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Hidden: Chapter 6

God Save Us

My heart skipped a beat. There in front of us, just beyond the reach of our lights were two glowing yellow eyes. They stared at us, unmoving almost taunting us to get a closer look at it. My whole body was as stiff as a board as my shocked brain tried to process what I was seeing. I had heard that certain animals have eyes that glow under low light, but these eyes were a good six feet above the ground. There was also no record of any animals being on board the ship.

I took a step forward and before I could react, the beast leapt into the air and simply disappeared. I could hear it in the air vent above us, the frantic sound of it scrambling away burned itself into my mind. The sound was directly above us for a second and then behind us. We kept our guns trained on where we thought it was above us, but it kept moving and soon we were left alone, the only sound that could be heard was our quickened breaths.

"What the fuck was that?" Sergeant Crane walked over to me, gun shaking. The others frozen in place, afraid that moving would bring the monster back.

I kept replaying the memory in my head trying to make sense of it all. What kind of animal stood six feet tall and had glowing eyes and could leap the eight feet necessary to reach to air vents above? My heart was still racing and I finally began to look around the bridge and I only became mortified.

The entire bridge was painted in blood. The walls were splattered and the gore was everywhere. Arms with no bodies, heads with no neck, shoes with the feet still inside, toes, flesh, parts of people were strewn about the room as if they just exploded. No, they were torn apart. Torn apart by whatever that thing was. The heads that still had faces only had two expressions on them, fear and surprise. Whatever that thing was, it could not be natural in any way. Even animals didn't go as far as shredding their prey to bits.

I turned around, trying not to vomit. I had seen terrible things in war, but not like this. I keeled over with my hands on my knees, taking deep breaths. The slow heavy breathing worked a bit and I could feel the uncontrollable shaking that had wracked my body begin to fade. I looked up and saw that the others were doing similar things.

Sergeant Crane was leaning against the door with his head against the frame. He wasn't shaking, just leaning there doing nothing. Ivan was over with Sergeant Millard and both were sitting on the ground up against the wall. Ivan had his arm over Sergeant Millard's shoulders and I could tell the sergeant was crying.

We stayed like this for several minutes until we all calmed down from the initial shock of it all. With one final deep breath I pushed myself off of my knees and stood up. I turned back around and now that I was ready for it, I began to investigate the bridge.

The bridge was large, able to accommodate 50 people easily if need be and by the looks of things, there were at least double that many in here. The side walls all had computers and consoles along them. The front was a large screen that allowed the crew inside to monitor what was happening outside of the ship. In the center of the room was a raised platform with what I presumed to be the command chair where the captain of the ship would give orders and monitor the bridge. In it, a person sat, or what was left of him.

The person wore a bright military style uniform and had a large naval hat on. A metal name tag was pinned to his chest which read, Captain Cunning, the captain of the ship who had sent the SOS. His right arm was gone at the elbow and both legs were unaccounted for. A large pool of blood was on the floor all around him. In his left hand was a small audio recorder which I pried from his cold fingers, which I then pocketed. The recording would have to wait, the bridge needed to be secured first.

The others had been making their way around the room, scanning every part of it to make sure no other monsters would pop out.

"Clear." Ivan was the one who finally called it out and we all let out a sigh at the same time.

"Sergeant Millard, I want you to fix that hole in the air vent." I pointed upwards at the ceiling where the monster had leapt up and into a large gash that left me feeling exposed. "After that, I want you to reseal the door we came in from."

The sergeant nodded and began to gather things to plug the air vent with. He hesitated whenever he came across a body or a limb, but managed to get some pieces of metal which he began to weld together to make scaffolding so he could reach the vent. The welding seemed to take his mind off of where he was and he quickly got into a rhythm.

"Sir what do you want to do with the bodies?" Ivan made a sweeping gesture with his hands. "We can't just leave them here, it's a hazard."

"Do what you can and pile them up in the back corner." I looked around at the sheer amount of parts that were littering the floor. It was hard to see anything with just the lights on our guns. "I'll try to set up some lights."

I reached into my bag and pulled out a few high powered flashlights which I turned on and set up at various places to better illuminate the whole room. We all worked for about an hour. The air duct was sealed, most of the bodies were piled up and the door was mostly closed off, with just enough room for one of us to squeeze out at a time.

The room was still a horrid mess with blood everywhere, but at least the bodies were all put off to one side where it was less noticeable. We could only wait now for the other teams so I took out the audio recorder the captain had and gathered the rest of the squad.

"I hope this thing holds some answers." I held up the recorder and started from the beginning.

"January 24, 8:30 AM." The voice was instantly recognizable as the captains and was steady and unconcerned. "The chief engineer, Robert Shultz has just told me that the engines are failing. I don't know why. They were working just fine before we left. Mr. Shultz thinks someone was messing with them. I notified security and they sent a few people to go down there to investigate. This will delay our arrival by a few day, but it shouldn't be a problem." The message ended and automatically went to the next one.

"January 24, 11:12 AM. Security caught two people in the engine room and brought them to the brig where they are being questioned. I don't understand why someone would try to sabotage the ship, we aren't carrying anything important other than passengers. I'll wait to hear back from the head of security before deciding what to do."

"January 24, 3:58 PM. Security finished questioning the two. They managed to get one of them to confess to working for the big medical firm J&H. I still don't understand why there would be on the ship. The head of security wants to start sweeping the ship for more of them and I've gone ahead and given it a go. Who knows how many are on the ship and what they're trying to accomplish. Hopefully they'll stop now that we caught a few."

