by Perrin Briar
Screams and wailing cries from the city grew louder, closer. There was the flickering of yellow and orange flames from somewhere in the south of the city.
“This looks like our best option,” Anne said.
“I wish it wasn’t,” Jessie said, climbing over the side. “I’m not a big fan of dark places without multiple exits.”
The sound of their footsteps on the metal rungs was heightened by the surrounding silence. The ladder was long and it took them a good five minutes to get to the bottom. It was so dark they couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces.
Jordan took out his small torch and waved it at the darkness. The shadows on the walls were craggy and rough like pockmarked skin.
“See?” Sam said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Famous last words,” Jordan said.
“But I might have some trouble,” Jessie said, “on account of me not wearing any shoes.”
“Why did you take them off?” Jordan said.
“To be more comfortable,” Jessie said. “Why do you think? I didn’t take them off. Ori pulled them off.”
Jordan took off his jacket and ripped it in half. He bent down and wrapped the rags around Jessie’s bare feet.
“How do they feel?” Jordan said.
“They’re not Nike, but they’re all right,” Jessie said.
Their footsteps made poorer and poorer imitations the deeper into the tunnel they went, beginning sharp and clear, and then dissolving into an overlapping cacophony like an applauding audience.
“It’s this way,” Sam said.
“Are you sure?” Anne said.
“Quite sure,” Sam said.
Anne imagined the flat expressions on both Jordan and Jessie’s faces.
Anne’s mind wandered more than once. Time seemed to stretch, fast one moment, and then slow the next. She couldn’t identify with any accuracy how much time had passed.
“Are you sure we haven’t gone too far?” Jessie said.
“No,” Sam said. “I don’t think so. It only seems farther than it really is because we’re shuffling along like-”
“Like Lurchers?” Jessie said.
“That’s not what I was going to say,” Sam said.
“But it was what you were thinking,” Jessie said.
Snap! A sharp crack like a broken twig.
“What was that?” Jessie said, her voice hitching in their throat.
“I stepped on something,” Anne said.
Jordan shone his torch at Anne’s feet, finding a pile of white-yellow sticks with large rounded ends. Sam poked at it with his foot. One of the shapes fell to one side, revealing a skull with a half moon-shaped hole on the top.
“There must be some wild animals down here,” Sam said.
“Sure,” Jordan said, not sounding convinced. “How about we keep moving?”
“Here, here,” Anne said.
They continued on, each of them dragging their feet to avoid stepping on another bone and making a similarly loud noise.
“We’re almost there,” Sam said.
Snap! The sound had more substance this time, like a gunshot.
This time it was Jordan who had stepped on something. The sound echoed down the tunnels in both directions, fading away to nothingness. They stood still, silent save for their breaths, which seemed loud in the close darkness. When no sound replied, they all breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
A deep moan like a monster waking from the deep filled the silence.
“Jordan, if that’s you, it’s not funny,” Anne said.
“It’s not me,” Jordan said. “Jessie?”
“I wish it was,” Jessie said.
A second moan joined the first. And then a third, and a fourth. The chorus reverberated off the walls until they couldn’t count how many Lurchers there were.
“It’s the echo,” Jordan said. “They just sound like they’re all around us.”
“They might be,” Anne said. “We wouldn’t know.”
“Then where are they?” Jessie said.
“I think they’re coming from ahead of us,” Anne said.
“Are you sure?” Jordan said. “How can you tell?”
“That’s the direction the first Lurcher’s moan came from,” Anne said.
“I think she’s right,” Sam said.
“Where’s the way out, Sam?” Jordan said.
They doubled their pace, every second step now finding a snapping bone. They couldn’t have made more noise if they’d tried. Anne couldn’t shake the feeling they were heading deeper into the Lurchers’ lair.
Then there – just ahead of them – was another groan, loud and nasal. Anne felt something graze her arm. It was icy cold. She daren’t look back.
“It’s just up here!” Sam said.
