Blood Memory: The Complete Season One (Books 1-5) (8 page)

As they walked across Light’s deck toward the bridge, Jordan sidled up to Joel. “Do you think Anne will do as you asked?”

Joel looked at Jordan out the corner of his eye. “How would you know what I said to Anne?”

“The temperature dropped ten degrees whenever she looked at you. And, she’s not here.”

Joel
smiled and eyed Jordan with newfound respect. “There’s no telling what Anne will do.”

From Haven
’s deck, Anne watched them disappear out of view as they stepped into the bridge and went down the stairs. The rattling sound of Stan winding the gangplank back in echoed the twisting of apprehension in Anne’s gut.

Nowhere was Light’s listing more obvious than on the vehicle parking level. The square box shape of the vehicles
somehow heightened the lop-sidedness of the room. But the vehicles had not moved, their handbrakes holding firm.

Joel opened the door that led to
the stairwell. They caught the strong salty iodine smell of the sea that they previously could not smell until they were at the bottom of the stairs. They shared a look.

“You don’t suppose the door could have snapped open
under the pressure?” Jordan asked.

“The Lurchers having escaped and organised a nice welcome party for us?”
Joel raised his knives. “We’ll have to go down and see.”

Four
steps from the maintenance floor, Joel’s boot set foot in water, soaking him to the ankle. He crouched to see down the corridor. His flashlight revealed the water was deep at the stairs, then tapered off and became shallower as the incline reduced, the water only barely stroking the door’s bottom. It was shut.

“That’s disappointing,” Joel said. “No welcoming party.”

Joel waded into the pool, the deepest pointing up to his waist. He kept his arms above the waterline. As he emerged from the pool, the water ran down his waterproof trousers, dribbling on the water’s surfaces then the floor as he made his way to the locked door.

Water leaked from the
edges of the doorframe, thin rivulets that joined the pool on the floor. The decapitated body beside the door hadn’t moved, but now it looked like an ancient totem, a dreadful warning to strangers of the horrors yet to come.

“Listen,” Joel said.

There was no groaning, no scratching, only the trickle from the doorframe. But still Jordan felt uneasy.

“Are you sure we should open
the door?” Jordan said.

Joel gave him a flat stare.
“This was your idea, remember. We can’t turn back now.” Joel put his hands on the wheel lock. He leaned all his weight into it, the cords in his arms straining against his skin. He stopped. “Blimey, it’s on tight. Give us a hand.”

Jordan
took hold of the wheel too.

“Ready?” Joel asked.
“On three. One, two…”

They put their full weight behind turning it
, their faces turning red with exertion. They expelled painful grunts of air. The wheel cried out as if in pain, then only squeaked as it haltingly gave way. Water spilled from the doorframe in wide channels, running down Jordan’s leg. They stopped.

“One more turn should do it,” Joel said
, out of breath. “When this door gives, it’s going to open pretty fast. We’ll need to move quick. Are you ready?”

Jordan nodded. They braced the wheel again. They barely twisted two inches before something inside the door snapped with a sharp crack. The door flew open, tossing Joel and Jordan aside like ragdolls. The water spilled over them
, rushing forth from the door like a mighty river had burst its banks. Lumps like clotted cream spilled through, splaying out in all directions, eviscerated on the sharp steel stairs, their heads scalped, the limbs hooked about the stairs torn from their sockets, thick blood oozing and spreading out over the surface.

T
he corridor was packed with bodies like monstrous rotting lily pads. The water level was up to Jordan’s chest now. At the deepest area at the stairs he wouldn’t even be able to keep his feet on the floor.

The room shuddered and a sound like a giant angry monster filled their ears. A
light bulb fell from its holder, splashing in the water. Dust sprinkled the surface.

“What was that?” Jordan said.

“I don’t know,” Joel said, “but it doesn’t sound good.”

They waited a moment, but the event did not repeat itself.
A body in a blue boiler suit floated between them. Her long blonde hair spread out around her head like a halo. Jordan put a hand out to touch her.

“Don’t go near it,” Joel said
, causing Jordan to start. “Stand back.”

Joel approached the
body and brought his knife down on the back of its head. The flesh and bone gave easily, like a rotten apple. The knife sunk into the skull, the cross guard thumping the bone. Joel turned the body over. Her skin was white, bloated and waterlogged, the face pale as trodden snow. The eyes were closed. She had perhaps been in her mid-twenties.

“
She looks like a regular person,” Jordan said.

“
Don’t let that fool you. She’s a monster. They all are.” He nodded to the other bodies, floating like trash. “Disable the others.”

Jordan looked at the unmoving bodies. “They’re dead.”

“We’ve made that mistake before,” Joel said, wading over to a body wearing a Tottenham Hot Spurs shirt. “We didn’t check them, assuming they were dead. They came up behind us and…” He slammed his knife into the back of the football fan’s head. “Almost got us. Don’t let their appearance fool you.”

Jordan waded over to the body of a man lying face down in the dark water. He wore a red rain jacket and blue jeans.
His skin was pallid and bloated, the hair on the back of his head was so fine and thin his lumpy scalp could be made out beneath it. Jordan raised his chair leg in both hands above his head. He looked over at Joel who plunged his knife into the eye of a young girl no older than eleven. Jordan turned back to the man in front of him and prepared to bring the weapon down… It slipped from his fingers and slapped the water behind him.

“I can’t do this
,” he said. “I can’t.”

