Garret opened the next door. Two women were sitting on the bed, scantily clad in something he’d never seen Molly wear. It looked like it was made of nothing but straps and lace. They were talking and brushing each other’s hair. The brunette with the wider hips glanced up at him indignantly, then paled as the woman downstairs had. The thin blonde turned, caught sight of him, looked him up and down, blood and all, and gave him a Come Hither smile.
Garret opened the next door and found two more women. The red-head with long blue fingernails was naked. The bustier brunette still had panties on. Again, lots of lace. Between them, also naked, lay Joseph Bendetti.
Joseph was, if possible, even skinnier than before. Or perhaps it was that Garret had simply never seen the other boy without his clothes. He looked like an overgrown ten year old, nothing but elbows and ribs from the waist up, and from the waist down, well, there wasn’t much to see there either.
Joseph’s skin had always been pale, but now it was pale as if sick. He was saying something to the redhead, but at the sound of the door opening, he raised his head and squinted at the door.
“I think you’re in the wrong room, sir,” he said warily.
“Joseph, it’s me,” Garret said. Garret’s whole body was suddenly wracked with pain. He struggled to remain standing.
“Lucinda, pass me my glasses,” Joseph grunted. With a roll of her eyes, the redhead reached to the nightstand and, with her long blue talons, plucked up the same pair of bent wireframes that Joseph had always worn.
Joseph put them on and pushed himself up on his elbow. He blinked, took in Garret’s state of undress and the blood all over him. Then of all things, Joseph smiled. He shook his head. He laughed and flopped back down between the women.
“Ladies,” he said with flourish of his twiggy fingers, “let me introduce you to Garret Vilner.”
The women stared at him uncertainly.
“Oh Belle, don’t look at him so. He’s a married man.” Joseph said the word as if it was supposed to be enticing.
Garret stepped into the room and tried to talk. He couldn’t keep his voice steady. He couldn’t keep it from cracking. He couldn’t control anything, it seemed.
“Joseph, I…” The rest of it caught in his throat. “I just…”
Joseph sat up, crossing his legs, seeming not at all embarrassed by the fact that he was getting an erection in front of God and everybody as the redhead ran a hand between his legs. Joseph grinned as Garret’s mind faltered, shut down, restarted, and broke down again. Garret couldn’t seem to get the message out. He couldn’t even plead for help.
“What did you do this time, Garret? Who’s dead now?”
Dead? Garret thought. Was someone dead? Yes, someone was, but that wasn’t the problem.
“Joseph, I…” Garret suddenly sobbed, explosively. As quickly as it came, it was gone. A tremor ran from his jaw to his neck down into his gut, then stilled.
Despite the physical pain he was in, Garret felt numb. He didn’t remember much about the trip here. He remembered putting pants on in the shop, although for the life of him he couldn’t remember why he’d done it.
My baby. A black pit opened up and swallowed Garret.
Joseph stared at him with open hostility until Garret could finally get the words out. Even then he was only able to voice it because his mouth seemed to be moving independently of his heart and mind.
“Joseph… I hurt my baby.”
Joseph raised his eyebrows and gave a philosophical nod. “Would it make you feel better if I pretend to be surprised? But you did let my father die, after all, didn’t you? Did I mention that, girls?” Joseph looked at each of them in turn. They opened their eyes in exaggerated surprise for Joseph’s benefit. Neither of them fully hid the sarcasm in their gestures, but Joseph either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He opened his hand to Garret. “This is the ‘friend’ who let my father die. He knew what was out there. He knew. He could have come to me, but he didn’t.”
“Joseph,” Garret said again, breaking down into hollow tears. “I hurt my baby.”
“I’d call you stupid, Garret, but that would be assuaging your responsibility. You aren’t human, but not because of what you can do. You aren’t human because of what you choose not to do.”
Joseph suddenly flew off the bed so he could scream in Garret’s face. “You could have trusted me, Garret! Together we could have stopped her!” Joseph punched Garret in the stomach. It was a weak blow that bent Joseph’s wrist as much as it did Garret’s abs. It did, however, make the bullet wounds erupt with pain.
