by Brian Keene
Selman woke briefly and made a croaking noise. He asked for water, but they didn’t have any to give him. Moaning, Selman closed his eyes again. His body shuddered and his breathing grew shallow.
“Help’s gotta come soon,” Brady said. “I’m sure we got a distress call out.”
“Don’t be so certain.” Chief Michaels gritted his chattering teeth. He was in shock, but still aware enough to maintain command. “Selman was a radioman. The radio shack was one of the first parts of the ship to get hit.”
Nobody replied.
Wachowski removed his boondockers and slipped his feet into the water. He sighed. “That feels good.”
Brewer tapped his shoulder. “Put your boots back on, recruit.”
“But my feet hurt.”
“You won’t have feet, you don’t put your shoes back on.”
“What are you talking about?”
Brewer smiled. “Sharks can see the whites of your feet.”
Wachowski drew his feet back up onto the ramp. “I hate the fucking ocean,” he muttered.
“Then why did you join the navy?” Brady asked.
Wachowski shrugged. “I don’t know. They said I’d get to see the world.”
Brewer laughed. “You wanted to see the world, you could have gone in one of the other branches. We’re all on a world tour right now. Europe. The Pacific. Fun and fucking games.”
Brady glanced back at the spot where the Brennan had been. The ocean’s surface was calm again. No bubbles or whirlpools. The current had dissipated the oil fires. There was no sign of the other ships from their task force, either. Brady wondered if they’d all shared the same fate.
Other life rafts drifted by, but most of them were out of hailing distance. The survivors signaled each other and then continued scanning the ocean and sky, looking for their rescuers. The Japanese fleet drew closer as well; slow and cautious, making sure American air support wouldn’t arrive. The men on the lifeboats watched the enemy approach.
“Think they’ll pick us off,” Brady asked, “or pick us up?”
Chief Michaels pushed himself up into a sitting position, wincing in pain as he did. “They’ll pull us out of the water. Take us prisoner, I imagine.”
Prisoners of war...The phrase ran through Brady’s mind. It felt unreal.
Roberts began a fresh round of screaming.
“What happens then?” Brady asked.
The Chief lay back down. “Torture, probably. Any of you men armed?”
They shook their heads.
“Damn,” the Chief muttered. “Well, they’ll launch small boats to retrieve us soon. Can’t out-row them, I guess. Tell you something. If capture looks imminent, I’m going over the side and taking a deep breath underwater. I’d advise you all to do the same. Better that than what they’ll do to you.”
The civilian giggled. All of them turned to the wounded stranger. He hadn’t said a word the entire time they’d been in the water, and they’d almost forgotten about him.
“What’s so funny?” Brewer snarled.
The man spoke quietly and with obvious effort. They had to lean close to hear him over Roberts’ screams. Chief Michaels sat back up again, raised his wounded hand and cupped the mangled tissue of his missing ear.
“No need for the Chief’s dramatics,” the man said. “I can assure you that there’s a good possibility the Japanese will never reach us.”
“Why’s that?” the Chief asked, groaning from the effort to hold himself upright.
“Because of our cargo.”
Scowling, Brewer slid closer to the stranger. “Who the hell are you, anyway? I never saw you before today.”
The man wheezed, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “I’m a...” He broke into a fit of violent coughing. Blood sprayed the deck. Grimacing, the man grabbed his side. “Think...one of my ribs must have...pierced a lung.”
Wachowski prodded. “You didn’t answer his question, mister. You with Special Forces or something? Military intelligence?”
The man’s crimson lips pulled back in a tight smile. “Black Lodge.”
The other sailors frowned.
“Black Lodge,” Brewer repeated. “Never heard of it.”
“Nor would you. We’re beyond classified.”
“I’ve heard of you,” Chief Michaels said. “Special operations of some kind. Deal with weird phenomena.”
The man’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “I’m impressed, Chief. You know more than...ninety-nine percent of your...countrymen.”
