AUTHOR’S NOTE
Cannibals are a staple of Pulp Adventure. The image of headhunters and pots of boiling human stew are iconic, despite sometimes dubious accuracy. In Papua New Guinea, abbreviated as PNG, the Korowai tribe is likely one of the last surviving tribal groups to engage in cannibalism. While the act is utilized in warfare amongst practitioners, it also arises due to complex food taboos, and as funerary rites where loved ones consume pieces of the dead as an act of mourning. That said, a local cult killed at ate its victims as recently as 2012…
During WWII, PNG was the site of numerous engagements between Allied forces and the Japanese who sought to gain a foothold there. Today, its coastlines are peppered with derelict hulks and skeletal aircraft wreckage dating to this tumultuous period. Author Louis L’Amour utilized the Melanesian setting in several of his Adventure tales, most notably “Off the Mangrove Coast” and “Night over the Solomons”. The South Seas were a popular place to spin Adventure yarns during the Pulp heyday, with protagonists often participating in pearl diving or captaining tramp steamers.
Robert E. Howard, of Conan fame, was also the imagination behind Steve Costigan, an adventurous sailor, unreliable narrator, and bareknuckle boxer. While the following story is not humorous as the Costigan yarns tend to be, it is in part inspired by the image of a rough-and-tumble boxer traipsing about the tropics. Boxing stories were popular in Pulp magazines, even spawning dedicated publications akin to Aviation stories.
The following story originally appeared on the Pulp, Pipe, and Poetry substack page.
CURSE OF THE BONE GOD
By L.D. Whitney
HEADHUNTER’S REST SAT squat upon Port Moresby’s waterfront like a boil. Its façade was that of peeling paint and broken promises. Within, the air hung thick with the acrid scent of cigarette smoke, stale beer, and sweat. A ceiling fan wheezed overhead, driven by a single creaking belt. It stirred the turgid air like a boiling pot.
Frank Brogan occupied the darkest corner booth that he could find. He nursed his fourth cheap whiskey of the night. It was the sort of stuff that made lesser men cough and keel over. The kind of drink that puts hair on a man’s chest. If he could stand it.
Brogan could stand it in spades.
Over the rim of a dingy glass, he watched the dregs of civilization break against the bar like waves upon a jetty. Merchant sailors, pearl divers, traders whose cargo manifest wouldn’t hold up to inspection. These were the sort of men who wound up in places like Headhunter’s Rest. The desperation ground into the floorboards was a palpable thing.
Going on six months, he’d been that same sort of man. Ever since he killed Tommy Matsuda in the ring back in Sydney. The kid was supposed to take a dive in the eighth round. Everyone knew it. They were all betting on it too. Tommy though, he had heart, he had the fire. When Brogan’s uppercut caught him just so, that heart stopped and the fire was doused.
The ref called the killing an accident. The police though, they had other names for it. Frank called it quits then. He left on the first ship he could find that very same night.
A stranger slid snakelike and uninvited into the booth opposite Brogan. His white suit looked somehow crisp despite the oppressive tropical heat. A gold tooth gleamed dully in lurid lamplight as he gave a greasy grin. His eyes had a calculating look about them. This man knew how to make a buck off the desperation of others.
“Frank Brogan, is it?” he asked. “Former heavyweight contender. Persona non grata in every boxing commission from here to California.”
Brogan didn’t bother to look up from his glass.
“Do I know you?”
“Dutch Kellerman. I own a shipping concern. Imports, exports, freight forwarding. That sort of thing. Very flexible business model, you understand?” He did. Kellerman signaled the barkeep for two more whiskeys. “People say you’re between engagements. Do I have that right too?”
“In-between everything, more like.”
Kellerman’s laugh was like sandpaper. It grated the ears.
“Perfect. I need a man with your sort of talent. You’ve got all the right qualifications. It’s a simple escort deal. Just across the Coral Sea.”
“Oh, is that it? I take it I’m not your first pick. Where’s the usual muscle?”
“Seasick. Never lost his land legs. Fell overboard, poor bastard. Always did have concrete shoes.”
The drinks arrived. Amber liquid sloshed about the grimy glass. Frank finally met Kellerman’s gaze. He studied his face through a hazy twilight. He had the soft look of someone who’d gotten rich without getting dirty. But his eyes were hard as nails.
