The Hurst Chronicles (Book 1): Hurst

by Robin Crumby

  The three others nodded and Peterson released the fire door and the two groups stepped inside.

  The corridor stretched ahead of them with doors either side. Riley was not familiar with this bit of the hotel but recognized the style and layout from the rooms she had already seen. She stood outside waiting for Pavlowski to give her the nod that he was ready, gun poised just in case someone tried to rush them.

  Inside the first room, there were a total of seven bodies. The two shapes in the bed were already dead, or as good as, non-responsive and barely breathing. Two more were in armchairs positioned to look out of the large sash window at the garden and flowerbeds beyond. It was as if someone had wanted their last conscious moments to be contented ones, contemplating the beauty of the trees and the lines of carrots and potatoes growing in turned earth near by. The heads of the two figures in the armchairs rotated towards the strange pair standing in the middle of the room. One of the women weakly held out a hand towards Riley, her hair matted with dried perspiration, greasy and lank. She recognized the woman’s face from the canteen, one of the kitchen staff, though they had never spoken. Riley inclined her head sympathetically as tears started to stream down her face, though she couldn’t wipe them away.

  Pavlowski heard her sob and was behind her in an instant. “You OK, Riley? Keep it together, yeah? If our girl ain’t here, we keep moving. We finish our sweep and get out of here.”

  Riley nodded and reluctantly moved to the next room. Room number twenty-eight. They tried the handle and found it was locked so proceeded on to the next. Inside room thirty, they found the nurse all alone, keeping a silent vigil over the sick. She seemed to be sleeping and was non responsive to their voices or touch. Pavlowski shook her hard and lightly slapped her face. She jolted upright in the chair as if an electric shock had been passed through her. Her eyes were wild, frightened by the two figures standing in front of her like astronauts from another planet in their chemical suits. Riley spoke to her, but she didn’t seem to recognize her at first or understand what she was saying.

  “Nurse, it’s Riley. Hello. Do you remember me? You looked after my friend Zed.” She leaned in close, slowing her words, annunciating clearly. “The man who had hurt his arm. We were here a couple of days ago. Do you remember?”

  Riley grabbed her shoulders and shook her again. The nurse sat blinking up into her face, shaking her head, grasping her hands together in her lap, stroking a rough patch of skin on the back of her wrist where she had rubbed it raw with worry. She was rocking backwards and forwards every few seconds, terrified and confused. Riley tried again.

  “Where is everyone? What happened here? Can you hear me?”

  The nurse seemed to come to her senses momentarily. “They left me all alone with the sick. They’ve all gone. It’s just us now.”

  “Gone where? What happened here?” She shook her again by the shoulders and the nurse grabbed her wrist to make her stop, staring angrily into her eyes through the plastic, resenting this intrusion into her private despair.

  “The Sisters took the rest of them to a safe place. They left me in charge to do what I can for them, but it’s already too late. I’ve left them there to die. There’s nothing I can do, except make them comfortable.”

  “I don’t understand. How did this happen? There was no sickness here when I left.”

  “She said the men brought the sickness with them when they came here. Sister Theodora blamed your friend.”

  “But that’s impossible, none of our group are sick,” replied Riley incredulously.

  “But they may not know they are sick. They could be carriers, unaware that their every breath spreads the virus to others. This is how the virus spreads so fast. People carry on, they don’t know they’re sick, until they have infected everyone around them.”

  Riley was unconvinced. She knew the virus well through observing the new arrivals at Hurst and their forty-eight hours of quarantine. Symptoms presented themselves quickly, coughing, sneezing, fever. It simply wasn’t possible that the members of the Hurst team could have spread the virus, unless they were immune themselves. None of that seemed to make any sense. She addressed the nurse again.

  “Can I ask which of the women fell ill first? That might give us a clue who they were in contact with.”

  “Let me think. It all happened so fast. Wait, it was the two girls. They were brought to see me first complaining of feeling run down and feverish. Of course, I knew right away what it was, or what I feared it might be. But by then it was already too late, they had been in contact with half a dozen others, and they in turn had been in contact with half a dozen more.”

  “Which girls? What were their names?” asked Riley urgently, grabbing her shoulders forcefully.

  “It was Lexie and her friend Gina. They were the first, I’m sure of it.”

  Riley remembered them well. They had been the two teenagers who told her about the boys they used to meet from outside the hotel grounds, drinking cider and smoking together behind the shed. The snatched kiss. Riley was convinced. In all probability, the girls were the most likely source of the outbreak. She didn’t for a moment believe that the team from Hurst had brought the virus with them. There had been no other reported cases at Hurst for months. They were clean, but it was pointless trying to convince the nurse otherwise. She at least knew the truth.

  “Where are the rest of them? Do you know where they were making for?”

