The Drowned: Deluge Book 1: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story)

by Kevin Partner

  “Come on, let’s get you into the bedroom.”

  She chuckled as he helped her up, before erupting into a coughing fit. “Well, I ain’t been propositioned like that in a long time.”

  Bobby bore most of her weight, wondering how her family could have left her in this state without anyone to look after her. The bedroom was bright and cheery, walls decorated with framed pictures of smiling people. Some were in black and white. A pitcher sat on the bedside table, and after helping her into bed, Bobby took it through into the kitchen to fill it up again. It was a wonder she’d had the strength to point a gun at him just an hour before.

  “It comes on sudden,” she said, wheezing as she held the oxygen mask over her mouth. “I know I’m not long for this world, but…I didn’t think I’d end up dying on…my own.”

  Panic flooded Bobby’s gut as he looked down on the frightened old woman’s pale, craggy face. She held the mask to her face, trying to draw in as much oxygen as possible.

  “Don’t you have another cylinder somewhere?”

  She shook her head. “Delivery due…yesterday.”

  Then she put out her hand. “Don’t leave me, Lester.”

  So, as evening fell, he sat and held her hand, knowing that his daughter was waiting and that at least thirty miles across the mountains stood between him and the help she needed.

  Chapter 8

  Prepper

  Bobby woke up hot as dawn’s light crept into the bedroom. He groaned as he straightened up in the rocking chair and looked across at the old woman. With grim fascination, he watched for any sign of her chest rising and falling.

  He was halfway through the first line of a prayer when she finally breathed in. Already creeped out enough, now she was reanimating like a vampire.

  With a growl, she rolled onto her side, pulling her nasal canula half out of her nose, and her eyes opened. Well, at least they weren’t bloodshot and red. “Who…” she mumbled, then her expression cleared a little. “Oh, I remember. You’re the Mexican boy. You’re still here.”

  Bobby fought against relief and frustration, but he couldn’t keep it up. He didn’t feel as though he’d slept much, and his back hurt like someone was sticking needles into his spine. And he was hot. Real hot.

  For now, however, he was hungry.

  “Shall I fix us some breakfast?”

  “You stayed all night.”

  “What? Oh, yeah. I couldn’t leave you on your own.”

  She smiled. “You’re a good boy. I don’t want anythin’, but you go help yerself. You look a little pale.”

  It took more effort than it should have to lift himself out of the chair, and he winced as he put weight on his bandaged foot.

  He came back ten minutes later with coffee he offered to the woman’s shriveled lips.

  “You gonna fix yerself some bacon?”

  “No power. Didn’t want to open the refrigerator and let the cool air out.”

  Milky eyes looked at him and he felt as though he was being examined. She gave an almost imperceptible nod. “In the drawer,” she said gesturing at the small, dusty table beside her chintz-covered bed.

  Leaning forward in the rocking chair, Bobby opened it. “What am I looking for?”

  “Bunch of keys.”

  He held up a silver ring with half a dozen keys on it.

  She smiled. “Back of the kitchen. A door.”

  “Where does it go?”

  “You’ll see, my boy. You’ll…see. Bring us back somethin’ fine.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Pam, but I gotta go. My daughter…”

  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, I reckon.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re burning up, son.” She raised one arm and pointed at him before letting it fall to the bed again. “Go look behind the door. It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

  He felt his forehead. She was right. Maybe his foot had gotten infected. But he had nothing to treat it with beyond more salt water. Good God, it was like the Middle Ages when if a wound got infected, they chopped the limb off. Being a medic during the Napoleonic Wars had been a career for carpenters and butchers… Now he was drifting…

  He got to his feet, shaking his head to clear the mist. She obviously thought there was something useful behind the door. What did he have to lose? Unless that was where the old woman kept her coffin.

  “Okay,” he said, picking up the keys and padding down the hallway into the kitchen. He’d seen the door before, of course, without noticing that it was made of painted steel and looked as though it could withstand a military assault.

