The Night Boat

by Robert McCammon

Chapter Four

 

  MOORE WAS CHOKING for air, tumbling head-over-heels down into a maelstrom of water. Around him loomed the huge gray-green walls of the sea; he was captive in a liquid mansion, falling through the thousand rooms, falling from attic to cellar, from light into darkness.

  You've left them alone, his voice shrieked at him. You've left them alone and they're afraid and they don't know what to do. . .

  The water had him, closing in, pounding pressure squeezing his lungs.

  They're afraid. . . they're afraid. . .

  He braced his shoulders against the sea, straining, fighting it; he kicked upward, encumbered by something yellow and bulky on his body. The foul-weather slicker. He kicked again, clawing at the sea, fighting upward against it, the air ebbing from his body with each second. Don't leave them, you musn't, no, no, no. Reach them, please oh God give me strength, let me, let me please this time. . .

  When he reached the surface he was able to drag in only a small bit of air before the water crashed down over him, driving him under again. He fought free, staring about wildly in the darkness. There was a scream of wind and water, as though they were crazed beasts fighting madly. And caught between them, their boat creating a foaming wave, heeling sharply to port, the water pouring in sheets across the deck. He could see them reaching out for him, but the ocean separated them and the wind was drawing them away. He called out for them but the roaring shriek of the storm took his words and ripped them to pieces, spinning them out into space. He reached out his hand but then the wave came, a mountainous jagged thing of glistening stone, and he watched it, horrified as it crashed down over them, splintering through wood, driving them down in a spray that exploded with the shards of what had been a teak deck. He could only see them an instant more, frozen in the stucco of foam and black walls, and when he heard his name cried out he wanted the sea to sweep down his throat and take him too, but that was when the spinning section of transom came up under him, forcing him to dig in his nails and cling to it. It lifted him from height to height and on and on; before him he could read the red letters, the name that seared his brain as if each letter were a point of flame: Destiny's Child.

  Please. . . don't leave them alone. . . they're afraid. . . please. . . please. . .

  ". . . please," he said, opening his eyes and feeling the pinprick beads of cold sweat on his eyebrows. A soft night breeze wafted in through the open terrace doors. Palm fronds clattered gently just outside, and he could see their shadows, like fingers, in the pale ivory moonlight that painted one wall of his bedroom. Somewhere far away, past the village, a dog was barking. A cockatoo cried in the jungle, a sad and mournful sound of the night. Moore put his face into his hands, waiting. God, he breathed. God. Some nights they were worse than others; some nights they were so real he couldn't shake them, and they laid back yet another layer of raw flesh. This one he'd had before, though they were all variations of the same thing. He hadn't been taking the sleeping pills Dr. Maxwell had given him for some time, because he always convinced himself he could sleep soundly without them. Now he wondered if there were enough in the little amber bottle to get him through the rest of the week. He lay there for a few more moments, and when he wiped his face he realized his eyes were moist. When he started to get out of bed the girl beside him reached out and caught his arm. "What is it?" she asked, coming fully awake.

  "It's nothing," he told her. "Go back to sleep. "

  She stared at him, her dark eyes darker against the tint of her flesh. Her hair was cut short - like they were wearing it in Kingston and easy to manage, she had said when he complimented her. She drew her knees up, lifted her purse from where she'd put it on the floor, rummaged for a cigarette, found one, and lit it. He sat beside her on the edge of the bed, and she traced a line down the center of his back with a fingernail. Her name was Claire, she was from Old Man's Cay, and a few more as generous as this one and she could pay a freighter for passage to Trinidad. "Come on," she said. "I'm not sleepy anymore. "

  He said nothing, listening to the roll of the ocean.

  After a while she stabbed her cigarette out in an ashtray beside the bed and stood up, her lean, firm body and carnelian-tipped breasts catching moonlight. She took the clothes she'd folded over a chair and began to dress. Moore sat where he was. "I'd better go," she said. "I don't like sleeping in a strange bed. "

  "Neither do I," he said quietly.

  "My sister's going to get me a job on Trinidad," she said, trying to lighten his mood with some casual conversation. "She's a dental receptionist. " She narrowed her eyes at his back, struck by his defenseless, unmoving posture. He had a strong body, he was young and had seemed okay when they'd met at the Landfall Tavern that afternoon, but now he was so detached and distant. "Wasn't everything as you wanted it?" she asked him finally.

