He’d been involved in some small-scale experiments using organisms with a limited lifespan because, after all, no one wanted a nightmare scenario where these things reproduced without limit. And then he’d been poached by SaPIEnT. It hadn’t been the doubling of his salary that had persuaded him, it was the opportunity to explore the very limits of science without being constrained by budget.
And so he’d begun work on the greatest threat to life on Earth—climate change. He’d been a small part of the team developing an exobot that excreted a compound intended to raise the freezing point of water so it could remain solid at a higher temperature, keeping it locked in place and not raising sea levels.
It had seemed such a wonderful aim; genuinely planet-saving. But he became worried by the work another team was doing to make the organisms more adaptable, so they could function in a range of conditions, holding more and more of the world’s liquid water in the form of ice and giving humanity centuries to solve the underlying problem of carbon fuels.
The problem with their approach, in Buzz’s mind, was that they were trying to harness the processes that drove evolution, and the idea that these could be controlled seemed of Frankensteinian naivety. The same processes that might adapt the organism to work more efficiently through survival of the fittest might unleash a monster upon the unsuspecting world if natural selection took an unexpected turn.
And Buzz had seen it coming. It was all in the thermodynamics. All things being equal, matter tends toward chaos. Liquid water is more chaotic than ice, so it takes less energy for an organism to turn ice to water than the other way around. It would be an evolutionary advantage if that mutation appeared within the population.
And it did, causing a catastrophic chain of events that emptied the Antarctic into the world’s oceans and sent a pulse of death around the coasts, drowning the planet’s biggest cities and killing billions.
He hadn’t known it would happen and, in the end, he’d allowed himself to be browbeaten into silence. After all, if he’d been wrong, he wouldn’t have wanted to be the person who caused global temperatures to continue climbing.
Buzz chuckled to himself. Gallows humor. Because, by destroying the ice sheet, they’d not only flooded the world, they’d also decreased the percentage of the planet that would reflect the sun’s heat. The Antarctic ice sheet acted like a huge mirror, bouncing solar energy back into space. Now, that energy would build up, perhaps triggering the sort of runaway greenhouse effect that had turned Earth’s neighbor, Venus, into a furnace whose atmosphere would melt lead in seconds.
Oh, they wouldn’t burn up just yet, but their children and grandchildren would grow up on a world dying year by year until it was uninhabitable. He gave what remained of the human race a hundred years.
He started out of his meditation on ruin. Had he heard something? Or had he slipped into sleep and dreamed it?
He’d heard it. First the sound of a window being opened, and then the sound of one being shut. Whoever was breaking in was two floors below him, so they made a pretty amateurish burglar, but anyone sneaking around the house as Hank and Max slept was a danger. He picked up the Ruger from its place beside him, crept to the door and climbed down the narrow staircase to the second-floor landing. He thought about waking Hank, but couldn’t be sure he’d be able to do it silently, so he bypassed the old man’s room, gripped the gun in two hands and slid the safety back as he reached the top of the lower flight of stairs and peered down at the hallway.
Hank had turned the generator off when they’d gone to bed, but the house had a secondary circuit of twelve-volt lights powered by batteries in the basement. He’d been absolutely certain to turn them off when he went to bed, so the light leaking through from the living room betrayed the burglars.
Step by step he crept down the stairs, keeping one foot to the outer edge, one foot to the inner and cringing at every slight creak as he went.
Voices!
He froze, holding his breath as he listened.
There was at least one man and he was talking to a higher-pitched voice—either a woman or a child. The higher voice seemed to be pleading, though he couldn’t make out any words.
Buzz waited until he could be certain that there were only two distinct voices. Good. They didn’t sound like hardened criminals,
He raised the gun and turned the door handle, pushing it open in one motion.
“Don’t move!” he hissed, and the figures froze.
He’d been wrong. There were three. A man kneeled beside the couch, in the act of wiping the face of a woman who lay there. A young girl sat in an armchair, her hand in a packet of Doritos.
“We don’t mean any harm!” the man said, raising his hands.
“Where’s your weapon?”
He nodded across the room. “On the hearth. Honest, we didn’t know this place was occupied!”
“You could have knocked,” Buzz said.
“I didn’t figure I’d be able to open the front door of this house, so we came in the side. Look, pal, will you put the gun down? You’re scaring our daughter.”
The daughter in question didn’t look scared as she resumed devouring her chips. “Mommy’s sick.”
Buzz came into the room, but kept the gun raised. He looked down at the woman as the man leaned out of the light. She certainly looked ill. Pale, sweaty skin and hair that curtained her face in thick dark braids.
“She fell in the water while we were exploring,” the man said, his blue eyes flitting from Buzz to the woman on the couch. “Got ill a couple days ago.”
“What are you doing here?” Buzz said, taking a couple of steps backward.
The man gestured toward the window. “We were taking a trip when the wave came in and we had to get out and run up the mountain to escape. We found a cabin over there somewhere and holed up, but then we had to go scavenging when the food ran out. That was when Masie fell in. She got sick a few days later and she’s been getting worse. I saw this place when I was out looking for food and it looked as though it was a better place to keep her. I figured there might be some supplies here we could use. Look, I’m sorry for breaking into your place, man.”
