Graham Brown - Ghost Ship

He didn’t blink. “It’s not a trick. Your mother was a telecommunications expert, your father worked on satellite guidance. They were both very intelligent people, brilliant in their understandings of math and science. Just like you, I’m guessing. They had a good life in suburban England. Unfortunately, the Brèvard family came along, took them from the world, and made them disappear, the same way you kidnapped Sienna and her children. They were bartered for and used for what they knew the same exact way you and Sebastian and the rest of this sick family have used the people you’re holding hostage.”

She was shaking her head, filled with rage, a kind of rage she was having a hard time controlling. It was unlike her — she was cold, emotionless. Why should this make her so angry? she wondered. Of course he would lie. Of course he would try something to confuse her. But why, if he and his friends were all but assured of victory in their own minds, would he bother?

She felt an urge to charge him, to put her hands around his throat and choke the life out of him if she could. Even if he shot her in response, at least she wouldn’t have to listen to any more of this.

She lunged for him. “You’re a liar,” she screamed.

She slammed one fist into his chest, where it uselessly struck the body armor, and reached for his face with her other hand, intent on clawing out his eyes. But he was too quick and too strong. He caught her arm and stopped it. He spun her around and folded her arms across her chest, holding her from behind.

“I’m not lying,” he said. “I’m not trying to hurt you. But you should know the truth.”

“I don’t want to know!”

“Believe me, you do,” he said. “Because these people are better than the Brèvards. These people loved life, they didn’t abuse and destroy it, and you’re one of them.”

She continued to thrash and tried to slam and elbow him, but it was no use.

“I know what kind of hell it is to wonder what’s real and what isn’t,” he said quietly. “I know what you’re going through right now. I lived it for months, but you’ve had it worse, you’ve lived it all your life. I can only imagine what it’s done to you.”

“It’s done nothing,” she insisted, trying desperately to kick him and pull free.

He turned her around and looked into her eyes. “Your father was killed trying to escape his captors,” he said. “He was gunned down in broad daylight by a man who was never found. He’d been gagged and beaten. He’d been tortured.”

“Stop it!”

“Your mother and brothers fared worse. They’d found a lifeboat on a ship half buried in the sand, but they didn’t have enough water. They died from dehydration, drifting on the ocean a hundred miles from here.”

She froze. “What did you say?”

“They died at sea,” he repeated, “on a lifeboat half gutted with rot. We’re pretty certain they found it on an old ship that was buried in the river several miles from here.”

An image flashed in her mind, it struck like a bolt of lightning. A brief glimpse of the rivets on the dark metal plating, the rushing river, the sediment being scoured away. “A ship,” she whispered. “An old iron ship?”

A second bolt of lightning struck. It was night. There was only a sliver of moonlight to see with. A woman had her by the wrist, leading her toward the hill. Two boys were dragging a small wooden boat from a cave they’d excavated in the sand.

“It’s a lie,” she protested.

“It’s the truth,” he said. “ Your truth.”

She’d ceased struggling now, her mind adrift. He continued to hold her tight, perhaps because he couldn’t trust her. But as her legs began to shake, she felt he was holding her up, keeping her from buckling right then and there.

The memories continued to come. Men chasing them. A gunshot ripped through one of the containers. The water was spilling out. Disaster.

“There’s not enough water,” Calista spoke aloud.

More gunshots. The woman fell.

“They shot her,” Calista said to no one.

“She was wounded,” Kurt replied softly. “But it was superficial.”

“She fell down the hill.”

In her mind, Calista heard the woman shout.

“Olivia!”

Calista felt only fear — terrible, swirling fear.

“Mum!” one of the boys had yelled.

“Olivia, hurry!”

More gunshots sounded and the woman turned and ran. Calista just stood there on the hill, while down below, her mother and brothers pushed the small boat out into the water. She saw them climb on board and paddle into the darkness, moving swiftly with the current. She felt the men rush by her, watched as they scrambled down the bank, and listened as they fired again and again into the dark.

But she never flinched. She just stood there and stared until eventually the shooting ceased and one of the men came up to her and took her hand.

“I let them go without me,” she said to Kurt.

She was sobbing, dropping to the ground. Kurt eased her down gently.

“There wasn’t enough water,” he told her. “Not enough for three. Certainly not enough for four.”

She was sobbing and shaking and then suddenly angry again. “You have no right! No right to…”

The insanity of what she was saying cut her off before she’d finished.

“The Brèvard family stole your life,” he said. “Maybe they realized how sharp you already were. Maybe they knew they could mold you into one of them. Maybe they planned to kill you and just never got around to it. But, whatever their reasons, they stole your life. They stole the lives of your family and we think many others. And if you let them, they’ll steal the lives of Sienna and her children and everyone else they’re holding in that oversize Quonset hut halfway down the hill.”

She noticed he kept saying “Sebastian” or the “Brèvard family,” but she knew her part in it. For a second she wanted to scream out, to yell at him, “This is who I am,” to claim it and own it and tell him to go to hell, but the desire faded. And tears returned uncontrollably.

Why shouldn’t her name and memories be false? Everything else around her was a lie.

As she cried, Kurt moved to a spot in front of her and gently wiped the tears from her face.

“Help me get to Sienna before the Marines arrive,” he said. “Sebastian is going to lose tonight. But I don’t want him using her as a shield or killing her in a fit of spite when he realizes it’s over for him.”

She looked up at him. There was kindness and determination in that face. The white knight, she thought. He really was.

“It’s not over for him,” she said.

“It will be soon.”

“No, you don’t understand,” she replied. “You may be early, but he knew a response would be coming. He’s got some nasty surprises waiting for your friends. And he’s got a plan of escape locked and loaded.”

“He couldn’t know we would be coming.”

“Not you, but he knew someone would be,” she said. “He’s waiting for it. While our men are fighting with your forces, he’ll blow this place to kingdom come. The hacking you’re seeing now will end and he’ll disappear — we’ll disappear — and the whole world will assume we’re dead.”

“So history does repeat itself,” Kurt said. “We have to stop him. And we have to stop whatever he has planned. Will you help me or not?”

She looked at him through the tears.

“I’ll trust you,” he said.

“Why would you?”

“Call it instinct,” he said, offering her a hand.

She hesitated. Her true desire was to remain there on the floor, to lie there until the fires came and consumed her. A fate she’d never been more certain she deserved.