by ML Banner
The feeder took several quick steps forward, walking past the guard, who trained his weapon on the closest pod, only a few meters down the aisle, which led directly to the stage.
Heavy-breath—“Mr.”—another heavy breath—“Deep?” Dr. Molly panted.
Deep exhaled a long chest-full of air. “Yes, ma’am.” His eyes moved from screen to screen to screen.
“Are we missing some of our parasitics?”
He snapped his head to face her. “What?” He heard her. He just didn’t understand the question.
She sprang out of her seat, leaned over the long desktop separating them from the monitors and tapped the main screen. “This pod is definitely smaller.” She moved her finger an inch over and tapped again, “And so is this one... In fact, all of the pods now look to me...”
“Like they’re smaller in size. I... Hey, you’re right. But where could they...” His head snapped again in her direction and hers to him.
Together, they yelled out, “The stage!”
Deep pounded his keyboard with a computer command, sending the dark stage camera view from a smaller monitor to the largest one. The video feed showing the volunteer gingerly lowering his food bags to the floor disappeared and was replaced with one that was thick with blackness.
At first glance, it was easy to assume that whatever the largest monitor was displaying was devoid of any light, as if it were turned off. Deep even shot a glance down to the power indicator light, to make sure it was on.
It was still green.
Then they saw the blackness on the screen was actually bristling with some sort of activity, like flashes of static. They could almost feel it more than see it, because when they focused on a perceived ghostly movement, the screen was still black.
Then there was a painfully quick splash of light through the center-break in the curtains. For just a moment, it appeared as if there were a multitude of people standing up on the stage. Like the final act of some giant talentless show, involving all the ship’s bad actors; a curtain call to a horrific ensemble, that wouldn’t receive an encore.
Then it was gone.
All at once, the curtains parted wide and out poured an uncountable number of parasitics. A geyser of terror sprayed into the lounge.
They’d been assembling there, waiting for this moment; when the main entrance was least secure; when the guard and feeder were preoccupied; and all timed to occur after they had found a way to open up the other door.
They had planned this.
~~~
Otto held tight, not letting go of the men. He had his arms wrapped around all three. They kicked and punched, but he held on. Otto knew this would be his final heroic action, not that he was feeling particularly heroic at this moment: his mind was filled with revenge. He’d take these horrible men with him. He was most impressed that he had no fear and felt deep satisfaction knowing the other three did.
Gas billowed all around them. The three men in their black jumpers coughed and choked as they struggled to get free of Otto’s grasp. And in their struggles, they breathed in more of the toxic gas. Otto wedged his eyes and mouth shut, holding his breath, not because he thought he would escape death. He was certain this was how it would end for him. He just wanted to make sure these men felt death’s sting before he did.
Finally, as the men quickly succumbed to the toxic effects of phosphine gas, searing through their lungs, eyes and skin, Otto couldn’t hold his breath any longer. It was time.
He let go of the three men, fluidly snatching the cigar lighter from his pocket, and held it out ready before he was forced to suck in a deep breath of the caustic fumes. I shouldn’t have waited so long, he thought.
With his eyes still shut, Otto involuntarily thrashed. He felt vital blood vessels and maybe even some organs inside him begin to burst. He had maybe a second or two.
Otto had two final seemingly disjointed thoughts: this was a real-life example of entropy, as in this was the point in their closed system when disorder began; and he wished he could have taken out his cigar and lit it before this.
He clicked on his cigar lighter at the same time he flicked open his eyes to see what it would look like. The effect was instantaneous: his eyes caught the beautiful blue flame, followed immediately by an all-consuming white light and then nothing.
101
The Trade
Minutes before their boat shook from the phosphide gas explosion, TJ had been eyeballing the disgusting men from the island carefully, even taking in another whiff of each. But other than their hideous body odor—which made her wince—and their revolting sidelong glances at her, she couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. Yet she couldn’t shake a feeling that there was something wrong with these men.
Before they started their trek down to deck 1, all their eyes were trained on either her chest or crotch, their hideous minds actively molesting her. She understood this and even expected it because of her chosen outfit. Still, it incensed her.
Pushing aside her anger, she focused on the first two men who boarded, but held back in the procession to the food storage: one was a stocky pervert with a bulging belly and other was skinny with a drawn face. They seemed different than the others in a way she couldn’t place. She wanted to take just one more whiff of these two, to see if she missed something, but watching them ogle her spiked her anger further. And she was afraid if she did take another whiff, she’d lose control of her anger and just kill these men.
This caused her to question whether she was actually receiving some input from her heightened hearing, sight and smell, all instructing her that something was wrong. Or is it the Rage disease in me, trying to wrestle allegiance of my senses so it can use them for its evil mission?
The men followed Flavio and the ship’s other guard down the stairs to deck 1 and then finally they turned onto the I-95.
