EDEN

by Dean Crawford

  Figures appeared in the light shafting down into the ‘tween decks from the main hatch, obscured by the smoke filling the deck. Cody swung the rifle around and aimed at them as he saw Seth and another crewman pulling a thick hose and what looked like a hand pump.

  Seth cried out as he saw Cody through the swirling smoke, the killer’s tattoos stretched taut across his panicked face.

  ‘Wait up Ryan! The ship’s on fire and we’re going to…’

  Cody squeezed the trigger and saw the muzzle of the rifle spit flames that flickered in the half-light shimmering through the deck. Seth screamed as bullets thumped into his chest. A round smashed into his tattooed face and hurled him backwards into the hull.

  Cody held the muzzle of the rifle down and turned even as Seth’s shipmate dropped the hose and ran for his life. Bullets hammered into the man’s back and sent him sprawling onto his belly on the steps, crying out in pain and fear as his life blood spilled from his body.

  Cody screamed as he charged the main hatch and ran up the dying man’s back.

  *

  ‘Clear the hose!’

  Hank yelled orders at his remaining two crewmen as they dropped the other end of the hose into the water alongside the ship and began pumping with all of their might. The hose bulged as it sucked seawater up from the ocean toward the blaze inside the ship.

  A rattle of muted gunfire hammered the air from below decks and Sawyer turned to face the smoke billowing out into the blustery air.

  ‘Pump harder!’ Hank yelled.

  He rushed to the pump to help his men as Sawyer dashed for the main hatch.

  ‘Leave it!’ Hank yelled at Sawyer. ‘Get on the pump!’

  Sawyer ignored Hank as he ran at the hatch and down into the smoky gloom within.

  Flames licked and spat all around him, and in an instant Sawyer saw the bodies of Seth and another member of the crew writhing in bullet-ridden agony at the bottom of the steps. Sawyer raised his pistol in the darkness, but was too slow to bring it to bear as from the thick smoke and writhing flames a hideous image rushed toward him.

  Stripped to his waist and with his face splattered with blood, Cody Ryan screamed as he ran straight at Sawyer, an assault rifle pulled into his hip. Sawyer swung his pistol around at the muzzle of the rifle as he leaped to one side.

  Both weapons discharged, bright muzzle flash illuminating the writhing banks of smoke around them. Cody’s shot went wide as Sawyer’s pistol smacked into the rifle’s muzzle, his own shot going down into the deck as Cody ploughed into him and sent them both sprawling off the side of the steps to crash down onto the deck.

  Sawyer landed hard and the back of his head cracked against the unforgiving planks as his vision starred. He saw Cody land next to him and then spring upon him like a wounded animal, the scientist’s features twisted with something so primal that it sent a pulse of terror through Sawyer’s guts and for one terrible moment he froze, unable to move.

  In that awful moment, he knew that he would die.

  Cody landed upon Sawyer’s chest and the blows from his bloodied fists crashed against Sawyer’s face like cannonballs, his nose collapsing and blood filling his mouth and eyes as Ryan pounded him as though he were trying to bludgeon him through the ship itself and into the ocean beyond. Flames roared and felt hot against his skin, blood spilled around his face and felt wet beneath his hair.

  Sawyer reached blindly down to his belt, hauled out his sabre and swung it at Ryan.

  The blade sliced into Ryan’s flank and wedged against his ribs, but to Sawyer’s horror Ryan’s screams did not cease and he simply grabbed the silvery blade and wrenched it from Sawyer’s weakened grip, blood from his fingers spilling down the bright steel. Sawyer, short of breath, numb and barely able to see, saw the ship vanish as it was replaced with a flash of bright metal and then a pair of eyes that glared down into his with a fearsome, incomparable fury.

  Sawyer felt his bowels spill beneath him as he bore witness to something he had never seen before in the eyes of a man, and then white pain ripped across his throat as his own blade scythed into his flesh, hot fluid spilling across his chest and neck.

