The Library of the Dead

by Brian Keene

  “Take your eyes,” Jane muttered. “That’s horrific.”

  Neville was quiet, staring at the papers in front of Bryan, as if he were taking these warnings seriously. Jane had never seen him troubled by ancient writings such as these, equating them to superstitious words muttered by countless people down through the ages. He was a scientist, he said, with no time for superstition.

  “Neville?” she said softly.

  “The crew member with his throat cut also had his eyes gouged out,” he said.

  No one spoke. Jane looked at the rubbings of engravings scattered around the room, the scribbled translations underlined and crossed-out, and feeling threatened by something more than she could understand, she was more terrified for her dying daughter than ever.

  There was a knock at the door. Soft, polite. Jane was closest, so she reached out and tugged on the metal handle. The door swung in and Captain Gavriil stood in the opening, glancing briefly at each of them in turn. His gaze settled on Jane.

  “The funeral later will be a busy one,” he said. “Does anyone know Muslim funeral rites? Your Turkish friends are dead.”

  The air was thick and close in the gangway that led down into the hold, and yet it was strangely cold, as if the chill of the ocean had made an icebox out of the hull. The seas had grown rougher and the ship listed to and fro, not enough to make Jane lose her footing but enough so that she had to take a wide stance and ride the swaying of the vessel. Seasickness had never been a problem for her, not even belowdecks in rough seas. So it could only have been the sight of the two dead men that had turned her stomach queasy and made bile burn the back of her throat.

  She kept her dinner down, but barely.

  Halis lay in a fetal tuck on the dirty gangway floor. His abdomen had been cut open, the stinking tangle of his guts in a glistening pile in front of him. He had his hands on them as if they were a newborn infant he had died to protect. His body was turned away from them, and Jane thought that was best. She could see the pool of blood, and if she had seen his torn throat and mutilated eyes, horror would have overcome her revulsion and she would have broken down into a sobbing mess.

  Saygin’s corpse lay further ahead, in the shadows beneath the sealed hatch that led into the hold. In the darkness, beyond the light of the crew’s lanterns, he stared at them with impossible black holes where his eyes ought to have been. Jane couldn’t help feeling as if Saygin stared directly at her, baleful and accusatory.

  She looked away.

  “What were they doing down here?” the captain asked, shooting Neville an accusatory glance. “Not trying to steal your precious cargo, I assume. These were your people, so why were they trying to get into the hold?”

  “You had a sentry on duty,” Neville snapped. “Where is he, I’d like to know.”

  One of the crewmen shuffled a bit awkwardly, gave a sniff. “A fella has to piss, he has to piss. I was gone all of three minutes and I come back to this.”

  Seconds ticked by without another word spoken. Jane felt the ship closing in around her, all the breath forced from her lungs. Neville and Captain Gavriil began speaking again, both at the same time, and all she could hear was the fear in their voices—fear that it would happen again. They’d put more sentries in the gangway and two on the deck. Five days remained, more or less, and no one was to wander the ship alone.

  “I’ve…I’m sorry, I need air,” she said, and she turned and stumbled along the gangway, up the metal stairs, and onto the starlit deck.

  At the railing, she held on tight and threw up over the side. Cool wind swept over her and sea spray dappled her face as she breathed in and out, trying to purge the stink of death from her nose, and her memory.

  The captain’s question hadn’t been answered. He’d asked what the Turks were after, down there in the hold. If they were part of the team, why attempt to break in?

  God help her, Jane thought she knew the answer.

  Sleeping, cradled by the gentle roll of the sea, Jane clung to sleep as if it were a lover who, once released, might never return. Rest had been hard to come by the past few days. Exhausted and on edge, she found herself with no appetite. Each night she lay her head down, body leaden and thoughts muddled, but sleep would elude her for hours. When at last her mind succumbed to weariness, she slept more deeply than she ever had before, and mornings were not welcome.

