Soil (The Last Flotilla Book 2)

by Barnes, Colin F.

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ the woman on the other side said in a cold, emotionless tone. ‘It’s never true. You’re not from Marvin’s lot, though . . .’

  ‘Who’s Marvin?’ Eva asked. ‘Is that someone from up in the weather station? One of the bodies?’

  The woman said nothing.

  ‘Listen,’ Eva said quickly. ‘We don’t know anything about Marvin, or this place. Like I said, we’re just survivors. We came to Mount McKinley looking for land. Please, can you help us? It’s been so long since we’ve had food, and our water is running out.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Tom said, approaching the door. ‘I’m an ex-naval first mate. I helped my friends here find this place. They’ve previously been floating about on various vessels. I noticed the station and thought we’d find shelter and perhaps water.’

  ‘Put down that crowbar,’ the voice said, still in a cold manner. ‘Everyone take ten steps back. You’ll need to come with me.’

  Tom slowly placed the crowbar on the floor, just a few inches from his feet, and they followed the woman’s orders, stepping back.

  Before any more questions could be asked, the woman raised the rifle and waited for the door to slide back. A rush of cold air swept in, carrying with it the earthy scent of damp rocks, reminding Eva of the time she had gone spelunking as a young teen.

  ‘Who are you?’ Eva asked when the woman stepped into the tunnel.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, not anymore,’ she replied, holding the weapon in front of her body. She kept the barrel pointing down, but not so far that she couldn’t easily raise it and fire at a moment’s notice. She was about six feet away and leaned forward as though inspecting them.

  ‘We’re not armed,’ Jim said, breaking the silence. ‘We mean no harm.’

  ‘You don’t look sick,’ she said. ‘So why the masks?’

  ‘Precaution,’ Annette said, her voice trembling. ‘We heard about an infection from other survivors. We didn’t want to contract anything.’

  The woman grunted. She pulled the crowbar back and away with her foot, then, keeping the gun trained on the group, bent down and picked up the potential weapon, placing it in a loop on her black waistband so that it hung by her side.

  ‘What now?’ Marcus said, exhaling with impatience. ‘If you’re not gonna gun us down, can you at least tell us what the hell this place is? And perhaps, if we ask real nicely, you could give us some water? Or, failing that, stop aiming that goddamned gun at us.’

  Eva placed her hand on his forearm and squeezed in an effort to calm him down. The last thing they needed was for Marcus to go all Rambo on the situation.

  The woman backed out of the tunnel and stood to one side, gesturing for them to exit into the larger chamber. Eva encouraged the others to do as she prompted, feeling as though she were a convict being led into a prison cell. She’d been in the leading position on a number of occasions; she’d never thought she would be the one on the other side of the authority.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Jim said as they left the tunnel.

  The woman ignored him and took a position behind Annette, who brought up the rear of the group.

  ‘Just keep moving forward until I say otherwise,’ the woman said. She raised the rifle and pointed it straight at Annette, who shook visibly.

  Marcus took a few quick glances behind him, no doubt thinking of a way to separate the woman from her firearm.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ Eva said to Marcus as they stepped forward into the large cavern. Marcus just gave her a steady look and the slightest of nods.

  They walked forward, and Eva tried to get as much information as possible from their surroundings. The cavern must have been over fifty metres wide and twenty high. With its walls of hewn rock, the space had the echoing atmosphere of a large cathedral. All around them, shrouded in a blanket of shadows, were huge, grey industrial machines with large fans on the front; a thick tributary of silver tubes ran up into the dark spaces above and air blew steadily onto them. Must be a huge kind of air recycling system throughout this entire space, Eva thought as the fans on the machines whirred slowly round.

  Beneath them, the smooth ground was covered in metal and rubber gratings like the ones found at music festivals in fields – or on farms. That thought conjured a terrible image of pigs being escorted to their slaughter. Eva nearly tripped against one of the rubber mats.

  ‘Keep moving,’ the woman warned from somewhere behind them. Eva didn’t want to look round, preferring to observe as much as she possibly could from her current position.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ Tom asked.

