by JE Gurley
He went back out on the balcony with the kukri in his hand. Looking down and to his right, he saw several of the creatures chewing through the metal hull below the waterline as if it were cardboard and disappearing inside the ship amid a flurry of whipping tentacles. Others used their long tentacles to pull themselves from the water and crawl up the side of the ship. At first glance, they resembled giant squids with tubular bodies rounded on the end with eight tentacles twice their body length, but as they left the water, their streamlined bodies expanded and broadened until they became shorter and twice as wide for greater stability on land. They employed four of the thicker tentacles to grip the metal hull. Instead of suckers, the tentacles bore lines of sharp barbs that sliced through the steel as easily as a church key through the top of beer can.
One of the creatures focused its four, bright orange iridescent eyes on Talent. He could see intelligence behind the gaze, or at least a sense of purpose. It opened its maw, revealing a mouthful of razor-sharp needle teeth. Slits on the sides of its neck puffed out, exposing rows of crimson gills, indicating its adaptability to either air or water. It began trilling a high-pitched undulating whistle that rattled the glass of the balcony balustrade, as if saying, “Everyone back off. This one is mine.”
Faced with fleeing or fighting, Talent chose to fight, not from any Quixotic sense of adventure or from an inflated egotistical estimate of his skill and abilities, but because he knew there was nowhere on the ship to run from a creature that could chew through steel easier than he could eat an overcooked flank steak. He did a little shuffle dance on the deck, aiming the tip of the kukri at the creature. “Come on, you bastard!” he yelled at it. “Come get some of this Tohono O’odham bad boy.”
Accepting his challenge, the creature changed direction, angling crablike across the hull toward his balcony on the four thick appendages, its four, thinner, whip-like tentacles doing a frenzied dance in the air like dreadlocks in a high wind. The creature left a trail of ragged puncture marks in the hull in its wake. Talent waited, feet planted firmly on the deck, as the first tentacle as big around as his thigh whipped over the side, shattering the glass balustrade. He dodged aside as the leathery appendage whipped about wildly. As it withdrew, he attacked the arm with his kukri. The blade barely penetrated the dense, dark gray flesh, but it dripped with yellow ichor as he yanked it out. A second tentacle shot over the side of the railing to join the first. He ducked, barely avoiding a savage blow to his head. The tentacle smashed into the wooden panel separating the balconies, splintering it into kindling.
A shard of wood lodged in his right shoulder, but he felt no pain. He was riding a dopamine high, as his body converted the amino acid tyrosine into dopamine. Acting as a neurotransmitter, the dopamine increased his motor control and coordination. Dopamine, the reward part of reward-motivated behavior, was nature’s way of encouraging the fighter, much to the consternation of the pacifist. In nature, the pacifist became food. The tentacles, once a blur of motion, slowed until they became a deliberate dance of alien flesh, one he could match step for step. Oxygenation from his rapid breathing converted the dopamine into adrenaline, slowing his pancreas’ production of insulin to allow more synthesis of sugar for quick energy. He moved faster and thought more rapidly than he ever had before. The hormones coursing through his bloodstream made him a fearless fighting machine. He wondered if his ancestors had felt as he now did during a battle. He sensed the spirits of his grandfathers watching him, heard their victory song urging him on. Euphoria replaced fear.
Two more tentacles joined the first two. One wrapped nimbly around a chair and drew it over the side of the ship, crushing it. He picked up the second chair and threw it at the retreating tentacle.
“That’s my chair,” he yelled, using his voice as a weapon, willing his anger into the words.
Glass shattered on the balcony two doors down from him, as one of the creatures broke through the balcony doors. Two feminine screams quickly followed. He tried not to let the screams distract him as he prepared himself for another opening. He dodged tentacles, weaving among them like a dust devil dancing through a patch of creosote plants. The creature’s head crowned the balcony deck, staring at him with hunger in its four alien eyes. He leaped at it with the kukri gripped tightly in both hands. Using his body weight, his fury, and the strength of his upper arms, he drove the blade through the resilient alien flesh just above the upper left pair of eyes.
