William Meikle: Infestation

But has it moderated enough?

Come on, guys. Do us a solid here and get us off this fucking boat.

Talking was about all Mac had left to him but he had plenty of it. He’d kept up a series of anecdotes and remembrances the whole time the work was continuing out on the deck.

“I’m like a fucking librarian, me,” he said, tapping at his forehead with his good hand. “I’ve got all the history of the squad up here. Every scrape we’ve got into and out of, who fucked up, who was a hero, all the times we saved each other or got saved. What’s going to happen to all of that?”

Svetlanova was only half listening. Her gaze kept returning to the dead isopod in the corridor. As a scientist, she wanted to be studying it, learning its secrets. But as a human being, she wanted it gone, out of sight and out of mind, to a dark place where it could rot forever. She’d missed a question and Mac was looking at her, expecting an answer.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m wondering what happens to me, if we get out of here.”

“I would nae worry, lass. You’re not our first political prisoner. You’re not even our first Russian. There’ll be some questions in London, then retirement, and a wee pension somewhere in the country, if you want it.”

She laughed.

“That’s probably better than I’d get if I went back to Moscow.”

Mac smiled, then coughed and wiped green-flecked spittle from his lips.

“I’d invite you to Glasgow for a sightseeing tour,” he said. “But I think I’ll be otherwise engaged, being dead and all.”

She knew better than to attempt an answer. It was hard enough for him to keep his own fear at bay without dealing with hers too. The smell of rot came off him in waves now, an acrid stench that had to be fought down when it tickled at the back of the throat. Green ran in the big veins at his neck, his eyes were as red as hot coals, and now the veins at his cheeks showed green too.

If her experience with Nolan earlier was anything to go by, Mac didn’t have long left to him. She didn’t want to watch another die; the memories of the first were going to haunt her for the rest of her life. Two might be too much. When Banks and McCally came back in to report the attempt to remove the anchor had proved unsuccessful, she took the opportunity to step up the stairs and out onto the deck to smoke a cigarette on her own.

The storm had abated; the wind still came hard and strong from the north but there was no sleet and the dark clouds were already breaking up overhead, with a hint of blue showing in places the more north she looked toward the horizon. The boat listed slightly to starboard and the drilling rig swayed and creaked alarmingly.

But we’re still afloat. And I’m not dead.

She cupped the cigarette in the bowl of her palm against the wind and tried to find a calm spot in the myriad of images and impressions flooding her mind. For the first time in days, she allowed hope to rise in her.

I might survive this.

Then she thought of the Glaswegian; a man who had shown her nothing but humor and kindness; a dying man.

He doesn’t deserve to die alone.

She flicked the butt of the cigarette into the wind and turned to go back inside. That’s when she heard it, far off and almost lost in the wind but distinctive enough it couldn’t be misidentified, the whop-whop of a helicopter. She turned, trying to locate the source and saw it, a black dot in the west, approaching fast.

Captain Banks reacted swiftly to her news.

“Sarge, you bring Mac. Up onto the deck, right now. We want this to go by the numbers.”

In less than a minute, they were all out on the deck, standing at the prow while the chopper came in from the west. It was obvious the pilot was fighting to maintain a straight line in the wind but the black dot got larger quickly. Svetlanova saw its lights, bright in the gloom under the still lowering clouds.

She stepped forward and took Banks’ arm.

“Captain.”

He turned and must have seen the concern in her face.

“What is it?”

She couldn’t quite find the words to describe the fear suddenly leaping in her and opted for the simplest explanation she could muster.

“The chopper. It’s all lit up.”

“So what?”

“It’s full of electricity.”

“Shit. McCally, Sarge, get over to the gunwale and watch the drilling rig. If anything looks like coming up, put it back down hard and fast. I’ll cover Mac when the chopper gets here. Once he and Svetlanova are on board, come back to me and we’ll cover you.”

The two men moved away to the side. Mac slumped, almost fell. His rifle clattered away on the deck and she saw he didn’t have the energy left to retrieve it. Svetlanova put her shoulder under his good arm and held him up.

“Don’t you fucking dare die on me, Mac,” she said in his own accent. “Not when I’m on a promise to meet your maw.”

If he replied she didn’t hear him above the noise of the approaching chopper, but she felt the squeeze as he held her tighter.

The chopper hovered twenty feet above the deck and started a slow descent.

Svetlanova was beginning to believe she and Mac might get out of it alive when the attack came.

Nothing came up the rig but they’d been outflanked without even considering the possibility of it; the doors of the cargo hold burst open. An isopod the size of a truck burst out from almost immediately below the chopper and reached upward. One of its tentacles waved too close to the rotors. The tentacle was snipped off, almost cleanly but it had been strong enough to disrupt the blades and the chopper fell, heavily onto the deck, where it was immediately engulfed by a swarm of smaller isopods pouring up and out of the hold in a wave. The chopper slid sideward as the larger isopod pushed it across the deck; Svetlanova had to drag Mac aside to avoid them both being chopped to pieces by the tail rotor. The chopper crashed, headlong into the drilling rig which started to topple with the combined weight of chopper and isopods pressing against it.

Everything went over the side and down into the water; chopper, rig, and isopods in a squirming mass, all over the side and away into the deep. The boat shuddered, a collision somewhere below the water line that Svetlanova guessed must be part of the drilling rig hitting the hull.

The deck of the boat heaved and there was a crack, loud like thunder, as the anchor chain finally gave way and the boat lurched, rolling heavily to starboard. The prow rose, only to splash down hard again, sending water spraying all over the forward deck, soaking them all up to their thighs.

Then, suddenly, all was calm. Eerily quiet. Even the wind had died, holding its breath to see what happened next. The boat beneath them turned slowly with the wind and drifted slowly southward, heavy in the water.

Mac spoke, almost a whisper, in her ear.

“Well, that’s us fucked good and proper then.”

For Banks, it all happened in slow motion and it took a few seconds to sink in how much had changed in so little a time. He ran to the gunwale and looked over; somewhere, somewhere deep, a blue shimmering luminescence dropped away from them into the darkness. Everything left of the drilling rig went with it, including the broken canvas and wood remains of the kayaks they’d used to come aboard. There was no sign of the chopper, or its crew.

The anchor chain had finally given way at the weak spot where they’d been cutting but in being dragged overboard, it had torn a chunk of the keel away with it. There was also the fact the boat was limping along at the whim of the wind. At the moment, it looked like they were headed straight for the bay where the harbor and post office sat, but it would only take a slight change for them to be heading into open water.