Outpost

by Adam Baker

  She was cramped. She could barely move. She had lowered the sail and rigging, folded the silver fabric, coiled the rope, and stowed them below deck.

  The mast was still raised. A design fault. It was welded in place. It could not be lowered flat. A big steel spike raised skyward during a fierce lightning storm.

  Nikki doubted she would feel a lightning bolt when it struck. Steel mast, aluminium hull. She would be microwaved in an instant. A cooked sailor, lying in her bunk, crisped and smoking, like a hunk of roast pork.

  She lay waiting to see if the boat would shake itself to pieces. She waited to see if the bolts and welds would hold. She waited to see if she would live or die.

  She wondered how long the storm would last. She checked the luminescent dial of her watch. Seven hours of wind and rain.

  It felt like the waves were easing off. She switched on her flashlight. The cardboard storage boxes had split open. The interior of the cabin was a jumble of tins and cartons. Her sleeping bag was dusted with cornflakes.

  She wriggled to the roof hatch. She reached for the deadbolt. She hesitated. This could be a big mistake. If the typhoon ripped the hatch from her hand the boat would quickly become inundated and sink. Yet the waves seemed to be diminishing. The boat was no longer hurled from side to side. Maybe the storm had passed.

  Nikki released the deadbolt and lifted the hatch a fraction. Blast of frozen wind and salt spray.

  Flash of lightning.

  She let her eyes adjust. A seething ocean. Surging, frothing waves.

  Second sheet of lightning.

  Something up ahead. Something big, oncoming, eclipsing the stars.

  'Holy fuck.'

  A massive wave, high as an office block.

  She slammed the hatch and hammered the deadbolts home. She threw herself on to the bunk and curled tight.

  Building roar. The boat was rising, rising like an express elevator.

  Brief moment of balance at the summit of the wave, like a rollercoaster about to plunge.

  The boat pitched nose-first. Smash impact. Fast tumble. The boat flipped end over end. Nikki stayed foetal and protected her head as she was pelted with cans and cartons.

  Deceleration. Slow spin, then calm and quiet.

  She pushed boxes and bags aside and sat up. A trickling sensation down her neck. She took a pen torch from her pocket and switched it on. Blood on her neck. A cut beneath her right ear. Nothing serious.

  She stretched. Her back was bruised. She sat in silence for a while, glad to be alive. She pressed a sock to her ear to sop blood.

  Wind noise slowly began to ease.

  A trickling sound. Nikki sat forward. Steady, constant drip- drip.

  She kicked bags and boxes out of the way. A split in the hull. A cracked weld. A steady stream of seawater.

  She stuffed a jacket against the crack and tried to stem the flow. Water sprayed her face.

  She took Nail's dive knife from her pocket and tried to wedge fabric into the fissure with the tip of the blade. No good.

  Water gathered at the bottom of the boat, covering her shoes. She threw open the roof hatch and bailed with a tin cup.

  She tried to keep calm. If she allowed herself to panic, if she gave in to screaming terror, she would die.

  Brainwave. She slapped a plastic plate over the leak and braced the plate tight in position with a ski pole. Fierce jets of water sprayed from behind the plate like sunrays. She hammered the pole into position. The leak slowed to a dribble, then stopped.

  Knee-deep in freezing water. Bottles and bags floated around her. She bailed some more.

  She woke, damp and shivering. She ached. She stretched.

  She exhaled into a cupped hand. Her breath smelled like sewage. She found toothpaste among the clutter. She squeezed paste on to her finger and rubbed it over her teeth.

  She took out the radio.

  'Rampart, do you copy, over?'

  It took an hour to raise a reply.

  'Rampart here.'

  A faint voice. A murmur through hiss and crackle.

  'Jane? Is that you?'

  'How's it going, Nikki?'

  'The boat almost sank.'

  'Say again? The boat sank?'

  'There was a storm. I'm all right.'

  'What happened to the boat, Nikki? What went wrong?'

  'It was the welds. A big wave split the hull. If you build another boat, you'll have to make it stronger. The waves out here are like mountains.'

  'I'm losing you. You're passing out of range.'

