Steel Tomb

Marcus was going to be late. He couldn’t afford that, he would have to wait until sunset to get the picture he wanted. He didn’t have that long, the pilot told him to get back as soon as the sunrise ended or it’s an extra charge. Since he doesn’t make near enough money to warrant that, he runs. The desert is draped in thick, dull orange and the long shadows cast by cacti and boulders over sand smooth hills. The sun isn’t yet peaking over the horizon, but it will soon, and he needs to be in just the right spot. Dead centre of where it will rise. He took all of the measurements, checked the weather to make sure it wouldn’t be overcast (wouldn’t be a cloud in the sky) and made a point of scheduling the plane to take off from that little rundown airport before sunrise. He planned everything. Everything except the extra half hour he slept in. His foot slid out from under him as he ran, putting him halfway into a split before he righted himself and continued up hill. He swore passionately under out loud, a steady stream of “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” that echoed off the cascading rolls of the barren wastes that he was so feverishly trekking through. When he gets up to the top of the hill he’s panting, and when he turns around, his heart flutters with joy.

The sun is still down. He has a chance.

He positions himself flat on his stomach, ignoring the sensation of dry, still freezing sand getting under the seams of his clothes, and raises his camera up so he can see through it. It’s blurry, blurry, then it is clear just as the sun rolls up in front of him. It is swollen huge and coloured a deep reddish orange that glints off of the shimmering, distant landscape. It paints the wasteland a warm, glowing orange and elongates the shadow of every standing thing within it. He snaps the photo. He snaps another. He snaps ten of the fucking things because every passing second produces a greater result. Every photo is money, every speck of detail a dollar sign in his mind. It’s gorgeous out here and no one would want to come see it in person so they hire him. They’ll get their money’s worth alright, no doubt about it.

By the time the sunrise ends he’s snapped twenty two pictures in total, so when he stands up he’s ready to leave when something groans behind him. Something metal. His stomach drops and a million possibilities run through his mind in the span of time it takes to turn himself around. Wild animal. Wild local. Tribe of savages. Herd of beasts. The pilot deciding he wants more money. No thought made with rationale and logic in mind, but still more realistic than the sight that actually did greet him.

A submarine.

An enormous, pill shaped behemoth of steel sat at the bottom of the hill behind him. It was caked in rust that ran the colour rainbow of shit brown to blood red to pitch black. It was listed a quarter sideways, half sunk into the ground, and Marcus could see sand running off of the jutting tower hatch like dribbling water. He blinked. He blinked again. His mind drew a blank as the frigid night air slowly morphed into a dry, angry heat around him. “That shouldn’t be here.” He mumbled to himself. He stood there for half a minute more before his brain abruptly lit up with inspiration. He raised his camera up and snapped a photo of the rusted metal thing before him. What’s a little side project? Someone’s bound to get a kick out of this. The pilot can wait a few more minutes. He snaps another picture as he makes his way down toward it. Snaps another. It looked somehow smaller as he got closer, though not by much.

When he gets to level footing with the thing, it lets loose another metal groan that stops Marcus dead in his tracks. He sidesteps around it, cautious enough to give it a wide berth for fear of being crushed. The tower with the hatch on top of it looms large above him. He snaps a picture before taking notice that, from where he stands at least, it appears that the hatch is open.

What’s the harm in checking it out? The pilot can wait a few more minutes.

The hull of the submarine was close enough to the ground that he could leap up and pull himself on with his upper body. He wipes his hands free of any residue that might have gotten on them. He takes great care to keep balanced as he walks toward the submarine hatch.

It is open, and, for the first time on this excursion, Marcus hesitates.

The hatch is all of the way open, and he can smell something foul wafting out from inside, like moist garbage. The sun is relentless on his back as he stands there, debating himself. It serves as a point and a counterpoint for either of his internal arguments.

Go back to the pilot, it’s too hot for this.

Go inside the sub and out of the sun.

Marcus pinches his nose at the rank odour the sub is producing. It’s not any sort of fear he feels, hardly even apprehension. He just doesn’t want to think about how bad the smell would be inside of the thing. He just about turns around when a new thought hits him. The thought of Johnny Brennan, the smug prick, getting his grease mitts on photos of the inside, taking the credit. Stealing credit from Marcus. Again! He grits his teeth and turns back to the submarines entry way.

He’s racked with coughing first as he leers down into the dark rusted hole. He points his camera down towards it and takes a picture, flash on. It illuminates a discoloured ladder. The brown-red walls of the inside. The floor inside. Nothing noteworthy so Marcus, in an ill timed fit of unwarranted pique, descended that ladder and found himself surrounded by darkness on all sides. The pilot can wait a few more minutes.

He turns behind himself as soon as his feet hit the metal grating of the floor, which echoes inside of the land locked vessel. He snaps a picture. It illuminates a rust soaked wall. He turns to his right and snaps a picture. It illuminates a corridor. A row of doors, two on the left and one on the right. What he thought might be some kind of cafeteria at the far end. He faces the opposite way and snaps a picture. It illuminates another corridor. A row of doors, two on the right and one on the left. Someone holding a short-handled machete, standing dead centre. Before Marcus can move, or react with the appropriate amount of panic, the sound of echoing footfalls starts up.

In front and behind him. He starts scrambling, his camera jostling around is neck with a weight that may as well have been that of a noose as he grabbed a ladder rung in each hand, beginning to climb. He’s not even two feet off the ground before bodies descend upon him on both sides. He screams at the top of his lungs as his attempts to swing at them result only in his arms being grabbed in strong hands. When he sees those hands he screams so loud he goes hoarse.

The men grabbing him are pallid and near skeletal, those who still possess all of their skin at least. The two grabbing him offer Marcus the only glimpse he’ll ever of his killers. They are dressed in military fatigues and their faces are visibly decayed, green and black with rot and death. They are without eyes in their half flayed skulls and their lips are shredded to the point of non existence. The only lights in their heads are green pinpricks deep inside the dark caverns of their eye sockets. One of them, one that he can’t see, puts a knife in his gut while he registers this.

Marcus feels a sharp, blistering wave of agony melt all of his resistance as the rest envelop him, blocking his view of the sunlight and clear blue sky they are dragging him away from. More blades enter and exit his body. No one place is spared from the onslaught. He can still vaguely see silhouettes of these monstrous things, and, through the haze of pain consuming him, he can feel gripping fingers of sharpened bone rip away the last bits of stringy flesh blocking them from their prize. He can feel them dislodging his coiled intestines, and, in the dim light of the submarine, he can see those same intestines being yanked with great force from his stomach cavity. Suddenly, sight leaves him, and a new pressure makes itself apparent over his bulging, desperate eyes. Greater pressure pops his eyeballs like particularly juicy grapes, sparing him the sight of his attackers shoving his red steaming guts into their lipless mouths.

He is not spared the feeling of it, not until he passed out much, much later.

The pilot would wait much more than a few minutes.