The Cold Beneath (21 page)

“I don’t understand,” Bathos whispered. “We stoked them just before y’all had your run in. They should have lasted a few hours longer at the very least.”

“They should have,” Harris whispered.

At the sound of his voice, I gave Harris a worried look. He glanced at me, and even by lantern light I could see that his shooting days were done. If he could lift a weapon, he would prove far too weak to fire it, much less to shoot with any degree of accuracy. No, that well was tapped out. I had to hope the other men were just as good at handling the firearms they bore.

“Those things probably sabotaged the works,” Kidman said. “It’s what I’d do. Disable the enemy’s power. Only source of heat.”

His words struck a resonating cord within me, and at once I knew how stupid I had been. “Give me your heat …” I groaned in the memory of Bradley’s demand. “That explains why they didn’t attack us right away.”

“Sir?” Bathos asked.

“They didn’t disable the boilers. That’s the last thing they would do on purpose. Don’t you see? They covet warmth.”

“Are you certain?” Kidman asked. “From your story, they seemed awfully keen for your flesh.”

“No,” I corrected him. “They didn’t just want our flesh. They craved the heat of our bodies. The warmth of our blood.”

Kidman smiled as he understood. “And when you escaped, they sought out the closest and warmest source on the ship.”

“The boilers,” I finished for him. “They’ve probably been stoking the things to the very fires of Hell in an attempt to warm their still blood. Maybe even set the things to over boil.” I winced as I remembered Albert’s design flaw. If they had over boiled, then there was a good chance they were ruined for good. I lashed out in anger, striking one of the bedposts with a wild punch. “God in Heaven! Why didn’t we think about that? When they didn’t come straight after us, we should have realized what they were up to.”

“Far too late to worry now, sir,” Bathos said.

He was right. The boilers were beyond the safety of the barred doors, and there was no telling where those things were now that the power was gone. Most likely they were wandering about, searching for us.

As if those below knew we were talking about them, they started with the screaming again. In the echo of the silent ship, the noise bordered on unbearable. It rattled up the ventilation shafts in great, nauseating pulses, filling the room with an ungodly howl that would surely drive us all around the bend.

Yet even worse than this was the fact that the screams were drawing closer to us. They were on their way, seeking out their next source of warmth. Our blood.

“Bathos,” I said. “How much ammunition do you have?”

The man gave a quick check of his shotgun, then patted his top pocket. “Two in the ready and two on the side, sir.”

Grim news indeed. “Kidman?”

“Six,” he answered as he chucked the barrel of his revolver back into place. “But I’m not much of a marksman, sir. I’ve only fired at tin cans, and not very well either. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” I gave the man a grin, but my heart sank further into despair at his confession.

“Well,” Bathos said. “I’m an all right shot.” The man pointed his shotgun at the door. Much to my compounded misery, his hands shook with age as he tried to take aim. This must have embarrassed him, as he lowered the weapon with a loud sigh. “That is, I used to be.”

“Again, do not apologize,” I said. “We will do our best with what we have. Now, listen to me …”

I detailed a quick plan of action, which consisted mostly of trying to hold the door closed as long as possible. Once the beasts were through the door, an occurrence that I had no doubt would come to pass, Kidman was tasked with taking out as many as he could, while Bathos and I fended off any stragglers from reaching the fallen men. I gave them specific instructions to take great care and aim at the head, illustrating the key to the revenant’s destruction. It was a sound plan. Doomed but sound. More importantly, it gave the men hope, false as it was.

Our dire fate arrived half an hour later with an ear-piercing howl and wild banging against the door. The risen corpses were much stronger than their living counterparts, and the barrier moved at once under their combined weight. The door was constructed to open inward, yet even with all three of us bearing against the works, the door and furniture edged in a slow crawl across the floor. If only we had a little more weight on our side, I felt assured that we could keep them out.

“Harris!” I shouted. “I know you are weak, but just your mass might be enough to help. Come sit here against the barrier. Just lean. It’s all we need.”

The man didn’t answer. It was then I saw his bindings were fresh with crimson, a bloom of precious blood seeping through his bandage in its steady drip to the floor.

“Harris?” I asked.

His head lolled upright, lazy and sluggish, swiveling on his neck as if he were a newborn babe unable to hold the weight of his own skull. In those eyes that peered at me from across the room, I saw pure death. He was not just gone; he had gone and returned. Who knows how long he sat there, lifeless from his wounds, waiting to rise again. Whatever terrible fate had befallen us was now happening at a phenomenally faster rate. Where it took days before, it was now occurring in less than an hour.

“Bathos,” I said.

“Sir?” the man asked.

Harris got to his feet in a slow sway, looking about the room as if he were unsure where he was. Death must have been a confusing experience. So many new desires and cravings to work out, but it wouldn’t take long for him to realize what he wanted and where he could find it. I turned my attention to Bathos, speaking in a steady, calm voice, lest I instill panic in my remaining comrades.

“I’m going to give you an order,” I said. “And I need you to carry it out without question. Understood?”

“I suppose so, sir.”

“Step away from the door, turn about calmly and take aim at Harris.”

Bathos wrinkled his nose at me. “Take aim at—”

“Just do it.” I tried to mask the fear in my voice, but failed.

Bathos ignored my order. Instead he twisted in place to take a look at what had me so upset. As soon as his gaze landed on the changed man, he did what I feared he would do. He panicked. Bathos tried to put some distance between himself and the horror as he scrambled for his gun.

“Sweet Jesus!” he shouted.

