Hell Rig

by J. E. Gurley

  Ed tried to bring a little sanity back to the group. “We can’t kill him but we’ve got to find him. We’ve got to stick together until morning. There’s a killer running loose.”

  His words had the desired effect. Quiet descended on the group as they pondered their next move. Tolson broke the silence.

  “Then what?”

  Ed shook his head. “At least we can see what the hell’s happening in the daylight.”

  “Daylight won’t save you.”

  Ed jerked around at the sound of Waters’ voice. Waters stepped from the shadows as if a part of them, unfolding to let him emerge. “Jesus Christ, Waters! You startled me. Where the hell have you been?”

  Gleason moved over to stand behind Waters. He slammed his pipe into his open palm menacingly but Waters ignored the implied threat.

  “Up there,” Waters said, pointing to the helideck.

  “What’s up there?” Jeff asked.

  “If you lay on your back and look up, it’s like you’re floating in heaven,” he said, his eyes closed, grinning.

  “The bastard’s gone to La-La Land,” Gleason sad. “I say we bust his skull. It would be doing him a favor.”

  Ed held up his hand to stop Gleason. He turned back to Waters. “What happened to Easton? Did you scream?”

  Waters swayed to an inaudible tune. He kept his eyes closed as he spoke. “Easton is a liar. He keeps things inside, little secrets like maggots gnawing at his rotten flesh. The Digger Man knows his secrets. He whispered to him. Now, he belongs to the Digger Man.”

  Easton whimpered.

  “I thought you said the Digger Man was dead,” Jeff challenged.

  Waters shrugged. “Digger Man’s here still. They’re all here. He’s part of this platform now. So is Bale.” He looked at Easton and smiled. “Him too, soon, I think. The rest of us after that.”

  Easton curled up into the fetal position and began to wail. “Nooo!”

  “Why Bale?” Ed asked, while ignoring Easton’s frightened outburst.

  “He was a defrocked priest seeking redemption and atonement for his sins. What better way to receive it than to follow the example of his Savior?”

  “Bale was a priest?” Jeff asked. He stared at Waters. “How do you know?” he challenged.

  “The thing that was Digger Man told me. It’s all part of his plan. He’ll free you all from your lies.” Waters spread his arms wide and laughed.

  “You’re saying Bale hung himself like that?” Jeff challenged.

  Waters ignored Jeff and continued to laugh.

  “Laugh at this, mother friggin’ bastard,” Gleason yelled, slamming the pipe against the back of Waters’ head with a loud thud.

  Waters folded at the knees and dropped to the deck face first.

  “You killed him!” Lisa screamed, seeing the blood on Water’s head.

  Gleason smiled. “Nah. Just cracked his skull some. He’ll live but he’ll have one helluva headache when he comes to. Lousy bastard!” He spat tobacco juice on Water’s leg.

  Ed stepped in. “Okay, okay. That’s enough. Let’s take him somewhere we can lock him up. Then let’s figure some way to contact the authorities and get him off this platform.”

  “And us?” Gleason added.

  Ed looked at Gleason. “I got a man down. He had a family. I need to inform them what happened.” He paused as if thinking. “We’ll need some new men to finish up the job.”

  “Finish up?” Jeff burst out. “Finish up what?”

  “We’ve still got a contract,” Ed reminded them, looking them levelly in the eyes.

  Jeff met his challenge. “Screw that. Global sent a mad man out here with us. I say screw the job and sue Global for all you can get for placing us all in danger.” Jeff was livid. Fear and anger was coursing through him like cheap liquor. “They set us up.”

  “Yeah, sue the bastards,” Gleason chimed in.

  “Now, it’s not that easy,” Ed said, trying to placate them.

  “Why not?” Jeff noticed for the first time the haunted look on Ed’s face. “Why not?” He repeated more quietly. “What are you not telling us, Ed?”

  Ed’s deep sigh gave Jeff goose bumps. “I signed a non-disclosure agreement. I also signed a form releasing them from any liability or blame, an indemnity clause.”

  “Why the hell did you do that?” Tolson shouted.

