Dead in the Water_A Space Team Universe Novel

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “Been keeping it warm for ye,” said Artur. He gestured at a bowl of the yellow mush in front of him. “Unlike the scran, which is feckin’ freezing. Ye want some?”

  “What is it?” asked Dan, taking the offered seat before any of the circling tray carriers could swoop in and steal it.

  “It’s yellow,” said Artur. “That’s pretty much the only thing I can say about it. It’s cold and yellow. Oh, and it tastes like shoite.”

  “I’ll pass,” said Dan.

  “Ye’re a wise man,” Artur said. He scooped some of the sunshine-colored sludge into his mouth and pulled an exaggerated grimace. “See? Foul stuff.”

  “And yet you’re still eating it,” Dan pointed out.

  “Well sure, I’m a growing lad,” Artur replied, digging in for another helping. “Are ye not going to compliment Peaches on her hair.”

  Dan looked at Ollie’s head. “It’s… shorter?” he said, mostly guessing. There was definitely something different, but he couldn’t pinpoint what.

  “Nice work, Detective. Ye cracked that case, alright,” Artur said. “No flies on you. Although quite why that is, I don’t know, what with ye being a right smelly dead bastard.”

  “It looks nice,” Dan said, even though he had absolutely no opinion on it either way.

  Ollie seemed pleased, though. “Thanks. It was all Banbara.”

  Dan leaned past Ollie and addressed the multi-limbed woman on Ollie’s left. “How’s the… Uh…”

  “The face? How’s my face? Is that what you’re asking?” Banbara snapped. “How is my face after you punched it? You tell me. How does it look?”

  “It looks… I mean…”

  Artur intervened. “I think the phrase ye’re searching for is, ‘like a well-skelped arse,’” he said. “And sure, it’s even worse now with all the bruises. No offense, Ban.”

  Banbara stood up sharply, rattling the table. “I’m going to the bathroom,” she announced.

  Ollie slurped some of the yellow goo, then looked up. “Wait? There are bathrooms?”

  “Not in the rooms, but in here,” Banbara confirmed, gesturing to one of the many doors around the hall. “Why? Do you need to go?”

  Ollie closed one eye and concentrated for a moment. The expression quickly changed to one of panic and she leaped to her feet. “Didn’t but now I do!” she yelped, crossing her legs. One of Banbara’s many limbs caught Ollie by the arm.

  “This way. Follow me.”

  “Hurry!” Ollie urged, and they both scampered off, Banbara shoving her way through the crowds, Ollie hobbling along at her back.

  “So,” began Artur, once they’d gone. “How was your night?”

  Dan tilted his head left to right a little. “Well, I was attacked in my room. I had all my stuff put into quarantine, then was beaten unconscious by security and left for dead. I accidentally punched a hairdresser in the face, then I was stabbed in the back with such force the knife came all the way out through my stomach.”

  Artur nodded slowly. “The usual, then?”

  “Pretty much,” Dan conceded. “The sooner we get out of this place the better.”

  “Hey! Dead guy!”

  Dan and Artur both looked round to see a tanned muscular figure sliding into Ollie’s chair, a tray balanced expertly in one hand.

  “Seat’s taken,” Dan grunted, but the newcomer just grinned back at him.

  “It’s me. It’s Finn. From last night?”

  Artur snorted. “From last night? Ye didn’t tell me ye’d had a gentleman caller, Deadman. Ye sly old dog, ye.”

  “Shut up, Artur,” Dan sighed.

  “Here, there’s no harm in it. Each to their own, ye know. That’s what I say.”

  Dan decided to ignore him.

  “I know who you are,” he told Finn. “But seat’s still taken. Sorry.”

  “It’s fine, brah. I’m a fast eater,” Finn said, slurping down an impressive amount of the gunk to prove his point. “See?” he said, then half of the contents of his mouth spilled out over his chin and down onto his vest.

  “Fine. Eat up and get going,” Dan told him.

  Artur strolled along the tabletop, passing between Dan and the cactus-faced creature sitting opposite, who was gazing forlornly into his food as he scooped it resentfully into his mouth.

