Саймон Бествик - The Devil and the Deep - Horror Stories of the Sea

I didn’t wait to see her land but sprinted the remaining yards to the stairs, leaping down most of the first flight in one jump. This meant I nearly went sprawling and bounced painfully into the wall on the next return, but thankfully I kept my feet and half-ran and half-fell down the next flight.

As I landed chaotically in the reception area I saw a group of people attacking each other. It was impossible to tell who was trying to kill whom. It’s possible everybody was trying at once. I also saw Peter, at the reception desk, repeatedly smacking someone’s forehead down onto its polished walnut surface, lifting it up and bringing it down again.

He saw me coming, whacked the person’s head down one final time—there was enough of their face left for me to recognize him as the clerk who’d checked me in when I arrived—and turned to me, panting. His face and shirt were smeared with something brown. “You took your fucking time, mate.”

I sniffed. “Are you covered in shit?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I thought it might help.”

“Again— why? ”

“When I came down the steps from the top deck I found out Inka was still alive even though both her legs were broken. She grabbed my ankle and I fell down. We ended up rolling around in her, well, her shit , until I could get away from her again. I thought about wiping it off but then I wondered if maybe it’d help, if the smell would make these fucking loonies think I was one of them or something.”

“Does it work?”

“Not even slightly. It was a bad idea.”

“Hell yes.”

As we ran to the walkway Pete dodged over to the souvenir store, undoing his shirt and throwing it to the ground. Grabbed a Queen Mary sweatshirt and pulled it on.

As he turned back he also picked up a souvenir coffee mug, shaped like one of the ship’s funnels.

“Why the hell are you—”

I ducked just in time and the mug reached the target he’d intended—the head of the naked woman from upstairs, who’d come running up behind me. The mug smashed to pieces on her face and she fell like a sack of bricks.

“Dusseldorf?” I asked as we looked down at her.

“No,” he said. “Warsaw.”

“Oh. Well, thanks anyway.”

“You’re welcome. Now let’s get the hell off this boat.”

We ran through the doors and out into the fresh air, along the metal walkway toward the staircase that’d get us down to the parking lot. “Why are we okay, though? Why isn’t this happening to us too?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Pete said. “That is a problem for another time, if ever.”

“Jesus—look at it back in there.”

There were now forty people or more in the reception area—all tearing at each other—with others joining them from above and below. It was hard to tell who were victims and which were attackers, though I did spot the guy from Madrid who’d bought me a pint I never got to drink, and it seemed like he was trying to escape, rather than kill. “Do you think we should try to…”

“Fuck that,” I said. “I’m not going in there.”

“I’m of like mind,” Peter admitted. “But what the hell are we going to do?”

“Get off the boat. Properly. Onto dry land.”

“Obviously,” he said, “but look.” He pointed down toward the dock area. Figures were running back and forth, screaming. Some had weapons. Others were attacking people with their bare hands. “It’s no better down there.”

“So we find somewhere to hole up.”

“For how long? And then what?”

“My PA is coming.”

“Shannon?”

“How the hell do you know who my PA is?”

“Seriously? Everybody knows you stole her from the Chicago office by doubling her salary. All the other PAs are seriously pissed off about it.”

“Okay, well, maybe that wasn’t such a bad decision, okay? She’s on her way from Vegas right now to pick me up.”

“That’s an impressive level of dedication.”

“This is my point.”

“She may not make it here, you know that.”

“I do. But I owe it to her to be ready and waiting if she does.”

“Definitely.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out two small bottles, and handed one to me. “Here.”

“Hell is it?”

“Jack Daniel’s,” he said. “Nicked them off the plane.”

“You do good work, Pete.”

“Cheers.” We knocked the drinks back in one, threw the bottles away and ran together to the stairwell and pattered down the three flights to ground level, pausing only to simultaneously kick a fat man who tried to throw himself down on us from the flight above, but thankfully missed us and instead landed with a bad-sounding crunch on the concrete landing.

At the bottom we stepped cautiously out into the parking lot. A car was on fire in the corner. In fact, every car I could see was in flames. The air was full of smoke and choked with the smell of burning tires and the sound of distant sirens. A helicopter flew fast and low over our heads but with no intention of stopping—instead heading out over the bay. When it was clear of land a soldier stuck a huge machine gun out of the side door and started firing down into the water.

“That doesn’t seem like a positive development,” Peter said.

“No. You figure something even worse is fixing to come out of the ocean?”

“Looks that way. Christ.”

“We’ve got to get farther from the ocean—and fast. Over the causeway and onto the mainland.”

“But how’s Shannon going to know where to come?”

“She knows where the conference was. She’ll have established the ways in and out. Knowing Shannon, she’ll text me a map with estimated walking/running/fleeing times under post-apocalyptic conditions, and knowing her, it’ll be right.”

We headed across the parking lot toward the access road to the bridge back to the mainland. We both ran in a relaxed mode, keeping it loose, not knowing how far we were going to have to go. Pete clocked my style and nodded approvingly. “You run?”

“Of course,” I said. “Though only a 5k or so, couple,-three times a week.”

“Me too. I hope that’ll be enough.”

“You’ll be fine. Your form’s pretty good. You still stink of shit, though.”

“ Everybody does, Rick. I never realized the end times would smell this bad.”

“Me neither. And it’s only going to get worse.”

As we ran onto the bridge we watched a group of four women in the middle, as they took each other’s hands, stepped up onto the ledge, and threw themselves silently into the bay.

“I fear you’re right. But there’s one thing at least.”

“What’s that?” I heard shouting behind and glanced back to see that a group of men were staggering out of the parking lot. Arms outstretched. Coming for us.

Peter saw them too, and picked up the pace. “Nobody’s going to give a damn about the RX350i being late.”

Then both of us were laughing as we ran faster and faster, over the bridge and toward a city on fire.

MAY 31, 1799

INDIAN OCEAN

17˚10′N, BY RECKONING 9˚W OFF CAPE NEGRAIS

Swift did not think about the Zong . The Minerva was a different kind of ship, plagued by different kinds of misery. Her hull, for one. Swift did not like the feel of the boards beneath the waterline. Leaning over the jollyboat’s gunnel, he plunged his arm deeper into the ocean, seeking further damage.

“How’s she fare?”

Swift shook the water off his arm. “A stern leak between wind-and-water,” he said. “’Tis an ill wound for an old ship to bear.” He glanced at the sun, a yellow smear in a haze of gray. A storm was brewing.