Infestation

by William Meikle

  It was no great surprise the power was out on the boat; the surprise was it was still afloat. Electrical cables had been pulled from their fittings. Neon strip lights had been tugged from the ceiling to hang below head height. A vast boiler had been overturned, holed as if torn open, and even the hull itself had been holed, near the water line at the far end of the huge, almost cavernous area. Water lay, a foot deep, all across the floor of the chamber and dim sunlight could be seen through torn and ripped metal, which looked to have been rent asunder in strips, as if it was little more than paper.

  Hynd came to Banks’ side. He whistled in amazement at the view.

  “What did this, Cap? Iceberg?” he said.

  “Aye, maybe, or maybe a big brother of one of those wee beasties?” Banks replied. “And if there is a big bugger around, I’m hoping he stays well away. The sooner we get off this boat, the happier I’ll be.”

  “Do you think Nolan will make it?” Hynd asked. It was the first time any of them had spoken of it; it went against the grain to leave a man but they all knew the drill well enough: the mission came first. That was the first, the only law, they really had to adhere to, no matter how many corners they had to cut. But losing a man always hurt and Banks knew Nolan was lost; he’d seen it in the man’s face, smelled it in the rot in his body. Hynd had seen it too; he wasn’t really expecting an answer to his question and was talking to hear something, anything, in the deadly silence lying across the whole engine room. And again, Banks knew how the sarge felt; they’d been in empty places before – abandoned power stations, factories, and even whole towns. But they’d always felt dead and lifeless and none of those places had ever felt quite so alive, quite so threatening as this. He felt like a mouse circling a mousetrap, knowing there was something he needed, knowing there’d be dire consequences of taking it but needing to take it anyway.

  And I know Hynd well enough to know he feels the same.

  He turned to the other man and clapped him on the upper arm.

  “Half an hour more, that’s all. We get the power on to the computers, I get the gen, call it in, and we’re offski, back into the kayaks and across to the pickup point.”

  Hynd didn’t get a chance to reply. A loud splash sounded at the far end of the engine room, over near the tear in the hull. Both men turned to look as waves ran across the flooded floor but there was no other sign of movement.

  *

  Banks stepped back to where McCally and Briggs continued work on the electrical panel.

  “Any joy, lads?”

  “Maybe,” Briggs replied. “Give us five minutes, Cap.”

  Another splash sounded somewhere out in the engine room; this one closer. More waves washed across the flooded room again but Banks still got no sight of anything else moving.

  “Want Mac and I to take a closer look in there, Cap?” Hynd said.

  Banks shook his head and stepped back to where the gallery walkway met the main corridor, a spot where he could see the whole length of the engine room and retreat quickly if he had to.

  “Nope. Nobody’s going to be doing anything stupid here; no wandering about in dark rooms, no splitting up – and definitely no shouting to see if anybody’s there. If there’s more of these beasties about, we leave them alone if they leave us alone. Agreed?”

  Hynd nodded.

  “Agreed.”

  “Nearly there, anyway, Cap,” Briggs said. “Piece of piss.”

  A louder splash echoed through the engine room. Banks stepped back toward the gallery walkway and looked for the source of the sound. He didn’t have to look far. One of the beasts stood between him and the rent in the hull.

  This one was bigger – a lot bigger. As big as a family car.

  *

  At first, only the hard shell of its back showed above water. The dark oval suddenly scurried forward, sending more waves of water rippling through the flooded room. Then it came out of the water. It clambered up the inside of the hull opposite, so huge its head was nearly at Banks’ level up on the gallery walkway before the rest of it was out of the water. He finally got a good, long look at it as it kept scurrying higher. The armored shell made it as well protected as any tank. Each leg looked longer than a man was tall and was tipped with talon-like hooks the length of Banks’ hand and twice as thick. Two long antennae rose from the head, five, six feet long, each an inch and more thick and as rigid as any iron cable. They tasted and felt around the structure of the hull, as if deciding which part to eat. A wavering, faint blue luminescence hung all along its underbelly and he guessed it was ten feet, maybe twelve, from head to stubby tail.

  He struggled with an almost overwhelming urge to lift his weapon and pour rounds into the thing but his own order echoed back at him in his head.

  “We leave them alone if they leave us alone. Agreed?”

  Agreed, he whispered and stepped back to the edge of the gallery. He saw Hynd look over his shoulder and reach instinctively for his weapon. He put a hand on the man’s arm and shook his head but didn’t speak, merely ushered Hynd and Mac backward until they were all at the door of the small room where the other two worked the panel.

  “What the fuck, Cap?” Mac said, an exaggerated whisper that Banks put a stop to with a finger at his lips. Fortunately, everyone got the message. They stood still, barely breathing, as the thing splashed around in the engine room mere yards away from them. Banks was trying not to think – what if it could smell, or somehow, some other how sense their presence. What if it was even now squirting its poison in the air, what if they were all breathing it, what if…?

  He forced himself to calm and motioned to McCally they should keep working on the electrical panel.

  It’s just a bug. A big bug, granted. But it’s still just a bug.

