Infestation

by William Meikle

  By the time they reached the fifth house, it was obvious the whole settlement had suffered much the same fate, although here there were signs of gunfire but from inside the house itself. The homeowner had a shotgun, a big one judging by the spray pattern of shot. But if he’d hit anything, there was no sign of any spilled blood other than his own. And this time, Banks got plenty of evidence to consider, although he still couldn’t make sense of it.

  The attackers hadn’t dragged this victim away; the big man lay in the doorway, scraps of clothing and flesh scattered like a blanket under him. There was nothing left of his legs but bone and fatty tissue – it likes its meat red – his groin and belly gaped open, ribs splayed as if forcibly burst apart, guts and heart and lungs stripped as neatly as the muscles from the thighs, with almost surgical precision. All the attack had left him was his face, mouth gaping in a never-ending scream. Eyes, blood red, almost popped from their sockets.

  Banks bent to examine the wounds more closely, wishing now he’d taken time to do so back with the walruses. The long bones of the thighs were scratched, scraped almost, as if the flesh had been scoured off roughly. And now he saw it clearly, he knew what it reminded him of – bodies he’d seen in the Himalayas, of priests left out in sky burials for the crows and vultures. The butchered body below him had much the same look to what was left; a scavenger had been at him, or rather, several scavengers.

  “My local knowledge is admittedly sketchy, Cap,” Hynd said softly, “but I don’t remember any wildlife around here that attacks, or feeds, like that.”

  Banks stood, careful to avoid stepping in any gore. He shook his head.

  “Me neither. But whatever it is, we can’t spend time looking for it; we’re on the clock here. Let’s make for the Russian boat and see what’s to be seen over there.”

  *

  The small harbor at the center of town was as quiet as the rest of the settlement and neither of the two boats moored at the short quay were going anywhere except down; both were holed at the waterline, their timbers split, as if pulled open from the outside.

  Banks looked over the dark stretch of water between them and the Russian boat. The distance could be swum, if they were in the Med; here it would be suicide, a certain death within minutes in the freezing water.

  “Plan B,” Banks said. “This is a fishing community; there’ll be other boats or dinghies somewhere around here. We need to find one and we need to find one fast. Two teams; Sarge, you take McCally and Briggs and sweep ‘round the backs of the buildings we passed; check sheds, backs of trucks, trailers – anywhere there might be a boat or inflatable. Nolan, you’re with Mac and me. We meet up back here in twenty.”

  “And what if we don’t find a boat?” Mac said.

  Banks smiled grimly.

  “Then we’ll hollow out yon belly of yours and use you as a fucking canoe.”

  *

  Banks moved quickly north with Nolan and Mac right behind him. The first building they investigated sat directly opposite the quay across the shore track; the local post office. Unlike the houses, it looked to have survived any attacks; Banks spotted it had concrete underpinnings and brick walls, along with a main door that was built to last; metal and glass at least half an inch thick. Whatever had attacked the settlement had obviously chosen the easier pickings to be had in the timber houses on either side.

  He rapped hard on the locked door but everything was still and dark inside. Like the rest of the buildings, if there was power, it wasn’t switched on. Either the locals hadn’t thought to seek refuge there or, more probable given what they’d seen so far, the people hadn’t been given the time. Whatever the case, a post office wasn’t the right place to be looking for a boat.

  They circled the building anyway, with Mac taking the lead this time. A small paved area at the rear had three Skidoos parked in a neat line. He made a mental note; the vehicles might be handy if they needed to make an overland getaway at some point… but as Banks had suspected, there were no signs of a boat.

  Banks saw the other three men down to their south in the backyard of one of the houses; they didn’t appear to be having much luck either. He led Nolan and Mac around to the front of the building to continue northward. Time was passing them by fast; if they didn’t find transport across to the Russian vessel soon, he might have to call in an abort; a first for him and his squad and a step he wasn’t ready to take.

