Chapter Eight

 

We restarted the engine and cast off. I left Derek's body in the bows till we were moving, then heaved it overboard, just in case he brought anything to the surface. He didn't sink, just bobbed face down in the low brown swell as we pulled away. The mist swallowed him before he could sink.

"Where do we go now?" asked Marta.

It might have been a trick of the light, an optical illusion, or my worn-out brain seeing what it wanted, needed to, but it was the only clue we had, and we had to go somewhere.

"That way," I said, and pointed.

"Why?"

"Because I think I saw land out there this morning."

"You think?" We just looked at one another. Then Marta broke out in what sounded all too much like the mad, jagged laughter I'd been fighting off. "Why not?" She squeezed my shoulder. "Let's go."

 

Morning became afternoon and the afternoon wore on in turn. We passed through flat, featureless brown waters, endless and still. At least there were no winds yet, no storms.

"Jesus Christ!" Marta was staring over the guardrail, she looked sickened and fascinated, all at once. "Have you seen this?"

I looked over the side and felt my stomach perform a slow roll. The boat was cleaving its slow, steady way through a thick, matted brown mass. At first I thought it was sewage, but then I looked more closely and saw the fur. More; I saw paws, tails, tiny faces twisted in a last agonised snarl.

Rats. Thousands, millions of drowned rats. They piled up around the bows of the boat and against the sides, rolling back and down into the water. Their legs stuck stiffly out, bellies bloated, huge as if massively pregnant.

Marta turned away, grimacing. The smell was foul. I saw other debris mixed in with them. A broken chair. A tyre. Plastic bottles. Twigs and branches. Clothing, snarled up amongst it.

Clothing?

It was nearly ten minutes later - the boat still forging a path through the matted tangle of corpses - that it hit me.

Where would all the rats have come from? Rats live among people. In a city, someone told me once, you're never more than three metres from a rat.

Please let them have drifted. Let them have drowned somewhere far away.

"Katja?"

Marta was pointing out to starboard. I looked.

The dead rats spread out for metres on all sides of the boat. The surface was lumpy and irregular. But there was something under it, where she was pointing.

Two somethings, to be precise.

Two somethings that glowed green.

As I watched, the surface broke. Rats and water streamed and tumbled away from something dark with glowing eyes.

Then another appeared, and another. I whirled, stared down the side, towards the stern. A head bobbed in the stretch of dead water behind us. Two others rose behind it.

"Shit." Marta was looking portwards now. "They're over there as well."

She had Derek's automatic; I had my gun. "Marta?"

"Yes?" She was still looking to port, hypnotised. I caught her arm. She started, turned and stared at me, face white.

"Get the shotguns," I said. "And spare ammunition." To port and starboard I could see dozens of the dead things now, rising all around us, watching - just watching, for now. "Plenty of it."

 

The sea of dead rats never seemed to end. We had to be over a population centre. A good-sized town, at least. I hoped that was all it was. At best, it meant hundreds of the dead things; at worst, thousands. But if we were over a city...

I stayed on the tiller, the shotgun slung across my back. Marta had climbed up on the cabin roof to scan for danger ahead.

The engine growled, the only sound. And all around there were heads in the water. None of them moved, other than bobbing up and down. Treading water. And watching.

They weren't mindless. They might look it, but they weren't. It might just be an animal cunning, but that was dangerous enough; they had huge superiority in numbers, after all.

They seemed to prefer it in the water. They ventured out of it only when they had to. And they seemed to know when their victims were helpless. I remembered Derek shooting the dead thing that swam after us; the others had retreated. Staying in their territory. Back at the brothel, when I'd killed a couple of them - was killing the word, when they were already dead? - the others had retreated. They'd killed everyone else, the unarmed ones, but left us alone.

Briefly. Then they'd come back, attacking in force.

At least with the boat, we had the advantage of being mobile. The swimming ones had let us go; once we'd left their territory, we were of no interest. Which meant that -

"Katja!" I looked up. Marta was grinning over the edge of the cabin roof. "It's clearing up ahead! I can see it!"