  “Because they wanted it,” Ed snapped, looking sourly at Tolson. “They were paying twice the going rate for this job and a hefty bonus upon completion, with the promise of bigger contracts down the line. I couldn’t buck them. Besides, they sent Waters out to handle the manifolds and wells, an extra hand I wasn’t paying for, or so I thought.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Jeff asked. He was hurt Ed had kept him out of the loop.

  Ed shook his head and sighed. He looked on the verge of tears. “I’m almost bankrupt. Our equipment is old and needs constant repair. It needs replacing. I made a few bad choices in the stock market. Maybe I’m just not a good businessman. This job would have kept the bank off my back for a while. Without it, I would have had to shut down operations in a month or so. I couldn’t pay you guys.”

  “So we finish the job or go look for another one,” Gleason summed it up for them.

  Ed rubbed his hand across his face and shook his head. “That’s about the size of it. Look, I had no idea any of this would happen. You can’t believe in ghosts. It was Waters. He’s crazy. We get a couple more men sent out, we finish up and we get paid, all of us. If you want to go somewhere else to work after that, I can’t blame you, but we’ve got to get this job done.”

  Gleason shook his head. “If we can get Waters off the rig, I’ll stay. I want that big bonus check.”

  Ed looked up in surprise. “What bonus?”

  “The one you’re gonna give us for staying, right?”

  Ed looked at the others with a flicker of hope in his eyes as they considered Gleason’s suggestion. “Right, a twenty percent bonus if we make the deadline.”

  “Make it twenty-five and we all stay, right?” Tolson looked at the others.

  Jeff glanced at Lisa, who nodded. “Twenty-five percent.” He felt a twinge of guilt at pressing the issue, but Ed had lied to them and Bale was dead because of it.

  “Done,” Ed pronounced. “Now, let’s get this piece of shit locked up.” He looked down at Waters. “Somebody grab Easton and bring him back to the blockhouse.”

  Jeff took Easton by the arm and walked with him to the platform’s main building. Easton was still woozy and did not speak but he eyed the shadows warily and kept his distance from Waters. Jeff hoped they had all made the right decision. The extra money would come in handy, but somehow, he felt it wasn’t over yet. The platform still felt like a New Orleans cemetery. An air of ancient death hung over it so thick Jeff could taste it. Waters was just a tool.

  “What’s wrong?” Lisa asked.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just don’t know.”

  He helped Easton to his bunk and McAndrews gave Easton two sedatives to calm him down. After a while, the soft sobbing stopped and Easton fell asleep.

  “I wonder what he saw, or thought he saw,” Lisa asked as they sat in the coffee room.

  “He said he heard voices,” McAndrews reminded them. “That’s a bit more serious than seeing things.”

  “You think he’s going crazy?” Jeff asked. “He’s always been a bit strange, but crazy…”

  McAndrews poured himself a cup of coffee. “He found Bale’s body hanging from the crane. That’s enough to unsettle anyone’s nerves. It wouldn’t take much to shake him up.”

  Jeff nodded. “I once worked with a guy who let Ed get to him. This guy wanted so badly to keep ahead of Ed, keep things going smoothly, but just couldn’t do it. One day I found him down at the dock scrubbing a rusted out check valve with a wire brush. The valve was junk, rusted shut, but he spent hours brushing away, mumbling the whole time about keeping one step ahead. He must ha
ve said that a dozen times, ‘one step ahead’. Finally, he looked out at the water and started talking about a submarine coming to pick him up and take him home.” Jeff shook his head. “Tolson and I carried him out to his folk’s farm. Last I heard he was pumping gas up in Buras.”

  “That’s so sad,” Lisa commented. “You don’t think Easton…”

  McAndrews broke in. “I’m sure with a little rest he’ll be fine.”

  “Rest?” Lisa snorted. “How can any of us rest? I know I can’t sleep, not right now.”

  Jeff agreed. Sleep was the last thing on his mind. “We could get a bit of work done inside. That would put us ahead of schedule until Ed can get us some extra help.”

  Lisa frowned. “How do we send for help? The radio is out.”

  “When the supply ship gets here, we let him call it in. They’ll send a chopper out.”

  She rubbed her temple with her fist. “Oh, yeah. I’m so frazzled I wasn’t thinking straight. I’ve got to do something to take my mind off this.”

