Five days earlier.
Nov. 3rd, 2006 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
secret_historyIt wasn’t quite dawn. There was a name for this time of day, wasn’t there? False dawn, or something. Sandeep Singh yawned and stretched inside his cramped booth, then checked his watch. 5:06. Less than three hours before the end of his shift. The day crew would be getting here earlier than that, but he couldn’t really slack off until eight o’clock anyway because there were always reports to be filled out. He hated filling out those reports. It’s not like anything ever happened while he was watching his tiny section of the dock.
“Midnight to one o’clock: a couple make out half a block away,” he grinned at the thought of filling out imaginary reports with the kind of useless shit he saw every night. “One o’clock to two o’clock: two male cats have a fight over a female who ends up going off with a third male.”
Still, there were far worse jobs. Working security in the port paid well, and for very little work. Most of the time he could easily employ in studying for his degree in computer science and no one cared. It wasn’t as though the cargo that this shipyard regularly dealt in was prime material for stealing: who the hell would want to steal steel beams, anyway? All his job really consisted of was looking out for teenagers who thought it was cute to come around and spread graffiti on the containers. There weren’t even real gangs to speak of in this city, for which Sandeep was also grateful. He’d spent some time in the United States, and he remembered never feeling safe for a moment while he was there. Here he could go out at three o’clock in the morning by himself in a dark street and not run much risk of getting into trouble. Of course, it was stupid to court danger, and so he didn’t (inasmuch as his job allowed him, anyway), but the fact remained that Montreal was pretty safe, as large cities went. That was pretty rare.
A scuffling sound attracted his attention, followed by muffled giggles. He heaved a sigh of exasperation. Kids, again. The night had been going so well, too. He picked up his baton, the only weapon he was really allowed to carry, and his radio, not that he had anyone to call for backup: he usually worked this shift alone. No one else in their right mind seemed to want to work the graveyard shift around here.
“Damn kids,” he muttered under his breath, hoisting his pants up by the belt so that they sat more comfortably around his hips. He was willing to bet a week’s worth of salary that their parents had no idea what they were getting up to at all hours. On his more cynical days, he wondered if their parents even cared. That might explain why they were getting high on grass and spray painting his containers with obscene words.
He stumped along on the asphalt between the containers, his thoughts growing darker with each passing moment. He’d show them what-for, that was for sure. See how clever they felt after they got fined, or better yet, spent the rest of the night in jail and had to be bailed out by their parents! He’d pay to see that. Well, maybe not pay, but he’d like to see it.
The whispers and giggles grew louder as he approached. “Shh! You’ll bring the Rent-A-Cop down on our asses, Gillie!” a boy’s voice said, even louder than the giggling girl.
“Don’t be such a wuss, Vince. The guy’s probably asleep in his booth.”
“Guys? I don’t think we should be here. Why can’t we just go smoke up somewhere else? It’s dark, and it’s damp. I’m cold, too, and this place gives me the creeps!”
“Now who’s being a wuss? Don’t be a wet blanket, Jen. Here, you can have the next drag.”
Well, at least they weren’t vandalising the place. Still, this wasn’t the place for them to be smoking up. The insurance company would have a field day with the company if they found out unauthorized people had been traipsing about in the yard while high on weed.
“Did you hear that?” The voice belonged to the girl called Jen.
“No. Hear what?” the boy named Vince asked loudly.
“Shh! Let me listen,” Gillie hushed them both. “I heard it too. Do you suppose the Rent-A-Cop’s coming?”
Sandeep froze in his tracks. He’d heard something as well, apart from the kids and the sound of his own footsteps. A soft scrabbling, scratching sound, and... another sound he couldn’t quite identify.
“Oh my God, guys. It’s, like, coming from inside the container!”
“Holy shit!”
“There’s someone inside there!”
“Don’t be stupid, Jen, there can’t be anyone inside the container. It’s, like, for industrial materials.”
Sandeep decided enough was enough. He stepped confidently around the container and shone the beam of his flashlight directly in their faces. “Hold it right there!”
“Ah, shit,” Vince didn’t look a day over seventeen, with blond hair and a wispy moustache above his lip that he’d obviously carefully cultivated. He squinted lazily at Sandeep, obviously too stoned to really understand what was happening. “See what you guys did? You brought the Rent-A-Cop with all your damned noise.”
“You’re lucky I’m the only one who’s found you,” Sandeep said sternly. “You’re all in very big trouble as it is!”
Jen, a short girl with lank, mousy brown hair and braces still dressed in the kilted uniform of a girl’s private school, shivered. “Guys, I can still hear it. Hey Mister,” she turned to Sandeep. “There’s something in the container!”
Sandeep turned to listen, and sure enough, he could still hear the faint scratching coming from within the container. “Rats,” he said dismissively. “Now, you are all going to have to come with me and explain yourselves!”
“Yeah, whatever, Apu. You sure you shouldn’t be minding your counter?”
