by Jonah Buck
Nobody ever really expected to get shot. It just wasn’t something the human brain had evolved to deal with very well. Upon discovering a large brass pellet inside itself, the body’s initial reaction wasn’t really that different from an unexpected goosing. Usually, they jumped like they’d just sat on a hornets’ nest. There was a big jolt as the body sprang into action.
Most people found themselves on the ground right after that. That was some ancient survival instinct telling them not to get hit again. The body tried to react the same way it would to a surprise insect sting, but with torn muscles and damaged ligaments, everything usually just collapsed on itself. People usually went down and stayed down, because the pain would set in shortly after that.
This man hadn’t done any of that. The first couple of shots she’d fired into him hadn’t affected him in the slightest. The last one did the trick, though. Well, maybe. Denise didn’t want to assume anything at this point.
She pulled some extra ammunition out of her pocket and filled the revolver’s five empty chambers. With her thick gloves, the process was slow and laborious. She never took her eyes off the figure sprawled on the ice, replaying what she’d seen over and over again in her mind. By all rights, the man should have been dead just from the cold. It shouldn’t have taken three bullets to settle the matter.
“Is he dead?” Fletch called.
Denise didn’t bother to answer. The man had been dead the whole time. The real question was whether or not his body had finally accepted that fact.
Taking one careful step at a time, Denise approached the body. It wasn’t moving at all anymore, and that was a good sign. She came up to within a few feet of the corpse and stopped. She didn’t want to stay out here too much longer. There was the omnipresent cold to consider, though her heart was racing fast enough to pump some feeling back into her limbs. There was also the idea that there might be more ghouls like this out here somewhere.
Still, she wanted to make sure the man was actually dead and also give a quick examination. Ideally, she would have turned the body over to Cornelia, who had the skills to say a lot more about its condition, but there was no way to bring the dead man back to Delambre Station, and even if there was a way, it would be impossible to examine him there. There wasn’t really a good way to hide a blackened, bullet-ridden body from the French researchers in their own facility.
She shot the body in the pelvis to test out whether the man was down permanently or not. The body rocked back and forth a little, but there was no other reaction. She mentally marked that experiment down as a success, and then she scooted a little closer. Keeping her revolver aimed at the body, she reached out a foot and tapped the dead man’s legs a couple of times in quick succession before leaping back.
No reaction. Finally confident that the man was as dead as he was going to get, Denise stepped up next to the corpse. The man had a small hole in his forehead, a couple of inches off center. There wasn’t any blood around the rim of the hole. Most likely, all the blood in the man’s body had congealed a while ago.
Even though the bullet hole going in wasn’t particularly dramatic, the exit wound was a godawful mess. The interior of the man’s skull was spread across the ice behind him. Bits of pulverized bone and rubbery-looking grey chunks had left streaks across the ground. Denise assumed that the rubbery-looking bits were pieces of spoiled brain matter. Again, there wasn’t much blood. That only confirmed to Denise that the man had been dead for a while. There had been damn little liquid blood inside his body. It was all coagulated or frozen.
There was something amid the organic wreckage that she couldn’t identify, though. Most of the debris looked about like what anyone would expect to come out of a corpse’s head if the contents had been exploded like an old pumpkin dropped from a great height. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t unexpected, either.
Some of the chunks didn’t really make sense to Denise, though. There were curious fleshy bits that didn’t seem to be brain matter at all. Some of them had a smooth outer surface, but the interior was a mess of different parts. To Denise’s untrained eye, it looked like there were guts and organs and blobs of unknown purpose. Again, she wished she had Cornelia around to tell her what she might be looking at with those chunks. Hell, she wished she even had Metrodora. Maybe St. George’s Squires had some experience with this kind of thing.
She debated picking one of the larger mystery chunks up and taking it with her back to the station. That seemed like a bad idea, though. She didn’t have any sort of baggie to transport it in, and she sure as hell didn’t want to carry it around in her pocket. That thing had just been riding around in a deranged dead man’s head. Aside from the indisputable scientific fact that it was super icky, there was a better than average chance that it was dangerous in some capacity. Maybe it was ridden with some uncategorized disease.
And then there was the problem that she’d have to try to hide it from the researchers back at the station. She didn’t want them knowing she’d been out here.
Now she realized why Benoit had told her not to try to help anyone she found out here. They couldn’t be helped, and they might try to eat her face off. Benoit knew that something had gone horribly wrong out here.
Instead of sifting through the contents of the dead man’s skull, she patted him down instead, looking for any useful information. After a minute of shifting through multiple jacket pockets, she found an identification card.
The picture on the card was completely unrecognizable from the face in front of her. The picture showed a smiling man with thinning hair and ruddy cheeks. Denise assumed it was the same man as the husk in front of her, but there was no way to tell just by looking. Going through the rest of the man’s pockets only yielded a couple of coins and some lint. She looked at the identification card again and noted the name. Leon Villiers. Then she slipped the card into the same pocket where she’d folded the map she’d found earlier.
