Cut Off [Part 1]

by Perrin Briar

  Light lurched again, this time forcing them forward, smacking into the door, then it pulled back, and the water in the corridor rushed toward them as the stern was pulled deeper below the waterline. The prow pulled upward, and the water in the corridor rushed with the sound of a raging river. It hit them in the chest, forcing them back, but they clung with white knuckles to their hand holds. A Lurcher sailed past and into the engine bay. The water buffeted the doorstep, rising in a cool spray. The ferry rocked back to its former position, the water flowing back toward the stairs with a whooshing sound like the sea over pebbles at the beach. The water came to a standstill.

  Joel took his hands off the doorframe with great caution, as if by letting go he was going to get sucked into the depths. “I think she’s stable.”

  “But for how long?”

  “Who knows. We’d best get out of here fast.”

  They waded out into the water. Joel’s arm reached out, blocking Jordan. “Wait.”

  Jordan looked at what had arrested Joel. The Lurcher corpses floated, clinging together, forming one large mass. Their thick black congealed blood floated on top of the water, pus and other body fluids speckling the surface like a pizza.

  “Whatever you do,” Joel said, “don’t swallow any of the water.”

  Jordan grimaced. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  Joel launched into the water first, performing the breast stroke with powerful thrusts. Jordan, a less experienced swimmer, walked as far as he could while keeping his feet on the floor, then doggy paddled his way across the surface, careful to keep his head above the waterline. The black bloody mess clung to his cheeks and neck. He pushed a Lurcher away with a tentative finger. He gasped a mouthful of air, holding his breath, and paddled on. Joel sailed through the water like a snake, without apparent effort.

  Jordan felt himself dip lower. He could smell the blood, feces and rotting flesh. He came to a stop, treading the water a moment, cursing himself for not having taken swimming lessons, or if he had, cursing himself for having amnesia and forgetting them. He pressed on.

  Something somewhere in the ship splintered, snapping in half the way a tree sounds giving way to wind in a torrential storm. Joel was already at the stairs, pulling himself from the swamp water. It clung to him like a second skin.

  The water tipped over to one side. The Lurcher bodies floated past him. The water level rose. Jordan kept a close eye on the roof as it approached with breath-taking speed. He turned his face as far from it as he dared without risking the blood caking him. He stopped rising, the water sloshing around as if deciding what to do next. Joel was shouting something, but Jordan was too preoccupied with keeping his face out of the sludge to hear. The room tipped forward, and Jordan was taken by the tide, driven at great speed toward the stairs, which loomed like the stairway to hell. He slammed into them, the sharp corners stabbing into his flesh, threatening to snap his bones.

  The room twisted again. The water changed direction and Jordan was forced off the stairs. He grabbed the railing, but lost his slippery gloved grip and fell toward the Lurcher cesspool below, falling into the grinning empty skull sockets awaiting him.

  Something grabbed him by the collar and lifted him bodily out of the air and dumped him on the stairs. Jordan, soaked neck to foot, panted and did not move. Joel, likewise exhausted, lay beside him.

  Joel was red up to his chin like he was wearing a nineteenth century high neck collar, thick globules of God-knew-what clinging to his skin. “Remind me… to give you… swimming lessons… when we get out.”

  Joel reached for something at his waist, confused when his hand came away empty.

  “What is it?” Jordan asked.

  “The walkie talkie. It’s gone. I must have dropped it.” He looked out at the Lurcher cesspool around them, the water red and lumpy with ejaculated body fluids.

  21.

  “It’ll be easy going up to the next level,” Joel said as they climbed the last few stairs to the vehicle storage room. “You wait and see.”

  Jordan pushed the door open. It creaked on rusty hinges. They froze at what they saw.

  The vehicles had slid to the far wall, jamming together into an impenetrable wall of metal and smashed glass. Tyre skid marks covered the area like Indian war paint, the hand brakes having long since given up their fight with gravity.

  “I’m waiting,” Jordan said, “but I don’t see.”