I craned my neck to see ahead. Marta was right. Perhaps another twenty or thirty metres, and the drifting mass of rats came to an end. The open waters beyond seemed empty. Seemed. It could be a trap.

How much intelligence are you crediting them with, Katja?

I didn't know. But better to be cautious than otherwise. Would we be any safer when we reached land, or would we have just painted ourselves into a corner? But Derek had said himself, there was only so much fuel. Sooner or later, we would have to stop for good.

But for now, we were moving, and the dead things weren't. They were just watching. And soon we'd be clear of them, I hoped, and then -

The dead things were shifting in the water. I wasn't sure, but I thought their eyes had brightened.

The engine. Its steady puttering growl had begun to falter and cough.

I looked at Marta. Her face had gone white, the blood draining.

The Rosalind jerked in time with a couple of particularly violent coughs from the engine. No more than twenty metres left to go. They were up ahead, but moved aside as the boat passed. Shouldered aside by the bow wave. Behind us, they were moving too; closing in to fill the gap the boat had made in their ranks.

The engine whined. And died.

The boat jerked and jolted once, and then stalled. It cruised forward under its own momentum a little further, but it wasn't enough. Not enough to take us clear.

We were between ten and fifteen metres from the clear water. With the motor gone, the only noise was the slap of waves against the boat's sides. The world was so silent now.

I unslung the shotgun. "Marta?"

"Yes?"

"Get in. Shut yourself in a cabin."

"What about you?"

"Do as you're told!"

Careful, Katja; don't panic. Remember, panic -

Panic is a choice. Yes Papa. I heard you the first time.

"What are you going to do?"

I pumped a round into the shotgun. "Hold them off."

Marta pulled back the 'pigeon box' on the roof and dropped in through the skylight. I didn't like giving her a gun. Perhaps, after this, I'd show her how to use one. The heads just watched me. The blue, bloated faces of the lately drowned, the oozing, rotted ones of those longer dead.

A muffled thumping came from forward. The bows.

I scrambled up onto the cabin roof and ran. It was the best place to be. Exposed and vulnerable, but it gave the best vantage.

Three of the dead things were clinging to the bow. Their hands thumped on he hull as they clutched for a hold. One was hauling itself over the gunnels. I aimed down and fired.

A shotgun isn't a marksman's weapon, but it didn't need to be at that range. The full charge hit the back of the dead thing's head and blasted a gaping hole in the skull. It teetered and then flopped forward across the gunnels. The second of the three was heaving itself up, mouth agape. A low hiss escaped, like gas from a punctured, bloated corpse. I pumped the slide and fired again, blowing away everything from the eyes upwards.

The last one looked from the second thing's body in the water to the first's draped over the gunnels, then back up at me. I pumped the slide again. Hissing, it let go and slid back into the water.

I stepped back, looked around. The heads in the water had closed in around the Rosalind. They were all staring at me.

Reload while you can, Katja.

Yes, Papa.

I was wearing an old coat of Derek's, pockets stuffed with shotgun shells. I pushed two fresh ones into the gun.

Marta, down below. Derek's death had done something to her, hardened her somehow. Whether this was a good or a bad thing, I couldn't decide. Should I have kept her with me? Had I underrated her? But she was still just a child. She should be still in school, getting her first boyfriend, swapping kisses and gropes in sweet secrecy. Not this.

And I should be teaching English. And the ground should still be above the water. And the world should be fair.

None of them were making any move to attack yet, but it was surely just a matter of time.

Bows, stern, starboard. I could cover all three at once. Nothing moving. Nothing moving -

Thump.

Behind me. The port side.

I whirled, but I was too slow. Rotting hands grabbed hold of the shotgun. I fired, the blast smashing into the dead thing's side, blowing it back off the cabin roof. It tore the shotgun out of my hands. But the gun was still slung around me. I crashed flat on the roof, sliding forward. The dead thing hissed. The parts of its face that hadn't been eaten were blue and mottled with decay. It wore a baggy top and tracksuit bottoms and its hair was a slimed mess; I had no idea if it had been male or female. It reached up for my face. Two others were clutching at the gunnels below.

