Sea Change (19 page)

"I'm so sorry,
Simon," John said. "I'm so sorry. But we've got to move. That's all
it was, something sent to slow us down. All it was."

Simon stood
still for a moment longer, looking out into the water. Then he
turned and walked back up the ramp without a word.

They hurried
along the harbour wall, the cold fingers of the mist tugging at
their skin. John looked back, and he could see dark shapes moving
within the mist. They were blurred, and he could not make out what
they were. He was glad that he could not.

"Here!" Simon
shouted, his voice hoarse. "This one." They all skidded to a halt.
There was a dip in the harbour wall, a narrow gap that could be
stepped over. Beyond it, a rusting iron ladder clung precariously
to the stone and vanished down into the water. Tied to the bottom
of the ladder, by a length of blue plastic rope, was Uncle Davey's
boat. The water rolled beneath it, and the boat surged in towards
the steps, so close that it touched, and then it bobbed back out
into the harbour, too far to jump from the ladder.

"We can't do
this," Simon said, staring at the water.

"We have to,"
John said, and he moved between the two of them. "We have to. We
can't run any more. Look what's behind you." Simon and Sal turned
and looked into the mist, and then looked back at John,
horrified.

"What is it?"
Sal asked.

"What are
they?" Simon said. "What's that noise?"

John shrugged.
"I don't know. Don't want to find out. Do you?"

Sal turned and
stepped over the dip in the wall, grabbing hold of the ladder. She
scrambled down, waited on the bottom rung until the waves brought
the boat close, and then simply stepped across and on to it. Simon
looked down at the water, looked at John.

"I'm going
last,” John said, and Simon did not argue. Sal held her arms out,
bracing her feet on the boat's deck, riding with the swell. Simon
looked down at the water again, swallowed, and then climbed over.
He reached the bottom of the ladder, and the boat moved within
reach, but he hesitated and it moved away again.

"Come on Si,"
Sal said. "It's got to be this time."

But again he
hesitated, again the boat moved in and then away. The mist was
starting to thicken around John, and his skin began to feel like
ice. The dark shapes were forming, becoming more coherent, coming
closer.

"Si," he
said.

The boat was
only halfway in, and Simon jumped. He nearly missed the boat but
his front foot just landed on the side rail. He teetered for a
moment, almost lost his balance and fell backwards, but as he
flailed one arm forward Sal grabbed it, and pulled him down and
onto the safety of the boat's deck.

It was only
when John stepped up onto the harbour wall that he realised that he
was holding the stone and would have to climb down the ladder one
handed. He hesitated for a moment, and Simon and Sal both started
shouting up at him to get a move on. Then it dawned on Sal.

"Throw it
down," she said.

"No way," John
said.

"We'll catch
it, John." Simon had cottoned on by now.

"No way. The
boat's moving too much. If it gets dropped here, we can never get
it out. But he might be able to. It's got to be in Hob's Hole."
John gripped the stone so tight with one hand that the metal felt
as if it were cutting into his flesh, and grabbed hold of the
ladder with the other. He swung his feet round, and found the first
rung. Then he stepped down, until his arm was stretched above his
head, made sure his feet were securely on a rung, took a deep
breath, and let go of the ladder with his hand for a moment,
dropping his arm and grabbing on further down. He did it too fast,
and the momentum of the action swung his balance out and away from
the wall, and as it did one foot slipped on the wet metal and
fumbled out into empty space.

"John!" Simon
and Sal shouted together. He gripped the ladder hard with his right
hand, kept the stone pressed close to him, brought his foot back on
to the ladder. He took a breath, willing himself to stay calm,
knowing that he'd have to repeat the process at least twice more to
reach the foot of the ladder. As he paused, he looked up, and then
wished he hadn't. He could not see beyond the top of the wall for a
swirling cloud that was thickening by the second, pouring over the
lip in the harbour wall like cream. As the mist eddied, John
thought that he saw something that looked like a pair of eyes, lit
by hatred, and a dark hand reaching, reaching.

