“Please…please don’t come in…”
“Daddy keeps saying that,” Crystal whispered as the door swung open.
Dom lay on the sofa, trying to heave himself upright. The buzzing came from over in the corner where jeans and other clothes lay under a cloud of flies. “I’m…I’m sorry,” he said.
“Daddy was really sick. He couldn’t keep the poop in.”
Ellie glanced at Patrick, who held her gaze for a few seconds before sighing theatrically. “I’ll find a bin bag somewhere.”
“I’m sorry,” Dom said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Patrick said. “I’ve dealt with worse. I once shared digs with three other actors, so I’ve seen it all. Idris, especially…” He headed off with Crystal in tow.
Ellie opened all the windows and took in a lungful of fresh air. “You seem a little better.”
“Yeah. Yesterday I couldn’t care less how much I stank. So that’s an improvement. Thank you for coming back.”
Ellie felt her face flush in embarrassment, but was saved by Patrick coming back in with a black bag. “Ellie’s sorted you out a place at Buzz’s settlement,” he said.
“What?”
Patrick told Crystal to stand back while he wrapped the bag around the stinking pile of clothes, enveloping the stench. He tied it up and threw it out the window.
“Thank God for that,” he said. “Yeah, Ellie and I are heading west, so there’s room for you and your family. If you want, that is.”
Dom pulled himself up, then collapsed back.
“Take it easy,” Ellie said, fluffing up a pillow at arm’s length to support his neck. “We’ll see if we can find a working truck to transport you all.” She examined his face. If he hadn’t been moving and talking, she’d have thought he was even sicker than when she’d seen him the day before. Before she took some of his pills. Red blotches around his nose and mouth seemed even more obvious set against the unnaturally pale skin. But she figured he’d survive.
“Why are you doing this?” he whispered as she stood up. “Why are you helping us?”
Guilt, she thought. Yesterday, she’d been prepared to leave the man to die. That wasn’t who she was. Or, at least, she hoped not.
“Because she’s a good person,” Patrick said, smiling at her. “Most of the time. Come on, Ellie, let’s go find us some transport.”
Ellie checked in on Masie on her way past. She’d rolled onto her side which Ellie took to be a good sign.
“We’re not bringing the kid,” Ellie said, as Patrick emerged with Crystal at his side.
“I’m not leaving her here. And, besides, Dom’s given me this.” He held out a key fob.
Crystal nodded, her blonde hair frizzing up and around her head. “It’s Daddy’s car. And I know where it is.”
Ellie sighed. “Okay, then. Which way?”
They followed the girl down the garden path and back onto the main road. “Daddy hid the car in case bad men took it. He said the water would go down, but I don’t know. I keep looking out, but I don’t see no ark.”
Ellie rolled her eyes as they headed along the road, passing the same houses she’d passed on her way to Buzz’s secret lair the day before. The sun had disappeared behind a solid ceiling of white cloud, and the wind had dropped, leaving the island cloaked in humid air that quickly began soaking her shirt and shorts.
Patrick was faring even worse. Within half an hour, his hair had resembled some cheap prop from a horror film. The sort of thing that might be worn by someone called Igor. It emphasized how thin his hair had become and made him look ten years older. All it would take was a mustache and a comb-over and he’d be a caricature of a grandpa. Not that she’d say that to him. She wasn’t that cruel. Not without provocation, anyway.
They walked into a swarm of midges as the road took them down between two rows of trees. “Are you sure it’s here?” Ellie asked.
“Oh, yes. Daddy parked it through those trees where no one will ever find it.”
Ellie grunted, but they followed the girl as she took them along a small side track. “It’s just down here,” she said, skipping between the twin ruts of a dirt road.
“Don’t go too far ahead,” Patrick called.
“Mother hen.”
Crystal turned a corner and came to a halt. “Oh, dear.”
Patrick cursed as he reached where she stood.
