Apocalypse Unborn

Up close, Ryan could see marks where the black paint had been pulled off, masses of overlapping, tiny circles that exposed the bare wood beneath. The marks led directly from the water line to the ragged hull breaches. Paths of popped paint. They weren’t made by bullet impacts or grappling hooks or ballpeen hammers. Something had climbed up from the sea, up the side of the ship in great numbers, and once there, had gnawed and ripped through the inches-thick hull planks.

All the bullet holes were on the main deck; the gunwhales, the superstructure and the masts were absolutely riddled. The scuppers gleamed with a litter of spent brass. Certainly thousands, maybe tens of thousands of rounds had been fired. Apparently to no avail. In broad swatches, congealed blood glazed the deck like purple varnish.

Along the Taniwha tea ’s rail, between the cannons, other crewmen took positions with their Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades, ready to put up covering fire for the longboat that had already been lowered into the water on the port side.

Sunset, like a second Armageddon, lit the ruined ship and the rapidly moving longboat. As six rowers pulled hard, a seventh islander stood braced in the bow, his AK shouldered and aimed.

No targets appeared.

Nothing stirred on the opposite deck.

Shipping their oars, the rowers tethered the longboat to the side of the brigantine. Captain Eng ordered his cannoneers and riflemen to hold their fire as the boarding party deftly scrambled up the broken lines and cables onto the main deck. Once there, they fanned out with assault rifles, sweeping the area, kicking over anything that could hide an attacker, quickly confirming there were no signs of life—or death.

The boarders then split up, entering the fore and aft companionways in a simultaneous rush. After a few minutes belowdecks, the crewmen spilled back into view and immediately lurched to the rail, coughing and gasping for air.

Eng raised the megaphone and shouted an unintelligible question across the gap.

One of the boarders raised his head and drew a forefinger across the front of his throat.

All dead.

A quiver of shock ran through the white frigate’s crew. They were stunned speechless.

Ryan turned to look at the captain. Under the man’s heavy brow ridge, glistening stripes, tear tracks ran down his scarified cheeks. Blood trickled over and off his broad chin, dripping upon his chest. He had sunk his sharpened teeth into his lip.

A moment later the groaning and lamentations began.

Passengers watched uneasily, hands on weapons, as the islanders wept openly, as they beat their chests and pulled at their own hair. Ryan figured that they not only knew the dead crew, but were probably related. Only ties of blood could wring forth such grief.

Meanwhile, the boarders hastily departed the death ship. They didn’t pause to rifle the cargo on the main deck, which seemed strange to Ryan, as it was there for the taking, and in great quantities. They climbed back onto the Taniwha tea , seven hard men shaken to the core by what they had seen.

The bowrider stepped up to the captain, reached out a trembling hand and carefully placed a half-dozen gold rings on his palm. Rings of great weight, fashioned to fit huge fingers, like his.

Eng clutched them in a white-knuckled fist. Raising the megaphone to his bloody mouth, he bellowed another urgent command. The crew scrambled to reset the sails.

The islanders were abandoning their dead.

Only now there was barely enough wind to put the iron ship in motion. It crept slowly south for about twenty minutes, then the wind died off altogether. They hadn’t sailed far. Ryan could still see the silhouette of the derelict on the horizon, backlit in crimson.

When the wind went slack, it got very quiet. Quiet enough to hear a faint croaking noise from high above them.

At the captain’s signal, the crew began lowering the upside-down crucifix from just below the crow’s nest.

The bird creature nailed to it was still alive. Still talking, albeit in a weak, rasping voice.

“See?” the flying mutie said to Eng as the cross came to rest on the deck. “The wind is gone. I can’t bring it back. I can’t bring it back because I have no power over it. Never had. Never will. It’s superstition that makes you think my kind has any control over the wind. Blind superstition. We ride it, that’s all. We ride it in the air just like you ride it on the water. Please, let me go, now. Please, I’m begging. My suffering is worth nothing to you.”

