EDEN Read online

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  28

  The sun glinted off the glassy surface of tower blocks in the financial district, the glittering mirrored towers reflecting the glorious skies behind Cody and the team but marred by ugly black smoke-stained holes where fires had burned within. Long shadows swept across the asphalt ahead of them, cast by the abandoned vehicles and hollow buildings lining the street.

  Cody shuffled along with his wrists bound behind his back, Jake behind him and attached to his cuffs by a length of tough cordage. Each member of the team was likewise bound and joined as they walked miserably through the darkening city streets, their footfalls echoing off the sombre buildings soaring up into the deep blue.

  Their captors guided them between the ranks of abandoned and burned out vehicles. The winter’s rain had already exposed patches of rust on once pristine bodywork, windows shattered and the weed speckled asphalt crunching beneath their feet as they trod on glittering broken glass. Bird droppings splattered everything with splotches of white and bats wheeled and clicked through the evening sky above their heads.

  They walked alongside Boston Common onto Beacon Hill, the fields of crops visible between the trees on the common. The grass and trees blended with the weeds in the sidewalk and road, the evening gloom making the chill in the air seem harsher than it was. Cody caught sight of barricades in side-streets where cars had been upturned to form barriers where families had fought for their lives against looters and murderers, the vehicles scorched by long silenced flames.

  Ahead, Cody could see the Bulfinch Front of the Massachusetts State House. Red brick walls, white colonnades and a vast golden dome glinted in the sunlight as the militia prodded and shoved them toward it.

  A stale, rancid odour of decaying flesh wafted on the breeze as Cody reached the entrance to the building. A curved white wall topped with a black iron fence stood in front of the state house, and from the fence hung dozens of corpses.

  Cody coughed as the stench coated the back of his throat, heard others behind him doing the same. Cruel black ravens balanced on pillars and on bodies, pecking and clawing at flesh exposed red and raw or foraging with beaks into ragged eye sockets. Flies buzzed in lazy clouds around other bodies hanging in tatters from the railings.

  As Cody walked closer he heard a muted chorus of agonised groans and with a shock of loathing he realised that many of the people hanging from the railings were not yet dead. Strapped by their wrists, ankles and waists, they hung in agonisingly contorted positions, their heads dangling and saliva drooling from their parched lips. Blood oozed slowly from open wounds, some already infected with legions of maggots or ripped at by the birds that the victims were too weak to fend off.

  The stench of death and decay became almost overwhelming as Cody fought the urge to vomit.

  Two guards, both wearing kerchiefs pulled tight over their mouths and noses, opened the main gates as Cody’s miserable team trudged toward them. Cody and his companions were forced between the gruesome ranks of dead and dying and up the steps toward the main entrance. Two huge doors awaited them. The two guards jogged up the remainder of the steps and pounded on the doors three times with the butts of their rifles. The sound of heavy locks rumbled through the doors and they creaked open as Cody was shoved through.

  He recalled something about the first hall he encountered being called the Doric Hall.

  Two rows of columns supported a high ceiling. Statues guarded the hall, George Washington among them, and canvases adorned the walls. Opposite Cody was a full length portrait of Abraham Lincoln. Two cannons and a bronze bust of John Hancock stood beneath Lincoln’s sombre gaze.

  Remarkably, none of the artefacts appeared to have been looted or damaged, and for a brief instant Cody hoped that somehow they had found a refuge of the sane within Boston’s crumbling streets. His hopes were dashed as he saw more armed militia standing inside, smoking and watching as Cody and his companions were shoved through the hall and up the steps at the far end.

  Flames flickered and crackled in alcoves where once light bulbs had burned, casting moving shadows and wisps of oily smoke that coiled up toward the ceiling like demons flitting from one shadowy refuge to the next. The guards led them through the Nurse’s Hall and the Hall of Flags, icons of American independence and Bostonian heritage, until they were led into the great hall.

  The hall was long and thin, its once pristine marble floors dusty and scratched. The high walls gave way to an ornate but grubby glass ceiling far above through which the last light of evening glowed. Flames snapped and snarled from trash cans set into deep alcoves in the walls, casting little warmth and illuminating the grim faces of armed militia who watched them as they were led to the far end of the hall.

