The Creeping Kelp Read online

The bay is full of the stuff.

  As far as the lights would allow him to see, the water was a thrashing mass of the mobile kelp. Where it had managed to come ashore it seethed and roiled... and ate. Everything in its path was overcome and either came out whole or appeared stripped and bare. It wasn’t long before Noble saw the purpose of the attack. Even from his high vantage he could see the pieces of material being passed through the fronds; plastics, cottons and flesh. Anything organic was being taken; anything else was discarded, dropped, and overrun as the kelp searched.

  Noble felt tears unbidden in his eyes as the kelp fell on three soldiers who only had time for one scream before they were submerged in the creature’s folds. All along the shore soldiers fought to maintain a semblance of defence but, even despite his lack of military training, it was obvious to Noble that the kelp was going to win this battle. The soldiers were trained to fight other soldiers, and the kelp wasn’t playing by the same rules of engagement. More soldiers fell, screaming only for as long as it took for the carpet to fall on them and start to feed.

  More floodlights started up, lighting the whole expanse of the bay. Choppers thwupped overhead and started to strafe the kelp. The defending soldiers on the ground retreated as far as the Town Bridge before enough reinforcements arrived.

  Concerted blasts from flame-throwing units started pushing the carpet of kelp back towards the sea. Several soldiers grew cocky with their success and broke ranks to move forward. They lasted less than ten seconds before being flanked by seething kelp. Two beach balls launched a direct attack. The soldiers took them out – but that only gave others time to roll forward. The sound of the men’s screams as the kelp fed was loud even above the gunfire.

  It seemed for a while that they had reached an impasse, with the bulk of the kelp out in the bay staying out of range of the soldier’s weapons, just at the reach of the floodlights. Two attack choppers decided to take the fight to the kelp. They swooped overhead, heading for the mass of vegetation in the bay. Bits of kelp flew in the air. But just as the choppers banked for a second run, a larger shape lifted up out of the bay—a wall of kelp like a tsunami heading for the town. It washed over the shore, the promenade wall and the road beyond. The defenders had to retreat, fast, and several didn’t make it, disappearing into the kelp, limbs flailing and guns firing even as they were swallowed.

  Because of the angle of the parapets, Noble couldn’t see where the wave had ended. He moved forward and leaned over. The black carpet was already halfway up the castle wall, long tendrils creeping in front of it as it sought out more food.

  Noble felt movement at his side. Suzie had come to look over the parapet. He pulled her away, just in time as the first tendril came over the top, probing, as if tasting the air.

  “Go away,” Suzie shouted, using the same tone of voice she had with the lab specimen. And the tendril replied in kind, stopping in its tracks, as if confused.

  “Burn it,” Noble heard the Colonel shout. Something whooshed past his ear, a blast of heat that knocked both him and Suzie sideways. He turned to see two soldiers wielding flame units, washing wave after wave of fire over the balustrades. The tendrils withered and burned, falling away out of sight, but the soldiers kept washing the wall with flame until the Colonel ordered them to stop.

  Noble helped Suzie to her feet and they crept forward again, hoping to look down into the harbour. He heard the Colonel bark fresh orders, but the noise of gunfire and screaming overpowered everything else.

  Or so he’d thought... until another chopper flew less than twenty feet overhead, the downdraft nearly knocking them from the battlements, the noise deafening. Noble saw the Colonel point down to the promenade at the same time as he saw the large tanks strapped beneath the vehicle. Even before he staggered to the battlements again and looked over he knew that the sight would be forever etched on his memory.

  The chopper made long strafing runs along the shoreline, wet flame pouring down like rain.

  Napalm!

  The wave of kelp threw up high tendrils, trying to reach this new threat, but as quickly as the protoplasm raised up it was burned and sent thrashing back to the main body below. Most of the defending soldiers had managed to retreat in time to avoid the carnage, but others were caught in the lethal downpour and fell, soon to be indistinguishable from burning kelp as the yellow flame ate them both.

