Adrift 2: Sundown by K.R. Griffiths Page B

man like that…well, it just wasn’t in his repertoire.
    He turned away, taking a deep breath, and gazed out across the ocean. For a moment, watching the hypnotic rolling grey waves of the Atlantic, he almost became convinced that he was hallucinating, and he rubbed at the wounds on his chest, trying to wake himself up; suddenly certain that he was actually lying in a hospital bed back in London, and that Elaine was at his bedside, waiting anxiously for him to wake from his latest seizure-induced coma.
    Almost.
    He shook his head, trying to clear it. Herb was somewhere behind him and was still talking, of course, but Dan had lost the thread of whatever he was saying. He glanced around the crew again, counting, before returning his gaze to the ocean.
    He frowned.
    There were a dozen men on the boat in total, including himself. A further four of the strange extended Rennick family had already perished, either at the hands of the vampires, or Dan himself. Judging by what Herb said, there were even more waiting for his return back at ‘the compound.’ How was it possible that all of these people shared the same delusion?
    He tried to get a handle on the bizarre relationship that the crew had with Herb, but could not fathom it. The people he saw on the trawler were young—with that one exception—and looked uniformly nervous. Yet it was almost as if they subverted their fear in deference to Herb. They looked at him as Dan imagined a peasant might have looked upon royalty back in the Middle Ages. When Herb approached them, Dan saw the men that he referred to as ‘clerics’ straighten their slumped shoulders, trying vainly to conceal their obvious fear.
    Dan could hardly bring himself to believe that it was actually happening. The creatures that had attacked the Oceanus had been bad enough, but the idea that the extraordinary tale of a secret history which first Edgar and then Herb had told him was actually true ? Vampires that had been feeding on humans in secret for thousands of years, aided by a global network of cultists?
    It was just too much. It couldn’t be real.
    Couldn’t.
    Yet the look on the faces of Herb’s clerics left him in no doubt that they believed it. And hadn’t Dan seen them with his own eyes? Felt the thick blood washing over his hands as he decapitated one? What else could the monsters be? Did it even matter what Herb called them?
    This, Dan decided, was what insanity really was. Torn equally between two competing beliefs; unable to trust fully in either. Logic told him that he was back in London in that hospital bed with doctors frantically trying to wake him, but his senses told a different story. Logic—no matter how compelling—mattered little when he could taste the sea air and feel the pain of the slashes across his chest. When he could vividly remember the snarling teeth and the talons and the ship of blood—
    He shook the memories that threatened to overwhelm him away. He had been staring at the ocean for a long time. He turned back to face the deck, taking a deep breath.
    Herb was still talking to the crew, apparently declaring that they were within range, and Dan tuned in to what he was saying. They would take the chopper the rest of the way, and plant charges to sink the trawler behind them. Speed was of the essence now, Herb said. Getting the Sea Shanty back to the UK was taking too long. Already it was gone midday, and soon enough the light would be fading. If the vampires were going to rise, Herb continued, it would happen soon.
    “That’s the only thing we know for certain,” Herb said. “We have time, but not enough. So get moving.”
    Dan watched without emotion as the crew began to filter onto the helicopter, obeying without question or hesitation.
    What the hell is wrong with these people?
    Herb gestured at him to board the chopper with a friendly smile that set his teeth on edge. He’s almost acting like I have a choice , Dan thought, and his temperature rose, just a