Strange Things Done

Lisa Smedman

Rex Murphy walked down the pier, suitcase in one hand and portable typewriter, secure in its leather carry case, in the other. His roving reporter’s eye took in the passengers bustling along the wooden planks of Seattle’s Pier 2, noting details for the story he planned to write. Those bound for Alaska included miners in hobnailed work boots and flannel shirts; cannery workers with duffel bags slung over their shoulders and wool caps on their heads; and the occasional tourist.

Rex’s gaze picked out the unusual: a thin man in an expensive-looking suit, with a bright red cravat knotted at his throat – his snappy clothing a sharp contrast to that of the rough and ready workers – and an orthodox priest wearing a black cape and fur hat, his long black beard covering his chest, a reminder that Alaska had once been part of the former Russian empire. The priest strode along the pier, an elaborately carved staff thumping the boards with each heavy step. Closer to the end of the pier, a man in a frayed woollen sweater watched as a shipboard crane lifted wooden crates, each containing a barking dog. Sailors shouted to each other over the din, and the smell of seaweed, creosote and coal smoke hung in the air.

Rex checked his ticket. The ship the dogs were being loaded onto was the one: the SS Martha. When he’d booked passage north with the Alaska Steamship Line, he’d expected something a bit bigger, a bit grander. A modern liner with staterooms and smoking parlor. The Martha looked more like a sailing ship, wooden hulled and only about a hundred feet long, with tall masts fore and aft. Smoke rose from her single funnel as the crew got up steam preparatory to departure. Her hull was scraped and her paint flaking; Rex imagined the antiquated ship had seen a few decades of service, grinding her way through drift ice to the remote ports she served.

The Martha looked old enough for Robert Service to have sailed aboard her. Rex was following the route the poet had taken north in 1904, first by ship to Skagway, then by train to Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon. Rex hoped his usual bad luck didn’t manifest on this trip; it was late in the season, and an avalanche had closed the White Pass & Yukon Route tracks just last week. Not that he’d mind a few extra days in Skagway, with the Advertiser footing the bill. The journey would certainly be more colorful, judging by the mix of characters he saw boarding the Martha.

Rex approached the man with the dogs, who was kneeling beside one of the crates, talking softly to the animal inside it. The dog had one brown eye and one blue, and thick gray-white fur.

“That’s a fine looking dog,” Rex said. “What breed is it?”

“Siberian Husky,” the man answered, not looking up. He poked fingers inside the wire mesh at the front of the crate, scratching the dog’s cheek. “Samu here is my lead dog, from the same litter as Balto.” The man glanced over his shoulder. “But I expect you’ve never heard of him.”

Rex concealed a smile; his research on sled dogs had turned up that very name. “In fact, I have. Balto was the lead dog in the team that hauled diphtheria antitoxin from Anchorage to Nome in 1925. They staged a parade for him in Cleveland, earlier this year. Although some say it was Togo that should have gotten the credit, since he led the team on the longest and most dangerous stretch of the run.”

The man turned his full attention to Rex, eyebrows raised. “You a breeder?”

Rex shook his head. “Reporter.” He held out a hand. “Rex Murphy, from the Arkham Advertiser.”

The man stood and shook hands with a firm, calloused grip. The tips of the last two fingers on his right hand were missing. Rex guessed there was a story behind that. “Morris Persky,” the dog breeder said, introducing himself. “Where’s Arkham?”

“Massachusetts.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

“I’m on assignment. I’m headed to the Yukon, by way of Skagway, to do a story on Robert Service.”

Morris’ brow furrowed. “Never heard of him.”

“He’s a poet – as famous as Kipling, in his way. Service wrote The Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill…”

Morris shrugged.

Rex quoted Service’s most famous poem:

“‘There are strange things done in the midnight sun

“By the men who moil for gold;

“The Arctic trails have their secret tales

“That would make your blood run cold.’”

“Oh yeah,” Morris said, nodding at last. “The poem about the prospector that burns the body of his dead pal in a furnace. That one, I’ve heard. Kinda creepy, when the dead guy comes back to life at the end.”

“Where are you bound for?” Rex asked.

“I’m taking these dogs to Nome. It ain’t much these days, compared to when the placer mines were operating, but there’s always a market there for sled dogs.”

“Can I interview you during the voyage?” Rex asked, pulling out his reporter’s notebook and pencil to scribble down Morris’ name and that of his dog. “I’d like to learn more about sled dogs and ‘mushing’, as they call it.”

Morris watched fretfully as the crane lifted Samu’s crate, the dog inside it barking furiously as the crate was swung up into the air, over the gunwale and down into the hold. Only then did he answer. “Sure. I guess.”

“Looking forward to it.” Rex made his way up the gangplank behind the other passengers. Just ahead of him was the priest. The man checking tickets butchered the man’s name as he read it aloud.

“Father No Nob?” He laughed. “That right, Grandpa?”

Rex sighed. When the priest didn’t speak up – he probably didn’t understand English – Rex glanced over his shoulder at the ticket. The letters were in the Cyrillic alphabet. “It’s Popov,” Rex said, sounding it out. He printed the name in his notebook, and held it up for the benefit of the ticket taker. “Popov. Like this.”

Then it was Rex’s turn; the ticket taker barely glanced at his ticket. “Proper American name,” he said. “Not like them foreigners.”

“Actually, Murphy’s an Irish name.”

“Whatever you say, Mack.”

“And the first name’s Rex, not Mack.” Rex took his ticket back and lowered his voice to a theatrical whisper. “You want to be more careful about who you let on board. For all you know, the priest might be a Bolshevik in disguise!”

The man gave him a sour look. “There’s always a wise guy.”

Rex followed the black-robed priest, who was thumping his way toward a door further along the deck. They entered a narrow corridor lined with passenger cabins. The priest seemed to be having trouble figuring out which cabin was his. Rex motioned for his ticket, glanced at the number on it, then pointed the man toward Cabin 6. Rex’s room was the next one along.

The cabin turned out to be small, with two bunks opposite the door, their privacy curtains pulled open. Rex had been hoping for a cabin to himself, so he could write undisturbed, but the Martha only offered shared accommodation. Rex sighed, wondering who he’d wind up sharing the cabin with. With his luck, it would be some tiresome old biddy who snored.

The top bunk had a small porthole, dogged shut. There was a small wooden side table against one wall, and two wicker chairs with sagging cushions. Rex slung his typewriter onto the table and hung his heavy winter coat on one of the hooks just inside the door. He placed his suitcase on the upper bunk.

“I see you have staked your claim,” said a voice from the doorway.

Rex turned and saw the thin man with the red cravat he’d noticed on the pier earlier. The fellow was fair haired and clean shaven, with narrow, almost effeminate features and a willowy frame. The voice, however, was a firm baritone, with a trace of what might be an English accent.

“Were you hoping for the top bunk?” Rex asked.

The man waved a gloved hand. “No matter.”

