Chapter Ten
It moved toward me and came into the light falling through the grated hatch overhead.
My mind struggled to understand what my eyes could see, it seemed to blur and become clear but each time I could see it clearly it was somehow different from before.
It was tall, a head taller than me and perhaps seven feet in height. It was huge, twice my width, the vast bulk of its shoulders some four feet wide even without counting the spikes that covered the huge plates of scale or bone that overlapped across its upper body.
I knew this, I had seen it. Before, in the hotel. When it killed Garrety. When it killed ME.
Its face, its face, twisting, swirling, I wanted to be sick, NO. I must be strong, dizzy, falling, NO. Its face was broad; the entire lower half was a mouth of fangs larger than my fingers, dizzy, my stomach churning. The upper half of its face was bone or horn covered in spikes or horns jutting out sideways and to the back, two eyes set like a man and two more of equal size set to the sides like a horse .
The mouth was ringed with, I staggered back and grasped at the closest crate for balance as my stomach heaved and everything I had eaten for the last two days burned its way up my throat and out my mouth.
I gasped as soon as I could draw breath and glanced up to see the creature much nearer, all four of its eyes set deep within the heavily armoured head stared straight at me and the short writhing tentacles that came ringed both sides of the mouth were reaching towards me.
My stomach turned again and even though there was nothing left I heaved again and again, my belly a band of tearing pain.
Crack, Crack. The shots of a police .36 rang out close to my face. One bullet vanished into the gloom, the other bounced off the thick plates on the creature’s chest.
Of its own will my right hand had found the butt of my revolver and drawn and fired from the hip.
Realising what I had done I bought my arm up and sighted at the creature now no more than a dozen feet from me.
Crack, Crack. Both rounds bounced, I saw one glance off the head just above one of the eyes on the front. Crack. Crack. Click. Click.
My revolver was empty, but my mind took seconds to recognise the sound.
This close the smell struck me. Death and decay, flesh and blood left to rot. The stench of a great carrion beast, the stench of the grave.
My stomach again fought against me, I could not stop it but I was exhausted and did no more than gasp and choke as the muscles across my belly spasmed and could do no more.
I was holding onto a large wooden crate beside me and I used it to turn myself and stagger back along the walkway of the hold, dropping the useless hand me down army revolver as I did so.
I staggered step by step toward the stairs leading to the upper deck and safety. My left knee was stiff within the leather brace but all pain long since forgotten.
I reached the steps and glanced behind as I did. The creature was a few paces behind me, the smell of death billowing around it like a cloud.
I stumbled, my foot slipped on the first step and I half fell, only my iron grip in the rail kept me upright.
Forcing myself up the stairs by fear alone I reached the top and stepped onto the deck, into the light and into safety. It would not follow me up here. I was safe.
The creak of the stairs beneath the creature’s massive bulk broke my thoughts and left me but a thread away from panic.
It was coming up the stairs. IT WAS COMING UP THE STAIRS.
I staggered backward and hit the ships rail, a solid clunk bought my thoughts back to my control for a second. Something in my coat had hit the rail, something heavy. Something solid.
The massive revolver.
I tried to open my jacket, my hands suddenly clumsy. My jacket seemed to fight against me, tying itself round the revolver and blocking my hand.
My fingers touched rough metal and locked around the grip of the heavy weapon.
I dragged it out of my jacket pocket and turned to face the stairs as the creatures head came into sight.
I stared at its eyes, my mind spinning, dizzy. My arm fell, the revolver too heavy to hold.
Its shoulders scrapped the edges of the stair well, gouging and splintering the wood.
I dragged my arm back up, the revolvers sights came between my eye and the creature and I felt calmer. Suddenly everything became clear. The gulls wheeling overhead. The gentle thump of a steam engine nearby. The splash of the waves hitting the hull beneath me. The makers stamp on the revolver, Tipping and Lawden of Birmingham.
The blur beyond the forward post on the revolvers sights snapped into focus and I pulled the trigger. Nothing happed, I had barely moved the trigger. I pulled again with all the strength of my finger.
The boom was incredible, stunning me and pummelling my ears. My hand was yanked upwards, sharp pain tearing at my wrist.
The massive .577 bullet struck the creature, a scale was shattered and a great wound opened on its chest, as big across as my palm and inches deep.
It was still coming.
I fired again, this time the shoulder was hit, one of the large scales broken in two and dark fluid sprayed from beneath.