Eng gripped the handle of a machete proffered by one of the crew. Using the cross beneath as a chopping block, he swung the blade down in a blur, and in one swipe hacked off the bird man’s head at the neck. While crewmen pried the nails from twitching feet and wings, the captain planted the severed, startled head on a vacant roof spike.

Suffering had decorative value.

Deathlands kitsch.

“Porangi!” the captain shouted at the passengers, spraying blood and spit out the big end of his megaphone, and waving impatiently for them to step forward. “Death swims these waters,” he howled. “It is closer than you can imagine. It will find us long before dawn. Without wind, we cannot sail away to safety. Without wind, we must stand and fight.”

“Fight what?” a familiar voice demanded.

Ryan turned and saw Jak Lauren, arms folded, a defiant scowl on his white face, his ruby-red eyes glittering with menace.

“The taua ,” Eng said. “That is our name for them. Things that swim and crawl. Things that climb and leap. Broad-tailed, slime-covered things. The taua roam the southern sea shelf in great schools, killing and eating every creature they find. These are no triple-stupe, pea-brained fishes. They are organized, like a war party. Some among us believe they were once human. Now they breathe the air like porpoises, through the tops of their heads. They talk to each other under water. They swim faster than the fastest sailing ship. They chill with their razor teeth and the suckers on their hands and feet. They eat only flesh, the fresher the better. Last night, the taua slaughtered and ate my cousin Karetu and his crew. They pulled his ship apart to get at him. For islanders, revenge is a duty, and a pleasure. The creatures who have stolen our blood, shall give their blood. In buckets…”

The crew standing behind the passengers sent up a howl, shaking their AKs in the air.

“This ship is not as easy to break into as Karetu’s,” Eng continued. “When the taua come to chill us, we will face them and take their lives. You porangi are welcome to stand and fight at our side. Those who are too afraid to fight the taua should go belowdecks. Don’t block the stairways. Get in your bunks. Hide under your mattresses, and pray for dawn.”

“And if things get inside ship?” Jak said.

“ Taua can’t rip through iron, little korako ,” Eng told him. “But they will wear out their teeth and sucker hands trying. We will take our bloody vengeance on them, then pull back from battle. Below the metal decks, we are safe. They can’t sink this ship. They must eat to live. They will move on by daybreak, in search of easier meals.”

Only a couple of passengers decided to go below and wait out the conflict. To the rest, it sounded like big fun. Like shooting fish in a barrel, despite the fact that Eng had said these foes were nothing like fish. The assembled scum of Deathlands began checking their weapons.

Ryan carefully set the Steyr butt-first in a lidless plastic drum, leaning the forestock against the rim. This wasn’t going to be a long-range battle; it was going to be nose-to-nose. Or perhaps nose-to-blowhole. He unholstered his SIG-Sauer and racked the slide back a half inch, making sure the chamber held a live round. After checking his front pockets for spare full magazines, he tested the release of his eighteen-inch panga knife from its leg sheath. It came out of the scabbard like it was spring-loaded.

When he looked up, the sky had changed from red to lavender. Out on the placid sea, in the distance, Ryan saw scattered disturbances. Boils. Rings. Bubbles. Signifying movements just beneath the surface. He couldn’t tell what was making them. Only that whatever it was, it was big—and plentiful.

The captain ordered all the fixed deck lamps lit. From covered storage bins along the rails, islanders hauled out dozens more of the oil lamps, which they fired up and hung from the ends of long metal poles. At intervals around the perimeter they extended the poles over the gunwhales and lashed them in place, illuminating a broad stretch of the surrounding water as darkness closed on the drifting ship.

Ryan moved to a corner of the stern, beside one of the racks of red, fifty-five-gallon barrels. The taua were coming, no doubt about that. Even without the boils and splashes, he could feel them, like a pressure, building on all sides, and from beneath. Without the wind, the night was very warm. Humid. He wiped the sweat from his gun hand on to his pant leg.