The Drowned: Deluge Book 1: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Story) Read online

  The

  DROWNED

  Deluge Series

  Book 1

  By

  Kevin Partner

  Mike Kraus

  © 2020 Muonic Press Inc

  www.muonic.com

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  [email protected]

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  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, without the permission in writing from the author.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

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  Special Thanks

  Special thanks to my awesome beta team, without whom this book wouldn’t be nearly as great.

  Thank you!

  DELUGE Book 2

  Available Here

  Prologue

  Day 1: Ventura, CA.

  The horizon moved.

  Bobby shaded his eyes and searched for a point of reference. The sea looked flat and benign, but unless it was an optical illusion, the point where it met the sky was higher than it should be, as if some invisible hand had lifted the seabed.

  “What is it, Papa?”

  “I don’t know, princesa.” He tried to sound reassuring, but the hairs on the back of his neck were standing at attention, his mouth wide open as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. They were at the very end of the pier, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. They’d come here dozens of times on sunny days like this, but he somehow knew this would be their last visit.

  He looked down at his daughter as she gazed out to sea. An eight-year-old innocent he would protect with his life. Maria was his princess, the apple of his eye, and the only link he had to the woman he’d hoped to spend the rest of his life with. Like her mother in some ways, but unmistakably his, she reminded him always of a future that would never happen.

  He jumped as the cell phone vibrated against his leg. He pulled it out of the pocket of his shorts, hardly noticing as the kids who’d been dangling crabbing lines over the side of the pier began murmuring to each other nervously, pointing out to sea. Maria wrapped her arms around his other leg.

  It was Carl, his best friend. “Bobby. Tell me you’re not at the beach?”

  “We’re on Ventura Pier,” he said, in a flat, otherworldly tone. He couldn’t doubt it anymore, something devastating was about to happen, but he stood like a rabbit caught in the headlights and stared out to sea. Nearer to the shore, choppy waves reared up like mini-tsunamis as the wind blew salt into his nose, its sharp tang snapping him out of whatever was paralyzing him.

  The voice on the phone yelled, “Oh my God. Run, Bobby. RUN!”

  Bobby took hold of Maria’s hand as a siren sounded and feet began pounding along the old wooden boards, voices echoing the warning cries of the gulls above them, quarrelling momentarily before heading out to sea. He ran toward shore, keeping his gaze on where the pier met the beach as it bounced up and down in his vision, barely creeping closer as he ran.

  He pushed past an old man, sending him sprawling, then turned to help, but froze as his eyes tried to find the horizon. It was high, far too high. He helped the old man to his feet, picked up Maria, and ran. Suddenly the warmth on his back disappeared, as if the setting sun had gone behind a cloud. And yet the day was cloudless.

  He ran through the open iron gates that said Welcome Ventura Pier as sirens wailed on the freeway. Beyond them, he saw the hills beckoning, but surely out of reach.

  Something heavy knocked him from his feet and he let go of Maria, who rolled into the melee of people running from two restaurants at the end of the boardwalk.

  “Papa!” she cried, as he forced himself to his feet. The man who’d collided with him was trying to apologize, as if unaware of the approaching tidal wave.

  Bobby ignored him, grabbed Maria by the arm and pulled her upright, then looked again at the horizon. It was so hard to judge distance with no point of reference, but he guessed the pier would be underwater in seconds.

  Now, where to go? Back to his car? The hills beckoned, and the car was the obvious way to get there. But one glance at the chaos on the road above told him they wouldn’t get out of the parking lot.

  Most people were turning left toward the Crown Plaza hotel, but that meant running along the boardwalk and he didn’t think they’d reach the hotel before the sea engulfed them. Besides, he wasn’t sure the building was tall enough. So, he took a right, running past the parking lot, darting through the cars queuing to get out. Horns blared, and people shouted at each other. Two were brandishing guns. There was no sign of the police, but still sirens wailed from the road above.

  Screams! Screams all around as darkness fell, and he looked over his shoulder at the mountain of water descending.

  It wasn’t like in the movies. There was no crest, just an incline that seemed to have no ending.

  He ran onto the freeway, aiming for the highest thing he could reach. It was pitiful, just a pedestrian walkway over the road, but thirty feet was better than nothing. He ignored the slicing pain in his lungs, the cramps building in his legs, the cries of protest from his daughter that he was running too fast.

  Again, he swept her into his arms. Again, he glanced at the incoming tide. He couldn’t see the pier anymore. People threw open car doors and climbed out, shouting, asking questions, but he shoved them aside as he reached the concrete ramp, forcing his legs to keep moving.