His shout snapped Harris to attention. He whipped about in place, staring at Bathos just as the man aimed his weapon. Bathos tried his best, but his shaking hands were no match for Harris’s younger agility. Two shots rang out, back to back. The first struck one of the fallen men in the leg. The poor man’s shin exploded in a cloud of blood and bone, but he never even budged, medicated as he was. The second shot took out a chunk of tabletop across the room. And with that, Bathos’s gun was empty. Harris fell on him in less than a second, screaming in an agony that was matched by his victim. All the while, I remained glued to the door, trying my best to keep out a horror already among us.

Kidman was not helping me. Instead he was staring at the attack in shock, backing away as he whispered, “Dear God … please help us, Lord.”

“He already has!” I snapped. “He’s given you a gun. Use it!”

The man seemed unmoved by my proclamation, instead falling to his knees as he took on the attitude of prayer. The door continued to move under the strain, and there was little left for me to do. I released my hold, scrambled toward Kidman and snatched his gun from his lap. With bravery I have never known, before or since, I approached Harris, pressed the gun against his temple and put a bullet in his brainpan.

He recoiled with a lurching jolt to the right, rolling off of the now-dead Bathos.

The door continued its slow slide open, but I was ready. I leveled the gun and waited. In my mind, my always mathematical brain, I did the sums. I had five shots left. There were bound to be at least five of those things, unless Herron and Parker had joined their ranks. That made seven. Five shots. Seven beasts. The odds were against me, but I had to try.

The creatures pushed the door to a narrow opening, and Shipman was the first through. He was also the first to lose his mind, as it were. I never considered myself a good shot, but to be fair, the targets were in such close range I would’ve had to be blind to miss them. One by one, Shipman then four more filed into the sickbay, and one by one I allowed each to stumble into the room just enough to give clearance to the others, then I dispatched them with prompt and almost unfeeling efficiency. When the fifth revenant burst through, I prayed aloud he would be the last as I fired my final bullet.

He was not the last.

Much to my disgust, a freshly risen Parker pushed into the room. His torso gaped wide, revealing the absence of most of his internal organs, which had left an empty husk of crimson in their wake. His eyes were also missing. Whether they had been plucked from his very sockets or destroyed where they sat, I couldn’t tell. All I could make out were two black pits of long-dried blood where his eyes used to be.

“So cold,” he whispered. As he shuffled forward, he pawed at the air, seeking me.

But not seeing me.

I still don’t understand why God would have granted such a sinner as me this grand a gift, but I wasn’t about to waste it. I fell still and silent, clutching the empty gun to my breast as I held my breath. I found myself wondering if he could hear my thumping heart, because to me it sounded like the thundering hooves of a thousand wild stallions.

“I know you’re in here,” he whispered as he drew closer to me, stumbling over the bodies of his twice-dead companions. “I know … because I can feel your warmth.”

I took a few quiet steps backward, with some success. Parker continued in his blind lurch across the room. He might have felt my warmth, but it wasn’t enough to guide his direction. As I crossed the room, getting farther and farther from the door, to my great annoyance, I approached Harris and the now-dead Bathos. It was then that I remembered he had two more shells in his top pocket.

I also remembered Kidman was still in the room, because he chose that exact moment to speak.

“Jonathan?” he asked.

“Give me your heat!” Parker yelled.

I covered my own mouth to keep from screaming aloud as Parker fell upon Kidman. The attack was brutal as the beast clawed and tore at the man, who, from what I could see, wasn’t putting up much of a fight in return. Perhaps it was the shock of what he had witnessed, or maybe the return of a friend he was sure was dead. Whatever it was, Kidman never lifted a hand in defense, and therefore never had a chance.

I, on the other hand, took full advantage of this panic, as well as the ensuing noise, bending low to scoop the shells from Bathos’s pocket as I retrieved his gun. Under the continuing howl and sounds of rending flesh, I was able to empty the gun and reload it without attracting attention. But when I closed the gun again, the revenant chose that exact moment to pause in his feast.

The metallic click of the gun reseating echoed about the room.

Parker snapped his face to the sound, to me, turning his empty eye sockets my way as if they could still perceive what was happening. The revenant then smiled, wicked and mean.

“Your warmth …” he hissed.

“You want me?” I asked. “Then come and get me.”

With a flick of his blackened tongue over his blood-covered lips, Parker rose and stumbled toward me. I braced the shotgun on my good shoulder, taking aim and letting him get almost upon me before I fired. The thing reeled away as its head exploded in a cloud of blood. The shotgun was much more devastating than the handgun. It didn’t just blow out the back of the head in a flowering rupture as the handgun had done. Instead it destroyed the thing’s head in a single, wet eruption. Parker’s body stumbled a few times, clawing at the spurting stump of neck, before it finally collapsed on the floor.

Adrenaline-fueled and unable to believe it was over, I cocked the second shot and aimed at the door, half expecting more to come after me, but none did. As I stood ankle-deep in the remains of nine men and the sleeping forms of six sickly others, the whole ship was once again silent. The madness was over. For now.

But my own insanity had just begun.

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back to toc

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Twenty-Two

The Hardest Choice

Before I continue with my tragic tale, I must once again pause and beg the Lord to forgive me. To forgive all of us. In His infinite wisdom, He is bound to absolve the men of their conduct, for what they did was not their fault. And for me and my treacherous deeds? Surely He knows there was no other way. He knows that I didn’t want to do what I did. He knows what
had
to be done. But alas, I suspect it is far too late for even the most holy love of our Lord to save my tarnished soul. I expect I shall suffer in the hottest bowels of Hell for my hand in all of this. For although the men acted in a way forced upon them, I made my choices of my own free will.

In my defense, I tried my hardest to avoid it. I tried to envision scenarios in which the task that befell me wasn’t the only way. But, alas, the fates were against me, and what happened happened. I will do my best to limit the description of my deeds, for the sake of decorum, but in the wake of what I just outlined, there cannot be much worse said.