This is the twelfth installment of the short story "Ink" by Steve Metcalf as it first appeared in the second Event collection "Iron Bay."
INK
Steve Metcalf
Chapter Eleven
Khan Hao
He climbed up the mooring rope like a pirate out of time – knife clenched between his teeth and a waterproof bag roped around his waist. He grunted with effort as he pulled himself up the final six feet of tough nautical cord.
The Khan Hao was a container ship making the last leg of her run from Kewalo Basin in Oahu to the Port of Redwood City on the California coast. According to the Minimum Safe Manning Certificate – which was no longer on file anywhere – the vessel could be safely operated by 18 crewmembers including the Master and Chief Officer. She was stacked light, but had been paid out as if she was running full.
But that was only one of the mysteries this cargo ship would soon face.
Jones had finished his ascent and was standing on a small platform just below the deck railing – just above the seven-foot high stenciled letter “n” in Khan Hao on the port side of the ship.
There was a gentle rain falling in the darkness of the Pacific Ocean. A minor storm that barely augmented the motion of the waves. The giant cargo ship plowed through the night toward the California coast.
“This 3-D is really good,” Jones said to himself, holding the knife in his bandaged right hand and rubbed his hair back with his left. He peeked up over the railing and his digital HUD popped up. Important metrics populated the screen. A mini-map of the Khan Hao slid to the top left corner of his vision. There was a small number 18 below the map, indicating how many enemies he would face on this level. The top right was a small drawing of a man’s body, ready to show any damage he had taken from the video game gunfire … complete with a three-digit number representing his overall health. The icon for “armor” was empty.
The bottom right of his screen showed his inventory of weapons. Right now, highlighted, was the knife that he currently held. A huge, ornate bit of text exploded onto the center of the screen and then slid away into the darkness.
Level 11: The Khan Hao
Jones smiled.
“Alright,” he said to himself. “Last level. Time to face the boss.”
* *
On the deck above him, Jones heard a sailor open a door and walk to the gunwale. The man was muttering to himself in a language Jones did not recognize. Jones sheathed the knife. The man stopped right above his head, paused and lit a cigarette. Jones stretched up, flinching a bit at his injured left knee, and looked at the sailor. He was leaning against the railing, his back to the ocean.
Taking a quiet, deep breath and then breathing out slowly, Jones quickly reached up and snatched the man around the neck. He pulled him backward over the deck railing and sent the man screaming to the water below.
The 18 on Jones’s heads-up display flashed red and turned to a 17.
“Now we’re cookin’,” Jones muttered as he hauled himself up over the railing. In a crouch, he pulled the knife from the loop on his belt. “Who’s next?”
* *
As the HUD reset itself, Jones flipped through various documents on the computer screen. He read a bit of information on the Khan Hao. He peered around the corner and verified a strange fact that jumped out at him. Oddly enough, there was only one container on the entire ship. The entire ship had been rented to haul one container from Southeast Asia to the United States.
“Huh.”
Papers flew by on the screen. There were rumors of what was in the container. Human trafficking. A mutant. A zombie. A mutant zombie. Ghosts, trapped in a plasma void. Almost every piece of relevant documentation had been shredded. The ship itself was a ghost … trying to make it across the Pacific as quietly as she could.
It wasn’t going to happen.
* *
The gentle rain continued to fall. A swarm of clouds broke around the full moon and the deck was fairly well illuminated for a time. Jones could see the smattering of buildings that made up the Khan Hao. It closely matched the mini-map on his HUD. He hefted the knife and crouched at a corner. He was still skirting the edge of the ship in case he had to hide quickly – he could hop over the rail and hang until the enemy passed him by.
What he needed now was information.
The final boss was the ultra-powerful Tsingtao – a terror in the underworld. Rumor had it that he trafficked in anything that could make a buck. Counterfeit money. Drugs. Guns. Girls. The man had to die. Jones reached up and scratched his face. Absently, he realized that the skin was hot to the touch even in these wet, cold conditions.
