The Trench

by Paul Mannering

“The US government doesn’t kill people like that.”

  “You have got to be kidding, right?”

  “I’m sure we will be fine. We will go to some secret underwater base, where the science crew hasn’t seen another human being in months, we’ll get a tour of the facilities and get flown home. Simple.”

  “I hope you are right.”

  In his narrow bunk, Michael hoped he was too.

  Chapter 6

  Michael woke up with a dry mouth and a strange sense of claustrophobia. He pulled the privacy curtain on his bunk aside and looked up and down the narrow cabin. A shift change was underway, with crewmembers departing in an orderly fashion and the still-warm bunks being taken by men coming off shift.

  “Rise and shine,” Watts said, appearing through the hatch.

  “I’m up.” Nicole dropped to the floor from the higher bunk. She was fully dressed and looked fresh, making Michael wonder if she had already been to the facilities.

  “Where’s the bathroom?” Michael climbed out into the crowded cabin.

  “End of the hall. Instructions are on the back of the door.”

  “Thanks.” Michael worked his way through the foot traffic and took a leak. Returning to his bunk, he pulled on his jacket. Someone else was already asleep in the space.

  Watts stood in the corridor with Nicole and both looked impatient to get moving.

  “All set!” Michael grinned.

  “Follow me.” Watts marched away.

  The crew worked at a hatch on the outer hull. Muffled clanks and hissing vibrated through the steel. A green light went on and Watts spun the locking wheel open, exposing a pipe dripping with salt water large enough to walk through. At the other end a second hatch stood closed. From this side, they could see the traces of barnacles and rock that worked to camouflage the surface from anyone who didn’t know the exact position to look for it.

  “Make a hole! Coming through!”

  Watts moved the civilians aside as a pair of men in coveralls ducked into the tunnel carrying a heavy canvas satchel. From the sound of it, they used a pneumatic tool to open the locks at the far end.

  “Why haven’t they opened the hatch from the inside?” Nicole asked.

  “Ma’am, it is better if you don’t ask any questions at this time,” Watts replied.

  Michael shot her a quick smile and a nod. It was a good question and that the US Navy was having to break into their own facility, made him even more uneasy.

  The technicians crawled out of the tunnel. “All yours,” the lead technician said to Watts.

  “In you go.” Watts gestured towards the tunnel.

  “In there?” Nicole leaned down and peered into the dripping tube.

  “Pull the hatch, step through. There will be someone there waiting to meet you on the other side.”

  “Down the rabbit hole,” Michael said with forced bravado. He climbed into the tunnel and inhaled the strong scent of salt water and hot metal. The hatch ahead of him showed signs of long exposure to the open ocean. Algae and limpets encrusted the surface, and the buildup had cracked where the locking bolts had been loosened. Michael seized the spoked wheel in the center and turned it, feeling the hydraulics deep in the mechanism take the strain, until after a dozen revolutions, the hatch swung outwards into the narrow tunnel.

  Michael passed through the hatch. Beyond was a smooth, concrete-lined cylinder at least twenty feet long. Every five feet a pressure door had slid open, leaving a deep channel in the concrete structure. They advanced through the tunnel, emerging onto a steel deck at the end of a large room. Three metal stairs lead down to a concrete floor.

  “Hello?” Michael called into the darkness. “Hey, can I get a light up here?”

  Nicole climbed into the tunnel, doubled over and carrying two long-barrel flashlights. She handed one to Michael, like they were exchanging the baton in a relay race. He clicked it on and shone the beam into the space beyond the hatch.

  “There’s no one here. Hey, Watts, there’s no one here.”

  A line of seven marines, each armed and wearing full NBC suits with gasmasks, came out of the submarine and quickly stepped into the first chamber.

  “I love what you’ve done with the place,” Michael said, looking around.

  “Shut the fuck up,” one of the marines growled.

  The hatch in the side of the submarine swung closed, the opening vanishing as it sealed.

  “Hey!” Nicole shouted. She hurried back to the outside of the black metal hull and rapped on it with her knuckles.

