This animal was all but dead on its feet.
If it really was there at all.
Lonny hadn’t yet taken a single puff of his contraband, and just smelling it in the tin wouldn’t have any hallucinatory effect, so maybe he’d stepped into one of those undetected pockets of gas Eddie Capstan warned them about, and it was affecting his brain, making him see and hear things that weren’t really there. That’s how the Oracle at Delphi worked, he’d seen it on the History Channel.
But the animal looked real enough, it certainly smelled real enough, in fact it stank to the heavens, yet it couldn’t be real.
And if it was, in its current state it presented no threat to a man of his size and strength.
He lowered the metal tool and heaved a sigh, a heavy mixture of relief and sympathy. It might not be any type of animal he recognised but that didn’t mean it wasn’t suffering and didn’t need help.
“Hey there, boy, what the hell are you doing down here?”
He got down on one knee, stretching the cotton fabric of his overalls tight over a massive thigh, and put out his hand, showing he meant no malice.
The animal, seemingly hesitant at first, crept forward to sniff at it.
Lonny allowed it time to take its readings of him, and when it was done accepted a rasping lick from a dry hot tongue with the texture of coarse sandpaper.
It certainly felt real.
“You thirsty?” he said, getting to his feet. “Let me find you some water.”
He emptied a collection of loose nuts and bolts from a plastic bucket and filled it half full of fresh water from the tap in the washroom.
This the animal was grateful for, sooking and lapping at it greedily. The cool clean liquid quickly slaked its thirst.
“Better,” Lonny said, and ran his hands along the animal’s bony flanks, over every rib and vertebrae, pausing at its chest to feel the rapid irregular drumming of its heart beneath his hand.
“There’s no need to be scared,” he said, keeping his voice calm and low. He had dogs at home and knew it was the tone, not the words, which mattered. Maybe it would work with this miserable creature too.
“I bet you’re hungry.” He rummaged in his pockets for a snack, but found them empty. “Sorry boy, I’ve got nothing. I tell you what … I’ll take you up to the galley. There’s lots of food up there. We’ll have that belly of yours full in no time.”
He looked around for something he could use as a leash. Finding a suitable length of nylon strapping he formed it into a slack noose ready to slip over the animal’s neck.
“The guys upstairs will never believe I found you down here,” he said as he worked. “I bet them bastards on the boat dumped you here on purpose, didn’t they boy? Well don’t you worry, buddy. We’ll have you as fit as a fiddle in no time.”
He reached out one empty hand, the other hiding the rudimentary leash behind his back. The dog/rat creature sat perfectly still, expressionless eyes staring straight ahead.
“Easy now,” cooed Lonny, and laid a thick warm hand on the animal’s curiously misshapen head. “Good boy.”
Brimming with confidence at his supposed mastery of the beast, he brought out the leash and made to slip it around its neck, bringing it to within inches of its snout.
The pain of the bite, short and sharp like a red hot needle piercing his skin, made him drop the leash and withdraw his hand.
“Hey! That wasn’t nice. Bad dog!”
Lonny examined his hand to see if blood was drawn, lifting the finger to his mouth, to sook on it as would a child with a splinter.
The dog-beast merely squatted calmly on its bony haunches, staring at him with those opaque white blanks as if waiting for something.
Lonny had been bitten by dogs many times, but never before had one brought about this peculiar sensation. He didn’t like it and looked closer at the wounded fingertip.
A single drop of blood oozed from a puncture in the skin, paused and then did an about turn and retreated back into the hole.
Blood shouldn’t do that! Blood ran out, not in. Neither should skin suddenly blanch bloodless white and tingle like the worst ever case of pins and needles.
Something was not right here.
Lonny could only gape in fascinated horror as the puncture began to widen, opening into a split in the terminal pad of his index finger, its margins at first a pale pink, rapidly deepening to rose, then shifting through all the hues of red, past scarlet, through to an unhealthy purple tinged with black - and it was spreading, the whole of the fingertip down to the first knuckle already affected, its nail detached, leaving behind a soggy pit.
Lonny squealed terrified air from his lungs as the discolouration spread over his hand, flesh bubbling and expanding, rippling like a bag of worms as it separated from the structures beneath, sloughing away like chicken skin from a well cooked drumstick to fall to the floor with a sickening plop, exposing bone and muscle, ligament and tendon.
And the pain. Such agony. Intense, burning, like having his limb plunged into molten metal.
His large wet eyes gaped over a mouth hanging open like an empty sock, whimpering like a bewildered child, his hand clamped over his wrist, squeezing tightly in an effort to dam the spread of disintegration.
A futile gesture.
Its progress continued unabated, racing like wildfire throughout his entire body, inside and out. The accompanying pain intensified to a searing torture, a torment which defied description, yet at the same time exquisite in its intensity. Sadly, he had no time to scream out his appreciation of the rapturous ecstasy of his own dissolution before it engulfed him.
With a syrupy wet gulp the six foot five inch solid bulk frame of Lonny Dick became little more than a glistening pile of bone and giblets encased in navy and white cotton, neatly decorated with radio, gas monitor and ID lanyard.
