The Deviant Strain

by Justin Richards

  ‘Don’t you get visitors?’ she asked.

  ‘Not many. A few. One day the man with the wolf on his arm will come.’

  ‘A wolf?’ Rose felt suddenly cold – even colder than she had already been. ‘Why?’

  She meant why would he have a wolf on his arm, but that wasn’t the question the old man answered. ‘To kill me,’ he said. ‘Please sit down.’

  ‘That’s weird. How did you know I haven’t?’

  ‘I may be blind, but I still see pictures in my head. And when you speak, I can sense where the sound is coming from. So I know you are not sitting.’

  ‘They say you can see . . . things.’

  He laughed. ‘I know what they say. Maybe they are right. Even I have stopped listening to my stories now. The rest of them gave up listening to my stories, to what I saw happening, long ago.’

  ‘Because you got it wrong?’ she asked.

  He laughed again, but there was no humour in it. ‘No. Because I got it right.’

  ‘You can see the future?’

  ‘Oh, no. I can only see the present, just like you. Except that, unlike you, I don’t need my eyes to see it. I don’t even need to be there.’

  ‘So what do you see now?’

  ‘It’s not something I choose to do, you know.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right. But . . .’ He hesitated. There was something, something stirring at the edge of his mind. ‘I see ripples in the water. Broken ice and tracks in the snow. The soldiers are there – on the quay.’

  They were working their way steadily along the quay. Jack had kept Sergeyev in the same team with him – along with another soldier called Razul. It was Razul who had the Geiger counter, swinging it in an arc in front of him as they walked. They could all hear its insistent clicking.

  ‘And Nikolai is leaving the inn. He’s drunk, of course, but the generator will need more diesel soon. And he’s tired and cold, so he’s looking forward to sleeping.’

  The officer who was with the soldiers but wore no uniform watched the man swaying along the quay, heard him grunt a few words to the soldiers before he set off towards one of the subs. The man was walking as if he was on a ship that was pitching on a stormy sea.

  ‘And there is someone else. Something else. Waiting in the dark.’

  Nikolai had almost reached the sub when he heard it – a faint crackling like electricity, combined with a wet, slithering sound. Like something heavy being dragged across the concrete behind him. But when he looked, there was nothing there. Just shadows.

  ‘Hunting. Waiting for the right moment.’

  There were a few lights still working along the quay. They only bothered to replace the bulbs in the lamps as far as the inn, and a few between the inn and the sub for Nikolai’s benefit. Between the pools of pale light they cast were islands of darkness. The lamp closest to Nikolai flickered, sputtered and died.

  ‘Waiting for the dark.’

  It unsettled him. He could feel the cold biting into his bones despite the alcohol that usually numbed his senses. He quickened his pace. And it seemed that the slithering sound was getting quicker as well. Quicker and closer.

  ‘Waiting to strike.’

  It was wet and slimy, like seaweed. Wrapping round his neck and throat. Tightening. Choking. Nikolai clawed at it, ripped at it with his nails as he fought for breath. But the strength seemed to be leaving his arms. As if he was drifting off to sleep. He could feel himself slipping away. Then more of the tentacles slapped at him, grabbing and holding and pulling.

  ‘Waiting to kill.’

  Sapping his strength and killing the scream before it left his mouth. He sank to his knees, toppled sideways. Felt himself being dragged away.

  ‘And poor Nikolai doesn’t know what’s happening. He only knows one thing.’

  The last thought he had was that someone needed to see to the generator. Then the darkness closed in around him and his mind was sinking into oblivion.

  ‘That without him the generator will stop.’

  Rose listened, transfixed, on the edge of her seat. The old man was staring apparently into space, except his eyes were completely white. Unseeing. Just a story, she told herself – he couldn’t really know. This couldn’t really be happening.

  The lamp flickered, like lightning, casting shadows across Georgi’s lined face, as he said, ‘And the lights will go out.’

  And the lights went out.

  FIVE

  THE DOOR TO the inn crashed open. Everyone turned to stare – and saw Rose’s haunted face as she looked round for Sofia Barinska. The room was lit now with flickering candles.

