by Cole Anders
“I could just rest my eyes a second, I can't believe how sleepy I feel already.” Simon thought.
Examining the upper components told Simon that it had indeed been fired at some point before today as there were slight wear marks along the inside of the upper piece. He tried to return the magazine to its receiver, but he fumbled that simple task several times before he managed to summon the dexterity necessary to lock it into place. He looked at his hands, now they were starting to feel heavy just like the pistol did. The tips of his fingers looked like that were falling away while at the same time the pistol and table was flying up to meet him. He looked at his fingernails on his left hand, each one like a tiny sheet of ice over a pond, or maybe a lake. Simon thought he'd love to go fishing in a lake again, or maybe the ocean. But the ocean had lots of gigantic unsympathetic fish in it, he thought. And Simon knew that unsympathetic fish would try to eat him if they had the chance. Surrounded by crushing black water, miles of cold gloom in every direction, if only he had raft, or even a ship perhaps. But what good is a ship if obscene fish had already forced their way on board, and were hidden, waiting for him. He knew he couldn't hide forever, the unassailable horrors from the deep would find him sooner or later, it was only a matter of time. His knew his only hope was to find them first, if he only had weapon to defend himself with...
7. The Deep
The rhythmic buzzing of a cracked fluorescent light woke Simon from sleep. Whoever had smashed his head hadn't bothered to finish the job. His ears rang and his vision shuttered back and forth like two still images of the same scene, the room swam. The blow hadn’t been enough to keep him on the deck, but that had only been a matter of luck in where he’d been hit, not from effort.
Simon pushed himself up out of the icy water pooling on the deck that same luck had seen fit to keep his face out of. When he made it to his hands and knees he realized his head buzzed with pain from two places, one in the back where the blow had landed, and one in the front where he had met the raised lip of the pressure door bulkhead. Simon surveyed his surroundings as best he could, finding himself surrounded by the half-shadows of failing light and the crumpled black carcass of something terrible that lay beside him. A sound rattled through the corridors of the ship that sounded like the deep groan of metal. Only this wasn't the sound of metal fatiguing, this was the death wail of someone else in another part of the ship.
They'd appeared suddenly, crawling up onto ship out in the open ocean, it seemed impossible and yet it had happened. Simon and the rest of the crew had been investigating a series of strangely uniform geological formations along the Pacific Ocean floor. They had first been noticed three years earlier by a Chinese oil prospecting vessel. The Chinese had no intention of reporting any findings that might meant the loss of a lucrative drilling site. But once the seabed oil deposits turned out to be deeper and less dense that what could be made profitable, they scraped the operation and abandoned three free standing refineries after only three years. Leaving the iron hulks to rotten in the cold salty air a thousand miles for dry land. The floor surveys were unceremoniously dumped onto academic circles to be floated around until some university was stupid enough to pay for them. That university turned out be Simon's, or rather his Paleo-archeology graduate professor, Doctor Carl Richter.
Dr. Richter had been obsessed with the concept of primordially ancient civilizations since his own time as a grad student in the 70's. Convinced that every major discovery to be made on land had already been made, Dr. Richter focused his research on what he called, “per-Neolithic lost coastal cultures”. Civilizations that predated the writing systems of currently known ancient cultures, as well as having had their own histories lost along with them. Whose oral history would have been all but lost even by Plato's time. But legends are only history without someone to take credit for them he’d say, and Dr. Richter was dead set on being the one to take the last shreds of historical discovery for himself, no matter the cost.
That cost had been dear of course, Dr. Richter called every favor he had in academia, sunk his entire ten-year research grant, and coerced, tricked, and blackmailed four of his grad students into taking up an eight-month expedition to go and look at some bumps on the ocean floor.
The crew consisted of Dr. Richter, a short fat, balding man. Someone who looked like he’d spent his life hunched over sonar read outs instead of trekking through some forgotten desert. But once he was out on the ocean Dr. Richter vibrated with the possibilities that might unfold themselves in the Pacific. There was Simon, hardworking and enthusiastic at the very least. He made a good enough student but it wasn't a secret his father was better with a pen then he was. The expedition was meant to round out his scholastic achievements to finally finish the doctorate that had dogged him for years. Rachel, a young, and frankly brilliant student of Dr. Richter's who specialized in ancient script. He liked having her around because her absent-minded nature made it easy to steal credit from her when she uncovered something of value. Trevor, he had all the same money and connections as Simon, but none of the charm. A sullen, unhappy sort of man, who was only going along because it meant he could go without calling his mother for months at a time. And Abhijit, an Indian student from Delhi. He was Richter’s star pupil, with a keen grasp on his entire life’s work, with about the same less than keen grasp on sanity that Dr. Richter as well. Richter hoped to pass his legacy and his work on the Abhijit once he made himself rich on the discovery itself. Rounding out the expedition team was the deck crew of seven, including Captain Roger, for the RV Hemisphere, and Dr. Lanna Benton an ichthyologist tacked on as a concession to the university board, as well as her assistant Kimberly.