  Sawyer gagged and squirmed as he felt the life drain from his body, saw Ryan laughing amid the smoke and flames as he sawed the wicked blade back and forth across Sawyer’s neck.

  Then the blackness overtook him.

  *

  ‘It’s not working!’

  Hank pounded down on the pump with all of his might as the smoke poured from the hold but he could already tell it was useless. The entire hold was aflame, smoke appearing now from the stern as it spread aft.

  Hank leaped up from the pump.

  ‘Lower a boat!’ he shouted, barely able to believe what he was ordering.

  The Phoenix was lost.

  His two remaining crewmen dashed to the side of the ship and began frantically working the winch. Hank watched as the winch lifted the launch once more from the decks and swung it out over the side, the whole ship now enshrouded in smoke as the entire world took on shades of grey, the sun above a glowing orb as the thick smoke competed with the scudding clouds to blot out the rest of a lonely, abandoned world.

  Hank dashed to the wheelhouse and grabbed Bethany and the child, hurrying them down to the boat as it crashed into the water below.

  ‘Jump!’ he yelled at her as he snatched the boy from her arms.

  Bethany clambered over the side and jumped into the boat below as the crew held the boat on the winch just above the waves. Hank grabbed the child by the wrists and swung him over the bulwarks. Bethany reached up as Hank let her brother go and she caught him, tumbling backwards into the swaying boat. Hank tossed his pistol down to Bethany, then he reached up and yanked hard on the winch release lever. The boat crashed down into the churning water.

  ‘Get out of here!’ he yelled. ‘We’ll follow!’

  Hank turned to his men.

  ‘Grab the weapons and then get the other boat into the water! I’ll get the charts.’

  The two men whirled and dashed across the deck. Hank turned to follow them, but then froze as something arced out of the ship’s hold amid the flames and smoke and landed with a thud in the centre of the deck.

  Both crewmen stopped in their tracks as they looked down. The face of Sawyer stared back up at them, his features locked in a grim rictus of agony and his neck ending in a ragged mess of blood and bone.

  A hellish scream came from the ‘tween decks. Hank saw Ryan burst from the ship’s interior as flames snapped and snarled from the edges of the main hatch. His torso was bare and splattered with blood and dirt as he ran up onto the deck and opened fire. The hail of bullets sliced the remaining two crewmen down as they screamed for mercy, their bodies twitching as they fell onto the deck.

  As if in slow motion Hank saw Cody turn to look at him. Every inch of the man he had known seemed gone, replaced by something cruel and feral that looked upon Hank as though he were prey. Hank reached for his gun and then realised that he had just tossed it to Bethany.

  He stared at Cody as the ship burned around them. Flames crawled up the mainmast from the hatch where the ship’s interior was now an inferno of heat as pillars of smoke billowed up the outside of the hull. The buffeting winds fanned the flames, gusting down through the hatch as the schooner was consumed from the inside out.

  Cody stalked closer, his chest heaving and the assault rifle held ready as he glared at the captain.

  ‘We were going back, Cody!’ Hank yelled above the wind and the roaring flames. ‘We were turning back for you! That’s why she heeled over!’

  Cody did not reply, stopping just out of Hank’s reach. Hank looked into Cody’s eyes and saw nothing there, no recognition, no remorse. Nothing.

  ‘This isn’t you, Cody!’ Hank said. ‘This isn’t you!’

  A smile that looked more like a snarl curled from Cody’s lip as he replied.

  ‘No, it’s you,’ he said. ‘It’s you, captain.’

 
Hank swallowed thickly. ‘You were right. I turned back for your daughter. I couldn’t leave without trying. Drop the gun Cody, we’re going back! You said that we survive best if we cooperate, right? Then cooperate now, and we can put this all right!’

  Cody seemed to consider the captain’s words for a moment before he replied.

  ‘I am putting it right.’

  The rifle seemed to fire in slow motion, a spurt of flame from its muzzle. Hank felt the impacts of the bullets as they slammed into his belly, chest and shoulder but there was no pain. He saw the world flip as he was hurled backwards over the bulwarks and plunged into the ocean below as everything turned black and silent.