  "Yes. " He wiped the moisture from his face, stood up. "It was fine. " He got a striped terry-cloth robe out of his closet and put it on. When he turned back he saw the sea shimmering, patches of silver and black, through the terrace doors. The moon hung in the center of pendulous, free-form clouds. From its position in the sky Moore estimated that it was a little past three. His gaze moved, as if drawn, to the dark line that lay just outside the sheen of the harbor. He could see the flashes of white breaking around the reef's exposed bommies; then he saw that other thing, that long black shape lying across the reef. It seemed still wedged tight in the same position it had been in when he'd looked last. He was afraid the surf would eventually beat the hulk free, but it was still angled toward the sky, the sea foaming in silver and green swirls of luminescence along its hull.

  The hulk, dappled with moonlight and cloud-shadow like an eerie camouflage, sent a slow crawl up his spine. How the hell did it come to be buried beneath the sand? he wondered. And, more importantly, whose boat was it? British? American? German? He focused his eyes, aware of the rustling of the girl's skirt across the room. A U-boat? One of Hitler's wolf-boats prowling the deep currents, here in the placid Caribbean? It looked like a dark coffin recently exhumed. He shook off the image quickly; but he couldn't shake a strange idea he'd had all day, something that had made him want to get to the Landfall Tavern, down a few comforting shots of rum, and seek some companionship for the night ahead.

  It was almost as if he'd felt compelled to try to dig that thing out underwater; he had known he was approaching his diving limits and he shouldn't have been that deep. He had this feeling he'd been lured there, enticed by that periscope jutting from the sand. He wasn't responsible for finding the submarine; rather, it had somehow found him and pressed him into service.

  Claire was buttoning her blouse, still watching him, tired but half-hopeful he would warm to her again, offer her a bit more money. He was an attractive man and he had made love to her in a gentle but demanding way that had nearly succeeded in exciting her.

  Suddenly he turned from the window. "I'll make you something to eat before you go," he told her.

  She closed the last button. "I can't eat in the middle of the night," she said, laughing.

  He shut the terrace doors and waited until they were out in the corridor before he switched on the lights. They descended a stairway, and when they got to the front room Moore turned on a pair of lamps, which surrounded them with a warm, smoky glow. Claire squinted a fraction through sleep-swollen eyes and smoothed her skirt down over her hips because she knew it was wrinkled. "I don't look too good in the light," she apologized.

  Moore gazed at her; she was a pretty girl, very young, hardly out of her teens, but already the lines were showing. Very few women were able to keep their looks after a few years under the searing Caribbean sun, and she would be no exception. But he smiled at her, knowing she was fishing for a compliment. "I think you're very attractive. Sexy. How about a cup of coffee?"

  She gave a half-nod and sat down in one of the wicker chairs. She put her purse, made a bit heavier by his money, on the long table mad
e of a solid piece of driftwood, sanded and oiled. Across the bare wood floor there was a rug of woven seagrass; there were book-lined shelves, most of them old paperbacks, a small fireplace with a stone mantel. A group of primitive paintings, done in wild and vivid splashes of color by some island artist, decorated one wall.

  Moore went back through a connecting doorway down another corridor to a kitchen; he made two cups of the strong, rather sweet, island brew and brought one of them to her. He crossed the room and took a decanter from a shelf to pour a stiff shot of dark rum into his cup. He sipped at the fortified coffee, feeling it light up his insides and chase the bad dreams away. As he turned back to her he caught a glimpse of the harbor stretched out below the hotel through one of the many square windows that lined the room. Moonlight glistened on the submarine, giving it shadowy teeth.

  "Too early for that," Claire said, indicating his cup. "You drank a good bit down in the tavern. "

  He shrugged offhandedly and sat down in a chair across from her, unable to concentrate on anything but his dream and the events of the previous day. He had filled out some forms at the constable's office and Kip had witnessed them. He was uncertain about procedure on a military vessel but, he'd said, at least they were getting something down on paper. Then, there were two ways to go: contacting the Coast Guard to have the boat towed off and possibly sunk in deeper water, or sending out feelers over the radio-telephone to the two nearest large islands. Jamaica was approximately two hundred miles to the northwest and Haiti one hundred to the north. Kip had a cousin working for the police in Kingston, who could probably fill them in on the procedures so everything would be aboveboard and legal. If anyone wanted a look at the boat the word would get out. Moore had decided to wait on informing the Coast Guard and see what developed. Kip had agreed, for as long as he could placate Mayor Reynard. Then he cautioned Moore against any more diving in that damned Abyss - at least until the mess was cleared up. "Where'd that thing come from?" Claire asked him.

