The Aeschylus

1

The discharge from the barrel of the rifle drifted up, mixing with the black smoke around him. Everything was burning now: the oil tanks, the buildings, even The Carrion. The tentacles shriveled in the heat, emitting soft, shrieking sounds as they withered and bled. It wouldn't be long before they were all smoldering, just like them.

Mason lowered the rifle and watched the boat disappear across the horizon. There was nothing else to be done. With both helicopters destroyed, his old compadre had just taken the only means of escape, and he managed to do it with all of his idiot friends in tow. Civies, no less, every goddamned one.

He heard footsteps behind him, and he turned to see Melvin limping across the deck. His pants were torn, a piece of shrapnel embedded in one thigh. “They get away?”

Mason nodded. “Yeah.”

“You hit 'em?”

“I hit the boat. It's damaged, but not enough to stop them.”

“So they got away.” It sounded like a resignation.

“They're going to the island.” How Mason knew, he wasn't sure. Maybe it was the way the boat had turned before he had lost sight of it. Maybe it was the fact that it was damaged and was probably low on fuel. But he thought it was probably the girl. They'd have a fat chance in hell of finding her, but he didn't think AJ could resist being the hero. So he was going to try, and drag the rest of his new friends down with him.

Mason tossed the rifle to his medic. All he had now was the knife, not that it mattered. He had a feeling they'd all be in the water within an hour or two, and the time they had left would not be pleasant. They were asphyxiating. The smoke was roiling in great, black waves from the lower decks, its taste thick and greasy in his mouth.

Two more pairs of boots came thudding across the walk. Peter and Christian stepped from behind the haze, both looking haggard and disjointed. The side of Christian's face was streaming blood, a thousand minute cuts from glass debris stitched across his hairline. Peter was covered in soot. He looked tired, an old man in a young man's body.

“Jin's dead,” he said.

Did those things get him? It was on Mason's lips, but he bit it back. Of course they got him. It was a stupid question, and they didn't have breath to waste on stupid questions. With Jin gone, they had no engineer. No engineer, no pilot, no second in command, and no goddamned way out. CATFUed.

Something cried out from the northwest stairwell. Mason braced himself to put down another blackened figure, but it was only the new kid. He came hopping up the stairs like a madman, the lower half of his body blazing fire. “Help me!” he yelled. “For God's sake, help me!”

Peter and Christian ran to him, the former stripping off his jacket in mid-stride.

“Leave him,” Mason said. He knew how this was going to end, he just had the gift.

“Agh!”

Peter tossed the jacket over Nick and then hammered at the fire with his feet. Christian joined in, both of them stomping furiously. From a distance, they looked like a couple of droogs kicking the shit out of a homeless man. Melvin made a move to help, but Mason snatched his arm. No, he needed Calle right where he was.

At last, the fire dissipated.

Nicholas rolled in pain, and Mason was pretty sure a few of those tolchocks had caught him in the ankle. Doped up or no, those had to hurt like hell. He was a tough kid, Mason would give him that.

When he was finally able to sit up, Christian put one arm under his shoulder and helped him to his feet. To his foot, Mason corrected, not for the first time. The kid was in agony. His face was red, his eyes streaming tears. Mason wondered if it was from the pain or if his body had tried to put itself out when it realized it was on fire. The human body did such odd things in extreme stress.

Then Mason saw there was something wrong with him. The veins on his neck were standing out. His eyes had taken a decidedly milky tone, and his movements… they were strange in some way he couldn't describe. Nicholas, after all, had been wounded before any of the rest of them, hadn't he? And so Doctor Grey had been right: The Carrion were claiming him.

With Christian's help, the boy hobbled over to stand in front of his commander. “What the hell is going on here, sir? I was up there, and… and you shot at them. You shot at Gideon and the others. You're trying to kill them, aren't you?”

“Yeah,” Mason said. He had no more use for lies.

“I won't be a part of this! I—”

But that was as far as he got. Mason's knife was suddenly in his stomach, the blade buried to the hilt. A lot of guys preferred the armpit or tried to go through the chest wall, but that was too difficult. As for the throat, that was too messy. The gut was soft and pliant. It was intimate. A placed cut to the abdominal artery would kill you just as quick if done right, and Mason knew just the spot.

