Free The Raven (A Jane Harper Horror Novel) by Jeremy Bishop Page A

I notice his pale blue lips, shaking hands, and drenched hair. “You came in after me,” I say. It’s more of an observation than a question.
    He nods, but it looks more like a seizure.
    “Willem,” Helena says, taking the gauze from his hands and shoving him to the side. “Go change and warm yourself!”
    After just a moment’s pause, he glances at me. When our eyes meet, I see relief in his face. He might be glad I’m alive, but I’m not the one telling him to go take care of himself, am I?
    Willem obeys and disappears from the deck.
    Helena attends to my wound, quickly and tightly wrapping it. The dressing will have to be changed soon—blood is already threatening to seep through, but it’s no longer flowing from my body like a mountain spring.
    I’m about to thank her when I hear Talbot shout, “Captain! Klein says we’ve got a GPS distress call coming from four miles away. But the radar screen shows a large target eleven miles out and closing at thirty knots. The GPS signal is dead smack between us. I reckon we can beat the incoming target to the distress beacon if we go full steam ahead.”
    While I just sit there wondering,
Now what?
Jakob rattles out a string of commands. “Ahead, full throttle! Get us there first! Helena, get back to the bow. Man the harpoons. Malik, stay here and be ready to take on survivors.” He turns to me. “And you. Go take care of yourself. But do it quickly. The fight isn’t over yet.”

12
    I limp my way through the ship, clutching the first aid kit and wrapped in a blanket. By the time I reach the second deck, I’m trailing drops of blood. My leg is throbbing, but the pain is bearable. Maybe because of adrenaline. Maybe because of elation at not being in the stomach of a zombie-whale. Maybe because I’m in shock. Who knows? I can’t complain.
    Of course, when I sit on my bedside and peel off the wound’s dressing, I complain. A lot. The gauze pulls away small dollops of coagulated blood, reopening the wound. I watch the blood rolling over my leg. It’s dripping all over the braided rug. I’m not freaked out by the blood. I just don’t want to do what comes next.
    Man up
, I tell myself. When I was a kid, the Colonel did this part. He was merciless about it. “Just grit your teeth and take it. Next time be smart enough to not get injured.” I never pointed out the number of scars crisscrossing his body. I was smart enough to know that wouldn’t go well. But his advice got me through a number of childhood gashes. It would get me through this.
    I unscrew the rubbing alcohol. It was included with the first aid kit for sterilization, not wound cleaning. And I know it’s going to destroy good and bad cells alike. My father should have never used the stuff on my scrapes. But there’s no way in hell I’m going to risk leaving behind even a tiny fragment of that parasite.
    As I move the bottle over my leg, the ship takes a wave hard, slamming through the water. The impact jars my arm and spills a few drops of alcohol. The drops strike my wound like little bombs, exploding pain beyond that of the original injury. I scream for a moment but swallow it down, grit my teeth like Daddy taught me, and douse the leg in liquid fire.
    I growl at the pain, waiting for it to subside. The alcohol scours the dried blood from my leg. Pink fluid drips onto the blood-soaked rug. My nose twitches at the strong scent of rubbing alcohol that’s made my room smell like a doctor’s office. I feel the skin of my leg tighten as the liquid quickly evaporates. Then it’s over. The alcohol and pain are gone. But the freshly rinsed wound is now bleeding. Helena sliced off a chunk of skin half an inch wide and about an inch long. That it needs stitches is a no-brainer, but it’s not going to get any. Not unless Jakob thought to bring along a medic, which I assume he didn’t, since I’m sitting here on my bed, buck nekkid, tending to my own damn wound.
    Using a few fresh sheets of gauze, I