Fearful Fathoms: Collected Tales of Aquatic Terror (Vol. I - Seas & Oceans)

by Richard Chizmar

  Andy waited a few minutes, but the other girl next to him didn’t stir. Slowly, he slid a foot out of the low mattress and tiptoed out of the room. He thought he was going in the direction of the main room, but instead he found himself at a set of stairs carved into the stone. Shrugging, he decided to explore, and walked down. The walls provided enough illumination to see a few feet in front of him, but it was the smell that ultimately reached him before the source.

  He rounded a corner and found himself in a cave of death.

  A literal boneyard.

  The air stank of rot and dank fish and decay. Stacked against all the walls were piles of bones. Leg bones, rib cages, hands. Stacked like a tower in the center of it all were a hundred human skulls, all of the eyeholes aimed at the doorway. As if they were watching.

  “Oh hell,” Andy whispered. Lying near the doorway were four bodies that were clearly waiting to be disassembled to join the rest. While most of the bones had been picked clean, there was still some yellow fat and red gristle hanging from the joints, and the legs and arms were all still connected to the core. That was what the smell was, he realized. Not-so-old remains.

  Andy backed away from the room, his heart pounding.

  He had a horrible suspicion that if he didn’t find a way out of here, that his recent pleasure would quickly be turning to pain.

  “No fuckin’ way,” he said, and stole back along the corridor, listening carefully to make sure he didn’t stumble on one of the Sirens. This was their lair, and he had no idea where he really was…but he knew one thing—he was not going to be caught. That said, he probably didn’t have much time until someone realized he was missing.

  The open room with the driftwood table was still empty when he finally found it, and he stole across the center, back to the hallway where his captor had originally led him in here from. He passed the place where he’d first awoken in her bed, and moved fast down a corridor that he hoped led back to the outer room where he’d originally found the gold. He couldn’t afford to be cornered now.

  The corridor opened out on a familiar space. Andy smiled. Home stretch. He’d found it easily.

  The chests were just across the room. And so were his backpack and clothes. He ran to them, and pulled his cold, soggy jeans over his legs with difficulty. His shirt was still soggy too; it made him shiver, but he got it on. And then, he picked up the backpack. He could leave it…but to hell with that. After all of this? No. He had earned his reward.

  He slung it over his shoulder and moved to the small pool in the corner where the ocean exit was. Andy put one foot in the water and grinned. From here to the beach before they woke. He could do it.

  That’s when the song hit him.

  A quartet of painful harmony. The most beautiful thing he had ever heard. He turned slightly and saw them, four naked Sirens, all signing in unison, a song that echoed in his mind with inhuman screams and angelic sighs. A song that brought his cock to erection, and his eyes to a leaden droop. A song that made him feel like puking and gorging at the same time. A song that brought every emotion he had ever had back at once, a fury of dreams and nightmares.

  His captor, she of the curled black hair, strode forward ahead of the others, and gripped him by both arms. She continued to sing, but shook her head at him in disgust. Then she lifted the backpack from him and tossed it easily back to the chests. With one palm, she slapped him across the face.

  Between that and the force of the song, Andy fell. The melody rose louder and angrier until he felt his ears grow hot with pounding blood. He was sure his brain was leaking out onto the floor, but he couldn’t move a muscle…. He could only lie there and tremble as they took out their anger on him in song.

  When the pain in his eyes grew to be more than he could bear, he let go. The waters of unconsciousness washed the sound away.

  * * *

  Andy woke naked once more.

  The bed was soft, softer than any bed he’d ever slept in.

  Not only hadn’t they killed him, but they’d made him even more comfortable than before. So…that was something. But what did they want from him? Why had she brought him here and why wouldn’t they let him leave? Surely they weren’t just going to play musical beds with him until he finally got a bad case of erectile dysfunction?

  He opened his eyes and stretched. There were worse ways to be held prisoner, he thought. And then realized he couldn’t move his arms. Or his legs. Shit.

  He craned his head and confirmed that he’d been tied, spread-eagled, to the bed.

  And it wasn’t really a bed, but a thick mattress of something downy soft on the floor. As he looked across the room, he could see two small toddlers hunched over something in the corner. He looked around and saw that the ceiling was very low here, and mobiles made of the white bones of fish heads and colorful seashells twirled and spun. He was in a nursery.

