The smell came from a dimly lit room where three crude cages had been constructed from pipes of steel and heavy plastic. The pens were small, with barely enough room for a single occupant. Else came closer, disturbed and curious at the same time. In front of each cage hung an empty metal tray and she could see that trapped inside each cell was a naked, adult woman.
“Why are you in here?” she asked. The nearest woman raised her head. Greasy, matted hair and eyes sunk deep into a face smeared with grime stared out through the bars. “Why are you in here? Are you being punished?” Else asked again.
“We . . .” the woman’s voice croaked. She coughed, her gaunt shoulders heaving. “We feed the young,” her voice rasped, and Else could smell the sweet acid of malnutrition on her breath.
“The babies the crew eat?” Else asked, pressing forward and rattling the enclosure.
“Not all of them . . . Some are kept alive, until they are needed. A week . . . maybe two . . .” Her breasts were swollen and dripping thin milk. It ran in rivulets down the corrugated surface of her ribs as the woman slumped in her pen. There was no room for her to sit or lie down. She could barely bend her knees and Else could see where the pressure of the bars had ulcerated her skin, leaving deep, foul-smelling wounds that oozed pus.
“Where are the babies?” Else demanded. She found the fastening bolt for the cage, the other two women stirring as she rattled the bolt open. The wet nurse in the cage fell forward as the cage swung open. Else caught her, gently lifting the woman and laying her down on the floor. Her body was wasting away; below the ankles her feet were an open sore, stained with smears of bodily waste. Her skin was breaking down with infection and malnutrition. At the points of her shoulder blades and elbows the skin had rubbed raw and wept blood and fluids. Writhing maggots dripped like melting wax from the fist-sized holes in the woman’s skin.
“I will get you out of here. I will take you to the hold; they need to see what is happening here. They have medicine, they can help you.” Else hurried to the other two cages while explaining what she intended. The women in the cages cringed away from her. One of them started shrieking as the cage door swung open, thrashing in the tiny space and smashing her skull against the bars. Droplets of fresh blood stained her naturally red hair and masked her face in a crimson sheen.
Else ignored her, leaving the door open as she moved to unbolt the final cage. The blonde-haired woman in this one was younger and fresher. Starvation and imprisonment hadn’t yet taken her strength or sanity. She stepped out on her own, watching Else with wild eyes.
“Come with me,” Else insisted. “I can take you to safety.” The fresh-faced woman sank to the floor, her face blank with horror, hands crawling up her face to press against her ears, blocking out the screaming of the redhead.
“You have to get up.” Else went and tugged on the blonde girl’s wrists. She whimpered and pulled away. “You can’t stay here, you’ll die,” Else said.
“We are already dead . . .” the woman on the floor moaned. “There is no safe place . . . not since they took over.”
Else looked at the three women with disgust, not at their physical condition but at their weakness. “They only win if you stop fighting,” she said.
The door opened and a woman with a dried-up bite that had torn a chunk from her scalp stood in the doorway, processing what she was seeing. Else didn’t give her a chance to speak. Charging forward, she slammed the evol back against the wall. She followed up with a hand strike to the throat that tore the dead flesh away and exposed the yellowing ringbones of the trachea.
“Forbidden,” the evol gurgled, her teeth snapping at Else’s arm. She grabbed the zombie’s head and twisted it off.
The women from the cages whimpered and moaned. The blonde girl screamed and scuttled back into her cage, pulling the door shut. The woman on the floor had gone quiet and still. When Else checked on her, she was dead.
Else sealed the room on her way out. The women in the cages should be safe when their dead roommate got up again. If the crew were keeping babies alive until they were needed, then her son might still have a chance.
The hours had blurred into one another, the sun a fiery disc rising over the horizon when Else climbed out on a high deck. The seabirds were rousing for the day in their nests, and the salt air seared Else’s dry throat as she looked for a way up higher.
“You’re in trouble,” a singsong voice warned. Else scowled.
“Sarah?” she asked.
“I’m going to tell the Captain,” Sarah’s voice sang from a different direction. Else turned slowly, scanning the walls and hidden decks. Sarah climbed like a cat and knew every inch of the ship. She could be anywhere, watching and taunting Else.
“Tell him what exactly?”
Sarah’s giggle echoed off the steel and set the birds muttering. “That you did stuff an’ you went where you’re not allowed.”
“I’m looking for my baby. You know that.” Else turned her head. Sarah was right there; she was sure of it. How did she get up so high?
Sarah’s voice came from another place, this time behind Else. “The Captain’s going to kill me. Kill me proper, so I come back smart. He’ll do it cuz I’m going to tell. Then the first thing he’ll give me to eat is your baby.”
Else heard the faint sound of bare feet slapping on the deck and then the creak of a door swinging shut.
“Sarah! Wait!” Else yelled at the sky.
The engineers knew the way up to the highest points on the ship, where the crew waited with her baby. After sweeping her gaze across the high steel walls, Else turned and climbed down to the safer decks where the ship’s passengers eked out their existence.
Chapter 8
Else made her way into the engine room, where the engineers toiled with the fantasy of seeing the ship sail once again. Rache was nowhere in sight when she entered the main chamber and tapped the nearest worker on the shoulder. “I’m looking for Rache,” she told him.
