Jerry swallowed, and backed nervously out of the galley.
Or the bodies had gotten up on their own.
He pulled a bowl from the bucket and splashed coolant water across the deck. At least it would keep the vampires away. He turned and nodded to the men in the reactor room doorway, who closed and secured the hatch, cutting off the light from inside. He was on his own. The plan gave him thirty minutes to create a path up to the control room and secure it. Normally, thirty minutes would seem excessive to go such a short distance, but he was glad for the extra time. So far, he had been lucky and hadn’t encountered any of the vampires, but he didn’t expect his luck to hold out indefinitely.
He heard the scuff of a shoe on the deck farther down the corridor. He froze and aimed the lantern in the direction of the sound, looking for movement. Just another dark corridor filled with countless hiding places. Shit. This was starting to look like a terrible idea. Running into a burning engine room had been a lot less scary.
As soon as he moved the lantern beam away, the sound came again. This time, two glowing eyes appeared in the open doorway to the officers’ wardroom. He swung the lantern around again, heart pounding. Ensign Penwarden stood in the doorway, his skin as sallow as old newspaper. The ensign hissed and shielded his eyes as the light hit his face.
“Fuck!” Jerry exclaimed. His hands were full. He couldn’t grab a bowl out of the bucket without putting down the lantern, but if he put down the lantern, Penwarden would attack. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
He had to act fast, while Penwarden was still at a disadvantage. He dropped the heavy-duty battle lantern onto the deck and, throwing caution to the wind, plunged his hand into the irradiated water to grab a bowl.
The instant the light was out of Penwarden’s face, he sprang. Jerry’s fingers closed around the curved underside of a bowl, but he didn’t have time to pull it out of the water before Penwarden crashed into him like a linebacker sacking a quarterback. The impact slammed him backward against the bulkhead, and the bowl and its contents went flying. The bowl clattered across the deck, the irradiated water it held splashing uselessly. The force of the impact knocked the air out of Jerry’s lungs, leaving him dazed and unable to breathe. Somehow, he had managed to hold on to the bucket without letting the water slosh out.
Being this close to the bucketful of radioactive coolant slowed Penwarden down, turning him noticeably sluggish and groggy, but it wasn’t enough to hurt him. If Jerry wanted Penwarden to burn, he was going to have to get the irradiated water on him. He reached blindly into the bucket, pulled out another bowl, and splashed Penwarden in the face.
The vampire released an ear-splitting howl of agony that echoed off the bulkheads. He clawed at his face as it began to blacken and burn. His skin pulled tight and melted away like wax. Little flames erupted all over his body. Then the screaming stopped with a horrible suddenness, and he collapsed onto the deck.
It worked! Jerry couldn’t help it; he laughed out loud as Penwarden burned in front of him. The goddamn coolant worked!
Something heavy landed on his back, knocking him to the deck, the bucket falling out of his hand. He was pinned under the weight of another man. Rough hands yanked at the collar of his uniform, tearing it away from the skin of his neck. He heard a sharp hissing in his ear, and the brief touch of the tip of a fang.
Bracing his hands against the deck, Jerry pushed with all the strength he could muster, rolling over so his attacker’s back was on the deck. He managed to turn his head enough to see Steve Bodine’s face. Bodine’s mouth opened wide as he shrieked in pain, fangs glistening in the lantern light. As he squirmed, his grip on Jerry loosened, and Jerry scrambled away from him. Smoke began to billow from Bodine’s arm, and then blue and yellow flames. Jerry understood then what had happened. He had rolled Bodine partially into the spilled coolant water.
Still howling, Bodine jumped to his feet and ran, quick as a flash. He was so fast, Jerry didn’t even see him move—only saw the hatch to the head slam open. He heard the heavy thud of a body falling to the deck inside, and the screaming stopped before the hatch swung closed again.
Jerry clambered back to his feet. He considered following Bodine into the head to make sure he was dead, then thought better of it. There wasn’t enough time. If the vampire wasn’t already dead, the flames on his body would likely spread and consume him soon enough. Jerry needed to clear a path to the control room ASAP.
