Dreadful Skin (6 page)

XII.

People were starting to come out of their cabins, wandering into the rain, wondering what that godawful noise had been. They were milling about, walking along that edge of panic—when the unknown is something yet uncertain, but bound to be terrible. I imagined they were right, but I didn’t believe it would do any of us any good to embrace a frightened frenzy.

Two of the young men from supper were out on the deck—I told them about the mud drums, and how they make such a horrific noise that unseasoned travelers often fear the boiler is about to explode.

I knew as well as the serving girl knew that it was a lie. It calmed them anyway. I’ve always been a good liar.

I told them to go back to their rooms and prepare for bed. We’d be stopped for the night, and they may as well rest. I told them that I would do likewise, but then I heard the screaming, and I knew that the bluff was up.

It wasn’t that howling sound—no. It was a woman in terror, or fury.

Based only on suspicion, I thought it must have been the serving girl, Laura. There was a primitive brutality to the sound, it was something less civilized than I thought an educated Irish woman might produce. It was not a sound that would come from a small woman, anyway; and Laura was a tall girl. Furthermore, something told me she wasn’t a nervous girl, prone to histrionics.

And she was screaming.

Only for a moment. It would be more accurate to say she emitted one
great
scream, and stopped. But it was a scream of decidedly imminent peril.

Several heads popped out of their respective cabins, but I ignored them—I don’t know why. I might have called for help, though they might have thought to help me on their own, and I don’t know why they didn’t.

Out in the elements—buffeted by the cascades and stings of the uncooperative weather—I ran toward the place where the scream might have originated. On the way and on a whim, I ducked back into the dining area and rushed to the kitchen.

Laura had taken the biggest knife, but I did not intend to charge headlong into danger unattended. I found a large serving fork. It was the size of my forearm, with three giant fangs as long as fingers. It might have looked silly, but it was heavy in my hand and I thought it would suffice.

Back into the rain. I was shocked; it hit my face as hard as a slap. It all but blinded me. It confused me, but I heard fast footsteps off to my right—so I chased them.

“Laura! Sister Eileen!” I called out. Nothing answered, so I kept following the patter, though it’d grown faint between the raindrops. I was following their memory more than their echo.

I was down the hall from the captain’s cabin, I thought. He might have been a tired old drunk, but he was the captain—he was the boat’s authority—and I thought that this must be a good time to rouse him. Strange things were happening on the
Mary Byrd
, and they were surely worse than strange. They were sinister.

But it was then that I realized why Laura had been screaming.

I came upon the captain’s cabin and was stunned into immobility. I stared into his cabin with my mouth agape, collecting the raindrops that streamed from my hair and down my chin.

His cabin had become a slaughterhouse.

The captain was sprawled, his chest and head on the floor—his feet and thighs on the divan. He was perfectly dead, without a doubt. No one lives while missing so much of his face and throat. Hardly any bit above his chest was recognizable, but for one bulging blue eye that pointed sightlessly at the ceiling.

His hands were torn and bruised too, and his wrists; he’d held them out to hold something else away. But what?

I thought of Laura with her knife, but I did not see her and I was not foolish enough to think she was responsible. No, it was only fear I felt for her, when I thought about her roaming the decks alone with her knife.

And where was she?

A crash might have answered me—or it might have told me nothing. At least it startled me away from the sight on the floor of the demolished cabin. At least it gave me something to look for and think about besides, “Where did the rest of him go?”

The crash was mighty, but brief. It sounded like a window breaking and taking part of a wall with it—it was decidedly different from the thunderclaps that coughed themselves into the sky every few minutes. The
Mary Byrd
shook a little—or maybe she just rolled with a river wave. The wind was moving her too.

The frantic patter of footsteps had been drowned by the rain, so I changed my approach and went toward the stern, toward the crash—or so I thought.

I skidded around the corner and found myself overlooking the big red paddlewheel. I caught myself on the railing’s edge before I could topple down into it, and I thanked heaven and lucky stars both.

I turned around and saw where a window was gone, blasted inside the cabin as if something large and unwilling had been thrown through it. It pained me—I hesitated, and I cringed, but I looked inside anyway. I expected to see something as horrible as the captain’s room, but there was nothing. Only the evidence of a struggle—shards of glass, toppled books, a chair with one leg smashed out from under it.