Buzz lowered his weapon. “It’s not my place. We’re just sheltering overnight. You’re welcome to the house and anything in it, but stay down here until we’ve gone, okay?”
“Sure, thanks. Look, you don’t have any drugs on you? Tylenol? She’s burning up.”
By this time, Buzz had reached the door. “No, I’m sorry.”
The door swung open and Hank’s shotgun barrel appeared, followed by the old man himself. “Oh, it’s you, thank God. I thought we had a break in!”
“We did,” Buzz said, stepping back to reveal the others. “They’re staying down here for the night.”
“The lady looks mighty sick.”
“She’s my wife,” the man said, getting up. “She fell in the water. She’s burning up. Have you got any Tylenol?”
Hank shook his head. “Buzz here’s our medic, so if he ain’t got none, none of us do.”
The man’s shoulders dropped and he sat beside his wife’s head, stroking her skin, obviously on the verge of tears.
“I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do,” Buzz said turning away, “except to bring you some cold water and towels.”
Hank leaned close. “We got drugs back at the farmhouse, ain’t we?”
“I’m not talking about it here,” Buzz whispered.
“But he’s gonna lose her, by the looks of it. And there’s the kid, too.”
Buzz hissed at the old man. “We can’t save everyone, dammit!”
Hank stepped back. “I don’t see how it hurts to give this fella something to help his wife.”
“She’s sick!” Max said, appearing bleary eyed in the light.
Buzz rolled his eyes.
The man beside his wife said, “Where are you from? Have you got somewhere near here?”
“Fever is best treated by a combination of Tylenol an
d Advil,” Max said. “We have it at the farmhouse.”
“Farmhouse?”
“Oh, for the love of God!” Buzz snapped, the last syllable bouncing off the ceiling as they silently watched him. “Look, one of us will fetch some medical supplies in the morning so you can look after your wife.”
“What is this farmhouse?” the man persisted, stepping forward.
Buzz stabbed a finger in his direction. “Keep back! I told you, we’ll help as we can, but I’m not putting our security at risk.”
“We’re no risk!”
Buzz waved the gun at him. “You stay in here till the morning, then we’ll talk.”
The man stepped back, sitting down again beside his wife, who was groaning deliriously.
The little girl, who’d watched all this with wide eyes, said, “You ain’t gonna let my mommy die, are you?”
And with those words, Buzz knew he was doomed.
Chapter 6
Mercy
“I can’t just leave her to care for herself!” Patrick said, as they slumped in the saloon, looking out over the trees swaying in the wind. “She needs care. So does Lewis. They’re burning up, and if we don’t keep them hydrated, they’ll die.”
“And if we get it, then we’ll all die!” Ellie was at the limit of her endurance. Jodi and Lewis were getting worse, there was no doubting that. Neither could eat or drink unaided, and their eyes had sunken in. Each wandered in and out of dreams, rolling from side to side when they could summon up the energy.
Patrick shook his head. “I don’t think it’s contagious. Jodi and Lewis got it from the water, most likely.”
“And Tom?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s more likely he got it that way than from the other two.”
Ellie sucked in a mouthful of caffeine. “It’s Tom we need more than anything. If we could use the sails, we’d be at Jodi’s uncle’s location and I’d bet good money he’s got medical supplies.” She gazed out the window again at the narrow spit of land they were tied to.
“I just can’t see a good ending to this without medicine,” Patrick said. “Are you sure you can’t sail the boat?”
“No. I’d struggle even in calm conditions and an open sea, but here any false move and we’ll run aground. And we could easily end up farther from our destination than we are now.”
“And we definitely don’t have enough fuel to use the engine?”
Ellie shook her head again. “We’re at least ten gallons short.”
“Is that all? That’s about what my car takes.”
“It might as well be a hundred. There aren’t going to be any gas stations up this mountain,” she said, then stopped short. “Hold on. What did you say?”
Patrick blinked with surprise. “What? I said it didn’t seem much.”
“Cars. That’s it!”
“Are you going crazy?”
She leaned forward and grabbed his arm. “Don’t you see? People must come up here in cars. All we’ve got to do is find some and drain their fuel!”
He looked doubtfully at her. “Hold on. So what you’re saying is we need to walk into that forest—the one that used to be at the top of a mountain—with fuel cans in the hope we can find an abandoned car with gas in the tank? Diesel only, of course.”
“That’s about it.”
He shrugged. “Okay. I’ll set off straight away.”
“I’m going on my own.”
“What?”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t play the action hero with me. I’ll go because someone has to nurse the others and you’ve been doing it so far, so you’ve probably picked it up already. Besides, I reckon I stand a better chance of breaking into a locked car than you. Misspent youth and all that.”
“Hmm, sure. But how are you going to cart ten gallons of diesel? You may have to walk for miles.”
Shrugging, she got up, rubbed her eyes, and glanced at her wrist. “It’s just after one. I’ll make sure I’m back before dark. We can worry about how we get it back once I’ve found some. I’ll take some supplies so I can have a picnic in the forest.”
