The Platform (2 page)

                                                                       
*

           
 
“You really going to eat that?” Helst askes us
as we sit in the corner of the mess room, bowls of shit-looking stew before us.

 
          
“What choice have we got?” Jem replies.

 
          
“Not fucking eating it,” Helst says, pushing
his bowl away. Immediately Cora pours it out into ours and we say nothing else;
we just slurp and force it down. It’s amazing how fast things spiral into
craziness. A few days ago this would have been a crime: now it’s just stuff we
do.

 
          
At the meeting earlier it was
revealed that we are now out of food and the fuel is being rationed so the
electric webbing cuts out for ten minutes of every hour. The abominations seem
to have noticed already. I’ve seen a few already fried up and charred where
they had gotten over-confident.
           

           
Clook has
now declared himself chief. He’d made us all meet up as Gren and Sura stood at
his side, with the hated Meska grovelling alongside them. You can see the factions
that were once just petty rivalries have now turned to deadly opposition, and
our clique causes a lot of resentment, being the youngest. It’s gone down the
line of age and conscript status, so naturally things have become that bit more
dangerous for us.

           
 
But at least Clook gave us all a chance to
speak, to offer suggestions if we wanted to, but nobody really bothered – after
all, if they didn't like it, it would be like painting a bigger target on your
back. When it came to cannibalism, no one objected, so Brena’s remains have
been minced and served. So here we sit and only Helst refuses to eat. I think
it actually tastes better than the usual shit we have to eat, so, gristle and
all, I swallow it down for the sake of staying alive.

           
 
“So what now?” Skea says. “We just to just
roll over and die?”

           
 
“No, but I don’t want to pollute myself with
human meat,” Helst sniffs.

 
          
“You will,” I tell him softly, “when
you get hungry enough.”

           
 
“Never.”

           
 
“You got some hidden stash you’re not
sharing?” Jem says, a smile on his lips but a sharp concern burns in his eyes,
just in case there is some truth in his words. That would be unforgivable, even
by a cannibal’s standards.

 
          
“Nope, I’m just not going to lower
myself to abomination levels,” he replies, lighting up a cigarette. According
to Clook, the only supplies undiminished are bullets, cigarettes, and now,
we’ve learned, paper. What the fuck use paper is going to be, I don’t know, or
why he even bothered to update us about it. I guess it’s for the clip-boarders
who will no doubt mark our passing in some way.

 
          
There was talk about escape, but the
rafts we have are all for short trips, for maybe twenty or thirty marks,
perhaps fifty at most. And, of course, they offer no protection from the savage
things beneath the waves. It would not be my choice for sure. There nearest
base is a couple of thousand or so marks away. I doubt anyone would make it to five
before those horrors appeared and began their feasting. We carry on eating. I
can see Cora is trying not to think about what she is devouring. Skea, like me,
has no such problems: you just have to eat.

           
 
“We’re all dead anyway,” Helst mutters.

 
          
“Maybe some have survived; we might
not be alone,” Cora says, reluctantly chewing another mouthful.

           
 
“Doubt it,” Jem sighs.

           
 
“Even if they have, you think anyone is going
to remember us? Nobody is going to come to the rescue, not out here.”

 
          
“Might be a warship in the area.”

           
 
“Yeah, probably the wrong side.”

           
 
“You are so negative,” Skea murmurers without
looking up.

 
          
“Really, we’re stuck out here with no
food or fuel, surrounded by an ocean of abominations and pretty sure there has
been a global war that has exterminated everyone else. Can’t think why I should
be negative.” Everyone laughs, despite themselves. He has a point, I guess, and
I even break a smile myself.

           
 
“Fuck, you managed to make Gruz laugh, that’s
got to be worth it,” Jem says. I shrug, not wanting to argue, but I hardly
think the laughter came from me. I finish my bowl of human flesh and light up a
cigarette. Part of me is hoping it breeds a quick and lethal cancer, because in
this I agree with Helst, that there isn’t much point in fighting to go on.
There is nothing out there now, or so it seems, so there is no chance of seeing
home and hearth. Instead, there is just a slow decline to look forward to, or
being torn apart by slavering, wet jaws and worming tentacles. But we survive, it’s
what we do. Why, I don’t know. But, like he said, even just the chance of a
ship out there, with real food and a way off this nightmare Platform, is a hope
to hang onto.

                                                                       
*

           
 
I sit in the west tower, the wind ripping at
the structure and making it sway in a sickening rhythm back and forth, as I
huddle from the bitter cold. The climb up the ladder was bad enough, slippery
and icy as the wind tried to lever me off and drag me down, but sitting here is
worse, one of the lowest duties on the Platform. It’s too wet to smoke and too
windy to sleep, curled up to the huge hundred mill double cannon, and there is little
point in peering through the night eyesights because there is nothing out there
to watch. There is only the endless waves and occasional creature breaking the
surface, its hideous form as nauseating as the tower’s constant sway. Meska
ordered several of us on look out to reinforce our hatred of her.

