Necropolis: Book 5: R'lyeh
Page 7
Chapter 11: Ship of the Dead
Two miles aft sat the damaged USS Curtis Wilbur, its weapon's vapor trails and tracers arching over the bent horizon. And furthest still, washed out in its distance, the USS Antietam, four miles out, battled a surrounding swarm of... nightmares!
The eleven meter long rigid inflatable hull boat (RIB) was little more than an insignificant gnat in a sea of behemoths. Its buzzing motors insectile and tinny against the bombastic backdrop of the warships' ballistic thunder.
The USS John S. McCain slowly receded from the Navy SEAL boat's stern, its white-water wake trailing a line back to its home. Their mission was simple. Board the Yamayuki, restore power if possible, extract the secret file and ship log.
As the USS John S. McCain shrank to its stern, the rusty Japanese derelict slowly loomed before them, itself nearly lost in the massiveness of the corpse-city R'lyeh it had wrecked itself upon a decade ago.
The three-man crew and eight Navy SEAL's watched the bizarre alien landscape dwarf the Japanese destroyer; ancient, forgotten. The stone monoliths silent sentinels since before the advent of Man.
Through binoculars the Navy SEAL Commander scanned the aft section of the rusted derelict, searching for an access point. It had half beached itself on the alien city's edge. The fore of the ship, its white painted designation number 129 in stark contrast with its rusted hull, pointing inwards. Its aft section may have once protruded over the open ocean, but with its keel crushed, the ship's backbone broken, it bent and slumped into the sea.
The crewman manning the M2 .50 caliber machine gun nervously scanned their surrounding waters. Their biggest risk was getting the Navy SEAL squad to the Yamayuki. This one mile of calm open water between the USS John S. McCain the the wrecked Yamayuki would be traversed within a minute or two.... but they knew an encounter with just one of those flying monstrosities would be their end.
“There!” the Commander barked while pointing. “The port-aft section of the Yamayuki, where its hull's breached against the rocks. We can enter directly from our boat.”
The Navy SEAL squad had been specifically ordered to avoid entering the alien city itself, its team members having been briefed on the dangers of the city's non-euclidean angles and the human losses of the 1928 Johansen testimony.
They has crossed the open water without incident and the pilot navigated the RIB up to the Yamayuki's hull breach. The eight Navy SEAL's quickly offloaded their weapons and equipment and entered the rusted destroyer.
There was no need for the Commander to give orders. They knew the mission. Two teams of four. Alpha-team would secure and hold the Bridge while Bravo-team secured Engineering and attempted to restore power. Once power was restored Alpha-team would extract the lost and secret file.
The interior of the Japanese warship was a black echo. Ghost-ridden, hollow, forgotten; a stark contrast to the bright blue noon-hour sky. The two Navy SEAL teams crossed from one world into another; from light into darkness. Crossing the Yamayuki's ruptured hull was crossing the threshold from the living into the dead. The Yamayuki was derelict in every sense of the word.
Alpha-team ascended the stairwell, their boots clanging, while Bravo-team moved forward, disappearing into the darkened corridor.
* * *
Even after ten years, Leaman remembered. The Japanese ship's layout was etched in his memory; seared like a brand.
Although his brief journey through the ship's lower decks was haunting in its darkened shadows, he had seen worse. In his final days aboard the Yamayuki, when its crew went mad and mutinied, he had spend days fleeing and hiding in the small places of the ship... but that was more than a decade ago. He was no longer frightened of its darkness. Leaman navigated his way blindly, always up, up, up towards the bridge.
He was surprised by the bridge's condition. Although there was significant water damage it was in good shape. Most of its exterior observation windows were intact. The bright blue sky lit up the entire bridge. A lonely breeze irritatingly hummed through a broken window, like the incessant drone of a lone fly.
Leaman stood and gawked out the windows. The entire front half of the ship was visible from the bridge, but it wasn't the view of the ship that stopped Leaman in his tracks. It was the city that sprawled beyond. His journey across the land-bridge only gave him a tiny appreciation of the necropolis' scale. The Yamayuki's bridge was high, overlooking its bow and the warped city beyond.
Its scale was staggering. It was difficult to gauge. The nearest neighbouring towers, citadels, monoliths, tombs? - it was near impossible to tell what these Cyclopean menhirs were – but whatever purpose these ancient, forgotten prehistoric stones served, the Japanese destroyer was diminutive in their presence. The dead city should have stretched over the horizon, but everything was wrong here. The floor of the city and the strange ocean that surrounded it sat concave within, the aquatic crater's rim far beyond where the natural horizon should have been.
The entire corpse-city seemed coated in a glistening primordial slime. The morning sunlight sparkling even in its great distances. Sometimes it played tricks on Leaman's good eye. Sometimes, only for the slightest moment, it seemed to be shifting, moving in some queer way. Leaman rubbed his eyes. He needed to stay focused. He knew the city was distracting him. He scanned the various instrument and control panels. He toggled a few switches. Nothing.