Rex stuck out his hand. “Rex Murphy, from Arkham.” He expected the query that typically followed, but the man surprised him.

“An interesting town.”

“You know it?” Rex was only partially surprised. Arkham was a small town, but the strange events that occurred all too frequently there had often made it the subject of national headlines.

“I am well-traveled.” The man gave a slight incline of the head Rex took for an old-world bow. “I am Thorne.”

Rex lowered his hand. “I’m a reporter. What line of work are you in?”

Thorne motioned in a sailor, who dragged in a heavy looking trunk. Thorne gestured for the sailor to place it against the wall. “I am in the business of locating and acquiring art and antiquities for private collectors.”

“What sort of antiquities?”

Thorne hesitated. “Native art. Carvings, masks, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds interesting. Do you have a card? Could I interview you some time?”

“Those I work for prefer not to advertise their collections, lest by doing so they attract unwanted attention.”

“I see.” Rex glanced at Thorne’s trunk, which was secured by a lock. He wondered what was inside it – what was so valuable that Thorne didn’t want it stowed in the hold. “I’m going as far as Skagway. How about you?”

Thorne squeezed past his case and began removing his coat and gloves. “I will be disembarking somewhat further north.”

“Uh-huh.” Rex sighed. This guy was better at evading questions than a politician. “Well, I think I’ll start chatting to the other passengers, see who has a story to tell. I’m going to start with the… the man in the cabin next to ours. The man who…”

Rex stopped, unable to assemble his thoughts. An odd feeling gripped him: like when you walked into a room to look for something, and forgot what you were looking for. He took out his notebook and flipped through it. He saw the words “Morris Persky, dog breeder, Nome,” and “Samu, same litter as Balto.” Those, he remembered writing. But a few lines further down were the words, “Orthodox priest” and “Popov”.

He had no idea who that was. No memory of writing that. Yet it was his handwriting.

“Did you see an Orthodox priest come on board?” he asked.

Thorne shook his head. “Why do you ask?”

Rex stroked his moustache: a nervous habit. He folded his notebook shut and shoved it into his pocket. “Excuse me.”

Stepping into the corridor, he rapped on the door of the cabin next to his. It opened, revealing a middle-aged woman in a raccoon-skin coat. “Can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m looking for someone. The man who shares your cabin.”

“I think you’re mistaken,” she said. “I’m traveling alone.”

Rex’s eyebrows rose. “They gave you a cabin all to yourself?”

“Of course. There are no other women on board – they can hardly expect me to share with a man.” She tilted her head and gave him a coquettish smile. “But I am open to sharing a dinner table, if the conversation is engaging. I’m Gladys Federov, by the way.” She held out her hand.

“Gladys… Federov?” Rex fumbled out his notebook. “Shouldn’t it be… Popov?”

“What an odd thing to say.”

Ignoring her outstretched hand, Rex peered past her into the cabin, trying to damp down a creeping feeling of dread. “This is wrong,” he whispered to himself. “There should be a man in here.”

Gladys’ cheeks flushed. “I’ll thank you to keep your opinions to yourself!” she snapped, closing the door in his face.

Rex rubbed his forehead as he returned to his own cabin. He’d been through his share of scrapes in his career as an investigative reporter, taken more than one hard knock to the head. The docs had warned him a concussion could mess up his memory, even years down the road. That had to be it. He was far from Arkham, in a part of the world where only everyday, mundane things happened. Here, there were no antediluvian monsters with multiple eyes and puckered tentacles. No chanting cultists holding sacrificial daggers that dripped red. No towns filled with people with unblinking eyes, croaking through slit-throat gills.

Thorne stared at Rex as he entered their cabin. “Are you unwell?”

With an effort, Rex forced the haunted expression from his face and grabbed his coat. “Just feeling a little claustrophobic,” he lied. “Think I’ll go up on deck and get some air.”

•••

The Martha entered Canadian waters later that morning. She steamed north up the Inside Passage, with mainland British Columbia on the right, and Vancouver Island on the left. Rex had decided to start with general impressions of the voyage, and move on later to interviewing the passengers. Alone on the upper deck, he recorded every detail of what he saw in his notebook. The landscape was uniformly wild: thick forests of dark evergreens and rocky bluffs, gray skies above and gray-green water below. They passed the occasional town or sawmill, smokestacks emitting plumes of black into the overcast sky, but otherwise the landscape was empty. At one point Rex spotted the leaning totem poles and moss-covered longhouses of an abandoned native village. Despair clung to the place like fog. Gulls wheeled behind the ship, shrieking madly.

Rex wondered when they’d start to see the glaciers the northern coast was so famous for, and icebergs. He sighed. With his luck, the Martha would probably run smack into one. All his life, Rex had been dogged with bad luck. That old woman in Romania who’d told him he was cursed had probably been right.

Eventually a thin snow started to fall, dampening the pages of Rex’s notebook and forcing him inside. It was late in the season for a journey north, almost winter. When he’d first pitched a feature piece on Robert Service, Rex had been hoping for an all-expenses-paid trip to sunny France, which the poet had made his home after leaving the Yukon. Instead, the editor had decided Rex needed to “pack a parka and go to the source” – Whitehorse and Dawson City, two gold rush era towns Rex had never dreamed he’d one day visit.

He made his way along the corridor leading to the cabins. Hearing a muffled barking, he decided to head below to see how Morris and his dogs were faring. He clattered down a narrow metal stairway to the hold, and wove his way between the stacks of cargo: crates of clothing and tools; barrels of gasoline; sheets of tinplate for the canneries; cast-iron stoves and stove pipes – all held in place with netting. There was even an upright piano, its strings vibrating with the chugging of the ship.

The dozen dog crates stood in the middle of a clear space. Morris kneeled beside one of them, mucking out the straw that lined the bottom of the crate. A black-and-gray husky sat next to him. The dog looked nervous, ears back and tail between its legs. It let out a low growl.

“What’s gotten into you, girl?” Morris asked the dog. He started to pat her, but she shied away from his hand. She kept glancing at one of the other crates.

The rest of the dogs began barking. “All right!” Morris shouted. “You’ll get your supper. Keep quiet!”

“Need some help?” Rex offered.

“Sure. Grab that bucket. Ladle some chow into each of the bowls.”

Rex rolled up his sleeves and did as instructed. The bucket held a soupy mess of organs and fish guts, meat that smelled like it was on the verge of spoiling. He spooned some into each of the dozen tin bowls, and handed one bowl to Morris. The breeder offered it to the dog, but she only sniffed at it, never taking her eyes off the one crate whose occupant was silent.

“What’s up with the dogs?” Rex asked.

“Beats me. The sea is calm, and they’re used to being crated.” Morris gestured. “You can let Samu out to eat, if you like. He seems to be the only one behaving himself.”

Rex moved to the crate and peered inside. The husky stared up at him with ice-blue eyes. “You sure this is Samu? This dog has two eyes the same color.”

