by ML Banner
The demented became statue-like, his mouth gaping, now full of foam. Its head then listed, as if it was disconnecting from its neck. Then it righted itself. Its mouth closed, squishing out the white chemical spray. It slowly fixed its sights back on her, but she sprayed again, catching him once again right in the face.
It worked.
She held down on the lever and sprayed the giant demented again, just for good measure, followed by each demented in the horde, one after the other.
The results were the same: one by one the dementeds received a blast of cold white spray, first on their heads and then on their faces as they turned to see what this was. And one by one, after receiving the blast in their faces, they stopped, as if each of their internal go-switches had been flipped off.
Finally, she released the handle, stopping the spray.
The two men were no longer fighting. They watched, stunned like the dementeds. Their faces were almost clown-like: clenched and serious, but covered in splatters of white as well; their weapons fixed in the air, eyes riveted on their near-motionless targets.
“What are they doing?” Wasano huffed. He was mostly covered in white spray, over red splotches of blood; one of those splotches oozed red over the white.
Wasano remained still, back almost pressed to the wall. But Flavio marched forward to examine the dementeds himself, as if he had to convince his eyes what he was now seeing.
Except for their rapid breathing, each demented was stationary on its feet, though wobbling from side to side, looking as if they might fall over at any moment. Their faces were slackening with each second, mouths slinging open. Their reddish eyes glazed over. Their chests heaved unabated, faster even. “It’s the cold,” TJ replied.
One by one, the dementeds started to fall to the floor, their eyes closing after they hit. And then, as if it were normal, they all fell into a sleep. They were hibernating.
“I should announce on radio,” Wasano breathed several long breaths, “the cold stops them.”
“We must get to other engine,” Flavio said as if this were the normal course of their mission. He stepped over each of the sleeping dementeds and shuffled down the metal walkway. TJ followed, still holding the fire extinguisher, with Wasano behind her on the radio.
Very quickly, they were through another hatch and into the next engine room.
Wasano identified the shut-off button and rushed to it while Flavio and TJ kept an eye out for more dementeds, even though TJ said she didn’t smell anything.
Wasano held up his palm to slap the big red button, but before he could hit it, the rumble of the engines hitched and then shut down.
The engines did this on their own, without their help.
69
Down With The Ship
“I think they were successful, Captain,” Dr. Molly Simmons announced jubilantly. “The two men are high-fiving each other. The symptomatic woman, Mr. Bonaventure’s wife, looks... bored.”
Jörgen didn’t look up. He didn’t need to. The shuddering, followed by the absence of rumbling below his feet, told him the engines were powering down. He glanced up at the same monitor Molly had been studying and caught the screen showing the aft anchor. It should have been released by now. “First Officer Helguson, please report.” He bellowed into the radio. Staticky feedback was the only reply.
“What does that light mean?” Franz begged from beside him. He’d been as quiet as a church mouse since being scolded.
Jörgen glanced at a screen beside his and its two flashing lights. On his screen, he pulled up the data, but the reason for the lights didn’t immediately make sense. We’ve run out of fuel?
“Captain? Ah, you need to see this,” Molly alerted, her voice fluttering.
“Oy, what is that guy doing?” asked Hans, who had stepped away from the engineering entrance and padded closer to the screen, a couple of feet from Molly.
All eyes studied the monitor, and the images none of them expected to see.
Jörgen squinted, thinking he wasn’t seeing clearly. He typed in a quick command and brought up the questionable video feed onto his own screen. The video images now filled up his entire monitor. His mouth sagged.
It was Ágúst Helguson, the first officer on whose actions their very survival depended. He was standing hunched over the anchor release assembly, staring into space, drooling. In his hand he held something.
“Another light is blinking, captain,” announced Franz.
Jörgen craned his neck back at that monitor, to his right, and watched a number accelerate...
50—150—350.
It was the counter announcing the length of aft anchor chain spilling out. But it wasn’t stopping, as it was supposed to.
He turned back to his video feed of Ágúst. He zoomed in farther to look at Ágúst’s hands and confirmed what he was holding. “It’s the release pin.”
Jörgen was gut-shot with realization. His first officer not only released the anchor, which he was supposed to do, he also pulled the pin that would prevent the anchor chain from stopping when it hit its max length. The anchor would now automatically release all of its chain, as it was designed to do, so as to prevent any damage to the ship. That meant even if the anchor had snagged the Nordeste Bank, as they had hoped, it wouldn’t then stop and hold. And that meant it would do nothing to slow them down.
There was now no way to avert their crashing into the island’s shore.
“Oy, look at the naked woman. She’s a looker for a red-eye.”
Jörgen slowly turned to look up at the overhead and immediately found the video feed that Hans had called their attention to. It was the feed outside the entrance to the aft anchor assembly. In the middle of the screen stood, slightly hunched over, a naked woman he instantly recognized. It was Eloise Carmichael, the woman who had killed her fourth husband and was presumed to be washed overboard. She looked very much alive and she was staring with determination at the camera.
