Breathless - Swarm Book 2: (An Epic Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller), page 11
Her husband sidled up to her, his hand in her lower back and his voice gentle and low. “They don’t want to hear about us, Marj.” He tipped a salute in Nash’s direction and swallowed a cough. “You’re a true gent, sir. We’ll remember this kindness, and you, in our prayers.”
The chopper thwapped closer, circling the dome and lifting Marj’s gossamer-thin hair into little waves. The couple made their way up the gnarly rock, apologizing and thanking the people they passed.
Jeremy had predicted anarchy, but Nash had delivered order. His obedient fleas allowed Marj and her husband to make their way to the peak for an early seat on the incoming whirlybird.
“Anyone else got a health problem?” Nash knew how to project his voice so it bounced off the rock face. There was a reason people obeyed him. He had an authority about him. “Don’t be shy. If you need meds or have an underlying condition. Heart palpitations? Diabetes?”
“Asthma,” A young woman raised her hand. “It’s mild, but I need to get away from this smoke.”
Nash gave her the nod.
“Can my sister come?” She grabbed the hand of a young woman who was her double. How could Nash say no to sisters? He couldn’t. And he didn’t. The two girls scurried off, overtaking Marj and her husband and bounding up the stony trail.
A hiker with a streaming nose and bloodied eyes stepped forward. “My allergies are killing me.”
Nash smiled and bowed, holding out his hand toward the cables. “After you then.”
“Very clever.” Jeremy was mostly talking to himself. Brandon sure as hell wasn’t listening; his attention was trained on Pit Bull Man. But Jeremy could see through the Pit Bull’s bullshit; Nash had engineered a way to force the people who were already in line for evacuation to give way to the sick, the elderly, and the women and children. No way he wasn’t going to “escort” them to safety. Crafty, crafty, sneaky man.
The chopper churned up smoke and debris, making the push to freedom a grind rather than a joy, but they were at least moving in the right direction. Nash loaded up his remaining backpacks and stormed the line, leaving his girlfriend, Tosh, to hop to safety.
“Lean on me.” Jeremy hooked his arm around Tosh, careful to keep his hands high and off her waist. He wasn’t afraid of what Nash-the-reformed-pit bull might think, but he didn’t want to offer help only to land as a creep.
“I’m fine.” Tosh gave him the same blushing smile she’d given Max earlier.
Jeremy was rocked back thirty years; tongue-tied and awkward, wishing he was more like his older brother and less like himself. “If you change your mind, I’m right here.” He withdrew his arm and dropped back a few paces.
The moment Jeremy found Brandon, his son ran on ahead and relieved Nash of one of his backpacks. It looked suspiciously like the bag Jeremy had bought for him. In fact, the pterodactyl logo was a dead giveaway. Either Brandon was a clever so-and-so and had reclaimed his hiking gear or a fool who wanted to get close to the alpha male of the pack, Jeremy wasn’t sure which.
He’d spent so little time with his son over the years, he didn’t have a good read on his moods or motivation. Brandon was angry he’d been sent to America; he’d made that crystal clear. And he thought Jeremy was a “deadbeat dad who’d run out on them,” but that could be fixed. Once Brandon knew the real story—Terri hadn’t told Jeremy she was pregnant; their relationship was over before it began; he’d left his Ph.D. program after a breakdown, not to get away from her and the baby he knew nothing about—he would understand. Then they could be civil to each other and, once that wore thin, friends.
The human convoy wound up the mountain pass, all eyes trained on the massive metal bird that had come to save them. It would carry ten, maybe fifteen, people at a time. They’d need to do multiple passes to get everyone off the slopes. By his calculation, they were going to be on the last or second-to-last transit unless there was more than one chopper coming.
“Back up! Back up! Everyone down!” The mother hen shooed her brood with huge swoops of her arms. “Back the way we came. Now. All of you.” The path was too narrow and too steep for her clutch of chicks to complete a U-turn and even if they had been able to pull it off, the cables weren’t designed for heavy, two-way traffic. Worse still, Pit Bull-man and his crew weren’t giving any ground.
“Up, lady. The only way is up.” Nash shoved Chicken Lady in the sternum.