  The water caught them as they were halfway across the footbridge over the freeway.

  Below, cars banged together, lifted by the sea. He ignored the desperate screams. He didn’t see the people clinging to the roofs of their vehicles. He didn’t see them tumble into the water.

  All he could see was flowing death. All he could think of was keeping his daughter alive because without her, his life was meaningless.

  “Papa!”

  It took his feet out from under him, and he wrapped both arms around Maria as seawater flooded his nose. He forced his head to the surface, and they were swept along the narrow concrete walkway, skin tearing on the rough walls. He shut his eyes tight, the only sound the dull rumble of the water and the distant thudding of collisions
all around him. All the while he held his daughter up. All the while the ocean tried to drag him down.

  And then it spat them out of the end of the footbridge like a chute and into another parking lot. He found he could stand again as water flowed around him.

  “Are you okay?” he shouted, holding Maria at arm’s length.

  She opened her brown eyes as he pushed the hair away. “No, Papá.”

  He took that as an affirmative and pulled her past the cars as the ocean continued to push against the back of his legs, rising now to his knees. He looked behind him and it seemed like the earth was sinking rather than the sea rising. Cars floated, colliding with chunks of wood and metal and, among them all, people. Some still alive, others obviously dead. And looking beyond, the inexorable tide came in.

  He turned away and looked for hope. Two- and three-story buildings surrounded the parking lot. Not nearly high enough, and he doubted they’d survive the onslaught of the water in any case. They had no choice other than to run as the sea rose inexorably around his knees and he lifted Maria again, clear of the roiling water.

  His only thought was to keep the rising sea behind him, but it quickly became obvious that it was spreading through the city streets, outflanking him until it would cut him off.

  But still he waded through the water’s chill grip and prayed it would relent. Ahead, he could see that the road climbed as it ran between two rows of palm trees. The water became shallower, and then, at last, he was on dry land again, though one glance behind showed him it wouldn’t be for long. As far as he could see, the ocean rose in a shallow gradient until it merged with the darkening sky. He paused for a moment, drawing in deep breaths as his legs shook. His jeans were covered in oily green and brown slicks, and the tang of fuel mixed with salt tickled the back of his nose.

  People emerged from the buildings on either side of the road. Others leaped out of cars, realizing that they would soon be overwhelmed. Many pointed to the rising tide. Others began running up the hill, hopelessly trying to outpace the water.

  “You’ll have to run,” he said to Maria as he put her down. “I can’t carry you.”

  She nodded, too shocked to comprehend what was happening.

  They jogged up the incline, passing a row of whitewashed condominiums on one side and wooden-sided ranch houses to the right. Confused people poured onto the street, soon disappearing into the crowds as they ran.

  “What’s happenin’?”

  Bobby pulled his arm from the desperate grasp of a middle-aged woman in a zebra onesie. He pointed at the rising wall of water. “Run!”

  “I cain’t run. Help me, will ya?”

  Shaking his head, Bobby tugged on Maria’s hand. “Sorry. I got my daughter to look after.” Another surge as cool water rose up his legs, and he began wading up the street. “Come on, I’m heading for the hills,” he shouted, glancing back at the woman.

  Lifting Maria again, he forced his aching legs to move as he moaned with the effort of drawing air into his lungs. Then, suddenly, a wave hit him from behind and he was rolling, tumbling through the darkness, eyes shut tight. Something slapped him under the water. Something cold and slimy.

  He broke the surface and brought Maria up and onto his chest. She screamed as he lay on his back, coughing up rancid seawater, thinking of nothing more than keeping them on the surface.

  He felt something rising from beneath and a current lifted them above the waves onto the white metal roof of a car. He sat up, put Maria down beside him and gazed around at the devastation. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but there was no safety out there.

  And so he wasn’t looking as the leaves of a palm swept him into the water.

  “Papa!!”

  He heard her voice rise above the chaos as he breached the surface again, spitting out a toxic mix of seawater and diesel. There she was, flat on the car roof, fingers wrapped around the roof bars. The palm’s trunk was now behind them, but the car was floating free and moving farther out of reach. His vision flashed red as something hit him from behind. His mouth filled with water again, and he screamed in fear and fury, flailing for anything to hold on to. And found what had hit him. It was wood. One of the timbers that had supported the pier, perhaps? He reached out and grabbed it, keeping his eyes on his daughter as she floated ahead, staring back at him in terror. Between him and her, fifty yards of water filled with floating cars, debris and bodies.

  Bobby hauled himself up onto the pole and stopped kicking, allowing it to carry him along.

