by Perrin Briar
“Do you think it’ll be like this all the way there?” Anne said.
“I doubt it,” Jordan said. “There aren’t enough ships in the world right now to fill this canal.”
Splash!
The water fell onto the stern of their craft. Anne peered up at the side of the fishing trawler they were passing. Something must have fallen over the side, almost striking them. Whatever it was didn’t surface. Anne assumed it had been a part of the ship.
They continued winding their way through the canal until they came to a short expanse of water, the surface calm and devoid of ripples. The wind died and Hope Tomorrow floated without aim.
“Now what?” Jessie said.
Anne aimed her pole at the seabed and punted them forward. Jessie and Sam, following her example, did likewise. It was hard slow work, but enough to keep them moving.
They came to the next gap and passed through the shadow of a large trading vessel. The ship’s hull was massive, rising up forty, fifty feet on one side, a pair of sunken rowboats on the other. Jordan took them through slowly, carefully, and they began to edge through it.
Thud. A soft pounding noise like a wood pecker at a hollow log. And again:
Thud. Thud.
Had their stern struck the hull of the larger ship? Anne thought. She turned to investigate.
Two figures stood on the stern, another getting to his feet. Their backs were to the early morning light, their faces cloaked in shadow. Even so, Anne could see their features were bent and twisted, their skin fallow and lifeless. They hissed through what remained of their teeth and stumbled forward.
“Lurchers on the starboard bow!” Anne shouted. “Lurchers on the starboard bow!”
Anne raised her pike-like pole and swung it around, broadsiding the Lurchers, knocking them to the deck. Two got up. The third had hold of her pole and climbed arm over arm up it toward her.
Jessie ran around from the other side of the ship. She shouted, gaining the attention of the first two Lurchers. She used her pole like a joust, and poked a Lurcher in the chest, knocking it back into the water. The second Lurcher stumbled toward her. Jessie heaved the pole to bring it around, but it was too heavy. Sam brought his own pole around, smacking the Lurcher over the head.
The Lurcher floundered on the edge of the deck. Jessie brought her leg up and snapped a kick at the Lurcher’s chest, knocking her over the side. Jessie gave Sam a thankful nod.
Anne pressed her weight against the Lurcher holding onto her pole, and swung up against the main mast, pinning him there. She raised the pole, up under the Lurcher’s neck, and then pressed her weight onto its larynx. She pressed harder, until she heard a satisfying crunch. The Lurcher’s lower body went limp. The weight of its body tore the flesh of the neck, leaving just the head. The Lurcher snapped at Anne, still alive and very hungry.
Anne reached for the head, careful to hold it by its long hair. She dropped it over the side. She turned to Jessie, Sam and Jordan. They were all fine.
Hope Tomorrow’s hull smacked into the large trading ship’s hull. A dull thud resonated, like a gong at a Chinese temple. The death rattle from an indeterminate number of undead throats rose up from deep inside the ship.
Shadows ambled along the deck’s railing. They saw Hope Tomorrow and reached out with their arms. A couple fell over the side, spinning end over end and landed in the sea, floundering with their limbs to swim toward them, but stood no chance.
Anne lifted her pole and pushed against the trading vessel’s large hull, shunting them away. The undead fell from the sky, most missing their stern by a few inches. One landed on the hull, legs splayed on either side. Jessie poked it off with her pole.
They kept a sharp lookout for more falling bodies, until the wind returned and thrust them up the smooth waterway, the wind at their backs, pushing them through the water with slow steady pulses. They were finally on the Suez Canal.
“Why isn’t anything ever easy?” Anne said to Jessie, wiping away the sweat on her forehead.
“What would the fun be in that?” Jessie said.
34.
Sam insisted on giving them a very thorough – and extremely dry – history of the Suez Canal.
