Sail

On quiet feet, as silent as I could be on a titanium ship where every breath echoed, I followed Mase. The blood thundering through my veins sounded much louder than my tiptoes thumping over the metal floor.

I slowed when I neared Randolph’s door, my gasps pluming out in front of me in a cloudy haze. His metal door had been kicked in, not enough to knock it down, but hard enough so it looked like the door had been sucked inward. A titanium door. Had that been the pounding I’d heard at the end of my call to Moon? But what kind of ghost was strong enough to bend metal? I didn’t want to find out.

The next door was the same. And the next. Every door I passed had been sucked inward. I tried the levers but with no luck.

Maybe the best idea would be to turn back, search the cupboards and stasis pantry for the millionth time for anything else I could take apart, and hope that the ghosts and Daryl forgot about me. As much as I wished that to happen, I knew it wouldn’t. I fisted my hands, trying with no luck to still the shivers racing over my skin, and continued onward.

Mase had gone left, away from the elevator, down a dim hallway I’d never been before. But as soon as the sputtering, broken light was behind me, he’d already disappeared.

I didn’t even know where the scream from earlier came from, and it could take me hours to scour the whole ship. Hours where there could be any number of things creeping up behind me. Stalking. Reaching. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. The cold ate into my lungs with each trembling breath. I whirled around to face nothing but a swinging, crackling light.

The last door, the one I’d just passed and the one the light bounced over again and again, hadn’t been kicked in. I stepped closer. Faint, almost invisible, stenciled red letters spelled VICIO across it at eye level, but it didn’t look right. It wasn’t centered, like whoever had lettered it had done a poor job. Curious, since all ships went through rigorous yearly inspections. Surely someone would have noticed and corrected it. But when the light swung away, the shadows darkened it and wiped the letters from sight. It was only when the light shined directly on it that it was visible. Did that mean the ghosts broke the light to spotlight this room in particular?

Since I’d already lost Mase, I tried the lever, thinking I’d search the room for iron, and the door swung open without a sound. Putrid air drifted out, a mix of burned furnace and cleaning chemicals. A heavy darkness hung inside so thick, not even the bouncing light outside could penetrate it. I shuffled closer to search for a switch along the inside wall, sucking hard on the nail in my mouth. The closer I edged to the doorframe, the tighter the dread knotted around my lungs. Something wasn’t right.

“Stop him!” a male voice shouted from both right and left, just behind me or a ship-length away. It was impossible to tell.

Stop who? Daryl? Had he escaped his quarters?

Footsteps. Running. Pounding. From everywhere all at once.

A cry escaped my mouth. I needed more iron. I needed to get away. Both of my needs warred with each other because I couldn’t do one until I got the other.

I reached a hand into the midnight room and slid it against the inner wall as far as I could stretch. Cold dashed across my fingertips and up my arm. Tingles pricked my scalp in waves, and I had the overwhelming urge to snatch my hand back and run. But what if all the other doors were locked?

“He’s going to kill—” Another voice yelled, but cut himself off with a loud grunt.

Me, I finished for him.

A guttural, hungry growl sounded from inside the blackened room.

I lurched back and threw myself across the hallway and against the opposite wall. Was that Daryl in there? Or something else?

Tears pricked my eyes as I stared into the room. The icy wall behind me froze me to it, and I couldn’t move no matter how much I wanted to. I opened my mouth to call out to someone, anyone, but only a rusty gasp came out.

Movement to the right caught my eye. A huge, shadowy form stood at the other end of the hallway, right outside where I thought the dining room would be. Whatever or whoever it was didn’t face the door; it faced me. Just standing, staring. And then charging.

I ran.

A loud roar sounded behind me and a scream that might’ve been my own.

My nightmares lived on this ship. They’d been waiting to return from my childhood from the moment I stepped aboard the Vicio to torment me, chase me through the halls, and crumple my existence into aluminum.