“Of course it’s him. You saying I don’t know my own dogs?”

Rex shrugged. Maybe he’d made a mistake earlier, confused Samu with another dog. In any case, Samu was utterly silent, watching Rex with an intensity that was almost human. Rex had the strange sensation that the dog had been listening to their conversation. He noticed that Samu’s hackles were raised, the fur along his spine standing up.

“Does he bite?”

Morris laughed. “He wouldn’t be much use as a sled dog if he did.”

Crouching, Rex held the bowl where the dog could see it as he unfastened the latch. “Nice dog, nice boy,” he said in a soft voice. “Here’s your–”

Samu exploded out of the crate, bowling Rex over backwards and spilling the bowl’s soupy contents all over his shirt. In a flash the animal was across the cargo hold, tearing into the dog beside Morris. The smaller dog yiped and flailed back, her ear half ripped off and blood staining her fur a bright red.

“Grab his hind legs!” Morris yelled. “We’ve got to pull them apart!”

Rex clambered to his feet and moved warily forward. The dogs tangled together, Samu biting furiously while the female cowered and tried to avoid his fangs. Rex saw his chance and grabbed Samu’s hind legs, down near the hock, as Morris did the same to the female.

“Lift his legs up!” Morris shouted. “Like a wheelbarrow, then spin! That way he can’t bite you.”

Rex yanked the dog’s legs high into the air, turning rapidly as the powerful male snarled and twisted. Samu’s teeth grazed the back of Rex’s forearm, scoring a red line. The situation was terrifying and ridiculous at the same time, like some sort of strange dance.

Rex was wondering what the hell to do next, when all at once the dog he was twirling suddenly grew lighter, rising from the ground and growing visibly thinner. Suddenly, the dog wrenched itself from Rex’s grip. It flew through the air as if launched from a cannon, rebounding off the piano with a discordant clash of keys. Then, in a fluid, unnatural twisting motion, it disappeared into the loose tangle of netting where the piano had been.

Where the…?

Where had what been?

Rex looked down at his empty hands, then at Morris, who was squatting next to a black-and-gray dog, scratching her ear as she gobbled up the food Rex had just slopped into her bowl. The dog wagged her tail. The hold was silent, just the occasional anxious bark from the dogs still awaiting their turn to be fed.

Rex strained to think. There had been blood. A fight of some kind.

Hadn’t there?

He glanced down at his forearm, then wondered why he was looking at it. He felt the front of his shirt, wondering why he expected it to be damp. He held up the bowl he’d just filled, and felt a strange sense of deja vu as Morris gestured for him to take it to the next crate.

“You can feed my lead dog next,” Morris instructed. “I don’t want him thinking I don’t appreciate him.”

“Your lead dog?”

“Yeah. The brown one in the crate over there.”

Rex moved toward that crate, feeling off kilter. His legs felt rubbery, and he nearly stumbled. Odd – the ship wasn’t rocking any more than usual. Gradually, however, the dizzy sensation he was feeling began to ebb. He let the brown husky out of his crate and set down its bowl, then flipped open his notebook while the dog ate. He picked up the thread of the conversation where it had left off earlier, on the pier. “So, you’re a dog breeder, headed for Nome.”

“That’s right.”

“And your lead dog, Samu, is from the same litter as Balto.”

Morris laughed as he moved to the next crate. “I wish! That animal would really be worth something. But no, you got the name wrong. Mishka’s the name of my lead dog.”

“Mishka. Got it.” Rex made the correction in his notebook, drawing a line through the word Samu; he wondered what had possessed him to write that down in the first place. “Tell me what dog sledding is like.”

“It’s beautiful. The silence, the panting of the dogs, sparkling white snow all the way to the horizon. And cold – so cold your breath freezes and there’s icicles in your beard. If you aren’t careful, frostbite will take your nose and ears.”

Rex pointed with his pencil. “Is that how you lost your fingers? To frostbite?”

“Yeah. During a trip by sled to my cabin, near Nome. Stupid of me: I lost a glove. My fingers turned black, and I had to cut them off.” He rubbed his injured hand, and grimaced. “When it’s thirty below, a man can freeze solid in ten minutes, if he doesn’t have the right gear. Sometimes even when he does. That’s what happened to a guy I knew: Polish Mike, a musher from Anchorage.”

“Did he get caught in a storm?”

“Nope. He let the fire in his cabin go out, one cold midwinter night. They didn’t find his body until spring. He’d froze to death sitting at the table, his dinner still on his plate.” Morris looked up, a twinkle in his eye. “I suppose he didn’t eat it because it had gone cold.”

Rex smiled. “Good one.” He scribbled furiously in his notebook as Morris told story after story about the far north. He imagined Robert Service doing the same: listening to the tales of the prospectors, jotting them down as fodder for his poems. He was thankful to have met Morris; this was going to add some great color to his story.

•••

Rex spent the rest of the afternoon typing up the stories Morris had shared with him. When he was done, he made his way to the dining saloon, a room as wide as the ship, its walls hung with faded tapestries. Dinner was surprisingly good: a choice of poached salmon or roast beef and boiled potatoes, with celery soup to start and oranges and vanilla wafers for dessert, followed by coffee and cigarettes. No wine or whisky – it was Prohibition, after all. Rex wondered if there were speakeasies up north.

He made a point of sitting at the captain’s table. Gladys, the woman from the cabin next to his, was also seated there. She pointedly ignored Rex as she explained she was heading north to live with her brother in Valdez. “I’m a music teacher. A pianist. How I wish I could have brought my piano with me, but the expense of shipping such a bulky object north was completely beyond my reach. Now that I’m a widow, I have to be careful with my money.”

That struck an odd chord with Rex; he couldn’t shake the feeling that something about her story was just… wrong. But now Captain Joseph LeBlanc was talking, and Rex was caught up in the scramble to faithfully capture his words in his notebook.

“I’ve been aboard the Martha since she launched in 1880,” he told them. “Worked my way up from deckhand to captain over the nearly fifty years since. And oh, the things I’ve seen!”

Rex had already gotten all the pertinent data on the Martha from the chief engineer during a hot, noisy tour of the boiler and engine rooms. The ship had a gross tonnage of 320, and burned 3,000 pounds of coal a day. At a top speed of seven and a half knots, her run from Seattle to Skagway normally took six days. All the way to Nome, her last port of call, was fifteen days.

As well as being a steamship, the Martha was also rigged as a two-masted brigantine, for times when the engine failed or couldn’t be used. Captain LeBlanc was telling the tale of one such voyage now, living up to his “Laughing Joe” nickname with a wide smile that split his long gray beard.

