by Alex Bratton
Isolation
Shadowmark Episode 3
ALEX BRATTON
Antimatter Books
Isolation is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
2018 Antimatter Books
Copyright © 2018 Alex Bratton. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Author Note
Also by Alex Bratton
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter One
After spending the night at the top of the mountain, Lincoln Surrey stumbled into camp with the side of his shirt covered in sticky blood. The night had been the most uncomfortable of his life, stuck at the top of a new tunnel in the chilly air, listening to the wind creak in the trees and whistle through the rocks.
At Lincoln’s appearance, a corporal nudged his buddy, who shouted at someone. At the alert, Robert Carter walked out of the trees, making a beeline for Lincoln. Others were already gathered around him, supporting him, asking questions.
“What happened?” Carter asked, his eyes wide with relief. “We’ve been looking all over for you. You were right behind us. Then the lights went out, and by the time we relit the torches, you were gone. Alvarez and Nelson are in the tunnels looking for you right now.”
“I stumbled upon another way out. Found it in the dark.”
“Didn’t you hear us shouting for you?”
Lincoln shook his head. “I got disoriented. When I walked out, I thought I was heading the right way until I came to the stairs.”
While Carter helped Lincoln back to the hospital tent, Lincoln recounted how he had made it out of the silo.
“Don’t tell the others, but I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to that place, even after I realized I was in the wrong tunnel. It was leading up, and all I could think about was getting out.”
“There is something odd about that room, for sure,” Carter admitted. “But there was only one way in or out. We walked the perimeter extensively. You must have gone out the same door and wandered the wrong direction.”
Lincoln shrugged as they entered the tent. Carter helped him lie on the cot.
“Either that,” Lincoln said as he settled back, “or we found out how Halston got out.”
He hadn’t told Carter about the oppressive darkness or the weird tricks of the torchlight. In the light of day, he had convinced himself he had been feverish, maybe delirious.
“I don’t know, Lincoln. Probably twenty-five people walked that room. No one found another tunnel. Something else must have happened to Halston.”
“What caused the torches to go out?”
“They ran out of fuel.”
“But they had just placed them. They should have burned a few more hours, at least.”
“Yeah, it’s weird, like a lot of other things around here.”
Two other people lay on cots in the hospital tent, a man and a woman. Neither of them were in uniform. The woman slept, but the man looked curiously at Lincoln. Lincoln opened his mouth to ask who they were when the flap opened, and Lindsay Alvarez and Chris Nelson rushed in.
“We thought we’d lost you for good!” Alvarez said. Her brown eyes were rimmed with red behind her glasses, and her hair had come out of its ponytail in odd places.
“We’ve been up all night,” Nelson added as he plopped down in a camp chair. “Where did you go? And how’d you get out? We searched all the side tunnels.”
Lincoln retold his story and was just explaining where he’d spent the night when Colonel Nash walked in with the medic.
“You are either the stupidest or luckiest man I’ve ever met,” the colonel said. “I’ll tell you one thing. I’m not putting any more of mine at risk to save your hide again. From now on, what happens, happens. You’ll have to get yourself out of trouble.”
“I thought I just did?” Lincoln asked, irritated. The medic walked over, ready to tend to Lincoln’s wound.
Nash’s cheeks puffed out in anger, as if what he was about to say would require a lot of air.
“Colonel,” Alvarez interrupted, “I think we’ve found out what this place is.”
Nash deflated somewhat, looking taken aback. “Since when?”
“Since we were down there just now looking for Lincoln.”
“What’d you find?” Lincoln asked, glad to have a reason to change the conversation. He sat up eagerly, even as the medic tried to make him lie still so he could change Lincoln’s bandage.
“You’ve opened some of your stitches,” he said. “You’re going to have to stay here.”
Lincoln ignored him, looking at Alvarez, who glanced at the other civilians in the tent and lowered her voice to address the colonel.
“We’ve assumed all along this was some sort of manmade facility,” she said. “That the US government created it for something they were doing in the fifties. But the only parts that look manmade are the mineshaft, the concrete tunnel leading to the corridors, and the closed-off staircase in Corridor A we told you about.”
Nash stared at Alvarez. “What about the other parts?”
“The workmanship is too precise. The room looks perfectly circular and smooth.”
“So?” Nash said. “Men have designed circular rooms and objects before.”
“Yes, but a perfect circle is impossible,” Carter interjected.
“Well, according to Euclidean geometry, yes,” Alvarez continued. “But that theory has been challenged for centuries. In fact—”
Nelson interrupted Alvarez’s impending lesson with a light tap on the arm. “We have no way of verifying if it’s a perfect circle. That would just make you happy. The point is, the silo is carved directly out of the mountain. How did they do it? How did they get the stone out? Where did they put it? The mineshaft is too small for trucks.”
