by Stevens, GJ
“How do we get…?” I said, but Cassie cut me off.
“It’s a swing bridge,” she said, as if listening to my thought before I’d given it voice. “Someone will have to get out to operate it.”
I stared at the low metal bridge, tracing the painted white railings running along the top. Cassie turned to the deck below.
“Someone needs to get off and swing the bridge out of the way.”
I turned, peering around the reluctant faces, catching only Alex nodding in reply.
“Alex and I will do it,” I said.
Thompson paused for a moment before hurrying to push the last parts of the rifle back together.
“We’ll cover,” he said, and Sherlock glared up as Gibson nodded, shivering but still with a smile, slipping his arms back into a dry long-sleeved fleece.
“Hang on,” Cassie said, turning away from looking to the bridge as we drew slowly closer. “It opens outwards. We might be able to push it out of the way without getting off the boat.”
I turned, looking to the handrails coming into focus and the wooden deck only wide enough for two people to walk side by side. To the left the underside of the bridge was much larger than the right and I guessed it was the side where it hinged to the bank, the mechanism hidden by a stone surround.
Cassie lifted the throttle levers and we edged in close. Without being told, I braced myself as we slowed. Turning back, Thompson’s pistol trained out across the horizon and the two rifles in the other soldier’s grips covered the other two-thirds of the view, ready for whatever might lie in ambush.
I thought about jumping to the deck and glancing the shotgun around the view when Cassie spoke.
“Get forward and push. I don’t want to risk the hull.” Her words were aimed at Alex, Jess and me. We climbed around the thin ledge, holding the metal rail as we shuffled to the front deck. Not able to take my gaze from the murky water, I stared, searching out what waited should we fall in.
Despite the boat travelling at barely a crawl, the bridge came at us too quickly. Cassie let the throttle out in reverse and we slowed, bringing our outstretched hands to the bridge’s white handrail and we curled our grips to the cold metal. It was clear the hull of the boat could fit under the bridge, but anything above that level had no chance unless we drained the canal.
After checking we each had a hold, I nodded back to Cassie and the engine came to life. Taking a step back, surprised by the movement, I regained my stance and pushed. For a moment, its weight forced us back and it felt as if the bridge was stuck in place.
Just as I thought I would fall backwards, the bridge moved and I had to let it go when it swung out of reach, leaving only Alex to the far left to keep its momentum until it slammed into its stone home at the side of the bank.
It was only then I deciphered the hushed words between the soldiers as we’d pushed the metal. Had they seen something?
A sudden fear rushed through me when the heavy metal structure bounced against the stone, the bridge heading back our way, swinging into our path to send us into the murky water where more of those things could be waiting below the surface. Ready to rush back around the hull, the bridge halted, and we passed through, leaving the rise of adrenaline to drain away.
Back under the cover of the wheelhouse, I tried not to think of what would have happened if it had knocked us off our feet. Instead, I looked to the horizon.
The slow, continual motion forward helped to settle my fear as we travelled along the straight line of the man-made channel. The view from the wheelhouse filled me with confidence, with fields either side. A cluster of smoke columns rose to the sky, turning my thoughts to what could be a town, or perhaps a city ahead.
I had hoped as we headed further out of Exeter the towns might not have been a repeat of what we’d already witnessed and would offer safe transport out of the nightmare, or at least to where the children were. The rising smoke helped dispel the dream.
There was still hope, I reminded myself. Perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps the Royal Navy had a ship just off the coast, ready to pick us up and continue the soldier’s mission. The thoughts dissolved when the waterway narrowed in front of us.
The muddy banks of the canal turned to concrete with a brick building, possibly a hotel or a pub, holding state at a set of lock gates we had no choice but to get out and operate.
70
The words I dreaded came from Cassie, pushing away any thought she could have another trick up her sleeve. “I can’t push this one open.” Her voice remained steady and she didn’t look my way.
Turning to footsteps behind, I watched Thompson beside me, peering at the lock. After looking for just a moment, he jumped to the deck, raising his finger to Gibson.
“Stay on board and I’ll over-watch canal-side.” Gibson nodded through his shakes, moving to the back of the boat as Thompson pointed to Sherlock whilst reaching out for his rifle. “You and...” he said, pointing towards me as if searching for my name as he took the gun, “and you operate the lock. We’d help, but we need to keep watch.”
I replied with a nod, then glanced to Sherlock, who held his expression steeled, a single brow raised.
“You,” Thompson added, pointing to Alex as he handed the rifle to Gibson. “Take the shotgun as a last defence. Don’t fire unless they directly attack the boat. Everyone understand?”
Only Jess’s head remained static.
I watched as Thompson looked her way and raising his head, he spoke. “You do what you need to, if it comes to it.”
None of us needed to ask what that might be; each of us had seen what she could do when our lives were in danger.
I don’t know how I expected her to react, but she nodded with a frown, the thin creases in her skin still darkened with dried blood, despite the scrubbing. I was in no doubt she was clear what she had to do, whether or not she’d reconciled her new role.
