Slimer

They gathered round her for a closer look. On the lapel was a badge that read ‘Security’ together with a small photograph of an earnest young man with a crew-cut.

‘Must have belonged to the owner of one of the guns,’ said Paul. Then he noticed something else. So did the others.

‘Jesus,’ whispered Chris, ‘It’s been slashedby something. A knife.’

‘Or claws,’ said Mark. ‘The cuts are parallel, see…’

It was then that Paul realised what the stains were.

Dried blood.

On the second level, to Linda’s intense relief, they found toilets. But that was the only discovery they made that gave them any comfort. Level Two, as it was officially called according to various signs on the walls, was much the same as the top one. Gleaming white corridors linked a complex of laboratories and store rooms — and all devoid of human life.

More bundles of clothes were found, several of them ripped and blood-stained like the ones in the communications room but the majority were unmarked. And all, inexplicably, had the underwear inside the outer garments. There were also signs that outbreaks of violence had occurred. There were bullet holes in a few of the walls, some broken doors and one of the store rooms had been burnt out.

By the time they reached the second level from the bottom they were all feeling thoroughly exhausted and were no longer bothering to do more than just look briefly into each room they passed. They were all empty, of course, and no one answered their increasingly weary cries of ‘Hallo! Anyone here?’

This level was the same as the ones above except for two things. One was a long, narrow room full of empty cages of varying sizes. And despite the smell of disinfectant in the air it had a pronounced zoo-like odour. _

‘Phew,’ said Rochelle, wrinkling her nose. ‘What the hell did they keep in here? It smells like Alex’s socks.’

Paul began to read out the labels on the empty cages. ‘Rhesus monkeys, Chimpanzees, Marmosets, Orangoutangs…’ He moved on down the row of cages. ‘. And here there were domestic cats, guinea pigs, dogs, rats — lots of rats. These must have been used for experiments,’

‘Bastards,’ said Chris who was, of course, a strong anti-vivisectionist.

‘But where are they all?’ wondered Linda aloud.

‘They must have been evacuated along with the people when whatever went wrong here went wrong,’ said Mark.

‘That doesn’t make sense. If that was the case the cages wouldn’t be here either,’ said Paul.

‘And have you noticed something even odder?’ asked Chris. ‘All of them are still locked. Why on earth would anyone go to the bother of locking the cages after the animals had been removed?’

No one had an answer.

At the end of the room were a pair of swing doors that opened into an aquarium area. Illuminated with the same eerie kind of violet light that had been in the airlock it contained rows of glass tanks of different sizes. And like the cages these, too, were all empty.

‘Curiouser and curiouser…’ whispered Linda.

There was a strange atmosphere in the aquarium, exaggerated no doubt by the lighting and also the sounds made by all the bubbling oxygen appliances in the tanks. But it was the emptiness of the place that was so unsettling…

‘Don’t tell me,’ muttered Rochelle. ‘They evacuated all the fish too.’

‘I don’t like it here. Let’s leave, now,’ said Chris.

‘More bad vibes?’ answered Alex.

‘They must have had some really big fish in here,’ said Mark. ‘Look at the size of that tank.’ He was pointing at one that was at least twenty feet long. Paul went and read the label on the front of it. ‘Just says “Carcharodon”. Anyone no what that means?’

‘Nope,’ said Linda and shivered. ‘I agree with Chris, let’s get out of here. It gives me the creeps too.’

The other intriguing feature on this level was a room packed with TV equipment. It was obviously the control point for all the cameras they had spotted throughout the platform. There were eight monitor screens positioned around a large console and all of them were functioning, each one showing a different part of the rig.

‘It’s as if someone had walked out of here a moment before we arrived,’ said Chris.

‘They probably did, ’said Alex. ‘Arid I’ll bet you this is from where our shy host operated the crane that picked us up.’

‘It’s possible,’ said Paul doubtfully, staring at the equipment.

T wish they’d stop hiding from us,’ said Linda. ‘It’s crazy. Why are they acting this way?’

‘As we said earlier. They must have something to hide,’ said Mark.

‘Then why haven’t they prevented us from wandering around?’ she asked.

Mark shook his head. ‘Don’t ask me.’

Paul, meanwhile, had made another discovery. Racks and racks of video cassettes, all of them carefully labelled with some kind of code. He picked one of them up and examined it. ‘Wonder what’s on this, if anything.’

‘We should run it through and see,’ said Linda. ‘There must be a video playback machine somewhere in all this stuff. It might give us a clue as to what was going on here.’ ‘It would take days to run through all those cassettes,’ protested Rochelle. ‘Look at it later. Right now let’s try and find where they keep the food and the beds in this place. I’m about ready to drop.’

The others agreed with her so they then headed down to the fifth and final level. Level One, it turned out, was entirely devoted to living space and consisted of sleeping quarters, kitchens and recreational rooms. Paul estimated that it would have housed at least 250 people…

They made a cursory examination of the place and found, as they now expected, it was devoid of human life. Or at least it appeared to be — they couldn’t be sure because several of the doors were locked but there was no response when they banged on the doors. Deciding to check them out later they retired to one of the kitchens to have something to eat.

The kitchen they chose turned out to be well-stocked with both frozen and tinned foods, revealing, if nothing else, that the original inhabitants of the rig ate well. On Paul’s advice they used only the tinned food, making a quick stew out of a variety of ingredients. Similarly they ignored the water from the taps and drank only mineral water from sealed bottles and tinned fruit juice.

The meal made them all feel much better. Even Mark’s appearance improved, to Paul’s relief, as he’d been worried that Mark might have been coming down with something serious. Even better, the food had the effect of mellowing Alex a little. By the end of the meal his habitual mood of glowering antagonism seemed thankfully absent though Paul was sure this would only be a temporary change.

It was past ten p.m. when they finished eating and the women were all‘anxious to find somewhere to sleep as soon as possible but Paul insisted they check out the locked, rooms before they turned in.

It took another hour before they had broken down all the locked doors and investigated all the rooms. They didn’t find anyone but what they did find didn’t improve their state of minds. In all the locked rooms there were more piles of empty clothing — but in every case the doors had been locked from the inside.

What they found in one of the recreational rooms was particularly disturbing — a large mound of clothing piled up against the far wall. Paul estimated that there was enough to clothe twelve people. They also found another two Ml6s and a revolver — which brought the total of guns they’d so far collected to eighteen — and what appeared to be two make-shift flame-throwers.

‘They must have had an orgy in here,’ said Alex and gave a dirty snigger, but Paul was aware of his underlying nervousness. And he had to admit he was feeling increasingly uneasy himself. Something weird had happened on the oil rig and until he found out exactly what he wouldn’t be able to shake off the fear that it could happen again. To them.

‘It’s as if a group of people were all backed against the wall, facing the door, and then simply vanished out of their clothes,’ said Mark softly.

‘Hey, don’t say that,’ said Rochelle angrily, ‘you’re scaring me.’

‘I can’t understand how they got out with the door locked from the inside,’ said Linda.