The Mariner

by Ade Grant

  To his surprise, the two monks who’d joined them, an elderly woman and a portly middle-aged man were managing to keep up. Fear and a good diet giving reserves the Mariner would never have expected to look for, though both their faces were flushed with the effort.

  Still, there wasn’t much looking to be done. Their journey was a desperate scurry, through foliage that tore and bit, yet what it dished out to them it also delivered in heaps to the Mindless behind. Trees were non-discriminatory, and the Mindless had little control over their flailing limbs.

  Finally they broke cover onto the beach, sand bringing relief, yet infuriating sluggishness to their tread.

  “The row-boat! McConnell, get the boat ready!” The Mariner ran on, past the small vessel that the others were trying to drag towards the seashore, his legs slipping in the wet sand, making his progress seem dream-like in its glacial tempo.

  He neared the rock, and leapt onto its surface, glad to be free from the sand, yet frustrated by the darkness that surrounded him. Hands splayed wide, he found himself once again clawing about the same stretch of stone, searching for his missing Mauser. A finger brushed against something, but it turned out to be the cold leg of Pryce, initially ignored in favour of a lynching, and now to be ignored forever.

  Behind him, he heard Grace and the old lady start to scream.

  Never enough time!

  Cold metal filled his hand. He was up, throwing himself back towards the beach, not caring if he injured himself in the process, just desperate to put this island behind him.

  Ahead he could see the row-boat; it was in the surf, taking in water, whilst the others frantically tried to pull a Mindless woman off the portly monk. Megan still held her torch, a beam which wove frantically back and forth, trying to take in as much as possible from the gloom. Instead of bringing her flaming stick, Grace had left it, speared in the sand at the head of the beach. Now it illuminated the ten, maybe more, Mindless, who’d caught up and broke cover, streaking towards their hated enemy.

  Muttering a prayer to whatever force might look out for him, the Mariner began to fire.

  31

  ANOMENEMIES

  DESPITE THE CONTINUOUS ROCKING, THE Neptune felt more like firm ground than land ever did, and despite the circumstances, the pain, and the additional intruders, the Mariner was glad to be once more upon her ample frame.

  Initial joy had been tempered somewhere however, as crew of one had been transformed to six.

  Six.

  Six mouths to feed, not to mention the devils.

  But at least they were pleased with the turn of events. As the refugees, soaking wet, wounded and bedraggled, climbed aboard, the beasts had hissed and growled. Their fearsome display had only lasted until they saw Grace, upon which they reverted to excited yapping, making them about as fearsome as a kitten in a bib. This was the final straw for the Mariner, who made a mental note of their uselessness.

  And what a grim journey it had been. How many Mindless had he shot? The gun had been emptied and yet still they came, wading and swimming once the refugees had gotten beyond the surf. Hopefully they drowned, or were too stupid to turn back and were now paddling around the ocean, lost and growing tired.

  Traumatised and exhausted, all he wanted, all any of them wanted, was to collapse, sleep, and allow the wind to carry them away. But sleep was beyond them, because the portly monk was wounded.

  “Dead! I’m dead!” he screamed from below deck. McConnell and Megan were doing their best to address the wounds upon his neck and shoulder, amateurish though their administrations were.

  “You’re not dead,” she scolded. “These will heal, you’ll see. You’re going to be right as rain!”

  “But they were zombies!” he insisted. “The undead! Flesh-Eaters! I’ll become one for sure! You should throw me overboard now, lest I start feasting upon your brrrains!” He rolled the ‘r’ on his tongue theatrically, simultaneously emphasising the word and discrediting himself as an authority.

  “Yeah do it.” Mariner held his head, desperate for a drink and frustrated by the turn of events. “Before he, you know, feasts or whatever...”

  “You would be wise to, sir! Heed my words!”

  “We’re not throwing you overboard, just sit tight.” McConnell removed a deeply soiled cloth from the wound, threw it to the ground and began to apply another. “Zombies don’t exist.”

  “What would you call those creatures that attacked us then?”

  “Agents of the Demon, Cedrick,” Megan said. “They were sent to stop us achieving Diane’s goal.” At mentioning Diane’s name, the young woman bowed her head to stifle a sob.

