Jumping down the last four steps of the ladderway had landed him in a puddle of seawater and slime, and his right leg shot out from under him, twisting his ankle and making him cry out. There was no time to sit and cradle it, no time to cry. The dead sailor was already tumbling down the ladderway after him. Michael ran, moving in a painful, limping gallop, similar to the dead. Choices of corridors presented themselves, most with the dark spots of open hatches running their length, none of them attractive. He went right, hobbling as quickly as he could, hearing the thing land behind him with a wet, crumpling noise. God, it stinks down here. His flashlight swept across walls covered in vertical piping and valves, cables and colored conduit overhead, and hatches with their purposes stenciled on them in white letters, going by too fast to read. He nearly tripped over a decaying corpse in the center of the passage, leaping over it and tensing for a gray arm to shoot up and grab him.
