Black_Tide (6 page)

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that the attention the other crewmen paid him went beyond wariness of a newbie onboard. Untrained personnel could be dangerous and as such provoked a certain hostility, but the reactions of the established crew went beyond exasperation or even worry. Not one offered help or guidance, not one spared him a kind word after terse introductions, not one even shook his hand. The black mood pervaded every inch of the ship, even the cafeteria and the game room, where sullen men played pool, darts, and cards without banter or laughter. For blue-collar men earning six figures with overtime plus hazard pay, the malaise didn't fit.

He set the pipe down and went for another. In truth he could carry a half-dozen at a time without breaking a sweat, but didn't want to draw any more attention than he already had. His true goal had nothing to do with getting work done, and working a few days without trying anything suspicious couldn't hurt his chances of breaking away unseen.

The stop work bell rang at seven p.m. sharp. All work ceased—drilling, welding, even ship maintenance, everything but the kitchen staff, who kicked into overtime to feed the famished crew. Matt stood in line with his tray, took three scoops of pulled pork with extra bread and a carton of orange juice. The spooks sat with four other pipe layers, chowing down without much conversation, so Matt chose an unoccupied table.

The small room filled, absent the chatter one would expect in a cafeteria. The hair stood on the back of his neck as every table filled but his. Four men stood against the wall, eating off trays held in their hands rather than sitting at his table. He ignored them all, concentrating on his sandwich, muscles primed and ready to spring into action at the slightest hint of hostility.

A shadow darkened his tray. He looked up. The black-haired man who'd let them on board scowled down at him.

"What are you doing on my ship?"

Matt chewed a few more times than necessary, then swallowed. He set down his sandwich before looking up. "Trying to make a living. You Captain Galatas, then? You don't sound Greek."

"Galatas fell ill. I'm Krick, and I asked you a question."

Matt shifted his shoulders, almost a shrug. "I answered you, Captain. Not sure what else you want." Faherty and Chambers tensed in his peripheral vision.

Krick snaked out and grabbed his wrist. Matt let him, and turned his palms up, revealing a half-dozen Band-Aids he'd added to his disguise. Krick reached out to grab a bandage, and Matt jerked his hand free.

"Who hired you?"

Matt nodded toward Jim and Greg. Krick would know that from his paperwork anyway.

"Gloves or not, you've worked three days without a blister and without slowing down. What are you doing on my ship?"

He couldn't say that Jim hadn't warned him about his hands.

"Tell you what, Captain, why don't we finish this conversation somewhere private? I don't want to start any trouble."

"Too late for that, I think."

Matt held up his hands in what he hoped Krick would take as a placating gesture. "You sure?"

Krick's eyes turned jet black. Creeping black lines wormed beneath his skin.

Silver flashed to Matt's right and Greg Faherty fell away from the table, a fork buried in his neck, the oil-worker next to him grinning like a maniac with eyes as black as the captain's.

Matt dove left, away from a swipe from Krick's claws. Around him, the rest of the crew attacked, several launching themselves at Greg and Jim, the rest joining Krick.

Claws?
Definitely claws, black and cruel, an extra inch at the end of each finger.

Matt sprang up and waded through the crowd toward Greg and Jim, crushing knees and cracking skulls with blunt, clinical fury. Bodies fell in his wake. Claws raked his arms and chest, ragged tears that burned well beyond physical injury, but for each one he returned a killing blow.

A moan erupted, a deep resonance that reverberated through the room from every crewman. Matt shattered a skull with a knife-hand strike, pulled back, and took a Taser to the stomach. He stumbled, gritting his teeth against the jolting paralysis, and Mark Talmer pressed his advantage. Eyes jet black, grinning like a maniac, he pulled away the Taser and grabbed Matt's neck with an iron grip.

Free from the electric shock, Matt leaned back, grabbed Talmer's wrist left-handed, then brought his right hand up into the elbow. Talmer didn't scream, didn't even react, as the joint hyperextended. Matt twisted it behind his back, forcing him to his knees, and Talmer gnashed his teeth in fury, still moaning with the crowd.

