Breathless - Swarm Book 2: (An Epic Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller), page 2
The town’s emergency warning shrieked, cutting through the silence and Kim spun around, nerves jittering like ants scurrying under her skin. “I’ll lock up, Joyce. Go home.”
“But what about Barry? The line was still busy.” Joyce replaced the telephone receiver then rushed to the staff room for her handbag. She reappeared a moment later.
“I’ll try emergency services again. If I don’t get a response, I’ll phone the police station.”
“Then, you’ll leave…won’t you, Kim?” The older woman hurried over and lay a tentative hand on her arm. It was a brief pat; she knew full well Kim avoided physical contact. “Come on, love. The firefighters will do everything possible to save our town and the café. It’s not safe to stay.”
“I’ll be fine. Go and I’ll see you in the morning.” Kim pushed Joyce out the door.
But the glance Joyce sent back to her only reflected what Kim was thinking. In the morning, the café might not be standing.
The siren continued to shriek, and Kim snatched up the landline again. Still busy. She hung up, pausing for a moment beside Barry’s still body. She thought of his wife left to bear the burden of her twilight years alone. “I’m sorry, mate.”
The lights flickered, then with a fizz died along with the hum from the refrigerator. If power had been cut, the fire must be dangerously close to town.
It’s just brick and mortar. I have insurance. Still, the words didn’t quite alleviate her wrench of loss as she locked the door. But she had to go. The thick, dark, orange smoke snaking through the streets clung to the rooftops, giving the small town an eerie feel. As she hurried toward her car, burning embers twirled through the air like so many juiced-up fireflies. It would have been pretty if the implications weren’t so terrifying. Directly opposite, a tall pine tree exploded into flames, a rippling river of fire flowing to the sky and showering more sparks onto the tinder-dry grass. Heart slamming against her ribcage, she broke into a stumbling run. The ferocious wind was deafening and pushed against Kim’s body with a strength she hadn’t expected. The heat was unbearable. Tears streamed from her sore, swollen eyes. Blinking away the wetness, she put a hand to her uncomfortably raw throat.
There were a few people in the street, shouting and yelling, piling supplies and personal effects into cars and the backs of pickup trucks and trailers. Everyone wore a mask or a scarf over their nose and mouth.
Heart pounding in an unsteady rhythm, Kim fumbled for the cloth mask in her handbag. As she looped the straps around her ears, something splattered onto the pavement with a wet squelch. A dead galah. Pity welling, she skipped over the pink-and-gray feathered body.
A savage burst of wind made her stagger. Off-balance, she grabbed hold of the light post. Out of the thickening smoke, a burning tree branch hurtled toward her. She ducked and stumbled sideways as it spun past. The wind tossed the branch higher, all the way onto the roof of the supermarket where it landed with a loud crash. Pieces of blazing timber cascaded over the rooftops. In an instant, flames flickered into life on the iron sheets and flowed down toward the gutters and onto the timber walls of the shop. Shadows shifted behind the shop windows and a teenage boy stood at the cash register attending to a customer apparently oblivious to the conflagration now consuming the rooftop. It was only a matter of time—minutes, not hours—before the timber-clad shops around the supermarket would be engulfed. Straining her watery eyes, Kim searched the street for a fire truck to no avail.
Waving her arms, she raced across the road, shouting, her muffled voice snatched away by the wind. A couple of mans who’d been packing their cars joined in, but when they reached the shop, one of them flopped against the door, head back, mouth open wide as he gasped for breath like a fish stranded out of water. Kim was instantly reminded of Barry, lying on her café floor.
She went to help him, but the second man waved her away. “We’re fine… The shop.”
As Kim hurried through the open door, she was shoved to the side as two teenage boys ran out. One clasped a box of soft drinks, the other carried an armful of crisps. Whooping and laughing they disappeared into the smoke, but shoplifting was the least of anyone’s concerns.
Kim dashed inside. “The shop’s on fire! Get out!”
The teenaged clerk gaped at her and his face bleached of all color.
