The Aeschylus

1

They arrived to pandemonium. Doctor Grey's Carrion had come, and the whalers did not stand a chance.

Lucja's companion pulled the bike up to the wooden docks, hoping to get them close to the nearest departing ship. As they dismounted, she saw they had come too late. The ship was overloaded with seven or eight blackened figures, all clutching and climbing from the water. It began to sink under their weight, and in seconds, the men on board were torn apart.

“Over here!”

She looked further up the walk and saw a man standing outside one of the warehouses, beckoning.

“The last ship is over there! If we hurry, we can—”

A shape pounced off of a nearby roof and landed on top of him. Lucja thought it had once been a dog. It tore off the man's face in two quick bites.

Jan drew his pistol and fired his last three shots, then tossed the gun into the water and began to run, dragging Lucja behind him. The dog-thing, hurt but not dead, started limping after them.

Dead littered the walk. The ships had gone, leaving the stragglers to fend for themselves against the oncoming horrors. She could hear screaming as men were dragged from their hiding spots into the dark. The wood beneath her feet lay stained with blood.

“Keep going!” Jan said. “With me!” He was breathing hard but still outpacing her.

Several men clung to life at the edges of the docks, reaching towards the sea and the brothers who had left them behind. One such man grabbed a bone saw to defend himself but could do nothing against the horde, and soon found himself pinned to a deck bollard, his legs disappearing in a whirl of claws and teeth. He looked at Lucja, his eyes glazing over, then used the saw to cut his own throat.

“It's too late!” she cried, hot tears running down her face. “They're going to get us!”

“They're not going to get us! Look!”

Lucja saw one more boat, and it was a big one, a catcher ship. It had left the pier but was drifting slowly from the shore. It looked just like The Adalgisa, and for a moment, she thought it was The Adalgisa, but that couldn't be.

As they turned onto the final deck, the last straight line to the water, Lucja heard footfalls. She looked over her shoulder and saw three humanoid shapes running after them. They had caught their scent and were tearing up the deck.

“Jump!” Jan yelled. “Into the water!”

They leapt from the end of the pier, flying into the murky dark. An instant before she hit, Lucja remembered her sister and what the water had done to her. And then the cold washed over her, freezing her bones solid. Against all odds, she kept her mouth closed, willing herself not to drown. An instant later, she was swimming. Jan had never asked if she could swim, but it wouldn't have mattered; it was swim or die.

A moment later, she felt her arms grow sluggish, the cold overwhelming her. She wanted to cough but knew if she did, she wouldn't be able to stop. She kept going, focusing on the back of the ship and the name etched into the metal: The Cheruta.

Hands were suddenly around her waist, and before she knew what was happening, she was being hoisted into the air. A man from the ship had grabbed her and was now lifting her on board. The man set her feet down to the wood, and before she could blink, she was safe… safe!

The man went back to the rails and reached down for Jan. “Give me your hand! Come on, reach!”

But Jan was too far away; the cold had almost taken him.

On the side wall, she saw a lifebuoy tied to a rope. No one else had thought to grab it, so she did, taking the heavy object in her hand. She moved to the side of the ship, and the men parted for her.

“Let her pass!” one of them said.

“Toss it to him!” yelled another. “Before it's too late!”

As Lucja looked over the side, Jan stopped struggling. He saw her there, standing with the thing in her hands, and waited. His eyes seemed to know what she was picturing. She was seeing Jan as he really was. Not just her savior, but the man who had helped take her mother, the man who had kept her father imprisoned, the man who had stood by when her sister was killed. She was seeing the man who had pushed her father away when only two of them could fit on the motorcycle.

For the thousandth time, Lucja thought about the way Dominik had looked on the deck of The Adalgisa, the ax raised over his head. She thought about what she had seen in his face. She thought about what it was like to hold the power of life and death in your hands and the choices that would stay with you forever.

The moment passed.

She tossed the lifebuoy over the side, and Jan caught it. In seconds, the others were helping him onto the deck, and the island was disappearing behind them.

When he was up, he stooped and put a hand on her head, still breathing hard. “I will help you find your mother,” he said. “I promise you.”

She nodded, his hand like ice on her cheek. But just then, she wasn't thinking about her mother. She was still thinking about her father, and all the things he had done to make sure that she — Lucja — was the one standing on the deck of this ship.

“Goodbye,” she whispered, her voice dying in the wind. “Goodbye, Father.”

2

As Dominik passed through the gate, The Carrion ignored him, focused on the ones with the guns. The soldiers had yet to grasp they didn't have enough bullets. Eventually, they would all be dragged from the base. They would go screaming or they would go unconscious, but they would all go on their backs, their bodies instruments of some terrible new purpose.

Ari was standing where Dominik had left him, his hands huddled by his face. “There's nowhere to go! They're everywhere, Dom!”

“We'll find you somewhere safe.”

“There's nowhere safe!”

“There is. I promise.” His voice sounded strangely calm to his own ears. He supposed he knew why. Lucja was safe — or would be soon — and in a way, nothing else mattered. “Trust me, Ari.”

Dominik led his friend across the grounds, avoiding the hole leading to the lab. He could smell formaldehyde drifting up from the leaking tank and thought that it might be hours before it petered out. He stepped over a body by the hole, then another. To his left, he saw the remains of young Sergeant Metzger. The boy's head was missing, torn off at the neck, but Dominik could still see the silver cross on his chest. He saw Gloeckner and half a dozen others he recognized nearby, all of them silent and still.

In the thick of it all, they found the only building with its door still intact, and Dominik guided his friend to the entrance. Just before they stepped through, one of the blackened shapes leapt from the inside, stopping to shriek directly into their faces. Then it bounded off into the night, leaving them unharmed. A moment later, the generator lights cut out, and the sphere of night closed tightly around them.

Ari was near collapse. “I… I don't think I can—”

“Don't quit on me now, Ari!”

They stepped inside, and Dominik shut the door, sealing them into the supply bunker. They were alone.

“We have to be quiet.”

“All right,” the other man said. “I can do quiet. I can do that.”

Dominik felt his way past the shelves and the various crates and sacks scattered about the place, Ari's hand still clasped in his own. The place was sealed tight, and it was incredibly stuffy inside. Dominik wondered if the place was air-tight, but even if it was, they didn't have a choice. They were staying.

“Over here.”

The two of them sat against the wall at the back of the bunker, their arms wrapped about one another. The walls were thick, but they could hear shouts and thumps outside of the place. Ari was particularly affected, mumbling and whispering every time he heard something in spite of his promise. But after some time, the noises stopped.

In the dark, Ari began to weep. “We should have known,” he said. “We should have done something.”

“He who learns must suffer; and even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom by the awful grace of God.”

Ari sniffed, and Dominik heard him laugh a little. “What is that, a poem? It's beautiful.”

He smiled painfully in the dark, thinking back to his days at the university, a time when such a thing might have mattered. “I can't remember.”

“Then let's just stay here for a while. Will you hold me?”

“I will, Ari.”

Side by side, they slept, holding one another to stave off the dark. It was there they would stay, arm-in-arm, until eternity claimed them.