The Night Boat

by Robert McCammon

Chapter Twenty-one

 

  DAVID MOORE THREW the sodden sheet off and leaped from his bed; he was awake as soon as his feet hit the floor. He stood in the hot darkness, his mind a nightmare landscape, trying to pinpoint what it was that had filled him with terrible alarm.

  Moore opened the terrace doors and stepped out, gripping the railing. On the horizon there was a brief flash of lightning, followed by the hollow, still-distant rumbling of thunder. The ocean was churned high and white, and somewhere the storm was building. Moore stood where he was a moment longer, listening, wondering if it was the thunder that had awakened him; he went back into the room, switched on a lamp, and hurriedly dressed in a cotton shirt and jeans.

  There was an insistent knock at his door. "Who is it?" he said.

  "Jana. Let me in, please. "

  He opened the door. She came in, wearing the same clothes she'd fallen asleep in; her eyes were red-rimmed, and beneath them there were dark hollows.

  "I heard something," she said. "I know I heard something. " She had rested for only moments at a time, and in her nightmares were things that watched her from thick shadows, licking their lips with bloated tongues.

  "Thunder," he said quickly. "It woke me too. . . "

  "No!" She shook her head and moved past him to the terrace, where she peered down into the darkness. "I thought I heard a woman's scream. "

  Lightning flashed, making Jana wince. Moore came up beside her. "Are you all right?" he asked.

  "I think so. I don't know. I tell you, I heard a woman's scream!" She rubbed her arms, as if to get the circulation going.

  "The man who was here. . . when we came in," Jana went on. "Who is he?"

  "His name is Schiller; he was on the U-boat when it went down. "

  "Then. . . he knows? About what's happened?"

  Moore shook his head. "No, I didn't tell him. "

  In the darkness there was a sharp, distant sound of breaking glass. Moore grasped the railing, straining to see. The next streak of lightning cast strange, long shadows across the streets of the village; there were no lights on, and nothing moved.

  "What is it?" Jana was tense beside him, her voice a taut whisper.

  "I don't know. . . " Thunder boomed across the sea, but behind it Moore thought he heard the sudden splitting of timber. A light switched on, almost at the farthest fringe of the village, and he could hear someone - a man's voice - shouting in a high, frantic pitch. A noise like a pistol shot echoed across the roofs, and there was the sound of more glass cracking; another square of yellow light appeared, nearer to them, and Moore saw a shadow dart by the window. In a blue lightning flash he thought he could make out figures in the streets, but then the darkness claimed the earth again. A coil was winding within him, tightening his muscles. He turned from the railing, went inside to the dresser drawer, and withdrew the automatic.

  "What are you going to do?" Jana asked him, framed on the terrace, the fear creeping across her face.

  "I'm going downstairs to check the doors and windows. " He put the automatic on safety and stuck it into his waistband. "I want you to stay in your room and be sure the terrace doors are bolted. "

  "They're coming, aren't they?" It was more of a statement than a question, the voice cold behind it.

  "Go on. "

  "No. I'm staying with you. "

  "You'll be safer up here. "

  "No," she repeated, holding his eyes with her own.

  He shrugged; there was no time for argument. Moore and Jana went into the hallway and were about to descend the stairs when Moore saw a sliver of light beneath the German's door.

  He knocked, waited, heard movement inside, knocked again. Schiller opened the door and stood bleary-eyed, his tie loosened and the top buttons of his shirt undone. A chair had been positioned before the open terrace doors, and the bed was still made. Schiller rubbed his eyes and yawned. "I fell asleep," he said. "I was listening to the thunder. " Then he noticed the pistol at Moore's waistband, and he was instantly alert. "What. . . is going on?" he asked, looking quizzically into their faces.

  Moore stalked past the man, grasping the terrace doors; he was shutting them when another streak of lightning cut the sky in half, and the thunder echoed. He saw that a few more lights had come on, a scattering of fireflies across Coquina village.

  "The gun," the German was saying behind him. "What is it for?" He took a step toward the other man. "I don't understand. "

  And before Moore could reply there was a crack! near Front Street, from the fishermen's shanties. Whether it was a gunshot or the noise of glass being broken he couldn't tell, but then there came an eerie, ragged wail, one of terrified desperation. Moore's mouth was dry, his mind racing. The lightning flashed again and in that brief light he saw figures. . . the things. . . moving through the streets below. The scream ceased abruptly, then came a man's voice, shouting, and a woman's shrill and hysterical. Moore threw the bolt on the doors and, turning away, saw Schiller's face a drawn, pale mask.