  Something tickled his foot, and he twitched, trying to push whatever it was away.

  There was a faint noise. A baby’s cry.

  Something soft and wet covered his big toe. The wetness was followed by a sound. A coo. Tiny hands on his thigh. Grasping fingers, tickling near his belly, reaching lower to his groin. Touching something that shouldn’t be touched, not by a baby. And then, he felt something wet suck down on him there too. Testing. Tasting.

  No, he panicked. Wrong. No.

  He shook, trying to dislodge the babies, but instead, he only attracted the attention of the two toddlers across the room. They both turned from the toy they’d been playing with, and squealed in delight when they saw what was going on in the bed. They stumbled towards him, and he could see now what they had been playing with.

  Bones hung from the low ceiling. It looked like a ribcage.

  The wet suckle on his toe turned from mildly pleasurable to a sudden bolt of white-hot pain, as the baby’s tiny shark teeth bit down. “Ouch!” he cried, and at the same moment, the wet gnawing on his cock turned from teasing to teething. He writhed against the binds, trying to shake the babies away, but it only had the opposite effect. More teeth bit down on his thigh and his belly. On one of his nipples. And then, the teeth began not just to bite, but to bite and pull.

  And rip.

  “Stop,” he cried out.

  “Shhhhhhh,” a voice said nearby.

  The woman with the black hair.

  She crawled into the bed next to him and patted the head of the babe latched onto his chest. He felt blood running down his ribs.

  She kissed him and shook her head. A cascade of curled black hair fell over him. It trailed down his chest as she shifted. She gently disengaged and moved the child that had bitten him where it counts the most. She bent lower and took the child’s place. Her tongue traced the tooth marks; he could feel the sting of the tiny wounds as her tongue moved across him, soothing him.

  Despite the pain of all the bites, he responded yet again to her provocation. But before he got fully hard, he felt a horrible, sharp stab. His middle went cold, and then the pain came in a nauseous wave. The Siren raised her head from his middle, the remains of his manhood bleeding between her lips.

  She chewed him with razor teeth as he watched, and then swallowed before she bent down to kiss his lips. The blood from his lost cock dripped down her chin to pool on his throat, which had finally begun to scream. She put her fingers on his lips, encouraging him to close them.

  Then she slipped off the bed and moved away, out of his sight as he wailed and swore. He could feel the blood pumping out in a steady heart rhythm between his legs and he cried in desperation, “No, no…please no…” over and over.

  The babies didn’t care. Some of them screamed right along with him as if it were a game…tiny howls that made his spine jerk and his arms twitch uncontrollably. Whenever one of them made a sound, it was as if invisible nails drove into his nerves. Untrained Siren talent.

  One by one, all of the babies in the room climbed onto the bed, drawn by first blood. There were seven of them. The oldest look
ed to be about four. She hovered over his face for a moment, studying him. She had the curly black hair and wide sea-green eyes of his captor.

  At first, the children simply pinched and poked and prodded him, like a human toy. They laughed and gurgled and squealed as they explored his captive body.

  Then a piercing heat burst from his left shoulder as the oldest one bit down. He felt—and heard—his flesh separate from bone.

  Presently, the sounds of play stilled, as the younger children followed the lead of their older sister. Playtime was over.

  The Sirens all began to feed.

  ALONE ON THE WAVES

  Eric S. Brown

  "Contact!" Petty Officer Jenkins reported. "CBDR and fast. Upwards of 40 knots!"

  It took Steve a moment to realize that Jenkins was yelling at him. He still wasn’t used to being the “acting captain” of the USS Night Walker. When he did, he jumped from his seat with a start. "Military?"

  "No transponder, Sir," Robertson shrugged. "Could be anybody or…"

  There were only the three of them on the bridge and they were all playing multiple roles. The rest of the USS Night Walker's crew was dead. Their own survival was nothing short of a miracle.

