At the End of the World

by Charles E Gannon

  One of the others on the severed pier roared and took a running leap at the collapsed length of planking that slanted down into the water. Surprisingly, he reached it—but his first attempt to scramble up that ramp was also his first contact with the seal fat that had been slathered upon it. He seemed to run in place for a moment, then screeched in fury as he pitched backward into the low swells. The water wasn’t quite over his head, but that didn’t matter; if anything, the zombie’s reaction to that sub-zero cold was more rapid and severe than ours. After a few seconds of highly agitated thrashing, his limbs began to slow down, looked like they were stiffening.

  Chloe had to poke my ribs to get me to stop watching the zombies; it was important to see how they differed from us, and observing species is what I do best.

  “Willow. What’s happening?”

  I swept the binoculars from the captain’s position to the raider ship and then over to Voyager. “Nothing much. Wait. The pirates are backing engines.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Don’t know. Wait. It’s the spikes we put in the water; they’re steering away from them. And there’s activity at the stern. I think they’re preparing to put a boat in the water. Maybe both of them.”

  “Bet on both of them,” Chloe muttered, slowly angling the muzzle of the bolt action rifle over in that direction.

  A lot of howling brought my attention back to the pier. Some of the now stranded zombies had pushed some of their front rank over the edge, apparently in the primal hope that they could crawl over them to get to the pier. And from the corner of my eye, I saw what had focused their aggression enough to do so.

  After dropping the weight that collapsed the weakened span of the pier, Blake, Rod, and Steve were under orders to grab flensing knives—more like machetes or swords, actually—and hang back in the shadows of the plant. If anyone still got over the pier, they were to ambush them as best they could. A dangerous job, but we only had three guns. Besides, we were pretty sure that our enemies would be unable to cross the gap, and we had the captain to shoot at any who tried.

  But Blake had stepped out of the shadows of the plant, taunting the zombies. I doubt they understood his words any more than his obscene gestures, but I guess seeing him dancing on shore, so close and yet so far, made some of them a little extra crazy. Which is why some pushed their own kind into the water, intending to scramble over and reach the greased ramp that led up to the pier.

  One of them actually got a hold of those half-submerged planks and then—either out of pure dumb luck or intent—found himself clinging to one of the pier’s intact pilings. Which he started climbing.

  “Captain…” I said in Russian.

  “I see him,” Captain Haskins muttered back. “Tell me what the raiders are doing.”

  I looked back at the fishing ship. “They are preparing to lower two dinghies into the water, about four people per boat.”

  “Bloody hell. I’m going to sort out the bugger trying to crawl atop the pier. Tell Chloe to wait until I start firing.”

  I did so, then watched as the long barrel of the captain’s FAL eased out from between the try pots. The captain started firing. A moment later, Chloe did as well—which pretty much deafened me. Even though the pilot house didn’t have windows anymore, a lot of the sound was still trapped in that small room.

  The captain had told us that if shooting started, we wouldn’t be able to think straight and that we certainly wouldn’t be able to keep track of everything going on around us. The noise, the threat, the fact that everyone would be either hiding or moving or shooting: it would just be too much. “Sensory overload,” is how he explained it. “It takes getting used to.”

  I distinctly remember nodding at his explanation, but still thinking, “That’s other people. That’s not me. I have always been calm and collected in crises. I might be a little distracted, but it will not be so bad.”

  I was wrong. So very, very wrong. When Chloe started firing her rifle just a few feet away from my head, I suddenly couldn’t think of anything. I thought I might scream. I’m not sure why. But I managed to remember that my job was to watch what was going on. So I did.

  Captain Haskins had already withdrawn behind his two try pots. The zombie that had reached the shortened pier was dead in the water and sinking. One man at the stern of the pirate ship was lying face down. Another was holding his leg with one hand and dragging himself back to the rear hatchway with the other. The rest had taken cover: they had either run around the far side of the superstructure or were crouching just within the aft hatchway. They were looking around uncertainly, scanning the roofs of the whaling station, the Karrakatta, even some of the hills behind us.