“Go!” She wasn’t kidding. Whatever had happened up ahead had her freaking out. “It’s not safe.”
“Back off.” Nash shouldered his way past her using his backpack as a battering ram.
She fell against the cables, but there were hands all over her, hauling her back from the edge. “They’re defending their position.” She teetered, too close to the edge and the death plunge for Jeremy’s comfort.
He weaved his way through the hikers. “Sorry. S’cuse me. Pardon me. Coming through.” He rounded the bend as two figures appeared at the edge of the peak with a small boulder hoisted between them. “What the hell?”
They swung once and then let go. The rock barreled into the first two men at the top of the cables, knocking them backward. One smashed into the hiker behind him while the second slipped out from the safety of the cables and met the same fate as the girl Jeremy had tried to save, his bellowing suddenly cut short. The line of climbers went down like dominos. The lucky ones managed to use the cables, rods, and other people to keep from tumbling too fast. But the unlucky ones, mostly those at the top, slipped and fell too far to the side, their bodies disappearing into the smoke.
Jeremy dove for Chicken Lady and caught her around the waist. Her weight threw him back and the two of them skidded twenty or thirty feet, her head bouncing off the ground, before they came to rest. He staggered to his feet, propped her against the granite wall, and ran back in search of Brandon.
The cut on his knee split, blood pouring down his leg, into his new boots, soaking his expensive new socks. Screw the socks. “Brandon!” He pushed past Chicken Lady’s returning chicks, past Pit Bull Man’s straggling fleas, through the wall of panting, coughing, irritated humans, and hauled himself fist over fist up the punishing slope. Brandon was nowhere to be seen.
Chapter 11
KIM WALKER. HEADING TO SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Kim couldn’t delay any longer and hiding behind a sandstone boulder beside the freeway all day was not going to get her to Sydney anytime soon. For the umpteenth time she glanced at her phone—still no bars—no means of contacting Emma or her adoptive parents. No way of calling for help. But she did have a first aid kit in the trunk of her car. She hesitated a moment longer. What remained of her car was stuck at the bottom of the gully which had taken her a good twenty minutes to climb in her useless heels. No hope of a miracle there, and the idea of getting into a stranger’s car turned her limbs to water—but she had no choice. It was time for her to take a chance. Those maniacs who’d carjacked her had to be long gone.
With a hand pressed to her aching ribs, Kim slithered and slipped her way down the slope, all the while inwardly cursing the day she’d purchased her heels. The howling wind didn’t help, pushing against her shaky body like so many pummeling hands. After popping the trunk, she located the kit along with a bottle of water and a green disposable shopping bag which she used to stuff her few supplies into. By the time she hauled her trembling body back up to the roadside, blisters burned her toes and heels and her ankles had puffed up like popcorn.
But she had no time to weep and wail. She stepped carefully over the mangled steel barrier and stumbled forward until she stood in the center of the gravel shoulder. Vehicles of all shapes and sizes drove past in a steady drone that grated on her already shredded nerves. A few occupants looked at her through the smoke then turned away. Raising her arms above her head, she waved, beckoned, shouted. A sedan slowed as it appeared through the swirling smoke on the outside lane. The woman passenger, a forty-year-old with a kind face, met Kim’s eyes. She turned to her partner driving the car. Her lips moved. He shook his head, then the car accelerated past.
Time seemed to slow down as Kim kept signaling the traffic, her gaze darting from car to car, attempting to make eye contact. Her clothes stuck to her sweaty back. That terrible tightness deep inside her chest grew more painful with every second.
No one stopped. She had to try a different tactic. All she could think of was a bold move that might prove to be disastrous if it went pear-shaped. She whipped off her mask and stepped out into the on-coming traffic, right in front of the very next approaching vehicle. It was an aging 1970’s dull-yellow Kombi campervan with a red ‘P’ plate stuck under a windscreen wiper, complete with a surfboard attached to the roof rack. The driver slammed on the brakes, his face shooting toward the windscreen. He hit the glass with a muffled thud, his respirator wobbling under his chin. With a hideous squeal, the van rattled to a halt, a foot from Kim’s stiff body.