Sandeep glared at them. “Just because I am from India does not mean I am unaware of the Simpsons. Now come with me this instant. If you’re lucky the company may decide not to press charges.”
“Aww, come on, man! Don’t be a drag,” the other girl, Gillie, a winsome little blonde thing with too much lipstick and mascara that had smudged to make the rings under her eyes even more pronounced. “We weren’t hurting anyone.”
“This is private property,” Sandeep said firmly. “If you want to get high, you must do it somewhere else or face the consequences.”
The scuffling sound in the container grew louder at that moment, making them all jump. It sounded as though it was right next to them, just at the level of their shoulders or perhaps a bit higher.
“Oh, God, there’s someone in there!” Jen whimpered.
“It’s just rats. There’s lots of them by the docks,” Sandeep said, but he was no longer convinced.
“No! I can hear someone! Can’t you hear them?” she wailed, wringing her hands.
They paused, uncertain, and after a moment Sandeep felt a cold trickle run up and down his spine. There was someone in there, moaning. It sounded like a soul in torment, low and ululating and guttural. For a moment Sandeep felt an irrational, almost uncontrollable impulse to flee as fast and as far away as he could. Whatever was in that container, he wanted nothing to do with it. There were the teenagers to deal with, though, and if nothing else he didn’t want them to be witnesses to this sudden bout of cowardice.
“There’s someone in there!” Jen cried out, quite unnecessarily at that point. “We have to get them out! They’re trapped!”
Sandeep’s common sense took over then. It was not impossible for someone to be in the container. The shipment had only arrived a few hours before, and no one had inspected it yet. While it was rare, it wasn’t unheard of for illegal immigrants to arrange to be stowed away along with freight on the large vessels that crossed the oceans. They didn’t often land in Montreal because it was usually far easier to cross the Pacific, but sometimes they found cheaper overland routes to the Atlantic and boarded the giant transport vessels there. Certainly crossing the Atlantic was quicker than the Pacific, and that made it safer, in some ways.
“Someone must have stowed away in there. I must call my company,” he said to the small group, who were looking more sober and rather frightened. “It isn’t safe in there for people, it’s for large and heavy freight. They may be injured.”
“We need to get them out!” Jen insisted. “Open the door!”
Sandeep shook his head. “I must call this in first. Come with me to the office.”
“Uh, dude, I have a cell phone,” Vince rummaged in a pocket and produced a slim silver phone with a blue screen which he handed over apparently without a second thought. “Call your guys, or whatever, and 911 too, and then we can open this thing up and help that poor guy in there.”
“How do you know it’s a guy?” Gillie was, of the three kids, the one still most under the effect of the marijuana. Or maybe she just wasn’t that bright. Whatever the reason, she seemed mostly unconcerned by the plight of the poor soul trapped in the container. “It might be a girl.”
“Whatever, Gillie. We still need to help them out, okay?”
“Okay, fine. Jeez, Vince, don’t get your shorts in a bunch.”
Sandeep ignored the exchange as he tried to remember the emergency number he had taped to the security monitor back in his booth. Eventually he hit on the right combination and waited as the phone rang, seemingly interminably. Finally his supervisor picked up the phone, sounding more than a little cranky at being awoken at five thirty in the morning.
“What?”
“It’s Sandeep, Carl. I think there’s a stowaway in one of the containers. I can hear something scratching in there, and I thought I heard a voice. They sound like they might be hurt. I’m going to call 911, but I thought you should know.”
“Ah, shit. Okay, yeah, call 911. I’ll call the bosses about this. Just what we need, another immigration fiasco.”
“Is it okay for me to open up the container, then? I don’t want to be accused of breaching the cargo when the manifests haven’t been checked, but there’s a human being in there.”
“Yeah, yeah. Open up the container. If anyone gives you grief about it, tell them to take it up with me. Look, I gotta go. I’ll be down there myself as soon as I can, okay? Thirty minutes, tops.”
“Okay. Thanks Carl.”
He motioned to the kids to back up, then dialled 911 on the cell phone and gave the address of the shipping yard. He then handed the phone back to Vince.
“Keep talking to them, okay? I have to open up the container. Don’t hang up.”
“Yeah, okay.”
He walked over to the small side door and wrenched the locking mechanism into the “open” position. The security on these things was minimal, because the yard itself was quite secure, monitored from all sides, but mostly because anyone trying to get away with that many tonnes of steel beams would need so much equipment that they would be detected almost immediately, and would presumably not get very far in the process. The hinges had rusted a fair bit, but, grunting with effort, he leaned all his weight into pulling the door open.
He recoiled as the stench of human waste, sweat and blood nearly overpowered him. “Oh, God!” he put his sleeve against his nose in a vain effort to escape the smell.
The sound of moaning was loud and unmistakeable now, coming from somewhere off to his right. With his free hand he aimed the beam of his flashlight into the container. For a moment all he saw was the dull glint of the beams, lashed firmly together, and then he felt his gorge rise, filling his mouth with bile: the container was full of dead bodies.