“What’s the cargo?”
“The expensive kind, Brogan. The kind that requires discretion.” Kellerman leaned forward, conspiracy gleaming in his gaze. “It’s a native artifact. Some religious hokum. I’ve got a buyer lined up already. A nut case in Manila into all that voodoo stuff and ghost stories. Said he’ll pay top dollar for something authentic.”
“So, its stolen?”
“Let’s say ‘acquired through aggressive negotiation’.” His gold tooth flashed again.
Frank drained his glass. It burned all the way down. A liquid fire raged in his belly. Six months of dock work and bar fights hadn’t dulled his edge. His muscles were hard, and his fists were ten-pound hammers. He hated everything about existence in this rotten place. At this point, he’d do worse things than smuggling to find a way out.
“How much you paying?”
“Five hundred American. Plus, I’ll get you passage to anywhere you want to go. As soon as the job’s done, of course.” Kellerman slid a roll of bills across the tabletop. “Consider this a down payment. We sail out tomorrow. Midnight. Sharp.”
Frank eyed the money. Five hundred dollars. It was more than he’d made in the last three months combined. With that sort of cash, he could disappear properly. Maybe find a place where no one knew about Tommy Matsuda or rigged fights or the sound a man’s skull made when it hit the canvas a little bit too hard.
“What’s the catch?”
“No catch,” grinned Kellerman. “No catch at all.”
BROGAN WATCHED AS the Papuan coastline shrank along the horizon.
What sort of fool’s errand had he signed on for?
The cargo hold of the Siren’s Call held but a single crate. It wasn’t even very large. He’d not seen the idol Kellerman claimed to have. He tried not to think about it. PNG was about the last place on earth where talk of cannibals still rang true. Gold prospectors and adventurers told stories of headhunters in the night. But he’d heard from some so-called anthropologist that the local tribes only ate their own dead.
Whatever the truth, Frank had never been curious enough to find out for himself.
Kellerman’s ship was nothing to gawk at. It was rusty and outdated. That the two-hundred-foot freighter even managed to float was likely some minor miracle.
Five other crew members were aboard to keep him company, though Brogan did his best to stay out of their way. Torres was the saint that worked his magic on the engine room. A Japanese man named Nakamura acted as the navigator. More importantly, Chen, an impish Chinese cook of undeterminable age, kept them all fat and happy. There was Kellerman, of course, always strutting the upper deck in his white suit and smoking cheap cigars.
Then there was Isabella, Kellerman’s wife.
She stepped now from the cabin like smoke taking human form. She was olive-skinned, her dark hair pulled back, wearing practical clothes that somehow looked elegant hanging upon her shapely frame. Kellerman claimed she handled the books, that she had the business sense of a Wall Street broker. A real shark. Brogan knew nothing about that sort of thing. He did, however, appreciate the one bit of beauty aboard the Siren’s Call.
Isabella’s handshake was firm, her gaze appraising.
“Mr. Brogan,” she said. “Dutch tells me you’re quite handy. With your fists, of course.”
Brogan caught a hint of flirtation in her tone. The sultry look in her emerald eyes confirmed his suspicions.
“When I need to be.”
“Well then, let’s hope we don’t find an occasion.” There were secrets held captive in that slender smile. “I hear the Coral Sea can be quite dangerous.”
THEY WERE EIGHTEEN hours out when Torres disappeared.
Frank had been sound asleep, dreaming fitfully of the ring. Tommy had been there too.
He woke abruptly to Nakamura pounding his fist against the cabin door.
“Brogan!” he called. “Brogan, wake up! It’s Torres, he’s gone!”
Like a bolt, Brogan shot out of bed. He’d fallen asleep still belted in his pants but had to pull on his boots before answering. He threw open the door and Nakamura was suddenly taken aback. Framed in the threshold, Frank Brogan was a colossus. Scars from a dozen dock-side brawls etched out a map of pain across his broad, steely thews.
“What do you mean ‘disappeared’?” he demanded.
“He’s just gone, Mr. Brogan. Vanished. The engine room is empty. Torres is nowhere to be found.”