Breathless, I slid blindly around corners with no idea where to go or where I’d been. Every hallway looked the same, and I couldn’t even begin to map them on the periodic table in my mind, because I didn’t know where Fe, my iron anchor, was. If I could find the broken light, I could find the dining room. I’d find the dining room when I had actual iron gripped in my fist.

I risked a glance behind, but nothing chased me. Only the stretch of an empty, silent hallway. My heart thundered as I stared down it, expecting it to switch from unoccupied to not in the space between beats. I stood there for what felt like days, just to be sure nothing moved, especially the shadows beyond the intermittent lights.

Finally, I took a slow step, my breaths so shallow I couldn’t even hear them. And another. For every step I took, I looked twice over each shoulder.

Up ahead, a circle of faded light spilled to the floor from a window in a door. Maybe Mase and the captain were in there with the doctor tied up between them. Someone had to be in there if the light was on, right? Feozva’s hell, I’d even be glad to see Nesbit.

I crept toward the circle on the floor, wondering why the outer edges were lit, but the center wasn’t. What kind of strange light shined in a donut-like circle? Unless it wasn’t a light. Unless blood smeared the middle.

I jerked my hand to my mouth when I reached the door. Dark red rivulets streaked the inside of the glass window from a large crack in the center. Tufts of glossy blond hair had caught inside a chip in the glass. Daryl’s. The polite doctor who I never thought would hurt anyone. What had happened here? Had someone done that to him? Or did he do it to himself?

I didn’t want to know. Whatever had happened in there could stay in there, because nothing could make me peer through all that blood or the small crack between the door and the frame to see what the rest of the room looked like.

So I ran away from that hidden terror, trying lever after lever to search for anything made of iron.

One finally popped open, and I stumbled into a set of stairs that rose upward. I climbed on shaky legs and crept out the next door one story above.

I squinted under the glare of a high ceiling full of heat lamps that emitted no warmth from where I stood fifteen feet below. A hundred or so four-legged teralinguas, the Vicio’s precious cargo, swept long, bushy gray tails from side to side over the grated flooring in perfect sync, likely communicating an attempt at escape telepathically. Teralinguas were known for their high intelligence and complex getaway plans, but were even better known as an extravagant meat.

I couldn’t blame them for wanting to leave, and my heart went out to them, especially since their lives would end inside a giant ice slug on one of Jupiter’s moons. Even if I freed them, where would they go? They were as trapped as I was.

The fur mixed with poop smell just about doubled me back, but on the other side of the cavernous room was a single door. I’d sprinted nose first into unexplored territory. There had to be something around here made of iron that I could take apart with my ice pick.

I began to tread carefully around the animals that stood hip-high, not one hundred percent sure how friendly they were. They raised long snouts tipped with black button noses to test the air around me, to tell if I was friend or foe.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

They blinked at me with their orange, intelligent eyes half-hidden behind long, dark eyelashes. I resisted the urge to pet their fine gray coats that looked earlobe soft and tried to harden myself against their desperate situation while I focused on the door ahead.

About halfway across, something, somewhere, crashed into titanium. I yelped and jerked to a stop. The teralinguas shrieked so loud, I smashed my hands to my ears. Their piercing wails sent shivers up and down my back and brought tears to my eyes. I had to get out of there or my head would burst.

But the teralinguas crowded around me, their panic fueling mine to a raging fire, making forward momentum almost impossible. They were dashing away from the door I’d just come through, the door that was now swinging open.

Someone stood just outside of it in the dim hallway, the top half of their body drooping like it was too much effort to hold it up.

I wished it was Randolph standing there, or Mase or the captain, but the person’s build and the way they stepped into the room, not directly toward me but to skirt around it with a tapping finger at the ready, told me everything I needed to know.

“Daryl,” I choked out, but it was lost in the teralinguas’ screams and the roaring urge to flee through my veins.

Blood dripped down one side of his face. A large gash by his hairline matted most of his hair in red spikes that hung in his glowing green eyes. The sleeves of his silk suit hung past his fingertips in torn rags. His red scarf dragged behind him like a trail of blood. Whatever had happened to him was still happening.