Nash sighed. “The old-fashioned way—with dynamite and carts. And what about carvings like Rushmore?”
“I don’t think so, Colonel.” Alvarez’s tone was adamant. “Rushmore is not a circle.”
Carter frowned.
Nash paced the small space at the foot of Lincoln’s cot. “What are you saying, Alvarez? That a frigging alien made it?” He laughed at his own joke, but no one else joined him.
“Yes, Colonel. That is exactly what I’m saying. We think miners found it, and ARCHIE took over from there. Corporal Schmidt spotted it first. The stone looks identical to the invaders’ ships.”
“Aliens bored out the core of a mountain?” Nash continued to laugh at what he clearly thought was a joke. “If the invaders had built it, we would have seen them do it.”
“Not if they did it a long time ago,” Lincoln quietly mused, thinking of the mountain’s conical shape.
> “You’re telling me they’ve been on this planet for fifty years? Quietly hollowing out mountains and then leaving them for us to find?”
Alvarez took off her glasses to wipe them on her dirty coat. “It’s possible it has been there for centuries, maybe even millennia, although the lack of erosion would suggest otherwise. I would love to speak to a geologist about it.”
“Right. Let’s just get one on the phone, shall we? You need to do better than that!”
“No,” Lincoln said. He felt nauseated again, but he kept his voice steady. “You need to do better than that, Colonel, because the fact is, a geologist probably has been all over this mountain. A whole team of geologists. But we can’t ask them what they found, can we? Because nobody thought to pass on what they learned. We’ve had to start from scratch, out here in the middle of friggin’ nowhere. Anyone who may have known anything is dead, or we can’t get to them.” Lincoln slid his legs over the edge of the cot. “You won’t speak to my team like that again, Nash, because they are all you have.”
“You were supposed to already know about ARCHIE!”
“All I ever knew about ARCHIE was that it was a program used for communication in the event of an alien invasion. No one told me they already knew aliens were out there somewhere. You either shut up about what we don’t know and start providing some help, some real good help, or we’re leaving. We’ll go find what’s left of our families and friends or live out the rest of our short lives looking for them.”
Chapter Two
Mina trudged after Doyle, who moved through the foliage far ahead. Sometimes, she lost sight of him for minutes at a time, but she refused to ask him to slow down, so she would hike faster, her pack bouncing on her shoulders as she tried to keep up. She hadn’t yet figured out how to keep it from moving around. Bushes and vines grabbed at her legs as she followed Doyle’s path through the dense undergrowth, picking her way over semi-hidden obstacles.
She would need to stop soon. More than once over the last two days, Mina had wished she could pee against a tree like a man instead of ducking for cover behind a rock or in the undergrowth. She chided herself for the thought. It’s not an issue. Don’t make it a big deal.
And then there was the gun. She always sensed it back there. It seemingly weighed more than her whole pack. Mina had tried adjusting it so the backpack wouldn’t press it into the flesh of her back, but even when she moved it to the side, it bothered her. She wanted to toss it into the woods and never think of it again.
Doyle seemed undisturbed by her problems. He kept to himself and didn’t ask questions. When he was close enough to talk at all, he spoke only of hiking. Not that Mina typically had much energy left for talking. She always collapsed at the end of their long days.
Unable to hold her bladder any longer, Mina took a detour to some boulders, carefully checking for snakes before hiding behind them to relieve herself. When she emerged, Doyle was nowhere in sight. Terrified he would leave her behind, she called out to him to slow down while she hefted the backpack higher on her shoulders. To Mina’s relief, Doyle turned and walked back to her.
He held out his hand for the pack. “Give it to me.”
“Thanks! I didn’t know how much longer I could carry it.” She bent over to catch her breath.
Doyle glanced at her then adjusted the straps before handing it back. She looked at him, bewildered.
“What?” he asked. “You thought I was going to carry it for you?”
Embarrassed, Mina blushed and shouldered the bag once again. No, she hadn’t expected him to carry it for her. She’d simply misread him.
Once the pack was over her shoulders, Doyle cinched all the straps, securing the ones across her waist and chest.
“There. Like that,” he said when he finished. “All the weight should rest on your hips, not your shoulders. Got it?”
Mina already felt the difference. “Yes,” she replied.
“Okay then.” He set off again at the same pace as before.
Mina took the opportunity to hike beside him. “Can we build a campfire tonight?”
Doyle had been adamant about not building one for the last two nights.
“What is it with you and fire?” he asked.
Mina sighed. “It’s warm, for one thing, and I’m tired of being blind from dusk to dawn.”
