SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

by Christopher Golden

  The sea of tumblers closed around Demidov and she shouted, reaching for Yelagin. They covered her, lifted her, hurtled her along as the MiGs roared and she felt the first explosion, the impact, the flash of searing heat as the tumblers rocketed her into their tunnels. They burned, and her skin burned along with them, and then she felt nothing at all.

  * * *

  Just a pinch, at first. That’s all it was.

  Then a scrape.

  Demidov flinched, surprised that she was still alive, but in pain. Searing pain, scraping pain that made her moan and wince and whisper to God, in whom she had never believed.

  Her eyes fluttered open and for a moment all the pain faded, just a little. The city around her – city was the only word – could not have been real, and yet she was certain it was no dream. For a moment she let her head loll from side to side, gazing at the beauty and wonder of its whorls and curves and waves, and the strange spires that looked more like trees, towering things whose trunks and branches were hung with thousands of tendriled creatures, all glowing with that pale, ghostly light. She and Yelagin had glimpsed it from far above, but now she was here in the midst of it. She was in their home.

  Another scrape and the pain roared back in.

  Groaning, Demidov looked down and saw them on her naked skin, a hundred of the tiny things, their tendrils caressing and scrubbing her raw, burned flesh.

  “No!” she cried, trying to shake them off and then whimpering with the agony of movement, lying still as her thoughts caught fire with the horror of their touch.

  She remembered the bombing, the blast that scoured the tunnel even as they rushed her away.

  “They saved your life,” a voice said.

  Demidov recognized the voice without turning toward him. She steeled herself, because she knew that when she let herself see Vasily it would look like him, but it wouldn’t be him. He surprised her by not speaking again.

  Swallowing hard, feeling the gently painful ministrations of the tumblers, she looked to her right and saw him standing nearby, watching over her. They clung to his clothes and skin and hair. When he spoke again, she might have glimpsed one inside his mouth, but it might have been a trick of the light.

  “Yelagin?” she asked. “Budanov?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Demidov sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. “Why save me?”

  Vasily’s reply came from just beside her. “I told you. They need an emissary.”

  She opened her eyes and he was right there, kneeling by her head, studying her with kindly, almost parental concern.

  “There are other shafts. Other holes. They’ve been opening up all over this area. Some will be destroyed, as this one was. But not all.”

  Her burnt skin throbbed, but she could feel that the stroking of those tendrils had begun to soothe her. Slowly, she sat up.

  Demidov exhaled. “Vasily…”

  He ignored her, forging ahead. “They'll share some of their gifts with you,” he said. “Teach you wonderful things, including how it is possible for them to heal the damage to your flesh—“

  “Vasily?”

  “—and then you will carry their message to the surface.”

  “Vasily!”

  Blinking as if coming awake, he looked at her. Vasily had stubble on his face and his dark hair was an unruly mess, just as it always had been. For that moment, he looked so much like himself.

  “What is it, Anna?” he asked, eyes narrowing, as if daring her to ask the question.

  She almost didn’t. Just getting the words out cost her everything.

  “Who am I speaking to?” she said.

  Vasily did not look away, but neither did he give her an answer. Several seconds passed before he continued to describe the mission the tumblers intended for her to undertake.

  Demidov tasted the salt of her tears as they slid down her scorched cheeks and touched her lips. She hung her head, Vasily's words turning into nothing but a low drone.

  Her right arm had not been burnt. That was something, at least. She stared at the smooth, unmarked flesh.

  A shape moved beneath her skin.

  Cargo

  B. Michael Radburn

  The ship seemed to breathe, its steel hull groaning with every breath, every pitch and yaw heaving the deck beneath Corporal Gary Bronson’s feet. His stomach wasn’t exactly right just yet, but was a far cry from the constant puking he’d endured for the first three days at sea. For now, the fresh air on the June sea breeze kept him settled. He took his Zippo lighter from his pocket; rubbed his thumb across the inscription:

  77th Infantry – Guam – July 1944

  That was a year ago. He licked his dry lips. Strange, but whenever he looked at the engraving he could taste blood.

