He reached it and put his ear against the metal. The scratching sound was something else. Sizzling. Frying. White noise from a television tuned to a dead station. The metal door grew warm.
The doctor pulled away from the hatch and walked back to his desk. He turned on the computer and sat down in the black ergonomic chair. The screen lit up as the hard drive whirred. He put on his glasses and stared at the screen.
He brought up the email client, found the message from the CDC, and hit reply. He typed as the thing continued scratching at the door. Before he sent the email, he said a prayer to a God he didn’t believe in.
#
Two hours had passed since the attack. The group was pushed together so closely, their feet touched. Within the center of the circle, bathed in light, they were fairly safe. Or so Calhoun hoped.
They could hear it sliding around on the deck. At one point, they heard what sounded like footsteps, but the creature didn’t appear. When they’d moved further into the light, their night vision was completely shot. Beyond the tripods was little more than shadows and utter darkness.
The moon was high in the sky, but its wan light barely penetrated the blanket of clouds that raced from horizon to horizon. Calhoun wanted to check his phone again, see if there was another response from PPE or the CDC or whoever the fuck was now in charge. But his battery was already down to 15%. Best to save it.
Catfish had opened his laptop several times to check on the AUVs. The three that remained in the water had surfaced hours ago. Calhoun had asked him if they could look at the image data, but Catfish didn’t want to waste the battery. Instead, he brought up the seismic reports. What they said made little sense, like every other fucking thing that had happened.
Once the thing below the ocean floor had attacked the drill string, the trench had shifted again. The data didn’t tell them how it had reconfigured itself, but Calhoun didn’t need to know.
AUV 5 had reported that the drill string was still in the ground. How far it had punched through the ocean floor was still unknown. When the rig quake happened, those sensors had been damaged. Harobin knew how far they had drilled, but he was gone.
Calhoun wished he had another cigar and a single malt. Or better yet, a port. He grunted at the thought. They were surrounded by something malevolent that could tear them to pieces or dissolve their flesh and he was thinking about his favorite after dinner routine. He looked up from the deck and out into the darkness.
Three hours. Three more hours and the sun would start to rise in the east. The clouds may have blanketed the sky, but he was sure enough UV light would make it through to harm the thing. Maybe even kill it. But only if they could keep it from getting back inside the rig structure. Once inside, it would have plenty of places to hide.
“Once inside,” he said aloud.
“What?” Shawna asked.
He looked over at her and grinned. “Nothing. Just thinking.”
“About what?” Her face was lined with worry, but her eyes were steely.
Calhoun once again patted himself on the back for hiring her. “I do have a question for you.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
He pointed up to the bridge. “Gomez said they were attacked by something much smaller than what we have out here.”
“Yeah. So?”
“What if,” he said, “each person that was, well, infected, became a different entity?”
Shawna opened her mouth and then closed it. She raised her eyes to the sky, tongue clicking against her teeth. “That would mean there are…” She paused and then looked back at him. “At least four other creatures. All smaller than the one out here.”
Calhoun nodded. “I think that’s a fair assumption. Harvey and the three mud workers were infected. However this thing reproduces, it must have used them for food to grow.”
“And this one,” she pointed into the darkness, “had a huge meal.”
Catfish tapped on his laptop. “Then why aren’t they out here joining the fun?”
“Good question,” Calhoun said. “Maybe they just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Like they need to,” Vraebel said. “Doc and Gomez are still in there. Maybe some others.”
Goddammit, he wanted a cigar. Calhoun rubbed a hand across his forehead. He was getting a migraine and it didn’t seem like sleep was in his future. “At least it didn’t get Terrel.”
Vraebel hissed. “Oh, I beg to fucking differ. The man’s dead.”
“Sorry,” Calhoun said, “that’s not what I meant. I meant that what attacked him and Gomez didn’t get to feed. At least not much.”
The rig chief looked up at the bridge. “Steve is trapped up there and we can’t get to him. He could be fucking dying and there’s nothing we can do.”
Calhoun nodded. “We’ll get him come daylight.”
“Just how the fuck are we going to do that?” one of the deck crew asked. Calhoun turned to the large black man sitting across from him. “Those things could be anywhere in there.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Calhoun’s lips. “We have weapons,” he said and pointed to the tripods. The rest of the group followed his gaze.
“You’re kidding,” Vraebel said. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“I think we’re going to have to light the way,” Calhoun said. “Catfish?”
The tech looked up from the deck and to his boss. “Yeah?”
“We need to send the CDC some info. You and Shawna get started on a report. Tell them everything we know. But don’t tell them how many are presumed infected.”
“Why?” Shawna asked.
“Because if they know,” Calhoun frowned, “they’ll just blow us out of the water.”
Chapter Eight
The generator sputtered and the lights flickered. Calhoun looked up at them with a nervous smile. A dim rosy glow had appeared on the eastern horizon. Even behind the thick, bruised cloud cover, it was enough light to dispel some of the shadows on the rig. In a way, that was worse.
Several meters away from the flickering circle of light, he could see the glint of a belt buckle, rivets from blue jeans, and a pocket knife. That was all that remained of Jack Hosley. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they could see the black.
