A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [32]
Breathing.
A raspy, wet sound, like a great barrel chest filled with air and blew fetid exhaust through moist lips and nostrils. She felt herself spinning, head light and heart thudding relentless and hard. She focused, and could just pin-point it, under the watery rhythm and fading music.
A grinding, grating sound, like something pushed down the hall against the dark wood walls, scratching on them. The thrum of impact on the floor boards by … what? Heavy footfalls? She couldn’t be sure.
Kelly turned and looked down the hall. She tried to hear, to isolate sounds … was someone stumbling out of the dark toward her?
“Hello?” Her voice carried weak, but the narrow corridor channeled it like a megaphone and it came out louder in the coffin-like area than she wanted.
The ship creaked, moaned, groaned, tick-tick-ticked at her.
“Hello?” she called again, her hope fading. She could still feel the thump of the floorboards, but now couldn’t tell if they approached or receded, or were just rhythms of the ocean on the ship.
Another deep, wet breath drifted from everywhere, and nowhere. A chill ran from the base of her skull to her tailbone. She shuddered hard, and fought back panic, trying to decide what to do.
The stairwell to the deck was in front of her somewhere, beyond the corridor junction. She stared in that direction and willed her eyes to focus, to see if a looming, shambling shape ambled and stomped toward her, to dispel the terror tickling icy and wet at her innards.
The ship creaked, moaned, groaned, tick-tick-ticked in response.
Kelly’s heart fluttered, racing like a hummingbird’s, and her eyes darted around in all directions. Sounds … guttural, mucus-filled, animalistic … she couldn’t tell if she heard them or if her imagination held her ransom. Another shudder ripped through her and tore a tiny whimper from her.
She stepped toward the stern.
The ship creaked, moaned, groaned, tick-tick-ticked.
She took another step, then another, listened.
A rushing, wind-in-the-willows breath again, from somewhere, from everywhere, from nowhere, surrounded her, gave visions of dripping, rotting maws or dank cave openings teeming with crawling, slimy creatures. Kelly’s head spun, the adrenaline nauseated her, made her dizzy.
Another step, then another, then another. She turned.
All the lights behind her still burned. Kelly turned around, and in the gloom of the hall in front of her she saw the pale patch of gray, the telltale spot of light falling down the stairs from the open door to the deck above.
Still daylight. Still hope to see, to at least be out of the tomblike catacombs of the ship.
She drew in a sharp breath, held it, and ran.
The hall lights behind her went out and the sudden dark drew a startled yelp from Kelly, but she kept her eyes locked on that patch of light, and pounded her feet. She felt cries and sobs escaping her while the hall seemed to grow longer with every step, as in a nightmare, stretching away from her faster than she could move. The maddening sensation, the sanity-breaking sounds, the breathing, the gooey, sopping breathing…
The light. She made it to the patch of light and turned, banging against the corner where the access emptied into the hall, and bright, hot pain stabbed through her shoulder and chest. She panted, clawing at the handrail to heave herself up the stairs, with the sensation tingling at the back of her neck, the sensation of a cold, wet something reaching for her, grabbing at her, clutching at her, and she screamed again, felt it erupt from her diaphragm, her feet moving too slow, too sluggish to escape, up the stairs, toward the sliver of light spilling through the open door, and screamed again because it narrowed, the door above her slipped and started to close, and her only hope, her only escape would be lost if something waited on deck and locked her below with the breathing, the grunting, phlegmy, stomping thing she wasn’t sure was there, and another shriek tore from her, and vibrated