  Stopping by Ollie’s bowl, Artur leaned back and looked up at the new arrival. He was dressed like a surf bum. Artur, on the other hand, was dressed in hot pink leggings and a turquoise roll-neck sweater with floppy cuffs that made him think of a wizard’s robe. Quite where he’d gotten them from, Dan could only speculate.

  “Well now. Who might you be?” Artur asked.

  Finn, to his credit, didn’t seem the least bit put out by a tiny bearded figure in women’s clothing questioning him. “I’m Finn. Finn Cariss.”

  “Are ye now? Is that a fact?” Artur said, narrowing his eyes. “And how d’ye know old scrotum-face here?”

  “I don’t. Not really,” Finn admitted. “I saw him getting messed up by some goobers last night, and hung off to make sure no one… took advantage.”

  “Did ye now? Did ye really? Ye saw some lads layin’ boots into him, and ye kindly stuck around to play guardian angel, did ye? Just out of the goodness of yer heart?”

  Finn slurped up some mush, then nodded. “Yeah.”

  Artur’s face brightened. “Ah well, good on ye, then. Fair play. Any friend o’ Deadman’s is a friend o’ mine,” Artur said. “Actually, no, that’s not true at all. Sure, some of them are unbelievable arseholes. But I’m prepared to give ye the benefit o’ the doubt, and that’s the main thing.”

  Dan cleared his throat. “Art. Two o’clock.”

  Artur turned his head just enough to look over his left shoulder. “I see them,” he said.

  An ugly knot of brutish-looking alien types was pulling together over by one of the other tables. Dan’s roommate, Tor, was in amongst it all. He and some of the others glanced over at Dan, then muttered quietly between themselves.

  “More friends o’ yours?”

  “Remember I said someone stabbed me?” Dan said. “Big guy sitting on the edge of the table.”

  “Someone stabbed you?” said Finn, his eyes widening. “Are you OK?”

  “Kid, at some point the phrase, ‘I’m already dead,’ is going to sink in. Why not make that happen now, and save us both some time?”

  “Think they’re going to try anything?” Artur asked.

  Dan nodded, just once. “I guarantee it.”

  Artur’s face split into a beaming smile. “Ye know,” he said, cracking his knuckles and slipping his feet out of his plastic stilettos. “I was hoping ye might say that.”

  OLLIE FINISHED FASTENING her pants and leaned against the cubicle door. “Phew. That’s so much better,” she breathed. “That was close.”

  The bathroom had been full to bursting when they’d arrived, but Banbara had faked a vomiting episode when one of the stall doors had opened, and hurriedly dragged Ollie inside, brushing off the objections of those standing waiting.

  The toilet groaned as Banbara lowered herself onto it, covering her modesty with two of her tentacle arms. “You don’t mind if I go quickly, do you?” she asked.

  “Hmm? Oh, no,” said Ollie. “I’d have peed myself if you hadn’t got us in. You go ahead.”

  “Thanks,” said Banbara.

  She grunted.

  Something heavy splashed into the water beneath her. For some reason, she maintained constant, unwavering eye contact throughout.

  Ollie shifted uncomfortably and looked up at the ceiling.

  Banbara strained. Her tentacles trembled.

  “Ung,” she ejected.

  There was another splash.

  “There it goes,” Banbara mumbled. “Two down…”

  She braced four of her tentacles on her hefty thighs and groaned like she was in the process of giving birth.

  “Here we go for the big finish,” she announced in a slightly b
reathless whisper.

  Ollie became fascinated with her own fingers. She studied them with a level of intensity she’d never studied anything in her life before. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, but it was preferable to watching anything else that may or may not currently be taking place in the confines of the bathroom stall.

  “Hnng. Hoofra.”

  Ollie whistled quietly.

  “Unnnnnk! Nearly there. It’s on the cusp…”

  Ollie whistled slightly less quietly.

  “Here… we… g—!” Banbara cried, then something black and spikey erupted up from the toilet bowl and out through the top of her head, spraying Ollie in blood and innards and substances even more unpleasant.

  Somehow, despite the pointy appendage currently skewering her like a kebab, Banbara managed to scream. It was a half-hearted rasping sort of thing, like air escaping from the neck of a balloon, but it was enough to get on the nerves of whatever had spiked her.