The kid's mouth opened in an O, and then his body slid to the floor.

“I told you to leave him.”

Mason wiped the knife on his jacket, then turned back to the rails, not waiting to see the reaction from the others. His men were either with him, or they weren't, and if they weren't, then they'd all die out here. Maybe it didn't matter and they would die anyway. They were only four now.

Four of nine.

They were battered and torn. Mason himself was shot in the leg. They had no food, no water, and no way off of the platform. Nothing but the will to survive. Beyond that, Mason hadn't been oblivious to what the good doctor had told them; he knew what being wounded meant, even if they did manage to survive the fire. The Carrion had an in now, didn't it? It was reproducing itself at this very moment, the spores climbing through the holes in their bodies, through the cuts on their skin. Christ. Since this morning, things had developed a habit of going downhill, and the worst was yet to come. They'd all be like the RDF soon, skin blackening, body temperature escalating until the mind was in permanent fever dream.

Mason wondered if he had made the decision to kill the kid because he was infected, or because he was about to become insubordinate. Because right now, insubordination didn't count for a whole hell of a lot. As for the other reason… well, that would mean Mason was the biggest hypocrite in the world, wouldn't it? He could feel The Carrion moving through his own bloodstream, pushing its way through his circulatory system like a rude guest.

“What now?” Christian asked. He was calm, eerily calm. They all were. They weren't docile. No, that wasn't right. There was something bubbling beneath the surface in them, something like pale fire, just as it was with him. They'd watched him kill Nicholas without the slightest protest or the slightest surprise, and he could sense they wanted more. At the end of the day, there wasn't any better way to shrug off defeat than bloodshed, was there?

“The primary objective is lost due to circumstances beyond our control.” He spoke without turning to them, still staring at the sea. “But we still have our secondary objective, don't we?”

“Sir?”

“They're going to the island, like I said. I for one am not going out without making sure they're buried there. The Marine Corps didn't raise me to be a quitter. The same with you, Vy. And the same goes for the army for you, St. Croix.” He did turn around then, sensing the need in them and feeding off of it. “No one's coming out here for us. I think we all know that by now. At least, not by the time this place collapses. So if we have any chance at all, it will be getting to the island, and getting that goddamned boat back. If we can't do that, then we can at least track down the ones responsible for this. I want to watch what happens when we wipe that fucking smile off of their faces. Because believe me, they are smiling. They're smiling because they think they've won.” He looked at them in turn, seeing the hunger and hate in their eyes and loving it. Hunger and hate would keep you alive.

“How we gonna get there, Boss?” Melvin asked.

“I don't know, but I'll think of something,” Mason said, and he would. In spite of the terrible pain in his leg, he was feeling… well, he was feeling good. Or perhaps energized was the better word. He thought he could run a hundred miles, even on an injured leg. Hell, he could run on the surface of the water if he had to. Bullet or no, infection or no, he wouldn't be stopped, not before he had his say. No goddamned tentacle or spore or creature from the black lagoon was going to keep him from paying his old pal AJ one last visit. AJ might think he could run, but the island wasn't far enough, not nearly far enough.

For the first time since that morning, Mason found himself thinking inexplicably of his retirement. He thought of the countryside, an old church, and an old groundskeeper who would tend the garden and plant the flowers. It had been a nice dream, as foolish as it was, as soft as it was. No, this is where he belonged. He belonged here in the shit, fighting for every last inch, fighting for every last breath before the darkness closed in. He wanted to stay alive just long enough to wipe the smile off of AJ's face. And to find a cure, if there was one. Ha! Now there was a laugh.

No more use for lies, he thought again.

The only thing that might hold him back was his leg. In spite of how good the rest of him was feeling, the sonofabitch still hurt. It was a weird thing, but as he gazed down to the surviving tentacles, he thought about how soothing they looked, how good it would feel to just settle down and stick his leg into one. He was quite sure it would feel warm, like draping your thigh in a hot tub.

Then, he pushed the notion away. It was a strange, strange thought. And even if he had nothing to lose, the idea was still pretty goddamned weird.

