by Alan Janney
“No he’s not. He’s a volcano.”
“I could go with him. Get him off the ship. You come get me later?”
“You stay with me,” I said. “I’m not throwing you into a volcano to appease the gods.”
She gripped my hand. Hard.
“Chase,” Samantha growled, loading pistols. “We need to go.”
“Not yet.”
The sounds of her pistol ceased. “What do you mean?”
“You and I are fighting a larger enemy than this. You’re too valuable to die fighting Tank.”
“I’m not going to die.” She rolled her eyes.
“You might. He’s not worth it. Let’s give them a chance.”
For five long minutes we sat silently in our blue metal box, eyes on the screens as they cycled through points of view. The marines were gone but three hundred seamen and officers remained, plenty of activity to watch. The San Antonio worked up and down waves, and we swayed. Then, another camera went dead. Four blue screens total. Burke stared in horror. He picked up a phone with shaking hands, waited a moment, and said, “Sir, lost another camera. Just aft of the machine shop.” He replaced the phone and rewound the video to watch again.
My radio squealed, startling Katie. Captain Travis’s voice. “Master-at-Arms, status report.”
No answer. No sounds.
“Master-at-Arms, report.”
“Sir, this is petty officer Parker. We got separated from Graves. We found evidence of the intruder. A busted hatch. Must have used a small explosive. And a crushed camera.”
“Or a big fist,” Katie noted.
“Where is petty officer Graves?”
“Unknown, sir. We’ll find’im.”
Samantha called, “I told you! Stay together! Shut up, Chase, I know they can’t hear me.”
Silence. Just the faint buzz of power, almost undetectable at the edge of awareness. On the monitors, nothing happened. Burke pointed without comment at the three Master-at-Arms crossing a cargo bay, guns drawn.
Katie’s eyes were large and pooling. Her voice came softly, whispering between her fingers. “He never told me he wanted to kill you. But he hinted. A lot. Even his parents were scared of him. They wouldn’t always correct him when he got out of line. Their apartment was full of things he squeezed till they broke, like door handles and chairs and baseballs. He liked to bust baseballs. Broke a metal bat once. His mom loved him. Loves him. She’s a sweet lady. Very smart. She would hug him to calm him down, scratch his back to put him asleep. His dad wanted to kick him out, but his mom…she unconditionally adored him. He never hurt me. Never got mad. At first he didn’t even like me. But the more time we spent together…I don’t know what I was thinking. I knew he was a danger. But he started to like me. A lot. Said he loved me. Which means his pride is involved. Above all things, he is proud. We are an affront to his pride, and he cannot abide that.”
The cameras continued their cycle across the bank of monitors. Medical bay. Well deck. Flight deck, partially obscured by driving rain. Passage way, populated with scurrying crew. Forward cargo hold. Cafeteria. Kitchen. The bridge. Stateroom passageway. Vehicle deck, mostly empty. Machinery. Rec compartment. Fifty cameras scattered throughout the ship took their turn across the ten monitors, changing in rhythm like a clock ticking.
“How can a big guy like that disappear?” Samantha asked.
Seaman Burke answered, “No cameras in private quarters. And some of the cameras swivel between shots, so he could be timing his moves.”
“So many people,” Katie said.
“Wait. Go back.” I pointed to the second screen. Burke hit a few keys and the picture jumped onto his personal monitor. “The previous camera. The one with hovercrafts.”
“This one?”
“Yes. What’s…” We all squinted and pressed in closer to the screen, peering at a pixilated pile in the corner. “What’s that? Does it have legs?”
“Those are bodies,” Samantha said. “Two bodies.”
“Look at this,” Burke said, taping glass. His voice wavered and his breath fogged the picture. “There’s the Master-at-Arms group, on another screen near engineering. Those two bodies aren’t them.”
“Then who is it?”
“Probably the Bosun and the seamen assigned to the vehicles.” He picked up the phone and rang the bridge. “Captain, we may have located…”
He dropped the phone.
