The 'Geisters by David Nickle Read Free Book Online Page A

“CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH!”
    “They can’t machine-gun me.”
    “They can!”
    “No.”
    “Let me go!” shouted Ann, delighted.
    “You don’t want to go.”
    A blast of water hit Ann in the back of the head, and at that, she turned around, to give Philip hell. But he wasn’t there. The companionway was empty but for a dark, rolling sky.
    Ann put Barbie down and climbed the steps.
    Her dad, at the wheel, told her to stay down and make sure her life jacket was tight. The boat was rocking and rain was coming down hard, flying in all directions. They’d taken the sails down. The motor was on, chugging desperately. Philip and their mom were at the back of the boat, bailing, and looking away—
    —to a huge spinning ribbon of water, climbing higher than the trees.
    It was moving from side to side, twisting prettily under the fat, black clouds, like a towel spun tight between hands. It made a sound like a big waterfall, like Niagara Falls.
    Her dad shouted something at her, and he met her eyes, and Ann froze. She had seen many things in her dad before, some of which she couldn’t put a name to. This was the first time she’d seen such naked fear. She had no trouble naming it.
    The boat wheeled around and another big wave rocked them as she ducked back into the cabin. Water rushed in after her.
    Ann grabbed onto the side of the steps as the water ran down the deck toward the bow and then came back again, a tea-coloured mix of lake water and the sand she’d trekked in with her flip-flops. It dragged Barbie along with it. She was facedown in the water. The storm had not been a lucky break for her after all.
    The boat pitched and the water deposited Barbie at Ann’s feet. Still holding onto the ladder with one hand, Ann reached down with the other and grabbed Barbie by the hair. She pushed the doll into the crook of her arm and held it there
as another sluice of water came through. It was freezing cold down her back, and she squealed.
    “Hang on, honey.” Mom was on her knees. Hands gripping the hatch. Everyone was on their knees, because the boom was swinging wildly as the boat turned in the water.
    “Close the hatch!” Ann shouted. Her mom shook her head: “No honey! I don’t want you trapped. Just stay there,” and Ann screamed, so that her breath steamed in the cooling air:
    “Close it!”
    And at that, the boat pitched, and her mother slipped back, and then Ann couldn’t tell anything, because the hatch was shut, and she was back in the hold of the steamer.
    “Where is the girl?”
    “She was knocked right out when we left.”
    “Well she isn’t now,
dumkopf
. She has escaped. We must search the ship.”
    “Who’s there?” The cabin—the hold—was dark as night. Ann held Barbie tight, and felt the deck pitch underneath her. A lash of rain and water hit one of the portholes and drew back. A latch clicked, and she heard one of the drawers sliding open. Then came a clattering—a sound of cutlery dumping onto the deck.
    “Not here.”
    “Philip?” The voice didn’t sound like Philip—it seemed deeper than he could manage, and . . . somehow foreign, and . . . it seemed to be everywhere.
    Maybe at her shoulder.
    “The little bitch is crafty,”
it said.
    “Only so many places to be crafty,”
it said,
“on this ship.”
    Something covered the porthole then, for just an instant—and Ann felt a plastic bowl bounce off her ankle. When the porthole reappeared, Ann could see a rime of frost forming around its edges.
    “Not there.”
    Ann felt her stomach turn then, and the light shifted and shifted; the wooden hull moaned and the water that had gotten in sloshed frantically. Ann swallowed—tears of panic crawled from her eyelids. She held the Barbie tighter, and thought:
We’re in the waterspout!
    “Here?”
Something snapped, and dishes clattered and Ann felt herself being pressed against the ladder now as the spinning grew quicker.
    “Where is that little bitch?”
    The boat was going to