whole populations. Hell, for all we know, it may’ve wiped out the ancient civilizations from Mesopotamia to the Aztec.”
“And now it’s graduated to us—modern day mankind,” David replied, rubbing his chin. “So now you’re saying this… this shape-shifting bastard thing has the capability to leap from one man to another while residing in a third? That it has evolved to the point that it can put its grip on a man—put him on hold, so to speak, via some sort of hypnotic suggestion?”
“Yes, allowing it to roam by mere touch, and if it thinks itself threatened by you or me, it will eliminate us.”
“By feeding on our insides?”
“To gather even more strength.”
David considered this horrifying new revelation atop all the others since boarding
Just then someone was shouting and racing past, saying “They’ve found Dr. Alandale!” It was Lena, heading for the nearest deck phone to inform Captain Forbes and Swigart on the bridge.
The ship was half turned about by this time. David caught her and spun her around, asking Lena,“Who’s found him?”
“Will and Jacob. Said they went back to his cabin, pulled apart a wall and found his body. Something awful about the way the body looks—blacker than Bowman. Alandale stuffed behind a wall panel in his compartment! Now I gotta call the bridge.”
Lena rushed off, and Kelly stood beside David, shivering with the news. David wanted to console her, place an arm around her but held himself in check and said, “Well now, Bowman and Mendenhall’ve discovered the body anyway.”
“It would appear so.”
David shook his head. “This leaves us in the same boat as we would’ve been in had we come clean in the first place.”
“We’d best appear as surprised as the next person,” she counseled.
“Sure; what choice do we have?”
“But David, knowing what we know, we can’t let one another out of sight.”
He nodded. “Should either of us be cornered by this alien being, it has the power to take us over, I get that.”
“We might have some residual will power for a short time should you become a victim, like the Pinkerton agent, Tuttle, in the journal, but I fear this thing really has become more complex, able to refine its methods, particularly control of its host.” She started away, but he hesitated, staring at her, wondering how in the name of God anyone could be sure of anyone else under these circumstances.
She turned in the sunlight, her hair flying in the ocean breeze, to stare at him. “Come along; we have to join the others, appear surprised—or else we come under suspicion of sabotage and murder.”
Kelly and David followed the parade of people back down to Alandale’s cabin. More than one of the others rushed away, holding back vomit, and looking terrified. No one could account for the condition of the body or the faintly annoying sulfuric odor emanating from Alandale’s quarters.
Forbes rushed in behind Swigart, aghast at the sight of Alandale’s remains; the man was hardly recognizable. While everyone was alarmed at the sight, Lena and the others were debating what could have so discolored the man’s skin to turn it to the shade of mahogany.
Steve Jens, gasping, put forth the theory, “Perhaps while the body was inside the wall, it somehow was burned to this brown cast.”
“Maybe an electrical fire,” added Mendenhall with a bony shrug. But a glance inside the wall showed none of the tell-tale signs of an electrical fire.
Kyle Fiske had joined them late and on seeing the body, and hearing Jens assessment, he said, “Sounds like you guys are grasping at straws.”
“None of it makes sense, Kyle,” Swigart said, his tone sour. Men such as he did not like a question without answer. But he was right. None of it made sense. Fiske was right too—everyone was drawing a blank.
“What can it mean?” Forbes had gone to his knees over Alandale’s body, showing emotion, which killed Kelly’s theory—unless the monster inside him had learned to use emotion now as another tool of hiding in plain sight.
Swigart grabbed hold of Forbes to steady him and pull him back, warning him in the same instant: “Don’t touch him, Juris. We’ve no idea what this is! Looks like some awful disease if you ask me.”
“It wasn’t any disease that put him behind that wall,” countered Lena.
“You don’t know that,” piped up Will Bowman. “I mean if he was outta his mind, he could’ve climbed in there and see here—” he indicated two tabs on the inside of the panel—“he could’ve hidden himself away.”
“Crazy? You’re calling the most intelligent man I’ve ever known insane?” Forbes attacked Bowman with a flurry of words. “You, a bone-headed diver? You have no say-so here. Get out, all of you!”
“No, Juris,” said Swigart, still holding onto his friend. “No, you go… get away from here. I’ll see to it that Dimitri’s remains are handled with the utmost respect, and you, Bowman, keep your mouth shut—and that goes for all of you, and that’s an order! Kelly—take Dr. Forbes to his cabin. Juris, get some rest.”
Juris pulled away from Swigart, dropped to his knees again over his long-time friend and hugged Alandale’s body against his own. “My god, he’s as hard as rock, Lou. What the hell can be behind this?” Forbes tore away the buttons on Alandale’s shirt to reveal that his entire body was discolored and hardened like fibrous wood.
Was it the gesture of a longtime friend or a controlled hand and mind at work here? David wondered if Forbes was really showing concern for his long time friend, or if he was surreptitiously taking back the invisible being from Alandale to his own body. Had Forbes been the man who’d stowed Alandale’s lifeless form behind the wall panel— or had it been the other missing man, Crewman Houston Ford?
“We don’t know if he’s contagious, Captain.” Swigart again pulled Forbes away from the remains. “We need to put the body on ice… keep it away from the men, and on our return to Woods Hole, call in the authorities, and let the authorities handle it with their criminal investigation team… CSI, all that.”
“What of the other missing man—Ford, Houston Ford?” asked Forbes in a barely audible voice.
“No sign of him yet, but now… seeing this, we have to search more thoroughly, every bulkhead, every pipe, every wall panel—and assume him armed and dangerous; if anyone has gone loco aboard this ship, it’s most likely Ford. I’m told he’d had several quarrels with other crewmen and Dr. Alandale.”
The ship’s doctor, Chinua Entebbe, a man of Nigerian descent, had rushed to the scene with a medical bag in hand; obviously no one had told him the patient was dead. Entebbe stood over Alandale’s remains, shaken. “My god, I just played chess with Dr. Alandale last evening. What-Whatever could cause such discoloration and stiffness in the man’s body?”
Swigart ordered everyone out except for Dr. Entebbe, Will, and David. “I want you two to don gloves and heave the body to the aft section of the ship; there’s a specimen freezer.”
“For biological specimens,” said Daive.
“It’ll have to do; w e lay Dr. Alandale’s remains, such as they are, in state until we arrive back in port after the completion of our expedition. There’s no other way.”
“I am trying to conduct an examination here,” complained Entebbe, raising his hands over his head. A thin, bony man, he crouched near the body but remained too apprehensive to touch it. “On second thought, Commander Swigart, let’s go ahead with your plan.”
“Good call, Doctor.”
David took Swigart aside, slowing things down, wondering if he ought not to tell Lou all that he knew of this awful disease and how it was spread by a single organism taking up residence in the human body, then draining it of every ounce of fluid. Instead, he heeded Kelly’s earlier warnings and said, “What about that helicopter you said you could call up on a dime?” David’s question stopped Swigart in his tracks. “I mean shouldn’t we inform the authorities now and send the body back by air immediately to learn what we can from an autopsy?”
Will Bowman nodded thoughtfully as if he believed David was onto something. “Yeah, good idea; get the authorities involved now, David,” and with a sharp turn of voice and a snicker, he added, “and blow our chance at
