by Darcy Coates
Cradled at Dorran’s side, she could forget all of the painful parts from the previous few days. Marnie. Beth’s bunker. Annie. Each time one of the memories encroached, Clare pressed her face into Dorran’s shirt and focussed on how warm and solid he felt. He seemed to know what she needed and responded by sleepily running his hand across her back until she relaxed.
The hollows returned several times that night. They paced the shore and the docks, chattering, searching for a way to reach the riverboat. They never lingered more than a few minutes, though. Occasionally, the riverboat creaked, its motor clicking over and old metal joints flexing as it warmed. Even knowing that they were safe, Clare still slept lightly enough to startle awake at the noises.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Morning came too soon. Clare emerged from sleep to the sound of rain pattering over the boat. Dorran was already awake, lying on his back and staring at the water-flecked window above them as he played with her hair.
“Morning,” Clare mumbled. “Bad weather, huh?”
His smile was full of a good mood. “Not the nicest. Did you want to wait for it to clear or have an early start?”
She rubbed sleep out of her eyes and sat up. The idea of staying in the riverboat was tempting. It was warm. It was safe. Clare could easily picture them turning it into their private oasis, but she still felt the faint squeeze of pressure. They had to get back to Winterbourne’s garden before the plants died from cold or lack of water. The riverboat was a beautiful, seductive limbo. Unlike Winterbourne, though, it was not sustainable, and any loss of momentum could be disastrous.
Well, I just called an outdated riverboat seductive. That has to be a new low. Clare smiled to herself. “I’m ready to leave now, if you’re up for it.”
Dorran looked pleased. “Of course. With luck, we will be home before nightfall.”
She stretched, popping some of the tension out of her back, and flinched as the bite in her shoulder flared. Dorran noticed. He reached for the jacket draped over the nearby chair and pulled the bottles of antibiotics and painkillers out of its pocket. “Here. I’ll get you some water.”
“I’ll get it.” She took the tablets he tipped into her hand and rose, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “It would be nice to have another wash before we get back to the car.”
“Good idea. Take your time.”
Clare made her way across the dining area and into the hallway while Dorran began rolling up their bedding. She shut the bathroom door behind herself and squinted at her reflection. The day was early, and the bulb above her felt insipid. But the sleep had done her good. She looked less haggard.
She cupped water into her hands to swallow the tablets, turned on the hot water, and shook out the still-damp hand towel. At least the ship’s heater kept the rooms at a nice temperature.
Clare swayed as the floor moved under her. She frowned. Held in place by the taut rope fastened to the dock, the riverboat hadn’t shifted at all the previous night. She turned off the taps and opened the bathroom door.
Down the hallway, the kitchen’s light swung from the sudden movement. She turned in the opposite direction, towards the seating area, and felt her heart skip. Beyond the rounded windows and through the blur of rain, the scenery was moving.
“Dorran?”
She jogged towards their bed, where she’d last seen him. The space was abandoned, the blankets left in a pile on the floor. She turned in a circle, hunting for him among the old-fashioned tables and patchily painted walls.
He wouldn’t have left without me. Of course he wouldn’t have. He has to still be on the ship. Right?
She trusted Dorran more than any other person, but panic threatened to choke her. The boat wasn’t moving fast, but it was caught up in the river’s current. Each second carried it further from the dock and their car.
Something slammed against the door closest to the riverbank. The window was blurred by rain, and Clare couldn’t make out the shape on the other side. Her hands felt empty. She needed a weapon. Her fire poker was missing from where she’d left it on the table the previous night. So was Dorran’s axe.
The door screeched as it was forced open faster than the runners wanted. Dorran leapt through the opening then slammed the door shut again. Something hit the other side. A grey hand pressed into the glass. It smeared droplets away as the fingers dragged down towards the handle.
Dorran grappled with the lock, engaged it, then took a step back. He was breathing heavily, and rain flattened his hair and dripped off his jaw. He didn’t take his eyes off the door but held a hand out to Clare as she crossed to him. “We are not alone after all.”
The door handle rattled. Through the window, Clare saw heavy-lidded eyes. They met hers then moved to Dorran, seeming to examine them. Then the hollow stepped back, fading from sight.
“What happened?” She gripped Dorran’s hand. It was cold and wet, but he squeezed back.
“I heard a noise outside. That creature was cutting through the rope. I couldn’t stop it in time.” He shook his head, his eyes thunderous. “I can’t believe I didn’t find it last night. I looked everywhere.”
Clare slowly turned to face the bar. “Oh… oh, no…”
She’d tried to open the freezer chest the night before, only to find it was locked. Except, now, the lid stood open. The supplies she’d placed on top were scattered across the floor. The box was easily large enough for a human to huddle inside. She pictured a body curled into a foetal position, unblinking eyes staring into the darkness as pale hands held the box’s lid down while Clare tried to lift it.
Dorran choked. “No. Surely it couldn’t have been hiding there the entire night.”
“It would have been dark, cold, and damp. Perfect for a hollow. And I put our supplies on its lid. It couldn’t open the seal without knocking them to the floor and waking us. It waited for us to be out of the room.” Clare couldn’t keep still. She turned, looking across the windows, hunting for any motion between the trails of water. “How was it cutting the rope? Was it chewing through it?”
