The Black

by Paul E. Cooley

  “Let me know,” Gomez said and then the line went dead.

  Sobkowiak sighed again. Two more. Just two more and then he could check and see if his patients would remain his patients. They wouldn’t.

  #

  Twenty roughnecks. Twenty men of the morning shift. They had headed to the commissary for a meal, some trash talk, and the usual camaraderie. Red was last to head up the stairs. After the physical with the doc, he’d wanted a shower. That man gave him the creeps.

  He’d winced as he’d pulled off his grease covered shirt. He knew he’d damaged his rotator cuff and hoped it was only a sprain. When the quake had happened, he’d ended up tripping over the joint lines and falling on his side. And for that little mistake? His body was covered in bruises and his right arm screamed at him when he tried to lift it above his shoulder. Great fucking day, he’d thought.

  After struggling just to get his shirt on, his stomach had growled at him. He imagined Rodriguez was already dealing cards for the poker game. Nutty would have something good to eat. Probably his frou-frou noodles and sweet sausage. Red had grinned at the thought. And then he opened the doors.

  The first thing to hit him was the smell. Burned meat, spoiled food, and something not quite discernible. His nostril hairs wilted beneath the stench. When he had a moment to recover from the eye-watering smell, his brain denied what he was seeing.

  The floor near the tables was covered in black ooze. Steel zippers, buttons, the occasional pocket knife, belt clasp, and earring sat atop the ocean of black. In one corner of the room, the steel toe of a boot shined beneath the commissary lights.

  “What the—“ Red asked.

  The floor shivered. The substance rippled as the edges pulled back from the walls. It concentrated itself and then something rose from the goo.

  As Red watched, a tentacle of black solidified and popped out of the muck. Another crackling sound and an eye-stalk emerged. The nearly black orb stared at him.

  “Fuck,” Red said. He turned to run. He turned to scream. He turned to leap down the steps, but something grabbed his foot. Caught in mid-jump, he fell to the stairwell landing with a crunch. His right shoulder was definitely broken now. But the lance of pain from his upper body was immediately drowned out by the screaming nerves in his foot.

  He twisted over so he could see what was burning his leg and shrieked as bones snapped. Red peered at his foot. Smoke curled from the black ooze crawling up his pant leg. The heavy denim disintegrated beneath the substance.

  Howling in pain, Red used his hands to pull himself to the first step. A stream of tears fell from his eyes and blurred his vision. God, the pain! He pulled with his gnarled, strong fingers and dragged himself forward. There was another snap and he knew, somehow knew, his left leg was gone at the knee.

  He heard the plodding of heavy boots on the staircase. Through his tears, he saw Harobin’s balding head as the man headed toward the landing.

  “Help me!” Red screamed.

  Harobin lifted his eyes to the landing and froze. Color drained from his face and his mouth opened in a wide “O”.

  “Help me!”

  The geologist blinked at him and then fled. Harobin stumbled and had to hold the railing as he took the steps two at a time.

  Red screamed again. Against every instinct he had, he looked back at his leg. Streams of ooze had wrapped around his thigh in a rising spiral. He could see bone and exposed muscle between the gaps. Red pulled as hard as he could, but his strength was going. His body shivered as he went into shock. The adrenaline surge wasn’t enough to keep him going.

  He watched as the tendrils met. A gurgling sound met his ears as the liquid rushed from the floor and swept up his other leg. The smell of burning hair and flesh made him vomit. Red’s breathing became labored and his vision grew dim. The blanket of black slowly covered him as he lost consciousness.

  #

  Have you learned your lesson? He asked himself. Yes, never play the fucking stock market again. Sobkowiak headed down the hall to the staterooms. Gomez had demanded he check in on the three sick mud specialists. What the deck chief didn’t seem to understand was that Sobkowiak had been trying to check on them for the past several hours. He’d been on his way to do just that when the rig-quake happened.

  Instead of checking on them, he’d been forced to give the deck crew physicals. More delays. More time lost. Sobkowiak sighed as he reached Richardson’s room.

