William Meikle: Infestation

“It’s all above us, Cap, for now.”

“And it sounds like it’s more like the ones we saw in the harbor rather than the big fucker downstairs. Okay. Bugger the computers, we’ve got the chief scientist. It’s time to go. Head for the stern. We’ll take a lifeboat back to shore.”

“We can’t…” the woman started to say, before Banks turned to her again.

“Yes, we can,” he said. “You’re either coming with us, or you’re staying with them.” He motioned upward with his thumb. “What’s it to be?”

“But…”

Banks took the Dictaphone from her and stowed it inside his parka. He wasn’t listening to her anymore; he had other pressing matters to deal with. The noise levels above them had become almost deafening; scratching and scraping, as if something was trying to get at them from above. Then he remembered the beasts at the door of the post office, tearing strips from the metal door and frame.

Maybe that’s exactly what they’re trying to do.

“You heard me,” he said to the men. “Move out. Mac, you’re on point. The lifeboats, fast as we can manage.”

The corridor they were in ran almost the length of the vessel. Banks had a look up as they passed the stairwell to the control room.

I should check on Nolan. Just to be sure.

But he’d seen only truth in the woman’s face when she spoke of the man’s death. And besides, the noise was getting louder; wherever the beasts were, they were getting closer.

We’d be rats in a trap.

They went past a mess that looked like a bloody battle had taken place inside and a larder with an open door; the woman paused for a step there, then moved on in their midst, as if she’d come to a decision. They moved faster now as they approached the rear of the boat and finally the noise above faded into the distance behind them.

We’re outrunning them.

They arrived at the stern seconds later, at the foot of another stairwell; if Banks’ mind-map and calculations were right, the stairs would lead to an outside door and onto the small deck behind the superstructure where the lifeboats hung. Mac was already halfway up the first flight, the light from his rifle swinging wildly left to right as he checked his corners.

“All clear,” he called down.

“Head up,” Banks shouted. “And no glory boy heroics; we get in the boat and we fuck off out of here. Clear?”

“Clear,” the men replied as one. The Russian woman looked like she wanted to talk again but Banks had already moved, starting up the stairs.

They came out, blinking, into too-bright daylight on a deserted rear deck. And Banks’ heart immediately sank; yes, both lifeboats still hung in their cradles but there was a good reason they had not been used; they were both holed, the beasts had got to the boats first, the timbers torn apart from the inside out. The port side boat was in better shape than the other; the hole being only the size of a football. As Banks calculated the distance to shore and the time it would take to reach it, he knew even the small hole was too big; they’d be floundering in ice-cold water before the halfway mark.

“I thought this might have happened. I tried to tell you…” the Russian woman said.

“Try harder next time, lass,” Mac replied.

Hynd had already moved to the port side and was looking along the length of the boat toward the drilling rig. He turned back to Banks and shook his head. Banks knew immediately what was meant.

The beasts are up on the deck. There’s no way through.

They had two options – to head back down below decks or move upward on the outside stairs of the infrastructure. He wasted no time in coming to a decision.

“Move on up, Mac,” he said. “I need to make a call and we need a clear, high spot for the best signal.”

Mac led, the rest followed. The stairs led them round to the starboard side and as he climbed, Banks got a clear view of what Hynd must have seen from below. The beasts had returned and in numbers.

The swarm covered the whole forward deck. Most were the size of the ones they’d encountered in the harbor at the post office but up at the prow toward the drilling rig, there were others of much the same size as the one he’d seen in the engine room, ten, twelve feet or more in length. The huge ones fed on the smaller ones, even as they all milled around and over and under the legs of each other. As of yet, none of them were paying attention to the squad climbing up the superstructure stairs.

I hope to God it stays like that.

They reached the upper deck a minute later. The high vantage gave them an uninterrupted view of the bay, the burnt-out buildings in the harbor off to the south and the seething, teeming horde of scuttling beasts on the forward deck. Now they had the height to get a clear view, it was obvious where they were all coming from. The beasts thronged over and around the drilling rig, with one particularly large individual, bigger even than the one he’d seen in the engine room, sitting among the twisted metal right on top of the rig, master of all it surveyed. And still the beasts were content to mill around aimlessly, showing no interest in the squad up on the top of the superstructure.

“Keep an eye out, lads,” Banks said. “One call home and then all we need to do is sit tight and wait for the cavalry.”

He removed his satellite phone from deep in his parka, switched it on, and punched in the number. He had a bad moment when he thought the call wasn’t going to connect, then it rang through.

“Cap,” Hynd said and Banks heard a note of caution in the man’s voice but the line had already been answered on the other end and he knew it would only take a matter of seconds. The sarge’s concerns, whatever they were, would have to wait.

“We have a package in hand. Request uplift.”

The reply was equally terse.

“One hour check in on this mark, four hours until uplift can be processed, coming down on your signal.”

The call ended as abruptly as it had began but Hynd was now waving, almost frantically, for Banks to join him at the railing.

“Cap, you need to see this. I think we’re in trouble.”

They looked down; all of the beasts had turned so their front ends faced the superstructure and every single one of them had their head raised and antennae upright as the squad looked at the beasts and the beasts looked back.

“We got their attention,” Hynd said, as the creatures, as if responding to an inaudible command, scuttled forward as one, heading for the superstructure.

“Time to go,” Banks shouted. Mac was first to move. He went to the head of the stairs, looked down, and stopped in his tracks.

“Too late,” he called back. “We’re cut off this way.”

“Take a quadrant,” Banks called out and the four others each moved to take a side of the superstructure. “Don’t fire until you have to. Short, controlled bursts.”

He turned to the Russian woman. She was already on her knees, trying to turn the circular handle on a three-feet square hatch on the superstructure roof. Banks went to join her.

“We should be able to get down to the control room from here,” she said. “But I doubt it’s been opened for years; it’s either locked or too stiff to open.”

He bent to help.

“Here they come,” Mac shouted.

Banks pushed his earplugs deep into his ears as the shooting started and the air filled with the crack and boom of rifle fire.

The hatch opening was stuck hard and even with the two of them pulling, it only moved an inch.

“Need a hand here,” Banks shouted.