  ***

  42

  Cody let the rifle fall from his grasp to clatter to the deck at his feet.

  He staggered to the bulwarks and looked out over the ocean as smoke spilled around him to choke the air.

  The Phoenix had turned about, unguided and wallowing at the mercy of the waves as she faced back toward the shore and the city skyline. Cody rested his hands against the bulwarks, utterly exhausted as he squinted through the smoke and saw a lone boat struggling through the waves.

  He could make out Bethany and her brother in the boat. Bethany was rowing slowly away from the stricken schooner, but she was still close enough for him to see the horror on her face as she looked at him. The city behind her was bathed in alternate patches of shadow and light from the sunbeams sweeping down from the turbulent skies, the buildings at once crouched in darkness and shimmering in the light.

  The boat churned across the bay, dipping and vanishing behind one wave only to appear over the next as Bethany rowed away from the Phoenix and Cody.

  Cody turned away and looked at the ship around him. Flames seared along the bulwarks and had climbed the rigging. The sails were burning, trailing curtains of rippling black smoke. Flames burst from the wheelhouse windows as glass shattered, whorls of fire spiralling out into the wind like flaming dust devils, and a howling reverberated through the ship as though she were screaming in her death throes as the winds soared through her hold.

  The ship was his, and like him, she was doomed.

  Cody staggered to the centre of the deck, close to where snakes of flame embraced the main mast. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he thought of his beloved Maria and bore the burden of the cruel and uncaring hand of fate that had taken so much from him and from every human being who had ever lived.

  A dull rending sound grew in intensity as the ship’s keel began to fail somewhere deep in the hold. The heat seared Cody’s skin, seemed to crackle through his hair as the smoke obscured his vision and enveloped the ship in a deadly, choking embrace.

  Cody closed his eyes and tried to let the flames and the smoke consume him, but he could not. The heat and the pain and the danger were too great to ignore and he cried out in frustration as he turned and ran at the bulwarks. His hands touched flame and he saw his skin burn and slough away from his palms. Just like Sawyer’s, he realised absent-mindedly, as he vaulted over the side of the burning ship and plunged into the cold water below.

  The heat vanished, bitter cold scalding his skin instead as he sank beneath the tumultuous waves. Cody struggled for the surface, broke through amid spray and choking salt water as he turned and saw the ship looming over him like an immense funeral pyre, black smoke churning up to stain the sky above.

  A chunk of yard arm crashed down into the ocean close by and Cody struck out for it, wrapping his arms around the charred wood that singed the hairs on his skin. He wrapped one leg over the broad beamed yard and lay his head down against it, watched as the current pulled him away from the stricken schooner’s fearsome demise.

  The waves crashed over the Phoenix as her stern began to sink into the water, great clouds of smoke and steam billowing up into the gusting skies as she was consumed by the ocean. The once proud, beautiful ship finally vanished into a swirling maelstrom of water and smouldering debris.

  Exhaustion overwhelmed Cody, his every limb as heavy as all the earth and dragging in the cold water as he watched the bowsprit of the schooner descend almost gracefully into the darkness of the deep. Blood spilled from the deep wound in his side but there was no pain, only a creeping lethargy as his life began to slowly drain away into the ocean.

  Cody felt himself rising and falling on the waves as the powerful currents dragged him out of the bay and into deeper water. The smoke from the Phoenix’s burning hull was broken and smeared away by the powerful winds, and as it cleared from Cody’s vision he saw something out on the docks beyond the flotsam of debris surrounding him.

  He tried to lift his head off the yard arm, but it was too heavy. He blinked seawater from his eyes as he tried to focus on the distant glow that competed with the glinting of windows across Boston’s skyline.

  The crest of a wave lifted him briefly higher and he finally focused on a pair of lights shimmering out on the edge of the docks. He could see Bethany’s boat heading toward the lights, almost there now, far away across the endlessly rolling waves.

