Ethan reached the ladder first. He grabbed the metal rungs and climbed—fast, frantic, water streaming off him. By thetime I reached it, he’d already cleared the top and sprinted across the concrete toward the boat.
I grabbed the first rung. Started climbing.
Below me, in the quarantine tank, a shape surfaced in the tunnel opening.
Gray. Bloated. One arm missing below the elbow.
It didn’t swim. It thrashed—jerking and flailing in the current, mouth working open and shut, milky eyes rolling until they found me on the ladder.
Another surfaced behind it.
Then a third.
“Climb!” Jeff roared from below me on the ladder.
I climbed. Rung over rung, arms shaking, fingers slipping on wet metal. I hauled myself over the top and collapsed onto the concrete. Jeff came up right behind me, grabbed my arm, and dragged me to my feet.
The engine roared to life.
The deep, shuddering rumble of theSS Marinerfilled the holding pool and echoed off the concrete walls.
Ethan stood at the helm, both hands white-knuckling the throttle, soaking wet and shaking—but ready.
Good kid. Incredible kid.
We sprinted for the boat. My bare feet slapped on the wet concrete. Behind us, in the quarantine pool, more shapes surfaced—five, six, seven of them now, churning the water, dragging themselves toward the dock edge with slow, relentless purpose.
“Other line!” I yelled as we hit the deck.
Jeff pulled it off and kicked it into the water.
“GO!”
Ethan shoved the throttleforward.
TheMarinersurged ahead, prop churning white water behind us as we pulled away from the mooring and into the narrow marina channel. Concrete walls slid past on both sides. The engine noise bounced and amplified in the tight space until the whole world shook with it.
I looked back.
The first dead thing pulled itself over the edge of the dock and collapsed onto the concrete where we’d been standing three seconds earlier. It lay there twitching, water pouring off its ruined body, and slowly began to rise.
“Straight through!” Jeff called from behind Ethan, one hand braced on the console, blood still streaming down the side of his face.
The tide gate loomed ahead. Massive steel frame. Narrow clearance. TheMarinerbarreled toward it; we shot through.
Steel scraped fiberglass on the starboard side with a shriek that set my teeth on edge, but we cleared it. Open water spread ahead of us—gray and choppy and infinite.
The moment we passed the gate, a deep mechanical whoosh echoed behind us—so powerful it shook the air and sent a pressure wave across the water that lifted our stern.
I turned.
The quarantine tank hatch had opened.
A massive surge of water exploded out from the aquarium channel—a white-capped torrent that carried everything in its path. Debris. Foam. The dead things that had been in the pool tumbled through the rush like rag dolls, broken and spinning, swept out into the marina current where the ocean would take them.
And riding that surge, ahead of all of it—
Somethinglarge.