Outpost H311

by Sara Jayne Townsend

  “A hot bath would be really good right now,” Ellen said.

  Jake looked back at her. “It’s going to be quite a while before you get to have one of those.”

  “It’s something to focus on to get me through this. I don’t want to think about how cold my feet are, how much my legs ache. Or how much I fear this is a pointless exercise.”

  They had reached the bottom of the ridge. From a distance, the slope upwards had looked quite gentle, but as they started to climb, it became evident that the gradient was misleadingly steep. They had already walked a long way in the snow, and Ellen’s legs protested.

  Ellen and David both struggled with the gradient, panting for breath. Jake, even pulling the sledge, overtook them easily and reached the top before them.

  Jake stared down into the valley. Ellen reached the top a minute or so later, stooping over with her hands on her knees as she tried to catch her breath. David trailed behind.

  “Are you superman or something?” Ellen gasped. “I’m just about dying here and you’ve barely broken a sweat. Even though you’re a smoker, and I’m not. How do you do it? Did they put something in your cornflakes during your marine training?”

  “Come look,” Jake said, pointing down.

  Ellen stood up straight and looked to where Jake was pointing. It took her a moment to focus on what it was. She had been looking at nothing but a stark snowy landscape for hours; her brain was not able to comprehend the idea that there might be something else there. But there it was, in the distance. A building. Two buildings, in fact.

  The one closest to them was a square concrete structure, with a slit near the top.

  Some distance beyond the first concrete structure was a second one, also made of concrete but longer and lower. It had no windows, and with several feet of snow piled up on its flat roof, it was quite difficult to make out.

  “What is it?” Ellen asked. “Surely no one could be living out here.”

  “I would say it’s probably a base of some kind.” Jake pointed at the nearer structure. “What does that look like to you?”

  Ellen stared at it, thinking that the slit at the top would make it easy to see everything around you but no one would see you. Then it came to her. “It’s a lookout post. A watch tower of some sort.”

  Jake smiled at her. “Well done.”

  Ellen gauged the distance between the structures. “Is it a base then? Why build them so far apart?”

  “I’m willing to bet there’s a lot more underground,” Jake said.

  David reached the top of the ridge, panting heavily. “Please tell me we can stop and rest soon,” he managed to say. “I feel like I’m about to collapse.”

  Ellen ignored him. To Jake she said, “If it is a base, it must be huge.”

  “And it’s not on any charts or mentioned in any records of this area,” Jake said.

  “Why wouldn’t it have been logged? How can you keep something like this secret?” Ellen asked.

  “That’s a very interesting question. Let’s go check it out, shall we?” Jake looked down at the ridge below them and then at the sledge. “Seems pointless to drag this all the way down when there’s a much faster way to get it down this hill. Why don’t you two hold onto the sledge, and you can ride down to the bottom.”

  “What about you?” Ellen asked.

  “There isn’t enough room for three of us. I’ll follow you down, don’t worry.”

  Ellen and David squeezed onto the sledge with the supplies, and Jake gave the sledge a push to start it going down the hill. The wind whipped past Ellen’s ears as she held on tight, watching the snow at the bottom of the hill come rushing towards her. It took her back to childhood winters, of sledding and snowball fights with her brother. Had the situation not been a dire matter of life and death, it might even have been fun.

  The sledge stopped abruptly when it hit a snow bank, fishtailing and throwing Ellen, David and some off their supplies off into the snow. Ellen picked herself up and brushed the snow off her parka and ski pants. She looked back up the slope, where Jake was carefully inching his way down.

  The watch tower looked tantalisingly close, but the snow disguised distance so that things looked a lot closer than they were. Even so, this was the first object they had seen in the snowy wasteland.

  Ellen walked towards the building. “I think we should wait for Jake,” David called after her.

  Ellen looked back at David, who was returning scattered supplies to the sledge, then at Jake, now halfway down the ridge. “He’s right there,” she said. “I just want a closer look.”

  She turned back to the structure and took a few more determined steps through the thick snow.

  She was barely ten feet away when she felt more than heard a loud splintering crack. The ground beneath her feet gave way. She screamed as she plunged beneath the snow.

  CHAPTER 5

  After the scouting group left, Allison took charge. This seemed a natural thing for her to do – she was a project manager, after all. So what if the project wasn’t about an exploration expedition, as the initial brief had indicated. It was now about survival.

  Her first priority was to get out all the supplies and do a damage assessment. Happily, the generator had not been damaged in the crash, and neither had the portable heater. It took a little while to get the generator going, which included having to retrieve the supply of petrol in a fireproof container that was in the hold. Designed to be virtually indestructible, due to the risks of carrying flammable substances on a plane, this was fortunately undamaged. Eventually they managed to coax a meagre amount of heat out of the heater. It was woefully inadequate out here in the frozen wilderness, but it might at least stop them all from freezing to death while they waited for the scouting party to return.

  With the meagre heat sorted, Allison then ordered people to retrieve all the food supplies and line them up in the snow outside the plane. There was a lot of tinned stuff that needed reheating and there was a gas camping stove, but with a limited supply of gas, they would have to use it sparingly.

