SALT: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller

by Colin F. Barnes

For a moment, Jim said nothing and just stayed where he was, his arms by his sides. Was this some kind of cruel joke, a madman’s game? Tom prompted Jim by thrusting his hand closer. “I’m sorry,” Tom said. “Please, let me help you up. You’ll have questions.”

  Reluctantly, but without much choice, Jim reached out and took the man’s hand. Jim briefly considered trying to overpower him, to reach for the hammer that lay on the floor by the small white cupboard, but given Tom’s strength, Jim didn’t rate his chances.

  With a swift tug, Tom had lifted Jim onto his unsteady feet. Jim felt sick, dizzy. Tom steadied him, gripping his shoulder. “Here,” Tom said, directing him to the side of the room. “Take a seat; get your breath back. How’s the neck?”

  “Fucking painful,” Jim said, speaking the truth as he massaged his windpipe.

  “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know who you were… or what you wanted. What are you doing here?”

  “Isn’t it me that should be asking questions?” Jim said, managing to speak through the soreness. “Who the fuck are you, and what happened here? What were you testing me for?”

  “The infection,” Tom said, bringing a stool from across the room to sit opposite Jim. “It’s mutated, taking the others.” He shook his head, exhaling a long, soulful sigh. “It was human error. It’s always human error.”

  “Let’s go back,” Jim said, closing his eyes for a moment. “What exactly happened here? Where’s Angelina?”

  Tom’s eyes were wide, staring, as though looking back to the past. “It ended so quickly. One day I was taking the vaccine, recovering, the next the outbreak happened, and within an hour, everyone died.”

  “Wait, there’s an outbreak? Shouldn’t we leave this place right now?”

  Tom shook his head. “I’ve got the vaccine. No one else to spread it. I’ve contained the fungi samples.”

  “You’re confusing me,” Jim said, rubbing his face, trying to make sense of things. “Tell me from the start how this happened.”

  Tom fidgeted on his stool and took a moment as though he were organising the events in his memory. He leaned and made eye contact. “Angelina and her researchers found a cure to the infection a few days ago. They had tested it on one of the flotilla volunteers, but needed to confirm it. The others had developed too far.”

  “That’s why I sent Mike,” Jim added.

  “And you communicated with Angelina?”

  “Yes, I was the one in contact with her for the last few years. She asked for another volunteer after I had sent Mike, but he came back… Something had happened to him. It was then that I couldn’t get in touch with anyone.”

  “It was the mutation,” Tom said, his voice grave. “Mike was patient zero. The vaccine was created with a combination of fungal spores and antibacterials. Once in the system, it would compete with the infection, killing it.”

  “And this fungal spore is what killed everyone?”

  “No, no, it’s what kept us alive. There’s no harm to humans from the fungal spores. Once it destroys the infection, it stays in the body, inert like many of the bacteria we carry around inside us.”

  Jim stood up and stretched his legs, wanting to burn off some of the nervous anxiety. “So how did this mutation happen? I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t have all the answers,” Tom said. “But when Mike arrived, Angelina injected him with the vaccine. Within hours he went crazy, killing two of the researchers. There was some bacterial issue already within Mike that didn’t react well to the infection and the vaccine. It spread so fast… it should have been contained, but one of the researchers…”

  “What did they do?”

  “It’s so stupid. Something so small. They dropped a vial of this mutated infection. I watched it all happen in less than an hour. Those that weren’t catatonic were killed by those who reacted differently.”

  “How did Mike get off the ship? He came back to the flotilla. And why hasn’t it spread from him?”

  “It has a really short life. By the next morning, I saw one of the infected researchers recover from the mutation.”

  “Where are they now? Can I speak with them?”

  Tom looked away then, his face growing pale. “They couldn’t cope with what had happened. They… drowned themselves. I’m the only one left.”

  “Why you?” Jim asked. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that to sound that way. I just mean, how come you survived? Who are you?”

  Tom stood up from the stool and moved over to stand right in front of Jim. Looking right into his eyes, Tom said, “You really don’t know? You don’t recognise me?”

  Jim racked his brain, analysing Tom’s face. Nothing came to him. “I’m sorry,” Jim said. “I don’t.”

  Tom’s face twisted with pain. “I’m not entirely surprised. I was the first, after all. It was a long time ago.”

  “The first?”

  “The first volunteer that you sent from the flotilla. Admittedly, I went by a different name then. Have I really changed that much since you sent me away?”

  Jim rocked back on his heels before slumping back down onto the chair. He dropped his head in his hands before looking back up at Tom. There was zero recognition, but he didn’t suspect he had any reason to lie, and the first volunteer was indeed a man.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jim said, unable to say any more.

  Tom shrugged it off. “I’m still alive, probably wouldn’t be if you hadn’t sent me away. I volunteered anyway. I wanted to go. I just didn’t expect I’d be coming here.”

  “Did they… treat you and the others well?”

  “Yeah. At times I felt like a lab monkey, being jabbed with various vaccines and monitored, but I felt like I was helping. Angelina especially was kind. She was the one to make the breakthrough, to discover the fungal response to the infection. I’m going to miss her and her team.”

