Jean woke in the forward berth of Freedom with a heavy gauze bandage tight to her neck. She felt woozy, weak, and disoriented. Home on Freedom, she realized. Was it a nightmare? She felt no pain, but something itched her neck. She reached a hand up and found the bandage.
“Oh, fuck!” She felt ice in her belly and lifted her head. Daniel lay at the other end of the passageway, bundled into his sun protection augmented with a space blanket cover. He operated the tiller with a boathook duct-taped to his right hand. He glanced back at her, and his mask and welder’s goggles looked starkly alien.
Definitely alien.
He sprawled atop a pile of her charts and focused on something in his hand.
Compass, she thought. She felt no pain except terror. What are they? What have they done?
All the portholes were blacked out with duct tape. The steady yammer wasn’t just the engine. Daniel had been talking through the engine noise and her fog, but now Jean could understand.
“We can make a life up there, you’ll see.”
He wasn’t looking at her. She watched him over her bare feet that pointed to him in the stern. His feet with his expensive Italian shoes lay toward the bow, two or three steps from hers. Her own breathing felt unusually good, like she’d held her breath for a week, but it sounded loud to her so she forced some control.
“We’re smart people,” he was saying, “we don’t have to hurt anyone. My sister … Ah!” He yanked his hand farther into the cabin. His sleeve pulled back from his glove and pink bubbles dotted his wrist. He pulled the sleeve down, stripped some duct tape from a roll with his teeth, and covered the gap. He laughed the bad-guy laugh she always hated in the movies.
Jesus! They actually laugh like that!
Jean felt herself getting stronger and scanned for weapons. The knife rack in the galley was too close to Daniel, as was the coil of line at his feet.
Will a knife even work with them, whatever they are?
“We heal fast—you already feel that, don’t you?” he said. “You’ll need to eat, soon, to complete the change.”
The locker at Jean’s feet held her fire extinguisher and her orange emergency flare kit.
Daniel stiffened, let go the boathook and scooted farther into the cabin.
“They’re coming!” he announced. His face and eyes weren’t visible, but the frantic swiveling of his head betrayed his panic.
So, they feel fear!
Jean felt a spurt of confidence at the thought. She sat up, immediately started to gag, and placed her head between her knees. The deck hatch to the engine room lay right at her feet. A bigger engine growled over the whine of her own and something big bang bang banged over the wave chop. She caught her breath while Daniel cowered behind the cabin bulkhead, not looking her way. She eased open the hatch to the engine and stopped to see whether he noticed the change in sound. He wriggled around, trying to get a safe look at whoever approached.
Jean scanned the electrical system, fuel hardware, plumbing, and two sea valves attached to the hull. She set the hatch cover aside, opened her locker, and snatched up the orange flare case. The sudden movement exhausted her. She lay back down and covered the case to muffle the snap when she opened it.
She heard the crackled garble of a bullhorn nearby.
“Freedom!” it shouted. “This is Sergeant Aldrich, Salish Landing Police! Throttle back and come around!”
Daniel maintained his speed and course. He looked exhausted or weak from the sun.
Jean loaded the 12-gauge flare gun with shaking hands.
White, she thought. White should do it. She clicked the breech shut and didn’t feel afraid anymore. An understanding flooded through her, that her body was something different now, that she couldn’t be saved. But she had a mission. A refreshing calm washed over her.
Her resolve hardened when her feet started to burn from the slit of sunlight through the hatchway to the helm. She yanked them back and pulled her knees tight to her chest.
It’s not an allergy at all, you lying shit!
The sheet that she flipped over her feet hurt, too, and when she rubbed the burn she came away with mushy skin. She breathed deep a couple of times and affirmed her decision.
“Freedom!” from the bullhorn. “Cut your engine and come around. Prepare for boarding.”
Jean leaned halfway into the engine hatch and opened both sea valves. Sea water gushed in through both ports, and Daniel still concentrated on the approaching boat. The engine would die in a few minutes.
Daniel hollered back at Jean, “Don’t worry, I can destroy them if they board us. I’m not like my sister, but I can save us!”
You look finished to me, Jean thought.
Jean pulled herself to a sitting position, flare gun in her right hand. She gripped a second shell in her left. She ran her hand over the mahogany trim around her berth, recalled the dark-haired lover who made it and the light-haired lover who forged the ornate bronze fittings on her hatch cover.
She sucked in a big breath and hollered as loud as she could, “Tom! Tom Aldrich!”
The approaching boat’s engine throttled back. Daniel dropped the boathook and turned to see Jean, the flare gun, and the water splashing up from below decks.
“What are you doing? I can handle this! He can’t hear over the engines.” He reached toward her.
Their own engine cut out and Jean smelled fuel on the water. The oncoming boat cut its engine for contact.
“Tom Aldrich! Tom!”
The kick from her flare gun nearly knocked it from her hand. Her white flare caught Daniel square in the chest. It burned and burrowed its way through his space blanket and layers of clothes. He tried to scrabble it away, but the burning material stuck and continued through the gloves to his hands. He thrashed against the boathook and dislodged the hatch cover to the deck. The cabin flashed with sunlight, and he snapped into a fetal position.
The glare blinded Jean and her skin seared all over. She loaded the flare gun by feel and aimed for the engine room and the fuel rising atop the water. Daniel started unintelligible screaming as he scuttled back from the light and closer to her.
She felt the familiar bump bump bump of another vessel coming alongside. This time she hollered, “Get back, Tom! Take care of Marie!”
Tom heard Jean and the agonized screams from below.
Mark held Fishkiller fast to Freedom.
“She’s riding low!” Mark shouted at Tom. “Taking on water!”
Jean aimed the flare gun at the engine. “Red,” she said, and fired.
The red flash overtook the white flare, and the ignited fuel whooshed throughout the cabin.
Tom wished he’d grabbed his sidearm. He tossed his bulky rifle aside, grabbed the safety rail, and fought to control his sea legs. He leapt onto Freedom just as her cabin exploded in a hot, red flash.