  “Step it up, lads,” he said and jogged, almost ran to the next house up the shore. This one looked more promising, a larger property set back a bit from the shore with a double garage to one side that might, if they were lucky, prove to be a boat shed. But when they turned off the shore track onto the short driveway, Banks’ hopes were dashed immediately; one of the garage doors had been pulled open and laid, a crumpled heap, to one side. There had been a boat inside, a fifteen-foot Zodiac dinghy. Like the boats in the harbor, this one was going nowhere; the rubber flayed, torn and tattered into ribbons with scraps of it laying over two more bodies; a woman and a child she had obviously been trying to protect. The woman’s back was flayed open, her spine clearly showing. The girl below her had suffered less wounding, but her legs were similarly stripped clean of flesh, the bone showing too white in Banks’ night vision. Nolan retched behind him and Banks turned to tell the lad to take it outside but never got to say it.

  They all heard it at the same time, a scratching, scuttling noise, coming from the far corner on the other side of the dinghy. Mac and Nolan moved without having to be told, Mac circling ‘round toward the far side of the boat while Nolan joined Banks in heading directly for the source of the sound.

  The first thing Banks saw was a prone man’s leg jerking as if in death throes.

  We’ve got somebody alive here.

  Then he stepped forward and saw what was feeding on the body and causing the leg to spasm.

  *

  Three of them; at first, Banks thought they were, surreally, armadillos, for they had the same armored look to them but these beasts were flatter, more oval in shape and definitely more crustacean than mammalian, with broad flat tails slapping on the garage floor as they fed. The more he looked the more they reminded him of the common woodlice that had infested his childhood home. But he wasn’t going to be able to pinch these between thumb and forefinger; the beasts feeding on the dead man’s guts in the corner were each almost two feet in length. They moved with great efficiency, the talon-like hooks on their feet tearing flesh in strips then fed it up along their length to an eager mouth that tore again, before passing into a maw. They chewed with sounds all too close to disgusting delight.

  Banks saw Mac arrive on the far side of the body from him, weapon raised. He waved his finger – no shooting ­– he didn’t want their presence here given away. But Nolan at Banks’ side either didn’t see the signal or was too caught up in his disgust to obey. He raised his rifle and put three rapid rounds into the body of the beast nearest him, the shots almost deafening in the confines of the garage. And as if it was a signal, all three of the creatures, even the one Nolan had so clearly hit, turned and as one launched directly at the Irishman.

  *

  Nolan danced backward, his weapon still raised, but the things were too fast for him and were at his ankles, clambering over his legs before he could move. He screamed as ribbons of material, then flesh, were torn from his shins.

  “Stand back, Cap,” Mac shouted and stepped forward. He kicked one of the beasts against the wall, where Banks was able to put it down; not easily, as it took three bursts – nine rounds – before it finally lay still. He turned to see Nolan trying to hold one of remaining two away from his face, even while its legs tore at his flak vest under his parka, trying to get at the soft parts.

  Mac dispatched the second with three bursts of fire of his own, then both he and Banks were at Nolan’s side, trying to tear the third off the Irishman. The beast flew into frenzy, legs tearing and ripping, Nolan screaming in terror, material flying in scraps of duck
down and nylon. Finally, Banks and Mac got a clean grip on it, although Mac took a sliced cut across the back of his glove in the process.

  “On three, into the corner,” Banks shouted and on the count, they heaved the beast away from them. It immediately tried to come right back but by then all three men had their weapons up and ready. The creature blew apart in a deafening flurry of weapons fire, leaving behind only a smear on the wall and a ringing in Banks’ ears that was going to take a long time to fade.

  Blood streamed under the torn fragments of Nolan’s trousers and the Irishman was pale, almost ashen but his voice was strong enough when he struggled to his feet and spoke.

  “Going to need a hand here, Cap,” he said.

  “I’ve got dressings in my pack,” Mac said but wasn’t given time to do anything about it. More rapid fire carried in to them from outside.

