by David Moody
“Then find him and kill the fucker,” Matt hears the wounded Hater yell back from outside. He sounds close. From his high vantage point, Matt sees him limp past the open door of the stores and continue around to the area where Matt, Paul, and Natalie dumped the rest of the corpses last night.
The Hater outside is no tracker, and he’s struggling to focus through the pain, but he’s certain another of the Unchanged is near. He sees footprints in the mud and patches of flattened grass. All he wants is to kill. It’s an insatiable bloodlust. Almost vampiric. Right now he can’t think about anything else.
The Hater has seen enough death and decay since the change to treat these unclean, unchanged bodies with dismissive disdain. It’s of no interest to him who or what these people used to be: all that matters is making sure they’re dead. A young lad has holes in his face like his cheeks have been skewered, and several other bodies that are ice white and swollen, still bloated by water even though it’s clearly been several days since they died. He sees a woman—a Hater woman, no less—with an empty skull and busted bones. He grabs her hand and pulls her out of the way and uncovers the face of another man near the bottom of the pile. This corpse looks fresher than the rest. Newly killed? Then why was it buried so deep among the dead?
Wait. Still alive.
When the Hater sees Paul’s terrified eyes flicker, he drags more empty bodies out of the way. His sole focus is getting at the pathetic Unchanged man cowering at the bottom of this gruesome mound, soaked with other people’s gore. Panic is in the Unchanged’s eyes because this time there truly is no way out. A couple of seconds from now he’ll be dead and he knows it. The Hater is completely focused on the kill. It’s the only thing that matters.
He picks up the final body and discards it casually, stripping Paul’s cover away and leaving Paul supine and exposed.
And also revealing the shotgun.
Before the Hater realizes he’s been tricked, Paul pulls the trigger and shoots him in the face from less than a meter away.
The Hater in the stores reacts to the shotgun noise. And so does Matt. He flinches involuntarily, and his sudden movement gives the game away. The fighter looks up and sees him looking down and immediately begins to haul himself up the racking to get at him. The metal shelves are already buckling under the weight of this huge bastard’s boots, and when Matt tries to scramble farther out of the way, the whole unsteady structure starts to sway. The Hater grabs Matt’s ankle and he tries to kick free, but he can feel himself being dragged down and knows he’s about to die.
Only one thing for it.
Matt grips the top of the metal racking tight, then kicks his free foot against the roof of the building. The whole lot comes crashing down on top of the Hater, and Matt comes down hard on top of the racking. He lands with his spine bent back across a supporting strut, the force of impact knocking the wind from his lungs. For a couple of seconds all he can do is lie there staring up at the ceiling, struggling to breathe.
Beneath him, the injured Hater starts to stir. Groggy, he tries to move but is pinned down by the weight of the storage shelving and by Matt on top.
Matt feels a hand grab the scruff of his collar and pick him up. He tries to fight and protest, but he’s being dragged backward through the chaos of the storeroom. Back out in the bright sunlight again, he braces himself for attack.
No attack. It’s Paul.
“Move! Now!”
Together the two men run down to the beach, sprinting as fast as their tired, terrified legs will carry them. Up the rise and down toward the jetty. Matt slows down but Paul keeps running. “Paul, wait,” Matt shouts to him. “Look.”
The boat Rajesh arrived here in is a wreck. The Haters have gone to town on it to stop the Unchanged from using it to get away. The hull has been smashed. The vessel is full of water. Their precious supplies have been washed away.
Paul runs back toward Matt. “Rod’s boat,” he says breathlessly.
“What about the Haters’ boat?”
“No time.”
“But we need the key for Rod’s boat.”
“I’ve got it.”
“What?”
“I took it from his corpse earlier.”
“And were you going to tell me that or…?”
“Didn’t have chance. Things got a bit chaotic.”
