Monstrum

by Ann Christopher

  Two steps . . . one step . . .

  I reach the threshold and hit the door’s handle. The door stays shut.

  Is it . . . locked? When it was never locked before?

  Behind us, the chimera chitters. The sound cranks me higher because I could swear it’s laughing at us. Panic swallows me whole as I pound on the door with my blistered palms, agony shooting through my body.

  The door doesn’t budge.

  Frantic, I pump the handle.

  The door doesn’t budge.

  “Let us out!” I shriek. “Let us out!”

  Baer sags against the door, as though he could possibly shoulder through it in his condition. “Cortés,” he says weakly. “We have to break it down.”

  “Oh, God,” I whimper, panic making me helpless and stupid. I am drenched with sweat, certain the fire is about to consume us. “Please, God.”

  Cortés leans into the door. “On three,” he begins. “One . . .”

  The chimera chitters again.

  At the sound, something chimes in my brain and an idea shakes loose.

  “It’s not really locked.” I don’t know where this new certainty and calm come from. But I know I’m right. “It’s only a glamour to trick us. Get out of the way.”

  They gape at me, not budging. Meanwhile, I can hear the clatter of the chimera’s many feet racing up the corridor, and the flames are blazing at our backs. So I put my back into it, shove Cortés to one side and push the door’s handle.

  The door swings open easily.

  “Nice, Bria,” Baer says as we edge through the door and onto the deck. He’s unsteady on his feet, swaying with the effort of staying upright and managing what has to be unimaginable pain. The side of his face is burned raw, the livid red of a deli ham that’s been left under the heat lamp for too long. “How’d you know?”

  “No idea,” I admit. “But maybe the glamours lose their power once you realize they’re glamours. Let’s hope.”

  The deck is no more welcoming than it was before. The howling wind carries water with it, and we are hit from every direction. Rain lashes our heads and faces, as relentless as Niagara Falls, and huge waves splash our feet, threatening to knock us down and slide us overboard every time the ship hits a trough. Desperate for any sign of rescue, we hold the railing and stare out into the darkness, but there are no lights from an approaching ship. There’s nothing to see except yet another inhospitable environment waiting to kill us at the earliest opportunity.

  “The lifeboat’s this way!” Cortés shouts over the roaring storm. He grabs Baer’s arm, but I can’t tell which of them is holding the other up. “Let’s go!”

  He’s steering us toward a giant wooden boat with oars and no motor, something that looks like a relic from Titanic. It’s hanging on the other side of the rail, covered with a tarp and secured with a complicated system of ropes and pulleys. Below it, the water is seething and frothing like a direct pipeline to hell.

  I look back to Cortés, who’s watching me with wary impatience.

  “Bria,” he begins.

  “We can’t put that boat in the water,” I yell over the wind, shaking my head. “Even if we manage to lower it, it’ll capsize in thirty seconds. We’ll drown way before the other ship can get here.”

  Baer groans and leans into the rails, panting and making me really nervous. He can barely stand up as it is. One more good pitch from the ship and he’ll go overboard for sure, never to be seen again. I let go of the rail, grab his arm and lift it over my neck, ignoring his weak protest.

  “I’m fine,” he says, his head lolling.

  “You’re barely conscious,” I snap, looking to Cortés. “What’s Plan B? You know the ship best. Is there somewhere on deck we can hide until—”

  “We can’t stay here, Bria,” he bellows. “You think this ship isn’t on her way to the bottom of the ocean?”

  I don’t answer. There’s no need.

  Without warning, the corridor door crashes open. Purple flames shoot out, take a fortifying hit from the raging wind and are suddenly everywhere at once. They bleed across the deck, climb the steps leading to the wheelhouse on the level above us and quickly cover every visible surface, whether it’s flammable or not.

  We cry out, terrorized as we back up to the lifeboat and watch for the chimera’s arrival. I realize, through my panic, that this fire isn’t normal. This fire drives itself, surging forward over metal and wet surfaces with impunity, as though everything it touches is covered with an invisible layer of gasoline.

