Offshore (33 page)

Euterich’s head snapped up, frenzied eyes sparking, lips
curled back in a snarl, exposing teeth stained with red. With the
quicksilver agility of a scalded cat, he sprang to his feet, leapt
over the prostrate McDougal and barged a stunned Eddie against the
far wall of the corridor, collapsing him to his knees before racing
full pelt down the corridor and out of sight.

Eddie
recovered his wits to find his assailant long gone, leaving him
alone with the grisly spectacle before him - Craig McDougal, flat
on his back, face an unfetching shade of blue, lips purple, half
closed eyes staring up at the skylights, overalls and underwear
pulled down over his thighs, exposing his flaccid
genitalia.

Under a
T shirt stained red, tucked tight under his chin, his stomach had
been quartered, equally divided by two intersecting incisions, one
midline, one transverse. What inexplicable compulsion made Eddie
crawl on his hands and knees to get a closer look, he never
understood.

The skin
and fat layers had been peeled back and muscle divided, revealing a
nest of pale pink snakes, wet and shiny and smeared with
scarlet.

Some of
them had been pulled out and discarded to allow access to
McDougal’s liver, which now lay on the floor, a glistening purplish
red mass, triangular in shape, except for the piece
missing.

The
piece Lawrence Brewer had in his mouth before he fled this scene of
inhuman butchery.

“
Gnnnnnnnnnhhhhhhh.
”

Knocked
back by the unexpected sound Eddie scuttled on his backside, feet
scrabbling for purchase, until he came up against the wall again
and could go no further.

McDougal
was still ALIVE!

His
abdomen opened like a pig on a butcher’s slab, liver removed and
partly eaten, yet he was still ALIVE!

As Eddie
stared, a bubble erupted from McDougal’s lips, expanded like a
transparent red balloon, then vanished into a scarlet rivulet which
dribbled down his cheek to drip onto the waffle mat.

He’s
breathing!

Do
something! Help him!

Yet
Eddie could not move, nor could he breathe, or blink, his whole
being remained frozen to the spot in nothing short of pure abject
fear. Another bubble, another dribble, another gurgling
moan.

McDougal’s right hand twitched, spasmed into a tight claw for
a count of two, relaxed, and he moved no more.

Eddie
forced himself to suck in a short gasp of air, which he expelled in
a breathy whisper.

“
Craig?”

No
response. Not that he expected one. No way could he be alive now.
No way. He called again, just to be sure. “Craig?”

Nothing
now but dead silence.

His eyes
still locked on the corpse, peeled for the tiniest movement, Eddie
felt for his radio, only to find his hand shaking so violently he
could not depress the button.

He
closed his eyes and concentrated on stilling the tremor, reached
again, and stopped. If he used the radio, everyone would hear,
including Lydia. She might be scared, or worse, curious, and come
down here to see for herself. He would use the phone
instead.

With force of will he worked his way up the wall until he
was on his feet, took the two strides necessary to reach the door,
snatched at the handle, and pulled the wood into the hole with such
a
slam,
it could be heard two storeys up.

The
revulsion now out of sight, he had to keep it that way. Having no
key and no other means of disabling the lock nor of attaching a
notice, he opted for writing a message on the bare wood itself. But
what to write? Keep it simple and effective.

KEEP OUT. DISEMBOWELLED CORPSE
perhaps?

“
Don’t be so fecking stupid!”

He
selected a black Sharpie from the collection of pens in his breast
pocket and spelled out in large block capitals:

DANGER!
DO NOT ENTER! GAS!

He
underlined the word ‘gas’ three times for emphasis. Only a fool
would ignore such an explicit warning. He signed his name below,
making the order official.

Satisfied it was the best he could do, he set off down the
corridor towards the nearest room with an internal telephone. He
had to warn his surviving crew to be on their guard. They had a
homicidal maniac on the loose, one who had to be tracked down
before he claimed another victim.

Eddie’s
mind raced faster than his unsteady jog. What made Brewer do what
he did to McDougal, and why? What had Craig ever done to
him?

Is that
what happens when someone has so much knowledge stuffed in their
brain that one more piece of information, one more nanobyte of
data, crushes their neural cortex against the inside of their skull
and drives them so batshit crazy they attack a perfectly innocent
man with a carving knife, slash him open from stem to stern to rip
out his liver and eat it?

Silence
of the Lambs all over again. Brewer was a real life Hannibal
Lecter.

As long
as he lived Eddie knew he would never get that image of Brewer’s
face out of his head, those sharp blue eyes, burning with the fire
of insanity, and that ring of dirty red hepatic blood around his
mouth giving him the look of some grotesque clown. In the cold,
empty sampling and assay laboratory he switched on the light,
snatched up the phone and punched in the number for the lounge. It
rang out for so long he began to lose patience and had the handset
halfway back to the cradle when he heard Shaw’s voice.

“
Yeah?”

“
Matt, that you?”

“
Yeah. What’s occurring boss?”

“
Is Cameron with you?”

“
Nope. I’m here all on my lonesome.”

“
Where’s Miss Ellis?”

“
Gone back to sickbay.”

“
I told you to keep an eye on her!”

“
I tried, but she wouldn’t stay. What was I supposed to do,
lock her up? You found Spanner yet?”

“
Yeah.”

“
What about Brewer?”

“
Him too.”

“
Together?”

“
In a manner of speaking.”

He
paused to gather his thoughts.

Take control. Be firm, Eddie. Be resolute. Give orders if you
have to.

