“You might be right,” said Eddie. “They knew it wasn’t safe when they sent us out here, and now that it’s all gone belly up and proved it, they’re running scared of the bad publicity and the lawsuits. They’ll be running round like headless chickens, not knowing what to do, so they’re doing nothing. The longer we stay out of the way …”
Silence.
Cameron chuckled nervously into his mug, shook his head and took a quick sip.
“What’s so funny?” said Eddie.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing doesn’t have you laughing like a drain. Tell me.”
Another sip. “Call me crackers, but … Lonny dead, Reynolds’ suicide, Jock missing, and all in the last month? It’s like some macabre countdown. As if we’re in one of those cheesy slasher movies. You know the ones, where there’s a bunch of shiny happy teenagers holed up in a cabin in the woods being stalked by some serial killing maniac with a great big fuck-off knife who picks them off one by one.”
Silence.
“Told you you’d laugh.”
Eddie, not laughing, took a long slow sook from his cup, watching Cameron over the rim.
“The same thought crossed my mind,” he murmured. At that moment Matt Shaw pushed open the doors and strolled into the lounge, closely followed by Lydia Ellis.
“Not a word,” Eddie cautioned.
Cameron nodded and concentrated on his tea.
“Just taking a break,” said Eddie. “Tea’s in the pot. Help yourselves.” … “Everything okay?” he said casually when the new arrivals were settled in the chairs and on the sofa. He received a general consensus of confirmation.
“Not like Spanner to be MIA when there’s a brew going,” said Shaw. “He’s usually the first here. I swear he can smell the water boiling.”
“He was storing his stuff in the dog house,” said Eddie. “I told him to stay there until the lights came back on.”
“He’s probably still in there having a fag,” said Cameron. “He’ll be here soon enough.”
Before Eddie could object to the flagrant rule breaking yet again, Shaw chipped in, “No Prof either? I’ve never seen anyone drink as much tea as him. Sometimes I swear you can see it swilling behind his eyes.” He took a drink from his cup. “Is it just me, or does anyone else think he’s a bit of an oddball?”
“Meaning?”
“I dunno, he seems …” Shaw shook his head as if dismissing a stupid thought. “Nah. It’s nothing.”
You too?
“Go on, say what you mean.” Eddie’s expectant gaze encouraged him to speak his thoughts.
“I was going to say he seems different to how he was when he first arrived,” said Shaw. “He was a decent sort then, polite and friendly, and despite him being a nosey bugger, you could talk to him. But recently, since things have been happening, it’s like he’s a totally different person. He’s turned cold and aloof, and the way he looks at you–” He shrugged and shivered. “No, not at you, through you; like he’s trying to see what’s inside.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Lydia. “I’ve spent a lot of time with Lawrence, probably a lot more than you, and I can tell you he is a very nice man. There should be more like him.”
“You can think what you like, but I know he gives me the creeps. It’s like he’s always watching us, weighing us up.”
“No. You’re wrong about him Matthew. He’s completely harmless; a gentleman and a gentle man. As ordinary as they come. He wouldn’t harm a fly,” she insisted.
“Yeah, well, it’s always the quiet ones you have to watch closest isn’t it?” murmured Shaw.
A throwaway comment at which Cameron and Eddie exchanged glances, and Eddie felt his bowels turn to liquid. With restrained urgency he rose from his chair and headed for the door.
“Mr Cameron, would you come with me for a moment please? There’s something I need to discuss with you.”
Cameron drained his cup. “Sure boss.”
As he passed Shaw, Eddie whispered in his ear. “Keep an eye on Miss Ellis. Don’t let her out of your sight.” Although not fully understanding Eddie’s earnest warning look, Shaw still returned a silent nod.
Eddie kept up a brisk pace all the way to the control room, hardly pausing as he took the stairs,
“What’s the problem boss?”
Eddie did not answer his companion as he snatched at the radio at his shoulder. “Craig? You there? Over.”
