She sniffed in a final nose-full of mucus and wiped her face. “Then we’ve got to go, Pat. We’ve got to go now. If she’s alive, she might need our help. And if she’s…not, then I need to know. I can’t rest until I do.”
Patrick nodded, kissed her on the forehead, and went back to siphoning the fuel.
Tom was waiting for them when they returned to the boat. Ellie saw him silhouetted against the setting sun and, for a moment, regretted that he wasn’t coming with her.
“Hola!” he called as he walked along the bow and jumped onto dry land. “I was expecting Buzz.”
“He’s got a lot on his plate,” Patrick said, shaking Tom’s hand. “You’re looking better.”
Tom shrugged. “I am weak as a kitten. Been watching from the saloon. Thinking about Papa. He loved this time of the day. Lots of tourists giving him money for sunset trips. But it feels like thunder to me. I don’t think he would go out tonight. Hey, Ellie. You okay?”
His eyes widened as she embraced him. “Good to see you on your feet,” she said.
“Did you worry about me?” he said, putting on a look of mock concern.
She pushed him away. “Idiot. You’re obviously feeling better than you make out. So, how are the kids?”
He flashed his trademark smile. “Lewis is sitting up and eating. Jodi is still asleep most of the time, but I have managed to get her to drink and eat a little. It will be a while yet, but I think she will be okay. What have you got there?” he said, gesturing over at the ATVs.
“Gas. We’re going to have to siphon it into smaller cans, but I reckon we’ve got enough here to reach land to the west.”
His smile disappeared. “What do you mean? Surely we are staying here awhile?”
“You are, Tom. You, Jodi and Lewis. Patrick and me are heading west to look for my daughter.”
All the weariness seemed to fall on his shoulders again. “But so soon? We’ve only just got here.”
“I’m sorry, Tom. I’ve hung around for too long already. Patrick and I are leaving in the morning, as soon as Jodi and Lewis are transferred across to the farmhouse.”
“Then I will come with you.”
Ellie took his hand. “No. You’re only just getting over the disease. I’ve got no idea how we’re going to get across the country, but I reckon it’s likely to mean a lot of walking.”
“So, I will help sail the boat. Then I will return here and wait for you to get in contact. Otherwise, Kujira will be taken.”
She looked into his exhausted eyes and, after a moment, nodded.
“Someone’s coming,” Patrick said.
Twin headlights swung down the abbreviated road that led to where the boat was tied up and the car they’d taken to the farmhouse came to a halt. Buzz jumped out of the car and ran toward them.
“At last,” Tom said. “You said you’d be back…”
“What blood type are you?” Buzz snapped as soon as he was in range.
Tom looked nonplussed for a moment. “All my family is type O.”
“Thank God!” Buzz said, punching the air. “How’s Jodi?”
“She is recovering slowly. So is Lewis.”
“Can she be moved?”
“I think so.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Ellie moved between them. “Hold on. Why did you ask Tom what his blood type is?”
Buzz turned to her, his face verging on the manic. “Because I have two patients who are slowly dying, and I think Tom’s blood might save them.”
“Are you insane? He can barely stand up!”
“It is okay,” Tom said, his exhaustion obvious. “I will help. I do not wish for others to go through it if my blood can save them.”
“And can it?” Ellie asked Buzz.
The scientist shook his head. “I don’t know for sure. Tom has had the disease, so his blood will be full of antibodies. If I had the equipment, I’d filter out the red blood cells and only use the plasma, but I’m afraid we’re going to have to make do with what we’ve got. I can take blood; I have sterile bags to store it in and I can transfer it to someone else. That’s it. But if we do nothing, we’re going to lose them.”
“Well, the least we can do is give Tom a rest while we get Jodi and Lewis into the car,” Patrick said.
The red cast of the setting sun lent Jodi a little fake color as, supported between Patrick and Ellie, she staggered out. “You’re as light as a feather,” Patrick said.
Light as a ghost, Ellie thought. If the two patients at the farmhouse were worse than this, then they were in a really bad way.
