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Sister O’Malley stood swaying gently in the corridor, blocking Esme’s escape from the dead doctor’s cabin. If she was surprised to see Esme leaving Doctor Sampson’s cabin, her decaying features didn’t show it. Her mottled skin looked bloated with a road map of blackened veins spreading across her face, branching out from the thick tracks on her neck. Her lips, and the tongue bulging out from behind them, were purple, and their once delicate surfaces dry and cracked with several dark, weeping sores. Thick, green mucus dribbled from her lips to land on her chest with a soft plop.
Esme recoiled in shock. Covering her mouth and nose with her hand, she tried to block out the reeking stench of rotting, putrid meat accompanying the nurse, to no avail. Esme gagged, her stomach knotting and twisting as it forced the warm, acidic bile up into her throat and propelled it out through her nose and mouth. It burned the sensitive membranes in her nostrils, blurring her vision as salty tears welled in the corners of her eyes.
The rotting figure of the ship’s nurse opened her mouth to speak, but the loud splattering sound of her decomposing bowels falling to the floor beneath her uniform drowned out anything she may have uttered. Sister O’Malley looked down at the mass of congealed body tissue seeping out from below her full-length skirt with confusion, as if some latent knowledge of human physiology told her she should be dead, not standing outside Doctor Sampson’s cabin face-to-face with another of his young harlots. She shuffled towards Esme who retreated into the cabin, sobbing in terror.
Esme’s foot brushed against the doctor’s body and she fought the urge to scream. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself. The situation she found herself in would be hard to explain away, and this was the second rotting member of the Devil’s crew she had encountered. How many more would come if she screamed? She eyed the open doorway behind the lumbering nurse and knew if she were to escape her deadly clutches and avoid being dragged into Hell, then she could afford to delay no longer.
Esme charged at the approaching O’Malley, evading her outstretched arms and smashing her shoulder into her soft, plump body, driving her out of the cabin and slamming her into the wall. The force of the impact caused thick, vile smelling sanguineous fluid to spray from the dead woman’s open cavities. Her now ill-fitting uniform left a glistening dark smear down the wall as she slid to the floor. Esme, knocked off her feet by the initial impact, scrabbled across the deck to evade the stunned nurse’s flailing arms before regaining her feet and hurrying towards the stairway at the end of the corridor.
As she passed the suite that formed the ship’s hospital, she heard a loud crash. Checking over her shoulder she witnessed O’Malley, still lying on the ground, eating her own intestines. Content she was not being pursued, Esme ducked inside the hospital suite intent on warning whoever had come in search of medical attention about ...
Esme stopped in her tracks. She had to warn them about what? That the doctor was dead and his assistant, Nurse Stench, had resorted to crawling around on the deck eating her own innards. Who, outside the walls of Bethlem Hospital, would believe such a farfetched story? But still, she reasoned, whoever was in the suite may still be in need of help and she should at least warn them of the dangers lurking in the corridors.
She approached the swing door to the treatment area and, standing on tiptoes, peeked through the small round observation window. A narrow bed covered in a blood-soaked sheet occupied the centre of the room, and next to it Esme saw an overturned trolley, its contents scattered across the floor. The far wall consisted of a row of glass-fronted cabinets in front of which stood the hunched figure of a man, his back to her.
Easing the door open an inch, Esme called out softly, “Hello, are you hurt?”
The man turned to face her, his features obscured by the spider web of ruptured veins below his skin. Blood caked his clothes and matted his hair and when he began to walk towards her, his movements, although swift, appeared unnatural and ungainly.
Esme let the door swing shut and ran towards the stairs like she should have done as soon as she escaped the nurse’s vile clutches. Whatever had happened to these people appeared to have started on the lower decks and was now spreading up through the ship. She needed to get to Bridget’s cabin; it was obvious they would have to rethink their plans, as it would not be safe for Bridget to hideout in steerage.
