O-Negative: Extinction (16 page)

“Those creatures just cut through it like it was butter.  I’ve used ice to sort of glue the pieces back in.  Anyway we’re filled up and ready to go”.  He took the track out of neutral and drove off before asking Dominic.  “Ok so give me your take on things, what in God’s name were those creatures?”

“Joe your guess is as good as mine they just seemed to come out of nowhere and our weapons didn’t have any effect on them.  I really thought I’d met my maker when they surged up around us like thousands of giant ants.  Why do you think we survived and everyone else was killed?”

“God knows but I tell you this we were unbelievably lucky.  They swarmed up the track exactly the same. I saw Sergeant Tucker and his team go down in a heartbeat and felt sure I was done for.  The way they cut through the glass and fell on me before rushing up my legs was terrifying beyond belief. The last thing I remember before waking up was them scurrying over my face and then feeling a sort of pin prick at my neck.”  He lowered the zip of his snow suit to show his neck.  “When I picked you up you had a mark like a pin prick on your neck, I’m assuming mine’s the same?

Dominic looked closely at Joe’s neck. “Yeah, you do have something like that there”.

“You didn’t see your men but when I went round checking all the bodies everyone had been killed in the same way.  Throats slit ear to ear”

“Shitting hell this is like a living nightmare – I don’t know if anyone’s going to believe us when we tell them this Joe.  I’m not even sure I believe it and I was there.  The creatures seemed so intelligent and vicious there was just no stopping them.”

“Hey you’ve just reminded me, I picked up a phone from one of the Marines in Lance Corporal Anderson’s group.” He passed the phone to Dominic.

“Bloody Martins, I told him no mobile phones on operations but he was so addicted he must have brought it with him.  Let’s see what if anything it’s got on here.”  Dominic swiped the screen. “Requesting a password mmmmhhh I wonder, Martins wasn’t too bright, what do you think 0000?  Nope.  1234 ah ha 1234 works.”  Dominic went into the application menu.  “No photos taken recently not since Halley.  Hey wait a second there’s a video here”.  Dominic pressed the play icon.  They both watched as the display began playing the video. It began with the bright lights appearing on the horizon and then rushing towards the Marines, they heard Lance Corporal Anderson shouting “Fire! Fire! Lay down covering fire!” as the mass of metallic creatures crested the ridge in front of their position.  3 seconds later the video finished but not before the sound of several screams being cut short including that of private Martins could be heard through the tinny speaker.

Both he and Dominic were silent.  Lost in their own reliving of the event.  He was the first to retort. “Fucking hell if that doesn’t convince them we haven’t lost our minds then I don’t know what will.  Jesus this is fucked up.  This morning I was a simple geologist whose worst worry was that I was sleeping with a married woman.  Today I’m an ex Special Forces Captain fleeing from some unspeakable horror that wiped out an army unit in the blink of an eye. 

Dominic responded.  “We are two lucky bastards Joe I can tell you that.  Listen I’m going to try the radio and see if I can call in the transport plane”.

“Yeah good idea.  What are you going to say about what happened?”

“I’m just going to tell them as best I can”.  He looked over to Dominic.  “Listen it’s just a suggestion but maybe keep it short and sweet for the time being.  Bit of Army speak and all that.  You’re going to be talking over an unsecured line.  I don’t think we want to tell the whole world what we think has happened right now.  Especially as neither of us actually have a fucking clue what the hell did happen anyway”.

Dominic acknowledged the wisdom of his words “You’re right short and sweet for now”.  He listened as Dominic used the track’s CB radio to call in the transport plane.  The pilot seemed somewhat surprised to be asked to pick them up again so soon but said he’d see them at the strip in a couple of hours.  Dominic then asked whoever was running the comms desk at Halley to boost their signal and get them through to Rothera station.  After a couple of minutes Major Sanderson came on the line.  Dominic said nothing of what had actually occurred. “Major it’s Lieutenant Taylor.  Operation Amundsen-Scott has been aborted.  Air pick up called in.  Further communication over secure channel to follow from Halley over”.

Major Sanderson hesitated before replying but realising the public nature of the call simply came back with. “Roger that Lieutenant.  Await your call over”.

Dominic looked over at him.  “This is going to cause a serious shit storm.  A seriously massive shit storm.”

He nodded.  “They’re going to have to evacuate the remaining Antarctic research bases?”

“I can’t see how they couldn’t.  The American’s are going to go a bit crazy when they hear about this - flood the place with troops etc.” 

He thought back to his time working in ‘partnership with the Americans.  “There’ll be aircraft carriers off the coast within a couple of days and subs carrying cruise missiles in the water as well I’d imagine.”

