by Kovacs, Jase
As I do so, another figure flies from the smoke. It falls from the jungle canopy, at the end of its long leap between the trees. Its flesh is charred and smouldering, and the skin of its face burnt away to nothing, leaving the bare bones of its jaw open to the air. It lands between us as lightly as a cat and bats Rod into the undergrowth with a casual sweep of its long arms. I rack my shotgun as it reaches at me with yellowed claws.
My blast catches it in the neck and sprays the trees with rotten, stagnant blood. Its head slumps on its shoulder but still it comes, raking its long talons at me. It stinks of sulphur and rot and burnt hair.
Solomon steps into the clearing and swings his machete into the masalai's neck, as dispassionately as if he was cleaning his daily catch of fish. The blade bites deep and finishes the job my shotgun started; the headless body falls twitching to the ground.
"Come on," I say. "Get the gun."
Solomon crouches over the tripod, and I grab the barrel. It's damn heavy! Tendons pop in my neck as I put my back into it. The thing must weigh over sixty kilos.
Rod's face is purple when Alfred lifts him from the ferns, his arm around him like they were two drunk mates staggering home. "Leave the fucken thing!" spits Rod through clenched teeth. "There's more zombs coming!"
"I'm not leaving it for them."
"Then bloody well disable it! We can't carry a machine gun and get away from these things."
All of us struggle to breathe in the thick smoke flowing from the burning resort like a storm front. Shrieks echo though the trees as the masalai charge like a troop of hell-apes. The beheaded masalai at my feet spasms frantically as the virus struggles to coordinate the dead nervous system. Solomon and Alfred hack at its arms and body to quell it. "Leave it!" I shout, grabbing at them. "You'll just spread the disease!"
Rod fires at something flitting between the trees. Between the smoke and the gathering twilight it's as dark as night. "We have to get out of here!"
"Give me a second." I crouch over the machine gun. I'm unfamiliar with the type; it is smaller than our .50 cal. but has the same square block and twin spade handles. Its barrel is ridged with cooling vanes so it looks like an enormous long screw. I feel along the top, looking for studs or a lever to open the feed tray.
Rod lets off three shots in quick succession and is rewarded with a very human howl. I find a lever and a small panel opens above the empty feed slot. For a moment my attention is caught by the faint Asian characters engraved at the base of the ring sight. A Japanese gun from World War Two? It would be nearly a century old.
Solomon grabs me. "We have to go now!" Dark blood flows freely from a long straight cut down the left hand side of his face. A pale wraith rises from the edge of the clearing. I shove Solomon out of the way.
I hit the wraith in the chest and then my second blast takes half its head off. It falls but another masalai fills the space behind it. Its arms are out wide, and its long tongue snakes out to taste the air as it rushes forward. My buckshot shatters its teeth and it falls, kicking and screeching as it tries to crawl forward. Alfred stills it with two swipes of his machete.
"God damn it!" I cry. "Okay!" My heart wracked with disappointment, I grab a handful of expended ammunition from the ground and drive it into the gun's feed slot. I hammer them in with my shotgun's stock, the brass buckling and bending as I smash it into the gun's workings. "That should slow them down."
We run for the beach like smoke and oakum.
***
The wind spilling over the headland feels like a cool balm as we break out of the smoke, coughing and eyes streaming. The long purple shadow of the volcano lies across the bay but the ocean beyond the reef is burnished golden by the sunset. My heart lifts as our ship's sails catch the orange light. They are still miles away but between us are Jacka's canoes, hard up against the wind as they bear down on the island.
Most of our people are in the water, swimming out to Shiloh. Several are already aboard and they run around without direction, working the hand windlass to raise the anchor.
A second group are in the shallows, just off the beach. Zac, Abella, Abigail and Auntie push Shiloh's white dinghy, two aside as if they were pallbearers. We get halfway down the beach before I take a knee, aiming back into the jungle. I catch flickers of movement, but no targets. "Keep going!" I yell at my team.
A second later Rod shouts "Go!" and I'm up and running. He covers me from the water’s edge, the long bayonet on his rifle dark with glossy smears. I splash up to the dinghy where Solomon and Alfred already lend a hand.
