The Raven (A Jane Harper Horror Novel) Page 6

  I’d hoped to find its tongue hanging out of its mouth, but no such luck. The Draugar are the basis of not only modern zombie stories but also the vampire legend. Young generations of parasites reside in the gut, driving their host to consume flesh. Brain matter is a delicacy. Once the parasites have matured, they move to the tongue, covering it in a layer of wriggling white worms. The parasites on the tongue easily invade new hosts via simple bites and start the cycle anew. Victims decay to a point, but everything essential is preserved by some kind of secretion. This gives the Draugar the look of a zombie, but the eternal life of a vampire. And since they’ve got some kind of hive intelligence, controlled by a much larger Queen, they’re capable of strategizing in ways I have yet to comprehend.

  All of this flits through my mind as I swim back toward the eye. If there is one other place the parasites are guaranteed to be found, it’s the eyes. They fill the host’s eyes, wriggling inside the juices and using the clear membrane as a window on the world. A single human eye might hold fifty parasites, each of which has two black specks for eyes and a tiny but powerful mouth. I doubt they can see well individually, but together, who knows?

  I pause in front of the closed eye, knife in hand, sample jar ready. My plan is simple—jab the eye and position the jar to catch anything that spews out. I aim the knife tip over the navel-orange-size eye but don’t strike. My pondering on the inner workings of a Draugr has me concerned.

  “Jakob,” I say. “How do we know this whale is dead? Like really dead, not Draugr dead.”

  “It’s not breathing,” he replies. “Did it move?”

  “No…but do Draugr even need to breathe?”

  His answer is not what I was hoping for. “I—I don’t know.”

  Damnit, I think. I should have thought of this before I jumped in the water. But I’m here now, and the whale hasn’t shown any sign of life. Just do it and get the hell out, I tell myself.

  I take one last look around, searching for some imagined danger, and then turn back toward the eye.

  The white, wriggling, open eye.

  11

  I have no idea if they can hear my rapid-fire string of curses up on the bridge of the Raven or not, but I’m pretty sure even the Colonel would have winced at some of what I’ve just shouted.

  “Jane, what happened?” Jakob says. He may not have understood what I’ve just said, but he clearly understood the abject horror that fueled my words.

  “It’s a Draugr!” I shout. “A fucking Draugr whale!”

  I jam the DPV pedal down as far as it can go, surging up through the water. A sound gives chase, deep and resonating. I recognize the whale call instantly. The ten-second blast vibrates my insides and makes my head spin. But it’s not the sound that bothers me; it’s the knowledge that sound travels faster and farther in water. Whales can hear each other’s calls hundreds of miles away. This means that every Draugr whale inside a several-hundred-mile radius might now know exactly where to find the Raven.

  The DPV launches me out of the water, but not completely. After catching a glimpse of the Raven, I fall back to the sea. I manage to arc my body and reenter smoothly, but feel like a doofus—first for leaping out of the water like some kid pretending to be a dolphin, and second for not keeping my wits about me. Fleeing up? Where the hell is up going to get me?

  As I surge beneath the water again, I’m pummeled by a strong current that spins me around.

  The whale isn’t just alive. It’s mobile. The fluke pounds at the water, pushing the whale away from me.

  I take the chance to flee. Horizontally. Toward the Raven.

  “Jakob!” I shout. “Make sure Malik is waiting for me on the dive deck!”

  The old captain either doesn’t hear me or just ignores me. Seems he’s got plans of his own. “Try to keep track of your distance to the whale,” he says. “Willem will try to harpoon the monster, but he can’t if you’re too close.”

  Feeling a small measure of security knowing Willem is watching over me with a weapon that can destroy the Draugr whale’s brain, or remove its fluke, I look back so I can give a report.

  But I see nothing.

  “I don’t see it!”

  That a creature so big, so close, could already be out of view seems impossible. “Jakob, I—”

  “Beneath you!” Jakob shouts. “It’s beneath you!”

  I glance down into the dark deep and see a vague circular shape rising up to swallow me whole. The shape emerges from the gloom as the whale’s wide-open maw. Capable of pulling in eighteen thousand gallons of seawater, the humpback has no trouble sucking me in.

