The Ocean Dark

59

Tori aimed at a siren and pulled the trigger.

“Good, now run!” Gabe snapped.

Together, she and the Rio brothers raced across the deck, firing at the creatures that came too close or tried to block the way. The gun in her hand had been Pang’s, and she only had it now because the sirens had killed him. If he’d still been alive, she might be dead. Was that luck, or fate? The question seemed important now, because she had a terrible feeling that fate had caught up with her. She had escaped it once, three years before, down in the tunnel underneath Penn Station. Now she wondered if she had been meant to board that train, to die in that explosion. Tori feared that death had come for her, but her body wouldn’t allow her to surrender.

“Move your asses!” she screamed at the Rios.

Miguel twisted, sighted on a creature darting toward them from the stern, and fired four rounds into it, practically obliterating its head. Tori and the Rio brothers crossed the vast, empty space where the stacks of containers had been before. Most of the cargo had been sacrificed to save her and Gabe and Pang, but now Pang was dead, and she and Gabe would be, too, if they didn’t find someplace to hole up where the creatures couldn’t get at them.

Screams and gunshots echoed across the deck, followed by the shattering of glass and splintering of wood, and the squeal of warping metal.

“I’m not hearing as much chaos,” Miguel said, with a hint of hope in his voice.

“That’s not good,” Gabe replied. “When it all goes quiet, it’ll mean nobody’s left alive to make any noise.”

More gunshots, then, muffled and distant. Tori took off in a sprint, mustering all the strength she had left, and the Rio brothers did their best to keep up. The railing glinted in moonlight. To the left, the accommodations block loomed, but she could see silver-white things way up on the wall, climbing higher.

“Suarez,” Gabe muttered, spotting the creatures moving toward the wheelhouse.

But he didn’t slow down. None of them did.

Silhouettes moved on the deck. A man screamed. A gun barked. Miguel grabbed Tori’s wrist and hauled her to a stop. Gabe faltered, turning to stare at them.

“This is bullshit,” Miguel whispered. “We’ve gotta find an unlocked container, hide inside.”

Gabe looked doubtful.

“They’ll get in,” Tori said. “You’ve seen them. They will get in, and we’ll have nowhere left to run.”

Anger flashed in Miguel’s eyes. “You got a better idea?”

Another noise came from up ahead and the moon seemed to grow brighter, the scene clearer. The scene playing out at the railing resolved itself. Angie and a staggering man tried to get into one of the enclosed lifeboats. Smart. Really smart. The things were like little submarines, almost. They weren’t meant to travel underwater, but they wouldn’t flood and they were swift. If they were fast, and most of the things were still on the Antoinette, they might get away.

But Angie and Josh weren’t alone. Things writhed on the deck nearby as they scrambled to reach the lifeboat. How they were going to lower her down, Tori had no idea, and the question vanished from her mind when she heard the cry of a shredded voice, and saw that one of the creatures writhing on the deck was Tom Dwyer. A siren had dragged him down. Dwyer fought, his skin gleaming as sickly as the creature’s, and they rolled and twisted. He tried to drag himself away.

“Move!” Gabe snapped.

As Tori and the Rio brothers ran up, Gabe shot both of the grappling figures. Dwyer slumped to the deck immediately, bullet through his chest, but the siren flopped wretchedly on the deck for several seconds until the captain shot it again. Tori gave it a wide berth as she ran up to the winch controls, took in the cables, the way Josh leaned against the lifeboat, the blood on his shirt, and understood he’d been shot. He threw something into the open lifeboat hatch, but Tori had no idea what it might be.

Angie stood frozen, staring at Gabe, half-crouched, as though grief might have felled her. “You killed him!”

“I saved him,” Gabe replied. “Neither of you were going to do it.”

The words chilled Tori, but she couldn’t deny that they were true. She glanced over at Josh, terror and regret and anger roiling inside her, but she tamped all of those emotions down when she saw how bad he looked. Josh held a gun in one hand but seemed barely able to stand, only still conscious by sheer force of will. Still, he focused on her, and a gentle sorrow touched his face.

“Hey,” Josh said, reaching out for her.

“Get in the goddamn lifeboat!” Angie barked.

Josh ignored her. Alarmingly pale, he touched Tori’s arm, then pulled her to him in a weird embrace full of fear and blood and handicapped by the grips they had on their guns.

“Fuck this!” Angie said, and lowered herself through the lifeboat hatch. “Who’s coming?”

Gabe and Miguel moved toward the lifeboat.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” Josh whispered in Tori’s ear, breath brushing her neck. “It wasn’t all pretend.”

She stiffened in confusion — pleased and furious and hopeless in equal measure. “Do it,” she said. “Get in.”

More shouting came out of the night, down alongside the accommodations block — someone else trying to get a lifeboat into the water. Tori looked along the port side and saw people struggling, falling, trying to rise, as sirens attacked them.

Josh nudged her away from the lifeboat controls, eyes glazed but still standing. Gun dangling at his side, he started the lifeboat on its slow descent.

“I go last. Part of the job,” he said.

Tori nearly slapped him. From the moment things had gone wrong, she had been looking for a man — hell, anyone — to save her, but she was sick of being saved. She had spent three years as a secret survivor, lost between the cracks of the world, no real name and no more idea of who she really was than she’d had at the age of nine.

She stopped the lifeboat from lowering.

Josh swayed on his feet, and then collapsed to his knees, weak from blood loss.

“No!” Tori cried as she grabbed him to keep him from toppling completely. She tried to get him back on his feet, to move him toward the hatch, but did not have the strength. She twisted round and spotted the captain.

“Gabe, help me!” she said.

