Hell Divers II: Ghosts

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Nothing. His HUD wouldn’t activate, either. The water must have short-circuited his electronics.

  Weaver reached up and turned on his headlamp. The beam captured a sinewy figure crouching in the open doorway not ten feet away. A piece of meat hung from its beak. Not just meat—a tattered swatch of a Hell Diver uniform.

  The scavenger reached up with its single webbed hand to shield its huge eyeball from Weaver’s beam. It let out a squawk that attracted the attention of the winged Siren. But instead of turning to grab Weaver, it changed course and snatched up the smaller creature in its talons.

  Weaver plucked his battery unit out a second later and lay flat on the floor as the Siren returned to its nest. A flurry of wails sounded as the rest of the pack retreated.

  For several moments, he worked on calming his heart. He wasn’t sure what had just happened, but whatever the strange little beast was, it had likely saved him from a terrible death.

  As the Sirens plastered the creature up next to Andrew on the wall and began plucking off limbs, Weaver made a run for the staircase to the operations center. He wasn’t sure what had prompted Jordan to send Michael and Layla down here, but he was happy they had come. Getting out of this place was going to be harder than getting in.

  * * * * *

  “Commander Everhart and Raptor Diver Brower have jumped ship,” Jordan announced from the top level of the bridge. “This is a betrayal of the worst kind, and it will not be tolerated!”

  Below, every officer on the bridge avoided his enraged glare. Even the apprentices stationed in navigation took a sudden interest in their boots.

  Jordan stepped up to the railing, flanked by Sergeant Jenkins. The sergeant had been instrumental in quelling a riot five years ago, and in taking back the farm a decade earlier, but that didn’t make him invaluable. Jenkins hadn’t said anything when Jordan was plucking out Janga’s fingernails for information, but his eyes had showed his disapproval. The old soldier’s leadership style had served the Hive well for decades, but if he wouldn’t follow Jordan’s orders, plenty of younger soldiers would happily take his place.

  Jordan grabbed the railing and looked out over the tiered floors of the bridge. One officer didn’t shy away from his eyes. Katrina, gripping the spokes of the oaken wheel, looked right at him.

  He could find no hint of affection left in her eyes. Over the past twenty-four hours, the last of her love had drained away.

  But he would get it back; he was confident. She would learn to trust him again. She would learn to love him again. Confidence and patience were key. He couldn’t afford to trip up now. The divers on the surface would all be dead soon. If they somehow made it back with supplies, he would figure out what to do with them later.

  For now, he had to cleanse the ship before someone else betrayed him.

  “Sir, I have a sitrep,” Ensign Hunt announced, stepping away from his station.

  No matter how many extra rations Jordan allowed, the young ensign was still rail thin—and soon he was going to get even skinnier. For he had joined the ranks of people Jordan didn’t trust.

  “We’re coasting through clear skies ten miles due east of the storm over Charleston, sir,” Hunt said. “Still no word from the surface.”

  Jordan replied with a nod, then stepped away from the railing and walked down the stairs. He replayed the launch in his mind again and again as he walked. The militia guards had confirmed Ty’s story: Michael had held a gun to his head. But Jordan still wasn’t sure he believed the technician. He did have an easy way to test his loyalty, however. The Hive was about to lose five divers—six, if you counted Magnolia—and Ty knew a lot about diving. He would be a good replacement.

  “Captain,” Katrina said. She eyed the blood on his hands with disgust.

  “At ease, Lieutenant,” he said.

  “A woman,” she sneered. “An old woman.”

  “An old woman who put every life on this ship in jeopardy, and don’t forget that, Lieutenant. We can’t be soft just because someone is old.”

  “She sold herbs, Captain, and everyone knew she was crazy.”

  “Not everyone, sadly. She convinced Commander Everhart to jump ship.”

  Jordan looked at the wall-mounted monitor. On it was a map of the area surrounding the Hilltop Bastion. He still wasn’t sure what Janga had told the divers before her arrest. Despite his best efforts, she had revealed little in their “interview” after Michael and Layla jumped.