  No response.

  Annette choked back a whimper and quickened her pace until she was so close behind Eva and Marcus that Eva could feel the woman’s hair against her neck, blown forward by the monstrous fans.

  Up ahead, Eva finally saw something other than a field of darkness and shadow. At first it resembled a police forensic tent, the kind they used to erect around a murder scene. Made from white fabric and held together by external poles and wires, the doors flapped open in the subterranean breeze.

  ‘Through there,’ the woman said.

  Inside was a massive hydroponic farm system with hundreds of rows of soil, none of which had any sign of vegetables growing. On the contrary, she could smell the decay of dead bodies and wondered if the human-sized mounds in the rows were burial plots.

  ‘Nice setup you’ve got here,’ Marcus said with a sneer. ‘You’re all vegans, I take it?’

  ‘Something like that,’ the woman replied. ‘Keep moving. When you reach the far end, turn left. If you deviate, I won’t hesitate to shoot.’

  Marcus gave her a salute, still facing forward.

  ‘What’s in the soil?’ Eva asked.’

  ‘What do you think?’ the woman said.

  ‘I have some theories. Why don’t you help me out a little here?’

  ‘The infected,’ the woman said.

  That explained the HAZMAT suit, Eva thought. It seemed, then, that the bacterium had made its way here too. That wasn’t entirely surprising. The winds would have carried the clouds, pregnant with bacteria, far and wide.

  ‘Do you have a treatment for it?’ Eva asked.

  ‘No. Hence the soil.’

  ‘Why’d you bury the infected dead in the one thing that could grow your food?’ Marcus asked.

  ‘The food died long before those poor bastards did. Now shut the hell up and keep moving.’

  When they reached the other side of the derelict farm, they went through a fabric doorway and did as the woman said, turning left and going through a rocky archway and into a narrow hallway that could fit only two side by side. The walls were whitewashed. Overhead strip lights bathed the space in sterile light to match the air.

  After a hundred or so metres through the twisting passage, they came to another cavernous room, only slightly smaller than the first. This one had a series of cabins made from white plastic running along either side of a narrow walkway, across a stone floor. There were at least ten of these buildings on each side, joined to each other with rubberised tunnels like airplane jet bridges.

  ‘In there, the first to your left,’ the woman said, waving her rifle at the first of the small buildings.

  Following her orders, Eva and the others moved across the stone floor and entered the room. Tom and Eva stood next to each other. Marcus, Jim, and Annette were crowded in behind them. The floor of the building was made from cheap particleboard and was stained in patches a dull brown colour. Eva recognised it: blood.

  ‘Stand closer together,’ the woman ordered, lifting the rifle from her position outside the doorway, some fifteen feet or so from where they stood.

  Annette choked back a nervous sob and whispered into Eva’s ear. ‘What’s happening? I don’t like this . . . What are we going to do?’

  The woman barked, ‘No one talks!’

  Annette took a sharp intake of breath and leaned back away from Eva. The poor g
irl was shaking so much Eva could feel the vibrations through the floor. Eva curled her hands into fists and moved her weight to the balls of her feet.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ the woman said. She reached into the bulky pocket on her right leg with a gloved hand. ‘I’ll make this quick and painless for y’all.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Before the woman had a chance to remove her hand from her pocket, an animal-like yell sounded from somewhere behind her.

  She spun round, tried to raise the rifle, but was too late. A wide-eyed man launched into her, knocking her to the ground. He clawed at her helmet. She tried to bat him off with gloved hands, but the attacker was too fast, too strong.

  Marcus made to move forward, but Jim dragged him back.

  ‘What the . . .’ Tom said. The group stood rooted in horror as they watched, unsure of what to do, who was the good one, who was the bad one, which one needed help.

  The woman grunted and heaved her body, arching her back. The man rode her like a bucking bull and yanked off her visor. Her scream pealed out and reverberated around the small room as the man punched her once, knocking her out, then, taking a knife from his pocket, stabbed her two, three, four times in the throat, with the final thrust deep into her chest.

