Текст книги "The Flood"

Автор книги: David Sachs

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

10

“The ship is not replying, sir,” Chief Radio Officer Harrington said.

“Jameson, have you got her numbers yet?”

“Not yet,” the First Officer answered, binoculars at his eyes. “But she’s Navy. Looks like a supply ship. It must be the missing vessel. But it should have a large crew, and there’s no one on deck. Perhaps she sailed without her full compliment for the evacuation.”

“That doesn’t explain why she can’t respond.”

“If there were a comms malfunction, sir,” Harrington said, “it might explain how she lost contact to begin with.”

“Let’s get in closer,” London said. “They may have need of our comms system. Wait till we get a positive ID before we call it in.”

On the Sky Deck, many of the guests and refugees were watching the ship as well, the first they’d seen since the mainland had been left out of sight.

Walking away from the bar, Travis recognized the military look of the vessel and felt reassured at its presence.

The sound of the ship’s booming gun pierced the air and that thought.

Travis sprinted to his family.

A line of smoke cut across the sky between the ships, and the command bridge exploded. The Festival shook. Travis was nearly thrown to the ground. He paused on his feet and looked back. Fifty-foot flames were in the space the bridge had been. An alarm rang.

The Festival continued to close the gap towards the other ship, and now that ship began to move as well. The Sky Deck was overcrowded already in the sitting areas; now the pathways were chaos, bodies bumping off bodies, jostling to get somewhere. Travis met Corrina coming towards him with Gerry and Darren. Tears were streaming down the boy’s face, but he was so scared he had no breath for noise. Gerry had pointed the bridge out earlier, where the captain was sailing the ship.

There was screaming everywhere as the other ship closed in. An alarm rang in the air.

“Where should we go?” Corrina asked.

Gerry looked at the faces in his circle, wide-eyed, thinking.

“I want to see what that ship is going to do before we go anywhere.”

“Yeah,” Travis said, still fixed on the coming ship.

They braced themselves in a nook against the wall.

There were no more explosions. The Festival was closing on the other ship now, and they could see a small group up on the other’s deck, all in orange uniforms.

On their own ship, a fire crew was already at work up on the bridge.

“They’re coming right at us,” Corrina said.

The Festival did not slow down, did not change course. All on deck paused to see how the two ships’ directions would line up. The chaos sprang back into loud action as the collision became probable.

“That ship is coming right at us,” Corrina said again.

The Festival was angling away, but still might not cross the other’s path before impact. As the Festival crossed the bow of the approaching ship, the potential point of impact moved from the middle of the Festival, the swimming pool and crystal pyramid above the Atrium, towards the stern: the waterslides, the communications tower, and the smokestacks.

“Go forward, guys,” Gerry said.

“Yeah,” Travis said. They began to walk quickly forward along the jogging track.

The Festival continued to pass in front of the smaller ship, but the space between the ship’s nose and the Festival's beam was shrinking fast.

“Run,” Travis said.

Travis grabbed Darren into his arms and they began to run. He felt his chest tighten slightly, but not enough to slow him. The other ship was so close now, the bow was coming right at them as they ran forward, the Festival’s forward motion added to theirs in taking them away from the point of impact.

All were running away from the Festival’s stern. The Festival seemed to have the speed to escape the collision; the Navy ship on track to cross the Festival’s wake safely behind her. That was the last impression Travis had from a backward glance sprinting away, seeing the coming ship’s bow disappear below the sight line from the Sky Deck. Then the collision.

The Festival rocked to starboard and the air was filled with the sound of metal twisting. Travis was thrown, tumbling to protect Darren from hitting the floor. Other bodies were flying around them, along with deck chairs and small tables. The deck angled hard. The Festival’s body was bending around the other ship’s prow. There was another sound right above them. Travis looked up and saw the massive water slides tipping to port, leaning more than the ship’s deck.

“Come on!” Gerry said, grabbing Travis by the arm and running hard.

The supports buckled. Tons of hard molded plastic came crashing down, unleashing a torrent of water. The flood exploded after them. They felt the water catch the backs of their legs, and they went tumbling to the deck from its force.

