Dreadful Skin (4 page)

Before the rain came, he walked the decks when they were nearly empty. He knew what the sky would tell him, so he watched himself and his behavior. But with it gone? Even knowing what the moon would say, he was acting blind, with only his own instincts to guide him.

“Oh God,” Christopher whispered, stuffing the cigar into his mouth and lighting it with fumbling fingers. And in that moment, in the wake of Jack Gabert, even though Christopher understood nothing at all, I believe that he
knew
.

VII.

I was alone in my room, retired there because with the rain coming down in such terrific sheets, there wasn’t much to be done. There was no way to navigate, not with any effectiveness. In weather like that, when God Himself is against you, there’s nothing to be done but wait out His wrath and hope for the best.

I dropped the anchor and took one of those French bottles to my cabin.

I still had one left for Nancy.

But the other would keep me company for the night. Let the rain fall and let the boat sway. So long as the tiller lines held and the anchor didn’t slip, I counted it a small blessing. There were only a few of us on board anyway. Let them wait another day. All I wanted was a night when I could drink enough to sleep through my dreams.

I started early—immediately after supper. After the war camps, I never did skip a supper. Every single one was a blessing and I thanked the Lord for every bite.

In my cabin I removed my boots and unfastened my waistcoat, because it was too warm and too tight. At first, when the war ended, I thought I should eat myself strong again; I didn’t want Nancy to see me all sticks for arms, and bones for legs. Perhaps I went too far the other way. Perhaps I had grown too soft.

I had a small couch covered in brown cotton and stuffed with horsehair. It was firm and I could lean while putting my feet up. It was more civilized than drinking in bed.

I didn’t have any wine glasses, and I’m not sure why. I think they all were broken, or downstairs, or there had never been any to begin with. But I had short tumblers for scotch, so I poured a blood-purple shot for myself and drank it that way. It was more civilized than drinking from the bottle.

I listened to the rain and I was happy. In only a few short days, I would see my wife again. It had been—years. More years than I could think to count, but fewer than it felt, I’m sure. These things happened. People were parted, and people came home.

Tennessee was never a home of mine, but it would suffice. Home is where the heart is, as they say—and Nancy was there. We could stay or we could leave. We could go back and try to salvage what was left, or we could go somewhere else and start fresh. I would let her decide.

I don’t know how much time passed from the time I lifted the bottle to the time I set it down. I don’t know where the time went.

When I awakened, the rain was still battering down on the roof, and against the windows, and I was still open-shirted and bootless, on the divan. I’d slept and I hadn’t dreamed of hunger, and chill. I glanced down at the bottle—determined to remember the label, and interested in acquiring more one day.

But between the busy splatter of the raindrops outside, I could hear something else—once in a while, and loud. It sounded like a sharp blow, or a rap. When first I heard it, I thought I imagined it.
Bang
. Like something solid, dropped and landing hard. I waited and listened, and then it came again.
Bang
.

I sat up and set the bottle aside.

Bang
.

It came from down below, by the wheel.

Bang
.

No—not by the wheel. The next deck up, at least.
Bang
. Again. It came accompanied by a ringing noise this time—a twang, where something else had been struck. I thought perhaps the jackstaff, since it stands so tall. I heard a quick jingle as if from a chain or cable, and we often ran a flag up the staff.

Bang.

Like a drum, but not quite. Like a boxer jumping on a mat, but not quite.

More like a boxer, I thought. More like someone jumping. But it couldn’t be someone, of course. The collisions came too far apart; no one could jump so high, to make such loud landings at such lengthy intervals. He’d have to be jumping from deck to deck around the
Mary Byrd
, and of course that wasn’t possible. Of course.

I don’t know why it frightened me so—or rather, I don’t know how I knew to be frightened.

There was something frantic about it, about the way it dashed to and fro from deck to deck, front to back. Occasionally it would strike against something and be dazed, then resume again. It made me think of a cat my wife once had; in the evening, shortly before bedtime, it would transform from a lazy beast to a mad terror of a creature. It would tear around the house as if its tail were on fire before settling down and turning in for the night with the rest of us.

I’ve seen dogs do it too, when they’re cooped up too long or kept on a chain.

Outside in the rain there was a flash of lightning followed soon by a sharp rumble of thunder. The rainstorm had gone from pattering to booming, and I was glad for my decision to stop and stay. The water was getting rough for a river, and when I stepped to my window to peer outside, I couldn’t see a thing beyond the rail.

Thunder cracked again—this time like a whip the size of a river. The storm was right above us.