“Where are the others?”
“They are already there, Mr. Brogan. They came as soon as I called.”
“Just Frank.”
“Excuse me?”
“My name. No mister here. Just call me Frank.”
Following the navigator into the ship’s bowels, they came upon the scene. Just as Nakamura said, the rest of the crew had all gathered around to see what the commotion was about. When he arrived, though, their attention was torn from the thought of a vanished engineer. Brogan’s presence was magnetic. It had drawn every eye in the room, including Isabella’s.
Kellerman noticed it too and did not care for it.
“Out of the way,” said Frank, pushing through the crowd.
The engine room was empty. The void was filled only with chugging machinery and the noxious reek of oil. There was something else too: a coppery tang in the air that Frank placed immediately. Following the scent like a hound, he discovered near the boiler a distinctive dark splotch upon the steel.
“Is that…blood?” asked Isabella, peering around Brogan’s bulk.
“It is.”
“Where’s his body?”
“Thrown overboard, my best guess.”
“Haidou?” whispered Chen. “Pirates?” In one frail hand he clutched a meat cleaver. His knuckles were white with tension.
“No chance,” said Frank. “We’d have heard them boarding. Besides, Dutch was on lookout, wasn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Kellerman. “I was.” He looked offended at the thought that he might have shirked his duty. “I saw no such thing.”
“What does that mean, then, Frank?” Isabella drew in close. He could feel her heat against his naked skin. Thin fingers caressed his corded arm.
“Could be a couple things. Maybe we have a stowaway. I’ve seen it before, aboard a Navy ship. We’ll have to search this place high and low. There are only so many holes someone might hide.”
“And the other?”
“Inside job.”
“You don’t mean one of us, do you?”
“I do.”
“What about the idol?” asked Nakamura, his words nearly a whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“The native fisherman, they talk of a cursed idol stolen from the dokuro no saidan, an altar of human skulls,” explained the navigator. In one hand he nervously fingered his lucky coin. “It is the same idol in our cargo hold right now! I heard Kellerman speaking to her about it.” Nakamura charged a finger at Isabella. “Gashadokuro! The Bone God, he comes for his trophy!”
“Superstitious nonsense,” snapped Kellerman. But Frank noticed beads of sweat sprouting about his forehead. “I’ll have no such talk on my ship.”
Kellerman’s demands mattered little. Nakamura had already planted the seed.
Brogan didn’t believe in magic or curses. And now wasn’t the time to start. All the violence he’d ever seen had been caused by man. He suspected it was a man behind it now. There was someone aboard the Siren’s Call who’d taken to killing. How or why, he didn’t know. Though he had every intention of finding out. Still, it was hard to shake the cold feeling of dread that permeated the sweltering room.
Moreso with Chen’s frantically muttered prayers.
NAKAMURA WAS NEXT.
Having spent all day scouring the corridors of the Siren’s Call, searching every nook and cranny for signs of a stowaway, Brogan came up empty-handed. He’d not reported his findings to the others, though his silence spoke volumes. He retired then to his cabin to think. In no time at all he was dreaming again of the ring.
“Why?” asked Tommy’s ghost.
He’d no good answer to the question.
When Brogan woke again, it was to the sound of a woman’s scream.
Brogan burst from his cabin at the sound of alarm. Appearing on deck like some sea reaver of old, teeth gnashing, fingers groping the air, he searched for the source of the sound.
The night was quiet. Only the rush of salt air and the rolling roar of the Coral Sea met his ears. He scanned the deck for movement, for any hint that something was afoot.
There was another scream.
“Isabella!” he shouted to the wind.
Another scream was the only answer.
In an instant he was moving across the ship with a bestial loping gait, a great ape barreling across the Siren’s Call. He traced the wail like a wolf pack stalks spoor. And the track he found led directly to Kellerman’s private cabin.
With a brutal kick, Brogan heaved in the door. What he found there made his blood boil.
Isabella cowered in the corner near a toppled nightstand. Her blouse was torn and her cheek reddened by the hand of her husband. Brogan had made a living once, by beating on other men. But to strike a woman, that crossed a line.
Kellerman turned, his face twisted in a fit of rage. Before he could speak, Brogan tapped him on the chin. It sent him sprawling.
