The Trench

by Paul Mannering

  “Define weird shit,” Brubaker replied.

  “A snailfish; a known species of the Kermadec Trench, except this one shows up at an impossible depth. It’s alive and is captured by the specimen collector tools on the sub. They bring it back here and it gets observed for a couple of days. Then it died and something happened. We don’t know exactly what happened because the logs were deleted. Now that the power is out, we may never know.”

  “Did something come out of this snail and eat someone’s brain?” Brubaker asked.

  “Snailfish. It’s not a gastropod, it’s a fish,” Michael said.

  “We don’t know if something came out of it and did… that,” Nicole said over Michael before one of the marines decided to slap him.

  “Well, we haven’t seen any fish crawling around,” Nato said.

  “Wait.” Michael put a hand to his head as if bracing himself against an idea. “The jellyfish, or hydrozoan, or bacterium, or worm, or whatever the fuck it is, was in the snailfish. Maybe the parasite organism takes over the nervous system and piggybacks a ride with the host? It forces a snailfish out of its usual extreme habitat and makes it swim deeper. The host dies, maybe as part of the parasite’s lifecycle? This thing which seems to be able to survive some really shitty environmental conditions, somehow breaks out of the holding tank, and then what? Crawls around until it finds a new host?”

  “If the death of the host was part of the organism’s life cycle, it might have spawned in the fish?” Brubaker suggested.

  “That could explain the rapid spread,” Nicole said. “Or, this thing can reproduce in a living organism and has the awareness to wait until the best circumstances for survival exist before spreading.”

  “Twenty-four hours,” Michael said. “The first reports of people disappearing, they were gone for less than twenty-four hours. Maybe that is how long it takes for the organism to get control?”

  “Nolan,” Brubaker said. “When this thing got in Nolan’s head, it knocked him out cold.”

  “He had some kinda fit first,” Lewis said. “Like my cousin, when he sees a flashing light.”

  “That would suggest a serious brain trauma,” Brubaker replied.

  Nicole wrapped her arms around herself. “For twenty-four hours, it grows inside the host? Then they wake up and go nuts?”

  “The report we saw said that when the infected turned up again, they seemed a bit confused, strange but not violent. Cross didn’t go kill-crazy,” Michael replied. “And who was that other woman? Naki-something?”

  “Chief Medical Officer, Doctor Kimo Nakiro?” Brubaker asked.

  “Yeah, Bernard said she vanished, then when she showed up again, she told him everything was fine.”

  “What are the common factors?” Nicole stripped the gloves off her hazmat suit and marked her points on her fingers.

  “Females don’t go insane? Any correlation between age, ethnicity, medical history… ah, food allergies? Time spent on the facility? Contact with a human host prior to their own infection?”

  “Maybe they pass it on by fucking?” Caulfield said, looking up from where he was cleaning his fingernails.

  Lewis laughed and even Nato grinned.

  “It’s entirely possible,” Nicole said, completely serious. “Exchange of body fluids, or sexual fluids – that’s cum and pussy juice to you, Marine – could be a transmission vector.”

  Lewis sniggered and the others just stared.

  “We don’t know anything,” Michael said.

  “Come on, Michael, we’re scientists. Think about what we have seen. This parasite enters a new host, and for the first twenty-four hours, the infected host is in a coma, or driven to hide itself while the organism takes control. Once control is established, it then goes in search of what, other potential hosts?”

  “That makes sense. The basic instinct of all life forms is to survive and reproduce.”

  “Right, so once it walks into a group of people all camouflaged as one of them, it passes something on to the next individual. Either some kind of offspring, or larval stage, or eggs, then it repeats the cycle…”

  “What about the ones that died?” Michael asked.

  “Failed to gain control over the host organism?” Nicole said. “The parasite couldn’t take them over sufficiently, but it did enough damage to kill them?”

  “Shit…” Michael trailed off. “That would make sense. Think about it. If you are a species that survives by taking control of a host’s central nervous system – easy enough in your average fish – then you encounter something far more complex in a human brain. There’s a high chance of doing serious damage and killing the host.”

