Survive

The Outcast

Chapter song: Bad Guy, 3OH!3

The next morning, we all packed up and hit the snowy road in search for the ship. It was somehow silently agreed between the four of us that it would be better if I rode with Dorin instead, considering how every time Patrick opened his mouth it made me want to knock his teeth down his throat. And I'm sure the feeling was mutual with him. The hours seemed to go by faster outside of the bunker, and it didn't feel like too long before we saw the black silhouette of the ship on the horizon after two days of traveling. We decided it would be best to leave the vehicles about a quarter of a mile away from the ship to keep our approach discrete. The walk to the ship was silent and filled with shuddering tension. Our weapons were out and clenched tightly in our hands. Dorin had his rifle hugged close to his body with his finger hovering over the trigger, Adé's hands were barely shaking as he held his revolver down at his side and Patrick already had an arrow in his re-curve bow ready to be drawn back. The two pistols felt heavy yet comforting in my gloved hands.

The noises of the ship became louder the closer we got, the metal creaking and groaning against the howling wind. The ship was a massive thing, black and grey iron rusted orange and brown with some areas completely eaten away by the elements. Jagged bits of metal were sticking out of the ground where they had fallen and iced over that would easily pierce through anyone unfortunate enough to fall. We walked around the perimeter of the ship to look for an area that we could climb up, seeing as how the only way up was a ladder that was rusted to bits. As we rounded the stern of the ship, the four of us collectively froze in shock at what we saw.

"Dumnezeule." Dorin shuddered, his voice shaking with disgust. Four bodies were strung up and hanging from the stern of the ship, it was hard to tell which were male or female due to the corpses being half way decayed and swinging slightly in the wind.

"What is that?" Adé asked, gesturing to the words written in German underneath the hanging bodies.

"'Those who enter shall be damned to the ice'." I read out-loud, cringing when I noticed the words on the ship were written with smeared blood.

"That mad bastard..." Patrick hissed, his jaw clenched in barely contained anger.

"Klaus did this?" I asked over the increasing noise of the wind blowing every which way.

"Most likely, it's a matter of time before he notices we're here. So let's shake a leg, yeah?" Patrick said, shrugging the pack off of his shoulders and kneeling to remove a small bundle of rope from his supplies. Tying a bit of bent metal to the end of the length of rope, Patrick started winding up the makeshift grappling hook and let it fly over the railing of the ship. It wrapped three times around the railing and Patrick gave a firm tug to test the stability.

"Ladies first." he taunted, gesturing for me to climb the rope first. Dorin suddenly stepped forward, glaring at Patrick as he snatched the rope from his hand.

"She's not going first." he glowered.

"No, Dorin I got this." I protested, reaching for the rope but he moved it out of my grasp.

"We don't know what is up there. I will go first." he replied, turning his attention to me. His pale blue eyes stern and assertive, not the kind of thing I was used to seeing from him. "Curtis is my friend, he would never forgive me if something were to happen to you."

I backed down with a sigh but sent him a small smile. "Okay then." I nodded, taking a step back as he strapped his rifle over his back and started climbing up the rope, using the stern of the ship as leverage. Not ten minutes later, Dorin disappeared over the railing and looked back down at us.

"It's clear for now, come on up." he called quietly, his rifle now back in his hands. I chose to go next and copied what Dorin did, planting my feet on the ship and using it to help me climb the rope. Half way up the stern of the ship, I felt something bump into my right side causing me to cringe in disgust. One of the corpses had been swinging in the wind and I was now face to face with the decaying body.