Bryan W Alaspa RIG A Novel of Terror (v4.0) (

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.You have deceased people who heard the transmissions.You have one of the world’s largest oil companies willing to send mercenaries to their brand new, multi-million dollar oil rig, just to find out what happened.Have I summed things up pretty well, there?”J.D.merely nodded.“I would suggest you not take this job,” Mark replied.“As you say, I have spent much of my adult life dealing with the strange, the occult and things of the supernatural.Most of it exists only in fiction and only in the mind.What you are describing is something very different and if what you are describing has any merit, then it is a very dangerous thing and should be avoided at all costs.”He paused and stared J.D.directly in the eyes.“However,” he said, “if you are as you say you are, and I believe that is the case, then I know you have already accepted the job because of your own curiosity and because of your dedication to duty.As such, although the idea terrifies me more than I can express, I will agree to go with you.”J.D.smiled.“I’m very relieved you said that.”“Don’t be,” Mark said, “because if you are relieved you might feel at ease.If there is any truth to what you’ve said or what you played for me then you definitely cannot afford to treat this lightly.”J.D.nodded and then he stood up.He walked over to Mark and shook his hand.“I’m glad you’re aboard,” he said.“I’ll have more information for you in a few days.I wish I could stay longer, but –““Yes, I figured,” Mark said, taking his hand.“I’m truly hoping this turns out to be another hoax.”“I guess we’ll find out,” J.D.said.6J.D.sat in his hotel room overlooking the Chicago River and rubbed his eyes.He hadn’t really had a home in a very long time so he had retired to this room after his meeting with Mark had ended.He was tired and not just from the jet lag.He was just tired in general and something about this job both excited and terrified him.It was something he felt that Mark had been able to see as well.J.D.had been doing what he did for so long it was hard for him to imagine another life.He envied Karmen, who had dreams of things beyond the life they had both been in, even if it was a dream only of isolation and removal from the rest of the world.This was also something J.D.could relate to but he was a strange paradox when it came to this idea.He often felt the need to be left alone by everyone and everything but he also craved being around people.He needed human contact.Karmen and J.D.had burned hot for each other a few years back.It was the kind of intense romance that springs from being in intense situations and surrounded by people who did not speak your language.They had tumbled into bed with one another because she was female, he was male, they both had needs and they were both of the same color and spoke the same language.When you got past the surface, to what lurked beneath both of them, they didn’t really have much in common.J.D.had left her when the things in Somalia had turned so awful.J.D.had never liked the desert much.He preferred the jungles and brush in South America or Asia.However, Karmen had convinced him that they could maybe actually do some good there.When he got there and saw how the land was torn apart by warlords and apparently not looking to change that any time soon, despair set in.Once too often he watched children, women, and entire families killed outright or slowly starved to death.J.D.had no ideals that he could save the world but when he failed to save even a child or family, he gave up.He begged her to come with but she stayed and something had happened to her there and he knew better than to push to find out what that was.He walked back to the bed where he had maps, schematics and pictures of the oil rig spread out from headboard to the foot and onto the floor.The oil rig was enormous.Much of what he read and reviewed made no sense to him.He only needed to have some idea of the layout of the place.What he thought was that the place was very much like a kind of floating prison.The workers lived in small quarters surrounded by nothing but water, exposed to the elements, and doing work that could be very dangerous.Evidently, it had turned out to be more dangerous than any of them could possibly know.Mark’s words echoed in his head and he reviewed the pictures again.J.D.had a fascination with the supernatural and the unknown and wanted very much to believe that something more than the sorry world he had experienced actually existed.He feared, very much, that this was not the case.However, the thought that maybe something unnatural had occurred on that oil rig made him all the more desperate to get out there and see what had happened.He was also afraid that if there was a hell then it was a place he might experience firsthand at some point.He figured why not get a preview now.J.D.stood and shook his head, trying to clear it.He dropped to the floor and did a number of push-ups and then a large number of sit-ups.He felt as if he had gotten soft.He actually did worry about the fact that Karmen had been able to send him flying across the room so easily at her place.He worried that the years were catching up to him too fast.He spent many more hours reviewing the material before it all began to mash together into a giant mess in his head.In the end, he felt nothing could prepare him for whatever might be out there.If Mark was right, nothing on earth could prepare anyone for what was out there.He cleared the papers off the bed and let them tumble down around it and climbed into it.His dreams were troubled but he managed to sleep.* * *Forty-eight hours later, J.D., Karmen and Mark were seated in the offices of GemCo Oil.They were seated in one of the conference rooms that gave a spectacular view of the city below and, undoubtedly, impressed the clients and visitors who came to the office.J.D.was nervous and he looked around the table at the additional people who had been brought in.Karmen had brought one of the unfamiliar people and the rest were hand-picked by Larry Appling.Joe Nealom sat next to Karmen, his eyes narrow and his hand up to his chin.He was dressed well in a suit and tie.This wardrobe completely hid his natural instincts.J.D.and Joe had worked before and he was good friends with Karmen.He was a man J.D.found an enigma.Joe had a beard and a bit of a paunch that masqueraded the fact he was as fast and could kill a man with his bare hands.He was a voracious reader and science fiction fan.He could talk to you about an episode of Star Trek one moment and then gut you with a foot-long knife the next second.He was well trained, but J.D.didn’t know too much beyond that.Given their line of work, it was usually better not to know too much.Only Karmen and himself had crossed that line.Larry, when the meeting started, introduced the rest of the team.There was a Latino gentleman with dark hair, dark eyes and brown skin named Lazlo Tropez and he was, evidently, an expert on oilrigs.He was part of the team that designed Rig 42 and knew the systems inside and out.He asked a lot of very strange and, to J.D.’s mind, stupid questions during their introductions and J.D.was very unsure about him.Next to Lazlo were two other women, which also made J.D.nervous.A black woman with long brown hair and ample bosom named Monica Green was also, evidently, an expert on running oilrigs.Finally, there was a tall woman with blond hair, black-rimmed glasses and a face that all-too-easily broke out into a wide toothy grin named Rhonnie Monticue.When she spoke, her voice had a syrupy feel to it that made J.D.think of marshmallows dipped in honey and he immediately felt an intense dislike towards her.Anyone who was so deliberately happy while smiling so coldly and without feeling was someone J.D.did not want to be around or have on his team.Larry stated that Rhonnie was medically trained and might be valuable for the team.This was Larry’s call and he had to go with it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne