Slimer (12 page)

    'They were one and the same. Buckley became Charlie.'

    Chris looked at him as if he was insane. 'What are you talking about?'

    He tried to explain. 'Buckley turned into the creature. You know, like in the movies when Dr Jekyll turns into Mr Hyde…' His voice faltered. When you tried to put it into words it did sound ridiculous.

    'That's impossible,' said Chris firmly.

    'Yes.' He turned away from her. He didn't have the emotional energy to argue.

    'It's not impossible,' said Mark dully. 'It explains what Rochelle saw, what Alex saw and what I saw too.' He shivered. 'I caught a glimpse of that woman scientist on one of the monitors. She looked kind of like that thing - the same sort of smooth face. And the same eyes. Fish eyes.' Paul picked up the M16 that had been discarded by Buckley during his transformation. It felt cold. And he noticed there was no trace of Buckley's clothing on the floor. What had happened to it? He couldn't help thinking of the TV show,
The Incredible Hulk
- whenever the little guy turned into the Hulk he burst out of his clothing…

    He suddenly felt like laughing but he knew if he started he wouldn't be able to stop.

    With an effort he took a grip on himself and said calmly, 'So what we have here are a bunch of people who are infected with some synthetic gene that turns them into eight foot tall monsters. But why?' He felt certain there was still a lot he didn't know. And somehow he had to find it out. Their survival depended on it.

    He was wondering how to go about this when the lights went out.

    

    

    Shelley's mind was in a turmoil of despair. Everything was going wrong. They were losing control and it was getting stronger…

    They? He gave a bitter laugh. He was practically on his own now. Oh, there was still Durkins and a couple of others but he doubted if they would last for much longer. Carol Soames had been his last strong ally but she too had given way under the strain. What on earth had she thought she was up to trying to get off the rig? Poor girl. She couldn't accept the fact that she was… finished. And then when that stupid young thug had stabbed her it was the final straw. To die twice was too much for any mind. Her last layer of sanity had been stripped away. Now she was like all the others.

    He could still sense their presence, the mad ones. The ones whose minds had collapsed almost as soon as they realised what had happened to them. The reality of their situation had been too awful for them to accept. Now they wandered around like feeble, hysterical ghosts.

    Would he go that route too? It was possible. When the last thread of control had slipped from his grasp he would be at the mercy of it and then insanity would be the only refuge. If only they could have kept it on its leash long enough for the young intruders to get away. But Carol's violent death had ruptured something. It had come to the surface much more quickly and Shelley had known right away it was stronger. Much stronger.

    And worse still, it was getting more intelligent. Was there a spill-over from all the trapped human minds? Were the insane ones actually fragmenting as individual personalities and becoming part of it? Whatever the answer it boded ill for all of them.

    Especially the six young intruders. He doubted if he could keep it from them for very much longer.

    

    

    Paul sat hunched over the video screen. Linda sat by the door, an M16 across her knees. They had been in the video room for several hours now. Paul was determined to find the answer ifit existed at all on any of the tapes. He knew he probably didn't have long to do it. An emergency generator had cut in after the main one had failed but when it ran out of fuel it too would stop.

    He sighed as he came to the end of another tape of technical gobbledegook that he couldn't follow. Perhaps he'd already passed the explanation for the events on the platform but lacked the brains to understand it.

    'No luck?' asked Linda.

    'Not yet. Let's keep going, baby. There aren't that many more to try.'

    She gave him what he knew was meant to be a brave smile. It missed the target by miles. He felt sorry for her. She needed sleep badly. No, what she really needed was to get off this rig.

    He slipped the next cassette into the machine and pressed the 'Play' button. Immediately he sat up. Shelley was on the screen again and talking excitedly.

    '… it'sterrible, of course, that we lost three good people but the scientific implications are enormous. It appears that we have been more successful than we dared hope. Now we have the task ofharnessing the Phoenix for use in human beings...'

