The Night Boat

by Robert McCammon

Chapter Sixteen

 

  WERE OVER two hundred miles off the mark!" Jana was saying. "It's incredible! If it weren't for this. . . " She held the paperweight up as she sat on the sofa in the hotel's front room. She was constantly turning it, studying the letters as if fearful they would somehow evaporate before her eyes.

  "You've been talking for fifteen minutes," Moore called from the kitchen where he was making a pot of coffee, "and I haven't understood a thing you've said. Wait until I get in there. "

  "When's the earliest I can get a message off to Kingston?"

  "Hard to say," Moore called back. "The relay operator sometimes works for an hour or so on Sundays, sometimes not at all. "

  "I've got to get a message off!"

  "Settle down," he said, bringing in a tray with a coffeepot and two cups. He set it down on the table and poured some for her and then for himself. "If it's all that important we'll wake her at daylight. " He sat beside her. "All right, I'm listening. Who's Wilhelm Korrin?"

  "He was one of the few U-boat aces of World War II," Jana said. "There weren't many others: Prien, Schepke, Kretschmer - and Korrin's tonnage record equaled anything they sunk. Well, at the end of the war the others were all accounted for, either dead or in prison camps, but Korrin had vanished without a trace, and since the war he's been a puzzle to military historians.

  "A few months ago a group of sport divers found a U-boat wreckage near Jamaica; there wasn't much left of the boat, but on checking our records we found it was unidentifieci. Korrin's last known command was in the Caribbean, so of course we assumed we'd found his U-boat. Now finding this paperweight makes all the difference. And it's even more vital to preserve the U-boat now; there'll be war diaries aboard, Korrin's personal log - who knows what else. It's a treasure trove for both the Foundation and military historians. "

  Moore grunted. "He was that important, was he?"

  "Very," Jana said. "Korrin almost single-handedly blocked off the northeastern coast of the United States; on one particular tour of duty his U-boat crept inside a convoy to strike at three tankers. All of them went down, Korrin escaped, and that attack earned a Knight's Cross for him in Berlin, but he never returned to accept it. In the early part of 1942 his area of operations was the Caribbean; he was one of the first U-boat commanders patrolling the area, and he was given a free choice of targets. The unverified reports say his boat shelled the Trinidad oil refineries, slipped into Castries harbor to torpedo an anchored freighter, and sank the British cruiser Hawklin with a single concussion torpedo that snapped it amidships. The Hawklin survivors testified that the U-boat returned several hours later to fire on their lifeboats; if that incident had ever been proved, Korrin would have gone on trial for his life - if he'd ever returned to take his punishment, that is. Communications between the U-boats were kept at a minimum for the sake of security, and there was no way Korrin's movements could be tracked.

  "Then he vanished. His boat's number - U-198 - never reappeared on any of the German position logs. He was really quite something - a ruthless, highly intelligent man, a patriotic Nazi who asked for the most demanding missions. But for the last forty years he's been a mystery. "

  Moore was impressed. "You've been doing your homework. "

  "I did as much research as I could when I was diving that U-boat off Jamaica. That's primarily the reason I drew this assignment. " She put the paperweight down and looked at him. "Now I'd like to know something. This afternoon you didn't even want me near the boat. Why was that?"

  He put his cup on the table and paused for a moment, then said very quietly, "Something happened when Kip and I went in; something I can't understand or explain. It's dangerous. . . very dangerous. "

  "Tell me. "

  He took a deep breath, realizing Jana was going to probe until she found it. "The bodies inside aren't skeletons; they've been mummified. It's not a pretty sight. . . "

  "I can handle it. "

  "No. It's more than that. " He paused, feeling her gaze on him; he sipped at his coffee, wondering how to say it. "Something moved inside there," he said finally.

  Jana started to laugh, but then she saw he was deadly serious and she stopped herself. "You mean it, don't you?"

