The Last Mutation

by Michael Bray

  It was clear that Mannering was unafraid, which in turn was terrifying Ethan.

  “I’m in control here,” Ethan said, but it sounded weak and he knew it.

  “I can’t blame you, I suppose,” Mannering went on, adjusting his course slightly. “You kids don’t remember what it was like before, when there was still hope, still something to look forward to in this world. Now it’s just sand and death. Your generation are lucky. You don’t know how it was so you don’t miss it.”

  He glanced over his shoulder again, ignoring the bat and looking Ethan in the eye. “I remember. I miss it, and I know this world we live in now is hell, so if you’re going to hit me with that thing then do it, but know this. I’m not afraid, not like you. If you come at me, do it right, because you can bet I’ll come right back at you. Only difference is, I won’t hesitate. I won’t fail.”

  “Please, I’m asking you to stop. I know we got off on the wrong foot, but we can fix this. We need to get Barnes back to town.”

  “And do what? Save him? Get him to a doctor? Let me tell you something, kid. There are no doctors, not anymore. There isn’t anyone who can help. All it means is there is one less mouth to feed. It’s just a matter of time before he dies and you and I both know it.”

  “We have to try.”

  “No.”

  Ethan adjusted his grip on the bat. “Then you don’t leave me any choice.”

  He took a step forward, readying his swing, but Mannering spun to meet him, firing the flare gun at Ethan. It hit him in the shoulder, knocking him off his feet and sending the bat rolling across the floor.

  The agony was unreal, the burning in his shoulder radiating through his entire body. He couldn’t move his arm, or catch his breath, all he could was lie there and wait to die. Mannering appeared in his field of vision, standing above him. Ethan saw that he was now holding the baseball bat which he held casually, the business end resting on his shoulder.

  “That was stupid, kid. Now I think you finally understand.”

  There was so much Ethan wanted to say, but he couldn’t. He could barely breathe. He wanted to beg and plead, but it was too late. He watched as Mannering swung the bat at his prone head, then his entire world became dark.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ethan woke, the pain in his head radiating through his entire body. He opened his eyes and peered into the gloom. He was in the galley kitchen, his hands tied around a pipe on the wall. His shoulder screamed in agony, but the throbbing in his head was worse. He could barely open one of his eyes.

  “You’re awake.”

  He hadn’t seen Mannering sitting in the corner. He was just a shape amid the shadows. Apart from the creaking of the boat as it rocked with the tides, there was absolute silence.

  “You didn’t kill me,” Ethan mumbled, his words slurring.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Ethan didn’t like not being able to see Mannering’s face or read his expression.

  “Why have you tied me up?”

  “For my own safety, you were going to attack me.”

  “I just wanted you to stop.” As he said it, Ethan remembered the reasons why he wanted to go back in the first place. “Barnes, how is Barnes?”

  Mannering didn’t reply. He sat for a moment, then answered. “We are out of fuel. Did you know that?”

  “How are we going to get back? We need help.”

  “Plus food. And water.”

  “I told you this would happen. I told you we had to go back.”

  “You did,” Mannering said, his voice soft and without anger. “That you did. It seems on this occasion, the coward’s way was the correct one.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “It’s already done,” Mannering said. “It was necessary.”

  He flicked on the light. What was left of Barnes was in a plastic tub by the door, his remaining arm and both legs severed, his torso wedged in behind them. Barnes dead eyes stared, and his mouth was open. Ethan tried to squirm away from it, but his restraints were tight.

  “What did you do? What the hell did you do to him?”

  “I put him out of his misery,” Mannering said, resting a hand on the bloody, matted hair of Barnes’s corpse. “He was dying anyway, he’d lost too much blood. He’d want it this way though. He’d want us to do whatever it took to survive.”

  “You’re insane, you killed him. You murdered him over a…a fish.”

