The Platform (3 page)

 
          
“Heard you had some fun today. They
are getting smart, aren’t they?” She has backed off from the subject, instead
going for safer ground.

           
 
“Yes,” I reply.

 
          
“They are going to cut the web to
thirty minutes from tomorrow,” she says, but I am bored of the conversation
now, stubbing out my cigarette in a shower of hot orange sparks.

 
          
“I heard,” I mutter. In truth, if
they cut the web to every half-hour, it might not as well be there. We all know
it. I roll over and ignore her.

                                                                       
*

           
“Up! Everybody
up, now!” a voice screams and snatches me out of sleep. “We have a breach!” I
slide out of the bunk and jump down to the deck with the others. Everyone has a
confused, dazed look about them, like me, I guess, as I stumble around trying
to find my uniform. “Move it! Up!” It is Meska, of course, screaming at
everyone, and there are, I assume, five people here who are envisioning
punching her right in the mouth. I snap on my boots, and then there is a scrum
at the weapons rack as we grab the machine guns. She has already gone by the
time we are ready and we thump along the corridors and ladders up to the top
side to see what is going on.

           
 
I can hear screaming above the relentless
wind, over the sporadic gun fire that reverberates though each plate and bolt,
and as the door opens, the stink of the sea hits us in a blast of bitter, howling
fury, and everywhere is in chaos. People are shooting as the monstrosities
wither and crawl amongst us. Jem immediately opens up a burst of rounds, running
towards the nearest creature, and Cora and I head left to where one is
squirming beneath a stairwell. They are huge, more so up this close, and stink
of the ocean. We rip into it with bullets, blowing open chunks of the pale,
bone-coloured flesh as splashes and sprays of blood splatter over the wall. It
turns, hissing and squealing, its mouths full of needle-like teeth, and I aim
right down its throat. A hideous shriek goes up, then a second, but it comes
from our left and belongs to a human.

 
          
Two of the abominations are pulling
at him, their toothed limbs sinking deep into his flesh. I can’t tell who it is
but it’s one of the old hands; he is screaming with his head thrown back. Then
one of the spiked worming limbs slices through him diagonally, from shoulder to
groin, and they tear him open. I can only watch as he peels apart in two pieces
and the creatures immediately begin to retreat, carrying away their blood-soaked
trophies as organs and guts spill out in their wake.

 
          
All over the deck similar sights
reveal themselves: men and women are ripped to shreds, their blood is slippery
on the riveted plates as we run, firing at anything that squirms. Cora and I sprint
to the other side of the crew quarters, driving the creatures back with
controlled bursts of gunfire, pushing the infiltrators to the edge of the Platform
down onto the webbing, but no power is flowing through it, whether it has
shorted out or we have finally run out of fuel, I don’t know, but they wriggle
and writhe, entrapped within it, until they fall into the sea below.

           
 
“There!” Cora points. Following her gaze I see
a huge tear in the netting.

           
 
“Up to the control room,” I yell. I guide us
back the way we came, up the stairwells and walkways until we reach the top
level.
 
On the fire escape ladder we are suddenly
greeted with the full force of the wind; it rips us down to the bone as we claw
our way to the door. I can see Clook through the window – him and his cronies –
nowhere near the carnage; they hide out of the way and a deep fury slices my
heart black. I bang on the window, and they yell something I can’t hear, but I
can see they are not happy to have us here. Cora smashes at the glass, and
finally, someone lets us in.

           
 
“Get out there and fucking-“Clook doesn’t get
to finish: a right cross from Cora sends him sprawling backwards over the
control panel. The two big guys move to stop her but I cover her with the
machine gun.

 
          
“Get the power back on.”

           
 
“We don’t have the connection,” Clook whines.

           
 
“Then get someone down there to fix it,” I
insist, waving the gun at him. “You, who can fast weld?”

 
 
         
“I
can,” the other man says. “But I’m not going out there.”

 
          
“Well, you can get out there and do
your job, or you can stay here and have your head blown off – your choice.” I
tell him

           
 
“I’ll get my gear,” he nods. For a coward, he
has balls, I guess; either that or he plans to simply kill us the second we
turn our backs.

 
          
“I’m the chief. I’ll fucking have you
dead for this,” Clook shouts, but no one is listening. He doesn’t seem to have
noticed that rank no longer counts; like humanity, its day is over. Cora looks
to hit him again, but he is worthless anyway.

                                                                       
*

 
          
Lokro works as fast as he can as we
sway and bounce on the netting. I left Cora up with Clook to make sure he has
no ideas of switching the power back on before we are clear – the little rat would
kill us in a heartbeat to save his own miserable existence. I keep watch as
Lokro threads metal wires into each broken loop and spot-welds them into place.
It’s like a makeshift stitch but takes its time. It suddenly dawns on me how
dangerous this actually is: one of the things could fall from the deck above or
rip up from the pounding waves below and be through the torn spot in a sharp breath.
But we have to carry on: getting it back online is the only thing that will
keep the bastards out.

 
          
“How’s it coming?” the transmitter
hisses.

           
 
“Another couple of minutes,” I yell back over
the fury of the ocean.

