He said, “No Lydia - I saw it with my own eyes. Something’s happened to him and he’s gone out of his mind. Please, for the love of God, lock yourself in somewhere and don’t let him near you. Promise me you’ll find somewhere to hide until I come and get you. Promise me.”
“Okay, I’ll … mmnnnfff.”
“Lydia!”
A clatter of something metallic hitting the floor, and then … a forbidding silence.
“Lydia! You still there? LYDIA!”
His heart set up a forceful hammering in his ears, and accelerated, desperate breaths burned in his lungs.
“LYDIA!”
He rammed the phone back onto its cradle and ran, pushing down the button on the radio clipped to his breast pocket. To hell with Brewer listening in.
“Cam! Matt! You read?”
A moment’s pause.
Cameron: “Here boss.”
Shaw: “Guv?”
Eddie: “Both of you, sickbay, NOW!”
Chapter 38
It had been a good scheme while it lasted and it was going so well, until Capstan caught him feeding, Euterich thought as he cowered in the darkest corner of the desalination plant.
Now it was dead in the water. He had overreached himself with an unattainable selfish ambition, and then allowed his obsession with Lydia, fuelled by desperation and overwhelming lust and desire and hunger, to get the better of him.
It had made him slipshod, careless. He must be getting slack in his old age. Yet it might not have been all his own fault.
Maybe some other force, something more primal was at work here, driving him on. No longer a conscious desire to fulfil a petty curiosity, this was something far more basic, beyond his control – the call of the selfish gene.
Perhaps, after nearly half a millennium, his time really was coming to an end and his fixation with Lydia had another purpose, namely perpetuation, continuation of the line, proliferation of an endangered species.
An altogether new strategy began to formulate itself, one whose fulfilment meant he needed a live, healthy female, at his command.
Without making a sound Euterich glided into the brightly lit sickbay. Empty, although he could hear Lydia in her little office, humming to herself as she collated her paperwork. A quick search in the cabinets brought him what he needed; an umber bottle and a wad of gauze pads.
The phone rang as he made his silent preparations, soaking the pads with the contents of the bottle, and he used the cover of the timely distraction to sneak into the office.
“Yeah, Lawrence Brewer, right?”
They were talking about him, and it had to be Capstan on the other end. Whatever she was being told he could be sure of the cat’s release from its bag.
“You’re not making any sense, Eddie. I don’t understand.”
Silence .. .and then the revelation.
“WHAT?! That’s ludicrous. Have you been drinking?”
Enough! Time to make his move … and give Mr Capstan a fright in the process.
He whipped an arm around her, pinning hers to her side, forcing her to drop the telephone. His other hand clamped the pad over the lower half of her face, covering her mouth and nose.
“Mmnnnfff. Mnnnffff.”
She scrabbled at the hand, scratching his skin.
Hot vapours filled her nostrils, making her eyes water. And then she was off her feet and being half carried, wriggling and squirming out of the office and into the examination room, legs flailing and kicking wildly, knocking a metal kidney dish to the floor with a clatter, spilling the contents.
He pressed the pad more snugly over her face, trying not to breathe in any of the fumes himself. At last it began to take effect.
She stopped fighting, sagged, and became a dead weight in his arms. Not quite unconscious, but dopey enough to make her compliant, he scooped her up and carried her away.
Capstan would have heard the commotion through the telephone, and like Sir Lancelot coming to rescue his Guinevere would now be on his way.
He would search sickbay and the office, and finding it empty would assume her abductor had taken her to some dark and secret place, and would go off in search of her, sending out his pet minions on the same wild goose chase.
The last place they would think of searching was the one they had already covered, and while they were wasting their time scouring every nook and cranny on the platform and failing to find him, Euterich would sneak her back into sickbay and have plenty of time to do what he needed to in peace and quiet.
Who had the last laugh now?
