The Kielder Experiment (Book 2): The Alaska Strain

by Fernfield, Rebecca

  “Please, Marta, don’t do this to me.” A shadow of unhappiness falls over him like a shroud. “This job is all I could get after Kielder.”

  “Are you serious, Peter? You are wasted here.”

  “I know, but for some reason, despite the ... problems at Kielder not being public knowledge, I was unable to even get an interview with the major institutes and universities, and even when I did get an interview at a minor research centre someone else always took the post.”

  “Poor Peter!” she says leaning across the table and stroking his fingers. “Well, I’m not here to torture you,” she raises her eyebrows with a smile.

  “Oh?”

  “No. I’m here to offer you a position, one commensurate with your experience and expertise. You’re a genius in your field, that is obvious from this paper, and I need your skills on my team.”

  “Team, Marta?”

  “Yes. I’m head of the International Institute for Bio-Tech Advancement. I can’t tell you the exact location, but we’re in southwest Alaska, somewhere near the Kodiak Archipelago. The work we’re doing is ground-breaking, but we’ve got as far as we can.” She holds his gaze. “And we need someone to take us to the next level. We have top of the range facilities. You’ll have a directorship, be in control of the project, answering only to me.” She leans back. “What do you say, Peter?”

  His jaw has dropped open and he snaps it shut as she continues to stare into his eyes. “Well ... I.” Disquiet rumbles in his belly. Images of Max Anderson, the ... thing in the cage, the red light flickering its warning on her collar, flash in his memory, and the smell of faeces, hot and muggy, seems to cling to the membranes of his nostrils.

  “The monthly salary is double what you earn here in a year.”

  “I-” The forest. The chop, chop of the helicopter. The blood-curdling howls. The gunshots. The sulphuric stench of rotting blood and offal. The screams. The squeeze of Blake Dalton’s hand on his knee and his warning that ‘they’ would make it all disappear, along with Peter himself, if he wasn’t careful.

  “Your research will be published in any journal you desire. A professorship isn’t out of the question.”

  He blinks, focussing again on Marta and her halo of bright hair. His heart trips a hard beat against his sternum. “Yes ... Yes, I’ll take it.”

  She reaches into her bag and pulls out another sheaf of paper along with a pen. “Then sign here, and we’ll have you on the next flight out to Kodiak.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The panel opens and Katarina smiles as Max steps to the opening. He pushes his fingers through the mesh and she strokes his hand. He places his forehead against the mesh, and she leans in, their skin touching. The promise of ecstasy is almost too much, but Max pushes it down, focusing on the black box in her other hand. He snips the dividing mesh with his fingers, and peels back the broken wire. She gasps as he strokes a hand across her cheek. With every ounce of inner strength, he replaces the wire and steps back. She smiles and closes the panel.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Thin light breaks in through the gap in Rachel’s bedroom curtains as she wakes with a hangover for the third day in a row. She turns her eyes from the light and groans, reaches for the bedside clock. It reads 10:46. Damn! Late again. Although she doesn’t have to be in the office, she had determined to check her emails at the beginning of each working day, and be dressed and ready to jump on any story that Morgan, or any of the other editors, threw at her. Sitting opposite her mother, feeling that sense of shame and failure descend like a damp cloth, had motivated her to stop wallowing in self-pity. There was also the lead she had on the underhand, very possibly illegal, definitely corrupt, goings on at a nearby nursing home owned by a clique of local councillors - ‘quelle surprise!’ - that she wanted to follow up. She’d investigate it privately if Morgan wasn’t going to give her the go-ahead, and publish it with another newspaper, under a pseudonym, if she had to.

  Motes, eddying in the warming light, dance in irritated whorls as she slowly sits. Yesterday’s difficult lunch with her mother is a haze in her mind, but the lurching pub-crawl with Bianca later in the evening, is a fug of alcohol-fuelled amnesia, and a bloodied graze on her knee, still wrapped in last night’s laddered tights, and an ache across her right shoulder, are clues to some disaster of which she has no memory.

  She reaches for the glass on her bedside table and takes large gulps of water. Though she has no recollection of placing it there, it is a trick her father, himself an old-school big drinker, had taught her. ‘Rach,’ he’d said after one particularly boozy Sunday afternoon, ‘always take a pint to bed with you after a session’.