Lewis had just been propped up on the back seat with Patrick between him and Jodi when the radio at Buzz’s hip went off as he got into the car. “What is it?”
Static exploded from the walkie-talkie. “Dammit! Atmospherics,” Buzz said, turning the key in the ignition. He threw the radio onto the passenger seat, flicking it to receive.
Ellie stepped back as the car moved away, taking the siphon tube and feeding it into the first gas can ready for a long night transferring fuel. Tom made his weary way below to open the boat’s fuel tank. The plan was for the two of them to get Kujira as ready as possible before Buzz returned to take him to the farmhouse for the transfusion. The sooner she could get away from this place, the better. She had spent too long doing right by others; now it was time to think of herself and her daughter.
#
Buzz put his foot down, pushing the car along the winding road toward the top of the mountain plateau. Just as he reached the crest, the static disappeared, replaced by Hank’s urgent voice.
“…Are you gettin’ this? Please respond.”
Buzz picked up the walkie-talkie in one hand while he steered with the other. “Hank? What’s going on?”
“…ank G… Reception sure is p… What’s your locati…?”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
“…taken a turn for the worse…think maybe it’s too late…no pulse.”
Buzz brought the car to a halt just as a flash lit the sky followed, moments later, by a peal of thunder that shook the windows of the car. “Hank! Are you receiving? Who’s taken a turn for the worse?” Don’t let it be Jo. “Hank?”
“What are you doing?” Patrick called, grabbing the shoulders of Lewis and Jodi as the car reversed and swung around.
“Going to get that Chicano. Dammit, I shouldn’t have agreed to let him help that woman!”
“Don’t talk about Ellie like that! And take it easy—these kids are still sick!”
“Can it!”
The car hurtled back down the track as the rain began to bounce off the roof, forming instant puddles on the increasingly slick road surface. If Patrick was saying anything, he couldn’t hear it over the cacophony.
Buzz leaned forward, trying to make out where the edges of the road were, swinging the car left and right, following the downward path toward the ocean. He wondered whether this unseasonal storm was a result of the new climate. Heaven only knew what a global flood would do to the trade winds.
He skidded the car to a halt within feet of the sea, the wind forming waves that ate into the asphalt.
He jumped out, running into the tempest, crying out to those on the boat.
Ellie emerged from the saloon where she’d taken shelter. “What the hell are you doing back?”
“Get him! Get him now!”
“What?”
Tom emerged unsteadily. “What do you want?”
“Come with me now! It’ll be too late!”
Tom went to find a coat, but Ellie grabbed him. “Are you serious?”
“No choice, Ellie.”
“But you’re not over the sickness. If you go out there, you’ll get pneumonia.”
He shrugged and pulled away from her, returning seconds later with a waterproof coat draped around his shoulders as Buzz ran back to the car and opened the door.
Ellie watched him go, watched the lights fade between the lancing rain, and felt completely and utterly alone.
The compound gate swung open, but Buzz didn’t stop to ask Hank what was going on, he simply accelerated across the mud to the farmhouse and jumped out.
Anna emerged from the door to the makeshift hospital, and stood beneath the eaves of the barn roof waiting for him.
Buzz jumped out. “What’s happened?”
Anna gestured him through into the dry as Patrick clambered out of the car and into the driver’s seat.
“Tell me,” Buzz said. He didn’t dare to go further inside to look at the beds for himself.
Tears poured down Anna’s cheeks as she buried her face in her hands, shaking her head.
“Anna, for God’s sake, get a grip!” he said, trying to pull her arms away, even as his heart threatened to burst from his chest. “Is Jo…is…?” But he couldn’t get the words out. What was wrong with him? Why did he care so much about a woman he’d only met a couple of weeks ago?
Anna was shaking her head.
“She’s…gone?”
Now a small nod.
“No!” Buzz felt grief overwhelm him. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HIM? She was just a woman he barely knew. And yet the tears poured down his face.
“She…she was…just…” Anna sobbed. “… just a kid.”
