The Adrift Trilogy: The Black River

by K. R. Griffiths

  Adam heard a tragic, surprised gasp followed by a wet splat, impossibly loud in the enclosed space, and realised with numb horror that the noise was Roni’s blood. It sounded like there was so much of it, raining down heavily on the ground. A grisly downpour that fell not from storm clouds, but from an unfolding nightmare.

  Blood, Adam decided distantly, made a horrible sound. It was a noise no human being should ever have to endure.

  Roni’s eyes flickered with piercing awareness for an instant as his guts began to slide from his abdomen. The oozing dark mass of innards looked almost alive in the bleak light, and the awful sight of his colleague’s pulsing organs made the last functioning part of Adam Trent’s mind shriek loud enough to break the spell.

  Go!

  The creature began to turn to face Adam even as he turned away, pounding his legs forward.

  He only managed to take a couple of frantic strides before something impacted heavily on his back.

  Searing pain.

  Falling.

  Adam crashed into the ground, and the air blasted from his lungs.

  The light on his helmet smashed, plunging him into pitch-black darkness.

  He rolled over onto his back, feeling something flapping around the base of his spine, and realised in horror that it was his own flesh, drawn apart like curtains. He gagged.

  Hauled himself to his feet.

  Heard guttural breathing in the void.

  He tensed, trying to ready himself for the next attack.

  It came from his left, delivering another tearing blow, and this time Adam was conscious of the fact that he was sailing through the air moments before he clattered into a wall with a dry and terrible slap. His skull rang, and for a moment he just laid there, with his eyes shut and his head spinning, waiting helplessly for the end.

  Waiting.

  Nothing.

  His left side felt like it was on fire, and he dropped a hand to find that a sticky chasm had opened up in his love handle, a hole that felt gigantic to his probing fingers.

  Again, he rose to his feet and began to stumble away, and again he felt the talons raking him, lifting him and tossing him away like rotten meat. Another hole. Another leak.

  Another pause.

  It was during that pause that Adam slipped into a dreamlike trance, and thought about his neighbour’s cat; about the way he had once watched it idly batting a mouse around the garden, letting the poor creature believe it had a chance to escape, only to drag it back for another round of fun with claws and teeth at the last moment.

  It’s playing with me.

  This time, Adam couldn’t even bring himself to stand. He rolled onto his back and heard it moving toward him slowly, like it was savouring the moment.

  “Please,” Adam slurred, a bubble of blood and saliva popping on his lips, “please…just kill me…”

  The thing laughed, and Adam let his head drop against the ground. He closed his eyes.

  Prayed for oblivion.

  And felt it crawl directly over him.

  Tasted the rotten stink of its hot breath; blood and ancient decay.

  He opened his eyes, and found the hideous face just inches from his own, terrible eyes burning like torches in the darkness.

  Adam stared directly at those sickening crimson pools and felt something in his head snap; something that made his skull ring with a dull and nauseating permanence.

  His sanity began to evaporate, making room in his mind for something else; worse than the pain had been; than any pain could possibly be.

  The creature took what was left of Adam Trent’s mind then, and in his final moment, he understood the terrible truth.

  It wasn’t going to kill him at all.

  14

  Growling.

  Increasing in intensity.

  Filling the dark space like the sound of idling American muscle.

  Cornelia Stokes glanced at the rear view mirror and saw light brown eyes staring directly back at her. The rising growl became a bark.

  Conny grinned and returned her eyes to the road, steering the van along Mornington Crescent toward Euston. Her day had been mapped out, and it was supposed to provide little in the way of drama: she and Remy had spent the early part of the afternoon in Regent’s Park—keeping an eye on a rain-soaked and peaceful protest which certainly didn’t look like it might turn nasty—when she got the call to respond to an emergency at the train station.

  Remy barked again, louder.