  Bronson flicked the Zippo on and off in quiet contemplation. He was army, not Marine, and sure as Hell not navy, so he still wasn’t sure how he got this assignment guarding a cargo bay on a Cruiser heading to Okinawa. Hell, he didn’t even know what was inside. And what’s more, the USS Portland was crossing the Pacific without an escort. That was either sloppy, or the sign of a ship that wanted to keep a low profile. Sure the Japs were all but done, but there were still plenty of stray Nip subs out there looking for prey. Bronson shook his head at the thought, slipped his lighter back in his pocket, and looked out across the ocean’s swell, his eyes fixed on the horizon. He had an unopen pack of Lucky Strikes in his pocket, but his stomach remained too unsettled to smoke.

  A hatch behind him opened with a rusty squeal, and Private First Class Gill Jefferies stepped out. Bronson knew Jefferies from the Mariana Island campaign, another small-town grunt finding his sea legs.

  “Hey, you got a smoke, Corp?”

  Bronson handed him his pack. “Keep ‘em,” he said.

  Jefferies opened them, lit a cigarette, and leaned on the railing beside him. “Thanks,” he said slipping the pack in his breast pocket. “It’s your picket, Corp.”

  They were pulling four-hour shifts and sharing the same windowless berth below the water line. “Already?”

  “Time flies when you’re having fun.”

  Bronson smiled, hitched his carbine’s sling over his shoulder and headed to the hatch. “You figure out what we’re guarding down there yet?”

  Jefferies looked pleased, his gaze darting each way along the gangway before he spoke. “I think I do, Corp.”

  “Oh?” Bronson paused in the hatchway.

  “Well,” Jefferies said in a whisper. “I just heard a rumor from the cook that Uncle Sam has invented a bomb that can level an entire city. I bet that’s what we’re hauling to the airbase at Okinawa.” He tapped his nose. “Very hush, hush.”

  Bronson smiled. “And so Uncle Sam decided you and I would be the best guards to keep this war-winning secret?”

  “Think about it, Corp. That’s why we’re sneaking around out here on our lonesome without an escort. And as for you and me… Well no offence, Corp, but we’re the lowest common denominator in this man’s army. If the Japs got wind that a secret Cruiser full of Rangers is sneaking around their islands, we’d be dead in the water already.”

  Bronson’s smile faded at the thought of all those whitecoated scientists coming and going down in cargo bay 3. And then there was Major Stanley, the only brassed-up uniform with a pass into the place. No ship’s crew – not even the Portland’s Captain – had clearance. Bronson shrugged. “A single bomb, huh?”

  * * *

  Bronson didn’t much like it below. It was smothering. He was cut from Iowa stock and used to cornfield horizons. Below the waterline the sea sometimes slapped at the sides. The sound wasn’t natural to an army man, and the sooner he returned topside the better. He stood at-ease by the cargo hatch, rifle resting on his boot ready to snap to attention should Major Stanley or any of the whitecoats show up. He listened for the approaching clang of boots, leaned forward and tried the latch handle, but the hatch was locked.

  “You’ve got one fuckin’ job, Corporal,
” was his brief from Stanley, “ensure this door stays locked!”

  But… what would he do if he found it unlocked? Take a peek? Go inside? Or remain at his station and lock it as ordered? One fuckin’ job! He thought of Jefferies’s super bomb, tried to get his head around something that could take out a city in one blow. Bullshit. Ain’t possible. Probably nothing in there but… but what? He nudged the latch again, then heard heavy footfalls approaching and sprang to attention.

  It was Major Stanley, his narrow eyes unblinking, and a permanent sneer etched into that tanned, weathered face beneath his cap. Bronson saluted. “Major Stanley,” he said in a firm voice.

  “I know my goddamned name, Corporal,” the man spat in his gravelly voice without so much as a glance. He pressed the intercom by the hatch. “Doctor Klein? It’s Stanley, let me in.”

  The hatch sprang open, and a whitecoat with round, black-rimmed glasses let the major in. There was nothing to like about Klein. Wiry thin and tall, stooped from a lifetime of masking his height, he had stringy black hair greased down over his balding top. Word was he was snatched from the Nazi’s pool of scientists when Berlin fell. Maybe one of Hitler’s bomb makers.

