The Night Boat

by Robert R. McCammon

  “For two days the British subchasers kept up their attack; they knew they had the boat trapped, and though there were long periods of silence the explosions always resumed. They dropped what seemed like a thousand depth charges, then waited for the sound of a cough, or a rattling bucket, or the hissing of breath through clenched teeth, or the shrill scream of imploding iron.” His eyes were wild, and they unnerved Moore. “But the U-boat never surfaced. There was some oil, but nothing to indicate a direct hit. From what I could understand the British Asdic had lost the boat, as if it had suddenly vanished, but they were still certain it remained down there. Somewhere.”

  Moore remembered his dive vividly in that moment—the mountain of sand and coral, and the jagged remnants of what had once been an underwater ledge overhead. Perhaps the U-boat commander had tried to escape the enemy by rising along the Abyss wall, instead of sinking lower, and then had lodged the submarine beneath that ledge to hide from the sensors. And perhaps at the same instant a crewman had operated a lever that had delivered compressed air to the buoyancy tanks. The concussions had caused the ledge to collapse, burying the submarine under tons of sand. That would account for its disappearance. Then the men would have been imprisoned, waiting hour after hour for the air to give out, as the gases and the stench collected and suffocated them. When enough sand had shifted away from the hulk, aided by the hurricane and that final charge blast, the remaining compressed air had lifted the U-boat.

  “In time,” Schiller was saying quietly, “the subchasers gave up their hunt. I was questioned and put into prison where I remained until the war’s end. I returned to Germany, to Berlin. I remember walking the streets to my parents’ house. There was hardly anything left. A lone chimney, the front wall and door still standing like a facade. And across the door, in bright-red paint, someone had scrawled ‘The Schiller Family Is Dead.’” He blinked, looking away from the other man. “They’d been killed in an air raid.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No, no. It was war, you see.” He finished the rum and put the glass down. “Where is the boat now?”

  “In the yard.”

  Schiller smiled grimly and nodded. “Strange, isn’t it, how the fates work? Perhaps, after all this time, my boat has a destiny still.”

  “Destiny?” Moore was taken aback by his use of the word. “What do you mean?”

  Schiller shrugged. “Where will the hulk go? Some maritime museum? Or even the British Museum itself? It’s a possibility, I would think. So my boat is not yet dead after all, is it? Perhaps it will sit in a huge hall of warfare on a linoleum floor surrounded by great artillery pieces and even an old, battle-torn Panzer tank. Further down the exhibit there will be a shining Spitfire, or perhaps a reconditioned Junkers. It will be a place for old men to come and relive their days of glory as they slip toward senility; young people will come too, but they’ll fail to understand any of it, and they’ll laugh and point and wonder how any of this ancient junk could ever have been useful at all.”

  “Useful!” Moore snorted.

  Schiller stared at him for a long time, then finally dropped his gaze. Yes, the man was probably right. Now it could only be a battered, rusted shade of what it once had been, filled with seawater and ghosts.

  “In March of 1942,” he said, in a voice so low Moore could barely hear him, “it was the most awesome weapon I had ever beheld. I saw it at night, after I’d been transferred from another boat, and the lights in Kiel harbor where it was moored burned a dim yellow to save power. The mist had come in from the sea, and it hung over the boat in thick gray strands; the diesels were in operation, their noise echoing across the water, making the pilings tremble under my feet. I watched the mist being drawn in through the diesel intakes along the superstructure. From where I stood the periscope towers seemed to vanish into the sky; there were men already at work on the decks, and through the open forward hatch a column of smoky white light filtered out. It was a magnificent sight, preparing for sea duty. I can never forget it, nor do I wish to. Yet…I suppose now the boat is nothing.”

  Moore sat there a moment longer, then walked across the room to refill his glass. Outside, the clouds were heavy in the early evening sky and lights were coming on in some of the village houses. The breeze had quieted, and through the screened door Moore saw a sudden flash on the distant horizon, perhaps heat lightning or a storm crawling across the earth’s curve. He didn’t want darkness to fall tonight. If only he could keep the light from fading, so he would be reassured of a measure of safety. His eyes scanned the jungle’s dark folds. They were out there; he didn’t know how many, but they were out there. Waiting.

