Sully said nothing. He came down off the bow and dropped easily into the wide, open cockpit area.
Sully looked dour. “Yeah, for now,” he grunted like he was pronouncing a delayed death sentence. “But not for long. We can’t just anchor here in the harbor, and we can’t get out through the channel. I already told you that. There’s too much wreckage. I’ll rip the guts out of her. And sooner or later, the last of the food and water is going to run out. Then what, hero?”
Bannon smiled thinly. An idea was forming in the back of his mind. “You’re going to need a bigger boat,” he said.
Chapter 17.
Bannon stole a fretful glance at his wristwatch and then at the sky. The first rays of morning light were stretching across the ocean. He was running out of time. He turned on Sully, his voice pitched low but thick with menace.
“Where’s my wife?”
Sully ducked down below the canvas cockpit tarp. There was a narrow wooden cabin door set beside the boat’s wheel and controls. The door was double latched and double locked. Sully took a set of keys from a compartment and unlocked the door.
Sully paused, then glanced back over his shoulder, eyes smoldering in a glare that seemed a compound of triumph and trepidation. Steve Bannon was holding his breath.
The cabin door swung open slowly…
Chapter 18.
Sully shuffled back and a woman’s face became framed in the narrow doorway. Her hair was a blonde tangle, her face drawn as though she were racked with appalling tension. Her eyes were blue and haunted – and the traces of her ordeal were a dark smudge the color of bruises below her eyes.
She saw Sully and her expression became one of overwhelming relief. The woman threw herself into the man’s arms, hugging him fiercely. She buried her face in Sully’s shoulder, and began to sob. Her body shook, her hands trembled. She clawed at him with her fingers as though to convince herself he was real.
“I was so worried,” Madeline Bannon sniffed against his chest. She pulled away suddenly, and studied the man closely, her face torn with sudden confusion. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”
“I got held up,” Sully said in an understatement. “I spent the night running from the undead… with your husband.”
Maddie Bannon flinched, and then, at last, realized that there was someone else on the boat – someone standing in the open cockpit. She untangled herself from Sully, suddenly self-conscious and flustered. Bannon stood, staring at her, his facial features carefully composed, but with deep hurt stinging in his eyes. Maddie pressed at her hair and made a fluttering gesture with her hands to straighten the clothes she was wearing.
“What are you doing here?” her voice was dead and flat.
“He came for you,” Sully intercepted the question. “The rescue team – the whole broadcast – was a sham, Maddie. They weren’t coming to rescue us. They came here to snatch me. They wanted to take me to some fucking lab and cut me open. They think I have some cure for the virus running through my blood. Your husband came with them to identify me to the goon squad.”
There was a long silence. Maddie’s expression slowly altered as she assembled and understood Sully’s words. Finally she stared hard at her husband in a gesture of defiance.
“Is that true?” her face became pinched.
Bannon shook his head.
“I came for you, Maddie,” Bannon snapped. “I came back here to find you. I didn’t know it was a set-up until we were hovering over Grey Stone. I agreed to identify Sully to the soldiers in exchange for them including you in the rescue.”
Suddenly Maddie lashed out at Bannon, lunging forward to strike him flat-handed across the cheek. His lower lip ground against his teeth and the warm coppery taste of his own blood filled his mouth. Bannon glared at Maddie for a long silent moment of shock, and then his eyes turned stone cold. He smeared away the blood with the back of his hand.
“Leave us alone, Steve,” Maddie’s voice was low with her resentment. “I don’t love you – and I haven’t for a very long time. I’m with John now… and I’ve been happy.” There was a barb of spite in her voice, and a twist of cruelty in his wife’s expression that Bannon had never seen before.
He glared at her. “Maddie, I risked my life to rescue you.”
“Well you shouldn’t have.” There were tiny crows feet lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes. She thrust a finger at him suddenly. “It’s been over between us for a long time, Steve. You knew it and I knew it, so don’t pretend to be that caring husband now. It’s too late. You had your chance… all those years I waited around for you while you were out catching fucking fish!” Maddie closed her eyes and shook her head like she was reliving a bitter dream. Her cutting words trailed off.
