Monstrum

by Ann Christopher

  “And what about that ladder back there?” Cortés, who still has his baseball bat, uses it to point to a rail ladder nearly hidden by the seaweed that I hadn’t noticed before. “What’s to prevent the thing from climbing out that way?”

  “Look for yourself,” Dr. Baer says, pointing at the hinged and padlocked steel grate that covers the tank and has only two-inch gaps between bars. “There’s no way she could fit. She’s too big and she’s got the shell and the claws. And think about it. If she could escape, why would she come back?”

  I fall into a sullen silence, because of course I don’t have any answers.

  Sammy speaks up. “Maybe Mindy—”

  Carter elbows him sharply in the ribs.

  “Ow!” Wincing, Sammy gives Carter a sidelong glare, edges away from him and continues. “Maybe the chimera can shed her shell at will. It’s possible, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, brightening. “What about that?”

  Dr. Baer doesn’t budge. “Even if she can shed the shell, the rest of her body is too big to fit through the bars. The physics of it just don’t add up. And even if they did, I’ll say it again: if she can escape, why didn’t she jump over the rails and back into the ocean?”

  My head tells me this is all perfectly logical, but my gut won’t let it go. “How should I know? Didn’t you say it’s a trickster? Maybe this is its ideal setup. Maybe this is the kind of thing it thrives on. You yourself said no one knows what they can do.”

  “Bria’s right,” Murphy says. “Just because we don’t know all the whys and wherefores doesn’t mean it didn’t—”

  “In my best professional opinion, I don’t think it killed Espi, folks,” Dr. Baer says. “Bottom line. It just couldn’t happen.”

  “You see?” Captain Romero says. “That settles it.”

  “It doesn’t settle anything!” I say.

  “And I need to get back to my duties.” The captain takes a couple of steps toward the door. “I’ll have one of my men see to the girl’s body. Everyone should settle in for a good night’s sleep. The day has been long and difficult.”

  “Hang on.” Axel approaches the captain, and I take a good look at Axel for the first time in a while. His nostrils are flared, and his face is a blotchy and anger-stained purple. He shifts restlessly on his feet and makes a sweeping gesture with his hands, creating an agitated, about-to-blow energy that’s a little alarming. “Did you just say we’re supposed to have a good night’s sleep?”

  The captain had almost made a clean getaway from us troublesome survivors, but now he heaves a long-suffering sigh and turns back.

  “What seems to be the problem, young man?”

  With that, Axel blows.

  “I don’t get you, man!” Spittle flies as he marches over to the captain and gets in his face. “You saw what that thing did to Juan. And now you think it’s—what? Some random coincidence that three seconds after you bring it onto the ship, someone else gets killed in a bizarre way? And you don’t believe Bria just because she didn’t get the whole thing on high-def video? You people admit you don’t know what this thing can do, so how do you know it didn’t, I don’t know, stretch out one long tentacle and use it to suck Espi dry without ever leaving the tank? Did you ever think of that? And now you just tell us to get ourselves tucked in bed for a few ZZZs, like that’s ever going to happen with this thing on board? What’s with you, man? It’s like you’re not even human! And we’re supposed to just blindly follow you and not notice how many crazy mistakes you’re making?”

  “Ah, okay, gentlemen.” Dr. Baer takes a hesitant step forward and moves between Axel and the captain. “I-I think we all need to take a deep breath and calm down.”

  “Stay out of this, Baer!” Axel never takes his eyes off Captain Romero. “Go count Mindy’s teeth or something! This is between me and Captain Queeg, here!”

  Captain Romero’s face contorts and a low growl rumbles in his chest.

  “Why don’t you do the right thing, man?” Axel continues. “Stop being blinded by your greed, take a couple of pictures of the thing for posterity, and then throw it back overboard! Or, better yet just kill it outright? I’m happy to do the honors if you won’t!”

  Captain Romero clasps his hands behind his back. From my position to one side of him, I can see his shoulders square off and his restless fingers flex and curl into fists. He lets his eyes drift closed and leans his neck left and right, as though his collar is suddenly two sizes too small. When his eyes flash open again, there’s something reptilian about his pupils as they focus on Axel.