A quick scan of the area around the overturned motor sledge didn’t yield anything of interest, either. She assumed Mr. Villiers had been the original driver, but maybe whoever was piloting the vehicle was dead in a crevice somewhere nearby after encountering Villiers.
The supplies scattered around were mostly cans of food and some basic survival equipment. They were the sort of thing someone might bring with them if they were fleeing into the wilderness from something. Then again, they might just be standard equipment for any significant trek across the ice out here.
Denise had learned that there was definitely something terribly wrong down here, but she knew precious little other than that. Something like this had to be connected to the meteorite somehow. She didn’t know how else to explain the scene out here.
“I’ve gotten the ice off the plane. We’re ready to take off,” Fletch said, trudging over to her.
“Good. Let’s get back to Delambre Station. They’re going to start to wonder what happened to us if we stay out here for too much longer.”
“What was that…thing over there?” Fletch tilted his head in the direction of the thankfully still form sprawled out on the ice.
“Frankly, I don’t really know.”
“And why did you bring a gun out here? The last I knew, you were just out here as some sort of vacation trip. I’m glad you brought it, but you should have told me.”
“It’s kind of a long story. I’ve been investigating, looking for something out here. Maybe something like him.” Denise looked over at the dead body again. The wind was rustling its jackets, trying to rip them away.
“I think you owe me one hell of an explanation.”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
SEVEN
FLY ON THE WALL
“It would have been ideal if you brought some samples back,” Metrodora said.
“I didn’t have anything to pick them up with or carry them in. And what would we say if the French found our little collection? That stuff would start to smell sooner or later.”
“It still wou
ld give us a better chance to identify what you’ve just described if you had brought us some samples.”
“She’s right about that,” Cornelia said. “I can’t really tell you anything about what you saw just from your description. There was something weird inside the man’s head, and you’re right; he was probably stone dead the whole time. That being said, I’m glad you didn’t try to bring anything back with you. There could be disease or something equally dangerous. Best not to poke that bear.” Cornelia absently reached down and rubbed her artificial leg.
They were all crammed into Metrodora’s quarters. Trying to fit three people into one of the rooms was difficult. Trying to fit four was nearly impossible. Denise, Cornelia, and Metrodora were all sitting on the cot. Fletch leaned against the dresser. None of them could move their feet without kicking each other.
But the mess hall was in use. The French researchers didn’t seem to stick to any particular schedule for eating or even sleeping. The constant, unending sunlight and the toils of their uneven work schedule meant that the French team ate in staggered schedules whenever they wanted. Plus, most of the crew of the Sulaco was at the station to stretch their legs, and a lot of them were also eating or relaxing in the more spacious public spaces. That made it difficult to discuss anything in any sort of privacy.
“So, let me get this straight,” Fletch said. “You three all work for this Squires group…and you hunt monsters?”
“I’m the only member of St. George’s Squires here,” Metrodora interrupted. “These two are independent contractors.” She had her notebook open, and she’d taken a series of shorthand notes.
“And that’s the way it’s doing to stay,” Denise said.
“Most likely,” Metrodora said. “You seem temperamentally unfit for the organization.”
Fletch barked at both of them. “First of all, I almost had a chunk taken out of me by some dead guy. I don’t really care about who’s pissed at who right now. I just want to know what you people have roped me into.”
“The long and short of it is that there was some sort of meteorite strike down here. After that, the French sent down a large contingent of biologists. My organization wanted to know what they were up to down here,” Metrodora said.
“And they sent you and the farm team? There was a dead guy trying to kill me. That seems like a pretty serious matter to me.”
“We’ve seen worse,” Metrodora said.
“You weren’t the one in danger of having your face torn off.”
“Obviously, we didn’t know exactly what was happening down here. We would have sent a larger team if we had known. Most of the biologists that were sent down here aren’t at Delambre Station. I can only assume that they’re at this Merovée point on the map Denise recovered.”
“Or dead,” Cornelia added.
“Or dead,” Metrodora agreed.
“Alright, yesterday I would have just assumed that you were all crazy. Who works as a monster hunter?”
“There are nearly five thousand Squires around the world, counting support personnel. Plus a smaller number of independent contractors. That just covers the British Empire and its dominions, colonies, and protectorates. France has the Bureau de Gévaudan, though it’s been a shadow of its former self since the war. The Russians had a similar organization, but it went underground when the Soviets took power. They might not exist anymore. Japan is developing a contingent of professionalized kaiju hunters, although they’re being integrated as part of the military. And then there’s the Americans,” Metrodora said, ticking off countries on her fingers.
“Forget I asked. Fine. You’re monster hunters. It sounds a lot less preposterous after being attacked by a walking corpse. Either way, give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go up to Dr. Benoit and tell him what you’re up to. I don’t want to get caught up in whatever this is. You’re poking around something seriously unpleasant, and I’d prefer to stay well clear of it.”
