Douglas Child - The Wheel of Darkness

LeSeur nodded. “Aye, sir.”

“Thank you, Mr. LeSeur.”

LeSeur walked over to the lookout. “Join me in the companionway for a moment.” He nodded to the helmsman. “You, too.”

“But—”

“Captain’s orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

LeSeur rejoined Kemper. “Captain’s taking the watch for a few minutes. She’d like us to clear the bridge.”

Kemper looked at him sharply. “Why?”

“Orders,” LeSeur repeated in a tone he hoped would discourage further questions. He checked his watch: five minutes and counting. They withdrew to the companionway just beyond the bridge hatch and LeSeur shut the door, taking care to leave it unlocked.

“What’s this all about?” Kemper asked.

“Ship’s business,” LeSeur repeated, sharpening his tone even further.

They stood in silence. LeSeur glanced at his watch. Two more minutes.

At the far end of the companionway, the door opened and a figure entered. LeSeur stared: it was Craik. “I thought you were in the radio room,” he said.

Craik looked back at him like he was crazy. “I’m just reporting for duty now, sir.”

“But Captain Mason—”

He was interrupted by a low alarm and a flashing red light. A series of soft clicks ran around the length of the bridge hatch.

“What the hell’s that?” the helmsman asked.

Kemper stared at the blinking red light above the door. “Christ, someone’s initiated an ISPS Code Level Three!”

LeSeur grabbed the handle of the bridge door, tried to turn it.

“It automatically locks in case of an alert,” said Kemper. “Seals off the bridge.”

LeSeur felt his blood freeze; the only one on the bridge was Captain Mason. He went for the bridge intercom. “Captain Mason, this is LeSeur.”

No answer.

“Captain Mason! There’s a Code Three security alert.

Open this door!”

But again there was no reply.

50

AT HALF PAST ONE O’CLOCK ROGER MAYLES FOUND HIMSELF leading a fractious group of Deck 10 passengers to the final lunch shift at Oscar’s. For over an hour he had been answering questions—or rather, avoiding answering them—about what would happen when they got to Newfoundland; about how they would get home; about whether refunds would be made. Nobody had told him shit, he knew nothing, he could answer nobody—and yet they had exhorted him to maintain “security,” whatever the hell that meant.

Nothing like this had happened to him before. His greatest joy of shipboard life was its predictability. But on this voyage, nothing at all had been predictable. And now he felt he was getting close to the breaking point.

He walked along the corridor, a rictus-like smile screwed onto his face. The passengers behind him were speaking in raised, querulous voices about all the same tiresome issues they’d been talking about all day: refunds, lawsuits, getting home. He could feel the slow roll of the ship as he walked, and he kept his eyes averted from the broad starboard windows lining one side of the corridor. He was sick of the rain, the moaning of the wind, the deep booming of the sea against the hull. The truth was, the sea frightened him—it always had—and he never enjoyed looking down into the water from the ship, even in good weather, because it always looked so deep and so cold. And endless—so very, very endless. Since the disappearances began, he’d had a recurring nightmare of falling into the dark Atlantic at night, treading water while watching the lights of the ship recede into the mist. He woke up in a twisting of sheets each time, whimpering under his breath.

He could think of no worse death. None.

One of the men in the group behind him quickened his pace. “Mr. Mayles?”

He turned, not slowing, the smile as tense as ever. He couldn’t wait to get into Oscar’s.

“Yes, Mr.—?”

“Wendorf. Bob Wendorf. Look here—I’ve got an important meeting in New York on the fifteenth. I need to know how we’re going to get from Newfoundland to New York.”

“Mr. Wendorf, I’ve no doubt the company will work out the arrangements.”

“Damn it, that’s not an answer! And another thing: if you think we’ll go by ship to New York, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m never setting foot on a ship again in my life. I want a flight, first class.”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the ranks behind him. Mayles stopped and turned. “As it happens, the company is already lining up flights.” He knew of no such thing, but at this point he was ready to say anything to get these clods off his back.

“For all three thousand passengers?” A woman with rings on every wizened finger pushed forward, flapping her bejeweled, liver-spotted hands.

“St. John’s has an international airport.” Did it? Mayles had no idea.

The woman went on, voice like a buzz saw. “Frankly, I find the lack of communication intolerable. We paid a lot of money to make this voyage. We deserve to know what’s going on!”

You deserve a boot up your prolapsed old ass, lady.

Mayles continued smiling. “The company—”

“What about refunds?” interrupted another voice. “I hope you don’t think we’re going to

pay

for this kind of treatment—!”

“The company will take care of everyone,” Mayles said. “Please have patience.” He turned quickly to avoid more questions—and that’s when he saw it.

It was a thing; a thing like a dense massing of smoke, at the angle of the corridor. It was moving toward them with a kind of sickening, rolling motion. He halted abruptly, paralyzed, staring. It was like a dark, malignant mist, except that it seemed to have a texture to it, like woven fabric, but vague, indefinite, darker toward the middle with faint interior glints of dirty iridescence. Shapes like bunching muscles came and went across its surface as it approached.

He was unable to speak, unable to move.

So it’s true

, he thought.

But it can’t be. It can’t be . . .

It moved toward him, gliding and roiling as if with terrible purpose. The group stumbled to a halt behind him; a woman gasped.

“What the hell?” came a voice.

They backed up in a tight group, several crying out in fear. Mayles couldn’t take his eyes off it, couldn’t move.

“It’s some natural phenomenon,” said Wendorf loudly, as if trying to convince himself. “Like ball lightning.”

The thing moved down the hall, erratically, closing in.

“Oh, my God!”

Behind him, Roger Mayles registered a general confused retreat, which quickly devolved into a stampede. The confused babble of screams and cries faded away down the hall. Still he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He alone remained rooted to the spot.

As the thing approached, he could see something inside it. It was an outline, squat, ugly, feral, with madly darting eyes . . .

No, no, no, no, noooo . . .

A low keening sound escaped Mayles’s lips. As the thing drew nearer, he felt the growing breath of wetness and mold, a stench of dirt and rotting toadstools . . . The keening in his throat grew into a gargling flow of mucus as the thing slunk by, never looking at him, never seeing him, passing like a breath of clammy cellar air.

The next thing Mayles knew, he was lying on the floor, staring upward at a security officer holding a tumbler of water.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came save a sigh of air leaking from between his vocal cords.

“Mr. Mayles,” the officer said. “Are you all right?”

He made a sound like a punctured bellows.

“Mr. Mayles, sir?”

He swallowed, worked his sticky jaws. “

It . . . was . . . here

.”

A strong arm reached down and grasped his jacket, pulling him to a sitting position.