  Darkness surrounds me. The circle of sunlight above me begins to close. Near hysterics, I scream, “It swallowed me! Jakob! Oh my God!” I continue to scream as I slide deeper, thrust inward by water pressure. My body is jolted and beaten. My mask is nearly pulled from my face, but I manage to get a hand over it. I’m not sure why I bother. Drowning would be preferable to being digested or, more likely, turned into a human Draugr. I may also find the belly full of parasite larvae, hungry for sustenance.

  For a moment I’m stuck, clogged in the whale’s esophagus. But the water pressure behind me builds. I’m squeezed so tight I can’t breathe. I can hear Jakob shouting in my ear, but I can’t reply. I’m going to die here. I’m going to die in the throat of a whale like a hunk of mozzarella in the throat of a fat man who doesn’t chew!

  My chest feels like it’s going to implode. The pressure becomes unbearable. My mouth opens to scream, but without airflow, I can’t make a sound. Then I’m free, launched like a torpedo by the water pressure pushing from behind. I tumble through the water, limbs flailing for a moment before I’m snagged by what feels like soft, squishy ropes. But I’m not in its stomach. I can feel the water pushing past me.

  While gulping in air, I twist and turn, trying to free myself. At first, I’m not sure why I’m struggling. It doesn’t really matter what part of the whale I’m lodged in. Sooner or later, the parasites will find me, if they haven’t already, or I’ll be melted by stomach acid or drowned. Then I see a flash of blue.

  I turn toward the color again. Beams of sunlight ripple through the water.

  I passed straight through the ruined, stomachless whale! But I’m still stuck. As I fight to free myself, I realize where I am—tangled in the beast’s intestines. I look for the knife in my hands. It’s gone. As is the sample jar. But the mesh bag of sheathed blades is still attached to my weight belt. Fighting against the loop of bowels wrapped around my arm, I reach for the pouch and dig inside. I can’t feel much with my gloved hands, but I find what I think is the thickest handle and pull it out.

  After shaking the knife free of its sheath, I see the glint of a five-inch blade.

  Ignoring the undulations of the gore in front of me, I twist the knife downward, against the pink intestines. The flesh resists the blade for a moment, but then gives in to the steel. The blade passes through the viscera, and it quickly unravels from around my arm. But in slicing the digestive organ, I’ve also provided an exit for the ton of shit—literally—held in the humpback’s gut.

  A brown cloud explodes around me, blocking my view. I gag at the sight despite the wet suit protecting my body from the sludge and the mask keeping me from smelling it. But as disgusting as being showered in whale feces is, it’s the worm-shaped flecks of white wriggling past that turn my stomach. If the parasites hadn’t found my body before, they have now.

  “Jane!” Jakob shouts. “Are you okay?”

  Never better, I think, but I don’t say a word. I’m too focused on freeing myself and getting clear of the shit storm. I’m being dragged by my feet now, and the current has knocked me back, keeping me horizontal. I crouch my legs and stretch my arms down. The first tendril of intestine I find gets knifed a moment later.

  The cloud of filth around me thickens for a moment, but then I’m free and the whale is moving beyond me. I kick away from the cloud billowing out from the backside of the Draugr li
ke a jet contrail. I lose the creature in the cloud.

  “Jane!” Jakob sounds horrified.

  “I’m here,” I say. “I made it out.”

  There’s no “Thank God” or “Are you okay?” though. He’s all business. “Jane, it’s coming back around. We’re coming for you, but it’s going to be close. You’ll have to come to us.”

  I start swimming toward the distant black hull. The whale must have fled after swallowing me. I’m swimming as hard as I can, but it feels like I’m barely moving. That’s when it dawns on me that I’ve lost the DPV. Not only that, but since the DPV is controlled by feet, I’m not wearing swim fins. I might as well be standing still for how fast I can swim. But I try anyway. I’m not about to quit after passing through the gut of a humpback.