  Ollie pressed herself flat to the stall door, frozen in terror, as the appendage thrashed left and right, smashing Banbara against both walls.

  “Hey, what the fonk? Keep it down in there,” barked a female voice from the next cubicle over, then the voice became a gargle as another of the spikes stabbed up from inside the toilet bowl and ripped through her.

  A series of choking cries rang out as blood and brain matter splattered against the ceiling above all of the stalls. Ollie started reaching a hand out to Banbara, but she quickly realized it was a pointless gesture. Most of what had been inside Banbara was now in various locations outside her. Her skin was a gelatinous sack flapping limply on the thrashing spike.

  Spinning, Ollie struggled frantically with the door lock. By the time she stumbled out of the stall, the bathroom was empty, everyone else having sensibly opted to leg it the moment heads started to go pop.

  Stunned, and dripping with assorted bodily fluids, Ollie stumbled for the bathroom door. As she reached it, she glanced back and saw the spiked appendage in her cubicle retreat down into the plumbing, dragging Banbara’s now fully empty skin with it.

  A moment later, the toilet flushed, but Ollie was already staggering out of the bathroom, and so didn’t notice.

  She stopped just outside the bathroom door, and stared in horror at the scene before her. A riot had broken out in the dining hall. Fists and feet and flailing figures were flying in all directions. Bowls were being smashed over heads, while trays were doubling as makeshift shields. The tables were bolted down, but at least two of them had been ripped free, and one was now being used to battering-ram a small crowd of stumpy-legged creatures who clearly didn’t want to get too involved.

  The place was an uproar of shouts, screams and taser fire. Ollie turned, panicked, searching for an exit as heads, bodies and limbs went whump and crunch and crack around her.

  Something large and hairy came staggering past her, grabbing in vain at a tiny figure scrabbling around on its back.

  “Ye alright there, Peaches?” Artur asked, screwing a stiletto heel into the spine of the hairy thing and forcing a howl from it. “It’s just that, between you and me, like, ye appear to be covered in guts.”

  “B-Banbara,” Ollie stammered.

  Artur clambered up onto the hairy thing’s back and shoved an arm into its dog-like ear, making it yelp in pain. “Banbara did this? Shoite. Don’t tell Deadman or we’ll never hear the fecking end of it.”

  “Dead. She’s… Banbara’s dead.”

  “She’s dead?” Artur said. The hairy creature grabbed for him, but he bit its finger, making it pull back. “D’ye mind? We’re trying to have a fecking conversation here.”

  He yanked on the thing’s hair, dragging its head back. Once he was sure it was going to behave itself, he turned back to Ollie.

  “Well, good on ye, Peaches. Don’t you stand for any shoite from no one, even if they did make a cracking job of yer hair.”

  Ollie shook her head. “N-no. Wasn’t me. She… she… there was a thing. In the bathroom. It… I don’t know what it did. It came out of the toilet. She’s dead. Everyone’s dead.”

  Artur threw his weight forward. Considering there wasn’t a lot of weight to throw, the effect was impressive. The hairy thing bent double and his forehead hit the table with a solid-sounding thack. Artur hopped onto the tabletop just as the creature slid off it and landed unceremoniously on the floor.

  “Out of the toilet, eh?” Artur said, glancing from Ollie to the bathroom door and back again. He turned to face the rioting crowd and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Deadman! Deadman, ye big ugly bag o’ spanners, ye’ll be wanting to hear this.”

  He scanned the dining room, but there were too many things throwing too many punches for him to be able to spot Dan. It wasn’t until a few seconds later, once Deadman kicked his way free from beneath a pile of Gronnian War Midgets, that Artur set eyes on him.

  “Here! This way!” Artur called. “Some shoite is going down in the bathroom. Pun absolutely intended, and a bloody good one it was, too, if I say so meself.”

  It was only as Dan punched and elbowed his way through the crowd that Artur realized Finn was draped over one of his shoulders, out for the count.

  “You have a man on you,” Ollie pointed out.

  “Yeah. I’m aware,” said Dan. He dumped Finn onto the table. A red welt ran up the side of the younger man’s neck and face, and a crust of blood was forming around his nostrils.