  “Or driving them insane…” Nicole said quietly. “The infected. All those people? What if they have this hydrozoan in their heads, but the damage is too great. They’ve lost all cognition and are operating on basic instincts of fight and feed?”

  “What about, the need to fuck?” Lewis grinned.

  “In higher-functioning organisms, sexual drive is a very strong instinct. This is a creature that probably produces in a different way, inside the host body.”

  “Makes sense; bunch of squints down here wouldn’t be fucking each other anyway.”

  “Lewis, go stand sentry in the hallway until relieved,” Brubaker ordered. Lewis looked ready to object and then stomped out of the room.

  “Now we need to know how to contain one of these fucking things and destroy everything else,” Nato spoke up.

  “Fuckin’ A,” Menowski agreed.

  “What else we got?” Brubaker asked.

  “A whole lot of questions and fuck-all answers,” Michael replied.

  Muffled shouting interrupted the meeting; Lewis barking orders and the ominous sound of his rifle being readied to fire.

  The marine squad took up defensive positions, ready to tear up the place on Brubaker’s orders.

  “Brubaker, coming out!” he yelled.

  “I’m not infected! I’m not infected!” a voice yelled, shrill with fear.

  “Bernard?” Michael said.

  “Where the fuck has he been?” Nicole replied and they ran for the corridor.

  “Squints coming in!” Caulfield yelled before Lewis or Brubaker could shoot them for coming up announced.

  “Bernard? Where the hell have you been?” Michael shouted.

  “I thought I heard some of those things coming… I locked myself in a lab store room and…” the scientist trailed off and shrugged.

  “You’re okay though, right?” Nicole asked.

  “Yeah, I’m good.” Bernard looked concerned at the filthy marines standing in the pristine surroundings of the secure laboratory level.

  “We have a theory,” Michael grinned, “about the source of infection, the transmission vectors, and why so many of the base inhabitants went completely fucking psychotic.”

  “Oh… good.”

  Bernard listened while Michael and Nicole explained what they had found, but neither of them mentioned the missing log files deleted with his authorization.

  “It is a hydrozoan? Do you have a viable sample?” Bernard asked when they were done.

  Nicole shook her head. “Not yet, but they shouldn’t be too hard to find. Sergeant Nolan was infected. He’s secure on one of the lower levels.”

  Brubaker stepped forward. “You’re the only survivor of the original staff?”

  “Yes,” Bernard replied.

  “What happened to Hayley Cross? She was with you when we left?” Brubaker asked.

  “We left her behind. She was infected,” Michael said.

  “Where’s Gretchen?” Bernard asked.

  “She didn’t make it.” To Michael, it felt like the words were coming out of someone else’s mouth.

  “Are there any of these fucking jellyfish still in containment?” Brubaker asked.

  “No,” Bernard replied. “I mean, we didn’t know they existed. So they wouldn’t be in containment.”

  Michael opened his mou
th to ask him about the label on the breached Perspex holding tank, then closed it again.

  “Well, I’m glad you’re okay, Bernard.” Nicole gave the scientist a quick smile, which made him blush again.

  “Hey, Brubaker, you read much?” Michael asked casually.

  “What? Sure, I guess. Why, you wanna start a book club?”

  “Sure, what else are we going to do down here? I was just thinking about the classics. You know like, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.”

  “Yeah, I think I saw the cartoon with the sword in the stone when I was a kid.”

  “Right… In Arthurian legend, the greatest quest they went on was the search for the Holy Grail.”

  “The cup that Christ drank from at the Last Supper?” Brubaker asked.

  “If you like,” Michael replied. “Anyway, the cool thing about the Arthurian legend was that three of Arthur’s knights actually found the grail. The greatest treasure imaginable, and they actually found it.”

  “Yeah, that Indiana Jones movie, right?”

  “Not a big reader I take it?” Bernard asked.

  “Comic books and enough medical textbooks to get me through specialist medic training. What’s your fucking point?”

