The Map of the Sky

by Félix J Palma

  “Well, we may have to wait a little longer,” he apologized.

  Allan gave a timid cough.

  “Don’t forget that when it changed shape in the cabin it was only wounded,” he reminded him.

  “Yes, perhaps that’s it.” Reynolds smiled reassuringly at the men. “Perhaps it cannot change once it is dead.”

  “In that case, how can we be sure it isn’t still among us?” Lieutenant Blair asked nervously.

  “Because I am the only one who lost sight of his companion,” Reynolds explained.

  “And Captain MacReady lost sight of you.” The gigantic Peters stepped forward, his huge machete swinging alarmingly at the end of his arm, his voice booming among the crates like distant thunder.

  Reynolds looked uneasily at the suspicious, even angry faces staring back at him.

  “Surely you don’t think . . . Oh, God, no,” Reynolds gulped with horror. “I am not the creature, for pity’s sake! Allan, please, tell them . . .”

  The gunner gave him a beleaguered look, overwhelmed by the pace and madness of events.

  Allan finally spoke in a muffled voice. “Listen, please. This man is Reynolds, believe me. I saw the creature change itself, first into Carson and then into me, and although the likeness is exact, I can assure you there is something that distinguishes it from the original!”

  “And what is that, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Blair demanded, looking askance at Reynolds.

  “I can’t say exactly . . . ,” the gunner replied apologetically, his hushed voice all but drowned out by the sailors’ anxious murmurs.

  “Listen! There is a far easier way of resolving this.” Griffin’s voice pierced the darkness like a tiny ray of light. “We can take down the body and see who it is.”

  For a few moments everyone remained silent, amazed that there should be such a simple solution.

  “All right!” roared Peters, pointing his machete at the other sailors. “Two of you men see to that, but for the love of God, let it be two of you who know they didn’t lose sight of each other. In the meantime, we will watch Mr. Reynolds. I’m sorry, sir,” he apologized, waving his blade at the explorer’s throat, “but right now you are the other half of the only pair that became separated.”

  Shepard and Wallace stepped forward as one.

  “We’ll see to it,” said Shepard. “We’re sure we didn’t become separated, aren’t we, Wallace?”

  “That’s right, Shepard. We were together all the time,” Wallace said, staring straight ahead with an alarmingly fixed gaze.

  “Like Siamese twins we were,” Shepard joked in a peculiar voice that sounded like his but was slightly distorted, as though his tongue were too big for his mouth. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, that same hideous voice chimed up once more, only this time in the mouth of Wallace. “You said it, Shepard. Closer than a wedded couple: together even in the afterlife.”

  Bewildered, Reynolds looked from one sailor to the other, until he noticed with horror the mesh of slimy fibers joining Shepard’s right boot to Wallace’s left one. At that moment, he knew he had killed MacReady pointlessly. And from some vague part of his body, perhaps from the base of his spinal cord, he felt a wave of pure terror coursing through him, through every nerve ending, every ganglion, threatening to paralyze him, to drain all his energy or whatever it was that enabled him to move. The other men looked equally startled.

