Primeval (Werewolf Apocalypse Book 2) (41 page)

The sounds from the hold weren’t helping anyone’s nerves, either. The rats were gnawing fervently. When sitting on the deck, as Nicole and Sandy were doing, they could feel the vibrations of the mutant rats’ teeth chewing at the ceiling of their wooden prison.

John stayed put, anchoring the trapdoor shut. Michael steered the boat, keeping one foot on the door to the hold, figuring the extra weight could only help.

Taylor Burns made a tour of the decks. He found one more hinged door, larger than the one in the cabin, but it was locked with several metal padlocks and a rusted chain. He tested it, and the door opened a crack, just enough for a few of the rats to shove their snouts out. He quickly stomped it back down into place, but the mutants resumed their vigilant chewing.

Burns scanned the sky again, wondering aloud, “Where is that helicopter?”

“You don’t think he was shot down, do you?” Nicole asked. The glow from her flare had evaporated, leaving them in an enveloping darkness.

“I hope not. These little bastards are gonna chew through the hull at any time and we’ll either fill with water and capsize, or they’ll find their way on deck and eat us all. I don’t know which is worse.”

“We could swim to Brooklyn,” Nicole suggested. “It isn’t that far.”

“In these waters? We’d be lucky not to drown in two minutes.”

Sandy shivered once, looked up at Nicole. Her eyes were wide with trepidation, and she asked, “What... What’s happening?”

Nicole placed a hand on either side of her face and gave it a close look. She asked, “Are you back with us, honey? You really back?”

“Where’d I go? Last thing I remember I hit that werewolf with an axe. Is it… is it dead?”

“Oh, thank God, thank God,” Nicole cried, kissing her girlfriend repeatedly. “I thought we might have lost you, but you’re okay. You are okay, aren’t you?”

“I think so,” Sandy said, standing. “What’s that noise?”

“Don’t freak out,” Nicole warned her. “But the hull is full of rats.”

“Aw man, it just keeps getting better and better. Where’s the helicopter?”

“I don’t know,” Nicole admitted.

“He’s coming,” Burns said. “Don’t worry.”

“Uh, guys, you’d better get in here,” John cried from the cabin.

The three hurried to the cabin door, immediately spotting the splinters on the floor. The rats were gnawing their way through the wood of the deck. Five tiny holes had appeared in the planks under their feet, through which they saw sharp teeth tugging away bits of wood, widening the holes. Sharp claws raked at the edges, dragging down even more splinters.

“Oh God, look,” Sandy moaned, pointing toward the deck.

More holes were appearing all over the deck of the
Marion M
as more of the mutants scrambled to get out of the hold.

Suddenly, there was a cracking noise, and the boat gave a jolt. Sandy and Nicole fell to the ground. Letting loose of her pole, Nicole watched as it rolled across the deck, startling several of the creatures, who ducked their pointed heads back into the hold.

Taylor Burns was thrown off balance, and he tumbled forward. The cell phone he was holding in his hand shattered when it struck the control panel of the boat. He watched in pained self-loathing as the plastic pieces dropped to the floor near one of the rat holes.

“Shit, there went our only way to contact Tommy.”

“Wait a minute, there he is,” Nicole pointed, helping Sandy off the deck. She gestured toward the pier, a couple of hundred yards upriver. “He’s looking for us on the dock.”

“We need to get his attention,” Burns said.

“Here.” Michael handed him an object in the dark. “Flare gun from the emergency kit.”

“How long have you been sitting on that?” Nicole asked, flustered.

Michael shrugged. “Just till it was needed.”

Burns took two steps and the boat tilted, listing to the left. He caught himself on the cabin door and held on. Sandy fell again, losing her grip on Nicole. John shoved his fingers into a knot hole so he wouldn’t roll off the unsecured door.

Beneath their feet, the sound of scrambling, scratching rats increased twofold.

There was also a sound like water flooding into the hold.

