by Dayle, Harry
“Well, you’ve got matching bandages now.”
“Don’t. I must look like some kind of confused pirate with this stuff wrapped around my head.”
“I don’t think anyone is going to worry about that. Do you think you can stand?”
“I can try.”
There was a blood-curdling scream from outside. A woman’s voice. Stacey’s. It wasn’t just a single scream, it went on and on.
“What the…?” Jake tried to scramble to his feet, but the sudden movement sent more shockwaves of searing pain through his head, causing him to fall back onto his backside. “What’s happening, what’s going on?”
Kiera rushed to the open sliding door and looked out. At the exact same moment there was another scream, a man’s.
“What can you see?” Jake was still trying desperately to get to his feet. He hauled himself onto the bench and looked out the window. They were tied to the remains of the pier. Horace had found a spot between the broken concrete that littered the sea just large enough to nestle the tender in. The pier was much higher than their little boat. It had been designed for cruisers and tankers, not small craft like this. Most of the window was obstructed by concrete; just a thin slot at the top was clear. Through it, Jake thought he could make out Stacey. She was on her hands and knees, screaming, apparently in pain. It was hard to tell why, she was too far from the boat to see. In front of her was one of the sailors. He had also been on his hands and knees but as Jake looked on he saw him roll over onto his back.
“It’s Stacey,” Kiera called back from the window. “Wait there, I’m going to try and help.” She grabbed her medical bag and climbed out of the boat onto the roof, and from there jumped onto the broken pier.
Another scream, but this time not pain. It was Reeve, and he was running towards Kiera.
“No! Get back on the boat! Don’t go any further! Get back!”
Jake tried again to get to his feet, this time successfully. Adrenaline was coursing through his body, and it blocked out much of the pain in his head. He wobbled over to the door. From behind him came a terrible cracking sound, and then another noise, like someone had opened a gas bottle. He turned to see a crack opening up in the hull. Just a hairline fracture, but enough that seawater was spurting through at high pressure. The force of the water was opening the crack wider. The hastily applied patch was breaking apart. He steadied himself, climbed through the door, and grabbed the thick concrete of the pier. His shoulders were level with the ground outside but he didn’t know if he had the strength to pull himself up.
“Get back on the boat, Kiera, now!” Reeve had nearly reached them. Stacey and the sailor were now both writhing around on the ground, still screaming.
“No, Kiera, don’t get on the boat!” Jake called up to her as she turned round to jump onto the roof. She looked down at him, confused, and turned back to Reeve. He was beside her now.
“Captain! Stay on the boat, it’s too dangerous,” Reeve called.
“Get me out of here, Reeve, this boat is sinking!”
The security man looked over at the others on the ground. Their screams were weakening. He sprinted to the end of the pier and grabbed Jake’s hands. As he pulled, Jake pushed off as best he could. He landed on his knees and felt he was about to collapse.
“Get up, now!” Reeve cried, adding, “sir!” Without waiting, he pulled Jake onto his feet. “Don’t move. Either of you. Don’t move from this spot.”
The wailing had stopped, and the only noise was the sound of water flooding into the failed tender. It groaned, creaked, then lurched over onto its side, sinking until just the upturned side protruded from the water. Air bubbles gurgled up and popped on the surface, and then there was silence.
• • •
“Reeve, what the hell is going on here?” Jake’s head was throbbing, and he was bruised on his chest where he had been pulled out of the boat so quickly and aggressively. “What’s happened to Stacey and whoever is with her? Kiera should go and help!”
“No, nobody should move. It’s the dust, the ash. It’s dangerous.”
“What do you mean? It can’t still be hot, not after all this time.”
“It’s not the heat, there’s something else. Look around, it’s not the same ash. It’s thicker. We didn’t see this on the ship.”
