Devour (29 page)

“We can launch the lifeboats ourselves?” Destiny asked.

Wells nodded. “It’s a simple system. Passengers are supposed to be able to figure it out, even if the ship is going down fast. They had two lifeboats in the water within five minutes. I kept telling them not to, that it was going to attack—”

Brian swung his head to Wells. It was a ponderous motion, his temples throbbing. “Are there any lifeboats left?”

“Several,” Wells said. “Not too many people willing to launch them anymore, though.”

Wells opened the door at the end of the hallway and they entered the stairwell. “It waited,” Wells said, facing away from them as he spoke. “Until they were away from the safety of the ship. It’s beaten up from attacking the ship, and you wounded it with the flare gun. It doesn’t want to hurt itself anymore, but it’s not going away.”

“The tug?” Brian said. “Will it attack that?”

Wells held a hand and tipped it back and forth. He looked down at Taylor to see if the girl was registering the conversation, but she appeared distant, in shock or just numb. “Either way, we can’t stay here.”

He motioned to Taylor, who placed her hands over her ears. Not very tightly, Brian saw with approval. She would be okay. Then he remembered she didn’t know about her parents. That they had died, that they had left her.

Destiny said, “Kharkov shot both Prower and Hornaday. Shot them in cold blood, didn’t even seem to think it was a big deal. Now Latham and Kharkov are waiting for Frankie to deliver the heart. Once they get that, they’re going to get on a helicopter.”

“What do we do?” Wells asked. “Can we commandeer it?”

“No,” Brian said. “We steer clear, get Destiny and Taylor on the tugboat, if we can.” He gently pulled Taylor’s hands away from her head. “You can listen now, okay?”

She looked at him. “I want my mom and dad.”

“I know.” The pressure changed abruptly in the stairwell, their ears popping. From below them water gurgled, followed by a hissing noise. “Come on,” Brian said. “Let’s get upstairs.”

They labored up the stairs, pushing and pulling Brian, hearing the buzz of panicked voices above them. Their progress was painfully slow. Brian had to place one foot on the steps, both hands on the railing, and let them lever him up until he could swing his other foot up. It was much harder than walking. Finally, they reached the middle landing for B-level, the sound of voices louder now, individual voices punching through the din. Brian slumped against the wall. The next flight of stairs looked like the face of El Capitan.

As his breathing slowed he became aware of another sound, the steady rumble of a diesel engine.

“Someone’s here,” he said. “Another ship. Go up, make sure she gets on board. Hurry. I’m right behind you.”

“Take her,” Destiny said to Wells. “I’m going to help him.”

“Go,” Brian said, pushing her forward.

“No.”

“Damn it. Take her up, Wells. We’ll be there in a second.” He glared at Destiny as Wells took Taylor’s hand and they climbed the stairs, pushing the door open. Taylor spared one glance backward before they disappeared onto the deck, her eyes very round.

“Her parents are dead,” Brian said. “They were on the lifeboat. Go with her.” Above them the tugboat’s horn bellowed, and its engines roared. They could smell the exhaust in the stairwell, and he could hear the passengers’ voices, could feel the thudding of their footsteps as they pushed toward the tugboat.

“We’ll both go,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Come on.”

The predator moved its fins slowly, its back brushing against the bottom of the ship’s hull. Tiny vibrations tickled along its lateral line, the primitive network of nerves under its hide. There was the whir and slash of the approaching prey,
new
prey, and from its vantage point it could see the spinning fin was protected well. It could hear and feel the scramble of feet and understood, at some base layer, that the prey would move from one shell to another. It was then that the predator would finally gorge.

T
he
Santa Maria
was a squat, powerful open-sea tug, capable of pulling in thousand-foot tankers, now tucked alongside the
Nokomis
’s starboard flank. Brian didn’t see any attempts to get the waterlogged
Nokomis
hooked up; at this point it would be like trying to haul an enormous anchor back to harbor. Graves and a man in a gray uniform, evidently the
Santa Maria’s
captain, were shouting instructions to each other. Graves was gesturing in different directions; first the tug, then the deck of the
Nokomis
, and finally sweeping a hand out at the sea.