Chief Michaels shrugged. “To tell the truth, I thought you guys didn’t exist. Figured it was all bullshit. Propaganda.”
The man’s eyelids fluttered. “You have...no idea...”
His eyes rolled up in his head, flashing white. His body went limp and he slumped forward. More blood leaked from his mouth. Brewer leaned forward and checked his pulse.
“He dead?” Wachowski leaned closer in morbid fascination.
Brewer shook his head. “No, just passed out. He’s in pretty bad shape, though.”
“I wonder what he meant.” Brady glanced out at the ocean again. “He said something about our cargo.”
The Japanese ships drew closer, and the American life rafts continued drifting aimlessly. The sky was clear, save for the sun and seagulls. The birds circled the lifeboats, squawking and anxious for a meal. There were no clouds and no planes. The horizons were empty as well, except for the enemy vessels. No land. No American forces. Just endless water...
And the waves—always the waves, carrying the dead.
• • •
“A steak,” Wachowski said. “A thick, juicy New York strip, done rare. With a baked potato.”
The others nodded in appreciation.
“Good call,” Brewer groaned. “Now I’m hungry. But for me, it would be a cold beer.” He glanced up at the sun. “Ice fucking cold. And then some pussy.”
“What about you, Roberts?” Brady softly nudged him with his elbow. “What’s the first thing you want when we get rescued?”
Roberts screamed.
“Jesus Christ, would you shut him up?” Wachowski leapt up from his seat and charged towards the screaming man.
Brady balled his fists and stood up to meet him, wobbling a bit, both from the rocking boat and the stiffness in his joints.
“Out of the way, Brady, or I’ll feed you to the sharks.”
“Sit down, Wachowski.”
Brewer stood slowly. “Or what, recruit? You may be able to kick Wachowski’s fat ass, but you’re damn sure gonna have a harder time with mine.”
“All of you knock it off!” The Chief slammed his wounded hand down in anger and then cried out in anguish. Fresh blood flowed from his stumps. His face was covered in sweat, and his forehead had turned bright red in the sun.
Selman moaned in the silence that followed.
“Now look what you made me do.” Chief Michaels sounded close to tears.
Brady sat down again. “Apologies, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir,” the Chief grunted, squirming in pain. “I work for a living.”
“You okay, Chief?”
“No, Wachowski, I am not okay. And you three aren’t making it any easier. Listen to me. Emotions run strong in situations like this. You can’t leave them unchecked, or we’ll be murdering each other. You want to fight, then remember who the enemy is. Worry about them.” He nodded in the direction of the Japanese vessels.
Roberts kept screaming.
“Or them.” Chief Michaels waved over the bow with his good hand. Shark fins cut the surface like knives through butter.
They tried to row away from the approaching enemy, but the current was too strong. After a few yards, the waves tossed them right back again. Helpless, they floated, watching the sharks and the Japanese ships circle closer. Brady wondered which would get them first.
Chief Michaels continued; his voice strained with the effort. “We need to work together. That’s the only way we
’re going to survive. No matter what happens.”
The man from Black Lodge stirred again and began to applaud. The sailors stared at him, incredulous and bewildered. Nobody spoke, and even Roberts paused before continuing with his screaming.
“Bravo, Chief...Bravo.” He spoke haltingly, and each time he breathed in, his expression showed pain.
Selman coughed up blood.
“Marvelous...speech,” the civilian continued. “You should be...commended.”
“Glad you liked it,” the Chief moaned.
“I did...indeed.”
Chief Michaels waved his fingerless hand. “You’ll understand if I don’t join in the applause.”
The stranger smiled with cracked lips. “How long... was I out?”
“Not long enough,” Wachowski said. “Go back to sleep. We ain’t rescued yet.”
“I’m surprised you did sleep,” Brewer told the man. “What with Roberts screaming and all.”
“He’s...only doing...what we’ll all be doing...soon enough.”
“There you go talking crazy again.”
Frowning, Brewer prodded the wounded agent with the tip of his boot. Wincing, the stranger bit his lip, but did not cry out.
