Infestation

- 7 -

Off to the north, the sky was reddened with the flames from the still burning house and post office in the harbor, but the fire had spooked the beasts. For now, the yard where they stood was quiet and empty and they’d managed to negotiate a series of backyards to get here without any further encounters. Hynd led them into the dark shadows at the back of a squat timber house and removed the ties on a canvas sheet, drawing it back to reveal their proposed rides. The long slim vessels were raised up off the ground on a series of heavy timber railings to protect them from the ice and frost.

Banks stepped forward for a better look over the kayaks. The timbers they sat on were old, rotted in places but the kayaks themselves looked to be well maintained and probably seaworthy.

“I’m guessing they only take them out in summer,” Hynd said quietly at his ear.

“Probably a great idea around here generally,” Banks replied. “Unfortunately, we can’t wait. Let’s get these ‘round the front to the shore. If the beasts are still concentrated up the other end near the fire, we might be able to slip off quietly out of the way. Best be quick about it, lads. The fire isn’t going to burn forever and we’ve got a boat to catch before it buggers off without us.”

The squad ferried the kayaks and paddles ‘round the side of the house and down the short driveway to the shoreline, two men to each kayak, until they had six of them lined up at the waterline. Looking up the shore, Banks saw the beasts were still congregated a hundred yards or so to the north in the harbor area, near the now burnt-out, smoking ruin of the post office. He also noted something else – he wasn’t going to need the night glasses much longer. The sky was lightening over in the east, a red tinge on the horizon showing dawn wasn’t far off. When Banks took the night glasses off, the first thing he saw was Nolan’s pale-faced gaze, studying the kayaks warily.

“I’m not going to enjoy this, Cap, me with the fucked legs and all…”

“Suck it up, lad,” Hynd replied. “We’re not leaving you here. Yon beasties have had a taste of you already. They would be having you for a light breakfast.”

Banks waited until the rest of the squad got settled inside the long kayaks and slipped on the waterproofs at their waist to stop the freezing water sloshing inside onto their legs. One by one, he pushed them off the rocky shore into the water; he was the only one to get wet feet. To mitigate the cold, he had zipped the parka all the way up, pulling the hood tight over his head so the fur lining sheltered his face from the worst of the chill. He kept his weapon slung on the outside, hanging down at his chest so he’d only have to drop the paddle to reach it. His boots were laced up tight enough that the slushy water didn’t penetrate but his feet felt like blocks of ice as he slid his legs into the kayak, although he felt almost warm after clipping the waterproof sheet around him. With the help of a pull from Sergeant Hynd, he got himself launched into the water to join the rest of the squad paddling in the shallows, holding their position, waiting orders.

The crab-like beasts had lost interest in them and the squad was able to paddle, albeit slowly in the slushy water, to a position some twenty yards offshore. The sky was much lighter already and all of the squad had stowed their night glasses. Pink washes above fiery orange lit the horizon and it might have been psychological but Banks felt warmer with the coming of the new day, even while bemoaning the fact they would now be in plain sight on their approach to the Russian boat.

Nolan looked paler than ever and a pained expression crossed his face with every paddle-stroke but he managed a wan smile as they all came together in a line.

“How you doing, lad?” Banks asked

“Guess the auld legs will do me for a few years more yet, Cap,” he said.

Banks turned to look at their destination. The Russian boat sat at anchor some quarter of a mile out in the bay; it was going to be hard work getting there in the slush, which was thicker in places and interspersed with larger blocks of ice to be navigated. The boat itself looked, at first glance, to be a typical cargo boat for these waters; a hundred meters or so long, with a high superstructure at the back end and a flat main deck with two large cranes to load and unload fish. What was different about this one was the attached drilling rig at the prow, taller even than the boat itself and looking solid enough, although even at a distance Banks saw scorch marks from a recent fire all across its surface. There were no lights on board and no sign of life on the deck or up in the superstructure. She looked dead in the water.

“Spy boat, my arse,” Mac said and spat in the water. “They’re fucking drilling.”

“What do you think they’re after, Cap?” Hynd said.

Banks shook his head.

“Oil maybe? Or gas? Could be anything. We won’t know until we get there and we won’t get there by sitting around here freezing our asses off. Keep your eyes peeled; any sign of trouble, anything at all, you know the drill. If some fucker starts shooting at us, take them out; don’t bother waiting for an order.”

