Little Agnes and the Ghosts of Kelpie Wharf

the indents the sprightly menace had made in the squishy forest floor. They were far apart, for he could leapt great distances, but they led swiftly towards an outcropping of rock near the shore. It did not appear to be an entrance to anything, but Agnes dropped to her knees, prodding the rock with the tip of her pistol.

  At once, a flat, smooth stone rolled away with a grinding whir, and an opening appeared in the forest floor. Agnes yelped in delighted surprise. Vic clapped a hand over her mouth. “Discreet.”

  She rolled her eyes at him, but she seized the front of his ratty suit. “This must be it, Vic. This is where Spring-Heeled Jack came from, and if I am much mistaken, we will discover the fate of our lost sailors.”

  Vic heaved a deep, long suffering sigh, but he nodded wearily. “Caution.”

  “Whilst I would normally quite enjoy contradicting you, I do reckon you may have a point there.”

  The entrance dipped down into a long, narrow tunnel. Agnes drew a pale wand from her belt and beat it several times against a wall that felt like smooth, riveted metal. A toxic green glow illuminated the small space, revealing nothing more than hammered, patchwork metal plate walls and inky blackness ahead. The tunnel was eerily silent, and the sound of her breathing rent the vacuum, making her feel quite self-conscious, which was not a familiar or pleasant feeling.

  Up ahead in the darkness, a strange, mewling sound echoed off the dull metal walls. Agnes pressed a finger to her lips, but she needn't have bothered; Vic was silent as the grave. They inched forward, and the floor dipped as the tunnel curved, plunging deeper and deeper into the sepulchral pitch.

  A faint, flickering light flared at the end of the tunnel. Agnes caught her breath as excitement fluttered in her chest. She lifted the glowing wand over her face to grin at Vic. He grinned back, but not intentionally. He was, reasonably, hesitant to confront the horrors which surely lay ahead of them. Being a horror himself, he was rather unaccountably uncomfortable in the presence of others of his ilk.

  Agnes hurried through the increasingly grey darkness and burst impetuously into the light.

  She had no time to observe her surroundings, for her sudden appearance elicited a very strong response from the mob of beasts milling confusedly about the small, metallic antechamber into which she and Vic stepped. As one, the creatures moaned, mewled, giggled, yowled, shrieked and growled, throwing their scaly, hirsute, mottled, discoloured, colourless and horrific bodies at her in a single, terrifying movement.

  Agnes did not cower or back away from the cluster of monsters. She fired her pistol in quick, rapid bursts whilst Vic flailed dangerously with his rotting limbs, fighting off the monsters. There were creatures that looked as though they had just emerged from the sea, slimy and dripping with sludgy water; men with sharp, deadly fangs and glowing eyes; wolves that wore torn clothing and stood upright like men; several more of the sprightly, clawed, cackling creatures they'd met in the forest, some with skin as red as blood or black as midnight; beasts whose skin appeared dangerously aflame; fat, wrinkled, fleshy things with tiny, beady eyes and huge, grimacing mouths; devils and demons and angels with bottomless, Stygian eyes; bogeymen that resembled neither beast nor human but something she could not identify, for they seemed to be in constant, frenetic motion and had no distinguishable features at all.

  Agnes dispatched all of the horrors, and the bodies piled up in the antechamber, blocking her path. She sighed in annoyance and hoisted herself over the hideous creatures, her boot slipping on a slimy Eachy and smashing quite roughly into the nose of one of the Shug monkeys. He responded with a slight whine, but he could not extract himself from the heap to retaliate. Vic shambled after her, stumbling over the demons and several Spring-Heeled Jacks. He grunted in displeasure, but he did not complain.

  Beyond the heap of stunned monster bodies, an enormous man waited, his tree trunk thick legs crouched defensively as he waited for them. His knuckles brushed the dull gunmetal grey floor, and he glared at them out of a wide, squashed face. His mouth, lined with huge, stubby teeth that looked quite suitable to chomping bones, hung open. His breath was harsh and powerful, washing over Agnes and Vic like a warm, fetid breeze.

  But his eyes, those large, sparkling blue eyes were not the eyes of a monstrous giant. They were horribly, uncannily aware, the eyes of an animal trapped in an enormous, hideous fleshy cage. He did not strike, did not rush her or swing his ham-sized hands at her, and Agnes stared at him speculatively for several long moments.

