The Platform Read online

  The Platform

  ©2015 Necropolis Literature

  Written by D G Jones

  Proofread by Sharon Davidson of TypeitWrite

  Website: www.theflayedprince.co.uk

  Twitter: Dave @theflayedprince

  Also by D G Jones, exclusive to Amazon:

  TERRORISTS HAVE STOLEN THE MOON!

  Rise of the Fingering Phantoms

  Wounded

  Curse of the Feltching Vampires

  Attack of the Fisting Zombies

  City 33 (A Dark Narrative)

  Internal Injuries

  Omelette Prince of Danish

  The Thaylian Asylum: Complete Edition

  The Thaylian Asylum: Outtakes

  Zone2 (A Dark Narrative)

  Facility 61 (A Dark Narrative)

  The Doctor Who Fan Massacre

  The Thaylian Asylum Volumes 1-3

  Four Women

  Three Horror Classics Ruined

  The Complete Machine Trilogy

  The Products of a Sick Mind

  Lynchpin

  The Empyrean Carousel

  Wormwood

  Desolate: Only Agony Endures

  Newly Street

  The Tattoo and Body Piercing Survival Guide

  THE MACHINE- Industrial Edition

  THE MACHINE- Easy Read Edition

  Persecution

  Politically Motivated

  Strange Erotica

  Dave Malarkey

  The Oddball Express

  Lovecraft’s Chip Shop

  Stephen King’s Trousers

  Poe’s Replacement

  Dedication:

  This is dedicated to that man in Telford and his family. I wrote this for you…

  I can’t remember the last time I saw the aurora. It had been one of the few pleasures of working on the Platform, but these days the sky is a never-ending boiled black, just like the thick, acid sea that rolls and churns below the gantries, crashing on and on against the thick metallic legs that sink deep down below the waves and hook into the sea bed. Here is nowhere – the worst of the worst. The duty tour was supposed to end three weeks ago, but no one came to liberate us.

  I stand watching the endless ocean raging in the darkness. The polluted stink is so thick that I cough and spit up the black tar-like mucous that afflicts those posted here. There is a tangible fear all around us now – the silence from the rest of the world is gnawing on us all – and we try to carry on as if nothing’s changed, but the inky midnight sky says differently. I doubt there is a world out there to return to now – either that or we have been forgotten.

  The Platform is the godawful posting nobody asks for: in reality it’s for those militia they no longer want or can’t control, or a mandatory posting for new recruits. And so we are a mixture of young and old, fresh and jaded, sweet and bitter.

  I watch the pitch-black sea whirling and thrashing in its madness, and every now and then there is a hiss and crackle from the electric netting which spans the underside below. It is the only thing that keeps the abominations from us. The ocean is full of them, twisting in their revolting limbs, all razored teeth and claws. They can tear someone apart in seconds, devouring them in their round, spiked maws. The first time you see one, it’s enough to make you piss yourself. I know, I did.

  “Gruz!” a voice yells above the slicing wind. I look up and see Skea waving at me and I retreat along the shaking steel gantry, back to the crew quarters.

  “What the hell are you doing out here?” she screams, spit flying everywhere. I follow her back inside and the thick door slams shut, muffling the noise. But you can still feel the ocean, battering the struts and shaking the structure in its constant fury.

  “Sometimes I think you’re not right in the head,” she mutters as we tear off the thick plastic waterproofs.

  “Why? Not much point in hanging around here in the dark,” I reply. I find it depressing inside now; they are desperate to conserve fuel so now all we have is the sickly- green chemical lighting. I follow her back to the mess room, a horrible chill in my bones that makes them rattle hard beneath the skin. Jem, Helst and Cora are sat playing cards and smoking; how they can see in the dim green light is beyond me. I reach across and take one of Cora’s cigarettes. She doesn’t complain seeing as she owes me so many from the old days in the training camp. We are all conscripts here: service is mandatory from age twenty-one for two years, like it or not. All of us are from the same class so we tend to stick together.