  “Nicole.” Michael turned back. “Nicole! Come on, we can go forward. They’re just doing their thing, so let’s do ours.”

  “They pushed us out like they were putting the goddamned cat out for the night,” Nicole replied.

  “So, let’s go do cat things.”

  “Get your asses out here, Squints. Move,” a marine ordered them back into the concrete room. Once Nicole climbed out of the connecting tunnel, he pushed the civilians aside and swung the hatch closed, spinning the locking wheel until it sealed tight.

  The beams of their flashlights played across the walls and containers that were stacked on the floor. Everything looked industrial, steel drums, plastic-wrapped boxes, and plastic pallets stacked with unbranded food supplies.

  A Marine spoke into a radio set, “Ishmael, Ishmael, this is Fire Team Beta. Sergeant Nolan confirming we are high and dry. Habitat hatch zero-delta-three is secured.” He paused for a few seconds. “Sarge? Comms aren’t penetrating the walls here. We’re out of contact.”

  “Roger that, Menowski,” Sergeant Nolan replied. “Troye, watch the squints. Rest of you, move out.”

  “Why don’t we get gasmasks and hazmat suits?” Nicole asked. “Is there a biohazard here we haven’t been told about?”

  “Standard issue for military personnel on a mission like this,” Nolan said, without giving her more than a glance.

  “Military personnel only? Does that mean civilians are expendable?” Michael asked.

  The marines moved without comment, M16 rifles raised and ready to fire as they slipped through the dark surroundings. The narrow beams from their lights cut through the gloom like lightsabers.

  “Stay close and stay silent,” the marine assigned to guard the scientists said.

  Michael and Nicole meekly followed him through the room, noting the strong smell of salt water and near silence, broken only by the whir of the air-conditioning.

  At the door, the fire team regrouped while Nolan keyed a code into a number pad and disengaged the locks. When the door opened, the light in the corridor glowed then flickered, sputtering and shorting out before going dark.

  From the rear, Michael and Nicole could see on the opposite wall of the corridor, long scratches and dark smears of strange graffiti. The marines moved into the corridor, taking up positions facing in both directions. The hallway was bathed in flickering light and the staccato sparking of short-circuiting wires. The musty stink of piss, shit, and spilt blood mingled with the salt-water odors.

  “Body, twenty feet forward. Facedown, no movement,” one of the marines reported.

  “Lewis, cover Nato,” the sergeant ordered and the marines moved to check the body. A moment later, Nato confirmed that the body was dead.

  Nicole stood next to Michael, her arms folded and a grim expression in her face.

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” Michael said quietly.

  “Does any of this look fine to you?”

  Michael shrugged.

  “Sarge,” Vince ‘Nato’ Natalo called Sergeant Nolan forward. “This guy’s been dead a couple of days at least.”

  The sergeant crouched down and frisked the corpse for identification. The dead man had a swipe card with a blue stripe hanging from a lanyard around his neck. “Maintenance Engineer, James Dodds,” Nolan announced. “SUD has a crew of one-thirty-six. Minus one.”

  The civilians watched from a safe distance as the marines checked the body. “Something is w
rong here,” Nicole murmured.

  “Yes, which is why we are here,” Michael replied.

  “No.” Nicole looked at him, her expression grim. “That is why the marines were sent in.”

  “Sure, and they are going to protect us while we do the thinking.”

  “I hope it is that simple.”

  Michael shrugged. “Keep your voice down, until we find someone in charge.”

  “What, then we can start yelling?”

  Michael was silent as they looked up and down the corridor. A number stenciled in black paint on the opposite wall said, D8.

  “Sarge, we’ve got movement.” The marines took positions along the walls of the corridor. Michael listened hard, hearing the slap of bare feet on the concrete. A low growling sound, wet and bronchial, drifted down the corridor.

  No one moved when the first of the approaching figures emerged from the darkness at the far end of the corridor. To Michael, it looked like a regular person, hunched over, their arms hanging loosely. Their shoes were gone, and their feet were encrusted with dried blood and filth.

