Torment of Tantalus

by Bard Constantine

  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Elena glanced at him in surprise. “Are you serious? These are just choppy waters. We haven’t even really hit the rough stuff yet.”

  Nathan grimaced at the contents of his plate. “It’s not that. It’s this pizza.”

  They sat at one of the long tables in the mess room. Other staff and soldiers were also there, chatting and laughing as if they weren’t about to dive headfirst into an unnaturally destructive storm. Maybe they didn’t understand. Nathan glanced up at the low ceiling, feeling particularly claustrophobic. He would be glad when they finally reached landfall. He had enough of the metallic coffin.

  Elena took a huge bite of her slice and grinned around the mouthful. “Come on, Nate. Who doesn’t like pizza?”

  “It’s not the pizza. It’s the mushrooms. I specifically asked for no mushrooms.”

  “The cook doesn’t like you.” Ariki glanced over at them. His beefy muscles were on full display in an armless shirt, his neck thicker than Nathan’s thigh. The Maori tribal tattoos made his glower even more menacing.

  Nathan pretended to be unimpressed. “Sorry to hear that.”

  “The other soldiers—they don’t like you either.”

  Nathan glanced over. Sure enough, a few of the others had turned that direction, their faces hard as they stared.

  “No surprise.”

  “I don’t like you.” The large man placed his forearms on the table with a thump. “No one likes you.”

  “Oh, give it a rest, Ariki.” Elena swatted him on the bicep. “Nathan is concerned about his pizza.”

  “I can take care of that.” Ariki’s face broke into a toothy grin as he commandeered the massive slice from Nathan’s plate and devoured most of it in a single bite. “Mmmm…pizza. What do you got against mushrooms, my man?”

  “They’re disgusting. Ballooning out the ground anywhere it’s damp and moldy…” Nathan shuddered. “They grow from dead things, you know.”

  Elena laughed. “They do not.”

  “They do. I’m telling you—they’re a fungus. They grow spores and spread diseases.”

  “Now you’re the one going off the rails. I thought you were supposed to be a brainiac.”

  “Why do people keep saying that?”

  “Hey, brainiac.” Ariki rapped the table with swollen knuckles. “They say you ratted out our mission to the public. Why would you do that?”

  Nathan almost went with a standard wise-ass retort, but caught the serious look on Ariki’s face. “Look…it’s not ratting people out when you’re exposing the truth. I want people to know why we’re on this farce of a mission, Ariki. If you think you can trust your Chimera employers, you’re not as bright as I think you are. This isn’t about rescuing any missing lab workers. It’s about pursuing Chimera’s objectives at all costs. They’re only about one thing, and that’s furthering their agenda. They’re risking everything with this move. You think they care who lives or dies along the way?”

  Ariki’s face sobered. “I knew something was up the moment Blackwell showed up in person. So that talk about all this sci-fi crap—that’s for real?”

  “Ask him.” He jerked a thumb at Michael. “He’s the only one who can tell you.”

  “Don’t think your friend is in the mood to talk.”

  Nathan took a second look at Michael, who sat completely still. His eyes were wide, his mouth slightly ajar, as if his consciousness had fled and left behind an empty shell.

  “Jeez, Michael.” Nathan waved a hand in front of Michael’s face. “Snap out of it.”

  Elena grinned. “Now you know how you look when you zone out.”

  Nathan shook his head. “This is beyond zoned out. I think something’s seriously wrong with him. It’s gotten worse since we left the mainland. Just a few minutes ago he was seeing invisible ravens.” He gave Michael’s shoulders a non-too-gentle shake. “Back to earth, Michael.”

  Michael slowly blinked and turned toward Nathan, who felt his breath catch in his throat. Michael’s irises quivered, darkening from blue to pools of liquid black. His gaze was nearly alien, and he sounded even worse, his voice warbled and thick as if his throat was lined with static.

  “We’re beyond the event horizon. There’s no turning back now. It’s here.”

  Nathan tried not to shrink back from Michael’s ebon stare. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Aberration, Nathan. The Aberration is here.”

  At that exact moment, alarm sirens shattered the silence.