“I loved you like a brother,” Joseph hissed, lips quivering. “And you hid the truth from me. You had no idea how to beat something like that, but you took it on by yourself anyway. It killed my Pa because of you! You let them all die. Eighty-seven, Garret. Eighty-seven people died that night.” Joseph’s voice broke. “And I’d kill them all myself if it would bring my parents back.”
Lucinda and Belle were watching Joseph, and for the first time, their interest seemed to be at least partially genuine.
Joseph put his hands on his bony hips and looked Garret up and down skeptically. “You didn’t get those bullet holes all the way healed. You better shift some more.”
Garret wasn’t thinking clearly, or perhaps not at all, so he just answered. “I can’t.”
“Come onnnn,” Joseph said. “Let me see it again. I want to see the thing that let my family die. I want to see my best friend.” He inclined his head towards the bed. “The girls want to see the monster that betrayed us all. Change for me, and I’ll let you have one of them. I’ve already paid for both. Molly doesn’t have to know.”
“I can’t,” Garret said simply. “The wolf’s dead.”
Garret coughed hard. It rattled and wracked deep in his chest. His mind was stuck in a loop, so he said it again. It made his throat tighten painfully and his jaw ache on the way out. It was like vomiting up acid.
“Joseph… I hurt my baby.”
Joseph slapped him contemptuously across the face, then climbed back onto the bed and gathered the women close, pressing them into his flesh. Garret finally noticed how old the women were. Either of them could almost have been Joseph’s mother.
“You’re lucky my pants are in Lucinda’s room,” Joseph said conversationally. “Since the night you burned the town down, I’ve kept a gun in them in case I ever saw you again.”
Garret already knew that. Joseph had told him so over a year ago in the same conversation in which he’d told Garret to stay away for good. Garret coughed again, sobbed. Then it was gone.
The words came out of Garret’s mouth again. He couldn’t seem to stop them.
“Joseph, I hurt my baby.”
“I’m sure you did.” Joseph said philosophically. “It wasn’t an accident, Garret. Don’t ever let yourself think that.” Joseph spat the words at him, speaking slowly to make sure Garret didn’t miss a one. “You did this. You. It’s your fault. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, you can’t get away from what you are, Garret.”
With that, he turned and kissed Belle deeply on the mouth. It was like watching him make out with his own mother.
Thirty minutes later, Garret squatted down on the dirt beside his hound dog. The mangled bullets inside his body dug at his muscles and guts. Babe whined and licked him furiously, repeatedly half jumping into his face, rubbing her snotty nose on his cheeks and neck.
He shushed her again, using the palm down motion that she knew meant to sit and be still. She obeyed, though not happily. She quivered and whined, straining her nose up to his face as he petted her and tugged on her ears. Behind Garret, the Carpenter farm lay quietly. One of the horses had stuck its head over the half door out of the barn and was watching him. A random duck was standing in the barnyard doing the same, but as of yet, neither of them had made any noise.
“Girl,” Garret said to his dog, “I can’t stay here anymore. I…” Now
he couldn’t say it.
It wasn’t an accident Garret. Don’t ever let yourself think that. You did this. You.
When he’d been with Joseph in the whore house, he couldn’t stop saying it. Now that his mind was working better again, and the true depth of the despicable thing he had done was crystallizing, he couldn’t make himself say what he had done to his child.
Just like he couldn’t say goodbye to his little brother.
“Tell Sarn that I…” Garret rubbed Babe’s floppy ears some more. “Tell him I…” A cough caught him off guard, deep and chesty. He tried to muffle it in his hands. It left a bit of blood on his palm.
Behind Garret, on the other side of the barn, stood the Carpenter’s two story farm house. Its whitewash made it glow in the dark. But right in front of him, attached to the porch under which Babe had been sleeping, stood Sarn’s tiny cabin. He and Garret had built it not many months ago. It would work for a while, until Sarn’s relationship with Eliza Carpenter finally went where everybody knew it was going.
