The Cold Beneath by Tonia Brown Page A

the death of a friend?
    “You must be joking,” I said as I took to my feet, unable to withstand the insanity any longer. “A man is dead. We have to take him back for a proper burial.”
    “Pardon me for saying so, sir,” the young man said. “But he would have wanted us to keep going.”
    “But it’s disrespectful.”
    “That’s as may be, sir, Morrow was a sailor years before many of us were even born. A real sailor. He understood the importance of the course. He told me once that back in his day they would just chuck a man overboard rather than waste time or space on his cold corpse. Sir.”
    I went green at the idea. “This is lunacy. We should go back. We need to report his death properly. We need to turn his body over to his family.”
    “If you knew anything about him, sir, then you would know he has no family. We were his family. And we say move on.”
    He had me there. I didn’t know the cook any more than I knew anyone else aboard. I maintained my position and placed the only vote against staying our course. I think I lost what few friends I’d made on the first leg of the journey that very day. Shoulders, as well as temperaments, were much colder toward me from then on.
    “Then it is settled,” Lightbridge said after the vote was tallied. “We will continue our journey, but when we arrive at True North I shall shorten our stay. We shall remain just long enough to plant our flag. After which we will get back into the air and return home with our goal accomplished. Agreed?”
    Everyone, save for me, did.
    Lightbridge instructed Geraldine to store the body of Morrow in the larder, in the mechanical icebox. The kitchen staff agreed it was for the best, and the ghouls seemed all too glad to have their old friend resting in the chiller. I was disgusted by the whole affair, and retired to my room without another word.
    Two nights later, I awoke to a soul-rending scream. At first I thought an animal of some sort was trapped aboard, screeching and caterwauling in an effort to free itself. I leapt from the bed, throwing on my dressing gown before I stumbled into the darkened hallway—we kept the metal shutters of all the windows closed during the ‘night’ hours to help our nocturnal senses stay sane—where the few night crew members had gathered at the door to the kitchen. Bands of soft light streaked the hallway as others peered from half-open berth doors.  
    “What is that terrible noise?” I asked.
    One of the men turned to me, saying, “It’s coming from the kitchen, sir.”
    “I can hear that!” I shouted back at him.
    The men lingered at the doorway as if made afraid by the terrible sounds pouring from the room beyond. I must admit I was frightened out of my wits, but I was neither a roughneck nor a rowdy laborer as these men were purported to be. But I would learn soon enough that cowardice lies in the hearts of all men, no matter their station in life.
    “What do you suppose is the cause?” I asked.
    “Something must be trapped,” Albert said as he pushed his way to the front of the group. The man was dressed in nothing but his long underwear, heedless of decorum or modesty. He stomped past me and straight into the den of darkness that made up the kitchen. With the flip of a switch, he ignited the electrical lights, and a golden glow consumed the darkness, eliciting a wince from all present. After the moment of sudden brightness passed, a strange truth became apparent.
    The kitchen was empty, but the din continued.
    “Where is it coming from?” I asked loudly as I stepped into the kitchen.
    The howling and screeching were amplified by the echo of the large room, leaving the source of the sound uncertain. It seemed as though it came from all around us, swirling in an eddy of shrieks and shouts. As we listened, trying to pinpoint the origin, I fancied that perhaps I heard something else alongside of those screams. I thought, and I wish to the heavens above that I were making this up,