Conan Doyle and Wilde stepped down from the carriage. The door banged shut, a whip cracked about the zebras’ ears, and the landau lurched away, abandoning them to streets of rime and swirling fog. The two men looked about, baffled by what they saw, or rather failed to see. The only indications of civilization were the charcoal silhouettes of hulking brick warehouses. The mournful drone of a foghorn sounded in the distance.
“Where the devil are we?”
“This is clearly not where we left the hansom,” Conan Doyle observed. “He drew in a deep breath through his nose, scenting the air. “Judging by the thickness of the fog, the stink, and that steamer foghorn, I’d say we’re close to the Thames, but far downriver.”
Both men looked up at the clop-clop of approaching hooves.
“We’re in luck,” Wilde said. “That must be the hansom now.”
Both stared expectantly into the fog. Something large tore loose of the gray veiclass="underline" a dark carriage drawn by two black horses with plumes bobbing atop their heads.
“A hearse!” Conan Doyle said.
“Hearse or hansom, I care not. Let’s flag it down.”
Both men shouted and waved at the oncoming hearse, which failed to slow or break rhythm. In fact, upon seeing them, the top-hatted driver whipped up the horses, which bore down on the two friends, forcing them to leap aside to avoid being trampled.
“Damn you!” Conan Doyle shouted after the driver. The hearse carried on and was swallowed up in the fog. The clopping of hooves suddenly slowed and stopped.
The two friends looked at each other.
“Did they see us?” Wilde asked. “Was it a mistake? Are they coming back for us?”
Conan Doyle shook his head uneasily. “I just realized something. I caught a glimpse of the driver’s face. He had a port-wine stain down one cheek.”
From somewhere in the fog, they heard a door creak open and slam shut. And then they heard a noise that filled them both with dread: Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…
“Oh dear God,” Wilde moaned. “Not again!”
Fog swirled and a shadowy figure lurched toward them. It stepped into the light of the streetlamp and showed its impossible face.
“Vicente!” Conan Doyle gasped. “But we saw him hanged!”
The once-handsome head sat upon a neck twisted by the hangman’s rope. The face, bloated and ghastly, pulsed with swollen veins. The yellow eyes fixed upon them and the raggedy form slumped forward like something from a nightmare.
“RUN!” both shouted.
The two friends took to their heels, running away blindly into the thickening fog.
Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…
They came upon the wall of a warehouse and slid along it, hands groping the cinderous bricks. The wall abruptly ended and they followed the curbstone into another street. But in the blindfolding fog, every step was an act of faith.
“I have no sense of where we are,” Conan Doyle said. “We could be walking into a cul-de-sac.”
“Look,” Wilde said, pointing. “I believe I can make out several streetlamps. If we go this way—”
Whooossh! An arm swung from the fog and grazed Wilde’s face. He cried out in surprise. They hurried away, straining to follow the dull glow of streetlamps that seemed to recede before them. From behind came the wissssshthump and the scuffle of dragging feet.
“This is impossible,” Wilde whispered. “Vicente was dead. We saw him hanged.”
“He has been revivified. He is now some kind of monster.”
Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…
“Look!” Wilde said. “Up ahead. I think I see someone.”
“No. We cannot go that way. We cannot endanger innocent people.”
“Do we not number amongst the innocent, too? In fact, compared to the many scoundrels in London society, you and I are easily the most innocent!”
They hurried on, and soon beheld the comforting sight of two blue uniformed constables loitering on a street corner, chatting and laughing.
The officers startled as the two friends burst from the fog and ran up to them.
“Constables!” Conan Doyle said. “You must help us. We are being pursued by a monster.”
The policemen took in Conan Doyle’s stevedore clothing and Wilde’s worn aesthete clothing. “You lads out slumming? Been drinking have you?”
“No!”
“I had a nip of brandy earlier.”
“Oscar, shush!”
“He did ask.”
Wissssshhhthump…
“Look!” Conan Doyle said, pointing at the ragged form shambling toward them. “That’s him now!”
The two constables shared a knowing grin. “He’s had a few from the look of him. Friend of yours, is he?”
“No! It’s not a man at all! It’s a killer. A monster!”
“Gets like that when he’s had a few, does he?”
The dead man shambled into the glare of the streetlamp where the constables glimpsed the horrid face for the first time.
“Strewth!” the first officer said to his mate. “He don’t look too good, right enough!”
The first officer stepped forward to meet the creature, brandishing his truncheon. “We ain’t gonna have any trouble from you, sonny. Are we?”
In response, the monster swung a clublike arm that broke the constable’s collarbone and forced him screaming to his knees. He grappled for a hold of the monster’s ragged shirt, but it reached down, seized his helmeted head in both hands and twisted, breaking his neck. The monster let go and the constable slumped to the ground, dead and staring.
The second constable fumbled a whistle to his lips and split the silence with a sharp whistle blast. He leapt forward, truncheon drawn, and gave the monster a mighty whack across the head. It seemed not to feel anything and clamped a dead hand upon the constable’s face, forcing the whistle down his throat. The policeman choked and writhed, struggling momentarily before the creature tore the jaw from his skull. A ragged scream peeled from the policeman’s throat and he fell to the cobblestones, twitching and writhing.
The two friends cried out with horror and took to their heels, running away as fast as the fog would allow. The pavement underfoot was broken and heaved and Wilde caught a foot and sprawled on the ground. Conan Doyle grabbed him by the scruff and roughly dragged him to his feet.
Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…
They hurried on, nearly colliding with lampposts that loomed unexpected from the fog. They turned randomly right onto one street and then left onto another. The warehouses fell behind. By now the air had grown noticeably chill and damp and soon they nosed the unmistakable reek of the Thames.
“The river,” Wilde panted.
“Perhaps we are close to a bridge.”
“Shush!”
Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…
“It’s coming this way.”
“How can it follow us in all this fog?”
“It is a reanimated corpse, neither dead nor alive.”
Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump… wisssssshthump…
They hurried on, and soon reached the tidal foreshore of the Thames. The only structures hereabouts were creaking wooden hovels where the poorest of the poor lived. Built of scrap lumber salvaged from the river, they stood teetering on support poles driven into the mud. The vague glimmer of tallow candles in a few of the glassless windows suggested habitation.