Explanations and reasons can wait. Right now getting off this rock is all that matters. Between them, the two men frantically manhandle the dinghy out of the lookout and carry it down to the water. Paul checks the detritus of Rod’s makeshift camp and finds another box of shotgun shells, which he pockets. Matt checks his own jacket and realizes just how underprepared he is. He has the compass Natalie gave him and his useless mobile phone, nothing else. No food, no water. Nothing.
“We need to find Natalie,” he says, scanning the horizon nervously.
“We don’t have time.”
“Bullshit. We’re not leaving without her.”
Then they hear her shouting at them.
She’s running toward them from the far side of the beach, approaching from the headland to the east. But wait. She’s not running now. She’s limping. Hobbling. Struggling to keep moving. Matt races over to help. He puts his arm around her and supports her weight, then dumps her on the shingle near Rod’s boat.
“What happened?”
“Tripped on the rocks. Hurt my ankle. Think it might be broken.”
It looks badly swollen. He wonders how she managed to keep moving on it. Has to be adrenaline, he decides, because that’s the only reason he thinks he’s still functioning.
“Where are they?” he asks, looking around for the remaining Haters.
“Still following me,” she tells him. “One fell. Two of them left.”
“Matt, get a fucking move on,” Paul shouts, sounding desperate. He’s dragged the boat down closer to the edge of the surf. “Get this thing sorted and get us out of here.”
Matt picks up the rope attached to the boat and starts to drag it out to sea, but stops suddenly. It’s ice-cold, and the temperature saps the last dregs of energy he has. He’s numb. Exhausted. He’s staring out across the endless ocean, trying not to be intimidated by its size and ferocity.
Is there any point?
He’s wondering whether they’ll make it back, and what will be waiting for them if they get home.
He’s wondering how three people are going to fit in a boat barely big enough for two.
He’s thinking about Jen, wondering if she’s safe, wondering if she’s given up on him or whether she believes he’s still coming back. Will she be waiting? Will she be one of us or one of them? Will the two of them be on the opposing sides of this improbable, impossible battle?
And he’s thinking about all the people he’ll be leaving behind here. All the people who died and their families and friends and how they’ll never know what happened to their loved ones on Skek, and he’s thinking that whatever happens from here on in, the life he left behind when he boarded the ferry to come here just over a week ago is gone forever now.
This morning he feels infinitesimally small, trapped between the Haters on one side and the vast ocean on the other. Completely powerless.
“What’s your fucking problem?” Paul yells at him.
The shape of the bay amplifies the strength of the tide. A strong wave hits Matt, distracted by his thoughts, and knocks him back. He drops the rope and almost loses his footing. He scrambles around in the surf, desperate to keep hold of the boat, cursing himself for not thinking to fetch life jackets from the stores and wondering if he has time to go back.
“They’re coming,” Natalie shouts.
She gestures back along the coast in the direction from which she just came. Matt can clearly see two figures scrambling over the rocks to get to them.
Gunshots take them both by surprise. Matt looks across and sees that Paul’s taking potshots at the hull of the lifeboat used by the Haters, peppering it full of holes. “So the f
uckers can’t follow us.”
“Never mind that. Help me with Natalie.”
Matt tries to get her to stand, but her injury is far worse than it originally looked. She almost certainly did more damage running along the beach to reach the boat. Now the downward slope and the shingle make it difficult for her to even stay upright. She’s struggling to put any weight at all on her busted leg.
She stumbles, and both of them go down.
“I’m okay.”
“You’re not,” Matt immediately replies. “But you will be. We need to do something. Maybe get a splint or something.”
“You don’t have time.”
“We do.”
“It’s no good.” She’s white-faced with shock and sweating profusely now. “Leave me here.”
“Christ, Nat, that’s such a cliché.” Matt manages a half smile. “We’re not going anywhere without you. Paul, help me.”
“I’m serious.” Clearly she is.
“So am I. We’re not leaving you here.”
Matt drags her back up onto her feet again, but another couple of hops is all she manages. She wrestles herself from his grip and falls back to the ground. Clammy. Nauseous. Exhausted. “There’s no point.”
