by Jase Kovacs
A long gasp draws our attention to Deborah. She has wrapped her arm around Abigail's neck, drawing the girl's ear to her mouth with implacable strength, using everything she has left to pass one final message out into the world. Abigail's hair covers their faces like a shroud while she listens to Deborah's last words.
And then she is free; Deborah's head falls back. Her body lets go, finally paying the debt incurred when her followers hoisted her above their island. When Abigail lifts her grief-stricken face to us, I look past her, to Deborah and am not surprised to see an expression of peace — even triumph — fading from her eyes as the light within departs.
"Zac." Piper's voice is clotted with pain. But her eyes are clear and full of urgency as she looks beyond this scene, beyond the crowd and out, across the field, to the edge of jungle. "We need to go. Right now."
The clouds and hills catch the last of the dusklight as the full moon breaks the eastern horizon. The wind, which has been piling the pink clouds against the purple mountain, dies away. Yet I still hear an urgent rushing noise from the jungle, as if the storm is rolling down on us.
I'm not the only one who senses it. The far side of the crowd starts to murmur, questioningly at first and then with voices rising high with panic as they realise that shadows are moving through the trees.
Then screams rise from a hundred throats as the damned spill from every dark place.
They come as the Lost Tribe came, from the jungle and the tall grass and the old ruined warehouses, but they are not hesitant or afflicted with spiritual confusion. They come at a rush, a horde of grey faces split with fanged jaws and gleaming red eyes, driven by their infernal hunger, each one as relentless as a heat-seeking missile.
"EVERYONE!" I yell. "Into the water!"
"NO!" shrieks Reuben. "It is time! It is our rapture!" He lifts the pistol. "Stand and be judged."
"No!" I yell as Enzo's shotgun roars, splitting the lavender air with a long tongue of flame that flings buckshot to tear flesh. It is not Reuben who takes the blast but the man with the cross tattoos, who had been stepping forward, his spiked bat lifted to drive into my side. His shirt leaps, and a dozen dark circles appear on his chest like a handful of flung coins. His bat falls from nerveless fingers as he pitches forward onto the wharf.
I may be able to yell, but my feet are rooted to the ground. Somehow, subconsciously, I don't want to escape. I have spent my whole life running from one thing or another and now, of all times, I find myself sick of running. If God has brought me to this point to be the one who will soak up Reuben's last bullets and allow my friends to escape, so be it.
But it appears that my messed-up subconscious desires will be denied at least for this day. Roman steps forward, and his machete comes up in an elegant underarm sweep that catches Reuben below his elbow. Then Reuben is blinking stupidly, staring with confusion at an empty space at the end of his arm, wondering why he is jetting blood instead of spitting fire.
As if Enzo's shotgun blast was the first peal of a thunderstorm, heavy raindrops begin to splatter down on us. Enzo shouts, "To the boat!"
Everything dissolves into mad confusion. People running up the road are overwhelmed by damned who sweep out of the grass like killer whales driving themselves onto beaches after seals. The air is alive with screams as people realise they're trapped on the wharf. I see a damned squatting in the road, its face alive with gore as it tears into the belly of a young man.
Enzo yells, "Come, come, into the water!" Roman has one of the cult children in his arms, carrying him down to the boat, little Daisy at his side.
Piper says, "Come on, before the boat is overwhelmed." Then she fires from the hip, shooting a damned in the face as it rises snarling from the roadside. She screams as the recoil does something unpleasant to her injured shoulder, and she turns that fury on me. "For fuck's sake, get moving!"
Abigail is still crouched over Deborah's body, as if shielding her from the strengthening rain. I crouch and grab her hand. "Abigail, she's gone. We have to go."
She smiles sadly, shaking her head. But she isn't denying what I say, only regretting the path that has brought her to this place. I stand, pulling her with me. Deborah's head drops to rest on the concrete, the halo of her life's blood pink with diluting rain.
Enzo takes Piper's rifle and fires quickly over the people rushing down the wharf. Piper and Roman steady the boat, helping them on board. Old Weng perches on the stern, his eyes wide with fear as the Lost Tribe fills the boat.
