The Monster Man of Horror House (17 page)

Khan
was coming once more.

x

Despite being locked three decks below, Khan’s roars sounded horrifyingly
close. Each howl would be accompanied by a thunderstorm of blows that rattled
the
Folly
’s rivets in their holes and
knocked a few hundred barnacles from her bow. Occasionally Khan would switch
his focus from one part of the ship to another, whittling his way towards the
surface cabin by cabin.

After
about an hour or so, Khan punched out a porthole in the side of the hull to get
at the fresh sea air beyond. There was no way he could squeeze through it, but
he was at least able to poke out his head and vent his insane rage up towards
me in dolby stereo.

I
tried to distract myself by squinting down at the glimmering seas and at Sushanta’s
raft bobbing away in the waters. I wondered if he was still alive, and if so,
what he was making the cabaret.

Khan
disappeared from the porthole and went rampaging through the lower decks again
while I tried to pick out the time on my wristwatch. It was almost four. The
sun rose at six. If my barricades could hold Khan for another two hours I’d
have the luxury of a whole other day to mess with the next of his tomorrows.

I
crossed what fingers I still could and used all of my Christmas wishes up at
once.

*

Things had been silent for an hour now. Either Khan had given up or he’d
punched himself stupid. I dared hope for the latter, but would’ve settled for the
former just as long as it meant another thirty minutes of peace because it was
now a half past five and I was agonisingly close to having made it through another
night.

I’d
polished off the last of my food and drank and peed all but a cupful of my water
into the South China Sea from a great height. Now I dropped my backpack into
the blackness and rolled my shoulders with relief. It was good to be free of
that. It was good to have avoided Khan all night. And it was good to know that
soon I would be enjoying some much-needed sleep.

All
things considered, there was much to be cheerful about.

The
engines were still chugging along and I wondered how long they’d have to chug
before we made landfall. If it happened during the day, I could aim the
Folly
at nice rocky outcrop and take the
life raft to safety. Khan trapped below in a sinking ship, his world ending
inch-by-inch, was a thought that had kept me going through the night and I
wondered if I should make a serious attempt to study the Captain’s charts. Even
if I couldn’t make head nor tail of them, Sushanta might know what to do, so I
looked once more to check his raft was still attached to the aft and found
there was good and bad news on that front. The good news was that it was still
there and it was still floating. The bad news was that there was an enormous
lumbering black shape currently squatting in it, grunting with satisfaction and
crunching down on the remnants of my former shipmate.

Khan
had got out!

The
initial shock hit me like a freight train, but this terror was tempered by the
fact that Khan was otherwise engaged, polishing off the contents of the raft as
if he hadn’t eaten for weeks.

And
there was another softener to the blow.

He
was
off the ship
!

He
must’ve gone over the side of the
Folly
and hauled himself along the tow-rope to dine alfresco, handing me an
unbelievable opportunity.

But
only if I was quick.

I
all but fell out of the riggings and landed in a crumpled heap next to my
backpack. Khan was still out at sea, licking the empty raft with his back to me
and none the wiser he was about to go it alone. At this moment and from this
distance I could now appreciate how truly immense he was. His coat was thick
and shaggy, particularly dripping wet as it was, but it was still not thick enough
to hide the knotted sinews that rippled the length of his monstrous body. I was
so mesmerised by the spectacle of this unworldly beast that I had to remind
myself I’d get an uncomfortable close-up if I didn’t get a move on.

I
grabbed my supposed sailor-hitch and yanked the free end to release the knot,
but nothing happened. My own fault, knots have never been my strong suit and I
hadn’t thought to tie this one so that I could release it quick, so try as I
might the knot held fast, tightened into an impenetrable lock thanks to a night
of boat-dragging. My only hope was to cut it free, but this was easier said
than done when I didn’t have anything that even resembled a knife.

It
was at this moment, when hope was once more wrestled away by despair that Khan
turned around. He spotted me in an instant, gnawing at the knot and kicking the
flag with frustration, and he roared to tell me I’d been rumbled.

Khan
dived into the sea just in front of the life raft and began hauling himself along
the rope, hand over claw, and towards me.

I
realised I wasn’t going to bite through the rope before Khan had bitten through
me, but I simply didn’t have the time to get a blade. I was up a tree with monkeys
and dogs both out to get me. Khan was now halfway back and surging through the
Folly
’s backwash as if it were a
babbling brook. I looked around for any sort of sharp edge, but found nothing. The
only thing I did find was another Lee Enfield rifle, and I wasted a few precious
seconds wondering if Lee Enfields came with bayonets attached, before it
occurred to me I could just shoot the rope in two.

“Shit!”
I said, chambering a round and drawing on the flagstaff.

“Rhrrrrrrrrrrhhhh!”
Khan replied, as he hauled himself from the waters and up towards the deck.

I
fired the first shot, missing rope and boat altogether, and merely winged the
knot with my second. The fact that I couldn’t shoot a static target from less than
an inch away hardly filled me with confidence and I continued blasting away,
missing knot, line and pole as the rifle jumped about in my arms like a pneumatic
drill. My only shot to find a home did so into Khan’s shoulder, enraging him further
still and he stormed the last few feet towards me to swipe me with his talons.

“No!”
I screamed, stumbling back and dropping the rifle where I’d found it. The final
round ignited in the chamber and the bullet cut through the air and into the
heart of the knot with the sort of precision I could only have dreamed of. The
knot instantly relinquished its grip on the flagstaff and dropped Khan towards
the fizzing waters directly over our props. He might have been able to take a
few bullets, but surely even Khan couldn’t withstand a mincing. Alas, I never
got to find out. Khan snatched at the rudder housings just before he was sucked
into the wash and he held onto them for dear life, half in and half out of the
water, roaring at me with defiance and starting back up the stern.