  It struck her then. She understood. These were not monsters, or they had not been earlier that day. They had been men. She spun towards the mound of feebly flailing beasts. Yes, she could see it now. Their white uniforms were torn, shredded by the contortions of their new bodies, but she knew them all the same. Sailors. They were sailors. They were the sailors, those whom she had come to find, and she had now done.

  They were in slightly worse condition than she had originally foreseen. Adjustments would have to be made. “Vic,” she whispered, returning her eyes to the rapt, horrified giant. “I think these are the sailors. Something's been done to them.”

  “Obvious.”

  She opened her mouth to retort scathingly, but the giant chose that moment to take possession of his body. He roared furiously, beating his knuckles on the metal floor. They left impressions the size of a human man's feet. He bared his teeth and lowered his shoulder, rushing the small girl and her ghastly companion with deadly outstretched arms.

  Agnes sighed. “I would have gone easy on you, dreg, if you'd just been politer about it.” She fired her pistol, though it did little more than slow the beast's rush. She rolled her eyes and fired again right between the over-sized sailor's eyes.

  The ground shook as he crashed to the ground. Agnes' pistol smoked, and she holstered it quickly, for its glass and thin brass burned her fingers. She glanced at Vic. “What do you suppose has been done to them?”

  “Changed.”

  She huffed irritably. “That much is quite obvious, Vic. I expected something more insightful.”

  He lifted his shoulders, and she waved her hand dismissively, peering around them in interest. They had not, as she had expected, stepped into the heart of the underground monster-making lair. Instead, they were in a large, featureless, high-ceilinged antechamber that forked ahead, past the fallen giant, into two more tunnels like the one from which they had emerged. She sighed in dismay.

  “Which way should we go?”

  Vic shambled forwards, peering for a moment into each equally dark, narrow passage. He lifted his shoulders.

  Agnes scoffed. “Oh, I don't know why I bother to ask you a thing. You're utterly useless.”

  “Took out revenant.”

  “That was mighty irreverent of you. You're practically kin.”

  Vic seemed to take offence to this. He lifted his chin. “Zombie.”

  “Yes, well, you are quite more sophisticated, aren't you?” She pressed a contemplative finger to her lips. Inspiration struck. She drew the ear trumpet once more from her belt, directing the disc towards the portals ahead. The first was silent and dank, but the faint sound of clanking and shrieks could be heard from the second. She perked up. “Huzzah!”

  She tucked the trumpet back into her belt and drew the still slightly warm pistol. She grinned at Vic, jerking her head towards the passageway. “Shall we, then?”

  He was still quite put out being compared to the bumpkinly undead revenants, but he sighed resignedly and shuffled after the green glow she spread through the dark tunnel. The sounds she'd heard through the trumpet grew louder as they drew swiftly closer. There was no light at the end of this tunnel, but a large, metal door which was dented from both sides, appearing as though something very large and very strong had battered it from inside and out. From beyond the door, she could hear a relentless, high-pitched wail and the distinct hum of machinery.

  She quashed the flicker of apprehension in her belly and squared her shoulders, drawing herself up to her fullest height. S
he half-turned to her re-animated clockwork attendant. “Steady on, Vic. The belly of the beasts awaits.”

  “Rumbly.”

  “Yes, I suspect their bellies are rather rumbly.”

  “My belly.”

  “That's just the maggots. We'll get you sorted when we get out of here. Step lively.”

  The door was not barred, and she eased it open, her pistol at the ready. She needn't have concerned herself with immediate detection, for nothing bore down upon them as they crept inside the capacious chamber. It was, she realized instantly, a very well-appointed laboratory. Shelves of glowing, glutinous liquid lined the east wall, and stacks of metal, wire, glass, gears, tubes and strange tools piled up against the west. She could not see to the far wall, for in the centre of the room, dozens of gurneys occupied by the remaining sailors, apparently slumbering, obscured her view.

  A man attended them, dressed in a scorched white lab coat. His hair was shock white, overlong and hanging lankly around his lined face, which was lit with keenness. His dark eyes burned behind the thick, brass goggles upon his face. His mouth twisted into a gleeful grimace. He stood over one of the gurneys, his hand lifted to the instrument above his head.

  It was a very large, very elaborate apparatus, appearing much like but quite more sizeable than the average cannon, its barrel long and bulbous