The Adrift Trilogy: The Black River

by K. R. Griffiths

  Katie opened her mouth to scream, but no sound emerged. The vampire loomed over her, panting—oh fucking hell, is it laughing?—and finally ended Katie's torment with a single talon slashed across her throat.

  A ghastly grin opened beneath Katie's jaw, and Edgar saw exposed bone as the terrible wound widened. Her head lolled backward, almost sheared off entirely. It looked as though gravity wanted to finish the job the vampire's talons had started, but the remaining flesh of her neck clung on tightly.

  She died without making a sound, and Edgar couldn't help but replay the words he had spoken to Dan only minutes earlier.

  At least she died quick. Katie was one of the lucky ones.

  Seeing her ruined corpse made a mockery of that sentiment.

  The vampire turned and stared directly at Dan, cowering against the wall about fifteen feet from Edgar's hiding spot. Judging by the sound that Dan was making, Edgar thought he was having a heart attack; gasping for air and choking, clutching at his chest.

  The vampire watched Dan twitching and writhing, and it chuckled mirthlessly, a vicious sound that seemed to darken the air in the room.

  And then it switched its gaze to Edgar.

  He tried not to look.

  Failed.

  His eyes met the vampire's.

  Even as Edgar's mind shrivelled in abject terror, his muscles began to move of their own accord, pushing away the corpse that he had so feebly attempted to hide beneath.

  And he began to crawl toward the creature.

  His mind—the part that still belonged to him—filled with the horror of Brighton. With what the abomination behind the black door had forced the woman to do to herself. The poor woman who Edgar had charmed in a bar a couple of hours earlier, before drugging her and throwing her into the back of his van. She had been nice. Giggly. He had liked her immediately, and almost wished that he had time to pick somebody else; to find somebody who might be more deserving of the terrible fate that he had in store for them.

  But there had been no time, and Edgar had delivered the poor woman to the messenger, and she had fed herself to it piece by piece.

  Over the course of twenty sickening minutes.

  The terror was a swollen abscess that burst in his mind. It leaked poison throughout as he crawled to the vampire's legs, until his face was directly above the hideous clawed feet, and it felt like his soul was shrieking in horror.

  The world was reduced to incomprehensible stimuli as Edgar's senses tried to force some order into the seething chaos of his mind. Sights and sounds and smells with no frame of reference, unclipping his thoughts from reality and dropping them into an abyss of madness.

  The sight of blood, dripping onto the floor from those dreadful talons. The fearsome sound of the vampire breathing: a deep growl like an idling truck.

  The smell; an ancient stink; the fetid stench of a thousand deaths that stained the creature's leathery skin. Rot and decay.

  And worst of all, a sense that was entirely new to Edgar. A feeling like cold, dead fingers reaching into his brain, clutching his thoughts and twisting them into shrieking insanity.

  He drank it all in, unwilling or unable to close his eyes to the horror.

  On his knees in the blood.

  Worshipping the abomination like a twisted god.

  Please just do it quick.

  A scream reverberated around the enclosed space, but the part of Edgar that still had the ability to think knew that it hadn't been the vampire that shattered the silence. It was a human noise, and strangely, it was not the terror he would have expected to hear from a human. This wasn't fear; it was rage and panic and disbelief.

  Dan.

  Suddenly Edgar's thoughts and muscles were his own again, returned to him so abruptly that he gasped and fell backwards. He scrambled away from the vampire, and his eyes widened in astonishment.

  The creature staggered backwards, stinking black blood spurting from its throat.

  Where Dan had driven the cleaver into its flesh.

  Edgar wanted to move; couldn't. He watched, stunned, as Dan swung again, carving another deep gash in the creature’s hateful skin. And again; shearing off the taloned fingers it held up to defend itself.

  The cleaver lodged deep into the vampire's collarbone, and it went down. Hard.

  It will heal, Edgar thought weakly as he watched Dan tear the blade free and swing again. The vampire had gone down in surprise. It was the only feasible explanation. Humans weren't meant to attack it; hell, it wasn't even supposed to be possible. In the presence of the monsters, humans were meant to collapse into paralysed terror and subordination, exactly as Edgar himself did.

  Blades weren’t meant to stop the creatures. Not knives, but…

  Oh shit.

  Not metal. Wood.

  Edgar had no idea if the legends written in his father's books were accurate. No concept of whether being staked through the heart was enough to finish one of the horrors off.

  But it didn't hurt to try.

  With a roar, he leapt to his feet, snapping a leg off the nearest chair.

  He drove the ruined end into the creature's chest, praying that it had its heart located in roughly the same spot that humans did.

  The dreadful eyes widened, boring into Edgar's skull as he leaned over the creature, using all his weight to drive the stake down into the creature's ancient flesh. He felt that terrifying pull in his mind for a moment; the creature entering his head once more. But this time it was screaming, lashing out blindly. Enraged and bewildered. Preoccupied with its own terror.

  With its death.

  And suddenly the sickening insanity that had poisoned Edgar's mind was gone, and he collapsed.

