A heist on a ferry goes terribly wrong when mutated seagulls arrive to collect the stolen gold.
The heat radiating off the metal deck of the Stormhaven ferry felt less like summer and more like a physical assault. Casey Stanton leaned her weight against the rusted railing of Deck Four, her uniform shirt clinging to her spine. Her boots felt heavy. Her jaw ached from grinding her teeth. She watched a tourist in bright yellow flip-flops drop a half-eaten hotdog onto the deck, stare at it for three seconds, and then walk away.
Casey did not move. She let the hotdog sit there. The boat pitched slightly to the port side, sending the hotdog rolling an inch toward the scuppers.
"Pick up the garbage, Casey," she muttered to herself, mimicking the nasal tone of the shift supervisor. "Maintain the maritime standard, Casey."
She closed her eyes. The humidity pressed against her eyelids. The sky above was the color of a bruised plum, dark and swollen. A Category 3 hurricane was grinding its way up the coast, and the ferry was supposedly making a final, emergency reroute to the mainland. The water below was already churning, ugly gray waves slapping the hull with heavy, wet thuds.
Behind her, the sliding glass doors to the passenger lounge opened. A blast of over-conditioned air hit her sweat-soaked neck, followed immediately by the sound of heavy boots.
Casey turned, expecting the supervisor. Instead, she saw four men in matte black tactical gear moving with the synchronized, obnoxious precision of a television swat team. They wore heavy vests, drop-leg holsters, and balaclavas pulled down tight over their faces.
"Get down!" the lead man barked. His voice was muffled by the fabric, but it had the practiced grit of someone who spent too much time practicing in front of a mirror.
Casey blinked. She looked down at her hands, which were currently holding a plastic scraper designed for removing seagull droppings from the windows. She looked back up at the men.
"Are you doing a drill?" she asked. "Because Captain Miller usually sends out a memo. And I don't read the memos, but I feel like I would have heard about a drill."
The lead man stepped forward, raising a matte-black assault rifle and pointing it directly at her chest.
"This is not a drill," he said. "Face down on the deck. Hands behind your head."
Casey stared at the barrel of the gun. Her stomach executed a slow, uncomfortable flip. The metal of the rifle was scratched near the sight. The man's finger rested just outside the trigger guard. This was real.
She dropped the plastic scraper. It clattered against the deck. She slowly lowered herself to her knees. The metal deck was hot enough to burn through the thin fabric of her uniform pants. She flattened herself out, her cheek pressing against a sticky patch of spilled soda.
"Really?" she said, her voice muffled by the deck. "In a hurricane? You guys are hijacking a ferry in a hurricane?"
"Silence!" another man yelled.
Heavy boots stomped past her head. The deck vibrated with their weight. She twisted her neck just enough to see the lead man kick open the door to the bridge stairwell.
"Secure the perimeter," the leader commanded. "I want the captain on his knees in two minutes. We are locking down this floating trash can."
The men scattered. Casey remained flat on the deck. The hotdog was now about six inches from her nose. She closed her eyes again. The engine vibration hummed through her jawbone. She calculated her hourly rate. It was sixteen dollars and fifty cents.
"I do not get paid enough for this shit," she said to the hotdog.
Above her, the PA system crackled to life. A high-pitched squeal echoed across the empty outdoor decks, followed by the sound of someone clearing their throat.
"Attention, passengers and crew of the Stormhaven ferry," a smooth, overly confident voice announced. "My name is Silks. I am now in control of this vessel. Do not panic. Do not attempt to be a hero. We are here for the cargo hold, specifically the armored transport truck from Meridian Airport. Cooperate, and you will live to complain about this on the internet. Resist, and you will be fed to the fish."
Casey pushed herself up onto her elbows. Silks. The man had named himself Silks. She felt a profound wave of exhaustion wash over her.
She crawled backward, scraping her elbows against the non-slip paint, until she reached the shadow of the life jacket storage bin. The wind was picking up, whipping her ponytail across her face. The sky was getting darker by the minute. The first heavy drops of rain began to fall, hitting the deck like thrown gravel.
She needed to get off the open deck. If the hijackers didn't shoot her, the incoming hurricane would blow her into the Atlantic. She scrambled to her feet, her boots slipping slightly on the wet metal, and ducked into the narrow maintenance corridor that ran behind the smokestacks.
Inside the bridge, Captain Miller was bleeding from a cut above his left eyebrow. He knelt on the rubberized floor, his hands clamped to the back of his neck. Three of the tactical men stood around him, their weapons leveled.
