Brian Keene

by Dead Sea (epub)

  "Are the water bottles okay?" I asked Carol.

  "They seem to be," she said. "There's no blood on them that I can see."

  "Hand me one."

  I unscrewed the cap and put the bottle to the chief's mouth. The rim must have brushed against one of his sore spots, because he winced and then opened his eyes. Spring water ran down his throat, and he choked, spitting it back up.

  "Runkle?" he gasped, glancing around. "Where is he?"

  He tried to stand, but I gently forced him back down.

  "We took care of it, Chief. Relax. You okay?"

  "My nose hurts like a son of a bitch. I think it might be broken. But I'll live."

  "Good. Might want to pick your feet up and keep them off the bottom of the boat."

  He looked down, and then back to me. "Is that my blood or Runkle's?"

  I shrugged. "Both, I think."

  Tasha grabbed my arm and pointed off the bow.

  "Something moved out there."

  I squinted into the darkness. "I don't see anything. What was it?"

  "I don't know. Something jumped out of the water and then swam underneath again."

  "Maybe it was just a big wave," Carol suggested. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she didn't believe it herself.

  A blast of thunder ripped the night sky, drowning out the roaring winds.

  I turned back to the chief. "Can you row?"

  He nodded. "Yes, I think so."

  "Okay. I think we should get moving." I sat cross-legged on the bench, keeping my feet out of the tainted water, and grabbed an oar. "Everybody sit back down. Try to stay out of the water. Hopefully, we'll get a few more really big waves and they'll wash that shit out of here. Then we can start bailing. Carol, are you awake enough to act as lookout?"

  "Yes. I don't think I could fall asleep right now if I wanted to."

  "Okay. You stand watch. Tasha, I want you to use the rifle. Make sure there's no blood on it."

  She nodded.

  "Hey," Malik hollered. "What about me? How come I never get nothing?"

  I smiled. "You get the shotgun. If you have to shoot it though, I want you to be careful."

  "Why?"

  "Because it's liable to knock you overboard, and we don't need that."

  He looked back at where Runkle had been.

  "No," Malik said. "We sure don't."

  We all took our places. Carol peered out into the sea. The chief and I started rowing. The kids held their weapons at the ready, keeping the barrels beneath some plastic sheeting that had escaped the water and blood. We didn't talk. The GPS beeped mournfully. Chief Maxey glanced at it, checking our coordinates.

  "We still on course, Chief?"

  "We are," he said, "and please, just call me Wade. I don't have a boat anymore to be chief of."

  I nodded. "Okay… Wade."

  The thunder rumbled again. Then the glow stick went out, plunging us into darkness.

  In that darkness, something moved. It splashed just off our starboard side. Whatever it was, it sounded big.

  "Chief." I whispered. "Sorry-I mean, Wade. Maybe we should start the motor."

  Lightning flashed, and I saw him nodding his head in agreement. Chief Maxey reached behind him and took a deep breath. Another splash echoed across the water, this time to our rear. Something bumped us from underneath the hull. We smelled it-rotten fish. Something dead, but still swimming. Then the motor burst to life. Chief Maxey gave it full throttle and we shot into the night.

  The splashing sounds followed us for a long time before they faded.

  When I looked back, all I saw was darkness.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The storm finally ended several hours later. There were a few last flashes of lightning and some final rumbles of thunder, almost as an afterthought. Then it was gone. During that time, we didn't see anything else in the water, either above or below. Maybe the weather kept the creatures away or maybe there was a war going on beneath the surface, and they were too busy eating each other to worry about us. A replay of what had happened in our cities, a battle between the living and the dead, now being waged under the sea as well as on land. The sky cleared and we could see again. The sun was still down, but its first few predawn rays were visible as a red glow on the horizon. I wished the sun would hurry its ass up. All five of us were cold and shivering, soaked to the skin from the rain and the waves. The kids had runny noses. The chief- even though he'd asked us to just call him Wade, I still thought of him as Chief Maxey-had picked up a bad cough. Sounded like a goose. His entire body shook each time he coughed. His broken nose had swelled up like a golf ball, and when he talked, it sounded like he had a bad cold.