“Great,” Ellie said. The car—a small sedan—sat half in and half out of the water, small waves breaking against its tires and fender.
Patrick shook his head. “We’ll never get it out, even if the engine isn’t flooded.”
“Come on,” Ellie said. “What a waste of time.”
“Crystal wasn’t to know.”
Ellie strode back the way they came and was just emerging from the side track when she heard something that sounded like a swarm of mechanical bees coming from above. She was just in time to see the helicopter land on a stretch of open ground.
#
Two soldiers in olive camouflage jumped out of the back of a small black helicopter as the rotors spun down. As they saw Ellie and Patrick with Crystal between them, they each went down on one knee and brought their assault rifles to bear. Ellie froze and put her hands in the air.
A man in a dark gray suit climbed rather less gracefully down and walked between the two of them, something rectangular tucked under his arm.
Ellie spotted two more uniformed figures jumping out the other side of the helicopter and running in a wide arc, rifles sweeping in all directions.
The rotors finally came to a halt and the man in the gray suit held up a hand in greeting. “Are there others hiding? If so, ask them to come out, please.”
Ellie stepped forward. “It’s just us, as far as I know.”
The man spoke to one of the soldiers and then moved toward her, hand outstretched.
“My name is Freeman Kessler and I represent the Federal Reconstruction Department.”
“Never heard of it,” Ellie said, grasping his thin, cold fingers.
His face tightened. “The FRD is a newly formed organization, created in response to this existential threat to our nation.”
Patrick stepped forward and grasped his hand. “Welcome, Freeman. This is Ellen Fischer, and I’m Patrick Reid. This is Crystal. Are you here to bring supplies?”
Kessler relaxed a little. “I’m afraid not. This is an information-gathering mission, primarily a survey. Once we know how many people survived the deluge, then we can better help them.”
“Surely you should start by feeding people?” Ellie said. She didn’t like bean-counters at the best of times, but right now what people needed were actual beans, not figures on a spreadsheet.
“FEMA has set up camps—they’re called OASES—for displaced citizens to find aid.”
“Where are these camps?”
Kessler pulled the iPad out from under his arm and fiddled with a map view before zooming in. “The closest is just outside Oklahoma City, but camps have been set up at most remaining cities, though there are few enough of them.”
“Like where?”
“What? Well, Denver, Las Vegas, and there’s one at Edwards Air Force Base outside LA.”
“That’s where she’ll be,” Ellie said, but Kessler didn’t hear her as he was still speaking.
“But we’re not here to rescue you, we’re conducting a survey.”
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Ellie said, recovering, “we’ll look after ourselves.”
Kessler nodded and swiped to another screen on the iPad. “Have you encountered any other living people on this island?”
Ellie swapped a glance with Patrick. Would Buzz want the government to know he was here? Perhaps they could help? She suspected he would probably prefer that his compound remain hidden, and she found herself wondering whether the helicopter would be able to spot it from above. She opened her mouth to speak.
“There’s Mommy and Daddy,” Crystal said. “We’re just looking fo
r a car. They’ve been very sick.”
Kessler kneeled down to Crystal’s level while Ellie fumed. “But why would they want a car, little girl?”
“So they can go live on Hank’s farm.”
Kessler got up and looked at Patrick. “So, there’s a farm nearby?”
Reid shrugged. “I don’t know, I’ve never seen one.”
The government official looked from one to the other of them. “Ms.…Fischer?” he said, consulting his screen again. “Can you shed any light on this?”
“There’s a settlement to the north of here.”
“How many?”
“Fifteen or so,” she said, “mainly children. They were on a school trip when the flood came. They’re at the farm with their teachers.”
Kessler tapped away at his screen. “And this…Hank…runs the place?”
Ellie’s spider sense was tingling, but she couldn’t think of a good reason to lie. “No, it was set up by a man called Ed Baxter.”
There! She saw it. He tried to conceal his reaction, but the triumph was unmistakable.
