Ebb Tide: Book 1 of the South Wind Saga

Chapter 10

Mindlessly I reload. Skills and drills. Numb, the boy sitting by me, passing me rounds from my bag as if they were pieces of candy. I push cartridges into empty magazines, tap them against the deck when they're full. My hands knowing their job even as my mind staggers. The last glimmers of the tropical twilight filling the sky. The sky is banded with colour: apricot, cerulean and a deep indigo that fades to black.

We can hear them, below decks. Shuffling and banging and searching for a way up. Not long before some intrepid mary manages to claw its way up the torn metal fringing the severed stern of the ship. The survivors, who were cut off by the gashes in the ship's side, who could not join their master in the aft hold, waiting to attack as soon as it got dark. I don't know how many there are. Certainly not the masses he gathered. I wonder if any that fell will climb out of the sea, clawing their way back on board, to join their brethren in haunting the place of their deaths. Even one, in the dark, will be dangerous.

So, we move quickly to reload.

We haven't spoken since he fell. Since Blong, spying the tightening cable, leapt from his hideyhole and tackled me, taking me out of the deadly path of the flying wire. What words could capture our feelings at this time? How could thanks, kid ever express the emotions that seethe within me, as the sea seethes over the sunken stern. The tip of a radar mast is the only thing that breaks the surface. Black Harvest - the aft half of her at least - finally joining the graveyard it helped create, lying with every other ship that was drawn to its doom.

I'm on autopilot. My rifle loaded, the pistol loaded, I turn to the open deck, facing the stern, from where I know they will come. Steady my position, my rifle ready to shoot them down when they charge. Blong watches for a moment, before he realises my intentions. "No way, lady, not now."

He takes me by the hand and leads me to the containers. I don't protest. I'm too numb to argue. We clear out some boxes, make space. I see heads and reaching arms appearing over the torn gulf as we swing the container's doors closed, locking ourselves within.

I fall into sweet darkness and oblivion.

I am woken by banging. Knocking on the heavy steel door, scraping as feet drag over the roof. Crashes on the walls and snuffling and scratching around the edges of the door, the rubber seals have rotted and a draft brings their corruption in to us and our tantalising scent out to them. The night as black as it can be. I find a chem light in my pocket and crack it. The golden glow fills the container like a lantern of old. Blong sits with his knees drawn up to his chest, his back against boxes of kitchen bowls, his eyes dark glittering pools of fear.

He sees me rise and he shoves himself towards me. I take him in my arms and hug him. Feel his heart beating as quickly as a bird's.

They bang on the door. But it is not coordinated. No intelligence drives them. They are dull, hungry monsters wanting to get the meat inside the can.

Their Pale King is gone.

We both know that. There was no way he could come back from what the cable did. Shrug off bullets, sure, wear fire like a crown, no problem. But no one, I don't care what god you worship, survives a bisection.

I've won.

Oh god, I beat him.

I saved the boy.

Weakness comes over me as the realisation of all I have done fills me with a horrible dread and emptiness. Everything I had is gone, my home destroyed, my family lost. But, within that is a thrill, the satisfaction of victory. I start to sob because, worst of all, I am relieved. I am free, for now. He was right. I struggled every day to keep my aging home afloat and now she is gone and I am free.