  He looked up at her, finally registering what she'd said. "What thing?"

  "I saw you lookin' at it, upstairs, and then out the window. The boat. "

  "Underwater," he said. "Other than that I don't know. "

  The girl was right: It was too early for rum. You're older and wiser and this only compounds the sickness. Or so the doctors had said. Time doesn't heal, Moore thought suddenly, it only makes you forget the name of your illness. And what was it called? There was a medical term for it that Moore didn't remember. The layman's label was much simpler: "survivor's syndrome. "

  Claire looked up, putting the empty cup aside, went to the window, and gazed down. "It's a big one. The men are already talking about it in the taverns. "

  "Are they? What do they say?"

  "Funny things, things I don't understand so good. It's made some of them afraid, and there's a lot of whisperin' goin' on. "

  "Are you afraid of it?" he asked.

  She paused, then smiled awkwardly, but the smile was quickly gone. "I've never seen nothin' like it before. But. . . I don't know. Mebbe. A closed-up thing like that, as huge as it is, like something from a bad night. I get chills thinking about it. " She watched him, seeing his gaze go through her as if she were invisible. She picked up her purse. "I should go. "

  "Let me get dressed and I'll walk you down," he told her as he got to his feet, but she shook her head.

  "No need. I be all right. You ever want to see me again I'll be down by the tavern somewhere, but I figure to be leaving here soon. " As he approached her she reached out and touched his hand. It was as cold and hard as stone. She smiled again, showing teeth sharpened by chewing sugar cane, and then she was gone out the door and along High Street. She headed for the dark village below, keeping her eyes away from the thing lying across the reef. For a long while Moore stood in the doorway and watched her walk away, knowing she'd be okay but wishing all the while he'd gone with her just so that he could be with someone. And then he couldn't see her anymore and he closed the door.

  He felt weary suddenly, and after a while he turned off the lights and climbed the stairs in darkness.

  On Kiss Bottom, surf surged in around the hulk, hammering at iron, foaming in and then back, again and again. A dog howled in the village, and another began barking, brokenly, in answer.

  There was a manta ray sailing across the moon.

  The aged black fisherman could clearly see its lines, the ridges along its extended wings, the long, sweeping tail trailing after it. It was a big one, he thought, plenty big enough bait for hungry snappers. As he watched, the wide cloud changed, curled in upon itself, became the silver image of a flying fish reaching for a height its ocean brothers could only dream of. Then the wings melted and it became a man's face with an open mouth. He could see the wide eyes, the cheekbones, the point of a chin. But there was fear in that face, and as he continued to observe the cloud, the look of the thing frightened him. The mouth opened wider, wider, in the outcry of one who has seen a terrible vision but does not yet know what he has seen. He felt the breeze knife through his bones. The mouth, opened as wide as possible, suddenly split from the face and became a separate cloud; now it was no longer a face but something grotesque and unrecognizable, turning in on itself like a maddened beast.

  Abruptly the fisherman turned his gaze away.

  There was a sharp bark, then a subdued growling.

  "Hey!" said the old man. "Hey! You leave them be!"

  The old man's terrier mutt, perched on top of the fishing skiff's wet-well, had been watching the bone-white squid as they darted and dived, their tentacles tangling together. "You put your nose in there, Coconut," said the fisherman, "and one 'o them boys bite it off sure as I tells you!"

  The mutt scampered away from the wet-well and to the stern, where his master sat with one hand on the tiller of a small trolling motor. "I ought to throw you to the merrimaids," the old man said, feigning disgust.

  There were less than two hours until first light, and the fat squid that usually rose around Kiss Bottom at this time of the morning were nowhere in sight. He had caught what he could, mesmerizing the fish with the beam of a flashlight and then scooping them out, twisting and coiled, with a net. He could tell time by the rise of the squids, and in twenty years of foraging them from the reef that clock had never been off. Where were they this morning? He sat back in the stern, seeing the huge angled shape just ahead, hearing the soft thunder of the sea around it.