  Richardson was a balding brit with a hawk nose and a congenial smile. When he’d come to Doc a day after the first well had been drilled, he’d complained about coughing and rattling in his chest. Sobkowiak had been alarmed at the man’s 102° fever. He’d given him the usual fever suppressants and a Z-pac. While Sobkowiak didn’t believe in handing out antibiotics like they were candy, Richardson had all the symptoms of pneumonia.

  The two other mudders, Jameson and Parker, had visited him later the same day with the same symptoms. He’d filed reports with PPE as soon as he’d sent the men back to their rooms armed with meds. SOP was to alert the company in the event of a of dangerous illness spreading through the crew. PPE hadn’t bothered to do more than acknowledge their receipt and send him the standard quarantine/evac policies.

  Before ever stepping foot on Leaguer, he’d made sure he was familiar with them. He knew PPE sent the policies to him just to make sure he was aware of them, but it had been unnecessary. Sobkowiak wanted to make sure he didn’t end up dead because of some aerosolized VD the roughnecks were likely to bring back from shore leave.

  The black leather bag in his hand seemed to weigh a ton. He’d had to keep changing his grip on the handles to keep the sweat from causing them to slide out of his grasp. The bag thumped to the floor and rattled. He donned a surgical mask, fiddled with the straps until it was comfortable, and then let his hands drop to his sides. The paper filter would keep him safe from all but the smallest microbes. Just a precaution, he told himself.

  He rapped on the door. There was no response. “Mr. Richardson? It’s Doctor Sobkowiak. Can I come in?” No response.

  Sobkowiak rubbed his bald head. He didn’t want to do it, but regulations were regulations. He reached into the pocket of his khakis and brought out a key ring. Only two people on the rig had a master key—the rig doctor and the rig-chief. It was only supposed to be used in times of emergency, either medical or rig-related.

  He slotted it into the door lock, took a deep breath, and turned the key. The bolt slid back with an audible click. Doc returned it to his pocket and swung open the door.

  The well-oiled hinges were silent as the door opened inward. There were no lights on. The portholes were covered and he stared into utter darkness. The light from the hallway barely illuminated the first few feet inside. “Mr. Richardson? Are you in here?”

  The darkness in the corner of the room shifted. He listened for the tell-tale rattle of labored breathing, but there was nothing but the sound of the A/C. “Andrew?” he asked the room. It didn’t respond. “I’m going to turn on the lights, Mr. Richardson. I need to see how you’re doing.”

  At the touch of his fingers, strong fluorescent lights glared down on the room. Doc’s eyes adjusted and then he blinked as he took in the destruction. The bed was little more than a metal frame. The pillows were crusted with blood and shoved against the wall. In the center of the bed, the comforter, sheets, and mattress had dissolved into nothing. The remains of the fabric looked as though its edges had been burned by a flame. After a beat, he realized the hole in the bed was man-shaped.

  Something moved in his peripheral vision. Doc turned and stared at the far corner. Beneath the desk and covered in shadow, something rippled. “Richardson?” Doc’s voice was a barely audible tremor.

  He stepped into the room, his leather bag forgotten. The ghostly scent of cooked flesh and spoiled meat wrinkled his nose. There was some other smell, something like metal, but he couldn’t place it. He kept his eyes on the darkness beneath the desk until he reached the be
d.

  His breath stopped as he peered down into the hole in the mattress. Metal glinted at him. Surgical steel. Pins and a plate. “What the fuck?” he asked the room. There was no reply.

  Richardson had broken his leg in a rugby match at university. The man’s medical records had described the location of the plate and pins. And there they were. On the floor.

  He cast his eyes back to the desk and the shadow beneath it. The dark pool rippled again. What the fuck are you?

  Richardson’s dead, you old fool, a voice said in his mind. Get the fuck out of here!

  Doc swallowed hard. He didn’t want to check on the other men. He didn’t want to be on the rig. He didn’t want to be anywhere but back in Austin lancing boils and popping kids with vaccinations.

  He stepped backwards away from the bed, eyes firmly fixed on the desk and the thing beneath it. It had stopped moving. When he reached the doorway, he closed the door and didn’t bother turning off the lights. Whatever was in there could stay in there. Forever.