  Jeff knew how she felt. He was physically exhausted but his mind was racing on overtime. “Come on, we can start in the front offices knocking down molded ceiling tiles.”

  She smiled. “Sounds yummy. Let’s go.”

  They met Tolson in the hallway.

  “We tied up Waters’ wrists and dumped him in the supply room.” He held out the key. “I’ve got the only key. The bastard can’t get out of there.”

  “Is he all right?” Lisa asked. “Clyde hit him pretty hard.”

  Tolson snorted. “He’s breathing, but he’ll have one helluva headache tomorrow. Better than he deserves.” He looked at Jeff and Lisa. “What are you two up to?”

  “I can’t sleep,” Lisa said. “We’re going to work.”

  Tolson smiled. “Hell, I’ll come with you, unless, that is, you two want to be left alone.”

  Lisa smiled at him. “No, I love threesomes, Eric.”

  Eric hooted and Jeff laughed, but somehow, his laughter rang hollow. Bale’s death was in the back of his mind. Something just wasn’t right and he couldn’t quite place his finger on it.

  Chapter Nine

  With Waters safely secured in a supply closet, Lisa felt a little safer. Bale’s gruesome death had shaken her confidence in her decision to take Ed’s offer. Seeing Bale hanging there suspended like a slab of meat reminded her of Water’s description of the Digger Man, eviscerated, his intestines piled below him like some macabre monument to horror. It recalled to her some of her grandmother’s boogeyman stories, designed to frighten little boys and girls. Well, she was certainly frightened.

  Waters was an enigma. He acted crazy and said crazy things, but he didn’t act like a murderer. He had shown almost no emotion when he saw Bale’s body. She would have expected him to gloat over the act if he was responsible or deny it vehemently if not. Maybe she was just expecting an insane man to act sanely. She had not helped carry the body to the cooler. The dead gave her the creeps, always has. As a child, she had been repelled by the ancient picturesque cemeteries of New Orleans. The grave mists that had seemed half alive, dancing as if taunting her, inviting her; the wind whispering to her in a somehow familiar voice as it blew through the monuments; the heavy quietness that crushed her chest like a deep sea diver beyond his limits – death was real, death was ever-present and she wanted no part of it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She looked up at Jeff and forced a smile through her respirator mask to reassure him she was fine. He could not see the gesture and continued to stare at her. “Nothing. I’m just creeped out about this whole thing.” Her voice sounded oddly distorted through the mask. They were knocking down ceiling tiles and the air reeked of dust and moldy fibers.

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I mean, Waters is crazy, but to do what he did…” Jeff shook his head. “I can’t see it.”

  “Do you think…?” She was afraid to finish her thought.

  Jeff looked at her. She saw his eyes go wide as he caught her meaning. “No. It has to be him. None of us…a sane person couldn’t do that and there’s no one else here. We’ve searched the platform twice.”

  “What if it’s something we can’t see?”

  Tolson’s ready laughter embarrassed her. She looked up at him on the stepladder. His head was invisible, jutting through an opening in the ceiling and his voice was as muffled as hers. Seeing him that way, headless, made her shiver. “You don’t mean Waters’ ghosts, do you?”

  “Not ghosts,” she said. “Loa. Spirits.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in this voodoo stuff,” Jeff said.

  She turned to him. “My grandmother always said there were no accidents; that there is a reason for everything. The world was in balance and what we did to others came back around to us.”

  “So,” he pushed.

  She paused a second to gather her thoughts, piecing them together like a puzzle, turning her ideas around until the odd shapes melded and fit.

  “So, Greg Bale was a defrocked priest running from his past, seeking redemption. Waters knew this and called Sid a liar. How did he know? You remember he said he was brought here to bear witness, each of us being blemished in some way.”

  “I’ll show you my blemish if you’ll show me yours.” Tolson leaned down and winked at her through his goggles.

  “Oh, shut up Tolson,” she snapped at him. “I’m being serious here.”

  “Maybe Waters made everything up,” Jeff suggested. “It all just fits in with what little we know or believe about things. Maybe he’s playing us all for fools.”

  She stumbled on half-afraid she would make a fool of herself. “What if we are all here for a reason, like he said? What if in some way we’re all tied in with what happened here?”

