Lost at Sea Bk. 02 Ch. 24

Coleman pulled out a pipe and a roll of tobacco. "Hope we still have enough for everyone who gets sick."

"None of that," Doctor Kalfou said firmly, gesturing to his pipe. "Not until you're well."

Coleman looked at her like she was a tyrant. "I might rather die."

She arched an eyebrow at him without a drop of amusement. "Tell your wife you are refusing doctor's orders, should I?"

"You fight dirty," Coleman laughed.

She gave him a mirthless look that killed his laughter. "In a jungle, death comes from small things. Invisible things. By the time you see them, it is too late. We cannot take chances."

Coleman put the pipe away. "Fair enough. Last thing, are you done with those bodies we brought you? I'd rather we bury them before they get ripe."

She gave him a considering look. "Have a strong stomach, you?"

_____________________________

"You don't remember anything?" Danica asked the Captain as they slowly collected the shards of pottery into a bucket.

Belita shook her head gingerly. "Last thing I remember is... dancing. Near a bonfire."

"I saw that much. Coleman and I turned in right after," Danica said. "You have no idea... why you'd..." she trailed off. The Captain had destroyed her most prized possessions, and it was fairly obvious why, but Danica still couldn't find the words to talk about it.

"Drunk and angry?" Belita shrugged. "I broke one yesterday on accident, and it felt... kinda good. I dinnae know why. I was angry and it helped. I suppose last night was the same."

"Feel better now?" Danica asked.

The Captain paused, dropping another handful of white shards into the bucket. In spite of the pain in her head and the heartbreak from the shards of her collection, she couldn't help but smile as she remembered her dream. "Aye, a bit, but not from the drink."

Danica gave her a sidelong look and a knowing smile. "You did seem like you were having a nice dream when I found you. I didn't want to wake you until I realized what I was walking on."

"Ye have the worst damn timing," Belita said with a small glare. "Now I feel like someone's drumming on the back of my eyes."

"We'll get you some water and a few biscuits and you'll be right as rain soon," Danica smiled.

"He came tae me last night," Belita said quietly.

"Who?" Danica asked, then her eyes widened in realization. "Oh! No wonder it was such a good dream. How's he doing?"

"Same as always," Belita said with a half smile that seemed just as much annoyed as glad.

"Still tending his flock?" Danica giggled.

Belita snorted. "Aye."

Danica rolled her eyes in sad resignation. "They're never going to let him go."

"No," Belita agreed. "It was his choice though."

"I'm still mad he chose them over us," Danica blurted out. "I'm sorry, Captain. I know what he means to you."

Belita bit her lip and nodded gently. "He needs our help."

"Well that's just perfect timing," Danica said angrily. "The first time he's come to you in months, and it's because he needs..." she covered her mouth and quieted her voice when she noticed Belita wincing. "Sorry. What's he need anyway?"

Belita sat back against the wall and slowly tried to drink more water from Danica's canteen. The water soured her stomach, and her face flushed with nausea, but she focused on breathing deep and kept taking small sips. "One of his girls got hurt. She's mute now."

"So's he," Danica shrugged. "I doubt there's anyone who knows more about how to deal with being mute than he does. What's he need our help for?" Danica asked.

"He wants me tae teach her hand talk," Belita explained.

"He knows hand talk," Danica protested.

"Not enough," Belita said. "He never really needed it. His voice is just quiet. It hurts him to talk, but he doesn't care about that. I only taught him so he could talk to me from the other side of the ship. He learned enough tae do the job, which innae enough for the lass he's tryin' tae teach."

"Yeah, I can see how ship talk wouldn't help her much," Danica said wryly.

Danica gave her a small smile. "Aye. Besides that, he dinnae have time to teach her anyway."

"If the others saw the quiet one getting all the attention, they might drop him off a cliff," Danica smirked. "He should learn more though. I always liked it better when he'd use his hands instead of that creepy whisper of his."

"I rather liked it," Belita admitted weakly.

"Yeah, well, you like anything that scares you," Danica teased.

The Captain let out another small laugh, then shook her head bitterly. "Not everything."

Danica was trying to keep the mood light, but her heart sank as she realized what the Captain was referring too. "It wasn't your fault."

"Aye, so everyone keeps telling me,' Belita said, staring aimlessly down at the remaining remnants of her Kami dishes. "If it innae mine, who's then?"