  The policewoman was with her in a moment, the glazed look in her eyes gone. ‘What’s wrong? Is it old Georgi?’

  Rose was gasping for breath. ‘Oh, I’m so unfit it’s not true. Where’s Nikolai – where’s the boiler bloke?’

  ‘Gone back to the boiler. To the sub.’ She nodded at the nearest candle. ‘Not before time, either.’

  ‘Probably let it run dry,’ someone called out. ‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’

  ‘Not that Nikolai ever runs dry,’ someone else added, to general amusement.

  ‘We have to find him.’ Rose was pulling at Sofia’s arm. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Why – what’s wrong?’

  ‘Georgi saw . . . Well, not saw exactly but . . .’ Rose shook her head. ‘Just come on, all right?’

  Sofia shrugged. ‘All right.’ She quickly collected her coat from the back of the chair where she had been sitting. ‘Keep me a bottle,’ she said to the barman. ‘I think I might need it later.’

  ‘You want us to come with you?’ one of the fisherman asked Rose as she waited impatiently. His speech was slurred and it looked to her as if he’d have trouble standing up. ‘Keep you safe, eh?’

  ‘I’ll be safer without your help,’ she told him.

  His friends laughed, and went back to their drinks.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ Sofia said as soon as they were outside.

  Snow was falling again – large, lazy flakes – as she led the way briskly towards the sub where Nikolai should be working. She was silent after hearing Rose’s story.

  ‘Look, I know it’s weird, but better safe than sorry. And the lights did go out,’ Rose finished, almost apologetically.

  They passed between two of the huge submarines – dark shapes thrusting out of the water like beached whales in the gloom of the night. Sofia’s small torch was the only light apart from the pale glow of the moon breaking through straggly clouds and shining off the snow.

  ‘Are they just going to leave these things here?’ Rose wondered, staring up at the huge, dark shapes on either side of them.

  ‘Like us, they are left to rot. Forgotten. They grow old, waste away, die.’ She stopped and reached out towards the submarine. ‘Feel it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go on.’ Sofia ran the palm of her hand across the hull of the boat.

  Rose copied the movement. It was rough, like sandpaper, and her hand came away dark with flakes of rust.

  ‘That hull used to be smooth and polished and young.’ Sofia was looking intently at Rose through the near-darkness. ‘And now . . . It’s like you and me, isn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your skin – so smooth and perfect.’

  ‘You should see me first thing.’

  ‘But one day it will be like mine. Dry and ageing and wrinkled.’

  ‘You’re not doing so badly,’ Rose said. ‘I mean, how old are you?’

  Sofia laughed. ‘You wouldn’t guess to look at me,’ she said. Despite the laugh, there was an underlying bitterness to her tone. ‘Come on, let’s find Nikolai.’

  It was more like a tunnel than a ship, Jack thought. The light from the three men’s torches picked out ancient ironwork. A layer of rust covered everything and their feet splashed into water that dripped constantly from every pipe and seal.

  The soldier with the
Geiger counter walked between Sergeyev and Jack, his torch on the meter as he watched the needle judder and quiver.

  ‘Anything?’ Sergeyev asked.

  ‘Slightly above the background level outside. Just an old reactor wanting attention.’

  ‘Don’t we all,’ Jack murmured.

  ‘This is a waste of time,’ Sergeyev complained.

  He was right, though Jack was loath to admit it. ‘How much further to the reactor?’ Jack asked.

  ‘How should I know? I’m not a submariner.’

  ‘I believe they are at the back of the boat,’ Razul said.

  ‘Boat?’

  ‘Submarines are not ships, they are boats,’ Razul replied. ‘I know. My cousin was on the Kursk.’

  ‘Poor devil,’ Sergeyev said quietly.

  ‘What happened to the Kursk?’ Jack asked.

  Razul looked up, his surprise at the question evident even in the pale light from the torches. ‘It sank.’

  Submarines do that, Jack thought. But he didn’t say it. Instead he said, ‘Oh, yes. I’m sorry. I’m surprised this thing hasn’t sunk.’