It no longer surrounded them. It had pulled itself around the edges of the western side of the circle. It seemed to know light was coming. He wasn’t sure how it would react when sunlight finally kissed the rig and chased away the shadows, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t stick around very long.
A single half-meter high eye-stalk rose from its flat, obsidian surface. The circle of people had all turned to watch it. The stalk wavered in the freshening wind. The smell of rain had filled their noses. The storm was coming, or at least its outer bands.
The black rippled and shook as a single ray of sunlight broke through the cloud cover. The eastern side of the rig brightened for a moment, and the puddle slid further away from them.
Both Calhoun and Shawna had gotten over their shock at seeing the thing. Ever since dawn had started and the black was visible, they had watched it, studied it. It hadn’t shown any aggression since it took Jack. Calhoun figured the damage it took from the bright lights had been enough to keep it at bay. That and the fact they had all moved to the center of the circle.
It couldn’t attack them without suffering damage. On the one hand, that meant it felt pain and they could fight it. On the other, that meant it was capable of strategy and going on more than simple instinct. Calhoun didn’t like that at all.
The clouds brightened as the sun rose over the horizon. A tendril of smoke erupted from the eye stalk. The puddle shook like pudding and retreated another meter. The deck was larger than a football field and the black covered at least half of it. Calhoun couldn’t tell how thick it was, but he thought it had spread itself thin to cover as much ground as possible.
Another white finger of smoke filled the air above the puddle. The eye-stalk quivered and shrank back into the black.
The eye was no more than a few centimeters above its surface. The black receded into itself, thickening and shrinking in size at the same time. It started to move.
The circle of trapped people watched as it traveled to the western stairs. It moved to the bottom step and then a reverse river of black rose up the stairs and into the superstructure.
Vraebel blew out a sigh. “Are we safe?”
Calhoun shook his head. “Not until we’re off the rig or that thing has been burned into nothing.”
Bill moved to stand up and Vraebel raised a hand. “Not yet, Bill. Let’s wait until the rig is in full sunlight. I don’t like the idea of that thing playing possum.” The large man’s face wrinkled in frustration and then he sat back down. “Thomas?” Martin asked. “You agree?”
“Absolutely. Catfish?”
“Hmm?” Craig said as he opened his eyes. The tech had been asleep for the last hour. “What?” he looked around and then smiled. “It’s gone?”
Calhoun nodded. “We need to get the AUVs powered up and ready. We’re going to need to reprogram them for something special.”
Running his fingers through his dirty blond hair, Catfish looked even more confused. “For what?”
Calhoun grinned and turned to Vraebel. “We have explosives?”
Vraebel blinked. “Yeah. Of course. To fracture the strata below the ocean floor if we’re having trouble getting the oil flowing.” A frown crossed his face. “You’re not fucking serious.”
“What?” Catfish asked. “What the hell are you talking about, Thomas?”
The engineer clasped his hands together. “We have two things we have to take care of. We have to get rid of that,” he said pointing to the superstructure, “and make sure it doesn’t get back in the ocean.”
“And how the fuck are we going to do that? Blow up the goddamned rig?” Catfish asked.
Calhoun shook his head. “No. We’ll have to do something less, um, violent. I’m still working on that.” He paused. “But we need to make sure whatever’s below the ocean floor stays there. We can’t let that shit get out of the trench.”
“If we take out both,” Shawna said, “they won’t have a reason to nuke us. Or whatever they might do.”
“Right,” Calhoun said. “But we can’t have anyone else infected. And we’ll have to track down the other entities and destroy them too.”
“What does that have to do with the AUVs?” Vraebel asked. “We can use an explosive shot down through the drill string. That would blow up the well and…” He paused. “Wait, why do you think an explosion is going to do anything?”
“Because,” Shawna said with a smile, “this stuff is damned volatile to flame and bright light.” She pointed at Thomas. “He thinks we can set the whole trench on fire. Burn it all up.”
Calhoun nodded. “I do. It’s obviously contained. There’s no water reservoir to keep the fire from spreading. It should cause a chain reaction.”
Vraebel shook his head. “You don’t understand, Thomas. Those shots are meant to blow a hole, not start a goddamned inferno. You don’t even know if there’s going to be enough flame to catch anything on fire.”
Catfish groaned. “How big of a hole can we make at the spud site?”
“Well,” Vraebel said, “if we put down a huge shot, we’ll blow the drill string, but we could probably knock through enough rock to fit something big. We just won’t know if it’s enough to go through to the oil.”
“It will be,” Shawna said. “It’s not dense down there. It’s almost like a blanket wrapped around something else.” She thought for a second and then clapped her hands. “Fuck me,” she said. Her eyes widened and gleamed. “Thomas? The spongy stuff in the core sample. What do you think that is?”
“Its prison,” Thomas said. “Or something a little more disquieting.”
“Like what?” Vraebel asked. “What the hell could contain that shit?”
Calhoun licked his chapped lips. God, but he needed a cigar. And a lot of water. “Remember how the entire trench moved? I don’t think that was the black flowing beneath the surface. I think it was something else.”
