BURN - Melt Book 4: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series) Read online

  “I’m Professor Christine Baxter,” she said, her hand outstretched. “I appreciate you doing this.”

  The boat’s captain ignored her and moved to the next person on land. “Remove your heels,” he said, “they could puncture the boat.”

  The woman threw her heels to one side and took the captain’s hand. She launched herself at him, but he must have fended off that move a hundred times. He caught her as if she weighed nothing and swung her into the boat.

  “Life vests are under the seats. Children’s vests are under both the port and starboard beam chairs.” He turned back to the wall where hundreds of people continued to battle for position. “That’s right-middle and left-middle, to those of you new to sailing.”

  Christine ignored the commotion that broke out behind her as her fellow passengers dove for the seats and grabbed at the orange vests. Strong words were spoken, some accompanied by the odd shove, but it simmered down as fast as it had broken out. There were already too many people on the boat. It was a given that there wouldn’t be enough life vests for everyone. The laminated safety notice, zip tied to one of the poles that supported the canopy, indicated that the maximum number of people allowed on board was 12. She’d already counted 15 but the captain was still allowing people to board.

  He wouldn’t take so many that they’d capsize, surely? The guidelines for the number of people allowed on the boat were only guidelines. A bit like the “best by” labels on food. Didn’t mean she couldn’t use the end of the milk, that invariably sat too long in the fridge, because she was single and spent more time at work than she did at home. It only meant she needed to sniff first, then pour.

  The captain would have his own sniff test: be able to see how the boat was sitting in the water, feel the quality of the waves’ motion, know if it was too rough to embark on a journey or add too many more people, that kind of stuff. It was his life at stake too, so he had good reason not to be foolhardy.

  “Sorry,” said the captain, “not you.”

  Finally, some common sense. He’d called a halt to new passengers at 19. Good thing too, because the last passenger who wanted to come onboard was a portly gentleman.

  “Please…” The man on the dock was desperate. As were they all. He sat down on the concrete wall, ready to throw himself down into the boat. That would be a disaster. They couldn’t afford to have larger-than-average people landing heavily. They were already overloaded.

  Christine glared at the man. This was no time for social niceties. She wanted him to understand the depth of her displeasure. An excess of triglycerides in the adipose tissue was not her area of specialization, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that the gentleman now screaming at the captain had failed to comprehend that his genetic, perhaps epigenetic, profile required of him a certain discipline when it came to grazing at the all you can eat buffets that were so popular in Manhattan. Self-discipline was at the core of Christine’s training. Had he been her colleague, she would have gladly drawn up a dietary protocol that would have included calories in and calories out, so that the next time he found himself at the precipice of a disaster, he might not be precluded from rescue because of the excess layers of flab about his middle and rear.

  The captain of the boat was doing a fine job of ignoring the man.

  “My name is Roger Tyan. I’m an analyst at one of the original big five investment banks. I can give you as much money as you want. Just take me. I’ve been here for hours and hours. I keep missing boats and the planes aren’t landing and I haven’t seen a helicopter since I was over at the West Side Heliport.”

  Already the bulk of the crowd had shifted fifty feet down the wall, eager to board the next vessel. Roger was going to be at the end of that line, too, if he didn’t stand up, stop begging, and move on.

  “Sorry,” said the captain. “You’re too heavy.” He pointed to the woman behind him. “You, come aboard.”

  Roger pushed the petite woman away. “That’s not fair. I was next in line. I waited my turn.”

  “It’s her or no one,” said the captain. Even though he was in the boat and therefore at a directional disadvantage—looking up rather than looking down—he was the one in charge. It made Christine glad.

  Not so much the fat man fuming at them from above. Roger flushed dark red, lines appearing around his eyes and mouth as he scrunched them up tight. Christine knew what that meant. He was entering the irrational phase of his fury. She took a step back into the middle of the boat, the better to distance herself from his rage. “Take me or I’ll report you to the authorities.”

  The captain strode down the middle of the boat. The passengers parted to let him through. He moved as if there were no water heaving them up and down, threatening to part them from their lunch. Christine watched Roger, hoping he wouldn’t try anything foolish.

  The woman who’d almost made it onto the boat was screaming and slapping ineffectually at Roger, but Roger held her at bay. “I have the name of your ship. River Journalism Tours will be hearing from me,” he screamed.

  “Report away,” said the captain. “If there’s anyone left to report to.”

  “Your boss will be madder than a hornet in a firestorm when I’m through.”

  “I’m my boss.” The captain eased the throttle forward, steering the boat into the oncoming swell and around the bow of the closest boat. It was going to take forever for them to clear the crush of well-meaning boat owners, all jostling for a place to pull up and play the hero.

  Christine wrapped her arms around the nearest pole and held on tight. She was exhausted. Her hair was stuck to her head, her skin covered in grime, her teeth grungy and gross. She needed a bath and a three-week nap. But before that could happen, she needed to convince the captain to make one more trip. For science. For answers. For the safety of New York City itself.

