by JE Gurley
“Go to your cabins!” he shouted. “Lock yourselves in.”
No one paid attention to him. He looked at the doctor, and Chase shook his head sadly. The passengers were in a panic and reasoning with them was useless. The lower level contained fewer cabins and was less crowded. Josh started down the corridor, but Chase stopped him.
“One more level,” he said.
“Isn’t the launching bay down here?”
Chase opened a hatch marked ‘crew only’. “The supply room is near the engine room.”
The first thing Josh noticed was the absence of sound. The ship’s massive engines were silent. The second thing he noticed was the two feet of water in the corridor. The ship was sinking.
“That blow to the bow must have opened a seam.”
“Could those things do that much damage?”
Josh wondered the same thing. “No, maybe we collided with something else, perhaps a partially submerged wreck damaged by the storm.”
“Not likely,” Chase countered.
Josh decided it was time to come clean. “There’s something else out there, something big enough to damage a cruise ship.”
Chase’s face turned white. “God help us if we have to evacuate the ship. I don’t understand what’s happening. What are those things? Where did they come from?”
“Up from the deep, the bottom of the Cayman Trench. Those creatures are giant mutated Bristle worms. They’re normally a few inches long.”
“That’s impossible.”
Josh pulled out his cell phone and showed Chase the photos of the Ogrefish and the blurry images of the isopods. As Chase stared at the photos, his lips compressed to a fine bloodless line and his gaunt cheeks tightened. His eyes began blinking rapidly, as if trying to dispel the images from his mind.
“The Ogrefish were nearly six-feet long instead of six inches. The isopods are normally a few inches, maybe a foot in length. I saw them eat people. They almost had me for dinner. Little Cayman was overrun with them. I doubt anyone was left alive for the tidal wave to kill.”
Chase leaned against the wall, trembling. His voice broke as he asked, “Is it the end of the world?”
Josh shook his head. “Something is making deep sea creatures grow to gigantic size and something else is driving them from the deep.”
As Josh’s words sunk in, the doctor recoiled in horror. He turned away from the horrible, impossible images on the cell phone. Josh gave him a few seconds to pull himself together. They didn’t have time for him to fall apart.
“Let’s go find some shotguns.”
Chase nodded and meekly followed Josh. He splashed through the cold water until he reached a door marked ‘Supply Room’. Thankfully, it was unlocked. Chase pointed to a locker beside a rack of scuba gear. The door was locked, but using a steel bar as a lever, he managed to pry open the door. Inside were ten pump-action shotguns – six Remington 870’s and four Mossberg 500’s. Josh didn’t know much about shotguns, but he had hunted as a teenager with his father who owned a Remington. He knew how to pump it to load it, and which end the shot came out. With creatures as large as the Bristle worms, he didn’t need to be an expert. Besides, unlike whitetail deer, the Bristle worms weren’t hiding. They were attacking.
He grabbed two shotguns and a box of shells. Doctor Chase reluctantly picked up one of the Mossbergs and examined it. “I’ve never fired a gun before.”
Josh took the Mossberg from the doctor and loaded it. He handed it back to Chase and demonstrated how to hold it. “Press it tightly against your shoulder. Point it at one of the worms and pull the trigger. It’s a twelve-gauge, so it has a kick. When you fire, pull the cylinder back to pump another shell into the chamber. You’ve got six shells. The Remington holds seven. Oh, and Doctor, make sure I’m not in the way when you shoot.”
Chase nodded. He held the shotgun at arm’s length as if it were a germ. Josh hoped he got over his fear of firearms quickly. He slung one of the Remingtons over his shoulder by the strap, grabbed the other with both hands, and went back into the corridor. The water had already risen another foot. The water was frigid.
“Feel how cold the water is. It should be warm. Something is bringing the deep cold water to the surface. That’s why these creatures are appearing.”
“How do you know so much about it?”
“I’m studying to be a marine biologist. If I live through this, I’ll be able to write one hell of a paper.”
“If we live through this,” Chase repeated.