The squat man at the end of the line continued to turn back and glare at TJ. Although all of the men looked like they’d lived on the streets this whole time, Squat was the most disgusting of the lot. His black-as-night eyes glared evil thoughts, while his tongue constantly protruded out of his muck-filled beard. And multiple times he’d made a lip smacking sound that turned her stomach. She was about to grab his flabby mug and pull it right off his stump of a body.
When she made the turn onto the I-95, she decided that however she was able to, she was going to have to kill this man first. That’s when she was struck by how empty this place was.
The main artery to the entire ship, where its vital crew members circulated from every part of the ship, through its smaller capillaries, each carrying the life-sustaining resources or services that made this ship function, was dried up, as if the heart of the ship were no longer pumping.
In fact, she knew this was by design. The captain had ordered all crew to be in their places before these men entered their ship.
Up ahead, several crew were already speaking to Flavio, who introduced them to the men.
TJ slid by them all and found Flavio deep in the hallway where most of the refrigerated food was stored. He had stepped away to allow the crew and the men to inventory and transact their business.
“You look out of breath,” he said to her, genuinely worried about her.
“I always look out of breath.” This was true. She wasn’t out of breath; it was just that she breathed much more rapidly than before. “I cannot place it. Either it’s their smell—which is definitely off—or it’s their mannerisms, or it’s something else. But there is something wrong about these men. Especially those two.”
She pointed at the squat and skinny man.
~~~
Vlad Smirnoff—no relation to his favorite vodka that shared his name—knew he probably should have worn his clean jumper today, after seeing his fellow crew in their best. His mama drummed into him at an early age to always wear clean clothes because, “you never know if this was your last day.” He had no idea how right she was.
Instead he listened to his best friend, wh
o ranted, “To hell with them. I’m not dressing up for extra duties.” Their extra duties were to assist with the refueling of their ship. They weren’t part of the normal refueling crew, but everyone was pulling multiple duties and multiple shifts lately. He often didn’t listen to Sven, who always mouthed off about corporate, but for some reason he did today. Part of him wanted to be rebellious, like Sven. The rest of him just wanted to be home.
Vlad stared out the porthole in their exit, watching the refueling barge tie up alongside them.
“Out of the way,” commanded one of the normal refueling crew, who rudely pushed Vlad aside. He guessed it was to confirm it was okay to open up the door.
He glanced back at his friend, who was slouching off to the side, acting disinterested. Sven was always trying to act tough, whereas Vlad just wanted to get this job done. Especially now. The stakes were high, from what the captain told them: they needed this fuel; it was as vital to the ship as their own blood was to them. And if they didn’t get this fuel, their situation was pretty hopeless. The captain didn’t say that last part, but Vlad knew this to be true.
Without the fuel, they’d never get to the next port, much less make it back to their families. None of the crew had heard from their families in days. They had no way of knowing if their families were even still alive with everything going on in the world and on this ship, from crazy people, and crazy animals, to cities burning and chaos everywhere.
It didn’t help to know, as the captain liked to tell them, that their situation on board was much better than the rest of the world. He suspected that might be true, but that meant his family had it worse.
Their ship was currently consumed by organized chaos, with short-staffing and passengers becoming crew to plug up the holes. It kept their minds off their families but it also added to their exhausting duties. Sven and he had to train two men and a woman earlier this morning while they did their normal engineering jobs. The woman was pretty bright and seemed eager to learn, even though she didn’t speak Czech or much English (the only two languages they knew). Although she did teach Sven and him a few words in German. The other two men were a different story.
They ignored most of what Sven and he had instructed, nodding their heads occasionally, but often making comments under their breaths in German, which neither of them understood. He suspected they were unkind comments, because at one time the German woman said something scornful to the two, then smiled at Vlad and said, “Please make more teach.”
Sven hit Vlad in the shoulder, shaking him from his daydream, just noticing that the door was sliding open.
“Ready?” Vlad asked his friend, who nodded back with zero excitement.
Their job was to help the others with the fuel hoses, which sometimes got quite heavy. They’d be setting up two hoses, one for each kind of fuel, going to two different fuel tank fittings on the side of their ship. Normally it was two Intrepid crew, assisting two or three crew of the fuel barge. But there were at least two or three times more crew members here today, all waiting to hop onto the barge and get the refueling done quicker than normal, as if they were racing against the prospect of the men on the fueling barge changing their mind.
He started moving with the others toward the gangway off the hatch, which was a narrow balcony-like walkway running forward from its opening. From there, they’d have to hop down to the deck of the barge and not fall off. Vlad was deathly afraid of heights, but even more afraid of falling in between the two ships and drowning or getting crushed to death. He felt his anxiety soar as he stepped outside and saw the drop.
Then, probably because he didn’t have any time to think about it and the others pressing against him, he hopped the four or five feet to the barge as if it were a normal day’s activity. He landed in a crouch so as to not damage his knees or tendons. Standing up straight, he looked back to see Sven was already behind him.
“Piece of cake,” Sven muttered, although he often said this when it wasn’t.