  “I’m right with you,” Nolan said, all three of them left the garage at a run.

  *

  They only got as far as the shoreline track when they met the others running up from the south toward them.

  “We need to find cover, Cap, and fast,” Hynd said.

  Over the man’s left shoulder, Banks saw why; the shoreline heaved, as if the rocks themselves were alive, then they surged up and out of the water; the same kind of beasts they’d killed, scores of them, swarming up out of the slush.

  “The post office,” Banks shouted. “It’s our only chance.”

  They retreated in the face of the rapidly advancing swarm.

  - 2 -

  Rika Svetlanova put down the box of hard biscuits and stood still, listening, sure she had heard something, far off.

  An engine? Please let it be an engine.

  But the noise wasn’t repeated and she wasn’t about to leave the safety of the pantry to investigate, despite the growing cold. She tugged her jacket tighter around her, thankful she’d been wearing her outdoor clothing when she’d needed to run. She’d been here for two days now going by her watch and had heard no other voices, had talked to no one. The power had run down on her phone hours ago, although there was little chance of getting any kind of signal down here almost in the center of the many layers of hull and metal. And she wasn’t about to venture out of the room to look for company anytime soon.

  It wasn’t safe.

  It might never be safe.

  The boat rocked gently below her. As far as she knew, they were still at anchor in the bay, moored alongside the drilling rig; they certainly weren’t under power, for she would feel the engines thrumming underfoot and hear the drumbeat thud of the turbines. Instead, all she felt was the gentle rocking, almost enough to send her to sleep.

  Almost.

  She had some light, so obviously an emergency battery somewhere was working but the bulb above her had dimmed considerably in recent hours. It wasn’t going to be too long before she was left in darkness.

  She’d been awake now for over forty-eight hours and had found herself dozing several times, snapping awake when her head nodded on her chest. But full sleep was going to be a long time coming and untroubled sleep a long time after that, for she had seen too much these past days to ever sleep soundly again.

  Maybe I’ll sleep when I get back to Moscow; my own bed, a good meal, and some large shots of vodka sound good right about now.

  She laughed at the thought. Planning ahead wasn’t a great idea, given her circumstances. She was in the main larder of the boat, with plenty to eat and drink at hand and a flow of air that, although it tasted of death at times, was breathable, for now. But to venture beyond the door might well be the death of her and she didn’t know how long she’d stay brave enough to avoid opening it.

  But she would go mad here if she stayed for much longer without doing anything.

  If I cannot leave, at least I can make a report; it might be of use to someone, in the weeks to come.

  She turned to her pocket Dictaphone, checked there was still power in the batteries, and spoke into it.

  *

  “I have decided to tell the tale here of our failure, in the hope that anyone who comes across this will not make the same mistakes we did, mistakes that have got us all killed… or worse.

  “We got here in late spring. I know we’re not supposed to be in Canadian waters but there’s too much at stake here for us to ignore the wealth that’s lying in our reach, opened up by the warmer waters of the Arctic. Someone will harvest the riches lying here, untapped as of yet. If we don’t get it, another country will, and the Americans will be just as blind to the diplomatic niceties as we have to be. So we came across the Circle, determined to try.

  “We went up and down the coast around here for several weeks, running seismic surveys, before deciding on the best spot for drilling. The week while the rig was put in place and made fit for operation proved to be a tedious one and I’m afraid I drank more vodka than was sensible and suffered for it with horrible hangovers and seasickness that had me quite debilitated for a time. But finally, it was done and we drilled.

  “My job as chief scientist was to keep an eye on the sediments we brought up and check for value. As it turned out, I was kept busier than I would have hoped. The drill bit did its job for the most part, but the sediment, then rock, we drilled through varied wildly in porosity and density so we never knew from day to day how deep we would get, or what we might dredge up. I spent my days on the rig in the vicinity of the drill shaft trying to ensure the smoothest operation possible and my evenings in the mess with a never-ending procession of vodka shots and packs of Marlboro.

