Else fought on, killing them all. Killing them for the father of her baby; the man who gave his life that this nightmare might end. Killing to avenge Jirra. Killing for Bindi, for Lowanna, and for her own son. Killing for all the children yet to be born if humanity was to ever have a chance to survive. Else killed because it was all she had ever known, and she did it well.
The stinging wounds on her arms and body burned. Else pirouetted and decapitated a dead fisherman whose face was a screaming mask of blood and hate. With a snarl she raised her weapons to kill again, but there were no volunteers. The ballroom was awash with the spilt blood and severed body parts of a hundred dead. Blades ready, Else picked her way through the battlefield. A broken body bared its teeth and snapped at her ankle. She stabbed it through the ear and twisted, destroying enough of the brain to end the viral control.
The door at the end of the ballroom creaked open. Else stared into the gloom, ready for an attack. Instead a pale blonde girl stepped into view and surveyed the carnage.
“Sarah?” Else asked. “You’re alive. Hob was so worried about you.”
“You have ruined everything!” Sarah shrieked. She stamped her foot, splashing blood across the hem of her faded sundress.
“Where is my baby, Sarah? Where is my son?”
Sarah’s mouth curled into a sneer. “He’s on the butcher’s block!”
Else took a deep breath to stop from screaming. “This isn’t the way you should live, Sarah. The crew can’t give you anything.”
“The Captain said he would make me one of them. I could live forever! Up in the bridge! I would be safe and special and everyone would be afraid of me!” Sarah’s face contorted in frustrated rage.
“The Captain is going to die,” Else replied, her voice steady and commanding.
“No!” Sarah extended her right arm, a shard of glass glinting in her left fist. Else rushed forward as the girl slashed a deep wound along the white skin of her own forearm.
“Stop!” Else screamed.
Sarah plunged her bleeding arm into the shattered remains of the fallen dead at her feet.
Else grabbed the girl around the waist and pulled her back, almost throwing her against the wall.
“I did it,” Sarah giggled. “I did it. I put the blood of the crew on everything so the holders would die and then kill you. Then the Captain would choose me. Just like he promised.”
Else squeezed the girl’s arm above the wound, muttering “no, no, no” as she watched the dark lines of virus-tainted blood surging through the girl’s veins.
“I’m going to live forever now . . . Up on the bridge, where you can see the whole world and never want for nothing.” Sarah’s eyes started to lose the focus and shine of the living. She tilted her head back and laughed one last time. “The Captain says I can eat your shitty little baby too . . .”
“I wanted to save you!” Else screamed as Sarah slumped in her arms. She laid her down, not ready to strike the final blow until it was too late.
“Saraghhh . . .” a phlegmatic gurgle spoke from behind Else. She stood, turning slowly, the hot fury of battle now tempered by the death of the child.
“You must be the Captain,” she said to the evol looking down on her from behind the balcony rail. He was in excellent condition for a dead man. His skin was firm and almost pink, the uniform he wore was well mended, and his beard was neatly trimmed. Even the buttons on his crisply pressed uniform shirt were polished to a high sheen.
“You argh the mainlander. The woman who has been causing so much distress to argh tight-knit community,” he spoke well enough. A trace of thickness and a slight slur to this speech was the only sign that his heart did not beat naturally.
“I am Else. I was created to destroy your kind, and I was made well.”
The Captain’s lips twitched; it was less a smile than a grimace. “I’ll kill you and your dreams tonight,” he said.
Else stepped forward, her eyes fixed on the erect figure high above her. The ship shuddered and the sound of tearing metal echoed through the infrastructure. Else dropped into a crouch while the Captain steadied himself against the balcony rail, looking about in sudden confusion.
A second explosion followed and then they came in a rapid series, each shuddering blow making the metal moan, until something buried nearby detonated and the ballroom floor cracked. Spars of rusting steel burst up through the floor in a gout of black smoke and searing fire.