Jake and Kiera did as instructed. Where they were standing, on the very edge of the broken pier, there was no ash. It had been blown away, probably into the sea. The pier opened onto a wide, flat area. Jake could imagine how normally it would be filled with vehicles, coaches taking cruise parties on tours of the town, or trucks loading and unloading supply boats. The ash gradually increased in thickness in this area, until it became impossible to tell where the hard standing ended and the road up to the town began. Stacey was about fifty metres away, where the ash was several centimetres thick. Something was wrong with her though, something more than the fact she wasn’t moving.
She was shrinking.
Jake stared, his mouth open. There was no doubt about it. She was lying on her front, and she was deflating like a balloon. The sailor next to her was doing the same, it was just less obvious due to the size difference.
“That ash,” Reeve said, “is dissolving her flesh.”
“I don’t…how…what?” Kiera seemed unable to say any more than that.
“I told her to wait for you two, but she ignored me, said she was going up to where the wreck of the town is. I sent Horace after her and waited here awhile. Then I sent Dante to try and find the airport, and I followed after the other two. She screamed, and when I got to her, her feet were…melting.” Reeve had one hand on his hip and the other on his forehead. He was swinging slightly from side to side, like he was debating with himself about whether to continue.
“Go on,” Jake said.
“I could see it was the ash. She was wearing flip flops, she must have just kicked through the ash like sand on a beach. And it dissolved her feet, I mean, it just ate away at her flesh. I’ve never seen anything like that, not like that….”
“And Horace?”
“He tried to get it off her. Brushed it off with his hands. His bare hands. As soon as they touched it, the same thing happened. It’s…it was…I’ve never seen anything like it. That’s why we can’t go any further. If that stuff touches your skin, you’re dead. I don’t know what the hell it is, and I don’t want to know. We need to get away from here.”
“We need to find Dante,” Jake said, looking up at the security officer. “Which way did he go?”
“No! It’s too dangerous.”
“Reeve’s right, Jake. Besides, you’re in no state to go after anyone.”
“We can’t just stay here and wait for him to find out for himself what that ash can do! Besides, look at that.” He pointed to the partially capsized tender. “We’re not going anywhere, we can’t!”
Reeve reached inside his jacket pocket and extracted a radio. He pressed a button and it crackled into life. “Max, this is Reeve, over.”
A tinny voice replied, “This is Max, go ahead.”
“We have a problem. This environment is extremely hostile, I repeat, hostile. Too dangerous to stay. Our transport is no longer functional, we require alternative transport back to the Arcadia A.S.A.P., over.”
“Understood. I’ll get on it. Stand by, I’ll come back to you. Out.”
“Maybe we could swim it?” Kiera suggested. “Although,” she looked at Jake, “no, maybe not.”
“We don’t know if the water is toxic. There must be ash in there too. Who knows what it could do to us?” Reeve shook his head.
“We’ve been drinking water from the desalination plant since that ash cloud hit. We haven’t had any reports of anyone melting in medical.”
“Yes, but like I said, this isn’t the same ash that we saw further north.”
“Well I think we might have our answer,” Jake said. He had turned and was looking at the water. About a hundred metres away he could see
Dante, swimming towards them.
Thirty-Seven
“WHAT DO YOU mean, dangerous? What is happening over there?” Lucya was trying not to panic, not very successfully.
“I don’t know, and it’s not important right now. We need to get them back over here. What other transport do we have?” Max asked.
“All the lifeboats burned. The other tender has been broken up for spares. That just leaves the rafts. We’ll have to send someone over in a raft.” She paced back and forth, thinking hard, then picked up the phone and dialled.
“Engineering?”
“Martin?”
“Yes. Lucya?”
“We have an emergency. The tender sank and there’s something going on over there, something dangerous. We have to get them back, fast. I’m going to launch a life raft. Dave will take it over and bring them back.”
“I will?” This was news to Dave, and he wasn’t very happy about it. “I’m a navigator, not a raft…driver!”