Silks stood by the massive, reinforced forward windows. He had pulled off his balaclava. He had slicked-back dark hair, a sharp jawline, and the kind of expensive, perfectly tailored tactical shirt that suggested he cared deeply about his aesthetic. He was looking out at the churning gray sea with his hands clasped behind his back.
"You see, Captain," Silks said, his voice dropping into a theatrical baritone. "The world is run by men who understand logistics. Your ferry was simply the weakest link in the logistical chain of three hundred million dollars of government bullion. We reroute the ship, we offload the truck at the abandoned pier in Blackwood, and we vanish. It is elegant. It is poetry."
Captain Miller groaned. Blood dripped onto his white uniform shirt.
Silks turned around, a smug smile playing on his lips. "You should appreciate the artistry, Miller. We used the hurricane as cover. Nobody is tracking a coastal ferry in a Category 3. The coast guard is busy pulling drunk teenagers off sandbars. We are ghosts."
One of the henchmen, a bulky man holding a tablet, cleared his throat. "Uh, boss?"
Silks sighed, his smile faltering. "What is it, Gary? I am trying to establish the stakes here."
Gary tapped the screen of the tablet. His hands were shaking slightly. "The cargo truck down below. The tracker we planted on it? It's doing something weird."
Silks frowned. He walked over to Gary, his boots squeaking softly on the rubber floor. "Define weird, Gary. We are professionals. We do not use words like weird."
"It's emitting a frequency," Gary said, his voice tight. "Like, a really high-pitched audio frequency. It just started two minutes ago. It's maxing out the audio sensors on the drone feed."
Silks snatched the tablet. He stared at the screen. "The gold was supposed to be clean. What is this?"
Captain Miller let out a wet, rattling laugh. "You idiots. That Meridian gold is government reserve. They treat the pallets with a radioactive isotope. If it gets stolen, it activates a sonic beacon. You aren't ghosts. You're a walking lighthouse."
Silks' face tightened. The muscles in his jaw locked. He raised his hand and slapped Miller across the face with the back of his knuckles. Miller slumped sideways, spitting blood onto the console.
"Shut it off," Silks snapped at Gary. "Go down to the cargo hold and shoot the damn tracker."
Gary nodded frantically. "Yes, boss. Right away."
Before Gary could take a step toward the door, a sound echoed through the bridge. It was a dull, heavy thud against the thick forward glass.
Silks whipped his head around. "What was that?"
The bridge was silent, save for the hum of the engines and the pelting rain.
Then, it happened again. A massive, white blur slammed into the reinforced glass. The impact was violent. A spiderweb crack appeared in the center of the pane.
"Did a bird just hit the window?" Gary asked, his voice cracking.
Silks stepped closer to the glass. He peered out into the driving rain. The sky was thick with gray clouds, but silhouetted against the storm was a shape. It was circling back.
It was a seagull. But it was wrong.
The bird was the size of a golden retriever. Its feathers were a dirty, mottled gray and white. Its beak was thick, hooked, and serrated like a steak knife. Its eyes were pure, aggressive red.
Silks took a step back. His stomach tightened. "What the hell is that?"
The giant gull shrieked. The sound was deafening, a ragged, metallic screech that vibrated through the metal of the ship. It folded its massive wings and dove straight at the bridge.
It hit the glass with the force of a cannonball.
The reinforced window shattered inward. A spray of safety glass exploded across the room. The wind and rain howled into the bridge, tearing papers from the consoles and knocking Gary to his knees.
The bird tumbled onto the floor, a thrashing mass of wet feathers and muscle. It righted itself instantly. It snapped its massive beak, tearing a chunk of rubber matting from the floor.
"Shoot it!" Silks screamed, drawing a silver pistol from his shoulder holster.
The room erupted in deafening gunfire. Two of the tactical men opened fire with their rifles. The noise in the enclosed space was physically painful. Shell casings bounced off the walls, pinging against the radar screens.
The bird shrieked again, taking three rounds to the chest. It didn't slow down. It lunged at the nearest shooter, its serrated beak clamping down on the man's forearm. The man screamed, dropping his rifle. The bird twisted its neck violently, tearing through Kevlar and muscle. Blood sprayed across the navigation console.
Silks fired three shots into the bird's head. It finally collapsed, twitching on the floor in a pool of blood and glass.
The bridge fell silent, except for the roaring wind and the screams of the injured man.
