Infestation

- 6 -

Svetlanova stood in almost pitch black darkness; the bulb above her was down to a single glowing red worm of filament and the only other light she had was the dim LED on her Dictaphone; she had no idea how long it might last.

There had been no more sound of shooting, not for a while now. She could only hope whoever it had been had survived and was now on their way to the boat; it might be her only chance of escape. And now that the darkness was closing in around her, she found she wanted to live, determined that this dark cell would not be the sum total of her life’s ambitions.

She held the Dictaphone loosely in her hand; there was more yet to tell but she couldn’t bring herself to speak it aloud; the memories came too raw, too vivid. The scant minutes after the wave of the swarm came over the bows of the boat would be etched in her mind forever.

The crew had died bloodily, some of them fighting, others pulled screaming from hiding places. Svetlanova and the captain had retreated into the lower decks via the closest access point to where they’d been standing at the instant of the attack, but they weren’t given time to close the exterior door; the weight of the beasts was too much and they were too many. They were forced to retreat inside but the beasts kept coming. Soon, she was fleeing, full pelt through the corridors and down stairs with little regard for safety. At first, she was aware the captain ran right alongside her then one second he was there, the next he was gone. She turned, almost stumbled, to see the man get engulfed in a squirming wave of isopods, already tearing at the flesh of his legs and back. The captain looked her in the eye.

“Run!” he shouted, then was gone under as if drowning in the mass of tearing pincers and flaying hooks. She hadn’t been trying to reach the large pantry; it was a coincidence the door was open when she reached it. She was planning to keep going, heading for the lifeboats at the stern but the corridor ahead was also blocked; three isopods engaged in dragging the flayed, thankfully dead, body of a crewman away.

She had leapt inside the open doorway, not really knowing where she was going, merely needing an escape, and slammed it shut. She’d stood there, fighting for a breath, her weight against the door, waiting to see if the defense would hold.

The beasts behind her had kept going. They sounded like a wave rushing along the narrow corridor. There had been more distant screams and several gunshots, then it had gone quiet. When her breathing recovered, she noticed she’d been fortunate enough to end up in the pantry. Something had settled in her, her mind determined a safe place was the best place and no other place would do.

The quiet had settled on the boat like a funeral shroud. Svetlanova could not risk calling out and if there was anyone else aboard still alive, in hiding like her, they too were being circumspect in their silence.

The boat belonged to the isopods now.

The first night had been bad. She ate too much; hard biscuits washed down with fizzy pop, far too much pop leaving her with an almost overpowering urge to urinate. And there was no way she was going to do it in the confines of the pantry. But the need was becoming far too great; an accident was imminent.

There hadn’t been any noise for several hours, so she took a chance and pried the door open, a millimeter at a time until she had a clear view along the corridor, intending to retreat at the first sound, or first glimpse of shimmering blue. There was only darkness and deadly silence. The only light came from the room where she’d been hiding, the single bulb high in the pantry. The rest of the corridor was in deep shadows in both directions and she wasn’t in any hurry to investigate the darkness. She stepped outside the pantry, some five feet along the corridor, lowered her clothes, squatted and did her business; it felt like much of her tension left her in the same moments and she found she was thinking straight for the first time since the beast’s incursion.

She still wasn’t in any mood for investigation though and stood, intending to step back into the pantry. That was when she’d seen it; a blue, shimmering glow right down at the far end of the long corridor running almost the length of the boat. Then she heard it too; the hum, high and whining as it communicated. Then it moved and she realized how far away the beast was; and how big it had to be for her to see it so clearly. It almost filled the corridor; five feet wide and the same again as tall; this wasn’t one of the juveniles; this was a large one, like the one they’d burned and sent back to the deep. She’d been hoping there was only one of the larger ones but that was now dashed.

And where there’s two, there can be many.

She had slid quietly back into the pantry and stayed still for many hours but nothing had come to investigate her presence.

Not yet.

Now all she could do was eat biscuits, ration her water, and worry, not about the infestation here on the boat but about the possibility of it spreading. Just how far the spread might go was a matter of speculation but everything she knew about isopods pointed in one direction; they liked to swarm and they liked to feed.

And they’re not fussy eaters.

She listened, hoping to hear the gunfire again, hoping someone might be on the way with a rescue.

Hoping.