  “Nothing,” Bernard said quickly, the smirk vanishing from his face.

  “Armitage, if you have a point, I suggest you start running until you reach it,” Brubaker said.

  “Of the three knights who found the Holy Grail, only one of them received its greatest gift: immortality. This knight’s name was Sir Galahad.”

  “Well, shit, I am so glad you felt this was important enough to give a lecture on right here and now.”

  “Bernard,” Michael turned and smiled at the scientist, “what the fuck is Project Galahad?”

  Chapter 17

  “I-I don’t know,” Bernard stammered.

  “Okay, try this one: ever heard of Turritopsis dohrnii? Commonly known as the Immortal Jellyfish?”

  Bernard shook his head, his gaze skittering across the floor.

  “Maybe it’s just coincidence, but maybe it isn’t. Galahad, the immortal knight, an unknown species of hydrozoa that might be infecting human hosts, and a species of hydrozoa that is functionally immortal?”

  “You cannot seriously be suggesting they are somehow connected?” Bernard tried to laugh and made a wheezing hiccup sound instead.

  Michael laughed. “Of course not. I’m just fucking with you, man. But seriously, what is Project Galahad?”

  “I don’t know. I have never heard of it,” Bernard said, his voice cracking dry.

  “Doctor Bernard Saul? Head of research at a top-secret facility dedicated to military research and there’s an entire project going on that you don’t even know about?” Michael kept smiling, but his voice was getting colder.

  “What is he talking about, Saul?” Brubaker asked.

  “I honestly have no idea. There were so many projects going on here. I didn’t have access to a lot of the files. People came in, they did their work, they left again, and they took their data with them.”

  “Like the cockroach astronaut guy?” Nicole suggested. “You knew all about that project. How could you not know?”

  “Information is compartmentalized,” Bernard explained. “We are only told what we need to know. No one knows everything; it’s a security protocol.”

  Michael exploded in Bernard’s face. “Goddamnit, Bernard, you deleted log files relating to the snailfish specimen! The same specimen that was collected on the final dive before this place started turning to shit!”

  “I had no choice!” Bernard wailed.

  “Why did you delete the log files?” Michael continued his verbal assault.

  “I had no choice!” Bernard yelled again.

  “Project Galahad, Bernard. Someone is blending hydrozoan and human DNA. What do you know about it? Maybe something got out of the lab? A specimen that breached quarantine? Maybe it’s what is infecting everyone? Got any ideas on that Bernard?”

  Bernard shook his head.

  “Fuck this. Brubaker, you can shoot him without killing him, right?” Michael stepped out of the way.

  “Fuckin’ A,” Brubaker leveled his rifle at the trembling Bernard.

  “Wait, this is insane, Michael!” Nicole grabbed his arm when she realized he and Brubaker were serious.

  “What do we need to access Saul’s files?” Michael asked.

  “Log in and password?” Brubaker replied.

  “This skeleton key card you have, it can access all the systems?”

  “Yeah, it’s supposed to.”

  “Okay, we can use it to bring up everything that Bernard Saul has accessed. Project files, dive-mission logs, even facility life support systems and power controls.”

  Bernard’s cheek twitched. “You have no right. You are not authorized.”

  “It would be easier if you just tell us what you know, Bernard,” Nicole said. “We just want to find the truth and get out of here.”

  “Truth?” Bernard smiled, his lips curling back over his teeth. “You have no comprehension of the truth.”

  “Explain it to me like I’m five,” Michael said.

  “It isn’t that simple. It was never meant to be like this. Look, genetic engineering of hydrozoan DNA with human stem cells has been an ongoing project here for some time. I can’t even begin to tell you where our funding comes from. It’s higher than federal. It’s beyond black-book.”

  “No shit,” Michael replied. “How are Project Galahad and our current shit storm related?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Bernard insisted. “Galahad is a successful project. We… we were initiating the next stage of testing when the outbreak of whatever this infection is happened.”

  “We know what the fucking infection is,” Brubaker interrupted. “It’s fucking jellyfish getting in people’s brains and fucking them up!”

