Stranger Tides

by Jack Castle

  Finding nothing, he left the room behind and hobbled down the long narrow corridor. He passed other cabins, some locked and others with doors open. Peering inside the open ones, he leaned heavily on the walls and doorframes as he did so. George scanned the interiors, but found them abandoned. He checked the rooms for clothing or something he might be able to use as a weapon, but again found nothing. I can’t be the only one on board. He dragged his stiff leg farther down the hallway.

  George was about twenty feet down the corridor, when he heard boots clanging on the catwalk behind him. He spun around and saw a young man with blond hair, sprinting directly for him. The man was dressed in a black military uniform and a cap with tassels trailing out the back of it. He would have looked more at home on a Russian, Cold War submarine than any modern-day sub. Muscles slow to commands, George feebly raised his fists, ready to fight.

  The young submariner yelled something, in what sounded like Russian, as he charged past him. Fear in the his eyes, urgency in his steps, the young Russian submariner rounded a distant corner at the end of the hallway, and was gone.

  George lowered his fists. That was weird. I guess I’m not the only one on board. Not sure why I would have thought that. He wondered if he did in fact, want to run into any more people. In this place strangers meant danger.

  With little choice, George continued onward and soon reached the same corner the young man had vanished around. Once there, he saw a ladder leading up to a small circular hole in the ceiling. This was where the young crewman must have gone. Not sure what else he could possibly do, George gripped the ladder and placed his foot on the first rung. Every step was painful but he pushed upwards.

  He found himself wishing he had a weapon… then again, if he had something like a gun he probably would’ve panicked and instinctively shot the young Russian submariner, who clearly had no intention of harming him.

  George reached the top of the ladder, but before he could climb up out of the hole, a pair of large beefy hands reached down, engulfed his face and pulled him skyward.

  Chapter 6

  Sven

  “This is all your fault!”

  A large man wearing a sweat-stained tank-top appeared at the opening of the hole and pulled him up through the hatchway. Like the young blond submariner, his accent was clearly Russian.

  The giant threw George against a wall and spat, “I told them not to risk it, but they would not listen.” The man was so angry, his face was fiery red. Contrary to his substantial potbelly, his arms were heavily muscled. A horrible looking splotch of wound was on the side of his head. George managed to shake Señor Hairy-Knuckles off, only to have the submariner lunge forward at him again.

  “I don’t know what you’re yelling about…” George began, but the giant landed a meaty fist on his jaw that sent him flying back into the steel plated wall.

  “If it weren’t for you my Saskia would still be alive!” the crazed-seven-footer roared. Blinded by rage, the submariner went to punch him again. But this time, George ducked and the behemoth’s fist impacted the bulkhead behind him. George was pretty sure he heard the man’s phalanges break. This was confirmed when Mister Pot-Belly cried out in anguish.

  You should probably pick only one nickname, Georgie.

  Using the only moment of distraction he’d probably ever get, George violently punched the man in the stomach three times. Gasping for breath, the overweight submariner fell to his knees clutching his belly. When the thick man gazed up at him, George socked him in the temple as hard as he could, which knocked the man out cold. Señor Hairy-Knuckles’ body collapsed and lay still against the wall at an odd angle.

  Fists still clenched, George checked both ends of the hallway for further attackers. Seeing none, he was about to press onwards, but feeling sorry for the man he had just cold-cocked, he took a moment to straighten him out and lay him in the recovery position on his side, so he wouldn’t choke on his tongue. George still wasn’t sure why the submariner had attacked him in the first place, but evidently the man thought this latest predicament was somehow his fault.

  George thought about removing the submariner’s clothes, but the pain in his leg was excruciating. In the end, he decided it would take too long. Besides, the man easily outweighed him by fifty pounds, so he doubted the clothes would fit, certainly not enough to convince anyone into thinking he was a crewmember. He settled for searching the man’s clothes for weapons. The submariner didn’t have anything other a pocketknife, which George gladly appropriated.

  Still wearing nothing more than a pair of boxers and a white t-shirt, George continued onward until he came to another circular hole in the floor. Before climbing down this ladder, he poked his head down into it. Scanning aft, he saw the corridor was crunched and impassable, but gazing forward, the way seemed clear. The most alarming thing however, was water was leaking in from the damaged hull and already about two inches deep. A vision of him pressing his face to the ceiling of a flooded passageway and then drowning overcame him. He pushed this fear aside for now. If he was going to go down the corridor, he’d have to go now.

  By the time he climbed all the way down the ladder, the rising water had already reached his shins. The water was fuh-reez-ing. His injured leg still felt like it was being probed with pins and needles. But, he noticed the more he used it, the better it was starting to feel.

  As he slogged down the passageway, a bolt suddenly ejected itself from the hull plating behind him, and then another. Each projectile was followed by a powerful stream of water. George spied another ladder at the far end of the corridor. The water level was beginning to rise with greater speed. With little option, he trudged his way toward the ladder. When the water level rose up past his waist, he dove for the ladder and swam down the steel passageway as fast as his stiff body would allow.

