Dead Beat

by Remy Porter

  Drifting in space, I felt I was chasing faces. Spinning and tumbling high above the earth, I tried to catch them. My finger tips starting to catch fire, then my hands and my arms. The immense pain, then the face in the flames turned. It was my wife’s face.

  ‘I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.’

  A booming voice sending me spinning and burning down to ground, my whole body a fireball, and the earth coming up and an end to it all.

  ‘You were dreaming,’ a woman said. ‘A nightmare, I think.’

  Blinking, my eyes started to focus. This was a medical room. I was lying on a gurney, shivering. There was an ache in my head, and in my arm too. I looked down and saw that I was attached to a drip.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You’re safe,’ she said. I liked her smile. The woman was maybe forty years old, with short auburn hair. There were happy lines and creases around her eyes when she smiled. She wore round spectacles and a white lab coat.

  ‘Lucky we got to you in time,’ a second voice said, American sounding. I craned my neck towards the sound and made myself dizzy. In the corner of the room was a young man in a suit. Short, greased black hair; he looked strong and athletic. ‘You’re in our sickbay, my friend. I’m Trent and this is Alice.’

  ‘Who the hell are you people?’

  ‘Survivors, like yourself,’ Trent answered. ‘Lucky as hell to be here.’

  ‘What about my things? I left them all out on the observation deck.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we found them while you were resting. We put them in your room for you,’ Alice said, the smile again. ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes,’ feeling the bite of pain again.

  ‘Tell us how you came to be here, friend,’ Trent said. ‘We’re all ears.’

  ‘Name’s Johnny, a policeman from the mainland,’ I said. I then proceeded to give them a potted history of what had happened, skipping Jefferson and one or two of the finer points. First impressions are everything, so they say.

  ‘You and Summer were married?’ Alice asked.

  I looked down at the white patch of skin on my ring finger, the tell-tale sign of my past life and sins.

  ‘Not to Summer. My wife was Kateyana; she left me before the outbreak.’

  ‘Shit happens, man,’ Trent said, squinting at me, studying.

  ‘Sorry to come here uninvited. We never imagined there’d be other survivors. Not in a million years,’ I said.

  ‘Well, it’s no problem; there are plenty of provisions. This place catered for a crew of a hundred when it was a fully operational rig. The best we have worked out is that most abandoned when the infection came, airlifted away back to the mainland. We fell lucky because the timing must have been at the start of one of their tours here. The larders are stocked full of food, enough for the three of us for a very long time. The downside you experienced yourself. Below decks, in the engineering levels and venting shafts, there’s still plenty of those monsters left,’ Alice explained.

  ‘Cunning fucks too. Awkward to flush out in all those levels down there. We do our best. Lucky for you we followed you, or that fat fuck would have dined out on you all day.’

  ‘So how did you two end up here yourselves?’ I asked. There was something in Alice’s eyes, uncertainty I thought. It itched at me.

  ‘We were just tourists on our holidays, caught a boat at just the right time. It must be crazy on the mainland right now,’ Trent said, quick to butt in.

  I held his stare. ‘It has its moments.’

  ‘You should rest,’ Alice said. ‘I’ll bring you some food later.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They seemed glad to leave the room.

  CHAPTER 35

  There was a sound, a low hiss of water jetting out of a tap, then a splash of something in water. Steam flowed out beneath my bathroom door, not a little but a whole sauna room full. I tried to swipe the white smoke away from my face, feeling the sweat prickle beneath my clothing as I walked inside. My fingers touched the cold porcelain of a white sink, and drew a mark across the steamed up mirror above.

  Another splash. Turning, the steam billowed up around me and I opened my eyes wide to see. There was a bath in the centre of the room, four feet in the shape of lion’s paws. It looked like a museum relic, huge and smooth around the rims. My wife Kateyana was in the bath, and she was smiling at me.

  ‘It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other,’ the English rough around her musky Scandinavian accent. The long black hair looked heavy and soaked. She was close enough for me to see the three grouped moles on her shoulder. The mole field I had once said. Her ribs looked too prominent, and her bust barely more than a young boy’s. How she had loved to starve herself. But there was beauty too. I had forgotten that, and the reminder stung.