  Mannering crossed the room and crouched in front of Ethan, his eyes wild and alive with madness. “We’ve all done things we ain’t proud of. Me included. But we have us a little situation here and I need you, boy. I need you to step up and prove yourself.”

  Ethan was afraid. He tried to look Mannering in the eye, but couldn’t do it. Instead, he stared at his hands, his wrists raw from struggling against the rope.

  “Like I said, boy. We’re out of fuel and drifting. We got no food. No water. I had to take a decision. Barnes as already gone the second that bastard took his arm. Even if we’d have got him back, the infection would have finished him.”

  Ethan glanced at Mannering, then at the box containing what was left of Barnes behind him. Mannering followed his gaze and stood, walking back towards the door.

  “In situations like this, there isn’t an option. Barnes is a dead man, and we will need food. Meat.”

  “Meat? You mean…” Ethan shook his head.

  “It’s food, ain’t it?” Mannering snapped. “We also need bait.”

  “Bait? Are you insane? We’re out of fuel, we have nothing. You can’t go out there still trying to chase that monster.”

  “That’s what I’m saying to you, boy. I know that. God knows I know it now. Only, things have changed. I ain’t chasing him anymore. He’s hunting us.”

  “You’re lying, just saying things to make what you did right,” Ethan said.

  “No, I wish I was. See, when you were under, I got real close to him. Jabbed him with the harpoon gun a couple of times, even fired off the other round of the flare gun right into his back. He didn’t like that. You know, boy, I always thought these fish were dumb. I don’t know why, I just figured that they were that way because they were fish. Not this guy though. He’s smart. He knew what would happen, see. He kept running out from the boat, then slowing down, teasing me in, letting me get close, then moving out again. Making me chase, making me go where I didn’t want to go. Out where it was deep and far away from home.” Mannering grinned and shook his head. “When the fuel ran out, I was partly relieved. You ever hear of the term ‘thrill of the chase’?”

  Ethan shook his head.

  “I supposed as much. It was something from the old world, usually related to when a man would try to get a woman interested enough in him to put out. The chase was the motivator, see, but once the chase was over, often times the man would realise he didn’t even really like the woman too much. He just wanted her because she was unavailable. Anyway, that’s what happened here. I wanted to catch that big son of a bitch. I wanted it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life, even though I had no idea what I would do if I ever caught it.”

  Ethan was watching him now, captivated by his story.

  “Anyway, around two in the morning, we ran out of fuel. I don’t even know if I knew we were that low. Part of me thinks no, I wouldn’t have been so stupid, but another part of me thinks maybe I did. Maybe that was going to be my way of justifying to myself why I stopped chasing it. Anyway, the fuel runs out and the boat slows. I’m just sitting there, drifting on the tide, watching for that big bastard to break the surface somewhere in the distance as it went on its way. “

  “What happened?”

  “It breached, only not where I was expecting it to. Bastard came up right next to the boat. I looked at it, right there, not twenty feet away from me, that big eye of his staring at me, and me back at him, he went under, and I thought he was done until he breached again, this time ahead of the boat, maybe twenty-five feet away. It wanted me to
know it was there, see? It was all part of the game.”

  Mannering stood and walked back across the kitchen. He took a carving knife from the sink which was still streaked with Barnes’ blood, then turned back to Ethan. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  Ethan nodded, unsure if he did or not.

  Mannering walked slowly back towards him, and pointed the knife at him. “If I cut you lose, you need to tell me you won’t do anything dumb. Whatever you might think of me, I ain’t a killer. Fair enough, I was riding you pretty hard all the time we were out here, but this is different. Now it’s just us. Us and that thing.”

  “We can’t hunt it, it’s impossible,” Ethan said, unable to take his eyes from the knife blade.

  “This isn’t about hunting. This is about surviving. You see Barnes over there in that box?”

  Ethan nodded. He had no intention of looking again at it.

  “Then you know what I’m capable of. I don’t want to hurt you or anyone else, but I need you to help me think of a plan. Can I trust you?”

