Forecast (24 page)

“We need food now,” Sutcliffe continued. “You said yourself that the air will be contaminated for months, so I hardly see the difference in waiting a few more days.”

“Actually, I’m more concerned about other survivors and God knows what else. At this stage, if there are survivors, they’ll be desperate and dangerous.”

“Someone’s got to do something. We’re all starving and getting weaker by the hour.”

Hennessey nodded understandingly and stood up. “Where will you go?”

“Inland, south probably.”

A silence descended on the room. They each worried for his safety, but they wanted him to go. They wanted him to come back with food. And they trusted that he would. Drinking champagne had exacerbated their hunger and had upset their digestive process, causing heartburn, wind and dehydration. In any case, Sutcliffe felt he had to get out of there before he lost his mind.

“I’ll have the chicken supreme on a thick crust,” Matthews joked in between hiccups.

Sutcliffe smiled, his first in a while. He zipped up his spandex suit. “Any volunteers?”

“Volunteers?” said Faraday.

“Yeah, volunteers. The chances of finding food will increase if two of us go. Trev? How about you?”

It wasn’t really a question, but Gable had an answer. “Well, to be honest –”

“Good, borrow a helmet from someone, get the spare spacesuit from the display cabinet and let’s go.”

Before Gable could air his protest, Matthews was securing an oxygen tank to the torso section on the spacesuit and strapping on the communication equipment. He gave Gable a lecture on how the basic functions of the suit worked and practically forced him into it, fitting his boots, gloves and helmet and tightening all the airlocks until he looked the part.

Sutcliffe collected a can of white paint and took it outside and nobody thought to ask him why. In the lobby, the water had evaporated, the paint had congealed and small cracks had appeared on the surface, like a parched riverbed. It forced him to think what the environment outside was going to be like as he hefted his heavy helmet, then slipped it on over his head.

Gable appeared in the lobby and joined Sutcliffe in the elevator. Sutcliffe stared at the young man for a full minute. A few days before, he had thought his son was alive in that toilet, giving him hope, putting some value back into his life. Instead, it’d been Gable and the first sight of him had broken Sutcliffe’s heart. Things were awfully grim. Keith Burch had a high temperature, nausea and vomiting because his central nervous system was being destroyed by radiation poisoning. Claris Faraday had sunken into a sombre mood and was suffering with extreme fatigue. Simon Matthews was drunk and pissing everyone off. Jen Hennessey had bad stomach cramps. And Martin Sutcliffe was dead.

On the dark horizon, fiery orange light lit up the cyclonic skies; fires that had been going for over a week. What was left to burn? The ghostlike landscape, quaint and desolate, filled Trev Gable with a horrible sense of dread, forcing him to fear what the next few hours held in store for him.

Behind him, ascending the shaft, Sutcliffe found the carcass of a dead rat. Leaning over, he saw its little paw clamped between blocks of concrete. Obviously, it had charged down the shaft with its friends and hadn’t made it into the elevator with the others. He pinched the rat’s tail and pulled it into the air, its foot detaching from its leg.

At the top of the shaft, Gable waited for him. “What’s that?” he asked.

“What does it look like?”

“What will you do with it?”

“What do you think? I’m going to dispose of it, of course.”

Gable nodded, thinking he should try harder not to ask any more stupid questions, though he knew how difficult it was to break habits.

In Sutcliffe’s other hand was the paint he had taken from the White Room and he held it out for Gable. “Here, take this.”

“What for?” asked Gable.

“You’re going to head west. So you don’t lose your way, you’re going to paint the ground, the trees, walls, whatever. Don’t use too much, just enough to keep track of the route you take. You have approximately seven hours of oxygen. Don’t give up too soon and don’t stay out longer than necessary. Remember, it’s essential that we find something to eat and drink and bring it back to the White Room, otherwise we’ll all be dead by next week.”

“You mean…we’re not going together?”

“What would be the point? If we separate, we increase our chances.”