The revolver; the revolver was in the back of my waistband. I pulled it out, pressed it to the rotting forehead and pulled the trigger. For a horrible moment I thought it wouldn't let go of the shotgun and I'd be pulled out after it, but then its hands opened and it fell away. I shot another dead thing as it climbed; I fired too fast, without aiming properly, and caught it only in the chest, but the impact knocked it back into the water. The third one I got in the forehead.

"Katja!"

The second shotgun roared. I scrambled over and dropped into the stern. Marta was clambering up the steps from the boatman's cabin. The shotgun's recoil had thrown her back down them. A dead thing bobbed in the water off the stern. Four more were clambering over. I fired the shotgun again and again till it was empty. No sooner had they fallen but another pair of hands began clutching at the bottom of the guardrail.

"Back!" I grabbed Marta and dragged her inside the boat, slamming the door shut behind us and locking it. Hands began pounding on the wood. Through one of the windows, behind the net curtains, I saw another body drag itself up into the starboard gunnels. Its free hand pounded against the window.

Thumping came from the port side too, and from the windows forward.

"Oh Jesus," Marta was whispering. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus..."

"Reload," I said, pushing shells into the shotgun. She was wearing one of Derek's coats against the cold. She looked tiny in it, more of a child now than ever in her fright. "Marta! Reload your gun! Now!"

She dug out shells and thumbed them in. I broke open the revolver and replaced the empty shells.

A blow rattled a window. Marta turned, raising the gun, but I caught her arm. "Don't. If you shoot out the glass, it's easier for them to come through."

"So what do we do?"

"We wait until they start breaking in before we open fire." I thought for a minute. "You go forward. Cover the galley. I'll deal with them here."

"OK."

"And remember, if it goes quiet -"

"Then reload. I know."

"Good girl."

"Don't be so bloody patronising."

I had to smile, although I didn't let her see it. A teenager is still a teenager. "OK. I'm sorry."

Up at the bow end, glass shattered.

"It's alright," said Marta. "Oh God. Oh God." But she walked towards it.

The banging on the stern door, now savage and loud. The port window smashed, a hand lunging through, sliced bloodlessly by the glass. I wheeled and fired. In the confined space the explosion reminded me of an old cartoon I'd seen, where a character's head is slammed between two cymbals. It was less a sound than an impact on the ears. After it, a long bell-tone sounded. The dead thing flew back, headless.

I chambered another round. Marta fired.

Glass breaking - the galley.

A dead thing climbing through the window. The recoil slammed me against the doorframe when I fired; its head evaporated across the walls and ceiling. The bell-tone rang in my ears. What if I couldn't hear where they were coming from next?

Marta kicked in the bathroom door and fired. The recoil drove her back into the far wall. She pumped the slide, stepped through the doorway. A dead thing hung in the window frame, half-in half-out, one arm dangling limply and half-severed. She aimed at its head, keeping her feet wide apart, bracing herself for the kickback, and fired straight into its head.

Wood splintering. The stern door. I ran towards it, working the slide. Behind me more glass broke - the galley again. But no time. "Marta!"

I heard the shotgun fire behind me and shouldered my own gun, aiming at the door. It splintered in the middle from the blows. A hand reached through, skin hanging off it like rotten wallpaper, and groped for the lock.

Marta shouting behind me. I could hardly hear it over the bell-tone and my heart's pounding. To my right - I wheeled towards the port windows and fired.

Marta screaming.

I turned, ran aft. A dead thing scrambling through the galley window. Marta's shotgun on the floor. Reaching for her pistol as she backed away.

Another dead thing lurched between us, grabbed at me. The shotgun was useless at that range. Too close. I let it go, pulled out the automatic. The dead thing still had both its eyes; they were clouded and lit from within, like misted lightbulbs.

Marta screamed again. This time it was different. The thing had grabbed her left forearm and sank its teeth into the flesh. Its head shook side to side.

The dead thing forced me back against the doorframe, hands clutching at my throat and shoulders. I fired into its chest, twice. It stumbled back into the galley. I shot it in the head.

Marta screaming.

Aim two-handed. Steady. A breath. Then fire.