“It was the winter of 1900, and a heavy southeast gale blew us nearly three hundred miles out to sea. A heavy wave broke over the deck, and the boiler shook right off its mount and the steam pipe burst. Lucky for the stokers, none of them was scalded. We were dead in the water, and sent up a flare, but no ships were around to see it. We raised sail, but the ice formed so fast the rigging sagged and the sails tore. We wound up drifting for sixty-three days, our rations gone, trying to keep our spirits up by joking about which of us would be eaten first. Only by the grace of God did the currents carry us in to shore. The angels themselves were watching over us that trip.”

He crossed himself theatrically as those seated at his table listened with wide eyes. Rex jotted it all down in his notebook, even though he suspected the tale had been embellished a touch by repeated telling.

“Then there was the time we struck an iceberg,” LeBlanc added. “Stove in our hull, and the water came in so fast it was up to the carpenters’ waists, even with all pumps going full bore, before they could put in a temporary patch. We put in to shore and sheltered under tents of driftwood and canvas for a week while the carpenters repaired the hole. The company thought we were lost – but we proved them wrong.”

LeBlanc took a sip of black coffee, which smelled of rum. He scanned his audience, clearly savoring their anticipation. “We even sailed through a volcano, once.”

“Now you’re having us on,” one man said, shaking his head in disbelief. “A volcano?”

LeBlanc laughed and raised calloused palms. “It’s true, or may God himself strike me dead as a nail. It was back in 1912, when Mount Katmai erupted. The smoke went up two, maybe three thousand feet into the sky, then flattened out across the sea. It was so dark you couldn’t see a lantern in front of your face. Birds fell dead from the sky, and the ash piled up on deck so thick it was up to our knees. All was thunder and brimstone. I ordered full speed ahead; we sailed by dead reckoning for hours, coughing and blinded all the while. I never was so glad to see Kodiak hove into view as when we finally found our way out of that terrible black cloud.”

“Sounds like the Martha has the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, on more than one occasion,” Rex commented. “She gets into – and out of – more scrapes than even I do.”

LeBlanc threw back his head and laughed. “You got that right, son. The Martha’s got more lives than a black cat.”

“I’ve heard the Alaska coast is dangerous – is that true?” The man who asked the question, Robert Middleton, held a cigarette that burned, forgotten, between his fingers. Rex had interviewed him earlier. Middleton was going up to clerk at a bank, the very job that had taken Robert Service north, back in 1904.

The captain answered the question in a low voice. “Dangerous, indeed. Sometimes ships just disappear. Like the Stikine Chief, back in 1898. She sailed from Fort Wrangel and was never heard from again. We were the ones to find what little remained: just a few broken boards, and a little white dog, balanced on a life preserver. Forty-three souls were lost that day.”

“Was the dog saved?” Gladys asked.

“I brought the poor little creature on board myself, and named her Lucky Lady,” LeBlanc assured her. “That dog was our mascot for many years, and was honored with a proper burial at sea, when she finally passed.”

LeBlanc held an imaginary hat over his heart a moment, then drained the last of his coffee. “Now if you’ll excuse me, ladies and gents, I should return to the wheelhouse.”

The men at the table politely rose as the captain did, then broke out cards as stewards cleared away their dishes. Gladys insisted they deal her in. Rex declined to join them, instead taking a longer route back to his cabin. He went out on deck and shuffled through the snow that had fallen, savoring an ink-black sky filled with thousands of twinkling stars, his head buzzing with the stories he’d just heard. The Martha and her captain had been through a lot over the years. Enough to make Rex wonder if the ship was as much of a magnet for disaster as he was.

With a shiver, Rex headed inside to his cabin.

•••

The next morning, Rex awoke to the familiar zzzip of paper being pulled from a typewriter. He yanked open his privacy curtain and saw Thorne holding the manuscript Rex had been working on yesterday.

“What are you doing?” Rex demanded, taken aback. “Put that down!”

Thorne ignored his protest. “Is this fiction?”

“No. It’s part of a feature story for the Arkham Advertiser.” Rex climbed down from his bunk. “The piece I’m writing about Robert Service. Hand it over.”

Thorne ignored him. “But you are embellishing, is that not so?”

“Embellishing?”

Thorne touched a finger to the page. “Here, you write about sled dogs being loaded aboard the ship by crane, as if you had witnessed that. And here, you write about feeding the dogs in the hold.”

Rex felt momentarily dizzy, as though he’d been drinking. The sea felt rougher today, the ship rising and falling as it plowed steadily north through an increasing swell. Yeah, that must have been it. He was feeling seasick. Nothing weird was happening, he told himself firmly. “I never wrote about sled dogs.”

“You did.” Thorne finally handed him the sheet of paper. “Observe.”

Rex took the typewritten page and read, in open-mouthed disbelief, whole paragraphs he’d never seen before. “I don’t remember writing any of this.”

Thorne gestured. “And yet it was in your typewriter.”

“I remember the name Morris Persky,” Rex said. “I talked to him on the pier, when he was…” He paused, searching for the words, but there was a hole where the memory should have been. It was like trying to use your tongue to touch a tooth that had recently been pulled, leaving only a raw wound. “No, that’s not right. I talked to him in the hold, when he was feeding his…”

“Feeding his sled dogs, according to what you wrote. Yet there are no dogs aboard this ship.”

“But there is a Morris Persky,” Rex said. He was certain of that, at least.

“Is there?” Thorne gave him a penetrating look. “Or is the man you spoke to yesterday now an imposter?”

“I’m not sure I follow you.”

Thorne tensed slightly as someone walked down the corridor, then relaxed after the footsteps receded. “They can change anything,” he said. “Except abstract symbols. Language is difficult for them, and the written word, impossible.”

Rex set the paper down. This was sounding all too familiar. “They?”

“You have a keen eye and a quick hand,” Thorne said. “I would encourage you to record everything you see and hear – to keep notes on everyone you meet. I will pay handsomely for the opportunity to read the results.” Thorne took out his money clip, removed a twenty-dollar bill, and offered it to Rex. “It will be helpful, should something else… change.”

Rex took the twenty. He tried to be glib. “You want to pay me a week’s salary to proofread my first drafts? Sure. Why not?”

But doubt gnawed at him as he stared at the words he’d never written. Had something terrible followed him from Arkham? Had the horrors he’d encountered there reached out across three thousand miles to this desolate coast?

And who was this Thorne guy? He was starting to remind Rex of Professor Walters, with his talk of language and symbols.

“You’ve had experience with the occult?” Rex asked. His eyes strayed to Thorne’s trunk; once more he wondered what it contained.

“It is best we end this conversation here,” Thorne said. “We can speak again once you have learned more.” He turned and began tidying his bunk, a clear indication the interview was over.

Rex decided to seek out Morris Persky instead. He scooped up his clothes and hurried to the bathroom down the hall. He splashed water onto his face and changed out of his pajamas. He put his spectacles on and stared at his narrow face in the mirror. His eyes had dark circles under them, even though he’d slept well. His thick brown hair was uncombed and his cheeks stubbled, but he didn’t waste time shaving. He had to find out what was going on.

