Phage: Deluge Book 2: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story)

by Kevin Partner

  He opened his eyes as she touched his hands.

  “Try and get to the point, will you? Why does this affect us?”

  “Well, I guess it depends on whether we think we have any responsibility to work out what happened, and to see justice done.”

  She shook her head. “I only care about Maria.” But then she remembered how she’d felt the previous night. It wasn’t enough to find her daughter—she had to have a plan to keep her safe. And this island was that plan. “But you’re right. We may want to come back here one day…”

  “I’m coming back,” Patrick said with surprising vehemence. “I’m not leaving Jodi and Lewis for any longer than I have to. Once Tom’s recovered, I reckon he can handle himself, but I don’t trust Baxter.”

  She nodded. “Sure, I get it. For me, I guess it depends what I find out west. In any case, the more we know, the better. If he did do this, then I wouldn’t trust him with anyone.”

  “For now, though,” Patrick said, “we need his help. He’s got equipment and supplies. We’ve got enough fuel, but not much of anything else.”

  “Then we’d better play ignorant,” Ellie added.

  Patrick grunted. “Now that’s a role Max would say I’m made for.”

  Ellie drove the car back, with Patrick following on one of the ATVs until it ran out of power and they were forced to tow it back slowly.

  Hank was at the gate when they arrived. He pulled it open, but signaled to them to wait after he’d shut it. He leaned through the passenger seat window and, after acknowledging Ellie, he spoke to Patrick.

  “This place is like a minefield, and it’s fit to blow somebody to pieces when they step out of line.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Hank glanced back at the farmhouse as if checking whether he was being watched. “Well, Max has shut himself up in our room and won’t talk to nobody, not even me. And Buzz is like a bear with a sore head, runnin’ round snapping at folks who are just tryin’ to help.”

  “It’ll calm down,” Patrick said.

  Hank shook his head. “I ain’t so sure about that. I’m worried for the boy. I think, maybe, he’d be better off out of here altogether.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Well, I’ve seen more of Buzz than you guys. He’s not a bad fella at heart, but somethin’s a little broken inside him and I reckon he’s so hard on the boy because he knows if anyone’s gonna figure out whatever he’s hidin’, it’ll be Max.”

  Patrick shrugged. “That’s all very well, and I’m sorry to hear it, but I can’t see what we can do. If you can’t talk sense into Buzz, what chance do we have?”

  “You could take the problem off his hands.”

  Ellie leaned across Patrick. “No way! He’s not coming with us.”

  “But he’s a smart one. He could come in handy.”

  “Look, Hank,” Patrick said. “I don’t know Max very well, but I don’t think he’s the kind of person who’d take well to the sort of journey we’re going on.”

  Hank sighed. “You may be surprised if you let him. But o’course it’s up to you. He’ll be safer on the road than he is here, ’specially if he starts diggin’ again. And he will. I hope your conscience can take it, that’s all I have to say.”

  Ellie stabbed her foot down on the gas and left Hank scowling as he began the long walk to the farmhouse.

  She was turning into the compound when a shape flew past the front of the car. She brought the car to a sudden stop and opened the door.

  “It’s Anna,” Patrick said, running after her. “What’s going on?”

  Anna turned to look over her shoulder as she ran toward the converted barn. “Jo’s woken up!”

  Ellie followed them into the makeshift hospital where Buzz was sitting beside Jo’s bed. Children had crowded around, more coming in behind Ellie, but she looked beyond Jo to see Tom, asleep in the corner and disregarded by everyone.

  Buzz turned around, his hands wrapped around Jo’s. “You’re going to be okay!” he said, looking into her eyes as tears dropped from his cheeks.

  “Th…thank you,” she whispered.

  “It’s Tom you should be thanking,” Ellie said. She regretted it instantly, not least because she saw the venom it sparked in Buzz’s face. But it had to be said. Tom was the real hero.

  Buzz mastered himself, got up and gestured across the room at the sleeping form. “You’re right, of course. Children, without Tom’s cooperation, this couldn’t have happened. So, we must give him time to recover, just as Jo—I mean Miss Rosenberg—needs her rest. But she is going to get better.”