The top of the dead thing's head blew apart, and it slumped. Marta screaming and sobbing as she tore her arm free of it. The ragged bite wound gaped in her slender arm, marring the child's flesh. Blood poured down in a slick. She grabbed the shotgun off the floor and blasted the corpse.

There was a crash as the stern door gave way. I shouted. No words, inarticulate. All I had time and space for. Ran astern. The door hung off one hinge, splintered and smashed almost in two. A nightmare thing staggering through, its face half-eaten, the rest discoloured, its scalp reduced to mangy patches by scavengers. One eye a gaping, glowing socket, the other clouded and glowing.

Aim and fire. Watch it fall. Pivot left, shoot again. Then right. Marta not at the port windows. Scream for her. Seeing her out of the corner of my eye, stumbling and firing.

I can't remember the next few moments with any clarity. It couldn't have been much longer than a handful of minutes, but the fight seemed endless.

The shotgun emptied and there was no time to reload. I let it hang on its sling, relied on the automatic.

We tried to get them as they crawled through the windows. We left them where they died; if they were blocking the windows, it took that much longer for the next dead thing to drag the carcass out of the way.

I felt small, hard things crunching underfoot. I could hear the sound of them faintly, through heart-thunder, screaming - Marta's and mine - and the bell-tone. When I looked down - during a brief second where nothing seemed to be trying to break in - empty cartridge cases littered the floor. Shotgun shells. Pistol cartridges. Surely I couldn't have fired so many? I didn't remember reloading. But when I checked my pockets, one of the three spare magazines were gone. One lay empty on the floor.

There were two shots from Marta, then silence. I watched the windows and the shattered doorway. Nothing. I safetied the pistol, shoved it through my belt, then unslung the shotgun and started thrusting fresh shells into it.

Something fell against the stern doorframe, lurched into view.

Derek.

His clouded eyes glowed dully. The top of his head flowered open; something clotted seethed in the ragged, gaping wound. A flap of torn flesh hung down under his chin from where the bullet had gone in.

I'd thought by shooting him through the head I'd spare him this. I thought I'd owed him that, if nothing else. But I hadn't spared him anything.

He let out an almost plaintive moan and shambled forward, hands clutching at the doorframe. Did he know? Did some vestige of memory remain, to tell him this had been his home? That I wasn't just food, but his killer?

I didn't bother asking. I shot him between the eyes.

He toppled backwards, crashed against the tiller, and slumped down.

And after that, finally, there was silence.

"Katja?" I heard Marta's voice through the bell-tone. My heart was no longer thumping quite as hard as it had been. "Katja, are you alright?"

I looked at Derek's body, nodded without speaking.

"Katja?"

"Yes."

"Glad to hear it," she said. "I'm not. How about some help?"

I turned. She was sagging in the galley door, face less white than grey, blood puddling under her torn, dangling arm.

I caught her just before she fell.

 

The attack had stopped, for now. The only dead things in sight were truly dead now. At least, I hoped so. I'd thought Derek was, but...

I tried not to think about it as I cleaned the ugly, ragged hole in Marta's arm. She whimpered as I sponged the raw flesh with antiseptic. I made no comment. She'd earned the right to whimper at least once. Besides, a teenager is a teenager...

Once I'd done all I thought I could, I bound a gauze pad over the wound and bandaged it tightly, but I was still thinking about the bodies scattered around the boat. Was the headshot only a temporary stopper? Were they all going to come back anyway?

They showed no sign of doing so, but how long had it taken for Derek to wake up again? We'd voyaged some way from where we'd dumped him. That was it; he must have followed the narrowboat. He'd said they tended to stay where they'd died. Their homes, their familiar surroundings. But then, it had been different for him; the Rosalind had been his home.

I fought back that crazy, jagged laughter again.

So he must have revived quickly, to catch up with us. I looked at the dead things; they remained still. Perhaps they were truly dead after all.

"Can you move your fingers?" I asked Marta. She waggled them.

"There's that at least," I said. "As long as we can keep it clean of infection, it should heal up OK."

I hoped I sounded more convinced than I felt.

 

I gave Marta some painkillers and went astern to try the engine. It sputtered and coughed, but it didn't start.

