Revelations (3 page)

The squall had grown even more furious, whipping between the buildings so violently that it felt like multiple pairs of hands trying to push Emily over. She felt a sense of dread begin to permeate through the layers of clothing and chill her bones. If the red storm, which seemed to have slowed to a stop at the edge of the Arctic Circle, was once again pushing in on this tiny island, then there was nowhere left for them to run to. The effect of the cold on the creatures she had crossed paths with had been obvious: They either died or fell into some kind of hibernation, but she had no idea if the storm would be affected in a similar way. Surrounded on all sides now, she and the other survivors would
have
to hunker down here and hope that whatever changes the storm brought with it would at least leave them alive when it passed.
If
it passed.

“Use the guide rope,” Emily yelled to the others, pointing at the thick, red rope strung between the buildings that would ensure they did not stray off track in the blinding snow. Visibility was down to just a few feet. She pulled Rhiannon in front of her and headed in the direction of the main building where Jacob was still waiting, the light from its windows appearing periodically as a faint orange glow through the dense sheets of snow. At least there was no red mixed in with the dove-white flakes.

Even Thor seemed eager to get back inside. He loped on ahead through the storm, pacing impatiently at the entrance to the main building when they finally caught up with him.

Once inside they brushed off the snow and ice that had collected on their shoulders and around the hood of their parkas, allowing the warm air to revitalize their chilled skin.

Jacob was waiting for them in his room.

“Hello Captain,” he said, stretching a hand out in greeting. “I hope you’ll excuse me not getting up.”

Constantine gave a good-hearted chuckle and gripped the man’s hand in his own. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Emily told me a lot about you in our radio conversation.”

Jacob shot Emily a sharp look, but a second later the smile was back. “None of it bad, I hope?”

“All good, I can assure you,” the captain said, giving no indication that he was aware of the tension between them, but he quickly eased the subject away from Jacob. “I was just thanking Ms. Bax…Emily for your help, Jacob. My crew and I are indebted to you, more than you could know.”

“Well, I can assure you that your thanks should go entirely to Emily, Captain. She’s the one in command…apparently,” said Jacob with a smile and no hint of sarcasm. Before anyone could reply, Jacob wheeled himself out of the room. “If you’d follow me, please,” he said politely over his shoulder. He led the way to a larger conference room farther along the corridor, and gestured for them to take a seat.

“Can I get you a drink?” he asked, holding up a half-full bottle of whisky.

The captain declined politely.

“So, how can we help you?” Jacob said once they had all taken a seat and he had a half-filled glass of whisky in his hand.

“As I explained to Emily, we had originally
planned on staying submerged for as long as we could, but the fire has basically scuppered that idea,” said the captain. “What we’d like from you is a place for our injured to rest while they recuperate. Only so long as this damn storm lasts, then we can repair our boat. And of course, we would like to make arrangements to deal with our dead.”

“And after that?” Jacob said abruptly, a smile still fixed disarmingly to his face.

“Well, that rather depends on you and how long that storm holds out for. If you’d like to come with us when we leave, we have more than enough bunk space for all of you.”

“And where exactly do you plan on heading?” Emily asked. She tried to hold back the note of uncertainty she felt edging into her voice.

“As soon as we are able we’ll reestablish communication with the nearest naval base and have them send out a rescue vessel.”

Emily felt her heart sink. “Captain, you said you’d maintained radio silence since the red rain fell, right?” He nodded, a question forming on his lips, but Emily ploughed on. “So you have no idea what caused the deaths or how wide spread the devastation is?”

The captain’s questioning look was replaced by one of uncertainty. “We assumed it was some kind of viral outbreak or maybe a highly organized and effective terrorist attack. You have information that would indicate otherwise?”

Emily sighed. In the confusion of the past six-or-so hours, Emily had not even considered the possibility that the British submarine crew would have no inkling of what was really happening in the world left behind after the red rain. And why would they? They had been submerged since the rain fell and maintaining radio silence. There was no way they could know.

“You’d better have that drink, Captain,” Emily said. “Because I’ve got a hell of a story to tell you.”

Captain Constantine sat in a chair and listened as Emily spoke, his chin resting on the interlaced fingers of his hands, eyes never leaving Emily for an instant, never interrupting her as she recounted the harrowing details of the events leading up to and during her trip. She chose to leave out Jacob’s outright deception (although she was tempted not to) and skipped over the more painful parts of the story after she met Rhiannon and her family; there was no need to stress the poor kid out.

When she was done, Constantine continued to stare at her, a look of wariness behind his steel-gray eyes. Understandable, she supposed as she returned his stare; Emily knew he probably possessed a highly tuned bullshit detector after years of navy service, but he must also be a highly intelligent pragmatist to have achieved the position of Captain of a nuclear submarine. It wasn’t like they handed out those positions to just anyone, after all. Still, his inscrutable gaze made her uneasy.

