Machina Mortis: Steampunk'd Tales of Terror Read online

The reanimates were sixty feet away.

  Grabbing Chappy by the shoulder, she pushed him toward the ladder. “You’re next.”

  The young man jumped onto the third rung and quickly scampered up after the yeoman.

  Scarlet raised the revolver and centered it on the head of the lead reanimate. She recognized him as the first mate, the officer who had made inappropriate advances toward her on the first day of the voyage. The left side of his face and most of his shoulder had been eaten away, blood and chunks of gore staining the front of his uniform. When he approached to within twenty feet, she fired off two rounds, both of which caught the officer square in the face. His skull shattered, spraying the reanimates behind him with blood, bone fragments, and chunks of brain. The concussion from the bullets threw the body backwards and into the swarm, slowing their attack by several seconds.

  Swinging herself onto the ladder, Scarlet began climbing. As she neared the hatch, a dead hand wrapped itself around her ankle. She felt herself being yanked back down. Kicking out did not break the death grip. Looking down, she saw a reanimate in a white cook’s uniform clutching her laced boot in both hands, his mouth already chewing in anticipation of a warm meal. An axe imbedded to the hilt in his shoulder banged against the bulkhead, preventing him from reaching her. The remaining creatures swarmed around the ladder, grasping wildly.

  A gunshot rang out above her head. The cook’s head exploded, splattering his white uniform in blood. Scarlet kicked again, freeing her ankle. As she passed through the hatch, a reanimate in a steward’s uniform and missing its left arm tried to climb up after her. Chappy fired off another round. His aim was hurried, and he succeeded only in blasting off the creature’s lower jaw. Once Scarlet was clear of the opening, Chappy slammed the hatch closed and spun the circular latch to lock it.

  From the deck above them, Hans peered down through the open hatch. “Hurry up before the noise brings others. The boiler room is only a few meters down this passageway.”

  Chappy scurried up to join Hans, followed by Scarlet. She heard the scraping of dead hands against the underside of the hatch beneath her feet.

  Hans stopped by an iron door and removed a set of keys from his jacket pocket, fumbling through them until he found the correct one. Unlocking the door, he pushed it open. Scarlet heard the hiss of water being boiled and the rhythmic clanking of a steam engine. Following Hans inside, she stepped into an iron-encased room that contained the boiler, which was the size of a horse-drawn carriage. Twin pipes five inches in diameter protruded from the top of each device and disappeared into the upper deck, both rattling from the steam passing through. A second, smaller set of pipes extended from the back into a small steam engine.

  Chappy centered himself in the doorway, scanning both ends of the passageway.

  Hans raced over to the boiler. As he manipulated a series of levers on top of the boiler, pushing each forward, he described the workings of his vessel in the tradition of all airship crews.

  “This boiler generates the steam that runs through these overhead pipes to heat the port side of the Bismarck.”

  When Hans pushed the last lever into its closed position, the twin pipes went still. He moved around to the right side of the boiler and performed the same task with a pair of levers. “These smaller pipes run the steam engine, which drives the port propeller.”

  Chappy glanced over his shoulder at Scarlet. “We won’t be needing that anymore, thanks to your flying skills.”

  Scarlet ignored the taunt, concentrating on Hans as he positioned the twin levers into their closed position. The rhythmic humming of the engine died out, leaving as the only noise the roar of the flames inside the boiler. Hans returned around front and began turning a red circular handle to the right. The pressure gauge mounted on the front of the boiler slowly swung to the right.

  Hans wiped his hands on the tails of his yeoman’s jacket. “That ought to do it. I’ve set the steam pressure to maximum and shut off all the release valves. There’s an identical boiler room on the other side to heat the starboard quarters and run the propeller. Should we shut that one down, too?”

  “No need,” answered Scarlet. “If this one explodes, it should be enough to take down the Bismarck, correct?”

  “Absolutely, ma’am.”

  Scarlet noticed a thickening layer of steam stream through the boiler’s access grate and waft up the façade. “How much time do we have?”

