“Guidry?” Abrams mumbled, his voice cracking.
“He’s alive!” Oran exclaimed. “We gotta get him out of here. We gotta get somewhere safe.”
“The reactor room,” Jerry said. “That’s where everyone’s holed up.”
Oran got Abrams onto his feet and helped him walk, carrying the lantern in his free hand. Jerry retrieved his M1911 pistol, then walked back to Matson’s body. Swallowing his fear, he forced himself to take the dead body by the legs and drag it across the deck toward the hatch. It was slow going. Matson was heavier than he looked, and the broom handle poking through his chest seemed to snag on everything. Jerry thought about pulling it out but decided against it. He needed to show the others how to kill these things, and besides, he wasn’t convinced Matson would stay dead if he pulled it out. He wouldn’t put it past these creatures to come back to life a second time.
“What are you doing?” Oran said. “Leave him!”
“I can’t. I need him so I can convince Captain Weber of what’s really going on. He thinks it’s a mutiny, and if we’re going to survive this, he needs to know the truth.”
“Survive?” Oran laughed bitterly. “Nobody survives the rougarou, my friend. Where there’s one, there’s more. Too many. All you can do is try to last as long as you can, and pray that when your time comes it’s quick.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Jerry dragged Matson’s body across the torpedo room all the way to the hatch, before he remembered that the opening wasn’t flush with the deck. Along the bottom was a three-inch-high metal lip, which you had to step over when entering or leaving the room. Matson’s limp body slid over it easily enough until the mop handle jutting from his torso caught on it. Jerry tugged, but the body didn’t budge.
He dropped Matson’s legs. He knew what he was going to have to do. He was going to have to get closer to the body than he already was and heave it over the lip. The thought made him freeze up. Matson’s eyes were still open, even the gory, ruined one. The good eye stared up at the ceiling, but Jerry half expected that to change as he reached for Matson’s coveralls at his waist. How did he know that Matson was really dead and not just trying to trick him? He had survived being shot in the face. Who was to say a broken mop handle through the heart was enough to do the trick? Jerry grasped a handful of material and imagined that eye snapping toward him, the body rearing up, grabbing his hand.
But Matson stayed dead. With one hand holding the web belt at Matson’s waist, Jerry hauled him over the lip. Then he resumed dragging him by the legs down the corridor toward the main ladder.
Oran Guidry and Lieutenant Abrams were ahead of him. Abrams leaned against Oran for support, listing to one side and then the other as they walked haltingly forward, reminding Jerry of a drunk who couldn’t find his balance. Oran was holding the lantern now, but the beam faded into darkness in the corridor beyond. He swung the lantern so its beam hit every surface, every doorway, every corner it could reach, but no one was there. That didn’t mean much, though. There were still plenty of places to hide.
Not until Jerry was dragging Matson’s body down the corridor did he realize how badly the vampire had injured him. He had stinging cuts on the backs of his arms where Matson’s fingers had dug into his flesh, and persistent throbbing pain in a dozen places. There was blood on the sleeves of his poopie suit, which he noticed only now that it had grown cold against his skin. He refused to let his injuries slow him down, but he felt tired, weak, and light-headed. How much blood had he lost? On second thought, he didn’t want to know.
Abrams went first up the main ladder to the middle level. His grip on the rungs was wobbly, but Oran went up right behind him and kept a steadying hand on his back. Getting Matson’s corpse up the ladder was a lot trickier. While Abrams slumped against the bulkhead on the middle level, Oran and Jerry worked out a system similar to how they had gotten Stubic’s body bag down. On the bottom level, Jerry propped the body upright against the ladder and extended the arms upward. Oran reached down from the hole above, grabbed both arms by the wrist, and began to pull. Jerry got his shoulders under Matson’s body and shoved upward, climbing the ladder as he pushed and keeping the broken mop handle from snagging on the rungs. Even with Oran’s help, most of the weight was still on Jerry, and he began to feel dizzy from the exertion. It was taking longer than he had thought it would. His arms flared with pain, and he felt warm blood inside his sleeves again.
“You sure you don’ wanna leave him behind?” Oran groaned, hauling the body up.
“He’s our only proof,” Jerry said through gritted teeth.
At last, they got Matson’s body onto the middle-level deck. But Lieutenant Abrams looked worse than before. He was breathing hard, and in the lantern light, Jerry saw a glistening sheen of sweat on his face.
“Lieutenant, sir, we’ve got to keep moving,” he said.
Abrams swallowed. “I’m burning up.” He touched the welts on his neck. “One of them… one of those things bit me. Gave me the fever.”
“I know, sir,” Jerry said. “We’re going to get you back to the others and see what we can do for you.”
“Do for me? Matson was the only medical officer aboard,” Abrams said, glaring at the corpse on the floor. “He couldn’t do anything even before he… before he turned. No one else will be able to do anything, either.”
“You don’t know that, suh,” Oran said. “Let ’em try.”
Abrams swallowed again, his throat making a dry croaking sound. “Just promise me that if I start turning into one of them, you’ll kill me first.”
Oran glared at him. “No, suh!”
“You’ll be saving yourselves and doing me a favor at the same time,” Abrams insisted. “White—Jerry—please, I’m begging you. If I turn into one of them, kill me before it’s too late. I’d rather die as me than as… as one of those things.”
“Don’t talk like that, suh,” Oran said. “You ain’t gonna die.”
Abrams hung his head. “You’re wrong. We’re all going to die. I can hear them in my head. So many voices calling me. They’re all around us, in the dark. They’re here. They’re already here.”
Oran grabbed the lantern and twisted around, shining its beam into the corridor, when out of the darkness lurched Steve Bodine, his eyes open and glowing, and his teeth bared. But when the beam hit him in the face, he reeled back with a hiss and threw an arm across his eyes.
Jerry jumped to his feet. Oran held the lantern on Bodine, keeping him at bay, while Jerry grabbed Matson’s feet and started dragging the body up the short flight of steps to the reactor-room hatch. Abrams followed him. Oran brought up the rear, keeping the light trained on Bodine.
Another dark shape emerged from the mess. Two glowing eyes burned in the darkness. Oran turned the lantern toward them, and the figure stepped back. But even half shrouded in shadow Jerry could see his features. It was LeMon, Oran’s brother. He stood as silent as a ghost, not coming toward them, only watching.
“Dear God, LeMon,” Abrams breathed. “Oran, you were right! He’s one of them!”
LeMon smiled a terrible smile, baring his elongated upper canines.
“You stay away!” Oran yelled. “You ain’t Monje!”
The lantern light spilled past LeMon and into the mess. Jerry saw two bodies slumped at one of the tables: Ortega and Keene. Their throats had been torn open, leaving behind hanging flaps of skin and a red bib of blood on the front of their poopie suits.
LeMon and Bodine watched silently, not attacking. Were the vampires just toying with them, or was something holding them back? Jerry didn’t know, and he wasn’t about to question his good luck. In the dark corner closest to them, he saw two more glowing eyes. Oran flicked the lantern at them, illuminating the shape in the corner. Jerry nearly dropped Matson’s legs in shock.