“I’ll check for any other customers.” Wiping her stinging eyes with the back of her hand, she hurried along the dark aisle. From somewhere near the rear of the shop, a woman screamed out, “Coral” then burst into loud frantic sobs.
Smoke filled the interior, stinging Kim’s eyes and making her nose feel it had swollen to twice its size. One hand touching the shelves on her left to guide her, she picked up the pace. A woman staggered around the end of the aisle, coughing and almost hysterical. “Have you seen a little girl? My daughter, Coral. I can’t find her.”
It was getting harder and harder to breathe even through her mask. Her throat contracted as if a vice gripped her but Kim wasn’t going anywhere. Not until she’d found that kid. She’d walked away once, she didn’t intend to do it again. “She may be hiding. There’s a small alcove behind the last aisle where the owner places empty boxes. Let’s check there.” Leading the way, she groped forward until she reached the rear of the shop.
“Coral?” With no lights working, it was difficult to see but something rustled close by. “Come on, hun. Your mum’s got a chocolate for you.” A second later, a tiny form emerged from behind a tower of cardboard boxes.
“Coral!” The mother swept the little girl into her arms.
Above their heads, the rafters creaked and groaned. Kim screamed, “Out! Now!” A faint gleam of light beckoned them forward and they raced to the door, Kim herding the mother and child in front of her. They stumbled outside a split second before the roof gave way behind them.
A fire truck pulled up with a lurch and the firefighters, wearing full respirator gear with oxygen tanks on their backs, jumped out and swung into action. The captain climbed down. “We’re evacuating everyone to the east of town. Go. Now!”
After another thanks, the woman, with her toddler held close, stumbled away. Two emergency responders rushed past bearing a stretcher where some poor soul writhed and thrashed on top. The light gray blanket covering him was stained with fresh blood.
Holding a hand over her mouth, she stumbled to her car. She slumped in her car’s driver seat, her legs trembling, her breathing labored, and fell into a coughing fit that left her breathless. Frowning out the windscreen at the falling ash, she pressed a hand to her aching chest. She never coughed, not even when she had the flu.
Emma is asthmatic.
The reminder came out of nowhere and hit her like a punch in the chest. Fear skittered like a spider’s legs over her cold skin. Rattled, Kim swallowed over her swollen raspy throat, took a long swig of water from the water bottle she kept full in her car, then pressed the engine start button. Running the air conditioner helped her breathing although the pain in her chest remained. With her headlights on, she drove away from the shopping precinct and into suburban streets where it was bedlam; people backing out of driveways too fast and trying to cut into the steady stream of vehicles winding their way toward the evacuation area. Kim dodged and weaved her way through. Some townsfolk had obviously elected to stay and fight. They were hosing down their roofs and yelling at their kids to get their pets inside the house. The long line of cars in front, slowed to a crawl. As Kim edged her car past, a young girl carrying a bag of diapers and baby bottles and with a baby in a sling over her chest ran out of a house. She slid into a waiting car.
At least Kim only had herself to protect. No dog. No cat. Not even a budgerigar in a cage. It had been a little over twelve months since her father had died, finally succumbing to cirrhosis of the liver from twenty-six years of living inside a bottle. He’d rarely been sober after her mother had died in a train crash. Kim had been five at the time.
She had no one to worry about—except for Emma. Her belly as tight as a fist, Kim activated the hands-free calling mode on her steering wheel and her mobile switched on. She found the number she’d saved from Emma’s correspondence and pressed the button. Waited.
Nothing.
She turned on the radio, catching the end of an emergency broadcast warning people to give Sydney a wide berth. She called Emma’s adoptive mother again, then another three times but couldn’t get a signal. Snatching up her phone she stared at the small screen. No bars. The cell towers must be down.
Ahead, the cars picked up speed.
Kim replaced her phone onto the charger and accelerated until she found herself at the T-intersection. The way left led to the freeway, the main motorway to Sydney. The way right led to the evacuation area the emergency personnel had set up.
The car behind tooted its horn.
Kim’s thoughts tumbled and crashed inside her head as she remembered the terrified little girl hiding in the shop. Even though her mother had been there it was Kim who’d found her. An image of the TV screen shot of the Matreus, Inc. man standing with the fire commissioner popped into her head. Emma’s mother worked for that company. The agonizing way Barry had died was carved in her memory. She could still smell the sickly sweet stench of his blood.
