William Meikle: Infestation

Banks’ spidey sense was tingling hard and he’d learned over the years to trust it.

“Mac?” he called out. “How’s it looking? I’d like to get out of this thing before my balls drop off.”

“Come on in, Cap,” Mac called back. “There’s been a fire right enough but the structure’s sound and it looks like we can get all the way up to the deck, slick as shite off a shovel.”

Mac led them forward into the shadow of the rig. It felt colder still here out of the morning sun, but they had ample room to quickly pull the kayaks out of the water and store them six feet up on the drill structure itself. It made extra work for them but Banks felt better knowing the vessels were there and safe, should a quiet, or quick, escape be needed without resorting to the lifeboats.

Five minutes later, they had the kayaks stowed safely on the second tier of the drilling rig and stood at the foot of a ladder leading all the way up to the deck.

“Time to go to work and find what we were sent to find, lads. McCally and Briggs, you’re up first. Mac, bring up the rear. Heads up; and keep your eyes open. Quiet doesn’t mean safe.”

He felt every rung of the climb drain strength from his already weakened arms. On top of that, his gloves put too much of a distance between his fingers and the ladder, threatening to slip every time he tried to grip but he knew better than to go bare-handed; the cold metal would strip the skin from his palms as fast as any burn. Hynd was the man ahead of him and Banks concentrated on taking it one rung at a time, following the sarge’s feet on the way up. The feeling he’d lost while paddling slowly came back in his feet and ankles, as if someone was running a blowtorch over them, and his breath froze into ice droplets around the fur of his hood. But he was doing better than Nolan below him, who moaned and complained every inch of the way up until Mac, below him, had heard enough.

“If you don’t hurry the fuck up, I’ll put a bullet in your arse myself, lad. Get a move on, I’m fucking freezing back here.”

They kept climbing. It was only fifty rungs but Banks felt every one of them and by the time he clambered out onto the deck, his arms trembled and his shoulders ached from the weight they’d taken. At least it was warmer up here, marginally, and as he waited for Nolan and Mac to climb aboard, he raised his weapon, aware that now, this precise moment, was when they were at their most vulnerable. But the boat stayed quiet – more than that, it actually felt dead. Banks relaxed, as much as he could allow it, and had his first good look round.

Hynd, McCally, and Briggs also had their rifles in hand but there was no sign weapons would be needed; there was no sign, at first glance, of any disturbance. It was only when Banks looked more closely he saw it; more scorch marks, particularly around the top part of the drilling rig. Right on top of the rig, the metal was bent and twisted out of shape, as if something heavy had sat there once before being roughly torn away. Alongside that, there were numerous scratches and gouges on the deck; he’d seen their like before, on the shore where they’d found the dead walruses.

Our beastie pals have been here too.

There were no carcasses here though, no charred shells but as Banks walked several paces forward, he found the first clue as to the fate of the crew. A long smear of blood and tissue led across the deck and over the gunwales. It reminded him all too clearly of the similar smears they’d found back at the broken doors of the houses on the shoreline. There was something else too. The more he looked, the more he saw, deeper gouges and larger, longer scratches, far too big to have been made by any of the beasts they’d seen so far. It looked like only one set of them, but it had Banks thinking and he wasn’t happy at his conclusion.

They come in bigger sizes .

Mac had to boost Nolan the last few feet up and over the gunwales; the Irishman had spent what little energy he had left on the climb but finally everyone was up on deck, rubbing their arms and stamping their feet to try to get some life into frozen limbs.

“Let’s head inside,” Banks said, “see if we can get a heat, or at least some respite from the chill. We’ll try the control room first.”

“Shall I take somebody with me down to check out the engines, Cap?” Hynd said.

“Negative. I want us all together until we know what’s what. Last time I let any you off on your own, you brought back a load of hungry critters with you.”

Hynd smiled.

“At least we got a fire out of it.”

Banks turned to Nolan. The lad looked pale and dog tired.

“You still standing, Nolan? We’ll see what’s what inside, then get Mac to have another look at those wounds,” he said and Nolan gave him the thumbs up but couldn’t manage a smile.

“A cup of tea and a fag wouldn’t go amiss either, Cap. I’m gasping and I’ve had enough of this running around shite for a while.”

I think we all have .

Banks thought it but didn’t say it.

“Mac, you’re on point. We’re headed into the superstructure and up to the control room. We’ll take stock up there depending on what we find.”

What they found was an empty boat. There were more blood smears; many of them, all leading across the decks or corridors and off the boat at the nearest vantage. What they didn’t find were any bodies, although there was more blood in the first stairwell going up into the superstructure; the steps were sticky with it, despite it being congealed, almost dried. Whatever happened here, it had been a day to thirty-six hours ago by the look of it.

It was dim, almost dark, in the stairwell; the power appeared to be off and there was no thrum of engine or generator noise, only a gentle lap of waves on the hull and a slow, almost imperceptible roll in the swell. The only sound was the squad’s footsteps on the stairs.

Banks looked up, past Mac to the top of the stairwell, checking for any signs of a possible ambush but there was only dark shadows, no hint of any of the blue shimmering luminescence he’d come to associate with the beasts.

He realized as they climbed he was now operating from the conclusion the creatures they’d encountered onshore were also responsible for what had happened here on the boat. He didn’t believe in coincidence and certainly not one of this magnitude.

But what the fuck were these Russians doing here in the first place? And where did these beasts come from?

Banks’ hopes of finding answers in the control room were dashed. Mac led them into a quiet, and most definitely empty, room; there weren’t even any signs of an attack, no blood smears of gouges on the deck. It was as if all of the crew had suddenly left in a hurry; there was even a cold mug of coffee sitting by the main viewing window.

Hynd went over and checked the controls, then looked up and shook his head.

“There’s no power. Either they switched it off, or something did it for them. We’ll have to go downstairs to find out.”

“Later,” Banks said. “Nolan here had the right idea. We’ve been at it too long without a break. Smoke them if you’ve got them and we’ll have a brew. Who’s got the stove?”

Mac had the small camp stove and the makings for the tea in his backpack; they found a faucet in a small galley area off the control room and the water looked and smelled clean enough to drink. Banks was even able to get himself a mug of hot coffee by using a small French Press from one of the cupboards and helping himself from a jar of fresh ground Colombian. It was marked with a label, ‘Captain only.’