Burnt Sea: A Seabound Prequel (Seabound Chronicles Book 0) (2 page)

It hadn’t been so bad when they’d first had kids. They were constantly
exhausted, but they had marveled together at their daughters: tiny noses, tiny
fingers, tiny dresses—at least until Esther got old enough to choose her
own clothes. It had only been in the last year or two that they started having
problems communicating. The stresses in their lives had piled up exponentially.

Simon had failed his first attempt to get tenure when
they
lived back East. That’s when their troubles really
started. It had been such a blow, a betrayal, and it had sent him spiraling
into a six-month depression. Nina thought moving to California would be the
breath of fresh air they needed, and in some ways she was right. With the
change of scenery and pace, he’d managed to pull out of the nosedive. He
enjoyed his new job. He liked being able to walk down to the San Diego harbor
from their little house. He’d even planted a garden.

But he’d be up for tenure again soon. It was an exhausting, emotional
process, and he was terrified he would fail again. Nina would have to take up
the slack for him—living in California was expensive after all. He hated
the feeling of impotence that came while he waited for academic review after
review, not sure that he’d come out the other end with a stable job and better
salary. Somehow he felt further from his goal after every publication. The very
real possibility that he’d have to start all over again loomed. It didn’t help
that the history department chairman had his own brand of review and liked to
test exactly how far he could push tenure candidates before they’d snap.

“Daddy?” Esther said, tapping Simon on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry, button. What did you say?”

“If we’re not going to drive, can I get another Pop-Tart?”

Simon glanced at his daughter’s wide brown eyes. She had a smudge on
her forehead like an extra quirked eyebrow. Why couldn’t he just enjoy moments
like this? He missed the days when the girls were younger, when they would
dance on the carpet in socks with Nina and then sneak up behind him and shock
him with the static. All he had to do was gasp theatrically to send them
shrieking and laughing around the house. Why couldn’t he make everyone happy so
easily? He needed a shock now. He needed to break away from this endless
treadmill of worry and inadequacy.

“I have a better idea,” he said. “Let’s go for a walk by the harbor.
I’ll buy you an apple pastry.” They were going to be late anyway. And Nina was
right: he shouldn’t have to hop whenever
Morty
said
rabbit. Simon reached into his pocket and turned off his cell phone.

A few minutes later they were strolling toward North Harbor Drive.
Gulls sang in the air. Car horns squawked in unison. Morning rush hour was in
full swing. Simon and Esther waited for the traffic light and then crossed the
street to the harbor front. He bought apple pastries from their favorite stand
on the corner. Dockworkers and tourists lined up together for the steaming,
sweet pockets. The smell of cinnamon hung in the salt breeze.

“You heard what I heard about the earthquakes, Ed?” The pastry man
chatted with a regular as he scooped the pastries into paper wrappers and
sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top.

“Aftershocks?” said the man leaning against the cart, licking syrup off
his fingers.

“
Naw
, more than that,” the pastry man said. “I
ain’t
felt any aftershocks. ’
Parently
there’s something going on up in Wyoming.”

“Nothing goes on in Wyoming.” Ed chortled. He had on a faded Mariners
cap, and there was grease under his fingernails.

“I mean at Yellowstone. The geysers up there are acting strange. Old
Faithful himself
ain’t
keepin
’ the faith like he used to. Guy on the radio says
it’s all connected.”

“That right?”

“Only
tellin
’ you what the radio says. Here
you go, little one. Extra cinnamon for you.”

“Thanks!” Esther wrapped her small hands around the crinkly paper.
Simon handed the pastry man a few bills. He was still telling Ed about what the
radio host had said as Simon and Esther walked off toward the waterfront
promenade.

The breeze picked up, sifting the sounds of the busy harbor in to land.
Sunlight bounced off steel and sea. The glassy harbor sparkled, tossing reflections
like confetti. Flat-gray navy ships stalked past sleek white yachts. Lumbering
fishing boats cut momentary tracks through the water as they returned from
their early-morning work. A San Diego Bay tour boat disgorged passengers in
their path.

