by JE Gurley
“This ladder bypasses an area infested with the creatures,” Bates said, “but we have to pass through the sub pool.”
“I thought you said it was full of worms,” Josh said, disliking the idea.
Bates shook his head. “That’s where they came in. They moved into the bowels of the ship.” He hesitated before continuing, “It might be worm free.”
“Might be?” Germaine asked, voicing Josh’s thoughts.
“We need ammo and there’s a weapon’s locker right off the pool area.”
Germaine glanced at Knotts. “What about him?”
Knotts overheard and said, “Don’t worry about me. I’ve been making my way around this ship for ten years. I may be a cripple, but I’ll manage.” He grinned. “Besides, gravity does all the work.”
Bates descended first, hands and feet on the ladder rails, sliding quickly out of sight. Knotts insisted on going next. “In case I fall on someone,” he said. Elansky gave him time to descend and followed. Germaine went next, descending more slowly, clinging to the ladder with both hands. Josh cast one last glance at the Bristle worm outlined in the headlights that was still eating Odette, and then he followed Germaine.
Elansky’s flashlight illuminated the end of the ladder for Josh. Bates played his flashlight around the hold. Much of the equipment, including the crane used to lift and lower the submersible was damaged. Smaller pieces of equipment were overturned and scattered around the deck. The sub pool was surrounded by a five-foot-tall rim with steel scaffolding containing equipment. Much of the scaffolding was ripped asunder. Here, the carnage was worse. As the worms had entered through the pool, defenders had concentrated around them, unaware of just how dangerous and difficult they were to kill. Pools of blood, chunks of human flesh, and shattered bones spoke of their fruitless efforts to stop the Bristle worms. They had managed to kill a few. The remains of their cannibalized bodies lay around the pool. The pool itself was a rectangle of darkness, a pitch-black mirror set in the bottom of the ship reflecting nothing, not even the lights of the flashlights. Water was beginning to push up over the side of the pool and spill onto the deck, streaming forward as the bow settled deeper in the water.
“Clear,” Bates said. “The weapons locker is this way.”
He pointed the flashlight beam to a narrow corridor leading off the sub bay. The first door they passed was a machine shop, the second a spare parts room, but the third door was marked Electrical Room. Bates unexpectedly stopped before it.
“Electrical room?” Josh asked.
“You don’t expect us to label it ‘Every kind of God-damned weapon you want’ room.”
Knotts removed a key ring containing dozens of keys from his pocket, selected a key, and opened a panel beside the door. Inside the panel was a palm print analyzer. He pressed a button, and the panel lit up.
“Battery backup,” he said to Josh’s questioning look.
He pressed his palm flat against the panel. A bar of light passed up the palm and back down as it scanned the wrinkles and ridges of his epidermis. Satisfied, with a loud click, the door opened. Inside was a wonderland of weapons. The ten-by-ten room held dozens of rifles, pistols, and heavier items, such as RPGs, LAWS rockets, and .50 caliber machine guns on racks lining two walls. Boxes of ammunition, grenades, and Claymore mines filled shelves on the third wall. Elansky’s eyes settled on a SIG 556xi configured for 7.62 NATO rounds. She picked it up, tested the scope, and smiled. Josh discarded the Remington shotgun for an M16. Germaine took Elansky’s discarded Daewoo K7. Knotts kept his weapon. Bates quickly handed out ammunition to them all. He also broke open a box of grenades and handed each of them one.
“Be careful with these,” he warned. “They’ll kill you as quickly as a worm.”
Josh noticed that Bates hadn’t chosen a weapon. “What about you.”
Bates smiled. “I have something special in mind.” He opened a Samsonite case, and pulled out a heavy, six-barreled Gatling gun. “This is a Hua Qing Mini-gun, a product of China. This ought to fuck with those bastards.” He inserted a belt of 7.62 mm ammunition, slung it over his shoulder, and then glanced at Elansky. “Penis envy?”
“It ain’t the size of the gun. It’s the gunner.”
Better armed, but not quite ready to tackle the Bristle worms again, Josh found himself wanting nothing more than to lock the door and hide. However, the ship was sinking. They had no time to waste.
