The Lash (Zombie Ocean Book 7)

by Michael John Grist

  I am a guttering lighthouse in the midst of that, surrounded by terrible wrecks and soon to join them. Nothing will ever satisfy the black hole that drives it, so instead I focus all my fading will on just tightening my grip round its neck. Riding its crackling back is like hugging a jet piston, pummeling my chest. The disruption on the line swells outward and drops the men in helmets all around us. I watch as Feargal is lost in the depths of it, and there's nothing I can do to protect him but-

  CRRRRRRKKK

  I twist the thing's head round and it screams and flickers harder, a jagged scrawl that refreshes ten times a second, each version spikier and more rabid. Its sharp edges needle through my thighs and stomach, its chaos bites chunks off my ebbing rage, but I keep squeezing and twisting, pulling its head until its neck distends nearly backwards, and the creaking sound becomes a crack and the line is a tornado and finally-

  CRAAAAAAACKKK

  Its neck breaks.

  I'm flung away, bouncing off crumbled masonry into a smoky rocket crater, as the blast goes out like another nuclear bomb, spewing a mushroom cloud of black light. I pass out for a second, then wake, as waves of raw energy stream out; corrupting me, corrupting the line and erasing everything in its wake. It beats at me like a tide, shaving layer after layer away. Feargal's signal is pink mist in the air, washed clean.

  SHHHHHHHHH

  On my back I gasp for air and watch a great black eye form in the sky as parts of me are savaged and torn.

  SHHHHHHHHH

  It smothers and flattens, on and on, until finally it stops.

  I'm still alive.

  I can hardly breathe.

  I roll to my knees, leaving bloody handprints in the dusty road, and the world flexes around me, because there is no line here. It makes me dizzy. There's no air, no sound, like being packed into a vacuum.

  On my hands and knees I shuffle forward, but there is no weight to the air, no sense of living minds moving around me. There is just nothing. No signal of Feargal, nothing from the men in helmets, no swamp of tides on the line, nothing. I jaw at the air and paddle forward through the dust, trying to remember how to breathe.

  Where the crackling black and white thing had been, there is now just a withered corpse slumped on the body of my friend, my enemy, my lieutenant.

  Feargal.

  I know he's dead without touching him. The blood from his temple has stopped flowing. He is empty on the line, a desiccated corpse; the life blown out of him by the blast. I laugh. In trying to save him, I killed him. So like me.

  "I'm sorry," I say, but the sound doesn't carry well in this empty air. Breathing comes hard. I reach over to close his staring eyes, leaving bloody prints on his forehead and eyelids. He doesn't look peaceful. He looks like a broken man.

  I stop laughing and start to sob.

  PIT PIT PIT

  Bullets strike the road nearby, sending little puffs of dust up, making the air smell of old tar. I'd like to look, but I don't think I can even turn my head. I'm too weary.

  PIT PIT

  One pops off a car's hood and grazes my elbow, drawing fresh blood. I'm a candle leaking red. I know who this is, now. I see him in my head, a faint signal flagging in the emptiness like a sole survivor in the Arctic ice, struggling on through the blinding snow, clutching close what little dying heat he has left.

  I turn, and see the shark-eyed man.

  His helmet is off, though I suppose it saved him from the worst of it. To survive a blast like that he must be strong, though I can see that strength won't last. He's ebbing like a gibbous moon. His eyes are gray. He's tall and thin, and though he wavers with each uncertain step, he projects a certain grace and control. His hair is close-cropped and gray. He wears his black tactical suit and holds a pistol on me, the aim slipping. His nose is aquiline and serious, his cheeks pinched, perhaps sixty years old.

  POP POP POP

  He shoots at me and misses.

  I try to send a pulse at him, but I have nothing left. There's nothing to draw on; no anger now, no madness, just resignation. My arms sag slack at my sides and he approaches. He drops to one knee but picks himself up. He keeps coming. It's amazing that he's not wearing a helmet.

  "Hello," I say, as he steps up. Yards away from me in my crater in the line, he levels the pistol at my head.

  "No," he says, and squeezes the trigger.