“
You there, Matt?”

“
Yeah.”

“
This is what I want you to do. I need you to find Cameron,
he’ll either be in the sub level workshop or the smoko, and…stay
together, okay?”

“
Why? What’s going on boss? You’re giving me the
willies.”

“
Just do it please. I’m going to check on Miss Ellis.” He
disconnected the call, listened for the dialling tone, and punched
out the four digit code for sickbay.

After
six rings it picked up.

“
Sickbay.” She sounded alright. Chipper even.

“
Lydia? You okay?”

“
Hey Eddie. I’m fine. Where’d you and Cameron
go?”

“
Just business.” He caught his top lip with
his bottom teeth.
Tell her to watch out, but don’t frighten
her.
“Listen
to me Lyd, okay, this is really important. You
listening?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Remember I told you there was one person here you could
trust, who you could turn to if you were in trouble?”

“
Yeah, Lawrence Brewer, right?”

“
Wrong.”

“
Why?”

“
Because something’s happened and he’s not himself at the
moment. Stay out of his way.”

“
What’s the matter with him? Is he sick?”

“
In the head … I don’t know, and I don’t have time to
explain. Just…if you see him, make sure he doesn’t see you, okay?
Stay right out of his way.”

“
You’re not making any sense, Eddie. I don’t
understand.”

Subtle wasn’t working.
Just tell her
. “He’s gone fucking mental, Lyd. He
killed Craig and he … he tried to eat him.”

“
WHAT?! That’s ludicrous. Have you been
drinking?”

He said,
“No Lydia - I saw it with my own eyes. Something’s happened to him
and he’s gone out of his mind. Please, for the love of God, lock
yourself in somewhere and don’t let him near you. Promise me you’ll
find somewhere to hide until I come and get you. Promise
me.”

“
Okay, I’ll …
mmnnnfff
.”

“
Lydia!”

A
clatter of something metallic hitting the floor, and then … a
forbidding silence.

“
Lydia! You still there? LYDIA!”

His
heart set up a forceful hammering in his ears, and accelerated,
desperate breaths burned in his lungs.

“
LYDIA!”

He
rammed the phone back onto its cradle and ran, pushing down the
button on the radio clipped to his breast pocket. To hell with
Brewer listening in.

“
Cam! Matt! You read?”

A
moment’s pause.

Cameron:
“Here boss.”

Shaw:
“Guv?”

Eddie:
“Both of you, sickbay, NOW!”

Chapter 38

It had
been a good scheme while it lasted and it was going so well, until
Capstan caught him feeding, Euterich thought as he cowered in the
darkest corner of the desalination plant.

Now it
was dead in the water. He had overreached himself with an
unattainable selfish ambition, and then allowed his obsession with
Lydia, fuelled by desperation and overwhelming lust and desire and
hunger, to get the better of him.

It had
made him slipshod, careless. He must be getting slack in his old
age. Yet it might not have been all his own fault.

Maybe
some other force, something more primal was at work here, driving
him on. No longer a conscious desire to fulfil a petty curiosity,
this was something far more basic, beyond his control – the call of
the selfish gene.

Perhaps,
after nearly half a millennium, his time really was coming to an
end and his fixation with Lydia had another purpose, namely
perpetuation, continuation of the line, proliferation of an
endangered species.

An
altogether new strategy began to formulate itself, one whose
fulfilment meant he needed a live, healthy female, at his
command.

Without
making a sound Euterich glided into the brightly lit sickbay.
Empty, although he could hear Lydia in her little office, humming
to herself as she collated her paperwork. A quick search in the
cabinets brought him what he needed; an umber bottle and a wad of
gauze pads.

The
phone rang as he made his silent preparations, soaking the pads
with the contents of the bottle, and he used the cover of the
timely distraction to sneak into the office.

“
Yeah, Lawrence Brewer, right?”

They
were talking about him, and it had to be Capstan on the other end.
Whatever she was being told he could be sure of the cat’s release
from its bag.

“
You’re not making any sense, Eddie. I don’t
understand.”

Silence
.. .and then the revelation.

“
WHAT?! That’s ludicrous. Have you been
drinking?”

Enough!
Time to make his move … and give Mr Capstan a fright in the
process.

He
whipped an arm around her, pinning hers to her side, forcing her to
drop the telephone. His other hand clamped the pad over the lower
half of her face, covering her mouth and nose.

“
Mmnnnfff. Mnnnffff.”

She
scrabbled at the hand, scratching his skin.

Hot
vapours filled her nostrils, making her eyes water. And then she
was off her feet and being half carried, wriggling and squirming
out of the office and into the examination room, legs flailing and
kicking wildly, knocking a metal kidney dish to the floor with a
clatter, spilling the contents.

He
pressed the pad more snugly over her face, trying not to breathe in
any of the fumes himself. At last it began to take
effect.

She
stopped fighting, sagged, and became a dead weight in his arms. Not
quite unconscious, but dopey enough to make her compliant, he
scooped her up and carried her away.

Capstan
would have heard the commotion through the telephone, and like Sir
Lancelot coming to rescue his Guinevere would now be on his
way.

He would
search sickbay and the office, and finding it empty would assume
her abductor had taken her to some dark and secret place, and would
go off in search of her, sending out his pet minions on the same
wild goose chase.

The last
place they would think of searching was the one they had already
covered, and while they were wasting their time scouring every nook
and cranny on the platform and failing to find him, Euterich would
sneak her back into sickbay and have plenty of time to do what he
needed to in peace and quiet.