As they emerged into the main deck corridor from the crew entrance, they faced one of the Bristle worms in the middle of the corridor hovering over a partially consumed corpse. Blood covered the wall and dripped from the creature’s mouth. Josh raised the shotgun and fired. The birdshot did little damage from a distance of twenty yards. Josh started walking toward it, firing as he went. From ten yards, chunks of flesh began flying off the creature. At five yards, a shot directly into its open mouth blew its brain out the back of its head. The creature roared and reared until its head brushed the ceiling, knocking out the lights, and then collapsed.
Josh stared at the dead creature. Chase walked up and prodded it with the barrel of his shotgun. The end of the barrel came away slimy.
“Dead,” he pronounced. He reached out to touch the slime.
“Don’t!” Josh yelled.
Chase looked at him curiously.
“It might be infested with parasites.”
Chase jerked his hand back and wiped the barrel on a chair.
Like the isopods that had come ashore at Little Cayman, the Bristle worms were creatures of the sea, extracting oxygen through gills. Given the enormous size of their bodies, the effort of scrambling about on the ship should quickly exhaust their blood oxygen supply. Gills do a poor job of extracting oxygen from air, but the creatures seemed determined to make meals of the passengers.
Reaching the main deck, Josh saw crewmen attempting to lower lifeboats over the side. Passengers, unaware of the nature of the danger, crowded the deck around the lifeboat stations, impeding the crewmen. One lifeboat, half-filled with passengers, tilted abruptly as one of the winches jammed, spilling the passengers into the sea. The worms immediately attacked them. Now, everyone was aware of the danger. As they tried to flee the area, they collided with a phalanx of Bristle worms waiting in the pool area on the fantail.
Josh flung open the door, and he and Doctor Chase began firing into the mass of creatures. A man wearing a purser’s uniform rushed up to them. Josh handed him the third shotgun. The three weapons did little actual damage, but the noise drew the creatures’ attention away from the passengers. Several of the creatures returned to the water. To breathe, Josh thought. As the remaining worms advanced, their shots began to have an effect. The head was the creatures’ weak spot, the only area not covered in hard chitin. Though none of the three was expert shots, they began to make headway. Within minutes, five of the creatures lay dead or dying on the deck.
In his zeal for killing, the purser strayed too close to the creatures. When his shotgun was empty, he hesitated before retreating to reload. This was all the time the creature nearest him needed. It reached down and snatched the purser into the air, almost severing his body in half. The man’s agonized screams distressed Chase. He fired his last shell into the purser’s body, killing him instantly. Josh said nothing as he attacked the creature.
Finally, the fantail was cleared of the creatures, but they still infested the ship. The bow of the ship was noticeably lower than the stern and the entire ship was listing to starboard by ten degrees. The Neptune was sinking fast. Two of the six lifeboats had successfully launched, but Josh didn’t give them good odds of surviving. Two of the remaining lifeboats were shattered, useless. The third was abandoned, wedged tightly against the side of the ship by its list.
The ship shuddered and went dark as the rising water flooded the generator room. The Bristle worms abandoned the ship en masse, struggling to the rails and falli
ng overboard, almost as in fear. At first, Josh attributed the vibration to torque from strained metal. However, as the bow lifted several feet and the ship rolled even more to starboard, he knew he was about to meet the top predator of the food chain. The sudden lurch of the ship threw him to the deck. He slid across the deck and came to rest against the side of the hot tub. As Doctor Chase slid past, he grabbed the doctor by the arm and held on. He thought the doctor’s weight was going to wrench his shoulder from its socket, but the ship settled back to its normal list. The two men stared at each other in dread.
A head, twice as large as one of the lifeboats, loomed over the railing atop a long, sinuous neck. Reptilian eyes the size of manhole covers stared down at them, reflecting red in the moonlight. He recognized the creature as the one he had briefly glimpsed on Little Cayman, the one that had upended his raft. With dizzying speed, the long neck shot forward, and a mouth filled with long, sharp teeth, curved inwards for grasping prey, snatched one of the remaining Bristle worms from the deck above. With two quick bites to dismember the creature, it disappeared down the monster’s gullet. Josh held his breath, afraid to speak or move, as the head and neck slowly sank back into the water.
