by Bryan Alaspa
“Maybe you should do something about it,” it said to her.
Rhonnie couldn’t take here eyes off the eyes in front of her. It was like the colors were swirling now, combining, twirling, mixing together.
“Yeah, “Rhonnie said, “I should show him.”
“You could run things,” it said, whispering again, in a voice that was like Rhonnie’s but not quite like Rhonnie’s, “you could show them all.”
“All of them” she said, not even realizing she was talking, “Steve and David and all of them.”
Her reflection was reaching out to her now, its arms surrounding her. There was a feeling, like electricity, all up and down her arms, the hair standing up. There was a feeling of warmth, then, slowly, it became heat. She could hear the sounds, the sounds of screaming, but for a moment, it sounded like laughing. Rhonnie closed her eyes, and the reflection embraced, her surrounded her. Then, there was just one Rhonnie, standing at the end of the table, her head down, her head slowly rising, her eyes glowing faintly in the dimness of the room.
“I can show them all,” she said, and she smiled. It was not a smile that was sweet or innocent. It was an ageless smile, and it was a smile that seemed to have a little too many teeth.
She walked to the end of the table and reached down, picking up the scalpel. Holding it in her hand, she held it up to the dim light, admiring the reflections.
“Show them all,” she whispered, and walked out of the room.
* * *
J.D. walked back into the building, his clothes dripping, his shoes squishing and the taste of salt on his tongue. It was cold inside the building and he noted that he would have to dry his clothes at some point or he could literally get hypothermia just from sitting in the recreation room with the air conditioning on at the level it was now. Joe and Lazlo were also soaked through. J.D. thought he could feel the ocean beneath him as well, the waves against the deck a bit more than he could before.
“Let’s get everyone back together again,” he said, “in the rec room.”
Karmen spoke into her walkie-talkie. J.D., Joe and Lazlo headed back towards the recreation room. They all were starting to look just a little bit tired, but J.D. was amazed that no one had panicked just yet. As usual, Larry had chosen wisely, people who had been in crises before and handled them. J.D. had also made a good choice in Mark, because he had a mind that seemed to accept things such as this easily.
They gathered in the room, huddling around the television. Mark was standing near the doorway, and he gave J.D. a look that indicated that he had something he wanted to say. J.D. nodded back to him. Lazlo took a seat on the floor, dripping onto the carpet. Rhonnie stood behind J.D. and to his right, looking at the floor but the icepack no longer at her lip.
Good, J.D. thought, maybe she’s learned her lesson.
“Lazlo,” J.D. said, “go ahead and tell the group what we found.”
“The drill was melted,” he said, “the damn thing’s a misshapen lump of metal at the end. I can’t even imagine what kind of heat that must have been in order to do that.”
“How is that possible?” Larry asked. “We did the studies and tests. There shouldn’t be anything under this that could do that, unless the earth’s crust suddenly got a hell of a lot thinner.”
“It’s not like that drill was just regular metal,” Monica said, “that was meant to put up with heat and stone and pressure like you wouldn’t believe.”
“That’s exactly why – “ J.D. began.
The scream was like nothing human, at least no sound J.D. had ever heard a human make. He saw movement, from the corner of his eye, just to the right, where Rhonnie had been standing. Instinct kicked in, he moved, whirling, his right arm swinging out, the scalpel flashing in the dim light, slicing through his shirt, cutting his shoulder, drawing blood. J.D. staggered backwards a bit, repelled by the face, contorted in fury and the sounds coming from the woman. Her teeth were bared and she was making a strange combination of a growl and a scream. She lunged, the scalpel aimed directly for J.D.’s chest.