She is staring directly at us, he thought. It was as if she knew they were looking at her. She was now one of the infecteds, although she didn’t look completely crazy. She tilted her head; it was the look of a predator considering its prey, from a distance.
And even though the color was far from perfect in this video feed, there was no question that Eloise’s eyes were blazing the same blood-red color that coated much of her nude body.
All four of them were so focused on the monitor and the bizarre vision in it, they didn’t even notice, until it was much too late, the two crazies that burst into engineering. The door that was supposed to have been locked by Hans when Wasano, TJ and Flavio left was left open.
The two crazies crashed through the partially open door, screeching animal-like brays and immediately targeted one person: Molly, who was now closest to the door.
The captain sprang from his chair and just before they could get to her, he struck first, tackling both crazies to the floor.
~~~
Hans dashed the other way, toward his brother Franz, who was already shrinking into a murky area on the other side of the room. Molly assumed because Hans had missile-locked on his brother, he didn’t see she was in his way until he was upon her. Yet, using a shoulder, he blasted through her, knocking her to the floor. Her cane clattered against the other side of engineering.
Hans didn’t even look back—she knew this because Hans’ locomotion spun her around in his direction, away from the attack. He snagged Franz, who still had his blanket wrapped around him, and they both grabbed the darkest corner of the room, in an attempt to hide behind the overhanging end of the large three-station console the captain had just been using.
Stars filled Molly’s field of vision, though if her head had hit something other than the rubber strip hiding some electrical cords, she might not been able to attempt to recover so quickly. It was knowing her life was in immediate peril that fueled her to move quicker than she could remember doing over the last several years.
She pushed herself up from
the floor onto her knees and did a quick assessment, while her cane-hand blindly searched for its crutch in vain. Her mind reminded her hand that the cane had hit the other side of the room. It wasn’t important now.
The two parasitics appeared to be focused on the captain. Both were pounding on him and one, she was shocked to see, looked to be biting his neck. The captain’s pleas for help came out as low gurgles, while one of his hands weakly struck at the biter.
That should have been me, she thought.
But she could see the captain was gone, or would be soon, and so would her only opportunity to move while the parasitics were occupied.
She couldn’t race for the exit, because she’d have to run around them, and even with her cane, she couldn’t outrun them.
She reflexively turned in the other direction to confirm what she already knew: there was only one way out. She saw the anti-Semite who had just mowed her down when attempting to get away. His eyes were wide, like a little child, afraid for his own skin; his brother was partially covered in his blanket behind him.
There was no getting out of this.
Then the certainty of what she needed to do clicked in her brain, like the solution to a math problem.
She bounded up, wobbled, but regained the leg strength she needed to get to her target, a few feet from the captain. She ratcheted forward, but she couldn't help but throw a quick glance at the captain first. He lay bleeding on the floor as the parasitics tore into him further.
Molly lumbered the last couple of steps to the wall, below the big monitor they’d all been gazing at moments ago. It was on that monitor that she had seen her only salvation, offered to her by the symptomatic wife of Mr. Bonaventure.
Molly had eyed the fire extinguisher on their wall after she witnessed TJ spray the parasitics in the engine room, and then the security man announced on the radio about how cold from the fire extinguisher affected parasitics.
Molly did exactly what she witnessed TJ doing, although she had to clutch the heavy extinguisher against her chest: she pulled the pin, squeezed the handle, and pointed the nozzle and its billowing spray in the direction of the murdering parasitics.
Unfortunately, she just didn’t have a good hold on it and either the pressure from the spray pushed at her or the thing was just too damned heavy and she was too damned weak. It fell out of her hands and clanged down onto the floor, and she tumbled over once again. This time, she hit her side on the floor, and she hit hard. It knocked all the wind out of her.
She rolled over onto her back, dazed, expecting that at any moment, one or both of the parasitics would be upon her.
A flash of a shadow shot past her, but from the other direction. The shadow grunted, as if dragging something heavy.
She tilted her head to the grunting and was surprised to see it was that obnoxious German, Hans, who had knocked her aside moments ago. He finally grew some balls, after she had done all of the heavy lifting. He was emptying the fire extinguisher she’d dropped onto the two already incapacitated—thanks to her—parasitics who had killed their captain.
“Save some for later,” she croaked. Her voice sounded strange to her, like it was someone else’s.
A loud noise on the other side of the room diverted her attention to the front of the room.
The other German brother, Franz, was standing before the door, which she had guessed had been closed. Finally.
Molly laid her head back down and took in a long sigh of relief.
A shadow enveloped her and she screwed her eyes into the dark face staring down at her, features not clear because of the room’s low light. She could definitely make out the stupid I’m-proud-of-myself grin plastered over his demented mug. His hand was thrust out, a surprising gesture of help.
“Damn Jew. You’re one tough old broad, ain’t you?”
Yes, she guessed she was.
70
Rewired
She accepted his hand, and he easily hoisted her up as if her weight was that of a leaf. She wobbled—she was doing a lot of that lately—while standing and feared if the ship pitched or rolled in the slightest, she’d fall over. As much as she hated holding his hand, she had to wait until the wooziness passed before she could let go. Her spine tingled and her skin crawled at the feel of his sweaty mitt.
