They'd seen the top of the Shot Tower reflecting emergency lights but none of the monster hunters knew why. They'd heard fire and police sirens echoing through the port. What they hadn't heard was Erin emptying her gun into aswang. The sirens prevented it. They heard Erin's scream, breaking glass, and aswang's shrieks after, as they were about to enter the grounds. But they pushed through to silence, no sight or sound of the creature, Erin, or any living thing.
From the bank, they were stunned to see the dredger's pilothouse shot to hell. And all three were frozen in place as they heard the awful song. Tik. Tik. Tik. Tik-tik. Tik-tik.
“What did you say?” Nestor muttered. “Pray to the virgin when the tik-tik sings.”
Ben pulled his ax. “Come on.”
They hurried to the entrance to the William T. Greene, jumped the chain, and ran up the gangway. Ben led, in a crouch, with Nestor and Forester on his heels. They stepped onto the foredeck beneath the towering derrick and advanced less than a dozen steps before Forester pulled up, whispering, “Wait, I'm vibrating.” The reporter reached for his pocket.
“You're taking a call now?” Ben growled.
Forester paused at the realization. “No,” he said. “I didn't bring my phone.” He touched the pocket and looked nervously at the others. He reached in, removed one of Rickie's perfume bottles, and held it up in the moonlight. The coconut oil inside was bubbling. “It works!” he whispered.
“It shouldn't,” Ben said. “We never got it blessed.”
“I stirred ashes into it,” Nestor said. “They were blessed.”
The trio stared at the bottle of boiling oil then, as one, turned to stare at the decks above.
“Mark,” Ben said. “Nestor and I are going up to the pilothouse. Stay here, will you?”
“Hell no! This is the story you promised me.”
“The story comes later. We've got to check the bridge for Erin; you saw the windows. But we don't know she's there. I'm not taking you out of the action. I'm warning you, you may be facing something alone. Watch our backs; shout up a warning if need be. And shout out if you need us.”
“It's a very important job,” Nestor told him with a wink.
Forester didn't appreciate the humor, but did appreciate the danger. “Fine. But I want my story.”
Ben and Nestor hurried quietly aft, carrying lights but not using them. They passed the winch for the derrick, passed the double doors to the engine room, and moved down the walk between the main deck bulkheads and the outboard safety fence (to prevent tourists falling into the harbor). Black windows, reflecting moonlight, watched them pass; both sincerely hoped nothing else did the same.
As they neared the paddle box, Ben and Nestor realized aswang wasn't the only monster aboard. The paddlewheels were monsters too, giants of wood and steel. The dredger originally had two, starboard and port, aft of amidships, each twenty feet in diameter with eighteen gigantic push planks spaced along the shaft. The boxes were steel fenders, supposedly covering the wheels. Supposedly as only the port wheel was there. The paddle box before Ben and Nestor was empty, the starboard wheel removed to the museum's entrance, a sentinel to awe the tourists before they bought their tickets. Ben and Nestor, oil boiling in their pockets, were in awe without it. They found a ladder and started up.
A covered walkway ran round the dark second deck from the pilothouse to an open area aft. The deck had twelve staterooms for the officers and six cabins housing four ranking crewmen each. Each cabin had a door onto the outside deck and another opening into a central passageway. There was an officers' mess, a galley, pantry, crews' mess, crews' bunk room with seventeen bunks and, aft, the crews' head. Anything could have lurked in any one of them. Opting not to search now but to risk the evil behind them, they turned back to the bow and headed up again to the top. There was the pilothouse, forward, the starboard wing and deck covered in shattered glass. Ben stepped up. Nestor grabbed him, signaling caution. It was a lesson learned in Fire Academy: Safety first. You can't help if you're dead. Observe, make a plan, then put your ass into it. Ben nodded. He pulled out his bottle. The coconut oil inside was boiling like a teapot ready to sing. Ben started forward again, slowly, this time with his partner.
They inched up to the aft door together, heard nothing, then flashed their lights inside. The bridge was a shambles, broken glass, spent casings, and black splashes of… something, on the floor. “Damn, what's that smell?” They entered and flashed their lights forward, saw Erin's gun on the deck in front of the binnacle and, behind it, deliciously golden brown from bare feet, to a neatly-trimmed triangle of pubic hair, to gorgeously flared hips, stood an absolutely inviting pair of legs. There… the invitation ended. From the waist up, the body was missing. Across the waist, viscera oozed beneath a gelling surface of pink muscle, white bone and fat tissue, and maroon, yellow and brown internal organs, all bathed in the inky muck the creature used for blood.
