100 Fathoms Below

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Gordon Abrams waited in silence for a full fifteen minutes after the last time he heard either Jefferson or Penwarden speak from the other side of the stateroom door, and he gestured for Oran to do the same. The time passed excruciatingly slowly. With his ear pressed to the door, Gordon was convinced he would hear something outside that would prove they were still there—a footstep, a whisper between them, another threat to get them to open the door. But when those sounds didn’t come and fifteen minutes had passed, he slowly and quietly pulled the chair away from the door.

“What are you doing, suh?” Oran asked in alarm.

“I’m going to see if they’re still out there.”

“Suh, don’t!” Oran protested. “That’s crazy!”

“We can’t stay locked up in here forever,” Gordon said. “We have to find Captain Weber and tell him what’s going on.”

“He must know by now, suh,” Oran said. “If he ain’t dead already, I mean.”

“We don’t know that. We have to assume he’s still alive and still in command. Since the circuit isn’t working, it’s up to us to find him and warn him about what’s happening on his boat. You can stay here if you want, but I’m going.”

“Like hell, suh,” Oran said. “I ain’t stayin’ here by myself!”

“Then you’ll have to come with me, because I’m out of here,” Gordon said.

“Suh, it’s suicide!”

“Duly noted,” Gordon said. “You coming?”

Oran sighed. “Aye, suh.”

Gordon unlocked the door and opened it slowly, just enough to peek out into the corridor. Not only was the battle lantern on the Officer Country bulkhead out, but every other light on the middle level was as well, leaving the corridor in complete darkness except for the light from the stateroom’s lantern. It was quieter than he had ever heard on Roanoke. Something was terribly wrong. No submarine should be this quiet.

In the light that seeped out into the corridor, Gordon could see Ensign Van Lente’s body on the floor. He didn’t see Jefferson or Penwarden, but that didn’t mean anything. It would be easy enough for them to hide in the dark and wait for the two men to come out of the stateroom. They could be just a few feet away from him right now, cloaked in darkness, and he wouldn’t know it. He and Oran could be walking into a trap. In fact, chances were good that was exactly what would happen. The vampires, rougarou, or whatever they were didn’t strike him as the sort that would just give up after a short wait. But Gordon knew they had to risk it. They had to find the captain.

“Let’s go,” he whispered to Oran.

Gordon crept out into the dark corridor. He saw a trickle of light at the dead end of Officer Country, coming down the fore ladder from the captain’s egress above. He turned the other way, toward the open corridor, and thought he saw movement in the distance. He strained, trying to focus on the black-on-black shadows in the dark. Had he really seen anything? Or was his mind playing tricks on him, showing him a bogeyman everywhere he looked? Then, like a field of stars on a moonless night, multiple pairs of eyes turned his way—glowing eyes that seemed to reflect a light that wasn’t there.

“Oh, fuck,” Gordon muttered. He turned, grabbed Oran by the front of his coveralls, and swung him toward the nearby ladder. “Get moving! Go!”

Oran darted to the ladder, disappearing for a moment in a shadowy corner near the ladder’s foot, then scrambled up it to the top deck. Gordon kept his gaze on those glowing eyes. How many pairs were there? Four? Five? His fear made it hard to count. All he knew was that it was more than just Jefferson and Penwarden. He felt along the floor until he found Van Lente’s sidearm. Snatching it up, he aimed down the corridor at the shapes moving toward him in the dark, their eyes blazing with unearthly light. He squeezed the trigger over and over again until the slide locked open, the magazine empty.

He had to have hit them, but the shapes kept coming. He threw the gun down, turned, and ran for the fore ladder. He remembered the broken light in the mess at the start of it all, and the broken lights in the head later, and how no one had seen it happen either time. These things could move fast when they wanted to, he realized, but they were only toying with him now, letting him run, confident there was no escape. Well, fuck that. That was their mistake, not his. He grabbed the rungs and scaled the ladder faster than he ever had before. He had his back to the figures as he went up, leaving him vulnerable, but he couldn’t think about that. He just kept climbing as fast as he could. He heard their footsteps behind him, but he couldn’t tell how close they were. The sound was muffled by the pounding of his heart in his ears. Then he was up on the top level and in the captain’s egress.

