Jack Scarlet

by Dan McGirt

  Cassi slumped against her bonds, chin against her bare chest, eyes closed, lips quivering. She was soaked and shivering. Her upraised arms shook like those of a distaff Atlas holding up a too-heavy sky for too long. Jack held the light on her at an angle, illuminating her face, while taking care not to shine it in her eyes.

  “Cassi!” he shouted. Gently, he placed his hand on her shoulder. Her skin was cold to the touch.

  She shook her head without looking up. Her lips moved. Her voice, if she was speaking aloud, was too faint to be heard. Reading her lips he caught the words “...who art in heaven...”

  “Cassi!” He shook her. Her head came up. Her eyes opened. Jack turned the light on himself.

  “Cassi! It’s Jack! I’m getting you out of here!”

  “Jack?” She spoke as if dazed. “Jack, are you real?”

  Jack touched her rain-slashed cheek. “It’s me, babe. I’ve got you. I’m here.”

  “Thank God. I thought...thought I was going to die.” She blinked. “They left me to die, Jack.”

  “Not going to happen.” Jack cupped his hand under her chin, a tender, familiar gesture. “The ocean can’t kill you. You’re too tough.”

  “Ha.”

  “Hold on. I’ll cut the ropes.”

  Jack sawed through the line binding her right arm to the crossbar, supporting the stiff, numb limb as the cords fell away and lowering the arm gently to Cassi’s side. He repeated the process with her left arm. She reached for him, winced in pain.

  “I can’t breathe.”

  “The strap,” said Jack.

  The leather strap around her mid-section, resembling a weight lifter’s belt, was secured by three buckles cinched tight. The sodden leather had contracted, cutting tight into Cassi’s abdomen. Jack pried the fasteners open and let the belt fall to the deck. Cassi’s legs buckled. She pitched forward. Jack caught her in his arms, clasped her to him, shielded her from the rain as best he could. Cassi pressed her face against his shoulder, sobbing, shivering, letting all the fear and guilt and pain of the last few hours, the last few horrible days, come out of her.

  “Jack...I thought I’d never...”

  “It’s okay,” said Jack. “It’ll be okay. Let’s get you in the boat, dry you off. Can you walk?”

  “I...I think so.” The corner of her mouth turned up in a faint smile. “Gonna carry me if I can’t?”

  “Whatever it takes. I’ve got you. Come on.”

  With one arm around Cassi and the flashlight in his other hand, Jack led her toward the boat. A large wave broke across the floating dock, almost knocking them to their knees. Cassi clung to Jack with sudden, desperate strength, afraid of being swept away.

  Lightning crashed, revealing a figure in black crouched on the deck between the pair and the lifeboat. Jack pushed Cassi behind him and shone the light on the new arrival.

  “Don’t shoot!” shouted the man in black.

  “Gal!” said Jack, recognizing the voice. Relief surged through him as the light found his crouching friend. He grinned. “I heard you were dead!”

  “You heard wrong.” Galahad approached in a swaying, bent-over scamper.

  Jack exchanged a rough clasp of hands with Gal and said, “Galahad, meet Cassi.”

  “My pleasure,” said Galahad, tipping an imaginary hat. “Definitely worth the swim.” He winked.

  Cassi managed a weak smile.

  “You almost missed the boat, buddy,” said Jack.

  “Yes, I tried to crash in this general direction after they shot my wings off,” said Galahad. He grinned. “Thruster boots, man. Saved my hide.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Long swim. Figured if I headed for the only pretty woman within two hundred miles, I’d find you too. Lost my way when the lights went out and thought I was done – then the dock came right to me.”

  “They say it’s better to be lucky than good,” said Jack.

  “They say many things,” said Galahad.

  “I say let’s get out of here,” said Jack.

  “Yes,” said Galahad. “The sooner the –”

  Gal broke off as a streak of flame lanced through the night and found the lifeboat. With a thunderous whoomp! a fireball lifted the vessel from the water. The blast wave flattened Jack, Gal, and Cassi and sent them tumbling backward across the slippery deck toward the hungry, raging sea.