"If you swim, you swim!" Enzo shouts. "Only in the boat if you cannot!"
The air shimmers with screams. I'm carried down by the rush of people, a wave driven forward by the damned feeding on the slow or panicked. At the top of the ramp I turn, Abigail's hand tight in mine. The moon hangs above the horizon like the red, swollen belly of a sated mosquito, and it lights up a scene from hell. The damned fight and squabble over those they have caught, two or three snarling around a body like jackals. Some still run towards us, ignoring the already caught in favour of fresh meat.
I trip over something; it's Reuben's severed hand, holding the Chinese pistol. I crouch, opening the stiff fingers one by one, and reclaim the gun. I come up ready to fire, knees slightly bent, the pistol up like Matty taught me.
A damned comes at me with its mouth open wide. My shots go wild, but I've attracted Enzo's attention, and he splits the creature's head open with one well-aimed shot. He grabs my arm, and we run down the wharf to where Roman and Piper are up to their waists in water, pushing the overladen boat out into the bay.
Next thing I know, I'm in the water too. Enzo, Roman, myself, and a few of the Lost Tribe are swimming, pushing the boat across the harbour. There are maybe two dozen people in the boat, which is so low in the water that water slops over the gunnels. Splashes show where other people are striking out on their own. A woman stands on the wharf, her arms out as if pleading for us to return. A damned runs into her, and they tumble together into the water in a confusion of screams and snarls. The water boils with the frenzy of the creature's attack as they sink together.
My fatigue is doing strange things to time and perspective. Excelsior appears at a great distance, as if she is just cresting the horizon. The bay is choppy, the evening breeze running against the incoming tide and cutting up the water's surface. Sometimes I am pushing the boat along with the others, and sometimes I am hanging on, fighting to keep my face above water.
Every now and then I get slapped by a wave, and my attention snaps like a rubber band and everything comes into brilliant focus: the slowly approaching yacht, the screams from the shore, and the cries of distress and alarm rising from the boat. Piper yelling in disgust, "Keep bailing, you bloody idiots!"
I sink below the surface at one point. Enzo slips below me, lifting me up as he says, "Hold on, not so far, eh?"
Strange thoughts. A great distance. It feels like I am bleeding somewhere. My strength ebbing.
What are we going to do with these people? Two dozen refugees. Are they part of the cult still? Was Deborah the bridge of his dominion? Did they follow out of compulsion, or were they terrified sheep fighting to escape the livestock truck by running up the slaughterhouse ramp?
These thoughts take an eternity to pass through my mind. An eternity punctuated by half-understood commands from Piper and Enzo.
Thin screams rise from the shoreline as the damned hunt down and pull survivors from their hiding places.
The rain has stopped, and mist spills over the harbour.
Our little boat full of survivors.
Every ship an ark.
Enzo and Piper arguing.
The rising tide.
We have to go now.
Then a thump wakes me from my daze as the boat bumps up against Excelsior. Piper shouts, "Easy now! Easy, you idiots! Don't tip the boat. One at a time."
Enzo is against me in the water, lifting my limp hands from the gunnel. My fingers are still hooked into claws. "Come on, Zac, we go now."
I'm back on the boat. People mill about, confused, huddled masses wondering what their future holds. I pull myself upright. Though exhausted and damaged, I am part of this crew. Enzo comes up the ladder behind me and goes forward, and I follow.
"Piper, we go now!" says Enzo.
"No! We have to wait for Matty. That's the plan."
"The jungle is full of zombi! How will she get here?"
"Maybe she'll find our dinghy. Or get a local's canoe."
"No, is impossible."
"We can't wait here," I say. My wits and strength are returning, and I feel an invigorating spirit filling me as our escape becomes a tantalising reality. "Remember what Matty said happened to her. The damned came across the bottom of the bay and climbed up her anchor."
All three of us look forward, to where the chain dips below the water. The rising tide pushes Excelsior back, keeping it tight. All of us imagine the damned coming up the chain hand over hand, claws reaching up, swarming over the boat.
