The Last Mutation Read online

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  He never expected to be sick.

  Ethan leaned over the side of the boat and vomited into the dull waters. Barnes watched him, not quite able to hide his smile.

  “Not exactly the same as the postcard, is it?”

  Ethan wiped his mouth and looked at Barnes. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I know you will. Just try not to fall in.” Barnes squinted at the sky. “Looks like rain. Come on into the wheelhouse. With the wind the way it is, you’ll catch a cold, then you’ll really be in for it.”

  Ethan followed Barnes inside. The wheelhouse was small and cluttered. A narrow staircase led down to the galley kitchen and bunks. At the front of the wheelhouse, Mannering was at the controls and taking them further out to sea. A small table with a bench around three sides of it took up the rest of the space. Barnes slid in first, and Ethan followed. He was glad to be out of the cold and even more relieved that his sickness was starting to fade. He still couldn’t shake the weird feeling of actually being in the place where the journal Mannering had given him had taken place. If the intention had been to unsettle him, it had done a fine job.

  Ethan could sense Barnes watching him and decided to speak first before he was asked any questions he was uncomfortable answering.

  “So where are we heading?

  “A little spot that’s been kind to us of late around six miles out. It’s a nursery of sorts for these creatures we are going hunt. They are a size we can handle with a boat like this.”

  “How big are they?” Ethan asked, thoughts of the giant behemoth from the journal in his mind.

  Barnes considered. “Maybe ten to fifteen feet.”

  “That’s pretty big,” Ethan said.

  “They grow bigger, especially out in deeper waters. We stick to where it’s relatively safe and shallow. Minimum risk for maximum gain.”

  “How much bigger?” Ethan asked.

  Barnes glanced at Mannering again. “I’m not the one to ask about that,” he said.

  Ethan was about to speak and tell Barnes about the journal, when Mannering spoke. He didn’t look towards them, he kept his eyes firmly on the landscape of waves in front of the boat.

  “Five years ago, I saw one. A big one. It’s passed where we’re going now, out where it’s deep and dark.” He stopped the boat, killing the engines and bringing a curtain of silence down on the wheelhouse. The vessel rocked from side to side, carried by the tides. Mannering finally turned to face them, looking at them in turn, rocking with the boat as it was pushed by the choppy ocean. “We got lost and ended up badly off course. Found ourselves fifty miles out to sea. We’d stopped to plot a course back to the village when we saw it off the starboard bow coming towards us just under the surface.”

  “What are they?”

  Mannering shrugged. “You read that book I gave you. You know the story. Those things are nothing that wasn’t there before. It’s just changed into something else. Merged together by the event. Two creatures or more melted together into something new.”

  “You showed him the book?” Barnes said, glaring at Mannering. “Jesus, John, I told you not to do that. It’s too soon.”

  “I thought he needed to know if you were insisting on bringing him out here.”

  “It’s alright, it’s done now,” Ethan said, wanting to avoid adding any more tension to the atmosphere.

  Mannering looked at them both and continued his story. “Anyway, we saw this thing coming towards the boat. It was a big one. Forty feet at least. I reckon they don’t probably get much bigger than that, even though that little red book I gave you claims on a two-hundred footer, I doubt it’s true and thank God for that. Even at fifteen feet, these things are lethal. Fishermen like to exaggerate sizes of their catch.” Mannering grimaced. “The thing you have to understand about these creatures is that all of us are out here for the same thing. We come out to hunt them, and they, in turn, hunt us. They know that when our boats are out here, they have food on them. That makes things interesting and dangerous.” He reached over the console and grabbed a clear bottle of brownish liquid with a cork stopper. He opened it and took a drink, the pungent smell of homebrew whisky filling the room.

  “Something that big could easily destroy a boat of this size,” Ethan said

  Mannering nodded. “Now you’re starting to get it. See, we don’t come out here and hope they don’t see us. We bait them. We tell them we’re here, like ringing the dinner bell. They come to eat, then it’s a case of who kills who first.”

  “That’s why we stick to the area where we’re heading, with the juveniles.” Barnes cut in, glaring at Mannering as he took another drink.

  Ethan took a moment to let it all sink in. “This is dangerous.”

  He wasn’t saying it to let Barnes or Mannering know. They were already more than aware. He said it in order to confirm it to himself.

  “Now he gets it,” Mannering said. “Now he understands that it’s not all about picture postcards and the love of the sea. This is life and death, make no mistake about it. You want to know why I didn’t want you out here, there you have it.”

  “Another thing,” Barnes said as Mannering returned to the controls of the boat and started the engine. “They are incredibly aggressive. Incredibly dangerous. Even the ones we’re heading out to take now could kill us with ease. They’re clever bastards too. This is a first for you, and you need to go easy. We’ve lost a lot of good men out on these waters because they got over confident.”

  “We don’t need to get into that right now. Ethan doesn’t need to hear about that,” Barnes replied.

  “I think he does,” Mannering cut in. “I think he needs to hear in great detail about how each and every one of them were lost.”

  “Yeah, well I think you’ve had enough to drink for now, John. This isn’t the time.”