“Get back!” he shouted at the kids, trying his best not to vomit at the sight of the half-decayed corpses sprawled in a heap in a corner. They must have died several days before, judging by the smell and the extent of the rot he could see from where he stood. The moaning still hadn’t stopped, and he realized that it wasn’t coming from the pile of bodies. At once horrified that someone had survived in these appalling conditions and secretly very grateful that he wouldn’t have to go digging in the pile of human refuse to find the lone survivor, he raised the flashlight and swept the beam in an arc in a clockwise motion.
“Hello? Can you hear me? You can come out! No one is going to hurt you!”
There was no answer, but the moaning continued unabated, and after a moment he imagined it was growing louder. No, not louder. Closer. He turned, and finally the beam of light came to rest on a Chinese man, standing perhaps half a dozen yards away, swaying slightly, as though he wasn’t entirely steady on his legs. As Sandeep watched, transfixed, he took one shuffling step forward, then stopped, seeming to hesitate.
“Are you all right?” What a stupid question. Of course the man wasn’t all right. “You can come with me, now. There is an ambulance coming, and they will take you to a hospital where you can receive care. Are you injured?”
The man didn’t appear to understand him. He probably spoke no English, or else was just in such a state of shock that he couldn’t register what was being said. Sandeep stretched out a hand toward him, and then realized with a start that the man was blind: his eyes were covered in a milky film, giving him a cadaverous look. He was in sorry shape all-around, his clothes hanging off him, dirty and stained with substances Sandeep preferred not to think about too closely.
“Come toward the sound of my voice,” he said in the gentlest tone he could manage while still speaking loudly. “You’re nearly there, and I’ll take you outside to where you can get help.”
Somehow, in spite of the fact that the man was clearly in distress, moving with a staggering gait and groaning from pain and effort, Sandeep couldn’t bring himself to step further into the container. It reeked of death and decay and some other, undefinable stench of fear and despair, and he wanted nothing to do with it, if he could at all help.
“Hey, you okay in there, Apu?” Vince called from where he stood, and the sound of the boy’s voice jolted Sandeep from the quasi-hypnotic trance that watching the stowaway’s lurching gait had caused him to fall into.
He backed up hurriedly into the yard. “Yes, yes. I’m fine. There is a man in here, and I am bringing him out. When is the ambulance coming?”
“I dunno, man. Like, five minutes maybe?”
“Good.”
“Is he badly hurt?” Jen wanted to know.
Sandeep shook his head, unable to describe what he’d just seen. “It’s... bad in there,” he managed feebly. “There is one survivor, but there were... others.”
Vince trotted over to him, ignoring Sandeep’s warnings to stay back. “Dude, let me see! I got certified in first aid and stuff this year. Maybe I can help.”
“No, you can’t... please...” it was too late.
“Oh, Jesus!” Vince’s voice sounded weak from the shock. “Oh my God. Did you see?” he turned to Sandeep, who could only nod mutely. “It looks... God, it looks like he ate some of them!”
“Eww!” Gillie chimed in, again unnecessarily, Sandeep found himself thinking in vague irritation.
“Dude, you can come on out, now,” Vince bounced back with the energy of the very young. “I mean, what you did was super gross and all, but I guess if you were starving no one’s really gonna blame you,” he called out to the man, who still shuffled forward painfully, one foot sliding in front of the other.
Before Sandeep could stop him, Vince had plunged into the murky depths of the container to help the man to come outside. Try as he might, Sandeep couldn’t bring himself to follow suit. As much as he might deplore and secretly admire the boy’s reckless courage, he could only utter a strangled protest.
“Come on, Apu. It’s just some old starving Chinese guy! What are you so afraid of?” Vince’s voice wafted back to him. “Jesus, but it stinks in here. Come on, dude,” from the sound of his voice, he was talking to the stowaway now. “The ambulance will be here in, like, no time. That’s right, hang onto my arm. Woah, dude! That’s a little hard. Hey! Watch it!”
Sandeep felt his heart skip a beat and then begin hammering an irregular tattoo in his chest as Vince’s voice rose to a shrill yell. “Get off! Hey, stop that! Jesus Christ, get off me!”
There was a cry of pain and a moment later Vince staggered out, clutching at his wrist, blood spurting through his fingers. Both girls shrieked in unison, and Jen burst into tears.
“Oh my God, you’re bleeding?” Gillie, ever with the obvious remark. Sandeep felt a sudden desire to slap her until she was silent.
“Jesus Christ!” Vince swore. “That asshole bit me! I’m not messing with that dude, he’s gone batshit crazy! It’s like a freaking cannibal cult in there, only it’s just him. He, like, ate his family or something.” He shook his head, his eyes wild with pain and fear. “You think the ambulance guys can patch me up?” he asked.
