“I’m done,” he whispered, then checked it one last time to be sure.
It was an hour before Major Stanley came out.
Bronson snapped to attention. “Major Stanley,” he said firmly and waited for the Major’s usual gruff wisecrack, but it never came. Instead, Stanley stood opposite, his eyes a little less harsh than usual, bordering on human.
“You served with the seventy-seventh in Guam, didn’t you, Corporal?”
Bronson’s jaw clenched. Perhaps due to pride; perhaps due to the landscape of dead GIs he remembered from that battle. “Yes, Sir.”
“You’ve seen some things in your time, huh soldier?”
He was about to answer when the major held up the Zippo Bronson had dropped in the meat room on the other side. The 77th Infantry – Guam – July 1944 inscription just eight inches from his eyes.
“We need to talk, Bronson.”
Not a word was spoken until the door to Major Stanley’s quarters closed behind them. Stanley turned and Bronson halted to attention.
The major took off his cap, placed it on his desk, and then sat on the edge. “At ease, Corporal,” he said with a dismissive wave.
It was unnerving. Stanley looked at Bronson without speaking for a long time. There was no sign of the steely stare or rock-jawed barking of abuse.
He tossed the Zippo to Bronson, who caught it. “You want to tell me what you saw in there?”
As Bronson adopted the at-ease position, he considered lying to the major, but the weight of truth in his lighter made that futile. “I’m not sure what I saw, sir.”
Stanley sighed, took a cigarette from the box on his desk and lit it. “You’ve put me in a difficult situation, Corporal. One I could probably have you shot for.”
“Shot?” The word squeezed up through Bronson’s throat.
“Relax.” Stanley stood from the desk and walked toward a film projector set up before a row of chairs in the center of the room. “We’re about twenty-four hours from disclosing the Portland’s mission to her captain and crew anyway. HQ prepared a film for my briefing.” He turned on the projector. “To dodge that bullet I need you to keep your mouth shut until then.” He pointed at the screen on the wall as grainy images of white-coated scientists filtered through a stream of Stanley’s cigarette smoke. Except for the clickety-clack of 8-millimeter film that spooled through the reels, the film was silent.
“I can do that, sir,” Bronson said.
Major Stanley spoke as the corresponding pictures filled the small screen.
“We call them Shintos, the Japanese god of water. They are a hybrid created by our Nazi friends, something they were working on for Adolph before he opted out of the war. They’re basically a Japanese Spider Crab injected with the fetal cells of the carnivorous Coconut Crab. They were experimenting with a range of species, but the crustaceans seemed the most responsive. The Nazis radiated their bloodstream to strengthen their dominant blood cells and bred them to what you saw down in the hull. The radiation seemed to be the kicker, the mutation it created being way beyond our expectation. The Shinto’s are extremely deadly and strangely intelligent in their interaction with each other. Particularly in the way they hunt their prey.” Stanley smiled; it was predatory. “The things are ordered and calculating. They have one overwhelming motivation… to feed.” The man glanced at Bronson to gauge his reaction as the pictures flickered across the screen. “Your thoughts, Corporal?”
“What are you gonna do with them?” He forgot protocol and stepped closer to the screen. “I mean they’re so small.”
The flickering light reflected in both their eyes as they watched the feeding demo on screen.
“We condition their nourishment habits with the Jap carcasses curtesy of Uncle Sam’s island hopping campaign across the Pacific,” said Stanley. “And they’ve acquired quite a taste for it. This shipment of Shintos is bound for Okinawa where they’ll be packed into a custom airborne delivery system and dropped off the coast of Tokyo from a B29.”
“Seems like a lot of effort to kill a few beachgoers, sir.”
“Watch the film, Corporal.”
The progressive images were the stuff of nightmares. Worse under Stanley’s matter-of-fact voice.
“Ohhh, shit,” muttered Bronson when he recognized their potential.
“Worst case of crabs this man’s army will ever see,” said Stanley, his grin cold. “You see, the low forty-degree temperature of the tank keeps them in the pigmy stage. Forty degrees and they’ll fit in your hand. That man-size one you see on the screen was transferred to a tank just ten degrees warmer.”
The film showed one standing on its back four legs, claws raised as it circled a Jap corps, still in uniform, propped up on a metal frame. When the black-armored creature struck, both flesh and steel yielded like butter.
“H-how…” stammered Bronson. “How big do they grow?”
Stanley walked to the projector and turned it off, and Bronson felt an immediate sense of relief.
“Well, that’s the question. We just don’t know,” said Stanley. He gestured toward the screen. “That specimen from the fifty-degree tank grew that size in a matter of minutes. The waters off Japan right now are seventy-four degrees. We believe they will grow quite large. Kick those Nips where it hurts.”
“Kick them?” said Bronson. “It’ll wipe them off the map.”
Stanley smiled. “Better still.”
The deck shifted beneath them in a violent lunge. A metal roar pierced Bronson’s eardrums as he met the steel wall and the lights flickered out.
The wash of sounds was a dull cacophony through the ringing in Bronson’s ears as the red lights of the general quarters flared on and the battle stations siren sounded. Bronson found his rifle and stood, sensing a slight list to the portside. Major Stanley was in the corner and Bronson knew by the angle of his neck the man was dead.
The port-deck hatch took some effort to open against the warped bulkhead, and as he stumbled outside he was met by a blanket of gray smoke and a rush of clambering sailors. One of the seamen nudged him as he passed. Bronson staggered through the smoke to the railing. A submarine surfaced a half mile out, close enough to see the red rising sun insignia on the conning tower.
“Shit,” spat Bronson. He clutched the railing, knuckles white, as the Portland listed another inch or two toward the surface.
The sub’s crew had scaled topside now, manning its deck gun, traversing its barrel slowly toward the Portland. Bronson was lost, his CO dead, his one fucking job seeming irrelevant under the circumstances. He aimed his carbine at the sub, realizing how futile an act it was when the Portland’s 6-inch bow gun boomed and a pillar of seawater rose five yards short of the submarine. It boomed again, short again, and Bronson realized the heavy list denied the main guns enough elevation for the short distance.
Bronson lowered his rifle, and with it, all hope. This is gonna be a turkey shoot for the Nips.
The sub’s deck gun flashed, and a heartbeat later the Portland’s bridge exploded, showering the area in metal and glass. A hot chard gashed his cheek and he could smell burning flesh. The radar tower leaned heavily toward Bronson, metal screaming as it tore from its base. He leapt at the open hatch as the twisted tower smashed amidst the cries of the ship’s crew. The deck vibrated violently beneath him. He rolled onto his back, patted his cheek and stared at the blood on his fingers. It appeared black in the red light, and made him think of the blood-stained Jap carcasses in the meat locker; made him think of those Shinto wrigglers looking for their next feed. If the ship was doomed, then so too were those things in cargo bay 3.