Only a single battle lantern still worked up here, taped to the bulkhead across from the captain’s stateroom. The door to the stateroom was closed. Gordon saw Oran at the other end of the captain’s egress, standing at the entrance to the control room, his form silhouetted by the twinkling LEDs of the instrument panels. He stood so still and so silently that he reminded Gordon of a deer in the headlights, frozen in terror.

Gordon started toward him. They didn’t have any time to waste. The creatures that had come after them on the middle level would surely follow any moment now.

Something struck him hard from behind—a sharp blow just below the shoulder blades, which sent him flying face-first into the door of Captain Weber’s stateroom. He didn’t have time to get his hands up to protect his face before he hit. His forehead struck it, cushioned only by the paper-thin fake wood veneer that covered the door. The door hadn’t been properly latched, and it swung open under the impact. Gordon half fell and half staggered into the stateroom. The lights here had been smashed too, but the light from the lantern in the corridor spilled in after him, illuminating a floor stained red. Piles of dead men in blue coveralls cluttered the center of the room. Some had a smear of blood on one side of their neck, just like Ensign Van Lente. Others were in much worse shape, with their throats ripped out completely, leaving behind only glistening meat and hanging, ragged bits of skin, as if the vampires had attacked them in a frenzy.

A shadow appeared in the light. He heard the sound of the corridor lantern being smashed and was plunged into sudden darkness. Hands pushed him forward onto the pile of bodies. He tried to scream for Oran, scream for anyone to help him, but his assailant’s arm snaked around his neck—so cold, so deathly cold—and cut off his air. He struggled, but his assailant was unbelievably strong.

A moment before he lost consciousness, he felt someone’s mouth against his neck. In a split second, his brain registered that no breath, warm or otherwise, came from that mouth. He felt teeth brush his skin and told himself to fight, to get up and run, that if he didn’t he was going to die. He felt hot pain sink into the side of his neck, and everything faded away.

Gordon woke in the dark. He tried to move but couldn’t. An image came to him of a fly wrapped in spider’s silk, waiting to be devoured, and he pushed it away. That wasn’t going to be him. He wouldn’t let it be. He would fight those bastards first. He tried to move again, but he was boxed in somewhere narrow that wouldn’t let him budge.

He could move his head slightly. It was resting on something cold and metallic, and when he lifted his head, he bumped into another cold metal surface. He winced in pain. His forehead was still sore from hitting the captain’s stateroom door. He gently lowered his head again. The metal was rounded, he realized, and damp. In the distance, he heard dripping water. It occurred to him that he was in a pipe of some kind.

Then the panic came. There was only one kind of tube on Roanoke big enough for a man to fit inside.

He began kicking his feet and slapping his hands against the walls. He screamed, but his cries only rang in his ears. No one would hear him through the thick steel of the torpedo tube and the breech door. Somewhere in his mind, he knew this, but he continued screaming. He screamed until he was dizzy and out of breath, and then he stopped. Air was precious in the watertight tube. If no one opened the breech door, he would suffocate. He just didn’t know how long it would take. Ten minutes? Five? Two?

He managed to work his hands up along his sides so that they were pinned against his chest, but he couldn’t get them any higher. He rolled onto his side, then squirmed and wriggled and pushed himself forward with his feet. The back of his head touched the inside of the breech door. He kept pushing himself toward it until he was curled with his shoulders against it. He shoved, but the breech didn’t budge. He pressed more of his weight against it, but it stayed shut.

An even more terrifying thought occurred to him. What if they didn’t intend to suffocate him? What if they were going to flood the tubes with water and then shoot him out into the freezing ocean? Would he drown, or would he freeze to death while still holding his breath? Or would the pressure simply crush the air-filled cavity of his chest? What would kill him first?
He remembered the feel of teeth against his skin and raised a hand to his neck. He felt sticky, coagulated blood, and two small welts. God, no! His heart raced, and he felt light-headed with panic. Why hadn’t they drained him? Why didn’t they finish him off? Christ, was this their version of a pantry? Would they come back later to feed on him again? He thought of all those teeth tearing into him…

It was too much to contemplate. The horror of it overwhelmed him, and he screamed again. He screamed until there was nothing left in his lungs. After his air left him, his mind followed. For an interminable moment in the darkness of the torpedo tube, Lieutenant Gordon Abrams went mad.