Around him, The Aeschylus creaked and groaned as the fires raged. Like Mason, it seemed to know that its end was coming.

2

The walls emerged from the mist like enceintes on a castle, barring entry from the sea as surely as any mountain or reef. When AJ saw them, he half-expected to be fired upon, as if there might be a legion of soldiers hiding inside. That was foolish, of course. He had seen maps of the island and knew it was full of dead men. Its purpose had long since departed, its inhabitants swallowed by an age long gone.

Hadn't they?

“I found a hole as big as my dick in the back wall,” Dutch said, wiping his grease-smeared hands on his shirt. “We're leaking.” He looked tuckered out. They all looked tuckered out. AJ knew it had been less than twenty-four hours since he'd slept, but it felt like days. The constant, gray sun made the twilight seem endless.

“I guess we should be glad we're not headed towards the mainland.”

“Think we'll make it to the docks? I'd say we have five minutes before we're dead in the water.”

AJ looked at the coastline and tried to gauge the strength of the motor. “We'll have to ground her. If we're lucky, she'll hold together and we can repair the leak on dry land.”

“Where do you plan on getting the tools?”

AJ shook his head. “Don't know.”

“You don't know?”

“No, Dutch, I don't know! All I know is, this piece of crap won't make it much further. If we make it to the island, maybe there will be something we can use.”

“Like what?”

“I remember there's an abandoned camp there. Two camps, actually. Maybe one of them will have something. Right, Doc?” AJ said, looking at Gideon.

The doc sat curled on the floor, his bony knees tucked to his chest. Appearances could be deceiving, though. Gideon had a strong survival instinct, and if the boat really started sinking, AJ thought the man would shake off the catatonia real fast.

The floor of the deck was littered with garbage, and Dutch began to dig through it, looking for anything they could use. He found two extra containers of gas — small, but full — and set them in plain view. If by some miracle they managed to repair the leak, fuel wouldn't be a problem after all. The RDF team had come prepared. When Dutch dug further, he didn't come up with any weapons or tools, but he did find a flare gun, and he brought it back to show the others.

“How many flares?” AJ asked.

“Four, I think. I found a box.”

“Good. You ready for impact?”

“What?”

AJ pointed to the approaching shallows. “You better brace yourself.”

When Dutch looked out of the cabin, his face went pale. “You're not kidding.”

“Hold on.”

The craft bumped over the rocks and came to a grinding halt, its bow lurching upwards. AJ came to a rest with his toes pointing ten degrees higher.

“Everybody okay?”

His companions nodded, shaken but unhurt. Dutch actually laughed a little. “You're nuts.”

“Yeah. Find me a rope, would you? If there's a high tide, it could wash this thing back out to sea.”

“All right, but I didn't see one before.”

It didn't seem likely, but AJ needed a minute to himself. His hands were shaking. How long had it been since someone had shot at him? Not long enough, was the only answer.

Gripping the steering wheel, he sucked in a deep breath and waited. The images of The Aeschylus flashed through his mind. He was dangling over the sea. He was up in Mason's face, the man's hand around his throat. He was climbing down the girders, watching a pair of inhuman claws reach for his eyes. Let it go, he thought. Let it go, because there will plenty of time to dwell on it later.

The engine was still running, and realizing this, AJ flipped the ignition switch to the off position. When it was quiet, he looked back at his hands; they were no longer shaking.

“Where are we?” Gideon asked. His face had the glazed, semi-vacant look of an Alzheimer's patient, and AJ wondered if he'd been wrong in his assessment. But then, Gideon found his voice. “The island. We're really here!”

“Yeah, Doc. Easy now.” AJ took him by the arm and helped him out to the bow.

Dutch had managed to find a rope after all, and he had knotted it in the shape of a lasso. When he saw the pair of them coming, he licked his thumbs and smoothed his eyebrows.

“What are you doing?”

Without turning, Dutch twirled the rope and tossed it straight over a rock. The rope cinched, and he pulled it tight.

“One shot,” AJ said. “I still don't know how the hell you do that.”

“They did used to call me 'Rodeo Jones.'”

