* * *
The door pushed opened with Cyril's hand. Maggie entered ahead of him. He stepped inside and let the door close. She stared at the barrel, its head drawn shut, the push pole leaning against it.
“He's sleeping,” she said.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“He pulls the lid over the barrel to keep the light out.”
Cyril glanced at the setting sun outside the room's high windows. His crew stepped in the door. Terry and another of the men headed for the side overhead door. Cyril raised a hand.
“Let him be,” he said.
“We've come this far,” said the man in sky-blue turtleneck sweater and smoke-gray toboggan. “We might as well be done with it.”
“Leave the wine outside. We'll come back tomorrow,” said Cyril.
“Boss—”
“I'm paying you for your time, Daniels, so hold your tongue lest you plan to find work elsewhere.”
“Really, it's no inconvenience if you wake him,” said Maggie. “He'll fall to sleep at once, and truly he would be happier.”
Cyril took a deep breath and held it. Maggie waited for his answer.
Cyril cocked his head, and without a word, the men headed for the door. She watched in confusion as the men passed by to leave her and Cyril alone.
The door turned quietly on its hinges and shut. So Maggie turned to Cyril.
He placed a hand on her shoulder, and her eyes met his.
“I know you perceive you're doing well by your husband, having us change out this wine,” he said. “But have you considered that the spirit that calls to him—the same that changed him so—might take even stronger a hold on him?”
She looked away. “I can't have him living in his own filth. It's inhumane.”
His other hand took her other shoulder. “Maggie. Look at me,” he said.
She faced him.
“Your husband. He isn't—” he sought for words. “He isn't all human. Not anymore. His body does things ours can't. He's got gills for Christ's sake! He inhales water. Too long outside his cask and he bleeds from the air we breathe.”
With each word, she fought to shake free of his hold, but his hands only held her tighter and pulled her closer, until she found herself sobbing in his bosom.
He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead.
“Sometimes I wish I had let you have your way with him,” she mumbled through her tears.
“Have my way?” he asked.
“To put him out of his misery.”
His left hand ceased stroking her hair and cradled the back of her head. His other raised her chin. Their eyes locked.
“You're a good woman, Maggie Dearing.”
The tears in her green eyes sparkled like the sea. He leaned toward her. Their eyes closed and they kissed.
Within minutes they were in her bedroom, undressing.
He removed his shirt. The chain necklace she had seen only in part carried a gold coin; it glimmered in the nightstand lamplight. Another sight heretofore unseen was the myriad of tattoos covering his muscular chest.
On his right breast rested a mermaid, and over his left stood a skeleton.
“My word,” she said.
“Living with a man of the sea, surely you've seen your share of tattoos.”
“Never one so macabre. What does—” she hesitated before pointing at his breast. “—this fellow stand for?”
He looked at his own breast. “This fellow?” he asked, flexing his left pectoral.
“Ooh,” she fluttered.
He laughed. “This is Charon. Pilot of the River Styx—the river of the dead, if you will.”
She noticed the figure's outstretched palm, open beside its host's hairy nipple. “Why is his hand out? Is he a beggar?”
He laughed again. “No. He only demands his rightful wage for making the treacherous journey from death to the world hereafter.”
“And what is his wage?”
He raised the coin of his necklace in one hand. “A single gold coin.”
“What if you don't possess one?”
“You won't pass. You'll be stuck in purgatory or limbo I suppose. In truth, I don't much know. But I'm certain if you ever catch me dead; you stuff this coin in my mouth just to be sure.”
“Let's hope that never happens,” she said and took the coin in her hands.
She pressed the coin against his lips until he opened his mouth and gently bit it. She bit the other end. They playfully tugged it back and forth for a time, then he let her have it. She opened her mouth and let the coin fall back to his chest.
They embraced and fell onto her bed.
The wine inside Sam's wooden world sloshed side to side, and soon so did he. He thrust his arms to the edge of his enclosed island to brace himself. He was still, but the wine pounded him back and forth like ocean waves.
