door, please don’t open that door… I don’t want to see what’s out there…
“Saks-”
“Shut up,” Saks snapped, but under his breath, trying damn hard to be quiet.
And now Menhaus knew why that was.
There was a very good reason to be quiet.
Because he was hearing it fine now, too. You could call it a humming or a whistling or even a singing, because it seemed to be all these things. It was a woman’s voice, high-pitched and piping. A discordant and vapid melody that rose and fell, an eerie off-key wailing that sounded hollow and distant and haunted… like a little girl’s voice echoed through the ductwork of a house, becoming something metallic and jangling and oddly perverse.
It created a tension in Menhaus, he felt his muscles bunch and his jaw clench tight. He thought it was the voice of an insane woman mourning at her child’s grave in a windy, midnight cemetery. For nothing sane could sound like this… it was the voice of something that crawled in dark places, hid in shadows.
Makowski reached up for the latch and undid it.
The sound of scraping metal was thunderous in the silence.
And a crazy voice in Menhaus’ head said: He’s just going to take a piss or something. That’s all it is. Nothing more than that.
But dear God, Menhaus did not believe it, for Makowski was bewitched by that strident melancholy wailing, he was being summoned and there was no way around that.
Saks was holding his knife now, gripping it tightly.
There was a momentary sound from down the corridor… a skittering, scratching sound.
Menhaus felt unreality settle into him, because this was how the human mind processed abject, overwhelming terror: It shut down and refused to believe the madness its senses fed it. And maybe his mind would not accept, but his heart believed with a black certainty. For he could feel it at his spine, a cold and prickling horror that electrified his ganglia.
Makowski opened the door and right away, you could smell something dark and sweet and noxious.
Menhaus didn’t know what he was expecting when that door slid open, maybe something with chattering teeth and long white fingers.. . but there were only shadows out there, knotted and spreading and bloated with some sort of spectral life.
That’s when Menhaus got to his feet.
He was not a brave man, but there came a time when you had no choice. For that wailing voice was gaining volume now and there was a sense of creeping, slinking motion just beyond view. That door had to be closed before, before-
He grabbed Makowski by the shoulder just as he stepped across the threshold, the stink out in the corridor just black and repellent. He saw something… thought he saw something… creep stealthily into the shadows, just a blur, a suggestion. He tried to yank Makowski back into the cabin and Makowski slapped his arm away, looking at Menhaus with a venomous, rabid leer. It was the look a starving, mad dog might give you if you tried to steal its food. Just utter loathing and anger.
Before Menhaus could step back, because that’s exactly what he was going to do, Makowski shoved him back with a flat palm against his chest. Menhaus was lifted off his feet and slammed into the bulkhead and with enough force that it knocked the wind out of him.
When he found his breath, he said, “Saks… Saks we better stop him… he’s not right…”
But Saks just shook his head, his upper lip hooked in a scowl. “No, not me. Not out there…”
The door to the cabin next door flew open and banged against the wall. Cook came through the doorway with the Browning 9mm in his fist. His eyes were wild and pissed-off.
“What in the hell is going on in here?”
“Makowski went for a walk,” Saks said. “Menhaus tried to stop him and he knocked him on his ass.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t go after him,” Saks said. “You heard it… I know you heard it… she was singing…”
Cook just said, “Lock this fucking door and don’t open it again.”
He stepped out into the corridor and told Fabrini the same thing. The door slammed shut over there. Menhaus passed a lantern to Cook, didn’t try to talk him out of it, knowing that his own bravery was all used-up now.
“Shut that door,” Cook told him and started off down the corridor.
When the door was shut and locked, Menhaus leaned with his back against it and glared at Saks. “You know what the difference between you and Cook is, Saks?”
Saks just stared.
“Cook has balls.”
24
Cook did not want to go after Makowski.
He did not want to do anything but get behind that locked door in his cabin and wish it all away. But it was not that simple. Some part of him had accepted its responsibilities now. It had accepted that he was in charge and knew that if he did not do anything, did not set an example for the others… they would sit and rot and die.
He could hear Makowski going up the companionway to the deck above.
He was running.
He was in a damned hurry and Cook could just about guess why. That eerie, strident wailing was distant now, but still audible enough to create an awesome, childhood terror in Cook, one that made him want to run himself.
The hatch clanged open.
Cook could hear footsteps on the deck above.
He knew he should be hurrying himself, but he just could not bring himself to. For there were limits to everything. Limits to what you would allow yourself to do. He mounted the steps, taking them slowly, listening, feeling, watching, on guard now.
At the top, he stood before the hatch.
It was open two or three inches and in his mind Cook could hear Gosling yelling at the men about leaving hatches open. Dear God, there was a sort of comfort in hearing the memory of the man’s cursing voice.
Cook pushed open the hatch, was ready to put bullets in the first thing that moved, even if it was Makowski. But nothing moved, nothing stirred. The decks were wreathed in shadows, the booms and coaling derricks rising up like alien tombstones. Cook stepped out, smelling the sea and the mist. The fog was thicker than earlier, churning like stormclouds. It was luminous and sparkling, reflecting a stark illumination like moonlight against the ship.
Cook walked further out on deck, looking in every direction, some giddy voice of self-preservation in him saying, well, so much for that. Makowski’s gone, so you might as well turn back and get your ass below, because there’s nothing to see here, nothing at all-
And, no, there was nothing to see.
Nothing but that yellowed light dappled by reaching shadows, but there was certainly something to hear: the woman. The thing she was or the thing that pretended to be her. It was singing its mourning dirge, loud then soft, pure and then dirty. It bounced around the decks, echoing off the superstructure so that it could have been forward or aft or three feet away.
Footsteps.
A creaking.
Then… oh Jesus, what in the hell was that?
It was a sound of motion, a busy tapping/scratching sort of sound ringing off the rusted metal decks. Like a hundred pencils tapping simultaneously and Cook knew that it was her. That she was making that sound, the sound of a thousand spidery legs.
The boat deck.
Yes, Cook saw now.