Static.
“Spanner, respond, over.”
Silence.
“Doctor Brewer?”
Nothing.
He picked up his pace to a gentle jog, Cameron trailing behind. “What’s up boss?”
Still no answer.
Into the control room and over to the window to look out over the deck. Too dark to see anything out there now. A flick of a switch, and orange and white arc lights flared into life, scaring a pair of herring gulls into flight.
“Want to tell me what’s going on boss,” Cameron insisted.
“Craig and Brewer have both been out of touch for nearly an hour,” Eddie said, scanning the view below. “Call me paranoid, but I won’t be happy until I see those two in front of me … together … alive.”
“And you want me for …?”
“Safety in numbers. I don’t want anyone to be on their own. From now on we’re operating a buddy system.”
“Why?”
“Like I said, I’m just being paranoid.”
Eddie activated the public address system, his voice blaring out from the speakers distributed over the platform.
“Craig McDougal, Doctor Brewer, please report to the control room on the double.”
Ten minutes passed.
Neither Brewer nor McDougal appeared.
He repeated the message.
Chapter 36
Craig McDougal blew a smoke ring toward the orange tinted skylight of the locker room as Eddie’s tinny voice faded away.
“Our lord and master calls us,” he said, and sat up from where he had been resting his head in Euterich/Brewer’s lap.
Euterich snorted derogatively down his nose.
“Let him wait. I’m sick of dancing to his tune. Eddie Capstan is just a little man trying to be a grown up, given more responsibility than he can cope with, out of his depth and pissing in the wind, making up for having a tiny dick by lording it over the rest of us with some over exaggerated sense of authority. A right little Napoleon.”
McDougal laughed. “Don’t like him much do ye?”
“Not much.”
McDougal took a last drag from his cigarette and stood. “I need a slash affar we show oor faces. I’m ready for a brew. Hope it hasnae stewed.”
A few minutes later he emerged from the toilet, adjusting the contents of his shorts and zipping up his overalls, to find an arm suddenly wrapped around his neck, encasing his Adam’s apple in the crook of its elbow. “Hey, steady oan, that’s a bit tight,” he protested.
Euterich planted a wet kiss against his cheek. “I just wanted to say thank you very much for making my first time so delightful,” he said. “Be assured, it is one experience I will never forget.”
“Let’s hope it’s nae yer last,” wheezed McDougal.
Euterich cupped his left elbow with his right hand and increased the tension. “It won’t be, but I’m afraid to say … it has been yours.”
McDougal wriggled against the hold. “Hey! What’re you doin’? Lemmego!”
To no avail.
“Did you know, that when successfully applied –?” Tighter still, “– a rear naked choke can cause unconsciousness in about ten seconds?”
“Nnnnggggghhhh.”
“You didn’t? Unfortunately, get the timing wrong and you can kill your target. I wonder just how long that will be. Shall we try it?” A final muffled whimper, a futile snatch at the clamp around his throat, and McDougal’s pop-eyed blue-faced body sagged senseless in Euterich’s arms.
“Hmmm. Not long at all it
would seem.”
Chapter 37
No McDougal. No Brewer.
Eddie’s agitation mounted.
“Cam, go down to the fab shop on sub level 2. The Prof should have been down there clearing out and packing up. He might not have heard the call. I’ll check the spider deck and the dog house for Spanner. He might have done as he’s told for once and still be holed up in there, although I doubt it. He’s probably sloped off to the smoko.”
“But boss, a few minutes ago you said we should stay together.”
“I know what I said!”
“So which is it to be? Do I stay or do I go?”
Silence.
What to do? Make a decision.
“Forget what I said. Just go,” said Eddie.
“You sure?”
“Aye I am. On your way.”
“Yes boss.”
“And Cam?”
“Yes boss?”
“Watch your back, eh?”
Cameron nodded and left.
