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

by Kevin Partner

  He didn’t know what he thought he’d find in the water, but a boat to take him to the other side would have saved him the bother of having to break into the cabin. At least he’d seen few bodies; just a few dark forms tangled in the waterlogged pine trees.

  And there, barely visible under a tangle of half submerged thorn bushes, he spotted something rectangular. He moved along the bank until he could see what they were. Beer crates. By all that was holy! Beer crates. Within seconds, he’d taken off his boots and socks, pausing only for a moment to consider the wisdom of wading into the water with a wounded foot, before deciding that, right here, right now, he was beyond being careful.

  The water was cool on his feet, though after a few seconds his injured foot began to sting. Well, salt water was as effective a disinfectant as he was likely to find. He reached the thorn bushes and, bracing himself, he pulled on the nearest crate. It came away easily. Too easily, and he sloshed around in the water as he fought to keep balance. He held up the beer crate, but no beer was inside and he roared his frustration. Back in the normal world, Miller Lite was a long way down his list of favorite beers, but here in this postapocalyptic future, it would have been nectar. He pulled his arm back to cast the crate out over the lake when he caught himself. What was he here for? To find a way up to the window. He looked at the crate, then glanced over at the others. Then, hope swelling, he hauled them all out, tossing them into a pile on the bank. Beer could wait. Maybe there’d be some in the cabin?

  The final block of putty fell from the window as Bobby, balancing on a tower of crates, picked at it with his knife. Gently, he began to lever the quarter pane out, catching it with the flat palm of his free hand, relying entirely on friction to keep himself from falling sideways. He let the glass fall, watching it as it landed softly in the soil and didn’t break, then put his hand through the new gap and found the inner handle. It was locked!

  He grabbed the frame as the crates wobbled under him, then pushed his arm through up to the elbow and ran his fingers along the windowsill. There! Bobby was no burglar, but he knew what people were like. He wasn’t the only idiot to leave the key in so obvious a place. It took a few moments to maneuver it into the keyhole and then turned the handle. Bobby grunted with the effort of lifting his exhausted body through the open window to land on a mattress. “Gracias a Dios,” he muttered.

  His body wanted to stay there, but he forced himself upright, taking off his pack and laying it on the bed, before picking up the shotgun and looking around. It was a small room—a child’s room, perhaps.

  Maria.

  She was waiting.

  He got up and found that he had to walk along the center of the room if he wanted to walk upright. The window didn’t let much of the remaining light in, so he went back to his pack and took out the flashlight.

  Through the door was a small landing, with another door directly opposite and the two dormer windows that looked east and west. Carefully, he made his way down the stairs. He had no reason to believe anyone was here, but still he felt as though he was breaking and entering, so he kept as silent as he could.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a hallway with a wooden floor. He could see the front door with its formidable array of locks—he’d never have gotten in that way. To his right, an open door led into the kitchen. A sudden hunger gripped his stomach, and he moved quickly inside, hoping to find some canned foods and, maybe, a beer or two.

  He made it through the door, then swung around as he heard the floor creak behind him.

  Then a whooshing sound. Something heavy hit him, knocking him back, followed by pain, another blow and blackness.

  Chapter 12

  Clearwater

  Tom climbed down the aft ladder until the sea came up to his knees and released the empty bottle into the gently rolling waters.

  Ellie, Jodi and Patrick watched from the top of the ladder as it floated away. Inside the green wine bottle was a rolled-up piece of paper with a letter to Julio from his son, and a prayer for his immortal soul.

  “Adios, Papá,” Tom said. Then he wiped the tears from his cheek, turned and climbed back up the ladder as Patrick took his turn to launch a bottle. It contained letters to each of his ex-wives, and to his son. He held on to hope that they were still alive, though he knew that if this had been a global wave, then the northwest of England wouldn’t escape.

