Tankbread 02 Immortal (13 page)

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Else’s eye cracked open, her sight blurred red from the crust of blood cementing her eyelids together. A yellow bulb burned in a wall bracket, giving everything a jaundiced look.

It took her a moment to realize that she was hanging from the ceiling by chains wrapped around her ankles, while her fingertips waved a foot off the ground. Everything tasted of blood. Her head pounded and a delicate examination with her hands found a healing gash on her forehead where the wrench had knocked her out. Blood from half a hundred bruises and cuts burned across her face and body. Milk pressed from her breasts and dripped in her eyes, blurring her vision further and stinging against the cuts on her face.

Everything hurt, which Else took as a good sign. It meant she wasn’t paralyzed or dead. She experimented with lifting her head to follow her hands in the upwards traverse of her body. Her clothes were gone and her spine creaked as she curled up to touch her toes.

The chain securing her feet had been wrapped around a steel girder in the ceiling and looped around her ankles. Else bent further, shallow breaths hissing from between her clenched teeth as she craned upwards. Her straining fingers reached the edge of the chain, and then strength failed her and she fell back, gasping for breath and swinging upside down.

After a few long moments of recovery she tried again. This time she folded up at the waist with more force. The chain slapped against her fingertips and then she gripped the closest links. With her finger grip taking some of the strain, she pulled herself into an even tighter fold. More of the chain came under the grip of her hands and she bent her knees outwards, pulling her body up to lift the strain off the chain loops that held her feet. As the links went slack, Else wriggled her left foot and then her right until they slipped out of the loosened chain. Hanging by her hands, she dropped lightly to the floor and immediately collapsed, her feet completely numb from the lack of blood flow.

“Fuck,” Else whimpered as her legs exploded with a painful burning, prickling sensation. Flexing her legs and ankles helped until normal circulation returned. Standing up with more care, she had to crouch again, the change in gravity’s direction making a bathroom break her first priority.

The door had been locked from the outside. Else sat down in the lee of where it would open when someone came to check on her and leaned against the wall. Her head still ached and the healing wounds on her body itched and burned. With her knees drawn up, she lowered her head and went to sleep.

The squeak of the door handle being twisted open roused Else into pitch darkness. With no natural light she had lost sense of time, though her throat was dry and her stomach rumbled, suggesting hours had passed. She pushed herself up; first she would fight her way out and then find some food.

Else pressed back against the wall as the door swung open, her fist ready to smash the new arrival’s face. Rache raised a smoking oil lantern, gaping at the empty chains, and then turning in time to see Else advancing on her with bared teeth.

“Wait!” she yelped, hands raised in defense.

“Get me out of here,” Else demanded.

“I will, but listen. It’s not safe. There’s been some kind of disease outbreak. The holders, they’re getting sick, dying and coming back feral.”

“The holders? The people living in the hold?” Else asked.

“Yeah. They’re going crazy and attacking anyone they can find. It’s getting really fucked up.”

“Where’s the Foreman?”

“Up in his office I guess. He’s just telling us to lock up tight and wait for the crew to restore order.”

Else’s sudden smile was a death mask grimace in the dim light. “Is that what you think is going to happen? The crew is going to restore order?”

Rache blinked, her face opening in complete shock, “But.. . they have to.”

“They don’t have to do anything. They will only try to stop an outbreak to protect the herd. They only need enough of you to keep breeding. That’s the only reason they’ll destroy the ferals.”

“So what do we do?” Rache asked.

“What I’ve been saying all along. We fight. We destroy every last motherfucker. Then you will be free.”

“Free? Like being able to set sail and go anywhere?”

“Sure, you can be the captain of your own boat if you want.” Else peered out into the cathedral of the engine room. Engineers were huddled in small groups around drums that flickered with oil fires. Weapons of hammered steel with gleaming edges lay close at hand.

“Ohh . . .” Rache breathed. “Captain Rache . . .”

“Can you get your people to follow you? We need them to help save the holders, find any survivors and bring them back here. The fishermen too.”

“We can’t go out there, there are zombies,” Rache said with genuine terror rising on her face.

“I’ll need some clothes, and one of those blade weapons your people have.”

Rache slipped out the door. “Wait here,” she said and vanished into the gloom.

Else idly scratched at a scab on her chest; the rough edge of someone’s boot had split the skin and cracked a rib. The bone felt restored, and the dried blood lifted from a pink line of healing scar tissue as she scratched. Her body tingled with the itch of healing and she rubbed her back against the edge of the door while waiting for Rache to return.

The girl came hurrying back with a bundle of cloth cradled against her chest and a short-handled, scythe-like blade in her other hand.

Else took the clothes offered. “I have seen material like this before,” she said. “The soldiers at Woomera wore the same color.”

Rache held up a pair of boots. “I don’t know if these will fit. I only had a moment to grab the first pair I saw in the stores.”

The boots were too large, so Else tore strips of fabric from the trousers and wrapped her feet before sliding the boots on and lacing them tight. Taking the scythe, she tested the strength of the wire binding that held the blade to the handle.

“We are ever vigilant,” Rache said, her eyes reflecting the chrome of the blade.

“Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,” Else replied, swinging the blade and getting a feel for the weight of it. “I read that in a book,” she added.

“I don’t know if they will follow us.” Rache’s eyes were wide and white against her blackened skin.

“You want to be a captain, you need to be able to lead.” Else gave her a minute to think it through. Rache took a deep breath and left the room. Else rested the blade over her shoulder and followed the girl.

“Hey! Hey!” Rache yelled across the cavernous chamber. People turned and looked, some rising to their feet.

