Cut Off [Part 1]

by Perrin Briar

  “The bridge windows,” Anne said.

  “Yes, but what specifically?” Then he saw them. “Never mind.” Giant letters had been written on the glass. He could make out an S and a couple of Ys but the glare from the sun made the words impossible to decipher. “I can’t read it. What does it say?”

  “I’m not sure,” Anne said. “A warning, maybe?”

  “Wouldn’t be the first. I suppose we’d best take a closer look to be sure.”

  “Plan of action?”

  “Standard sweep. We’ll work from the top down. If we find anything of value we’ll tag it and bring it on our way back. Stan and Mary will keep watch from here.”

  Anne nodded. She looked up at Joel, who was still peering through the binoculars. “Are you sure about taking Jordan?”

  “Every spare pair of eyes will be useful.”

  “I know, but he’s still not one hundred per cent yet.”

  “None of us are.”

  Jordan and Stan joined them on the deck. Jordan’s movements were a little awkward in his armor.

  “All set?” Joel asked.

  “As set as I’ll ever be,” Jordan said.

  “Don’t worry about today. Just follow our lead, and you’ll be fine.” Joel turned to Stan. “We’d best get this show started.”

  Stan moved to a crank built into the side of Haven’s bridge. It made a rattling, clacking sound as he turned it, causing a gangplank to ever-so-slowly slide out from Haven’s side, like a splinter being rejected by its host. Stan made minute alterations to the complicated apparatus, shifting the gangplank upward several degrees.

  “Any time this year, Stan,” Joel said, rolling his eyes.

  Stan worked the crank faster. The gangplank dropped onto the ferry’s deck, the hooks digging deep furrows into the ferry’s damp, soft boards.

  Stan wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “She’s ready.”

  Joel walked across the plank in three easy strides and hopped over the guardrail. Now on Light, he stood facing away from the gangplank with his knives in his hands, eyes scanning for an attack.

  “The trick to crossing is to not look down,” Anne told Jordan as she hopped across the gangplank in four easy strides.

  Jordan stepped up to the plank. It suddenly seemed a mile long and only two inches wide. The wind blew, and he could have sworn the plank wobbled a meter in either direction. “Don’t look down,” he murmured to himself. He stepped up to the gangplank. One of the harnessing straps on his forearm protectors flapped in the wind. A breeze gripped it and pulled it loose. Jordan reached for it, but it snapped out of his reach, slithered into the wind and fell between the two hulls to the depths below. He looked down.

  The water smashed against the twin hulls with a thunderous crash, sending a fine spray up into Jordan’s face. The sea roared amidst a foam of white wash. He felt the blood drain from his face.

  “It’s just one foot in front of the other,” Stan said helpfully.

  Jordan couldn’t even manage a sarcastic “Thanks,” his throat was too tight and dry.

  Jordan stepped out onto the plank. He took tiny steps, nothing like the confident strides of Joel and Anne, and shuffled along the gangplank with his arms out to either side. The wind picked up, howling across the board. He was only halfway across. The armor suddenly felt heavy as concrete. The sleeves of his T-shirt flapped against his body. Jordan sucked deep breaths into his lungs.

  “Come on!” Joel said. “Hurry up!”

  Jordan started. His body swayed. He lost his balance. He twisted to maintain it, but felt his center of balance falter. He threw himself toward the ferry. His body smacked into the ferry’s hull. He reached out to grab the railing, but his gloves were thick and cumbersome and couldn’t find a grip. He slipped off the edge. He began to fall.

  He stopped short, his body smacking into the hull, barking his shins. He hung in mid-air. He looked up and saw Joel had hold of him with his thick arms.

  “Upsie daisy,” Joel said, pulling him up onto the deck.

  Jordan’s body shook, his insides twisting with writhing snakes.

  Joel crouched down beside him. “You should head back. It only gets worse from here.”

  Jordan’s shins throbbed as he got to his feet. “I’m fine.”

  “You’ll get in the way,” Joel said with a growl.

  Jordan glared at Joel. “I just got here. If you think I’m going back across that death-plank again now, you’ve got another thing coming. Now, where are we going?”

  They stared into one another’s face, neither one backing down. Joel turned his head to the side as if seeing something in Jordan’s expression. He cracked into a smile. “You’ll do. We’d best get going then, hadn’t we?” Joel turned to Stan and waved a hand.

  There was a rattling sound as Stan worked the crank, pulling the plank back.

  “What’s he doing?” Jordan said. “We’ll need the plank to get back.”

  “Safety measure,” Joel said. “We don’t want any Lurchers to get on board Haven now, do we?”

  12.

  A breeze followed them into the room, fluttering the papers that lay scattered over the floor and table tops like the feathers of a bird. They were stuck fast by crusted blood. The air was thick and heavy with the stench of death, their masks doing little to prevent it clinging to their lungs like dry concrete. The navigation table had been knocked askance to a forty-five degree angle. Anne moved to it and began searching amongst the documents.