    Shelley disappeared from the screen and was replaced by a shot of a shark swimming in a glass tank. Standing in front of the tank was Dr Carol Soames. She turned and grinned at whoever was holding the video camera. She looked very happy.

    Shelley's off-screen voice continued, 'We were beginning to give up hope of ever finding a host organism that would accept Phoenix long enough for our needs. But then Dr Soames suggested we try a shark and so we had one shipped in. And, to everyone's relief, it worked! Phoenix successfully formed a bond with the shark's DNA material.

    'I believe the reason for our success is linked with the unique nature of the shark's metabolism. Unchanged for millions of years it is both remarkably effective and remarkably simple. Thus our Phoenix prototype had less trouble insinuating itself into the nucleii of the creature's cells than it did with more sophisticated organisms.'

    The camera closed in on the shark in the tank. Its blunt, vicious-looking head filled the screen. A round black eye stared out at Paul and he suddenly went cold. A horrible suspicion was growing within him.

    'In these shots,' continued Shelley excitedly, 'the oxygen content of the water has been reduced to less than two per cent. In normal circumstances the shark should have died but here you can see that it's suffering no obvious ill effects. After a brief period of difficulty it adapted to the change in its environment… thanks to PhoenixV The camera was pulling back now and Paul glimpsed a label on the front of the tank. He recognised it. It read 'Carcharodon'.

    Shelley's face reappeared on the screen. 'For nine days we submitted our small great white to an increasingly rigorous series of tests and it survived them all. Then, on the morning of the tenth day, we made an astounding discovery.

    'As part of the tests,' came Shelley's voice, 'we had stopped feeding "Charlie" as someone had dubbed him by then. Unwittingly, we had prompted a completely unexpected development. As part of his new survival mechanism Charlie had spontaneously created the means of getting out of his tank…

    'Yes, as incredible as it sounds he grew rudimentary limbs and simply climbed out. First he fed on all the other marine specimens that he had access to and then, after unsuccessfully trying to break into some of the animal cages, he went off to hunt for other prey. And unfortunately he found it.'

    The camera cut from a row of empty fish tanks to the remains of what could have been either a man or a woman. A ribcage, stripped of most of its flesh, and a partly eaten leg lay in a pool of blood in one of the corridors.

    'Ugh!' cried Linda, from behind him. She was looking over his shoulder. He'd been so engrossed he hadn't even heard her come oyer.

    'Sadly, we lost two more people before members of the security department cornered Charlie in a storeroom on level three,' continued Shelley. 'It put up a fierce resistance and had to be shot several times before it died.'

    The screen now showed a group of armed security men standing around a dark shape on the floor. The camera moved forward unsteadily, as if its operator wasn't feeling too steady on his feet.

    Linda exclaimed again as the carcass came into view on the screen. It was very different from the creature that had appeared in the recreation room but Paul could see similarities. And it was just as horrible in its own way. It was still recognisable as a shark but the body had been radically altered to enable it to hunt, and live, out of the water. It now had two massive hindlegs, capable of supporting it in a vertical position, and two smaller forelegs equipped with long, sharp-looking claws. The tail had virtually disappeared and the head had changed shape too with a pronounced lower jaw now clearly visible and the eyes much further forward…

    The bizarre sight was abruptly replaced by Shelley's face. 'The remains will undergo dissection later today under my supervision. I predict even greater revelations await us. This is the first step in a truly momentous breakthrough for science.'

    The screen went blank.

    Paul looked at Linda. 'Some breakthrough. That's all the world needs right now - man eating sharks that can chase you up the beach if they miss you in the water. Isn't science wonderful.'

    She moved closer to him and he put his arm around her. She was shivering. It was getting cold now that there wasn't sufficient power to run the heating system.

    The tape didn't run on for very long before Shelley reap-peared. The bouyancy of a few moments ago had vanished. He looked exhausted and his expression was grim.