  “Me too,” Jim said, “and I didn’t even get a chance to meet her.”

  “You want to see her now?”

  The first reaction was to say yes. But did he really? Did he really want his first proper introduction to the woman he had grown so fond of to be with her corpse? It seemed crazy, but that rogue curiosity took over and made Jim nod his head. “Yes, I would.”

  Tom led Jim out of the small medical room and into the passageway. While they headed for the rear of the ship, to the room where the various specialists were slumped over the table, Tom explained how he had survived by hiding in the ducting of the ship, and how when the fire broke out he had managed to put it out, but not until it was too late.

  “When the calm descended and the shooter had succumbed to the infection, I came out and saw the damage. I couldn’t believe it. It was then I met one of the researchers, but she went over the side before I could help her. I tried… I…”

  “It’s okay,” Jim said. “You don’t need to justify anything. It sounds like an impossible situation.”

  Tom opened the door to the room where he had dragged Jim from. “This was the conference room,” Tom added. “It’s also where they stored the fungal samples and vaccines. There’s a batch still in the fridges.” One of the fridges was open, empty, spilling frozen air into the room. The chilled air kept the smell of rot down, but he could still detect it under the coolness.

  Jim went over to the body of the woman whom he had approached before. “Is this her?” he asked, his voice trembling.

  “It is.”

  So Jim’s intuition had been correct. He wished it wasn’t. He wished he had been completely mistaken and that somehow, somewhere she was still alive. For the next ten minutes, Tom told Jim what she had been like and “introduced” her colleagues around the table.

  Tom moved to the side of the room and, from a filing cabinet, took a number of manila folders. He handed them to Jim. “Here�
��s all of their research. Everything charted back to before the drowning. They knew about this infection six months before the crusts burst open. They think the bacteria came from the Antarctic ice shelf. As the ice melted, it released it into the seas. Argentina was the first country to discover it. It quickly spread after that in the water system.”

  “Why didn’t we know about this?” Jim asked.

  “Governments covered it up. They had too much else to worry about with infrastructure being overwhelmed and low-lying countries flooding. But Angelina’s team was set up to research it. They just didn’t realise they wouldn’t have the time.”

  “We need to deal with the bodies and leave,” Jim said, slipping back into his leadership role. It was the only thing he could do now. He had to honour the dead here and then get back to the flotilla, taking the vaccine with him. He didn’t care about Dietmar’s threats now. He’d deal with him when he got back. The most important thing was making sure Angelina’s discoveries were used.

  “We can send them off on one of the fishing boats,” Tom said.

  “Aye. How much of the vaccine is there?”

  Tom opened one of the fridges. There were at least two hundred stoppered vials in racks. “We can make more,” Tom said. “The formula is all in those files. We just need to take the fungal samples. They’re slow-growing, but we should be able to harvest enough in time.”

  “What about the mutation?”

  “That’s what this is for.” Tom held up the tube of dark purple liquid. “Before the mutation spread, Angelina’s team developed a test to determine if the patient would react to the vaccine.”

  “And what if they test negative? Then what?”

  “Nothing we can do for them. They’ll have to be quarantined until they no longer pose a threat. We can’t afford the mutation to spread; it’d only take another patient zero like Mike. What happened when he went back?”

  “We quarantined him as soon as he arrived. He was already catatonic by then. But… he didn’t make it.”

  “The infection killed him?”

  “Not quite.”

  Jim filled Tom in on the details of the killer and the murders on the flotilla as they moved the bodies from the Excelsior into a fishing boat. It took a couple of hours, but eventually all twenty-three bodies were laid out, covered in sheets and tarps, on the deck of a boat called the Jezebel.

  The sun was nearly set when they roped off the wheel and throttle of the Jezebel. Standing on the deck of the Excelsior, they stood in silence as Jim pulled the rope that activated the throttle. He dropped the rope, and they watched the boat head out to the horizon.

  Tom muttered a prayer.

  When the boat’s meagre stock of diesel had run out, it drifted on the tide until it disappeared over the horizon. Jim wiped a tear from his face. The wind was whipping up, bringing with it a cold snap. Rain started to patter softly against the sea’s surface.

  Once back inside the bridge, now devoid of bodies, Tom fussed with a control panel. He pulled out a wiring loom and fiddled with the wiring. A spark came from a nearby panel, and a couple of the overhead lights flickered on, bathing the bridge in a cold, white light.

  “The ship still has its own power?” Jim asked.

  “The supplies you sent with the volunteers were stockpiled. The ship has hydro and solar. They rationed it throughout the day to make sure the inverters were always topped up.”

  “Is there enough fuel to get back to the flotilla?”

  “This vessel hasn’t moved in two years, so there should still be adequate diesel supplies. But, before we do go back, there’s something I should probably tell you. I’ve not been entirely honest with you, when I was on the flotilla or here today. And I suspect there’s one other on the flotilla who has also been lying to you.”

  Jim found an unmelted chair to sit on. “Okay,” Jim said. “Tell me. What is it?” He disguised the nervousness in his voice and waited for Tom to start.

  “When you first brought the sub into the flotilla, you found all the crew dead.”