  What happened next is hard to describe. Perhaps a more seasoned narrator would have no difficulty—I am thinking of Wilde or Dumas—but unfortunately it falls to me. Having said that, I shall be as precise as possible in my choice of words so as not to confuse you even more. What happened was that, all of a sudden, before anyone had time to react, the bodies of Shepard and Wallace began to dissolve until they slowly melded into one, their deformed features floating in a glutinous substance like chunks in broth, a hideous fusion of eyes, mouths, and hair. Terrified, Reynolds could not help watching the creature’s metamorphosis with fascination, and increasing alarm, as the issue of that gelatinous substance grew ever larger and more monstrous. And suddenly, like yeast bread in an oven, the slimy creature began to solidify, becoming more compact, its elongated body endowed with powerful muscles and covered in a reddish skin, as though draped in seaweed. When the transformation had finished, the explorer could see that its arms and legs did indeed end in long, razor-sharp talons. He also noticed that what he took to be its head, for no other reason than because it was sitting between its shoulders, had formed into a nightmarish countenance that looked like the result of an unnatural coupling between a wolf and a lamb: it had a pointed snout and a pair of spiral-shaped horns on either side of its massive skull. Then the thing appeared to smile, drawing back its lips like a dog, to reveal a row of small pointed teeth. Without delay, it turned to Foster, the unfortunate sailor standing on its left, and with a rapid movement sank one of its claws into his stomach, only to pull it out a moment later trailing a slew of organs that spilled onto the floor with a dull plop. Allan’s face turned pale as he watched the jumble of entrails land at his feet, but he was scarcely able to retch politely before the monster wrapped its talons round his throat and lifted him off the floor like a doll. Luckily, Peters roused himself from the state of shock paralyzing all the men and moved toward the creature, swinging his machete. He plunged it forcefully into the creature’s shoulder. The blade sank into its flesh with astonishing ease, and it let out a loud high-pitched wail that echoed among the crates. It automatically released its grip on Allan, who fell to the floor, coughing and spluttering as Peters wrenched out the machete, splattering a greenish spray in all directions, and raised it to strike a second blow. But this time the monster reacted more quickly. It stopped the Indian’s arm by grabbing his wrist and bent it double as easily as a child snapping a twig. The color drained from Peters’s face at the sight of his arm, twisted at an impossible angle, the bone poking out at the elbow, but his suffering was brief, for with another incredibly swift movement, the creature decapitated him with one of its claws. Peters’s head hit one of the boxes with a dull thud before rolling across the floor, a look of bewilderment on his face at having met such a sudden death. Then the monster turned toward the rest of the men, but Griffin, with a composure that startled Reynolds, raised his musket, took aim, and fired straight at the creature’s chest. The impact at such close range propelled the Martian backward. This brought the struggle to a halt for a moment, and those still standing watched the monster writhing on the floor, desperately trying to change shape.

  “Finish it off, Kendricks!” Lieutenant Blair ordered the sailor closest to the Martian.

  But Kendricks, crouched beside the crates, face splattered with greenish blood, was slow to react. By the time he began moving toward the monster, it had changed itself back into the spiderlike creature that had fled Reynolds’s cabin and was scuttling toward the hold door, where it quickly vanished into the darkness.

  “Where do you think you’re going, you demon from Hell?” Kendricks cried, giving chase.

  Lieutenant Blair, Griffin, and the others followed him, and Reynolds suddenly found himself in the hold, once more having survived, while the bodies of his fallen companions lay around him. By the light of the only lantern that had not been snuffed out during the commotion, he made sure there was nothing he could do for any of them, except for the young gunner, who was sitting propped against the wall of crates, a glazed look in his eyes, unaware of what was going on. Reynolds’s first impulse was to flee the hold and look for a safe hiding place, abandoning Allan to his fate. And yet something held him back. Only moments before, when everyone believed he was the creature and were preparing to kill him in cold blood, the gunner had stepped in to defend him against the entire crew. Nor could he forget that Allan had also agreed to hide in his cupboard. But was that display of loyalty reason enough for him to risk his life for the gunner? Since when was he moved by such considerations? He no longer needed Allan, so he could leave him there. Taking him al
ong in his present state would make them both an easy target for the Martian. Just then the gunner raised his head, and Reynolds thought he had at least partially recovered his senses, because Allan managed to look straight at him and whisper his name.

  “Reynolds, Reynolds . . .”

  The explorer knelt at his side.

  “I am here, friend,” he said, placing his arm around Allan’s shoulder, ready to help him up.

  “Where is everyone?” Allan inquired in the faintest of voices.

  “Well, having seen what is in the hold, the Martian has decided to inspect the rest of the ship. I think it wants to make sure we are seaworthy,” Reynolds jested, managing to elicit a weak smile from the gunner. “Do you think you can stand?”

  Allan nodded feebly, but as he tried to rise to his feet, his ankle gave way, and he fell to the floor with a grimace of pain.

  “Damnation, I think I’ve sprained it. I am not sure if I can walk, Reynolds,” he said in a strangled voice. “What the devil are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know, Allan,” the explorer replied, slumping beside him. He pushed Peters’s head to one side with the toe of his boot. “Perhaps we should stay here and wait if you can’t walk—this is as good a place as any. Maybe the others will manage to kill the monster. And if it comes back, we have more than enough weapons,” he concluded, signaling the pistols that Foster and the captain were still clasping.

  “No, Reynolds. You go and help the others,” the gunner croaked. “There is no need to stay here with me.”

  But before the explorer was able to reply, they heard Kendricks’s voice in the distance.