“Which way are you going?”

“East. Now listen, don’t forget we can communicate at any time so if you run into trouble, let me know. Oh, and if you see any survivors, stay clear of them. Desperation can make humans do very bad things.”

“Wait, that’s it?”

“Why, what were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. I’m not good at this sort of thing. I’ve had no training.”

“Nobody’s been trained for this, Trev. Just use your brain, be careful and you’ll be fine.”

Gable put his hands on his hips. Why he had been chosen to go searching for food and nobody else was left only to his speculation. He felt as though he was being victimised. For what? Surviving? Wordlessly, he toddled away, sulking, but Sutcliffe had no spare sympathy for him. Everyone would have to pull their weight sooner or later.

Waiting until Gable disappeared over the crest of the hill, Sutcliffe walked down to the edge of the cliff to dispose of the dead rat. Down at the beach, all the other rats he’d evicted from the White Room were strewn across the dark sand. The coast was infested with burnt vehicles stuck in the sand and the shoreline was littered with the bones of boats. With a delicate underarm throw, the rat cart-wheeled airborne and landed on a section of grey beach next to its kind.

Images of how the bay once looked came into his mind; the rolling dunes descending to a few miles of sandy, tourist
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inhabited beach, caravan parks on the cliffs with stunning ocean views and the surfers playing in the breaking shores. Vivid images of sunny days, clean air and life at an easy pace. His mind snapped back to the present, his eyes on the great Atlantic, now a dark grey, its colour the reflection of the sky. The once sandy shores were glazed over with the fallout of debris and dust. What was once a sound of seagulls crying in the sky and fishing boats chugging in and out of the bay was now just an eerie quiet, the whistle of the cold wind and the ocean slapping the shore the only noise.

About to turn his back on the ruined bay and head inland, suddenly, through the bad light, a shape formed out to sea. He squinted for a better look but his sight failed him. So he followed a pathway down to the beach. At the water’s edge, in the poor light, he saw it was a ship about half a mile out. The stricken vessel had run aground and was listing to one side. The shape of the bow looked like a monument to its own passing, but what could be said of its interior? He had to get out there. Stomping about the sand, head down, he searched for a boat or a raft, eventually finding a barely water
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worthy skiff overturned on the black beach. Digging it out of the sand, flipping it over, he pushed it to the shoreline. Behind him, he found two large pieces of flat wood scattered about the debris that would serve as oars.

Dragging the skiff into the water, he rolled awkwardly onboard and with his back to the ship he made steady strokes. He glided the skiff through the water staring at the bare
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fringed coastline of Britain as it fell away from him and faded. Now and again, he looked over his shoulder to verify his target, the ship gaining size. On the surface of the water, he saw dead fish in their hundreds, in death remaining together in shoals as they had in life.

Forty feet from the ship.

The ship was not a commercial liner but a cruise ship, he was able to determine from its shape and size. Large sections of the monstrous vessel had been pounded with supersonic waves and the scars were apparent.

The skiff was moving sluggishly through the ocean and when Sutcliffe looked down he saw why. At his feet, dark water sloshed around his ankles. The skiff had sprung a leak and was sinking, fast.

Twenty five feet.

As he got closer to the stranded ship, he saw the bulbous bow was riding very low in the water, like the skiff, falling further into the sea.

“Come on you queen bitch!” he muttered.

Sixteen feet.

The skiff inched closer to the bow, inching further beneath the waves pulling it under. I’m not going to make it, he realised. The skiff slowed even more and brushing the oars through the water was having little effect. And there he was again, back fearing death by drowning as he done during the parachute descent.

Twelve feet.

He willed the skiff on, encouraging it, even being polite to it as he spoke in his head, like it was a friend and that politeness would keep it buoyant. The ship didn’t seem to be drawing any nearer and he thought the skiff had stopped altogether. Sutcliffe buried the oars deeper into the water, working harder to keep himself afloat and keep himself alive.

Nine feet.