  When I ran out of liquor, I took to getting beat by the captain at chess. The little Murmansk man was quiet but he had a mind like a steel trap and a game to match; I forced a couple of draws out of him but that was as far as I was able to get. We spoke little of matters beyond the game or the drilling, but he was a comfortable companion. I am going to miss him.

  “In early May, we had a celebration when we struck an oil deposit and I’m afraid the lure of vodka got the better of me again. I staggered to my bunk and fell into a dark pit. I woke with a stinking headache, made all the worse by the loud ringing of an alarm and the incessant honking of our fog horn despite the fact bright sunlight lanced in through the porthole above my bunk.

  “I went out onto the main deck and into a scene of almost comedic chaos.

  “Stefan, the cook, stood at the gunwale, smacking something at his feet with a frying pan, again and again until whatever he was hitting was a streak of pulpy mush on the deck. Elsewhere, the crew stomped and yelled in a kind of macabre, badly choreographed, dance. It was only when I saw what the captain was holding at bay I realized this was no laughing matter.

  “At first, I took them for horseshoe crabs; they were about the same, oval, dinner-plate size. But these had claws under the carapace, talons on their legs, pincers at the mouth parts, long antennae probing at the air as if tasting it and a squat, stubby rectangular tail rising in the air, giving them balance as they scuttled across the deck. I finally identified one as it stopped, raised its head, and tasted the air. I’d seen the like in books and on the Internet, but this was my first real-life encounter with the species. It was an isopod, Bathynomus Giganteus, normally a carnivorous bottom feeder.

  “They weren’t anywhere near the bottom now; the whole deck swarmed with scores of them. The one tasting the air turned on scuttling legs and came straight for me. I didn’t think twice, I stepped forward and kicked it, hard, sending it soaring away over the gunwale.

  “‘I need some help here,’ the captain shouted. He was at the main doorway into the superstructure, trying to close it against a frenzied attack of tens of the isopods. Three of the deck hands followed me in answering his call and we did what we could, stomping and kicking our way to his aid, leaving sticky trails of mush and slime behind us.

  “The man next to me bent and tried to lift one of the things in his hands; it turned on him immediately, stripping two of his fingers to the bone with its ro
ugh mouth. Our stomping got more frenzied but even then the sheer number of the things threatened to overwhelm us. The noise of talons scratching on the steel deck sounded like tearing metal and the tap-tap of their legs as they scuttled was like rapid gunfire. Everywhere I turned there were more of them, and I finally saw the source; they came up the side of drill shaft and across the gangplanks from the rig, washing down in a wave onto the deck.

  “My thought was we must have disturbed a colony on the seabed, enough for them to get curious… or hungry. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  “I kept kicking and stomping. Behind me one of the crewmen yelled in pain, bent to grab at where his ankle had been attacked and immediately had three of the things scuttling up his arms and over his body. I saw his left ear get ripped off, then he fell, immediately submerged in a threshing, squirming pile of the isopods, all eager to get to him and strip the flesh from his bones. His screams were terrible but thankfully, they did not last long.

  “We had almost reached the captain at the superstructure door. He laid into the attacking isopods hard with a long tire-iron, cutting swathes through the beasts like a swinging sword. Between the four of us remaining, we cleared the doorway and were finally able to drag ourselves in and slam the door behind us with a resounding clang.

  “We quickly made our way up the stairwell to the control room, where we all stood there, looking at each other for long seconds, each wondering what the hell had happened. The whole deck swarmed with the beasts, crawling and scuttling over each other in a frenzied search for food. I couldn’t see any of the crew. I was hoping that, like us, most of them had made it to relative safety. At least the cargo hold doors were closed; I could only hope all remaining access points below decks were likewise firmly shut, for the thought of these things scurrying – feeding – in the corridors and cabins did not bear thinking about.