Simon breathed deeply. He pushed
Morty
and
tenure and expensive dental work out of his head. He wished he and Esther could
play hooky from school every day. This was why they had moved to California.
The sea. The sunshine. The way you could stroll along the harbor even at rush
hour on a Tuesday morning and not feel out of place.

Esther swallowed a huge bite of her pastry. She wore a fuzzy mustache
of cinnamon on her lip. She chattered to Simon about the birthday party she
would be going to at the
Sambergs
’ that weekend.

“Joey says we can win candy in the games. And there will be a real
popcorn machine. In their backyard!”

“That sounds fun,” Simon said. “Is everyone from your class going?”

Esther’s nose twitched. “I guess so.” She took another bite of pastry,
looking pensive.

A thin blond girl, probably around college age, jogged past them. Her
ponytail flipped back and forth like a pendulum.

Esther looked up at Simon, dark eyes solemn. “Daddy, do you think I
look like a boy?”

Simon laughed and patted her right on top of the head. “Of course not.
You always look like Esther. Why?”

“It’s nothing.” Esther kicked the toe of her sneakers against a piece
of gum ground into the pavement. There was a trail of crumbs on her Thomas the
Tank Engine T-shirt.

“Tell me. Did someone say you look like a boy?” Simon pressed.

“Just a girl in my class. She talked about it with her friends. Joey
heard them in art.”

Simon sighed. Kids could be cruel, but he didn’t know they started so
early.

“Don’t listen to them, button.”

“
Namie
says I should wear a dress to the
party ’stead of shorts. She says then no one will call me a boy.”

“You could do that,” Simon said slowly, wishing he knew how to teach
Esther to stand up for herself when he couldn’t even reschedule a meeting with
Morty
without anxiety clutching at his stomach. “Do you
want to wear a dress?”

“No way! I can’t do the three-legged race in a dress!” Esther licked
the apple syrup off her fingers.

Simon laughed again. “Okay then. You should wear shorts. Show those
girls from school that you’re the best three-legged racer ever.”

Esther nodded solemnly. “Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Why aren’t you going to work today? Did someone say something mean
about you?”

“No . . . I’m just a little worried sometimes. I’m afraid I won’t be
good at my job.”

The direction of the wind shifted, carrying an odd smell, like rotting
eggs mixed with burning rubber. Someone must be having car trouble.

“Well, you should show them you’re the best professor-
er
ever.”

“Thanks, button. I’ll try.”

The wind blew harder. Gulls swooped over their heads, screeching as
they flew toward the sea. There seemed to be more than usual, all heading in
the same direction. Strange.

Across the harbor promenade a woman screamed.

Judith

Judith
worked up a satisfying sweat as she ran along the waterfront. She started near
the south end of North Harbor Drive. She watched the ships as she ran, noting
which ones had also been there the previous few days. She always took the same
route.
Fewer distractions that way.

On the opposite side of the harbor, Coronado Island rested between them
and the sea. Judith hadn’t been out there in ages. Maybe she’d have some time
after graduation, depending on when her new job started. She
would
get the job. She’d accept nothing
less of herself.

She passed a dock, where a cruise ship waited like a beached whale. A
couple of passengers lined up at the gangway, suitcases in tow. One woman wore
a flowing peasant skirt and a floppy purple hat. She had long lavender hair.
Another held a mousy little boy tightly by the hand. She handed a piece of
paper to a skinny ticket agent. Two security guards lounged nearby, giving the
suitcases a cursory check before gesturing to the belt of the hulking luggage
scanner.

The promenade was busy for this time of morning. Judith ran briskly
around strolling elderly couples and dockworkers carrying tools and lunch
pails. She passed a man with curly, graying hair and a child in pigtails and a
blue T-shirt. Judith wondered why the girl wasn’t in school.

