Menhaus had been watching the candle burn down. Watching the wax run down the stem and pool at the base. He kept thinking that all he really wanted to do was to keep that candle burning. Somewhere during the process, he must have dozed off even though he had pretty much given up on sleep now as an impossibility. Yet, it had happened.
It must have happened.
For the next thing he knew his eyes were opening and he was seeing not the candle, but Makowski standing there, head cocked like a dog listening for its master. He seemed to be swaying on his feet to some unheard music.
Or was it unheard?
Menhaus was hearing something, he thought. But something distant, a sound, a melody… but coming from far away and resonating only in the back of his head.
“Slim,” he found himself saying. “Slim… what the hell are you doing?”
But Makowski did not answer.
He was staring at the door, hearing something that seemed to be intended only for him. His mental shortwave had locked onto some channel and that was obvious. He was receiving and the rest of the world had ceased to exist for him.
Menhaus turned and looked over at Saks.
“Yeah, I’m awake,” Saks said. “The only one sleeping here is Slim Loony, I think.”
And it did look like he was sleeping. Drugged or hypnotized, the way sleepwalkers often looked, that morphic gleam to their eyes. Makowski looked much like that. His eyes were fixed and staring, he was rubbing his hands against his legs. His conscious mind was locked-up in a box somewhere and his subconscious was at the wheel now.
Menhaus knew they always said you weren’t supposed to wake a sleepwalker, but it was probably just one of those old wife’s tales, a whaddyacallit, urban legend.
No, he thought, I won’t wake him… unless he makes for that door.
“What do you think?” he whispered to Saks.
Saks just shrugged. He didn’t give a shit one way or another.
Makowski just stood there, listening.
Menhaus thought he was hearing that sound again… or was he? A weird, uncanny humming or was it a whistling? He could just hear it, but not clearly enough to decipher its nuances, its rhythm and flow, not enough so that he could say without a doubt that, yes, he was hearing it.
He looked over at Saks and Saks had his knife out, like he was expecting trouble. His eyes were narrowed, his teeth set.
“What’s going on here?” Menhaus said, because he knew something was. The atmosphere of the cabin had never been exactly cheerful and sunny, but right then it had gone positively bleak, crawling with something. A something you could sense, could feel like poison in your blood.
Saks waited, drew out that silence, said, “There’s someone out in the corridor.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“There is,” Saks said with complete certainty. His eyes were filled with a dim, brooding light. Maybe it was just candlelight reflected and maybe it was something more. “There’s someone out there waiting for Makowski. He can hear it, whoever it is… he can hear it just fine.”
Menhaus swallowed, had trouble doing so.
Sure, he was picking up on it now, too. He wanted badly to tell Saks how wrong he was, but it just wasn’t in him. Because he was hearing something… a creaking or groaning out in the corridor and that sound, subtle as it was, set him on edge. Made his nerve endings tingle and the muscles of his abdomen pull up tight. More than just an old ship settling, more than just a creaking or groaning… this was the sound of occupancy, of someone waiting in the dankness out there. A secretive sound, one that was calculating and deceitful… and disturbing because of it.
Like someone sneaking into your house in the dead of night to steal your children or slit your throat, Menhaus thought.
He did not like it at all.
Makowski went to the door and stopped. Just stood there dumbly like a zombie in a canefield awaiting his orders. Menhaus sat up now, careful to make no sound whatsoever. And he thought: C’mon, Slim, don’t open that door, please don’t open that door… I don’t want to see what’s out there…
“Saks-”
“Shut up,” Saks snapped, but under his breath, trying damn hard to be quiet.
And now Menhaus knew why that was.
There was a very good reason to be quiet.
Because he was hearing it fine now, too. You could call it a humming or a whistling or even a singing, because it seemed to be all these things. It was a woman’s voice, high-pitched and piping. A discordant and vapid melody that rose and fell, an eerie off-key wailing that sounded hollow and distant and haunted… like a little girl’s voice echoed through the ductwork of a house, becoming something metallic and jangling and oddly perverse.
It created a tension in Menhaus, he felt his muscles bunch and his jaw clench tight. He thought it was the voice of an insane woman mourning at her child’s grave in a windy, midnight cemetery. For nothing sane could sound like this… it was the voice of something that crawled in dark places, hid in shadows.
Makowski reached up for the latch and undid it.
The sound of scraping metal was thunderous in the silence.
And a crazy voice in Menhaus’ head said: He’s just going to take a piss or something. That’s all it is. Nothing more than that.
But dear God, Menhaus did not believe it, for Makowski was bewitched by that strident melancholy wailing, he was being summoned and there was no way around that.
Saks was holding his knife now, gripping it tightly.
There was a momentary sound from down the corridor… a skittering, scratching sound.
Menhaus felt unreality settle into him, because this was how the human mind processed abject, overwhelming terror: It shut down and refused to believe the madness its senses fed it. And maybe his mind would not accept, but his heart believed with a black certainty. For he could feel it at his spine, a cold and prickling horror that electrified his ganglia.
Makowski opened the door and right away, you could smell something dark and sweet and noxious.
Menhaus didn’t know what he was expecting when that door slid open, maybe something with chattering teeth and long white fingers.. . but there were only shadows out there, knotted and spreading and bloated with some sort of spectral life.
That’s when Menhaus got to his feet.
He was not a brave man, but there came a time when you had no choice. For that wailing voice was gaining volume now and there was a sense of creeping, slinking motion just beyond view. That door had to be closed before, before-
He grabbed Makowski by the shoulder just as he stepped across the threshold, the stink out in the corridor just black and repellent. He saw something… thought he saw something… creep stealthily into the shadows, just a blur, a suggestion. He tried to yank Makowski back into the cabin and Makowski slapped his arm away, looking at Menhaus with a venomous, rabid leer. It was the look a starving, mad dog might give you if you tried to steal its food. Just utter loathing and anger.
Before Menhaus could step back, because that’s exactly what he was going to do, Makowski shoved him back with a flat palm against his chest. Menhaus was lifted off his feet and slammed into the bulkhead and with enough force that it knocked the wind out of him.
When he found his breath, he said, “Saks… Saks we better stop him… he’s not right…”
But Saks just shook his head, his upper lip hooked in a scowl. “No, not me. Not out there…”
The door to the cabin next door flew open and banged against the wall. Cook came through the doorway with the Browning 9mm in his fist. His eyes were wild and pissed-off.
“What in the hell is going on in here?”
“Makowski went for a walk,” Saks said. “Menhaus tried to stop him and he knocked him on his ass.”
“Shit.”
“Don’t go after him,” Saks said. “You heard it… I know you heard it… she was singing…”
Cook just said, “Lock this fucking door and don’t open it again.”
He stepped out into the corridor and told Fabrini the same thing. The door slammed shut over there. Menhaus passed a lantern to Cook, didn’t try to talk him out of it, knowing that his own bravery was all used-up now.
“Shut that door,” Cook told him and started off down the corridor.
When the door was shut and locked, Menhaus leaned with his back against it and glared at Saks. “You know what the difference between you and Cook is, Saks?”
Saks just stared.
“Cook has balls.”