  "Yes. " He let out a deep sigh and clenched his hands together. "I've gone over it in my head a hundred times. Kip says it was a hallucination, the effect of the fumes we breathed; but damn it, I know I saw something real there, in the boat's central passageway. And it looked like a man. "

  "A man? Perhaps someone else was hiding on board. "

  Moore shook his head quickly. "I mean it looked like one of the. . . things we found lying together in the control room. I know I sound like I'm losing my mind and maybe I am, but there's something terrible inside, and I'm not going into the boat again. "

  "Sometimes the imagination. . . " Jana began.

  "NO!" Moore looked up at her, and his expression frightened her because she could see his own fear, working deep within him. "It was not something I imagined; it was real. "

  They sat in uneasy silence for a few moments. Jana put the paperweight aside, finished her coffee, and then stood up. "It's time for me to be turning in," she said. "I'm an early riser. I'm afraid I'll have to be depending on you for transportation around Coquina; if it's too much trouble I suppose I could rent a bicycle down in the village. "

  "It's no trouble," he said quietly.

  "Well, if you're sure. I'd like to make a quick check of my plane in the morning, and of course I'm going to have to talk to the constable. "

  "I don't think Kip's going to change his mind. "

  "We'll see. If I have to, I'll fly back to Kingston to get legal intervention. " She stood over him for a moment and then she said, "Good night," and moved toward the stairway. When she had gone up a few steps she turned back to reassure him but then thought better of it and continued on to her room.

  Moore sat on the sofa for a long time. And then he felt it - the sensation that very near to him was evil, an intense, burning hatred that at any moment could rise up and destroy the village. It was the same sensation he'd had while in the boat, and he was unable to shake it. Then he thought of the forty-five-caliber automatic he kept in a drawer in his room. He stood up and locked both the screen door and the wooden door, walked through the corridor into the kitchen, and bolted the rear door as well. Only when he was satisfied the hotel was secure did he snap off the lights and mount the stairway in the dark.

  Thick, bilious clouds swept through the night, covering over the moon and the stars. A brief shower sent droplets spattering against windows and roofs, and rivulets of water crept along gutters. The sea flattened, pocked by the rain, and when the dawn came both sea and sky were plains of slate that merged at the horizon. Only a lighter patch of gray above the turbulent ocean indicated where the sun was hanging.

  The wind that had forced the clouds in from the northeast had died away just before morning, and now a grim stillness and silence lay across Coquina.

  Kip hadn't slept well. He had been awakened continually by imagined noises: something moving in the brush outside his window, a far-off crying of birds, the scratching of rats at the walls. He had gotten out of bed and read until dawn, trying to keep his attention on the printed pages, but his mind was too full to allow him to concentrate. He turned the pages automatically without really seeing what was there. And now, as gray light filled the small house and Myra cooked breakfast in the kitchen, Kip sat with his hands folded before him, motionless and lost in thought.

  "We'll be ready to eat in a few minutes," Myra said, looking in on him. "Shall I wake Mindy?"

  "No," Kip said. "Let her sleep a while longer. "

  The woman understood that her husband wanted to be alone, so she went back into the kitchen and began to get out the silverware.

  For the past few days, he knew, he hadn't been as warm to her as he usually was. The enemy has reached us, he thought suddenly; they h
ave found us through the barriers of both time and death, and they will not sleep until they destroy us. The U-boat was eating into him, obsessing his sleep, contaminating the very air he breathed. What kind of men, Kip wondered, had made such a death machine as that? Who drove the rivets, who hammered the iron plates, who strung the miles of wiring beneath the decks? Who packed explosives into the torpedoes, set the equipment into place in that hellish control room, torched the water-tight bulkheads into their frames? Every inch of the thing had been conceived and built for one purpose: destruction. In life it had prowled the currents seeking to carry out its purpose, and in death the thing's image seemed burned into his brain. The enemy has reached us, Kip thought, and there is no escape.

  He ate his breakfast quickly, barely hearing what Myra was saying to him; she knew his way of working out problems was often to draw inside himself until he had found a solution. He helped her with the dishes, kissed her and the still-sleeping child, and then left the house for his morning rounds.

