The Mariner (30 page)

He placed his hands on the bars, and slowly slid them open. Metal upon rust gave a low gritty screech, quiet, yet appearing impossibly loud against the silent forest. Were the monkeys dead, or just lying low? In the distance he could make out the sounds of the waves lapping at the shore. When was the last time he’d managed to hear that this far inland?

Clement stepped out of his protective cage and surveyed the immediate surroundings. The fog gave him about ten feet of visibility, and in those he could tell all was clear. The forest floor was littered with dry leaves, but he found that if he shuffled forward he could nudge them rather than crack their brittle forms. After a few tries he started to time his movements with those of the distant waves, masking the sound of his steps.

Were any of the others alive? That strange sailor looked like he could handle himself, but the priest and the girl? Could he protect them as well? Perhaps they were gathered on the coast waiting for him?

Clement sped up his movements, eager to reach his destination, seizing upon the hope that whatever fire-fight had occurred, it were the humans who’d prevailed.

A cold chill from the morning stroked his neck. He turned, staring into the misty shadows that swirled behind, closing in his wake. Were there zombies in those mists? He strained he eyes, trying to see if the grey trails of movement had been caused by him, but the longer he spent watching one dimly lit corner, the more concerned he’d become about another.

He broke into a jog, and then a run. Gone was his nerve. Gone was the carefully laid plan. It wasn’t far now, soon he’d be at the beach with the others. There he’d be safe! There he wouldn’t have to look in every direction at once! There he wouldn’t have to feel imagined fingers clawing the nape of his neck!

And indeed, it was true. He’d reached the beach and was stepping over corpses of the Mindless, their bodies pierced by bullets, and by the shore he could see the party that had waited for him, standing patiently looking out to sea. Eight figures of stoic patience, eight beacons of hope.

“I’m here! I’m here!” he cried, allowing a relieved laugh to fall from his throat.

But as one of the figures turned to look at him, eyes mad and lips torn and bloody, he realised the figures in the mist were not friendly at all.

They had, however, been waiting.

The Mariner tried to shout a warning to the strong-handed man as he locked himself away, but there was no time. Behind them, the Mindless woman chased, stumbling and howling, yet it was not her he was concerned about, it was the countless other Mindless shrieks. The whole pack was bearing down on the last few survivors that dared to evade their punishments.

To his surprise, the two monks who’d joined them, an elderly woman and a portly middle-aged man were managing to keep up. Fear and a good diet giving reserves the Mariner would never have expected to look for, though both their faces were flushed with the effort.

Still, there wasn’t much looking to be done. Their journey was a desperate scurry, through foliage that tore and bit, yet what it dished out to them it also delivered in heaps to the Mindless behind. Trees were non-discriminatory, and the Mindless had little control over their flailing limbs.

Finally they broke cover onto the beach, sand bringing relief, yet infuriating sluggishness to their tread.

“The row-boat! McConnell, get the boat ready!” The Mariner ran on, past the small vessel that the others were trying to drag towards the seashore, his legs slipping in the wet sand, making his progress seem dream-like in its glacial tempo.

He neared the rock, and leapt onto its surface, glad to be free from the sand, yet frustrated by the darkness that surrounded him. Hands splayed wide, he found himself once again clawing about the same stretch of stone, searching for his missing Mauser. A finger brushed against something, but it turned out to be the cold leg of Pryce, initially ignored in favour of a lynching, and now to be ignored forever.

Behind him, he heard Grace and the old lady start to scream.

Never enough time!

Cold metal filled his hand. He was up, throwing himself back towards the beach, not caring if he injured himself in the process, just desperate to put this island behind him.

Ahead he could see the row-boat; it was in the surf, taking in water, whilst the others frantically tried to pull a Mindless woman off the portly monk. Megan still held her torch, a beam which wove frantically back and forth, trying to take in as much as possible from the gloom. Instead of bringing her flaming stick, Grace had left it, speared in the sand at the head of the beach. Now it illuminated the ten, maybe more, Mindless, who’d caught up and broke cover, streaking towards their hated enemy.