  “I’ve found him, Lieutenant!” he cried. “That son of a devil is hiding in the powder store!”

  “Be careful, Kendricks!” the lieutenant warned him. “Don’t open fire in there!”

  Then Reynolds and Allan heard several musket shots.

  “For God’s sake, Kendricks, I told you not to—”

  A blast cut the lieutenant short, and almost immediately afterward Reynolds and Allan felt the ship shudder violently. The pile of crates they were leaning against began to wobble, and Reynolds hurriedly pushed the gunner to one side, then rolled on top of him as several crates containing whole sides of lamb toppled over and crashed to the floor, right where they had been sitting.

  “Damn you, Kendricks,” cursed Reynolds, standing up and hauling the gunner to his feet. Allan clung to him, stifling a cry of pain as he tried to rest on his injured foot. “Come on, Allan,” Reynolds encouraged him. “We’re leaving. I don’t think it is such a good idea for us to stay here.”

  The echo from the first blast was still reverberating when they heard another, followed by a fresh convulsion. Reynolds realized that Kendricks had set off a chain reaction in the powder store, and it would not be long before the boxes of ammunition and barrels of gunpowder exploded, blowing the ship sky high. They had to get off the Annawan as quickly as possible. He dragged the gunner over to the trapdoor leading up to the deck where the officers’ and crew’s quarters were. Clouds of thick black smoke were billowing down the passage between the powder store and the hold, making it almost impossible to see. Reynolds assumed the sailors who had chased after the creature were dead and even dared hope the creature was too. Not wishing to suffer the same fate, he wasted no time praying for their poor souls, but urged Allan to climb the steps. Once they had managed to get to the lower deck, where there was not a sailor in sight, the explorer tried to think what to do next, but he scarcely had time to give Allan any instructions when they were startled by a third, even bigger explosion. The blast raised some of the floorboards, splintering the wood, and hurled the two men into the air, together with a handful of equipment and a few barrels. The explorer was flung against one of the walls and rolled along the floor for a few yards. Half dazed, he lay amid the debris; a dark fog began to cloud his consciousness.

  “Reynolds . . .”

  Allan’s voice roused him from his stupor. He blinked several times, coughed, and was surprised to find himself still alive. His whole body ached, but no bones appeared to be broken. He half sat up and tried to locate the gunner amid the thick clouds of smoke obscuring everything. The blast had torn some of the lanterns from their hooks, and here and there tiny fires had broken out, which would soon spread, kindled by the tinder-dry wood from which the polar frost had wrung every drop of moisture. But before Reynolds could find Allan, he made out a figure at the far end of the deck, trotting calmly toward the armory, like a sinner so used to being in Hell that he feels completely at ease there. He realized it was Griffin, that curious sailor, who apparently had not followed the others into the powder store, thus escaping with his life, and who, instead of leaving the ship, which seemed the most sensible thing to do, was arming himself, as though he did not consider the battle with the creature to be over. Reynolds shrugged. That lunatic could do what he wanted with his own life; he had no intention of trying to stop him.

  “Reynolds . . . ,” he heard Allan wailing from somewhere.

  Then the explorer saw him, trapped under a heap of shattered beams. He was still alive but would not be for much longer if Reynolds did not dig him out and help him to abandon ship. This time, Reynolds surprised himself by not even entertaining the option of leaving Allan there. He rose unsteadily to his feet and ran over to help him. When he arrived, he noticed a deep gash in Allan’s forehead, which was bleeding profusely. He was still half conscious, yet beneath his matted hair, his bright eyes were flickering like two candle flames before an open window. Reynolds managed to pull him out from under the fallen beams, help him to his feet, and drag him over to the nearest hatch. Hauling him up the ladder proved grueling. When they finally emerged on the Annawan’s upper deck, Reynolds felt the cold like a rejuvenating balm. But they were not yet out of harm’s way. Reynolds quickly collected himself and located the ice ramp. He pushed Allan toward it, and, placing his arms around the gunner’s waist, they hurled themselves over the side, as behind them another violent blast shook the vessel.

