He was in charge down here and people were counting on him. He couldn’t weaken. He couldn’t lose his nerve. He knew, knew he’d gone in the city with Murphy. Games were being played and he had to fight against them.

Two more days.

Just two more days.

That’s what Orr said. He only wished he believed him.

24
SEA MONSTER

Many hours later, in the midst of a thin and tortured sleep, Javonivic woke to the smell of rotting flesh. It was sickening, yes, but also absolutely impossible. This was the stink of something dead for many weeks—green and gaseous—and it simply couldn’t be.

She sat up, but it did not fade. She was reminded of the time as a child when they’d returned from two weeks visiting her aunt in St. Michael only to discover that the refrigerator had puked out in their absence. The house had smelled like rotting fish, courtesy of the six pounds of bluefish tuna steaks in the freezer that had gone most decidedly bad. Regina had practically gone out of her mind.

But smelling it here in the habitat, in her cabin…it made no sense. She turned on the light, but could find nothing to explain the smell. As she prepared to go track down the source, she had the most horrible of realizations—the smell was coming from her.

The stink was wafting from her skin in hot, nauseating waves. It couldn’t be. But as she sniffed first her hoodie, then her arms, there was no doubt of it. The rot was coming from inside of her as if she was filled with decomposing fish.

Suddenly, she was slick with sweat, shaking and feverish. Even her breath stank like a beach at low tide. It was gagging. As she tried to make it to the door, her head spun with vertigo and she went down to her knees. She vomited a clear, greenish bile onto the floor. And there was no doubting what she saw in it—fish scales and tiny bones.

She let out a scream and fell back against her bunk, wiping her mouth with her arm.

And then, as if all that physical horror was a prelude, it began. There was a skittering feeling inside her head like her skull was filled with tiny gray mice. She could feel them digging inside her brain, creating white jolts of pain that made her cry out. Colors flashed before her eyes. It felt like her entire body was throbbing.

What is this? What the hell is this?