  As the water overtook him, he drew in a deep breath just before it rose over his head. Beneath the surface, the water was only slightly murky, so he could make out the ladder in front of him. He grasped the rungs, pulled his feet through the water and began climbing upward; hoping against hope the level above would have air. If it didn’t, he was finished.

  Soaking wet, George popped out of the hatch like a gopher fleeing a flooded putting hole. A quick glance around showed him a large, open, and well-lit space, but that was all he had time for. He climbed the rest of the way out and quickly moved over to the steel hatch attached to an oversized hinge. By the time he grabbed the hatch’s handle, the water was already bubbling up out of the hole. George doubted he would be able to seal it in time.

  “You idiot, what have you done!” The voice was the same gruff Russian accent he heard earlier when he was semi-conscious. Without gazing up at the voice he focused on closing the hatch before it was too late; which it most likely was.

  Two pairs of hands (one thick and, the other slender and feminine) appeared on the hatch next to his own. The three of them grunted as they lifted the lid and swung it closed over the flooding opening. Instinctively working as one, he and the gruff Russian piled their bodies onto the hatch while the third, presumably a female, spun the wheel. The hatch bucked once beneath them and then sealed tight.

  “You stupid American, you nearly killed us all.”

  “It’s not his fault,” the woman defended. If memory served, and it usually did not, these were the same two people he had heard earlier.

  George lifted his eyes to the two people who had helped him secure the hatch. The first wore Captain’s bars on his lapels, a black wool sweater, and sported a stark-white goatee and close-cropped hair. The second, a female, was actually quite striking. She appeared Mediterranean, raven haired with salient green eyes. She was the first to introduce herself, “I am Izabella Santerelli, and that’s Pieter Strummer.”

  “Captain Strummer to you,” he said, correcting her.

  George took Izabella’s outstretched hand and she pulled him to his feet. He found himself on a massive bridge encased in glass windows, offering panoram
ic views. Dials, levers and pressure gauges lined every available space on the walls. The windows had riveted steel struts between them, and outside them. He could see where the nose of the black submarine had crashed into a man-made and futuristic underwater base.

  “Thanks to you,” Captain Strummer began, “if the sub shifts again, the bridge will flood and drown us all like rats in a sewer pipe.” George could see a bubbling pool of water forming over a jagged hole in the ship’s deck.

  Izabella made a face which suggested she didn’t quite agree with Strummer’s assigned blame, but settled for saying, “If we can swim to that entry point over there,” she pointed out the windows at a short ladder beneath one of the structures of the underwater base. “We can go up through that access point.”

  George bit his lower lip, examining the short swim over to where she was pointing. “It doesn’t seem that far.”

  “Be my guest,” Strummer said, lowering his hand to indicate the jagged hole in the floor.

  “Shhhh… shhh…” shushed a third crewman. It was the same young blond submariner George had seen earlier. He had been so quiet that George hadn’t even realized he was there. At the moment, the young man was near one of the large paned windows and hiding behind one of the thick-steel struts, as though concealing himself from an outside sniper. He whispered to no one in particular, “It’s coming back!”

  George was about to ask, ‘Who’s coming back’ when he saw the impossible. A large marine reptile (about the size of a school bus) that resembled a crocodile only with flippers suddenly swam past the windows.

  “That’s impossible,” George heard himself mutter.

  But, it was possible because of where they were; because they were in Stranger World, where literally anything is possible, even that which was not.

  “What is that thing?” George asked.

  “A kronosaurus, the scourge of the early Cretaceous period,” Izabella answered with a sense of awe and trepidation.

  George suddenly recalled the unconscious crewman he had knocked out and left in the corridor below decks. “I left one of your men back there.”

  “Who?” the Captain demanded.

  “A big balding guy, wearing a tank top.” George thought about it for a second more. “I’ve got to go back for him.”

  “No you don’t, look!” the young submariner cried. “It’s Sven, he’s wearing a breather.”

  “He’s not gonna make it with that thing out there,” Captain Strummer predicted. Leveling a finger at George he added, “This is your fault. You might as well have killed Sven yourself.”

  “That’s not true,” Izabella interrupted. “Sven could have easily stayed inside the ship with his breather on for hours.”

  George glanced outside the window panes again. Sven was about halfway to the access point. Even though the hairy-knuckled man had tried to beat the snot out of him, he did feel responsible for the man.

  George scanned the interior of the bridge. “Does this vessel have any sort of offensive weapons?”

  “She’s a submarine left over from the Cold War,” Strummer explained. “She has torpedo bays and deck guns, neither of which we can reach right now. Even if we could, it wouldn’t have any effect on that leviathan out there.”

  George spied a locker labeled in Russian, but he was fairly certain of its contents. Pulling it open he found shelves of tools. He selected a heavy pipe wrench.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Strummer asked, “Wrench him to death?”

  The terrified crewman closest to the window cried nervously, “I think… I think the krono spotted Sven!”

  “You might want to start passing those out,” George struggled for the word he had heard Izabella use earlier, “uh… the breathers.”

