45
The maintenance tunnel is cramped, filled with long white pipes that branch out in every direction. I hurry forward, glancing into a room on the left as I pass. The room contains lockers full of equipment and an array of breaker boxes. Water and shit aren’t the only things contained in these pipes.
“Third door on the left,” Willem says from behind. “There’s a hatch. He’s on the next level down.”
“If I’m not back in three minutes,” I say, “leave without me.”
“Not a chance,” he replies.
The knowledge that my slow return could cost Willem his stubborn life spurs me on. The smell of gasoline strikes me when I pass the halfway mark. It grows stronger the farther I go. By the time I reach the third doorway, a headache blooms. I’ve always had this problem with gasoline. Even when I was a kid. Waiting in the backseat of my father’s Impala while he filled the tank was something of a torturous experience. I complained about the resulting headache just once, though. To confess discomfort from something as intangible as the scent of fuel—something the Colonel’s nose delighted in—was basically asking for a lecture on what the human body can endure when the spirit has the will to endure pain.
As I push through the noxious vapor in search of Jakob, I realize my father was right. Again.
Bastard.
The room contains more pipes, panels, and cables, but none of it matters. There’s an open hatch in the floor at the center of the room. A ladder leads two levels down.
Jakob is nowhere to be seen.
When I reach the bottom floor, I turn around, and there’s Jakob just five feet away, his back turned toward me. The white walls are metal and featureless. These are the fuel tanks, one to either side of the ship, each containing roughly twenty million gallons of highly explosive fuel. Mounted on one of the walls is a brick of C4 about the size of my fist. It’s primed, wired, and ready to blow. The gasoline scent comes from a horizontal geyser of gasoline spraying into the hallway beyond Jakob, where a single hole has been drilled. The powerful drill, its bit a ruined mess, lies on the floor at Jakob’s feet.
I take a breath, intent on saying his name, but the fumes tickle my throat and I cough instead.
Jakob whirls around, swinging his sword with a battle cry.
I duck and feel the blade pass over my messy hair. It strikes the ladder with a clang.
Jakob’s eyes go wide when he recognizes me. “Raven! What are you doing here?”
Before replying, or taking another breath, I pull my sweater collar up over my mouth and cup my hand over it. I take a breath, lower the collar, and speak. “I think I should ask you the same thing.”
“Did Willem find you?” he asks.
“He told me you were infected.”
Jakob puts his hand over a wound on his neck, covering it, but not before I can see the clean slice. “Yes,” he says.
“You were bit?” I ask.
“We were ambushed,” he explains. “There were five of them. It was a silly mistake.”
“It’s bullshit, is what it is,” I say. “If you had a parasite inside you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You weren’t bit. You cut yourself on purpose.”
He doesn’t reply verbally, but he does remove his hand from the wound, which is clearly superficial, but would have bled a lot when it was fresh.
“Why?” I ask.
Jakob holds up a detonator switch. “The range is poor. There are too many metal walls.”
I let go of my sweater collar. That Jakob is willing to blow himself to bits keeps my attention far from my personal discomfort. “There is no timer, is there?”
“I am the timer,” he says. “The timer on the explosive is a digital watch. Willem is a smart boy, but he knows nothing about modern weaponry.”
“And you do?” I ask.
“I spent the past months with Klein and Talbot,” he says. “I was educated.”
“You never planned to return, did you?” I ask.
“The Draugar are my family’s respons—”
“Shut up!” I shout and punch his shoulder. “I don’t want to hear about your stupid family. I don’t want your excuses. Or reasoning.”
Jakob looks disappointed. “What do you want, Raven?”
“Jane,” I say.
“What do you want, Jane?”
What do I want? That’s a good question. Part of me wants to chew him out. To tell him he’s a fool. That his martyrdom is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard of. But I know the man. He won’t be moved. He’s committed. He’ll see this through to the end. And I respect him for it. And I’m grateful because he’s helped me understand my own father more fully. Having experienced what I think is one of the worst scenarios any human being could live through, I now know that there is not only a place in the world for people like my father, but a need for them. And soon there will be one less old codger around to protect us.