Vlad looked back along the span of the barge’s deck and noticed many more workers than he expected. He counted maybe a dozen, even though there were usually only a couple of men needed to do this job. Even with double or tripling the workers to accomplish the task faster, it didn’t account for the total number of personnel here. A couple of them wandered over to meet with the Intrepid’s crew, who were already grabbing hoses. The remainder of the barge crew, if that’s what they were, jumped up Intrepid’s gangway and entered their ship. It made no sense.
“Come on. We’re up,” Sven said, slapping his shoulder.
Vlad caught the scornful gaze of his new superior, at least for this shift, who was waiting on them to help him lug the heavy hose. And so he trotted over to help hall it over to the connector fitting on their ship. Another oddity was that their supervisor was manning the hose, not the barge worker, which was usual protocol. Vlad turned back a couple of times to see if Sven noticed any of these oddities too.
“Don’t you see it?” Vlad asked him and was surprised to see a man, who he guessed was one of the barge workers, in between Sven and him. The man wore sunglasses so he couldn’t tell if he was staring at him or at where they were connecting the hose.
Then they stopped, with the Intrepid crew member who was their direct supervisor busily connecting the hose fitting and then giving the okay to the barge’s control operator, topside and behind them. Their supervisor waved as if the operator wasn’t paying any attention to him because his waves became more furious.
Vlad glanced back to find the operator staring at his shoes. Until there was a loud whistle—maybe from his supervisor—and the operator looked up, glaring hatred. Then the operator pounded something on a panel and Vlad immediately felt the flow of hot fuel running through the hose, through his work gloves.
Vlad checked again with his supervisor to see if it was all right to drop his portion of the hose, but then he did this anyway because the damned thing was getting hot.
Oddly, he didn’t see his supervisor at all, like he had disappeared. Vlad was about to search for him when he heard a commotion behind him, followed by a gurgling sound. Swinging around to see, he found Sven clutching his neck, his face twisted in wide-eyed confusion. Blood was trickling out from his fingertips, like he had cut his neck or something.
In shock, Vlad was about to yell for help, when his attention was pulled to his right, were he was met by the toothy grin of the barge worker who had been between them. He held a large cleaving knife up, its silver blade coated in red. That’s Sven’s blood on it!
The yell, which was stuck behind his swollen tongue, erupted the moment the worker plunged the cleaving knife into Vlad’s chest. Just as abruptly, it was yanked out and Vlad was kicked to the deck. He laid there in shock, his brain not fully registering or unwilling to register that he had just been stabbed and would die there.
He felt more like a witness than a participant to everything unfolding on the deck: a set of gloved hands pulled against his chest in a futile attempt to stem the blood flow; some Intrepid crew who had earlier come out to help were also lying on the deck motionless; the barge worker who had stabbed him was climbing up the gangway into their ship.
The fuel barge was all a ruse. They used it to penetrate their ship. They were all going to die.
Vlad maneuvered himself to see his friend.
Sven wore a death mask: his eyes blank and fixed upward in a perpetual gaze at the darkening heavens, his hands loosely covering his throat which still trickled blood.
Vlad knew that would look the same in a matter of moments.
He turned onto his back and glared at the sky.
The thick clouds churned above and rapidly darkened around the fringes. With each blink they choked off more and more of the sun’s light.
Screams in the distance.
The blackness rained down upon him, enveloping him.
Just before his last blink, he heard an explosion.
~~~
The skinny man walk
ed right into the refrigerated liquor storage area, as if it was his own personal stash. “Now we’re talking,” bellowed the squat man, whose hairy belly pushed farther out from the bottom edge of his sweat-soaked T-shirt. He strutted into the room after his buddy, like a passenger who had paid for one of the top suites and expected top-flight service, when TJ guessed he wasn’t much more than a second or third-tier henchman.
Intrepid’s procurement manager and his assistant in training followed from behind. She heard the manager argue about whether liquor was part of the trade or not and then the room went quiet.
“Where’s the rest of their group?” asked TJ, swinging her head around.
“There were eight men total,” responded Flavio, stepping up to one of the three open refrigerated rooms. He ducked in, stepped out, and shook his head.
TJ jogged over to the third room, looked in and then returned to Flavio.
A glass bottle shattered in the liquor storage room.
They dashed inside where they found Skinny, in the back, standing over their procurement manager, a clear knife being pulled from their man’s chest. TJ knew he must have been hiding this and because it was plastic and didn’t set off the metal detectors. Skinny made a motion like he was about to drive it back in. Squat, on the other side of the room, had the assistant by a shirt collar and was reaching for his own plastic knife.
Flavio reacted without hesitation, shooting Skinny once in the head, pivoting on a heel to take out Squat. But TJ already had him down on the floor, the knife kicked away and the assistant duck-walking the other way.
Squat tried to wriggle free, but she pushed him down harder. Then he laughed, bellicose-like. “It doesn’t matter. You and your people will be dead soon enough.” She drove her knee hard into the man’s arm, snapping it with a loud crack. But rather than crying out, the man laughed harder. “Hah-hah-hah-ha.”
