by Tim Curran
“I ain’t touching it,” he said.
“Keep away from it,” Cook warned them. “I don’t trust those whiskers… they could sting.”
Saks just watched it, wondering what sort of sewer of evolution it had wriggled from. Something like that… it had no right to live.
Its pectoral fins were spines like the tail, webbed with pink flesh, but the lower pelvic fins were something between fins and stubby walking legs. And back toward the caudal, there were tiny appendages which could have been nothing but swimmerets like those of a crayfish.
But for all of this, it seemed to be a fish.
Somehow. Some way. For it was incontrovertibly fish-like.
“Jesus Christ,” Fabrini cried. “Somebody kill that fucking thing!”
And they all wanted to, for it was so incredibly appalling that it offended them on some basal level. It was a horror. Something that had slithered out of the backwash of a primeval sea… snaking and undulating and disgusting. But nobody dared get near it.
Saks took up an oar, staring down at it, figuring it would be up to him to smash this monstrosity.
It was dying now, he could see that much. Getting sluggish and dopey. It wouldn’t last much longer. Each of those plates or segments were expanding to take in air, deflating again with slushy sounds. He figured it didn’t have the normal forward gill slits of a fish, but that the openings between the segments must have been gills of some sort.
“Get the hell out of my way,” he told Fabrini, moving around it with the oar.
Hupp was moaning, gagging, sounding like he was going to wretch. He slid out of Crycek’s grip and Crycek let out a little cry… but too late. Hupp’s leg got too close to the fish and those whipping barbels grazed the open flesh, leaving red vertical blisters like blood poisoning or burns. Hupp screamed and flopped and blood came from his mouth. His leg where the barbels had grazed it went blue as a blister, then black. Swelling up like bread dough. He shuddered and slumped over, dead as dead can be.
Nobody said anything.
Nobody did anything.
Crycek whimpered a bit, but didn’t touch Hupp’s body. Was afraid to, maybe.
Saks was watching that thing.
It had no eyes, but all those whiskers or whips were ringed around a flat, flabby gash further in which he supposed was a mouth. Each time the plates expanded to take a breath, that repulsive mouth yawned wide. There were things in there, maybe tongues but looking more like a nest of slender blue worms.
Saks figured then how this sucker hunted.
It used those wormy-tongues to lure in fish much as an alligator snapping turtle did with its own tongue. And once prey got past that flabby cave of a mouth, those whips would come in and seize it, inject it with some nerve agent that would paralyze it. For that’s what those red thorns were: nematocysts, stinging cells like those of jellyfish. Those whips acted like the tentacles of a sea anemone… they captured and killed what the tongues lured in. Saks figured that might explain the thing’s fins… they were like legs because it probably crawled over the bottom.
“You sure you ain’t gonna filet this bastard?” he said to Menhaus and Menhaus stupidly shook his head as if it had been an option he decided against.
Saks stood near the fish… but not too near.
It was growing very still now. Even the whiskers were barely shuddering. And there was a ripe, decomposing stench wafting off it like a bucket of steaming entrails. Saks brought up the oar and smashed it down on the head. Those plates weren’t as rugged as he first thought. The impact of the oar split one like a peanut shell.. . black, inky fluid oozing out. He brought the oar up and then down, crushing those barbels to paste. He kept hammering at it until it ruptured completely open, pissing a stew of meaty organs and black juice and vomiting out a bile of yellow jelly.
Opened up like that, it didn’t smell too sweet.
Fabrini upchucked over the gunwale.
Menhaus was green as moss.
Cook, however, was unmoved by any of it. If he was anything more than offended by the fish, he would not let Saks see it. He sat in the stern, eyes hard as forged iron. Pale and pinched-looking, but nowhere near as bad as the others.
“Who’s gonna clean up this fucking mess?” Saks asked. “How about you, Cook?”
Cook offered him a thin smile. “Not likely.”
“Well,” Saks said, dipping his oar in the water and washing it off best he could, “guess it falls to you, Menhaus. Be careful of them tentacle-things. They still can sting. Hurts like a motherfucker, too. Just ask Hupp.”
