Ice Rift - Siberia

by Ben Hammott

  “Zombified DNA-altered apes, cool!” said Verez, smiling. “It’ll be like playing a PlayStation shooter game taking them out.”

  Zacharov shook his head in dismay. “I very much doubt they have any apes here and definitely none that have been zombified. Just stay sharp and don’t fire at anything until you’re certain it isn’t human. There are still, or was a short while ago, people alive down here.”

  They focused on the doors with weapons raised when the elevator juddered to a halt and the doors slid open.

  Verez and Jaroslav stepped out. Standing back-to-back, they aimed their weapons along the empty passageways.

  Zacharov glanced along the corridor as he pulled out the map of the facility. He unfolded it and found their position.

  Looking over his shoulder, Makar tapped a finger on the plan. “There’s the security office. As there’s no sign of those three scientists we were meant to meet up with, we could head there and look at the CCTV feeds to find out who or what is about and if anyone needs our help.”

  Zacharov nodded. “Let’s do it, but we move slow and controlled.” He tapped Verez on the shoulder. “No shooting at shadows. Identify, appraise and shoot if required. That goes for the rest of you. If anyone shoots a scientist, they’ll suffer the consequences. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” They replied sharply in unison.

  “Makar, you lead. Verez, you’re at the rear. I don’t want anything creeping up on us.”

  “You can rely on me, sir.”

  They moved along the corridor in an alert, tight group that almost looked professional and nearly made Zacharov proud. Checking each room as they went, they moved stealthily towards the security office.

  Makar raised an arm. “Scientist, dead.”

  Zacharov pushed through his men gawping at the corpse and knelt to examine it. Stripped of flesh, he could see some of the bones showed evidence of melting. His gaze scanned the area around the corpse for signs of scorching, but there were none.

  Makar voiced his thoughts. “What could melt bone but leave no evidence of fire?”

  “Acid!” stated Verez. “Maybe the creature responsible spits acid or something like that thing in the American Alien movie.”

  “That alien didn’t spit acid, its blood was acid,” corrected Jaroslav. “And there’s no acid damage to the floor.

  “Quiet, you lot,” ordered Zacharov, now convinced someone or something was in here killing people. “Stay alert.”

  He nodded at Makar to lead. They stepped around the skeleton and headed along the corridor.

  MAKAR TURNED A CORNER and stared along the dark corridor stretching out before him. At its end, the light from a junction still with light revealed nothing obstructing the square of yellow tinted light between them and it. When Makar edged forward to let the others enter the dark passage, something crunched beneath his feet.

  Taking a small flashlight from his pocket, Zacharov pushed forward and aimed it at the floor. The beam reflected off broken lightbulb shards.

  “Someone, or something, broke them deliberately,” whispered Makar.

  Frowning, Zacharov aimed the light along the passage. It was creepy as hell but appeared absent of any menace. He glanced at Makar. “Move slow and cautious.” He turned to the others. “Heads on a swivel.”

  His men nodded.

  Each glass-crunching step amplified their unease as Makar led them forward.

  About halfway along, Zacharov aimed his light at a section of the ceiling he had noticed was different from the rest. It was black. At first, he thought fire might have been responsible, but the straight edges at either end indicated otherwise. It was as if someone had fixed a long board as wide as the corridor to the ceiling. As he directed the light away, he thought he detected movement within the black and shifted it back. He gasped when the ceiling rippled. The warning he shouted when it dropped was quickly muffled by the rubbery black blanket that smothered them.

  Men yelled in surprise and pushed hands at the Black to free themselves, but it stretched like tar and then flowed over them like treacle. They screamed when the burning started. Panicked gunfire erupted. Bullets punched holes in the Black and peppered the ceiling and walls. A line of bullets fired from Jaroslav’s weapon crept up Makar’s back, shattering his backbone and cutting short his pain and life when the bullets reached his head. The Black held Makar’s corpse upright as it enveloped him.