Jordan’s flashlight strobed the darkness as they ran, finding pale white skin and glinting eyes. The groans echoed up and down the entire tunnel now, growing louder like a coursing river. The moans bounced off the wall right next to their heads. They jumped back, away from the wall, surprised to find nothing there.
“It’s here!” Sam said.
“What’s here?” Jordan said. “I can’t see anything!”
“I can feel it,” Jessie said, her fingers running against something that stood out from the wall. “It’s a ladder!”
“Climb!” Jordan said. “Now!”
The groans grew louder, seeming to vibrate the air around them. Out the corner of his eye Jordan caught sight of a puff of dust, kicked up by something he’d prefer not to know was there.
“Now you,” Jordan said to Anne, pushing her toward the ladder.
Anne went up quickly. Then Jordan pushed Sam forward.
Sam gripped the ladder with weak fingers. He scrunched up his face with the effort of hauling himself up, his muscles barely visible through the tanned skin on his arms and legs. He had hardly used his muscles in so long they had almost faded away. His progress was slow.
Jordan swept his torch around, finding a wall of rotting flesh, arms held up to grab at him. His heart pounded in his ears. He couldn’t wait any longer. He gripped the ladder and began to climb. He ducked his head under Sam so his legs were on either side of his head.
“Woah!” Sam said, jolting back after having almost lost his grip.
Jordan held one of Sam’s legs with one hand and pulled himself up with the other. His legs burned as he powered up the ladder, breathing in and out through his teeth.
Sam wobbled on Jordan’s shoulders, unbalanced. Jordan was certain Sam’s weight was going to leave his shoulders any moment, and then he would scream as he fell and hit the ground below to his doom.
The pressure around Jordan’s shoulders relaxed. Jordan strengthened his grip on Sam’s leg. But he didn’t fall. It must have been Anne above them, gripping Sam and dragging him up rung by rung like it was the last few steps to the top of Mount Everest. Jordan kept pumping the muscles in his legs, counting each step and focusing on taking the next. His whole body ached and screamed with the effort.
A soft light illuminated Jordan from above. It was the moon. Jessie had got the hatch open. Jordan was moving slowly now, his muscles exhausted, pumped full of lactic acid. His arms shook. The ladder creaked beneath him, the Lurchers rubbing against it at the base.
Sam’s weight lifted from Jordan’s shoulders as he was hoisted outside. Jordan panted, lungs burning. He pulled himself up to the lip of the hatch, arms feeling like they belonged to someone else. His foot slipped and he barked his shin against a rung. His hands were sweaty and his grip was slipping. He was going to fall.
A hand grabbed his wrist and helped pull him up the last few rungs, over the side. The fresh air beat against his face and cooled the sweat on his skin. Jordan leaned over at the waist. Anne pulled at him while he pressed his weight forward, allowing himself to drop onto the ground. The others were all lying in heaps beside him, gasping for air, arms over their eyes like they’d just completed a marathon i
n record time.
They were on the southeast coast, on the outskirts of the dock, amongst a clutch of large rocks that the sea enjoyed teasing with its feathery paws, roaring as if in response to the groans of the undead below.
Anne recovered first. She got to her feet and slammed the hatch closed. The groans were gone.
29.
They were up and moving within two minutes, any longer and they risked falling asleep and never getting up again. They limped down to the dock front, hugging the sheer rock face.
To their right, halfway up the hill and beating on the barricades with their fists, was the Lurcher army. Sporadic gunfire slowed the Lurchers’ approach, picking them off two and three at a time. But the majority of the Lurcher force was breaking into the houses and homes, prying at doors and windows to get inside.
Jordan sensed movement out the corner of his eye. Small figures hung from suspension cables overhead. They were from the Port Said side, having swung arm under arm over the city. They hung there now, like washing out to dry. The guards on the ground had no idea they were there, or else they would have pointed their guns heavenward. As if given a command, the figures let go at once, dropping onto the guards.
