At the End of the World

by Charles E Gannon

  “Three thousand?” Jeeza almost shouted.

  “Yes,” I answered, looking directly at her. “Three thousand. But it’s been at least three months, and the stalkers there don’t have anything to eat except each other.”

  Steve frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that, according to the guide books, the biggest animals there are feral cats. And we know the stalkers don’t go fishing. So either a lot of them are in torpor or they tore each other to pieces, or both.”

  “And you want to go on a nighttime field trip to find out?” Jeeza’s voice was hoarse. With fear.

  Chloe shrugged. “Look: this is how it is now, Jeeza. And how it’s going to be. Probably for a really long time. We’ve gone over this already. Right now, the only way for us to survive is by scavenging. Call it ‘salvage,’ if that makes you feel better. But it boils down to the same thing. We land on islands—because they’re small and we can get back out to sea if shit goes sideways—and kill any stalkers between us and what we need to grab. And if there are too many, we run like hell. It is just that simple.”

  Jeeza nodded, then her eyes started getting bright. Despite the pitch of the deck, she rose hastily and swayed out of the commons. Rod jumped up, following her aft toward their cabin. Chloe sighed, nodded at Steve and Prospero, took my hand, and led the way forward to our own bunk.

  Once we got there, she turned around and took me by the shoulders. “Damn, Alvaro: when did you come up with that stuff?”

  “Uh…what stuff?”

  “Y’know: ‘Fernando de Noronha is a great training opportunity for Kourou, is a soft target, and we can use it to stock up on food and water.’ When did you think that up?”

  I shrugged. “Pretty much as it was coming out of my mouth.”

  “You shitting me? You sounded like a general.” Her face darkened. “Or a politician.”

  “Wow,” I murmured, “a great compliment and a killer insult all in the same sentence. You work fast.”

  “Yeah? You won’t be saying that in fifteen minutes, lover. But for real, taking charge like that—it didn’t come out of nowhere. So spill.”

  The way she curled up on the bunk just then, there was no way I was going to hold back any info. Or anything else. “It’s not like I wanted to go all Master and Commander on anyone. Least of all Jeeza. But ever since we started dealing with Prospero—well, it was going to be him or me in charge. And since I can’t let it be him…well, if people are getting scared, or doubtful, then I’ve got to be the one to step forward. Can’t be a leader if you can’t do that.”

  Chloe’s eyes travelled down from my face, stopped someplace just south of my belt-buckle. She half-smiled. Which generated the reaction she knew it would. Her smile widened. “So who’s number two on the totem pole?” She let her tongue linger on the word “pole.”

  “Prospero,” I answered.

  Her smile vanished, replaced by a frown that was heading toward full-on glower. An expression which did not actually produce any change in my growing…condition. “Why him?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want it to be Prospero. But no one else will do.”

  “Hey—” she started.

  I shook my head harder. “No. Hear me out. It’s a process of elimination. Let’s start with the easy choices. Can you see either Rod or Jeeza leading this crew?”

  She shook her head before I was even done asking the question. “Steve neither,” she added.

  “Right. They’re too timid, too quiet, too nice, or some combination of the three.”

  “So that leaves Prospero and me. And he gets the nod because—?”

  “Because we need you leading from the front, Chloe. No one—self included—has as much in-your-face aggression as you do. And the person who’s got to be thinking about the details of a mission cannot be the same person who is responsible for showing the sheer ferocity, guts, and will that gets people moving and makes things happen.”

  I hadn’t said that with the intent of mollifying her. Making the right decisions meant our lives, now. Screw hurt feelings and a ruined night of wild sex.

  But it worked like a charm. Her smile was back, even broader than before. “So I’m your top sergeant! I am your designated Kicker-of-Asses and Taker-of-Names!”

  I laughed; I hadn’t expected that reaction, but I guess I should have. I mean, she’s Chloe. “Yeah,” I said, “pretty much. Besides, I know that the Ephemeral Reflex stuff will bore you silly. And the person in charge has either got to be able to dive in and get the basics, like me, or be the expert, like Prospero. Who has done his share of fighting, has military training, and a rank.”