  ‘It been a long time, John,’ Kateyana said. ‘Too many adventures, too many distractions. I’m back now.’

  ‘But you left.’

  ‘Is that what you like to tell yourself, John?’ And she sank down below the rich foam bubbles in the water. She disappeared.

  I plunged my hands down into the depths. The bath was bigger than before, a vast pool, spreading around me. I found her, pulled her to the surface, blinded by the soap and the bubbles.

  She made me scream.

  ‘Do you not love me anymore?’ Kateyana said, her skin the colour of rancid meat, maggots living in her skin. A smile split her cheeks, jawbone and gristle.

  I woke in the dark. My body hot, headache in my temples.

  ‘I would have woken you up earlier, but you looked so peaceful. We all get nightmares sometimes here. All perfectly natural. Now come, you must be starving,’ Alice said, looking down on me.

  My arm throbbed when she removed the cannula and drip. She led me by the hand to the canteen. I felt in a daze.

  What did you dream about?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ I lied.

  ‘This is our little store cupboard,’ Alice said.

  She was joking. The food storage area stretched thirty feet at least. Metal framed shelves lined the centre and both walls, and they were stacked high with all manner of tins, packets and boxes, every one of them non-perishable items. We had an Aladdin’s cave and I wished Summer could have seen it. I picked up one tub that read POWDERED EGGS. ‘Any good?’

  ‘Better than you’d think. Do you want a fry up? There’s some irradiated sausages around here somewhere I think,’ she laughed.

  ‘I’ll settle for a little cereal, thanks.’

  Trent joined us in the canteen area. There must have been enough seating for a hundred people. The three of us sat on one table, just a couple of strip lights lit, the rest of the tables in shadow. It was quiet, with nothing but the dull clank of cutlery on our plate, and our intermittent, clipped conversation.

  ‘So you’re real police are you Johnny?’ Trent said. He’d changed into combat pants, boots and was wearing a light-weight black stab vest. ‘Hope you can handle a firearm. I know you guys like to wing and a prayer it when it comes to bad guys. In the NYPD, they shoot you for jay walking.’

  ‘Not an offence around here, Trent,’ I said.

  ‘No offences a man can’t get away with these days. Isn’t that right, Alice?’ he nudged. ‘Anyway, I’ve got a present for you. I think you’ll like.’

  Trent pushed a new looking Glock across the table towards me. Picking it up it felt very light and plastic. I dropped the magazine and saw it was fully loaded.

  ‘Nice weapon; where did you find it?’

  ‘So many questions, Johnny. You know there’s no police anymore, don’t you? I took it off a dead guy on the mainland,’ Trent said.

  ‘You seem awfully well equipped, Trent, for a tourist,’ I said. Alice looked sheepish again; a poor poker player.

  ‘What can I say, Johnny, I was an eagle scout when I was a kid,’ Trent said, and changed the subject. ‘Anyway, business of the morning. Now you are rested you should know that everything that glitters isn’t necessarily gold. We got
us a few issues here on the rig, well one main issue actually. Dead people keep turning up like bad pennies from down below. It seems we aren’t half as unpopulated as first we thought. Fucking sucks, but the order of the day is to get those bodies before they come up here spoiling our little party. I for one am sick of sleeping with one eye open, if you know what I mean. And now we got ourselves some real, honest-to-goodness law enforcement, I want us all to sort this problem once and for all.’

  ‘What Trent means in his longwinded, charmless way is we’d be really grateful if you could help us kill a few more of those dead things,’ Alice said.

  ‘Fine by me,’ I said.

  Later, I found myself on the metal stairs in Engineering, the Glock in my hand. Trent was on point with a pump action shotgun, vague again when talking about its source. Alice followed behind with a steel pipe, eyes hard. We walked down a level, unable to hear each other from the noise of machinery. I spotted the area where I had been attacked. There was nothing there now other than a black smear of blood on the laminate. Alice mimed throwing something overboard, and I figured they must have disposed of the body whilst I was asleep.