  Her mother had raised an eyebrow over her own gin and tonic. ‘She’s only fourteen, Charlie! And I doubt she’ll ever have a ‘session’, she’s far too well-bred and sensible for that, aren’t you darling.’

  ‘Yes, mum,’ had been Rachel’s obedient reply though her cheeks had started to prickle with heat.

  ‘Never too young to learn,’ her father had winked at her then, an allusion to the secret pint of cider they’d shared during one of her mother’s literary evenings out.

  ‘And just for the record, it’s a pint of water you take to bed, darling, not beer’.

  ‘You’re always right, my cherub,’ her father had replied with a chuckle. The touch of irony in his voice wasn’t lost on Rachel. ‘A pint of water, Rachel,’ he’d winked, pronouncing it as ‘wa-tur’. Pulling on his north-midlands roots with exaggeration, was guaranteed to tweak her mother.

  Rachel’s phone beeps. A message from Bianca. It reads, ‘How’s the hangover? Been sick twice this morning. Slept next to the toilet LOL!!!!’ Another follows immediately after. “OMG! Can you believe Chris!!!’

  “One exclamation mark does the job, Bianca,” Rachel mutters. “Chris?” Her head throbs. “What about Chris?” As she thumbs the phone’s screen to reply, the fug of memory clears, and she’s back in the Fox and Hound, the fourth, maybe fifth pub, of the night.

  They’d been standing with a group of Rachel’s old school friends out on a reunion, and the chatter, jokes, and reminiscences had been flowing freely. Bianca had been surly at first, she’d been several years below them at school and only joined in the second year so had few memories to share. Jamie had brought her round though with the charismatic way he had with women and she was soon laughing as loudly as the others. Talk had gotten round to a trip they’d all taken to Bakewell in their final year. Most of the kids had never seen a cow in the field, never mind sleeping out overnight in the middle of the Peak District and it had been hilarious to watch them attempt to erect the tents. Talk of Chris ‘Windy’ Miller had arisen and the source of his nickname—his unfortunate habit of letting-off throughout lessons as a younger child.

  “Silent but violent!”

  “They were more than that. He could clear a room in ten seconds. I swear he walked around in a fog of green gas at primary.”

  “He had a talent. That’s for sure.”

  Rachel had laughed along with the others as Jamie had regaled further stories about her friend.

  “He did alright for himself though. I saw him in Corrie once—not my cup of tea, but the missus told me he was in it so I watched it—just the once though.”

  “He was in that hospital drama too. Holby? Casualty?”

  “He’s cocked it up though.”

  “Yeah.”

  Multiple heads nod as they recollect the drama that had unfolded around Chris. His face had been on the front page for a couple of days, before he had disappeared from their screens and plummeted into obscurity.

  “He’s out camping somewhere in the wilds,” Rachel offers. “He sent me a video. I think he’s cooking up some stunt to get back into the news.” It occurred to Rachel at that moment, that the reason he had sent the video to her was not out of friendship, but from self-interest. Who else would be interested in his ‘odd’ video but an investigative reporter? She sighs inwardly. Someone else trying t
o make a fool of her.

  “Are you talking about Chris Miller, the actor?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s dead.”

  “What?” All eyes turned to the woman.

  “Yes, it was in the news.”

  “No, he sent me a video on ...” Rachel had taken out her mobile and thumbed through the messages. She paused as she noticed the date. “Three days ago!”

  “They say he drowned. He was in Alaska, doing the whole Daring Dan the Explorer thing and his boat got caught in a storm. The US Coastguard have called off the search. Look.” Finding the article on Facebook, the woman thrust the mobile in front of them.

  Memory of the screen is blurred to Rachel, and a wave of cold that starts from her scalp washes through her body. “Chris!” Opening the Facebook app, she searches for ‘Alaska Coastguard’. The page for the Kodiak branch of the US Coast Guard pops up and she scrolls through. Several posts below a pinned post, is one declaring the retrieval of Chris’ boat and that the search for his body will be resumed after the current squall has abated.