Menhaus looked like he was going to be sick, but he knew that he’d pulled the job. He brought the fish in and he would have to throw it back out. It took him a few moments to get his stomach under control, but when he did he went right over to the fish and, using the gloves, took hold of its tail and heaved it over the side. The fish bobbed there for a few seconds, then slowly began to sink.
“Wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said to them. “Goddamn babies. Just a fish”
But then all there was to do was think about Hupp’s corpse and what they were going to do with it. And nobody seemed to want to touch that one. No one but Saks. While the others looked at just about anything else, Saks eyed the handle of a knife sticking out of Hupp’s boot. Making sure no one was looking, he plucked it free and stuck it in his own boot.
Nobody seemed to notice.
Except Cook. He saw it, of course. But Saks flashed him a smile, just to let that sono-fabitch know that he had his number. That when the time came, he’d be punching his ticket.
“What about Hupp?” Fabrini finally said.
But got no reply.
So Saks said, “Looks like we’re a little shy on a good burying hole, so he goes over the side.”
“You… you can’t do that,” Crycek stammered.
“Why not?”
“Jesus Christ, Saks, we should say something,” Fabrini said.
“Okay, you’re right. Goodbye, Hupp.” Saks seemed to find it amusing. “There. I said something.”
“You’re an asshole,” Cook told him, meaning it.
Saks grinned. “Good, glad you feel that way. You can help… take him by the feet there. On the count of three…”
12
Since they’d gotten on the hatch cover, Cushing had heard it all again and again. Soltz had a nervous stomach, sensitive skin, arthritis in both knees, countless allergies, angina, myopia, a scalp condition, and was prone to gingivitis, bladder infections, and unexplainable pains in his legs. He was like a walking textbook of hypochondria. Back on the ship, he’d had medications for all these things-pills, salves, drops-but now he had nothing.
And he made sure Cushing knew it.
Cushing didn’t know how much more he could take. Soltz was bad enough with his constant litany of complaints and ailments, but there were worse things happening than that. And the bottom line was that they were trapped in some terrible ocean and Cushing was pretty sure it wasn’t a backwash of the Atlantic.
He kept telling Soltz not to worry. That the fog would lift and they’d be rescued… but how much longer could he keep that up?
“There really is no chance, is there?” Soltz said.
“Sure there is,” Cushing lied once again. “Patience is the key. You just gotta be patient.”
But Soltz looked defeated. “No doubt we’ll be long dead before help arrives. If it ever does arrive.”
“It will. It has to.”
“I need water,” Soltz moaned. “I think I’m dehydrating.”
“You’re not dehydrating. It takes longer than this to dehydrate.”
Soltz fingered his balding scalp. “Maybe for you. I’m different.”
“You’re not different.”
“Yes, I am. I always have been. I’m more sensitive to these things than most. To just about everything.”
Cushing sighed. How the hell did I end up with this guy? he wondered.
“Soltz, why the hell did you sign up for th
is?” he asked. “I mean, why would a guy like you want to go down to South America and chop a runway out of the jungle for chrissake? It looks to me like day-to-day living is too much for you.”
“Money. Isn’t that why we all do things, Cushing? Isn’t that why we all take foolish chances and put our lives on the line?” Soltz said to him. “Well, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Besides, I have high insurance premiums.”
“You’re kidding me,” Cushing said. “A guy like you?”
“Oh no, it’s true. I have terribly high insurance premiums. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
Cushing buried his head in his hands as Soltz went into graphic detail about enlarged tendons and fluid being drained from his knee with needles. The only time Soltz seemed to be happy is when he was either complaining or discussing some medical procedure.
“I need water,” Soltz said again when he’d finished making Cushing queasy. “I’m beginning to feel dizzy.”
“You’re fine.”
“You don’t know.”
“Yes, I do, dammit. You’re not dehydrated. Not yet. When your lips start cracking open and your tongue bloats up and turns black, then you’re dehydrated. You’re just thirsty now. There’s a difference.”
Soltz licked his lips. “Already my lips hurt.”
