Stranded (26 page)

“You're the one who's alive. I, on the other hand, think I'm dying. My liver hurts.”

“I'd offer you a cup of coffee, but we ran out of that maybe a month ago.” Connor smoothed his hair away from his face and glanced at his palm before rubbing the oil slicking it on his pants. “The first week without caffeine is the hardest. Jack and Kevin nearly crushed themselves trying to tilt the Coke machine. It never occurred to them to look around for a key to the damn thing.” He held up an index finger to preemptively silence Noah. “Before you ask, we're out of that too. It'd be funny if it weren't a sign of how desperate we all are. Life here is better than it was on the
Promise,
but not by much.”

“There's coffee on my ship. I'll pack some up when I go after the rest of the crew,” Noah said, pushing himself up onto his elbows. It took him a few seconds to fight against the dizziness that made him want to lie down again. He held his breath, a wave of nausea passing through his body. Sweat beaded up on his forehead despite the chill in the room. “I'm starting to believe you about the benzene,” he said when he felt like he could risk opening his mouth.

“You're dehydrated. You sweat all your water out yesterday. Get a couple glasses in you and you'll feel better.”

“You're not rationing it?”

“Drinking water, we have an endless supply of.” He nodded toward the wall. “We bring in snow from outside. Melt it for cooking and washing up, too. We're not getting the laundry and showers back, but whenever you feel like fetching a bucket full, you can have a nice brisk whore's bath. It'll wake you up, and that's no lie.”

“I'll take your word for it.”

“Give it a week and you'll be begging for a bucket of snow and a bar of soap.” Noah imagined him finishing with an unspoken,
if we make it another week.
Connor rose and held out a hand to help Noah to his feet. The nausea had subsided, but the dizziness remained. “Everyone else was headed for the cafeteria. Let's get some food and see who'll head out with us to gather up the rest of your crew. I saw Holden on my way here. He's lookin' better today than he was last night. He might be up for it.”

Noah was loath to consider asking the third officer to take even a step outdoors. No matter how good Holden was feeling, he'd watched the man's twin die and didn't want to risk it again, for both of their sakes. It was strange to think of individuals like species; he didn't want to be the one responsible for killing the last of the Holdens. His mind drifted to the crew still aboard the
Promise.
The ones left behind were in the worst shape. The walk outside had been treacherous enough for relatively healthy men—Michael and Henry were definitely worse for wear after having made the trip. He couldn't imagine Mickle and Heath would fare any better, even if the journey was a straight line to the rig with no detours. And then there was Felix. Dragging the broken man across the ice on a stretcher could kill him. If the violence of the ride didn't do it, exposure to the elements would. Noah was out of ideas. Even if all the other men could make it to the Niflheim alive, they couldn't expect Felix to survive the trip. And they couldn't leave him. As difficult as it was to admit, if they weren't rescued soon, Felix was going to die. They were
all
dead men. Felix was just first in line. Still, they couldn't abandon him, and that meant leaving at least one man behind to care for him as long as he could. Noah silently volunteered himself for the duty, figuring the way most of the crew felt about him anyway, they wouldn't mind if he stayed behind for a while.

He hadn't realized he was showing physical signs of the dark thoughts coursing through him until Connor broke his trance and asked if he was all right. The more time Noah spent contemplating their next steps, actually taking them seemed increasingly reckless and an entirely new plan seemed necessary. It was a downward spiral of inaction and half steps. The crew couldn't afford more reflection or discussion. They had to do something now if they were going to survive. “Let's go.” He took a step and stopped, an idea occurring to him. “I want to stop by the comm room first. Sick bay, too.”

Connor chuckled. There wasn't much humor in it, but he seemed to be trying. “Already told you, we ran out of NSAIDs days ago. You're just going to have to push through your hangover.”

“But there's a pharmacy with controlled meds, right?”

“I know you ain't hurtin'
that
bad, brother.”

“Not me. One of the men aboard our ship got busted up pretty seriously in the storm.” Noah skirted around the details. “I'm pretty sure our doc is running low on tramadol if he isn't already out. I want to grab some more before we go.”