  As Chloe reloaded, I reported what I saw to the captain. He acknowledged, added, “You’re a cool one, Willow.”

  I’m about to vomit from nerves, I wanted to reply. But I said, “Thanks. Now what?”

  “Now we take the fight to them. Is the bow still empty?”

  “Yes, sir. And I think I see why they didn’t have anyone out there before.”

  “Why so?”

  “The hatch cover to the fish bin has been damaged; it can’t close. If there’s a communicating passage between the bin and the side-door, then—”

  “Yes: that was how they controlled the infected. Kept them in the fish-hold. The buggers stayed below to keep out of the cold wind, but if there had been movement on the forward weather deck, they would have swarmed up.” The captain paused, as if he was thinking. “Voyager, this is the moment to intercept.”

  “Roger that,” answered Alvaro. “Just give the word.”

  “The word is given.”

  “Aye, sir. Releasing the anchor line. Leaving the mic open.” Alvaro leaned away from the pick-up, shouted, “Johnnie! Get on deck but stay under the gunwale. Are the containers ready?”

  “Still nice and warm.”

  The sound of a motor rose up quickly from what had been an almost inaudible background idling.

  Out in Husvik Bay, Voyager started moving very slowly, no longer attached to its anchor. If any of the pirates saw its change of position, they gave no sign of it.

  Instead, a bunch of them came running out of the superstructure and set up around the forward weather deck, from the waist to the bow. They were scanning the high points behind their ship. Including, of course, the Karrakatta. A moment later, the men who had ducked back into the rear hatch came rushing back out; three of them kept sweeping their weapons back and forth across the same high points. The rest set to work on lowering the two dinghies. “Captain—” I started.

  “I see it. They’re readying the boats at the taffrail again?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The others are all looking for Chloe. They know they can’t land safely without suppressing her.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “You wait until I start my diversion.”

  “Your what?”

  Chloe had overheard. “His diversion.”

  Everything seemed to happen at once. The captain started firing at the men lining the bow of the ship. He didn’t hit any—the range was more than two hundred yards—but he came close and certainly got their attention. They leaned their weapons over the bow toward the captain—

  Two of the zombies stuck on the isolated length of pier started pushing and shoving to get a better look at what was happening around them—and fell into the water. Blake, who had been watching them from the edge of the main plant’s shadows, whooped and shouted something at them, waving his flensing knife in their direction—

  The two raiders on that side of the bow swung their weapons over at him and started firing. One of them had a real AK-47, a machine gun.

  Blake turned, took one running step backward and then sprawled, his flensing knife flying away, that hand now clutching his hip.

  It happened so fast, I didn’t even gasp. And the next second, Chloe fired. One shot. Then she ducked down as she worked the bolt. “I missed again. Shit.”


  “One miss is to be expected at this ra—”

  “Willow. I fired five shots the first time. And only two hits.” She rose up slowly; I scanned the back of the ship. Although she hadn’t hit anyone with her shot, they were all crouching down, still scanning. One of them was pointing in our direction, seemed pretty convinced the shot had come from Karrakatta. Two of the others were focused on an elevated overseer’s office at the eastern end of the plant. “They’re going to see you next time,” I told Chloe. And then I remembered. “They hit Blake.”

  “Shit,” she said, blew out a long breath and prepared to rise into her armored sniper’s notch for another attack.

  I slipped over into my back-up spotter’s slot—never be in the same place twice—and realized that the bridge crew had seen that the Voyager was not only moving, but angling toward them. “Their ship is turning to port, Chloe. The guys at the stern are looking around, surprised. The two on the far right are looking back through the hatchway—”

  Fully in the shadows, Chloe rose up carefully, settled the rifle on her sawdust-filled sandbag, began staring down the scope.

  The riflemen up at the bow seemed to get instructions from the bridge; they started moving across to the port bow, where they might get a shot at Voyager.