He lifted the bucket, which, by some miracle, had landed upright. It was light, though. Much of the water had sloshed out onto the deck. He would have to be sparing with what was left.
Picking up the lantern, he returned to the main ladder. Above, the top level was in darkness. Below, the bottom level was too. He scooped out a small amount of coolant and poured it down the rungs to the bottom level. If any of the bloodsucking fiends down there tried to climb up, they would have a hot time of it.
Then, peering up into the empty blackness of the top level, where the control room waited, he gripped the lantern’s handle between his teeth and began to climb. His arms were sore from the injuries Matson had given him, and his shoulder ached from carrying the bucket of water. Hauling it one-handed up the ladder only made both worse. As he brought one knee up for the next rung, he banged it against the bucket. He heard the coolant slosh inside and felt a wet splash on one hand. He paused, cursing himself for his clumsiness, and held the bucket steady to avoid losing any more of the precious, lethal seawater.
At the top of the ladder, he put the bucket down on the deck and started to pull himself up. In the darkness outside the control room, two blazing amber eyes came rushing toward him. Jerry scrambled for the bucket on his other side, but the vampire was faster. He couldn’t see who it was in the dark—the lantern beam was pointing in the opposite direction. Hands grabbed his arm and tried to haul him up out of the hole.
If Jerry let the vampire pull him up, he was as good as dead. He locked his legs around the ladder and pulled back, trying to break the creature’s iron grip. He strained so hard, he bit into the lantern’s handle. His assailant was impossibly strong, and it felt as if his arm would be pulled out of the shoulder socket. He squirmed and twisted, and the material of his uniform tore in the vampire’s fingers. Jerry started to slip. The vampire grabbed him by the hand to try again, but this time the creature howled in pain as his hands began to spark and smoke, and he let go. The coolant Jerry had spilled on his hand—the vampire must have touched it. But before Jerry could grab a rung, gravity took over, and he fell back down through the hole. He landed on his side on the middle level, much too far away from the precious bucket of irradiated water still on the level above. His only other meager defense, the lantern, slipped out of his teeth and kept tumbling down to the bottom level, where it crashed to the deck and went out.
His arm flared with pain. The wounds from the fight with Matson had torn open again, and his elbow hurt like hell. Above him, he heard the vampire shrieking in pain as the irradiated seawater burned his hand. Jerry took some satisfaction in having hurt the son of a bitch, but it didn’t last long. Farther down the corridor, somewhere between the mess and Officer Country, he saw another pair of glowing eyes open in the darkness.
Shit. Without the coolant, he had nothing to defend himself with. Then he remembered: he had wet the rungs down to the bottom level with the stuff. He would be safer one more level down. He only hoped the irradiated water on the ladder rungs would be enough to kill the vampire or, at the very least, keep him back.
In a blink, the eyes crossed the corridor and stared down at him. He couldn’t see the vampire’s face, but he knew he had only a moment, if that, to get away.
With no time to waste, Jerry rolled and threw himself into the hole, letting himself drop straight down to the bottom level. He tried to control his landing, but the pitch darkness made it impossible. He hit the bottom-level deck with his face and left knee, both of which erupted in pain.
Through his agony, he heard footsteps
coming toward him, slowly, leisurely, as if whoever was approaching had all the time in the world. It couldn’t be either of the creatures from the other levels—the footsteps were coming from the wrong direction, from the torpedo room.
Two glowing eyes looked at him out of the darkness.
“Well, well, well, look who finally fell through that mighty thin ice,” Lieutenant Duncan said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“I couldn’t save him,” Oran said. “I pulled him out of the torpedo tube, but I still couldn’t save him.”
Sitting on the deck beside him, Tim nodded in sympathy. Oran was still in a wounded daze after Lieutenant Abrams’ death. He didn’t say much, but he didn’t have to. Bonds formed quickly on a submarine. It made Tim think of Jerry again, for the hundredth time since he left the reactor room. He was out there all alone, making a path to the control room. Tim only hoped that a bucket of irradiated seawater was enough to keep his friend safe.
