Serpentine

by Napier, Barry

  SERPENTINE

  Barry Napier

  PART ONE

  FIRST

  DAY

  OF

  SUMMER

  ONE

  George sat back in his chair, staring at the computer screen. The e-mail he had opened ten minutes ago consisted of only three words and a salutation. It remained on the screen, simple and to the point.

  Wilkins is dead.

  −KC

  He closed the e-mail and signed out of his account. Shafts of early morning sunlight crept through the blinds, casting rectangles of white across the floor. Wilkins is dead, he thought. He stared up to the ceiling and tried to picture the face of Jimmy Wilkins, one of the men he had spent seven weeks with while studying the Aleutian Trench eighty miles off the coast of Siberia. It was odd—six of them had shared the cramped space within the submarine for those seven weeks, but George could not remember their faces.

  He, Wilkins, and KC were the only ones that had made it home alive. The other three had died while underwater and he still wasn’t sure what had happened. What George did remember was being retrieved by government vessels with most of the submarine’s interior covered in blood and gore.

  Even if he wanted to forget that part of it all, he couldn’t. It was cemented into his brain, popping up in nightmares when he tried to sleep.

  George swiveled in his chair and looked to the sunlight on the floor. The blinds sliced the light into segments that reminded him of the dance of light and water along the hull of the sub when Wilkins, KC, and himself had been rescued.

  He belched, tasting the coffee he has just finished. Immediately following the belch, he felt something tickling the back of his throat. It felt like a thick trail of phlegm that refused to come up. He cleared his throat, but that urgent tickling remained.

  He left his office and walked slowly into the bathroom. He studied his reflection in the mirror above the sink, frowning at what he saw. His eyes were hollow and his face lacked any sort of color. He looked like a ghost. He sometimes wondered if he had died in that sub with the three other men.

  But there was no fooling himself into believing that he was dead. The ache that had been growing within his stomach for the last three days was an indication of that, as was the prominent cough.

  As he studied his reflection, he was assaulted by one of the fits of coughing that had plagued him since returning to land. How long had that been, anyway? Nine days? Ten? It didn’t seem like that long.

  He didn’t bother covering his mouth. He hunkered down in the floor and hugged the toilet, coughing violently. The coughs were dry and raspy, each one making his chest burn. He coughed into the bowl and saw that there was a pinkish hue to his spit. He coughed a few more times, knowing that it would not stop until the…the things came up. He felt them climbing up his throat like tiny bugs. He spit into the toilet, grimacing.

  Four small black shells fell from his mouth and made tiny plink sounds in the water. They were the size of pepper flakes but had the solidity of pebbles. Whatever they were, they appeared to be alive. They writhed in the toilet for a moment and then died.

  George watched the small shapes until he was sure they were all dead. He flushed the toilet and watched them swirl down.

  He tasted the faintest traces of blood and something else that tasted slightly like cabbage. He found this odd since all he had eaten for breakfast was toast, oatmeal and two cups of coffee.

  His stomach lurched a bit at the peculiar taste but he paid it no mind. His stomach had been acting up for three days and he hadn’t gotten sick yet. It would simply churn, almost as if he had gas. But after the churning passed, it would vanish completely. He kept trying to tell himself that there was nothing to worry about. It was probably just some side effect from whatever happened in the sub.

  He’d been warned about the tension headaches and he had meds to ease them. The doctors had also warned about potential nose bleeds, but there had only been one minor episode since returning home. But then the black flea-like things had started coming from his throat when he coughed. That had happened almost right away, even before they had left Siberia. And as of last night, there was that tickling in his throat, something so prominent that he had felt as if his throat may close up.

  He wondered if KC was going through this, too. Why else would he be sending such brief e-mails?

  Wilkins is dead.

  Well, how had Wilkins died? George wanted to reply to KC’s e-mail, but he knew that it would be dangerous to do so. He felt certain that KC was putting himself at great risk to get his messages out. Surely after what had happened in the trench, they were being monitored somehow.

  Well what the hell happened in the trench, anyway?

  George couldn’t remember, and trying to recall the memories only frustrated him.

  On his way to the kitchen for a glass of water, he went into another coughing fit. This time the black creatures came up right away. George felt them swarming in his mouth, clicking against his teeth. There were eight of them this time, six of which were dead by the time they hit the floor.

  He tracked the other two down and stepped on them. They made a crunching sound beneath his foot. When he removed his foot, he saw that they left a clear fluid when their bodies were smashed.

  George poured himself a glass of water and downed it. He then refilled the glass and went back into his office. There was a folder full of paperwork on his desk, contracts and documents that he, Wilkins, and KC had been forced to sign after being rescued. He fished through these and found the medical reports. One of the doctors had stapled his business card to one of the reports and had instructed them to call if things got really bad.

  George wasn’t sure if his current state was considered bad to these doctors, but he punched the number in anyway.

  The phone rang nine times before it was picked up. The man on the other end sounded confused.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m looking for Dr. Kagle,” George said.

