by Nick Cutter
There. It must be coming from beyond the gooseneck, toward Toy’s quarters.
But that hatch was locked, wasn’t it? Yes. He’d checked only minutes ago.
It came again. A moist note like a mop dragged over a tile floor. Silence. It came again, closer this time.
Otto Railsback.
The name leapt out at him. Railsback, who’d welded this station together. Down here alone in the dark—this exact same dark. A wee scrap of a thing, isn’t that what Alice said? He finished his job, laid his head down and died.
But he wasn’t dead. No-no-no. He was here now, crawling toward Luke. His legs had been torn away above the hips; the knobs of his spine projected through the bloody meat. The moplike sound was made by his unraveling intestines, still wet and juicy, whishing across the grate.
Luke had no intention of confronting whatever was really making those sounds. He backed away, struggling to recall where the tunnel bent so he could trace his way out again.
In the dark, a man’s thoughts described an unhealthy spiral. No matter what he tried to orient his mind on—the shape of his wife’s face or the sound of his boy’s laughter or the taste of a fall peach plucked right off the tree—every thought seemed to loop back, unerringly, to those shapes in the darkness with their guts unfurling from cracked-open bellies . . . And it was worse down here, so much worse, because that hammering Christly goddamn pressure never stopped welting down on him, a never-ending compression that cinched his brain in a vise, warping all rational thought . . . Nothing is impossible down here, Luke. This singular thought blazed across his mind. He was in a place where truly anything could happen. The edges of reality were blown out, inviting in every conceivability. That terrifying notion—all was possible—stripped a man’s mind to its fragile bedrock.
The sounds changed. Became a clitter-clitter-clack.
Nails on metal. Dog nails?
LB?
No, it wasn’t LB. Luke couldn’t put this sense into words, but he knew. It was something else . . . though perhaps not entirely. A new kind of LB, maybe. Whatever a dog might become after the station had swallowed it and spat it back out.
Click . . . click . . . click . . .
A growl. A rippling rusty sound like a balky chainsaw revving up.
Luke turned and fled. His face slammed into a wall; his mouth filled with a bracing metallic tang—the same as when, as a boy, he’d slipped on a patch of ice and smashed his face on the frozen schoolyard slide. He spun, regained his balance, and kept running. The air in front of his face had a staticky appearance, like TV snow on a dead channel.
Click . . . click . . . click-click-click—
Luke ran headlong into another wall and reeled away, convinced that the LB-thing was close behind now, accelerating on legs bunched with muscle, its fang-studded jaws open wide.
His hands slapped the storage area hatch. He ran his palms over it until his fingers slipped around its edge. He slid through the hatchway just as something slammed against it, jarring the hatch shut and jolting him to the ground.
The hatch’s hinges squealed. Luke skittered away as the metal groaned. The porthole must have broken; Luke could hear cracks threading across the thick glass.
He imagined that glass shattering—imagined whatever was on the other side pouring through the broken glass like hungering oil.
The shuddering stopped. But Luke could still feel his pursuer behind that hatch. His mind was unable to conjure its shape. That was surely for the best.
He needed a flashlight. He was certain he’d seen one in the communications room. Why hadn’t he grabbed it then? Stupid idiot. He stood and got moving, feeling blindly along the wall. His fingers brushed the edge of another hatch. It led to the comm room, he was certain. Through this hatch and down a short tunnel, past one hatch to the next one. Yes, that was it.
The flashlight would be there. It had to be.
Luke swung the hatch open. He crossed the threshold timidly—he half expected the floor to be replaced with plummeting nothingness. His toe hit metal. He crept down the tunnel until he reached the second hatch. He stepped through into the comm room. His hands feathered along the wall. His fingers brushed something smooth and tubular like a sleeping boa constrictor. Luke recoiled, his breath whistling in his ears.
It’s just a pipe. A harmless heating or cooling pipe.
His entire frame was tense. Soon, very soon, something would reach out of the darkness and grab him . . . or worse, enfold him in a loving caress.
His hands closed on the flashlight. When he released the clips, it slipped through his fingers and clattered to the floor.