“You know,” he said, finally unfurling his fingers from beneath his chin. “I think I will have that drink after all.”

Jacob poured two fingers of whisky into a glass and handed it to Constantine. The captain downed the whisky in one go and set the glass aside, smacking his lips in appreciation.

“I hope you will forgive my bluntness, Emily,” the captain said, “but apart from your own eyewitness account, do you have any other proof—not that I am questioning your honesty, of course—but do you have any physical evidence to back up your account. Photos maybe?”

Not for the first time since leaving Manhattan did Emily give herself a mental kick in the ass for not thinking to take her camera. She had left it behind with almost everything else she owned in her apartment, an unforgivable sin for any journalist, but all the more so considering the incredible sights she had witnessed. There had been mitigating circumstances of course; like trying to escape from a city whose population had turned into an alien menace, but still. A couple of pictures of the aliens or even some video footage would have made explaining what had happened so much easier.

“No, nothing tangible that I can give to you or show you. Not unless you’re willing to travel back to Fairbanks with me at some point.”

Rhiannon had taken the seat next to Emily, sitting quietly while the adults talked. “Emily wouldn’t lie,” she said, suddenly interrupting. “I saw the monsters too. They murdered my daddy…” Her cheeks flushed almost as scarlet as the storm clouds surrounding their tiny island, her bottom lip quivering as she struggled to find the words, “…and my baby brother. They would have killed me too if Emily and Thor hadn’t saved me.”

Rhiannon’s voice trailed off when Emily laid a comforting hand on the girl’s arm. “It’s okay,” Emily said, smiling reassuringly. Rhiannon leaned in closer to Emily, a trickle of tears moist against her cheeks. Emily glanced at Jacob for some support of her story.

“Perhaps if we can get in touch with Commander Mulligan, she could at least tell you what she saw,” Jacob said.

“Commander Mulligan? Is she a member of your military?”

“She’s a Brit, like you,” said Emily.

“Oh!” said the captain, suddenly brightening, “You mean
that
Commander Mulligan, of the International Space Station fame? You’ve been in contact with her?”

All contact had been lost with the commander of the ISS and her crew, a consequence of the wild electromagnetic activity created by the huge storm that had blanketed North America, and Emily explained this to the captain.

“She’d be able to confirm what
she
saw on the first day, but not what I saw.” Emily leaned toward the sub commander. “Captain, I’ve gone through this experience once already with Simon, Rhiannon’s father; our lack of knowledge of just how dangerous the world had become cost him and his son their lives. I understand that you have a crew to worry about, but I have nothing to gain by lying to you—this is no longer our planet, and the sooner both you and your crew come to terms with that fact, the longer we all will live.”

“She’s telling the truth,” insisted Rhiannon.

Jacob nodded his agreement as he sipped from his glass.

“I believe you, Emily. At least, I believe that you believe what you saw was real. And, given the lack of evidence to the contrary, I think it would be foolish of me not to assume that you know what you’re talking about. But surely there could be other reasons. I mean, aliens?”

“Of course there
could
be other explanations,” said Jacob, finally coming to Emily’s defense. “It’s
possible
that the creatures Emily encountered were the result of some genetic experiment gone awry. It’s
possible
that the red rain and the storm are both just some natural beat within the ecosystem or some geological event. But Occam’s razor favors Emily’s account; the simplest answer is probably the correct one. Factor in that she is the only person we are aware of to have come into direct contact with the red rain and lived to talk about it, then logic seems, at least to me, to dictate that she is telling the truth. In short, listen to what she’s telling you, Captain.”

Constantine now regarded all three individuals sitting in front of him with a laser-sharp focus, his eyes moving from person to person, lingering momentarily as he considered them with an air of quiet intensity.

Eventually, he simply nodded. “If you will excuse me,” he said, standing and offering Jacob his hand again, “I have dead I need to bury.”

Given their circumstances and the storm that now lurked menacingly on the horizon, Captain Constantine eschewed the traditional burial at sea for his men. Instead, they chose a spot at the easternmost tip of the island. Four graves, shallow given the toughness of the frozen ground, lay in a row before the gathered mourners, each marked with a rough headstone denoting the name, rank, and date of death of the grave’s new occupant. Even though the wind had quieted somewhat, the temperature was still fifteen below, cold enough to freeze the tears in the mourners’ eyes. The group of crew members and Emily and Rhiannon stood quietly, shuffling from foot to foot to keep warm as Captain Constantine read a brief eulogy for each of the dead men; then, in his deep baritone, he read from a small, well-thumbed book of poetry clasped awkwardly in his gloved hands.

When he was finished he closed the book and slipped it back into his winter coat. Without another word, chilled and with a tangible sense of depression clinging to the air, the group left the dead to their new home and crunched their way back to the station.

“Knock, knock.”

