Zombie Ocean (Book 7): The Lash by Grist Michael John

Author:Grist, Michael John [Grist, Michael John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Zombie Apocalypse
Published: 2017-04-18T06:00:00+00:00

12. TRIDENT

I find Keeshom and Arnst in one of the staterooms on the way back up. I must have seen them earlier without realizing it, but then there's a lot I haven't realized lately. The bandage of Drake has blinded me for weeks, keeping the true extent of what I've done a secret while the wound beneath festered and spread. You can't kill yourself inside and just be fine.

I'm not fine.

I stand in the doorway and Keeshom looks up at me with a crumpled kind of hatred, like his body is a wrecked car and his face the shattered grille. Once this kind of look would have had me bent double in discomfort, struggling to understand.

Now I welcome it.

Their room smells of alcohol disinfectant and ammonia. Arnst looks like shit, lank and pale lying on his front with his scarred back open to the air. His eyes are open and he's watching me too, but who knows if that's fear or not. His back is healing over, the lash marks and welts slowly shedding their carbuncles of scabs, while the dark continent of bruising from his neck to his hips has faded to a jaundiced yellow.

"Get ready," I say.

Arnst rolls off his belly, pulling winces from Keeshom, and slides up into a tilted sitting position. He probably can't sit properly without substantial pain. Keeshom knows it, and feels the weight. I hammered that guilt in deep.

"We're closing on Europe," I say. "I'm going to need you both above decks, helping Feargal with whatever shit he's doing. Arnst, I need you on your feet."

His eyes are heavily lidded.

"What's your plan?" he asks.

He's not afraid of me. Good for him.

I tell them the plan. It's loosely connected to the nonsense I was filling sheets of paper with above, though all those sketches served a double purpose, honing a skill I didn't even know I had; a way to manipulate the hydrogen line.

Drake taught me, I suppose. Experience made it plain, and I know I'm not the first to attempt it. I've seen the video of Cerulean's transformation in Julio's pit, and I'm sure he did it too. During his final moments as his body swelled into a demon, he exercised control just long enough to save Peters and the rest. He had seconds only to master it, but still he gave us all a chance.

I've had nearly three weeks.

Standing in the doorway, I work these new pathways Drake and I built in my mind, carved out of my own art. It does seem fitting, that the same creative outlet that once brought on the twinges has now made me master of them. I sketch the outcome I want to see in my head, and the black light swells out of me like a fog, thickening the air.

Keeshom is the first to respond; just like Feargal in the madhouse, his eyes go black and his skin tinges gray. Arnst follows. I don't understand it, but then I didn't understand the blast that began

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