Damn-damn-DAMN!
He groped after it, hoping to God he hadn’t cracked the bulb. He found it and thumbed the switch. A circle of light appeared on the wall. Luke’s heart flooded with relief. It was weak, but goddamn, blissfully, it was light.
He followed the beam out of the room and back down the tunnel. He returned to the main tunnel and trained the light on the storage hatch.
It was unmarked. The steel unbuckled, the porthole unshattered.
This station does as it likes, he thought. It ruins itself and fixes itself. Stop questioning any of it.
Laughter.
He swung the light behind him. Nothing. He aimed it on the storage hatch again, then in the other direction, toward the main lab. Nothing.
A prepubescent giggle shot through the dark, splintering the air.
A mocking titter.
“Daddy . . .”
Another titter. Zach’s voice, unmistakably. Luke backed away from it—but that was impossible, wasn’t it? It came from every angle: a cold and airless giggle that made the flesh jump down Luke’s throat.
The flashlight felt pitiful in his hands, a piss-poor little toy, totally unfit for the task of pushing back the enormous dark that assaulted him . . . a darkness rebounding with his son’s laughter.
He didn’t want to see Zachary. He didn’t want to confront what this place had done to him. But his arm moved nonetheless, the beam staggering over the walls and floor and cei—
Pajama bottoms. A pair of them hanging pendulant from the ceiling.
Something jutted from the leg-holes. Thick and tubular, holding the mellow glow of well-polished metal.
Tiny appendages were studded all along their length, anchoring it to the ceiling.
Legs. Dozens and dozens of little legs. A millipede’s legs jutting out of his son’s old pajamas.
The titter came again. Choked and somehow insectile this time. Luke could not even begin to conceive of the organism that might make such a sound.
It’s me, Daddy. Just little ole me. Ole Zach Attack. Shine your little light on me. You’ll see, I promise you’ll see everything!
Luke wouldn’t—couldn’t—let the light touch the thing hooked to the ceiling ten yards away, wearing his son’s pajamas. If he allowed that to happen, he would go mad. It would happen instantaneously, the moment the light touched the thing’s teeming face. A sharp note would sound in the dead center of his mind, a brittle snap or click, and his sanity would be burned out like a fuse going dead. A deadness would enter his eyes. He’d begin to titter along with the thing on the ceiling.
He might even be inclined to . . . to hug it. The two of them entwined lovingly in the dark. Yes, he could imagine that happening quite clearly.
The flashlight beam lurched, taking in the thing’s chest. The pajamas were stretched under the bulbous weight of whatever lay beneath them, the way his mother’s old clothes had stretched under the tortuous bulk of her fattening body. The fabric was split under the armpits and across the belly; Luke saw parts of some awful anatomy bristling and constricting through those tears.
“Daddy.” The voice was cold. Commanding. “Look at meeeee . . .”
And dear Jesus, he wanted to. Even if it drove him insane. It would be an end, wouldn’t it? He could give up. His obligation would end. Just switch the flashlight off and surrender. Let the things insid
e the station slither and hiss out of every dark hollow and claim him.
It wants to drive you mad, Luke. A final, desperate plea from his subconscious. It’ll make it all so much easier. You’ll be their plaything—do you really want that, after all you’ve been through?
The beam crept toward the thing’s head. It hung from the ceiling, batlike, its horrible body shuddering and bucking. Its hips thrust lewdly, in furious rut.
Luke’s thumb found the flashlight button. Something fought his intent—no no no you must not do that you disobedient boy you must look must look look you fucking bastard look at me look at US—but Luke fought back, overriding it.
He clicked the light off.
“You don’t exist.” His voice quavered, but only slightly. “My son is not down here. You do not have that control—not over him, or me. If you want me, I’m here.” His hand curled around the flashlight. “Come get me, you fucker.”
Silence. Then: a soft note like a silk scarf unwinding from around a metal pole. Next, a percussive pop followed by the gentlest outrush of air.
The tunnel was empty. Luke didn’t have to switch the flashlight on to know that. He felt it. The presence, whatever it was, had departed for the time being.