  “You will maintain a respectful tone with me, young man,” he says slowly, “or you will regret it.”

  “Screw you, man!” Axel roars.

  “Hush, now, Axel Hendersen,” Murphy says, putting a restraining hand on Axel’s arm. “You’re overwrought, and your temper isn’t helping the situation. It won’t bring any of our dead back, now, will it?”

  Axel wrenches his arm free. “Maybe it won’t bring anyone back,” he tells Murphy, “but it’s making me feel a whole lot better!”

  “Axel,” Mike says in a stage whisper. Like me, he’s eyeballing the two silent crewmen, who are suddenly looking much more alert and edging closer to Axel. “You need to chill, man.”

  “Yeah, dude.” Gray claps a hand on Axel’s shoulder. “Dial it back.”

  Axel ignores this advice and focuses all his attention on Captain Romero. “I just lost my father. You think I’m afraid of you?”

  “You would be.” Captain Romero’s expression is fixed. Malevolent. “If you weren’t so foolish.”

  This taunt launches Axel into a frenzy of rage, and his bellow sounds like a primitive battle cry. Wheeling around, he lunges for Cortés and nearly knocks him over as he wrenches the baseball bat out of his hands. Cortés tries to tackle him, but his arms close around air as Axel darts out of reach and heads for his target.

  The rest of us shout warnings and scramble to get out of Axel’s way. Then we scramble to restrain him.

  Axel is too quick, even for Gray and Carter.

  At first I think he means to smash the tank and kill the chimera, but that’s not what he has in mind at all.

  He wants Captain Romero.

  “This is your fault! I’ll kill you, you bastard!” Axel’s face is twisted in a gargoyle’s grimace as he raises the bat high overhead and readies for a Barry Bonds-worthy swing. “I’ll kill you!”

  Captain Romero, who apparently has balls of titanium-plated brass, doesn’t bother trying to dodge. With no appearance of urgency, he raises one hand and signals to the crewman standing behind Axel with a lazy flick of the wrist.

  A shot rings out.

  Axel flies forward, and his chest explodes in a shower of gore.

  “No!” I screech.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Murphy cries. “Why, man?”

  I watch in high-definition slow motion as Axel continues, airborne, on his current trajectory. I see the bat fall out of his limp hands and hear it clatter to the floor. I see Axel land, spread-eagled and facedown, at Captain Romero’s feet. I see the bullet’s tiny entrance wound in a blossom of blood squarely between Axel’s broad shoulders.

  I turn my head and see the crewman lower his pistol, and the chimera, now awake inside his tank, watching avidly with its face pressed against the glass.

  Time returns to full speed.

  “Axel!” Mike shouts, dropping to his knees at his side.

  Someone—An?—retches.

  “You’re a murderer, man!” yells Murphy, over and over again, as he tries to attack the captain and is held back by Gray and Carter.

  Dr. Baer, panting and shaking his head, collapses onto the nearest stool.

  Cortés, wild-eyed and apoplectic, backs away from his father. “Why did you do that? Why did you do that?”

  I stand alone, watchful and disbelieving, as the captain reaches into the breast pocket of his shirt, produces a pristine white handkerchief, and uses it to wipe
a fleck of Axel’s red blood from his own chiseled cheek.

  “That . . . was unfortunate,” he says, and there’s a complete lack of inflection in his tone and concern on his face. Looking at him, you’d think he’d done nothing more upsetting than accidentally hit a squirrel with his car. “I trust there will be no more dissent?”

  “You’re a murderer, Romero!” Murphy bellows, still held on either side by Gray and Carter. “And when we get to Eleuthera in the morning, you can be sure we’ll take it up with the authorities!”

  A hint of an amused smile lights Captain Romero’s face.

  A chill of panic slithers up my spine, as stealthy and relentless as the chimera’s tentacles.

  “Didn’t I mention?” he asks, and the diamond glitter in his eyes and velvety smoothness in his voice don’t fool me for a second. This man is every bit as dangerous to us as the chimera is—maybe more so. “We changed course hours ago.”

  Murphy cocks his ear with unmistakable disbelief as a stunned silence washes over all of us.

