Infestation

by William Meikle

  “‘Now what?’ one of the crew with us said. I realized the question had been directed at the captain.

  “‘Now we get these boogers off my bloody ship,’ he said, his features set in grim determination. ‘Brute force obviously works but let’s try something a bit faster. Fetch the kerosene, we’ll burn these bastards out.’“

  *

  “So began the longest day of my life. The captain dispatched crews all over the boat with only one remit – find any isopods aboard and get rid of them by any means necessary. As it turned out, fire was damned efficient, sending the things skittering away in search of respite from the flames. We were able to herd large numbers of them into an empty cargo hold where they burned, crisping and cracking like hastily cooked bacon. If I’d expected them to smell like a seafood gumbo, I was much mistaken, for the stench they gave off was acrid, like burnt vinegar, and they cooked down, not to the equivalent of shelled crabmeat but to a green, oily goop that smelled even worse.

  “But our tactics were working.

  “It was while I was helping to get ten more of the isopods into the dark hole of the cargo hold I saw the luminescence for the first time. It was only a faint blue shimmer, for there was bright sunlight coming in from the now open bay doors above dimming the effect. But now I’d seen it, I started to notice it in other dark corners where we found the beasts hiding. I knew immediately what I was seeing; the light they used to hunt by down in the depths was giving them away up here on the boat.

  “As the day drew on and the sun moved ‘round, casting deeper shadows in corridors and holds, I started to see the glow even stronger and along with it came a high, whining hum. I had to get up close to one of the things to find the cause; it rubbed its two largest limbs together, fast and furious and, like a cricket, sent out a message only its fellow isopods had a hope of understanding. But getting in close showed me something else and it was something needing further investigation. I didn’t want to share the information with anyone just then but if I was correct, we were in more trouble than we thought.

  “Much to the captain’s disgust, I insisted on capturing a live specimen of the things for study; we finally caught one in a stout fishing net and I had it transported to the lab above the drill shaft out on the rig. I had no time to have a look at it then though, for the ship was far from clear of the things and it was several weary hours later before the captain pronounced himself satisfied.

  “The last act of a long day was to go out onto the rig and pour a flow of kerosene over the rig and down the outside of the drill shaft then set it alight. I didn’t hear any more of the high whine but I saw several small bodies fall, flaming, into the sea far beneath the main body of the drilling rig. As night fell, we scoured the boat for any luminescence but found none. The job was done.

  “The captain set a guard on the rig just in case and I dragged myself wearily off to my bunk where I fell, fully clothed, into a welcome oblivion that did not require any vodka to achieve.”

  *

  “Once again I was rudely woken, although this time it was still dark outside the porthole, and this time it was by the captain tugging at my shoulder.

  “‘We missed one,’ he said as I rose.

  “‘It’s alive?’

  “‘Not anymore,’ he said. ‘But there’s something I need you to see and something we need to talk about.’

  “He led me down to the main galley and through to the smaller, cold refrigerated larder at the rear. It looked like a gale had blown through it, with frozen meat, partially eaten by the look of it, strewn here, there, and everywhere. But it wasn’t what he’d brought me to see. The remains of one of the isopods were squished into a mass of pulp on the floor, mere inches from its obvious entry point. A hole had been made, scratched or eaten, in the metal door of the larder, a hole the approximate width and height of the isopod itself.

  “We left the cooks to clean up the mess and went up to the captain’s cabin where, without asking, he poured us three fingers of vodka each and it went down the hatch so quickly I hadn’t even got a smoke lit before he poured another.

  “‘Tell me again about the discontinuity,’ he finally said after we were both lit up.

  “We had talked, briefly, of the theory before, so I knew there was little he didn’t already know but I also knew he needed to talk. The appearance of the isopods in such numbers and the loss of the crewman to them, had us all rattled. So I laid it out for him again as we made our way down the bottle. I spoke again of how our Russian scientists had discovered an anomalous layer between the mantle and the crust where sound waves behaved differently and the theories as to what might be the cause, from a porous rock stratum to large oil deposits or even, possibly, a liquid metal layer.

  “At first, I thought he might not reply but then I noticed he’d definitely been thinking along lines I had not even considered myself.

  “‘These things, isopods you call them, you say they live on the bottom, on the sea bed?’

  “I nodded, unsure where he was going.

  “‘But they only came up the shaft when we hit oil, when we broke through to a different layer. And here’s what I’m thinking about, what if they came up from there and not the ocean floor? You saw how it ate through the metal door? What if that’s what your discontinuity is? What if it’s these things, down there, eating through rock and sediment and whatever the hell they can find? They’re certainly voracious enough.’

  “I was about to laugh, then saw he was deadly serious, so I took a long drag of smoke before replying, trying to compose an answer that would not sound condescending. I shook my head.

  “‘The pressures and temperature differentials would be too great at depth for any living creature to survive, let alone thrive in such large numbers. It’s not possible –’

  “He interrupted me.

