Owen finally looked back at him. “Don’t you think I know that?”
He looked so big there in the darkness of the hold, arms wrapped around Tinker, holding the poor bastard close in an attempt to share whatever body heat he had left. His eyes blinked, lashes and brows crusted with ice and snow, his skin, even partially concealed in several days growth of beard, so pale it looked as if all the blood had long since drained away. His lips had turned an odd shade of purple over the last few hours, and Stringer knew he looked the same. Dying, slowly freezing to death in this frozen hell of ice and snow. “He’s dead,” Stringer said softly. “Tinker’s gone, man.”
Owen held his friend closer, the body limp and the thin plumes of mist once seeping from his nostrils and open mouth no longer visible. “Tink?” He shook the man gently. “Tink, you hear me?”
“He don’t hear nothing no more.”
Owen laid the man back, carefully rested his head into the blanket of snow lining the bottom of the ship’s hold. “Tink?”
Stringer turned away, drew his knees in close to his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs. Hugging himself tight, he battled another round of shivers.
“I’m sorry, Tink,” Owen whispered. “We should’ve gone south, I know that now, I—I should’ve listened to you, man. I thought we’d be all right, you understand? I didn’t think it could be this bad. We should’ve gone south like we did last time, but I—I thought by morning we’d be all right. I had no way of knowing it would be so bad, you understand? Tink, you understand? Tink?”
Stringer wiggled his toes inside what was left of his shoes. He could just barely feel them. “Take it easy, Owen.”
The big man reached down and shut Tinker’s eyes. He’d been smaller, thinner, weaker than the other two, and the elements had taken him apart faster. Out here, a person had to be strong, and Tinker, while a valued friend and good man, had never been physically fit. He’d been out too long, suffered too much, run into too many illnesses and problems men like him dealt with day in and day out. But this—this goddamn arctic winter—was too much. The best of the best would have trouble surviving it.
Tinker had never stood a chance.
“We can’t stay in the ship,” Stringer said, interrupting the cries of the wind.
“Ain’t nothing but ice and snow out there.” Owen fell back and settled against the side of the hold. “Where the hell we gonna go?”
“We stay here, we won’t live the night.”
Owen’s dying eyes stared at him through the darkness and mist. “What makes you think we’re gonna live the night anyway?”
“If we stay here we got no chance, Owen. None.”
“Got none out there either.”
“No. Out there, if we can make it far enough, there’s a chance.”
“There ain’t—”
“A chance, goddamn it, that’s all I’m saying. We’ll have a chance.” Stringer struggled back to his feet, his legs shaking so violently he wasn’t sure they’d hold him. He reached out and steadied himself against the side of the hold but his tattered gloves slid against the icy interior of the ship and he nearly fell. “In this temperature, with no food and no way to stay warm but for huddling together under these cheap-ass motherfuckin’ blankets, we’re done. We stay here another night, we die for sure.”
Owen’s stomach grumbled beneath the worn coat he’d wrapped himself in. “Whatever we do, we do together.”
Stringer nodded. “We can make it, man. We been through this kind of shit before.”
“God almighty, not nothing this bad.”
“I know one thing for sure, this ship ain’t going nowhere.”
Both men chuckled.
“Been sitting too long,” Stringer sighed. “I can’t feel my legs and arms that good anymore. We’ve got to find some food, better shelter, fucking heat. We’ve got to try.”
“You forget where you are? Where the hell we supposed to find all that, you crazy bastard? You think I would’ve let us sit here in the bottom of this ship, you think I would’ve let Tink die down here if there was any chance out there in that?” A cloud passed over the moon, and the cramped space of the ship’s hold grew a bit darker, washing Owen’s face in shadow. “We should’ve gone south, man. Why the hell didn’t we just go south when we had the chance?”
“Too late for all that now.”
He glanced at their dead friend. “I coulda just killed him with my bare hands. Woulda been faster, more merciful.”
“It ain’t your fault.”