  33

  Mark didn't dare to turn his lighter on. He was trying to remember what was on the deck immediately below the conference room, but his brain wasn't cooperating. He and Herb had exited the coffee lounge and they found themselves in a small, featureless hallway that led to another, larger door.

  It occurred to Mark that he had no idea what lay beyond the doorway.

  The ice rink?

  The Oceanus boasted a small ice rink that was a big selling point to families with young children, and Mark thought they were close to it. He couldn't be sure, but the thought of using his lighter in such a large, open space made him nervous. All the feeble light would do in that situation was paint a target on him.

  On the plus side, the deck on which they now stood seemed quiet. Almost eerily so, in fact. Maybe the creatures were still up on the park level, or had already passed through this area.

  There was only one way to find out for sure. He pushed open the door, and felt cold air immediately. It had to be the ice rink, and if he was right, they had just received a huge slice of luck. On the other side of the sheet of ice stood the Apollo, the ship’s only nightclub, which catered mainly to the younger passengers who weren't interested in the nightly cabaret shows that were hosted in the main ballroom. The nightclub was Mark's territory. From there, he could orient himself properly.

  He took a step forward, and felt his foot slide a little beneath him. When he bent down, he felt the frozen surface, and nodded to himself in satisfaction.

  He went over the layout of the ship in his mind. The ice rink was almost dead centre, and the fuel tanks were toward the rear. They would have to cross the ice, and the nightclub beyond, before they reached narrower hallways that wound around spiral staircases leading up and down. When they hit that maze, navigation was going to become a problem, and Mark wasn't sure that a single sputtering lighter would be much use.

  "We're going to need more light," Mark whispered. "We’re at the ice rink. Beyond it is the nightclub. Once we get through there, we'll be close to a stairway that can take us down toward the engine room and the fuel tanks, but it will be a rabbit warren down there. No way that I can remember how to get through it in the dark, and if this lighter runs out of fuel we're fucked."

  "I guess our only option is to create tor
ches," Herb said. "The nightclub will have plenty of alcohol, right? Soak a few rags and light 'em up."

  Mark nodded in the darkness, and wondered why the thought hadn't occurred to him. Maybe, he decided, because creating torches like some sort of medieval explorer was a fucking crazy way to spend a Sunday night, and it took an equally crazy person to come up with the idea in the first place.

  Torches would work, but the idea troubled Mark. If using the lighter felt like painting a target on his chest, carrying a burning torch with no way to easily extinguish the flame would do far worse.

  "Could make some Molotov's while we're at it," Herb said.

  Molotov's, Mark thought. Jesus fucking Christ. Herb made it all sound so straightforward, and ever since Mark had refused to execute the man, Herb's attitude had changed. He had become reckless, and showed complete disregard for his own safety. He had been first one out of the broken window, and had dropped out to what could have been his death without pausing for a moment.

  Geronimo.

  Trying to survive in the company of a man who didn’t care if he died as long as it happened quickly was more than a little disconcerting.

  "Will fire kill these vampires?" he said.

  "I don't know," Herb replied. "Not for sure, anyway. But it wouldn't hurt to have the option, right? Most things aren’t that keen on fire. But according to my father these things heal fast. That's why staking through the heart is supposed to be the best option. If their heart is still beating, their body will heal. A stake stops it beating long enough that their bodies eventually die. Supposedly."

  "Great," Mark said bitterly. "Vague, as always."

  "You asked," Herb said with a sniff. "The truth is that I doubt anyone knows for sure. All we have is ancient texts and knowledge handed down through generations. Any amount of it could have been embellished. For all I know, they don’t heal at all; hell, maybe you could just shoot them and be done with it. But enough of what my father said has turned out to be true for me to doubt that."

  Mark grunted.

  None of Herb’s words had helped him solve the problem of the darkness. What he needed was light that he could control; light that he could turn on when he needed it. And, preferably, light that neither Mark nor the maniac travelling with him could wind up killing themselves with.

  Glow sticks.

  The idea arrived fully-formed. The kind of idea a not-crazy person came up with.

  The nightclub had glow sticks located somewhere behind the bar, he was sure of it. A feeble attempt to replicate the atmosphere in the superclubs that dotted the Mediterranean: lots of young dancers gyrating with glow sticks would make a great picture gallery for the Oceanus' website.

  Mark doubted that the glow sticks would be that effective, but they contained no electrical components: just snap and shake, and hey, presto: light. Not the best solution, but at least it would give him the option to move in the dark if he needed to. And if he thought they had company, he could toss a glow stick and run in the opposite direction.

  As plans went, Mark thought that one was pretty shaky, but it barely mattered. One step at a time, he reminded himself, and step one is getting to the nightclub.

  "Come on," Mark said, and flinched when he heard a thump somewhere in the distance behind them.

  Followed by a shriek.

  "It followed us down," Herb whispered in an awed tone, and Mark's stomach dropped.

  *

  Elaine's fingers closed on metal, and she felt a scream of triumph building in her lungs.

  She didn't let it out.

