The Cold Beneath

by Tonia Brown

  I heard, “Pain!”

  I heard, “Help!”

  But above all else I heard, “Cold! So cold!”

  “Do you hear that?” I asked.

  Before Albert could answer my inquiry, a series of loud bangs started, punctuating the shouts. I snapped my attention to the source of the thumps, and watched in horror as the door to the cooling unit shook in its frame. The phrases, the shrieks, the thumping all clicked into a perfect picture in my mind.

  “There!” I shouted as I pointed to the larder. “Dear God! Someone is trapped inside.”

  The larder door was a weighty affair that bore a dual-handled system, both inside and out. It was a safety measure designed to keep the very thing happening from happening. During normal operational hours, the cooler was accessible from both sides; if it swung shut while someone was inside, he could escape with ease. But at this time of night, the thing was kept locked to discourage anyone sneaking the much-needed food for personal consumption. Yet there was someone inside, behind the lock, jostling the handle, beating on the door, screaming for his life.

  Albert was much further ahead of the situation, racing across the room and unlocking the door with his master key before I even had time to react. He then pulled the door open, for it swung outward rather than in, and the screams increased tenfold as their owner burst forth into the kitchen. The man, for I was correct in my assumption, fell to his knees before me, just outside the larder door, as if exhausted from his efforts to escape. I could scarcely believe my own eyes as he lifted his face to meet mine.

  Kneeling on his naked knees was the very same man whose passing we had mourned just that morning. It was Morrow who lifted his pale face to me. Morrow who parted his blue lips. Morrow who began to shriek again as if he were still locked inside the cooler. In the direct presence of his shouting, I found the sound most unbearable. I cowered, backing away as I placed my hands over my ears in a weak attempt to block the sound surging from the once-dead man’s lips.

  “Benjamin!” Albert demanded over the yelling.

  At the name, or perhaps just the sound of Albert’s voice, the cook fell quiet and turned his attention to the first mate.

  What happened next I shall do my best to relate, though I am still unsure how much of it I remember and what parts I imagined. Since this first encounter, I have been careful to catalogue, in my mind’s eye, the truth of things, so I could relate them to someone, anyone, at a later date. But there will be no later date for me. Just this record and my fondest wish that it is never discovered.

  Morrow leapt from his position of supplication, springing across the room with blinding speed and landing square on Albert. The pair toppled to the floor, with Morrow straddling his prey, scrambling and clawing at the bald first mate, meaning him harm. A deep snarling rose from the pair, as did the distinct and chilling sound of snapping teeth.

  By all that is holy, the nearly naked man was trying his best to land a bite on Albert’s tender flesh!

  Albert struggled to dodge his attacker’s onslaught. He wrestled with the blue-tinged body, rolling around, fighting the skinny man for purchase, and if it had been under any other circumstances, the whole affair would have seemed amusing. It became apparent that Albert was being gentle with the old man, trying to fight him with soft blows, open-handed nudges instead of striking with balled fists. Morrow, however, wasn’t toying around and cared little for Albert’s health. The old man snarled as he finally met his mark, sinking his teeth deep into Albert’s shoulder.

  At this act, Albert found his voice and began shouting at once for help. It was almost a full ten seconds before anyone moved to lend him a hand; we were just that shocked at what we witnessed. One of the younger men watching from the hall, again I am ashamed to say I do not know who, snapped out of the mutual trance and ran to assist Albert. He threw himself into the scrimmage, snatching Morrow by his thinning hair and pulling him away from his prey. The first mate scrambled across the kitchen floor until he met the wall, at which he backed himself right up the siding. His eyes stood wide in terror, his body shook with fear, his feet continued to work the floor as if he could back himself right through to the other side of the wall. A crimson blossom flowered at the wound, spreading from the torn fabric of his long underwear in a wide circle.

  Morrow recovered his loss quickly, managing to turn full circle on his keeper, despite the grip the young man had on Morrow’s hair. He then proceeded to pull the man to him and dig his teeth into the young man’s arm. The fellow’s shrieks filled the air alongside the cook’s snarling, wet grunts. This broke several of the others from their daze and a full-scale attack commenced.

  Events grow sketchy here, for I admit I was on the far side of the kitchen, too much of a coward to help where I was needed, and thus I missed the bulk of the fight. All I remember was much screaming, a great deal of shrieking, and the lightning-quick Morrow leaping from man to man as the crowd struggled to subdue him. In the end, either subduing wasn’t enough, or perhaps someone became overzealous in the brawl. Over the sounds of conflict there rang out a sickening crunch, and with it the fight was over.

  The crowd parted like an ebbing tide to reveal the now-still form of Morrow on his back. From the center of his face protruded a large butcher knife, piercing him through his left eye and deep into his brain. A small trickle of blood oozed from the wound, rolling down the side of the dead man’s face to pool upon the floor beneath him. Everyone stared at him as if expecting him to get up again. Yet he didn’t. He was certainly dead now, no doubt about it. Who planted the final blow? No one would admit to the deed, and at the time no one was concerned. Other facts overshadowed the killing stroke, such as the fact that the man who was already declared as dead somehow managed to get up and give chase to a half dozen full-grown men.