On screen, a colossus attacked the Master-at-Arms. Tank stepped out from a hatch and crushed the three petty officers against a wall. He clubbed each man once and the fight swiftly ended. One shot was fired, and its report clattered through our passage seconds later. Most of the ship heard it.
“Okay,” I said grimly, standing up. “Samantha, let’s draw him to the flight deck and kick him off.”
She chambered a round into the Beretta. “We’re ill equipped. Take this.” She pressed a fancy flashlight into my hands. “It’s the Navy’s dazzler. Similar to what Lee gave you. Blind him.”
Katie made a faint groaning noise. I kissed her forehead and we closed the door behind us. I retrieved the Thunder Stick from my stateroom and we plunged below, Dalton and Cody proceeding us, boots ringing on steel. The ship pitched abruptly, tossing all four of us forward. Water sloshed down the ladder.
From somewhere deep in the bowels of the ship, a roar. And gunfire.
“Attention all hands. All hands. Intruder aboard. Repeat, intruder aboard. Shoot on sight. Intruder considered dangerous and hostile. Repeat, shoot on sight. And brace for heavy seas.”
“We’re going to make him mad,” I called to the SEALs. “Let him see me. He should chase me, and I’ll lead him to the flight deck.”
“Roger that, sir!”
“I go first. He can’t kill me. At least not easily.”
We reached the vehicle deck, a vast and empty bay with few vehicles left. The remaining equipment strained against restraints as the ship worked through the swell. As I put my hands to my lips, indicating silence, my phone beeped. I cursed silently, and frantically clawed at the device.
>> HEY! TANK is aboard UR ship!!
>> puck is monitoring the security cameras!!!
I rolled my eyes and cursed again. We know!
>> oh man oh man oh man oh man!!!
>> okay okay okay puck will help if he can
>> oh hey btw
>> the chemist emailed you
You’re telling me this NOW??
>> ur right! my fault!
>> focus!
I switched the phone to silent mode and we stalked towards the bow. Don’t worry about the Chemist. I can deal with that later. Focus on Tank.
We pressed through a doorway. I felt like we’d entered a swamp. The irate disease raging through my veins, flaring in my joints, twitching my muscles, quickening my mind, sharpening my eyesight and my sense of smell and my hearing-my whole body detected Tank. He stank of illness, though the SEALs couldn’t perceive it. I felt him. The assault on my sensorium turned the air shades of red and green as my brain strove to understand and process.
“Do you feel him?” I whispered.
“Like I’m being choked.”
“He can probably feel us, too.”
We crept through Tank’s fog for fifteen minutes, searching in vain. The SEALs couldn’t identify him in the air like we did, but they were on edge, jumpy. Maybe on some unconscious, preternatural level their bodies detected the threat. The surrounding tumult of a working warship masked any soft noises Tank was making as we searched over and under vehicles. We encountered more bodies. None appeared dead, but none would move any time soon either. All suffered from broken bones and bleeding skulls.
Suddenly, he roared. Gunfire. Above us. We pounded up the nearest ladder and raced along the narrow passageway. Lights were busted. Big gouges in decorative panelling. More bodies. Cries of alarm. The ship rolled and Cody slipped, landing on his back. Samantha’s teeth ground so hard I could hear them. Tank’s fury was palpable.
“We found him in here, sir.” An ensign on the deck pointed through a doorway. He lay beside two Master-at-Arms, both unconscious. The ensign’s face was white, though I saw no injuries. I flicked on the dazzler, which issued a brilliant green beam into the dark compartment. It was an empty room with four bunks and a hole through the back.
Samantha went in. “He escaped through the rear bulkhead. It’s made from a softer alloy.”
I asked the officer prone on the deck, “Where’d he go?”
“No idea, Major,” he panted, trying to maintain composure. We turned in a circle, glaring every direction in vain. Empty corridors. Only groans. “He was…everywhere. We shot him, sir. Over and over. Then he just…he was gone.”
He’d vanished.
“This ship is a city,” I growled.
“Maybe the cameras followed him,” Samantha said. “Where the hell am I? How do we get back to security?”
“Upwards,” Cody answered and we followed him back to the camera room, trudging in defeat. Katie opened the door before we knocked.