Buzz wiped his eyes. “What did you say?”
“Harper. We lost her. She just slipped away.”
Buzz had just the presence of mind not to betray his joy. “Jo…”
“She’s no worse. No better.”
Thank God! “Anna, I’ve brought Tom. He’s type O. I’m going to try a blood transfusion.”
But she wasn’t listening, so he left her there and ran out the door, almost colliding with the car, which was now directly alongside the barn. “You’re an idiot,” Patrick said. “The last thing they need is to get drenched.”
“I’m…I’m sorry. Please, come inside.”
Patrick helped Tom clamber across to the driver’s seat and under the roof overhang. “I’ll get Jodi and Lewis settled. Anna? What’s happened?”
Patrick was just about to take Jodi’s hand when Anna embraced him. “It’s Harper,” she sobbed. “She’s dead.”
“Oh, the poor thing. I’m so sorry,” he pulled her close, stroking her hair as Buzz led Tom away. “Come on, love. It wasn’t your fault.”
“He doesn’t care,” she said, snapping her head in Buzz’s direction. “He never wanted us here. Too many mouths to feed. Well, now there’s one less. And as soon as I can get the children away, we’re all going!”
Patrick stroked her hair for a few more moments until Buzz had disappeared. “I’m truly sorry, Anna. But I need your help with Jodi and Lewis here. They’re on the mend, but still very weak.”
Anna drew back, wiped her eyes, and glanced down into the car’s open door. “Yes. Of course. One death is enough. I only hope your friend can save Jo. But at least he cares whether she lives or dies, so she stands a chance.”
“Try not to be too unfair on him,” Patrick said. “There’s a good man in there somewhere. He may not have wanted you to come in, but he let you in despite that.”
Anna looked doubtfully at him but, after a short pause, she nodded and reached down to help Jodi. “Come on, let’s find you a bed.”
Lewis leaned on Patrick as they followed Anna and Jodi inside. As they reached the door to the little ward, Hank emerged going in the opposite direction. He took Anna’s hands and held them to his lips for a moment. “I put her in the cold storage, darlin’. Till we’re ready to do the right thing by her. I put her things away safe, too, and took off the beddin’.”
“You’re a kind man, Hank. Thank you,” Anna said.
“You’ve been through enough,” he replied. “I ain’t seen you leave her side, nor Jo’s, since they got sick. Not until these folks turned up, and even then, I don’t reckon you took more than a couple hours sleep. You couldn’t have done no more, and don’t you ferget it.”
She nodded sadly and allowed him to guide her through into the little ward. Only one bed was now occupied.
“Any improvement in Jo?” Patrick whispered.
Anna shook her head. “I wish there was. But Harper was just like her, sick but stable, when all of a sudden, she went into a fit and began burning up again. We gave her some more antibiotics, but she’d passed before they could have had any effect. I’m scared the same will happen to Jo.”
“You know what Buzz is doing?”
“He said he was going to find someone he could use for a blood transfusion. I think he’d be desperate enough to take any blood, but he was hoping to find someone with type O.”
Patrick nodded in the direction of the door in the far wall. “Our mad scientist has brought Tom. The poor bloke’s half dead himself, but Buzz reckons his antibodies might save her.”
And, right on cue, lightning flashed across the sky.
Chapter 20
Camp Escape
Bobby sat in the dark and waited for the right time to move. He could hear Witt snoring gently to his right. The man seemed entirely unfazed in any situation and Bobby had, in the end, given in and agreed to bring him along.
Linwood stank, even though Bobby had insisted he take a shower before they set off. The stench had soaked into Witt’s clothes so, until he found some, he’d continue to declare his presence without saying a word.
Yes, he’d agreed to bring the hobo along, because Witt knew how to get in and out of the camp without the guards noticing. It had been a long day, and Bobby had wanted nothing more than to rest, but he knew that the longer he stayed, the harder it would be to get out.
