The Black River (The Complete Adrift Trilogy)

by K. R. Griffiths

  Not an animal.

  Elaine crouched down behind the sofa in the living room, and hoped to hear the creature continue straight past the cabin.

  It hadn't happened.

  Instead, the creature was methodically entering the cabins, one by one, searching for her.

  It knows I'm in here.

  Elaine felt like she was losing her mind. Maybe, she thought, she was still unconscious at the foot of the stairs. Maybe the fall had done serious damage to her brain.

  She almost hoped it was true.

  The cabin she had taken refuge in was virtually identical to her own: a wide living room with a kitchenette at one side, bedroom and bathroom through a doorway to her left.

  Nothing else.

  None of the cupboards lining the kitchenette were big enough for her to squeeze into, leaving her with a stark choice of hiding places: squashed beneath the bed in the tiny bedroom, or hunkered down behind the couch.

  She had chosen the latter, despite how exposed it made her feel, because the bedroom felt like a death trap. The bedroom window was tiny, meaning that once she went in there, the narrow door would be her only possible means of escape. If the creature blocked the doorway, she would be as good as dead.

  At least behind the living room couch, she reasoned, there was a faint chance that she could leap out and run if necessary.

  Run where? She thought bleakly, though she didn't want to think about the answer to that particular question.

  The truth was that the dark corridors seemed to offer no chance of escape.

  The creature, whatever it was, could smell her blood. It was tracking her like a hunting dog. All she could do was wait, and hope that its nose would not prove as accurate.

  So far, so good. If the creature could smell her, its nose was not apparently sharp enough to tell it exactly where she was, and it did not make its way directly to her hiding spot.

  Instead, it began to search the cabins.

  Not so good after all.

  She heard a crash, muffled, but close. It sounded like it came from a couple of cabins further down the hall. Something heavy toppled, and some part of Elaine knew that it was the sound of a couch being overturned.

  A couch identical to the one she currently crouched behind.

  Cold dread washed through her.

  When the creature entered her cabin, it would find her immediately. It wouldn't have to turn the place upside down; just the couch would do. Her mind raced.

  Weapons?

  Elaine dismissed the thought immediately. She doubted any of the knives in the kitchen would do any more than piss the creature off, and she couldn't imagine herself using one anyway. The creature was large, its wiry body packed with muscle. It had a savage blade at the tip of each finger. If the fight was to take place at such close quarters, it was surely already over.

  Listen to yourself, Elaine. The fight. Are you really thinking about confronting this thing? Because if you are, you might as well throw yourself off the balcony right now.

  Elaine's eyes widened, and she turned from the couch, staring at the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. Outside, the clouds seemed to be clearing a little, and she could just about make out the railing beyond the glass.

  She moved quickly, almost screaming when she heard a much louder crash that had to mean the creature was in the cabin right next door to hers, and rushed to the glass door, sliding it open quietly.

  When she peeked out, she almost lost her mind with fright.

  It was right there, standing on the adjacent cabin’s balcony, no more than six feet away from her.

  Looking in the other direction.

  Elaine stared at it, stunned, trying to understand the hideous form that she saw in the barely-there light. Sinewy, rippling muscles wrapped around an elongated skeleton. Huge, bearlike hands that looked almost human, save for the long fingers that ended in those wicked-looking talons.

  Opposable thumbs, she thought. That was the vet’s training that was drilled deep into her mind, picking up on a detail that was out of place. Yet all it accomplished was to terrify her more. The creature spoke, it walked upright. Opposable thumbs were just one more indication that the horror on the next balcony was closer to human than animal.

  And humans didn’t just kill for food.

  They killed for fun.

  She broke out of her paralysis when the creature’s head started to turn in her direction, and she stepped quickly back into the cabin, holding her breath until her lungs ached.

  Eventually, she heard it move back inside the next cabin once more. It sounded like it was in the bedroom, separated from the room in which she stood by a thin wall that she imagined the creature could punch straight through if it decided to.

  Another crash. The bed being upended.

  Now or never.

  Elaine sucked in a deep breath and stepped back out onto the balcony, carefully sliding the glass door shut behind her.

  She tried not to look down.

  Failed.

  From the balcony, many decks up, Elaine couldn't even see the ocean below. The darkness claimed all visibility just a couple of decks down.

  But she knew the drop was there.

  Elaine didn't consider herself to be afraid of heights, but she wasn't exactly comfortable with them either. She approached heights with innate practicality: they weren't terrifying, but they were dangerous, and so they were generally to be avoided. She wasn't one of those thrill seekers that would enjoy bungee jumping or parachuting.

  She certainly wasn't the type of person who would attempt to leap across the six-foot gap between two balconies that sat over a hundred feet of nothing, in darkness and driving rain.

  Well, not until now.

  She risked a glance back inside the cabin.

  No sign of the creature.

  The jump had to be timed just right. If she went too early, there was every chance the creature would see her landing and return to the balcony it had already checked.

  If I land at all, she thought, and risked another glance at the sheer drop.

  Stop that.