  “Where are the stairs up to the next level?” Joel said, ignoring Jordan’s sally.

  “They should be behind that delivery van over there.”

  “That’s great.” Joel walked toward the vehicles. “You don’t happen to be able to walk through walls by any chance?”

  “Maybe.” Jordan pointed to his head. “But I might just have forgotten how to do it.”

  Light rolled to the left. A Hyundai i40 broke from the other cars and slammed into the wall. A Harley Davidson followed it. Decapitated wing mirrors slid along the floor.

  “We’ll never get through them without getting mashed,” Joel said.

  “We don’t have to go through them,” Jordan said. He climbed onto the roof of a Mercedes.

  Joel smiled. He climbed onto the boot of a Nissan Micra and then onto its sloping roof. They jumped from one vehicle roof to another, taking their time to judge the distance before they made it.

  Light jittered, shaking beneath their feet. Car windows trembled in their frames. Jordan and Joel froze, waiting to see what the ship would do. It stopped, and they continued to hop from roof to roof.

  The room banked again, suddenly this time. Joel crouched down, gripping the roof as the car slid and smashed into a Volkswagen Beetle.

  Jordan likewise crouched down, but lost his grip. His car collided with a Mini. He was thrown clear and bounced across the Mini’s roof, hitting the floor with a fleshy slap. The Mini was propelled toward him. Jordan looked over his shoulder.

  The coach was three meters away. He rolled. The Mini’s wheels resisted the movement, grinding against the white floor panels. A convertible smacked into the Mini from behind, causing it to jolt forward. Jordan didn’t stop rolling. The Mini loomed large, a shadow of oblivion. Jordan came to a stop, his eyes clamped shut. There was the sharp smack of two powerful forces colliding. Jordan could smell something sharp and wondered if it was the scent of death. He opened his eyes.

  Blue. That was all he could see. Both before him, and racing off into his peripheral vision. Blue. The wing panel of the Mini was pressed up almost against his nose, the smell was oil from the car’s seeping underside. It had slammed into the side of the coach just as he had rolled beneath it. Jordan breathed a sigh of relief and lifted his head, smacking it on a low-hanging pipe. “Ah!”

  “Jordan!” Joel called from somewhere amongst the scrapyard. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” Jordan touched his head and checked for blood. There was none. He crawled out from under the coach.

  “When I saw the Mini take after you I thought you were a goner.”

  “I almost was.”

  Light gave a juddering cry, like it were in its death throes, metal bending to its absolute limit.

  “That does not sound good,” Joel said.

  Then came a sound soft and barely audible, like a whisper on the wind. It grew to the volume of a trickling stream, then to the frantic rush of a river.

  “That doesn’t sound too good either, does it?” Jordan said.

  The stairwell down to the maintenance bay gurgled and spurted as water rose up to the car storage level. A few Lurcher bodies floated on top. Prancing white-maned surf leapt from the stairwell and dashed toward them.

  Joel and Jordan ran. They made a hasty b-line through the maze of cars, vaulting over bonnets and crawling beneath undercarriages. The rush of water roared in their ears. Wheels squealed, metal bent and snapped, and glass exploded as the wave swept everything up in its path. Cars were carried like Tonka toys, serrated body parts thudded into bonnets and vehicle ro
ofs. The wave swept under the coach, lifting it and pushing it over onto its side, then forced it shrieking along the floor. The coach pushed the vehicles forward like a giant snow plough.

  Just ahead was the door to the next level. Jordan weaved through the final few vehicles. Water sprayed the back of his neck, sending goose bumps racing up and down his body. Joel threw the door open. Jordan barreled past. Joel slammed the door closed the instant the water descended on them. Huge fists of water banged against the door, water spilled in through the doorframe.

  22.

  Jordan and Joel tore up the stairs. The door bulged inward, and then flew open, the doorknob cracking the wall. The roar of the waves was deafening in the enclosed space. The water passed through the grating with ease, bubbling up like lava from a volcano, licking their boots.