“Have they broken through?”

“Is it the dead?”

“They’re here!”

Voices clamored from all directions. The clash of weapons being snatched up echoed off the walls. Rache walked out into the gathering crowd.

“We . . . We need to fight the dead,” she said, her voice lost in the growing alarm of the swelling mob.

“Where are they?”

“Someone tell the Foreman!”

“Listen to me!” Rache yelled, her voice stronger this time. “We are engineers! This ship is our home! We will not hide like holders! Like children! We will protect our home! We will fight for what is ours!”

The engineers stopped hurrying about in circles looking for the enemy and started turning towards Rache. Listening to her voice calling them to stand together.

“Who are you to tell us what to do?”

“That’s Rache, she’s just a panel scrubber!” another voice jeered, and others laughed with him.

“Yes!” Rache shouted them down. “I’m a panel scrubber. I keep the shit off the solar panels so you can have water and light. I believe in the ship! I believe in the Foreman! I want to see her sail!”

The crowd shouted—“Yeah! Sail! Sail! Sail!”—drumming their weapon handles on the metal floor and against pipes in a rhythmic pounding that swelled across the engine chamber.

“We take the fight to them! We take this ship! Then we sail her!” Rache’s face rose above the crowd as the nearest engineers lifted her on their shoulders. Fists punched the air and a deafening chorus of cheers rolled around the room.

Hands fell on the barred gates and doors, pulling levers and tearing away the barriers. The crowd surged forward, pouring out of the room and into the stairwells that led out into the ship. Rache waited until the last of them had left the room and Else stepped up beside her.

“You’ll make a good captain,” Else said and followed the line of warriors going to war.

“Where did the outbreak start? Do your people even know where they are going?” Else asked Rache as they followed the crowd.

“In the hold, some people got sick and then turned. They died hard and came back feral. You know how it spreads, right?”

Else nodded. She knew the Adam virus didn’t spread; it was already in everything. Lying dormant in the air, the soil, the water, and in every living person. When the body died, the virus activated, bringing the person back to kill and feed on living flesh.

“Where are the survivors? Do they have somewhere to go?” Else asked.

“Dunno,” Rache replied. “We can start in the hold and see who is left.”

Shouts from the engineers ahead told them the first of the new evols had been encountered. They heard the clash of steel on bone and flesh, the screams of the dying, and the snarls of the hungry dead driven into a fury by the presence of life.

The corridor clogged with squirming bodies. Else hefted her blade, the familiar rage building in her chest. The fine blonde hairs on her arms rose as adrenaline flooded her system. She charged into the fight, swinging the scythe up in a wide arc, point first into a dead woman’s head, splitting her skull in a spray of brackish grey blood.

The freshly dead had more muscle, more reserves of nutrients for energy, and they moved quickly, driven by a desperate need to consume. The engineers fought hard, shrieking war cries giving voice to their fear as they smashed their enemy. The battle of the corridor eased as the dead fell. Else dragged a groaning engineer out of the fray, his arm contorted by the missing chunks of flesh ripped from him by evol teeth.

“No . . . no . . . no . . .” the wounded man moaned. Else ignored his protests and swung her blade, piercing his skull. His eyes dulled and with a shudder he went still.

“Which way is the hold?” Else asked as she hooked and dragged limp corpses from the pile blocking the corridor.

“Down there,” Rache pointed to a darkened doorway. Snarls and growls echoed up from the gloom. The engineers milled around the descending stairwell, no one ready to be the first to go down into the darkness.

Else took the lead, heading down the stairs and into a narrow corridor that ran along the deck below. Three evols were feasting on a fresh corpse; the broken body of a teenage boy shook as they ripped and tore at his soft entrails.

“Hey, motherfuckers,” Else called to get their attention. The trio’s heads snapped up and they leapt forward snarling, hands outstretched.

The curved blade whistled through the air, striking the first evol through the back of the neck and jutting out through his throat. Else let go of the handle and kicked the second one in the chest, knocking him back on the floor.

The third evol, a woman, dodged Else’s punch and grabbed her wrist in two hands. Bloodstained teeth bit down on her skin and Else twisted her arm out of the slick grip of the dead woman while punching her in the head with a flurry of short jabs.

The zombie started to convulse. Tasting Else’s blood destroyed the virus controlling her brain in spectacular fashion.

“Weapon!” Else yelled over her shoulder. The woman lunged forward again, grappling Else and forcing her down onto the blood-slicked floor.

A blade clattered past and Else snatched it up. Swinging the handle around, she forced it under the woman’s chin and pushed backwards. The evol howled, thick drool spilling down her chin. Else jerked the blade handle sideways and threw the woman against the wall. Rolling to her knees, she swung the blade down in a chopping motion and buried it in the dead woman’s head.

The engineers came down the stairs and hacked the remaining evol to pieces. Else handed her weapon to Rache and went to the evol struggling to stand up with her scythe blade sticking through his neck. Grabbing the handle she twisted it, snapping his neck with an audible crack. The evol slumped and Else yanked the blade free.

“They will never hesitate. They will never stop. They will kill you if you don’t destroy them.” Else shook the gore from her blade and addressed the wide-eyed engineers. “You must be like them if you want to win. Destroy them without mercy. Smash the brain or cut the spinal cord. Do it however you can. But never hesitate, or they will make you one of them.”

The handle of the scythe weapon creaked in her grip as Else stepped towards the engineers. “And if that happens, I will not hesitate to kill you myself.”

“You’re . . . you’re bit . . .” Rache stared at Else’s wounded arm with wide eyes.