Offshore

by Lucy Pepperdine

  “Why would I? He’s standing right in front of me.”

  “Is he?”

  In Euterich’s blue tinted face, with its purple lipped mouth twisted in a demented sneer, in those black as coal eyes with their maniacal glint, Eddie thought he saw a momentary change.

  No more than a wave, a ripple, and it was gone, leaving behind the impression of a man wearing a translucent mask with the shadow of something older, darker, wholly malevolent lurking behind and peering out through it.

  Eddie’s eyes widened and he took a step back.

  Euterich’s grin broadened. “Aaahh, you see, don’t you, Mr Capstan? The scales have fallen from your eyes?”

  Eddie swallowed, his mouth suddenly very dry. “I saw…just then, I thought I saw…behind your face…something else. Something…not–”

  “Human?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “And you would be absolutely right.”

  “Not…Brewer?”

  “No.”

  “Who then?”

  Euterich wrinkled his nose.

  “Not so much a who, as a what, and yet still beyond your understanding, Mr Capstan.”

  “Try me. Are you some kind of … vampire?”

  Euterich threw back his head and laughed. “Good God no! What an imagination you have. Vampires and suchlike are just characters in books. They don’t actually exist. Come to think of it, I don’t think there is a name for somebody like me. I am what I am and always have been, like my father before me. As Shakespeare once said, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’, so let’s leave it at that shall we.”

  “Not on your life! If I’m going to die I deserve the right to know who or what my murderer is, and why I’m being killed. The least you can do is pay me the courtesy of telling me your fucking name.”

  “Now now Mr Capstan, there’s no need to swear.”

  As if settling down for a cosy fireside chat, Euterich parked his backside on the corner of the worktop, nail gun laid against his thigh, still pointing in Eddie’s direction.

  “Euterich,” he said.

  “What?”

  “My name. Euterich.”

  “Sounds foreign. Where are you from?”

  “Originally? A country in Europe once known as Prussia. I was born 458 years ago to a human mother and a father like me –”

  “Four hundred and –?”

  The nail gun twitched. “Don’t interrupt me, Mr Capstan!”

  “I’m… I’m sorry. Please… go on.”

  “Thank you. As I was saying, in my long life I have travelled extensively, in many guises, so I’ve come to consider myself to be of no fixed abode, of no particular nationality, a truly international wanderer.” Eddie stayed silent until he received the prompt. “Next question.”

  “Are there others like you?” he asked.

  “Oh yes. Lots. Everywhere,” said Euterich. “Most are unsophisticated pathetic beings, not much more than beasts. The rest of us…well let’s just say…” He winked. “How well do you know anyone, eh?”

  “So how … how did you get here? On Bravo?”

  Euterich laughed. “Would you believe purely by accident? I was on a sailing trip, on my way to pastures new, when a freak wave swamped my boat. Washed me overboard, drowned my friends, and after half drowning me too, delivered me here. I very nearly didn’t make it up the ladder. Once I got in I found I couldn’t get out, and I spent six weeks imprisoned in a disgusting workshop, existing on rats and toilet water, until you nice people came to visit and Lonny Dick fed me.”

  “Fed you? With…?”

  “Himself.”

  “That’s what you’ve been doing all along, isn’t it?” said Eddie slowly, as if working out a maths problem. “You’ve been moving from person to person, inhabiting their bodies. You feed on them, somehow absorbing them, becoming them. That’s how you can change your appearance to fit right in, staying hidden in plain sight.”

  Euterich, not slackening his grip on the nail gun for a second, slapped his thigh with his free hand in the parody of applause. “Bravo, Mr Capstan. Well done. Go to the head of the class.” His expression then changed to one of concern. “I do hope you’re feeling alright Mr Capstan, you look a little peaky.”

  As the last words of the most implausible, far fetched, mind bending imaginings outside any science fiction, horror or fantasy novel left Eddie’s lips, he knew them to be the truth. At the dawning of an impossible reality, the colour washed from his face and he felt the first telltale tightening of his chest.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “You don’t look fine. In fact I’d say you look ghastly. Another panic attack in the offing?”