He spit the wine out each time it ran into his mouth, even when his gills were not bothered in the least.
“Maggie?” he called out. “Is anything the matter?”
He waited for a reply.
“Maggie, girl? Do you hear me? Is anything the matter?”
He listened for an answer, but all he could hear was the sloshing wine and his own rocking world.
“Damn this barrel!” he grumbled and removed his hands from the staves to push up on the head til it popped open.
The muffled sound became crystal clear. At first, he heard her tortured moans.
“Maggie!” he yelled and reached for the push pole.
He gave two pounds on the ceiling.
“Shh!” he heard her hush from another room, but the knocking sound from above continued, and her moaning started again.
Then it grew louder, and shorter, and quicker, and soon another voice joined in—that of a man—moaning in unison as the tempo increased.
“Maggie?” he whimpered and let the pole fall from his hands to the floor.
When his mind comprehended the ugly truth in cursed epiphany, the unseen lovers exulted in their mutual and magnificent release. As Maggie caught her breath beside her exhausted steed, Sam cried the most pitiful tears he had ever known in his life.
He pulled the head of the barrel shut and submerged beneath the wine to bewail his heartbreak unheard. His muffled howls were barely audible as an ocean of lament rose to the surface in the form of popping bubbles.
Maggie rested her head on her sleeping lover's tattooed breast. She ran her fingers over Charon's fleshless frame, rubbed his outstretched palm.
Cyril smiled. She looked at his closed mouth, awaiting any further movement or word. His smile slowly relaxed. She closed her eyes and joined him in sleep.
* * *
It was still dark when she woke.
“Cyril?” she called.
The space beside her was empty. She reached over and felt the sheets. They were cool to the touch. She threw the blanket aside and stepped out of bed, naked; her straight hair down like a wide, unfurled sail.
“Cyril, love?” she called again.
She listened. The soft cry of gulls outside her window answered. She retrieved her undergarments from the floor and dressed, then wandered through each room, calling for him, until she heard footsteps from the boathouse beneath.
Cyril must be alone with Sam. That couldn't be good. She had also forgotten to feed him. He was probably starving by now. She rushed to the kitchen and took a loaf of bread, then descended the outside stairs to the ground level.
She pulled the door open and stepped inside the boathouse. “Cy—” she was about to call Cyril. “Sam? Is that you?”
She looked about the quiet boathouse. Where was Cyril? She had heard his footsteps.
“Sam? I brought you something to eat.”
She looked over at the docks, expecting to find Cyril standing, possibly half-naked, only to see the pole. What if Sam saw him? He would be furious.
She set the loaf of bread on the dock and approached the barrel. After sliding the head off
and setting it on the dock, she plucked pieces of bread from the loaf to feed her husband. Her palm had already opened to drop the crumbs when she saw the body floating belly up. Her hand trembled so greatly the bits of bread shook out of her hand onto the floor.
Her lover stared with lifeless, bulging eyes; his body a bloated mass. The tattoos on his skin were stretched out like blown-up balloons. The mermaid and skeleton on opposite breasts looked like victims of the rack—their figures contorted as much as the canvas they were painted on. The gold necklace and his precious passage to the afterlife were missing.
A scream welled in her belly like vomit, erupting through pursed lips, piercing the stillness of the room. With her mind clouded in confused terror, she turned to flee for help, when she ran headlong into a wall of wet flesh. Upon impact, there was a great squishing sound, followed by a slurping, sucking plop as she pulled away.
The foul, fishy slime stretched like unbroken cords between her and the man she once called husband; a bond between earthbound and sea bound creatures.
“How could you?” she whined.
“I had to, Mag. He was going to kill me,” he said, pointing to the whaling harpoon lying flat on the dock she had mistaken for the push pole, which lay on the ramp.
“You're a murderer!” she screamed.
“And you're an adulterous whore!”
She shook her head. “No more than you. I lay with a single man. You lay with the sea, seven of them—a whole harem of harlots you could never pull yourself away from. So don't dare accuse me of breaking our vows. It was you who was to love and cherish, but you beat me like a dog and deserted me for the sea and the bottle.”
