The Aeschylus (32 page)

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.

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.”

“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.”

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.