“Yeah,” Owen said, as if remembering better days. “It is.”
“Tink wasn’t never cut out for this shit.”
“Ain’t no human being cut out for this shit.” Owen extended a hand. “No man should die like this. Not a goddamn bit of dignity in it.”
Stringer took Owen’s hand, felt still powerful fingers curl around his own as he helped him to his feet. “You go on up and take a look around. I’m gonna…you know.”
“Fuck, man, just leave him alone.”
“He don’t need that coat or vest no more, Owen. We do.”
Owen nodded sullenly. “Hurry up.”
Stringer watched him climb up the ladder and out onto the deck above. Icy flakes of snow pricked his eyes. He blinked them away and turned his attention to Tinker’s body. As he crouched down, his knees ached and the same shooting pains he’d endured for hours fired up his spine and into his pelvis.
“Nothing personal, bud. If it was me lying there I’d expect you to do the same.” Once he’d removed the old coat and torn vest from Tinker’s body, he gave another quick look up, saw that Owen had wandered further along the deck and out of sight. From the pocket of his jacket he removed a knife. After cutting free a piece of Tinker’s trousers he poked at his thigh with the tip of the knife. It jiggled but remained intact. Human casing was stronger than it appeared. This time, using more force and leaning his weight into it, Stringer thrust the blade forward until it punctured the skin with a muffled snapping sound. He pulled the blade free then dipped it deeply into the soft flesh of Tinker’s inner thigh. He was starving—how bad could it be?The blood, he wondered, would it still be warm? “Yes,” he whispered.
He lapped at the steel until he’d licked it clean, and then, with famished abandon, returned the blade to the leaking wound, drew it across then down in a single savage slash and lopped off a small chunk of meat from Tinker’s thigh. It fell into the palm of his free hand, and without looking at it he pushed it between his lips, suckling the juices before taking it completely into his mouth. Something tingled behind his eyes like the beginnings of a yawn, but he ignored it, bit down, chewed…and swallowed.
“It ain’t no better than before,” Owen called from above. “Can’t see shit.”
Stringer quickly returned the knife to his pocket, wiped his mouth then slipped the vest on over his jacket. With the salty flavor of Tinker’s blood still clinging to the roof of his mouth, still soaked into his tongue, still burning the base of his throat, he flung the coat over his shoulder and forced himself up the ladder.
* * *
Owen was right. If anything the snowfall had increased since they’d gone into the hold, and though the moon was high and bright visibility was virtually nonexistent. Stringer held out Tinker’s coat. “Take it.”
As Owen pulled the coat on, he and Stringer looked out across the flat expanse of ice and snow just beneath the squalls. The wind gusted as if it were born from the darkness itself, cutting through them like freshly sharpened razors.
“Worse ways to die, I guess.”
“Always thought fire was the one. Never wanted to die by fire, you know? Figured there couldn’t be nothing worse than burning alive.”
“There’s always worse ways.”
“At least in this you just go to sleep like Tink did,” Owen reminded him. “Drift off and wake up in Heaven.”
Stringer shrugged. He’d never had much use for religion. “You think?”
“Can’t be Hell,” Owen said. “We’re already there.”
“Motherfucker finally froze over, huh? Figures, we’re dying of frostbite and the night we land in Hell the goddamn heat’s off. Can’t catch a break.”
Owen managed a smile, or perhaps only a grimace. Stringer couldn’t be sure which. He flipped up the collar on his coat just as another series of violent shivers throttled him. Once they had passed he motioned to the edge of the ship with a frost-covered chin. “Let’s go.”
They crawled over the side and dropped to the snow several feet below. The thin top layer of ice surrounding the hull of the frozen ship cracked and shifted beneath them in places, and the men lay motionless for a moment, weak and in pain.
Stringer watched the night sky, barely visible through the thrashing snow descending upon him like an endless swarm of winged predators, and heard himself ask, “You all right?”
“Christ, man, I’m so tired.”
