Outpost (36 page)

Rye
woke. She found herself jostling with infected passengers. Stench and rot. A
dozen monsters pounding at a door, scratching and hammering, trying to reach
the meat. Hawaiian shirts and paper garlands. A night of limbo and pina coladas
turned to hell.

Fingers
raked the hatch metal. Broken nails and streaked blood. The hatch was giving
way. It was wedged shut by a barricade the other side of the door. Rye heard
furniture start to shift.

Bodies
hurled against the door. Chairs and tables began to subside.

Rye
kicked legs. She tripped the passengers. She wanted to slow them down. She
wished she had her radio. She could warn the Rampart crew of impending attack.
They were about to be swamped. Cornered. Killed in their beds.

The
door gave way and swung open. A collapsing mountain of furniture. Rye stepped
back, waiting for grenades to detonate and consume the crowd in brilliant white
fire.

Nothing.

Jane
and Ghost were waiting on the other side of the door, shotguns raised like a
firing squad. Twin muzzle flash. Explosive roar. Scrambled brain matter.

Jane
stood hazed in gunsmoke. She slotted fresh shells and racked the slide.
Efficient shots, point-blank to the face like a stone-cold killer.

'Hey,'
shouted Rye. 'Hey, Jane.'

Jane
saw her. No recognition. She raised her shotgun. Rye dived sideways to avoid
the blast.

Jane
and Ghost re-sealed the door. Rye lay among smouldering, headless bodies and
listened as they rebuilt the barricade.

Rye's
last moments of full consciousness, the last time she was truly herself,
occurred deep in the heart of the ship. She was stumbling down a stairwell. She
was not alone. She found herself leading a crowd of passengers in fancy dress.

On
her left was a man in a dinner suit and pig mask. Spikes pierced the pig snout.
The man could never remove the mask. He would spend the rest of his short life
squinting through rubber eye-holes.

On
her right was a man in a bunny costume, fur matted with blood.

The
stairs led down into dark water. One of the hull plates had popped a seam below
the waterline when
Hyperion
collided with the refinery. The ship was still seaworthy but a couple of
mid-section compartments were flooded.

At
the bottom of the stairwell, beneath the icy water, was a door that would lead
to rooms directly below the officers' quarters. The door wouldn't be wedged
shut and it wouldn't be strung with grenades. A blind spot. The Rampart crew
wouldn't anticipate anyone would rise out of seawater.

Rye
reached the point where water lapped the stairs. She kept walking. Knee-deep,
waist-deep, chest-deep, and finally submerged.

Smothering
silence. Green, sub-aqueous murk. Rye walked slowly like an astronaut. The cold
should have killed her but she could barely feel it. She was breathing water,
but it didn't seem to matter.

The
bottom of the stairwell. A submerged electric wall lamp, sealed in a glass
bubble, still burned bright. A sculpin swam past Rye's face and darted into a
floor vent.

She
found the hatch. She turned the handles and pulled it open. There must have
been a cupboard of bathroom supplies nearby because the water around her was
filled by a blizzard of dissolved toilet paper.

Rye
walked through the doorway. She looked over her shoulder. The grotesque animal
forms of her companions kept pace behind her. A clown with one arm. A ballet
dancer, tights lumped and stretched by tumorous growth.

More
stairs. Rye climbed upward, water cascading from her clothes as she broke the
surface. Her companions followed, shaking water from their animal heads,
stumbling under the weight of their sodden costumes.

Her
thoughts cleared for a moment and she realised the terrible carnage she was
about to unleash. The refinery crew were two decks above them, eating dinner,
convinced they were safe behind barricades.

Rye
reached in her pocket for the grenade, then remembered she had given it away.
Maybe she should trigger the sprinkler system and raise the alarm. But a moment
later she could no longer remember who she was, and why she was standing in a
stairwell jostled by monsters in tattered carnival costume. She joined the herd
and shambled up the stairs alongside her nightmare companions towards the
Rampart crew, ready to rip and tear.

Fallback

Nail
and Gus were lost in the fog. Their flashlights lit snow and curling mist.
Frozen beards. Clothes crusted with frost.

'We're
lost.'

'We're
not lost.'

Gus
was badly burned. He leaned against Nail for support.

'Wait,'
said Nail. 'Hold on.'

'What?'

Nail
took a red bandana from his pocket and held it up like a wind sock.

'I
think we're heading the right way. We just need to keep the wind behind us.'

'Then
what? We're royally fucked.'

Nail's
flashlight had started to fail.

'We
have to keep moving. We have to find shelter.'

Hyperion
had been overrun. Nail and Gus fled during the attack. They slid down knotted
rope as the ship burned. Quickly rappelled down the smooth white hull to the
ice. They didn't have coats. They each wore a T-shirt and fleece. They could
survive maybe fifteen minutes before succumbing to the cold.

Gus
sagged like he wanted to sit down.

'Keep
moving,' commanded Nail, his voice flat and muffled by the fog. 'It can't be
far.'

He
was starting to shake.

They
stumbled over snow and rock. Deep thuds behind them. Explosions aboard
Hyperion.

Concrete
jutted from the snow. The high arch of the bunker entrance.

'This
is it,' said Nail. 'We made it.'

They
reached the bunker door. An infected crewman stood sentry in front of the
entrance. It looked like he had been there a while. Snow had collected on his
head and shoulders. He was knee-deep, his uniform frosted white. He stood quite
still, staring into the mist. He slowly came to life like a rusted robot. His
clothes crackled with ice as he moved. He stumbled and reached for Nail and
Gus. His face was frozen. His eyes couldn't turn in their sockets.

Nail
kicked the crewman's legs from under him. He pushed the fallen man down the
bunker steps with his foot. The body rolled into the fog.

