by Ben Hammott
Beetle husks half-filled the coffin. His fingers probed the dried carcasses for treasure and hooked on something hard. He pulled it free of the dead insects and almost staggered back in surprise when the light glinted off the golden object. The beetle carcasses crackled when he pulled more of the object free. Baraz shook with excitement as he stared at the amount of gold hanging over the edge of the crate. It seemed to be a net formed of thin rods of gold joined together with small golden links. Baraz smiled greedily. He had just become a rich man.
When he sensed someone watching him, he glanced furtively around the room. He relaxed when he saw that, except for a rat perched on a crate looking at him, he was alone and his nerves were responsible. For a few moments, he enjoyed the sensation of running his covetous fingers over the golden net that would change his life before he pulled it free of the sarcophagus. Aware he wouldn’t be able to carry it off the ship without putting it in something, he searched the hold for something suitable. The scent of coffee drew him to a stack of burlap sacks bulging with strong smelling beans. A swipe of the knife he always carried split the sack along the top and spilled the dark brown beans to the floor.
The rat watched the man walk through the hold and then leapt across the crates until it reached the open sarcophagus. It balanced on the edge and sniffed the strong scent of decay inside. Suddenly, a bony, withered claw grabbed it around its neck and yanked it inside. The sounds of ripping flesh and crunching bones quickly followed.
Baraz returned, knelt beside the golden pile and snuffed it into the sack. It barely fit inside. He twisted the top into a handle and lifted. Though heavy, it was a weight he would happily endure. He lifted it on top of one of the smaller crates while he searched the sarcophagus for more treasure. He smiled greedily. You can never have too much.
He put his face nearer the gap and shone the lighter flame along its length. The beetle corpses shifted eerily, as if something moved beneath. Baraz noticed something reflecting the flickering flame at the far end of the coffin. Hoping it was more gold or jewels, he dipped his head farther through the hole for a better look. Fear spread across his face at the sight of the red eyes staring at him and the half-eaten rodent gripped between sharp teeth. The flash of a sharp talon-tipped claw ripped the rat corpse from its jaws when it rushed at him. A glimpse of teeth parting to receive his flesh was followed by a draft of foul, ancient breath.
Baraz dropped the lighter as he jerked his head from the hole and screamed. He stumbled and fell to the floor, banging his head on landing. Stone grinding against stone and the screech of nails forced from wood signaled the monster’s exit from the sarcophagus. Baraz turned away from the monstrosity that appeared and perched on the crate, looking down at him like a monstrous gargoyle. Sobbing and shaking with fear, he twisted onto his stomach and left a damp trail of urine as he crawled away. Breath whooshed from his mouth when the monster landed on his back. His terrified scream was cut short by the claws that raked across his throat.
Baraz’s life ebbed away to the sounds of his blood gurgling and the monster feasting on his flesh. Tears filled his eyes. His last thought was that he would never get the chance to live the rich life he deserved and had always dreamt of.
CHAPTER 6
Missing
When Peter Kilburn failed to turn up for breakfast the following morning, those at his table and their waiter thought little of it. When he remained absent at dinner and inquires revealed he hadn’t been seen all day, concern that he may have fallen ill again sent the steward to his cabin.
The steward knocked on the door of cabin ten. “Mr. Kilburn, I have been sent to inquire about your well-being as you were absent from breakfast and dinner. Is there anything I can get for you?”
After a few moments wait, he knocked again. Concerned the man might be too ill to reply, he placed his master cabin key in the lock. “I am going to come in, Mr. Kilburn.” He turned the key and opened the door.
The steward’s gaze took in the empty beds and the dried bloodstains on the carpet. Fearing Kilburn had been injured in some manner, he opened the door wider and stepped into the room. He headed for the bathroom, the only other place the passenger might be. He knocked and opened the door. He balked at the smell that rushed out and assaulted him. It smelt like a sewer, but it was empty. He stepped back into the cabin and promptly closed the door. His eyes fell on the dark red stains around the porthole. He moved closer and examined the lumps trapped in what could only be blood. He was no expert, but it looked like pieces of skin. He stared at the porthole, wondering what the hell had happened here. Had Kilburn, for some inexplicable reason, forced himself through the window?
Out of his depth, the steward locked the cabin door behind him and went to inform the captain of what he had discovered.
Captain Ferdinand Magellan stared at his steward who had just informed him of the condition of cabin ten. A passenger, Peter Kilburn, who had turned up for breakfast two mornings previous with wounds that may have been caused by a beating, now seemed to be missing. The blood in his cabin indicated something was amiss. The doctor he had sent for entered his private quarters and was quickly brought aware of the circumstances. The three concerned men then headed for cabin ten to assess the situation.
Doctor Harnett took in the bloodstain on the floor as he moved to the porthole and examined the substance stuck to the frame before giving his verdict. “It’s unmistakably blood and pieces of skin.” He turned to the captain. “I would hazard a guess that a body was forced through the porthole.”
Hiding his shock at the doctor’s revelation, Captain Magellan asked, “Can you tell if that person was alive when it went through?”