  Taking deep breaths, he picked up his leather bag and headed down the hall. He needed to get back to his office. He had to call PPE. They needed an evac. They’d never believe what he saw, but he’d say the men were near death. That would get them a chopper. Or a boat. Anything to get the fuck off the rig.

  #

  The drilling office was cool and dark. Standlee had turned off the lights so they could all bask in the glory of his monster movie. Vraebel was still trying to process what he’d seen.

  As he and Calhoun had made their way to the drilling office, the engineer had said he and Shawna had been attacked by the oil sample. Vraebel wanted to yell “bullshit” as loud as he could. The man had clearly gone insane. He’d considered ignoring Calhoun and simply heading back to the bridge. But then Calhoun had said the AUV had filmed what happened to the drill string. That was enough to keep Vraebel from bolting.

  The email from Simpson regarding quarantine of the Houston lab, coupled with what Calhoun said, had set him on edge. When Standlee had shown him the film? Yeah, that’s when the wheels of reality started to come off.

  “The tube worms aren’t tube worms,” Vraebel finally said.

  Calhoun, Sigler, and Standlee were all staring at him and had been for several seconds.

  Calhoun cleared his throat. He rubbed his hands together. Vraebel was sure the man was going to tell him it was all a joke, but the big engineer’s face turned stony. “No, Martin. They’re not.” He sighed and jerked a thumb at the screen. “That’s what grabbed the drill string. You can see it as clear as day.”

  “No,” Vraebel said. “Simply not possible.”

  Sigler and Standlee exchanged a glance. A strange look came over her face and when she met Vraebel’s eyes, they glittered with something akin to madness. “If you don’t believe us, I can always take you in the lab, give you a flashlight, and then turn off the overheads. Then maybe you’ll understand.”

  “Is that a threat?” Martin asked. His pulse pounded in his ears. None of this made any sense. Maybe in the fucking Twilight Zone or some goddamned Jake Bible book, but this shit didn’t belong in reality. Period. “You threatening to lock me in your lab?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t get it, do you?” She turned and pointed at the screen. “That fucking happened, Martin. That is fucking real!”

  Sigler was obviously close to panic. Whatever had happened, or she imagined happened, had addled her brain. There was no other explanation for a rational person, a fucking scientist no less, to take this seriously.

  Vraebel tapped his foot and raised his hands. “I don’t believe it. I simply do not accept this.”

  Calhoun’s face flushed. “Martin,” he said in a low even voice, “do you accept that the Houston lab has been quarantined?”

  “Of course,” Vraebel said. “I mean, Simpson wouldn’t fuck with us. Would he?”

  Calhoun shook his head. “No, Simpson wouldn’t. And I’m telling you that we’re not fucking with you either. What would be the purpose?”

  He opened his mouth, and then closed it. He didn’t know what to say to that. What would be the purpose? Vraebel couldn’t believe he was going to say the words that popped into his mind. “Say I believe that,” he said and pointed at the screen. “The fuck am I supposed to do about it? What do you suggest? We pull the string back up?”

  Standlee shook his head. “We don’t know how it would react.”

  “It. You mean the drill string?”

  “Fuck,” Standlee hissed. “No, goddammit. Whatever the fuck that is beneath the goddamned ocean floor!”

  “It,” Vraebel said. He rubbed at his temples. A headache was definitely in his future. “I think we need to evacuate the rig. Right fucking now. Let PPE decide what to do.”

  Calhoun looked at Standlee. “Show him.”

  The tech turned in his chair and brought up a web-browser. A dialog box popped up. “DNS Failure. Network Unavailable.”

  “See that?” Standlee asked. “We no longer have an internet connection via the satellite.”

  Vraebel blinked. “Bullshit. Unless something’s wrong with the antenna.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with the antenna,” Calhoun grimaced. “If there was, GPS wouldn’t be working.”

  “Okay, so it’s just an outage. Sunspots or something.”