  “We will have to skirt the hurricane as we head to Rio de Janeiro,” Captain Romero says. “I must deliver my precious cargo to my employer as soon as possible.”

  “I can’t believe it.” Carter sits on the corner of An’s bed and rocks back and forth. His eyes are vacant, his voice is dull and this is at least the fifth time in the sixty seconds since we arrived back in the cabin that he’s said the same thing. “He shot him in the back. Just shot him right in the back.”

  We all know who the real he is. Captain Romero is the one who ordered the shot, and that makes him our enemy. Not the crewman. And if I had to choose which enemy I preferred to face, the chimera or the captain, I swear to God, it would be a dead tie.

  The eight of us are all that’s left of the happy group that boarded the plane in the Bahamas, and I’m beginning to think that the dead are the lucky ones.

  At least they don’t have to deal with this crippling fear of what’s next.

  A stone-faced Gray sits on the end of my bed, next to An, and swipes his nose with the back of his hand while I lean against the headboard and wipe my eyes with a tissue. Maggie sits next to me, sniffling. Sammy and Murphy sit in straight-backed chairs and stare into space.

  Mike sits by himself on the third bed and stares at something in his hand that I can’t see. His despair over his best friend’s senseless death seems to have eased into shock, and I’m grateful for that.

  “He just shot him,” Carter begins again.

  Gray looks over at him. “Can you do me a favor, man?”

  Carter blinks and turns his head toward Gray.

  “I need you to take your left shoe off,” Gray says. “Then I need you to take off that funky sock right there, roll it up into a tight ball and shove it in your mouth so you can shut up for a while. You feel me?”

  “You think this is funny, man?” Carter yells, getting to his feet. I consider it a sign of how truly bad things are at the moment if Carter and Gray are going at it. “You think this is a joke? Huh? Well, how the fuck are we supposed to get out of this alive? You got a snappy answer for that one, Chris-Freaking-Rock?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Gray deadpans. “Just because I’m black, I gotta be Chris Rock? What’re you, some kind of racist? Why can’t I be David Letterman or Jerry Seinfeld?”

  One arrested second passes.

  “Screw you, man,” Carter says with a weak smile. But laughter from any of us is out of the question for the foreseeable future. Flopping back onto the bed, Carter covers his eyes with his arm. “It’d be just my luck that the last thing I hear before my premature death is one of your lame-ass jokes.”

  “Don’t say that,” An says urgently. “We can’t talk like that.”

  “Why not?” Carter mumbles. “It’s true.”

  “It’s not true, you yellow-bellied, snot-nosed brat,” yells Murphy. “So I want you to sit up, put on your big boy underpants—none of those Spider-Man Underoos for you—and help us think of a plan to save our hides. And the next one of you that uses foul language in front of me is in for a feckin’ week’s worth of detention when we get back. Are we clear?”

  Grumbling, Carter sits up again.

  “Right, then,” Murphy says quickly. “It seems to me that—”

  “Hang on,” I say.

  “Bria Hunter!” Murphy roars. “This is no time for a potty break!”

  I scowl at Murphy. “Not that.” I look around to Mike. The cabin’s small, but he seems a universe away over on the third bed. “Hey, Mike. You okay?”

  Mike grunts.

  “Why don’t you come and sit with us?” Maggie calls. “I know you don’t know us very well, but we usually don’t bite. We’re going to need everyone’s brains on this one.”

  Mike presses whatever he’s holding to his lips and doesn’t answer.

  Maggie, An and I exchange worried looks.

  “We’re really sorry about Axel,” I tell him. “And I’m really sorry about saying ‘really sorry,’ because I know how useless it sounds. But we are. We know you guys played football together and were tight and all.”

  “Yeah, man,” Sammy adds. “We feel terrible.”

  Mike keeps his gaze lowered, but I can see a muscle twitch in his jaw as he runs that thing back and forth, over his lips.

  Looking closer, I see the glint of gold. “What’s that? A ring or something?”

  At that, Mike raises his head and looks at me with eyes so red and sad that it’s like an injection of misery directly into my bloodstream.

