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  Then it jerked in the bottle.

  “Cut it out,” said Early.

  “I didn’t do anything,” pleaded the man.

  The tiny thing twisted some more in the glass, like a fish in an aquarium.

  “It’s not funny,” Jeremiah said in a loud and angry tone. Despite our love of laughter, there’s something about the ghastly sight that offended our senses. So we wanted no part in playing with it.

  “I’m not doing a thing,” Svenson said, “I swear!”

  A voice boomed behind us, “What’s going on here?”

  We jumped at the shock. Svenson almost dropped his box, but kept it safe under his arm.

  The Captain was mad. “You layabouts want some demerits for the lollygagging?”

  Now’s the time where even the loosest of us firmed up to say, “No, sir.” Threat of withholding pay was the worst kind.

  Meanwhile, Svenson had vanished, and so had his odd collection of specimens.

  We unloaded the rest of the Professor’s equipment without incident.

  “I don’t want to be bothered by any of you cretins,” warned the scientist, shaking his stick at us.

  “They won’t,” said the Captain with a yawn.

  “They better not.” After giving us all a dose of his evil eye, he bid us farewell with a kindly, “Now get the hell out of here!”

  We cast off to sea under a dark sky. With the twilight turning into evening, the stark clouds on the horizon were as black as the sea below. Young Billings remarked, “That can’t be good. That’s an evil omen if ever I saw one.”

  Jeremiah asked, “How many trips to sea you ever even been on before, boy?”

  Billings straightened himself up to look taller and older than his smooth skin ever could make him. “Including today?”

  “Why not?”

  Billings looked to the heavens while he counted. “Three,” he announced proudly.

  We had a good laugh at that.

  Once Jeremiah’s giggling finally cooled, he said, “Everything’s bad luck, boy. Until you get back home in one piece and can gladly feel the fool for having done so. Should we all die, only then will we know that you were wise in your prophecy.”

  Indeed, we were all superstitious cowards. The older of us simply knew to bottle up the fear that accompanied every departure. The ocean was an infinity of hazard with its limitless power. So we puny beings could only combat it with prayers, charms and ignorance.

  Dinner was a different affair than usual. While we were used to strangers, none of us were quite so used to one as strange as the Professor.

  Firstly, he made it a point to sit away from the lot of us. Even the coldest scoundrels knew the wisdom in maintaining a minimum of friendliness with a ship’s crew. We may’ve been a gruesome and ugly lot, but we were also powerful in making a life aboard quite unpleasant for our enemies.

  When the professor first entered for dining, he immediately burrowed through our ranks like a mole, head down and blind to the world.

  Some of us tried to say hello. Those salutations were all ignored.

  Even when he bumped into Medina, the coot still remained mute. His gracious response was a sharp shot to the sailor’s shin with his cane. “Watch it!”

  We knew if the Professor had tried a stunt like that with someone like Jurgens, then we’d have to plan a burial at sea. The bespectacled man may’ve been educated, but he certainly wasn’t smart.

  We felt he might’ve wanted to sit alone, watching him spin and twirl for any tables-for-one. But there ain’t room for space and privacy on any seafaring vessel, especially our old Glorianna. So he finally settled on his rightful station at the Captain’s table, where the Captain and Jones already waited to be his companions.

  It was hard to hear what they were saying. Lord knows we all desperately tried, knowing little of the journey ahead. Not to appear so obvious of our snooping, we maintained a mild level of chatter while our ears secretly strained to pick up any of their table’s talk.

  The Captain remained friendly with his gentle cajoling. It seemed he was trying to use his famous charisma to coerce the cuckoo along for something else. Jones, of course, was ever loyal with his nodding and agreeing.

  The Professor seemed not to care. He silently ignored them while gorging on his food, as if in an urgent rush.

  But then the only thing any of us heard quite clearly was the Professor’s enraged reply. “Absolutely not!” he shouted, pounding his fists down on the table. While he may’ve seemed feeble, his anger was powerful enough to slosh the grog from his plate and onto the floor. “You will take me there, or I will destroy you.”