  There, in a throne-like seat that had no doubt been pilfered from one of the other halls, lounged a man who could have been in his twenties or his forties. In the dim and flickering light it was hard to tell. He watched Cody approach with a stern gaze, like a hawk scanning the ground below for hapless rodents caught in the open.

  Cody felt his wrists yanked as the line was brought up short a few feet from where the man watched them. Cody wondered if the man had crowned himself King of what was left of Boston.

  The man’s head was shaved, but one side of his scalp was rippled with scar tissue like cold suet that made his left eyelid droop. He wore a long leather coat and a grubby white shirt, jeans and black boots. If he was trying to convey a piratical appearance it was working but for the delicate spectacles he wore.

  The man stood up from his ornate seat and walked across. Two inches shorter, he had to look up into Cody’s eyes but Cody felt no comfort in his greater size. The man was enveloped in a potent aura of psychosis, a glitter of radicalism flickering in his eyes like a distant, volatile star. The man briefly looked at Cody’s mouth and then back into his eyes. Cody caught sight of a large, curved sabre stuffed into his belt, the polished blade flashing in the firelight.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said.

  His voice was soft but all the more chilling for it. Cody made a stab at confidence.

  ‘Who are you?’ he demanded.

  The man smiled brightly, white teeth flashing.

  ‘Didn’t you know?’ He leaned closer. ‘I’m the president.’

  A ripple of guttural laughs echoed through the hall from the surrounding militia. Cody glanced at the muscular, heavily armed men. Bikers, convicts, every kind of bad-ass imaginable all crammed into the hall with a group of captive scientists. It was like being the captain of the chess team facing off against the local chapter of the Hell’s Angels.

  Cody swallowed thickly and tried to maintain his composure.

  ‘We’re looking for someone.’

  ‘That so?’ the man uttered, his humour draining away. ‘Well, you’ve found somebody now, haven’t you sunshine?’

  Cody held his ground before the smaller man, who turned away briefly and then spun back. A tightly balled fist ploughed into Cody’s belly like a cannonball. Cody’s eyes bulged and the breath blasted from his lungs as he dropped like a stone onto his knees on the marble floor, heard his own strained gagging echo up through the hall.

  ‘Get your hands off him!’

  Bethany struggled out from behind Cody as he fell. The man looked at her without interest.

  ‘Get back in line,’ he suggested quietly. ‘Or I’ll kill you.’

  The man pulled the blade from his belt. Bethany stood her ground, ignoring the weapon.

  ‘Even on his knees he’s twice the man you are,’ she shot back.

  A flicker of surprise skittered across the man’s features and he burst out laughing. Cody, still on his knees, heard the man walk by and stand in front of Bethany.

  ‘How poetic!’ he uttered. ‘Sawyer is my name. And yours?’

  Bethany remained silent. Sawyer smiled and then turned. Cody felt a surprisingly strong hand haul him upright and he managed to stagger to his feet. Sawyer set him straight, dusted off his jacket and then nodded
in apparent satisfaction.

  ‘There, good as new,’ he chortled. ‘Now, what’s your name?’

  Sawyer’s bizarre mood swings unnerved Cody. It was an unfortunate truth that people were less scared of giant, muscular meatheads than they were of small, unpredictable weirdoes who had no apparent care for consequences. Sawyer looked every inch the kind of man who would welcome you with smiles and hugs one moment and without warning or reason bury his knife into you the next.

  ‘Cody Ryan.’

  Sawyer’s eyes narrowed as he looked Cody up and down. ‘I feel like I know you. You from Boston?’

  Cody swiftly changed the subject. ‘These are my friends. They’re not any threat to you.’

  Sawyer’s jaw fractured into a thin smile.

  ‘Everybody is a threat,’ he replied. ‘Where are you from? We saw your ship arrive in the bay.’

  Cody thought hard before replying. He did not want to let Sawyer know that the captain of the Phoenix was among them.

  ‘The Arctic,’ he replied. ‘We’re all members of a survey team that got stranded up there. We couldn’t get out until the summer thaw. Soon as we could we sailed here.’

