No Escape by Alex Scarrow

Author:Alex Scarrow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2019-05-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 26

“And…there’s some of it sticking out over there,” said Jake. Leon swung the hose to the left. He aimed the spray of seawater at a thick knuckle of viral growth that must have been missed by last night’s shift or had a huge growth spurt as the shifts changed over. It had meandered nearly a quarter of the way across the gap and was now bending under its own extended weight. As the salt spray speckled the surface, its tough-looking, leathery skin began to crackle and break up like popping candy. The branch began to drool thick strands of gelatinous pink down into the lively waves and froth below. Every now and then, small and startled scuttling creatures tumbled out of the artery along with the slime and plummeted to their death in the sea.

Leon couldn’t help a slight grin of satisfaction as his spray of seawater wore the thick root down and pushed it back to the far side of the bridge within a couple of minutes.

“Come on, it’s my turn now,” said Jake.

Last night’s town hall gathering had ended with a resounding vote to stay put. If the one weapon they had against the virus was salt, then it made sense to stay right where they were, surrounded on all sides by an ocean full of the stuff.

It had been a tense meeting. Some of the residents had raised concerns about the “snow clouds” and “soap bubbles”—the airborne manifestations of the virus that had started appearing more regularly out at sea. But since everyone on the isle was still taking meds twice a week and they had a stockpile that was going to last years, stealthy infection seemed unlikely. A swarming was the main concern, and if they could keep the virus from establishing a bridge to the isle, they were going to be OK.

They had a four-person team working on it all the time now—two to take turns hand-pumping the water into a plastic tank, one to maintain the hand-pumped air pressure, and one to spray. The milder weather was cooling fast, and it looked like a long, hard third winter was on its way. If the virus followed the pattern of the last two, it would lie low and wait it out.

Leon passed the hose, rubbed his frozen pink hands together, then swapped places with Jake. He was now on the pump, pulling and pushing the handle to suck seawater up into the tank; it was backbreaking work.

Adewale was working the other handle, wheezing out a cloud of steamy breath into the cool air, exhausted from the exertion.

“It’s enough now, I think,” he gasped.

Leon looked up. Jake was spraying down the road on the far side to push the viral growths farther back.

Leon nodded and both of them stopped pumping. Finley followed suit and stopped working the foot pump that was maintaining the air pressure.

The hose died in Jake’s hands, and he let out a groan of disappointment. “Crap, I was enjoying that.”

“I didn’t get a turn,” complained Finley.

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