    'June the 14th. The time is 08.45. It's been almost forty-eight hours after my last entry on this machine and much has happened in the interim. I still find it difficult to believe but it seems that we have inadvertently created one of the most dangerous lifeforms ever to have existed on earth…'

    

    

    Rochelle woke from a troubled sleep and found herself alone in the cabin. Where was Alex? He was supposed to be guarding her. Then she remembered - Mark had been here and there had been an argument. He was after more heroin and Alex was refusing to give it to him unless he promised him the world… and something else that neither wanted to discuss in front of her. But she had a good idea what it was - Chris. Alex wanted Chris again. Not that she cared what Alex wanted, or who. She was feeling too ill to care. But Mark, embarrassed, had insisted he and Alex go elsewhere to continue the haggling.

    She'd gone to sleep after that but the pain from her injuries had woken her up. Linda and Chris had done a good job in cleaning and dressing her cuts but the codeine tablets she'd been given had worn off now and she hurt like hell. Even breathing was agony.

    So she lay there staring at the ceiling and hoping that Alex would hurry up and return so she could send him for some more painkillers. The more she thought about him the more her anger grew. What a bastard he was. Fancy leaving her alone when that… that… she couldn't bring herself to focus her mind on the thing that had attacked her. She had banished it to the outer edges of her mind where it remained a shadowy, indistinct shape. Soon she would be able to convince herself none of it had happened, that it had all been a crazy dream.

    She felt a tremor run through the bunk. According to Alex there was a bad storm raging outside and huge waves were breaking against the legs of the platform. She wondered if they would be safe. The newspapers often had stories about oil rigs being overturned in the North Sea…

    She frowned.

    Someone was watching her.

    She raised her head from the pillow and looked around. She had to be imagining things. There was no one else in the small two-bunk cabin and nowhere for anyone to hide.

    She relaxed again. Her mind was playing tricks on her, and no wonder. She wasn't going to feel safe until they were off this platform. She wished they'd never found it. Better to be adrift still in the North Sea than to be trapped in this creepy place…

    Her right foot began to tingle. It was an extremely unpleasant sensation, much worse than pins-and-needles. Vaguely alarmed, she raised herself painfully on her elbows and looked.

    Something was moving under the blanket down by her feet.

    Shocked, she flung the blanket to one side and froze…

    Her right foot had disappeared.

    Beyond the cuff of her jeans on her right leg there was nothing. Just empty space.

    Then, as she watched transfixed with horror, her right leg slowly vanished as well, the jeans leg collapsing like a deflating inner tube.

    
I'm dreaming again!
The awful tingling sensation was in her left leg now as well. She saw it was covered with a black, glistening liquid and that a long tendril of the same substance ran across the floor from the end of the bunk and extended up the wall to disappear into a small ventilation grill. She remembered the woman with the black, slimy worms hanging out of her mouth…

    
No, no, I'm dreaming! This is not happening.
The thought was a defiant mental scream.

    She tried to sit up but the tingling feeling was in her hips and crotch now and she saw that she no longer existed below the waist - her jeans now lay tempty on the bed.

    An image of all the piles of empty clothes they had found flashed through her mind.

    'Oh dear God,' she gasped, 'this is real..

    She tried to scream but it was too late. Her upper torso was now under attack as well.

    Her shirt caved inwards and her head fell back onto the pillow. With wide, terrified eyes she stared helplessly at the ceiling, her mouth working frantically as she tried to suck air into lungs that no longer existed.

    Then the substance moved over her eyes and the light faded. She waited for merciful oblivion.

    It didn't come.

    

    

    '… And after the dissection had been completed the various organs and specimens were placed in different con-tainers while the bulk of the carcass was stored in a freezer…' Shelley paused and wiped his face with a wad of tissue. 'The next morning not a trace of the carcass or any of the specimens could be found. At first I suspected human intervention. Perhaps we had a spy among us who intended selling the results of our research to commercial interests? 'But then we made the discovery that all the experimental animals had disappeared too. The cages were intact but the animals had gone. We conducted a search for them, as well as the missing remains of Charlie, but found nothing.