The Dunfield Terror

by William Meikle

  I was brought out of my reverie by a shout from Muir himself.

  “Let them know we’re ready,” he called out. It was finally time for my one bit of action in the proceedings. I made the signal to the watchers on the shore some four hundred yards away. Even from here I could see that their tent on the exposed promontory was billowing and blowing in the increasing gale, but I saw their answer clear enough. They too were ready.

  I gave Muir the nod, and did the same again in Captain Squire’s direction to show that I acknowledged his authority. Muir was not so polite. He stepped forward and, without further ado, threw a lever on his box of tricks.

  Nothing of any consequence happened. Something sparked, and there was a distinct hum that lasted for maybe three seconds. All I could hear was more wind, and all I felt was cold spray in my face. I turned away in time to see Captain Squire’s smirk before he headed for the relative warmth to be had inside. I lingered just long enough to have a word with the professor.

  Muir did not seem too perturbed by the outcome.

  “A blown valve,” he said. “I forgot to factor in the effect of the degaussing panels. These things happen. Give me an hour and we’ll try again.”

  But the hour turned into two, then three, and Muir’s temper frayed with the dimming of the light. By the time it came round to sunset, he had to give up hope of getting anything done that day.

  “It’s the blasted spray and drizzle,” he said as we made our way to the captain’s quarters for pre-dinner drinks. “It’s causing too many shorts.”

  Squire heard that as we entered.

  “Perhaps some kind of umbrella might be in order?” he said, and laughed long and loud, which only caused Muir’s brows to furrow deeper and his mood to darken further. When we finally got round to eating, it was obvious an explosion was imminent.

  Mr. Jones, the purser, tried to lighten the mood by telling a long, involved tale of shore leave, a brothel, and a Spanish prostitute who was more man than many of the sailors, but it fell mostly on deaf ears. The captain seemed determined to rub Muir’s nose in what he deemed already to be a failure.

  “You do know that the Yanks tried this already?” Squire said, loud enough for all to hear. “Back in ‘43, with the Etheridge, I believe. A bloody disaster all around, or so I’m told. At least you’ve managed to avoid that.”

  At first Muir tried to control himself.

  “I am well aware of the research, and the reasons for that debacle, thank you very much. I am not about to recreate that mistake,” he said. “I have carefully modulated all of the substream harmonics and ensured that the frequency shifts are calibrated. I—”

  Squire interrupted him again by laughing loudly.

  “There’s your typical scientist, gentlemen. Never uses one big word when two will do. It’s no wonder that everything they touch turns to ashes and dust.”

  “And there’s your typical military man, gentlemen,” Muir replied, so loud that everyone else fell silent. “So full of his own self-importance and narrow-minded regimentation that he cannot recognize the worthiness of anything but his own kind.”

  The professor started warming to his topic. I put a hand on his arm, hoping to mollify him somewhat, but he was too deep in his anger for that.

  “Without science, you would not have this fine vessel,” he bellowed. “Without science, you would not have these electric lights.” He reached up and set the overhead lamp swinging, sending alternating bands of shadow and light over all the faces that were gaping at his performance. Muir lifted up his whiskey tumbler. “And without science, you would not even have the glass to hold this dishwater you have the nerve to call whiskey.”

  He threw the glass against the wall. I winced, anticipating the shatter. It didn’t come. The tumbler hit the wall…and kept going, disappearing from view and leaving a series of ripples behind in the solid steel, ripples that almost immediately hardened in place.

  The room fell silent save from a muttered “Bleeding hell” from the far side of the table. But no one was in the mood for laughing now.

  “Is this it? Is it working?” the purser asked.

  “It seems something is,” Muir replied deadpan. “Maybe we should send a scientist to check?”

  * * *

  We made our way swiftly up on deck to find that the ship was becalmed in dense fog, gathered around us so thickly that I could only just make out the bow to my left and the gun turrets to my right although they were mere yards away. The fog had a distinctly eerie quality, almost a glow that I put down at the time to it picking up and dispersing reflections from the lights strung on deck.

  Muir wasted no time examining the weather conditions. He headed toward the experiment. He hadn’t quite reached it when the first scream pierced the night. I turned toward the sound, and was just in time to see a sailor sink into the deck, as if he’d fallen into a pool of water. He waved his arms, and what had been metal splashed, slowly, as if thick and viscous, sending ripples across several yards of deck. The man opened his mouth to scream again. The liquid flowed and spilled down his gullet. Then, as quickly as it had liquefied, it hardened, and became solid metal once more.

  The sailor was mercifully quite dead by the time I reached him, trapped at the neck as if buried upright in the deck, the lower part of his face obscured by a metal mask and his eyes, still horrorstruck, staring straight at me.

  “Turn that bloody thing off before anyone else gets hurt,” I shouted. Muir didn’t move. I left the stricken sailor, strode across the deck and grabbed the professor’s arm, turning him around until we stood nose to nose. “Turn it off,” I yelled into his face.

  He replied, remarkably calmly.

  “That’s going to prove to be somewhat difficult, Duncan. It isn’t switched on.”

