Onslaught

by Drew Brown

  The few seconds of silence that followed answered my question…

  “I believe Deacon gave you Brooks’ Glock, Mister Ashby?”

  Budd nodded.

  “Good. Follow me.”

  Super...

  7

  Budd walked back up onto the deck, where Patterson had already turned to the starboard side and walked down the gangway heading towards the front of the boat. The soldier stopped outside a wood-framed glass door.

  Budd followed at a leisurely pace, his gaze drawn out into the fog where the southern riverbank was now partially visible, forming a shadowy image on the otherwise white canvas. They were still on the Thames, but he had no idea how far they had come.

  Patterson opened the door and marched into the saloon.

  Budd moved slower, letting the distance between him and the soldier increase. He made a show of shutting the door, fumbling for a few seconds with his two coffee mugs as he turned the handle.

  His actions gave him time to examine the saloon, which he surmised was the largest single space aboard the boat. At thirty five feet long and twelve feet wide, the cabin had a solid wooden dance floor at its far end and a small bar near where they had entered, which also marked an enclosed area where the funnel rose through the boat from the engines below.

  Bogey was sitting on the bar top, his MP-5 across his lap, the solider working a combat knife against the edge of the laminate surface.

  Scattered between the saloon’s two ends were a collection of heavy tables and chairs, some of which were facing the full-length glass windows to provide areas for sightseeing.

  The buzz of low conversation turned into silence when the arrival of Budd and Patterson was noticed. The civilian survivors were spread across the saloon, gathered in small groups. Budd noticed that while most of the people had their eyes on Patterson, there were several, including Andy, Chris, and Father McGee, who looked straight at him instead.

  I don’t think they were exactly pleased to see me, either. If I’d still had my Stetson I’d have pulled it down over my eyes.

  Maybe even my whole face...

  Patterson gave Bogey the smallest of nods and the soldier jumped down from his spot on the counter and left the saloon. He passed through the doorway beside Budd, offering a small nod in acknowledgement.

  Patterson stopped before he reached the group, maintaining a clear six-foot distance between himself and Andy, who had stepped forward to meet the soldier.

  The space gave Patterson enough time to pull his sidearm and fire—which probably wasn’t a bad precaution.

  The other survivors looked like a mutinous bunch...

  “I want everyone to remain here in the saloon,” Patterson said without any preamble. The pauses between his words weren’t long enough to invite comment or reply. “Anyone I find outside this room will be swimming the rest of the way. Understand?”

  Several members of the group nodded, but no one spoke. They simply glared back at the soldier.

  “Good,” Patterson continued. He turned and marched back to the door, only pausing with his glove-encased fingertips on the handle long enough to make eye contact with Budd. “You’re in charge, Mister Ashby.”

  Awkward...

  Budd listened as the door closed behind him, conscious that the group’s eyes were fixed upon him. He took a sip from one of his coffee mugs, stalling for time.

  The whole gang was there.

  Andy, our self-appointed leader—well, he was until the soldiers took over. Sam, the Californian poker player who’d seemingly not washed for days—and that’s days before the apocalypse even started. Father McGee, the white-bearded priest with a drinking problem. Jack and Annabel glared at me too; well, not Annabel, her expression was frozen thanks to the plastic surgery, but definitely Jack. As Juliette’s ex-beau, he didn’t like me, not since I’d hung his cheatin’ ass out to dry. He didn’t like me. No, sir.

  Chris shot me a look of daggers—and I shot him one right back. He didn’t like me either. But this was nothing to do with his girlfriend. She wasn’t my type. And she’d been eaten already.

  The tattooed broad and her pretty girlfriend were less hostile, but nonetheless not great fans of yours truly. It was probably something I’d said.

  Somewhat of a surprise—as I’d expected Patterson to dispose of them at the first opportunity—the four folks from the apartment building near the Thames were also there, all of them together around a table. They seemed pretty nonplussed at my appearance—I guess ’cause they knew me the least.

  Still, there was no avoiding the fact that the survivors from the hotel looked at me with more than a touch of suspicion. And I didn’t blame them.

  Since meeting the soldiers, they’d been locked up, held at gunpoint, threatened, and bullied—and that was glossing over the initial “let’s cure the nice blond in the short dress with a revolver” incident back at the hotel.

  I, on the other hand—apart from being handcuffed at the start—had been singled out and treated…well, if not like a D-list celebrity, then at least like a human being capable of tying his own shoelaces.

  But the soldiers had gone some way to explaining my preferential treatment, what with the fairytale about me flying everyone to a happily-ever-after in France.

  Maybe I could carry it off the rest off the way...

  “How you all doin’?” Budd said.

  “Why are you in charge?” Chris said from the far side of the cabin. He was sitting on a beige sofa and drinking from a plastic bottle of water. The small table in front of him had several empty coffee mugs on it and wisps of cigarette smoke lingered in the air around him.

  Budd shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know; my military training, the fact I’m gonna fly us all to safety, or maybe just ’cause Patterson thinks I’m a really swell guy.”

  Chris made a scoffing noise into his bottle and then turned his head to look out of the window behind him. There was nothing to see besides the white layers of swirling fog.