Silks lowered his gun. His hands were shaking. He stared at the massive, dead creature. Its beak was still clamped around a piece of tactical fabric.
"Gary," Silks said, his voice barely a whisper.
"Yeah?" Gary choked out from under a desk.
"Look out the window."
Gary slowly crawled out from under the desk and looked through the shattered frame.
The sky was no longer gray. It was white.
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of the massive, mutated birds were circling the ferry. They rode the hurricane winds, their red eyes fixed on the ship. The high-frequency isotope from the gold had called them. And they were angry.
"Oh my god," Gary whispered.
As if on cue, the flock folded their wings and began to dive.
Casey squeezed herself into the small gap between a stack of life rafts and the bulkhead. The metal wall vibrated against her spine. She could hear the screaming from the decks above. It wasn't the sound of men being tough. It was the sound of men being torn apart.
She pulled her knees to her chest. The rain was blowing sideways now, soaking her through the small gap in the corridor.
She needed a weapon. She unclipped a heavy brass key ring from her belt and unlocked the emergency supply box mounted on the wall. Inside, resting on a bed of dry foam, was an Orion marine flare gun. It was bright orange, heavy plastic, and loaded with a single, massive 12-gauge flare shell.
She grabbed it. It felt utterly inadequate.
"Okay," she whispered to herself. "Just stay here. Let the tactical bros fight the demon birds. You get paid to mop up vomit, not save the world."
A locker door three feet to her left rattled.
Casey froze. She leveled the orange plastic gun at the locker. Her thumb rested on the heavy hammer.
"Who is in there?" she demanded, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
The locker door popped open. A man tumbled out, landing face-first on the wet metal deck. He was wearing the same black tactical gear as the hijackers, but he had lost his helmet. He was bald, sweating profusely, and clutching a tablet to his chest like a shield.
It was Gary.
Gary looked up at the orange barrel of the flare gun. He raised his hands slowly.
"Please don't shoot me," Gary said. "I have a very bad lower back and I think I just slipped a disc falling out of that locker."
Casey stared at him. The man was easily fifty, with a stress-induced rash climbing his neck.
"You're one of the hijackers," Casey said.
"I am the IT guy!" Gary yelled over the wind. "I bypass security systems. I don't do combat. I have asthma!"
"Get up," Casey commanded.
Gary groaned, rolling onto his side and using the bulkhead to push himself up. He winced, clutching his lower back. "They're eating them. The birds. They're eating the guys."
"I gathered," Casey said. "Why are the birds eating the guys?"
Gary wiped a mixture of rain and sweat from his eyes. "The gold in the truck. It has a tracker. It's emitting a high-frequency pitch. It's driving the local wildlife insane. These things... they aren't normal seagulls."
"No kidding," Casey said. "They look like they take steroids and hate their fathers."
A deafening crash echoed from the stairwell behind them. One of the heavy metal doors buckled inward.
"We need to move," Casey said. "If we stay here, we get cornered."
"Move where?" Gary panicked. "The whole sky is full of them!"
"The cargo hold," Casey said. "If the gold is causing this, we need to shut off the tracker. Or get rid of the gold."
Gary stared at her. "Silks will kill us. He won't let the gold go."
"Silks is currently fighting for his life against aggressive poultry," Casey said, cocking the hammer of the flare gun. "I'll take my chances. Follow me, and stay low."
They crept out of the maintenance corridor and onto the open aft deck. The wind immediately grabbed them, pushing them toward the railing. The sky was an absolute nightmare. The massive birds were swarming the upper decks, tearing at the radar dishes, shattering the windows of the passenger lounge.
The deck was slick with rain, blood, and massive, terrifyingly large splatters of white guano.
"Oh gross," Casey said, her boot sliding through a fresh pile.
"Watch your step," Gary squeaked, slipping and catching himself on the railing.
Above them, a scream tore through the air. Casey looked up. One of the tactical men, a giant of a guy with an assault rifle, was pinned against the funnel. Three of the giant birds were attacking him. Two had their beaks clamped onto his heavy Kevlar vest.
The birds flapped their massive wings, fighting the hurricane wind.
"They can't lift him," Gary said, his voice trembling. "He's two hundred and fifty pounds."
"Gary," Casey said, her stomach twisting. "They're lifting him."
The birds shrieked, a terrible, synchronized sound. Their wings beat furiously. Slowly, agonizingly, the man's boots left the deck. He screamed, dropping his rifle, trying to punch the birds. They ignored his fists. They carried him up, up, over the railing, and out into the churning gray storm.