  “Who is that?” Ollie asked.

  “It’s Deadman’s boyfriend,” said Artur.

  Ollie gasped. “You have a boyfriend?”

  “No, I do not have a boyfriend,” Dan insisted. “He’s just some idiot who got himself slapped by an Igneon. I kind of feel obligated to watch over him until he wakes up.”

  “Because he’s yer boyfriend,” Artur concluded.

  At the far end of the hall, a thirty-strong Stagnates Riot Dispersion Squad piled in through three different doors.

  “We got into a spot of bother with the natives,” Artur told Ollie. “And things escalated quite quickly.” He gestured to the bathroom door, then at Dan. “Now tell him about Banbara, and how she got sucked down the shizzer.”

  Dan’s brow knotted. “What?”

  “In there,” Ollie confirmed, tilting her head towards the bathroom door and wrapping her arms around herself. Both movements made a squelch. “It just… There was a thing…”

  “Wait out here where it’s safe,” Dan instructed, sweeping past her, his hand reaching for a gun that, to his annoyance, still wasn’t there.

  “Safe?” snorted Artur. Behind him, a feathery little man in a jumpsuit and goggles was smashed head-first into a bench, while a rhino-headed thing with a lizard tail trampled three guards into a gelatinous paste on the floor. “Ye call this ‘safe?’”

  His only answer was the clunk of the bathroom door as it closed at Deadman’s back.

  Dan stepped into a bathroom that echoed with the drip d-drip drip of falling blood droplets. They drizzled from the ceiling directly above each of the stalls, some of them plinking into the toilets below, others spattering on the tiled floor.

  One of the stall doors was open, revealing a toilet awash with blood and walls that were pebble-dashed by excrement and gore. The door opened outwards, and Dan could make out a near-perfect humanoid outline in the patina of bloody chunks. It took him a full minute to figure out this was where Ollie had been standing, actual detective skills not exactly being his strong point.

  He approached the stall cautiously, regretting once again his lack of gun. He’d clenched his fists, but if some giant spike-monster suddenly came rising out of the John, he wasn’t convinced a quick one-two would do all that much to dissuade it.

  The water level in the toilet was lower than he’d have expected, although this wasn’t the first thing he noticed. The first thing he noticed was that the water was red. Very red. All the way red, in fact, as if all the water had been flushed away and replaced with a couple of quarts of b
lood.

  The second thing he noticed was the beady, marble-sized eyeball floating in the center of the liquid. It seemed to gaze at him slightly accusingly, as if it still hadn’t forgiven him for that punch last night.

  Then, and only then, did he notice that the water level was lower than usual. All things considered, though, it wasn’t something he was going to spend a lot of time thinking about.

  He was pretty sure no one was going to answer, but he knocked on the door of the next cubicle over, just in case. If someone in there had survived whatever had happened, the last thing they needed was him walking in on them with their pants around their ankles.

  “Open up,” he instructed, thumping the door with his fist. He addressed the stalls in general. “Anyone in here? Last warning.”

  As expected, nobody answered, which Dan took as permission to kick the stall door open. A scene more or less identical to the one next door was unveiled, although this time without the eyeball.

  The next couple of stalls were much the same. In the final one, Dan found a large strip of damp scalp stuck to the wall, the long brunette hair spread out like the legs of a squashed spider. The impact of the door being kicked open had shaken it loose, and Dan watched in a sort of mesmerized horror as the scalp incy-wincied its way down the wall, the hair clumps slapping through the lacquer of blood and toilet water until it finally flopped down onto the floor.

  There was nothing to be done here. There was nobody to save, no monster to fight. There were probably clues, if he knew where to look. The splash patterns on the walls and ceiling might reveal the size of whatever did this, or the speed at which it moved. Analysis of the ‘remains’ – a word he reckoned had never been quite so appropriate – would tell him who the women all were, and might even reveal some connection between them.

  Beyond the obvious one of them all having been skewered through the nether regions and killed, he meant.

  But that sort of thing wasn’t his area of expertise. Hitting people and making them talk – that was where his strengths lay. The problem was, there was no one around to punch, and none of these women were likely to start talking anytime soon. Congealing, maybe, but not talking.