Captain Constantine and Jimmy MacAlister glanced up from their conversation to see Emily and Rhiannon standing in the doorway of the makeshift office he had chosen, hidden away at the back of the hospital building. The desk had a collection of maps, a laptop computer, and notebooks brought from the
Vengeance
strewn across it. The captain and MacAlister had been poring over the maps when Emily interrupted them.

She felt her cheeks flush as Jimmy’s face broke into a wide smile when he saw her. “Sorry to disturb you, but do you have a moment, Captain?” she asked.

“Of course, come on in. Excuse the mess.”

“No, thank you,” Emily said to the offer of a chair from MacAlister. “We’re beginning to feel like the proverbial fifth-wheel around here,” she began. “Your crew have been working around the clock over the past forty-eight hours, they look exhausted. There must be something that I can do to help?”

“Me too,” chirped Rhiannon. “I want to help too.”

The captain chuckled. “That’s what I like to see, enthusiasm in the youth of today. Let’s see: Sergeant MacAlister, is there anything that Emily and her young assistant can help with around here?”

“Aye, skipper. I think we have a few job opportunities available,” the soldier said with an even broader smile than usual. “Emily. Rhiannon. If you would like to follow me?” MacAlister escorted Emily and Rhia back up the corridor to the main hospital area.

“This fine gentleman is Amar. He’s in charge of making sure our injured are given the attention they deserve. Amar, meet Emily and Rhiannon. They’ve been kind enough to volunteer their time; do you think you can put them to good use?”

“Hello,” said Amar with a tired smile. He was a tall, good-looking man, no older than Emily and with distinct West Indian features. The medic sounded as exhausted as he looked but he managed to add a smile and a nod.

“I’ll leave you in his capable hands, then,” said MacAlister. He looked as though he was about to add something else, but instead turned and headed back toward the captain’s office.

“Okay ladies, here’s how you can help…”

Over the next few days, Amar taught Emily how to monitor and change the dressings on some of the less severely injured.

The crew was desperately short of medical personnel and Amar quickly began to refer to Emily and Rhiannon as his “Angels.” The sub’s surgeon had been ashore when the rain fell, along with most of the trained nursing staff, so the job of surgeon/chief nurse had fallen to Amar. Until the rain had arrived, he had been a nurse but now found himself the only qualified member of the crew with anything more than general first-aid training. Since the fire he had spent his time supervising the injured while trying to impart as much of his medical ability to the other surviving crew. Now he could at least grab a few hours of welcome sleep while Emily and Rhiannon watched over his patients.

The extra pairs of hands allowed him to direct more time to the three more severely injured members of the crew. Their injuries ranged from second-degree burns to the most severe, a crewman who had fractured his skull during the fire. He’d been in a coma since then.

“All I can do is make him as comfortable as possible,” he told Emily as they stood over the injured man. “If I had access to a hospital or a qualified doctor, he might stand a chance. Here…” his gaze swept around the small room, “there’s little hope he’ll make it.” The frustration Amar felt at not being able to help his colleague was palpable. “Thank God we at least have more morphine available than we need.”

Rhiannon on the other hand quickly became the crew’s surrogate mascot. She spent her time flitting from patient to patient, fetching water and meals for them, and listening intently and with wide eyes to the crew as they spun tails of the exotic-sounding ports of calls they had stopped at during their tour of duty aboard the
Vengeance
. She seemed particularly taken with one of the more badly injured patients named Parsons and would spend hours reading a dog-eared copy of
Alice in Wonderland
aloud, his burned hands unable to turn the pages.

Thor seemed especially happy with all the extra attention he was receiving too. To the extent that Emily had to speak quietly to the captain; his crew was surreptitiously feeding the dog treats and leftovers when she wasn’t looking, and he was starting to put on some extra pounds. The captain would make sure that stopped, he promised her, much to Thor’s chagrin, he was sure.

The only person who didn’t seem happy was Jacob. He was as good as trapped in the other building, the snow too deep for him to make it through in his wheelchair, but Emily got the impression that even if the path had been clear between the two buildings, he would have found some other excuse to stay where he was. The arrival of the crew of the
Vengeance
was a fly in the ointment for whatever plan he had had, she supposed. Her feelings toward him were still a confusion to her, his motivation for bringing her here to this desolate island duplicitous at best, but still, if he hadn’t done what he had done…she didn’t even want to think about what would have happened to her and Rhiannon. Maybe one day, she would be able to forgive him. For now, she kept her distance from him.

The young sailor in the coma died in the middle of the night two days later. Amar discovered him the following morning and they buried him in the cold ground next to his comrades that same day.

His death seemed to hit the crew especially hard, as if their defenses had been down, and Emily felt a distinct numbness begin to settle over them.

And, as she walked with them back to the tiny cluster of buildings, Emily realized she didn’t even know the kid’s name.

“Gregory,” MacAlister had told her bitterly when she asked. “His name was Gregory.”