  “Nooo!” Cedrick muttered, shaking his head. “Zombies I tell you! Zombies!”

  “I’ve heard enough,” said the Mariner, heading above deck. “If he starts biting people, throw him over the side.”

  Annoyingly. the sound of Cedrick’s protests still intruded into the world above, but at least they were dimmed, and the Mariner savoured his moments peace, turning his face towards the breeze and closing his eyes.

  Where now? The only clue he’d felt they’d had was the zoo, and that had turned out to be a trap, just as the Oracle and Tetrazzini’s rehab clinic had. So where next?

  “We should head back to Sighisoara,” McConnell said as if reading his mind. “Cedrick could do with getting that wound looked at, we’re all exhausted, there’s no food, and Mary and Megan are completely traumatised.”

  “Mary?”

  “Yeah, the old lady. She’s a lot calmer than the other two, but still, those monks were her family, and she’s lost them all in a matter of minutes. At the moment she’s concerned with caring for Megan and Grace, but once that distraction fades...” At a loss, McConnell shrugged.

  “We can’t go back to Sighisoara.”

  “Because you killed Tetrazzini?”

  “No! Because we’re not meant to!” The Mariner glared at McConnell, who defiantly returned the challenge. “I don’t recall you complaining when you joined us!”

  “I joined because I wasn’t going to allow a young girl to go sailing with a self-confessed monster!”

  The truth hurt. Yet it felt more comfortable to hear than McConnell’s idealistic blather about Jesus Haych Christ. Hate was easier to process than hope.

  “Do you think they’d let me live if I went back?”

  “If I put in a word for you, sure.”

  The Mariner’s stern expression burst as he laughed, placing a hand upon McConnell’s shoulder. Bemused, the reverend’s anger easily faded.

  “And that was so effective with Diane! No, no. Your days of vouching for me are over.”

  “Arthur,” McConnell said softly, still pressing his agenda. “Grace can’t live like this, she needs a stable environment. Visiting a zoo she used to be fond of is one thing, but.. just what are we doing now?”

  And his doubt was valid. The Mariner was uncertain, and there was nothing he could do to hide that fact. With no answers to offer, he turned again to the sea, closing his eyes and embracing the internal dark. The Mariner enjoyed the void. No more voices, no more confrontations, no more pestering, just a blank slate and the sounds of the waves gently breaking against the hull.

  “Help!”

  Nothing but the waves, damnit!

  “Please! Help!”

  Shit.

  “I think there’s someone down there!”

  When the Mariner opened his eyes he saw McConnell running up and down the deck, looking into the water like a terrier that had spotted a rat.

  “Arthur, there’s a man in the water!”

  “Probably a Mindless.” He warily drew his gun and followed McConnell’s frantic pointing. “Or a trick,” he added remembering the eels.

  “Please help!”

  And indeed there was a man, frantically splashing and spluttering as he rose and fell with the waves.

  “Hold on,” McConnell yelled. “We’ll get you out!”

  “Didn’t you hea
r me?” the Mariner snapped. “It’s probably a trick. We should go below deck and wait until it’s gone.”

  The look he got in return once again reminded the Mariner just how far apart the two men’s ethical systems were. McConnell was a compassionate man, someone whose instinct was always towards the benefit of others. What did that make him? “That’s a man down there, not an ‘it’! Help me haul him up.”

  McConnell grabbed one of many ropes strewn about the deck and threw it into the water. After much tugging and splashing, the man finally managed to grasp it.

  “Hold on tight, we’ve got you!” McConnell shouted, as the two men strained to lift the stranded survivor out the ocean below.

  McConnell’s shouting had roused the others to witness the commotion.

  “What’s going on?” Grace was the first to ask.

  “Oh, just another guest. The more the merrier!” The Mariner’s shrill sarcasm was lost on the passengers (though he’d prefer the description ‘intruders’) as they ran as one to peer down.

  “If you’re going to watch, you can join in!” McConnell said, appealing through gritted teeth. Grace, for all the help her small arms could offer, immediately seized a section of rope and began grunting with the exertion, more as a theatrical display of solidarity than proper assistance.