There was a knock at the door. It was open, and Coleman leaned his head in. "Captain, you... woah." He looked around at the room, and the few shards of pottery left and looked at Danica, worried.

"What do you need, Mister North?" Belita asked, looking up and shielding her eyes from the bright sun coming through the doorway.

Coleman answered hesitantly. "Well, ah... The Doctor's done opening up those.... things. It's not pretty, but I think you're going to want to see it."

Belita nodded. "Let me clean up and grab something to eat. I'll meet you at the hospital in an hour."

"Don't eat," Coleman warned. He gave his wife another worried look that spoke volumes about the Captain's state, then ducked back out the door.

Belita started painfully pushing herself up the wall to stand. Danica helped steady her. Once she was on her feet again she took a deep breath and started peeling off her sweat and booze stained clothes.

Danica opened the large footlocker at the foot of the bed and started going through fresh clothing. "Red today?" she asked.

"Fine," Belita muttered, leaving her clothes in a heap and heading towards her wash room.

"Don't!" Danica warned, but it was too late. Belita opened the washroom door and the foul reek of bilgewater came pouring out. Belita gagged and slammed the door. Her stomach rolled and she heaved up a bit of the water she'd drank. She spat it out on the floor and turned away quickly as she caught another whiff of the washroom air.

"What the hell!?" Belita demanded, wiping her mouth on the back of her sleeve.

"I thought I told you about that," Danica said apologetically. "Miss Hunter rigged up your bath to pump the bilge. It kept us from sinking."

Belita slowly nodded. "Aye. Ye did. I forgot."

"There's a little spot off the lagoon we've been using to wash up," Danica said. "I'll show you." She handed the Captain her robe, and gathered an armload of fresh clothes. Together, they slowly made their way off the ship and down to shore.

The shallow pond was soft, silty and decently warm from the summer sun. Belita lay with her head half submerged while Danica sat on a small log that had been dragged to the edge of the water and leaned over to wash the Captain's hair. She chatted about crew business and gossip, taking her her time with the Captain's expensive soap and a wooden comb. By the time she was finished the braid that had been tangled and matted by a storm, a monster attack, and a jungle was once again a clean and flowing mane of gold.

After the relaxing hair wash, Belita slowly and gingerly scrubbed herself down, ignoring the ache in her body and head as best she could. Eventually, she had the look of someone who simply had too much fun, rather than the look of someone who'd had a brush with death.

"Thank you," she said to Danica with a small smile as she pushed her way to her feet.

"Just doing my job," Danica smiled back. "I take care of you, and you take care of everything else."

"I dinnae think that's right, but I also dinnae have the energy tae argue about it," Belita said with a weak laugh.

Her coat had been thoroughly soiled, and it was too hot to wear anyway, so she wore dark pants and a rich red button down shirt. She tried to put her hair into the distinctive fishtail braid she favored, but her arms were too tired and shaky still, so she grumpily settled for a ponytail. Without the braid to shorten it, her thick waves fell nearly to her waist. Danica handed her the pair of conical golden beads that usually hung from the ends of two smaller braids at her temple. Belita's expression cracked as she took them, and she gave Danica a surprised and thankful smile.

"I dinnae even realize ye took those out," Belita said.

"They were packed with sand. Half your head was, honestly. I think you must have been laying on the ground at some point," Danica explained.

Belita stared at the beads in her hand. "They belonged tae my parents. My da' took my mum around the Devil's Horn, and they got earrings tae match. They fell in love on that trip. I was born nine months after, to the day."

"That's one hell of a date," Danica said with a giggle. "So you really have the sea in your blood. Is that why you made your name going 'round the Horn?"

"Well, not exactly," Belita said wryly. "That would make for an odd reason. No, my da' sailed that route. Knew it better than anyone until he had tae retire. I'd gone 'round it with him ten times as a child, but had tae stop when I got older."

"That seems backwards," Danica teased.

"Siren song doesn't affect kids," Belita explained. "I was the only person on the boat who wasn't deaf. After the first time I heard them and started acting funny, my da sent me home tae be with mum."

"Alright, I guess that does make sense," Danica agreed.

"At the time, he was the only one making that trip in the warm months," Belita smiled down at the beads in her hand. "It's a rare sailor who makes that trip more than a few times in their life. Da made it three or four times a year for two decades."

