The Night Boat

by Robert McCammon

Chapter Twenty-four

 

  "BAD WEATHER AHEAD," Cheyne said grimly, the muscles standing out on his forearms with the effort of handling the wheel. Timbers creaked the length of the boat; water struck the windshield with a noise like a handclap. Though the wind had quieted, the sea was rising. A bad sign.

  The sea was being churned into a frenzy further ahead, nearer Jamaica. They weren't moving fast enough, although Cheyne knew that the waves would be holding the U-boat back as well.

  Cheyne let the Pride run for openings through the waves, seeking smoother water before the foam crashed back and closed the holes; there was a strong current thrashing that wanted to take the rudder and spin the boat broadside. Cheyne cherished the Pride like a strong, responsive woman. He had built this boat with his own hands, with lumber stolen from Langstree's yard and salvaged engine parts. He'd captained the craft for seven years, using it to fish with a Carib crew. She was a fine, fast boat, with a good balance. He kept his attention focused directly ahead, at times checking a compass and a brass barometer mounted on the panel before him. The glass was low and still falling.

  "The sea can pound hell out of the U-boat," Jana said, "and it'll keep right on going because of the way it's built, low to the water. There's no capsizing it. "

  "All those years," Kip said to Moore, "those things were working to put the boat back to sea. . . maybe they'd been maintaining the engines as best they could even when they were on the bottom. All that time with a single purpose. A desire to strike back, a burning hate and need. " He'd related everything Boniface had said.

  "U-boat crewmen were trained to improve," Jana told him. "They used whatever was at hand - wires, cables, pieces of timber, even the bulkhead iron. There are documented cases of submarines being raised from the bottom after several days - just before their air gave out for good - due to the sheer guts and ingenuity of the crewmen. In some ways I think they must have been the bravest of all warriors. "

  "The Night Boat," Kip whispered to himself from where he stood at the rear of the wheelhouse, an arm hooked around a beam. He felt weary and battered, and he wondered what he would have done if his fears had been realized, if Myra and Mindy had been killed. When he'd seen that blood on the wall of his house, his world had begun to collapse. Two of the horrors had broken in and one had slashed his daughter with a claw, but Myra had fought them off with the rifle and had run to the village with Mindy in her arms. There she'd found more of the things, and they would have killed her in the street had a group of men not appeared through the smoke and held them back. She'd remembered Langstree, she'd told Kip, beating at the things with an iron pipe before he was dragged into their midst. Myra had found refuge in the grocery's cellar, along with a few other men and women. The things had almost ripped away the overhead trapdoor, but then the grocery had caught fire and they had scurried away, fearful of the flames. Myra and the others had barely gotten out before the burning roof had collapsed.

  "God," Kip said aloud, shaking off the terrible memory of her story. "What if it's taken another passage, moved toward Trinidad, or Haiti, or even the States? You said you'd force the boat onto Jacob's Teeth if you could catch it, Cheyne. I want to know how. "

  Cheyne didn't turn his head. He watched the storm curtain thickening. "When the time comes," he said. "I'll find it, all right. It's not through with me, just as I'm not through with it. "

  "Why?" Moore asked, moving alongside Cheyne and supporting himself against the instrumentation panel. "I've seen the hate and the fear in you. How did it get there?"

  "I think," Cheyne responded, light glinting off his golden amulet, "you see too much, Moore. " He paused a moment, as if weighing a decision. Then he nodded and spoke: "I have a nightmare, Moore. It won't let me be. I can't free myself of it. I am in a room, lying on the bare frame of a bed. I'm a child, and I know nothing of terror or the evil in man because my world is enclosed by the huge cathedral of the sea and sky. I lie in a darkened room and I listen to the nightbirds. But then they're silent, and there's another noise. A thin wailing noise that comes closer and closer, but I cannot escape. And then the noise is all around me, hot and screaming. There is no way to get out of that room.

  "I see a crack zigzag across the ceiling; I see the ceiling fall to pieces just as the rain of hot metal and fire pours through. Something jagged strikes my head and I try to scream but I have no voice. I cup my own blood in my hands, and the blood is bubbling. And then the pain. White hot. Unendurable. God, the pain. . . " Tiny beads of sweat had risen on his forehead.