Seaman Burke pointed to the screens. Over half of them were dark. “He can go through most of the ship now,” he announced miserably. We were never going to find him.
Katie stood at the monitors, staring into them. Her hand pressed the wall to brace against the ship’s rising and falling. She spoke without breaking her gaze. “I think Tank went into the cargo hold. He ran that direction. He breaks cameras as he goes. And…” She held up her phone. “He’s texting me.”
“He’s what??” I yelped.
“He must have taken a phone from one of those bodies.” She pointed at the video screens. Dozens of men lay unmoving. Or moving slowly. She handed me the phone.
>> Katie
>> I’m here for you
>> Do you still use this phone? Please answer me. -T
Captain Travis burst into the room. His face had lost some of its color and he was sweating. “What the hell is going on? I want some answers. Right this very damn second. Christ almighty, that…thing has wiped out a tenth of my crew in the last hour.”
“That thing is a medically enhanced insane teenager who escaped from a highly secure military prison,” I explained. “Maybe you believe us now? He’s the strongest person on earth, and one of the fastest too. He can be drowned or burned or electrocuted, but those are the only ways I know to stop him. He’s here for her. And for me, too.”
He glared a moment, looking like a man who’d just been told the moon was made of blood. “We have a dozen tasers on board,” he said eventually. “I’ll send for them.”
“You’ll need to hit him with more than one.”
“You two can’t subdue him?” he asked.
“We can’t find him. He’s staying away from us.”
“This is a mess, Majors. This is a God-awful, unprecedented mess. I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to explain this to Admiralty, but I’m turning the San Antonio around. We need resources we can’t obtain in this squall.”
The phone rang. Captain Travis grabbed it and barked, “What?” He listened and rubbed his eyes. “Where’s the Chief? Sounds like a electronic malfunction-”
Loud thumps below interrupted him. The ship rang like it’d been struck with a hammer. The reverberations were too deep to be gunfire. Travis stared crazily at the deck, like he could see through it.
I asked, “What on earth was that?”
“Sounds like something hit us,” Travis said. “But it came from below, near the keel.”
Two more thumps. Samantha swung open the door. Echoes of the blast caromed off steel, faint but sharp. Samantha said, “Those are grenades detonating.”
“Seaman Burke,” Travis said, a new note of tension in his voice. “Show me the Armory.”
Burke hit a few keys and a blue picture jumped onto his screen. “Those cameras were destroyed, Captain.”
“Son of a bitch has our grenades.” Travis shook his head, living a nightmare.
“Grenades can’t puncture the hull,” I said.
Our room dimmed. The overhead speaker sputtered. Half of Burke’s monitors blinked off and on. Lights in the hall flickered, instants of pitch black, accompanied by a deep digital hum as electronic systems shuffled their loads.
“No,” Travis said. “But he could destroy our engines. And power. That bastard’s in engineering.”
Samantha asked, “This ship have a nuclear reactor?”
“Four diesel engines. Though, maybe three now.”
“If that big oaf went to the Armory, you can bet he destroyed the tasers.”
I asked Cody, “Can you get us to engineering?”
“Yes sir. Or close at least.”
“Captain, how long before you get us to shore?” I walked into the passageway and flipped the Stick in my hands a few times. It was impossibly heavy, but in my condition I didn’t notice.
Captain Travis grumbled, “That depends on how many engines I have left, Major. Twelve hours, at least, in this storm. Maybe days.”
“He texted me again!” Katie called. “It’s addressed to you, Chase. He says if you let me go, he won’t destroy the ship.”
“No deal. You’re worth more than the boat.”
“Aw!”
Cody punched my shoulder. “Nice.”
I’m the smoothest.
“So,” Travis said, trying to make order from the chaos. “If you weren’t aboard, he wouldn’t be here?”
“Probably not,” Katie replied.
“This is essentially a lovers quarrel?”
“Of epic proportions.”
More blasts emitted below. Strident ruptures of steam. Metal tearing apart. The radio in Captain Travis’s hand squealed, bursts of static and screams. The screams reached our ears unaided a heartbeat later. The fluorescent bulbs popped, and vibrations in the steel decks noticeably slackened. The propellors were losing power.
