The Dunfield Terror Read online

  I’m afraid to say that I almost lost my composure, gripped by the certainty that we were all mere seconds from the same doom. If Muir hadn’t taken matters in hand, I might have just sat down and waited for my fate. Before I could do anything, he took a step forward. I held my breath as his foot touched the deck. Muir planted his foot firmly, putting his weight on it. The deck held. The sense of mist and vagueness in the corridor had passed again.

  For now.

  “Quickly,” Muir said. “I’m starting to get an idea of what’s going on here.”

  We followed him down the corridor. Then, instead of heading down toward the engine room, he made for the storm door that led back out onto deck. He tried to push it open, but the previous damage done to it meant it was badly warped in its fitting. It creaked under his efforts, but did not give.

  “Lend me a hand here, Duncan,” the professor said.

  “Wouldn’t we be safer below?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m coming to believe we are not safe anywhere. Now push.”

  I did as I was bid, and between us we forced the door open. The screech of metal on metal was almost deafening. Then again, so was the silence that fell as we got the door fully opened and looked outside.

  The whole length of the deck looked like a candle that had been left in bright sunlight, having gone slightly soft, then hardened again. The metal rose and fell in hard ripples, as if a wave had washed over it then gone firm.

  “Look, Duncan. Do you see?” Muir whispered at my ear.

  At first all I could see was fog, curling and roiling everywhere. I had no wish to step out into it.

  “Do you see?” Muir asked, more insistent this time. “It hasn’t been affected at all.”

  He was speaking about the coils and chrome of the experiment. The machinery still sat on a seemingly unaffected part of deck, and there was no sign that any of it had been melted or malformed in any way.

  “Get the crew over there,” Muir said to Squire. “Get everybody in a circle around it. It may be our only hope.”

  If the captain took any slight from being given what amounted to an order, he didn’t have time to complain. A wail of terror from back in the corridor was the signal of another appearance of the phenomenon. I could not see through the throng of bodies, but the sound froze the blood in my veins, and the memory of that severed thumb reminded me only too well of what must be happening.

  Muir didn’t wait. He stepped out onto the deck.

  “Come on, Duncan. We must take the chance. It may be our only hope.”

  A fresh scream from the corridor convinced me. I followed Muir out the door, expecting at any second for my foot to disappear into melted metal, or for a thicker fog to fall on me and start to burn. But for those few seconds it took to cross the deck, luck was finally on our side and we reached the experiment with no further mishap. I helped Squire and the purser arrange the crew around the contraption, and was dismayed to see that less than half of the men who had gathered in the mess room had made it out to the relative safety of where we now stood.

  “Maybe they have found another route,” Jones the purser said, hopefully, but I saw the look that passed between Squire and Muir.

  Those of us who had made it out on to the deck were the only survivors.

  * * *

  The fog swirled and rolled thickly around us, and we drew back into a tighter circle around Muir’s contraption. The deck beyond the circle buckled, flowed and hardened where the fog passed. But none of us were in the least affected, and I started to hope that the worst might be over, that Muir had indeed found a way to keep us safe, for a time, at least.

  I even relaxed enough to remember the pack of cigarettes in my pocket, and for a few seconds I was the most popular man on deck as I passed smokes around. Normally Muir would have joined me, but he was now completely intent on the contraption. I went over and stood at his side.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked.

  He didn’t reply at first, then took my smoke from me, took a lungful and handed it back.

  “I’m considering our next move,” he said. “We might have to switch it on again.”

  I hadn’t heard Squire approach, but when he spoke, he was at my shoulder.

  “After what it’s done already? I can’t allow that.”

  “We may not have a choice in the matter,” Muir said. “Or do you intend to stand here for eternity, waiting for conditions to change in our favor?”

  “This fog will clear,” Squire said. “Fog always does, eventually.”

  “Not this one,” Muir said softly. “I have been considering its behavior. The phenomena associated with it have been appearing in a loose spiral pattern…and we are currently at the center of that spiral.”

  I mapped out the ship and the deaths so far in my mind. Muir was right in his thinking, but I didn’t see how it helped. He, however, had thought it through more than I had.

  “I believe I might be able to predict where the soft spots occur; and I also believe that if I switch this machine on, we can effectively freeze the fog in place around us, allowing us a clear passage to the lifeboats.”

  I saw hope grow in the captain’s face.

  “I thought the boats were a bad idea?” he said.

  Muir looked grim.

  “And well they might be. But I for one will not stand around here just waiting to die.”

  Squire laughed with little humor.

  “We may make a naval man out of you yet, Professor. Do what needs to be done. I’ll prepare the men.”

  * * *

  I spent the next twenty minutes alternately watching Muir fiddle with wiring and dials and eyeing the swirling fog, trying to ascertain any pattern in its movements. Squire had passed orders to be ready to make for the boats on his order. The crewmen around us grew increasingly restless, especially as the deck just outside our protected circle was now contorted and buckled into a nightmare landscape of peaks and troughs, spires and deep dark holes.

