The Cold Beneath (20 page)
They just had to draw enough breath to scream.
Before the creatures could lurch forward and attack, Herron fired his weapon. It clicked, hollow and empty, but nothing else happened. There should have been a resounding pop. There should have been smoke and heated metal and the shriek of a struck creature. There should have been blood. But there was nothing. Nothing at all.
The gun had jammed.
By all the demons in Hell, the gun jammed and left Herron defenseless in the face of living death! We were all stunned by this turn of events, the revenants included. For another heartbeat, we stood across from the creatures, staring in silence as the reality of what transpired settled on us like soft-falling snow. That was when I saw Bradley among the five, still eager for my warmth. He turned his face to mine, stared me in the eye with his frosty glare and sneered at me almost in mockery. I was struck to the very core of my being by the act. So very human, yet so cruelly inhumane!
Shipman was the closest to Herron, and immediately set upon the defenseless man. Herron screamed in torment as the creature sank its teeth into the man’s cheek, tearing away a chunk of ripe flesh. Blood spurted from the wound, showering Shipman in bright, fresh crimson. This spurred the others into action, both parties. Greenway pounced at Harris, who squeezed off a single round that exploded what was left of Greenway’s arm.
The beast was unfazed by the shot. He didn’t even wince, let alone retreat. He but continued his rush, knocking Harris to the ground before the lad could ready his next shot. Tipton and some other nameless beast set to taking on Parker. The young man tried to swing his weapon, but Tipton caught it by the blade in mid-slice, giving a feral growl as he jerked the katana free and tossed it to one side. I would have given my life to help them, for those men to escape unharmed or at the very least with their lives intact, but I had worries of my own to deal with.
For while the others struggled in their own battle, Bradley kept his attention trained on me. I backed away from the gory scene, with my manservant advancing upon me step for step. Never having fought another human being, let alone a walking corpse, I found myself awash in panic. What could I do? I was armed with a pitiful dagger, nothing more. I waved it at him, though the gesture was more humorous than menacing.
Again the man spoke, his growling hiss just audible over the screams of my dying companions. “Give me your warmth.”
I was struck with an idea. If he could speak, could he reason? In my panic, I decided it was worth the effort. “Please, Bradley, you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Your blood … so warm … I can feel your heat from here …”
Continuing to back away, I protested, “Bradley, please. You don’t want to hurt me. Not really.”
At this, he lunged forward, grabbing me by the shoulders and drawing his terrible face down to mine as he said, “Yes, Philip. I’m afraid I do.”
I stared with horror into his widening maw, my heart beating a furious tattoo of wild fright as death bore down upon me. A loud bang to the left snatched his attention, blessedly delaying his attack. I also jerked my head to the sound, and my wild heart skipped several beats at the sight of Greenway sprawled upon the floor, the top of his head a pulpy chaos of skull and brains and various fluids. Yes, I was pleased to see my fellow crewmember suffer a twofold death from a well-placed gunshot wound.
The discharged weapon also prompted the revenants to begin their awful shrieking again.
In the hollow echoing of that terrible sound, Harris clambered to his feet and raised the gun at Tipton, firing off another shot that pushed the maniac away from young Parker, but far too late to rescue the lad. The young man lay in the arms of the other nameless beast, dancing in seizing jolts as the revenant feasted upon his still-warm body. Harris, emboldened by his success, readied his weapon a third time, lifting the gun to Bradley, though I barely registered this action. My manservant had since returned his attention to me and my warmth, snapping his powerful jaws as I did my best to fend him off. Bradley would not be denied, knocking the dagger from my hand and bearing down upon me until we were left wrestling upon the blood-streaked floor.
“Hold him still!” Harris shouted.
I understood the order and did my best to hold the struggling revenant in place so the lad could obtain a decent shot. Grabbing Bradley by the shoulders, I pushed his head away from me with all of my might, raising his form to hover above me. This risked giving him the upper hand should Harris fail in his attempt, yet it was a chance I was more than willing to take. It took a few pushes before I had him away from me, and even more of an effort to keep the thing stationary. My diligence was rewarded by a sequence of sounds both eerie and sweet, a loud pop followed by the wet sucking burst of exploding flesh. Bradley took the bullet full to the cranium, the path traversing from right to left, rupturing his skull into a spray of blood and gray matter.
This mess rained upon me, dressing me in gore as I flung the ruined corpse away. Harris helped me to my feet, prodding me to flee up the stairs and away from the terror. I inquired about the other revenants, and why we didn’t just dispatch them while we were here.
“I’m out of ammunition,” he explained.
My heart sank to my knees as we fled the scene, leaving Herron and Parker at the mercy of those beasts.
Bathos was in the hallway just outside the sickbay, wearing a worried look. Within moments, he noticed the absence of the missing men. “Where’s John? Peter?”
“They didn’t make it,” Harris said. “Get back inside; we need to bar the door.”
Bathos did as asked, but not without a gasp of surprise at the news of his friends’ sordid fates. Once inside, we sealed the door with the heaviest of the furniture, then collapsed against our barrier to catch a much-needed breath. Bathos and Kidman stared down at us in silence as the six injured men remained quiet in their beds, unknowing of the terrible fate that had befallen their friends.
Once our mutual breathing evened out, Harris looked to me and asked, “Are you well?”
I cringed as I palpated my injured clavicle. It was sore, but as far as I could tell, the damage wasn’t permanent. I nodded at Harris, then asked, “And you?”
Holding his arm aloft with a wince, he revealed to me his injury; a bloody hole the size of a fist along the right side of his ribcage. It was then that I noticed how pale the lad was, how what I’d mistaken for fear was in reality a great loss of blood. I felt duly guilty for assuming he had escaped unscathed, as I had.
