Tankbread 2: Immortal

by Paul Mannering

  “Foreman,” Rache said and went down on one knee. Else just stared.

  “Who is this lovely creature you have brought us, child?” The Foreman’s voice was a breathless wheeze. His face seemed half-formed in a swollen ball of fat topped with thin black hair that hung over his shoulders in greasy strands.

  “She’s come from ashore,” Rache said.

  “Ashore . . .” The blob waved one of the girls stroking his arm away. “Come closer.”

  Else stepped up to the edge of the bed. The smell was overpowering, a nostril-clogging stench like rotting vegetation.

  “What is your name, child?” the Foreman asked.

  “Else. Someone on this ship took my son. I’m here to get him back.”

  The swollen head nodded. Else could see now, it was more than blubber that encased his body. The lower legs were amputated at the knee, and the Foreman’s thighs had spread under the pressure of some growth that deformed them into obese bags of quivering skin.

  “Your child must have been new; such salvage are given as tributes to the Captain and crew.”

  “Not my son,” Else growled.

  The Foreman’s hand waved again. “Such is the way of things. You are young and we have plenty of men here. You can have another child.”

  One of the naked attendants leaned over with a plate of cooked fish, broken into natural slices. The Foreman took a pinch of the white meat in his fingers and stuffed it into his mouth.

  Else cleared the edge of the bed in a single leap. She sent the girl with the plate flying back, fish splattering against the walls.

  “You’re not listening to me,” she snarled, her fingers pressing deep into the soft, wet folds of the Foreman’s fat neck. “I am here to get my son back. You can either help me, or I will burn you along with everyone else who stands in my way.”

  The Foreman’s eyes bulged, crumbs of fish tumbling from his tongue and quivering lips.

  “Stand back,” he squeaked, and the guards closing in with weapons drawn hesitated.

  “What you ask . . . It can’t be done. We must render unto the Caesar what is Caesar’s.”

  “And unto God what is God’s. Yes I’ve read that book too.” Else’s fingers pressed deeper. There seemed to be no end to the soft rubber of his flesh.

  “You must understand . . .” the Foreman started to choke. “We are powerless. We must . . . obey.”

  Else released her grip. “Why must you obey?”

  “We wait for the day when we are called upon to bring the engines to life,” Rache spoke up.

  “You are waiting for a day that will never come. The evols are not interested in guiding you to a new paradise. They simply want to continue feeding off your young until you forget what it is to be human,” Else said without looking around.

  “No . . . that is not true,” the Foreman said. “We have an important job to do. The Captain himself has given us the responsibility to be ready. We do his work.”

  “How did you lose your legs?” Else asked and slid off the bed, wiping her hands on the cloth.

  “I . . . It was a long time ago. I don’t remember,” he said.

  “You cannot question the Foreman in this way,” one of the guards said.

  “Why not? Did the Captain tell you that it was forbidden?” Else scowled at the guard. “Tell me, I want to know. What price did you pay for your place on this ship?”

  The Foreman swallowed hard. His body quivered and he whined deep in his bulk. “I am the master of the engine room. I know the engines. I alone hold their secrets.”

  “You’re using a combined gas and steam turbine installation, consisting of two General Electric LM2500 gas turbines and a steam turbine coupling. But you have no fuel. You’ve got people living in your gas tanks.”

  “You cannot know this!” the Foreman quivered and waved his hands in impotent rage.

  “Someone has very carefully painted the propulsion system schematics on the walls. I see things and I remember them. I also read books. Face it, you are living a lie and leading these people to a long and miserable death at the hands of a few evols that you could easily conquer if you just rose up and said enough.” Else stepped away from the bed and walked to the door, Rache and the guard moving out of her way.

  “You’re pathetic,” she said to the Foreman. Else opened the door and went down the stairs, needing more than ever to feel fresh air on her face and be away from the stink of so many people living in confined space.

  “Wait!” Rache called, flying down the stairs and pushing past the knot of curious engineers gathered to see the strange landy woman.

  “Come with me.” She pulled Else’s arm, guiding her away from the watchful eyes of the black-stained workers. Else allowed herself to be led. They went to a room, closed off by a ragged cloth sheet. Inside the small space, piles of stained bedding and clothes were heaped and strewn about. Under the pile of bedcovers someone snored, farted, and mumbled their way back into deeper sleep.

  Rache pulled a small metal box out from under a sagging shelf. Opening it, she drew out a creased and finger-marked postcard. “I want to go here,” she said.

  Else took the card and stared at the photograph of a tropical island with the once proud ship in the background.

  “You can’t go there on this ship. It’s dead. Dead as the crew, dead in the water.”

  “How can I get there?” Oily tears welled in Rache’s eyes.

  “Fight. Stand with me and escape the crew. Life on land isn’t easy, but it’s better than what you have.”

  “This is all we have. All I remember. Did you mean what you said to the Foreman? That the ship will never sail?”

  “I’m no expert, but I’ve seen enough and read enough to know that this is not the way. There are other ships; you could find one and get it going and sail anywhere you wanted.”

  Rache blinked as the idea of having her own ship to sail rolled over in her mind.