“Shut up, you whiny winch!” he shouted and placed his boneless fingers around her neck.
Despite there were no bones in those minuscule tentacles, they had enough muscle to squeeze the life out her. She tried to scream, to tell him “Stop!” but no sound or air could get past the vice of his fingers.
Her head grew light and her eyes widened. She feared they would soon bulge as his did. She gazed at the gold necklace wrapped around his wrist. She stretched her hand forth and took hold of the coin that dangled from the chain.
She pulled the coin until the chain cut into Sam's soft flesh. The coin broke free as he pulled his arm back with a great howl. Blood poured from the split skin and ran down the necklace.
She closed her hand around the coin and thrust her fist into his mouth past her wrist. She opened her hand to release the coin and pulled her arm back.
Sam released her throat and grasped at his own. He tried to cough out the coin but it was stuck in his mouth as hard and fast as any fishhook.
Blood poured from his gills as he fought for air. He shoved her to the ground and hobbled for the barrel on flippered-feet. He took hold of Cyril's head and shoulder and strained to pull the waterlogged body from the barrel.
Sam managed to raise the body half way up and let it slump over the chime. With a second yank, the corpse came crashing down upon its head and falling over end-wise.
Maggie turned away at the sight in traumatic tears. In the corner of her vision, she saw his swollen hands and the jeweled rings cutting into his bloated flesh.
Sam leaped onto the chime and spilled inside like a boneless blob. With a splash, he sank beneath the surface, followed by rising, bloody bubbles.
“No!” Maggie shouted. “You won't run to your precious bottle and come climbing back into my life ever again!”
She looked about the workshop. On one wall hung Sam's tools. She ran to the wall, took an adze from its hook, and returned to the dock. She hopped down to the ramp and with a furious swing, she buried the tool's iron-head into its staves.
Sam leaped up from his violated sanctuary, gagging on the air. Maggie pulled the handle of the adze, unable to break it free. Sam leaned over the chime and took a swipe at her. She jumped back out of his reach. He made two more attempts to take hold of her before he retreated for another breath.
As soon as he sunk inside, she took hold of the handle and pulled again. The adze head broke free, followed by a gush of wine. As she stepped back to let its flow proceed unhindered, a terrified smile rose on her face.
Sam leaped up and lashed at her in a sweeping arc. Though she was well out of reach, she instinctively leaped back. When her feet landed, the wine pooling beneath her sent her slipping, reeling backward, into the air.
She fell on her back, and for a moment, was unable to move. Sam swiped at the air three or four times for no reason other than blind rage, then fell back into his diminishing supply of liquid air.
The adze lay at Maggie's side. She took hold of the handle and rose to her feet, the iron head scraping on the wood plank floor. She swung the adze a second time, planting its head left of her original strike. This time the head broke free easily when she pulled it back, creating a wider hole than before. The wine gushed out twice as fast.
She raised the adze over her head for a third strike, when the damaged staves split to pieces and Sam's slimy hand shot forth through the widening breech.
The tentacled fingers took hold of her narrow waist and squeezed. Her fingers went straight and rigid, losing their grip on the adze, which fell behind her to the floor. She felt her innards slowly being crushed in the constricting fingers' clutch.
Maggie exhaled the last breath she had when Sam's fingers went suddenly limp. His hand retreated back into the broken barrel, wine still pouring out over its fragmented staves. With a deep gasp her breath returned.
She climbed up the dock and approached the barrel, hesitant to look inside. She leaned against the chime and peeked down. Staring at her with bulging, milky eyes and the last pulses of blood trickling down from his gilled neck, Sam reached up from his inevitable grave for her hand. His slick fingertips brushed hers. She pulled away.
The soul she thought she recognized in her husband's eyes weeks before was gone now. Maybe it was never there at all. Perhaps it was lost at sea, afloat some derelict vessel captained by Death itself, looking for clear passage to another world beyond. Wherever Sam was, he was dead to her.
