No turning back, p.13
No Turning Back, page 13
“You’re worried,” Pete said. “Really worried. Sorry, I haven’t known you long, but I’ve never heard you sound so… well, uncertain.”
Tess smiled. “Mate, I’m anything but uncertain. I know exactly what’s going to happen next. Before we left Australia, I was given a warrant signed by the new secretary general of our new United Nations. That U.N. is made up of the ambassadors who were stationed in Oz before the outbreak. You’ve seen for yourself what happened to the world. Those countries they represented are gone. Those ambassadors have no mandate. Oz, New Zealand, Papua, parts of Indonesia, maybe the Philippines, maybe Malaysia. I really don’t know how many old nations will have survived, but I bet it’s less than ten. We’ll probably have an election. We’ll certainly have some kind of combined Pacific administration, at least for a few years. We might even have an Australian Empire, but we’re also going to have unrest. We’ll have terrorism. We’ll have uprisings. That’s assuming that the spreading radiation doesn’t mean we all end up like poor Mr Washington.”
14th April
Chapter 13 - No C, No E
The Northwestern Atlantic
Pete and Olivia lay in the dark, watching the stars through their porthole window. They weren’t waiting for dawn, because they knew it would come regardless.
“New York won’t be any better than Savannah,” Pete said.
“It won’t be any better than South Bend,” Olivia said. “Australia will be, even if it’s a police state. Which is worse, that it’s inevitable, or that there’s no other way?”
“No, the worst bit is knowing, even if the Pacific is run like a military camp, the radiation, or climate, or zoms, might still kill us all,” he said.
“Yep, no way am I getting back to sleep now,” she said. “What time was Ramon opening the restaurant?”
“Six.”
“Ah, that’s an hour away.”
“Are you hungry?”
“No. I just want to hurry up and get to New York so we can leave again,” she said. “Because the worst bit, the soul-gnawing terrifying bit, is not knowing whether the Pacific has collapsed while Tess has been away. Even when we get back to the Pacific, we’ll be at the beginning of the crisis, and we’ll remain there until the zoms are all dead. It’ll be the work of a lifetime to rebuild. Ah, but I guess that means we’ll have plenty more years to talk about it, so let’s not think about it now. Want the shower first?”
“You go,” he said. “I’m going to get some air.”
Still thinking of New York, rather than what would come after, Pete went for a pre-breakfast run around the ship. He wasn’t the only person up early. He found Mayor Jak on deck, and by the rear rail.
“Can’t sleep?” Pete asked.
“I always get up early,” the mayor said. “While in office, I learned to be awake before the journalists, a habit I’ve been unable to change. I’m much obliged to you for what you did.”
“No problem,” Pete said. “I only fired a few shots.”
“I’m thanking you for going to Canada after Australia, for your efforts in organising a relief effort.”
“It didn’t come to much,” Pete said. “Besides, I was looking for Olivia. Any other good I did was utterly unintentional.”
“Actions always count for more than intentions,” he said. “I understand the Kiwis fought pirates off Madagascar, and zombies in Mozambique. The police officers stopped a coup in Australia, and destroyed the cartel’s supplies in Colombia. If there’d been more like you, acting like you, we wouldn’t be wallowing neck-deep in disaster. I blame myself for not doing more when I could.”
“You’re the first group of survivors we’ve found since Florida, and they were pirates,” Pete said. “I’d say you did a fair job. You were the mayor of Thunderbolt?”
“The former mayor of Savannah. I left office at the last election. But I served for twelve years before that. The greatest honour of my life, but increasingly filled with regret. Mayor Jak. No e, no c.”
“You’ve said that before. What does it mean?”