  He wondered how he was going to handle the Thornton woman. She would never understand his reasoning; she couldn't see what he had seen or feel what he felt, and there was no use trying to talk to her. He would have to do what he felt was right, because he was the law and he was responsible for all of them.

  And he was still pondering the problem when he saw a man running wildly toward him, almost tripping over himself. He waved his arms, calling out frantically; it was Andrew Cale, co-manager of the boatyard. The man was almost hysterical; his eyes were sunken, glassy hollows, and tears streamed down his face. There were marks on his bare arms where thorns had scratched him.

  "KIP!" he cried out, his chest heaving. "Oh, mon, thank God I find you!" He grasped the constable's arm and pulled at him.

  "What's wrong with you?" Kip asked. "What's happened?"

  "My house. . . " he said, unable to catch his breath. "Oh God. . . my house. . . "

  Kip's spine went rigid. "Get in," he said, and reached over to help the man.

  "Me. . . and Mr. Langstree just got back. . . from Steele Cay. . . and my house. . . I can't go in there. . . I doan know. . . I doan know. . . " Cale whimpered.

  Kip turned on the road that would take them to the man's home. He stopped the jeep next to the cinderblock steps leading to the door and Cale struggled out. "Come on, Kip!" he said breathlessly. "Please, mon!"

  Kip stared at the house. The front door had been torn off its hinges and lay against the porch railing. Windows had been shattered, the pieces of glass speckling the yard. Floral-printed curtains still hung in the remnants of the frames. They had been shredded into strips. Cale grasped at him. "Please. . . "

  As soon as Kip stepped across the threshold into the house he smelled it: the reek of blood and above that another smell. Rotting flesh.

  Cale pushed ahead of him and started down the hallway. The man stopped and stood framed in a doorway staring at something. "NORA!" he called out suddenly, his voice trembling. But he did not move, even as Kip reached him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  "There," Cale said, pointing a finger.

  Kip's eyes followed his finger, and he froze in horror at what he saw.

  On the floor, amid shattered wood and glass, was something that at one time had been a man.

  Now bare, savaged bone glistened. The eyes were gone, as was the nose, and the teeth seemed oddly white and perfect in the remains of the head. On the torso, arms, and legs there were innumerable sickle-shaped wounds, where hunks of flesh had been ripped away right down to the bone. Bites, Kip thought suddenly. Rat bites. There was nothing left of the throat; it had been peeled and stripped away down to the spinal cord, all the veins brutally torn. The body lay in a clotted, wine-red ooze. Cale choked and turned away, staggering for the door but unable to keep from vomiting. Kip used all his strength to control the wave of nausea that surged inside him, but he felt dizzy and off-balance.

  When the sickness had passed he forced himself to go into the bedroom. The window had been broken open; in one corner of the room there was a blood-matted sheet, and droplets spattered the mattress. Kip steeled himself, bent down, groped in the corpse's rear pocket and found a wallet. He opened it and looked for identification.

  Johnny Majors. Jesus Christ in Heaven!

  "WHERE'S MY WIFE?" Cale asked, wiping his mouth, his eyes swollen and heavy-lidded. "Where is she?"

  "I. . . don't know," Kip said, surprised at the hollowness of his own voice. One of the man's hands lay beside the head; it had been gnawed or broken from the wrist, exposed bones licked clean.

  "WHAT DID THIS?" Cale screamed suddenly. He backed away from Kip, his hands clawing at the corridor wall.

  Kip bent to the floor, swatting at flies that whirled around the body. There were boot marks in the liquid pools. He caught the tremble of panic that welled within him. Covering the corpse with the sheet and struggling to control himself, he quickly made his way out of the house and supported himself against the hood of the jeep. Cale came out on the porch, his eyes glazed and lost. "Where's Nora?" Cale said hoarsely, in a voice barely audible. "What happened to her?"