The atmosphere in the reactor room had been tense and silent since Jerry left. A few of the men sat on the deck and, on the captain’s orders, were whittling the tapered ends of the wooden rods to points. No one spoke for long stretches of time, and when they did, it was to ask how long it had been since Jerry left the reactor room.
“LeMon, then the lieutenant. Who’s next?” Oran asked, as if Tim somehow knew the answer. “Why would God take them like that? Does he really hate me so bad? Does he hate all of us?”
“I don’t know,” Tim said. He wasn’t even sure there was a God, but if there were, he wouldn’t have anything to do with the vampires.
“I shoulda gone to confession more,” Oran said. “I always knew that, but there were things I didn’t want the priest to know. Things I did with girls, or smokin’ Mary Jane sometimes. Stupid stuff. But I skipped confession too often, and look where it got me.”
“I don’t think God would kill LeMon and the lieutenant and everyone else on Roanoke just to punish you for missing confession,” Tim said.
He had meant it to be comforting, but Oran only glared at him, as if he’d said the wrong thing.
“Sorry,” Tim said. “Your brother seemed like a good guy. I think if I’d gotten to know him, I would have liked him.”
Oran nodded. “He was a couillon for sho’, but he was my brother. I lost count of how many scrapes I pulled him out of over the years. But it turns out I couldn’t save him, either.”
“You tried,” Tim said. “You tried your best to save them both.”
“Except my best weren’t good enough,” Oran said. He lifted his chin. “If I’d been thinkin’ straight, I woulda been the one to take the coolant out there, not White. I owe it to LeMon and Lieutenant Abrams to make the rougarou pay. I hope I still get my chance. I’ll make them wish they never came to Roanoke, if it’s the last thing I do. I owe ’em that.”
“It’s been half an hour,” Captain Weber announced. “It’s time.”
Tim and Oran got to their feet.
“Sir, are you sure Jerry has had enough time?” Tim asked.
“Either Lieutenant Carr’s idea worked, Spicer, or White is dead,” the captain replied. “Either way, we’ll find out soon enough, because we can’t wait any longer. Gather up your stakes, gentlemen. We’re heading for the control room. Let’s show these bastards who Roanoke really belongs to.”
Oran was the first to reach the pile of sharpened wooden stakes, pulling one out for himself. The other men were slower to grab theirs. They were still scared and unsure about getting close enough to the vampires to stake them. Tim took a stake and hefted it, getting a feel for its weight and balance. It was roughly a foot and a half long and an inch and a half thick. He touched the point with his fingertip. It had been whittled sharp enough to pierce flesh if he put enough weight behind it. If it came down to it, though, would he be able to thrust it through the chest of someone he had worked with, bunked with? What about someone who had been an officer? He told himself yes, he could do it, but the thought frightened and sickened him. There was a world of difference between knowing you had to kill someone to save yourself and actually doing it. If the time came, he prayed he wouldn’t hesitate, because that could mean his death.
There were only ten stakes, which meant only ten men could accompany the captain outside, while the other seventeen stayed behind in the reactor room. Ten men didn’t sound like much against vampires who had already wiped out most of the crew, but it would have to be enough to get them up the main ladder to the top level, via the path Jerry had theoretically cleared for them with the radioactive water. Tim didn’t relish the idea of returning to the control room. He had seen the terrible carnage up there and didn’t want to see it again. But there was no other way to take back Roanoke.
They left the reactor room, moving at a snail’s pace into the mess. At the front of the group, Tim held his stake ready and kept an eye out for Jerry. The lantern beams swept over the two mauled bodies of Keene and Ortega slumped at one of the tables. He heard the captain whisper the dead sailors’ names sadly, apologetically. Tim knew how seriously Captain Weber took his responsibility for what happened on his boat. The massacre of his crew had to be taking a heavy toll on him.
Then the lantern beams fell on something else: a shape sprawled on the deck a little farther down the corridor. A few men gasped in surprise. It was a corpse, as charred as Matson’s and Abrams’ in the reactor room. Its features were burnt beyond recognition, but its elongated upper canine teeth glistened in the light. Its hair had burned away, leaving a black and blistered scalp.