Shouts rang up, and the screams of bitten men pierced the soul. The guards fired upon one another. Others took aim at more figures moving into position above them. A couple were shot down, spraying blood on those below. Two guards dropped to the ground, writhing like worms on a hook.
The guards broke, scattering to the four winds, all discipline lost, tripping up one another in their haste to escape. The Lurchers caught the slowest, falling upon them. The captain bellowed, and was cut off abruptly mid-sentence. He didn’t scream.
The Lurchers turned and pushed on the barricade. It had been designed to withstand pressure from in front, not from behind, and it fell before their combined weight like a flimsy house of cards. And just like that, Port Fouad was lost.
Jordan turned to the dock. The huge ship lay smashed against the earth like a crashed rocket. He picked up a sign and swept a hand over its surface. It had a ‘6’ written on it. Driftwood of a dozen different materials floated like lost dreams amongst the flotsam. There was no sign of their beloved Hope Tomorrow.
“She was a good ship,” Anne said.
“The best,” Jessie said.
Her voice threatened to break. Sam sensed their mood, but didn’t know what to do. He put his hand on Jessie’s shoulder the way you would when comforting a dog.
“It’s all right,” he said softly. “I’m sure we’ll find another one.”
Jessie nodded, wiping her eyes.
“Do you see anything we can use?” Jordan said, peering around at the upturned hulls and detritus of a once-proud city.
“No,” Jessie said, pushing at the underside of a rowboat’s hull with the bottom of her foot. “It’s all been destroyed.”
“There must be something we can use,” Anne said.
“Wait,” Jessie said. “What’s that?”
She got on her hands and knees and lifted a shred of tarpaulin. She pulled the bow of a small boat out from under it.
“Must have been from a larger ship,” she said.
It was a rowboat with no engine or sails.
“It’ll never get us through the canal,” Jordan said.
“But it’ll get us away from here,” Anne said.
Jordan climbed into the small rowboat. It swayed beneath his feet. Jordan and Sam took rowing positions as Anne pushed them away from the dock. She hissed through her teeth and lifted up a foot.
“There’s a leak!” she said.
“Is it bad?” Jordan said. “I don’t much like the idea of getting halfway to the canal before we sink.”
“It doesn’t look too bad,” Anne said.
She took off her boot and used it to bail the water over the side.
“Hey!” a voice shouted above them. “Hey you! You in the boat!”
One of the guards who had been chasing them earlier was waving at them from the roof of a house that backed onto the dock.
“Stop!” the guard said. “Stop in the name of the king!”
“Yeah, right,” Jordan said. “We’ll do that all right. Ignore him. There’s nothing he can do.”
The guard’s shouts had gained the attention of a small troop of Lurchers left at the dock. They looked up at the house, turning their heads to one side in curiosity, and then peered in the direction the guard was waving.
Jordan’s eyes flickered up at the docks they were leaving behind. Another safe haven reduced to rubble. Would they ever find somewhere safe?
Jordan’s eyes caught on a shadowed figure, a dark wisp against the smoking remains. It was small and diminutive, unlike the Lurchers standing around it. Jordan stopped breathing. His mouth fell open and his insides turned to water.
It’s him. He’s here. It was him at Ras El-Kanayis too, he was sure. Somehow Jordan had known, but hadn’t wanted to face the truth. What did he want? Vengeance? Revenge for stealing his victory at Burgh Castle? It couldn’t have been coincidence him being here at Port Fouad. Could it?
“You want to go slower?” Sam said.
Jordan blinked from his reverie. It had slowed his strokes, disrupting his timing.
“No,” Jordan said, his voice a croak. “The same speed.”
“Do you want me and Jessie to take over?” Anne said to Jordan.
“No,” Jordan said. “I’m fine.”
The port and its screams and cries and groans of rattling death sank into the sea as the rowboat pulled away. The small figure never moved a muscle, and continued to watch until they had both disappeared from view.
“We’ll all be fine,” Jordan said.
He wished he could have believed it.
30.