He sniggered to himself as he laid his prize on the floor of the utility closet and closed the door, jamming a broom stave solidly into the hook of the handle. Confident of their security in their hidey hole, he then sat beside her and listened for activity in the corridor outside.
Chapter 39
Eddie arrived first, blasting his way through the swing door and into the empty medical suite.
“Lydia!”
He barrelled into the small office at the rear.
“Lydia Ellis!”
The adjustable poise lamp stood at a crazy angle, disjointed like a broken elbow, its bulb casting a harsh white circle on the ceiling.
Her laptop stood open, a colourful screensaver whirling and dancing on the screen, and beside it on the desk, her radio handset. Switched off.
Elsewhere papers were scattered on the floor, as was a kidney dish, tipped upside down. The scent of something sickly and volatile hung in the air.
No blood, thank God.
Also no sign of Lydia Ellis.
The handset of the phone rested on the floor at the end of its coiled cable. Eddie retrieved it and put it to his ear. Hearing nothing at the other end he replaced it in its cradle, just as Cameron and Shaw arrived, both breathless from running.
“What’s all the panic about, boss?” wheezed Cameron.
“He’s got her,” Eddie said.
“Who’s got who? What’s–? Where’s Miss Ellis?”
“Brewer’s taken her.”
“Brewer?”
“Aye. You were right Matt. It is the quiet ones you have to watch closest.”
“I think you need to explain, guv, ‘cos you’ve lost me already.”
Eddie scrubbed at his hair, saying, “Something happened earlier, something Brewer did … to Craig. I caught him in the act you might say. He legged it and I called Lyd … Miss Ellis, to warn her he’d gone mad, to stay out of his way. As I was talking to her, I heard it all through the phone – he snatched her.”
“What did you see, guv? What did Brewer do to Craig? Where is he? What’s happened?”
“Craig’s dead, Matt.”
Shaw looked as dazed as Eddie felt. “Dead? How? When?”
“Brewer … he killed him, during the blackout. Sliced him open. I came across them in the locker room, after he’d…” He swallowed down a rising gorge. “ …after he’d cut out his liver. He was eating it, and Craig, he was –”
For Christ’s sake, don’t be sick!
“–he was still alive while he did it. He died a few minutes later. There was nothing … nothing I could do for him.”
Both men looked at Eddie as if he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had and this was all some horrible waking nightmare.
“Four out of nine,” said Cameron, quietly. “He’s picking us off one by one. First Lummox, then Reynolds, Jock, and now Craig. One man responsible for all four deaths? It’s a fucking duck hunt.”
“But why? And what does he want Miss Ellis for?” asked Shaw.
Eddie shivered and wiped away a stray trickle of rainwater from his hairline. “I have no idea.”
“You don’t think he’s going to do the same to her?”
“NO!” Without warning, the memory of Reynolds’ charred and blistered body grinning up at him from the floor in the welder’s hut flashed into Eddie’s head and made bile rise in his throat. Except the body was not Reynolds’ but Lydia’s, her slender stomach spli
t asunder, her roasted innards spilling out.
Nauseous and light headed he bent over, his hands on his knees, breathing in and out through his nose. He swallowed hard. It wouldn’t be fitting to vomit over his boots in front of his men.
Shaw laid a hand on his back. “Hey, you okay guv?”
Eddie waved him off.
“Aye. Give me a minute.” After a moment he stood, and with a swift kick launched the metal dish across the room, clanging it against the wall. “SHITE!”
“Guv?”
“This is all my fault,” said Eddie. “I put her in this situation. If I hadn’t–” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “If I hadn’t told her on the first day we got here that if she was in trouble or needed someone to stand up for her, she should turn to Brewer, she wouldn’t be where she is now. Out of all of us I thought he would be the most trustworthy.”
“You weren’t to know,” said Shaw, offering a grain of comfort to his ailing chief. “Nobody knew. So let’s not let the situation get any worse. Let’s get out there and find them. They can’t have gone far.”
