He and Kelly might well have landed on the wrong part of Titanic; it could be that the creature and its eggs were in the aft section’s smaller freezer compartments, and if so, they’d been wrong about Swigart and of course, now it was clear that Mendenhall was entirely too human to have been the monster. The creature would not have gotten itself killed over a stash of motorcars, no matter the make, model, or vintage.
David tried desperately to raise Kelly, so wanting to hear her voice; he shouted for Forbes to locate her even as he wondered now about Gambio, Bowman, Fiske, and Jens. Might one of them be the creature incognito with plans of getting to the bow section on a second dive, tomorrow?
David called up to those on the surface, “Tell me I’m not the only one left down here alive, Captain!”
“No… no, you’re not alone. Swigart’s vital signs are still giving us a reading—weak but something.”
“What about Kelly?”
“Unsure what’s going on there, but her vital signs went dead with her com-link. We suspect it’s only technical difficulties, magnetic interference. We’re doing all we can to get her back online.”
“Well damn it, Forbes! Do it! She’s in danger every second you don’t have her in your sights! What about the others at the aft section?”
“There’s been no drama with them, Ingles; drama seems to follow you!” Forbes did not sound happy to have David blast him with demands, and he was understandably upset. Now he had three deaths to explain to authorities whenever they got back to Woods Hole.
“I did all in my power to get Jacob to pay heed to his surroundings; the man got himself killed. I don’t own that one.”
“I wasn’t suggesting—”
“The hell you weren’t.”
“You’re breaking up, Ingles… only getting static. Check your equipment.”
“Is it the depths, the equipment, what?”
Everything went silent again. David, spinning about in the water, looked around on all sides of himself. He had become somewhat disoriented and for good reason. It was not every day you saw a man implode before your eyes or were showered with corpses. Aside from his stomach-wrenching worry over Kelly, David kept coming back to the fact that there was not enough left of Jacob Mendenhall to fill a pocket, or to hold a ceremony over.
THIRTY ONE
The old man named Farley, confused and exhausted from running about Titanic and hiding now for another day and night asked, “All right, Varmint and me, we’ve done everything you blokes’ve asked, and gone ’long with every ‘whattaya-think’s-best-notion’ you fellas’ve had,and it’s got us all nowhere except starvin’ it has. Now I got a right to know. Just who is it you’re chasin’ anyway?”
“A dead man.” Ransom replied it in deadpan.
“Oh… sure… I see… uh-huh…” Farley scratched at his beard and then released Varmint who took off like a shot. Back of them, they heard men stomping down the stairwell. They raced past huge cylinders and boilers the size of buildings.
“Looks like casks of beer for a giant,” observed Thomas. “And it’s making me thirsty.”
“Hotter’n hell down here,” commented Farley. “Varmint don’t like it.”
They rushed on past giant pistons and shafts that put them in awe given the sheer size of these machines, and next they passed one room where stokers and firemen struggled with flames within, heat and black smoke like a malevolent force trying to escape. They could feel the heat, and trying to keep up with Varmint, they were all sweating profusely when they came to a halt in back of the dog who’d begun barking and alerting on a huge door as it might in the field when hunting quail.
They all stared at a door marked FREEZER UNIT – Authorized Personnel Only.
Alastair snatched the door wide. The four men and the dog looked in on a large open area with freezer units along the walls; stacked to the ceiling were frozen perishables, breads, sausages, whole gutted frozen chickens, pheasants, ducks, rabbits, turkeys, geese, and inside a deep freeze compartment beef and swine carcasses dangling from meat hooks. “A man could live in here if it weren’t so damn cold,” muttered Farley, his teeth chattering. “Look at all this?”
“Supplies enough to feed the thousands on board for the trip to New York,” said Ransom, picking about the items, wondering what could the dog’s nose have possibly picked up here.
At the center of the room stood a fixed, huge chopping block the size of a grand piano. Along another wall was a metal table—or rather an elongated sink the size of a trough with a tabletop board for butchering as well.
Everything is big on the Titanic, Ransom thought as he looked about the room. “The dog can’t be right. Nothing here. Besides, no way he can sniff out anything that’s frozen.”
“Hold on,” said Declan, opening one of the freezer doors, finding nothing inside other than hanging beef, venison, and hogs on hooks.
Thomas pulled open a second freezer door. Still more frozen goods—geese, chickens, lamb shanks, pork, as well as huge cases of ice cream and frozen pies. “Nothing here,” he added.
Regardless of the cold, Varmint had gone about the large entry room sniffing and scratching, and Farley, disregarding the others and their pronouncements shadowed his dog, now scratching at some locker against one wall—locked with a padlock. Ransom banged at the lock with his cane, saying, “Need a damn gun.”
“I’ll have a go at it with my pig sticker,” said Farley, indicating the lock. “I’ve a knack for such things.”
“Here,” said Ransom. “You may need these.” He handed Farley his burglar’s tools wrapped in a leather wallet.
Farley stared at the tools laid out before him, his eyes dazzling. “They’re… lovely… just lovely,” he said.
“You get that lock open, and they’re yours,” promised Ransom.
“Oh… I’ll get ’er open, Constable.”
Again they heard the stamp of feet and shouting—their pursuers. The sounds reverberated out in the closed corridor. Ransom went to the door to slam it closed and lock it from the inside when Lightoller met him there, Declan’s journal in hand, shouting, “I believe you! I’m here to help!”
Ransom looked beyond Charles Lightoller to see Murdoch leading a group of strong-armed men of the black gang variety coming straight for them. “Get inside here!” He pulled Lightoller into the freezer entry room and slammed the door closed. Then he sent the wheel lock spiraling and when he heard the tumbler snap, he rammed his cane into the wheel to hold it locked against the outside.
Murdoch’s shouting and banging was muffled, but the rage and anger was unmistakably palpable, despite the impenetrable metal door.
Lightoller held the journal up to Declan and Thomas. “This is… this is so unfortunate.” Lightoller was hardly older than the interns, and he was obviously shaken at having come to the conclusion that these strangers to him had indeed a case, a horrible one at that. “I will do all I can to help you convince the captain of just how dire our circumstances are.”
Just then Farley shouted, “Eureka!” and he threw the padlock across the room, the sound of it rattling off the metal floor. Elated, the old man tore open the locker, gasped and fell backward, his dog barking and going to him.
Ransom and the others approached the huge footlocker to see not only Davenport but two other bodies stacked below him. Three corpses! One undoubtedly Burnsey, another Davenport, but to whom did the third corpse belong?
“My god,” said Lightoller. “It’s Davenport, Burnsey, and-and Dr. O’Laughlin!”
“Guess he believes us now,” muttered Thomas with a little shake of the head.