Judith ran on, breathing rhythmically. She had to wait as the crowd
from a sightseeing tour boat milled around the promenade. She pinched her lips,
irritated at the delay. She bounced up and down to keep her heart rate up until
the crowd cleared.

A strong breeze blew a loose strand of Judith’s hair across her face.
Gulls cried as they sped overhead toward the water. The little crowd in her way
slowed to stare up at the birds.

Tourists.
Just as she was about to
push through them, someone
screamed.

Chapter 2
—The Cloud

Simon

Simon looked around for
whoever had screamed. A man
cursed loudly from the deck of a fishing boat just beyond the promenade rail.
Someone leaned on a car horn, releasing a long, loud blast. The strange smell
in the air was stronger, like a fire started with too much lighter fluid.

Across the promenade, faces turned toward the city. Simon whirled
toward the midsize skyscrapers occupying the waterfront, his senses heightened
and alert. Something was very wrong here.

The sky above the city boiled.
White, gray, blue,
black, even purple.
The clouds expanded outward, oozing above the
buildings and coalescing into one mass. At its heart the cloud grew darker by
the second. But it wasn’t the darkness of a thunderstorm. This cloud was
somehow denser, grainier than if it had been composed of mere water vapor.

“What’s going on?” someone yelled.

“Are we getting bombed?”

“Oh God, is it a nuke?”

“What do we do?”

The cloud began to swallow the tops of the buildings, rolling toward
them like a breaking wave. Sirens wailed across the city. Ash fell from the
cloud like snow. Panicked cries rang out across the harbor front as the cloud
sank lower over the buildings. A man far up the street fell to his knees,
gasping as the ash enveloped him.

“Esther, we need to go right now,” Simon said, grabbing her hand.

The cloud stretched as far as he could see. There was no way to get
back into the city, nowhere to go. Behind them the sea waited.

Esther pointed a sticky finger. Simon looked where she was pointing,
then picked her up and ran.

Judith

An
avalanche of clouds tipped over the nearest buildings, engulfing them one by
one. Judith felt like she’d been extracted from her own body, like there was
some other runner on the boardwalk watching a dark cloud of smoke hurtling
toward her. This couldn’t be real.

The horns from North Harbor Drive became frantic. Tires screeched, and
there was a bang as an SUV tried to force its way through the gridlock. People
jumped out of their cars and ran along the street. A man in a Mariners cap
bumped into
her,
then ran past. He reached the railing
at the edge of the promenade and jumped straight into the harbor. Others simply
stood and stared at the approaching cloud. Ash fell among them and they began
to choke.

Suddenly Judith felt herself snapping back into her body. Her heart
raced, and fear wrapped a fist around her stomach.

People jostled Judith as they ran in both directions, some of them
screaming. A few feet away the man with the little girl scooped his daughter
into his arms. Others stood, as Judith did, and looked about wildly for somewhere
to go. The ground shook then, like a building was being demolished nearby.

The man started to run, carrying the little girl. He moved with more
purpose than many of the others. Not sure what else to do, Judith followed him.
He seemed calmer than some, and he’d be trying to get his daughter to safety.
They bolted along the promenade, back in the direction she’d come from. Should
she return to her apartment? It must already be under the cloud. She wanted
someone official to tell her where to go, like a police officer or a soldier.
The little girl’s pigtails bobbed in front of her. Judith followed them like a
beacon.

They reached the gateway to the cruise ship dock. It still sat there, a
white floating hotel. The security guards and gate agents had disappeared. The
man with the little girl ran toward the ship. Judith followed, along with a
dozen others. The smell of ash grew stronger in the air.

Simon

A
rumbling sound indicated that someone had fired up the engines of the cruise
ship. Simon glimpsed the name
Catalina
emblazoned
on its hull as he took the gangway at a leap. When he reached the deck of the
ship, he looked back. The sky was the
gray of pencil lead
now, the cloud completely obscuring the skyscrapers. The city was being
swallowed. Sirens screamed.