  Even then, the promenade was nearly overrun, for the kelp continued to surge, throwing itself forward in long waves, still passing large pieces of plastic material back through the fronds and tendrils even as the crests of the waves crisped and blackened.

  It took a second chopper loaded with napalm to turn the tide. It joined the first, setting up a lattice of flame along the shoreline from which nothing escaped. The smoke rose fast, a noxious fume that sent Noble and Suzie back inside the castle, coughing and spluttering.

  Even inside, the noise was deafening; the roar of the choppers counter-pointed by a high scream that was almost a whistle. Noble thought he could hear a rhythm in it, almost a phrase.

  Tekeli Li. Tekeli Li.

  Suzie looked at him.

  “Do you hear it?”

  The sound was becoming all too familiar. He was about to tell her when she surprised him by walking into his arms and holding him tight in an embrace he had no desire to leave anytime soon, even although it had put extra pressure on his already pained leg.

  What seemed like hours later, but in truth was only a matter of minutes, the sound of the choppers started to fade. Suzie pulled away from the hug and grabbed him by the left arm.

  “I need to see,” she said, and dragged him back out onto the castle ramparts. He steeled himself for more choking, but the fumes had already started to dissipate. When he looked down at the carnage below he wished that the smoke still obscured the view.

  The whole seafront was a smouldering ruin, the burnt kelp intermingled with stripped-clean remains of army vehicles and charred lumps of bone that could only be all that was left behind of dead soldiers. Those defenders who survived picked their way carefully through the burnt kelp, hoping against hope that they might yet find a comrade. But Noble could already see that the search would be hopeless.

  Nothing is coming out of that alive.

  He turned to Suzie. Her gaze was raised away from the promenade, towards the horizon. He saw why as he followed her line of sight. The kelp had retreated -- but it had not gone far. Just outside the harbour, and right at the limit of the floodlights, a black shadow sat on the sea.

  “It’s still out there,” Suzie whispered. “This isn’t over.”

  The Colonel walked up to stand beside them.

  “Not by a long way,” he said.

  “What about the chopper? Can’t you send them out with the napalm?” Noble asked.

  The officer had gone completely pale. “I lost thirty men down there. I don’t intend to lose any more. Besides, we’re going to need all the juice we can get if that thing comes back ashore.”

  Suzie was staring into the Colonel’s eyes.

  “There’s something else, isn’t there?” she said, hardly above a whisper. “Something worse?”

  What could be worse?

  He didn’t want to hear the answer, and at first it seemed they were not going to get one. Finally, after a long cold stare out at the blackness beyond, the Colonel spoke.

  “We were the lucky ones tonight. Penzance is gone.”

  “What do you mean, gone?” Suzie asked, but the officer didn’t answer at first, merely stared down at the shore below. Noble could see in his eyes that it was bad.

  Very bad.

  “Ten thousand dead—at least,” the Colonel finally said, his voice barely above a whisper. “The top Brass are meeting right now to try to come up with a plan.” He turned to Suzie. “There’s a chopper on its way for you. You’re needed in London.”

  Noble felt her hand tighten on his arm. She was looking up at him, a question in her eyes. He didn’t hesitate.

/>   “I’m going with her,” Noble said.

  “Whatever,” the Colonel said, but something seemed to have gone out of the man. He went back to staring down at the shore.

  Looks like we’re dismissed.

  Suzie dragged Noble away from the battlements.

  “If it’s to be London, there’s some stuff I’ll need from the lab. Come on.”

  Noble took a last look over the edge then allowed himself to be led off.

  “We’ll need all the proof we can gather,” she said as they went back down the stairs. “You know what these pencil pushers are like. I’ll…”

  Now that a decision of some kind had been made for her, Suzie was all efficiency. He realised it was mostly bluff hiding a bubbling fear, but to point any of that out to her at this point would do more harm than good. He let her keep talking and tuned her out… he was having enough trouble just limping down the stairs without falling over.