“The Egyptian government wanted to triple their income from the original Suez Canal, so they decided to build this second one,” he said, “They built it so boats could pass through the canal in both directions. Before they built it the canal was a kind of one-way street, with passing points along the sides. They finished building it in 2015, a full two years ahead of schedule. They had a big celebration when it opened. Of course, no one knew the Incident was just around the corner. Otherwise I’m sure they wouldn’t have bothered.”
Half a dozen hulls poked up from the water’s surface where ships had run aground or capsized. Jordan wound around them, careful not to get entangled in the ropes and rigging that trailed out like entrails of a fallen carcass.
Jessie leaned against the main sail rigging, her head nodding every few seconds. She stumbled and recovered her balance before beginning the cycle all over again.
“You should get some sleep,” Anne said to Jessie. “You too, Sam. There’s still a long way to go.”
“What about you and Jordan?” Jessie said.
“We’ll get some sleep later,” Anne said.
“Make sure you do,” Jessie said.
She yawned and led Sam below deck. Anne joined Jordan at the wheel.
“Jessie and Sam went below to rest?” Jordan said.
“Yes,” Anne said. “You should go below too. I’ll take over here.”
“I’m not tired,” Jordan said, though Anne could see his lids were heavy and grey.
“How much longer before we’re through?” Anne said.
“It’ll be a few more hours yet,” Jordan said.
“What’s that?” Anne said, peering into the distance at the horizon.
A boat, small with distance, approached them, coming from the opposite direction.
“Do you think they’re friendly?” Anne said.
“No reason to think they’re not,” Jordan said, raising his binoculars. “They’re traders by the look of it. They probably haven’t even heard yet what happened at Port Fouad.”
The trading ship slowed down and pulled up alongside the catamaran. The two men on board were middle-aged, wearing traditional Egyptian garb.
“I wouldn’t go back there if I were you,” Jordan said. “The undead have attacked Port Fouad.”
The men exchanged a glance. They didn’t understand.
“Port Fouad,” Jordan said, pointing north.
“Fouad, yes,” the man with a thick moustache said.
“Undead,” Jordan said, miming a caricature of a Lurcher. “Undead come.”
Jordan turned to Anne, as if chasing her. Anne ran, with fear on her face.
“At Port Fouad,” Jordan said.
The two men exchanged glances and spoke to one another in hushed whispers.
“Fouad… gone?” the man with the moustache said.
“For all intents and purposes, yes,” Jordan said. “Fouad gone.”
The two men exchanged hurried responses, one shaking his head, the other nodding. The man with the moustache nodded respectfully to Jordan and Anne, and then continued on their journey, arguing with one another as they went.
“I see our warning went down well,” Anne said.
“It might help them,” Jordan said. “They’ll be more cautious.”
“I’m going to go catch forty winks,” Anne said. “Are you sure you don’t want to nap first?”
“No,” Jordan said. “You go ahead.”
The sea was calm with little in the way of obstacles, and there was a good continuous wind, if not powerful, that pushed them on. The canal began straight as an arrow, cutting through the land like a harvester through a cornfield. The land on either side of them was wide and flat, with few peaks and troughs. The sun rose in the sky and birds fluttered about Jordan’s ear
s.
Anne came up from below. She yawned and stretched as she joined Jordan at the helm.
“You weren’t joking about forty winks, were you?” Jordan said. “You should sleep longer.”
“It’s your turn,” Anne said.
“I will,” Jordan said. “Later.”
Anne gave him her icy glare.
“Soon,” Jordan said.
“There’s a load of food in the middle of the floor in the cabin,” Anne said.
“Food?” Jordan said. “So that’s what that was. How did it get there?”
“Ori must have been planning on doing something with it,” Anne said. “Maybe he started unloading one of the food vaults when the Lurchers attacked. I wonder what happened to him.”
“Who knows?” Jordan said. “There was a puddle of blood on the deck. Maybe…”
He shook his head.
“Who cares,” he said. “He’s out of our life. At least he left us a gift for everything he’s done to us.”
