by Debbie Kump
Afraid of returning to her berth to grab gym clothes, Alyssa decided to exercise in the same work uniform she wore when assigned to Quarantine. Besides, she already had her running shoes. Ever mindful of the Siren’s sound signature in the water, submariners always wore soft-soled running shoes or sneakers.
Not that it really mattered. She shouldn’t be here anyway.
Squeezing through the knee-knocking watertight door to enter the gymnasium, she crinkled her nose in the cold, metallic air rank with stale sweat. Crammed with a nautilus set, punching bag, and a few treadmills, even this small gymnasium sat fully enclosed in sound-dampening protection.
However, much to Alyssa’s surprise, the room stood empty. The rest of the crew must be momentarily preoccupied with working, eating, or sleeping. She hoped it would remain that way.
Turning on the treadmill, Alyssa stretched out her legs at a slow, steady gait. Her cramped legs and arms resisted at first, but after the first mile, she managed to work out most of the kinks in her joints. Though she would have preferred some music to fill the empty void, she didn’t have her DOTS. Instead, she sufficed with the rhythmic trod of her feet against the revolving belt blending with her pattern of regular breaths.
Her muscles feeling loose once more, Alyssa pumped her arms back and forth and increased her pace. Finally, she could breathe again, relieved to be outside the miniscule Quarantine Room. Eventually desensitized to the smell of the gym, she closed her eyes, envisioning the familiar scenery from her old running routes back home…
Lush hills covered in farmland rolled along the horizon. Wispy clouds sailed across a pale blue sky. Overhead, half a dozen turkey vultures soared, their feeble V-shaped wings tipping suddenly when they caught a rising updraft. From their lofty heights, the vultures scanned the ground below for road kill along Highway 29 snaking south to Charlottesville. The bleak interior of the submarine’s gymnasium soon dissolved into the familiar silhouettes of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Shenandoah National Park, the backdrop to her cozy little town of Madison, Virginia.
Alyssa dredged up memories of running down forested trails with rich scents of pine and spruce hanging in the air as their treetops obscured the sky. Or the sugary aroma of the honeysuckle bush in their yard as she sprinted for home. Instead of dashing inside for a glass of water, she’d let the sweat pour off her while savoring the long stamens’ drips of nectar concealed within each blossom. She even missed the nose-crinkling odor of her golden retriever, Tucker, muddy from playing in the creek, as he charged across the lawn to greet her. She’d brush his matted tail and belly free of hitchhiker seed pods, then bathe him before permitting him inside the house.
Opening her eyes, Alyssa visualized the treadmill as a track winding through a field of Black-eyed Susan and Queen Anne’s lace wildflowers that swayed in the warm, humid breeze. Young green sumac and tall tan grasses flowed freely, only beginning to lose their chlorophyll in their annual transformation into the robust shades of cranberry red and bright gold that adorned the countryside, a precursor to the autumnal foliage’s explosion of color.
She closed her eyes again, this time imagining the rosy hues of the setting sun filling the valley, casting an orange glow over the rustic farmhouses and silos. The austere, cold interior of the submarine was a stark contrast to her previous existence. Recently, her memories of home had intensified as she desperately fought her recurring bouts of depression. The gym was her favorite area of escape. The only area aboard the Siren where she could pretend she was somewhere else.
And the only way to survive the upcoming long months of her tour of duty.
Alyssa continued to replay scenes from home: hiking with Tucker through the wooded trails of Shenandoah or sitting on the back deck to watch the sun set below the mountaintops. She pushed herself to run full-speed now, beads of sweat breaking out across her brow and trickling down the sides of her cheeks. Perspiration erupted across her back and stained the armpits of her uniform.
Endorphins coursed through Alyssa’s veins, alleviating her guilt of presumably causing the unnecessary and premature deaths of those unfortunate marine mammals with the push of a button. She ceased blaming herself for the possible epidemic of conjunctivitis she initiated. She no longer felt the need to overanalyze Justin’s actions. If he wanted to see her again, let him find a way to make it happen.