           
 
I let my mind journey on its own, but always
it comes back to the same thing – that the world now is done and finished, and
we are the last. What is the point? Helst keeps asking, and he is not alone,
but that’s a question for every day, not just because our race is run.

 
          
“Gruz? You there?” the transmitter
screams in my ear.

           
 
“Yeah!” I yell back above the constant
blistering storm.

 
          
“You got some action,” the voice
replies.

 
          
I look through the night eyes and
sure enough there is one of the creatures slithering its way up right under the
webbing. It is uncomfortable to look at it, and I zoom in with the sights,
despite the fact it makes me a little sick to see its writhing form magnified.

 
          
“Got it,” I mumble back to east
tower. My fingers are so frozen stiff I can practically hear the joints crack
as I ease them round the triggers. I don’t fire right away but remain still, watching
it. A quivering limb reaches out, probing at the netting and curling it back and
forth. It has, it seems, figured out that the current has been turned off and is
on a random cycle. Then I see a second one creeping behind it, dragging its
disgusting form up the metal and worming from the pulsing water.
They know
, I think to myself. When that
power goes down completely, they will be coming in force.

 
          
“You going to take the shot or what?”
the transmitter squeals in my ear.

 
          
“Yeah, just give me a minute,” I hiss
back. I don’t know who is in the east tower and the distortion makes it impossible
to recognise the voice. Whoever it is doesn’t seem to realise we are going to
be confronting these things up close, real soon, and it might be a good idea to
learn something about them.
No, just
shoot the fucking things
, I think.
Yeah?
 
I then counter
. You got enough shots for a whole ocean? Dumbfuck
, I think to
myself. I watch them, one running a twisted tentacle over the other and I
wonder if they can communicate by touch. I haven’t really thought about it, but
they must be able to talk to one another somehow.

 
          
“Gruz!” the voice screams.

           
 
I take the shot. The recoil chair throws me
back and the deafening report echoes through my bones as the bullets rain down
on the abomination. It ruptures and explodes in showers of black ichor, curling
and writhing, its flesh gouging off in chunks in all directions until finally
its grip is lost and it tumbles down into the waves. I line the sights on the
second, but already it is retreating under the water, like it knows, or senses,
that death is only a second or two away.
 
I see one last waving limb as it disappears and then there is just the
sea, churning up the carcass.

 
          
“Gruz, what the fuck are you playing
at?” yells the transmitter in my ear.

           
 
“Who is this?”

           
 
“It’s Juken.”

 
          
Juken, one of the old hands, yeah, I
know him. One of Clook’s fuckheads.

 
          
“Go fuck yourself, Juken,” I yell
back at him. He starts screaming abuse and I let him rant on for a while. It is
an entertainment that breaks up the rest of the duty and I smirk to myself as
he lets his temper get the better of him. I wonder if he will have a heart
attack as he screams and curses at me, and I know I have just made another
enemy.

 
 
 
                                                                    
*

           
 
Everyone is watching Jem. He found the body of
Teawn at the bottom of the metal stairs on the supply deck, the back of his
skull destroyed. Jem was covered in blood when he located Clook to tell him,
and immediately they were suspicious of him. They held him for a couple of
hours, gave him a hard time, but he swears it was nothing to do with him.
Everyone is saying it must have been an accident, but Jem says there was no
blood on the stairs. I think they are going into some kind of denial and can’t
see a pattern. If that is how they wish to comfort themselves then so be it.
However if I were asked to pick out a murderer, I would say Helst, not Jem. Jem
is big and loud but is not a murderer, but as for Helst, there is a furtiveness
about him, something he wants to keep hidden, or a secret he will not admit.

           
 
Teawn’s head had been split wide open, Jem
says, and there was no chance of it being an accident. He told the same story
three times, but added the third time round that at least there would be
something to eat. It was meant to be a joke, but nobody laughed; they just
stared at him watching for a tell, but he just went quiet and apologised. He is
right though, nobody can deny that. We all benefit, I suppose, except for Helst,
of course, who still refuses to partake.

                                                                       
*

           
 
I lie smoking in the dark. My bunk is in the
top three of the tier, there are racks on either side of the narrow corridor
that serves us as our bunkroom. The old hands have separate quarters and now
more than ever they steer clear of us. I keep trying to count how many of us
are left on the Platform but am uncertain. I think there were thirty when we
began our posting, but that seems so long ago – another lifetime now.

 
          
“You awake?” Cora askes. She occupies
the bunk below.

           
 
“Yeah.” Part of me wants to remain in silence,
thinking, but the cigarette smoke gives me away.

           
 
“What do you really think?”

           
 
“About what?”

           
 
“About Teawn,” she says in a whisper.

 
          
“Don’t know,” I mutter. She wants me
to ask if Jem killed him, but he is in his bunk and in the dark, it’s hard to
know if he is awake and listening. There is a long pause as she goes on trying
to find a way to put her real question into words.