“Damn it, they’ve chewed through the hull,” Burns shouted as he pointed the flare gun toward the sky. “Stupid bastards. Now the boat’s sinking.”

One of the mutant rats emerged from a gap that was now wide enough to admit it to the deck. Behind it, another poked its head out before crawling upwards. Then another…

Burns fired the flare gun, and the dark sky lit up. It bathed the
Marion M
in a hellish red glow.

In the cabin, two holes had expanded enough to let out one rat at a time. They started streaming through, sniffing the air, getting their bearings before centering their attention on the humans.

Michael grabbed John and hauled him out of the cabin as the boat continued to tilt sideways. He heard the rush of water pouring into the hold through the numerous holes in the deck. They whistled like pipes.

“Quick,” Burns said. “Everyone on top of the cabin.”

He jumped up and extended his hand to Sandy. Hauling her up to the safety of the square-shaped cabin, he glanced up at the sky. The flare was falling to the water where it sizzled as it was extinguished.

He helped Nicole to the roof of the cabin, when he reached for Michael’s hand; he was surprised to find the homeless man had placed the axe in it. He handed the tool to Nicole and reached out again. Michael gave him the last of their long poles from the subway, and Sandy snatched it.

“Come on,” Burns shouted down at him.

Michael turned to John, who looked like he’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. Then, he looked behind him, and he saw the rivers of brown and gray rats streaming out of the dozens of holes in the deck. They were in a panic, but many made a beeline for the mole man, gnashing their teeth, their eyes rolling with an overpowering lust for flesh.

“Get up there,” John said. “I’ll hold them off.”

“You first. You’re injured.”

“I’ve been bitten, Michael,” John said, exposing his ankle to the other man.

The rats marched closer.

“One of those little bastards got me in the cabin. You know what that means. You better get up there.”

Michael nodded, reached up for Burns’ extended hand, and the general hauled him upwards.

Overhead, something rumbled, and the boat listed more. The cabin was at a forty degree angle, and the band of survivors had to cling to the exhaust pipes to prevent themselves from falling onto the deck. Burns turned his eyes up to see the helicopter above them, flying in the dark.

“He’s here,” Burns shouted.

Dozens of rats scrambled on the deck as it tilted to a steeper incline. They slid across the wood, dropping into the river where they sank into the choppy water. They fell away from John, who held tightly to a door jam.

“Go,” he shouted to Michael. “You need to get your life back.”

“I don’t want to leave you,” Michael called down to the deck.

The reporter raised his eyes to the top of the cabin, exposing the yellowing irises. As his mouth began to fill with newly formed teeth, he said, “You got these people out. Like you promised. You don’t need to run anymore.” He winced in pain when his knuckles started cracking and popping.

A rope ladder unfurled from the helicopter above them, dropping just out of reach of the group on the cabin’s roof. Nicole stretched out the axe and retrieved the rope by hooking the back of the axe head into the ladder. Pulling it toward them, she shouted for Sandy to go first.

The blond woman grabbed hold and ascended the wobbly rungs, not looking back at the swiftly sinking
Marion M
.

Michael said, “You next, Nicole. Get up there.”

“No, it should be you,” she argued.

“There’s no damn time. Now get up there and join Sandy.”

She looked at Michael’s face for a moment before climbing up after her girlfriend. She left the axe with Burns.

Sandy reached the cabin, where a young man and a middle-aged woman helped her climb aboard. They were dirty, covered in grime, and she realized they were survivors just like her. She wondered what atrocities they’d witnessed. They appeared to be determined, and they stuck their heads out the door as Nicole reached the top.

Burns turned to Michael and said, “Well, go on.”

Michael looked back at John and said, “Thank you.”

“What…for?” The reporter was struggling to retain his humanity, a losing battle as the beast took over.

“For giving me a life again,” Michael said, and he nodded.

John nodded back, then howled, an eerie half human half wolf sound that pierced the night.