Matt brought his weight down on his elbow, driving it into the base of Talmer's neck. His body crumpled as vertebrae shattered, and Matt wasted no time. He swept the legs out from under another assailant, flipped to his feet, and struck another in the jugular. His rigid fingers pulled free in a spray of sticky fluid as black as old motor oil. A vinegar tang stung his nostrils, and his fingers burned.

Greg lay on the ground, eyes wide, throat a massive blue bruise, fork still protruding from his windpipe. Matt couldn't see Jim in the press of bodies. His flesh burned white-hot where he'd been scratched, and a hint of fatigue flooded his muscles, a sensation he hadn't felt since he left his crutches on the hospital floor.

Uh, oh.

The mob switched tactics, turning as one and grabbing for him instead of clawing. Only in the movies did one man face ten and make it out alive. At least forty still stood. Matt backpedaled to gain some space, snapping limbs and crushing bones as he went, but he impacted a wall of flesh, and a tattooed arm wrapped around his neck. Matt dropped low, and his assailant dropped with him to retain his grip, just as Matt expected him to.

Matt extended his legs, his backward leap carrying the man into the bolted-down table with a crunch he both felt and heard. He flipped back and landed feet-first on the table. Across the room, Krick stood with his arms raised, black fluid leaking from his eyes.

Jim Chambers leapt out from under the table, driving a chef's knife toward Krick's abdomen. The captain swept his hand downward and Jim caught it against his own, drawing a deep gash in Krick's forearm with the cleaver in his other hand. As one the crowd bled, black ichor leaking from their wrists.

With a wince Krick ripped his left hand up through Chambers's neck, and his blood painted the captain in crimson.

Matt leapt from table to table, lashing out to pulverize organs and snap limbs of anyone who got too close. Exhaustion pulled at him as the poison worked through his muscles, slowing his reflexes to near-human levels. He surged upward, punching his hands through drop-ceiling panels, and grabbed the thin metal supports that held up the panels. Muscles straining, he heaved himself up and through the small hole.

The darkness slithered with cables, power and internet in galvanized steel, pale yellow PEX carrying water to and from the ship's bowels. He scrambled forward on all fours, careful not to put his weight on any tiles, an insane game of "break mama's back" that carried him thirty feet to Krick's position.

Tucking into a ball, he fell through the tile and landed with a crash on the ground behind the acting captain.

Krick whirled and swiped, his claw tearing through Matt's cheek and cutting his bottom lip in half. Matt choked down the blood gushing over his tongue and grabbed the man by the shirt, pulling him to eye level. Krick's legs dangled as Matt snatched a steak knife from the table and held it to a black eye.

"Call them off." The burning itch intensified, and concentration became harder through the gray-green fuzz filling his brain. Blood dribbled from his mouth, and he spoke through it. "BACK OFF!"

Krick laughed, a haggard, wet sound over the droning voices, and closed his clawed hands around Matt's wrists. "Why bother? You're already dead."

"You first." Matt pulled back with his left hand and punched forward with his right, jamming the knife through Krick's right eye, up to the hilt. Krick twitched once.

The moaning stopped.

Bodies fell to the deck in a single mass. Matt turned, still holding the captain up. Every crew member had collapsed, eyes wide, leaking—bleeding—a viscous black substance from the right socket. Muscles twitched, bodies jerked. Matt wrapped his arm around Krick's head and wrenched, tearing it from the body.

Black fluid sprayed the floor and spattered his face, hot and too sticky, reeking of soured vinegar. The crewmen stopped moving, their necks erupting in sprays of black ichor as their heads tumbled to the floor. The room spun.

Matt stumbled and held himself up with the table. His eyelids drooped, vision blurred.

Monica.
He heaved himself up onto a table, above the growing black pool of pestilent rot.
Adam.

He dropped to his hands and knees, and the world faded.

Eight girls stood around him in a circle, holding hands, their sing-song chant an unintelligible nursery rhyme. The world stank of blood and shit and death, a putrid miasma that set his stomach churning, but Matt couldn't move to cover his nose. They stared at him with eyes the void between stars, their white dresses streaked with black and red. His head rang in tune with their babble.

Their gibbering almost-words slithered between his thoughts, coaxing him to—his head rang again.

"Wake up, dammit," Sakura said.

He opened his eyes. The girls disappeared, replaced by Sakura's dour, mannish face. The smell remained, and the memory of their chant danced in his ears.