Jordan made an adjustment to the wheel. They were about a third of the way through the entire canal now, and were approaching El Ballah, a small town shacked up along one coast. The town looked dilapidated, tired and rundown. From here, the canal divided into two, working around a small island, each of approximately the same length.
“I was thinking about Tim,” Jordan said.
“Any ideas?” Anne said.
“He can go anywhere, do anything,” Jordan said. “The only way to stop him is to kill anyone who sees us or even spots our boat. We’ll have to either change ships often or else disguise this one so it looks like a different boat, just in case he tastes the blood of someone who sees us in passing.”
“That’s impossible,” Anne said. “We’ll never be able to do that.”
“I agree,” Jordan said. “But that’s what it’ll take to stop him if we want to go on with our lives, unless…”
“Unless what?” Anne said.
“Unless I get off with a rifle and wait for him to come to us,” Jordan said.
“No,” Anne said, shaking her head.
“You, Jessie and Sam continue sailing,” Jordan said. “I’ll wait here for him to come, and I’ll pick him off. His army will revert to aimless Lurchers and we can carry on with our lives in peace. Or, as peaceful as we can expect to, anyway.”
“What makes you think he’s going to sail through the canal?” Anne said.
“He’s followed us this far,” Jordan said. “There’s no reason to think he’ll stop now.”
“And what are we supposed to do?” Anne said. “Keep sailing so you’ll never find us again?”
“It’s our best chance of escaping him for good,” Jordan said.
“We’ll lose you too,” Anne said. “That’s assuming he’ll be kind enough to put himself in a position where you can shoot him. No, it’s too risky. We’ve gotten this far together. We can go till the end together too.”
“If it comes to it, I’ll give myself to him,” Jordan said. “I don’t want you and Jessie hurt for my sake.”
“When will you get it into your thick skull?” Anne said, running her fingers through his hair, gripping tight like she wanted to pull it out by the roots. “We’re in this together. For better or worse.”
Jordan looked Anne in the eye, and his sombre mood broke. He could never be angry for long when looking at her. But then Anne’s expression turned cold and distant.
“What?” Jordan said. “What is it?”
Jordan turned to follow her line of sight. Perhaps half a mile back, a pair of speedboats with white wings of water on either side of them raced through the canal. They were heading straight for them.
35.
“There are two boats,” Jordan said, peering through his binoculars. “Big ones. No sails. Engines.”
“Who do you think they are?” Anne said.
“Well, they’re painted orange and green,” Jordan said. “Like the boat that stopped and searched us on our way to Port Fouad.”
“The police?” Anne said.
“Possibly,” Jordan said. “They must think we have the key. They’re all wearing guard uniforms. Except one figure… I think it’s the king. I saw the sun glint off his crown.”
“The king?” Anne said. “How long before they catch up to us?”
“Ten minutes,” Jordan said. “Fifteen, maybe.”
“What’re we going to do?” Anne said.
“What can we do?” Jordan said. “We have to keep going.”
They were over halfway through the canal now, passing a large collection of buildings on their right belonging to a city called Ismailia. There were one hundred, perhaps more, Lurchers at the seashore, no doubt having heard the roar of the engines of the speedboats behind them, stretching and reaching for them with desperate eyes.
The banks of the canal spread out in either direction, disappearing into the middle distance, out of sight, as the catamaran entered a large body of water.
“Are we through?” Anne said.
“No,” Jordan said. “We’re entering The Great Bitter Lake.”
“Catchy name,” Anne said.
Her eyes went wide. She pointed up ahead.
“Jordan, watch out!” she said.
Ahead of them, floating in the water, were thousands of floating ragged bodies. There was a solid thud as the catamaran ran over them, their heads catching the underside of its twin hulls. The Lurchers flapped their arms and legs randomly, pushing themselves through the water. In the middle was a large passenger vessel. It had turned on its side, its bow up in the air.
Each thud minutely slowed Hope Tomorrow. Taken individually, they had little effect, but one after another, especially with their flailing, grabbing hands, the Lurchers had a devastating effect on Hope Tomorrow’s speed, falling from twenty knots to eighteen, to fifteen, to thirteen, and all the while the speedboats behind were drawing closer, their engines roaring and foaming with whitewash.