Gus
passed out. He fell against the door and slid to the ground. Nail tried to slap
him awake but got no response. He checked for a pulse. Still alive.

Nail
looked around. He glimpsed figures, grotesque silhouettes lurking in the fog.

'Gus.
Wake up, man. We've got company. They sniffed us out.'

No
response.

He
checked the bunker doors. The padlock and chain were gone. He tried to pull the
doors wide. They opened a few centimetres then jammed. They had been lashed
shut from the inside with rope.

He
searched Gus's pockets. He found a lock-knife. He flipped open the blade. He
threw his flashlight into the mist to lure away the prowling figures that
encircled them.

He
worked by touch. He reached through the gap in the doorway and sawed at the rope.

'Gus?
Still with me?'

No
reply.

'Come
on, dude. Don't check out on me now.'

He
cut through the rope. He hauled open the door. He set his lighter to full-flame
and dragged Gus into the bunker. A dark tunnel mouth.

He
scanned shelves, picked through clutter. He found a lamp and switched it on. It
was styled like a hurricane lamp, but had an LED bulb and a couple of
Duracells.

He
knotted the doors closed with scraps of rope.

He
tried to wake Gus.

'Can
you hear me? Can you hear what I'm saying? You have to focus, Gus. You have to
listen to my voice. Shock and cold. Don't give in to it.'

Gus
opened his eyes but couldn't focus. Semi-delirious.

Nail
looked around. He had to create a fire or they were both dead.

Shelves
against the tunnel wall loaded with Skidoo components. A few empty crates and
fuel cans stacked by the wall. The snowmobiles themselves were under tarpaulin.

Nail
swept the shelves clear and tipped them over. He stamped and smashed. He
slopped a capful of petrol from a jerry can and set the shelves alight. He sat
cross-legged in front of the fire and hugged Gus. He rubbed and slapped his
companion until circulation returned.

'Christ,'
murmured Gus. He struggled to sit up. He spat in the fire and watched spit
fizzle.

'How
are you feeling?' asked Nail.

'The
pain comes and goes.'

Half
Gus's face was scorched black. Cooked skin. Cracked and flaked. His hair was
gone. His right shoulder was burned bare, scraps of polyester fleece fused to
charred skin.

'Did
you see Yakov?' asked Gus. 'Did you see him die?'

'Fucking
horrible. Worst thing I ever saw in my life.'

'I
didn't know a person could make that kind of noise. That's going to stay with
me.'

The
infected passengers had broken through the barricades at midnight. Somehow they
circumvented locked doors, blocked corridors, and men on patrol. Hordes of them
choking the passageways, some in fancy dress. Nail had been standing on the
upper deck sharing a joint with Gus. They watched fog eclipse the moon and
discussed girlfriends and heartbreak. If they'd been asleep in their cabins
they would have been cornered, overwhelmed and ripped apart.

'We
should go back,' Gus had said, as Nail pushed him across the
Hyperion
deck. The Rampart crew had
prepared knotted ropes in case they needed to make a quick exit from the
vessel. 'We should go back for the others.'

A
burning passenger stumbled from a cabin doorway and gripped Gus in a bear hug.
Gus screamed as his clothes caught alight. Nail kicked the passenger over a
railing, then slapped Gus's fleece until the flames died out.

They
glimpsed Yakov at the end of a companionway. He shouted and waved for help as
he ran from monsters in party costume. He squealed like an abattoir pig as a
Pierrot clown dragged him to the ground.

'Forget
it,' said Nail. 'There's nothing we can do for him. We need to get the fuck out
of here.'

They
fled the ship. Grenades began to detonate with a concussive roar and set the
ship ablaze. They were running across the ice when the fuel tanks blew. Heat washed
over them. Smoking shrapnel peppered the snow.

'Do
you think we are the only survivors?' asked Gus. 'Do you think anyone else made
it off the ship? I didn't see any of the others. Jane and Ghost were in their
room. Punch and Sian, too. We might be the only ones left. You and me.'

'I
honestly have no idea.'

'But
what if we are? What if it's just us?'

'Then
we'll deal.'

'And
even if they made it to the rig? No one knows we are here. How do we summon
help?'

'You
should rest. Seriously.'

'How
long do you think that lantern will lust?'

'Standard
batteries. Four or five hours at the most. I'm going to leave you here for a
little while, all right? I'm going to take a look around. Check out the
tunnels. I need to find more wood.'

Nail
walked into the tunnel holding a piece of blazing plank before him.

Echoing
footfalls. Burning wood crackled and fizzed. The torch flame flickered. The
tunnels whispered and sighed. There must be ventilation chimneys deep within
the complex. How extensive was the tunnel network? Did it undermine the entire
island?

He
walked deeper down the sloping shaft. Black archways, sinister shapes. He
wanted to explore but worried, if he strayed from the central passageway, he
would quickly become lost. If his torch burned out, if a gust of wind
extinguished the flame, he might have to make his way back to the surface by
touch.

Vast
cyclopean chambers. Ceilings so high weak torchlight couldn't penetrate shadow.
The tunnel complex seemed built for some purpose other than nuclear storage.
Too big, too elaborate to store fuel rods.

He
stopped to catch his breath. Sudden, palpitating claustrophobia. Gut
conviction that this ferro-concrete catacomb would be his grave. He was looking
at the glistening, mildewed walls of his own coffin.

He
wandered through caverns and halls. Incomplete galleries. Raw, unfinished
bedrock. He was travelling downward through the strata, down through fossil
layers. A coal-stripe of rainforest. Distant millennia compressed to a sliver
of carbon crystal. The walls glittered with crushed shell and silica.