The flare gun was loaded, and Freya managed to find her feet. She looked up and saw Sher hacking away at Brewster, while Brewster defended himself from the blows with the side of his crossbow. Brewster was surprised, shocked even, at the ferocity of Sher’s attack. Before Freya could raise the flare gun, Sher lunged, driving the end of the machete into Brewster’s gut.
Freya’s mouth opened wide to scream, an involuntary reaction, but nothing but a harsh rush of air left her lips. She fired the flare just as Sher turned toward her and Brewster collapsed in a heap. Sher yelped, and dove out of the way, as the flare sizzled toward him. It was at that moment that Freya realized it must have been the flare on the console that had damaged his face. She wasn’t exactly sure how she knew that, but something about the almost childish way Sher fled from the flare made her believe it was true.
As the flare bounced off the glass and skittered toward the wooden door where it burst open with light, Freya ran and grabbed the frying pan. It was the only other weapon she knew of in the room. She turned, quickly locating Sher. He had the machete, and stood on the other side of the control console, bathed in flare light from both the front and the back. Freya raised the frying pan as she had the machete earlier. The two siblings stood watching each other, studying the minutest moves the other made.
Startling Freya, the shaft of a crossbow bolt appeared in the middle of Sher’s chest. Sher looked down at it, confused, and then collapsed. Freya ran around the console, ready to bash his face in, but there was no point. He was already dead. Looking up, Freya saw Brewster sitting slumped against the window, one hand pressed against his stomach while the other still held his crossbow. Somehow, Sher’s attack on it hadn’t damaged it beyond use. Freya looked back down at Sher and kicked him. He was truly dead. He was dead and it wasn’t by Freya’s hands. She felt robbed.
“Take this.” Brewster slid the crossbow along the floor. He couldn’t even put enough energy behind it for the thing to reach halfway.
Freya walked over and picked it up as Brewster tossed her a crossbow bolt.
“Load it.”
Freya did as he said, having to brace the device with her feet and use both her arms to pull back the heavy draw.
“I’m dying,” the big man told her. “I don’t have long, and there’s nothing you can do to save me. I want you to shoot me with that the moment I’m gone. Here, in the head. Do you understand? I don’t want to come back as one of those things. Can you do that for me?”
Freya held the loaded crossbow, but didn’t acknowledge what he had said. The man had killed Sher. He had taken from Freya the thing she had boarded this ship to do. He stole her dream. Why would she want to do anything he asked?
Don’t be childish, Freya thought. She raised the crossbow, carefully aiming at Brewster’s head.
“There’s another bolt if you want to take care of him too.” Brewster flapped a hand in Sher’s direction.
Freya didn’t wait for Brewster to die of his wounds. What was the point? She pulled the trigger, and the twang of the drawstring made a shaft appear out of his eye. It was easier than waiting.
By frisking Brewster’s body, she was able to load up with the rest of the crossbow bolts, find an oddly curved knife she attached to her belt, and locate a small leather case containing what looked like lock picks. The lock picks explained how he had gotten into the bridge.
Freya went around the room next. She reloaded her sling and took the machete from Sher’s slowly chilling hand. The crossbow she wore on her back with the extra bolts. The flare gun and frying pan she abandoned, as they were useless. Investigating the room Sher had come out of, she found an empty pistol. She took it with her, just in case some ammo could be acquired later. There was also Sher’s walkie-talkie that she took. There was no way to prove to his men that Sher was dead, but the device might have some use.
Once she had everything, Freya looked down at Sher’s body.
Let him become a zombie.
She then had to decide what to do next. The only thing she could think of was to join the others. If she wanted to become a part of the community aboard the Diana, first, she would have to help save it. They said they were going to the engine room. Freya thought she wouldn’t have too much trouble finding it.
With a single look back, Freya left the bridge.
***
Freya was right when she had thought it wouldn’t be difficult to find the engine room. Most of the zombies had moved forward by now, so getting there wasn’t terribly hazardous either. Those she did run into were swiftly felled by her machete.