  “Outside again?” Jem askes. He is big and powerful, maybe twice my size, and a mountain of flesh. Cora is slim, has grey eyes and long, slim hands. Helst is more like me: scrawny and vulnerable looking, but looks can be deceiving as he is one hell of a fighter. Then there’s Skea: tough, hard-eyed and tall. I have lusted after her from our first meeting and constantly dream of making love to her, even if it is only once. I can’t even tell if she likes me half the time, but usually she’s first to come looking when trouble strikes. We are all from Continent One, though from different zones, with different lives. I know Jem and Cora’s people are rich, while Skea’s and mine are poor, and as for Helst… well, he never says.

  “Better than sitting here,” I say, slumping down beside Cora. I look at her cards and see she is going to lose.

  “You really think it’s happened?” Helst asks without looking up from his cards.

  “Yeah,” I nod. Yes, I do.

  The Platform is the last outpost before the Polar Regions and Continent Two. We are a supply port for all the warships heading up that way, and supposedly working on six months’ postings, though now we are three weeks overdue. There has been no communications from anyone and the sky now permanent black ash, so, yeah, I think the final war has been fought. All over the globe, there is now nothing but burning citadels, empty streets and corpses. I think we are the last people left alive, except for anyone left in their bunkers, but no one is going to see them for years as they cower at the carnage on the surface. Everyone on the Platform knows it, they are just too afraid to say.

  When I arrived here the war was already going on, at least around the edges, and every day the news got worse. They seem determined to start it – perhaps they wanted to try out all those weapons. Somewhere, my family is probably nothing but vapour by now – my sister, my parents, all of them. And we are the last. Out here, forgotten.

  The Marshall is dead – killed himself, they say – and all we see now is Clook, the next in line, and his cronies. He is as acid as the sea that boil beneath us and his heart as black. He is a worm, a coward. Everyone is close to breaking now; they held it together at first, when there was hope, but now everything seems as dark as the skies. That’s why I don’t like talking anymore, because I end up saying the things the others don’t want to hear. Freen went over the guard rails the other day, ended up charred on the electric netting. So far no one has bothered to clear him away, he’s just been left him cooking there. I didn’t like him anyway. But this is how it is now: the rules are beginning to slip, tempers are flaring, and we know it’s not going to be long now. It’s just a matter of how.

  “Maybe…” Cora tries. “Maybe it’s just mis-comms, you know?” Even she knows that’s bullshit.

  “You seen the sky?” Skea answers. “That’s not mis-comms – that’s people up there, or at least the ashes of them.” I think she’s right. Unease greases every gut; that slimy feeling of fear and dread, and knowing that there is now somewhere a clock running down on us. No one likes to man the four-gun towers anymore; no warships have been seen or heard for three weeks now, and never has that been the case. It’s like the world is so big and empty now and we are the last ones in it. Everyone is thinking of their families and knows we are all we have.

  �
�What now?” Helst asks, though it’s not really a question because he knows the answer.

  “We wait,” I mutter.

  “For what?”

  “To die, I suppose.”

  “Man, you are so fucking cheerful,” Jem laughs bitterly, but in his heart he knows I’m speaking the truth. The food is almost out; the rations are so small we can hardly take two bites of a meal. And then there is the matter of fuel: we must be on vapours by now, and when it finally runs out, the electricity goes, and with it our defence against the abominations. It won’t take them long to realise there is a free larder up here waiting for them. We have plenty of bullets, but not enough for an ocean. It’s just a matter of what comes first.

  “What the fuck are you lot doing?” a voice screams behind me, and I know that hideous shriek belongs to Sergeant Meska: a fucking by-the-rules shithead who throws her weight around all too often. It almost strikes me as funny that, even as the world burns, there will be someone standing round with a clipboard making notes.

  “Well, we…” Jem starts, but she cuts him off with a slicing frown.

