Tankbread 02 Immortal (8 page)

“Excuse the mess,” he said, sweeping empty tins off the table and onto the floor. “Take a seat.”

“You live alone here?”

“Always have, I was one of the first aboard. When people started trying to escape by boat, it was chaos. They were still allowing ticket holders to get on the ship; I got a ticket. Twenty-four hours later and I would’ve been one of them that were crushed in the dock stampede. Lot of people died that day. The crew and some navy boys started shooting people on the gangplank. It was a slaughter. I didn’t muck about, got myself a secure spot and started gathering supplies. Whole ship was in an uproar before they cast off, but no one paid any attention to me. Even got myself a crew uniform to help blend in. By the time the infection started in the crew, I was locked up good and tight.

“They were smart ones, but not as smart as me. They started out by snatching babies and then they got the people to make more. Sacrifice the kids and live in sanctuary. No one knew what was happening back on shore, but no one sure as hell wanted to go back. So here they stayed. Now they go out salvaging and fishing, but they’re shit scared of the land. Better the devil you know, I suppose.”

Silence fell over the small room. Else stared steadily at Eric until he blushed. “You hungry?”

She nodded. “The last thing I ate was grilled fish. Jirra cooked it. That was at least two days ago.”

Eric busied himself among the stacked cartons of tinned food. “I don’t get visitors. I don’t encourage them. I prefer being on my own. No need for other people; they just get you killed or die themselves.” Cans of various colors and ingredients were set down on the table. “Spam, beans, and fruit salad for dessert,” he announced. “As it’s a special occasion, I’ll even heat it up.”

Else sank down to the floor and curled up on her side in a fetal position. The gashes on her back stung where her dressed wounds rubbed. She cradled the rifle in her arms and closed her eyes as Eric ignited a small camp burner. He poured tins of salted meat and kidney beans into a battered pot, and then set it over the flame.

Else snapped awake, a defensive hand lashing out at Eric who was crouched over her.

“Easy!” he scuttled backwards, one hand raised in a passive gesture. “Don’t try to move too much. I can change those dressings. I have a few bandages.”

The fire in her back had eased; the deep cuts were already healing. In a few days she wouldn’t even have scars.

“I dreamed of my baby . . . I heard him crying,” Else muttered.

“He’s not here.”

“Water?” Else asked, her voice a dry rasp.

“Here, drink slowly.” Eric took a battered plastic cup from the table and water trickled into Else’s mouth. She swallowed, feeling her insides soak up the moisture like a sponge.

“Where is my baby?” Else said again, sitting up straight and pushing away the musty smelling blanket that had covered her.

“Up top, remember? But you can’t be worrying about him now.” Eric stood up and ladled beans and Spam onto a plate. “Here, you said you were hungry.”

Else set the rifle aside and took the plate and spoon. She shoveled food into her mouth, barely tasting it as she answered her body’s need for nutrients.

“How did you come to have two newborns?” Eric asked while watching her eat.

“He was born in darkness. A storm of thunder and rain. I’ve not seen him in the light,” Else said softly.

“And the baby girl?”

Else ignored the question. “He looks like his father,” she continued, feeling a bolt of sorrow shoot through her.

“It’s an evolutionary trait. Our primitive fathers were less likely to kill a newborn that looked like them,” Eric said.

“He is dead. My baby’s father I mean.” Else put her plate aside and stood up, feeling the floor dip and sway.

“Steady.” Eric took Else’s arm until her color returned.

“Eric, I need to find my baby. I heard him, in a room on one of the upper decks.”

“He’s very new.”

“Yes. But he is strong and he will learn everything. Just like I did,” Else replied.

Eric gathered up the plates and cutlery. “You don’t know if it was yours. The holders have a lot of babies down there in the dark. Not much else to do, I guess,” Eric said, the trace of a blush rising above his beard.

“I need to leave now,” Else said.

“Where will you go? D’you have people out there?” Eric fussed with empty cans while taking sidelong glances at his visitor.

“No one except my baby. I’m going to find him and then we are going home. We will be fine. I’ve been on my own for a long while. I built a house in the bush,” Else added a little defensively.

“How will you take care of him on your own?” Eric asked.

“I’ve read books about it.”

“People seem to have forgotten how to care about the young around here.” Eric sighed. “I couldn’t live on shore,” he shuddered. “I’d be afraid of some crazed dead person attacking me.”

“They are spreading,” Else said. “Why are their evols on board this ship? Why haven’t you destroyed them all?”

Eric glanced at the door. “You wouldn’t understand. They aren’t like those rotting, disease carrying, mindless things on land.”

“They are now,” Else said.

“You are a strange one, Else,” Eric smiled. “Doctor Clay would love you.

“Why?” Else tensed.

“Clay’s a smart evol. He likes to experiment with people. Conduct tests and stuff like that.”

“Is he your friend?” Else asked.

Eric laughed and immediately stifled it with a hand pressed against his mouth. “Oh hell no,” he said through the compress of his thick fingers.

“I killed Doctor Clay. I rammed a piece of metal through his brain. Then I killed another evol and took his gun.” Else wondered why she felt the need to explain. It felt strange that no one here was killing every walking dead person they could find.

Eric stopped pushing empty tins around and gave Else his full attention. “You killed Doctor Clay?”

“Yes. He was already dead, though.”

“Well yeah, but . . . damn girl. You are going to bring the shitstorm down on all of us.”

“Good,” Else said.

“Good for you maybe; you can fuck off back to where you came from. The rest of us have to put up with whatever punishment the Captain decrees.”

“So do something about it,” Else replied.

“We survive here by accepting the things we cannot change,” Eric insisted.

“Who says you can’t change it?”

“We live in peace here. We are protected. We have a safe place to live.”