A vision of Jakob and the Colonel causing hell at the pearly gates, demanding entrance, lightens my despair a touch. Of course, I’m not sure either of them believes in God, or even if I do, but if that damns them to the abyss, heaven help the devil if the two of them find each other.
With a pained smile, I step forward and wrap my arms around him. “To say good-bye.” I try to control my tears and quivering lips but fail pitifully.
He wraps his big arms around me and squeezes.
“I understand,” I say. “I understand everything.”
He squeezes me one last time before pushing me away. He wipes the tears from his own eyes. “Go. Take care of my son.”
“Also,” I say, extending a shaking hand, “the keys.”
He looks confused for a moment, and then his eyes light up and he’s shaking his head, grumbling Greenlandic insults at himself. He digs into his pocket and pulls out a set of keys attached to a small yellow float that would keep them from sinking. A seaman’s keychain. He plucks a large, worn silver key from the bunch. “It’s this one.”
I take the keys. We share a final smile, and I back away to the ladder.
“I’ll wait twenty minutes,” he says. “But if they find me down here—”
“You do it,” I say. “Even if it’s five minutes from now. You do it.”
“Good-bye, Jane,” he says.
I take hold of the ladder. “Good-bye, Jakob.”
“Iluatitsilluarina ukuaa,” he says.
“Iluatitsilluarina,” I reply. Good luck. I don’t recognize the second word he used, but if I stop to ask, I might not leave. Or have time to leave.
Before I break down and weep like a nancy, I set my jaw, give Jakob a look that says, See you in the next life, and climb the ladder as fast as I can. When I reach the top, I look back down. Jakob’s not there. He’s not just staying, he’s leaving. His son. Helena. And me. If I saw him again, I might just decide to stay. Or he might decide to leave. And if that happens, they win.
I close the hatch and lock it.
The sprint back to the stairwell hatch feels agonizingly slow, but it’s only thirty seconds before I reach fresh air again, and another ten before I reach the door and swing it open.
Shouting voices greet my return.
“Light it!” Willem shouts.
“I’m trying!” Steven says. He’s flicking a half-size translucent red lighter and having little luck with it.
I step between them, take the lighter from his hand.
“It’s almost here!” Steven shouts.
I can hear the thumps of the monster’s hands and feet on the floor, walls, and ceiling. It’s definitely approaching, but after getting stabbed, sliced, and axed, the Queen is being a little more cautious.
They have no idea, I realize. While we’ve got a ticking clock motivating us, the Draugar believe we’re simply trapped and are in no rush to kill, capture, or devour us.
I look at the lighter and see that there’s no fluid left. While that’d be the end of it for most people, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of tim
e around pot smokers and know all the tricks. I place the metal shield in my mouth and bite down hard on it with my molars. The metal bends and snaps free. I spit it out and hold the lighter up. “Get ready,” I say.
Steven brings the Molotov close.
I hold the button for just a second, then give the wheel a firm twist with my thumb. With the metal shield gone, the last of the lighter gas is allowed to escape. At a centimeter tall and the width of a pencil lead, the flame is insignificant, but it’s enough. The alcohol-soaked rag lights quickly.
Steven moves to the hallway.
Then he steps into it.
“I can’t see it,” he says. “It’s too dark.”
I can still hear the army of footsteps. It’s close. “Just throw it,” I say, moving to the ascending staircase with Willem.
“Steven?” The voice is feminine. Sweet.
Fuck.
“Shamaya?”
“It’s not her!” Willem shouts. “Throw it!”
“Steven, I missed you—”
Something about this statement snaps Steven back to reality.
The living train rushes forward.
Steven throws the bottle. It crashes on the floor, setting the hallway ablaze and lighting the living train rushing toward him. Shamaya leads the way, arms outstretched. She shrieks as the flames set her ablaze, but the monster doesn’t stop. It slams into Steven and continues past. His horrified screams make me cringe, but they’re quickly drowned out by the anguished wail of the now burning bodies rushing through the fire.
