Soil (The Last Flotilla Book 2)

by Barnes, Colin F.

  ‘If you want, but I don’t think you’d understand it.’

  ‘Why? Because I’m a woman?’

  Marcus held up his hands in surrender. ‘I didn’t say that . . . but . . .’

  ‘If you add anything else to that clause, I will shoot you in the balls.’

  ‘In some countries, that’s considered a marriage proposal,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Fine, the head it is.’

  Marcus was about to come back with another of his smart-ass quips when the radio on Eva’s hip squawked into life. ‘Smokey, this is Bandit, do you copy? Over.’

  Eva lifted the radio to her ear and pressed the transmitter. ‘Copy, Bandit, this is Smokey. You guys found anything there? Over.’

  ‘Another dead guy with signs of infection, some supplies, but not much else. Over.’

  Jim’s voice was quiet, almost a whisper. Eva had to strain to hear all the words. ‘Why are you whispering? Over.’

  ‘We’ve got movement up ahead. While we wait to find out more, I just wanted to get in touch, find out if you’ve come across anything useful. Over.’

  Eva got a chill thinking that Tom, Jim, and Annette had finally found something alive. She just hoped it turned out to be something good. ‘I’ve found an infected body too,’ Eva said, not mentioning who it was in case they were being listened to. ‘Some papers, but not much else yet. We’ll be in touch when we have more to share. Are you guys okay over there? Over.’

  ‘We’re fine for now, Smokey. We’ll update you shortly. Over and out.’

  The radio went silent. Eva placed it back on her hip and repeated the brief conversation to Marcus, who was reading one of the sheets of paper and nodding as though he were listening.

  ‘So then the snake swallowed the kid whole,’ Eva said.

  ‘Uh-huh, good to know,’ Marcus said.

  ‘You’re not listening, are you?’ Eva said raising her voice slightly.

  Marcus jerked his head up from the paper. ‘Huh? Sure. Something about Jim, blah, blah, blah . . . Look, I’ve found something interesting. You should read this.’

  Eva walked around the table to stand next to him, and took the paper.

  It was a handwritten note. The words were more carved into the surface than written. Jagged and angular, the single phrase read in block capitals:

  WE SHOULD NEVER HAVE SWITCHED IT ON. I’M SORRY!

  ‘What the hell is that about?’ Eva said. ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘On that chair,’ Marcus replied, indicating the head of the table, which was at the far left of the room. Eva imagined that’s where President Gracefield had sat – or whoever had been the leader of this group.

  ‘Switched what on, though? Could it relate to the Banshee Project?’

  ‘Possible, I suppose,’ Marcus said. ‘Could be that, or perhaps apologising for switching on a water system and introducing the infection? Could be anything, really.’

  ‘And you checked all the other papers?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Marcus said, nodding to a pile on the table. ‘They’re all just about supplies and stuff – nothing of note.’

  Eva folded the paper and placed it in the front pocket of her cargo trousers. She took one last look around the room in case anything else unusual jumped out. It didn’t, but she couldn’t help but look behind each portrait in case someone had loved clichés and decided to hide a safe there.

  Of course, there was nothing.

  ‘Let’s go on through to the other room,’ Marcus said when Eva had finished her inspection. He thumbed over his shoulder to a wooden door.

  Eva nodded, drew the pistol, and waited for Marcus to open it. She crouched as he did so and raised the pistol with both hands on the grip. Nothing stirred inside. The lights were on, but they flickered intermittently.

  ‘It’s a café of sorts,’ Marcus said.

  ‘And a kitchen,’ Eva added, gesturing with the pistol to a room beyond the serving counter. She got up and stepped cautiously inside, sweeping the pistol from one end of the room to the other. Inside, half a dozen booths with Formica tables were set up along the right wall. The counter lined the left. Beyond the counter was a series of hatches that led into a kitchen.

  It reminded Eva of the old fifties-style diners. It really got to her that these arseholes, who had let the world drown, had had the time and resources to consider aesthetics of interior design.

  She moved farther in.

