The boss laughed. “What you gonna do? D’you even know how that works? Now, I suggest you hand it over to Pa, before you hurt yerself.”
“Get back, or I’ll shoot!”
“No, I don’t th—”
BANG!
Bobby thrust his arm up, catching Harlan on the chin and sending him sprawling as cries filled the room. Maria screamed. The voices of Hollick and Jacob merged into one as Bobby rolled onto Harlan, ripped the knife out of his hand and held it against his throat. “Don’t move.”
He looked across to where Hollick had taken the shotgun from Jacob’s shaking hands and was pointing it at a newcomer, a black man in a green-stained tracksuit.
“I killed him,” Jacob said.
Bobby looked down at the body of the first attacker. He couldn’t see any damage from here, and the man’s eyes looked up to the ceiling with an expression of surprise.
He almost fell forward as a weight hit him behind the knees. He twisted around and took Maria into his arms. “¡Princesa!”
“Papá” she sobbed, and he could sense her craning to look across at where the dead body lay in a widening pool of blood.
He held her away a little as she continued to sob. “I’m sorry, my darling. I gotta help sort this out, will you be brave for Jacob here? He needs someone to help him. I’ll come get you in a few minutes.” His heart swelled with pride as she tearfully nodded, and he placed her hand in Jacob’s.
“Look after her for me, Jacob,” he said.
As she left, he dragged Harlan to his feet.
Faces appeared at the door, flinching for a moment as Hollick turned the gun at them. “The other one ran off, Mr. Hollick.”
It was a woman wearing a zebra onesie. Her name was LaToya, and she’d stuck to Hollick like glue since they’d first gathered on this island.
“Let’s get outside,” Hollick said, gesturing at the black man who seemed to deflate before heading toward the door.
“I sure am sorry,” LaToya said as they emerged into the bright sunlight, slammed with the familiar wall of heat. “You went inside, and these—well, I’m a Christian soul, so I don’t like to say what I think of them—they snuck up and we ain’t got no weapons and they did, so…”
“It’s quite alright, my dear,” Hollick said, smiling. He wore his composure like a favorite suit. “These are strange times and it is going to take some adjustment. This is Jacob Westbay. He has agreed to offer us shelter here.”
The sun didn’t warm the young man’s pale face as he stood in the doorway.
Bobby pushed Harlan into place beside the other captive. “Where did you come from?”
“We swam.”
“From where?”
Harlan nodded his head to the south. “There’s a tiny island thataway. I got washed outta my truck and ended up there. Otis helped me outta the water, and we both grabbed Wayne. He was half dead, but maybe we shoulda left him to drown.”
“Wayne’s the dead one?”
“Yeah. He made us call him boss.”
“And it was his idea to steal from us?”
Harlan’s head bobbed up and down.
The other man—now identified as Otis—agreed. “Yeah. I’m no criminal. I’m a personal fitness trainer. Or I was one.”
“What d’you think we should do with them?” Hollick asked.
“For now, I guess we should lock them up inside, while we make our minds up. I’m inclined to make them swim back where they came from.”
Harlan shook his head. “I don’t reckon I can make it! And there’s no food there.”
“Then you’d better hope the water drops,” Bobby said, in no mood to show mercy to the man who’d tried to kill him minutes earlier. He shoved Harlan toward the door, and Hollick led the other man inside.
Once they’d found a small windowless office and bound their prisoners’ hands together, Bobby fetched Maria up into his arms and wandered back outside.
“I was so scared, Papa.” Tears ran down her face and he pushed her untidy hair back, gripping it between two fingers behind her neck. She looked too much like her mother for comfort when he did this—though she was darker skinned—so he spread the hair over her shoulders again and smiled.
“You don’t need to worry about me, princesa. Now, let’s go find something to eat.”
He carried her into the radio station building and followed the others to where Hollick was supervising an orderly distribution of the snacks, candies and drinks in the vending machine.