 
          
“They seem to have cleared most of
them out up here, but I hear one has got into the living quarters.”

 
          
“Fuck!” I shake my head. “Okay, I
will meet you there once we’re done.”

           
 
“Understood,” Cora replies. Lokro works on the
last piece, the flaring spit of the welding torch fighting the breeze as it
burns incandescent. Several of the abominations now gather below us, perhaps attracted
by the light or the stink of us, and I let off a few rounds, making him jump.

           
 
“Done?” I scream at him as he snaps off the
lance.

           
 
“Done,” he nods, but before he can pack away
one of the things comes tumbling down, shot to fuck and bleeding its black
ichor everywhere. It squeals and hisses, thrashing its limbs and roaring in
pain. Before I can react, it senses him and leaps into the air, a massive
squirming blur; it has hold of Lokro in a second and he can only scream once
before it forces one of its thick barbed limbs down his throat, shredding him
internally. I fire at it, but it’s too late: Lokro quickly comes apart in
showers of hot, red blood and organs. He goes down, and the creature, despite having
a dozen wounds, begins devouring him in thick clotted chunks. I turn away and
climb the ladder as he dies in segments. Fuck! He was useful, I think to
myself.

           
 
I clamber over the guard rail and almost have
my head blown off by Skea as she levels her machine gun at me.

 
          
“Shit!” she screams above the never-ending
wind.

           
 
“You nearly killed me!” I scream back. We both
lean over the guard rail and see the writhing creature dragging a piece of
Lokro across the netting. It has no escape route now, and she raises her gun to
fire, but I stop her. “Waste of ammo,” I yell. I fumble with wet, gloved hands to
find the transmitter and shout at Cora to fire up the web. In seconds the
familiar hum sounds, followed by the crackle and screeching of the creature as
it fries and burns, pieces of its meal exploding into flames with it. “Come on,
there’s one in the living quarters.”

 
          
Our heavy boots thunder over the
metal plating, and up ahead, I can see the door wide open. It doesn’t appear
forced, just like some fuckhead has left it standing wide and inviting anything
inside. Plunged into the dark and breathing hard, we follow, cautiously trying
to find it. I can smell its decay like death – a putrid air clings to these
things like a shield – and carefully we press on in the eerie darkness, with
only the green chemical lights casts twisting hideous shadows in every corner.
Cora comes running up behind to find us.

           
 
“Net’s back online,” she says.

           
 
“We saw.”

           
 
“Most of the deck is clear now.”

           
 
“How many did we lose?” Skea askes in hushed nervous
tones.

 
          
“A dozen or so.”

           
 
“Any of us?”

           
 
“Not that I know of. Jem and Helst are on the south,
mopping up the last ones.”

           
 
It is a relief to know our clique is safe. As
for the rest, I regret losing a useful man like Lokro who had volunteered off
his own back, but the others can go fuck themselves. And as for Clook hiding
away in the control room, someone is bound to settle him soon enough. We creep
further inside, the smell now heavy and thick, and my heart is ticking hard
with fear as we round the corner. There is stuff everywhere: the creatures, so
much bigger than a man, find it hard to move in the corridors without knocking
down gun racks and uniform stations. When we reach the rec room, a couple of
the tables are overturned and the black ichor from its wounds is smeared here
and there.

           
We enter the
kitchens and immediately that sense kicks in, the one where you know someone or
something is close by. It’s as if every living thing generates its own little
field and it touches your own, shedding invisible sparks through your bones. My
guts curl uneasily.

           
 
“Who’s there?” Cora hisses, and there is a
tiny whimper in reply.
 
It’s not from the
creature, but a man. He crawls from under one of the shiny workbenches, having
squeezed himself away, and I recognise him as Illen, the cook.
Fucking coward
, I think to myself, but
then again, he is a master of cooking pots, not machine guns. I help him to his
feet.

 
          
“Thank you,” he blubbers and whines,
his whole body shaking. We send him on his way up top, not needing him to get
in the way or make things worse. Then it’s back to hunting, following the slimy
black trail that cuts through the double doors and down to the supply deck.

 
          
The cold begins to really bite on my
bones, burrowing deeper like ice-laden maggots through the flesh as the three
of us pick our way down further into the haze of midnight black. There are
hardly any chem lights working down here now, so we hunt mostly by sound and
scent, following the suffocating decay mists, a rancid inhale like open guts
and festered gangrene, and then we hear it, clattering and slithering behind
the tall racks. It sounds weak, almost done, and is moving slowly with a heavy
dragging noise. But it’s just as dangerous wounded – probably more so – and
rounding the corner, in the twilight green, I catch a glimpse of flailing,
dripping tentacles and several wide and long-toothed mouths.

           
 
For a second I feel a flicker of pity in my
soul, but then it turns and comes racing towards us and we open up the guns, ripping
it apart in flying pieces. It screams – the loud sound of death – as we pour
the bullets into it, the bursts of the guns illuminating the scene in a flashing
strobe, and finally it stops moving, the rancid stink worse as it lies
twitching and flexing in its death throes. Then there is silence, a ringing
sound in the ears, making everything muffled. I hope I am not the one who has
to clear it up.