The Aeschylus (44 page)

Kate shuffled around the perimeter, searching for something that might look like a switch or a hoist. “I can't find it!”

AJ pulled the starter one more time. “Look! You're probably looking for a rod or something mechanical.”

She saw it then, a thin, brown shaft sticking out of a pulley mechanism. She ran to it and pulled. At first, it didn't give, but when she put all of her weight against it, the thing creaked and slid downwards. The boat dropped with a sudden ferocity, slamming into the water at full tilt. AJ lost his footing and fell, the lighter going dead.
I've knocked him out
, she thought crazily.
I've knocked him out, and in so doing, killed us both!

But then, he was standing up with the lighter in hand, giving her a look that was two parts gratitude and one part exasperation.

“Help me!” she said, trying to get across the gap.

“Help yourself, or we're not going to make it!”

Something splashed in the water not ten feet from the bay doors. She took his advice and jumped, landing just inside the walls of the boat.

AJ pulled the starter and the engine turned over, the propeller spinning up to full speed. He slammed the engine throttle down, and before she could sit up, the boat was flying forwards. It clunked against something soft and organic, and then suddenly, they were in open water. The machine shop was disappearing behind them, the island looming behind it. She watched as the blackened hordes swarmed after them, but it was too late. They were away.

They were far away.

The Island:

February, 1939

They arrived to pandemonium. Doctor Grey's Carrion had come, and the whalers did not stand a chance.

Lucja's companion pulled the bike up to the wooden docks, hoping to get them close to the nearest departing ship. As they dismounted, she saw they had come too late. The ship was overloaded with seven or eight blackened figures, all clutching and climbing from the water. It began to sink under their weight, and in seconds, the men on board were torn apart.

“Over here!”

She looked further up the walk and saw a man standing outside one of the warehouses, beckoning.

“The last ship is over there! If we hurry, we can—”

A shape pounced off of a nearby roof and landed on top of him. Lucja thought it had once been a dog. It tore off the man's face in two quick bites.

Jan drew his pistol and fired his last three shots, then tossed the gun into the water and began to run, dragging Lucja behind him. The dog-thing, hurt but not dead, started limping after them.

Dead littered the walk. The ships had gone, leaving the stragglers to fend for themselves against the oncoming horrors. She could hear screaming as men were dragged from their hiding spots into the dark. The wood beneath her feet lay stained with blood.

“Keep going!” Jan said. “With me!” He was breathing hard but still outpacing her.

Several men clung to life at the edges of the docks, reaching towards the sea and the brothers who had left them behind. One such man grabbed a bone saw to defend himself but could do nothing against the horde, and soon found himself pinned to a deck bollard, his legs disappearing in a whirl of claws and teeth. He looked at Lucja, his eyes glazing over, then used the saw to cut his own throat.

“It's too late!” she cried, hot tears running down her face. “They're going to get us!”

“They're not going to get us! Look!”

Lucja saw one more boat, and it was a big one, a catcher ship. It had left the pier but was drifting slowly from the shore. It looked just like
The Adalgisa
, and for a moment, she thought it was
The Adalgisa
, but that couldn't be.

As they turned onto the final deck, the last straight line to the water, Lucja heard footfalls. She looked over her shoulder and saw three humanoid shapes running after them. They had caught their scent and were tearing up the deck.

“Jump!” Jan yelled. “Into the water!”

They leapt from the end of the pier, flying into the murky dark. An instant before she hit, Lucja remembered her sister and what the water had done to her. And then the cold washed over her, freezing her bones solid. Against all odds, she kept her mouth closed, willing herself not to drown. An instant later, she was swimming. Jan had never asked if she
could
swim, but it wouldn't have mattered; it was swim or die.

A moment later, she felt her arms grow sluggish, the cold overwhelming her. She wanted to cough but knew if she did, she wouldn't be able to stop. She kept going, focusing on the back of the ship and the name etched into the metal:
The Cheruta
.