  Maria screamed and disappeared.

  “Maria!!”

  He lifted himself up as high as he could, just in time to see the car drop beneath the surface. Where was she?

  “Maria!!”

  How long did he scan the surface, desperately praying to see her burst through? How many times did he cry, “¡Santo Dios!”. How many promises made to God if only he would deliver Maria into his arms again?

  There!

  Maybe fifty yards ahead, she was floating beside a palm tree.

  Face down.

  “Maria!” he screamed, launching himself from the timber post and kicking toward her, tears of grief and terror mixing with the salt water. He tasted oil and spat it out again, arms flailing as, inch by inch, he closed on the palm.

  He lifted her head by the hair, then with a roar, tried heaving her onto the trunk, but she slipped back, unmoving.

  A face appeared out of the water on the other side. It was the woman in the zebra onesie. “Here, I’ll help!” She leaned over, grabbed Maria’s hoodie behind the shoulder and, together, they got her onto the trunk.

  “Maria!” he called. “¡Dios! Maria! Wake up.”

  He lifted the unresponsive girl then, holding onto the trunk with one hand, wrapped his arm around Maria’s chest and heaved.

  Maria convulsed and projectile-vomited filth into the water. She made a noise like a broken vacuum cleaner as she drew in a breath before collapsing onto the trunk, gagging and coughing.

  “Thank God,” Bobby said, rubbing her back as the convulsions subsided.

  Glancing around, he could see that the wave front was now a couple hundred yards ahead of them. He watched it engulf house after house, heading inexorably inland. The water was full of bodies. Survivors clung to anything that floated, and the plaintive cries of separated families rose above the crunching and tearing of a city being torn apart.

  He turned again to look behind. Still the sea rose, but the sky had now darkened enough that he couldn’t guess where the water ended. And he couldn’t imagine where it was coming from. He wasn’t an especially religious man, but as he floated in the wreck, just a piece of flotsam on the incoming tide, he allowed himself to wonder whether God had broken his promise never to unleash a global flood again.

  By the time they ran aground, six of them had used that tree as a raft. Bobby got to his feet and grabbed a shivering Maria. He pulled her close, then looked up. They’d come to a stop at the foot of a steep driveway that ran up to a tall white-wood house with the stars and stripes hanging defiantly from a flagpole.

  “Hey, you folks. Come this way!”

  An old man in a white Stetson waved at them from the top of the drive. Bobby, with a last look at the still rising sea, and with Maria clinging to him, followed his lead.

  The old man gestured at an open gate that opened onto a path cut into the cliff-face immediately behind the house. “That takes you up to Grant Park. I can’t imagine the water will reach us there. If it does, then may God have mercy on our souls.”

  Bobby thanked him, and went through the door, holding out a hand to help the woman in the soaked zebra onesie. He heard the old man calling to others to follow them quickly, but then focused on forcing his exhausted legs to climb up the steep path through the cliff before emerging into the verdant greens and yellows of a paradise on Earth.

  “Can we rest here? Just for a spell,” the woman said.

  Bobby nodded, then went to put Maria down, when h
e saw the old man emerge from the cutting, tears streaming down his face. “It’s all gone,” he said. “I’ve lived in that house all my life, and now it’s underwater.”

  Beyond him, Bobby could hear a gurgling sound.

  “Come on,” he said to the zebra woman. “We gotta keep climbing.”

  And still the tide came in.

  #

  Two thousand miles away and a thousand feet higher, a man came in from feeding the chickens and settled at his desk. He lifted the clipboard and scanned down the list of supplies, trying to take some satisfaction from the fact that at least he’d had time to prepare for disaster.

  He switched on his equipment and checked the readings from the buoys on the eastern seaboard. His mouth remained open as he looked twice, three times at the figures. It was worse than even he could have imagined. Billions would die today. And it was his fault.

  Introduction

  In 2019, scientists from the University of Vermont created the first entirely new life-forms to be derived from living cells: the first “living robots”.

  The team took cells from tadpoles and turned them into a “machine” that can be programmed to perform specific functions. For example, they could be used to transport medicine around a patient’s body or digest plastic floating in the oceans.

  These xenobots are designed using a supercomputer that analyzes thousands of possible designs based on the raw ingredients, simulating the effect of evolution on the organism and working out which designs can perform a useful function.

  Microsurgeons then assemble stem cells according to the chosen design to build a Frankenstein’s monster—an organism created entirely from spare parts. Once the xenobot has been tested, it can then be duplicated. If one of its functions is to reproduce, then it becomes a new independent lifeform, and subject to evolution.