They’d all been preoccupied with looking at the Russian boat and it wasn’t until Mac turned and looked back to shore they saw something had changed; the harbor area lay quiet and empty; the beasts had slipped away with the dawn. The only movement was thin wisps of black smoke rising from the ruined burned-out buildings.

“What the fuck, Cap?” Mac asked.

Banks still didn’t have an answer for him.

“Eyes front and rear,” he said. “The fuckers could be anywhere and the boat’s the mission here; we’ll worry about the beasties when we have to. Move out.”

The paddling was as strenuous as Banks feared it would be and twice as cold. The early illusion of warmth inside the kayak proved to be a fleeting memory as an icy breeze coming across the surface of the water sucked all the heat out of him. His arms felt like iced-over wood, his arse like stone, and he couldn’t feel his feet. But he kept paddling; it was better than the alternative. He also kept an eye on the boat ahead of them but the closer they got, the surer he was it was deserted, totally dead in the water. But it wasn’t going to be easy getting aboard; he couldn’t see any ladders or gangplanks to get them up onto the deck.

“Head for the drilling rig, lads,” he said. “That’s our best hope of getting up there.”

As they closed in, Banks saw there were still two long lifeboats in their clamps at the rear of the boat. Whatever had happened to the crew, they hadn’t abandoned ship by the conventional route.

We’ve got a regular Marie Celeste on our hands.

Mac went ahead to the drill structure while the rest hung back several yards. Banks took the opportunity to do a three-sixty check but it appeared the six of them were the only things moving on the bay. There were no birds; not in itself unusual in these northerly climes and no ripples disturbed the water. Even the wind, such as it had been, had died in the past few minutes, leaving everything flat and calm, the bay holding its breath, waiting. But waiting for what?

Banks’ spidey sense was tingling hard and he’d learned over the years to trust it.

“Mac?” he called out. “How’s it looking? I’d like to get out of this thing before my balls drop off.”

“Come on in, Cap,” Mac called back. “There’s been a fire right enough but the structure’s sound and it looks like we can get all the way up to the deck, slick as shite off a shovel.”

Mac led them forward into the shadow of the rig. It felt colder still here out of the morning sun, but they had ample room to quickly pull the kayaks out of the water and store them six feet up on the drill structure itself. It made extra work for them but Banks felt better knowing the vessels were there and safe, should a quiet, or quick, escape be needed without resorting to the lifeboats.

Five minutes later, they had the kayaks stowed safely on the second tier of the drilling rig and stood at the foot of a ladder leading all the way up to the deck.

“Time to go to work and find what we were sent to find, lads. McCally and Briggs, you’re up first. Mac, bring up the rear. Heads up; and keep your eyes open. Quiet doesn’t mean safe.”

He felt every rung of the climb drain strength from his already weakened arms. On top of that, his gloves put too much of a distance between his fingers and the ladder, threatening to slip every time he tried to grip but he knew better than to go bare-handed; the cold metal would strip the skin from his palms as fast as any burn. Hynd was the man ahead of him and Banks concentrated on taking it one rung at a time, following the sarge’s feet on the way up. The feeling he’d lost while paddling slowly came back in his feet and ankles, as if someone was running a blowtorch over them, and his breath froze into ice droplets around the fur of his hood. But he was doing better than Nolan below him, who moaned and complained every inch of the way up until Mac, below him, had heard enough.

“If you don’t hurry the fuck up, I’ll put a bullet in your arse myself, lad. Get a move on, I’m fucking freezing back here.”

They kept climbing. It was only fifty rungs but Banks felt every one of them and by the time he clambered out onto the deck, his arms trembled and his shoulders ached from the weight they’d taken. At least it was warmer up here, marginally, and as he waited for Nolan and Mac to climb aboard, he raised his weapon, aware that now, this precise moment, was when they were at their most vulnerable. But the boat stayed quiet – more than that, it actually felt dead. Banks relaxed, as much as he could allow it, and had his first good look round.

Hynd, McCally, and Briggs also had their rifles in hand but there was no sign weapons would be needed; there was no sign, at first glance, of any disturbance. It was only when Banks looked more closely he saw it; more scorch marks, particularly around the top part of the drilling rig. Right on top of the rig, the metal was bent and twisted out of shape, as if something heavy had sat there once before being roughly torn away. Alongside that, there were numerous scratches and gouges on the deck; he’d seen their like before, on the shore where they’d found the dead walruses.