“Let’s bind that,” I demanded.
He was in no shape to argue, and allowed me to doctor him in silence as the men watched on.
At length, I said, “That was some fine shooting back there.”
Harris grunted at my compliment. “My father taught me how to shoot as soon as I could get my tiny fingers around an iron. I’ve just always been a good aim.”
“I’m very glad. I would be dead otherwise.”
The man sighed, then said, “I only wish I could have done more.”
“Nonsense. You did more than enough. More than …” I paused as the words pained me, but I pressed on, finishing with, “more than I.”
Harris grabbed my trembling hands, holding them still. He stared up at me, his eyes swollen with grief. “It was very brave of you to go after Peter. He would have tried to do the very same thing on his own and gotten killed either way. We had to try. It was worth the effort. Don’t think of this as your fault.”
Without warning, the distant screams of the beasts went quiet. I sat beside Harris, his now-trembling hands on mine as we both turned to stare at the doors. I was sure he expected, as I did, the wild maniacs to break down our skeletal barricade and set upon our tender flesh.
“Sir?” Kidman asked.
“Hush!” I snapped, sure his voice would draw the things to us. But nothing happened. We sat in that silence for almost five full minutes, and nothing happened.
“Sir?” Harris whispered. “What do you suppose it means?”
“I’m not sure,” I said in a hushed tone. “But perhaps we should keep quiet just in case. We don’t need a repeat of what happened down there.”
In the silence, Bathos whispered, “What happened down there?”
I finished binding Harris’s wounds as I related the events with a crisp uncaring efficiency, much to the chagrin of my audience. I suppose I could have been a bit more caring, spared them the full terror of their friends’ demises, but what good would that have done? It would have left me with a room full of grudge-bearing crewmembers ready to launch a second ill-fated attack on those unstoppable fiends.
Only they weren’t unstoppable.
No.
Harris had proven that they could be killed a second time. The destruction of the brain was enough to disable them. It was the silver lining in an otherwise gray state of affairs. It was also a terrible notion. That we could, and would, fight back, and in such an appalling manner. It occurred to me then that it also seemed familiar—a trauma to the brain halting the walking dead in their tracks.
Then it hit me. I remembered where I had seen it in action before.
“Morrow,” I whispered.
“What about him?” Harris asked.
I hadn’t realized I was talking aloud, but I took the chance to seek support for my sudden strange theory. In a furious whisper, I explained, “When Morrow returned from the supposed dead, his rampage was stalled by a single blow to the brain. Was it possible that even he was one of these revenants? Even then, were we victim to such a terrible fate?”
The men went quiet at my question. No one wanted to agree, yet none leapt to argue either. I knew why. No matter the angle in which one viewed it, the facts pointed to the same obvious answer.
Yes. Yes, even then. It was a dreadful idea, to say the least.
“But why?” Bathos asked. His weak voice was laced with fear, confusion and dread.
“I … I don’t know,” I confessed. Once again I was left without an answer but struggled to find reason in the face of our hopelessness. “I’m left to wonder if it’s some uncharted effect of the eternal sunshine, or perhaps a strange vapor native to the area. Even now we could be breathing the very source—”
“No,” Harris interrupted. “The incident with Morrow occurred just as we passed into the Arctic. Surely the man hadn’t been exposed long enough to the Northern elements for them to have such a drastic effect on him or his corpse.”
“Yet he rose again,” I said. “As did the others. And since there have been no such reported incidents on past expeditions, or among the natives of the area, logic dictates that it has to be something exclusive to us. To our crew. Something only we did that led us to this fate.”
The implication was heavy and foreboding. At first I supposed I might have spoken over their heads, but the men understood well enough.
“Then we’re all doomed?” Harris asked.
“Again,” I said, “I just don’t know. I’m very sorry.”
I knew it was a lie the moment it left my lips. Even then I was sure of this simple truth, confident in my logic, as mad as it was. I knew for a fact that we were all headed down that twisted and treacherous path. Without being aware of it, we had been hauling about a crew full of cursed men bound to return from the grave upon death. Every single one of them.
Including me.
****
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The Third Wave
My end is drawing near. I can feel it in my weary bones, in my aching soul. I am hungry and thirsty and cold. So very cold. The ship has been without power for several days now, and I have been without food or drink nearly as long. It is as if we suffer as one, the Fancy and I. Suffering in some shared fate, neither of us to gain the sustenance that would allow us to carry on. I pray that with my life ends my existence upon this cursed plane. The ship’s shell can be revived, can be restored and readied for further adventures. And me? Although by all rights I am doomed to return, I will not allow it. I will try my damnedest to leave nothing behind. No part of me to return. Those who hunger for my life shall have what they crave.
And I pray they take it all.
But again I digress.
The creatures didn’t follow us back to the medical unit to attack at once, as we feared they would. No, it was an hour or so before anything happened, and it wasn’t an attack. As I sat, resting across from the barred door, brooding over my wicked fate, the lights began to flicker.
I lifted my head, watching the sputtering bulbs with curiosity. “What’s—” was all I was able to say. Before I could finish the question, the lights cut out, plunging us into a sudden darkness. The hum of the heaters ceased, signaling their stopping as well. In fact, the entire ship went silent.
“What happened?” I asked, though the answer was obvious enough. In the absence of the ship’s ‘life noises,’ my voice was much louder than I intended.
“That’ll be the boilers,” Kidman said. A lantern flared to life, casting the room in a halo of low light. I watched in wonder as Kidman lit a few more lanterns scattered about the room. It was if the man had prepared for just such an occurrence, and without command. I repeat again that I was not, and still am not, much of a leader.