Maggie's face and the lamplight outside the barrel were swallowed in darkness as she slid the head into place.
THE PAPER SHIELD
James Lowder
If the professor ever knew my name, he never used it. “You there,” he’d bellow. “Careful with that crate! Its contents are worth more than the hides of this whole miserable crew!” Or sometimes he’d just bark something like—“Move, you contemptible walking ballast!”—when he was stomping from one end of the ship to the other and found me blocking his path. Now, I’ve long considered the sea my home, and even before that fateful mission with the professor, I’d shipped out enough times to know how to keep clear of others on deck. Yet somehow, I was always in his way. We all were. The Chelston was better than one hundred meters from bow to stern, a sizable enough freighter, but it felt like a river punt with him aboard. In truth, it’s hard to imagine any place big enough for the likes of Charles Augustus Thaxton.
There was no way to avoid him. No corner of the ship was too dark, too distant for his rounds. Above deck, he checked and rechecked the automatons and the modified heavy cranes he’d installed, or quizzed the guards stationed around the other special equipment, which remained hidden from us beneath tarps for much of the voyage. Then he’d stomp off to harangue the glow bug about the wireless or the captain about the evasive maneuvers to be used in the event of a French airship attack. Below deck, he seemed intent on inspecting every pump, valve, hatch, and seam. He even bulled into me once near the crew quarters. I turned a moment before impact to find him huffing toward me, green eyes piercing beneath the great bald dome of his head. He was too caught up in his thoughts to offer up an insult this time. He merely grunted through the mechanical speaking box clutching spiderlike to his throat, before giving me a rough shove.
Startled, I dropped the magazine I’d been carrying, and old habit prompted me to try
to retrieve it, so it wouldn’t be trodden upon. Apart from charts and logbooks, printed matter of any sort tends to be handled pretty roughly at sea; a page from Sartor Resartus will make a serviceable napkin, or Bunco scorecard in a pinch. It takes considerable effort below deck to keep paper clean and dry, too, even for those inclined to bookishness, so anything brought aboard is usually seen as disposable. Me, though, I can’t imagine going anywhere without something worthwhile to read—and doing all that I can to keep it safe. Respect for the word, printed or written, was something my father instilled in me. He was a schoolmaster, and in my reverence for knowledge, at least, I will always be a schoolmaster’s son. Not even my awe of Thaxton could change that.
I wasn’t nearly fast enough to grab the magazine. As I reached down he trod upon my hand, without malice but forcefully enough to send me back against the bulkhead. When I got my wits about me again, I was relieved to see that he’d stepped over the journal. I picked it up gingerly with my bruised hand and gritted my teeth in anticipation of a harangue that would leave my ears aching as painfully as my purpling fingers. Instead, I found the professor glowering at me. More precisely, at the old number of Scientific Alarums resting on my lap.
The tiny gears and pistons of Professor Thaxton’s speaking box clicked and whirred as it worked. He’d designed the marvel himself after a mission in Afghanistan went horribly wrong, and a Russian scientist slit his throat. Some in the press claimed that Thaxton could have given himself the voice of an angel, but he’d chosen one that mixed the clack and rattle of a difference engine with the growls of a safari’s worth of wild beasts, because the resulting metallic snarl more accurately conveyed his intended tone.
“What’s that trash you’re holding?” he demanded in that awful voice. “Something for keeping down the fly population in the head?”
“N-No, sir,” I said. “I was reading a piece in here on the possibility of ether-burning rockets and travel to the moon.”
His expression wavered for a moment, teetering between annoyance and disappointed amusement. I’d seen that battle play out on many a master’s face during my school days, and even that of the occasional first mate during my time at sea. Fortunately, amusement won out this time, and Thaxton was smirking as he replied. “No doubt the editors of that dubious publication have concluded that the moon is a mirage—or a hoax, like they did with the clockwork detective I created to solve the Enigma of the Severed Head.”
Fearful Fathoms: Collected Tales of Aquatic Terror (Vol. I - Seas & Oceans) Page 47