Our beastie pals have been here too.

There were no carcasses here though, no charred shells but as Banks walked several paces forward, he found the first clue as to the fate of the crew. A long smear of blood and tissue led across the deck and over the gunwales. It reminded him all too clearly of the similar smears they’d found back at the broken doors of the houses on the shoreline. There was something else too. The more he looked, the more he saw, deeper gouges and larger, longer scratches, far too big to have been made by any of the beasts they’d seen so far. It looked like only one set of them, but it had Banks thinking and he wasn’t happy at his conclusion.

They come in bigger sizes.

Mac had to boost Nolan the last few feet up and over the gunwales; the Irishman had spent what little energy he had left on the climb but finally everyone was up on deck, rubbing their arms and stamping their feet to try to get some life into frozen limbs.

“Let’s head inside,” Banks said, “see if we can get a heat, or at least some respite from the chill. We’ll try the control room first.”

“Shall I take somebody with me down to check out the engines, Cap?” Hynd said.

“Negative. I want us all together until we know what’s what. Last time I let any you off on your own, you brought back a load of hungry critters with you.”

Hynd smiled.

“At least we got a fire out of it.”

Banks turned to Nolan. The lad looked pale and dog tired.

“You still standing, Nolan? We’ll see what’s what inside, then get Mac to have another look at those wounds,” he said and Nolan gave him the thumbs up but couldn’t manage a smile.

“A cup of tea and a fag wouldn’t go amiss either, Cap. I’m gasping and I’ve had enough of this running around shite for a while.”

I think we all have.

Banks thought it but didn’t say it.

“Mac, you’re on point. We’re headed into the superstructure and up to the control room. We’ll take stock up there depending on what we find.”

What they found was an empty boat. There were more blood smears; many of them, all leading across the decks or corridors and off the boat at the nearest vantage. What they didn’t find were any bodies, although there was more blood in the first stairwell going up into the superstructure; the steps were sticky with it, despite it being congealed, almost dried. Whatever happened here, it had been a day to thirty-six hours ago by the look of it.

It was dim, almost dark, in the stairwell; the power appeared to be off and there was no thrum of engine or generator noise, only a gentle lap of waves on the hull and a slow, almost imperceptible roll in the swell. The only sound was the squad’s footsteps on the stairs.

Banks looked up, past Mac to the top of the stairwell, checking for any signs of a possible ambush but there was only dark shadows, no hint of any of the blue shimmering luminescence he’d come to associate with the beasts.

He realized as they climbed he was now operating from the conclusion the creatures they’d encountered onshore were also responsible for what had happened here on the boat. He didn’t believe in coincidence and certainly not one of this magnitude.

But what the fuck were these Russians doing here in the first place? And where did these beasts come from?

Banks’ hopes of finding answers in the control room were dashed. Mac led them into a quiet, and most definitely empty, room; there weren’t even any signs of an attack, no blood smears of gouges on the deck. It was as if all of the crew had suddenly left in a hurry; there was even a cold mug of coffee sitting by the main viewing window.

Hynd went over and checked the controls, then looked up and shook his head.

“There’s no power. Either they switched it off, or something did it for them. We’ll have to go downstairs to find out.”

“Later,” Banks said. “Nolan here had the right idea. We’ve been at it too long without a break. Smoke them if you’ve got them and we’ll have a brew. Who’s got the stove?”

Mac had the small camp stove and the makings for the tea in his backpack; they found a faucet in a small galley area off the control room and the water looked and smelled clean enough to drink. Banks was even able to get himself a mug of hot coffee by using a small French Press from one of the cupboards and helping himself from a jar of fresh ground Colombian. It was marked with a label, ‘Captain only.’

That’s good enough for me.

He made two mugs, strong and black, and took them over to where Hynd stood at the door, watching the stairwell. They kept their voices low; the other four were behind them in the center of the room, sitting on the floor, smoking and drinking tea, almost calm.

“What happened here, Cap?” Hynd asked, sipping at the coffee, then giving Banks a mock salute in gratitude.

Banks shook his head.