  Captain Haskins evidently saw that; his FAL began banging away again. Five fast rounds: one of the raiders went down, twisting on the deck. Then he fired once every other second or so. The raiders who had been moving along the bow stopped where they were, sheltered, did what the captain had told us most pirates will do: rather than following orders, they stopped to shoot back at whoever was shooting at them. They all emptied their magazines at the captain’s position, reloaded, did so again.

  Voyager edged closer.

  The bridge crew blew their horn, probably to get the attention of their team up at the bow.

  Chloe exhaled, took her next shot.

  I swiveled back to look at the stern of the ship.

  One of the raiders was down on his back, arms wide, a dark puddle spreading around him. The others ducked behind their two dinghies, started yelling. Two jabbed their index fingers fiercely at Karrakatta.

  Chloe had already worked the bolt of her rifle, was snugging it against her round cheek. “Time to die, bastard.” She squeezed the trigger.

  She missed, but it put a hole in one of the dinghies. They all started firing at us.

  I thought we were going to be dead in the first few seconds. But initially, they didn’t even hit the pilot house. And since we were in the shadow of its overhanging roof, they had no way of actually seeing us, unless they saw the flash from Chloe’s gun.

  Chloe took three seconds to reload, her frown deepening. “I’ve fucking had it,” she growled, rose up and didn’t even wait for me to spot for her.

  Three times she squeezed the trigger and worked the bolt. I got my binoculars over in time to see one raider drop his rifle and clutch his arm, and then another fall back with a red smear where his right collarbone used to be. Chloe ducked back; the return fire was closer now, going through the weathered wood of the pilot house and ringing against the improvised iron plating like we were hidden inside a church bell.

  I slipped back into my first spotter’s position, watched the pirates pull back inside the aft hatchway again, dragging their wounded in after them. They weren’t getting their boats down in the water anytime soon, now. I had one moment to wonder how badly Blake had been hit when the captain started shooting faster again and shouting, “Willow! Chloe! The bastards at the bow are moving portside.” He coughed; his throat sounded tight, constricted. “I can’t get shots at them anymore. And Alvaro and Johnnie are—”

  I looked beyond the waist of the pirate ship’s weather deck; the Voyager was sweeping in and slowing.

  “Chloe?”

  By the time she was on her feet, the Voyager had maneuvered to come parallel and drift alongside the enemy ship—and big, broad-shouldered Johnnie jumped up and slung an industrial garbage bag of liquid fat onto the fishing ship’s weather deck. As it broke, splattering and spreading, the riflemen rushed to that side. Alvaro, steering from the deck-wheel, raised the revolver in his right hand and fired three times at them.

  They ducked, but it was more like a bobbing reflex; they were already rising again the moment he was done shooting.

  Chloe choked out a sobbing curse, yanked the gun around with a sudden desperation that I had never seen in her before.

  Johnnie hurled another container over on to the ship’s deck—this one a ten-gallon jerrican—swinging it away from him with both arms, like he was throwing the hammer in the Olympics. The jerrican trailed a spout of oil as it cleared the enemy’s gunwale—and Johnnie dove for the deck.

  Alvaro, being agile and fast, had already leaped up the stairs to the top of the pilot house. He fired three more times at the riflemen who poked up over the port bow; they hunched back down, shooting blindly. With everyone ducking and firing at the same time, no one seemed to be hitting anyone else, even though they were barely fifteen feet apart.

  Alvaro dropped the revolver.

  A rifleman stood to get a better shot at him…

  Chloe screamed, “Fucker!” and fired.

  The rifleman went down.

  Alvaro had pulled another gun from his belt: the flare gun. He aimed it carefully, his waist on level with the enemy’s deck.

  Chloe’s rifle fired at the same time that the other two riflemen at the bow popped up to shoot at Alvaro.

  Who fired the flare gun and then fell off the pilot house, hit by one or more bullets.