When this was done, Hollick drew Bobby to one side. “Maria, will you go with LaToya while I chat with your daddy?”
At a nod from her father, Maria followed the zebra onesie outside.
“We might make this last a couple of days,” Hollick said, his smile disappearing along with the girl. “What do we do then?”
Bobby shrugged. “We’ve got to get off this strip of land. I don’t imagine those thugs’ll be the last to come here.”
“Where do we go?”
“Northeast. That’s where the land rises. When we reach the next island, we might find dry land beyond.”
Hollick pulled a white handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped his face. “I’m too old for this. I, for one, can’t swim across the open water. Especially with what’s floating around. How far do you reckon it is?”
“At the narrowest point, I’d say a mile and a half, maybe two.”
“Might as well be twenty. Jeez, what did you make of the emergency broadcast? Sounds like it’s all around the coast.”
Bobby rubbed his eyes, suddenly feeling overcome by exhaustion. “Yeah. I can’t help thinking how flat some states on the East Coast are. But look, the other side of those mountains,” he said, gesturing through the studio wall to the east, “is high ground, and there’s bound to be relief camps set up sooner or later. We can get food, water and a change of clothes. And we’ll be safe. We’ve just gotta get there.”
“But, how are we gonna do that, Bobby?”
“Well, I’m gonna catch a couple hours of shut-eye. Then I’m gonna build me a raft.”
Chapter 6
Sunken State
“I did what I could,” Ellie said, as the Diamond Princess eased away.
Tom stalked toward the ladder up to the cockpit. “You’ve wiped your hands of them. I hope you can live with yourself.”
“You could have gone along, if you care that much.”
“I have to check on Papá,” he called as he reached the helm.
Ellie sighed and muttered, “And I have to find my daughter.”
“You made a tough decision,” Patrick said, patting her on the shoulder. “But the right one.”
She nodded, but couldn’t silence the voice in her head. She was abandoning them to the mercy of a stranger.
Captain Lopez of the little trawler Tom had swum across to had become the spokesman for the entire flotilla. Ellie had taken him and the others from his boat to rendezvous with the cruise ship, and she’d met with its captain, explaining the situation. Captain Kuznetsov had seemed concerned, and also interested in Jodi’s prediction that some parts of Cuba might still be above sea level. He agreed to shepherd the little boats to dry land; a little too easily, Ellie thought. But she had no concrete reason to doubt him and, as she’d told Tom, they needed to get back into US waters. They had to see what had become of Florida.
After a few hours heading north, Tom seemed to have relaxed, as if the fate of the flotilla was no longer his concern. Privately, Ellie thought he was being petulant—she’d bet good money that he’d have made the same choice if he’d been in charge.
They’d covered half the distance by the time night came. As the evening had gone on, they’d seen more and more debris in the water and Ellie’s heart had sunk. They’d stopped counting the bodies—men, women, children and animals—and she knew it would only get worse as they neared the coast. Patrick had spent hours sitting on the trampoline, looking out for floating objects that might damage the
hull, but as soon as it was too dark to be sure he’d spot them in time, Ellie had turned off the engines and allowed the boat to drift, with only the occasional gentle correction to prevent them moving too far off course.
She took the first watch, sitting in the cockpit and using the boat’s lights to keep an eye on the water’s surface. And so she was there to hear the thumpa-thumpa-thumpa of a coast guard helicopter as it passed parallel to them, heading north to south, before turning west and behind them and disappearing into the night. She felt somehow heartened by seeing something so familiar in a world she knew to be completely changed. But she wondered where it had come from and where it was going. And why it hadn’t responded to the lights of the boat.
She’d told Tom she’d wake him at three in the morning, but when it came to it, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. Too many thoughts jostled for attention in her mind, too many awful images dreamed up by her imagination. She was nodding when a strange sound brought her back to full consciousness.