  The jump had to be perfect: ideally when the creature was in the dark hallway, moving between the cabins. She had to be ready to go as soon as she judged that it had left the cabin in front of her.

  Gripping the wet balcony rail tightly, Elaine climbed up to perch atop it, crouched down low on her haunches until her hamstrings began to complain. Coiled into a ball, her hands still gripping the rail beside her bare feet, she adopted a pose like a swimmer preparing to start a race.

  No hesitation, she thought. Put everything into the jump.

  The adjacent balcony suddenly looked very far away indeed. An impossible leap. She would never make it.

  Her confidence faltered, and she thought once more about running, about scampering back through the glass doors and taking off down the dark corridor.

  It was too late.

  Somewhere behind her, beyond the glass door, she heard a thump.

  Inside the cabin.

  It would see her at any moment.

  No time.

  She jumped.

  32

  They moved like the dawn, pushing forward through the shadows at a slow and steady pace, not letting themselves pause for a moment.

  Pausing meant thinking, and there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between the three of them that thinking about their surroundings was the worst thing they could possibly do.

  Thinking led to madness.

  Beyond the art gallery, the deck opened out into a food court; the type of place that sold burgers and pizza rather than the expensive fare served up down the hall.

  Unlike the gallery, the food court hadn't been deserted when it happened. Quite the opposite.

  Of course, Dan thought. It happened at dinner time. Kind of fitting, really.

  The weak pun almost made him laugh aloud, and he caught himself just in time.

  The creeping hysteria he felt was, he supposed,
another sign that he was cracking under the pressure: laughing at the dreadful sight laid out before him was definitely not the appropriate response.

  Not that Dan had any idea what an appropriate response might be. Not to this.

  There were bodies everywhere.

  Dan forced himself not to look, and reached out, grabbing Katie's arm. She flinched, making him feel guilty. They had the goggles and candlelight now: there was no need to keep scrabbling in the dark to get each other’s attention.

  "Sorry," he whispered. "Which way?"

  Katie frowned thoughtfully, and Dan shot a glance at Edgar. He was close by, listening intently, but he kept his gaze focused firmly on his surroundings, scanning the areas ahead that had become tangled webs of tables and chairs and corpses. Much of the food court comprised a general seating area. It looked to have been packed with diners when death arrived.

  Katie pointed at a doorway about fifty yards ahead on the left. Past the Los Grasa Bandito restaurant; right on the other side of the adjacent Eastern Spice.

  Dan nodded, and checked to see that Edgar was paying attention.

  "Okay," Dan said, and started to pick his way forward, trying to make sure he trod on nothing worse than blood. Blood, he was getting used to: it was starting to feel as though he had no choice about slipping on the thick liquid that had spilled everywhere. However, he didn't think he could ever get used to standing on the pieces of people that crunched or squelched. There were, he thought, some things that you really didn't want to build up a tolerance for.

  He felt a hand grab his arm, and stopped dead.

  Edgar.

  "The bodies," Edgar whispered; his voice barely audible. He pointed forward. "Look at the bodies."

  Dan peered ahead. The goggles didn't give great range, but he could see maybe fifty feet before the world became an indistinct green smear. He saw a lot of bodies. None that looked particularly significant.

  "Yeah, so, what about them?" Dan said.

  So blasé. Holy shit, when did that happen?

  "Twitchers," Edgar growled, and jabbed a finger. "There, there and...there. Several of these people aren't dead yet."

  Don't say it, Dan thought. Shit, don't say i—

  "There's one close by," Edgar hissed. "Quiet."

  Katie extinguished the candle she carried instantly.

  Edgar pointed forward and set off, limping heavily and leading the way at a glacial pace. Dan saw him ready the two knives he carried, and he swallowed painfully.

  He made it about ten feet.

  Stopped.

  Retreated.

  "It's at the other end of the food court," Edgar breathed. "Feeding. We have to go back."

  Dan started to shake his head, though he knew in his heart that Edgar was right. Even so, going back felt a lot like giving up on Elaine. He felt despair welling inside as it dawned on him that getting to cabin number 217 might be completely out of his hands. If the creatures blocked the path, what chance was there?

  For the first time he considered the possibility that the vampires had already worked their way through the cabins, and that he would find only pieces of his wife. Maybe, and somehow this prospect was even worse: she too would be a twitcher. Dying in front of him, with no way for him to help her. Final proof that she had married a loser. He imagined Elaine dying with an accusation in her eyes, and his heart sickened a little.

  Dan's head continued to shake miserably of its own accord.

  Katie shook her head more firmly. She pointed to their left, at the entrance to the Los Grasa Bandito, the restaurant closest to them. She mouthed, we can go through the kitchen and out the back.

  It would mean heading toward the creature, but Dan saw immediately what Katie meant: once out of sight in the restaurant, they could move through it and the adjacent Eastern Spice unseen, reaching the exit that led from the food court without ever entering the creature's line of sight.

  Edgar nodded and set off immediately, moving at a quicker pace, apparently willing to push through the pain in his leg. Dan and Katie had reversed roles, and now he took her hand and led her through the darkness, guiding her past the bodies with aid of the view offered up by the goggles. They followed Edgar slowly, faltering a little as they slipped on the smeared remains of the diners, and entered the restaurant, moving swiftly through the small interior dining area.