  "What was that scream?" the German asked; his face was ashen, a blue vein throbbing rapidly at his temple.

  Moore pushed past Schiller and Jana into the hallway, descended the stairs three at a time in the dark. In the distance he heard another voice, shouting incoherently, then drowned in a wave of thunder. A nameless dread had gripped him, and he couldn't move fast enough. Check the windows, the doors. The shutters - some of the shutters are weak, the storm damage not yet replaced - get them bolted. He felt the way he had inside the submarine, his legs out of control, functioning crazily in slow motion, as if he were inside a stranger's body.

  He reached the front door and shook the knob to test the lock. It was secure. One of the windows facing the porch hadn't been pushed down flush to the frame; Moore cursed himself, reached it in two strides, and grasped the window's top to push it into place and lock it.

  Lightning streaked, a thin white thread. And in its light Moore saw the forms that stood on the porch, groping from the darkness at the doorway.

  Moore caught his breath, slammed the window down, locked it.

  From the rear of the Indigo Inn there was the sudden, electrifying sound of shattering glass.

  He heard the screen door open, heard the wood splinter as it was ripped from its hinges by a dozen hands. Someone in the village screamed again, and someone else called out for God. The rear windows were being broken out; he could hear something hammering at the back door, trying to get through. Moore whirled around, slammed and locked the door that connected the kitchen with the rest of the hotel. He dragged a table across it, at the same time bringing out the automatic and switching off the safety.

  And then silence, broken only by his own rapid breathing and the noise of chaos in the village: screams and shouts, a gun firing, a cry of pain.

  Someone was coming down the stairs: Schiller and Jana, feeling their way in the dark.

  "SCHILLER!" Moore shouted. "WATCH THAT REAR DOOR. . . !"

  Something suddenly pounded against the front door. . . wham! wham! wham!. . . with a tremendous force. A hammer, Moore thought, ice flowing in his veins. The things have a hammer.

  He heard the door at the back of the hotel come off its frame; there was a wild crash of glass and crockery from the kitchen.

  A front window shattered, the glass exploding into the room along with pieces of the aged shutter. Jana cried out, and Moore saw the black outline of a figure throw back a powerful arm to break out the rest of the wood. The door was struck, again and again; there was a sharp splintering sound.

  Moore raised the gun, aimed directly at the thing that tore at the shutter, and fired.

  A gout of flame spewed from the automatic's muzzle; the gun's roar momentarily deafened him. The dark figure was thrown backward, and glass tinkled from the broken frame.

  "You killed it. . . " Schiller said, sweat glistening on his face.

  "Wait," Moore told him, not movi
ng. "Keep your eye on that back door, for God's sake!"

  A heavy blow struck the door that sealed off the kitchen; glass broke on the other side of it. Moore jerked around and fired through the wood, filling the air with splinters and the acrid odor of gunpowder. At the same time, that hammer blow struck the front door again, and Jana could see it slowly bending inward; she grabbed a chair and wedged it under the knob. The shutter at another window was being attacked, the claws scratching their way in. Moore brought his arm up and fired; the things ducked away on either side of the frame.

  Schiller saw a split growing in the center of the rear door; he backed away from it, watching the wood being broken with a horrified fascination.

  A window on the room's far side buckled inward in a shower of slats and glass. One of them had thrown itself partway through and now grasped the window's ledges to pull itself the rest of the way in. Jana reached to her side for the decanter of rum and threw it, but the bottle broke just above the thing's head; Moore stepped forward, firing point-blank.

  The muzzle flame exposed a face cancerous with rot and fungus; a lipless mouth gaped, the eyes holes of hate. Moore fired again, and again, seeing the face explode into bits of bone and dried flesh; it hissed and fell back through the window.

  Now the rear door was buckling. Schiller forced his legs to move, putting his hands against the wood to hold the things back. He could feel the incredible force of whatever was behind the door.

  A window breaking, another, two more. A skeleton's shoulders pushed forward, the grisly brown scalp glistening with glass. Jana hefted a wicker chair and struck at it, but then the arms were in and it was too late.