  Klein looked at Bronson for a moment, held his stare, eyes – coal-black – showing no emotion, no feeling. What has he seen, Bronson wondered, to stop from feeling? The hatch closed, and Bronson heard their murmured voices disappear on the other side. Then… a faint click from the latch. He glanced down to see the hatch swing back a half inch or so. The lock hadn’t engaged.

  You’ve got one fuckin’ job, Corporal!

  Bronson grasped the handle and was about to nudge it closed, aware the lock would engage, only accessible from the other side or by security key from this side. That’s when he noticed just how cold the steel was. The Portland was in the Pacific. It was always hot here. So why the cold storage?

  “To Hell with it,” he whispered, and eased the hatch open.

  He moved his carbine’s sling over his shoulder and leant inside, the cool air bracing his face. Stanley and the Kraut were gone. Bronson looked around. This was nothing like any other part of the ship. He stepped inside, edged the hatch closed, and listened for any sign of the major or Klein. It appeared to be another hallway running adjacent to the one on the outside. There were muffled voices, but distant; dim inside except for a pale green light coming from a window to his left. Above him was a honeycombed catwalk he could see through to the bulkhead above. Empty. Bronson stepped cautiously in front of the window; thick glass held back a body of water. It was some kind of water tank. Huge. A thermometer beside the glass read 36 degrees Fahrenheit. He peered inside, could see something small, fish maybe – wrigglers he would have called them in his fishing days. They swam in wavering schools deep in the tank.

  The catwalk began to tremor above him – two whitecoats carrying something heavy between them and walking this way. He couldn’t risk running back to the exit; that would take him right under them.

  “Shit!” he hissed, glancing around, escape paramount. Over there! Another door beyond the tank. He ran, opened it, and entered. It closed behind him with a soft thud. The darkness embraced him; the cold wrapping around him like icy fingers. He stepped warily away from the door until his back pressed against the opposite wall… and he waited. The smell was familiar, and took him a moment to relate. Then he remembered his after-school job cleaning old man Beattie’s butcher shop. His heart slowed with his breathing, and when it was clear no one was following, he reached inside his pocket for his Zippo. The frigid air hurt his throat to breathe. He flicked the lighter; the flint sparked, but no flame. He tried again. The same. Shook the fluid inside, and this time it worked… and he wished it hadn’t.

  Eyes, frozen, had taken on a marble stare. Cradled in their gray flesh, they appeared fixed in time, perhaps in the moment of their death, like a washed out photograph of their mortality – perhaps even recognizing Bronson’s own as they stared into his. He shared this frigid charnel house with a host of dead hung naked from hooks around him. Bronson pressed himself harder against the wall, his frosted breath almost blowing out the lighter’s flame, his khaki shirt freezing to the steel wall. The fabric peeled away as he stepped aside, desperate to shun those staring eyes. He shifted the Zippo from face to face – all Japanese, no doubt battlefield fodder by the bullet holes and torn flesh that marred their bodies.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. I can’t stay here!

  He stumbled forward, nudging a hanging corps in its torso, pressing stale air from its hollow lungs into his own face. He wanted to puke. It smelt like battlefield gut-shot… and you never forget that smell as long as you live. He threw himself against the door, and for a moment thought it was locked. No! No! No! He’d dropped the Zippo with a clang, its flame extinguished. Now that he knew what was in here, the darkness seemed tenfold. Another blind heave and the door seal relented with a crack. It swung open as he spilled out into the hall. Bronson drew in the fresh air, rested against the far wall, and watched as the freezer door eased itself closed again.

  There was a repetitive clanging from atop the catwalk. Whatever those whitecoats were doing, it had masked the sound of his busting out. He clutched his carbine to his chest and moved under the walkway, pressing himself close to the wall as he slipped beneath them. The clanging carried on, and when he passed the tank window it seemed the wrigglers were attracted by the sound. He watched the schools swivel and swirl in grey clouds toward him. A lone wriggler swam closer to the glass, no more than the size of his thumb. It was a crab, but not like anything he’d ever before seen. For its size, the claws were huge, and its shell, serrated along its spine, was a strange steely black. Bronson paused, tilted his head. Is it looking at me? He then heard the substantial splash from above…

  … and the frozen eyes of one of the dead Nip soldiers was looking at him again, the body submerging on the other side of the glass. Bronson’s breath caught, startled, as water splashed over the edge and ran down his side of the glass, distorting the image. “Feeding time,” said one of the whitecoats above. The other chuckled, then they moved away down the catwalk.