  “Identify yourself!” Nolan barked. The approaching figure jerked his head up, sniffing the air and staring hard. “Identify yourself!” Nolan shouted again. The approaching man kept coming, picking up speed, breaking into a shuffling run, the phlegmy growl rattling deep in his chest.

  “Stop!” Nolan shouted. “Stop or we will fire!”

  The marines trained their rifles on the approaching man. More people appeared around the corner behind him. All of them were bloodstained and moving with stiff, jerking movements of uncoordinated limbs until they sensed the charging man ahead of them. Then they lurched forward, charging after the lead figure and filling the corridor with their snarls.

  “Put them down,” Nolan ordered.

  The marines opened fire with calm efficiency. Each round hit its target, punching holes in the chests of the first of the oncoming pack.

  The bullet wounds didn’t slow them down. The soldiers adjusted their aim and a few well-placed headshots sent the front line crashing to the ground.

  “Prepare for close-combat!” Nolan announced.

  The marines at the front fixed their bayonets while those behind kept firing. The squad moved back in a practiced pattern as the oncoming horde reached them. The floor became slick with blood and spilled guts. Brain tissue glistened on the floor.

  As the snarling crowd pressed forward, the marines engaged them with bayonets and rifle butts, knocking the enemy down and finishing them with a single shot to the head.

  “Stay down!” Michael and Nicole’s escort yelled. They crouched, hands pressed over their ears against the noise of the gun battle.

  Nicole leaned against a door, the only shelter in the corridor. “Shit!” she yelped as the door popped open, swinging inwards and dumping her on the floor.

  “Hello? Come in. How can I help you?” a female voice asked.

  Nicole clambered to her feet as Michael tumbled into the room and pushed the door shut.

  “Stay down!” he yelled. Something thudded against the door and they heard one of the marines shouting a warning to his comrades.

  Nicole stared at an office room lit by a desk lamp. A woman wearing a lab coat over a polar fleece sweater sat at a crowded desk.

  “We, well… Uhm…” Michael struggled to speak.

  “Is this a drill?” she asked.

  “What? No. I mean…”

  “Is there another way out of here?” Nicole stood and walked closer to the desk.

  “There is, but the door is locked. Perhaps you could explain why you have come crashing into my office?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Michael asked.

  “Hayley Cross, Facility Logistics Manager,” the woman replied.

  “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Cross,” Nicole said with a nod. “Could you hurry up and unlock the door?”

  “Please, call me Hayley. When did you two arrive?”

  Michael shot a glance at the door they had come through, the gun fire reducing to an occasional report. “Actually, we just got in. This place is certainly…different from what we had been told to expect.”

  Cross smiled warmly. “You get used to it. Of course, no one back on the mainland would ever believe you, even if you were allowed to speak of this place and the work being done here.”

  “Yeah,” Nicole said. “The need for secrecy was made perfectly clear to us.”

  “Hayley Cross, I don’t believe we have met?” Cross said suddenly.

  “I’m Doctor Michael Armitage, hydrozoan specialist,” Michael said. “This is Doctor Nicole Saint-Clair, she does evolutionary genetics.”

  Cross nodded. “Doctor Saint-Clair, I did enjoy your paper on the transition of genes from essential to superfluous.”

  “Thanks,” Nicole replied. “The place is… messed up.”

  “Is it?” Cross didn’t seem phased by the muffled noises of fighting out in the corridor.

  “Are you saying it was always like this?” Michael indicated a spatter of dried blood.

  “I honestly haven’t noticed. You must be here for Bernard. That’s Doctor Saul. He’s our head of research operations. Not my area of expertise at all, I’m afraid.”

  “Yes, that is exactly who we were hoping to meet with. Any idea where he might be?” Michael ignored Nicole’s WTF? expression.

  “I’m sure he is around here somewhere.” The way Cross spoke had a saccharine cheer to it that raised the hairs on the back of Michael’s neck.

  “Is everything okay?” Nicole asked.

