Deadlock

7

He began to panic.

It seemed inconceivable to him that such a thing was possible, but he could sense the unknown threat of the ship, feel it working along his spine like especially cold fingers and he began to freak out. The panic was like an ever-expanding bubble of hot gas that rose up from his belly and filled his chest. It got so he could barely breathe. He leaned there against the bulkhead, unsure whether he should run and run right goddamn now for his life or just wait there, shaking and sweaty, his insides like warm pudding, and hope that whatever was out there threading the darkness like a needle would not be able to find him.

Whatever was out there—and at that moment he was sure there was something—it was concentrated here, gathering around him like poison gas.

“Stop it,” he said under his breath. “Please, please just stop it.”

But it wasn’t stopping.

It wasn’t even slowing down. And something in him, that indefinable thing he’d always thought of as guts or balls, was abandoning him. It was leaving, reaching escape velocity and shooting off into the night. What it left behind was a pale and shivering man who could not be certain of anything. Reality was distorted here, cruelly distorted, mangled, and remade and he did not trust it. For the first time in his life he did not trust his senses. Everything was warped, off-kilter. Even the deck under his feet was suspect. He could trust nothing.

Nothing but the fear that owned him.

Why? Why? a voice cried in his head. Why now? You were never, ever afraid of anything before! Why are you so fucking gutless now?

But the answer to that was quite simple: the threats to his life and well-being had always been tangible things before. He could easily locate them and strike out against them. Not so now. The danger on this old hulk was partly physical, partly psychological, and partly psychic. Maybe that made little sense, but it was all around him and it could get to him anytime it chose, but he could never find it… not unless it wanted to be found.

He pulled out another cigarette and lit it with shaking hands. He could barely hang onto the Zippo. It felt like its brass casing had been oiled. As he smoked, he studied a door directly across from him. It was no different than any other cabin door, yet he could not stop staring at it.

And he knew why: the thing that haunted this fucking ship was behind it.

It was waiting there, grinning with a crooked smile of long yellow teeth, looking right through the door at him. In his mind, he could see its single blood-rimmed serous eyeball watching him. It was daring him to open the door. It was taunting his weakness and lack of real guts.

He pulled off his cigarette, goosebumps rising on his forearms and the nape of his neck. He had the flashlight trained on the door. He licked his lips. He tensed his muscles. He tried to fill that gaping hollow inside him with steel because he was Charlie Petty and he wasn’t afraid of anything.

But that’s a lie and you know it, he heard his own voice saying in his head. Inside here, in the darkness at the top of the stairs which is your mind, the empty attic of the beast itself, you know it isn’t true. This is like nothing you’ve ever faced before. It doesn’t matter how fast you are, how strong, how smart, or how cunning or lethal you are. Whatever walks alone on this ship doesn’t play by those rules. It knows you are physically dangerous and perhaps its equal, but it doesn’t want to fight. It wants something else.

Yes, that was true.

He knew it was true. It didn’t want to fight. It had other motivations, only it was keeping them secret. He would not learn what they were until it had weakened him with his own fear and then and only then, when he was curled up and sobbing with terror, would it show itself. Until then, it would play mind games. It would crawl inside his head and make him doubt the reality of everything.

Yes, he knew it.

Just as he’d known it was there the moment he stepped on the ship and knew that puddle of urine he found was not accidental or harmless. The thing had pissed itself out of excitement because he was exactly what it had been waiting for.

He exhaled a cloud of smoke that filled the flashlight beam. “I know you’re in there,” he said. “And if I want to, I’ll come after you.”

He was certain he heard it tittering.

It was still staring at him and its grin was wider than ever, all those long, interlocked teeth shining with malice, daring him to come after it because that was part of the game. And if he didn’t play the game, it would be angry and it would no longer smile.

Charlie waltzed over there, steeling himself as he had once upon a time when he’d stuck a shank in a guy in the prison yard. He grabbed the door and threw it open. The flashlight beam found only darkness within. Nothing more. But the smell… it was horrible. Stagnant and fusty like standing water. Then worse: a sour stink like the glandular secretions of a mink.

“Nothing,” he said under his breath. “Not a goddamn thing but your imagination.”

Then the door slammed shut, cracking him in the forehead and sending him reeling out into the passage where he banged into the bulkhead and slid down to the floor, knocked cold.

He came to gasping for breath, his hands flailing in the darkness for something to strike, but there was nothing. He only calmed down when he found the flashlight and shined it around, making sure he was alone. It was hard to say how long he had been out, but judging from his cigarette that had burned down to a long gray ash, it must have been at least fifteen minutes or so.

He put the light on the door again.

It was askew.

“Motherfucker,” he said under his breath, still wanting to believe that it had been one of Arturo’s tricks.

He jumped to his feet and kicked the door wide, leaping in there, ready to fight. It was empty. Even the smell was gone. Just another cabin that was identical to all the others. If it wasn’t Arturo’s boys, then it had to have been a strong gust of wind. But there was no porthole for a wind to come from.

He stepped back out into the corridor.

You’re never going to figure this one out.

It was true and he knew it. He stood there a moment longer, just thinking. There was a throbbing pain at his left index finger. He studied it in the light. It was cut. Blood had run over the back of his hand. Much of it had dried. He wiped it away on his shirt. The wound was like a couple of tiny puncture marks. Not a cut, more like a bite.

A rat?

It was possible. Having grown up in a shitty neighborhood and having been bitten by rats more than once, he did not panic. He knew for a fact that rats were very rarely rabid. The germ killed them almost instantly. He would find the head, the bathroom, and clean it up. It was nothing.

He grabbed his duffel and went on his way.

Goddamn ship would not break him. He would not allow it.

His finger started to itch.