Savage: An Apocalyptic Horror Novel (30 page)

His pistol went off.

Damien had to follow up the attack before Samuel
recovered.  He threw his arms out and shoved the captain back against the
command console.  He tried to get his fist up, to throw another punch, but
his arm would not rise.  It remained limp at his side. 

Samuel growled, clamped his teeth around Damien’s ear
and tore away a chunk of lobe.  Then he smashed him in the side of the
head with his elbow.  Damien slumped to the floor and spotted the reason
his arm had not responded: the bullet from Samuel’s pistol had shattered his
elbow. 
Fuck, that hurts.

Samuel aimed the pistol down at him and fired again.

Damien’s vision went white,
then
black, then every colour in between.  Stars speckled his vision and a deep
sickness washed over him.  He glanced down at himself and saw blood
spilling from his stomach like water from a leaky pipe.  He tried to move
but couldn’t.  He tried to shout but couldn’t.  His mouth filled with
a thick liquid that tasted like old pennies.

Samuel chuckled.  “You lose again, Roman. 
How many times must I beat you?  Oh well, if you want something done
right, best you do it yourself.”  Samuel reached out for the big red
button on the console, ready to launch the missiles. 

Damien tried to get up, but the whole world spun
before him.

Samuel’s fingertips settled on the top of the button
and he grinned at Damien.  “Here come the fireworks,” he said, grinning
even wider.

Then the smile turned to a grimace and the tip of a
sword appeared through his chest.

Samuel’s black eyes bulged like swollen inner
tubes.  His mouth opened to speak, but only thick, dark blood came
out.  He clutched at the sword jutting from his chest and stumbled around
to face the other way.  Anna stood before him, panting and wincing, but
unflinchingly defiant.  Samuel reached out for her neck, perhaps to try
and throttle her, but he fell to his knees before he was able to get her. 
Anna grabbed the top of his head and pushed him sideways, where he promptly
toppled and bled out on the floor.  “
Hasta la vista
, bitch,” she
said.

Damien wanted to cheer, but his lungs felt like two
blocks of ice and he couldn’t find his breath.

Anna stared down at him with concern.  “Shit, are
you okay?  You’re shot.” 

Damien tried to smile, but could not feel his
lips.  The only thing he felt was cold.  His vision was curling
inwards at the edges like a piece of rolled-up parchment. 

Anna dropped down beside him and looked into his
eyes.  “I can help you,” she said.  “I used to be a vet.”

Damien managed to swallow whatever liquid had filled
his mouth and caught a shallow breath.  His words were frothy and wet as
his spoke.  “D-don’t be a dickhead.  The ship is…sinking.  I’m
done.”

Anna shook her head.  “I’ll get you out of
here.  We’re leaving together.”

Damien blinked.  Sadness and happiness combined
to overwhelm him.  His life did not flash before him like the movies
said.  Instead he saw only the present; it was a place without guilt or
regret, a place where he had done what was right.  That was all that
mattered in the end: not how things started or even progressed, but how things
were finally left.  He couldn’t help but feel peaceful as he felt his life
slipping away.  The battles of his life were coming to a finish and he was
satisfied with how they had ended.  The last few minutes of his life
almost made the errors of his past meaningless.  Violence had consumed his
entire life, from his childhood to now, but he was thankful that his final act
of rage had served a purpose.  The people on the pier would live. 
Anna would live.  Most importantly of all, Samuel would not.  Damien
was happy with how the scales of his life had balanced.  He was ready to
let go.  And so he did.

Anna seemed to understand that too.  Her look of
concern changed to a soft smile.  She ran her hand against his cheek, but
he could not feel it.  “Good knowing you, Roman.”

He smiled.  “My name is Damien.”

Then he closed his eyes and never opened them again.

A
nna sat and watched Damien for a
while.  He was dead, but he seemed so peaceful, just like Poppy had, that
she, too, felt calm simply by looking at him. 
There was a time when
death used to freak people out, but now its almost beautiful. 
Beautiful to see someone truly dead, instead of walking around as a
zombie.
 

