Into the very chamber the men occupied.
“Goddamn!” Eli exclaimed, diving for the floor even though the weapon was feet above his head.
Upon the harpoon’s impact, Archie convulsed in his throne as if stabbed through the guts. Ichor bubbled and spilled from his mouth.
Nathan threw himself to one side and stared at the weapon impaling the great beast. The spear was a long narrow shaft, wickedly barbed, and dripping dark matter. As the men gazed upon it, the weapon’s head split open like a bare umbrella, into five separate lengths of metal. A tremendous force jerked the harpoon back, and those lengths sank deep into the serpent’s flesh.
The whaler then began to pull.
The men again stumbled about, off-balance by the whaler’s irresistible force. A mournful groan erupted throughout the chamber, from the wounded serpent itself, and the very sound of it wore on Nathan’s heart.
“We’re being towed!” Jimmy shouted.
“Back to the whaler,” Mackenzie added.
“That’s a good thing, then,” Eli said.
A flow of bloody matter poured into the chamber from that grievous wound in the serpent’s side, mixing with the water at their ankles. The sight caused Nathan to doubt the goodness of it all. Even poor old Archie had slumped forward, as if Eli had once again smacked the conductor’s head.
“Is he dead?” Nathan asked Leland, clinging to the throne.
The gang leader appeared lost for a second, before remembering who and where he was. He examined the unconscious conductor. Jimmy moved closer and did the same.
“I don’t know,” Leland reported. He actually cracked open one of the conductor’s eyes with a thumb. “I don’t think so.” He leaned towards Archie’s face, cheek to mouth, searching for a breath.
“What’s the whaler doing?” Jimmy asked, as the harpoon lines pulled the beast sideways across the waters.
Nathan checked on the vessel. Waves lapped over the portal, obscuring his view, but he caught glimpses of the ship, much closer and stark against the blue backdrop of the sky. Though he knew about whaling ships, he was far from being an expert on them. The rigging appeared to be a neat webbing spread between the main masts, but the hull’s solid black rendered the ship forbidding. Menacing.
“Have no fear, boys,” Eli crowed. “That whaler will pull this goddamn worm up to her side and pitch into her. Don’t worry about crawling out of this thing’s asshole because they’ll cut open her guts. All we’ll have to do is climb on out.”
“That so, Eli?” Gilbert asked, soaked from splashing around in morbid red waters.
“That’s so. You just wait. Pull your ass up out of that slop, Gilbert. Jesus Christ. You look like the world’s bloodiest piece of shit.”
“I feel like the world’s bloodiest piece of shit.”
“Just don’t go acting like it, is all,” Eli told him and looked to the ceiling. “Whalers. Saved by whalers. Goddamn. Ain’t that a yank on the weasel? Hey, Leland! When we get out of this thing, you want to try being a pirate? Huh? How’s that sound? I bet some of them boys up there have got some dollars on them.”
“They might be Americans,” Leland said, looking up from Archie’s unmoving face. “Or British.”
“I don’t care,” Eli said as if he were talking to a child. “Yanks or fuckin’ otherwise. They all got cash. Hell, I prefer an American dollar anyway if’n I have to head south. Just in case.”
“Regardless,” Leland said, focusing on the gun runner. “You’ll do nothing of the sort. If those men help us get back to the mainland, that’ll be reward enough.”
“Awww Leland.”
The ship loomed closer, rising and falling upon the waves, though as the serpent drew closer, the less the waves obscured Nathan’s vision.
It was a huge vessel, bigger than he’d expected.
The water fell away from the portal, providing a clearer view of figures moving along the railing high above. Sailors, Nathan initially thought, but then he got an even better look.
And his guts clenched into an icy knot.
The figures gathered at the ship’s railing were indeed sailors, but their three and four limbed torsos didn’t belong to any human being. Their oddly shaped heads, like square melons, possessed eyes where the chin would be, and the mouth…
God Almighty.
