Katja from the Punk Band

by Simon Logan

  There she is.

  Farther up the deck, leaning out toward the mainland’s shore just as he is, her chemical-blonde hair pinned up but still unmistakable. He can smell her even from here.

  He moves closer to a metal box-like housing of some kind so he is partially concealed by it, and watches her.

  She seems to be alone.

  So where is Januscz?

  Dracyev hunches down a little more, peering around the housing as she glances briefly in his direction.

  Doesn’t see him.

  Ylena turns, wrapping her arms around herself, the dark purple fabric of the coat he remembers making her flapping in the cold winds. She crosses the deck and goes through a door just behind her.

  Dracyev runs up the deck, stops when he reaches the door.

  Listens in first, hears nothing.

  He turns the handle and goes inside.

  The sound of the waves becomes muffled as he carefully closes the door behind him. He’s standing on a small platform at the top of a set of steps that lead down into one of the ship’s large storage areas, looking out over a landscape of boxes, crates, and trolleys tightly packed against one another. There’s an internal heat coming from the engine through one of the nearby walls, lending the air a thick, electric quality. He looks for Ylena but can’t see her, then hears voices coming from below.

  Dracyev descends the steps on the balls of his feet, making as little noise as possible until he reaches the bottom. He follows the source of the voices, the heat of his fury matching that which is leaching from the engine room, but he swallows the fury — for now.

  One of the voices is Ylena’s, the other a man’s.

  Dracyev draws a gun and moves toward the voices.

  They’re both whispering so he can’t quite make out what they’re saying, leans in toward a crate to listen.

  Is this how things would be played out?

  All his careful planning and yet it breaks down and brings him here, now — to her.

  And him.

  Dracyev’s nostrils flare.

  He considers that perhaps he should just wait, let events unfold as they would have done had Ylena not decided to betray him further, but it seems to him that perhaps fate was delivering a decision into his hands.

  The man in red. The vial. All of it was just falling by the wayside.

  This was just Dracyev and his betrayer.

  This would be his act.

  The voices rise, become clearer, and they enrage him.

  Their words are poison.

  He steps out from behind the crate, gun raised casually before him and there they are.

  Ylena stands next to the entrance to an open crate on one side, her shadow falling over the crouched figure of her lover.

  “Stand up,” Dracyev says flatly, calmly, and the two jump in shock, Ylena’s expression becoming one of sheer horror. “I want you to be on your feet.”

  “Oh my god,” says Ylena.

  “It’s okay,” the man says as he stands, raising his hands slightly. “It’s okay, Ylena.”

  Dracyev hesitates, momentarily stunned. “Who are you?”

  The man seems uncertain of the question at first and turns to Ylena who is equally confused.

  “I . . .”

  Dracyev realizes his grip on the gun has loosed so adjusts it, aims it toward the stranger.

  “What are you doing here? Where’s Januscz?”

  Again the man is puzzled by the question. “Januscz?”

  “Where is he?” Dracyev asks, this time aiming it at Ylena. “Where is he, Ylena?”

  “I don’t understand,” she says, her voice as shaky as her hands. “Please . . .”

  “Don’t beg,” Dracyev barks. “It’s not becoming of you. Who is this? Is he helping the two of you?”

  She looks at the man, and it still seems like something isn’t truly sinking in for them; they don’t seem to realize what’s going on.

  “I know what you’ve been up to, Ylena. I know what’s been going on.”

  “I . . . put the gun down. Please.”

  “Don’t fucking BEG!” he screams suddenly, jerking the gun toward her, and she flinches as if he has struck her with it.

  “Stop it!” the other man shouts and then jerks away as Dracyev swings the gun around toward him.

  “Don’t worry,” Dracyev assures him. “This will all end soon. Ylena, I’ll ask you again — where is Januscz?”

  “I don’t even know who Januscz is!” she pleads. She’s clasping her hands together as if in prayer.

  “Don’t you fucking lie to me!” he shouts and grabs her arm, pulls her away.

  The stranger goes to grab her back but he’s too slow, and by the time he is ready to try again, Dracyev has the gun trained on him.

  “I know he’s here somewhere. Just tell me where and I can deal with him first.”

  “Baby, please,” she says, as tears run down her cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “You’re telling me that you haven’t been cheating on me? That you didn’t sneak away today to come onto this boat to . . . to escape from me?”

  Her silence is full of her guilt and they all know this. Dracyev loosens his grip on her slightly.

  “Tell me where he is, Ylena. Tell me where Januscz is and you can come back. We can put this behind us.”

  “I don’t know who the fuck you’re talking about!” she screams hysterically, and twists out of his grip. She weeps into her hands. “If you’re going to fucking kill us then just fucking do it!”

  “Januscz is the only one I want to kill, angel.”

  “I don’t . . . know any . . . Januscz,” she says, her words shuddering through her tears.

  “Then why are you here?”

  And she glances at the stranger and there’s something in that look, something meaningful.

  Dracyev says. “So this is the one.”

  And she’s crying through her answer, the stranger seeming to fight the urge to go to her.

  “You.”