  Marcus joined her, knife in one hand, crowbar in the other. ‘I’ll check the table down here,’ Marcus said, his voice low. The thick layer of dust on the floor told her no one had come this way in a long time. But still, it didn’t hurt to check it out.

  While Marcus went from booth to booth, checking under the tables and seats, Eva approached the serving counter. It too was covered in dust. Three plates with mouldy leftovers sat on the surface. One lump of mould, triangular in shape, looked like it might once have been a piece of chocolate cake.

  The fuckers couldn’t just have been happy with lush interior designs, she thought; they had to have amazing food too. The bile rose in her throat as she thought about the world leaders living it up in style as, all around them, just beyond the rock walls of the mountain, billions died.

  She had just turned her back on the counter to tell Marcus she hadn’t found anything when, behind her, in the kitchen, something crashed loudly.

  Eva whipped round and raised the pistol.

  An industrial-sized tin of beans rolled slowly across the floor.

  Adrenalin flooded her system. Her hands gripped the pistol. Sweat beaded on the back of her neck. Her vision zoomed in on the doorway into the kitchen and the tin, trying to resolve the scene and reveal some movement, some shadow, anything . . . but there was nothing.

  ‘What is it?’ Marcus whispered, now by her side.

  From the boardroom came the sound of a door slamming. A glass door. It chimed like a bell.

  ‘Did you close the doors?’ Marcus asked.

  Eva shook her head.

  Marcus’s lips were almost touching her ear as he said quietly, ‘Perhaps there’s a draft?’

  But Eva knew there was no draft.

  Someone had just come into the boardroom.

  And someone was also likely in the kitchen, meaning that Eva and Marcus were caught in the middle. Eva remembered the radio and switched the volume down so as not to give their position away. She pulled Marcus down below the counter.

  ‘Get ready,’ she said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Jim and Annette followed behind Tom as the three of them slowly approached the door with the yellow glow shining through its glass pane. They had seen the shadow move a few times but nothing else had happened. No sound either.

  ‘I’m not happy about this,’ Annette said.

  ‘Can’t say I feel like doing cartwheels either,’ Tom replied. He stood back from the door and raised the M16, nodding at the others to try the handle.

  Jim stepped forward and did just that. The smooth brushed-steel handle was cold in his hand. At first it resisted, but with a little more pressure, the latch withdrew and Jim opened the door inward.

  The scent of grease and metal wafted out on the air. It was warmer in the room than the other place. Jim held his breath for a moment and listened but couldn’t detect any air conditioning. The only sound he could identify was the consistent buzzing hum of the ubiquitous strip lighting. Only two of the six bulbs worked.

  Annette and Tom joined Jim inside, closing the door behind them.

  ‘Some kind of stockroom for mechanical engineering,’ Tom whispered, so low that Jim almost didn’t hear him. Jim’s senses were focused on the shadow moving beyond a row of eight-foot-high shelving units. Jim shifted aside a few boxes of electrical supplies to get a better look.

  ‘There,’ Annette said, pointing to the shadow on the grey vinyl floor.

  Tom held his hand up over his shoulder, raised the rifle, and edged closer to the end of the shelving unit. Jim stayed cl
ose behind, straining to hear anything recognisable, and was rewarded with a rhythmic squeak, the sound of plastic on plastic.

  Tom stepped around the corner, and stood still.

  Jim had braced himself for the burst of rifle fire but nothing came. ‘What is it?’ he asked, approaching Tom. When he rounded the shelf he gasped.

  Annette joined the two of them. ‘Crap. Looks like we’re not the only ones fighting these guys.’

  The body of a woman in a grey coverall and heavy boots hung from a cable wrapped around her neck and tied to a beam in the ceiling.

  The cable squeaked each time the body’s weight shifted slightly.

  ‘Annette, let’s take a closer look,’ Jim said. ‘Cover us, Tom.’

  ‘Go on,’ Tom said.

  Jim and Annette approached the body. Jim used the end of his flashlight to stop it from swinging on the cable. Annette put on a pair of latex gloves that she had stashed in her pocket and lifted the woman’s head. Corpse eyes stared back at them; the colour had drained away, and their surfaces had dried, leaving a film over the lenses. The skin around her eyes and mouth was like that of the others with the infection: covered in pustules and red and flaking.