Burns looked down at John with sad, knowing eyes.

“Aw, Christ, I’m sorry.”

“You get… up that… ladder,” John said, and the words were stiff, uncomfortable in his mouth.

So soon?
He thought.
Just a little more time.

“You got all this way…” Burns muttered, angry.

Michael ascended the ladder, hand over hand, not looking back at the thing that was trying to stand up on the tilting deck, the thing that had once been his friend. He didn’t look back even when he was seated in the whirlybird.

“I wish I could have saved you,” Burns said as he started to climb up to the helicopter.

John dropped to all fours, attempting to regain his balance on the listing boat. His fingernails expanded, grew into long, black talons.

“Me… too…”

With a final look at Burns and the hovering aircraft, he threw himself into the churning river. He sank beneath the waves and didn’t float to the surface even once.

Burns ascended the ladder and was helped into the helicopter by the young man and his mother. The general was shaken. Losing John at such a late stage was a discouragement beyond anything he’d ever felt. He slumped into a seat next to Nicole as the man and woman and Michael sat across from him.

“What happened?” Sandy asked, tears falling from her eyes. “Where’s John?”

“He was bitten,” Burns said.

Then, he felt the tears in his own eyes, felt the unfamiliar sting of crying and letting loose. He tried to stop them, tried to hide the emotions from his companions, but they forced their way out of the corners of his eyes. Soon, he was sobbing into Nicole’s shoulder as Sandy patted his back.

“I tried to save him,” he gasped. “Tried to save all of us.”

“You can’t rescue everyone,” Nicole said. “You’re not Superman.”

“You saved us,” Sandy said. “Many times over.”

He wiped at his eyes, clearing the damnable tears from his cheeks. He knew he had to regain his composure. He had to stifle this emotion down like all the others in his life. Finally, he sat up straight, his feelings tamped down somewhat.

When he got a decent look at the couple sitting across from him, he gasped. “You…” he stammered.

“Didn’t know if you’d recognize us,” the woman said. “It’s been a few years.”

From his pilot seat, Tommy Hemmer shouted, “Picked them up on the Brooklyn side.”

“Isn’t that where we’re going?”

“Not unless you wanna die like your buddy back there,” Hemmer said.

The young man turned to Sandy and introduced himself. “Hi. I’m Christian Wright, and this is my mom, Cathy.”

“We met you in Cincinnati,” Burns said. “After the first outbreak.”

“Well, this one’s a lot worse,” Christian explained. “Even the military’s pulled out.”

“We were visiting my mother in Queens when it all started. We made it to Brooklyn before the bridges were blown up.”

“So, we aren’t going to Brooklyn because…” Nicole started.

“The disease is there. It’s all around the city and spreading outwards while we speak,” Tommy Hemmer explained from the cockpit. “Mrs. Wright back there had an idea.”

“We find an island,” she said, leaning toward Burns, Nicole, and Sandy.

“Martha’s Vineyard should do nicely,” Tommy said. “No way onto it except by ferry or by air. We take out the ferry and we live there, safe and secure.”

“If you can call hiding out like that living,” Sandy said.

“I don’t think we have much of a choice anymore,” Hemmer replied. “What happened in Manhattan – that’s gonna happen all over the place. It’s already started in Brooklyn.”

“We barely made it out,” Cathy Wright said, clutching at her son’s hand. “Everything’s moving so fast. People were getting bitten and turning in a minute. Maybe even less.”

“It’s not really hiding,” Nicole told Sandy. “It’s more like regrouping, getting our bearings. We’ll lay low a while, see where the disease goes.”

“That doesn’t sound like you, sweetie. Laying low? Waiting out the battle?”

Nicole sighed and answered, “Maybe I’m sick and tired of all of this. Maybe I want some normal time like normal people. Maybe I want some time to be with you.”

Sandy grinned. “That’s the right answer,” she said.