I lifted the hatch near the tiller. The propeller shaft was almost lost to sight amongst chopped, crushed flesh and bone. Twisted and bent, the fingers of a human hand stuck up when the hatch rose. They moved. An accident? Or deliberate? How much intelligence should I credit them with?

There would be another attack. Just as there'd been at the brothel. We'd killed some of them, and the rest had retreated. But before long, they'd come back.

As for the propeller, I wouldn't know where to start.

I went back to Marta.

"It's fucked, isn't it?" she said.

I nodded and sat beside her on the couch.

"We're fucked then, too."

I didn't answer. I wanted to tell her no. But I couldn't.

Marta took the gun from her belt. At first I didn't realise what she was doing, until she brought the pistol up to her head.

"No!" I grabbed the barrel.

She glared at me. "I won't let that happen to me, Katja! I'm not going to let them eat me. Like they did to Marianna. I don't want to die like that."

"You won't. Marta, you won't."

"Of course I bloody will! They're going to come back again! And then again, and again, and again! Even if they don't get us next time, they will the next, or the one after that. Don't you get it? They aren't going to give up."

What could I say to her? The boat wasn't going anywhere. And it wasn't like there was another -

"Marta?"

"What?"

I let go of the gun. "I've got an idea."

We fetched the fuel cans from the locker. Most were full. Next we pumped up the dinghy - or I did while Marta kept watch. She fetched bottled water and provisions when I took my turn on lookout. The open water seemed hardly any distance at all. Ten, fifteen metres. The kind of distance that can be tiny, or huge.

A head broke the surface, eyes glowing. Then another. And another.

It wouldn't be long now.

I uncapped a fuel can and poured it over the port side.

Marta came back up. "I brought the first aid kit too."

"Good thinking." We were also taking one shotgun, the rifle, plus the two automatics. There wasn't room for more.

Marta poured a can over the starboard side. We poured some over the stern too. Can after can, very quickly, before it could evaporate. Everywhere except over the bow.

When the fuel was gone, I lit the first spill. We'd made them from the pages of a book we found in Derek's cabin. I threw it over the stern rail. For a second, nothing happened. And then the fuel caught.

Whumph.

Blue and orange flames rushed outwards. There were muffled explosions as the bloated bellies of the rats burst.

The water churned and splashed. The dead things were flailing about. They were retreating from the flames.

"It's working!" I shouted. Marta threw a spill overboard.

I threw another off to port. Then ran back through the narrowboat to the bow.

The water frothed and churned as the dead things retreated. Heads vanished under the surface.

"Now. Quickly."

Marta nodded. She was pale; sweat studded her forehead. I'd give her more painkillers later. When it was safe.

A narrow strip of clear water led off from the prow. We lowered the dinghy over the side. I climbed down, crouched there and reached out for Marta. She flopped into the dinghy and it almost capsized.

I grabbed the oars. I felt hairs shrivel on my arms. The heat. The dinghy would start to burn soon as well.

I rowed and kept rowing, hauling on the oars. I was in the bow, facing the boat, my back to whatever was coming up ahead. Marta sat in the stern, her automatic in her lap.

I felt the solid mass of rats fouling and clotting the oars. At any moment I expected something to seize one or other of the oars and tear it out of my hands. But nothing did.

"We're almost there!" Marta's voice was high. Spots of colour stood out now in her pale cheeks. I took it as a good sign.

Where would we go after this? How long would our supplies last? What chance did we have?

More than we did here. Here, we had none at all. Perhaps, like this, we'd be too small to be noticed. Perhaps.

The oars suddenly moved more easily. I looked down. No rats.

I rowed fast and hard. Would they come after us? I could see their heads emerging from the waters now - from the clear waters around the boat. Their eyes glowed. They watched us. Were they going to follow?

Marta managed to shift herself round in the dinghy. She held her gun ready in both hands.

But they didn't follow. One by one, the heads disappeared below the surface. I kept rowing. Nothing happened to us. The boat receded into the distance; by now it was on fire. There was a muffled bang from aboard it, and flames spurted out.

It didn't sink, not that I saw. Just burned. It receded as I rowed, slowly. Gradually the faint mist thickened around it, and it was gone.