  The waves, which had seemed so picturesque from land, were interfering with her stomach. She took a deep breath and stepped further down the boat. “I want you to take me back to lower Manhattan.” The engine roared in her ears and she had to shout to get the captain’s attention.

  He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. This was not going to be easy. Here was a man who didn’t suffer fools gladly. He was a service provider in Manhattan. You needed a sound constitution to deal with all the crazies.

  His boat boasted, “Views Unrivaled by Our Rivals” and “Sights for Soaring Eyes.” Weak puns, but did anyone care when they were on vacation? Tourists wanted something original. His boat promised to take them, “where the journalists go when they’re hot for a scoop.” Christine had no idea whether it was true or not. Did journalists really take boats around Manhattan as a way to beat traffic? She filed that in “things I may need to know later” and turned her full attention to the captain. She was going to need to talk fast and bring her most cogent and convincing arguments to bear if she was going to get him to do what she needed him to do.

  “I can pay,” she said, “as much as you like.” She needed him to listen, then act fast. “My name is Professor Christine Baxter. I work for Klean & Pure Industries. I’m the chief science officer. What you’re seeing—the building collapses, the flooding, the fires—is the result of an industrial accident. I can make it right, but I need one thing.” It wasn’t strictly true. She needed more than one thing in the grand scheme, but only one thing from the captain. “I need you to help me find a girl.”

  The captain snorted. “Needle in a haystack. Do you know how many times someone has asked me to be their dedicated one-man search and rescue team today? It’s not possible. This isn’t a taxi service and I don’t do house calls.”

  “I hear you,” said Christine, “but I need you to do me this one favor…”

  “Lady, this is not the time to ask for favors. And if you think we can find a single girl in this mess you’re delusional.”

  Christine looked at the banks of the East River. There were thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of people crammed against
the shoreline screaming and begging for someone to come and rescue them. In true New York fashion there were plenty of people offering to help, but were the boats that inched towards the surging mass of desperation going to be enough? The tone had changed from desperate to dangerous when the bridge collapsed. She looked away. That was their problem to solve, not hers. Hers was far more pressing. She needed to find Angelina. The child was the key to understanding what had gone wrong. She couldn’t let her die in Paul’s arms.

  “I'll give you $5,000. Right now.”

  The captain looked at her full in the face. She did her best not to flinch. “You have $5,000 on you?”

  “No, but you take credit cards.” She tapped the credit card symbol at the bottom of his list of “do’s and don’ts” and pulled out her platinum card.

  The captain laughed. “What’s your upper limit?”

  Christine tried to crunch the numbers as well as evaluate the true value of Patient Zero. How much was it worth to her to find Angelina? Would K&P repay her? Did that matter? What mattered surely were answers.

  The captain laughed again. “That’s what I figured. It’s urgent, but not that urgent. You want to do right, but you’re not all the way in.” He waved at a passing boat. The other captain waved back. They were too close for comfort, but that made sense given the rescue mission that was underway. The ordinary rules of the waterways must have been suspended. Hundreds of boats raced towards the walls that held the water from slopping onto Manhattan’s roads, where thousands of miserable, demoralized, wretched humans raged against their fate.

  “Don’t feel bad,” said the captain. “It’s the way of the world. When we’re under pressure we find out what matters most. In this case, you think you want to find some girl, but it’s not worth a few extra dollars to you.”

  Christine snapped back to the matter at hand. She needed her mind in the boat, not on the shore. “I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars. Cash, if you can wait until we get to a bank. That way, the Internal Revenue Service need not know of the transaction. That makes the payment more valuable than if I had given you a payment via credit card.” She was stating the obvious, but she’d found that was often necessary when dealing with civilians.

  The captain smiled. “I guess she does mean something to you, then.”

  “Is that a yes?” Christine had to suppress a grin. They were still bargaining. He might want her to go higher if she seemed too eager.

  “Before we go any further, tell me what it is we’re going to do. What girl? Where? How long will we need to spend on this search?”

  “She’s in Manhattan with a friend of mine…”

  “Nope. Too vague. I got twenty people here who I’m gonna take to New Jersey. Your friend’s gonna have to wait.”

  “You didn’t let me finish.” Christine got as close to the captain as she could. She really needed him to hear her. “She’s down by the South Street Ferry Terminal. I know precisely where she is. I can even tell you which landmarks to steer by. She’s three bollards from the entrance to the seaport. We can pick her up without having to double back. You don’t even have to go out of your way.”

  “Have you seen how high the waves are down by the terminal?”

  Christine nodded.

  “That’s called the ‘Bathtub Effect.’ The hulls of the ferries are shaped in such a way that they create massive waves that smash up against the walls that surround Manhattan. It’s why you see so few pleasure craft down here. You really have to know what you’re doing or you’re going to get thrown around like a Honda Civic in a hurricane.”