  While Allison managed the survival project, she dug out her list of team members and proceeded to make notes on each person. She began by noting ‘injured’ against the name of Andres, the pilot. When she had been given the list of team members, it had included only names, job titles and nationalities. She remembered going back to her boss to query the fact that there was no doctor included in the team. She had been told (quite tersely, she thought at the time) for a mission of only a few weeks it was not necessary. They had a team member with military first aid training who would be able to deal with minor injuries and if anything more serious happened they could contact HQ and a helicopter would be sent to fetch anyone who was deemed to need hospital treatment. That’s what the satellite phone was for.

  But the satellite phone was useless and so were mobile phones, and now it seemed crucial to remember who everyone was, and what skills they were bringing to the mission that might prove to be useful in a survival situation.

  The other injured man was at least conscious. He was one of two geologists who had been sent out with the team: one American, Daniel Jenner; one British, Ellen Palmer. Ellen had gone off with the scouting party. Allison wrote ‘courageous & resilient’ next to Ellen’s name on her list. She could well prove to be an asset in ensuring their survival.

  And then there were the Asian-British film maker, Neeta Rupha, and her camera man, Pete Tennant. Allison had not been impressed when she’d first been told that a filming crew would be accompanying them on their exploration mission, especially when she learned their documentary was about the effects of global warming on the polar ice caps. She was envisaging a bunch of tree-huggers who would be obstructive to the mission. In the end there had been only two people – the film producer and her camera man – and they’d both appeared inoffensive enough, but she was not sure how useful they were going to be. Neeta had proven to be calm under pressure and had done a good job of tending to the
injured, but Pete was intensely annoying in the way he was filming everything. Allison assumed that eventually his camera would run out of power. She’d have to hope that he’d be unable to charge it, but they had power as long as they still had petrol for the generator. Allison made further notes to this effect on her list.

  The only other person presently in the wrecked plane with her was Nathan Price, the finance manager. She’d known from the start he’d be trouble.

  The American marine, Jake Barker, was probably the most useful person in a survival situation. The British engineer, David Bruce, could also be useful if he was as skilled at fixing things as Allison had been led to believe. They were, however, both off on the scouting mission. Allison scribbled ‘more info needed’ against David’s name.

  Keeping everyone busy and moving around seemed to be the key. Getting the supplies out of the hold had kept everyone occupied for a while. But now everyone was tired, and they were all huddled up against the heater, trying to extract its meagre warmth. Allison put away her personnel list and retrieved some energy bars to distribute amongst her team.

  Nathan scowled at her as she handed him the bar. “This is hardly enough food to keep us alive.”

  “We have to ration what we’ve got.”

  “Why? We’ve got plenty of food.”

  “And we don’t know how long it will have to last. We’ll heat up some of the tinned food for dinner tonight.” Allison took some energy bars over to Neeta and the injured people she was tending. Dan took the proffered energy bar and thanked her. His leg was swathed in bandages, splinted with two pieces of metal, and he was sitting up as best he could with his injured leg stretched out in front of him. Neeta looked sad as Allison handed her an energy bar. “What’s the matter?” she asked the film maker.

  Neeta looked down at Andres. “He’s slipped away from us. I didn’t know how to save him.”

  Allison stooped to inspect Andres. His face was waxy, his eyes closed. She could not detect any sign of breathing. She picked up his wrist to try and find a pulse but found nothing. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

  “He was just too badly injured. We couldn’t help him, not with the limited medical supplies that we’ve got. You’d think there’d be a doctor amongst us.”

  The others had gathered around. Nathan peered over at them, and Pete had his ever-present camera pointed at them. “So the only person who could fly us away from here is dead,” Nathan said. “And our only way out is a plane that is wrecked beyond redemption.”

  “We need to move him out of here,” Allison said. “Nathan, Pete, take him outside.”

  “What’s the point of that?” Nathan asked.

  “We’re in here trying to keep warm,” Allison snapped. “If we move him out into the snow, it will preserve him until we can bury him properly. Pete, put that blasted camera down for a minute and help us out.”

  Pete groaned but handed the camera to Neeta. Nathan grumbled loudly, but between the two of them they got Andres’ body out of the plane and set it down in the snow outside.

  Allison watched them with a heavy heart. Much as she hated to agree with the argumentative Nathan, she feared he had a point. Andres was the first casualty. With no means of escape, and no way of calling for help, how long would it be before the hostile frozen environment they found themselves in claimed another victim?

  CHAPTER 6

  Ellen gasped. All the breath had been knocked out of her. She lay on her back, stunned. The first thing that came to her attention was that she had no new pain. Secondly, something had broken her fall. She lay on something soft.

  She fumbled for her torch. Above her, a torch’s beam waved around. Jake called down, “Ellen? Are you OK?”