It took her a full ten seconds to remember to breathe. She stumbled a pace backward, her gaze locked on the van’s grill while her heart thundered in her chest.
A blare of horns resounded from behind the van, as the car then swung out and around, its driver shaking his fist out the window as it passed.
The Kombi driver threw open his door and ran to where Kim stood on legs as weak as toothpicks, clawing back her normal calm.
“Holy!...Are you hurt? Geez, dude, what were you thinking?” The driver windmilled his arms, causing his straw-colored hair to flap wildly over the red bump appearing on his forehead. His spaced-out eyes rolled in all directions and he danced from bare foot to bare foot.
Kim covered her face with her hands.
“Oh dude. Don’t cry. Whoever he is, he’s not worth it.” A hand came down in a hesitant tap on her shoulder.
Kim examined him through her fingers before expelling a ragged sigh, giving her performance of a jilted lover everything she had. Although obviously under the influence, his young face radiated concern. There was no malice in his mild eyes, only a bashful shyness as he hovered close by dressed in a pair of raggedy purple yoga pants and a faded rainbow-colored tee. No way could he be a threat.
Removing her hands, she smiled. “That’s so kind of you.”
A dual-cab pickup pulled up behind the van and blasted their horn three times before the driver reversed, then swung out and around giving them another blast of his horn as he passed.
Kombi boy gave an awkward shrug, scuffing his bare toes over the hard ground. “Well, as long as you’re OK, dude. Um, I gotta… you know.” Ducking his red face, he shuffled around Kim and hopped over the sharp pebbles and unceremoniously unzipped his fly.
Perfect. She couldn’t have hoped for a better scenario. While he was occupied, Kim opened the passenger side door and climbed inside. She settled her re-usable green shopping bag by her blistered feet. Sinking against the vinyl seat, her shoulders relaxed a trifle and she eased out of her pinching heels. Maybe the worst for today was over. Maybe now it would be smooth sailing.
Another horn honked from behind.
The driver’s door opened, and the boy, he looked as if he should still be in high school, landed in the driver’s seat, his eyebrows rising the moment he spotted her. He wriggled his respirator to below his chin revealing his open mouth. “Hey, hey, dude! What are you doing?”
“I need a lift to Sydney.” Kim pointed to the mangled guard rail. “A couple of hours ago, some morons drove me off the road and down into the ditch. My car is a total write-off. They stole my water and handbag.”
He clicked his tongue. “That’s too bad. Nice shiner.”
Kim fingered her swollen cheek, flinching as pain cut around her head when she made contact with her tender skin. “Yeah. I stupidly tried to fight.”
“Tough.” He scratched a pimple protruding from his chin and blinked over sleepy pale-blue eyes as if he had all day to waste while someone in the truck behind them leaned on his horn. The sweet smell of weed clung about his person and pervaded the inside of the van.
“We should get going. We’re holding up the traffic.”
“I ‘spose you can come along. You want a smoke?” Using one hand he started his car, rummaging about in his glove box with his other hand for a few seconds before holding up a small joint.
“No thank you.” She jerked her head sideways to remind him about the line of vehicles forming behind.
“How about something stronger?”
She shifted closer to the door, one hand closing about the handle readying herself for a quick getaway. “I’m good. Can we go now?”
“You know something, dude? People should just chill.” He fixed a limpid gaze on Kim, crashed through the gears and the van did a series of kangaroo hops along the road before the engine fired into a steady rhythm. The horn blaring behind them stopped.
Her grip tightening over the door handle, Kim simply nodded.
“I thought you were offing yourself.” He chuckled. “But you were only after a ride. I’m impressed.” He went to light his smoke with the car’s cigarette lighter.
Kim cut in quickly, “I’d appreciate if you didn’t smoke. My lungs feel raw and scratchy from being close to the fires.”
“Yeah? OK, I’m cool with that. Name’s Toby. I’m from Newcastle.”
“I’m Kim. Pleased to meet you. Any problems from the fires up there?”
Toby sucked his teeth and switched on the air conditioning. “Not too bad when I left but getting’ smoky and hard to breathe. That’s how I knew we’d reached our end date.”
“Huh?” Using her free hand, Kim fiddled with her seat belt, trying to ease the heavy material away from her sore chest.
