Outpost

by Adam Baker

  Rye squeezed her arm through the gap and gripped the grenade, careful not to dislodge the pin. She ripped the grenade free, snapping the thread. She examined the case. AH-M14 thermite grenade.

  She put her eye to the gap and studied the barricade beyond the door. She could see a jumble of furniture. Desks and office chairs. A couple of filing cabinets. She could also see a couple of fine nylon threads, like wisps of cobweb. More grenades rigged around the doorway. If she opened the door wide she would have three seconds' grace before blowtorch heat seared flesh from her bones.

  Rye sealed the hatch.

  She wandered through the ship. She followed a draught of Arctic wind until she reached the gash ripped in Hyperion's prow by the collision with the rig. An evacuation sign, a running man fleeing flames, pointed to where jagged, ice-dusted metal framed the night sky.

  Rye stepped over buckled floor plates. She stood in the great wound and looked out at the stars, the sea, the lunar crags of the island.

  There had been rumours. Months ago, Jane and Punch had returned to the rig from the island with crates. They had visited the site of a seismic research station and returned with some kind of munitions. The secret revealed: boxes of thermite grenades.

  The grenades were not designed to explode and spit shrapnel like conventional anti-personnel ordnance. Once triggered, they burned at four thousand degrees for a full minute. The brief nova-heat could turn an engine block to a puddle of liquid metal in seconds. Arctic drill teams used them to melt quickly through permafrost.

  Would it hurt if she lay down, pulled the pin and quickly wedged the grenade beneath her head like a pillow? Three, maybe four seconds of unimaginable pain as flesh crisped and flaked from her skull, then her brain would fizz and boil away. Her thoughts and memories would be vapour.

  Do it, she told herself, for the sake of the Rampart crew. Do it for them.

  The diesel tanks. A steady gush of fuel. Rye descended a ladder and waded knee-deep. She held the grenade. No more excuses. All she had to do was stand between the huge fuel tanks, wreathed in diesel vapour, and pull the pin. The blast would measure in megatons.

  She hooked the grenade ring with her finger. What about the Rampart crew? She shook her head, tried to think straight. The guys were a couple of floors above her. If she detonated the grenade they would burn.

  She looked down at the red cylinder in her hand. She was tired. She just wanted to sleep.

  Rye woke. She lifted her head from a table. Green felt. House must stand on 17. She looked around. The casino. The blackjack table. The game.

  'Welcome back,' said the dealer. He smiled with cracked and bloody lips. His face had begun to disintegrate. Skin hung in strips. 'I thought we'd lost you. Thought your lights were out for good. Well. Maybe tomorrow, if you're lucky. It surely won't be much longer.'

  He skimmed a couple of playing cards across the table. Rye didn't bother reading her hand. She pushed a couple of chips towards the centre.

  'Not going to check your cards?' he asked. 'Dancing to the music of chance?'

  He drew seven. Bust.

  Rye gestured to the empty seats around her.

  'So the others all turned?'

  'One by one. I'm glad for them, but I can't help asking, why not me? Why am I left behind?'

  'The breaks.'

  'Those fucking breaks. It's just you and me now. The living dead.'

  'I feel like I've drawn the short straw all my life. Forgive the self-pity. I just want it to be done.'

  'It'll happen, sister. Don't you worry.'

  'I'm scared. I want to do something, take steps, if you know what I mean. But I have to admit, I'm scared.'

  The dealer gestured to his legs. Rye craned to see beneath the table. Metal tendrils had burst from the dealer's shoes. They had punctured the carpet and fused with the deck plate beneath. It looked like he had taken root.

  'Sadly, I'm not as mobile as I was. If I could get out of this chair I'd jump over the side.'

  Rye took the grenade from her pocket and placed it on the table.

  'I found this. I don't have the courage to use it.'

  'Mind if I take it from you?'

  'Be my guest.'

  Rye slid the grenade across the table. The dealer examined it like a barstool drunk contemplating the bottom of his shot glass.

  'Obliged to you.'

  'Thank you for your company these past few days,' said Rye. 'It's been a comfort.'

  'Good luck, Liz.'

  Rye woke. She was sitting on a bed. Whose bed? She was in a third-class cabin. Cramped. Trashed by a previous occupant. Clothes and coins on the floor.

  Blood on the bed sheets. Whose blood? Hers? The blood was black and old.

  She stood up. A monster in the mirror. A face weeping metal. Eyes behind a mask of spines. She smashed the mirror with a grotesque club-hand.

  Rye woke. Silver walls. She was standing in one of the walk-in freezers. A mouthful of rotten meat. A big slab of ribs, furred green, hung in front of her on a hook. Bite marks on the ribs. Rye spat half-chewed fat and splintered bone on to the floor. No substitute for fresh sinew, for sinking her teeth into warm flesh.

  She turned to leave, but jerked to a stop. Her left hand was frozen to the wall. How long had she stood catatonic? Her clothes were stiff with ice. She tugged her hand away from the metal. Skin tore. No pain. A palm-print glued to the wall.

  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.
r />   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.

  Part Three

  Fallback

  The Refuge

  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.'
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  '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.

  He once heard that a group of Soviet dissidents, exiled to work in a Siberian mine, discovered a mammoth preserved in ice. They cut strips and chewed it like jerky. It kept them alive.

  Long corridors. Dormitories and offices. Desks and typewriters matted with stone dust. A military situation room frozen in time. Cold war Soviet maps. Portraits of Lenin. Rusted telex machines. Heavy dial phones.

  Metal-frame furniture. Nothing to burn.