  The other man swallows. He is dishevelled, his hair a mess, unshaven, his eyes bloodshot and it looks like vomit glistens on his chin.

  Dracyev raises the gun. “Tell me your name?”

  The man doesn’t answer.

  “Please,” Dracyev insists. “I’d like to know the name of the man who has been fucking my wife before I kill him.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Kohl finds himself counting again as he walks across the boat’s deck, but is distracted as his stomach rolls in time with the undulations of the waves.

  Three. Four. Five. Six.

  One hand always on the rail that runs along the edge of the boat as if to anchor himself in lieu of solid ground beneath his feet. The last time he was off the island he wouldn’t even have been able to reach the rail. The last time he was off the island he had been taken there by a man named Varkov, a man who had treated him as both son and drug-running protégé. This time, however, he had been let on board by one of the loading crew, a junkie who had gone straight several months earlier that he had spotted not long after regaining consciousness. The withered, jewel-eyed man had submitted to Kohl’s threats, of Kohl planting a baggy of powder on the man, exposing him to his employers.

  That man’s presence there had been fate, surely. Kohl’s escape was meant to be, despite Nikolai’s best efforts to the contrary, so he had taken full advantage of it.

  And soon he will be on the mainland again — but not until he has the vial.

  And not until he finds Nikolai.

  Nine. Ten. Eleven.

  Ten.

  Eleven.

  Fuck.

  He stops, presses his hands to his eyes, the pain behind them building, swelling. Just find Nikolai, get the vial, then get somewhere dark until he can cut the deal.

  There’s a sudden bang and he’s certain it’s a gunshot, swings around and the boat lurches and, a door opens in front of him. He’s still fumbling for his gun whe
n a woman with cocaine-white hair bursts through the door and rushes past him, and a few moments later a man chases out after her. Kohl struggles to get the gun out but by the time he has it in his hands, they’ve already gone and he’s thrown toward the doorway as the boat lurches again.

  His heart races but whatever has just gone down, it has nothing to do with him or with Nikolai and the vial.

  His hand remains on the gun as he watches the two disappear into the distance, and they don’t even seem to notice him, caught up in a storm of their own. The woman is chased along the deck as water sprays across the hull, and just then someone steps out from the darkness of the ship’s cabins up ahead.

  He sees the silhouette before it fully registers with him, crooked spikes and then the glint of something metal in the middle of it all. A lip ring. The figure emerges into the moonlight and she’s younger than he first thought, something blurring her throat and something else strapped to her back.

  A guitar?

  Reality shifts and she’s standing before him, swinging something hard and gleaming toward him, and he ducks back against the door behind him, his hands going up protectively, until he realizes that she’s not moved. Still in the shadows.

  And he remembers.

  Remembers her there on the docks when he had the gun trained on Nikolai, before his goggles were smashed and the light burst in and then went out again just as quickly.

  She’s involved in all this. The little bitch might have the vial.

  He leans back as the girl walks toward him. The door is still open from the blonde who burst out of it, so he eases himself through and carefully closes it in front of him. The door is fitted with a vent at just below eye level and he can see the deck and the railing through it.

  He pulls the gun out and steadies his grip, ready to fire.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  MY name is Aleksakhina. Anatoli Aleksakhina.”

  Dracyev’s aim is concrete solid, the veins along his wrist and hand thick with blood. Gun steady and furious.

  “And who are you, Anatoli Aleksakhina?”

  “I’m nobody,” he answers.

  Ylena, she’s struggling to stifle her tears. Her hands shake as if palsied. “Don’t hurt him . . .”

  “Hurt him,” Dracyev repeats and the gun is like an attack dog straining on its leash. “You stink of Policie.”

  Aleksakhina licks his lips. He’s trying to survey the area without taking his eyes from the other man and the piece of metal pointed at him. A way out. A way through. At least to get Ylena to safety.

  He thinks of the gun holstered on his chest, but he knows he wouldn’t be able to draw it in time.

  “Come to me, Ylena,” Dracyev says. “Come over here and this can all be over with much more quickly.”

  She shakes her head through the tears. “I don’t want to. I don’t want to.”

  Dracyev’s nostrils flare and, for a moment, just a moment, his eyes leave Aleksakhina and go to her, and in that moment there’s a noise from behind them and everybody reacts at once.

  Dracyev swings the gun around as someone steps out from behind the crates; Aleksakhina shoves Ylena to one side and, as he reaches down for his knife, there’s a gunshot and for a moment he’s certain he’s been hit, that he’s trapped in that silent moment before the pain will explode, but then nothing comes and he charges toward Ylena, grabbing her and pulling her with him. Another shot is fired and ricochets around the room then crashes into and splinters another crate.

  Ylena swallows her screams as she runs, charging up the stairs that lead back up toward the deck because it’s the only exit she can see, and Aleksakhina chases after her, shouts for her to wait, although that isn’t what he wants, he wants her to run as fast as she can, and he’s just waiting for more shots to come their way.

  She bursts out through the door and cold air washes over him as he follows her out, calls for her to wait but his words are consumed by the sound of the crashing waves. She cuts across the deck between a gap in the cabins and he sees her stumble through the tight space and crash into the railing at the opposite side of the boat. She pulls herself along the rails, her legs threatening to collapse beneath her, follows them all the way to the back of the boat, pins herself against it.