Sandeep caught him by the elbow as his kneess buckled, and propelled him further away from the container. “Yes, yes,” he said soothingly. “You will be fine,” he added, although somehow he wasn’t entirely convinced of the truth of his words. There was a lot of blood. “Sit down here,” he pulled off his belt and wound it tightly around Vince’s forearm to stem the bleeding, “and hold your hand up. Above the heart, that’s right.”
One of the girls, he didn’t know which, screamed loudly, making him spin around. The Chinese stowaway had lurched into the small doorway of the container and stood there, swaying, the unearthly moaning still emanating from the depths of his throat.
“Oh my God! What’s wrong with him?” Jen shrieked, backing away until she ran into another container. She shrank away in fear. “Keep him away!”
“Go back to the security booth,” Sandeep yelled at the girls. “Go! Run as fast as you can! Lock yourselves in if you have to!”
The girls didn’t wait to be told twice, and took to their heels, Jen outstripping Gillie by a long stretch, fear lending speed to their slender legs. Mustering all his strength he hoisted Vince to his feet and began half-supporting, half-carrying him away. He could hear the siren of an oncoming ambulance, but he didn’t think it would arrive in time. Besides, what could the paramedics in the face of such horror? Sandeep might have lived in Canada for three years now, and he might have received a “proper” Western education even when he still lived in India (and he’d had long arguments with various people about what constituted a “proper” education) but he had not left behind so much of the old ways that he didn’t know when he was dealing with forces well beyond his ken. Whatever else the stowaway might be, he was human no longer.
Vince was rapidly becoming a dead weight, a liability when what was most needed right now was speed. Sandeep glanced over his shoulder, feeling another cold ripple of fear go down his spine. The... thing (he couldn’t think of it as a human being, not now) appeared to have gained in confidence, or at least in speed now that it was out in the open. Slack-jawed and moaning in that terrible, unearthly voice, it staggered toward them, each jerky step bringing it closer. Sandeep tightened his grip on Vince’s arm and dragged the boy along, hearing the creature getting closer with each step. He wasn’t strong enough to get both of them to safety in time, but couldn’t bring himself to leave the boy behind. He looked around wildly for some kind of shelter, any place where they might escape the hungry, slavering thing that scraped inexorably toward them.
Finally his panicked gaze alighted on a rusted ladder leading up to the top of another large container. Feeling hope surge painfully in his chest he shoved Vince toward the ladder.
“Quick! Climb up! Go on, you can do it. We must get away!”
He pushed frantically at the boy’s legs, urging him up. Vince was dizzy from blood loss, and clutched ineffectively at the rungs of the ladder as he tried to climb. Slowly he began to pull himself up, propelled as much by his own fear and confusion as by Sandeep’s desperate shoving. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, with the terrible hungry moans ringing in their ears, Vince managed to haul himself to the top of the container, where he collapsed in an exhausted heap.
Sandeep scrambled up behind him, fancying he could feel the foetid breath of their pursuer on the back of his neck. He screamed as strong hands clamped themselves on his ankle and began pulling him back toward the ground. He twisted desperately on the ladder, feeling the rusted rungs digging painfully into the palms of his hands, and kicked savagely at the creature’s arms. He screamed again as he felt teeth blunted from overuse dig into his calf, tearing through the coarse fabric of his trousers and ripping at the flesh and sinew beneath. He kicked harder, aiming at the head, and was rewarded with a sickening wet crunching sound as his boot all but tore the nose from the creature’s face.
A final desperate wrench saw him free of the cloying grasp, and he pulled himself to the top of the container, breathing so hard he fancied he could taste blood in his mouth. His heart hammering so loudly in his chest that he could barely hear anything but the roaring in his ears, he screwed up what was left of his courage and peered over the side of the container to see if the thing was making any attempt to follow them.
It wasn’t. It appeared to be frustrated by the steep, narrow ladder, just as it hadn’t been able to open the door to the container by itself. Now it stood at the base of the container, clawing ineffectually at the metal with fingers that had already been torn open almost to the bone. Sandeep breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t safe yet, but at least they were afer than they had been. He winced as he tried to flex his injured leg: the bite wound was deeper than he’d thought.
The siren was closer now. He didn’t know how to warn them about the creature below. Perhaps they already knew how to handle these things. Maybe there was nothing to worry about at all. Maybe it was simply a madman, his wits driven cleanly from him by the hardship and deprivation of the clandestine voyage, by watching his family and friends die off one by one. It was a far more reasonable explanation than the half-mad, fear-driven notions that had skittered through his mind like frightened rabbits only a few moments before.
Yes. A human being, it had to be. A human being driven to the limits of endurance. It would be so much easier to believe that. But when Sandeep Singh heard the sound of more moaning coming from the abandoned container, he felt himself cower back against Vince’s unconscious form, whimpering in spite of himself as the overbearing weight of certainty settled on him.
It was already too late.