Cushing gave up. If he wanted to think he was dying, who gave a damn? Let him think it. As long as he did it quietly and without drama, Cushing didn’t have a problem with it. Right now, save for rescue, all Cushing could think of was his brother-in-law, Franklin Fisk. The same dumb bastard who’d organized this little party. And the very same bastard who’d drafted Cushing to go along as a spy. A spy. Jesus Christ, but it was hard to believe. Hard to believe that Cushing himself had gone along with it. Who gave a good goddamn what Saks was up to? If Saks was alive, floating around out there somewhere, and they bumped into him, Cushing was going to tell him the truth. And he wasn’t going to stop there. This would be more than an admission. He was going to tell Saks everything he needed to take old Frank Fisk down. And nobody knew the Fisk dirty laundry like Cushing did.
The idea of this and only this made him smile.
Payback.
“What is that?” Soltz said.
Cushing looked. He saw clumps of yellow-brown weed floating in patches. “It’s Sargasso weed, Soltz. It won’t bite you… unless you get too close.” He was thinking of telling Soltz the truth about it. That it was just seaweed, really, that collected in patches. That it was the mainstay of a colony of different creatures who used it for food, for shelter, for breeding. He was going to tell him about the tiny shrimp and chubs, the sargassum pipefish, the crabs and sea slugs, the eels that called it home. The larger fish that fed off the smaller ones in its shoots and tendrils. All the things he’d read about.
But was it the truth? Sure, it looked pretty much like pictures of Sargasso weed he’d seen… but was it? Cushing couldn’t be sure, couldn’t be sure about a lot of things in this place. Maybe being trapped in that winding fog made a man start thinking funny things, things he had no right thinking in the first place. Cushing didn’t doubt that at all. But the sea… oddly pink or red-tinted, steaming and fetid and oozing… nobody could tell him that was normal. The air, the sea, the fog, everything was fucked-up and if the water itself wasn’t exactly kosher – Cushing likened it to something drained from a stagnant tidal pool – then who in Christ was he to say that this was indeed Sargasso weed?
Yeah, it was all insane and it got under your skin and you could tell yourself all you wanted that it was some strange fogbank and a peculiar sea brought about by some atmospheric anomaly… but shit was shit no matter how you chewed it or dressed it up and you could only swallow so much before it came back up again.
“I’ve seen seaweed floating before, Cushing. I’m not stupid, much as it delights you to think so. I’ve never seen seaweed like that, seaweed that sparkles.”
Well, he had something there. The seaweed did seem to sparkle. Maybe it was just a reflection from that damn fog. And maybe it had something to do with the day brightening up so that you could actually see things now. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Soltz said, “You know, I appreciate your lies, Cushing. You’re a good man to be concerned about my state of mind. But you don’t have to bother. I heard what those sailors were saying when we steered into that fog.” Soltz fixed him with those rainy gray eyes of his, held him like a bug on a needle. “We’re in the Devil’s Triangle, aren’t we? I mean, we’re in the place people call that. All those planes and ships and missing people… well, we know where they went, now don’t we? A patch of glowing fog sucked them up and spewed them here.”
“Don’t let your imagination run away on you, Soltz,” Cushing said without much faith.
“I saw a TV show about this years ago, Cushing. Vortices. That’s what they call these things. Vortices. They suck you up and dump you some place else. And maybe that place is just five-hundred miles away from your last position and maybe… yes, maybe it’s so far away physics couldn’t even measure it.”
Cushing didn’t have any spit left or he might have disagreed on general principles or for the sake of morale. But Soltz was on a run now and there was no slowing him down. He was spewing all the crap he’d sucked in about the Bermuda Triangle from years of pseudo-documentaries. Thing was, it all would’ve been casually amusing a week ago, but now? Anything but.
“I heard one of the sailors mentioning the Sargasso Sea… do you know what that is?” Soltz asked him.
“Just a big, becalmed seaweed sea in the Atlantic. Your Devil’s Triangle touches its boundaries. That’s the official take,” Cushing told him. “There’s also a mythical side to it the old mariners used to spin tales about. Seaweed everywhere. No wind, no nothing but weeds. Ships would get stuck there because there was no wind for their sails. But that wasn’t the worse part. The seaweed was so thick there ships would get stuck in it and never leave. The weeds would grow right over the ships and hold them there while the crews died of thirst. A ship’s graveyard.”