"January 24, 7:13 PM." The voice was annoyed and a bit panicked. "There was an attack on one of the passengers. I don't have many details from security, but it seems that some more J&H employees tried to kidnap some old man. There was a short gunfight between the old man's bodyguards and the J&H employees, but that quickly died down when security arrived. They took the old man, who was wounded to the infirmary where I've set double guard. The old man who called himself Dr. Ruse was adamant about returning to his quarters, but he was too hurt. In the end his bodyguards left to get his things, they all seemed pretty worried."

"January 24, 11:34 PM." The man was breathing fast and uneven, he was clearly distressed. "I don't know what happened. There was an explosion on one of the upper decks near the bow. I've received reports of some kind of gas as well. I'm ordering an evacuation of the entire area and have told Mr. Shultz seal it off once the evacuation is complete. People are panicking, I'm panicking, it's all falling apart. As soon as I get my next report, I'm sending a fucking SOS out."

"January 25, 4:07 AM." The captain sounded a bit drunk and his words were slightly slurred. "I sent the SOS and all we can do is wait, fucking wait." He put emphasis on the profanity. "There are casualties and the gas, whatever it is, has spread across much of the starboard side of the ship. I can't get in communication with any other part of the ship either, coms must be down as well. God damn J&H, I bet their responsible for it. Stupid corporates, getting into my business. I don't even know what happened to Dr. Ruse either, he seemed important to them though, but it's too late to worry about him now. Hopefully help comes soon."

"January 25, 9:03 AM." The sound of tired man barely came through as a whisper. "Well, power went out. Just great. Before, people were streaming into the bridge trying to hide. Those who don't just cry and sob about some kind of dog beasts tell me that the gas is changing the people when it just doesn't outright kill them. I want to think that they're over reacting, but I just don't know anymore. The doors to the bridge all but sealed tight and we can't open them up. No one seems to mind though, they keep saying it will keep them out. If there really is some kind of monster, we have a few guns... that should help."

"January 26, 1:02 AM." He was crying, but was trying to keep the noise down, screaming could be heard very close by. "Oh, god, one of them got in. Oh god. It's killing them all, everyone is dying and I'm next as soon as it's done with the rest of them. We didn't have a chance, it just popped out of an air vent and began to rip everyone apart before we could do anything. I saw it just once before I hid. They were right, it's some kind of dog thing. How was that supposed to be human at one point? It's eyes though, those eyes, they have the same look as a wild animal, no soul." He paused and there was nothing but silence. "Everyone else is dead." He said as quietly as he could. "Maybe I can get to the gun by my chair, at least I'll die trying to do something." You could here him move and then run. There was a howl that was undoubtable canine and then screaming followed by a few gun shots. "Why. Why." The captain had stopped shooting and the carnage of him being ripped apart could be heard between his screams. I stopped it there.

We stood there in silence just looking at the trembling recorder in my hand. I gulped. "The mission remains the same. We need to get all of the files from security and the ship logs, the colonel will want the information. Once the jammer is down and the communication equipment is up and running, we'll be able to contact the outside and get our next course of action planned." I looked at the others who looked back and continued. "Something happened with this Dr. Ruse and I want to find out. I want to get permission to find him."

"Are you crazy?" Sergeant Millard spoke up. "He's probably dead, look at what just one of those things did to these people. Plus, the ship is massive and we don't know where he is either."

"Hey." Sergeant Crane poked his finger into Millard's chest. "The captain knows what he's doing. I've worked with him longer than you and he's the most reliable man I know. Plus, If you haven't forgotten, we're Spec Enforcers, the best there are. We're not just some security guards with pop guns, we're trained they weren't." The two were just inches apart and looked like they were about to fight.

"That's enough you two." I shoved both of them away from eachother. "I've made up my mind and unless the colonel order us otherwise, we will get to the bottom of this." I checked the time on my hud. Scarcely three hours had passed since we got on the ship. "The other teams should probably be at their objectives by now, it won't be long."

As if on que, I was automatically linked to 3 other radio signals. "See," I said and then connected my squad with the other squads, but what I heard was the opposite of what I expected.

"Keep firing into those bastards." It was the captain of squad 4, Captain Wellington, I think that was his name, the one that went to check for survivors. I could tell by his extremely British accent. Yelling and all kinds of noises could be heard going on. "Sweet mother of god, the radio is working."

"This is Captain Anderson of squad 1, what is your situation?" I noticed that only the vitals of three of his men were showing.

"Hell, it's about time that the jammer got shut off. We've engaged werewolves. They got Frank and I've been exposed to the atmosphere, don't know what's in the air, but it feels like my insides are on fire." He coughed a few times.

"What's your location?" This time it was Captain Krauss of squad 3.

"We're pinned at the very front of the bloody ship. We've retreated as far as we could and have nowhere to go now." At that, another vital went out. "Shit man, shit. God damn it, damn them all to hell." He took a moment to fire, the zipping sound of his rifle was clear. "Captain Anderson, you're the closest, but still. You would have to fight your way through thousands to get to us. It would take too long. Leave us." Another vital went out. "They won't take me without a fight. Bring it on," He yelled and then he started to sing 'God Save the Queen'.

"God save our gracious Queen,

Long live our noble Queen,

God save The Queen,

Send her victorious,

Happy and glorious,

Long to reign over us,

God save The Queen..."

Everyone was silent as his vitals went out.