John Birmingham - Without warning

Before Pete could answer, Jules cut him off, clicking her fingers in an effort to bring the others back to reality. ‘Excuse me, people – end of the world over here. Greg Norman’s yacht getting all Mary Celeste on us? Let’s maintain our focus, shall we?’

‘Sorry,’ said Pete. ‘It’s just, you know, it’s the Shark, baby!’

‘Stupid fucking game anyway,’ muttered Fifi. ‘Buncha fat-ass white guys in ugly pants, driving around in those faggy little carts…’

‘Fifi.’ Jules’s voice took on a warning edge. She was fond of her white-trash friend, but managing the bimbo eruptions was a full-time job.

‘Got it, got it. Maintaining focus.’

‘Come on, let’s have a little look-see,’ said Jules.

She slipped her carbine over one shoulder and took out a handgun, a Beretta Px4, even though she wasn’t expecting to find anyone on board. They’d been calling out since boarding, but it had the same feeling as knocking on the door of an empty house. She knew they were alone. The ever-suspicious Fifi, however, kept a sawn-off shotgun to hand with a shell racked in the tube. Her thumb stroked the safety, ready to flick it off at the slightest provocation.

The three of them walked around the pool, located on the second of four upper decks, the sun glinting fiercely off the water as it slowly sloshed around with the gentle motion of the boat. The tip of the Diamantina’s main mast rolled through a small arc a few metres away. By leaning over the polished rail, Jules could see the top of Mr Lee’s bald head a long way below. The pool looked to be about ten metres long, with four round, black stools peeping above the waterline at the far end, where they abutted a full bar with its own beer taps and all the fixings for a high-end cocktail party. A large plate of fruit salad, wilted in the heat, lay untouched in the centre of the polished hardwood bar-top. White padded cushions lay along both sides of the pool, with pillows scattered here and there. She could read Pete like a cheap novel and knew that it was all he could do to resist diving in and asking the girls to set him up a margarita. To move things along, she strode forward, taking the port-side companionway.

‘Hello,’ she called out once more. ‘Is anyone on board? Do you need help?’

‘Oh fuck… Oh, gross me out!’

Jules spun around at the sound of Fifi’s distress, reaching for her weapon again, but no obvious threat had emerged from anywhere. Rather, Fifi was dancing about as if she’d trodden in something nasty. Which she had.

‘Oh goddamn!’ Fifi cursed again. ‘This is worse than rendered hog fat.’

‘What is it?’ asked Jules, as she hurried over, just one step behind Pete.

‘Gawd, that is nasty,’ he said, suddenly pulling up.

Before them on the deck was a pile of burnt clothes, out of which leaked a couple of gallons of the vilest-looking greenish black substance Jules had ever seen.

‘What is it?’ shrieked Fifi. She was losing it, badly.

‘I think it might have been the Shark.’ Pete rubbed at his face and gingerly toed another straw hat away from the mess. ‘Ugh… Hey darlin’, I really think you ought to throw those shoes of yours over the side.’

Fifi shook her head, disgust acid-etched into her features. ‘Man, I don’t wanna touch that gunk. What the fuck is it?’

Jules leaned over and peered at the toxic ooze. ‘I think Pete’s right,’ she said. ‘I think it used to be a person.’

‘So w-what happened to them?’

Fifi lit up a calming Marlboro with shaking hands. The only answer to her question was the hiss of the Pacific sliding past the hull a long way below them.

‘How many of those things are there, do you think?’ she asked, tiptoeing over to the gunwale and using a pistol to ease off her deck shoes.

‘Careful you don’t shoot yourself in the foot,’ warned Pete.

She shuddered. ‘Couldn’t be no worse than getting this crap on me. What if it’s like the Blob? What if I turn into that… stuff?’

Jules could hear clearly the approaching edge of hysteria in her friend’s voice. She strode over, put a steadying hand on the other girl’s shoulder, reached down and pulled off the shoe Fifi had been trying to dislodge, before tossing it into the sea. Some of the oozing substance ended up on her hand, but she wiped that off on her shirt.

‘It’s gross, Fi, but it’s not the Blob,’ Jules assured her. ‘We’ll need to have a good clean-up if they’re all like this. It’ll be a devilish health hazard otherwise. What do you think, Pete? How many people would have been on board?’

The Australian shrugged. ‘Dunno, sweetheart. At a guess, a boat this size, well over a dozen, maybe even twenty, but some of them would have been cooks, bartenders, cleaners, and so on. Perhaps even a caddy. There’ll be a crew manifest somewhere.’

‘Do you think he was on it, you know, when they got zapped?’ she asked, indicating the straw hat with a nod.

Pete stared at the obscene mess on the polished deck. He looked very grim. ‘The Shark? I dunno, could’ve been. Unless he lent it out to someone, or ran charters. I don’t think he did, though. I read somewhere he kept this baby very much to himself.’

It did raise other, more pressing questions in Jules’s mind. If it was the golfer’s yacht and the mess in front of them wasn’t him, then he was definitely going to want it back. But if it was Norman and they had to make a run Down Under, to put some serious distance between themselves and whatever had happened to the US, there’d be no hiding this yacht anywhere. It would be noticed.

‘Well, let’s just be careful where we tread from now on, I suppose,’ she said. ‘Fifi, maybe you could find a pair of shoes somewhere.’

Fifi nodded, looking sickly, as they moved further up towards the bow. Another pile of clothes, a uniform belonging to a crew member, lay at the bottom of the steps up to the next deck, oozing the same putrescent substance.

‘Man, I am so not looking forward to swabbing that up,’ muttered Pete.

‘Maybe we should blow this off,’ Fifi suggested. ‘It’s freaking me out, guys. You know, this is the bit in the movie where you’re sitting there yelling at the screen, “Get off the boat, you fucking dumbasses!’”

Jules and Pete both ignored her and stepped through the doorway ahead. A cool curtain of chilled air washed over them. The yacht’s climate control system was obviously unaffected by the loss of the crew. It kept the interior of the boat at a perfect twenty-one degrees Celsius. A small readout just inside the hatch confirmed the fact.

Jules stopped in her tracks and whistled in appreciation. It wasn’t the shock of cold air that had pulled her up short, but the full-blown opulence of the interior fit-out. Unlike the Diamantina, where you could never forget that you were on a small boat, Norman’s yacht seemed designed to provide the experience of stepping into a grand European hotel at sea. Polished wood panelling glowed with a soft red warmth. Brass gleamed. Thick woollen carpets covered the floor. As she got over the surprise and moved on, Jules briefly caught sight of huge staterooms, lavishly furnished with antique tables and cabinets and massive, overstuffed armchairs. Oil paintings hung from the walls wherever they turned. Here a bush scene – from Australia, she presumed – there, an enormous portrait of four white dogs. A grand staircase connected the decks above and below this one, again looking as though it would not have been out of place in a French palace or a grand Italian villa.

She counted another seven piles of clothes and organic matter as they explored.

The surroundings seemed to overwhelm Fifi, who momentarily forgot her fear and disgust. ‘Man, this is like a hotel or something,’ she cooed. ‘A real fancy hotel too, not just a Motel 6. This is more like a Holiday Inn.’