  He found the right key on the fourth attempt and opened the door onto darkness. All he could see, in the kitchen’s secondhand light, were stairs descending into the sandstone. He flicked the switch behind the door and saw there were ten steps that ended in a second door much like the first. Bobby hopped his way down the stairs, keeping his injured foot suspended in the air until he reached the bottom.

  This time, when he opened the door, the lights came on automatically and he found himself in a rock-cut chamber lined with wooden shelves piled with cans of food.

  “¡Ay, caramba!” he whispered, stepping forward to look more closely, enjoying the cool breeze flowing across his forehead on its way up the stairs.

  Sacks of dried produce were stacked along the bottom shelves which were slatted and raised a little off the ground. Two shelves were taken up by four fifty-pound bags of rice stored on their end, next to several smaller burlap sacks containing lentils and garbanzo beans.

  He examined the canned foods that took up most of the middle shelves, looking for something he could use to make breakfast and realizing how hungry he suddenly felt. Alongside cans of chicken and tuna that were piled two deep and four high, he found a couple of cans of Spam. In a pinch, he could fry them up to make a sort of end-of-the-world bacon breakfast.

  The other shelves contained more cans—vegetables, fruit and soup—canisters of Quaker Oats and other cereals, and then a section for household consumables such as paper towels, toilet paper and, inexplicably, diapers.

  And then he noticed that, beyond the shelves, another doorway had been cut into the yellow rock. Bingo! To one side, he saw the iron bars of an armory and on the other, within an inner room with its own ventilation, was a generator that had, above it, a row of breaker switches. He found the one labeled Kitchen and flicked it, before turning the fuel valve and pulling out the choke. He pressed the engine control switch and pulled on the recoil rope. It fired on the second attempt and he closed the door to keep the gas fumes out, before taking the can of Spam up the stairs to the kitchen.

  He heard her call from the bedroom, “You did it!” before her voice disappeared beneath a volley of coughs.

  Bobby left the door to the basement open and glanced inside the refrigerator. It felt cold enough, but then his skin was warm to the touch so he was no judge. He found an open package of bacon, tossed the can of Spam to one side and smiled. He’d take a chance.

  He rescued an iron-bottomed frying pan from the sink and scrubbed it clean using water from the kettle while the stove heated up. Boy, it is hot in here. Then his mind flitted to Maria and he stood with his hands in the water staring out of the kitchen window as if he could see through the cliffs and across the water to where she waited. He shouldn’t have delayed himself here.

  He began to move from the stone-topped sink, as if to walk straight out the door but, as he turned, his head swam and he flung out a hand to steady himself, letting out a curse as he put weight down on his injured foot.

  “You okay out there?”

  “Yeah. Sorry,” he said, steadying himself. No, he didn’t have the strength to go anywhere. The mother of all storms was gathering in his temples and his head felt as though he were moving even though he was standing perfectly still. Wasn’t he?

  He managed to fry the bacon while keeping one hand on the kitchen counter and the delicious smell helped revive him a little. He s
craped the mold off four slices of the cheap white bread he’d found in the fridge and put it under the broiler.

  By the time he’d cooked the bacon to his liking (just this side of charcoaled), and loaded it between slices of toast (just the other side of charcoaled), he was ravenous and he almost fell over in his haste to get into Pam’s bedroom. She smiled as he settled down in the chair, but then shook her head gently, looking up at him from her pillow out of one eye. “No. It’s all for you,” she wheezed.

  “Jeez, Pam.”

  “It’s okay,” she whispered from between blue lips. “You go eat…in the kitchen…”

  He got back up, managing both plates and, taking one more look at her, sat down at the big table in the kitchen. He was too hungry for her appearance to put him off his food entirely, but he wolfed it down and was back at her bedside in minutes.

  “Has your oxygen run out?”

  She gave the tiniest of nods.

  “And you don’t have any more?”

  She moved her eyes from side to side. “Where are the empty tanks?”