  But now he realized that Janga had actually done him a favor. Even if she had revealed secrets such as the SOS from X, those secrets would now die with the divers on the surface. The cost was high; their valuable experience would be hard to replace. Fortunately, there were always lower-deckers who would jump at the chance to risk their lives if it meant eating well.

  “Launch bay is ready, Captain,” Sergeant Jenkins said.

  “I’ll be right there,” Jordan said.

  Katrina reached out for his arm. “Please don’t do this, Leon.”

  Jordan hesitated. She pulled on his sleeve—an act of desperation and disobedience that annoyed him. Her lack of professionalism on the bridge was testing his patience. He was starting to wonder whether he could still trust her.

  “You can be merciful,” she said.

  He pulled his bloody cuff away and frowned. “That’s where you’re wrong, Katrina. There is no room for mercy in the sky.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Magnolia was going to kill Jordan when she got back to the ship. Trying to murder her was one thing, but getting Andrew killed and risking the lives of the other divers to prove a point? That was psychotic. She wasn’t sure how she would kill him, only that it would be up close and involve her hands.

  First, though, she had to find a way out of the Hilltop Bastion and back to the ship. So far, they weren’t making much headway. She crawled ahead of Rodger through the utility tunnel. He seemed to be enjoying the view, judging by the beam from his light. It danced across the tunnel but conveniently seemed to center on her backside most of the time. A free view of her ass was the least she could give him for coming down here to find her.

  Her light picked up another pile of feces ahead. The sight almost made her gag even though she couldn’t smell it. Bones and a single feather protruded from the pile. The Sirens had been inside the passages, and while these remains weren’t fresh, the number of piles was alarming. She began to wonder whether the creatures lived in the ducts.

  The thought made her check the knife sheathed at her thigh. She continued crawling, doing her best to keep her rifle from banging against the metal. Rodger was having a hell of a time behind her. She couldn’t see him, but she could hear the ruckus he was making. Whatever was sticking out of his vest pocket kept catching on the strap of his rifle.

  “Stow your shit,” she hissed.

  Magnolia continued wriggling through the narrow passage, her elbows scraping on the metal walls, and her helmet grazing the ceiling. She squirmed faster, like the soldiers she had seen ducking under barbed wire in the films from the archives. Her HUD clock showed they had been moving for thirty minutes, but with Andrew dead, the mission clock didn’t mean much anymore. Their mission had changed from rescue and salvage to survival.

  The light on her helmet showed another junction ahead. She pushed on until she was about five feet away, then pulled in her knees and turned to look at Rodger. He was scrunched like an animal in a crate. His beam hit her in the visor, and she ducked, shielding her face with her arm.

  Rodger moved it away and then scooted up so they were visor to visor. His eyes searched hers in the half-light of her low beam, and for the first time in years she felt a flicker of something other than disdain for the opposite sex.

  “Didn’t Timothy say to take a left here?” she asked quietly.

  “A left, then right, then left, then another left.” He nodded confidentl
y. As she turned away, he covered his vest pocket.

  “What the hell do you have—”

  The sound of claws scratching metal cut her off.

  “Move!” Rodger said. Crouched on his knees, he brought his rifle muzzle up as she pivoted back toward the junction. Her light captured a Siren moving on all fours toward them, spiky back hunched and scraping against the sheet metal. A rope of saliva swung like a pendulum from its wide mouth.

  A deafening crack filled Magnolia’s helmet, and the flash dazzled her eyes. Another shot followed, and she scrunched down to give Rodger more room. Agonized screeches bounced off the walls. She blinked away the stars and saw the beast flopping around, crashing off the metal ductwork.

  “Hold your fire!” Magnolia barked.

