Free Blood Memory: The Complete Season One (Books 1-5) by Perrin Briar

their hand holds. A Lurcher sailed past and into the engine bay. The water buffeted the doorstep, rising in a cool spray. The ferry rocked back to its former position, the water flowing back toward the stairs with a whooshing sound like the sea over pebbles at the beach. The water came to a standstill.
    Joel took his hands off the doorframe with great caution , as if by letting go he was going to get sucked into the depths. “I think she’s stable.”
    “But for how long?”
    “Who knows. We’d best get out of here fast.”
    They waded out into the water. Joel’s arm reached out, blocking Jordan. “Wait.”
    Jordan looked at what had arrested Joel. The Lurcher corpses floated, clinging together, forming one large mass. Their thick black congealed blood floated on top of the water, pus and other body fluids speckling the surface like a pizza.
    “Whatever you do, ” Joel said, “don’t swallow any of the water.”
    Jordan grimaced. “I wasn’t planning on it.”
    Joel launched into the water first, performing the breast stroke with powerful thrusts. Jordan , a less experienced swimmer, walked as far as he could while keeping his feet on the floor, then doggy paddled his way across the surface, careful to keep his head above the waterline. The black bloody mess clung to his cheeks and neck. He pushed a Lurcher away with a tentative finger. He gasped a mouthful of air, holding his breath, and paddled on. Joel sailed through the water like a snake, without apparent effort.
    Jordan felt himself dip lower. He could smell the blood, faeces and rotting flesh. He came to a stop, treading the water a moment, cursing himself for not having taken swimming lessons, or if he had, cursing himself for having amnesia and forgetting them. He pressed on.
    Something somewhere in the ship splintered, snapping in half the way a tree sounds giving way to wind in a torrential storm. Joel was already at the stairs, pulling himself from the swamp water. It clung to him like a second skin.
    T he water tipped over to one side. The Lurcher bodies floated past him. The water level rose. Jordan kept a close eye on the roof as it approached with breath-taking speed. He turned his face as far from it as he dared without risking the blood caking him. He stopped rising, the water sloshing around as if deciding what to do next. Joel was shouting something, but Jordan was too preoccupied with keeping his face out of the sludge to hear. The room tipped forward, and Jordan was taken by the tide, driven at great speed toward the stairs, which loomed like the stairway to hell. He slammed into them, the sharp corners stabbing into his flesh, threatening to snap his bones.
    The room twisted again . The water changed direction and Jordan was forced off the stairs. He grabbed the railing, but lost his slippery gloved grip and fell toward the Lurcher cesspool below, falling into the grinning empty skull sockets awaiting him.
    Something grabbed him by the collar and lifted him bodily out of the air and dumped him on the stairs. Jordan, soaked neck to foot, panted and did not move. Joel, likewise exhausted, lay beside him.
    Joel was red up to his chin like he was wearing a nineteenth century high neck collar, thick globules of God-knew-what clinging to his skin. “Remind me… to give you… swimming lessons… when we get out.”
    Joel reached for something at his waist , confused when his hand came away empty.
    “What is it?” Jordan asked.
    “The walkie talkie. It’s gone. I must have dropped it.” He looked out at the Lurcher cesspool around them, the water red and lumpy with ejaculated body fluids.

21.
    “ It’ll be easy going up to the next level,” Joel said as they climbed the last few stairs to the vehicle storage room. “You wait and see.”
    Jordan pushed the door open. It creaked on rusty hinges. They froze at what they saw.
    The vehicles had slid to the far wall, jamming together into an impenetrable wall of metal and smashed glass. Tyre