Tankbread 02 Immortal (12 page)

After Else had vanished around the corner, a small shape crept into the hallway. Moving silently, Sarah went to the open room where the evol had been restored. She stared at the splash of blood and pieces of mashed red meat on the floor. She darted into the room and crouched down, carefully scraping the mess into a battered tin can until it was full. Returning to the doorway, she peeped both ways before slipping out into the corridor and hurrying off the way she had come.

Else went slowly up a stairwell, every sense alive to signs of the undead. Dust and salty grime crusted everything. Boot prints in the dirty carpets showed a lot of people had been walking around up here. She strained for any sound of babies crying. The fear that her son might have already been eaten nearly choked her every time she dared think it.

In Else’s experience evols did not make noise. They did not breathe, engage in small talk, or move around unnecessarily. Like ambush predators they would stand, still and silent, waiting for something to get their attention, and then they would strike.

Growing rage soon threatened to overwhelm her caution as she tried every door handle and slammed doors on empty rooms. Marching down the silent corridor, wanting to shout and scream and demand the crew come out and face her.

Behind the door labeled as “Boardroom” she found a group of evols all wearing faded blue uniforms. They stood like abandoned dolls in the dark until the door opened, then a dozen heads turned in her direction.

“It is forbidden,” said the nearest dead man. Else picked up a wooden chair and smashed it across his face.

This act of violence roused the others and they marched on her as a group. Backing up, Else held the splintered remains of the chair’s leg like a stake. A woman raised her hands, reaching for Else. “Forbidden,” she echoed. Else spun on the balls of her feet, slamming the ragged end of the chair leg into the woman’s throat. Black blood splattered across the others, startling them into deep-throated growls of aggression and unease.

“Come on!” Else yelled, the noise of her voice unsettling the dead further. They attacked in one group, teeth and hands reaching for her, the thin veneer of civilization sloughing away like dead skin as they succumbed to the instinctive drive to kill and devour living meat.

The pieces of chair shattered against bones and jammed deep in dead chests. Else backed up, using the door to bottleneck her attackers. She lashed out with feet and fists, destroying knees, shattering noses, and smashing snarling heads against the metal doorframe. An evol stumbled through the door, feet tangling on the twisted corpses that littered the floor. Else grabbed the zombie’s arm and twisted; the dead sinew cracked and the arm dislocated at the shoulder. Else kept twisting, a howl of hatred and rage fueling her strength. The arm ripped free from the glistening socket. Armed with this makeshift club, she laid into the remaining dead.

Soon only three remained and the doorway had clogged with the still writhing bodies of the broken evols. The survivors hung back, a primal survival instinct flaring somewhere in their rotting skulls.

Else wiped the gore and slime of carnage from her face and spat the foulness of them from her mouth.

“Tell your Captain,” she panted. “Tell him. I am Else. I am going to kill you all. And him. Him I will kill last.”

With a final glare she threw the gore-soaked arm down and walked off down the narrow corridor. Climbing another flight of stairs, she found the way forward blocked by a sealed door. Else pounded on it, determined to bring her enemy out to face her. No one came.

Frustrated, she ran up the next flight of stairs, the adrenaline of the fight fading fast, leaving her tense and shaking. Moving into a hallway that ran along the length of the ship, Else slowed her breathing as her nose picked up a range of strange smells. Feces and a sour acid stink filled the air.

The smell came from a dimly lit room where three crude cages had been constructed from pipes of steel and heavy plastic. The pens were small, with barely enough room for a single occupant. Else came closer, disturbed and curious at the same time. In front of each cage hung an empty metal tray and she could see that trapped inside each cell was a naked, adult woman.

“Why are you in here?” she asked. The nearest woman raised her head. Greasy, matted hair and eyes sunk deep into a face smeared with grime stared out through the bars. “Why are you in here? Are you being punished?” Else asked again.

“We . . .” the woman’s voice croaked. She coughed, her gaunt shoulders heaving. “We feed the young,” her voice rasped, and Else could smell the sweet acid of malnutrition on her breath.

“The babies the crew eat?” Else asked, pressing forward and rattling the enclosure.

“Not all of them . . . Some are kept alive, until they are needed. A week . . . maybe two . . .” Her breasts were swollen and dripping thin milk. It ran in rivulets down the corrugated surface of her ribs as the woman slumped in her pen. There was no room for her to sit or lie down. She could barely bend her knees and Else could see where the pressure of the bars had ulcerated her skin, leaving deep, foul-smelling wounds that oozed pus.

“Where are the babies?” Else demanded. She found the fastening bolt for the cage, the other two women stirring as she rattled the bolt open. The wet nurse in the cage fell forward as the cage swung open. Else caught her, gently lifting the woman and laying her down on the floor. Her body was wasting away; below the ankles her feet were an open sore, stained with smears of bodily waste. Her skin was breaking down with infection and malnutrition. At the points of her shoulder blades and elbows the skin had rubbed raw and wept blood and fluids. Writhing maggots dripped like melting wax from the fist-sized holes in the woman’s skin.

“I will get you out of here. I will take you to the hold; they need to see what is happening here. They have medicine, they can help you.” Else hurried to the other two cages while explaining what she intended. The women in the cages cringed away from her. One of them started shrieking as the cage door swung open, thrashing in the tiny space and smashing her skull against the bars. Droplets of fresh blood stained her naturally red hair and masked her face in a crimson sheen.

Else ignored her, leaving the door open as she moved to unbolt the final cage. The blonde-haired woman in this one was younger and fresher. Starvation and imprisonment hadn’t yet taken her strength or sanity. She stepped out on her own, watching Else with wild eyes.

“Come with me,” Else insisted. “I can take you to safety.” The fresh-faced woman sank to the floor, her face blank with horror, hands crawling up her face to press against her ears, blocking out the screaming of the redhead.