At first, she thought it was the mewing of a cat, and she shook her head, thinking that she must have fallen asleep momentarily. Then she heard it again. Not so much a meow as a whine. Something drifted through a circle of light that rippled on the ocean’s surface. She tucked the revolver into her waistband and climbed down to the main deck, before crouching as she made her way to the port bow. Nothing. Then she saw it, just for a moment as it passed under the trampoline. Twisted timbers and something else. Something alive.
She got up and scampered along to the stern, pulling a bilge hook from its mount before lying on the deck and looking between the two bows as if playing giant Pooh sticks. As she saw the makeshift raft emerge, she lunged with the hook. She missed. And again! There was nothing to grab on to and the mass of fur covering half the timbers didn’t move. One last chance. Miss!
Then a hand emerged from the fur and grasped the end of the hook.
Ellie yelled in surprise and alarm, but she held on and guided the raft to the aft steps.
“My God, you’re alive!”
It was a boy. Eleven, maybe twelve years old. Dark skinned and wearing nothing but a pair of ripped pants. His hand gripped the hook, but he didn’t move, didn’t look up or react as she grabbed the timber. It looked to be a sign or notice board of some sort, but she couldn’t read what it said.
As she pulled on the boy’s arm, a growl emerged from the mass of fur and it was all she could do to stop herself letting go and losing the boy into the swell.
The boy’s body slipped out from under the fur. “I’m sorry,” Ellie whispered as his legs came free and the raft with its remaining passenger began to float away.
As she hauled the boy up the ladder, something flew past her right eye and splashed into the water.
A head burst out of the dark sea, followed by an arm that grabbed the raft’s corner.
“Patrick? Are you insane?”
“Help!” he cried, his head bobbing up and down as he tried vainly to kick against the current.
Ellie left the boy and grabbed the nearest lifebelt, throwing it out just beyond where Patrick was floating, his chin on the edge of the raft. He looped one arm around it and Ellie began pulling him in. Then, strong arms wrapped around her body and grabbed the rope.
“I help,” Tom said. “You people are crazy.”
Patrick reached the bottom rung of the ladder and held on with one arm as he hauled the dog up with the other. Tom rolled the soaked creature onto the deck and then helped Reid up. He looked more like a drowned rat than an action hero, but he’d certainly acted like one, Ellie thought as she berated him for being so stupid.
“What the hell? Pat!” Jodi scampered past Ellie and kneeled beside the actor. As soon as she saw it, her attention switched instantly to the mass of drenched fur. “What’s this?”
Patrick coughed up the last of the Florida Strait, then nodded across at the creature. “Whatever it is, I hope it was bloody worth it. If it turns out to be dead, I’ll kill it.”
“The boy’s alive,” Ellie said, as she held his head up.
Tom brought a flashlight over and shone it in his face. He barely flinched. “Only just,” he said.
“Let’s get him into a bunk.”
She went to lift the boy, but Tom got there first, wrapping his muscular arms under and straightening. “Here, let me.”
Tom headed into the saloon as Ellie turned to see Patrick kneeling alongside Jodi and trying, it seemed, to rub life back into the sodden dog. “That was stupid,” she said. “But I’m glad you did it.”
They took the boy through the galley and into the small crew cabin beyond. It contained little more than a pair of bunks, and Ellie held him under the arms as Tom removed his pants and dried him with a towel. Together, they rolled him into the bottom bunk and Ellie covered his lower half with a blanket.
Then she took his pulse at the wrist.
“You look like you’ve done that before,” Tom said.
She put her finger to her lips as she counted, then said, “Yeah, you take your fair share of first aid courses when you’re a tour guide. And I learned my way around anatomy at UCLA.”
“You studied dolphins and whales, didn’t you?”
“Oh, their anatomy isn’t as different from ours as you might think.”
Tom shrugged, then gestured at the boy on the bunk. “So, how’s he doing?
“He’s alive. Now, go get me the med kit and we’ll see if we can keep him that way.”
