Burnt Sea: A Seabound Prequel (Seabound Chronicles Book 0) Read Online Free PDF Page A

to sea shattered the illusion. The ash rolled above them.
The bomb—or whatever it was—must be enormous. As far as Simon could
see down the coastline, billowing ash spilled over the land in a solid mass.
The thin shirt over his mouth and nose wouldn’t protect him for long.
    Simon waved to the others on the deck, gesturing toward the interior of
the ship. They needed to get inside if they had any hope of surviving this. But
many ignored him, staring numbly at the whirl of destruction that was once
their city.
    Simon edged along the railing and tapped the blond girl in running
shoes on the shoulder. He gestured to his nose covering and pointed to the
ship. She nodded and helped him round up the others, dragging a man in a suit
firmly by the arm when he didn’t respond to her right away. Simon’s eyes stung.
He closed them to slits, and white powder accumulated on his eyelashes like
snowflakes.
    As they reached the nearest door and pounded on it to be let inside,
something changed in the wind. At first it was subtle, but as the door slid
open and the young crewman helped people inside, Simon became more sure . They had sailed into some sort of slipstream, a
current that blew parallel to the coast. It was sweeping the ash in one
direction, but they were sailing away from it. As Simon stepped into the ship,
he looked back. The shoreline, once San Diego, cowered under its noxious cloud,
but the ash went no further than the wind current that was already dusting them
off for their journey out to sea.

 

Chapter 3—The Ship
    Simon

 
    Shell-shocked people filled the entryway of the ship. Some
sat on the floor, huddling against each other like families in a hospital
waiting room. Others stared vacantly, disconnected from reality. A handful of
people had sustained injuries on their run to the ship: scraped knees, twisted
ankles, spreading bruises. Confused passengers asked overloud questions, unable
to figure out how their cruise ship had turned into a bomb shelter. Some had
been inside their staterooms when it happened. They hadn’t even seen the cloud.
    The tall sailor closed the double doors behind Simon and the other
stragglers, sealing them off from the ash, and then darted away to check the
other doors. There was no sign of any other cruise employees. Where were the
officials? The hospitality folks? Where was the captain?
    The survivors reeled, looking for someone to tell them what to do.
Panic rose. An old man began shouting, and his wife hissed at him to be quiet.
A child wailed. Simon was too numb to feel terrified, but his hands shook.
    The group around the pregnant woman was the quietest. The women were
clearly distressed, but they had something tangible to do. Their charge lay on
a couch, breathing too fast and sobbing as the woman with the cross necklace
spoke to her in a soft Southern accent. Her three boys stood back, clutching
each other, and kept their eyes fixed on their mother. She was the calmest
person around as she coaxed the pregnant woman to breathe more slowly. The
others in the group hung on her every word, and it helped. Someone needed to do
the same for everyone else.
    “Excuse me. Can I have your attention please?” Simon said.
    No one looked at him. The panic was reaching a feverish pitch. Children
and adults alike cried in corners, clutching at each other. The pregnant woman
screamed, her breathing becoming more urgent. The sharp smell of blood tinged
the air.
    Voices rattled around the entryway, growing in intensity, bordering on
hysteria.
    “We’ve been nuked!”
    “None of the phones work.”
    “It’s the terrorists!”
    “WE’RE GOING TO DIE!”
    This wasn’t helping. Simon waved his arms, trying to get people’s
attention. “Everyone, we need to calm down and—” No one was listening.
    “I think a power plant exploded.”
    “No way. Had to be the Russians.”
    “Or the Chinese!”
    “I want to go home!”
    Suddenly the blond jogger, who’d stayed close to Simon when