  Her smile became part-sneer. “Yeah, a Senior Aircraftman, Technical! Be still my beating heart!” She reached out and pulled me toward her. I was glad to go with that flow. “Does he know? That he’s number two?”

  “Not yet. I needed to talk with you—all of you—first.”

  She nodded, looked up at me from under those long, straight eyebrows. “Is it really necessary, making him the number two?”

  “Why? Don’t you trust him?”

  She shook her head. “Not entirely, no. I get a weird vibe off him. Like he hasn’t told us everything.”

  I didn’t disagree with her. “Yeah, but we need a clear chain of command. What if I suffered a head wound and couldn’t speak?” She tried shushing me, but I held her hand and kept going. “Or just a leg wound? Like what happened on South Georgia? You and the others had to step in. Which was kind of natural because we’d been with each other for so long. But Prospero? He’s—well, he’s—”

  “—an outsider,” she finished with a nod. “Okay. I get it. You’ve got to make his position official because it won’t ever happen naturally. I still don’t like it, but I get it.” She smiled that smile of hers and rose up on her elbows. “Speaking of getting it—”

  November 2 (just before dinner)

  This morning we got our first sight of Fernando de Noronha. It looks like a genuine tropical island, not the burnt out remains of a sea-mount volcano (like Ascension) or a rock meatloaf (like St. Helena). But it does have some really weird rock formations. It’s surrounded by coastal buttes that look like arthritic fingers accusing the sky for their deformities.

  Fernando de Noronha (or FdN, as we’ve started calling it) is tapered at both ends, about six miles long and just over two miles wide. It is almost on the equator and to say that the sun here is strong is an insane understatement. It has some decently forested (well, I guess you’d say “jungled”) rock-spur hills, but also a lot of smoother, rolling land toward the northeast. At that end of the island, there are also a bunch of much smaller islands trailing off in a line that follows Fernando de Noronha’s ENE axis.

  We didn’t have a whole lot of information about it; just two entries in travel guides, each accompanied by a basic map. One entry focused on the island’s “quaint charm.” The other covered the same basic material, but from the opposite angle, citing the “utter lack of modern facilities and conveniences.” Eye of the beholder and all that, I guess. However, between the two, we were able to piece together a lot of key information. Tactical intel, Prospero called it.

  Assuming that the plague reached FdN about the same time as it infected the rest of the Atlantic rim, it hit during the tourist off-season. Given FdN’s small population and limited services, the virus probably spread very quickly. Anything resembling normal life had likely stopped at the end of June or early July.

  The island’s three thousand full time residents had almost all been involved in its tourism industry in one way or another. Fishermen were the only other significant portion of its working population. Off-season tourists usually didn’t number over a hundred, but we assumed there had been two hundred, just to be safe. Some unknown portion of those thirty-two hundred souls would have tried fleeing on boats, but usually, people made that decision too late. So we figured that maybe two hundred got the chance to leave, reducing the total population base bac
k to the original three thousand.

  If, therefore, the plague followed the same pattern that the radio hounds on Ascension and St. Helena had heard occurring elsewhere, about forty percent would have died of the disease or stalker attacks within the first month. So by late July, we guessed eighteen hundred infected had still been alive on the island.

  But that was over twelve weeks ago, and FdN’s feral cats weren’t going to add much to the food supply for the turned. It was hard to imagine that more than half of the initial number of turned could have survived, since in just seventy days, they would have needed to eat three times the meat they could strip from the dead. So, while reminding ourselves that any estimates were just hypothetical bullshit dignified by a few semi-reliable numbers, we figured that there still might be as many as nine hundred infected, but probably not more than three hundred active.

