Hopeless Doom

Chapter 12 Giant and the Drain

The cardboard dragon cast a jagged, ugly shadow against the faded sunflowers on the wall. Joan Epstein moved her hand, and the monster swelled, swallowing the air vents.

“The giant didn't mean to break the bridge,” Joan whispered. Her throat felt like it had been scraped with sandpaper. “He just had big boots. Thump. Thump.”

She knocked on the toy chest. The sound was hollow, like a strike against a dry skull. Twelve kids sat in the gloom, stripped down to their underwear. The air on Deck 8 was a humid weight that tasted of pennies and sour breath. Ninety-five degrees, and the fans were dead.

“Did the giant get a drink?” a boy asked. His voice was thin, a wire pulled too tight.

“He had a whole lake to himself,” Joan lied. It hurt to swallow. I’m selling them a world that’s already buried, she thought. “But he was a good guy. He was saving the rest for the village.”

A crash echoed from the corridor—metal slamming metal, followed by the heavy rhythm of boots on the deck. The kids flinched.

“The giant’s just clumsy today!” Joan barked, thumping the chest again to drown out the noise. “He dropped his shield. Clang!”

The door groaned open. Sarah slipped inside, pulling the heavy oak shut before the stench of the hallway could follow. She gave Joan a sharp, tired nod and headed for the back.

“Giant’s beat,” Joan said. “Time for a nap. Eyes shut. Give me that deep, giant breathing.”

Sarah knelt by a girl in the corner. She didn't need a thermometer to see the red flags. The girl’s skin was hot and bone-dry.

No sweat, Sarah thought. That’s the cliff. When the body stops sweating in this heat, the organs start to braise in their own juice.

She slid the glass tube under the girl’s tongue anyway. She checked her watch. Tick. Tick. 103.1.

Sarah moved to the next. 102.8.

Joan crawled over, her face a mask of exhaustion. “How bad?” she whispered.

“Four of them are hitting the red zone,” Sarah said, wiping the thermometer with a scrap of brown, iodine-stained gauze. “They aren't sweating, Joan. They’re shutting down.”

“It’s this room. It’s a goddamn furnace.”

“It’s the water. Or the air. The vents are just a highway for whatever plague is blooming in the bilge.” Sarah shoved the thermometer into her bag. “I’ve got half a bottle of Tylenol and some wet rags. It’s like trying to fight a forest fire with a water pistol.”

“You can’t take them to triage,” Joan said, her eyes cutting to the sleeping kids. “It’s a butcher shop down there. They’ll see things they can’t unsee.”

“If they stay here, they’re dead by morning. Fever roasts the brain at 105.” Sarah stood up, her knees cracking. “Keep them quiet. I’ll be back.”

Deck 5 triage was a different brand of hell. It smelled of raw sewage and iron. Sarah shoved through the swinging doors into the back utility room.

The sterilization sink had been ripped off the wall. Stan was backing out of a hole in the bulkhead, his spine coated in black grease and rust. He looked less like a man and more like a rusted gear.

“Bypassed the P-trap,” Stan grunted, dropping a heavy wrench. The ring of steel on steel set Sarah’s teeth on edge.

“Is it open?”

“I cut the damn pipe,” Stan said. He tossed a jagged shard of copper into the bin. “The vacuum pump was a brick of dead wire. A cork in the bottle. I sawed through the whole housing.”

He grabbed a thick rubber hose and jammed it into the sink’s drain, cinching a metal clamp with a screwdriver. He fed the other end into the hole in the wall.

“Where does it go?” Sarah asked.

“Down. Gravity’s the boss now. It bypasses the tanks and dumps straight into the bilge.” Stan stepped back and slapped the sink. “Test it.”

Sarah picked up a red bucket filled with b****y gauze and gray wash-water. She tipped it in.

The liquid didn't pool or gurgle. There was a sharp, hollow suck, and the waste vanished into the dark.

Stan wiped his hands on a rag, leaving black streaks across his face. “No more bagging liquids. Pour it all here. The bilge can hold a week’s worth of our shit.”

Sarah looked at the hose. “Can you do this on Deck 8?”

Stan stopped. He looked at her like she’d asked him to walk on water. “Deck 8 is titanium weave, Sarah. I’d need a torch just to scratch the paint.”

“We have torches.”

“Igniters are electronic. I can’t pull a spark hot enough to bite into that metal. Not with matches and a prayer.”

Sarah gripped the edge of the sink. “I have four kids in the nursery with fevers that won't break. I need to cool them down, which means I need to drain the waste up there. I can’t carry buckets down three flights in the dark, Stan. I just can’t.”

Stan looked at her—really looked. He saw the iodine under her nails and the hollowed-out look of someone who had seen too many ghosts.

He picked up his wrench and slotted it into his belt.

“Don’t bring me the buckets,” Stan said. “Bring me the kids.”

Arthur Finger sat on the second step of the rear stairwell. The air in the shaft was stagnant, heavy with the stench of three thousand unwashed bodies and the metallic tang of oxidized copper.

“The transponders are toast,” Arthur said, not looking up. “I pulled the panels on Deck Six. It’s all charcoal.”

The man gripped the bag tighter. “Captain said forty-eight hours. The radio... it’ll work.”

“He’s reading a script, man.” Arthur leaned in, his voice a dry rasp. “If a flash can fry a hundred-thousand-ton vessel, it fried the coastal grid, too. You think the government’s sending a chopper for a bunch of tourists while the mainland is in the dark? We’re an insurance write-off.”

A woman on the landing pulled her knees to her chin. “They wouldn't just leave us.”

“They already did,” Arthur said, standing up. His joints popped in the silence. “Why do you think the guards are barricading Deck Twelve? They’re hoarding the groceries. When the water runs dry, you think Matt’s gonna share his cup with you? Keep dreaming.”

The woman didn't answer. She reached into her tote and buried her half-empty water bottle under a sweater, hiding it from Arthur—and the rest of the world. Arthur watched her, felt the gnaw of hunger in his own gut, and walked away.

In the medical closet, the air was a degree cooler, but it smelled of iodine and defeat. Zona Snow was tapping a finger against a steel shelf, her face set in a mask of cold fury.

Sarah walked in, dropping her clipboard onto a cot. “We’re out of iodine in the front, Zona.”

“We’re out of a lot more than that,” Zona said, her back to the door. “We had ten bottles of isopropyl on this rack yesterday.”

Sarah stopped. She counted. Six brown bottles left. Four clean rings in the dust where the others had been.

“Padlock wasn't forced,” Sarah said, checking the brass latch.

“Hairpin. Or a paperclip.” Zona turned, arms crossed tight. “They aren't stealing it to clean cuts, Sarah.”

“It’s toxic. It’ll burn the lining right out of their throat.” Sarah picked up a bottle, staring at the 99% label.

“They mix it with the syrup from the peaches,” Zona said. “I smelled it on a guy in the hall. It’s sweet and chemical. He couldn't even stand up. They just want to turn the lights out.”

Sarah set the bottle down. Tink. A hollow sound in a dying world. People were willing to drink industrial solvent just to stop being aware of the ship.

“Take the rest,” Sarah whispered. “Put them at the bottom of the biohazard bin. Under the soiled sheets from the dysentery wing. No one will dig through that.”