  “It’s hard to say, ma’am,” Hans responded with a shrug. “Early tests of these boilers resulted in catastrophic failures from anywhere between five and twenty minutes.”

  “Speaking of catastrophes.” Chappy’s voice had a tinge of concern to it.

  Scarlet heard the faint moans of a reanimate echoing down the passageway. She ran to the door and scanned both ends, but saw nothing. “Where is it?”

  “No idea, but it’s close.” He raised the Pepper Box into firing position.

  “We should get going.”

  Hans pushed past the two and turned right. “Follow me.”

  “We can’t go back the way we came. Those creatures will be waiting for us.”

  “I’ve anticipated that.” Hans spun around and walked backwards. “There’s a walkway down here that connects to the starboard passageway. It also leads to the stern. We can use that to—”

  A female reanimate dressed in a Victorian gown stepped out from the walkway. The top of her dress and accompanying corset hung in tatters around her waist. Several chewed-out sections on her arms and breasts hinted at the horrible demise that had befallen the young women. A gaping hole in her abdomen allowed the remnants of her intestines to flow out. Her flowing blonde hair had fallen out of its bonnet and cascaded down her shoulders and chest. The creature emitted a foul stench of feces. She reached out for Hans, but the yeoman ducked away at the last second and raced back to the others.

  Chappy stepped forward, raising his revolver and aiming at the reanimate’s face. The creature snarled, exposing her gore-encrusted teeth. She lunged at them. Chappy squeezed the trigger. The round caught the creature between the eyes, blasting through her skull and ripping off the back of her head. Blood and brains splattered the wall. The reanimate toppled over backwards and collapsed to the deck.

  Throughout the airship, a chorus of moans and snarls signified that the gunshot had attracted unwanted attention.

  “I suggest we move quickly.” Scarlet led the others to the walkway.

  As she stepped around the corpse, moaning caught her attention. Scarlet looked to her left to see a dozen reanimates shambling across the walkway. The lead creature was one of the originals, its decayed legs and torso supported by the iron prosthetics. Five more-recently-reanimated creatures shuffled along behind it, each dressed in the tattered, blood-soaked clothes of passengers. Upon seeing the fresh meat in front of them, they surged forward as one. The iron-clad reanimate moved slower than the rest and was pushed to the deck, with the other creatures tripping over it. The delay bought the humans precious seconds.

  Hans rushed past Scarlet and proceeded toward the stern. “This way.”

  Chappy did not need to be told twice. He grabbed Scarlet by the shoulders and pushed her ahead of him, making sure they stayed close to the yeoman. Frantic moans and the sound of dead skin scraping against metal followed them.

  The passageway abruptly ended. The bulkheads around them sloped inward. Scarlet surmised that they must be near the stern. Hans opened the deck hatch, peered down, and listened. Moaning came from every direction, but in the confines of the airship it was impossible to tell from which direction.

  “I’ll go first,” he said. “If we get separated, the stern section is two decks down and ten feet to the right.”

  “Please hurry,” said Chappy.

  Scarlet turned to see the five reanimates sprinting toward them less. They were thirty feet away, with another group fifty feet behind. They were led by an older gentleman in a blood-soaked tuxedo. The entire right hand side of his neck ha
d been chewed away. Chappy took careful aim and squeezed the Colt’s trigger. A single round entered the center of the reanimate’s forehead, propelling him backwards into the other living dead passengers. The remaining creatures stumbled around him, barely slowed by the assault.

  Scarlet climbed down the ladder, pausing just long enough for Hans to open the hatch to the next level and disappear through. She descended after him, checking the new passageway for reanimates. The four surviving crew members from the earlier attack still hovered one hundred feet away around the hatch the humans had used to escape. Upon hearing the commotion, they turned en mass and lunged toward Scarlet. Hans had already opened the hatch to the stern section and stood inside, waiting to close it.

  Chappy was still two decks above them, and these creatures were closing in fast. For the first time Scarlet feared they may not make it through this adventure. “Chappy!”