  None of us reacted save for silly old Hardy the coot. The room fell to silence while he cackled like a hyena. We tried to quiet him, but he was lost in the thralls of laughter.

  The Professor was not amused. He turned slowly like he was being cranked on a winch to eventually face the mocking idiot. “You,” said the Professor coolly while aiming his walking stick at poor Hardy.

  The move silenced the braying jackass. In the silence, we could even hear our terse breathing.

  But then the old man charged through our ranks. He was remarkably spry, as many were fortunate to escape his path.

  By the time the Professor arrived before Hardy, the sailor was trembling like a child. “You think me a joke? My work irrelevant?”

  Hardy nodded and pleaded, “No, sir, I most certainly do not.”

  “You know what I will do. I can bring you life or death.” His white beard seemed to flay outwards like the mane of an angered animal.

  “Yes, sir, I know. Please forgive me. I beg you.”

  The Professor gave Hardy another angry once-over. The intensity of the inspection made Hardy blubber like a baby. A thick bubble of snot and spit popped from his weeping lips.

  Perhaps we should have said something then, but we didn’t. We were too cowardly. Or greedy. Or both.

  Satisfied for the time being, the Professor hopped away on his cane and left us.

  Wiping his sleeves across his face only smeared Hardy into further humiliation.

  “Even a moron like you, Hardy, should know better than to challenge a passenger,” barked the Captain.

  Walters snapped, “He sassed you good too, Cap. We gonna let him get away with that?”

  The Captain spun back on us with fire in his eyes. “You know damn well the plunder he’s paying us. For those kinds of riches, I’d flog you all myself, then feed you to the fish.”

  “You can flog yourself all you want!” said Delgado.

  A hearty laugh eased all concerns. Though Hardy seemed the worse for wear, the rest of us sallied forth carefree from the dining room.

  But when we bunked down for the evening, the lack of work left our minds a little too free for their own good. Men began to sing aloud their ruminations to the world.

  “So what do you think he’s up to?” asked Munoz.

  “Some silly science experiment, obviously, you dolt,” growled Baker. “He told us as much. What else could it be?”

  Nobody spoke for awhile. But then Smith suggested, “Magic.” The thought had already crossed our paranoid minds. “Like a black, occult witchcraft.”

  Despite the ludicrous statement, not a soul spoke against it.

  Finally Friedkin said, “Okay, so what if it is magic? Who says it has to be so ominous and evil? Maybe it’s a good kind.”

  We all grumbled at that malarkey.

  Vale, the churchy of our crowd, solemnly declared. “Because it’s unnatural. That’s why it is wrong. Anything that is not part of world has no place crossing into it.” He was probably fiddling with his silver cross as he spoke.

  The conversation ended upon that declaration.

  Even with troubled minds and hearts, it was always easy to fall asleep with tired muscles and the calm lull of the ocean waves.

  The next morning we awoke to a man screaming. It was a shrill and forlorn shriek. It was the cry of someone who was wit
hout hope.

  Assembling on deck as quick as we could, we found the hubbub coming from Smith. “He’s gone. And that lunatic killed him!”

  “Who?” we asked.

  “Hardy,” he sniffled.

  “How?”

  In Smith’s hand was a little silver pendant splattered with dark blood. We crowded around to take a gander. Inside was a picture of Hardy with a not-unattractive woman.

  “That bastard murdered him,” stated Smith.

  “Have you looked for him?” Munoz asked.

  “Who needs to?” said Smith. “You all know he’s gone too.” With that, the man began sobbing like a forlorn orphan.

  Smith was always too kind for this hard life and too soft for his own good. Now he reaped all the sadness of the loss.

  Some of us comforted the pathetic man. Some of us swore bloody revenge.

  We carried on in our duties as our vessel sailed into the East. We knew not exactly where we were going, but only that it was in the deep Atlantic. There were whispers that we would not even make landfall, that we were destined to travel to a special destination in the middle of the blue.