“Haven’t seen her.” The oil-stained man folded his arms and glared down at Else.
“You don’t belong here,” the next woman she approached said before Else could ask where Rache might be.
“None of us belong here,” Else replied. “If I can find Rache I can help you all escape.”
“We belong here. You, you’re just trouble.” The engineers came onto the catwalk, sliding down poles and clambering up over the rails. In moments Else found her way blocked by a crowd of hostile faces.
“Rache!” she shouted over their heads.
“Go on, piss off!” someone shouted and the mob pushed forward. Else was shoved against the railing. Doubling over, she pressed back before they could force her over the side to plummet to the floor meters below. More engineers were gathering down there. Angry faces turned upwards; they raised their fists and shouted for Else to leave or die.
Rache appeared, pushing her way through the group on the catwalk. She shoved men aside and glared at anyone who dared snarl in response. “You need to leave here now, Else,” she warned.
“Please,” Else said. “You know how to get up to the bridge. I need your help.”
Rache hesitated, “I . . . I can’t. You’re on your own. I’m sorry.”
“Rache!” Else shouted at the girl’s back as she pulled back into the crowd that pressed in, seizing Else by the arms. Her feet lashed out, catching one man in the side of the head with enough force to send him spinning over the railing. Screams came from the crowd below.
“Kill the bitch!” a voice howled. Others took up the shout: “Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Else let out a scream of her own, a raw, primal howl of fury, and she tore free of the greasy hands that clung to her.
“Fuckers!” she screamed. “I’ll fucking kill you if you get in my way!” Teeth bared she charged them, striking the first man low in the midsection, knocking him down and using his chest as a platform to leap for a pipe that ran overhead. A dozen pairs of hands reached up for Else as she cli
mbed to the topside of the pipes. If she crouched down there was enough space here to scramble away from the crowd. Angry voices followed her and when the pipes abruptly angled upwards into the ceiling she took a chance and leapt across a yawning gap to catch hold of a hanging chain. Swinging back and forth she started to climb down, hand over hand. The crowd of engineers on the high catwalk parted and a heavyset man stepped into view. In his hands he carried a blackened metallic tube with a blue flame burning at the end. A hose ran to a pair of squat tanks on his back. His right hand pumped a lever vigorously as Else stared at the strange apparatus without comprehension.
“Kill her!” the crowd roared. Else paused in her climbing. The faces looking up at her from the floor far below had the same wild eyes and bared teeth of those on the catwalk. Climbing down would get her killed too.
With a dull cough and a high-pitched hiss, the short tube spewed fire and rolling black smoke. Else had time to yell “Fuck!” and let go of the chain before the inferno swallowed the spot she had hung from a second before.
The crowd below broke her fall. They were packed too tightly to give her space to land on the steel plate floor. She heard screams of pain and opened her eyes long enough to see through the tangled pile of limbs and stinking bodies. A wrench came arcing through a gap in the melee and her vision shattered into a thousand shards of dark unconsciousness.
* * *
Else’s eye cracked open, her sight blurred red from the crust of blood cementing her eyelids together. A yellow bulb burned in a wall bracket, giving everything a jaundiced look.
It took her a moment to realize that she was hanging from the ceiling by chains wrapped around her ankles, while her fingertips waved a foot off the ground. Everything tasted of blood. Her head pounded and a delicate examination with her hands found a healing gash on her forehead where the wrench had knocked her out. Blood from half a hundred bruises and cuts burned across her face and body. Milk pressed from her breasts and dripped in her eyes, blurring her vision further and stinging against the cuts on her face.
Everything hurt, which Else took as a good sign. It meant she wasn’t paralyzed or dead. She experimented with lifting her head to follow her hands in the upwards traverse of her body. Her clothes were gone and her spine creaked as she curled up to touch her toes.
The chain securing her feet had been wrapped around a steel girder in the ceiling and looped around her ankles. Else bent further, shallow breaths hissing from between her clenched teeth as she craned upwards. Her straining fingers reached the edge of the chain, and then strength failed her and she fell back, gasping for breath and swinging upside down.
After a few long moments of recovery she tried again. This time she folded up at the waist with more force. The chain slapped against her fingertips and then she gripped the closest links. With her finger grip taking some of the strain, she pulled herself into an even tighter fold. More of the chain came under the grip of her hands and she bent her knees outwards, pulling her body up to lift the strain off the chain loops that held her feet. As the links went slack, Else wriggled her left foot and then her right until they slipped out of the loosened chain. Hanging by her hands, she dropped lightly to the floor and immediately collapsed, her feet completely numb from the lack of blood flow.
“Fuck,” Else whimpered as her legs exploded with a painful burning, prickling sensation. Flexing her legs and ankles helped until normal circulation returned. Standing up with more care, she had to crouch again, the change in gravity’s direction making a bathroom break her first priority.
The door had been locked from the outside. Else sat down in the lee of where it would open when someone came to check on her and leaned against the wall. Her head still ached and the healing wounds on her body itched and burned. With her knees drawn up, she lowered her head and went to sleep.