Shawna gulped. “You think there’s something else down there?”
Catfish sighed. “Fucking sea monsters now? Are you serious?”
“Bear with me,” Calhoun said. “What if the strange substance in the core sample is skin? Flesh? The body of some other creature? What if the black is something other than what we’ve seen? What if it’s the organism’s blood?”
The circle all blinked, but said nothing. The light had grown. Those facing the east squinted against the dawn’s orange rays.
“You’re fucking crazy,” Vraebel said. “Certifiably fucking crazy.”
Calhoun nodded. “I know, Martin. I know how it sounds.”
The dim light covered the deck. The sun continued its rise into the sky, but the massive buildup of clouds kept it from drenching the deck in brightness.
“That’s not everything, either,” Catfish said. “I need to get into the drilling office.”
“Oh, we’re going there too,” Calhoun said. “But we have to get Steve Gomez off the bridge.”
“Just how the fuck are we going to do that?” Vraebel asked.
The generator coughed, and then went silent. “First, we need to get that refueled. Do you have another one up here?”
Vraebel blinked. “We have three.”
“Good,” Calhoun said. He looked up at the sky. “And then we’re going to need something to carry them around.”
#
The storm was moving in. In a few hours, the wind was going to increase and the rain would begin falling from the sky. The waves were going to become swells. And when that happened, the rig was going to buck like a bronco.
Gomez looked at the weather radar. He’d been staring at it for the last hour, watching as the bands of red continued driving toward them. Grim entertainment, but it was better than looking at Terrel’s corpse. Which, by the way, was getting a little ripe.
At first, he’d thought the black sludge had returned. He’d sat against the wall, flashlight pointed at the grate, for nearly ten minutes before he noticed Terrel’s belly swelling up like a balloon. Instead of suffering with the stench, he’d dragged the corpse to the far corner of the room. A smear of bodily fluids soiled the floor in long lines of brown, red, and gray.
When the light first started to rise over the horizon, he’d peered out the bridge windows to view the deck. He’d watched as the light started to touch the rig and the sea of black retreated to the western staircase. That meant the monstrous thing was back inside the superstructure. He wondered how long he had before it showed up. He had a bad feeling a halogen flashlight wasn’t going to be enough to fight it off.
His phone beeped. He sighed and picked it up. Vraebel. His finger slid across the screen and the message appeared.
“Hang tight. We’re coming for you.”
Steve read the words twice before they sunk in. A grim smile lit his face. He looked around the bridge. Vraebel’s satchel sat in the wall locker. Steve picked it up and rifled through it looking for something useful. He found Martin’s phone charger, his wallet, a set of keys, a spare shirt, and an emergency medical kit.
He shoved the flashlight inside and pulled out the medical kit. He smothered the wounds on his left hand with burn cream and then wrapped it in heavy gauze. He had no illusions it would hold, but at least the pain receded.
Wound tended, he packed up the supplies and put them back in the satchel. The locker had three life vests, a flare gun, and several rounds. Gomez smiled at the red plastic gun. He cracked its breech and loaded a flare inside. He put three more of the flares inside his pants pocket and stuck the gun in his belt.
He zipped up the satchel and put it next to his feet. When he looked back down at the rig deck, the circle of people was gone, the halogens were gone, and so was the generator.
“Dios mio,” he said. “You fuckers are crazy.” He didn’t kn
ow exactly what they were planning, but he hoped they’d be here soon. He didn’t know how much longer he could stay conscious.
#
The lights were on inside. At least that much was going according to Calhoun’s plan. As for the rest of it, she thought he was nuts. But since no one had a better idea…
Three burly roughnecks and Martin Vraebel dragged a generator up the stairs. There was a cargo elevator, but it was on the other side of the rig. Besides, she didn’t think anyone wanted to be trapped in there in case the lights went out. Or worse.
When they climbed the top of the stairs, they set the gas generator on the landing and then ran down the stairs to grab the halogens and a hand truck. Once everyone was positioned, they hooked the halogens up to the generator and kicked it on.
Maneuvering the hand truck past the narrow corner leading to the main hallway was hellish. It took two of the roughnecks to shimmy it into position. The bridge was down two corridors and then to the left.
Bill, the roughneck who had tried to save Jack Hosley, demanded to be in the lead. He held the heavy work light in his hands. “If that fucking thing comes out, I want to make sure it gets what’s coming to it,” Bill growled as he lifted the light.
Shawna was behind the hand truck. Another worker, a tall thick, bald man named Robert Creely brought up the rear. In a way, she thought his job was the most difficult. He covered the rear by holding another lamp and walking backwards behind the generator. Martin and Dick Green carried their lamps as well, but theirs were off. When they reached points in the hall with vents or exposed ducts, they turned them on and shined the brilliant light at them until the party went past.
It was slow going. Despite the chill air coming from the A/C, Shawna and the group were sweating. Her job, making sure the cables didn’t get tangled while pushing the hand truck, was more difficult than she’d imagined. Meter by meter, they traveled down the main hallway to the first corridor.
The Black Page 20