  Chapter 11: Zugzwang

  Everything went to hell in less than five minutes.

  The reaction from Elena’s squad had been stellar. Everyone in the mess hall leaped up as Commander Steele’s monotone voice spoke over the intercom.

  “The ship is under attack. Non-combat personnel are to seek cover immediately. Everyone else: kill anything that didn’t come on board with us.”

  The soldiers responded immediately, hustling to grab their gear and break into teams. Elena seized Nathan by the arm. “C’mon, you’re going with me.”

  His mouth was tight and his eyes wide when he nodded. “What about Michael?”

  She turned. Michael stood in the midst of the turmoil, his stare blank and his head tilted as though listening for something. With a nod, he drifted toward the opposite hallway like a man sleepwalking.

  Nate took a step his direction. “Michael—where are you going?”

  Michael never slowed. “It’s in my head. Calling me. Get to a higher floor if you can. You might make it out alive.”

  “What? Are you insane?”

  Michael never bothered to answer. He exited into the hallway and disappeared.

  “Come on, Nate. We have to go.” Elena staggered when the ship rumbled as though struck. “We have to go now!”

  “Don’t worry about your crazy friend.” Ariki clapped Nathan on the shoulder as he passed. “I’ll look after him.”

  Elena seized Nathan, hoping her face didn’t betray her fear. Her heart pounded as she hustled him toward the bridge. The hallway was thick with trotting soldiers and staff, some of their faces tense with barely restrained panic. Red lights flashed, and the sirens continued to blare their ominous anthem.

  A reverberation rippled under her feet, and the ship groaned in response. Elena lost her footing and fell when the hallway buckled. The lights flickered like paparazzi flashes before finally fizzling out.

  “Elena…” Nathan’s disembodied voice sounded on the verge of panic.

  “I’m right here, Nate.” She squinted, trying to focus her vision in the afterglow. Bizarrely enough, her clothes were soaked. Clammy wetness slithered across her skin from several inches of sea water that flowed through the hall. A rank odor filled her nostrils, like rotting meat that had washed ashore. For a terrible moment she was paralyzed by a surge of terror.

  If water has already made it up here, this ship is crippled.

  Someone gurgled beside her.

  She snatched the flashlight from her belt and clicked it on. The sight was so bizarre, so horribly unreal that she almost turned it off again. A man wearing the gray uniform with the emblem of Supply Officer writhed uncontrollably, splashing in the water that streamed across the floor. A glistening, serpentine tentacle was wrapped around his neck and threaded across his body. It quivered as it constricted, cutting off the man’s air supply and squeezing his body so tightly that the sound of his bones splintering was clearly audible.

  Elena scrambled upright, fumbling for her sidearm. The hallway was tainted red by the emergency lights. The light painted the flowing water crimson, but that wasn’t what terrified her.

  It was the thing in the hallway with them.

  It stood upright, but that was the only thing related to it being humanoid. Visibility was difficult, but in the glare of the emergency lights the creature appeared to be a misshapen lump of scaly flesh with disproportionate appendages that sprouted from its body and latched on to anyone
in its vicinity. Some were tentacles, others sickeningly humanoid—gaunt, pale arms with fingers that wriggled like oversized earthworms.

  The hall was thick with screams, grunts and curses. Elena’s weapon drifted back and forth, but struggling human bodies disrupted every attempt at a clean shot. She ducked to the side as an inhuman arm thrust in her direction. The overwhelming scent of putrid meat made her gag. From behind her, Nathan’s voice rose in a shrill scream.

  “It’s got me! Oh God…”

  Elena pressed the muzzle of her pistol against the scabby flesh and pulled the trigger. Black ichor spattered across her face as she continued firing. The arm jerked back, severed at the joint. The creature emitted a piercing sound, the first it had made since it appeared. Long, bristly feelers waved agitatedly from what Elena guessed was the monster’s head.

  She dropped to one knee, steadied her hand, and emptied the clip into the bulbous, malformed body. The piercing cries continued as the creature recoiled from the impact. Other soldiers unharnessed their weapons and followed suit, until the hallway thundered with the sound of gunfire. Muzzle flashes created a flickering effect, capturing the creature’s jerky death throes as it collapsed in a heap of spurting blood and wriggling limbs. The hallway went eerily silent; trickling water and heavy breathing the only sounds.