“Midnight to one o’clock: a couple make out half a block away,” he grinned at the thought of filling out imaginary reports with the kind of useless shit he saw every night. “One o’clock to two o’clock: two male cats have a fight over a female who ends up going off with a third male.”
Still, there were far worse jobs. Working security in the port paid well, and for very little work. Most of the time he could easily employ in studying for his degree in computer science and no one cared. It wasn’t as though the cargo that this shipyard regularly dealt in was prime material for stealing: who the hell would want to steal steel beams, anyway? All his job really consisted of was looking out for teenagers who thought it was cute to come around and spread graffiti on the containers. There weren’t even real gangs to speak of in this city, for which Sandeep was also grateful. He’d spent some time in the United States, and he remembered never feeling safe for a moment while he was there. Here he could go out at three o’clock in the morning by himself in a dark street and not run much risk of getting into trouble. Of course, it was stupid to court danger, and so he didn’t (inasmuch as his job allowed him, anyway), but the fact remained that Montreal was pretty safe, as large cities went. That was pretty rare.
A scuffling sound attracted his attention, followed by muffled giggles. He heaved a sigh of exasperation. Kids, again. The night had been going so well, too. He picked up his baton, the only weapon he was really allowed to carry, and his radio, not that he had anyone to call for backup: he usually worked this shift alone. No one else in their right mind seemed to want to work the graveyard shift around here.
“Damn kids,” he muttered under his breath, hoisting his pants up by the belt so that they sat more comfortably around his hips. He was willing to bet a week’s worth of salary that their parents had no idea what they were getting up to at all hours. On his more cynical days, he wondered if their parents even cared. That might explain why they were getting high on grass and spray painting his containers with obscene words.
He stumped along on the asphalt between the containers, his thoughts growing darker with each passing moment. He’d show them what-for, that was for sure. See how clever they felt after they got fined, or better yet, spent the rest of the night in jail and had to be bailed out by their parents! He’d pay to see that. Well, maybe not pay, but he’d like to see it.
The whispers and giggles grew louder as he approached. “Shh! You’ll bring the Rent-A-Cop down on our asses, Gillie!” a boy’s voice said, even louder than the giggling girl.
“Don’t be such a wuss, Vince. The guy’s probably asleep in his booth.”
“Guys? I don’t think we should be here. Why can’t we just go smoke up somewhere else? It’s dark, and it’s damp. I’m cold, too, and this place gives me the creeps!”
“Now who’s being a wuss? Don’t be a wet blanket, Jen. Here, you can have the next drag.”
Well, at least they weren’t vandalising the place. Still, this wasn’t the place for them to be smoking up. The insurance company would have a field day with the company if they found out unauthorized people had been traipsing about in the yard while high on weed.
“Did you hear that?” The voice belonged to the girl called Jen.
“No. Hear what?” the boy named Vince asked loudly.
“Shh! Let me listen,” Gillie hushed them both. “I heard it too. Do you suppose the Rent-A-Cop’s coming?”
Sandeep froze in his tracks. He’d heard something as well, apart from the kids and the sound of his own footsteps. A soft scrabbling, scratching sound, and... another sound he couldn’t quite identify.
“Oh my God, guys. It’s, like, coming from inside the container!”
“Holy shit!”
“There’s someone inside there!”
“Don’t be stupid, Jen, there can’t be anyone inside the container. It’s, like, for industrial materials.”
Sandeep decided enough was enough. He stepped confidently around the container and shone the beam of his flashlight directly in their faces. “Hold it right there!”
“Ah, shit,” Vince didn’t look a day over seventeen, with blond hair and a wispy moustache above his lip that he’d obviously carefully cultivated. He squinted lazily at Sandeep, obviously too stoned to really understand what was happening. “See what you guys did? You brought the Rent-A-Cop with all your damned noise.”
“You’re lucky I’m the only one who’s found you,” Sandeep said sternly. “You’re all in very big trouble as it is!”
Jen, a short girl with lank, mousy brown hair and braces still dressed in the kilted uniform of a girl’s private school, shivered. “Guys, I can still hear it. Hey Mister,” she turned to Sandeep. “There’s something in the container!”
Sandeep turned to listen, and sure enough, he could still hear the faint scratching coming from within the container. “Rats,” he said dismissively. “Now, you are all going to have to come with me and explain yourselves!”
“Yeah, whatever, Apu. You sure you shouldn’t be minding your counter?”
Sandeep glared at them. “Just because I am from India does not mean I am unaware of the Simpsons. Now come with me this instant. If you’re lucky the company may decide not to press charges.”
“Aww, come on, man! Don’t be a drag,” the other girl, Gillie, a winsome little blonde thing with too much lipstick and mascara that had smudged to make the rings under her eyes even more pronounced. “We weren’t hurting anyone.”
“This is private property,” Sandeep said firmly. “If you want to get high, you must do it somewhere else or face the consequences.”
The scuffling sound in the container grew louder at that moment, making them all jump. It sounded as though it was right next to them, just at the level of their shoulders or perhaps a bit higher.