  Aleksakhina reaches her moments later, and she looks as if she is going to try to duck away from him but he’s too fast. She’s hysterical, completely out of breath and shivering so badly she can barely stand up. He grabs her just in time but she pulls him around, looks behind them.

  “He’s coming!” she shouts. “He’s coming!”

  Aleksakhina turns, can’t see Dracyev but knows he’ll be there in a few moments, the gun aimed and ready once more.

  “We have to hide!” he shouts to her.

  “He’ll find us! He’ll fucking find us! Where the hell are we going to go?! There’s nowhere to go!”

  “Ylena, no!”

  And he grabs at her as she pulls herself up onto the rails, but she kicks at him and the boat rocks, tips him away from her.

  He thinks he hears another gunshot and looks back but there’s still no sign of Dracyev, and when he turns back she’s dragged herself up onto the tiny ledge beyond the railing and is balanced precariously on it. The boat lurches again and she has to hook a leg around the rail to stop herself being tipped off.

  “Ylena!” Aleksakhina cries and grabs her hand but it slips quickly through, soaked in slippery sea water. He snatches again and gets a grip of her coat but there’s not enough leverage to pull her back. “You have to get back down!”

  She shrieks, a cry of pure rage and fear, and what’s in her eyes doesn’t even seem to be human as he tries to pull her back.

  “He’s going to find us!” she screams, pulls away from him. “He’s never going to let me go! I should have known I’d never get away from him!”

  The water kicks the boat and throws water up over the side, knocks her hair loose and the pure blonde strips lash against his face and she has become Medusa. Aleksakhina pulls at her jacket and she jerks toward him, but then his grip is suddenly lost and she pops out of his grasp and her momentum swings her backward.

  She grabs at his hand but misses, is falling away from him, and he shouts her name and she desperately tries to snatch at the railing but she misses that too, then she’s gone . . .

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The thrum of the boat’s engine vibrates through her so thickly that Katja has to fight the sensation that she is drifting into the air. Her skin is coated in a thin sheen of oily sweat, enough so that it’s hard for her to grip the neck of her guitar properly.

  She’s pulled off a broken string and some of the lacquer that was cracked when she hit Kohl, and the thing’s a fucking mess but it doesn’t matter, they probably wouldn’t even be on the boat if it wasn’t for the guitar. Eventually she makes her way back through the machinery she passed when she dived into the engine room and away for Dracyev, the sound of Nikolai banging on the door still in her ears.

  She hadn’t meant to leave him stranded out there, she really hadn’t, and that strange feeling in her chest, could that be guilt? More likely indigestion.

  There is a pair of huge bolts and latches sealing the door shut. She leans forward, can see through some slats in the door and out to the deck. No sign of Dracyev. No sign of Nikolai.

  So something was definitely going down but she’s come too far already; there’s nothing left to do but just keep going. She still has the vial and if she can find Nikolai again and they can make the deal with the man in red, nothing else would matter. As soon as they reach the mainland, the murders, the chemicals, and whatever shit Januscz was involved in will be left behind.

  Everything will be left behind.

  She pulls at the locks and though they are stiff and heavy, she manages to open them both. She holds the door steady, steeling herself for going back outside and for what might be out there.

  Dracyev, his gun ready for her.

  Or N
ikolai’s body sprawled across the ground, just one more in a long line of bodies.

  She’s just about to open the door when she hears a muffled bang, then a few moments later what sounds like a scream. She freezes where she is, peers through the slats in time to see a woman running along the deck and then a moment later another person chasing after her.

  What the fuck is going on now?

  It’s beginning to feel like all the trouble on the island has been condensed into the boat for this one night, that everything she is trying to escape from is following her to the mainland.

  Another few moments and she eases herself out through the door, and the fleeing couple are gone. She stops the door from shutting properly, wanting to know that there is at least one escape route for her should she need it, then makes her way through the shadows of the cabin buildings.

  Her sweat chills on her, bruises her like the result of a vicious assault.

  She tries each door as she reaches it, whispering Nikolai’s name through the slats but they’re all locked. She thinks she hears a door closing or opening farther up but it could just be a random part of the boat rattling or squeaking.

  “Nikolai?”

  A horn sounds suddenly, makes her jump, and she realizes it’s the signal for ten minutes to shore.

  They’re running out of time to find the man in red and make the drop.

  Another door, “Nikolai?” and another.

  Each one locked — where the fuck has he gone?

  “Here.”

  The word takes a few seconds to register and she stops.

  Turns.

  The door in front of her opens, just a crack.

  “Nikolai?”

  Her hand goes to the guitar’s neck but before she’s got a good grip, the door swings open and someone bursts out and shit, it’s not Nikolai, it’s not him, and it’s too late, her arms are grabbed, something smashes her face and she staggers to one side and then the wind and the waves go silent and the sound of the door being slammed shut echoes around her and all she thinks as she crumples to the ground is, The vial, I’m going to land on the vial . . .