It was still coming. Nothing could stop it. I was going to die, I had to run. Everything began to blur again, my legs were shaking. The weight of the revolver dragged my arm down.
The ironwood club came from behind the creature and smashed into the back of its head just above the neck.
The monster and I had been so focused on each other that neither of us had seen Sergeant Peck come out of the cabin.
The black wooden club was twice the length and three times the weight of a police truncheon but it was not that which caused the creature to stagger and roar.
Hand carved over the lifetime of the shaman that had created it from the hardest and heaviest wood on earth and three hundred years old, the entire length of the club was covered in tiny lines and marks that swirled and came together in patterns.
Every line had been filled with hand beaten age blackened silver no thicker than a woman’s hair. Every line, every sigil, part of a single pattern of silver.
There was no magic to the club, no spells had been cast upon it, no enchantment lingered within it. It had no power. But that was its purpose. For as it came into contact with the monsters skull the magic that surrounded the monster flowed into the silver patterns and reached the sigils.
Magic was drained away, splintered and shattered and thrown to the void.
The ironwood club smashed the scales and cracked the mighty skull beneath and the monster knew pain such as it had not felt for centuries.
I saw the sergeant’s blow and I saw the creature begin to turn, Peck was so close he would be torn into pieces.
Suddenly the revolver was a feather and it floated into position.
The boom was less than before but I could hear nothing else, every sound had died around us.
The bullet struck the monster in its side, just above the waist where the scales were smaller. It bellowed in pain as the bullet smashed deep into its flesh and a great gout of thick greenish fluid spurted out and splattered across the deck.
I fought the revolver down and back onto the creature and fired again. It was trying to turn back toward me but slowly now, it was hurt. My shot struck it in the belly and tore through flesh and fluid and great loops and strands of grey.
It staggered toward me and once more the sergeant’s ironwood club came from behind, so vast was the creature that as it stood this close I could not see Peck at all. Still he struck hard and well and one of the creature’s knees shattered.
One leg collapsed and it half fell, blocking its fall with one clawed hand.
It lifted its face toward me and roared its hated, teeth like daggers spread wide, tentacles writhing from side to side.
I took careful aim, so close now that my outstretched arm could almost touch it.
Time slowed, everything stopped moving, the gentle breeze stopped, gulls hung in the sky overhead.
The boom was muffled, the cloud of smoke hid the monsters face from me and the revolver floated upwards.
Then everything started again. My wrist was screaming in pain from firing the oversized revolver so often, the deck beneath my feet was heaving and bucking, I was falling.
But as I fell I watched my last bullet fly past the tentacles and enter that fang lined mouth, I saw the bullet, more than half an inch of lead shot strike the back of the creature’s throat and punch straight through. I saw flesh and fluid pulverised to a mush. I saw the bullet pass through the creature’s brain and strike the back of its skull. I saw shock waves ripple across its head as the skull shattered sending shards of bone through what remained of the brain and head.
I saw the back of its skull and head collapse, fragments of bone held together by flaps of skin and scale.
I saw the stained wooden deck of the ship race toward my face and everything became fire and pain and darkness.
~
Normally I never notice myself waking up, I am just awake. But sometimes, if I am very tired or hurt I wake slowly. The world comes into focus from nothing to a blur and then to clarity.
This time it was taking forever, my body felt distant and dull apart from the throb of heat and pain that was my left knee and the ball of fire that was my right wrist. There were sounds but they were so far away. The light around me was dim and I was surrounded by shapeless forms of white and black that slowly came into focus.
Bright sunlight, a plaster ceiling above me going a bit grey with age.
The smell of flowers and something sharp and chemical that stung my nose.
The rustle of movement, cloth and something else. Something rigid or starched rubbing against itself.
A nurse leaned over and smiled. Her freshly starched uniform bright in the morning sun streaming through the window beside my bed.
She held a glass to my mouth and I took several small sips, washing the water around my dry mouth before swallowing every drop.
She put the glass back on the table beside my bed and looked across the room.
“Five minutes please chief Inspector, he needs to rest.”
She then left the room in a rustle of cloth and starch.
Chief Inspector McCollum had been the undisputed head of the Bristol city constabulary for a decade and had managed to avoid any embarrassing incidents very well. Mostly by making sure the bodies were never found again.
He and I had, how should I put this, exchanged opinions before and I had the strong feeling this was going to be another frank exchange.
He stood close to the bed and used his standing position to loom over me.