  There seemed only one solution, and it wasn’t one I took pleasure in declaring.

  “Geraldine must have made a mistake,” I said.

  Lightbridge nodded as he eyed us over his desk. We had relayed the story ten or more times to him, for with his room being so far from the epicenter of the disaster, he had missed the bulk of the affair. By the time he got his dressing gown on and ran the length of the ship, the worst had passed, and all that was left was a twice-cold corpse.

  “I swear he was dead,” she insisted. Her eyes were red with well-spent tears. Whether she was crying for the cook or herself, I didn’t know.

  “That man was not a dead man,” Albert said. He winced as Geraldine tended to his many wounds. “He was anything but dead.”

  “He is dead now,” Lightbridge said. “No one can survive such a wound.”

  A brief moment of silence followed his proclamation. I shifted in my seat, made uncomfortable by the notion of Morrow’s gruesome death. A heart attack was one thing, but this was something altogether different.

  “I promise,” Geraldine started, “that man had no vital signs, no breathing, no heartbeat. He was stone cold dead.” She then fell into another bout of weeping, leaving Albert to tend to the bite wound. Even I was moved by her tears. It must have been so embarrassing to make such a grievous error in judgment.

  “Dr. Goode,” Lightbridge said in a soft voice. “No one doubts your professionalism. No one is making claims or accusations. But the fact of the matter remains that you declared him deceased when he clearly was not.”

  She wept louder.

  “He might not have been dead,” Albert offered. “But he wasn’t right either. He acted like a madman. An animal. All snarls and snaps and tooth and claw. I’ve never seen the likes of it in my whole life. He might have been alive, but he was right out of his mind.”

  “No,” I said. “That’s not true. I heard him speaking. Under his cries, I heard his voice. He spoke words.”

  “Words?” Lightbridge asked.

  “Yes.”

  Geraldine whimpered at my insistence. It must have been hard for her to deal with the knowledge that the man wasn’t quite the maniac the story ma
de him out to be. Lightbridge took pity on her delicate constitution.

  “Madam,” he said. “Perhaps you should return to bed. What’s done is done. We can discuss the rest in the morning.”

  She nodded and left without argument. It was the first time I had ever seen her reduced to silence. What a terrible price to pay for the opportunity.

  No sooner had she slipped from the room than Lightbridge turned to me and demanded, “Tell me more about what you heard.”

  “The cook was speaking,” I said again. “Under his growls, he spoke.”

  “Nonsense,” Albert countered. “All I heard was screams and growls.”

  “I heard him say short phrases,” I insisted. I repeated the things I heard the cook say. Pain. Help. Cold, so cold.

  “Cold,” Lightbridge echoed. “I can’t imagine the horror of waking up locked in the dark of the cooler. There is no telling what he thought had happened to him. He must have gone mad from the sheer terror of it.”

  “Then we are all accomplices to his death.”

  “Now, there is no need to go that far. He attacked my men. They were only defending themselves. It’s a simple explanation.”

  “There is no simple explanation.” I was appalled at his flippant attitude. “We killed him, every one of us. When we left him for dead in that cooler, we drove him to his breaking point. Then we fought him like some wild beast and killed him for lashing out at us in what was surely confusion.”

  Lightbridge was not impressed by my outburst. “Mr. Syntax, that is quite enough.”

  “No,” I said as I got to my unsteady feet. “Your insistence to go forward after the man’s original death was madness, but I will not allow you to sweep this incident under the rug. We should return to civilization and deal with this. True North be damned!”

  “Mr. Syntax!” Lightbridge shouted as he stood to tower over me. “You will find that one of the fundamental conventions of being aboard a ship is that the captain has the final authority. I am the authority. What I say goes. Do you understand?”

  I fell silent, fearing that my tongue would betray me if I allowed it.

  “Then what do you say?” Albert asked. “Sir?”

  Lightbridge’s anger seemed to cool a bit at the question. He sat again, patting his round belly in thought for a moment before he spoke again. “I say we keep going. We are but two days from True North. I won’t turn back now. I won’t let that man die for nothing.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Albert said.

  And, again, that was that.

  The corpse of the cook was escorted to the medical bay, for no one had the heart to return him to the cooling unit after the tragedy that had befallen him. I suppose we all worried that he might get up a second time, even though it seemed impossible.

  Though, from what I am to understand, that was exactly what happened.

  ****

  back to toc

  ****

  Fourteen

  Down with the Ship

  True North.

  How hollow those words sound as I roll them about my cold mouth. How ethereal they are as they hang in the air in the wake of my tepid breath. How they burn when seated upon my nearly frozen tongue. Even the thought of them scalds my very mind.

  True North.

  What a bitter joke that idea has become. There is nothing true about it. Nothing true at all.

  The world thinks of True North as kind of Holy Grail. They think it to be a stunning white landscape rich in exotic animals and plants, a fine thing of unobtainable beauty. There is a wild notion that the first nation to lay claim to her, to stake her for their own, will find within her snowy bosom an overnight source of fortune and fame. They are blinded by her virginal form. Men made fools by her seduction. She draws her soft blanket of snow over pale shoulders, and beckons all adventurers to come hither, to take what she is so willing to offer. She is True. She is what you have been searching for this whole time. She is what you want. Isn’t she?