What was he thinking? There was no power. Of course there was no power! The ship had been lost and submerged for ten years.
He would have to travel below deck again. See if he could access the generators or auxiliary power in Engineering. Enter that Stygian darkness once again. Revisit old memories... and ghosts.
Leaman cracked a smile. It was funny in its own sort of way. That was all he had for the past decade, wasn't it? Ghosts. But strangely, Leaman felt more like his old self now and less like the mad hermit marooned on an island. James. His first name no longer sounded like a stranger's. James. There had been times he'd forgotten his name.
As he turned to exit the bridge something reflected in a window momentarily startled him. A bizarre man stared at him. Long unkempt beard and hair. The side of his head looked shaved, but Leaman knew the hair had been picked out of his skull strand by strand, like a bored pet parrot picked out its own feathers. The man's eye was wrong. Grossly enlarged and glassy. It should have been a dead man's eye where the side of his skull had been crushed.
With an unsteady hand, Leaman gently traced the outer edge and orbit of his bad eye. He turned his gaze away from his own reflection.
Who was he kidding? James Leaman was dead. He was nothing more than a mad marooned hermit. He was no different than this empty and abandoned ship.
And with this final thought, Leaman entered the darkness of the Yamayuki.
* * *
In the darkness of the Yamayuki's rusted corridors, Alpha-team began hearing... things. Subtle, unidentifiable, but clearly more than the creaking, settling sounds of an old warship. Patterned, sentient sounds.
In this ripe environment where one's imagination could run amok, taking on a life all its own, creating phantasmagoria of imagined nightmares, it would have been easy to write these sounds off. But these were trained and experienced Navy SEALs. They were not prone to infantile boogeyman monsters of the imagination. In the ochre darkness, all four team members heard it.
Like a ball-peen hammer striking stone. A hanging metal chain brushing a bulkhead. It was impossible to tell. It reverberated; echoed. It could not be said to have bounced down the empty metal corridors. It wasn't loud enough for that.
Tock!
Alpha-team retained their night-vision, but picked up the pace. The point-man still cleared each open hatchway or intersecting corridor before proceeding. The four soldiers moved as a single entity.
Clear, the point-man signaled. Three men flowed forward, machine guns at the ready. Lead-man taking up the rear-guard.
Clear. Three men move forward. Point-man takes rear-guard.
Tock! The entire unit freezes, intently listening. This one sounded closer. If they were forced to engage a hostile, they'd prefer the day lit and open bridge. A firefight in these closed corridors was undesirable.
The lead Navy SEAL communicated with a two-fingered signal. The team's formation changed. “Bravo-team. We have hostile.” He spoke quietly into his throat-mic. “Attempting to draw out to helipad. Engage in open...”
* * *
“Bravo-team. We have hostile,” Alpha-team leader's voice sounded tinny in their earpieces. “Attempting to draw out to helipad. Engage in open -” His sudden shriek over the radio circuit hurt Bravo-team's ears. Then followed the ugly barking of machine gun fire.
* * *
Leaman heard the machine-gun fire. Short controlled three-round bursts at first, but that didn't last long. It was soon followed by panicked full automatic bursts! His instincts took over, pressing himself against the rusty wall, taking whatever cover was available. His senses were in overdrive. His eyes wide, there was simply too little light for the human eye to see.
A man shrieked, screaming in agony and fear and suddenly fell silent. The horrid sound came from more than one direction, these echoey corridors making the distant sounds impossible to trace. Leaman couldn't tell if it was Adrenalin or shock flooding through his veins. His breath was short and he couldn't swallow, his panic choking him. He was unarmed and in the dark.
Nothing's changed, he told himself. He still needed to get to Engineering. It didn't matter who else was here... or what.
* * *
The auxiliary generator chugged into life, whining and whirling as it awoke. Coughing and sputtering as it bitched its resentment.
“Alpha-team? Copy,” the Bravo-team leader spoke calmly into his throat-mic as he turned to his team. “Will the generator hold?”
“It's as good as it's going to get.”
“We've lost contact with Alpha-Team. We'll sweep our way top-deck and secure the bridge. Keep in close -”
“Bravo! Don't... no! Ah, ah, AHHH!!” the man's voice through their earpieces was unidentifiable as he screamed. Then the radio link was cut. Bravo-team, shocked into silence, listened to the dead com-link, its static humming.
“Stay tight. Stay focused. Short controlled bursts. Our prime objective is still to take and secure the bridge. Suppressive fire only. ” Alpha-team leader sounded confident and in control. He believed his team had been in worse firefights before. He believed their experience and training had prepared them for anything. He couldn't have been more wrong.
