The Monster Man of Horror House (16 page)

Bucketfuls
of black blood coated the steel decking like oil and pooled against the
bulkheads. Some places were sticky underfoot, some slippery, but all of it
clawed at my throat like a petrified scream. Inside the cabins was worse. Arms,
legs, heads and bones were strewn. Most looked as if they’d been taken apart
pretty quickly, and some as if they’d been revisited for a chew. Indeed, all we
found of Upendra was one of his legs. Khan must’ve liked the Doctor after all.

Along
with the entrails were deep gouges in the wood and steel work. We guessed that
Khan’s claws must’ve done these, but to leave that kind of damage without
breaking off in the process was mind-boggling.

“Let’s
get the hell out of here; take one of the life rafts and go. Let him keep the
Folly
. Fuck it!”

“If
he is what I think he is, our best hope is to get him while he’s at his
weakest, not throw ourselves to the mercy of the waves.” Sushanta replied.

Nothing
more lurked for us in the crew’s quarters, so Sushanta spun the hatch at the
far end of the gangway and took us down into the engine room. It was as hot as
hell down here, more than usual, and in places the engine housings were near impassable.
We swept as much of the terrain as we could, poking nooks, crannies and
spider’s webs and sending the odd slug into bundles of filthy rags lying in between
the pipes, but after twenty minutes of searching we came up empty-handed, so
once more we pressed on, through the next hatchway, down the next stairwell and
into the Holds.

Most
of our stores were packed with bales of cotton and sweet corn, the first we
were transporting to Hong Kong, the second we were slowly feeding to the fish.
There were dozens of places Khan could've hidden down here if this had been his
intention, but to our dismay, Khan proved a little more proactive than that and
a shot rang out the moment we stepped in Hold three. I was a little slow taking
cover because I’d thought it was Sushanta who’d fired the shot so that Khan’s
second bullet rattled off the barrel of my Lee Enfield and knocked me flat on
my back.

“Fuck!”
was all I could think to say, not least of all when I saw the third finger on
my right hand was now missing just below the knuckle. Khan gave me no time to savour
the pain though as bullets skimmed and clattered off the bulkheads all around
me forcing me to throw myself through a curtain of four-inch chains to get
beyond his deadly hail.

Sushanta’s
rifle spoke up in my defence, blasting the epicentre of Khan’s muzzle-flashes
with a volley of its own to send Khan tumbling from his perch. The walking
corpse we’d picked up the previous day now hit the ground like a panther and raced
away with an agility that beggared belief. Sushanta did his best to put a dink
in Khan’s gait, splintering the air behind him with a volley of
.303
s, but I was in no shape to fight.

“He’s
coming your way!” Sushanta yelled, forcing me back to my senses.

Khan’s
scrawny form ducked between two crates ahead, so I blasted the next gap in his
path, hoping to ambush him, but Khan’s reactions were like none I’d ever seen.
He dropped out of my line of fire and rolled on his side to send two shots back
in my direction before I’d even realised I’d missed him. The first of these
shots hit the crate to my right, sending a shower of matchwood into my face,
and my agonised recoil somehow saved me from his second.

How
was this fair? A werewolf who was good with a gun – what chance did we
have?

I
scrambled over the decking as Sushanta covered my retreat, emptying his magazine
into everything within a five-yard radius of our unwanted shipmate. I hurled
myself through the hatchway and hung my rifle around the jamb to return the
compliment, but Sushanta wasn’t for running. Despite Khan’s fleet-footedness,
Sushanta was determined to have this out with him before the night swung the
balance against us again. He raced away to get the drop on him and more shots rang
out followed by a volley of obscenities in a language I didn’t recognise. I
don’t know how I knew they were obscenities; maybe they weren’t. But to me most
oriental languages sound that way when barked over gunfire.