As Freya searched the belly of the ship, she heard the loud pop of gunfire, followed by a woman’s startled scream. More than ready to fight again, she ran toward the source of the sound as more gunshots went off. She swung her sling as she ran, but didn’t get the chance to use it. By the time Freya reached the scene, the battle was over.
A small team of Sher’s men lay peppered with holes among the machinery. Brunt was sitting against a support beam, his shoulder bleeding, while Jon handed him something to press against the wound. Jon was also bleeding. He had a vicious gash along the right side of his head, resulting in a chunk of his scalp hanging down. Robin was standing beside the dead men from Sher’s army. She didn’t appear injured, but was covered in blood. Her shotgun roared deafeningly in the confined space, as she blasted off the heads of all the men, even if they had already been headshot. Freya searched for the tall man, Tobias, and couldn’t see him. She moved slowly into the scene, making sure the others saw her clearly, so that they wouldn’t fire. A foot stuck out from around a piece of machinery so she went to look. It belonged to Tobias. He was lying flat on his back, his other leg and one arm bent awkwardly beneath him. One of his eyes was half closed, while the other stared widely into the beyond. Just above his left eyebrow was a sort of third eye, both black and bloody. Whatever had happened here, Freya suspected he had been the first to go down. She never got the chance to know him. She returned to the others.
Robin was now seeing to Brunt’s shoulder, while Jon sat against the other side of the support beam, his eyelids flickering. The fact that he had managed to stay conscious with such a nasty looking head wound was very surprising, but then the brain sometimes liked to surprise.
Brunt looked up at Freya and said something, but she couldn’t hear him over the ringing in her ears. This battle scene was a lot different from hers with Sher. It was brightly lit by overheard lights, and she could hear nothing but the ringing, and smell nothing but blood and gunfire. This fight had been quick and impersonal.
Brunt spoke louder this time. “Brewster?”
Freya shook her head.
“We have to go get him. We have to bring him and Tobias with us.” Tears ran down Robin’s face, yet, she didn’t once stop her work. She pulled a bullet out of Brunt, pulling out a pained scream at the same time.
“We can’t,” Jon spoke, not able to see them, but he could see Tobias.
“Of course we can!” Robin shouted at him. She drew more pained cries from Brunt as she patched up the hole. Freya noticed that Brunt wasn’t moving his injured arm at all.
“If both Brunt and I were healthy, maybe we could get Tobias up on deck.” The emotion in Jon’s voice kept fading in and out. “Maybe, but as we are? No. I’m sorry, but no. And even healthy, we could never carry Brewster. We’re not done here either. We still have to find the anchors.”
“Fuck the anchors,” Robin replied, although there was no anger in her voice, just sadness.
“No. We have to try. If we don’t, then all of this was for fucking nothing. We’re checking out the anchors.”
Robin finished up with Brunt, feeding him painkillers, antibiotics, or both, and then moved over to Jon.
Freya watched with interest as Robin swapped her latex gloves for fresh ones, and then held up the flap of skin on Jon’s head like it was nothing more than a piece of peeling wallpaper. She rinsed the area quickly and carefully while Jon hissed
through his teeth, and then jabbed the area around the wound with a needle a few times. Freya wanted to ask what was in the needle, but didn’t bother. Maybe later, she could find out. Robin then pulled out a medical stapler, and used it on the side of Jon’s head instead of stitching up the wound. Jon appeared to be wincing from the sound and the pressure as opposed to pain, so Freya thought that maybe the needle had contained a numbing agent.
“All right, I’ve done the best I can for both of you right now.” Robin rinsed Jon’s wound again and taped a pad of gauze over it. “Are you ready to go check out your stupid anchors now?”
“I’m good.” Brunt got to his feet, but wobbled a bit and grabbed the beam for support. He shook his head as if to clear it.