Bannon nodded his head. “Fine,” he said stiffly. He straightened his back. “If you want the marriage over, that’s fine with me – the marriage is over. But the fact remains that you’re still in danger, Madeline. Lying cheating heartless bitch or not – you’re still a human being,” his lip curled up in distaste, “and staying here puts you at great risk.”
She raised a mocking eyebrow. “Staying here…? Do you mean staying with John?”
Bannon said nothing. He didn’t need to. Maddie read the meaning in his cold silence.
She propped a hand on her waist and shifted her weight, her stance aggressive. “I might be at risk staying with John, but I don’t care!” her voice became suddenly strident with her passion. “For the first time in a long time I feel alive. John makes me feel that way – something I hadn’t felt in your bed for a very long time. So, yeah – my life might be in danger… but at least I’ll feel alive right up until the moment I die.” Maddie was breathing hard, her panted breath making her shoulders shift beneath the fabric of her blouse. She looked away for a moment to stare back at the edge of the jetty where the undead ghouls cried out and howled in maddened frustration, then turned her eyes slowly back to Bannon. All her anger seemed spent. Her voice was suddenly soft, almost weary.
“This is the way I want it,” she said with finality. “I want to stay with John. What we had – you and me – that’s over, Steve. And it’s been over for so long that I don’t care about you anymore.”
Chapter 19.
Bannon glanced again at his wristwatch. Daylight was just about to break across the horizon. He glared at Maddie and then swung his eyes onto Sully. The big man’s face was gloating so that his features seemed somehow coarsened into stark sharpness. Bannon’s mouth tightened.
Sully’s infected blazing gaze seemed alight with his triumph. “Satisfied?” the man goaded.
Bannon nodded curtly, but there was turmoil behind his eyes. He took a deep breath, felt his hands bunch into bony fists and then slowly relax again.
“I know how you can get out of Grey Stone,” he said to Sully. “I know how you can escape the pursuit of the army.”
Sully narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “How… and why?” he interrupted.
Bannon shot him a withering glare. “You can use ‘Mandrake’,” he said. “She’s big enough and solid enough to bustle her way through the boats wrecked along the channel wall. And she’s still got fuel. Not enough to get you to the far side of the world, but enough to get you the hell away from here.”
Sully shook his head. “I can’t – not on my own.”
“I’ll help you,” Bannon said. “Once the boat is clear of the dock and running out through the heads, I’ll jump overboard and swim for the break wall. Hopefully I’ll make it to the landing zone in time. And hopefully the helicopter will be there waiting to pick me up.”
“And the wreckage?” Sully went on with selfish concern. “It’s not just those yachts in the channel – the whole marina is littered with sunken and burned out boats.”
“I just swam it,” Bannon said frostily. “Remember? I just swam all the way across the marina. Apart from the boats close to the waterfront that went down at their moorings, there’s nothing big enough to damage ‘Mandrake’. She’ll
get you out into open water.” He paused, choosing his next words deliberately. “You’ll be free,” he said. “The army will never find you.”
Bannon saw Sully’s eyes come sparkling alight.
“Why?” Sully edged closer. Bannon saw Maddie’s eyes harden with her own interest.
“Yes. Why?” she repeated. She folded her arms across her chest and her expression was severe with mistrust.
“Because I want something in exchange.”
“What?” Sully asked.
“I want five minutes alone with Maddie,” Bannon said. “That’s the deal. I’ll help you get ‘Mandrake’ free from her moorings and running out through the channel. But I want to talk to Maddie first – alone.”
“Why?” Maddie frowned.
“Because I want one last chance to convince you to come with me.”
Sully and Maddie exchanged glances. Some silent message passed between them. A cold little smile of defiance tugged at the harsh lines Maddie’s mouth. “It will be a waste of your time.”