  As soon as Rodger lowered his rifle, she was crawling toward the monster. It was making too much noise; the racket would draw every Siren in the area to their position. She centered her light on the beast as it thrashed, smearing its blood all over the sheet metal. With a side-armed motion, she threw the blade down the tunnel. It sank halfway to the hilt in the side of the creature’s head. A moment later, it went limp, and Magnolia was moving on her elbows and knees toward it. She stopped a few feet away to make sure it was dead before grabbing the hilt of her knife. She tugged, and the blade came free, releasing a stream of gore onto the floor. It was hard to believe this had ever been human.

  Magnolia went to push the corpse out of the way when the beast suddenly slashed at her. Something stung her right shoulder as she brought her elbow pad down on the creature’s skull. There was a screech followed by a thunk, thunk, thunk. Fueled by adrenaline, she slammed her pad down over and over. Soon the creature’s skull was like the shattered shell of a boiled egg, and her armored elbow was covered in blood.

  “You can stop now,” Rodger said. “It’s dead, okay?”

  A guttural roar seemed to answer him. The noise came from somewhere below them, but Magnolia didn’t need to see through the duct to know the source. The glowing beast from the cryogenics lab was out there, hunting them.

  She looked down at her arm. The beast had gotten her good. Her light captured a pair of deep, bloody gashes. The claws had shredded her layered suit, and blood seeped out of the tears.

  “Magnolia?” Rodger said again.

  She applied pressure with her left hand and said, “I’ll be fine.”

  The wound burned, but it was the radiation, not blood loss, that concerned her. Here inside the facility, the rads were minimal. She could survive for a while down here, but before she went topside—if she ever got out—she would need to patch the tears in her suit.

  One thing at a time, Mags.

  She pushed the pain and thoughts for the future out of her mind, and they moved quickly down the passage for several minutes. Her light ran over walls covered in scratch marks, and before long they came upon another pile of feces. This one was fresh, and she instinctively held her breath as she crawled over the top.

  Halfway to the next junction, she came across an area with three vents on the right side of the wall. The metal grate of the center vent had been pried off.

  She kept her rifle cradled as she squirmed toward the opening, waiting for a Siren to pop out into the passage. Every few feet, she stopped to listen, but the ringing from the gunshots made hearing difficult. Beyond the high-pitched whine was a faint humming that reminded her of the nuclear power plant on the Hive.

  Timothy had mentioned that they would cross over the engineering room on their way through the utility tunnel. If that was where they were now, then they weren’t far from a passage that served as a back door to the control room.

  She didn’t stop as she passed the first two vents, but approaching the third, she slowed. Her light captured the opening but barely penetrated the space beyond.

  “Lights off,” she ordered.

  Both beams flickered off, and darkness filled the tunnel, leaving only the faint blue glow from their battery units to guide them. Pain shot up her right arm as she heaved the gun up toward the opening.

  She squirmed a few feet on her elbows and knees and slid over the vent cover. The ringing in her ears had finally faded away. She couldn’t hear the monsters, only the reassuring hum of machines. Curiosity prompted her to bump her light back on. If this was the engineering room, it could contain valuable fuel cells for the Hive. Perhaps she could use them as a ticket back onto the ship. She would deliver them to Jordan right before she plucked the eyes from his skull and fed them to him.

  Shifting her helmet toward the opening, she raked the beam back and forth. Below was a room so big, the beam didn’t reach the other side.

  “What do you see?” Rodger asked.

  Magnolia angled the light downward, capturing the outline of several tarp-covered mounds. Beyond these, she could see shelves stacked with what could be supplies.

  “Hand me one of your flares,” she said.

  Reaching back with her uninjured arm, she felt one of Rodger’s sticks in her palm. She pulled off the top and hit the flare’s tip against the striker surface. The flame burst out, and she dropped it into the room. Two heartbeats later, the flare clanked to the floor.

  The red flare lit up a room larger than the lab they had just left, revealing a fleet of vehicles. Trucks, cars, jeeps, and even a motorcycle were parked below. Unlike the rusted hulks she had seen on the surface, these vehicles had intact windows and unblemished paint, although their tires were flat.