  “I said I’m fine!”

  Teeth clenched, fighting the quiver in his voice, Eddie concentrated on his breathing, and this time it worked, his next question came out steady and controlled. “So now I know you’re not him, where is the real Doctor Brewer?”

  Euterich slid his buttock off the worktop and walked toward Eddie.

  “You’ll be pleased to know he’s a part of all of us now.” He licked his smirking lips with deliberate slowness as he poked Eddie in the gut with the business end of the nail gun.

  Eddie’s scarred stomach clenched. “What do you mean?”

  Euterich’s voice fell low and conspiratorial. “Don’t tell anyone, but I wasn’t the only one who got a taster of the dear old prof. Remember that particularly fine steak and kidney pie we had for dinner the other day, and how very fresh and tasty everyone thought it was? How it had that certain je ne sais quois?”

  Bile rose in Eddie’s throat, his scalp tightened and prickled. He gulped audibly. “Oh Jesus.”

  “Of course the meat would have tasted better if it had been allowed to hang and mature for a couple of days. Fresh off the bone was the best I could do. I took the best bits for myself of course, the liver, the heart, some bone marrow, a little bit of leg meat; the rest went into the pot for you guys. I’m rather proud of how it turned out. I could give you the recipe if you like. Take one over-educated frustrated desk jockey…”

  A wide grin split Euterich’s face, and he began to laugh, the harsh and brittle cackle of a complete lunatic.

  His insane chuckling faded, to be replaced with a genteel expression so often seen on a benevolent village priest; head cocked to one side, the corners of his mouth turned up in a condescending simper.

  “And now, I think we’ve done talking. It’s been very pleasant, but time is getting on. So…” He raised the gun. “Let’s get this over with. Lydia is waiting.”

  Eddie put up his hands. “Wait! Before you kill me, tell me, where is Lydia? Is she safe?”

  “Ha!” Euterich’s eyes flashed anger. “At long last you think of Lydia! What kept you? Slipped from your mind did she?”

  “No! I –”

  “And I thought you cared about her.”

  “I do. Believe me, I do! Of course I do.”

  Euterich’s voice rose to a shout. “So why did it take you this long to ask about her, eh? She should have been the first thing on your mind. The only thing!” The nail gun rose to heart height again. “Hypocrite! You don’t deserve her!”

  “It was - she was – is - I’m not. Please, is she alright?”

  Euterich continued to glower at Eddie, then his face softened and he smiled, the ultraviolet light enhancing the whiteness of his teeth and making them shimmer.

  “Yes. She’s quite safe,” he said.

  “What are you going to do with her?”

  “Oh, I have a plan in place. A good one. Want to hear it?”

  “Not really –”

  “–not my original idea, that was a lot more complicated and not very workable, but this one really is very clever.” He leaned forward. “Can I tell you something, hush-hush between us?”

  Play nice with the madman Eddie.

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  Euterich shook his head with a
smile and looked almost embarrassed to divulge his secret. “You’ll probably not believe this but … I’ve always had an overwhelming obsession, for as long as I can remember … to be female. You know why? For no other reason than I’ve never been one before and I wanted to see what it was like. I managed to bury the desire for a long time, but when I saw Lydia it all came flooding back. I fully intended to leave this place as a woman; as Lydia. I’d concocted a plan of how I was going to work my way through the whole crew, one at a time until I could take your place. Then I would inveigle my way into her affections until the time was right, then I would become her, and leave here as the sole survivor of a tragedy beyond description. Perfect.”

  “But to do that, you would have had to–”

  “Indeed,” said Euterich, his face pinched. “But things have changed and now I have a whole new plan, and in it Lydia lives! She’s come to mean more to me than you could ever appreciate, and now I know my entire future lies in her, I could never hurt her.”

  “You fell in love with her?” said Eddie.

