Mask

by C. C. Kelly

  Doc Larson nodded and ran back to the Rec-room.

  Lane took a deep breathe and descended the stairs.

  Everyone on the stairs grew quiet and stared at Lane as he past them. One step at a time, one couple; one step, one family; one step, another family; one step, Catherine, Lilly and William.

  He stopped and Catherine stood up and held him so tight he thought he would suffocate right there on the steps. Lilly and William each took a leg and held on for dear life. Paul, a young member of Lane’s staff looked up at him with helpless pity.

  “Catherine, it’s time.”

  “We heard a shot, what happened?”

  “A survivor from Outpost 11 made it all the way here. Everyone else, the other Outposts, they’re all gone, we’re the last. They’ve won this battle.”

  “And the shot?”

  “He had one bullet left. He used it.”

  Catherine hugged him one last time for strength and then released him.

  Lane knelt in close and whispered, “Remember, the parents first. The kids will be the very last. I don’t want a fight down here?”

  “We might still be saved, you know.”

  Lane smiled, “Another reason to leave them for last, just in case.”

  He kneeled down and hugged Lily and William and they looked at him with trust and fear. He couldn’t take it any longer and gently pushed them back to Catherine. As he stood, Larry Tolsen emerged at the top of the stairs with Doc Larson trailing.

  Together they made a path through the waiting colonists, the victims.

  Wally greeted them at the door. They all walked in and Wally paused. He stared at the gathering and all of those questioning eyes for a moment and then closed the door.

  ******

  “What the hell is it?” Larry asked.

  “Mercy, quick and painless,” Doc Larson said soothingly.

  “How does it work?”

  Lane answered, “Don’t worry about it.”

  Lane looked around the room and noted the blankets and towels piled on one side. He reached up gently and pushed Larry back against the track and guided his head into the space between the bright red tomato and the backer plate.

  “We don’t even have last rights or anything?” Larry asked.

  “Father Timmons left with Glenda. Suicide wasn’t a solution for him, I’m afraid,” Lane said.

  They all looked at each other, the inevitable having been put off for as long as possible. Now their mettle was about to be tested, could they do this? Would they do this?

  Larry took a deep breathe and grabbed Lane’s hand.

  “It won’t hurt? You sure?”

  “You won’t feel anything, just instant sleep,” Doc Larson said.

  “Okay. Good luck. I feel like a coward.”

  “Trust me, you’re not. I know what they’ll do to us if they take us alive,” Lane said.

  “No,” Larry responded, “I meant going first.”

  Lane smiled and Larry smiled back.

  “Okay,” Larry said, “let’s do this. I’m ready.”

  He leaned back against the track, pushed his hands flat against the block wall and closed his eyes, preparing himself for the end.

  Lane looked at each of his friends as he raised the trigger. The machine hummed. The blow-off valve waited impatiently to sing. The pressure was increasingly eager.

  The moment was solitary, finite, contracting. The room became smaller and smaller. Lane felt Larry breathing. He saw Carson’s body. He saw Lilly and William laughing and dancing around Catherine. He felt the colonists pressing against the Equipment Room door like meat hanging from the butcher’s hooks. He felt the fear and the hopelessness. He felt the love and solidarity that had held them all together this last day. A crushing wave of doubt rushed over him, he couldn’t do this.

  What had he been thinking?

  What had he convinced these people to do?

  What madness had possessed him?

  He remembered the holocaust that was Outpost 3.

  He pressed the trigger.

  ******

  Lane had been afraid Larry’s head would explode, but it had worked as he hoped — just like a light switch. And while Larry’s head remained intact, the particulate matter pushed out by the punch had squished against the back plate and sprayed the room like an exploding water balloon.

  Wally pushed the cart in front of Larry as the punch retracted. Larry fell across it like a rag doll. His head bled out like a full milk jug that had fallen on its side. Wally rushed to push the arms and legs onto the cart. He wheeled it into the Bunker and with Doc Larson’s help, removed Larry and laid him on the ground.