The doctor glanced at the bloodstain on the floor; it seemed more blood than he’d expect from the wounds described on Kilburn’s face and an indication something much more serious had taken place in this room. Perhaps even murder.
“The absence of any great quantity of blood around the porthole or the floor below, likely indicates a corpse was forced through.”
The doctor pushed the table aside and stuck his head out of the window. “Ah ha!” The doctor pulled his head back inside. “There is evidence of blood on the promenade roof directly below the window, but no body. This means unless it rolled off after landing, someone must have climbed onto the roof and pushed the body into the sea. The bloody drag marks clearly point to the latter. Captain, it seems you have a murderer onboard your ship.”
“But we still don’t know if Kilburn is the victim or the murderer.” The captain peered out the window to see for himself and then gazed around the cabin. “Our priority is to discover if Mr. Kilburn is still aboard the ship. If he is, then we need to find out who has been murdered and whether Kilburn or someone else was responsible. Until we have ascertained what has occurred, I’ll hold off alerting the English authorities of what might have taken place. If someone has been murdered, as it seems they have, they’ll need to carry out an investigation when we reach port. In the meantime, I want this cabin kept locked and out of bounds and what we have seen here stays with us three.” He glanced at the two men in turn. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said the steward.
The doctor nodded.
The three men left the room.
When Captain Magellan assigned two men the task of searching for the missing passenger, he decided it was best to inform them the man they looked for might be a murderer and thus possibly dangerous.
CHAPTER 7
Manhunt
After the two men tasked with looking for Peter Kilburn had searched the public areas without finding any sign of the missing passenger, they moved along C-deck corridor searching the crew quarters. When they arrived at the cargo hold door without finding him, they entered.
Danny O’Conner grabbed two flashlights from the rack beside the door and handed one to Eddie Swain.
Swain switched on the flashlight and swept it around the uninviting gloom that filled the hold. “Do we split up o
r stay together?”
O’Conner glanced around the large hold. “It’ll be quicker if we split up. If you spot him, give me a call, and I’ll alert you if I come across him.”
The two men headed into the hold and separated to search the left and right sides of the aisle.
Swain sidled through the narrow alley between two rows of stacked cargo, aimed the flashlight into any dark areas he encountered and climbed on crates to check no one hid amongst them. A low rumbling growl froze him. His eyes and light shot toward the sound; nothing. He briefly analyzed what he had just heard. If it was the murderer, he might have come in here to hide, fallen asleep and it had been a snore he had heard. He cocked an ear and remained still for a few moments, listening for another possible snore to pinpoint the man’s location, but it never came. He glanced over at O’Conner’s light moving across the crates as he thought about calling him over, but worried that if the man, who might be armed and dangerous, was asleep he might wake him, he decided against it. He moved around the pallets toward where he judged the sound had come from. His foot squelched on something. The light he aimed at his feet picked out the remains of a partially eaten rat. He grimaced at the gruesome sight. Had the murderer eaten it? He glanced around, thinking maybe the ship’s cat had snuck in.
A shuffling turned his attention away from the half-eaten vermin and focused on the stack of odd-shaped crates a short distance away. He detected regular breathing. Someone was hiding and seemed to be asleep as he had suspected. He cautiously moved nearer. The gaps either side of the crates were too narrow for Swain to fit through, so he climbed on top and peered into the dark well formed by the surrounding cargo. Though difficult to make out, he sensed something was there; a vague, slightly darker shape than the shadows that concealed it. Though difficult to tell if it was human or a piece of cargo, he decided against shining his light in the gap, lest he wake the possible murderer.
When Swain edged closer for a better look, he banged a knee on the edge of a crate and cursed the sleeping man. Certain anyone in the area would have been warned of his presence now, he rubbed his pained knee with one hand and held out the flashlight to banish the darkness below. The area was empty.
O’Conner aimed his flashlight down another empty aisle and glanced toward the far side of the hold. It was taking ages to search through the cargo full of hiding places. If the murderer was in here, he could easily dodge them and circle behind using the cargo as cover. They needed more men. He glimpsed movement across the room. Swain was atop a stack of crates. O’Conner was about to call out and ask if he had found any signs of the intruder, when he noticed a look of fear appear on his friend’s face. Even from this distance, he saw the man shaking.
Something screeched.
Swain screamed when something slammed into him and knocked him behind the crates.
Shocked by what had happened, O’Conner tried to make sense of what had attacked his friend. Swain’s flashlight must have fallen from his hand as it now cast the shadow of the small, dark thing O’Conner had briefly spotted raising a claw. Swain’s terrified scream filled the room when the claw slashed down.
O’Conner had witnessed enough to know no human was responsible; a wild beast was free in the cargo hold. To the sound of ripping flesh and in fear of his life, he sprinted for the exit and slammed the door shut behind him.
*****
With his chief purser in tow, the captain entered the crew’s mess hall, pushed though the small group gathered around O’Conner and stared at the obviously distressed man. “What happened, Danny?”
“It’s Swain, sir, he’s…”
The captain silenced crewwoman Sally Nudgel with a raised hand. “I want to hear the report firsthand.”
