“I told you,” Bray said. “It’s crazy.”
Hawkins had a hard time taking his eyes off the bent metal door, but dutifully checked the two rooms and single head on the way to his room. With the way clear, he searched his own room and then turned his attention back to the door. The top right of the metal door was bent inward. When closed, a two-inch gap separated the door from its frame. But the bent metal was just part of the picture. Large dents pocked the white door’s surface. At the center of each dent, the paint had chipped away to reveal the gray metal beneath.
“These dents are at least an inch deep,” Hawkins said, rubbing his fingers over the surface of the largest of the dents.
“I’m telling you, the guy had a sledgehammer,” Bray said. He raised the ax over his head and pretended to strike the door.
Hawkins shook his head. “The angle is wrong. The dents wouldn’t be so straight.”
“Maybe he used it like a battering ram?” Bray offered.
“The shape would be more rectangular.” Hawkins traced a finger around one of the nearly circular indentations. “You’d lose a lot of force using a sledge like that.”
“Then what do you think?” Bray asked.
Hawkins stood to the side and motioned Bray closer. “Feel this.” He pointed to the largest dent.
Bray rubbed his hand over the surface of the dent.
“Feel the ridges?”
Bray nodded.
“Three of them, right?”
Bray felt the ridges with his fingertips. “Yeah. So?”
“Make a fist,” Hawkins said.
Bray looked dubious, but complied. Hawkins directed Bray’s fist, placing it in the hole.
“Your hand is a little smaller,” Hawkins said. “But it fits.”
“Geez, he was punching the door?” Bray said. “The guy must have been huge. And there’s no blood? How could someone do this without breaking their hand to bits and not opening a wound?”
Hawkins shrugged. “A glove?”
“An armored glove,” Bray added.
Hawkins could have spent a long time looking over the door and trying to theorize how it had been decimated, but they weren’t here to play detective. They had a ship to search. After clearing the next room, the pair headed up to the main deck, which held most of the ship’s labs—hydro, wet, computer, biology, and more—as well as a machine shop, the ROV bay, specimen freezers, which currently contained the dissected sea turtle, and the medical bay.
They searched stern to stem once again. Not because it was more efficient or had some kind of strategic value, but because of what they might find in medical. Sanchez. Joliet hadn’t gotten a good look at his body, but she’d been positive the man was dead. Had there been any doubt, she would have been the first person back to check on him. So after checking the rest of the interior main deck and coming up empty, Hawkins and Bray slowly approached the door to medical.
The metal door lay open. Darkness concealed most of the room. The only light came from the open door, which created a cookie-cutter streak of light across the white tile floor. But it was enough. A pool of dark red lay at the end of the light’s reach. The scent of blood hit Hawkins so hard, he could taste it like a mouthful of pennies.
Hawkins covered his mouth with his arm, stifling the odor and a groan. He paused at the door. The dark room would be the perfect place for an ambush. But he had no choice. He stepped into the room, cutting the beam of light with his shadow, and reached for the light switch. He flipped the switch and nothing happened. “Lights aren’t working,” he said. “Must have broke the bulbs.”
“There’s a portable lamp to the left, I think,” Bray said. “The bright kind. For doing surgery or putting in stitches. That kind of thing.”
Made sense, but with Cahill dead, if anyone needed stitches, they’d be the messy kind that leave ugly scars. Hawkins could do the work in a pinch—he’d helped sew up a few wounded animals—but animals never complained about scars.
“If you cover me,” Bray said. “I’ll switch the light on.”
“I won’t be able to see you.”
“If something happens, I’ll fall to the ground and scream. Just keep your aim up.” Bray slipped past Hawkins. “Ready?”
Hawkins tried to think of another way to do this, but couldn’t. “Fine.”
Bray moved into the darkness slowly, hands extended to keep from walking into a wall. He disappeared from view a few feet from the doorway’s light.
Hawkins kept the rifle against his shoulder, but pointed away from Bray. He’d been taught to keep the safety on until he’d picked a target. Helped prevent hunters from accidentally shooting each other. But he ignored that rule now. Whatever they were looking for was strong enough to bend a metal door and fast enough to abduct a crewmember without being seen. If he had to fire, he suspected he wouldn’t have time to disengage the safety before pulling the trigger.