“Thank you,” she said. Her eyes were closed, and her voice barely a whisper.
She felt the familiar form of her cane being placed into her other hand. At first she shuddered at the unexpected act of kindness. But she didn’t question it and gladly shifted her weight onto it, feeling instantly stronger.
“How did you know about the fire extinguisher?”
She finally let go of Hans’ hand and flicked open her eyes, but didn’t make eye contact with him.
“If you hadn’t only been staring at the naked woman, you wouldn’t have asked me.”
“Well, at least I...” Hans finished his sentence in a mumble, or she simply tuned him out.
Her focus was now on his brother Franz, who had paddle-stepped over to the two parasitics, who were in some sort of hibernative state now, just like the ones they had witnessed on the screen, after Mrs. Bonaventure had blasted them with her fire extinguisher. These two were lying beside the barely moving form of the captain.
“Wait,” she huffed, and then waddled carefully over to the captain. Using her cane, she lowered herself down to her knees.
She could see there was nothing they could do for him. He was violently ripped apart and surely dead.
“Wow! Look at that, Hans!” Franz said beside her. “They clawed the ever-living shit out of his neck.” She scowled at the young man, angry at the man’s insensitive comments. The younger man wasn’t interested. With a blanket shrouding his shoulders, he gawked at the captain, just like a typical little boy who’d just witnessed something gory, and liked it.
The radio chirped at them, “Captain, are you there? We need you to try something.”
Molly glanced at the radio and then back to the captain
Again, her spine tingled as Hans sidled up beside her, rubbing his leg against her shoulder. “What now?” the dumb buffoon asked her, as if she would know.
With her eyes fixed on the captain she replied, “Maybe we can’t do anything, at least about the controls, but we can at least tell them their captain is dea—”
Just then, Captain Jörgen gurgled something. His throat was barely held together by the thin strands of tissue that threatened to let loose. She certainly didn’t think he could speak. She leaned over him. "I'm here, Captain," she said, her ear almost touching his lips.
"Tell the... About the fuel... Tell them use... thrust...” His voice trailed off to nothing. She waited, hoping he’d finish, while she held her own breath. After a few long moments of silence she realized he wasn’t going to say anything more because he was dead.
"Yeah, that makes sense,” Franz said, on the other side of the captain’s body. His loud words were jarring. “The gas was off. I mean the red warning light said the gas was off or out."
She had thought the kid was just stupid, but he did have a brain.
"Captain, are you there?” the radio bellowed.
Molly gritted her teeth and clasped one hand onto Hans’ arm and the other on her cane, using both as support. Then, pushing herself up and then forward, almost tumbling again, she raced over to the console, falling into one of the three swivel chairs. She spun to face the microphone and punched the transmit button, her face thrust into it. "This is Dr. Molly Simmons. I'm afraid your captain is dead. But he wanted me to tell you that we had run out of petrol, and I believe he said you should use the thrusters, whatever those are."
~~~
Jessica’s head was loosely cradled in her hands while she sobbed, “Oh my God, not the captain.”
Jean Pierre put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Then he let go. He let a few seconds go by before he said in a firm voice, “First Officer Mínervudóttir, I need you to focus on the problem at han
d. Now that we have most helm controls, I need you to confirm our fuel supply.”
Jessica stared at him, her eyes irritated and watery. She sniffled and asked the question they all thought, “How could we run out of fuel?”
“Have no idea. Doesn't matter right now. Check the controls.”
“Aye, sir,” she snapped, and began typing on the console she had just activated, while Jean Pierre stepped lively to the microphone.
They had both been working furiously for the last few minutes, and even surprised themselves at being able to somehow rewire the only other undamaged console, bringing it back into service. But they still couldn't get control of the rudder. They had limited control of the engines now, but without fuel they couldn't stop their forward motion into the island. “That's it!” she exclaimed. “I think I understand, Staff Captain.”
“Go,” Jean Pierre gave Jessica his full attention, while he hovered over Ted, who continued his vigil at the radio.
“It's the fuel! I still don't know how we could run out of the heavy fuel.” Jean Pierre’s head nodded in affirmation, knowing where she was going now. “However, we still have our MGO.”
“Do we have thruster controls?” Jean Pierre huffed. Could it be that simple?
Jessica smiled, now completely sure of what to do, completing the taps of her new commands into the working console.
“Please explain,” Ted begged. David, behind him, also nodded at Jean Pierre.
Jean Pierre held up one hand and punched the microphone button with the other.
“Thank you, Dr. Simmons. Please hang on. We think we understand the captain's command.” His very last command, the thought burst his bubble of excitement just then.
At that moment, they could all feel the rumble of the ship's engines reverberating through the ship's hull beneath them. And almost as quickly as they felt the rumble, they could feel the gentle nudge of them being pushed forward. Ever so lightly at first, and then more prominently a few seconds later.