  As the Raven gets closer, I realize they’re backing up to me, which will help me get onto the dive deck faster, but the spinning prop will pull me in. The end result will be something like a frog in a blender. Well, not something like. Exactly like.

  “Jakob, cut the engines!” I shout. “I’m almost there.”

  The rumble emanating from the Raven dies down, and I see the prop slow to a stop. The ship is still drifting toward me, but now that it has slowed, it feels impossibly far away. I surface for the first time since my retarded dolphin leap and see Malik standing on the dive deck, waving me on. Behind and above him is Willem. He looks like a noble Viking hero, with his blond hair caught up by the wind, a look of fury carved into his face, and a powerful harpoon gun gripped in both hands—a harpoon gun that seems to be aimed directly at my face.

  When I hear him shout, “Dive,” I understand why.

  The whale is upon me.

  Without looking back, I dive beneath the surface and kick as hard as I can.

  I hear a muffled crack, followed by an impact, a high-pitched squeal, and then—oblivion.

  A concussive force hits me hard at the same time I hear its deafening roar. I feel pain on every bit of my body. And then, nothing.

  If I weren’t wearing the mask, I’m sure I would have drowned. But I just kind of float limply like one of the many hunks of whale meat bobbing around me. I’m only partly aware of this. I’m flickering in and out of consciousness, severely dazed. I’m so far gone that when something wraps around me from behind, I don’t fight against it.

  What happens next is a blur. I’m moving—being pulled, really. Then I feel heavy. The weightlessness of water is gone. I’m lying on my back. I hear voices. Shouting. My name.

  Despite the volume and intensity of the voices around me, I feel comforted by the knowledge that I’m on the Raven. Someone came in to get me. But then some of the words filter in: “get it off,” “parasites,” “careful,” “everywhere.” I finally register what’s happening to my body. I’m being manhandled. I’m yanked, pushed, and pulled like I’m the last piece of candy that spilled out of Hansel and Gretel’s birthday piñata.

  My eyes snap open with a surge of adrenaline. The first thing I see is Jakob, Helena, and Malik standing over me. Reaching toward me. Hurting me. Then I look down, following their eyes. The top of my wet suit is missing, as is everything I wore beneath it. But the sight of my bare breasts doesn’t even faze me. I’ve already seen what’s below them.

  Malik, wearing rubber fishing gloves, has his hands wrapped around the waist of my wet suit and is forcibly removing it. I scream at the sight, but not because I think Malik is trying to harm me. In fact, he’s trying to save me. Either during my passage through the whale’s body or when I was coated in waste, or both, thousands of maggot-like parasites began gnawing their way through my wet suit. Had it not been the extra-thick variant designed for cold water, they might have reached my skin.

  They still might, which is why the crew is tearing away my clothes with wild abandon. I kick with my feet, aiding Malik’s efforts. Jakob lifts me from under the armpits and pulls. The wet suit rolls in on itself, concealing the parasites as it slips free. Malik gathers up the freed clothing, bunches it up, and tosses it overboard, which I presume is where the rest of my clothes went.

  Still, I feel no shame as I get my feet beneath me and start rubbing my hands over my body, inspecting every inch for a wound.

  “Nothing on your back,” Helena says.

  When I look at her, I notice that Jakob and Malik have both turned away. So I think nothing of it when I drop my panties and give my feminine parts a once-over.

  “Clear in the back,” Helena says. For a moment I’m surprised and a little shocked that she’s inspected my ass, but ultimately I appreciate it. That is, until she says, “Hold on.”

  “What!” I say.

  “On the side of your right calf.”

  I yank up my underwear and twist my leg to look. There’s a white spot surrounded by red, irritated skin on the side of my leg halfway between my knee and ankle. I fall to the deck, twisting my leg back for a closer look. Three-quarters of the inch-long parasite is still sticking out of my leg. My instinct is to reach down and yank the thing out, but I have no idea if these things are like worms. If it breaks on the way out, the half inside my body might grow to become a fully functional adult.

  I pinch my skin and try to squeeze it out like an oversize whitehead. But it doesn’t budge. Instead, it wiggles frantically back and forth, and I can feel its tiny jaws chewing at my flesh.