  The children let out a cheer as Ellie made her way past them to sit at Tom’s bedside, taking his hand in hers. It was cold to the touch.

  #

  Ellie and Patrick spent the rest of the day at the compound. Though Patrick seemed content to help clear the place of the branches and leaves that had been blown onto the floor of the valley by the storm, Ellie was a bear with a sore head. Now that she had a target in mind, she desperately wanted to get going and to begin the long journey west.

  On the other hand, Ellie wasn’t going to leave Tom until he was strong enough to look after himself, and there was also Lewis to consider.

  “How are you?” she asked as she settled down beside his bed. He’d been installed in the boys’ bedroom in the farmhouse while Jodi slept in Buzz’s attic room.

  “I can’t hardly keep my eyes open,” he said. “But I don’t feel hot no more.”

  She ran her hands over his forehead. “Yeah, that’s a lot better. I reckon you’ll be alright.”

  “Where’s Hector?”

  She smiled. “Patrick took him for a walk. He’s become the official guard dog. But you’ll be able to see him as soon as you’re on your feet.”

  “Patrick says you’re leaving.”

  “I’m going to find my daughter.”

  “He said you won’t go until Tom’s well enough to look after me.”

  Ellie scowled inwardly. She knew Patrick was right, but resented any delay. Drawing in a deep breath, she calmed herself. They certainly wouldn’t be going anywhere today so she might as well relax. She could hear the sounds of birds singing in the trees and realized that the wind had finally dropped.

  “Sure. Do you want something to eat?”

  The boy smiled. “I’m starving.”

  “That’s a good sign. Just for today, I’ll bring your food, but I expect you to be on your feet tomorrow. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  She left the boy there and paused at the door to the attic room, muffled voices coming from inside. She knocked and immediately opened the door to find Jodi sitting up in bed, Patrick in the chair beside it.

  “I thought you’d be downstairs going all doe-eyed over Anna,” she said, a little more caustically than she’d intended.

  “I’ve come up to take Jodi’s breakfast order,” he responded, not taking the bait. “Then I’ll go find Anna.”

  Ellie stood beside the bed and looked at Jodi. “Well, you look half alive now, so that’s an improvement.”

  The girl gave a weak smile. “Thank you for bringing me here to Uncle Buzz.”

  “Look, what do you know about him?”

  “Not now, Ellie,” Patrick hissed.

  Ellie ignored him. “Jodi?”

  The girl looked from one to the other. “What’s going on?”

  “We think he’s involved in…what happened.”

  Jodi nodded. “Oh, that. Yeah, I reckon that’s a cert.”

  “What?”

  “Pat’s brought me up to speed. You gotta understand, Uncle Buzz has always been good to me. Sorta compensating for…for my dad.”

  Patrick took her hand. “Don’t think about it yet, Jode. Get some strength back first.”

  She laid back on the pillows of the camp bed and sighed. “Yeah. But talk to Max, will you? From what you told me, he’s worked out more than any of us.”

  Patrick got to his feet. “I’ll give it
a go, but he’s not talking to anyone.”

  “You’ve got to, Pat. Dad and Uncle Buzz weren’t much like each other except in one way—when Baxters feel threatened, they come out fighting.”

  Ellie went downstairs to the kitchen, but was inside before she noticed Hank rummaging in a pantry cupboard.

  “It’s okay, you don’t need to go nowhere, I’m just lookin’ for somethin’.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I should’ve let you speak.”

  Hank straightened up, shaking his head. “No, I get it. I’m just scared for the boy. But you’re right, he’s not road trip material.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Yeah, I finally got him to eat somethin’. Trouble is, he don’t know the danger he’s in. I’ve met folks like Buzz before. I owe him my life and so does Max, but he likes to keep his secrets to hisself, and I reckon he don’t like anyone pryin’.”