  FRAWWWSSHH

  Something hits him, a large thing capped in black, and the POP shoots off beside my ear while the shark-eyed man is driven to the side into rubble. I blink and recognize what I'm seeing, as the huge figure resolves.

  It kneels easily atop the shark-eyed man. Massive in the shoulders, as big as Drake, and wearing one of the black helmets but no suit.

  "He's mine," he says, muted through the helmet, and punches the shark-eyed man in the face. Three times, four, busting the nose and the sharp look of command. I recognize those blows, would know that faint taste of pleasure riding on the empty line anywhere.

  It's Arnst.

  18. SHARK EYES

  Arnst throws more blows from those massive fists.

  He's not so strong as he was before the whipping, and the blast has clearly taken it out of him, but still I wouldn't want to be the one taking those punches. He misses several times, though. He punches the road by accident and there's a crack. His fist comes back streaming blood, a piece of bone showing through. He holds it up to his helmet and looks at it like he's confused, then throws it again.

  Hit, hit, smack, smack, miss.

  He pummels the shark-eyed man's chest, breaking ribs inward. He hammers his throat and clubs in his skull. He beats the body until he's panting, then he rolls onto his haunches, but overbalances and rolls backward. He turns to me and stands. I can barely see his face through the blood-spattered helmet's visor. It looks strange, a little too small for him really, jammed on his head like a tight black bottle mouth on a swollen cork.

  I'm too exhausted to even try and fight. I slump back. The blood's drying on me but I must look a terrible sight.

  "Killed him too, did you?" Arnst asks, nodding over to where Feargal lies.

  I don't look. I've seen enough of dead Feargal.

  "Yes," I say, because I don't care to mince words with this. I didn't, but I did, so let the record stand. "I like your hat. It's petite."

  Arnst snorts. "I remember that mouth."

  He walks over. He's wobbling. Probably he rolled his ankle somewhere along the way. I'm impressed he took a helmet off one of these men; that he thought it might help, that he was able to do it. From the look of them on the rooftops, from the look of the shark-eyed man, they were well-trained and not too keen to give up the very equipment that was keeping them alive. Surely they were the best the bunkers had to offer.

  But then Arnst is ex-military too. Trained and in shape. I never took him seriously enough.

  He kicks me in the thigh, deadening it instantly. Just a warmer, really. A reminder.

  "You talked a lot then, too. In Screen 2." He leers down at me. He's remembering. I don't really blame him.

  "Live by the lash, eh?" I say.

  He blinks. He doesn't get it. "What?"

  "Live by the lash, die by the lash?" This doesn't draw any sparks. "Every drop of blood spilled shall be repaid with the sword?"

  Nothing. Maybe his English is not that good. He didn't talk much in Screen 2 either, as I recall. Mostly I was smart-mouthing with Drake. Now the lieutenant wants a go.

  "What sword?"

  "Forget it," I say, and he does, kicking me in the balls.

  It's a piercing shock that drives right up into my belly. I puke to the side, and the puking itself hurts like a bitch. It's cold and throbbing. Shit, what a mess.

  "You talked and talked," Arnst says, reminiscing. "In your chair. It looks like you miss it. I can find you another chair."

  "I'm fine here," I manage, wheezing out the words.

  He stamps on my chest. Crack. Some ribs break and suddenly it gets harder
to breathe. This is new; I suppose he was restrained before. Now he's all-in.

  "I can't talk if you break my lungs."

  He considers. He looks about us. He sees the dead black and white thing.

  "What happened with that?"

  I don't really know. Maybe these will be my last words though, so worth making them good.

  "Fuck you."

  Not that good.

  He puts one foot on my hip and rocks his weight on top. It is actually incredibly painful. The skin is pinched. My hip creaks and threatens to pop out of the joint. That's a new kind of pain.

  "All right," I gasp, "some kind of fight on the line. I killed it; it blew up. What a mess, right?"

  He eases up slightly. "That thing?"

  His accent has gone stronger. He sounds almost Russian.

  "Yeah. I see you put a helmet on. Where'd you get that idea from?"

  He frowns down at me. "From?"

  "Yeah. You don't need it anymore, though. The blast's over."

  He grins, then taps the faceplate. "About this? You think I wore this for your light show?"