Darren was clutched tightly in Travis’s arms as his body was pulled forward by the water before it passed, leaving them soaked but unbruised on the angled deck. Shooting along the water’s flow on the deck, he saw another tower coming down, and a young girl standing right in its path. Something blocked his view and he heard the crash of the tower slide as he and Darren slowed on the deck.

“JOHN!” a woman screamed nearby.

“You alright?’ he asked Darren.

“Uh huh.”

Travis came to his feet, pulling Darren up with him.

A man came running by, carrying the little girl Travis had thought crushed by the falling tower. A young woman ran behind them, shrieking in terror.

“Go, go!” the man yelled at Travis. He slowed in his stride to slap Travis’s shoulder as he passed, the girl held tight in his other arm.

Looking back, they couldn’t see the orange men on the other ship now, they were all hidden by the higher vantage point of the Sky Deck. Then they heard automatic gunfire. Screams of terror erupted anew. A second volley of gunfire sounded, this time mixed with the ping of impact against the steel of the rear towers.

11

Passengers were getting off the deck fast, filling the Festival’s interior. Many had stayed out through the explosion and collision, to see if and where the collision came. The gunfire was enough to influence these stragglers to get inside. The enclosed stairwells leading down to the Grand Atrium echoed with footsteps and screams. Those who had remained indoors heard the explosion and felt the crash, but had only their urgent imagination to guess at what was happening. Some stood waiting for instructions to come, while others joined the panicked escapees from the outer decks, who were themselves hardly more certain where they were going. Many guests at least had their rooms to run to, but the guests with their rooms to stern of the collision were newly homeless.

Screams delivered the key facts well: the ship had been attacked. The attackers had guns. They were coming aboard. Travis’s mind was clear and practical under the threat, while still racing with the questions who? and why?

Guests locked themselves in their rooms. Some pulled refugees in with them.

As Travis’s group came down a second flight of stairs, they rushed out an open door to a ballustraded walkway with a view of the open Atrium. There was the sound of automatic gunfire, and Travis looked at the Atrium filling below him.

“We can’t go down there,” he said. It was the most vulnerable, open position to attack. He held Darren to his chest with one arm, and with the other, grabbed Gerry. “This way.”

They were several decks above the Atrium floor, running the enclosed hallway.

Stateroom doors were all shut. Corrina began banging on one.

“Please!” Corrina screamed at the door. “I have a child, please let me in, they have guns!”

There was no response. She banged more, and shook fiercely at the door handle.

“Come on,” Gerry said with his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll try again.”

Near the end of the hall the doors were spaced further apart. Again Corrina stopped, repeating her cries and banging on a door. Again there was no response.

Another burst of gunfire, but the sound was different. It was echoing in the open cavity of the ship’s belly rather than muffled through her walls. Travis kicked the door in with a powerful stroke, splintering the doorframe around the deadbolt.

The group pushed through the doorway.

The door was still on its hinges, and Travis shut it behind them, pulling a chair up to hold it in place. The cries of the hallway and from the Atrium were shut out almost completely. They all slowed their breathing without speaking.

The four were in a small foyer and turned left to walk out into the main room of the cabin. An elderly couple stood in the corner, by the closed drapes of a balcony. The man held the woman tightly and they stared at Travis and the others behind him.

“I’m sorry,” Travis said. “We have a child and they have guns, we need to hide.”

The cabin was a large luxury berth. Tan leather easy chairs and a matching couch faced a flat-screen TV at the far left.  A round table was circled by high-backed blue cushioned chairs, all sitting on white and blue ceramic tiles. To their right was a gleaming black grand piano and a wet bar, behind that an open door showed the bedroom.

Gerry introduced the group.

Darren remained quiet. Still the fire alarm rang.

“What’s going on?” the old man said.

“We’ve been attacked,” Gerry said, speaking quickly. “A military ship blew up the bridge, they rammed us, and then the men came on board with guns. They were in some kind of uniforms.”

The old women made an exclamation.

“Military uniforms?” the old man said.

“No,” Travis said, and then he thought of what those orange suits were. “No, like prison uniforms. They must’ve taken control of their ship during the rescue.”

“Please,” the old man said, “sit down. The kid, does he need anything? We have food and drinks in the fridge behind the bar. My name is Norman, this is my wife Vera.”