  The storm had battered us about all night long. Luckily, the lifeboat hadn't sunk. I'd been right about the storm surges washing the blood back into the sea. We were able to bail the water out after the first half hour. Carol and I did it while the chief stood guard and the kids held the weapons. We bailed very carefully, mindful of any leftover blood. When we were finished, Carol and I gathered up anything with Runkle's blood on it and then tossed the items over the side, including his handgun. I hated to get rid of it, but we had nothing to clean and disinfect the weapon with. It sank like a stone.

  And then we waited, watching each other for the first warning signs of the disease. All of us were sleepy, but there was no nausea, shortness of breath, or decreased circulation. We kept an extra eye on the chief, figuring he'd had the greatest risk of exposure. Hours passed uneventfully. If any of us had contracted Hamelin's Revenge, we showed no indications of it. We all felt and seemed fine. Carol suggested that maybe there was something in the saltwater that killed the disease. But the fact was that none of us knew for sure. I was an unemployed factory worker. Carol was a former quality control manager at an injection molding plant, and more recently, a makeshift teacher for the kids. And the chief was an ex-coast guard chief and museum guide. None of us had the tools to fully understand and diagnose Hamelin's Revenge, let alone the skills for figuring out how to defeat it.

  The sun crept higher and the birds came out, circling over us and screeching at the dawn. I wondered where they'd all come from. According to the chief, there was no land nearby. We'd seen none during the night-no lights on the horizon. They'd obviously taken shelter from the storm. But here they were now, as if materializing out of the clouds.

  We shut the motor off again to conserve fuel, and once more began rowing. I looked out across the ocean and sighed. I felt like shit. I was exhausted, grimy, and sore. My ears felt all stuffed up because of all the close-range gunshots without hearing protection. My clothes were soaked. Dried salt caked my lips and the corners of my eyes. The wind scraped against my skin like sandpaper. As I rowed, 1 blocked out the protests from my arms and back, focusing instead on the sea. It was a big contrast from the night before. The water was so beautiful. The hypnotic rhythm of the foam-topped waves almost lulled me to sleep. I stopped rowing for a second and rubbed my bloodshot eyes. They felt dry and crusty. I kept them closed, and my breathing slowed. I felt relaxed. Peaceful. Then a wave lapped gently against the side of the lifeboat, breaking the spell. I shook my head and began rowing again, forcing myself to wake up. The surface was like the top of a birthday cake-smooth and flat, broken only by small, cresting waves. Farther down in the depths, the deep blue gave way to gray and green, then black. It seemed like it went on forever. Nothing moved down there. I wanted to jump over the side and just sink to the bottom, washing the filth from my body-a baptism.

  The chief was also staring into the depths.

  "We should be right over the Ethel C."

  "What's that?" Malik asked.

  The chief snorted, clearing dried blood out of his sinuses, and then told us.

  "The Ethel C was a Lebanese freighter. That's a ship that carries cargo from one place to another. She sank here back in April of 1960. She departed New York on her way to the Mediterranean Sea, hauling a load of scrap iron. Historians believe
that the cargo must have shifted, breaching her hull. Some of the survivor's reports indicate that. Others differ. Whatever the cause, the pumps couldn't keep up with the water flooding in, and she sank. They never even managed to get out a distress call. According to reports, she went very quickly."

  Malik moved closer to him. "Quicker than the Spratling did?"

  The chief nodded sadly. "Much quicker, but despite everything, all of the crew made it off alive. There were twenty-three men in the lifeboat. Imagine how crowded they must have been, packed in there like sardines in a can. And you folks thought this little lifeboat was crowded. Of course, theirs was a lot bigger than this one. They drifted for thirteen hours before the coast guard picked them up. That's where their story ends. But that's not the end for the Ethel C. She's still there. She's down there right now-sitting upright on the bottom of the ocean."

  Malik glanced out at the water. "Just how deep is this, anyway?"

  "Where we are?" The chief shrugged. "If I remember correctly, it's right around one hundred and ninety feet deep. The wreck is intact-all three hundred and twenty-nine feet of her-so if you were to dive down there and go scavenging, you'd find her wheelhouse at about one hundred and forty feet and the rest of her below that."