“You could probably put down at the farm,” she said.
“No need,” Kessler said, snapping the cover over his iPad. “We’re on a tight schedule, heading back to Hazleton.”
“Hazleton?”
He turned to go, then looked back at her. “It’s where the federal government has relocated to. Pennsylvania. We’re starting the rebuild from there.”
“According to the map we made, there’s not much left of the eastern side of the country.”
His face tightened. “That is what we’re trying to establish.”
“I just wonder what the western states will think about a federal government on an island in the east?”
“It depends on whether they respect the Constitution,” Kessler said.
Ellie went to open her mouth, but she felt Patrick’s hand on her arm, so she contented herself with watching him climb back into the helicopter. They stepped back toward the trees and kept track of it as it headed east.
“What’s your problem?” Ellie asked, rounding on Patrick. “Don’t I have the right to give that jerk some heat? Coming here with a clipboard instead of anything useful.”
Patrick gestured at the disappearing helicopter. “I don’t know, but it seems to me that we don’t want to be winding up a man who can call on four soldiers at a whim. He didn’t strike me as the type to have a sense of humor.”
“Well, that wouldn’t exactly be constitutional!” Ellie said.
Patrick shook his head. “You know, Ellie, I sometimes wonder whether you’re too close to your own people to really understand them. I’ve only been here for twenty years, and I’ve learned that there are two types of people who call themselves supporters of the Constitution: those who think it applies to everyone, and those who think it only applies to other people. If I’m any judge, our reptilian friend there is in the latter tribe. I mean, if he killed the lot of us, who would ever know?”
Ellie turned away and began heading back the way they’d come. She wouldn’t admit it, but he was right. She had to remember that the world had changed and the unthinkable had become routine.
Freeman Kessler jabbed at his iPad, struggling to concentrate over the whine leaking through his ear defenders. Alongside him, the pilot steered the Little Bird toward Hazleton and he, for one, would be glad to be back on solid ground. Even if it was the former coal town. It said everything about the catastrophe that such a second-rate city was now the seat of government.
Even if the east couldn’t regain its dominance, Freeman Kessler would make sure those responsible paid big time for their crimes.
He finished taking notes, then switched apps to Starcom and sent an encrypted message on his direct channel.
Attn: POTUS
From: Kessler, F
Message
Target located.
Chapter 14
Santa Clarita Baby
“I’m not leaving you here,” Bobby said as he packed Michael’s few possessions. He glanced over at where Vasic was prowling between the beds of people, some of them coughing, and others silent. “Your wound has healed and I’ve even fixed the tire on your wheelchair. Time to go.”
It had been two days since they’d arrived in Castaic, and Bobby had spent most of that time working on the generator and the electrical system of the former Office Depot store. National Guard soldiers had brought more and more equipment salvaged from the flooded hospital and Bobby had helped them lash it all together in the safest and most efficient way possible. The generator was underpowered, but he didn’t think either Vasic or his colleagues were really listening. They’d keep sucking power until it dried up or failed entirely.
“I don’t want to come,” Michael said, not making eye contact.
“You what? Surely you don’t want to stay here?” And then he saw the truth in the man’s desperate expression. “Vasic has gotten to you, hasn’t he? That son of a…”
Michael turned his head, interrupting Bobby. “He’s right. What’s the point of a cripple like me? It was hard enough to convince myself I had any value before the deluge, but who needs a software engineer now? I could do that job from my chair. I can’t do what you do without my legs.”
“What do I do?”
He shrugged. “Help people.”
“And yet, I haven’t helped the person I’m most responsible for.”
“Well, now you can carry on without being burdened by me.”
Bobby flushed. He’d been thinking exactly that, right up until this morning when he’d decided he couldn’t face Eve. He was many things, but he’d learned his lesson about lying—even by omission—when he’d betrayed Ellie and gotten her pregnant without her permission. And he was still trying to deal with the result of that decision. He wasn’t about to lie to Eve.