Kev and Michael lie in the dinghy, on the backs of long wooden planks that were once benches in the bar. Everyone is black with soot and their cheeks are streaked where smoky tears ran. "Ian?" I ask.
"He’s gone," says Abella. She sounds so tired. "We just couldn't get his blood pressure up."
I drop my shotgun into the dinghy. Kev’s face is peaceful apart from the bruise that spreads from his ear to his temple, his breathing slow and shallow. Michael's awake, flat on his back, and his eyes dart and blink as if the sky was full of horrors. "You fucker," I say. "Ian was worth ten of you."
There is no reaction from him. I get behind the transom and push with the others. Rod comes up to us as the bottom drops away, and we plunge to our chests before the sand comes back. "They're in the trees," Rod says. "Like they're waiting for something."
"How many?" I ask.
"Too many."
I look over the dinghy, at Shiloh where two men are still working at the windlass. "Goddamn those muppets. If they're not careful, they'll get the anchor up before we're ready."
"Larry went ahead," says Zac. The ground dips again and now we're swimming, holding onto the gunnels of the dinghy. He chokes, coughs and spits water. "He swam ahead with Jarrod."
"Good. That's something at least."
We bump hard against the stern of Shiloh's starboard hull. Robbo and Apo haul us aboard and push us up the steps onto the large rear deck. The port side is given over to a dinner table and lounge area and the stairs up to the flying bridge rise on the starboard. We stream water as Michael and Kev are hoisted aboard. "Get Kev on the table!" says Abella. "Get Michael below."
Although his eyes are open, there is no reaction from Michael as he is carried inside. I go up the stairs to the flying bridge. I've never had a proper look at Shiloh. All the lines – the halyards, the main and genoa sheets, the traveller and the furling lines – run back to the bridge, thorough clutches set just before the helm. The lines are faded to white and chafed from years sitting out in the sun. The idiot never stored them below so they wouldn't disintegrate from UV.
Larry is with Jarrod and Kenzie on the foredeck, at the anchor winch, arguing about something. "HEY!" I call. "How are you guys going?"
"We've still got ten metres down!" calls Larry. He looks relieved to see me. "Just got to get the mainsail up."
"What are you doing up there?!" demands Jarrod. "I'm the helmsman!"
"Shut up, lad, and get to the main," says Larry, his face blooming as the argument reignites. "We've got to get the hell out of here."
"It's low tide," I say. "We're going to have to try the channel."
"Can you see any of the markers?"
I squint out at the gloom. The bay is calm in the headland's lee, but surf breaks ominously on the reef. I pick out the barest glimmer of the first bamboo channel marker. "Barely."
I crouch behind the ships compass and shoot a bearing to the first pole – 020 – so I can at least find the channel mouth in darkness. We're only a few days from the full moon, and she hangs high and fat in the sky already, but there are clouds scudding in from the east, and her light could be stolen from us without warning.
Jarrod, momentarily cowed, has climbed to the mast and slots a handle in the main sail winch. He looks back and me, his lip curled, his face stony.
What a damn baby.
Finally, I look back to shore.
The resort blazes and sheets of flame soar abov
e the dying buildings. There are shadows moving on the beach, dark smears against the black sand. Are the masalai even now working their way across the bottom of the bay to try and climb out anchor chain? Or perhaps that was a tactic only conceived by the Pale King? I don't intend to hang around long enough to find out.
The sun is gone, and the first stars speckle the east. I take a moment to find her; my star, my guide up in the heavens. Venus.
I hear my mother's voice, across the decades. "The dawn star, the evening star, goddess of love and beauty. You'll see her after the sun sets - or before it rises. So you know she is there, watching you when it's dark."
The main halyard flogging against the mast recalls me to my duty. The mainsail bulges in a fat sail bag supported by triangles of lazyjacks. Thankfully, the tide is slack and so our big, high-sided vessel faces into the wind. "Get cracking!" I shout at Jarrod.