Eve had found Maria’s record. Her “mother” had told the administrators that she was heading for the Vegas camp, so she’d taken the next bus that stopped at Edwards Air Force Base first and then headed along I-15. Whether she’d made it, of course, was another matter.
Then the hammer blow. They’d gone to the booking office to try to get onto the next bus only to find it shut, a sign hanging up outside declaring that the service was canceled until further notice. The sickness they’d seen on the roads and in the lines outside the camp was now inside, so a strict curfew had been imposed, and all travel in and out was stopped.
He’d almost given in to despair as he’d read the flyer, ripping it up and throwing it away. Before that night’s curfew had come into force, he’d escorted Eve back to the room she shared with Michael and Josh. The relief on their faces—and the obvious suspicion on Michael’s—had settled Bobby’s mind. One way or another, he’d get out of the camp, but he wouldn’t be taking Eve with him. Her place was here, with her husband and son. Whatever their problems as a couple, they owed it to Josh to put them to one side, at least for now. Bobby had held her close for a few moments in the shadows, but, when he let her go, he knew it was the right thing to do, even if only for Josh.
He’d begun to make his way to the dismal room he shared with Duey when Witt had appeared out of the crowd and told him that he knew of a way out. It had, in fact, been the way he’d gotten into the camp in the first place and, as far as he knew, it hadn’t been spotted.
There was a shopping mall on the edge of the camp. The upper floor was patrolled by guards and it marked the border, though it was too high a drop. Beneath the mall was a service tunnel, and Witt had wormed his way through it a week ago. The price for showing Bobby the service tunnel was his company on the road. In truth, if Linwood’s account of his military experience was even remotely true, he could be useful. And Bobby was glad of his company. He doubted that finding Maria was going to become any more straightforward.
With a snort, Witt woke up and checked his watch. “Right, time to get goin’. They change the guard at twenty-one hundred hours. Amateurs.”
Bobby got up and gently pushed the door open. It had been easy enough to get into the mall—all he’d done was show his maintenance crew pass and tell the guard at the main entrance he was here to fix a faulty circuit breaker. Persuading the young soldier that Linwood was his
assistant was a little riskier, but the kid had probably seen a lot of strange things in the past couple of weeks, so he’d waved the two of them through. The risk was that he’d realize they hadn’t come out again before the curfew started, but, as Linwood had said, you didn’t get prizes in the Army for initiative, and so they’d been left to sit in the dark until the time came to make their escape.
Bobby listened for a moment, but could hear nothing other than a distant ticking sound like something moving in the breeze. The darkness was punctuated by a glow coming through windows in the roof and they scampered their way from patch of light to patch of light. He felt his way along the polished front of an Apple store, glancing at the latest, and now largely useless, iPhone in its display on the inside. So very recently, people would have lined up here for hours ahead of a release. Now it was just so much junk.
“Ah!”
“Careful, Bob,” Linwood said, grabbing Bobby by the arm and steadying him. “We’ll have them down on us like racoons on a trashcan.”
Bobby put the Wait Here sign he’d collided with back in place outside The Cheesecake Factory.
Witt peered around the corner. “Looks clear to me,” he whispered. “Though my eyes ain’t what they were.”
“Is that the service entrance?”
“Yeah. Through there, down the stairs and we’re under the sidewalk.”
“Right, let’s go.”
Linwood’s hand gripped his elbow. “Hold on, who’s that?”
A shape moved in the gloom, heading unmistakably toward the same entrance they were aiming for. Bobby squinted. He knew that shape. “Eve!” he hissed.
“Oh, darn it.”
“You told her?”
Linwood’s fragrant coat rustled as he shrugged. “She asked me. Said she wanted to get away from her husband. I didn’t figure she’d actually do it. Not tonight.”
“Come on!” Bobby ran along the shopfronts toward the entrance.
“Hey!” a voice called out. “Stop or I shoot!”
Eve who, by now, had almost reached the door, froze. Bobby flattened himself against the window of a clothing store and watched as someone moved from around the corner, gun pointed at Eve.
Deluge | Book 2 | Phage Page 16