  “Coming!” He had already begun his descent and was closing the hatch to the third deck when several pairs of hands grabbed the rim, attempting to yank it open. Holding onto the circular latch, Chappy jumped off the ladder. His weight slammed the hatch shut. A score of severed fingertips rained down through the opening, clattering to the deck by Scarlet’s boots. Chappy had already regained his footing on the ladder and passed through the second hatch. Once he was on the main deck, she shoved him into the stern section.

  The reanimates were less than ten feet away. They were led by the steward whose lower jaw Chappy had shot off. Scarlet raised her revolver, took careful aim, and squeezed the trigger. A single round passed through his open mouth and impacted against the back of the throat, severing the spinal column. The steward’s head lopped to one side an instant before the body collapsed. She fired off her last three rounds, striking the other creatures in their chests with no effect. They were about to overwhelm her when a reanimate from the third deck dropped down through the open hatch, landing on the others. The pile of living dead struggled to get to its feet. Scarlet didn’t wait around. She rushed into the stern section.

  Hans slammed the hatch shut behind her and lodged a piece of lumber under the handle, kicking it in place. “Hopefully that’ll hold them long enough so we can escape.”

  “There’s no latch on this door?”

  “No, ma’am.” Hans moved over to a large hatch seven feet square that sat on the main deck. He grabbed a large circular latch in both hands and began spinning it counterclockwise. “In case of an emergency, we didn’t want to have the crew waste time unlocking this section.”

  Pounding echoed against the passageway hatch.

  The deck hatch fell open, swinging back and forth on its hinges. As Hans dropped the ladder and twin ropes over the side, Scarlet inched forward and peered through the opening. The Atlantic Ocean flowed by two hundred feet beneath her.

  Hans slid a hand around Scarlet’s forearm and dragged her toward the ladder. “We have to hurry.”

  As if to accentuate his warning, the lumber cracked along its width under the intense pounding. It would not hold the reanimates back for long.

  Holding the ropes in each hand, Scarlet maneuvered her right leg over the opening, feeling around with her foot until her toes touched the first rung. Swinging her other leg into position, she crawled down several feet, pausing to make sure the others would follow.

  Hans removed two pairs of gloves from off a nearby table, tossing one pair to Chappy. Chappy slid the revolver between his trousers and stomach, donned the gloves, and grabbed the rope, wrapping it once around his waist.

  As he lowered himself through the opening, the lumber shattered. The hatch swung open and the reanimates stormed into the stern section. Scarlet and Chappy began their descent.

  Hans was preparing to lower himself over the side when three of the creatures swarmed over him, dragging him to the deck and tearing at his skin. He fought at them, kicking wildly and smashing each creature with his fists to break their grip, but they were too powerful. Two others joined the frenzy. With his arms and legs held in place by the mass of living dead, he did not stand a chance. Four sets of mouths bit into his arms and legs, the teeth tearing through clothes and ripping away chunks of flesh. One pair of dead hands tore apart his abdomen and plunged inside, wrapping around his internal organs and eviscerating him alive. His screams of agony could be heard even over the wind whipping past them. A trickle of blood flowed over the opening and dropped into the ocean.

  When Scarlet lifted her head, she saw eight reanimates by the lip of the opening twenty feet above. They glared down, their mouths chomping in anticipation of food.

  Scarlet continued her descent until she suddenly became aware of the sensation of being pulled up. Shifting her gaze back to the airship, she saw two reanimates, one wearing the gore- and oil-stained overalls of a flight engineer, the other in the tattered remains of a cleaning woman’s uniform. They both had their hands around the ladder and were reeling it in.

  “Do you have any bullets left?”

  “Why?” Glancing over, Chappy saw his mistress being yanked up into the waiting clutches of the living dead. Removing the revolver from his pants, he aimed. It proved a difficult enough task hanging on a rope fifty feet below a moving airship, but was made all the more tenuous by his being tossed about in the wind. Holding his breath and praying for the best, Chappy fired. The bullet thudded into the jaw of the reanimate in the engineer’s overalls, blasting away the top of his head. As he collapsed to the deck, he released his end of the ladder. Scarlet swung to the left, clasping the rungs so she wouldn’t fall.