“Unfortunately I don’t think military hardware’s going to do anything to those things?”

“I agree Joe but the American’s aren’t going to believe this until they experience it for themselves.  At the moment all they’ve got is a lost communication with an isolated Antarctic base, a couple of old satellites playing up and a junior British Officer and an ex Captain now a geologist with 15 seconds of shaky video taken on a mobile phone.  You know as well as I do they’re not going to go in softly softly.”

“When I was in Iraq I learnt the American’s only believe in three things.  God, Guns and the American way.  We’re going to need to evacuate our people from the Antarctic stations. I can’t see this ending well at all.  I’ve a horrible feeling we haven’t seen the worst of what those creatures can do.  This is far beyond our comprehension at the moment.”  He rubbed at his eyes.  “Listen I’m falling asleep here do you think you can drive the track back to the landing strip.  It’s all relatively straightforward from here and the GPS is working again so it should take you straight there”.

“Sure.  You look like you need some sleep.  Hey and thanks.  Thanks for bothering to check on me and my team and pulling me into the back of the carrier.  You saved my life, no doubt about it.”

“No problem Dominic I’m glad I hung around long enough to check the bodies, or maybe it was just my head wasn’t on straight at the time.  You owe me one though right” He slapped Dominic on the back and smiled wanly.  He stopped the vehicle and shifted along to the passenger seats while Dominic got out and went round to the driver’s side.  Dominic’s driving was a bit jerky but once he’d been at it for 5 minutes he felt comfortable enough and tired enough to drift off into an exhausted sleep.

He woke to the sound of the transport plane landing at the landing strip.  After the plane had taxied back up the strip Dominic drove the track round to the back.  The bottom part of the fuselage opened slowly revealing the pilot as he lowered the back of the plane.  Dominic drove up the ramp and parked the track at the far end of the plane.  When they got out of the cab there was a sense of poignancy.  Only a day or so earlier they’d crammed 30 men and three snow tracks into the large space that now seemed far too empty.  The pilot, Captain Jacobson, gave them a worried look.

“What happened to the rest of the Platoon?  Are they staying out on the plateaux?”

Dominic answered for them both.  “They didn’t make it”.

“They didn’t make it.  What the hell happened?”

“Captain you don’t want to know.  I need to make a full report as soon as I get back.  Are you ok to fly back solo I don’t think I’m in a fit state to assist.”

“No problem.  Sounds like you guys have had it tough out there.  You both look like shit by the way.  Do you want me to let anyone know about the rest of the Platoon being lost?”

“No, not at the moment.  I need to report what’s happened over the secure comms unit at Halley”.

“Ok well we better get moving.  There’s some energy bars over there in that locker I suggest you get some of those in you during the flight.”  With that the Captain turned and went into the cockpit.  He pulled out a couple of boxes from the locker the Captain had indicated passing one to Dominic.  They then strapped themselves in and the plane took off for Halley

In the end it had ended up being a double wedding, Javeira to Rashid and rather surprisingly to most of the rest of the wedding congregation, Rahmaniah to Salem.  Even Javeira who knew the reasoning behind it had been surprised. 

Further to the evening when Rashid had first suggested his father meet with Ja’far Al-Bajubair Rahmaniah had realised that if she wanted to remain as independent as she had while Javeira had been around she was going to have to do something about her own situation.  She’d bided her time but then one evening a few weeks later when it had been established that Javeira was going to be allowed to marry Rashid Rahmaniah had called Salem to see if she could ‘pop round’.  She’d made this call within 5 minutes of Lila returning from his flat after ‘picking up his washing’.  This had the desired effect in that Salem immediately realised that a favour was going to be called in.  The fact that the meeting itself was going to be in his flat was not that usual.  They normally met in the girls flat.  Despite all the warning signs Salem had simply assumed she wanted to run one of her wild ideas by him without Javeira being around and try to get his support for the idea.  So though slightly flustered he’d said “ok give me 5 minutes and then come by”.  Rahmaniah was dressed in a subtle but distinctively feminine and somewhat revealing dress that flowed regally around her slim legs.  This had piqued Javeira’s interest momentarily but she hadn’t followed up on it assuming as Salem had that she wanted to run something by him outside of her earshot.  Anyhow Rahmaniah had knocked on the inner door and then entered the next door flat.  An hour later she’d come back and Javeira had looked up from her laptop to ask her whether Salem thought whatever her new idea was would work.  “Yes Javi he seemed to agree with what I was suggesting most fulsomely…after a little persuasion of course”.  She then smiled secretively, excused herself to go and talk with Lila about something and then retired for the evening.