He vanished into the rain, his screams swallowed by the wind.
Gary threw up over the side of the railing.
"Wipe your mouth and keep moving!" Casey yelled, grabbing the strap of his tactical vest and dragging him toward the heavy steel doors that led down to the car deck.
A shadow fell over them. Casey spun around.
One of the birds had landed on the deck between them and the door. Up close, it was horrifying. It smelled like rotting fish and hot copper. Its feathers were thick and greasy. It locked its red eyes on Casey and hissed, a sound like steam escaping a pipe.
It lunged.
Casey didn't think. She raised the orange plastic gun and pulled the trigger.
The recoil snapped her wrist back. A blinding ball of red phosphorus shot out of the barrel, striking the bird square in the chest. The flare ignited the thick, greasy feathers instantly.
The bird shrieked, a sound that rattled Casey's teeth. It thrashed backward, a fireball of feathers and rage, and tumbled over the side of the ship into the water.
Casey stood there, her chest heaving. The smell of burnt feathers and sulfur hung heavy in the wet air.
Gary stared at her, his eyes wide. "Did you just shoot a mutant seagull with a flare gun?"
"I do not have time for a recap, Gary," Casey snapped, breaking open the action of the gun and fumbling in her pocket for a reload. Her fingers were shaking so badly she dropped the shell twice. "Open the door!"
Gary threw his weight against the heavy steel handle. The door groaned open, revealing the dark, cavernous ramp leading down to the cargo hold. They shoved their way inside and slammed the door behind them, engaging the heavy deadbolts.
The sudden silence was jarring. The thick steel walls muffled the storm and the shrieks of the birds.
They stood at the top of the ramp, breathing heavily in the dim emergency lighting.
"Okay," Casey said, her voice echoing slightly in the massive space. "Let's go find your boss and his stupid gold."
The car deck was massive, smelling strongly of diesel exhaust, damp rust, and the old salt baked into the steel plates. Vehicles were chained to the deck in neat rows, but right in the center sat the Meridian Airport transport truck. It was a blocky, armored beast, painted flat gray.
Standing in front of the truck was Silks.
He was no longer the sleek, polished mastermind. His tactical shirt was ripped at the shoulder, revealing a bloody gash. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and seawater. He was covered, head to toe, in white, chalky bird guano.
He held a long, serrated machete in his right hand. The blade was smeared with dark blood and gray feathers.
"Boss?" Gary called out tentatively, stepping down the ramp behind Casey.
Silks whipped around, raising the machete. His eyes were wild. The calculated calm was completely gone, replaced by a frantic, feral paranoia.
"Gary!" Silks barked, his voice cracking. "Where have you been? They took Rodriguez! The birds took him right off the deck!"
"We need to dump the truck, boss," Gary pleaded, holding his hands up. "The frequency is driving them mad. If we don't dump the gold, they're going to tear their way through the steel hull."
"No!" Silks screamed, his voice echoing loudly in the cavernous space. He slashed the machete through the empty air. "Do you know what I went through to get this? I am not losing it to a flock of oversized pigeons! We hold our ground. We fight."
Casey stepped out from behind Gary. She still held the flare gun, though it was currently unloaded.
"You are out of your mind," Casey said, her voice flat and unimpressed. "You're covered in bird shit, standing in the middle of a hurricane, holding a knife. This is embarrassing. Just push the truck off the back ramp."
Silks narrowed his eyes at her. "Who the hell are you?"
"I am the deckhand," Casey said. "And I want to go home. So we are going to open the stern doors, unchain the truck, and let it roll into the ocean."
Silks let out a dark, ragged laugh. "You think you can take this from me? I'll gut you before I let you touch that truck."
He took a step toward her.
Suddenly, the heavy steel walls of the car deck began to vibrate. It wasn't the hum of the engines. It was a frantic, scratching sound. Hundreds of sharp claws and heavy beaks scraping against the exterior hull. The sheer volume of the noise made the air in the room feel heavy. The birds were trying to get in.
One of the small ventilation grates near the ceiling suddenly dented inward with a loud bang. A heavy, serrated beak poked through the metal slits, snapping violently.
Gary whimpered, dropping to his knees.
Silks stared at the vent, his bravado faltering. "No. No, no, no."
Casey didn't wait for him to recover. She sprinted toward the wall panel that controlled the stern ramp. She hit the large green button with the palm of her hand.
Hydraulics whined loudly. The massive steel doors at the back of the ferry began to grind open.