  Mannering glared at him then put the bottle back. The three of them were silent, doing all they could to avoid conversation.

  “We’re almost there,” Mannering said as he changed direction slightly. “You both better get used to why we’re out here and get your head straight. It’s almost game time.”

  Barnes slid out from the table and headed for the rear deck. “Come on and help me with the bait.”

  Ethan followed, struggling to control his nerves

  Barnes stood by the large box they had brought on board. “Grab that other end,” he said as he crouched by it. Ethan looked out over the dirty ocean, then did as he was told. Together, they pried the lid off the box. Ethan wretched at the smell. Inside was a bloated, bloody carcass of some kind of animal.

  “What is it?” Ethan asked, covering his mouth.

  “Pig. We fattened it up as much as we could before bringing it out here. It should draw one of those things straight to us.”

  Barnes words about fattening up the pig brought back memories of the cage McCarthy had kept him in, and he shuddered.

  “You alright?” Barnes asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Alright, then let’s do this.”

  They tipped the box onto its side, spilling the bloody carcass onto the deck. Barnes grabbed the reel of chain at the rear of the boat. At the end of it, were two barbed hooks, their points sharpened.

  “Alright, let’s hook this thing on and get it over the side.”

  Together, they embedded the hooks into the belly of the creature, then wrapped the chain around it to hold it in position as the boat came to a stop.

  Mannering appeared at the deck door, watching them. “Make sure you wrap that good and tight,” he said.

  Ethan glanced at him then continued to help secure the carcass.

  “Alright I think we’re good,” Barnes said. He walked over to the winch controls. “Stand back and we can get this stinking thing overboard.”

  Barnes activated the controls for the winch, reeling in the chain and lifting the carcass into the air. “Alright, shove it out over the rear of the boat.”

  Etha
n complied, shoving the carcass hard and watching as the winch boom swung with its prize over the ocean. As Ethan watched, the winch began to lower the pig into the water. He let out around five feet of chain, then stopped.

  “That’s still close to the boat,” Ethan said.

  “Has to be,” Mannering said as he joined them. He was holding two harpoon guns. “We need him in close so we can tag him.”

  “What if it hits us?”

  Mannering grinned. “I think you’re finally starting to see that this isn’t all fun and games out here.”

  “I never said it was.”

  “You’ll learn yet. Here, grab this.” Mannering tossed him the harpoon gun. It was heavier than it looked, and he almost dropped it.

  “Careful with that,” Mannering said, flashing another wild grin. “I don’t want to send you over for it if you drop it in the water.”

  Ethan ignored the comment. He looked at the bloated pig bobbing just below the surface, then at Barnes. “What now?”

  “Now, we wait until one of them comes to take the bait.”

  “How will we know?”

  “Trust me, you’ll know. As soon as it takes the bait, you take your shot. The harpoon is on a cable. We have around three hundred feet of line so we should be good. That cable is strong, thick. The dart is designed to open up on entry. The idea is you hit him in the soft part of its belly so the barbs hold it in place. After that, we hook the wire onto the winch here. Hopefully, he’ll have swallowed the bait and hook too by then, meaning we have a good grip on him.”

  “Then what?” Ethan asked, thinking the plan felt more and more reckless as it was told.

  Mannering grinned. “Then we nail gun him. Boom. Through the brain. Big nails, five inchers. They go right into his head and kill him without a fight.”

  “That’s the theory,” Barnes said, giving a wayward glance to Mannering.

  “What do you mean?” Ethan asked.

  “He means sometimes the nail gun don’t work, or if it does, it only goes part way in. That makes our big fish mad. That’s when people start getting themselves killed.”

  “Go easy on him, the kid doesn’t need to hear that right now,” Barnes said, glaring at the older man.

  “Maybe I disagree.”

  “Drop it, John. Not now. Not here.”

  Mannering looked at Barnes, desperate to respond. In the end, he snorted and glared at Ethan. “You never should have come out here, kid.”

  He walked away, disappearing back into the belly of the boat.

  “Thanks,” Ethan said as he watched Mannering leave.

  “Don’t listen to him. He always gets uptight when we come out here.”

  “How long has he been with you?”

  Barnes shrugged. “A long time. He was one of the first in our group.”

  “He seems a little…off. Likes his drink too, I’ve noticed.”

  “Yeah, well, the world does that to a lot of people, especially how it is now. It’s not a good place. The drinking is a problem, but I’m managing it, or at least I’m trying to. Back home, he drinks until he passes out. Here, I keep a tight leash on him.”

  “Is it safe to be around him?” Ethan asked, wondering if he was the only one who could see how unhinged Mannering was.

  “He’s right enough. A few screws loose, but he’s a damn good fisherman and has made sure we keep food on our tables for the last few years.”

  “I don’t like him. He’s…” Ethan let it hang, unable to find the right word.

  “Unstable,” Barnes said, finding it for him. “True enough, maybe he is. In the old world, he’d have been shunned and incarcerated. Hell, even in this one with all the bad people out there, the same could have happened. I’m not about to do that though, not when it’s my show to run, and the people of this town are looking to me to lead them. God only knows there has been enough bloodshed and pain. Now is about rebuilding.”