It was only the following week when round at the familial home discussing with her mother the various things that needed to be done in relation to the now accepted nuptials that her mother had dropped into the conversation.  “Anyway I guess we’ll have to start planning for a larger wedding”.

“A larger wedding isn’t this already going to be large enough – you’ll end up bankrupting father at this rate.”

“Ahh I see you’re unaware that we’ll have to invite much more of your father’s extended family than we’d originally thought”.

“Why would we do that, he hardly has any contact with them and they have no real business interests which would warrant them being invited?”

“Oh so you’re not aware Salem’s also getting married?”  She said it with some glee in her voice realising that Javeira didn’t know.

“Salem’s getting married!”

“Yes his fiancée is quite a catch.  Rich family and all that.”

“Rich family?  He hasn’t said a word about this to me…wait?”  The memory of Rahmaniah’s meeting with Salem over in his flat came rushing back to her “No!  You can’t mean Rahmaniah?”

“Yes I can Javi darling.  Apparently their feelings for each other have developed further to the close contact they have had through their associations with you?”

“Close associations with me! But I haven’t heard a single thing about this.  That Rahmaniah! I’m going to throttle her when I see her.  She doesn’t have feelings for Salem nor the other way round…”  She stopped as she realised that she might be getting into waters she didn’t want to discuss with her mother.

“Yes interesting isn’t it how it all seems to have developed so suddenly…to be honest I thought this was maybe one of your little schemes to make sure you didn’t lose control of your joint business enterprise?”

She felt a stab of concern at this statement by her mother “err joint business enterprise what are you talking about?”

“Javi Javi I know you think that I’m an old woman whose only concern is her family but you didn’t get your brilliant little business brain entirely from your father you know.  I do keep my eye on what’s happening with regards to the family business.  The posting of large profits to a new ‘events’ business might not have caught your father’s attention that much but it certainly caught mine.  Of course a long coffee morning with your Aunt Manna also helped.  She seems fully apprised of your business interests by the way.”

“I am going to kill Rahmaniah.”

“Oh I don’t think so Javi dearest, that would be most unfortunate given she’s about to marry your 2
nd
cousin once removed on your father’s side.  And don’t worry about Manna and me we can be trusted…of course I can’t vouch for the other mothers of your friends who’ve made subtle inquiries to us about getting invitations to your ‘gatherings’ for their children.  I think you’ll find your business is known about by rather more people than you thought”.

She gasped a bit at the double shock of learning that Rahmaniah had firstly persuaded Salem to marry her and two that her mother and most of the rest of the female elite in Jeddah seemed to know exactly what she’d been up to for the last year.  “Right well I guess this is a bit of a fait accompli.  God mother I hope you and your friends are being discreet.  You know we could get into a lot of trouble for what we’re doing with the religious police?”

“Oh I know Javi but don’t forget that the religious police also have a tendency to be married…and with children.  Who do you think helped clear up the mess that you made when you first started up your Riyadh operation?”

“That was you?”

“Well me and a few of the ladies I know yes.  Oh don’t look so surprised you’ll be amazed at what a little female persuasion here and there can accomplish.”

“This is all coming as a bit of shock to me Mama, but I guess I may need to reassess exactly what role you play in the family.  You’ve obviously been doing this a lot longer than I have.”

“That I have Javi; now about the flowers, I was thinking of tulips and lilies with some posies of those handmade organza flowers on every table what do you think?”

When she got back home that evening, after being driven back by Salem – to whom she said nothing, Rahmaniah was lounging on the expensive leather couch she’d insisted no home could be without.  She didn’t say anything immediately but behaved as she would have done normally, at least initially.

“Hi Mani God what a day.  I tell you spending all day discussing wedding related things with one’s mother is an exhausting business.  How about you?”

“Oh nothing much just a bit of shopping and then I made a few calls to the caterers we’re using to supply food and drink.  I told them that if their costs increase anymore I’m switching suppliers.”

“Yes I’d noticed that, I suspect they think they’re dealing with super rich Saudi’s who have no concept of what things actually cost.  I’m glad you set them right.  Any other news?”  She said innocently.

“No nothing else.  Otherwise pretty quiet.”

“Yes I guess you’ll need to start getting used to it being pretty quiet when you move back in with your mother after my wedding?”

“Err yes I guess I will.”

“Oh Mani I do feel sorry for you, we won’t get to see each other so much and we’ll have to let Lila go and Salem will have to go back to working directly for my father…..”