  The knock came softly, but insistently, again and again. At first she thought she must be dreaming, but then she became aware of her surroundings, heard the creak of the ship and the soft knocking at her door, and her eyes opened to find her cabin was still in darkness. Outside the portholes, night still claimed the world. She heard a distant bell clang and sat upright as her mind struggled to make sense of that sound.

  Again, the knock.

  The ship was not moving. All was silent save the lingering echo of that now silent bell and the wash of the sea against the hull.

  And that gentle knocking.

  Jane stared at her cabin door a moment, then bolted from the bed. The white blouse and long black skirt she’d had on the night before lay across the top of the trunk containing most of her things, but she reached for the thick robe at the foot of the bed and pulled it on.

  The knock came again and she almost went to the door, then thought better of it and dropped to her knees to slide her valise out from beneath the bed.

  Rooting in the darkened room—her only illumination what little starlight came through the porthole—she felt first the bundle that did not belong in her valise. Jane had put it there herself but even so her touch was startled by its presence. Then her foraying fingers moved on, brushed the handle of the small Browning pistol she kept in her bag. It fit perfectly into her small hand and she plucked it out and went to the door.

  “Who is it?” she whispered.

  No answer.

  Jane held her breath. They had a murderer on board. Only a fool would open that door. And yet she had secrets of her own, desperate desires that might welcome a soft knock at the door in the small hours of the night.

  She turned the lock and drew the door open, stepping back quickly with the gun aimed at the silhouette that now moved across her threshold.

  His hands went up and he shifted enough that she saw the thick wave of blond hair that swept across his forehead and the nervous, self-effacing grin that had won her over so immediately when they’d first met.

  “Watch where you point that, woman,” Bryan whispered.

  Jane rasped his name, reaching out to drag him into the cabin. Bryan closed the door, quickly and quietly, then turned to her wearing an entirely different expression. She saw fear in his eyes, and excitement, but more than anything she saw the urgency in him.

  “What’s happened?” she asked.

  Bryan kissed her, cupping his hands on the sides of her head and making it linger, so that before the kiss ended they each were breathing the other’s breath, as if they shared one body, one set of lungs. He pressed his forehead against hers and stepped back, seemed to contemplate a moment and then nodded.

  “Get dressed, Jane,” he said. “We’ve got little more than an hour before dawn, but we’ve got to move now if we’re going.”

  Her skin prickled. Nothing made sense to her. Yes, they’d had a plan, or the nascent beginnings of one, but this…

  “Where are we?” she asked. “We had a day or two remaining, surely.”

  “Dress while I explain,” he insisted, and she set about it, placing the gun on her bed.

  Jane slipped out of her robe and left it in a heap on the floor. She reached for her skirt, unconcerned about Bryan seeing her in her underthings. He’d seen her wearing less.

  “Gavriil ordered all speed days ago,” he said. “We’ve been burning extra fuel, straining the engines to make port as swiftly as possible. The crew didn’t let on. If I hadn’t woken, I’d have been none the wiser until he returned with the police.”

  She froze, one arm through a sleeve of the blouse from th
e night before. Her thoughts went to the valise, and to the package inside. “Police?”

  “He’s gone ashore to bring back detectives,” Bryan said. “I guess that rules the captain out as our killer, unless he’s run off and never returns. Still—”

  “If we’re getting off, it has to be now.”

  Bryan nodded. “Now. Take nothing with you, save perhaps that gun.”

  Jane sat on the bed and pulled on her boots, lacing them almost unconsciously. Her valise contained the only things of value she had with her—photos of Franca, her identification, a ring that had belonged to her grandmother—and the only thing she had ever stolen in her life. She thrust the gun back into the valise and stood, blouse untucked, hair in disarray.

  “Ready,” she said.

  She held her breath as he opened the door. The valise hung heavy in her grasp. Bryan checked the passageway and then ushered her out. Jane moved past him and led the way, familiar with the layout of the vessel after so many days aboard. Treading lightly, they nevertheless dashed along the gangway, ducked into a stairwell hatch and made their way abovedecks. The April night air chilled her instantly and Jane wished she’d thought to take her coat, but there was no turning back. Nearly everyone would still be sleeping, unaware they’d reached port, but at least one or two of the crew would be on deck. They crouched low, hoping to avoid being spotted. Everything depended on it.