Beside my bed there was a lantern mounted on a swing-arm hinge. It was a mariner’s style, and made for a man at sea, not on a river. When the boat moved, the force of gravity would hold the flame level—or that was the idea. It worked well enough, and I liked the look of it. It struck me as a sturdy, stable thing with an ingenious design, so I left it lit.

The other two, by the mirror and beside the door, I extinguished. Despite the rain, these boats are made more of wood than anything else—and the engines are fed coal. Fires happen, and we were moored away from the banks. On board, we had a pair of small rowing yawls for emergencies or the crew’s quick shore runs, but if there were ever any real, quick trouble, we’d never get them into the water in time.
Bang
.

Thunder answered it, so loud and so harsh that
Mary
rocked a little harder against the waves—her windows rattling in their frames. Downstairs near the galley, I thought I heard a crash. It must have been dishes, or plates. I remember, I thought—
I’ll ask Laura in the morning
.

But then there was a new sound, another sound—not the thunder, and not the intermittent banging. It came louder than both, and twice as nerve-shattering.

I clapped my hands over my ears, trying to keep it out.

It roared, or howled, or scraped across the boat in a long, anguished cry that must have come from a living throat—but what, I couldn’t guess. My mind raced, playing games with itself. I knew that sounds can be deceiving—especially at night, and in the rain, and when a man is tired and slow from wine.

I’d heard mountain lions that sound for all the world like a woman screaming for help, and inmates at a sanitarium who bayed like hounds. I’d heard my own boat make startling pops, cracks, and cries—just the settling of a ship with a few years on her. I knew how strange and frightening the unknown may seem. I knew not to panic.

But how could I help myself? The cry went on and on—challenging the thunder, daring the sky to fall.

I pressed my hands tighter around my head, but nothing could keep the hideous keening at bay.

Then it came in—through the window. There was an explosion and the world caved in. The rain came in, and the howl came with it.

I barely had time to see it, but time stretched for me and I remember every detail. I remember every second as if it happened over an hour—the stinging splash of water, the moaning wind, and the groan of a sagging timber support where the window had burst free of its place. I saw light glinting off of something shiny and round; it took me a moment to realize they were eyes. They were gold eyes, shot through with red and bulging from a face like none I’d ever seen.

I remember there were teeth, and there was hair. I thought at first, “It must be a man, surely,” but before my mind could make the words I knew I was mistaken. No man, no ape. No thing I had ever seen before, nor heard legend of.

It lunged at me, flinging water and broken glass from its hair. It opened its mouth and fired that horrible cry—a screaming, miserable thing that did not slow or cease until it fitted that gaping jaw around my neck, and it drowned its whistling scream in my throat.

VIII.

Jack slipped out the way he’d come, leaving me and Sister Eileen waiting tense and alone together at the table. She handled his rudeness so well, and it made me glad of her sterling character even as the situation made me angry. There was much more to her than you might expect from a small lady in a habit, but isn’t that the way it always goes? Once every blue moon, and once in a royal flush—people will surprise you.

He unnerved her, though—as he unnerved me. I couldn’t say how I knew he was nearby, and watching. When I called him out, I only meant to invite him in, but if he was going to behave so badly, it was just as well that he’d shown himself the door.

So I could not understand why his leaving did not relieve me.

Sister Eileen released a deep breath she’d been holding. “He’s mad,” she said, as if that explained everything. “Perfectly mad.”

“That may be,” I agreed.

“He’s dangerous, you know. Or don’t you think?”

I don’t know why she added the last part, undoing her statement a little by asking for my opinion. I wondered why she felt the need to do that. “I do think he could be, as any madman might be a danger to himself and others.”

“We are the only others here, Mr. Cooper.”

I knew it then—how she already knew more than I did. I could see it in the way she wasn’t blinking, and in the way the muscles in her hands were taut like small ropes. She shifted in her chair as if she’d make herself more comfortable there, then changed her mind and rose to her feet.

“I appreciate your chivalrous defense, but I think it would be best if you’ll let him be. Don’t antagonize him on my behalf, please. I do not trust him, and I think that—given precious little instigation—he would do you harm. He needs only the smallest excuse.”

“I beg your pardon? My dear lady—”

She interrupted me. “Something is wrong tonight. It’s the weather, I think. Isn’t it funny how it affects us sometimes?”

“It’s very loud. The thunder is devilish, suddenly. But the captain has dropped anchor now and we’ll wait it out. The rain will clear and we’ll be on our way again soon. God knows there’s no frowning for the weather.”