I
couldn’t believe this was even possible. The side of the ship was flat steel,
but Khan smashed the hull with his enormous claws, puncturing enough of a
handhold to haul himself up as if he were carving out his own personal ladder.

I
shot at his hands, hoping to dislodge a finger or two, but it soon became clear
that tying knots wasn’t my only deficiency, so I flung the heavy wooden stock
into Khan’s face and took to my toes.

Khan
vaulted the last few feet over the rail and was after me in a flash. I darted
into the maze of the container stacks and lost him long enough to buy myself a
few options. I could either run for the Wheel House and shoot myself with one
of the rifles I found there, jump overboard into the sea and drown, or run for
the Wheel House, grab a rifle and then jump into the sea and shoot myself as I
drowned.

Decisions
decisions!

Annoyingly,
there was a fourth option also open to me, though this one meant gambling my
gizzards against Khan’s claws. The sun was now just peaking over the horizon,
spelling the end to another night, and with it came the frustrating glimmer of
hope. Khan had barely a few minutes left in his present state. If I could
outrun him just a little longer, my pursuer might just end up outrunning
himself.

With
this in mind I chanced the only other way that was left open to me and ran off
the open decks and into the bowels of the ship.

The
portside coke hatch had been twisted back during the course of the night, so I
threw myself through it and slid down the coke chute headfirst into a jagged
pile of pain. But Khan was determined to have my soul dripping from his chin
before this night was out and launched himself after me like Cerberus.

I
scrambled over the coke pile and through the coke house doors, tumbling blindly
into boiler ducts as Khan slammed into the shovel hatch just behind me. This
was quite a misjudgement for him and untypical of everything I’d seen of him
thus far, making me wonder if the fading moon was already beginning to sap his agilities.
I didn’t linger to find out though. I pushed on past the motor room, through a
hole ripped out of the side of the engineer’s workshop, past the diesel tanks
and down towards the stores.

That’s
when I realised where I was going. I was being corralled back to Khan’s lair
thanks to my own barricades. All other routes back to the surface remained
impassable. The only path open to me was through the hatches smashed by Khan during
the night, meaning I would soon be cornered in the beast’s own retreat with no
hope of escape.

But
Khan was slower than before – noticeably slower. Where before he’d cut
through the ship like an unstoppable force of nature, he now limped and
stumbled the same as I did – a deflated version of the monster I’d come
to know and abhor. He was still the same terrifying spectacle, but now I was
able to keep my distance, and through the narrower confines of the ship, even
outpace him.

Khan’s
powers were leaving him. Soon he would be as vulnerable as I.

Unluckily
for me, not soon enough.

I
ran through the next hatchway but found the following hatchway sealed. I looked
around for another way out, but saw there were none. All other hatches had been
sealed from the outside and a sign on the wall told me where I’d pitched up. ‘Hold
Number Three’, it read, like a blank death warrant waiting to be filled in.
This was the end of the trip.

The
air was heavy with the smell of death and floor crunchy with tiny bone shards.
Crates and bales had been smashed to smithereens and one corner of the Hold had
been designated a latrine. Finger bones and gnarled ribs protruded from the
congealed mess and I suddenly realised why Khan had stayed down here all day while
I’d been battening down the hatches above. He’d been stuck on the bog all afternoon
dealing with the consequences of his murderous appetite. I looked at those
jagged ribs and took some comfort from the fact that my knobbly knees would at
least bring a few tears to the little fucker’s eyes when he sat down with tomorrow’s
crossword.

Khan
roared at me from the only open hatchway but it was a lacklustre roar of a
monster way off his game. I stumbled back all the same, slipping on a discarded
Lugar and landing flat on my back in Khan’s effluence. Khan moved in for the
kill, so I rolled through the shallow end and scrambled across the hold, determined
to avoid his affections for as long as possible. That was when I found only
other
way out of the Hold.

Through
the porthole in the side of the ship – the one he’d roared through the
night before.

Khan
might not have been able to squeeze through it when he’d tried, but I was a
skinny nineteen-year-old and willing to leave great chunks of myself behind in
the attempt.

I
jumped up onto a crate and threw both arms through the circular porthole,
diving headfirst out into the sunlight beyond. The jagged glass that lined the
rim gouged my sides and threatened to cut me in two, but this was as nothing
compared to the searing agonies that shot up my leg –

–
when Khan bit me!

His
fangs clamped down on my flailing ankle before I could fall out of the ship,
and bones and cartilage burned with Hell’s fires as he crushed them together in
a single bite. I screamed as if my soul was escaping past my tonsils and tried
to yank my foot free, but Khan’s claws closed around my leg and he began to pull
me back into the ship.

I
held onto the hull and refused to be reeled in, resolved to lose the leg before
I lost the fight and I lashed out again and again with my free foot until I
connected with something squidgy. For the briefest of moments, my ankle came
free and I was able to tumble out of the porthole and escape the worst of
deaths. I doubt I would’ve been so lucky had the moon not been on the wane, but
these were the breaks, and some might argue I still had it all to do, seeing as
I was now out of the boat –

–
and bobbing upside down in the open ocean a hundred miles from land.

xi

I had only seconds to think and for once I used them well, righting myself in
the waters and snatching out at the side of the
Folly
as it surged on past, grabbing – by the grace of a God
not yet done running me through the wringer – the hoist chains I’d dropped
Sushanta into the sea with. I’d not winched them back in because I’d always
figured on lifting him out again. Now, they were my last slender grip on this life
and I held onto them with what little strength I could muster.