And blood.

I saw a little bit of blood. But it wasn’t much. It was a small, splattered amount running thin with the added influx of rainwater; it suggested discomfort and inconvenience, not death. Whoever was hurt had left the scene.

“Laura?” I shouted again. “Sister Eileen?”

I tore myself away from the broken window and fought the wind-thrown rain again—I held out my arm, with my elbow pointed forward, trying to clear myself a path through the sheets of water. It hardly helped. I could hardly see.

And that’s why I plowed right into him—the cook. He was a bigly muscled man like I was in my youth, and he was as black as a plum with brown eyes set in yellow. My head connected with his collarbone and I recoiled with apologies begging from my lips.

“I didn’t see you there,” I told him. “I—” I wiped my face on my sleeve and continued. “I wonder, did Laura find you?”

He didn’t react, except to stand there and sway.

I felt warmth in my hair, dripping down my face. I wiped it again with my sleeve—and only then noticed something stained and streaked upon it. It wasn’t mine, I didn’t think.

“Cook?” Between the rain and the darkness I couldn’t make out much detail in his visage. But he was wearing a gray night shirt and it was just light enough to spy the way he had both arms raised up to clutch his chest, and his throat. And his skin was so dark that I hadn’t seen, until I looked for it, that all of his soaking came not from the rain.

I reached out a hand to him—though I don’t know how I meant to help.

He reached a hand to me—though there wasn’t anything I could do. I saw that, when he took the hand away. I saw white there, underneath his grasp. It was bone, and tendons, and the cords of his throat.

Before he could take my hand, he fell slowly sideways. I stepped forward to catch him or assist him—at least to lie him down on the deck, perhaps, and give him that passing measure of dignity. His weight bore him down though, harder than I could hold him up. He toppled past me. His hip cracked against the rail and broke it—the bone or the rail, I don’t know, I only heard it—but over the side he went, and he splashed down into the Tennessee River. He bobbed a moment or two before sinking, or being washed away to a spot I couldn’t see.

I stared down after him, gasping, panting, breathing in the rain and wishing for the sun—for God, for Eileen, or Laura, or anyone.

And above me, up on the hurricane deck and between the gonging beats of thunder, I heard the unmistakable sound of a struggle.

XIII.

The cook’s room was empty when I finally got to it. His cabin looked all right, but the door was hanging open and water was blowing on in. I came inside and looked around, pushing the door shut behind me enough so I could shake the water off myself.

“Cook?” I called, but it was obvious he wasn’t there, and I don’t know why I bothered.

The room was tidy and didn’t have much in it, like mine. He didn’t own much, and what he had was stashed like his mama told him how to do it. The only thing undone was the bed—the covers were pushed aside and the sheets were unmade. It looked like he’d turned in for the night and maybe heard something. Maybe he got up, out from between the sheets, and maybe he opened that door.

Whatever happened after, he hadn’t closed it and he was gone.

I opened the door again and went back into the wet. It didn’t matter. I was soaked all the way down to my skin everywhere anyway. And if finding the captain had taught me anything, it was that hiding in a cabin wouldn’t do me no good, and probably my knife wouldn’t either.

Out on the deck I stepped on something that crunched and slipped. It was a lantern, or what was left of one—the glass kind filled with oil. The cook probably took it with him when he left the room to see what the noise was. And he’d dropped it, but he’d been lucky—or we’d been lucky. Either the rain or chance had kept it from bursting into flames along the deck and setting us all ablaze.

But there were my hints—an open cabin door, a broken lantern, and an unmade bed. No cook. And out in the cabin decks someone was surely going to find the captain soon.

And someone was shooting—once, twice, maybe a third time—the thunder got in the way of what I heard, but I heard the first two clearly enough. Someone was shooting, and that couldn’t mean anything good.

I thought of the pilot’s house, up on top of the boat, and I thought of the big whistle there. It was a whistle you could hear for miles, if you kicked the treadle wheel with all you were worth. You could sure hear it farther off than a gunshot, I’d bet.

Somewhere back towards the captain’s cabin I heard a big commotion, but it sounded too close to have come from there.

I thought it was up by the stern, by the big paddlewheel or thereabouts; so if there was trouble roaming the boat, it was coming my way. I wasn’t running far enough or fast enough, but Jesus Lord have mercy—the captain was dead and we were anchored down to the river bottom. Where could we have gone? What could we have done?