The whole process, from first bite to steaming heap of entrails, had taken no more than two minutes. The creature gave the pile time to settle before he rose and came forward to nose through it, searching for the most nutritious parts - the liver, the kidneys, and the heart.
Why those organs in particular? Not only were they fat and protein rich, but their cells were particularly densely packed, and in those cells, nuclei, and in those nuclei - the body’s richest most abundant source of deoxyribonucleic acid.
The double helix of DNA formed into long twisted strands - the blueprint of life packaged into handy little chromosomes; a complete copy of the genome in every cell. And there were billions of such cells.
Finding the choice portions he needed, he fed, bolting them down without pause for breath, his first real food for over six weeks.
With their rich complement of genomic cells safely packed away and already being processed, he continued consuming. The remaining flesh and organs were more than enough to satisfy his hunger.
He tore at intestines, chewed on lungs and lapped at blood, alternating between fat and flesh, muscle and bone - balancing his intake, not favouring one thing over another, and with every morsel he swallowed he grew stronger, until after thirty minutes of steady dining nothing much remained of Lonny Dick but his hands, feet and head, along with a collection of stripped bones and unwanted leftovers, sitting in a pool of coagulating blood and semi-liquefied skin.
Dining complete and appetite sated, the creature licked his lips to remove sticky residue, belched, and rubbed his hands over a belly distended like a happy Buddha.
Unable to take another bite he once more retired to his dark corner, curled into a foetal ball on the pile of blankets, and fell into a deep postprandial torpor.
Yet more than mere sleep this was more than simple digestion. As the body rested complex processes were set to work, processes which involved the breaking down of proteins and fats, of minerals and metals into their composite molecules and atoms, of decoding genetic material, of rearranging it, of rebuilding and reforming it, of … assimilation. Of becoming. For this was the true nature of the creature,
Euterich.
Chapter 11
The process would take time, there was a lot of damage to repair and it would not be hurried.
As Euterich slept he dreamed, fetching forth memories of his most recent stolen life and his subsequent imprisonment here, a result of his boredom and selfish desire for yet another change.
The boat trip he took in search of adventure took him into the fog, and then came the swell and the boat being hit by a freak wave before vanishing beneath him.
He twitched in his sleep as he struggled for breath against the imaginary water in his lungs, fighting his fantasy half drowning, swept helplessly along by the swell until by some miracle it smashed him against one of Bravo’s legs.
The climb, up, up, up the ladder, hundreds of feet up, to heave open the escape hatch in the belly of the beast, to scramble through and slam it closed behind him, weakened and exhausted by his ordeal, falling into a state of deep unconsciousness.
On awakening twenty-four hours later he found himself not safe, but a prisoner; chilled to the bone, starving, thirsty, dying.
In his nightmare he cried out, and his reformed fists clenched and unclenched in recollection of their pounding on the workshop door and their battering on the solid window when the supply boat came. He moaned aloud, his re-knitting shoulder muscles aching as they re-enacted his heaving at the hatch lid which solidly resisted his failing strength, remaining closed.
His throat burned from calling out, pleading in vain for help, and his eyes spilled tears of pain and frustration in memory of how he fell to his knees and howled like a beast when he came to understand no one could hear him.
And then his breathing settled as the dream reached the stage of realisation, when he took the time to think, and he knew what this place was, and it wasn’t abandoned, merely … unoccupied.
Someone would come back, if only to check it was still in one piece. When that would be, he had no idea, but come they would. All he had to do was have a little patience.
The newly formed nostrils in the sleeping face flared as he remembered the smell of oil and grease and dirt as he gathered together whatever he could to make himself a rudimentary nest in the darkest corner of the room - packing blankets, dust sheets, tarpaulins – and settled down to bide his time in hibernation, until rescue came. Or to die. Whichever came first.
Twelve hours of careful recombination and readjustment later, it was done, reconstruction complete, apart from a few minor points which would put themselves right in their own time.
A languorous sigh, a stretch, a yawn, and from where the scabby unhealthy rat/dog creature had lain down to rest a large naked man now rose, his flesh the colour of unbaked clay, mottled with blue, the patches of prickly black fur shed and replaced with fine fair hair. The once open weeping sores were all but healed, closed over with silvery pink patches of new skin.
The man got to his feet, a little unsteadily at first, and inhaled to the full capacity of his lungs, filling them with cold fresh air. He swung his arms and circled his back, stretching like a runner before a marathon, encouraging blood to circulate and bring a healthy bloom back to his newly acquired human hide.
The sense of being out of that disgusting un-form, neither his nor the rat’s but an unwholesome mixture of both, was not just one of freedom, but of pure jubilation.
This new body was young, muscular and coursing with testosterone, and suited him well indeed, like slipping out of tight uncomfortable dance shoes and into a pair of soft and pliable carpet slippers.
He could stretch his limbs and move freely, and he could think again. He had a new set of memories to add to his own, ready to explore, a whole new library waiting to be read.
Euterich ran his hands over himself, down his smooth hairless chest, over the expanse of a hard well worked stomach, down between muscular thighs to a nest of dark blond pubic hair and to his genitals, somewhat disproportionately small for a body so large.