  “I wish I could dear boy,” Cedrick apologised, keeping his eyes cast down to the soaked sailor being drawn up. “Sadly my zombie bite prohibits physical exertion. Still, he’s almost upon us, heave ho!”

  And finally the three pulled the sailor the final few feet and he plopped wetly upon the deck, gasping for breath.

  “Thankyou... thankyou... thankyou,” he muttered over and over between clogged gasps.

  “I’ll get him some water,” McConnell said, heading for their meagre supplies.

  Always careful, the Mariner pointed his Mauser at the soaked fellow. The young man was in his late-twenties and dressed in a drenched black suit, not much of a threat, but the Mariner was determined not to be made a fool of. “Who are you and where did you come from? Answer quickly or I’ll toss you back in. Make a move towards any one of us and I’ll shoot.”

  “Arthur!” Grace gasped at his ruthless warning, but he continued regardless, ignoring the girl’s pleas.

  “Water,” the man rasped. “Please, water!”

  “You think I’m going to share my water with a passenger I can easily dispose of? I barely want to share it with this lot, let alone someone who could be a Mindless. Or an eel.” The Mariner could feel the others pondering the insanity of his words. “Just get talking!”

  “Please! Please don’t put me back!”

  “How long were you down there?”

  “Since yesterday,” he gasped.

  “How?” the Mariner demanded.

  “My ship, it got taken over. I managed to jump overboard before they could get me. I drifted all night trying to stay afloat. I thought I would drown! Lost at sea all night, total blackness since-”

  “Yeah yeah yeah!” the Mariner urgently interrupted. Who remembered the stars and who didn’t? Who would face the same fate as Pryce at their mention? “Who took over your ship? Pirates?”

  The man licked his lips and looked between them. “Please, may I have some water? I’m parched.”

  McConnell pushed through the others and held out a small plastic bottle. The man drank deep.

  “Thank you,” he said, sounding a little stronger. “My name’s Harris, you won’t regret saving me, I promise. You’ll be rewarded.”

  “Rewarded?” The Mariner gave an incredulous snort. “You just lost your ship. Your crew are gone, dead most likely. Who’ll reward us?”

  “Get me back to the Beagle, and you’ll be paid for your time. Food, water, weapons, whatever you need!”

  “The Beagle?”

  “A doggy?” Grace’s eyes lit up.

  Harris smiled apologetically at the girl. “The Beagle is a ship, named after the HMS Beagle that once carried a great scientist around the world.”

  “Not a dog?”

  “I’m afraid not, no.”

  The Mariner was not impressed. “This ‘Beagle’, it is not your ship?”

  “I fear my trusty Kraken is lost to me. No, the Beagle belongs to the head inquisitor, whom I serve.”

  “You expect us to believe that?”

  “Why would I lie?”

  “Perhaps you’re a pirate. You’re going to lure us to some rock you call a ‘hideout’ where you and your bandit friends will kill us and take my ship?”

  Harris nodded and grinned. “I suppose that’s a possibility, yeah. But you can be as paranoid as you like. If it looks like a trap, turn the other way. I won’t blame you! Maybe if we’d been a bit more paranoid, my crew wouldn’t have become...” he trailed off, a fearful look in his eyes. “Anomenemies!”

  “Ano-whossits?” Cedrick asked with his usual exaggerations.

  “Anomenemies! Zombies!”

  “Zombies!” Cedrick clasped his wound with one hand and used the other to steady his swaying frame. “I knew it! Flesh Eaters! Cannibals, returned from the dead! There is no more room in hell!”

  “Why do you call them ‘Anomenemies’?” the Mariner asked, refusing to be drawn into Cedrick’s display.

  “That’s what they’re called, all of them. I didn’t realise men could become Anomenemies so easily. I must get back to the Beagle and make a full report.”

  “To this head inquisitor?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Mavis.”

  The small audience stood in silence, waiting for further explanation.

  “Mavis?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Let me get this straight,” the Mariner spoke slowly, piecing Harris’ story together. “Your ship wasn’t attacked, your crew turned Mindless, or in your terms they became ‘Anomenemies’?”

