The Platform

by Jones, D G

  *

  There is no doubt about it now, that Erana’s death was no accident. Someone sliced her throat wide open while she slept, and everyone is in fear. It seems the only question is what death it will be: murder, starvation or to be torn apart from the blighted, blackened creatures of the waves below. Helst keeps looking at me strangely and it sends a quiver of fear through me every time. Jem is still not off the hook and everyone is watching him. I still don’t think he has murder in his heart; he always seems too big and loud to be the kind who creeps and slivers through the dark, killing unseen or unheard.

  And now everyone stays armed: guns become sleeping partners and constant companions; with so many safeties off, it’s bound to lead to war, you can sense it. Our little group is the one they all despise, and as we sit and eat the thin gruel of our former crew mates, Helst stares at me darkly and it stirs an eerie twisting to my guts. Skea remains impassive, Cora concerned, and Jem… Jem is, as always, loud and full of shit, but kind of good to know just in case. Or not, who knows?

  “We have to hit them first,” he grunts in a low voice as he spoons his food into his trench-like throat.

  “What’s the point? The power will go in days and we won’t be able to hold off the abominations for long,” Skea relies. There is no need to whisper now but everyone does anyway. We are abandoned by the others, avoided like some ancient curse.

  “If we finish the rest of them, we can cut down the fuel usage further, eke the food out longer,” he says. It won’t save Helst, I think to myself; he is still refusing to join us in our cannibalistic ways. Is it just principle, I ask myself again, or does he have a hidden larder somewhere on the station? But that is irrelevant to me at the moment. I can sense him becoming ever-more dangerous to me with his suspicious, piercing stares. I wonder if he is planning something dreadful, or merely biding time.

  “Why bother?” Skea lights a cigarette. “Just to grab a couple of extra days?”

  “I think you’ll find they will be coming soon for us,” Helst says softly. “They will already have had this conversation. It’s just a case of when.” He looks around us, then back to his hard scrutiny of me. “Someone has already started making the calculations of numbers over food.” His eyes narrow with a thin veil that squeezes on my heart. Yeah, you’ve worked it all already, I think to myself, and I realise just how dangerous he now is. I can feel the flesh crawling on the back of my neck just returning his gaze.

  “You think so?” Cora askes.

  “Yeah. I saw Meska and Clook together last night. You can bet they are planning something. They don’t give a fuck about the rest of us; they just see us as a food supply.”

  “Exactly,” Jem mutters. “That is why we have to hit them first.”

  “Still don’t see the point,” Skea grumbles.

  “Then you might as well put a bullet through your brain now,” Cora snorts. “Save yourself the suffering.”

  “I intend to,” Helst says, and we all look hard at him. “When it gets real bad.”

  “Really?” Jem asks what we all thinking.

  “Yeah. Just not yet,” He glances at me, then sits back in a cloud of smoke. Nobody is sure what to say, and we know it doesn’t matter anyway. Everyone has that choice if they want it. I think about the abominations and I silently agree. That’s an easy one – a bullet in the head or being pulled limb from limb and devoured? Yeah, I would do it without question. But the past now burns to keep me alive. It’s interesting how his mind works, but I have to be very careful because I have caught his eye.

  “I think we should take turns on guard,” he adds, “No doubt they will come when we’re sleeping, so I think it’s best we are ready.” Yes, he has it all figured out, I think, but his constant attention makes me uneasy. He’s right though: they will come when they think we’re sleeping. It’s what we would have done. Probably tonight – there’s no point in wasting time.

  *

  Gunfire rips me out of a light and hazy sleep. Up the corridor I can hear Jem screaming for us and, as one, we are down on floor level and ready. I run up to meet him. He is at the junction and firing controlled bursts to the left, with Cora, Skea and Helst are not far behind. I crouch down and risk a quick look. I can see someone lying in a growing lake of blood, and there is movement beyond. I aim and take the shot, the machine gun alive and stinging my hands. It is so incredibly loud, and there is a scream. Someone thumps out of the dark, writhing beside their comrade, and Skea picks them off with a burst to the head, opening it up wide and spraying brains in all directions.

  “Come on,” Jem yells, and we begin creeping down the dark maw, ready for any loose shot. It comes fast, shattering into the wall above my head and I shoot back with a scream on my lips, unheard above the din. I can smell blood, hot and metallic, as well as ripped flesh and urine, and the guns – that sharp burn that cloys the throat.

  “We have to make sure they don’t circle round behind us,” Helst hisses. I nod as he calls for Cora, and the pair of them head back the way we came. Slowly, we move forward, inch by inch; the doors on either side of the dark corridor are all open, so we have to be careful no one is lurking within. Its agonising crouching there in the dark, trying to see a flicker of movement, and when it comes, I almost jump from my skin to the ceiling as suddenly there is a blinding flash and a thunderous report of fire. From the right, I shoot back. I hear a scream, then fire again. Skea goes to check and puts a round through the fallen, just in case. There is one more turn in the tight corridor before the passage to the main entrance. Nothing moves. I am breathing fast. I hear gunfire far behind and know Helst has found someone. I’m caught between going on and heading back, wavering uncertainly until Jem tugs my arm and nods. So ahead it is. We keep on shuffling low as we pick our way to the corner.

