A Plague of Demons

I tensed the eye-squint muscles, saw the black water snap into gray, misty clarity. On its surface, nothing stirred. I attuned my hearing to pick up the softest of night sounds. There were the thousand pings and thumps from the ship, the creak of the anchor cables, and the crump! and hiss of the distant surf. If the demons were close, they were well hidden. For the moment, it seemed, I was safe.

Chapter Eight

For the first eight hours at my new job, while the ancient tanker plowed at fifty knots sixty-five feet beneath the surface of the Mediterranean, I labored with Joel at routine drudgery that could have been performed with greater efficiency and less cost by a medium-priced computer.

I spent a bad hour when we surfaced to pass through the Gibraltar locks; a boat came alongside and I heard the clank of feet on the deck above, caught scraps of voices asking questions, and the Captain blandly denying any knowledge of stowaways. I was waiting just inside the deckhouse door as he invited his official visitors to search the ship. They declined, with curses. I heard them reboard their launch; then the sound of its engines growled away across the water. I leaned against the wall, feeling hot and dizzy. My arm throbbed like a giant toothache.

Joel had been waiting with me. 'Hey, Jones,' he said. 'How come we're hanging around here? You going out on deck?'

I let a long breath out; it was a bad habit I was forming-forgetting to breathe for minutes at a stretch. I straightened with an effort, feeling the deck move under me. 'Sure,' I said. 'Let's go take a look at the Rock.'

The cold predawn air cleared my head. I leaned on the rail beside Joel, watching the towering barrier walls slip down into the churning water as the lock filled; then the tanker edged ahead, the mighty gates slid in behind us, churning water aside, and met with a dull boom.

Again we rode the flood, gained another hundred feet. Forty-five minutes and five locks later, we slid out into the choppy, blue-black waters of the South Atlantic, five hundred feet above the level of the Mediterranean. Dawn was coloring the sky. Lights gleamed wanly from the fortress of Gibraltar, and from the flat, white city on the African side.

A raucous buzzer sounded across the deck. At once, the foaming water surged higher along the hull.

'Hey, we better get below before we get dunked,' Joel said. We stepped back into the stale interior; a moment later we heard the crash of the waters closing over us above; then the silence of the deep sea settled in again.

'Well,' Joel said cheerfully. 'I guess we got to get back to work, Jones.'

***

During the next forty-eight hours, Joel and I found time for several four-hour sleeps and a couple of short naps, between bellowed orders from Carboni or the unseen Captain. At odd intervals, we went to the crew mess, demanded and got plates of oily cold-storage eggs and too-salty bacon.

Now, having just completed a laborious two-hour visual inspection of reset switches, I again sat at the long table, listening to the feverish humming in my head, picking at a mixture of mummified beef and canned milk and taking medicinal sips from a clay mug of North African brandy. Across the table, the bearded elder known as Doc worked conscientiously to finish the bottle.

Joel had put his head on the table and gone off to sleep. At the far end of the room, Pogey, the horse-faced man, was monotonously and with much profanity calling off items from an inventory list, while a short, chinless sailor with a wool cap and warts ticked them off on a clipboard.

What the rest of the nine-man crew did aboard the vessel, I hadn't yet learned. Four of them had just left the room, staggering drunk.

'Three more trips, Jones,' Doc said. 'Thirty-one years on the line-nine on Excalibur; I'll miss the old tub.' He looked around the room with sad, red-veined eyes. 'No, I'm a liar,' he corrected. 'I hate this damned scow.' He looked at me as though I had praised it. 'I've hated every minute of those thirty-one years. Hated medical school before that. You ever been in a cadaver lab?'

'Sure have,' I said, forcing myself to follow the conversation. 'There was a fellow I hadn't seen for years. Opened up the tin box, and there he was.' I sipped the brandy, feeling it burn its way down. Doc worked his lips, blinked, took a pull at his drink.

'I knew a fellow,' he said, 'sold his body to a medical school. Got five hundred cees for it, which he badly needed at the time. Later on, he got in the chips, and thought better of the bargain. Wanted to buy it back. Well, seems like the title had changed hands a couple of times. He traced it from New Haven to Georgia, and on down to Miami. Finally caught up with it.' He took a healthy draught from his cup, exhaled noisily. 'Too late, though. End of the year, you know. Nothing left but a few ribs, the left arm, and the bottom half of the cranium.' He sighed. 'A sad case.'

His image was wavering, obscured by whirling points of light; I blinked them away, raised my glass to him. 'Doc, you're one of the finest liars I ever met.'

He blushed, looking modest. 'Shucks, seems like things just naturally happen to me. Why, I remember the time…' At the far end of the table, Pogey tossed his list aside, yawned, scratched at an unshaven jaw.