  Joel looked up at the large red letters written backward across the windows. The author had used blood. It had run an inch or so down the glass before becoming frozen in droplets of red. Joel smiled as he read the message. “ ‘Stay away’. Not too hospitable, is it?”

  Jordan moved to the main computer terminal. A few small photos remained tucked behind the engine, bow thruster and navigational aid monitors which stared blankly back at him.

  “I’ve got it,” Anne said, pulling a document out from the pile. She laid it out flat on the table. It curled up at the edges. She held down each corner with items lying about the room: two half empty coffee cups with ‘I’m a sailor, and I’m okay’ written on them, a navigation protractor and an empty notebook. The document was a blueprint of Light. There was a large lounge directly below them, then one huge room for the temporary storage of vehicles. At the bottom level were a series of maintenance compartments. The largest of which was labeled ‘Engine Bay’.

  Joel shook his head and sighed. “I hate ferries.”

  “How do you want to do this?” Anne asked.

  Joel gestured to the lounge area. “We’ll make our way gradually room to room, working our way front to back, then back to front, and so on until we get to the engine bay.”

  “How long do you think it will take?” Jordan asked.

  “Depends on how much there is to search,” Joel said. “Maybe nine or ten hours.”

  “And whether or not we run into much unexpected company,” Anne added.

  “Do you think we will?” Jordan asked.

  “No reason not to, I suppose,” Anne said.

  Jordan felt a trickle of fear at the idea of running into his first Lurcher. His grip on the chair leg grew tighter.

  Joel lifted the walkie talkie to his lips. “How’re we looking out there, guys?”

  On Haven, Stan lay back in a deck chair. He had a thin veneer of sweat on his forehead from the high afternoon sun and a knotted flannel on his head to protect his growing bald spot. He peered through the binoculars at the ferry, scanning the parked cars. He froze. His sweep stopped, and returned back to the backseat of a car parked on Light’s deck. He sat forward in his chair and watched the shadow with unblinking eyes. He relaxed. It was a shirt hung up on the backseat of the car, the wind having disturbed it.

  “Right as rain,” he said. He turned the binoculars back to the bridge. Three shadows moved inside it. “Hey! I see you!”

  “You see me every day.”
<
br />   “Not from this distance. I must say you look much more handsome from here. I can hardly even make out your nose.”

  “Sod you. How’s Haven? Nice and comfy? Hope I’m not disturbing your rec time.”

  “Can’t complain. Mare’s giving me a back rub.”

  Mary, sat to one side knitting, shook her head the way a mother does at her misbehaving children.

  “We’ve got the Sunday roast on,” Stan said.

  “Sounds awful.”

  “Oh, it is.”

  “We’d best leave you. You’re obviously a very busy man.” Joel turned, a grin on his face. “What?”

  Anne shook her head, a mirror image of Mary. “You two are worse than a pair of school boys.”

  “Keeps us young.”

  “Keeps you immature, you mean.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “According to this,” Anne said, pointing to a door behind them without taking her eyes off the blueprints. “We should head down those stairs to get to the next level.”

  Joel and Anne covered the door while Jordan reached for the handle. Joel nodded. Jordan opened it. Joel and Anne stiffened, their weapons held high. An empty stairwell greeted them. They relaxed.

  “Ladies first,” Joel said to Anne.

  “Thanks. You’re a real gentleman.”

  “I try.”

  The stairs were made of iron grating, which rattled no matter how quietly they tried to descend. The natural light filtering in from the bridge’s windows faded the deeper they went.

  Joel headed down the stairs first, Anne watching their rear. Their flashlights cut swathes through the darkness, the world dissected into a thousand tiny squares. They moved with the smooth ease of those used to carrying out such tasks. They stopped often, listening to the darkness around them. There was something about their movement that tugged on a forgotten memory in Jordan’s mind, but try as he might, he couldn’t retrieve it. They got to the bottom of the stairs and spread out into the lounge room.

  Sunlight filtered in from the windows that took up the entire wall at either end. They were caked in blood and greasy handprints. The light caught the top of the hard benches that ran in long rows like the pews in an old church. The shadows gave way to their torchlight. Magazines and unopened snacks laid on the benches. The sticky floor tore at the soles of their boots. Vending machines stood in uniform lines along the walls. Anne took a spray bottle out of a side pocket of her backpack and sprayed one of them, leaving a luminous glow. She tucked the bottle away.

  “Why did you spray the vending machine?” Jordan asked.

  “To remind us to collect the food later. If we find anything useful, we spray it. Here.” She gave him a small spray can. “Happy shopping.”

  Joel got to the end of the room. “Clear.”

  “Clear,” Anne confirmed. They didn’t wait to hear Jordan say it.

  Joel raised the walkie talkie to his mouth. “How’re we looking, Stan?”

  “Good,” came the reply. “Weather’s” -there was a hiss of static- “Nothing” -then another hiss- “wandering about.”

  “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.”