  Tom rushed forward then, tackling the man.

  Marcus and Eva both joined the fray, dragging the man away from the woman, whose white HAZMAT suit was now covered in blood, the dark red of it ugly against the white.

  ‘Get off!’ the man yelled. ‘They’re coming!’

  Eva and Marcus held both of his arms while Tom pushed his head to the ground. ‘Who are coming? Who are you?’ Tom bellowed.

  The man relaxed and smiled. His breath reeked of rot – a smell she knew all too well. ‘He’s infected!’ Eva said, stepping away from the man and the threat of contamination. The fact that he was so strong and agile despite clearly carrying the bacterium told her it had mutated from the form they had become familiar with on the flotilla.

  Red sores covered the man’s mouth and eyes. He laughed and pointed at Eva with his free hand, his fingers crooked and swollen as though he were suffering from advanced arthritis. He coughed when he tried to speak. Red and green phlegm dribbled down his chin and covered his tatty grey coveralls.

  Marcus and Tom jumped away from him. The group moved back as the man crawled on hands and knees, his back arching like a bridge as he continued to hack and cough the disgusting fluid from his lungs.

  ‘Stand back,’ Annette warned the others.

  When Eva turned to face her, she saw that Annette was holding the rifle.

  The man jumped to his feet and launched towards Annette, knocking Eva out of the way with his shoulder. Annette screamed and fired a semi-auto burst. The explosion of the weapon deafened Eva. She watched the man stagger back and hit the ground. He stared up, coughed blood, and died within seconds, his limbs relaxing and his bulging eyes blinking once, twice, then remaining open, gazing towards the roof.

  ‘Why?’ Eva said, shouting over the whistling in her ears.

  Annette pointed to the body with the barrel of the gun. The man still held the knife in his hand, the blade curved and bloody.

  Eva stood and spoke through the ringing in her ears. ‘Anyone get any blood or spittle on them?’

  The group checked and shook their heads one by one. ‘All clear,’ Marcus said, standing over the body of the man. ‘This guy’s fucked, though,’ he said, rearranging his mask so that it covered his face as much as possible. ‘The infection is different.’

  ‘Made him hyper-aggressive,’ Jim said. ‘And look at his face, those sores.’

  ‘The woman’s clean,’ Annette said, placing the rifle on the floor as though she had only just realised what it was capable of.

  Eva checked the woman and saw that her face was clear of sores. She looked well, in fact: her cheeks were plump, her eyes bright blue. Even her blonde hair looked lush and clean in the dismal light. ‘We should move the bodies,’ Eva said. ‘Bury them in the soil.’

  ‘Tom,’ Jim said, nodding to the gun. ‘You want to take that, cover us while we shift the bodies?’

  ‘Sure,’ Tom said. Eva noticed that he couldn’t take his eyes off the man. She wondered if his look was one of recognition or just horror at the situation. She asked him, but he just shook his head. He checked the rifle’s ammo and then raised it and moved to patrol the area outside the cabins while the group moved the bodies into the farm area.

  They found a couple of shovels and some space and dug a couple of shallow graves. Before they lowered the bodies down, Eva checked the woman’s pockets. She took out a plastic box the size of a cigarette packet – the item she had been reaching for when the man attacked.

  ‘What is it?’ Marcus asked.

  Annette looked closer and nodded. ‘A testing kit,’ she said. ‘Similar to what we used after we had the vaccine. I think she was going to check us for the infection. I’ll take this; it could be a useful supplement to my supplies.’

  ‘At least we have some idea of what’s been going on here,’ Jim said. He stood straight and leaned against the shovel; sweat dripped from his face. The farm’s tent system really kept the heat in. ‘They must have broken down into factions of a sort. Given how crazy this guy was, it could have been an infected who killed the scientists up on the surface.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Marcus said. ‘That still stinks of some kind of cover-up.’

  ‘Whatever’s gone on, I’m sure we’ll find out,’ Eva said. ‘Let’s get these two buried so we can continue the search. I don’t want to stick around in one place for too long. Who knows how many more of the infected are around here?’

