The Dock Custodian

Some things are so alien to us that we can't comprehend how they work or what they want if we don't alter our perspective as humans. So, when you're thinking about that, remember that sometimes when you hear something in the corner of a dark room, there's actually something there. It wants you for your brain. -Bill

Words by Bill Arundell

Illustration by Dylan Burnett

 “What’s this shift on? The Galahad?” Jetta said as he thumbed through his schedule, sliding the calendar on the screen to Wednesday.

            “Yeah, the Galahad, a Venture-Class,” Cawley said. “It’s a big one, man, I’m not sure we’re going to see every part of it. We can split up, but I doubt it would make much of a difference.” Cawley eased on the brake as they pulled up to the gate.

            Jetta and Cawley climbed out of their personal transport cart and made their way down the reception ramp towards the gangway connected to the Galahad’s primary personnel entrance. The western wing of the port settings had been shifted into standard night properties, causing the lights to be dimmed to the lowest permitted in the union’s safety regulations. Every night in the western hall, Jetta, Cawley and a few other staff members of the Causeway Station Docks would board the crafts that were on extended-stay at the station. The longer the scheduled visit, the more checks were required. They're primary responsibilities were to ensure the ships were shut down accordingly and that no one was left behind onboard. Most of the guests at the Causeway were on leave, and many ships were decommissioned. Old war ships, some large freighters, even a few of the old shuttles from the Crystal Caberle War in the Yale System found their way to the station. But Jetta felt different about this Galahad ship.

“What was this ship? Is it still up and running? For regular routes, I mean,” Jetta said.

Cawley connected to the Galahad and scrolled through its readout. “Inactive. It’s a tour ship, I think. Off duty, though. A skeleton crew right now probably, so they’ve only got the necessary numbers. That must mean most of the ship is untouched right now. Actually, I’m not sure they even registered it properly. Lots of stuff missing here.”

“What was it before?”

“Hm,” Cawley continued to read to himself, keeping Jetta waiting. “Ah. Prison ship. Yeah, that makes sense. Lots of holds on the old Venture-Class rigs. This one doesn’t seem to be the same as the others, but that’s just because the Under Secretary decommissioned it, I guess. Bet this place has some stories, man. Time to get to work and tuck it in for the night.”

 Cawley would joke that they were babysitters, looking after the ships while their captains and crew were away for the weekend forgetting about their responsibilities. Jetta just enjoyed seeing the different crafts from around the Draeder Quadrant. Jetta and Cawley’s official title was Dock Custodian, and they always worked in pairs. Always.

            “Hey, did you get this message from the chief?” Cawley asked as they stood in the open doorway into the Galahad. “Says there’s a leak in the third hangar.”

            “I’ve got nothing,” Jetta said, looking down for any messages.

            “Chief’s asking for me to go down there and help out. Says it’ll only take a few minutes. You can make your way in and get your survey started. I’ll meet back up with you when I’m done. Cool?”

            “Cool.”

            Jetta flipped on his vest light to keep his hands free for noting any inconsistencies with the ship’s readout on his tablet. The Galahad was a little darker than the station, probably to conserve energy on the old ship. The hull creaked and clattered in hollow echoes throughout the craft, setting Jetta on edge. He walked the personnel tunnel towards the elevator to the main holds in the lower levels of the ship. He thought it would be easier to check off some of the larger sections on his own rather than check the more active areas of the ship without Cawley.

Upon reaching the bottom level, he followed the passageway as indicated on the schematic that illuminated his screen, which informed him that he would be coming up on a sealed door. This must be the prison hold, he thought as he rounded the corner. A musty stench filled his nostrils, distracting him for a moment. It wasn’t the most offensive scent he had ever encountered on a ship, but it was subtly nauseating. He could see the doorframe, but there was no door. The black expanse of the holding quarters swallowed the lamplight and revealed nothing ahead. Jetta cleared his throat and noted the door’s inconsistency with his readout, which then prompted him to close the door himself from the other side. As he stepped through the frame toward the door controls, the metal slab slid down from the top and expelled the air to seal it shut. Jetta began to panic, unable to see very much beyond his outstretched hand, but he was relieved when the door on the opposite side of the holding quarters opened, probably in response to his sealing of the other door. An overhead lamp in the adjacent hallway lit the open frame.  More inconsistencies.

            Jetta decided it best to check the control panel for any lights to save him from falling on his face when he made his way out. There were a number of switches labeled with different categorized sections of the quarter, but he wasn’t sure which would serve him best. Jetta chose the A-1 selection, which his own tablet indicated as the primary overhead lighting, but nothing turned on. He then selected B-1, an area with tables and chairs that acted as some kind of common area. But, again, nothing switched on as he commanded. Jetta sighed, expressing his frustration with the working order of the panel and the inaccuracies of his readout more to himself than anyone else in particular. He turned around to where a chair was supposed to be, and he could see the outlines of it lit up by his vest light. As he strode over to the chair to figure out the schematic, a light flickered on beyond the seat. The LED lamp flooded the floor, and it took Jetta a second or two to process what he was seeing. A prison cell that looked like a large metal crate with barred openings, guarding stained metal tile and a bench no longer than five feet. The door was unlatched and open. Jetta moved to get a closer look but the light extinguished and he was plunged back into the same darkness as before, save for the vest light.

            Jetta didn’t wait long before a second cell, much further along the way was blasted with the overhead LED lamp. But this cell looked different. It was larger and more heavily fortified than the first. There was a wire mesh between the bars that appeared to be some for of electric fencing, preventing the captive from reaching out the small windows. The door was mangled, and metal was shredded at the locking mechanism to the point of being unsalvageable.

