Saltwater

The lights are blinding.

Red, blue, white, flickering, flashing. Alarms blaring.

The floors are slick with salt and blood and glisten under the warning beacons. They’re covered in broken glass.

There’s a radio on the floor. It clicks and chirrups. Sometimes a scream is heard alongside shattering. We have watched it for several minutes. A low moan sounds from it now.

Parker bends to pick the radio up. I warn him to use his gloves and he waves a hand to show me that he is. He clasps the side button down and speaks into the mouthpiece. “This is Harrison Parker, Ops 4th. Anyone read?”

He repeats it twice and leaves the silence between rushing, dripping water to stretch for several minutes between each take. I hope the groaner will answer, but perhaps they’re dead. I open my mouth to speak and the radio crackles to life at the same moment.

“…Koor… 3rd div…fshe…scaped…”

Parker and I exchange glances. He lifts the radio again. Click. “Koor, Parker here. I need your location. We can come collect you and assess-”

“No, you can’t!” Koor’s shriek slices through Parker’s words.

“What do you mean? Koor, where are y-"

An explosion shakes the entire building. If the fish weren’t dead already, they definitely are now. I stumble into a concrete pillar and wrap my arms around it to keep from falling. Parker is doing the same. I look out a window into the darkness and see the reflections of pluming flames mirrored off the lake outside. “Up,” I say, and tighten my pack around my shoulders. “Now.”

I keep to the wall as I lead Parker up and out of the dark room. When I push open a heavy door to an outer hallway, water to the top of our boots pours in past the broken seal and floods back to where we came. At the rate it rushes, I’m confident we won’t be returning this way.

I pull my goggles down and gesture for Parker to do the same. He’s bellowing into the radio, for all the good it will do. Koor’s gone silent. Parker splashes up to me a few minutes later. “Did that sound like ‘escaped’ to you?”

“Yep.” It’s a struggle to pull my feet through the surging water, and I wonder if I spot a creature or two slip by in the rapids. There are bound to be floundering fins. Reading between the lines of what we’ve been told, several exhibits have been smashed to pieces.

“It was detained on basement level though, right?” I hear fear in his voice. It frustrates me.

“That’s why we’re going up.” There’s a bitter smell in the air. I wrinkle my nose against its acidity. You’d think there’d be more of a fishy smell in the air, given the location.

We’re heading for a staircase denoted in the brief we were given in the parking lot, while families around us tore for their cars and tugged their children to their sides. Their promised evening of stars and sea creatures was not what it was cut out to be. Parker and I are operating as a mirror unit to a pair of ops on the top floor. I’m the fire. He’s the drag. Stewards and Hoffman are working their way down from the top floor. They were dropped onto the roof via helicopter.

By the time we hustle into the stairwell indicated on the blueprints, smoke fills the air. We’ve lowered our masks over our faces, looking waspish amongst the vapour. As we ascend I thumb the push-to-talk along the side of my mask. “Stewards, Hoffman, this is 4th. Enroute to third, no survivors. Over.”

A crackled response fills my ear. “4th, Hoffman. Stewards’s headset is busted. No survivors. Enroute to fourth. Any word from basement?”

“Negative.”

Parker coughs into his mouthpiece. “Hoffman, explosion get ya?”

“That’s why Stewards’s headset is busted,” comes the dry reply. Seconds later, a low growl enters our earpieces. Parker swats his head in surprise. I’m no better. The sound is bloodcurdling, menacing, worms into your brain and makes the nerves in your teeth fret.

“Hoffman?” I push. No response. We climb the next floor and a half in silence. Sweat is collecting in the gap between my pack and my shoulders. We’re hot, cold, dry, and sweaty all at once.

We’re almost to the next floor when water meets our boots again. It starts as a trickle, and then murky waves cascade down the stairs toward us. Parker and I yelp and cling to the railings. We’re buffeted back and forth until I get the notion the flow may never end. I set the example and begin to force one foot in front of the other.

There’s no seeing, the lights are fizzling out with every passing minute. It’s just dark water, smoke, and the two of us plunging our way upward, our grunts of exertion muffled by our masks.

When I reach the exit door I haul it open with one hand and shove Parker through with the other. He hits the opposite wall and wheels, panting, to watch me pull the door shut behind me. A gurgle of water follows us in but this floor is otherwise dry. We shake our boots off and squeeze the water we can from our pants.

A crackling white noise starts up in our headsets. I catch my breath and listen while I look around. There’s firelight further up the hallway, so I turn away to look in the other direction. Clear and dark. “The explosion happened in the northwestern corner.” My stomach sinks. “That’s where he was keeping the hostages.”

“Do you think one of them tried to escape? Do you think they tried to stop him and accidentally-”

“Parker, you have a habit of saying things I don’t want to think about.” I slosh over to him, pull one boot off, and empty it out onto the floor. He watches while I replace it and then work on the second one. I hate having wet feet. It reminds me of Gibraltar. The memory has me swiping my tongue around my teeth to remind myself they’re healed when the white noise in our headsets cuts out. As abruptly as it ends, the growl returns.