  “Yes, I’m fine,” she called back. She found her torch and clicked it on. Immediately, she saw she was in some sort of tunnel. It was man-made, dug into the ground beneath the ice and snow and lined with concrete. She looked up. What she had fallen through appeared to be an entrance; the panel covering it had broken away over time. A pile of blankets provided the padding that had broken her fall. A ladder made of giant steel staples affixed to the wall provided access from the hatch. Ellen shone her torch down the tunnel. About ten feet along, another ladder of staples was embedded in the wall – likely up into the watch tower. Beyond it, the corridor carried on another few feet before reaching a junction. There looked to be another corridor going off to the right, while the path ahead ended in a steel door. It was too dark for Ellen to be able to see clearly.

  Jake’s torch shone directly down onto her face. She squinted up, unable to see anything beyond the dazzling glare.

  “Where are you?” David asked.

  “I’m in a tunnel,” Ellen said. “This is no natural formation. It’s definitely man made.”

  “So what’s down there?”

  “I can’t tell.” Ellen squinted down the tunnel, trying to see beyond the light from her torch. “But it looks like there are rooms up there.”

  “Maybe it goes all the way over to that other structure on the surface.”

  “There’s something else. Look at this.” Ellen shone her torch onto the staples in the wall. “I fell into an entranceway.”

  “But an entrance to what?” Jake asked.

  “That’s the question.”

  Ellen turned the beam of her torch onto the pile of blankets. They appeared to be made out of uniform grey wool. “I think this might have been a military base.”

  “I’m not aware of any record of a military base all the way out here,” Jake said. “Stand back, we’re coming down.”

  “While you boys are organising yourselves, I’m going to take a look at what’s down this tunnel.” Ellen walked down the corridor, pausing at the junction and taking the turn off to the right. About fifty feet down, she came to what looked like an avalanche, frozen into a thick, solid block of ice. A blast of cold air puffed into Ellen’s face, having snuck in through the collapsed concrete.

  She shivered and turned back, locating the steel door she’d spotted set into the corridor wall. She tugged it open and stepped into a comms room. Consoles dominated an entire wall with two chairs in front of it. Dials and switches covered the consoles. In the middle was a microphone. Beyond the room, the corridor carried on into darkness, continuing north. Ellen stared out at the darkness beyond. Her stomach clenched. She took a step back, her eyes pinned to the darkness but then Jake and David caught up to her.

  “Hey, a radio.” David pounced on the console.

  “It won’t work, of course,” said Jake.

  David flicked a few switches. The console remained dark. “Not yet, but give me a few hours.”

  Jake snorted. “What, you think you can fix it?”

  “I can fix anything.”

  “Whatever you say.” Jake crossed the room, heading for the northward corridor.

  “No!” Ellen said.

  Jake turned around. “What?”

  “I’m not sure. I just have a strange feeling about this place. I don’t think we should go wandering around anymore.”

  “There can’t be anything here,” Jake said. “This place has been abandoned for years. But it looks like it might have been a base, and it’s worth checking out. It could be a good place to shelter.”

  “Well, unless you’ve got claustrophobia,” David said, looking at Ellen. “That would account for your anxiety.”

  “I’ve never suffered from claustrophobia before,” Ellen said.

  “Maybe not, but we’ve just been through a traumatic event. It could have been brought on by stress.”

  “What, David, you’re a doctor now?”

  “It would be fucking useful if he was.” Jake stepped into the corridor with his torch.

  “So what’s down there?” Ellen asked.

  Jake came back into the room. “It goes down a fuck of a long way. We should check the other way though. Always clear what’s behind you first.”

  Ellen and David followed Jake as he
backtracked to the other side of the comms room and took a left turn down the east corridor. “There’s an avalanche blocking the way,” Ellen said.

  “So I see. But there’s also a door.” Jake leaned against the door in the north wall and pushed. The door didn’t budge.

  “What, is it locked?”

  “Why would it be locked, out here?” David said.

  “I don’t think it’s locked,” Jake said. “Just jammed. If we all put our backs into it we can probably force it.”

  The three of them braced against the door. “OK, on three,” Jake said. “One, two, three!” They pushed, grunting with the effort. Ellen thought she felt the door give a bit, but it didn’t open.

  “Again!” Jake said. “One, two, three!” Once more they pushed. The door abruptly swung open with a horrendous creak. Ellen slipped on the icy concrete, colliding with Jake, who fell over and barrelled into David. They ended up in a tangled pile on the ground.

  Ellen climbed to her feet, leaving the two boys to sort themselves out. The door had opened into a dark room that felt several degrees colder. Ellen shivered again despite her many layers of clothing. She sniffed the air. A musty, unpleasant smell. She scrabbled about on the floor, looking for the torch she’d dropped in the fall.

  Jake was on his feet. “OK then. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The rectangular room looked like an administrative centre. There were two scratched wooden desks, one pushed up against the east wall and one against the west wall, each with a leather office chair behind it. Between the desks, pushed up against the longer north wall, was a four-drawer metal filing cabinet. On one of the desks was an ancient manual typewriter, on the other a set of metal office trays filled with paperwork. The room had a cold impersonal feel, and the musty smell of a place that had been sealed off and empty for a very long time.

  “Well I guess we know what we’ve found,” Jake said.