  “Yes. And now I can’t bear to be without her, and if I became her I wouldn’t be able to be with her, wouldn’t even be able to see her unless I looked in a mirror, wouldn’t be able to touch her, to smell her, to talk with her. Do you understand?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “So you can die in peace my friend, because I fully intend to look after her. I shall treat her like a princess. She’ll want for nothing.”

  “Apart from her freedom.”

  “She won’t need it. She’ll have me. Therein, of course, lies the one teensy weensy wrinkle in the scheme.”

  “And that is?”

  “Me. She hates me, or more specifically, she hates Dr Brewer, particularly after he–” Euterich shook his head. “No matter.”

  “He what?” said Eddie.

  Euterich said, “He may have acted somewhat… inappropriately toward her,” and wafted his hand dismissively. “It’s nothing. Never mind. You see the problem is, while I’m still in this body, Brewer’s body, I’m not going to get within ten feet of the luscious Lydia again. That’s where you–” He waved the nail gun under Eddie’s nose. “–and this come in. You do know she’s in love with you don’t you? And that one simple fact is what is going to make things so much easier for me.”

  Eddie snorted. “Don’t talk twaddle. Lydia doesn’t love me.”

  “Au contraire, Mister Capstan. It’s so obvious a blind man could see it, and once Dr Brewer is found dead and is no longer a threat, and she thinks you’ve saved her, you will be her hero. She will fall at your feet pledging her adoration and everlasting devotion. Except they won’t be your feet, will they, they will be mine; me in your skin, although she’ll never know the difference. We’ll leave here together, she and I, to live happily ever after, making lots of little Eddies and Lydias. Doesn’t it sound wonderful? Can’t you just see it all…?” A dreamy expression swept over Brewer/Euterich’s face.

  Eddie nodded slowly, humouring the lunatic. “Yes. I see.”

  I see you’re a fucking nutcase.

  To his amazement Eddie realised he still had hold of the oversized spoon and pictured himself striking down this deranged monster, smashing in its skull and making a run for it.

  No chance, if he so much as twitched Euterich would fire a five inch bolt of steel into his heart and end his life, squeeze into his skin and be on his way back to Lydia, leaving behind the shell of a dead man with a ladle.

  No. Whichever the way the wind blows, I’m not getting out of here alive. I have to secure Lydia’s future. Have to.

  “You give me your word she’s going to be okay. You’ll take good care of her for the rest of her life. You swear?”

  Euterich rested his hand against his chest, at his heart. “On my honour as a gentleman, Mr Capstan.”

  For some reason he could not fathom, Eddie believed him.

  “Okay then, let’s get this over with,” he said and squared his shoulders, drawing himself up to his full height, although it sent a flare of pain through him. “I’m read–” In the shadow behind Euterich something moved.

  Something slight and white, smeared with grease, wet hair draped over its face like a beaded curtain; a wild untamed creature creeping up on him, a solid red object swinging from its hands.

  “Wait! One more thing!” Eddie cried.

  Euterich levelled the nail gun. “No! No more delays.”

  “Please, you’re going to kill me anyway. What difference will ten more seconds make?”

  Euterich rolled Brewer’s eyes skyward. “What now?”

  Eddie never got to ask his question.

  Chapter 50

  Lips drawn back in a snarl and emitting a howl like a demented banshee, the creature behind Euterich swung the red object with all the force its slight frame could marshal, striking him square on the temple, knocking him sideways.

  His face contorted in slow motion, appearing to bend out of shape, his mouth forming a slack O of total surprise. He dropped to his knees, the nail gun falling from his hand to skitter away harmlessly under the humming refrigeration unit.

  A second strike with the red thing hit him between his shoulder blades with a dull thumph, and he tippled forward onto his face, smashing his nose on the tiles. Another to his upper back flattened him against the floor; a fourth fractured his spine with a sharp crack, a fifth, opened up the back of his head with a sickening wet squelch.

  The ragged wet creature stood rigid over Euterich’s broken shape, eyes glittering beneath her curtain of hair, shivering, panting, arms corded with tension as they held the fire extinguisher at shoulder height, ready to strike again if he should so much as twitch.