            “Jetta,” a voice called from the adjacent hallway, perking his ears.

            “Cawley? Cawl, you gotta see this place. I think something happened here whenever it…” but the light went out again, cutting Jetta short. “Cawl?”

            There was no answer.

            “Cawley?” Jetta tried again. A sharp blast of volume burst from his radio, skreeeeee, like a failed transmission. It reminded him to use it in reporting to Cawley if he were on the ship. Chances were his partner had called his name from a different level, and the old ship carried the sound through the ventilation shafts. Jetta thumbed the radio’s toggle, connected to his tablet, but he got dead air in return. He could not maintain a signal long enough to send a message on the channel. It was dead. Nothing came in or out. Jetta threw down the tablet in impatience, and it clatter on the table. He stepped away from the common area in the direction of the last cell he had seen, detaching the chest light to hold out in front of him for a better view beyond his immediate surroundings. Something hard cracked against Jett'a left shin, sending pain up his leg as he toppled forward. He and the chair hit the floor in an awkward tangled mess, brusing Jetta's ribs. Eventually he reached the cell door. And then static fill the room.

            “Jetta,” the radio blipped and white noise hummed on the table thirty feet behind him. The static crackle continued for another twenty seconds, for the duration of which Jetta was frozen in place. When he stopped, he breathed a sigh, thinking the radio was only receiving intermittently. Then the static hum returned, escalating in volume, but shifting into something else. A violent growling hum swallowed the white noise, moving from a droning ssshhhh to a rolling rrrrraaaaaahh. The sound became so loud that Jetta could no longer decipher where it was coming from. He knew his radio could never reach such a high volume. It couldn’t have been Cawley. Could it?

            “Who’s there? Cawley, I don’t like this, man. Cut it out!” Jetta called out to his friend. This time he got more of a response. From behind Jetta came a low scraping and grinding against the tile, like a chair being dragged under a heavy weight. Jetta spun around and took a defensive stance, but there was nothing he could do. Really, there was nothing to do. The chairs he could see in the small light were unmoved. There was no one there. Not Cawley. Not anyone. But Jetta wasn’t looking in the right place to be finding strange things. He hadn’t looked to the ceiling of the holding quarters to notice the fence system that allowed security to take up surveillance from the overhead catwalk. Beneath the suspended walkway was a mesh fence much like that of the large cell’s window security measure. The fence was barely visible in his personal light, but the sound was clear as anything. Tk, tk, tk, along from Jetta’ right to left, moving above him towards the open door. He thought it sounded like the claws of an animal walking on a hard surface. Like the clack of a dog's paws on tile. The ssshhhh had grown faint for the time being, but it was now coming from somewhere that Jetta could locate to some degree, even if it was only a general direction. It wasn’t his radio after all. And it definitely was not Cawley.

            And then the lights came on. Not just the two cells, but also the others. Every stained and filthy corner was lit enough to see throughout the holding quarter, but the overhead lamps remained dark. That is when Jetta saw out of the corner of his eye a dark lanky figure rush out the open doorway and into the hall beyond. Jetta was anxious to leave, but he wasn’t sure if he could go the same way as that shadowy movement. But his way out was made more difficult as the cell lights turned off one after another.

            “What's going on here?” Jetta called out at a shrill pitch that surprised even him.

            “Follow me,” the same voice said from the doorway.

            “Not a chance, man!” Jetta said, contradicting his movements as he stepped closer to the open door. He left his tablet behind. His pace quickened as he could see into the hallway a little further, which was just as abandoned as the holding cells. The tunnel lit up as he approached it, giving him both the courage to see what was down it, as well as the fear of what wanted him to look. He peaked around the edge to the right. It was empty. The word “Engine” was stenciled on the wall with an arrow pointing down the passageway to another door, much narrower than the first two. Jetta stepped out of the holding quarter and the door sealed itself behind him again. The hallway grew dimmer as he approached the far door, but the lamp over the entranceway remained bright. His steps rang on the metal tiles, but it couldn’t block out the growing static sound he had heard earlier. It grew louder from a ssshhhh, but did not erupt in a growling howl like before. Instead, a repetitive tt, tt, tt echoed in the walls, making them creak and groan like Jetta heard when he first set foot on the Galahad. The more he heard it, the less it sounded like white noise and an old ship.

            Jetta reached the door but the control panel did nothing to open it. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. So, he knocked. The door clanged against his knuckles. The door slid open, but before Jetta could step through he felt a pressure on the back of his neck that culminated in a pricking sensation at the centre.

Jetta crumpled to the passageway floor in a heap.

The sharp hiss of breathing seeped into the hallway as the delicate pincers of the towering figure, draped in a dark blue membrane skin and patches of scales, picked up Jetta’s body and retreated into the core ion engine room that was filled with a dim red lighting. It placed the body on the workbench next to the three other sentient beings in bland grey uniforms and used the pincers to smoothly remove the top of the skull to expose the brain. It slid needles into the tissue with its pair of more practical appendages, carefully placing them in the appropriate locations, concentrating as it exhaled a rhythmic tt, tt, tt. The being completed the connection, placed the human body on the rack with the other aliens and restored power to the computer terminal. It jolted the human body and he computer terminal diverted its systems to the Galahad. 

Jetta awoke in blackness to the sound of ssshhhh.

Tt, tt tt.