  “Speaking. But this is a private number. How did you get this?”

  “My name is George Galworth. You examined me three weeks ago after my sub was rescued off of the coast of Siberia.”

  “Of course, of course! George, it’s nice to hear from you.” His tone and the waver in his voice indicated that this was a lie. “Is something wrong? Can I do anything for you today?”

  “I’ve got this really bad cough,” George said. “I’m spitting up these black things. And ever since last night, I get the feeling that there’s something else. Like, when I cough, there’s this larger thing trying to come up.”

  “That certainly sounds bizarre,” Kagle said. “Are these black things harming you in any way?”

  “No. But the coughing won’t stop and I was told to contact you if things got bad.”

  “Exactly. And I’m glad you’ve called. But there’s nothing I can do about it, I’m afraid. You were exposed to some nasty stuff down there, all of which is still being researched and studied. The best I can do is suggest that you try to bottle one of these things up for me and contact your supervising officer. They’ll get it to me. And if things get worse, your supervising officer can have you picked up and brought back to our facility.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes, George. I’m sorry. But to be quite honest, this is frankly very much over my head. I can prescribe something for the cough, but your own local family doctor could do that much.”

  “I understand,” George said.

  But he didn’t. When they had examined the three of them after the rescue, there had been a great deal of interest in them. But now they seemed to be nothing more than an afterthought, a necessary sacrifice in the name of discovery.

  “Doctor Kagle,” he said. “Did you know
that Wilkins died? Do you think that maybe what I’m going through killed Wilkins?”

  “Wilkins is dead?” Kagle sounded genuinely surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “Who told you this?”

  George nearly answered but decided not to at the last moment. Instead, he hung the phone up without saying another word. He sat in his chair and felt his stomach lurch. This time it was stronger, almost insistent. He wondered if this is what it felt like to a woman when a baby turned in the womb.

  George signed back into his e-mail. He’d have to take the risk and send KC and e-mail.

  He was a bit surprised to see that he had a new mail from KC awaiting him.

  He opened the mail and read it. The message was in KC’s typical quick and to-the-point fashion.

  It needs water.

  KC

  This led George to two conclusions. The first was that KC was also experiencing this madness. He was keeping the e-mails vague so that anyone that might be spying on them wouldn’t be able to immediately figure out what was going on. The second thing George realized was that Kagle was probably lying to him.

  Had the doctors sent the three of them home only to die? During the medical exams after the rescue, had the doctors seen something of interest but kept them in the dark about it?

  He tried to recover his memories, tried to remember what could have happened in the sub. What had they found in the trench? What had caused the interior of the sub to be caked in blood upon their retrieval?

  He had no idea.

  It needs water.

  George’s stomach lurched again. He began to cough and this time he tasted blood right away. It came out of his mouth in a red burst, splattering onto his desk and his pants. His mouth filled with a horde of the tiny black creatures and the noise they made against his teeth was almost like music. He felt them coursing down his chin, riding the flow of his blood as he ran to the bathroom.

  His stomach lurched again, almost violently this time. He cried out against the sensation as he leaned over the toilet. He was certain that he would vomit, the churning in his stomach now at an impossible strength.

  He hung his head over the bowl and only managed to cough up more blood and the black creatures. But he could feel that other thing, perhaps a larger one of the creatures or maybe just a large amount of bile, riding up the course of his digestive track. With another cough and shudder of his chest, he felt it rise further up into his throat.

  He tasted that faint trace of cabbage again, weaker now because of the blood in his mouth. He coughed again and that other thing finally came up his throat, filling his mouth. He felt it on his tongue, something solid, something moving.

  Whatever it was, it was crawling.

  And it was huge.

  George felt like his throat might split in half as the thing made its exit and cut off his wind supply. Forgetting about the toilet, George fell back against the wall, clutching at his throat. He gagged instinctively as the thing continued to crawl forward.

  It pushed its way out of his mouth and worked its way down to his shirt where it swung weakly back and forth. George crossed his eyes in an attempt to see it but all he saw was a blur of his own blood. Several wet retching noises came from his throat, but they were choked off and weak.

  Fighting for breath, George scrambled to his feet. As he did so, he knocked the towel rack from the wall and wasn’t aware of it. All he knew in that moment was that there was something enormous coming out of his mouth, and he couldn’t breathe.

  He stood in front of the mirror and stared himself down. Had his throat and mouth not been filled with this foreign mass, he would have screamed.

  There was a large grey tentacle protruding from his face, hanging out of his mouth like an enormous tongue. Several pucker-like abnormalities seemed to flex along its underside, as if trying to swim.

  It poured from his mouth like a vine over the edge of a flower pot. The tentacle ended in a crude point at his chest where it congregated with the carcasses of the small black things. The tentacle swayed from side to side as if looking for something to grasp.