“Best guess? The beasties got in, overran them, and then left again. What the Russians – or the beasties – were doing here in the first place is the mystery. But I’m guessing it has got something to do with yon rig we climbed up on the way in.”

“Any log book?”

“None I could see; I’m guessing it’s all on the main computers. We need to get them up and running; that’s the first job.”

“We’ll have to go downstairs. The main board for the generator is probably down there; and even then…” Hynd began.

“Aye, you said already; something might have been fucking with it. We’ll have to go and check. And we’re all going together. I’m taking no chances on this one; not when it’s so fucking weird all ‘round. And if we can’t get the power on, I’ll call for evac and let the suits back home sort this mess out. This is too fucking weird, even for us.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Hynd replied.

Banks gave the squad plenty of time to finish off their tea and have two smokes each but the day was already getting on. The shadow of the drill rig marked the sun’s crossing of the sky by laying a dark, slow-moving patch of blackness across the deck outside the window.

“Okay, lads,” he said. “On your feet. Time to get going.”

Three of them rose but Nolan stayed where he was on the floor.

“Nolan?”

The Irishman looked up at Banks, fear in his eyes.

“Don’t tell me, tell my legs, Cap,” he said. “The fuckers have given up on me.”

They got Nolan off the floor and up into the large captain’s chair at the main control board. Mac sliced into the bandages, first removing the ones wrapped around the scraps of the Irishman’s trousers, then starting on the ones dressing the wounds. All of them clearly saw what had been white cotton was now green, putrid, and giving off a stench that made them step back and breathe through their mouths.

Nolan’s fear was clear in his eyes now.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” he said.

Mac put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“We’ve got a mite cleaning up to do, that’s all. This might hurt.”

“I can’t feel a thing below my waist, Mac,” Nolan said. “Haven’t been able to feel much of anything since I was sat in that fucking canoe. So you do what you need to do. Give me another smoke, could you?”

Banks watched as Mac cut away the dressings. The wounds gaped and the flesh on either side of the cuts had gone necrotic and blackened at the edges, oozing green, noxious fluid in their whole length. He’d never seen anything like it, nor smelled anything worse. The green goop looked to be foaming, as if boiling up from deeper in the muscle and sinew of Nolan’s legs. Beyond immediate amputation, Banks couldn’t see anything that would save the man. Mac turned, looked up at him, and shook his head. He had reached the same conclusion. It was beyond the man’s experience to tend.

“Can you wiggle your toes, Pat?” Mac asked Nolan. He started putting fresh bandages on the Irishman’s legs but as soon as he applied them, they soaked through with green.

Nolan laughed bitterly and took a deep drag on his cigarette before replying.

“I can’t even wiggle my todger,” he said. He looked up at Banks. “It’s spreading, Cap, like I’m turning to ice from the feet up. It’s a poison I’m guessing, a toxin on their claws? Take my advice, don’t let the fuckers get close to you. But at least you won’t get to put me on suspension for firing when I shouldn’t have, so there’s that to be thankful of.”

“Don’t you believe it, lad. You’ve got two weeks peeling spuds ahead of you.”

Nolan laughed, then coughed and spluttered, pain crossing his face.

“Can I start now?” he said.

Banks was at a loss for a reply and Mac stepped in.

“Is there anything we can get you?” Mac said. All of them present knew what he meant; the chances of Nolan ever getting up out of the chair were slim.

“You lads go and do what you need to do,” Nolan said. “Just leave me here with some smokes; I’ll watch your back. Bring me back a fish supper and a bottle of Jameson’s though, could you?”

They took turns in shaking Nolan’s hand; Banks was last.

“Watch the door,” he said. “And if it’s not one of us, put it down hard and fast.”

Nolan laughed, although both of them ignored the tears running down his cheeks.

“Hell, Cap,” he said. “If you don’t bring me a fish supper, I might shoot you on principle. Now get going. It’s up to my waist now; when it hits my chest, I doubt I’ll be breathing for long.”

Banks shook the Irishman’s hand. It felt as cold as the water he’d waded in earlier in the morning but Nolan managed to return his grip, then let go as Banks turned away. The last sight he had of Nolan was as he looked back on leaving the room; the Irishman had his rifle trained on the doorway and was lighting another smoke from the butt of the last. He gave Banks a salute and Banks saluted in return, before finally turning his back and heading for the stairwell to join the others.