With a meaty fist, he hefted Kellerman up by his shirt collar. The smuggler’s head lolled dazedly. Stars swam in his shallow stare. Brogan cocked back his other ham hock and readied to strike.
“No Frank!” cried Isabella. “Stop!”
He let Kellerman return to the floor, a wet sack. Isabella rushed to his side.
“Are you alright?” Brogan asked of her.
She looked up at him, only nodding in reply.
“He’ll be fine too. Give him a little time.”
“Thank you,” Isabella said meekly. “He gets angry sometimes. That’s all.”
Brogan saw the poor woman running circles around her own head, trying to justify it all. It pained him to watch. Worse yet, the other men had heard the ruckus and came running. They craned their necks through the open cabin door, eyes and mouths agape.
“What was the fight about?” Frank asked. It was the only thing that came to mind.
“I was out for a walk. Just getting some air is all. When I came back…”
“What was it?”
“He thought I’d been with you, Frank. Dutch said he saw me eyeing you down in the engine room. I told him it was ridiculous. He didn’t believe me.”
Brogan was silent. Had the sultry glances and soft touches meant really something? Maybe it was all in his head. In that moment, more than any other, he wished to be back on land. Even the Headhunter’s Rest would be better than this tub. ‘What have you gotten yourself into, Frank?’ he asked of himself for a second time since leaving land. Brogan turned to the door and glowered at Chen who stood there gawking.
“There’s nothing here to see,” he growled. “Go back to your cabin.” Chen nodded fitfully. Back in the cabin, Kellerman was coming to. Suddenly, a realization struck Frank like a well-placed jab. “Chen, wait! Where’s Nakamura?”
The cook shrugged a silent reply.
“He wasn’t with you just now?”
“No. Only me.”
Brogan could have sworn he saw the man. But it could have easily been his imagination filling in the gaps amidst the tussle. His focus had been elsewhere, after all.
“Who saw him last? Isabella, did you see him on your walk?”
“No.”
“He should be at the helm.” It was Kellerman who answered. He massaged his jaw, scowling at the muscle he’d hired. Red blood dribbled from a broken lip.
Brogan flew out the cabin then, racing toward the wheelhouse. The others followed, even the recovering Kellerman.
“Damn,” hissed Brogan as he entered. They were too late.
All that remained now of Nakamura was a crimson puddle and his lucky coin.
“The Bone God,” breathed Chen.
Brogan was starting to believe.
AT BROGAN’S SUGGESTION, everyone had confined themselves to their cabins. Isabella chose to remain with her husband. Chen, probably the smartest of the bunch, locked himself in the mess. At least he had food. Frank, on the other hand, had to take the helm. He knew enough about ships from his stint in the Navy to keep the old freighter on a bearing. He’d get that tub to port.
Bone Gods be damned.
The pilothouse was a lonesome place with naught but Nakamura’s bloodstain for company. The red smear hadn’t reminded him so much of the missing helmsman, however. Instead, his thoughts kept wandering to Tommy. He’d done his best to clean up the mess, but the stain was stubborn. Likewise, he’d failed to scrub away the vision of lifeless Tommy Matsuda lying still upon the canvas, crimson pooled about his ears.
The sky was greying with the dawn when unexpected footsteps caught his attention. He pulled a heavy pipe wrench from a nearby toolbox. It felt like some barbarian’s cudgel in his hand. Brogan still thought foul play was afoot, but if it really was some devil from beyond, he’d greet it all the same.
Brogan spun, raising the wrench for a mighty swing. The figure gasped suddenly in fright. He dropped the heavy tool. It rang against the pilothouse floor like a bell.
“What are you doing here?” Frank asked of Isabella. She stood in the doorway, pale as a ghost. “It ain’t safe.”
“I-I wanted to see you.”
“Kellerman won’t like that.”
“He doesn’t have to know.”
“Where is he now? Does he know you’re out?”
“No,” she said. “Dutch is fast asleep. He won’t wake. You really threw him for a loop. He’s been piping mad about it all evening. And drinking like a fish.”
“He didn’t hit you again, did he?”
“No,” said Isabella meekly. “Nothing like that.”