  “‘And it’s not possible for one of them to eat through a metal door. And yet here we are.’ He didn’t give me time to reply. ‘And if they are bottom feeders we have disturbed, why didn’t they come up when we started drilling and not this distance down below the sea bed?’

  “His questions reminded me of something I’d forgot, the reason why I’d requested a live specimen.

  “‘I don’t have any answers for you, yet. But maybe the one we caught will tell us something.’

  “We made our way out onto the deck and across to the rig and the squat metal refurbished cargo container serving as my lab above the drill shaft. But our trip was wasted; the box lay half on and half off the shelf, clearly having been smashed open from the inside.

  “‘I think we’ve found where the one we missed came from,’ the captain said dryly. ‘Was there something in particular that caused you to collect it?’

  I had hesitated to mention it until now but worry had suddenly taken root and I wanted, more than anything else, to head back to the vodka and dive into it but the captain wouldn’t take my silence for an answer and insisted.

  “‘You’re not going to like it,’ I said.

  “‘I’m already bloody unhappy,’ he replied. ‘How much worse can it get?’

  “‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ I replied, keeping my voice low so only the captain might hear, for there were other men on the deck having a smoke and they were within hearing distance. ‘I didn’t get a really good look but I’m pretty certain the ones that came aboard today were all juveniles and all recently born.’

  “‘You’re saying there are more?’ he replied and I saw my worry reflected in his eyes. I hated to make it worse still but as captain, he deserved to be told.

  “‘I’m saying there are bigger.’”

  - 3 -

  Banks led the squad back to the post office, just in time, for the shoreline track, the short quay, and even the partially submerged boats were all now a seething, roiling mass of the scuttling creatures. The main door proved to be locked and it took both Mac and Hynd to force it open, having to break the lock in the process. The sturdiness of the door
was a blessing in disguise, for when they got inside and closed it again, then manhandled a large filing cabinet against it, it appeared to be strong enough to withstand any attack, or at least give them plenty of warning of one.

  Banks and Hynd stood at the main window overlooking the shore while behind them McCally and Briggs secured the main room and Mac worked on Nolan’s wounds. Their night vision glasses gave them an all too clear view of the scene outside. Around a hundred of the beasts had gathered out there, all between the post office and the waterline, milling around, almost aimlessly. The only plus point appeared to be that they showed little interest in Banks’ squad.

  For now.

  “What the fuck, Cap?” Sergeant Frank Hynd said, in perfect imitation of Mac’s Glaswegian drawl.

  “Fuck knows, Sarge,” Banks replied in the same manner. “But at least we know what killed the walruses and the poor sods who lived here. I’ll be buggered if I can figure out what it has to do with our mission though.”

  Now they saw the beasts in a cluster in the dark, something else was obvious; they gave off a shimmering luminescence from under their shells. Banks lifted up his glasses for a better look; as they milled around, it almost looked like they floated on a glowing blue carpet.

  “What are they?” Hynd said. “I’d say slaters, but these fuckers are much too big. Some kind of crab?”

  “Crustaceans of some kind, certainly,” Banks replied. “And vicious wee buggers at that.”

  “We should call this in, Cap,” Hynd said. “It isn’t normal. We’re way off script already and we haven’t even got to the boat yet.”

  “You know the orders; radio silence they said, unless there’s extenuating circumstances.”

  Hynd laughed and waved at the view beyond the window.

  “I think this fucking qualifies, Cap. Don’t you?”

  Banks couldn’t drag his gaze from the swarming beasts. He replaced his night glasses; the blue shimmering was too otherworldly, too far out of his experience. It didn’t look quite so weird in the muted, almost monochrome world through the night vision. The beasts still showed no sign of being interested in them.

  “We’re not in any immediate danger, at least I don’t think so. But we need to find a way past these fuckers; we need to get out to that boat.”

  “Well, I’ve got one bit of better news,” Hynd replied. “We didn’t find a boat or dinghy but we did find kayaks. There are eight of them neatly stacked behind the house two up from the south end, all in good nick from what I could see and all with paddles too.”

  Banks looked out beyond the beasts on the shore to the sea beyond. It was more slush than water and paddling through it in a kayak was going to be harder work than he’d like in this climate.

  But it’s better than swimming.

  “Good work, Sarge,” he said. “It appears we might have a plan after all.”

  “We’ve got to get past these things first though,” Hynd said. “Any ideas?”

  “I’m working on it,” Banks replied and finally turned away from the window to where Mac had finished patching up Nolan’s wounds.

  “How’s the patient?” Banks asked.

  “He’ll hurt like a bugger for a while but he’ll live; it looked worse than it was. It’s three deep cuts and a lot of scratches. He’ll need a new pair of trousers though.”

  Banks addressed Nolan directly.

  “How are you doing, lad? Can you put your weight on the wounds? Can you walk? We might be getting out of here in a hurry.”

  Nolan smiled and gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Ready when you are, Cap,” he said.