This time, the blade bit deeply. A stream of putrid yellow ichor ran down into the creature’s eyes. A bellow like a constipated moose erupted from the creature’s throat. Talent held on as the creature thrashed its body in an effort to dislodge the machete, slamming him repeatedly into the remaining partition on the opposite side of the balcony. He braced his boots against one of the metal posts of the demolished glass railing and thrust the blade deeper, wiggling it back and forth to break the suction of metal to flesh. Finally, the blade pierced bone or cartilage and slid in to the hilt. A dark fluid gushed from the wound.
The creature loosened its grip and slid back into the water. He wrenched the machete free just before the creature yanked him over the side with it. He fell back to the deck gasping for breath. The creature’s foul-smelling dark blood drenched his arms and chest. He wiped it from his face and lips with the sleeve of his shirt, amazed he was still alive. He knew he had not hit any of the creature’s vital organs, only wounded it, but it was enough to send it running. It was as if it had never experienced pain, and the new sensation confused it. It would soon get over that.
He felt like yelling out a war cry but refrained. There were other Squid around and he was too exhausted to fight off another attack. Now that the adrenaline rush was fading, his chest and arms ached and his hands shook uncontrollably. He had counted coup, marked his opponent. He peered over the edge of the balcony. Several of the Squid had returned to the water, but unlike his attacker, they carried numerous bodies enmeshed in their tentacles, some dead and mutilated, others still alive and struggling. Their struggles would end quickly, as the creatures began submerging for the return trip to the Kaiju.
He had witnessed the Kaiju’s grisly feeding habits on video newscasts and read the report of the scientist who went inside Kaiju Nusku. It was better that the hapless people died before they suffered that horrific fate.
The entire battle had taken less than five minutes. Talent rubbed his bruised side where the creature had slammed him into the wall in its frenzied effort to dislodge the Kukri. He winced as his fingers probed tender flesh. He yanked the splinter of wood from his right shoulder, biting his lip to keep from screaming. It was the size of a Popsicle stick but had not penetrated deep. He ached, but he had broken no ribs or serious injuries. His streak of luck still held, but he doubted he would be as lucky next time.
Screams and the sounds of commotion continued to fill the corridors for half an hour as the remaining Squid prowled the bowels of the ship. One of the creatures passed by his door as it pursued a passenger fleeing down the corridor. Unlike an octopus or squid out of water, the alien Squid moved quickly on their motile tentacles, much faster than their fleeing human prey. The walls shuddered as the flailing tentacles ripped into the deck, walls, and ceiling to gain traction. By the blood-chilling yell, the creature caught whomever it was chasing. Finally, the screams faded.
The ship was no longer moving. The barely detectable throb of the propellers had stopped. He flicked the light switch experimentally, but no lights came on. The ship was without power and dead in the water. That can’t be good, he thought. Then, when an apple rolled off the coffee table, he noticed the ship was listing a few degrees to starboard. It wasn’t an appreciable amount yet, but judging by the size of the holes the creatures had punched in the ship’s hull below the waterline, the ship was doomed.
He knew modern ships were built better than the supposedly unsinkable Titanic, but steel didn’t float; steel wrapped around a volume of air did. Between the relentless pull of gravity a
nd the inexorable weight of infilling water forcing out the air, the Radiant Princess was destined to join the hundreds of other ‘unsinkable’ ships littering the bottom of the ocean. The thought of being cast adrift in the middle of the ocean frightened him more than the creatures, but he waited a while longer before venturing out of his cabin.
The rampaging Squid had ripped numerous oak panels from the corridor walls and ceiling, exposing the ship’s electrical wiring and plumbing. Water poured from a broken overhead pipe, soaking the carpet. Only the emergency lights functioned, with many of them damaged or missing altogether. Even in the dim light, he noticed streaks of blood smearing one section of the wall.