“You know. The end of days. For all of us.” Toby stared out the window at the swirling smoke as if in a hypnotic dream.
Maybe hitching a ride with this man who was obviously as thick as two short planks was not a good idea.
“You might want to re-think Sydney, dude. The news chick reckons all that smoke is gonna hang around the city for weeks. But…” He touched the side of his nose and winked at Kim. “I know what they’re not saying. You can’t tell me these fires are normal. Our world is kaput.”
“So you’re traveling to…?” Kim allowed her sentence to trail off.
Obligingly, he filled in the blanks. “The North Shore. Manly to be exact. My grandmum’s there, in a nursing home. As soon as this stuff hit the fan, I rang her straight away. I said, ‘Gran, I’m coming for you. I’m gonna bust you out. We’ll paddle out into the ocean on my board and watch the end together.’” His thin chest swelled visibly as his fingers tapped away on the steering wheel as if to a beat only he could hear.
Fascinated, Kim finally released her grip on the door handle. “And what did she say?”
“She told me to get a move on and get down there quick smart. She’s a real trooper, is my gran. She’s all I’ve got now. I’ve got to get there before they lock the place down. You know. Me and Gran, we’re gonna be together. No one should die alone.”
Alone. That’s exactly what Kim was—alone—and had been for over eight years. Her eyes misted—Emma, I’m coming.
“You got someone special. I can tell. That’s good, dude. You got water? Food? Masks?”
Kim delved into her green bag, pulling out what was left of her water. “About three mouthfuls and no food. I’ve got my phone which is useless—still no signal, a small first aid kit, and this disposable mask.” She indicated the mask resting around her neck. “And another cloth one, but it needs a good clean.”
“Use my sink.” Toby jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, then changed down a gear as the van chugged up an incline belching out a grumble of exhaust. “Got enough water, so help yourself to a couple more bottles. And there’s a banana and a coupla boiled eggs in the little fridge.”
“Seriously, that’s fantastic. Thank you.” Kim didn’t wait for him to change his mind, she was out of that seat belt and climbing into the back in record time. It took a while to clean her mask, after which she sat on the edge of a narrow bed made up with a sleeping bag and ate the fruit and one of the eggs before helping herself to a full bottle of water while the van jostled its way along the freeway. The water cleared the fog from her head and she downed two paracetamols from her first aid kit with the last mouthful to ease some of her pain. Taking Toby at his word, she stashed two full water bottles inside her green bag, popped her wet mask into her pants’ pocket then re-joined him at the front where her grubby feet shifted aside her heels for more room, and clicked her seat belt on.
“Whaddya reckon’s going on?” Toby slowed down to peer at several cars that were parked at odd angles on the narrow gravel shoulder. “Why’ve they stopped?”
Shifting on the hard seat, Kim squinted through the orangey haze outside the window, then drew back so fast her head snagged against her seat belt and she had to push it out of the way. The occupants of the closest car were coughing madly and the elderly driver turned to look at her as they passed, blood trickling from his eyes and mouth. The next vehicle was a late model four-wheel drive, crammed full of luggage, three kids stuffed in the back seat and their parents in the front. Every one of them was slumped over. Heads hanging low. Motionless.
Kim choked back her cry at the bloody outline of a small handprint on the window and averted her gaze from the other stationary cars. She couldn’t look anymore. She didn’t want to see any more dead bodies. She wanted the day to be over. She wanted to be in her café—with Emma safe by her side. No fire or smoke in sight. And she wanted the deep constant ache in her chest to disappear.
“Geez. Not good. Dude, not good.” Toby shook his head and thumped the steering wheel with his hands. “See? I told you. It’s all over.”
Kim swallowed. “It’s just a bad bush fire.”
“No way. All these people bleeding like that? That’s not normal.”
Kim’s hands curled into fists, her nails gouging into her palms. He was right. Whatever was happening wasn’t normal and the cold rock of reason lurking inside her mind warned her—life had changed—forever. The news from overseas was predictably depressing, but there was no connection between the American fires and the Ozzie ones. Even if there was a link—global warming or something along those lines?—the boy was paranoid enough without Kim fanning his flames, so she refrained from answering.
