by Tim Curran
Maybe you shouldn’t have been fucking his wife. You ever consider that?
He had. God, how he had. Pam was something else, though, and he just couldn’t get enough of her. She was just like heroin, that girl. Once she got in your system, forget it. She owned you.
But Arturo was no dummy.
You could fill a graveyard with the guys who’d made that mistake. And Charlie had no intention of being one of them. He was going out to the ship tonight and he was going to be carrying. Worse came to worse, there’d be more than one body dropping.
4
Charlie met him out at the pier that night at 6:30.
Arturo was not late; he was a very punctual man. The sea air was heavy and damp, a mist rolling in off the bay. They stood on the wharf at Pier 5 and smelled the brine of the sea and felt the chill in the air. There was a big tanker at the next pier over and a couple container ships at anchor, some trawlers farther down. Behind them was a salvage yard filled with old hulks in dry dock either being stripped or refitted, just shadowy ironwork skeletons, threadbare cadavers picked to their beams and frames. The air stank of salt and rust, machine oil and rotting seaweed. Pier 5 stretched an easy three hundred feet out into the sea and berthed at the very end was the Yvonne Addams. The fog was coming in thick as soup and Charlie could only see the grim outline of her.
“You ready?” Arturo said.
“Why not?”
He’d brought everything he’d need with him in a black canvas duffel: a couple flashlights and spare batteries, a portable radio, cellphone, some magazines…and a chromed-up Smith .45 auto for insurance. If there was anything funny going on, he knew just how to handle flesh-and-blood spooks.
“One thing,” Arturo said, tapping him in the chest with one gloved finger. “You see that van over there?”
Charlie had already seen it. It was parked behind them at the side of a freight building, pointing in their direction with a good view of Pier 5. There were a couple guys sitting in there and he could see the glow of a cigarette from time to time.
“A couple of your hoods?”
Arturo shook his head. “Nothing like that. Christ, Charlie, quit with that Al Capone shit. I told you, I’m a legit businessman.”
“Let’s not go through that again.”
“All right, all right. Those guys aren’t with me. That’s Starnes, the guy with the crew I told you about. Him and his first mate. They’ll be there all night keeping an eye on the pier. You try and take a powder, they’ll see you. You got it?”
“Don’t worry, I plan on spending the night. For fifty large? Shit, I’d spend the night on the Devil’s fucking lap.”
“Which is what you’ll be doing.”
“What is that? A joke?”
“Levity, Charlie, levity. Lighten the fuck up already.”
They started walking down the pier, moving around freight stacked on pallets and piled on cargo skids. The fog came in heavy and coveting, wisps of it tangling around their legs. Charlie could barely see the water out there, but he could hear it lapping at the pilings. Now and then, something splashed or a night bird cried out in the dark sky. Great atmosphere, that’s what. Not that it mattered to him. He still didn’t believe in ghosts.
At the end of the pier, the Yvonne Addams was waiting for them, big and stark and silent like some beast that just risen from the tangled weed beds far below, her decks and superstructure shrouded with mist.
“Shall we?” Arturo said, indicating the boarding ladder.
Charlie shrugged and led the way up, the ladder creaking and groaning as it received their weight. Then they were on board, their footfalls echoing out into the cavernous depths beneath the iron decks.
“Here’s your haunted house, Charlie,” Arturo said. “You bring your Ouija board with you?”
“No, but I got a couple fuck books and a set of naked lady playing cards…think that’ll do?”
Arturo’s laughter echoed, then died quickly enough as if humor had no place there. The atmosphere was heavy and dire like that of a buried vault. Nothing but the waiting, listening silence.
Just the quiet and I like the quiet just fine.
Charlie got his first real look at the Addams. She was so big and soundless and tomblike, something rolled over in his belly. But he shrugged it off. Just an empty ship and he refused to think otherwise.