Five or six cabin doors wrenched from their hinges by the Squid lay blocking the corridor. Talent moved one of the doors aside as he made his way toward the stairs. Then, he noticed daylight flooding the corridor from an open door two doors down from his, the cabin of the young woman who had confronted him earlier. Curious, he pushed his way past an overturned housekeeping cart, stepped over the wet sheets and towels that had spilled from it, and ducked under a cabin door half-embedded in the wooden paneling opposite the room. He paused outside the door listening, but heard nothing from inside. He peeked around the edge of the doorway and peered inside the room. He wished he hadn’t.
When he saw the extent of the carnage inside the room, his empty stomach threatened to heave its pitiful contents. Then, the stench of the alien creature and the sharp coppery tang of human blood hit him. Twin pools of blood marked the spots the cabin’s two occupants, the girl and her roommate, had died. One of them had almost made it safely out of the cabin. A pool of blood stained the carpet just inside the door. A bloody handprint slid along the wall until it abruptly shot up the wall and into the crushed ceiling, as if the creature had yanked her off her feet and deposited her body by the door.
Shards of glass from the shattered sliding balcony door littered the sitting room where the second occupant had died. A loop of small intestine lay coiled in the center of a long, bloody smear in the carpet. A smashed glass coffee table and overturned chair mingled with the remains of both televisions ripped from the wall and squeezed with great force until they had folded in half. Linen, articles of women’s underclothing, and souvenirs swept from the bed during the melee filled the space between the bed and the wall.
The tattered curtains formerly covering the balcony door lay in a jumbled heap across the sofa. A woman’s leg protruded from beneath the curtains. He knew she was dead – there was too much blood present for survivors – but he had to be certain. He picked his way across the room through the devastation and pulled aside the curtain. The lower half of a woman’s leg, torn off just below the knee, lay on the blood-soaked sofa cushion. He fought down the gore rising in his throat. He had not known either of the women’s names and couldn’t recognize to which the leg belonged, but being able to put a face to the carnage brought home the reality of the macabre scene. He folded the curtain back over the dismembered leg and left the room.
Outside in the hallway, his stomach rebelled. He puked up the previous night’s dinner, retching until his stomach was empty. The bile left a vile taste in his mouth, but he had nothing with which he could rinse his mouth. He gripped the machete tighter at a noise coming from a cabin farther aft and crept to investigate. His blood was up. His battle with the creature had been a matter of self-defense. Now, he was angry and wanted revenge for the massacre whose aftermath he had just examined. The girl meant nothing to him. She was just one of the thousands of passengers he had tried hard to ignore, but in death, she became a symbol of the aliens’ disregard for human lives. If one of the creatures remained on board the ship, he wanted to get in a few more licks.
The door of the cabin was ajar but intact. He pushed it open and peered in. A middle-aged man dressed only in a white ship’s bathrobe sat on the edge of the bed muttering to himself, a bottle of liquor in his hand. His hand shook as he raised the bottle to his lips and took a long swallow. He stared at the smashed balcony door. The brackish smell of seawater and the stink of the alien creature suffused the room. A Glock G25 .380 semi-automatic rested on the bed beside him. Talent walked into the room. He glanced at Talent and held out the bottle.
“Here, you look like you could use a nip, too.”
Talent accepted the half-empty bottle of rum, took a swig, rinsed his mouth, and spat it into the hallway. He took a longer swallow and felt the alcohol burn as it slid down his throat. He handed it back and nodded at the balcony door. “Did you fight it off?”
The man shuddered. “Hell no, I was in the shower when the ship heaved over.” He gingerly touched a bloody gash in the back of his head. “I think I knocked myself out for a minute or two. I heard the thing trashing my cabin when I came to. By the time I threw on a robe, it was gone. I peeked out the window and saw it. I wish I hadn’t. Those people.” He looked up at Talent and wrinkled his brow. “What the hell was it, some kind of sea monster?”
“Kind of. They came from a Kaiju.”
He paled. “God, another one of them?” He took another swig of rum, and then offered the bottle back to Talent, who decided he had best keep a clear head and refused. The man eyed the machete in Talent’s hand and the splashes of yellow and dark purple blood staining his shirt. “It looks like you did some damage.”
“Not enough, but I’m alive.”