  Zacharov had never felt such pain. His whole body burned. Lit by the flashlight now stuck in the oozing substance, he watched his Black-gloved hands melt. He closed his eyes when the ooze flowed over his face and screaming, prayed death came swiftly.

  Jaroslav stumbled back firing when something fell on him and wrapped around his head. It burnt like acid. He screamed as his melting skin slithered from his skull. Forcing his finger from the trigger, he dragged the weapon through the clinging substance and turned it on himself. As he pulled the trigger, he said goodbye to his wife and son he would never see again.

  Knocked away when Jaroslav barged into him, Verez stumbled clear of the black and tripped to the floor. Screams and weapon fire rolled him onto his back with his rifle ready to fire. His mouth dropped open when he saw the sheet of rubbery Black covering his comrades, their forms and stretching hands pushing at the pliable mass visible in the elastic cloak that liquified before his eyes and began flowing over them. Reluctant to fire for fear of hitting his comrades, he jumped to his feet and shouldered the rifle. When he rushed forward to pull his nearest comrade free, an arm of one of his comrades shot through the mass. He froze and watched in horror as the flesh slipped from the man’s fingers and hand and rolled back on itself when it traveled down the raised arm. The black flowed up the arm and pulled it back into its mass.

  Verez, sickened and horrified, stepped back when a gooey piece of Black stretched towards him and formed into a sharp spike. Reaching for the rifle as he stumbled backward, he screamed when the spike entered his stomach and continued through until it erupted in a spray of blood out his back. It rose up behind him and yanking him off his feet it curled around his face and pulled him into its mass.

  When the screams and movements of its latest victims ended, EV1L began the absorption process, drawing in the humans’ nourishment like water to a dry sponge.

  CHAPTER 12

  Gateway to the Underworld

  The helicopter pilot’s voice over the headset opened his tired passenger’s eyes that had drooped closed. “We’re here.” The pilot pointed at the large gash in the tundra they sped towards. “Hell’s Mouth.”

  The passenger wiped the spittle of sleep-induced drool from his cheek as he stared at the cancerous growth that blighted the landscape, a vast area of permafrost. It was Mother Nature’s version of a flesh-eating disease whose cliff faces expanded ten meters or more each year farther into the surrounding tundra. The pilot flew around the tadpole-shaped gouge in the frozen earth, currently almost 0.6 miles (1km) long and 282ft (86m) across, and up to 328 (100m) feet deep. Some had labeled the deep pit the Gateway to the Underworld, others called it Hell’s Mouth. However, its actual and less ominous name was Batagaika crater.

  Though some who misunderstood the phenomenon assigned its existence to otherworldly events, Batagaika crater was known as a megaslump, the largest of its kind and still growing. The trigger that led to the crater’s creation started in the 1960s when rapid deforestation caused the ground to be no longer shaded by trees in the warmer summer months. The sunlight then warmed the ground it hadn’t shone on for eons, melting the permafrost and turning it to mud that slumped to form the ever-expanding crater.

  What may prove to be fatal for the current Siberian landscape was good news for scientists and paleontologists. Some parts of the exposed ground reached back two hundred thousand years to the time of long extinct creatures. Trapped in the steadily thawing permafrost were the fossilized remains of ancient forests, mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, cave lions and other ice age giants that once roamed the ar
ea.

  The passenger took in the inhospitable features of the crater’s floor and the steep hills and gullies that dropped away from precarious cliffs forming the sides. People working around the site looked up when the helicopter swooped overhead. He turned his gaze to movement on the cliff that filled the left-side window. A huge chunk of frozen tundra loosened by the thawing process slipped from the steep side and tumbled to the bottom, exposing another section of the past for the scientists and paleontologists to examine.

  As the helicopter decreased its revs, the passenger directed his gaze upon the small group of brightly colored tents pitched on a flattish, raised peak of earth far from the treacherous sides of the pit. When the helicopter turned, hovered and then began its descent onto a flat ridge of ground, a man exited the largest of the tents whipped frantically by the rotor wash and approached the makeshift landing pad. After the helicopter had touched down and the pilot had killed the engine, the passenger slipped off his headset and climbed out.