  To anyone who didn’t know better, it might have sounded like the dog in the rear of the van was going crazy; growling and barking at nothing. But Conny had been Remy’s handler for four years—most of her career with the British Transport Police’s Dog Unit—and knew him better than she knew herself. The chaotic noise was his routine; his own way of preparing himself for the work he knew was to come. When he was placed in the van and the sirens began to wail, that meant only one thing for Remy. Time to put on his game face.

  Time for action.

  Conny couldn’t have silenced him even if she had wanted to.

  Remy’s specialty was crowd control. Controlled aggression was his purpose, and he was the best police dog that Conny had ever seen, let alone worked with. Smart and obedient and completely harmless…ninety percent of the time.

  The other ten percent of the time Remy was a snarling weapon, and on each and every occasion that the German Shepherd was called into action, Conny found herself astonished at the impact his bristling presence could have on a crowd of people. Even those who were armed themselves shrivelled in fear at the sight of him. A weapon with teeth, she concluded, reached right into the primitive part of a person’s brain in a way that no knife or firearm ever could.

  Remy represented a primal fear that could not be ignored, and often merely the sight of him—eighty-five pounds of coiled muscle, propping up snapping jaws full of sharp trouble—was enough to calm even the most aggressive of suspects. Conny had a long-standing love affair with firearms, but once Remy had given her his complete, unquestioning loyalty and trust, she wouldn’t have traded the dog for a full-auto assault rifle. Guns jammed; they got misplaced or ran out of ammunition. Remy never did.

  She swung the small police van onto Hampstead Road, nodding acknowledgment at the afternoon drivers who pulled aside to let her through, and Euston Station loomed ahead of her. She stepped on the accelerator.

  Conny and Remy had been asked to provide backup to the security staff at the station: to help break up a scuffle which had broken out among several commuters waiting at one of the Underground platforms. In Conny’s experience, most fights broke up as soon as Remy started to bark, and she expected that this occasion would be no different.

  Her day could have been a lot worse, she thought. She could have been one of the poor bastards dealing with the massacre which had taken place in south London just a few hours earlier: a junkie who’d gone berserk in a supermarket, killing three people and wounding two others before taking his own life. When local police had responded to the incident, they had discovered the bodies of a further nine homeless people torn to pieces under a nearby bridge.

  There was no weapon to deal with something like that, no shield that could keep the damage at bay, either. Sometimes, the world just erupted into madness and violence that was impossible to comprehend, and somebody out there had to face it.

  This would be nothing like that terrible incident, though. The fight at Euston was almost certainly nothing more than a few commuters getting steamed up over having to wait too long for a train and lashing out. A typical London flashpoint. It would probably all be over in less than thirty seconds.

  She glanced in the mirror again as she pulled the van to a halt outside the station’s main entrance and killed the siren.

  Remy was now dead silent, staring at her calmly with expectant, hopeful eyes. The siren had stopped wailing. The time for preparation was over.

  Conny opened the door and began to step out of the van when she felt her p
hone vibrate in her pocket. She pulled it out, and a dreadful sickening sensation unfurled in her stomach. She sat back down heavily, staring at the unlock screen. Afraid to swipe her thumb across it. As much as possible, she tried to compartmentalise her life; to leave the personal stuff at home and focus only on the job when she was on shift. Anything else would be failing in her duty as a police officer. She rarely carried her phone with her while she was in uniform.

  Today was different, of course.

  The screen on her phone glowed for a moment before falling dark.

  You haven’t got time to just sit here, Con.

  She unlocked the screen, and felt a scream building inside her, desperate to be free.

  A text from Logan. The text. Just two words, steeped in bitterness which punched her in the gut like a professional boxer. No matter how much she had tried to prepare herself for seeing them, the words inflicted damage that she already knew would never heal.

  Confirmed. Huntington’s.

  Conny placed the phone gently on the dashboard, face down, and stared through the rain-flecked windscreen at the exterior of Euston Station for several long moments, until Remy huffed impatiently.