  I wave a hand round the corridor and immediately there is gunfire. I’m lucky to have kept my fingers. Someone is down there, waiting for us. I poke the machine gun round and fire a few rounds, hearing the echoing whine of ricochets, of bullets bouncing all over. I must have hit something, I tell myself. Jem looks over but nothing moves. We wait, just wondering and listening, but all I can hear is the ring of the shots deafening me. Skea lets off a few rounds and we wait again.

  “What do you think?” Jem whispers.

  “No idea,” I reply. It’s the truth: I cannot be sure anyone is still alive up there or not. I can’t sense anything. One of us has got to move so I decide it might as well be me. I lean carefully round and see a huddled shape on the deck. It looks dead but, unsure, I duck back. “One down at least,” I whisper. There are more gun shots from behind us. “Come on,” I say, and jump round the corridor, machine gun raised and ready to go. Again, nothing moves. Jem follows with Skea. I see something left; I fire, then crouch down before a burning curtain of bullets erupts, and I throw myself sideways, still firing. There is a shriek and I can just make out a stumbling figure, the clatter of a dropped weapon, and Skea rips into them with the trigger pulled.

  Then there is silence. Except behind me.

  I crawl around and see Jem lying there, covered in blood, and I curse. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Fuck! I go to Jem and see that his lower jaw is blown away; his mouth is now huge and spouting blood and teeth fragments. Blood is squirting from his chest too, and I can see he is done for. I reach out and hold his hand. His eyes are full of fear and puzzlement, and I try to smile and say something, but no words come out. Still he wheezes and hisses for breath with thick, bubbling blood running from the remains of his face. Skea goes up ahead, confirming kills and that the outer door is shut, and all the time I hold Jem’s hand until finally he goes. There is one more chest rise, then stillness. He is done. Fuck!

  “He’s dead?” Skea askes softly when she comes back to us. I just nod. Jem was okay – a good man. It shouldn’t be like this, I swear to myself. It shouldn’t! There is no way Jem should be dead. This is not fair, not at all, and I punch the floor in frustration.

  Hels
t and Cora arrive; seeing the mess, they shake their heads. Really, we are all dead now – one way or another – but no one wants to go before their ready. Least of all Jem, he would have clung on to the end of all things.

  “We killed the cook,” Helst says softly. “Didn’t mean to. He came jumping out of the storage freezer and we popped him. Shame.” He doesn’t sound like he is that sorry, I think to myself. Illen may have been a coward, but he could cook. “There were three of them in the storage bay, but we got them too.”

  “Okay, we have to keep this door guarded,” Skea says. “Take the bodies to the freezer, at least we have more food.”

  “Not Jem,” Cora says.

  “No, not Jem.”

  I end up guarding the main entrance while the three of them take the dead away. I am thinking of Jem and I shake my head, waiting for the bastards to try again. It isn’t long. I hear the main wheel begin to turn and I crouch in the dark, trigger ready, holding my breath. The door slowly opens, the wind immediately rips down the corridor in a long scream before blasting everywhere with its acid taste and sting to the eyes. I pause, unseen, cautiously watching them as they enter, not even knowing I am there. Until I open up with the machine gun. Fire spews from the barrel, bucking hot in my hands, and I carve into them. They have no time to react, instead they jerk and dance like severed string puppets, erupting into slivers of flesh and gluts of blood as they scream, too late. There are three of them; in seconds they are sliced from life into the long dark roadway of death. They clatter and fall inside, jamming the door open, and I see on the deck a couple of figures running, and throw a few shots their way – more in hope than anything else. I drag the dead inside, and doubt they will bother trying this way again. So it will be stalemate for a while, I guess. No problem.

  *

  I curse the fact they killed Illen as I hack the meat to the bone and carve it free. I have no idea how to cook – and certainly not a stew; instead, I just toss pieces into a skillet and fry them up. It’s from the arm, and I didn’t bother to remove the hairs; instead, I just watch them blacken and curl in the pan. Why I ended up with this, I don’t know. I am sweating and struggling, trying not to burn the flesh to ashes as I stir it around. Probably because I got out of moving the bodies. I am cooking Juken, having been so pleased to hear of his demise. I started with the arms as that seemed the easiest place to cut.

  “How’s it going?” Cora comes into the kitchen.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “You need to turn the heat down a little,” she says.

  “Didn’t know you could cook,” I reply.

  “I can’t. But can see it’s burning,” she retorts.

  I shrug and turn the heat down. The meat stops sticking to the pan at least. It smells okay once the smoke dies away and I keep turning it over, watching the muscle and skin brown, the blood boiling in the oil.

  “How do you know when it’s done?” she asks over my shoulder.

  “I don’t, I just guess.” It looks hot, sort of cooked, and with one of the large knives I hack off a stringy-looking piece and taste it. It’s not bad, I think. Not as good as Illen’s stew, but when you are hungry, anything is better than nothing, I tell myself. Except for Helst, that is. I don’t know how he keeps going, at least if he is weaker, perhaps he will not be so dangerous to me.