  26: Fire in the Deep

  Jack’s right hand shot out and locked around the central pole as he flew past it. His left clenched Cassi’s upper arm, jerking her to a stop. The flashlight went spinning away into the water.

  Galahad skidded almost to the dock’s edge before digging his hands into an indentation in the decking, then getting purchase with his feet.

  “What the hell!” he shouted.

  Twisted shreds of burning orange vinyl sizzled in the water and on the dock. The lifeboat was a ruin, the upper shell blown apart. The remnants of the hull and engine took on water and sank swiftly.

  “There!” said Jack, pointing.

  Lightning revealed a RHIB one hundred yards out, between the floating dock and Deepfire. Nine men were at the paddles, working in unison, muscles rippling as the patrol boat fought the storm and the waves. A soldier braced in the bow held a grenade launcher.

  “Who sinks a lifeboat, man?” said Galahad. “A lifeboat!”

  “SEG.”

  “Kamenaye chutiya!” Galahad shook his head in disgust.

  “Why is this happening?” Cassi moaned. “What do they want?”

  Jack pulled her closer, kissed her forehead. He felt her shiver in his arms, more from chill than fright, he was sure, though she was afraid. Who wouldn’t be? Cassi was strong, but everyone had limits to how much trauma they could absorb before the mind slipped into the psychological equivalent of a defensive crouch. She was physically and mentally exhausted, dehydrated, her reserves worn down by exposure to the elements, fear, uncertainty, and the apprehension of a lonely death in the dark. Though seemingly unhurt by the blast she needed medical attention, fluids, rest – and to be far away from Deepfire and this execution dock.

  The gunner put aside the grenade launcher and raked the dock with an auto burst from the patrol boat’s mounted 12.7mm gun. Cassi gave a yelp of terror and pressed her face against Jack’s chest. Orange tracers punched through the dark. The gunner aimed low, sweeping the waterline to puncture the pontoons keeping the structure afloat. The dock listed as the damaged floats took on water.

  “Do they mean to board us or sink us?” muttered Jack.

  Galahad grabbed Jack’s arm and shouted in his ear. “Are we done with the non-lethal, man?”

  “Yes,” said Jack. “I think we are.”

  “Good. I packed a red, just in case.”

  “A red? Hey, wait—”

  Galahad rolled across the dock so as not to present an easy target. He reached the side nearest the oncoming patrol boat, now seventy yards out – within range of the wrist-mounted needler. Gal kicked the last bit of burning debris into the water and set himself in a prone firing position, right arm extended, left arm bracing. He dialed up the round. To hit a moving target in the dark and the rain while firing from an unstable platform was a real circus shot – the kind of thing Jack did without blinking. But Galahad was no slouch as a shooter either.

  And with a red, close was good enough.

  Behind him, Jack shouted something that the wind distorted into meaningless noise. Galahad activated the holographic laser sight and only grunted in mild surprise that it was still operable. Jack tended to hard shield the circuits on his gadgets.

  Maybe the gunner had a live nightscope, or maybe the EMP had fried it. He was probably waiting for the next flash of lightning to reacquire his target. So was Galahad.

  Lightning spattered across the clouds, lighting up the dock and surrounding sea like a disco dance floor in hell.

  The targeting laser found the range. Galahad cocked his wrist to fire the needler. The red round launched with
a metallic whine and streaked to target, covering the distance in under a second. The needle hit the bow of the patrol boat and delivered its payload – less than one gram of a hyper-concentrated liquid high explosive a thousand times more powerful than TNT.

  The red vaporized the patrol boat and its crew with a white-hot blast that challenged the thunder. Hot glowing boat fragments rained down into the water like the residue of a Fourth of July fireworks display.

  Galahad scrambled back to the center post.

  “That was excessive,” said Jack.

  “What?”

  “I wanted the boat.”

  “Ah,” said Galahad. “Yes, perhaps I went a little eye for an eye there. So unlike me.”

  “It’s been a stressful night. You’re forgiven.”

  “Week.”

  “What?”

  “Stressful week. My ‘vacation’ week, I might add.”