  Curiosity once again getting the best of her, she reached back for another flare.

  “Weaver’s waiting on us,” Rodger protested.

  “This’ll only take a second.”

  He scooted up closer and tried to see past her, but Magnolia just moved her fingers, signaling for the flare.

  “Fine,” he huffed.

  She grabbed it, struck the surface, and flung it out as far as she could. This time, the red glow bloomed over something that took her breath away.

  “Come on, Mags. Tell me what you see.”

  She waited just to be sure, but the familiar beetle shape sitting on raised platforms across the room wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

  “Hey, Rodge, do you remember Timothy saying anything about an airship down here?”

  She moved aside to let him see.

  “Holy shit,” he murmured. “Is that really a ship?”

  Magnolia smirked. “Think you can figure out how to fly it?”

  * * * * *

  Sweat rolled down Weaver’s forehead even as his armor shed the water from the treatment plant. He couldn’t see much without his night vision, and the quiet darkness was starting to unnerve him.

  The optics weren’t all that had malfunctioned after his swim. His battery charge had dropped from 70 to 20 percent, and the glow from the dying unit penetrated only a few feet around him. If the heart of his suit gave out, his worst fear would come to pass and he would die in this tomb, blind and deaf.

  But Weaver refused to die alone, in the darkness underground. He had lived his whole life in the sky, and he couldn’t bear the thought of spending his last moments trapped down here. He wouldn’t go out like Andrew, especially at the hands of the Sirens.

  Blaster in one hand and broken femur in the other, he continued up the steps. He had discarded the wet shells, and though the ones on the outside of his vest were just as wet, he had found a couple of homemade buckshot rounds, which he kept in a pouch. The two shells weren’t going to save him if he encountered the Sirens again, but the ammunition made him feel a little less helpless.

  A rattling around the next corner signaled a new threat approaching. He set the thighbone down and placed his palm over his headlamp before switching it on. He took his hand away for an instant before covering the lamp again. In the single moment of light, he glimpsed something unexpected in the stairwell above.


  Tubes webbed across the walls at the next landing. He pulled the cup of his hand away from the headlamp and ran the light over them. Pores dotted the rubbery black skin, and every few feet, a halo of spiky growths surrounded bulbous black openings like lashes protecting an eyeball. The walls that the tubes ran across were not equidistant here. They appeared bent inward, and Weaver quickly saw why. The tubes fed into wider holes in the concrete, leaving gaps that exposed the earth. Feathers and white grit had piled on the floor.

  This wasn’t another nesting area of the Sirens—it was the home of the cyclopean camouflaged beasts he had encountered outside the treatment plant. The tubes appeared to be some sort of passage or burrow to move from the facility through the earth, and perhaps back to the surface. The openings appeared to be doors of some sort.

  Vultures, he mused. These mutants looked something like the carrion birds from the archives. But the camouflage made them even better scavengers.

  Not good.

  Weaver was sandwiched between the nesting grounds of a new type of mutant, and the home of the Sirens ten floors below. This place, unlike the other ITC facilities he had raided on past dives, seemed to be home to a variety of monsters.

  As he picked the femur back up, he considered the barrier in the stairwell. For some reason, the Sirens didn’t seem to venture up this way, which meant these emaciated vultures must be more dangerous than they looked.

  Holding his weapons loosely in his gloved hands, he continued up the landing. There was only one logical way out of this monster-infested facility, and that was up. He would take his chances with the one-eyed, one-armed scavengers over the eyeless beasts below.

  On three, you’re going to stop this lollygagging around and run like a man.

  He bolted up the stairs on the count of two. The ceiling and walls had shifted as if an earthquake had hit the stairwell. Wide cracks spiderwebbed across the concrete. Navigating around the barbed spikes that lined the holes, Weaver brushed up against one of them, and the lash-like growths scraped his armor. But they weren’t hard like teeth after all; they reminded him more of stems from the glowing bushes he had encountered on other dives.