Dark Waters

They all paused to listen, every nerve strung tight. But there was only silence.

“Let’s go on,” said Ollie’s dad at last. “Be careful, everyone.”

They didn’t so much enter the clearing with the cabin as it sort of happened to them; one moment they were in thick trees, going uncomfortably uphill, panting, sweating, and chilled all at once. The next moment, the trees opened up and the cabin was there, weathered gray, with its crooked door.

And from inside it came the axe man’s whispering voice. The voice echoed and shrank, seemed to come now from the trees, now from the house.

“I looked upon the rotting sea,” he said. He sounded sad now, Brian thought.

And drew my eyes away;

I looked upon the rotting deck,

And there the dead men lay.

Ollie stepped forward and knocked on the door.

The chanting voice cut off. Ollie called, her voice quiet but firm, “Are you Captain William Sheehan?”

Beside him, Brian felt the adults—who had been poised to step forward and say polite adult things—shut their mouths in surprise.

Silence from the cabin. Ollie had her hand raised to knock again.

Then, with no sound of footsteps, the door swung open. The axe man stood in the gap.

Brian felt, more than saw, the two adults recoil. It wasn’t that the axe man looked horrible or anything. Yeah, his beard was long, his clothes were ragged. But it wasn’t that. It was the look in his eyes. He looked old. And sad. And lost. He wasn’t holding his axe. He was holding a skull between his hands.

“Here lies Tommy Ross,” the axe man said, like an epitaph, looking down into the skull’s empty eye sockets. “You should have left him alone. Why didn’t you leave him alone? Why come here?”

“I’m sorry,” said Brian. “Captain?”

“Yes,” said the axe man. “Cap’n William Sheehan, master of the Goblin.”

“Impossible,” said Coco’s mom. “He’s got a mania—projecting.”

“Wait, Mom,” said Coco.

“It’s you again,” said Sheehan. He sounded sour. “Well, you disturbed Tommy, so I’m not going to axe you, after all. It would be too kind.”

Brian said, “Sir, what happened to the men? The crew of the Goblin? We read the log. But it ends the night you went to fight the snake.”

“I fought the snake,” said Sheehan. His voice was dull, and his outline was—blurred somehow—to Brian. Like he was a rock that had been too long in water, all the edges worn away. “The others—I told them to go. To take the last boat. I thought—if I wounded the beast enough, it would stay in the water, it wouldn’t get them. I thought maybe I could get Tommy out that way at least. Loved Tommy, don’t you know. He was the best man I ever knew.”

“Did Tommy go?” This was Phil, surprisingly, his voice steady, if a little bit uncertain.

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Sheehan’s voice turned angry. “I told the blasted fool to go. But he didn’t. He said he’d never leave me. The snake got him.” Sheehan glanced around the clearing. “He died in my arms. I put him in the cabin, so his bones would be safe, at least.” His voice got angry again. “And they were, before you.”

“What happened then?” Coco asked, gently.

Sheehan’s eyes looked sunk in his head. “After Tommy died, I snatched up his axe, and I went out to bash the thing. Got in my licks, I did. But it bit me too and then took off. I chased it all the way down to the water. But it was too fast for me. It slid into the water. It wasn’t dead. I tried to go back to Tommy . . .”

“But you died,” said Ollie softly. “You died under the tree by the water, the one with the carving.” Brian remembered the skull there. He supposed that Ollie was right.

“I guess I died,” acknowledged the captain. A frown of concentration showed between his eyes. “It didn’t seem to make much difference, though. I got up. Went to find the others. I hoped that the boys at least had taken the boat and gone.”

His voice began to shake. “They hadn’t. Not a one. They hadn’t made it to the boat at all, they were just gone—swallowed whole, like rabbits.