  When the Kaiju rose from the waves, the great beasts hadn't been alone. With them, they carried the K5 virus into the world of man. Between the war with the Kaiju and the virus, humanity, for all its technology and power, had lasted less than a month. Civilization crumbled as the K5 virus ripped through its heavily populated areas like wildfire before spreading to the more rural regions of the world. At best, one in a hundred exposed was immune to the virus. Another ten or so of that same hundred died from it. The remainder survived but not in a state that could be considered anything remotely human. They were "changed" into creatures dubbed Kaiju Spawn. Their eyes burnt yellow as their skin became scales. The nails of their fingers grew into claws. Teeth were pushed from their mouths as new razor-like ones grew through bleeding gums to take their place. The rate of transformation varied wildly from person to person but was always fast, never taking more than a few hours. Those most susceptible to the virus changed within a matter of minutes. All traces of human intellect were stripped away from those that changed leaving only an overpowering desire to feed. And feed they did on any left alive who weren’t like them. The crew of the USS Night Walker had been no exception. Those who hadn’t turned fought desperately to maintain control of the ship. In the end, they had won but with only six survivors left. One of those died later from his wounds, another took his own life, and the last to die had been the sole surviving, fully qualified engineer, leaving only Robertson, Jenkins, and Steve, himself, to clean up the ship and keep her functional.

  "Hail them," Steve ordered. He outranked both Robertson and Jenkins, but he knew he wasn't cut out for command. Neither of them wanted the job either though so he was stuck with it for the time being.

  "Already have been sir," Robertson answered. "No reply on any frequency I've tried so far."

  The USS Night Walker had power to all its systems. No issue there. However, three men could not run and operate a United States Frigate that was built for a crew of over three hundred trained personnel. They were doing their best however and it was all they could do. Their days were spent on maintenance with one of them always staying on the bridge to monitor both the comm. station and the Night Walker’s radar/sonar array.

  "Should I activate the CIWS, Sir?" Jenkins asked.

  "Robertson?" Steve asked.

  "Still no reply," Robertson answered.

  "We're running out of time here, Steve," Jenkins said, breaking protocol. "The contact will be on us in less than three minutes."

  "If it's a Kaiju, the CIWS isn't going to do more than tick it off," Steve pointed out. "And that's the last thing we want."

  "Steve," Jenkins pleaded.

  "Think!" Steve snapped at him. "If it's a Kaiju, it might shake us around a bit but it isn't likely to waste its time tearing apart a dead ship!"

  "It could tear us apart during that shaking," Robertson added.

  "Could is better than will," Steve argued. "We hit it with the CIWS, and a Kaiju WILL tear us apart."

  "Might not be a Kaiju at all," Robertson rocked back in his chair, turning his head to look at Steve. "And if it's someone finally coming to check on us, it would be best not to blow them out of the water. For all we know, their vessel might be having systems issues. That would certainly explain the lack of a transponder, and them not replying to our hails."

  "Agreed," Steve nodded. "Everybody gear up. We're going out to meet whoever, or whatever, the contact is."

  Steve stood with Robertson and Jenkins watching the small, speed yacht that had come alongside the USS Jima. All of them wore full combat gear borrowed from the Jima's now dead Marine contingent. Steve and Jenkins carried P-90s while Robertson held an automatic shotgun ready. Each of the three men also carried sidearms holstered on their hips, and Robertson was even packing a grenade.

  "Well, that sure ain't a Kaiju," Robertson laughed, staring at the yacht.

  "It isn't military either," Jenkins said. "Pirates?"

  "We are a pretty big and nice looking target to anyone left alive on the waves," Steve admitted. "We got food, water, fuel, and weapons onboard."

  "Can't be more than a few dozen people on a ship like that one," Robertson commented. "If it's pirates, they've picked the wrong bloody ship to mess with. Oorah!"

  "You are not a marine, man," Jenkins sighed. "Accept it already."

  "Binoculars," Steve extended a hand towards Jenkins who passed a pair to him.

  Steve raised them to his eyes and zeroed in on the yacht. There was no sign of its crew on its main deck or anywhere for that matter. Somebody had to have been at the yacht's helm though to pilot it up to the Jima and bring her alongside.

  Then Steve saw them. He jerked the binoculars down, took a breath, and raised them again. The reason no one aboard the yacht had tossed over lines to Jima was that the crew hadn't needed them. The crew had left the yacht and was now in the water, swimming towards her.

  "What is it?" Robertson demanded.

  "It's Kaiju Spawn," Steve answered, the fear he was feeling abundantly clear in his voice.

  "You're freaking kidding!" Jenkins ragged. "Spawn can't helm ships!"

