The Black

by Paul E. Cooley

  “Shawna?”

  “Yeah?” she said. “I’m okay. What the fuck happened?”

  “I don’t—“ The red lights disappeared as the power returned. His eyes burned from the sudden illumination. “I don’t know,” he said. When his vision cleared, he was staring at the tray beneath the table. There was no sign of the black liquid. Thomas grabbed two large beakers and headed back to the table. He placed them on either end of the tray to make sure the weight kept it as close to the floor as possible. He didn’t want to give the goddamned stuff a chance to slip out between a possible crack.

  “Thomas? I think you saved my life,” Shawna said from the other side of the room.

  He looked up at her and winked. “Well, you can owe me later. Right now,” he said, out of breath, “we need to get the fuck out of this lab.”

  She shook her head. “We need to know what this shit is.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said. “But right now, we need to find out if we’re on a sinking rig.”

  Calhoun’s phone rang and they both jumped. He pulled the phone out of his pocket. “Catfish,” the caller id said.

  “Tell me we’re not sinking,” he said into the phone.

  “Thomas? Where the fuck are you? I need you down here. Now,” Catfish said. Thomas wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard fear in the man’s voice.

  “Okay. Shawna and I had an incident in the lab.”

  “I don’t give a shit,” Catfish said. “We got bigger problems. Much bigger.”

  “We’re coming,” Calhoun said and hung up. He looked up at Shawna.

  “We sinking?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Not yet.”

  Chapter Seven

  There were few things in life Chef “Nutty” Nuchtchas hated more than being on a rig. Syphilis and chlamydia were definitely in the top loathing spaces, but the rig was close behind. If not for the huge child support checks and the ex-wife’s ever-hungry lawyer, he would still be in New Orleans cooking the good stuff. Instead he was preparing and cooking what he considered “slop” for a bunch of rednecks.

  But the pay was nothing to sneeze at. He couldn’t afford to quit the rig. PPE was paying him a damned ransom to keep their workers’ bellies full. His sous chef, Robbie Christie, had been let go on their last deployment. The crazy bastard had kept a goddamned ham up in the ceiling tiles. Why would he do that? So he could fuck it. Drilled the core out of the damn thing and then was going to town on it every night. If not for the smell of rancid meat, he wouldn’t have been caught.

  When Nutty returned from time off, the rig chief had pulled him aside and told him Christie had been fired. When he explained why, Nutty couldn’t stop laughing. He’d known Robbie was unhinged, but that was truly going off the goddamned deep end.

  That’s the kind of shit that happened when you were gone from home for months at a time and then found out your wife had shacked up with your best friend. Oh, well. Christie had been good, but Otto was better.

  Otto Hasford was busy chopping vegetables with impeccable skill. Nutty was impressed with the man, but not his command of English. Otto spoke only when he had a question or if you asked him one. The first few days, the only sounds in the kitchen were the gas burners, knives slapping against cutting boards, and water boiling in copper pots. That’s why zydeco was playing on the radio.

  While Otto probably liked the quiet, Nutty hated it. It made his tour that much more miserable. Another three days, though, and he’d be off the damned rig and headed to town. Maybe find a nice woman at a bar, buy her a few drinks, and then make her his ham.

  Nutty grinned and continued stirring the sauce. He took a plastic test spoon out and tried a little. It wasn’t quiet warm enough yet and still a little too bland. Moving to the crazed accordion on the radio, he popped off the top of his secret blend and started shaking it into the pot.

  While he was focused on that, he didn’t hear Otto’s gasp. He didn’t hear the big German struggle for air as something poured itself down his throat. Amidst the sizzling of sausage and beef, he didn’t hear the crackle of dissolving flesh and bone. He knew nothing but zydeco and the hot pot until it was his turn.

  #

  His e-cig was burned out. Ever since the rig had tried to shake itself apart, Catfish had been puffing on the thing. Its aluminum body was hot to the touch and vapor was no longer coming out of it. The atomizer was dead and although he had a spare in his room, leaving the drilling office was a bad idea.