“Fine, then find me a sailor who can go instead. But you’d better hurry, because as soon as that raft hits the water someone is going, and it could just as easily be you. Go!”
Dave rushed off to find someone better suited to the mission than he was.
“Sorry, Martin, anyway, so how do we propel the raft? Those things don’t have motors.”
“There are spare oars in the stores. I can send someone up with them.”
“No! No, I’ll come and get them. Thanks.”
She hung up.
“Pedro. Listen, you need to try and take us in closer. It will take too long for them to row over. The closer we can get, the better.”
“This is very risky. There are bits of concrete pier in that water,” Pedro said carefully.
“I know. So don’t hit them. Melvin, time you earned your keep around here. You need to stand there.” She pointed to the far end of the bridge, with windows that extended beyond the beam of the ship. “You’re on lookout. If you see anything in the water, shout at Pedro.”
She turned to leave, but Max called after her.
“Lucya! I don’t know what’s going on over there but it doesn’t sound good. Reeve said the environment was hostile. He’s a good guy, wouldn’t exaggerate. If there’s a danger to this ship then we need to be prepared.”
“Agreed.”
“By which,” Max could see she hadn’t got the point, “I mean armed.”
“I see. I think that’s really a decision for the captain to make.”
“The captain isn’t here. He’s in the hostile environment. Maybe he can’t make a decision. He left you in charge. You need to make the call.” Max looked over to the secure weapons cabinet.
“Fine, yes, you are right. Do what you have to do.”
Lucya raced out of the bridge, down the corridor, and down ten flights of stairs to deck one, cursing the decision not to switch on the elevators with every flight. She wound her way through the labyrinth of passageways on the deepest level until she found the store room. Once inside, the oars were easy to find; they were stacked on a top shelf, above the grey crates. She looked at them, then bent down under the table and looked at her special buoys. She picked one out, grabbed two oars, and left for deck seven.
• • •
Martin Oakley was fuming. One minute he was having a perfectly normal conversation with one of his engineers, and the next he couldn’t hear himself think as the engine he was stood next to started to rev up.
“What the….? What’s going on?” He threw his hands in the air, looked to his colleague for an answer, and realised one would not be forthcoming. “We’ve dropped the anchors for goodness sake, we’re not supposed to be moving anywhere. What are they playing at up there?”
“Actually, according to the computer, the anchors were pulled up two minutes ago.”
“Who ordered that? Lucya said she was leaving the bridge to go down to the stores. Right, that’s it. They can’t just move off without telling us first.”
Martin picked up the phone and dialled the bridge. He let it ring for a good minute, but nobody answered. Even though he was below the waterline and there were no windows, he could feel the ship moving slowly, although he couldn’t be sure about the direction.
He slammed the phone down, angry that nobody would pick up on the other side. After pacing up and down, muttering to himself, he picked it up again and started to dial another number.
“Maybe Silvia knows what’s going on here, she…”
He didn’t complete the sentence because there was an ear-splitting crunching sound, the ship shuddered, and he was thrown from his feet. The telephone handset fell to the floor, where it cracked in two. Martin’s colleague was toppled off balance, but caught the edge of a console and steadied himself. The ship had come to rest. The engine revs died down, and it was then that Martin became aware of another noise. He knew that sound, he had heard it once before, but only once. That was the sound of water pouring through a hole in the hull.
• • •
“You know how to handle one of these?” Max asked.
“Of course. I told you, I was a solider. Once a solider, always a soldier.”
Flynn took the gun. Holding the cold metal barrel upright in both hands, he looked it up and down, then held it to his left eye, checking the sight.
“I do not expect any weapons to be discharged on this ship, you hear me? This security team is here to keep the peace, not to terrorise. This is a deterrent. A last resort.”
“I understand, sir.” Flynn pushed the strap of the weapon over his shoulder. “A last resort.”
“Glad that’s clear. Now, back on patrol.”
Max left for the bridge to pick up more weapons. He needed to arm the rest of his security team.