Willem and I watch the mash of bodies flow past for just a fraction of a second before turning and bolting up the stairs.
Two flights later brings us to the main deck. A group of three Draugar spots us and head our way, but we never even slow down to look at them. We charge down the first hallway we find and head starboard. Rushing. Panting. Slamming into walls. Our retreat is anything but quiet. But at this point, we don’t really care.
Willem crashes into a door, fights with the handle, and then throws it open. Cold air rushes over us. We head out into it.
“Do you see it?” Willem asks, looking to his left.
I turn the other way. “Here!”
The harpoon fired from the Raven is still embedded in the wall, pinning the Draugr woman to it. She’s alive but unable to move. That doesn’t keep her from reaching for us or from transmitting our location to the hive.
With a grunt, Willem swings his ax and removes the woman’s head. The collective knows we’re here, but they won’t know what we’re doing. Or where we’re going.
I step onto the rail, take hold of the wire, and prepare to wrap my legs around it.
“Hold on,” Willem says, looking over the rail, toward the Raven.
My view is upside down, but I can still clearly see what he’s seeing.
Nothing. There is a pile of bodies at the front of the ship, lit by the fleet’s array of halogen bulbs and spotlights, but Klein and Helena are nowhere in sight.
The Raven has been abandoned, or worse, overrun.
46
I look back at the empty forward deck of the Raven. Helena and Klein are missing, but I don’t see any active Draugar, either. There could be a mob of living dead waiting for us belowdecks, but there’s no way to find out. The sound of approaching feet reaches my ears. Doesn’t matter, I decide. If the Raven is lost, we’ll take it back and bug out before—oh my God, I’ve become my father.
I swing my feet up and lock my legs around the wire. Willem quickly undoes my belt. I’m about to complain when he wraps it around the wire and buckles it again.
“Thanks,” I say, and then pull myself along the wire. The cable is strong but thin and freezing cold. My hands burn from cold after just a few pulls. But the downward angle of the taut wire also makes the going easy, and I’m quickly a quarter of the way across.
The cable suddenly bounces. I’m tossed back and forth, up and down. I squeeze my hands tight and clench my legs together. But I’m tired and beaten. My fingers spring loose from the cable and I fall back. My back arches painfully as my descent is quickly arrested by my secured belt.
Willem saved my life. Again.
“Sorry,” Willem says.
With a grunt, I pull myself back up and grip the cable. I look toward my feet and see Willem sliding toward me. The cable shook when he climbed on.
Okay, so he nearly killed me, too.
Not that he had much choice. There are three Draugar standing by the cable. They’re just staring at us right now, but that will soon change. The horde knows where we are and where we’re heading.
I redouble my effort and make decent time. Before I reach the bottom, the cable starts wobbling and shaking. I glance back, wondering if Willem is having trouble, but he’s almost caught up to me. It’s the Draugar. All three of them have taken to the cable and are clumsily pulling themselves along.
Ignoring our pursuers, and that my hands feel like they’ve been dipped in gasoline and set alight, I complete the journey and stop just before the harpoon gun to which the cable is attached. I unbuckle my belt and fall to the deck a few feet below. I pull myself aside in time to miss Willem’s drop to the deck. He frees himself from the cable so fast that I realize he didn’t bother buckling himself to the cable. He could have fallen at any time.
My body protests as I stand, but we’re far from safe. The Draugar giving chase have only covered half the distance, but they seem to have gotten the hang of it. They’ll be here soon. I draw my sword and swing it at the cable. A loud metallic twang rises up the wire, but the blade can’t cut it. My arms vibrate from the impact, and I nearly drop the sword.
My body is rebelling against me. I won’t be able to stay on my feet much longer. We need to get the hell out of here.
“Jane,” Willem says, and he actually grins. He takes his ax from his back and gently whacks a metal pin where the cable connects to the harpoon gun. The cable shoots free, springing away like it was fired from the cannon. The three Draugar fall without a sound.