Travis deposited Darren on a bar stool.

Norman and Vera came away from the wall, and Vera collapsed into a chair at the round table. There was another volley of gunfire, and a horrible scream.

“What’s going to happen?” Darren said.

Nobody answered.

“They blew up the bridge?” Norman asked.

Gerry nodded.

“So who’s driving the ship?”

“They’re all dead,” Gerry said. “They rammed us in the rear. I can’t imagine our engines could work.”

“What about the captain?”

Gerry shrugged.

“What do we do?” Norman asked.

“We wait,” Travis said. “We wait and hope nobody bugs us and that ship leaves.”

Nobody spoke. Norman got a glass of orange juice for Darren. There were occasional screams from outside, some nearer, some farther.

Another blast of gunfire, from a handgun. It was followed by an angry voice.

“Get on the floor!” they heard from close by.

Quiet again from outside, quiet in the cabin. There was no noise for some time.

“How will we know when they’re gone?” Corrina asked.

“I’ll look,” Gerry said. “But not yet.”

They heard their cabin door pushed open, the chair falling over. Two men in orange jumpsuits walked in from the small foyer, one holding a pistol, the other a knife. They wore bandanas Travis recognized as gang colors. He’d seen them at work, around knife and bullet wounds.

“Against the wall,” the one with the gun said.

“Where’s your money?” the second one said. “Just hand it to us and nobody dies in this room.”

Corrina was squeezing Darren’s face into her breast and they moved towards the wall.

“We don’t have anything,” Travis said. “We were rescued by this ship from New York, we don’t have any bags or anything.”

“New York’s dead, and you will be too if you don’t show us the money.”

“You’re from Rikers,” Corrina said.

“What? Sing Sing, bitch,” the man with the gun said.

“That ship was rescuing you,” Travis said. “And you killed them?”

“Rescued?” the man with the gun laughed. “Taking us from one cage to another? We were the last ship out. A last-minute ship and not enough crew. So we’re not going back to the cage. Now this is somebody’s money pad, so I want to see some.”

“I have a wallet,” Norman said.

He went to the table behind him and held it to the prisoners. The man with the knife took it and opened it.

“Oh man,” he said as he fanned the full sheath of bills. “The millionaire. The millionaire and his wife.”

He began singing the Gilligan’s Island theme. “Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip.”

“Every moment you waste here,” Corrina said, “your chance to get away shrinks. That’s a Navy ship! How long do you think before they find you? What good will this money do you? You need to get off this ship or you’ll go back to the cage.”

“I will shoot you if you don’t shut up,” the man with the gun said.

Travis and Gerry closed their shoulders together in front of her.

“This is going to cost you your freedom,” she said.

“Man, what do you know? This is the free-est I have ever been. We ain’t going back! And whatever is left after all this, we’ll want money.”

“Alright, millionaire,” the one with the knife said, “what about your wife? Let’s see Mrs. Howell’s jewels.”

“My wife has a purse,” Norman said. “It’s in the bedroom.”

“She can show us,” the one with the knife said. He grabbed Vera.

“She won’t know where it is, let me,” Norman said.

“Stay there!” the man pulled on Vera and dragged her a step.

“Norman?” Vera said. “What’s happening?”

She stalled to look back and the man tugged her hard.

“No!” Norman shouted, pushing between them.

The man with the gun fired, and the explosive sound rung in all their ears until all they heard was Norman squealing as he fell to the floor. The gun was already pointed at Travis’s chest. It was done. The nice old man was still on the floor and the BANG of the shot still rang in Travis’s ear.

“Now get me the damn money and the damn jewels, Mrs. Howell,” the man with the gun said.

Vera began crying, her legs buckled, the man with the knife held her up and yanked her forward.

“Norman,” she said.

Darren was held tight to Corrina’s breast. He closed his eyes and just trusted in her arms around him.

“Bastards,” Gerry said.

“You want some too? I told you how to keep from dying,” the man with the gun said. “He didn’t do it.”

Travis was on his knees, holding Norman’s head up. Norman’s eyes were closed and he wheezed in jerks.

“Just let him go and stand up,” the gun still pointed at Travis.