Morris Persky wasn’t in the dining salon, where the other passengers were having breakfast. Nor was he inside any of the cabins whose doors Rex knocked on. Rex made his way down to the cargo hold, confirming that there were, indeed, no dogs on board. He climbed back up to the main deck and ventured outside. Snow was falling heavily this morning, turning the deck white and slippery. The sky was a sullen gray.

Rex spotted his quarry standing near the lifeboat on the starboard side of the ship. The man wore a suit and tie – somehow, that felt wrong – and stood with one hand on the gunwale of the lifeboat. He was shivering and snow dusted his hair and shoulders; it looked as though he’d been standing there awhile. He looked familiar, and yet…

“Morris Persky?” Rex asked.

The man startled. “That’s me.”

“Rex Murphy,” Rex said, introducing himself. The hand that shook his was cold as an icebox. And it was missing the tips of two fingers. But it was soft, not a working man’s hand.

“Do I know you?” Morris asked.

“We met yesterday, on the…” No, that wasn’t right. “Down in the cargo hold, we…” Rex took a deep breath, struggling to call to mind the typewritten text he’d read not so many minutes ago. The words were slippery as ice. He’d faced many dangers in his career as a reporter, but they’d all been physical. The prospect of losing an eye or an arm was far less frightening than losing his memories. He had the terrifying sense of something invisible reaching into his brain, slicing away with a cold, sharp blade at his mind.

Rex shook his head, forcing himself to focus on the interview. “Why are you standing out here in the cold?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Morris blinked, looking like a man who’d just been wakened from a dream. “Everything just feels… wrong, somehow. Like I shouldn’t be here. Or like I should be here, but not… here.” His eyes strayed to the lifeboat, his fingers picking nervously at the ties that held in place its canvas cover.

“I think we should go inside,” Rex gently suggested.

“Yes.” Morris nodded, eyes still fixed on a distant point on the horizon. “Yes, we should.”

In the dining salon, Rex plied Morris with questions amidst the clatter of stewards clearing away breakfast plates. Morris grew increasingly animated as the hot coffee warmed him. His face had assumed a normal color, and his eyes no longer had a haunted look.

“I’m with the Spratt’s dog food company,” he said. “I’m taking crates of biscuits north, to hand out as samples to ‘mushers’ to feed them to their sled dogs.” He fished an object out of his suit pocket and laid it on the table: a thick brown biscuit that looked like hardtack. “Spratt’s is hoping to expand into Alaska. Maybe cut a deal with one of the canneries to process their waste into dog food.”

“Is this your first trip north?”

“No, I…” Morris looked confused a moment, then shook his head. “Yes. First trip to Alaska. I’m excited to see the ‘land of the midnight sun’.”

“Strange things done…” Rex murmured.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. I’m curious about something. What happened to your fingers?” It was a blunt question, but Rex had learned long ago to take a direct approach. If you started by asking an interviewee if they minded being asked a personal question, they usually clammed up.

Morris held up his hand and laughed. “Oh that. Not much of a story, I’m afraid. Before I became a salesman, I worked the factory floor at Spratt’s. My hand strayed a little too close to one of the cutting machines, and that was that. Hurt like hell – but there was a silver lining. It pushed me into the job I have today.”

“I see,” Rex said. But he didn’t. Not really. Belatedly, he realized he hadn’t even taken notes. He remedied that by excusing himself and moving to another table, where he hurriedly jotted down what he’d just been told. It all felt wrong, somehow, like a story that had been made up. But Rex recorded it anyway. For all he knew, these memories were going to disappear, too. Better to have a written record.

His next stop was the purser’s office. It was a cramped space on the upper deck, home to a wireless radio set and a desk strewn with papers. The radio operator was bare-headed and in shirt sleeves, but the purser wore a proper uniform, his cap emblazoned with the Alaska Steamship Company’s trademark red flag with its white “A” on a black circle. His jacket buttons were neatly polished – a fastidious man. Good. He’d probably keep accurate records.

It took some convincing to get the purser to show him the passenger manifest. Convincing, and a pair of dollar bills. Scanning the list of names, Rex saw that there was no Popov – either in Latin letters or Cyrillic.

Rex frowned. Why had he just thought that?

Reporter’s habit, he decided, closing the manifest and sliding it back to the purser. Always check the spelling.

•••

Over the next two days Rex feverishly collected notes on as many of his fellow passengers as he could. He interviewed the bank clerk, talked to some prospectors returning north, and listened from a nearby table as Captain LeBlanc laughed and gesticulated his way through another round of tall tales of the dangers of the sea. Rex shook his head, wondering what the steamship company thought of that. Such dire tales couldn’t have been good for business.

Rex shared his notes with Thorne, who read them in silence.

“Do you notice any discrepancies?” Rex asked nervously. “Has anything else changed?”

Thorne shook his head. “All is quiet, for the moment.” He handed back the notebook. “Please continue your investigation.”

“But what if–”

“We will talk later. Not now.”

Throughout the fourth day of the voyage the wind and waves picked up. That night, as Rex lay in his bunk, the bow of the ship rose and fell as it cut through the swells. Every now and then they’d crest a bigger wave, and the bunk would drop out from under Rex: an unsettling feeling.

He glanced out the tiny porthole and at first saw nothing but the darkness of the sea – but then the Martha rolled slightly and he saw streaks of green across the sky. The northern lights! He hadn’t expected to see them until he was much further north.

Clambering down from his bunk, Rex steadied himself with a hand on the wall as he pulled on his clothes and coat. When he opened the cabin door, lantern light from the corridor revealed that Thorne’s bunk was empty.

Rex hesitated, one hand gripping the door frame as the ship rose and fell beneath his feet. Had Thorne disappeared?

No, the man’s trunk was still on the floor beside the bunk, sliding back and forth across the floor as the ship rolled.

Rex found his cabin mate out on deck. Thorne’s gloved hands clasped the rail as he stared up at the sky. Rex joined him, looking up at the ripples of bright green light. The sight took his breath away. Ghostly shimmers in a thousand shades of green swirled through the sky as if stirred by an invisible hand. Rex completely forgot the heaving of the ship beneath his feet, the slipperiness of the deck and the terrible chill of the black sea below.

“They’re beautiful,” he breathed, his breath fogging in the cold air.

The sky was alive with light. Gauzy curtains of green rippled across the blackness of the northern sky, hiding and then revealing the puny stars.

“They are so vast,” Thorne said. “They make one feel insignificant.”

Rex had almost forgotten that Thorne was beside him. “You got that right.”

“It was the Romans who coined the term ‘aurora borealis’,” Thorne continued. “Literally, ‘dawn wind’. They imagined Aurora, goddess of dawn, racing across the sky in her chariot, leaving light that swirled like dust in her wake.

