The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 477: The Fall of Port Roadster

The door flew open, and Finn stumbled into the house, clutching Emily in a joyful embrace as if he’d been given a second chance at life.

His soaked clothes were caked with sand from the beach.

Old Man Hand hastily shut the door and shot the bolt home.

Lu Li asked Finn, "Where did you come from?"

"It was the exorcist who let you in," Emily whispered to her husband.

Finn didn't seem to hear her. He was consumed by Lu Li’s question, muttering as if in a daze, "The port... the port... the port..."

"What happened at the port?"

Finn's terrified whisper was enough to tell Lu Li that something was terribly wrong at Port Roadster.

"Mr. Exorcist... Finn..." the landlord murmured, gesturing toward the door. "Let's go into the room..."

He was terrified the creatures from the fog might force their way inside....

The living room of the Bizarre Detective Agency.

Finn and Emily sat huddled together on the sofa.

The landlord had sent the other tenants to their rooms, but for some reason, he lingered, leaning against the door as far from the window as possible.

Finn had calmed down slightly, but his body was still racked with a fine tremor—whether from the cold or from fear, it was hard to tell.

Fighting the shivers, he began to recount what had happened at the port.

Finn was a sailor on the "Sea Horn," a small, three-masted sailing ship.

They had been lucky: the "Sea Horn" had set sail early that morning, narrowly avoiding the quarantine imposed on the port due to the epidemic. But their luck had run out: the same epidemic and quarantine now prevented them from returning.

According to the directive from the United Exorcist Organization, the "Sea Horn" had two options: either dock at the port or remain at sea overnight.

Neither option was appealing. The first meant risking infection from the terrifying plague, while the second meant facing the unknown horrors that the strange fog would bring to the open sea.

So, the captain of the "Sea Horn" made a compromise: they would approach the port, but not enter the harbor.

After a silent prayer that he would see home again, safe and sound, by morning, Finn joined the other sailors down in the hold, which was lit by oil lamps and torches. The pungent stench of fish was overpowering, but it was better than remaining on the darkened deck.

Then the strange fog rolled in, blanketing Port Roadster and the rest of Belfast.

No one could have predicted that disaster would strike so quickly.

Simon, who had been peering out of a porthole toward the shore, scrambled over to the others. "The lights in the port just went out!" he exclaimed anxiously.

"We're three hundred yards from the port, and in this fog, no less. Are you sure you saw anything?"

The other sailors didn't believe him—or rather, they refused to believe him. The fog had only just begun to thicken.

It had all happened too fast.

But Simon was certain he hadn't imagined it. He grabbed the arm of the skeptical first mate and pointed toward the port. "I saw it, I tell you! There's... there’s a workers' house over there. We played cards with Paul in it. The light just went out!"

The first mate peered through the porthole, and a look of pure horror spread across his face, alarming everyone in the hold.

They knew then that something had really happened at the port.

The captain kept insisting they were far enough from the port and that everything would be fine, but it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself.

More sailors crowded around the portholes. Through the thick fog, all they could make out of the port were the dark silhouettes of moored ships and buildings, dotted with a few hazy lights.

Then, what they had been dreading happened again. Less than a minute later, like a spreading plague, a few more lights near the now-dark workers' house blinked out.

It was as if a chunk had been bitten out of the shimmering, fog-bound port.

Panic swept through the hold.

"We can't stay here... We have to find a way to shore..." the first mate muttered, turning from the porthole to face the captain.

The sailors watched them, waiting. After a few tense seconds, the captain snatched a torch wedged between two planks and roared, "All hands on deck! Weigh the anchor!"

They knew danger awaited them on deck, but if the threat from the port reached them, they would all be doomed anyway.

Clutching torches and lamps, the sailors scrambled onto the deck.

Finn followed them out. The scattered lights on deck gave him a false sense of security. He ran to the mast to help raise the sail.

As he hauled on the rope, hoisting the sail, he kept glancing back at the port. The darkness was spreading faster now. He thought he could hear screams carrying across the water, but it might have just been the wind. The clamor on deck made it impossible to hear anything clearly from that distance.

But there was no denying that the darkness in the port was growing.

When the sail was only halfway up, another sailor rushing past yelled at Finn, "We’re not gonna make it! We have to take the lifeboats!"

What?

Stunned, Finn saw that other sailors were already lowering the lifeboats into the water.

He glanced toward the bow. The heavy anchor was rising with agonizing slowness.

That would take minutes—maybe longer!

Who knew what could happen at the port in that time.

The captain didn't want to abandon the "Sea Horn," but the ship wasn't theirs. They were just hired hands, and they weren't about to risk their lives for the vessel.

More and more sailors abandoned their posts and ran for the lifeboats. The captain, occupied with the anchor alongside his first and second mates and a few loyal crewmen, was powerless to stop them.

After a second's hesitation, Finn dropped the rope, ignoring the half-raised sail as it fell, and scrambled for the lifeboats.

There were only two lifeboats, and tragedy struck when a dozen sailors tried to cram aboard. The boats capsized, spilling men into the churning water. One sailor slammed against the gunwale, and Finn saw his body bend like a snapped twig before sinking lifelessly. Several men holding torches fell into the sea and never resurfaced, as if the dark water had simply dissolved them.

Finn didn't want to elaborate on what happened next, only sketching out the subsequent events in the broadest of strokes.

In the end, Finn and two other sailors managed to reach the shore in one of the boats. As he stepped onto the sand, he turned back to look for the "Sea Horn."

The ship had vanished, swallowed by the same darkness that had consumed the port.

Finn was exhausted and terrified. He needed to rest. With his story finished, he left the detective agency, leaning heavily on Emily for support.

The landlord gave Lu Li a fawning good night, offering his assistance should it be needed, before backing out into the hallway and shutting the door behind him.

Silence once again descended upon the detective agency.

Anna materialized, her gaze fixed on a pensive Lu Li.

The bad news wasn't just about Port Roadster.

The chaos at the port meant the epidemic, which had been so painstakingly contained, could now spread throughout Belfast.

And the destruction of the port created another, more immediate problem...

"How are we supposed to get to the Lennon Archipelago now?" Anna asked.