  “To like it was before?”

  Barnes shook his head. “It will never be like it was before. That world, that way of living, is gone. Finished. What we can do is try to learn from the mistakes those before us made and make it better. Seems to me Mother Nature wiped the slate clean and left a few of us behind to start again.”

  “Is that even possible?”

  “Not in my lifetime, or yours most likely. But a generation or two from now, maybe they’ll have crops and fresh food, and won’t have to resort to coming out here and doing crazy stuff like this.”

  Ethan looked out at the ocean. He could no longer see land. “So what do we do now?”

  “We wait.”

  “How long?”

  “Until our fish is hungry.”

  THREE

  It was hard to gauge how much time had passed. The initial excitement and fear about the creature they were about to encounter had dulled into a restless boredom. Mannering had gone back to the wheelhouse. Barnes was sitting with his back to the stern, eyes closed, legs out in front of him. Ethan perched on the transom. He watched the water ebb and flow as it gently rocked the boat. Ethan could feel his eyes growing heavy as he looked at the water. He tried to imagine it as it once was. Blue and clean instead of dull and brown. It was then that something caught his eye. He stood, focussing on the water, making sure it wasn’t his eyes playing tricks on him.

  “Barnes,” he said, his voice a whisper lodged in his throat. “Barnes,” he said again, making himself heard.

  Barnes got up and stood beside him, looking out to the rear of the boat. “Looks like someone is interested in our bait,” he said.

  The two watched as the wake rolled closer to the boat, angling towards the putrid corpse which hung a few feet below the waterline at the rear of the boat.

  “Steady now,” Barnes said, his voice a near whisper. “Let her have a look at what we’re offering.”

  The wake skimmed past the boat, cautiously passing the offered food. Ethan leaned over the edge of the transom, watching as it passed. It was around sixteen feet long, its body a mottled grey-brown. It looked exactly like Mannering had said. It was unlike any one creature. Instead, it was a twisted combination of things. The main bulk of the body looked as if it had once been a whale, but it sprouted thick milky-coloured tentacles from its underside. On the top of its head, a bulbous lump which looked like another head, complete with array of black eyes and a half-formed, razor-toothed mouth melded into the body of the main creature. It propelled itself on its deformed fins, its fluke tapering to a point attached to which was a large, misshaped flipper.

  “Fifteen foot, I reckon,” Mannering said, startling Ethan who hadn’t heard him join them at the stern.

  “Let’s hope it takes the bait then we can snag it and get out of here.”

  The creature returned, swimming close to the offered bait, nudging it with a flipper then moving away.

  “What is it doing? Ethan asked, the words catching in his throat.

  “They do that sometimes,” Mannering said, answering the question directed at Barnes. “They’re cautious of us now, they know what we’re out here for.”

  “We should get the harpoon ready,” Barnes said, turning towards it.

  “Let the new kid do it.”

  Barnes looked at Mannering. “He’s not ready for that yet. This is his first time out here.”

  “He wants to earn his place, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s not the point, and you know it.”

  “Why not? We all had to do it. All of us had to do this for the first time once. Why not him now?”

  “This isn’t a game.”

  “I ain’t laughing,” Mannering said

  “It’s alright,” Ethan said, interjecting before an argument could break out. “I’ll do it if you show me how.”

  Barnes glared at Mannering, who was sneering at him, then turned his attention to Ethan. “You don’t have to do it. Don’t let him get to you.”

  “He’s right though,” Ethan replied. “I was the one who wanted to come o
ut here. I should earn my keep.”

  “You don’t have to. Nobody will think any less of you.”

  Ethan was desperate to take the get-out offered by Mannering. He wanted no part of those awful things which existed in the ocean. It dawned on him then that the place he had always seen as the one thing of beauty in his life was in reality just as horrific as the rest of the world. He wasn’t sure he would ever go back on the ocean again.

  He was about to say all this to Barnes when Mannering spoke again. “Careful, boy. Is that your pussy I can hear clenching up there?”

  Ethan turned to Mannering, then back to Barnes. “No, it’s alright. I want to do this.”

  It was clear Barnes was angry, but he knew Mannering was volatile and tipsy, and not someone he should aggravate. He instead picked up the harpoon and handed it to Ethan.

  “Alright, get used to the weight of it. Now when you fire, this thing will kick upwards. To compensate, you need to aim a little lower than you would normally.”

  Ethan nodded, trying to hide how scared he was.

  “Have you ever fired a weapon of this size before?”

  Ethan shook his head.

  “Come on, she’s gonna take the bait. Get on with it,” Mannering barked as he watched the creature make another cautious approach at the bait.

  Barnes ignored him. “Try and get him side on, under or near the flipper. Don’t worry about it too much, but somewhere in that general area will do it.”

  “What if I miss?”

  Barnes grinned, but it was forced. “Try not to. It’s not the end of the world if you do, but we’d rather not lose any gear.”

  “Come on, what are you both waiting for?” Mannering snapped.

  “In a minute,” Barnes replied.

  “In a minute? You think this thing will wait?”

  Barnes ignored him and looked Ethan in the eye. “You can do this. Just relax, got it?”