“Oh, God, there’s someone in there!” Jen whimpered.
“It’s just rats. There’s lots of them by the docks,” Sandeep said, but he was no longer convinced.
“No! I can hear someone! Can’t you hear them?” she wailed, wringing her hands.
They paused, uncertain, and after a moment Sandeep felt a cold trickle run up and down his spine. There was someone in there, moaning. It sounded like a soul in torment, low and ululating and guttural. For a moment Sandeep felt an irrational, almost uncontrollable impulse to flee as fast and as far away as he could. Whatever was in that container, he wanted nothing to do with it. There were the teenagers to deal with, though, and if nothing else he didn’t want them to be witnesses to this sudden bout of cowardice.
“There’s someone in there!” Jen cried out, quite unnecessarily at that point. “We have to get them out! They’re trapped!”
Sandeep’s common sense took over then. It was not impossible for someone to be in the container. The shipment had only arrived a few hours before, and no one had inspected it yet. While it was rare, it wasn’t unheard of for illegal immigrants to arrange to be stowed away along with freight on the large vessels that crossed the oceans. They didn’t often land in Montreal because it was usually far easier to cross the Pacific, but sometimes they found cheaper overland routes to the Atlantic and boarded the giant transport vessels there. Certainly crossing the Atlantic was quicker than the Pacific, and that made it safer, in some ways.
“Someone must have stowed away in there. I must call my company,” he said to the small group, who were looking more sober and rather frightened. “It isn’t safe in there for people, it’s for large and heavy freight. They may be injured.”
“We need to get them out!” Jen insisted. “Open the door!”
Sandeep shook his head. “I must call this in first. Come with me to the office.”
“Uh, dude, I have a cell phone,” Vince rummaged in a pocket and produced a slim silver phone with a blue screen which he handed over apparently without a second thought. “Call your guys, or whatever, and 911 too, and then we can open this thing up and help that poor guy in there.”
“How do you know it’s a guy?” Gillie was, of the three kids, the one still most under the effect of the marijuana. Or maybe she just wasn’t that bright. Whatever the reason, she seemed mostly unconcerned by the plight of the poor soul trapped in the container. “It might be a girl.”
“Whatever, Gillie. We still need to help them out, okay?”
“Okay, fine. Jeez, Vince, don’t get your shorts in a bunch.”
Sandeep ignored the exchange as he tried to remember the emergency number he had taped to the security monitor back in his booth. Eventually he hit on the right combination and waited as the phone rang, seemingly interminably. Finally his supervisor picked up the phone, sounding more than a little cranky at being awoken at five thirty in the morning.
“What?”
“It’s Sandeep, Carl. I think there’s a stowaway in one of the containers. I can hear something scratching in there, and I thought I heard a voice. They sound like they might be hurt. I’m going to call 911, but I thought you should know.”
“Ah, shit. Okay, yeah, call 911. I’ll call the bosses about this. Just what we need, another immigration fiasco.”
“Is it okay for me to open up the container, then? I don’t want to be accused of breaching the cargo when the manifests haven’t been checked, but there’s a human being in there.”
“Yeah, yeah. Open up the container. If anyone gives you grief about it, tell them to take it up with me. Look, I gotta go. I’ll be down there myself as soon as I can, okay? Thirty minutes, tops.”
“Okay. Thanks Carl.”
He motioned to the kids to back up, then dialled 911 on the cell phone and gave the address of the shipping yard. He then handed the phone back to Vince.
“Keep talking to them, okay? I have to open up the container. Don’t hang up.”
“Yeah, okay.”
He walked over to the small side door and wrenched the locking mechanism into the “open” position. The security on these things was minimal, because the yard itself was quite secure, monitored from all sides, but mostly because anyone trying to get away with that many tonnes of steel beams would need so much equipment that they would be detected almost immediately, and would presumably not get very far in the process. The hinges had rusted a fair bit, but, grunting with effort, he leaned all his weight into pulling the door open.
He recoiled as the stench of human waste, sweat and blood nearly overpowered him. “Oh, God!” he put his sleeve against his nose in a vain effort to escape the smell.
The sound of moaning was loud and unmistakeable now, coming from somewhere off to his right. With his free hand he aimed the beam of his flashlight into the container. For a moment all he saw was the dull glint of the beams, lashed firmly together, and then he felt his gorge rise, filling his mouth with bile: the container was full of dead bodies.
“Get back!” he shouted at the kids, trying his best not to vomit at the sight of the half-decayed corpses sprawled in a heap in a corner. They must have died several days before, judging by the smell and the extent of the rot he could see from where he stood. The moaning still hadn’t stopped, and he realized that it wasn’t coming from the pile of bodies. At once horrified that someone had survived in these appalling conditions and secretly very grateful that he wouldn’t have to go digging in the pile of human refuse to find the lone survivor, he raised the flashlight and swept the beam in an arc in a clockwise motion.
