Project Blackwater: File Ø
Resident Riptide: Chapter 3
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3
Don't think about all those things you fear
Just be glad to be here
Hayling, FC Kahuna
The elevator doors slid open with a sibilant hiss to an empty, dimly lit hallway. Considering his clash with Echo Squad up above, Scott Chambers had expected a welcoming committee. He shouldered his rifle and stepped out into the eerie quiet of the corridor.
“I don’t know if you heard all that commotion, Billy, but I’ve made it into the belly of the beast,” Chambers addressed his handler for the first time since the firefight. Static sizzled back in his ear. “Billy? Billy?!”
SRV comms technology should have been strong enough to penetrate the ground into the complex, which meant Elysium was employing signal jammers to prevent unwanted communication. It made sense, considering they kept a private army on hand to secure a facility out in the middle of nowhere. The dead silence on the other end of the radio caused a feeling of total isolation to wash over him.
“Dammit, Billy, what have you gotten me into?”
He had been wandering the dank corridors for just a few minutes before the unmistakable sound of rapid footfalls from somewhere up ahead caused him to duck through the nearest door and slam it shut. Chambers subconsciously held his breath as he leaned against the door, listening while heavy footsteps pounded by. Only when they had faded into the distance did he breathe a sigh of relief and take in his new surroundings.
Chambers recalled that the sign on the door had said “Cold Storage.” That name was appropriate in a macabre sort of way: along three of the four walls were floor to ceiling freezers for storing dead bodies, and a computer console shared the fourth wall with the door. A trio of hastily dumped body bags were sprawled on the floor. Scott Chambers was far from squeamish, but, as he knelt to inspect the sacks, he steeled his nerves against whatever he might find.
Slowly, he unzipped one, lifted the flap just far enough for him to shine a light inside…and jolted backwards with an ear-curdling string of expletives as the grotesque head of a dead man lolled out.
Scolding himself for being so jumpy—he was a professional after all—Chambers gathered his resolved and unzipped the bag further, allowing the beam of his flashlight to roam freely over the corpse. He had never seen anything like it: sludgy black liquid, not unlike what he had observed in the creek outside the town of Riptide, oozed out of every orifice. Chambers prodded the dead man with his rifle barrel, noticing he was awash with track marks from countless needles.
“These bastards are up to some repugnant stuff,” Chambers murmured with disgust. He turned his attention to the freezers. He cautiously slid out a drawer, on which lay another cadaver with the same black ooze and the same copious puncture marks as the body in the bag.
Chambers was so absorbed with his examination of the frozen corpse, he didn’t hear the zipper coming all the way undone; didn’t hear the formerly dead man stagger upright with a bellowing groan; didn’t realize he was in any danger until he was grabbed roughly by the collar, flung violently through the closed door back out into the hallway, and collided with the wall. He slumped to the floor in an undignified heap, his body racked with pain and his vision swimming. Chambers was hauled to his feet in the powerful grip of the shuffling corpse.
“I am the riptide!” the specter snarled, mere inches from his face. Fetid breath invaded his nostrils and made his stomach churn. Chambers had lost his rifle when he was thrown, but he couldn’t reach across his body for the semi-automatic pistol holstered on his left shoulder. Desperately, he retrieved the combat machete sheathed on his back. He hacked into his assailant’s neck with all the strength he could muster.
The revenant released its grip and unleashed a chilling howl of rage as it clutched the wound. With his freedom of movement restored, Chambers drew his handgun. He shot the reanimated corpse twice in the head, retrieved his rifle from where it lay in “Cold Storage,” and, upon noticing the remaining two body bags were twitching, unloaded several rounds into each until the movement ceased. The gunshots were deafening, reverberating off the metal walls and floors.
“Well, if they didn’t know where I was before, they sure as hell do now.” No sooner had the words escaped his lips than he felt a sharp prick at his neck. Scott Chambers swooned into dark oblivion.