Else rolled aside, narrowly avoiding being impaled on a broken girder. The Captain backed away from the balcony edge and vanished from view. Else yelled at him over the metallic screams of the wounded ship. She holstered her weapons and ran up the broken girder, jumping over the rising flames. Leaping off the jagged tip, she flew through the air, her fingers brushing against a rotting wall hanging. Sliding down, she gripped the cloth, which disintegrated in a cloud of dust and mold.
Else snatched at a supporting cord; it held as the mass of rotting cloth crumpled onto the spreading fire on the floor and exploded into flames. Climbing up, she felt the threads parting under her slight weight. The rising fire below caught the rope and started climbing after her. A few brief seconds later, Else seized a grip on the edge of the balcony. The rope parted and dropped past her, the floating embers of the fire catching on other dry curtains and flaring up into a boiling wall of flame that quickly licked the ceiling. Pulling herself up, Else dropped onto the balcony. Another explosion rocked the ship. The world turned on its side as the room suddenly sagged. She grabbed the rail as the floor tilted.
With the fire spreading behind her, Else scrambled for a nearby table. The restaurant chairs tumbled past but the tables were bolted to the floor. Shielding her head, Else rode out the attack of the falling chairs. Gripping the carpet with her fingertips, she crawled towards the exit.
The steel of the ship’s bones moaned as an explosion tore through its guts. The smoke was rising, clouding Else’s view and tightening in a band around her chest.
She tumbled out of the restaurant, the spreading fire sucking the air from the corridor in a howling wind. Else lost count of the explosions. The destruction had spread beyond Eric’s dynamite; some ancient reserves of oil fuel had been ruptured and were now burning deep beneath the deck.
The door the Captain had fled through hung open. Else jumped and grabbed the doorjamb, pulling herself up and onto a staircase that with the current degree of roll would have given M. C. Escher eyestrain. The ship moved again, rolling back on an even keel, the force of the motion slamming Else into the stairs.
Climbing to her feet and coughing against the rising smoke, she ran up the stairs. The Captain would tell her where her son could be found. She would burn him until he told her exactly where he was.
A sign warned that she was approaching an area restricted to authorized personnel only. Else yanked the door open and ran up the last flight of stairs to the bridge itself.
The Captain stood at the controls, staring out through the wide windows that overlooked the prow of the ship. The storm had arrived with the full fury of nature. The sky was lit up with the white-hot flash of lightning, and the wide windows ran opaque with rain. Five evol crew stood at their positions around the bridge, rifles held across their chests. They tilted with the pitch of the ship as it rocked in the stormy water and the sundering explosions in its belly.
Else drew her blades, ready to get started, when a sixth evol stepped into view from behind the Captain. A tiny naked figure hung by its ankles from the evol’s hand, his face red with outrage and his howls stifled by the dead hand clamped over his mouth. “My baby,” Else said.
“Yes,” the Captain agreed. “Will you watch him die, or will he watch you die?”
Else just shook her head. Everything ached and her lungs burned from the smoke curling up through cracks and vents. “Your ship is going down, Captain. Are you ready to go with it?” Her voice came out as a croak. The Captain narrowed his eyes. “Enough,” he spat. A drip of black spittle landed on
his chin. He took a perfectly folded handkerchief from his pocket and scowled as he dabbed at it.
“Kill her,” he ordered. The evols stepped forward, rifles rising to the ready.
Else readied her weapons. If it ended here, she would die fighting. She didn’t care how many bullets they fired; she would cut them down. If her son was going to die, then his last moments would be in her arms.
A blaze erupted on the forward deck, the fire’s light reflecting off Else’s steel. Her head snapped to the wide glass windows that spanned the bridge. The evols charged forward, guns firing. Else threw herself to one side as the windows exploded inwards in a hail of gunfire. A man wrapped in smoldering black clothes swung into the bridge at the end of a braided rope. His long hair and beard singed and trailing smoke, he crashed into the control console and fell to the floor. Scrambling up, he yelled something, the words lost behind the thick covering of his gas mask.