  Captain Gavriil had left a whip-thin, cruel-eyed man named Paolo to guard the gangway. The tip of Paolo’s lit cigarette glowed orange in the dark. Bored, pistol jutting from a holster at his side, Paolo did not seem like a man fearful that a murderer might attempt to rush him. Nevertheless, there was that gun, and Jane had seen the way the rest of the crew became uneasy when Paolo entered a room. Idle or not, he was dangerous.

  She handed Bryan her valise and gestured for him to remain in the darkness beside the chart house. Hugging herself against the cold, she walked toward the gangway, making no effort to muffle her footfalls. Paolo turned and stared at her. He drew a long puff on his cigarette, bright tip flaring, and watched her approach, but did not draw her gun. What threat did she pose?

  “Could I have one of those?” she asked.

  He glanced down toward the dock as if to be sure Gavriil would not suddenly appear and then reached inside his jacket for the pack.

  “Trouble sleeping?” he asked.

  “Every night since … well … it gets stuffy down below. Now that I’m up here, of course, I realize I should’ve brought my coat.”

  She took the cigarette he offered and leaned in as he lit it for her. Drawing the smoke into her lungs, she felt instantly warmer.

  “We’re waiting for morning to disembark?” she asked.

  “Harbormaster doesn’t arrive for at least an hour,” Paolo said, gaze turning lustful as he studied her. “We’re stuck here till then. You do look cold, miss. Let me give you my coat.”

  Jane smiled at him, one corner of her mouth curling upward to add a hint of coquettishness. “I wouldn’t say no.”

  As he slid out of his jacket, she shoved him overboard, reaching for his gun as he tipped over the railing. Her fingers missed and she came away with neither gun nor jacket. Paolo shouted as he fell, but not loudly, perhaps too shocked to do more than bark a little. She hated herself in that moment, said a silent prayer while he plummeted, and then thanked heaven when she heard a splash and not the crack of bone against the wooden dock.

  She ran down the gangway, trusting Bryan to catch up. When he did, she took the valise from him and cradled it against her chest as if it held her daughter’s life within. They ran up the dock and she listened for Paolo, hoping he would surface, weighing Franca’s life against the cruelty in his eyes. Would she be damned for what she’d done, if Paolo died?

  It mattered not at all. Not in the balance of things.

  Neville snorted loudly as he came awake, staring up into the face of Cesare. The man’s long mustache made him look a bit like a walrus and with his eyes wide, he seemed about to unleash some kind of Arctic mating call. Sleep cluttering his thoughts, Neville pushed Cesare away.

  “What are you—”

  Then the puzzle of information around him clicked together. Still dark beyond the porthole. The panic in Cesare’s eyes. Neville swept back his covers and swung his feet over the edge of the bed.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  “We’ve reached port and—”

  “What?”

  “The captain’s gone for the police, wanted to do it before we all woke to surprise the killer, so I’m told.”

  “All the better,” Neville said. “He’s a smarter man than I’d have guessed.”

  Cesare shook his head, wetted his lips with his tongue. This wasn’t what had him so fearful.

  “He set a guard. Paolo. But now the man’s disappeared, and so has Bryan. Patrick and I woke and he wasn’t in the cabin. We went searching, even knocked on Jane’s door but—”

  Neville frowned. “Why would you …”

  He caught the look in Cesare’s eyes, surprise that he hadn’t known and a trace of pity because they all knew that Neville was more than fond of her.

  “Bryan’s been to her cabin before,” he said, and saw the confirmation in Cesare’s face. “All right. So you went searching for him there. What did Jane say? Has she seen him?”

  “Jane isn’t there either. They’re both missing.”

  Cursing loudly, Neville reached for his boots.