Eddie eyed him keenly. “Did you forget where we are, Matt? There are a thousand places he could take her, a million places to hide.”
“We’ll find her. We’ll split up and comb this place from flare jet to sandy bottom if we have to. I promise we’ll find her. Scout’s honour.”
“Thanks Matt,” said Eddie, buoyed a little by the young man’s loyalty.
“What about him?” said Cameron. “What do we do with him when we find him? We don’t have any weapons.”
“Use whatever you can put your hands on,” said Eddie. “I’m giving you the authorisation to use whatever force you have to, lethal if necessary, to get Lydia back in one piece.”
“Well then, back in a mo.”
Shaw then left the room.
Seconds later came the sound of breaking glass in the corridor. He returned with a long handled fire axe balanced in his hands. “This’ll do me,” he said. “If he so much as breathes on me, I’ll cut him in two.”
Eddie punched Shaw’s lean shoulder lightly. “Well done mate. Right, let’s get going. Keep your steps light and your radios on at all times.”
“Won’t he be able to hear us if we do?”
“Then he’ll know we’re after him, won’t he. If you see him, don’t make any sudden moves, I don’t want him hurting Lydia. We’ll take him out, but only when she’s safe. Got it?”
In unison. “Got it.”
“Okay. Cam, take the habitat. I know there’s a lot, but do your best to check every cabin. Don’t forget the gym, the lounge and the games room. Matt, check out the equipment stores, the labs and the lifeboat stations. He might try to take her off the platform.”
“In this weather? He’d be crazy to try it. Where does he think he’s going to go?”
“He is crazy, Matt. Stark staring fucking brain fried mental, and he won’t care, and that means he’s as dangerous as a rabid dog with dynamite up its arse. Don’t give him any chance to fight. Strike first, ask questions after.” Eddie, still saturated, his clothing more water than fabric, set to a violent shivering.
“Leave it to us, boss,” said Cameron. “You go and get changed and dry off. Can’t have you croaking on us too.”
“I will. On your way.”
At the sickbay door, the trio exchanged supportive nods and went their separate ways.
Eddie, mindful of every niche and corner the beast Brewer could be hiding ready to spring out on him, made a detour to his cabin to change his clothes, before heading for the control room to re-activate every CCTV feed on the platform.
On his way, he couldn’t help wondering … if he’d done it after Reynolds’ death, as he told Lydia he would but never got around to, would any of this have happened?
Of course it would.
One man alone couldn’t spend 24 hours a day watching screens and recordings on the off chance of something happening right in front of them. So what use the electronic eyes now? Probably not much. As the saying went, he was a day late and a dollar short.
Brewer waited in the dark of the utility closet, the now unconscious Lydia hugged close to him, the hand with the pad hovering close to her face ready to smother her cries should she wake and kick up a fuss.
How long should he give them to make their search of the section and be on their way - five minutes, ten?
He started as the door handle rattled, being tested from the outside, and he kept his eyes on the broom stave.
If his makeshift locking device should give way and they found him in there with the woman, he was a dead man. He held his breath and clutched Lydia ever tighter.
It stayed put and the door remained firmly closed, and he praised the good quality of the implement.
For a further ten minutes he sat motionless, hearing tuned intently for more sound from outside.
Hearing nothing, he felt it safe to crack the door open and peer cautiously out to a clear coast.
Behind him, freed from the doping effect of the ether pad, Lydia stirred and moaned, consciousness returning. With time now of the essence he pulled her to her feet and into his arms, dislodging his radio handset in the process, and carried her back to sickbay.
Switchback complete.
Capstan and his little gang fooled. Just him and her - alone at last.
Eddie scanned each of the screens, eyes tuned for the slightest movement.
What was that? Someone moving down habitat level D corridor? Cameron checking cabins. He kept that screen on, following Cameron’s progress.
Where was Shaw? He flicked through various screens until he spotted him, out on the deck heading for the container compound, swinging the axe like a lumberjack.