  I wheeled away from him and looked for myself. I saw immediately that he had told the truth; the contraption of wires, valves and coils sat in the middle of the deck, inert and silent.

  “So what the blazes is happening?”

  Muir shook his head.

  “I don’t rightly know. Maybe some residual effect from when we started it up earlier; maybe something got started that would have been stopped if we kept going. Maybe…”

  “There’s a few too many maybes there for my liking,” I replied.

  He nodded.

  “Mine too. But I need more information before I can hypothesize.”

  A shot rang out from the stern, bringing all speculation to an abrupt end as more screams filled the sudden silence that followed.

  * * *

  When I reached the stern, I was at first unsure exactly what was happening, for the fog was, if anything, even thicker here…so thick that it looked almost solid. That thought proved rather too close to reality as a waft of wind blew a more dense area over the top of three sailors nearby. They reacted as if hit by a wall of searing flame. Flesh melted and sloughed off their bones in oily sheets even as their screams tore at my ears. Mercifully it was all over almost before I had time to move. Another breeze wafted past, the denser fog moved away to starboard, and we were left on a quiet deck with only the brutalized bodies to remind us of what had just happened.

  Captain Squire had momentarily lost his air of command, and looked more like a startled accountant than a naval officer; he stood, rooted to the spot, staring at the bloody smears that were all that was left of the crewmen. I had to manhandle him away forcibly, and when he finally decided to move, he did so with the blank, almost lifeless, stare of a man in deep shock.

  Muir reacted to the situation the fastest of us all.

  “Get below. Get below now. It could happen again at any moment.”

  As one we headed for the hatchway.

  We didn’t all make it.

  We got close to the main storm door leading below, just as thicker fog wafted over the bulwarks. Metal warped, buckled and melted. A young lieutenant—to this day I have never even learned his name—leapt between us and the fast-approaching fog.
r />   “Get the captain below,” he yelled.

  And those were his last words. The fog fell on him, and once again the result was the same as before. Muir didn’t let me wait to see the man’s final end. He dragged the captain to the doorway, I jumped in after them, and the professor heaved the storm door shut behind us with an almighty clang. The metal warped, rippled, then hardened again with a series of creaks and moans that sounded almost human.

  Everything fell silent.

  The fog had moved off again.

  I remembered to breathe. We were still alive.

  But for how long?

  * * *

  It took a lot of shouting, ordering and threats of a spell in the brig, but eventually the remaining officers got the crew together in the main mess room. As a man, they looked to the captain, expecting orders, reassurance…leadership. I saw in their eyes the fear that threatened to grip me so tight I could no longer function. All of us eyed the walls and ceiling, ready for flight at the slightest hint of softness. We jumped at even the most quiet of sounds and tried not to think of what the fog might do to us if we were caught in it.

  The captain was in no better state than the rest of us, but Muir, who seemed made of sterner stuff, took charge of that matter at least. He went to the officer’s quarters and returned with three fingers of Scotch in a tumbler, refusing to let the captain abstain from drinking it.

  “Get it inside you, man,” he said. “There’s a reason it’s called the water of life.”

  Twin spots of color appeared at the captain’s cheeks as the liquor hit his stomach and went to work. His eyes cleared and he looked at Muir as if seeing him for the first time.

  “What the blazes have you done, man?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know. Yet,” Muir replied. “But leave that part to me. You need to get control of this ship. Your crew need you.”

  That simple call to duty was what the captain needed. He stood up straight, his training and experience took over, and he stepped up onto a table to address the men. Muir pulled me aside for a confab, so I missed Squire’s speech, but even from the far corner of the galley I saw that he had the men’s attention, and the fear had receded somewhat from their eyes.

  We might get out of this yet.

  “I hope you have a plan, old man,” I said to Muir. “For I’m afraid I haven’t a clue.”

  Muir looked grim.

  “Somehow we’ve managed to alter the very fabric of space,” he said. “And I’m not sure there is anything that can be done about it.”

  “You’d best get your thinking cap on then,” I replied. “I don’t intend to just hang around to be melted like a wax candle.”

  My statement was amplified by a shout from one of the crew. It was addressed to the captain.

  “We should take to the lifeboats. Right now.”

  Both Muir and I saw that the captain was considering the option. Muir strode over and stood below the officer looking up.

  “It’s not safe,” he said.

  Squire laughed bitterly.

  “Where is?”

  Muir had no answer to that one, but he still had his bluster.

  “We have no idea as to the extent of this fog. At least in here we have some kind of protection that the lifeboats would not afford us. The metal in the hull seems sufficient to hold it at bay.”

  “And what exactly is it?” Jones the purser said, loud enough for all to hear.

  Everyone fell silent. That was the single question we all needed to be answered. Muir’s reply echoed what he had told me seconds before.

  “It’s some kind of flux in the fabric of space. We may have inadvertently caused a tear, allowing something from beyond, or between, to slip through to this plane of existence.”

  “Dinnae talk pish, man,” a heavily accented Scots sailor shouted, and that got a nervous laugh from around the room.