  We went past the stain and found another set of metal stairs. Looking down, all I could see was level upon level of machinery. The heat coming up was oppressive. I remembered my old sergeant, Dolan, talking about this place. He had called it a super-rig, a new design. At first hand, the scale was terrifyingly immense.

  Trent indicated to me to keep my eyes open and we went down. Sweat ran into my eyes, and I wiped it away on my sleeve. There seemed more pipes than machines, the further we went. Five levels down Trent spread his arms. I took it to mean they hadn’t checked this far before. Steam hissed and half the lights seemed to have a flicker about them, as if they were going to die any second. Looking around, I didn’t see any movement.

  Following Trent onto the walkway, I saw the first body. It was crawling out from a data bank machine, a thin man with thinning hair in another grey overall. Must have been Maintenance or Engineering in life I guessed. One side of his face had the constitution of burnt hamburger, as if he’d pressed it against one of the scalding pipes and not even noticed his face frying off. The man crawled because one leg was missing from below the left knee, chewed or torn away.

  The body started grasping its way towards us. Trent had some sort of combat knife in his hand. He neatly stepped over the man’s hands and thrust it down through the back of his head. The grunching sound was just audible over the din in the pipes, and then Trent was away. Part of me wondered just who I was dealing with here, either a martial arts nut or some kind of ex-military. Stepping over the corpse, I saw the semi-severed head’s eyes still following me. God, I hated it when that happened!

  The walkway led us around the corner. Over the side of the railing, I could see the twelve levels below. Flashes of movement in the shadows, more dead personnel than I could count.

  We dropped another level, and my spine tingled. Trent seemed to be rushing, and I wondered what we had left above us. The thought crossed my mind that we could be surrounded, that we could easily all die in the bowels of this oilrig. Looking back at Alice I caught the look of anxiety on her face, before her face creased back into a broad smile. She could fake those smiles well, I thought, even the lines around her eyes appeared genuine. Trent made a pushing sound with his hands and we were ducking into a low ceiling tunnel lined with thin pipes. The back of my hand accidently brushed over one. I jerked it away expecting it to be burnt, instead the pipe was stone cold.

  Trent was far ahead and, distracted, I didn’t see the hand until it was too late. Dirty fingers grabbed me by the hair. Small boned hands. The child was lying on the pipes above me, then rolled off and knocked me off my feet. Trying to push her off, I was trapped by the confined space of the walkway tunnel. The girl was maybe ten years old, her face bloated and puffed with decay. I saw her needle teeth darting at my face. I shoved at her, the Glock lost. The demon had my hair. Lunging, I saw Alice strike her once in the back of the head with the pipe. I slid free, the girl limp and still.

  Stumbling back I found myself standing back on the walkway, the noise of machinery drowning my senses. Alice and Trent came out of the darkness of the tunnel together. I spread my hands at Trent, a violent gesture. He shrugged his shoulders, bemusement on his face. His time would come, I thought, and walked away. My breaths were tight gulps as I made my way back up the metal staircase.

  CHAPTER 36

  ‘And that’s Rummy,’ Alice said.

  Taking another slug of the dirty rum, I stared at my cards. A jumble of suits, well beaten. ‘Another one?’

  ‘Okay, but we can change games if you’ve had enough. I play a mean Texas Hold ’em as well,’ she said.

  ‘Poker better with more people, isn’t it? Where has Trent disappeared to now?’ I said, looking around the lounge room we’d settled into.

  ‘Trent’s a bit like a ghost. Always heading off to haunt someplace or other, jangling his chains.’

  ‘So what is the connection with you two? How did you end up with that guy?’

  ‘Long story,’ she said looking away.

  ‘I thought he said you were tourists, on your holidays when the outbreak came? Trent did well to find himself so much hardware, and then get you both all the way over to this rig. Impressive!’

  ‘You can tell you were a cop in a past life. You want to know my life story and we only just met. What if we were to turn the tables? I heard you calling out a name last night. Kateyana? Who was this person? It was Summer on the boat, no?’ The smile again.

  It was my turn to shift awkwardly in my seat. She was right, I didn’t like it one bit. ‘Kateyana was my wife.’