Sakura rubbed her hand on her hip. "You have hard bones. Get up."

She stood, offered a hand, and hauled him to his feet.

Corruption surrounded them. Black, liquid goo covered the floor. Clothing lay in disorganized lumps throughout the cafeteria amidst scattered trays of food, bolted-down furniture, and the dismembered bodies of Greg and Jim. Aside from the Shop guys, not a single bone or tooth lay anywhere. A pair of soldiers stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and green-faced, their wan complexions a perfect fit to Matt's state of mind.

"Forensics are on the way," Sakura said. "You shower, then we breach the closed-off section."

"There's a closed-off section?" He walked and talked, his shoes leaving sticky black tracks down the cramped hallway.

"You've been on-board three days and you didn't know?"

He shrugged. "Not a lot of unobserved time. For the most part I've been carrying pipe."

Sakura muttered something in Japanese, and ignored his pointed look as if she'd never spoken.

They wound their way to the crew quarters. Sakura found a black plastic garbage bag and opened it. "Clothes. Boots, too."

He stripped, peeling each disgusting layer from his skin and letting it fall into the open bag. He got to his boxers and hesitated.

"Hurry up." Sakura's mouth twitched, an expression that, in some alternate universe where Blossom Sakura smirked, may have been the beginnings of a smirk.

He dropped his drawers, eyes locked with Sakura. He held up the filthy, ichor-soaked underwear with a thumb and forefinger, and dropped them into the bag. Her expression never changed, even when she dropped her eyes to his groin and brought them back up.

"Acceptable, if unremarkable. Shower. Hurry up."

Sakura tied the bag as he walked into the bathroom.

He cranked the water as hot as it went and scrubbed hard, washing multiple times, scrubbing everything to eliminate any trace of the viscous black fluid. He leaned against the wall and let the clean water cascade over him, until it got too hot to breathe comfortably.

He got out reeking of lye and lavender, toweled off, and stepped into the common room. Sakura stood with her back to the room, arms crossed. A pair of used work boots in his size sat on the foot of his bed. He threw on deodorant, dressed, and approached, careful to avoid his own sticky footprints.

She half-turned at his footsteps, then took the lead. "Let's go."

Men and women in white environmental suits lumbered across their path, lugging test kits and electronics to the cafeteria-turned-abattoir. The techs had already stripped the captain's quarters, and strike teams had cleared the moonpool and bridge. That left only the rear hold, which they'd left for Matt and Sakura. Whether out of fear or respect, he couldn't tell.

A massive, rusted padlock secured the crossbars in the steel door, hinges hidden behind welded steel plates. A corpsman in full assault gear, one of six, handed him an Auto-Assault 12 combat shotgun. "Loaded for bear, sir."

He checked the drum magazine anyway and, satisfied, eyed the lock. "I don't suppose anyone has bolt cutters?"

Sakura held up a hand, and like magic a key appeared between her fingers. "In the captain's pocket."

It slid into the keyhole, and she popped the clasp with a smooth twist. She pulled out the lock, grabbed the crossbar, and looked at him, one eyebrow raised.

He half-turned. "What's on the far side?"

A marine stepped up with a tablet raised, displaying blueprints. "Engine room, sir, but there's no through access. Hull to port and starboard, one escape hatch in the aft ceiling we've got covered from above, awaiting orders."

"I'm in first with Sakura. We might have hostages inside, so check your fire and clear fast. If it freaks you out, kill it, but watch those 203's in confined quarters. Any questions?" The marines said nothing. Sakura dropped her night-vision goggles, and the marines followed suit. He raised the weapon and nodded.

Sakura pulled open the door, and he followed the shotgun through the dark entrance, scanning left and right, checking corners in full spectrum, his augmented eyes rendering goggles unnecessary. Sakura appeared at his side, NATO-issue REC-7 assault rifle up and ready. The marines piled in behind them, efficient and smooth and almost silent.

Infrared picked up a vague red heat toward the back, and the dulled, purple ultraviolet showed him too many hiding places—crates stacked to twenty-foot ceilings or under oiled canvas lashed to metal knobs on the floor, neat rows stretching back a third the length of the ship. Machinery clanked louder here, the constant shudder of the engines vibrating through the floor and walls. It smelled of machine grease and dust.