  They returned to find Lane bent over, sucking air.

  “It worked. Can you do this Lane?” Larson asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, “get that wash basin over there cleared off. I’m going to puke eventually.”

  Doc Larson went over and opened the door to call his next patient. Wally scribbled Larry’s name in the ledger. There wasn’t going to be time for this. He tossed the pen aside and returned to the machine room with the cart.

  ******

  Catherine watched Larry disappear behind the Equipment Room door and wrapped her arms around Lily even tighter. One by one they would all disappear behind that final sacrificial door and enter the world of Legend and Myth, tales of the early space adventurers that had sacrificed their lives to forge a new frontier of human achievement — or some such horseshit to get more volunteers out here to the edge of Hell.

  She heard a shout and turned. She recognized Allen’s excited voice. Dee stood up from the step below Catherine and reached out for Lily. Catherine handed over her daughter and leaned close to Dee.

  “Tell Lane, don’t let anyone go in there,” she said pointing.

  Dee nodded, taking William by the hand as Catherine turned and raced up the stairs.

  Catherine met Allen running around the corner.

  “What?” she asked.

  “We have a signal, they’re sending an EVAC.”

  Together they raced back along the glass lined corridor to the radio room. As they neared the doorway Catherine heard the crackling voice of the pilot through the monitoring speakers.

  “Repeat Outpost 9, emergency EVAC in route. Forty-five seconds out. Coming in hot to the southern air-lock. Over.”

  Tim pressed the ‘call’ button. “Roger, the aliens are massed to the northeast. Over,” Tim responded, sounding much older than his years.

  “Roger. Northeast. We have them on imaging. Get your people to the air-lock. Dust off will be quick. Space for twenty-two on board, repeat twenty-two,” the crackling voice said.

  Catherine grabbed Allen’s arm and nodded towards the stairs.

  “Twenty-two,” she repeated, “get the parents and kids.”

  He smiled and sprinted into the hall. She turned back, placed her hands on Tim’s shoulders and kneaded them slightly staring at the on-screen displays.

  “Some of us might make it out of here yet,” she said.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He never used the Ident codes. He just started talking.”

  “So?”

  Tim turned in his chair and looked up. “It’s procedure.”

  “But this is an emergency, I’m sure he forgot. Everyone is about to die down here. It’s just nerves Tim. It’s going to be okay. No one is thinking straight.”

  “No, you aren’t thinking either, Mrs. Pierce. The Ident codes are used especially for emergencies. Something isn’t right here. That isn’t something anyone out here would forget.”

  “But what would that mean?”

  “I don’t know. But all communication has been jammed for two days now. How did he get through now?”

  “Proximity?” Catherine asked.

  “Doesn’t work like that, Mrs. Pierce.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “A trap?”

  “I don’t know why, but that’s what
it feels like.”

  “Feels?”

  “Yeah, it just feels wrong. It feels wrong just like it did when Dad left. I knew I was never going to see him again. That felt wrong too.”

  Catherine turned and leaned onto the door frame, waiting for the first of the colonists to come running up the stairs with renewed hope. She stared back at Tim.

  “But how?”

  He just shook his head.

  ******

  Doc Larson opened the door to the vestibule and Dee Roe shouted at him.

  “They’ve got a radio call. Catherine said to stop.”

  “Stop, we’ve got an EVAC,” Allen shouted as he turned the corner at the top of the stairs.

  Larson looked up to see Allen smiling.

  “Twenty-two. They have space for twenty-two. We need to get the families down to the main air-lock,” Allen shouted.

  Doc Larson leaned back into the room and met Lane’s eyes and then Wally’s. They all glanced at the blood trail the led into the Bunker.

  “This changes nothing for most of us,” Lane said, “let’s get top-side and see what’s going on.”

  The three of them pushed into the vestibule and ushered everyone back up the stairs.

  Lane nodded his thanks to Dee for taking care of Lily and William for him.