  Sawyer whistled, his eyes glittering with delight.

  ‘Well, you’ve all had one hell of a ride then haven’t you? An Arctic winter and now this?’ He spread his hands wide to encompass the room. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’d like to think that we’re not the only Bostonians in this town. We’ve got something in common now, Cody, you and your friends and I. We’re all from this great city. We’re on the same team.’

  Cody glanced at the knuckleheads lingering nearby and forced a grin onto his face.

  ‘Sure we are.’

  Sawyer clapped a hand onto Cody’s shoulder and looked deep into his eyes. ‘We both know that you’re smarter than that, don’t we?’ Cody didn’t reply as Sawyer squeezed his shoulder. ‘We’ve about as much in common as my henchmen have with Albert Einstein.’

  Cody gritted his teeth as he let the thin veil of concord he’d tried to create slip away.

  ‘I think that you’re a lunatic surrounded by lots of other lunatics.’

  Sawyer nodded and clapped Cody’s shoulder again. ‘That’s the spirit. Now, I’ve got something to show you.’

  Sawyer drew back from them and waved his men over. ‘To the senate chamber!’

  The militia hustled Cody and his companions out of the great hall and down a corridor that led to a grand staircase. They climbed upward onto what Cody guessed was the second storey and through an open doorway that led into a large amphitheatre, panelled in mahogany. Cody recognised it as the Senate Chamber. Rows of desks and seats had been removed, probably smashed up for firewood, leaving the chamber floor empty. A raised podium with an elevated seat that had once belonged to the Speaker of the House faced them as they descended into the hall.

  Above, an upper gallery contained more seats and armed militia who looked down upon them as they were shoved into the centre of the chamber. Bizarrely, the Sacred Cod, a symbol of the early importance of the fishing industry to Boston, still hung over the public gallery.

  Around the edge of the amphitheatre were large cages, wire meshed affairs that might once have contained large and dangerous zoo animals. Inside each cage were dozens of people, crammed together in the darkness. In the few moments Cody had to look at them, he guessed that maybe a couple of hundred prisoners languished inside the chamber.

  Sawyer took the Speaker’s seat and gestured to his men. Cody felt the lines connecting him to Bethany and the rest loosened and removed, but his wrists remained cuffed behind his back. They were shuffled into a line before Sawyer, and Cody saw the galleries above fill with more interested militia. He guessed that Sawyer had maybe thirty men under his control. The entire amphitheatre crackled to the sound of flames and flickered with an unearthly light that shimmered off the ornate but crumbling paintwork around them.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Sawyer said grandly. ‘Welcome home. You may have noticed some changes but we hope you like what we’ve done with the place. You may also be aware that there is an extreme shortage of basic necessities. We have water but little food. Therefore, our capacity to support newcomers is, I’m afraid, greatly diminished. To that end we must select carefully who we choose to join our great revival and who we choose to reject.’

  Cody frowned and glanced sideways at Jake.

  ‘He’s lost it,’ Jake whispered from the corner of his mouth.

  Sawyer stood up and gestured to the cages circling the amphitheatre.

  ‘Regrettably, not all citizens are able to join our ranks and instead are forced to become what they probably were all of their miserable lives. Cattle.’

  Cody glanced over his shoulder at the cages. The people inside were emaciated, weakened and slumped against the walls of their cages. Soft moans and shuffles permeated the silence until Sawyer’s voice echoed through the amphitheatre once more.

  ‘Some things never change,’ he uttered in a mock-sombre voice. ‘But, alas, in their final act they give us a greater gift, that of sustenance for the stronger few.’

  Cody felt his guts plunge as he realised what Sawyer was saying.

  ‘They’re food?’ Charlotte shrieked in horror.

  Sawyer smiled and patted his belly. ‘Needs must, and what good are they dead? If they’re going to expire we might as well make use of them.’ He reached in beneath his leather coat and pulled out a pistol. ‘Now, which ones of you would be best cooked?’

  Cody shook his head. ‘You’ve got it all the wrong way around. You’ve got a workforce here, manpower. You put them to work growing food then you wouldn’t have shortages.’