I thought about the whistle again, and I thought maybe it was a bad idea to sound it. Even as I braced myself against the thunderstorm and started to run to the stairs, I thought I might be making things worse for myself. I might lock myself in the pilot’s house and sound the whistle a thousand times—and someone might hear, and someone might come.

But the odds were better than fair that whatever came would kill me as soon as rescue me. The killer was closer than any help, that was sure.

But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t think of anything else and I couldn’t just stand there and wait for it to come and get me. So I ran to the stairs, and I charged up them—stepping on my skirts and falling on my face before making it to the top.

Up there it was cold and windier than downstairs; I was closer to the sky and closer to the storm, but it felt all right. It felt like being surrounded by God, and I felt alive.

And then I heard the growl. I didn’t mistake it for any thunder. This was something other than the sky, making a noise that said it hated me. Well it could hate me all it wanted. I still had my knife.

From the corner of my eye—off to the left, coming around a bench bolted down to the top deck, it crept forward.

Lightning showed me its eyes, and they were the color of new pennies. It was walking hunched over. Its feet made clicking noises on the deck, not like it was wearing shoes but like it was walking on claws. It definitely had teeth; I saw those teeth shining sharp as it breathed and chewed at the wet air.

“Jesus Lord have mercy,” I said, to myself and not to it—whatever it was.

I began to back sideways and away, towards the pilot’s house. It might be locked but I’d break anything I had to, in order to get inside. But I backed off slow, and it came at me slow. Like a game. Like a step from me, and a step from it.

If I ran, it’d chase me.

I tried to angle myself to put obstacles between us—deck chairs, bundled crates, anything.

It was herding me. It took me a few yards of retreat to figure it out. It was herding me away, into a corner, against the big steam calliope at the edge of the roof. I was standing beside the noisy steam instrument when the monster with the penny eyes jumped.

I didn’t waste any breath on a scream. I scrambled aside and grabbed a chair, yanking it loose and pushing it in front of me. The full weight of the beast landed square on the chair and the deck was so wet we both slid—the creature went off to the side, smashing into the pipe organ with its big brass tubes and pedals. I went falling, crashing, in the other direction—back around the deck.

I had a clear shot to the pilot house but I had the monster on my tail.

It recovered quickly, bringing a hairy fist down into the pipes and drawing a shrill, steam-powered squeal from the press of his weight on the keys. Something snagged him and he gave me a handful of precious seconds while he disentangled himself, roaring all the time.

I could hardly see the deck, or the pilot-house door, or my hands in front of me, but that didn’t slow me down. I knew what followed me. I knew what would happen when it caught me, and I didn’t have any dumb ideas anymore—oh, it was
going
to catch me. But I was going to make it inside that pilot house.

The thing landed on the deck behind me with a crack and a squeal, and I jumped—stepping on and over the deck benches, pushing myself on with my feet, and holding my skirts up with the hand that wasn’t holding the knife.

I’d have never believed I could move so fast—in the dark, in the rain, in that big long dress that slowed me down every turn.

Behind me, though. If you’d seen what came behind me.

You’d believe it. You’d have run too, no matter what.

Behind me I heard it slip and trip its way along, finding footing like I did—just barely, and not very well.

And then the clomping, echoing leaps of its pursuit stopped. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to look and see it back there, flexing its haunches like a cat getting ready to take down a mouse.

But then I saw—over by the stairs, where first I’d come in—someone else was standing. “Jack!” the someone called out, and even in my frantic flight I heard her, and I knew that it was the nun.

“No!” I hollered to her, where what I meant to say was more like, “Get gone! You’re no help to me and it’ll kill us both!” But I didn’t have the breath to do it and I was almost at the pilot house then.

“Jack!” she shouted it again.

It stopped the monster. It didn’t stop me.

I collided hands-first with the pilot house door and it was locked, just like I figured it would be. There was a little window, though—beside the door, and a bigger one that looked back over the decks so the pilot could see what was going on around the boat. I turned the knife and struck the little pane of glass with its heavy wood handle.

I didn’t know why the monster wasn’t all upon me yet, but I took those seconds like the gifts they were. The window wasn’t big enough to climb through, but it was big enough to reach an arm through. I jammed my hand on in, and unlocked the door from the inside—then opened the door and let myself on through.