The two men remained where they were for long moments, quaking in fear as the stern began lifting into the air, while the bow sunk deeper into the black waters. Their ship was going down and would carry them with it if they didn’t move, but the thought of being once again adrift at sea with giant Bristle worms and the gargantuan reptile frightened Josh more than drowning did. As the remaining lifeboat swung away from its davit and away from the side of the ship, Josh threw off the fear immobilizing him.
“Come on, Doctor,” he yelled.
The two men raced for the lifeboat and climbed inside. Josh fought to release the forward davit as the lifeboat hit the rising water. If he couldn’t free it, the sinking ship would drag the lifeboat to the depths with them aboard. He squeezed the lever as he tried to knock off the slip ring, but the pressure of the boat was too great. The bow of the lifeboat began to go under. He pressed with all his strength and freed the ring just in time. He had no time to free the rear line. He placed the barrel of the Remington against the securing mechanism rope and fired. The pin exploded and the cable released. The rear of the lifeboat dropped several feet into the sea and finally settled to an even keel. Josh cranked the small gasoline engine and began pulling away from the doomed ship.
“Wait. There might be others in the water,” Doctor Chase warned. “We have to save them.”
Josh’s first instincts told him to leave as quickly as he could, but the doctor’s words struck home. He nodded and continued toward the bow. A small knot of people bobbed in the water a few yards away from the ship. He stopped the engine, and he and the doctor helped them into the boat. As he turned to search the other side of the ship, the Neptune groaned its death song and rolled onto its starboard side. Four massive parallel rents in the hull of the bow revealed the interior of cabins. The gouges appeared too natural to have been inflicted by a collision. The water roiled with bubbles, as the ship lifted its stern into the air in a graceful dive for the depths five miles below. He grabbed the tiller and pointed the small craft into the darkness away from the sinking ship. The gargantuan reptile’s head lifted one more time as the head darted to snatch a Bristle worm, or a survivor from the water. Josh hoped it was a worm.
Twice in one night, he was adrift at sea. He glanced at the stars to get his bearing and pointed the small craft toward Jamaica, which was two hundred miles away.
9
Oct. 26, George Town, Grand Cayman, Caribbean –
At dawn’s first light, Germaine surveyed the island of death. His steps crunched the carcasses of thousands of sea lice as he marched toward town. The stench was sickening, overpowering. He brought his shirt up to cover his nose. He followed the path of destruction by the bones of the human dead, stripped clean of their flesh, lying white and shiny in the morning sun. The creatures had not left enough for the ravens or red crab to feast on. He was certain there would be survivors on the upper floors of the hotels and in out of the way spots on the island, but they remained where they were, hiding in fear. He alone was brave enough or foolish enough to venture out.
His fear of losing his license over the dead divers was gone. There was neither authority left to report them to, nor anyone remaining alive to concern themselves with three dead out of thousands. Over forty-five thousand people lived on Grand Cayman, with thousands of visitors on the island at any one time. Even with the threat of Hurricane Clive looming, Germaine estimated fifty thousand people were on the island yesterday. Now, perhaps only hundreds remained alive.
There was nothing left for him on Grand Cayman, no reason for him to remain. His ex-wife, if she had survived, could have the house and the note. He located a dinghy on the beach and rowed back out to the Miss Lucy. He was surprised to see Bodden sitting on the rail.
“Any more of the crew here,” Germaine asked, as he pulled up alongside his boat.
Bodden shook his head and pointed to smears of blood on the deck. “No bodies, no food left. Things scattered and ripped up, but the hull is solid.”
“You saw what happened last night?”
“I saw. Took my scooter and went to the Bluff. Figured higher was better.”
The Bluff was the island’s highest point at one-hundred forty feet. Bodden’s decision had saved his life.
“What do we do now?” Bodden asked.
