by Andrew Mayne
Smith pulled a bottle from his pack and rolled it into the gutter. He waited to hear the echo as the bottle clinked in the sewer. He looked up at the man on the carriage and nodded. “Evening.”
Smith got back on the contraption and raced down the block, fading into the fog. He reached the next sewer junction, pulled another bottle out and threw it down the sewer.
He did this four more times and then checked the watches on his wrist through a window on the glove. It was taking longer than he expected, so he decided to gun the engine to the other end of town and start there so he wouldn’t have to double back again. He set all of the remaining timers at once, to speed the placement up.
Smith dropped seven more bottles and was two blocks away from completing his wall of fire. He had two more minutes before all of the bottles, including the ones in his pack, ignited. He revved the engine and raced the moto-cycle down the street.
From the side of the street he heard several large pops and then felt something punch into his side. The force threw him from the moto-cycle. He slid across the damp cobblestone and came to rest at the curb. His first thought was that the bottles had prematurely exploded. He reached down to the bag to check the remaining two. They were still intact.
Smith took inventory of his body. Other than the fall, everything seemed all right. The armor had softened the blow. He reached his hand to his chest piece and felt a dent.
Footsteps ran up behind him.
This was not good, he remarked to himself.
“Look what we found, Mr. Flintwick. Some kind of knight in piss-colored armor.”
Smith rolled over on his back and looked up at Dobbins and Flintwick staring down at him. The red light from his helmet made them appear like two devils. They both had shotguns aimed at him.
“My, what large eyes you have there,” said Dobbins. “Should we shoot him where he lay?”
Flintwick ran a hand by his singed mustache. “If it were up to me. But the doctor would like him intact.” He pushed the barrel of the gun into Smith’s crotch. “Here’s how we’re going to do it. Everything is going to be very slow-like. Mr. Dobbins is going to remove your armor. If you try anything or if there are any tricks up your sleeves, then I pull the trigger. I don’t move. You don’t move.”
Dobbins slung his shotgun over his shoulder. He pulled a pair of thick leather gloves from his pocket and slid them on. “We heard about your electricity trick from the orderlies. A goddamn Tom Edison, you are. If I so much feel a tickle, Mr. Flintwick is going to blow your balls clean off.” He reached for the helmet. “How do I unstrap it?”
Smith began to raise his hand. Flintwick jabbed the barrel of the shotgun into the space between his armor plating and his groin. “No hands, Smith. Just tell us, will Mr. Dobbins get a surprise if he reaches under there?”
Smith looked to either side of the two men. It appeared to just be them. He suspected the other goons were waiting somewhere else with a pair of shotguns for him to come by. If they heard the shots, they were most likely already on their way here.
“Shouldn’t you be out hunting for the creature?” asked Smith.
“The doctor said it’ll run its course. He says you’re the more dangerous one. We’ll see how dangerous you are without your toys,” replied Flintwick. “Now tell us how to remove your helmet.”
“Gladly,” said Smith. “You two need it more then me. Particularly you.” He nodded at the burn on Flintwick’s face.
Flintwick shoved the barrel further into his groin. “Not all of you is covered in armor, Smith. Soon none of you will be. Won’t we have some fun then. Fancy that? You all naked.”
“There is an uncomfortable undertone to your comment,” said Smith. He glanced over at the pack to his left. “Let me get the key out of there.”
“Shite you will,” said Dobbins. He pulled the pack away and stood up. He looked over at Flintwick.
“Anything we should know about?” said Flintwick. He pushed the gun into his groin again.
“You’re not a gentle man, Mr. Flintwick. There are two bottles inside of there filled with a flammable liquid of my own creation.”
Dobbins held the pack away from his body. “An arsonist?” He looked over at Flintwick. “What do you think?”
Flintwick stared down at Smith. “I think you shouldn’t light any matches.”
Dobbins reached inside and pulled out a bottle. It was made from green glass and had a cylinder inside running from the top to the bottom. “Looks like batteries to me.”
“Flammable batteries, Mr. Dobbins. Please be careful.”
Flintwick looked at the bottle. His gun didn’t waver an inch from Smith’s groin. He looked back at Smith. “I don’t see any bottles like that on you.”
“Cause he’s unplugged,” shouted Dobbins. He held the bottle up to his own face and looked inside.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said Smith.
Dobbins held the bottle in his outstretched arm between himself and Flintwick. “Afraid I’ll drop your battery, Mr. Smith?”
“It’s just Smith, please. Smith,” he craned his neck slightly to look at the watches on his arm. “I’m afraid we’ve run out of time, gentlemen.”
“We’ve got all the time in the world, Mr. Smith,” said Flintwick.
“Well, that’s a relief because I was certain that the bottle was about to ....”
The cylinder in the middle of the bottle began to fizz and glow. Flintwick and Dobbins turned to look. Smith felt the barrel of the gun slacken slightly. He turned his head and rolled the instant the bottle erupted into a green fireball, engulfing the two men.