  Calhoun slammed a hand down on the desk. “Martin? You’re in denial. And if you want to save your goddamned men and this fucking rig, you need to snap out of it. They’ve isolated us. They shut us off from the network. And there’s not going to be any fucking evacuation.”

  “You don’t know that!” Vraebel yelled. “You’re just jumping to conclusions. You’re scared, I get that. After watching…that,” he said, “I’m a little shaken too. But PPE isn’t just going to leave us out here.”

  Sigler nodded. “Yes, they will. If the CDC has already gotten involved in Houston, and they know where the sample came from, they’re going to assume we’ve all been exposed to the agent.”

  “What agent?” he asked. “You have no proof anything has happened to anyone on this fucking rig.”

  Calhoun walked away from the desk, hands clasped behind his back. “The problem,” he said to the monitors hanging from the ceiling, “is we don’t know what it does when it encounters a human being.”

  “We can find out,” Standlee said. “We need to go see JP.”

  “Right,” Sigler said. She looked at Calhoun. “Have you talked to him today?”

  Calhoun shook his head. “No. Catfish?”

  “Nope. I figured he was out with the dive crew.”

  Vraebel pursed his lips. “You think what? That he was bitten?”

  Standlee shrugged. “That’s what he said. And JP’s a tough bastard. He wouldn’t hide in his bunk unless it was something pretty damned serious.”

  “Okay,” Calhoun said. “Let’s go see JP. Maybe he knows something. Or at least we can find out if this shit is lethal.”

  “And if it is?” Vraebel asked.

  Calhoun paused. He headed to the door. “I’d rather not think about it.”

  #

  The world was rendered in shades of grey. He’d nearly fallen down the steps as he ran away from…well, from whatever the fuck that was in the commissary. When he reached the bottom steps, he just kept running until he was in his stateroom.

  Once he closed the door, locked it, and propped a chair beneath the door handle, he stood with his back against the wall huffing and puffing. His lungs burned and his heart was trip-hammering in his chest. But he was safe.

  He stood there until the stars floating before his eyes departed and the world returned to full color. His fucking GP had told him he needed to lose weight. Harobin hoped he’d have a chance to get healthy.

  After he’d left the drilling office to take a shower and clean up, he’d realized he hadn’t eaten lunch. That was when he went to the commissary. He wasn’t sure he’d ever eat again.

  Red, he thought tha
t’s what the man’s name was, was lying on the landing outside the commissary. The man’s face was white as a sheet and trails of blood were trickling from his nose. When the man screamed for help, Andy had been caught off guard. He hadn’t even noticed him until then. And then…

  The black. A large puddle was consuming the guy. Even though he was still on the steps, he could see Red was missing the lower half of one leg. But that wasn’t the terrible part. The terrible part was the appetizing scent of cooking meat and then realizing the source was the dissolving flesh of one of your coworkers.

  Harobin closed his eyes and willed himself not to puke. On top of the rig quake, this was too much. Just too goddamned much. He was a coward. He’d run. He’d said “fuck you” to Red by high-tailing it down the steps to save his own skin. But what else was he supposed to do?

  If Red had seen what was behind him in the commissary, he’d understand. Shit, he’d probably have screamed at Andy to get away. Yeah, that’s how it would have gone down.

  The commissary floor was nothing but black oil and floating bits of metal. Except for the thing sticking out of the mess. It looked like a tentacle that ended in eyes. Harobin shivered as the image flashed through his mind. Fucking aliens have fucking landed, he said to himself.

  Or, maybe Shawna was right. Maybe there was something odd about the oil. Maybe it wasn’t oil at all.

  Something banged in the hall and he froze. The ooze was in the hallway. It was going to slide under the door and--

  “JP? Open the fucking door!”

  He exhaled a deep breath. Ears pounding with the sound of his heart, he peered through the peephole. Calhoun and Vraebel stood in front of the door across the hall. Harobin pulled the chair from beneath the door, unlocked it, and opened it. The two men turned toward him.

  “Mr. Vraebel,” he gasped, “there’s something you need to know.”

  The rig-chief’s forehead furrowed as he squinted. “Harobin? You look like shit. Why weren’t you in the drilling office?”