Chapter Three

 

Waking in his nest under the bed, McKenzie realizes that the door has opened. He peers out from under the swaying white curtain of sheets, blinking. His eyes are fuzzy, vision a blur, but it’s not the captain who has come in. He stays still, under the bed, feeling anxious.

The red-haired man is tall and slender, and younger than the captain. He cranes his long neck and spots the boy in his hiding spot. “Oh! You scared me. I came in and didn’t see you, and… I’m Jacob. You’re McKenzie. It’s a good name. The captain asked me to bring you breakfast today. I made you two poached eggs and some toast, and there’s orange juice, too. It’s from concentrate. Will you come up and eat with me?”

McKenzie is hungry. He climbs up onto the bed and sets the book down, taking up the tray.

Jacob’s eyes light up when he sees the book. “Lord of the Rings, fantastic! Such good books…”

McKenzie doesn’t give him much, just starts to eat.

Jacob tries to initiate conversation, telling McKenzie that he’s the ship’s clerk, that he spoke with the boy’s aunt Genevieve yesterday and that she seems very nice. When that doesn’t do the trick, he becomes a bit perturbed by McKenzie’s empty stare, he changes the subject to the food, saying that he hopes the eggs are to the boy’s liking; he made them with no runny yolks, the way that he likes them. He gets nothing, no recognition on the boy’s blank face, peeling with sunburn on those high and distinct cheeks.

McKenzie doesn’t know why he bothers. Surely the captain told the clerk that he hasn’t said a word. Everyone thinks they’re special, deep down, he supposes.

Jacob can’t stop trying. “Our cook, Ceely -that’s short for Lucille- she usually puts together a nice spread… But she needed some time to rest. She came out of the ocean and ended up with us, just like you. Of course, she was in a submarine...”

That makes McKenzie’s brow raise. A woman, out on the ocean, alone like him? In a submarine, though. So she had shelter. How does that happen to a person? She didn’t get forced off of some mega-yacht into her submarine at gunpoint so that some assassin could spare his conscience. She did it to herself, set out on her own. What kind of person would do that? A psycho, probably.

Jumping on that small flash of interest from the boy, Jacob rushes to explain. “It’s incredible, she built it herself. She used to be an engineer.”

But he has lost McKenzie’s interest again. The boy sets his empty tray down, picks his book back up, and then crawls back underneath the bed again, bundling up and untucking the sheets to hang down around him.

“Alright, I’ll leave you to your book. You’ll see me again for lunch, the captain plans to work through it to make up some lost time. But apparently, he’ll come and get you for dinner, so you have that to look forward to.”

He goes, and McKenzie tilts his head, listening for the sound of the door closing, the lock clicking and the key scraping faintly as it slides out of the lock. He should have been prepared, he thinks, suddenly kicking himself. He was expecting the captain, and knew that the captain was observant, too aware to let any kind of escape attempt get past him, so he had thought he shouldn’t bother.

When lunchtime rolls around, McKenzie has already been waiting in front of the door for a full hour, with the book in one hand, one finger slipped between the pages, hidden. Hearing the footsteps approaching, his heart starts to pound, his skin feels warm and prickly as the key turns in the lock, then Jacob appears, balancing two trays. He’s easily startled, and not expecting McKenzie to be so close, and the hand holding the key and turning the knob shoots up to his heart.

“God! Hungry, huh? Here you go.”

McKenzie takes the tray while swiftly tucking the book under one arm and pressing a piece of strong, white medical tape over the door’s latch in the moment Jacob’s back is turned. It closes almost silently, no click. Jacob doesn’t notice, pulls up a chair at the foot of the bed.

Lunch is a hot dog, a side of green salad tossed in oily dressing, and an apple. McKenzie’s father would never let him eat processed meats like hot dogs, spam, bologna, he had too much pride. Eating it hesitantly at first, he doesn’t care for the texture, but the taste is good, salty and distinct. He eats the salad and saves the apple.

Jacob doesn’t try to make conversation, just eats his meal, waits for McKenzie to finish, then takes their trays and goes. The door closes silently again, and the boy’s ears perk up; it all depends on the next second. He can lock the door, but if he wiggles it even a little, it will give, and the jig will be up.