  When they got to the lab he sat down hard in a chair, relieved to be off his feet and very much aware that he was far from being well. In the meantime, Suzie fluttered around the room collecting papers and downloading material onto a pin drive, a frenzy of activity that came to a sudden halt when her gaze fell on the sample jar. She stopped, and her jaw fell open in an amazed, very-unladylike, gape.

  “What?” Noble asked, seeing her stunned expression. “What is it?”

  She didn’t seem to hear him, her whole attention was on the contents of the jar. Noble pushed up out of the chair, wincing at a fresh flare of pain in his leg. It felt like someone was down there rooting about in the muscle with a red-hot poker. But the discomfort was quickly forgotten as he looked down at the jar.

  When they’d left it had been full of thrashing kelp. Now there was only a mass of blackened tissue.

  Suzie lifted the lid of the tall jar.

  “Don’t…” Noble said, but as usual he was far too late. She had already poked it with a long ruler she lifted from the table. Where she tapped it, fell apart like dray ash.

  Before she could investigate further, a young officer arrived in the doorway.

  “The chopper’s here for you Miss.”

  Five minutes later they were in the air.

  July 23rd - In the Air

  * * *

  He tried to talk to Suzie in the chopper, but the noise, even through ear-mufflers was almost deafening. That, plus the fact that his leg started to throb in time with the chug of the rotors meant that this was not going to be a pleasant journey. But she needed him, and he was coming to a growing realisation that he also needed her.

  And once this situation is over, I mean to tell her so.

  He might even have tried to tell her there and then, but even as the chopper took to the air and banked over the smoking carnage in Weymouth Harbour, she already had the papers she’d brought opened in her lap.

  She saw him looking.

  “Try to get some rest,” she shouted. “I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a while before we get another chance.”

  For the first half an hour he tried, but every time he closed his eyes his mind filled with pictures of flame and burning flesh and his head still echoed with the sound of screams and gunfire. After a time he came to believe he could taste burning flesh at the back of his throat. That, and the nausea building in his gut from the rocking and the vibration, made him wish he’d stayed back in the warm bed at the fort.

  Then Suzie looked over at him and smiled, and all other thoughts slipped away.

  I’ve fallen for her.

  It came as a surprise. They’d been working together for a while now and always treated each other more as brother and sister than potential lovers. He’d always had a feeling of distance from her, as if she liked to keep not just him, but everybody at arm’s length. There had been more touching and hugging in the past few hours than there had been in the last few years.

  Not that I’m complaining.

  For a while he lost himself in fantasies of dinner and drinks and what might happen later. But even there the kelp intruded, forcing the screeching Tekeli Li wail into his skull in an ear-worm that couldn’t be stilled, couldn’t be turned down. Finally he gave up and sat up straight, reading along with Suzie as she perused some of her research notes. Once again he was quickly lost in the past, but this time, some way further back than World War Two.

  From the journal of Father Fernando. 16th August 1535

  After all my pondering, deliberations, and misgivings, the time has finally come. My new charge has arrived from the New World in the hold of the Santa Angelo and it has been brought to the castle. The Inquisitor General has tasked me with discovering the true nature of the abomination, to make a full and careful examination and ascertain what manner of Inquisition might be made of it. It is a great honour, and one I will fulfil with all the diligence the good Lord hands to me.

  There is a certain doubt in my mind. A cloud has hung over the proceedings since I read the journal of Captain Juan Santoro last night on his arrival in the Inquisitor General’s chambers. A dark evil is detailed in those pages, and although the Inquisitor General teaches us that all things are powerless before the truth of our Lord, I have grave misgivings about the thing I am about to see for the first time.

  I have prayed all morning for the strength to fulfil my duty to the Lord, but still my knees feel like water and there is a cold pit in my belly that nothing can assuage.