  He tried to believe it but hadn’t quite got there yet.

  Finally, Briggs gave him the thumbs up and he saw two small red LEDs winking on the control panel. He jerked his thump upward in reply.

  Head on up.

  He took the lead this time and left the engine room and up the stairs to head into the corridor beyond. He almost walked straight into a very surprised-looking woman holding a gun.

  *

  He didn’t know which one of them was the more shocked but he had training, she did not, and he took the gun off her before she so much as twitched. He saw she was about to speak and maybe even yell so he did the only thing he could think of. He passed the spare weapon backward; someone took it from him but he didn’t turn to see who, covered her mouth to silence her, and dragged her along the corridor, bundling her into the first room they came to, what looked like an engineer’s cabin and bunk. His squad came in at his back and Hynd watched the door.

  “This is Nolan’s weapon,” Mac said at his side. “How did you get it?”

  The woman looked pale and wide-eyed but to her credit had quickly recovered her composure.

  “He gave it to me,” she said, her accent obvious. She avoided Mac, looking Banks in the eye. “He told me to come looking for you.”

  “Where is he?” Mac said, almost shouting until Banks put up a hand to stop him.

  “He’s right where you left him. Dying then, dead now,” she said softly. “I was with him at the end.”

  Mac fell quiet and Banks saw the truth of it in the woman’s eyes: Nolan hadn’t gone easy.

  And we left him to die alone.

  He’d have to deal with it later, in the long-dead hours on dark nights. But for now, he had no time for guilt.

  “You’re Russian, right. One of the crew?”

  “Chief Scientist Svetlanova,” she replied. “And the only one left, I think.”

  “Well, Chief Scientist, I’d be grateful if you’d tell me what’s going on here.”

  She reached slowly into a pocket and brought out a Dictaphone.

  “It’s all on here,” she said. The sound of scurrying and scraping came down from somewhere above them and it was accompanied by a whining hum growing louder every sec
ond. “Do you want to hear it now, or should we maybe get somewhere safe first?”

  *

  Banks looked over to Hynd, who checked the corridor both ways, then pointed upward. The sound went up another notch, frantic scratching and scraping from many legs on metal decks.

  “It’s all above us, Cap, for now.”

  “And it sounds like it’s more like the ones we saw in the harbor rather than the big fucker downstairs. Okay. Bugger the computers, we’ve got the chief scientist. It’s time to go. Head for the stern. We’ll take a lifeboat back to shore.”

  “We can’t…” the woman started to say, before Banks turned to her again.

  “Yes, we can,” he said. “You’re either coming with us, or you’re staying with them.” He motioned upward with his thumb. “What’s it to be?”

  “But…”

  Banks took the Dictaphone from her and stowed it inside his parka. He wasn’t listening to her anymore; he had other pressing matters to deal with. The noise levels above them had become almost deafening; scratching and scraping, as if something was trying to get at them from above. Then he remembered the beasts at the door of the post office, tearing strips from the metal door and frame.

  Maybe that’s exactly what they’re trying to do.

  “You heard me,” he said to the men. “Move out. Mac, you’re on point. The lifeboats, fast as we can manage.”

  *

  The corridor they were in ran almost the length of the vessel. Banks had a look up as they passed the stairwell to the control room.

  I should check on Nolan. Just to be sure.

  But he’d seen only truth in the woman’s face when she spoke of the man’s death. And besides, the noise was getting louder; wherever the beasts were, they were getting closer.

  We’d be rats in a trap.

  They went past a mess that looked like a bloody battle had taken place inside and a larder with an open door; the woman paused for a step there, then moved on in their midst, as if she’d come to a decision. They moved faster now as they approached the rear of the boat and finally the noise above faded into the distance behind them.

  We’re outrunning them.

  They arrived at the stern seconds later, at the foot of another stairwell; if Banks’ mind-map and calculations were right, the stairs would lead to an outside door and onto the small deck behind the superstructure where the lifeboats hung. Mac was already halfway up the first flight, the light from his rifle swinging wildly left to right as he checked his corners.

  “All clear,” he called down.

  “Head up,” Banks shouted. “And no glory boy heroics; we get in the boat and we fuck off out of here. Clear?”

  “Clear,” the men replied as one. The Russian woman looked like she wanted to talk again but Banks had already moved, starting up the stairs.

  *

  They came out, blinking, into too-bright daylight on a deserted rear deck. And Banks’ heart immediately sank; yes, both lifeboats still hung in their cradles but there was a good reason they had not been used; they were both holed, the beasts had got to the boats first, the timbers torn apart from the inside out. The port side boat was in better shape than the other; the hole being only the size of a football. As Banks calculated the distance to shore and the time it would take to reach it, he knew even the small hole was too big; they’d be floundering in ice-cold water before the halfway mark.

  “I thought this might have happened. I tried to tell you…” the Russian woman said.

  “Try harder next time, lass,” Mac replied.

  Hynd had already moved to the port side and was looking along the length of the boat toward the drilling rig. He turned back to Banks and shook his head. Banks knew immediately what was meant.

  The beasts are up on the deck. There’s no way through.