“Oh, it was a slogan from my first campaign, which became another of those habits it’s hard to kick. During my first television interview, the producer called me Rick while the journalist kept calling me Richard. If the press can’t remember a name like Adam Richardson when it’s written in front of them, how’s a voter expected to remember it when they see it on the ballot? A gentleman from the north came to see me the next day. Very peculiar sort, with the most peculiar accent, as if he were an Iowan impersonating an Englishman pretending to be a Kennedy. Tom didn’t have much experience, but he offered his services for free because he’d taken a personal dislike to my opponent, a man called Trowbridge who, sadly, went on to greater things than I.”
“You ran against Trowbridge?” Pete asked.
“Ran and won. You’ve heard of him?”
“Yep. Met him once,” Pete said. “Can’t say I liked him much.”
“Don’t think anyone did except the donors,” the mayor said. “When did you meet Trowbridge?”
“Oh, up north,” Pete said, and decided it was best to change the topic. “So this slogan won you the election?”
“It certainly helped. Jak was a family name from the old country. No c, no e. No compassion, no economy. No curriculum, no education. No charity, no expansion. We had a dozen of them. All meaningless, when you thought deeply about them, but they looked good on a billboard, better on TV, and sounded perfect on the radio. I won. And won re-election. So, yes, I suppose it did help me win, right up until social media arrived. The slogan became a meme and I became a joke. I called up the old pollster, but he was too busy running presidents to bother with a small-city mayor. Ah, the world turns, and some of us old rocks are too slow to turn with it.”
“Three terms is an accomplishment most presidents would be envious of,” Pete said.
“Ha! I knew I liked you, son,” he said, giving Pete a skin-bruising slap on the back.
“So you weren’t in charge of Savannah during the outbreak?” Pete asked.
“No one was,” Mayor Jak said. “Glen, my successor, was away on one of his fact-finding missions to a five-star resort. The National Guard was ordered to protect the interstate near Florida. They must have been wiped out by those nukes. The police were ordered to Atlanta. Not all went. But too many did. The infection arrived only hours after Manhattan, but it took us days just to organise an emergency administration. Took us a good week to regain some measure of control. We put up barricades, told people to guard their homes, to stay put. Help would come. But it was only refugees who came. If they came in boats, we’d give them fuel, give them food, give them shelter for a night, but we sent them on. It sounds uncharitable, but we’d have done them an ill service by allowing them to stay.”
“It sounds similar to Puerto Morelos,” Pete said.
“It does. I’d wager you’d hear a similar tale all across the world. In times like these, you can’t fool yourself that safety is measured by the power of a gun, or the number of your supporters. It’s the depth of your pantry. Perseverance requires resilience, and that doesn’t come merely from strength of character. Few of the passing ships would accept new passengers, so those in Savannah who fled did so by land. They had no choice, even after the nuclear bombs fell. We left it too late,” he said, slapping the rail.
“To leave?”
“To organise,” the mayor said. “If we’d had just a few hours more, we’d have saved thousands. Without the bombs, we’d have saved millions. But one morning, a few weeks back, we looked around and realised there were only a few hundred of us left.”
“But you had boats of your own?” Pete asked.
“A few, but only at first. We knew the food supplies wouldn’t last forever, so we kept a small fleet for fishing. It turned out, when it was needed, to be too small, but that was my salvation. We were down to one central community, one garrison at Thunderbolt, and a few roaming patrols. The islands were overrun. The fresh water was polluted. We needed a temporary bastion. Something with thick concrete walls and a flat roof on which we could collect rain. We knew northern Florida had been hit, but thought we could find a harbour to which we could ferry everyone before heading into the Gulf, and up the Mississippi. The boats left. They never returned. Seems likely, now, they were captured by those pirates off Canaveral.”
“Did the pirates ever come north for supplies?” Pete asked.
“No. So maybe I’m wrong, and we were abandoned to die, but I take greater comfort in assuming they died honest and loyal, since they surely are dead.”
“Why weren’t you based in Thunderbolt?” Pete asked.
“Without any ships, the marina was just a storehouse, and we had a larger one on Hutchinson Island. A week after the National Guard were sent away, a plane arrived with their supplies. We kept those on Hutchinson, well away from where they might be stolen. The zombies proved to be a bigger threat. The bullets ran out long before the food did. Now we’re twenty-three souls who’ll be twenty-two when Mr Washington dies.”