The superstructure rose up near the bow, high and grim like a monolith, the multi-windowed pilothouse up on top, the stack and mastheads rising above. Just behind were the observation and boat decks, lifeboats suspended on davits and covered in canvas. The rest of the ship was just flat right back to the stern, nothing but mooring winches and cargo booms, the spar deck set with some eighteen massive hatch covers shielding the great holds beneath.
“Well…well, Charlie,” Arturo said and he had to clear his throat a couple times like something had settled in there. “I guess this is where I leave you.”
Charlie fired up a cigarette. The lone flame of his Zippo made the shadows around them leap and crawl. “Sure you don’t want to join me? Shit, I’ll even hold your hand.”
Arturo didn’t seem to find any humor in it. “No thanks, Charlie. I’m not stepping foot below after dark. Daytime? Sure. I’ve been on her dozens of times. But not after dark. No, sir.”
“How you expect Starnes and his mate to believe this ship is harmless if you’re afraid of it, too?”
Arturo’s brow darkened. “I’m not afraid of shit. You better get that straight. I err on the side of caution as they say.” He smiled. “I’ll see you in the morning. At least, I hope I will.”
“Heh, heh, heh,” Charlie chuckled in a ghoulish horror host voice. “Last chance, tough guy. Just you and me and the spookies.”
But Arturo was already at the boarding ladder. “Charlie…listen to me,” he said, pausing. “Maybe this ain’t such a good idea. You don’t have to do this. We can work something else out. I’ll let you work it off if you want.”
Charlie smiled. He wants you to break. To admit you don’t have the guts for this. That’s what he wants. “Oh no, you said one night on this wreck and we’re free and clear. I’m holding you to that.”
Arturo sighed. “You sure? You sure it’s what you want? The deal stands…but I’m giving you a chance to walk away from this if you want to.” He looked around, didn’t seem to like what he was seeing. “Nobody’ll think less of you. I’m a fair guy. Ask anyone. I want to know that this is what you want, because when I leave, you’re on your own. There’s no way out.”
“I want it just fine. A deal’s a deal.”
“Okay, Charlie. It’s up to you.”
Charlie puffed out his chest, licked his lips. Arturo was uncomfortable, scared even. Just seeing that was worth a night alone on the ship. “You sure you don’t want to spend the night? Always room for one more in the morgue, as they say.”
Arturo shook his head and made his way down the ladder fast as he could. His voice came drifting back up out of the fog, “You couldn’t pay me a million bucks to spend the night on this mausoleum.”
And then Charlie was alone.
5
He didn’t doubt that what Arturo had told him was true.
He didn’t doubt it a bit. The story, the whole set-up was wild, but Arturo had absolutely no imagination. He hadn’t made any of it up. And he didn’t doubt that Arturo would wipe out the debt. Fifty large was nothing more than walking-around-money for a guy like him. This wasn’t really about the money or proving that the ship was spook-free.
There was something else at play here; Charlie only wished he knew what.
Pam? Could it be Pam?
That was what he kept wondering. His gut instinct told him that this had everything to do with her, yet there was no evidence of the same. Just…intuition. Just that weird feeling in the back of his stomach that had always proven itself invariably correct time and again. All he knew for sure was that something in this whole set-up was not above board.
; So play it easy. Play it careful.
That was about the only thing he
6
He went to the crews’ mess and dunnage, where the cabins of the deckhands and porters were. They weren’t much. Small with a couple bunks and a chest of drawers. A tiny closet. Not much else. The crew slept in these rooms and knowing that, he wondered as he had in the mate’s cabin what had happened. What drove them off the ship. He went from cabin to cabin to cabin. What had they been thinking? Or were they thinking at all? Was it some kind of mutiny or something much worse? Maybe they all just went nuts and jumped overboard, thinking the open ocean was better than what was on the ship, what was coming for them, one by one.
Maybe they stood around listening for things with their heads cocked to the side, listening for the approach of something. Something so terrible they couldn’t bear to look upon it so they ran screaming up onto the decks, jumping over the side into the deep, sucking darkness—
That was enough.