  “…I suppose.” Cora has been speaking and I didn’t notice.

  “What?”

  “I said we attack them tonight, I suppose.”

  “Yes, well, they won’t try here again, so we have to.”

  “Why can’t we just stay here and wait for them? They will want food sooner or later.”

  “Yeah, but they have the control room. If they’re smart, they will be working on how to power down the web on our side, maybe look for a way to override the lower supply doors –anything. We have to finish them.” I start carving out portions of food, initially five, before remembering that Jem isn’t here anymore and Helst won’t eat. Again, I silently curse his death. Cora takes two of the plates and we head into the mess room to find Skea and Helst waiting. Skea is reloading the guns while Helst lounges back in his chair, smoking as usual. Perhaps it’s just a trick of the eyes, but he does look even thinner than before. The rigid stare remains the same though.

  “Food,” I say, as we hand out the plates.

  “Sure you don’t want any?” Cora askes. Helst just shakes his head. It is of no concern of mine if he wants to deliberately starve himself to death. After all, he is planning to blow his own head off sooner or later. But that nagging instinct still keeps telling me to be careful around him. Not all enemies are outside the door.

  “Can’t be many of them left by now,” Skea says. She takes a bit of the blackened meat and shrugs, not that interested in how bad it tastes or looks.

  “I don’t know, I lost count,” Cora replies.

  “Clook, Meska for sure, and Gren and Sura… not seen Yost around for a while though, or Hela,” Helst says quietly.

  “Hela got it from the abominations. I saw one of her arms.”

  “And how could you tell it was hers?” Skea asks, to which Cora replies that she had a tattoo on her wrist, the name of her kid or something equally banal.

  “So maybe five. Clook will stay in the control room, no doubt about it, along with one of the others. Meska will be patrolling round with the other two, waiting for us,” says Helst. He stretches and all the bones in his fragile spine click loudly.

  “So, what are we waiting for?” Skea askes.

  “Nothing but a cigarette,” I mumble through a mouthful of gristly, badly-cooked meat, and see no point in delaying.

  *

  I cough up the black tarry stuff as we head carefully across the Platform with our eyes everywhere, especially on the towers. The wind is constant and wrenches at us mercilessly as we skulk low. Cora remains close to the entrance just in case anyone tries to backtrack on us. I follow Helst and can hardly see among the acid spray. The storms seem worse than ever, and there is no sign of life at all. I break right, heading to my position – the west tower.

  Scaling the slippery ladder, it’s hard to hold on. I wonder if they are smart enough to have someone up here already; at least the constant howl of the wind obscures the sound of my boots on the wet rungs. I feel sick and try to concentrate as the whole thing sways in a maddening lurch. Up and up I go, trying to keep an eye upward but I can barely see until I reach the gun chamber. I pause for a moment, trying to see if anyone is lurking in the darkness, but I see no movement and drag myself inside. No, I am alone. They didn’t think that far ahead – unlike Helst. So I clamber onto the seat and strap on the nighteyes, swivelling the massive cannons toward the deck. It takes a moment to adjust, but I make out Helst and Skea, waiting beneath the central control Platform. I can only tell it’s them by their position; they are only a glowing green presence on the screen.

  Slowly I swing the guns. There is not enough turn to directly hit the control room from here; they are at the limit of their turning arc, but as I sweep back again, I see two figures creeping along its underside. I know it’s not us, so with baited breath I pull the triggers. The huge recoil jolts my aching body and the sound is of a mechanical thunder tearing through the sky. Instantly the two green blurs in my night eyes explode into pieces. Another leaps into view, trying to run for the safety of the control room and I trigger up again, slicing the fleeing green blur in half. Three down, I think to myself, anymore? I zero in back to Helst and Skea; they are now creeping forward, giving a wave every now and then to let me know it’s them. Then I spot another pair, moving fast, heading to the east side and out of view, but Helst must have also spotted them because far away down there, I hear machine-gun fire. I pause, scanning all around. Nothing is moving, only the gradual fading green smears that used to be people. Except one, slowly crawling, but it is of no real threat; their life is already bleeding away. Whoever it is just doesn't want to admit to death. They have spirit. I bet its Mes
ka. After a few minutes, I see two figures emerge and wave directly at me. It must be over, I think to myself, so I carefully unbuckle myself and begin to climb off the cannon seat.

  And then I see something.

  Out in the distance.

  For a second I have to convince myself it isn’t just a flare from the night-eyes still playing on my retina, but there, just at the horizon, I see a light. I peer intently into the blackness, swing the gun round and use the scopes. Sure enough, tossing and crashing on the relentless waves, there’s a light, a ship. I gulp, as hope, fear, wonder and terror flash through me all at once. I have to get down to tell the others. Fuck, so someone else made it after all. I almost run down the metallic rungs, slipping twice and nearly falling, but my brain is whirling with so many different thoughts, it’s hard to focus and maintain control.