Hands were suddenly around her waist, and before she knew what was happening, she was being hoisted into the air. A man from the ship had grabbed her and was now lifting her on board. The man set her feet down to the wood, and before she could blink, she was safe...
safe!

The man went back to the rails and reached down for Jan. “Give me your hand! Come on, reach!”

But Jan was too far away; the cold had almost taken him.

On the side wall, she saw a lifebuoy tied to a rope. No one else had thought to grab it, so she did, taking the heavy object in her hand. She moved to the side of the ship, and the men parted for her.

“Let her pass!” one of them said.

“Toss it to him!” yelled another. “Before it's too late!”

As Lucja looked over the side, Jan stopped struggling. He saw her there, standing with the thing in her hands, and waited. His eyes seemed to know what she was picturing. She was seeing Jan as he really was. Not just her savior, but the man who had helped take her mother, the man who had kept her father imprisoned, the man who had stood by when her sister was killed. She was seeing the man who had pushed her father away when only two of them could fit on the motorcycle.

For the thousandth time, Lucja thought about the way Dominik had looked on the deck of
The Adalgisa
, the ax raised over his head. She thought about what she had seen in his face. She thought about what it was like to hold the power of life and death in your hands and the choices that would stay with you forever.

The moment passed.

She tossed the lifebuoy over the side, and Jan caught it. In seconds, the others were helping him onto the deck, and the island was disappearing behind them.

When he was up, he stooped and put a hand on her head, still breathing hard. “I will help you find your mother,” he said. “I promise you.”

She nodded, his hand like ice on her cheek. But just then, she wasn't thinking about her mother. She was still thinking about her father, and all the things he had done to make sure that she—Lucja—was the one standing on the deck of this ship.

“Goodbye,” she whispered, her voice dying in the wind. “Goodbye, Father.”

As Dominik passed through the gate, The Carrion ignored him, focused on the ones with the guns. The soldiers had yet to grasp they didn't have enough bullets. Eventually, they would all be dragged from the base. They would go screaming or they would go unconscious, but they would all go on their backs, their bodies instruments of some terrible new purpose.

Ari was standing where Dominik had left him, his hands huddled by his face. “There's nowhere to go! They're everywhere, Dom!”

“We'll find you somewhere safe.”

“There's nowhere safe!”

“There is. I promise.” His voice sounded strangely calm to his own ears. He supposed he knew why. Lucja was safe—or would be soon—and in a way, nothing else mattered. “Trust me, Ari.”

Dominik led his friend across the grounds, avoiding the hole leading to the lab. He could smell formaldehyde drifting up from the leaking tank and thought that it might be hours before it petered out. He stepped over a body by the hole, then another. To his left, he saw the remains of young Sergeant Metzger. The boy's head was missing, torn off at the neck, but Dominik could still see the silver cross on his chest. He saw Gloeckner and half a dozen others he recognized nearby, all of them silent and still.

In the thick of it all, they found the only building with its door still intact, and Dominik guided his friend to the entrance. Just before they stepped through, one of the blackened shapes leapt from the inside, stopping to shriek directly into their faces. Then it bounded off into the night, leaving them unharmed. A moment later, the generator lights cut out, and the sphere of night closed tightly around them.

Ari was near collapse. “I... I don't think I can—”

“Don't quit on me now, Ari!”

They stepped inside, and Dominik shut the door, sealing them into the supply bunker. They were alone.

“We have to be quiet.”

“All right,” the other man said. “I can do quiet. I can do that.”

Dominik felt his way past the shelves and the various crates and sacks scattered about the place, Ari's hand still clasped in his own. The place was sealed tight, and it was incredibly stuffy inside. Dominik wondered if the place was air-tight, but even if it was, they didn't have a choice. They were staying.

“Over here.”

The two of them sat against the wall at the back of the bunker, their arms wrapped about one another. The walls were thick, but they could hear shouts and thumps outside of the place. Ari was particularly affected, mumbling and whispering every time he heard something in spite of his promise. But after some time, the noises stopped.