One
final crack signalled the end of the fighting but Sushanta continued to holler
and rant. I listened for another thirty seconds before silence descended over the
Hold. I shouldered my Lee Enfield and kept it trained on the hatch but nothing
emerged.

“Sushanta?”
I whispered, but the only sounds to reply were the holding chains as the boat’s
motion tinkled them against one another.

“Sushanta?”

I
hated giving away my position, but my bravery was almost spent and I couldn’t
stand the thought of being left alone with this inhuman beast, even in his
human form.

“Coal?”
a voice whispered just beyond the hatchway

“Sushanta,
is that you?”

“Don’t
shoot.”

Sushanta
waved a dirty white rag to double-check we were both on the same hymn sheet
then stepped into view. His side was red with blood and he half-staggered
half-hauled himself through the hatchway with the air of a man defeated.

“Help
me Coal! Help me back to the surface.”

I
was reluctant at first, fearing to put down my rifle, but Sushanta assured me
it would be okay.

“He
won’t come after us. Not now.”
 

“You
got him then?”

“No,”
Sushanta shrugged, wincing as I looped an arm underneath his shoulder. “Khan
lives.”

I
hauled Sushanta up top again and sat him down against the portside rail. His
blood looked rich and ruby against the dried out smears from the previous night.
I picked up my rifle and peered through the hatchway to make sure we weren’t being
followed, but Sushanta again said that Khan wouldn’t be coming.

“He’ll
not try to kill us by day, it’s too dangerous for him. He’ll sit tight and wait
until the night comes, then he'll look for us.”

“But,
the gun…”

“He
was defending himself, not trying to kill us. He wants to live as much as we do
and he knows we must come for him by day. He was ready for us, but he’ll not seek
trouble, not while he can be hurt. He’ll wait us out.”

“How
do you know all of this?” I asked.

Sushanta
pulled his hand from his side and took a deep breath as he examined his leaking
abdomen.

“It’s
what I would do. He’s a survivor. Has been for many years I expect. He has been
here before.”

“So
what’s the plan?”

“The
plan?” Sushanta huffed, raising an eye towards the heavens. “All we can do is
deny Khan his sport.”

I
wondered how we could do that, then realised what Sushanta meant when he dug
out his Webley.

“Are
there any plans that don’t involve us blowing our own heads off?” I asked.

“I
cannot move and my strength will leave me before this evening. I cannot climb
and I cannot fight. Better for me to take the long road now than leave myself
to be picked apart by the beast.”

“I
notice there’s lot of you in this plan. What about me? What am I meant to do
after you do yourself in?”

“After
me?” Sushanta shrugged, “the gun is yours.” He thrust the barrel under his chin
but I jammed my thumb behind the hammer as he pulled the trigger, saving Sushanta
but killing my thumbnail as the firing pin split it to the pink.

“Fuck!”
I yelled, snatching the gun from Sushanta and prising my thumb from its works.

Sushanta
begged me for the gun but tossed it overboard, partly to make a point and
partly out of rage at finding myself two fingers down already.

“You’re
condemning me to an agonising death. I cannot escape his wrath,” Sushanta
insisted.

“You
said it yourself,” I mumbled through a mouthful of blood, “he won’t come for us
by day. We’ve got a few hours yet. And I need you.”

“And
when the night comes?”

“If
we haven’t got Khan by then, I’ll blow your fucking head off myself.”

ix

We spent the first couple of hours catching our breath and taking on food. I
hadn’t much of an appetite and Sushanta could barely keep down a mouthful of
biscuits but we were both needed sustenance more than we desired it.

After
three hours of rest, I felt almost human again and doused my head in cold water
to rinse the remnants of fog from my senses. My fingers didn’t really hurt,
except when I jabbed them unexpectedly, which I seemed to do about every thirty
seconds or so, but I could just about get by if I did most things with my left.

