Adam Baker - Outpost

Faint white-noise fizz from a side office. Jane nudged the door open with her foot. The radio room. The radio operator had died at his desk. His body was slowly melting into a telex console, upper body completely absorbed like the workstation was eating him head first.

Jane yanked the power cable from the wall. The satellite console sparked and died. The hissing stopped.

They found the purser’s office.

‘We could be millionaires,’ said Punch. ‘All those rich old ladies on a Baltic cruise. The deposit boxes must be packed with diamonds and pearls.’

‘But where did those rich old ladies go?’ said Jane. ‘That’s the question.’

She found a key cabinet on the wall. She tugged it. She hit it. She shucked the slide of her shotgun.

‘Stand back.’

Ghost undipped his radio from his belt.

‘Jane? You guys all right?’

‘We’re fine .’

‘We heard a shot.’

‘We’ve got some keys. We’re heading back to the bridge .’

‘We’ve found some kind of battery room. I’m going to throw a few switches, see what happens.’

‘Reckon these batteries still hold charge?’ asked Ivan.

‘They’re supposed to sustain light and heat if an iceberg or something knocks out the engines. They should be good for days.’

Jane took fistfuls of keys from her coat pocket and dumped them on the console. She threw a fire blanket over the captain’s chair so she wouldn’t have to sit in his blood. She tried to slot the keys, one by one, into the panel above the steering column then threw them aside.

‘How long before this ship drifts out of range of the refinery?’

‘An hour. Two at the most.’

Punch stood in the side room and looked down at the captain. The man was lying on his side, legs still hitched like he was sitting down. Punch unfolded a map and draped it over the dead man’s head so he wouldn’t have to see his eyes.

‘I’m going out on deck,’ he said. ‘Think I’ll take a look around.’

Punch climbed exterior steps to the upper deck.

The Lido. There was an empty children’s swimming pool with scattered life jackets at the bottom.

The Winterland Grill. Smashed plates and an upturned barbecue.

A vast funnel rose into the fog above him.

He found a skylight. He rubbed the glass with a gloved hand, wiping away frost as thick as snow. He shone his flashlight down into the dark.

Ghost must have found a power switch in the battery room because the ship suddenly lit up brilliant white. Stark floodlights illuminated the decks, the balconies, the badminton court, the miniature golf. Strings of bulbs hung between the funnels glowed in the fog like weak sunlight.

Punch crouched over the skylight and looked down into the Grand Ballroom. Art deco wall lights glowed amber for a soiree, but the dance floor appeared to have been turned into a hospital. Row upon row of beds. Bandaged bodies in the beds, some in pyjamas, some in ball gowns and dinner suits. Punch couldn’t see clearly through the smeared glass. He could make out bloody dressings, blackened skin, half-eaten faces.

A squeak of feedback from the deck speakers as the sound-system powered back to life. The genteel strings of ‘The Blue Danube’ waltz were broadcast throughout the ship.

As if waking from a long sleep, the bodies in the ballroom began to stir.

The prow. Ghost lifted a deck hatch and shone his flashlight inside. Metal steps descending into darkness. He climbed down.

‘It’s okay,’ he called.

Jane followed.

Two massive drums each rolled with anchor chain, each link big as a lifebelt.

‘There must be a manual release,’ said Ghost. ‘It must be part of the design. Some way of stopping the ship dead in the water in the event of catastrophic turbine failure.’

The drums were each powered by a motor the size of a van.

‘I think this lever might disengage the gears,’ said Jane.

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, there are warning stickers all over it.’

Ghost found a tool locker.

‘Better wear these.’

Jane twisted foam plugs into her ears and clamped defenders to her head.

He tugged the lever. It wouldn’t shift. He lifted his feet and swung from it. The lever wouldn’t move. He fetched a sledgehammer.

‘Stand back,’ he mouthed.

He swung the hammer. Two blows and the gears disengaged. The drum spun free. The massive anchor chain played out through the hull with a juddering roar. The air stank of hot metal.

They took off their ear-defenders. They climbed out on to the deck and shone a flashlight over the side of the ship. The anchors had deployed. The chain hung taut.

‘High five,’ said Jane. They slapped gloved hands. ‘About time something went our way.’

They returned to Rampart and mustered the crew.

‘It’s called Hyperion ,’ said Jane, standing before them like a teacher lecturing a class. ‘It’s Swedish, I think. All the bridge controls are written in Martian. We’ve dropped anchor. All we have to do is start the engines and we are on our way home.’

A general murmur of excitement ran through the canteen. Although the canteen was cold it was still the best place to hold a group meeting.

‘Yeah,’ continued Jane, her breath fogging the air. ‘It looks like our luck has finally changed. But there’s a catch. Most of the passengers and crew are still aboard. They’re infected, but locked below deck.’

‘Shotguns,’ said Nikki. ‘Go room to room. You saw them on TV. Infected move slow. Turkey shoot.’

‘They are people. Wives and husbands. Sons and daughters. They’re not vermin.’

‘Let’s cut the sanctimonious crap, shall we? If we sail an infected ship south to Europe not a single country will let us enter their waters. In fact they’ll probably order an airstrike and vaporise the boat. And remember what happened to Rawlins. This disease, whatever it is, drove him nuts. He damn near blew us to hell. You want to set sail in a ship full of ravening lunatics? A floating asylum? Anyway, it’s not like anyone ever recovered from this contagion. No one gets better. I vote we shoot them all. The kindest thing. Throw the bodies over the side.’

‘We don’t have enough shells. A ship like that might carry two, three thousand passengers. And a big crew.’

‘So gas them. Rev the engines and channel exhaust fumes into the ventilation.’

‘I agree,’ said Ivan. ‘We couldn’t sleep with those rabid fucks the other side of the wall.’

‘Right now we have them contained,’ said Jane. ‘Besides, we don’t even know if gassing them would work. They should all be dead. No food, water or heat. That ship should be a graveyard. But somehow they keep going.’

Nikki looked around. Faces lit by lamplight, all of them looking to Jane for guidance.

‘You can’t trust her,’ Nikki wanted to say. ‘In a situation like this, you can’t trust anyone but yourself.’

Nikki had a boyfriend. Alan. They spent two years together. A holiday in Mumbai, a holiday in Chile. And she left him out on the ice to die.

You can’t place your fate in someone else’s hands, she thought. When the moment comes you are on your own.

Some of the crew packed their possessions. They hauled suitcases and kit-bags to the submarine hangar. They sat in a semicircle around the convection heater.

Punch and Sian sat on their cases and warmed their hands.

‘Just like Spirit of Endeavour ,’ said Sian. ‘I was so sure we were going home. I was counting down the minutes.’ She pointed to the cases. ‘I bet the guys won’t need half this stuff.’

‘No. There will be heated cabins, fresh clothes every day. More food than we can eat. Judging by the stuff on TV, we might as well stay aboard when we reach Britain. Moor the ship off the coast. Treat the place as our fortress. Send out forage parties as and when.’