Rahmaniah glanced at her sharply.  “You know don’t you?”

She threw a leather cushion at Rahmaniah’s head “Yes I do know you little minx.  Why on earth didn’t you tell me?  I had to get it from my mother of all people.”

Rahmaniah put her hands over her head as she beat her with another pillow “Javi I really wanted to tell you straight away but Salem made me promise not to say anything and you know a good wife, or at least a good wife to be, does what her husband tells her”.

“Oh that is priceless Mani as if you’ll ever obey anyone other than yourself”.

“I know I know Javi but honestly I didn’t want to steal all your thunder and then Salem tells me your mother and my mother have arranged to do it all as a joint wedding.  I was just waiting for the right time to tell you.”  She stopped beating her cousin with the pillow, not because she wanted to but because her arm was beginning to tire.  She sat down next to Rahmaniah on the sofa.  “Anyway that’s not the worst news I heard today.”

“You’ve heard worse news than me getting married at the same time as you?  God that must be bad news what is it?”

“Your mother and mine have known for ages about the business.”

“The business?  What do you mean the party business?  No surely not?”

“They’ve known almost from when we first started it up and have been secretly helping us behind the scenes with their contacts all over the shop.  Apparently they’ve been getting requests from their friends to get their sons and daughters invited to our gatherings”.

“Oh my God Javi those conniving she devils.  No wonder my mother was always rabbiting on to Salem when she met him.  That’s why I thought he’d be a perfect husband as my mother’s always seemed to get on with him so well.  I think Salem’s been taking direction from my mother about who should be invited to the parties?  Right well that’s the last time he’s getting his ‘washing done’ for the foreseeable future.”

“Well I don’t think he’s going to mind too much about that Mani - he’ll soon have a wife who can pick up on those duties.  And speaking of which how are you going to handle that particular problem?”

“Oh I’ve already dealt with that.  I told him if he agreed to the marriage I’ll bring Lila with me and as long as they’re discreet he can carry on before”.  Javi made a shocked O shape with her face and mouth.  “Don’t look at me like that Javi, look to your own family first before you cast the first stone.  Why do you think your father was so angry at Layla all those years ago?  It wasn’t just because she’d been caught with Musa, more that she was also sleeping with him”.  Her shocked O shape got even bigger and she found she couldn’t speak.  Eventually she found the space to squeak out “Layla was sleeping with my father?” 

“Yes and your mother was well aware of it I can tell you”.

“My mother knew about this?”

“Oh Javi shut your mouth you look distinctively unattractive like that.  Anyway you haven’t said congratulations yet”.  Rahmaniah smiled artfully at her.

“I’ll tell you this much Mani I don’t know any of you as well as I thought I did.  Nevertheless I’m too exhausted by all this shocking information to get too het up about it.  And you’re right ‘congratulations’ for your forthcoming nuptials.  I guess we will all be getting what we wanted after all”.

_________________________________________________________________________

Unfortunately 2 weeks after their respective marriages the real price of their innocent machinations hit. 

She had just returned to the office after spending a very enjoyable honeymoon in southern Oman.  Rashid had very graciously accepted that the prospect of her moving to live in Tabuk after living in Jeddah and running a multi-million dollar businesses was unrealistic.  So her father, having finally accepted that he was going to have to welcome Rashid into the family, had swallowed his pride and made him Managing Director of ‘Tamina Productions’, an off shoot of the main Al Bajubair holding group.  Of course one of the businesses within the Tamina Production Group just so happened to be the ‘events’ business.  Now that she knew her mother was much more closely involved in the family’s business than she’d thought she saw her mother had been hard at work behind the scenes.  Her mother hadn’t said anything but neither had she expressed enough genuine surprise at the news her father had announced at the wedding reception.  She’d mouthed a ‘thank you’ to her mother when she’d had the opportunity to do so, which her mother had acknowledged with a short smile.

Her first day back at the office as a married woman had started normally.  Other than the obligatory congratulations the staff also managed to bring up all the outstanding problems they’d let build up in her absence.  She’d accepted their heartfelt expressions of ‘joy’ and then got on with resolving the issues that required her immediate attention.  Her father and Abdullah, who had returned from the States for the wedding, had flown to Amman on one of her father’s regular trips.  Abdullah’s participation had been a sop to alleviate his concerns that Javeira and her new husband were now in powerful positions while he was still studying.  It was also an acknowledgement of a sort by her father that if he wanted to pass the business on to an Al-Bajubair he was going to have to bring Abdullah more into the decision making processes, especially as she was now technically an ‘Al Shiddi’.