“What the hell is that?”
Ben and Nestor both spun to the voice. Forester stood gawping in the doorway behind them.
“Don't do that!” Nestor barked.
“That,” Ben said, pointing, “is your story.”
Nestor wasn't through. “Why are you up here?”
“I heard—” Forester hesitated, swallowed his spit. “There's something below. I don't know what. But there's something down there… on the main deck. Inside the ship.”
“I'm going,” Ben said. “You know what to do here.”
“Wait.” Nestor opened his chest of blessed ash. “Take a handful.”
Ben emptied a pouch on his belt, dropped a rope and spanner to the deck, and refilled it with ashes. He took a crucifix offered by Forester, tucked it behind his Saint Christopher pin in an inside pocket of his coat, and started for the door again.
“Ben…” Nestor began.
Ben turned back. “It's okay, Paco. You guys take care of those disgusting things.” He pointed at the legs. “Then come find us. We'll go for coffee. Erin can buy.” He left.
Nestor and Forester turned to Vong's lower half, bubbling and stinking with evil life. “What do we do with them?” the reporter asked.
Nestor scooped a handful of ash and stepped forward. “Make it so the bitch can't use them.” He sifted the ash across the pulsing table top of Vong's waist. The viscera began to boil and smoke, and though he wouldn't have thought it possible, stink more than before. Forester dropped another crucifix in the center of the bubbling mess and backed away.
Nestor nodded. “Let her sit on that.”
The William T. Greene had no below decks. As the boat was a dredger, often requiring operation in shallow water, it was a massive flat bottom boat with no external keel. The engine and boiler room were on the main deck. The engine room was entered by way of two sliding doors in the forward face of the superstructure, to port and starboard; and in the rear bulkhead, to port and starboard. The boiler room, aft, was entered through the engine room.
Back on the main deck, Ben stood at the forward, starboard doors, listening. Forester was right. From the depths of the black engine room, Ben could hear movement and, he was certain, a sickening occluded breathing. With one hand on his ax and the other on his light, Ben slipped inside.
Thirty – Eight
The engine room extended from the front of the superstructure to aft of the middle of the boat and looked as dark and felt as deep as Poe's famous pit. A finger of moonlight stealing in behind him, and a thin sliver of the same stealing in from the windows in the port doors opposite, were all Ben had by which to see. He had his flashlight but still he hesitated using it. The sounds of breathing, of movement had stopped. Stealthily he veered left, around the volute centrifugal dredge pump, and slowly, moved aft around the triple-expansion steam engine that powered the pump. He paused by the control banks, beside the rows of colored handles, beneath the maze of steam, water, and oil gauges and the pilothouse bells, used in their day to inform the engineer of the captain's desires for speed and direction.
Slow breathing himself, straining ears for sound and eyes for sight of anything – Erin or aswang – to the port, then the starboard propulsion engines atop their massive steel cylinder timbers. Each powered one of the sidewheels, independent of the other, making the dredger maneuverable but giving the monster twice as many places to crouch. The cylinders, twenty and forty inches in diameter, pushed pistons and moved the pitman rod with an eighty-four-inch stroke to turn cranks and paddlewheels. More, spaced throughout the dark beyond the engines were the auxiliary machines, steam turbine generating sets, a water distilling plant, and a wastewater filter. All surrounded by an overhead crane system for maintenance. Point was, there were a million places to hide. To Ben's shock, aswang wasn't hiding.
He heard it first, the guttural breathing again, then turned past the starboard engine to see the glint of its damnable eyes. Even in the dark, it saw him too, for it hissed its annoyance. For all Ben knew, with the reflective stripes on his turnout coat, he might look like neon in the demon's eyes. Whatever it saw, the creature wasn't afraid. Wanting the same, Ben clicked his flashlight on.
