Offshore (11 page)

“
Hey Lummox, get yer hand out of yer pants. If ye want to
play pocket billiards, do it in the privacy of yer own room ye
filthy perv.”

Reynolds’ abrasive interruption blew away his daydream like a
haar before a breeze. With horrified disgust he realised he had
been slumped in his chair with his hands deep in his overalls
pockets, idly stroking his dick and balls through the fabric,
bringing himself to an almost full-masted erection.

Fucking
sodding hell! Why of all times did they choose now to co-operate? A
furious flush burned his cheeks. He leapt to his feet and glowered
at the guffawing Reynolds, before striding from the room wreathed
in humiliation. Waves of vulgar laughter followed him down the
corridor to his cabin.

He
slammed his door against the sight and sound of the despicable
cretin, his face creased into an animalistic scowl, heavy brow
drawn over eyes filled with angry tears, nostrils flaring as he
snorted out furious breaths.

With a
howl of frustration he drew back and swung a massive fist, punching
a hole in the partitioning drywall as if it were wet tissue paper.
He withdrew his hand, scratching it on a sharp edge, drawing
blood.

He
sooked at the wound, savouring the bitter coppery taste, and deep
in his stomach he felt an unpleasant gnawing. Anger, resentment,
and the tang of haem on his tongue enlivened his
appetite.

The
decision as to who would be his first stepping stone toward Lydia
all but made itself.

Chapter 13

He
already knew everyone’s work routine off by heart.

Taking
plenty of time, as would be expected of a slow-witted lump like
Lummox, Euterich had studied the whiteboard on the control room
wall until he committed every detail to memory, hoping it would
stay there long enough to be of use.

Now he
knew where everyone should be, what they would be doing and for how
long, including himself, it would be easy for him to be first back
to the cabins in order to prepare his ‘surprise’.

He cried
off sick after lunch, claiming bad food and the change in water
quality had upset his stomach and given him a nasty case of
diarrhoea, not too far from the truth, leaving Brewer to take his
place acting as a spare pair of hands for McAllister as he prepared
his toy submarine for its first dive as soon as the weather
stabilised. Those two would not return until 18:00 hours at the
earliest.

Cameron
and McDougal had just come off shift and were in the lounge,
killing time watching TV before preparing the evening meal. Lydia
would be playing doctors and nurses in sickbay with Capstan, unless
he was with his new best friend, Shaw, in the control room, mapping
the day’s progress on their petty little charts and going over the
chores they had planned for everyone tomorrow.

Only they were going to be one man short and their tin pot
little kingdom
would be thrown into disarray as they searched the rig from
flare to foundation for a missing man.

Lonny’s
cabin, now Euterich’s, was next door to Reynolds’, which meant
Euterich had been able to spy on his neighbour and get to know his
off-shift routine too.

Today,
Reynolds’ stint ended at 17:00 hours, after which he would take his
shower, spend half an hour in his cabin reading, strumming on his
guitar or napping to the company of the news on the radio, before
dressing and slouching around in the lounge until dinner time. The
window of opportunity was brief, but Euterich felt it doable. He
lay on his bunk to wait, half dozing, letting his natural senses
take over.

In
contrast to the average human’s, his were as high functioning as
any cat or dog’s - taste, smell, hearing, sight - including night
vision - a dozen times more advanced, and his enhanced hearing
picked up Reynolds’ approaching tread long before he entered the
habitat zone proper, following his progress to and into his cabin
by sound alone - the door opening and closing, general moving
about; Reynolds letting out an audible groan with relief as he
stripped his dirty overalls from tired overworked muscles, the
shower starting up, Reynolds urinating and farting brazenly, the
lavatory flushing.

The
sounds then muffled as Reynolds closed the bathroom
door.

Give him a couple of minutes to settle in.

To pass
the time Euterich smoothed out the sleeping bag, plumped the
pillow, and gave Lonny’s cabin and bathroom a final tidy
around.

He should have had long enough by now.

Euterich
cracked open the door and peered into the empty corridor beyond.
Everywhere was silent bar the gentle hum of the warm air heater and
the muted chatter of the television in the lounge.

He
slipped from the room and sidled the eight feet to Reynolds’ door,
grinning to himself at the thought of the crew, including himself,
oozing concern for appearances sake only, searching every nook and
cranny, alcove and bucket store tomorrow, and coming up empty
handed. He tested the handle of Reynolds’ door. Not
locked.

A slight
turn, the door opened and Euterich slithered inside, closing it
silently behind him. The room was foggy and stank of cigarettes.
Reynolds had been smoking in here, so why had the ceiling detector
not picked up on it?

Because
he had worked out that covering the smoke detector with a plastic
bag and securing it with a strong elastic band to seal in a tiny
pocket of clean air left him free to smoke in his cabin with
impunity, putting them all at risk.

Crafty
sod. Cunning though, because it meant that when he took over this
cabin as his own Euterich would be able to enjoy Lonny’s illicit
cannabis stash in comfort. No more sneaking down to that filthy
workshop.

A shiver
ran through him at the sudden memory of his enforced internment in
that room; the cold, the damp, the smell. He shook it off to
concentrate on the job at hand. Through the bathroom door he could
hear the telltale splash of shower water. As long as it kept
running it would mask the sound of his movements.

He
swiftly peeled off his boots, overalls and underwear. He would be
naked for the operation for two reasons; there would be a lot of
blood to wash off, and the change went easier and more comfortably
if he was unencumbered by clothing.

Not only
that. Lonny’s shoes and clothes would be far too big for his new
shape, so he might as well get rid of them now. He laid the
garments out on the bunk where they would be within easy reach.
Cotton was absorbent and would come in handy if there were bodily
fluids to be swabbed up.