Blowing out a breath, I’d resigned myself to the part I had to play. Despite the building looming beside the lock, at least I could get off the boat and away from the risk of falling in. I had no desire to end up in the freezing water again.
“How long?” I asked, turning to Cassie.
“Normally fifteen to twenty minutes,” she said, still looking ahead as she nudged the throttle up. “You know what to do?”
I shook my head and waited for her to frown back, but keeping her voice level, she explained how to work the mechanism and let the water rise. She stopped talking, turning in tandem to stare at the brick building where anyone or anything could wait for someone to trap themselves in the lock and be a sitting duck.
At that moment, a dull thud resounded out from that direction.
I looked back to Cassie but she’d moved her concentration to the lock ahead.
Drifting forward past the empty wooden pontoons lining the entrance to the lock, I stared at the white letters coming into focus on the tall brick. The Turf Hotel stood three storeys high and seemed like it had once been a wonderful place to visit on a Sunday afternoon at the end of a stroll. I imagined the surrounding garden filled with tipsy day-trippers, some making their way over the thin lock to sit on the manicured lawn stretching out to meet a small copse of trees before fields and open land took over again.
Cassie’s sigh pulled me away from the wide-open double doors leading out to white plastic chairs strewn across the garden. Following her gaze, I caught sight of the second set of lock gates pushed to the side as we drifted closer.
Nudging to the pontoon on the bank opposite the hotel, we didn’t linger, our feet soon echoing on the wooden walkway.
“Wait in the middle,” Thompson said.
I glanced back as Cassie gave the throttle a gentle touch and the boat drifted forward to settle in the middle of the canal. Shadow stood at the edge of the boat and peered out across the water with his snout raised high in the air.
Sherlock ran forward with his pistol unholstered, staring at the hotel as he crossed the water at the first set o
f gates. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d heard something other than the flurry of our footsteps.
Running along the concrete edge of the lock and with the echo of our feet against wood silenced, I listened, imagining the last boat heading through the channel and abandoning all etiquette of the waterway as they rushed to join the flotilla making haste down the estuary.
At the open gates I paused, noticing the desperately low water level in the lock and beyond, so far below the salted white line high up the concrete bank. Tracing the flow, I peered to the river and the stony bed through the clear water, not able to stop thinking how there could ever be enough for our boat to float.
Glancing back, Cassie stood on its bow, peering forward and down to the water, frowning and shaking her head, showing more concern than I thought possible, in recent times at least.
As I mirrored Sherlock’s push against the heavy wood, she nodded, still staring to the water.
With the gates soon closed, locking into place with a thud, Sherlock rushed to grab the chunky metal key from the green cabinet standing proud canal-side. As the echo of closing gates died, I froze at the sound of a heavy thud from the direction of the hotel, the noise growing in volume as I stared on, not hidden as water flowed into the lock with Sherlock winding the mechanism.
Thompson had heard the noises too, as had Cassie. No one could have missed the sound and I felt my chest tightening, panic rising that whatever made the noise in the hotel would call creatures from all around and bring them to where we had to wait for the lock to fill. The water level had hardly risen as I glanced down.
Looking between the level and the open doors, I turned to Cassie who stood in the wheelhouse, then to Thompson with his rifle raised and taking steps towards the hotel. Was he mad?
Sherlock called out, his voice low. “Sir? Whatever’s there, don’t you think we should leave it alone?”
Thompson stopped, giving a curt nod, then stepped backwards towards the edge of the canal.
I imagined bodies rushing a blockage, banging bloodied fists against whatever had been used to keep them from piling out. With the sound of rushing water silencing and with renewed optimism, I glanced to the water, but it had only risen over the level of the inlet sluice with a long way to go before we could open the gates and the boat could glide in.
Waiting for what seemed like an age with the hollow boom from the hotel like the tick of a metronome, I realised the sky was empty of birdsong.
“Oi,” Sherlock called, and I turned, expecting to see the undead racing my way. But I found him scowling whilst he waited for me to push the lock gate.
With my heartbeat pounding in my ears with the effort, it was only as the boat slipped through the opening that I caught the continued beat somewhere in the hotel.
Cassie brought the boat to a stop, pulling to the side as Sherlock and I worked the first gates to close. Cassie threw ropes to the edge, but rather than directing me to tie them off, she jumped from the boat, taking them from my hands before securing to the bollards either end of the craft.
Within a few moments Cassie stood beyond the far gates, looking down to the shallow river the other side.
“We need high tide,” she said, but cut herself off, looking towards the hotel as the thumping stopped.
71
JESSICA
Standing still was the worst. With the sound of the water rushing into the canal gone, there was nothing but the rhythmic drum from the hotel and it didn’t help to keep my mind from what could happen at any moment.
I’d shown them and myself what I’d become. I’d shown them at times of need I could switch into something so terrible. I’d shown Thompson enough that he hadn’t tried to put me in shackles and chains and drag me along; I could see in his eyes he was sure I could pull any metal bounds apart on a whim.
