Steven Kent - 100 Fathoms Below

Jerry turned around to see a group of sailors carrying Matson’s corpse. Captain Weber walked in front of them.

“Putting him somewhere safe, I guess,” Jerry said. “In case he’s not fully dead.”

“Can you really kill something like that?” Tim asked. “Aren’t they supposed to be dead already, technically?”

“Who knows?” Jerry replied. “They left out the chapter on vampires in The Bluejacket’s Manual .”

The sailors carrying Matson passed in front of the reactor. Several of them cried out and dropped Matson onto the deck. One of them shouted, “Captain, look!”

Jerry and Tim hurried over. On the deck, surrounded by a circle of gawking crewmen, Senior Chief Matson’s corpse had begun to smoke. A moment later, his skin started sizzling, stretching like a web over his muscles and bones as it blackened and burned away.

Jerry watched the corpse smolder. His suspicions were confirmed. There was something else besides light and wood stakes could harm the vampires. Something that was right here in the reactor room.

After seeing Matson’s body burn before their eyes, any lingering doubts about the veracity of Jerry’s story vanished. The elongated teeth in the blackened skull were plain to see, and they were all the proof anyone needed that Roanoke was facing something far more dangerous than a mutiny.

When the smoke dissipated, all that remained of Senior Chief Matson was a charred husk, like a marshmallow held too long over a campfire. With the skin of his face burned away, the horrid fangs looked even longer. Tim shivered at the sight. He couldn’t imagine the pain Farrington must have felt when those teeth tore into him.

Captain Weber broke the stunned silence by voicing the question everyone was thinking. “What the hell just happened?”

“Sir, maybe they—they self-destruct after they die,” one sailor suggested.

“If that’s the case, why would it wait so long, sir?” Tim asked. “Matson’s been dead for some time now.”

“I think it’s something else, sir,” Jerry said. He crouched over the charred crust that had once been Matson. “If the old stories are right, only three things can destroy a vampire. You drive a wooden stake through its heart, expose it to sunlight, or chop off its head. Matson already had a stake through his heart, and his head is still attached to his body. That just leaves sunlight.”

“White, in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t get a lot of sun down here,” the captain said.

“Only, this sumbitch burned up like he was outside at high noon, suh,” Oran said, coming over to them. “Now why would that be, suh?”

“Hold on,” Tim said. A thought had occurred to him. It was far-fetched, but they were past all that. “They haven’t come into the reactor room this whole time, right?”

“On our way back, Oran, Abrams, and I saw a few of them in the corridor,” Jerry said. “They stayed away from the hatch. They didn’t even try to get inside.”

“And when we first saw LeMon, he was just staring at the bulkhead between the forward compartment and the reactor room, remember?” Tim added. “Like he was fascinated by something on the other side.”

“What are you suggesting, Spicer?” Captain Weber asked.

“I don’t know, sir. But there’s something in this room.”

“I had the same thought,” Jerry said. “But what is it? If not sunlight, what ?”

Lieutenant Carr, the Engineering Department head that Tim had seen with the others at the wardroom meeting, stepped over to them. His uniform collar bore the insignia of a propeller flanked by two dolphins.

“Sir, if I may,” Carr said, and the captain nodded. “The only thing that’s special about the reactor room is the reactor itself. Is it possible that’s what’s keeping them out?”

The captain tapped his Geiger. “But the radiation level is within safety limits, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” Carr said, “but it’s still higher in here, just from proximity to the reactor. Think about it, sir. The sun gives off light and heat. Both are expressions of radiation, just at different frequencies on the same spectrum. Negligible or not, sir, there’s a higher radiation level in here than on the other side of the bulkhead.”

Captain Weber looked skeptical. “But we don’t have any proof of that, Lieutenant. The one thing we know works, that we’ve seen work, is wooden stakes, so that’s what we need. If we have enough of them, we could arm ourselves. But where are we going to find that much wood? There are only so many mop handles on board.”

“Wait here, sir,” Carr said. “I think I’ve got just the thing.”

He hurried off toward the back of the reactor room and returned a minute later. With him was an enlisted man carrying a bundle of long wooden rods. The sailor placed them on the deck in front of the captain. Each rod was two feet long and tapered on one end. Not a point, exactly, but it could be sharpened into one.

“Where did you find these, Carr?” the captain asked.

“They’re standard equipment, sir. They’re for fixing leaks. When seawater got into the auxiliary engine room of my last sub, I used these rods to plug the holes in the hull and stop the water. I reckon they’ll do just as well for killing vampires, sir.”

Much to Tim’s surprise, the captain smiled. Captain Weber had always been so aloof and imposing that until that moment, Tim wasn’t sure the man knew how to smile.

“Lieutenant Carr,” the captain said, “this is just what we need to take Roanoke back.”

A cheer went up from the other sailors. Tim felt it too. They were no longer helpless against the vampires. He felt an overwhelming sense of relief, like taking a deep breath after holding it for too long. Maybe they could survive this after all.

Oran Guidry’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. “Lieutenant Abrams, suh, you need to rest. Sit back down, suh, please.”

Lieutenant Abrams had gotten to his feet. He was even paler than before, white as paper, with dark rings around his eyes. His skin glistened with sweat, and his hair was damp and matted. Clutching the blanket around his shoulders, he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the light and squinted at them.

“I—I can’t control it anymore,” Abrams said. “I’m so hungry. I can smell the blood from Jerry’s wounds and the uniform he bled into. It’s driving me crazy!”

“You need to rest, suh,” Oran said again. He went over to Abrams and gently tried to guide him back to where he’d been sitting.

“No!” Abrams shouted, breaking away from him. “Don’t you understand ? Don’t any of you see what I’m becoming?”

“Lieutenant,” Captain Weber said sternly, starting toward him.

Abrams hissed at him, revealing two long viperine fangs. The captain froze.

“Get it now?” Abrams said. “It’s too late for me. My memories are starting to go. I can’t remember my brother’s name anymore, or—or the name of the hospital where my mother worked. All I can think about is how much the light hurts my eyes—and how hungry I am.”

“Lieutenant, you’ve got to calm down,” Jerry said, inching toward him. “We can figure something out—”

“Stay back!” Abrams yelled. “It’s too late for that!”

Jerry stopped in his tracks. Abrams spun around and faced the reactor. He looked up at it fearfully, as though he could see something they couldn’t. Then his expression became one of serene determination.

“This is the only way,” he said.

“Lieutenant…” Oran started to say.

Abrams ignored him. He walked toward the reactor, throwing off the blanket and spreading his arms. As he drew closer, his body began to smoke, and his skin began to sizzle like bacon on a griddle. Undeterred, he walked up to the reactor and embraced it. His body burst into flames. Men cried out, some of them running to grab the fire extinguishers mounted on the reactor-room bulkhead. Oran was at the head of the group running toward the burning lieutenant, but they could get only so close before the flames drove them back.