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"It was necessary"

"God, what a sha

"All necessary"

"I don&039;t want any trouble, Boniface I thought I lared at hi "You and the whiteinto the boatyards Now you are to blame!"

"For what!"

"For what ainst it!"

Kip looked down into the glowing remains of the fire and saw the clump of wax there, blackened by the heat and ashes He kicked it out into the grass and looked across at the reverend "What kind of madness is this?"

"I expected better from you," Boniface said bitterly "I expected you to be able to see The white man, no, but you, Kip you could open your mind if you wished, you could feel it"

"What are you saying, old man?" the constable asked him harshly

"I know about you; you think you can hide it but you&039;re ?"

Boniface stood his ground; was about to explain but then thought better of it He bent down and began to gather up the bottles that stood along the lines of the geoure He put them down into the white pot that had contained the snake, and they rattled together

"What do you know about an to seo up, "who you could have been" His head came up, and he stared fiercely into the constable&039;s eyes A strange, alible power riveted the other man where he stood He could not have moved even if he&039;d wished

"Listen to me well," Boniface told him "If you refuse to take the boat to deep water, you o near it Let no ainst that iron And for all our sakes do not try to break the hatches open Do you understand what I say?"

Kip wanted to say no, that Boniface was a raving fool, that theabout, but when he spoke he heard hione, ht Kip had not seen hih the underbrush; he had si in the spaces left when the dru had stopped Insects called to each other across the jungle, and the cries of the nocturnal birds sounded like the voices of old men Kip covered the euished the fire, then clicked his light back on and retraced his path to the jeep There was a yellow gliht behind ashutter at the church and a shadowabout within

He cliine He was actually eager to get away frodos that walked the night seeking souls He drove back toward the harbor, along Front Street and through the village Still no lights, no sounds And before he realized it, he had passed the road leading toward his house and was driving to the boatyard as if drawn there by so beyond his control There was a sheen of sweat on his temples and he hastily wiped it away He couldn&039;t shake the iht that glittered in his thick glasses I know, the man had said, who you could have been

And then Kip&039;s foot came down hard on the brakes

The jeep started to spin in the sand, but Kip let the wheel turn and then corrected its direction; the jeep straightened, whipping grit up behind it, and then stopped abruptly as the engine rattled and died Kip sat and looked straight ahead for a long tiates were shattered, the weathered tiround The tied forward, like bones in a broken rib cage, their edges raw and jagged

An ax, Kip thought Soates

He picked up his light, cli else seeh in the disarray it was difficult for hi moved There was no noise but for the sea and the slow creaking of a boat ht tistree away Why the hell didn&039;t the rily, knowing it was his own responsibility if so valuable

As he moved deeper into the yard, he tried to keep his e of the rotting thing was a searing flale of ropes and cables and walked faster, heading directly for the shelter

He saw immediately that the door was open; he stopped in his tracks, shining the light about, and then slipped through into the stench of decay Hewhat to expect, not even knohat he was looking for And when the beam picked out the form of the cylinder truck on the forward deck he swore and let his breath out in a hiss

As he crossed the gangplank he shined the light down onto the deck, and then he saw the gaping, sed void where the hatch had been burned out The hatch itself, the bottous, lay several feet away on the deck Kip thrust the light doard the hole, aware that his heartbeat had picked up, that there was so

Aware that blood was splattered around the yawning opening

At once Kip sucked in his breath, stunned He bent down and touched a hand to the thick globs of blood He wiped it off on his trouser leg The blood was so dark it was al in it Puddles had collected around the hatch opening like oil seepage And now he smelled it as well, like a thick, coppery taste in hisbeside him, and it was only when Kip had bent to examine it that he realized it was a piece of black flesh

The U-boatthe inside of the shelter He turned, played the light up the conning-tower bulwark and toward the stern A sharp, piercing fear was inside hiht to keep hold of his sanity He backed away froht on it, until he&039;d reached the gangplank

The flashlight beaainst the hull, and beside it a beer can The water, pulled in through the sea bulkhead, was dotted with cigarette butts, and his light touched the staring eye of a white, bloated fish Soplank at Kip&039;s feet

A welder&039;sdoith one hand to pull it from the water And as he did and the mask came free, the body underneath it rose to the surface The eyes ide and terror-stricken, the open mouth was filled ater Beneath the battered face the throat had been torn open Bare bone glittered in a red, pulpy ular vein Half the face was peeled back, the teeth broken off or ripped from the mouth The arms floated stiffly at the corpse&039;s sides, and already tiny fish were darting in to taste the blood at the led throat

Kip cried out involuntarily and pulled his hand back, the welder&039;s an to turn in a circle, buainst the side of the basin Kip felt the place closing about his that grinned and clawed at hiers He backed away fros like lead, and then half-walked, half-ran into the fresh air outside, drawing breath after breath to try to clear away the sight of that dead, gray-fleshed face

"My God," he ainst the shelter wall "My God nized the expression on Turk&039;s dead, puffed face It was a glimpse into an unnamable horror