  “It works both ways,” Ethan replied. “Can I trust you not to come at me or attack me?”

  Mannering crouched and held the knife up so Ethan could see it. “I took no pleasure in doing what I did. None at all. That’s not me. I’m not a killer like those crazies who walk what’s left of this world and kills people for food. I’m a good man.”

  Mannering cut the ropes tying Ethan to the pipe then stood. “Come with me. You need to see it for yourself,” he said, then walked away, heading to the upper deck.

  Ethan stood and rubbed his wrists, then glanced at the remains of Barnes, which served as a reminder of just how dangerous a man he was in close proximity with. He followed Mannering upstairs, climbing the narrow staircase to the upper deck.

  A hazy dawn as close to breaking, or at least, as close to a dawn as existed in the new world. A murky gloom hung on the ocean, which was gently taking the boat where it pleased on the tides. Mannering was standing out on the rear deck, breath fogging in the cold air. Ethan walked out and stood beside him. Ethan looked at him, then out to sea.

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  “Right there,” Mannering said, nodding to the open expanse of ocean. Ethan looked, the boat creaking and rocking in the silence.

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere,” Mannering replied. “Can’t you feel him watching us?”

  Ethan glanced at Mannering, his face twisted in concentration as he stared at the ocean. “I don’t feel a thing.”

  “You will. If not now, soon.”

  “Why soon?” Ethan asked.

  “Because he’s getting ready to make his move on us, and when he does, we’ll kill him.”

  “How?”

  Mannering turned to Ethan and grinned. “That’s the fun part. Trying to figure it out.”

  “Nothing about this is fun. We’re going to die out here unless we figure out a way to stop it.”

  “That we are. Maybe Barnes ain’t got it so bad after all.”

  Ethan was about to reply when the ocean exploded ten feet from them, a jet of freezing water erupting into the air.

  “There she is,” Mannering whispered. “I told you she was watching.”

  Ethan stared at it, the creature’s eye the size of a basketball as it watched them.

  “She never goes too far from her food,” Mannering whispered, a small smile on his lips. The creature sank beneath the surface, leaving the ocean flat and calm again.

  Ethan turned to Mannering, his guts full of lead. “What do we do, Mannering? You’re the expert. You’ve been out here.”

  “That I have, but I’m no expert. Not with fish as big as this.”

  “But you must have an idea, you must have a plan.”

  “I got a plan,” Mannering said. “I’m going to go get myself a little drink of whisky and hope our big fish swims away to bother someone else.”

  “That’s it?” Ethan said as Mannering went back inside. “That’s your plan?”

  “Unless you have a better one.”

  Mannering went inside, grabbed the bottle of whisky from one of the cupboards then sat at the table, which was still smeared with dry blood from Barnes. Mannering opened the bottle and took a drink.

  “Getting drunk won’t help. We have a crisis on our hands here,” Ethan said, following Mannering inside.

  “You think this is a snap decision? You don’t think I’ve been sat here trying to think of a way when you were knocked out downstairs?” Mannering snapped.

  “No, but…”

  “No but nothing. I’ve been over every inch of this boat, and I can’t think of anything to do. Now it’s your turn. While you do that, I’m going to sit here and drink. Got it?”

  “You brought us all the way out here, you can’t just sit there and hope this thing goes away, we have to do something to help ourselves.”

  “Like I said, I’m all ears.”

  “Mannering…”

  “You talk too much, boy. Barnes talked too much, always preaching and sure he knew best, that he knew better than me. People who talk too much often times find themselves in trouble. Big trouble.”