Stringer forced himself to his hands and feet, ignoring the pain. “Get up. You lay there you’ll fall asleep.” He grabbed the front of Owen’s coat and yanked the big man into a sitting position. A backhand brought him around. “We got to move.Now.”
He blinked and offered a somewhat distracted nod, but slowly got to his feet and looked around, trying to find his bearings in the curtains of snow. “Which way, man? Which way?”
Stringer swayed with the wind, nearly collapsed, but caught himself. He looked up at the ship, the mast stood tall, poking through the storm like a beacon. The direction the ship was faced in would determine the direction they would now head on foot. “This way.” He trudged forward, his feet sinking deep into the snow before making contact with the thick bottom layer of ice covering the water. “This way,” he said again, yelling back now so Owen would be sure to hear him above the wind. “We make one straight rush for it across the ice, you hear me? We don’t stop. We stop, we die.”
Owen reached over, his hand partially concealed in a ragged glove. “Together.”
Stringer took his hand and moved into the tempest, screaming in defiance like an animal charging an enemy, or just a man calling out Death, challenging the cold, the snow, the dark—all the brutality and evil of this malevolent night.
* * *
Trapped in the heart of the storm, time lost all meaning. They could have been lumbering along the ice for hours or only a few seconds, Stringer could no longer be sure. What he did know was that the physical exertion had made things worse. His lungs ached and throbbed with each breath, his heart hammered the walls of his chest with such ferocity it frightened him, and his eyes burned to the point that he could only open them for a brief glimpse before they began to tear and close on their own. The sensation in his limbs was all but gone, and on more than one occasion since they’d started out he’d had to look back to make certain Owen was still with him, their hands clutching each other like lost children. His face was tender and raw, but most of the pain had shifted behind his eyes and beneath his skull. His brain was falling asleep, he knew it, and soon his legs would give out. Fear was all that kept him going, because he knew if he fell it was over. He would never be able to get up, and Owen would more than likely stagger off into the storm without even realizing he’d been lost. The big man hobbled behind him silently, his cracked lips hanging open, his tears frozen to his beard. Maybe—
They ran into something and pitched forward. Stringer managed to catch his balance before he fell but Owen hurtled past and crashed to the ground. Stringer pawed the snow and tears from his eyes, and for a brief instant was able to make out a sharp incline. They’d run right into it. He looked up in an attempt to see what might lie at the summit, but the snow was blowing too thick. “Owen!” His throat was so sore he couldn’t be sure if his voice was still with him. He leaned closer to the ground; saw his friend collapsed facedown against the incline.
Stringer grabbed the back of Owen’s coat, felt the flesh on his knuckles split as he rolled him over onto his back and buckled against him. They lay together in the snow for a moment, neither certain the other was still breathing or even alive. Stringer’s fingers were so stiff and numb he was only able to move a couple of them, but he slapped Owen’s face with what little might he had. “Don’t go to sleep. Stay—stay awake.”
“Help me, man. I can’t—Stringer, I can’t see.”
“Get up, goddamn it!” Stringer felt the rage boiling in him again, and somehow found the strength to force himself to his feet. “Don’t you die on me, you fuck!”
The big man’s eyes fluttered, and he reached a hand out at the snow as if he were trying to catch the flakes in his palm. “Can’t see,” he said again. “Can’t…see.”
Stringer screamed and staggered around in an off-balance pirouette. There seemed no end or beginning to the ice and snow.Think, he told himself.Think. They’d made it as far as the incline. The incline. They couldn’t stop now. If they could make it over the rise they might have a chance. Something was there, beyond the incline, not so far away, but…but Stringer couldn’t remember what. The incline led to…what did it lead to?What the fuck did it lead to? Or was he only hallucinating now, placing trust in a slowly dying mind? All there was beyond that incline was more ice and snow. They were at the mercy of the elements, and at this point the ship was too far behind them to return to, provided they could even find it again in this mess.
No, he thought.Keep moving.Keep moving because…
“We got to get over this rise, you hear me? It’s where the water ends! It’s where the water meets land!”