“Eric?!” Else yelled.
“Geffuggow!” Eric shouted. He reloaded his automatic rifle while the evols stopped, confused and overwhelmed by his sudden entrance.
“No!” Else leapt up and shoulder charged Eric, knocking his weapon aside and sending a burst of bullets through the face of the closest evol. “My son!” she screamed.
Eric ripped his gas mask off. “What?”
Else ignored him and spun on the balls of her feet. Her machete sliced through an evol’s skull, shearing the top of his head off and sending blackened brain matter splattering against the console.
The scythe followed, the tip burying itself in the head of another evol, punching through the ear canal. Else levered downwards, twisting the blade and coring the zombie’s brain like a rotten apple, dragging the weapon from her grip.
The evol holding the baby lunged forward. Else dropped the machete from her left hand and scooped her son up, punching the evol in the face with her right fist.
The dead man snarled; the skin on his face split and dripped black blood. Else punched upwards, the heel of her hand crushing the dead man’s nose and driving shards of bone up into the brain. The evol snorted, his eyes rolling up in his head. Else stepped back, cradling her wailing son against her chest as the zombie collapsed, quivering on the floor.
Eric’s automatic rifle barked and another zombie’s head vanished in a spray of dark gore. The last two evols started shooting. Else spun down behind a control console, clutching her son to her chest as bullets ricocheted around the bridge. Eric roared something unintelligible and emptied his magazine into the two dead men. The Captain was caught in the spray of bullets and went tumbling back into the smoke.
“We gotta go!” Eric yelled. “This whole place is coming apart!” The ship rocked with a fresh explosion, the temperature in the bridge rising as the air darkened with fumes.
Else leapt up and ran to Eric. “Has everyone got to the boats?”
“Yeah, that Rache girl gave the fishermen what-for. They’re evacuating everyone right now!”
A hand appeared through the smoke behind her and slammed down on Else’s shoulder, dropping her to the floor. “Take my baby!” she yelled at Eric, thrusting the tiny body up at him. Eric nodded and grabbed the child. “Get him to the boats!”
Else spun around, lashing out with a foot, only vaguely aware of Eric running out the door, her baby squalling as he was carried to safety. Her boot slammed the Captain in the chest. His composure had melted in the heat, a ragged flap of skin hung down from his right temple. The bone underneath glistened a dull grey.
He sank down and ripped Else’s discarded scythe out of the crewman’s head. The curved metal end hung steady an inch from her face. The Captain opened his mouth to speak; instead Else knocked the handle of the blade aside and flipped up onto her feet, snatching up the machete and swinging it at the Captain’s head. He blocked and riposted, the steel blades clanging together as the combatants smashed into each other.
A wall of flame erupted in the doorway; the Captain flinched back. Else pressed the attack, her machete slamming into his shoulder. He grabbed the handle and pulled the blade free. Swinging the other weapon, he forced Else to duck. Disarmed, she backed away across the bridge, feeling the linoleum underfoot bubbling in the heat.
The Captain ran forward, the curved blade rising over his head like an axe. Else leaned back, inhaling with a sharp gasp as the sharpened steel sliced downwards, cutting through her shirt and drawing blood in a long line down her stomach.
Else stomped down on the scythe’s wooden handle, shattering it and knocking the Captain off balance. Grabbing him by the throat, she jammed her mouth against his neck and bit hard.
The Captain howled. Jerking back tore a chunk of meat from his neck.
“It is forbidden!” he hissed. The air he drew in to speak whistled through the ragged hole in his throat.
Else wiped the back of a hand across her mouth, smearing the black blood of him onto her cheek. She spat his sour grey flesh from her mouth. “I’m your ending,” she said, her eyes burning from the smoke. “My children will live on, but you will burn and your bones will rot. The human race will recover and rebuild. I will not rest until that comes to pass. We will purge your kind from the world.”
The air outside the bridge swirled orange and black as a geyser of burning oil burst upwards through the foredeck.