  And Cortés is right. We can’t stay here. With the fire closing in on us, I have to fight the rising urge—raw and primal—to escape the flames any way I can, even if it means jumping overboard without any boat at all.

  “Jesus.” Cortés does a full turn, craning his neck as he looks in all directions. “Where’s my father? We’ve can’t leave him here.” I watch, heartsick, as his rain-spattered face crumples with poorly controlled despair. I feel as though I’m experiencing the tragedy with Espi and her mother all over again. “Papi!” he shouts, his voice hoarse. “Papi!”

  “Cortés.” It seems to take every ounce of strength Baer has to latch onto Cortés’s collar and give him a hard shake. “Focus.”

  Cortés tries to break free. “My father—”

  “Your father will meet us here if he’s still alive. He can take care of himself.” Baer flinches, his features contorting with pain as he pauses to take a couple of shuddering breaths.

  “We need to get off this ship. Now. The chimera is trying to burn us out of here. We don’t have any other options.”

  Cortés hesitates, then resumes his frantic search by calling over his shoulder. “Papi!”

  “Cortés!” My shrieking voice seems to penetrate some of his panic, and he pauses again. “Listen!”

  There’s a lot to listen to at the moment—the wind, the rain, the creaking protest of the ship as the waves rough it up—but we all go still and zero in on the most worrisome sounds of all:

  The distant bellows of the chimera, rampaging somewhere below deck;

  The ongoing explosions from the ship’s interior, one on top of the other now, like fireworks; and

  The ship’s metallic protest.

  I don’t know why the chimera isn’t on top of us already. Maybe we’re only getting this small reprieve because it’s busy destroying the ship, burning it out from under us.

  But it’s coming.

  In the brief period that we stand there listening, the chimera’s roar grows louder, as though it’s gotten bored with torching everything on the lower levels and has decided to amble up here to finally finish us off. And I could swear that we’re standing at an angle now, as though the back end of the ship is starting to sink underwater.

  “Cortés,” I say again.

  I watch as Cortés slowly begins to calm and see reason. His shoulders lift and lower on a deep breath. His eyes do one final sweep across the deck, and then he nods, swiping his dripping hair back from his forehead.

  “We need to get out of here,” he says.

  I nod grimly. “Let’s do it.”

  Wincing, Cortés starts to climb through the rails so he can remove the lifeboat’s tarp. Watching his slow, pained progress is more agony than I can stand at the moment. I duck out from under Baer’s weight, sling Baer’s elbow over the rail and put a hand on Cortés’s arm to stop him.

  “You work on the winch,” I say, swinging a leg over the bottom rail and hooking it on to the tarp. It’s a heavy canvas, stretched tight atop the lifeboat, covering the seats and collecting pools of cold water. “I got this.”

  “No!” Cortés’s voice is sharp. In one swift move, he clamps his hand on my upper arm, leans halfway through the rails after me and hangs on with a bone-splintering grip. “You’re not going out there first. You’ll slip.”

  Right on cue, the ship sinks into a trough, juddering with the force of a bomb and sending the lifeboat swinging away from the deck. My one leg slips
off the tarp, my hand slips off the wet rails, and suddenly I’m dangling against the side of the ship and Cortés’s iron hold is the only thing keeping me from careening into the ocean.

  “Oh, God!” My feet scrabble but wind up kicking thin air. “Don’t let me fall!”

  “Bria.” Cortés’s face appears through the rails. He stares down at me with flashing dark eyes, his expression calm and implacable. “Don’t panic.”

  Panic renders me incapable of listening. “Help me!”

  I flail with my free arm, frantically searching for something to grab on to even though I know I’m making Cortés’s job harder. His hold on me loosens fractionally, and I scream even as the ship rights itself and my free arm connects with the tarp.

  This helps me calm down, just a little. Cortés has my arm on one side and my free arm is now hooked on the lifeboat. As long as the lifeboat doesn’t mash me against the side of the ship, I might have a chance.

  I take another deep breath.

  “Try to move this way, okay?” Cortés tells me. “Try to swing a leg onto the deck.”

  I nod shakily, my entire body trembling.