  You’re on duty.

  She blinked away the tears that gathered in her eyes, and set her mouth in a firm line. Remy was right.

  Time for action.

  *

  At ground level, Euston Station was a huge, functional square space lined with overpriced shops, and a bar in which unoccupied seats were as rare as reasonable rent. Toward the front of the building, where the departure boards displayed the latest information for each of the eighteen platforms, a few hundred passengers clustered, waiting for the signal to board the trains that would take them toward the north of England.

  Conny headed left, aiming for the escalators that would transport her down to Euston’s separate Underground station, and glanced down at Remy. The dog remained silent and focused, his watchful eyes scanning, ears pricked up. She gripped his heavy chain leash tightly, as her own training dictated, but she would have been confident in unleashing him, knowing that he would have kept pace without the restraint.

  Below ground level, the short escalator led to a small area filled with ticket machines and electronic barriers which barred the path to the subterranean platforms that were yet another level further down. There was no sign of a disturbance in the ticketing hall, but the tension in the space was palpable. The barriers to the platforms had been closed by staff, and the resulting crowd which formed simmered with uneasy frustration at yet another delay on the Tube.

  Conny heard a loud voice informing passengers that there was a ‘security issue’ down on the platforms, and that delays of around fifteen minutes were expected.

  Not if Remy has anything to do with it, she thought, and headed toward the barriers, letting Remy carve a path between groups of commuters who parted silently to let them pass. When she reached the barriers, a portly and stressed-looking security guard waved her through with a nod, gazing warily at Remy.

  The dog ignored him, his gaze focused on the next escalator. Much larger than the first; it speared down into the earth, providing access to the Northern Line’s north and south platforms.

  He growled softly.

  Conny nodded, and quickened her pace. They were close enough now that Remy could probably hear whatever was happening down on the platform. Maybe he could smell blood and danger on the air.

  The escalator had been switched off, so Conny and Remy took the steep metal steps leading down at a brisk pace.

  When she was halfway down to the next level, she could hear the shouting at last, and Remy finally began to strain at his leash.

  *

  The fight looked like it was still ongoing.

  Conny stepped onto the platform that served southbound trains, moving past some onlookers who had retreated to a safe distance, but couldn’t bring themselves to actually leave and miss the excitement. Far to her right, at the very end of the platform, she saw a mass of bodies milling around, a couple of whom wore the distinctive hi-vis yellow jackets which marked them out as staff.

  She broke into a trot, reaching the perimeter of the fracas in a few seconds.

  Remy’s growl grew louder; a rumbling thunder that cut cleanly through the noise of the scuffle. Several faces turned toward Conny and her partner, their eyes widening.

  Once she had pushed past a few gawkers, Conny saw that there were a couple of people on the platform lying face down, unmoving. At least one of them was bleeding heavily, and both were either unconscious or dead.

  She hesitated.

  It looked a little more serious than just some fight.

  Several other people had staggering away from the tussle, nursing minor injuries, and the two staff were struggling with a man who screamed and thrashed, resisting their attempts to pin him to the floor. Conny watched the man shrug off one of the staff and swing at him with what looked like a length of rebar, and decided she had seen enough.

  She unhooked Remy’s leash and pointed at the weapon.

  “Go.”

  Remy approached steadily, barking furiously, and the two staff rolled away from the thrashing man, their eyes wide and fixed on the dog. Isolated with Remy, the man leapt to his feet, and Conny expected that he would immediately drop the weapon and either attempt to flee or surrender.

  Instead, the man—who Conny noticed in surprise was also wearing a torn hi-vis jacket, its bright colour dulled by dirt and bloodstains—took a step toward the dog and lashed out, swinging the heavy metal in a savage arc.

  Conny’s breath caught in her throat as Remy took matters into his own hands, darting underneath the intended blow. He struck before his attacker had even finished swinging, leaping forward and clamping his teeth onto the guy’s forearm.