His name, it seemed, was Hector. That one word was all he’d said, but it had been such a relief. The sun was rising as Ellie sat with the boy, watching his chest lift and fall, and dripping water into the corner of his mouth as he lay, pupils rolling under his eyelids. Hector. It was an unusual name for a black boy, but she was pleased to hear it when he spat the words out after finally opening his eyes.
“Hello, Hector,” she said, marveling to hear the calm assurance and concern in her voice. What’s going on? You hate kids. You always said so. They tie you down. Always taking, never giving. And yet you pulled one out of the water. Anyone would think the world had flipped on its axis.
“Who…who are you? I was…floating…”
He was an American, then. He hadn’t come from Cuba. Hadn’t been on the flotilla.
“My name is Ellie,” she said. “This is my boat. I pulled you out of the water.”
“Hector.”
She stroked his forehead. He felt hot, but he didn’t have a high temperature, so it was probably a little sunburn. “Yes, I know.”
Suddenly the boy sat bolt upright. “Hector!”
“It’s okay,” she said. Was he delirious?
But the boy looked wildly from one side of the tiny cabin to the other, then tried to get up, but immediately collapsed.
A knock on the door, and Patrick’s head appeared. “How’s he doing?”
“He’ll live, but I can’t get any sense out of him. How’s the dog?”
Patrick smiled. “That’s what I came to say. He’s on his feet. I thought maybe the boy would like to see him.”
“Sure, why not?”
Moments later, Patrick reappeared, pulling on a leash made out of a bit of rope. “Come on, Hector,” he said.
“What?”
The boy’s eyes opened, and he rolled onto his side. Tears rolled down his face and onto the sheets. “Hector.” He held out one arm, and the dog padded toward him. It was a mongrel of indeterminate parentage about the size of a spaniel, though most of its bulk seemed to consist of thick curly black fur. It licked the boy’s hand, and then made a vain effort to climb in alongside him.
Sighing, Ellie lifted the exhausted creature into the bunk, watching as the boy wrapped his arms around it and the two fell asleep almost immediately.
“What?” she said as she went to leave. Patrick’s eyebrows were threatening to fall off the back of his head. “I may not like kids, but I love animals. And it seems to me the best thing for both of them is to have some
rest. But…”
“But what?”
“I can’t leave them too long. I have to know what’s happened. He’s an eyewitness.”
Patrick’s face fell. “Yeah. Jodi and I have been trying to get online to find out what’s happened, but no luck. Maybe you didn’t renew your contract with the satellite phone people.”
Ellie shrugged. “It all seems so trivial now, doesn’t it? Yesterday, I was worrying about making the next lease payment on this thing,” she touched the wooden paneling of the galley. “Today, all I care about is whether my daughter is alive. Jeez, what a bitch I’ve been. I mean, what sort of a mother abandons her child?”
“She’s with her father, isn’t she?” Patrick said, pouring a glass of something amber that caught the light of the sun as it rose over the eastern horizon. “So, not exactly abandoned.”
Ellie didn’t take the offered drink. The last thing she needed right now was alcohol. She’d turned to that false friend too many times over the years.
“Yeah, well, you know what I mean.”
Patrick nodded and patted her reassuringly on the arm. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I’ve got a son, you know?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Got married young to my childhood sweetheart,” he said, smiling sadly. “I stayed true to the cliché and left her for a beautiful production assistant. Left her and our son. I saw them right financially, but, you know, that’s not the point, is it? I was absent when he was growing up. He was in Rochdale and I was in LA. So, if you’re going to play the bad parent game, I’ve got you beat.”
She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and looked at him, surprised to see a hint of moisture on the chiseled features.
“So, if you don’t mind,” he said, “I’ll sit with our friend. I don’t want him to be alone when he wakes up. Why don’t you get a couple of hours sleep? I promise I’ll call if he comes round.”
He leaned forward and pecked her on the cheek. “And well done on rescuing him. God knows, there’s going to be some dark days ahead, but you did right by him.”
Deluge | Book 1 | The Drowned Page 6