  “On three,” Cortés begins. “One . . . two . . .”

  “Three,” says a new voice just as a big male hand appears in front of my face. The hand is olive-skinned and wrapped with a bloody cloth that covers the stump where a pinky finger—and a gold signet ring—used to be. Captain Romero’s face appears between the rails. “Take hold of me now, Bria,” he commands.

  “Thank you,” I gasp, rolling onto my back and trying to catch my breath.

  I give myself one relieved second to lay flat atop the tarp and give thanks that I’m not plummeting to the bottom of the sea or being minced by the ship’s passing propellers, before I go to work on the hooks attaching the tarp to the lifeboat. If I’m not quick about it, we could hit another wave and I’d be right back where I started. But Cortés reaches through the rails, covers my hand with his and gives me an urgent squeeze.

  We stare at each other through the blistering rain. All color has leached from his face, reminding me of Espi right before she died. Whether it’s fear or pain that’s making him look so frantic, I can’t tell.

  “You promised you’d stay alive,” he reminds me.

  “I’m doing my best.”

  “Make sure you do.”

  With a final pointed look, he lets go and turns to his father, engulfing him in a hug that makes them both sway. “Papa.” I glance up long enough to see the captain watching me over Cortés’s shoulder, his expression blank and fixed now, his head eerily framed by the flickering purple flames towering behind him.

  He does not hug Cortés back.

  Despite the rising heat, ice crystals seem to be forming in my hair, making the roots stand on end and my scalp prickle. Shivering, I tear my gaze away from the captain and continue with the hooks. I have half of the lifeboat uncovered now and can jump down into its interior—and a safer position—as I work on the rest of the hooks.

  “Where have you been?” Cortés shouts, coughing from the drifting smoke and hurrying to grab Baer underneath his armpits and heave him up to vertical. But Baer is limp and insensible. I don’t think he’s knocked out completely, but his eyes are rolled back. “What happened to you?”

  The captain blinks, frowns and looks at Cortés, not answering. Raising his injured hand in front of his face, he stares at it.

  Cortés struggles with Baer, dragging him closer to the rail. “Can you help me with him? Papa?”

  “I was . . . in the wheelhouse.” The captain lowers his hand. “¿Qué ha pasado? What’s happened? What are you doing with the lifeboat? I didn’t give orders.”

  Cortés and I exchange alarmed glances.

  “The ship is on fire,” Cortés explains urgently, although it’s impossible that the captain couldn’t have noticed this by now. “We have to evacuate.”

  The captain tightens his jaw and squares his shoulders. “I would never abandon my ship.”

  “Papa—”

  “Done!” I say triumphantly, hoping the interruption will divert the captain before the shocked craziness in his mind gets any more entrenched than it already is. The last thing we need is a struggle trying to get him into the boat. I undo the last hook and toss the tarp onto the deck. “Let’s get Baer in here.”

  Cortés nods, but most of his attention is focused on his unmoving father. “Papa?”

  “He’s probably in shock,” I say. “Blood loss.”

  The chimera screeches nearby, and the sound crashes over us like an atom bomb. It’s high-pitched and eardrum-rupturing—a warning that the chimera is ready to kill us in the next thirty seconds or so, even though we can’t see it yet.

  And the ship is definitely listing. The front end, and, consequently, the lifeboat, are both tipping up in the front, giving me the unbalanced sensation of standing on a hill.

  “Let’s go,” I snap. “You grab Baer’s legs, and I’ll take his head.”

  “Hang on.” Cortés unslings the rocket launcher from Baer’s shoulder, checks it and tries to hand it to his father. “Here, Papa. You need to man the rocket and cover us, while we take care of Baer and lower the lifeboat, okay? The chimera’s coming, and we only have one shot. Papa? Papa!”

  The captain jumps, a frown grooving its way down his forehead. Cortés thrusts the rocket launcher to his chest, hard, and the captain looks down at it with clear bewilderment, as though Cortés expects him to hold sunshine.

  Seeing the captain’s absolute bewilderment convinces me that we’d do just as well to give the rocket to the semi-conscious Baer; neither man is coherent enough to handle heavy weaponry. “Cortés, I’m not sure he can. . .” I begin.