Fingers
resting on the handle, he took a deep breath of preparation, then
slid aside the door to the bathroom, letting out a cloud of citrus
scented steam. The perfect cover. He sneaked soundlessly in. A few
steps across the cold linoleum took him to within two feet of
Reynolds, slick with shower gel and bubbles, eyes tightly closed
against a stinging soap intrusion, ears full of foam, both hands
busy with the full throes of energetic masturbation. One hand
cupped and kneaded his balls, the other squeezed and pulled on his
cock, every tug accompanied by a grunt of pleasure.

“
Oh yeah! Come on, baby! Ride me!”

He
wasn’t going to hear a thing.

Euterich
took a moment to balance himself for the strike, to adjust in his
hand the razor edged ceramic knife he’d managed to steal from the
kitchen. Carefully, very carefully, he eased the shower screen
open.

Assume the position.

Reynolds
tilted his head back to receive the full flow of the shower,
pounding away at his erection. “Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah –”

And … wait for it.

Climax!
With a growled ecstatic, “Oh fuck…yeah!” he ejaculated forcefully
into the stream.

Strike!

Euterich
clamped one of Lonny’s massive hands around Reynolds’ mouth,
stifling his cry and yanking his head back, stretching his neck to
its fullest tautest length, while at the same time sweeping the
blade across Reynolds’ throat so deep as to almost decapitate him
with a single stroke.

Reynolds’ legs folded, dropping him into the shower tray like
a sack of mail, a stream of bright scarlet gushing from the open
space between his Adam’s apple and his chin, the sanguine flood
coating his chest like a red silk bib, dribbling onto the white
plastic to be picked up, swirled around and washed away by the
stream of water before gurgling down the drain hole and into the
grey water for recycling.

Tomorrow
someone would be flushing away their piss and turds with Reynolds’
diluted blood.

Cut off
from its blood and oxygen supply, his consciousness switched off
and his out of control body bucked and jerked wildly, mouth opening
and closing like a landed fish, sightless eyes bulging in their
sockets. Euterich had no concerns. He knew what he was doing. These
were automatic reactions and would cease momentarily. Reynolds
would not be getting up again.

Euterich
looked down on the twitching corpse, satisfied with his work. It
had been quick and silent. No time for fear to contaminate the
flesh with its bitter outpourings. He preferred this way of killing
to the flesh stripping method he was forced to use on Lonny Dick,
biting into him and injecting the poison directly. It utilised a
chemical reaction which left an aftertaste he found disagreeable,
and always the threat of some of the molecules not being
neutralised, finding their way back into him and dissolving him
from the inside out.

Reynolds
would require manual butchery rather than having the skin peel away
to reveal the partly digested innards, but Euterich didn’t care
about the extra work it would need. He had the time, and the fresh
taste of untainted flesh would be worth the effort.

He let
the shower run until Reynolds’ blood stopped pumping, allowing the
body a few more minutes in the stream for the warm water to wash
away any soap and shampoo residue, and to soften the skin more. Dry
skin could be tough, like leather. It took a lot of chewing, and it
caught in his teeth.

The
change began almost as soon as he swallowed the first mouthful of
Reynolds’ liver, as so often happened if both bodies were
reasonably healthy with little repair to be done.

He could
feel it as a gentle prickling of the skin, warmth radiating from
his stomach, the darkening of the hair on his arms from Lonny’s
fine blond to Reynolds’ dark brown. He dined steadily and easily
for the next twenty minutes, putting the leftovers aside to go into
the bag – arms and hands, lower legs and feet, the head and the
genitals, he also tossed in the lungs.

Reynolds
was a heavy smoker, and apart from not liking the tarry nicotine
taste Euterich didn’t want to take the chance of ingesting any
cancerous cells which may be lurking in the tissue, infecting
himself. He included the long bones from the legs, picked clean of
most of their meat and sucked on their marrow, and the ribcage,
crushed flat. Included also was the swathe of tattoo covered skin
from Reynolds’ back.

It had
been a shame to discard such an impressive work of art on living
flesh; a school of smiling dolphins leaping side by side through
white crested waves. It would have made a splendid display if it
could somehow have been preserved, framed like a painting and hung
on someone’s living room wall. But the subcutaneous ink made the
flesh unpalatable and he had to leave it.

Of
course, that meant the skin on his own back would remain
undecorated, not that anyone here knew about the tattoo. He would
have to remember to keep himself well covered
nonetheless.

He
bundled up the vestiges of Daz Reynolds in the cast off overalls
and underwear, and stuffed the lot into the canvas bag, zipped it
up and put it aside while he spent the next quarter hour cleaning
up the spillage in the bathroom.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness after all.

He
showered to remove any trace of blood from his body and hair.
Before he dressed in Reynolds’ clothes, he examined his freshly
scrubbed naked self in the mirror - close cropped brown hair, sharp
grey eyes, a fine musculature, and this time with a decent sized
set of experienced undercarriage to go with it. He cupped it with
his hands, warm and soft, full of potential. He had already seen it
in action, and would put it to good use himself soon
enough.

What
amused him somewhat was the uneven distribution of colour on
Reynolds’ skin – a year of working outdoors with the sun and wind
against them had given his exposed face and hands the colour of
light oak, while the rest of him remained a near porcelain
white.

“
Your vitamin D level must be appalling.”

He
turned himself around, and apart from the nakedness of his back
deemed the change to be for the most part complete.

As an
added bonus, free of Lummox’s restricted mental capacity, his mind
was now clearer, sharper, more like his own self, even if there
were a few thoughts he considered somewhat … inappropriate,
particularly those concerning the new focus in his life, Lydia
Ellis.