“That’s okay,” Bannon said, shaking his head and smiling thinly. “It’s my time to waste. You’ve got nowhere else you can go. I have a helicopter waiting for me. It’s your choice. If you want my help escaping Grey Stone, you have to hear me out. Decide now.”
Chapter 20.
They ducked into the narrow cabin at the bow of the boat and Bannon pulled the little door closed behind him. There was a crawl space in the floor between two V-shaped bunks. Bannon stared down into it.
“That’s where you’ve been hiding?” Bannon looked down into the dark horrid little hole. “It’s like a coffin.”
Maddie ignored the question. She said nothing for a long moment. It was like she was keeping her composure on a tight leash. She smiled at Bannon, baring her teeth, her expression brittle.
“What do you want?” Maddie curled up like a cat, her eyes slanted and feline. She was impatient. There was hardness in her voice and tension in the way she was poised.
Bannon took a deep breath and clamped his hands together. He looked down at his bare feet for a moment, and then into his wife’s cold eyes.
“Did you ever love me?”
There was a perspex hatch in the cabin roof. Maddie cracked it open and rummaged through the tangled bedding for a cigarette. The packet was crumpled. She shook the box. There were only a few cigarettes left. She lit one and a tendril of blue smoke crawled up her face. She winced, blinked her eyes, then blew a long feather of smoke at the low cabin ceiling.
Maddie thought hard. For a moment her features became severe, and then softened, just a little. “Once,” she said. “A very long time ago.”
Bannon stared at his wife. “Until…?”
“Until I realized that you loved fishing more than you loved me.”
Bannon looked incredulous. “Sully is a fisherman too!”
Maddie shook her head. “It’s not the same,” she sparked. “You lived to work. John worked to live. For you, fishing was everything. John is different. Fishing is just his job.”
“I worked for our future,” Bannon’s jaw became set and his lips pressed into a thin bloodless line. “I worked to give you all the things you wanted – the unit, the furniture, the jewelry…”
She laughed then, a cruel, spiteful chortle. “And look where it got us!” she threw her hands in the air. “All that working and saving for a rainy day… well it’s pouring right now, Steve. It’s fucking pouring with rain, and all that work for our future has been wasted – because suddenly there isn’t a future. Not for us – not for anyone. Life is measured in moments, not promises. That’s why I had an affair with John,” she snapped brutally, “and that’s why I’m staying with him now. For the moments – the ones we still have remaining until the inevitable.”
Bannon shook his head. “We can still have a future – even if it’s not together. This virus hasn’t spread any further than a few towns along the coast,” he explained. “You can come with me. There is a helicopter flying back to pick me up at 6am. Come with me now. You’ll be safe. You can start again on your own. The world is going on, Maddie. Beyond this town, life still goes on.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want the life I had – not the life with you. I don’t want to survive anymore. I want to feel alive. I know I should be racked with terrible guilt for cheating on you with John… but I’m not,” she said maliciously, as though the matter was trivial to her. “I just don’t feel guilty. I stopped caring for you, Steve… and then I stopped caring about you.”
Maddie paused to draw deeply on the cigarette and then exhaled in a long harsh breath.” Every night you were home from sea I would lie in bed and count the hours until you were gone again. And then I would pray that you didn’t pick Sully for that trip’s crew, so I could be with him. I got to the stage where I hated you – where everything you did and everything about you repulsed me. It’s how I feel now.”
“Your mind is made up?” he tried one last time, merely to clear his conscience.
“My mind is made up,” Maddie repeated. “I never want to see you again. Just leave John and me together. Go back to civilization and forget me. I’m already well on my way to forgetting you.”
Bannon stood up. He was hurt, but not shocked – not completely. He had known there had been difficulties in the marriage, but he hadn’t known the problems had been so irreconcilable that Maddie had turned to adultery and betrayal. He looked at his wife now, and saw a totally different woman – one he didn’t recognize. A cruel, selfish woman he didn’t like.