  The kitchen, just as it had been at Les Aventure, was mercifully lean in the corpse department. Dan figured most of the staff would have rushed outside when they heard the screaming, hurtling obliviously toward their deaths.

  The kitchen was long and narrow; just wide enough for them to comfortably move in single file. The entire room seemed to be made of stainless steel; as if the pots and pans that Dan saw were somehow growing out of the worktops and hobs.

  Katie's plan looked better and better: the kitchen was a single space that served both the Mexican restaurant and the Indian restaurant alongside it.

  At the far end of the narrow space, beyond the part of the kitchen that served Eastern Spice, Dan saw a doorway.

  As they eased their way forward through the kitchen, Dan saw nachos and a pot of still-steaming chilli give way to curried chicken and a dizzying array of spices. Bathed in the green of the nightvision, it all looked alien, somehow. Threatening and off-kilter.

  When they were directly behind Eastern Spice, Dan heard distant snapping, crunching sounds faintly, getting a little louder with each step forward. The sound of feeding.

  He felt like his nerves were slowly fraying; coming apart at the seams. Walking towards the terrible noise made every instinct shriek at him to turn back.

  Katie pointed at a dark doorway dead ahead, and made a through there and left gesture. Dan nodded, gritted his teeth in tension, and started forward. Turn left, he thought. Once we turn left we're moving away from it again. Putting distance between ourselves and the creature. Just turn le—

  The world skidded to a halt as his arm knocked the ladle perched atop the skillet he hadn't seen on the counter next to him. Dan watched, horrified, as it fell in slow motion, tumbling toward the floor. He reached out his free hand in grasping panic.

  Caught it.

  Lost it.

  The ladle hit the floor with a clatter that sounded like the gates of Hell rattling.

  Shit.

  Dan, Katie and Edgar's feet locked to the floor. Somewhere outside, the awful sound of the creature chewing on flesh halted abruptly.

  A grunt.

  Dan's heart thumped twice, and then something outside thumped in response. The noise was followed immediately by another sound; far more terrible. Rhythmic clicking. Talons.

  Coming straight for them.

  Despite the darkness, Katie was the first to move, sliding around the kitchen counter and heading toward the front of the Indian restaurant behind outstretched palms.

  Like Los Grasa Bandito, Eastern Spice featured a small interior dining room, with a handful of tables for those who wanted a more intimate dining experience than the al fresco-style food court outside offered.

  The restaurant had also offered death to the diners inside, who were splayed across the tables like grisly ornaments, but what it definitely did not seem to offer, was any place that could conceivably be called a hiding spot.

  The clicking was much louder now. It paused every few seconds, and Dan thought of the way the creatures had moved in the park. Strange insectile scuttling interspersed by brief pauses, as though they needed to stop and think for a moment before continuing.

  Click, click, click.

  Pause.

  Dan followed Katie into the dining area, hoping to God that she had some sort of plan.

  She didn't. Dan watched, open mouthed, as she marched directly to the far corner of the room, stumbling in the darkness, and crouched low behind an upturned table.

  When she was flat against the floor, Katie pulled the nearest corpse over her like a blanket, draping the arms across her face.

  Click, click,
click.

  Not much of a plan at all, Dan thought, but even as the words crossed his mind, he was already dropping to his knees, pulling the still-warm corpse of a middle-aged man across himself. When he noticed Edgar following suit, Dan's mind felt close to screaming insanity.

  Edgar had given Dan the impression that he knew what was happening on the Oceanus, and he exuded an air of confidence. Like he could handle himself. Seeing Edgar follow Dan and Katie's pathetic attempts to hide, Dan realised suddenly that Edgar was as terrified as everybody else.

  Click.

  And about as much help.

  In the kitchen, beyond the flimsy swinging doors that separated the cooks from the diners, something crashed, and Dan heard it again, just as he had in the supply closet.

  The terrible ragged panting, riding the rhythm of the clicking talons. Approaching fast.

  Click click click click click cl—

  He held his breath, and tried to make himself as small as possible, retreating against the wall behind the corpse. Blood leaked onto his neck, and Dan's terror hitched up to a level far beyond his capacity to endure.

  He felt his thoughts begin to drift and let it happen; couldn’t even concentrate on the steady breathing that had steered him through numerous panic attacks during the previous two years, and his mind tumbled helplessly on the terrible black river.

  He was going to black out; doomed to suffer a full-blown panic attack.

  There was no avoiding it.

  Maybe, he thought, as the black river tugged him under, it would be for the best.

  *

  It came in fast.

  Edgar had prayed that the vampire would search the kitchen area, find nothing, and return to finish its meal, but almost as soon as the talons clicked on the metal floor of the kitchen, he heard them pick up pace.

  The thing moved with dreadful purpose.

  It burst into the room already swinging, hurtling toward the corner opposite the one that Edgar cowered in, scooping up the corpse that Katie hid under, and flicking a nonchalant talon across her abdomen before she could even flinch.