“The Laplanders say the northern lights are caused by a fox that runs so swiftly across the ice, its tail throws up sparks. The Inuit believe they’re the spirits of the dead, playing ball with a walrus head, of all things. But it is the Vikings whose legends come closest to the mark. They believed the northern lights to be glints off the shields of the Valkyries.” Thorne gestured up. “In their sagas, these lights are the Bifrost Bridge that leads to Valhalla.”

“You’re well versed in mythology,” Rex said. “But I suppose you’d have to be, in your line of work.”

Thorne continued to stare upward, his expression sharp as the cold. “Not mythology,” he said, “but fact. There are indeed places where the curtains between worlds are thin – rents in the fabric of reality. The aurora borealis is one such manifestation; another was the strange lightning storm in Seattle the evening before our departure. The Outsiders use them to enter our world.”

“Outsiders?” Rex prompted. He was shivering now. The night air was cold and sea spray chilled his bare hands where they gripped the icy rail.

“Paradimensional entities.” Thorne turned at last to stare at Rex. “I have the feeling that you know what I am speaking about – is that correct?”

Rex nodded. Here we go again, he thought. It’s starting. Just like it did in Arkham.

“One is aboard this ship, having assumed a form that will allow it to pass undetected. It knows I am aboard and what I am looking for, and seeks to stop me from finding it. So far, I have been fortunate; the Outsider has not isolated me. There is too much noise obscuring the signal.” He waved a hand. “Too many souls aboard the ship.”

“What do we do?” Rex asked. “What can we do?”

“Nothing, until we can identify the form it has taken. We can only watch. And wait.”

“Can it be stopped?” Rex asked.

“That remains to be seen. Perhaps if we lure it out…” Thorne shivered, then drew his coat closer around his neck, tucking his cravat inside it. Then he gestured at the notebook poking out of Rex’s coat pocket. “For now, please continue your interviews. And pay close attention to the captain and crew. I have a feeling that may be vital.”

With that, Thorne turned to stare back out at the horizon. Once again, Rex had the feeling he’d been dismissed.

“Well,” Rex said at last. “It’s too cold out here for me – think I’ll turn in. Good night.”

As he headed back to the cabin, he took one last glance over his shoulder.

Thorne remained at the rail, his thin body silhouetted against the twisted canvas of the glowing green sky.

Rex wondered if he could trust Thorne. What was the fellow actually up to – why was he headed north?

The answer, Rex suspected, was inside that trunk.

•••

The next day, the weather was even worse. Rex had been unable to sleep much the night before; what sleep he’d managed had been troubled by dreams of green-limned doorways leading to horrific landscapes filled with the howling of dogs and the screams of men.

He clambered down from his bunk – nearly tumbling from the ladder due to the pitching of the ship. His typewriter had slid off the table some time in the night; he picked the case up and opened it to ensure the machine hadn’t been damaged. As the ship rolled, Thorne’s trunk slid across the floor, bumping into Rex and nearly knocking his legs out from under him.

Rex glanced at Thorne’s bunk – it was empty – then down at the trunk. The lock didn’t look all that complicated…

Rex got to work with his pocket knife. After a few minutes, he jimmied the lock and the latch of the trunk sprang open.

The trunk was filled with books and maps. Rex scanned the titles of the former, and saw they were mostly about early explorations of Alaska. Some were in Spanish or Russian, with cracked leather covers and loose pages that looked very old. Rex wondered if Thorne spoke those languages.

He unrolled one of the maps: it turned out to be of Kodiak Island and was titled “Alaska Ice Inc. Mining Operations”. Rex remembered the name from his research; apparently there had been a lucrative trade, back in the 1850s and 60s, of hauling ice down to San Francisco, where it was used for food preservation. It was a long way to haul ice – but the ships bringing supplies north needed something to use as ballast on the return voyage.

Words were scrawled at the bottom of the map: “The source?”

Source of what? Rex wondered.

A yellowed newspaper was tucked under the books: a copy of the Anchorage Times, dated 1918. Rex unfolded it, expecting to see news of the Great War. Instead, the page-wide headlines read: “Anchorage Stricken by Massive Quake – Townsite Flattened – Hundreds Feared Killed”.

Rex felt a prickle of fear. That earthquake had… never happened. It would have come up in his research if it had. And yet here was a story about it, filling several columns of type.

Something had caused a shift in reality. The world had changed – all that remained of the earthquake that had never happened was this echo in ink.

Rex put everything back in the trunk and closed the lid. He wondered what else in the world had changed without anyone realizing it. How much of this current reality was true, and how much had been removed and rewritten? He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. How much of his own life was real?

Did Thorne know? Rex was determined to find out. This time, he’d force Thorne to give him some answers.

Exiting the cabin, Rex made his way aft to the dining salon. One glance out its windows told the story of how much the temperature had dropped overnight: the entire deck was coated in glittering white ice. It hung from every rail and roofline in long icicles; each smash of spray over the bows slicked on yet more water that instantly froze. The Martha was lower in the water than she’d been previously, weighed down by thousands of pounds of ice.

A man’s voice came from behind as Rex stared out the windows. “Do you think they’ll be serving breakfast?”

Rex turned and saw the bank clerk bracing himself with a hand on either side of the door.

“I think the crew has more pressing things to worry about.”

The clerk nodded nervously.

Where the hell was Thorne? Rex descended to the cargo hold, but saw no sign of the man there, or in any of the public areas of the ship. Could Thorne perhaps have gone up to the wheelhouse?

Rex made his way back to the door leading out on deck. He had to bang it open with his shoulder; the ice had frozen it shut.

An icy wind buffeted him as he made his way outside. He had a moment of panic as he slipped and fell while climbing the stairs to the wheelhouse; he grabbed the handrail just in time as the ship rolled hard to port. This is ridiculous, he thought. If he fell, he’d slide right over the edge into the sea. But he continued upward, driven as much by a desire to learn if the ship was in danger as by his quest to find Thorne.

Five men occupied the wheelhouse. One grappled with the wheel, while a second looked out the ice-crazed windows with binoculars. A third man was bent over charts spread across a desk at the back of the wheelhouse, frantically plotting their course with dividers and pencil, while the fourth shouted orders into a voice tube next to the ship’s telegraph. The fifth man was LeBlanc. He stood with arms folded across his chest, his body swaying easily in time with the wild plunges and rolls of the deck beneath his feet. Above him, the ship’s bell clanged with each movement, adding further confusion to the scene. No sign of Thorne.

“What the hell are you doing here?” the helmsman barked over his shoulder. “Passengers aren’t allowed in the wheelhouse.”

“I arranged an interview with Captain LeBlanc,” Rex lied.

“We’re fighting a heavy southeaster. Get back to your cabin!”

“Is the ship in danger?”

LeBlanc slowly turned to stare at Rex. He had the same grizzled beard and stocky frame, but the laugh lines were gone. Ice-blue eyes stared out from under the brim of his captain’s cap: a long stare that caused the hairs on the back of Rex’s neck to rise. All sound and color drained from the world, and the air became still. Rex had a powerful sensation of standing on a brink that was about to drop out from under him.