He cast an eye over the broken detritus floating in the dock. A pity there were no boats in good enough condition for him to commandeer. Tessarakonteres had performed her duty well, though he had thought her hulls would have held up better against being run aground.
Jordan had escaped him once again, but he was getting closer. And this time Jordan had seen him. Tim needed to continue the chase as soon as possible.
Tim focused on the battle taking place in Port Fouad. His pets were currently at the king’s mansion’s southeast entrance, at what the guards referred to as the Moon Door. Breaking it down was proving difficult. It was thick, with solid metal rods holding it in place. He was certain he could have gotten in through it eventually, but why waste time? Tim turned his pets’ attention to the other, less well-built doors and windows.
Above them, perched on the mansion’s roof, the guards in the ludicrous orange uniforms fired on his army, using guns and arrows and rocks and furniture and anything else they could get their hands on. Valiant though it was, it was nonetheless a waste of time. He was going to get into their final stronghold, no matter what they did.
Ah, there.
The wood creaked and split open beneath his pets’ claw-like hands. They lowered their heads and bit at the wood, tearing out great chunks. No one stabbed, poked or attacked from the inside. It was safe to assume there was no one within the room. No doubt the locals had backed away from the windows and doors as soon as they’d entered.
His first pet entered the house. It was expensively decorated with red drapes that hung from the walls like a Roman general’s robes. Tim sent in a small contingent of twenty pets to explore the house and identify the location of the townspeople. He always erred on the side of caution. After all, who knew what kind of booby traps the guards might have set up.
His pets moved from room to room, each well-appointed and sophisticated in design, hardly matching the image and opinions of the king in the minds of the townspeople and his own guards. Toys lay abandoned on the floor, furniture knocked askew, but every room was empty of survivors.
He sent his pets upstairs. They got down on all fours to scale them. Stairs were tricky for pets on two legs, even with Tim�
��s aid. His pets had all been injured in one way or another. Some had severed tendons and cords, or a stiff knee joint that made negotiating steps difficult. Scrabbling on hands and knees was faster. Eventually they got to the top.
The majority of the rooms here were bedrooms and bathrooms. The blankets and furnishings had been dishevelled but again, there were no survivors.
Surely they hadn’t all gone up onto the roof to hide?
His pets took the final set of steps up to the roof. His pets scratched at the door, their fingers picking at the wood until they made a hole. Then they slipped their fingers inside and pulled at the outer door covering, wrenching it open like the wrapping on a Christmas present. His pets began to do the same with the front layer, poking a hole in it. He waited for a response, but nothing happened.
His pet got down on all fours and looked through the hole at the mansion’s rooftop. Although his pet’s eyesight was not good, Tim could see there were no huddled survivors. His pet changed her viewing angle and made out perhaps ten bodies in orange uniforms lying prostrate on the rooftop.
Tim’s senses tingled. He suspected a trap. He pulled his army away from the mansion and spread out. Should there be an explosion only a part of his army would be affected.
His pets forced the door open and walked out onto the rooftop. The first pet knelt down over an orange-uniformed figure and poked at him, sniffing him. There was a foul-smelling stench around his mouth, and what looked like some kind of foam on his lips. Cyanide. The guard stared up at the sky, unblinking. Dead. Clearly they had taken something to avoid being Turned alive. What a waste. Their blood would be congealed and hard to read.
But then what happened to all the survivors? Tim frowned and ran the puzzle through his mind. His pets on the roof turned and headed back toward the door.
They froze.
There was a noise. Sniffling? It sounded like crying. Was it coming from another rooftop? No. They were all too far away to be heard from here, especially with Tim’s pet’s poor sense of hearing.
Tim turned his pet around and approached each of the bodies, inspecting them, sniffing them, poking at their cold flesh. The whimpering sound came again. Tim’s pet turned to the body in the farthest corner. The body was smaller than the others, quivering, with his back to Tim. Tim’s pet shuffled closer. The boy turned to shoot a glance at the approaching undead figure. His eyes were wet and shiny with tears. He got to his feet.