He hears the key turn.

The footsteps move up the hall.

McKenzie slides out of the bed and crosses the white and grey room. He presses his ear to the metal. There is a faint humming that is constantly present on the ship, magnified and echoing off his ear drum. Whether it’s the engine or the air conditioning or even the machinery of the drill pumping oil into the hold, he isn’t sure. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around, out in the hallway.

Now or never.

He pulls on the door, and it gets stuck on the tape for a second but then springs free. Peering through the crack, he sees an empty hall. He props the door, reapplies a new piece of tape smoothly and securely, hoping it won’t come loose or get stuck again. What if he needs to get back in, and he can’t?

Up or down, that’s the question. He was unconscious when they brought him on board, he doesn’t know how many floors the ship even has. He doesn’t know what he wants, exactly. He wants to be off of the ship and back on dry land, but it’s not possible right now. There has to be a submarine onboard, if that woman came on one. If he can find it, maybe he can figure out how to launch it, point it north, toward land. If the woman was out there on her own, undisturbed, then it has to be safer than staying on the big, noisy ship, with the other monster bait. He brings his apple and heads out into the hall, taking the empty, metal stairs down.

The track lighting overhead flickers at the lower landing, where the stairs end and a heavy door is closed. He shoves the bar and goes in. The humming of the ship is louder, inside. The ceiling is high and the place is dim and dusty and spacious. There are two doors on the right wall, one labeled ‘supplies’ and the other unlabeled, with a light on inside.

McKenzie moves past them, by a massive furnace unit. In the back of the hold are some roll up doors, a small craft that looks modern and remotely controlled, and the much larger yellow submarine that was crudely made and rusted in some spots. There’s a table nearby. He drags it over -with difficulty, it weighs as much as he does- and climbs up on top. The hatch is not locked, and he climbs down inside with no trouble.

Inside there’s a white chest freezer right beside the ladder. At the front of the craft, there’s a control panel that looks simple enough, but at the back he sees a big problem. A piece of siding has been removed, and a piece of the inner workings of the submarine, with it. A few tools and a few nuts and bolts lay nearby, whatever’s left of what was ripped out. The sub won’t run, not in pieces. That’s plan A, ruined.

Too bad. It even has a freezer. Out of curiosity, he opens the thing. There are two bodies inside, little and Caucasian, around his age, or a little younger. Casualties kept for a later burial, or some kind of bait to lure the monster? He closes the lid, climbs out, closes the hatch and then jumps down to the cold floor. He thinks, next, of lifeboats up on deck.

The idea of being adrift, alone again, is a sad one. He thinks of what could make the voyage less terrifying. A flashlight or lamp of some kind, definitely. A blanket for warmth, maybe a tarp to keep rain off. A knife? A fishing pole? A flare gun. People have those in movies. If he had had a flare gun last time, the helicopter might have seen him. A stock of food, he could get some of that from the kitchen, when he’s there with the captain, later. He will have to go back to the room. He will definitely be caught, if he tries to steal food; there must be people in and out often enough, with the cook locked up and everyone fending for themselves.

He peers into the supply closet, first. It’s dark and narrow and long, with dozens of wooden cubbies containing small bits and bobs on one side and dusty metal shelves on the other holding larger pieces. There are pieces of pipe in every size, sheet metals and wood, tanks of gas, maybe flammable ones for welding, maybe oxygen for diving, there are several sizes of wetsuit and other diving gear around, too. And a lantern, which he finds does work, and spare batteries that will fit.

For a tarp he has to climb all the way up the metal racks, to take one off of the top shelf. They are heavy duty and bolted down, but the thing does wiggle perilously as he scrambles up. There’s no flare gun anywhere, or a knife or fishing pole. With the lantern, the batteries and the tarp, he moves back to the door.

Scanning the basement, he checks that he is still alone and then steps out. The other room is lit from within, why? Surely there isn’t anyone down here, in the middle of the day. He opens the door a crack.

The white wall extends into the room, he can’t see much through the gap. He opens it a little wider, and the hinges creak. It sends a jolt of fear down the back of him. He remembers with perfect clarity the sound of the siren wailing and the monster’s odd keening noise as it reared out of the water and smashed into the ship. His legs have gone numb, he should run but he can’t move. He feels a hot flood of urine rush out of him and trickle down his pantlegs, uncontrollable.