  'I just wanted to say goodbye.'

  'Good luck, Nikki. God bless.'

  Nikki unrolled global maritime charts. Depth contours. Tides, wrecks and buoys. She had to be careful. The paper was wet and easy to rip.

  She examined ocean currents. A map of the Arctic covered in swirling arrows. She was about to reach the Greenland Sea. She was caught in a current called the Beaufort Gyre. Part of a bigger system of circular currents that meshed like cogs and dictated transpolar drift. It would carry her south, then east to the Norwegian coast. But it might take weeks.

  She was thirsty. She flipped open the hatch. She lowered the desalinator tube into the sea and cranked the handle. Fresh water dribbled from the output tube. She filled her canteen. It took an hour. Adrenalin was slowly ebbing away to be replaced by boredom and despair.

  Nikki passed land. A serrated ridge on the pale horizon. A seagull wheeled high above the boat. She checked her map. She was passing the island of Longyearbyen. It was Norwegian territory. A barren rock. Russians used to mine coal. Whatever sparse population once scratched a living on the island had probably long since been evacuated, but there might be stores.

  The sea surrounding Norwegian territory was supposed to be closed. AWACS planes were guiding a flotilla of gunboats. But she hadn't seen any planes and she hadn't seen any boats. She watched for the winking red strobes of high-altitude aircraft, but the skies were empty.

  What would happen if she were confronted by a gunboat?

  Would they tell her to turn round and head the other way? Would they take her prisoner? Drag her off to an internment camp? Most likely they would open up with a deck-mounted .50 cal and blow her from the water.

  She found tins but the labels had come off. She shook them. A rattle. Chick peas. She couldn't find the tin opener. She stabbed at the tin with a nail file, but barely made a scratch.

  She rationed her food. Three raisins for breakfast. A Ritz cracker with a scoop of peanut butter for dinner.

  It took a long time to pump fresh water. A lot of muscle power. She filled a two-litre bottle. She allowed herself a swig every hour.

  She drifted down the coast of Longyearbyen. Weak daylight. She found a pair of rubber-coated binoculars among the clutter below deck. She scanned the shore. Bleak volcanic crags. No birds, no grass, no life.

  She looked south. A smudge against the sky. Was it a cloud or was it smoke?

  The boat slowly rounded a headland. She saw the smouldering ruins of a wooden cabin. The roof had partially collapsed.

  A fisherman's hut? Shelter built by whalers?

  Nikki shouted towards the shore.

  'Hello? Can anyone hear me?'

  The boat drifted past the distant house.

  'Hello? Is anyone there?'

  Movement. A figure in the cabin doorway. Maybe someone scavenging supplies.

  'Hey. Hey, over here.'

  She waved her arms.

  'Hey. Hello.'

  The figure looked her way.

  She took binoculars from a hook near the hatch. Focus, re- focus. Blood and metal. The guy had no jaw. His tongue flapped loose. He was joined by two women. Their faces were a mess of spines. All three wore furs streaked in blood. They stood at the end of a wooden jetty, reaching for the distant boat with scabrous, clawing fingers.

  Nikki let the current carry her south.

  Morning. The southern sky was tinged azure.

  Nikki saw a white dot on the horiz
on. A fragment of iceberg? A sail? The object grew closer. It was a fin. The tail of a plane. An Air France 747 floating low in the water.

  Nikki drew alongside the massive passenger jet. She jumped on to the wing and slammed the barbed spike of the anchor into a riveted seam. She walked back and forth on the wing, boots crunching on the salt-crusted metal. She hadn't walked a single step for weeks. She spent each day crouched in the cockpit and, once a day, she crawled across the hull of the boat to check the mast and sail.

  Nikki wiped a porthole with her sleeve. She saw, through the misted glass, rows of empty seats. She guessed the plane had been turned back from US airspace and run out of fuel halfway back to Europe. The aircraft ditched and the passengers used the evacuation slides as rafts. The last cabin staff to abandon the jet must have shut the hatch behind them out of domestic instinct. The plane was hermetically sealed, a steel bubble. It retained just enough air in its cargo hold, empty fuel tanks and passenger compartments to keep it above water. It would float for months, maybe years, riding out the squalls.