  Now it's my turn to frown. If he didn't, then…

  "Yes," he says, enjoying my slow realization. "From the time you whipped me, this is what I have wanted. You should not have made them whip me. Lydia was my wife!"

  Ah. He seems angry about that. If it wasn't for the pain in my groin I'd laugh.

  "Wife?" I scoff instead. "You called Drake's raping shitshow a family too, didn't you? She wasn't your wife, you dumb-"

  He ducks in and slaps me across the face. After the other blows it comes as a dizzying wake-up call. There's something very personal about being slapped in the face. It literally moves the world for you, and the pain from a slap can be worse than a punch, with so many surface level pain receptors firing like a thunderclap.

  Just to be sure, he slaps me the other way, to make things even.

  "She was gay," I manage, before a third slap comes. "I suppose you think being gay was just a phase too, like she'd never had a real man?"

  Now he does punch me, damn hard, crushing my nose and grinding my skull onto the hard road. Blood flows down my throat and I spit it up at him. It splashes off his visor and he grins.

  "I will enjoy this. Taking you apart."

  "Take your helmet off, you pussy," I gush, my voice gone nasal with the break. It's harder to suck in breath and talk at the same time.

  "I will listen to all that you have to say," he says reasonably. "I will listen until the moment you break, and then I will listen more. You like people talking. I think I might let you talk yourself to death."

  I don't have much to say to that. He's too excited about it, getting his revenge for the long drive where I made him talk through the night. It's all so petty. He smacks halfheartedly at my chest, jostling the broken ribs, like I'm some kind of talking doll he can jog back to life.

  "Kill me and you'll all die," I say. "You need me to-"

  He stuffs his boot in my mouth, and I gargle into silence. That's new too. He presses harder and my jaw creaks, threatening to dislocate. I can't breathe and can't stop the blood flowing down my open throat. It's too hard to swallow, so instead I choke.

  Waterboarded on my own blood.

  When he finally leans back, I cough for at least a minute straight, hacking up sticky red slime. It's everywhere. Shit. It dawns on me that I am going to die. I am going to break, and this asshole will win. But what will he win?

  "I'm serious," I go on. "Do you even know where the bunkers are?"

  "Of course," he answers. "I have listened, friend Amo." He gives me a wry grin, made grotesque by how damn big his face is crammed into that helmet.

  "I should have killed you in the desert."

  He nods. "Yes."

  He stands on my calf. He balances there while I scream. It hurts a ridiculous amount.

  "You are my balance beam," he says, and takes a step onto my thigh. "You see, I can talk too. I was once a gymnast." He pulls a pirouette, which probably tears a disc of skin off, before he topples laughing to the side.

  "Talking is your skill. I will make it my skill. I will find your bunkers and kill them. Maybe you will come with me for some of this? I would let you see that you are not necessary; there are other ways to run this world. Perhaps I will put you on a chain and have you do the killing for me."

  I manage a smile. "That sounds like a really good time. Let's do it."

  His good humor insulates him to my sarcasm. "I am glad you are excited. There are so many days ahead, Amo. Together we will-"

  BANG

  His chest blows outward.

  I jerk as blood sprays over my face. Arnst himself looks confused. He tries to look down at his own chest but the helmet is too tight to get a good angle. Instead he looks at me, suddenly lost.

  "Am I-" he manages, gesturing down with his eyes, too horrified by the possibility.

  I nod at him, dumbstruck. It's a pitiful communication, really. There's a sucking exit hole in his chest that looks to be through his lung. I can see flesh inside palpitating. God knows what is keeping him on his feet.

  "I think-" Arnst begins, but he never gets to finish that thought. Probably it was momentous, but the moment can't hold him up, and he goes down. Not to one knee, not toppling like a tree, just crumbling inward like a well-dynamited building. His tailbone cracks off the asphalt then his helmet, then he just lies as still as Feargal.

  I'm shocked. I'm still breathing hard. I look over and see the shark-eyed man holding a huge silver Magnum on me, smoke still curling from the barrel like a spaghetti Western. It's awesome.

  He pulls the trigger again.

  * * *

  The gun goes click.

  Click click click.