  When they had completely covered the bodies, they left the farm area and joined Tom outside.

  ‘Anything?’ Eva asked.

  ‘Not a sound or a movement,’ Tom said.

  ‘Let’s hope it stays that way,’ Marcus said.

  Eva got her bearings and took in their surroundings, using the process as a way of calming herself after the sudden dose of adrenalin. The ground was stone, smoothed by some machine. The whole place featured a strange mix of natural rustic forms and human-built shapes of precise angles and flat surfaces.

  ‘We should check out the rest of these buildings,’ Tom said, dragging her back to the present moment.

  ‘Let’s hope we don’t find more like him,’ Annette replied.

  Tom gripped the dead woman’s rifle. ‘At least this time we won’t have to rely on just a crowbar.’

  Marcus, who now wielded the crowbar, stayed close to Tom. ‘Let’s be quick about this,’ he said.

  Tom took point, with Marcus and Eva close behind him. They moved from building to building, searching methodically, keeping all senses trained on any movement.

  The first five buildings were empty, with nothing more than dust occupying the bare spaces. The sixth, however, was not. Inside, a low bench ran along the right wall. Above it hung a dirty mirror and a framed picture of President Gracefield with a bunch of international dignitaries, standing in front of the White House.

  ‘That must be the group behind all this,’ Marcus said, jabbing a finger at the picture, making it rattle against the plywood wall. ‘Look at their smug faces, thinking they’re something special. I bet these are the fuckers that screwed everything up with their meddling. And they’re probably the ones responsible for this so-called Banshee Project. What do you think, Tom?’

  Tom murmured something noncommittal and carried on the search.

  Eva made her way to the end of the room and found a desk with two drawers.

  ‘Locked,’ Eva said when she tried them.

  ‘Not anymore,’ Marcus replied. He stepped forward and jammed the end of the crowbar in between the two drawers and yanked down on the handle, splintering the wooden fronts. He used the rounded end to hook the drawers free, scattering the contents to the floor.

  ‘See?’ he said with a smirk.

  ‘Subtle,�
� Jim added. ‘Real subtle. You’re going to end up in the shit acting like that some day. Mark my words.’

  ‘Wise words from a blind man,’ Marcus snapped back. His fist clutched the crowbar tighter as Jim made to step forward. Eva pushed the big Scot backwards.

  ‘Don’t rise to it, Jim. We need to keep our cool.’

  Annette bent down and rifled through the loose papers and debris from the drawers. ‘Radios,’ she said excitedly. ‘And . . . a gun!’

  She handed Eva a polished mahogany gun case. Eva took it and flipped the lid. Inside was a clean, well-maintained pistol along with a spare magazine and belt holster.

  ‘SIG P226,’ Tom said. ‘Which means we’ve got SEALs, Coast Guard, or FBI involved here.’

  ‘That’s . . . not good,’ Marcus said.

  ‘You should take that,’ Jim said, pointing to the gun. ‘You’ll know what to do with it.’

  Eva took the pistol and holster from the case and placed them on her belt over her right hip. It felt good, familiar, gave her the feeling of security and ability to dispense justice if needed.

  With two guns, a crowbar, and a knife among the group, Eva felt better about their chances of survival if they were to encounter more people like the man they’d just buried.

  Eva joined Annette in going through the remaining contents of the drawers. The papers had nothing on them other than official White House headings and random doodles. There was an empty pack of Marlboros, a couple of dollar coins, and a small wallet-sized photograph of a young girl being hugged by a man in a grey suit. The man wore wire-framed spectacles and had little hair beyond a close-shaved dusting of grey on the sides.

  ‘So who do you think this?’ Eva said, holding it out for everyone to examine.

  They all shrugged their shoulders. Tom looked for a while longer, however, and his eyes sharpened.

  ‘You know him?’ Eva asked.

  He stared at the image, blinked a few times, and slowly nodded. ‘It’s an old picture of him, but I think it’s . . . Fleet Admiral Marvin Johnson.’