  Nikki pushed the wing hatch with her shoulder. The rubber seals gave way with a squelch. The interior of the plane was lit by weak daylight shafting through the starboard portholes.

  Economy class. Rows of empty seats. A tangle of oxygen masks hanging from the ceiling. Luggage was scattered in the aisles. No blood, no bodies.

  Club and first class were both empty. Attaché cases and laptops had been left neatly on the seats as if the passengers would soon return and resume their journey.

  The cockpit was empty. Banks of dead instrumentation and a view of empty ocean.

  Nikki sought out the galley at the back of the plane. She hoped to find soft drinks, cartons of long-life milk and maybe biscuits.

  She found cartons of orange juice in an overturned stewardess trolley. The cartons were frozen solid. She ripped away packaging. A yellow brick of juice. She smashed the brick in the galley basin and sucked shards as she explored the plane.

  She noticed one of the toilets was engaged. She casually kicked the door, then jumped back when a voice said, 'Don't come in.'

  'Jesus,' said Nikki, addressing the bathroom door. 'How long have you been aboard?'

  'Leave. Just leave.' A male voice.

  'Look, there's no need to hide. There's just me. I'm on my own. Come on out.'

  'The door's jammed. It's staying jammed. Don't come in.'

  'Please. Come out.'

  'No.'

  'Look, this is stupid.'

  'Fuck you.'

  'The plane ditched. You know that, right? There's no one on board but you.'

  'I'm not leaving.'

  'You're in the middle of the fucking ocean. Everyone took to the rafts. You're alone. And this plane is barely afloat. If it takes on even a cupful of water it'll sink to the bottom and take you with it.'

  'Just fuck off.'

  'Well, shit. I'm not going to argue with you.'

  Nikki found a pallet of bottled water in a galley locker. She stacked the bottles by the hatch.

  She found a wash-bag and baby wipes among the scattered luggage and locked herself in a club-class lavatory. She stripped out of her hydro-suit and wiped herself down. She brushed her teeth and spat. She kept her lock-knife open on the edge of the basin in case her unseen companion decided to emerge from his den.

  She found fresh clothes in a suitcase. Socks and underwear. She tried to repair her cracked and wrinkled hands with moisturiser.

  She crouched on the wing and tried the radio. She hoped the metal plane would act as an antenna and boost the signal.

  She couldn't raise Rampart. It was out of range, over the horizon and lost in perpetual night.

  Nikki scanned the wavebands. A flickering LED. The radio was trying to lock on to a ghost signal.

  '. . . God's help . . . terrible deci . . . arkest day . . !

  The voice died away.

  Nikki loaded food and water on to the boat, then walked to the lavatory at the back of the plane. She knocked on the toilet door.

  'This is your last chance. I'm leaving.'

  'Bye.'

  'Seriously. I'm heading south. You could join me. If you stay here you'll die.'

  'Then leave me. You can do that. You've done it before.'

  'Leave you?'

  'Yeah. Save your own ass. After all, everyone has a talent.'

  'Who are you?' demanded Nikki. 'What's your name?'

  No reply.

  'Alan? Is that you?'

  Nikki kicked at the door. Four blows then the lock splintered. The cubicle was empty.

  'Have I gone insane?' asked Nikki, interrogating her reflection. 'Is that the deal?'

  'Let's just say,' said her dead boyfriend's voice,' that your perceptions have undergone a radical adaptation.'

  Nikki enjoyed VIP luxury. She sat in a club seat. A porthole gave her a view of open sea. She wrapped herself in airline blankets and reclined. She clamped in-flight headphones to warm her ears.

  'This place is a welcome piece of luck,' she murmured as she snuggled down to sleep.

  'Yeah,' said Alan. 'God crashed this plane just for you.'

  She pulled a TV from a slot in the arm of the chair. A little screen on an armature. She jacked her headphones and selected Brief Encounter from the menu. She dozed as the movie played.

  'You realise that screen is completely blank,' said Alan. 'The plane is dead. Nothing works'

  'But I like the movie.'

