by Perrin Briar
“What was that? Stan?” Joel shook the walkie talkie, smacked it against his palm. “The signal was bad. Hello?”
“Everything’s fine,” the reply came.
“All right. Keep us informed.”
“Will do.”
Cars, coaches and an articulated lorry sat parked bumper to bumper on the platform forming long gnarled narrow corridors and a thousand cloaked recesses. Joel turned to Anne and Jordan with an annoyed expression.
“We know, we know,” Anne said. “You hate ferries.”
Joel and Anne moved to the end of the room and began their sweep. Jordan noticed their movements were more crisp and precise than on the previous floor. They peered around at head height, then crouched down, sweeping their flashlights beneath the vehicles. They returned to a standing pose, pausing to listen, then moved to the end of the vehicle and repeated the maneuver. Jordan followed their lead. He picked it up easily and was soon checking the area with the same deft movements. They moved one vehicle length at a time, taking special care to peer behind each. Soon, Jordan was rolling through the motions. He got to the other end of the room before he realized.
“Clear,” Joel said. Anne and Jordan reciprocated. Jordan received a nod of respect from Joel.
“I’ll take first watch,” Joel said, taking up position at the stairwell that led down to the next level.
“What does he mean, ‘first watch’?” Jordan asked Anne as they moved to a Ford Galaxy people carrier.
“He’s making sure nothing comes up the stairs from the levels we haven’t checked yet.”
Anne tried the car’s doors, but they were locked. She reached into her backpack and came out with a long flat length of metal, similar in shape to a ruler, and a length of wire with a hook on the end. She slid them into the gap between the window and doorframe and pulled. There was a solid clunk as the doors unlocked. Anne nodded to Jordan, who raised the chair leg above his head. Anne opened a door. The car was empty.
“Remember,” Anne went on, “we’re looking for food, water, and games for the girls.”
There was nothing of value on the front passenger seat, save a collection of RnB CDs. In the boot were three suitcases. Anne pulled them out, a soft boom echoed as they hit the floor. She opened them and sorted through the materials with quick, deft movements. She stopped, looked up at Jordan, smiled and said, “Jackpot.”
Nestled amongst the clothes were jars of French sauces, packets of instant coffee, noodles, and bags of sweets. Anne upended one of the suitcases and stuffed it full with the food items. They searched four more cars before they found more food.
Jordan pulled the suitcase after them. He stopped and wiped the sweat off his forehead. “You know, I think this bag is getting heavier the longer I drag it around.”
“It’s not you,” Anne said. “It’s the floor. It’s sloped.”
Jordan looked at it, but saw no evidence of any slope. “You reckon?”
Anne picked up a football from the back of one of the cars and set it on the floor. It immediately began rolling toward the far right-hand corner. It picked up speed and hit the wall with force. “Yeah, I think it’s safe to say we’re listing.”
“Let’s change around,” Joel said. “Anne, you take point.”
Joel proved just as adept at breaking into cars as Anne. They had ways of opening all kinds of locks – old ones, new ones, even electronic ones which they used some kind of device for.
“Can you show me how you do that?” Jordan asked.
Joel smiled. “Sure.”
As they moved from vehicle to vehicle, Joel pointed out the various lock types and methods of opening them. Jordan would never have suspected there was such variety.
“These things are always goldmines,” Joel said, rapping the side of a coach. He forced open the luggage door using the ruler and hook. Dozens of stuffed suitcases of various shapes and sizes were lined up like a plus size fashion show. Joel grabbed a garish tiger-skin designed case and dragged it out. “Sometimes I swear the passengers on these tours compete with one another on who can stuff the most crap in their suitcase.” Joel forced open the lock with a screwdriver. Staring back at him were a dozen cartons of Benson and Hedges. Joel grinned. “Oh, baby.” He tucked the cigarette cartons into the space behind his forearm covers. He noticed Jordan watching. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“It’s the end of the world,” Jordan said. “I’d have thought it was the perfect time to quit.”