Karmen stepped forward, using her hands to knock the arm with the blade away. Rhonnie turned, spittle dripping from her lips and swung her arm back, aimed at Karmen this time. Karmen moved, using two fingers on her right hand, she hit a cluster of nerves on Rhonnie’s arm, and she screamed, her hand actually tightening on the blade, which was entirely against nature, but J.D. saw it happen. Rhonnie twisted, screaming, her face contorted, red, eyes bulging, now foaming at the mouth, and she ran at Karmen, the blade extended. Karmen dropped, rolling on to her back, reaching out, grabbing Rhonnie by her shirt, planting a foot in her mid-section, and rolling back, using Rhonnie’s momentum to send her sailing over the couch. Rhonnie was airborne for a moment, and then came down on the couch, flipping, the blade spinning and then landed on the floor, her hands beneath her.
Rhonnie looked up then, the scalpel buried in her right eye socket, driven deep, blood pouring out of her ruined eye and down her face. She looked at J.D. with her good eye for several seconds and then fell forward again, pushing the blade even deeper. Blood ran from her face, staining the carpet. Monica screamed. Lazlo said a prayer in Spanish.
“What the fuck?” J.D. screamed, clutching his shoulder, noting already that the cut was barely there.
“Jesus Christ!” Joe screamed.
“Is Rhonnie dead?” Monica screamed. “Did she really just die?”
J.D. opened his mouth to answer, but instead, a sound began to emanate from the figure lying on the floor. It was pulsing, staccato, and then J.D. realized it was laughter. Everyone took a step back. Monica’s mouth hung open. Karmen withdrew her gun. J.D. did likewise and he heard Joe as well. Rhonnie moved, her head lifting, her body getting to all fours, then slowly staggering to her feet. The blood was running down her face, into her mouth, down her neck. There was a smile on her face, but the smile was wider than it should have been, too many teeth, the ends of her lips splitting and tearing, bleeding.
“So very amusing,” it said, “you are always so very amusing. None of you are getting out of here alive and none of you realize what you’re up against.”
The head turned, one way and then the other, as if there were gears within the neck. The skin seemed to change, falter, showing something beneath that was not even close to human. Obscenely, the scalpel seemed to point at them. The voice was deep, resonating, in their heads as well as their ears. The sounds of screaming began to penetrate their heads, seemed to come from the walls. Screaming and a deep, growling, horrible sound beneath the other horrible sounds.
“We know what you are,” it said, “what you are afraid of, what you want, what your hopes and dreams are. We know all about you and you know nothing of us. None of you are getting out of here alive.”
“We heard you the first time,” J.D. said and he started firing.
Karmen began firing, pulling the trigger again and again. Joe started firing as well, using his machine gun. Rhonnie’s body began jittering, dancing, turning, spinning, skin and bone and blood and muscle flying into the air, splattering the carpet and the room. Her body was blown to pieces, the smile still there, spreading wider, the laugh getting louder along with the screams and the growling and it deafened them. Then, suddenly, it stopped, the body fell, collapsing to the floor as if strings had been cut. What was left was a mass of skin and muscle, leaking blood into the carpeting.
“What the holy fuck was that?” Monica screamed.
“What the hell is going on here?” Joe asked.
“Mary Mother of God,” Lazlo said, crossing himself again.
Mark stepped forward then, his face spattered with spots of blood. He appeared unnaturally calm, but, as J.D. figured, he was prepared and had expected this.
“I think it’s time I tell you all what’s going on here,” he said.
8
“That’s fine,” J.D. said, “let’s get rid of this mess first.”
“I can’t believe you just killed Rhonni
e,” Monica said, tears streaming down her face.
“If you think that thing we shot was really Rhonnie, you weren’t listening,” Joe said, stepping forward and heading towards the remains.
J.D. and Joe reached the bloody carcass of Rhonnie and both knelt down to pick it up. As soon as their hands touched the corpse, there was a strange noise, like someone releasing gas in the room, and the body crumbled, turning to dust in their hands. The dust blew upwards, making both J.D. and Joe stagger backwards, coughing, sputtering and waving their hands in front of their faces. In seconds, the body crumbled, clothing, skin, bone and muscle, into a gray dust that floated up towards the ceiling and then vanished.
“This is un-fucking-real,” Joe whispered as he looked up at the ceiling.