The Carpenters are good people, Garret thought. Then another, much harder thought. I’m not going to be here for my brother’s wedding.
Garret swallowed hard and took a rattling breath that made the left side of his chest catch sharply. “Tell Sarn I’m sorry.”
With that, Garret stood, went to Sarn’s door, and slid an envelope beneath it. Then Garret was gone into the dark. Babe’s thin whimper followed him, a canine plea for him to come back.
W
The black memories vomited Garret back into the present, leaving him sitting in the brig with Twitch, dry and safe on the outside, but drowning in his sins on the inside. Garret had run from the memories, fought them, ignored them for months, but now they had escaped, breaking the chains he had wrapped around them. His demon had risen to stare him down, replaying the images of his son’s bloody leg, with Garret’s wolf teeth-marks puncturing it in a neat row.
Garret’s heart ripped in two, and he finally understood. At long last he knew what Joseph was trying to tell him.
The problem wasn’t the creature. It wasn’t Ma. It wasn’t Pa…
Garret’s throat dried out as the last bits of his world fell out from under him.
It wasn’t any of them… It was me, all along.
For a few moments he didn’t think anything else, as though his mind had shut down. But eventually, another thought came.
If the creature had killed me instead of them, would everyone else have been better off?
Twitch was gripping Garret’s shoulder with a strong hand. For a moment, Garret felt that he should pull away, that he needed to distance himself from Twitch so that Twitch would be safe, but he couldn’t. Not this time. Garret crumpled into his friend. Twitch caught him awkwardly in a half embrace.
“Garret, what’s wrong with you, buddy?”
Garret sobbed once, a loud, barking sound of grief. That was enough to break it loose. He sobbed again and again, burying his face in Twitch’s chest, gripping handfuls of Twitch’s uniform.
“I’m sorry Twitch,” he bawled. “I’m so sorry…”
“Garret, I’m fine, I swear,” Twitch fumbled.
Garret only sobbed harder. It echoed through the ship, flooding Kearsarge’s steel corridors.
“I hurt my…” Garret sobbed. “Twitch, I hurt my baby…” After that, whatever Garret said was unintelligible. What good were words anyway? No amount of remorse or regret would undo what he had done.
How could I have done that? My son is perfect, so innocent. Helpless. He needed me to protect him, but I hurt him instead.
Those thoughts broke Garret into countless pieces, and there on the USS Kearsarge, a thousand miles from home, Garret at last had nowhere left to run, nowhere to hide, and no more monsters to blame.
However, Garret did have one thing, and he clung to it for all he was worth.
Garret had a friend.
Surely Twitch couldn’t understand what was happening. He had not the faintest clue what Garret was feeling or why. But Twitch didn’t let him go. He held onto Garret, and Garret clung to him like a life raft. Twitch cared what happened to Garret, even if, at the moment, Garret himself did not.
Then another voice came to him. It was the soft voice, the one that was peaceful and different from the Hollow Man. It was the Other Voice.
Garret, the voice said. Listen to your friend.
“It’ll be okay, Garret,” Twitch was saying. “It’ll be alright.”
The words were trite, perhaps even ridiculous under the circumstances, but Twitch meant them. Garret could hear and feel Twitch’s honesty. No matter where Garret looked inside himself, he saw only his mistakes and the pain he had visited on his wife and child, but Twitch believed things would work out.
At the moment, Garret was grieving, so he could not accept Twitch’s perspective. Nonetheless, Twitch’s faith kept a bit of hope alive in Garret as well. It was small piece, tucked away deep inside, but it would survive the grief.
And because it survived, so would Garret.
Chapter 19
June 9th, 1914
Morning was breaking, pale and thin. Andrew stood on the flying bridge, gripping the brass railing while he assessed the maritime fiasco which was proceeding around him. HMS Arethusa floated just off Kearsarge’s starboard flank. A storm was gathering in the west, and considering the size of the swells that would soon begin to rock and push both ships, Arethusa and Kearsarge were far too close together.
