Юхан Теорин - The Voices Beyond

Nothing was moving.

He kept on going, taking very small steps. The hatch came to an end, and beyond it he saw something round and dark. At first, he thought it was a ball.

Then he realized it was a head. And a neck, and a pair of shoulders.

There was a man lying on the deck.

Jonas stopped dead.

The man was wearing dark overalls. His face was turned towards Jonas, and the lower half of his body was stuck in a square hole in the deck; it looked as if he had been trying to climb out of the hold.

But he wasn’t moving now; he didn’t even appear to be breathing. He was just lying there.

Jonas stared at him. He was just thinking about giving the man a little push with his foot when he heard the sound of moaning from down in the hold.

There were more people in there, but their voices didn’t sound normal. They sounded muffled, and in terrible pain.

He listened, frozen to the spot.

The voices fell silent.

Jonas heard a rattling noise on deck, right behind him. He turned around and saw a figure stumbling out of the darkness, from the prow. A tall, thin man with black hair. He was young, dressed in jeans and a white sweater — but he looked ill, with staring eyes, his head drooping. He staggered forward as if he were in a trance; he almost tripped over the hatch but slowly straightened up, his expression blank.

The living dead. A zombie.

He spotted Jonas; he raised his arms and made a kind of noise. It sounded like a foreign language, a hoarse wheezing.

The zombie reached out; he was only two metres away now.

One metre.

Jonas backed away, turned around and fled along the gunwale. His feet jumped past the man lying on the deck as his eyes searched for a safe place.

The sea was as black as ink. Öland was far away. Jonas ran blindly towards the stern and the wheelhouse, which had a narrow steel door.

But the door was closed. Locked. And there was no handle. He pushed his fingers between the edge of the door and the frame, but it wouldn’t budge.

Trapped.

He could hear the wheezing behind him, coming closer and closer. He turned around, saw the outstretched hands. Moving towards him.

Jonas closed his eyes and felt his pants fill with warmth. He had wet himself. At the same time, the steel door shook against his back. Someone on the other side was trying to open it.

Another monster? Jonas shrank in his wet pants as he heard the door squeak.

It was thrust open with such force that he was pushed aside. Someone emerged — first of all a foot in a leather boot, then a denim-clad leg, then a pair of raised arms. Holding an axe.

The man who stepped out on to the deck was also tall and thin; he had a shaven head, and he didn’t seem to have noticed Jonas. He took two steps past him and swung the axe.

It had a long handle; the blade flashed and went straight into the zombie’s chest. The blow sent the body reeling backwards and it landed on the deck next to Jonas.

The zombie kept on moving, waving its hands and trying to get up. The man with the axe shouted something and hit it again, twice, three times, four times — then the zombie fell back and lay still.

Silence. The ship drifted on through the night.

The man with the axe took a long breath; he sounded as if he was shivering. He turned and saw Jonas.

Their eyes met in the moonlight. Jonas realized that he recognized this man, those blinking eyes, that tense expression. He had definitely seen him before.

But the man’s eyes were cold. Cold and afraid. He bent over Jonas and gasped a question: ‘Who are you ?’ He gripped Jonas by the shoulder. ‘Where’s Aron, the Swedish-American?’

Jonas opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Every single word had disappeared from his brain, but the man kept on asking questions.

‘The old man — where’s he gone?’

He raised the axe, which was dripping with blood.

Jonas managed to make his body move, and rolled to the side. He had to get away, anywhere. He reached out, felt the cold metal of the gunwale and quickly got to his feet. He saw a white lifebelt; his hands grabbed it in passing and tossed it overboard as he clambered to the top of the gunwale.

‘Wait!’ the man shouted.

But Jonas swung his leg over and glanced behind him one last time. He saw a new figure, someone standing at the window of the wheelhouse. An old man, with grey hair, a pale face...

He had seen enough; he threw himself off the ship, straight out into the darkness of the sea.

The water was bitterly cold; it took hold of him, dragged him down. He sank into a world of bubbles. The currents around the hull of the ship pulled at him as a dull rushing sound filled his ears, but his flailing hands carried him back up to the surface.

He gulped in the night air, saw the horror ship looming above him. But it was moving away, its engines still throbbing faintly.

Jonas was floating — his lifejacket was doing its job. The lifebelt was just a metre or so away; he managed to get hold of it and slipped it over his head and under his arms.

The jacket and the lifebelt carried his body, and when he turned his head he saw lights. They were a long way off, but they were glittering. The lights of Öland. His only option was to start swimming towards them.

He kicked his legs ten times, then rested for a while, using the belt to support him, then kicked out ten times more. Slowly, he made his way towards the shore. The lights were getting closer; he could see little houses now.

The dark coast came into focus, and at last Jonas felt the rocks beneath his feet. He had reached the shore.

He could hear a splashing sound; was someone following him? He looked around, but saw only black water. The Sound was in complete darkness; there was no sign of the lights of a ship out there.

But perhaps the dead had jumped in the water after him, perhaps they were slowly swimming towards the shore right now...

He crawled out of the sea, water pouring from his shorts and top; he wriggled out of the lifebelt and lay there on the pebbles. He was utterly exhausted, but terror at the thought of the dead made him get to his feet.

Where could he hide?

Whereabouts on the island was he?

The shore was less steep here, and he realized he was further north. He saw a row of boathouses up on the ridge, all in darkness apart from one small wooden hut with a faint light in one window.

Jonas stumbled towards it as quickly as he could and finally he made it. He tugged at the handle, but the door was locked. He started hammering and shouting for help, and at last the door was opened.

Not by a zombie, not by a madman wielding an axe, but by an old man who looked as if he had just woken up. He stepped aside, welcoming Jonas into the warmth and the light.

Jonas almost fell in. The water from his clothes dripped on to a soft rug beneath his feet, but he could do no more. He collapsed.

The man was still staring at him, the door still open to the night.

‘Shut the door,’ Jonas whispered. ‘Lock it! They’re after me!’

‘Who’s after you?’

‘The dead. From the ship.’

Gerlof had been woken by strange vibrations, a racket that made him think he was lying in his bunk on board a ship. Then he opened his eyes and remembered that he had decided to spend the night in the boathouse in order to get some peace and quiet. But the walls were actually shaking.

Could it be an earthquake? Slowly, he got out of the camp bed, but it was only when he put in his hearing aid that he realized what was going on. Someone was hammering on the door, and a high voice, somewhat muted by the wood, was shouting, begging to be let in.

‘I’m coming,’ Gerlof muttered.