I backed toward the opposite door, tripping over hoofs and swishing tails, while the teralinguas cowered away from him and pressed against me. Daryl eased around the first corner with nothing impeding his way except his random tapping. He might get to the exit at the same time I did, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. I should go back the way I came, back to the door he’d just entered since he needed to tap the room first before he attacked me again. At least, I hoped that was what he needed to do.

My gaze glued to him, I doubled back, my movements stiff and jerky with the need to escape in a hurry.

“It’s in you, James,” Daryl shouted with a maniacal laugh. “I smelled it. I want it. I’ll cut you open and slurp it from your insides.”

Feozva, get me out of here. But the teralinguas wouldn’t stay out from under my feet. They huddled around me and stayed far, far away from him. Some had already shot through the open door in front of me. Daryl was almost at the opposite door, then he only had half a wall and another to go before he released himself and targeted me.

“Go,” I begged, shooing the creatures toward the door.

Behind me, the door crashed open just before Daryl reached it. A snarl rumbled from the darkness beyond. Decay wafted in and overpowered the stink of teralinguas. Three long finger-like tendrils of black smoke curled over both sides of the frame.

No. Nonononono. I fumbled for a piece of iron in my pockets before I remembered they were empty. There was nothing left except the nail I had in my mouth. A scream welled in my throat, but if I belted it out, the iron might fall out too. Then there would be nothing but me, the ghost, and Daryl. Tears pricked my eyes at the effort to keep my scream contained as I stumbled into the shrieking teralinguas.

The long smoky fingers on either side of the doorframe pushed the titanium into a wider yawn, but Daryl didn’t seem to notice as he passed. His hungry gaze was pinned to me. Something growled at the same time he bared his teeth, but I couldn’t be sure it was him.

Then whatever stood outside that door charged. The grating under Daryl’s feet leaped into the air, throwing him up with it. His screams reverberated through my ears.

I hurtled myself over the remaining teralinguas, shot through the door in front of me, and ran blindly around corners until I saw a control panel on a wall. An elevator. I jabbed at the green button again and again while daring glances over my shoulder at anything that might be coming at me.

My heart pulsing wildly, I leaped into the opening elevator. The door closed before several escaped teralinguas, who looked just as terrified and confused as I probably did, could follow.

The elevator sank to the second floor with a long, creaking groan. When it opened, the broken light appeared ahead, which meant I’d found my haven. I allowed myself a small amount of relief to fill my lungs.

I rounded the corner and saw Mase staggering to his feet. He used the wall behind him for support and held his head in his hands. The wall opposite Randolph’s room. Which was now open. I skidded to a stop, terror curling tight in my gut.

A hungry growl sounded from inside the room. Blood streamed out onto the solid square of floor, and something stepped out after it. Something that definitely wasn’t human.

Its huge, transparent frame towered over Mase. Shiny gray scales covered it from head to talon. Two long arms hung at its side, and underneath, two more reached for Mase, all four of them tipped with enormous claws. And Mase shook his head like he saw stars instead of what stood just a yard away.

“Mase, get away,” I hissed, but he held up a hand to ward me off.

“Stay there,” he said, clutching his head with his other hand and wincing.

His false sense of security he had in his mouth wouldn’t help. I didn’t think. I just acted on the same fierce need to shield him from danger that Mase must’ve felt when he heaved Daryl off me. Even though the last iron piece in my mouth had dissolved into the size of a pinpoint.

The few feet that separated us passed in a blur. I threw myself in front of him and backed him behind me into the wall. Our combined breaths blew out in front of us toward the cold nightmare that had come out of that room.

It stood so close that the small clouds heaving from our mouths shuddered the air around the ghost in front of us, outlining the monster in vivid detail: a pointed chin at the bottom of an elongated face, long rows of jagged teeth hanging from its snout, and glowing green eyes.

Behind me, Mase heaved his chest against my back, then pushed something into my mouth. Tangy and metallic, my next breath reformed my iron armor. I just hoped it would be enough for the both of us.