I flung my back against it to close it behind me but something stopped it. Something wouldn’t let the hinges shut and this something was huge, and angry.

But I’d gotten so close! I was in the pilot house, and my back was bracing against the monster; whatever spell Sister Eileen had cast on it was broken and it remembered me. It wanted me. It had every intention of eating me alive, I knew it like a mouse knows it.

I was crying then, and screaming, and scooting myself down to sit myself on the floor and hold it closed with my feet against the captain’s instruments, and the wheels, and the calling tubes, and the levers and latches. Anything to hold my position there—anything to keep the door from opening enough to let the thing through.

It pushed hard—again, again, and with a great thrust of weight it knocked me lose and threw me all the way across the small room.

It grabbed me—around the waist, trying to whip me around. It wanted me to look at it, but I didn’t want to look at it, and I didn’t intend to. I struck with the knife and it didn’t do me a bit of good. I slashed where I could and felt something warm like blood, but it wasn’t enough to drain it, or slow it down.

With a back-handed swipe it knocked the knife away from me and I think it broke my hand. I felt the bones in my palm and along my wrist turn loose, but I reached with it anyway—at the controls, at the bell pulls, at the cords and cables—and it felt like trying to pull a rope with a glove full of gravel.

It hit me hard, trying to stun me or trying to stop me. It let me go just enough to let me fall over the pilot’s wheel, and then it grabbed me by my arm to whip me back.

But with my unhurt hand, I’d found the whistle treadle down there towards the floor. I grabbed it and I pushed on it with all the weight I could give it.

One shrill, piercing note blew high and hard into the rain.

The monster howled and slacked his grip on my arm, so I leaned on the treadle harder. The note rose in tone and it got so loud, I thought it would break my ears. But I leaned harder, because the monster was letting me go. And then the second note chimed in—and then, because the thing had all but let me loose, I took my whole body and fell on it.

A chord loud enough to wake the saints blasted out, and it hurt my ears and my head so bad that my hand quit hurting, or at least for a few seconds I didn’t feel it anymore.

The monster howled, and howled—and I heard pain in the howl and I wondered if its ears were hurting too. That’s why I leaned on the whistle so hard, even though the sound of it had worked its way into my body and it was making my ribs shake.

In my ears there was a snapping, stabbing pain and then there was nothing but that pain. There wasn’t even any sound anymore. Not even the whistle. And I was afraid that I’d fallen off—or that I’d died and let it go, but it was still there being pushed, so I didn’t let go. I didn’t let up.

I turned around to look over my shoulder and see the monster—since it wanted me to look so bad. It was backing up with its hands or its paws or whatever—it was backing up with its hands over its ears. Its mouth was open and its tongue was curling out with a scream, but I didn’t hear any of it.

I didn’t hear the rain, either. I didn’t hear a thing, except for the sour, deep ringing in my head.

I jumped up and down a little, leaning and pushing and pushing on the whistle. Make it louder, then. Make it louder, and make it hurt. Make someone hear. Make someone send help. Make someone come. Make someone come.

Sister Eileen came.

She was there—I saw her, standing very still behind the monster, but I only saw her when the lightning flashed. Between the lightning strikes, I was blind and deaf both. But I watched through the lightning, and I saw only fragments of what came next.

The nun was holding something in both hands—I couldn’t tell what it was. It almost looked like she was wearing mittens with knives stuck in them, but it was just a trick of the light. She was holding something, I guess—some kind of weapon, I think. She was panting, too—breathing so hard I could see her breasts rising and falling between the white flashes and cracked lines above us.

Her eyes were shining. I swear, it looked like she was growing—but it must have been that she was coming closer. She was running towards the thing. She was coming right at it, and it didn’t see her at first.

The next flash—she was on top of it. She was on its back and she was tearing at it with her hands, or whatever she held.

They fell together, and everything shook. Everything rattled. Everything went dark, and it stayed dark. I fell down, off the whistle, and I leaned myself back up against the pilot’s wheel.

My dress was ripped, and where it was ripped I saw skin. I saw strips of muscle, like on meat when you dress it up to cook. I hadn’t even felt it. I didn’t want to look at it.

I closed my eyes, or maybe I didn’t. I couldn’t tell the difference.