Outpost (24 page)

'Not
on my bloody watch,' she muttered.

'Jesus,'
said Ivan, looking down at the floor. The severed hand clenched and unclenched
like an upturned crab. It tried to crawl. The Russian crossed himself. 'It's
still alive.'

Punch
passed a kitchen doorway. The Commodore Grill.

'We
should keep moving,' said Ghost.

'Let
me check it out. I need to see what we've got down here.'

Punch
opened a freezer. Spoiled food. Green mould.

Ghost
took a jar from a shelf.

'Jalapeños,'
he said. 'We could sprinkle them on our cereal or something.'

A
dry store. Bags of rice and dried pasta. Pallets of cans.

'Fucking
mother lode,' said Punch. I bet there are kitchens like this all over the ship.
Lots of little theme restaurants.'

'In
a couple of days we can organise the men and do a systematic search. Take our
pick. Fill some carts. But right now we need to get out of here.'

They
turned to leave. A woman stood in the doorway. She wore a blue ball gown. Her
eyes stared through a mask of metal spines.

'Back
off, darling,' warned Punch.

She
reached for him. He kicked her legs and she fell. He planted a boot on her
chest to keep her down. He put the drill bit between her eyes and bored into
her brain. He ground through bone. She arched her back then lay still.

'Holy
mother of God,' he muttered, standing over the corpse.

'Let's
go.'

They
headed down the corridor.

A
waitress slithered round the corner, dragging bloody, useless legs. Ghost
hefted the axe, ready to strike a blow. A second infected crew member turned
the corner, metal leaking from nose and ears. He was joined by a woman in
jogging gear, arms fused to her sides. Ghost backed away.

'Getting
crowded.'

More
passengers, shuffling, limping, groping.

'Plan
B,' said Punch.

They
ran back to the engine room and sealed themselves inside. Fists thudded against
the door. Ghost gripped his shotgun, clicked from Safety to Fire. Punch took
out his radio.

'Jane,
you there? We might have a little problem.'

Jane
called the rig.

'Hyperion
to Rampart, do you copy, over?'

'Rampart
here
.'
Sian's voice.

'We've
got control. We've got the basics. The propellers turn. We can steer left and
right. We're heading your way. Ten knots. Slow, but making headway. I'll try to
push it harder. Can you put up a flare? Something to guide us?'

'Give me two minutes.
'

Jane
stood on deck. The fog had cleared. She had found the captain's binoculars. She
adjusted focus. She saw the red pinprick of a distant flare.

She
returned to the bridge. She nudged the joystick left. Brief rotation from the
bow thrusters. She felt the massive vessel adjust course.

Ivan
searched the officers' quarters for booze. He found a couple of miniatures, but
couldn't find a full-size bottle.

One
of the crew had left a humidor full of cigars and a heavy brass lighter on his
desk. Cuban. Vaqueros Colorado Madura. Ivan filled his pockets. He didn't
smoke, but he could trade when he got back to the rig. The Rampart crewmen
liked cigars. Greedy for any little pleasure that would help them forget their
predicament a while. Getting high was the new currency now that money was no
good.

He
heard an intermittent humming noise.

He
stood in the corridor outside the crew cabins. More humming.

He
approached the slide doors at the end of the passage. A bad smell like eggs,
like rotting meat. He realised, with a wash of sickening fear, why the ship's
systems had been off-line. The
Hyperion
crew wanted to seal infected passengers below deck. They had barricaded every
door and sealed each stairwell. Then they shut off the power in case the
shambling horde below figured out how to summon elevators.

A
discreet ping. The doors began to slide open. Ivan backed away. He glimpsed an
old lady melded to an electric wheelchair.

A
crowd of infected passengers jostled for space around her. Bloody ball gowns
and dinner suits. Stench of vomit and piss. Ivan turned and ran.

Jane
steered the ship towards a winking red signal light, one of the aircraft
warning strobes on top of a distillation tower.

She
pictured the Rampart crew lining the refinery railings, applauding as the liner
docked. She would play it cool and casual. '
Welcome aboard, boys:
Bask in their new-found respect
and admiration.

There
was a button on the control panel. A trumpet icon. She hit the button and
released the long, two-note bass boom of the ship's Tyfon horn.

Ivan
ran through the door.

'The
passengers. The fucks. They broke out. They're right here.' He grabbed Jane by
the sleeve and pulled her towards an exterior door. 'We've got to go.'

'What
about Punch and Ghost?'

'We
have to get out of here.'

A
group of infected crew were milling on the upper deck. Officers in dress
uniform. They seized Ivan as he ran outside. He screamed. He fought. They fell
on him and dragged him to the floor.

Jane
swung the shotgun to her shoulder. She took aim at a bearded man with
sunglasses fused to his face. The blast vaporised his head. The second shot
caught two crewmen across the chest and hurled them backward.

A
chef lunged for her. She shot him in the shoulder. His arm landed on a bench.

More
passengers and crew climbed the steps from the lower deck. Jane backed on to
the bridge.

Later,
when they asked what happened to Ivan, she said, 'Swear to God, it was like
they wanted to climb inside him. They stuck fingers in his eyes, his mouth.
They bit off his fingers. They drove a fist into his stomach. They pretty much
turned him inside out.'

Jane
was trapped. Two shells left in the gun. She climbed over the captain's chair,
shot out the window and squirmed outside. Jagged safety glass slit open her
parka, spilling insulation foam.