  The man approaching the helicopter smiled warmly at the disembarking passenger and held out a hand to the man ducking far lower than necessary to clear the slowing rotors. “Hello, Richard. You made it then?”

  Richard grasped the man’s hand and shook. “Hello, brother.” He glanced around at the area encased on all sides by sheer, precarious cliffs that looked too unstable and dangerous to climb. “What arse-end of hell have you brought me to, David?”

  David laughed. “It might not look like much, but we are making some amazing discoveries—treasures of the ice age. We’ve discovered remains of an ancient forest, frozen remains of a musk ox, mammoth, and a 4,400-year-old horse inside the crater, and there is much more down here waiting for us to find. The preservation of some of the frozen specimens is remarkable. Skin, muscle and perhaps even blood and viable DNA have been preserved.”

  Richard had read about the fervor around a new buzzword that was a hot topic in some areas of the scientific community—de-extinction. “That might be of interest to someone keen to bring an extinct beast into the modern world, but I’m not one of them. I’ve faced enough monsters to last a lifetime.”

  “Still the grumpy old sod you always were, Richard. I thought recent events might have mellowed the old you.”

  “Nope, the opposite in fact. I’m more bitter and pissed off with the world than I ever was before.”

  “That’s a shame,” said David sadly. He placed a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “Whatever your mood, it’s good to see you again.” He glanced at the pilot stepping down from the helicopter. “Hi, Lev, did you bring the supplies we requested?”

  The pilot lit a cigarette and aimed a thumb at the helicopter. “All in the back.”

  “Give us a hand to unload, Richard. All the others are out working the ground.”

  After the supplies had been unloaded and stored in one of the tents, the helicopter lifted into the air and flew away.

  Rubbing the base of his aching back, Richard glanced around the site. “Where’s this rock you think might be a meteorite you want me to examine?”

  David pointed towards a section of crumbling cliff. “Over by the edge. It’s too large to move. Follow me. On the way, I have something special to show you.”

  Richard followed his brother along a path formed by the passing of many boot-clad feet. After scrambling over a large section of rough ground, they climbed a mound of hard-packed earth dotted with tufts of coarse grass. Richard gazed over at a group of people gathered under a canopy stretched across metal poles. David descended the mound and strode towards them with Richard following.

  After David had introduced his brother to his team, he led Richard to the wide pit they were currently excavating and waited for him to gaze at the spectacular find.

  Impressed more than he had imagined he would be, Richard wrinkled his nose at the stench rising from the pit—like wet dog times a hundred on the reek-meter—and roamed his eyes over what the team was busy exposing. The large hairy beast was amazingly well-preserved. He stared into the face of the woolly mammoth looking up at him as if it was asleep and could wake at any moment. He altered his gaze to something a man and a woman were working on beside the enormous beast. He took in the animal’s large size, a little over a ‬meter high at the shoulder and two ‬meters long, its large paws tipped with long claws. A formidable beast.

  “Impressive, isn’t it,” commented David. “It’s a cave lion, and there’s two of them.” He shuffled Richard around the side of the pit and pointed out a claw protruding from beneath the mammoth’s back. “They were attacking it when the mammoth fell on it. We believe a flash-freeze event froze them in their attack, preserving them to this day. It’s now a race to free them from the permafrost and preserve them before the rotting process held at bay for thousands of years claims them.”

  “It’s a spectacular find, David, and you and your team are to be congratulated,” complimented Richard, genuinely impressed. “Pity is, it makes my rock from the sky rather boring in comparison.”

  There were a few good-natured chuckles from the gathered group.

  David placed a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “Let’s go look at your meteorite. I think you will be surprised when you see it and will find it as exciting to you as our mammoth and lions are to us.”

