Free Dreadful Skin by Cherie Priest Page B

figure it out. It was herding me away, into a corner, against the big steam calliope at the edge of the roof. I was standing beside the noisy steam instrument when the monster with the penny eyes jumped.
    I didn’t waste any breath on a scream. I scrambled aside and grabbed a chair, yanking it loose and pushing it in front of me. The full weight of the beast landed square on the chair and the deck was so wet we both slid—the creature went off to the side, smashing into the pipe organ with its big brass tubes and pedals. I went falling, crashing, in the other direction—back around the deck.
    I had a clear shot to the pilot house but I had the monster on my tail.
    It recovered quickly, bringing a hairy fist down into the pipes and drawing a shrill, steam-powered squeal from the press of his weight on the keys. Something snagged him and he gave me a handful of precious seconds while he disentangled himself, roaring all the time.
    I could hardly see the deck, or the pilot-house door, or my hands in front of me, but that didn’t slow me down. I knew what followed me. I knew what would happen when it caught me, and I didn’t have any dumb ideas anymore—oh, it was going to catch me. But I was going to make it inside that pilot house.
    The thing landed on the deck behind me with a crack and a squeal, and I jumped—stepping on and over the deck benches, pushing myself on with my feet, and holding my skirts up with the hand that wasn’t holding the knife.
    I’d have never believed I could move so fast—in the dark, in the rain, in that big long dress that slowed me down every turn.
    Behind me, though. If you’d seen what came behind me.
    You’d believe it. You’d have run too, no matter what.
    Behind me I heard it slip and trip its way along, finding footing like I did—just barely, and not very well.
    And then the clomping, echoing leaps of its pursuit stopped. I didn’t turn around. I didn’t want to look and see it back there, flexing its haunches like a cat getting ready to take down a mouse.
    But then I saw—over by the stairs, where first I’d come in—someone else was standing. “Jack!” the someone called out, and even in my frantic flight I heard her, and I knew that it was the nun.
    “No!” I hollered to her, where what I meant to say was more like, “Get gone! You’re no help to me and it’ll kill us both!” But I didn’t have the breath to do it and I was almost at the pilot house then.
    “Jack!” she shouted it again.
    It stopped the monster. It didn’t stop me.
    I collided hands-first with the pilot house door and it was locked, just like I figured it would be. There was a little window, though—beside the door, and a bigger one that looked back over the decks so the pilot could see what was going on around the boat. I turned the knife and struck the little pane of glass with its heavy wood handle.
    I didn’t know why the monster wasn’t all upon me yet, but I took those seconds like the gifts they were. The window wasn’t big enough to climb through, but it was big enough to reach an arm through. I jammed my hand on in, and unlocked the door from the inside—then opened the door and let myself on through.
    I flung my back against it to close it behind me but something stopped it. Something wouldn’t let the hinges shut and this something was huge, and angry.
    But I’d gotten so close! I was in the pilot house, and my back was bracing against the monster; whatever spell Sister Eileen had cast on it was broken and it remembered me. It wanted me. It had every intention of eating me alive, I knew it like a mouse knows it.
    I was crying then, and screaming, and scooting myself down to sit myself on the floor and hold it closed with my feet against the captain’s instruments, and the wheels, and the calling tubes, and the levers and latches. Anything to hold my position there—anything to keep the door from opening enough to let the thing through.
    It pushed hard—again, again, and