  The picture on his workstation was from AUV 5. It had squirted the data to AUV 1. When AUV 1 hit 18k feet, it started transmitting its warnings to the surface. Too bad they were half an hour too late.

  The data log from 5’s sensors showed more than just a tremor. The video and pictures merely confirmed it. The entire ocean floor had spasmed. But that’s not what had broken his flesh out in goose flesh. The picture on the screen had done that.

  Even with the surreal coloring of the blue-light cameras, the 8-frame per second video feed was enough to scare him silly. When he’d first pulled up the video and watched the hi-def pictures scroll across the screen, he’d had to fight not to wet his pants.

  AUV 5 had watched the ocean floor divot beneath the spud site. It had filmed tentacles reached out and grabbing the drill string. It had also filmed those same tentacles pulling down on the metal. No wonder the goddamned rig had shaken.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. The view from the rear camera showed all the tube worm beds in the trench reaching toward the spud site. Their tentacles waved in something akin to rage. The water exploded into clouds of sand and rock. AUV 5 switched its cameras to thermal imaging at that point to try and cut through the murk. That’s when the view went black.

  By the time a very pale Calhoun and Shawna arrived in the drilling office, he’d watched the video five different times. He’d applied multiple filters to the frames showing the tentacles leaping from the ocean floor. Each helped clarify contrast and sharpen the image. When they opened the drilling office hatch, he’d nearly jumped out of his chair.

  He swiveled around and faced them. Shawna was taking deep breaths and exhaling through her mouth. Thomas looked as though he’d aged twenty years since Catfish had last seen him.

  “What— What kind of incident in the lab?” he asked.

  Thomas waved his hand. “We’ll talk about that soon. Right now, I need to know what the hell is going on.”

  Catfish jerked his thumb backward toward the screen. “That is what’s going on.”

  He watched as their eyes went to the screen. Thomas’ face, which had started to gain color, was once again too pale.

  “What in the fucking hell is that?” Shawna asked.

  “Pretty, isn’t it?” Catfish turned in his chair. Another shiver ran down his spine. Thomas leaned in over his shoulder. Catfish could smell urine, but said nothing. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what happened in the goddamned lab. “AUV 5 took this just as they spudded.”

  He hit the rewind button and the image disappeared. “Now here’s the show.” His finger tapped the touchpad.

  The video played, his filters intact. The trio watched as the drill string moved downward into the ocean floor. The ground below seemed to vibrate and then the entire trench moved. Black tentacles rose from the sand and rock and wrapped around the metal pipes.

  “Jesus,” Shawna said. “What the fuck are those?”

  Catfish pressed the space bar and the image froze. The tentacles strained against the metal, their flat heads jawing at the steel.

  “They sure as shit aren’t tube worms,” he said.

  Calhoun shook his head. “What is down there?” he asked. He looked over toward Harobin’s station and suddenly realized he’d been smelling vomit. “Where’s booger-man?”

  Catfish giggled. “He, um, kind of lost his breakfast when the rig started doing its thing. Gotta admire him, though. Ole Andy stayed at his post until a few minutes ago. I think he went to find Vraebel.”
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  “Vraebel?” Shawna said. “Is anyone dead?”

  Catfish smoothed a stray lock of hair. “I don’t know. I don’t know if we took any damage either. But considering our fearless rig chief hasn’t been screaming over the PA, I think we’re safe. For now.”

  “Safe,” Shawna deadpanned. “We’re not safe anywhere.”

  Catfish looked up at Thomas. “Do I want to know what happened in the lab?”

  “No,” Thomas said, “but you’re going to find out anyway.”

  He and Shawna told him what happened with the oil and how they trapped it. Shawna went into great detail about its reaction to certain frequencies of light.

  He thought for a moment. “Does that make any sense, Thomas?”

  The engineer chewed his lip. “I don’t know much molecular chemistry. Or biology for that matter. But no. It doesn’t make much sense at all.”

  Shawna stared at the screen. Her eyes darted back and forth between the worm-like appendages. “They have teeth,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Catfish agreed. “Or something like teeth.”