  George felt himself on the verge of blacking out. He didn’t know if it was from a lack of oxygen or from the shock of seeing something so absurd, but the darkness was coming and he feared that if he didn’t do something to ward it off, he may never return to the light.

  His first impulse was to run upstairs, grab a knife, and cut the tentacle away. But as he continued to gag, he could feel its length inside of him and he feared that no amount of pulling would free it.

  It needs water.

  KC’s last e-mail didn’t make a lot of sense, but he didn’t think his friend would lie to him about such a thing. And in light of his current situation, he was willing to try anything.

  George stumbled to the bathtub, the muscles in his throat aching. His hands seemed miles away as he cut the water on. The whole time, the tentacle hung from his mouth, filling it completely, its curled end slapping against his shirt.

  As soon as the water began to gather in the bottom of the tub, George could feel the tentacle reaching for it. He could feel it all the way down to his gut and imagined the source of the peculiar appendage trying to crawl out of his body.

  George climbed into the tub with his clothes on and was amazed to find that the moment the tentacle touched the water, he was able to breathe. He could feel the air entering his nostrils but where it went after that, he wasn’t sure. He saw something in the tentacle, almost like a pulse, a widening and then a thinning along its surface that moved in perfect unison with the panicked breaths that he took. A thin whine of despair leaked from the corners of his mouth.

  The tentacle rested calmly in the water, floating and drifting effortlessly like a snake while still hanging out of his mouth. As George did his best to get accustomed to his predicament, he studied the tentacle as best as he could. Its underside was white, freckled with spots of red. The little puckers on its underside seemed calm and at ease now, responding to the comfort of the water. A series of ridges and bumps ran horizontally across its glossy surface. Taking all of this in, the tentacle resembled that of a squid.

  A brief flash suddenly rushed through his head, a memory of his work in the trench. They had seen hundreds of squid there, most of them small, but a few of them rather gigantic. Hadn’t Wilkins commented on how odd it had seemed that after a certain point, the only aquatic life within the trench had been squids? And there was something else too, something that Wilkins had said…he had been a marine biologist, so they had taken everything he’d said as gospel. But damn it, George could hardly remember any of it.

  Especially not now, as he lay in his bathtub with a tentacle having erupted from his mouth. He would have wept if he could have mustered the emotional capacity to do so. But as he lay there with water pouring from the faucet, rational thoughts seemed a thing of the past.

  He wasn’t sure how long he sat in the tub but at some point his wet clothes had started itching, so he took them off. Working his shirt over the tentacle was difficult, but it seemed to know what he was attempting to do. It clung close to his body and did not move as he pulled his shirt off. It moved of its own accord, operating separately from George’s body.

  Time crawled by slowly and George could feel lunacy creeping up on him. He could actually feel it at the edges of his mind and it brought to mind how a corner of bread would go soggy if left in a bowl of soup.

  After several hours, the water turned cold. The tentacle seemed to prefer this. As the water grew colder, it moved more actively and a bit more was freed from George’s mouth. When he had originally crawled into the tub, there had been perhaps two feet of it hanging out. Now, roughly four hours later, nearly three and a half feet of it had freed itself.

  The corners of his mouth ached to the point where they were nearly numb. His tongue was nothing more than a sore lump trapped under the tentacle. His skull felt as if it was splitting down the middle and his lips felt as if they had been p
ulled from his skin by pliers.

  George considered getting out of the tub and going to the phone, but recalled that he had been unable to breathe when the tentacle had been out of the water. He’d probably suffocate on his way to the phone. And even if he did make it to the phone, how was he supposed to say anything?

  Forgetting this idea, he simply sat slumped against the porcelain, letting the tentacle explore the bathwater and his body. It studied his legs, his genitalia, and his chest, where it lingered for an extended period of time.

  Somehow, much later, George fell asleep.

  When he awoke, it was to a loud crashing from somewhere close by. A series of loud footsteps filled the house like thunder. Someone screamed out, “Clear,” and someone else bellowed, “Move it!”

  George sat up instantly and tried to scream but was, of course, unable to. He looked down to the tentacle and was suddenly alarmed. There was now at least four and a half feet of it taking up the tub. George also saw that hundreds of those small black things were clamoring over the surface of the tentacle, clinging to it even when it was submerged in the water.

  George turned towards the open bathroom door as the footsteps grew louder, looking down the hall towards the living room. He watched as several men in body armor entered the hallway and began running towards him. George wondered how these men knew of his situation and then recalled the conversation he had shared with Dr. Kagle. This made sense, and proved his theory that he, as well as KC and Wilkins, had been lied to. The military and their doctors had known that something was wrong with them all along. They had been used to gestate these things.

  As he watched the men rush down the hall with guns drawn, he thought of Wilkins and suddenly remembered something he had said inside the sub that had spooked them all.

  “That has to be some mutated species of squid,” he had told them when they had found a fossilized oddity compacted into the side of the trench. “Or maybe prehistoric. I’m not sure.”

  And then, not too long after that, there had been darkness.