  ‘She’s definitely dead, right?’ Tom said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Annette replied. ‘No doubt about it.’

  ‘How long?’

  Annette thought about it, circled the body, inspecting the neck and face more closely. She laid the back of her gloved hand against the corpse’s arm. ‘I’m no expert, but I’d guess maybe ten minutes or so. There’s still a hint of warmth to the body.’

  Jim scrutinised the body, looking at every detail, from the black boots up the legs of the grey trousers, across the waist, and up the chest. ‘Wait,’ he said, stepping closer and pointing with his right index finger. ‘There – what’s that?’

  A round protrusion the thickness of a pen appeared to be embedded in the woman’s chest. The fabric of the coverall puckered inward around it. Beneath the grey material, a darker shadow surrounded the object and trailed downward towards the navel.

  Annette dropped her backpack and retrieved a scalpel from her lot of new supplies. She used it to carefully cut the material, exposing the woman’s chest. Her dark, Mediterranean skin had a grey hue to it, but the darker shadow was revealed to be dried blood. Using the tip of the scalpel, Annette sliced away the material around the object and tapped her scalpel against it.

  ‘Metal,’ she said. ‘A metal rod. If it’s long enough, it looks like it would have pierced the heart. She would have died from internal bleeding if the broken neck hadn’t done the job.’

  ‘What is it?’ Jim asked. ‘A nail from a nail gun, perhaps?’

  Tom joined them and inspected more closely. ‘See if you can remove it,’ he said.

  ‘If you’re sure,’ Annette replied, an expression of uncertainty on her face.

  Tom simply nodded.

  It took a few moments, but using some forceps and force, Annette managed to remove the object. It was about eight inches long and a quarter inch in diameter. The tip had been ground into a sharp point.

  ‘Handmade bolt,’ Tom said.

  ‘What, from a crossbow?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Looks like it,’ Tom confirmed. ‘You can see the straight grooves on the underside; that tells me it was likely fired from a crossbow, probably also handmade.’

  ‘I don’t find this encouraging,’ Jim said. He turned his back to the corpse and tried to see where the bolt might have been fired from. He was looking across the stockroom, down the row of shelving units. The door they had entered through was too far on the right to get a direct shot. All he could see in front of him was a grey-painted wall . . . and a grating, no more than a few inches wide, near the ceiling.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he muttered.

  ‘What is it now?’ Annette asked.

  Jim pointed at the grating. ‘I think we have ourselves a sniper in the walls.’

  ‘Just great,’ Tom said. ‘That makes things . . . more difficult. At least it means there’s fewer of the infected people to come after us.’

  ‘And we know one thing from this corpse: that’s RJ45 cable there around her neck, so we can assume there are more computers down here somewhere.’

  ‘Let’s hope we stay alive long enough to use them if we find them,’ Tom said. ‘I’ll let Eva know what we’ve found if you two want to explore the rest of the room. Might be something useful here.’

  Jim agreed, and, along with Annette, started to fully explore the stockroom. The low light didn’t help so he reluctantly switched on the flashlight. He would have preferred to save the batteries, but he agreed with Tom that it was worth exploring.

  They went down the row, inspecting the items on the shelves. In some ways, it reminded Jim of the days he and Morag, his wife, used to go shopping in their local supermarket. He could still picture it vividly in his mind: the freezers running down the right of the shop, five other rows between the freezers and the wall of magazines at the far left. They had had their own route they would walk each time. It was a familiar note in an otherwise chaotic world. Humans, he thought, were obsessed with being busy, cluttering their lives with so much random shit that they lost sight of the joys of routine, the safety of the known.

  ‘You’re whistling,’ Annette said when they reached the end of the row, having found nothing more than random electrical supplies, presumably for maintenance of the base.

  ‘Sorry,’ Jim said, turning down another row of shelves. ‘I was just . . . It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘Go on,’ Annette said. ‘It seemed like you were remembering something good?’