  “I want the fire line prepped for firing. Now,” she fumes.

  “Why? Do we have inbound?” Cora asks, a sudden hope in her eyes.

  “No.”

  “Then why bother?” I ask. Those brown eyes look like they could melt through iron, such is the fury.

  “This is a military station! You don't need reasons, you just follow fucking orders,” she says. Flecks of her spit hit me and there is the temptation to laugh straight in her face. Doesn’t she realise this is the end of times? I can’t understand these people! We are fucked; they know it as well as I do, yet they want us still following their pointless little rules.

  “Yes, Sergeant,” I say softly.

  “Now! All of you.” We all jump to our feet, like we’ve been trained to do, to head off back to the outside, but each of us takes an age to have that last inhale of smoke, and she looks like her head is going to come off. She glowers at us each step of the way.

  *

  The squall tears and rips at us with cold, burning fingers as we fight to stay upright on the gantry. The fire line usually takes an hour or two to prep – and that’s in good conditions – but in this gale, it will take up most of the day. The mighty gigantic coil of piping has to be greased for firing, the ‘poonclaw lined exactly into the cannon, and precisely down to the millimetre. I have no idea why in the worst of conditions we are out here at all, and I swear into the slicing wind. We work in the dim green light; I can barely see a metre into the dark as I grease the tube along its length. Because of the webbing, no ship docks can dock on the Platform; instead, huge lines are fired into the vessel’s docking station – Cora calls it long-range fucking – and the shot has to be precise. Our team is considered the best, but it’s only because we had so much practice early on the tour, though we’ve not done it for weeks now.

  I remember crossing over the thick line when we arrived, creeping along the narrow, greasy piping, over an acid sea full of hungry things ready to devour me whole. It’s not a perfect system for sure but then you know you only have to do it twice, and the second time means heading home, although, of course, we have not had that pleasure yet. Jem winds up the next length and I keep on applying the grease on my side. Overhead the corner watchtowers shake and shudder in the storm, and there is always a fear they will one day topple down and crash into the deck. But not today, it seems; they take the hissing, howling gale and hold steady. I’ve been up there a few times; when the sky is clear you can see to the horizon’s edge, but not recently – not with all that black shit in the air, the ashes, people, whatever it may be.

  Helst is screaming something at me but it’s pointless: I can barely see him let alone hear anything. He is waving his arms and beckoning me to him. His grease gun is jammed, and it will take the two of us to wrestle it free, so, fighting the wind, we struggle and slip on the metal grating, all the time trying to hear one another over the pounding ocean and the relentless storm. Finally I am able to leave him to it and he jerks a brief thumbs up sign at me as I cough and spit up the black snot in my throat. I curse Meska and go back to the coil, hardly able to see through the spray.

  *

  They found Second Engineer Brena, and what a fucking mess that was, with her head and left arm were both missing. She’d got caught in the gears of one of the turbines; the protruding bones from her spine clicking as the cogs kept turning, making her body jerk and twitch; the one remaining arm flapping up and down like she was still trying to free herself. The smell of blood and hot gristle hung in the air thickly above the grease. Somebody told me they thought it was suicide and I almost laughed out loud. Yeah, right! Like someone is going to off themselves by sticking their own head in a moving turbine. To me, it looks like it has murder written all over it, but perhaps everyone is in denial and doesn’t want to think that. But, for sure, things have got pretty twitchy since the radio silence and the clouds, so who can say? It matters nothing to me. I didn’t like her anyway. Apart from my own clique I have little time for anyone – never really have done since that day at City Block Gamma – that day kind of changed everything for me. It still fills my eyes with tears, especially when I sleep – a long drawn-out nightmare that still claws out across the years and tears my mind to pieces. So really, I couldn’t give a fuck what they think. Or for Brena and her endless flinching corpse.

  *

  “You really going to eat that?” Helst askes us as we sit in the corner of the mess room, bowls of shit-looking stew before us.