  ‘It will,’ Sergeyev told him. ‘And I don’t want to be on it when it does. Sir,’ he added, as an afterthought.

  ‘All right. We’ll head back to the quay. How are the others doing?’

  They turned round in the narrow corridor. Jack was wondering how people managed to work on such a small vessel – never mind live there. The main corridor had rooms off it at intervals, but they were tiny, cramped, cluttered with pipes and cables and equipment. As if the crew had been an afterthought.

  Sergeyev was talking into his lapel mike, tapping at his earpiece. ‘Must be the hull of this thing, deadening the signal,’ he said. ‘I can’t raise any of them.’

  ‘We’ll try again once we’re outside,’ Jack decided. ‘Readings still OK?’

  ‘I’d rather they were lower, but they’re what I’d expect,’ Razul reported.

  Jack could feel the ladder rusting away under his feet. A constant snowfall of dust and grit and oxidised metal fell into his face from Razul above him. But Jack stayed close – he wouldn’t put it past Sergeyev to slam the hatch shut as soon as Razul was out, leaving him trapped inside.

  But Sergeyev was already down on the dockside, talking urgently into his mike. As Razul and Jack joined him, he shook his head. ‘Still nothing, sir.’ Now that there was a possible problem, he was the complete professional – all surliness gone.

  ‘Recommendations?’ Jack snapped.

  ‘We should check on them physically.’

  ‘You mean go and look?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I mean go and look.’

  ‘Except we don’t know where they are,’ Razul pointed out. ‘One group went to the dry dock, another headed south. But where they are now . . .’ He shrugged.

  ‘See if they’ve checked in with Colonel Levin,’ Jack said. ‘Maybe it’s us who have the communications problem, not them.’

  But before Sergeyev could do that, they heard the scream. It cut through the icy air from close by – perhaps the other side of the submarine. Ear-splitting and abrupt. A shriek of surprise and fear in the night. It chilled Jack more than the cold air.

  ‘That was Rose,’ he said out loud, as he started to run.

  She felt such a wimp. She felt even more of a wimp when Jack and the two soldiers came running and she ran to hug Jack. It made things slightly better that Sofia was staring horrified at the shapeless mass on the edge of the quay. But not much.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s just the shock.’ Should she tell him about old Georgi? Where should she start?

  Sofia and the other soldiers were examining the body.

  ‘Is it . . .’ Rose couldn’t go on.

  Sofia nodded. ‘It is Nikolai. Just as you said.’

  Sergeyev shone his torch into the face. Or rather what had been the face. He quickly turned the light aside. ‘Like the boy in the stone circle,’ he told them. ‘The body is like jelly.’

  Jack took a moment to check that Rose was all right and, when she assured him she was, he joined the two soldiers. ‘Did you manage to get Levin?’

  Sergeyev shook his head. ‘There’s just static. Like interference. Or jamming.’

  ‘Deliberate?’

  ‘Who can say?’

  ‘It’s not the radiation,’ the other soldier said. ‘Not enough of it for that level of interference.’

  ‘Then we’re on our own,’ Jack told them. ‘We’d better try to find the others.’

  ‘Do you know anything about generators?’ Sofia asked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the lights have gone out,’ Rose said. ‘Nikolai was on his way to stoke the generator, or whatever you do with it. It provides all the power for the village.’

  ‘Where is it?’ Sergeyev asked.

  ‘On the Rykov,’ Sofia said. She pointed to the vast looming shadow of a submarine fifty metres down the quay. ‘We ran cables from there to the old generating plant when it packed up.’

  ‘I’m an engineer,’ Razul said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘We stick together,’ Jack decided. ‘There’s something out here that isn’t very pleasant. No one is to be alone, got that?’ He looked at Rose and then Sofia. ‘Are you two OK to get back to the inn and warn people?’

  ‘Warn them?’ Sofia shook her head. ‘There will be panic. They will blame the Vourdulak.’

  ‘Tell them what you have to, but tell them something.’

  ‘We’ll manage,’ Rose assured him. ‘Come on.’

  ‘I’ll find you at the inn,’ Jack called after them. ‘Then we should tell the Doctor.’