Soltz stared around nervously. “I guess that’s where we are then. See that’s how those tales started, Cushing. Men or ships must have been passed into this place, saw terrible things here, then passed out of it again and told the story.”
Sure, that’s exactly what Cushing had been thinking.
But to hear Soltz saying it without a shred of doubt, well it was disturbing, disheartening, something. He was right, of course. What other explanation was there? Cushing didn’t accept any of it lightly. He’d been fighting against the idea since before the ship went down, but step by step he’d been pushed into belief. There was no other choice.
“There’s things here,” Soltz said, almost too calmly, “things you won’t see other places. Terrible things. You know it and I know it.”
Cushing knew it, all right.
As yet, they’d had no encounters with what was in the fog, but they’d heard sounds… bad sounds… and Cushing knew it was only a matter of time.
Apparently, Soltz knew that, too.
13
On the lifeboat, it was pretty much the same thing:
“What is that shit?”
Crycek looked over where Saks was pointing. There was a clumpy expanse of yellow weeds, floating stalks and bladders. “Gulf weed,” he said. “It’s all over the Atlantic.”
“Don’t look like Gulf weed to me.”
Crycek smiled. “No? What do you think it is?”
Saks said, “Hell if I know.”
“Sometimes things look like one thing when they’re actually another,” Crycek said, just filled with mysticism or dementia… take your pick.
Which got Saks glaring at him. “No shit? And sometimes sailors look like men, but they’re really pussies looking for their mama’s tit. Ain’t that right, Crycek?”
Cook sighed. Crycek was baiting Saks. He’d been baiting them all since Saks and his crew had c
limbed aboard the lifeboat. It was a game to him, you see. His mind was getting softer than a pumpkin two weeks past Halloween and now he was acting like a little boy with a dread, dirty secret. Only he wasn’t going to tell, because that’s not how it worked. So he just kept needling the others, hinting at dark things and unseen things and just plain awful things. Hinting, mind you, but never framing said terrors into words.
Crycek was not only losing it, Cook decided, he’d already lost it.
Hupp was dead now, tossed overboard under Saks’s direction with all the ceremony of an emptied chamber pot. And that had been the catalyst, Cook figured. Only Hupp and caring for him had kept Crycek’s oars in the water. Even then, he was on the verge of hysteria, but it had been something. Something to call his own. Something to balance out the madness. Now, however, there was nothing. And Crycek was giving into his dementia like a junkie giving into the needle, knowing that all things were eventual somehow.
Cook had been noticing that the clumps of weeds were getting more and more numerous now. The one in question Saks was studying was a little island easily six feet in circumference. And, no, it didn’t look much like Gulf weed or any other weed Cook had ever seen before. It was a collection of matted, weedy growths, stalks and bladders, and white greasy-looking pustules about the size of teacups that looked very much like the caps of Death Angel mushrooms. And maybe the strangest and most disconcerting thing was it had a red jelly glistening on it like snot.
Maybe it was perfectly harmless.
Maybe.
“Hey, Fabrini,” Saks said. “Why don’t you jump in there and play with it? Take Menhaus with you. Maybe you two can catch a nice fish for supper. That last one… boy, now that was a real keeper.”
“Why don’t you piss up a rope?”
“You wanna suck on my what?” Saks said.
Menhaus laughed nervously.
Crycek just grinned.
Cook and Menhaus caught each other’s eyes for a moment and they were both thinking the same thing: this was trouble. There was tension here. Something that might turn violent and bloody at any moment. A poisoned sore ready to burst, ready to spread infection throughout the body… the body in this case being the sum total of those in the boat. Maybe they were disguising it with this high school locker room banter, but there was bad blood between Saks and Fabrini. A potentially volatile situation brewing. Saks was staying in the stern and Fabrini in the bow, but sooner or later Saks was going to mouth off and Fabrini was going to be all over him. You could see it in Fabrini’s eyes. The festering hate that was just waiting, waiting for the right moment like a tiger deciding when to unsheath its claws and open some bellies.