The mouths were vertical cuts that chittered and gnashed in excited conversation. Fangs and nests of unnaturally long snake tongues flickered and darted forward.
Sailors, perhaps, but not men.
And what was not quite as frightening but equally disturbing was that the crew, jostling and leaning over their ship’s sides, wore sailors’ clothing. Some wore collared shirts that were opened and fluttering in a wind. Others wore dashing handkerchiefs about their necks. Some of the sailors were bare-chested, showing off torsos as white as the underbelly of an eel.
A pole lifted above the animated line then, the end crowned with a number of hooks. Other implements of butchery came into view, a gleaming array of spears, barbs, and blades, all for stabbing, hooking, and cutting the great serpent up.
“The hell is that?” Mackenzie muttered nearby, also absorbed in the ghastly sight of the assembled sailors.
The hull loomed, a black embankment of tightly fitted ribs that didn’t look like wood at all, but rather a glossy material that might’ve been bone. Then the light faltered and grew dim as the serpent was pulled hard to one side. Again the interior lurched.
“We’re going to hit,” Nathan said and braced himself. “We’re going to hit it!”
The serpent hit the whaler broadside in a brazen clap of iron-tough flesh and unyielding hull. Nathan stayed upright, but some of the others slipped in the bloody waters. The great beast wailed one final time before going quiet. A new sound could be heard, as if from a great distance, an angry whining that might’ve been from a cloud of mosquitoes. Nathan didn’t have time to think about it, however, as the floor jerked upwards in an unexpected heave. Nathan pitched face-first into the wall, smashing his right cheek against muscle, and ended up on the floor. A mouthful of bloody water attempted to choke him and left him sputtering.
Old Archie released a pained moan, as Leland started shouting.
“Grab onto something, grab anything!”
Nathan tried grabbing anything but raked only the serpent’s inner walls, leaving his fingertips buzzing with pain. The water drained away as the serpent’s bulk was hoisted further up alongside the whaler. Nathan slid past the throne and slumped over Archie, past Leland and Jimmy clutching onto the sides. Mackenzie flashed by and then Nathan was sliding deeper into the serpent’s innards, towards the rear of the cavernous beast. The walls became a fluted tunnel of light and shadow, where the day glared through numerous membranes as if the chamber had been riddled with cannon fire.
Nathan noticed the oval doorway a second before his feet slammed into the unyielding surface with a muted gong. The landing sent a shiver of pain up his legs, and he rolled to the side, searching for a handle. Their rifles littered the floor, released by the men when the world had tilted.
“Coming through,” Eli Gallant shouted as he slid to a stop, landing in a half crouch with his shoulder to the door. “Christ Almighty, floor’s slipperier than a fish’s shithole.”
Nathan ignored him as he checked on the others, all further up the incline. They were clinging to unseen protrusions, looking about a chamber and waiting for whatever came next.
They didn’t wait for long.
Chopping. Stabbing. A ravenous melody of meat being hacked into, swelling into a frenzied clamor. The walls shuddered overhead as those alien whalers chopped away at the serpent’s flesh.
“We’ll be free in a few seconds, boys,” Eli yelled out, delighted with the turn of good fortune.
“I don’t think so,” Nathan told him.
Eli fixed him with a questioning look.
“That’s not men out there.”
“What?”
; “You heard me. They’re not men.”
“What’s that you say, Nathan?” Leland asked from above.
“He said they’re not men,” Mackenzie said. “And they’re not. I got a look at them. They’re something else entirely. Sure as hell not people, I can guarantee you that.”
“We gotta get moving, Leland,” Nathan said. “Before those things cut their way through.”
No sooner did the words leave him when something punched its way through the inner wall of the serpent. The chopping grew, sounding like a line of railway workers being whipped into a killer pace, driving home spike after spike.
“Archie?” Leland said, holding onto the throne’s base.
Archie didn’t answer. Showed no sign of having heard.
More spear points perforated the ceiling, withdrawing only to penetrate deeper. Bits of metal flashed as tips and blades worked themselves into the meat and muscle of the serpent.