“God knows it, and so do I.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, increasingly curious as she grew increasingly cryptic. “I wish you’d do me the favor of speaking directly, instead of these little riddles.”

She pushed her chair aside to leave the table and waited, with one hand on its back. “It’s easier to tell the truth in allegory and riddles though, don’t you think? Jesus did it, with his parables.”

“Like the Good Samaritan.”

“Indeed—just like that one. Do you think there was ever a real man, injured beside the road? Or might he have invented it to convey a point?”

“I’m sure I can’t say. So tell me a parable, then. Make me understand what sets us all on edge tonight, and why you think poor Jack is taking it with such difficulty.”

I thought she’d sit again, but she did not—she simply leaned herself forward against the chair.

“All right. Let us say, then, that there are two men in jail, awaiting execution. In eight hours they will be hanged. One man asks for a clock, so that he may be reminded of how much time is left. He takes comfort in watching the time pass—telling himself, ‘Now I have three whole hours left to live, and I will appreciate these three hours.’ Or, ‘Now I have a whole hour left to live, and I will appreciate this hour.’”

“What about the other man?” I asked.

“The other man asks for a clock as well, but he is told that there is only one—and it’s already been given to the other prisoner. Without the clock to judge by, the other prisoner is agitated and confused. He’d rather see the time crawl by and know how much is left to him; without the clock, he drives himself mad wondering how long he must wait for the hangman’s noose. Because he cannot stand the wait, he fashions his own noose from the bedsheets and hangs himself before the executioner can arrive.”

“I think I see. That’s quite a morbid parable you’ve spun for me. Am I to gather that your mythic clock is the weather?”

“You would be quite clever to surmise as much, yes. Some of us—it helps us to gaze up and
know
. But when we can’t….” Her voice ran out of air and she let the thought hang.

“I wish I understood better what you were trying to—” I began to press her further, but I was cut off by a most ferocious and terrifying sound.

It echoed loud through the boat, in that omnipresent way that refuses to tell you where the source originates. We both jumped, startled and afraid, as it pealed and rang and roared. I clapped my hands over my ears, but the nun held her ground—eyes narrowing and hands clamping up tight into fists.

The kitchen girl, Laura, came running in, hands over her ears also. The sound—it wouldn’t stop! It followed her and surrounded us, filling the room and the decks and the sky.

The girl looked at us and we saw our own fear reflected there in her round, brown face. “It’s nothing,” I tried to tell her—I didn’t try to tell the sister, though. She was already steeled against it. “It’s only the mud drums. They’re blowing out the mud drums down below, by the boiler. It makes a sound, it’s terrible, I know. But you hear it sometimes when you ride these things a long time.”

“I know what the mud drums are you fool-headed man,” she told me—in a panic, forgetting her place, I’m sure. “I’ve heard them before and I know what they mean. But this ain’t that, and you know it sure as I do.”

We were shouting to each other. We had to. The hoarse, unending blast was filling us and swallowing us whole. It was drilling into my skull, past my ears and under my scalp, into the meat of my brain.

There was thunder, too—though you could hardly hear it.

Sister Eileen released her death grip upon the chair and fled the room with a determined sort of stride that I would not have cared to interrupt. I called after her anyway, because it seemed that someone must. “Sister—stay here. Stay with us.”

She paused in the doorway, one hand grasping the frame as if to hold herself in place while she spoke. “You stay here—both of you. Get into the galley and stay close together. Get the cook, too. Wake him up. I’ve seen him, he’s a big man, like you—Christopher. Grab the biggest knives you find and stay low.”

“Sister!” Laura reached out like she might grab her, but the small nun was faster than she looked. Her skirts swished fast behind her and she was gone.

Laura and I stared back and forth between ourselves, hands on ears, wishing for the terrible roar to subside and shaking as it failed to do so. “Maybe you should—” I started to say, but she knew the rest already.

“I’ll get the cook,” she nodded, and she was off. A moment later she dashed back past me, into the galley. She emerged holding a great carving knife; she held it point down, by the handle, and her wrists were as tight as leather.

I wanted to tell her that I thought this was unnecessary, that it was too much. I wanted to tell her she was going to frighten someone, but I was already more frightened of the warbling howl than I was of this strong-boned black girl.

Still, as she dashed past me I thought that she did not look like a creature to be trifled with. I wished her all the luck in the world. She was gone. And abruptly—with a gurgle and a gasp—the sound stopped altogether.