Adam Baker - Outpost

Ivan searched the officers’ quarters for booze. He found a couple of miniatures, but couldn’t find a full-size bottle.

One of the crew had left a humidor full of cigars and a heavy brass lighter on his desk. Cuban. Vaqueros Colorado Madura. Ivan filled his pockets. He didn’t smoke, but he could trade when he got back to the rig. The Rampart crewmen liked cigars. Greedy for any little pleasure that would help them forget their predicament a while. Getting high was the new currency now that money was no good.

He heard an intermittent humming noise.

He stood in the corridor outside the crew cabins. More humming.

He approached the slide doors at the end of the passage. A bad smell like eggs, like rotting meat. He realised, with a wash of sickening fear, why the ship’s systems had been off-line. The Hyperion crew wanted to seal infected passengers below deck. They had barricaded every door and sealed each stairwell. Then they shut off the power in case the shambling horde below figured out how to summon elevators.

A discreet ping. The doors began to slide open. Ivan backed away. He glimpsed an old lady melded to an electric wheelchair.

A crowd of infected passengers jostled for space around her. Bloody ball gowns and dinner suits. Stench of vomit and piss. Ivan turned and ran.

Jane steered the ship towards a winking red signal light, one of the aircraft warning strobes on top of a distillation tower.

She pictured the Rampart crew lining the refinery railings, applauding as the liner docked. She would play it cool and casual. ‘ Welcome aboard, boys: Bask in their new-found respect and admiration.

There was a button on the control panel. A trumpet icon. She hit the button and released the long, two-note bass boom of the ship’s Tyfon horn.

Ivan ran through the door.

‘The passengers. The fucks. They broke out. They’re right here.’ He grabbed Jane by the sleeve and pulled her towards an exterior door. ‘We’ve got to go.’

‘What about Punch and Ghost?’

‘We have to get out of here.’

A group of infected crew were milling on the upper deck. Officers in dress uniform. They seized Ivan as he ran outside. He screamed. He fought. They fell on him and dragged him to the floor.

Jane swung the shotgun to her shoulder. She took aim at a bearded man with sunglasses fused to his face. The blast vaporised his head. The second shot caught two crewmen across the chest and hurled them backward.

A chef lunged for her. She shot him in the shoulder. His arm landed on a bench.

More passengers and crew climbed the steps from the lower deck. Jane backed on to the bridge.

Later, when they asked what happened to Ivan, she said, ‘Swear to God, it was like they wanted to climb inside him. They stuck fingers in his eyes, his mouth. They bit off his fingers. They drove a fist into his stomach. They pretty much turned him inside out.’

Jane was trapped. Two shells left in the gun. She climbed over the captain’s chair, shot out the window and squirmed outside. Jagged safety glass slit open her parka, spilling insulation foam.

She balanced on the sill. A ten-metre drop to the lower deck. She scrambled upward on to the roof of the bridge.

Jane paced the roof. Infected passengers reached up for her on all sides, hissing and clawing. She unzipped a box of shells from her backpack and reloaded the shotgun. She leaned against the radar mast and tried to breathe slowly. She took the radio from her pocket.

‘Ghost? Punch? Can you hear me? I really need your help, folks.’

Sian stood on the helipad and flagged a searchlight back and forth. She was joined by the crew. They wanted to see the ship that would carry them to freedom.

They saw a gleam on the horizon like a low star. A quarter of an hour later they saw the running lights of a ship approaching fast. Hyperion lit bright and spectral. The great prow splintered ice. The horn blared. They cheered.

‘It’s massive,’ said Nikki.

‘There will be heaters,’ said Sian. ‘Imagine it. We will be warm. I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like.’

‘It’s a monster.’

‘Look how quick it’s moving,’ said Sian. ‘We’ll be home in hours.’

‘It’s coming in pretty fast. Now would be a good time to hit the brakes.’

The ship didn’t slow down. The crew stopped cheering, and backed away from the edge of the helipad.

The ship kept coming. They could hear it. The rumble of engines. The rush of water. The crack of splintering ice.

The ship slammed into the west corner of the rig. The impact bucked the refinery and knocked the crew from their feet. Sparks and shrieking metal as girders stressed and sheered. Thunder roar. One of the rig’s great anchor cables broke free, wrenching away a chunk of superstructure.

Sian fell and broke her nose. She rolled on her back and lay stunned. She sneezed blood. A dream-image glimpsed through tears: the lights of the ship, the decks, portholes and festoons, passing like a carnival parade. A jagged gash was ripped in the side of the ship. Hull plates tore with an unearthly scream.

The damaged liner sped on, headed straight for the island.

Impact.

Ghost was thrown across the engine room. He grabbed a railing to stop himself falling against a massive, spinning propeller shaft.

He fell to the floor. An extractor fan broke loose from ductwork and hit the deck near his head. Tool lockers flew open. Punch curled foetal and covered his head as spanners skittered across the deck plates.

A final, cataclysmic concussion. The ship lurched. A section of walkway collapsed. An extinguisher burst, jetting the air with a blizzard of foam particles. Then the engine room was still.

Ghost sat up. He wiped foam from his face and hands. He spat foam from his mouth. The engine room was coated white like heavy snowfall.

‘What did we hit?’ asked Punch. ‘Did we collide with an iceberg or something?’

‘We’ve stopped. We’re not moving. I think we ran aground.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Banged my leg. I’m okay. You?’

‘Fine.’

The propeller shafts were still spinning.

‘Better kill the engines.’

The ship listed at a crazy angle. The engine room was a steep hill. Punch climbed the room and threw each breaker to Off. Engine noise slowly diminished and died. The four great propeller shafts gradually ceased to turn.

He left one of the disengaged turbines running.

‘Better leave this baby ticking over,’ said Ghost. ‘It’ll keep the lights on.’

‘Where’s the radio? Help me look. I think I dropped it.’

Ghost found the radio wedged behind the body of the dead engineer.

‘Jane? Jane, can you hear me?’

No reply.

‘Jane, do you copy, over?’

They sat for an hour. Ghost tried to raise Rampart every ten minutes.

‘Do you think those things are still outside?’ asked Punch.

‘I expect so.’

Punch kicked the engineer.

‘I killed a man,’ said Punch. ‘That’s who I am now. A guy who kills people.’

‘The world has changed. We better change with it.’

A scuffle and a thud. Punch climbed the gantry steps and put his ear to the door.

‘What can you hear?’ asked Ghost. ‘Is someone outside?’

Punch mimed hush.

Three knocks.

‘What do you reckon?’ asked Punch. ‘Open the door?’

Three more knocks.

‘Pass me the gun,’ said Punch. ‘I’m going to open the door.’

Punch unlocked the hatch. He shouldered the shotgun and kicked the door open. Dr Rye stood with a bottle of Chivas Regal in her hand. ‘Ready to go?’ She lit a rag stuffed in the neck of the Chivas. She tossed the bottle at a gaggle of infected passengers massing at the end of the corridor. Burning booze splashed the walls and floor creating a barrier of flame. ‘Let’s not hang around.’