  It was that bastard scaring the squid away. Damned thing prob'ly rustin' into the sea, and the squids taste the rust and go back down for the sweeter depths. He had seen the thing wedged onto the reef, and he'd marveled at its size. He'd never seen a boat like that before, all tight and sealed shut. How did the captain breathe, or any of the crew? Damn, but it was a mystery! His wife hadn't wanted him to go out this morning, but in all of twenty years only the storms had kept him from squidding. No damned rusting shell was going to scare him off, he'd told her. "And besides," he'd said, "the thing is dead. " "No, no," she'd told him, "you don't know nothin' about it. I was here then. You don't know 'cause you came after it was over and done. "

  Superstitions. They was all the time eatin' at a woman, tryin' to get at a man too. Not that he didn't listen hard to the winds and the tides, or believe in the power of Rev. Boniface. But some things - old things his father and grandfather had sworn by a long time ago - he refused to put his faith in.

  The water hissed along the thing's spine as he neared it. Damn thing got a nest of snakes in it, he thought. He looked toward the towering bow, ran his gaze past the rise of the conning tower. The boat was battered pretty bad, but no algae growths marked the iron. That was plenty peculiar. As he watched, a swell rolled across the stern leaving a trail of dull green phosphorescence and brown seaweed. It was an underwater boat, his wife had told him. Something bad and unnatural about it, she'd said. How could it stay under and then come back up again? He shook his head. It wa
s a mystery, one that was beyond him. Coconut barked sharply again, stirring him from his thoughts.

  Strands of weed, as long and brown as a woman's hair, rolled across the reef. His skiff was jostled by swells, and he put a hand on each gunwale to steady himself. He realized he was getting a little too close to the bommies, and he'd had a skiff peeled open before, so he turned his tiller to get away. Across the reef the seaweed swirled, a dance of the morning tides, and the phosphorescence gleamed like liquid emeralds.

  And then, as if from a distance, came a low grinding noise.

  The old man's flesh crawled; beside him the dog jumped, yipped.

  Silence. The sea, the breezes whining around broken railings.

  Coconut began to bark again. "Hush! Hush, I said!" The old man reached down for his flashlight and snapped it on, pointing it into the water at the submarine's hull.

  A rush of foam kept him from seeing anything; he moved the light toward the stern, his mouth suddenly gone dry. Then the grinding noise returned, full force, and from the foam came a clump of coral and weed that looked like a decapitated head. Water rolled in, hammering, pulling. At first he didn't understand, but as he followed the beam of the light the realization came clear to him, and it clawed at his heart. The boat had moved, just slightly, but it had moved. It was sliding backward, grinding over the reef. The currents were freeing it.

  "Great God!" he cried out; the hulk shuddered, and he almost dropped his light. The grinding quieted, almost vanished, then picked up again: a hideous scream of iron ripping coral. "Hey!" the old man shouted toward the sleeping village. They had to hear it. They had to, the sleepin' fools! "HEY! HEY!" But now the grinding was too loud, it filled his brain and ears and mouth so he could neither shout out nor hear his own words. When the skiff rose over the next swell he tripped over the dog; as he grabbed for the starboard gunwale the flashlight fell from his fingers and into the sea. In blackness, he reached for the tiller.

  But before he could grasp it, he was riveted in place.

  His eyes, accustomed to the darkness now, saw the shadowy thing begin to slide off the reef with a low, ominous groaning and a hissing of foam. Something unnatural, his wife had said. Water roiled across the boat's deck as it settled down; it gurgled through vents and sloshed across the deck debris. Something was hammering, hammering, hammering. . .

  It's sinkin'! he thought, glad to see it go. He twisted the tiller around, his breath harsh and forced, and made for the reef entrance. The dog was whimpering at his feet, but even when he shoved him with a foot, Coconut wouldn't stop crying. He could see the swirls of water at the entrance, and the two buoys were clanging simultaneously, like church bells, again and again and again. He was only a few yards from the passage when he turned in his seat to watch the hulk go under.

  But there was something black behind him, something huge, bearing down on him, cutting the sea to ribbons on either side. It twisted his guts in utter terror and forced his mouth open in a soundless scream. He let go the tiller, held up his hands to try to ward it off. The skiff, out of control, turned broadside in its path.

  The looming bows drove across the fisherman's craft, splitting it, grinding it down; timbers exploded into the sky, then whirled in circles and fell back. Iron roared, tearing through reef bommies. The buoys clanged madly, the sea almost smothering them. With a long, piercing shriek the hulk passed through the entrance, struck sand bottom with a hollow, reverberating boom and finally lay still, the water still churning all along it. The submarine lay just inside the harbor, stuck on a narrow sandbar. Behind it, spreading like an oil slick, was a mass of timbers. In the midst of it was a crushed thing that had been a human body.

  Lights began to come on in the village, one yellow dot at a time, and a dog howled as if trying to scare the moon away.