The Devil's Whelp. Vin Hammond Jackson
on>
THE DEVIL’S WHELP
When they came drilling for oil, they disturbed something beneath the sea, and now it wants to play. The rules of the game are simple - win or die! Del Presswood must do something fast, or lose the rig and his entire crew! But time is running out!!!
by
Vin Jackson
Copyright 1990 DV & KR Hawkins
All rights reserved.
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
Converted by http://www.ebookit.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0477-6
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Dedication
Dedicated to the memory of my friend, C. Lynn Martin
without whom this book could not have been written
Introduction
The year is 1980. The floating exploration rig, Olympian, is drilling for oil. It has a crew of 80 tough, no-nonsense oilmen capable of handling anything. So they think. But Scott Reef #8 isn’t just a jinx - it will prove to be one hole too many.
There’s something down there apart from sea and mud that seems to think they’re here for fun. The rules of its game are simple - play or die; the prize for winning - Olympian.
The only one on board who understands the situation is the toolpusher, Del Presswood. With each new event the whelp is coming to know him, enabling it to stay one step ahead, ensuring his warnings about the dangers are ignored.
If Del doesn’t do something, and fast, he is going to lose the rig and his entire crew. For their sakes, this is one game he has to win. But time is running out!
CHAPTER ONE
1
She couldn't reach him!!
No matter how she tried it made no difference, and the trying was so desperate that her muscles screamed for relief. Something - a current, a force, she didn't know what - was drawing her back, preventing her from going to him, at the same time holding her close enough for her to see the agony of his contortions.
When she had first sighted him, he was just an unrecognisable shape in the distance. Her curiosity aroused, she'd swum in that direction, stroking through the warm sea, feeling the sun on her back, even this far below the surface. It was so dreamy, just her alone in her own private ocean with nothing better to do than drift along and be amazed by the wonders that surrounded her.
What was that strange thing in the water ahead?
Now that she had closed the gap somewhat, she could see that it was blue. It twitched and waved like a large piece of material, a beach towel maybe, caught at the junction of many currents which were fighting for possession of it. The movements were fascinating. She was captivated by the magic of this azure ballet, so much so that she was totally unaware of the diabolical, unseen force which had been watching her for some minutes already. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, it began to advance.
Suddenly, it swept in from behind, picked her up, and began to carry her with it. As if strapped to the nose cone of a rocket, she was thrust along so fast that her arms were pinned to her sides and her head and shoulders began to hurt from the pounding of the water through which she was being driven.
Surprisingly, though, she could still see ahead. The blue dancer was much larger. In another second it was bigger still. Whatever it was that held her captive was propelling her straight towards the strange phenomenon. She thought for a few anxious seconds that she would slam right into it. Then the force slowed until it had ceased altogether and she found herself treading water.
Confused and disorientated, she stole a few moments to gather her senses and just hung there. The blue image danced before her and now that she was close, she was able to identify it as a man, a diver of some kind. Her son, Eddie, was a diver. She realised it was a stupid notion, but she wondered if this diver knew Eddie.
In a moment, the idea had become totally irrelevant, not because of the odds against such an acquaintanceship, but because this was Eddie!!
She'd caught a glimpse of his face behind the clear panel in his helmet as he'd swung close. He was calling to her. There were no sounds, but a mother didn't need to hear to know that there was pain, terrible, racking pain, compounded within him now by her mere presence. He wasn't just pleased to see her - he was desperate to be with her, for her to be with him.
The instant she tried to go to him, the force stirred and began to pull her away. She thrashed and hauled, just managing to hold her ground, but no more than that. She was a prisoner of opposing energies - the unknown power which kept her from her son, and the deep, maternal love which refused to let her leave. She could only witness his torture, but could do nothing to release him from it.
She watched the lips curl back from gnashing teeth and the eyes rolling up in their sockets, all of this through the curved, plexiglass view-plate set in the front of that stupid hat they made him wear. A rat-hat, they called it, and now he was a rat caught in it.
Her heart ached for Eddie, her son, her only son, her wee bairn. Except he, was no longer a defenceless child. He was a man, for all the good it was doing him.
He continued to gyrate and lurch before her. When he wasn't cavorting in hesitant circles, he was turning turtle, his back arching like a whip about to crack, legs flicking uselessly up and over. His inverted body passed through the expended, rising air, shattering larger bubbles, creating a cloud of effervescent fizz which hid all but the blue of his body suit.
She hated that suit in the same way that she despised the rat-hat. Both were lines drawn between her and Eddie. While he wore them, he wasn't her son. He was an oil man.
He maintained he wasn't, that he was just a diver who happened to work on an oil rig, but she knew differently. Proper divers wore recognisable equipment. She'd seen Jacques Cousteau on the tele. He had a face mask and tanks on his back. He didn't need a rat-hat with pipes running from it to the surface to stay alive. If, it was good enough for him, then why not Eddie?
Because Eddie was an oil man, that was why! He wasn't normal any more. He'd become like the people he worked with. He was no longer satisfied to merely appreciate the undersea world for the miracle that it was. He had to corrupt it, to use it in the avaricious quest for oil. And that meant being like them, turning a blind eye to what was normal, sensible, perhaps disregarding these attributes on purpose to prove a point so obscure that she was unable to fathom it.
Why, oh why did he have to do it? Wasn't he happy with the Navy? It was a good, secure job with a future, and a pension. And he'd got to wear the same kind of skin-tight suits that normal divers wore, not the ridiculous, blue rags that he had on now.
They were hardly more than overalls, really. In fact, Eddie used the same kind of clothes when he worked on the car. If only he could be doing just that, right now. Please God, let it be so, she pleaded, and me watching him. She tried to clasp her hands in prayer and knew that unless she could perform this simple task her prayers would be ignored, but she couldn't do it and fight the current at the same time.
Eddie jerked and danced. The lines running from the back of his rat-hat to the surface looped and bowed. It was as if some invisible monster had hold of them and was bouncing her son around as if he were no more than a child's toy on the end of a piece of elastic.
She screamed in frustration and anguish. The sounds were in her head, in her mind, but all that came from her mouth was a rush of bubbles which