Bronson didn’t much like it below. It was smothering. He was cut from Iowa stock and used to cornfield horizons. Below the waterline the sea sometimes slapped at the sides. The sound wasn’t natural to an army man, and the sooner he returned topside the better. He stood at-ease by the cargo hatch, rifle resting on his boot ready to snap to attention should Major Stanley or any of the whitecoats show up. He listened for the approaching clang of boots, leaned forward and tried the latch handle, but the hatch was locked.
“You’ve got one fuckin’ job, Corporal,” was his brief from Stanley, “ensure this door stays locked!”
But… what would he do if he found it unlocked? Take a peek? Go inside? Or remain at his station and lock it as ordered? One fuckin’ job! He thought of Jefferies’s super bomb, tried to get his head around something that could take out a city in one blow. Bullshit. Ain’t possible. Probably nothing in there but… but what? He nudged the latch again, then heard heavy footfalls approaching and sprang to attention.
It was Major Stanley, his narrow eyes unblinking, and a permanent sneer etched into that tanned, weathered face beneath his cap. Bronson saluted. “Major Stanley,” he said in a firm voice.
“I know my goddamned name, Corporal,” the man spat in his gravelly voice without so much as a glance. He pressed the intercom by the hatch. “Doctor Klein? It’s Stanley, let me in.”
The hatch sprang open, and a whitecoat with round, black-rimmed glasses let the major in. There was nothing to like about Klein. Wiry thin and tall, stooped from a lifetime of masking his height, he had stringy black hair greased down over his balding top. Word was he was snatched from the Nazi’s pool of scientists when Berlin fell. Maybe one of Hitler’s bomb makers.
Klein looked at Bronson for a moment, held his stare, eyes – coal-black – showing no emotion, no feeling. What has he seen, Bronson wondered, to stop from feeling? The hatch closed, and Bronson heard their murmured voices disappear on the other side. Then… a faint click from the latch. He glanced down to see the hatch swing back a half inch or so. The lock hadn’t engaged.
You’ve got one fuckin’ job, Corporal!
Bronson grasped the handle and was about to nudge it closed, aware the lock would engage, only accessible from the other side or by security key from this side. That’s when he noticed just how cold the steel was. The Portland was in the Pacific. It was always hot here. So why the cold storage?
“To Hell with it,” he whispered, and eased the hatch open.
He moved his carbine’s sling over his shoulder and leant inside, the cool air bracing his face. Stanley and the Kraut were gone. Bronson looked around. This was nothing like any other part of the ship. He stepped inside, edged the hatch closed, and listened for any sign of the major or Klein. It appeared to be another hallway running adjacent to the one on the outside. There were muffled voices, but distant; dim inside except for a pale green light coming from a window to his left. Above him was a honeycombed catwalk he could see through to the bulkhead above. Empty. Bronson stepped cautiously in front of the window; thick glass held back a body of water. It was some kind of water tank. Huge. A thermometer beside the glass read 36 degrees Fahrenheit. He peered inside, could see something small, fish maybe – wrigglers he would have called them in his fishing days. They swam in wavering schools deep in the tank.
The catwalk began to tremor above him – two whitecoats carrying something heavy between them and walking this way. He couldn’t risk running back to the exit; that would take him right under them.
“Shit!” he hissed, glancing around, escape paramount. Over there! Another door beyond the tank. He ran, opened it, and entered. It closed behind him with a soft thud. The darkness embraced him; the cold wrapping around him like icy fingers. He stepped warily away from the door until his back pressed against the opposite wall… and he waited. The smell was familiar, and took him a moment to relate. Then he remembered his after-school job cleaning old man Beattie’s butcher shop. His heart slowed with his breathing, and when it was clear no one was following, he reached inside his pocket for his Zippo. The frigid air hurt his throat to breathe. He flicked the lighter; the flint sparked, but no flame. He tried again. The same. Shook the fluid inside, and this time it worked… and he wished it hadn’t.
Eyes, frozen, had taken on a marble stare. Cradled in their gray flesh, they appeared fixed in time, perhaps in the moment of their death, like a washed out photograph of their mortality – perhaps even recognizing Bronson’s own as they stared into his. He shared this frigid charnel house with a host of dead hung naked from hooks around him. Bronson pressed himself harder against the wall, his frosted breath almost blowing out the lighter’s flame, his khaki shirt freezing to the steel wall. The fabric peeled away as he stepped aside, desperate to shun those staring eyes. He shifted the Zippo from face to face – all Japanese, no doubt battlefield fodder by the bullet holes and torn flesh that marred their bodies.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered. I can’t stay here!
He stumbled forward, nudging a hanging corps in its torso, pressing stale air from its hollow lungs into his own face. He wanted to puke. It smelt like battlefield gut-shot… and you never forget that smell as long as you live. He threw himself against the door, and for a moment thought it was locked. No! No! No! He’d dropped the Zippo with a clang, its flame extinguished. Now that he knew what was in here, the darkness seemed tenfold. Another blind heave and the door seal relented with a crack. It swung open as he spilled out into the hall. Bronson drew in the fresh air, rested against the far wall, and watched as the freezer door eased itself closed again.
There was a repetitive clanging from atop the catwalk. Whatever those whitecoats were doing, it had masked the sound of his busting out. He clutched his carbine to his chest and moved under the walkway, pressing himself close to the wall as he slipped beneath them. The clanging carried on, and when he passed the tank window it seemed the wrigglers were attracted by the sound. He watched the schools swivel and swirl in grey clouds toward him. A lone wriggler swam closer to the glass, no more than the size of his thumb. It was a crab, but not like anything he’d ever before seen. For its size, the claws were huge, and its shell, serrated along its spine, was a strange steely black. Bronson paused, tilted his head. Is it looking at me? He then heard the substantial splash from above…
… and the frozen eyes of one of the dead Nip soldiers was looking at him again, the body submerging on the other side of the glass. Bronson’s breath caught, startled, as water splashed over the edge and ran down his side of the glass, distorting the image. “Feeding time,” said one of the whitecoats above. The other chuckled, then they moved away down the catwalk.
Bronson breathed a slow, steadying sigh. He looked at the corpse, met its dead stare, and for a moment he thought it was… dancing.
The ravenous crabs swarmed over it – through it – tearing it apart into a pale cloud of fibrous flesh and splintered bone.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered.
Then, from the flesh-cloud, one of the crabs slammed against the window, its oversized claws scissoring at the glass. Bronson stepped away, swore it was looking right at him. He turned to the exit, saw that the whitecoats were gone, then made his break. The hatch opened easily. He stepped outside, back at his post, then pulled the hatch closed, testing the latch handle three times to ensure it was locked.