“Good,” growled Frank. “Probably cost me my salary, but good.”
“Dutch only handles the deals.” Isabella moved in closer to Brogan. Almost too close. “I take care of the money. I’ll make sure you get paid.”
“Thank you.”
Brogan took a step towards her. Her presence drew him inward with invisible force. It seemed to him that Isabella was the real siren about this rust bucket ship.
“No need, Frank. I should be thanking you.”
“That’s not necessary. It’s been a long time since I had the opportunity to do something right. It needed doing.”
Isabella turned her dusky eyes up towards his craggy face. Her full, red lips parted suggestively. They pulled at him, drawing his own into them. In an instant, they were locked together in heated embrace.
Brogan pulled away just far enough to speak.
“What about Kellerman?”
“Forget about him. Right now, it’s just you and me.”
ISABELLA LEFT WITH the break of dawn. No longer did Brogan feel the presence of Tommy Matsuda. At least not so nearby. Now, his thoughts turned toward the feeling of warm, bare flesh and passionate sighs. His body felt drained from the activity. His lids too were heavy with sleep. He needed rest, but there was no time. Not with a murderer about. Brogan would sleep when they reached dry land.
He was caught off guard when Chen suddenly appeared, bearing a plate of breakfast. He balanced the food in one open palm while in the other he still clutched the cleaver.
“You’re not looking to use that thing, are you?”
“No, mister Frank. You are hungry. I brought this for you.”
“Much appreciated, Chen.”
Brogan wolfed down the meal. It served to revive him some.
“Have you seen Isabella?” he asked the chef. “Or Dutch?”
“No. I have not. I brought them food. There was no answer from the cabin. Maybe they still sleep?”
“Damn,” hissed Frank. Leaping from the pilothouse, he ran once again to the cabin of Isabella and Kellerman. Chen followed him close, surprisingly spry for his apparent age. In his hand flashed the cleaver, glinting like a short sword in the early morning light.
They came to an abrupt halt at the cabin door. Brogan beat against it with balled fist.
“Isabella! Kellerman! Are you there? Answer me!”
Nothing.
Brogan tried the door. After his abrupt intrusion the night before, he’d left it barely hanging from the hinges. The door creaked open, but only just. Something was blocking the way.
“Stand back,” said Frank to Chen.
The boxer leveled a broad shoulder against the door. Setting his teeth, he struck it like a battering ram. From behind came the sound of splintering wood, but the door still wouldn’t budge. Stepping back a pace, he ran at it this time. Something cracked with thunderous force and Brogan toppled into the room. Within, he found the splintered remains of a broken chair. They’d barred the door from the inside.
The room itself was devoid of life, but Kellerman was still inside. He was face down on the bed. The sheets dyed deep red.
Chen was taken aback at the grisly scene. Almost immediately, a stream of Mandarin prayers flowed forth from his thinly drawn lips.
Brogan studied the corpse of Kellerman. He’d been stabbed, more than once. The blood though, it was thick and sticky. Dutch had been dead for quite some time.
Of Isabella, there was no sign.
Had she done Dutch in? She had motive, sure. But did that mean she’d killed the others too? Frank was no detective, but for Dutch’s blood to dry like that, he had to have been killed before Isabella came to see him. He hated the thought, but unless a stowaway somehow managed to escape him, the number of suspects was quickly dwindling.
He turned to Chen, the cleaver still in hand.
“Give me that,” ordered Brogan. He proffered an open palm.
“I not do it, mister Frank!”
“I don’t think you did, Chen. But I’m not taking any chances. Now, hand it over.”
Reluctantly, the cook acquiesced. The huge cleaver seemed small in Brogan’s giant hand.
“Stay close to me,” said Brogan. “Don’t leave my sight. We’re in this together now.”
“Where we go?”
“We have a boat to catch.”
THE SIREN’S CALL had only two lifeboats aboard. They each hung from the moorings on both the port and starboard side. They were near enough now to their destination that a desperate person might find themselves crossing paths with another freighter. It was a chancy ploy, but it just might work.
Brogan wished to cut down the opportunities for escape from one to two.