The captain paused. “Someone needs to make sure it’s dead.”
“I got it, suh.” Oran went to the body, holding his stake ready just in case. When it didn’t move, he turned down the back of the corpse’s collar to reveal the name tag.
“It’s Ensign Penwarden, suh,” Oran said.
Captain Weber nodded. “It looks like the coolant worked after all.”
Tim felt the smile grow on his face. Son of a bitch, it actually worked! That meant Jerry, wherever he was, just might be safe. With that bucket of irradiated water at his side, he had to be, didn’t he?
A howl came from the head, high-pitched and blood-curdling. All eyes cut toward the hatch. The howl came again, long and loud and anguished. It didn’t sound human.
“What the hell is that?” the captain asked. “Guidry, check it out.”
Oran approached the hatch to the head, holding his stake like a dagger. Tim didn’t like it. There was something in there, and sending Oran in alone seemed a bad idea.
“Sir, permission to assist Guidry?” Tim asked the captain.
“Okay, Spicer, but be careful. Remember, I need you in that sonar shack,” Captain Weber said. “The rest of you, come up with me to the control room.”
While the captain and the others began to climb the main ladder to the top level, Tim moved to Oran’s side.
“You ready?” he asked, lifting his stake.
Oran nodded and gritted his teeth. “More than ready, ami.”
They opened the hatch and stepped cautiously into the head. In the light of their lanterns, they saw Steve Bodine—or what was left of him—lying on the deck. Half his body was burned to charcoal just like Penwarden, but the other half was still intact.
He was alive but unable to do anything more than swipe at them with his one good arm. Bodine spat and hissed like a cornered cat, baring his fangs. Tim surprised himself by not hesitating. He put down his lantern, knelt over Bodine, and lifted his stake with both hands over the vampire’s chest.
Oran put down his lantern and grabbed Tim’s wrist with his free hand. “No.”
“It has to be done, Oran.”
“I know. Let me. Penwarden bit LeMon and turned him into one of these things, but I didn’t get to kill the connard for it. I can’t properly avenge my brother until I kill one. You understand?”
Tim nodded. “Okay. Just make it quick.” He stood up, and Oran knelt down in his place, stake in ha
nd.
For a moment, Tim saw Steve Bodine not as he was now, but as he used to be, the likable kid from Oklahoma City who had an accent that could charm most any city girl, and who kept his hair stubble-short to hide the fact that he was going prematurely bald. The skilled helmsman; the driven, determined sailor that Lieutenant Commander Jefferson had taken under his wing to guide and mentor. But that wasn’t who was lying on the deck in front of him. This creature had Steve Bodine’s face, but in his inhumanly glowing eyes were only unrecognizable hatred and hunger.
Oran brought the stake down hard, plunging it into Bodine’s chest. Blood spattered out of the wound, and the vampire let loose an ear-piercing shriek.
“Couillon!” Oran spat. “That’s for my brother, LeMon Guidry. Remember his name when you wake up in hell!”
Bodine shrieked and flailed, and blood ran from his mouth. It lasted only a few seconds, but Tim knew the image would stick in his mind’s eye, maybe forever. Finally, Bodine fell still. His eyes closed, and he looked as if he was finally at peace.
“Feel better, Guidry?” Tim asked.
Oran stood again, then turned around and vomited into the sink.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The lens of Jerry’s battle lantern had shattered when it hit the bottom-level deck. So had his knee and, from the feel of it, the bone above his right eye. He could breathe only through his mouth. His nose felt as if someone were squeezing it shut and twisting it with pliers. Probably, it was broken too. That was what happened when you threw yourself ten feet down a dark hole onto a metal floor. Stupid thing to do. He had escaped from two vampires only to end up injured and helpless in front of a third.
He heard the other men leaving the reactor room on the level above him, but he was too weak to call out for help. Duncan dragged him by his collar across the deck and into the torpedo room. If it hurt to be hauled over the raised lip at the threshold, he barely noticed. The pain of his broken bones was far worse.
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