In the dark, Ari began to weep. “We should have known,” he said. “We should have done something.”

“He who learns must suffer; and even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God.”

Ari sniffed, and Dominik heard him laugh a little. “What is that, a poem? It's beautiful.”

He smiled painfully in the dark, thinking back to his days at the university, a time when such a thing might have mattered. “I can't remember.”

“Then let's just stay here for a while. Will you hold me?”

“I will, Ari.”

Side by side, they slept, holding one another to stave off the dark. It was there they would stay, arm-in-arm, until eternity claimed them.

The Argentinian Coast:

Present Day

They ran out of gas about thirty miles off shore. The boat had two oars, one of which was badly chipped and cracked, but the paddles saved their lives. It took them almost a full day to reach the mainland once the engine died, but arrive they did. By that time, they were both on the verge of collapse. They were exhausted, sunburned, dehydrated, starving. But alive.

There was no coast guard to bring them in, no rescue tankers, no cruise ships, no children playing on the beach. They arrived to a stretch of coast as ancient and deserted as the dead shores of the whaling docks. The white sand could have been beautiful once, but at present, it only looked dirty, littered with driftwood and the bones of dead fish.

None of this mattered.

When the boat finally washed up onto the beach, Kate rolled off its side and screamed with joy. For a long time, she could do nothing but grab handfuls of the muddy earth and let it slip between her fingers. AJ laughed hysterically as he dropped to the sand and then joined her, throwing his arms about her waist. He held her until they had both decided it was time to move on. It seemed like hours before it did.

AJ took out his key chain; his key chain had a compass. They had traveled northwest towards the coast, and though they didn't know it, they had traveled into the light. Darkness still enveloped the island, but the night had already come and gone on the mainland. They arrived at dawn, the sun greeting them like an old friend.

With some measure of serendipity, the boat landed less than ten miles from the place they originally departed. Having no knowledge of the land nor its people, they decided they should walk north to the old church while they still had the strength. When they arrived—around midday this was—they found it deserted. The old padre had gone, if he had ever been there at all.

They spent the next hour exploring, looking over the grounds, into the bunk house, into the chapel. This latter still had a hole in the floor, exposing the basement Mason had toiled so hard to uncover. When Kate went down, she found the cellar was devoid of Black Shadow's guns, but it was stocked with food and bottled water. She didn't know if it had been put there in preparation for Mason's return or if the old father was preparing a fallout shelter, but she didn't care. The food would keep them alive.

They feasted on Evian, canned beans, crackers, dried fruit, and jerky. AJ found a case of Coke, which he opened with another knickknack from his key chain. Kate thought it was the sweetest thing she had ever tasted.

When they were finished, they slept for an hour inside the cellar. It was cool down there, but when the stone became too uncomfortable, they moved to the bunk house and collapsed into the pastor's bed. Some hours later, they made love. Not for the joy of the act, but because for a time, they could do nothing but clutch at life as if they were drowning, and because it killed thoughts of everything else. Kate was the one who prompted it, starting by touching AJ's face, and then his neck, and then pulling him to her like he was the last man on earth. For all they had seen along coast, perhaps he was. They tore at each other, rolling backwards and forwards, sweating and clawing
and biting in the heat. Someone watching might have thought the behavior oddly imitative, though thoughts of this nature never entered either of their minds.

When it was over, AJ sat on the edge of the bed, and Kate ran a hand over his shoulders. She had left claw marks along his back, red and angry on his pale skin. She thought she might have the same. She might have bruises along her throat, the spot where he had squeezed her as he climaxed.

“We can't stay here,” he said finally.

“I know.”

“When we flew in the first time, I think I saw a village further up. If we can make it there, someone is bound to have a phone.”

It sounded like the right thing, but neither one of them moved for a long time. She continued stroking his back, rubbing those angry spots where her nails had left marks.