Dead Water Zone - Kenneth Oppel [36]
He didn’t have time to reply. A shadow flickered across the doorway at the far end of the room, and he was already moving toward it.
“Sam!” he hissed. “It’s me.”
By the time he reached the doorway, the figure was slipping out of sight around a corner. He broke into a run, heedless of the weak planking that groaned beneath his feet. He turned down another passageway, and there was Sam again, closer this time, but still ahead of him, rushing weightlessly on.
“It’s me—Paul!”
It was just like the first night he’d arrived in Watertown, chasing Sam along the rooftops. Why didn’t he stop? Couldn’t he hear him? Didn’t he recognize his voice? Or maybe he just didn’t want to stop.
As Sam disappeared past a doorway, Sked stepped out of the shadows right beside him. Paul flinched in surprise. He’d come so far! He wouldn’t be held back now, not by some safety-pinned punk! Had Sked seen Sam? Did he know he was on the hulk? Then Paul saw the long knife in Sked’s hand, and his frustration gave way to fear.
“Have a nice swim?” asked Monica. “You’re back so soon.”
Paul could hear the faint tremor in her voice.
“Shut up,” said Sked, pushing her roughly against the wall. He took a few steps back, lazily swiping the blade of the knife from Paul to Monica, smiling. Paul felt every tendon and muscle in his body cranked tighter, second by second. So this is how it ends, he thought. Slaughtered against the wall of a half-sunken ship.
“Nice try with the torched boat,” said Sked, “but you’re not dead yet. I’d do you both right now, but there’s some people who want to see you first.” He waved the knife down the passageway. “Walk. I’m right behind.”
Paul fell into step beside Monica, all his senses drawn to the spot where the blade might enter his back. He thought of all the films he’d seen where the hero simply spun around and knocked the weapon out of the villain’s hand. What a load of crap.
He wondered whether it was just his fear, or if it was getting hotter as they were marched down the passageway. The noise, he was sure, was louder than before—an annoying buzz, like an insect circling his head. They reached a door.
“Open it,” Sked told him.
Paul pushed the oak door wide open. A powerful wave of heat washed over him, and the buzzing doubled in intensity. Monica winced, shaking her head as if trying to dislodge the sound. His eyes were immediately pulled to the bright orange glow of flames in an iron furnace. To the left was a thick pipe of corrugated metal, which curved up from the floor and dribbled water into a vat. To the right of the furnace were wooden tables holding electronic equipment, pulsing faint red and green light. Two men were hunched over a table, studying something. They turned as Paul and Monica were ushered in.
“Oh, good,” said one blandly.
Paul could only stare. They looked so ordinary, these two Cityweb men. They could have been clerks, stamping documents, listlessly filling in forms. They could have been suburban fathers—maybe they were. One had a slight belly pushing against his shirt; the other wore cheap polyester pants bagging over white sneakers. They looked so harmless. Paul felt sick.
“So this is Samuel’s brother.”
The voice came from the shadows at the far end of the room. It sounded like cracking joints, a dry grating of bones. Paul squinted into the darkness but made out nothing except a faint smudge of movement.
“There’s a certain likeness,” came the voice again. “If this one were to be stripped bare.” The pitch of the pervasive droning deepened, and a shape emerged into the light.
Mosquito. That was the first thought that pierced the white noise in his head. The bone-pale arms and legs were little more than insect filaments, with elbows and knees that looked bulbous even though they couldn’t have been any bigger than golf balls. It was impossible to tell what sex it was; the body was so wizened, clothed only in a few tatters of cloth around its hips. Its skeletal torso throbbed rhythmically, as if in sync with a heartbeat, and Paul could clearly make out the tracery of blood vessels and veins