  They had two options – to head back down below decks or move upward on the outside stairs of the infrastructure. He wasted no time in coming to a decision.

  “Move on up, Mac,” he said. “I need to make a call and we need a clear, high spot for the best signal.”

  Mac led, the rest followed. The stairs led them round to the starboard side and as he climbed, Banks got a clear view of what Hynd must have seen from below. The beasts had returned and in numbers.

  The swarm covered the whole forward deck. Most were the size of the ones they’d encountered in the harbor at the post office but up at the prow toward the drilling rig, there were others of much the same size as the one he’d seen in the engine room, ten, twelve feet or more in length. The huge ones fed on the smaller ones, even as they all milled around and over and under the legs of each other. As of yet, none of them were paying attention to the squad climbing up the superstructure stairs.

  I hope to God it stays like that.

  *

  They reached the upper deck a minute later. The high vantage gave them an uninterrupted view of the bay, the burnt-out buildings in the harbor off to the south and the seething, teeming horde of scuttling beasts on the forward deck. Now they had the height to get a clear view, it was obvious where they were all coming from. The beasts thronged over and around the drilling rig, with one particularly large individual, bigger even than the one he’d seen in the engine room, sitting among the twisted metal right on top of the rig, master of all it surveyed. And still the beasts were content to mill around aimlessly, showing no interest in the squad up on the top of the superstructure.

  “Keep an eye out, lads,” Banks said. “One call home and then all we need to do is sit tight and wait for the cavalry.”

  He removed his satellite phone from deep in his parka, switched it on, and punched in the number. He had a bad moment when he thought the call wasn’t going to connect, then it rang through.

  “Cap,” Hynd said and Banks heard a note of caution in the man’s voice but the line had already been answered on the other end and he knew it would only take a matter of seconds. The sarge’s concerns, whatever they were, would have to wait.

  “We have a package in hand. Request uplift.”

  The reply was equally terse.

  “One hour check in on this mark, four hours until uplift can be processed, coming down on your signal.”

  The call ended as abruptly as it had began but Hynd was now waving, almost frantically, for Banks to join him at the railing.

  “Cap, you need to see this. I think we’re in trouble.”

  They looked down; all of the beasts had turned so their front ends faced the superstructure and every single one of them had their head raised and antennae upright as the squad looked at the beasts and the beasts looked back.

  “We got their attention,” Hynd said, as the creatures, as if responding to an inaudible command, scuttled forward as one, heading for the superstructure.

  “Time to go,” Banks shouted. Mac was first to move. He went to the head of the stairs, looked down, and stopped in his tracks.

  “Too late,” he called back. “We’re cut off this way.”

  “Take a quadrant,” Banks called out and the four others each moved to take a side of the superstructure. “Don’t fire until you have to. Short, controlled bursts.”

  He turned to the Russian woman. She was already on her knees, trying to turn the circular handle on a three-feet square hatch on the superstructure roof. Banks went to join her.

  “We should be able to get down to the control room from here,” she said. “But I doubt it’s been opened for years; it’s either locked or too stiff to open.”

  He bent to help.

  “Here they come,” Mac shouted.

  Banks pushed his earplugs deep into his ears as the shooting started and the air filled with the crack and boom of rifle fire.

  *

  The hatch opening was stuck hard and even with the two of them pulling, it only moved an inch.

  “Need a hand here,” Banks shouted.

  Mac shouted back.

  “I’m a wee bit busy, Cap. I could use a hand myself.”

 
; Banks got his rifle in hand and went to Mac’s side. He was still at the top of the stairs. The way they had come up was now a roiling, seething mass of the creatures, mostly the smaller ones, coming in a wave and falling backward on the steps almost as quickly as they climbed them. One, larger, horse-sized beast heaved itself slowly upward among the others and was only one level below Mac’s feet. Banks remembered the feeding behavior they’d seen both at the post office and down on the deck.

  “Get the big fucker,” Banks shouted. “Give the rest of them something to eat.”

  Mac saw his ploy straight away and between the two of them, they shot the whole front of the large beast’s face away and it fell forward, blocking the passage of the smaller ones from behind. Those passed it immediately turned on it and started to rip it apart in frenzy as they ate.

  “The more we put down, the more food they’ll have,” Banks shouted. “Slow them down as much as you can until we can get the bloody hatch open.”

  He went to check on the others. McCally had already moved away from his rail to help the others; there were no beasts on the southern side of the superstructure. Banks checked over the side, hoping for an escape route, but it was too far to drop down. If they had ropes, they might have chanced rappelling.

  But if wishes were horses, we’d all be eating steak.

  Apart from the stairs, the focus of the attack of the beasts came from the main forward deck. The rest of the squad stood at the rail overlooking the deck, firing downward to where a host of the creatures tried to clamber and climb over each other to reach them. Some were managing to get a grip on the structure itself and even with three guns, the squad struggled to stop the beasts reaching the top rail. Banks joined them and told them what he’d told Mac.

  “Shoot the big buggers first; give the others something to eat.”

  They strafed the largest beasts within range, always aiming for the head.