  Twisting.

  The rebar hit the floor with a clatter.

  And Conny’s mouth dropped open in amazement as the man lined up a punch with his free hand, striking Remy in the neck. The dog clearly decided that enough was enough. It pulled hard on the man’s forearm, twisting its thick neck violently to unbalance him, and brought him down hard onto the platform. He hit the floor face-first with a sharp snap that Conny thought had to be his nose valiantly attempting to cushion his fall.

  Yet still he struggled.

  Conny had never seen anything like it. Remy had brought plenty of people down over the years, and not once had anyone even tried to get up when the dog was looming over them.

  The stricken man heaved himself back to his feet with the German Shepherd still attached to his arm—blood flowing freely around Remy’s powerful jaws—and he began to stagger to his left.

  Conny recognised what was happening immediately. The man—maybe drugged, who knew—clearly wasn’t feeling the pain of Remy’s teeth as he should be, and was using his superior weight to drag the dog across the platform.

  Toward the tracks.

  The live line, Conny thought in horror.

  “Remy, release,” she yelled sternly, and Remy obeyed instantly, glancing back at her with something like chagrin in his eyes.

  When Remy withdrew his teeth from the man’s forearm, he lost all balance. He might have fallen onto the tracks anyway, carried there by his momentum, but as Conny watched the man in the torn hi-vis jacket dive off the platform onto the deadly waiting track with a wince, she couldn’t help but think that it looked, for just a fleeting moment, like he wanted his life to end.

  Had he continued to struggle with Remy because he wanted the dog to kill him?

  For several long seconds, a pregnant hush descended on the small crowd of people gathered on the platform, and Conny stared down at Remy, seeing her own confusion reflected in his big brown eyes.

  15

  Familiar sensation

  Crawling up the back of—

  “Dan…Dan? BELLAMY! Snap out of it!”

  Dan coughed violently and sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm the raging vibrations in his hea
d. The air stank of blood and shit and death, and it felt like his skull was fracturing.

  Herb, he thought. That’s Herb. Focus on his voice.

  “Oh, fucking hell…Dan? Can you hear me?”

  He took another breath.

  Let it out slow.

  And the world began to swim into focus.

  Herb was standing over him, his face twisted in concern.

  “It’s okay, we’re safe,” Herb said. “For now, anyway. It can’t get in.”

  Dan pulled himself to his feet, and his eyes widened when he saw the kitchen. The large group of men he expected to see suddenly wasn’t so large at all. Two of Herb’s followers were lying on the floor, one panting out rattling breaths and clutching at his bloody chest; the other was motionless, with a towel draped over his face. Still others looked to have disappeared altogether.

  “What happened?”

  Herb’s brow creased.

  “You didn’t see?”

  Dan coughed, spitting out the foul-tasting air.

  “I get…blackouts. Panic attacks.”

  “Panic attacks?” Herb stared at him, bewildered. “Jesus Christ. How the hell did you survive on that ship?”

  Dan glared back at him for a moment, and felt dark emotions bubbling, clutching at him; trying to pull him under.

  —hands in the darkness—

  He scowled. “Just bad luck, I guess. I tried to tell you. I’m not what you think I am. Not special. Not some sort of vampire slayer.”

  Dan’s words came out harsh, tainted with bitter sarcasm.

  “No shit,” Herb muttered. “I guessed that much when you decided to have a fucking breakdown instead of help—”

  Dan punched him.

  Actually punched him.

  His right arm shot out of its own accord, fingers clenching into a bony fist, and he drove Herb’s words straight back down his throat.

  It was, as far as Dan could recall, the first punch he had thrown in his life. He doubted it was powerful enough to hurt; certainly as he threw it, his arm felt loose and elastic rather than taut, but the blow snapped Herb’s jaw sideways, and a moment later the bigger man was sitting on the floor, staring up at him in surprise.