*Squelch!*
*Squelch!*
*Thud!*
Beneath the hull of the Argo, massive tentacles surged upward, thick and numerous enough to trigger a violent reaction in anyone with trypophobia.
They reached up from the lightless depths, mindlessly battering against the steel ship. Each time they struck, they adhered like giant suction cups, only to pull away with a wet, ripping sound that echoed across the deck.
"Shit!"
"What's wrong?"
Kahn and Kristen, standing on the opposite side of the deck, cursed loudly. As the rest of the group rushed over, they saw the same nightmare: thick, pulsating limbs extending from below, slapping and gripping the Argo's side.
Clearly, rowing away in the lifeboats was no longer an option. No one wanted to be in the water with that.
But what now? They couldn't just wait for the ship to be torn apart.
Dylan spat out a curse. "Fuck this. Let's just find this monster and kill it. End of story."
Locke looked at Dylan. 'Planning to steal my kill?'
However, the suggestion was shot down almost instantly by the others. This wasn't a horror movie where you investigated the basement; this was real life. Going down into the dark when you knew a predator was waiting was basically assisted suicide.
Besides, the Argo had over three thousand people on it. Now, they were all gone. It didn't take a genius to figure out they had been consumed by whatever this mutant was. Three thousand people hadn't even sated its appetite—this tiny group wouldn't even be a snack.
Dylan looked at Locke, who was standing beside Gwen. "Locke, what do you think?"
Locke gave a short laugh, feeling the weight of their gaze. "Guys, come on. I'm seventeen, remember?"
'I'm a bit busy right now.'
Taking advantage of the moment everyone was preoccupied with the sea monster, Locke had already deployed a clone. His true body was currently moving through the ship's interior. He manipulated the clone to look at Tony. "Tony, how did you find us in the first place?"
He needed to keep them occupied. If Dylan and the others decided to head down and bumped into him, it would get messy. He couldn't risk his identity being linked to the "Legendary Assassin" style of combat he was about to unleash.
Tony replied, "I used a Stark satellite to track Pepper's phone. The signal was weak and erratic, but it gave us a localized ping."
Locke's clone nodded. "So Stark Industries already knows the Poseidon is in trouble."
"Yes."
"Then stay here," Locke said, looking at Dylan and the others. "The Poseidon's distress signal didn't make it out, but Stark's systems caught the ping. If someone is monitoring the data, they'll know the ship is down. Rescue is likely already on the way. Just stay on the deck."
"He's right."
"I agree. We have no idea what's waiting for us below."
"But... how long will it take for Stark's people to see the data?"
"They should already know," Tony said.
The group looked at him.
"Pepper's location was sent by my assistant," Tony explained. "When I didn't check in after a set time, my assistant would have notified the authorities."
By "assistant," he meant JARVIS. JARVIS had autonomous protocols; if Tony's signal stayed lost in a high-risk zone, the AI would act. Calculated from the time they saved the others, the information had likely reached the government by now.
"Exactly," Gwen added. "I video-call Dad and Mom every day. If they can't reach Locke or me, they'll move mountains to find us. New York PD definitely knows we're missing."
Next to her, Locke's clone tilted its head slightly. George, Helen... His brow twitched. He had almost forgotten. If Helen and George found out about the Poseidon, they might have some choice words for him... wait.
He blinked. Wait, actually, I'm fine. Helen and George were the ones who had convinced Gwen to go after she initially hesitated. If anyone was getting blamed, it wasn't him.
Relieved of that burden, Locke shifted his main consciousness back to his true body. He was deep in the ship now, and the monster's rhythmic breathing and low, vibrating growls were loud enough to vibrate through his boots.
He reached the staff and maintenance levels.
As he entered the long corridor leading to the lower decks, Locke's expression darkened. The walls were covered in thick, viscous slime—like giant, translucent trails of mucus. But that wasn't the worst part.
Encased within the slime along the walls were bodies. They looked like they had been dipped in concentrated acid; their skin was dissolved, features blurred into a horrific, melted mess.
Locke closed his eyes for a second, forcing his heart rate to steady and pushing back the nausea. He had seen the "dining room" of the Texas cannibals and the basements of serial killers, but those were amateur hour compared to this. The sheer scale and the visceral stench here were on a different level of carnage.
Suddenly, at the end of the corridor near the stairs, several figures appeared.
Unlike the "waiter" in the conference room who had been a clean fake, these figures were nightmares. They looked like they had just crawled out of an acid bath, their faces twisted in eternal agony. They weren't just "creatures"; they were the ship's passengers, still wearing remnants of their clothes.
As soon as they saw Locke, they didn't speak. They sprinted toward him with surprising speed, reaching out with bloated, corrosive hands.
*Phut!*
*Phut!*
*Phut!*
With a roar of fury from the decks below, the three acid-burned figures collapsed five meters from Locke. Behind them, three small tentacles that had been burrowed into the back of their skulls snapped away and retracted down the stairs.
'The first time you played this trick, I didn't see it coming,' Locke thought, a cold smile touching his lips. 'Try it again? Do you think I'm blind?'
He was actually starting to look forward to seeing what this "Lord of the Ocean" actually was.
"He...lp..."
"Save... me..."
"It hurts!"
Locke looked down. Without the tentacles manipulating them, the three victims were back in control of their shattered bodies, writhing on the floor in unbearable pain, trying to crawl toward him.
Three shots echoed. The agony ended.
Locke turned his gaze toward the stairs. His left hand blurred, and a second suppressed pistol appeared.
Another "acid-man" appeared at the top of the stairs, but this one seemed partially conscious, trying to speak. Then, like a swarm of locusts, dozens more appeared, wailing and screaming in a cacophony of misery as the tentacles behind their heads drove them forward.
"Save me!"
"It hurts so much!"
"Please, help us!"
Locke narrowed his eyes, holding both guns steady. He began to fire.
*Bang! Bang!*
Two rounds slammed into a single tentacle as it whipped around a corner. With a wet pop, the limb severed. The two victims it had been controlling collapsed instantly.
But more were coming, a tide of melted flesh and grasping hands.
*Phut-phut-phut!*
*Thud-thud-thud!*
Locke kicked a lunging victim back, used the momentum to vault upward, grabbed an overhead pipe, and fired downward, bursting another tentacle.
"ROAR!"
The sound from the lower holds was becoming more frantic, more enraged.
Locke's smile widened. He dropped down and began to hunt, chasing the retreating tentacles into the crowded corridor. Green blood sprayed as he shredded the limbs with high-velocity rounds. With a series of wet slashes, the last dozen tentacles dove down the final flight of stairs and vanished.
Locke reached the threshold of the engine room and stopped, taking a sharp breath.
The entire engine room was a graveyard of red-stained skeletons. Not a scrap of flesh was left on them. Thousands of white-and-red bones were the only proof of the three thousand passengers who had been on board.
This was the monster's larder.
*Drip, drip.*
Locke followed the sound. The tentacles he had wounded were twitching like water snakes, retracting into the dark, oily water that flooded more than half of this level.
A massive, furious roar erupted from the stern of the ship. Locke watched the ripples in the water, his senses translating the raw emotion of the sound.
"Damned insect... I will eat you... I will devour every piece of you!!!"
Locke just tightened his grip on his weapons.
***
Read 30 Chapters early on P-atreon.com/Redestro666