  “That’s right,” Jim said, eager to hear where this would go.

  “You missed one.”

  Jim stood up then. “That’s impossible! I checked every one.”

  “I know,” Tom said. “I watched you. My name is Thomas Martinez, and I was the first mate of the sub. I made it out alive. I hid.”

  “What? That makes no sense. Why would you hide? And how did you get on the flotilla? Why are you telling me this?”

  Tom placed the panel back into place and started to press a number of buttons and flick a series of switches. The ship rumbled as the engines started up. “I didn’t know who you were,” Tom said, his back to Jim, manipulating the ship’s controls without the help of a working monitor. “The captain had killed the entire crew, except me. I hid beneath the bodies of my two cabin mates. When you arrived and began to investigate I stayed out of the way. I swam out of the torpedo tube and joined the flotilla later that night and pretended I’d drifted in on a wreck.”

  “That can be done when submerged? Through the torpedo tube?”

  “Sure, and you can return inside if the tube is flooded and the breech is open.”

  “I don’t understand the need for the subterfuge.”

  “I knew too much.” Tom turned to face Jim. “I had discovered the encrypted files. Orders from the government. When I volunteered, I thought I’d get away, but I ended up here…”

  Jim instantly knew what he meant by the encrypted files. He thought of Eva and her case, and how it was all tied together. “These files,” Jim said. “The decryption key is held on a USB drive, isn’t it?”

  Tom lowered his head. “I’m assuming they’ve been discovered, then?”

  “We believe it’s what the killer is after and why Mike was targeted. It was why he volunteered. He came to me, said he wanted to leave as it was too dangerous for him to stay. This is all connected, isn’t it? What’s in those files? And more importantly, who’s killing people in order to recover them?”

  When Tom told him and described the person, Jim knew immediately.

  “We need to go. Now,” Jim said.

  Chapter 41

  Eva, Marcus, and Shaley entered the corridor leading to the engineering section. Black fabric blinds covered the windows. Eva got that instinctual bad feeling as they approached the door.

  “Open it,” she said, ordering Marcus.

  He reached for the handle, but it wouldn’t open. “Locked,” he said. “They must have finished up for the night. Or probably doing repairs.”

  “Knock,” Eva said.

  Marcus dropped his shoulder and sighed. “Fine.” He rapped twice against the window of the door. Waited. Rapped twice more. He turned to face her. “See? No one’s in. We’ll have to come back.”

  Shaley pressed his face against the window, trying to see inside.

  A sudden eruption made Eva jump. She dropped the knife to the floor, just missing her foot. Marcus spun round. Shaley collapsed against the door, his face catching on broken glass as he slid down, the back of his head blown out.

  “Shit,” Marcus said. “Duck.”

  It was too late for him. Another gunshot fired through the black fabric and one of the windows, catching him in the shoulder, spinning him round as he collapsed to the floor, grimacing in a silent scream.

  Eva’s heart rate doubled as the shock hit her. Fear and indecision temporarily paralysed her. The door swung inwards, dragging Shaley’s dead form with it. Stanic stepped out, holding a pistol with both hands, aiming right for Eva’s head.

  “Do as I say and you might just live. Get in here. Now,” he said.

  His arms were dead still, his face a picture of calm, but those eyes… they were the eyes of the unhinged. Eva thought about going f
or her knife, but she’d never be quick enough. Stanic had already proved to be a good shot. She clenched her teeth, furious that she hadn’t seen it sooner.

  Stanic! One of the backbones of the flotilla. It didn’t make sense. Why put in all the effort he had on the flotilla only to split it apart?

  “Why?” she asked, unable to understand.

  “Get inside. I won’t ask you again.”

  Stanic stepped out further into the corridor, clearing the way. He waved her into the workshop. She looked at Shaley and Marcus. The latter was breathing but still. She had to step over Shaley’s body. Despite her feelings about him, it wasn’t a good way to go. At least it was quick. “Grab his arms. Drag him inside.”

  “Do I look like Wonder Woman? It’s not like I’m in good shape. Remember how you knifed me, tried to leave me for dead?”

  “That was admittedly a mistake. Don’t expect me to make another. Drag him in or die where you stand.”

  She didn’t fancy testing his patience. Gritting her teeth, Eva pulled Shaley into the room. Her ribs screamed with the effort. As the body slid, Stanic lifted his legs and pushed him all the way inside.

  Eva dropped the body once inside and used the opportunity to look for a weapon.

  When she turned her head to search the workshop, she saw that the place had been cleaned. There was nothing on the worktables; the tool racks were empty. It seemed as if Stanic had prepared the room.

  She heard a muffled noise coming from the back of the room, behind one of the huge generators. She saw Duncan tied to the steel legs of a workbench, a gag in his mouth, his wrists and ankles bound. Blood dripped from a cut above his eye.

  “Duncan!” Eva readied to go towards him, but before she could move her feet, Stanic slammed the butt of the gun against her temple, knocking her to the ground. Her vision blurred. A burning pain spread around her head. She tried to crawl away. Stanic grabbed her hair and pulled her head up, stretching her neck, cutting off her scream.