Then LeBlanc turned away, and the sounds of the storm returned.

“Captain,” the lookout with the binoculars said. “Lighthouse, bearing zero zero three.”

“It must be Point Arden,” said the sailor bent over the charts. He looked up, a worried expression on his face. “Sir, I make us less than a mile offshore.”

“Captain, our speed is full ahead,” the sailor at the telegraph chimed in. “Should we reduce speed?”

“Captain!” the helmsman shouted urgently. “Your orders? How shall I steer?”

LeBlanc swayed gently as the ship pitched and rolled. Slowly, he raised a hand and pointed slightly to the left. He spoke in a hollow voice: “Turn.”

“Turn?” the helmsman sputtered. “To what bearing?”

The navigator abruptly stood. “Captain LeBlanc, I relieve you of command.” Then, to the helmsman: “Starboard fifteen. Engines, half ahead.”

“Starboard fifteen,” the helmsman repeated, looking relieved. He started to spin the wheel – but then LeBlanc was suddenly at his side, one hand tightly gripping a spoke of the wheel.

“No,” LeBlanc said.

The two men fought for control of the wheel as the ship plunged frantically through the heaving waves. The helmsman gurgled as one of LeBlanc’s hands wrapped around his throat.

The Outsider! Rex thought. The creature Thorne had warned him about. It was LeBlanc! Rex started to move forward, intending to grab LeBlanc and wrestle him to the deck. But before he could, time seemed to falter, then jump ahead. Suddenly, the coast was much closer than it had been an instant before. A wave-lashed bluff topped by the white spire of a lighthouse loomed large in the windows of the wheelhouse. A loud grinding shuddered up through the Martha as she struck the rocks, and the ship listed hard to port. Rex was hurled against the wall of the wheelhouse in a tangle with another man. A window shattered, letting in the mournful dirge of the lighthouse horn.

“We’ve run aground!” the lookout shouted, blood trickling from a gash in his pale cheek.

Rex heaved himself up and looked around. The inside of the wheelhouse was now a shambles, sea spraying through the broken window as waves crashed against the side of the ship. The Martha groaned and shuddered, rolling and settling, rolling and settling, as her hull sawed itself against the rocks.

Shipwrecked! he thought. He shook his head. Why did disaster seem to follow him, everywhere he went?

The man lying next to him groaned. He wore a captain’s uniform, gold bars on the sleeves of his black coat. Rex rolled him over, and stared down at a face he didn’t recognize: the narrow features of a man in his thirties, with thick auburn hair and clean-shaven cheeks. It was Captain…

The name was gone. Rex had come to the wheelhouse to interview this man, but now he couldn’t remember the captain’s name, or anything about him. They’d had supper together the first night on board, and the captain had said… he’d told Rex… Yes, that was it: the captain had laughed and said… something about nine lives. And a black cat. Or maybe a white dog.

No, that wasn’t right either.

“Should I send up a flare?” the young lookout shouted.

The navigator heaved himself to his feet. He took one look at the unconscious captain, and took charge. “No use – no one’s going to see it in this gale.” He fired off orders: “Hubbard, tell the wireless operator to send out an SOS. Caldwell, call down to the engine room for a status report. Muller, go tell the stewards to get the passengers into their life jackets and mustered on deck. We’re abandoning ship.”

There was a chorus of nervous, “Aye, sirs,” as the crew scrambled to their tasks. In the middle of it, the navigator noticed Rex. “What the hell are you still doing here? Get down to your cabin and grab a life jacket!”

Rex gulped. He climbed out the wheelhouse door and ran, slipping and sliding his way down the ice-coated stairs as the ship rocked precariously. Wind-blown snowflakes and salt spray stung his eyes, and his winter coat grew heavy. Even in gloves, his hands felt like blocks of ice. He was trying to fumble open the door leading to the passenger cabins when it crashed open, forcing him back. A welter of passengers burst out on deck, some screaming, some crying, others shoving as they fought their way toward the lifeboats. Sailors roared instructions that fell on deaf ears. The bank clerk was struggling to keep his feet when yet another towering wave smashed into the ship; he slid on the icy, tilting deck and tumbled over the rail and into the sea.

Terrified that he’d be the next one overboard – that was how his luck usually went – Rex fought his way along the corridor. He needed to get his life jacket, his mind screamed. And his manuscript.

He was surprised to find Thorne in their cabin. The man was bent over his open trunk, grabbing maps and stuffing them into his pockets. Rex scooped up the pages of his manuscript. He picked up his typewriter case – the portable Remington was brand new, and had cost him fifty bucks – but then sanity prevailed and he let it drop.

There was something he needed to tell Thorne. Something about the captain…

There was that hollow feeling again. Something had been torn from Rex’s mind, leaving only a raw ache and dizziness behind. The horror of it almost dampened Rex’s fear of what would happen next, now that the ship was on the rocks and possibly sinking. Almost.

“They’ve given orders to abandon ship,” he told Thorne. “Where are our life jackets?”

Thorne gestured at the far wall. “Under the bottom bunk.”

Rex staggered across the cabin. He hauled out one life jacket, tossed it in Thorne’s direction, then dragged the second one over his head. It was nearly impossible to tie the straps with his cold-numbed fingers. The jacket fit awkwardly over his heavy winter coat, but somehow Rex managed it.

Rex started to make his way back to the door, but Thorne blocked his path. “I require your help.”

“Help?” Rex echoed. “Help with what?”

“The Outsider will stop at nothing to eliminate me. It couldn’t locate me, due to my… protections. But it intends to eliminate me, so it has wrecked this ship. It will only continue to follow me, wreaking havoc, unless I can stop it.”

“That’s your problem, not mine.” Rex tried to move past Thorne and out the door, but the other man shoved him back into the cabin. For a skinny guy, Thorne was surprisingly strong.

“The Outsider has marked you as a threat, as well – I can smell its spoor on you. Unless you help me destroy it, nothing will remain of you but a hole in the fabric of the cosmos.” He snapped gloved fingers. “Rex Murphy will simply cease to exist.” Rex had a jagged flash of memory: icy eyes that seemed to bore a hole into the very fabric of his soul. He shivered.

“It is entirely possible it has already changed you,” Thorne continued grimly. “You may no longer be the same Rex Murphy who boarded this vessel. I’ve noticed subtle changes.”

“Changes?” Rex echoed.

“Read your notebook.”

Rex plucked it from his pocket, flipping it open to the last page. On it were two words: “TRUST THORNE”.

He had no memory of writing that.

Rex took a shuddering breath. “What do we need to do?”

“We’ll lay a trap,” Thorne said. “One that will destroy the Outsider. Follow me.”

Rex followed Thorne out of the cabin and down the tilted stairs to the cargo hold. Sailors shoved their way past the two men, shouting at them that they were going the wrong way. Thorne ignored them.