  The threat was barely veiled, and Ethan received the message loud and clear. He left Mannering to find solace in his bottle and set about trying to figure out what they could use to help them. For two hours, he searched the boat. Checking every cupboard, every place where something useful might be lurking and able to help them, but, much like the world in which they existed, the vessel was barren and devoid of anything but its most basic structure. On a whim, he went into the engine room, hoping that even though they were adrift, there may be something to help. He ducked under and twisted through the snaking network of pipes around the engines, finding nothing but a few oily rags, bolts and loose screws. It was as he was about to give up, that he noticed the fuel gauges on the control panel by the wall. He stared at it, unable to believe what he was seeing. The answer to the problem had been in front of him all along and he hated himself for not seeing it sooner. Mannering was mad, he knew that. Mad and a murderer. Ethan’s fault had been that he hadn’t realised just how far gone he was. Far enough to murder, that was for sure, but also apparently far enough to commit a long, slow suicide. More angry now than afraid, Ethan went back upstairs.

  TWO

  Mannering had made a good dent on the bottle he was drinking and had, from somewhere, produced a second one for when he finished. His eyes were already glazed, and he was about to take another swig when Ethan snatched the bottle from his hands and threw it across the cabin.

  “Hey, whathehellareyoudoing?” Mannering slurred.

  “You lying son of a bitch. You’ve wasted all this time. All this time we could have been heading back, and you’ve had us sit here.”

  “Whaddyamean?”

  “Fuel, Mannering. You said we were out, but the gauges say we have half a tank.”

  “So what?”

  “So what? Why the hell are we just sitting here and letting that thing circle us? We could be out of here.”

  Mannering shook his head. “It won’t work,” he said, taking two attempts to try and unscrew the cap of the second bottle of whiskey. “I knowwhatimdoing.”

  Ethan reached for the bottle, but Mannering pulled it away from him. “Don’t start with me.”

  Ethan went to the controls of the boat, scanning the instruments. “Where’s the key? Where’s the starter key?”

  “Gone,” Mannering slurred, finally gaining access to the bottle. “I threw it in the water.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “Or maybe I’ve got them in my pocket. Who knows?”

  “This isn’t a game, we could die out here.”

  Mannering grinned and looked beyond Ethan through the window. “Hey, it’s snowing.”

  Ethan glanced out of the window and saw that, as drunk as he was, Mannering was right. A light snow had started to fall, the flakes melting as they made contact with the w
indow.

  “Give me the keys, Mannering.”

  “Why don’t you come and take em?” he replied, setting the bloody knife on the table in front of him.

  Ethan crossed the room, fuelled by fear more than common sense. Mannering snatched up the knife, but Ethan wasn’t interested in the blade. He wanted the bottle. He snatched it from the table and went out on deck with it, Mannering stumbling after him.

  “You give me that back, that’s mine, I brought that with me.”

  Ethan held it out over the side of the boat. “Keys first, then you can have it.”

  “Keys?” Mannering grunted, eyes wild as he fished in the filthy pockets of his jeans. “I’ll give you the keys alright, you son of a bitch.”

  Mannering took the key chain out of his pocket, and like Ethan, held it over the side of the boat. “You ever played poker, boy?” Mannering said, his breath fogging in the cold air. “You ever gambled something where it was a must-win situation?”

  Ethan was staring at the keys hanging over the side just as much as Mannering was staring at the bottle. “I’m prepared to take a chance.”

  “Are you really? Even though if I drop these keys we’re both dead?”

  “What if I drop the bottle? We both know you need this, Mannering. You’re an alcoholic. I’d bet that right now, this bottle means more to you than anything.”

  “He begged, you know,” Mannering said, an elastic grin stretching across his cheeks. “He begged for mercy, begged me to help him even as I cut him up. Did I tell you I ate a bit of him? A bit of flesh?”

  “Shut up.”

  “I wanted to try it, see. I wanted to see what it tasted like.”

  “Stop it, don’t say those things.”

  “He could have lived, the bleeding had stopped, but I wanted to try it. I wanted to see if those stories about flesh eaters out in the wilderness were right. It’ not bad, you know. It’s a safer way to live, safer than coming out here and risking it all against those things.”