A voice calls from within, “Hello?”

It brings him back to the moment. He’s standing in the dusty bowels of the ship, outside of a room where a woman has heard him approach. His pants are wet and rapidly cooling, there’s sweat on his face, and he is thirsty. He should turn and go, get back to the room.

“There’s a mirror in the corner, I can see you in the reflection,” the woman says.

He pushes in, why not? She’s not lying about the mirror, he sees it ahead. The barred little cell stretches the length of the room along the back wall. The toilet and sink are in that corner, the bunk is in the other, he can see it around the corner of the wall as he steps further in.

She sits on the cot with a piece of machinery in front of her, and a dozen little tools. The faceplate is off of the thing, a device seems to spin inside, when it is operational. It’s the piece pulled from the submarine, he’s sure. She is trying to fix it. They’re letting her work with tools, even in jail like this? It’s odd, and so is the grey-haired old woman being locked up in the first place. It seems wrong, somehow.

Her dark eyes take him in, and her face softens visibly. “You’re the survivor of the shipwreck, Caesar told me about you. McKenzie, right? Are you okay?” She has noticed his wet pants. It makes his cheeks burn with embarrassment. If she were not behind bars, he thinks she would take him to get cleaned up and changed, and he would let her, with a soft voice like that. It would be the most natural thing in the world.

But she is kept separated by the bars, which she now holds as she stands and surveys him. “Going somewhere? You don’t want to do anything rash, I hear they’re going to get you out of here as soon as possible… You really shouldn’t be alone, in a place like this. Some of the crew are dangerous. You should stay here, until someone comes looking for you-.” Hearing it, he immediately spins and walks out, leaving her shouting after him, “Don’t! It’s not safe! Hey!”

He goes, pushing through the heavy door that finds him again on the dim landing, and goes up the first set of stairs. At the next floor, he is back in the hall he came from, with the door to his room at the end. He starts to run, heart pounding, tarp crinkling under his arm.

But a door opens halfway, and a pair of arms ensnare him, sweeping him off his feet and wrenching a little yelp out of him. He squirms and kicks and he is lowered to the ground, the arms loosening but not letting him go far. Hands clamp down on his arms, a big, bald white man kneels down to his level.

“Hey now, what are you doing out on your own? Foraging for supplies, I see… Can’t say I blame you. But let’s get you back to the med bay, where you belong.”

He walks up the hall looming behind McKenzie, steering the boy in front of him. The doorknob doesn’t turn in his hand, and he smiles, gives the thing a shove and it does swing open. He swipes the tape off of the mechanism, which springs loose, and takes a long look at the provisions in McKenzie’s arms.

“Gonna have to tell the captain you were out. No way around it. Can’t have you wandering around on your own, no one wants to see you get hurt and there are some very unscrupulous characters around. I’m Perry, by the way.” He holds out his hand, which McKenzie automatically shakes. The man has a slow, meandering way of speaking that comes off very forthcoming, he’s saying what comes to mind as it occurs to him.

“And you’re McKenzie… Boys have probably changed some, since I was one, but I bet it’s still rough, having a name like that. I bet your mom picked that, because it sounded pretty, and she wanted you to be a sweet, sensitive boy. But like that old Johnny Cash song, you probably got tougher because of it, not sweeter… I bet you had your friends call you Ken. Is that right?”

Shocked, McKenzie nods. His mouth has actually fallen open, and he closes it when he realizes.

Perry nods to his pee-soaked pants. “Get yourself cleaned up, Ken. Hang in there.”

He goes, shutting the door, testing the knob to make sure that it’s securely locked. McKenzie is alone again. He stows the tarp up under the slats of the bed, wraps the lantern and batteries in a spare pillowcase and puts them in the back corner of the bathroom cabinet. He peels his pants off and soaks them in the sink, putting on a pair of sweats left for him that are much too big.

Then he climbs under the bed, pulls the blanket around himself, and reads. He’s not sure what the captain will have to say about his excursion, whether he’ll still be welcome to go to the kitchen and help make dinner. He hopes so.