Danica eyed the rows of gold in Belita's ears. "That's a lot of earrings."

Belita gently tossed the two golden beads in her hand. "He only ever got the one."

"That is... strangely romantic," Danica said wryly.

"I think that's why they never married," Belita mused. "They had these instead of wedding rings." She slipped the beads into her pocket. "I'm starved. Let's go see what Coleman wants tae show us so I can eat."

Belita felt weak from fatigue, hangover, and not having eaten recently, but she kept her back straight and put on her well practiced commanding posture and expression.

The camp was a far site better than it had been the day before. The crew had done an excellent job getting things set up before they'd started the wake. It was strangely quiet. Most were still nursing hangovers and going about their business in quiet, grumpy solace. As the Captain passed they looked up and waited to see if she needed anything, but she just gave them acknowledging nods and let them continue without interruption. The sheer number of bandages she saw among them weighed heavy on her heart, but she tried not to let the hopelessness and guilt take hold again.

As they neared the hospital tent, she saw a small group of swabs hauling barrels of water over under Coleman's direction, and caught a faint whiff of something foul. Mister North was in the middle of an argument with Colin Strong.

"I'm just sick of it, Mister North," Colin said as they approached. "I can't lay there in that tent another second."

"It ain't my call, Colin. You heard the Doc. You're supposed to rest up until your head is better."

"I feel fine!" Colin said defiantly. "The headaches don't come on unless I stand up fast, or turn my head too quick. You need every hand, and I need something to do before I lose my mind."

"Mister Strong, glad to see you without bandages wrapped around your head," Captain Ves said as she approached.

Colin turned quickly and immediately winced. The color drained from his face, but he stood straight. "Captain!"

"What was that about turning your head?" Coleman said dryly.

Colin didn't reply. He just tried to hold his composure.

"What did the doc tell ye?" Captain Vex asked.

"Light duty, no more than half an hour at a time, and to stay out of bright light and avoid reading or anything else that strains my eyes," Colin answered.

Captain Vex looked up. "Seems mighty bright out here."

Colin sighed. "Yes, Captain."

"Mister North, do ye have anything he can do while sitting inside a tent?" Captain Vex asked.

"We put up a shade awning over near Stewpot's camp kitchen. He could help the swabs boil bandages," Coleman said, scratching his beard.

"Fair enough," Captain Vex said.

Danica pulled Coleman's black fisherman's hat off his head and tossed it to Colin. "Go report to Mister Potts."

Colin gingerly pulled the hat down over his head and grinned. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you, ma'am." With another quick nod to the Captain, he headed off.

"That lad has all the sense of a happy dog," Danica said with a chuckle.

Coleman rubbed his mostly bald head. "If my scalp gets sunburned, it's your fault."

"Wear the yellow one," Danica countered.

"I hate the yellow one. Makes me look like a damn sunflower," Coleman complained.

"I love the yellow one," Danica said, bumping her hip into her husband's thigh. "It makes you easy to see from a distance."

"Mister North, what is that reek?" Captain Vex asked, interrupting the couple.

"Dead Grindylow, Captain," Coleman answered.

Friday stuck her head out of the large hospital tent, then disappeared for a moment and came out with a mug in each hand. "Hear I, that you were releasing my patients?"

"Aye," Captain Vex said. "Ye want someone tae bring him back?"

Friday sighed. "No. Cannot do anything more for a concussion, I. Needs time and rest, he. Tried to keep him inside, I, after he bumped his head on a branch. Just refuses to slow down, he."

"I'll try to keep him busy in one spot," Coleman said. "If he gets over excited, I'll threaten to send him back to you."

Friday laughed. "Good." She passed the mugs she was holding to Danica and Belita. "Here, drink this, you."

Captain Vex eyed it suspiciously. "My hangover might not like this."

"That is what this is for," Friday said with a small smile. "It will settle your stomach and help your head."

"I don't have a hangover," Danica said.

"You do have a stomach," Coleman said wryly. "Just drink it."

Danica shrugged and swallowed it down without further prompting, then stuck out her tongue in disgust. "Tastes like salt water."

The Captain sipped hers more slowly, hating the salty flavor but feeling immediately less queasy. "What am I here to see?"

Coleman gave them a half hearted salute. "I saw it already. Not feeling a need to see it again."