“How many lived in Savannah before?”
“Counting the greater metropolitan area, four hundred thousand.”
“I’m sorry,” Pete said.
“Gone isn’t the same as dead, and so we can still hope,” he said. “You’re proof of that. You found your sister; you found your wife. You’re together now. Perhaps we might be, too, in good time. This ship is an ark. It’s salvation. The last salvation. I never was much of a gambling man. Always used to think you made your own luck. But, now, I truly don’t know.” He tipped his hat. “But we are alive thanks to you, so I’ll thank you again, and let you finish your run.”
Pete nodded, and jogged a few steps along the deck, but soon slowed to a walk that came to a stop as he completed a circuit. The mayor was correct, Pete had truly done all he could to offset the apocalypse. More than he’d ever have dreamed possible six months ago. It hadn’t been enough, but it was time to close the book on the past. That left the question of how someone like him could prevent the past from repeating in the future.
Part 2
New York, New York, So Good They Destroyed It Twice
New Jersey, New York, and the Delmarva Peninsula
15th April
Chapter 14 - The Harbour Sea
New York Harbour, New York
The icebreaker raced the dawn to shore, but the sun won.
“Is that New York?” Zach asked, leaning against the rail next to Olivia and Pete.
“That’s New Jersey,” Pete said. “Captain Renton said the current dragged us too far to the south. Doc Flo then began a lecture on vectors, at which point, I fled the bridge.”
“So that’s not Long Island?” Zach asked.
Olivia reached across, and turned over the folded map Zach held. “That’s the side you want,” she said. “We’re just about to reach Sandy Hook. Once we pass that, and Fort Hancock, we’ll enter New York Bay.”
“That’s Sandy Hook?” Zach asked. “Should be called Rusty Hook.”
On the eight-kilometre-long spit at the very north of the Jersey Shore, mast-forests rose from oil-slick sands. As the wind rose, torn sails flapped against rain-washed hulls. A grey freighter turned soot-black as a white cloud rose and then circled, looking for somewhere else to roost.
“Strewth, that was birds!” Zach said, as the gulls settled on beached craft further south.
“Must be migrating,” Pete said. “I read that volcanic eruptions can alter migration patterns. Bombs must be the same. There are no boats.”
“There’s tons,” Zach said. “I can count a million wrecks.”
“But no one fishing,” Pete said. It was his turn to point to the map. “If you had a sailing boat, Sandy Hook would be perfect. The narrow part can’t be more than a few dozen yards across. There’s plenty of metal in those wrecks to make a barricade, and the homes of twenty million people nearby to loot.”
“Yeah, but remember Tofo Beach,” Zach said. “Where you get shipwrecks, you get zoms.”
“Oh, true,” Pete said. “Pity.”
“Wouldn’t be much fresh water around here,” Olivia said. “Wouldn’t be many fish after those ships begin leaking oil.”
“The radiation isn’t that high, right?” Pete asked. “It’s not, no?”
“Guess not,” Olivia said. “Or we’d get a warning.”
“All you’d have to do is last a few weeks more, and outlast the undead,” Pete said. “And if it began here, it’d end here first, too.”
“But would you try clinging on if you didn’t know that for sure?” Olivia asked. “I wouldn’t. Looks like the locals didn’t, either.”
“Where’s the Statue of Liberty?” Zach asked.
“Miles away,” Pete said. “Still hidden by the curve of the Earth.”
“I’ll get my camera,” Zach said. “Oh, wait, no. Clyde wanted you.”
“He did?” Olivia asked.
“Yeah, sorry. I was supposed to come find you. He’s in the armoury.”
“I was about to send out a search party for you two,” Clyde said. “Where’s Zach?”
“Sightseeing,” Olivia said.