He flicked the flashlight on and got moving. Darkness was netted in the crawl-through chute; he went through feetfirst—he wanted a chance, at least, to kick at anything that might try to slither through from the other side. He slid through and continued on to the main lab. The beam roamed up the walls to the ceiling—
What the hell was that?
Holes were eating into the ceiling now. He saw one, then two, then a third, staggered a few feet apart.
Fresh fear scuttled up from the balls of his feet on febrile spider legs; when he swallowed, his throat felt like it was lined with carpenter’s glue.
The main lab was empty. Luke shone the flashlight on his brother. The stump was . . . gooey. Some gluey substance had already soaked through the cap of bandages; strings of ichor dangled to the bench.
“Al? LB?”
Luke’s despair thickened. After all this, Luke was left with his misanthropic, one-handed brother. He’d have to carry on as planned. Lug Clay to the Challenger and wait. If it became clear that Al and LB were truly lost and gone, he’d have to leave. He didn’t know how to pilot the damn thing, but Al said there wasn’t much to it. Seal the hatch, drop the weights, rise like a cork. Maybe he would rise too fast and the bends would twist the Nelson boys into human pretzels. Luke didn’t care. He didn’t want to die down here. If he had to die, okay, he was nearly resigned to it now—but he wanted to die while moving toward the sun.
He leaned on the bench, summoning the remains of his physical energy. His flashlight traced idle patterns on the wall. The beam touched the window, which was now covered in a gelatinous sheet of ambrosia. The stuff shuddered in the light—a sight not unlike a thousand eyelids snapping open and closed in rapid motion.
Luke swung the flashlight away, sickened. The beam landed on Westlake’s lab. The porthole was smeared with that tarlike black. The light pelted right off it.
Until a hand slapped the glass.
13.
LUKE FLINCHED, even though the glass was too thick for the slap to have made a sound. He bobbled the flashlight and when he trained it on the porthole again, the hand was still there.
His arms broke out in gooseflesh. The hand pressed to the glass, that squalid black squeezing between its fingers. Then it was gone.
A small hand.
A feminine hand.
Al’s hand?
How had she gotten inside? The hatch was locked and only Westlake’s combination would open it . . . unless it’d come unlocked during the power outage?
When Luke tried to push off the bench to investigate, he was dismayed to discover his ass was tightly glued to it.
Get up, for Christ’s sake. Open that goddamn door.
He heaved himself up. His legs carried him forward as his mind raced through a View-Master’s reel of horrifying images, both real and imagined.
Click: Westlake’s scarified body in its cooling vault.
Click: The pages of Westlake’s diary smeared with black gunk.
Click: Huge fire-eyed bees droning around Westlake’s lab, trundling through carbuncled, ooze-dripping honeycombs.
Click: A hole in the lab wall, bees flitting in and out, the narcotic buzz of their wings melding with the whispers drifting from the hole.
Luke’s fingers fell upon the wheel on Westlake’s hatch. It wouldn’t budge. He stuck the flashlight under his armpit and used both hands. Nothing.
Did the lock have a fail-safe in the event of a power outage? Was it wedged shut from the other side?
Luke settled his ear against the hatch. He tried to pick up a sound apart from that frenetic buzz. Al’s voice, perhaps. Her screams, even.
“Al?” he whispered. “Jesus, if you’re in there . . .”
The drone spiked—a warning? an invitation?—then settled again.
Luke couldn’t get inside. But thankfully that meant Al couldn’t be inside, either.
Unless she’s locked herself in. And wedged the hatch shut.
Why in Christ’s name would she . . . ?
Quit thinking about it, he chided himself. You can’t get inside. She’s not in there. She has more sense than that. This place is fucking with you again—it wants you to open the hatch, don’t you see? You’ve got to keep moving. Stick to the plan.
The plan. Okay. First things first. Transport Clayton to the Challenger.
Luke cut the Tensors and rolled Clayton onto his side. His brother showed no sign of awakening, but Luke filled another hypo with Telazol and slipped it into his pocket just in case. After a moment’s consideration, he slipped a scalpel in with it.