“Bit of a mess Thorn. Not the sort of thing we want people hearing about. Bad for the city.”
Oh, it was going to be another of those. I settled myself more comfortably on my pillows then gasped as I forgot and moved both knee and wrist in the process.
McCann leaned a little closer.
“You look a mess, take a few days off. Then I want your report on those large rats. The bodies are on ice downstairs. Rodents of unusual size eating the bodies of people who drowned. No monsters, no mention of the ship. I trust you understand me Inspector?”
I nodded. That didn’t hurt which was nice.
He grunted and turned away then paused.
“Make damn sure Thorn. Rats.”
He then walked out leaving the door wide open.
After a few seconds a figure in an ill fitting sergeant’s jacket peered round the doorway.
“Come in sergeant, all safe now. I think”.
Peck came in and glanced around then looked at me for permission.
I nodded and he dragged over the one chair.
“Everything’s gone sir. The chief inspector took personal charge; he told us to take the monsters body off the ship then some men from London turned up last night and took it. We weren’t allowed to call the excise and the crew sailed the ship out with the afternoon tide. Every constable that may have seen or heard anything has had the frighteners.”
He looked around the room and spoke more quietly.
“Just like the warehouse. Nothing happened.”
I sighed, feeling tired. “Just like the last time sergeant, just like the last time.”
Oddly just talking and thinking seemed hard to do.
“I’ve been given a few days off so I’ll be in next week. Keep an eye on everything for me.”
Peck came to a semblance of attention and then hurried out.
A thought came to me and I looked around, my jacket was hanging by the door. I pushed back the covers and swung my legs out and down. The leather brace had been taken off and I had to carefully limp across the room.
I reached my coat and checked my pockets. There it was. I took out the oversized revolver and a handful of fresh bullets then limped back to the bed. I sat down and opened the cylinder dumping the spend rounds onto the bed clothes. I leaned over and looked under the bed, the little bin and the pencil shavings were still there. I brushed the used rounds into the bin and pushed it back under the bed then loaded the revolver with fresh rounds.
The cylinder snapped back into place and I slid the weapon under my pillows.
I stretched out and settled myself. I could feel the revolver under my head.
Heavy, hard, comforting.
I drifted off to sleep.
It moved toward me and came into the light falling through the grated hatch overhead.
My mind struggled to understand what my eyes could see, it seemed to blur and become clear but each time I could see it clearly it was somehow different from before.
It was tall, a head taller than me and perhaps seven feet in height. It was huge, twice my width, the vast bulk of its shoulders some four feet wide even without counting the spikes that covered the huge plates of scale or bone that overlapped across its upper body.
I knew this, I had seen it. Before, in the hotel. When it killed Garrety. When it killed ME.
Its face, its face, twisting, swirling, I wanted to be sick, NO. I must be strong, dizzy, falling, NO. Its face was broad; the entire lower half was a mouth of fangs larger than my fingers, dizzy, my stomach churning. The upper half of its face was bone or horn covered in spikes or horns jutting out sideways and to the back, two eyes set like a man and two more of equal size set to the sides like a horse .
The mouth was ringed with, I staggered back and grasped at the closest crate for balance as my stomach heaved and everything I had eaten for the last two days burned its way up my throat and out my mouth.
I gasped as soon as I could draw breath and glanced up to see the creature much nearer, all four of its eyes set deep within the heavily armoured head stared straight at me and the short writhing tentacles that came ringed both sides of the mouth were reaching towards me.
My stomach turned again and even though there was nothing left I heaved again and again, my belly a band of tearing pain.
Crack, Crack. The shots of a police .36 rang out close to my face. One bullet vanished into the gloom, the other bounced off the thick plates on the creature’s chest.
Of its own will my right hand had found the butt of my revolver and drawn and fired from the hip.
Realising what I had done I bought my arm up and sighted at the creature now no more than a dozen feet from me.
Crack, Crack. Both rounds bounced, I saw one glance off the head just above one of the eyes on the front. Crack. Crack. Click. Click.
My revolver was empty, but my mind took seconds to recognise the sound.
This close the smell struck me. Death and decay, flesh and blood left to rot. The stench of a great carrion beast, the stench of the grave.
My stomach again fought against me, I could not stop it but I was exhausted and did no more than gasp and choke as the muscles across my belly spasmed and could do no more.
I was holding onto a large wooden crate beside me and I used it to turn myself and stagger back along the walkway of the hold, dropping the useless hand me down army revolver as I did so.