Careful to avoid touching her contagious eyes, Alyssa wiped away the sweat and released a heavy sigh. Finally, she felt freed. Released from the anchor of culpability tied to her ankles, threatening to drag her into the abyss of despair.
Then the path sloped, gradually at first. Alyssa’s shins hammered as she lengthened her stride to compensate for the uneven terrain. Pumping her arms softer now, she tried to slow her momentum as she ran downhill.
Hang on, Alyssa thought as she stopped running altogether. Panting, she gripped the handrails, trying to make sense of her surroundings.
Downhill?
What was going on?
The floor tilted backwards beneath her feet, making her lean slightly. Why would they be conducting maneuvers now? And at this depth?
Was it possible they’d been attacked?
She recalled the Siren’s initial descent to periscope depth, seventy-five feet below the surface. There the floor had inclined at a 35-degree angle while the crew double-checked for flooding before daring to descend further. Only at the time, she was prepared, bracing herself against the wall as the sub rolled fore and aft.
But now, she had no advance knowledge. How could she when–without her DOTS–she’d been cut off from communication with the rest of the crew?
“Better get outta here,” Alyssa muttered to herself as she turned off the treadmill. Arms extended for balance, she stumbled across the slanted floor, grasping the nautilus bars for support, then ducked through the watertight hatch to head back to Quarantine…hopefully before someone noticed her missing.
Stricken with fear, she hurried through the corridors, frightened of getting caught out of her Quarantine room. Would they honestly believe her excuse for leaving? That she was simply preventing herself from going insane? That she only tried to escape the dismal void of unchecked depression that consumed the life of one seaman already this voyage?
Justin might. But she couldn’t count on the others.
And she had reason to worry. She’d seen the effect of the XO’s corporal punishments on Siren crewmates who crossed the line.
Alyssa peered into the darkness around the next corner, briefly hesitating before entering the hallway. Fortunately, no one seemed to be working on any repairs in this area at the moment. She hustled down the narrow passageway, praying she could make it back to her assigned room without encountering anyone.
Although she lacked the clear night vision of her eye DOTS, she felt more accustomed to using her natural eyesight again. How long had it been since she’d relied solely on her naked eyes? She marveled at their inefficiency, after months of functioning under the military’s version of optimal vision.
The sub lurched forward, causing Alyssa to lose her balance. She slammed into the wall, bruising her shoulder. Cautiously, Alyssa got back to her feet, gripping objects along the wall to support herself from sliding downward. She passed the next open doorway leading to the Command and Control Room and paused.
Instead of the typical periwinkle blue background lighting bathing the controls, the room flashed red in alarm. Alyssa gasped, clamping her hand over her mouth as she surveyed her crewmates.
Something had gone terribly wrong.
The room was littered with bodies.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“What the hell–?” Alyssa stared in disbelief at the officers collapsed upon the ground, the helmsman and crew slumped over their computer screens and gauges. The coppery smell of fresh blood lingered in the air.
Confused, she raced across the slanted floor to the helmsman, his body pressed forward against the controls. Shoving him out of the way, she yanked back
on the controls with all her might in a desperate attempt to right the submarine’s unplanned descent. Nothing happened; the sub stayed its dangerous course downward.
Alyssa assumed the alarm had activated a security measure, locking her out of the system. Without an officer’s code card, she could not alter the Siren’s new course.
She kneeled to search the pockets of the officer lying face down on the floor near the helmsman. She tried the fallen XO, too, but couldn’t locate his code card. Thinking quickly, she leaped over another body to access her sonar station and send out a Morse Code message requesting help. Perspiration dripped from her brow as she found the archaic device–intended only as a backup measure–and began tapping the identifiable sequence of three short dots, three long dashes, then three short dots again.
S–O–S. The international distress call.
Someone must be nearby to receive her call for help. Fingers flying across the keys, she programmed the computer to repeat the message indefinitely. It was only a matter of time before they’d be discovered.
