Douglas Child - The Wheel of Darkness

“ETA Carrion Rocks in four minutes,” said the third officer.

The lookout stood at the window, binoculars raised and white-knuckled. LeSeur wondered why the man felt it was so important to see the rocks coming—there was nothing they could do about it. Nothing.

Kemper laid a hand on his shoulder. “Sir, I think you need to issue instructions to the bridge personnel to assume defensive positions for . . . for the upcoming collision.”

LeSeur nodded, a sick feeling in his stomach. He turned and signaled for attention. “Officers and personnel of the bridge,” he said. “I want everyone on the floor, in fetal position, feet facing forward, heads cradled in hands. The collision event will not be a short one. Do not rise until the vessel is clearly DIW.”

The lookout asked, “Me as well, sir?”

“You, too.”

Reluctantly and awkwardly, they lay down on the floor and assumed their defensive positions.

“Sir?” Kemper said to LeSeur. “We can’t afford an injured captain at the critical moment.”

“In a minute.”

LeSeur took one last look at the CCTV trained on the bridge helm. Mason remained calmly at the helm, as if on the most routine of crossings, one hand draped casually over the wheel, the other caressing a lock of hair that had escaped from under her cap.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught something beyond the bridge windows, and shifted his gaze.

Directly ahead and about a mile off, LeSeur could see a light-colored smudge emerge out of the mist, which resolved itself into a ragged line of white below the uncertain horizon. He immediately knew it was the immense groundswell breaking over the outer edges of the Carrion Rocks. He stared in horrified fascination as the line of white resolved into a tearing expanse of combers boiling and erupting over the outer reefs, exploding over the rocks and sending up geysers as tall as small skyscrapers. And behind the churning white water he could see a series of rocky masses looming up like the black, ruined towers of some grim castle of the deep.

In all his years at sea, it was the most terrifying sight he had ever seen.

“Get down, sir!” Kemper cried from his position on the floor.

But LeSeur could not get down. He could not take his eyes off their looming end. Very few human beings had looked into hell itself—and to him, this cauldron of writhing water and jagged rocks was hell, the real hell, far worse than mere fire and brimstone. A cold, black, watery hell.

Who were they kidding? Nobody would survive—nobody.

Please, God, just make it quick.

And then his eye caught a movement on the CCTV. Mason had seen the rocks herself. She was leaning forward, eagerly, as if urging the ship onward by sheer willpower, yearning it on to its watery grave. But then an odd thing happened: she jumped and turned, staring with fright at something offscreen. Then she backed up, away from the wheel, a look of pure terror on her face. Her movement carried her out of the field of the camera, and for a moment nothing happened. Then there was a strange burst of static on the screen, almost like a cloud of smoke, crossing the field of view in the direction Mason had retreated. LeSeur slapped the CCTV, assuming it was a glitch in the video feed. But then his audio headset, tuned to the bridge frequency, transmitted a gut-chilling scream—Mason. She reappeared, staggering forward. The cloud—it was like smoke—whirled about her and she breathed it in and out, clawing at her chest, her throat. The captain’s hat tumbled off her head and her hair flew out wildly, snapping back and forth. Her limbs moved in strange, herky-jerky spasms, almost as if she were fighting her own body. With a thrill of horror, LeSeur was reminded of a marionette struggling against a controlling puppeteer. Writhing with the same, spastic movements, Mason approached the control panel. Her smoke-shrouded limbs convulsed in fresh struggle. Then LeSeur saw her stretch forth her hand—unwillingly, it seemed—and press a button. The cloud seemed to sink deeper into her, thrusting itself down her throat, while she clawed at the air, arms and legs jerking now in agony. She fell to her knees, hands up in the caricature of prayer; then she sank, shrieking, to the floor, out of sight of the camera’s view.

For a second, LeSeur stood motionless, staring at the screen in surprise and disbelief. Then he grabbed the radio, punched in the frequency for the guards posted outside the bridge. “LeSeur to bridge security, what the hell’s going on up there?”

“I don’t know, sir,” came the reply. “But the Level Three alert’s been lifted. The security locks on the bridge hatch just disengaged.”

“Then what the hell are you waiting for?” he screamed. “Get in there and turn hard aport,

hard aport, you son of a bitch, now, now, now

!”

77

EMILY DAHLBERG HAD LEFT THE AUXILIARY BRIDGE AND, AS ordered, was making her way back to her cabin. The ship was still proceeding at what seemed like full speed. She descended a staircase to Deck 9, walked along a corridor, and emerged again onto a balcony overlooking the highest level of the Grand Atrium.

She paused, shocked at the sight that greeted her eyes. The water had drained away into the lower decks, leaving a tangled wreckage of sodden and broken furniture, wires, seaweed, wood paneling, ripped-up carpet, broken glass, and—here and there—a motionless body. The place stank of seawater.

She knew she had to get to her cabin and brace for the collision. She’d listened to the argument on the auxiliary bridge, heard the announcement over the PA system. But it occurred to her that her cabin, here on Deck 9, might not be a good place to be. It seemed a better place might be on one of the lower weather decks, near the stern, where she would be farthest from the point of impact and could perhaps jump into the sea afterward. It was, of course, a pathetic hope, but at least it seemed a better risk than being trapped in a cabin a hundred and twenty feet above the water.

She ran down a set of stairs, descending another eight levels, then stepped through an archway and began picking her way sternward, through the sodden debris littering the floor of the Grand Atrium. The elegant wallpaper of the King’s Arms restaurant was stained and darkened, with an encircling line of kelp showing the high-water level. She passed the ruined piano, looking away when she noticed one crushed leg protruding heavily from the sound box.

With everyone in their cabins, the ship seemed strangely still, unpopulated and ghostlike. But then she heard a sound nearby—a sobbing—and, turning, noticed a bedraggled boy of perhaps eleven years old, shirtless, soaking wet, crouching amid a scatter of debris. Her heart swelled with pity.

She made her way over to him. “Hello, young man,” she said, trying to keep her tone as light and as even as possible.

He stared at her and she extended a hand. “Come with me. I’ll take you out of here. My name is Emily.” The boy took her hand and she helped him to his feet, then took off her jacket and placed it around his shoulders. He was shaking with terror. She put an arm around him. “Where’s your family?”

“My mum and dad,” he began in an English accent. “I can’t find them.”

“Lean on me. I’ll help you. We don’t have much time.”

He gave one more gulping sob and she hustled him out of the Grand Atrium, past the Regent Street shops—shuttered and deserted—and then along the side corridor leading to the weather deck. She stopped at an emergency station for two sets of life vests, which they put on. Then she led the way over to the hatch.

“Where are we going?” the boy asked.

“Outside, onto the deck. It’ll be safer there.”