  Ellie began looking through the cupboards for something to make for Lewis and Jodi. “I think it’s more than that. He doesn’t like anyone around who’s as smart as he is. He feels threatened.”

  “You’ll find oats in that bin,” Hank said, before adding with a smile, “You’re probably right. Sure would explain why he seems happy for me to stick around.”

  Ellie scooped out some oats, mixed them with milk and then, with Hank’s help, turned on the stove top. “Don’t knock yourself. I don’t reckon any of us could keep up with Professor Proton.”

  “Except Max. Help me keep an eye out for him, will you? That’s all I ask.”

  “You care about him a lot, don’t you?”

  Hank’s beard spread in a smile. “Sure. Reminds me of the son I never had. But I gotta go; henhouse needs repairing and then I want to check in on Buzz.”

  “Where’s he hiding himself away?”

  “Got a room the other side of the infirmary. It’s the inventory room, but since the sickness came, he’s lived out of there. Look, I don’t want you to go and get the wrong idea about Buzz. He’s done a lot of good. We lost poor Harper, but we’d have lost a lot more without him. It’s just he can’t take competition, and there’s somethin’ he’s hidin’ that he don’t want us to find out about. I’ll see you at supper, okay?”

  “Sure.” She watched the older man make his way out the back door into mottled sunshine as she stirred the oats. There was something about this place that gave her the creeps, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. On the whole, it was as good a place as anywhere she could imagine, but she sensed some secret lurking in the shadows. This feeling of safety was an illusion, at least in the mid-term. For now, however, she would play along. She had no choice.

  The children were gathered in the barn farthest from the farmhouse, all sitting on the floor and looking up at Anna Frey as she drew on what looked like a whiteboard but that, when she looked closely, turned out to be a tabletop screwed to the wall and painted white. She was using a crudely shaped piece of charcoal to write arithmetic problems for the class.

  “Ah, here’s Miss…” Anna said, spotting Ellie as she lurked in the doorway.

  “I’m no miss!” Ellie said, caught off guard.

  Anna laughed. “We’re all Miss.”

  Ellie shrugged. “Fischer. Ellie Fischer.”

  “Miss Fischer. You can help by setting our next problem. We need a distance and a speed.”

  To begin with, Ellie tried to pluck figures from the air, then she remembered the map Patrick had given her. She pulled it out and looked at the straight red line that had been drawn over it linking their island to Oklahoma City. She twisted the paper to read the numbers written in Patrick’s imprecise hand. “Three hundred miles,” she said.

  “At what speed?”

  “Four knots.”

  Anna pulled a face. “We’re working in miles per hour.”

  “One knot is one nautical mile per hour.”

  Anna turned to the class. “So, how do we solve this? That’s right, Jessica, we divide three hundred by four to get? Yes, seventy-five. It would take seventy-five hours at a constant speed. But how many hours per day would you sail for, Miss Fischer, in real life?”

  Ellie, who’d been performing the mental calculation barely any quicker than the children, said, “Oh, depends on conditions. Eight, on average, I guess.”

  “Why don’t we make it easy and say seven and a half? That would mean it would take…yes, Jessica? Ten days.”

  Ellie forced a smile, but left the class to its learning as she made her way back outside. Ten days? And here she was hanging around waiting for what? For Tom to be strong enough to look after himself and the others. How long might that take? Or was she just procrastinating? She had enough fuel to take the boat singlehanded across the water that separated her from Oklahoma City. She could leave Patrick here to look after the others and go with her conscience clear. She could set off tomorrow.

  And, as she emerged from the barn with that thought in her mind, she almost collided with Buzz Baxter.

  “Ah, there you are,” he said.

  She recovered quickly enough—it was a necessary talent in someone as clumsy as she was. “I was watching a lesson.”

  He nodded without convincing her he’d actually heard what she’d said. “I guess you’ll be making preparations to leave soon?”

  “Can’t wait to be rid of me?”

  He shrugged. “I have everyone to consider. You’ve added three mouths, so the least you can do is to even the score.”

  “I shouldn’t have had to insist you take in Dom, Masie and Crystal; you should have done that yourself.”