  He followed her gesture out back to where two tall cylinders had been left in an alcove formed by a couple of pallets nailed together. He lifted the first one and shook it. Nothing. The second one, however, sloshed a little. He lifted the cylinder up and then stopped as he turned around, panting in the heat. What was he doing? The woman was going to die either way, and the longer she stayed alive, the longer he’d have to remain to nurse her.

  Who was he kidding? He knew the cylinder only weighed twenty pounds or so, but he could barely lift it. He needed to talk to her, and to do that, he needed her to stay alive a little longer.

  It took every ounce of his remaining energy to carry the cylinder into the bedroom and drop it into place. He plugged the end of the canula tube into the old cylinder and heard the faint whisper of gas moving.

  Pam took a deep breath and, after a few seconds, opened her eyes. “Well, look at you. Quite the resourceful one, ain’t ya?”

  He slumped into the rocking chair, and waited for the creaking to stop as the old woman looked up at the ceiling.

  “Pam, why not get a concentrator? Why use cylinders at all?”

  She gave a snort. “I ain’t made of money. The co-pays on that would make your brown eyes water. No, cylinders are cheap, and they work.”

  “Have you got any medical supplies? I think I’ve got a fever.”

  “I told you that myself, sugar,” she said. “There’s a medicine cabinet in the bathroom, but there’s more in the basement. Didn’t you see it? Behind the door.”

  Bobby sighed, hauled himself up again and limped back to the basement. He opened a steel cabinet behind the second door—he must have been distracted by the shelves of food the first time—and examined the white boxes until he found one labelled Amoxicillin. Twisting off the top of the brown plastic bottle, he took two pills and swallowed them before pocketing the bottle and heading upstairs again. The climb was even harder this time. The only part of his right foot that could bear any weight was the heel, and his left leg almost buckled at the knee twice as he climbed out of the basement.

  “You come and lie yourself down next to me,” Pam said, patting the other side of the double bed. “You look all tuckered out. Don’t worry none. I ain’t gonna bite you. Better take your pants off, though, or you’ll burn up.”

  He didn’t have the energy to argue, so he stripped off his pants and shirt and climbed in. He felt cold against his forehead and looked up to see her dripping water from shaking hands and wiping his face with the comforter.

  “What’s goin’ on in the world, Bobby?” she said, almost chanting the words like a nursery rhyme.

  “The wave. I think it’s everywhere. Gotta…gotta…get to Maria.”

  “Right now, you gotta sleep. Don’t you worry none, Pam’ll take good care of you.”

  Fragments of images and sensations. A bright light. Something pushing into his mouth. Thirst. Thirst. Weight on his arm, pinning him down.

  Darkness.

  A cool breeze.

  Weight on his arm, pinning him down.

  Drowning. Choking.

  He woke, sucked in air, and yelled.

  Weight.

  He pushed up with his left hand, and yanked his right out from under something.

  “Pam!” he called. It was night time and he could see nothing except the faintest glimmer coming through a gap in the drapes.

  She was lying beside him and he massaged the tingling needles out of his arm, then leaned over and gave her a nudge.

  He knew she’d be cold. Her body yielded to his touch, but Pam had gone. She’d flown out of that gap in the drapes and was now looking for her boys.

  Bobby rolled away and sat on the edge of the bed. His T-shirt was wet and he found two more pills rolling across the mattress as he moved. She’d tried to make him take some more and he guessed she must have succeeded because, when he felt his forehead, it was cooler. He was still weak, but he reckoned he was on the upswing. And he didn’t want to lie in bed with a dead old woman, so he forced himself onto his feet, holding on to the bed frame until, panting, he could make his way around the wall to the window. He flung the curtains apart and used the sparse illumination to locate the light switch.

  There she was, lying on her side, facing toward where he’d been sleeping. He’d been looking into her dead eyes without knowing it. He took the open pill bottle from under her open hand and lifted the sheets until they covered her. He felt numb and exhausted, but better than he had when he’d gone to sleep. When was that? Yesterday or the day before?