  Ellie felt a cold arm encircle her waist and looked down to see the close-cropped head of Lewis, just as Hector’s wet nose tickled the back of her knees. For some reason, the boy had attached himself to her rather than the friendlier members of the crew. Perhaps he liked a challenge.

  “I got my letter done,” he said, holding up a soda bottle containing a scrap of paper. “It’s to my grampy.”

  “Sure, kid,” Ellie responded, helping the boy down the ladder until he was waist deep in the ocean.

  It had been Patrick’s idea to carry out this ceremony once they were over Clearwater, though he hadn’t intended to include Lewis. The boy, however, quickly figured out what they were doing and insisted on writing a letter to his grandfather. Ellie hadn’t asked him directly, but she suspected Lewis thought his parents might still be alive, though he had no idea where they were. He’d been with his grampy for years, he said, and she hadn’t pursued it.

  Ellie had taken no part in the ceremony except to observe it. This sort of symbolism was lost on her, though she knew how important it was to others—she simply didn’t understand it. She had no idea if Bobby and Maria had survived the wave, and so she would assume they had. Bobby was a traitorous S.O.B., but he was determined—to a fault—so if anyone could survive, it would be him. And nothing was more important to her former partner than their daughter. So, she would wait to grieve until she had reason to.

  Buzz’s message had given Jodi a new sense of purpose, so she had watched the ceremony with barely disguised impatience. They’d pinpointed the coordinates he’d sent in his message to a mountain northwest of Little Rock, Arkansas and, if Jodi had had her way, they’d have sailed straight there, but coming to Clearwater first was nonnegotiable, and Little Rock was a thousand miles away. They had perhaps four hundred nautical miles in their fuel tank and, while Tom was a decent sailor, they needed the engine to power the boat’s batteries, and relying on navigating the old-fashioned way was to invite disaster.

  The plan, then, was to head from here toward the Blue Ridge Mountains since this was the nearest high ground. Of course, it all depended on how high the wave had been and whether the level would continue to rise, or perhaps to eventually go out. Ellie was a scientist by trade, and though her expertise was in biology, she knew enough of the Earth sciences to be sure that this sort of sea level change in such a short time was impossible. And yet, here they were. Sure, it wouldn’t take much to submerge Florida, but, as she looked out across what had once been Clearwater Bay, she could see nothing. Not the tallest building poking through the ocean’s surface. Which meant that the sea had to be hundreds of feet deep here. A mist had accumulated on the surface as they’d gotten closer to the coast of Florida, and so she couldn’t see if any of Tampa had survived from here, but none of them wanted to make that detour.

  She felt the same longing to find solid land, so she agreed. They would only pause briefly here to say their respects, then they would head north for the mountains.

  “Ellie!”

  It was Tom’s voice. She’d barely been aware that he’d climbed back up to the cockpit as she’d helped Lewis dry himself before sending him and his dog back inside to get changed. Somehow, even here, the sea mist brought a chill.

  She climbed up to the cockpit and looked where Tom was pointing. “I think it’s a Coast Guard ship.” From here, they could see farther out as the mist seemed to hug the surface of the sea. An indistinct shape moved through the fog, its dish-laden mast reaching up like a finger pointing to heaven.

  “Thank God.”

  Almost as she said this, the radio burst into life. “T
his is USCGC Wilbur Dailey hailing unidentified vessel. Are you receiving?”

  Ellie squeezed the switch so hard, her fingers slipped and she had to calm herself before speaking. “This is Kujira, Ellen Fischer commanding. Boy, are we pleased to see you.”

  “Acknowledged. Prepare to receive our launch. Out.”

  Ellie put the handset down. “Aren’t they supposed to ask for permission? I mean, we’re not pirates.”

  Tom shrugged. “They don’t know that, do they?”

  The launch pulled up to the stern as Ellie and the others waited nervously, doing their best to look nonthreatening. A little farther away, the sleek, chiseled lines of the Coast Guard cutter bobbed gently up and down on the choppy sea.