“You’re sub-human. Filth!”  Travis said.

“Sub-human,” the man with the gun repeated. He spoke like his tongue was swollen. “Yeah, sub-human. Might as well drown in the cage. We was always sub-human… and you never cared if we killed each other, if we grew up with crackpipes on the ground and bullets in the air,” the man held Travis eyes-to-eyes and continued. “They told us New York was gone, man. Washington, gone. Miami, Boston, gone. They ain’t coming to stop us. So we sub-humans should play nice now we’re free?

“People like you have nightmares about the world burning. People like me fantasize about it. And there’s a lot of people like me. You all shouldn’t have made us so angry.”

The man fired again. Norman fell forward into his own blood on the floor. Vera screamed.

The man with the knife was holding her with both hands but she was strong and almost broke away.

“Animals!”

The man took one hand off and punched her in the stomach, holding her with the other hand so she couldn’t fall. With each move, Travis and Gerry’s bodies stuttered as if to leap, but their eyes never left that gun.

“The money,” the man with the knife said.

The knife man took Vera and disappeared into the bedroom, but Travis could still hear her sobbing breathing. He felt impotent, as when the waterslide flood had grabbed him. He could risk nothing while Darren was there. Perhaps they might all be back mopping up their wet homes in New York tomorrow, but Norman was irreversibly dead, like the Captain and officers on the bridge.

“Now give me your wallets,” the man with the gun said, staring at Travis.

Travis reached into his pocket and pulled his wallet out, but left the cash he knew was in his pants. He threw it on the table, as did Gerry.

The man opened Travis’s wallet. There was no money in it.

“Boy, you are down on your luck,” the gunman laughed.  “Paramedic, eh? You’ll have your work cut out for you.”

He took the credit cards. “You never know.”

He opened Gerry’s wallet and took several twenties out.

The knife-man came out, pushing Vera ahead of him.

“Millionaire’s wife came through,” knifeman said. “Real cash. And diamonds and pearls. Good room.”

He threw Vera onto the floor in front of the bar.

“Let’s go.”

The gunman stared at Travis. He lifted the gun level with Travis’s face and fired.

The window behind Travis shattered.

“Better luck next vacation.”

The two left.

Corrina loosened her grip and Darren finally looked at the room again. He saw Norman dead at his father’s feet, and instantly burrowed his head back into his mother. Vera sobbed, face down on the floor.

“No phone, no lights, no motor cars,” the men sang as they left through the front hall, “Not a single luxury. Like Robinson Crusoe, as primitive as can be.”

12

A broken man lay on the Sky Deck in a burnt black suit. His face was black from the explosion, except for the red lines of blood. His hair had burnt away.

His body was twisted over some piece of furniture he’d landed on. He was broken and could not move. He saw things happening around him, and remained silent as the Festival refugees and guests ran past. When the others in the orange suits began to pass, he mustered the energy and accepted the pain for one last shout.

“Hey!”

It got someone’s attention. Two men came and stood above him. One had a gun.

“I’m Captain,” Captain London said with great difficulty. “Where’s yours?”

The two men looked at each other.

“Haggard’s gone below,” one said. “Let’s get the Commander.”

They left.

London had seen the puff of smoke from the Navy ship.  He’d yelled “Dive!” as the BOOM reached them, and he threw himself behind an equipment bank. He wondered if any of the others on the bridge had survived. Probably not. He wondered that he had. He imagined that when it was all said and done, he wouldn’t. As he dived behind the equipment bank, he realized that the Navy ship had been hijacked during evacuations. Seeing the jumpsuits now, he knew the hijackers had been prisoners.

They had no guns aboard the Festival. They were completely vulnerable. Six officers probably dead on the bridge.

In time, the man he waited for, the Commander, appeared standing above him, the other two who had found him hovering behind.

“You’re the captain?” the Commander said. Like the others, he was in an orange prison jumpsuit. He had a big round head and a stolen Navy officer’s cap and spoke slowly.

Captain London nodded. There was the sound of gunfire from below decks, and London could now see both refugees and attackers running here and there, looking for cover or looking for each other.

“Go back to your ship,” London said. “Surrender.”