  They went directly to the hold. The first mate had beaten them there, along with a raggedy looking crewman named Volk, who had a rifle cradled in his arms. The metal hatchway was still locked up tight, and Captain Gavriil and the mate had the only keys.

  “Open it,” Neville demanded.

  “Not until—” the mate began.

  Neville rounded on him, fury and a hundred ugly thoughts storming about inside his head. “Open the fucking door. We’re in port already. Volk can shoot us if we take anything that isn’t ours!”

  The first mate opened the hatch.

  Inside, the cargo was undisturbed. The crate that Neville had shepherded all the way from Turkey remained sealed. And yet … was there a certain amount of scoring around the edges of the lid? Panic surged through him as he snapped orders at Cesare and Volk, even as Patrick arrived to aid them. They had the lid off in moments.

  A few moments more and Neville’s worst fears were realized.

  The crate lay empty.

  Someone had stolen the jar. His heart sank as he began to understand, and he wondered how long ago the jar had been taken. But only the captain and the first mate have keys! he thought, and the whole, terrible truth struck him. The thief had stolen the jar before the hold had been locked, even before they had left port in Hawaii.

  Jane had been planning this from the moment she had learned that her daughter was dying.

  He wanted to be furious with her, but he understood. He might have done the same thing if it were his own daughter whose life flickered like a candle nearly at its end. But of course, the myths about the jar were just that, and Jane had made a terrible mistake. The police would be after her now. But they weren’t the only ones. Whoever had killed the Turks and the others—the barbaric son of a bitch who had slit their throats and taken their eyes—would be pursuing Jane as well.

  Neville leaned on the crate, exhaling loudly. He’d once believed that he might be in love with Jane. But there was nothing he could do for her now.

  “What do you think—?” Patrick said, but a sound cut him off. A roar of rage, a scream of unrelenting grief, Neville had never heard its like before. It echoed around the hold and multiplied, seemingly growing louder instead of quieter.

  Neville and the others staggered, not knowing which way to look or run because the cry came from everywhere. Then he spun around to face to doorway into the hold, and the shadow he saw there loosened his bowels and sent a chill through him like an electric shock.

  There, the murderer, the ki
ller, he thought, but it’s no woman or man, not human at all. As the scream faded at last and the shadow flitted from view, Neville realized that Jane’s fate was already sealed.

  Heavy, doom-laden footsteps sounded through the ship as the figure raced away, and he experienced only a shred of selfishness feeling glad that it was not coming for him.

  “Hurry,” Jane said. “Hurry!”

  “Not too fast,” Bryan replied. “Jane, take it easy. Take it slow. I know you want to get home to Franca, but you won’t do that if you’re caught. If we run into Gavriil and the police, and they get us, what’s going to happen?”

  She stared at him, valise clasped to her chest. He looked pointedly at it.

  “What’s going to happen, Jane?”

  “They’ll take it away.”

  Bryan nodded. “They’ll take it away from all of us.”

  A pre-dawn glow smeared the eastern skies above the city, vibrant colors destined to be dulled by factory smoke. They were huddled behind a pile of cargo waiting to be loaded onto ships, heavy wooden crates and thick hessian bags bulging at the seams. A few dockers were already wandering to work, smoking and laughing and cracking crude jokes. But it wasn’t these that Jane was worried about. It was Captain Gavriil, who had proven wiser than she had assumed, and the police he had gone to fetch. With several murders on board the ship—and, so the captain hoped, the murderer still safely asleep—he would be rushing as fast as he could.

  But Jane’s fear was twofold. First, that the murderer was something she could not quite understand, and that he or she was even now following their trail, the lure of the jar as strong as it had ever been. And second, she was filled with a burning terror that everything was happening just a moment too late. She would arrive home and Franca would be lying in her bed, still warm even as the heat of life bled from her, eyes still shining, skin still flushed.

  A moment too late. That was her greatest fear.

  Clutching the bag against her chest, one hand inside holding the gun, she nodded to Bryan and headed out across the waterfront.