Others ran across the gangway after him, a panicked throng trying to
get as far away from the cloud as possible. A blond girl in running shoes
darted on board, eyes wide in her angular face. A plump woman wearing a cross
necklace dragged three sobbing young boys after her onto the ship.

People on the promenade were falling, clutching at their throats,
choking. The cloud would reach the ship soon.

“Esther, listen to me,” Simon said. He set her down and knelt to see
her face. “You need to go inside and find some stairs. Go as far down into the
bottom of the ship as you can. Try to close the door wherever you are.”

“But Daddy—”

“Everything will be fine, button. You have to go now.”

The ash—Simon was sure that’s what it was—crept closer. He
hated letting Esther out of his sight, but he had to get her away from the poisonous
air. And they needed to move.

“I want Mommy.”

Simon squeezed his eyes shut for a split second. “I’ll call her right
now. Go on. Remember to close the door.”

Esther nodded and darted into the ship around a tall black man wearing
a crew uniform. Simon mashed the power button on his cell phone. Each second it
took to fire up felt like the jab of a switchblade in his stomach.

“Come on, people,” the crewman said. He had a deep smoker’s voice, but
he looked young. “We’re casting off. Hurry.” A middle-aged couple, both wearing
suits and gripping each other’s hands like lifelines, were some of the last to
run on to the ship. The sailor started to crank up the gangway.

“Wait!” A panicked voice reached them. “Please wait!” A heavily
pregnant woman jogged toward them, both hands wrapped around her belly. She was
tall, with bright-red hair and terror in her eyes. She stumbled.

Simon looked back at the door where Esther had disappeared. He wanted
to follow her into the protected depths of the ship, but she was as safe as she
could be right now.

The pregnant woman was sobbing.

“I’ll get her. Wait for us,” Simon said to the sailor.

He ran back onto the dock. The woman had fallen to one knee, her arms
wrapped around her stomach like she was holding a football. Simon grabbed her
arm and helped her stand.

“We need to move,” he said. The woman stared at him wildly, unseeing.
They had to be fast. The ship was going to pull away, and his daughter was
inside. “Let’s go!”

“I’ll help.”

The blond jogger appeared by his side. She took the pregnant woman’s
other arm and helped Simon guide her to the gangway. Still winded from running
to the ship, Simon tried not to breathe too much as the ash cloud neared.

“Hurry! We’re moving. I can’t stop it,” the sailor shouted, but he
didn’t raise the gangway.

The ship started to creep away from the dock. The gangway scraped along
the pavement, getting closer to the edge. In seconds it would pull away from
the dock completely. Their chance to escape was slipping away.

The trio wasn’t walking fast enough. Simon made eye contact with the
jogger. It was now or never. They lifted the pregnant woman between them,
almost dragging her across the pavement.

Almost there.
A gap appeared between the
gangway and the dock. They were too late! The gap widened. His daughter was on
that ship!

“Jump!” Simon gasped.

The jogger didn’t hesitate. They jumped, hoisting the pregnant woman
between them. The gangway shuddered under their weight as they landed, but it
held. Simon caught a glimpse of the water beneath them, dark in the shadow of
the ship. It was at least forty feet down. That would be like falling on
concrete.

They scrambled toward the ship, pulling the pregnant woman forward. The
young sailor reached out both hands and lifted her onto the deck. Simon and the
jogger followed. The gap between the ship and the dock widened.

People further back on the dock screamed for the ship to stop, but it
was too far away now. There was no turning back.

Judith

As
Judith darted from the gangway to the deck, there was a crash. The ship
shuddered violently, tossing her off balance. The man grabbed her arm to keep
her from falling. She started to thank him, but he was already helping a tall
black sailor lower the pregnant woman onto the deck.

The sailor swore liberally. “Something hit us. I need to check the
hull.”