  The captain raises a hand and takes the rocket.

  Cortés goes back to work on Baer, using tremendous effort to heave the man’s upper body higher so I can reach through the rails and grab him under the arms. Straining my back, I inch him through to the lifeboat. He is a two-ton rag doll, his head drooping crazily, making me fear he’ll have a neck injury on top of everything else.

  And then, with a final grunting yank from me, his feet fall through the rails and his entire body is now lying on the lifeboat’s bottom, resting on my trembling legs. Panting, I take half a second to rest and gather more strength before I roll him off me and turn back to Cortés. He’s working with the cables and levers. I hear the sudden motorized hum of the winch, as though it’s ready to begin lowering the lifeboat.

  I feel a wild swoop of excitement.

  “What can I do?” I ask hurriedly.

  He opens his mouth to answer.

  And the chimera’s bellow obliterates all other sound, piercing my eardrums and making me cry out in pain. I duck, clapping my hands over my ears. But there’s no escaping the sound, because it comes from everywhere and stretches into infinity.

  At last there’s a break in intensity. I uncurl from my crouching position and look around, blinking through the smoke and rain to see where it is.

  “Jesus Christ,” Cortés mutters, his eyes fixed on something high overhead.

  With dread, I slowly follow his line of sight to the wheelhouse as the purple fire roars out of the windows and envelops the entire structure.

  The chimera is perched on top of its magnificent inferno, spewing more flames in a wide arc as it takes its time about turning its head from right to left. Its spindly legs are stretched out on full display, and its massive claws snap at the air. Its tentacles flutter and unfurl, waving around its head in a prideful display, as though it’s some hideous peacock executing its best mating dance.

  Its eyes are purest spite, glittering and black.

  Horrified and frozen, we watch as those jointed legs creep into motion, the spiky tips picking their way to the wheelhouse’s edge. And then, as if to save the chimera the effort of having to climb down to kill us, the wheelhouse surrenders to its fate. There’s one pregnant second while it hangs on, protesting its destruction with t
he lingering groan of collapsing metal, and then it’s gone, sinking through the deck beneath it with a thundering crash that showers sparks in every direction. The sparks steam and hiss as they encounter the raindrops, but the chimera is unaffected by rain, fire or collapse. It gracefully lands atop the wreckage as though that’s what it meant to do all along.

  Then it begins its deliberate stride across what’s left of the burning deck, leering and heading straight for us.

  “Get the rocket, Papa!” Cortés shouts. “Shoot it—what’re you doing?”

  I whip my head around to discover that Captain Romero has the rocket up and ready to fire.

  And it’s aimed directly at my chest.

  I want to duck. To run. To scream.

  Utter terror keeps me from doing anything.

  The captain is staring at me down the length of the rocket, with one hand steadying it against his shoulder and the other on the pin. His gaze is calm.

  Determined.

  Murderous.

  Behind him, the chimera is making silent progress toward us, its many angled legs rising and falling smoothly. Its misshapen head is all jagged teeth and intent black eyes. I have the hopeless feeling that it’s in no particular hurry . . . that it’s happy to kill us if it comes to that, but, meanwhile, it might be interesting to see what the captain has planned.

  Cortés holds his hands out, palms up. “Not Bria.” He is quiet. Composed, as though he’s trained for this moment all his life. But I can see the way his hands shake and hear the quaver in his voice. “Shoot the chimera, Papa.”

  One side of Captain Romero’s mouth edges into a twisted smile. “Why would I do that, my son? When my job is to pilot this ship safely to Rio and deliver the chimera to my employer?”

  Cortés stiffens.

  The chimera creeps closer, unaffected by the towering columns of flames surrounding it.

  The ship creaks ominously, and, somewhere below, there’s another series of popping explosions that sound closer than ever.

  “Bria hasn’t done anything to you.” Cortés’s voice, still soothing, pitches higher as he wipes rain out of his eyes and slowly lowers his hand. “The chimera is right behind you. It’s going to kill us.”