  She expected a pointed response, but it didn’t come. “Maybe you’ve got a point,” he said. “But the math is simple enough. One in, one out.”

  Folding her arms, she leaned against the barn wall. “Go on.”

  “You, Patrick, Lewis and Tom, Dom and his family. That’s six. Not counting Jodi.”

  She couldn’t resist. “Well done.”

  He ignored the jibe. “You’re leaving tomorrow, along with Patrick. I’ll make an exception for Tom as he will be useful—we need adult muscle.”

  “Ed, cut to the chase, will you? I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Okay. Look, you need supplies, right?”

  That was a surprise. “Well, yes. According to Miss Frey, it’ll be a ten-day voyage and we’re down to crumbs.”

  “I’ll supply you with food and water.”

  She almost hugged him. Instead, she waited for the sting in the tail.

  “But you have to take two more people.”

  There it was.

  “Two?”

  “You’ve got to take Max.”

  “Why?” That was odd. Why did Buzz care about Max? That didn’t fit at all.

  Buzz looked around him as if frightened of being overheard. “He’s brilliant. I thought, maybe, I could teach him, and he’d become useful. But he’s been prying. I caught him trying to hack into a government facility. If he’d been caught, we’d all have suffered.

  “Ellie, the only hope we have here is to stay hidden.”

  “From who?”

  He wiped his hand across his forehead. “I can’t say too much, but Max is playing a dangerous game. He’s poking a dragon.”

  “‘Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards for they are subtle and quick to anger.’”

  Buzz smiled. “Sure. But Saruman the White is a pussy compared to Professor Lundberg.”

  “Who?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Only believe me when I say that Max would be safer going with you. And we’ll be safer when he’s gone.”

  “Surely he wouldn’t try to hack in again, would he?”

  Buzz shook his head. “I know his type: my type. He won’t be able to let it go until he wakes the dragon. See, I know my Tolkien.”

  “You said I had to take two. Who’s the other?”

  “Max won’t go without Hank. And I couldn’t spare him until Tom came along.”

  Ellie
sighed. Five minutes ago, she’d resolved to go alone—though she hadn’t solved the problem of what she’d eat or whether she could handle the boat for ten days straight. Now, it would be her and three men: the B-list actor, the weird genius kid and the old man.

  But Buzz was right. She’d spent long enough here to see that it was the only chance the kids—including Jodi and Lewis—had for a safe future. And Max, for all his brains, was a threat. Once they’d made landfall in Oklahoma City, they could go their separate ways, but having extra hands would make it more likely they’d reach dry land in one piece.

  “Okay, I’ll take them both as long as you’ll give us supplies. For ten days, plus as much as we can carry for the land journey.”

  Buzz’s face broadcast his obvious relief. “It’s a deal.”

  “I have one condition.”

  “What is it?”

  “If I make it back with my daughter, then we’ll have a place here.”

  She could see him calculating the relative probability that she would ever return, before nodding. “Done.”

  Chapter 23

  North

  A sign outside the Hilton in Lancaster said No refugees, no sick, and armed men stood outside the door.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Bobby said, as he led the others back to the car. He’d thought he’d left the worst of the chaos behind him now that they were higher up, far from the water. But as they’d traveled I-14 north from Santa Clarita, though superficially the landscape became more normal, it was obvious that it was a thin veneer over the meltdown of a society.

  Little traffic moved on the roads, especially south, and much of what did was military. Curfew signs lined the roads, along with hastily put together lists of ordinances and an encouragement for anyone passing through not to stop.

  But they were exhausted and Bobby had hoped to sleep in a hotel bed that night to regain his strength. He’d pulled into the parking lot of a Hilton and put his card into an ATM to withdraw some cash. His wallet was just about the only thing he had left that he’d had on him when he and Maria had visited Ventura Pier, and he had his doubts that the card would work after the abuses it had received in the intervening couple of weeks. Hope had flared briefly as the machine lit up, but it almost immediately spat the card out, claiming a connection error.