  Everyone moved quickly and calmly up the stairs and out into the main Outpost corridor that ran like a spine through the complex, terminating at the southern air-lock.

  Once in the corridor, Lane lifted his voice and firmly said, “We have room for twenty-two, so families go first. Nothing has changed for the rest of us.”

  “Why?” Zack Leiffer, one of the Cosmologists, asked. He was a heavy-set, middle age, sour colonist and recent arrival.

  “Why what?” Lane asked.

  “Why families? I want to live, too. I have just as much right.”

  Zack’s eyes began to dart about and began to glaze over with the same sheen that Glenda’s had the previous evening in the commander’s office.

  “Zack, good point.” Lane said sympathetically.

  Lane stepped quickly over and then sucker punched Zack in the face. Blood exploded from the impact, which broke his nose and scattered teeth across the tile floor. Zack collapsed like a marionette, just like Larry had.

  “Any questions?” Lane asked, looking around at the other bewildered colonists. “When you get down there, Doc Larson will discuss how to get to the ship without the enviro-suits. Just stay calm.”

  Doc Larson took the lead and then felt the ground begin to move. He paused and look to his right.

  He and the colonists could now see the outlines of the EVAC ship coming into view through the west science lab windows. The grav-engines vibrated the structure, glass panels undulating in waves. A mild nausea overtook many of them and some were affected so severely they had to brace themselves against the walls to stave off vertigo.

  The brick-shaped ship hung mere feet above the ground, dark purple over black paint outlined by the glow from the blue grav-engine emissions. It followed their movements, running in parallel towards the end of the complex, broad circles of light illuminating the magenta grass.

  Catherine grabbed Lane from behind and pulled him aside. She led him back up the hallway as she spoke.

  “Tim has a feeling something is wrong.”

  “What? I mean this isn’t anymore certain than what we were planning downstairs,” Lane said.

  “No, he thinks something is wrong with the EVAC. He thinks it may be Them.”

  Lane looked ahead to see Tim standing in the radio room doorway. He nodded his head in agreement.

  “Why?” Lane asked.

  “No Ident. No signal jamming, but only for this one channel and it’s not even the emergency channel to boot,” Tim answered.

  Lane looked down the long line of colonists, gathering at the end the hallway for a hope that now might not even be real. It was cruel.

  Wally slowly walked into the corridor. “We saved?”

  “No Wall, it’s even worse now. Get back downstairs. I think we’re going to have to work fast.”

  He grimaced, but headed back downstairs.

  “Dee,” Catherine shouted, “Dee, wait!”

  Dee was walking slowly behind most of the colonists when she heard the call and stopped with a questioning look.

  Catherine motioned her back. Dee still carried Lily and held William’s hand, leading him back to his parents.

  Lane stared at his wife and then sprinted along the hallway to overtake the colonists.

  Catherine took a crying Lily from Dee and rested her head against her child’s shoulder, running her hand through her hair.

  “It’s a trap, Dee — a goddamn trap.”

  “No, we’re going home.”

  “Dee, listen. It’s a trap, it’s them. No one is escaping this shit hole.”

  “No, no, you’re wrong,” Dee said as she began to back away. “You’ve gone crazy, Mrs. Pierce. You don’t really have a death wish, do you? You don’t want to kill your kids, you can’t.”

  “Dee, please listen,”

  Dee grabbed William’s arm and pulled him close. He winced and looked up at Dee and then to his mother with surprise and started crying. “I won’t let you, Mrs. Pierce, I won’t.”

  “Let go of my son, Dee. Now!”

  William wailed and push against her tenacious grip as Dee pulled him down the corridor.

  Catherine started to panic; she couldn’t fight Dee while she was holding Lily, who had wrapped her arms around Catherine’s neck tight to the point of choking.

  She could see the line of bobbing heads racing down the dark corridor, reflections along the glass walls, lemon jump-suits, a menagerie of happiness and the macabre — racing into the abyss as though it were a ride at an amusement park.