'Get some coffee over here, Runt,' he ordered. The warty sailor bustled, operating the coffee maker. He filled a two-quart pot, rattled thick cups and sheet-metal spoons. He placed the pot in front of the horse-faced man.

'Watch out, Mr. Dobbin. She's plenty hot.' He went back to his list, muttering to himself.

Pogey grunted. He glanced at Joel, snoring across the table from him. He licked a finger, touched it to the polished metal; it hissed. An expression twitched at the corners of his mouth. He took the pot gingerly by the massive insulated handle, stood.

'Hey, dummy!' he said sharply.

Joel stirred.

'Wake up, dummy!'

Joel sat up, knuckling his eyes. He saw Pogey and smiled.

'Gee, I guess I-'

'Here!' Pogey thrust the pot at him. Joel reached out, took the rounded container in his two huge hands. His jaw dropped. His eyes widened. Pogey stepped back, his mouth arched in a grin like something carved at the top of Notre Dame.

I was a little slow, but I reached Joel then, knocked the steaming pot from his hands; it smashed against the wall behind Pogey, spewed steam and liquid in a wide sheet that caught the horse-faced man all across the back.

He howled, writhed away from the table, clutching at his shoulder. He screamed again, tore at his jacket. Doc came to his feet, grabbing at the bottle as it tottered, almost fell. The horse-faced man clawed his shirt open, ripped it from his shoulders. A vast red blister swelled visibly from his patchy hairline almost to the soiled edge of the underwear showing above his belt. His eye fell on Doc.

'Do something, damn your guts!' he shrilled. 'Oh, Jesus…'

Doc started around the table. I caught his arm. 'To hell with that sadist,' I said. 'Take a look at Joel's hands.'

Joel still stood, staring at his hands. A tear formed, rolled down his cheek.

'I'll kill him!' Pogey screeched. He plunged across the room, knocked the sailor aside, caught up a steak knife, and whirled on Joel. I pushed in front of him. The odors of sweat and alcohol came from him in waves. I caught his wrist, remembering not to pulp the bone.

'Joel,' I said, my eyes holding on Pogey's. 'If this man ever hurts you again, put your thumbs into his throat until he stops moving, understand?'

I twitched the knife from Pogey's hand, shoved him away. His face was as white as the dead face of the thing I had killed in the ravine. The recollection must have shown in my expression.

Pogey whimpered, backed, turned to the sailor who was standing wide-eyed, all warts and Adam's apple, looking from one of us to another like a spectator at a ping-pong tournament.

'Get me to my room,' Pogey gasped. His knees went slack as the sailor caught him. Behind me, Joel moaned.

'Let's get this boy down to my sick-bay,' Doc was saying. 'Second-degree, maybe worse. Calluses helped…'

As I turned, his eyes found mine. 'You better let me take a look at you, too,' he said. 'You're hotter'n a power pile, Jones.'

'Never mind that,' I snapped. 'Just see to Joel.'

Doc eyed the cut on my face. 'You should have had a couple of stitches.'

'All I need is to get to Jax and get clear of this scow,' I said. 'Let's get moving.'

Doc shrugged. 'Suit yourself.' He went out, leading Joel. I followed.

***

An hour later, in the cramped, paper-heaped room the Mate called his office, I stood before the ancient plastic-topped desk, waiting for him to finish his tirade. Two sailors lounged against the wall, watching. Joel stood beside me, his bandage-swathed hands looking bigger than ever. Carboni's good eye looked up at him from under his ragged eyebrows.

'I had enough of your numbskull tricks,' he growled. 'When we hit Jax, you're finished.'

'Gosh, Carboni,' Joel started.

'Beat it,' the Mate said. 'I got work to do.' He switched his glance to me. 'You stick around, I got things to say to you.'

I put a hand on the desk to keep it from spinning.

'How's Pogey feeling?' My voice seemed to belong to someone else.

Carboni's meaty face darkened.

'We'll see about you when we hit Jax, punk. I got plans for you.'

'Don't bother,' I said. 'I intend to resign my position anyway.'

'I'm a patient guy.' Carboni got to his feet, walked around the desk. 'But I got a bellyfull-' He pivoted suddenly, threw a punch that slammed against my stomach. He jumped back with a bellow, his face draining to a dirty white. One of the sailors brought a hand into view behind him, pointed a massive, old-model blued-steel Browning needle-gun at my belt buckle.

We waited, not moving, while Carboni cursed, gripping his fist and grinding his plates.

'Walk him to the brig, Slocum!' he roared. 'And watch him! There's something funny about this guy!'

The gun-handler jabbed the weapon at me. 'Get moving, you.'