"The plan was for Matty to meet us back here," says Piper. "We have to stick to the plan."
"Non. The plan changed when the zombi overran us. You want us to wait until they come? Or Reuben? We have to go out. We come back at dawn."
"Piper, Enzo's right. It's what Matty would do."
"The tide's against us," protests Piper, pointing at the channel marker. "We won't be able—"
"Matty is not here! We are!" shouts Enzo. "You think I want to leave her? You think I not think about this? We go out, we tack back and forth, we hold position, and we come back at dawn."
Roman has herded the survivors onto the back deck, where they stand as closely packed as cattle, watching our argument, unsure if they have gone from one madhouse to another. "One girl wants to know if she can help," Roman says.
Abigail stands at his shoulder, her expression one of anxiety laced with hope. "Keep your people quiet and out of the way," I tell her. "We'll tell you if we need something."
"We left many still on shore. Is there any hope… " Her voice trails away as she sees all of our expressions harden, and she realises the futility of her question. The way she internalises this, nods in acceptance, and then comes back to us impresses me. "We will pray for them."
"Pray quietly, eh?" says Enzo. He turns to us, seeming to swell with a natural authority as he assesses our situation and quickly makes his decision. "Okay. Look at this. The tide comes against us. But the wind is behind. She is strong enough to make us go. I use the genoa, and you get the anchor up as we sail, okay?"
"Why can't we get the main up now?" asks Piper. She is distracted, not wanting to admit that Enzo is right. So she quibbles with his orders.
"Is not time for a fucking sailing lesson," says Enzo, firmly but not unkindly. "Undo the furler."
The full moon has risen, bright enough to cast shadows on the deck as we rush to follow his orders. Enzo hauls in the genoa sheet as Piper lets off the furler. The sail rolls smoothly out, a vast triangle of canvas that seems to half fill the sky. It catches the wind but then collapses and folds, the sheet drumming against the deck as the sail flaps. Enzo struggles to get the sheet around the winch, a task he has carried out a million times in his life but is now beyond his beaten body. Roman takes the line from him and gets three turns on the winch before hauling it in tight. Enzo smiles a tight thanks and turns to us. "Get forward, eh!"
The sheet draws the sail, and it fills with the northerly breeze. The deck tilts, and the pitching diminishes as the pressure comes on. We move forward, our bow cutting the waves rather than riding over them.
"Allez, allez!" cries Enzo as Piper and I run forward. She has the long steel handle that she slips into the windlass. Together we start ratcheting, whipping the handle back and forth to work the dripping chain up over the bow roller and into the boat. Back and forth, metre after metre of chain rising, dripping black with mud.
Then the clattering of the chain changes in tone as the anchor breaks the surface. "Anchor up!" shouts Piper as we bring it home. I look up and out to where the island plunges into the sea, where the black trees of the jungle stop and the open water begins, and I suddenly understand how for millennia the ocean was seen as the place where escape and salvation were found.
But then I see something that takes all that hope and dashes it to the ground. My insides plunge sickeningly into a bottomless pit, and my brief burst of energy expires. The strength goes out of my legs, and I want to fall to the deck and give myself over to despair, knowing that what has happened once will happen again.
A yacht has come around the headland under full sail, its course angled to intercept ours. And not just any yacht; I recognise those two tall raked masts, its piratical air, and the horror of its approach. I have seen it all before, four years ago, when I was on shore and the green schooner brought terror to Woodlark Island. My knees and elbows ache as the urge to flee fills me.
"ENZO!" I rise, pointing. The schooner throws a dramatic bow wave as it comes down under dark sails. It's perhaps a mile away, a sleek predatory shape, its sails rising like a shark's dorsal fins cutting the surface. I run back down the yacht, the deck beneath my bare feet still warm from the day's heat.
Roman is on the helm, his keen eyes searching for the markers Matty placed when she surveyed the harbour the first afternoon. Enzo says to him, "Remember the sandbank? It is under the surface on this tide."
