100 Fathoms Below

CHAPTER FORTY

Alive, Lieutenant Commander Jefferson had been a strong man—big, muscular, fit—but now, after his unholy transformation, his strength was astonishing. He held Tim up off the ground as if he weighed nothing at all. Jefferson’s lips peeled back to reveal long, sharp fangs that glistened in the red light. It didn’t matter how much Tim struggled, punched, or kicked—Jefferson wouldn’t be deterred from biting into his neck and drinking his fill.

Captain Weber, dazed but back on his feet, rushed Jefferson from behind and tried to pull him off Tim. And, of course, Jefferson didn’t budge. But he did release Tim before swatting the captain away like a bothersome fly.

Tim scrambled for the bucket of radioactive water, but Jefferson was too fast. He grabbed Tim and tossed him across the room as easily as he had tossed Captain Weber.

Tim collided with the dead body in the planesman’s station, then fell, banging his head on the metal base of the seat. For a moment, the whole room spun like a carousel. It took him a second to snap out of it. When he did, he saw LeMon and Jefferson moving like lightning through the red-lit control room, slaughtering sailors and smashing battle lanterns.

Terrified, Tim began to crawl along the deck on all fours. A hand grabbed him by the wrist, and he recoiled.

“It’s me,” Oran whispered.

Tim relaxed a degree. Earlier, LeMon had smashed Oran into the fire-control console so hard that Tim had thought the culinary specialist was down for the count. He glanced up and saw Jefferson shove a sailor against the bulkhead and tear into the screaming man’s throat with his teeth.

“We gotta get back to the reactor room,” Oran said. “They’re killin’ us, Spicer. We need a new plan!”

“The captain won’t go for it, and we can’t just abandon him,” Tim said.

Oran’s grip on Tim’s wrist slipped as the Cajun was yanked roughly away. LeMon had him by the leg. Oran cried out as his brother threw him hard against the deck.

“Gonna taste your blood now, brother,” LeMon said. “Better’n Ma’s étouffée.”

Shit. Tim stayed down, crawling across the deck on all fours toward the bucket, avoiding the fallen bodies in his way, old dead and new. He tried not to look at them. Their throats were open and bleeding, their faces locked in expressions of pain and terror. The irradiated water was their only chance. Something grabbed him in the dark, lifted him, and spun him around. Disoriented, he smacked into a bank of small, twinkling equipment lights. His face collided with a metal panel and he slid to the deck, dazed. Jefferson loomed over him. This is it, Tim thought. The end. He had tried to be a good sailor for the navy. He had tried to be a good crewman for Captain Weber. He had tried to be a good friend to men like Mitch Robertson and Jerry White. There was so much more he wished he could have done, so many more parts of the world he wished he could have seen. Now none of that was going to happen. He braced himself and waited for Jefferson’s teeth to tear into him.

Jefferson bent down to bite him. Tim spotted the bucket nearby and sprang desperately for it, but Jefferson planted a foot in his back so hard he thought his spine would snap. He was pinned to the deck.

Jefferson laughed. “You’ve got some fight in you, Spicer. That’ll make killing you all the sweeter.”

Across the control room, LeMon straddled Oran on the deck while fighting off a handful of sailors who were trying to stop him from tearing into his brother’s neck. Captain Weber picked up a dropped stake and lunged at LeMon. He stabbed, but LeMon twisted, and Weber missed his heart, punching through the left shoulder instead. LeMon hissed with rage and pulled the stake out, but it was enough of a distraction for Oran to struggle free. LeMon rose to his feet and tossed the stake aside. Oran grabbed Captain Weber and pulled him away, then ran for the bucket. He snatched it up by the bail and spun around with it.

LeMon sprang as Oran flung the contents of the bucket onto him, water and plastic soup bowls alike. The bowls bounced and clattered to the deck as the coolant splashed over him in a wave.

“I’m sorry, Monje,” he said. “I couldn’t save you this time.”

LeMon screamed and burst into flames. He collapsed to the deck, convulsing as he burned, and then lay still. Oran dropped the empty bucket, which made a hollow thud.

Jefferson grabbed Tim and lifted him off the deck.

“Let go of him, Jefferson!” the captain yelled.

Oran grabbed a fallen stake and rushed at Jefferson, but the XO batted him aside with one arm.

Jefferson pulled Tim toward his slavering jaws.

The pointed end of a wooden stake burst through Jefferson’s chest with a spatter of blood. The vampire screamed, twisting and convulsing as he dropped Tim. He clutched at the blood-slicked stake and tried to pull it out, but it wouldn’t come. With a prolonged hiss that ended in a pained gurgle, Jefferson fell to the deck, dead.

Standing behind the body was Jerry White. Both arms of his uniform were wet with fresh blood, his nose was swollen and bloody, and he had one hell of a black eye.

“Gentlemen,” Captain Weber said, catching his breath and looking around the room. Of the eleven men who had started the expedition, only six were left. “The control room is ours.”

Jerry’s eyes rolled back in his head. His legs gave out under him. Tim jumped forward and caught him before he struck the deck.