Gale Force

75

McKenna took a walk as the ship leveled out beneath her. It was late afternoon, and the pumping operation continued to proceed as planned. Still, she wanted to inspect the ship, now that the deck was flat enough to walk: about twenty degrees of list remained, and steadily decreasing. The ship was upright enough now that she’d been able to hook up a generator to the emergency power. The Lion was still largely dark, but the crew had managed to get a few of the lights back on.

Anyway, there was something bothering her, though she was loathe to admit it. Both Harrington and Ridley had reported a nest in the accommodations house; stranger still, they’d both claimed they’d seen some kind of ghost.

McKenna didn’t believe in ghosts. But a man had died on this ship, a man who’d apparently bailed on his crewmates to return here. She wanted to set her mind at ease, prove to herself that her architect and her engineer were mistaken.

Harrington was somewhere aft, working through some calculations on his laptop. McKenna checked in with Ridley and Jason, told the deckhand to be ready to head back to the Gale Force tonight.

“Spell your dad,” she said. “Sleep in your own bunk. Call your son and sing him something more soothing than Al’s outlaw country.”

Jason nodded, his nose in that romance novel. “I just want to see if she gets the guy in the end.”

“Kid’s a born-again romantic,” Ridley said. “Heart of gold.”

He and McKenna laughed at the blush that spread over the deckhand’s face. Then McKenna climbed back up to the deck—using the ladder and the stairs this time, instead of walking on the walls—and set out to survey the ship.

She walked up and down the starboard deck first, gazed out over the railing at the vast bay that spread out in front of her. The terrain up here was like some kind of painting: no trees on the shore, just rock and low lichen, electric-green. The bay itself was deep blue, almost black, rippled with wind and whitecaps. It was a lonely place, even with the Coast Guard cutter anchored nearby. The land was windswept and barren, the air bracing. The place was a moonscape, a frontier.

People aren’t supposed to be here, she thought. Not places like this. But here we are, anyway.

The thought made her feel uneasy, and the uneasiness made her feel stupid, but there you had it. This was a strange, hostile place, and that was before you factored in Harrington’s “ghost.”

McKenna walked down the starboard deck to the exhaust funnel at the stern, then back up to the bridge. Opened the bridge door and peered inside, at the papers and charts strewn everywhere, the spilled coffee creamers. The electronics were dark, and the room was quiet, filled everywhere with the reminders of the men who’d fled the Lion not so long ago.

McKenna found the passageway down the middle of the ship. Switched on her headlamp and followed the passageway aft, past the captain’s suite, the officers’ staterooms. Found the stateroom where Ridley and Harrington had claimed they’d seen someone, the starboard side, scanned the room and saw nothing amiss.

A few doors down, on the portside of the ship, was where they’d claimed to have found the nest. McKenna tried to muffle her steps as she approached the door. Could feel her heart rate start to increase. When she’d reached the threshold, she counted to three and looked in the doorway. A pile of bedding on the floor, and in the corner, just as the men had reported, a pile of trash beside it.

But the ghost, whoever he was, wasn’t here.

McKenna continued aft. Checked the rest of the staterooms, came to the galley. Held her breath to avoid inhaling the rancid air, and scanned the dark room with her headlamp. Another pile of empty cans, ten, fifteen easy. Thrown away in the corner. McKenna felt ice up her spine, and it might have just been because she was spooked out, a little, but her spidey sense was tingling just a little, too.

They pulled a body from this wreck.

McKenna took a breath, had to, immediately regretted it, the air was so foul. The galley was devoid of life, anyway; no sense hanging around here. She backed away from the door and continued down the passageway aft, checking the crew quarters and finding nothing amiss.

Just past the galley, a stairway down to the cargo holds. And here, more mystery: a pair of climbing ropes, lying discarded on the stairs. McKenna followed the stairs down.

The lines stopped at the first cargo deck. There was a watertight bulkhead door at the landing, and it lay open. On the other side, McKenna could see more signs of human life: energy bar wrappers, a couple of batteries. The crew of the Salvation had stopped here, clearly.

McKenna paused again, to listen. Heard nothing but her heart in her chest. She was getting kind of freaked, she realized.

There’s nobody here. What would they even be doing on this ship? Why wouldn’t they have shown themselves, like, a week ago?

She followed the climbing lines back to the accommodations deck. Continued down the passageway aft, past more crew quarters, the officers’ lounge. An exercise room. All empty. That left only the infirmary. Fine. She was ready to get back out to fresh air.

The door to the infirmary was closed. McKenna turned the handle and pushed, felt resistance. Strange. The door was unlocked, but there was something blocking it from within. She pushed harder, and the door gave a little. She tried again.

Why are you even doing this? she thought. So something shifted during the wreck. What are you trying to prove?

She was trying to prove that there wasn’t a ghost, she decided. She was trying to prove to Court Harrington that he was wrong.

She pushed again. This time, something crashed to the deck behind the door, and the door fell open. And McKenna stumbled into the infirmary, and found herself face-to-face with the barrel of a gun.