Luke raised Clayton’s arm and ducked his head under to heft him up. Clayton was incredibly heavy, especially with Luke as exhausted as he was. He’d manage it somehow. As he was leaving the lab, Luke heard a muffled thump from Clayton’s lab.
The cooler.
Oh, God. Its contents were thawing. And they wanted out.
He set Clayton down and shone the flashlight into the lab.
The cooler lid rattled ominously.
Thump. Tha-thump-thump.
The box of lab equipment Luke had set atop the cooler jumped. Before long, it would get knocked off. Then the creatures inside would be set loose in the dark.
Luke retrieved the Tensors he’d used to bind Clayton. Working quickly, he strung them under the cooler and knotted them tightly across the lid. When he was finished, it looked like a birthday present that nobody in their right fucking mind would want to open. He put the lab equipment back on top, thinking it couldn’t hurt.
With his ear pressed to the cooler, he could make out noises inside: long slow scratches, not unlike nails raking the inside of a coffin.
He shut the hatch to the lab and turned his attention back to Clayton.
“Okay, brother dear. Let’s get cracking.”
Dragging him through the tunnels was draining, awkward work. Luke tried a modified fireman’s carry, but the tunnel was too low for that. He tried carrying him the way you’d hoist a drunk, one arm hooked over his shoulder. Clay hung limp and heavy, toes scraping the floor. It was hard to carry him and keep the flashlight focused forward at the same time. Eventually Luke sat Clayton down and hooked his arms under Clay’s armpits, hands clasped across his chest, and dragged him. Luke hated not being able to see where he was going—he couldn’t see what, if anything, was waiting in the dark—but it was a lot quicker this way. Every few feet he stopped to sweep the flashlight behind him, ensuring that the tunnel looked as he remembered it.
He reached the crawl-through chute. Jesus. How was he going to manage this? It’d be easier to shove his brother in headfirst, humans being naturally top-heavy, but without anyone to catch him on the other side, Clay would fall bonelessly; he might smash his head open. So feetfirst it would have
to be.
Luke shone the flashlight down the crawl-through. Its insides glittered fitfully; the beam didn’t penetrate the solid dark on the other side.
“Fuck it,” he muttered. “Upsy-daisy.”
He wrangled Clay’s heels and calves into the chute. It was hard work to shove and shoulder Clayton’s body up and in; Clay’s scalp got cut open on the grate and one of his arms got hooked behind his back in a painful-looking chicken wing. Luke was breathing hard by the time Clay’s knees cleared the lip of the chute. He felt like a mobster feeding a dead stoolie into a wood chipper.
Luke cranked Clay’s midsection up and levered him into the chute. Luke figured he should go feetfirst, too, his heels braced on Clayton’s shoulders to push him along. Progress would be tortuous, but he could do it.
He pushed Clayton down the crawl-through as far as he could using his hands, then pulled himself out, gripped the first overhead rung in both hands, swung into the chute, and settled his feet on either side of Clayton’s head. Pushing with his hips and hauling with his arms, he was able to get Clayton’s body sliding forward. Luke’s shoulders and head were swallowed into the chute. He braced his palms and pushed against the rungs, propelling their bodies forward. The flashlight jutted from the hip pocket of his overalls, shining directly into his eyes—
Something was behind him. Coming down the dark tunnel.
He couldn’t see it, not yet—but oooh, he could smell it.
A childhood smell. The same one that would waft up from the white Styrofoam container with the perforated lid he’d buy at the local bait shop for two bucks. He’d put that container in his backpack and sling his fishing rod over his shoulder and head down to the river. On the banks he’d open the container and see them wriggling under a layer of sawdust. Maggots. The best bait for rock bass. Luke had always found them revolting—their fat, milky bodies so translucent you could see the weird workings of their guts through their skin. They wriggled delightedly, it seemed, when he pinched them between his thumb and fingers—just happy to be touched, even if it meant they’d shortly be skewered on a barbed hook. Their skin would dimple like a badly inflated balloon before the hook punched through their bodies—and their elated paroxysms would persist after they’d been skewered, these crazed squirms that would entice a fish to bite . . .