  FdN’s infrastructure was pretty rudimentary. Local water came from either rain-collection or a small desalination plant. There was an actual spring on the island, just beyond the craggy bluffs that overlooked a small bay (and beach) labeled as Praia da Cacimba do Padre. However, the locals had always considered the spring too difficult to reach and too small to be worth the effort. Stocking up on water from it was probably not going to be a reasonable objective, at least not this trip.

  Except for the modest output of the locals’ kitchen gardens, all FdN’s food (and most of its water) had been supplied by ship. There were only two tiny supermarkets, both described in the snooty guide as “reminiscent of overgrown bodegas.” And since they were located in the more inhabited, central part of the island, they were not places we were willing to visit. It would be way too easy—and too likely—for us to get surrounded there.

  Instead, our target was a pair of adjacent hotels near the south coast. They were by far the largest of the innumerable family-run pousadas. Although the closest translation is “hostel,” most resembled a hybrid bed-and-breakfast/country inn. Usually, the guest rooms were still part of the house in which the owners lived, but some had expanded, boasting separate apartments with their own televisions, bathrooms, fridges, and air conditioning.

  Therefore, since hundreds of the locals were also part-time innkeepers, they’d have always had a good supply of food on hand. So when the virus hit, we figured they had boarded up their houses and hunkered down with their overstocked pantries. That wouldn’t have saved most of them, of course; they still had to come out for water, and the infected would have been relentless in their efforts to break into houses where they could detect prey. However, if a pousada was solidly built and furnished with a roof-top cistern—well, there was still a slim chance we might find survivors. And when you’re sailing around a dead and dying world, little rays of hope like that can keep you going for a long time.

  Lastly, FdN’s “public hospital” was a glorified MedStop, and the few drugstores all warned travelers to “bring any medicines which you use constantly.” So even if we could have reached them, we didn’t expect that they would add to our supply of useful meds.

  After I finished overviewing what Jeeza and I had gleaned from our two sources, Steve looked up from the maps. “Do you still think it’s worth the risk?”

  I had asked myself that same question and had come to the answer I gave him: “Yes, because the more I’ve looked at how the population was distributed, the more I believe we can control the risk. Not only should the number of stalkers be low, but since active infected remain in groups, there should be very few out on the peripheries. That’s one of the reasons we’re landing here.” I put my finger on the map.

  Chloe leaned to get a better look. “Baia Sueste. Why there? There are other out-of-the way beaches.”

  “True,” Prospero replied, leaning over the map, “but this one has a paved, straight road that ascends evenly to the two largest pousadas. That means easy access and clear sight lines.”

  “Sight lines won’t matter much if we’re going in at night.”

  Prospero smiled. “You seem to forget we pulled two pairs of night vision goggles from Wideawake Airfield.”

  “Yeah, with unreliable batteries.”

  “Which we’ve charged. And you will have a moon just entering the third quarter in clear skies.”

  Chloe frowned, glanced at me. “You mean, we’re going in tonight?”

  I shrugged. “No clouds. We can’t ask for better.”

  “Maybe not, but I could ask for a little more warning.”

  “Why?” asked Steve. “Wouldn’t you just spend more time worrying?”

  I’m not sure anyone else could have gotten away asking Chloe that question. But Steve spoke so rarely, and his questions were so blunt and guileless, that he got a special pass. She nodded. “You’ve got a point. Okay, we go tonight. What else?”

  Prospero picked up without missing a beat. “Baia Sueste is a sheltered inlet that is not heavily forested nor developed. No houses or other buildings except for the two target pousadas. Which sound more like hotels.”

  “How large are they?” Rod asked, leaning over my shoulder for a better look.

  “The one closest to the beach has five luxury bungalows and four apartments. The one farther up the road has seven apartments, sounds a bit less luxe.”

  Steve frowned at the unfamiliar word “That’s still pretty small,” he murmured.

  Jeeza nodded. “Yeah, but that’s good.”

  “Sounds like there won’t be much to salvage,” Steve persisted.

  Jeeza smiled. “The way these kinds of resorts work, you’d be surprised.”