  “What choice have we got?” Jem replies.

  “Not fucking eating it,” Helst says, pushing his bowl away. Immediately Cora pours it out into ours and we say nothing else; we just slurp and force it down. It’s amazing how fast things spiral into craziness. A few days ago this would have been a crime: now it’s just stuff we do.

  At the meeting earlier it was revealed that we are now out of food and the fuel is being rationed so the electric webbing cuts out for ten minutes of every hour. The abominations seem to have noticed already. I’ve seen a few already fried up and charred where they had gotten over-confident.

  Clook has now declared himself chief. He’d made us all meet up as Gren and Sura stood at his side, with the hated Meska grovelling alongside them. You can see the factions that were once just petty rivalries have now turned to deadly opposition, and our clique causes a lot of resentment, being the youngest. It’s gone down the line of age and conscript status, so naturally things have become that bit more dangerous for us.

  But at least Clook gave us all a chance to speak, to offer suggestions if we wanted to, but nobody really bothered – after all, if they didn't like it, it would be like painting a bigger target on your back. When it came to cannibalism, no one objected, so Brena’s remains have been minced and served. So here we sit and only Helst refuses to eat. I think it actually tastes better than the usual shit we have to eat, so, gristle and all, I swallow it down for the sake of staying alive.

  “So what now?” Skea says. “We just to just roll over and die?”

  “No, but I don’t want to pollute myself with human meat,” Helst sniffs.

  “You will,” I tell him softly, “when you get hungry enough.”

  “Never.”

  “You got some hidden stash you’re not sharing?” Jem says, a smile on his lips but a sharp concern burns in his eyes, just in case there is some truth in his words. That would be unforgivable, even by a cannibal’s standards.

  “Nope, I’m just not going to lower myself to abomination levels,” he replies, lighting up a cigarette. According to Clook, the only supplies undiminished are bullets, cigarettes, and now, we’ve learned, paper. What the fuck use paper is going to be, I don’t know, or why he even bothered to update us about it. I guess it’s for the clip-boarders who will no doubt mark our passing in some way.

  There was talk about escape, but the rafts we have are all for short trips, fo
r maybe twenty or thirty marks, perhaps fifty at most. And, of course, they offer no protection from the savage things beneath the waves. It would not be my choice for sure. There nearest base is a couple of thousand or so marks away. I doubt anyone would make it to five before those horrors appeared and began their feasting. We carry on eating. I can see Cora is trying not to think about what she is devouring. Skea, like me, has no such problems: you just have to eat.

  “We’re all dead anyway,” Helst mutters.

  “Maybe some have survived; we might not be alone,” Cora says, reluctantly chewing another mouthful.

  “Doubt it,” Jem sighs.

  “Even if they have, you think anyone is going to remember us? Nobody is going to come to the rescue, not out here.”

  “Might be a warship in the area.”

  “Yeah, probably the wrong side.”

  “You are so negative,” Skea murmurers without looking up.

  “Really, we’re stuck out here with no food or fuel, surrounded by an ocean of abominations and pretty sure there has been a global war that has exterminated everyone else. Can’t think why I should be negative.” Everyone laughs, despite themselves. He has a point, I guess, and I even break a smile myself.

  “Fuck, you managed to make Gruz laugh, that’s got to be worth it,” Jem says. I shrug, not wanting to argue, but I hardly think the laughter came from me. I finish my bowl of human flesh and light up a cigarette. Part of me is hoping it breeds a quick and lethal cancer, because in this I agree with Helst, that there isn’t much point in fighting to go on. There is nothing out there now, or so it seems, so there is no chance of seeing home and hearth. Instead, there is just a slow decline to look forward to, or being torn apart by slavering, wet jaws and worming tentacles. But we survive, it’s what we do. Why, I don’t know. But, like he said, even just the chance of a ship out there, with real food and a way off this nightmare Platform, is a hope to hang onto.