  Their heavy boots clanged in deep rhythmic echoes as they ascended each flight of stairs. The howl of the raging swell quietened, but Joel and Jordan weren’t aware of it as they pumped their legs as hard as they would go. They were ascending the final flight of stairs when Light gave another ear-bursting cry, and the boat turned again.

  They slammed into the wall, the wind driven from their lungs. Joel and Jordan stretched and grabbed hold of the doorframe as Light twisted. Jordan’s feet left the ground and floated toward the wall opposite. He felt like a worm on a hook. His stomach trailed behind him. Light groaned to a halt, settling down once more. Jordan climbed through the doorway, and then helped Joel up.

  “I feel like I’m in a washing machine,” Jordan said.

  But Joel didn’t hear him. He was looking at something inside the lounge. “Now that’s not something you see every day.”

  Two dozen benches ran in two equal-sized rows from floor to ceiling. Jordan raised a hand against the blinding sunlight that beat down from the window that was now in the roof, muting the pastel colors of the lounge’s interior. The light fixtures ran the length of the left hand wall like a railroad track leading nowhere.

  “Light has turned completely on her side!” Joel said. “Ain’t that something?”

  As Joel walked into the room there was a sound like sand crunching under his feet.

  “Joel!” Jordan said. “Freeze!”

  Joel turned. “What? Why?”

  Joel looked down to find he was standing on a glass window that covered the entire floor. On the other side of the glass the deep turquoise of the ocean filtered into the deep darkness of beyond. Bubbles floated up from Light’s most recent roll, a million pricks of light that rose up in wobbly lines to the surface. The window was laden with the detritus of everyday ferry usage: empty crisp packets, used tissues, and magazines lay like discarded sprinkles. But that wasn’t what so grabbed their attention.

  Long translucent fingers spanned the surface like a roadmap, all lines leading to Joel’s feet. The glass was thick, but at some point it must have taken a severe knock.

  Joel’s face bleached white with the knowledge that should he fall through, there would be no finding his way back. Beads of perspiration poked up through his skin.

  “What shall I do, Jordan?” Joel said, hardly daring to move his lips.

  Jordan spoke whisper-thin. “Very slowly, get down on your knees.”

  Joel did. The glass groaned, creaking like it were ice. Water seeped through the cracks over his fingers.

  “There’s water coming through here, Jordan.”

  “Good. You can wash your hands while you’re there.”

  Joel smiled, more of a grimace.

  “Very slowly, lay down.”

  “What for?”

  “To evenly distribute your weight.”

  “Why?”

  “Is this really the time for a science lesson?”

  Joel got down on his front.

  “Now crawl to me.”

  Joel placed a hand and the window gave beneath it. He lifted his hand and placed it in another location, this one more forgiving. He inched his way across the glass, which splintered and cracked and popped, but never fractured into a hole large enough to swallow him. Once he got to the doorframe, he stood up. His body felt weak and fatigued. He breathed a sigh of relief that shook his entire frame. The cracks continued to splinter and spread across the glass’s surface of their own volition.

  “The cracks are still spreading,” Joel said with dread. “Why are they still spreading?”

  “We don’t have much time. We have to get out of here.”

  “Even if we had ten thousand years we’d still never be able to get across this room. How can we if we can’t even touch the floor?”

  Jordan looked up at the benches arranged in rows along the wall. They looked like spectators watching a drama unfold. In the farthest corner of the roof the stairwell door to the bridge flapped open like a trap door on a stage.

  Joel followed Jordan’s line of sight. “We’ll never get up there in time.”

  “Never say never. Give me a boost.”

  Joel shook his head, but cupped his hands, making a stirrup for Jordan to step into. He hoisted Jordan up, who grabbed hold of the top of the bench and pulled himself up. The platform was three feet long, but only one foot wide. The tips of his boots hung over the edge, the drop to the glass below a good fifteen feet. Certainly not enough to kill him, but enough to pierce the glass like it were tissue paper. The gap between the benches was about five feet. Jordan had to crouch, back hunched over. He got down on his knees and extended his hand to Joel, who eyed it with apprehension. “The bench will never take both our weight,” he said.