You reap what you sow.
It made his next decision easier.
Chapter 21.
“Here, take this,” Bannon said as he came from the boat’s cabin. He had the emergency military rescue beacon in his hands, unwrapping it from the protective layers of plastic. He passed the small black box to Sully, carefully controlling the pantomime of his expression.
“What is it?” Sully asked warily. He recalled Bannon’s evasiveness when he had asked about the box the night before.
Bannon sighed. He took one final glance at Maddie. She had her arm around Sully’s waist, and the final lingering tendrils of Bannon’s doubts faded from his conscience.
“The army thinks it’s a cure,” Bannon lied smoothly. “They think the electronic waves that this box generates can fight the spread of the zombie virus.”
Sully gaped. Maddie’s face was frozen in shock.
“Serious?” Maddie asked.
Bannon nodded. “I brought it with me for you,” he said. “I thought you might have been bitten, or if you got bitten I could set this device to fight the spread of the infection before it overtook you.”
Sully narrowed his eyes and stared down at the innocuous little box. “Why didn’t you use it on the soldier – the one who died last night?”
Bannon shrugged. “No time,” he lied smoothly. “It has to be set up – activated. It wasn’t. Paul was infected before I had time to program it. Remember when he came back up the stairs, he had already been infected.”
“Program it? Sully’s mind picked up on a critical word and he focused on it as though the death of the special forces soldier had been forgotten in the blink of an eye. “How?” Sully saw the keypad. “With this?”
Bannon nodded. “It has a three digit password. That starts the regenerative frequency. If it’s running, and the victim keeps it with them – I mean close to them – the process begins to fight the virus almost immediately.”
Maddie looked at the box like it was wondrous. She took it from Sully’s hand and turned it over, inspecting it closely. Sully stared Bannon in the eye.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why give it to me?”
Bannon shrugged. He was no actor. The temptation to reach across and tear Sully’s throat out was like a blazing itch of vindictive temptation. He forced his face into something like weary submission.
“I still care for Maddie,” the untruth alm
ost scalded his tongue. “But she doesn’t want to be with me. She wants to be with you. She just told me that.” Bannon’s eyes hardened. He squared his shoulders. “I think you’re a piece of fucking shit – a lying, devious back-stabbing prick… but I’m putting Maddie’s welfare above how I feel for you. If she is going to survive, she can’t stay here in Grey Stone. Like you said last night, you can hide here and the army will never find you amongst the swarms of undead… but Maddie will end up getting bitten. You won’t be able to prevent it.”
“So?”
“So she needs to get out of here, and she won’t come with me. She’d rather die with you than fly back in the helicopter and give you up.” Bannon shrugged. “What choice do I have? You need to be around to keep her safe – and you need to get out of Grey Stone if she is going to survive the virus.”
Sully and Maddie looked at each other with beaming smiles of hope. Sully had one more question – one more suspicion.
“Ever since you arrived in that helicopter you have wanted to take me back so the army could cut me open. You said you couldn’t let me go – there were millions of lives at risk. Now, suddenly, none of that matters?”
Bannon conceded the point, acting like his decision weighed heavily on his conscience. “It matters,” he said. “But I realized last night that if the army gave me this box as a cure for Maddie, then they obviously have more of them. I thought you were the only chance to save countless lives. Clearly,” he pointed down that the box, “I was wrong. They have other cures they’re working on.”
“What’s the code?” Maddie asked impulsively. “How long will it be before John starts to feel better?”
“I’ll tell you the code when we’re aboard ‘Mandrake’,” Bannon said firmly. “The army told me the effects would start to show within thirty minutes.”
“Thank you,” Maddie said sincerely.
“Don’t thank me,” Bannon said. “You’re a human being. But, Maddie, … as a person, you’re a lying filthy whore who would rather spread her legs than work through her marriage problems, and Sully here, is a fucking snake that should be killed for his betrayal. You two pieces of shit deserve each other.”
Dead Rage Page 20