Tankbread 02 Immortal (9 page)

Hob’s fist pulled back like a cocked gun ready to shoot Else in the face. She twisted her body, lifting her chin, looking him in the eyes and daring him to strike.

“Hob!” A voice shouted down the deck,
“
Bring her to the church.” Hob dropped his hand immediately.

“I’ll be back for you,” Else promised, stepping clear of Hob’s fists.

“You’ve been chosen,” Sarah’s eyes were wide.

“Chosen to become one of them?” Else gestured towards the upper decks.

Hob spat on the deck. “Not if the church wants you. You are hardly deserving. But ours is not to reason why.” Hob walked past them along the deck, stopping at a door, which he indicated with a flourish. “In here. You go first, I’ll be right behind you.”

Else hesitated. “Sarah, if you could get off this ship and live on land and never have children taken away again, would you like that?”

“Come on.” Hob pounded on the open door with a flat hand. Sarah shrank back from Else as if she were a monster born of nightmares.

Else went through the door and followed Hob’s instructions at her back; turn left, go down those stairs, along the corridor and then down another flight of stairs. He walked behind her, ready to stop her should she try and escape. They walked in the glow of electric lights until the murals painted on the walls morphed into themes of angels and flaming swords. Tiny stick figures were bathed in the yellow glow of crayon. Near the ceiling a crude painting of a figure with a blue hat spread his arms wide, bringing everyone into his embrace.

“There is religion here?” Else wasn’t surprised. Religion was an oddly human thing. She had seen it put to good use by Sister Mary and the nuns of Saint Peter’s Grace. They were working hard to help people and keep order in a world gone to chaos. She was curious to see what kind of religion was being practiced on the ship.

“Yeah, there’s those that worship the Captain and the Almighty and there’s those that worship the engines.”

“Engines? Do they work?”

“The engineers believe.” Hob pushed past Else and twisted a door handle. “After you.” She slipped past him and into a dark chamber hung with thick sheets of soft cloth. Her nose twitched; there was a smell here, like burnt flowers. Else stood still, waiting while her eyes widened in the gloom. A silhouette with arms spread wide hung on the far wall. Else stepped closer; it resembled the man, Jesus on the cross, that the nuns worshipped. This figure had been painted to resemble clothes. A white shirt, with gold-striped epaulettes, dark pants, and shoes painted over the wooden feet nailed to the beam. On his head he wore a faded blue cap instead of a crown of thorns. Else looked back as the door closed. Hob was gone.

“Behold the Captain. Through his mercy we shall live forever.” The man speaking wore a suit of grey fabric, worn to a dull shine. Around his neck he had a white collar, stained to a nicotine brown with skin grease and sweat. His unshaven and rough-looking face bore stubble the color of cold ashes in a campfire. The eyes sunk deep in the sockets glittered like sparks struck from steel.

Else took a step back. “I’ve seen this before. On the land, the sisters of Saint Peter’s Grace. They had a bigger church, though.”

The priest raised his hands and his eyes toward the ceiling. “God is everywhere, child. But only on his blessed ark are his chosen children saved.”

Else raised an eyebrow. “Saved?” she asked.

“Indeed, child.” The priest warmed to his subject. “And the Lord God said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.’”

“I have to go and find my baby.” Else started for the door. The priest moved in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. Looking into her face as if searching for something, he said, “Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the Lord thy God any bullock, or sheep for that is an abomination unto the Lord thy God.”

“Let me go.” Else struggled out of his grip.

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God! Your child is a gift from God and to God they shall return! This is the sacrifice the Lord asks of us. Through his immortal vessel, the Captain who walks above us we shall find the kingdom of heaven when the waters recede!”

Else tugged on the door handle. The close press of the velvet curtains held a cloying stink that made her nauseous. A tight sense of panic swelled up inside. She flailed against the heavy fabric, trying to find the opening to the corridor.

The priest’s hand pressed against her back, his other hand heavy and smooth against the top of her head.

“I absolve you of your sins. You who have given the sacrifice of your newborn child. You are free to enter the kingdom of Heaven.”

“No,” Else declared. “I won’t let you feed my baby to those things.”

“You have been chosen. The grace of the Lord is upon thee.” The priest’s hand felt cool on her skin. Not as chill as the dry flesh of the dead, but somehow soothing. Else turned away from the smothering curtain and slid down the wall to sit on the floor, gasping for air. “I just want my baby back,” she managed.

He went down on one knee in front of her. “My name is Jonah. The Lord speaks through me. He tells me there may be a way to save your child. But you must trust in him.”

“I can’t.”

“You must. You must place your faith and trust in me, the Lord’s vessel upon this ark of his covenant. Listen to me and know the truth of his word. You are the innocent lamb, the uncorrupted sword of his merciful justice delivered by the waters unto us. You shall go among the unbelievers and find the corruption in their hearts. Listen for the heresy of their lies and help me deliver them into the Lord’s light.”

Else tried to make sense of the strange words the man used. “You want me to go and find out who has lied to you?”

“Yes, child. Go among the heathen engineers and the lost fishermen. They plot against our Lord God and seek to bring an end to our sanctuary. But if we leave this ark, the Lord God will cast us out into the desert and we shall wander like the tribes of Israel, forever lost to God’s light.”

“You sound a little bit nuts, you know that?”

Jonah stood up and pulled Else to her feet. “Go, child. You now do his will.”

“Will you help me get my son back?”

“Yes, if you uncover the viper’s nest that lurks in the bowels of this ship, then I shall beseech the Almighty Captain for his blessing and the return of your boy-child.”