  ‘My wife. This room reminded me of the times I used to go shopping with her. It’s stupid really, but back then I was training to be a captain. The pressure was high and the stress used to get to me. Going to the local shop to wander up and down the aisles, deciding what we wanted, provided a safety zone. A relief. I didn’t have to think, or perform, or learn. I just had to wheel the cart up and down for half an hour until we reached the checkouts.

  ‘Then I would chat with the overly familiar, but not unpleasant, checkout girl, who would always ask how Morag and I were getting on. The conversation was always the same, but I liked it, you know? If we ever had someone else on the checkout, it felt unnatural, like the order of things was coming unstuck.’

  Annette stopped halfway down the row and bent down to the lowest shelf. ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ she said without looking up. ‘I had a similar experience back home. We’d go to the market every Sunday to buy fresh vegetables and organic meat from the local farmers. They became almost like family in a way. Here, catch.’

  Jim clumsily reached out his free hand and barely caught the object Annette threw to him. He looked down and inspected it: a Leatherman multi-tool.

  ‘It’ll make a good weapon,’ Annette said, tucking a smaller version into her trouser pocket. ‘And a useful tool.’

  ‘You planning on doing some electrical work?’ Jim said, smiling as he placed his new weapon in his pocket. It felt reassuringly heavy and solid in there, as though, if he needed to protect himself, it would be up to the task.

  Annette shrugged, said, ‘You never know when you need more outlets for another kettle. One can’t have too many cups of tea. Talking of which . . .’ She pointed over Jim’s shoulder to the shelf opposite.

  Jim spun round and smiled. Sitting on the shelf among various powdered milk-based desserts was a box of real tea bags. Over two hundred of them. Apparently this room had been used as a general store room, or perhaps the workers had stocked up on the desserts and tea, taking supplies from other areas. He suspected those kinds of items would have been in demand.

  Jim opened the box top and inhaled the earthy scent. ‘Damn, that’s good. Whatever happens, at least we can have a decent cuppa.’

  His mind, however, wasn’t on tea, despite the welcome find. During their search of the stock, he had been covertly looking for alcohol. Pref
erably Scotch or rum, but his pattern recognition had failed to alert him to any candidates. It appeared this base was entirely dry. He supposed whoever had organised this place wanted everyone to have clear heads. It didn’t seem to have worked, he thought. He swallowed, imagined the sweet burn of rum.

  ‘Jim!’

  Jim snapped his eyes open. ‘What?’

  Tom stood at the end of the row, his eyes wide. ‘Someone’s coming. I can hear voices. At least two of them. Get to the back of the room. Now! You too, Annette.’

  He approached quickly and guided the others to the rear of the room. They ducked down behind a shelving unit so they wouldn’t cast any shadows.

  ‘Did you speak with Eva?’ Jim asked, his words hushed.

  Tom shook his head. ‘No response.’

  Jim wondered what that meant. Had she been hurt? Perhaps lost the radio . . . or even a dead battery, perhaps?

  Her words barely audible, Annette said to Tom, ‘You’d better switch ours off. We don’t want to give ourselves away.’

  Tom switched the volume knob on the radio round until it audibly clicked off, just as the door opened and two men entered. One wore grey coveralls, the other a pair of jeans and a tatty old maroon sweater. Both of them had a feral, wide-eyed look about them.

  They were talking to each other as though they didn’t think anyone else was around.

  ‘I just heard from Seb,’ said the lead male as he stepped inside. He had long blond hair and was wielding a rifle. ‘He and Lee have found two of the new people: a woman and a man, carrying a pistol and a knife. Over in the boardroom.’

  The smaller man behind the first grunted. ‘Did he deal with them?’

  ‘Yeah, he was just about to when I spoke with him.’

  ‘Lucky bastard. I was hoping to slot that bitch myself.’

  The two men chuckled, but the sound dried up as they caught sight of the body hanging from the cable. ‘Motherfuckers . . .’ the lead man said. He wheeled away and loaded his rifle.

  ‘Marvin’s lot got Darleen,’ the smaller one said. He pulled a pistol out from a back holster and fell into step behind the other man.

  ‘Check the room,’ the taller man said. The two of them split up and headed down their respective rows. Jim and the others would be flanked on both sides.