  Sawyer grinned. ‘One step ahead of you, my friend. Our workforce tends fields inside Boston Common. Unfortunately for us many of Boston’s less civilised citizens often try to steal and plunder our hard-earned sustenance, so we have to shoot them. Then, some bright spark asked whether we shouldn’t eat them too? Who’d have thought it? So we ended up shooting them and then eating them. Two birds, one stone.’

  ‘And what happens when there’s nobody left?’ Jake challenged Sawyer. ‘You gonna eat yourself?’

  Sawyer stepped up close to Jake. ‘No,’ he whispered. Cody saw Sawyer glance at Jake’s mouth. ‘We’ll just follow the herd, like lions on the African plains. There are millions of people out there, scattered and wandering, too damned stupid to look after themselves.’ Sawyer looked at the rest of the group. ‘What you see here is an emergency reserve. We’re not animals or barbarians. We fish and we grow what we can, though that’s not been much what with the winter and all. But when times get hard, what else are we to do?’

  Sawyer returned to Cody.

  ‘Now, you’re a smart man Mister Ryan, I can tell that. You’re a scientist, right?’

  ‘MIT,’ Cody replied.

  ‘Good,’ Sawyer murmured. ‘So, Mister MIT scientist, you can tell me where your safe haven is and why you’ve come from there to here in your ship.’

  Cody swallowed thickly. ‘We didn’t come from a safe haven.’

  ‘Really?’ Sawyer sneered. ‘All of you, well fed and fit, leaping around in Boston having come here in a big pretty ship? You want me to believe that you’re not hiding something from me? You mean you can’t even tell me and my boys here where the hell the big suits went before anarchy kicked off?’

  Cody blinked. ‘Big suits?’

  ‘The politicians!’ Sawyer shouted in praise as he lifted his arms up toward the senate ceiling, his voice echoing. ‘Our beloved leaders who fled just hours before our wonderful world came tumbling down. Those hallowed men who left us to face the Great Darkness alone.’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Cody replied.

  Sawyer looked at him pityingly. ‘You don’t know?’

  Hank Mears spoke for the first time.

  ‘We had the same idea,’ he said. ‘But so far we’ve not found anything to suggest where they might have gone.’

&nb
sp; Sawyer looked at the big man with interest. ‘How would you have known, if you were stuck up in the Arctic?’

  ‘We had the Internet,’ Jake replied, ‘and a military airfield close by. The troops ducked out a few hours before the storm hit, left us there much like the politicians left the rest of the world behind.’

  Sawyer appeared to lose his psychotic aura for a moment. ‘What storm?’

  ‘You didn’t know?’ Cody asked in amazement.

  ‘Do I sound like I know?!’ Sawyer raged, the pistol thumping up against Cody’s head.

  Bethany stepped forward. ‘A solar storm,’ she said, ‘the biggest in recorded history. It shorted the power grids of every industrialised nation, stopped the power. Everything fell apart after that because the damage was so widespread there was no way to fix everything fast enough to prevent total collapse.’

  Sawyer lowered the pistol, stared at Bethany. ‘Every nation? You mean the whole world?’

  ‘There’s nothing left, anywhere,’ Bethany confirmed. ‘Apart from this supposed safe haven that people keep talking about, if you believe in it. Eden.’

  Cody saw something flicker like a lost shadow behind Sawyer’s eyes, a hint of regret and dismay at the scale of mankind’s downfall. For a brief moment the psychotic leader was gone and was replaced by a small and broken man.

  ‘The military left before the storm?’ Sawyer echoed her comment as he turned away thoughtfully. ‘So they must have known.’

  ‘They knew,’ Hank Mears nodded. ‘Question is: what did they do about it, and where?’

  ‘There were no warnings here in Boston?’ Charlotte asked Sawyer. ‘No attempt to let the people know?’

  Sawyer shook his head. ‘We just woke up in the morning and there was nothing. Only thing I remember is seeing news reports about bright aurora over Mexico. Boston was covered by heavy cloud, so we didn’t see much of anything.’

  Cody stepped forward. ‘We’re all in the same boat here, and our country had emancipation for a reason. Starting anew with slaves isn’t going to work because it didn’t work before.’