  And suddenly I could not hear. Not because of Chloe’s gun—that was loud and steady enough—but because of her banshee screams. Somehow she seemed to be crying and shrieking and shooting and cursing all at the same time.

  A second gunman went down at the bow; the other one scrambled to a blind spot in the lee of the superstructure, having to skirt the spreading oil as he did so.

  Johnnie got up, heaved another, smaller jerrican of the oil on the deck. I could see its puddle spreading to where the flare was still burning.

  The men at the stern came out of the hatchway again, crouching. Chloe, who was now deathly quiet, let one get out, then caught the second one with a shot in the chest right as he cleared the coaming. By the time the next one was clambering over him, she had worked the action and fired again. That one went backward—whether hit in the leg or trying to fling himself out of the line of fire, I couldn’t tell. Then she nudged her gun over to where the first pirate, the one she had allowed to exit the hatch, was hiding. Finally summoning the nerve to fight back, he popped up.

  “Chloe—”

  “How’s Alvaro?”

  The raider fired twice then ducked back down. One shot rang off the pilot-house’s iron plate.

  “Chloe, I can’t see if Alvaro is—”

  “Then shut up.”

  The pirate rose again, bolder; a head-and-shoulders target. He started firing.

  Chloe let him get off three rounds, let him get more confident, rise up a little more.

  “Sniper’s triangle,” she whispered and squeezed the trigger.

  The man slumped back with a dark hole at the base of this throat. He did not move.

  * * *

  I had to put the pen down for a while; my hand was shaking. I don’t know if it was because I was holding it so hard and writing so fast for so long, or if it was because it was the first time I thought back through all of what happened.

  The rest was anti-climactic. Although Alvaro’s flare overshot the oil, Johnnie’s last container of liquid blubber flooded along the deck to where the flare had come to a stop. In a second, half of the weather deck was obscured by a low, dim, sheet of flame: blubber, even if it is refined again and again in try pots, does not burn like motor oil or gasoline.

  But the captain was right when he assured us that the thing a ship’s crew fears the most is fire. Any fire. Whatever organization was le
ft on the pirate ship disintegrated. Some came out to try to fight the fire; Chloe gunned them down, along with some help from the captain. In fact, when they finally put their hands up to surrender, he had to shout at her over the radio—hard and loud—to get her to stop.

  Johnnie had taken over the Voyager’s wheel. Although he’s not our best hand with the boat, he brought it around and stood off thirty yards from the ship. Using the radio, I talked him through what he should do: instruct the enemy survivors to go to the stern, pile all their guns there, leave in their dinghies, and remind them that Chloe’s gun would be on them the whole time.

  As that was taking place, Steve and Rod pulled Voyager’s own dinghy out from behind a pile of rusting tanks, got it down to the water, where the captain joined them. He was moving slowly, looked like he might stumble. “Captain?”

  “No time to talk. Need to get these Argies sorted.”

  “Then can you give the handset to Giselle?”

  He did not reply. But a moment later, the circuit opened again and Giselle asked, “Willow? Are you all right up there?”

  “We’re fine. But how’s Blake? And the captain?” I wasn’t going to ask about Alvaro, not as long as Chloe had the pirates in her sights. She never did take her unblinking eye from that scope.

  Giselle’s voice was hushed. “Blake is dead. They hit him a bunch of times. Rod saw him pass out after about half a minute. They couldn’t get to him without leaving cover and getting shot themselves.”

  “And the captain?”

  “He’s in bad shape, Willow. Freak hit. I was down here, reloading magazines for him, heard one of the try pots kind of snap and ring at the same time—and there he was on his back. Apparently, a bullet hit the side of one of the pots, cracked it, bounced back, hit him in the left shoulder.”

  “So he’ll be all right?”

  “I hope so. When I tried to put a dressing on the wound, I saw more blood. All along the left side of his neck.” She was silent for a moment. “The bullet cracked chunks off the pot—spalling, I think it’s called? Pieces cut into his neck, into his arm, one into his armpit.”

  “Can you see them, get them out?”