  The two lights drifted back and forth, thin trails of blue smoke whipped away from them as they moved, and he remembered his own command from what felt like hours before: one light for distress and two for success. Cody somehow found the strength to lift his head and for a brief moment he knew he was looking at Jake McDermott, his arms frantically waving the flares. Charlotte Dennis stood next to him, and next to her was a girl with long locks standing with a child held at her hip, a mop of blonde hair fluttering in the wind as she clung to Lena’s side.

  A rush of delight swamped Cody’s body and tears flooded from his eyes once again as he saw Maria. He heard his own ragged cry of unbridled joy snatched away by the buffeting gale. There seemed to be other people standing on the dock, maybe prisoners who had not tried to reach the Phoenix. Charlotte and Jake had come through, one last time.

  Cody’s joy briefly warmed him, but the cold and the exhaustion soon made it feel muted and distant. He tried to turn the yard arm about and aim for the docks, but already the rolling waves blocked his view of them and he could no longer feel his arms. His exhaustion was complete, his limbs leaden and even his eyes felt as heavy as all the earth.

  His lips briefly formed his daughter’s name as he saw the distant crowd of survivors turn away from the Phoenix’s fiery demise and walk slowly away until he could see them no more.

  The wind buffeted his naked torso, splashed cold water across his back until he could not feel his skin and his eyes drooped wearily. Salty ocean water splashed his face and ran in rivulets through his hair and he felt his teeth chattering and his lips trembling, but he had not the strength to even shiver.

  Slowly, inexorably, he watched the skyline of Boston shrink away from him, haunted by a bitter sweet melancholy for all that he had done and all that he had lost.

  The buffeting winds turned to blue skies wreathed in tattered ribbons of high white cloud. Cody felt his senses slipping away as he drifted. Immeasurable chunks of time passed in silence, awareness of his existence interspersed with darkness and oblivion. His eyes opened sometimes to see the distant, perfectly straight horizon of endless ocean surrounding him. He heard the water lapping against the yard on which he slumped, too weak to climb off it and end his suffering.

  The empty ocean, devoid of life, was as lonely as the abandoned cities left smouldering across the world. The surface of the ocean was as smooth as glass, reflecting the scattered clouds above. Cody welcomed the surcease of death. Whatever he had been before, whoever he had been before, was long gone.

  Somewhere, at some time upon the open ocean, Cody became aware of the waves swelling beneath him as though the ocean was opening up to receive him at last. The horizon tilted as waves crashed over him and tossed the yard arm about and through bleary eyes he glimpsed what appeared to be a gigantic black whale surfacing directly beneath him. He slid from the yard arm into the bleak water and felt something hard and cold thump into his battered
body as his consciousness began to slip away.

  Cody Ryan closed his eyes, for there was no more left to do.

  ***

  EDEN

  It will never be measured, how many have fallen.

  I feel a deep regret beyond mere words to even wonder at how many died to protect their children, their wives, their husbands or their parents. Our best estimates suggest that at least five billion people have died since the Great Darkness that so irrevocably altered our lives and ended those of so many whose names will forever be lost to history. If only I had possessed the strength, inside, to do more for them.

  We chose to abandon them, to abandon our own. We fled, believing that there was nothing that we could, or should, do. In the moment, in those terrible few hours before western civilisation ceased to exist, we made many decisions that now haunt our days and our nights. Our cowardice has been laid bare for all to see, grovelling in the shadow of countless acts of great courage for which no survivors bear witness.

  But we are not alone. There are survivors out there, and as long as there is strength in my body and blood in my veins I shall lead us out into the world and put right what has been left so very wrong. I shall not rest until we have made every endeavour to redeem ourselves, until I too have redeemed myself. And this lone man we have found, floating barely alive in a vast ocean, shall be the first. He cannot have come to be here alone. There may be others whom he cares for.

  We will find them.

  Senator Larry Dennis, USS Louisiana.

  Table of Contents

  ALERT FIVE

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