  But Kip hadn't heard. He was staring off into the jungle, not really knowing what he was seeing; at last his mind cleared and he was aware that vegetation had been crushed in a path that led away from the house. Approaching the jungle fringe, he saw the impression of a boot in the still-damp earth. Then three others. Cale called out again, "Where's my wife?" but then the constable was out of earshot, following the path of crushed thorns and snapped vines.

  Every few feet there were drops of blood, and ahead the pathway turned through a grove of dead, rotting trees. He followed it for perhaps twenty minutes, knowing he was insane for going alone and without a weapon, but still, he was compelled to follow. And then, breaking through a high growth of thorns, he saw he had come to one of the old, decaying plantation great houses, a square slab of a structure over which dead trees hung in a tangle of shriveled branches. The roof had collapsed into the second floor, and black timbers protruded from the open sockets of windows. A second-floor balcony sagged, its supports fallen away, and vines crept along the gray, weather-battered wood.

  And here the boot marks ended.

  In the distance a bird shrieked sharply, then was silent. Kip looked around, found a branch he could use as a club if necessary, and walked toward the concrete stairs leading up to the massive doorway. There were more droplets of dried blood; Kip stopped just in front of the door, listening, but he heard nothing. He tightened his grip around the club and kicked the door open; it swung out, ripping off its hinges and falling to the bare floor with a loud, echoing crash. Kip stepped into the cold dampness of the room, his skin crawling as he saw the puddles of blood and a bloody smear where something - the woman's body? - had been dragged. He stood in a huge, high-ceilinged room with corridors branching off on all sides; a wide stairway with a broken banister reached the second floor before plummeting into darkness. Kip could see the tree limbs through the holes above.

  He moved slowly along one of the halls, the club held up before him, his free hand feeling the way. A few feet farther and something streaked across his hand: a lizard scrambling for the safety of a hole. He pulled his arm back, stifling a cry, and waited until his pulse had calmed down before going on. He heard the lizard racing along the corridor. At his feet there were more droplets and smears of blood, leading him into another room. Get out of this place, he told himself. Get a gun, bring back more men to help, but get out of here before it's too late! But then the next step brought him into the room, and the terrible stench of rot choked him. Timbers had fallen in from the ceiling, littering the floor, there were square windows, devoid of glass, from ceiling to floor, and through them streamed thick columns of gray light.

  A body lay on its back in a corner.

  Kip moved forward, slowly, his eyes widening and his teeth gritted against the stench.

  It was not the corpse
of Nora Cale. It was a skeleton from which almost all trace of flesh had fallen away; it wore the tatters of a uniform - brown, matted with grime and fungus like the cloth Turk had clutched in his death-grip - and its arms were outstretched as if seeking either death or mercy. . . or perhaps both. Kip stared down into the empty eye sockets, feeling his practical, trained resolve seep away.

  It was madness, he thought; the real world was a place of boundaries, of blue sea and sky, green jungle, clapboard and stucco buildings, flesh-and-blood people. There was no Damballah, nor Baron Samedi, nor jumbies that haunted the village. But what was this, then, this skeleton in the remnants of a Nazi uniform? His soul cringed away from the things that lurked beyond the edge of the fire; all his life he had tried to reach a balance, to make reality his base and core. But that central part of him, hidden from all others and often even from himself, did believe. It had faith in the same superstitions, the power of voodoo, the evil things that sucked life from night sleepers, that moved through graveyards carrying cold steel scythes, that stood in shadows and regarded the world of light through hooded eyes.

  And now here this dead thing lay, miles from the risen U-boat; time had finally caught up with it, collapsing its bones and flesh with a touch of sea air. Kip backed away from it; he had seen more blood on a windowsill and he knew the things had taken whatever was left of the woman with them. NO! NO IT CANNOT BE! Yes, the voice whispered, the voice of his "uncle," his teacher, yes, it is true remember the forces of a man live on after death after death after death after death. . .

  These things that he had feared all his life, that he had buried at the back of his mind, were real.

  And suddenly the brick wall he had built inside him so long ago broke open, a cracking of mortar grown weak and useless, and the howling dark forms swept over him.