“Who are you, really?” Brewer demanded. “What do you know? Might as well tell us. The Japs will make you tell them when we’re picked up.”
“I...told you. I’m with Black...Lodge. The task force was...ferrying a new weapon we...developed. We...grew it in...”
He leaned forward and vomited blood onto the deck. Brewer stepped back in disgust. Trembling, the stranger threw up again. This time the blood was dark, almost black. He collapsed as his stomach heaved a third time, convulsing in his own gore.
“He’s in shock,” the Chief shouted. “Help him!”
Brewer laid a tentative hand on the wounded man’s chest. Another gout of blood erupted from the agent’s mouth, splattering them both. With one hand, the agent reached out and clutched Brewer’s muscular arm.
“We...grew... just like the... shoggoth...”
He released the boatswain’s mate and his arm flopped back to the deck. He stiffened and then lay still. His eyes stared directly into the sun. He did not blink.
Brewer checked his pulse, and then leaned close to see if he was breathing.
“He’s dead.”
“Toss him over,” the Chief said, his voice weaker than before. “But check him for identification first. We’ll need to notify somebody—if we ever get the chance.”
“We don’t even know his name,” Brady whispered. “Who was his family? Did he have anyone at home?”
Again, he thought of Rachel. He’d give anything to see her now, to kiss her with his blistered lips, to feel her fingers on his raw, red skin.
“Nothing,” Brewer said, finishing with his search. “What was that word he said? Shoggoth?”
Selman moaned something unintelligible, and then rolled over onto his side. Roberts screamed.
“Doesn’t matter now,” Wachowski muttered. “He’s dead, Senior Chief Carter is dead. Selman’s gonna die soon, too, if we don’t get help.”
One hundred yards away, the men on another lifeboat shouted, splashing at the water with their oars. A sleek, dark shape disappeared beneath the boat. The fin resurfaced on the other side. More sharks circled closer.
“We all are,” the Chief said. “We all are...”
Roberts continued screaming, drowning out the ocean’s roar.
• • •
They saw the black wave a few minutes later.
Roberts was still screaming, and even Brady was losing patience with his friend. The Chief had directed them to throw Senior Chief Carter’s corpse into the ocean along with the Black Lodge agent’s body, because the seagulls were darting down from the sky and pecking at them. Both bodies floated away on the current. The shrieking birds landed on them almost immediately. They perched on their chests and faces and began feeding—riding their own grisly lifeboats. Survivors from the other rafts did the same with their dead, hoping to pacify the sharks long enough to coast out of range.
Done with the gruesome task, Wachowski and Brewer joked about tossing Roberts over the side as well, just to shut him up. Brady knew it was just gallows humor, their way of dealing with all that had happened, but the callous remark still angered him. He opened his mouth and started to say something, but then he saw it—a black wave, moving against the current. It was the same size as the other waves, but it rolled in the opposite direction. The sun did not reflect off its surface.
None of his fellow survivors had noticed it. The Chief was almost unconscious. Brewer and Wachowski were needling each other about what they’d do to each other’s sister when they were rescued. Selman was thrashing on the deck and babbling; white flecks of spittle caked his burned face. And Roberts...
Maybe Roberts did notice the wave, because he stopped screaming.
“Thank God,” Wachowski said. “We ought to gag him before he starts again.”
Brady barely heard him. His gaze was fixated on the black wave. A shark fin crested the water about ten feet away from it. As he watched, the wave changed direction in mid-course, swerving directly for the predator. It crashed over the shark and the fin disappeared. The wave grew in size.
They heard shouting from one of the other lifeboats. Brady glanced in that direction, assuming the men onboard had witnessed the same thing. Instead, he was surprised to see them pointing at the Japanese ships. The enemy had launched several smaller boats. They sped towards the life rafts.
“Shit!” Brewer gripped the side of the boat. “They’re coming. Fucking Japs. What do we do, Chief?”
“Pray. We pray, son.”