  Three more bullets remained in the automatic. They were fighting their way in now through all the windows, and it was only moments before the doors would give way. Moore felt the wild touch of panic grip him, shook it off, felt it return with a vengeance. There was no time to get those shells from upstairs, but was there a chance they could make it to a terrace and leap from the porch before the zombies reached them?

  He turned and fired at the one Jana was trying to fight back. It shrieked and collapsed, sliding through the window.

  The rear door split; Schiller stepped away from a gnarled claw that had burst through. But others reached through as well, and they would be inside within seconds.

  With a tremendous noise of cracking wood the front door caved in, and hideous shapes came through the jagged aperture, the one in the lead wielding a hammer, others carrying crowbars and wrenches. Moore fired into their midst and knew he'd hit one of them, but even as he prepared to fire his final bullet, he heard Schiller shout that the rear door was down as well. A stench of rot wafted over him, and a shadow loomed up, striking a blunt object down on Moore's right shoulder. He cried out in pain; the gun slipped from his numbed fingers.

  Then they engulfed him, clawing and biting, the teeth grinning and terrible; a hand flashed out, clubbing him across the forehead, and he fought back, his teeth clenched, not willing to let them take him without a battle. He was thrown backward over a chair and lay sprawled on his back. They huddled over Jana in a corner, their claws and fangs flashing; Moore crawled toward her as one of them grasped his throat and began to twist his head to one side, about to rip it from the neck.

  "GOD HAVE MERCY!" Schiller shrieked in German, backing against a wall at their approach. "GOD HAVE MERCY!"

  And a voice hissed, "Stopppppppp. . . " The sound was as cold as the touch of the grave.

  The thing strangling Moore released its grip and stood up. Moore coughed violently, shaking his head from side to side, a black curtain still obscuring the field of his vision. They released Jana; she crumpled to the floor in a heap.

  Schiller stood where he was, pinned to the wall, his mouth making whimpering sounds.

  The things stood motionless, waiting, eager for blood.

  A shadow moved, the clatter of boots across the floor; lightning flashed, illuminating a face destroyed by the ruin of rot, a face that had seen its own horror in a mirror. One arm, wrapped in a tattered brown sleeve, slowly rose, the finger pointing. The hand came out, almost touching Schiller's chin, but when Schiller recoiled in stark terror the thing paused. Its head cocked to one side, it examined Schiller with burning eyes.

  Moore crawled toward Jana; she was semiconscious, her face gashed and her clothing in shreds. He huddled beside her and watched.

  "Nein. . . " Schiller whispered. "Nein. . . "

  The figure before him breathed heavily, the stare penetrating. Then, with a tremendous effort, the gray lips moved. "Schillerrrr. . . ?"

  The German shrank back, his shoulders pressed into the wall.

  "Mein Gott. . . " the thing whispered, its voice a dry rasp that made Moore's skin crawl.

  Schiller blinked, screams of madness echoing within his head. He couldn't believe it, wouldn't believe it, but he seemed to recognize the man - or what had once been a man - from a long time ago. Another life. "Nein. . . " he rasped, shaking his head. "Not you! You should be. . . dead. . . all of you should BE DEAD!"

  Korrin held Schiller's eyes for a moment more, then slowly moved his gaze to Moore and Jana. He raised the arm again, flesh hanging in strings from the exposed bone, and pointed toward them. "Feindlich Teufel. . . " he whispered.

  "Nein," Schiller breathed. "Nein, nein. . . "

  Korrin turned from Schiller; as he approached, Moore pulled Jana back against him, trying to shield her body with his own. The living corpse towered over them, and Moore could feel the touch of its fetid breath.

  "ALL OF YOU ARE DEAD!" Schiller shrieked, his voice breaking, slithering into a moan.

  Korrin's eyes were flaming slithering whorls of destruction. They seared through Moore's flesh and muscles, into the bone and the brain. The arm extended, and the hand, with its long, filthy nails, came down for Moore's throat. He held his own arms up weakly to ward it off, but he was powerless to move.

  And then suddenly, in a blur of motion, Schiller had picked up the gun lying on the floor. He fired without aiming; a tongue of orange pierced the shadows.

  Moore saw Korrin's head jerk to one side, saw the lower jaw hang on threads for an instant before being ripped away, leaving a ragged edge of flesh. Korrin staggered backward, almost falling, but then regaining his balance. He put his hands to his face, and the scream roaring through that broken mouth cast Schiller over the brink of insanity. Still screaming, Korrin moved forward, his claws rising; Schiller squeezed the trigger again, aiming between the eyes, but the hammer fell on an empty clip.