  "Intact?" Tasha slid closer, enthralled with the conversation. "You mean like it's still new?"

  "Well, not quite. The Ethel C has been down there for a long time, so she's in pretty bad shape. The hull is probably corroded. But as I said, she is still upright and divers say that she has a very impressive haul. Over the years, they've brought up the navigation equipment and most of her portholes, along with silverware, mementos, picture frames, pocket watches, jewelry-things like that. People pay big money for treasure like that."

  "Dang," Malik breathed. "I'd love to dive down to a shipwreck. Imagine all the stuff down there."

  Carol nodded her head in agreement. "It's romantic, in a way."

  I tuned them out, thinking about the wreck of the Ethel C, sitting on the ocean's floor, dead-and yet, in a way, still alive in the recovery operations conducted by the divers, and alive in the memories of men like the chief. It was sadly poignant. After all, death wasn't the end anymore. Staying in your grave was strictly old school. And if there was such a thing as a soul, what proof did we have that it lived on? What if our souls were trapped inside those rotting corpses-able only to watch in horror and revulsion as our own bodies turned against those we loved? What kind of an afterlife was that? That wasn't heaven. It was hell. Eternal life equaled zombie. Better to achieve immortality another way. Regardless of our religion, regardless of what we believed, the cold, simple truth was that none of us had a fucking clue what lay beyond this life. The only kind of eternal life we could be sure of was the kind enjoyed by this shipwreck-living on in the memories of others. Like a myth. An archetype. The professor had been right. We were monomyths. All of us. Every survivor. If humanity was able to survive, if five hundred years from now Tasha and Malik's descendents sat in a classroom and learned about ancient history, we would take the place of Hercules and Superman. Come hear the tale of Mitch, the warrior, and Runkle, the trickster, and Lamar, the hero.

  Bullshit.

  A fat seagull darted down to the ocean's surface and then flew back up into the air. Something red dangled from its beak. I noticed more birds doing the same. They were feeding off something floating on the tide. We were too far away for me to tell what it was. I figured it was just seaweed.

  Yawning, the chief checked the GPS and nodded with satisfaction.

  "We're getting closer," he said, clearing his swollen nose again. "We should be able to see the jack-up in a little while. Not a moment to soon, either, if you ask me. The sun's going to be brutal today, out here on this open water. We'd have to deal with sunburn and exposure on top of everything else."

  Carol smiled. "Between a bad case of sunburn and an army of zombies, I'll take the sunburn."

  He returned her smile and Carol blushed, and then quickly looked away. The chief's ears turned red. 1 stifled a grin. Maybe there was hope for the human race yet.

  "Don't be so sure," the chief told her. "We've been out here all night, exposed to the elements. We're all dehydrated. A few hours with the hot sun beating down on us and we're going to be in even worse shape. First we'll blister. Then we'll-"

  "That's okay," Carol said, holding up her hand. "You can spare me the gory details. I believe you."

  "Sorry."

  "You lost your hat. If we had some sunscreen, I'd rub some on your head so that you don't get burned."

  The chief turned beet red.

  I hid another grin. He had a lot to learn about talking to women if he was going to be the last player on earth. Taking another break from rowing, I leaned out over the side and trailed my fingers through the water. It was cool, and felt good on my skin. The sun climbed higher into the sky, reflecting off the ocean's surface, shimmering like headlights on a busy city street.

  And then something bit my finger.

  Screaming, I pulled my hand out of the water.

  The others looked at me in alarm. Tasha and Malik jumped up and ran to my side of the lifeboat, rocking it dangerously back and forth.

  "What's wrong?" Malik asked. "What'd you see?"

  I glanced back down in the water. A dead fish floated just a few inches below the surface. When it turned, I saw that its belly was missing. Its mouth gulped in an 0 shape. There were no teeth, but that hadn't stopped it from trying to swallow my finger. 1 held my hand up in front of my face, examining myself for wounds or scratches. There were none. I wiped it on my shirt and shivered.

  "Get out of the way," Malik shouted, trying to push past his sister. "Let me kill it."