* * *
Leaman was nearly at Engineering. Before him extended a dimly lit hallway. The outer bulkhead and hull were completely rusted through in areas. Rays of sunlight pierced the derelict's darkness, creating even more shadows. Spaghetti-like streams of light highlighted the aged dust motes in the air. It gave the hall an illusionary atmosphere of tranquility.
Leaman stopped, listening. He could hear footsteps ahead of him... but there was something else. The hair on the back of his neck stood. Something was wrong. He somehow recognized this strange feeling and presence.
His eyes nervously scanned the corridor. His bad glassy eye caught a sun ray, reflecting its light like a camera lens. Something was terribly wrong. Unnatural. Out of place.
The footsteps were closer. Leaman backed into an intersecting corridor and sunk into the shadows of a secondary hall, behind its opened hatchway door. Across the hall a black corridor yawned away from him. Its ebony maw seemed alive and sentient. He squeezed himself deeper into his hiding place.
An armed soldier crossed his path, scanning both corridors. Leaman's heart raced. Could the soldier hear his pounding heart?
The soldier turned and gave the Clear signal. Leaman remembered that signal from his missions with the RCMP.
The soldier stood guard as – Leaman counted them – one, two, three... Three more soldiers passed. They were a team of four. The first soldier standing guard followed, taking up the rear. Then a fifth shadow detached itself from the darkness and followed!
Leaman's blood ran cold. He could sense it. He could taste it. The Whisperer.
Leaman couldn't be sure what his eyes were seeing. The shadow seemed to peel itself off the wall, bloating out into some sort of solid tentacled form. He couldn't focus on it. Near, far. Flat, solid. It toggled between perspectives like a Strobe-light as it moved upon the last man.
Something dark, tentacled and strangely gelatinous dropped over the rear soldier's head. Like a sack, an executioner's hood, an octopus' webbed embrace. It was all of these things yet none of them. And as silently and quickly as it dropped over his head, it withdrew and disappeared into shadows, making a wet sucking sound.
The soldier made no sound as he feebly reached towards his fleeced head. All that remained was a bloody skull. The flesh, even his eyes, had been removed with near surgical precision.
His corpse dropped to his knees and toppled over. Leaman took advantage of this opportunity. He exhumed himself from his tight hiding place and bolted down the hallway. He only looked over his shoulder once as he fled towards Engineering.
The shadow-thing leapt from one wall to another, its semi-corporeal black form reminiscent of great membranous wings. Its stench was overwhelming. Machine-guns fired as Leaman turned the corner.
* * *
Bravo-team's point-man had removed his night-vision goggles as they neared the upper decks. Sunlight was filtering down the shadowed hallways from the ascending stairwell to the helipad and through rusted holes and breaches in the hulls.
The two remaining soldiers provided cover for one another as they half retreated, half fled. Their controlled calm had not yet disintegrated, but panic was beginning to boil, brewing just beneath the surface.
Bravo-team's Commander whispered in their earpieces, “It is still in pursuit?”
“Difficult to tell. Lost visual at last intersection – Yes! Hostile is still in pursuit!” answered the rear man as he jockeyed position, his team-mate providing cover.
“Stairwell to helipad is clear. Draw hostile top deck. Helipad is open. We will engage on top deck.” Bravo-team leader walked into the bright light of day, machine-gun held steady tight to his shoulder. There was no bounce in his stride. He dropped to one knee providing cover for the stairwell. He knew how far behind his men were. He counted: Five... four... three... two... one.
One soldier exited the stairwell. Bravo-leader took a new position, his back to the main building.
Five... four... three... two... one. The last Navy SEAL exited the stairwell. All three survivors spread out to cover the entire helipad and waited...
Bravo-leader blinked. His eyes must be playing tricks on him. He saw nothing exit the stairwell, but there It was, standing on the helipad in plain sight; an insult to the normality of the sane light of day. It simply should not have been. A perversion to nature. How such an abomination felt justified to show itself outside the dark recesses of nightmare was nothing less than blasphemy!
* * *
Leaman raced through the Yamayuki's black belly desperately attempting to return to the bridge again! He couldn't be sure of his emotions. Ecstatic? Happy? Confused? Uncertain? Insecure? Frightened?
Like a movie reel, he replayed the scene from Engineering again and again in his memory, hoping to see something he must have missed.
The auxiliary generator was running. The power was on! How could he not have noticed this on the bridge?! Was he hallucinating? Was he truly mad?
Leaman's mind spun through countless paranoid scenarios as he navigated through the jet black corridors by memory. He had taken a different route to the bridge this time. He knew The Whisperer was on-board. He was all too familiar with its taint, having been Its neighbour for a decade; having The Whisperer haunt his nightly dreams; his obsession filling his days! Leaman wanted nothing to do with It.