The tugboat captain was standing on aluminum planks that had been deployed between the
Nokomis
and the
Santa Maria.
Several of his crewmen blocked the passengers from boarding the tugboat.

Finally, the tugboat captain nodded, then held up both hands, fingers splayed, and opened and closed them three times. They could take thirty passengers.

Brian and Destiny stood at the back of the crowd of people, searching for Wells and Taylor. All around them people were jockeying for position, shouting at family members or friends who were in the jostling crowd. Someone was calling for their parents; a tall, blond woman was screaming for her daughter.

“You see them?” Destiny said.

“No.”

Vanders came running up to Graves with a loudspeaker. Graves turned to the crowd, his amplified voice streaming over them. “We’re going to put thirty of you on the
Santa Maria
,” he said. “Children and their mothers first, then the rest. Only thirty people!”

It was like flipping a switch. The passengers streamed forward, pushing against the tugboat crew; others jumped over the
Nokomis
’s railings to land on the tugboat’s curved deck. The tugboat captain retreated
,
first to his deck and then, as the passengers poured onto the
Santa Maria
, into his cabin. The tug’s engines revved, diesel exhaust hanging over the deck.

Brian caught sight of Wells, just to the left of the gangway, shouting in the general direction of the
Santa Maria
’s wheelhouse.

“Stop!” Graves shouted into his bullhorn. “A cutter is coming! No more people on the tugboat!”

The passengers continued to surge forward, pushing aside the tugboat’s crew, sweeping Wells along with them. Brian caught a glimpse of his balding head, bobbing in the crowd of people being pushed to the rear of the tug’s deck. Waves splashed over her sides, drenching the passengers and sending several of them sliding along the deck.

They tried to shoulder their way forward, but the crowd was packed tight, and when Brian tried ramming forward he was rewarded with an elbow to the face. He went down, swearing, and Destiny helped him to his feet.

“Look.” She pointed toward the railing of the
Nokomis
. Taylor was just outside the crowd of people, perched atop a low section of bulwark, calling out for her parents.

The tugboat diesel roared, sending a cloud of black smoke bellowing from its exhausts, and it separated from the
Nokomis,
the aluminum planks splashing into the ocean. The tugboat’s cabin and decks were absolutely jammed; there were no more than twenty people left on the
Nokomis
. Wells was staring at them from inside the crowd of refugees. Brian gave him the okay signal and pointed to Taylor. Wells followed his finger and sagged in relief, then tapped his ears and pointed at the props. Then he motioned for Brian to get back.

In a flash of understanding, Brian pushed forward. “Taylor!” he yelled.

The sound of his voice surprised him. She jerked her head around, eyes momentarily lighting up and then dimming when she saw it was Brian who had called for her. He motioned her toward them with both arms, away from the railing. She took one more look at the crowd on the
Nokomis,
then slipped back through the remaining knot of people.

“They were looking for her,” Destiny said before Taylor reached them, her voice low but fierce. “Her parents. You understand? They were looking for her.”

“Come on.” He pulled Destiny and Taylor with him, and then motioned them into the small alcove on the landing between B and A decks. He could still see Wells’s defeated face, his slumped shoulders supporting the sling for his broken arm, his eyes watching them.

“Brian?” Destiny said. “What is it?”

“Cover her eyes.”

“No,” Taylor said, her first word since they’d met, holding up her hand. “I don’t want anything over my face.”

The tugboat’s directional props continued to push it away from the
Nokomis
. The passengers above decks were hanging tightly onto the rail, the waves coming up and over the tug’s low sides. The
Santa Maria
paused in the water as it rotated its props, and more exhaust belched into the fog. Then it started forward, cutting hard to starboard to begin its way back to shore.