“Hello? Can you hear me? You can come out! No one is going to hurt you!”
There was no answer, but the moaning continued unabated, and after a moment he imagined it was growing louder. No, not louder. Closer. He turned, and finally the beam of light came to rest on a Chinese man, standing perhaps half a dozen yards away, swaying slightly, as though he wasn’t entirely steady on his legs. As Sandeep watched, transfixed, he took one shuffling step forward, then stopped, seeming to hesitate.
“Are you all right?” What a stupid question. Of course the man wasn’t all right. “You can come with me, now. There is an ambulance coming, and they will take you to a hospital where you can receive care. Are you injured?”
The man didn’t appear to understand him. He probably spoke no English, or else was just in such a state of shock that he couldn’t register what was being said. Sandeep stretched out a hand toward him, and then realized with a start that the man was blind: his eyes were covered in a milky film, giving him a cadaverous look. He was in sorry shape all-around, his clothes hanging off him, dirty and stained with substances Sandeep preferred not to think about too closely.
“Come toward the sound of my voice,” he said in the gentlest tone he could manage while still speaking loudly. “You’re nearly there, and I’ll take you outside to where you can get help.”
Somehow, in spite of the fact that the man was clearly in distress, moving with a staggering gait and groaning from pain and effort, Sandeep couldn’t bring himself to step further into the container. It reeked of death and decay and some other, undefinable stench of fear and despair, and he wanted nothing to do with it, if he could at all help.
“Hey, you okay in there, Apu?” Vince called from where he stood, and the sound of the boy’s voice jolted Sandeep from the quasi-hypnotic trance that watching the stowaway’s lurching gait had caused him to fall into.
He backed up hurriedly into the yard. “Yes, yes. I’m fine. There is a man in here, and I am bringing him out. When is the ambulance coming?”
“I dunno, man. Like, five minutes maybe?”
“Good.”
“Is he badly hurt?” Jen wanted to know.
Sandeep shook his head, unable to describe what he’d just seen. “It’s... bad in there,” he managed feebly. “There is one survivor, but there were... others.”
Vince trotted over to him, ignoring Sandeep’s warnings to stay back. “Dude, let me see! I got certified in first aid and stuff this year. Maybe I can help.”
“No, you can’t... please...” it was too late.
“Oh, Jesus!” Vince’s voice sounded weak from the shock. “Oh my God. Did you see?” he turned to Sandeep, who could only nod mutely. “It looks... God, it looks like he ate some of them!”
“Eww!” Gillie chimed in, again unnecessarily, Sandeep found himself thinking in vague irritation.
“Dude, you can come on out, now,” Vince bounced back with the energy of the very young. “I mean, what you did was super gross and all, but I guess if you were starving no one’s really gonna blame you,” he called out to the man, who still shuffled forward painfully, one foot sliding in front of the other.
Before Sandeep could stop him, Vince had plunged into the murky depths of the container to help the man to come outside. Try as he might, Sandeep couldn’t bring himself to follow suit. As much as he might deplore and secretly admire the boy’s reckless courage, he could only utter a strangled protest.
“Come on, Apu. It’s just some old starving Chinese guy! What are you so afraid of?” Vince’s voice wafted back to him. “Jesus, but it stinks in here. Come on, dude,” from the sound of his voice, he was talking to the stowaway now. “The ambulance will be here in, like, no time. That’s right, hang onto my arm. Woah, dude! That’s a little hard. Hey! Watch it!”
Sandeep felt his heart skip a beat and then begin hammering an irregular tattoo in his chest as Vince’s voice rose to a shrill yell. “Get off! Hey, stop that! Jesus Christ, get off me!”
There was a cry of pain and a moment later Vince staggered out, clutching at his wrist, blood spurting through his fingers. Both girls shrieked in unison, and Jen burst into tears.
“Oh my God, you’re bleeding?” Gillie, ever with the obvious remark. Sandeep felt a sudden desire to slap her until she was silent.
“Jesus Christ!” Vince swore. “That asshole bit me! I’m not messing with that dude, he’s gone batshit crazy! It’s like a freaking cannibal cult in there, only it’s just him. He, like, ate his family or something.” He shook his head, his eyes wild with pain and fear. “You think the ambulance guys can patch me up?” he asked.
Sandeep caught him by the elbow as his kneess buckled, and propelled him further away from the container. “Yes, yes,” he said soothingly. “You will be fine,” he added, although somehow he wasn’t entirely convinced of the truth of his words. There was a lot of blood. “Sit down here,” he pulled off his belt and wound it tightly around Vince’s forearm to stem the bleeding, “and hold your hand up. Above the heart, that’s right.”
One of the girls, he didn’t know which, screamed loudly, making him spin around. The Chinese stowaway had lurched into the small doorway of the container and stood there, swaying, the unearthly moaning still emanating from the depths of his throat.