Sushanta
had been right about Khan. He made no attempt to gatecrash our brunch and had probably
been grateful for the downtime himself. But this was merely the eye of the
storm and we knew it. As the ship’s shadows swung from portside to starboard I
was reminded that our time was quickly slipping away and that Khan would soon be
on the claw again.

“So,
what’s the plan?” Sushanta croaked, his face five shades lighter than mine
despite the head start his parents had given him.

As
it happens I’d had a few thoughts. The first of these involved loading up a
life raft with all the biscuits and brem it could hold and taking my chances in
the open seas, but there was something I didn’t like about this plan. And not
just the slow and lingering death part. No, I didn’t like it because it meant
letting Khan off the hook. And as my strength returned, so did my anger. Of
course I wasn’t stupid enough to be tempted into another fight, but neither was
I of a mind to chalk off our adventure as one-set all and honours even. Khan had
to meet his maker. And as long as I was on the same boat as him and the sun was
in the sky, that was a possibility.

So
what could we do?

The
first thing we could do was keep him away from us for as long as possible so I
peeled the First Mate’s keys from a pile of rotting nastiness I found up in the
Wheel House and went about locking down every hatchway, duct and grating that would
still close. I even ventured into the ship as far as the Engine Room, securing
fire doors and portholes between Khan and the outside world. Some locked,
others I jammed with fire axes and furniture. I didn’t know how long I could
imprison him below. Certain not indefinitely. But every minute I delayed him
was another minute I survived.

When
it came to the outer hatches, I wrapped the handles with chains and locked them
off with securing bolts. I even pulled the acetylene torch from the maintenance
stores and welded the hatches into solid steel plates that Houdini himself would’ve
had the Dickins opening.

Khan
was a different prospect though.

I
topped the whole lot off by winching several steel containers from the stacks with
the deck hoist and dropping them in front of – or in some cases, on top
of – the hatches that opened out onto the decks, so by the time the sun
dipped its toe in the west I couldn’t see what more I could’ve done –
except kept my promise to Sushanta.

He’d
not moved all day, so you could argue how much help he’d really been. But I can
be a calculating little cuss when I have to be and Sushanta’s continued
breathing reassured me that Khan hadn’t doubled back while I’d been barricading
the bulkheads. As awful as it is to admit Sushanta was my canary.

“Kill
me. Kill me now!” he demanded when I went to see how he was. “It’s almost night.
You gave me your word.”

But
I had no intention of leaving myself all alone in this ship and so I told
Sushanta I had a better idea. “I’ll put you beyond Khan’s reach.”

Lifting
Sushanta as gently as I could, I lay him into the life raft nearest the stern
and began lowering him into the waters. We were only travelling at a couple of
knots, but the raft’s bow skimmed and rolled off the swells all the same before
the sea took a hold of him and pulled him away from our hull.

I
walked the rail around to the stern and watched Sushanta slip into our backwash
before tethering his raft to our flagstaff. I’d played out 70 yards of rope,
figuring even Khan couldn’t vault that far, and left Sushanta with enough
blankets, bread and brem to see him through the night.

Blue
skies turned blood red as the sun made way for the moon and I knew I didn’t
have long so I gathered up as much ammo, bread and water as I could carry lift,
then shinned it up the midships mast to take my perch for the night.

The
last few rays of sunlight flickered on the horizon until the shadowy seas
finally snuffed them out. From that moment the only light to be seen was that
of the moon, hanging high above my head like the dinner gong of Damocles.

I
locked and loaded my rifle and set my senses to terrified, but for ages I heard
nothing but the sounds of the sea and the wind in the riggings.

An
hour passed, then two. Three came and went and on and on we ploughed towards
midnight, before eventually a sharp crack roused me from my stupor. Catastrophically,
it was the sound of my Lee-Enfield hitting the deck when I’d succumbed. It was
down there now, somewhere in the blackness and by the sound of it in several dozen
pieces. I wondered if I should go back down and find another but a dull
thundering coming from beneath the decks told me my preparation time had come
and gone.