“No, it’s the perfect time to start! Besides, living on a dinghy with me is hard enough without nicotine. Here.” He offered a few packs to Jordan.
Jordan shook his head. “I don’t smoke.” He frowned. “I think.”
Joel smiled. “Not sure? I suppose having amnesia can do that. You don’t have to smoke them, just carry them for me.”
Jordan looked over in Anne’s direction, but she was blocked from view by the side of a delivery van caked in mud. Jordan pulled back his forearm covers and slid the cartons inside. “Do the others know you smoke?”
“Of course not. They wouldn’t quit moaning at me if they did.”
After a brief pause, Jordan asked, “Joel, can I ask you something?”
“You just did.”
“Are you and Anne…”
“Together? No.”
“Sorry, I thought…”
“Last man and woman of procreation age left alive, here to repopulate the earth?” Joel chuckled. “Afraid not. More’s the pity. I made the same argument to her, but apparently I’m not her type.”
By the time they were done searching, they had three large suitcases full of food and games. Jordan and Joel also carried ten kilos of hidden weight about their person. They pulled the cases over to the door leading to the stairs to the next level down.
“I think we deserve a little break, don’t you?” Joel said as he flipped open a suitcase. “One item each.” Joel chose a packet of Revels. “I, uh, need to get some fresh air. Be back in a sec.” He left.
Anne opened her pickled onion flavor Monster Munch. She bit off the toes and then sucked on the circular foot pad. Jordan opened a small bottle of fruit juice. He offered it to Anne, who waved him away. They sat on the bulging suitcases and ate in silence.
“How many of these scavenges have you done?” Jordan asked.
“Too many.”
“Do you often come across Lurchers?”
“Usually.”
“Why haven’t we yet, do you think?”
Anne shrugged. “Might be we haven’t come across them yet.” She didn’t sound confident of that theory. “It might be that they were all on deck when a storm hit, knocking them into the sea, or this ferry came in contact with another boat, which they boarded. Maybe there just weren’t any here in the first place.”
There was a creak of crying metal that peeped out from the walls somewhere in the darkness. After a moment of listening they went back to eating.
“Did Joel ask you to carry something for him?” Anne asked. The sentence barely registered as a question.
Jordan tried to hide his surprise. “Uh…”
“It’s okay. We all know he smokes. Imagine trying to hide something like that in a room that floats on the sea.” She shook her head.
“You don’t care?”
“So long as he keeps the smoke away from us, what’s the harm? Plus, it keeps him happy.”
“Why don’t you tell him you know?”
“I don’t think he’d enjoy it as much if he knew we know.”
Jordan smiled. “I think you might be right.”
Heavy jaunty footsteps came down the stairwell at the end of the room. Joel had a big smile on his face.
“How were the Revels?” Anne asked.
“Delicious. Shall we press on?”
They left the suitcases, picked up their weapons and headed down the stairs.
13.
They heard the water before they saw it. Half a dozen faint drips splashed in unseen
puddles, invisible through the pitch darkness that begrudgingly gave way to their flashlights. The engine bay’s air tasted damp, salty and metallic. It reminded Jordan of a subterranean cave more than the interior of a ferry. Their flashlights reflected back at them from a dozen puddles, a thin layer of oil on their surfaces giving birth to a spray of rainbows.
Distant footsteps answered their own from the depths of the darkness like African drummers transmitting messages, until it became clear it was their own footsteps echoing back to them, bouncing off the wall at the end of the long corridor. Dented metal plate doors sprouted off on either side like portals to other kingdoms.
“Looks like we found where the water’s coming in.” Anne flashed her light up at the water running freely down the walls, their source a series of missing rivets. “These steel sheets look like they could give way at any moment.”
“Sh-sh,” Joel said, his eyes fixed upon an indeterminate point in the darkness. “Do you hear that?”
They listened. To Jordan’s ears there was only silence. He shook his head. “I don’t hear anything.”
“There.”
Then Jordan heard it.