  “There will be other vacations, Gal.”

  “Big talk from a guy floating in the dark in a storm in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

  “I should answer this in the presence of your lady friend?”

  “Gal...”

  “Again – I float in the dark in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. For the second time in as many days.”

  “I have a plan,” said Jack.

  “My faith in you is rewarded.”

  “Unfortunately, it involved the boat you just blew up.”

  “Didn’t want to make it too easy for you.”

  “Jack...are you taking me home now?” murmured Cassi through chattering teeth. “I’m cold.” Her speech was slurred.

  “Yes,” said Jack. “You’re going home.” He rubbed her hands. “Soon.”

  “Hypothermia, man,” said Galahad.

  “I wish I’d grabbed a blanket from the lifeboat.”

  “She can have my ninja suit. It will be warmer.”

  “Not by much. Have a seat.”

  Jack shifted position to let Galahad anchor a hand on the post and sit with Cassi between them. Cassi drew her knees in while Jack and Gal each braced a leg against hers and locked ankles to help hold her in place.

  It was only a matter of time until Jack and Gal would see their core temperature drop like Cassi’s, but by huddling together they could conserve body heat. And even with high waves rocking the dock and occasionally breaking over them, they were better off out of the water than in it.

  “What happened on the rig, man?” said Galahad. “That laser drill turn into an E-bomb?”

  “One way to look at it,” said Jack.

  “And that?” Galahad asked, when the next lightning barrage revealed Deepfire tilted at close to thirty degrees. “Your doing?”

  “No,” said Jack. “Tried to stop it. Oswald wouldn’t listen.”

  “Leaky ballast tank?”

  “Leviathan,” said Jack.

  Galahad frowned. “Your sea monster?”

  Cassi looked up. “It’s real,” she muttered.

  “I know,” said Galahad. “I saw the video.”

  “Video?” echoed Cassi, perplexed. “What video?”

  Galahad winced, recalling that the disturbing clip had come from the camera of Cassi’s dead crewmate on the Sandpiper. Of course she hadn’t seen it.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Jack interjected. “The fact is, SEG wants Leviathan. The telluric energy play is a sham to get Corbett’s cooperation. Or at best a secondary consideration.”

  “You think that thing is here?” said Galahad.

  “Depth is over four thousand feet,” said Jack. “Plenty of room at the bottom. Yes, it’s here. The BOLD summoned it. Oswald thought he was giving it instructions with old Sumerian hymns. He was only making it angry.”

  “How angry?”

  “You see Deepfire.”

  “That is a definite ‘leave me alone’ message.”

  “The message may not be complete,” said Jack. “Do you hear it?”

  The sound came from below them, from the water and through the deck, a deep, grinding bass throom like an volcano ready to erupt. They felt vibrations in the marrow of their bones. With the bass came another sound – a high, piercing wail, like the scream of a banshee, like a million car alarms inside your skull.

  Jack and Galahad had heard these sounds before in muffled form, on the recovered video clip. It was a thousandfold more intense live. Gal retched uncontrollably, overcome by nausea. Jack felt his jaw quiver and his guts churn. Random muscles twitched, as if he were receiving mild electrical shocks across his body. He grit his teeth against an unfamiliar feeling of dizziness.

  Cassi stiffened. “Oh, my God!” she groaned. “It’s here!”

  The clouds above Deepfire parted as if shoved aside by an expanding invisible bubble, revealing a tunnel vision glimpse of clear night sky far above. It seemed to Jack the cold, distant stars were not quite right - distorted, more like eddies of light than twinkling pinpricks. The starscape wheeled about them as if viewed from a merry-go-round.

  The water roiled and bubbled savagely, as if they floated in a boiling cauldron. The dock shot briskly through the water, carried along by a sudden and irresistible current. Jack was unsure which direction they were moving. He had become disoriented in the storm and this attack of unaccustomed vertigo wasn't helping.

  Red lightning spidered across the sky in a sustained barrage that lit up the sea to the horizon.

  “We're circling Deepfire!” said Jack.