Muttering a prayer to whatever force might look out for him, the Mariner began to fire.

31
ANOMENEMIES

D
ESPITE THE CONTINUOUS ROCKING, THE
Neptune felt more like firm ground than land ever did, and despite the circumstances, the pain, and the additional intruders, the Mariner was glad to be once more upon her ample frame.

Initial joy had been tempered somewhere however, as crew of one had been transformed to six.

Six.

Six mouths to feed, not to mention the devils.

But at least
they
were pleased with the turn of events. As the refugees, soaking wet, wounded and bedraggled, climbed aboard, the beasts had hissed and growled. Their fearsome display had only lasted until they saw Grace, upon which they reverted to excited yapping, making them about as fearsome as a kitten in a bib. This was the final straw for the Mariner, who made a mental note of their uselessness.

And what a grim journey it had been. How many Mindless had he shot? The gun had been emptied and yet still they came, wading and swimming once the refugees had gotten beyond the surf. Hopefully they drowned, or were too stupid to turn back and were now paddling around the ocean, lost and growing tired.

Traumatised and exhausted, all he wanted, all
any of them
wanted, was to collapse, sleep, and allow the wind to carry them away. But sleep was beyond them, because the portly monk was wounded.

“Dead! I’m dead!” he screamed from below deck. McConnell and Megan were doing their best to address the wounds upon his neck and shoulder, amateurish though their administrations were.

“You’re not dead,” she scolded. “These will heal, you’ll see. You’re going to be right as rain!”

“But they were zombies!” he insisted. “The undead! Flesh-Eaters! I’ll become one for sure! You should throw me overboard now, lest I start feasting upon your brrrains!” He rolled the ‘r’ on his tongue theatrically, simultaneously emphasising the word and discrediting himself as an authority.

“Yeah do it.” Mariner held his head, desperate for a drink and frustrated by the turn of events. “Before he, you know, feasts or whatever...”

“You would be wise to, sir! Heed my words!”

“We’re not throwing you overboard, just sit tight.” McConnell removed a deeply soiled cloth from the wound, threw it to the ground and began to apply another. “Zombies don’t exist.”

“What would you call those creatures that attacked us then?”

“Agents of the Demon, Cedrick,” Megan said. “They were sent to stop us achieving Diane’s goal.” At mentioning Diane’s name, the young woman bowed her head to stifle a sob.

“Nooo!” Cedrick muttered, shaking his head. “Zombies I tell you! Zombies!”

“I’ve heard enough,” said the Mariner, heading above deck. “If he starts biting people, throw him over the side.”

Annoyingly. the sound of Cedrick’s protests still intruded into the world above, but at least they were dimmed, and the Mariner savoured his moments peace, turning his face towards the breeze and closing his eyes.

Where now? The only clue he’d felt they’d had was the zoo, and that had turned out to be a trap, just as the Oracle and Tetrazzini’s rehab clinic had. So where next?

“We should head back to Sighisoara,” McConnell said as if reading his mind. “Cedrick could do with getting that wound looked at, we’re all exhausted, there’s no food, and Mary and Megan are completely traumatised.”

“Mary?”

“Yeah, the old lady. She’s a lot calmer than the other two, but still, those monks were her family, and she’s lost them all in a matter of minutes. At the moment she’s concerned with caring for Megan and Grace, but once that distraction fades...” At a loss, McConnell shrugged.

“We can’t go back to Sighisoara.”

“Because you killed Tetrazzini?”

“No! Because we’re not meant to!” The Mariner glared at McConnell, who defiantly returned the challenge. “I don’t recall you complaining when you joined us!”

“I joined because I wasn’t going to allow a young girl to go sailing with a self-confessed monster!”