No longer sure of anything or anyone, the only person he was positive wasn’t the killer was himself. Isabella was missing. She could be dead too, for all he knew. But he wasn’t going to get caught off guard searching the ship again. Chen seemed an unlikely culprit. But he was disarmed and hadn’t left Frank’s side.
Frank loosened some knots and let the starboard lifeboat fall empty to the sea.
“What are you doing?” asked Chen.
“If I were the killer, I’d want off this ship. Make a break for it. I’d do it under the cover of night, too. Since I’m not letting you go anywhere alone and I can’t be in two places at once, I’m cutting this one loose. After that? Well, it’s just a waiting game. We’re marching straight over to that other boat and finding a good hiding spot nearby. I’m going to watch it all night if I have to. And when the killer makes their move, I’ll nab them.”
“But mister Frank, you have not slept,” said Chen. And he was right. “Are you not tired?”
“I’m tired alright. Like the grave.”
FRANK BROGAN’S EYELIDS were lead. It took every ounce of concentration not to let them close.
The Siren’s Call had been drifting all day, ever since Brogan left the pilothouse. Where on the map he was mattered little if there was a knife in his back. He’d put the freighter back on course later—if he lived.
The daylight hours had dragged on at an excruciating pace. Chen had not moved a muscle since the pair had hunkered down out of sight to watch the last remaining lifeboat. That meant too that Brogan hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast. His stomach cramped with hunger. His limbs were taught and restless. He longed to move a little, to pace the deck or even stretch. Brogan couldn’t risk it, though. If he was seen, the killer might get wise to his plan.
Wan moonlight now cast the ship’s deck in silvered shadow. Starlight danced upon the Coral Sea’s undulating surf. It reminded him something of camera flashes in a ringside crowd. How the bulbs blazed the night he’d killed Tommy. Frank had no doubt the Sydney papers were plastered with photographs depicting the lifeless upstart and the barbarian who’d brought an end to his promising career.
A ghost moved in the dark.
“Tommy?” whispered Brogan.
No, not Tommy.
Frank leapt from his cover. With a flying tackle, he wrestled down the slender form. It was hardly a struggle at all.
“Isabella?”
“Let me go!” she cried. “It’s not what you think!” Slim hands beat helplessly against his chest. Even beneath his exhausted strength, her struggle was futile.
“Dutch, did you kill him?”
“Yes!” she blurted. “I killed him! He came after me again. Before I came to see you. He was drunk. I pushed him over and killed him!”
“Did you kill the others too?”
“Of course not!”
“Then why jump ship?”
Isabella was crying now. Hot tears streaked her flushed face.
“I knew you’d blame me for killing Torres and Nakamura,” she sniffled. “I knew you’d find Dutch eventually. And then I’d take all the blame. I swear though, Frank. It wasn’t me!”
“How’d you leave the cabin, Isabella? The door was barred from the inside.”
“It was Dutch’s idea,” she sniffed. “He had a secret hatch put in the floor. It leads down into the ship. He used it sometimes for smuggling cargo.”
All that made sense to Brogan, but he wasn’t buying the lot. Not yet. But before he could inquire further, Isabella screamed.
“It’s him!” she howled. “He has to be the killer!”
She pointed an accusing finger into the night. Frank spun then to find the elderly Chen standing behind them in the dark.
“No, no! I kill no one!” The cook cursed then in a string of Mandarin. “It is her!”
For a time the pair argued back and forth, Isabella yelling passionately while Chen spat back in both English and his native tongue. The racket rattled Frank’s ears. His fatigue-addled mind spun in the noisome fray. He struggled to make sense of the roil. With all the racket, he couldn’t even hear himself think. He was dog tired, hungry, and in desperate need of sleep. Now, he was angry too.
“Shut up!” he bellowed. “Both of you, just shut up!” The roar shocked both Chen and Isabella into silence. “Right now, I don’t trust either of you.”
“What are you going to do, Frank?” Isabella looked at him with wide, pleading eyes. Her soft lips trembled. He’d no sympathy in that moment to spare.
“You’re both coming with me. I’m going to tie you up then get this ship to port. It’ll all get sorted out when we reach land.”
“You can’t do that!” cried Isabell. “If you get the authorities involved, they’ll take everything. You won’t get paid!”