Connor nodded, accepting his explanation. “Can do. I have no idea where the keys to the pharmacy are though. It's gonna take some time to hunt 'em down if they're even still here. The rig's doc might have taken them with when they left.”

“I bet you know where a crowbar or something is.”

“One of
those
I can find in about thirty seconds. Sun's up though. That means we're already running out of daylight. We need to hurry if we're going to get out there, packed up, and back before nightfall.”

Noah nodded his agreement. “I figure it's a two-day job if we want to get everyone across safely. We get ourselves ready, find a couple of volunteers if we can, and go. Once we're there, we can take our time assessing everybody's condition and ability and make a plan to get them on the move in the morning. All sunlight walking, but with plenty of time to prep and step carefully. I don't want to be caught out after dark again.”

“However we do it, we gotta eat first. I don't want to make the trip without at least a little fuel in the tank.”

Noah agreed. He was weak enough already. Whatever nutrition he could get before setting out was not only welcome, it was necessary. He turned to find his pack. “We never got the chance to eat it, but we packed up some stuff for yester—”

A glimpse of something dark slipping along the wall in his peripheral vision made the words catch in his throat. He jerked away from it, a revival of the panic he'd felt when the shade on the weather deck nearly knocked him overboard surging through him. Noah was certain Connor could hear his heart pounding in the small compartment.

“You seein' 'em too?” Connor said. Noah nodded. “They worry me almost more'n the sickness. They only started shifting around maybe yesterday or the day before. If you ever asked me before, I would've told you I'm not afraid of ghosts.”

“But now?”

“Now, I'm pretty much afraid of everything. I'm most afraid of … of whatever it is that makes the shadows run away like that.”

“Run away?”

Connor's demeanor darkened. “They don't look like they're trying to get away from something to you?” Noah hadn't thought of it like that, but Connor was right, and the observation unsettled him. With the exception of the one on the weather deck that rushed directly at him, the shapes did seem to be trying to find cover in the other dark spaces into which they vanished. The idea at once made them seem less frightening, and deepened Noah's dread. For the first time, Noah looked harder, trying to see the frightened shades. He looked for what might be after them.

*   *   *

The sight and smell of the cafeteria was familiar enough. But instead of the loud competition between off-color jokes and exaggerated tales of home life, the room softly hummed with hushed conversation and the occasional clinking of flatware against dishes. The men had segregated themselves into twin crews: Connor's along the galley wall, and Noah's opposite them. In the middle was a no-man's-land of empty tables and palpable distrust.

More of Connor's crew had shown up for breakfast than had for the reunion the night before, though several were still missing. Noah assumed the ones unaccounted for weren't getting out of bed much anymore, if at all.

Connor's brow furrowed. “What is it?”

Noah pointed at a man near the back of the room. Although he was as drawn and pale as the others, the smile and strong, pronounced nose were unmistakable. “That's Felix.”

Connor grunted. “Yeah. He's been down hard for a few days. Was one of the first to get sick, in fact. He was up bright and early this morning though. Looks like he's feeling better.” Connor's mouth hung open like he wanted to add something else to his observation, but all that escaped was a short “Oh,” when Holden walked over and laid a hand on Felix's back. The two renewed men told Connor what Noah feared.

“It doesn't mean…” Connor tried. Noah knew, however, that it
did
mean the Felix he'd shipped out with was likely dead. Holden had died on the walk across the ice and his copy had apparently started feeling better in short order. Now, Felix was risen after having been the first and worst afflicted of the crew. If Holden's rebound presented a hypothesis they all suspected, but were hesitant to acknowledge, Felix's recovery was confirmation.

Jack and Kevin ate and spoke with each other, putting up a front as though everything was fine. Their frequent side-eyed glances at Connor's shipmates betrayed their concern, however. Brewster, by contrast, openly stared at Felix. Boucher and Henry flanked him, whispering. If their counterparts seemed off-put by the attention, they weren't letting on.