He may be surly but you could never call him lazy. The main flies up the mast. It's a big, big sail, still bright after all these years, yellowed and faded only on the long creases where it has sat in the bag. As always, a shimmer of excitement flows through me when the wind catches it and I feel the yacht awaken. I slack off the main sheet and traveller so the sail won't fill. I climb out onto the bridge roof to guide the sail's battens through the lazyjacks.
Larry clambers up next to me, the fibreglass bowing beneath his bulk. "I'll look after this," he says. "You get back on the helm."
"No, get forward and be ready to back the jib. We don't have much leeway before that reef, and I need plenty of speed to reach the channel's entrance on one tack."
"Okay." He drops off the roof and cheerfully slaps Jarrod’s shoulder in passing. Kenzie crouches at the anchor windlass, ready to draw in the last of the chain. Larry unrolls a slim triangle of genoa and lets it flap in the breeze. He looks back at me, waiting.
The last of the battens pass the lazyjacks, and I breathe a sigh of relief. "That's enough, Jarrod!" I shout as I lock the traveller and winch the mainsheet. Although the blazing resort paints the scene with a fire palette, it is too dark ahead to see the reef's shadow. I know it's only about twenty metres down range. This is going to have to be done smartly. "Back the genoa!" I shout.
Larry hauls the sail over to the starboard side of the vessel, and it backfills, pushing the bow around to the north. We stop moving with a jerk when it comes up hard against the limit of the anchor. "Kenzie, get the anchor up!"
He ratchets away, his back and arms bulging as he pits the sail's force against the anchor's hold. Good, this is what I wanted. If I got the anchor up first, we would've crabbed onto the reef. Larry keeps his weight on the sail and Kenzie strains on the windlass, the click of the pawls slowing down until they come one agonizing second at a time.
Jarrod has locked off the main halyard, and he drops down to Kenzie and lends his effort to the ratchet pole. The pawl clicks once, twice and then suddenly they both are flat on their faces as the anchor gives up its grip and skates along the bottom. Our bow whips around to the north, and Larry lets the genoa go without needing an order. I'm on the sheet winch like a madwoman and it comes on tight. The bow dips before the wind and we're away.
Zac climbs up the stairs. "We good?"
"We're going. How are things down there?" I check out compass course. 020. Long fingers of surf glimmer where the shallow waves find the reef's edge, and I think I can make out twin slivers of bamboo ahead. I don't take my eyes from our course as I speak. Things are too tight right now.
"Kev's still unconscious. They've got Michael below. Abella and Abigail are stitching up Solomon and Rod and some others."
"Did everyone make it out?"
"All but Ian, Dolf and John. Did you take care of the gun?"
"Got the crew but not sure if the gun is permanently out of action. I did my best."
"I'm sure you did."
The calm faith in his voice bothers me. Who is he to expect so much of me? This is all my bloody fault anyway. We should never have come. Goddamn my pride. Goddamn my arrogance. I'm about to start up on him about it when Raz pushes him rudely out of the way. The old man's eyes gleam wetly by the binnacle's light, and his foul breath fills the cockpit.
"Michael says I should be at the helm."
I don't bother looking back at him. "Fuck off, Raz. Tell Michael this isn't his ship anymore."
I can feel Raz hovering behind me, unsure. Larry comes up over the cabin to the bridge. "All good here?" he asks.
"Yeah, mate. Can you see the poles?"
"Yep. You're good."
"I just wish Jacka or his guys where here. I've got no idea what the channel does next."
"They were at it all day. I reckon they've done a good job."
"Can you, Jarrod and Kenzie get up on the bow? I need all eyes out there."
"Righto." He looks past me. "You doing anything useful, Raz?"
Raz mutters something under his breath and goes back down. Larry gives me a worried look. "Zac," he says. "Get Alfred and Rod at the bottom of the stairs. No one is to bother us."
"Sure."
"You're doing good, Matty," says Larry.
"It doesn't feel like it."
"It's been a hard day. It'd be wrong if you felt good about it."
I let him see a flash of my grateful smile before I say, "Yeah, yeah. You're not doing much looking out up here. Get down on the bow."
He nods happily before he goes forward. "Aye aye, skipper."