  “I know they were headed east towards Christchurch. They’ll most likely find another hotel or large building, an abandoned school or trailer park to camp out there until the outbreak has died out. They’ll send a messenger every two days to check on us and wait until its safe to return.”

  The nurse turned her head and looked out of the window, lost in her thoughts. Without turning back, she continued in a low voice, barely above a whisper. “She knew you would come back.”

  “Sorry. Who knew? Do you mean the Sisters?”

  “Sister Theodora said you would come looking for Stella and I was to give you this note when I saw you.”

  She reached into the folds of her apron. Deep inside a front pocket, was a folded note that she held out to Riley in a shaking hand. Riley was intrigued and in her gloved hand took the single side of hotel stationery with its distinctive masthead. She opened it slowly to reveal sculpted words, loops and letters written in the Sister’s handwriting. It reminded her of the calligraphy pen she had been given on her eleventh birthday by a doting aunt and the hours she had spent perfecting her strokes and shapes. The note was addressed to her personally, but the bulk of the text was made up of two extracts from the Bible that she didn’t recognise immediately, but sounded familiar.

  There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever and ever.

  Revelation 22:5

  He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

  Revelation 22:11-22:13

  Dear Riley,

  Every day we say a prayer for you and your people. We forgive you for all the hurt and pain you have inflicted upon our flock.

  The Lord in his almighty wisdom sent you here to show us the error of our ways. The fire and the outbreak of the sickness here were God’s will, of that I am certain. The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

  Do not look for us, you will not find us. Do not return here. Only sorrow remains.

  Sister Theodora

  Riley refolded the letter and handed it to Pavlowski who scanned the letter and shook his head. “Don’t take it personally Riley.”

  She feigned a smile and answered: “I won’t.”

  Chapter fifty-eight

>   Back at Hurst, Riley sat down next to Adele supportively holding her hand tight, while the little girl squeamishly pressed her face into her shoulder. She was still thinking about Stella and the Sisters. The ride home in the helicopter had been in silence. Nothing Peterson could say made it better, so he gave up after a while and left Riley to her dark thoughts.

  The medical officer from the USS Chester swabbed the inside of Adele’s arm with a cotton ball soggy with alcohol. He inserted a needle into a raised vein, prominent after some insistent two-finger tapping.

  “It’s all be over in a minute,” smiled the doctor as the syringe slowly filled with the blood they hoped would help them understand more about the virus.

  He removed the needle, keeping the pressure on the puncture mark with his gloved finger. He stuck a plaster over the expanding pinprick of blood, handing the syringe to his assistant.

  “We’ll need to get this blood sample to Professor Nichols’s team at St. Mary’s as soon as possible. Can you make the arrangements please?”

  He turned back to face Adele who was rubbing her throbbing arm. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. He was used to treating burly marines and tattooed engineers, doing his best to adjust his bedside manner. His coffee breath was making the little girl screw up her face in disgust. Riley nudged her in the ribs and told her to behave.

  “You’ve been very brave young lady. Good job. You know you’re a very special girl Adele. There’s a good chance that your blood can teach us how to stop people getting sick. What do you think of that?”

  “That’s what the other doctors told me back at the hospital, right before they hurt me. Are you going to hurt me too?”

  The doctor exchanged puzzled glances with Riley and the nurse before reassuring Adele: “No child, no-one’s going to hurt you. We’re going to look after you and make sure no bad men hurt you ever again. You’re safe here. OK?”

  The doctor noticed the rabbit's foot key ring the girl was clutching in her right hand.

  "That's a nice rabbit's foot. Did someone give it to you? Your mummy or daddy maybe?" he asked caringly, reaching for the key ring and turning it over in his hand. It felt surprisingly real to the touch.

  "No one gave it to me. I made it myself," she responded in a flat voice.

  "You mean that's a real rabbit's foot?" said the doctor withdrawing his hand and letting the key ring drop onto her lap.

  "I couldn't look after him any more and knew he would die, so we ate him and I kept his foot as a memento. It brings me luck."

  The doctor stared at the girl, puzzled by her detachment, wondering at how desensitised she had become. He shrugged his shoulders and patted her on the shoulder with a wry smile.

  "Well, I sure hope he brings you a lot of luck little lady."

  Riley thanked the doctor and led Adele down the corridor and outside to the courtyard where some other children were playing a noisy game of rounders with some bored-looking grown-ups. Riley and Adele stopped to watch as Toby whacked the ball high into the air, threw down his bat and set off to first base. The ball arced towards them and came rolling to a stop to their right. All eyes turned towards them. Two boys raced in their direction to retrieve the ball. Adele looked up at Riley to get her permission before hurrying over to the ball and athletically throwing it back over the head of a small boy with foppish blonde hair. “Nice throw,” he muttered begrudgingly before running back to join the game.