Freya noticed his leg was bleeding. She tapped his uninjured shoulder and pointed to it.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” he told her.
Robin sighed. “Let me see it.”
It was just a flesh wound, didn’t even require stitches, but Robin still cleaned and bandaged it. While she was doing that, Jon crawled over to Tobias’s body and started to frisk it.
“I’m so sorry, man,” he said as he took the tall man’s gun. “I’ll tell Anne what happened. We’ll take care of her, okay? We’ll watch out for her. And those media guys will still get this. I’m sure you’d want them to.”
Very gently, Jon began to remove the flak jacket that Tobias wore; the one with the camera attached to it. Freya knelt down and helped him. She had never seen someone take such care around a dead man before. At least not in the past three years. She could feel nothing for the dead, but she could see that Jon did. The humanity of it frightened her. Not because she hadn’t seen it in so long, but because she realized it was gone from inside of her. It was then that she knew it would take a long time for her to return to normal, if she ever could.
Once the vest was off, Jon wore it himself. He then closed Tobias’s eyes, crossed the man’s arms over his chest, and stood up. Robin and Brunt had finished and were standing nearby, waiting. Jon handed Freya Tobias’s pistol.
“Let’s go check on the anchors.” He turned away from the body and led them toward the nearest staircase.
“Wait.” Brunt stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He pointed over at Sher’s men. “They might have ammo.”
Neither Jon nor Robin wanted to touch the bodies, and Brunt’s arm was injured, so Freya did most of the searching. She handed the guns she found to Brunt who inspected them for anything that might cause a misfire. Useful pistols he stuck in his large cargo pockets, along with the ammunition, while the one AK-47 was slung across his back. There wasn’t much.
This time Jon led them as the group moved through the ship. Robin and Brunt stayed in the middle, while Freya guarded their rear. With the group reduced as it was, Freya was glad to have a gun. She had never used one before, but understood the basics like the safety. It would be a lot more effective than a simple sling, should they run into trouble.
A few zombies came across their path, but were easily taken care of. They didn’t run into any more of Sher’s men. Hopefully that meant he had called only the one team aboard, and since he was now dead, he couldn’t call any others.
As they approached the front of the ship, the hallways began to fill with smoke.
“Something’s burning, and it’s not just a bit of carpet this time,” Robin commented.
They continued to press on, but the smoke just got thicker and darker. Soon, they began coughing.
“Jon, we have to stop.” Robin reached forward and grabbed his arm.
He turned to her with red eyes, although whether that was from the smoke or from crying, it was impossible to tell.
“No,” he said, “we have to keep going. We have to try. This can’t be for nothing. We have to drop the anchors.”
“We can’t,” Robin insisted. “If we do, we’ll suffocate, and what happens then?”
“I’ll go by myself.” Jon turned to leave, but Robin gripped him tighter.
“No! No, I won’t let you. Jon, you can’t go. I need you, okay? I need you with me.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re broken up right now, aren’t we?”
“That doesn’t mean you’re not my friend!” Robin shouted in his face. “Stop being stupid. Is that head injury worse than I thought? Did it rattle your fucking brains? Going forward is suicide. You won’t even make it to the anchors based on the level of smoke we’re already dealing with.”
As if to emphasize her point, a thick cloud of roiling smoke belched out over them, causing couching fits all around.
Jon looked forward again, then back at Robin. He nodded, and pushed past the group, intent on leading them back out.
Freya wanted to tell Jon that this mission was not for nothing. Sher was dead. She didn’t know how to communicate how important that was. At least, it was important to her, and probably to all the other women back in Jamaica. Eventually, another team would board this ship, wondering why they hadn’t heard from Sher in a while. They might find him dead, or zombified, or not at all. A power change would occur even if he wasn’t found. There were enough men who wanted the seat of power for themselves that they would seize the opportunity. Chaos would reign without a single defined leader, and Sher was dead. No matter what else happened, the most important thing was that Sher was dead. Freya’s brother could rest in peace now that the monster that had taken over his body was gone.
