The Body

 

Ghost took a team of men from the rig to secure the officers' quarters of Hyperion. He gave them each a fire axe.

Ghost passed round a bottle of Hennessey as they rode the zodiac to Hyperion.

'This could be messy,' he warned. 'Women, children. It's not going to be nice.'

They climbed aboard the ship and the slaughter began. They moved room to room. They swung and hacked. They wore masks and goggles to shield themselves from blood-spray.

They splashed kerosene at each intersection and drove back infected passengers with a barrier of flame.

They disabled the elevators and rebuilt the barricades. They booby-trapped the doors with thermite grenades.

They threw the bodies over the side of the ship, dropped them twenty metres on to the ice. They sponged blood from the walls and floor. They wore triple gloves and respirators to protect themselves from acrid bleach fumes.

Later, when they sat down to eat in the newly liberated officers' mess, they drank too much and laughed too loud. They were blooded. Each man had slashed and bludgeoned until their arms hurt. Ghost sat back and watched the men joke and sing. They were flushed with adrenalin. They had crossed a line. They were killers.

They transported their possessions from the rig and each took a stateroom with a double bed and en-suite bathroom, luxury they had never known aboard Rampart.

Each cabin had a wall-mounted plasma TV. The crew swapped DVDs. A bitter-sweet pastime. Each gangster flick and romantic comedy was a window on to a vanished world. Every glimpse of Manhattan, Los Angeles or London framed sunny streets that had since been transformed into a ravaged battlefield.

Ghost led a raid on the lower decks to check battery power. They took a detour to the Neptune Bar and filled a crate with Johnnie Walker Blue Label. The crew were drunk for a week.

Punch found a small galley and prepared food. He served breakfast each morning and a hot meal each night. He tried to impose a diurnal rhythm despite perpetual night.

 

They posted a patrol rota on the door of the bridge.

Punch on duty. He prowled the corridors with an axe. If he looked out of the portholes he could see infected passengers milling on the lower promenade decks. As he passed each barricade he could hear the scrabble and thump of passengers massed the other side of the bulkhead doors. The noise never ceased. Scratching and clawing, day and night.

'Breakout,' explained Ghost. 'We need a simple signal. If you see anything, if one of these freaks makes it up here from the lower decks, if they make it through the barricades, shout "Breakout". Everyone will pull on their boots, grab an axe and haul ass.'

 

Punch served dinner. He put on a show. He lit candles. He laid out silverware and linen napkins. He wore chef's starched whites. He found some dried mushrooms and made risotto.

The crew sat in a panelled dining room with galleons on the wall. They applauded as he lifted a cloche from each plate and uncorked wine.

Two empty seats. Jane had elected to stay aboard Rampart. Mal was patrolling the Hyperion barricades.

Punch took a seat at the table. He sat next to Sian. Nikki had sailed away on a raft. Rye was missing, probably suicide. Nobody missed them. But he was banging the only woman left aboard and was becoming aware of an undercurrent of jealousy.

'This is delicious,' said Ghost, pouring Chardonnay.

'Thanks.' .

'Should have found some turkey, though.'

'Why's that?'

'Guess you haven't looked at a calendar lately.' He raised his glass. 'Merry Christmas.'

'You're shitting me.'

'So what do you think we should do when we get back home?' asked Ghost. 'Should we track down other survivors or hide ourselves away?'

Punch thought it over. The question had become a standard conversational gambit. Nobody wanted to discuss the past. They didn't want to think about family and friends dead and gone. By unspoken agreement they spoke only of the future. It became evening entertainment now the TV signal had died and DVDs provoked depression and heartache. Old-time storytelling. Campfire tales. Each crewman obliged to describe in baroque detail the life they would build when they got home.

Discussions like:

'What car will you drive when you get back to the world?'

'Lamborghini Countach. It's an antique heap of shit, but I glimpsed one in the street when I was a kid and I've wanted one ever since.'

'Better enjoy it while you can.'

'Why's that?'

'Couple of harsh winters. That's all it will take. Every road in the country will be cracked and rutted like a farm track. Land-Rover. It'll get you where you need to go.'

And:

'What kind of watch will you wear?'

'There used to be a posh jeweller in our high street. I saw it every day on my way to work. They had a bunch of Rolex watches laid out on a blue velvet cushion. I used to tell myself: ""One day, when I'm rich, I'll own one." A gold submariner the size of a dinner plate.'