An outbound wave picked the skiff up a notch, injecting some momentum, but by now he was shin deep in water and the skiff had only seconds left in the world before it sank to the seabed and got to decaying along with the rest of the planet.

Five feet.

The skiff had stopped. Dispirited, angry at himself for letting down his crew, he lifted a foot out of the water and set it down on the edge of the skiff, preparing to jump. The ship was still a good few feet away. Forcing the skiff under with his weight, he sprung forward landing belly first in the water, his hand reaching out for a niche in the ship’s bow. Establishing a grip in the niche, he hauled his tired body out of the water and up onto the bow, turning onto his back. With huge relief, he looked back at his country, worrying how he would ever get back. All that mattered now, though, was the secrets the ship kept. He climbed up the sloped bow to the side of the ship, paced along the wall of the nondescript superstructure and carefully stepped around cabin windows to avoid falling through.

He called Gable. “Trev, how are you going?”

A nervous voice filtered back. “
I haven’t found anything. I’m scared
.”

“You’ll be fine. Keep looking.”

“
I’m trying
.”

“Alright, good lad.”

Almost every cabin Sutcliffe passed was empty, but some of the windows revealed the bodies of dead passengers. Some looked at peace, their bodies shaped in a sleeping position, whereas others were folded in half or twisted like an abandoned ragdoll. At the back of the ship a long, rectangular window provided a view of the restaurant. Sutcliffe got to his knees and peered down through the glass. Half of the restaurant was drowned underwater. Broken chairs and tables, driftwood, equipment and human bodies polluted the floodwater. Chandeliers sat askew by the force of gravity. To the right of the restaurant, high above the water, he saw a horizontal door in the wall, the only door in sight. To the left, the restaurant neighboured an enormous terrace accessible through a row of large doors. Making his way back along the side of the ship, he found a row of trenches where he found inflatable life
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rafts. On the wall hung a laminated poster with clear step
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by
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step instructions for the rafts.

Making two trips, he carried two life
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rafts in their stowage position to the front of the ship sloping down to the water’s edge, detached the operating cord and threw the first life-raft into the water. A mechanical CO2 system inflated the compressed raft in an impressive ten seconds, growing into a boat. It reminded him of Fable
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1, how it had grown into a balloon at each stage of its altitude climb. The eight
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man life
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raft shaped as a chambered tetrahedron included a single flotation tube with a non-inflatable floor. Ballast bags with a retaining line and pocket, a weather shield, a sea anchor and life jackets were also included with the raft. He donned two of the jackets, then tied the securing line to the niche in the ship.

With the second life
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raft, he repeated the steps and another boat grew out of the water. At the forward and aft portions of the life
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rafts, exterior handles made tying the rafts together easy using the securing line from the second raft. The fabric deck of the life
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raft was equipped with an inflatable centre float for additional flotation support. For the extra flotation, he used the hand pump. Then he stepped from the second raft back onto the first raft and untied the securing line from the niche on the ship. Needing equipment to propel the rafts forward, he checked the compartments in the walls. That was where he discovered a large accessory case stocked with sponges, paddles, a first
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aid kit a safety
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knife, a torch, a tin opener, flares, barley sugar, seasickness tablets and fishing gear. There had to be a second accessory case in the second life
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raft also. In addition, he discovered eight insulation blankets packaged in translucent plastic. That made sixteen in total.

Sutcliffe looked up and saw that he’d been set adrift by ocean currents and it presented him with a full view of the ship’s outer hull where he saw a large scar approximately ten feet long. Bent over the water using the paddles like ski poles he rowed the rafts slowly towards the opposite end of the ship, circling around the stern, coming to the row of doors leading into the restaurant. Some doors had broken window panes, others were missing altogether. Guiding the rafts into the restaurant, ducking to avoid the frame, he observed his surroundings. The rafts parted the debris of ruined furniture and dead bloated humans and he stopped at a horizontal support beam blocking his forward path.