“No. It had a knife. I tried to force it overboard, but it slashed at me.”
Her mouth was too dry, and her voice came out raspy. “It’s one of the smart ones.”
Normal hollows didn’t use weapons. And normal hollows didn’t have the intelligence to hide through the night. It took something special to bide its time and to cut off their only escape before making any move. Their weapons had been taken, probably thrown overboard. Suddenly, the noises during the night felt a lot more ominous. Clare pressed her hand to her throat, her mind buzzing. Metal rattled behind them.
There’s a second door.
The riverboat had two entrances to the lower floor on opposite sides of the ship. Focussed on the place she’d last seen the hollow, Clare hadn’t even thought of the second entry. The hollow must have crouched as it circled the ship to avoid being seen through the windows. Clare dropped Dorran’s hand and raced for the door, knocking chairs out of the way, eyes fixed on the handle as it turned.
The door rattled open before Clare reached it. She had a stark impression of the creature that stood in the entrance. He’d lost his uniform but kept the name badge. It had been pinned to his chest, the needle running through his skin. The little plastic tag bore a bright-green script: Hello, I’m your captain, George.
Strips of skin were missing from his chest and left arm. The shape of the scores told Clare they had come from fingernails, probably from one of his old co-workers. The skin had sunken deeply across his ribs, but his stomach was bulging. His eyes were heavy lidded, but his lips were gone, leaving him with a permanent grimace.
Clare was moving too quickly to stop her momentum. The captain lifted his hand. A serrated kitchen knife, still carrying flecks of long-dried blood, glinted in the early morning light as he stepped through the door.
There wasn’t enough time to stop the collision. Clare did the only thing she could think of. She extended both hands and slammed them
into his chest. His flesh was cold. Wet from rain. Leathery. She felt each rib under her fingers, the bones hard but brittle, bumpy like broken stones.
The impact forced him back out of the door. He brought the knife down. It caught on the edge of Clare’s sleeve, tearing a hole in the fabric, but didn’t meet her skin.
Dorran was there before she knew what was happening. He followed up her push with his fist, connecting with the captain’s jaw, sending him staggering back until he hit the railings. Clare yanked Dorran back inside and wrenched the door shut. She forced the lock into place. A second later, the handle rattled again.
“Are you hurt? Did he catch you?” Dorran grabbed Clare’s hands, turning them over, examining the place the knife had snagged her shirt.
Clare shook her head. “I’m fine. But he’s going to try again. Where are the other doors? How else can he get in here?”
Dorran kept his hold on her as he scanned the space. “The stairs to the second deck. I don’t know how else.”
Something scraped the metal behind them. They both turned to face the wall. Through the windows, all Clare could see were the railings, the rain, and, in the distance, the shifting riverbank. She knew what must be happening outside. The captain was climbing the walls.
Dorran darted to the stairs beside the bar. Metal clanged as he ascended them three at a time. Then a moment later, the clatter grew closer as he descended again. His face was tight. “There is no lock.”
“What?”
“There is only a door. The lock has been removed.”
Clare dragged her fingers through her hair. “Do we… can we…”
They had no weapons. She had no doubt that the hollow would have removed anything else they could use to defend themselves, as well. She looked towards the windows. The banks were at least twenty meters away on each side. Beyond them, shielded behind a layer of plants, were homes. Even if they swam for shore, she didn’t think they would last long once they reached the bank.
“We’ll barricade it,” Dorran muttered. He snatched up one of the closest tables and dragged it towards the narrow stairwell. “Get chairs.”
“Right.” The dining area’s chairs were all cheap wood and fake leather, but they were relatively hardy. Clare grabbed two at a time and hauled them to Dorran, who alternated stacking them with the tables. He jammed them between one another, locking them into place and filling every gap he could reach. The door on the upper deck slammed. Dorran picked up a final table and flipped it to lean its weight against the pile. Then he stepped back, and they both stood, breathless, watching their barricade.
The table blocked Clare’s view of the stairwell, but she could hear the captain. Each footstep reverberated off the metal. He stopped after six paces. The furniture jostled with a clatter then stuck with a bang. The table bulged out an inch as he tried to push it then shuddered as he tried to pull. Clare exchanged a look with Dorran. A frustrated snarl echoed from the stairwell, then the door slammed again as the captain returned to the upper deck.
Dorran bent close to whisper into Clare’s ear. “Wait here. Call me if he returns to the stairs.”
She tried to ask where he was going, but he moved into the hallway before she could speak. As silent as a wraith, he disappeared into each door, turn by turn. Clare kept one eye on him and the other on their barricade. She couldn’t hear the captain any longer.
He’s smart. He hasn’t tried to talk, not like Madeline did, but he remembers how to use knives, and he remembers the way around the ship. Maybe he kept part of his humanity, but not all of it.
Dorran reappeared and gave Clare a brief nod. “There are no other doors. We should be secure as long as he can’t dismantle the stairwell blockade.”