“Umm, fellas?” Brady pointed at the black wave. It had changed course again, swerving towards one of the American rafts. The men onboard hadn’t noticed it. Their attention was focused on their pursuers.
“You hallucinating?” Wachowski asked, without looking. “Seeing mermaids? You’ve been out here in the sun too long, Brady. Eyes aft. We’ve got trouble.”
“We’ve got trouble forward too, you fat fuck. Look!”
Growling, Wachowski turned to where Brady was pointing. Immediately, his jaw went slack. “The fuck is that?”
The Japanese fired several warning shots, letting their captives know they were armed. At the same time, the black wave surged over an American lifeboat, swamping the men onboard. Brady saw several of them try to leap aside, but the black water sucked them into the wave’s mass. Both raft and crew vanished, just like the shark. And again, the wave seemed to swell. It changed course once more, flowing smoothly against the tide.
“I did not just see that,” Wachowski breathed. “How can it do that?”
All of them fixed their attention on the wave now, the enemy forgotten. Chief Michaels propped himself up with his good hand and stared in disbelief. The Japanese noticed the wave too. They slowed their approach, and as their engines idled down, Brady heard them jabbering at each other.
“They don’t know what it is either,” he said. “Maybe it’s that weapon the Black Lodge man was talking about.”
“Then why did it just kill our guys?” Wachowski asked.
“We don’t know that it did. It hit them, and then when it moved on, they were gone. We didn’t see their bodies.”
The big man’s sunburned face turned from red to purple. “We didn’t see the fucking raft either, Brady. It ate them!”
“It didn’t—”
A shriek cut him off. The black wave turned again, once more rolling in the opposite direction of the other waves, and flooded the American raft closest to them. Brady recognized several of the sailors onboard; he’d seen their faces every day—in the galley, on the bridge, in their berthing areas. He didn’t know any of their names but he recognized them just the same. They were brothers. He’d served with them. Somehow, the fact that he didn’t know their names made their deaths that much worse.
This time, the at
tack was close enough to make out details. The wave quivered as it crashed over them, shimmering and flowing. It absorbed the sailors, along with the boat; drew them into its mass and instantly converted them into more dark water. And then they were gone. Washed away.
“Row,” Chief Michaels shouted. “Row, row, row...Get us out of here!”
He clutched an oar with his one good hand, reopening the wounds around his severed fingers. His blood pooled on the deck. Brewer and Brady grabbed two more oars and plunged them into the water. Wachowski just stared.
The wave swelled, paused, and then turned towards them. It swept over the two corpses they’d just thrown into the water, disturbing the seagulls’ banquet. The birds took flight, soaring into the air. The wave crested, and tendrils of black water shot up after them, liquefying the fleeing birds in mid-air.
“Oh God...” Brady held his breath.
The wave picked up speed. Roberts started screaming again, and this time, the others joined him.
“Faster,” Brewer shouted. “Wachowski, grab an oar and row, goddamn it!”
Blubbering, Wachowski ran to the bow. The raft rocked, leaning to starboard. Seawater rushed into the boat.
“Sit down before you capsize us,” Brewer yelled. “Chief, what can we do?”
Chief Michaels didn’t answer. Blood loss had finally caught up with him. He slumped over, unconscious. The oar slipped from his hands and floated away. Brewer leaned out over the water and grabbed for the oar as Wachowski cowered at the very front of the lifeboat. The craft tilted farther, spilling Brewer into the ocean. Soundless, the wave rushed towards him. Brewer bobbed up and down on the tide. He opened his mouth to scream and then the black water engulfed him.
Gone.
Brady sobbed. Wachowski joined Roberts in another round of screaming. Chief Michaels and Selman remained mercifully still. The wave made a wide arc, scooped up another shark, and then charged.
A gunshot rang out, echoing across the water. Several more rounds followed. The Japanese small boats had crept closer and opened fire.
“Well,” Wachowski said with a half-laugh, half-cry. “It must not be theirs, either.”