  “The Bermuda Triangle,” joked Delgado. We laughed, though some of our younger members became afraid at even the mention of that mythical place. The savvy old-timers knew that we were in the wrong hemisphere for that silliness.

  Given the time of year and course, our travel was remarkably smooth. The skies weren’t clear and friendly, but the elements did us no harm. The dark clouds remained ever threatening, constantly menacing us with a furious storm that never manifested.

  With nothing to concern us or keep our attentions, we made the mysterious passenger our object of interest. He became like a puzzle for us to play with.

  After that first dinner, the man never emerged from his room again. Not even for any breaks to relieve himself. His lab was a rather large chamber within which we had to arrange a cot. But no one had ever undertaken any precautions to ensure it contained any civilized toilet.

  “Maybe he don’t go to the bathroom,” suggested Early. “If he’s not human.”

  “Or maybe he cured having to go to the bathroom?” said Billings.

  But after a few days, we grew curious. We were all too apathetic or afraid to investigate any further. Fortunately for us, the fearsome Jurgens was fixed from being neither. “If all you ladies are too damn frightened, then I’m gonna figure it out for all of us.”

  We did not complain about that particular arrangement.

  When we began to follow Jurgens into the belly of our boat, he cast us a dirty look.

  We paused.

  But once he resumed his trek, so did we.

  On that lowest level of the ship, the lab shared the entire floor with the engine room. Even at the off-hours of the middle of the night, the ship’s stomach still rumbled loudly from its incessant chugging and churning.

  Despite the loud racket behind us, Jurgens still tiptoed over to the Professor’s door. He stooped over and pressed his ear to investigate.

  We watched as Jurgens remained motionless, his face a portrait of rapt attention.

  Finally Jurgens stood up and walked away.

  Our curiosity wouldn’t let him pass. “What’s the story?” asked Billings.

  Jurgens grabbed Billings by the collar and slammed him against the wall. “You dare ask me?”

  We rushed to Billings’ aid to restrain Jurgens’ fist.

  “We just want to know,” explained Munoz.

  Peterson asked, “Can you hear anything?”

  After a moment, Jurgens released Billings. “I could. Though the machines are loud, the man’s tinkering makes a fierce noise too. And I could smell him too.”

  Jurgens paused, but none of us dare goaded him for a further explanation.

  After some private contemplation, Jurgens articulated his thoughts. “It was an odd smell, a chemical somewhat like sulfur, but more sour.”

  McVee said, “Ah, that’s the engine burn, man.”

  “No,” said Jurgens firmly. “I know what that is, and this wasn’t that. It was more like… poison.”

  “Perhaps it was the stench from a barrel of piss and shit?” suggested Munoz.

  “No, it wasn’t that either.”

  With a smile, Delgado added, “Are you so good with the smell of shit to know?”

  Jurgens shot Delgado an angry stare. We all held our breaths and braced for another skirmish.

  But then our favorite psychopath grinned and said, “It’s a good thing I like your stupid jokes, you nitwit.”

  Finally granted permission by our fearless leader, we all laughed as we returned to bed.

  Our daily duties were clockwork by now. Every man knew his role well and executed those functions with lethal efficiency. On the land, we may have been losers and outcasts. But on the seas, we were a special kind of machine.

  The Professor had paid us handsomely to take him out to the middle of nowhere. He was an odd duck who made wild claims of dark science. Ultimately our greed was triumphing over our fear, as we were poised to get the man to his destination a day earlier than forecast. No doubt we were all eager to bed that eve, that much closer to simply returning home and collect our wages.

  Yet we were awakened with a mad yelling. “Awake! Rise, fellows, rise!”

  It was Kimble, a skinny lout who mostly kept to himself. We rubbed the sleep from our weary eyes to find him at the door to our quarters. His sunken peepers were large and fearful. His trembling hands jostled a lantern to cast frenzied shadows along the wall, like our silhouettes were being electrocuted.

  “What in the hell?” demanded Jurgens. His knife was already wide awake.