Rather than wait for a response, Alyssa bolted from the Command and Control Room, sliding down the steep grade of the hall as she screamed to alert the others. Now she understood why the sub had shifted from its normal course. But she couldn’t get it back on track by herself.
Upon reaching the crews’ quarters in the berthing area, she dashed inside the first room where nine enlisted men lay berthed in rows of three along each wall. One man’s arm dangled outside his curtain.
Bracing herself on the slanted floor, she threw open the privacy curtain and forcefully shook the slumbering submariner, trying to rouse him. “Wake up! Please!” she implored. “I need your help!” His body felt like a lead weight, impossible to move.
Keeping one hand on the railing to steady herself, she bent down toward the man on the lowest rack, shouting again. Slowly, the man’s head rolled toward her, but he didn’t wake. Alyssa leaned closer, ready to shake him once more. Then, in the dim light, she noticed something unusual about him. What was that smeared across his face?
A black liquid trickled from his eyes and ears, staining his white pillowcase.
Alyssa stared at him in confusion for several seconds before goose bumps exploded down the length of her arms and up the back of her spine.
She realized the identity of the black liquid.
At depths greater than 30 feet underwater, short wavelengths of visible light in the red spectrum are readily absorbed, giving red objects a dark gray or black appearance. After their initial descent, she remembered noticing that the red toothbrush from her bag of toiletries no longer looked the same. Deep below the surface, it appeared nearly black.
Alyssa also remembered vacationing with her mother at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida many years ago. Her mom had needed a break from the sizzling midday sun, zooming roller coasters, and whirling amusement park rides, so she dragged Alyssa inside the Alfred Hitchcock Theater. At the time, Alyssa’d never heard of the filmmaker, famous for his suspenseful, psychological thrillers.
Although she had little interest in the old-fashioned screenplays, there was one fact that remained in her long-term memory all these years. The presenter explained how many types of objects appeared different in the old black and white films than in later color sequences. So when Alfred Hitchcock directed the original Psycho movie, he experimented with a variety of liquids in the graphic shower scene. Eventually he selected chocolate sauce to make the violent attack seem more realistic.
On the movie clip, the chocolate sauce looked identical to the liquid that now seeped from the seaman’s eyeballs and ear canals.
But Alyssa knew this was no special effect aimed at terrifying a movie audience.
This was real.
The man’s face was covered in blood.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Oh, dear God!” Alyssa shouted, unconcerned with awakening the other tired submariners or the consequences of her leaving her assigned quarantine area. This man needed immediate medical attention. “Someone…HELP ME! PLEASE!”
Naturally, she expected an instant reaction. After all, eight other submariners currently slept in this small area. Why wasn’t anyone coming to her aid?
She turned toward the man again. She didn’t recognize him from the Mess Hall or her station, so he must’ve been assigned to another shift. What could’ve happened to him? Had he hit his head on the rack above when the sub tilted downward, causing a brain hemorrhage? She placed her index and middle finger together along his jugular, feeling for a pulse.
Then Alyssa recoiled in horror. The skin beneath her fingertips was lifeless. She was too late; he was already terminal.
Stepping back, she steadied herself against the rack, unfamiliar with the sensation of witnessing death firsthand. It was easier to cope with at her grandmother’s funeral. The woman had lived a long, satisfying life. Seeing her body in the open casket–with heaps of makeup applied to her embalmed body–made her look far different than the actual Gran. More like a wax impression of the vibrant person she’d known from her childhood.
But this was real. And there was nothing she could do to help this young, unfortunate submariner.
Stunned, Alyssa shook the sleeping body on the lowest rack, trying to wake up this man as well. But when she rolled him over, Alyssa found the same blank, bloody stare. In fact, everyone here was bleeding from the eyes and ears.
All of them were dead.
In shock, she backed out of the room, hoping to find help elsewhere. Yet the adjacent rooms wielded the same results. Ducking her head under the exposed pipes, she scanned the racks for survivors.