  Before we reached this retched landscape, I am filled with confidence that each of us had an idea of what this so called True North meant. Do not mistake me. I speak not of the journey itself, for we all shared a common theme when set upon the task. I speak instead of the destination. Of what we thought True North would be. What it represented. And everyone’s view as to the value of True North was as different as our faces. No two men shared the same vision, just as no two men could share a dream.

  To the multitude of crew, those brave men who lost their lives in her cold and pitiless clutches, True North held many meanings. Though I cannot lay claim to the knowledge of their minds and hearts, especially now they are gone, I will make a guess based upon mankind’s greater ideals. For one man it must have been a way to finance his dreams of being a landowner. For another, it became the recognition of his worth as a sailor. Yet another might have seen True North as nothing more than the answer to all of his dreams of world renown.

  For my old friend Bradley, True North was pure adventure. I had never seen my manservant’s eyes so full of life or his smile to bright as the day of our liftoff. Though he had seen to me in steady faith for the last few years, the young man was hungry for change; I had sensed it for some time even before Lightbridge’s offer to join the crew. I had a feeling he would leave my employ soon, by choice. But instead True North has taken him from me, by force.

  Albert confided in me early on that True North only held one fascination for him. I had to ask him to repeat his desire, and when he did I laughed aloud at him. He wanted nothing more than to see a polar bear up close! Albert risked his life because his friend begged him upon the journey, but atop this he had his own desires. Something so simple, yet even he was denied this pleasure by the cruel mistress that is our present hostess.

  To our captain and courageous leader, True North was truth in its simplest form. It represented an honest challenge for Lightbridge. Something that he could exploit to its fullest degree without the hindrance of others peering over his shoulder. She was a mountain he could not only scale, but scale and scale again by the means of his precious airship.

  If one were to ask me before we set out, I would have said that True North was a vast resource for scientific study. Admittedly, I was intrigued what we might discover in the Arctic, aside from the location of True North herself. Though, always the pragmatist, I also thought of the Artic Circle as the halfway point to my next paycheck. But now? Now that we have arrived, and I have witnessed her alleged majesty first hand, now I know the real truth. I have at last discovered the only thing ‘true’ about True North. She is but a cold, uncaring bitch bent on killing all who try to tame her.

  Her deadly power shows in my shivering hands, in my sucking breath, in my trembling frame. If I linger much longer at this testimony, I might not have to succumb to the unnatural appetite of walking death waiting for me beyond the door.

  I just might freeze to death instead.

  But alas, I am compelled to tell the whole story now that I have begun. I fear leaving some poor soul half entrenched in our sordid tale, with just enough information to leave one curious, but not enough to fully warn him of our mistakes. Or our terrible deeds. I shall relate the wreck of the Fancy from my perspective alone, rather than dance across the page with suggestions and presumptions that seem unfounded.

  After the corpse was taken to the medical bay and the mess cleaned from the kitchen, the crew returned to a well-deserved rest. The respite did not last long, though, as I was awoken again within the hour. This time it wasn’t screaming that tore me from my slumber, but instead a terrible blast. The thunder of it drove me upright in my bed, and before I knew what was happening, I was pitched to the floor by a violent lurch. For a moment I lay dazed, rear over ear, unsure of what was happening. Those quiet seconds were brief, however, for soon after came a keening wail. At first I thought it was the cook again, come to finish me for not doing a better job of defending his honor. It took a moment for me to realize it was the emergency alarm,
accompanied by a bright red glow, which now bathed my room.

  I scrambled to dress in a rush. After dressing, I burst into the hallway, unsure of where the danger lay. From the bow of the ship came a bright light, as if someone had opened all the shutters and doors, allowing the unremitting sunshine to pour into the ship. I shielded my eyes, wincing as I stared at the radiance, when a hastily dressed Albert called to me.

  “The bridge is on fire!” he shouted as he ran past, scrambling up the hallway toward the distant orange glow.

  I realized at that moment that the boom was the report of an explosion, and the lurch was the ship dying in midair. The glow in the distance wasn’t the eternal spring sunshine, but a fire that was consuming our precious vehicle. I set off after Albert, though looking back on it, I am left to wonder why. I was the least useful member of the crew in such a situation, untrained for such emergencies, unprepared for such a disaster, and above all else, an unabashed coward.

  No.

  As I read over what I have just written, I can see my own lie for what it is.

  I knew why I followed Albert without a second thought, just as I still know as I write these words. I ran headlong into the arms of that most unwelcome calamity because I was worried about her. Geraldine’s quarters were at the head of the ship. If the bridge was on fire, there was a good chance she would be injured, or worse. After so many years of torment, so many nights lost in sleepless dejection at her hands, I and my broken heart still cared for her. I would like to think that I would have helped out regardless of her presence aboard, but I know this is not true. The sole reason I hurried along after Albert was because I feared for the life of the only woman I ever loved.