O’Conner, pale and shaking, looked at the captain. “Swain’s dead, sir.”
“Are you certain?”
O’Conner relived the terrible moment when his friend’s scream was cut short and the sounds of his ripping flesh that followed, and nodded.
“Was the murderer responsible?” prodded the captain. He couldn’t imagine who else would have done such a thing.
“No, sir, it was…it was…I’m not sure what it was.”
“It, I don’t understand,” said the confused captain. “You were with Swain, so how did he die and who killed him?”
“We had split up to search the hold for the stowaway, when something attacked and killed Swain.”
“You mean someone, surely?”
O’Conner shook his head. “No, sir. It wasn’t human, but an animal, I think.”
Captain Magellan felt another of his recurring migraines creeping toward the front of his brain. This was getting weirder by the minute. “An animal, are you certain? You actually saw an animal attack and kill Swain?”
“I think so, sir. It was dark and I only caught a glimpse, but I can’t see what else it could have been except for an animal.”
The captain sighed and turned to the purser. “Do we have any livestock in the cargo hold?”
“Nothing that could have done what O’Conner described, sir. The only livestock aboard officially are a couple of the passengers’ pets—two small dogs—and except when they are taken for a walk, they are kept in their cabins.”
The captain stroked his beard as he studied O’Conner. He knew the man well. They had sailed together for a few years now, and he had always been levelheaded and responsible.
“Okay, O’Conner, let’s assume for arguments sake that an animal managed to sneak aboard, or someone smuggled one into the cargo hold while we were in port, what sort of animal did you see?”
“I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t get a good look as it happened so fast, but it was small. Monkey size, I think.”
“A monkey!” exclaimed the captain. “Monkeys don’t go around killing people.”
“I’m just telling you what I saw, sir. It might not be a monkey, but what killed Swain was about the same size.”
“But you are certain Swain is dead?”
“I’m quite sure, sir, as the monk…creature was eating him.”
The captain faced those in the room. “This is what we’ll do. An armed security detail will enter the cargo hold to check on Swain’s condition. If he’s wounded, they’ll bring him out. If he is dead, they will find and kill whatever attacked him. The rest of you will carry on with your duties as if nothing has happened and no word of this…incident, is to be leaked to the passengers.” He looked at O’Conner. “You will go to your cabin and rest. Someone will take over your duties until you feel you can carry on.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“It goes without saying that no one other than the security detail is to enter the cargo hold. If Swain has been killed, whatever was responsible for his demise, it is a crime scene now. When the security detail has completed their duties within, a guard will be posted until we reach port and the authorities can come aboard and carry out whatever investigation they feel appropriate. Are there any questions?”
Captain Magellan glanced at the slightly shocked faces, but no one spoke.
“Good. Now, everyone who is currently on duty return to work.”
Wincing from the migraine now in full attack mode, Captain Magellan strode from the mess hall to arrange the security detail. Animal or not, they still had a murderer and Peter Kilburn to find if he was still aboard.
*****
The four members of the security detail halted outside the cargo hold door, however, no one attempted to open it.
“Why are we so worried?” asked Owen, nervously. “It’s probably only a monkey, and we have guns.”
“Yeah, maybe so, but they are fast little buggers,” said Eddie, not pleased with the interruption to his normally cushy job where an irate or out of hand drunken passenger was the most serious offence they usually had to handle. He definitely didn’t sign up to hunt down killer animals.
“O’Conner wasn’t certain it was a monkey,” corrected Thomas. “It might be a dog or something. A r
abid dog will attack a man.”
Coleman reached for the wheel that unlocked the door. “Yeah, well, helpful as all this speculation isn’t, let’s just go in there, find out what happened to Swain and shoot whatever animal’s in there, be it a chimp, baboon, rabid hound or King Kong.”
Coleman pushed the door open, raised his gun and aimed his flashlight inside.
The others peered past him into the cavernous room, and apprehensive of what might be waiting for them inside, they followed Coleman into the cargo hold with their weapons drawn and ready to shoot anything that moved.
Thomas glanced around the gloomy hold illuminated by their four beams. “Do we split up and search?”
Coleman glanced at him. “No, Thomas, we stay together. Swain and O’Conner split up and look how that turned out. “He glanced behind at the open door. “Eddie, shut the damn door.”
“But we might need to make a quick exit,” Eddie argued.
Coleman sighed. “There’s four of us armed with guns that could blow its head off, so if anyone’s going to be seeking a quick exit, it’s going to be the damned creature and it will be a bloody sight harder to find if it gets out that door.”
Eddie reluctantly closed the door.
Coleman aimed his light over to the right. “O’Conner said that was where Swain was attacked. Eddie, you’re probably too fat to fit through the gaps”―Eddie knew it was true―”so you and Thomas remain in the aisle and keep your eyes peeled for the thing creeping up on me and Owen.”
He turned to Eddie and nodded at the gun the man held.
“Watch where you aim that thing and be aware of where we are at all times so you don’t mistake us for the creature and shoot.”
Eddie nodded. He was a terrible shot and hoped he wouldn’t need to fire the weapon he gripped nervously.