“How are you going to find your way back?”
“This isn’t the middle of the Amazon, Pat. I’ll follow the tracks. I’m looking for cars, after all.”
She put the Glock in her pack and turned away from the boat. They’d found the weapon among the charred remains of Fletcher, one of the three thugs who’d taken over Kujira and who’d been consumed in the phosphorus fire of a flare she’d shot at him. She’d wiped away most of the black powder—she didn’t like to think what it was—and checked that it worked. It was heavy and bulky, but she needed protection out there.
Ellie picked her way along the spit of land that the boat was lashed to and then walked along the waterline, keeping it in view until she hit a road running into the forest. She stopped and looked back to get an image in her mind’s eye of where she would come back to. And she began walking.
The dirt and stone road bent away from the water and gently climbed as she trudged along, fuel can swinging from one hand, accompanied by the sighing of the branches far above and the crunch of desiccated needles blown across the surface. In a few days, the road surface would disappear and the only evidence it had been there would be the gaps between the trees. She wondered how long it would be before nature would reclaim this island permanently.
The long lines of pencil-straight trees marched past as she walked and she found herself looking back from time to time in case they closed in behind her. She knew it was nonsense, but she felt as though she were being watched from between the narrow trunks on either side, but when she snapped around, there was nothing to see. The farther she walked, the more she seemed to be penetrating a forbidden realm where trees hunted those who went about on two legs.
And then she saw the back end of a truck. Without knowing why she did it, she found herself breaking into a run, glad to find some reminder of civilization, something that definitively was not tree-ish. She rounded a gentle bend and found the truck at right angles to the road with its front wheels in water. The land must have descended again without her noticing, and she could see the waterline extending out into the ranks of trees now ahead of her. She suspected she was at the limit of the little island in this direction.
The truck door was shut but not locked, and she flipped the fuel tank selector switch. “Oh, thank God,” she whispered. Diesel. She got into the driver’s seat and searched for the keys. Life would become a whole lot easier if she could just drive the truck back to the boat.
But since when had life become easier, lately? It seemed that at every point where fate could go in one direction or the other, it chose to kick her in the butt. So, she couldn’t drive it back and she’d have no idea how much gas the tank had left until she tried siphoning it off.
How far had she walked? It was hard to tell, but her watch suggested it had taken the best part of an hour. So, three miles? She reckoned she could carry no more than fifty pounds, which would be around seven gallons, so even if the truck’s tank was full, it’d take three round-trips of two hours each.
She leaned back in the seat and wondered what might have become of the previous owner. Had he or she driven into the water here and panicked? Or maybe they’d been with others and had headed off together. Well, whatever the answer, she couldn’t delay any longer, so she climbed back out and opened the fuel cap before pushing the siphon tube inside and dropping the other end into the can. She grimaced as she gently sucked on one end and dropped it quickly down as the clear liquid began moving along the siphon.
Well, maybe fate was looking more kindly on her. The fuel can filled until she judged it was as heavy as she could manage, and there was still more in the truck’s tank. But she needed a break before tackling the return journey, so she squatted beside the tailgate and fished in her pack for an energy bar.
As she chewed, she idly searched for any clues as to where the truck’s owner had gone. On the far side, she fo
und footprints leading out from the mud and back onto dry land. She couldn’t follow them far, as leaves had covered them, but she could see that they headed for the forest. Why would the driver get out of the car and go that way?
Ellie had always been a slave to her curiosity, so she screwed the cap on the fuel can and left it there while she headed into the trees.
She didn’t have to go far. The land rose a little and the trees thinned out, the pines giving way to a more open copse of beech and birch. And there, beneath a low-hanging branch forming a canopy, was a makeshift shelter. A tarpaulin hung over the branch, weighed down on each side by stones. Ellie didn’t want to approach it, fearing what she might find inside, but she felt compelled to understand the mystery, so she stepped beneath the overarching lattice, her eyes focusing on the tiny blue flowers that carpeted the ground, until she was close enough to get down on her haunches and peer underneath the tarpaulin.
A shape lay there, unmoving in the shadows. She wanted to turn back. It looked like a man, and the stench that crept out from under the shelter told her he was dead.
“Help…”
She jumped up, banging her head on a branch, and collapsed backward clasping her skull as she yelled and cursed, waiting for the purple haze to clear from her vision. She peeped between her fingers. A hand moved in the shadow.
Ellie should have run away, but she simply couldn’t. Perhaps it was simple compassion, or maybe it was ghoulish curiosity. Or maybe she thought whoever was inside might have the key to the truck.
She crept forward, grabbing a stick and poking at the edge of the tarpaulin. The hand wriggled, grasping the tiny blue flowers and crushing them. Behind the hand, she could make out a bearded face. At first, she thought the man was black, but then, as she pushed the canopy back farther, she saw that his skin had a purple tint to it and, around the edges of his face, it receded into a mottled mess of hair and matted vomit.
Phage: Deluge Book 2: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story) Page 4