100 Fathoms Below

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

When Tim and Oran returned to the main ladder, the last of the men escorting the captain were climbing up it. Tim let Oran climb ahead of him, then started up. It filled him with hope to see the men ahead of him step off the ladder safely. Maybe Jerry had completed his mission and the vampires were either dead or staying clear. Hell, they would probably find him sitting at his planesman station, wondering what had taken the rest of them so long. Then things could finally get back to normal around here.

Normal. He wasn’t even sure what that word meant anymore. In a world where vampires were real, what else was “normal”? Werewolves? Dragons? Goddamn mermaids and unicorns?

He could feel his thoughts rambling and tried to refocus. He needed to keep his head in the game. Getting distracted by his own crazy thoughts was a good way to end up dead.

When he got to the top of the ladder, Oran said, “Spicer, look!”

There on the deck was the big plastic bucket, with only a small amount of irradiated seawater left inside. It was just sitting there beside the ladder. It didn’t look as though Jerry had dropped it. It hadn’t even spilled. It was as if he had simply left it there. But why? It couldn’t have been deliberate. Had a vampire sneaked up on him, grabbed him from behind? No, Jerry would have struggled. He would likely have dropped the bucket, spilling the coolant water everywhere. Hell, he would have splashed the vampires with it, and they would have burned just like Penwarden and Bodine. There was no blood, no body, no sign of a struggle.

The men pressed on into the control room. Tim handed his stake to Oran, who had left his in Bodine’s chest, and picked up the bucket. He took it with him into the control room, just in case.

The lights twinkling from the equipment were almost enough to illuminate the space, but the captain ordered the control room rigged for red so they could see better. The red lights in the ceiling of the control room, the only fixtures that hadn’t been destroyed, snapped on for the first time since the underway’s very first dive. The purpose of rigging the control room for red was that it helped the eyes adjust faster to the dark when surfacing or coming to periscope depth at night. So when the red lights came on in the control room, Tim’s eyes didn’t need time to adjust. He could see everything right away. The bodies of the dead were still exactly as he had found them before, though the thick stench of old spilled blood in the confined space was overpowering. Tim heard a man vomit, which only made the room smell worse. There was no sign of Jerry. Had he never made it this far?

“They didn’t move the bodies,” Tim said. “They didn’t put them in the torpedo tubes like the others. Why?”

“Maybe they were feedin’ on ’em all this time,” Oran said. “Maybe dead blood just as good to them as livin’ blood.”

“Then why don’t we just let ’em have the dead?” another enlisted man asked in a shaky voice. “Maybe we can make a deal. We give ’em the dead bodies, and they leave us alone.”

“Rougarou don’ make deals,” Oran said.

A dark shape raced out from the shadows of the captain’s egress and into the control room, moving faster than Tim had ever seen anyone move before. The blur of motion resolved itself into LeMon Guidry. The red light wasn’t bright enough to hurt his eyes, but one of his hands was burnt, blackened and withered as if it had come in contact with the irradiated water. Had Jerry made it up here after all? What happened to him? But there was little time to speculate before LeMon attacked.

The vampire swung his good arm, knocking two sailors back like rag dolls. Then he made a beeline for Oran. Oran saw him coming, but before he could get his stake up, LeMon grabbed him by the arm and threw him into the fire-control console that ran along one side of the control room. The wooden stake went clattering across the metal deck. Oran slid down, leaving a splotch of blood on the console.

Tim and the other sailors turned their lanterns on LeMon, shining them into his face. LeMon hissed and threw a protective arm over his eyes.

Forgetting himself, Captain Weber fired three rounds into LeMon’s chest. The vampire didn’t even seem to notice. The enlisted man that Tim had been talking to raced forward to stake LeMon. LeMon reached out with uncanny speed and grabbed him, tearing out his throat in one swift movement. He dropped the sailor, leaving him to bleed out where he fell on the deck. LeMon hissed, his chin glistening with blood in the red light, one arm shielding his eyes again. The other sailors fell back, keeping their lanterns trained on him but not willing to risk attacking him outright after seeing the fate that befell their crewmate. Tim grabbed for one of the bowls at the bottom of the bucket, ready to splash LeMon with irradiated seawater, when another vampire came streaking out of the shadows.

Lieutenant Commander Jefferson tore through the group of sailors, knocking them aside as if he were back on the football field. The sailors panicked, taking their lanterns off LeMon to shine them on Jefferson. LeMon leaped into the crowd, but Jefferson didn’t even look their way. He ran straight for Captain Weber, grabbing him by the uniform and pinning him against the bulkhead.

“Jefferson, stop!” the captain yelled.

But Jefferson wasn’t taking orders from him anymore. The vampire opened his mouth and bent over Captain Weber’s neck.

“No!” Tim cried.

He ran at Jefferson, lunging with the wooden stake. Jefferson twisted, and the stake’s sharp point only grazed his arm. Enraged, he bounced the captain’s head off the helm. Captain Weber went down, and Jefferson sprang for Tim, pulling him off his feet. The bucket fell out of his hand and landed on the deck. The coolant inside sloshed precariously against the sides.

“You shouldn’t have come out of your hidey-hole, Spicer,” Jefferson said. “Now your sorry ass is mine!”