  She'd caught the very bottom of the adjacent balcony, and her fingers had somehow locked around the wet metal. For a moment she dangled helplessly over a hundred feet of nothing, buffeted by the howling wind.

  A bleak fire began to build in her biceps, and she cursed herself for not spending more time at the gym. She had membership, but like so many of her friends, she had simply stopped going after the first few visits, when motivation evaporated in the glare of reality. Going to the gym was hard, tedious work, and the gym membership card quickly found itself lost in the darkest corner of her purse.

  She wished she had spent a little more time there now, though.

  She had to move quickly. Every second that she spent hanging from the balcony meant her muscles weakening, and worse: if the creature hunting her was as thorough as it appeared to be, it would check the balcony she had just jumped from at any moment. There was no way it could miss her hanging there.

  She gritted her teeth, and heaved, until the fire in her arms became a raging inferno. Inch by inch, she hauled herself up, knowing that if she allowed herself to pause for a moment, the pain in her arms would become too much for her to bear.

  It's just a pull-up, Elaine, she told herself, and tried to forget that during those first few optimistic sessions at the gym, when she had somehow allowed herself to be talked into paying for sessions with a personal instructor, she hadn’t managed to complete a single pull-up. Not once.

  Her motivation was a little different now, though. No barking instructor could possibly be as effective as the prospect of dying if she failed.

  Forget the balcony and the drop, forget the storm and the monster chasing you. It's just a pull up.

  So fucking pull.

  She nearly screamed in relief when she was able to push her chest over the top rail and let her ribcage take some of the strain. With a final heave, she rolled over the top, and landed heavily on the balcony floor, gasping for air.

  Behind her, she heard glass breaking. In a matter of moments, the creature would emerge onto the balcony that she had just jumped from.

  Move.

  Now!

  Elaine scuttled into the cabin on all-fours, almost colliding with the upended couch, and didn't dare breathe for fear that the monster in the next room would hear her.

  Even in the almost-total darkness, she could see that the room had been ruined: furniture tossed about like confetti until the once pristine cabin looked like a tornado had passed through it. The central part of the lounge was the worst-hit, with the upended chairs and coffee table joined by items tossed from the kitchen and the large flatscreen television that had hung on the wall. Elaine recalled the TV in her own cabin; the way it had buzzed into life to greet Dan and her when they had entered. The smiling, almost robotic face of the woman whose recorded welcome message had listed the entertainments and facilities on offer aboard the Oceanus.

  That could have been no more than six hours earlier, before Elaine took a nap and awoke to find herself locked in a nightmare.

  It didn’t feel real, and if it hadn’t been for the gash on her forehead where she had fallen down the stairs, she might have believed that she was dreaming.

  But the pain was real, and that meant the bizarre creature currently destroying the cabin she had hidden in until a few moments ago had to be real as well.

  She heard another crash, slightly more distant, and judged that the creature must have moved on to the next cabin down the hall.

  Real, but not too smart, she thought with a slight grin, and she hunkered down among the debris, safe in the knowledge that this cabin had already been searched. It would have no reason to return.

  "This is fun, humannnn. But the real fun hasn’t even begun for yooooou."

  Elaine’s muscles went rigid with fright.

  It was a couple of cabins away now, and had been moving further from her, and yet still it talked to her as if she was right there, so certain that its words were being heard.

  It's just trying to frighten me, that’s all. Trying to get me to reveal myself. It doesn’t know that I’m here. It can’t.

  Elaine told herself again that there would be no reason for the creature to double back to rooms it had already searched, and that it would surely assume that she had carried on running through the dark hallways. Maybe it would even accept that it had lost her and move on.

  No reason for it to stay in this area.

  Excep
t…

  The gash on my forehead.

  Elaine felt a shiver coursing down her back that had nothing to do with her clothes being soaked by the freezing rain. The creature smelled her; it knew she was still close.

  How long will it keep searching?

  As if in response to her thoughts, the awful rasping voice filled the darkness once more.

  "Going to find yooooou."

  Elaine shook her head, trying desperately to deny the truth that unfurled in her mind. The creature sounded amused, not frustrated.

  It’s playing with me.

  And I’m just hiding here, waiting for it to come back.

  I can't hide.

  I have to run.

  Elaine knew it was true; knew it because it terrified her completely. If she stayed where she was, and if the creature outside remained determined to find her, it would only be a matter of time before it returned, and she didn’t think she’d be lucky with the balcony trick again.

  Definitely didn’t think she could manage another pull up.

  She ran through her options quickly, and found that there was only one: heading back toward the pitch-black staircase that had already injured her once. The creature now blocked the route deeper into the network of cabins, and in some ways that was a good thing, since she was certain that she would get lost in the darkness anyway, and equally certain that she wouldn’t be able to shake her pursuer.

  She heard a thump. It sounded like it came from further down the corridor.

  Maybe the balcony trick had worked after all: it had allowed her to circle around the creature, leaving the path back to the stairs clear. Her blood was on the stairs already, along with the half-eaten corpse just beyond. If she could just get past that body, the creature would surely lose the scent of her blood.