“He’s got curiosity in his veins, that one,” Clyde said. “Here’s your gear for the shore-mission.”
“We’re wearing camouflage?” Pete asked.
“Naval fatigues,” Clyde said. “We’re all wearing uniform ashore, and body armour. Don’t call it a bulletproof vest because it’s not. It won’t stop everything, and will only protect the bits it covers. Helmets have a light here. There’s another light on the vest, and there’s a bodycam which will be recording everything. Sights and sounds,” he added. “Day and night.”
“Gotcha,” Olivia said. “But I thought we were only going to be ashore for a few hours.”
“We’ll plan for delays, because the moment darkness comes, we’ll take shelter. We don’t know what we’re going to find, so we’ll be moving slow and sure. Tess will give you the details. One Glock 17 nine-mil pistol with a suppressor and four mags. You two are taking the shotguns. White shells are beanbag rounds. Red is for breaching. The others are standard slugs.”
“Beanbag rounds?” Pete asked. “Is Doc Avalon hoping to capture a zom?”
“We’ve picked up a bit of radio chatter broadcast over shortwave,” Clyde said. “It sounds like a sit-rep from a civilian. That’s why we’re in uniform, wearing the armour, and why we’re bringing the beanbag rounds.” He patted his left hip. “And why I’ve got a Taser.”
He added two of his long-handled boarding axes to the pile.
“We have to carry those as well?” Olivia asked.
“They’ll be handier than a crowbar,” Clyde said. He reached down and picked up two small packs. “Water, rope, med-kits. There’s a bit of food in there, too. Just the oat bars, walnuts, and dried apricots.”
Pete picked up a bag. “That feels like a lot of food.”
“You’re carrying some of the docs’ gear,” Clyde said. “They’ve got their instruments and tools to bring. Get changed, bring this up to the science centre. Our team will meet there prior to departure.”
“When will that be?” Olivia asked.
“When we drop anchor,” Clyde said.
The science centre now doubled as a multi-generational classroom, and buzzed with competitive chatter from the two teams engaged in a child versus parent graph-off. At one table sat Pita and the teenagers from Savannah, Chloe and Divine. At the other table sat their guardians, Renata and Kathleen. The wall screen had been split to mirror both workstations where the graphs were still being constructed.
From the hurried muttering from both teams, winning was more important to them than the invisible horror the data revealed. As a spreadsheet flipped to a graph, then back again, Pete caught sight of the curve.
“Are those numbers current?” he asked.
“Shh,” Pita hissed. “He’s a spy.”
“Si,” Renata said. “The last figures taken this morning.”
“Great, thanks,” Pete said. “It’s dropping, then?”
This got no response. He turned to Olivia, but she was watching a different screen on the other side of the room, next to Dr Smilovitz. Pete walked over.
“Is the radiation dropping, Leo?” he asked.
Leo briefly glanced up before returning his attention to his own screen. “To say it’s dropping would be incorrect usage,” he said, in an unintentional imitation of his colleague. “The current, the tide, and the rain are transporting radioactive particles into the ocean. From that, we can infer that the coastal conurbation wasn’t bombed. However, contrasting the discrepancy between atmospheric and at-surface readings tells us that at least one bomb was dropped upriver.”
“How far upriver?” Pete asked.
“That’s impossible to tell at present,” Leo said. “We’ll need to gather more data from inside the bay before drawing a conclusion. If you’ll excuse me, I must speak with Tess.”
As he hurried away, Pete finally let his eyes settle on the screen Olivia was watching. “What’s that?”
“The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge,” she said. “Or it was. Leo said the damage was done by a missile strike. Conventional, though.”
Nearly a kilometre and a half in length, the suspension bridge had linked Staten Island in the south with Long Island in the north. Now, it was a ruin. The two supporting towers were shattered and smoke-blackened. From each tower jutted a stump of road, leading downward to the surging waves. Stray cables dangled like tentacles probing the estuary, and gathering a growing mat of flotsam.