  “You must all come,” he said in a suddenly subdued tone. “Immediately.”

  “What for?” asked Smith as he rolled his back to the light.

  “It’s the Professor,” said Kimble.

  “It’s always that damn guy,” grumbled Delgado. “What’s so special about him now?”

  Kimble swallowed a gulp of sweat and said, “I saw him with a ghost.”

  Only a few of us scoffed at the notion.

  “Where? How? When?” we began to ask.

  “Just now down in his lab,” Kimble stammered.

  “How’d you get in?” asked Friedkin.

  To that remark, Kimble sorted himself out rightly. A cocky smirk painted his face as he proudly said, “I picked the lock, of course.”

  “Why would you do that?” said Winters.

  “Because I didn’t hear nothing. I thought it was safe. But when I went in,” Kimble stopped.

  We waited breathlessly for him to continue.

  But he didn’t. It was like he had frozen stiff.

  “Kimble?” we asked.

  Then from deep within the statue of that man, a tiny gag groaned from his immobile lips, like steam escaping a vent.

  We could see then that his eyes were straining outwards, as if they were going to pop like a jellyfish in the sun.

  The little sneak started frothing at the mouth. The choking became louder and more violent.

  His body started quivering and convulsing, but remained upright on his toes.

  We wanted to help, but were at a loss as to how. We were afraid to touch the possessed man.

  Then Kimble’s entire body started glowing, a pale green aura surrounding him like a strange lantern.

  As the light’s intensity grew to be as bright as a bulb, he began to levitate from the floor. The man floated over a foot into the air so that he was a foot from the ceiling.

  We whispered exclamations and prayers. We prepared ourselves to run for our lives, but Kimble blocked the only doorway out. So some of us hid behind chests and beds.

  Then he vanished. Like he was sucked into a hurricane, Kimble suddenly flew backwards. Yanked into the corridor by an invisible hand, he disappeared in a blink as the door slammed shut behind him.

  We began to scream. Some buried their heads in their hands as if to s
mother the horrifying vision from their incredulous eyes.

  Others clamped their hands together and tearfully appealed for mercy from a higher power.

  With so many of us already on the verge of sadness from lifetimes of loneliness, hate and evil, that inhuman event may well have cracked several men open for good, spilling their wits upon the floor like eggs.

  But the stout men - we warriors who were not so much afraid of death but perhaps only afraid of who we became when we were afraid of death - we readied for war.

  Jurgens and his blade were already storming out the door in pursuit.

  The rest of us that weren’t frightened by the Professor grabbed what weapons we could: clubs, hooks, bats. Munoz was savvy to gather a length of rope. We didn’t know what we were doing, but we were ready to do anything.

  “Maybe we should get the Captain’s pistol?” suggested Dalton.

  Nobody bothered to reply.

  We all faithfully followed our man Jurgens down to the lowest deck. Our gear and boots clattered mightily as we stormed towards our objective. On the warpath now, we charged down the ladder rungs and stair steps into the belly of the Glorianna.

  But then we began stacking up on each other, grunting as each man ran into the one ahead of him. Jurgens had stopped, and so did all of us.

  We approached with quiet caution.

  Our heaving lungs took large, nervous breaths, and we gagged at the stench. It was as Jurgens had described, a toxic odor that stung the nostrils and singed the eyes. Vale vomited from the pungence.

  The hallway was unusually hot. We could feel the sweat beading on our dirty brows.

  At the end of the long passage was indeed an ajar doorway. The Professor’s room was defenseless as Kimble had claimed. Drawing closer, we noticed a pale green glow burning from within the chamber.

  With an abrupt whimper, Early abandoned our team. He dropped his mop to the floor and scurried back upstairs.

  Delgado tried to smack the fleeing coward in the head with his baton. But he missed, spun, and nearly fell over.

  Jurgens was angry at our play and eager for business. His glower made us serious again.

  With nary a noise from inside the laboratory, Jurgens placed his mitt on the door and pushed it open. A loud creak accompanied our entry into the room.