  He then moved to the window. Sven was nearly to the ladder beneath the steel structure. The cantankerous Russian was going to make it. The Krono saw this too, changed course and headed right for him.

  BANG!

  Everyone turned toward George still holding the wrench in his hand, where he’d struck the thick pipe running along the wall.

  BANG-BANG-BANG!

  “What are you doing?” Strummer asked, his voice incredulous.

  “He’s trying to save Sven,” Izabella answered for him, and then picked up a smaller wrench and began banging on the pipe too.

  Just when George thought it wasn’t going to work, the creature veered off of Sven at the last possible second and turned back toward them.

  “Everybody get down,” George shouted and dove for the center of the room as the leviathan slammed into the outer hull.

  The creature’s blow had moved the entire submarine. George rolled over on his back and surveyed the damage, surprised the ship was still intact from such a massive blow. Multiple leaks sprang from where the creature had slammed into the outer hull, but thus far, the bulkheads held.

  George went to get up. His mind may have forgotten his body was still in recovery, but his muscles hadn’t. It was a struggle for him to regain his feet. Seeing this, the olive-skinned woman came over to his aid and helped him stand. “Here, let me help you.”

  He was too weak to argue. As he stood up, George glimpsed Sven’s boot vanishing into the structure above the ladder.

  “I can’t believe it,” the young submariner cried. “He made it. He actually…”

  Izabella suddenly screamed. When George looked to where she was pointing, he saw the kronosaurus through the glass pane (behind the smiling submariner) hurtling toward them like a missile.

  Upon impact, the wall folded in on itself, but somehow, impossibly, it still held.

  The young, blond haired submariner was the first to climb to his feet. “We have to get out of here! We have to get out of here!” He sprinted to the wall, grabbed a re-breather and began opening a hatch marked emergency.

  George moved over to the open hatch and stared down into it. He saw a short ladder lead down into the water.

  Izabella grabbed the young submariner’s arm as he put one foot down into the hatch. “You can’t,” she cried. “We don’t know where he is!”

  The young submariner shook Izabella violently off him, causing her to fly backwards and skid the last few feet across the floor. The submariner seemed distraught by this, but only for a second; fear soon overtook him once more. “You can stay here if you like. But if that thing hits us one more time…” he began, but never finished his sentence.

  There was a loud rendering of metal as the leviathan swam up underneath and forced its gaping maw inside the sub through the hatch.

  It swallowed the submariner in one loud CHOMP, and retreated back down into the depths from which it came.

  The bridge immediately flooded with seawater.

  George knew if the rising water didn’t get them, the leviathan surely would.

  Chapter 7

  Ship’s Galley

  Henry fell against the wall.

  He gripped the steel railing running along the bulkhead to steady himself.

  Whoa, where did that come from?

  The ship hadn’t experienced any turbulence. Other than navigating around a few storm clouds, H.M.A.S. The Dauntless flew so smoothly amongst the clouds, it was easy to forget they were soaring high above the earth.

  So, if not turbulence, what then?

  Henry realized he was no longer in his quarters. Wait a minute. How did I get here? The last thing I remember was I was in my room. The blackouts… they’re getting worse. No wait. I remember now. I heard the announcement about dinner, and I was headed to the galley to get some food.

  Two passengers walked past him without as much as a second glance. Judging by their thick overalls and heavy work gloves, they must be part of the crew.

  He followed the two burly men, deep in conversation, as they passed beneath a sign that read: Ship’s Galley. Henry’s stomach groaned at savory smells beckoning to him from within the galley.

  This wasn’t Henry’s first time getting food, but it w
as his first time going to the galley to get it. Normally, some nice lady named Sue would drop off a sacked lunch from her hovering cart in the hall. Sue would ask him how he was faring, but he still wasn’t very good socializing with other people outside The Factory. She was the first one who had told him that he was allowed to leave his room anytime he liked, and if he got hungry, he should find the ship’s galley for some food.

  See, you haven’t lost your memory.

  Henry adjusted his new clothes as best as he could and went inside.

  The interior was crowded with people. Every table and chair was occupied. Henry would have turned right back around and left, except for the fact he was starving. It was all coming back to him now. His roommates, the couple from Ukraine and their adopted daughter, Isabella, were already gone when he had woken up. Following placard signs written in gold lettering, which Henry knew really couldn’t be real gold, he made his way to the galley.

  He expected more steel walls, and much of the galley’s hull was riveted with nuts and bolts, but there were also beautiful paintings of old sailing ships on the walls, and red velvety table cloths draping the tables. Despite the throngs of people, the place was impossibly clean. Henry didn’t see a single smudge mark or drop of black coal anywhere.

  When the ship shuddered again, Henry leaned against the steel hull to maintain his balance. This time he managed to keep his feet more easily, but he still hadn’t gotten used to the idea of flying inside a boat that looked like something Jules Verne might’ve dreamt up.

  How is it possible that I can remember something as unimportant as “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” and not my own family, or where I’m from, or anything before I arrived at The Factory?