Tori turned, swung the H&K, and strafed three others that were slithering toward them. Gabe and Miguel stood, together, then stepped up on either side of her.
When Tori crouched to pick up the gun Pang had dropped, Miguel took the assault rifle back, and Gabe didn’t stop him. There would be no forgiveness, but they had no time for recrimination, either. Time had run out.
58
Angie flinched with every gunshot, held her breath with every scream. She wanted to run, to abandon Josh and just go, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave him. It wasn’t that she was afraid of prison — not anymore. But without Josh, she would have been alone. So she let him put an arm around her and hustled him as fast as she could across the deck. They moved along the accommodations block, afraid of being out in the open, and when they reached the far side of the structure — with only bare deck between them and the port side railing — they hesitated a second.
Long enough to hear the shuffle of footsteps behind them.
Josh twisted, grunting in pain from the wound in his shoulder, and aimed the gun. Angie held him up, but prepared to bolt if they got to him, then realized that footsteps meant something human giving chase.
Even out of the moonlight, in the overhanging shadows of the walkway above, she saw orange highlights in Dwyer’s hair.
“You were supposed to get the ship out of here,” Angie said.
Dwyer scowled. “No time. I saw you two and wondered where you were headed. Then I figured it out — the covered lifeboats.”
Angie held her breath. Was he trying to stop them? “I’m sorry, Tom. I never wanted to lie. I just couldn’t go to prison, and—”
Dwyer gave a short laugh. “Fuck ‘sorry.’ Let’s get out of here.”
Josh nodded, turning painfully, urging Angie on. “Go.”
The three of them hurried away from the shelter of the accommodations block, out into the moonlight, on the open deck.
“They’re coming from the island, or around it,” Josh told Dwyer. “They might not be in the water on this side yet.”
“Let’s hope,” Dwyer replied.
Their every step punctuated by gunshots, they reached the winch controls for the lifeboat Angie had in mind. They’d been built for high seas, for terrible storms, and perfected by the military. She didn’t know if it would keep the creatures out, but it was their only shot.
Dwyer tore the tarp off the lifeboat as Angie worked the controls, raising the boat up, the crane arms swinging it out over the edge of the railing.
“Listen,” Josh said, a bit dreamily. He’d lost a lot of blood.
The gunshots and screaming had stopped, and now they could hear voices rising, singing in an eerie chorus. Dwyer froze, staring. Angie tracked his gaze to the accommodations block. In the moonlight she could see at least three of the things clinging to the walls, their tails coiled like snakes. One hung from a walkway railing.
The singing stopped, and all four of them attacked, smashing through windows and locked doors.
“Oh, Jaysus,” Dwyer said.
Angie turned and saw one of the pearly white things gliding across the deck toward them. Another hung from the second-story walkway on the accommodations tower.
“Josh, get in,” Angie whispered.
The FBI agent raised his gun, barely able to stand, and took aim. “The hell with that. You get in.”
Dwyer grabbed Angie’s hand and started pulling her toward the open hatch.
Josh fired.
59
Tori aimed at a siren and pulled the trigger.
“Good, now run!” Gabe snapped.
Together, she and the Rio brothers raced across the deck, firing at the creatures that came too close or tried to block the way. The gun in her hand had been Pang’s, and she only had it now because the sirens had killed him. If he’d still been alive, she might be dead. Was that luck, or fate? The question seemed important now, because she had a terrible feeling that fate had caught up with her. She had escaped it once, three years before, down in the tunnel underneath Penn Station. Now she wondered if she had been meant to board that train, to die in that explosion. Tori feared that death had come for her, but her body wouldn’t allow her to surrender.
“Move your asses!” she screamed at the Rios.
Miguel twisted, sighted on a creature darting toward them from the stern, and fired four rounds into it, practically obliterating its head. Tori and the Rio brothers crossed the vast, empty space where the stacks of containers had been before. Most of the cargo had been sacrificed to save her and Gabe and Pang, but now Pang was dead, and she and Gabe would be, too, if they didn’t find someplace to hole up where the creatures couldn’t get at them.
Screams and gunshots echoed across the deck, followed by the shattering of glass and splintering of wood, and the squeal of warping metal.
“I’m not hearing as much chaos,” Miguel said, with a hint of hope in his voice.
“That’s not good,” Gabe replied. “When it all goes quiet, it’ll mean nobody’s left alive to make any noise.”
More gunshots, then, muffled and distant. Tori took off in a sprint, mustering all the strength she had left, and the Rio brothers did their best to keep up. The railing glinted in moonlight. To the left, the accommodations block loomed, but she could see silver-white things way up on the wall, climbing higher.
“Suarez,” Gabe muttered, spotting the creatures moving toward the wheelhouse.
But he didn’t slow down. None of them did.
Silhouettes moved on the deck. A man screamed. A gun barked. Miguel grabbed Tori’s wrist and hauled her to a stop. Gabe faltered, turning to stare at them.
“This is bullshit,” Miguel whispered. “We’ve gotta find an unlocked container, hide inside.”
Gabe looked doubtful.
“They’ll get in,” Tori said. “You’ve seen them. They will get in, and we’ll have nowhere left to run.”
Anger flashed in Miguel’s eyes. “You got a better idea?”
Another noise came from up ahead and the moon seemed to grow brighter, the scene clearer. The scene playing out at the railing resolved itself. Angie and a staggering man tried to get into one of the enclosed lifeboats. Smart. Really smart. The things were like little submarines, almost. They weren’t meant to travel underwater, but they wouldn’t flood and they were swift. If they were fast, and most of the things were still on the Antoinette, they might get away.
But Angie and Josh weren’t alone. Things writhed on the deck nearby as they scrambled to reach the lifeboat. How they were going to lower her down, Tori had no idea, and the question vanished from her mind when she heard the cry of a shredded voice, and saw that one of the creatures writhing on the deck was Tom Dwyer. A siren had dragged him down. Dwyer fought, his skin gleaming as sickly as the creature’s, and they rolled and twisted. He tried to drag himself away.
“Move!” Gabe snapped.
As Tori and the Rio brothers ran up, Gabe shot both of the grappling figures. Dwyer slumped to the deck immediately, bullet through his chest, but the siren flopped wretchedly on the deck for several seconds until the captain shot it again. Tori gave it a wide berth as she ran up to the winch controls, took in the cables, the way Josh leaned against the lifeboat, the blood on his shirt, and understood he’d been shot. He threw something into the open lifeboat hatch, but Tori had no idea what it might be.
Angie stood frozen, staring at Gabe, half-crouched, as though grief might have felled her. “You killed him!”
“I saved him,” Gabe replied. “Neither of you were going to do it.”