I staggered step by step toward the stairs leading to the upper deck and safety. My left knee was stiff within the leather brace but all pain long since forgotten.
I reached the steps and glanced behind as I did. The creature was a few paces behind me, the smell of death billowing around it like a cloud.
I stumbled, my foot slipped on the first step and I half fell, only my iron grip in the rail kept me upright.
Forcing myself up the stairs by fear alone I reached the top and stepped onto the deck, into the light and into safety. It would not follow me up here. I was safe.
The creak of the stairs beneath the creature’s massive bulk broke my thoughts and left me but a thread away from panic.
It was coming up the stairs. IT WAS COMING UP THE STAIRS.
I staggered backward and hit the ships rail, a solid clunk bought my thoughts back to my control for a second. Something in my coat had hit the rail, something heavy. Something solid.
The massive revolver.
I tried to open my jacket, my hands suddenly clumsy. My jacket seemed to fight against me, tying itself round the revolver and blocking my hand.
My fingers touched rough metal and locked around the grip of the heavy weapon.
I dragged it out of my jacket pocket and turned to face the stairs as the creatures head came into sight.
I stared at its eyes, my mind spinning, dizzy. My arm fell, the revolver too heavy to hold.
Its shoulders scrapped the edges of the stair well, gouging and splintering the wood.
I dragged my arm back up, the revolvers sights came between my eye and the creature and I felt calmer. Suddenly everything became clear. The gulls wheeling overhead. The gentle thump of a steam engine nearby. The splash of the waves hitting the hull beneath me. The makers stamp on the revolver, Tipping and Lawden of Birmingham.
The blur beyond the forward post on the revolvers sights snapped into focus and I pulled the trigger. Nothing happed, I had barely moved the trigger. I pulled again with all the strength of my finger.
The boom was incredible, stunning me and pummelling my ears. My hand was yanked upwards, sharp pain tearing at my wrist.
The massive .577 bullet struck the creature, a scale was shattered and a great wound opened on its chest, as big across as my palm and inches deep.
It was still coming.
I fired again, this time the shoulder was hit, one of the large scales broken in two and dark fluid sprayed from beneath.
It was still coming. Nothing could stop it. I was going to die, I had to run. Everything began to blur again, my legs were shaking. The weight of the revolver dragged my arm down.
The ironwood club came from behind the creature and smashed into the back of its head just above the neck.
The monster and I had been so focused on each other that neither of us had seen Sergeant Peck come out of the cabin.
The black wooden club was twice the length and three times the weight of a police truncheon but it was not that which caused the creature to stagger and roar.
Hand carved over the lifetime of the shaman that had created it from the hardest and heaviest wood on earth and three hundred years old, the entire length of the club was covered in tiny lines and marks that swirled and came together in patterns.
Every line had been filled with hand beaten age blackened silver no thicker than a woman’s hair. Every line, every sigil, part of a single pattern of silver.
There was no magic to the club, no spells had been cast upon it, no enchantment lingered within it. It had no power. But that was its purpose. For as it came into contact with the monsters skull the magic that surrounded the monster flowed into the silver patterns and reached the sigils.
Magic was drained away, splintered and shattered and thrown to the void.
The ironwood club smashed the scales and cracked the mighty skull beneath and the monster knew pain such as it had not felt for centuries.
I saw the sergeant’s blow and I saw the creature begin to turn, Peck was so close he would be torn into pieces.
Suddenly the revolver was a feather and it floated into position.
The boom was less than before but I could hear nothing else, every sound had died around us.
The bullet struck the monster in its side, just above the waist where the scales were smaller. It bellowed in pain as the bullet smashed deep into its flesh and a great gout of thick greenish fluid spurted out and splattered across the deck.
I fought the revolver down and back onto the creature and fired again. It was trying to turn back toward me but slowly now, it was hurt. My shot struck it in the belly and tore through flesh and fluid and great loops and strands of grey.
It staggered toward me and once more the sergeant’s ironwood club came from behind, so vast was the creature that as it stood this close I could not see Peck at all. Still he struck hard and well and one of the creature’s knees shattered.
One leg collapsed and it half fell, blocking its fall with one clawed hand.
It lifted its face toward me and roared its hated, teeth like daggers spread wide, tentacles writhing from side to side.
I took careful aim, so close now that my outstretched arm could almost touch it.