Eddie exited by the little used external door, to be blasted by a stiff northerly wind and driving rain as he slipped and skated down the metal stairway to the deck below. Without his coat he was soon frozen to the bone and drenched through.
He reached the safety rail and peered over. He could just about see the spider deck below him. It looked deserted. He called out for McDougal.
His words, carried out to sea by the wind, went unheard. He picked his way down the rickety steps, taking care to mind his head with the low clearance, and called again.
No response. Definitely nobody there. Back on the main deck he strode quickly towards the main access door, keeping an eye out for the man sheltering in a niche somewhere, sneaking an illicit cigarette.
He heaved the door open and stepped inside, slammed it shut and engaged the clamp, sealing out the worst of the weather, and stood there shaking raindrops from his hair. He stopped.
What was that? Voices?
No, one voice. Faint.
From the direction of … the locker room.
Bloody Spanner!
He marched up to the door, grabbed the handle and wrenched it open, intending to give the incumbent a piece of his mind for making him wet and cold.
“I told you to stay where you–”
The sight which met his eyes froze the blood in his veins and made him stagger where he stood. The air ejaculated from his lungs carried with it a reflex cry of mindless horror.
Euterich’s head snapped up, frenzied eyes sparking, lips curled back in a snarl, exposing teeth stained with red. With the quicksilver agility of a scalded cat, he sprang to his feet, leapt over the prostrate McDougal and barged a stunned Eddie against the far wall of the corridor, collapsing him to his knees before racing full pelt down the corridor and out of sight.
Eddie recovered his wits to find his assailant long gone, leaving him alone with the grisly spectacle before him - Craig McDougal, flat on his back, face an unfetching shade of blue, lips purple, half closed eyes staring up at the skylights, overalls and underwear pulled down over his thighs, exposing his flaccid genitalia.
Under a T shirt stained red, tucked tight under his chin, his stomach had been quartered, equally divided by two intersecting incisions, one midline, one transverse. What inexplicable compulsion made Eddie crawl on his hands and knees to get a closer look, he never understood.
The skin and fat layers had been peeled back and muscle divided, revealing a nest of pale pink snakes, wet and shiny and smeared with scarlet.
Some of them had been pulled out and discarded to allow access to McDougal’s liver, which now lay on the floor, a glistening purplish red mass, triangular in shape, except for the piece missing.
The piece Lawrence Brewer had in his mouth before he fled this scene of inhuman butchery.
“Gnnnnnnnnnhhhhhhh.”
Knocked back by the unexpected sound Eddie scuttled on his backside, feet scrabbling for purchase, until he came up against the wall again and could go no further.
McDougal was still ALIVE!
His abdomen opened like a pig on a butcher’s slab, liver removed and partly eaten, yet he was still ALIVE!
As Eddie stared, a bubble erupted from McDougal’s lips, expanded like a transparent red balloon, then vanished into a scarlet rivulet which dribbled down his cheek to drip onto the waffle mat.
He’s breathing!
Do something! Help him!
Yet Eddie could not move, nor could he breathe, or blink, his whole being remained frozen to the spot in nothing short of pure abject fear. Another bubble, another dribble, another gurgling moan.
McDougal’s right hand twitched, spasmed into a tight claw for a count of two, relaxed, and he moved no more.
Eddie forced himself to suck in a short gasp of air, which he expelled in a breathy whisper.
“Craig?”
No response. Not that he expected one. No way could he be alive now. No way. He called again, just to be sure. “Craig?”
Nothing now but dead silence.
His eyes still locked on the corpse, peeled for the tiniest movement, Eddie felt for his radio, only to find his hand shaking so violently he could not depress the button.
He closed his eyes and concentrated on stilling the tremor, reached again, and stopped. If he used the radio, everyone would hear, including Lydia. She might be scared, or worse, curious, and come down here to see for herself. He would use the phone instead.