  Bronson breathed a slow, steadying sigh. He looked at the corpse, met its dead stare, and for a moment he thought it was… dancing.

  The ravenous crabs swarmed over it – through it – tearing it apart into a pale cloud of fibrous flesh and splintered bone.

  “I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

  Then, from the flesh-cloud, one of the crabs slammed against the window, its oversized claws scissoring at the glass. Bronson stepped away, swore it was looking right at him. He turned to the exit, saw that the whitecoats were gone, then made his break. The hatch opened easily. He stepped outside, back at his post, then pulled the hatch closed, testing the latch handle three times to ensure it was locked.

  “I’m done,” he whispered, then checked it one last time to be sure.

  * * *

  It was an hour before Major Stanley came out.

  Bronson snapped to attention. “Major Stanley,” he said firmly and waited for the Major’s usual gruff wisecrack, but it never came. Instead, Stanley stood opposite, his eyes a little less harsh than usual, bordering on human.

  “You served with the seventy-seventh in Guam, didn’t you, Corporal?”

  Bronson’s jaw clenched. Perhaps due to pride; perhaps due to the landscape of dead GIs he remembered from that battle. “Yes, Sir.”

  “You’ve seen some things in your time, huh soldier?”

  He was about to answer when the major held up the Zippo Bronson had dropped in the meat room on the other side. The 77th Infantry – Guam – July 1944 inscription just eight inches from his eyes.

  “We need to talk, Bronson.”

  * * *

  Not a word was spoken until the door to Major Stanley’s quarters closed behind them. Stanley turned and Bronson halted to attention.

  The major took off his cap, placed it on his desk, and then sat on the edge. “At ea
se, Corporal,” he said with a dismissive wave.

  It was unnerving. Stanley looked at Bronson without speaking for a long time. There was no sign of the steely stare or rock-jawed barking of abuse.

  He tossed the Zippo to Bronson, who caught it. “You want to tell me what you saw in there?”

  As Bronson adopted the at-ease position, he considered lying to the major, but the weight of truth in his lighter made that futile. “I’m not sure what I saw, sir.”

  Stanley sighed, took a cigarette from the box on his desk and lit it. “You’ve put me in a difficult situation, Corporal. One I could probably have you shot for.”

  “Shot?” The word squeezed up through Bronson’s throat.

  “Relax.” Stanley stood from the desk and walked toward a film projector set up before a row of chairs in the center of the room. “We’re about twenty-four hours from disclosing the Portland’s mission to her captain and crew anyway. HQ prepared a film for my briefing.” He turned on the projector. “To dodge that bullet I need you to keep your mouth shut until then.” He pointed at the screen on the wall as grainy images of white-coated scientists filtered through a stream of Stanley’s cigarette smoke. Except for the clickety-clack of 8-millimeter film that spooled through the reels, the film was silent.

  “I can do that, sir,” Bronson said.

  Major Stanley spoke as the corresponding pictures filled the small screen.

  “We call them Shintos, the Japanese god of water. They are a hybrid created by our Nazi friends, something they were working on for Adolph before he opted out of the war. They’re basically a Japanese Spider Crab injected with the fetal cells of the carnivorous Coconut Crab. They were experimenting with a range of species, but the crustaceans seemed the most responsive. The Nazis radiated their bloodstream to strengthen their dominant blood cells and bred them to what you saw down in the hull. The radiation seemed to be the kicker, the mutation it created being way beyond our expectation. The Shinto’s are extremely deadly and strangely intelligent in their interaction with each other. Particularly in the way they hunt their prey.” Stanley smiled; it was predatory. “The things are ordered and calculating. They have one overwhelming motivation… to feed.” The man glanced at Bronson to gauge his reaction as the pictures flickered across the screen. “Your thoughts, Corporal?”