  “You said you could get me up to where the crew is,” Else said.

  The engineer nodded and wiped her nose on the back of her hand as she sniffed the tears back and put the postcard away. “Yeah, up through the ducts. It’s an easier way to get up high. We stay out of the places the crew go, but we can do maintenance without bothering them.”

  “Show me,” Else said firmly.

  The young woman guided Else along the narrow catwalks that spanned the bowels of the ship. She could see at a glance how much had been stripped out already. Half the engines were scattered in rusting pieces. Entire sections were being slavishly toiled over, dismantled and rebuilt over and over again. Give them hope and they will work themselves to death, Else thought. The ladder to the maintenance shafts was guarded. Rache motioned Else to stay back while she went forward.

  Rache approached the young male guard. She put her hands on his oil-stained chest and spoke softly to him. They exchanged a few words that Else could not hear.

  Else watched curiously. Her experiences in how people related to each other were mostly limited to books and the occasional encounter with a survivor group. She had seen crude seduction, rape, and prostitution of both sexes, but with limited direct exposure to other people, she found it difficult to read the guard’s body language.

  With Rache leading him, the man went willingly into a smaller sleeping area curtained off from the main chamber. Else waited for a few moments and then, unsure of what was happening, she approached the curtain and took a cautious look inside. She blinked twice, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. Rache was on her hands and knees, almost invisible with her blackened skin in low contrast to the gloom. The young guard knelt behind her, his hips thrusting against the young woman’s buttocks. Else watched impassively; they mated the same way as most animals she had seen.

  The man’s back arched and he let out a guttural groan, shuddering against Rache. She waited until he had collapsed on the padding and rags before rolling over into a sitting position and wiping herself clean with a stray cloth.

&
nbsp; “Sleep well,” she said to the prostrate boy, who just waved weakly in reply. Rache crawled out of the sleeper alcove and pointed up the ladder. “We head up, through that hole and into the pipes.”

  Else nodded and clambered up the metal rungs after Rache, who climbed like a cat. The space at the top of the ladder got smaller and darker the closer Else climbed. She focused her attention on Rache’s feet and pushed on into the tight confines of the pipe.

  “I don’t like the dark,” Else whispered, her voice echoing in the narrow tunnel.

  “It’s not dark,” Rache replied, pressing herself back against the curved wall of the pipe. “Look.”

  Else blinked. Above her, beyond the fading light of the engine room below, the walls glowed with patterns and signs. Luminescent paint, green, yellow, and blue, shone coldly in the gloom.

  “The first engineers, they had the secret of painting in light. It shows up best in the dark. You can never be lost in the pipes if you know how to read the marks.”

  “Chemical luminescence . . .” Else whispered, intrigued by the vivid brightness and complexity of the art that spiraled up the pipe.

  “Do they make words?” she asked as Rache resumed climbing.

  “Not proper words, like in the manual, but they say where to go and where you will be if you come out a hatch.”

  The two women climbed in silence through intersections and along changing angles of dull, echoing metal. The pipe changed from heavy round steel to thinner square ducting. The ladder ended and now they crawled on their bellies.

  “Keep quiet,” Rache whispered over her shoulder. “We’re getting close to the crew territory.”

  Else nodded. Her focus remained on breathing and keeping calm while the space shrank around her.

  The duct vibrated under the impact of a crash somewhere ahead. Rache froze and Else wormed her way forward to try and see.

  “What was that?” she whispered.

  Rache’s eyes flared wide in sudden fear. “Crew.” The engineer wormed her way to the side of the duct, leaving a panic-inducing amount of space for Else to slither into position beside her. Light flared in pale lines through a grille just beyond Else’s face. She peered down into a bare room with iron water and gas pipes running in tight clusters along the ceiling. A man hung from a chain looped over the pipes. The chain had been fastened around his wrists and he thrashed and growled with bestial fury.

  “Evol,” Else breathed. “Why have they chained him up?”

  Rache couldn’t see anything and was afraid to move with this strange monster so close to them. The only door to the room banged and then swung open. A man stepped inside, his uniform crisply pressed and well laundered. He looked normal until he turned his head, and then Else saw that most of the right side of his face lay open in a ragged wound, still seeping yellow fluid. Above the wound his eye sagged over a rim of scraped bone. A fringe of tendon and flesh ran along the line of his cheek. The hair and skin on the right side of his head had been burned away; even the ear had melted into a charred nub.

  “How long has he been like this?” the scarred evol asked someone behind him.

  “Two days,” came the slurred reply.

  “Feed him,” the officer commanded and stepped aside. A crewmember, wearing the same dark clothes of the guard Else had killed, stepped into the room. He carried a squirming baby boy upside down by the ankle. The tiny figure, so new his skin was still smeared with white, waxy vernix, squalled and wriggled. Else felt her heart leap into her throat. Baby!

  The crewmember lifted the tiny person up in front of the chained evol’s face. The zombie immediately started sniffing and straining forward, his teeth snapping on the air.

  The baby swung in the hand of the crewmember, who seemed to be enjoying the game of teasing his comrade. In a moment, the arc of the baby’s swing came close enough that the lunging evol’s clashing teeth caught on tender flesh and the newborn shrieked in agony. The zombie thrashed against his chains, shaking the baby and snarling until he tore a large, bloody chunk of meat from the tiny body.