  “Nearly done,” Muir said when I asked. At almost the same instant, the deck bucked beneath us. Two crewmen fell, off-balance, and tumbled away from the protected area. The fog fell on them as if it was a predator that had been waiting for the opportune moment to strike, and once again we were forced to watch as death melted through the sailors.

  “It has penetrated the hull below water level,” Squire said. “Whatever you’re going to do, best do it now. We’re sinking.”

  “On my mark, run,” Muir said. He reached for a lever and pulled it down. The air filled with a resonant hum. The fog swirled up and away from where it had descended on the two men and danced around where we stood.

  “It’s working,” Squire shouted.

  Muir still looked grim. “Well, it’s doing something at least.” He turned a dial. The hum grew to a drone and raised in pitch, ever higher, to a high whine that grated at the ears. The fog stopped swirling and hung, like a blanket, just above our heads.

  “Run,” Muir shouted.

  None of us needed a second telling. We ran, picking our way though the ruin of the deck, trying to not look at the fog just above us.

  The whine from Muir’s contraption went up another notch, pressure bringing a sharp ache in my ears. The deck bucked beneath us again and the ship listed sharply to starboard. One man fell into a hole and went, screaming, down into a black deep that soon went silent. Another tumbled head-first into a metal spire that impaled him through the chest, stopping his heart in an instant.

  The rest of us didn’t stop. We rushed headlong for the port side, hoping against hope that the boats there were still seaworthy. The deck was now at such a slope that it became almost a matter of climbing to reach the hanging lifeboats, but it was with enormous relief that we found two boats still there, showing no signs of having been affected by the ravages of the fog. We clambered into them as best as we were able; luckily there was no repeat of the scrum that had occurred in the mess room.

  Muir and Squir
e were last aboard. Squire gave the order, and my stomach leapt to my throat as we fell through mist to land with a bone-crashing splash in the sea.

  We had only just righted ourselves when the ship above us listed sharply again, the prow rising as the rear sank. The whine from Muir’s contraption cut off, as if someone had pulled a plug. The static fog once again started to seethe and roil in the air above the sinking vessel. And it was now spreading, sending out tendrils across the deck…and down the sides of the hull.

  “Row, you buggers,” Muir shouted. “Row like your lives depend on it.”

  The crew took to the oars. The other boat got the message, and they too began to row, but the short delay cost them dearly. A thicker patch of fog fell on the rear end of their boat even as they turned and began to move away. I closed my eyes, unwilling to see what was impossible to prevent. Seconds later, the screaming started, but it was mercifully short. When I opened my eyes, there was nothing to see but debris in the water…and a tendril of fog, almost luminescent, stretching ever closer to our own lifeboat.

  The rowers could see it all too clearly. Our doom was coming straight for us. Beyond that, the ship was sinking fast, the prow raised high in the air, the fog curling and writhing, buckling the hull and tearing the vessel apart even as it went under, hissing and groaning like a dying beast.

  “Row!” Muir shouted. The men put their backs into it, but the fog crept ever closer. Muir came and pulled me aside so he could be the one standing at the stern.

  “If it wants anyone else, let it take me,” he said.

  The sinking ship gave out one last creaking wail, then with a hiss of steam it went under. The fog swirled and fomented above the spot. The tendrils retracted, falling back into a globular cloud that descended and sank with the ship, a last glimpse of luminescence showing in the night for several seconds before sinking into the depths, until it was finally too dim to see.

  We drifted in a clear, calm bay under a blanket of cold night stars.

  * * *

  When news of this reaches the authorities, there will be recriminations and inquiries, funerals and wakes. But the one thing I will forever remember, the thing that promises to wake me in a cold sweat for years to come, was the conversation between Muir and Squire even as the lifeboat was rowed into the small harbor in Dunfield.

  “I’ve failed,” Muir said. “I got all those men killed.”

  Squire looked pensive.

  “I’m not sure the brass will see it that way, old chap,” he said, patting Muir on the back. “You didn’t give us a means of defending our ships, that’s true.” He paused, and looked back out to sea, as if trying to mark the spot in his mind where the ship went down. “But it seems to me that you’ve developed a mighty efficient weapon.”

  3

  Present day

  We all grew up knowing about the “fucker”—we didn’t know what it was, but we sure as all hell knew enough to keep out of its way. At least I did after the winter of ‘96—before that I thought it was just another story told by old men with too much beer inside them, like the whale you could walk on, or the great white bear the size of a train that snaffled all the seals. I’d heard several variations on the story from men in various stages of sobriety and now that I had seen it for myself—again—I wasn’t about to dismiss it, although I had no idea at all what it might be.

  What I did know was that there was a protocol to be followed—all of the town workers had it drummed into us—any sighting of glowing fog had to be reported up the line immediately, if we wanted to keep our jobs. I left old George gawping at what was left of the plow blade and went inside to make the first call of what turned out to be a long spell on the phone.

  I was put through to a government department in Toronto, and put on hold.