It was the final sound someone made on their deathbed, the gasp of relief, pain, anger, and acceptance, all rolled into one wheeze, as if the pain they were in was manifesting itself. Joel and Anne became hyper-alert, the hair standing up on the back of their necks, weapons raised on rock solid arms that did not shake.
“Sounds like it’s coming from down the corridor,” Anne said, voice low.
“Let’s check these rooms first,” Joel said, not removing his eyes from the origin of the sound. “We don’t want a stray Lurcher coming up behind us.”
Joel pushed the first door open on squeaky hinges. Their flashlights revealed a small room crammed full of cleaning utensils. Dirty discarded mop heads lay strewn like wild mushrooms. An industrial vacuum cleaner lounged in the corner. Shelves of disinfectant and polish made for a potent mix. The next room contained large toolboxes. Unlike the cleaning room, it was well organized. A battered welding kit with stickers such as ‘Hot Stuff’ and a pair of stick figures in a compromising position with ‘Merge’ written across the top, sat on the table with a pair of matching visors. They made their way from room to room, the gasping groan of the damned getting louder.
Anne froze, her flashlight fixed on something ahead. “Joel,” she said, her voice hollow.
The corridor widened at the end to reveal a large wall covered by a series of interwoven pipes that ran throughout the ferry like a series of arteries and veins. In the center of the wall was an eight feet tall, five feet wide monstrosity of a door. It had iron straps that wrapped around it like a straightjacket, thick dead bolts holding them in place. It had a large red metal wheel lock on its front, about the size of a sixteen ton lorry’s steering wheel.
But what had so grabbed Anne’s attention wasn’t the door, but what sat before it.
The man had pale skin and was covered in red sores that had got infected and oozed yellow pus. His brow jutted forward, dark shadows veiling his eyes. He didn’t flinch under the torch’s intense beam, his watery blue irises unreactive. His right leg was crushed beneath a large fuel drum, withered and small, black from lack of blood circulation. He opened his mouth, a death rattle creaked from his throat. His jaw flapped open and closed, his teeth chatting together in a series of clicks. He reached up with his free arm for them, not for help, but in a vulture-like claw, grasping for a morsel of living flesh.
“Oh my God,” Jordan said. “That’s one of them, isn’t it?”
“Well, it certainly ain’t Santa Claus,” Joel said.
Looking into those dead eyes, Jordan was surprised to find the trickle of fear he felt dry up, and was instead replaced by a stronger feeling of derision. The creature before him was not human, but a shell, a poor grotesque impersonation.
Joel knelt down beside the creature, who sensed a meal and stretched for him. Joel seized the Lurcher’s hand and pulled his arm out straight. The fingertips were ragged, the flesh missing, the bone shining through. “Looks like we found our author. He wrote the warning, I reckon.”
Something caught Joel’s eye. He aimed the torch up at the giant door. Written across it was ‘Lurchers inside. Do NOT open’.
“If he doesn’t feel pain, and he won’t die from losing limbs… why doesn’t he just chew his own leg off?” Jordan said.
“That relies on a certain reserve of intelligence. Fortunately for us, they don’t even have that much.”
The groan they’d heard had not come from this creature, but from behind the giant metal door. It was low and unbroken, one continuous note that did not change in cadence or pitch.
“He trapped whatever Lurchers were on board this ferry in this room,” Joel said. “But at some point he must have got scratched or bitten, and became one of them.”
“Lucky for us, right?” Jordan said.
Joel nodded. “It would be if the engine bay wasn’t exactly the place we needed to go.”
14.
“How many do you suppose are in there?” Anne said, pressing her hand against the door.
“Sounds like a lot,” Joel said. “On a boat this big there could have been any number of people becoming Lurchers. You saw how many cars and coaches there were upstairs.”
“We need to get inside.”
“The moment we open this door they will rush us. We won’t stand a chance.”
“But there might just be a few of them,” Anne said. “We can’t know without looking.”
“Judging by the state of this boat I’m not even sure if the part we need will be in good working order anyway.”