  Tasha shoved him back. "Stop pushing, Malik. You'll tip us over."

  "Both of you stop it," I said. It was hard to speak. My heart was still in my throat. My skin tingled. If the fish had been equipped with teeth-well, that would have been it for me. Shuddering, I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. Another dead fish bobbed to the surface, its festering tail flicking slowly back and forth. Even underwater, we could see that its entire length was covered with open sores. Scales and strands of flesh floated from its sides. A third appeared, and then a fourth-then a whole school of fish, varying in size and type. The surface teemed with them. The chief leaned out over the bow and Carol kept watch from her side.

  "There's more here," she cried.

  "Here, too," Chief Maxey reported. "Dozens of them. Everybody sit back and hang on tight."

  He started the motor. There was a grinding sound from underneath the lifeboat's hull. Blood, scales, and a decapitated fish head floated to the surface. The zombie fish had been chopped into bits by the propellers. Chief Maxey gunned the engine and the boat's front end tilted up into the air, knocking us all backward. We held on as he pulled away. The boat leveled out again. I looked back, and in our V-shaped wake, I saw more undead fish-and something else. A sleek, dark shape closed the distance between us and disappeared beneath the boat. Something bumped into us from underneath, scraping along the bottom and jarring the lifeboat. A triangular fin resurfaced on the other side.

  Carol gasped, "Oh my God…"

  "Shark," Malik shrieked, jumping up and down. "It's a shark!"

  More fins erupted from the water, appearing on both sides of the lifeboat. They paced us, having no trouble keeping up. The chief pushed the throttle to its maximum and we pulled ahead. The fins fell behind, but the creatures were still determinedly giving chase.

  Carol gripped the bench. "Are they alive or dead?"

  "It don't matter," Malik shouted at her. "They're sharks. Ain't you ever seen the movies? They'll eat us either way."

  Tasha had left the rifle lying on the bench. As the boat shot forward, it slid toward me. Snatching it up, I shouldered the weapon and peered through the scope. Everything was blurry and I had to read just the magnification. Then, able to see, I moved the crosshairs around, searching desperately fo
r a fin. I found one, and scanned the water, looking for its head. The effort was pointless. The shark's body was submerged, its head hidden. Cursing, I squeezed the trigger, aiming for where I thought the head should be. The rifle bucked against my shoulder and pain tore through my chest. Through the scope, I saw a plume of spray as the bullet sliced the ocean's surface. I must have missed, because the shark didn't slow. Raising my head to get a better look, I noticed more sleek fins dotting the surface. One of the sharks was close enough for me to see that it was missing a chunk of hide. Gray skin gave way to pink and white meat. The open wound confirmed what I'd already suspected. The sharks were dead.

  The zombies circled closer. The chief leaned forward, as if willing the lifeboat to go faster. I looked through the scope and fired another shot. The fin changed course, swerving away. I shot at it again, but the bullet still seemed to have no effect. Meanwhile, another of the creatures cut us off from the front and swam head on, as if intent on ramming us. The chief shouted for the shotgun, but before anyone else could act, Malik grabbed the weapon and ran to the bow. He aimed the shotgun, thin arms struggling to keep it aloft. The shark emerged from the waves. Its mouth was open wide, flashing rows of white, razor-sharp teeth. Malik squeezed the trigger. The shark's black eye exploded and some of its snout was sheared away. The blast knocked Malik to the floor. He looked stunned, but he kept the shotgun clutched tight in his hands. As he struggled to stand, I took aim with the rifle. The shark skated along the side of the lifeboat. Its ruined eye leaked blood and pulp, but it didn't cease its attack. Shrieking, Carol scooted out of the way as it raked the hull with its teeth. I lined up the crosshairs right over the gaping hole where its eye had been and took my shot. The shark reared up out of the water and then sank beneath the waves. The frothing surf turned red.

  Quickly, I searched for another target, while Malik stumbled to his feet. Gripping the shotgun, he stomped over to the side and aimed, letting the barrel lead the shark by a few feet. Despite the chaos, I was once again amazed at the boy's adaptability. It was like he intuitively knew how to shoot.