“You have no idea,” Mark whispered.
“Well,” J.D. said, “I think I’d like to have some fucking idea.”
“Me too,” Larry said.
They sat down again, this time with Mark standing at the front of the room. Karmen tended to the wound on J.D.’s shoulder, applying a bandage, really, since he had moved fast enough to receive not much more than a scratch. Mark appeared a shade nervous, his natural tendency was to be in the background, and taking center stage, even in front of a crowd this small, was a little hard for him.
“Let me start off by telling you a story about some men digging a well in Siberia,” he began.
* * *
“Look at the comparisons,” Mark said, once he had finished his tale about Siberia, “the same depth, the same temperature readings and the same sounds. J.D. can vouch for the sounds, since I played them for him at my home before I came.”
Everyone turned to look at J.D. and with more than a little accusation behind their eyes. Karmen looked particularly hurt.
“You knew?” She said.
“I wasn’t sure,” J.D. said, “ it could have been anything. It could have been terrorists playing a goddamn tape they got off the same internet site Mark was on. I didn’t want to upset anyone or lose focus.”
“Fuck you,” Karmen said, “how’s that for focus?”
“I ain’t buying it,” Lazlo said. “Look, I believe in hell and all that, but it ain’t really in the center of the earth.”
“I’m not suggesting it is,” Mark said, “I’m merely suggesting that hell might be an entirely separate dimension, not very far removed from our own. Perhaps in certain spots, the walls that separate the two are thinner than in others. If you believe hell to be the concentration of evil, perhaps it deliberately picks the spots to be thin.”
“What am I supposed to tell the shareholders?” Larry asked. “Am I supposed to go back and say the biggest, most advanced, most technologically superior oilrig ever built has to be abandoned because we punched a hole in Satan?”
“If there’s a hole there, why isn’t it a million degrees in here right now?” Karmen asked. “Why hasn’t everything in hell just come spilling out?”
Mark nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve been puzzling over it, and when Rhonnie came in and we heard the sounds of screaming again, I began to formulate a theory. I think that all of that concentrated evil, is sort of under pressure, packed into that dimension, all those souls screaming. When we punched through, it was like punching into a soda can, it came bursting up all at once. That released energy, all at once, was like a kind of neutron bomb, destroying the crew, literally any trace of them. After the initial rush, again, like poking a hold in something, things leveled off, but he hole is still there. I think it is really sort of, breathing, opening and closing like the valve of a heart. When it opens, something comes out. What comes out, well, that’s anyone’s guess.”
“Are we talking demons or something?” Joe asked.
Mark shrugged. “No one that I know has ever actually been to hell and come back. No one knows.”
Monica snorted. “I have, I once worked for this benefits consulting company in Chicago that had to be about as close as you can get without burning.”
“Seriously, though,” J.D. said, “what are we dealing with? What the hell was that thing with Rhonnie?”
“Possibly a demon,” Mark said, “maybe something praying on her because of her insecurities. It said I knew us. It knew our fears and our desires. Maybe it’s something that can appear as anything to us, our own weaknesses. We also have to take into consideration that the rig itself is affected.”
“What, like possessed?” Larry said.
“Something like that, yes,” Mark replied. “This rig has been sitting over this open hole for some time now. That hole has been breathing, releasing that energy for days into this structure. Who knows what kind of affect it may have? I think this storm might be an affect of the hole opening.”
“It’s affecting the weather too?” Karmen asked.
“Think about it,” Mark said, “I checked the weather before I left. We should be sitting in sunlight for days. This storm forms out of nowhere and this intensely? It doesn’t happen naturally. Meteorologists all over the world must be apoplectic trying to understand how an localized hurricane could instantly form in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Someone doesn’t want us to get off this rig.”
“Who, the devil?” Lazlo asked.
“I don’t know,” Mark said, “I’m only guessing.”
“So what do you suggest we do?” J. D. asked.