  That's a sweet sound.

  I let my head sag back and laugh. Ah, to survive. He gurgles away over there; his face way more smashed than my own, but there's no reloading now. This is surely it for both of us. He lies flat, a spent force, just like me. Whoever has the strength to get up first is going to win. All we'd need to do is lie on top of the other, tilt their head back, and they'll drown.

  In the end, it's me.

  I crawl over, groin still throbbing from that massive kick. I stop in front of Arnst and prize his helmet off. His thick, curly-headed cork of a head pops out, and I shake sweat and blood droplets out, then I crawl the rest of the way to the shark-eyed man.

  He's in a bad way.

  I slump on my side, holding myself up on my elbow, and look at him. His nose is pounded flat. His lips are smashed. The regal look of command is gone, but still his eyes pierce me like steel teeth. I shiver under that glare. Just looking at him makes me surprised I've made it this far.

  I don't have eyes like that.

  He coughs and blood sputters up. His chest is sunken too, like mine. Arnst wearied himself out hitting this iron wall, before he came to me. Everything I took, this man took worse.

  "Here you go," I say numbly, holding out the helmet. "Put it on."

  He just breathes, raspy, and stares. "You told him to take it off."

  I look back at Arnst. Heart blown out of his chest. "Yeah. That's true." My arm slips and my chest almost thumps to the ground. I catch myself in time, barely. "But he was a dick."

  He just looks at me. I can imagine what he's thinking. To be beaten by an idiot like this. To die at an idiot smart mouth's hand. I get it, one hundred percent. It sucks.

  "You'll feel better," I mumble. My lips get in my tongue's way, too thick and unwieldy. I set the helmet down and roll it to him. "Just for now. Just to talk."

  "I don't need it," he says. "Don't you feel that?"

  I weave in place. For a moment I don't know what he's saying, then I remember. There is no line here. I can't feel it because it's gone, washed out to sea leaving a clean beach behind, littered with dead crabs and rotting fish.

  I nod.

  "We call them lepers," he says, every word an effort. "They happen when we make hel
mets. Only one in two attempts are successful."

  "Lepers," I muse. It's a fitting name. "How many?"

  He looks in my eyes. "If I said it was a hundred, would you-"

  "It's not a hundred."

  His thin, gray lips purse in something like a smile. That obviously pains him, but he holds it. "No. There are thirteen here. Twelve, now you've killed one. Just like the primaries."

  I nod. Twelve primaries for twelve bunkers. "Your demons are all dead now."

  "They are. But these are different. Do you know why we kept them?"

  "A measure of last resort?" I ask. I don't know why, but I quite like talking to him. All business, straight to the point, no screwing around. He'd make a good father figure. "To take me out if ever I got this close?"

  He shakes his head slightly. His cheeks have gone an ashen gray. "No one expected you to reach this far. No. We keep them because they can't be destroyed." He takes a breath. "The devastation each one would make as they die was too strong. You saw what happened here. This whole region," he encompasses Istanbul's suburbs with a roll of his eyes, "will bear the stain for a generation. Like radioactive waste. The line won't return here for years, and nothing will grow. People who pass through will sicken and die. They're a scourge."

  I almost chuckle. I'm addled, half my brain sucked away in the blast, and I can't take anything seriously. "Eye for an eye. You blew up LA."

  He looks at me. "Eye for an eye. We did."

  We both slump silently. For a little while he tries to sit up more, maybe reach a rock or something to hit me with, but he's too weak and getting weaker.

  "Why did you send the bomb?" I ask him.

  It's been preying on my mind ever since we started this descent into darkness. I want there to be some good reason, maybe full of mystery, but with something real at the end.

  "We had the treaty," I go on. "We were working on a cure together. Lucas said we were so close. Why?"

  He snorts, which must be painful because he has no nose now. Blood spurts out of cracks in the mashed middle of his face. "Lucas said. Mr. Fallow is a child stumbling in the dark, like you. His cure was a trap. Hundreds of my people took the same cure, only to die months later in the most agonizing pain. There is no cure for the thing we face. It doesn't exist. We signed the treaty to earn time. To kill you. When it was ready, we sent the bomb."