  Thomas walked to the workstation furthest away from Harobin’s. He logged in and the machine immediately began beeping. He raised an eyebrow. “Well someone wants to—“ His voice trailed off.

  Catfish turned to look at him. Calhoun’s eyes were wide. “What?” the tech asked.

  The engineer looked over at Catfish and Shawna. “It’s the lab in Houston. They’ve been quarantined.”

  “What?” Shawna asked. “What do you mean, Thomas? Quarantined? For what?”

  “Goddammit,” Calhoun said. “We sent them a fucking plague.”

  Catfish pulled up his email. He’d been ignoring it for the last hour while he worked on data analysis and ROV diagnostics. That was back when they were about to spud the well. After the rig-quake, his email seemed about the least important thing in the world. But now…

  He pulled up his email client and sped by the urgent emails from Macully. Instead, he brought up the one Calhoun was looking at.

  “To all PPE contractors and employees on Leaguer,” he read aloud, “due to biological contaminants in sample 1-J4X and an outbreak in the Houston lab, all drilling must be stopped immediately. Further information will be made available soon. Please stay safe and avoid interaction with the oil at all costs. Rig personnel should prepare for possible evacuation.”

  Calhoun nodded. “We let it loose,” he said, his voice just audible above the whoosh of the air conditioner. “Goddammit. Goddammit!”

  “Evacuation?” Shawna asked. “Who the hell are they kidding?” Catfish and Calhoun turned to her. “They’re not going to evacuate shit.”

  “No,” Calhoun said. He opened a web browser and then cursed. “Shit. The satellite just went down.”

  Catfish tried to connect to the internet. The console told him the link was unavailable. “Oh, fuck,” he said. “Did they just cut us off?”

  Thomas rose from the chair and stretched. The shotgun pop of his joints startled everyone in the room, including himself. “I need to talk to Vraebel. Fast.” He traded glances with Catfish and Shawna. “I need y’all to start putting this together. Something. Anything. I need ideas. We need them fast.”

  He turned and left the room. Catfish shook his head. “Just what the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means,” Shawna said, “he’s looking for a way out of this. And the only one I see is hitting the life boats and getting the fuck out of here.”

  “With the storm possibly heading toward us? Or with whatever that thing might have put in the water?” he asked.

  “Yup,” she said. She stared at his screen, her lips moving as she read the email line by line. When she was done, her fists clenched and unclenched. Catfish could see the whites of her knuckles. “And the sooner, the better.”

  #

  To say it was a strange day was an understatement. Vraebel had logged the casualty reports. The XO had reported no damage to the thrusters or the generators. The blip in power from the rig-quake was nothing more than the result of loose connections. The engineering team had taken care of that situation. Now all they had to do was hope the storm didn’t come north and kick their ass.

  Except that was the least of their worries. And Vraebel knew it. He was waiting on a damage assessment from Standlee’s AUVs. Considering the robots weren’t due to surface until later that night, it would be a long time before the man could reprogram them. Unless, of course, one of them had already filmed the string.

  Gomez had wanted to try and bring the string back up, but Vraebel had nixed the idea. He knew there was little chance of a blowout since there was little to no pressure coming through the pipes. But until they knew exactly what had happened, he was loathe to risk tearing apart the joint stand.

  Vraebel had sent Belmont and his crew of divers to search for the two bodies. He held out hope the frogmen would find the corpses and bring them back, but he didn’t believe the Ukrainian would find even a shred. The bodies had been in the water for nearly an hour now. If the fish or sharks hadn’t yet chewed them to pieces, it was likely the weight of their gear had taken them down.

  He was checking the weather when an email alert popped up on his console. Vraebel sighed, knowing it was Simpson replying to the situation reports. The VP was no doubt having kittens over the casualties, let alone the possible damage to the rig. He clicked the mail icon and started to read.

  A fist rapped at the hatch. Vraebel was lost in the email and hardly noticed. He didn’t hear the hatch open.