Experiencing a brief pang of disappointment at what he found, he thought maybe the chilly air might have contributed to a certain degree of … shrinkage. It had certainly brought out goosebumps on the rest of his naked skin. Once he warmed up maybe things might look a little more appealing.
He had been cold for long enough down in this hole, it was time to seek warmth and a little comfort, to see what else Lonny’s life had to offer. He took a few steps around the room to get the feel of moving about in human form again. This body was big, bigger than any he’d had before, and it would take a little getting used to, but it would do … for the time being.
Picking up Lonny’s identity badge he examined the details on it.
“Lonny Dick. What an unfortunate name, my friend. I bet you were the butt of many a jest, weren’t you?” he said. His voice sounded oddly feeble after an age of neglect, and he cleared his throat and swallowed saliva to lubricate it. He practised a few words as he gathered up the hapless Lonny’s remains into a plastic tarpaulin, adding the mighty wrench for ballast, and tied them up with the makeshift leash.
While he worked Euterich searched the memories he had transferred from Lonny’s mind to find out why the man had been down in the equipment dock last night all by himself. He found it easily enough - beer, dope and hard core porn.
Lonny, he discovered, was not quite the dim-witted imbecile people took him for. Behind his façade of simple-mindedness lurked a devious criminality. Not only had he managed to smuggle several dozen bottles of strong lager aboard in one of the shipping containers, and a plentiful supply of cannabis in his equipment bags, he also imported a goodly crop of dirty magazines.
He also had it in mind to systematically trawl every room he could, whenever he had the chance, for anything he could purloin, to fence when back onshore. Lonny Dick was nothing more than a dirty minded, not so little, thief.
Last night he had sneaked down here to indulge in a little secret drinking and smoking, and have a furtive wank over naked airbrushed females with plastic tits and shaved pussies. Crafty bastard.
But why here in the cold and dark of an equipment store? Why not in his nice warm bunk? Because although it was a might uncomfortable, it was safe, that’s why. In his cabin, jacking off was expected, encouraged even, but drinking alcohol and smoking dope - two of the most illegal substances likely to incite the wrath of both the company and the law - would soon be sussed out, and if he got caught it would be considered not far short of a hanging offence, especially if he didn’t share.
A whiff of his breath and a look in his eyes, bloodshot with pupils the size of doorknobs, and Eddie ‘Up Your Arse’ Capstan would anoint himself judge, jury and executioner. This new occupant of Lonny’s body would have to be careful if he was to enjoy his recreations in peace.
After using the lavatory for the purpose for which it was intended, Euterich was now wearing Lonny’s skin and looking through Lonny’s eyes, yet thinking with his own refreshed brain, stood naked before the mirror over the basin in the washroom examining his new features – he hadn’t had blue eyes for a while.
This pair was set in a heavy uneven face, with a broad nose which looked as if it might have been broken more than once. With full lips and hooded lids he was far from handsome, but his well mauled appearance gave him a distinct ‘don’t mess with me’ character.
He turned his head from side to side to see all aspects and check his profile, exaggerating a grin which would frighten a cougar. It showed all his teeth. Not the dangerous needle-like dentition of his natural form, or the gnawing blades of the rat, but small even pegs. He moved his tongue over them, measuring out their length.
They would not be particularly efficient when it came to tearing through flesh and bone, but they would suffice for tackling soft, bland, human food.
The tip of his tongue met roughness behind his left canine - a cavity, and tasted the tang of metal - fillings.
“Not your best choice,” he said, addressing the reflection. “But beggars can’t be choosers.”
He p
ut on the big man’s clothes and boots, retrieved his gas detector and ID lanyard, washed and dried his hands, ran his large fingers through his close cropped blond hair, and headed back to the main workshop.
Still one last job to do before he could join the others and take Lonny’s place among them. He dragged the plastic sheet containing Lonny’s leftovers across the floor to the escape hatch, turned the handle and heaved open the cover, easy now with these new strong muscles, revealing the long drop to the pounding ocean below.
Fighting off a wave of vertigo at the shifting mass tempting him to plummet into it, he kicked the plastic wrapped bundle through the hole and watched it drop into the water below.
Weighed down with the metal tool, it should have sunk without a trace. Instead, air caught in the folds of the tarpaulin formed it into a bubble, keeping the package afloat to bob around like a bright green man o’war, until a wave snatched it up and mashed it against the support gantry.
Caught in the current, time and again it crashed against the metal skeleton until the lashing worked free and the contents spilled. Freed from its load, the empty plastic sheet flattened out and continued to ride the surface, each wave taking it further and further away from the platform.
Euterich had no worries. In as little as half an hour it would be out of sight completely, and one more piece of plastic flotsam floating around the world’s oceans would attract no undue attention. There were no markings on the sheet to identify its source.
Satisfied his activities had gone unnoticed, he closed the hatch. One of Lonny’s thoughts pushed itself forward. The group had agreed on pancakes for breakfast, with maple syrup.
Although his stomach still carried some of the savoury meal from the previous evening, he rather fancied something sweet and was sure he could fit some in. A couple more chores and he would be done - dismantle the nest, clear up the latrine, generally tidy up.
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