“Leland, come on,” Nathan shouted. “He’s dead. Let him go.”
The gang leader drew back, scrutinizing the conductor, whose frame rattled with every weapon beating into the serpent’s body.
Leland let go and slid downwards.
“Wait,” Eli yelled with a glare. “The rest of you hold on.”
“The hell for?” Nathan asked as Leland slid to a hard stop beside them.
Eli pointed and Nathan immediately understood. He pushed Leland aside to get a better look at the skewed floor beneath their feet, now at a sharp angle.
The chamber narrowed at the last few feet, leading, ending in the door deeply embedded in a surrounding musculature. There was a bony projection that resembled a wheel, and Eli shooed the two others away a heartbeat before he grabbed it.
He pulled with mighty effort… and failed.
Eli unleashed a venomous glare at the nearby men. “Get your fuckin’ feet off the door!”
The man was right. Nathan and Leland dug their fingers and heels into the walls, lifting themselves off the barrier. Eli tried again, his grunts loud but not enough to drown out the chopping and stabbing overhead.
“Hurry up down there,” Mackenzie shouted in a worried tone. “They’re coming through.”
“Shoot them if you have to,” Leland yelled back.
“I can hear them,” Gilbert cried out. “Oh shit, Leland! I can hear them!”
No sooner did Gilbert say the words when the butchery overhead stopped for long considering seconds. Nathan knew the reason why. The alien whalers had heard them as well.
“Get that door open, Eli,” Nathan said, feeling that familiar pang of anxiety swelling in his chest while his lower legs buzzed with energy.
Eli groaned loudly in reply, pulling then pushing upon that bony wheel, only to pull again.
“C’mon you sack of shit,” Nathan urged as, overhead, the hacking resumed with renewed vigor. “C’mon!”
“I’m tryin’,” Eli blurted back before, with an exhausted gasp, releasing his grip.
“Get up here,” Nathan said and slid down as Eli got out of the way the best he could. Nathan grabbed the wheel, feeling the smooth, rounded surface, and pulled with his arms and back.
Nothing.
A huge spear broke through the wall overhead in a spurt of gore. The blade wrenched one way and then the other, widening the incision before withdrawing. Alien voices sounded through the perforations above, their excitement needing no translation.
“Hurry up!” Gilbert shouted, fidgeting from where he held on.
Nathan pulled again without success, as if the door was nailed into the floor. The edges looked flush with the surrounding musculature.
A pair of broadswords smashed through the serpent’s side in a splash of blood and water. Metal groaned, and the sound of escaping steam filled the chamber as a much wider blade of light penetrated the interior.
A round of frightening cheers went up from the whalers.
“Hurry, Nathan,” Leland urged.
Nathan filled his lungs, gripped the wheel, and dug his feet in at the edges, free from what he thought might be the hinges. Once his footing was secured, he bent over and tried the wheel once again.
The whalers continued to cut through the layers of fat and muscle tissue, eager to discover what was making those curious sounds inside the great serpent. Dark matter rained down, spattering the men. The serpent’s body quivered and swayed against the vessel’s floating mass but its eerie yet peaceful voice was long gone. Nathan bent his knees and remembered a time years ago when he and his father struggled with a stump that plagued the development of their cornfield.
“Take a breath,” his father told him, their shoulders brushing, their shirts soaked with sweat. “Take a breath and on the count of three. I’m helping you, here, not you helping me.”
The sun peeked around his father’s profile as he smiled at him, just before his expression became a stern thing.
Nathan took a breath and heaved.
The door snapped open at an angle, flinging into Leland. The gang leader immediately held onto the barrier while Nathan peered inside, seeing only the familiar walls of the serpent’s digestive tract, walls that faded into a vat of darkness.
“Go!” Nathan said, grabbing Eli by the arm.
The gun runner needed no further encouragement. He grabbed for a nearby rifle and plunged through, not knowing what lay beyond. Eli vanished into the blackness beyond with a peal of evil glee. Only the foul smell of his saturated winter duster remained.
