William Meikle: Infestation

“The captain set a guard on the rig just in case and I dragged myself wearily off to my bunk where I fell, fully clothed, into a welcome oblivion that did not require any vodka to achieve.”

“Once again I was rudely woken, although this time it was still dark outside the porthole, and this time it was by the captain tugging at my shoulder.

“‘We missed one,’ he said as I rose.

“‘It’s alive?’

“‘Not anymore,’ he said. ‘But there’s something I need you to see and something we need to talk about.’

“He led me down to the main galley and through to the smaller, cold refrigerated larder at the rear. It looked like a gale had blown through it, with frozen meat, partially eaten by the look of it, strewn here, there, and everywhere. But it wasn’t what he’d brought me to see. The remains of one of the isopods were squished into a mass of pulp on the floor, mere inches from its obvious entry point. A hole had been made, scratched or eaten, in the metal door of the larder, a hole the approximate width and height of the isopod itself.

“We left the cooks to clean up the mess and went up to the captain’s cabin where, without asking, he poured us three fingers of vodka each and it went down the hatch so quickly I hadn’t even got a smoke lit before he poured another.

“‘Tell me again about the discontinuity,’ he finally said after we were both lit up.

“We had talked, briefly, of the theory before, so I knew there was little he didn’t already know but I also knew he needed to talk. The appearance of the isopods in such numbers and the loss of the crewman to them, had us all rattled. So I laid it out for him again as we made our way down the bottle. I spoke again of how our Russian scientists had discovered an anomalous layer between the mantle and the crust where sound waves behaved differently and the theories as to what might be the cause, from a porous rock stratum to large oil deposits or even, possibly, a liquid metal layer.

“At first, I thought he might not reply but then I noticed he’d definitely been thinking along lines I had not even considered myself.

“‘These things, isopods you call them, you say they live on the bottom, on the sea bed?’

“I nodded, unsure where he was going.

“‘But they only came up the shaft when we hit oil, when we broke through to a different layer. And here’s what I’m thinking about, what if they came up from there and not the ocean floor? You saw how it ate through the metal door? What if that’s what your discontinuity is? What if it’s these things, down there, eating through rock and sediment and whatever the hell they can find? They’re certainly voracious enough.’

“I was about to laugh, then saw he was deadly serious, so I took a long drag of smoke before replying, trying to compose an answer that would not sound condescending. I shook my head.

“‘The pressures and temperature differentials would be too great at depth for any living creature to survive, let alone thrive in such large numbers. It’s not possible –’

“He interrupted me.

“‘And it’s not possible for one of them to eat through a metal door. And yet here we are.’ He didn’t give me time to reply. ‘And if they are bottom feeders we have disturbed, why didn’t they come up when we started drilling and not this distance down below the sea bed?’

“His questions reminded me of something I’d forgot, the reason why I’d requested a live specimen.

“‘I don’t have any answers for you, yet. But maybe the one we caught will tell us something.’

“We made our way out onto the deck and across to the rig and the squat metal refurbished cargo container serving as my lab above the drill shaft. But our trip was wasted; the box lay half on and half off the shelf, clearly having been smashed open from the inside.

“‘I think we’ve found where the one we missed came from,’ the captain said dryly. ‘Was there something in particular that caused you to collect it?’

I had hesitated to mention it until now but worry had suddenly taken root and I wanted, more than anything else, to head back to the vodka and dive into it but the captain wouldn’t take my silence for an answer and insisted.

“‘You’re not going to like it,’ I said.

“‘I’m already bloody unhappy,’ he replied. ‘How much worse can it get?’

“‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ I replied, keeping my voice low so only the captain might hear, for there were other men on the deck having a smoke and they were within hearing distance. ‘I didn’t get a really good look but I’m pretty certain the ones that came aboard today were all juveniles and all recently born.’

“‘You’re saying there are more?’ he replied and I saw my worry reflected in his eyes. I hated to make it worse still but as captain, he deserved to be told.

“‘I’m saying there are bigger.’”

Banks led the squad back to the post office, just in time, for the shoreline track, the short quay, and even the partially submerged boats were all now a seething, roiling mass of the scuttling creatures. The main door proved to be locked and it took both Mac and Hynd to force it open, having to break the lock in the process. The sturdiness of the door was a blessing in disguise, for when they got inside and closed it again, then manhandled a large filing cabinet against it, it appeared to be strong enough to withstand any attack, or at least give them plenty of warning of one.

Banks and Hynd stood at the main window overlooking the shore while behind them McCally and Briggs secured the main room and Mac worked on Nolan’s wounds. Their night vision glasses gave them an all too clear view of the scene outside. Around a hundred of the beasts had gathered out there, all between the post office and the waterline, milling around, almost aimlessly. The only plus point appeared to be that they showed little interest in Banks’ squad.

For now.

“What the fuck, Cap?” Sergeant Frank Hynd said, in perfect imitation of Mac’s Glaswegian drawl.

“Fuck knows, Sarge,” Banks replied in the same manner. “But at least we know what killed the walruses and the poor sods who lived here. I’ll be buggered if I can figure out what it has to do with our mission though.”

Now they saw the beasts in a cluster in the dark, something else was obvious; they gave off a shimmering luminescence from under their shells. Banks lifted up his glasses for a better look; as they milled around, it almost looked like they floated on a glowing blue carpet.

“What are they?” Hynd said. “I’d say slaters, but these fuckers are much too big. Some kind of crab?”

“Crustaceans of some kind, certainly,” Banks replied. “And vicious wee buggers at that.”

“We should call this in, Cap,” Hynd said. “It isn’t normal. We’re way off script already and we haven’t even got to the boat yet.”

“You know the orders; radio silence they said, unless there’s extenuating circumstances.”

Hynd laughed and waved at the view beyond the window.

“I think this fucking qualifies, Cap. Don’t you?”

Banks couldn’t drag his gaze from the swarming beasts. He replaced his night glasses; the blue shimmering was too otherworldly, too far out of his experience. It didn’t look quite so weird in the muted, almost monochrome world through the night vision. The beasts still showed no sign of being interested in them.

“We’re not in any immediate danger, at least I don’t think so. But we need to find a way past these fuckers; we need to get out to that boat.”

“Well, I’ve got one bit of better news,” Hynd replied. “We didn’t find a boat or dinghy but we did find kayaks. There are eight of them neatly stacked behind the house two up from the south end, all in good nick from what I could see and all with paddles too.”