He squeezed the
jet to his chest, held on to the ladder with his hand, turned his
body to the side and saw the boat below, moving in, riding out on
the waves.

"John, no!" Sal
shouted, but he was not listening. The ladder was getting cold
under his hand, colder than it should have been, colder than
anything ought to be. The boat moved in and John let go of the
ladder, pushed out with his foot, and suddenly everything around
him was darkness and space and he was falling, and then the wooden
deck of the boat came rushing up to meet him, and Sal and Simon
were breaking his fall and trying not to be fallen on all at the
same time, and he dropped the jet but it just rolled away across
the deck and came to rest in a tangled pile of plastic netting.
John waited for a surge of pain that would tell him that he had
broken something, twisted something, but it did not come. He was
winded though, and could hardly speak, but he gestured frantically
with his hand.

"What? Are you
okay? Oh, yes, yes, hell—Si, untie the boat, quickly."

Simon didn't
need to be asked twice, he leapt for the side of the boat and
scrabbled at the knot that was round tight around a cleat. He tore
at it with his fingers but could not get it undone.

"The knot's
tight and my hands are too cold," he said. “You have a go,
Sal."

"But I need to
start the engine and—"

"Go then, go,
do the engine!" Simon dived into the wheelhouse, and John heard a
series of bangs and clatters. Sal darted in after him, and after a
moment Simon came tearing back out, a knife in his hand. John was
starting to regain his breath now, and he scrabbled over the
pitching deck and grabbed hold of the stone again. Underneath him,
there was a dull coughing, then a thump, then silence. Simon leaned
over the side of the boat and sawed at the rope with the knife. A
slender arm of mist reached down from the ladder and pawed at his
face. He shrieked, seeing something in it that John could not see,
and slashed the knife through the air.

"Ignore it,
Si," John shouted. "Focus on the rope. It's trying to distract
you." Simon bent over the rope again and this time the mist came
down in flowing waves, wrapping around him until John could hardly
see his face. Then there was another thump, a throatier cough this
time, and then the engine hammered into life and suddenly the boat
was straining away from the rope, leaving it taut. Simon made one
last desperate hack, the rope parted, and the boat shot away from
the wall, nearly pitching him into the water. John made a dive for
the side and grabbed hold of Simon's legs, dropping the stone again
in the process.

"I'm fine, I'm
fine," Simon said. "Just wish people would stop grabbing at me, I'm
not an idiot, I won't fall in."

"Sorry," John
said.

Simon grinned,
a strange mixture of fear and laughter. "It's all right. Don't like
the idea of falling in, much."

"No, I mean for
all of this. All of it.”

Simon and John
looked back at the harbour wall. The mist had poured over the top
now, and was eddying around the surface of the water like a cloud
of angry wasps that could go no further. They couldn't see any of
the lights of the village, couldn't see anything other than
darkness.

"S'all right.
Adventure, isn't it. Beats riding around on my bike, wondering what
to do next." The boat pitched, sending both of them sliding across
the deck, grabbing for anything they could take hold of. The stone
went sliding along past John like an ice hockey puck, but Simon
stuck out his foot and trapped it. John snatched it up, and held it
close to his side.

"Can Sal really
drive this thing?" John asked.

They leant to
the side, cautious, fingers wrapped tight around ropes and
woodwork. The boat was heading for the gap in the breakwater that
led to the open sea. As they got closer, the gap seemed narrower
and narrower, and the walls of the breakwater loomed higher and
higher over them, implacable expanses of black stone that would
smash the boat to pieces.

"I dunno," said
Simon. "Can you?"

"Me? Never
driven a boat in my life. When we went out the other day, that was
the first time I'd ever been on a boat like this one. I thought
you
could drive it."

"Steer, you're
meant to say. On a boat."

"Whatever it's
called, flying it, it doesn't matter, can you drive—steer it better
than Sal?"

"No way."

"But you
said—oh never mind."

Simon stumbled
forward, opened the door to the wheelhouse and bellowed "Sal, do
you need a hand?" The wind snatched her reply away and John could
not hear it, but Simon let the door bang shut and came back to
stand beside him.