“Come on.” Connor guided Noah to the serving line. Behind it in the kitchen, a gaunt John Boduf stood over a steel pot of tepid-looking oatmeal. His signature mutton chops had filled in and he wore a scraggly, uneven beard now instead. He peeled back the encrusted layer on the top of the pot and scooped out a bowl of mush for each of them. “We're gonna run out of food a lot faster with all these extra mouths to feed,” John said to Connor. “I hope you have a plan.”

“We have some provisions on our ship,” Noah said. The cook didn't reply. He plopped a ladle of overcooked yet somehow tepid oatmeal in Noah's bowl and looked away, clearly uncomfortable to be talking to a dead man. Noah sympathized.

“We'll be fine a while longer,” Connor said. He lifted his bowl to his nose and took a deep whiff. “What's the secret ingredient today?” John raised a hand and with a barely maintained serious expression on his face, extended his middle finger. “Mmmm. That's my favorite.” John's façade cracked and he smiled.

“Choke on it,” he said.

“If it's your cooking, that's a guarantee.” John relaxed a bit and even gave Noah an odd half smile as he picked up his bowl.

Connor took a seat at an empty table in the center of the room with his back to Noah's crew. Noah chose a spot across from him. He picked at the contents of his bowl. His appetite wasn't gone, but the unease growing in him threatened to forcibly expel anything he tried to take in. He looked for mold or maggots or something that would give him justification for not eating it without seeming ungrateful or wasteful. He considered taking the bowl back to the cook and asking him to save it for him until later. Refrigeration certainly wasn't something they lacked. At the same time, he didn't anticipate a request like that would be well-received. Everyone was hungry. His assurances that there was more on board his own ship aside, they were about to double the occupancy of the rig. Food would become a concern sooner rather than later for them all.

Lifting a half spoonful, he tasted the pale paste that had once been oats. It was practically flavorless. For that, he was thankful. Less flavor was less for his body to rebel against. He dragged his spoon through the paste, drawing an X. “Everyone else has got a copy, but we're the odd men out,” he whispered. “The thing that's making our crews sick hasn't gotten into you, either, has it?”

“We've been through this. No, I'm not sick.”

He nodded his chin toward Holden and Felix. “Was Holden in as good of a shape yesterday morning as he is now?”

Connor shook his head. “He was barely able to get out of bed twenty-four hours ago.”

“And Felix?”

“Same deal. Worse even.”

“What if they're better because their … other selves are dead? Everybody else is still feeling like hammered shit because a single … life-force, or whatever you want to call it, can't handle the workload of keeping two people alive.”

“I didn't think you believed in that stuff,” Connor said. “Spirits and whatnot.”

“I don't. I don't know. I believe in what I see. You're dead, except you're not. Same goes for me, right? There's only one of each of us and we're the only ones who haven't been sick at all.” He nodded his chin toward Holden and Felix. They sat talking animatedly to each another over their gruel. Felix shoveled his meal into his mouth like he'd just woken from hypersleep and needed to restore what he'd lost in the light years between here and home. Holden slid his bowl over and Felix used a finger to wipe out what had stuck to the sides of the bowl. “And now they're on the mend.”

“You said your Felix was alive.”

“He was when I left.” Noah let his silence fill in the rest. “From the look of it, I guess I don't need to go to sick bay anymore.”

Connor disagreed. “Nah. You said it: believe in what you see. We don't have any proof your Felix is gone, so we'll get the meds. I'm not writing anybody off on a guess.”

Noah glanced up from his bowl and smiled. On the outside, Connor looked like half the man he'd once been. Inside, he hadn't changed at all. He was an optimist and would already be lifting people up and out of trouble before climbing over them to save himself ever entered his mind. “I missed you, brother.”

“I'm not asking you out on a date. I'm just promising you drugs.” Noah choked and sputtered oats that caught in his beard. He somehow managed to keep hold of his spoon and set it in the bowl quietly, trying not to make a bigger spectacle of himself than he'd already done. Connor handed him a paper napkin and apologized.