  "I can smell myself burning, in this nightmare, and no one can help me because they can't reach me beneath the flaming timbers. And then darkness, a long terrible darkness. Finally there are people in white who tell me to rest. I lie in a green-walled room without mirrors. But one day I struggle up from my bed and I catch a glimpse of something reflected in the window glass. A monstrous face wrapped in yellowed bandages, shriveled and distorted, peering back, the swollen eyes widening. I smash my hand through the glass because I am afraid of what I see. I want to destroy that creature because I know someday its vision will destroy me. This is no longer the face of a man, but the face of anacri, a demon; and what is inside is no longer bravery but doglike cowardice. "

  Cheyne glanced at Moore; his face was drawn tight, the sweat standing out in relief. "When the Nazis shelled Caribville from their boat, my house was the first hit. My mother was driven to the edge of madness. You saw her. My father and a few of the others armed themselves with rifles and harpoons and went out in a small fishing boat to seek the monster. And that was the last I saw of him. The creatures in that Hell-spawned boat took away my life, Moore. They took away something good and replaced it with part of themselves; they're still reaching for me, in each hour of my waking, in every moment of my sleep. They keep returning to rip pieces of my soul away, and they won't stop until they have the all of me. I fear them as no man ever feared anything on this earth, Moore. Even now I tremble and sweat, and I despise myself for it. To a Carib, courage is life, and if I die as a coward my soul will never find peace. "

  He paused a moment, licked his lips, his eyes judging the width of the sea's corridors. "I left Caribville for ten years; I went to South America and worked as a hand on one of the coffee plantations in Brazil, later in the Colombia stone quarries, where I learned how to blast rock with dynamite. I was shunned and cursed by all as a symbol of bad luck, as a man with two faces, one good, the other twisted. A British woman was my only friend - the widow of a freighter captain killed in a wreck, who lived near the quarries and worked as a cook for the men. She was maybe twenty years older than me; she showed an interest, taught me how to read and write.

  "When I returned to Coquina to take on my responsibilities as Chief Father I knew I wasn't fit for the position. But someone had to do it, and I have the royal blood. For years, I managed to lead my people as best I could. I tried to exert some influence, tried to change enough of the old ways to allow us to live in peace with the white man. But then one day, as I stood on the point, I saw that huge boat rise from the Abyss. I trembled as I watched. The rage, the fear, the weakness: All of it flooded over me again. I forced myself to go down to the boatyard. I stood outside the shelter for a long time, but I couldn't make myself cross the threshold. In my arms I held a crate of dynamite: I was going to blow it to pieces. Instead I ran from that place, shaking like a cur. If I had destroyed it that night, if I had set the caps and fuses and lit them, none of what's happened on Coquina would have come about. There is much on my soul now. But I have a last chance. One last chance to find them, to destroy them before they slip away. I don't know if I can. But by God. . . by God, I must try. "

  The men were silent for a long time. Then Kip said, "Where'd you get that crate of dynamite?"

  "When they were building their hotel and marina," Cheyne said. "We stole it from them by the crateload and hid it in a shack out in the jungle. Most of it's rotted now, but there's
still some fit for use. "

  Ahead the sky was a mass of rolling clouds, yellow with black, swollen underbellies. The sea thundered against the hull, bursting around the bow and making the entire boat shudder. Cheyne pointed at the radio receiver. "Moore, see what you can pick up on that. "

  Moore switched it on and turned the dial; there was nothing but the loud crackle and blare of static. A voice faded in, then evaporated. The trawler was being rocked from side to side, the noise of a giant's fist pounding the keel. Moore turned away from the radio and looked toward Jana. "You should be back on Coquina," he told her.