While the man continued drinking, Talent walked into the bathroom and returned with a wet towel and a small first-aid kit he found in the man’s travel bag. He wiped the blood from the wound with the towel and inspected it.
“It’s not deep. I’ll wrap it.” Talent cut a piece of gauze, folded it, and placed it over the wound; then, wrapped gauze around his head to hold it in place. When he finished, he said, “You’d better slow down on that rum.”
The man looked at Talent as if deciding whether to heed his advice or ignore him, but then set the bottle on the floor at his feet. “My name’s James Owens of Chicago … formerly of Chicago. Those Kaiju bastards destroyed my home, hell, my whole city. Now, they’re after me again. It’s like they’ve declared a personal vendetta against me.”
“Against the whole human race I think,” Talent said. “My name’s Mark Talent. Were you a cop in Chicago? I noticed the Glock G25. That model is for law enforcement only.”
Owens raised an eyebrow. “You know your guns.”
“I was a gun dealer back in Arizona.”
“Yeah, I was a detective on Chicago’s North side for nineteen years. Still have my badge. That’s how I managed to bring my weapon with me aboard ship. I’m on my way to Australia to take a job as security chief for a friend’s import-export business.” He snorted. “Nineteen years on the force and now I’m a friggin’ security guard.” He waved his hand at the contents of the cabin. “He paid for this cabin and most of this. After Chicago, all I had left was my suit, my two guns, and a bad attitude.”
Talent’s ears perked up. “Two guns?”
Owens pointed to a dresser drawer. “I’ve got a .357 Ruger and a box of .357 SIG cartridges in there. You’re welcome to it, although it looks like the action is over.”
“Not yet. I’m afraid it gets worse. The Kaiju is headed this direction, and the ship is dead in the water. Look, I’m going on deck to see what’s happening. You game to come along, or are you going to sit there and finish that bottle?”
Owens tipped the rum bottle over with his bare foot and let it soak into the carpet. “I think I’ve been drinking a little too much of that lately.” He looked up at Talent. His steel gray eyes were those of a sad puppy, but the grim look on his face was that of a bulldog. “Let me get dressed.”
While Owens dressed, Talent tried the telephone. As he expected, it wasn’t working. “Do you have a cell phone?” he asked Owens.
“I do, but I don’t have a signal.”
“The ship’s communications system must be down. That means no one’s coming to help us. We’re on our own.”
He picked up a piece of gauze, dipped in the rum on the floor, and shoved it between the wound in his shoulder and the shirt material. The bleeding had stopped but the alcohol would reduce the chance of an infection.
Owens stepped out of the bathroom looking a little better. He had dressed in khaki slacks and white Polo shirt, and he had run a comb through his hair. He wore a Chicago White Sox baseball cap to cover his bandaged head. His Glock rested in a shoulder holster tucked under his left armpit. He opened the dresser drawer and removed a locked black case. He fished a key from his pocket, opened the box, and removed a Ruger SP101 .357 six-shot revolver. Its unblemished stainless steel body and pristine black rubber handgrip marked it as seldom used. Its lack of an external hammer, the double-action trigger to prevent accidental discharge, and short three-inch barrel made it the perfect concealed carry weapon. In the box was a nylon holster with two Velcro straps for securing it to the lower leg, two boxes of SIG .357 ammo, and a speed loader. He handed the weapon to Talent, who hefted it in his hand.
“Nice balance,” he said.
“I carried a Smith and Wesson .25 automatic as a backup piece for years, until I actually needed it.” He shook his head. “Not the weapon you want in a dark alley gunfight. I bought the Ruger instead. It’ll knock down a horse.”
Talent didn’t need to conceal it. He loaded the Ruger, holstered it, and shoved it in the pack pocket of his jeans. He took one box of ammo and the speed loader and shoved them into his front pocket.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
Owens nodded, took a last look around his cabin, and walked out into the corridor.
As they walked toward the aft stairwell, they could hear people talking, or in some cases sobbing, inside their cabins. Owens knocked on a couple of doors, but the occupants were too frightened to answer.
“They could be injured,” Owens said to Talent’s questioning look, as he stood outside one door waiting for a response.