The storm roared into the enclosed space. Rain blasted horizontally across the deck. Through the widening gap, Casey could see the massive gray waves crashing against the back of the boat. And she could see the birds. They were swarming the opening, fighting the wind to get inside.
"Stop!" Silks yelled, running toward the control panel, raising the machete.
Casey grabbed the heavy emergency intercom phone from the wall. She dialed the three-digit code for the bridge. Captain Miller, if he was still alive, was the only one up there.
"Captain!" she yelled into the receiver. "Hit the foghorn! Now!"
She dropped the phone and ducked just as Silks swung the machete. The blade sparked against the metal bulkhead, inches from her head.
Before Silks could swing again, a sound hit them.
It was the ship's massive pneumatic foghorn. But it wasn't a short blast. It was a continuous, deafening roar. The sound pressure was so intense it rattled the fluid in Casey's ears. She fell to her knees, clamping her hands over the sides of her head, her teeth aching from the vibration.
The effect on the birds was instantaneous.
The high-frequency tracking pitch was drowned out by the sheer, overwhelming physical force of the foghorn. The massive gulls swarming the open stern doors suddenly lost their coordination. They shrieked in confusion, crashing into each other, tumbling out of the air and splashing into the churning water below. The organized swarm dissolved into chaos.
Silks dropped the machete, clapping his hands over his ears, his face twisted in pain.
Casey forced herself to her feet. The deck was angled slightly downward toward the stern. She ran to the front of the transport truck. Gary was already there, frantically unlocking the heavy chains that secured the front axles to the deck floor.
"Help me!" Gary screamed over the foghorn.
Casey grabbed a heavy steel pry bar from a wall mount. She shoved it into the release lever of the last chain. She threw her entire body weight against it. The metal groaned. Her boots slipped on a puddle of diesel fuel. She pushed harder, her muscles burning.
The lever snapped open. The chains hit the deck with a loud crash.
The ship pitched heavily on a wave. The massive gray truck, no longer anchored, began to roll backward.
Silks realized what was happening. He lunged for the front bumper, his hands slipping on the wet metal. "No!"
The truck gained speed. The deck angle was too steep. The heavy rubber tires rolled over Silks' boots, sending him crashing to the floor. He scrambled out of the way just as the six-ton vehicle hit the edge of the ramp.
It tipped backward. For a second, it hung in the air, the heavy rain washing over its armor. Then, with a massive splash that sent seawater spraying back onto the deck, the truck plunged into the Atlantic.
Casey fell backward onto the steel grating, panting heavily. The foghorn abruptly stopped.
The sudden silence was filled only by the wind.
Casey crawled to the edge of the ramp and looked down. The water was foaming where the truck had gone under.
And then, they dove.
Hundreds of the giant, mutated seagulls folded their wings and plunged into the ocean, diving like missiles after the sinking truck. The high-frequency tracker was calling them straight to the bottom. The water boiled with feathers and thrashing bodies, and then, slowly, the ocean swallowed them all.
The sky was empty.
Casey sat on the edge of the ramp, her legs dangling over the water. She watched the gray waves roll. Her arms felt like lead. She wiped a mixture of sweat and rain from her forehead.
An hour later, the coast guard cutter finally broke through the weakening storm bands.
Casey sat in the ferry's cafeteria, wrapped in a scratchy orange wool blanket. She held a styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee. Her hands were still shaking slightly, rattling the cup against her lower lip.
Across the room, Silks sat handcuffed to a bolted table. He was staring blankly at the wall, completely broken, muttering quietly about logistics. Gary was next to him, explaining his slipped disc to an entirely unimpressed coast guard officer.
The ship's manager, a man in a wrinkled suit who had spent the entire ordeal locked in his office, approached Casey's table. He carried a clipboard.
"Stanton," he said, looking down his nose at her. "Captain Miller says you secured the stern. Good work. However, you did leave a significant amount of unauthorized debris on Deck Four."
Casey took a slow sip of the terrible coffee. She looked up at the manager.
"I want a raise," she said quietly. "I want six weeks of paid vacation. And I want the company to pay for my therapy. Because if you ask me to pick up a single hotdog today, I am going to throw you into the ocean."
The manager opened his mouth to speak, looked at the dried blood and guano caked onto her uniform, and slowly closed it. He nodded once, turned, and walked away.
“Casey took a slow sip of the terrible coffee, completely unaware that a single, massive gray feather had just floated down through the open cafeteria vent.”
