Across London, skirting the wharves where the salted air contrasted sharply against the wafting of decay from the occasional bloating body, two young men had recently been let off from intense fighting at the Hertfordshire borders. These young men were none other than James Clark Ross and his good friend Francis Crozier. They’d caught a ride with the former’s uncle, who’d regaled them with stories of the war and England’s valiant men. The elder Ross was something of a braggart, but had a fondness for his nephew, hoping to put all that business over the imaginary Croker Mountains to rest. It was all water-under-the-bridge as he called it. Wisely, James skirted the issue of Mr. Barrow, knowing his uncle’s secret war with the man at the Admiralty was on temporary hiatus due to England’s current troubles.
Boys will be boys, however the saying goes, and the two young men were no different, having a taste for a drink and a pause at one of the many fleshpots lining the wharves. On, the mismatched pair walked. Tall, broad-shouldered Francis Crozier, wavy fair hair a contrast against native Scotsman, James Ross’s dark curls and slighter height.
The Three Jolly Tars tavern was a two-story edifice of crumbling yellow stucco and painted shingle above the doorway announcing its name. Unlike the rest of the Strand’s taverns, this one sat apart from the rest given that no unearthly moans nor sickly sweet odor of decay wafted from the doors. Walking up the front plank, James stamped his boots twice to rid themselves of clinging filth from the streets. The sharp rapport of sound stirred the haze and silence with something akin to human sound. Francis scuffed his boot soles quieter, well aware that speed and quiet were humanity’s prowess against the undead.
Inside, the low ceilinged interior, gloom reigned, sheathing small tables and low-slung chairs into nameless oblivion. The wraparound bar was devoid of patrons as were the grimed shot glasses abandoned. James walked over to the counter, leaning far over the side. The sliver of his profile visible to Francis, tautened.
“Poor bastards.” Ross uttered, pulling back with a wrenching motion. A shot glass nearest the edge toppled with an ear-splitting sound, shattering against the hardwood floor. Simultaneously, former patrons - sailors by the stained duck trousers, blousy shirts and red neckerchiefs they wore, reared up over the barrier of the counter, hissing in thwarted fury.
Ross retreated past the maze of empty tables, refusing to look past their green, moldering skin and fetid rotting breath, afraid to recognize who they had once been. “Come along, Frank. ‘Tis not anything left for the living here.” Ross laid his hand on the other’s shoulder, less steady than before.
“Shan’t we dispose of them?”
“No. Let us leave them here.” Together, they bolted the door from the outside, securing it with a horse’s tether from the handle to the hitching post, then rolling a rain barrel from the side to the entranceway, just as the first of the undead fists rapped from the inside to get out.
“Well, that blows our plan to spend down to the uttermost farthing on women and drink.” Ross said sourly, recovering some from his momentary sadness, “there aren’t any watering holes to be had this side of the City proper.”
“What’s to be done then, James?” Crozier watched an emptied keg roll from a nearby doorstep, bumping along the ruts in the road to come to a stop not five feet from them. His hazel eyes lifted from this unusual occurrence to the poorly clad shambler extending arms missing flesh. A tattered, bloodstained shawl drifted from naked shoulders and the woman’s sightless, milky gaze sighted them eagerly.
“I suppose we haven’t a choice, but to loaf about until duty calls.”