They had only been on site for a week when the attack came. The ROV had retrieved a small fragment of what Dr. Richter was sure was the corner off a tool worked stone tablet. He had set Rachel to the task of confirming this. But when he walked out of the lab back out onto the deck, he found the thing that killed him just standing there, like it had been aboard the entire time. The heart attack Dr. Richter had would have been fatal if not for the fact that his face had been scooped out of his skull before he even had a chance to fall to the deck. Despite the loss of his nose and right eye and cheek, he managed to gurgle out enough of a scream to alert everyone else on board before the rest of his cranium was mushed between a claw the size of a pair of hedge clippers. Jeffery, one of the deck hands, had only been about ten paces behind Richter on his way out to the deck to smoke when the scream came. But by the time he crossed the last 20 feet odd feet and came around the corner the thing had already worked its way down to the neck of the still twitching Richter. Falling back on the quick instincts he had, that would have served him well in any other situation, Jeffery grabbed the nearest heaviest thing he could reach, a fire extinguisher. But after arming himself he just stood there, paralyzed, his menacing pose with the extinguisher morphing so subtly into a cradling posture that it looked as if he'd intention to hug his weapon instead of use it all along. Hunched before him, standing in a puddle of blood and brine was a creature spawned straight from the Godless black abyss that extended belong the ship. A sort of hellish mixture of a lobster and a giant centipede. It's long black chitinous body weaved across the deck and the tail end dipped back down off the edge of the boat. A cluster of eye-stalks, like a bouquet of bony fingers swiveled randomly on top of its head, seaming looking everywhere and nowhere at once. But they were looking somewhere, it was directly at Jeffery. The creature considered its current meal for a moment and that this new thing, with its soft pale casing was just as easy to rip apart as the first one's was. In a flash, the scuttling nightmare was on Jeffery before he could react. In the end Jeffery had managed to move, but in his terror his reaction looked more like he was trying to give the thing the extinguisher instead of hit it. Two pincers like vises closed around his shoulder, then on his upper arm, and then two more on his forearm and hand. Jeffrey hadn't been as lucky as Richter had been to be killed instantly while stil
l on his feet. No, the thing used its weight to force Jeffery to the deck and began chewing not on his head, but on his chest. Where merciful life ending jaws should have been, the maw of the thing only had a chaotic cluster of smaller pincers and feelers, and entire host of piranha in a single gruesome mouth. Blood rushed from Jeffery’s mouth and nose as the creature made its way past his rib cage and into his organs, snapping and scraping with its maxillipeds digging out the soft meat behind the ribs. Jeffery never screamed, only managing to bubble out his last breath through a mouth full of foaming blood.
Simon saw the entire grisly affair play out from the bridge above the deck. Simon had started to descend the stairs to spear the thing on the deck with a rope hook, but Jeffery had appeared around the corner just in time to accept that fate Simon would have taken had he been a second faster. With the thing currently occupied, Simon managed to slip back through the bridge door and lock it behind him. Instantly he knew it wasn't a great place to be as the walls and doors were all glass from the waist up. And after seeing what that thing did to Richter and Jeffrey, a glass panel didn’t seem like it would slow it down much. If it did come up the stairs, Simon had the rope hook, and a flare gun, neither of which struck him as potentially very effective.
“I've got to warn everyone!” Simon realized, “Where is that two-way, it was supposed to be always returned to the charger.”
Simon rummaged as quietly as he could through a big pile of pages on one of the desks, his hands meeting only more paper and an empty carton of cigarettes. He knelt to check the floor and saw the two-way pinned against the wall by the table as it had shifted in the growing swell. Crawling under the table saved his life, because no sooner had he gotten under the table then he heard a rhythmic tapping on the window directly above him and the table. Simon's heart thumbed so loud thought he might as well be being playing the drums. An eternity passed, then one second more. After a long breathless time, Simon finally heard the rapid clicking fading away into the distance. Simon allowed himself to take only the third breath he'd taken since he'd locked himself in the bridge.
“Dr. Benton, Trevor, George, anyone come in.” Simon whispered into the two-way.
“Listen, do not come out on the deck, and lock whatever doors you currently have between you and the outside. I repeat, do not come out on the deck!” Simon's voice would have been barely audible even in person.
Blaring out like a megaphone came a reply,
“What'd that Simon? This is Lanna, I can't understand what you said, over.”
Simon clumsily pawed at the volume knob to reduce the chance of Lanna getting him killed.
“Lanna, listen to me, do not come out on to the deck, where ever you are, bolt the doors and don't leave.” hissed Simon.
“What? Hey what was that weird yelling just now, it sounded like Richter jammed his toe on a bulkhead again. Where are you anyway, I thought you, me, Trevor and Kim were gonna play bridge in a few minutes, over.”
“Lanna, Richter and Jeffery are dead. Something came up the side of the hull and killed them right on the deck by the starboard bulkhead.” explained Simon.
“What! O my God, they're dead! Is that what you said? What happened, and where are you?” Simon could tell Lanna was yelling, but wished she'd just shut the hell up.