“So that’s it? We leave without even trying?”
Joel rounded on Anne in undisguised anger. “Do you really want to open this door and say hello? I know I don’t.”
“There must be a way of getting inside without having them rush us.”
“I’m all ears.” Joel shook his head. “Of all the rooms on this ship, why did he have to trap them in the one we needed?”
“It was probably the only one that could hold them,” Anne said.
“So what shall we do?” Jordan said.
“We need that alternator,” Anne said. “We can’t leave without it.”
Joel shook his head. “No. We need to stay alive. We’ll find another boat with another alternator.”
“You were the one who said we wouldn’t find another boat,” Anne said. “Now we’ve got one and you don’t want to go fight a few Lurchers?”
The death groan behind the door grew louder as Joel and Anne’s voices raised. There was a shuffling sound, and scratching on the door. Their groans kicked up a notch, becoming louder and frantic in nature, as if savoring the meal to come.
“There goes the element of surprise,” Joel said, the muscles around his nose contorting into a sneer. “Wonderful.”
The heavy groans washed over them like the waves on a ship’s hull.
“What if there was a way to kill the Lurchers before we entered the room?”
“Do you have some psychokinetic ability you’re not telling us about?” Joel asked. “Because if you do, that would really come in handy about now.”
Jordan ignored him. “What if we flood the engine room?”
Joel and Anne turned to look at him.
“What?” Joel said.
“What if we flood the engine room?” he repeated. “We drown the Lurchers, then open the door.”
Joel looked to the side, his eyes distant with deep contemplation.
“This boat has already taken on a lot of water,” Anne said. “I’m not sure if it can take much more.”
“Then it will sink and we haven’t lost anything.”
“It’ll be risky to whoever has to stay on board to open the door and go inside,” Joel said, his eyes never leaving Jordan’s.
“Riskier than opening the door and finding an army of Lurchers?”
Anne could s
ee Joel was giving the idea serious consideration. “Joel,” she said, “we can’t just sink a whole ferry.”
“Why not? There’s nothing else of use to us on here.”
“Joel-”
“If you have a better idea, Anne, I’d love to hear it.”
Anne sighed, and then shook her head with the look of someone wishing there were some other way.
“We need that engine part,” Joel said. “So far as I can tell there’s no other way for us to get into the engine bay without having to fight God knows how many Lurchers.”
“We might still be better off fighting them.”
“But we might not. We have no idea how many there might be in there. If we open that door there’s no closing it.” Joel pointed to the headless Lurcher outside the door. “This guy believed they were a threat, and he sacrificed his life to protect whoever came on board. I don’t know about you, but that seems pretty conclusive to me.”
15.
The light caught Joel’s eye, giving him a sinister appearance. “We’ve told you what we’re facing, but it’s important to see it and experience it for yourself.” Joel put his hand on the Lurcher’s head and pointed its snapping jaws away.
“Joel, don’t,” Anne said.
“He has to learn some time. Might as well be while under our protection.” Joel snapped the brittle femur bone, tore his pants and helped him up onto his remaining foot. “There we are. Your first marauding Lurcher. Or most of him, anyway. They often have missing limbs or body parts, so he’s pretty indicative of what you’ll be facing out there. They’re clumsy fellows.”
“It’s still dangerous,” Anne said.
“I’ll pacify it.”
Joel put his hand into the Lurcher’s mouth. It gnawed on the gloves’ thick plastic casing. Joel flexed his arm and tore the bottom jaw off. A thick red liquid splattered on the floor. The Lurcher’s tongue flapped like a snake without its head. Joel tossed his knives up into the air and caught them by the blade. He beat the Lurcher in the mouth. There was a sickening crunch sound like a bag of marbles thrown against a wall. White lumps flew from the Lurcher’s top jaw. Joel smashed the Lurcher again and again. It fell against the wall but did not fall over. Joel bent down and peered around at its mouth like a dentist giving a check-up. “I think we’re good to go.”