The sun is gone save for a red gleaming in the west. It catches my eye as I scan the dark sea ahead, and I look up at the clouds gathered around the volcano's peak. They are alight with fire.
"It's brighter tonight," says Zac. "The crater... it's active."
"It's meant to be extinct."
"Yes."
"But that's lava up there."
"I guess it is. I saw its light in the clouds last night. It seems brighter now."
The poles have slipped by us; we're in the channel now. I strain all my senses for any sign of the reef. Sudden angry voices from below. I don't know who, but they're not happy. "Zac, go tell whoever that is to shut the hell up."
"Sure."
"Larry!" I call. "You got anything?"
"I think..." He is nothing but a silhouette against the purple star-spangled sky. "Got a post just off the port bow."
"Is it left or right channel marker?"
"I can't tell!"
I grind my teeth. If I pass on the wrong side of it, I'll go aground. The boat is happily making five knots on a beam reach. She yearns to go faster, but I keep her in check by spilling the mainsail and bringing the genoa in until it's little more than a handkerchief to keep trim.
"I can see a right marker, off to starboard," shouts Jarrod.
"You sure?"
"I'm tellin' you, ain’t I?"
"Larry, what’s the course adjustment to pass your marker on my port?"
"Left ten. Make it twenty."
The boat feels like an extension of my body. I feel the rush of water down her side, the shiver of her rudders, loose and worn after all these years. The nervous tremble of her helm that tells me her steering chain needs tightening. With her big, roomy catamaran hulls and stiff upright deck, with barely any heeling to speak of, she feels so different from the monohulls I'm used to. I steer downwind and watch the compass slide to 000. Easy. That's it. Easy does it.
Luminous foam boils off to port and starboard, and the warm air lifts as we clear the headland's wind shadow. Ridges of rock and reef stretch to shore like the bumpy spine of a stalking crocodile. I don't know how many turns are left in this passage, and I wish I had had the chance to survey it myself.
Yeah. Cause you've had so much free time, says Katie.
Oh, there you are. Good to know I'm still a little mad.
More than a little. I'm always here, talking to you. You just can't hear me over all these other idiots.
As if summoned by her words, a furious shouting breaks out below. Michael roars, "This i
s my fucking boat, and I'll get that fucking—" then a hard thud of a blow. A woman screams and something heavy hits the deck. I half rise from my chair, intending to shut Michael up.
No. Your place is at the helm.
"Larry," I yell. "Get back there and sort it out."
"Righto!" He trundles back along the deck easily and more shouting kicks off below. Really angry now – I can't pick out words, but it sounds like Michael, Abella and Larry all going at it. I try to keep it from my mind, reaching out to feel the boat, the water and the dark reef passing by either side.
"There's another pole ahead," shouts Jarrod.
"Should I go left or right?"
"I think its left."
"I go left of it?"
He shouts something back but I can't hear him over the noise from below. I call out to him again, and he waves angrily back at me.
"Which side do I go on!?"
"Left! Left!"
"Go left of the post? You're sure?!"
"Yes!"
"Kenzie?"
A long pause and a sudden lull of the argument below. The waves lapping against our starboard hull are crisp; we're heading to the outer edge of the reef, and we're starting to be lifted by the swell.
"Yes. I think." Kenzie joins Jarrod on the port bow and together they stare hard out at the narrow bamboo pole glowing ghostly in the moonlight. Foam swirls around its base, and I steer downwind to give it a wide berth.
The swell lifts us higher, and I realise it must be rolling unimpeded from the east. But if that's the case, then there must be no reef to starboard which means the channel maker designates reef to the west—
The helm smashes into my chest. Bright stars fill my head, and I slump, stunned. Confusion, screams and a hard grind as the port hull grates across coral.
Stabbing pain fill me as I stretch out and flip the genoa clutch to let the line run free. Then the main sheet, the big sail spilling the wind, the boom swinging downwind to release the pressure that drives us harder onto the reef. The swell comes in, and we lift and for a moment we're floating and then we come down harder than before, and I feel rather than hear the great crunching as our starboard hull hits, and I know we are stuck firm.