  “It’s Axel’s class ring.” A pause. “He gave it to me.”

  There seems to be more, but my fried brain isn’t getting it. “He gave it to you?” I echo stupidly, wondering why Axel would’ve given his ring to Mike when Mike surely had one of his own.

  “Bria,” Gray whispers harshly. “Get a clue, will you?”

  “Yeah,” Mike says, his mouth twisting into a defiant smile. “Guess Axel and I were a little tighter than you thought, eh?”

  “Oh.” The gears grind inside my skull, and the last piece of this picture finally clunks into place. “Oh. Got it.”

  “Yeah.” Mike hitches up his hard and chiseled chin and glares at each of us in turn. I’m getting the feeling he won’t be happy until someone throws a punch at him so he can blow off some steam. “So I guess now you want me to keep my fairy self over here on my own bed. Right?”

  “No, you dimwit.” Murphy’s snarl is worse than usual, which tells me he’s out of patience. “We want you to quit with the martyr routine, come sit with us, and help us figure out how to get off this cursed ship alive.”

  Mike gapes at him.

  “Let’s go!” Murphy shouts.

  Mike stands, puts the ring back on his finger and hurries to join us. Gray scootches over to make a space for him on my bed and Mike sits, clearing his throat and looking wary.

  “Right then,” Murphy says. “The main thing is that we stay together as a group. None of this boy-cabin and girl-cabin nonsense. We look out for each other, and if one of us has a snotty nose, the rest of us need to be passing around the tissue. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” we all echo, nodding.

  “Bria Hunter,” Murphy continues, “how do you think that creature was able to attack our poor Esperanza Torres and leave the room again without anyone seeing?”

  I shrug helplessly. “I’ve been wracking my brain trying to figure that out. Someone else needs to figure out how it got out of the tank in the first place, because I’m stumped on that one. But I think it must’ve attached itself to Espi somehow as we were leaving the tank cabin, because she was already acting funny when we came in here. She wanted to go to bed without a shower, and we were concerned about getting her warmed up. Right?” I look to Maggie and An for confirmation.

  They nod. “It camouflaged itself, obviously,” An adds. “And it must have done something with its shell—”

  “And manipulated its size,” Maggie says. “B
ecause otherwise, why wouldn’t Espi have felt it? I mean, if she had something the size of a dolphin with a shell on its back stuck to her neck . . .”

  “Makes sense,” Carter says, but he looks doubtful.

  “So that’s how it got in,” Sammy says, frowning thoughtfully. “How’d it get back out again?”

  “Maybe it was never all the way inside the cabin,” I say, pointing to the shut door, which has a space of about an inch beneath it. “Maybe it, I don’t know, dropped off in the corridor, but kept a tentacle attached to Espi. There’s enough room under the door for a tentacle to fit, right? And I don’t know if any of you noticed when it was in the tank, but those tentacles stretch pretty far, pretty fast.”

  There’s a general murmur of agreement.

  “Or maybe it opened and closed the door,” Gray says, “but did one of its hocus-pocus things—”

  “A glamour,” Mike supplies.

  “Yeah, a glamour.” Gray frowns as he tries to work out the scenario. “Maybe it walked right in and out the door and used a glamour to cover up what it was doing. I mean, it’s possible, right?”

  We all nod before lapsing into a discouraged silence.

  Carter speaks first, voicing the group’s concerns. “How are we supposed to defend ourselves? This thing’s got every weapon in the book, and we’re throwing stones and trying to figure out how to build a slingshot.”

  “A slingshot’s better than nothing, Carter Edwards,” Murphy says, “and you seem to have a great deal of time on your hands for negative thinking, so I’m thinking you need a chore.”

  “A chore?” Carter says.

  “Take yourself over to the door,” Murphy says, pointing. “Block off that gap at the bottom with a towel or some such, and then rig up some sort of early alarm system directly in front of the door that the beast’ll knock over with a clatter if it tries to come calling again.”

  Carter looks wide-eyed and overwhelmed as he gets to his feet. “How’m I supposed to—”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake,” Murphy says, huffing. “Sammy, help your friend, will you, before his pitiful little brain spontaneously combusts from the strain.”