The monster lay atop Erin on the floor, wings stroking the air with delight. It hissed again at the firefighter, extended its revolting tongue, then turned back and pointed the tongue at Erin's belly, ready to strike. Ben screamed like a madman and ran at them. The creature raised a defensive claw as he drew near. Ben raised a handful of ash and hurled a gray cloud into the creature's face.
Aswang shrieked and rolled off Erin. Howling in anguish, it scurried into the dark to port. Ben pulled out Forester's crucifix, aimed it to where the creature vanished. Low growls answered. With the crucifix extended, watching the depths of the engine room with one eye, Ben bent over Erin, tapped her cheeks and called her name. Instead of coming round, Erin burst awake, screaming, struggling, and startling the life out of him. He grabbed her, told her who he was, held her until she quieted, all the time shielding them both, or hoping he was, with the crucifix.
They heard the irregular flapping of wings. They heard the periodic click of claws on the steel plate. They heard the low growl and guttural breathing. They saw black move against black in the depths, and a flash of leather and hair, as aswang scuttled from its old hiding place behind one machine to a new hiding place behind another.
“Erin!”
The cry was Rickie's. Ben looked back to see him, breathless, just inside the engine room doors in the starboard bow. He'd evidently heard Erin's cries, had overcome his own fear and come to her rescue. Ben found himself surprised by a sudden feeling of pride. Still watching the depths, crucifix aloft, he lifted Erin to her feet and walked her back toward the doors.
“Rickie. Rickie, it's Ben.” The creature growled. Crucifix poised, Ben kept moving. “I'm coming your way. Meet me. Help Erin. Help her out of here.”
Rickie met them by the control panel.
“Good man,” Ben said, handing Erin off. “Help her off the boat.” With a nod, supporting Erin's weight, Rickie started slowly away.
Ben turned back to the darkness. Holding his flashlight with two fingers, brandishing the crucifix with the same hand, the other gripping his truck belt between his ax and his pouch of ash, Ben found an odd clash of culture and religion in his head. There he was, like some kind of half-assed exorcist, chasing a Philippine demon in the dark, wishing he was Kali, the Hindu goddess of death, that he might have six hands, and six weapons, and dreaming – though he'd never confess it – that he'd gotten that manta tail. Sue him. Now that Erin was on her way out, he could admit it, he was scared shitless. Time for a little wet on red.
“Vong,” he called out. He had no idea what he intended to say. Had no clue if talking to a demon was a wise move. He had to do something to steady himself. “Vong.”
Aswang replied with a hiss and a beating of wings. Unsatisfied, Ben called “Vong!” and began seeding handfuls of ash into the dark. That brought a shriek and tumultuous movement. He turned in time to see the wretched thing half-scuttling, half-flying just above the deck into the boiler room. Ben studied the door, looking like a cave entrance, double-checked the homemade copper rod in his pocket, and followed aswang in.
Rickie had just reached the doors with Erin, headed out, when she saw Ben disappear into the dark. She tried to go back. Rickie refused, ordering Erin out. “Ben said.”
Erin called to Ben, tried to argue. Having none of it, Rickie held her in place. “No,” he cried. He shook his head like a dog shedding water. “You got a baby in you. Ben said you got to get away. Ben said. Ben said. Ben said.”
“All right, Rickie. It's all right. We'll do what Ben said.” She let him lead her out onto the deck.
Nestor and Forester had returned to the main deck, and having heard the commotion in the engine room, and hoping to get in on Ben's 'war', had reclaimed their gas cans and hustled them around the paddle box to the engine room's aft starboard doors. They weren't sure how they could join in but wanted to be ready when the opportunity arrived.
Tik. Tik. Tik-tik. Tik-tik.
They heard it at the same instant. Nestor and Forester stared at each other, then turned together to the starboard bridge wing above. Perched on the rail, backlit by the moon, watching them with glowing eyes as if they were crippled rabbits, sat a great bird of prey, unlike anything either had ever seen. It had the proud breast of a Bald Eagle, but blazing in red feathers with black streaks, and the naked slanted head of a Black Vulture, giving it the look of a hooded executioner. The tip of its otherwise long black beak glinted silver like the keen edge of a blade. Tik. Tik. Tik. Tik-tik. Tik-tik.
“Pray to the virgin,” Nestor whispered.
Forester started to complete it for him. “When the tik-tik—” The reporter cut himself off with a shout. The bird had spread its wings and was diving.