"I take it she
didn't want a hand then," John said.

"No," Simon
said. "She told me that if I kept pestering her than we were all
going to die. So I thought I'd come back out here. At least if we
crash I'll be in the fresh air."

The breakwater
loomed larger before them, its bulk a deeper blackness against the
dark night sky. The water was getting rough, a giant hand slapping
the boat about. John held on tight, swallowed hard. His mouth was
dry and his lips tasted of salt. Simon was staring straight ahead
just muttering, "Come on, come on, come on, come on,” over and over
again. A wave took them and slid them sideways, the wall coming
closer and closer until John thought that he could have reached out
and touched it, and then it slid past to the side of them, the air
full of wet stone, seaweed and salt, and then there was nothing
there, nothing at all, not in front of them, not to the side of
them, nothing except the sea.

John and Simon
shouted a ragged cheer, and John stepped forward to go into the
wheelhouse, to congratulate Sal, but then the boat dipped forward
as if it were going down a hill, and kept going forward until John
was convinced that this was the end, something had gone wrong, they
were going to keep plunging down and down until the boat rested on
the bottom of the sea, any second now the cold dark water was going
to close over their heads like a shroud—and then the boat lifted,
lifted, the bow raising up towards the night sky. Down it plunged
again, through and past the waves, wet spray lashing up across
their faces, soaking their clothes, leaving the deck running with
foaming water that spilled out through the drainage in the sides
just before the next cascade came rushing in.

"Bit rough out
of the harbour," Simon said, in a cool understatement that made
John laugh despite everything.

"Little bit
fresh, yeah,” he replied.

"Will that be
it, John? When you get rid of that thing? Will all this be
over?"

"I guess so,"
John said. "Apart from the little problem of getting home again
without getting shipwrecked." And what revenge Elias might want to
wreak, if he still has the power left, he thought, but I'm not
going to mention that now. I have a plan for that, anyway.
Maybe.

"Yeah well, she
got us out, she can get us in. But all that—" Simon nodded back
towards the shore without saying anything more. He didn't have to;
John knew exactly what he meant.

"Yes. Over. All
of it. We'll have done it, Si. We'll have done it."

Simon looked
out to sea for a little while, then turned back to John. "It's
funny."

"What is?"

"This has been
like some nightmare come real, you know? I've been terrified, John,
really scared, although if you tell anyone that I'll kill you. But
now—now it's just about over...well. It's been really something,
hasn't it?"

"Yeah, it's
been an adventure." John thought back to the boy he'd been when he
arrived at the village, haunted by Alex, haunted by his own
cowardice and betrayal. Nothing that had happened would change
that, he knew. Nothing could, because you could not undo what had
been done. He would have to learn to live with that memory. But
what had happened since he had arrived in the village would make
that easier. Now there was something to throw in the other side of
the balance, something that John could look to and think yes, I did
a bad, cowardly thing, but now I have done a brave thing. I know
I'm not a hero, but neither am I a coward. I'm just John. A bit of
both.

Simon slapped
him on the arm. "Don't do that, you looked miles away, just like
Greg.""

"Sorry. Anyway,
Greg always looked like that, even before he got zombified."

Simon laughed,
bending his head close to John's so that they could hear each other
over the crack and splash of the waves and the buffeting of the
wind.

"Shall we join
Sal inside? Just to keep her company, mind."

"Why not. I
mean, I could hang around out here all day, but..."

They staggered
into the tiny cabin. Sal was standing up in front of the wheel,
knuckles white as she held on to it for dear life, peering out into
the dark through a window that was so awash with water it might as
well have not been there.

"You managing,
sis?"

"You did
brilliant there, Sal, brilliant. Si thought we were going to hit
the walls, but I always knew that you wouldn't."

"John was
running around out the back shouting 'We're all going to die!', you
know, Sal."

"Boys, I love
you both dearly, but if you don't both shut up now I'm going to let
go of this wheel."