  ‘Ah, you said you didn’t remember what you dreamed about. I guess we all like little secrets, Johnny,’ Alice said, dealing out the cards onto the table.

  ‘My wife left me. She moved away to London with a younger man. She hated the country, she hated me too.’

  ‘Don’t look so serious, I was only teasing. Nobody is free of these dreams I think,’ her eyes sparkling beneath the lenses of her glasses.

  I raked more pound coins towards my pile. Money, good for nothing but counters. ‘Better at poker,’ I said, as I hit my second flush. ‘So have you only been with Trent since the outbreak? Knight in shining armour and all that.’

  ‘Longer,’ she said. ‘We met at a demonstration years ago. G8 Summit in Glasgow 2005. Riot cop had barged me into a lamppost with his shield. Blood all down my face, I didn’t know what the hell was going on. And there he was to save me.’

  ‘G8 was all about climate change, wasn’t it?’ I said, but Trent entered the room and distracted us.

  ‘Zombie nearly got up to our level. Got to watch those fucks all the time,’ he said, making a big show of cleaning off his big knife. ‘Beginning to think your idea is better. Build ourselves a fence or a barrier to stop them getting up the walkways. Rot the fuckers out.’

  So that’s what we did. Not a tidy, high tensile fence like Jack’s, but an untidy heap of filing cabinets and other assorted office furniture launched to the bottom of the tunnel level. It was hard work, but by the end of the day, we had all four main staircases blocked. If any bodies still lurked higher up, at least they would be slim in number and more easily dealt with.

  ‘How is this place still running?’ I asked Trent, as we left Engineering.

  ‘Beats me,’ he said. ‘Runs on automatic, who are we too argue with that. My dear old Ma once said, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The rule is, don’t go pressing buttons.’

  ‘So are you army or something, back in the States?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘The guns, the knives. A guy’s got to wonder how a tourist got so well armed.’

  ‘I was never in the army, Johnny. Don’t believe in those big institutions. When I was young, I just watched a lot of Arnie and Sly doing their thing, know what I mean?’

  ‘If you say
so, Trent.’

  Looking at his bulk walk away, I didn’t know what to think. He was hard to know, harder to trust. And what of Alice, and her fake smiles?

  Time went on, days blended into weeks. Alice and I worked our way through every board game we could lay our hands on, marking time. Trent continued to drift in and out, spending time alone beyond the barriers we made. Sometimes we’d hear a gun shot echo up through the superstructure, another body at the end of a bullet. At night the dreams came on fast, turning my single bed into a pool of sweat. Often I’d wake and see Alice standing in the doorway, watching. Other nights my mind would play cruel tricks. It would be Kateyana in the doorway, edging closer, her arms outstretched and reaching for me.

  Stepping up to the mirror, I used the electric shaver recklessly, leaving tufts of bristle behind. My bloodshot eyes told a story of sleepless nights. Guilt leaving lines in my skin, making me appear older. No youth left to savour.

  Leaving my shoes off, I walked towards the canteen until I heard their voices. Back the way I had come, Trent and Alice’s room was a level above. The door was closed and I tried the handle. Looking back along the long corridor, I felt I was being watched, that at any second they were going to be running for me, shouting my name. The handle gave and I went inside. The bedroom was bright with sunlight, air fresh from the open window. Outside the waves whipped up white tips.

  I started to open drawers. Socks, lots of socks! Three drawers, and nothing to show. I went elsewhere. In the corner of the room was a metal locker. The padlock was a problem. I went to the bedside cabinet. Condoms, pens and chewing gum, I felt like some kind of pervert for even looking. I paused a moment, worried I might be hearing footsteps. In the old days I’d need a warrant to even thinking of doing a search like this. And what was I looking for? I didn’t even know. No magistrate would have given me the time of day.

  I pulled out assorted magazines and books, a thin film of dust on top of them. Sifting through the pile, long dead celebrity faces stared up at me. I wondered if out on the streets of London was a zombie version of Jordan, flaunting her giant, rotten chest and devouring any man she came across. Could you even tell the difference?