  Six figures sat in the launch, all dressed in blue coats with gold-embossed caps, four of them holding rifles across their chests. The pilot got up and, covered by the others, fixed the boat’s rope to the ladder.

  As two figures remained in the boat and pointed their weapons at the crew of Kujira, one man climbed the ladder, then, evaluating Ellie and the others in an instant, nodded to those on the boat before emerging onto the deck.

  “You are Ellen Fischer, captain of this vessel?”

  He was a stout man in early middle age, with a short beard and a haunted look.

  “I am. Welcome aboard.”

  “I am Lieutenant William McBride, commander of the Wilbur Dailey. Is this the entire complement?”

  Ellie shook her head. “We have a young boy with us. I have sent him to his berth.”

  “Very well. I trust you have no objection to my men searching your vessel?”

  Ellie was a smart-ass with a fast mouth, but just enough self-knowledge to know when to zip it. So, she satisfied herself with a simple question. “What are you looking for?”

  “These are challenging times, Captain Fischer, but our responsibility is to patrol these waters and I intend to carry out that task until I’m ordered to do otherwise.”

  “You think we’re smugglers?” This time, Ellie couldn’t hide her disbelief.

  “I don’t think anything,” he responded. “I do my duty. Then he nodded to the man beside him.

  Ellie caught the eye of the coastguardsman as he strode past and could have sworn she saw the optical equivalent of an apologetic shrug.

  McBride seemed to relax a little once his men were occupied and accepted Ellen’s offer for coffee in the lounge. She, Jodi and Patrick squeezed onto the banquette while McBride settled into a chair opposite and sniffed at his drink.

  “So, tell me your story,” he said.

  “Hmm, that’s what I was going to ask you. You’ve got a lot more information than us.”

  “I’ve also got a 25mm auto cannon that could blow you out of the water.”

  Patrick leaned forward, stabbing his finger at McBride. “Hey, look, we’re not the enemy. We went on a cruise a couple of hundred miles to the south and now we’re back. That’s it.”

  The officer’s black-rimmed eyes swiveled in his direction, before widening. “Don’t I know you?”

  Ellie had to admire how Reid managed to transform from angry man to celebrity meeting his fans in a heartbeat. “Possibly. I’ve been in quite a few movies. Patrick Reid. Good to meet you.”

  “Well, those certainly seem like different times. Back when the movie theaters weren’t under a thousand feet of water.”

  “A thousand feet?” Ellie just managed to turn her head in time to avoid coating McBride in coffee.

  He nodded, his sadness and shock obvious. “Yeah. Three hundred meters or so. We were out on patrol and the first we knew of it was a surge in sea level that seemed to go on until our engineer thought the sonar must be malfunctioning. Then the first calls came through. Last communication was from USGC HQ. They told us about the wave. Said it was nationwide and ordered us to maintain our patrol duties until ordered otherwise.”

  “And you haven’t heard anything since?”

  “Not from the chain of command. At the start, we picked up everyone we could find, and we coordinated with a couple cruise ships. But soon enough there was no one left.”

  “No navy?”

  McBride’s face tightened. “We aren’t the navy, Mr. Reid.”

  Ellie downed the last of her coffee. “So, you’re just patrolling now. As if nothing’s happened?”

  “No. We’ve intercepted naval communications and we’re going to rendezvous with the fleet.”

  At that moment, Lewis’s voice echoed up from the galley. “Hey, you! That’s our stuff!”

  Ellie leaped to her feet. “What’s going on, McBride?”

  The officer drew his pistol and covered them with it. “You just settle down. It’s every citizen’s duty to support the military during times of emergency.”

  One by one, figures emerged from the galley, arms laden with boxes.

  “Those are our supplies!”

  “We are appropriating them. We have to remain on active duty, and to do that, we need rations.”

  Tom tumbled down the ladder, then sprang to his feet as someone in a uniform followed him. “They’re draining our fuel tank!”

  “You’re pirates!”