  “I didn’t mean to go on about the boat,” Schiller said. “It’s ancient history. But, you see, that’s all I have left.”

  “The crew,” Moore said suddenly, turning to face the German. “Something’s happened…” He stopped, and Schiller leaned forward slightly.

  “What about them?”

  Moore paused, wondering what to say. It was madness to think the man would believe him.

  “You found their remains?” Schiller asked. “I’m prepared to help with the identification, as much as I can.”

  The silence stretched between them, Moore lost in thought and wishing the man sitting opposite had never seen that newspaper item, never come to Coquina. Finally, he motioned toward the kitchen. “If you’re hungry I can throw some snapper in a skillet.”

  “Yes…Danke. That would be very good.”

  “Why don’t you go on back there,” Moore said, “and I’ll check on Dr. Thornton.” When the German had walked through the hallway Moore went upstairs and found that Jana was still sleeping. Before going to the kitchen he went outside, closing and latching all the shutters. He locked the screen door as the darkness rolled slowly across Coquina. Then he latched the front door, as if he could hold the night back with a single slab of wood.

  Twenty

  A THIN BEAM of light moved along a pile of empty battery crates; there was a sudden, frantic rustling and squeaking, and Lenny Cochran kicked at one of the crates. Instantly a small dark shape, then another, burst from the debris and scrambled toward the wharf pilings. He followed them with the light until they disappeared behind a skiff that had been overturned for keel patching. Big damn rats everywhere, he thought. He could hear others moving around the center of the crates. Probably a nest of the buggers in there, he told himself. One good fire would sear their asses and clean ’em out.

  He turned away from the crates and continued on, moving his flashlight from side to side. The barnacle-scarred hull of a trawler tied up at the wharfs caught the reflections of the light in the water; he shone the flashlight the length of the boat, then turned away and walked up through the hard-packed sand, stopping every so often to examine other heaps of junk, clusters of barrels, pieces of engines laid out on the ground. The tin-roofed supply shed was directly ahead; its doors had been hastily repaired and boarded over. He paused only a moment around the shed before moving toward the far side of the yard, where the sea lapped quietly against the sliding bulkhead of the abandoned naval shelter.

  He’d tried to get some of the other men to act as night watchman for Mr. Langstree, but none of them would have any part of it. Mason and Percy had whined when he’d asked them; J.R. had flatly refused to do it, and so had the others. He couldn’t force any of the men to do it, so the job had fallen to him. He felt guilty about having that boat put into Mr. Langstree’s yard without proper permission anyway, and this was a way to ease his own conscience and get back into Mr. Langstree’s good graces.

  He knew exactly what bothered the others; it was the stories they heard, and Boniface’s warning about staying away from the yard. He’d heard the whispers around the bars: Something bad was going on, something nobody wanted to talk about, and it had to do with the damned boat. The Night Boat, that’s what they called it. It gave him the willies to think about what the two trawler captains had said. Jumbies, dead souls flying on t
he wind and coming down at you to go for your eyeballs and tear out your heart…

  He shivered. Stop that kind of thinkin’, mon! he told himself severely. That only gets a body in trouble! He felt again for the old skeleton-gripped revolver he’d brought as protection. He’d only been able to find three shells at home but he figured one would be enough anyway, to scare off anybody who might come to steal more supplies. Damn, but it’s dark out here! he thought. No moon, no stars, the smell of a storm building up, mebbe one, two days away at most.

  And in another few moments he was at the door of the dark naval shelter.

  He moved the light along it; whoever had nailed it up had done a hell of a job. Nobody was going to be breaking in there tonight. He looked along the wall, probed with the point of the light down toward the rotten pilings at the seaside and then, satisfied no one was lurking there, started to move quickly toward the other side of the yard.

  And then stopped.