“You have to get up.” Else went and tugged on the blonde girl’s wrists. She whimpered and pulled away. “You can’t stay here, you’ll die,” Else said.

“We are already dead . . .” the woman on the floor moaned. “There is no safe place . . . not since they took over.”

Else looked at the three women with disgust, not at their physical condition but at their weakness. “They only win if you stop fighting,” she said.

The door opened and a woman with a dried-up bite that had torn a chunk from her scalp stood in the doorway, processing what she was seeing. Else didn’t give her a chance to speak. Charging forward, she slammed the evol back against the wall. She followed up with a hand strike to the throat that tore the dead flesh away and exposed the yellowing ringbones of the trachea.

“Forbidden,” the evol gurgled, her teeth snapping at Else’s arm. She grabbed the zombie’s head and twisted it off.

The women from the cages whimpered and moaned. The blonde girl screamed and scuttled back into her cage, pulling the door shut. The woman on the floor had gone quiet and still. When Else checked on her, she was dead.

Else sealed the room on her way out. The women in the cages should be safe when their dead roommate got up again. If the crew were keeping babies alive until they were needed, then her son might still have a chance.

The hours had blurred into one another, the sun a fiery disc rising over the horizon when Else climbed out on a high deck. The seabirds were rousing for the day in their nests, and the salt air seared Else’s dry throat as she looked for a way up higher.

“You’re in trouble,” a singsong voice warned. Else scowled.

“Sarah?” she asked.

“I’m going to tell the Captain,” Sarah’s voice sang from a different direction. Else turned slowly, scanning the walls and hidden decks. Sarah climbed like a cat and knew every inch of the ship. She could be anywhere, watching and taunting Else.

“Tell him what exactly?”

Sarah’s giggle echoed off the steel and set the birds muttering. “That you did stuff an’ you went where you’re not allowed.”

“I’m looking for my baby. You know that.” Else turned her head. Sarah was right there; she was sure of it. How did she get up so high?

Sarah’s voice came from another place, this time behind Else. “The Captain’s going to kill me. Kill me proper, so I come back smart. He’ll do it cuz I’m going to tell. Then the first thing he’ll give me to eat is your baby.”

Else heard the faint sound of bare feet slapping on the deck and then the creak of a door swinging shut.

“Sarah! Wait!” Else yelled at the sky.

The engineers knew the way up to the highest points on the ship, where the crew waited with her baby. After sweeping her gaze across the high steel walls, Else turned and climbed down to the safer decks where the ship’s passengers eked out their existence.

Else made her way into the engine room, where the engineers toiled with the fantasy of seeing the ship sail once again. Rache was nowhere in sight when she entered the main chamber and tapped the nearest worker on the shoulder. “I’m looking for Rache,” she told him.

“Haven’t seen her.” The oil-stained man folded his arms and glared down at Else.

“You don’t belong here,” the next woman she approached said before Else could ask where Rache might be.

“None of us belong here,” Else replied. “If I can find Rache I can help you all escape.”

“We belong here. You, you’re just trouble.” The engineers came onto the catwalk, sliding down poles and clambering up over the rails. In moments Else found her way blocked by a crowd of hostile faces.

“Rache!” she shouted over their heads.

“Go on, piss off!” someone shouted and the mob pushed forward. Else was shoved against the railing. Doubling over, she pressed back before they could force her over the side to plummet to the floor meters below. More engineers were gathering down there. Angry faces turned upwards; they raised their fists and shouted for Else to leave or die.

Rache appeared, pushing her way through the group on the catwalk. She shoved men aside and glared at anyone who dared snarl in response. “You need to leave here now, Else,” she warned.

“Please,” Else said. “You know how to get up to the bridge. I need your help.”

Rache hesitated, “I . . . I can’t. You’re on your own. I’m sorry.”

“Rache!” Else shouted at the girl’s back as she pulled back into the crowd that pressed in, seizing Else by the arms. Her feet lashed out, catching one man in the side of the head with enough force to send him spinning over the railing. Screams came from the crowd below.

“Kill the bitch!” a voice howled. Others took up the shout: “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Else let out a scream of her own, a raw, primal howl of fury, and she tore free of the greasy hands that clung to her.

“Fuckers!” she screamed. “I’ll fucking kill you if you get in my way!” Teeth bared she charged them, striking the first man low in the midsection, knocking him down and using his chest as a platform to leap for a pipe that ran overhead. A dozen pairs of hands reached up for Else as she climbed to the topside of the pipes. If she crouched down there was enough space here to scramble away from the crowd. Angry voices followed her and when the pipes abruptly angled upwards into the ceiling she took a chance and leapt across a yawning gap to catch hold of a hanging chain. Swinging back and forth she started to climb down, hand over hand. The crowd of engineers on the high catwalk parted and a heavyset man stepped into view. In his hands he carried a blackened metallic tube with a blue flame burning at the end. A hose ran to a pair of squat tanks on his back. His right hand pumped a lever vigorously as Else stared at the strange apparatus without comprehension.

“Kill her!” the crowd roared. Else paused in her climbing. The faces looking up at her from the floor far below had the same wild eyes and bared teeth of those on the catwalk. Climbing down would get her killed too.

With a dull cough and a high-pitched hiss, the short tube spewed fire and rolling black smoke. Else had time to yell “Fuck!” and let go of the chain before the inferno swallowed the spot she had hung from a second before.

The crowd below broke her fall. They were packed too tightly to give her space to land on the steel plate floor. She heard screams of pain and opened her eyes long enough to see through the tangled pile of limbs and stinking bodies. A wrench came arcing through a gap in the melee and her vision shattered into a thousand shards of dark unconsciousness.