  “This is life and death said Christine. “Not just for you and me, but for many thousands of people.” She tried to imagine what was going on around the site of K&P’s former headquarters, how much damage had already been done, how much was still to come. If they didn’t stop it soon, perhaps all of Midtown would be eaten away. But that was too general, too impersonal. Who cares about some place called “Midtown,” unless they’re unlucky enough to live or work in that concrete and gas-filled prison? She’d been counseled on not merely relying on “the facts as we currently understand them.” The facts had to be linked to a human-interest story. Preferably a human-interest story that involved the listener. “I need to find her in order to stop this catastrophe. Believe me, she’s the clue that binds this mystery together. If we lose her, we’re doomed. You and me and all the people you can see; doomed.” Bit dramatic, but he seemed to respond.

  “Tell you what,” said the captain, “let me take these people to New Jersey and then we’ll come back for your friend. How’d that suit you? I’ll do it for…thirty grand, did you say?”

  Would that work? Would he really come back? Or would he deposit her in New Jersey and then refuse to return to Manhattan? What if things got worse? What if there were more implosions or explosions or collapses? Any number of things could happen between now and then. Paul could move. Angelina could die. She couldn’t risk it.

  “Forty grand,” she said, “if you pick her up now.”

  The captain stared at her for a long time. “Forty, but you need to convince these people that it’s worth their while to make another stop before we go to New Jersey. You convince them and I’ll do it.”

  Christine turned and faced the back of the boat. What a nightmare. There was no way she was ever going to be able to convince a large group of people to do her bidding. She tried recently and failed. Fran, Alice’s excellent assistant, had urged her to address the crowd when they were trapped by the docks in lower Manhattan, but it had done no good. The crowd had continued to riot and act in a manner entirely against their own best interests. She couldn’t let that happen this time. She drew herself up to her full height, took a breath, and donned her most practiced and, she hoped, most winning smile.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The man behind the counter had a gun to the store owner’s head. The old woman who was being held at gunpoint was calm, but things had already escalated if the welt on the side of her face was anything to go by. Barb didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire, but she couldn’t walk on by. She didn’t want someone’s granny to die. The old lady had already been pistol whipped until she bled. She was a foot shorter than the guy robbing her, and twenty or thirty years his senior. What kind of scumbag hits an old lady?

  “Not Getting Involved” was a New York talent Barb hadn’t quite perfected. If she crept away and heard the gunshot and knew she could possibly have saved that life, she would feel bad for all eternity. Her derringer had gotten wet when she was hauling Pete through the sludge and slime of the flooded subway, then helping Alice get Bill out of danger, but guns didn’t need to be dry to work. Her bullets would work just as well as the thief’s.

  On a normal August day, the door to every convenience store would have been closed against the heat, but there was no power and no air conditioning so the door was wide open.

  Advantage Barb.

  She’d promised her new friend, Alice, she’d get supplies so they could hunker down and wait for reinforcements to come save them. She couldn’t let Alice down; she was a basket case, which wasn’t surprising given what had happened to her hubby, Bill.

  Focus. Think about your friends later. Watch the man robbing the store owner. Pick your moment. Take him down.

  It was the hardest thing she ever had to do: focus. Her brain ran on and on, teasing her with shiny-new-glittering-yummy ideas and objects. “New” was always better, even when it turned out not to be better. She’d seen a handful of doctors and more therapists than she could count, but the journaling and talking and introspective exposure made her ADHD and OCD worse, not better. She was supposed to take meds, but they made her groggy and spaced out. Who wants to live like that? She’d made her peace—albeit a frenetic peace—with the way her brain was wired. If God had wanted her another way, He’d have wired her another way.

  Focus. There’s a life in the balance. This is not the time to go off the rails.

  Barb di
dn’t have a clean line of sight and, when last she’d checked, regular bullets weren’t target-seeking. Yet. She’d read about them in one of her online forums. DARPA had them under development. Though that could be misinformation put out by the intelligence services in order to get other governments to spend money developing something that was little more than a pipe dream. Barb was up on her conspiracy theories. That one had the smell of truth to it. Leak information about a big, spendy project and get other (enemy) governments to work on beating you to the punch, especially if it was something as unlikely and expensive as trajectory-bending bullets.

  Focus. If you don’t, it’s: Advantage Thief.

  So far, the thief doesn’t know you’re here. You have the upper hand. Make it work for you, not against you. Don’t screw this one up. Don’t be you, Barb. Be someone else for a change. Be sneaky and cunning and brave. Get in there and get him.

  The thief had his hand in the register, his gun wobbling about as he stuffed money into his jacket. Barb couldn’t fire a warning shot. If he startled, he might accidentally kill the store owner. It would be bad enough to be murdered in your own store, but for reasons Barb couldn’t nail down, far, far worse to be accidentally murdered.