The Map of the Sky (Trilogía Victoriana #2)(46)

MacReady and Reynolds took the central aisle. The captain went first, moving very slowly, pistol cocked, lantern held high. Reynolds, his weapon also loaded and ready to fire as soon as he perceived the slightest suspicious movement, tried to follow at what he considered a prudent distance: not close enough to appear fearful, not too far away for them to defend each other in case the monster ambushed them. Reynolds was convinced the Martian would attack him before any of the others. It was a reasonable supposition, for he was the one who had exposed the creature. He was to blame for them hunting it down now.

Suddenly they saw an enormous figure pass a few yards in front of them. Without delay, MacReady raised his pistol in the air and ran toward where the creature had vanished. Reynolds, on the contrary, remained motionless, horrified by the monster’s new shape, as the darkness fell on him like a shroud. He had scarcely glimpsed the Martian as it darted across the passageway, but he had seen enough to know that the monster had reached another stage in its metamorphosis. What he had seen was a vaguely humanoid creature, more like one of the demons that had so terrified him as a child than like a spider. And although it appeared slightly hunched as it ran, he thought it looked bigger than Peters. That was all he could say about it. The darkness in the hold had made it impossible even to make out its color. A couple of loud reports interrupted the explorer’s reverie. He deduced from their proximity that the shots had come from MacReady’s gun. Reynolds swallowed hard, trying to overcome the fear that had seeped into his bones, and a few seconds later he found himself running in the same direction as the captain. When Reynolds reached his side, bathed in sweat and panting, he found MacReady peering furiously into the inky blackness stretching beyond the lantern’s glow.

“That bastard is fast,” he said.

“Did you hit it?” said Reynolds, trying to catch his breath.

“I think so, but I’m not sure. Did you see it, Reynolds? It looks like a goddamned orangutan, but with a kind of forked tail—”

Before MacReady was able to go on, they heard the fire of muskets, followed by a din of shouts and crates crashing to the floor. When the rumpus ended, Reynolds could hear several sailors exclaiming excitedly that they had shot the creature, although their voices appeared to emanate from different areas of the hold. MacReady shook his head ruefully.

“Regroup at the door!” he yelled, the lantern light illuminating his vaporous breath.

With a nod of his head, he ordered Reynolds to follow him. They hurried back to the meeting place and found several of the men already there. The others arrived seconds later, and they were relieved to see that no one was missing. The men huddled near the narrow entrance to one of the passageways, and while the captain tried to form an idea of what had happened from their jumbled accounts, Reynolds leaned against what seemed like a solid pile of crates and observed the scene with a strange ambivalence: the creature he had glimpsed was far more powerful and terrifying than he had imagined in his worst nightmares, and his earlier euphoria at having escaped from his cabin alive was beginning to be eclipsed by the notion that all their attempts at survival would be in vain. But he must banish these morbid thoughts, he told himself; he had to carry on believing there was some hope of survival, however slight.

“I think I hit it,” Ringwald assured them excitedly.

Reynolds looked at him askance, as did the others, because they were all claiming the same thing. Suddenly, a drop of blood appeared on Ringwald’s brow, followed by another, and soon a small trickle was running down his face into the corner of his mouth. Ringwald touched his fingers to his forehead, puzzled, and, verifying that the blood was not coming from him but from above, he peered up at the ceiling. The others did likewise. On top of a very tall pile of crates they were able to make out what looked like a dead body, although all they could see was one leg sticking out at an impossible angle.

“Good God,” muttered Lieutenant Blair.

“Why did the monster put him up there?” Kendricks wondered, equally horrified.

They went on gawping at the leg, dangling like a question mark in the air, until a wave of comprehension began to wash over them. Then, the sea of heads swathed in scarves began bobbing this way and that as, with a growing sense of horror, the sailors confirmed over and over again that no one in the group was missing. Some even instinctively moved away from the man next to them.

“Damnation!” roared MacReady, enraged that the Martian refused to let itself be hunted like any other wild beast. “Who lost sight of his partner?”

The men shrugged as one and exchanged suspicious glances. Apparently no one. But someone must have, Reynolds thought. Then he remembered with a shudder that he had. He had lost sight of MacReady briefly, just after they glimpsed the creature. As though his gesture were a continuation of that thought, Reynolds turned and aimed his pistol at the captain, but MacReady must have reached the same conclusion, for Reynolds found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. The sailors looked on in horror at the two men pointing their weapons at each other. For a few moments there was silence.

“If I were the monster, Reynolds,” MacReady said, cocking his gun, “I would take on your appearance so as not to arouse suspicion.”

The explorer twisted his mouth in disgust.

“I don’t intend to waste my breath talking to you this time, whatever you are,” he replied. “Three.”

The shot from Reynolds’s pistol knocked MacReady’s head back. When it flopped forward again, he stared at Reynolds with a puzzled expression, as though unable to believe he had shot him. Finally, the captain’s legs crumpled and he fell to the floor, where he lay stretched out at their feet. Reynolds gazed at him, amazed at the ease with which he had dispatched the creature.