Charlie had no idea what was wrong with his head tonight. He wasn’t a guy that gave in to things like that. Christ, his nerves had gone to jelly. His stomach was filled with butterflies and had been since he first stepped foot on this hulk.
What the hell was that about?
He shook his head, lit a cigarette, and blew out a column of smoke. That was better. A little nicotine would clear his head, help him focus, keep his nerves down. He smoked and did not listen. Oh, there were plenty of sounds out there, but that was to be expected on a ship. He ignored them. He figured it wouldn’t be long now before Arturo’s boys would have to turn up the heat. If one of them showed again, he was going to give him a couple slugs from the .45.
Murder? You’re willing to resort to murder for what will be no more than a practical joke of sorts? Sure, sure I am. That’s my little joke.
There couldn’t have been a worse place to go nuts than out in the middle of the ocean, he got to thinking. Nowhere to run or hide. Nothing to divert your mind. You’d just sit there while the insanity sank its roots deeper and deeper into you, took you over, infested you, became a part of you. You wouldn’t even know the difference after a while. You’d start doing crazy things like…like standing around with your head cocked to the side like you were listening for something…and…and sooner or later, you would hear it coming. Oh yes, it would come at night with a slow shuffling sort of sound like bare feet, getting closer and closer. And it would bring a stink with it…gassy and rotten like a dead dog bursting with maggots…and then maybe you’d see a face, a woman’s face only fish belly white, and you’d know that what you were seeing wasn’t exactly human, but some elemental thing pretending to be a woman. It would be too much. You wouldn’t be able to take it so you’d…you’d have to jump overboard…or…or maybe throw a rope up over a beam and tie a noose, slide it over your head while you stood on a stool. Then…then…
“Stop it,” he said under his breath. “Stop this shit right now.”
Charlie came out of it, realizing he’d been daydreaming about the worst sort of thing and in the worst sort of place, the whole time studying a beam overhead with his light and actually wondering how it would feel to slip a noose around his neck and jump off a stool.
He tried to laugh it all off inside his head, but he just couldn’t seem to generate more than a cold, little chuckle that was not funny or reassuring in the least. He felt that sensation along his spine again. His palms were actually sweaty and his stomach was tied tight as a corset. He didn’t feel afraid exactly, but almost confused or befuddled like nothing was making sense. He had the oddest sense of teetering on the edge of some immense black drop-off, that if he did not get out of there, he’d lose his footing and drop from sight.
It was ridiculous.
Absolutely ridiculous.
He finished his cigarette and crushed it out on the floor. He wondered why he thought those sailors might see a woman coming for them or something like a woman. He’d been thinking about his old lady. But she was no spook. She was the salt of the earth and all that, he figured, raising five kids on her own after his old man went out for a ride and never came back like in that Springsteen song. No, Ma Petty was the best and he missed her every day. It wasn’t her fault that two of his brothers were in-stir and Charlie himself swam in the dirty pond of organized crime. Not her fault at all.
Why then? Why had he pictured a woman?
Because the companionway leading below decks had smelled sweet, hadn’t it? Like a woman’s perfume. No, no, it had been too strong, too…savage. The odor had been sweet, yes, but overpoweringly sweet, cloying and heavy, almost gagging. A sickly-sweet sort of stench like the slow seepage from a corpse.
There went his head again. He had to keep his imagination down or he wasn’t going to make it an hour, let alone until dawn.
He left dunnage and when a cobweb broke against his cool, sweating face, his heart actually skipped a beat and he had to strangle back a cry deep in his throat. That wasn’t a cobweb. It was crawling. He dropped his flashlight and the damn thing went out. He had a back-up in his duffel bag, but he was not wasting batteries. Not here. Not tonight. The flashlight had rolled through the doorway of another cabin.
He had to find it.