More foreign words drifted around the near corner of this building, maybe 10 feet away. He waited for the clouds to once again cover the moon, and he peeked. There were two men chatting away. One was smoking a pipe. The other was leaning on the railing, showing Jones his back.
Jones made his move.
Knife in hand, he ran to the men. He stabbed the first man in the back and shoulder-tackled him over the railing. In one smooth motion, Jones wheeled on the second man and clamped his hand across his throat. Jones held the bloody knife up to the man’s cheek.
On the HUD, the 17 turned red and flashed to a 16.
“Where’s the boss?” Jones asked – a whisper forced through clenched teeth. “Where’s Tsingtao?”
The sailor stared at him blankly. Horror filling his eyes. The entire event had taken only 11 seconds.
“Tell me where’s the boss,” Jones pulled the knife down the man’s face just slightly. A fine line of blood started pooling into the sailor’s dimple.
Jones squeezed his hand around the man’s throat just once and let up the force. The sailor got the picture and started talking.
In Vietnamese.
“What?” Jones said, comically shaking his head. The line of text at the bottom of his HUD read a simple line of question marks.
The man started talking again.
??????????????
“Fuck,” Jones said. “I forgot to turn on translation subtitles.”
Without letting go of the sailor’s throat, he kneed him in the groin and tossed him overboard. Jones wiped the blood off his knife by rubbing it against his right thigh. First one side and then the other. The number on his HUD flashed from 16 to 15.
* *
Broken and bloodied, Jones limped through the door marked Medic. The lettering itself was scratched and peeling, but the large red cross clearly indicated that this was where he needed to go.
The HUD showed that there were still 10 more sailors aboard the Khan Hao and the word TIME was blinking red and yellow on the bottom of the screen.
“Fuck you,” Jones said to himself. “This isn’t a timed mission.”
He held the door as it slid shut to try and prevent any unnecessary sound. He had figured the fight with the giant below deck would have roused the entire crew. Not so. However, he had paid the price. Just like the word TIME, there were several red indicators around his body icon on the upper right of the screen. He was injured. Bleeding. And in danger of not completing his mission.
Jones found a well-stocked medicine cabinet and pulled it open. He started grabbing gauze, bandages and antibiotic cream by the handfuls. He also grabbed a big bottle of aspirin. He couldn’t read all of the text, but immediately recognized the stylish Bayer lettering. He took a mouthful and drained an entire bottle of water. Tossing the water bottle into the trash, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the sink.
Shirt torn off.
Jagged, bleeding scar running across his chest.
Pants soaked in blood.
What was more troubling was the irritation-turned-infection that was spreading out from his tattoo. The Three Deaths. The skin on that side of his chest almost looked like it was bubbling. Throbbing. As if it would break apart at any moment – spilling all that was left of Hiawatha Jones into the open air.
“Great graphics,” he said, leaning in toward the mirror. “Terrific, really.”
Suddenly, an alarm sounded outside. He dropped a roll of bloody gauze and it rolled across the room.
“Shit,” he said, whirling toward the door … whirling toward the noise.
He wasn’t sure what might have triggered the alarm. Perhaps it was the sight of blood on the deck that hadn’t yet been washed away by the rain. Perhaps it was the stacked up bodies in one of the lifeboats. Perhaps someone had walked into the destroyed storage room where Jones had fought the giant. All he knew was that he had to find the level boss and take him out.
Pulling his last weapon out of the waterproof bag, a flare gun meant to signal the end of the level, he opened the door and faced his fate.
* *
There were 10 sailors facing him. The group was a mixture of ages, races and sizes. Jones hefted the weight of the flare gun in his right hand. On the HUD, he could see that he only had two shots for this thing. No reloads.