Stalking, and no doubt being stalked, Ben stabbed the darkness with his flashlight, moving through the metal maze of oil tanks, boiler drums, fire boxes, the bases of the boat's two huge smokestacks and, high and low, water and steam pipes. State of the art genius in 1934 but, after eighty years, a plumber's nightmare. Somewhere in the depths of the boiler room another nightmare waited. It didn't wait long.
As Ben eased past an oil tank that had once fed the furnace, aswang leapt from the dark behind him. Hissing and growling, it lashed with keenly sharp claws, slashing Ben's face and severing his lei before he knew it was there. Shouting, in a shower of garlic bulbs, eyes shut against the spritz of blood, Ben tripped backwards. He lost his crucifix on the way down, heard it bounce off metal and slide away, and landed with his ax beneath him. Aswang, crazy with rage and bloodlust, came after him.
On his back, kicking like a child to hold the demon off, Ben knew he'd reached the point of no return. The list of things that mattered more than he had grown too large; Erin, their baby, his ragtag crew of monster hunters, the people and property of the city of Duncan, not to mention his stupid promises. If he had to go, the Philippine bitch from Hell was going with him. Ben dug into a pocket of his coat and pulled out the hand grenade he'd stolen from Erin's office. Of course, he'd swiped it on an urge, without reason. Hell, he hadn't even believed in the monster then. It was not the first urge he'd followed that had gotten him into hot water. He just hoped Erin would remember, he'd never denied taking it.
Ben held it up, giving the aswang slashing at his boots an eyeful. The demon halted its attack. It even backed up. Ben loved Erin. He loved life and had no desire to leave it. He wasn't hero material. But he had promises to keep. And he'd damn well had enough. With a white-knuckled grip on the grenade's handle, he pulled the pin.
Following their escape to the main deck, Rickie was making a beeline for the gangway when Erin heard an odd series of noises and pulled up. She looked to the stern and caught a flash in the moonlight. Rickie kept trying to drag her toward the bow, but Erin was regaining her senses and wasn't having it. She snatched Rickie's hands to stop him pulling and pointed to the sky. Above the paddle box was the bright red ti
k-tik, flapping its wings madly, with a body clutched in its talons.
Panicked, without thinking, Erin screamed, “Ben!” and pulled a backup weapon from a holster on her ankle. She took off aft, down the companionway, around the empty paddle box. On the stern side of the fender, she slid to a shooting stance, and drew a bead – as best she could in the gloom – on the head and breast of the giant bird. She didn't want to hit Ben; if it was Ben. She didn't want to hit anyone. But whoever it was, the creature had one talon clutching his throat, the other his chest. It had to be stopped and she couldn't wait. Erin started shooting.
The tik-tik bucked in the air, squawked, and dropped the body. It fell like a rock, hit the deck like a sack of sand, and from the attitude of its landing could be nothing but a corpse. Crying, Erin ran to the crumpled form, rolled it to the scant light, and saw Nestor with his throat torn out. Horror then – forgive her – relief, hit Erin. It was a dizzying shock, but her heart sang because it wasn't Ben. But it was Nestor. Erin wanted to cry, to break down. Angelina, the baby, now Nestor, a family destroyed. Overwhelmed, Erin didn't see the tik-tik, despite being full of her lead, descending on her.
Screaming, incoherent but loud, Rickie arrived on the run and jumped between the tik-tik and Erin. He pulled off his necklace of garlic bulbs and, using them like a whip, slapped at the monster's talons. He pulled out a coil of wire, exposed the end, and when the creature fluttered down, repeatedly stabbed it with copper. Rickie shouted the whole while, giving the tik-tik hell.
Dazed, Erin looked the deck over. Nestor was dead. Forester lay, maybe dead, against the engine room bulkhead. In the door, gas cans lay ripped open with a river of fuel running into the dark. Erin saw it all and smelled the heavy odor of gas but none of it seemed to register.
The tik-tik shoved Rickie aside with a swipe of its talon, and flapping madly, dove at Erin. The detective, out of instinct rather than thought, hit the deck beneath the monster's grasp. The tik-tik flew over, past Forester and through the double doors, into the engine room.
When The Tik-Tik Sings Page 24