Story Excerpt
Better the Devil You Know
by Allen M. Steele
September 8, 1934; 1:30 a.m.
In the darkest hours of the cool autumn night, with sunrise still several hours away, the Atlantic Ocean seven miles off the New Jersey coast lay silent and still. The stars were masked behind thick rainclouds shrouding the night sky; when morning finally arrived, it would be with the amber glow to the east that an old nautical rhyme admonishes sailors to be wary, foul weather is approaching. But when the rain finally came, it would be welcome, for it would help control the inferno that would soon be blazing out here on the ocean.
Alone in the darkness, the cruise ship Morro Castle sailed the quiet waters. Now on the last leg of its latest nine-day round trip between New York and Havana, the liner was heading home, scheduled later this morning to drop anchor on the East River. There the two hundred passengers still asleep in their cabins, most of them East Coast residents, would disembark at the wharf where they expected to be picked up by friends and families.
This was the usual way of things. The homicidal maniac among them had other plans.
On the starboard side of the ship, the madman stood alone outside the radio shack on the top deck, smoking a cigarette as he contemplated the mass murder he intended to perpetrate. His name was George White Rogers. A large individual, imposingly tall and heavily built, with heavy jowls framing a bovine face, he had eyes that were dull yet somehow menacing, barely hiding the sick thoughts crawling through the mind behind them. Rogers was the ship’s Chief Radio Operator, a position of authority and trust that had made it easier for him to plot the cold-blooded massacre of the Castle’s crew and passengers.
The liner’s forward funnel towered above him, and the black smoke rising from it could just as well have been from his own heart. Rogers hated every person aboard the Morro Castle, and already he’d murdered one of them: Captain Wilmott himself, poisoned with the strychnine he’d slipped into the scrambled eggs Wilmott had for breakfast just yesterday morning. Robert Wilmott was later found dead on the floor of his cabin, his breakfast tray from the galley unfinished on a nearby table. The ship’s doctor declared the cause of death to be heart failure brought on by indigestion—an unusual happenstance, but not necessarily suspicious—and First Officer William Warms took over as temporary captain for the final leg of the cruise.
Warms was woefully inexperienced, though, and Rogers was counting on that when fire broke out aboard the Castle in less than an hour from now. Just a short time ago, the radioman had activated the clock timer on an incendiary device hidden in a ceiling crawlspace above the First Class writing room on A Deck on the ship’s port side, one deck down from where he now stood. If all went according to plan, the bomb would explode at exactly 2:30 a.m.
The explosion would ignite a fire that would quickly sweep through the Morro Castle, and over the terrifying hours to follow, every person aboard would be put in mortal peril, with many either dying in the fire or drowning while trying to escape. Among those who survived would be a handful Rogers himself deigned to save . . . not out of mercy, for he had none, but simply because they’d be useful later as witnesses to his courage and quick thinking.
The goal of George Rogers’ insane scheme was to transform himself into a hero, to win public acclaim for his valiant efforts during a sea disaster. Rogers considered himself to be someone who’d been unfairly overlooked throughout life, disdained in particular by young women who were repelled by his oafish appearance and overbearing personality. If he were to emerge from the tragedy as a crewmember responsible for saving the lives of many passengers, though, all that would change. In an era where heroes were recognized and worshipped, he would join the pantheon of brave young men who’d selflessly risked their own lives to rescue others. George White Rogers would be a name people remembered. He’d achieve the fame that had been unjustly denied to him for so long, become a man known and respected.
It filled Rogers with warm anticipation to know that, because he alone had foreknowledge of the coming disaster, it was within his power to select who he would rescue. He’d already decided that one of them ought to be an attractive young lady, a princess who’d fall into his arms as he gallantly carried her to safety. He’d already made his choice of who that lucky girl would be, a tender young thing only seventeen years old whom he’d learned had accompanied her mother and younger brother on a trip to visit relatives in Cuba. Well, the mot-er could burn and the kid brother could become shark chum for all he cared. The girl was his prize, and as he smoked his hand-rolled cigarette, Rogers amused himself by imagining how she’d repay his manly heroism. She . . .
From somewhere above and behind him, there was an abrupt flash of light.
It was gone in an instant, followed by a thunderclap that was loud yet oddly localized, like a pocket of air imploding only fifty feet or so from where he stood.
Startled, Rogers let the cigarette fall from between his fingers. He yelped and grabbed hold of the railing before he toppled over it—he wouldn’t have gone overboard, only onto the A-Deck promenade below—then he craned his head to look up and behind, seeking the source of the supernatural thunderbolt.
It had come from the very top of the liner, the flat roof between the two funnels where nothing but air vents were located. It was dark up there, but just enough light was cast from running lights on the forward funnel that he could make out, for just a second or two, a dim shape hovering above the ship between the funnels.
The object vaguely resembled an enormous bat or manta ray: a black, streamlined shape, with two swept-back wings on either side of a cylindrical fuselage. It appeared to be about the size of a small airplane, but looked nothing like either a biplane or even a gyrocopter. And although it made a low hum, the sound was almost lost beneath the constant rumble of the liner’s engines.
The strange form was visible for no longer than a heartbeat; then it abruptly and silently faded from sight. As it did, it left behind the dark silhouette of a man who stood at the edge of the roof.
He turned his face to gaze directly at Rogers, almost as if expecting to spot the radio operator standing below. For just for a moment, their eyes met, and as a chill went down Rogers’ back, the figure stepped back out of sight and vanished.
A moment later the humming sound ceased as well.
Once again, the moonless night was still and quiet.
Rogers remained where he was for nearly a minute, rooted to the spot, heart pounding as he stared wide-eyed at the place where the apparition had been. There were no stairs or ladders close enough for him to climb up to where the manta shape had hovered. Rogers suspected that by the time he reached the spot where it had been, he’d find no trace of either it or the phantom figure he had also seen there.
Although the radioman would have never honestly admitted the truth to others or even himself, deep in his heart George White Rogers knew that he was insane. He had lost his mind long ago, his grasp of reality now questionable even to himself. Therefore, he reached the conclusion, albeit reluctantly, that what he’d seen was nothing more than an illusion, a hallucination vomited up from some subconscious corner of his disturbed psyche.
With that, Rogers dismissed the incident. Reaching into his trousers, he found an old pocket watch, opened it, and tilted its non-luminous dial so he could read it by the light above the radio shack door. The time was now 1:43 a.m. He had set the bomb to detonate at precisely 2:30 a.m. In just forty-seven minutes, he would be on his way to becoming the hero he knew he had always been destined to be.
Rogers tucked away his watch and turned to step back into the radio shack. As far as he was concerned, he was alone. Yet as he closed the door behind him, he was being observed from below by a figure hiding in the shadows behind a companionway down on A Deck, the same individual whom he’d just dismissed as imaginary.
And now there were two madmen aboard the Morro Castle.