I hadn’t told them I had no idea how I could turn into the monster. I hadn’t told them the pain of my empty stomach or the need to bite down on flesh. I hadn’t told them how I feared the next time could mean I wouldn’t come back to who I really was. Or should that be who I had been before?
But still, here they were. We were all together and I hadn’t ripped them to shreds. Perhaps there was hope. Or perhaps there was not.
When the sound ceased, I drew a deep breath and did the best I could to stop my heart rate rising.
72
LOGAN
“Hold your fire,” Thompson roared at the sight of a line of figures streaming through the double doors, their glassy, white-eyed stares fixed our way with their mouths hanging slack, stumbling in a stream that seemed to be never ending.
Thompson was the first person to move and rushed to the closed lock gate bridging the canal, with Sherlock following.
Although still shaking from the cold, on the boat Gibson held his aim to the pack, along with Alex, but neither pulled the trigger. Our only option would be to drift the boat to the middle of the canal and out of arm’s reach.
I followed Cassie from the far gates and back to the boat, watching as she unwound the first rope from the bollard before jogging to the next to do the same.
“What do you mean we have to wait for the tide?” I called.
Cassie didn’t reply straight away; instead, she kept one eye on the continual line emerging from the double doorway as she unwound the rope.
The first of the creatures were soon at the nearest lock gates and I followed Cassie back to the deck, looking to Thompson, then to Sherlock as their boots hit the hull.
“There’s nowhere near enough water the other side. This lock only operates at high tide,” she called out.
I looked past the end of the boat, remembering the tide mark I’d seen so far up the bank. “How long?”
Turning to Cassie, she’d disappeared from my side to push us from the bank with a long wooden pole.
“The tide’s rising but I couldn’t say,” she replied.
“Can’t we just open the gates and wait?” I asked, twisting around to the creatures at the edge of the lock, their number spilling around and filing along, but somehow not falling to the water.
Cassie ran along the edge of the boat to the front, pushing the pole against the bank to keep us from turning.
“We’d ground out and topple on the keel,” she said, moving to the other side of the boat, ready to push off as we drifted closer to the line of creatures clawing the air and mashing their mouths.
“The keel?”
“The fin-shaped thing underneath that keeps us steady.”
I shook my head; it wasn’t the time to learn these things.
“Shit,” came Thompson’s call, and I turned to see his rifle raised with his aim following a once-young man in a checked shirt, his legs bare, only in white boxer shorts stained with blood as he crossed the lock, edging sideways to grind his teeth in our direction.
“We have to wait until high tide,” I repeated.
“Shit,” he said again, glancing to Cassie for confirmation.
“We’ve got no choice but to wait it out,” she replied, and I watched as a creature bent, reaching for the pole as Cassie pushed off the edge, whipping the long stick back before its gnarled hands could get a hold.
“That could be hours,” I said, my voice desperate; for the first time in what seemed like an age, she looked me in the eye as she spoke.
“We have no fucking choice. Deal with it.”
I stepped back, reeling from her words as I glanced at Alex. I didn’t look as Cassie spoke in a softer voice.
“As I said, it’s on its way in. Maybe an hour at a guess, but I don’t know these waters,” she said as she handed off the pole to Gibson once he’d shouldered his rifle.
I watched as she moved to the wheelhouse and killed the idling engine with the thin crowd slowly encircling us as more took the journey over the locks to bridge the canal whilst somehow not falling into the water.
They stood at the edge with their hands grasping out, bloodied mouths opening and snapping close
d. Each time the boat strayed to one side, Gibson would crouch, pushing us gently off the bank with creatures swiping at the wood.
Without command, we formed a circle on the deck, each of us but Shadow, who stood proud at the back of the boat, peering at the unholy creatures who gaped back, almost drooling with hunger. Only Gibson moved when he had to push the pole to the edge.
For the first time since the disaster had begun, and with nothing else I could do, I studied the creatures, staring at their grotesque injuries and picking out their resemblance to who they had been before they had turned into something that, even after all this time, I had great trouble understanding how they could be real.
A chill breeze renewed the stench in my nostrils and I noticed the awful smell for the first time in a while.
I couldn’t help but marvel at our ability to adapt, but once I’d taken notice of the putrid vapour, nothing could stop the waves of odour clawing at the back of my throat.
After five or ten minutes, or it could have been less, I found the stand-off so exhausting I felt my guard drop until one of the others moved, or took a step to steady themselves and a rush of adrenaline would surge through my body, fearing it could be our last moment.
A crash of water came from behind and our combined twist sent the boat rocking, forcing us to regain our balance. Relief came when I saw our number was still the same and it was a creature who had fallen into the water with its place on the bank already filled, leaving the blonde hair floating just below the surface as the only sign of what had happened.
I sat on the deck, holding my head in my hands.
“What happens when the water’s high enough?” I asked, not lifting my head.
“What?” came Sherlock’s heavy accent.
I looked to see him towering over me, but no one else had turned from the water.
“Get the fuck up, you little shit,” he boomed.