  Keeping his eyes on her in case she should decide to attack him too, Eddie edged his way towards the body, crouched, and poked it with the spoon.

  No reaction.

  He touched his fingers to its throat, into flesh soft and malleable, like PlayDoh. He could detect no discernible pulse.

  “He’s dead,” he said, and stood. He put out a steadying hand. “You can put the extinguisher down, Lydia. You don’t need it now.”

  Her arms strained under the weight of the cylinder as she lowered it, her bone white fingers spasmed around the handle.

  “It’s not Brewer,” she said, words shaking in time to her shivering. “He looks like him … he sounds like him … but he’s not him …”

  “I know,” said Eddie.

  Lydia fixed large terrified eyes solidly on him. “But what about you, eh, spoon man? Who are you? Are you one of them? Like him?”

  Eddie tossed aside the ladle and reached for her. “No! It’s me, Lydia, I promise. It’s me, Eddie.”

  She backed off. “Eddie’s dead. He said so. He–” She risked a glance down at Brewer. “He k-killed him.”

  “He didn’t kill me, Lydia. I’m a bit battered and bruised, but I’m very much alive. It’s me. I swear.”

  Eddie took another cautious step forward, showing her empty hands. She stepped away again, shivering, shaking. “Stay away from me!”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “Please, put the extinguisher down and come to me. You’re going to be okay.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Wait. I’ll prove it’s me. Here–”

  Eddie dipped his hand into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out her broken chain with her good luck medal, and showed it to her. “Your Saint Christopher, from your dad for your 18th birthday,” he said. “It was the last thing he gave you, two days before he died. I let you keep it on because it meant so much to you. I told you I’d keep it secret, so who else but me would know that, eh?”

  She eyed the medallion and then looked to him, recognition flooding into her face, tears brimming in her huge eyes. She lowered the extinguisher to the floor and slowly extended her hand.

  Eddie dropped the jewellery into the cup of her palm and folded her fingers over it, holding them with his own.

  A small whisper,
barely audible, broke through the tremors. “I thought you were dead.” She started to cry, harsh wracking sobs coursing through her.

  Eddie gathered her in a tight protective hug. “It’s okay, Lyd. You’re okay now. You’re safe. We’re both okay. Oh jeez, you’re freezing. Here–”

  He took off his jacket to drape over her, for its fleece lining to warm her, to cover her and give her back some dignity.

  No sooner had the coat touched her shoulders than something closed around his ankle, tugged hard and overbalanced him, ripping him away from her. The back of his head cracked against the floor, starbursts of light flaring behind his eyes, blinding him, adding to the searing pain once more stabbing through his side.

  Screaming rose from nearby; high pitched and animalistic in its urgency.

  A scrape of metal, a sickening thud, and hot wet stickiness hit Eddie in the face. More thuds, more incoherent yelling, one more dull slapping sound, and then a heavy metallic clang.

  The shackle around his ankle released and the flashes of light cleared, yet his vision remained tainted, tinged with scarlet. He rubbed at his eyes, wiping away the redness, smearing it onto the back of his hand.

  Eddie sat up carefully so as not to exacerbate the throbbing in his side and felt about his face, seeking the wound and the source of the blood.

  He found none. It wasn’t his.

  Across the room Lydia was on her knees, bent double as if practising some exotic yoga position, head resting against the floor with her hands clasped to the back of her neck, pulling herself into a small tight ball.

  The extinguisher had rolled away, coming to rest against -Eddie couldn’t quite make out what. Barely attached to the Euterich/Brewer chimera’s neck, in the area where its head should have been, was nothing more than a mangled bloody pulp of skin and bone, startlingly white jagged fragments jammed into pinkish grey globs of brain tissue, intermingled with scarlet. Not enough remained of the pureed face to identify its owner as Lawrence Brewer. One eye clung to its socket, just; the other had exploded under the extinguisher’s impact, like a raw egg under a hammer.