  Sickness squalls in her own belly. She clicks ‘play’ on Chris’ video with a trembling hand and re-watches the drama. The screen is too small so she rigs the phone to the monitor in her home office, a table shoved up against the living-room wall, and watches it there. As the drama plays out, a creeping horror descends over her; if this is a hoax, then Chris ‘Windy’ Miller’s acting skills have improved stratospherically. Fear leaks from the man, along with an undercurrent of wild excitement bordering on hysteria.

  “They’re all in on it!” He repeats as the inlet opens to the wider water. “George is a liar! A great big, fat liar!”

  The camera is turned once more to the beach and the flash of fuchsia. Rachel rewinds the video to the first sighting of pink as it flashes between the trees. Someone running. She watches closely, the jerking camerawork difficult to watch. The pink disappears then reappears. Christopher begins to run. Pebbles, water, the side of a boat, the sky. The clouds sway, the image blackens, then becomes clear and the figure in fuchsia comes into view. Squatting on the beach, just beyond the lapping waves, is a dark figure in a tattered pink blouse. The image turns back to Chris. “Dammit, Chris!” Rachel rewinds the video, catches a still of the squatting figure, then zooms in. She rubs her eyes. “What in God’s name is that?” On screen, imperfectly seen, seems to be a woman, a very hairy woman, naked but for the tattered shirt. Her face is hideous, reminding Rachel of a horror film she’d seen years ago. Long white triangles appear in her mouth as she howls. Rachel squints to focus—they appear to be ... fangs! More disturbing than the long teeth, and naked, hairy body, are the eyes that gleam red.

  “Holy ... If those are prosthetics then ...” There is no way Chris Miller is talented enough to a) act as convincingly as he does on the video, and b) pull off a stunt like this. She leans back in her chair, pushing away the thoughts that are nagging at her. What if this is real? What if it’s not a hoax? Come on, Rachel! It can’t be real. Are you honestly telling me that’s some sort of real, living monster? Of course, it could be real, people live with all sorts of deformities. Her mind travels back to a series of disturbing documentaries she’d watched several years ago. One had shown a man seemingly covered in bark, they called him the ‘human tree’. The ‘bark’ had been a viral infection of warts and, after years of horrific surgeries, one doctor had prescribed antivirals and they’d all cleared up. Another one showed a man with testicles that he had to carry around in a wheelbarrow. The similarities with a cartoon strip in the irreverent, and parentally banned ‘Viz’ had struck her as gut-wrenchingly tragic at the time. And everyone knew about conjoined twins sharing a torso, or head, so why not a woman covered in hair, a horribly deformed face, and overly long teeth; she was almost ordinary in comparison with the freak shows the television presented as entertainment.

  She watches the film once more, picking out what evidence she can. Chris had sent her the video as ‘their secret’. He’d wanted her to know, but no one else. Why? Because he was onto something. Perhaps something that he wanted her to investigate, and now he’s dead, lost at sea, drowned in the freezing Alaskan water, and perhaps that isn’t a coincidence either! Rachel stops the video with a jab of her finger and hurriedly makes a call to Dexter Morgan at the newspaper, her mind in overdrive; this could be it! This could be the story to get her career back on track.

  Two hours later, Rachel sits across from Dexter Morgan in his office.

  “Chris Miller. I think he was killed!”

  “Chris Miller, the actor?”

  “Yes! He sent me a video.” She presses play and the room fills with melodramatic narration, shouts, screams, and expletives.

  Five minutes later the video is playing on a large screen and Dexter seems entranced by the footage. He pauses at the image of Chris as he leaves the beach and steers his boat towards the incoming storm.

  “Chris Miller is a notorious attention seeker, Bonds. There is nothing to suggest that this video isn’t a hoax. It’s a non-story. He drowned at sea, and that’s tragic, but, and this is harsh, the man was a fool. He put his own life in danger and paid the price. Mother nature is an unforgiving bitch at times.”

  “But, sir, the thing on the beach-”

  “I agree that the woman was ... there ... but she could be wearing a costume. As I said, I think the video is a hoax and Miller paid the ultimate price for his prank.”

  Rachel rises from her seat. “You’re wrong.”

  “Pardon!”

  “You’re wrong. I’ve watched the film multiple times. Chris Miller just isn’t that good of an actor. He discovered something out there and was killed for it ... some conspiracy ... we need to discover the truth.”

  “You seriously believe that?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then you’re a bigger fool that I thought.”