  Richard followed his brother farther across the site and nearer the edge of the crater. Rising high above, the cliff revealed thousands of layers of sediment marked out by strips of various shades of brown. It was like looking at a cross section of tree rings made of soil. In a few areas close to the top was what seemed to be roots or rotted vegetation hanging out from the side of the cliff.

  “It’s just over there.”

  Richard turned his attention on his brother and followed him along a rough gully and over two mounds of muddy thawing tundra. After passing around a pile of what looked to be recently excavated earth, he saw it. Immediately he realized if it was a meteorite it was something very special. He moved to the green rock and ran a hand over its rough surface. It was beautiful. He examined each side until he found what he was looking for. He ran excited fingers over the wrinkled glassy coating on one face of the rock that was obviously a fusion crust, a kind of glaze formed when the rock was heated during its passage through Earth’s atmosphere.

  Noticing Richard’s smile and his hard-to-miss excitement, David said, “It seems it’s not such a boring rock after all.”

  Richard smiled at his brother. “Far from it. There will have to be tests to confirm it one way or the other, but from what I can tell from my initial examination is that this” —he slapped the rock with a hand— “is special and might surprise us all.”

  David was genuinely astounded. “I had an inkling it might be something extraordinary and not a typical meteorite, which is why I called you. Is it rare?”

  Richard nodded. “I have a good feeling it is, but I’ll need some of my tools and equipment to carry out a few tests. We also need to work out how it can be moved and transported to England.”

  David glanced up at the approaching grey clouds and the dimming light. “All that might have to wait until tomorrow as it looks like we might be in for some bad weather, strong winds and perhaps snow. Also, night is drawing in.”

  “Though I’m keen to get working on it, it’s waited a few thousand years to be discovered, so I can wait a few hours.”

  “I also expect you’re hungry after your long journey.”

  “I am. What’s for dinner?”

  David grinned. “Your favorite, humble pie.”

  Richard laughed. “Perfect. I think I need a huge plateful.”

  Pleased his brother’s mood had changed to a more cheery and positive outlook, David led him back to camp.

  CHAPTER 13

  EV1Lution

  Sven dragged his eyes away from the exciting story in Horror Island and glanced through the window at the early evening gloom descending on the desolate landscape. His watch revealed his comrades had been gone for thr
ee hours. Wondering what they were doing, he placed the book aside, climbed off the sofa and walked to the coal fire highlighting the room in its cozy red glow. After adding more coal, he slipped on his warm coat, grabbed the binoculars hanging on a nail beside the door, and went outside. He crossed to the road and peered through the binoculars at the distant buildings and focused on the cab of the truck parked by the entrance. It was empty. A sweep of the compound revealed it to be just as vacant.

  Surmising that something must have happened at the facility to hold the men there for so long, he turned his head at Makar’s covered motorcycle. Deciding on his path of action, he nipped inside the hut, slipped on Makar’s driving goggles, slung over his shoulder the rifle he had thus far only fired at inanimate targets, slipped a flashlight into his pocket and went outside. He dragged off the motorcycle’s thermal cover, sat astride the seat and kickstarted it into life. The engine roared like a powerful beast waking from a long slumber. He clicked it into first gear with his foot and pulled away, spraying a jet of soil in his wake when he throttled the powerful machine along the track.

  Slowing down when he reached the compound, Sven steered the bike through the gates and circled the truck before stopping beside the building’s entrance. He switched off the engine, raised the googles and looked at the key card protruding from the electronic lock. Kicking the stand out, he climbed off the bike and approached the door. He slipped the key card out and reinserted it. When the door buzzed, Sven pushed it open. Leaning in, he cast an anxious glance into the empty room.

  Though he had no idea what had brought the men here so hastily or caused them to remain for so long, he no longer felt they were playing a game on him. He slipped his rifle from his shoulder, checked it was ready to fire and walked to the elevator. The doors swished open with a press of the call button. He entered and rode it down to Level 1.