  Cross jerked her head to stare at Nicole. “Of course. Everything is fine.”

  “It’s just, well, there’s quite a mess out in the corridor. It seems like there had been an accident?”

  “Everything is fine. If there were any issues with this facility, I would know about it. I am the facility’s logistics manager.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that,” Michael replied.

  “Wait, we were attacked. There are marines with us, soldiers. They are shooting the people who attacked us!” Nicole shouted.

  “Of course. Now let me see if I can find Bernard for you.”

  Michael and Nicole stared in astonishment as Cross looked around her desk, as if Bernard was a lost pen or stapler.

  “Does Doctor Saul have an office? Perhaps he is waiting for us there?” Michael asked.

  “Yes,” Cross said after a moment.

  “We had best go there and find him.” Michael went to the door; Nicole followed.

  Cross remained at her desk for a few seconds then stood up and walked across the room. “It will be good to talk to Bernard. He has been rather uncommunicative lately.”

  The door behind them burst open and the marine squad charged into the room.

  “Down! Everyone down!”

  Michael and Nicole dropped, putting their hands over their heads as they lay down on the floor.

  “What is going on here?” Cross stood behind her desk.

  “Identify yourself!”

  “Hayley Cross, Facilities Logistics Manager. What do you mean, barging into my office?”

  “Check her ID,” Nolan ordered.

  Nato stepped up and yanked the ID card from around Cross’ neck. “ID checks out.”

  “Bring her with us,” Nolan commanded.

  “You sure that’s a good idea, Sarge? Humping three squints?” Rifleman Lewis asked.

  “Are you questioning my orders, Lewis?”

  “No, Sarge.”

  “I didn’t think so. As you were, marine.”

  Chapter 7

  Brubaker, the squad medic, made his report to Nolan. “She’s in shock. Disorientated, cognitive problems. Physically, her vital signs are subdued, but stable.”

  Nolan nodded. “You get anything out of her about what happened here? Where everyone else is?”

  “No, Sarge. She’s fucked up.”

  “Okay, keep her under observation.”

  “Sarge?”


  “Yeah, Brew?”

  “What the fuck is wrong with the squints we lit up outside?”

  “You’re the medic, you tell me.”

  “I honestly don’t know, Sarge.”

  “Exactly. We keep on mission until we have determined what the fuck is going on here and secured this facility.”

  “Aye, Sergeant.”

  Nolan stepped away. “We ready to move?”

  The squad replied in the affirmative.

  “Nato, on point. Rest of you, keep your eyes open.”

  Cross had remained silent since they took her ID. Now she cocked her head to one side in a bird-like way, as if listening to something no one else could hear.

  “Where’s that door go, Sarge?” Troye asked.

  “Secondary corridor, through C-section.”

  “We gonna check it out?”

  “Be my guest, Troye.”

  Troye tried the handle and confirmed the door was locked. “Breaching,” he announced. With a well-placed kick, the door splintered and popped open.

  Troye pushed the door open with one boot, his weapon sweeping the arc of the corridor on the other side. “Clear,” he announced. The door wrenched wide and the space filled with snarling faces and reaching arms.

  Troye jerked back and opened fire, shattering the skull of the nearest drooling face in a single shot.

  “Step back, Troye!” Nolan ordered.

  The marine ducked and slipped aside. With their line of fire clear, Nolan, Riflemen Caulfield, Lewis, and Menowski opened up. The loud chatter of semi-automatic weapons fire drowned out the snarling of the creatures pushing through the doorway.

  Several rounds ricocheted, sending Michael and Nicole flat on the floor again.

  “I am not staying here!” Nicole hissed. Michael nodded and glanced towards Troye. He was down on one knee, reloading with a practiced ease.

  Michael sprang to his feet and ran for the door that opened into the D-section corridor. He threw it open, ignoring Troye’s shout. Nicole launched herself after Michael, skidding in the blood and almost falling as she went through the door. Another pack of bloodstained creatures was running towards them. Down the hallway. Michael was backing away and yelling, trying to draw their attention away from Nicole.