  “Yes, almost the whole crew. Those that didn’t were killed. I threw myself overboard as soon as I saw it was hopeless.”

  “And I’m guessing these Anomenemies wouldn’t be able to sail a ship? It would drift until it hit something - like an island?”

  “I guess so...” Harris hesitated. “Why do you ask?”

  “Your Mindless friends almost got us all killed, that’s why!”

  “I.. er..” Harris stammered. “You met them?”

  “Yeah, we met them.” The Mariner sighed, holstered the Mauser and rubbed his forehead as if pained. “This Beagle of yours, I suppose it’s widely travelled?”

  “Of course.”

  The island, thought the Mariner. Perhaps they’ll know it?

  “Very well,” he said, his mind made up. “We’ll return you to your Beagle, if you can point us in the right direction?”

  “It’s tricky. We have to navigate using the sun now instead of the st-”

  “Yes, yes!” he shouted, once again silencing Harris before it was too late. I must put a stop to such talk, he thought. No mentioning what’s no longer there. No acknowledgement. “But can you get us there?”

  “Probably.”

  “Good, you help me. The rest of you, get below deck and rest. And no chatting! Talk is dangerous, it almost killed me on the zoo. No chit-chat.”

  “Loose lips sink ships!” McConnell grinned.

  The Mariner gave him a quizzical look, as ever not understanding the joke. “Indeed.”

  32

  DARWIN’S DISCOVERY

  THE NAME ‘BEAGLE’ CONJURED THE image of a lean, streamlined vessel. Something plucky and resilient, tough and scrappy. This noble visage could not have been further from the truth.

  “That’s her?” the Mariner asked, incredulous at the impractical Goliath before them. Harris failed to sense his disappointment, instead looking at the lumbering sow with something close to wonder.

  The size of the Beagle was enormous, able to eat the Neptune whole and with enough space to chase it back with a lake or two. Indeed, the ship appea
red hungry in its very construction; a huge mouth was built into its hull, wide-jawed and jowly. Whilst the sight of the Beagle disappointed the Mariner, Megan was positively excited.

  “A ferry!” She hopped on her feet like a child. “I haven’t seen one since I was thirteen. My mum took me to the Isle of Wight to see my uncle. Would’ve been one just like this.”

  “A ferry?”

  “Yeah, cars go in that bit.” She pointed to the Beagle’s mouth. “And then they go out the other side.”

  He didn’t quite understand what she meant, was it a mouth or not? “So that’s not a weapon?” With a condescending look she shook her head. No, it was not.

  The journey to the Beagle had only taken a few days, and they spotted it on the horizon long before they neared. The ferry straddled the ocean like a beetle on dung, a small island in its own right, but the sheer size of it suggested inherent difficulties.

  “How do you dock?”

  Harris tilted his head, non-committed. “We’ve never really had to. The scout ships bring back supplies, the Beagle acts as a base of operations, a place to conduct research, tests and trials.”

  “Trials?”

  “Of the Anomenemies.”

  “You put zombies on trial?” Cedrick’s eyes opened in alarm and clutched at his wound, healed despite his certainty that it would infect and prove fatal.

  “If we’re lucky, you might get to see one.”

  As they neared, two small ships, a more common size (unlike the hefty Neptune and gargantuan Beagle), bounced across the waves. Their motors roared defensively as they put a barrier between the strangers and their mother Beagle. Loud megaphones dictated how the greetings were to play out: the Neptune would await a small collection of scouts who would board and inspect the crew and cargo, before bringing them to the Beagle for interviews.

  Harris nodded encouragingly. All standard procedure, though the Mariner was less than impressed, anxious about the incursion.

  “Your friends seemed to have brought guns,” he growled at Harris, before turning to the rest of his passengers milling on-deck. “I want you all to hide until this is straightened out. This could get unpleasant.”

  “Woah! Woah there!” Harris stepped in front of the Mariner, waving his hands. “It’s how we always treat the unauthorised. As soon as they see me aboard, we’ll be allowed to approach, no problem. Just... chill out!”