  They weren't alone. Ranged around the crippled platform were the crew boat, two RHIB patrol boats - one of them capsized - and another of Deepfire's lifeboats. There were perhaps other vessels on the opposite side of the semisub, obscured by its angled bulk. None of the watercraft were within two hundred yards of the floating dock; none seemed to be under way. All rode the wide sweep of a circular current centered on Deepfire and extending half a mile from the rig.

  Galahad and Cassi had no response to Jack’s observation, each absorbed in their own agonies induced by the unrelenting hellish noise.

  A ring of upwellings up to sixty feet in diameter surged from the depths around Deepfire, creating domes of water that burst through the waves to peak twenty feet or more above the surface. Like bursting blisters, the upsurges brought with them a blue-green phosphorescent glow that spread through the swirling whirlpool like a luminous suspended flame. The Gulf waters seemed to burn with a heatless fire.

  Jack wrapped his arm tighter around Cassi, resolved not to lose hold of her no matter what happened.

  The liquid domes collapsed one by one, sending countless tons of seawater crashing back to the surface. A wash of foam surfed the floating dock farther from Deepfire, though still within the sweep of the whirlpool current.

  “What is this?” asked Galahad.

  “The end,” said Jack.

  Like an entire pod of whales breaching the surface in unison, a dozen massive dark shapes thrust upward from the roiling waters. Fountaining crashes of spray drained off the cyclopean forms, revealed to be not whales but cephalopod arms of mind-boggling size. The massive black limbs unfurled above the nightmare seascape like the monstrous fronds of a Brobdingnagian fern.

  Cassi screamed. Galahad cursed and made the triple sign.

  Jack felt a primal dread a thousand thousand generations old clutch at his chest like the hands of a drowning man reaching for a sky he will never touch.

  It was true. It was real. Leviathan was here.

  27: The Cleansing Gyre

  Red lightning flared, reflecting off the wet, rough skin of the enormous appendages. None was less than twenty feet thick save at the uttermost tips, which extended to the topsides of Deepfire – a reach of at least one hundred feet from the surface. Jack reflexively calculated an approximate volume and estimated mass of only the visible portions of the gigantic arms. The number he derived defied reason.

  “I just swore off calamari,” said Galahad.

  “You d
on’t even like calamari,” said Jack.

  “Not saying it was a hard decision.”

  The arms closed around the Deepfire rig. Noting the triple rows of tractor tire-sized suckers along their length, Jack decided that they were properly arms, not tentacles, which typically had suckers only near the ends.

  By any name, the appendages enclosed the platform and squeezed it with crushing force. With a rending sound of torn metal, the helipad broke loose and slid into the water at an angle, disappearing from view. Two arms crushed the executive housing structure, collapsing the upper levels into the lower like twin pythons crushing empty beer cans. Other arms reached up to grip the derrick towers and peel them away like a cruel child plucking the limbs off a hapless insect. Another thick arm encircled the bridge superstructure and pried it loose, holding it aloft. Dozens of crew members, guards, and technicians dropped screaming into the churning, glowing sea. Whether they fell or jumped, their prospect of survival in that foaming roil was equally grim.

  Climbing like a predatory serpent, an arm twined its way around the drilling tower. With struts snapping, the tower bent, then broke, and was dragged into the deep.

  Yet another gargantuan limb snaked up through the center of the rig, through the moon pool gap, probing and pushing through the decks until its tip protruded from the drilling floor.

  To Jack’s relief, the nausea-inducing bass rumble and its accompanying vertigo screech subsided as the monster limbs picked Deepfire apart. Those unwelcome sounds were replaced by a weird piping noise, a tuneless trilling at the upper edge of hearing. It was a maddening sound, rising and falling in pitch like a whining swarm of invisible mosquitoes. Prolonged exposure, Jack surmised, would be highly disruptive to higher order brain function. It might even induce a suicidal urge to drown oneself to escape the uncanny noise. He wondered if this very sound was the origin of the Siren legend, the music that lured sailors to their doom. Minus the alluring nymphs, unfortunately.

  Galahad wiped vomit from his lips. “How can a living thing be that big?” he asked. “Isn’t there some law of physics it violates?”