  "Apparently they can now," Steve flung the binoculars aside to take hold of the P-90 that dangled from him by its shoulder strap. "I counted seven of the things in the water, and two already climbing up the portside hull to the main deck."

  "Frag it, frag it, frag it," Jenkins was mumbling.

  "We got no choice but to engage them," Robertson said. "Hiding and hoping they go away isn't an option."

  "I know," Steve frowned. "Best we do it and get it over with, one way or another."

  The three men raced towards the Jima's main deck. By the time they arrived, the first two Kaiju Spawn were over the side of the ship and stood facing them. The creatures flashed gleaming rows of teeth at them as they snarled and raged at the humans who had stumbled into their path.

  "Take them out!" Robertson screamed as he opened up with his automatic shotgun. His first shot gutted the closest of the Kaiju Spawn. The creature went sprawling onto the deck with chords of its intestines leaking from its ruptured abdomen.

  Steve followed Robertson’s example, hosing the Kaiju Spawn who were just climbing over the deck’s railing with a stream of automatic fire. Several of the monsters howled in pain as the rounds bit into them but only one lost its hold and toppled back off the ship into the waves below.

  The other of the two Kaiju Spawn that had already been fully aboard the ship charged Jenkins. Jenkins met it with a burst from his P-90. Bullets tore at the scales of it right arm and shoulders, sending chunks of meat flying into the air but didn’t so much as slow the thing down. It plowed into Jenkins, knocking him from his feet.

  “Jenkins!” Steve screamed, sweeping his P-90 around towards the spot where the man and mo
nster wrestled, but didn’t dare try to take a shot at the Kaiju Spawn. Odds were he’d hit Jenkins too if he did.

  Kaiju Spawn were far stronger than humans. A single swipe of the thing’s claws left Jenkins throat a mess of tattered flesh, and his body twitching, as he bled out on the deck underneath the monster.

  Robertson’s shotgun thundered. The head of the Kaiju Spawn sitting atop Jenkins’ corpse disintegrated in an explosion of blood, bone fragments, and brain matter.

  “Your sector!” Robertson barked. “Focus on your sector!”

  Steve snapped out of the shock that had locked him down for a moment and spun to see that all of the other Kaiju Spawn were on the Night Walker’s main deck with them now. The creatures were so freaking fast. Cursing, Steve jerked his P-90 up and held the weapon’s trigger tight. The lead Kaiju Spawn racing at him was caught full on. It lurched about, staggering backwards as the P-90’s rounds ripped its torso to shreds. The Kaiju Spawn finally flopped onto the deck and lay dead as the P-90 clicked empty. Steve ejected its spent magazine and fumbled in his attempt to ram a fresh one into the weapon. Frustrated and desperate, he swung the P-90 around in his hands and used it as club. Its stock broke apart as he smashed it into the face of the next Kaiju Spawn to lunge at him. The once human thing’s nose caved inward from the blow. Steve hammered the Kaiju Spawn with what remained of the P-90 again before it could recover, catching the monster off balance. The second blow took it down though it was far from out. He could hear Robertson still blazing away with his shotgun even as he yanked his sidearm free of the holster on his hip. Another Kaiju Spawn was almost on him as he shoved the barrel of his Glock into the thing’s face at point blank range and pulled the pistol’s trigger.

  The Kaiju Spawn whose nose he had broken was already on its feet again. With an angry roar, it leapt at him, knocking his Glock from his hands. Steve looked into its burning, yellow eyes and saw death staring back at him. The Kaiju Spawn tackled him. The two of them thudded onto the deck, a mass of flailing limbs. The monster’s claws slashed across his chest, leaving bloody trails of torn flesh in their wake as Steve fought to get out from under it. Steve drew the combat knife tucked in the top of his boot and plunged its blade into the side of the Kaiju Spawn’s neck, twisting the blade rapidly back and forth. The monster half squealed, half gargled, choking, as blackish blood poured out of its open mouth. Steve released his hold on the knife, dodging another swipe of the Kaiju Spawn’s claws as the thing used its other hand to try to pull the blade buried in its neck free. With all his strength, Steve reached up, slamming his fist against the Kaiju Spawn’s hand that gripped the knife’s hilt, driving the blade deeper still into the creature’s neck. The monster went limp as it died and collapsed on him. Steve rolled its corpse off, scrambling to get up and away from it.