“Fuck,” he whispered quietly to himself. On the HUD, he cycled through this weapon options. The knife, gone. The revolver, empty. The crowbar, stuck in some guy’s skull. All that was left was the flare gun and, perhaps, his own two hands. He looked from left to right, face to face, along the line of the remaining men. There was one man he thought he recognized.
Could it be Tsingtao? Recognizing him from his data sheet?
“Tsingtao,” Jones called. “Face me alone. You don’t need to hide behind your underlings anymore.”
There was nothing but blank stares from the men. The man on the right, who he had identified, squinted his eyes and slightly turned his head – as a confused puppy would. The 10 sailors were standing in a semi-circle, perhaps 20 feet away from Jones. It looked like the man was about to speak, but before he could, a man in the middle of the group stepped forward and spoke up.
“I’m Giang Dinh,” he said with a heavy accent, spoken loudly and slowly. “The captain of the Khan Hao. You will drop the weapon.”
“Tsingtao,” Jones grinned to himself. He squeezed the grip of the flare gun.
“Jones, don’t” yelled the other man. The man that Jones had recognized. On his HUD, file folders floated past until they reached one particular photo. It was a picture from his high school years. A still image of the four of them, standing around a young Asian girl who was crying in the cafeteria. The man on the ship was Nolan Bise. And the girl was …
“Bren?” Jones whispered. “Kira?”
The word ERROR flashed across his HUD.
The last four weeks, also, began flashing across the screen in still images, interposed with images from high school. Marty Gustavson, dead in a parking lot. Chad DiNapoli, a zombie. Nolan Bise, a sailor in a video game. Hi Jones, the inked man.
Bren Kira Duk, a young woman bullied.
“Oh, shit,” Jones said.
His HUD flickered. They had poured a cup of semen all over her lunch. And that wasn’t even the worst part of the story.
“Oh shit,” Jones muttered again.
It took five seconds for this introspection to run its course. In the same five seconds, the captain had started to run and close the 20 remaining feet between them. With one second to spare, and back in his video game world, Jones raised the flare gun and fired. It was a direct hit into Dinh’s chest. The man’s momentum carried him forward, but he was now on fire. He crash-tackled Jones, his burning clothes quickly melting into the tattooed man’s flesh. Both men screamed – one in pain, the other with the realization that he was mere seconds from breathing his last.
Dinh died, his insides a melted mess. His clothing was completely in flames and he slid down Jones’s body, igniting the tattooed man as well.
WARNING lit up along all four corners of the HUD as Jones smelled smoke. The man he recognized as Nolan Bise ran to him screaming. Jones staggered backward and squeezed the trigger of the flare gun. The lone round shot out at an angle and skipped across the deck of the Khan Hao. Twenty yards later, the flaming projectile struck the door of the lone shipping container on the main deck of the huge ship. The lock cracked.
From inside the container – a roar.
Bise continued to run but the other sailors heard the blood-curdling sound from inside the container and scattered, yelling. They ran for the lifeboats as a force from within the steel box struck, shuddering the door from the inside. This was the container the entire ship was purchased to haul. The reason all of the shipping manifests had been erased. There were only rumors about what was inside, but the men were in no hurry to find out if the wild stories were true.
The fire had completely absorbed Dinh, who was now a smoldering pile on the deck. Jones’s shoes had started to melt to the deck, but he began staggering toward the railing – the port side of the ship. Bise had closed the distance, but wasn’t sure what to do. Jones was a study in terror. His upper body ripped to shreds and melting, his lower body completely on fire.
Jones took five halting steps as Bise grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall.
The door of the shipping container broke open.
The HUD said, Game Over.
And Jones fell over the railing of the Khan Hao. Bise reached the edge of the ship only to see the flaming remains of his high school friend fall to his death in the frigid Pacific Ocean. The ship continued powering through the night – toward the California coast. Its crew had been reduced to exactly one person.
Plus whatever now came sprinting out of the solitary shipping container – eyes aflame.
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