Owen’s eyes were open again, but whatever they were looking at was reserved for those who had one foot in this world and one in the next. His blistered face was covered in ice crystals, and his arm was still extended, the hand out, palm upturned, reaching for help that would never arrive.
Staying with the ship had been the easier move; Stringer had known that all along. There was nothing out here for them, nothing in all this desolation except each other. But Stringer was a survivor, and it didn’t matter to him what a man had to do to make it—however extreme. Owen wasn’t someone you could reason with when it came to things like that though. He’d been around long enough to know better, long enough to know that in this kind of weather, in this kind of place, friends or not, all bets were off. But Stringer realized early on into the night that despite the massive risk to his own life, he’d eventually have to make a run for it. This was their third night in the hull of that dead ship—they couldn’t endure much more either way—and he was damned if he was just going to lay down and die like Tinker had.If I die, I die running, he thought.
And even now, though the fight within him was dwindling away like the flames from a slowly fading fire, a few sparks still remained.
Stringer dropped to his knees. “It’s all right,” he said, tearing Owen’s coat open and taking him into his arms. “It’s all—it’s all right. It’s all right now.”
Summoning all the strength left in his body, Stringer plunged the knife into Owen’s belly until his thumb struck wet flesh. He’d buried the blade clear up to the handle and Owen hadn’t even budged. Stringer gripped the knife with both hands and slowly stood up, dragging the blade with him and tearing Owen’s abdomen straight up to the sternum. Gutted, the body released its innards along with what little heat remained within it.
Stringer leaned his face close, felt the burst of warmth embrace him like a phantom then vanish all too quickly, swallowed by the cold and snow. The intestines tumbled free from the cavity and quivered about in his lap like a mass of bloody eels. He pulled the knife free, stabbed it down into Owen’s thigh and left it there while he sunk his hands into the warmth, bathed in the tepid blood and ripped free from the bone whatever food he could find.
* * *
The incline was steeper than he’d thought, and gaining a solid foothold on the slick surface was nearly impossible. Twice he had scrambled several feet upward only to lose his grip and slide flat on his belly, limbs flail
ing for purchase, back into the heavier snow below. On both occasions he landed within inches of Owen’s remains. Even the blood had frozen in place, hanging in crimson icicles from the wounds while the rest had congealed into a solid but slowly vanishing puddle surrounding him. With each passing moment more snow covered the evidence, until his friend was little more than a lump along a snow bank.
Stringer lay on his stomach while his body bucked, his bowels seized and he vomited repeatedly. Slowly, he pushed himself forward, determined to scale the incline a third and final time. He crawled forward, digging his hands and feet into the fresh blankets of snow. Slowly, ignoring the wind and the cold and the darkness, he pulled himself up one short lurch at a time. He kept waiting to lose it, to slide back down into Owen’s lap, but this time it worked, and he found himself creeping up and over onto the apex. The ground was again flat, and he could see something in the distance, something through the snow. It was faint, and very far away from the looks but…but there was something there.
Had his mind finally snapped, or was whatever remained of his soul giving way and being shown a glimpse of things to come? Was it lights?Follow the light.Go toward the light—isn’t that what people always said?
Stringer could no longer feel his body, but he had the sensation of rising and knew he had either somehow managed to get to his feet, or was floating off to his death. Either way, he squinted through the snow and tried to focus on the strange lights in the distance. He felt himself stumbling forward, and suddenly the terrain was different.
It wasn’t until he’d fallen that he realized he had, in fact, been walking. The ground here was different than the frozen water below. It was mostly snow here, a bit deeper in places but considerably shallower in most. Here the snow seemed to be blowing about into enormous drifts to his right and left, while the center was…
Wait, he thought.I’m—I’m in the middle of a street.
Could that be possible?
Stringer staggered forward, struggling to see the lights in the high-rise buildings through the darkness and snow flurries, blinking stars in a manmade skyline.
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