The Map of the Sky (Trilogía Victoriana #2)(47)

“Good God, he’s killed the captain!” Lieutenant Blair exclaimed.

Reynolds turned to the others, reassuring them with a wave of his hand.

“Keep calm. This is the monster, not the captain. I lost sight of MacReady for several minutes. Long enough for the creature to kill him and adopt his appearance,” he explained in a steady voice. Then he looked once more at the captain, who was lying faceup in the middle of the circle they had formed. “Pay attention and you will see how the creature’s true form reemerges.”

Their objections silenced, the sailors keenly contemplated MacReady’s body. He had a bullet hole right in the middle of his broad forehead, and death had finally erased his look of permanent irritation, replacing it with a surprisingly affable, almost kindly, expression, far more suited to entering the afterworld without arousing fear or loathing in his fellow spirits. But the minutes went by and the captain’s face failed to undergo any change whatsoever. Perhaps the monster preserved its disguise after death, Reynolds reflected, as the sailors’ anticipation quickly turned to disbelief, and he began to feel uncomfortable under their increasingly mistrustful gaze. He turned to them, shrugging foolishly.

“Well, we may have to wait a little longer,” he apologized.

Allan gave a timid cough.

“Don’t forget that when it changed shape in the cabin it was only wounded,” he reminded him.

“Yes, perhaps that’s it.” Reynolds smiled reassuringly at the men. “Perhaps it cannot change once it is dead.”

“In that case, how can we be sure it isn’t still among us?” Lieutenant Blair asked nervously.

“Because I am the only one who lost sight of his companion,” Reynolds explained.

“And Captain MacReady lost sight of you.” The gigantic Peters stepped forward, his huge machete swinging alarmingly at the end of his arm, his voice booming among the crates like distant thunder.

Reynolds looked uneasily at the suspicious, even angry faces staring back at him.

“Surely you don’t think . . . Oh, God, no,” Reynolds gulped with horror. “I am not the creature, for pity’s sake! Allan, please, tell them . . .”

The gunner gave him a beleaguered look, overwhelmed by the pace and madness of events.

Allan finally spoke in a muffled voice. “Listen, please. This man is Reynolds, believe me. I saw the creature change itself, first into Carson and then into me, and although the likeness is exact, I can assure you there is something that distinguishes it from the original!”

“And what is that, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Blair demanded, looking askance at Reynolds.

“I can’t say exactly . . . ,” the gunner replied apologetically, his hushed voice all but drowned out by the sailors’ anxious murmurs.

“Listen! There is a far easier way of resolving this.” Griffin’s voice pierced the darkness like a tiny ray of light. “We can take down the body and see who it is.”

For a few moments everyone remained silent, amazed that there should be such a simple solution.

“All right!” roared Peters, pointing his machete at the other sailors. “Two of you men see to that, but for the love of God, let it be two of you who know they didn’t lose sight of each other. In the meantime, we will watch Mr. Reynolds. I’m sorry, sir,” he apologized, waving his blade at the explorer’s throat, “but right now you are the other half of the only pair that became separated.”

Shepard and Wallace stepped forward as one.

“We’ll see to it,” said Shepard. “We’re sure we didn’t become separated, aren’t we, Wallace?”

“That’s right, Shepard. We were together all the time,” Wallace said, staring straight ahead with an alarmingly fixed gaze.

“Like Siamese twins we were,” Shepard joked in a peculiar voice that sounded like his but was slightly distorted, as though his tongue were too big for his mouth. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, that same hideous voice chimed up once more, only this time in the mouth of Wallace. “You said it, Shepard. Closer than a wedded couple: together even in the afterlife.”

Bewildered, Reynolds looked from one sailor to the other, until he noticed with horror the mesh of slimy fibers joining Shepard’s right boot to Wallace’s left one. At that moment, he knew he had killed MacReady pointlessly. And from some vague part of his body, perhaps from the base of his spinal cord, he felt a wave of pure terror coursing through him, through every nerve ending, every ganglion, threatening to paralyze him, to drain all his energy or whatever it was that enabled him to move. The other men looked equally startled.

What happened next is hard to describe. Perhaps a more seasoned narrator would have no difficulty—I am thinking of Wilde or Dumas—but unfortunately it falls to me. Having said that, I shall be as precise as possible in my choice of words so as not to confuse you even more. What happened was that, all of a sudden, before anyone had time to react, the bodies of Shepard and Wallace began to dissolve until they slowly melded into one, their deformed features floating in a glutinous substance like chunks in broth, a hideous fusion of eyes, mouths, and hair. Terrified, Reynolds could not help watching the creature’s metamorphosis with fascination, and increasing alarm, as the issue of that gelatinous substance grew ever larger and more monstrous. And suddenly, like yeast bread in an oven, the slimy creature began to solidify, becoming more compact, its elongated body endowed with powerful muscles and covered in a reddish skin, as though draped in seaweed. When the transformation had finished, the explorer could see that its arms and legs did indeed end in long, razor-sharp talons. He also noticed that what he took to be its head, for no other reason than because it was sitting between its shoulders, had formed into a nightmarish countenance that looked like the result of an unnatural coupling between a wolf and a lamb: it had a pointed snout and a pair of spiral-shaped horns on either side of its massive skull. Then the thing appeared to smile, drawing back its lips like a dog, to reveal a row of small pointed teeth. Without delay, it turned to Foster, the unfortunate sailor standing on its left, and with a rapid movement sank one of its claws into his stomach, only to pull it out a moment later trailing a slew of organs that spilled onto the floor with a dull plop. Allan’s face turned pale as he watched the jumble of entrails land at his feet, but he was scarcely able to retch politely before the monster wrapped its talons round his throat and lifted him off the floor like a doll. Luckily, Peters roused himself from the state of shock paralyzing all the men and moved toward the creature, swinging his machete. He plunged it forcefully into the creature’s shoulder. The blade sank into its flesh with astonishing ease, and it let out a loud high-pitched wail that echoed among the crates. It automatically released its grip on Allan, who fell to the floor, coughing and spluttering as Peters wrenched out the machete, splattering a greenish spray in all directions, and raised it to strike a second blow. But this time the monster reacted more quickly. It stopped the Indian’s arm by grabbing his wrist and bent it double as easily as a child snapping a twig. The color drained from Peters’s face at the sight of his arm, twisted at an impossible angle, the bone poking out at the elbow, but his suffering was brief, for with another incredibly swift movement, the creature decapitated him with one of its claws. Peters’s head hit one of the boxes with a dull thud before rolling across the floor, a look of bewilderment on his face at having met such a sudden death. Then the monster turned toward the rest of the men, but Griffin, with a composure that startled Reynolds, raised his musket, took aim, and fired straight at the creature’s chest. The impact at such close range propelled the Martian backward. This brought the struggle to a halt for a moment, and those still standing watched the monster writhing on the floor, desperately trying to change shape.