Love, Death and Robots. Volumes 2 & 3

The thanapod shattered the starboard rail as it scrambled on deck, its ten legs propelling it rapidly across the planking as a rain of blunt harpoons bounced off its carapace. It was on the captain in a moment as he sat up in his hammock with the pipe of his hookah clutched in his right hand. The thanapod dragged him from his hammock with its two sets of long forelimbs, and drove the barbed hooks these limbs terminated in straight into his fat body like sticks into dough. Its flat armoured tail clacked against the deck as with one stalked eye it watched the crew. The other stalked eye it turned to the task in hand. As the pain penetrated his befuddlement, the captain realised this was no dreamfish-induced hallucination, and began to writhe and scream. The thanapod caught one flailing arm in its mouth and with one of its mandible pincers it neatly snipped. The crunching was loud as it consumed the captain’s hand.

Through drunken haze, amidst the shouting and terror of the crew, Torrin gaped in horror. He watched the captain being eaten alive, screaming until a ripped artery finally spilt his life. At three metres long, this thanapod was no ordinary one. Harpoons bent and blunted on armour which, as it scraped around the deck, sounded like stone. The crew retreated and clumped defensively together. Perhaps, once it had fed, this monster would depart the ship.

“We must attack it,” yelled Turk as soon as he came from below. He was their barrelman, he possessed the black skin that marked him for his position from birth, for only by the hands of those born of the dark may the dead be handled before their last passage into it. His face and shaven skull were dyed white, and the pits of his eyes stained red. The crew feared him, and in this they obeyed him. He led a charge at the back of the creature and harpoons jabbed and clanged. The monster thanapod swept its tail and the crew retreated leaving Turk on his knees by the creature, trying to prevent his intestines from spilling across the deck.

While they watched the last of the captain being consumed, Torrin wondered guiltily if Turk had urged the attack because there would be nothing left of the captain to barrel; no bones to preserve and no skin to cure. He watched as the thanapod then grabbed Turk, spun him, and stood him upright before it. Torrin closed his eyes on what followed.

Turk’s scream was guttural with agony, and his offal fell in one steaming mass to join the few remnants of the captain stuck to the bloody deck. Now the thanapod turned Turk to face the crew, while its long forelimbs probed inside his empty stomach cavity and into his chest. Turk’s eyes rolled up into his head as he died and finally hung unstrung. Torrin opened his own eyes. What was this? Why did it handle him so? Blood jetted from Turk’s mouth and his head snapped upright. Gurgling and hissing he spoke.

“Have fed,” he said. “Let me into hold.”

Soberness began its painful return to Torrin after he emptied his stomach over the rail.

“The hatch,” he said to the crew, waving vaguely at the forward hatch as he staggered from the rail. Some glared at him contemptuously, some gaped at him in bewilderment, all moved aside. He kicked over the latch and heaved the heavy cover open. He quickly stepped back as the thanapod threw Turk’s corpse across its back and scuttled over. It went in through the hatch with a sound like a chest of tools cast down a well. One small hind limb snagged the cover as it passed through and slammed it shut behind.

“Cerval protect us, what now?” asked Deacon, his fingers white on the haft of the harpoon he gripped so tight.

“What now? What now?” Melis crowed. “It eats our captain, uses our barrelman like a glove puppet and you ask; ‘What now?’ We’ll sell it with our barrels of shark oil and jable. We’ll have it dance on the jetty so we get a better price! Cerval protect us!”

“Oh, be silent,” said Jorvan. “We must think on this.”

“We should seal the hatch,” said Torrin and, as one, the crew stared at him.

Jorvan said, “Your lack of spine brought us to this.” He nodded to where Cert crouched by the rail. “You let the captain’s bum-boy steer this ship. You let discipline slip, and you drank rather than face your responsibilities.” The other members of the crew now stared angrily at Torrin, though there were some amongst them who could see that Jorvan’s words were equally as damning of them. They soon freed themselves of this guilt though, as it is so much easier to blame others.

“What has that to do with the hatch?” asked Torrin, backing away from the glare of rage.

Jorvan tipped a finger to the smashed rail where the thanapod had come aboard.

“You think the hatch cover will stop it? You think such cowardice is enough?” he asked.