Emergency lights clicked on, casting us with an eery half-light.
“Gear,” I said. “Let’s go. We have a giant to slay.”
“We lose one more engine, we won’t maintain our heading,” Travis barked. “The waves will roll us onto our beam and we’ll be ass over heels!”
Samantha and I leapt down ladder wells, following the hissing steam deeper into the metal monster’s belly. The order and discipline of the San Antonio was abandoned; rain water poured down hatches and hot steam issued from below. Inner horizons swayed and lights failed and men couldn’t cope.
“Totally lost my zen!” Samantha cried above the racket, and she stumbled sideways as the ship heeled. “Damn it!”
“Just shoot him in the eye! I’ll treat his head like a sledge treats a watermelon.”
We reached the bottom deck and his voice echoed from the fog. “Do I hear Super Pajamas?” As always, his deep voice was felt as much as heard. It came tumbling out of air vents. He could be anywhere. “And PJs sidekick, Captain Bitch?”
“Hah!” she screamed. “I like that name!” She fired her pistol down perpendicular passageways. “Just stick your head out. I only need to see one eye!”
“I was starved for weeks!” he roared. “Because of you. Now I’ll drink your blood.”
Dalton whispered in my ear, “Engineering down that way, sir, but I bet he ain’t there no more.”
“I just want what you stole, Pajamas,” Tank continued from…somewhere. “Release the Latina.”
“She left you of her own free will,” I answered, creeping cautiously towards the ruined engineering hatch. That compartment was on fire and emitting awful machinery groans. Dalton was right, but I had to check. “Jump overboard, Tank! We can’t chase you in this storm. Start a new life somewhere. You’re free.”
“I want the girl.”
“You can’t have the girl!”
My phone buzzed. Over and over again. I glanced at it as our group snuck around a corner.
>> okay Puck rules
>> got u a ride!
>> get to the
back of your boat
I typed, what the heck??
What do you mean?!
>> u need off that ship, dumb ass!!
>> got you a different one!
>> go!
I showed the screen to Samantha, and I whispered, “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
Her eyes widened. “Of course! She’s here! This…this could work. If we get off the San Antonio, Tank shouldn’t destroy it, right? Let’s go!”
Dumb founded. Flabbergasted. I followed her, stupidly. “Who? Who’s here?”
“Text Katie. Tell her to collect our stuff and rendezvous at the wet deck.”
“What-”
“You two.” Samantha jammed her finger at Cody and Dalton. “Go get Katie, get our stuff, and escort her to the wet deck. We’re getting off the San Antonio just in time to save it.”
“Yes ma’am!” They stormed up the ladder, out of sight.
“What. The. HeckAreYouTalkingAbout!” I hissed.
Samantha raised her gun and fired four shots into the fog. Then she held a finger to her lips and led us aft. Tank’s angry voice penetrated the thickening mire but his words were muted and unintelligible.
She spoke into the radio. “Captain Travis, this is Major Gear. We’re getting off your ship. Prepare to lower the stern gate.”
“Major, that gate lowers and we sink.”
“You want us off your boat or not, Captain? We’ll disembark and then contact Tank. Once he learns of our departure, he’ll have no reason to remain. He should abandon ship soon after.”
A long silence. The radio clicked twice, as if Travis raised the radio to reply but changed his mind. She shot me an angry, anxious glance. Travis should see reason. Finally, “Roger. We’re monitoring your approaching vessel. Will lower the door. Stand by.”
“Gear.” I took her by the shoulders. Her muscles were rocks. “What’s going on?”
“Pacific! She’s here. I didn’t even think to call her. Puck is a genius.”
“Pacific,” I repeated. “The Infected lady? I’ve heard you mention the codename.”
“She lives on a boat out here. I’ve never met her.”
“You’re positive this is a good idea?”
“Hell no, but its better than staying here.”
Above and beyond the aft gate, the world was madness. The driving rain obliterated everything except heaving walls of water. We clung on and gaped and wondered how we’d jump ships.