She
balanced on the sill. A ten-metre drop to the lower deck. She scrambled upward
on to the roof of the bridge.

Jane
paced the roof. Infected passengers reached up for her on all sides, hissing
and clawing. She unzipped a box of shells from her backpack and reloaded the
shotgun. She leaned against the radar mast and tried to breathe slowly. She
took the radio from her pocket.

'Ghost?
Punch? Can you hear me? I really need your help, folks.'

Sian
stood on the helipad and flagged a searchlight back and forth. She was joined
by the crew. They wanted to see the ship that would carry them to freedom.

They
saw a gleam on the horizon like a low star. A quarter of an hour later they saw
the running lights of a ship approaching fast.
Hyperion
lit bright and spectral. The
great prow splintered ice. The horn blared. They cheered.

'It's
massive,' said Nikki.

'There
will be heaters,' said Sian. 'Imagine it. We will be warm. I've almost
forgotten what it feels like.'

'It's
a monster.'

'Look
how quick it's moving,' said Sian. 'We'll be home in hours.'

'It's
coming in pretty fast. Now would be a good time to hit the brakes.'

The
ship didn't slow down. The crew stopped cheering, and backed away from the edge
of the helipad.

The
ship kept coming. They could hear it. The rumble of engines. The rush of water.
The crack of splintering ice.

The
ship slammed into the west corner of the rig. The impact bucked the refinery
and knocked the crew from their feet. Sparks and shrieking metal as girders
stressed and sheered. Thunder roar. One of the rig's great anchor cables broke
free, wrenching away a chunk of superstructure.

Sian
fell and broke her nose. She rolled on her back and lay stunned. She sneezed
blood. A dream-image glimpsed through tears: the lights of the ship, the decks,
portholes and festoons, passing like a carnival parade. A jagged gash was
ripped in the side of the ship. Hull plates tore with an unearthly scream.

The
damaged liner sped on, headed straight for the island.

Impact.

Ghost
was thrown across the engine room. He grabbed a railing to stop himself falling
against a massive, spinning propeller shaft.

He
fell to the floor. An extractor fan broke loose from ductwork and hit the deck
near his head. Tool lockers flew open. Punch curled foetal and covered his head
as spanners skittered across the deck plates.

A
final, cataclysmic concussion. The ship lurched. A section of walkway
collapsed. An extinguisher burst, jetting the air with a blizzard of foam
particles. Then the engine room was still.

Ghost
sat up. He wiped foam from his face and hands. He spat foam from his mouth. The
engine room was coated white like heavy snowfall.

'What
did we hit?' asked Punch. 'Did we collide with an iceberg or something?'

'We've
stopped. We're not moving. I think we ran aground.'

'Are
you all right?'

'Banged
my leg. I'm okay. You?'

'Fine.'

The
propeller shafts were still spinning.

'Better
kill the engines.'

The
ship listed at a crazy angle. The engine room was a steep hill. Punch climbed
the room and threw each breaker to Off. Engine noise slowly diminished and
died. The four great propeller shafts gradually ceased to turn.

He
left one of the disengaged turbines running.

'Better
leave this baby ticking over,' said Ghost. 'It'll keep the lights on.'

'Where's
the radio? Help me look. I think I dropped it.'

Ghost
found the radio wedged behind the body of the dead engineer.

'Jane?
Jane, can you hear me?'

No
reply.

'Jane,
do you copy, over?'

They
sat for an hour. Ghost tried to raise Rampart every ten minutes.

'Do
you think those things are still outside?' asked Punch.

'I
expect so.'

Punch
kicked the engineer.

'I
killed a man,' said Punch. 'That's who I am now. A guy who kills people.'

'The
world has changed. We better change with it.'

A
scuffle and a thud. Punch climbed the gantry steps and put his ear to the door.

'What
can you hear?' asked Ghost. 'Is someone outside?'

Punch
mimed hush.

Three
knocks.

'What
do you reckon?' asked Punch. 'Open the door?'

Three
more knocks.

'Pass
me the gun,' said Punch. 'I'm going to open the door.'

Punch
unlocked the hatch. He shouldered the shotgun and kicked the door open. Dr Rye
stood with a bottle of Chivas Regal in her hand. 'Ready to go?' She lit a rag
stuffed in the neck of the Chivas. She tossed the bottle at a gaggle of
infected passengers massing at the end of the corridor. Burning booze splashed
the walls and floor creating a barrier of flame. 'Let's not hang around.'

They
hurried through the ship. The passageways and stairwells listed at a nightmare
angle.

'Okay,'
said Rye. 'We'll need to cut through a couple of public spaces. We'll need to
do it quickly and quietly. Way too many of these fuckers to fight off.'

They
passed through the ship's library. Novels and magazines had fallen from the
shelves when the ship ran aground. They kicked through mountains of paper.

'This
is where we cut through the main lobby,' explained Rye. 'Could be tricky.'

They
hurried along a balcony area overlooking the main lobby, the central communal
area of the ship. Ghost stopped for a moment and looked over the balustrade.

Hundreds
of infected passengers milling and moaning. Chaos and stench. Rich vacationers
mutated to monstrous parodies of themselves. They stumbled over upturned tables
and chairs. They rode escalators. They rode glass scenic elevators. They
crawled up and down the great sweep of the staircase on hands and knees. They
slid on scattered leaflets from the information desk. They tripped on
glittering fragments of fallen chandelier.

'My
God,' murmured Ghost.

Rye
tugged his sleeve. 'Keep going.'