The group returned to the basketball court. It was nice to be out in the air again, where the ocean absorbed most of the smells of gunfire and smoke. Most, but not all. The fire was bad enough that they could still smell it. Looking up, Freya noticed a blot of stars was missing, eaten up by a pillar of black.
Brunt radioed for the helicopter to come get them, explaining that the mission had failed. There were a few minutes when everyone was concerned by the lack of response on Brunt’s radio, but eventually, someone came on and informed them the helicopter would be there shortly.
While they waited, Freya wrote down in point form what had happened on the bridge of the ship and showed it to the others. They took turns reading it, then handed the notebook back. Brunt asked her why she didn’t let them help her, but she just shook her head. Freya didn’t believe they would understand.
It wasn’t long before the air filled with the thumping of helicopter blades. It positioned itself above them, and a rope ladder was lowered. Brunt climbed first, while Jon and Robin held the bottom of the ladder as steady as they could. For having an injured arm, Brunt could climb surprisingly fast. Robin went up next, then Freya. Jon climbed last, having no one to help steady the ladder for him. Brunt, Freya, and Robin pulled on the ladder, enabling Jon to reach the helicopter faster. Once everyone was inside, the helicopter banked away from the ship. There was no RPG launched at it this time.
As the chopper flew out over the ocean, Freya looked down at the water. More flares had been launched, bathing the scene with their weird lights. She noticed that the ship with the cannon had blown holes through both of the doors at the front and back ends of the Diana. A large shadow was beneath the wooden ship however. At first, Freya mistook it for a massive whale. As it rose closer and closer to the surface, she realized it was the submarine. The sub rose directly beneath the old ship, its metal tower crunching into the wooden underside. The whole ship shook and tilted, throwing a few men overboard and causing the rest to scramble. The submarine then started to dive once more. Freya suspected the hole it left behind was massive, as the ship started to sink quite fast.
Freya turned to see if anyone else had seen this, but found their eyes completely riveted on something else. She turned back and followed their eyes.
It wasn’t just the other ship that was burning. Flames leapt from various locations along the back end of their own cruise ship. The Diana was burning uncontrollably.
19
Hope’s In A Room
Hope sat on the floor with her arms wrapped securely around Milly. Sh
e was scared. She was scared, she wanted her mommy, and daddy, but she didn’t know where they were. The whole ship had shaken earlier, the same as when that bomb had gone off yesterday. Ms. Abby and Ms. Lauren said they didn’t know what it was, but Hope thought they were liars. Ms. Abby had her ear pressed to a walkie-talkie all the time, and since the shake, she kept standing away from everyone else, not wanting them to hear what she was hearing.
Peter sat next to Hope, petting Milly’s head. His pyjamas were newly donated to him and looked a lot like Hope’s. He didn’t look scared. Peter was very brave. He was even braver than Claire was. Claire kept singing under her breath. Hope couldn’t figure out what the song was, and that annoyed her. She wanted Claire to stop singing. She wanted to yell at her to shut up again, but she got in trouble the first time she had done that.
Ms. Lauren walked back over from where she had been looking out the window. She looked out the window a lot, pulling aside the curtains a little bit to do so. Every time she pulled back the curtains, Hope could see a little bit outside, but she never saw anything interesting. There was something strange about the light outside, but she couldn’t tell what it was from the brief glimpses.
A loud crack like thunder caused Hope to shriek, and the following shudder made Claire crawl over to sit with her and Peter and Milly. She stopped singing.
“You kids okay?” Ms. Lauren asked them.
Hope nodded, and so did Peter and Claire.
Ms. Lauren then went back to the window and peeked out. When she did, Hope saw the top of a ship. It was the kind with big wooden posts sticking up that held large white sails. It was the kind she saw in her books, but never saw in real life. It was a ghost ship.
Survival Instinct (Book 3): Fighting Instinct Page 31