The Black

by Paul E. Cooley

  The men working the drill string hadn’t asked questions. They’d seen the cuts, Vraebel’s thousand yard stare, and thought better of saying much of anything. The fact Creely, Green, and Gomez hadn’t returned with them was more than enough proof they’d failed.

  Shawna studied the men’s body language as they prepared the wire lines. They were exhausted and defeated. If Calhoun’s team didn’t come through with a miracle, they were all going to die here.

  She shook water from her hair and then gave Bill an apologetic smile. He grinned and wiped a sheen of rain from his thick, black beard. “We have any umbrellas out here?” she asked.

  Bill grunted. “No, ma’am. There are some emergency slickers inside. But,” he said and popped his back with a groan of satisfaction, “I don’t think you want to go in there.”

  “Um, no, not really.” Vraebel glanced at her. The man hadn’t said more than three words since they’d leapt for their lives. Like Bill had said, she’d had to jump first.

  The stairs were steep and met the platform more than four meters above her. She’d stared at the wet metal stairs and aimed for the bottom railing. It was only a meter or two away from the ledge, but it seemed like miles away. After a deep breath, she pistoned her legs with a shriek. As her body neared the railing, she knew she was too low. She threw her arms out and snapped them shut over the railing.

  Pain rocked up her arms and back. She felt something give in her shoulder, ignored it, and swung by her hands over the deck. Shawna flung her leg up and caught the edge of the railing. As carefully as she could, she pulled herself up onto the stairs. She lay there, the steps biting into her back, and panted.

  “You okay?” Bill yelled from the ledge. She popped her head around the rail and nodded. “Okay. Vraebel’s coming next.”

  Shawna forced herself to stand and walked a few steps down. She crouched and waited. If Vraebel couldn’t hold on to the railing, she might be able to pull him up. Her arms shrieked at the thought. Of course if he missed the railing, there wasn’t a damned thing she could do.

  She watched as the rig chief gathered himself. He took a deep breath and swung his arms back and forth. Then he leaped.

  Unlike Shawna, he went too high instead of too low. His chest hit the lower rail. His hands missed the upper rail and then he started to fall backwards. His left arm wrapped around the lower metal bar and took all his weight. Vraebel screamed.

  Shawna reached down and took his other hand. She lifted as hard as she could and felt something give in her back. The two of them yelled in pain as she helped him over the railing and on to the steps. They lay panting as rain pattered down upon their heads.

  “That. Was too close,” Vraebel said.

  “No, shit,” Shawna grinned.

  “Y’all okay?” Bill asked from the ledge.

  “No,” Vraebel yelled back, “but we’re alive.”

  “Let me know when you’re ready,” Bill said.

  Meters above them, a wall of black smoke funneled through the doorway. Shawna wrinkled her nose. “We need to get moving.”

  Vraebel nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

  He used a rail to push himself upright. He offered Shawna a hand and helped her stand. The wide stairs gave them enough room to stand side by side and watch as Bill made the crossing.

  His jump was perfect. The metal groaned under the big man’s weight as his hands wrapped around the railing. Bill pulled himself up on to the stairs. Red-faced and panting a little, he grinned at them. “No sweat.”

  Something crashed above them. Shawna turned to look at the doorway. A flame leaped out and then disappeared. “Fuck this. Let’s go. Now.”

  The three of them ran down the steps as fast as they could. When they hit the deck, the rain started coming down harder. Forks of lightning flashed in the sky followed by booming thunder. For a moment, the sound of grinding machinery and engines were lost in the din.

  Shawna stared out into the ocean and watched as the waves seemed to grow larger before her eyes. Her arms were bruised and cut from where she’d slammed into the grated stairs. She rubbed a hand against her shoulder. “How long before we—“ She stopped in mid-sentence as a figure appeared out of the shadows next to the superstructure.

  She smiled. “Thomas.” She stood up and quickly walked to him. He was carrying a flashlight and three PPE duffel bags. The closer she came to him, the more worried she became. His skin didn’t look good and he was rasping for breath.