The hold was a shambles, cargo ripped from its netting and crashing about as the ship rolled. Thorne dodged his way into the chaos, and Rex somehow managed to follow him without getting crushed.

At the far end of the cargo hold, a door slammed open. The chief engineer Rex had interviewed earlier scrambled out, spotted them, and shouted as he ran past: “She’s taking on water fast. If it reaches the boiler, she’ll blow.” Then he was gone, scrambling like a rat up the stairs to the deck above.

“This is crazy,” Rex shouted at Thorne.

Thorne had picked up an axe from somewhere during their frantic foray into the hold. One foot braced against a wall, he chopped at a barrel like a cop from the dry squad going at a keg of whisky. Gasoline sprayed into the air, filling the hold with a pungent, eye-watering smell.

“Another axe is on the wall near the door,” Thorne shouted. “Grab it and help.”

Rex did as he was told. He remembered the pale blue eyes of… of the man in the captain’s uniform. How terrifying being pierced by their icy gaze had felt. Awkward in his life jacket, he swung the axe overhead – again and again, smashing open barrels. All the while, the ship rolled and groaned.

Frigid water began pouring into the hold. The gasoline floated atop it, lending it an oily blue-green sheen. Rex was reminded of the aurora borealis.

The gateway between worlds…

“Enough,” Thorne said, tossing aside his axe. “Back to the stairs!”

Rex sloshed through the water swirling around his ankles. He had barely reached the stairs when the ship’s electric lighting went out. Blackness surrounded him as the movements of the dying ship buffeted him back and forth in the narrow stairwell; from above came the sounds of crashing waves, and the muffled screams of the passengers. Rex swallowed his fear. The possibility of drowning paled compared to the prospect of being erased from reality.

Behind him, light blossomed. He turned and saw Thorne holding a match. Thorne’s other hand was at his throat, stroking his cravat. Then he began to chant: “Come, O thing that be not of this world. Here I stand! Food for ye to sup upon. Come!”

Beyond him, something rose, dripping, from the water in the hold. It had a vaguely humanoid shape, but was only a twisted mockery of a man, its limbs misshapen and elongated, its face shifting from man to woman to dog to slavering beast – and finally settling on a replica of Thorne. Ice-blue eyes locked on the spot where they stood. Then the creature began to slosh through the gasoline-fouled water toward them.

Rex felt his mouth go dry. He raised his axe, even though his gut told him it was a futile gesture. But if he was about to be edited out of this world, he’d go down fighting, damn it.

“No,” Thorne said, thrusting out an arm to block Rex. “We can’t fight it that way.” He dropped the match. Flames licked across the water toward the Outsider.

“Run!” Thorne shouted.

Rex’s animal instincts took over. Without conscious thought, he dropped the axe and scrambled up the tilting stairs, not bothering to check if Thorne was behind him. He reached the corridor above and half ran, half crawled down it, sometimes moving along the carpeted floor, and sometimes along the wall that tilted crazily underfoot. He forced open the door at the far end as a loud whumph sounded behind him; a boil of black smoke followed him outside. Coughing, eyes stinging, he slipped on the ice and fell, and found himself sliding, out of control, down the deck. Then came a splash, and water so cold it nearly stopped his heart when it enveloped him.

Somehow, he fought his way to the surface. Somehow, he clawed his way to shore through the breakers. The ship behind him provided a breakwater, calming the sea just enough for him to swim without being pounded under. He scrambled out onto rocks to which other exhausted and shivering passengers were clinging, then fumbled his way to the top of the bluffs where the lighthouse stood.

Once there, he turned, panting, and stared out to sea, doing his best not to look down at the bodies being tossed by the waves: killed either by the terrible cold, or by being dashed against the rocks. Instead, he focused his attention on the ship.

The Martha rolled back and forth in the swells, grinding against the rocks and burning fiercely. Flames shot as high as her masts and thick black smoke billowed into the sky above. Snow fell thickly, drawing a white veil across the hellish scene.

As Rex stared, teeth chattering uncontrollably, unable to feel his hands or his feet, he spotted something through the snow and smoke. A figure – possibly a man, possibly something else – balancing effortlessly on the rolling deck, its arms wide and its head thrown back.

Laughing.

The figure glided to what remained of the rail and surveyed the storm-chopped water, staring down at a man who was swimming frantically away from the ship. Then the Outsider’s head rose, and it locked eyes with Rex.

Rex felt a cold beyond any he had ever experienced take his gut and start to twist…

And then, with a roar that shook the rocks under Rex’s feet, the Martha exploded as her boiler finally blew.

•••

Shivering uncontrollably, Rex staggered toward the lighthouse with the dozen or so others who had survived the wreck. He dimly noted that Gladys was among them, her life preserver strapped tight over a bedraggled raccoon-skin coat. The two keepers took everyone in, dolling out blankets and hot black coffee. For several fitful hours, Rex and the other survivors huddled around the lighthouse’s small wood­stove, drawing restoring warmth from its cheery red glow, while the keepers used their wireless to relay news of the sinking.

Later, once the storm had passed, the keepers helped what remained of the Martha’s crew recover the bodies that washed ashore.

Thorne was not among them.

What had happened to the man? Had Thorne been the one desperately swimming away from the ship when it exploded? If he had made it to shore, where had he gone? Rex had noticed a sled and some huskies tied up outside the lighthouse as he’d staggered toward it immediately after the wreck, and now the sled and dogs were gone. Had Thorne taken them and slipped away, during all the confusion? And if he had, why?

Rex hoped that was what had happened. Thorne had been secretive and aloof during the voyage, but in the end he’d made himself a target, deliberately drawing the Outsider to him. That took guts.

More guts than Rex had demonstrated by leaving Thorne behind in the hold, and only worrying about his own hide.

The next day, the SS Alaska – several times the size of the Martha and all spit and polish – arrived and anchored offshore. Her sailors launched lifeboats and rowed the survivors, a few at a time, out to their ship, past the black shadow that lay just under the waves; the Martha had burned to the waterline.

The Alaska was on the return leg of her journey, headed south to Seattle. But her captain agreed to detour to Juneau, which turned out to be little more than an hour away. The Martha had almost made it.

Rex spent that hour in the dining salon, reading over the manuscript he’d salvaged in his fateful scramble from the Martha. The typewritten words were barely legible, thanks to his plunge into the sea. But he could make out a few phrases here and there.

He spotted names he didn’t remember, and fragmented descriptions of events that had never happened.

At least, not in this version of reality.

His notebook was in slightly better shape. He flipped through its pages. At the bottom of the last page, Rex spotted the word “TRUST” in capital letters, followed by a name that had been reduced to a smear of ink.

Had he written that? Trust who?

He couldn’t remember.

Slowly, Rex folded the notebook shut, and tucked it back in his pocket.

“Strange things,” he said to himself. “Strange things done.”