“Hang on,” Brian breathed.

The tug’s blunt bow smashed into an oncoming wave, and spray blew thirty feet into the air. One of the remaining passengers on the
Nokomis
screamed out a litany of curses at them, the words ripped from his mouth by the relentless wind. “You bastards!” he bellowed. “There was more room! There was more—”

The sea split open. The kronosaur surged above the waves, emerging from the water in long mass, the flippers pinned tight against its sides. It hung in the air over the tug, head craned downward, eye trained on its target.

The kronosaur crashed down on top of the
Santa Maria
. The metal infrastructure of the wheelhouse crumpled instantly, and the tug tipped forward, props rising out of the water and churning uselessly at the surface. The massive head craned back away from the splinters of metal as its flippers swept back and forth, sending the
Nokomis
’s refugees cartwheeling off into the ocean. Others were pinned against the railing or what remained of the wheelhouse and crushed into red jelly.

A wave washed over them and the tug tilted hard to port. The kronosaur wedged its pectoral flipper against the rail and flexed. The tug, nearly ready to tip over, righted itself and began to sink, slowly, into the ocean.

Five tons
, Brian thought.
Five tons, easy
.

“We don’t stand a chance,” he said.

“What?” Destiny asked. “My God. It’s . . . Brian, it knows what it’s doing. It
knows
.”

The kronosaur was still partially submerged, its rear flippers just above the waterline. It surveyed the carnage below it, then twisted its body and forced another half dozen passengers into the sea, some of them screaming but the others silent, already mangled and battered. Those who had been caught against the railing were red messes, their bodies twisted, burst open. The kronosaur slid forward and the bow dipped again, lifting the props completely out of the water. The diesel engines whined for a brief second and then died.

The tug dove slowly, bow first, into the ocean. The kronosaur’s head swung from side to side as it sank, twisting its massive neck at a hard angle to account for its missing eye, surveying the survivors. Marking them. Brian felt a fresh slug of horror at the measured reconnaissance.

“What’s it doing?” Taylor asked. She had taken advantage of Destiny’s shock to wiggle free.

“Making sure it has everyone,” Brian said.

“What?”

“Nothing. You stay close to Destiny, okay? We’ll be okay.”

Just before the tug went completely under, the kronosaur swung its head over to survey the
Nokomis
. The remaining passengers retreated under its gaze, several turning away and running back toward the stairwell. The kronosaur lashed its tail, the lips peeling back. The waters had turned red around the tug, and bodies of the dead and dying were being carried away by the waves.

“Can it do that to this ship?” Taylor said. She was pressed against Destiny’s side, one hand twisted in the untucked tail of Destiny’s shirt.

“No,” Destiny said. “We’re too big. . . .” She surveyed the
Nokomis,
still tilted low on the water. The top of the swells now lapped at the bottom of the railing.

“Come on,” Brian said. “Let’s get up another level.”

The kronosaur slid off the crumpled tugboat and entered the water. It moved steadily toward the
Nokomis
, bodies swirling in its wake. One of the survivors, a young woman, was flapping madly at the water, her blond hair streaked with gore. The kronosaur brushed against her and sent her reeling, the baleful green eye never leaving the
Nokomis
.

“It’s staring at us,” Taylor said, her voice no more than a whisper. “At me.”

“No,” Brian said, watching as the monster drew near, the four big flippers propelling it slowly toward the sinking ship. He pushed them toward the stairs. “Not at you. Take her up to A-deck, Destiny, right now. I’ll follow you.”

They went, and he stumbled after them.

* * *

He paused at the top of the stairs, panting. His stomach was clenching like a muscle about to cramp and there was a terrible taste in his mouth, adrenaline with a hint of atropine. Destiny steadied him as he staggered over to where she stood, looking across the helipad at Latham and Kharkov. Taylor was pressed against her back and looking down at her shoes, trembling. “Listen,” she said. The thudding was getting louder by the second.