“But not a safe place to raise children.” Else straightened up as Eric flinched.

“We all have to make sacrifices,” he muttered.

“The children? All the children?”

“Only the newborns, and they only take some of them. Maybe half. There are plenty of those. Not much else to do below decks, remember.” Eric tried to laugh and failed.

“Do you know what they do with them?” Else asked. Eric couldn’t meet her eye.

“They protect us, they let us live here.”

“They let those people live in the dark. They let them live only so they can produce more children for the dead to feed on. Why don’t you fight back?” Else slammed a fist into her open palm. “Destroy every last fucking one of them!”

“It’s not possible. You aren’t one of us. You can’t understand,” Eric said.

“Oh and you are? Hiding out up here? Some bird-loving hermit living on tinned food and forgetting his own name.” Else stepped forward, getting in Eric’s personal space until he cringed backwards.

“Just how . . . How do you think you are going to do anything?”

Else shrugged. “Fighting these things is all I have ever known. They have taken everything from me. I’m going to take it back.”

Eric stared at the floor and then nodded. “Okay, I want to show you something. But you have to keep quiet and don’t go running off.”

“Sure.”

“Another thing, that rifle. Leave it with me. If the crew sees you with a gun, they will tear you apart. Without it, they won’t look at you twice.”

“I’ll be back for it. Don’t try to keep it,” Else said.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Eric said. He exhaled with an exaggerated sigh as she laid the gun down on the small table.

He closed and locked the door to his home behind them. Slipping under the hanging cans, they went back to the deck where the seabirds roosted. Else watched the birds circling and shrieking while Eric unlocked another door. “In here, quick,” he said.

Behind the door was a shed that had once held pool cleaning chemicals and equipment. Now it was packed with an intricate-looking chemistry set of rubber tubes and glass beakers. Pots, pans, and scorched dishes were stacked on the floor. The air reeked of the acrid smell of chemicals.

“What is this?” Else asked.

“My lab,” Eric said with a tone of pride. “I’ve been experimenting with making explosives based on a mixture of nitric acid, glycerin, and lye.”

Else nodded; her voracious reading appetite over the months included a range of science textbooks. “You get the nitric acid from guano, the glycerin from fish?”

Eric nodded, brightening at the discovery of a fellow academic to talk about his projects with. “Yup, birds, fish, the occasional seal or dolphin. Depends on what I can scrounge from the fishermen.”

“You burn wood for the lye?” Else asked, picking up a scorched pot in one hand.

“Yes—scrounged timber panels, anything I can hook that floats in.” Eric opened an old refrigerator. “This is the result.”

In an old bottle crate, nesting in padded sockets of cloth stuffed with bird feathers and foam cushion pieces, were bottles of oily looking fluid.

“Boom,” Else whispered, peering closely.

“Yeah . . . enough to blow this ship to pieces. I dunno why I bothered with it. Maybe cuz I figure they’ll come for me one day.”

“Or because you know that what is happening here is wrong, and you want to bring an end to it,” Else said straightening up.

Eric closed the fridge door. “Hell . . . I don’t owe those people in the hold anything.”

“Except your life. How long do you think you would have survived up here without them?”

The man’s brows furrowed. “I remember the Panic. I remember what people did to survive. I sure as hell remember what some of us had to do to friends, family members, and people we cared about.”

“Then why have you stopped fighting? Do you call this victory? You and all the rest, you’re just slaves.”

“Fight? Fight for what? A chance to get chewed on? A chance to die on land instead of here? Fuck that. You can take your holier-than-thou attitude and jump overboard, lady.”

Else scowled. “I’m getting my baby back. You do what works for you.” She yanked the shed door open and stepped out into the full glare of the afternoon sun. “You wouldn’t have made all that explosive without hoping you might, one day, have the chance to use it for something important.” She walked off through the scolding birds settling on their nests for the night.

* * *

The sea rose and fell with a rhythmic pulse against the rusting steel of the old cruise liner. Else stood at the rail, watching the swell and shivered. This could never be a sanctuary. People, it seemed, clung to irrational ideas. Always afraid to let go in case they found themselves alone.
I know all about being alone,
she thought and then wiped at her eyes.

The flickering light of a fish-oil lamp brought her up short. The only way to escape was over the side or back the way she came.

“I’ve been told to come and find you, girly.” Hob’s sneer carried in his voice. The priest wants to see you. But I reckon he might have to wait a bit. You and I, we have some unfinished business.

Hob came closer until Else could see the slender form of Sarah watching from the safety of his shadow.

“Rowanna was a good breeder,” Hob said. “Looks like you are going to have to take her place.” Hob grinned at Else, who wrinkled her nose at him.

“You stink,” Else announced. Sarah gasped and put a hand to her mouth.

“Smart mouth on you, bitch,” Hob sneered. He moved so fast Else didn’t have a chance to block the backhanded slap that cracked across her cheek. The force of the blow spun her face-first into the rough surface of the wall.

Hob stepped forward. “Hold the light, Sarah.” He pulled Else off the wall, tilting her head back by the hair. “You can do what you are told, or I can beat you down,” he snarled in her ear.

“I had a baby a few days ago. I’m not going to get pregnant. Not for a while. It’s just not possible.”

“Well,” Hob breathed his foul breath in her face, “we’ll just have us some practice then.”

“No, I don’t want you to touch me like that,” Else said.

“Like I give a fuck what you want, bitch.” Hob slammed Else’s head against the wall so hard she saw stars.

“I killed Rowanna because you made me do it,” Else muttered through the haze of pain. “I destroyed that thing called Doctor Clay too.” Somewhere off in the distance she heard Sarah whimper in terror. “Do you really want me to kill you too?” she added.