Chapter 9
The squeak of the door handle being twisted open roused Else into pitch darkness. With no natural light she had lost sense of time, though her throat was dry and her stomach rumbled, suggesting hours had passed. She pushed herself up; first she would fight her way out and then find some food.
Else pressed back against the wall as the door swung open, her fist ready to smash the new arrival’s face. Rache raised a smoking oil lantern, gaping at the empty chains, and then turning in time to see Else advancing on her with bared teeth.
“Wait!” she yelped, hands raised in defense.
“Get me out of here,” Else demanded.
“I will, but listen. It’s not safe. There’s been some kind of disease outbreak. The holders, they’re getting sick, dying and coming back feral.”
“The holders? The people living in the hold?” Else asked.
“Yeah. They’re going crazy and attacking anyone they can find. It’s getting really fucked up.”
“Where’s the Foreman?”
“Up in his office I guess. He’s just telling us to lock up tight and wait for the crew to restore order.”
Else’s sudden smile was a death mask grimace in the dim light. “Is that what you think is going to happen? The crew is going to restore order?”
Rache blinked, her face opening in complete shock, “But.. . they have to.”
“They don’t have to do anything. They will only try to stop an outbreak to protect the herd. They only need enough of you to keep breeding. That’s the only reason they’ll destroy the ferals.”
“So what do we do?” Rache asked.
“What I’ve been saying all along. We fight. We destroy every last motherfucker. Then you will be free.”
“Free? Like being able to set sail and go anywhere?”
“Sure, you can be the captain of your own boat if you want.” Else peered out into the cathedral of the engine room. Engineers were huddled in small groups around drums that flickered with oil fires. Weapons of hammered steel with gleaming edges lay close at hand.
“Ohh . . .” Rache breathed. “Captain Rache . . .”
“Can you get your people to follow you? We need them to help save the holders, find any survivors and bring them back here. The fishermen too.”
“We can’t go out there, there are zombies,” Rache said with genuine terror rising on her face.
“I’ll need some clothes, and one of those blade weapons your people have.”
Rache slipped out the door. “Wait here,” she said and vanished into the gloom.
Else idly scratched at a scab on her chest; the rough edge of someone’s boot had split the skin and cracked a rib. The bone felt restored, and the dried blood lifted from a pink line of healing scar tissue as she scratched. Her body tingled with the itch of healing and she rubbed her back against the edge of the door while waiting for Rache to return.
The girl came hurrying back with a bundle of cloth cradled against her chest and a short-handled, scythe-like blade in her other hand.
Else took the clothes offered. “I have seen material like this before,” she said. “The soldiers at Woomera wore the same color.”
Rache held up a pair of boots. “I don’t know if these will fit. I only had a moment to grab the first pair I saw in the stores.”
The boots were too large, so Else tore strips of fabric from the trousers and wrapped her feet before sliding the boots on and lacing them tight. Taking the scythe, she tested the strength of the wire binding that held the blade to the handle.
“We are ever vigilant,” Rache said, her eyes reflecting the chrome of the blade.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,” Else replied, swinging the blade and getting a feel for the weight of it. “I read that in a book,” she added.
“I don’t know if they will follow us.” Rache’s eyes were wide and white against her blackened skin.
“You want to be a captain, you need to be able to lead.” Else gave her a minute to think it through. Rache took a deep breath and left the room. Else rested the blade over her shoulder and followed the girl.
“Hey! Hey!” Rache yelled acro
ss the cavernous chamber. People turned and looked, some rising to their feet.
“Have they broken through?”
“Is it the dead?”
“They’re here!”
Voices clamored from all directions. The clash of weapons being snatched up echoed off the walls. Rache walked out into the gathering crowd.
“We . . . We need to fight the dead,” she said, her voice lost in the growing alarm of the swelling mob.
“Where are they?”
“Someone tell the Foreman!”
“Listen to me!” Rache yelled, her voice stronger this time. “We are engineers! This ship is our home! We will not hide like holders! Like children! We will protect our home! We will fight for what is ours!”
The engineers stopped hurrying about in circles looking for the enemy and started turning towards Rache. Listening to her voice calling them to stand together.
“Who are you to tell us what to do?”
“That’s Rache, she’s just a panel scrubber!” another voice jeered, and others laughed with him.
“Yes!” Rache shouted them down. “I’m a panel scrubber. I keep the shit off the solar panels so you can have water and light. I believe in the ship! I believe in the Foreman! I want to see her sail!”
The crowd shouted—“Yeah! Sail! Sail! Sail!”—drumming their weapon handles on the metal floor and against pipes in a rhythmic pounding that swelled across the engine chamber.
“We take the fight to them! We take this ship! Then we sail her!” Rache’s face rose above the crowd as the nearest engineers lifted her on their shoulders. Fists punched the air and a deafening chorus of cheers rolled around the room.
Hands fell on the barred gates and doors, pulling levers and tearing away the barriers. The crowd surged forward, pouring out of the room and into the stairwells that led out into the ship. Rache waited until the last of them had left the room and Else stepped up beside her.
Tankbread 2: Immortal Page 9
