“There’s enough food here to feed an army,” Ewan gasped.

“Or a cruise ship.”

Ewan set off down the nearest aisle, scanning the shelves and their contents. “It’s all food and drink. Dried stuff, tinned stuff. Things that keep. They must have put this here in case of emergency. Vardy was wrong. This level was hardened. It’s a bunker.”

“So where are the people? The survivors? If this is a bunker, why didn’t they use it, for the asteroid?”

Ewan had no answer.

“Ewan, it could take forever to find anything here. You have to get back to the lab, find a knife, or a scalpel. We have to give Jake the drug.”

He nodded and set off at a jog along the tunnel. Lucya returned to the trolley, turned it round, and with Jake balanced precariously on top, began to push it back along the passage towards the lift shaft.

The vibration of the wheels against the grated floor back in the tunnel were enough to wake him. “Lucya?” he asked, dazed.

“Jake! I’m here!” She stopped abruptly, circled the trolley and grabbed his hands. He had one eye open; the other was stuck closed. She could see that he was only partially conscious.

“Second…lab,” he managed to say.

“I know, Jake. We saw the second lab. And we found the food. You did good, Jake, finding all that. You’ve saved us all from starving to death!”

He seemed content to have got his message out, and his head drooped, his eye closing again. Lucya became aware of the sound of feet thundering along the metal floor. She turned to see Ewan charging towards her.

“Here! You were right, I found a scalpel.”

She grabbed the instrument from him. “Okay Jake, nearly there.” Very carefully, she cut a slit into the arm of his wetsuit, taking care to pierce only the rubber and not his skin. She wasn’t entirely successful, and when she peeled back the black neoprene she found she had drawn a little blood. It was deep red, almost black.

“Can you see the vein? Do you know what to do?” Ewan asked, looking on concerned.

“Of course. Didn’t you get basic medical training in the navy?”

Ewan nodded. He didn’t want to admit that he had long since forgotten everything he had been taught on the subject.

Keeping the wetsuit pulled back with one hand, Lucya removed the plastic cap of the syringe’s needle with her teeth. She tapped the exposed skin of Jake’s arm with a free finger, then placed the needle against the light blue vein and pushed. It pierced the skin easily. With a deep breath she pressed in the plunger, sending the milky liquid into his bloodstream.

“There, you’re going to be fine Jake, I promise. This is going to sort you out.”

Twenty-Five

MANDY CHALMERS SAT alone in the darkness. She had returned to cabin 845. It was now devoid of patients. Those who had been brought there previously had been taken to other rooms. 845 had become the nerve centre, the base of operations for the constantly evolving medical team. Hours before, the place had been alive with activity. The five new nurses were in and out, tending to new cases, registering details, installing the sick in whatever rooms they could find.

Now though, the room was silent, deserted.

Three of the five new nurses had themselves gone down with the virus, paralysed and in pain, unable to help anyone, least of all themselves. The other two had found a quiet corner of their own in which to collapse and take a break. What else could they do? There was no medication, no means of assisting the dying. Their last hope had been the promised antiviral, the magical cure that the curious doctor from the submarine had been working on. And now even that ray of hope had died. The medication not only didn’t work, it appeared to be even more deadly than the virus itself.

Mandy wasn’t just hiding out because of exhaustion, although she was certainly tired beyond all measure. Nor was she just hiding away from the noise of the sick and the dying as their doleful cries echoed around the entire deck. Mandy was hiding because of her overwhelming sense of guilt. It was she who had sent the nurse to find Janice and Vardy, to hurry them up, and to suggest Kiera as the ideal test patient. She’d not spent a lot of time with Kiera, but it was enough to know that she liked her. They had chatted a while, sharing stories that only fellow nurses could truly appreciate. After their initially shaky start, the two women had established a firm bond and were looking forward to spending more time together, getting to know each other properly once the virus was beaten. Now Kiera was dead. Killed by the very thing that was supposed to cure her.

As if that wasn’t enough, she had gone and administered the second dose of medication to the nice young man who had been brought in only hours before. He was in the very earliest stages of the illness; only his legs were paralysed. There was no denying that Janice and Vardy had asked her to find a suitable candidate to test the drug on, someone who wasn’t as far gone as Kiera, but it was Mandy who had made the choice. To her, that meant she had as good as killed the man. Soon, she was going to have to go and tell his son that he was dead. The young lad who had come to find her, bright-eyed, fear written across his face. The very thought of it caused Mandy to sob. How many more children were going to lose parents? Would anyone survive, or was this the end? They had survived the asteroid, but it looked like fate had caught up with them, that they were doomed to end their days in the coming hours.

She dried her eyes on the backs of her hands and got to her feet. Wallowing in self-pity wasn’t going to get her far. She needed to find the son, to make sure he was being looked after. There were other children who had alerted her and the other nurses to their parents’ conditions too. Everyone had been so busy running around trying to help the sick that nobody had spared a thought for the kids.

Mandy suddenly became very afraid. Where were these kids? Had they eaten? Slept? Was anyone making sure they were okay? With a knot of fear in her belly, she rushed out of the door and started down the main deck eight passage. She knew who was in all of the rooms immediately surrounding 845, and none of them had children in. She sped down past ten cabins, twenty cabins, and then began to open doors.

“Hello, sorry to disturb you. Have you seen the children?” she asked. The room was occupied by an elderly couple, both in bed, both looking like they didn’t have much longer.

“Who…what children?”

“Any children. Have you seen any children?”

“I…no, I don’t think…no. When will…someone…come? Help…us?”

“I’m sorry,” Mandy said. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. Backing out of the room, she closed the door. She could hear the old lady still talking, pleading for someone to help. Nobody could, of course, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to leave them.

Mandy tried the next room, and the next, working her way along the deck. Some of the bigger state rooms looked more like hospital wards, with rows of the sick and dying lined up on the floors. Every room she tried was occupied, none of them by anyone healthy.

Eventually she reached a wide open area, one of the main staircases on the ship. It was a large space with viewing windows looking out to sea. Easy chairs, comfy sofas, and low tables were scattered around. One of the new nurses, Carrie, was spread out on one of the red leather sofas.

“Oh, Mandy, hey. Sorry, I…I just had to get away for a few minutes,” she said, a look of guilt replacing that of fatigue.

“That’s fine, Carrie, honestly. We all feel the same.”

“It’s no excuse though. I should be doing something.” She started to get up, but Mandy waved her hand.