"Enzo, that's the green schooner!" I say urgently. "It's the alpha's boat!"
"Yes, okay," he says. He nods tensely, balancing the priorities of his command. "But he is way over there, and the sandbank is right here. I get out the harbour first, then we worry about your boat."
Little Daisy sits by Roman in the cockpit, mute and watching us with wide, curious eyes. Piper grabs me by the arm. "Come give me a hand."
She takes me below deck. It's stiflingly hot down here, the yacht a steel oven during the day, no hatches being left open to ventilate. The cabin is dimly lit by a faint orange glow — the display of the VHF that someone left on. Why on earth would we even have it on? It's not like there are any boats out there to talk to.
I mean, not normally.
I say, "Piper, it's the alpha's yacht! He's coming for us, like he came for Woodlark before!" But she ignores me. She turns a cabin light on, half the LEDs in the track dead. She sits at the saloon table and undoes her shirt buttons, peeling it back so her shoulder is bared. A large lump rises from her collar bone. It is fringed with broken capillaries that look like a nest of red worms under her pale skin.
Her face is tight with pain. "How is it?"
I push down my fear and confusion, the emotions that threaten to overwhelm me, the panic that seeps through a wall built over four years. Enzo is right. The green schooner will be dealt with when the time comes. Right now we have more immediate concerns. He needs to get the yacht out of the harbour, a tight passage at night against the tide. He doesn't need me distracting him.
I gently press around her shoulder, trying to feel the bones underneath without hurting her too much. She shakes faintly from the pain, gasping when my fingers first brush her skin.
"Are you going to be sick?" I ask.
"No. I'd need to have eaten something to be sick with."
"I'm trying to be gentle. It's hard with the yacht moving."
"It's okay," she says. Her face is grey. "Is my collar bone broken?"
"I don't think so. Not that I can tell. We need Abella to look at it."
"That's it, isn't it? We're going home now?"
"I don't think we have bunks for all these people." We both try to keep our tones light, but hers is tight with pain, mine with fear. I help her p
ull her shirt back over her shoulder. "I'll put your arm in a sling; you should be careful with it."
"Stay down here. Help me reload the Marlin first."
"It's okay. You don't need to keep me out of Enzo's hair. I'm not freaking out."
"Even so," she says. Her proud face softens a little. "I need help reloading."
"It's in the cockpit. I'll get it." As I stand, I freeze, my breath blown out of me by the surprising noise that fills the boat. We look over to the nav station where this peculiar sound emanates from. A sound I haven't heard for months.
The harsh, grating static of an open radio channel.
Enzo appears in the companionway, his face a mask of surprise as, breaking though the white noise, comes a familiar voice.
"Excelsior, Excelsior, Excelsior, this is Aotea, over."
Piper moves more quickly than any of us. She's at the nav station, fumbling with the handset before I can even process the incredible news.
"Aotea, this is Excelsior! Matty, are you okay?"
"Excelsior, how the bloody hell are you?" Relief floods through us all, and suddenly everyone seems to be laughing, Enzo leaning in through the companion way, Piper at the nav station. I sit down, just shaking my head. Matty continues in a questioning tone: "I can see a lot of people on your stern. Are things okay?"
"Things are okay. How are you? What's going on?"
The channel goes silent for a minute, long enough for Piper to look over at Enzo questioningly and begin to raise the handset back to her mouth to repeat her question. Then the channel opens as Aotea transmits. There is a check, a hesitation in Matty's voice when she comes back online. "I'm going to reduce sail and marry up with you in the channel. We can talk then."
***
Despite our proximity, it is midnight before we actually meet. Enzo takes infinite care getting out of Kwaipan harbour. It was hard enough to do it by the light of day; at night, where everything is reduced to a monochromatic shadow world, it is many magnitudes more difficult. More than once he's grateful for Matty's accurate sounding. He and Roman concentrate on the sailing, leaving the rest of us to drop with exhaustion. The stern and foredeck are piled deep with the Lost Tribe survivors, who have the stunned, passive manner of the deeply traumatised slowly awakening from a living nightmare.