Between the ships was a vast webbing of British and American ropes of all sizes. Hundreds of men on both ships strained and cursed as they hauled lines and ran winches. They were fighting to transfer four long, heavy, delicate cylinders from Arethusa to Kearsarge. Andrew watched in silence, glaring at the Arethusa as if it were her fault. She was a light cruiser, which meant her guns were tiny and her armor was a joke. Andrew couldn’t imagine why men were willing to go aboard pieces of crap like that. Why not sail the ocean in a mason jar? Crewing the Arethusa would be like running around the sea naked, praying you didn’t get shot by all the other people at sea who were smart enough to bring guns.
Andrew sighed and rubbed his forehead.
But light cruisers were fast, which was why Arethusa had been chosen to bring the cargo all the way from its manufacturing facility in Scotland. However, instead of doing the logical thing—crating the cylinders so they could be placed onto small boats and ferried between the larger ships—the quartermaster had come up with this deranged mess of ropes.
The crew were doing the best they could. Andrew hoped it would be enough, and more importantly, he hoped it would be done quickly enough, because the real problem wasn’t Arethusa or the idiot quartermaster, or even the impending elemental fury. The problem was the third ship. Andrew squinted in the weak predawn light. It was flying towards them like Neptune’s trident, flung to impale Kearsarge and every man aboard her. He couldn’t see it from the flying bridge of course, but he’d climbed to the foremast fire control top only a few minutes before. The third ship was approaching from the south east. When he’d climbed to the fire control top, the ship had only just been coming over the horizon, so even with a glass he couldn’t identify it. Whatever it was, it was big, fast, and new.
Andrew heard Mr. Sokolov’s big boots stomp onto the flying bridge behind him. Finally, the meeting could begin. Andrew turned and stepped up next to Captain Maxwell, who was standing next to the helm with his arms crossed. All the department heads had assembled. All of them were as nervous as Andrew.
Maxwell started with the surgeon. “Crew report, Thurman.”
The ship’s doctor, who was supposed to give such reports, never did. He preferred to stand behind the kindly old surgeon and stare suspiciously at everyone else while the surgeon did both of their jobs. Andrew had long since decided that Gunner’s Mate Colson had been in the right about the doctor. Dr. Dobbs didn’t care about anything but covering his own ass. Several of t
he young men under his care had died because of it. Andrew was biding his time. Be it on shore leave or a retirement party years from now, the opportunity would come, and Andrew was going to beat the doctor within an inch of his life. At the moment though, Andrew was trying to pay attention to the surgeon.
“Eighteen dead, thirty-one incapacitated, Max,” the surgeon said, his white moustache drooping. He had a single spot of someone else’s blood on his neck. “Twelve with standard line of duty injuries: lacerations, concussions, fractures, and the lot.” He rubbed his forehead. “And the boy who fell from the port side engine catwalk died in surgery last night.”
The surgeon did not appear to have slept since. Andrew shifted and glanced at the ropes and the sweating men who were struggling with them, then at the storm, then at the approaching third ship, which was only just cresting the flying bridge horizon. It was a battleship, a new battleship.
The surgeon continued. “The rest of them are down with inhalation from fighting the fire, save the two boys who have the croup. We had to isolate them in a maintenance locker. We’ve overflowed from sickbay into my surgery.”
The surgeon shook his head. “They have such heart, Max. All of ‘em. We have thirty-eight down, but that’s only because those are the ones who are so bad off that they can’t get up without help. If they can move under their own power, they wait until we’re not looking, then they limp back to their posts. They feel like they abandoned their buddies in the middle of a fight. We—”
A boom rolled across Kearsarge’s deck. Most of the officers flinched and turned towards the newcoming ship. Mr. Sokolov didn’t flinch, but calmly sent a gimlet glare across the water. Only Barty and Captain Maxwell didn’t react. Anyway, the sound wasn’t enemy gunfire. The crews had just set the first cylinder into its cradle. They’d dropped it the last few inches. Old Mr. Wilkes was on his hands and knees, inspecting the liner like a perspiring father-to-be cradling his wife’s swollen abdomen.
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