Germaine thought it typical of Bodden to defer to his judgment. The amicable and easy-going Bodden hardly disputed any decision Germaine made. Normally, he accepted the responsibility without thinking. Now, he dreaded the heavy burden of leadership. They couldn’t wait for help, and trying to ride herd over a bunch of panicked tourists didn’t appeal to him. His last attempt at being in charge of people had ended poorly.
“Load up what we can find and light out for Jamaica.”
Bodden nodded, grabbed a mop, and began cleaning the blood from the deck.
With a crew of two, sailing the schooner to Jamaica was out of the question. Instead, they would rely on the engine. While it wasn’t the best maintained engine in the Caribbean for lack of funds, Germaine trusted it more than in two men’s ability to furl the sails quickly in an emergency. The broken rails and messy cabins could wait. Much to Germaine’s delight, the engine cranked with no problem. He brought the Miss Lucy into the harbor, and to the concrete pier. A small leak in the starboard chine where side and bottom of the boat met trickled water into the bilge, but Bodden sealed the leak with caulking material and pumped the water from the bilge.
On shore, they sifted through the debris of several stores, ferrying canned good, bottled water, and ammunition for Germaine’s .45 to the boat. He filled the Miss Lucy’s fuel tanks with gasoline and rolled three, fifty-five gallon drums onto the deck, lashing them securely with rope. By the time they were ready to cast off at around eight a.m., several people had gathered on the dock watching them. Bodden glanced in his direction, but Germaine shook his head. They didn’t have room for refugees, and he was through with paying passengers. He turned his back on the shore and the survivors so he wouldn’t have to see their faces, perhaps some he might recognize, as he ordered Bodden to cast off. He ignored the forlorn shouts from the survivors as the Miss Lucy pulled away from the dock.
Jamaica lay four-hundred and eighty five miles to the southwest. Even pushing the engine to its top speed of eighteen knots, it would take Miss Lucy almost twenty-four hours to reach Jamaica. He and Bodden would have to take turns at the wheel. He trusted Bodden’s navigation, but doubted he would sleep during the voyage. The hurricane was over, but Germaine knew worse things than a storm lay between them and their destination.
At fifty-six years of age, Germaine considered what he could do with his life. The deaths of McCoy and the others would never come to light amid the deaths of so many others, but the memory of it would haunt him forever. Charters for
an aging schooner like Miss Lucy were too infrequent for a steady income; too many shiny, sleek power yachts to compete with. He had relied on hauling light freight and fishing to supplement his income. Maybe it was time to devote himself to freight and fishing entirely, or give up the Miss Lucy altogether and become a landlubber.
Germaine had never felt at home on land, even in his own house in George Town. Land was too unyielding, too steady, and too sedate. The sea undulated gently, was as still as ice, or heaved like a demon bronco, but it was never sedate. It held mysteries in its depths and raised questions in his mind. Now, with what he had seen, even more so. He had spent his entire life at the edge of a depth almost as deep as the Marina Trench but had never considered it except as a tourist attraction. It was an entirely unexplored world. There were things down there no man had seen, and now they were coming up. If every deep in the Seven Seas disgorged its monsters, man would have to abandon the sea, become a creature of the land and the sky. The thought of abandoning the sea frightened him more than the creatures he had seen.
The sky was slightly overcast but otherwise clear. They sailed steadily in a calm sea until dark. Night was when Germaine worried. Then the ocean became a dark mirror reflecting the moon and stars. What lay beyond the mirror was invisible, lurking like shadows and nightmares. They ran with no lights, fearing to attract any creatures around them. The chances of two ships running with no lights colliding with each other was small, and Germaine knew the waters of the Caribbean better than most men. He didn’t fear the dark or what he might encounter. He feared what lay beneath the keel.
Bodden cooked a meal of rice and stew, but Germaine’s appetite was gone, taken from him by the sea lice rampage against his fellow islanders. Bodden sat on the forward hatch eating his meal while staring out to sea. Never one to speak if he didn’t have anything worthwhile to say, Bodden had become even more taciturn since the attack on the island. He had not said anything about how he had survived the attack or if his family was safe. Germaine didn’t know if Bodden had returned to the Miss Lucy out of devotion or if, like him, Bodden had no other place to go,