Brian Keene - Deluge - The Conqueror Worms II

What the hell is wrong with me? Focus, damn it.

She stretched out her arms. “Come on, Novak. You can make it.”

At the last minute, the shark turned away from Novak and seized Warren’s corpse in its jaws. It shook the body and then tugged it beneath the waves. Novak reached the boat as bits of Warren floated back up to the surface and spread out on the currents. Gail tugged Novak into the boat. He collapsed onto the deck, chest heaving. When he tried to sit up, he was overcome by a bout of coughing. Gail pounded him on the back.

“I’m okay,” he rasped. “Just… swallowed water. Give me a… minute.”

Gail turned her attention back to the sea. The shark was still there. Warren’s body had bobbed back up to the surface, and the creature was ripping off chunks, swimming away, and then returning for more. Three more fins appeared in the water. Each of them rushed toward the grisly prize. They were ignoring the boat, at least for the moment. She glanced around, searching for something to use as a paddle, but there was nothing except Novak and McCann. For one second, Gail considered using the unconscious man. She saw herself dipping his arm or leg into the water and using it to propel them forward. She dug her fingernails into her palms, horrified that she could actually envision such a thing.

Novak coughed again.

“You okay?” Gail asked.

“Yeah. I needed a bath anyway.”

He snickered, and then began to laugh. Gail stared at him in shock. Then she started giggling. She sat down on one of the benches and found that she couldn’t stop laughing. Tears ran from her eyes. Her stomach began to cramp, but still she couldn’t stop. Novak joined her on the bench. They clung to each other.

They were still laughing when McCann finally stirred. He opened his eyes, blinked, and then sat up. Frowning, he rubbed the back of his head.

“What’s so funny?”

Novak and Gail fell silent. They looked at McCann and then at each other. Novak snorted and then both of them burst out laughing again. The sound echoed out over the waves.

“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Gail asked, gasping for breath.

“Yeah.” Novak nodded. “I think we are.”

“Do you still think we should consider a group suicide pact?”

“At this point,” Novak said, “does it really matter?”

CHAPTER 42

They drifted for a while, too tired to speak. The only sounds were the rain and the waves. All three of them stared out into the swirling mist, watching for—and expecting—a new threat to emerge from the fog, but nothing did.

Gail rubbed her shoulders and shivered. Her clothes and hair were soaked, and her skin had turned pale. She frowned, staring at the white marks her fingers made on her flesh when she pressed. She wondered how long they could survive under these conditions, and then tried to remember the signs of hypothermia. It was hard for her to think. She felt drunk—whether from delayed shock or simple exhaustion, she didn’t know, and then realized that she didn’t care. Better to die sooner than later. Gail decided she’d rather slip over the side and into the water, either drowning or getting eaten, rather than sit in this boat and die slowly. At this point, fighting to survive would be an exercise in futility. She was going to die from exposure to the elements or starvation or as a meal for one of the underwater denizens. And even if, by some miraculous turn of events, they did find shelter from the weather and food to eat, then there was still the white fuzz to contend with. They still didn’t know much about it, but Gail presumed that floating in the middle of the ocean was probably a good way to catch it.

“We’re gonna die out here,” McCann moaned.

Neither Gail or Novak responded to him. Gail stared straight ahead, looking at nothing. She became aware of noises out there in the fog. There were occasional muffled splashes, as if something had briefly jumped out of the water. She heard birds calling from somewhere overhead. Clicking noises echoed from their starboard side, and then faded. A few times there was something like a dolphin’s chatter, but it was low-pitched and harsh. And once, a deep, rumbling baritone rumbled across the sea like a blast from a horn.

The boat lurched as something bumped into it. Gail squealed. Her hands gripped the sides tightly. Novak leaned forward, his shoulders tense, and then he visibly relaxed. When he glanced back at her and McCann, he looked relieved.

“It was just a tree.”

Eventually, the fog lifted. Gail assumed that she must have zoned out for a while, because she wasn’t even aware that it was gone until she realized that she could see structures in the distance, sticking up above the surface. With the fog gone, their spirits seemed to lift, if only slightly. They spoke to one another again in hushed, cautious tones, mindful of what might be lurking beneath the waves, listening for them. Novak checked McCann over and made sure he was uninjured. Then he tried to make his second-mate and Gail both as comfortable as possible—a hopeless cause, given their current situation. Still, Gail smiled at the attempt. Not for the first time, the gruff ship’s captain had touched her heart.

They drifted slowly past the structures she’d seen in the distance—the upper floors of buildings that had yet to be fully submerged. None of them would offer viable shelter. The sickly white fungus clung to the exposed sides, climbing up the masonry with fuzzy tentacles. Gail stared down into the coffee-colored water and saw an entire town beneath them—office buildings, cars, housing developments, gas stations, playgrounds, shopping malls, schools, churches and fast food restaurants, all completely submerged: a town for the new denizens of the deep. She wondered if the shark people and some of the other creatures they’d encountered would move into the dwellings now that their previous inhabitants were gone.

“So what do we do now?” McCann’s voice quavered.

Gail turned to look at the others. Water dripped from McCann’s nose, and Novak’s hair was plastered to his head. Both men were shivering. They appeared as uncomfortable and miserable as she felt.

“Well,” Novak said as they glided over a sunken grocery store. “One thing is for sure. This boat is too light and too hard to navigate when shit gets choppy. We’re okay now, because we’re in a relatively shallow area. But once we get out over a valley or low spot again, we might have trouble. Keep an eye out for any long pieces of wood without that fucking white shit on them. We need something to help us row.”

“It’s too bad we can’t anchor,” Gail said. “Then we could stay in one spot and wait for the others to find us.”

Novak shook his head. “I don’t think the others are coming back.”

“But Riffle wouldn’t have just left us like that, boss.” McCann’s tone was earnest and adamant. “There’s no way he’d abandon us out here.”

“Maybe he thought we were dead, or maybe that monster fucking island went for them, and they had to run. I don’t know the reason, but I know that they’re nowhere in sight, and I don’t look for them to return. We’re on our own out here.”

His words seemed to echo out over the water.

CHAPTER 43

There was no way of telling time. The sun was a pale, muted disc hidden behind the impenetrable clouds. Eventually, the waters grew calmer. The waves died down to nothing more than ripples, and the sound of the raindrops pelting the surface grew louder. When Gail leaned over the side, she was able to see more ruins beneath them. The rooftops were closer to the surface, and much more debris floated around them.

“We must be entering higher ground,” McCann said. “The water is getting shallower.”