“Benoit told you to stay away from anyone you met outside, too. The researchers don’t know the real reason we’re here, and they probably wouldn’t be thrilled if they did know. They built this station in record time, and there’s apparently something else that we haven’t see at this Merovée, too. They’ve invested a lot of time, money, and manpower down here. Do you think they’ll be happy if they find out that you’ve met this Villiers character? The three of us might get brought up on some sort of espionage charges, but you probably would, too,” Metrodora said.
“Sorry, Fletch. This was never the intent, but you know too much now,” Denise said.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Fletch was obviously agitated, and Denise didn’t blame him. He’d been hired just to help show them around, and that was all Denise really thought they’d need him for.
“It means you’re in just as deep as we are, unfortunately. And we’re in just deep enough to know that we’ve found something big, but not so deep that we’ve found the bottom,” Metrodora continued.
“What if we just left?” Cornelia asked. “We found out that there’s something going on down here. There’s some sort of plague of the damned or something. Mission accomplished. The Squires wanted to know what was going on with that meteorite, and we put them on track to find out. There’s no reason things have to go any further than that.” Cornelia crossed her arms.
Metrodora sighed. “There’s plenty of reason to continue on from here. We’ve only just discovered the very edge of whatever’s happening here. We know something is happening, but we don’t know what or why. I still think we should break into the research wing of the station. We could do it tonight, after most everyone has gone to sleep. That seems like the surest way for us to find any answers here.”
Denise looked at the three other people in the room. “Alright, I’m the one who’s in charge of this expedition. Cornelia, you know I always value your input. But this could turn into something bad. I think we should at least keep an eye on it. That being said, we are absolutely not going to break into the research wing unless we have to. We’ll hold the course and see what we turn up through normal means. We’re not going to take any stupid risks about this, even if it means we have to leave a couple of stones unturned, capisce?”
“This is acceptable for now,” Metrodora said.
“I can stick with it,” Cornelia agreed.
Denise nodded. “Okay. That settles it then. Fletch, sorry we misled you about the reason we’re actually here. You did a good thing when you landed the plane so we could help that man. If I had known things were as dangerous as they are around here, I wouldn’t have asked you to do it. We’ll stay through our scheduled time here, but now that we know how far gone things can get out there, we won’t ask you to do anything else like that.”
“Thanks. I guess I probably would have landed anyway, even knowing what might be out there. I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out there. The cold is bad enough. Being stuck out there knowing that those things were around too would be a lot worse.”
“I appreciate it. Hopefully, once we’ve reported back, the Squires will send people out, and those things won’t be a problem much longer. Who knows? Maybe we were lucky, and we got the only one. What exactly will the Squires do about this, Metrodora?”
“Once we let the French know that we have a pretty good idea of what’s going on here, it’ll be easier to pressure them into sharing any data and specimens. They won’t be able to deny what they have anymore. That’s one of the reasons I want to catalogue what they’re working on as completely as possible. The more we have, the easier it will be to get the rest.”
“And once you have the data?”
“We’ll study it and determine the best way to either isolate or stop things like the man you killed. We’ll figure out if it’s a disease or if it’s something else, and we’ll keep it in our libraries. In the event that it becomes a problem that we can’t deal with on our own, we’ll find a way to get our recommendations into the hands of the military or medical p
rofessionals. Whoever can make the best use of it, really.”
Fletch looked unhappy. “Your group, the Squires, they aren’t top secret or something, right? This isn’t the sort of situation where somebody from the intelligence services is going to throw a bag over my head and whisk me off to some dungeon somewhere, is it?”
“No. We’re not that sort of organization. We keep a low profile, but no one is going to force you to sign a secrecy oath under threat of death just because you’ve met me. Some other groups around the world that have similar missions are much more aggressive about enforcing secrecy though, so I wouldn’t recommend you go seek any of them out after all this.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. I don’t think I’d want to tell too many people about this, anyway. I’d get some odd looks if I told them a dead man tried to kill me.”
Denise smiled to herself. She’d opened up her business with Cornelia in part because they both had stories that they couldn’t tell in polite company without sounding like they’d lost their minds. This was almost tame by comparison.
“Alright,” she said. “I think we all know what to do. Keep looking around, and keep your wits about you. Don’t take any unnecessary risks, and I’d recommend you keep a gun hidden on you, if you need to go outside. If something dead attacks you, pop it in the head. That seems to work pretty well. Oh, and don’t freeze to death.”
“Just another day in paradise,” Cornelia said.
There was a knock on the door. Denise whipped her head around. She hadn’t heard any footsteps outside in the hallway. Whoever was out there had approached very quietly.
“Yes?”
The door swung open and revealed Dr. Benoit. Cripes, how long had he been out there? Could he hear them through the door?
“My, but it is crowded in here. How are you all doing, hmm? I and a couple of my men were going to take the snow tractor out to the penguin rookery. It would be a good time to see the birds now.” Benoit’s voice had lost some of the easy-going charm of when he’d first met them.