Don’t let either of them out of your sight.
Where was Brewer … and Lydia?
He switched to the camera covering the long corridor outside sickbay. Seeing nothing he then changed to the one outside the locker room, missing Brewer’s exit from the utility closet by mere seconds.
He continued to stab at the control buttons for the other CCTV cameras, cycling through all of them, and back again. Nothing moved. Anywhere. Not even a rat!
Where had everybody gone? He went back to the screens he had been watching before.
Nothing moved. He had lost Cameron and Shaw and a momentary panic overcame him.
He lifted the radio to his ear and pressed the button. “Cameron! You there? Over.”
Silence.
“Cam! Respond! Over.”
Static. He put his mouth closer to the mike. “CAM!”
“Yeah, I’m here. No need to yell. Over.”
Thank God.
“Any sign? Over.”
“Not a dickie bird. Wherever they are, they ain’t up here. Over.”
“Okay, move on to the next section. Keep looking. Over.”
“Will do. Over.”
“And keep in touch for God’s sake. Over and out.”
Pause.
“Shaw! You there? Over.”
“Yep.”
“Anything? Over.”
“Nope.”
“That’s nope, over, Matt. Use proper radio procedure. Over.”
“Nope over. Over.”
“Don’t be a dickhead.”
“Shouldn’t that be don’t be a dickhead, over? Over.”
“Alright smartarse, no need to get cocky. Keep your eyes peeled and your mind on the job, and don’t start pissing about.”
Dammit. Way too harsh. He’s as scared as you are. He didn’t deserve that.
“Sorry, Matt.”
“It’s okay, boss. Don’t worry about it. Over.”
“Thanks Matt. Over and out.”
Brewer couldn’t simply have vanished. They had searched high and low for him and Lydia. Shaw had reported all the lifeboats accounted for and empty, so wherever he had taken her, he was still on board.
“If I were him, what would I do? Where would I take her? Think m
an!”
It came to Eddie like a slap upside the head - the one place they had already searched of course. The one place they were least likely to return to.
He was on his feet, mashing at the button to switch between TV screens, looking for the one that showed sickbay. Pointless. There wasn’t a camera there. Lydia and her sodding confidentiality.
He reached for the radio to call Cameron and Shaw and let them into his hunch, and hesitated, his thumb poised over the transmit button.
What if he was wrong? They would be pulled away from their search for nothing, and precious time would be wasted. Worse, what if Brewer heard and ambushed them?
He would check it out for himself first, and call them as backup if he needed them.
Leaving the monitors playing to an empty room, he made his way down three flights of stairs to jog along the walkways to the entrance to the habitat block, and edged his way along the main corridor to the double swing doors to Sickbay. He pressed his back against the wall and sidled close to risk a glance through the small clear circle in the obscured glass.
He could make out nothing with any certainty in the weak diffused glow from the wall light over the couch behind the modesty screen, the only source of light in the room.
Was that movement? A shadow? Or his eyes playing tricks? He had to see more clearly, had to be sure. He pushed the door open and poked his head through the gap, snatching the briefest of glimpses before withdrawing again.
Nothing patently visible; no sound either, apart from the humming of the fridge, only the remnants of that noxious odour still hanging in the air.
He slid noiselessly into the room, eyes fixed on the pleated fabric panel as he tiptoed his way across the floor. The curtain moved again, the slightest billowing.
Heart pounding, a film of nervous sweat on his brow, Eddie snatched at the fabric and hesitated.
What if she was there, laid out on the couch with her throat cut, gutted like Craig, the glistening ribbon of her bowels draped about her like so much Christmas tinsel?
Could his already twanging nerves take it, or would it break him completely?
You’ve got to look!
He threw back the cloth, arm raised ready to strike at whoever was hiding behind it.
The couch was empty. A waft of warm air from the heater moved the fabric of the curtain in a gentle undulating wave, and Eddie swore.
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