Free White Fangs by Tim Lebbon, Christopher Golden

at the wheelhouse. Every window was smashed by the abuse the steamer had suffered, and the door swung gently back and forth, creaking slightly. There was nobody inside. The wheel was stuck, and even Vukovich's strength would not shift it.
    "I thought a captain would go down with his ship," the Reverend said.
    "But this ship's not —" Sabine began. She was cut off by a series of shuddering impacts, transmitted up to them through their feet. Shards of glass remaining in the windows tinkled to the deck, and the wheel began to turn, the steamer drifting so that the view past the bow started to slowly shift. And then another, grinding impact, and the boat was still again.
    "We're sinking," Maurilio said.
    "How do you know?" Jack asked, and all four men looked at him. Of course , he berated himself They were sailors, with many more years on the water than he'd had.
    "How deep is the river?" Sabine asked, and Jack was troubled that she could not tell. He shrugged.
    "I suspect we will find out soon," Louis said. "We should stay here. Wait."
    "For what?" Maurilio asked.
    "For dawn," Jack said. "Unless we're forced to move, I agree with Louis. We're safest here, as far from the water as we can get."
    "Until the water comes to us. And then we'll get to fight." With that pronouncement of doom the Reverend sat down, sweeping broken glass out from under him and resting his head back against the bulkhead. He sighed and closed his eyes, and Jack wondered what visions he saw.
    "We'll take it in turns to keep watch," Jack suggested.
    Louis chuckled. "You think any of us will sleep, mon ami?"
    They milled around the wheelhouse, waiting for the night to pass and for daylight to show them what had happened. The steamer started listing to the right, and even Jack could sense the vessel slowly filling with water, the engine room and holds flooding, lower decks awash. He tried not to imagine what might happen to anyone left alive down there, perhaps thinking they were hiding from danger. Whatever had attacked them either could not leave the water, or chose to remain submerged . . . and once below water, those lower decks would be accessible through the rents in the hull.
    Several times before dawn, they heard screams. Those hiding were slowly being hunted, found, and killed.
    With dawn came more blood.
     
     
    "It's caught between two rocks," Jack said. "Jammed there. And the force of the river is only pressing it harder."
    "How many are there?" Sabine asked.
    "Four," Jack said. "Perhaps five." It was difficult to tell, because the bodies had been so badly mangled. The others were staring at the rowboat, their expressions set grim. Jack hated to think how temptation must be torturing them. However, they were remaining strong, even Vukovich, and he felt a swell of pride for these once-monster, now men.
    The rowboat they were looking down at must have set out from the stricken steamer while the attack was still underway. Perhaps those inside had hoped the confusion would hide their escape, or maybe it had been an act borne of desperation and terror. Either way, they had not gone far. Whether the slaughter had happened before the rowboat became grounded between rocks or after did not seem to matter. The people were torn and tattered, clothes ripped, eyes wide and disbelieving. Birds landed on the rowboat's gunwale, but strangely the carrion creatures did not seem tempted by the meat. Jack knew that was strange, and he tried probing toward those birds' minds to see what they saw, sense what they sensed. But perhaps he was too tired. In the water below them, and around the listing and stranded steamer, only silence.
    "We should get ashore," Sabine said. "The daylight seems to have driven them away."
    "Unless they're waiting," Jack said.
    "I don't think so." She looked sadly at him, and Jack's heart almost broke. She seemed so lost and pained, and his effort to help her find herself had led to this. Chaos, danger, death. He did not feel responsible, but