by Jase Kovacs
There's got to be internal stairs, says Katie. He'll get away down there.
Fine, then I'll hunt him.
I reach the first landing, twist and turn, the bulkhead hatch here closed. Don't stop, up the next flight. Two more to go.
Come level with floor two. The doorway gapes open and I fire into it, into the darkness. Hear bullets whanging off steel, the flare of my muzzleflash illuminating white faces coming apart, firing half a magazine into the room as I go past, suppressing them, until I reach the next flight and climb again. Outraged screeching below me but they don't come.
I look up the stairs. Straight up them, to through the grill of the walkway and the sun peeks over the edge of the superstructure. So close to noon. Time to get the sextant out, sailor, haha. Take your observation and fix your position on the globe. Every second, the sun rises higher in the sky. Every second, the shadows shrink, his kingdom wanes, his dominion ebbs.
Until noon and then the sun will begin to fall. Everything natural in this world is a cycle. Everything but time.
"Matty, help!" Blong voice is high, piping, laced with fear and oh so very human and alive. "I'm slipping!"
Up and around, firing the other half of the mag into the third floor doorway but no snarling, no screeches or splattering of ruptured flesh, no creatures on floor three. I reload on the run, going up to four, up to the top level, up to the bridge. Up past a huge wing mounted searchlight. I swing into the doorway, almost a mirror of my move yesterday when I first found the boy, my finger light on the trigger, ready to squeeze, ready to fire at the Captain.
But no. The bridge is empty. A sealed hatch in the aft bulkhead now open. A yellow and black striped descending guardrail is visible as I sweep the room with my Surefire.
"Matty!" Absolute terror. Where is he? Where is he? I see them now, four little fingers white knuckle tight around the window's edge, blood dripping where the shattered window frame has cut into him.
I sprint into the room, heedless that this is a trap, of course it is, why else would the bait be so perfect, something I could never resist.
I dive over the window and he's there. Blong staring down at the deck and then up at me, a single hand hanging on for dear life. He looks up at me as I lean out the window. Mad white terrified eyes. His other hand coming around but I ignore it. He's a child, only ten if that, so I just lean down, grab him by the scruff of his neck and haul.
He screams, of course but it's a good scream, it's not a scream of terror or fear as his fingers give out, but one of indignant pain, as in, why are you hurting me!? He comes up, he's so light I haul him back, lifting him up over the broken glass of the window's ledge. His arms coming tight around my neck as I pull him to me, hauling him into the bridge.
We fall down inside the bridge and he's hugging me, both arms so damn tight around my neck that it hurts to breathe. I'm flat on my back, which is okay because I can get my rifle up and cover the doors. No way of getting this kid off me right now, he's a limpet, squeezing me, his arms locked. He's talking quickly, I don't understand the words but his meaning is clear and I go, "Shh, kid, it's okay, you're alright. You're okay." Hoping that nothing appears in the doorway because I would probably deafen the kid shooting right now.
Katie says, Matty.
Yeah.
No, Matty, did you–
Yeah. I saw.
When I was leaning out the window, holding Blong, hauling him back in, I saw them. The Captain's plan unfolding perfectly. Half a dozen of the creatures, wrapped in cloaks, racing across the deck, trailing sparks and smoke like comets. Some of them falling, their feet and ankles dissolving as they run, but enough making it, surrounding crane number three, the last intact crane. Tearing the hatch off and delving inside.
It comes, the noise I expected, the WHOMP as it goes up. Looking up, over the boy's crown and out the bridge window, I see a new column of smoke climbing into the wide blue sky. I stroke the kid's hair, and slowly his mad panic voice slows and his arms slacken their grip as he calms. But I don't move. I lie there, holding the child, whispering to him, so we can't hear the crackle of flames burning out the cranes.
Chapter 28
Okay, I've wasted enough time. I stand, pulling Blong to his feet. The boy slack now, numb, his arms relaxing as I stand, the only thing remaining tight is his hand around mine. "Blong," I say. "I need that. It's time for us to go."
He is quiet, staring at the floor. As limp as a dead fish. I look around for advice but Katie is gone. I feel a pang. I know what this means. The boy. Now he's here, she isn't. She knew this. And she still helped me.