  “William! Dee!” she screamed.

  As Dee turned to run, Allen was suddenly behind her. She stopped and stared into his dead eyes.

  “But we must save the children,” she said.

  Allen, a pacifist at heart, was contemplating the jig-saw puzzle he was about to create out of her face, but saw the hopelessness in her eyes and changed his mind. He gently pulled William away from her and stepped aside. Dee leaned back against the glass wall and slid along it for a few paces and then turned and fled towards the air-lock.

  Catherine mouthed a silent ‘thank-you’ and reached out for William who ran back to her. She couldn’t see Lane anymore, and deep down she knew his mission was hopeless. Given this last minute reprieve, no one was going to listen to reason. She was most worried about Lane getting safely back to her now. So we can go back downstairs and kill ourselves, she thought. She just shook her head at the absurdity of it all.

  ******

  “Doc, this isn’t right. We think it might be a trap,” Lane said as he reached Larson, who was standing by the air-lock controls.

  “Hell of a difference there Lane, is it a trap or isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, but something is way off. Something is wrong; Tim could feel it in the radio transmissions.”

  “Well Hell, if Tim felt something, why didn’t you just fucking say so, Lane? I mean shit, if he had a feeling, what more do we need to know? Perhaps we should put his sensitive ass in charge of this shin-dig.”

  “Doc?” Lane asked looking up into Larson’s eyes searching for any sign that he was losing it.

  “Stop looking at me like that, I’m not Glenda. We need real information here. We can’t send all of these people back down to the basement, with an EVAC sitting right here, because some teenager had a feeling.”

  “I’m not putting my kids on it Doc.”

  Doc Larson examined his friend and nodded as he turned back to the colonists.

  “Everyone, stay calm. The EVAC has a problem and can’t take anyone. We need to head back downstairs.”

  “Fuck that,” someone screamed.

  “The cargo bay doors are opening,” another colonist shouted a
nd pointed.

  The ship had settled down on the grass outside the air-lock, utility lights had come on illuminating a shimmering path from the air-lock to the ship.

  “No, I assure you — everyone please listen, we have a problem. Let’s get going now,” the Doc tried again.

  Doc Larson caught a glimpse of movement and dodged just in time to avoid a round-house punch.

  Lane pulled him out of the way, nearly tripping over Carson’s body that still lay in the air-lock vestibule. They worked their way around to the back of the mob.

  Lane noticed that the families were standing at the back, fear in their eyes as they clutched their children.

  Lane shouted over the mob, “Look people, the aliens aren’t firing on them. Something is wrong, let’s pull back, now people. Let’s go.”

  The families and a few others began moving away from the mob and back down the corridor when the inner air-lock doors opened and the colonists fell, pushing and shoving, into the chamber. The mob split into two at that point. Zack Leiffer held his bloody face and glared at Lane as he pushed through the families and ran to the air-lock doors.

  Those at the rear, numbering a little over twenty, began moving quickly back towards the Rec-room. The rest of the colonists filled the air-lock vestibule, shouting and screaming at one another. A colonist had triggered the manual over-ride and at last the inner doors closed and the outer doors opened.

  Doc Larson jumped over to the main air-lock control panel and after a few moments bypassed the manual over-ride and returned the controls to normal operation and closed the outer doors.

  But by then it was too late. The mob, holding their breath, raced across the grass to the waiting ship, pushing one another, stumbling and falling. They leapt onto the ship, those in the back pushing in, everyone trying to get inside before they ran out of breath.

  Lane watched helplessly from the vestibule.

  The supply ship doors began to close, more than ten people remained outside, waiting for their chance to board. Fingers clawed at the doors and pulled, while fists pounded on the sides of the ship. The grav-engines began powering up and the stragglers turned to race back to the Outpost. One by one they collapsed, mere feet from the chamber, grasping their throats and faces. Blood erupted between their fingers as the toxic atmosphere began to eat away at their faces.