The water was only calf-deep at the point of impact, and when Dutch jumped out, he had no problem wading to shore. AJ followed with Gideon, still leading him by the arm. They rendezvoused near an outcropping at the end of the island, a cliff face cutting them off from the land.

“East or west?” Dutch asked.

“I think we should split up.”

“Yeah?”

“I don't know why, but I've been getting this feeling that we don't want to be here long.”

“We don't want to be here at all,” Gideon said.

“Right.”

“You know the layout of this place?” Dutch asked.

“The docks and the old whale farm are west. That's our best bet of finding tools or a boat.”

“And east?”

“The old ruins.”

The three of them looked towards the walls, standing silent in the mist. Above them, the silhouettes of the dark tendrils curled about the hills.

Gideon's mouth dropped when he saw them. “Jesus, they're everywhere!”

“That's exactly why we need to find a way off this dump. Dutch?”

“I'll take the west.”

He made to leave, but AJ stopped him. “If you're going that way, take the doc. And take one of the gas cans with you.”

“Why?”

“I don't know, just a feeling. If we can't repair this piece of crap, we'll need another boat.”

“Even if we found one, it would be an antique.”

AJ looked at Gideon, hoping for input.

Gideon only shrugged.

“Just take one. Meet me back at the base when you're done. It's closer, but I don't want to lose sight of the boat.”

“All right.”

“And Kate. We have to find her, Dutch. It might be too late already.”

“If Mason and the others were out there, I'll see their tracks. I'll check everywhere.”

“Be careful.”

“You too. Come on, Doc.”

They broke apart, each man jogging across the water of the alien landscape.

As AJ approached the fence, he thought he saw something moving above him. But when he looked up to the rocks, there was nothing but sky.

3

When the light went out, Kate dropped the screwdriver. It clanged against the vent and rolled to the ground in the dark. She fumbled with her phone, hitting the button five or six times before giving up. The battery was finally dead.

She had been working the vent for almost two hours now, and she swallowed hard, her tongue between her teeth. The screws were rusted and stripped, though she had managed to get all but one. Fitting into the vent shaft would be another matter. It was carved directly into the concrete, a narrow slit leading into the unknown. She could smell fresh air though, and she knew it had to lead outside somehow, some way. After combing through every inch of the place, it was the one and only chance she had. She couldn't afford to lose the screwdriver now, not when she was so close, not when she had no other options.

Her hands traced along the ground. At first, she felt nothing, and she wanted to scream. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to remain calm, sweeping her arms over the floor in ever-increasing patterns. At last, her hand closed on the round metal handle, and she had it.

She felt her way back to the vent, then slipped the screwdriver back into the bolt. She twisted and felt it spinning aimlessly in the wall. Like the others, she was going to have to pop it out. Carefully, she wiggled the tip beneath the flat head, careful not to damage her target or the tool itself. When it was in place, she began to shimmy the thing back and forth. Her technique was good now, much better for having done the other bolts first. A few minutes later, she felt it pop.

“Yes! You're mine now, you little sucker!”

After laying the screwdriver against the wall, she reached up and grabbed the bolt, pulling it out with one hand. The vent almost fell on top of her, but she caught it. It was much heavier than she expected, but she thought she could have lifted a truck if it meant getting out of this place. Once she put the thing down, she stuck her head inside the hole. The air was fresh, all right. She tried to climb in, but her head hit something hard. She backed out, letting her hands do the work for her. They felt the hole, yes, but it narrowed behind the vent and then… it fed into a pipe no bigger than her hand.

“No. No, this can't be.”

She leaned forward and felt everywhere against the back wall and up through the shaft. It all funneled to that pipe, as tiny as a car exhaust.

“No! No, goddamn you! You can't be the only way out! You can't!”

All at once something banged into the door behind her.

She yelped, her hands shooting up to cover her mouth. She pushed herself back a pace. It sounded like… like one of the Black Shadow team, throwing himself at the metal.

Seconds ticked by in the blackness.

And then it came again, louder this time. Something large and powerful slammed into the door, something that wanted in. Scrambling along the ground, Kate found the screwdriver again. She knocked it away with a brush of her hands and then chased it down, her knees scabbing against the concrete.