'So you'll smash a window and take a Rolex.'

'I'll take one for every day of the week.'

'So you think there might be other survivors?' asked Punch.

'We can't be the last men on earth. I bet plenty of people are hidden in caves, or cellars, or remote farms. Some of them will want to reclaim the cities, I suppose. Reboot the world. Set it going, just the way it was. And some people will want to go all Amish. Create a simple, wholesome way of life. Me? I'm a log cabin kind of guy. I think I'll find a cottage in the Scottish Highlands. Somewhere wild and remote. Hunt and fish. Sit on a hill and count the clouds.'

'I'm torn,' said Punch. 'I'd be scared to live alone with all these infected fucks running around. I'd want to live in some kind of stockade. Safety in numbers. But on the other hand I don't want to find myself enslaved by some local tyrant. There will be no police, no law. Things will get feudal pretty quick.'

'Yeah.'

'Are you okay about Nikki?'

'What about her?'

'Jane said she took your boat.'

'I welded a couple of oil drums together,' said Ghost. 'She and Nail did most of the work. I doubt she'll make it home. And if she does? Well, good for her.'

'But it was your boat. Your idea.'

'Jane wants to get everyone home. I promised to help.'

Ghost gestured to an empty chair.

'Has anyone seen Mal?'

'No,' said Punch.

'It's eight o'clock. Who's taking over patrol?'

'Me,' said Gus.

'So where is Mal? He should have checked in half an hour ago.'

'Taking a shit. Changing his socks. Relax. He'll be here. He's not going to miss dinner.'

'I don't like it,' said Ghost. 'We put a man on guard and he goes AWOL.'

Ghost stood in the corridor.

'Mal? You out there?'

No reply.

Ghost stepped back inside the officers' mess.

'Everyone stay here, all right? Nobody go wandering off. Punch, get your gun.'

 

They searched Mal's cabin.

'Mal? Hello?'

They knocked on the bathroom door.

'Hello?'

Empty.

They searched the passageways and checked the barricades. 'Mal. Where are you?'

He wasn't on the bridge. He wasn't on deck. The zodiac still hung from a lifeboat crane. He hadn't gone back to the rig.

'Maybe he got drunk,' said Punch. 'Decided to go below deck on his own.'

'Why would he do that?'

'Bravado. He wanted something. Had a hankering for nachos or a cigar. Thought he could get it on his own. Outrun the freaks. Duck and swerve. Come back, brag, show off his trophy.'

'Yeah, that's the kind of idiotic thing he might do. I don't like it, though. Not knowing for sure.'

Sian found them on the bridge.

'There's something you should see.'

She led them to a door at the end of a corridor.

 

FÖRRÅD

 

A small storeroom. Toiletries and laundry.

A trickle of blood from beneath the door.

'Stand back,' said Ghost. He hefted the axe. He tested the door. Unlocked. He pushed it open with his foot.

'Hello? Mal?'

He reached round the doorframe and switched on the light. The trickle of blood snaked from behind a rack loaded with bed linen. Sheets, coverlets and pillow cases.

Mal lay dead on the floor. His eyes were open. His throat was cut. He held a knife in his hand.

'Blot some of that blood,' said Ghost. Punch threw down folded sheets to sop up the blood. 'Close the door. I want to take a long look around before anyone else comes in here.'

Jane jogged a circuit of C deck. There was light, but no heat. Many of the corridors had split open when D Module fell from the rig. Several passageways terminated in ragged metal and thin air. Jane enjoyed the sensation of cold. The rest of the crew had embraced the luxury of Hyperion, but Jane volunteered to stay behind in the steel austerity of Rampart and man the radio. She broadcast periodic maydays to the Arctic rim, and listened to the static of an empty waveband.

She and Ghost spoke, morning and evening, by radio. ' Take care, baby cakes,' he said, at the end of each call. She missed him.

Jane ran five kilometres, then stripped to her underwear and pumped iron in the corner of the deserted canteen. She used Nail's abandoned gym equipment. She was both repelled and attracted by Nail's pumped physique. Veins and striations. He was a human fortress. She envied his brute strength.

She played AC/DC on the jukebox as she hefted dumbbells. She played the music at full volume. 'Bad Boy Boogie' echoed down empty corridors.