A plump woman wearing a cat angel shirt and a cross necklace rushed
forward. She had been huddling just inside the ship with three towheaded boys.

“Let me help. Honey, just
breathe
. How far
along are you?”

The man nodded gratefully and pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. He
pressed it to his ear like he was staunching a wound and turned to stare at the
clouds consuming the city behind them.

“Eight months,” the pregnant woman said, her eyes the size of dinner
plates. “What’s happening?”

“Never mind that now. Breathe in. Breathe out. The
Lord’ll
watch over us.”

An older woman with lavender hair and a floppy hat joined the plump
lady, trying to calm the pregnant woman. She brushed the sweaty hair off the
woman’s forehead with tiny hands.

Judith stood frozen beside them, not sure what to do. They were on the
promenade deck right beside the ship’s entrance. A gleaming rail ran along the
edge of the ship, with a gap for the gangway. A doorway led inside, where there
was some sort of check-in area. Dozens of people crowded in the entryway,
sobbing, calling out names, and tapping cell phones. A few stared at nothing,
in shock. No one seemed to be in charge.

The ship shuddered. They were moving faster. The pregnant woman whimpered
and gasped.

“There, there,” said the woman with the lavender hair. “You’re safe
here, sweetheart. Just breathe.”

The lady with the cross necklace had both hands pressed against the
woman’s stomach, feeling it carefully. She seemed to have things under control,
so Judith hurried along the railing toward the bow. There was a wider deck
there with an unobstructed view of San Diego. She had to see.

The gray cloud stretched across the sky for miles, bearing down on the
city with the weight of Mount Everest. It had become noticeably darker. The
cloud ate up the sun, the buildings. They were close enough to the dock to hear
people screaming and choking. Some jumped into the harbor to swim.

Boats sprang into motion around them, some sailing erratically, others
speeding north. Their ship was heading north too, groaning forward, picking up
speed. They sailed parallel to the shore, the ash cloud growing ever closer.

Judith ran to the other side of the ship, across the narrow bow. She
realized why they weren’t heading straight out to sea. The harbor curved inward
along the coast of San Diego like a crooked finger. Coronado Island separated
them from the open sea on the left. They were sailing directly toward Point
Loma at the mouth of the harbor, but they had to stay close to the shore.
Too close.

Up
ahead
boats clogged the harbor mouth,
trying to escape. Ships crashed into each other as they tried to force through
the bottleneck. Metal squealed, and shouts and curses filled the air. A few
smaller vessels managed to break free and speed out to sea. But this cruise
ship was the biggest one around. They’d never make it through.

The wall of cloud neared. Wind whipped across the deck, carrying
shouts, a sulfurous stench, and the first grains of ash.

Simon

Tears
blinded Simon’s eyes as he hit Redial on his phone again. For the tenth time he
heard a blank high note, neither a dial tone nor a busy signal, as if the cell
phone network was screaming under the weight of the cloud.

Oh God, Nina.
He had to get through.

Simon gripped the railing as the ship crawled along the harbor. A
fishing trawler floundered behind them. It had hit the
Catalina
moments ago, causing that shuddering jolt, and now it was
sinking. The fisherman stood on the roof of his cabin, staring up at the shore.

Half the sky was black now. People ran wildly across the harbor front.
As the cloud rolled further across the boardwalk, people fell, choking, sobbing,
unable
to breathe the ash-filled air. The city seemed
to shake under the weight of the cloud. Simon watched the ash crawl closer,
praying that Esther had found the very deepest corner of the ship.

Naomi. Nina.
If they were under that
mass . . . He punched the buttons on his phone again.

The wind picked up. It wasn’t the natural landward breeze of a San
Diego morning. It was as if the ash rode on a diabolical wave, pushing the
clean air before it, gobbling up everything in its path. Simon tasted ash, felt
the stinging, glassy grains. He pulled his shirt over his nose and mouth.
Around him others did the same.