“It’s quicker to go back they way we came,” Knotts said.
No one argued. He knew the ship better than anyone did. In the sub bay, the darkness was cloying. The flashlights poked a few tiny holes in the blackness, but revealed little. Josh spotted a portable battery-operated light stand against the wall. As Bates started up the ladder, he switched it on, savoring the relief as the light revealed a room clear of Bristle worms.
“That’s better,” he said, pleased with himself for his ingenuity.
Before Bates could climb another rung, the ship suddenly lurched as something stuck the bottom. Bates went flying from the ladder, landing on his shoulder, groaning as the impact dislocated it. Josh was knocked to the deck amid a tangle of steel cables. A geyser of water erupted from the pool, showering them all with cold seawater. As Josh climbed to his feet, the ceresiosaurus’ head rose from the pool, slowly like a submarine surfacing. Its head swiveled until one of its large red eyes faced the lights. The creatures’ roar was deafening, splitting the air of the cavernous room like angry thunder. Josh clamped his hands over his ears to shut it out.
Retreating up the ladder was out of the question. The creature could easily snatch them from the ladder before they reached the top, and shooting at it while climbing was impossible.
“Back into the passageway,” Knotts yelled.
Josh struggled to untangle his feet from the cables, succeeding only in entangling himself further in his panicked haste. Elansky grabbed his arm and yanked, pulling him free of the worst of the snarl. He kicked off the last loop and scrambled away from the edge of the pool.
“Thanks,” he said.
She ignored him, as she shoved him behind her. She raised the SIG and fired a burst at the creature. Her aim was true, hitting it in the head, but the powerful 7.62 mm rounds didn’t penetrate deep into flesh that was dense enough to withstand the great pressures of the deep. Josh noticed Bates struggling to rise from the deck using only his good arm, holding his injured arm across his chest. He rushed over to help Bates to his feet and began pushing him toward the passageway.
“No, the gun,” he yelled.
Josh eyed the creature, but it seemed fascinated by the lights. He recovered the Hua Qing mini-gun and joined the others in the retreat to the safety of the passageway. Just as he thought they had made it, the creature roared once more, slammed one of its fins into a pile of debris, and scattered it around the bay, showering the group with lengths of pipe, equipment, metal decking grates, oxygen bottles, and lead ballast for the submersible. A pulley from a winch struck Josh squarely in the back, knocking him flat. He heard a loud groan from Knotts and saw the captain of the Pandora pulling a sliver of steel from his leg just above the knee. Blood spurted from a nicked artery. He clamped his hands over the wound to staunch the blood.
Josh’s back felt as if he had played tag with a freight train, but he managed to get to his feet, spitting out the water he had swallowed. He stood in knee-deep water. The creature had ripped a long gash in the raised structure around the sub pool, and water poured in at an alarming rate. The ship was sinking even faster than before. Germaine and Elansky had avoided the shower of debris and reached the passageway. Josh searched for Bates and found him lying in the water pinioned beneath a section of the crane used to lift the sub. He was still alive, but just barely.
He struggled to keep his head above water. When he saw Josh approaching, he yelled, “Leave me.” Blood flecked his lips as he fought for breath.
“We’ll get you out,” Josh said, knowing the water would drown him long before
they managed to lift the heavy piece of metal off him.
“No,” he groaned as Josh tried to pull him free. “I’m pinned. Too late for me,” he gasped. He smiled at Josh. Blood ran from his compressed lips. “Go.”
The rising water quickly covered Bates’ head. Josh tried to lift it above the water, but it was too late. A stream of bubbles broke the surface and then stopped. He felt the life leave Bates’ body.
Elansky and Germaine had rescued Knotts. He stood between them with his belt around his leg as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Josh joined them in the passageway. The creature continued its rampage in the pool in its attempt to enter the ship. The bow was down another ten degrees, and the water was now waist deep in the passageway.
He handed the heavy mini-gun to Elansky. She gave her SIG to him to replace his lost M16. “Bates is dead,” he said.
Knotts nodded. “So am I.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’ll never make it back topside with this leg, and you can’t carry me and fight worms.” He turned to Germaine. “Help me to the weapons locker.”