  Chappy shifted his aim to the other reanimate and fired twice. Both rounds hit the maid in the right shoulder, severing her arm. She released the ladder. Scarlet dropped thirty feet until she jerked to a stop. Scrambling wildly at the rungs to maintain her footing, Scarlet swung back and forth. The reanimate toppled over the side and plummeted through the air. She reached out for Scarlet, decayed fingers clutching at her. At the last second, the ladder swung to the right and out of the creature’s path. The maid tumbled past, frantically clawing the air as she somersaulted into the ocean.

  Scarlet and Chappy continued their descent until an explosion from deep with the airship attracted their attention. Shards of metal ripped through the outer skin on the Bismarck. Flames shot out the gash, spreading rapidly in all directions across the airframe. As the fire reached each segmented portion, the hydrogen within ignited, propelling the conflagration to the adjoining sections. Within seconds, the center portion of the airship was an inferno.

  Scarlet pushed herself off the ladder, dropping the last fifty feet into the ocean. The surface slammed against her, knocking the breath out of her. She allowed herself to sink for a moment before kicking her way to the surface. Her lungs strained for air, threatening to force her to breathe in a lungful of water, when she finally broke the surface. She gasped at the precious oxygen.

  Her attention was drawn to the Bismarck. Scarlet looked up in time to watch the vessel’s death throes. The conflagration now encompassed the airship from bow to stern. Flames shot out the open escape hatch, incinerating the reanimates gathered there. With an agonized groan of metal, the airship buckled in the center. It rapidly lost altitude and fell into the ocean. Upon hitting the surface, the metal skeleton collapsed in on itself. The surrounding water sizzled as it turned the flaming hydrogen into a giant cloud of steam.

  Scarlet closed her eyes and held her breath as the concussion wave from the crash washed over her. She allowed herself to be pushed along and, when the wave passed, opened her eyes again. The Bismarck had begun its slow descent to the ocean floor, leaving behind flotsam and burning pieces of wreckage.

  But where was Chappy?

  “Chappy?” she called out. Panic began to overwhelm her when she received no reply. She whipped her head to the right and left, desperately hoping to see him bobbing in the water. “Chappy!”

  “That was fun.”

  The familiar voice came from behind her. Maneuvring herself, Scar
let saw Chappy fifteen feet away swimming toward her. She paddled over to greet him, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him tight. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “I always am.” Chappy kissed Scarlet on the cheek. “Despite the trouble you always seem to get us into.”

  “Maybe a trans-Atlantic fight aboard an airship was not the best idea I’ve had.”

  “I’m glad you can finally admit that you’re wrong.” Chappy broke the hug. “Maybe this time you should let me pick the vacation.”

  “And what do you have in mind?” Scarlet asked with a flirtatious smile.

  “I hear the British are about to undertake the maiden voyage of an elegant luxury liner. It’s called the Titanic.”

  Bedlam

  By Salena Moffat

  ~~1898~~

  The sea. She could hear the night sea, hear the pounding of the Channel waters. Always, the sea, the water, the red, dripping wine, falling in endless knotted garnet beads from her outreaching fingers and into the foaming waves. Liquid, pure and holy, and meant to be consumed. Inherited.

  The sea, trembling at the edge of the world. Always, the sea. And Cadachlod…

  …Cadachlod…

  He had gone beyond the waters…He had gone…And he would return to her…

  Amelie stood in the seafoam, in the seafoam as it washed over her bare feet, as it froze and caressed and held her bare feet within itself, as she shivered in pure abandon.

  Her fingers clutched tightly around something sharp, and she opened her palm to see what it was, and she was astonished to see her ceraunoscope, with its minute winding mechanism jabbing into her flesh.

  And she could see Cadachlod now, could see him there, rising from the waters of the bay. He cried out to her from the black waves, he rose from them, he walked toward her from the waters of the bay.

  Her ceraunoscope gleamed in her palm, and as she looked out over the waters of the bay, lightning arced across the night-dark sky, and the small machine in her hand grew warmer.