I'm not alone but Blong isn't much help. Whatever. We're done with this damned ship. Got the boy, objective located, now it's time for escape. How bad could this be? He's taken out the cranes, so what? I only needed them to rescue the boy.
Katie may be gone but that doesn't mean I can't question myself. Because this doesn't make sense. The Captain knew what I wanted. He knew I was coming for the boy. And he was willing to give Blong up in a gambit, to distract me so he could disable the last crane. But I only needed the cranes as part of my plan to get Blong. The marys may be stupid, predators driven by hate and hunger, but not the Captain. The Captain has a plan.
He has an agenda.
The question is: do I care? Blong tugs at my hand and I look down to find him nodding slowly at me, as he takes stock of his situation, his reversal of fortune. "Lady, you came back."
"Come on kid, we're leaving." All we need to do is run down the stairs, along the port gangway and we're away, down the side of the ship and back on Voodoo. Start the diesel and ratchet up the chain and get out of the bay and we're away. It's still the middle of the day, no chance for them to sneak up the anchor, no tricks with the chain today. Plenty of daylight. Shoot them down if they try a mad rush.
Plenty of time before sunset.
But the Captain knows all this...
Coming here for Blong was what he wanted. It allowed him to take out the cranes.
I'm missing something. Wish Katie was here, bounce some ideas off her.
Guess it's time for Blong to step up.
I crouch, so I can look at him. He's wary but his hand is still tight in mine. "Kid. Did he tell you anything?"
He shakes his head, real small, real scared. "No. No."
"Come on, Blong. What happened? You fell and then somehow you got up the top of the bridge. How?"
"Blong falls. Crash. Wake up. Monsters looking at Blong. So many. Never seen them before. Before was people, now monsters. Waiting. Waiting, looking at Blong but not eating him. I run, hide. Find rockets, like you have."
I'm nodding, every word he says raises a hundred questions but I just nod, okay, so he found the remaining flares, but that doesn't answer how he got out of the hold.
He's coming alive during his speech. Like a snowmelt at the end of winter. Words coming like drips then racing then tumbling into a brook.
"Captain comes. Blong scared now. Before, everyone looks normal. Like old times. He told me, Blong, bad people coming, you trick them and I say okay, no problem, we trick them, first soldiers then other Americans, we trick them all, can't hurt Blong. But now, the captain looks old, looks bad, he looks wrong. Blong runs. Runs and runs. Go up to the roof, shoot the flare. See you going away. Captain is so angry, so angry. I falling and you pull me up. Now we go, we go now, come on lets go lets go."
I remember what happened the last time I followed his urging. Leading me down into the trap. Of course, I consider the question: is he clear? Has the Captain's influence truly ended?
So many questions.
I try something. "No, we're staying. I'm going to kill them all, kill the monsters, kill the Captain."
"No no no no. Can't do that, too many, too strong. We run now, yes, run to your ship."
Yeah, he's pretty insistent. "What about downstairs?" I move towards the aft hatchway, the one leading to the dim stairwell. "What's down here?"
"No no no no, bad pl
ace, bad place." He tugs on my arm, digs his heels in and pulling me towards the port stairwell. I shake him off, roughly and he falls back on the deck. "Come on lady, let's run, let's go."
I turn before I can change my mind. Move to the aft stairs, my rifle up, the Surefire on. Just stairs leading down the back of the ship. Blong's voice rises as he succumbs to panic. "No no no, not allowed down there, Blong not allowed, no one can go, not allowed."
So I say to Blong, "Does the Captain want me to go down these stairs?"
"Not allowed, bad place, bad Blong, don't go." He's rolled over onto is stomach, his voice thin and despairing, flattened with the terror of abandonment. Beating his little fists on the deck. "Everyone gone, everyone leaving Blong for the monsters."
"Stay here, kid," I say. Why is the third floor the only one empty of marys? Why won't Blong go down here? And where do the stairs lead?
I go down the stairs. Slowly. Carefully. The Surefire showing walls that are damp with condensation, thick with mould and mildew. This area has been sealed up for a long time. Who knows when the aft hatch was last opened?