He came to while sitting at an extravagant bar in the lobby of a decadent hotel. He was wearing a bespoke pinstripe tuxedo, and a Thompson submachine gun with a drum magazine lay next to him on the polished mahogany bar top. Across from him sat a dazzling blonde wearing a garishly colored bustier and frilly petticoats. Despite his best efforts, he couldn't keep his eyes off of her heaving bosom. She smiled coyly at him with a knowing twinkle in her eye.
“Well?” she purred coquettishly.
“I-I’m sorry. W-what were we talking about?” Chambers stammered. The woman seemed familiar, but something was wrong with this picture. How did he get here? Why was he dressed like a dapper bootlegger?
“You were telling me how much you like me…sugar.” That last word jogged a memory deep within the recesses of his mind. This impossibly beautiful woman reminded him of a femme fatale in a western story he had read once. The hotel started to shake violently. Nonplussed, the blonde leaned in to kiss him.
“Do you feel that?” he asked just before their lips touched.
“Feel what, sugar?” she dug her nails into the back of his head and forcefully jammed her mouth against his. Chambers started choking as her tongue snaked down his throat, coughing up black liquid.
The far wall of the building suddenly exploded inward. In the distance, he could see the decaying husk of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. He was standing in the middle of the hotel’s opulent ballroom. The ravishing blonde woman was nowhere to be found. He now wore his Army Ranger urban warfare fatigues. In his hands was his long lost M7 service rifle. A horde of snarling shadows rushed towards him.
“I am the riptide! I am the riptide! I AM THE RIPTIDE!” they screeched as they closed in on him. Rotting hands flailed, and slavering jaws gnashed.
Scott Chambers jolted awake, only to discover he couldn’t move. Heavy duty restraints across his upper body, arms, and legs held him in place. Agitated and unnerved, he forced himself to remain calm.
He was strapped down to a grimy surgical bed. The room he was in was grungy and unkempt, full of antiquated and rundown lab equipment.
“Ah, Mr. Chambers! Finally awake, are we?” His head snapped around at the raspy, unfamiliar voice. Sitting at a retro computer console several feet away was a stranger in a white lab coat, whose youthful appearance was incongruous with his decrepit vocals. And did he detect a slight German accent?
“Where the hell am I? What did you do to me?”
“Ah, I am sorry about that. But you see, I had to make sure you would cooperate.” The man smiled a cagey, ominous smile and held up an empty syringe.
“What the hell did you inject me with?”
“A potent cocktail of my own design: a powerful sedative and a taste of the Blackwater. Just a taste…for now.”
“Blackwater? You mean like what’s in the creek? Is that what gave me those damn…visions?”
“I have so longed to meet you, Mr. Chambers,” the scientist crooned, ignoring his questions. “You are as magnificent a specimen as I imagined.”
“Listen, jackass, I don’t know what you think you know about me, but-”
“You are Scott Emerson Chambers. You were born in Virginia in the year 1997. You joined the 75th Ranger Regiment at the age of twenty-one. You were the American hero, and one of the few survivors, of the Pripyat Massacre of ‘23.” The man chuckled and shook his head. “American hero. Why is it always the Americans that are the heroes?”
“Because the rest of the world is full of assholes who need us to clean up their messes,” Chambers spat through gritted teeth.
“You know, you remind me of another American hero that I once knew. He was a decorated soldier as well; U.S. Army Ranger, like yourself.”
“Anyone I know?” Chambers drawled sarcastically.
“Alas, I don’t believe you ever got to meet him,” the stranger said, oddly mournful. “He was your great-grandfather.”
Scott Chambers’ blood ran cold. “What the hell do you know about my great-grandfather?”
“Everything, of course. He’s the reason all of this” -the man in the white coat spread his arms out wide- “is possible.”
Author’s Note: The Chronicler has initiated this incredible collaborative effort for us Substackers to take part in, which revolves around the quite possibly (okay, definitely) nefarious company Elysium and its cryptic Project Blackwater.
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This is great! That moment with the body coming back to "life" was terrifying.
Their first mistake was not sending Cotton Hill to deal with that Nazzy! He killed fiddy men!
Seriously, though, this has been fantastic so far. It's got the feel of an old Bond movie mixed in with an almost Outer Limits sort of horror feel. So much fun to read.