Hands threw the lock on the other side of the door and then cast it open. The metal banged against the outside of the bunker, letting in the last rays of daylight. Though it was gray and miserable, she was still blinded by the sun.

A figure loomed in the passage, hulking and silent. In those first seconds, Kate thought it was Bruhbaker back to finish her off.

Then it spoke, and its voice sounded just like AJ. “There you are,” it said. “I thought I'd lost you.”

4

“How did you find me?”

AJ noticed she was clutching at him like a security blanket, and he pulled her close. “I heard a noise. I thought it might be one of those things, but when you screamed, I knew I had you.”

“I didn't scream. You just startled me. But anyway, that's not what I meant. How did you get here to the island?”

As they walked across the grounds, AJ recounted their run-in with the Black Shadow team and their escape down the platform. It all sounded improbable to his own ears, but he didn't leave anything out. He couldn't afford to leave anything out, not if they were going to get through this. She had to know everything.

When the tale was done, her eyes darted to the mass of tendrils beyond the gate. There was no doubt in her eyes. “So that's where they went… all of them, even the ones who were here before.”

“That's a good guess.”

Her mouth quivered. “That means they're gone. Over two hundred men and women… nobody survived.”

“Just Gideon.”

“Just Gideon,” she said. Her eyes were brimming. “We have to destroy these things, whatever they are, wherever they came from. You know that, don't you?”

“Somebody does. But I think I'm going to need some pants, first.”

She looked down and laughed. It was good to hear that laugh. How strong she was, this girl.

What he said was funny, but it was also true. They needed supplies, and not just clothes. Protection would have to come first, food and water second.

“Kate, before we get into this, I want to show you something.” He reached into one of his boots and pulled out the paperwork from the platform. Keeping it had seemed like an unnecessary gesture at the time, but he was glad of it now. “You said your job was how to report this to the shareholders, and earlier, I bet you were questioning the board, wondering if they were the ones responsible for this.”

“I don't know what to think. I must have been alone in the dark there for hours. I kept trying to turn it around in my head, and I couldn't. I couldn't see how the company could do this to another human being. And not just me, but all of the people here, they…” She shook her head, unable to finish.

“I don't think it was the board. They certainly didn't create those things, whatever they are. Anyway, I think it was a handful of people who thought they could use it. I don't know what for.” He held out the paper, and she took it.

“You doing my job for me?”

“You hired me for my expertise. I guess I always was good at sticking my nose where it didn't belong.”

She stared at the folded piece of paper as if it were a puzzle, and she didn't know how to open it. At last, she tucked it into her jeans. “Now's not the time, Angus. I don't know what this shows, but I can't imagine any of them will get away with it.”

AJ shrugged. “Arrogance. Know anybody like that?”

“Many someones.”

“That may be true, but I have a feeling this paper will mean more to you than it does to me. As for their motive, I can't answer. I've seen a lot of strange things in a lot of strange places, but I've never seen anything to make me think growing tentacles that eat people would be a good idea.”

Dutch would have laughed at that, but she didn't. AJ didn't either.

“Then, I guess we'll need to protect ourselves.”

“You guess right.”

She pointed to a bunker in the center of the compound with an open door. AJ remembered poking his head in earlier and seeing a pair of corpses, but the shelves and boxed goods hadn't registered; he had been too preoccupied with finding her at the time.

“I know a place with guns,” she said. “A lot of guns.”

5

Less than an hour later, the fires on the platform finally achieved a temperature hot enough to ignite the unprocessed crude in the storage tanks. The remaining canisters burst like balloons, spattering flame and debris a hundred feet into the air. It was the final stage in the destruction of the platform.

The last crane collapsed when the tanks burst, annihilating the top level and wreaking destruction through the other floors as it fell. The helipad toppled. The catwalks buckled. All that was left was a smoking ruin, a skeleton of a metal titan on the water. The Carrion, what was left of them, burned with it. They melted and fell into the sea, dropping like insects in a forest fire.

Kate and her new friends were resting when it happened, she herself nearly collapsed from exhaustion. They did not see the great monument fall into the water. They did not see the four shapes dive from the lowest level just before the last of it disintegrated.