She found none.
What had happened to the crew while she was in the gym? What kind of destructive force caused such widespread devastation throughout the sub? Unable to locate any other signs of life, Alyssa staggered up the steep grade of the hallway, hand over hand on the railing. Eventually, she stumbled back to her station in the Command and Control Room, oblivious to the bumps and bruises she’d incurred as a result of her unaided vision and the skewed floor of the sinking ship.
Above the cacophony of the room’s wailing alarm and pulsating red lights, her station seemed eerily calm. Filling the blank computer screen, the Morse Code sequence of dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash, dot-dot-dot continued to repeat itself.
Alyssa stared at the blinking cursor.
• • • – – – • • •
• • • – – – • • •
• • • – – – • • •
Grabbing the mouse, she scrolled backwards, searching…
In vain.
She’d received no response from the outside world.
“Impossible,” Alyssa breathed, realizing her hopes of a Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle coming to her aid were dashed. “No one is coming.”
No one. The words echoed in her skull.
She’d never felt so alone in her entire life.
Panic gripped Alyssa’s throat, choking her every breath. Her heart rate escalated, as if her ribs could not contain its surging power. Alyssa stood frozen with fear, like a White-tailed deer caught in a speeding car’s headlights on a dark, wooded road. So this was it? Her final hurrah? She gasped, but the stale cabin air provided ill reprieve.
Gripping the back of her chair, Alyssa struggled to regain control of her emotions. They were still headed downward. And if she didn’t do something soon, she too would remain trapped inside this submarine of death until it crashed upon the seabed, with no hope of rescue.
“NO!” Alyssa shrieked, digging her nails into her palms to jar herself back to reality. This is NOT my fate.
Clarity restored, Alyssa knew somehow she must escape, reach the surface, and notify naval authorities to salvage the sub. Otherwise, all her colleagues would be lost forever, lacking proper military burials. Alyssa imagined their families back home, mourning the loss of their loved ones. She envisioned their funeral processions bearing empty coffins d
raped in the Stars and Stripes. The ceremonial flag folding that followed, a humble parting gift to the seaman’s mother in exchange for the life of her child.
They deserved so much more.
Then Alyssa remembered her own mother. The promise she’d made on Send-Off Day that everything would be okay.
That she would return home.
Her face turned grave as she contemplated her fate. This wasn’t just about a broken promise. This was about her future. And she knew her future could not exist here, trapped beneath the ocean.
Forever.
“I’ve gotta get out of here. NOW.” Renewed determination flooded Alyssa’s veins as she suddenly recalled one particular aspect from her submarine training at Groton’s Sub School.
An enormous tower filled with water, simulating the egress escape chamber.
“Of course! There’s still a last resort!” she exclaimed. Alyssa spun around to check the depth gauge. Her grin faded as she watched the numbers increase.
Three eighty. Three ninety. Four hundred feet…and dropping.
Not good. Gingerly, Alyssa stepped over the bodies of her crewmates on the floor. Immediately, bile rose up her throat. Clamping one hand over her mouth, she clutched her stomach as she recognized Carly Zapelli turned upwards, staring at the ceiling. Carly’s cropped black hair spilled out from under her U.S.S. Siren cap. Sticky black blood oozed from her eye sockets. Carly had completed basic training with her. And now…
Focus, Alyssa. There will be plenty of time for remembering Carly later. You’ll do her no good if you can’t get out yourself.
Grasping the periscope shafts for support, Alyssa tiptoed over Carly’s torso toward the light table documenting the Siren’s course. She leaned over the illuminated paper, examining the bathymetric chart of the Florida coast. Despite recent technological advances, the Navy still relied on this paper and marker technique to plot their course since it was readily accessible in the event of computer glitches. Using her index finger, Alyssa tracked their route, a series of Xs connected by hatched lines depicting the Siren’s passage across the Caribbean and into the Atlantic Ocean.