  Flesh writhed along his spine and at the back of his neck. His heart was hammering in his chest and he swallowed, trying to shake off the fear. What the hell was…? He turned, thrusting the flashlight forward as if it were a weapon.

  He waited, not daring to breathe, listening for the noise that had sounded like…something…scratching…

  Something scratching behind that door.

  Rats. Rats caught in there, seeking a way out.

  And as he watched he saw the door slowly bulge outward, pushed by a tremendous force. Wood creaked and whined, then settled back on its frame. He couldn’t move, his mouth opened in a silent scream, the door bulging outward, outward, the noise of nails giving way around timbers, the splitting of wood…Jesus! The light was shaking in his hand; he couldn’t hold it still, and when he drew the gun he couldn’t keep that steady either.

  The door cried out eerily with the force of whatever was on the other side; with a noise like a pistol shot a split appeared in its center. A jagged gap grew down the weathered wood.

  From the inside a gnarled, misshapen hand emerged, reaching down and snapping away one of the reinforcing timbers.

  Cochran stepped back, unable to summon the strength to flee. He raised the gun and squeezed the trigger, hearing the sound of his own labored breathing loudly in his ears.

  But the hammer fell dully upon one of the empty cylinders.

  The door shattered in a ripping of wood and nails; a half-dozen claws probed through, tearing a way out. Cochran tried to lift the gun again, but it seemed too heavy and he knew he couldn’t aim it and he had to get away from this place, get to the village, tell them yes the jumbies were real, the evil things had descended upon Coquina.

  And it was then that one of the things that had come up through the darkness behind him leaped upon him, its teeth sinking through the back of his neck and crunching on the spinal cord. Another grasped his left arm and savagely twisted it, ripping it from its socket. A third clawed at the man’s chest in frenzy, broke open the ribs, and tore the heart out like a dripping treasure.

  The commander stood apart from the others. Wilhelm Korrin let them feast, then motioned with a shriveled arm for them to help free their comrades.

  There was a faint glow in the sky, and Steven Kip was driving toward it.

  He had left home in the early evening, leaving Myra with a loaded rifle and telling her to keep the doors and shutters locked. He’d gone down to his office to get the second rifle and a can of gasoline before patrolling the village. Now, driving along the harbor, he saw the light over the treetops in the distance, and he knew it was coming from near Boniface’s church. More voodoo? he asked himself, as he raced through the empty streets. Damn it to hell! A large fire blazed in a circle that had been dug out and ringed with red and black painted stones in front of the church. Kip could see shards of timber, clothing, and what looked like shattered sections of the church pews piled in it. At the fire’s base a heap of ashes glowed a bright red-orange, and the heat of it seared his face as he left his vehicle. He walked around the circle and hammered on the door. No answer. Kip knocked again with the strength of anger, the heat touching him like a hand with bright-red nails. The church windows, like watchful eyes, reflected the flames, and no lights showed through the shutter slats.

  “BONIFACE!” Kip called out.

  And then, very slowly, the door opened.

  Boniface stood before him in a stained white shirt, bright beads of sweat, each one reflecting fire, glistening on his face. In his eyes the blaze seemed white-hot. “Get away from here!” he said sharply. He started to shut the door again, but Kip slammed his arm against it and forced his way in.

  The church was filled with the red glow, alive with the frenzied slithering of shadows. Many of the seats had indeed been torn out as fuel for the flames, and there was an axe propped in a corner. On the altar were the pots and strange bottles Kip had seen at the jungle ceremony; three or four cheap metal crucifixes hung on the walls, and the floor around the altar was sprinkled with sawdust and ashes. Kip shook his head and stared at the old man; around Boniface’s neck was the glass eye, its pupil a gleaming red circle.

  Boniface reached forward and bolted the door, then turned to the constable. A drop of sweat ran down across his cheek and spattered onto the floor.

  “What are you doing, old man?” Kip asked. “What’s this fire for?”

  “Get away!” Boniface repeated. “As quickly as you can!”