Shards of glass sprayed all over Smith’s armored body as the explosion ripped into the air. He rolled onto his stomach but couldn’t lie flat because of the Gatling gun. He scrambled to his knees and ran away from the flames as they spread across the street. He could feel the suit grow hot as fire licked at him.
A young boy who had been watching the encounter from his window watched as Smith ran across the street like a bright green comet. He saw Smith slide open a sewer grate and jump inside.
The green flame in the street reached the curbs on either end and then stopped expanding. Flintwick and Dobbins tried to run but were covered from head to toe in emerald fire. Their agonizing screams brought more people to their windows to investigate the sounds and the eerie green glow in the fog. The entire neighborhood watched in horror as the two men burned to death in the middle of the street.
The little boy decided it was just a bad dream and went back to bed. Most people watching were too afraid to process what they’d seen. For some, they thought they’d watched the monster in the mist. Others just closed their windows and hid under their sheets. One man ran downstairs to try to throw a bucket of water on the men, but it was too late. He couldn’t reach them and the men were already clearly dead. He looked down the street and saw more green light glowing in the distance as the other bottles erupted and sent flickers of flames through the sewer grates.
Chapter 18
Smith tumbled down the sewer hole, falling ten feet, splashing into the water below. His suit made a sizzling sound as the flames were extinguished. He’d designed the green flames to burn low enough to not catch nearby buildings on fire and just burn themselves out. But for clothes and human flesh, the fire was more than enough to kill.
He stood up in the water. It came to his waist. Enough to arrest his fall. More than enough for a leviathan to be lurking, he thought as he looked into the dark cavern.
In the distance he could see the dots of the green glow of his fire on either side, stretching 500 feet in either direction. He’d managed to block all of the junctions, except one — the one he was in. There was only one route of escape for the beast and that was right where Smith was standing.
“Well, that was poor planning,” he muttered.
He looked up at the sewer opening. He could see fingers of green flame trickling over. He heard Flintwick and Dobbin’s scream
s come to a stop.
Evil men that they were, Smith didn’t want to see them die, especially like that. He could rationalize all he wanted that he’d told them the truth, but the reality was that he’d wanted them to pick up the pack, and thus the lie about the key.
He looked around the sewer in the red light cast by his helmet. There was a ladder that led to the surface. Should he go back and retrieve the harpoon? He heard the bell of the fire brigade and decided to abandon it for now. It’d probably been burnt up beyond use in the green fire.
He spun the Gatling gun barrels on his chest and decided that was enough weaponry for just retrieving a body. Despite his assurances to Miss Malone, up until then he’d planned on trying to kill the beast if he could corner it. Without the harpoon, he wasn’t sure that was possible.
He heard a scratching sound and jerked his body around to see where it was coming from. The green fire seemed to be moving toward him. That was odd, he thought. It wasn’t supposed to do that.
Something was bringing it toward him. Something was on fire.
He flipped out the handles to the Gatling and prepared to shoot. Shoot at what? All he could see was a wave of green flames coming toward him. He heard the sound of clawing and screeching.
Was this the beast coming for him? The wave of fire grew closer. Green light reflected off the moist curved ceiling of the tunnel. Smith brought his body to the center and spread his legs apart defiantly. He aimed the Gatling straight down the middle and waited for it to get closer.
Ripples of water began to lap at his waist. He could sense there was a large mass moving through the water in his direction. His mind raced back to everything he knew about squids. They had a spearheaded body that ended in tentacles. If this was swimming toward him, then he was going to get the tip end first.
But this was a different creature than any squid ever seen by a man. It had different rules. Smith focused on the fact that it was mortal. All mortal creatures have the same rules. They could live and they could die. Smith included.
The flames were a few yards away. Smith realized that they were almost flat against the water.
The flames were coming at him in small patches. It wasn’t one creature. It was thousands. This was no kraken.
Rats. Thousands of sewer rats that had been set ablaze by his green fire.
They swam toward his body. Some kept going past, screeching in pain as the fire burned their flesh. Smith threw the pathetic creatures off as they tried to climb on him.
Just as bad as their tiny screams was the smell of their flesh as they burned alive. He flung tiny balls of fire away from him, trying to keep his body clear. Behind him, some kept going toward the next engulfed junction. Others went right or left.
Eventually, the wave subsided and he was left alone in the junction. The sound of the terrified creatures faded away as they tried to find some kind of release for their pain.
Their burning stench lingered. Smith worried that he wouldn’t notice the ammonium smell of the creature over the foul odor. He aimed his head down the west side of the junction. If the creature was on that side, it would be trapped between there and where the sewers dead ended. To the east was the rest of the city and eventually the piers and the sea.
Which way? Thinking back to April’s logic, the freshest, most recent kills would be to the west. Smith decided that was where he should head.
As a precaution, he undid the strap from his helmet and smelled a whiff of the air. It was foul. He quickly put the helmet back on and fixed the strap. He didn’t know what protection it would offer, but he felt safer with it over his head.
Besides burning rat, he could smell faint ammonium. More strong was the sick, sweet smell of death. There was no doubt this thing was down here and this was where it hunted.