Samuel had been dealt with, but Anna’s life was still
in peril.  When the ship lurched again and the floor tilted at an even
harsher angle, she made the decision that her time was up.  She had to
leave now, or sink beneath the ocean with the
Kirkland
. 
How the
hell do I get off this ship, though?  Are there life rafts?  Damien
said there was.

Anna crouched inside the ladder hatch and climbed back
into the passageway below.  As she headed back the way that Damien had
brought her from, she was running as much on the walls as she was on the
floor.  The ship had turned almost sideways. 
It’s like a maze in
here.  I don’t know if I’m heading up, down, left, or right.

When she finally made it out to the aft deck, she had
to grab a hold of the hatch doorway before she plummeted into the sea. 
The deck had become a steep ramp, leading down to the sea.  A dozen men
and women nearby clung to whatever was bolted down, while another handful
battled to stay afloat in the frothing waters below.  A smattering of
boats had dared get close enough to offer rescue, but it was a dangerous task
as the sinking frigate created a vortex and pulled down anything caught inside
it.

I’m screwed,
she
told herself. 
Even if I survive the fall, I’ll end up drowning. 
If a boat picks me up, they might just turn on me for being a ‘terrorist’.

She glanced off into the distance.  It was a nice
day.  There was no rain for once and the sky was clear.  The sun
shone.  The pier sat peacefully beyond the shore and almost seemed to call
to her.  All of the fires there had now gone out and it once again looked
like home.  But she would never get to return. 
I knew this was a
one-way journey.  I came here to kill Samuel and I have.  I won.

So why do I feel like I’ve lost?

Anna wondered if Garfield was at the pier, watching
the ship as she watched the shore.  Would he have Poppy’s body in his
arms, or would it hurt him too much to even look at her?  Anna wished she
could be there to tell him ‘sorry’.  She could have done things
differently, and would have given the chance.  Poppy might still live if
she’d made different choices. 
At least I killed the son-of-a-bitch
responsible.

“Whore!”

Anna spun around, balancing precariously in the open
hatchway.  She was startled to find Samuel standing behind her.  The
sword was still poking through his chest, but he didn’t seem to care. 
Blood stained his teeth and made him look demonic.  He snarled like a
demon, too. 
How the hell is he still alive?

Anna was defenceless.  She had no weapon and both
her hands clutched the open hatchway and kept her from falling.  So when
Samuel charged her like a bull and struck her in the stomach, she had no way to
shield herself. 

Her breath escaped her body and she plummeted
backwards through the hatch.  Samuel stayed right with her, his arms and
legs entangled with hers.  They fell fifty feet before they hit the hard
surface of the water.

The ice-cold sea froze her.  Her lungs seized up
and she felt like she would never take a single breath again.  She sunk
beneath the surface, her eyes stinging and blind with salt.  The swirling
water almost rocked her to sleep.  The weariness seemed to ebb from her
bones and turn her to jelly.  It was peaceful beneath the sea.  Part
of her wanted to stay there.

But a bigger part wanted to live.

Anna kicked her legs and clawed with her hands. 
She didn’t know which way was up but she prayed it was the direction in which
she was heading.  Her lungs ached and she felt like her chest was going to
implode.  The surface of the water seemed forever away and light and
darkness mixed together and disorientated her. 
I’m not going to make
it.
 

The pressure in her chest was unbearable now. 
She wanted more than anything to take a breath, but the moment she did the sea
would take her. 
I’m going to drown.  My body will sink into
darkness and never be found. 

Anna’s lungs could take no more.  She opened her
mouth to take the breath that she knew would end her.

Something grabbed her from above, snatching at her as
if she were a fish on the end of a hook.  She took a gasping breath and
her lungs filled with blessed oxygen instead of the suffocating flood of
seawater she’d expected.  She found herself being dragged upwards.  Two
men were yanking her into a small fishing boat.  She gasped at the air and
pawed at her saviours –
I’m still alive –
but something else
pulled her in the opposite direction.