“Tell me, Michael, what kind of a man are you?”
Michael’s eyes widened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you know how lucky you are?”
Now his jaw dropped open. “Are you serious?”
Bobby gripped his arms and forced eye contact. “You’ve got a wife and son waiting for you at the camp in Santa Clarita.”
“They don’t know I’m alive.”
“I do! Now, if you don’t want me to go back there and tell them all about finding you and helping you make your way here only for you to decide you didn’t have the cojones to go a few more miles, then stop feeling sorry for yourself and get ready to go. Don’t you think I’d give everything to know that Maria was waiting for me so close?”
Michael held his gaze. “Don’t you think I’d give anything to be able to walk?”
“You did walk. You jumped on that bandit and saved my life.”
“You know I didn’t really walk. I don’t know how I did it, but I didn’t walk.”
“And you know you saved my life. Now, get yourself ready. We’re going to find Eve.”
That evening, they camped near the place where they’d seen the Humvee come under attack. The school just the other side of the intersection was being used as a transit point where travelers walking to Santa Clarita could rest for the night. Bobby flashed the ID card he’d been given by the camp authorities before he’d left to go on the helicopter ride, and they were waved through, spared the debrief the other refugees got. Bobby had heard enough about the regime at the Santa Clarita camp to know that it did all it could to encourage the less useful people to head on to the Las Vegas OASIS, and there was little chance that Michael would have been allowed into the camp without Bobby’s pass.
“I’m heading back to Vegas,” a man said as they sat around a burning brazier, huddled against the chill California mountain night. He was one of a group who had arrived before Bobby and Michael, and had been welcoming enough. The classrooms of the school had been turned into makeshift bedrooms, but it was a clear night and the brazier had drawn a crowd. “I ain’t seen nowhere better, so I came back to get my fo
lks. My son and wife have set up a nice little home for us all. Well, it’s a tent, but beggars can’t be choosers. And the sickness ain’t got there yet.”
“Amen to that,” a shriveled old man said. He was enough like the speaker that it was obvious he was his father.
“Yeah, well, I ain’t goin’ back to Edwards. That place is hell on Earth. Half of them coughin’ their guts up. Heard about the Vegas camp and decided to go check it out myself.”
Bobby stirred the soup in his mug, releasing a deliciously artificial aroma. “Edwards Air Force Base?”
“Yeah. That’s the local camp for folks around LA. They’re closing down all the small camps, so they can distribute supplies better…”
“And keep us under control,” the old man added. “I don’t trust Booker. He’s too darned ambitious.”
Bobby hadn’t voted for Sonny Booker in the primary, largely because it was hard to tell which party he represented. He’d been an efficient governor, however, though Bobby could believe he was the sort of politician who would grab power if he could.
“Anyway,” the younger man continued with a roll of his eyes in his father’s direction, “There’s more room at Vegas. And there’s work, too. Money’s still worth something there. Gotta feed the machines.”
A cold wind made the going more difficult the following day as they pressed on toward Santa Clarita. It was only ten or so miles and Bobby had hoped to get there by midday, but Michael grew exhausted within an hour, so their pace slowed. And then they hit the back of the queue. It had been almost a week since Bobby had come this way before and he’d been barely paying attention that time as they raced to get Schmidt back to base for medical attention.
This time, however, Bobby couldn’t simply drive past the waiting people. This time, he had to wait in line.
The fresh breeze that had hindered the journey had become the only relief against the humid heat as they shuffled on at a glacial pace. Up and down the line, he could hear babies crying amid the squabbling and play of older children, and the intermittent coughing that formed a backdrop to the conversations of worried adults. The hot sun beat down as the afternoon wore on, until the tension came to a head when two men started a fight over a disputed bottle of vodka. More out of boredom than anything else, Bobby got involved, trying to calm them down though it quickly became obvious that they were both drunk.
Deluge | Book 2 | Phage Page 11