  Up in the duct, Else exploded into screams. Her fingers scrabbled at the grille, desperate to get out and punish the killers. Rache wrapped her arms and legs around the yelling woman. With one hand clapped over Else’s mouth, she hung on until Else’s rage had spent itself in wild thrashing and scraping of fingernails along the dull metal walls of the duct.

  In the room below, the noise of their struggle was drowned out by the dying screams of the baby, the laughter of the crewmember, and the snarling of the evol who feasted on the stem cell–rich flesh of the newborn.

  The transformation of the dead man came quickly as he absorbed the flowing blood and torn flesh of the child. The snarling reduced and his body shuddered; the grey color faded from his dead skin as it flushed with stolen life. The crewman unlocked the shackles and the evol dropped to his knees before slowly rising to a standing position.

  “Are you ready to resume your duties?” the officer asked.

  “Yes . . . sirggh . . .” the evol said slowly.

  “Clean him up and have him report,” the officer said and marched out of the room. The two remaining evols followed him out and the door closed with a dull boom.

  Else, still struggling, bit down hard on Rache’s hand. The girl squealed and let go.

  “You crazy bitch!” she yelped, clutching her wounded hand.

  “They killed him! They fucking killed him!” Else threw herself at the grille and this time managed to knock it out of its frame. Slithering out, she dropped into the room that stank of fresh blood and the arrested decay of evols. The only remains of the child were a few crushed bones and a smear of gore. Else could see nothing to indicate it was her baby, her son. She opened the door. The corridor was deserted. She sniffed the air, seeking her prey, but only smelled fresh blood. She turned left, heading in the same direction Rache had been leading her.

  After Else had vanished around the corner, a small shape crept into the hallway. Moving silently, Sarah went to the open room where the evol had been restored. She stared at the splash of blood and pieces of mashed red meat on the floor. She darted into the room and crouched down, carefully scraping the mess into a battered tin can until it was full. Returning to the doorway, she peeped both ways before slipping out into the corridor and hurrying off the way she had come.

  Chapter 7

  Else went slowly up a stairwell, every sense alive to signs of the undead. Dust and salty grime crusted everything. Boot prints in the dirty carpets showed a lot of people had been walking around up here. She strained for any sound of babies crying. The fear that her son might have already been eaten nearly choked her every time she dared think it.

  In Else’s experience evols did not make noise. They did not breathe, engage in small talk, or move around unnecessarily. Like ambush predators they would stand, still and silent, waiting for something to get their attention, and then they would strike.

  Growing rage soon threatened to overwhelm her caution as she tried every door handle and slammed doors on empty rooms. Marching down the silent corridor, wanting to shout and scream and demand the crew come out and face her.

  Behind the door labeled as “Boardroom” she found a group of evols all wearing faded blue uniforms. They stood like abandoned dolls in the dark until the door opened, then a dozen heads turned in her direction.

  “It is forbidden,” said the nearest dead man. Else picked up a wooden chair and smashed it across his face.

  This act of violence roused the others and they marched on her as a group. Backing up, Else held the splintered remains of the chair’s leg like a stake. A woman raised her hands, reaching for Else. “Forbidden,” she echoed. Else spun on the balls of her feet, slamming the ragged end of the chair leg into the woman’s throat. Black blood splattered across the others, startling them into deep-throated growls of aggression and unease.

  “Come on!” Else yelled, the noise of her voice unsettling the dead further. They attacked
in one group, teeth and hands reaching for her, the thin veneer of civilization sloughing away like dead skin as they succumbed to the instinctive drive to kill and devour living meat.

  The pieces of chair shattered against bones and jammed deep in dead chests. Else backed up, using the door to bottleneck her attackers. She lashed out with feet and fists, destroying knees, shattering noses, and smashing snarling heads against the metal doorframe. An evol stumbled through the door, feet tangling on the twisted corpses that littered the floor. Else grabbed the zombie’s arm and twisted; the dead sinew cracked and the arm dislocated at the shoulder. Else kept twisting, a howl of hatred and rage fueling her strength. The arm ripped free from the glistening socket. Armed with this makeshift club, she laid into the remaining dead.

  Soon only three remained and the doorway had clogged with the still writhing bodies of the broken evols. The survivors hung back, a primal survival instinct flaring somewhere in their rotting skulls.

  Else wiped the gore and slime of carnage from her face and spat the foulness of them from her mouth.

  “Tell your Captain,” she panted. “Tell him. I am Else. I am going to kill you all. And him. Him I will kill last.”

  With a final glare she threw the gore-soaked arm down and walked off down the narrow corridor. Climbing another flight of stairs, she found the way forward blocked by a sealed door. Else pounded on it, determined to bring her enemy out to face her. No one came.

  Frustrated, she ran up the next flight of stairs, the adrenaline of the fight fading fast, leaving her tense and shaking. Moving into a hallway that ran along the length of the ship, Else slowed her breathing as her nose picked up a range of strange smells. Feces and a sour acid stink filled the air.