“Yes, there is.”
“No, Matt. Think about this logically. The three of us were never all going to fit in the boat.”
“We’ll find a way.”
“Listen to what she’s saying,” Paul says.
“I’m not leaving her behind.”
“You don’t have any choice.”
“I have all the choice.” Matt is seething with anger now. “Without me navigating, you won’t get home, and I’m not going anywhere without Nat. She goes or none of us go.”
Matt tries to haul her up to her feet one last time, but she’s exhausted and unable to support her own weight. The two of them end up back on the ground, locked in an unexpected embrace, faces almost touching.
“I really appreciate what you’re trying to do,” Natalie whispers, “but it’s okay. Honest, it’s all right. We tried. Go home and find Jen.”
Matt gets up and staggers back, eyes filled with tears of frustration. He runs back into the waves to fetch the boat, figuring it’ll be easier getting the boat to Natalie than getting Natalie to the boat. The Haters are closing in from the east. Another one appears at the top of the rise near the concrete lookout.
“Leave it, Matt,” Paul shouts.
Matt ignores him. “Fuck you.”
When Matt next looks up, he sees that Paul’s reloaded the shotgun. The Haters are close enough that they can almost see the hatred in their faces.
Paul looks over at the Haters, then looks at Matt, then down at Natalie. He shoots her twice in the chest at point-blank range.
She drops back and hits the sand. Dead on impact.
“You bastard. You absolute bastard…”
Matt goes for Paul, but Paul’s one step ahead. He aims the shotgun at Matt. “Don’t be an idiot. Get the engine started and get us home.”
“You killed her.… You think I’m going anywhere with you?”
Paul’s face is emotionless. He gives a nonchalant shrug. “Then stay here with them. Natalie was dead anyway, and you know it. Now if you want to get back to your missus, you need to shut the fuck up and get moving.”
The first of the remaining Haters comes racing down the beach and charges at them. Paul shoots and hits him in the shoulder, but the killer’s hate is such that he keeps coming, oblivious of the pain.
Matt knows that no matter what he thinks about Paul, he was right about one thing: if Matt wants to have any chance of seeing Jen again, getting in the boat and getting back to the mainland is the only way it’s ever going to happen.
He drags the dinghy deep enough into the sea so it floats, then preps the outboard motor. The water’s so cold now it hurts. Each wave is higher than the last. It’s up to his waist, and it takes his breath away.
Paul splashes through the water, then climbs on board. Matt struggles to get in after him, and Paul helps pull him up with his free left hand, still holding the shotgun in his right. They shuffle around in the limited space so that Paul has his back to the prow and Matt’s next to the motor. Paul fishes the key from his pocket and hands it over.
The Haters are in the water now. Still coming at them with predatory speed, barely slowed by the waves or by Paul as he shoots and reloads, shoots and reloads.
The motor starts at the second time of asking. Noise and dirty fumes. Matt sits down and takes the tiller. He opens up the throttle, and the distance between the Haters and their prey finally begins to increase.
29
“You know where you’re going?” Paul shouts over the engine noise.
“What?”
“The way home? Do you know the way home?”
“It’s not like a drive back from the shops.” Matt checks the compass Natalie gave him. He struggles to focus on the needle with all the spray and the unpredictable rolling of the boat. “I think I can do it.”
“You’re gonna have to do better than that.”
“We left the southernmost tip of the island. We follow the coast west for a while, then keep sailing due west away from Skek until we hit home. That’s as precise as I can be.”
“Is that going to be good enough?”
“It should be. We’ve got a thousand miles of coastline to aim for. We’ll get back to the UK, I just can’t tell you where we’ll end up, that’s all. The Scottish Highlands is out of the question though.”
“Doesn’t matter. Just get us back.”
Matt watches Paul visibly relax the farther they get from Skek. “She was never gonna make it.”
“Who are you trying to convince, you or me?”