  Alex Minin looked up from his paperwork to find the Doctor sitting in the chair on the other side of his desk. He gave a gasp of surprise.

  ‘Didn’t mean to startle you,’ the Doctor said. Though his grin suggested he’d in fact meant to do just that.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Well, I’ve frightened Catherine and miffed Klebanov. So that leaves you and Boris.’

  ‘And why not go to Boris?’

  ‘He’s less likely to have a spade.’

  Alex put down his pen and leaned back in his chair. Somehow he got the feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer to his next question. But he asked it anyway. ‘And why, Doctor, do you need a spade?’

  ‘Oh, nothing much. Just a bit of grave-robbing, you know.’

  Alex swallowed. ‘The previous victims?’

  The Doctor was nodding excitedly. ‘You can come with me if you want.’

  ‘Doctor, it’s the middle of the night. Never mind the dubious legality of the enterprise.’

  ‘Nothing dubious about it. Completely illegal. No problem. Anyway,’ he went on as he stood up, ‘I need you to show me the graves. Come on, if you’re coming.’

  Alex stood up as well. ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I thought not.’

  They were perhaps halfway back to the inn. With no light, it was hard to tell how far they had come and to Rose’s untrained eye all the submarines looked the same.

  ‘What will you tell them?’

  Sofia seemed preoccupied, lost in her thoughts, and Rose had to ask twice before she got an answer.

  ‘To stay indoors as much as possible and not to go out alone. Even in daylight.’

  ‘Let’s hope that’s enough.’

  Sofia did not reply. She stopped and raised her hand for Rose to be quiet. They were both hardly more than silhouettes against the snowy harbour road. Rose was about to ask what was wrong, but then she heard it too.

  A slithering, scraping sound. Like something heavy being dragged across the road somewhere ahead of them. There was a faint mist now. The breeze had dropped and the cold night air was damp and clammy. It seemed to seep through Rose’s coat and clothes and into her skin.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked in a whisper.

  ‘I don’t know.�
� Sofia was looking round, trying to identify exactly where the sound was coming from. ‘You wait here.’ She shone her torch into the misty darkness, though to little effect.

  ‘Not likely,’ Rose told her.

  But then Sofia did something odd. Odd and strangely unsettling. She scratched at her ear – a rapid movement, jerky, like a dog irritated by fleas. There was no reason why she shouldn’t do it, nothing strange about the gesture at all. But it made Rose feel suddenly cold and alone. She wished she’d stayed with Jack and the soldiers. And when Sofia walked cautiously into the mist, in the direction of the sound that was now fading into the night, Rose stayed exactly where she was.

  Sofia Barinska’s muffled footsteps faded into the mist, just as her shape had moments earlier. Rose was left alone on the quayside, hugging her arms round her body in an effort to keep warm. She stamped her feet and blew out long breaths of air that added to the thickening mist.

  After what seemed like an age, Rose called out, ‘Sofia? Sofia! Are you there? Stop mucking about and come back here, I can’t see a thing.’

  The sound was from behind her this time. The same slippery sound, like a weight of seaweed being pulled across the quay. Rose peered into the mist, but she could hardly even see the ground at her feet now that the moon was obscured. She moved slowly, cautiously, towards the sound.

  Something was glowing faintly ahead of her. The light was blurred and unfocused in the mist. A torch, maybe? Jack and the soldiers returning? But if so, why hadn’t the lights come back on? Or maybe they had. Rose remembered how few of the lights on the dock actually worked anyway. With the mist as well, the power might have come back on without her knowing. She continued to move cautiously forwards. The sound was still there, the light was getting brighter – blue, pulsing, eerie.

  ‘Do I want to do this?’ she asked herself quietly. The answer was probably no, but she kept going. Until her foot met something and she almost lost her balance.

  Rose knelt down, partly to see what was lying at her feet and partly to stop herself from falling over it. Even so, she could barely make out the dark shape. She prodded gently with her hand. Even through her thick glove she could feel that whatever it was seemed soft and slightly springy. Like a deflating balloon.

  Like jelly.