“Chopper,” Brian said, then pushed Destiny across the way. “Convince them to take you.”

She started to protest and he cut her off. “The only way out of here is by air.”

“You, too.”

“Think about the girl, Destiny. They won’t take me, not a chance in hell.” He peered into the fog; the sound was getting louder. He glanced over the side and saw that the water had washed over B-deck. The kronosaur was not in sight.

“Maybe Latham will let you come with us.”

“No,” he said. He looked at her face and managed a smile. “No more time to waste. If we can have one good thing out of this mess, if we can save her, this is it. This is our chance.”

She nodded. “Be safe,” she said. “Live.”

“I’ll try, Destiny.” He motioned at Latham, who was talking into a phone, his face blotchy with anger. “Go.”

Kharkov waited until she circled around the helipad, then swaggered forward. Destiny shouted at him, the words rising above the din of the approaching helicopter; Kharkov flapped a hand at her. She brought Taylor forward, letting him see the girl, and his face changed. At the same time, Taylor looked up from where she had burrowed into the back of Destiny’s shirt, saw Kharkov clearly for the first time, and began to scream.

Latham glanced up, his eyes narrowed.

Above them the chopper appeared, its rotors sending the fog spiraling off. At the same time Taylor broke and ran back the other way, her hair streaming behind her, Destiny in pursuit. Taylor ran straight to Brian, still screaming, and he caught her, her arms circling around his neck. She was sobbing, her arms clenched so tight he could barely breathe. “Don’t send me with him,” she said. “Please, please,
please
don’t send me with that man.”

He shouted across the helipad. Latham peered at them. “What?”

“The girl!” he yelled, pointing at Taylor. “Take the girl! Keep her safe!”

“No-ooo!” Taylor screamed. “Please, no!”

Latham craned his neck upward to watch the chopper. He turned and said something to Kharkov and they laughed, and Kharkov turned to the stairwell and leveled his pistol. Two other passengers emerged from the stairwell, looking to the sky, their expressions falling when they saw Kharkov’s pistol. He motioned with it, making shooing gestures, and the passengers reluctantly backed down the stairwell.

Brian gently pried Taylor loose and handed her to Destiny. He pulled Frankie’s Glock from his waistband and started forward.

Destiny caught his arm. “No,” she said. “He’ll kill you.”

The chopper landed, one runner on the canted deck and the other hovering a foot above. The noise was deafening, the thudding of the rotors causing their eardrums to throb in and out, grit peppering their faces The pilot, his visor covering the upper part of his face, was speaking into his headset. Latham jumped onto the raised runner and disappeared into the cockpit in one swift movement. The roar of the chopper was tremendous.

Kharkov leveled the gun at Brian, his left hand cupped underneath the grip, the right finger on the trigger. A split second before Kharkov’s hands bucked Brian crashed into Destiny and Taylor, sending them to the deck, one hand outspread to cover Taylor’s face.

He lay on the deck. He was not hit. When he looked up Kharkov’s hands were still bucking and his mouth was making
ka-pow
noises, his eyes merry. Then he turned and jumped into the chopper.

“I’m going to kill him,” Brian said, bringing the Glock up. The helicopter had only risen twenty yards into the air and was hovering above the
Nokomis
, shaking and dipping in the wind.

“No,” Destiny said, pulling on his forearm. “Maybe they’ll come back. You said it, Brian—it’s our only chance.”

He glanced over the side and saw water spreading over the deck; the remaining passengers had retreated into the interior of the ship. The ship tilted another degree to starboard, the ship creaking and groaning. The chopper moved out horizontally and positioned itself just off the
Nokomis
’s side, carving out a large, shallow dish in the ocean’s surface.

“What are they doing?” Destiny said.

“Waiting,” Brian said. “Waiting for Frankie.”