She gripped the leather steering wheel with sweaty hands, her belly churning with a sickening swell of nerves. Ash rained from the strange, dark, orange-tinged clouds. The howling wind rocked the car on its axles. Her wipers whisked to and fro in frantic dashes to clear the glass of debris.
What if Emma needs me? What if this is the moment when I can finally make a difference in her life?
Resolve forged her spine to steel. Kim turned left toward the freeway. Toward Sydney. To where her daughter lived.
Chapter 2
DR KEIKO SATO – BOULDER, COLORADO
There was no way Keiko was going to open the direct message—the one titled RACCOONS!!!!! & Dr. Diana Stewart!!!!—that had just popped into her inbox. She sighed. I don’t have time for you or your conspiracy theories, Sam from Berkeley. Or your odd infatuation! Who would’ve thought a Sahara-dry paper about cicada sloughs and supercapacitors would be enough to throw the hypothalamus of a twenty-one-year-old entomology prodigy into meltdown? Not you, Sato. She smiled at the silliness of it all and shook her head. Her finger hovered over the reply button. She didn’t want to encourage him, but he might be even pushier if she ghosted him.
“Thank you for your kind message,” she typed, then backed over the bland phrase. She’d seen enough of his chatter on Sci-Net to know that he had a decent brain and, if his message was anything to go by, he’d stumbled on something he thought was of genuine scientific interest. “Without seeing the samples, I’m afraid I’m unable to comment. Thank you, etc, etc.” She signed off with all the usual pleasantries and clicked her laptop shut.
Her mobile clattered on the lab counter. She set the laptop down and looked at the phone’s display. It was her daughter. Maiko knew better than to call her at the lab unless there was an emergency. Keiko breathed in, crossing her fingers that it wasn’t a clogged toilet again. Along with being perceived as smug know-it-alls, the vast majority of her colleagues in the sciences were non-believers, but one thing about the supernatural Keiko knew to be true: there are no atheists when the water reaches the toilet bowl’s rim.
She tapped the wiggling phone icon, closed her eyes and prepared for the worst. The last time the water made it all the way to the kitchen before Keiko got home to shut off the water valve.
“Moshi-Moshi, Maiko-chan.” Keiko wedged the mobile between her ear and her shoulder, something much easier to do with old telephones. She slid the laptop into her knapsack and tugged on the zipper with one hand. Suddenly, she stood up straight. Keiko grabbed the phone.
“Maiko, are you crying?”
“Iya. Hai.”
“English, Maiko. Use your English words. Why are you crying?” A sharp furrow rose between her eyebrows, something she hated but her ex had found adorable. An image of him laughing and poking at her forehead floated through her mind.
Christopher Watson, get out of my head!
Keiko refocused. “I hear the TV. What are you watching?”
“The news.”
“Since when do you watch the news?”
“Since everyone started dying from the cicadavirus. Mommy, I’m not going to die, too, am I?”
Keiko wedged the phone back against her shoulder and zipped her knapsack all the way shut. “No, you’re not going to die. And I’m not going to die, either. And it’s not a virus, honey. Why do you thi… Listen, just turn off the news, OK?” She shouldered her knapsack and tugged at the hem of her Metallica shirt. The sound from the TV stopped.
“They’re in Nebraska. Nebraska is right next to us. It’s like one state over. And someone on the news called them dragon beetles. Are they really dragons?”
“No, no, no. They’re not dragon beetles.” Although what a perfectly Japanese name. “They’re cicadas.”
“Will they eat us?”
“No, they don’t eat people. They have little straws on their mouths, and they drink juice from tree roots.” Except these new ones—they eat plants. “And before you ask, no, they don’t drink blood. Cicadas are usually nice bugs, not like mosquitos.” Nice bugs. If you don’t count the massive swarms erupting worldwide, seemingly simultaneously. And how was that even possible? Those ‘nice bugs’ were Cicada Death Ebola killing machines.