  Chloe leaned back, arms folded. “Dish, sister.” She’d gotten over the fact that Jeeza had been a rich man’s daughter and knew about things such as tropical resorts and managing money and resources. Probably because Jeeza had proven to be a damn good spotter and, when needed, didn’t hesitate to use a shotgun. Turns out that she shot skeet with her parents a few times in Jamaica. Couldn’t figure out if she had done it at a resort, at a private timeshare, or some place that her folks owned. Whichever it was, her dad—and/or her mom—had been very, very rich.

  Jeeza explained the pousada situation in a quiet, almost clinical voice; she clearly didn’t want to sound like a spoiled rich girl. “Look at what the guide book says about the one closer to the bay. Not only does it have separate buildings; it has an infinity pool.”

  “A what?” asked Chloe, a second before I could.

  “An infinity pool,” answered Prospero, “is designed with one side so low that the water runs out as a sculpted waterfall which feeds a second, lower pool, and is then pumped back up into the first one. An unbroken loop of water flow. So, ‘infinity.’ Usually built overlooking the sea.”

  “Damn,” Chloe breathed, “that sounds cool. And really pricey.”

  “Yes. And yes,” Jeeza muttered. “And here’s what it tells us: this hotel catered to a very wealthy clientele. Notice the proximity to the beach at the bottom of the road and all the facilities there; water sports, restrooms, outdoor/indoor cafe with drinks and snacks. No other beach on the island has those. And neither of these super-sized pousadas have single rooms. They are all apartments or bungalows—but without kitchens. That means these are not ‘seaside efficiencies.’ These are high-end, totally private, luxury accommodations with restaurants on the premises. Which are going to have a lot more food and supplies than what they need for the coming week or two. They’ll get their meat, fruit, and vegetables fresh, but will have lots of staples in storage because their needs change and they can buy in bulk.”

  While I was wondering if Jeeza’s folks had been in the hotel business, Rod was staring at the map. Or, more accurately, the x-marked pousadas just north of Baia Sueste. “Pasta,” he breathed hopefully.

  Jeeza nodded. “Could be, but more likely tapioca and wheat flour, rice, dried beans. Canned goods. Condensed milk. Sugar.”

  “Tinned meats and ham,” Prospero added.

  I almost hummed “hot sausage and mustard!” but I’m not sure
anyone else was familiar with the film Oliver! Suddenly I missed watching old movies on TV with my mom. Very much.

  I dove back into the business at hand. “So, that’s why checking out these two pousada-hotels is worth it. A nice smooth beach to land on, a direct approach to our objective, low to zero building density, long sightlines for our rifles and night vision goggles, and a decent chance of finding more carbs than we can carry.”

  “Yeah,” Chloe said. “About all that food. I don’t like that we’d be coming out heavy, even if it’s carbs we’re carrying.”

  “Well…” Prospero said, looking at me.

  Suddenly, everyone else was looking at me, too.

  I sighed. “So, one of the reasons I had us take the recharger and all those car batteries from Ascension was that I figured it might come in handy if we wanted to, you know, jump start cars and trucks.”

  “Hard to do without the keys,” Steve observed.

  I shrugged. “Well, yeah…unless you know how to hotwire a car.”

  All the eyes on me widened. Except Prospero’s: he and I had worked out the plan together.

  Chloe’s expression was particularly interesting. A mixture of surprise and feral admiration. “Alvaro, you…you sweet bastard! You can hotwire cars?”

  Well, the “bastard” part was true, anyhow. “Yeah. And no, I’m not going to tell you how I learned. Just accept that I did.” It helps if you can memorize every technical schematic when you really want to.

  Chloe was eyeing me like she wanted to jump my bones right on the chart table. “Okay,” she murmured, “no questions.” Her smile got wonderfully evil. “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

  I did not know how I would get through the briefing with a boner, so I stopped looking at her. “If the parking lots have a few vehicles left—mostly carts or stodgy dune-buggies, according to the guidebook—we might be able to drive down to the bay with our entire haul. If not, we’ll just carry what we can and mark the rest for later.”