The Ocean Dark

58

Angie flinched with every gunshot, held her breath with every scream. She wanted to run, to abandon Josh and just go, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave him. It wasn’t that she was afraid of prison — not anymore. But without Josh, she would have been alone. So she let him put an arm around her and hustled him as fast as she could across the deck. They moved along the accommodations block, afraid of being out in the open, and when they reached the far side of the structure — with only bare deck between them and the port side railing — they hesitated a second.

Long enough to hear the shuffle of footsteps behind them.

Josh twisted, grunting in pain from the wound in his shoulder, and aimed the gun. Angie held him up, but prepared to bolt if they got to him, then realized that footsteps meant something human giving chase.

Even out of the moonlight, in the overhanging shadows of the walkway above, she saw orange highlights in Dwyer’s hair.

“You were supposed to get the ship out of here,” Angie said.

Dwyer scowled. “No time. I saw you two and wondered where you were headed. Then I figured it out — the covered lifeboats.”

Angie held her breath. Was he trying to stop them? “I’m sorry, Tom. I never wanted to lie. I just couldn’t go to prison, and—”

Dwyer gave a short laugh. “Fuck ‘sorry.’ Let’s get out of here.”

Josh nodded, turning painfully, urging Angie on. “Go.”

The three of them hurried away from the shelter of the accommodations block, out into the moonlight, on the open deck.

“They’re coming from the island, or around it,” Josh told Dwyer. “They might not be in the water on this side yet.”

“Let’s hope,” Dwyer replied.

Their every step punctuated by gunshots, they reached the winch controls for the lifeboat Angie had in mind. They’d been built for high seas, for terrible storms, and perfected by the military. She didn’t know if it would keep the creatures out, but it was their only shot.

Dwyer tore the tarp off the lifeboat as Angie worked the controls, raising the boat up, the crane arms swinging it out over the edge of the railing.

“Listen,” Josh said, a bit dreamily. He’d lost a lot of blood.

The gunshots and screaming had stopped, and now they could hear voices rising, singing in an eerie chorus. Dwyer froze, staring. Angie tracked his gaze to the accommodations block. In the moonlight she could see at least three of the things clinging to the walls, their tails coiled like snakes. One hung from a walkway railing.

The singing stopped, and all four of them attacked, smashing through windows and locked doors.

“Oh, Jaysus,” Dwyer said.

Angie turned and saw one of the pearly white things gliding across the deck toward them. Another hung from the second-story walkway on the accommodations tower.

“Josh, get in,” Angie whispered.

The FBI agent raised his gun, barely able to stand, and took aim. “The hell with that. You get in.”

Dwyer grabbed Angie’s hand and started pulling her toward the open hatch.

Josh fired.