Peterson stood looking out the window of the platform’s control room, his eyes wide, and his mind reeling. There were squid-like monsters everywhere. The things had scaled the sides of the platform using their primary tentacles to haul their bodies up. Hank barely had any time to react. Their attack had come so quickly and unexpectedly, Hank apparently hadn’t even known the things were scaling the sides of the platform until the first ones were already coming up. To his credit, Hank had stood his ground, pumping a round into the chamber of his shotgun. As one of the monsters approached him, Hank had blown the squid-thing back to whatever Hell it had been born in. The weapon’s blast had virtually torn the soft body of the squid-thing apart in an explosion of black blood and gore. Peterson had detected the monsters in the waters around the platform but had made the mistake of assuming they couldn’t actually get onto it. Guilt stung him as he watched Hank die. Another of the monsters scrambled across the platform’s deck and slammed into Hank before he could ready his shotgun for a second shot. The monster held Hank to the deck with its lesser tentacles while its primary two stabbed into Hank over and over again. Blood flew from Hank’s twitching body. Peterson knew the twitching had to be just from the shock Hank’s body had been dealt as the first blow from the squid had plunged the spear-like tip of one of the creature’s primary tentacles into and through Hank’s skull. Peterson had managed to hold it together enough to slam a fist onto the controls that activated the platform’s alarms, but now he was frozen in place, watching a tide of tentacle monsters swarm all over the platform’s exterior surface.
The door to the control room burst open behind him. He turned to see Cheryl and Riggs enter.
“What’s going on?” Cheryl snapped, moving to silence the platform’s alarms.
Riggs joined at the window though, muttering, “Bloody hell.”
“Where are the others?” Peterson stammered.
“Dixon took them to the armory, I think. They were heading out to see what the trouble was,” Cheryl answered.
“They’re as good as dead then,” Riggs commented. “Ain’t nothing going to survive those things swarming outside.”
Cheryl finally took a look out the window. She took a step back from it at what she saw and turned to Peterson. “Get on the intercom, the radio, whatever it takes, and tell Dixon and the rest not to go outside.”
“Too late for that,” Peterson answered as he pointed at the platform’s primary external door which had just opened. Dixon emerged from it leading the rest of the group that had gone with him. All of them appeared to be armed. A cacophony of gunfire and screams rang out as Dixon’s group was met head on by the dozens upon dozens of squid creatures already aboard the platform. Dixon brought up his shotgun, firing directly into a mass of the squids that came at him. The shotgun thundered splattering the platform’s deck with black gore. McCloud was by his side, his pistol barking as he fired shot after shot at the squids. Brandon and Nathan had spread out to the sides of the doorway the group had emerged from. Brandon was carrying a P-90. He hosed the squids with a stream of automatic fire that left several of the creatures flopping about on the deck. Nathan, like Dixon, carried a shotgun. He never got the chance to use it though. As Nathan raised the weapon, a squid that had attached itself to the platform’s wall above the doorway dropped onto him. Nathan screamed as the monster’s form covered the upper half of his body, its tentacles tearing at his flesh. Gary whirled in an attempt to help Nathan. He opened up at the monster on top of Nathan with the P-90 he carried. The rounds it spat tore through Nathan and the squid writhing about on him alike. Nathan and the squid toppled to the deck, red blood mixing with black. Rita slapped the barrel of Gary’s weapon downwards but too late. Nathan was already dead.
“You idiot!” Rita cried at Gary. “What have you done?”
Before Gary could answer her, a tentacle shoved is way through her, bursting from the center of her chest in an explosion of blood. The tentacle lifted her from the deck and flung her into the wall beside the doorway. Gary stared at the squid that had just killed Rita in utter horror. He stumbled backwards away from it, bringing up the barrel of his P-90 level with its central mass. Gary squeezed the weapon’s trigger. The squid seemed to know what was coming though. It flung itself upwards into the air. The burst of fire from Gary’s weapon flew through the spot it had been a fraction of a second before. Gary’s mouth opened in a scream as the squid landed on him. One of its primary tentacles wrapped itself around his right leg, jerking it, causing Gary to topple over even as its other primary tentacle slammed into and through his left shoulder. Gary thudded to the deck, struggling to free himself from the grasping secondary tentacles of the squid as they latched onto him. The last thing Gary saw was the squid’s mouth coming towards his face then there was only a flash of red, his own blood flying, and then a cold, eternal blackness.
Dixon blew another squid to bits with a point blank blast from his shotgun and pumped a fresh round into its chamber. He knew that he and the others were dead unless they could get back inside the platform and close the door. Running towards the open doorway, he didn’t see the squid that came at him from his right. It hit him with enough force to knock him from his feet and send him rolling across the deck.
Watching it all from the platform’s control room, Riggs shook his head sadly as Cheryl turned to Peterson.
“Can that door be closed remotely?” Cheryl shouted.
“I …” Peterson started but then seemed to get a hold of himself. “Yeah. Yeah, it can be.”
“Do it!” Cheryl ordered him.
Bailey had entered the control room now too and had seen what was happening outside. “If you close that door, Peterson, you’ll be killing Dixon and everyone that went out there with him,” she warned.
“We don’t have a choice,” Cheryl snapped at her.
“There’s always a choice,” Bailey spat back at her.
“We don’t have time for this,” Riggs growled. “Close the fragging door, Peterson!”
Peterson nodded and dove into the chair of the system’s control station. His fingers flew over the keyboard there. “It’s done,” he said, looking up and over at Cheryl.
Outside, Dixon was on his feet again. The squid that had hit him lay dead on the deck, most of its body reduced to black-smeared pulp. The round had been the last one in Dixon’s shotgun, but it had been put to good use. Dixon ran back towards the doorway as he saw it was beginning to close itself.
“Everybody get back inside! Now!” he yelled.
Brandon, who was closest to the closing doorway and in the process of shoving a fresh mag into the P-90 he carried, ducked through the door. McCloud started after him only to come face to face with a hissing squid. The hook of one of the monster’s primary tentacles swept upwards from the deck to embed itself in the tender flesh between McCloud’s legs. McCloud screamed as the tentacle jerked back, taking his manhood and a good portion of his flesh with it.
“McCloud!” Dixon shouted as he watched the squid that had taken the man down slither on top of him. McCloud struggled beneath the mass of writhing tentacles that were wrapping themselves around his body. The squid’s mouth found the side of McCloud’s throat and ended him with a bite that sent geysers of hot red spraying over its grayish body.
“Sir!” Dixon heard Brandon shout at him as the door continued to close. “I can’t stop it!”
Dixon saw the distance left between himself and the closing doorway and knew he would never make it through in time. Accepting his fate, he threw his empty shotgun aside, stopping in his tracks and drew the pistol holstered on his hip. If he was going to die, he was at least going to go down fighting.