William Meikle: Infestation

“I’m working on it,” Banks said. He tapped at the phone. “We can bring these fuckers to us anytime we want with this. But we don’t have enough firepower between the three of us to hold back a swarm. We need more bang for our buck.”

“Well, unless we’re leaking fuel – and I didn’t see any sign of it on the way in – a boat this size carries a lot of diesel,” McCally said.

“Aye. And it’s somewhere in yon freezing, flooded, engine room,” Banks replied. “I’d already thought of that. But in her story, Svetlanova mentioned they also carried kerosene; lots of it. Anybody seen it?”

The other two shook their heads.

“But there’s plenty of places we haven’t been.”

“Aye,” Banks replied. “And barely enough time to search. But let’s get to it. It’s double time from here on, lads. And if we don’t drift far enough, the strike’s going to take us out along with everything else in a wide area, so don’t even bother worrying yet.”

They searched from the stern forward, moving quickly. They didn’t find kerosene, or much of anything worthwhile in the crew quarters and engineer’s workroom that had been swept earlier. Their luck changed at the lifeboats, where Hynd came up with a small box of six emergency flares he removed from the box and stowed in his webbing belt as they went back inside and then quickly through the rest of the decks.

They still didn’t find kerosene but they did find Svetlanova, standing in the open doorway of the big pantry, eating hard biscuits, tears still running down her face.

“Mac’s dead?” McCally asked.

Svetlanova only nodded, tears running down her face.

“You were with him at the end?” Banks asked her.

She nodded again but still didn’t speak, just kept eating, almost mechanically. He squeezed past her, into the pantry and immediately saw what he should have also considered earlier. He kicked at a row of a dozen or so ten-liter containers on the floor.

“Well, there’s no kerosene,” he called out. “But there’s plenty of cooking oil, gallons of it. Enough to get a job done. Now we need somewhere to stand.”

“We didn’t check the cargo hold for yon beasties, Cap,” McCally said.

“Aye. That was deliberate. If the fuckers are in there, I didn’t want to disturb them before we had the weapons we needed for a fight. You saw how they came up out of there when the chopper came; we could try to take them again on the forward deck, although we’d be wide open if there’s a lot of them. Or we could go high, up on the top of the superstructure again. I’m swithering between the two of them.”

“If I get a vote, I say go high,” Hynd replied. “If there’s any more of those bigger fuckers still around, I want to see them coming.”

“I’m with the sarge,” McCally chipped in.

Svetlanova still said nothing. She had Nolan’s rifle slung over her shoulder and Banks considered taking it from her but decided to let her be; she was in shock, clearly. But she’d also proved she could handle herself in a clinch – at least he hoped so, for they were surely going to need her on a gun before this was over.

“The top deck it is then,” he said. “Sarge, you take Svetlanova and half of this oil; get it up on top. McCally, you’re with me with the rest of it.”

It took three trips to get six canisters of oil up onto the top deck. On the second trip, Banks had looked up to see Hynd giving him an okay sign from the top deck. It was getting dark now, the last rays of the sun washing the sea and horizon way off to the west. They were drifting, slowly, southward with the wind and the dark bulk of the island was straight ahead of them, still several hundred yards distant but getting closer. Banks tried to gauge the distance they’d traveled and how much they still had to go if they wanted to escape the coming air strike.

He saw McCally look at the island, then at him.

“It’s going to be touch and go, isn’t it, Cap?”

Banks nodded.

“And if the tide turns against us, it’s not going to end well. Let’s get this oil poured. We’ve got work to do.”

They poured oil until all six containers were empty, concentrating on the area between the open cargo bay doors and the superstructure. The list of the boat meant the heavy oil started to run but it was mostly running toward the open hold, so Banks let it find its own level. With the last canister, he got close to the dark opening. He chanced a look down. It was almost black down there but he heard them, skittering and scratching and saw faint but definite movement; blue and shimmering.

I see you, you wee buggers.

He saw no sign of anything larger than the dog-sized ones.

But it doesn’t mean there aren’t any there. It’s a big hold.

He looked up to see McCally empty the last of his oil close to where the deck met the superstructure. He jerked his thumb upward.

It was almost show time. He had one last thing to attend to; he led McCally to the stern and had him help while they readied one of the lifeboats so it could be released quickly from its cradle.

“The bloody thing’s holed, Cap,” McCally said.

“Aye, lad. I’m not blind. But if I’m right, it won’t need to take us far; and it might be the thing that gets us out of here in one piece.”

And now it is show time.

“Are you okay?” Hynd asked Svetlanova as they each carried the last two canisters of cooking oil up from the larder to the top deck. Her arms hurt from the two previous journeys, she felt dog tired and ready to lie down and sleep. But it wasn’t what the sergeant was asking her and they both knew it.

“I’ll live,” she replied, then realized in her tiredness she’d spoken in Russian, so she repeated it in English. “I’ll live. It’s seeing them go so fast; it’s not something I’m going to forget in a while.”

Hynd hefted his two oil canisters up onto the top deck, then came back down to take hers.

“We remember them,” he said. “In our thoughts, in our stories, in our dreams, and in the dark nights when we can’t sleep.”

“We’re their libraries, as they were ours? Is that it?”

“Aye, lass. You talked to Mac long enough to learn that, at least. He’d have liked that.”

He lifted the canisters up top, then came back to lend her a hand up the short steps to the upper deck.

It was almost full dark now, only the last glimmer of sunlight far to the west. A crescent moon rose in the east and the sky had cleared from the north, with a blanket of stars slowly taking form overhead. She’d always loved nights like this in the past and had stood on the deck for long hours, marveling at the sky until the cold forced her inside for bonhomie and chatter with the kitchen crew, then vodka and chess with the captain.

All gone now, never to return.

Now the boat felt as dead as the empty place in her heart. She pulled her jacket closed and put up her hood against the cold. She had thick, fur-lined gloves in her pockets but kept her hands uncovered for now; the metal of the weapon already felt icy cold in her hands but she wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger if gloved.

And I’ve got a feeling the shooting is going to start soon.

She looked ahead; the boat was pointed, straight as an arrow, at the island ahead and the wind was still at their back, although nowhere near as strong as it had been an hour before. But they didn’t seem to be getting any closer to land and the boat felt heavy and sluggish, without its usual slow yaw; now it was more of a floundering, like a dog paddling frantically trying to keep afloat rather than the smooth stroke of a seasoned swimmer.