  'Jesus. It's like that joke. My wife thinks she's a chicken. I'd take her to the doctor, but we need the eggs'

  'That's fucking ironic. My dead boyfriend posing as the voice of sanity.'

  'You think you left me behind? You're stuck with me as long as you live. Bonnie and Clyde. Sonny and Cher. I'll look after you, until the end of your days'

  'Could you get me back to Rampart?' asked Nikki. 'Could you master the boat? The ropes, the sail? If I wanted to get back, could you show me the way?'

  'I can take you anywhere you need to go, Nikki.'

  She sat cross-legged on the wing of the jet and ate crackers.

  She saw a red glow on the skyline, a fine aurora. It was the wrong time of day, the wrong point of the compass for sunset.

  They must have nuked the cities. Ahead of her, beyond the southern horizon, Europe was burning.

  Army of the Damned

  Self-awareness came and went like a weak radio signal. Stuttering, time-lapse moments of consciousness. It began in the main lobby. She was sipping Scotch. She hated Scotch ever since she vomited Macallan out of her nose during a college drinking game. She retched at the smell of it. A shot glass full of bile. But now she drank single malt like it was Coke. She couldn't taste it and it didn't make her drunk.

  Three infected people in front of her. Two brass-buttoned waiters and an old lady welded to a walking frame.

  Blackout.

  Two naked old guys and a chef.

  Blackout.

  Two officers and a cleaner fused to a broom.

  Rye smiled. It was like pulling the arm of a slot machine. Three different fruit, every time.

  One moment Rye was sitting at the blackjack table, checking her cards, nudging chips with the rotted club that used to be her hand. Next moment she found herself standing in a deserted coffee bar staring out of a porthole at the stars. She wondered how much time had passed. The next instant she found herself standing in one of Hyperion's little gift shops cramming fistfuls of shortbread into her mouth then spitting the biscuits because they tasted dry as dust. Time passed in a series of jumpcuts, each lucid moment met with anger and frustration. Why was she, among all the shambling, leprous passengers, one of the few cursed with long moments of wakefulness in which she experienced the full horror of her condition?

  Rye checked the diesel tanks. She descended a ladder. Her boots splashed, ankle-deep. The floor of the fuel room was wet with octane. A flare would be enough, or a struck match.

  She patted her pockets, tried to fin
d a lighter. Next moment she couldn't remember who she was or why she was standing in a strange, wide room. She stood staring into space for hours, fuel slowly rising round her legs.

  She found herself pounding a door. Infected passengers jostled around her, scraping and clawing at the metal.

  She backed away from the crowd.

  The hatch separated the Rampart crew from a savage horde that wanted to tear them apart.

  Rye tried to drive the passengers back. She grabbed collars and pulled them away, but they immediately returned to punch and kick at the door. She blasted the crowd with a carbon extinguisher. Foam jetted over faces and bodies. The infected passengers were oblivious. They dripped white. Rye battered heads with the spent extinguisher. They shrugged off the blows.

  Blackout.

  Rye found herself among the group once more, hammering and scratching the metal.

  Rye snapped alert. She found herself standing in front of a steel hatch, hand gripped around the release handle. She was alone. A remote lower deck.

  DÖRR 26

  She backed off. She had learned the layout of the ship from multilingual you-are-here wall charts mounted in each corridor to help passengers navigate their way from one theme-bar to another. Hatch 26 would lead to a passageway beneath the officers' quarters.

  She rested her forehead against the cold metal and fought the overwhelming meat-lust that wanted to put her beyond the door and heading for the Rampart crew. She was lonely. She wanted to see Jane and Ghost once more. But she couldn't trust herself. She would seize them. She would rip and tear.

  You should turn round, she told herself. Turn around and head the other way.

  Rye cranked the handle and pulled the door ajar. She hesitated. The Rampart crew would have sought out every entrance to the officers' quarters. They would not have left the door undefended. They would have taken steps to protect themselves.

  Rye squinted through the crack. She could see a red canister taped to the back of the hatch at eye level. A grenade, trip-wire pulled taut.