“Zofia?” Dominik yelled. “Lucja?” He looked around the room, praying he did not see them beneath the bunk — beneath the body — of a dirty ship worker.
A hand gripped his elbow, and he spun, the last vestiges of sleep clearing from his mind. He saw Sergeant Eichmann reclined on a hammock, his long hand outstretched. The man's other hand contained a book, a German translation of The Aeneid. It was difficult to see this, in a way; Dominik preferred to think of his captors as mindless.
“Where's my daughter?” he blurted. He realized how stupid that must have sounded since he was looking for both of his girls, but he let it stand.
By way of reply, Jan released his arm and pointed straight up. Above on the deck.
Dominik ran to the ladder. He was aware how tired he felt doing it. Being in prison for hours at a time saps you in a way he had never imagined. And that led to another thought: would he have let Seiler live had they only been on the ship a day instead of a month? Would he have been so compassionate, or perhaps, so drained of will? He shuddered. Best to bury such ideation before it buried him.
He reached the top deck. “Zofia?”
Then, he saw them there, all three of them, standing together at the rails. If they were being watched by Seiler or the lieutenant, they were nowhere close. Perhaps the failed escape attempt had made them arrogant. And why not? The thought of leaving the ship now brought only sadness and sickness.
The girls turned to look at him as he approached, and they smiled. They looked almost normal there, standing as a makeshift family. Dominik put his arms around them, letting himself comfort and be comforted.
When he released them, Ari pointed. “Look at that. We're here, Dom.”
When Dominik looked, his mouth fell open. The world in front of him did not look like it was of this world at all. The beach just beyond the ship was a sandy brown punctuated by puddles of iridescent blue, small pools of water made bright by the chunks of ice they held, by the sky they reflected. Beyond the beach, Dominik saw black earth which grew into even blacker hills. Beyond those, rocky crags that seemed to spring up from the ground as if pushed, violently, from the very core of the earth. The peeks of the highest number flowed so seamlessly into the clouds that it became impossible to discern where the snow dust ended and the atmospheric clouds began. A more religious man might have thought these peaks had been built by God as a path to heaven, but Dominik thought it more likely these antediluvian crags were forged by God's primitive ancestors, creating pathways to Valhalla or Mount Olympus instead.
The sight of the mountains and the black earth, the flawless beach, and the glowing water formed an image so incongruous with every expectation, that for a moment, he could do nothing but stare. If he was going to die a prisoner, he thought, there wasn't any place on earth more suited to the sacrifice. It took Lucja, a moment later, to bring him out of the trance.
“What?” he asked, realizing she had spoken.
She took his arm in one hand and pointed to the island with the other. He followed her signal, seeing a network of piers, decking, and ramshackle buildings ahead. Though his vision was poor, he saw shapes awaiting them on the docks.
“We're not alone.”
Chapter 11: Ruin
1
Kate stared at the approaching shoreline with a similar awe, but unlike Lucja, she saw no movement on the soft brown sands as the RDF boat advanced.
What did you want me to see, Dad? What did you want me to find?
The island had not been in any of the photographs, but she got a strange sense that it was a part of things somehow. It was the only thing she could think about. Her job, her old life, her godfather and his cryptic urgings — they felt like they were a part of a different world. She hadn't been able to process all of the things Doctor Grey had said yet, so she was doing what she always did when she got piece of information she couldn't handle: she was filing it away. She was letting it cook, letting her subconscious draw its own conclusions. She had a feeling that when it all started to click, she'd be in a bad way. It was impossible to think Valley Oil could be responsible for all of this, but if they had made it worse, if they had made a mistake that had cost a single person their life, she would not stand for it. There would be a hellfire retribution the likes of which not even Godfried could prevent. Because now, she had power. Now, she had a claim. Her father had given her a stake, and she did not intend to waste it, no matter what the business consequences.
But she was getting ahead of herself.
The only things she had to go on were the ramblings of the starving doctor and the strange tentacular entities he had called The Carrion.
“There,” Mason said beside her. “That dock is still intact.”
The craft moved towards the shore with an eerie ease. There were no other sounds. No birds on the waters, no insects buzzing on the wind, nothing ahead but the dead calm of a deserted village and the creak of the abandoned docks.
“Cut the engine,” she said.
Christian looked at her strangely, but he did, and a moment later, they were gliding the last few yards towards the decking.
“You hear that?” she asked.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she whispered. “There's nothing here.”
Mason stepped out to the deck, scanning the island with hawk-like eyes. When the ship came within reach of the pier, he paused long enough to throw a rope around a rusted old bollard, and then went back to scanning. Next to her, Christian threw the lever to drop the anchor, and their craft came to a halt.
Mason stuck his head back inside. “Well, no one's firing on us. I'd say that's a start.”
“Clear?” Christian asked.
“No other boats on the dock. No signs of life on the shore.” He shrugged. “I'm not staying here, and neither are you.”
“I'm coming too,” Kate said.
“I figured.”
When they climbed up to the pier, Mason offered his hand to her, but she ignored it. He grunted, giving her that odd smile of his.
They found the place decorated with an odd smattering of metal hooks and poles. Kate thought that it must have been a fishery, but the instruments looked primitive and somehow gruesome to her eyes. Shacks the color of old paper lined the shore, and through the open doors, she saw knives, hammers, and waste receptacles big enough to hold a car. When the wind blew, she heard the rattling of chains brushing together like wind chimes.
Mason motioned for her to stay put, then moved deeper into the zone with his partner in tow. They secured the beach one building at a time, a repeat of The Aeschylus operation in miniature. Kate followed at a distance. The last warehouse held a stench so foul that she couldn't get within fifty paces without gagging. When the two men were done, they both jogged back to the center, covering their noses. Mason said something that Kate couldn't hear, and Christian began to run off towards the hills.
“I told you stay put,” Mason said as Kate approached.
She ignored him. “Are they… are they in there?”
“The workers? No. Whatever is in there has been dead a long time.” He looked around. “Something doesn't feel right, though. You feel it?”
She nodded. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something very wrong with this place. And that was the only way she could describe it: wrongness.
“There are footprints leading up through the village. They're modern shoes, so I'd say that accounts for our survivors. At least, some of them.”