  Mac tried to repair the gashes in the Irishman’s trousers by binding the scraps of material with wrapped bandages. They looked too white in the night vision glasses, too vivid a reminder of the savagery of the beasts outside the door.

  As Banks turned away, light flared up in his night vision like a bolt of lightning as the power in the post office came on, the lights overhead flaring, accompanied by a distant thrum.

  “I’ve found the generator,” McCally called from out back. “Let there be light.”

  “Shut that fucking thing off, right now,” Hynd shouted but it was too late.

  Banks removed his night vision glasses to allow his eyes to readjust and looked out to the shore. All the beasts had turned to move in their direction.

  We’ve made them curious.

  *

  At least McCally had responded to Banks’ order. The generator went off again and the lights dimmed, the post office falling silent, but the damage had already been done. The beasts came on fast, swarming around the area beyond the window. The main door rattled as pressure was put on it from outside and Nolan suddenly didn’t look quite so happy.

  Banks went back to night vision, then slapped a hand on the nearest wall.

  “This place has concrete underpinnings and brick walls,” he said. “They can’t get in here; at least not easily. Keep calm, lads, we’re safe, for the time being.”

  “How about the window, Cap?” Hynd said quietly, even as the creatures piled up against the wall, clambering over each other, the squirming mass already almost up to the level of the windowsill. As they climbed and scrambled, the blue luminescence intensified, almost as bright as the office lights had been seconds earlier.

  “They can’t get in,” Banks said again, but now he was remembering the broken and torn doorframes of the other houses; the big front window of the post office was in a wooden frame. It looked solid enough but if these creatures found a weak spot, he was pretty sure they wouldn’t be slow to exploit it.

  “McCally?” he said loudly. “Did you find anything useful out back while you were being a fucking idiot?”

  “Just the generator. And a dozen twenty-liter containers of gasoline,” the Scotsman replied, returning into the doorway leading to the rear of the building.

  “That might be handy; lead with that next time, before using your initiative; it doesn’t suit you.”

  The main door creaked, a loud squeal, as if the metal frame had buckled. Banks stepped across the room to the alcove where the door was and saw the beasts clawing and scratching at the frame where it met the ground. The metal was being shredded and taken apart, almost as easily as if it too was just timber. The door shook and moved slightly, the weight of the beasts’ numbers pressing it open.

  “We’ve got incoming,” he shouted.

  *

  Another squeal ran through the night as the filing cabinet scraped on the floor; it had taken two men to move it into place but the creatures pushed it in as if it was an empty cardboard box.

  “Little fuckers are strong,” Hynd said as he came to Banks’ side. They switched on the flashlights on their weapons and trained them at the door but the beasts took no notice of the light and kept pressing the filing cabinet inward, the sound of screeching metal wailing and echoing around them.

  Banks was aware of the rest of the squad moving to join them; Mac at Hynd’s side and the other three taking position behind them, ready to step forward when needed.

  “Check those earplugs, lads. This is going to get noisy. Aim for the front end; if they’ve got brains of any kind, that’s likely where they’ll be hiding. Hitting the body hardly slows them down.”

  He pushed his own plugs in as deep as he could get them, then gave his full attention to the doorway. The filing cabinet squealed even louder, moved six inches inward, and the first of the creatures scuttled through an opening that didn’t seem wide enough to accommodate it. Banks blew away the front of it, where he thought of as its head. It fell forward and went still. Two more scrambled over the top of it; Hynd put them down, the shots booming and echoing around them, deafening even despite the earplugs. Three more tried to come through and Banks was about to fire when he saw the ones behind had paused to feed on the fallen.

  They’re cannibals.

  That immediately brought another thought and this one was a plan, of a kind.

  He
turned to McCally.

  “Take Briggs and fetch as much of gasoline as you can carry,” he shouted.

  “What are you thinking, Cap?” Hynd shouted.

  “A barbecue,” he called back. “A bloody messy barbecue.”

  Then he had to shut up as the filing cabinet was pushed farther inward and half a dozen of the beasts filled the gap and came forward.

  The air filled with the roar of rapid fire.

  - 4 -

  Svetlanova paused in her dictation; she’d heard the noise again and this time she recognized it for what it was: gunfire. It sounded too far away to be on board, too far away to be of any help to her and certainly not enough to shift her from her safe, for now, cubbyhole.

  She knew she couldn’t stay here forever.

  But just a little bit longer. Please?

  The overhead bulb had dimmed considerably now and she had to peer to see the stack of food and drink around her. Once the light had gone, she might be forced into having a look at what was outside the door. Then again, maybe she wouldn’t, for her nerves were shot to pieces already; she wasn’t sure how much excitement she’d be able to take before retreating into herself, to a quiet, safe place where things didn’t skitter and tear in the dark. The cold bit at her but that she could handle; it had nothing on a Moscow winter.

  She took the opportunity to arrange boxes and bottles so she would be able to identify them by touch should the bulb finally give out on her and plunge her into darkness.