“I had to make a decision. You get that, don’t you? The rules have changed now. She was dead already.”
“You’ve always been full of shit, Paul. No amount of spin will convince me otherwise.”
“Sticks and stones, mate, sticks and stones.”
Paul shuffles to get comfortable, but keeps the shotgun aimed directly at Matt at all times. Matt thinks, You wouldn’t do it, but then remembers Paul already has. Matt knows that Paul needs him for now, but things will inevitably change if they make it home. Matt thinks he’ll split from Paul the first chance he gets. Much as Matt hates to accept it, though, right now he feels like he needs the additional manpower.
* * *
Time is without measure this morning. Neither of the men has a watch, and their phones haven’t been charged all week—reduced to useless blocks of metal, plastic, and glass. Paul tried to conserve some charge in his phone for the long-delayed journey home, but it’s waterlogged and the screen is cracked and he knows it’s ruined. Matt’s has fared slightly better in it’s overly protective rubber case, but all the protection in the world’s no good when you’re out of power. They might have been on the water for ten minutes, it might have been ten hours. Their disorientation is complete, and for a while Matt starts to wonder if they’re the ones who’ve died. The longer they’re out here, the more it begins to feel like they’re stuck in a gloriously bizarre Twilight Zone episode; like the rest of the world has been erased so all that’s left is him and Paul and judgment day. There’s nothing but water for as far as they can see in every direction, and now the clouds are closing in, the bright sun of this morning long forgotten. The light is dull gray and the temperature low. Matt can barely feel his feet. Shock or hypothermia? He’s not sure which it is, but he’s feeling increasingly detached from reality. There’s nothing to lock onto as a point of reference or scale out here. The plastic compass he grips tight in his water-wrinkled hand is the only thing he has any faith in anymore.
Paul is virtually lying down opposite him, shriveled and shrunken to protect himself from the cold. “We nearly there?” he asks for what must be the hundredth time, like a frustrated kid in the back of his parents’ car. “You sure we’re going the right way?”
/> “We’re heading west.”
“Yeah, but is that the right way? Wouldn’t be surprised if you’d deliberately sent us the wrong way just to make a point.”
“You think I’d choose this on purpose? Being stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with you?”
Up ahead, the clouds are interrupted by a smudge of black. Within minutes the stain has spread across much of the sky. It’s too dark for storm clouds, Matt thinks, and it seems to be rising up, not across. Paul notices Matt’s expression and cranes his neck to try to see what it is he’s watching. “Land?” he asks hopefully.
“Don’t think so.”
Matt’s forced to take evasive action when the prow of an enormous ship cuts through the water dead ahead. He opens the throttle as much as he dares and banks hard to port.
“Jesus, be careful,” Paul says, holding on as the side of the boat dips and then bounces through the bow wave.
When they’re far enough away to be safe, Matt corrects his course. They’re now sailing alongside an immense cruise ship, and it’s clear it’ll take an age to reach the end of its considerable length. It dwarves the Heavenly Vision, but appears to be equally lifeless. It’s stuck in the water, going nowhere fast. The top decks are burned out. Oily smoke belches out through broken windows.
“Where the hell did that come from?”
“From Hull, I think,” Matt says, giving Paul an intentionally literal answer.
“How come you didn’t see it? Frigging hell, you could have got us both killed.”
“I didn’t see it because of the mist, and I didn’t hear it because its engines aren’t running. If you’d shut up long enough to listen, you’d have realized that.”
“Watch your mouth,” Paul snaps quickly, then he shuts up and takes in the silence. The massive liner is a ghost ship, that much is clear. The dinghy is insignificant in its wake, an ant trying to escape an elephant’s foot. As they watch, a lone figure hangs out of a cabin window. It’s a Hater, so desperate to kill that it has no concerns for its own safety. The monster drops down into the water from a ridiculous height and swims after them, but its rabid tenacity is no match for the relative speed of the boat’s engine.