“Damn the money. At least I’ll still be alive. I can always find another job.”
Suddenly, from over the water came a strange, rhythmic thrum. It was distant at first but drew nearer with astounding speed. With the cadence of a beating heart, the eerie pulse throbbed horribly in the night.
“What is that?” asked Isabella, suddenly pale.
“Drums,” answered Frank.
“It is the Bone God,” yowled Chen. “The Bone God, he comes!”
LIVING SHADOWS LEAPT the gunwale, silent as the dead. Thin, rangy bodies stalked like phantoms across the deck. In their boney hands they clutched long knives and stone-tipped spears. Adornments of bleached bone stabbed from lips, noses, and ears.
Frank had never wandered far from the Port Moresby docks, but he’d seen these sort before. Occasionally, native tribesmen would wander into town to trade pelts and jungle things for machetes or drink. Most people gave the cannibals a wide berth, only the bravest among the merchants willing to trade. To see them here, now, it rattled Brogan’s very reality. Was it possible for the headhunters to follow them across the Coral Sea?
Or had the Bone God lent some supernatural assistance?
“They come for the idol!” cried Chen. “They come for our souls!” With unanticipated speed, the cook fled into the night.
The cannibal boarders crept closer, the padding of their naked feet barely a hiss. Moonlight glinted from machetes and unsheathed blades. Thunderous drums shook the night world, a terrible symphony to accompany that waking nightmare.
The cannibals leapt upon them like pouncing tigers. In the man and woman, shocked beyond reason, they spied defenseless victims. Though unarmed, Frank Brogan, was not without his weapons.
A fierce jab shattered the broad nose of the first warrior. Frank wrenched his limp body aside, tossing it into the sea.
The cannibals howled in fury as first blood was drawn.
A hoard of knives fell about him as the heavyweight boxer weaved safe passage through a deadly rain. With his bulk, he pushed Isabella behind him and out of harm’s way. All the while, he ploughed forth a swath through cannibal ranks.
With a mighty hook, he sent one warrior reeling backward into the crowd. Behind him, four others bowled over. He met another with a heaving blow straight to the solar plexus. The slavering cannibal buckled and his still frame was consumed by a tide of stomping feet.
A long spear lanced suddenly from the tide of hungry flesh. It cut a deep gash along Frank’s right bicep. Isabella screamed at the sight of blood streaming from her protector’s arm. In the back of his mind, Frank knew that he very well might be protecting the mysterious killer that haunted the Siren’s Call. In that moment, though, he didn’t care.
They cast their lots together now.
A flurry of brutal punches felled a line of cannibal flesh like trees before the axe. But each heavy swing grew slower, easier for the wild tribesmen to slip beneath or around. His mallet fists slogged through the air like it was mud. Sleep demons weighted his tired limbs. Still he fought, but each swing was labored and sluggish. He knew well the exhaustion would spell their doom.
Suddenly, a pair of warriors latched firmly against Brogan’s wheeling arms. He tried desperately to throw them free, but his heaving form was running on naught but fumes. When more of the men piled about his legs, his shoulders, there was nothing he could do but relent. He roared in impotent rage as the cannibals forced him down. Beneath a sweating heap of flailing arms, Frank Brogan collapsed to the deck.
The drumming grew to a fevered pitch. He watched in silent horror as countless warriors scooped up Isabella and raised their knives to the midnight sky. In unison, they released a ghastly hurrah into the night.
From somewhere in the throng came ropes of woven frond. The warriors lashed Brogan’s arms and legs together. The cords were strong as iron and bound him at every joint.
“Get off me!” snapped Isabella. She was no swooning captive. Instead, she had become a rabid dog, barking and biting at her captors. With sharp nails, she swiped like a panther, raking the cheek of a cannibal who dared draw too close. Weighed down as she was, however, she too succumbed to their grasp. Still, a red fury burned bright in her gaze.
With both now subdued, the chanting warriors parted to reveal a vision of horror. From the gloom emerged a demoniac face with bulging eyes and curved tusks thrusting like scythes from gaping maw. Frank’s heart leapt in his throat as he thought for the briefest of moments that he looked upon the visage of the Bone God himself. As the figure drew near, however, the horrible face was revealed to be an elaborately carven mask.