It’s in my head. My eyes. My teeth. My bones. The pressure of it shakes me so, I wish that these parts of me would just bleed for the release of it.

Parker is sagging against the wall. My limbs beg to follow suit but I grab his shoulders and roughly haul him up to face me. “Come on.” The insidious sound still ringing in my ears, I tug my partner down the hall in the direction of the flames.

We walk into a wide floor with burnt and burning debris everywhere. The walls are black and curtained, with info boards stapled to them covered in colourful fish photos and fun fish facts. The aquariums embedded into the wall and along the floor are smashed, and the colourful fish lay gasping if not already dead on the concrete. Sprinklers have gone off but done nothing. As ever, it’s just for show. Nobody thinks a fire will ever start in a place like this. Not with so much water around. Not with so much supposed security.

Once the growl subsides and Parker is supporting his own weight, I walk into the centre of the room. There are broken bodies strewn across the blast radius of the explosion, some hanging into a gaping hole in the floor to my left. There are bloody lab coats and royal blue volunteer t-shirts torn to shreds. There’s a small body pinned to the floor by fallen chunks of ceiling. I pretend it’s fake. “The white coats.” I gesture to a body propped up against the wall. “Check for an ID card, something to swipe if we need it.” Parker nods. By the sound of his silence as he crosses the room, he’s seen the kid too.

There isn’t much we can do about the fire but let it burn itself out. Emergency services would have been called by anyone in the vicinity after the explosion. Best to focus on our job.

Parker heads back to me, a card propped between his index and middle fingers. I look past the smiling face that doesn’t matter anymore and read the title. Senior Aquarist. “Good. Keep it on you.”

I’m advancing to look into the hole in the floor when a muffled shout comes from behind. “Put your hands up!”

We freeze. I turn, slowly.

The target has come to us.

He’s shaking. Badly. Judging from the bloody tatters of his slacks he was caught up in the explosion and ragdolled. His hair is askew and the lines of age on his face are contorted with rage. There’s fear too. I know the shine of it. He’s pointing a gun at us. He must have been hiding in the rubble.

I step forward. “Bartrand Lofstrom, I’m Operative Peakes from the 4th division of the IBUC. This is Operative Parker-”

“I said put your hands up! I know who you are. You’re not gonna get him, I swear to God. I came all this way to get him and you ain’t gonna STOP me.” Bartram’s eyes bulge. His voice is hoarse from the smoke. Deep, choking coughs staccato between the walls as he points the weapon and tightens his fingers around it. I see Parker in my peripherals raising his hands.

“Mr. Lofstrom, I need you to put that gun down. Did you cause this?” I gesture at the broken glass, bloody bodies, and the sea creatures on the floor.

“Put your hands up, dammit!” He stomps a foot. I lift one hand. Half compliance, half defiance.

“Mr. Lofstrom, put the gun down.”

“They didn’t listen, I told ‘em - I told ‘em I wanted him back. They didn’t listen! They don’t understand!” Firelight bounces off his crazed expression as he takes one hand off the gun and waves it. “I aimed at a cylinder, thought it was small enough to scare ‘em. The security guards were gonna come in for the kids, I wasn’t gonna hurt ‘em.” His lower lip quivers.

He’s avoiding looking into the corner housing the small pair of legs jutting from the debris. “I’m gonna take you. You’re special, they won’t want you to die. They’ll sacrifice everyone else to keep him. I won’t let you take him!” He splutters into coughs again.

He’s a man consumed in terror and passionate anger. I understand. But as a father, he’s blinded to consequence. Anything for their children. Any means will do. I lower my hand to my holster as Bartrand wipes his mouth with a sleeve. Parker cuts in. “Mr. Lofstrom, I’m afraid your rescue mission ends here. You’ve hurt enough people.”

“I didn’t mean to! They got in my way! I just want my boy back, I told them to give me my son. I told them it was just an infection! The doctors said he’d be fine! The visit from the Director was only because the aquarium had seen the same symptoms in one of their aquarists. Mason only dipped a finger in the pool, he was just playing around, those ‘no touch’ signs are bullshit! It’s just water! Just an infection! Nothing is wrong with him!”

The same faint crackling kicks up again in our ear pieces. I stiffen. Parker does the same. “Mr. Lofstrom, I’m going to ask you one more time. Put down your gun.”

“No! Give me Mason back! I’m gonna take him home and you’re gonna let me do it! Or… I’ll shoot you!”

“There are worse things than being shot, Mr. Lofstrom. Whatever is left of your boy, for example.”

“Don’t talk about Mason like he’s a monster!” He screams.

“He’s changed. You saw him, don’t lie to yourself. The aquarium has a lab. The condition he’s in, he needs their care.” And studying. But I don’t say that aloud. I step forward, one hand on my hip. “But it’s underground, Bartrand. You thought they’d have him on display, didn’t you? You were searching the floors.”