With the cable detached, the Raven starts to drift backward, away from the conjoined fleet. “You know how to reverse out of the prop foul?”
I take the key from my pocket and toss it to Willem. He heads for the bridge. “My father taught me.”
Mention of his father sours my stomach. Jakob is still alive, hidden within the bowels of an infested cruise liner and perhaps just moments away from sacrificing his life to save ours. Not just our lives, I think. He’s saving everyone on the damn planet. That’s what I understood. That’s why I let him do it. Because if he hadn’t, I would’ve.
“C’mon,” Willem says when he reaches the stairs.
“Can’t,” I say, pointing my sword to the nearest ship, still within leaping distance. “We have company.”
Draugar approach from every direction.
Willem charges up the stairs without a word. If we don’t get out of reach, there’s no way I can stop that many, not even if I didn’t feel like I’d spent the day playing Roller Derby with a bunch of roid-raged women.
The Raven’s engines roar from beneath. The ship slowly inches backward. Willem needs to gently unravel the prop fouler line so that it falls away instead of just rewrapping around the prop in the other direction. It makes for slow going, but we are going.
Five Draugar, some of the healthiest looking I’ve seen thus far, reach the nearest ship. They leap out, arms outstretched, and smack into the side of the Raven. There are four splashes as the failed long jumpers drop into the ocean.
Four splashes.
I step closer and see the fifth zombie’s hands clinging to the lower rung of the forward rail. I lean over the rail and look down at the man. He’s athletic and strong and dressed in tight exercise clothes. Must have been working out when all hell broke loose. He looks up at me with fluid white eyes but doesn’t bother trying to climb up. He knows it’s no use. So he just stares. She’s watching me. The Queen is watching me.
“
I know you can see me,” I say. “I know you can hear me.”
No reply. Just an angry scowl.
“I hope you like barbecue,” I say.
A hint of confusion emerges on the twisted face. When I grin, the scowl becomes a sneer. The man opens his mouth to retort on behalf of the networked Queen, but before a word can escape, I jab my sword into his skull. The hands go slack, and the Draugr falls into the dark ocean.
“And the last word goes to Jane Harper,” I say. The ship shakes from an impact. “Or not.”
Free of the prop-foul line, the Raven moves away from the glowing island of ships. Draugar gather along the outer fringe, staring at me. I’m tempted to flip them off, or perform Willem’s classic “cocksucker” gesture, but the ship is struck hard again.
The Raven’s exterior lights, including several spotlights aimed at the surrounding water, turn on. I run to the port bow harpoon and look over the rail. A passing humpback fin is caught in the glow of a spotlight. I turn the harpoon down and pull the trigger. The explosion of the firing harpoon and its exploding head shake the air just seconds apart. I duck away from the edge as water and whale meat slap against the hull. When I look again, the whale is gone, but chunks of flesh and a severed pectoral fin swirl in the bloodied water.
As Willem brings the ship about, I rush to the harpoon on the other side, searching for a target. I’m surprised when I find none. Where are the sperm whales? The blues? Their combined might could be enough to sink the Raven, and I’ve given the Queen every possible reason to unload the big guns without mercy.
The buzz-whump, buzz-whump sound of a small speedboat cutting through the waves tickles my ears. There’s another boat moving out here. Wondering if the Draugar are giving chase, I search for the boat and find it on a collision course with the Raven.
I position the harpoon gun toward the ship and place my finger on the trigger. The motor is in the back, which I can’t see, or shoot, but the explosive-tipped spear should reduce the small craft to splinters.
The speedboat comes off a wave. The prop buzzes as it cycles faster in the open air. I aim for where it will land and nearly pull the trigger. A rising humpback causes me to hold my fire. The breaching whale just misses the boat’s aft. A barrage of automatic gunfire draws my attention to the front of the boat as it lands again.
The Raven (A Jane Harper Horror Novel) Page 24