  “Give me the duffels,” she said.

  He waved her away and kept walking toward Bill and Vraebel. The two men looked up at him as he unwound the bags from his shoulders and lay them on the deck. He unzipped one and pulled out a cardboard box. “I come bearing food,” he said. He split open the box, took one of the bars and handed the rest to Vraebel.

  Shawna stared at the open duffel. Batteries. Flashlights. And food? She grinned. “Looks like you had a successful scavenger hunt.”

  Calhoun shook his head. He more collapsed on the bench than sat down. “Bill? Catfish needs some help with Aaron. I think—“

  “Forget it,” Catfish said from behind her.

  Shawna turned and watched as Catfish wrung out his soaked hair. A stream of water hit the deck. He stared up into the sky for a second and let the rain wash down upon his face.

  “Where’s Aaron?” Vraebel asked.

  Catfish shook his head. “Didn’t make it. Slipped and hit the deck head first.”

  “Fuck,” Bill said. His giant fists clenched and unclenched. “You guys get chased?”

  Catfish and Thomas exchanged a glance. “You could say that,” the old man said. “I’m going to sit here, eat this energy bar, and rest.”

  “Yeah,” Shawna said, “you do that.” She looked at Catfish. “Get what you need?”

  “Besides a new pair of pants? Yeah.” He looked around and sighed. “Gomez didn’t make it either.”

  “No. He didn’t,” Vraebel said. “Neither did Creely or Green.”

  Catfish sucked his cheeks hollow. “We have enough deck hands to do what needs to be done?”

  Vraebel shrugged. “I guess. If we all help. Since we’re not exactly worried about tight seals, I think we can manage.”

  “Okay, good,” Catfish said. He dropped his duffel bag to the floor and pocketed the flashlight. “I’m going to eat something. We should probably call those guys over too. Ain’t much, but it’ll have to do.”

  Lightning crisscrossed the sky and the rig lit up in the twilight. Thunder shook the world two seconds later. “Storm’s getting closer.”

  “Yeah,” Catfish said as he tore open one of the energy bar wrappers, “I think we’ve been in it for days.”

  Chapter Nine

  They’d started out with a crew of 80. Now? They were down to five roughnecks, a wounded rig chief, a geologist, an engineer, and a smart ass tech. Losing Gomez was the worst of it. Vraebel still couldn’t believe his old friend was gone. And worse, couldn’t believe he wasn’t able to save him.

  But like Sigler had said, Gomez had been dead for hours—he just hadn’t known it. The geologist sat next to him as he downed a bottle of water and consumed one of the energy bars.

  “I don’t know how it happened,” she said. “But JP was infected. Your three mud specialists were infected. Somehow Gomez was infected when it…touched him.”

  Vraebel tried to focus on her words. His mind still felt barely attached to his body. Every few minutes, the world tried to swim away from him and he bit his tongue to keep hold of it. The water cooled his throat and made the faux peanut-buttery, chalky taste of the energy bar somehow palatable. “You think anyone that comes in contact with this stuff gets infected?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I think we need to be more careful. I’m not a biologist and when I examined the oil in the lab, I wasn’t looking for biological markers. Also, I didn’t exactly have access to the right equipment.”

  Vraebel chuckled. “PPE spent all this money and they di
dn’t provide a large enough lab for you? Lady, you are hard to please.”

  She grinned. “Sorry. I’ll make sure Thomas puts a request in for the next rig.”

  “‘Next rig.’ I’m never fucking leaving land again,” Vraebel said.

  Even Calhoun laughed at that. The old man had started to look better. Vraebel guessed the engineer just needed a rest and some food.

  It was past afternoon now. The storm was bearing down on them. The sky was so dark, there was barely any light at all. They’d surrounded the drill table with the remaining halogens. As Bill and the remaining crew began the wire-line operations in earnest, Vraebel and Catfish had loaded the explosive shots on a dolly and pushed them over to the drill table.