“Well, we are obviously stuck here until the storm dies,” Mark said, “but my concern is that the storm won’t die until the hole is closed. So, I think we need to find a way to plug up the hole. I think we need to do it quickly because my fear is that each time that hole opens, it is staying open longer, and might be getting bigger.”
“Swell,” J. D. said.
“We can’t do that,” Larry said,” this operation has to get back online and it has to get back online now. GemCo has spent billions of dollars on this site people and I am not about to tell them to shut down a billion dollar operation with a few spook stories from a spook story writer.”
“What do you suggest we do, then, Mr. Appling?” Mark asked.
“Get the systems up and running,” Larry said, “ and we wait for this storm to die out. I ain’t buying the whole ‘hell storm’ idea, West. I think this will blow over in a day or so and then we can call for another helicopter and get out of here. We can tell GemCo the sit is clear and they can get another crew out here to repair the drill and start digging again.”
“That’s bullshit,” Joe said, “and you know it is. How can you even suggest that after what you just saw with Rhonnie?”
“I don’t know what I just saw,” Larry said, “but I haven’t seen enough to suggest to my boss that the billions of dollars of shareholder money he spent on this rig should just be left to rot here in the ocean.”
“Have you completely sold your soul to the company, Larry?” J.D. asked.
“You’re a fine one to talk about selling souls, J.D.,” Larry said.
“What does that mean?” J.D. asked.
“As I recall, anyone with the right price can have a piece of yours,” Larry said.
J.D. stood up, began rushing towards Larry. Joe stood, grabbing J.D. by the arms, pulling him back. Larry stood up, screaming obscenities at J.D. and Lazlo stood in front of him, pushing him back.
“Gentlemen!” Mark shouted. “This is getting us nowhere! We need to vote on this and we need to figure out a plan.”
J.D. finally settled back down. Larry did as well. “We can’t leave because of the storm anyway, so we have to shut the hole down. Lazlo, how do we do that?”
“Normally the hole is plugged temporarily with a mixture known as mud,” Lazlo said, “but with those heat readings, I’m not sure even that will help. Really, we’d need to collapse the whole hole in on itself.”
“If we could lower explosives down there,” J.D. asked, “could that cause a kind of cave-in?”
Lazlo shrugged, “I think so. I’m not sure there’s anything on the rig that wo
uld blow up like that, though.”
J.D. and Joe looked at each other. “Well, I might have a solution for that,” J.D. said.
Larry stood up again. “You brought explosives with you? After you promised me?”
“I always keep my options open,” J.D. said, “you should remember that Larry.”
“Look,” Larry said, “none of you has the right or the authority to do this! “
“I think we have the right and authority over our own lives,” J.D. said, “and some of us would like to keep ours and a little bit of dignity too. I guess some of us could care less how much the company takes as long as the benefits are right, eh, Larry?”
“Fuck you, Kartos!” Larry screamed. “Or should I call you Kartopolous like your real name, you fucking asshole! The only mane who ever shortened his name just because he was too fucking lazy to write the whole thing! Are you people really going to listen to this guy? He’s a killer! A mercenary!”
“Hey!” Karmen shouted. “He isn’t the only one. Now sit the fuck down and shut up, Larry. You’ve been out-voted.”
“Out-voted?” Larry asked. “I have the authority here!”
Joe stood up and walked over to Larry. He pulled the clip out of his machine gun to make sure there were still bullets in it. He popped it back in, drew back the slide at the top and pointed the barrel into Larry’s face.
“I think this says different, asshole,” Joe said.
Larry looked from one face to the other. He saw no help or support there. His face turned red and his jaw worked.
“You can’t do this,” he said, weakly.
“Joe,” J.D. said, “take Larry to one of those rooms we were in. Lock him in . Stand guard until I call for you. We might need your help with the explosives. Just make sure he doesn’t get out or cause any more problems.”
Joe smiled and pointed the gun at Larry again. “You heard the man. I need you to start walking. But really, if you want, please give me a reason to shoot you.”