I'm not surprised when I find only one door in the corridor. I glance down the next flight of stairs. They snake back and forth, probably leading all the way down to engineering. The stairwell cold, dark and empty.
The single door in this corridor is marked with a brass nameplate, engraved with one word: CAPTAIN. I'm not surprised. Who else would have accommodation next to the bridge?
A thin scream echoes down the stairwell. Blong is looking down from the bridge, his face horrified. "No lady, you can't, no, big trouble big trouble for you!"
There's this old logic riddle. Not that my mind is working particularly logically at this time, but bear with me. You're in a dungeon, facing two doors. One leads to freedom, one to certain death. And in front of the doors are two guards, one of whom tells only lies, the other tells only the truth. But you don't know which guard is which and which door leads where. And you can only ask a single question. So what is the question that will lead to safety?
How is this relevant? Maybe it isn't. Okay, so if the Captain still controls the boy, but thinks I trust the boy now, then he doesn't want me to go in here. And if Blong is free of the Captain, if the little boy is back, then he remembers something from before, including that the Captain's Quarters were off limits. So, either way, going down there is not what the Captain wants so it's what I'm going to do. I'm not sure this is best logic in the world - and I know just how skewed my thought process are right now - but in the end, what makes me open the door is not worries about what the Captain is or isn't afraid of.
It's just normal garden variety curiosity. I open the door because of who I am.
Because I'm a scavenger and flipping over rocks is what I do.
The room is dark. The portholes are intact, the glass encrusted and clouded with filth, inside and out. Not letting much light in. Dust thick in the air and a dry decrepit smell that I know well. Death, old dry death.
He's sitting at his desk, his back to me. Head bowed. His eyes cast down. I move forward, the Surefire pinning him. His shoulders bearing epaulettes, four bands of gold glimmering weakly beneath a shroud of dust. Silver hair. His skin grey and shrivelled. I touch his shoulder, my hand shaking and he slumps. His body light. No mass, no weight. A shell that has been dead for years.
Blong is silent. The whole ship is silent. As if holding its breath.
On the desk in front of him are three things. Each of them heavy with meaning.
In his desiccated hand is a black semiautomatic pistol.
Closed on the desk is a red logbook, its cover embossed with gold letters, Chinese characters and then, in English, BLACK HARVEST.
And a folded envelope, thin airmail sheets of paper folded thick.
I look into his face. This is not the man, the being who has tormented me. I can see a glimmer, a hint of the beatific being I encountered in Hold One. When I was held in his spell. A thin hint of silver stubble graces his chin. White buzzcut hair. His high, aristocratic cheekbones emphasised by his hollow, sunken cheeks and empty eye sockets.
He is not the creature I know as the Captain, the one who holds sway, the one who commands the marys and seeks to draw me into his dark communion.
For a moment I stand there, studying the man. Trying to reach across the gulf of time that separates us, to ask him how did you come to this place? What are the mysteries that lead you to press the pistol against your heart and fire?
Then I realise: I don't need to ask. He has left me the answers. I open the envelope - it's unsealed and unaddressed, who would be able to deliver it? - but the writing is page after page of Chinese. I don't speak Chinese, apart from saying 'get down' and I sure as hell can't read it. But I don't need to understand the characters to see something gentle and intimate about the strokes. This is his last letter to a loved one, a letter he knew never would be delivered but still was compelled to write. Even if I could understand it, I wouldn't read it. I put it back on the desk, gently, regretting even disturbing its sanctity.
I turn to the ship's log. I open it and there are dates and latitudes and longitudes and the captains notes and observations. The numbers in English but the comments in Chinese. I flip through it, cursing, nothing to help me here. Occasionally he has scribbled some English, comments and asides but on the whole, I can't read it. Some other time though. This is a mystery I can take with me, to consider at my leisure. See if anyone back on Madau can read it.
Still, I can't help it. I have to be certain there is nothing in here that can help me now. I flip to the last page. Angling the book so I can read it in the faint light leaking through the stained porthole. The last entry is in English. The writing heavy block capitals. The man's anguish carved into the page with strokes of a graphite pencil.