The truth hurt. Yet it felt more comfortable to hear than McConnell’s idealistic blather about Jesus Haych Christ. Hate was easier to process than hope.

“Do you think they’d let me live if I went back?”

“If I put in a word for you, sure.”

The Mariner’s stern expression burst as he laughed, placing a hand upon McConnell’s shoulder. Bemused, the reverend’s anger easily faded.

“And that was so effective with Diane! No, no. Your days of vouching for me are over.”

“Arthur,” McConnell said softly, still pressing his agenda. “Grace can’t live like this, she needs a stable environment. Visiting a zoo she used to be fond of is one thing, but.. just what are we doing now?”

And his doubt was valid. The Mariner was uncertain, and there was nothing he could do to hide that fact. With no answers to offer, he turned again to the sea, closing his eyes and embracing the internal dark. The Mariner enjoyed the void. No more voices, no more confrontations, no more pestering, just a blank slate and the sounds of the waves gently breaking against the hull.

“Help!”

Nothing but the waves, damnit!

“Please! Help!”

Shit.

“I think there’s someone down there!”

When the Mariner opened his eyes he saw McConnell running up and down the deck, looking into the water like a terrier that had spotted a rat.

“Arthur, there’s a man in the water!”

“Probably a Mindless.” He warily drew his gun and followed McConnell’s frantic pointing. “Or a trick,” he added remembering the eels.

“Please help!”

And indeed there was a man, frantically splashing and spluttering as he rose and fell with the waves.

“Hold on,” McConnell yelled. “We’ll get you out!”

“Didn’t you hear me?” the Mariner snapped. “It’s probably a trick. We should go below deck and wait until it’s gone.”

The look he got in return once again reminded the Mariner just how far apart the two men’s ethical systems were. McConnell was a compassionate man, someone whose instinct was always towards the benefit of others. What did that make him? “That’s a man down there, not an ‘it’! Help me haul him up.”

McConnell grabbed one of many ropes strewn about the deck and threw it into the water. After much tugging and splashing, the man finally managed to grasp it.

“Hold on tight, we’ve got you!” McConnell shouted, as the two men strained to lift the stranded survivor out the ocean below.

McConnell’s shouting had roused the others to witness the commotion.

“What’s going on?” Grace was the first to ask.

“Oh, just another guest. The more the merrier!” The Mariner’s shrill sarcasm was lost on the passengers (though he’d prefer the description ‘intruders’) as they ran as one to peer down.

“If you’re going to watch, you can join in!” McConnell said, appealing through gritted teeth. Grace, for all the help her small arms could offer, immediately seized a section of rope and began grunting with the exertion, more as a theatrical display of solidarity than proper assistance.

“I wish I could dear boy,” Cedrick apologised, keeping his eyes cast down to the soaked sailor being drawn up. “Sadly my zombie bite prohibits physical exertion. Still, he’s almost upon us, heave ho!”

And finally the three pulled the sailor the final few feet and he plopped wetly upon the deck, gasping for breath.

“Thankyou... thankyou... thankyou,” he muttered over and over between clogged gasps.

“I’ll get him some water,” McConnell said, heading for their meagre supplies.

Always careful, the Mariner pointed his Mauser at the soaked fellow. The young man was in his late-twenties and dressed in a drenched black suit, not much of a threat, but the Mariner was determined not to be made a fool of. “Who are you and where did you come from? Answer quickly or I’ll toss you back in. Make a move towards any one of us and I’ll shoot.”

“Arthur!” Grace gasped at his ruthless warning, but he continued regardless, ignoring the girl’s pleas.

“Water,” the man rasped. “Please, water!”

“You think I’m going to share my water with a passenger I can easily dispose of? I barely want to share it with this lot, let alone someone who could be a Mindless.
Or an eel
.” The Mariner could feel the others pondering the insanity of his words. “Just get talking!”

“Please! Please don’t put me back!”