shot. Back of them, they heard men stomping down the stairwell. They raced past huge cylinders and boilers the size of buildings.
“Looks like casks of beer for a giant,” observed Thomas. “And it’s making me thirsty.”
“Hotter’n hell down here,” commented Farley. “Varmint don’t like it.”
They rushed on past giant pistons and shafts that put them in awe given the sheer size of these machines, and next they passed one room where stokers and firemen struggled with flames within, heat and black smoke like a malevolent force trying to escape. They could feel the heat, and trying to keep up with Varmint, they were all sweating profusely when they came to a halt in back of the dog who’d begun barking and alerting on a huge door as it might in the field when hunting quail.
They all stared at a door marked FREEZER UNIT – Authorized Personnel Only.
Alastair snatched the door wide. The four men and the dog looked in on a large open area with freezer units along the walls; stacked to the ceiling were frozen perishables, breads, sausages, whole gutted frozen chickens, pheasants, ducks, rabbits, turkeys, geese, and inside a deep freeze compartment beef and swine carcasses dangling from meat hooks. “A man could live in here if it weren’t so damn cold,” muttered Farley, his teeth chattering. “Look at all this?”
“Supplies enough to feed the thousands on board for the trip to New York,” said Ransom, picking about the items, wondering what could the dog’s nose have possibly picked up here.
At the center of the room stood a fixed, huge chopping block the size of a grand piano. Along another wall was a metal table—or rather an elongated sink the size of a trough with a tabletop board for butchering as well.
Everything is big on the
“Hold on,” said Declan, opening one of the freezer doors, finding nothing inside other than hanging beef, venison, and hogs on hooks.
Thomas pulled open a second freezer door. Still more frozen goods—geese, chickens, lamb shanks, pork, as well as huge cases of ice cream and frozen pies. “Nothing here,” he added.
Regardless of the cold, Varmint had gone about the large entry room sniffing and scratching, and Farley, disregarding the others and their pronouncements shadowed his dog, now scratching at some locker against one wall—locked with a padlock. Ransom banged at the lock with his cane, saying, “Need a damn gun.”
“I’ll have a go at it with my pig sticker,” said Farley, indicating the lock. “I’ve a knack for such things.”
“Here,” said Ransom. “You may need these.” He handed Farley his burglar’s tools wrapped in a leather wallet.
Farley stared at the tools laid out before him, his eyes dazzling. “They’re… lovely… just lovely,” he said.
“You get that lock open, and they’re yours,” promised Ransom.
“Oh… I’ll get ’er open, Constable.”
Again they heard the stamp of feet and shouting—their pursuers. The sounds reverberated out in the closed corridor. Ransom went to the door to slam it closed and lock it from the inside when Lightoller met him there, Declan’s journal in hand, shouting, “I believe you! I’m here to help!”
Ransom looked beyond Charles Lightoller to see Murdoch leading a group of strong-armed men of the black gang variety coming straight for them. “Get inside here!” He pulled Lightoller into the freezer entry room and slammed the door closed. Then he sent the wheel lock spiraling and when he heard the tumbler snap, he rammed his cane into the wheel to hold it locked against the outside.
Murdoch’s shouting and banging was muffled, but the rage and anger was unmistakably palpable, despite the impenetrable metal door.
Lightoller held the journal up to Declan and Thomas. “This is… this is so unfortunate.” Lightoller was hardly older than the interns, and he was obviously shaken at having come to the conclusion that these strangers to him had indeed a case, a horrible one at that. “I will do all I can to help you convince the captain of just how dire our circumstances are.”
Just then Farley shouted, “Eureka!” and he threw the padlock across the room, the sound of it rattling off the metal floor. Elated, the old man tore open the locker, gasped and fell backward, his dog barking and going to him.
Ransom and the others approached the huge footlocker to see not only Davenport but two other bodies stacked below him. Three corpses! One undoubtedly Burnsey, another Davenport, but to whom did the third corpse belong?
“My god,” said Lightoller. “It’s Davenport, Burnsey, and-and Dr. O’Laughlin!”
“Guess he believes us now,” muttered Thomas with a little shake of the head.
“Whoever the bloody carrier is now,” began Ransom, “it’s certainly worked its way up the social ladder, now hasn’t it?”
“What are ye talking about?” asked Farley.
Lightoller parroted the question.
Ransom pointed to the dead. “It starts with a lowly member of your black gang, a stoker… works its way up to an officer—an influential ship’s surgeon, no less.”
“Yeah, not just any officer—your medical officer,” said Declan. “Second only to your captain.”
“What’re you saying?” Lightoller shrugged.
Ransom threw up his hands. “No doubt this thing has learned about hierarchy in human society, so now it’s become interested in rising to the level of your captain—the man in charge!”
“We can’t let that happen!”
“We must open these bodies up,” Declan said, going to a stash of hanging utensils and huge carving knives. “Thomas, we’ll have to make do with what is at hand. They took my scalpel when they arrested us, and I’ve not seen it since. It would be useless for bone at any rate. We’ll have to do more than simply crack open the chests of each victim.”
“The egg-sacs ought to be enough to convince Captain Smith,” added Ransom. “And we need to get to him before the carrier gets at him.”
“If he hasn’t already done so; if Dr. O’Laughlin was it the entire time we met with them… who knows?”
“Or it’s our friend Murdoch out there!” The horrible pounding on the other side of the impenetrable door had become incessant.
“The door opens outward,” said Farley.
Ransom was the only other one among them who understood how important this fact was. “He’ll soon be removing the hinges, and once removed, he’ll be coming in—likely with guns pointed.”
“We must work fast then!” shouted Thomas. “Get these bodies onto the table and the sink. Help me out.”
Ransom, Thomas, and Declan did not hesitate, going for the bodies to lift them and place them onto the surfaces so as to work on them. Both Farley and Lightoller held back, aghast at the sight of the awful result of the disease that had made mummies of these men. The dog, too, held back, a low growl reminding Ransom that Varmint held no love for him.
“Lightoller, lend a hand!”
“I-I-I…”
“They’re not contagious!” shouted Ransom. “At least not in this state.”
“If they were,” added Declan, “the three of us wouldn’t be here!”
Declan and Thomas carried Davenport to the sink and placed his dehydrated corpse there. Ransom took hold of Burnes’ by the underarms while Lightoller grabbed the ankles and they moved the stoker’s body to the chopping block. Just as they made the block, one of Burnes’ feet came off in Lightoller’s hand, causing him to leap back, gasping as the foot skittered into a corner where Varmint grabbed it up in his mouth. Farley shouted for the dog to give it up, and he obeyed, dropping it into Declan’s gloved hand.
Here they were presented with room enough for the young doctors to work on O’Lauglin’s remains as well as Davenport and Burnes. Declan and Thomas next conveyed Dr. O’laughlin’s corpse to lie beside the two stokers.
“Death alone makes all men equal,” said Ransom to no one in particular. “Stoker, porter, doctor, Indian chief.”