  “It’s unfortunate,” Bernard agreed. “Gretchen recommended you be brought in, Michael. She said even though you were an asshole, you were the best person to join the team for the next phase.”

  “What is the next phase?”

  “Human testing,” Nicole whispered. “Human testing, right?”

  “Jesus Christ. You injected this Frankenstein DNA into humans?” Michael asked.

  “Yes,” Bernard raised his hands as Brubaker lifted his rifle and made ready to smash the scientist’s face in, “but those people are fine! They’re not infected!”

  “Bullshit!” Brubaker snarled.

  “The modified DNA! It protected the test subjects from the parasite. We don’t know why, or how it works, but the invasive species doesn’t attempt to assimilate with a genetically modified host!”

  “The test subjects? Who are they?” Nicole stared at Bernard, a grim realization apparent on her face.

  Bernard’s lips peeled back in a grin and then retracted over his gums until the skin of his face started to distort. Teeth dripped from his gaping mouth like shards of melting snow falling from the eaves of a rotted mountain cabin.

  “The fuck…?” Michael backed away, grabbing Nicole by the arm and pulling her with him.

  The flesh of Bernard’s mouth split open and a spaghetti bowls’ worth of glistening tendrils rose out of his throat and probed the air. Brubaker lifted his rifle and fired a three-round burst into Bernard’s face. Cracks spread from the bullet entry points in his forehead and cheek. The skin swelled and split until chunks of Bernard’s head fell away like a shattered ceramic mask.

  The other marines charged forward as Brubaker retreated, continuing to fire into the expanding mass that tore its way out of Bernard’s body.

  Michael and Nicole ducked for cover, crawling away from the firestorm erupting behind them. Bernard’s skin tore and vomited out grey jelly, a man-sized form rising from the steaming carcass it shed.

  Rifle rounds burst into the shapeless form with no sign of serious injury. Thin tentacles emerged from the translucent wet ski
rt that quivered against the floor. The thing moved towards the marines. More tentacles sprang from what was left of Bernard’s throat. They whipped through the air, slapping against the glass walls and striking Caulfield across the face.

  The rifleman screamed, a red welt blistering on his cheek where he had been struck. The others maintained a steady rate of fire.

  “Rifles fire is ineffective!” Brubaker yelled. “Pull back!” He grabbed Caulfield by the back of his vest and dragged him down the hall.

  Gunfire continued as the squad fell back. Lewis ducked into the room where the rest of their weapons were still waiting. He grabbed the Mossberg shotgun and loaded it with shaking hands.

  Racking the slide, he ducked out again, stepping around Brubaker and the stumbling Caulfield, whose face had turned purple and swollen beyond recognition.

  Sighting down the center of the corridor, Lewis fired the shotgun. It boomed, and the tight spread of buckshot tore a massive hole in the advancing monster.

  “Suck this, you shit-fucker!” Lewis roared and fired again. Wet chunks of gel splattered against the glass walls and the whip-like tendrils lashed out again, striking against Lewis’ helmet and filling his nostrils with the sharp stink of acidic venom. He fired again, each shot blasting into the pulsing form.

  Nato stepped up with an MP5 and emptied it in a single burst. The man-sized lump of pulsing jelly came apart in a wet blast of chunks.

  “Holy fucking shit…” Lewis breathed. “That is some seriously fucked-up shit.”

  “Keep away from it!” Brubaker yelled from the storeroom doorway. “Squints! Get your asses in here!”

  Nicole broke away from Michael and ran. Brubaker guided her through the doorway and then covered the others as they completed their retreat.

  “Is it dead?” Nato asked.

  “Yes, I mean, I think so,” Michael replied. “It came apart; it has to be dead.”

  “The fuck is that shit? I mean, that’s some fucking sci-fi channel shit,” Nato sputtered, trying to catch his breath.

  “Now you freak out?” Michael stared at him. “Jesus Christ…”

  “If it’s dead, we can get some samples,” Nicole said. She tore open the biohazard container and started pulling out the flasks.