“Door’s open!” Nathan yelled at the others while grabbing for a rifle. “You go on, Leland.”
Leland glanced up and hurried around the door. He dropped below as the others slid down the sharp incline.
Mackenzie went through, followed by Jimmy Norquay. Shorty barely fit and Gilbert glanced back before committing.
Nathan did the same.
A great sheet of sunlight blazed through a rip in the serpent’s side, some fifteen feet beyond Archie, who drooped from his throne like some off-kilter pendulum frozen in mid-tick. A multitude of hooked poles latched onto the wet edges of the opening and widened the horrific gash even further. Flesh snapped and tore, resulting in a morbid drizzle. That mosquito whine reached a fevered pitched, and a misshapen hand, swollen and long of finger, reached inside and dug into the soft sides. A second hand followed, one possessing even longer fingers as well as a gruesome assortment of claws that were pearly white in the sunshine.
No such appendage belonged to a living, breathing person.
But the face that followed didn’t belong to a person.
With a whimper, Gilbert turned and bolted through the open door, leaving Nathan behind.
That sound whipped the whaler creature’s head around, and eyes on either side of a vertical mouth locked onto Nathan, who stared back at the abomination. More of those clawed hook hands appeared, and the daylight leaking into the great serpent darkened with a collection of shadows and torsos. The whaler’s mouth opened, and a nest of whip-thin flagella waved madly. The whaler screamed—or Nathan thought it screamed—and a serrated spear was handed to him through the opening.
Nathan didn’t wait around. He rushed through the portal and yanked it closed with a slam.
A second before the spear smashed into the barrier.
26
The dark engulfed Nathan, and for seconds, his attention was centered on the ceiling where he’d closed the door. He wondered whether the alien whaler would pursue them. He readied his Colt and pointed the weapon at the ceiling.
He waited, tensed, shaking from the recent rush of activity and trying hard to steady himself.
Nothing.
In time, he became aware of a panting, and realized it was his own. He eased off on the trigger and eventually lowered the gun. He rose and the murky fluid soaked into his clothes pattered onto dry ground. Nathan backed away, mindful of the unseen door, and wondered what might be happening beyond it, if those monstrous whalers had taken Archie or were somehow gathering their numbers, for
ming up a hunting party of sorts.
He wouldn’t wait any longer to find out.
Turning around, he stopped and tried to listen to the still air around him. His breathing slowed but water continued to slap the dry floor below him.
That last thought stayed with him.
Nathan dropped to a knee and touched rock, or what felt like rock, and the moist grit covering it. He rubbed his fingertips together, puzzling over the wetness before staring ahead into a starless night.
“Gilbert?” Nathan finally whispered and waited for a reply. “You there?”
No answer.
Nathan held his peace for a moment longer before glancing left and right. He reached out for the wall.
No wall.
On either side.
Just empty space, even ahead of him, and not a sound to be heard.
“The hell is going on…” Nathan whispered. “Gilbert? Leland?”
Again, no reply. He took off his father’s hat and gave it a shake, freeing the last few drops clinging to the material. He then ran a hand over his duster, grimacing at the feel of his soaked clothing underneath. He’d need a fire to dry out, that was for certain. That got him moving, shuffling forward, testing each tentative step as if inching his way across uncertain ice. The ground seemed solid enough, however, but he took his time, not wanting to march off a cliff or fall victim to an unseen pitfall. He paused several times, listening to the dark, wondering where the hell the others had gone, or if they were even still alive.
The air tasted dry, a glaring contrast to what’d he been breathing in a few minutes earlier, and the dark didn’t relent, nor did his eyes adjust to that absolute pitch.
Footfalls and the squishing of saturated boots and socks were his only companions as he forged ahead, rifle lowered but ready. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting any number of those whaler weapons to start hammering upon the door behind him. No such thing happened, however. He didn’t call out anymore, for fear of giving away his location if the others had been captured or killed. Then he wondered if he was walking towards the same fate.
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