The Outsiders (21 page)

Then there was a movement...something
alive
.

A rat, just like many before it, had
climbed up one of the large mooring ropes and onto the decks. It’s
hunt for food would now begin in earnest and it’s highly developed
sense of smell led it to the grain holds in the bowels of the
ship.

There was a sense of the ship being
aware
.

The years had enbrowned and mossed the once beautiful woodwork
adding credence to the stories of
things
moving in the dark. And there
was even a story of the ship floating in a Portugese harbour, with
an unearthly glow emanating from the lower decks.

But many studies and reports had proved these to be nothing
more than sailors fancies and asides to deflect investigators
to
the truth
.

It all began when a family and crew...simply disappeared in
the open sea. No. Nothing simply
vanishes.

As the rat moved deeper into the ship,
the moonlight was consumed by the darkness, firstly in steady bites
and then one big gulp. Blackness reigned.

The rat stopped, raised itself on its
haunches and sniffed at the air. Its razor-sharp incisors glinting
as a small shard of light caught the rats open jaws.

Its whiskers twitched. Ears searched
for something other than the ship. Nothing.

Lower deck. Pitch black.

The jet black rodent was nothing more
than a sound in the air, as it hugged closely to the wall.
Searching. Searching.

Suddenly it stopped...again.

It couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t hear
anything.

The creature sensed it...
them.

At first there was a gentle light, more
a glow. Not enough to be noticed by anyone outside the confines of
the lower holds, but enough to surround the rat. The creature
turned back, but it did not make it to the stairwell.

The walls came
alive
.

Tendrils, as thin as a human hair,
darted with extreme precision into the rat’s body. The number was
incalculable, but each of the tendrils was tipped with poison, not
enough to kill, but enough to stun, to paralyse.

It pulled with all the might that the instinct to survive
could muster, at the living
things
that clung to its body.

It gnawed at one, then
another.

The stinging tendrils pulled back as
teeth ripped at them, only to be replaced by yet more of the
vein-like killers.

High-pitched squeals pierced the air, but these were silenced
as man
y tendrils held the jaws open while
others invaded the rats throat.

The rat continued to thrash against its
bindings, but to no avail, as the tendrils held firm. A final,
pitiful scream and its lower jaw was ripped from it’s
skull.

Within less than a minute, the
creature’s battle was near to ending.

The attack was instinctive and
brutal.

The creature lay there, unable to move; but able to hear, to
smell, to see.
To feel.

The walls began to glow brighter as the tendrils retreated
back into the wooden hull and decks. They were replaced by millions
of microscopic translucent insects, who swarmed
en masse
the creature. The black fur
now glistened white as the mass devoured the helpless animal while
it lived. In its mind, it struggled to fight off the mass. Its last
thought was more instinct than anything.

It feared.

As quickly as the attack began, it
ended. The rat was no more. Nothing. Totally consumed...save for
the small amount of liquid residue that remained.

The insects returned to the walls. The
light faded to darkness.

Silence reigned.

The heavy warehouse doors opened and
four silhouettes formed in the mist, with three lanterns
illuminating the area as the men stepped deeper into the building.
The room was empty save for a collection of small cages, each no
more than twelve inches long and six inches wide and high...and the
smell of dead fish and smoke kippers.

There was a collection of microscopes
of varying sizes, glass slides and six boxes that contained
something experimental from the army. Holmes took a good look at
the equipment and turned to Private Alten.

“
Private Alten.”

The soldier looked up from his own
examination of the cages and gizmos.

“
Yes, sir?”

“
Could you arrange to get
these instruments onto tables and the contents of those six boxes
opened and hung up, ready to use.”

“
And the cages, Mr.
Holmes?”

“
Take those down to the ship
and leave them by the walkway, if you would be so kind. And we
shall return at first light.”

“
Very good, sir.”

Watson turned to Jephson.

“
Something tells me that
this ship is something of a personal crusade, Doctor.”

The American smiled.

“
Crusade? You could say
that, Dr. Watson. My father was one of three passengers that
vanished. Wasn’t part of the ship’s original manifest, so there is
another part to the mystery. He did leave a journal, but it’s been
proved that this was nothing more than a hoax. Something akin to a
writer’s fantasy to earn a few shillings, as I think you British
would say.”

“
Are you hoping to find, Dr.
Jephson?”

“
Clue to what actually
happened. The truth is out there and I want to be there when Holmes
finds it.”

Holmes turned toward the two
gentlemen.

“
That is what we will do,
Dr. Jephson. But first we need to plan. There is much to
do.”

“
I want to get back to the
lodgings and eat, Mister Holmes.”

Watson turns back to
Jephson.

“
And you must try the fruit
crumble. For a small village on the side of nowhere, the chef is a
genius.”

“
Crumble, Dr. Watson? What
is crumble?”

“
A little slice of British
heaven, my friend.”

The warehouse doors slammed shut,
leaving the soldier to set up the equipment for the next
day.

The morning broke with a cool breeze
and no sign of the fog that shrouded the harbour the previous
night. Four guards now stood close by to walkway of the ship and
the other two stood guard on the warehouse and Holmes’ equipment.
The ship looked less imposing in daylight, almost
benign.