  "I can make it," she said. "I've spent most of my life researching sunken wrecks, U-boats, and otherwise. Now, to see a boat like this one come back to life, riding the high seas. . . it may be evil, yes, it may destroy us. . . but I have to see it. "

  Moore shook his head. "You're either a fool or the gutsiest damn woman I ever met. " Something in her eyes kept him from saying anything else, although he couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was. There seemed to be a thin wall of mist between them, as lazy and serpentine as the deep Caribbean tides. He wanted to reach through, to pierce it with his fingers, to lay a hand against her cheek and feel the warmth of her flesh coursing through him. He was glad they were together but was deeply afraid for her as well. She was a beautiful woman, filled with life and hope, and he did not even attempt to raise his hand to reach for her. He knew it couldn't be. What was that about being of two different worlds? One of them was dark, the other light, and she was not part of what lay before him.

  "Bommies ahead," Cheyne said quietly.

  Moore turned to look; Kip joined them.

  The sea just beyond was a boiling maelstrom of black. When the waters parted for an instant Moore caught the glimpse of the green and brown hooks of a surface-grazing reef. Cheyne twisted the wheel to starboard, and as he did a wave struck the side, shaking them roughly. He brought the wheel back quickly, and began to zigzag through the waves that now lifted in all directions, swamping the foredeck and streaming through the scuppers. Something scraped noisily along the port side, just below the waterline. Cheyne hissed the breath out between his teeth. "We're in the midst of it," he said. "I need a watch at the bow. " He eased back on the throttles, cutting his speed.

  Moore glanced over. "I'll go," he said.

  "There's a coil of rope on the flooring back there. Tie it around your waist good and tight. Kip, you take the other end of it and do the same. When Moore goes out that doorway you hold yourself firm to one of those beams and let him have slack real slow. Keep the rope taut between you. "

  Kip helped Moore secure the rope, then slipped the other end beneath his arms and knotted it around his chest. "Be damned careful out there, David," he said, raising his voice over the noise of the sea.

  Moore nodded and then went out the doorway into the weather. A surge of spray slapped against him, almost knocking him back, but he clenched his teeth and began to move, hanging on to the starboard gunwale, creeping inch by inch toward the prow. Kip grasped the overhead beam behind him with one hand, bracing his feet against the door frame and letting out the line. A wave pounded diagonally across the Pride, hammering at Moore; he clung against a capstan for balance, the trawler pitching beneath him.

  He watched for the telltale coral swirls. A plateau of growth lay to port; Moore motioned in a starboard direction and the Pride responded. Other reefheads were exposed beyond, as the sea rose away from them; Moore waved his arm frantically. One of the bommies ground up under the hull with a long grating noise, but then they were through and Moore, straining his eyes, couldn't see any others. He stayed where he was, his arms aching and his lungs heaving to draw in air through the bitter salt spray. The trawler suddenly bucked upward as a green-veined wave crashed beneath, and Moore was driven to his knees, feeling the rope gnaw at his waist. With a shriek that was unlike anything he had ever heard before, the sea parted, sending the Pride racing down into a black gully before tossing it high again.

  Moore hung on; suddenly he was wearing his yellow slicker. Around him the crashing and grinding of water, the wind screaming in a high wail. He lay at the stern, fighting to control the rudder, hoping beyond all hope he could make harbor before this freak storm consumed his boat. Panic welled up within him: Don't lose control, he shouted to himself. For God's sake, don't lose control!

  "DAVID!" his wife screamed from the cabin companionway. And there they stood, both of them watching, their eyes frozen in white faces.

  "GET BACK INSIDE!" he shouted, the words twisted and hurled over his head.

  "PLEASE. . . !" she cried hopelessly.

  Ice filled his veins; he had seen it over her head: a wave that blocked out the sky, staining it deepest black, a churning wall of water that was going to sweep over them. He opened his mouth to shout because he knew she hadn't seen, but nothing came from his throat. Don't lose control! he shouted mentally. Let the wave break over the bow, let it break and keep control of this boat! It will lift the boat high and send it tumbling across its huge precipice, but KEEP YOUR HAND ON THIS TILLER!

  He watched it coming, could not speak, could not breathe, could not think. He saw their eyes fixed on him.

  An instant before the wave hit he took his hand away from the tiller, a self-protective instinct, throwing an arm over his face and screaming even as he knew it was a fatal, senseless mistake.