  The monster’s exoskeleton erupted in an explosion of pulpy chunks.

  Elena leaped back when thousands of creatures streamed from the gaping cavity: slithering eels, tiny crabs and crawfish, isopods, and viperfish. One and all, they were colorless, pale and glistening. Her companions cursed as they kicked and swatted to keep the fleeing creatures at bay.

  Elena counted five other soldiers in the hall with her, each with the same dazed expression she knew was on her own face. They cautiously approached the twitching mass of dying flesh. Its slime-covered members slapped the water-lined floors and walls as though still seeking to latch on to something.

  She recognized Sergeant Chen when he drew closer. His face was tense, his eyes fixed on the bullet-riddled carcass. “Good job, Private.” He kept his handgun aimed as he stepped past the thrashing limbs. Revulsion flashed across his face before his jaw clenched. His weapon fired repeatedly, each retort boomingly loud despite the blaring alarm that continued to wail. The creature jerked a few more times before it finally went limp.

  “Everyone who can move had better get going.” Chen held his arms out for balance as the ship dipped drunkenly. A terrible groaning sound followed, as though the ship were some wounded animal losing a fight for its life. “The ship is going down. Get to the nearest lifeboats and follow protocol.”

  Everyone scrambled to obey without argument, as though all recognized the need to flee from the madness that had just occurred. It didn’t matter where, even if it meant risking death in the heaving storm outside.

  Chen gestured to Elena. “You and Ryder are coming with me. Get him up.”

  She turned. Nathan sat in hallway with water streaming over his legs. His face was ashen, his expression shell-shocked. He didn’t even respond when a thick, translucent-skinned eel slid over his lap on its way to deeper waters. The severed limb that had seized him was a few feet away, the elongated fingers still twitching like spider legs.

  She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Nate, let’s go.”

  He jerked back before recognizing her. Exhaling a shuddering breath, he nodded and shakily stood.

  Chen threw an impatient glance over his shoulder. “Time to roll. Watch my six, Ruiz.” He pointed at a nearby soldier. O’Hara, you’re with us. Take point.”

  O’Hara wiped sweat from his face and nodded. “Where are we going?”

  “There’s an armory in the bridge.”

  Elena reloaded her weapon. “Shouldn’t we be abandoning ship?”

  “Into the storm?” Chen shook his head. “We don’t stand a chance.”

  Elena glanced at the creature’s corpse and shuddered. “We don’t stand a chance in here, either.”

  “Look—every choice is a bad choice, Private. Maybe we can get to the hangar bay and jettison the motorized raft. But I know I’d rather be heavily armed than not if we’re going to run into more of those things. You coming?”

  They wasted no time, sweeping the hallway as they rounded the corner. Muted sounds of gunfire and screams were audible from the lower levels. Elena’s clothes were sodden from the water, but what dampened her forehead and slicked hair across her face was sweat. Humidity from the damaged air system was bad enough to lift steam from the waterlogged floors, soaking them in perspiration. Her heart rattled in her chest at every jolt, every pitch of the dying ship, every muffled barrage of gunfire. Red lights flickered, and the alarm siren never ceased its dire warning.

  “Here.” O’Hara gestured.

  The wind greeted them as they entered, howling as it swept in from shattered windows. Gusts of stinging rain accompanied it, flooding floors already swamped with at least a foot of water. The once state-of-the-art information center was a disaster; consoles sparked from irreversible damage, and bodies lay on the floor half-submerged. Elena felt a stab of guilt at being relieved none of them were people she knew.

  Nathan stared out the window. “Impossible.”

  Elena followed his gaze. For an insane moment she thought towering black mountains were directly in front of them. Lightning flashed, transforming the angry rain into scattered diamonds. In that moment she saw the truth—the ‘mountains’ were colossal waves, dark and towering. White foam bubbled from their crests like saliva on giant, blackened tongues.