  Shawna and Calhoun kept watch over the superstructure, their flashlights dancing in the darkness. He knew they couldn’t hurt the black from this distance, but at least they could give the drill crew a heads up. Considering the things seemed to be less and less afraid of the light, Vraebel wasn’t sure how they were going to survive the storm. When the light completely died in the sky, the dinner bell would start ringing.

  He tried not to think about it as he stood off to the side and watched his men. My men, he thought. What’s left of them anyway.

  They hadn’t heard from Sobkowiak since last night. Vraebel had to assume the portly doctor was dead. Belmont and his crew had been off-shift. Had the black gotten them as well?

  Catfish sat cross-legged beneath one of the platforms, fingers dancing over his laptop. The rain barely touched him where he sat, but Vraebel had noticed him wiping the screen more than once. He really hoped the long-haired asshole knew what he was doing. If Calhoun was right, they might at least be able to take care of what was below the ocean floor.

  What the engineer had postulated was insane. Cthulu-type shit. But he was right about one thing—if they weren’t able to give the CDC the all-clear, they were fucked. After what he’d seen and experienced, no one could afford to allow the black onto land. Hell, it couldn’t even be allowed back in the ocean. If Vraebel was in charge of the CDC, he’d drop a goddamned bomb on the rig. One of those fuel-air things that nuked every living thing.

  Living thing, he thought. Yes, that’s what the black was.

  The five remaining deck crew members loaded another explosive shot into the pipe. Considering the drill string was over 5 miles long, it took a long time for the shots to drop to the bottom. He figured they had time for one more before the storm finally killed the remaining daylight.

  He glanced over at Catfish. The man was perspiring as he typed. He might be a shit-bag, but Vraebel didn’t envy him his task. If the tech didn’t program his robot-friends correctly, then none of this would work.

  “Martin?” Calhoun asked.

  Over the sounds of the engines and the storm, his voice seemed less gruff and less confident. Vraebel turned and stared at the older man. Calhoun’s eyes were bright and focused, but he still didn’t look well. “Thomas? What’s up?”

  The large man tapped his foot on the deck. “You ready to help with the flares?”

  He hissed through his teeth. “This plan of yours is fucking crazy.”

  Calhoun nodded. “I know. But you didn’t answer my question.”

  A grin slowly spread across Martin’s face. “I just wanted to say that again before I started taking part in it.”

  “I can live with that,” Calhoun said. “Come on.”

  They walked out from the drill string area and toward the storage bunkers at the rig’s edge. A workbench for fixing pipe problems and cleaning tools was affixed to one of the steel structures. At least the overhang would protect them from the rain.

  Five flares were spread across the bench’s rubber mat. “How do you know they won’t, like, catch fire when we start doing this?”

  “Because magnesium needs a flame. Just make sure you don’t cause sparks while we’re cutting into them,” Calhoun said.

  Vraebel chuckled. “I’ll do my fucking best.” He clapped Calhoun on the shoulder. “Let’s get to work.”

  #

  The AUV bay was far enough beneath the rig for him to actually hear himself think. Coding while sitting next to the drill table had been tough, but he’d managed to at least get most of the new instructions ready. He still thought Calhoun was out of his fucking mind, but what was the harm in trying to kill a subterranean ocean floor monster? We can only die once right?

  He rubbed at his eyes. God, he was tired. Every few minutes, the code on the screen became blurry gibberish and he had to close his eyes to reset his brain. Considering what they were about to do, and how long it was going to take, sleep wasn’t on the agenda anytime soon. Besides, who the fuck could sleep while those things were looking for a meal?

  Shawna stood behind him on the platform staring up the steps to the rig deck. She was the lookout. The AUV bay was one of the brightest parts of the ship when the lights were turned on. If one of those things came down the steps, it was going to meet something akin to sunlight.

  AUV 2 was permanently fucked. With the damaged ballast and screw housing, it wasn’t going back in the water. It was good for nothing except parts and testing. Testing is exactly why he’d removed its outer casing.

  He loaded the program into its brain and checked for data corruption. Nope, all good. AUV 2 sent back a ping it was ready for insertion. Catfish told the AUV to start its dive.