  “I ain’t never heard of a place where they’ve got fog that bloody eats people,” a Cockney voice chimed in.

  “Maybe we’re in hell?” another answered, and as quickly as that they were all talking and shouting above each other. The meeting threatened to descend into chaos until Squire bellowed at the top of his voice.

  “That’s quite enough of that nonsense,” he shouted. “This is still a ship of Her Majesty’s Navy. Let’s act like it.”

  Muir stepped up onto the table alongside the captain.

  “We just need to keep calm,” he said. “There’s a scientific explanation for this, I’m sure of it.”

  “Aye?” the Scotsman who’d spoken before shouted back. “Well, you can take your scientific explanation and shove it up your scientific arse.”

  Another round of laughter ran around the room, but I didn’t join in. Something had caught my attention; at first I thought it was caused by a nervous tic in the corner of my eye, but it was more than that.

  Much more.

  One of the large extractor units in the ceiling above the main stoves was melting, running like hot wax.

  The phenomenon, whatever it was, wasn’t just back. It had penetrated the hull and was inside with us.

  * * *

  I tried had to remain calm as I walked forward to stand beneath Muir. I kept my voice low, hoping only he and maybe the captain would hear.

  “We’ve got trouble,” I said. “It’s got inside.”

  Muir nodded and forced a smile, as if I’d just told him a joke. He looked out over the crew.

  “Given that the hull seems to be providing us some degree of protection, I suggest we put as much metal as possible between us and the outside? Somewhere farther below deck perhaps?”

  The captain nodded.

  “We shall make for the engine room,” he said. “And give the professor here time to think our way out of this.”

  “Bugger that for a lark,” the Scots sailor shouted. “I’ll no’ be cooped up like a rat in a trap. I’m headed for a lifeboat. And if you want to stop me, you’ll have to shoot me.”

  “That can be arranged,” the captain said coolly, and when I looked round at him, he had a pistol in his hand, aiming straight at the Scot. “Mutiny is a hanging offense, but we’re short of a rope right now so this will have to do.”

  The big Scot looked around, looking for support from his shipmates.

  “We can rush him. He can’t shoot us all.”

  But no one seemed keen to attempt it. Besides, I saw that the melting area was growing fast, encroaching farther into the room.

  “Captain,” I said. “We have to go. Now.”

  He nodded, but never took his eyes off the big Scot.

  “Get to the engine room, on the double,” he barked. “We’ll deal with your insubordination once we’re all safe.”

  Squire turned and pointed to the door.

  “Civilians first,” he said, and waved the pistol in such a manner that we knew better than to argue. Muir and I headed to the doorway. We had just reached it when there was an almighty commotion behind us in the mess.

  We’d left our retreat too late.

  The fog had found its way fully inside, and the crew had now seen it. A melee immediately formed as too many men tried to cram through the narrow door. Muir, the purser, Squire and myself were the only ones that had made it out before the scrum.

  “I will have order,” Squire shouted, but fear held the crew in its grip. That, and the sound of screams rising from inside the galley caused the frantic mob to get even more agitated.

  A single scream rang out, so anguished and forlorn that it stunned everyone else into silence for a moment, before the scrambling resumed with even greater intensity. Punches were thrown that would floor an ox, eyes were gouged, heads were stamped on and hair was pulled from its roots as men climbed over their friends and crew mates to try to reach safety. And all the time the screams grew wilder and more piteous behind them.

  Men started to make their way out into the corridor, the press of bodies finally forcing us to back away to avoid being crushed ourselve
s. The metal in the doorway from which the crew was making their escape began to melt and buckle.

  “Fall back,” Squire shouted. “We’ll regroup in the engine room.”

  It was obvious there was no alternative. We made off at speed down the corridor.

  The screams of the dying followed us all the way.

  * * *

  We did not make it to the engine room. In fact, we only made it ten yards before Muir stopped dead in his tracks ahead of me. I almost ran him over, and Jones the purser barreled into me too before we all came to a stumbling halt. I immediately saw why the professor had acted. The whole corridor ahead of us seemed vague and unformed; the walls themselves were only a little more substantial than smoke. The floor rippled and swelled, as if pulled and pushed by tidal forces, the wavelets reaching almost to our toes.

  I stepped back, hoping to move out of reach, but felt the weight and press of bodies at our rear.

  “Stay back,” Muir shouted.

  “You don’t get to tell me what to do,” a voice I recognized replied, and the loud Scots sailor pushed his way past me. I tried to hold him back, but he shrugged me off easily.

  “Come on, lads, let’s take to the boats.”

  He took another step, his foot hit the deck…and kept on going. The big man lost his balance and fell forward, floundering. He shouted an oath, flapped his arms, then he was just gone, swallowed up as the deck rippled, then calmed. The metal pinged and creaked as it hardened once more. Something lay at my feet. I bent and almost retched at the sight. It was a thumb, callused and tough…and neatly severed at the base, as if sliced by the keenest of blades. A dribble of blood ran from it. It was all that was left to show that the Scot had ever been there.