“
You have to,” Joel said. He stood at Jordan’s shoulder with the discarded chair leg in his hands. “Your life, as well as ours, depends on it.” He put the leg in Jordan’s hands. “The first time is always the hardest. It’s easier not to think of them as human. Stan reckons they’ve regressed to some former animal state, to the time before we became self-aware. I’m not sure I believe that, or even if I understand it, but I do know they want to kill us. And they won’t stop unless we kill them first.”

Jordan raised the
chair leg to shoulder height. Joel moved to turn the body over. Jordan wanted to protest, but the words stuck in his throat. The face had been torn, the flesh hanging by strips. His nose was a bloody ruin, bitten or else ripped off. The inner cavern of his nostrils was dark and covered in a thick slimy membrane. Blue veins coursed under his skin like thick ropes. The eyes stared up at the ceiling, mouth hanging open, the jaw skewed at an unnatural angle. The face actually made it easier for Jordan because the thing before him did not look human. Jordan brought the chair leg down.

The skull gave way easily to the club
, leaving a crater where the man’s face had been. Once was enough, but Jordan raised the club and brought it down again. Water splashed and turned red. Shards of shattered cranium pinged off the walls. Soon Jordan was pounding the water where a head used to be.

Jordan’s arms burned
. He could no longer lift the chair leg. Blood and a thick green pus clung to the leg’s engravings and oozed down the vine grooves like a blood gutter on a sword, spilling over his gloves. Jordan sobbed, drawing in wracking breaths that shook his whole body.

Joel put a hand on his back.
“You did well.”

“It’s not that,” Jordan said. “Until now I never
really believed the world had changed, at least not as you all told me. I guess I secretly believed the world was as I remember it. But now…” He stared into the dead black eyes that gaped from the crushed skull. “Now I know the world really has changed. Everyone I knew is gone. And here I am, smashing it to smithereens with the leg of a destroyed chair from a forgotten world.”

Joel said nothing, letting the moment linger. Once Jordan was ready, they moved about the corridor destroying
the brain of each floater they found. The water tinged the colour of red wine with flecks of yellow pus.

And
then they stepped into the engine bay.

“They’ve been down there an awful long time,” Anne said, peering at Light through the binoculars.

Stan sighed. It was the fifth time she’d said it. “No longer than you were yesterday.”

“That was different.”

“How is it?”

Anne shook her head. “It just is.” She peered through the binoculars again.

“No matter how hard you try you’ll never see through the hull with those binoculars. X-ray vision doesn’t come as standard.”

Anne smiled, but the
tension didn’t leave her eyes.

“They’ll be fine
,” Stan said. “Don’t you think they would have made contact with us if there was a problem? The Lurchers will all be dead, and there’s nothing left to harm them.”

“It’s not the Lurchers I’m worried about.”

At that moment there was a loud screech, like a girder under too much pressure.

Anne
raised the binoculars, heart pounding in her ears. She scrubbed Light left to right, looking for what could have caused that god awful noise. She felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked up into Stan’s wide white eyes, his gnarled finger pointing at Light’s stern.

“I don’t think you’re going
to need those binoculars, love,” he said.

She looked up.
Her blood felt like it had frozen in her veins.

The
stern was sagging into the water like an old man setting himself on the sofa. The front lifted up, water dripping from the bow, poking its nose up at the sky. Anne grabbed the walkie talkie that Stan clutched tight to his chest.

“You have to get off the boat!”
she shouted into the walkie talkie. “It’s sinking! Do you hear me? It’s sinking! Get out!”

Static answered her.

“Joel? Jordan? Are you there?”

Still n
o answer.

“If you can hear me, get out now.”
Anne gave Stan the walkie talkie. “Keep trying to contact them.” She ran to the crank and pumped it as fast as she could.

Stan broke from his stupor.
“Wha… What are you doing?”

Anne
didn’t look up from the crank. “I’m going down there.”

“You can’t. The boat’s going to sink.”

“They’ll die down there if no one warns them. Take care of Stacey and Jessie. No matter what happens, keep them safe.” The gangplank had extended to about halfway. Anne looked at the gap, judging it.

“What about
your armour?” Stan said. “You can’t go without armour!”

“It’ll slow me down.”

“But-”

“We haven’t got time to argue.”

“But you haven’t extended the plank fully yet!”

“
I’ll jump it.”

“But if you fall…”

“I won’t fall.” Anne put her foot on the plank, judged the distance one last time, took one stride and…

Tonk!
The hollow thud rung out across the ocean.

Anne hit the deck.
Mary stood over the unconscious Anne with the frying pan in her hands. She poked Anne’s stomach with her foot. There was no reaction.

“What did you do?” Stan said, stunned.

“Me? Why, I didn’t do anything.” She handed the pan to Stan, turned and left.

T
he ceiling was choked with pipes. They darted this way and that, overlapping and doubling back on themselves like a magic eye picture. Levers and buttons protruded from the walls. They had been chewed and gnawed on, down to nubs. One was smeared with chunks of festering lung where an oblivious Lurcher had impaled himself on it. The water on the floor shimmered with filmy rainbows, the product of a leaky pipe. Joel tapped a dirty dial that had ‘Oil Level’ written across it. The needle pointed to ‘Empty’.

“No oil,” Joel said.
“Beautiful.”

Joel
ran his eye over the engine, following the mass of metal the way an expert tracker pursued wild game. He got down on his belly and pulled himself under the pistons and belts. He rolled onto his back and located the alternator after only a few moments’ inspection. He took the tools out of his pocket. Within minutes he had worked the alternator free.

“Here,
take this,” he said, extending it to Jordan. He pulled himself out from under the engine and wiped his hands on the T-shirt of a Lurcher’s corpse. “Let’s get the hell out of here. This place gives me the willies.”