“Of course he’s on display!” Tears stream down his face. “Starry night spectacular, come and look at the freak! It’s just an infection!”

“No.” The crackling is getting louder. “Something changed your son, Bartrand. They’re trying to figure out what. You’re too late.”

“No!” He fastens both hands around the gun and pulls the trigger.

Chaos fractures the room.

Beside me, Parker drops to the floor.

From the doorway spills a pair of black-clad ops, wearing similar gear to Parker and I. One is long, lean, the other short, squat. Hoffman and Stewards. They’ve made it down from the top. Their weapons are drawn and they fire at the target’s legs in short succession. The blanks take Bartrand by surprise and he screams as they hit his wounds, firing his gun in any direction. The bullets begin to ricochet.

Time slows. I push myself low, launch my body toward Bartrand’s legs in a tackle, and take him down heavy. He fires but the barrel is empty. He drops his gun and lashes out with his fists, hitting and kicking. I hold tight.

Parker rolls over to us and pins Bartrand onto his stomach. I sit on the man’s legs as Hoffman and Stewards reload and make their way to us, ignoring his struggles. The floor shakes, and we all exchange glances. “The noise,” Hoffman shouts, waving her arms, “turn off your headsets!”

It’s too late. Stewards reaches for Hoffman, who goes rigid as the growl returns. Parker is swooning, leaning to one side as his limbs go slack and Bartrand is wriggling out beneath him. My head sags. My vision swims, heartbeat roars in my ears, my teeth shake against one another and my blood sings in my veins. The sound penetrates so deeply that I think if I could see the marrow of my bones, it would be pulsing.

I fumble to switch my earpiece off. Relief comes as a release. It resembles a pop, perhaps a snap. I don’t feel blood, but I imagine it should be coursing out of my nostrils. Bartrand is still struggling. I look up and and see Stewards pointing over my shoulder. It takes all of my strength to look around.

It has crawled out of the hole in the floor.

One leg is flesh; the other, scales. Lit by the light of the flames, the body is dressed in something resembling a hospital gown, but it’s yellow and buttoned in the back. The sleeves are torn. There are bloodstains on its chest, arms, legs. It’s on all fours, shaking, swaying.

The face is the hardest to look at. While the body is grotesque, shedding, growing, regenerating, the eyes are wide and white, and hollow. The lower jaw is huge, juts out at a harsh angle, and the teeth are broken and bleeding. Gills gape along the side of its neck.

It heaves for breath around an object hanging from its mouth. I look closer and regret it. Hoffman is retching into her helmet behind me. Parker swears profusely. “You son of a-”

It’s Koor’s head. Or what’s left of it.

Bartrand wrestles out from beneath me, seemingly ignorant to the clutches of the sound that has set the rest of us helpless. Stewards’s fists knock him back to the ground. “Stay down,” he grunts. He produces a taser, and I struggle to my feet and put myself between the others and the modified creature, pulling my stunner from its holster. My ears ring and it’s hard to focus.

Bartrand bellows like a wounded animal. “Mason!” He extends a hand towards it. He’s crying, reaching, drooling. It’s disgusting and heartbreaking. “Mason, it’s Daddy.”

The thing clamps its jaws tighter around the head. Black strands of hair are caught in its saliva and sizzling.

“Mason, it’s Daddy, it’s me, I’m here to help you. We’re gonna go home.” Bartrand begins to crawl towards it and Stewards lets him. He looks awfully steady until I remember that his headset was rendered defunct during the explosion.

The thing cocks its head and drops its macabre toy. Drool drips from its mouth. Bartrand smiles. “That’s it,” he coos. As he nears it, Parker drops in beside me.

“We’ll have to stun it,” he whispers roughly. I nod.

The thing lunges, its arms outstretched.

Bartrand’s neck breaks before he knows it. The light in his eyes dies and is replaced with firelight. The thing shakes him repeatedly, and it begins to growl once again. This time it’s all-consuming, but I’ve jumped before my limbs can falter and my stunner connects with its side. It shrieks and drops its father onto the concrete. My strength is draining; with the last of it, I light the stunner up again, and discharge 50,000 volts into the screaming, convulsing thing..

The firelight is blinding. As my vision blurs, my eyes wander to a different source of light: An intact aquarium housing a single, floating jellyfish. The light behind the glass glows purple, gentle, merciful, and the sounds of Parker stumbling toward me and Hoffman calling into her radio fade with it into the dark.

The papers describe it as a night at the aquarium gone wrong. A gas explosion killing eighteen, wounding ten. A tragedy that will be remembered for the families and employees who were killed, and the endangered species that are now long gone.

The IBUC has taken possession of the thing. Dead or alive, it offers a glimpse into genetic, transitory mysteries long pondered by the human race. Science and marine biologists will always see it as the thing, but during nights when Gibraltar doesn’t fill my nightmares, a flash of the face of Mason Lofstrom under firelight and saltwater’s glow takes its space, and the growl freezes my limbs into place.