  ***

  Above them on the roof of the Gun Tower, Zed had clambered through the narrow opening from the floor below. He found Jack scanning the horizon with an old pair of binoculars, his mop of grey hair flattened by the wind. He was lingering over the superstructure of the USS Chester anchored about half a mile away in the main channel. In characteristic pose, he had his glasses pushed high on his forehead. When he closed his eyes, this was Zed's residual mental image of the man. Jack sensed Zed’s presence to his right and flicked his eyes in his direction.

  “How’s the arm? Feeling better? Or are you planning on staying the rest of the week in bed?” said Jack tersely.

  Zed’s eyes narrowed and he was on the verge of venting about everything he had done for Hurst, before remembering that Jack was just winding him up, as usual. He took a deep breath, joining him at the rail, looking out to sea. “I’ve slept enough thanks. Liz says I’m good as new.” He nudged Jack in the ribs. “How’s the shoulder, old man?”

  “Sore, but can’t complain. The Chester’s doctor fixed me up good and proper. Stitches will come out in a few weeks. Hey Zed,” said Jack changing the subject. “I need someone to take Adele to the hospital at St Mary’s. There’s a professor there who wants to run some more tests. He’s got a lab set up and a team ready to start work. You up for a trip?”

  “Sure, no problem. You know me. I can’t stand being cooped up. Getting cabin fever already. Would be good to get back out there. Can you spare Riley as well?”

  “With the Americans watching over us, there’s little chance those paramilitaries from the hospital will attack again. You can take the Nipper. Sam will go with you to helm the boat. That is, if you don’t mind listening to the Bee Gees all the way.”

  There was a moment of silence between them as both stared out east, lost in their separate thoughts. Dark clouds had gathered in the distance to the south heading towards the island, but it looked as if they would escape the worst of the weather at Hurst.

  Beyond the USS Chester lay the Maersk Charlotte, just visible towards Southampton, its bulk unmistakable against the shoreline and the inlet to the Beaulieu River. Jack wondered how Anders had taken Victor’s treachery. He never trusted that guy. His eyes were just a little bit too close together for his liking, suspicious eyebrows that met in the middle, he knew the type too well. A gun for hire, loyalty for sale to the highest bidder.

  Zed spotted something and asked Jack to pass him the binoculars. It took a moment to find it again, but there it was, a grey patrol vessel powering towards them, hammering into the waves and eastward flowing tide. He passed the binoculars back to Jack who located the ship. He recognized it instantly as an Archer class patrol boat, though it was relatively uncommon in these waters. On the flying bridge he picked out two figures bracing themselves as spray shot high into the air as they ploughed into the crest of a new wave. At the back of the ship was a white ensign. It was Royal Navy.

  There was some static and the crackle of a voice, hailing them over the radio. Jack unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt and turned up the volume.

  “Hurst castle, Hurst Castle, this is Royal Navy patrol vessel HMS Marker, come in, over?”

  “HMS Marker, this is Hurst Castle. Go ahead, over.”

  “Good morning Hurst, this is Captain Armstrong. Do we have permission to come ashore, over?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll get the kitchen to put the kettle on.”

  “Copy that. ETA, ten minutes at current course and speed. We have Captain Anders with us too. He tells me he’s rather partial to Scottish shortbread if you have any. Over.”

  Jack grinned at Zed, who was shaking his head. “We’ll take a look. No promises mind. Hurst out.” He tucked the radio back on his belt clip. “Bloody navy types. Always inviting themselves over for tea and biscuits.”

  “Shouldn’t they be protecting the island or something?” said Zed ironically.

  “No need I expect. With the USS Chester moored up off the island, no one’s going to be stupid enough to attack. They have enough firepower to keep us safe, for now.”

  “How do you figure that out? What use is a destroyer against a virus and a bunch of terrorists held bent on disrupting relief operations?” sniffed Zed.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. The Americans have already made a difference, maybe even turned the tide. Think back even a few days and we were just a bunch of dysfunctional survivor groups, struggling to get by. Now, there’s a very real sense of hope. With their leadership, they’ll rally others to the cause. Camp Wight is our best hope. It�
�s a fresh start and chance to rebuild.”

  Zed didn’t respond, lost in his thoughts and fears, refusing to believe that salvation was at hand, just because the Americans had showed up. Typical of Jack. His over optimism was his weakness, always seeing the best in a situation. His refusal to accept that the world had changed, that people had changed troubled Zed. He leant over the parapet and watched the game of rounders going on below.

  Everything seemed normal again, children playing and laughing. It was like the last few months had been forgotten. With the navy patrolling the seas, keeping them safe, he had every right to feel secure. And yet, Zed felt anything but safe. The Hurst people could not allow themselves to relax any time soon, to let down their guard. They did that once and got attacked. Many people died for that mistake. Jack’s pride and naivety had been exposed. It made him question his leadership. It was up to Zed to stay sharp, keep others on their toes, to stay alert. Keep Jack focused and grounded. That was how they would survive all this.