See chapter one for disclaimers. (Or just take my word that I'm not making money off of this.)
…………………………
Any doubts Bill had harbored regarding the fate of the drifting ship, declared the Charybdis by the faded blue paint on her side, fled him as the crew's grappling hooks drew taut between the two vessels, and the wind changed.
"Christ," he choked out, turning his face sharply to the side to catch his breath.
Had it simply been the scent of blood, it would have been different. Bad enough, certainly, to be this strong, but blood at least was a scent that could be associated with life, even when both were pouring out too fast to be held in by anyone's hands. What wafted off the silent Charybdis now wasn't just blood. It was meat, and it was all the confirmation Bill needed. Living things didn't smell like that.
He cleared his throat vigorously, for all the good it did, and made the leap to the other ship's deck. He hadn't taken half a dozen paces before he found the first body. It was face down, collapsed near one of those untouched lifeboats, one arm flung out above the head, the other apparently pinned underneath. There was a pistol lying on the deck, just out of reach of the dead man's fingers, and Bill thought it odd that the man's killer hadn't taken the weapon for himself afterwards.
"God, that's a fright of a fuckin' reek," Downey announced from somewhere behind him. Bill ignored him, and reached to turn the body over, gritting his teeth with the effort. The corpse flopped onto its back, and Bill sucked in a loud gasp.
"What y'got here, Bootstrap..." Just over his shoulder, Bill heard Downey's voice fail him. "What in the hell...?"
Bill Turner could deal with death. He didn't much like it, but he could deal with it. He could, in point of fact, be quite adept at dispensing it. It almost always bothered him, but for better or worse, it didn't leave him white and wordless anymore.
Or it hadn't, until he'd turned this particular body over.
He'd been wrong. The right arm wasn't pinned beneath the body. He had no idea where it was, but it wasn't beneath the body. Bill stared at the place where it should have connected, where the splintered ruin of what had been a shoulder joint jutted out, and wanted very much to believe that this man had been dead before the limb had been removed.
Bill finally remembered how to swallow, and right about the time he managed it, he spotted something in the tattered flesh of the corpse's shoulder that was a different white than the bones. His hand moved as if it wasn't attached to him, and his fingers worked the object loose.
It was slender and serrated, almost half the length of his little finger, and if he hadn't just pried it out of a man who'd died along with all his crewmates on the dry deck of a ship, Bill would have sworn his last shilling that it came from a shark.
TBC