The Commander stomped his foot down on London’s leg.

“Uniforms are all the same,” the Commander said. “But we don’t take orders now.”

London rumbled with a rough laugh.

“Can’t hurt me,” he managed.

“Is that a challenge?” the Commander said.  “Huh. You Navy?”

“Once,” London said.

“You look like one. Even with a broken spine you got a rod up your ass. I was Navy. I hate uniforms. Navy. Cops. Guards. You don’t get to give orders anymore, Captain. We killed a lot of uniforms today. You can watch us kill more. That’ll hurt, won’t it?”

“I’ll be dead,” London said.

The man sounded educated, London thought. He’d probably been an officer himself; he had that look, if not as much as London did. How could this help?

The Commander hated this beaten man who still acted like he was in charge.

“You’re right,” the Commander said.

He shot Captain London twice in the chest and watched him take his last breath.

13

Travis and Gerry pulled Norman’s body into the bedroom, into the walk-in closet, while Corrina sat with Vera at the table. In the closet, they tossed aside the precisely placed men’s and women’s shoes to lay the body. Crisp ironed pants and shirts hung above Norman.

“He knew,” Vera said. “He knew what they’d do. But he would not stand by while they touched me. He was a real man, a man of honor.”

She had a Russian accent, dimmed from many years in America, socializing little with other immigrants. When Travis and Gerry came back into the living room, she was already staring at them.

Occasionally they heard screams from outside, gunshots. They sat around the table and did not talk. Corrina tried to hold Darren close but he pushed away and sat upright in his chair. The windows and patio doors showed night had fallen. The room was dark, only the chandelier above the table created a circle of light that they sat in. They each had retreated into themselves.

There had been a day during his mission in Sudan when Travis had led a Red Cross unit to set up a new refugee camp by a small village. By the time they arrived, the village had been wiped out by raiders. There were only bodies, dozens of bodies lying scattered between the thatch huts as flies licked at them and dust blew over them.

The bodies had to be cleared out before the camp could be set up. The message had already been sent across the countryside that this village would be the location of the camp, so they cleared the bodies and cleaned the site. He looked across at Darren and wished that the son would never see with his eyes what his father dreamt of.

“It was my first time returning home,” Vera said, breaking the silence. “I was born in St. Petersburg. Leningrad. I have not been home since I was a child. Norman was my only family now. He was taking me to visit my home. But I have no home now. I hardly exist, I suppose.”

“We’ll take care of you,” Corrina said. “We’re going to get through this. I’m sure the ship has radioed for help.”

Vera looked at her with contempt, tears still wet on her face. She spoke slowly: “Do you really think anyone will come for us? With half the world in chaos? You think they’ll worry about us?”

“There are other ships out here,” Gerry said. “Dozens of ships from New York alone, and they’ll be nearby because they would probably all be following the same instructions as the Festival. Someone will help us. Even if those ships for some reason can’t help us, there’re thousands of people on this ship. Each one of them has friends and relatives looking for them. There will be help, Vera. Eventually.”

“You are a fool,” Vera said. “Where is Norman?”

“The closet,” Gerry said.

“What? What are you talking about? Where is he? Norman!”

“Vera,” Travis said. “Vera, Norman is dead.”

Vera did not answer. She turned and fought the tears.

Travis nodded at Corrina. Vera had some form of dementia. Norman had been scared she would forget where the purse was. That’s why he tried to go.

“It’s okay, Vera,” Corrina said. “We’ll take care of you.”

The lights went out. The alarm stopped.

There was screaming from all around them, no gunfire then, only screaming.

“I’ll open the drapes, maybe there will be some light from outside,” Travis said.

He stumbled to the balcony doors and pulled the floor length drapes back. Only the most vague outline of the sliding door was visible. Travis struggled to find the latch and slide the glass pane back.  It was a dark night; the clouds above stood out as a dull grey glow in the blackness.

Even that tiny amount of light helped, and Travis could begin to make out shapes in the cabin as his eyes adjusted and he looked back in.

“The lights are out all over the ship. I can see a few emergency lights way above us, but that’s it. I can make out the Navy ship, they have a few lights on. I can only see the very back of it. We’d better pass the night here,” Travis said.