  “Fuck,” he said, eyes glaring at the screen.

  “I assume,” Vraebel jumped at Calhoun’s baritone voice, “you’ve just read the email.”

  The rig chief turned in his chair, heart thumping in his ears. Calhoun looked as though he’d aged since they’d last seen one another. Of course, Vraebel felt ten years older himself. “Yeah,” Martin said. He stood and headed to the coffee machine. “I’ll start getting the rig ready for evacuation.”

  Calhoun shook his head. “I think you need to see what I’ve seen before you start thinking about evacuation.”

  He turned from the coffee machine and looked back at the older man. “What are you talking about?”

  “AUV 1 hit 18k right after the quake. It streamed data and images from AUV 5.”

  Vraebel blinked. “Is the drill string damaged?”

  “Martin,” Calhoun said, “I need you to come to the drilling office. Now.”

  “But I have—“

  “You have an executive officer,” Calhoun hissed. “Use him.”

  He walked out of the hatchway. Vraebel, feeling queasy, followed.

  #

  A goddamned conga line. That was the phrase that kept repeating itself in his mind. It had been over an hour and the line just kept getting longer. He wanted to find Gomez and pop the man’s head off. He knew this was revenge for quarantining three of his men when they got sick; he’d sent everyone who was on the rig deck during the quake for a physical. Everyone, that was, except himself.

  Despite the constant flow of air conditioning, Doc Sobkowiak was sweating. For the past hour, he’d seen dozens of large men with their shirts off, smelled the stench of their unwashed clothes, and examined every inch of their bodies. Bruises, scratches, sprains, but nothing serious. Harrison had been the first, but that was a simple broken wrist. He’d set the bones, put him in a cast, and sent the man to his cabin with pain killers.

  Sobkowiak finished examining a roughneck named Menendez. The man had scar tissue down one side of his face, presumably from a knife wound or some other sharp instrument. Doc figured it had been at least 15 years since the man suffered the injury. Other than that? The usual contusions from the rig-quake.

  “Get out of here. You’re fine,” he said with a forced smile. Menendez grunted. “Take some ibuprofen or something if you’re in pain.”

  “Right,” the man said. He headed out the door.

  Sobkowiak looked at the line. It ha
d finally thinned down to three men. He heaved a huge sigh and wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead. Instead of dealing with these three, he should be checking on the three men who’d come down with the flu or whatever it was. Today he’d have to make the decision as to whether or not he needed to call in an evac chopper. If the antibiotics hadn’t started to kill whatever they had, they needed to get the hell off the rig. He didn’t want anyone dying on his watch and he was completely unequipped to deal with anything viral.

  That was the whole point of having the supply ships running up the coasts and traveling between the rigs. If something really bad happened, they could send a chopper out to a rig and get seriously injured people to better medical care. PPE’s supply ship had a real medical center aboard. And if they couldn’t handle the situation, then they’d be able to handle a chopper large enough to spirit the injured workers away to the mainland.

  Leaguer just didn’t have room for the facilities. Hell, he didn’t even have a goddamned nurse. As he ran the next roughneck through the physical, all he could think about was returning to his GP practice in Austin. If not for the goddamned stock market and malpractice insurance costs, he’d still be there lancing boils, performing summer camp and sports physicals, and setting bones. Instead? He was thousands of miles from fucking nowhere.

  His phone rang. Sobkowiak lifted the black cordless from its station. “Medical.”

  “This is Gomez. You checked on my men yet?”

  He bit his tongue and forced a cheery voice. “Almost. Just got two more to go.”

  “No, Doc. I mean the three you let off duty. If they’re better, I need them on the deck ASAP.”

  He sighed. “I planned to check on them as soon as I got through the physicals.”

  “Good. About that. Anyone hurt?”

  “Besides Harrison? No. Contusions, scratches, some bruised ribs, but that’s about it.” Sobkowiak glanced up at the naked man in front of him and waved him away. The roughneck grunted and pulled on his clothes. “In about twenty minutes or so, I should be able to check on the rest of the men.”