“We are eternal . . .” the Captain croaked. The lethal elements in Else’s cells were already devouring the parasitic particles that drove his dead flesh.
The floor creaked and the ancient linoleum began to smoke and curl upwards, charring in the heat from the inferno that had spread to the deck below. The Captain sank to his knees, his wide-eyed gaze reflecting the tendrils of flame curling up the walls as the air in the bridge became stifling.
“Not as long as I live,” Else said. She lunged forward, snatching up the broken weapon, the blade swinging in an arc that would have taken the Captain’s head off at the neck. Instead the floor gave way and they both plummeted into an upwelling cloud of fire.
PART II
Chapter 1
The survivors rowed for shore as the ship behind them shuddered with explosions. Silhouetted against the flaring light they could see the writhing forms of burning people, alive and dead, dropping over the railing into the storm-tossed swell.
Hob pulled on the oars. The small boat had no salvage that would help them on the unforgiving shore. The women and few children huddled together, moaning in terror every time the sky was lit up by another explosion. Hob kept rowing. Land had to be there somewhere; they had disembarked on the right side of the stricken ship.
When the roar of breakers was louder than the death rattle of the ship, Hob yelled at his passengers to hold fast. The small boat rose on a swell, surfing the crest of a breaking wave and powering forward, the oars sweeping through the air, nearly throwing Hob on his back at the sudden lack of resistance.
When the wave passed and the boat dropped, Hob heaved on the oars again. The boat bobbed and the next wave pushed it onto the dark sand of the storm-lashed beach.
“Get out!” Hob yelled, feeling the tug of the sea dragging the boat back out. He rowed hard, trying to keep the small craft straight on. If they turned, the first breaker to hit them would capsize the boat.
The passengers clambered over Hob, jumping into the surf and carrying howling children on their shoulders. Once the boat was empty, Hob shipped the oars and jumped into the freezing water. Wading ashore, he dragged the boat behind him. “Give me a fucking hand!” he yelled. Other survivors came and seized the boat. Working together they pulled it above the reach of the storm surge.
* * *
As the sun rose the wind fell. The people from the ship had spent a cold and miserable night huddled on the beach, terrified of every noise and crack of wind-snapped trees behind them.
Hob crawled out from under a sodden blanket, stood up, and stretched. The lack of movement underfoot made him dizzy. He took a few steps to regain his composure. Opening his pants he
pissed on the sand, shivering in the morning chill and the sense of relief.
Small boats and chunks of wreckage were rising and falling on the surf. Other salvage had come ashore and already people were moving about, picking up anything useful and piling it above the high-tide mark.
Looking around, Hob swallowed the fear he felt at the line of trees. The dead ruled the land. His people only came ashore when they needed salvage. Being out here, exposed in the open, terrified him.
Most of the faces he could see were familiar. Holders, fishermen, engineers. They all had a look of shock etched deep into their faces. He guessed his expression was the same.
“Sarah,” he said. Turning in a slow step he looked up and down the beach. “Sarah!” he yelled. Walking down the beach he grabbed the first salvager he found by the shoulders. “Where’s Sarah?” he demanded. The woman shook her head and went back to gathering driftwood.
“Fuck!” Hob swore. Shielding his eyes against the sunlight now reflecting off the whispering surf, he peered out to sea. Only a dark smudge of smoke remained, rising above the horizon. “Sarah?” he asked. There were bodies floating out there; some still moved or clung to flotsam.
“Hey, man, you seen the crazy chick from the land? Else?” Hob turned and scowled at the dark-haired man who looked familiar.
“What? No, fuck off,” Hob said automatically.
“I’ve got her kid,” Eric said, gesturing with a flush of embarrassment to a small group of forlorn holders.
“Which one?” Hob asked.
“She has more than one? I’ve got the boy.”
“How the hell did that happen?” Hob turned away from the wreckage-filled sea and started walking towards where Else’s baby was being comforted and fed by one of the women who had recently sacrificed her own newborn.
Tankbread 2: Immortal Page 12