Time slowed, everything stopped moving, the gentle breeze stopped, gulls hung in the sky overhead.
The boom was muffled, the cloud of smoke hid the monsters face from me and the revolver floated upwards.
Then everything started again. My wrist was screaming in pain from firing the oversized revolver so often, the deck beneath my feet was heaving and bucking, I was falling.
But as I fell I watched my last bullet fly past the tentacles and enter that fang lined mouth, I saw the bullet, more than half an inch of lead shot strike the back of the creature’s throat and punch straight through. I saw flesh and fluid pulverised to a mush. I saw the bullet pass through the creature’s brain and strike the back of its skull. I saw shock waves ripple across its head as the skull shattered sending shards of bone through what remained of the brain and head.
I saw the back of its skull and head collapse, fragments of bone held together by flaps of skin and scale.
I saw the stained wooden deck of the ship race toward my face and everything became fire and pain and darkness.
~
Normally I never notice myself waking up, I am just awake. But sometimes, if I am very tired or hurt I wake slowly. The world comes into focus from nothing to a blur and then to clarity.
This time it was taking forever, my body felt distant and dull apart from the throb of heat and pain that was my left knee and the ball of fire that was my right wrist. There were sounds but they were so far away. The light around me was dim and I was surrounded by shapeless forms of white and black that slowly came into focus.
Bright sunlight, a plaster ceiling above me going a bit grey with age.
The smell of flowers and something sharp and chemical that stung my nose.
The rustle of movement, cloth and something else. Something rigid or starched rubbing against itself.
A nurse leaned over and smiled. Her freshly starched uniform bright in the morning sun streaming through the window beside my bed.
She held a glass to my mouth and I took several small sips, washing the water around my dry mouth before swallowing every drop.
She put the glass back on the table beside my bed and looked across the room.
“Five minutes please chief Inspector, he needs to rest.”
She then left the room in a rustle of cloth and starch.
Chief Inspector McCollum had been the undisputed head of the Bristol city constabulary for a decade and had managed to avoid any embarrassing incidents very well. Mostly by making sure the bodies were never found again.
He and I had, how should I put this, exchanged opinions before and I had the strong feeling this was going to be another frank exchange.
He stood close to the bed and used his standing position to loom over me.
“Bit of a mess Thorn. Not the sort of thing we want people hearing about. Bad for the city.”
Oh, it was going to be another of those. I settled myself more comfortably on my pillows then gasped as I forgot and moved both knee and wrist in the process.
McCann leaned a little closer.
“You look a mess, take a few days off. Then I want your report on those large rats. The bodies are on ice downstairs. Rodents of unusual size eating the bodies of people who drowned. No monsters, no mention of the ship. I trust you understand me Inspector?”
I nodded. That didn’t hurt which was nice.
He grunted and turned away then paused.
“Make damn sure Thorn. Rats.”
He then walked out leaving the door wide open.
After a few seconds a figure in an ill fitting sergeant’s jacket peered round the doorway.
“Come in sergeant, all safe now. I think”.
Peck came in and glanced around then looked at me for permission.
I nodded and he dragged over the one chair.
“Everything’s gone sir. The chief inspector took personal charge; he told us to take the monsters body off the ship then some men from London turned up last night and took it. We weren’t allowed to call the excise and the crew sailed the ship out with the afternoon tide. Every constable that may have seen or heard anything has had the frighteners.”
He looked around the room and spoke more quietly.
“Just like the warehouse. Nothing happened.”
I sighed, feeling tired. “Just like the last time sergeant, just like the last time.”
Oddly just talking and thinking seemed hard to do.
“I’ve been given a few days off so I’ll be in next week. Keep an eye on everything for me.”
Peck came to a semblance of attention and then hurried out.
A thought came to me and I looked around, my jacket was hanging by the door. I pushed back the covers and swung my legs out and down. The leather brace had been taken off and I had to carefully limp across the room.
I reached my coat and checked my pockets. There it was. I took out the oversized revolver and a handful of fresh bullets then limped back to the bed. I sat down and opened the cylinder dumping the spend rounds onto the bed clothes. I leaned over and looked under the bed, the little bin and the pencil shavings were still there. I brushed the used rounds into the bin and pushed it back under the bed then loaded the revolver with fresh rounds.
The cylinder snapped back into place and I slid the weapon under my pillows.
I stretched out and settled myself. I could feel the revolver under my head.
Heavy, hard, comforting.
I drifted off to sleep.