  Jordan hopped on the bench. The wood didn’t make a sound. “Seems pretty sturdy to me. Come on, we haven’t got much time.”

  It was as he reached up and took Jordan’s hand that Joel picked up on the subtle shift in power that had taken place. It was usually him who gave the orders, who offered words of encouragement, who came up with the ideas and instigated them. Now it was Jordan. Joel was surprised to find he was not jealous or angry, but relieved. Finally, someone to share the burden of leadership.

  The bench was crowded with them both perched atop it. They could hardly move without jabbing one another in the ribs.

  Jordan turned and half-stepped, half-hopped onto the next bench. “Watch your head.”

  “So this is it?” Joel said. “Hopscotch it over to the door?”

  “Have you got a better idea?”

  Joel didn’t reply.

  Jordan hopped from one platform to the next. He got into a swinging, loping rhythm and was soon making good progress. From this vantage the glass below looked unblemished. It was only when the sunlight broke through the clouds above, piercing the water’s surface, that the cracks stood out like the capillaries on a dying man’s hand. Jordan stepped onto the next bench. It shifted under his weight. He crouched down and regained his balance, the bench rocking beneath his feet.

  “Careful with this one,” Jordan said to Joel. “She’s a bit loose.”

  “Just the way I like them.”

  Jordan stepped onto the next bench. It gave beneath him. The bottom pushed up, the top back. Jordan threw his weight forward, but he knew immediately that he had made a mistake and over-corrected. The bench bolted forward, striking both the bench in front and the bench behind, the one Joel happened to be standing on. Joel’s bench did not move, but stayed in place.

  The benches in front of Jordan fell into one another like a series of dominoes. The final bench was struck, but did not move. Despite the combined weight of the other benches pressing on it, it held. But surely not for long.

  Jordan perched on the edge of his bench, waving his arms like a humming bird, a quarter of an inch between balance and falling through a plate of glass fifteen feet below.

  “Now what do we do?” Joel said.

  “I’m thinking,” Jordan said. The benches laid out before him like the peaks of wooden mountain tops. If he hot-stepped across them he might be able to make it to the end. But then what about Joel?

  The bench below h
im jerked. He stood up straight and hit his head. His hands rose up instinctively. The bench beneath him stopped moving. Jordan took a few calming breaths before he looked up at what he was holding. It was the second row of benches. His eyes moved to the side like he was thinking.

  “Joel?” he said. “Are you still there?”

  Jordan daren’t turn around for fear of losing his balance. If he had, he’d have seen the flat look on Joel’s face. “Where else would I be?”

  “You see the benches above us?”

  “Yeah…”

  “We need to climb up there.”

  “How do you know they won’t be worse than the ones we’ve got here?”

  “They probably are, but there are only…” He did a quick count. “Half a dozen or so left.”

  “It’s that bad where you are?”

  The bench acting as a bookend ahead jolted. Jordan tightened his grip on the bench above. “The bench you’re standing on, and the bench at the end, are all that are keeping us from falling. If either one gives way…”

  “I’ll follow you, then.”

  “Okay, good. On the count of three let’s both grab the bench above us and climb. It’s absolutely critical that we both climb at the same time.”

  “What was that?”

  Jordan could tell by Joel’s voice that he was in a different location. “Joel, where are you?”

  “I just got off my bench. I didn’t know we had to be synchronized.”

  The blood drained from Jordan’s face. “But it’s only your bodyweight keeping us in limbo-”

  Snap!

  Joel’s former bench jerked forward, adding to the bench weight, causing the final bench on the end to creak ominously, then crack. It spun forward, but with no other bench to knock into, it spun in a full circle. The bench Jordan was standing on flew out from beneath him, but his grip on the bench above was good. He dangled.

  The bench at the end spun around on its remaining screws. It did not fall. Jordan breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment he thought it was going to-