Burnt Sea: A Seabound Prequel (Seabound Chronicles Book 0) by Jordan Rivet Page A

even.
    Nina. Her name beat in his mind
like a drum.
    “Another few minutes in port,” the captain continued, “and the ash
would have clogged up our engines worse than a pound of sand in a gas tank.
Over the next few days it will fall atop buildings and vehicles. Add a bit of
rain, and it will get heavier and heavier, until they collapse under its
weight. Everything close to the eruption will be as flat as Kansas soon.”
    “But we’re in California!”
    “I think he really has lost it.”
    “What do we do now?”
    “Can we get a new captain?”
    “You may do as you like,” the captain said. He didn’t seem to share the
fear and panic that thundered around the plaza. He just sucked on his cigarette
like it was his only source of air. “As I said, we are on course for Hawaii.
Perhaps we’ll reach it. Perhaps we won’t. If that was the Yellowstone supereruption , we won’t have long no matter what we do.”
    Tremors ran through the crowd. Conspiracy . Fear mongering . Lost it. Impossible. Apocalypse.
    Could it be true? Simon remembered what the apple pastry man had said
about the earthquakes. The image of the ash cloud rolling over the city was
forever burned into his memory. The explanation fit, but if it was
true—if the captain was right—God help them all.
    Nina. If the Yellowstone volcano
had erupted, was there any chance at all that she and Naomi had survived? Such
an event could wipe out the entire continent.
    He had to stop this spiral of thoughts. Simon climbed the steps to
where the captain stood. Frank followed him.
    “Sir,” he said. “My name is Simon Harris.”
    The captain shook his hand. His palms were dry as dust.
    Simon spoke quietly so the other people in the plaza couldn’t hear him.
“I’m not sure we should get everyone worried about Yellowstone until we know
for certain. We’ve all seen the documentaries and . . . well . . . I can’t see
people staying calm for long. Has it been confirmed?”
    Captain Martinelli looked him in the eye.
Simon shivered. Emptiness. It was like there was nothing at all behind his
irises.
    “We’ve just been in touch with another ship via radio,” the captain
said. “Cell towers are down all along the West Coast. The ship was just off San
Francisco. Or where San Francisco used to be. They saw it all.”
    Judith stirred nearby, but her severe face stayed still.
    “Are you positive it was Yellowstone? Maybe Mount St. Helens . . .”
Simon felt like he was grasping at straws, looking for anything that could pull
him out of this spiral.
    “The volcano blew,” the captain said. “They’re saying it was the big
one. No one within a hundred-mile radius is talking. At all.” The captain took
a long drag on his cigarette. “The ash has spread across the West and as far
away as Ohio.”
    “When did it happen?”
    “This morning. 7:00 a.m. on the nose.”
    “Why weren’t there warnings?” Judith interjected. “We could have done
something.”
    Her face had gone deathly pale. She must have seen the documentaries
too. The boy in the crew uniform beside her looked equally scared.
    “Like what? Evacuate the entire North American continent? Send everyone
running through Mexico? It was too late. I suppose the government knew they
couldn’t do enough. Perhaps we’ll get to Hawaii and find the president holed up
in a bunker.”
    “This can’t be real,” Simon said.
    The captain shrugged. “We’d better hope Hawaii doesn’t close the
borders.”
    Simon looked out at all the people. He felt detached from his body, as
if he were eyeballs and a racing, sputtering heart suspended above the steps.
The plaza contracted before his eyes. This couldn’t be real.
    The captain’s words infected the crowd like a virus. They were angry,
scared. They didn’t want to believe it, but the captain was the only one with
access to news of the outside world. Simon saw the situation escalating. It
could erupt at any moment. He found his lungs again. Breathed