  One down. A dozen or so to go...

  Budd walked over to the nearest table and pulled out the last unoccupied chair. The five people already sitting there watched him closely, but he avoided eye contact with anyone in particular. He groaned as he lowered himself onto the wooden seat. “Oh, it feels good to take the weight off.”

  “Is your friend okay?” asked a female voice.

  Budd looked to the woman sitting to his right. She was huddled inside a thick black cardigan, with her dark blond hair down at the sides of her face, hiding the faint lines that spread from her eyes. A warm, kind smile rounded the edges of her mouth and Budd felt comforted by her gaze. “She’s fine, thank you. It’s Katrina, right?”

  I never forget a pretty face…

  “Yes, it is. I want to thank you for helping us escape from our apartment. I don’t think we could’ve stayed there much longer.”

  “Well, thank you for opening the door,” Budd said, moving to tip the rim of his Stetson and remembering that the hat was gone. “Another few seconds and we were snack food.”

  Katrina nodded, still smiling. She gestured with a flick of her eyes towards the man in pinstripes who was sitting beside her. “I’m not sure if you and Kenneth were introduced.”

  “No, we weren’t. Nice to meet you, Kenny.”

  “It’s Kenneth,” the man corrected in a crisp English accent. He ran his hand through his gray hair, revealing a sweat patch in the armpit of his white shirt. He had a slight nervous tick in the corner of his left eye. “So, you’re the one who’s flying us to safety?”

  “That’s the plan, Kenny.”

  “My name is Kenneth.”

  Is it worse if you’re a jerk because you can’t help it, or if you do it for your own amusement? I’ve been accused of both...

  Budd scratched at the stubble on his chin, trying to disguise a grin that was spreading across his face. It was a poor attempt.

  Kenneth stared straight at him, his eyes unblinking.

 
Katrina interrupted the uncomfortable silence. “Also, Danek and Minka lived in the apartment next to me.”

  Budd looked over to the couple at the far end of the table and offered a smile. Danek nodded back, his angled face impassive, but Minka didn’t look up from the coffee mug she was holding. She was wearing her partner’s blue sweatshirt over her own top, the borrowed item clearly oversized for her thin frame.

  Danek’s red T-shirt offered him little protection from the chilly air, and there were goosebumps on his arms. He stroked his fingers across the back of Minka’s hand, glancing between her and the window.

  Father McGee, the fifth person at the table, scratched at his beard. “I don’t think they speak much English, my son. My guess would be that they’re Polish.”

  “They seemed to get by well enough before this,” Katrina said. “I suspect they find it easier to understand us than to express themselves.”

  “Were you with them the whole time, my dear?” Father McGee asked.

  Katrina shook her head. “Not in the beginning. I’d been out for the evening, with Kenneth; it was my birthday, so we left work early and went for dinner. The power was out when we woke in the morning and Kenneth went to see the caretaker.”

  “He was dead,” Kenneth said. “Everyone I saw was dead.”

  “That is how it was for us,” Father McGee said, nodding. “Tell me, have you seen any children?”

  “Some were...” Katrina said, but her sentence faded into nothing. She took a deep breath and then continued, her words tumbling out over one another. “We saw some children, teenagers, most likely, from my window. A group of them attacked a man. I think… they ate him. Does anyone know what’s happening?”

  Father McGee fell quiet, but the old man’s eyes settled on Budd.

  Katrina, Kenneth, and the Polish couple did the same.

  Well, here goes...

  “All I know is that Deacon, the guy bossing the soldiers around, reckons we’ll all be safe on the mainland,” Budd said. He gave Katrina a smile. “And he also knows where there’s a plane I can use to get us all there.”

  “To Europe?” Danek asked. There was no mistaking his Eastern European accent.

  “So,” Budd said, raising his left eyebrow. “Katrina’s right. You do understand more than you let on.”

  “To Europe?” Danek repeated.

  “Yeah.”

  No…

  “That is good,” Danek said. He touched the corner of his forehead lovingly against Minka’s. “We are pregnant.”

  “Congratulations, amigo,” Budd chuckled. “But, you, especially,” he added as he glanced at Minka’s still-downturned face, “should probably see a doctor ’bout that.”

  “Would anyone like more coffee?” Father McGee said. “I’m sure the soldiers would not mind if I fetched more.”

  Budd shook his head. “No, thanks. I’m trying to watch my caffeine intake. You know, for health reasons. And you probably shouldn’t leave the saloon, pops. Not with Corporal Punishment roaming around.”

  Katrina cleared her throat. “Surely, you don’t think he’d hurt one of us? I thought his threats were bluster.”

  Budd shook his head. “Oh, it ain’t bluster, honey. When I realized the four of you weren’t with the rest of us, well, I kinda figured that… I kinda figured the worst.”

  “Why would you think that? Surely the army wouldn’t hurt us?”

  “I don’t think they’re the cavalry. And their clothes ain’t shiny.”

  “When we came aboard, one of them brought us here,” Katrina said. “He checked us for injuries. He said they had a cure.”

  Budd stifled a laugh. “Trust me, you don’t want their cure.”