  But the Inquisitor has entrusted this matter to me for a reason. He believes me worthy of the task, the one man here who might have the perception and the courage to do what must be done.

  My duty is clear.

  It is time for the questioning to begin.

  Noble tapped Suzie on the shoulder. She lifted her gaze from the papers and any annoyance she might have felt seemed to melt away in her quick smile. Noble had to resist a sudden urge to kiss her.

  “What the hell is this?” he shouted.

  Suzie shrugged.

  “I'm not sure yet. It came up on one of my searches.”

  The next page was from the same search, but from a different journal.

  From the journal of Juan Santoro, Captain of the Santa Angelo, on the 3rd day of April in this year of our Lord 1535

  If there is a hell on this Earth then surely it is in this place here. No god-fearing man should have to face the horrors I have led my crew through on this day. I give thanks that I have brought us all back safely to the ship and I am much afeared with the thought of the return voyage, for the cargo is most foul and ungodly. But I would be remiss in my duty to the Church if I did not report on the things that plague this new land. If the Crown wishes, as I have been told, to colonise this place, then we must know what manner of things lay claim on it at present.

  In truth, I know not what we have found. It began when we started to hear rumour of something being hidden from us in the forest to the west of the collection of huts that passes as civilisation here. The fact that something was being hidden proved most interesting, for until that moment, the people had been the most open and friendly of any I have met anywhere on my numerous travels and journeys in service of the King and Queen.

  At first I did not wish to pry, but the rumours persisted, and the men began to clamour for action, having the scent of gold in their nostrils and the thought of glory in their hearts.

  I took a party to the forest and we did indeed find resistance there, so much so that it became obvious there was indeed something hidden there from us, something of great value.

  The natives died bravely defending it, and for most of the day we fought our way ever closer, thinking that we had stumbled on a great treasure. We fought through their defences, hacking and slashing our way to the centre of a dark temple that rose up high, even rising above the tall forest canopy. The temple itself was ringed with four concentric circles of burning oil, and several of our party took severe burns in their crossing, but all the men braved the fire, the thought of fortune spurring them on.

&
nbsp; As I have said, we expected treasure. What we found was beyond our ken.

  The temple was fashioned from a material unlike any we had ever before encountered; a green soapstone with jet black marbling that on close inspection looked like it might once have been alive. The stone itself was moist, almost oily to the touch and to a man we found ourselves trying to scrub the taint of it from our skin even as we climbed, still felling defenders all the way to the top.

  We lost five good men on the quest for that treasure, and the men were dismayed when all we found at the top was a deep pool of what at first glance looked to be a thick tar. Fernando Vasquo stepped down into it, intent on exploring the depths, unwilling to give up the quest for fortune and glory. It was to be the end of him, and I will hear his screams from now until eternity.

  I do not have the words to describe the carnage that was wrought on Vasquo’s poor body, but when the thing was done, there remained only several pieces of bone, white and shining as if picked clean.

  Even then the men refused to leave, tearing at the stones, sure that there was gold to be had. But in the end, all we received for our vicissitudes was that bubbling pit of blackness.

  I have had it sealed in a lead casket and will take it back to Seville.

  But the journey will be long, for already it whispers in my mind, and I fear my dreams will be dark indeed during the long months at sea ahead.

  From the journal of Father Fernando. 16th August 1535

  “Already it whispers in my mind.”

  I had given no thought to that phrase, believing it to be the product of a sailor’s base superstition. But now, having at last seen my adversary in this Inquisition, I know better.

  When we opened the casket that had been brought to the chamber where the questioning was to take place, I originally bethought that we had been played false and that trickery was at work. At first glance the lead box seemed empty, its bottom a deep dark shadow. But as Brother Ferrer leaned over for further examination, something surged within and he was forced to step back, so suddenly that he knocked over a brazier and sent glowing coals skittering on the flagstones. Those of us present had to hop and skip to avoid burns to feet and the skirts of our vestments, and I almost missed the first sight of the thing.