen from her.

  Ellie peered through the saloon window half an hour later to find a neat row of five double-bottle setups sharing two collection containers beneath. They looked a little like horses drinking at a trough, but seemed pretty secure.

  “Give me a hand,” she said, putting her screwdriver down.

  “Good idea, boss!” he responded, helping her to lever out the window frame.

  She laughed. “Yeah, well I think I’ve already invalidated my lease agreement. And we can always put it back later.”

  Coming out through the saloon door, she took one end while he handled the other and they lowered the glass pane so it covered the dirty water containers, creating a kind of greenhouse. “That should speed things up.”

  “Hey, guys!” Patrick appeared at pace from the foredeck. “Wow! Great job.”

  “Where have you been?” Ellie called out without looking up.

  “Catching dinner!” he said, holding his arm up. Suspended below it was the still-wriggling form of a fat, silver fish with iridescent scales. “Just got to work out how to cook it.”

  Ellie stood at the wheel and watched Tom working the sails. They were only using the mainsail because, by luck, the wind was behind them. Tom had explained that they might have to use the jib if the direction changed, but that would make sailing a two-person job and he wanted time to train the others, including Ellie.

  They only sailed for a couple of hours, but it gave them long enough to test how robust Jodi’s desalination apparatus was in real conditions, and how much clean water it generated.

  Tom waved w
hen he got into position and, on Ellie’s signal, began reefing down the mainsail until the boat came to a gentle halt and began drifting. There was nothing they could do about that because their anchor chain wasn’t nearly long enough to account for the thousand feet of water beneath them.

  When she got below, she found Patrick carrying one of the clean water containers into the galley. “Just in time,” he said. “We need a guinea pig.”

  “What for?”

  “Taste test.”

  He poured a little water into a whiskey tumbler and handed it to her.

  “We can’t afford to be picky about the flavor,” Ellie said, sniffing at it and pulling a face. “We’re sure it’s safe, are we?”

  Jodi shrugged. “We’ve distilled it into steam and then condensed it again. Germs can’t survive that.”

  “Then why does it smell?”

  “I thought you said we shouldn’t be fussy?” Patrick said.

  Ellie made a grumbling noise and took a tiny sip. “Hmm. Yeah, pretty rank. Jeez, I think I can taste oil. Hold on, I’ve got an idea.” She rummaged around in a drawer and pulled out a packet. “Coffee filters.”

  She took the coffee percolator and dropped a new filter into place before pouring some of the distilled water into it. “Too fast!” she said. So, she emptied the coffee container out and added another two filters. “That’s better,” she said as water dripped gently from top to bottom.

  They all stood watching as, drop by drop, the distilled water made its way from top to bottom. Finally, after what seemed like an age, Ellie poured the filtered water into a coffee mug and, glancing at her audience, took a sip.

  “Well, it’s not disgusting anymore,” she said. “I don’t reckon it’ll kill us. How much have we harvested?”

  “Half a gallon or so,” Patrick said. “Barely enough to keep ourselves alive.”

  “Barely enough will have to do,” Ellie said.

  Patrick had caught a second fish and they’d managed to cook them on a makeshift barbeque made from an empty can of cooking oil that they filled with magazines, books and papers and lit.