  Once they were on the snow, Reynolds heaved Allan up off the ground and dragged him to what he thought was a safe distance from the Annawan. The two men collapsed close to the cage where the dogs were barking wildly. As they tried to catch their breath, they gazed in fascination at the slow, relentless destruction of the ship, as though it were a prearranged spectacle. The blasts followed one another at irregular intervals, and, according to how powerful they were, either blew a hole in the hull or gently rocked the boat on its plinth of ice. Meanwhile, the fire, greedy and unstoppable, had spread to the bridge. Huge tongues of fire leapt from the forecastle and coiled themselves like flaming serpents around the wooden masts, in a disturbingly beautiful display that was undiminished by the awful sight of sailors hurling themselves from the top deck, some of them in flames. The poor wretches must have been hiding from the monster somewhere on the ship and been unable to escape when the blasts began. Fortunately, Reynolds and Allan were far enough away not to hear the crack their bones must have made as they hit the ice. Then Reynolds saw a dense mass of smoke, like a thundercloud, rise from the bridge, a sinister overture to the violent explosion that followed, scattering a hail of splintered wood, metal, and human limbs in all directions. Reynolds threw himself facedown in the snow and covered his head with his arms, while Allan remained sitting beside him, admiring the deadly shower of debris with the fascination of a child enjoying a firework display. The thunderous noise resounded off the icy hillocks, and the air itself seemed to shatter into a thousand pieces. When the echo died away, only the din of the dogs barking and leaping around in their cage prevented the two men from being engulfed in a tomblike silence.

  Reynolds sat up slowly, relieved to see that none of the debris had fallen on Allan, who remained sitting on the snow as though at a picnic. He studied the devastation around him and in spite of everything felt a wave of joy wash over him as he realized the Martian must have perished at some moment during that
orgy of destruction. The nightmare was over. After the final explosion, the ship had been reduced to a pile of timber and twisted metal, from which a plume of smoke arose, while the snow around it was strewn with an assortment of variously burnt and mutilated bodies. By pure chance, Reynolds’s gaze rested on one of them, which was smoldering faintly, like a torch about to go out, and he was seized once more by an absurd and irrepressible euphoria. He knew he would only be able to enjoy his salvaged life for a few more hours, before cold and hunger finally snatched it from him forever, but that did not stop him from smiling to himself in the middle of that white immensity, simply because he was still alive.

  It was then that the dead body he had been watching idly slowly began to stir. Reynolds contemplated it with fascination, wondering how anyone could possibly have survived that devastation. But suddenly, he realized that the figure that had begun to pick itself up from the snow was too big to be a man. With a mixture of panic and helplessness, he saw the Martian stand up, huge, unscathed, and indestructible. The skin on its shoulders was smoldering, but the monster did not appear bothered. Once it was on its feet, it sniffed the air, glancing about until it spotted them, twenty or so yards away, slumped in the snow, insultingly alive. The Martian began loping toward them over the ice. Reynolds glanced at Allan. The gunner had also seen the monster and, with a contorted expression that was beyond fear, was watching it approach.

  “May God have mercy on our wretched souls,” Reynolds heard him murmur.

  The explorer looked back at the creature, which at the pace it was going would soon reach them. But he calculated that he had time to make one last attempt to kill it. He stood up, leaving Allan where he was, and ran toward the cage where the dogs were barking frantically, flinging themselves at the bars. He broke the padlock with the butt of his gun, released the door, and stood aside, praying the dogs were barking out of anger and not fear. He felt immensely grateful when he saw that, once released, the team of twelve or more snarling dogs made straight for the Martian. Reynolds’s tactic took the creature by surprise, and it stopped in its tracks, watching the dogs hurtling toward it. The lead dog flung itself at the Martian, unleashing all the fury that had been fermenting since Carson first came aboard the ship. But, with an almost effortless movement of its claw, the monster sliced the dog in two in midair. Fortunately, the rest of the pack was undaunted, for it did not enter their brains that they might suffer the same fate. Or if it did, then they did not care, for they leapt at the monster with the same primitive ferocity, like brave soldiers doing their duty, perhaps because they could not help making that final gesture for Man, their master. They attacked the monster with their powerful jaws, but within seconds it had pulled them off, hurling them in the air or decapitating them with its talons, and Reynolds soon realized that the dogs’ spirited attack would detain the Martian for only a matter of seconds. Knowing they must keep running, the explorer hurried back to Allan and pulled him to his feet. Then he took off in the opposite direction, practically dragging the gunner, while behind them he could hear the dogs yelping as they were torn limb from limb. A couple of them, reduced to bloody shreds, even went sailing over the two men’s heads before landing with a dull thud on the snow.