At the front of the boat, clinging on like limpets to a craggy rock, the Lurchers pulled themselves up onto the catamaran’s twin hulls.
“I thought they couldn’t swim?” Anne said, reaching for a knife on the deck.
“They can’t,” Jordan said. “But they can float if the water is salty enough, and guess what?”
“I’m guessing ‘bitter’ in The Great Bitter Lake isn’t just flowery prose?” Anne said.
“Correct,” Jordan said.
Jordan picked up a discarded pike and thrust at the Lurchers. The boat rocked, and Jordan had to crouch down to maintain his balance. He swung the pike around, connecting with the Lurchers and sending them over the edge and back into the water below.
Two more Lurchers clung to the hull and pulled themselves up. The pike was too ungainly a weapon for close combat, and so Jordan dropped it and picked up the gaff.
He whirled it around and caught a Lurcher around the head. The hook struck the Lurcher under the jaw. Jordan tugged the gaff back and it came away with the Lurcher’s lower jaw. The Lurcher didn’t take any notice, and fell upon Jordan, its long slobbery tongue flapping like an octopus’s tentacle.
Jordan pushed the Lurcher back and rolled to the side – a move he knew to be a near-suicidal roll off the deck if he went too far, and he almost did. His feet slid on the catamaran’s smooth surface and he began to slip over the side. His free hand flew out, grabbing for something – anything – to take hold of. He flung the gaff out. It hooked into the hard fibreglass casing of the boat’s deck.
The floating Lurchers below reached for him, fingertips grazing the soles of his shoes, their jaws snapping like hungry piranhas. Jordan pulled himself up one hand at a time, onto the deck.
Now he was face-to-face with the Lurcher he’d been wrestling with earlier. Jordan seized the Lurcher by its jacket and pulled it over the side to the rushing waters below, back with his fraternity. Jordan got to his feet. His shoulders slumped. Four more Lurchers were now on deck.
Anne pulled back,
her knife encased in blood.
“Someone needs to steer the boat!” Jordan said.
“You can’t kill them all by yourself!” Anne said.
They flew at the Lurchers, pummelling them with the pieces of metal in their hands. The Lurchers fell into the water one after the other. But for each one they took out, another one took its place, and more were climbing on board as Hope Tomorrow gradually slowed.
With no one to man the wheel, Hope Tomorrow was cajoled left to right by the water-bound skulls. The ship inched left, away from the exit on the other side of the Great Bitter Lake.
“Jessie!” Anne shouted. “Jessie!”
The wind was strong and took Anne’s voice away. Jordan thumped the roof of the main cabin with his left foot but with the rocking and swaying it was easy to dismiss as part of the ship’s natural movement.
A dozen Lurchers stood up. One slipped and fell over the side. Jordan picked the pike up again and made broad sweeping movements. He knocked one over the side, then two. Then the Lurchers clung to the pole, using it to pull themselves closer. Jordan threw the pole over the side, letting the Lurchers have it, and three more went over. But there were still half a dozen left.
Blam!
A Lurcher’s head exploded. Its body sunk to its knees and then slipped over the side. Another shot. This one took a Lurcher in the shoulder, spinning it around.
Jessie stood at the top of the stairs, a pistol in hand. Sam handed Jordan and Anne a pistol each. When they’d cleared the deck, Anne got behind the wheel and spun it so they were aiming back at the exit.
“The boats are following in our wake!” Anne shouted. “They’re going to catch up to us!”
The speedboats had lined up into single file and tore through the wide stretch of clearing as the catamaran scythed through the floating undead bodies. Jessie hefted a small Lurcher girl by the unnecessary lifejacket around her shoulders and was about to dump her over the side when Jordan said: “Wait.”
“What?” Jessie said, bending to avoid the girl’s snapping jaws. “Wait? Wait for what?”