  McBride put his hand up. “Quiet! Don’t force me to scuttle you. This vessel has sails, you do not need fuel for your engines.”

  “Sir! Supplies acquired. Patterson is completing the fuel transfer.”

  “Very good. Now, Captain, I will take my leave.” He turned on his heels and headed down to the deck, followed by the three gun-toting coastguardsmen. Ellie ran to the fly deck and looked down at where a figure was removing a hose and stowing it on the launch. The man looked up at her and gave a gesture that might have meant “I’m only following orders.” He got the finger in return.

  Ellie watched them leave as Patrick and Jodi checked on Lewis and the stores.

  “They’ve left us with bugger all,” Patrick said when he returned. His northern English accent had reasserted itself, as it always did when he was stressed. “It’s piracy, that’s what it is.”

  “Is there anything left at all?”

  “Not much. Not enough.”

  “Go and do an inventory, will you?”

  Patrick turned to go, then looked back at her. “You’re pretty calm about all this.”

  “No I’m not, Patrick.” She said nothing more and after a few moments, he retreated. She knew the symptoms—she’d gone through shock, anger and was now experiencing white-hot rage which, in her, meant going very quiet as she fought to keep a lid on the pressure building in her head.

  She was relieved from her introspection by a call from Tom. He’d gone back up to the cockpit once he’d been released. “Come and look at this.”

  In a half-daze, she climbed the ladder and emerged beside him. He was pointing at a gauge. “They took it all. We’re running on fumes.”

  She cursed and kicked out at something hard.

  Tom shook his head. “Look, I can sail, okay? We’ve got to find a way to make land somewhere.”

  “Well, we’ve got one piece of information—we know that the depth here is about a thousand feet. I still can’t believe it, but if we assume that’s right, and that it’s even across the country, we might be able to work out where we’ll hit land.”

  “I’ll do it,” Jodi said, emerging into the cockpit. “Just let me have all the charts you’ve got and I’ll work it out.”

  Ellie hesitated for a moment. She was the one with a science background, not Jodi, and this might be critical. If Jodi got the location wrong, they might set off on a wild goose chase. But the girl truly wanted the task and, though she’d said almost nothing for the first three days of their cruise, Ellie had come to understand that there was a brightness under that sullen exterior. And, after all, her uncle was a scientist, so perhaps it ran in the family.

  “Sure,” she said. “Thank you.” But I’m going to check every assumption you make, she added.

  “Here,” Jodi said.

  She’d
laid the map out on the lounge table as the others slid into place. Ellie had discovered a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc the Coast Guard had left behind. She decided that, in the absence of anything stronger, this would have to do to calm their nerves.

  They were still inventorying what the pirates—as they now called them—had left behind and it didn’t amount to much so far. Ellie was pinning her hopes on the nearest land being close enough to reach before they starved or died of thirst.

  The delusion didn’t last long. “Good God,” Ellie said. She seemed to be the only one left retaining the power of speech.

  Predictably, Patrick was the first of the others to recover. “That’s amazing, Jode. Amazing and horrifying.”

  “Yeah,” she said as she rubbed her eye with her finger, leaving a blue stain. Her hands were covered in ink, and the map of the continental USA was almost unrecognizable. “I’ve done my best to trace the contour lines and color in anything below a thousand feet, so we can, like…” She gestured at the map.

  The familiar outline of North America had become, at first glance, a chicken drumstick. “So, this is the west,” Ellie said, thinking out loud as she traced her fingers along the uncolored part, looking for cities and landmarks she might recognize.

  “Yeah. ’Cept for the coast. LA, San Diego, San Francisco, all gone as far as I can tell.”

  Ellie’s insides turned to ice, and she leaned closer. The trouble was that, while the map was big, the country was still too huge for the lines Jodi had drawn to be anything other than guesses. Bobby lived in Camarillo, just to the northwest of LA. If he’d been at home, then he wouldn’t have had much of a chance. Or Maria.