At first glance, who would even
consider that there was such a mysterious past connected with such
a wonderful feet of engineering?

At the bottom of the walkway were the
small cages; twelve of them, each of them now with an
occupant.

A rat.

The warehouse door opened and out
stepped three men dressed in strange, heavyweight rubber suits. The
suits were ochre and topped off with small versions of the deep sea
diving helmet, yet the complete outfit was much more manoeuvrable.
Each helmet had an experimental lamp atop, freeing up a hand that
would have been carrying a lantern that gave the same amount of
illumination.

In the suits were, Sergeant Merry, Dr,
Jephson and Holmes.

The three made the short walk to the
ship and each picked up four of the rat-cages.

Holmes turned to his colleagues and
unclipped his faceplate.

“
Gentlemen, here we go.
Phase One. Don’t linger, don’t stop, don’t do anything that we did
not discuss last night. If I am right, you do not want to be down
there longer than need be. Do you understand?”

The two men nodded.

Watson stepped forward toward his
friend.

“
I hope you heard your own
rules, Holmes.”

“
Anything more than thirty
minutes, you know what to do.”

“
Just don’t take longer than
thirty minutes.”

They each entered the
Celeste
amidships. No words passed between them, not that
they would have heard each other through their heavy
suits.

Sergeant Merry moved toward the bow of
the ship, Holmes to the stern and Jephson, at his his request,
moved to the holds. Each of the cages was laid on the floor, in
accordance with Holmes’ instructions.

Merry had set down his four cages in a
matter of a few minutes, five at the very most, as per his orders.
He was soon out of the ship, helmet off and breathing in cool,
clean air again.

“
That didn’t take as long as
I thought, Dr. Watson.”

“
The others?”

“
You knew the plan, sir.
Different areas for each.”

Holmes began to lay his cages, but the
longer he was on board, the more his desire to understand the
underlying mystery. For him, a desire: for the man in the holds, an
obsession.

Holmes took a close look at one of the planks off the internal
hull. Something was compelled him to take a sample...a need for
answers...or questions that could lead to the
right
answers. He was able to pull a
small sample of wood away from an area of hull that had a slight
buckle in it. He placed it into a sample bag that was made of the
same heavy-duty material as his suit.

The fourth of Holmes’ cages was set
down and he prepared to leave, as per his own directive. So much
more he wanted to do, but this was not the time. He moved toward
the exit and as he passed one of the stairwells to the lower deck,
he could have sworn that he saw, for a moment a light that burned
like a magnesium flare. He stood and peered into the impenetrable
darkness.

There was a light. But no movement
attached to it.

Jephson was in trouble.

Holmes abandoned his own plan, or was
about to, when he found himself being held back. Sergeant Merry
pushed Holmes back and descended the stairwell himself.

Holmes lay Jephson’s suit on one of the
examination tables in the warehouse, that now served as a small
laboratory.

“
That’s all I found, Mr.
Holmes. That and his helmet.” said the Sergeant.

“
I knew he didn’t want to
wear the suit, but would he be foolish enough to take it off? I
doubt it.” replied Holmes.

“
So where is Dr. Jephson?”
asked Watson.

“
He has to still be on
there?” Merry snapped back.

“
I don’t think so,
Sergeant.”

Holmes cut a small section of Jephson’s
suit and placed it under the most powerful of the three
microscopes. He placed his right eye to the ocular lens and
adjusted the focus.

“
Watson, take a look at this
and tell me what you see.”

“
What am I looking
for?”

“
Just tell me what you
see.”

Watson was indignant at Holmes’ tone
but did as he was instructed.

Watson always did what he was
asked.

“
Did you see anything else,
Sergeant?”

“
Even with the lamps it was
dark. You couldn’t see much at all.”

He adjusted the eyepiece to suit his
own vision and examined the sample.

You could have heard a pin drop in the
room as Watson studied, adjusted, and studied again. After what
seemed like hours, the physician raised his head, looked at Holmes,
then to Merry, and back to Holmes.

“
Holes. Hundreds of tiny
holes.”

Merry reached for his kitbag and pulled
out a hip flask. He took a much needed drink, then turned to the
others.

“
So is he down there, Mr.
Holmes?”

“
I have one more thing to
check, before I can give you anything close to an
answer.”

Holmes removed the piece of wood from
his sample bag and cut a small piece from it. Using the same
microscope, he studied the sliver with the same searching
endeavour. No answers again. More questions.

The detective wiped the sliver of wood
with a finger and checked it again.

He raised his head just enough to
garner Watson’s attention.

“
I need to go back on board.
I think I know what has happened. In fact, it’s still
happening.”

“
You can’t be serious,
Holmes. We’ve already lost one man. What good would it serve to
risk another” Watson asked.

“
I have to find out if my
theories are right. And if I am, we’re going to be fine for some
time.”

There was an air of uncanny familiarity
about this scenario. Holmes would insist. Watson would question.
Holmes would do what he thought was the right path to traverse.
Such was the order of things.

Merry had almost finished the contents
of the hip-flask when Holmes turned towards him

“
I need two volunteers,
Sergeant Merry.”