Jane rested between each set of exercises by throwing a titanium shark knife at the canteen dartboard. The heavy blade thunked into cork, slowly ripping the board to pieces. Nail could hit a target at twenty metres. Jane trained herself to hit it at thirty.

Years ago, when the refinery was fully manned, the Starbucks coffee shop used to run a book exchange. The coffee shop was now a vacant retail unit with a couple of broken bar stools. Jane found a box of books among the litter, including thirty issues of Combat Survival magazine. Each issue contained carbine and pistol spec sheets. Back-page adverts for tactical holsters, mosquito nets and surplus Israeli gas masks.

She read about snake bites, reef knots and edible insects. She enjoyed the fantasy of desert sand and jungle heat. There were cut-and-keep plans for bear traps, squirrel snares and high- velocity slingshots. She made a mental note to search the boathouse for bungee line.

Jane made herself a sandwich. She sat in the observation bubble and read about bamboo jungle shelters. She learned the best way to cook a tarantula over a campfire. Ghost called her on the radio.

'It looks like you'll be doing another funeral, I'm afraid.'

'What do you mean?'

'Mal didn't show up for dinner. I got worried. We went looking. We found him in a laundry cupboard. His throat was cut through.'

'Do you think there is an infected passenger creeping round the crew quarters, hiding in the ducts? Someone you missed?'

'We're doing a sweep. We're armed, moving in pairs. Nothing so far. The barricades are intact. None of the grenades has tripped. Besides, Mal was hidden in a cupboard. These diseased freaks maim and kill. They don't clean up afterwards.'

'So what's the deal? What are we looking at?'

'We found a kitchen knife with the body. He had it in his hand. Blood on the blade.'

'Do you buy it? Did he kill himself? What's your instinct?'

'Dead man holding a knife. Hard to argue it was anything but suicide. I guess I will have to tell the lads. It'll be bad for morale, but I can't lie to them.'

'I suppose I'll have to give an address. God knows what I'll say. I barely knew the man.'

'Another day, another shroud. Do you think there'll be any of us left by spring?'

 

Punch and Ghost wrapped the body in a sheet. They dragged the corpse outside and laid it on a bench. Moans and snarls. Infected passengers watched from the promenade decks beneath them.

They searched Mal's pockets. A torch. A lighter. A packet of mints. No suicide note.

'Take his boots,' said Ghost. 'We don't need his coat, but we need snowboots.'

Punch inspected the neck wound with a flashlight.

'Cut through his windpipe. Cut down to vertebrae.'

'Did you speak to him much? Did he seem depressed?'

'Talk to Nail. Mal was his buddy.'

They bound the shrouded body and laid it in a lifeboat to chill.

 

Punch and Sian retired to their cabin. A four-room suite with a king-size bed, home entertainment system and kitchenette. The previous occupant must have been a senior member of the crew. Punch had cleaned out the man's possessions. He swept clothes, letters and photographs into a garbage bag. The guy was probably wandering mindless and mutilated below deck. Better not think too much about his fate.

Punch propped the door closed with a chair.

'Are you worried there might be an infected sailor slinking around?' asked Sian. She was running a bath.

'You saw the wound. It was a clean slice ear to ear. These rabid bastards bite. They like to rip and tear.'

'Maybe Mal couldn't stand the isolation. All that stuff going on back home. No daylight. I'm surprised more blokes haven't succumbed to depression.'

'His head was virtually severed.'

'What are you saying?'

'I'm not sure. Probably nothing. Despair can build into a type of mania, a type of super-strength. A person could do themselves a lot of damage if they put their mind to it.'

Punch stood in front of the bathroom mirror. He picked up a toothbrush and pretended to slit his throat.

'It could be done, I suppose. That kind of gash. A person could slice through their own jugular and windpipe if they did it hard and fast. They would have to be pretty determined. Only someone desperate to be dead could carry it through.'

'Murder? Is that what you are suggesting? A fight gone bad?'

'I don't know. From now on you better not walk around on your own if you can help it. And always carry a knife.'

Sian stripped and climbed into the bath. Punch kicked off his shoes and started to unbutton his shirt.

Sian had yet to comprehend that women had become a rare and valuable commodity. The years ahead were likely to be brutal and lawless. Punch used to be everyone's friend, but now he was envied and hated by the crewmen around him. If he wanted to possess Sian he would need to fight, and maybe kill, to keep her.