Abe tightened his arm around her, but she took scant comfort from the gesture. “It is, kid. It is. But as to what’s in that ship, who can say? And that’s what got me shook. Either Jack has gone stark raving mad—and comforting it’s not to think of a man that lethal being insane—or he’s mentally sound and there actually are such things as the monsters he described. I don’t know which frightens me more.”

Gia said nothing. She was too occupied with the fear that clawed ferociously at the walls of her brain: fear that she would never see Vicky again. She fought that fear, knowing if she let it through and truly faced the possibility that Vicky might be gone forever, she would die.

“But I’ll tell you this,” Abe went on. “If your daughter is out there, and if it’s humanly possible to bring her back, Jack will do it. Perhaps he’s the only man alive who can.” If that was supposed to comfort Gia, it failed.

28

Vicky sat alone in the dark, shivering in her torn, wet nighty. It was cold in here. The floor was slimy against her bare feet and the air stank so bad it made her want to throw up. She was utterly miserable. She had never liked to be alone in the dark, but this time alone was better than with one of those monsters.

She had just about cried herself out since her arrival on the ship. There weren’t any more tears left. Hope had grown within her when the monster had climbed up the ship’s anchor chain, carrying her with it. It hadn’t hurt her yet—maybe it just wanted to show her the boat.

Once on the deck, the monster did something strange: It took her to the back of the boat and held her up in the air in front of a bunch of windows high above her there. She had a feeling somebody was looking down at her from behind the windows but she couldn’t see anyone. The monster held her up for a long time, then tucked her under its arm and carried her through a door and down flights of metal steps.

As they moved deeper and deeper into the ship, the hope that had sprouted began to wither and die, replaced by despair that slowly turned to horror as the rotten smell of the monster filled the air. But it wasn’t coming from this monster. It was coming from beyond the open metal door they were heading for. Vicky began to kick and scream and fight to get free as they moved closer to it, for there were rustling and scraping and grunting sounds coming from the darkness beyond that door. The monster didn’t seem to notice her struggles. It stepped through the opening and the stench enveloped her.

The door clanged behind them and locked. There must have been someone or something standing in the shadows behind it as they had passed. And then the monsters were all around her, huge dark forms pressing toward her, reaching for her, baring their teeth, hissing. Vicky’s screams faded away, dying in her throat as an explosion of terror stole her voice. They were going to eat her—she could tell!