“Oh my God! What’s wrong with him?” Jen shrieked, backing away until she ran into another container. She shrank away in fear. “Keep him away!”
“Go back to the security booth,” Sandeep yelled at the girls. “Go! Run as fast as you can! Lock yourselves in if you have to!”
The girls didn’t wait to be told twice, and took to their heels, Jen outstripping Gillie by a long stretch, fear lending speed to their slender legs. Mustering all his strength he hoisted Vince to his feet and began half-supporting, half-carrying him away. He could hear the siren of an oncoming ambulance, but he didn’t think it would arrive in time. Besides, what could the paramedics in the face of such horror? Sandeep might have lived in Canada for three years now, and he might have received a “proper” Western education even when he still lived in India (and he’d had long arguments with various people about what constituted a “proper” education) but he had not left behind so much of the old ways that he didn’t know when he was dealing with forces well beyond his ken. Whatever else the stowaway might be, he was human no longer.
Vince was rapidly becoming a dead weight, a liability when what was most needed right now was speed. Sandeep glanced over his shoulder, feeling another cold ripple of fear go down his spine. The... thing (he couldn’t think of it as a human being, not now) appeared to have gained in confidence, or at least in speed now that it was out in the open. Slack-jawed and moaning in that terrible, unearthly voice, it staggered toward them, each jerky step bringing it closer. Sandeep tightened his grip on Vince’s arm and dragged the boy along, hearing the creature getting closer with each step. He wasn’t strong enough to get both of them to safety in time, but couldn’t bring himself to leave the boy behind. He looked around wildly for some kind of shelter, any place where they might escape the hungry, slavering thing that scraped inexorably toward them.
Finally his panicked gaze alighted on a rusted ladder leading up to the top of another large container. Feeling hope surge painfully in his chest he shoved Vince toward the ladder.
“Quick! Climb up! Go on, you can do it. We must get away!”
He pushed frantically at the boy’s legs, urging him up. Vince was dizzy from blood loss, and clutched ineffectively at the rungs of the ladder as he tried to climb. Slowly he began to pull himself up, propelled as much by his own fear and confusion as by Sandeep’s desperate shoving. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, with the terrible hungry moans ringing in their ears, Vince managed to haul himself to the top of the container, where he collapsed in an exhausted heap.
Sandeep scrambled up behind him, fancying he could feel the foetid breath of their pursuer on the back of his neck. He screamed as strong hands clamped themselves on his ankle and began pulling him back toward the ground. He twisted desperately on the ladder, feeling the rusted rungs digging painfully into the palms of his hands, and kicked savagely at the creature’s arms. He screamed again as he felt teeth blunted from overuse dig into his calf, tearing through the coarse fabric of his trousers and ripping at the flesh and sinew beneath. He kicked harder, aiming at the head, and was rewarded with a sickening wet crunching sound as his boot all but tore the nose from the creature’s face.
A final desperate wrench saw him free of the cloying grasp, and he pulled himself to the top of the container, breathing so hard he fancied he could taste blood in his mouth. His heart hammering so loudly in his chest that he could barely hear anything but the roaring in his ears, he screwed up what was left of his courage and peered over the side of the container to see if the thing was making any attempt to follow them.
It wasn’t. It appeared to be frustrated by the steep, narrow ladder, just as it hadn’t been able to open the door to the container by itself. Now it stood at the base of the container, clawing ineffectually at the metal with fingers that had already been torn open almost to the bone. Sandeep breathed a sigh of relief. They weren’t safe yet, but at least they were afer than they had been. He winced as he tried to flex his injured leg: the bite wound was deeper than he’d thought.
The siren was closer now. He didn’t know how to warn them about the creature below. Perhaps they already knew how to handle these things. Maybe there was nothing to worry about at all. Maybe it was simply a madman, his wits driven cleanly from him by the hardship and deprivation of the clandestine voyage, by watching his family and friends die off one by one. It was a far more reasonable explanation than the half-mad, fear-driven notions that had skittered through his mind like frightened rabbits only a few moments before.
Yes. A human being, it had to be. A human being driven to the limits of endurance. It would be so much easier to believe that. But when Sandeep Singh heard the sound of more moaning coming from the abandoned container, he felt himself cower back against Vince’s unconscious form, whimpering in spite of himself as the overbearing weight of certainty settled on him.
It was already too late.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 07:45 am (UTC)I just keep getting more impressed!
no subject
Date: 2006-11-10 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-22 04:05 am (UTC)I know you're going to pore over with your massive blue pen, but if it saves you a few ticks, heres a few spots i picked up on:
Besides, what could the paramedics in the face of such horror?
left out 'do'? (11th paragraph up)
but at least they were afer than they had been.
safer?
Happy to just piss off on comments like this if you don't need them.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-22 04:06 am (UTC)That's the story, not the nit-picking!
no subject
Date: 2006-11-22 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-22 01:34 pm (UTC)I'm glad you're still enjoying this. :)