  “He said you and I weren’t blemished,” Jeff interrupted her. “He warned me to get you away from here.”

  Lisa felt a moment of warmth for Jeff. He sounded so defensive about her. “I’m not perfect,” she said.

  He grinned. “Me either, but I guess we aren’t bound for hell.”

  “Like me?” Tolson asked with a scowl on his face.

  Jeff’s grinned faded. “Hey, I didn’t mean—Bale was my friend, and I didn’t mean that you and the others were damned.”

  Tolson grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “I may be. I’ve always played the devil hell.”

  “I think Waters meant it,” Lisa piped up.

  “Waters’ mind is a bowl of Jell-O,” Tolson responded with a soft chuckle.

  Jeff nodded. “Tolson’s right. He’s safely out of the way. Are you saying you’re still frightened?”

  Lisa shivered. “Yes, I’m still frightened.”

  Jeff reached out and touched her. Even through his gloved hand, his warmth lent her courage. “There’s nothing here. We’ll get the job done, get our bonuses and hit the town, you and I. What do you say to a big dinner at Antoine’s, followed by a night in the French Quarter?”

  “Are you asking me out?” she asked.

  His eyes lit up. “Sure, why not? I won’t hold your intelligence against you.”

  “That’s awfully noble of you.”

  Jeff bowed.

  “Okay, it’s a date.” As she said it, a sudden chill crept over her. She hoped it was a date she could keep.

  “Oh, brother,” Tolson moaned, taking off his mask and descending the ladder. “I’ve heard enough. Beat out by Towns. I’ll never live down the humiliation. I’m going to bed.”

  After he left, Lisa looked at Jeff. He was staring at her, smiling.

  “What?” she asked. She liked the way he looked at her, not lustily, like Tolson, but still wanting.

  He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  As she watched him work, she wished they could be alone for a while. Maybe he could take her mind off this horrible place.

  “What horrible secrets are you hiding?” Jeff asked, catching her off guard.

  “What…oh, the usual, I guess—self-doubt, insecur
ity, a mania for chocolate. And you?”

  “No secrets. My life’s an open book.”

  “I see,” she said, “The perfect man.”

  His cheeks reddened beneath his mask. “No, not perfect,” he said and walked across the room to work.

  She watched him for a minute, wondering what she had said to anger him.

  * * * *

  “Ric.”

  The voice whispered in Waters’ mind, a hauntingly familiar voice. He regained consciousness slowly, reluctantly. His head ached and his hands were numb. He wriggled them around until he was certain they were securely tied behind his back. His feet were free but he recognized the room he was in, the main deck utility locker. There was nothing in it but office and cleaning supplies. There was no window but he knew it was dark outside. Darkness was the home of the Presence. He moved around to face the door and his head began to swim. That bastard Gleason had hit him with a pipe and dragged him in here. He was alone.

  Except for the voice.

  “Ric,” it whispered again.

  “What?” he asked.

  “We’re not finished,” the voice said. “Seven remain.”

  “Seven?” Waters asked, trying to mentally count. The concentration made his head throb. “There are eight left.”

  “Seven,” the voice repeated.

  “I can’t do anything,” Waters smirked. “I’m locked up. They think I did it.” He was glad they had tied him up. It relieved him of any further responsibility for the deaths he knew were coming.

  “They will soon learn different.”

  A vision flashed through Water’s mind. He watched through Digger Man’s eyes as Sid Easton stood in the shadows of the landing deck, his face pale with fright. A serpentine shadow detached from the blackness, screamed in unholy agony and enveloped him, squeezing. His protests cut off quickly, turning into muffled whimpers.

  “You’re full of secrets, aren’t you Sid?” the voice whispered as the shadow held him tight. Each ‘S’ sounded like escaping steam. “Dirty little secrets you keep bottled up inside.”

  Easton struggled but could not move or speak.

  “What did your mother say when she discovered she had raised a sick pervert? Looking at dirty little girl pictures on the Internet—what’s the matter, Sidney, can’t get a real man’s hard on?” The voice became that of Lisa Love. “Don’t you even find me attractive, little Sidney? So many dirty little secrets. Are they choking your throat?”