• • •
Lucya arrived at deck seven at the same time as Dave. He was accompanied by a young-looking sailor. Lucya stopped and stared at him for several seconds, not quite able to believe he was old enough to be working.
“This is Chuck. He’s going to take the raft across,” Dave said.
“Chuck? Really? There are actually people called Chuck?”
Chuck turned scarlet. “Ma’am,” he said simply.
“Right, Chuck. Tell me, once we open one of these capsules, the thing flies off, inflates, and lands in the water, right?”
“That is correct, ma’am.”
“Okay, so two things, Chuck. One, my name is Lucya, forget the ma’am thing, right?”
He nodded.
“The second thing is, once the raft hits the water, how do we get it back here so you can get in?”
The two men considered the question. They were standing outside next to a metal-framed construction on which nine large white capsules, like giant pills, were tied down. The frame was angled in such a way that when a capsule was untied it would roll down and into the sea.
“Maybe I’m missing something,” Dave said, “but can’t he just use the escape slide?”
“No. We’re not deploying that for one person. It’s single use. What happens in a real emergency when the slide has gone?”
“See? I knew I was missing something.”
At that moment there was a huge crunch, the sound of metal being ripped, then a groaning sound from below. The ship came to a sudden, jarring halt. Lucya, Dave, and Chuck were thrown against the side railings. All three exclaimed in surprise and pain.
“Jesus! What the hell?!” Dave looked around, confused.
“I think we hit part of that pier. Fuck! Jake is going to kill me.” Lucya, rubbed her side where it had connected with the handrail. “You, get down there.” She pointed to the sea. “Take the steps for the tender. I’m launching this thing and you’re going to have to swim for it. I have to get back to the bridge.”
The sailor looked at her as if he must have misheard.
“Now!” she screamed at him.
He nodded, and ran back inside for the stairs. Lucya reached under the first fibreglass capsule, wra
pped her hand around the release buckle, and pulled hard. The strap holding it to the metal frame snapped in two. The capsule rolled slowly to the end of the metal ramp, out over the handrail, over the water, and fell. As it did so, it split open. There was a whoosh of compressed air being released, and a mass of black-and-red material pushed its way out, separating the two sides of the capsule. Within seconds it had inflated to form a giant raft. It popped into its final shape just as it hit the water with a slap. Fully inflated, the raft looked like it could never have fitted into the capsule. It was made to hold up to thirty passengers. Rectangular in shape, and slightly tapered at the front and back, the outer edge was made of sausage-like air chambers. Three more chambers within the raft provided seating. A bright orange hood that could be deployed to provide shelter from the elements was rolled up on one side, out of the way of anyone in the water trying to clamber aboard. Lucya watched the raft hit the water, threw her pink buoy after it, and jettisoned the oars over the railings. Before they had splashed into the sea, she had already turned around and run back inside, in the direction of the bridge.
Thirty-Eight
SOMETHING WAS WRONG with Dante. At first, it was hard to see exactly what, but as he approached it became clearer. He had no hands. His arms splashed in and out of the sea, but without palms and fingers to pull against the water, he was limited in his ability to generate propulsion.
Reeve took a step back then ran two steps forward and jumped off the end of the pier and onto the side of the upturned tender. As he landed his feet slipped beneath him and he fell onto his read end, sliding towards the now vertical roof. With a grunt he rolled over onto his front and grabbed at the window frames, arresting his slide just as his feet and legs disappeared over the side. He hauled himself back up, got to his hands and knees, and proceeded to crawl to the rear of the craft.
Dante was approaching slowly. Reeve called to him. He seemed to hear, changed direction slightly, and with a few more strokes reached the back of the boat. The security man reached out and grabbed the end of his right arm, pulling hard. The boat was low in the water, only half a metre or so was exposed, so it wasn’t too difficult to pull Dante out and onto the side, and relative safety. He lay on his back, panting, coughing.