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He could think of no worse death. None.
One of the men in the group behind him quickened his pace. “Mr. Mayles?”
He turned, not slowing, the smile as tense as ever. He couldn’t wait to get into Oscar’s.
“Yes, Mr.—?”
“Wendorf. Bob Wendorf. Look here—I’ve got an important meeting in New York on the fifteenth. I need to know how we’re going to get from Newfoundland to New York.”
“Mr. Wendorf, I’ve no doubt the company will work out the arrangements.”
“Damn it, that’s not an answer! And another thing: if you think we’ll go by ship to New York, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m never setting foot on a ship again in my life. I want a flight, first class.”
A murmur of agreement rippled through the ranks behind him. Mayles stopped and turned. “As it happens, the company is already lining up flights.” He knew of no such thing, but at this point he was ready to say anything to get these clods off his back.
“For all three thousand passengers?” A woman with rings on every wizened finger pushed forward, flapping her bejeweled, liver-spotted hands.
“St. John’s has an international airport.” Did it? Mayles had no idea.
The woman went on, voice like a buzz saw. “Frankly, I find the lack of communication intolerable. We paid a lot of money to make this voyage. We deserve to know what’s going on!”
You deserve a boot up your prolapsed old ass, lady.
Mayles continued smiling. “The company—”
“What about refunds?” interrupted another voice. “I hope you don’t think we’re going to
pay
for this kind of treatment—!”
“The company will take care of everyone,” Mayles said. “Please have patience.” He turned quickly to avoid more questions—and that’s when he saw it.
It was a thing; a thing like a dense massing of smoke, at the angle of the corridor. It was moving toward them with a kind of sickening, rolling motion. He halted abruptly, paralyzed, staring. It was like a dark, malignant mist, except that it seemed to have atexture to it, like woven fabric, but vague, indefinite, darker toward the middle with faint interior glints of dirty iridescence. Shapes like bunching muscles came and went across its surface as it approached.
He was unable to speak, unable to move.
So it’s true
, he thought.
But it can’t be. It can’t be . . .
It moved toward him, gliding and roiling as if with terrible purpose. The group stumbled to a halt behind him; a woman gasped.
“What the hell?” came a voice.
They backed up in a tight group, several crying out in fear. Mayles couldn’t take his eyes off it, couldn’t move.
“It’s some natural phenomenon,” said Wendorf loudly, as if trying to convince himself. “Like ball lightning.”
The thing moved down the hall, erratically, closing in.
“Oh, my God!”
Behind him, Roger Mayles registered a general confused retreat, which quickly devolved into a stampede. The confused babble of screams and cries faded away down the hall. Still he couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He alone remained rooted to the spot.
As the thing approached, he could see something inside it. It was an outline, squat, ugly, feral, with madly darting eyes . . .
No, no, no, no, noooo . . .
A low keening sound escaped Mayles’s lips. As the thing drew nearer, he felt the growing breath of wetness and mold, a stench of dirt and rotting toadstools . . . The keening in his throat grew into a gargling flow of mucus as the thing slunk by, never looking at him, never seeing him, passing like a breath of clammy cellar air.
The next thing Mayles knew, he was lying on the floor, staring upward at a security officer holding a tumbler of water.
He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came save a sigh of air leaking from between his vocal cords.
“Mr. Mayles,” the officer said. “Are you all right?”
He made a sound like a punctured bellows.
“Mr. Mayles, sir?”
He swallowed, worked his sticky jaws. “
It . . . was . . . here
.”
A strong arm reached down and grasped his jacket, pulling him to a sitting position.
“Your group came tearing by me, hysterical. Whatever it was that you saw, it’s gone now. We’ve searched all the adjacent corridors. It’s gone.”
Mayles leaned over, swallowed unhappily, and then—as if to exorcise the very presence of the thing—vomited on the gold pile carpeting.
51
CAPTAIN MASON!” LESEUR JAMMED HIS FINGER HARD AGAINST the intercom button. “We’ve got a Code Three alert. Please answer me!”
“Mr. LeSeur,” said Kemper, “she knows very well we’ve got a Code Three. She activated it herself.”
LeSeur turned and stared. “You’re sure?”
Kemper nodded.
The first officer turned back to the hatch. “Captain Mason!” He yelled into the intercom. “Are you all right?”
No response. He banged on the hatch with his fist.
“Mason!”
He spun toward Kemper. “How do we get in there?”
“You can’t,” said the security chief.
“The hell I can’t! Where’s the emergency override? Something’s happened to Captain Mason!”
“The bridge is hardened just like an airline cockpit. When the alert is triggered from within, it locks down the bridge. Totally. Nobody can get in—unless let in by someone on the inside.”
“There’s got to be a manual override!”
Kemper shook his head. “Nothing that would allow entry by terrorists.”
“Terrorists?” LeSeur stared at Kemper in disbelief.
“You bet. The new ISPS regulations required all kinds of anti- terrorist measures aboard ship. The world’s largest ocean liner—it’s an obvious target. You wouldn’t believe the antiterrorist systems on the ship. Trust me—you won’t get in, even with explosives.”
LeSeur sagged against the door, breathing hard. It was incomprehensible. Had Mason had a heart attack of some kind? Lost consciousness? He glanced around at the anxious, confused faces looking back at him. Looking to him for leadership, guidance.
“Follow me to the auxiliary bridge,” he said. “The CCTVs there will show us what’s going on.”
He ran down the companionway, the others following, and opened the door to a service stair. Taking the metal steps three at a time, he descended a level, pulled open another door, then tore down the corridor, past a deckhand with a mop, to the hatchway leading into the aux bridge. As the group entered, a guard monitoring the security feeds within looked up in surprise.
“Switch to the bridge feeds,” LeSeur ordered. “All of them.”