The body supporting this façade was hunched and frail. Feathers ringed the mask, giving it the countenance of some frilled ape or maned reptile-thing. On a long and gnarled stick, the ancient witch man leaned. When he spoke, it was not the trumpeting roar of a demon-god, but that of a haggard wiseman. Stranger still, Brogan understood every uttered word. It was not some jungle tongue which the shaman spoke, but English, plain as day.
“We have come for the idol,” he rasped. “Give it to me.” He proffered a thin, claw-like hand.
“It’s down in the hold!” replied Frank. “I’ll take you to it. You can have the damn thing. I don’t want any part of it!”
“No. It is much nearer than that. I can hear it. The Bone God speaks to me.”
“What do you mean? The idol hasn’t left the cargo hold!” Just as Frank spoke, he knew his words were untrue. There was no way for him to verify the claim. He’d never even seen the crate Dutch kept the idol in. How was he to know where it was or where it had been?
Slowly, he turned his gaze toward Isabella. Her eyes refused to meet his own. Instead, the woman gaped wolfishly at the masked magic-man.
“I won’t give it to you,” she growled. “It’s mine!”
“You have it on you?” gasped Frank. “Why?”
“It’s worth a fortune, Frank! The buyer pays top dollar for authentic pieces. Don’t you understand? Authentic!”
“Dutch told me that already. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“The curse, Frank! The curse had to be real!”
“It was you, then? You killed them all?”
“Yes, damn it!”
“Why?
“I already told you! The buyer! The dupe is a collector of occult artifacts. Can you imagine how much he’d pay for a real cursed idol? One that killed the crew of an entire ship?”
“You killed them all for a story?”
“Not the story, the money!”
“Enough!” bellowed the shaman. “Give the idol to me! Do it now!”
“Never!”
“So be it.” The words were spoken with grim finality. “Bring her.”
The cannibal throng rallied again, shaking their fists in the air. Then, in a frenetic march, they ushered Isabella toward their awaiting craft.
“What?” gasped Isabella. “No, you can’t! Take it! It’s in my shirt. You can take it! Take it!”
The last Frank Brogan heard of Isabella Kellerman was a blood-curdling scream.
From beneath the weight of a dozen cannibal warriors, he looked up into the shaman’s terrible mask.
“What about me?” he asked of the priest.
“You are a great warrior,” he said. “We have no more quarrel with you. You are free. But do not return to the Bone God’s domain. Frank Brogan is welcome there no more.”
One by one, his captors relinquished their grasp. Free now, Frank pulled himself from the deck. Eyes never leaving the masked holy man, he ripped from his shirt a long strip of cloth and tied it tightly about his open wound.
“How do you know my name?”
Before his question could be answered, the cannibals gathered their fallen kin and returned to the sea. Frank stood still as statuary, listening as the sound of drums were slowly swallowed by the night.
Left alone on the deck of the Siren’s Call, Frank spied something left behind in the cannibal’s wake.
Kneeling, he plucked from the deck a crumpled newspaper. The headline on the front read: “Knockout Turns Manhunt”. Peering at him from the page was a photograph of himself, Tommy Matsuda on the mat beside.
WHEN DAWN FINALLY arrived, Brogan found Chen once again locked within the mess. It took some coaxing, but he eventually lured the cook from his cave. Together, they gathered up Dutch Kellerman and threw him to the sharks.
“What now, mister Frank?”
He hadn’t really thought that far.
“Well Chen, it seems I’m the captain now. And a captain needs a cook. What do you say?”
“Yes, mister Frank! Of course!”
“Glad to hear it,” he said with a tired grin. “Now, we need to get this tub to port. But first, I think I’ll take a nap.”
END.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L.D. Whitney is an author, archeologist, and educator. Born in Nebraska, he now calls New Mexico home alongside his wife, daughter, and two dogs.
He is a contributor to Rogues in the House Podcast, various Sword & Sorcery publications such as Weirdbook, Crimson Quill Quarterly, and Rogue Blades Entertainment, and author of REMNANT published by Primal Press.
Return Friday, December 26th for a contemporary pulp tale of pirates and peril in “Pepper and the Pirates” by Bob Riffenburgh!
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