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 Means to an End --- Chapter 16
by Nathaniel Perkins
There are fine patches of dark spots on the deck by the railing that shine wetly in the night air and I know it to be blood. The men who have been hit scream for another few seconds, and then, nearly as one, they convulse and topple to the deck. I start toward the commotion, my feet coming unglued after the initial volley of destruction, but Smith has hold of my arm and prevents me from gaining the deck.
"Something is amiss, and they have plenty of survivors to carry the dead." His voice is roughened by the extreme temperature and his speech is slower as if his tongue is numb by either the cold or the scene below.
"You think they are all dead, those men," I ask gesturing with the axe toward the downed crew.
"Yes, or soon to be regardless of our aid. Best not be seen." He is right. The Bosun will be in a terrible mood, who could tell if his report of the incident might not also include two passengers that happenstance had flung from the railing along with one of his men. He seems to me the sort that would sweep his trash and other problems out to sea.
"Ah. Look there," I say to him. "Some of them have survived after all." Below, several of the downed men are returning shakily to their feet, and as they rise, those still laying on the deck shift and tremble as if trying to join them. Voices of confusion come to our ears and a gurgling scream and a cracking crunch that silences it. One of the wounded men has a would be helper by the throat with one hand, the poor man’s head flopping unnaturally to one side on an obviously broken neck. With a careless toss, the killer flings the body toward the railing.
"What the hell?" Smith says, drawing his pistol reflexively. The wounded men are all on their feet now, in hunched, lurking postures taking stock of their surroundings. Their fellow crewmen arrest their attempts to help and are backing away, calling out to their shipmates in confusion. One of the wraiths, for it strikes my mind that if the men are returned from a ghastly death with a desire to kill so wantonly they should be called such, lunges forward twenty feet in a blink and swats a man where he stands. Hands grown longer by moonlight and perhaps now ending in claws shred face and flesh and send a glimmering splash of blood through the air to spatter and mark the others who stand nearby looking on in disbelief. As if that is the signal at the horse races where the gates open and the horses are driven by instinct and training to bolt for the track, the dead tear into the living.
I see two men torn apart as they and the Bosun retreat for a hatch, the Bosun disappears below decks while his men buy his freedom unwillingly. A few of the men have their wits about them and wield their long poles with great effect. Several of the wraiths are unhorsed with those lances, tumbling over the railing into the water below. I set my axe down and pull out my pistol. It is a chaotic melee below and I fear, even with my skill, that I will likely hit friend over foe if I fire into it. Those that still live are pulling back toward a hatch connecting their deck to an interior section of the ship. Every one of them has a long pole now, either acquired in the scuffle or evidence of a sick survival of the fittest example presented at brutal cost.
One of the monsters is pushed far enough away from the crowd that I have a clear shot. The pistol cracks and the thing’s head explodes. The body quivers on its feet and then slumps, knees hitting the ground before pitching forward onto its chest. Black blood leaks through the gore and remains to stain the ice still present on the surface of the deck.
"Again. Again," Smith urges me. Over the din he yells, "Push them back. Give us a target."
Either the message is received or someone down there puts two and two together after seeing what happened to the last one, soon another wraith bounces clear of the pack by a foot or two. A foot or two is all I need. Bang, and another head explodes. Two down, I think, bullets or beasts, it does not matter. I count more creatures below than I know I have shots. Bang. Thud, thud. Another pole-axed demon sent to the deck. In short order I have emptied my gun, but there are still creatures below. A shriek echoes up from the defenders as someone’s defenses slip.
"Here." Smith hands me his pistol and picks up the axe. A scrabbling and heavy sound of breath hissing through mounds of flem and fluid sounds clearly to our right. One of the creatures has climbed to our landing and is smelling the air. It looks somewhat like the man it used to be. The color has left his face and exposed skin to be replaced by a sickly tar black wasted visage. Sunken cheeks and skin drawn tight over skull, eyes a shimmering twin set of black pools. His nose has rotted off in whatever transformation process dissolved the humanity from him. His hands are shriveled and stretched at the same time. In place of the calloused sailors hands are skeletally thin fingers ending in hooked points.
It lurches at Smith and I notice that the ends of its legs end much the same as its arms, tattered remnants of shoe and sleeve jumble about withered black and blue taloned toes. The lurch becomes a sure footed scrabble as the creature makes its peace with the icy surface. Smith holds the axe extended before him, one hand high near the nasty end, one low for balance. He blocks the first claw as he would have played at staves with Little John over a brook. As the second blow comes in from the other side, Smith chops it with a back hand from the sharp end and then bounces that parry into an attack that lands the curved point of the back end of the axe head deep into the demon’s head.
The wraith gives a stuttering yowl and twitches, sliding itself free from the weapon. It lashes out once, low, catching Smith across the side as it topples to the deck. Smith hacks the remains of the thing’s head from its shoulders with a blow. He coughs, clutches his side and leans against the wall nearest him.
"Damn thing hit me at the end, there." He says through clenched teeth. One hand probes tenderly at the wound, the tense expectation of more pain to be discovered evident in his shoulders.
"Is it bad?" I ask, fearful for my friend.
"Shallow, scrapes mostly, I think, sting’s something awful though."
"More." I say as another wraith gains our perch. There are sounds of desperation and dying coming from below. I destroy this creature as I have the others with no fear of hitting my friend. Another takes its place.
"This is getting precarious." I say, conscious of the ammo already spent. Smith is on his feet now. He kicks hard at the corpse by his feet, tumbling it listlessly at the newcomer. As it scrambles over the bodies of its two brethren, Smith blasts it in the head with the axe. This time he backs away from any potential death throes.
I take stock of the situation below. Several of the creatures are down, as well as many of the men. The infection responsible for transforming living crewmembers into shriveled ghoulish killers appears to end with the initial exposure. The newly dead do not rise to join their hungry companions as some small part of my brain believed might happened. My mind is crawling at the sight below. Creatures of another world brought forth by the blood of my world, twisted into grotesque approximations of human merged with nightmare, fighting on relentlessly driven by unknown purpose to drain the blood from the living.
One of the remaining wraiths staggers back from the press, shoved by an unseen jab from one of the defenders beneath our landing. Smith’s pistol recoils in my hand and the thing drops to the deck like a sack of potatoes. There are only three more of the things that I can see. Smith and I decide to make our way down and harry the monsters from their flank. I watched as Smith tosses the axe down first, then grabs the ladder by its edges and slides to the deck below in one continuous motion. Before any of the creatures can react to his presence he snatches the axe back up into his hands and is waving me down. I stuff the pistols in my belt and follow suit. It is an interesting sensation, just as the pit of my stomach begins to protest that I am moving at inappropriate speeds and in a disconcerting direction, by feet thump the deck. I, too, have my weapon back out in a blink once my footing is secure. Excepting the score of dead extant on the forward deck, the melee is favoring our side. Four men are playing the bristling porcupine holding off three wraiths. There are cuts and torn uniforms in evidence, but the three appear to have effected a stalemate, for the moment. Humans tire, and these creatures did not seem to do so. Smith and I rush, as best we can, to take the monsters from behind. I put a bullet into one while Smith brains a second. The third spins to greet us but is immediately tripped to the deck by an onrush of poles from the crewmen. Smith finishes the melee with a chop at the creature while it struggles to rise. The hissing of evil and scrape of claws is replaced in the night air by the wheezing of human lungs and vocal anguish of horror revealed.
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