“The more time you spend in the dark, the faster your eyes will adjust.”
“I thought that was a myth. Is that why you see so well in the dark?”
Doyle nodded.
Mina ran to keep up with him. He wasn’t even sweating. She panted slightly, timing her words with her breathing. “Do you really think the Glyphs will see it?”
“Always a possibility.” He sped up.
Mina’s pack still bounced around as she tried to keep pace but not as badly as before.
Doyle smirked. “Marathons, huh?”
“Ever run one?”
“No.”
Mina thought of a couple snarky responses, but she didn’t have the breath to continue the conversation.
They hiked the rest of the day in silence, stopping to make camp on a gently sloping shelf near the bottom of the mountain. Frogs croaked somewhere below.
Worn out, Mina sank down against a tree and closed her eyes, waiting for her heart rate to slow.
Doyle retrieved a small hatchet from his pack. “Still want a fire?”
She looked at him through bleary eyes. “Sure.”
“Would you rather gather kindling or chop up that small fallen tree over there?” He pointed with the ax to the tree.
The tree wasn’t so small.
“Kindling.” Mina would need all night if she had to chop wood.
Doyle walked over to the tree and began lopping off the first branches with a single stroke. The sharp crack of metal splitting wood carried through the forest. Mina stood on shaky legs. At the rate he was working, Doyle would have the firewood ready before she removed her pack. She sighed, unbuckled the straps, and looked around for kindling.
Beech and elm trees surrounded the area, and the ground was littered with an abundance of old dry leaves. Mina gathered armfuls and carried them to their campsite, just as she had when making her own fires.
Doyle dumped freshly spliced logs on the ground and shook his head. “We’re starting a fire, not sending smoke signals. You need small dry twigs—lots of them.” He kicked at the pile of leaves and stomped off to collect more wood.
Mina huffed and searched for twigs, carrying back what she could find. When she returned, Doyle showed her how to build the fire slowly from the kindling by lighting it with a ball of moss and twigs he had woven loosely together. He gradually added larger pieces of wood until they had a decent, hot blaze.
Mina smiled, holding out her hands to absorb the heat. Something as simple as a campfire could be so reassuring.
“So, where are you from, Doyle?” she asked in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Doyle sat down next to the fire. “Have you ever been camping before this?”
“No,” she answered, taken aback.
She expected Doyle to ask her more, but he only looked into the fire.
“I guess you’re not going to tell me where you’re from then,” she shot at him.
Doyle stretched out on the ground, using his backpack for a pillow. “We can both get some sleep tonight. No need to keep watch.”
“How do you know?”
He didn’t respond.
“Shouldn’t we hang our food in a tree or something?”
“Why?”
“Because of the bears.”
“Bears won’t bother me.”
Mina scoffed. “They might bother me.”
“Then hang the food in a tree. I don’t care.”
Mina looked up into the tall trees surrounding them. None of them had low branches she would be able to reach. She sighed loudly, willing herself not to vent her frustration at Doyle. He had helped her, and antagonizing him would likely
end with Mina on her own again.
He slept immediately. Mina was enjoying the fire too much to sleep yet, so she contented herself with thinking about the last few days. Anything further back than that prompted a familiar anxious feeling in her chest.
Her mind drifted there anyway. Her world had changed drastically in a few short weeks. Cities burned, people murdered, gangs running around with guns. Before the invasion, Mina had been comfortable, happy. Now, everything and everyone she knew was in danger.
Blood was rushing to her brain, but it had nothing to do with her thoughts. She shifted around to lie on her back with her head uphill from her feet.
What had happened to her godparents, Karen and Tom? Were they out there somewhere, surviving like Mina? Where was her mother? Had she lived through the attacks? Mina’s stomach churned with disgust. No, she wouldn’t waste time worrying about a woman she hadn’t seen in twenty-two years, a woman who had abandoned her family.
Mina sniffed and then exhaled slowly, watching her breath mist in the air.
The fire had burned low by the time she finally slept wrapped snugly in her blanket. She dreamed about the face again, the one that had rescued her at the airport. The man had been covered in ash, she realized now. Then, smoke had obscured him again. When it had lifted, the face had changed into the specter at the creek, its terrible eyes calling out to Mina. The orbs pulled her closer, insisting she look into the void.
Mina jerked awake. She must have called out in her sleep because Doyle woke as well. He leapt to his feet so quickly, gun in hand, that Mina assumed he had not been sleeping after all.
She sat up. “Sorry! Bad dream.”
Doyle glared at her, holstered his gun, and picked up another log for the fire.
The original dream came back to her. Mina could not shake the image of the airport. Someone had been there.
