“Should we seek shelter with them?” Wilde asked.
“We will only endanger more lives.”
With thick fog cover and no streetlamps, the way ahead was unfathomably dark. But then, a gibbous moon, late rising above the river, lit the shifting panes of fog with light.
“Look,” Conan Doyle said. “There’s a boat.” He pointed to a small rowboat drawn up on the mud flats.
“A boat? At this hour? In this fog and darkness? I tremble at the thought of taking a steamer on the sunniest of days.”
“We merely have to row out a dozen feet and the thing cannot pursue us.”
Wissssshhhthump… wissssshthump…
The monster was getting closer with each slumping step.
“Oscar, come. We must.”
“No!”
“But it’s our best hope.”
“Out of the question.”
“Why ever not?”
“I fear the water.”
“More than the thing pursuing us?”
“I cannot swim, Arthur.”
“What?”
“I never learned to swim. Shocking, I know. At last, something Oscar Wilde is not accomplished in. Gloat, if you must.”
Conan Doyle laughed ironically. “Drowning is the least of our worries. One mouthful of Thames water is pure poison. You won’t have time to drown.” He grabbed Wilde’s sleeve and urged him toward the boat. “Come along!”
They left the cobbled road, crunched across a gravel brake and onto the muck-slick foreshore, instantly sinking to the ankles. Feet slipping and sliding, they slogged through the shoe-sucking mire to the boat. Each grasped a side and heaved. Instantly, they discovered why someone had been careless enough to leave a rowboat in plain sight. The boat was ancient, its timbers waterlogged from years of service — too heavy to be stolen. They groaned and heaved and strained to drag it the short five feet to the water, but the rowboat proved immovable.
Wissssshthump…
“Push, Oscar, push!”
“Ugh, why did we have to choose the heaviest watercraft in history? I suggest we look for another.”
Wissssshthump…
The dead thing raked the gravel with its feet and shambled onto the mud, feet slithering drunkenly before it found its footing and lumbered closer. Soon, it was mere feet away. It raised its arms and plunged toward Wilde, who was pushing at the stern of the boat.
“Pusssshhhhhhhh!”
Muscles quivering, both gave a final mighty heave. The boat sucked free of the muck with a scccchhhlurrrrrp and slid into the icy Thames. As it floated free, Conan Doyle sprang aboard, reached back, grabbed Wilde by the front of his coat and dragged him over the transom. He tumbled into the boat, which rolled alarmingly, almost tipping the pair into the water. As the vessel pitched and heaved, Wilde clambered to find a place on the seat while Conan Doyle scrambled to gather up the worn and splintery oars that had been left rammed beneath the seats.
They looked back. The thing that had once been Vicente stood at the water’s edge, a silhouette of impotent rage, watching them drift away.
“We’re safe… we’re safe…” Conan Doyle breathed exhaustedly, reaching forward to clap a hand on Wilde’s knee. Both men shook hands, gasping with effort, laughing with relief.
“You have paddles sorted out, Arthur?”
“Yes.”
“Then I suggest you use them. The beast is following us into the water!”
To their horror, the monster waded out to its knees and stood watching the rowboat. Conan Doyle slipped the oars into the rattly oarlocks and began to row, pulling with all his strength. With each stroke, the heavy rowboat, riding perilously low in the water, plowed clumsily ahead. As they moved farther out, the monster and the shore disappeared in the murk. Soon Conan Doyle found himself rowing blindly into a featureless void. Finally, he ceased his efforts and raised the dripping oars, catching his breath as he strained to look around. “Can’t see a blessed thing. I have no idea what direction I’m rowing in.”
“We’re in the very middle of the Thames. I fear we could be run over by a steamer.”
“I doubt it. No captain is mad enough to venture out in this fog.”
“And yet here we are, seasoned sailors, out for a moonlight paddle.”
“Look about, Oscar. I need a point of reference. A church steeple. A streetlamp. Anything.”
As if obliging, the moon slid from behind a scrim of cloud, lighting the circle of water about them.
“I still see nothing,” Wilde said. “Do you know which direction we’re heading?”
“If I keep the moon to my right shoulder, we should reach the west bank of the Thames.”
“Or row all the way to the channel.”
Conan Doyle fell to the oars and pulled with all his strength. Soon he lacked any breath to argue, locked into a rhythmic pulling at the oars. Overhead, the moon sailed through thickening clouds, vanishing and reappearing. Wilde crouched in the back of the boat, eyes sifting the fog. Finally, he announced, “Arthur! I see something! Keep going. Straight ahead.”
Conan Doyle pulled until his arms and shoulders burned with fatigue; he lifted the oars momentarily to look for himself. “Yes. I see it, too. I think we’ve done it. I think we’ve reached the far shore!”
“And look, there’s someone there!”
Wilde stood up in the rocking boat and waved both arms. “Hallooooo! Can you hear us? Hallooo!”
The boat drifted closer to shore and a moment later both men cried out in horror.
“It’s him!”
In the drifting fog, Conan Doyle had rowed in a huge circle and brought them back to the precise place they set off from. Now he wrestled with the oars again, paddling backward with one and forward with the other to spin the boat.
“Look!” Wilde shouted.
As they watched, the dead man waded farther into the Thames. Knee deep. Waist Deep. Chest Deep. A final plunging step and the gruesome face vanished beneath the black water.
The two men stared at the surface of the river with anticipatory dread.
Flat water. Calm. Silence.
“Thank goodness,” Wilde exclaimed, “the thing has drowned itself!”
A sudden commotion of bubbles broke the surface. And then something burst up from the water, arms flailing like steamboat paddles, driving straight at them.
“My God,” Conan Doyle said. “It can swim!” He snatched up the oars and heaved, rowing for all he was worth. Slowly, gradually, the swimming figure dropped farther and farther behind. Abruptly, the swimming stopped and the monster sank beneath the surface.
“It’s gone under. Surely this time it has drowned?”
They watched the surface. A few stray bubbles broke here and there and then… nothing.
“I think you’re right, Oscar. I think this time it has—”
Something exploded in the water beside the boat. A pair of hands latched onto the gunwale, tipping the rowboat precipitously as a waterlogged shape began to drag itself aboard.
“Look out!”
“It’s climbing in!”
With no other weapon to hand, Conan Doyle struggled to wrestle an oar from its oarlock. As it came loose, the monster already had an arm and a leg inside the boat. He swung the oar with all his might. It connected with the creature’s head with a hand-wringing WHACK but failed to slow it down. The sodden form flopped into the boat and struggled to its feet. Conan Doyle shifted to an overhand grip and brought the oar crashing down on the monster’s head. THUD! It was a mighty blow and the creature staggered backward, off balance. Conan Doyle flipped his grip, holding the oar like a lance. Wilde guessed his intent and latched hold. With their combined weight, they speared the blade into the monster’s chest and pushed with everything they had. The monster let out a bestial roar and toppled backward over the gunwale, cannonballing into the Thames and sending up a huge geyser of water.