The lab door clicked open and Keiko looked up. A handsome but shorter-than-average white guy entered the lab. Seeing Keiko on the phone, he eased the door shut and stood, waiting, grinning like a salesman.
Who is this fool? Nobody waltzes into my lab uninvited.
Maiko sniffled. “They won’t come to Colorado, will they? We’re safe here, right?”
Keiko’s eyes followed the intruder’s as he glanced around the lab. “Maiko-chan, Mommy has to go. She loves you very much.” The man strolled to the counter where an array of microscopes were lined up in neat, regimented rows, casually tapping the eyepieces. “I’ll be home soon.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, I promise. Remember our deal. Mommy keeps you safe and warm, even from afar. Now I have to go. Baibai.” Keiko jabbed the end call icon, pocketed the phone, and glared at Captain Presumptuous. “Can I help you?”
The man turned and strode toward Keiko with his hand extended. “Jacob Horowitz.”
Keiko ignored the offered handshake.
Jacob made a ‘Whatever Face’—Maiko’s name for the expression. “Right. Well, I’m looking for a…” Jacob fished a business card out of the breast pocket of the blazer he wore. “…a Keiko Sato.”
“I am Doctor Sato.”
The man blinked twice. “You’re Doctor Sato?”
“Incredible, isn’t it? A woman in the sciences.”
“Either way, pleasure to meet you.” Jacob nodded at the ceiling, where a set of four embedded speakers filled the room with music. “What are we listening to?”
Keiko stared hard at Jacob. “Excuse me, what? Master of Puppets. Why?”
Jacob ignored Keiko’s response. “Nice shirt, by the way.”
He leaned in close toward Keiko and stared at her shirt. Alarms went off throughout her whole body and she stepped back and away. Jacob inched closer. “Is that a hand with a knife coming out of a toilet?”
Keiko tapped her toes inside her shoes, trying to calm herself. She wished she could transport herself through the wall at her back. “OK, listen, we're done here. You can go now.”
Jacob stepped back and grinned with what must have been his most winning grin. “My apologies. I was simply surprised. Seeing a Metallica shirt on one of the world’s most celebrated scientists…it’s a rare thing.”
“That’s enough.” Keiko pulled her phone from her pocket and punched in her passcode. “I’m calling security.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Jacob put his hand over the phone.
Keiko slapped his hand away. “Listen, jerk. You invaded my space. You have no right to be here and no reason to be here. Quite honestly, I’m afraid for my safety. So yes, I’m calling security, and once you’re escorted out, I’m going home.” Keiko tapped a series of numbers. “Sanford will be here in less than one minute. Just enough time for you, if you’re smart, to disappear yourself.” The call connected and the phone rang on the other end.
Jacob shrugged. “And I’ll be forced to tell Maclaren De Jager, your sponsor, my uncle, how his prized scientist—that would be you—refused to assist his prized nephew—that would be me—in his efforts to find an antidote to the worldwide killer cicada horror show.”
Keiko hung up the phone. “You know Maclaren?”
“Intimately. And I see you two are on a first name basis. Even so, I assure you his loyalty lies with family—if you get my meaning.”
“I’m calling him.” Keiko knew Maclaren De Jager didn’t like to speak in English much, on the phone or in person, just as she hadn’t when she first arrived in America. But it pained her that this great man, one she could almost call a friend, was still embarrassed, despite successes in petroleum, then bioengineering by the thick, and in his words, impenetrable, Afrikaans accent he’d never been able to lose. She cherished the conversations that often strayed from bioengineering to their personal lives, and the mutual trust those conversations built. More than once Maclaren shared his remorse that despite being as rich as Croesus, he hadn’t been able to save his wife from ovarian cancer. And Keiko remembered telling Maclaren about the emotionally disconnected relationships she had with her parents—how that longing to be loved was the engine that drove her to excel in everything she did. Keiko suspected Maclaren’s comfort with her was because she too had an accent she’d not been able to shake, although she’d long since moved past worrying about it, and had found picking up the American vernacular and a bit of American boldness and sass—and admittedly a strange fascination with heavy metal music—not to be a problem at all.