  A single cry tore at his heart before the water twisted the boat, before the black wave crashed broadside and covered Destiny's Child: "DAVID. . . !"

  When he reached back for the tiller it was gone; he was sealed in a coffin of water, twisted and mauled by the sheer force of the wave. He went down choking, hands gripping emptiness, around him the tangled timbers that had been Destiny's Child. He'd lost control for one instant; it had been enough to sweep them away from him forever. He'd failed them, failed them even as they trusted him with their lives.

  And now, on the Pride's pitching forward deck, Moore forced himself back from a voyage through rage and bitterness through the dark caverns of his own soul. He clutched at the capstan, his muscles aching; he ignored the sharp pulling at the line around him. He was afraid to move. The storm-swept sky and sea, the wind now building and hitting his face, the waves dancing madly before the bow all combined to haunt him with fragmented, horrible images of the past. Water crashed over him, streaming around his feet and threatening to suck him away from his hold.

  Yes, yes. Why not let go? Why not let the sea take you? This is the time you've waited for; this is the moment, the second, the place. When the next white sheet of water covers you over, let go. . . let go. Only an instant of pain, perhaps, as the sea fills your lungs and chokes the brain. An instant. That's all. He shook his head. No. Yes. No. NO! It was not suicide he'd followed across the world; no, the thought of that was repugnant to him. He had followed his beckoning destiny and now was not yet the time.

  Then from the blackness of the sea, crashing through the next wave that loomed overhead, a huge and terrible shape materialized. Foam swept the decks, shimmered like glass along its hull. A haunted boat, its railings strung with weed, chasms of water opening beneath it. The iron bow raced toward Moore.

  "Cheyne!" he shouted, twisting his head around.

  He saw the Carib's face through the glass: drawn, mouth open, eyes staring in cold terror. The man's hands clamped around the wheel, frozen in a collision course. Kip peered out behind Cheyne, reaching forward.

  "Cheyne!" Moore shouted again, unable to move.

  Water splattered the windshield and rolled off. When it had cleared Moore saw that the Carib's eyes were fierce holes, and his teeth were bared. Cheyne threw his shoulder into the wheel, spinning it to starboard; the Pride responded, sending another wall of water over Moore.

  The Night Boat passed to the port side only feet away; Moore could hear the hoarse rumblings of its engines, the taunting roar of a creature from the depth
s. The trawler listed to starboard and Moore lost his grip. He fell away from the capstan, slamming hard into the starboard gunwale. He heard the Night Boat's iron flesh rasp against wood. "God. . . " Moore hissed, salt stinging his eyes; he wiped the water away, saw the thing vanish through another high wave, trailing streaks of green luminescence. The rope tightened, almost cutting him in two; he pushed himself away from the gunwale and was dragged back into the wheelhouse.

  Cheyne fought to regain control of the rudder. The Pride wanted to break free and run, but he wouldn't let her go. "I won't lose it!" he breathed. "By God, I won't lose it!" The trawler shuddered, pitched high, but began to answer the helm. Cheyne worked against the wheel, the muscles of his back aching; Kip leaped to his side and together they righted the boat.

  Moore lay back against the wheelhouse bulkhead trying to catch his breath, coughing and trembling. Jana was suddenly at his side, bending over him. "It came out of the dark," he told her between coughs. "I didn't have time to. . . "

  "It's all right," she said. "It's gone. "

  "No, not gone," Cheyne said. "They turned back to ram us under; they know we're here, and they know we're following. Now maybe they're after us, playing with us a little bit, biding their time. " He shook his fist at the dark sea. "Damn you, where are you? I'll follow you into Hell, you sonofabitch!"

  Moore waited a few minutes longer, until his strength had returned, then he rose shakily to his feet and came alongside Cheyne; he reached up and searched the radio band. There was only more static. Ahead the sky was solid black; a dozen or more jagged white bolts of lightning cut the wide range of the horizon. Now they couldn't be certain where the U-boat was. It could be moving alongside them, turning to ram them from behind, or waiting ahead for a confrontation of flesh and iron.

  The black door was wide open; the Pride hurtled through.