Friday led them to the mortuary tent. The awful smell got worse as they neared. Friday opened a small tin from her pocket, dabbed her fingers in it, and wiped a geasy, greening smear below her nose. She offered the tin to the others. "Want this, you."

With a quick glance between them, the two women copied the doctor. The grease smelled powerfully of mint and pine. Danica's face lit up as the smell vanished. "That's much better."

Inside, there were more than a dozen makeshift tables made from crates and planks with sail cloth draped over them. All but four were empty. Two had bodies on them beneath sailcloth shrouds. A third had buckets, jars, and an assortment of tools that ranged from medical, to kitchen, to carpentry. The last table bore an oddly shaped mound the size of a child beneath another cloth. "This will not be pleasant, but it is important,' Friday said, starting to lift the shroud from the closest body. "Ever seen an autopsy, you?"

"No," Belita answered.

Danica shook her head. "Never even heard of one."

"It is a kind of surgery done after death, to learn more about the ailments that afflicted the deceased. It requires a body be opened in all manner of ways, exposing what is inside for study," the Doctor explained.

"Sounds gruesome," Belita said flatly. "Thanks for the warning."

"How's that help us? Most of those things died on account of being stabbed a lot," Danica said. "Seems pretty obvious what afflicted them."

"They were people, once," Captain Vex said grimly. "I wanted Doctor Kalfou tae figure out how they were turned intae monsters."

Friday tied her long braids back into a thick tail behind her. "The affliction they suffered from was far worse than knives."

The shroud peeled back revealing the pale, distended body of a man who had been opened from navel to nose.

Danica turned around immediately and put her hands to her mouth in shock and horror. Belita felt another wave of nausea wash over her, but forced herself to breathe slowly and keep looking. "I've seen enough injuries tae know that innae what a person's insides usually look like. That innae normal."

Friday settled the shroud across the man's pelvis. "No, it is not."

Captain Vex took a step forward, forcing herself to look more closely in spite of her shock and disgust. The creature had clearly once been human, just as they'd all suspected, but the monstrous changes ran far deeper than they could have guessed. The man's breastbone had been split down the middle and pried open to reveal a chest cavity full of something bulging and tumorous. A thick tubular growth ran from the disgusting mass in the chest up through the throat. Doctor Kalfou had neatly sawed the man's jaw and skull up the center and spread them outward similarly to the ribs to show how the thing inside had somehow removed the roof of the man's mouth and coiled an appalling, pale tendril inside the host's mouth and sinus cavity. It looked like someone had shoved his intestines into his head. In the center of the tangled mess was a familiar looking black stinger half-protruding from some kind of fleshy sheath.

Captain Vex fought back another wave of nausea, glad for whatever medicine she drank earlier. She was maintaining her composure, but she was horrified.

"Normally, you would see lungs, stomach, and intestines here," Friday said, prodding the center mass with a blunted metal pointer. Whatever this growth is, it has completely absorbed them. Here, can see you the heart partially encased in the mass. It is significantly displaced from where it should be."

Belita's revulsion was plain on her face. "But what is it?"

Danica slowly turned around and forced herself not to look away again. "A parasite?" she guessed.

"Believe so, I," Friday said with a grim nod. "It has infected it's host from head to toe."

She reached for the bottom of the shroud and pulled it up from the bottom, gathering it across the man's pelvis to protect his modesty even in death, and displayed the tangle of eight squid-like tentacles that had once been legs. One of them was split open like a filet, revealing thick muscles but only irregularly shaped white lumps where bones should have been. The feet were what finally made Captain Vex turn away. Four of them still had human toes.

"The legs have been almost entirely replaced from within," Friday said, tapping the man's hips beneath the cloth. "The original human skin is largely intact, but nothing else of the internal musculature or bone structure remains similar. It was looking here at how drastically the creature changed the host's body that I started to understand it."

She put on a pair of gloves and awkwardly squished the four leftmost tentacles together. They flopped a bit, but it was clear that they fit together cleanly, and looked mostly like a normal leg until Friday released them again. The most disturbing part of the demonstration was how the skin of the leg looked mostly normal when all four tentacles were pushed together, but when released they flopped apart again to reveal long stripes of bright red muscle. Captain Vex had originally thought the legs had been opened by Doctor Kalfou's autopsy, but now she could see now that the exposed leg muscles were covered by some kind of clear, rubbery skin.