“Why?” Germaine asked.
“This ship is rigged with charges throughout her keel to scuttle her in minutes.”
“I’m not going down with the ship,” Germaine protested. “This is your command.”
“My last command. I’ll set the timer for ten minutes. That’s as long as I can set it for. You should have enough time to make it. I’m sorry, but I can’t wait any longer. I’m going to kill this creature. It’s going down with my ship.”
“What about the nukes?” Josh asked. All the talk of explosives and deliberately scuttling the ship concerned him. He wasn’t ready to die. He certainly didn’t want to go out in the heart of a nuclear explosion.
“They’re sealed in a heavy vault. The explosion won’t hurt them. All three are going back to the bottom where I found them. If I’m going out as a failure, I might as well fail at everything. Devers collapsed a mountain on top of the fourth one. It should be safe now.”
Inside the weapons locker, Knotts sat on an ammo case as he unlocked a panel on the wall beside him. He entered a code on the keypad revealed and pressed ENTER. The clock began at ten minutes and started counting down. Josh set his watch’s timer as well. The time was 12:20 a.m., October 31 – Halloween, an appropriate day for the horrors around them, he thought.
“Go,” Knotts said.
The ceresiosaurus had forced its massive body inside the bay. Its claws raked at the bulkheads as it attempted to dig its way to its escaped prey. Given sufficient time, it would reach them, but not in the ten minutes, the Pandora had left to live.
“Let’s go,” Germaine said.
Josh took one last look at Captain Knotts, trying to fix the man’s image in his mind. No one else would ever hear of his bravery, so the least he could do was remember him. Knotts pulled a cigarette from a pack in his pocket and tried to light it, but it was wet. He broke it in two and tossed it into the water rising around his waist.
The creature’s pounding sent shudders through the ship, creating ripples in the water. Forcing a path through the rising water and floating debris was hard work and Josh was near exhaustion by the time they reached the engine room. The massive engines were silent. The Bristle worms had been there. Parts of bodies of both worm and human floated in the water. Blood smeared the otherwise pristine white bulkheads. One walkway had collapsed into the water, rupturing fuel lines. A strong odor of diesel fuel filled the room.
Following Germaine and Elansky, Josh forced himself up the stairs. Each step sent lances of pain racing through his back. As they crossed a walkway spanning the engines, a Bristle worm emerged from the shadows, blocking their path. Elansky didn’t slow down. She pointed the Hua Qing mini-gun at it and pulled the trigger. The six barrels became a whirring blur as it poured hundreds of rounds into the creature. The 7.62 mm slugs ripped the creature to shreds, leaving only smoking chunks of flesh. The three of them plowed through the gory mess and continued to the hatch on the other side.
Josh checked his watch 12:23 – seven minutes to go.
Beyond the hatch lay a long passageway. Crew cabins lined the bulkhead. Thankfully, they encountered no worms, but their luck ended as they reached the last companionway leading to the top deck. More than a dozen worms milled about between them and the stairs. Germaine seemed ready to tackle them all to escape the ship, but Elansky stopped him.
“Give me your grenade,” she said.
He handed her the M 67 fragmentation grenades they had taken from the weapons locker.
“Get into one of the cabins,” she told them.
She edged closer to the worms. They still did not see her, but had become more agitated as they caught scent of the humans. Josh watched her pull the pins from two grenades, and then, using both hands, she flung them into the crowd of creatures. She threw herself flat on the deck and covered her head with her arms. Josh ducked his head back inside the cabin just as the grenades exploded. The 6.5 ounces of Composition B explosive in each grenade shattered it into hundreds of fragments of metal shrapnel that sprayed the companionway like shotgun pellets. The Bristle worms disintegrated into smoking piles of minced flesh and internal organs. The stench was overpowering.
Josh checked his watch – 12:26. Four minutes to get off the ship. Josh doubted they could make it.