  Kip ignored him and walked to the altar, examining the materials spread out there, liquids in bottles and dark things in black pots. All voodoo things, he remembered, used to communicate with the spirit world. One of the pots had been overturned, an oily-looking liquid spilled from it; a bottle had been thrown against a wall, leaving its remains in red smears on the paint.

  “Get back to your home!” Boniface said. “Get back to your woman and child!”

  “What’s all this for?” he asked, motioning toward the objects. He was beginning to feel a coldness working its way into him, slowly and insidiously.

  Boniface opened his mouth, paused, his eyes fearful and half-crazed. “To…keep them away…” he said, very quietly.

  “Talk sense!” Kip said, fighting to hold back his anger.

  “They…fear the fire. I’ve been trying to break it…it’s too difficult now, and I’m old, and I’m weak…and I’m very tired…”

  “Break it? Break what, damn it?”

  Boniface started to say something but the words never came. He seemed to shrivel up, even as Kip watched him, all the life leaving him at once until only a shell of flesh with weary, frightened eyes remained. He held out a hand to steady himself, leaning on a shattered pew; he sat down, put his face in his hands, and stayed that way for almost a minute. When he looked up his face was drawn and anxious, as if he’d heard something approaching. His eyes glittered wildly in the red light and came to rest on Kip’s face. “Help me,” he said in a whisper. “Can’t you…help me?”

  “Help you do what?”

  “It’s too late…” Boniface said, as if he were speaking to himself. “I never thought they would…”

  “Listen to me.” Kip walked over and stood next to the houngan. “Two more people are dead…probably others as well. I want to know what those things are, and I think you can tell me.”

  “The boat,” Boniface whispered. “That beast from Hell. The Night Boat. No one can help now. They’re free; I can feel it. They’re free, all of them, and no man can turn them back until they’ve done what they must do.”

  Kip leaned over the pew, his gaze boring deep. “Tell me.” The chill inside him made his bones ache.

  Drawing a long breath, Boniface put a hand to his face. The gesture cast a huge shadow on the opposite wall. He nodded, as if giving himself up to something. “The Sect Rouge. Do you know it?”

  “Only from hearsay,” Kip said.

  “The most powerful and secret society in all the islands. They use the dark things as their weapons; for power or a price they cause fa
mine and pestilence, they commit murders cold-bloodedly and efficiently. I know. Because I was a member of the Haitian Sect Rouge for five years, and in that time I created much that was evil. I learned the art of fashioning the waxen images of my enemies or those I was paid to assassinate, to slowly force nails one by one through the opening of the mouth, or draw a garotte tight around the throat. I learned the art of the wanga—poisons—and how to leave a trace of it on a marked man’s pillow, or smeared along the rim of a glass, so that death came painfully and stretched into weeks. I conjured the evil loa, and conspired with them for the souls of my enemies. I have made a corpse scream for revenge; I have worked the sorcery that transfigures time and breaks the barriers between the living and the dead, and I have unleashed evil things onto this world.

  “I left Haiti in 1937, after the murder of a rival houngan who was threatening to expose my Sect Rouge activities to the local police. To escape those who would avenge that man’s death, I came here. Those were my days of youth…and strength. Now I cannot control it…I cannot, and I am very tired…”

  “What are those things from the U-boat?” Kip demanded.

  The fear had pooled up in Boniface’s eyes; now it brimmed over. “Think of it. What would be the most horrible means of execution? A death by inches, the body and brain starving for air, flesh writhing in total agony. The minutes stretching into hours, days, years; an eternity of torture. Flesh drying over bones, intestines hardening, brains and skulls shriveling, nerves screaming in unendurable pain. No air, no sun, no chance for escape; only the agony and the darkness, each a hideous partner to the other. But still Death delays its merciful touch; he will not free them until they have paid with their flesh. Their souls will be trapped within a rotting house, and even after their bodies have begun to fall to pieces there will be no peace. Not until the decay is complete, or until their black, evil hearts are pierced, or until they are burned into ashes.” He lifted his gaze. “Half-human, living corpses, driven mad with pain and rage, hungering for the fluids of life in the vain hope their burning will be cooled. I know. Because I made them as they are…”