  At once the other crewmen had turned on Schiller; one of them struck out with a crowbar that smashed across the German's chest, and then they were on him, going for his eyes. Korrin reached him, bending down toward the offered throat.

  "RUN!" Schiller screamed, his eyes glinting as the things covered him over. "RUN!"

  Moore hesitated; Schiller had saved them, but now the man was beyond hope, and the instant they finished with him they'd crave more blood and fluids. He pulled Jana up, shaking her to make her move, and dragged her through the shattered rear door toward the kitchen. Beyond the broken opening where the back door had been was the jungle's blackness.

  Moore turned back. They were shredding the flesh from Schiller's body.

  Then he pulled Jana after him into the thick, clinging underbrush. She was still dazed and tripped across vines. He picked her up, ignoring the sharp protest of his injured shoulder, and struggled into the walls of foliage, feeling thorns grasp at his trousers and scrape across his arm.

  There was no time to think, no time to let his nerves feel the pain; he had to get them as far away from the hotel as he could. The terror still throbbed within him like the beating of a second heart. He moved deeper into darkness, heedless of their direction, only knowing they had to find a place of safety. His feet sank into the soft earth, slipping in standing puddles of water. On the next step he lost his footing
and crashed to the ground with Jana still in his arms; the shock on his injured shoulder made him cry out in pain. Jana shook her head dazedly, the scratches livid on her face. She tried to crawl away but Moore reached out and caught her.

  And he heard the terrifying noises he had expected all along. They were following; he could hear brush being crushed down beneath boots. Closer. Closer.

  He pulled her up and went on, as though he were running headlong into a deep pit from which there was no escape. He tore frantically at the vines which blocked their way. A wild bird cried out and burst from the brush just in front of them. The things were still coming, assisted by the path that Moore was breaking. When he looked back over his shoulder he thought he could see a dozen or more of them approaching, shadows moving among other shadows. The entire jungle was a morass of shadows, which burst through the foliage, reaching out for him with shapeless, spidery fingers. Panic exploded within him and he fought on, dragging the girl with him, the muscles of his injured arm numb and useless. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, nowhere to find safety.

  The things were almost on them, only a few yards behind and closing quickly. Don't stop! Don't weaken! DON'T STOP! He lost his footing, staggered to his knees, pulled himself up, grasping Jana's wrist in a fierce grip. Thorns whipped into his face, his chest heaving with the exertion; around him birds screeched in a wild, loud cacophony, and through their piercing clamor Moore could hear a horribly familiar harsh, rasping breath. His skin crawled, already sensing the claws that would reach for the back of his neck.

  And then the shadows rose up in front of him.

  He opened his mouth to scream, but the scream was drowned out by the ear-splitting roar of a shotgun blast.

  The muzzle flare exploded past Moore and Jana into the shapes that reached toward them. Shrieking in pain, they split their closed ranks and fought back the way they'd come. The man with the shotgun raised his weapon again, bracing it against his bare shoulder; the gun bucked again, but the forms had already vanished into the all-consuming night.

  Moore collapsed to his knees, his body racked with pain, and retched into the brush. When he looked up he saw perhaps six or seven men, a few of them holding torches. A firm hand reached down and caught Moore's wrist, drawing him to his feet.

  The man who stood over him cradled the smoking shotgun in the crook of his muscular arm. He was completely bald but had a full white beard and mustache. A small gold ring in the lobe of an ear glittered in the light of a torch, and a golden amulet hung about his thick neck. But it was the face that both commanded Moore's attention and repelled him; it was actually repellent to him - black, deep-set eyes glowered from beneath a high forehead, and the nose was as hooked as an eagle's beak. One side of the face was terribly scarred and thickened, the scars streaking pink across the tawny skin, crisscrossing that side of the neck, as well as a large gouge across a shoulder. He wore a T-shirt and dark trousers which had been ripped in numerous places by thorns. The man motioned silently to several of the others, who began to move off in pursuit of the fleeing shapes. They all carried guns or wicked-looking knives.

  The man turned his attention to Moore and Jana. "Follow," he ordered, and without waiting for them he began tracking back into the jungle from the direction he'd come.