  Their eyes lock and despite his seniority and imposing glare, Rachel holds steady. “I’m going to Alaska.”

  Dexter throws his pen on the desk. It bounces and then rolls to a stop with a ting against the half-empty coffee cup at its centre before rolling onto the floor. Rachel reaches for it with a huff as the band of her too-tight trousers presses against her diaphragm. Leaning back in his chair as Rachel sets the pen steady on the desk, he offers a muttered ‘thanks’, then says, “Bonds, are you drunk?”

  “No!”

  “I can smell it on you.”

  “It was my birthday yesterday.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Then you’re just stupid.”

  “No. I can see the story here. Granted, Miller was a self-serving, attention seeking D-list-”

  “Zed.”

  “... Zed-list celebrity, but I believe his reactions on that video are genuine.”

  “It’s a non-story Bonds, and not one that this paper is willing to fund. If you want to follow it up, then you’ll have to do it on your own time.”

  Rachel rises to leave. “I will.”

  Dexter raises an eyebrow, his face a smirk. Rachel is unsure whether he’s guarding admiration or just being disparaging. “And Bonds.”

  “Yes, Mr Morgan.”

  “Try to sober up before you get there.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Cars sit gridlocked at least one hundred feet below Marta’s London hotel room as she listens with a sinking gut to First Officer Kendrick Kingsley, on the other end of the phone. His account of proceedings back in the laboratory on Volkolak is unnecessarily graphic, and her query as to whether the female had been in good health, is met with disdain, and not a little aggression. She replies in like manner, “Yes, I think you should give Jane-fucking-Doe a drugs test, and check for STDs whilst you’re at it!” Assuring him that she is booked on the next plane back, she ends the call and throws the mobile onto the bed where it lands with a soft thud, and disappears within the duvet.

  “Kendrick?”

  “Yes!” She glances at Blake Da
lton lounging on the leather sofa. He pours himself another drink then sits back, one arm resting across its back.

  “Another failure?”

  “Yes!” She wants to hiss and claw at the accusation in Dalton’s eyes, but instead flicks at her blonde curls, and replies, “But each time we learn more, and get closer.”

  “Corbeur is getting antsy-”

  “Sod, Corbeur! What does he know about how these trials work?”

  “He reads the reports?”

  “Yes, he reads the reports, but he’s an arms dealer, not a scientist.”

  “Perhaps, but he’s also the one footing the bill for the project, Marta. And, he has share-holders-”

  “Share-holders! Is that what you’re calling them?”

  “It’s an easy phrase.”

  She takes a gulp of her wine, and undoes the top button of her blouse, suddenly over-heating. “It’s so hot in here!” She opens the window a fraction. The blare of the city is instant and she pulls it closed. “Bloody racket! Where the hell is the air-conditioning in this place?”

  Blake’s eyes follow her as she strides across the room, and she revels in the strokes of his gaze on her body, knowing that he is following the contour of her breasts to her slim waist and curvaceous hips. She undoes another button on her blouse. The curve of a smile increases on his lips.

  “Hot flushes, Marta?”

  She bridles. The disappointment, and anger, is instant. She knows exactly what he is referring to; more than once he had called her his ‘sexy cougar’, a nickname that she resents enormously given that he is only five years her junior, and Max had only been seven years younger. That, Mister Blake-I-think-I’m-so-sexy-Dalton, is not the definition of a cougar! And she is definitely not going through the menopause ... at least ... no, there is no way she is, she is in the prime of her life, not hurtling towards becoming a brittle-boned old hag with a dried-up husk for a vagina. “No, Blake, it’s not a hot flush!” Anyway, they can do wonders these days, and perhaps she could have some sort of ovary transplant—do they do that? She regrets her words instantly as he laughs, eyes glittering with mirth, then takes a slug of his whiskey, enjoying her discomfort. She flashes him a scowl. And anyway, she’s not the only one getting old; he has grey at his temples and is thinning out on top, perhaps she needs to remind him of that! Perspiration glistens unseen beneath her blouse as her body continues to heat, and she yearns to be able to slip under a cool shower. Her mind focuses back on Kendrick’s report and the problems they’re experiencing; perhaps IVF is the way forward, but then, how to get a sample?