Samuel leapt up from the water like a shark and seized
her around the throat.  Anna slipped from her rescuers hands and clung to
the side of the boat.  Suddenly her air was cut off again as Samuel
squeezed the life out of her.  His black eyes swirled with malice and
bloody spittle flew from his mouth.  The sword still jutted from his
chest, but he had lost none of his strength as he kneaded her windpipe with a
vice-like hand.

The men aboard the ship reached down and tried to free
her from his grasp, but it was no good.  They tried to drag her upwards,
and almost got her over the railing, but Samuel seized the side of the boat
with one hand while he continued to choke her with his other.  She slipped
back down again.  Samuel would not let go.  Anna gritted her teeth as
she felt the blood collecting in her head and the oxygen in her lungs dry
up. 
He’s going to kill me.  I stabbed him but he didn’t
die.  It isn’t fair.

Yip!

Anna was taken by surprise as she saw Houdini leap
from atop the fishing boat’s railing and clamp his tiny jaws around Samuel’s
supporting hand.  The little dog balanced half on, half off the side of
the boat and tore and twisted at the fingers in his mouth.  If Samuel
moved his hand away, he would slip into the sea.  The only free hand he
had was the one around Anna’s neck.  He cursed and let go of Anna in order
to swat the small dog aside, but Houdini dodged the blow and clambered back
aboard the boat.

Anna seized on her chance and grabbed the tip of the
sword jutting out of Samuel’s chest.  The sharp blade opened her palms
like a knife through butter, but she hissed through the pain and yanked it
upwards, twisting it.

Samuel’s mouth exploded with more blood.  Anna
twisted the sword harder.  The blade shifted inside his chest and cut a
furrow through whatever organs lay in its path.  His body shuddered. 
He glared at Anna and snarled, but then he coughed and choked on his own
blood.  The swirling of his black eyes ceased and his body slumped against
the side of the boat.  He hung limply from the railing by one hand. 
He looked at Anna and spluttered.  “You…you…
whore
!”

Yip!

Houdini bit Samuel’s hand again and he finally let
go.  The two men on the fishing boat hoisted Anna upwards and Samuel sank
beneath the water.  He stared up at her as he descended, but seemed more
confused than angry.

Anna collapsed onto the deck of the fishing boat,
panting, wheezing, bleeding, and crying.  Each time death had tried to
snatch, she’d escaped, but she was tired and upset and broken. 
I can’t
take any more.

Hugo peered down at her and smiled kindly.  “I am
glad to see you again, Anna.  I think your mission was a success, no?”

The American man, Wade, was standing beside Hugo,
peering down at her with the same kindness.  “You told me to find a boat,
so I did.  Didn’t want to leave without the two of you, though.  I
take it Roman…”

“He didn’t make it, and his name was Damien.” 
Anna sat up and caught her breath.  “Hugo what…how?”

“Garfield is back,” he said.  “He has a
tank.  He fired at the
Kirkland
and tried to sink it.  He was
about to fire again, but saw you were onboard. Then a fishing boat came ashore
to greet us.  Three fishermen wished to flee the fighting and try to make
it on land – they had been planning to set off for Spain a few weeks ago,
they told me, but Samuel had made one of their friends disappear for even discussing
it.  They do not love the fleet. 

“They were not using their boat, so I took it to come
and rescue whomever I could find.  I found Wade and he told me you were
still alive.  I am glad to have found you, Anna.  My girls and your
campmates are waiting for us back at the pier.  Are you ready to go?”

Anna nodded emphatically.  “Yes,” she said. 
“I want to go home.  Get me the hell away from this goddamn ship.”

Hugo nodded behind her and made her turn around. 
“Anna, my friend, there is no more ship.”

Anna couldn’t help but laugh.  The
Kirkland
was gone, sank beneath the sea. 
Good riddance.