“Okay.” Clare licked her lips, her heart hammering. “What do we do now?”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Through the windows, the scenery continued to change slowly but unrelentingly. One of doors in the kitchen rattled then fell silent again as the captain scoped out the remaining entrances to the paddleboat’s central area.
Dorran ran his hand over his face, wiping away the remaining raindrops. He took a moment to answer Clare’s question. “We don’t have access to the engine room any longer. I don’t know how we can return to the car.”
How far are we from it now? A kilometre? Two? How far will we have travelled before we can get to shore?
Clare blinked furiously. Of all the things she could grow attached to, she hadn’t expected it to be a grimy, half-broken vehicle. But that car had saved them. It had carried them for days without complaint. Despite how precarious its repairs had felt, it hadn’t failed them. And it held most of their supplies, including the radio. Except for the blankets, food, and masks they had brought onto the ship, everything was back in the hatchback.
She wanted to repeat her question. What do we do now? But that wasn’t fair. Dorran didn’t have any more answers than she did.
They could try to swim to shore, but it was hard to know what they might find once they got there. In a best-case scenario, they might find an abandoned vehicle with its keys still in the ignition close by. Alternately, they could be stranded in an unfamiliar location, resourceless and weaponless, hampered by wet clothes, and surrounded by hollows. Then her mind came up with a worse scenario. The hollows might hear them swimming and crowd along the riverbank, grasping for them any time they tried to climb up. What would happen then? Would we be forced to swim until we drown?
Clare’s brain began to freeze with anxiety. She closed her eyes and focussed on the concrete information she knew. “Eventually, the riverboat will have to hit some kind of obstacle. Maybe other boats. Maybe fallen trees that were washed into the river from the flood. They will give us a way to reach shore.”
“We have our masks,” Dorran said. “As long as we are cautious, we should be able to find more supplies, maybe even transport. Do you know which way the river is carrying us? Towards home, or away?”
“Um.” They’d left the map in the car. Clare grimaced and tried to visualise the landscape. “Away, I think.”
“Then we will hope we stop sooner rather than later.”
They both looked up as the door above them slammed open. Again, the blockade rattled. Clare clenched her fists at her side until they ached. But the tables and chairs remained locked together, and after a minute, the captain left.
“We should eat,” Dorran said. “If the boat becomes caught, we may need to leave immediately, and I don’t know how soon the next opportunity for rest might be.”
Or how much we might be able to carry with us. Clare’s palms were sweaty from stress. As long as they’d had the car, she’d felt at least somewhat secure. It could shield them. It could move faster than the hollows. Home had never felt too far away. And they’d given it up for a night of comfort on a riverboat.
Dorran disappeared into the kitchen. She heard the scrape of tins being opened. Clare wrapped her arms around her torso and stood guard by the bar, alternately watching the barricaded staircase and their course through the rounded windows.
The river curved lazily, and the boat drifted near to the shore. Through the trees, Clare caught glimpses of riverside house. Most were old and covered in chipped paint, but they were interspersed with luxury properties. The area was in the process of being modernised, and the tiny, old houses would probably have cost a lot a few weeks ago, when money still mattered. Clare thought they might be drifting closer to the city, which meant more streets, more houses, and more hollows.
Please, don’t run aground. Not yet.
The river straightened, and Clare released her breath as the boat’s rails grazed against the riverbank and kept moving.
A body moved in front of the window, and Clare flinched. The captain had appeared, fast and silent, to block her view. One hand reached out to caress the glass. His lipless teeth seemed to be grinning, though his heavy-lidded eyes held no humour. He leaned close to the window, his breath leaving traces of condensati
on on the glass as he stared at Clare, rainwater dripping from his hooked nose.
She took a step back but didn’t try to hide from him. She had to watch the river. Had to make sure they weren’t about to become trapped.
Dorran approached her silently and passed her a bowl. It was heaped with warm porridge, tinned peaches, and tinned berries. Clare doubted she could finish it all, but she knew why the serving was generous. It would be their last reliable chance to eat for a while.
“I’ll watch the river,” Dorran said.
Clare gratefully sank into one of the chairs, facing away from the unblinking captain. She scooped porridge up absentmindedly.
They alternated watch shifts through the morning. For most of it, the captain stood outside, staring at them. Occasionally, he lifted the knife and drew it across the window, letting the dulled steel scrape across the glass. Twice, he left to circle around the boat again, trying doors and rattling their barricade. But he always returned to the window, his sunken eyes brimming with hunger and hatred.
The cheap, old houses began to vanish, and the number of exclusive riverside retreats increased. Private jetties jutted into the water, sometimes with small boats attached. Once, the riverboat scraped against a dingy. Clare felt the tremors run through her feet. The Adelaide didn’t normally venture into that part of the river but stayed in the more scenic areas further upstream.
They passed a tree with a human skull suspended from its lowest branch. The skull had been speared onto it, with the wood passing through under the jaw and poking out through the eye socket. Clare couldn’t stop herself from wondering who it had belonged to—a human or a hollow.
Morning eventually gave way to afternoon. The boat moved painfully slowly, dragged along by the lazy current. The river was starting to swell, though, moving them faster as the fresh rain engorged it. The downpour was unrelenting.