  Father McGee glanced over his shoulder to where Jack and Annabel were sat at the forward end of long saloon, nestled in a corner beyond the edge of the wooden dance floor. They were out of earshot, but Father McGee still lowered his voice when he leant in to speak again. “They have already killed one young lady who was with us. It was Miss Annabel’s sister.”

  “Why?” Katrina asked.

  “She was bitten,” Father McGee said.

  Kenneth clasped his hands around the back of his neck and rolled his head from left to right. “Then I’m sure they did the right thing. We saw what happened to Mrs. Dover,” he said, nudging Katrina’s arm for support.

  The flash of sorrow on Katrina’s face made Budd believe that she wasn’t as sure as Kenneth was about the subject. Even so, she nodded her head. “Mrs. Dover lived in the apartment below us. She was attacked on the landing. We thought she was okay, but…”

  “But she became one of those things,” Kenneth finished.

  “We’ve seen that, too,” Father McGee said with a slow nod of his head. He slipped his wrinkled hand inside his black robes and took out his flask. He unscrewed the top and took a mouthful of the contents, before secreting it away again inside his clothing.

  The table fell quiet.

  Budd found himself staring down into his coffee between taking sips of the warming liquid. The black surface trembled with the vibrations from the engine.

  I was in no hurry to strike up another conversation...

  Andy approached the table and stopped next to Budd. He squatted on his heels and placed his hands on the floor between his legs. “Do you know what t’soldiers are up to?”

  So much for that...

  “Nothing much,” Budd answered. “Double-checking the maps. Making plans. Soldier stuff, I guess.”

  “I don’t trust them.”

  “You’d rather go it alone?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Andy said.

  “You wanna know how I see it?”

  “How?”

  “They came looking for me because I can fly them to safety. But once they had me they could’ve ditched the rest of you and made better time. They lost men getting you this far. And they didn’t have to bother.”

  I could have added that I probably wouldn’t have done. But I think he knew that already...

  “I guess you’re right.”

  Budd smiled. “I don’t hear that very often.”

  Andy took a deep breath. He was about to speak when his attention was drawn to the saloon’s forward end, where Sam was pointing out of the window.

  Sam spun around, wide-eyed. “Like, what the hell is that?” the Californian shouted.

  Jack and Annabel rose from their sofa, gasping with fright.

  Andy stood up and rushed towards them. “What is it?”

  Annabel backed onto the dance floor, her right hand across her open mouth. Jack scrambled after her. Sam turned to face the saloon. “Everyone, get back,” he yelled.

  Budd jumped from his chair, trying to force his vision to see further into the white nothingness. The boat lurched to starboard beneath his feet at the exact same moment as he saw a dark shadow take shape ahead of them.

  The saloon filled with screams.

  8

  Budd was thrown to the carpet and the mug of warm coffee splashed across his chest. Katrina knocked into him, falling from her chair into a heap on the floor. The smell of her floral perfume caught in Budd’s nostrils and he concentrated on it for a second, trying to shut out the noise and panic that was erupting all around him.

  The party-boat was turning hard to starboard.

  Budd guessed someone in the wheelhouse above had reacted to the imminent danger and was steering to the right, away from ship materializing out of the fog, a ship that was almost twice the party-boat’s height.

  Despite the effort, the party-boat could not change direction quickly enough and the black shape slid closer.

  Budd remained on the ground, braced for the impact. He put his arm over his head for protection while around him several others got to their feet. He watched as Andy helped Sam from the deck and then turned his head to see Kenneth drag Katrina up from the carpet. Annabel ran by them screaming, her bare feet padding along on the carpet next to Budd’s ear.

  I did
n’t see much point getting up…

  The party-boat shuddered as the two vessels collided. There was a screech of grinding metal as the two hulls twisted and distorted under the force of their coming together. Glass bottles fell from the bar and shattered, mugs rolled across the floor, chairs and tables collapsed as people were thrown against them, the smashing wood adding to the cacophony of noise.

  Budd raised his head to find the saloon lights flickering as the engine stuttered below deck. Shadows crossed the floor in front of him and he realised people were once again moving around.

  Andy was at the window, looking up at the taller boat.

  Budd looked to the saloon’s long portside window, where the other boat’s black-and-white-painted hull crept along one pane at a time, steadily filling the view. Every few feet were small rectangular windows; they had no glass, only white-painted vertical bars. Through them, Budd saw that the larger ship’s deck was filled with an assortment of cars and trucks.

  It was a ferry.

  Sometimes, it’s hard to believe life isn’t out to get you. I’d flown over the Thames enough times to know that it has lots of barges and transports, but not that many ferries.

  Transports are big boats with small crews.

  A ferry, on the other hand, has more than its fair share of people aboard...

  In the darkness between the stationary vehicles, Budd thought he saw several human shapes moving around. He clambered to his feet and staggered over to Andy as the deck rolled and trembled beneath him.

  The maintenance man was leaning against a bolted-down table for support. He was looking towards the boat’s bow, surveying what was yet to come. “Get back from t’windows,” he shouted, motioning for Budd, and anyone behind him, to get further away.