  It took as long as it took me to smoke a cigarette down to the butt before they got back to me, but as soon as I told them where I was and why I was calling, things got moving quickly enough.

  While I sat there with the phone to my ear listening to James Last’s Orchestra murder a Beatles tune, I had George send Jimmy Harkins out in the reserve plow with orders to keep his eyes open. He was going to have his hands full out on the highway trying to keep it clear with only the smaller-bladed plow, but it couldn’t be helped. And I had to put it to the back of my mind as I was soon inundated with requests for information that I didn’t have.

  The folks in Toronto were most insistent in their questions about the fog. They asked where it came from. I didn’t know. They asked where it was headed. I didn’t know. All I knew was that it had made a mess of the heaviest sheet of metal in the area, and that I didn’t want to get close enough to see it again. If they had asked me to go out and keep an eye on it for them, I was more than ready to tell them where to shove it.

  Thankfully it never came to that. They said they had men on standby for such a situation arising, and that somebody would be with us soon. I wished them luck with that—I’d seen the weather forecast—nobody was getting on or off The Rock for a few days. Until then, we were going to be on our own.

  After making that initial call I tried to get the RCMP team in Bonavista, but either they were too busy or the satphone was on the fritz again. I got through two cups of coffee and three more smokes before George came over to the radio desk. He looked as worried as I felt.

  “Wind’s getting up a tad,” he said. “Should we get Jimmy to come back in? I feel bad about him being out there on his lonesome.”

  I nodded.

  “Might be for the best—I shouldn’t even have sent him out in the first place. This looks like it’s settling in for a long stay. We’ll lock it down for the night and get the highway cleared first thing in the morning—I’ll put out the call.”

  I had another coffee as I did my duty and informed the rest of the island that our tip of the peninsula was closed for the night. A quick check online showed I wasn’t alone. More than half the island’s roads were currently closed to traffic, with more going dark every minute.

  The Rock was hunkering down to wait out the storm.

  * * *

  From what I could see online, this storm was going to be one of the biggest in recent years. The satellite photo showed it sitting over the Grand Banks, the white spiral making it look like a gigantic snail, slowly making its way over toward Greenland. The national news was saying a foot of snow for us—the local boys in St. John’s were calling for eighteen inches and more. My own guess was that we’d had about eight inches already, and possibly twice that still to come. Two feet of snow isn’t a real problem—if it comes straight down. But when the wind gets up and blows it around, it’s the drifting that causes issues, clogging up the hollows and trapping folks in their homes when it piles up against doors and windows. My team’s job was to keep that from happening for as long as possible, and then to clean up afterwards. Tonight we’d skipped straight to the second option, our work brought to an early halt by the damage to the big plow. Now all I had to worry about was the return of the big bad thing from the old stories—and young Jimmy, who was out there with it.

  “You called him in, right?” I said to George as he handed me a fresh coffee.

  The older man nodded.

  “Sure did. He’s out by the campsite and should be back anytime now.”

  I couldn’t settle. I stood in the doorway, listening to the wind howl and watching the snow start to pile up across the road. It was only when I saw the lights of the plow turn into the depot yard that I allowed myself to relax—I’d had visions of Jimmy meeting the pale fog out on the open road, of the plow being melted and eaten with the poor lad inside. As I’d told George, I’d made a mistake sending him out in the first place—the conditions alone had been enough to keep us all off the road, and Jimmy was prone to maneuvers that verged on the kamikaze while trying to cut corners to get the job done faster. If I hadn’t been so shaken up on my own return, I’d never have sent him out—not in the smaller plow.

  At times like
this I hated being the titular supervisor. There were only the three of us in the crew for the small town—we’d had a lock on the tender for the last ten years now and couldn’t see it changing anytime soon—until tonight. Now that I’d lost the use of the big plow, all bets were going to be off. I couldn’t get distracted by that line of thought—there was too much going on, and the others would be expecting me to be on top of it.

  We usually got on just fine divvying up the work without any need for me to pull rank on them, and George and Jimmy didn’t need to be told to do anything twice. They rarely looked to me for direction—it only happened when the shit hit the fan, like tonight, and in this case it was all going to be blowing in my direction.

  I waited until the lad parked up and waved him inside before closing the door against the storm and anything that was foolish enough to be out in it. On any other stormy night, that might have been our cue to down tools and head for a game of whist and a few hours of well-earned sleep, but my experience at the road end and the subsequent coffee had me too wired to even think of rest. The other two seemed to pick up on my mood and left me well alone—George went to the microwave and started heating some pizza, and Jimmy went to the back room and switched on the television to the sports channel.

  I sat at the laptop checking the #nlwx Twitter tag for anything out of the ordinary, and waiting for the phone to ring with bad news—in a storm like this there’s always bad news from somewhere—it was just a matter of time.

  Farther down the peninsula toward the main bulk of the island, Clarenville had its share of bad times already—they had power lines down in several places and three accidents on the Trans-Canada highway. I could only hope we didn’t get that sort of trouble—without the big plow we would be hard pushed to deal with it.