“If you are lying to me, I will nail you to that cross.”

Jonah smiled. “Those who do his work are truly blessed.” The heavy curtain was drawn aside and Else stumbled out of the close, dark chapel. The tainted air of the narrow corridor seemed fresh by comparison.

Hob looked up from where he sat waiting on the stairs. “You get some of the Lord’s grace in ya?” He smirked when he spoke.

“Fuck you,” Else replied.

“Well, darlin’, let me explain how things work around here. The believers, they’re the priest’s people. They think this here is an ark. The Ark. They are waiting for Jesus to come back and fly them all to heaven. The ones who do all work of keeping us alive, they’re the fishermen. They live on the deck and go out in the boats, bring in fish and seaweed and other supplies. They run us and the crew ashore when we need some fresh population too.”

“Fresh population?”

“Sure, folks get sick and die or they get killed. We need to keep making babies. So we go ashore, snatch up some kids. Too old for Them That Walk Above Us to get what they need. So we bring ’em down here, keep them alive and when they are old enough, we make babies with them. Keeps the gene pool fresh and makes a change from banging away at the same old twat.”

“Why don’t their people come? Come and take them back?”

“Aw hell, there’s fuck all left out there. Most of them are happy to find a safe place where they get fed and are safe from the walking dead.”

“Sarah, she isn’t your daughter?”

“Kinda. She’s mine to take care of until she’s old enough to take care of me. Then I get a return on my investment.”

Else’s nose wrinkled. “I wouldn’t have sex with anyone I didn’t love.”

“Oh, she loves me alright. I saved her from getting chewed on by her brother. He’d died of a fever. They were living in a car and she’d got herself trapped in there with him when he came back. She leapt into my arms and didn’t let go until I set her down on the deck here.”

“So this is a religious community?”

“Not all of us. I myself say the words and take the blessings and just do what I gotta to get by. The fishermen, they have their own thing going on. And the engineers, they’re as far gone as the believers.

“Are their geeks on board this ship?”

“Not quite. The engineers live deep in the ship. They work on the engines and all the other crap that’s rusting away down there. They’re the ones who want to get this boat fired up and moving. But they can’t because the Captain won’t let them do that, and the Captain, well his word is law.

“How can I meet this Captain?”

“You meet him when you are chosen. Or when you die. The priest says he’s gonna judge us all.”

“There’s electricity here. I saw a camera watching me. That has to be powered from somewhere.”

Hob swept his hair back with a filthy hand. “Well damn, you are a smart one. There’s batteries. Solar powered. The engineers rigged it up. They keep the bird crap off the panels and the Captain says how the juice gets used. The crew keeps an eye on us holders. Make sure we ain’t doing anything other than fucking and feasting.”

“And that’s all you want from life?”

“Sure. I get fed and I get to fuck. What more could I ask for?”

“Freedom.”

Else started back up the stairs to the deck. Hob followed her and leaned past when she struggled to open a door that led outside.

“Don’t you wander off now,” he said as Else stepped out into the dim light of evening. She followed a worn trail through the crusted guano along the deck. Birds circled and scolded overhead. She could see boats of all shapes and sizes floating out in the calm sea. Figures on them were cleaning nets, and the lights from the ship sparkled off the day’s catch.

She walked until she reached the front of the boat. This deck was wider, and the birds flocked in greater numbers here. She watched as they dived and fought, snatching up scraps of fish guts. Men stood at long tables, slicing fish open and cleaning them. A flapping tarpaulin kept the birds off and the shrieking gulls seemed to have learned to wait for their share.

After a moment Else was noticed. A lean, tanned man with long hair and a beard crusted with salt and twisted into tight braids came towards her. He wiped his knife clean as he approached and sheathed it through the belt holding up his cutoff shorts.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi. I’m Else.”

“Quint. What do you want?”

“I want my baby back. I want my baby and I want Lowanna too. She’s not my baby, but I told Jirra I would take care of her. She doesn’t have anyone but me.”

“Babies go up to the crew. They don’t come back,” Quint said.

“Why? Why do you let them take the babies? Why don’t you just fight them?”

Quint shrugged. “We have a good thing going on here. We have food, a safe place to live. We don’t get bothered. We just get to live.”

“You could live on land. You could live on the beach, or in the forest or in the mountains. I have seen all these places.”

“The dead are there too. They would come and eat us. We wouldn’t be safe,” Quint said with a rueful smile, as if speaking to a child.

“You would be free. You could fight for survival. You could build something real.”

“This is real. The sun, the sea, the fish. It’s all real.”

“What about children? What about the future of the human race?”

“The human race?” Quint looked around. “There is no human race anymore. The race is over and we lost. All that’s left are the scraps. It’s not even our world anymore. We had our chance and we blew it. We ruined everything. Here we have a chance to live out our last generation. Live and then return to the sea.”

Else scowled. “I’m not ready to quit. I haven’t lived long enough to lose interest.”

“Look out there, you see that?” Quint pointed to the black-green polish burning under the setting sun. “Compared to the oceans we are nothing. We are a tiny mote in God’s eye. The ocean has been here long before us and will be here long after. We are nothing by comparison. Our lives are meaningless on that scale.”

“I have a son. He was born two, maybe three days ago. To him I am everything. He doesn’t know any of your bullshit. He only knows that he is alone and that I am not there to take care of him. So you can take your philosophy of giving up and you can shove it.” Else turned on her heel and started walking down the guano-encrusted deck. She couldn’t stand still any longer. She couldn’t wait for her baby to be eaten by the crew. She couldn’t fail him like she failed his father.