THEIR CHANTING FILLS THE HULL. LIKE NATIVE DRUMS THEY FILL THE AIR WITH THEIR NOISE. DRIVING ME TO MADNESS. I KNOW THEY WILL COME FOR ME TONIGHT. I AM WHAT I REMAIN. NOT FALLEN TO HIS SWAY. HIS DARK PROVIDENCE. THE VISION HE SHARES WITH THEM THAT BOUND THEM TO HIS WILL. HIS HELL.
IT IS THE END. IT IS FINISHED. MY SHIP IS BROKEN.
I HAVE FAILED. MY LAST WORDS FOR MY FAMILY. GOD PROTECT THEM.
GOD FORGIVE ME FOR FAILING MY DUTY. GOD FORGIVE ME FOR NOT KILLING HIM WHEN I HAD THE CHANCE. THE FIRST OFFICER, TURNED MAD PROPHET AND HERETIC PRIEST. INFECTING EVERYONE. WHAT DIFFERENCE WOULD IT HAVE MADE? ONE MORE DEATH IN ALL THIS MADNESS?
THEY WILL NOT HAVE ME.
I AM THE MASTER OF MY FATE. I AM THE CAPTAIN OF MY SOUL.
I AM THE MERCY.
The chill of his words settle on me. God I wish I hadn't read that. Why did he write that in English, rather than in Chinese? Then I realise: he wanted any other sailor who discovered this log to know. As his last act, he sought to help those who might follow after.
I touch his shoulder. I wish you peace.
I take the pistol and check it. It's Chinese made, military grade. Good condition. Chambered for 9mm parabellum, thank god, something common at least. The bottom drawer of his desk is open and I see a box of shells and a loaded magazine, which I drop in my dry bag. Those and the logbook are the only thing I will take from this man's grave.
Blong is shaking like a whipped dog when I come back to the bridge. Fearful, amazed to see me return, as if he expected the Captain's wrath at my trespass to have swallowed me whole.
"Come on, kid. It's time to go."
Chapter 29
I press up against the wall, my rifle held vertically against my chest and peer out the porthole. Both cranes are still burning lustily, boiling black smoke spilling away to windward, cloaking the entire deck forward of the superstructure in a thick chemical cloud. I catch glimpses of the deck and bow. Nothing to be seen. A spread of blacked scorch marks clustered around the base of crane number three, where marys fell and burnt up. I count ten, twelve scorches. And I wonder - how many of his brood will he immolate to defeat me?
I wish I had taken the t
ime last night to count the ones I saw on the superstructure. That's what Dad would have done. Patiently, methodically gathering intelligence. Kept track of them. But I'm not Dad. He may have taught me things, him and Mum shaping my survival skills, but I am my own person.
My best guess was around a hundred creatures. But does that count the ones who came over to Voodoo last night? And how many were still below decks? I can account for about fifteen today. Eighty five left? I shake my head: these are just guesses, pointless brain busy work as I try to put off what I'm about to do.
There's been a change in Blong, ever since I came back up from the Captain's cabin. I don't know how to explain it. It's like he's got puppy dog eyes now. Looking up at me, adoringly, utterly trusting. I tell him it's time to go and he nods eagerly. No more tears or pleading. He watches, fascinated as I crouch with my empty magazines held between my knees and fill them with brass rounds from my dry bag. Cooing to himself, seriously impressed by everything I do.
It's a little overbearing. But better he's following on my heels than digging his in.
Okay, reorg. I've got two full mags, plus forty loose rounds in the lunchbox. The pistol's magazine holds twenty rounds of nine mil, a second mag is in my pocket and a box of fifty spare in the drybag. The nine mil doesn't have great stopping power, but system shock doesn't take marys down, precision shots to the brain and spinal column do. So better to have a lot of smaller bullets than a few big ones. That's my philosophy at least.
Action. We've got to go down the stairs, along the port walkway to the ladder and then down to Voodoo. About fifty metres along the deck. The wind is lifting and taking away the smoke pretty quickly which is good as I think a smoky deck would favour the marys - they'd be able to close before I could get a shot off.