  “Keep it pinched,” Helena says as she crouches beside me.

  I do as she says, but then I see a knife in her hand.

  “Don’t cut it in half,” I say.

  I can’t see what she’s doing as she leans in close, but I feel the flat side of the blade touch my finger for a moment. “I’m going to get the whole thing.”

  I’m about to ask for some clarification, but then her arm whips to the side. For a moment, I feel nothing. Then a burning sting rises up through my leg, eliciting a pain-filled cry from my mouth. When she stands I see the chunk of leg flesh I’d pinched together between her fingers. The parasite, whole and living, had yet to pass through.

  As she stands with the chunk of meat in her hands, I see what she’s about to do and try to stop her, but my voice is stopped by an involuntary gasp from the pain.

  With a flick of her wrist, she tosses the sheet of skin—and the parasite sample we needed—overboard. I don’t bother mentioning it. It’s too late now.

  Suddenly, Willem is by my side, first aid kit in hand. Like Helena, he’s unfazed by my nakedness. He should be, after all. He’s seen me more naked than this three times before—after getting out of the hospital and before I started picking bar fights. Without a word, he sets to work on my leg, cleaning it and then attempting to wrap it in gauze. But he’s struggling. His hands are shaking.

  That’s when I notice his pale blue lips, shaking hands, and drenched hair. “You came in after me,” I say. It’s more of an observation than a question.

  He nods, but it looks more like a seizure.

  “Willem,” Helena says, taking the gauze from his hands and shoving him to the side. “Go change and warm yourself!”

  After just a moment’s pause, he glances at me. When our eyes meet, I see relief in his face. He might be glad I’m alive, but I’m not the one telling him to go take care of himself, am I?

  Willem obeys and disappears from the deck.

  Helena attends to my wound, quickly and tightly wrapping it. The dressing will have to be changed soon—blood is already threatening to seep through, but it’s no longer flowing from my body like a mountain spring.

  I’m about to thank her when I hear Talbot shout, “Captain! Klein says we’ve got a GPS distress call coming from four miles away. But the radar screen shows a large target eleven miles out and closing at thirty knots. The GPS signal is dead smack between us. I reckon we can beat the incoming target to the distress beacon if we go full steam ahead.”

  While I just sit there wondering, Now what? Jakob rattles out a string of commands. “Ahead, full throttle! Get us there first! Helena, get back to the bow
. Man the harpoons. Malik, stay here and be ready to take on survivors.” He turns to me. “And you. Go take care of yourself. But do it quickly. The fight isn’t over yet.”

  12

  I limp my way through the ship, clutching the first aid kit and wrapped in a blanket. By the time I reach the second deck, I’m trailing drops of blood. My leg is throbbing, but the pain is bearable. Maybe because of adrenaline. Maybe because of elation at not being in the stomach of a zombie-whale. Maybe because I’m in shock. Who knows? I can’t complain.

  Of course, when I sit on my bedside and peel off the wound’s dressing, I complain. A lot. The gauze pulls away small dollops of coagulated blood, reopening the wound. I watch the blood rolling over my leg. It’s dripping all over the braided rug. I’m not freaked out by the blood. I just don’t want to do what comes next.

  Man up, I tell myself. When I was a kid, the Colonel did this part. He was merciless about it. “Just grit your teeth and take it. Next time be smart enough to not get injured.” I never pointed out the number of scars crisscrossing his body. I was smart enough to know that wouldn’t go well. But his advice got me through a number of childhood gashes. It would get me through this.

  I unscrew the rubbing alcohol. It was included with the first aid kit for sterilization, not wound cleaning. And I know it’s going to destroy good and bad cells alike. My father should have never used the stuff on my scrapes. But there’s no way in hell I’m going to risk leaving behind even a tiny fragment of that parasite.

  As I move the bottle over my leg, the ship takes a wave hard, slamming through the water. The impact jars my arm and spills a few drops of alcohol. The drops strike my wound like little bombs, exploding pain beyond that of the original injury. I scream for a moment but swallow it down, grit my teeth like Daddy taught me, and douse the leg in liquid fire.