“I don't know what it was, it looked like some kind of hideous giant lobster. Lanna, it's fast, strong enough the pinch a person’s head off and I think it's still on the ship. I'm locked in the bridge, but don't come up here it was just here tapping on the glass.” said Simon.
“Ugh, o my God. If you are joking with me, I'll never speak to you again! Look, I'm alone in my cabin at the moment, I'm going to go find everyone else, I think they are all in the galley. I gotta go find them, um over.”
“I'd rather you just stay put, but there's no other way to let everyone else know what's happened. But if you see or hear anything, just run and hid somewhere.” explained Simon.
“Ok, I'll get everyone rounded up and we'll come get you too. Ok?” asked Lanna.
“Just keep yourself safe ok, and keep talking to me so I know you and everyone else is alright.”
“Ok, like I said, if this is some kind of joke I'm gonna be furious. You got that?” explained Lanna.
“I wish it was, Lanna it was horrible, like something straight out of my worst nightmare.” said Simon.
“Ok, I'm out in the hallway, I don't see or hear anything yet. I'm going to make my way to the galley.”
“Alright.”
Simon considered coming out from under the desk to try the radio on the other side of the room, but decided to stay put for the moment. There was no point exposing himself to the windows and what may lay outside if it wasn't going to immediately help his situation. He could see out the front window on to the derelict oil rig looming over the ship. If they could make it over to one of the pylons and up onto the main deck, that should keep them safe until help arrived. But Simon wasn't about to just climb into a rubber raft after what he saw, he swore he'd never touch the ocean again if you could help it.
“The captain’s pistol!” Simon nearly said it out loud.
Captain George had shown him a pistol when he was explaining the duties of bridge watch a few weeks ago. He said it was there just in case they were attacked by pirates. At the time, the thought of pirates attacking an American research vessel seemed ludicrous, but now it seemed like manna from heaven.
Simon considered the steps he'd need to take. Cross the floor and get over to the safe, work the combination dial, and retrieve the pistol. He was sure he could do the whole thing in just twenty seconds, if he could remember the combination.
“Let's see, it's 13-20-55, clockwise-counterclockwise twice-clockwise.” Thought Simon, but he wasn't sure. He knew he could get into the safe, his hands remembered the combination just fine, he just hadn't had to recite it to himself. He looked down at his hands to see if they did in fact remember the motion of the combination themselves. They were shaking like weather vanes in a squall.
Simon tried to psych himself up aloud. “Twenty seconds max. Crawl across the floor, reach up and slowly put in the combination, calmly reach into the safe and pull out the pistol. Twenty seconds, maybe a lean fifteen.”
Simon spun around onto his hands and knees and dragged himself out onto into the middle of the room. His hands felt like they were made of wood as they kept slipping out from under him, and his legs would do little more than jerk back and forth. Across the room and up to the safe, Simon slowly, painstakingly inched his left hand off the floor and up to the dial. Simon thanked the manufacturer for a nice tight dial that didn't shift under his tremor. Thirteen to the right. Simon paused, “What was next! Why did I have to think the numbers, I could have just relied on muscle memory. Don't look up, don't look around, not matter what you see it won't speed up you getting to that gun.” Simon said to himself.
“Twenty!” he thought, and snapped the dial over the twenty quicker that he could think to stop and turn the dial the right way. He frantically reset the dial to try again. Just as he arrived back as zero he heard a rhythmic clicking start along the roof. So much adrenaline flooded into his blood his vision went blurry as he spun around to see. It had started to rain, a downpour, and the rain was tapping onto the roof in a quick rhythmic pattern. Simon's eyes burned and his skin crawled across his bones like a blanket of spiders, but he could see that there was nothing at any of the windows after a few moments of hysteria.
“Back to the lock. Thirteen.” His hands had stopped shaking, which seemed like a good thing. “Twenty, and finally fifty-five.” There was a quick pop as a bolt somewhere deep within the safe released itself. The door pulled open clicking against a simple racketing system meant to keep the safe door in place during swells. This simple engineering foresight kept Simon from getting his hand broken and pinned to the floor when a sudden crash erupted from window directly behind him over the tabletop.
Simon knew he'd heard the glass b
reaking before he had started reacting, but in his mind, it all happened simultaneously. Just as he pulled the safe door open and began to reach in, the thing that meant certain death blew through the window, frenzied and focused on ripping Simon flesh from bone. Simon retrieved the pistol and spun in place like he'd practiced it for years. The thing from the deck had already pulled most its body through the window when Simon turned about and saw it. As Simon brought the pistol around his body, he could feel his hands going to work almost on their own.
“The weight indicates a full magazine, click the safety to fire, finger into trigger guard, aim center mass on target, Fire.” His hands knew what to do.
The Glock 18 roared to life in an instant. Simon started low, and rose up the length of the creature’s body, pumping 6 rounds into its form before reaching its head in a single flurry of motion, noise, and gore. The thing froze in its tracks and shuttered like it was cold. It let out a gurgling rattle that was both pathetic and nauseating. After it finally fell to one side Simon held his arm outstretched for almost a full minute, the thing's black putrid blood oozing out onto the floor, his hands would never tremble another day in his life.