With force of will he worked his way up the wall until he was on his feet, took the two strides necessary to reach the door, snatched at the handle, and pulled the wood into the hole with such a slam, it could be heard two storeys up.
The revulsion now out of sight, he had to keep it that way. Having no key and no other means of disabling the lock nor of attaching a notice, he opted for writing a message on the bare wood itself. But what to write? Keep it simple and effective.
KEEP OUT. DISEMBOWELLED CORPSE perhaps?
“Don’t be so fecking stupid!”
He selected a black Sharpie from the collection of pens in his breast pocket and spelled out in large block capitals:
DANGER! DO NOT ENTER! GAS!
He underlined the word ‘gas’ three times for emphasis. Only a fool would ignore such an explicit warning. He signed his name below, making the order official.
Satisfied it was the best he could do, he set off down the corridor towards the nearest room with an internal telephone. He had to warn his surviving crew to be on their guard. They had a homicidal maniac on the loose, one who had to be tracked down before he claimed another victim.
Eddie’s mind raced faster than his unsteady jog. What made Brewer do what he did to McDougal, and why? What had Craig ever done to him?
Is that what happens when someone has so much knowledge stuffed in their brain that one more piece of information, one more nanobyte of data, crushes their neural cortex against the inside of their skull and drives them so batshit crazy they attack a perfectly innocent man with a carving knife, slash him open from stem to stern to rip out his liver and eat it?
Silence of the Lambs all over again. Brewer was a real life Hannibal Lecter.
As long as he lived Eddie knew he would never get that image of Brewer’s face out of his head, those sharp blue eyes, burning with the fire of insanity, and that ring of dirty red hepatic blood around his mouth giving him the look of some grotesque clown. In the cold, empty sampling and assay laboratory he switched on the light, snatched up the phone and punched in the number for the lounge. It rang out for so long he began to lose patience and had the handset halfway back to the cradle when he heard Shaw’s voice.
“Yeah?”
“Matt, that you?”
“Yeah. What’s occurring boss?”
“Is Cameron with you?”
“Nope. I’m here all on my lonesome.”
“Where’s Miss Ellis?”
“Gone back to sickbay.”
“I told you to keep an eye on her!”
“I tried, but she wouldn’t stay. What was I supposed to do, lock her up? You found Spanner yet?”
“Yeah.”
“What about Brewer?”
“Him too.”
“Together?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
He paused to gather his thoughts.
Take control. Be firm, Eddie. Be resolute. Give orders if you have to.
“You there, Matt?”
“Yeah.”
“This is what I want you to do. I need you to find Cameron, he’ll either be in the sub level workshop or the smoko, and…stay together, okay?”
“Why? What’s going on boss? You’re giving me the willies.”
“Just do it please. I’m going to check on Miss Ellis.” He disconnected the call, listened for the dialling tone, and punched out the four digit code for sickbay.
After six rings it picked up.
“Sickbay.” She sounded alright. Chipper even.
“Lydia? You okay?”
“Hey Eddie. I’m fine. Where’d you and Cameron go?”
“Just business.” He caught his top lip with his bottom teeth. Tell her to watch out, but don’t frighten her. “Listen to me Lyd, okay, this is really important. You listening?”
“Yeah.”
“Remember I told you there was one person here you could trust, who you could turn to if you were in trouble?”
“Yeah, Lawrence Brewer, right?”
“Wrong.”
“Why?”
“Because something’s happened and he’s not himself at the moment. Stay out of his way.”
“What’s the matter with him? Is he sick?”
“In the head … I don’t know, and I don’t have time to explain. Just…if you see him, make sure he doesn’t see you, okay? Stay right out of his way.”
“You’re not making any sense, Eddie. I don’t understand.”
Subtle wasn’t working. Just tell her. “He’s gone fucking mental, Lyd. He killed Craig and he … he tried to eat him.”
“WHAT?! That’s ludicrous. Have you been drinking?”
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