  Even in that horrifying moment, her eyes drifted down to the ship’s deck, where long, slithering serpents crisscrossed the surface, constricting as though seeking to crush the ship’s metallic hull by sheer force.

  No. Not serpents. They were tentacles—nightmarish in their impossible girth and length. Whatever was in the dark depths wasn’t a squid, not even one of the giant or colossal species rarely seen and rumored to battle whales. The tentacles were too enormous, far larger than anything seen by human eyes. It was something mythological, something medieval scribes might conceive of when spinning their tales of monsters and gods.

  And it was tearing the ship apart.

  Elena looked up. The black wall of water towered, higher than her eyes could follow. The sound that accompanied it was equally terrifying—a high-pitched shriek that sounded eerily human, if a million people wailed in agony at the exact same time.

  “Brace for impact!”

  Her words were drowned out by the outright fury of the storm and the roaring of the waves as they hurtled downward. Elena desperately looked for anything to secure herself to, but only saw the helpless faces of Nathan, Chen, and O’Hara. They were terrified; mouths open in screams she couldn’t hear over the deafening rumble of the storm.

  Something punched her in the back. It was so powerful, so excruciating that she temporarily blacked out from the jolt of agony.

  When she came to, she was underwater. Panic seized her, unsure of whether she was still onboard or in the sucking, terrifying waters of the tempest. But red illumination was faintly visible—emergency lights that fizzled more than flashed; dying as if aware they were no longer needed.

  A pale face gazed up at her from a few yards away. It was O’Hara. His eyes protruded from his face, in terror or agony, Elena couldn’t tell. Bloody bubbles fled from his open mouth. A thick tentacle wrapped around his entire body like a monstrous anaconda. The glistening flesh rippled, and O’Hara was yanked downward so quickly that only whirling foam marked his passing.

  Elena tried to scream, but water filled her throat and choked her. She flailed blindly; trying to find which way was up.

  The bubbles. Follow the bubbles.

  She exploded from the water and immediately cracked her head against a metallic surface. She fell down again, grasping her head as blood trickled through her fingers. She rose carefully the second time, treading water and sucking in air from the narrow por
tion that wasn’t underwater.

  A voice drifted over from nearby. “Hello? Anyone there?”

  Elena frantically searched the darkness for the source. “Nate, is that you?”

  “Elena?” Nathan sounded as relieved as Elena felt. “I’m over here.”

  She swam that direction as the boat shuddered and creaked around them. Nathan crouched on some sort of ledge. His face was bruised, his eyeglasses missing. Elena had no idea what area of the ship they were in. Everything looked alien, just metal and piping without any indication of direction or location.

  Nathan seized her arms and helped her up. They braced themselves as the ship lurched. A sensation like a sudden drop from a colossal roller coaster preceded another impact, bowling them over.

  Nathan gritted his teeth as he pushed himself to a sitting position. He looked at her with a resigned expression. “This is it. This is how we die.”

  Elena couldn’t argue. They were only safe for a moment. The waters gurgled, rapidly filling any accompanying spaces. There was nowhere to go.

  The shaking worsened. Elena and Nathan were tossed about like marbles in tin can as the ship buckled and groaned. They clasped arms, trying to hang on to one another as black water closed in. Elena was snatched away, yanked by an undertow stronger than she imagined possible. She thought she heard Nathan call her name, but the roar of the storm and churning water drowned everything out.

  Black liquid filled her lungs. She fought to the surface, choking. Again and again, she battled against the superior force of rushing waters while the ship revolved around her. Bodies floated past; some prone in the water, others struggling as she was. She finally managed to wrap her arms around a section of piping and held on as murky waters flooded past. The sounds of rending metal and shrieking winds was all there was in the world, an onslaught of noise and violent tremors that threatened to entirely overwhelm her senses. Elena squeezed her eyes shut and held on for dear life.

  This has to be the end. It has to be.

  Her feet dangled, suspended over empty air. When she opened her eyes and stared downward, she gazed through a gargantuan cavity, outlined by shredded metal and sparking wires. The waters streamed past, out into the storm outside. Her mouth dropped open at the sight.