A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [33]
Kelly exploded through the door into the gray, flat-toned mist, toppled onto the wet wooden planks and slid, her throat closing for a brief second, her legs pedaling wild and furious, knocking the door shut, slamming it with a heavy smash and a click of the brass works. She scrambled away from the door, from what she was sure would crash through, splinter the door and charge out onto the deck to eviscerate, disembowel, devour.
But the door stayed shut. She wanted to hear, to listen for the sound of the knob turning and latches opening, something stealthy turning the handle to spring open the door and crash through the portal, but couldn’t, something made too much noise and she couldn’t hear. It was her. She sobbed, gulped gasping breaths, gulped in salty mist air, she panted and her heart pounded, she muttered prayers and pleas.
It took a moment for her to catch her breath, to calm herself.
Kelly listened.
The ship creaked, moaned, groaned, tick-tick-ticked.
She stood up. The waves lapped against the hull, the boat sliced through the water, churned a spreading wake behind it, and the smell of the ocean around her came through the dense fog. Nothing else.
Then she noticed it.
Ding-ding … ding … ding … ding … dingding … ding …
Irregular, no set timing to the ring. A bell.
A buoy. A bell buoy.
Her heart leaped. She laughed, relief forced tears from her, and she wiped at them, annoyed and grateful and still afraid all at once, overwhelmed with emotion.
She was near land. A port, perhaps.
Kelly looked around, but only the fog stared back. She couldn’t make out the edges of the ship in the thick, soupy gloom. She wondered for a moment about Jurgen and Edward, but only a moment. Flanagan, Sam and the others all met the same fate, whatever it was.
But a buoy sounded.
She stepped around the structure housing the door to the abyss of the ship’s belly, gave it as wide a berth as possible while she moved. She went slow, watched for the gunwale to materialize from the fog. As much as she wanted to run, she dared not for fear of going overboard. She paced, hands wringing in front of her, breath shallow, thin. She couldn’t stop herself from shaking. She saw it then, the edge of the boat, rising and sloping in a graceful curve toward the narrow bow, the bowsprit lancing into the fog.
Wafts and tendrils of fog swirled and parted as the ship knifed ahead through the water, and the sound kept her hope afloat.
Ding … ding … ding-ding … ding …
The fog thinned. A gap opened and Kelly saw the water ahead of the ship. And just beyond, a silhouette, a phantom floating ahead of her, was the buoy, rocking on the gentle waves, tipping in a lazy dance over the water’s surface.
Ding-ding … ding-ding … ding … ding …
The ship creaked, moaned, groaned, tick-tick-ticked beneath her.
The bow rose and fell in slow swelling surges, and she breathed deep.
She covered her mouth to keep from screaming in joy when the buoy slipped past on the starboard and she saw gables, sharp and steep, cupolas, and the dark masses of structures begin to form, the lower portions obscured yet in the haze, the tops black outlines against the grayness. From the foreground ahead of them, clustered like a master’s painting of an old New England or European fishing shanty port town, the pilasters of a pier and the heavy planking of the boardwalk grew out of the inky mist, thinning as the ship drew closer to port.
Tears raced down Kelly’s face, her hands over her mouth, and she wept with relief, with joy.
The ship creaked, moaned, groaned, tick-tick-ticked under her.
Ding … ding-ding … ding … ding … ding-ding … The bell’s tolling faded behind her as the ship slid on, unhurried and calm. The shapes of the buildings sharpened, and Kelly took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Then she heard it.
A murmur. Voices.
She opened her eyes, then her mouth to call out, to hail the first person she saw.
But something silenced her.
She listened.
The murmur was indistinct, many voices. Deep. Baritone. Guttural. Grunts, growls,