Adam Baker - Outpost

They ran through the canteen kitchen. Jane unlocked a refrigerator. Punch held her torch.

Shotguns laid across a shelf. Jane tugged the weapons from their nylon sleeves. She slotted shells into the receiver. She swept boxes of ammunition into a backpack.

‘I’ll tell you right now,’ said Jane. ‘There will be no negotiation. I don’t care how many people are hiding on that boat. They are sure as hell going to stop for us.’

They found the ship drifting twenty kilometres south of its previous position.

‘The current is pretty strong,’ said Jane. ‘No time to fetch the boys. Three or four trips in the zodiac. Guys would get left behind.’

‘Jesus. Look at the size of it.’

‘Bring us round the stern,’ said Ghost. He hurled the grappling hook upward and snagged railings.

‘Maybe I should go,’ said Punch.

Ghost ignored him. He shouldered his backpack and gun, gripped the knotted rope and began to climb. He hauled hand over hand, walking his way up the side of the boat. Punch tried to keep the zodiac beneath him. If Ghost fell in the freezing water the shock would kill him.

Ghost reached the deck. He climbed over the railing. He caught his breath, coughed and spat.

‘Looks pretty dead,’ he shouted. ‘No one around.’

Jane grabbed the rope and hauled herself up the side of the boat. Weeks ago, when she was fat, she couldn’t have managed the climb.

She tipped over the railing and fell on to the deck.

The ship was ten storeys high. Six rows of portholes in the main hull, and four stacked decks like the concentric tiers of a wedding cake.

Jane found herself on a teak promenade laid out for an Arctic pleasure cruise. Whale-watching loungers and curling stones.

She looked up and down the walkway. Every cabin window was dark. They un-shouldered their shotguns. Safety to Fire. Ghost chambered a shell.

‘Let’s find the bridge.’

They walked towards the prow. A couple of cabin doors were open. Scattered possessions. Jane wanted to investigate, but there wasn’t time to explore.

Ghost’s flashlight lit vacant lifeboat davits, rope swinging in the breeze.

‘Couple of lifeboats missing,’ he said. He kicked scattered lifebelts. ‘Looks like everyone left in a hurry.’

They reached the prow. Jane pointed to windows high above them.

‘That must be the bridge.’

They entered the ship. They were in a functional, crew-only zone of the liner. Bare corridors. Linoleum floor. No heat.

Jane was spooked by shadows. Once in a while she swung her torch beam down the passageway behind them to make sure they were not being followed.

Ghost tried a light switch. He pointed at the red, winking LED of a ceiling smoke detector.

‘The power is shut off but some basic systems are active. I guess the generators still work. All we have to do is throw the switch.’

Offices, store cupboards, crew quarters. Corridor floors cluttered with toilet supplies and discarded uniforms. Signs of hurried departure.

They climbed narrow stairs and pushed through doors marked Tillträde Förbjudet.

They reached the bridge. Ghost tried the light switch. Dead.

‘Thought it might be on a separate circuit or something.’

Jane moved to enter the bridge but Ghost put a hand on her shoulder to hold her back. There was someone sitting in the captain’s chair.

‘Hello? Bonjour?’

A slumped figure in a white cap and greatcoat, collar turned up. Ghost and Jane cautiously approached.

‘How you doing?’ asked Jane. Her boot crunched on broken glass.

The captain was a big man in his fifties. He had a white moustache. He had been dead a long while, but the sub-zero temperature had preserved his body from decay.

Green glass in his hand. He had cut his throat with a jagged piece of wine bottle. The front of his uniform, a brass-buttoned tunic, was glazed with frozen blood.

‘Help me get him out of the way,’ said Ghost. ‘Watch yourself. The guy doesn’t look infected, but you never know.’

They dragged the man from the chair. He was rigor-stiff. Crackle of frozen blood. They hauled him into a side room.

The bridge looked like the flight-deck of a starship. Three padded chairs facing the sea. Banks of switches, dials and screens, powered down and inert. The steering column was a horseshoe control like the joystick of a passenger jet. Acceleration governed by a central thrust lever.

‘I was expecting a big wheel,’ said Jane.

‘Look at this,’ said Ghost. ‘A keyhole. What do you reckon? An ignition?’

He ran to the side room. He crouched by the captain’s body and searched his pockets. Handkerchief. Coins. Asthma inhaler. No key.

‘Search the place. Let’s see if we can find some kind of key locker. If we can get this ship to drop anchor we’ll have all the time in the world to figure out the rest.’

Jane looked around. Desks at the back of the bridge. Charts and, maps. She tugged at the door of a red cupboard.

‘Brandsläckare. What the hell is that? You’d think the signs would be bilingual. I mean English is the international language of pretty much everything.’

‘There must be a spare set of keys somewhere, but we’re running out of time.’

‘Hey,’ called Jane. ‘Check this out.’

A door at the back of the bridge led to a stairwell. They leaned over the railings and shone their flashlights downward. A jumble of furniture heaped against a steel hatch. Chairs, tables, a bed frame. A big, red ‘X had been sprayed on the door.

‘Someone was very anxious to keep that door closed,’ said Jane.

Jane called Punch and Ivan on the radio.

‘Get aboard, folks. Meet us at the prow.’

Ghost showed them to the bridge.

‘We need the master key to this thing, okay? We need to get the ship’s systems back on-line. Let’s fan out and see what we can find.’

Ghost and Ivan checked the officers’ quarters.

‘This is living,’ said Ivan. ‘Plasma TV. En suite.’ He picked an officer’s cap from a sofa and tried it on. He checked his reflection in a mirror. ‘Fuck oil rigs. I need a Cunard gig.’

‘Imagine sailing south in this palace,’ said Ghost. ‘The presidential suites. Gym, Jacuzzi, sauna. We’ve got to make this work for us.’ ‘I’ve never been in a Jacuzzi.’

‘This ship is a fucking gold mine.’

‘The freezers have been shut off a long while,’ said Ivan. ‘Most of the food will have spoiled. Lobster will be off the menu.’

‘Think of the bars down there. Champagne, vintage malts, any cocktail you care to mix. Imagine how much beer they must have stowed below deck. You could fill a bath.’

They descended a flight of stairs. Another barricade. A fire axe slotted through the crank-handles of a door to keep it closed. A big, red ‘X sprayed on the hatch.

‘This is fucking creepy,’ said Ivan. He crossed himself.

Ghost examined an exterior door at the end of a passage. Sooty scorch marks and bubbled paint. He pushed open the door. Someone had built a large bonfire on the promenade deck. A pile of charred debris. A mound of scorched lifebelts and bench-slats. The fire had long since burned out. The cinders were dusted with snow.

Ghost knelt by the debris and prodded the ashes with a stick.

‘What have you found?’ asked Ivan, joining Ghost on deck.

‘Bones. A ribcage. At least two skulls.’

He hooked a can with his stick and read the scorched label. Kerosene.

‘I wish there were a few more of those guns to go around,’ said Ivan.

‘Let’s find those keys.’

The administration corridor. A row of offices.

A splash of blood on the corridor floor.

‘Steer clear,’ advised Jane. ‘Assume infection.’