They raced up the worm-slicked companionway and burst onto the deck. More Bristle worms patrolled the deck. Josh stopped counting at fifteen. The bow of the ship was now just above the water level. To his relief, Josh saw the schooner less than fifty yards off the port side of the bow, but to reach it, they had to pass through the army of Bristle worms, and they had no more grenades. The Miss Lucy was having problems of its own. Miguel stood on the deck shooting at Bristle worm heads as they surfaced, but the Webley pistol was having little effect. The professor was standing on top of one of the hatches, holding an oar in his hands. It was a poor weapon against fifteen-foot long Bristle worms. The schooner was under siege.
Beside Josh, Elansky began firing the mini-gun, cutting a swath through the creatures. Josh joined in with the SIG. He had lost sight of Germaine, but he heard the schooner captain’s Daewoo K7 still firing. They concentrated only on the nearest creatures, herding them away from the rail toward the center of the ship. Josh barely dodged one creature’s mouth as it swung its head at him. He shoved the barrel of the SIG into its mouth and fired a long burst, blowing the creature’s head off. Slime sprayed his shirt. He ripped it off and tossed it on the deck.
The Miss Lucy’s spotlight swept over them. Bodden had spotted them. The schooner began moving in their direction, aiming for a point just aft of the sinking bow. Josh glanced over the side. It would be almost a ten foot drop to the deck of the moving schooner, but a broken leg was better than becoming a meal for the worms.
Germaine appeared from the throng of worms, ducking under one as it swung at him. He raised his K7 and fired into the creature’s body at point blank range. He barely rolled away to avoid being pinned by the creature as it fell dead.
The schooner was almost at the ship. “Our ride’s here,” Josh called to Germaine and Elansky.
Elansky backed toward the rail, firing the Hua Qing until it was empty, the only sound coming from it was the whirring of the rotating barrels. She released the trigger and it stopped spinning.
“I’m out,” she said, dropping the useless weapon to the deck.
Germaine threw his K7 at the nearest worm. “Me too.”
Josh still had a full magazine in his pocket. He removed the almost empty clip from the Sig and popped in a full one. He handed it to Elansky. He was sure she could do more with it than he could. At the sound of the schooner slamming into the side of the freighter, Germaine leaped from the deck, neatly landing in the rigging of the forestaysail. He scrambled down to the deck. Josh waited for Elansky, but she shook her head at him, urging him to jump as she fired into the remaining Bristle worms. Jos
h checked his watch – 12:28. They weren’t going to make it. He jumped, grabbing the mainsail boom with both hands to break his fall. A loud roar sounded from below decks of the freighter just as he jumped, the ceresiosaurus making its displeasure known. He swung to the deck and rolled until he banged his head into the hatch. He stood and looked for Elansky. She fired one last burst at the worms, and then, timing her leap perfectly, she landed on the main mast. She clung to it for a second before shimmying down.
Bodden had already begun moving the schooner away from the Pandora, but Josh knew they were out of time. He pushed Professor Hicks to the deck and yelled, “Everybody down!”
The first explosion went off exactly on time, but to Josh’s surprise, it was soft thud deep in the bowels of the ship. Four more followed quickly, ripping out the freighter’s guts. The bow disappeared beneath the waves.
That wasn’t too bad, he said to himself.
Before the silent words could leave his mind, the deck of the Pandora heaved and buckled. Flames shot into the air from all hatches and portholes. Metal shrapnel rained down on the schooner. Everyone hugged the deck or sought cover in the cabin. Bristle worms along the rail of the freighter burst into flame or disintegrated from flying shrapnel. Now, the bow of the freighter was gone, and the rear deck was less than ten feet above the water line. The stern lifted a few feet, but settled. The freighter was going under fast.
The schooner was a hundred yards away from the blast, but the Pandora was not finished. The heat of the final explosion swept over them like a tsunami of flame, scorching wood, igniting sails, and singing flesh and hair. The ship shuddered as the shock wave traveled through the water. Any nearby worms would have been turned into jelly. The Pandora’s captain had assured that no trace of the ship or the creatures remained.
Josh picked himself up from the deck, as Miguel and Bodden raced to extinguish the burning sails. He was stunned by the strength of the explosion. A few seconds late, and he and the others would have accompanied the Pandora to her watery grave. The nukes were gone, returning to the deep from which they had been salvaged. The ceresiosaurus was dead, the Pandora its new tomb. They had escaped with their lives but little else.