Smith walked down the tunnel into the west end. He scanned the surface of the water to the left and the right for anything that looked like a body. The problem was that the sewer was so cluttered with trash and debris, it was hard to tell what anything was. All the things that got washed down the gutter were all around him, including things people wanted to hide.
He saw tire wheels, newspapers, bottles bobbing up and down in the ripples, planks, a dead cat and even a child’s doll within just twenty feet of where he was standing. He wished he had a stick or a shaft to probe around. Instead he had his suit and all his momentarily useless gadgets.
Smith kept moving forward, keeping an eye out for anything that looked like human flesh or bone. Miss Malone’s optimistic assessment that there would be a body within a few blocks omitted the fact that finding the body in all that debris would be a feat unto itself.
He walked a few steps and then let his red glowing eyes rove across the surface of the water for anything that remotely looked like it was part of a human. He took another few steps and repeated the process.
At the back of his mind, he knew with certainty that the creature was aware he was down here. The nagging question was whether it was trying to avoid him or to seek him out.
Chapter 19
Smith reached another junction. He tried to remember from the map where he was. He vaguely remembered that it might be near where Albert Carnegie had gone missing.
He looked to his right and saw scattered debris floating in the water. To his left he saw the water had a sheen to it as liquid trickled down from a pipe in the wall farther up. He could smell the scent of decaying flesh the strongest from that direction.
Smith stepped forward and immediately dropped a foot. For a moment he thought he was going to go all the way under until his feet touched the muck that covered the surface of the floor. The water lapped at his chest.
He hadn’t expected the sewer to get that deep. Otherwise, he would have worn some kind of floatation apparatus. He was also hoping there would be more walkways that would take him out of the water, but they were too far and few between, and he didn’t want to waste time climbing up and back down off them in his heavy armor.
Below the dripping pipe in the wall, he could make out a large mound of something poking out of the water like a volcanic eruption. As he got closer, he could see parts of it were moving. His hand tensed up on the Gatling gun grip.
Smith took in a deep breath and got wind of a foul stench. He stood motionless, staring at the mass. Parts of it moved but the whole of it stood as still as he did. He looked at the small pond ripples his body made. The waves traveled across the water before fading into the darkness.
He couldn’t see any returning waves. Of course, the creature would be much more streamlined after thousands (or millions?) of years of evolution. Its body would move through the water in a more efficient manner, leaving behind as little of a wake as possible.
This quivering mass before him had to be of something else. He slowly inched his body closer. He focused on the dripping sound of the water above it, trying to see if it masked something else.
The drops splattered against the mass and made tiny echoes in the chamber. Smith moved forward and could begin to see some definition to the form. His eyes traced what looked like pulsating movement. His fingers itched on the steel trigger of the Gatling.
He resisted every impulse to fire. He had no idea what he was looking at. Smith breathed in slowly, ignoring the stench. His eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark.
In the red glow of his light he could make out the moving forms that ran across the heap. Rats. More rats.
But what was the mass? It was nearly as tall as he was. Smith edged closer and could see what looked like white bone in his red glow. As his foot took a closer step, he could feel something crack and slip below him. He began to lose his balance.
Smith fell forward and landed face first on the heap. Even through the helmet, his nose told him before his eyes what he was looking at: It was a rotting pile of tissue and bones. He struggled to gain his balance as his fingers clawed into the mountain of decayed body parts. He could feel bloody masses squish between the fingers of his gloves
.
As he pushed himself back up, pieces of flesh stuck to his Gatling and his armor. Fragments of bone fell from the crevices. He wiped rotten organs from his goggles.
Smith resisted the impulse to vomit. He tried not to breathe. He looked the pile over. Something wasn’t right. He shoved a hand into the filth and reached around for something solid. He pulled out a large bone, as big as his below the elbow.
He held it aloft in the light and examined it. There were bits of sinew and cartilage still attached. He could tell by the joints that it was a tibia. He looked closer at the ends and the ligature. At first glance it may have looked human, but it clearly belonged to a pig.
Smith looked around the pile. He saw another bone sticking out. He pulled free a jawbone. It was a jawbone from a pig.
All sorts of animals walked the streets of Boston, like any other modern city. And a missing pig or two wasn’t as likely to get a missing persons report. Smith looked up at the pipe dripping water down on the pile.
He could see the tip of another bone poking out over the edge. Of course. The abattoir on the street above. While they probably didn’t make it a habit of flushing bones and parts down the drain, they hauled most of that away to be rendered, bits of pieces probably found their way past the grates and into the sewer below.
He looked at the film on the water around him and realized he was looking at blood pooling below the drainpipe. The falling water was partly blood and bile with the occasional bone thrown in. Enough over time to create the foul stalagmite in front of him.
What a strange place this sewer must be to the creature, he thought. Parts of dead sea creatures washing off the decks at the port where it found the entrance to the sewer. Inside the tunnels, rot and filth that must have been like nothing it could imagine and then piles of strange animals it had never seen before. Then up above, through gutters and grates, thousands of unaware bags of meat walking back and across the streets like a massive school of tuna. Oblivious to the creature below them.