Jonah closed the door and locked it again, using his universal key. ‘I really am on my own,’ he said, leaning his head against the door frame – and then someone walked past the end of the corridor.
Jonah raised the gun and took a few steps back, gasping, his heart stuttering and then racing again. The shadow flitted away, cast by the ceiling lights in the corridor perpendicular to the one he was in. He could tell nothing of the shadow’s shape or origin, but he heard no footsteps, no breathing.
There was only one way out from the corridor. Trying to breathe softly and evenly, Jonah started forward. Twenty feet until the junction, fifteen, and still he could neither hear nor see anything. Dried blood smeared the floor, and there was a shoe propped against the wall. It was white and pristine.
He clasped the gun in both hands, waiting for the shadow to flit back again and whatever had cast it to emerge. Someone else alive, but it was a vain hope.
This time there was no shadow. The figure walked around the corner and came towards Jonah, his swollen eyes and spiky hair glistening, the protruding mouth gasping out small clouds of moisture, and in his right hand was the organ-like object with a dozen tendrils tasting the air.
Jonah’s breath caught in his throat, and he tried to perceive any kind of humanity in this man. But other than his shape, and number of limbs, and gait, there was none.
Jonah’s hands shook – this nightmare was so real, the fear he felt so deep and thick, his heart skipping, breath punched from his lungs with shock—
This time I’m not asleep. As the organ-object kissed Jonah’s head, his finger squeezed the trigger and—
—the explosion rips through the heart of the ship, erupting from its upper decks and tearing a hole in its hull. Fire and smoke gush out and, as seawater roars into the gap, steam billows in great clouds. They catch the sun and throw rainbows across the terrible scene.
The people with him in the lifeboat cry out in grief and terror. The impact thuds into the small boat, conveyed through the water, and several seams break. Some start bailing, while those sitting on the three cross-braces start to row.
He tries to speak, reaches out to touch, but he is not there. All to die, a voice says, and in a spray of water he glimpses that distorted face.
Several people lift long boathooks, because they know what is coming. Jonah sees the shapes swimming towards the boat, scores of them pushing through the violent waves, each face blank, distinguished only by eyes he has seen before, those dead eyes.
No point. They should submit.
The first of the swimmers reaches the boat. A hand curls over the gunwale. Two of her fingers are missing, the wounds grey and bloodless.
Jonah tries to close his eyes, but he sees the first wet body roll into the boat, hears the crunching of her skull as one of the survivors crushes it with their boathook, and then—
—the people finish floating through the air, landing on delicate legs and shrugging light packs from their backs. They stand on the edge of a ravine, the ground beneath them sandy, the sky a startling blue. They wear silver belts heavy with weapons, none of which Jonah recognises. He is stunned at their technology.
They already carry hopelessness in their hearts. That voice, so harsh, it is the thing that haunts.
One of the people is wounded, fine clothing torn and slick with blood. She sinks slowly to her knees and the others go to help. The scene has the air of post-battle, and he wonders what they have left behind.
Then he sees that they have not gone to help at all. One of them pulls a weapon, and the woman looks up at him sadly, and her eyes remain open as he blasts her in the head—
—the child falls, and lands in the mass of creatures below, and they crowd in and bite like hunting dogs going for a chunk of meat. A man wails but the others ignore him, and Jonah wants to shout, Can’t you understand what he’s lost?