  He’d set the engine driving the propellers into diagnostic mode to trick the AUV into thinking the engines were working. The laptop sent false pressure readings to its sensors; the robot thought it was descending beneath the ocean.

  The screen lit up with a three-D depth/pressure grid including the robot’s position. The AUV thought it was nose down and diving like hell for the bottom. Catfish raised his arms above his head and yawned.

  “Stay awake, code boy,” Shawna called from behind him.

  He shook his head. “Sleep? Here? Why the fuck would I want to do that?” He put the laptop on its stand and turned to her. Shawna’s clothes were grimy and stained. Her khakis were torn in more than a few places. Streaks of blood had welled from her skin onto both her shirt and pants. “You look like shit.”

  “Whatever,” she grinned. “You’re just as much a mess as I am.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “There’s blood in your hair.”

  Her grin faded. “Yeah. I tried to wash it out in the rain, but I guess I just didn’t get it all.”

  He shook his head. “I wish someone could wash what I saw out of my brain.”

  She didn’t reply. Shawna glanced upward at the deck and Catfish followed her gaze. The roughnecks had been working for hours now and night might as well have fallen. Somewhere up in the sky, behind the thick blankets of black clouds, the sun still shined. But down here, there was nothing but murk and water.

  “You understand what they’re doing?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “And what they’re doing is probably going to blow the drill string.”

  “Fuck, that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

  She turned and her smile was back. A little sad, but still a smile. “The shots are weighted and so is the drill string. When they rotate the table and drop the weight, the drill bit will sink back into the spud site. Then I guess they’ll hit the button and ‘boom.’ If Thomas is right, it should blow the bit down further and possibly rip a hole large enough for your AUV.”

  “‘If,’” he said. “That’s a wonderful word, isn’t it? It means ‘this could work. Or, we could be fucked.’”

  She giggled. “That’s what I love about you, Catfish. You’re a charter member of the ‘we’re on the verge of getting killed’ club.”

  He sighed and turned back to the laptop. The timer showed another ten minutes. He wasn’t sure he could wait that long, but he needed to let the sim run. If he was wrong, they really would be fucked.

  “You think this will work?” he asked. “I mean the flares?”

  “M
agnesium burns. It doesn’t care about water. It cares about a flashpoint. And once it starts, it’s damned difficult to get it to stop. So yeah, I think it’ll work.”

  “I smell an ‘if,’” he said.

  She rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine. IF your robot does its job. IF the hole is big enough. And IF something else doesn’t go wrong.”

  He smiled. “See? That’s what I wanted to hear. So, Ms. Geologist, still interested in rocks?”

  “Yes,” she said. “But only if they’re on dry land and a thousand miles away from the ocean.”

  “Thomas thinks it’s some prehistoric creature. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’d have a better idea if I knew what Houston found.” She shook her head. “Let me rephrase that. I’d love to know the results of their tests.”

  “You mean before the quarantine.”

  “Right,” she said. “Before it…did whatever it did.”

  The image of some poor lab tech opening a barrel filled with tentacles, pincers, and teeth made him shudder. He suddenly didn’t feel like talking anymore. From the look on Shawna’s face, he was pretty damned sure she’d imagined the same thing.

  Catfish tried to clear his mind, but JP’s face kept sliding across his vision. His friend, the man who’d taught him how to dive, spear fish, and enjoy the ocean, had been that thing’s meal. Or carrier. Or whatever the fuck. He was dead and the only thing Catfish could vent his anger and loss on was the creature below the ocean floor. And goddammit, he was going to blow that shit up.

  His laptop beeped and he turned to the screen. The timer was flashing. 55 seconds left. “Here we go,” he said.

  Shawna walked down a few steps to watch. He gave her a wink and turned back to the screen. The seconds ticked off. When the timer hit zero, the view on the screen zoomed in. A blocky AUV floated near a vertical line. Catfish switched to the console. “And now for the boom.” He typed in a command, hit return, and switched back to the diagram.