  His watch had been swamped in the swim across the bay, but he couldn’t imagine it had been two days. He made his way across the bedroom to the bathroom and took a leak, focusing his attention on the shelf with its assortment of shampoos, soaps, creams and perfumes. He wondered what this woman’s story was. It sure looked as though she’d lived here a long time. Maybe this had been her marital home and she’d raised a family here. Now she was gone and so were they, almost certainly.

  He washed his hands in a pink porcelain bowl shaped like a scallop, the smell of lavender cleansing his nose. Glancing up into the mirror he caught a fleeting glimpse of Maria. Everyone said she looked like her mother, but from the nose up, she was her father’s daughter. He ground his teeth in frustration and rage. Hollick would pay for separating her from him. He’d pay good. But first Bobby had to get help, and to do that he had to regain a little strength.

  So, he left the woman who’d saved him, went into the next room along and fell asleep on the unmade bed.

  The warmth of sunshine on his cheeks woke him up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked around. A slob lived here, by the looks of it. Or a teenager. Or both. The place looked as though it had been ransacked by burglars: drawers and closet doors flung open as if someone had left in a hurry, but it was the general grit and grime that told of a slovenly occupant.

  Bobby flung the curtains open, throwing a cloud of dust into the air, then let the cool air flow in through a gap in the window. He stood for a moment, flexing muscles and putting weight gently on his foot. Yes, he felt better today. He’d have to clean and dress the wound again, and he’d have to do right by Pam, but he wouldn’t stay here any longer. Maria was waiting.

  Chapter 9

  Water, Water, Everywhere

  Ellie Fischer sat on the tip of the port bow, her boat hook across her knees, staring, half seeing, at the gently rocking surface of the sea. Tom was at the wheel above and behind her, guiding Kujira at a snail’s pace through the drifting carnage.

  They’d reached the coast of Florida the previous morning. At least, they’d crossed 24 degrees west 32 minutes north, though there was no sign of Key West, except in the flotsam and jetsam that polluted the clear water. It was deep, deep under the ocean that had risen up and claimed the land.

  It was all gone. Ellie knew that most of Florida was no more than a few feet above sea level i
n normal times. And these certainly weren’t normal times. Once they were certain they were in the right place, they’d found the longest rope they had, weighed it down and dropped it over the side. It hadn’t reached the bottom. So, the sea level had risen at least a hundred feet, and probably a lot more than that.

  “Hey, Ellie!” Jodi’s clear voice snapped Ellie out of her contemplation. The young woman sat astride the starboard bow, gesturing ahead.

  Something big bobbed in the water. Tom hadn’t seen it. Ellie kneeled forward, holding the boat hook out. She clenched her jaw as she recognized matted black and white fur. It was a cow. She pushed against its bulk as the hook connected with its back. It spun slowly around, deflected from its collision course as Ellie nudged it farther out of harm’s way.

  Sickening though these encounters were, especially when it was the empty shell of a human being they were poking at, Ellie was astonished by how little sign there was of what had happened. An entire state, and probably more, had been drowned. She’d have expected the water to be full of bodies, shoulder to shoulder, but it seemed that most had sunk again. And, for all the billions of humans in the world, the ocean was a mighty big place, especially now.

  “I’m gonna relieve Tom,” Ellie called. “I’ll get him to send Pat down here. You okay?”

  Jodi nodded and stared out at the featureless horizon as Ellie made her way along the box and up to the cockpit. In among all her self-absorbed devastation, she found room to be worried about Jodi. It was hard enough for the world-weary adults to cope with the shock of a life turned inside out and upside down. They couldn’t be absolutely certain that there was any land remaining at all. Perhaps this was another Biblical flood. In which case, she made for a pretty pathetic Noah. They’d struggle to repopulate the Earth with her, a washed-up actor, a young girl, a boy and a dog. Mind you, there was Tom. Repopulation might have its silver lining. Then she felt guilty as the cloud of reality settled again. This was not a time for jokes.