He sure as hell wasn’t going to dig out the other flashlight. That would be giving in to fear. Besides, he had his Zippo. That would light the way.
Arturo’s a liar, he thought quite suddenly as if the thought was placed in his head. The plant’s down on this ship because he didn’t want me having lights.
Charlie lit his Zippo and tried to ignore the long, reaching shadows that played over the bulkheads. The flashlight had rolled in here. The cabin was almost a duplicate of the other one. There was only one place it could be. Yes, it must have rolled under the bunk.
He got a sudden strong whiff of something like perfume, a flowery, musky smell that came and went.
He got down on his hands and knees. Sure, there it was. He reached under the bunk, feeling around. The flame of the lighter in his other hand flickered like someone had blown upon it. His fingers brushed the tube of the flashlight and he yanked it out with a silent cry on his lips.
He dropped the lighter and slapped the flashlight against his leg. A spear of yellow light came out of it. Tensing, breathing hard, he played the beam around down there, but there was nothing. He had thought…no, he had felt the back of his hand brush against something like wet lips. There was even a sheen of wetness from his knuckles to his wrist.
A leak. Old hulk like this was probably leaky as hell.
He grabbed the Zippo and stumbled out into the corridor, his skin beaded with gooseflesh. He had to lean up against the bulkhead for a moment to control his breathing. There was no way he’d felt a wet mouth under the bunk. “What you’ve got there,” he said in a low voice, “is a wet mattress. Probably water dripping from the ceiling soaked it. That’s what you felt: a wet mattress.”
It seemed perfectly reasonable…yet, from a tactile standpoint, what he had felt was not only wet but soft, almost blubbery.
Oh, Arturo would love this, you fucking idiot. He’d eat this right up with both hands. Is that what you want? You want to give him that kind of satisfaction?
Charlie didn’t.
He wanted anything but.
Thing was, though, Arturo wasn’t here and he could not know what it was like on this great, echoing ship, this iron coffin. He was at his club, putting back a Jack and Coke, some leggy dancer gyrating on his lap. He was not here in the silence and dust and dire memory, feeling it working at his guts and sliding cold fingers up his spine. And the scary thing was, Charlie was not sure he himself was there either.
Because he didn’t know who this guy was.
He didn’t know whose skin he was wearing.
All he knew was that this guy, this imposter, was definitely scared shitless and he did not even know why.
7
He began to panic.
It seemed inconceivable to
him that such a thing was possible, but he could sense the unknown threat of the ship, feel it working along his spine like especially cold fingers and he began to freak out. The panic was like an ever-expanding bubble of hot gas that rose up from his belly and filled his chest. It got so he could barely breathe. He leaned there against the bulkhead, unsure whether he should run and run right goddamn now for his life or just wait there, shaking and sweaty, his insides like warm pudding, and hope that whatever was out there threading the darkness like a needle would not be able to find him.
Whatever was out there—and at that moment he was sure there was something—it was concentrated here, gathering around him like poison gas.
“Stop it,” he said under his breath. “Please, please just stop it.”
But it wasn’t stopping.
It wasn’t even slowing down. And something in him, that indefinable thing he’d always thought of as guts or balls, was abandoning him. It was leaving, reaching escape velocity and shooting off into the night. What it left behind was a pale and shivering man who could not be certain of anything. Reality was distorted here, cruelly distorted, mangled, and remade and he did not trust it. For the first time in his life he did not trust his senses. Everything was warped, off-kilter. Even the deck under his feet was suspect. He could trust nothing.
Nothing but the fear that owned him.
Why? Why? a voice cried in his head. Why now? You were never, ever afraid of anything before! Why are you so fucking gutless now?
But the answer to that was quite simple: the threats to his life and well-being had always been tangible things before. He could easily locate them and strike out against them. Not so now. The danger on this old hulk was partly physical, partly psychological, and partly psychic. Maybe that made little sense, but it was all around him and it could get to him anytime it chose, but he could never find it…not unless it wanted to be found.