Tori saw the hesitation in Gabe’s eyes. Angie shouted at them from inside the lifeboat, in a terrified frenzy to depart.

“Please,” she said. “He’s just a guy doing his job, no different from you.”

Gabe Rio swore as he stepped away from the hatch, rushed to her side, and began to help lift Josh to his feet.

“Goddammit!” Miguel Rio roared. “What the fuck is the matter with you?” But he stepped out of the way as Gabe and Tori half-dragged Josh to the lifeboat. Gabe stepped through the hatch and reached up, awkwardly pulling Josh in after him.

A scream filled the air, carried by the wind, and Tori twisted round to see Sal Pucillo racing toward them. She was glad to see him, glad that yet another of the Antoinette’s crew would survive the night.

The thing came out of the dark so swiftly that Tori had only just clocked it in her peripheral vision before it hit Pucillo, knocking him to the deck. Tori and Miguel raised their guns, but fired wide for fear of hitting Sal. The creature twisted round, two rows of nostrils flaring, rippling like gills. Its lower body coiled around Pucillo and it grabbed the deck, hurling itself toward the railing and over the side.

Pucillo screamed all the way down, silenced only by the splash as they struck the water and it dragged him under.

“Give me your gun!” Miguel said.

Tori glanced at him, saw him staring, and turned to see two, three, five of the things whipping across the deck toward them. Others hung, cocoon-like, from the catwalks around the accommodations block.

Miguel snatched her gun from her hand. Raising both, he began to fire, but there wouldn’t be bullets enough, and he had to know that. Tori stared for a sliver of a moment, and understood. Miguel had betrayed his brother, destroyed their bond. He could never make up for what he’d done, but this much he could do. He could give up his life for his brother.

Gabe began shouting from the open hatch of the lifeboat, going from English to rapid-fire Spanish. Miguel ignored him.

Tori hit the control, started the lifeboat descending again, and grabbed his wrist.

“Come on!” she said, a giddy exhilaration filling her.

She ran to the edge of the deck and Miguel staggered with her, still shooting. One of the guns dry-fired and he tossed it aside. The things slithered faster. He’d killed three of them, but there were so many more. Tori glanced up in a last moment of uncontrollable curiosity, overwhelmed by that strange hysteria, and saw one of the sirens atop the wheelhouse, outlined against the night sky.

Miguel gave her a shove.

If she hadn’t leaped for the hatch, she’d have fallen all the way down to the water. As it was, she struck her ankle on the hatch rim and heard the crack of bone even as she landed on the floor of the lifeboat, slamming the back of her skull.

Josh reached out and took her hand, and held on tight.

“Close it!” Miguel screamed.

Angie tried to hold on to Gabe but the captain shoved her aside, pushing up through the hatch as though he thought he could fly back up to the deck of his ship.

“Miguel, no! Jump, hermano!” Gabe screamed.

But Miguel stood by the winch controls, staring down at them as the lifeboat lowered toward the water. Tori stared past Gabe, up through the hatch. Miguel seemed to grow smaller. Long, cratered fingers wrapped around his face from behind. He screamed again, but there were no words.

Angie pulled Gabe away, and this time he did not fight her. Tori watched as she tugged the hatch closed, dropped the bar to secure it, and before they could settle into a seat, the cables holding the lifeboat let go and they were falling.

Josh swore, and she lost her grip on his fingers. Gabe crashed into the hatch. Tori’s head hit the ceiling and then the boat struck the water and she crashed to the floor. The lifeboat swayed from side to side but then righted itself. Disoriented, she watched as Gabe started to rise and move toward the pilot seat.

Something struck the roof. Another loud splash came from outside. The lifeboat rocked again and Gabe fell over.

“They’re coming after us,” Angie whispered.

Tori glanced over at Josh and saw that he’d succumbed at last. His shirt was soaked with blood, but she thought he was still breathing. Things scrabbled at the outside of the lifeboat and she felt ice spreading inside of her. She pressed her lips together, brushed away tears before they could fall, then willed them not to come.

She dragged herself into the pilot seat and strapped in as they started to slam into the lifeboat’s hull, but it had been built to withstand hurricanes. Then the boat tipped over and they were upside down, rolling in the water. The others cried out as they were tossed around behind her. Tori stared out through the windows, trying to get a sense of their direction. Suckers scraped the hull. A thick, snakelike tail slammed the windshield and she shrank back, thinking it would shatter.

Not even a crack. Then she knew fate had other plans for her. But not if she stayed here. If she stayed, they would find a way in eventually.

Upside down in the water, she looked through the windshield and saw two of those slitted devil faces staring back. Tori locked gazes with the nearest one and fired up the motor, tugged the throttle down just a bit.

The engine coughed, the rotors chopping into something, and they let go of the lifeboat. It righted itself in the water and lurched forward, swinging side to side before settling down. Tori throttled up quick and the lifeboat roared across the sea, skimming waves, leaving the island behind.

Moments later, Gabe relieved her. She resisted giving up the wheel but he spoke softly, told her she was injured, and she couldn’t argue. Tori surrendered the pilot seat to him and stretched out on the floor beside an unconscious Josh, with Angie huddled at the back of the lifeboat. But only after long minutes had passed and her heartbeat began to slow to normal did Tori realize the numbness spreading through her was not solely due to shock. Blood matted her hair, where she’d struck her head, and her vision blurred from that blow. Concussion; maybe worse.

She tried to stay conscious, but the harder she focused, the more difficult it became. Something beeped softly in the cramped confines of the lifeboat and as she lay there, she glanced to her right and saw what appeared to be some kind of walkie-talkie on the floor, green light blinking. An image of Josh, tossing something into the lifeboat, swam up into her consciousness. When it slipped away again, Tori went with it.