Z-Minus (Book 6)

by Perrin Briar

  “I did!” Lindsey cried. “But it’s not working!”

  Ian squirmed, his arms striking a metal table, knocking it to the floor. Lindsey knelt to pick up the pieces. Jeff grabbed Ian’s arms and held them tight to his torso.

  “You couldn’t have done it properly!” Jeff said. “Prepare another shot. I’ll administer it.”

  Hamish took a step inside the infirmary.

  “Don’t!” Jeff said. “Don’t come in here. He’s highly infectious. The more of us there are in here, the more likely it is to spread. Stay away.”

  “What about you?” Kate said.

  Jeff didn’t reply. He didn’t need to. Their friends were in danger, a flimsy door and a short command all that prevented them from coming to their aid.

  “What can we do to help?” Hamish said.

  “Just stay away,” Jeff said.

  Jeff turned to the patient. Ian’s head thrust forward and sprayed blood into Jeff’s face, over a wall, and Lindsey’s uniform. She and Jeff remained calm and professional. Jeff wiped away the blood so he could see, but before he could do anything more, Ian’s body turned rigid, arching up, trying to touch the ceiling with his hips. He fell back in bed. He lay still, unmoving, staring at the ceiling.

  Jeff bent down over him, checking his breathing, his pulse.

  “Lindsey, defibrillator, please,” he said.

  Lindsey wheeled it over and flipped the switches. Jeff applied the pads to Ian’s chest.

  “Clear,” Jeff said.

  The machine whirred, rising with a high pitch. He pumped the power into Ian. His body jerked.

  “Clear,” Jeff said.

  Zap!

  Five hundred volts slammed into the body. It jerked to one side, floppy appendages as responsive as a rag doll.

  “Clear,” Jeff said.

  He applied the pads again. The same response.

  “Come on, Ian,” Jeff said. “You’re still in there, I know it. Fight.”

  He hit the body with electricity again. Jeff let out a deep breath, shook his head, and wiped an arm across his forehead. He put the pads down. Lindsey turned the machine off.

  “Time of death, 3:38pm,” Jeff said.

  Kate gasped, clamping her hands over her mouth, eyes wide and shimmering with tears. Daniel took her in his arms.

  Jeff moved to the sink and washed his hands and face. He looked at himself in the mirror. He smacked the metal with his hands. He wiped the blood from his face with a towel. Lindsey pulled a blanket up over Ian’s body and face.

  And that was it for Hamish, what told him it was all over. The cold sterility of a white blanket placed over the body. Ian was no more.

  Z-MINUS: 3 hours 7 minutes

  Ian’s skin was pale, his features already turning blue. He lay on the cold unforgiving metal of a morgue-like tray behind Hamish’s work desk. A tag was attached to his big toe. There was something odd about that, something so impersonal, like labeling an item in a store on short-term sale. Jeff slid the drawer shut. Just another specimen.

  Kate’s eyes were sunken, her mouth turned down. Daniel wrapped an arm around her, kissing her on the top of the head.

  “Lindsey and I should get to our rooms,” Jeff said.

  “Why?” Kate said. “Are you showing signs of being infected?”

  “No, not yet,” Jeff said. “But it’s likely I was what with Ian’s projectile blood vomiting. There’s a chance Lindsey isn’t infected. I’d prefer to keep her away from me until we’re certain one way or the other.”

  Kate nodded. She didn’t like it, but it made sense.

  “But I don’t want to be separated from you,” Lindsey said, pressing a hand to Jeff’s chest.

  “Neither do I,” Jeff said. “But there’s no other way round it. We have to keep separate. Only until we know whether we’re infected or not.”

  It was an intimate moment, and Hamish wasn’t the only one to avert his eyes.

  “I don’t like it,” Lindsey said.

  “You don’t have to like it,” Jeff said. “You just have to know that this is what we have to do. To keep you and the others safe. Just in case. When we’re certain we’re clean they’ll let us out and we can be together again. But until then, I don’t want you to get infected accidentally. One of us has to get back to Robbie.”

  Lindsey nodded, though she was still upset.

  “All right,” she said.

  She stepped forward to hug Jeff, but he stepped back.

  “No skin to skin contact,” he said. “Not until we’re certain.”

  Lindsey clasped her hands together in front of herself, looking like a child who had been chastised and didn’t know what to do. Her eyes were glistening by the time they put her in her room. She looked from one person to the next, looking for the love she’d given them on countless occasions, but none of them could meet her eye.

  “You’ll be all right,” Jeff said.

  He closed the door on her. He let his shoulders relax. He thumbed a tear out the corners of his eyes, and then set to applying the lock on the door. He moved to the room opposite.

  “Would you like something to occupy your time?” Kate said. “A book or something?”

  “I wouldn’t be able to focus on it anyway,” Jeff said.

  He stepped inside the room, his prison, for the next twenty-four hours. He leaned in close and whispered in Hamish’s ear.

  “Don’t let Lindsey out,” he said. “No matter what she says or does. She might not be herself if the virus gets a hold of her. You’re new here and don’t know her as well as the others. You need to remain firm. Let everyone know everything is going to work out. Figure out a way to give her food safely if she is infected. When the rescue chopper gets here, they might be able to harness a cure for whatever the virus is. Until then, just keep the others alive.”

  “And if you’re not infected?” Hamish said.

  “Then there’s no problem,” Jeff said.

  But he didn’t sound like he put much stock in that outcome. He shut the door behind himself. Hamish applied the lock on the outside. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do, not because he knew Jeff – he didn’t really – but because he was so obviously a great man who only wanted the best for everyone, even if it meant putting himself and his wife in uncomfortable circumstances. It was the type of heroics common among doctors, the type of person who sacrificed themselves, their time and energy and money into studying something that could only prove beneficial to others.

  The others funneled off into the common room. None of them wanted to be alone right then, except Hamish, who needed to think things through. Something was plucking at him, something that didn’t feel right. He couldn’t explain why he felt that way, or even what it was, only that he did feel it, gnawing at the back heels of his mind.

  He sat at his desk and ran through everything that had occurred during the past twenty-four hours since he’d arrived. Saying goodbye to Captain Meadows, bringing in the freshies, meeting everyone, seeing his work desk, checking out the three sheds and Betsy with Kate, the storm descending upon them, heading out to rescue Ian, Ian’s developing illness, checking his blood, seeing there was something wrong with it, checking his room but finding nothing out of place, Ian awaking and attacking Jeff and Lindsey in his death throes, placing him inside a morgue-like shelf, locking Jeff and Lindsey in separate rooms… It was too much.

  Hamish brushed a hand over his neck. The hairs stood on end. He turned his head to the side. Why did he get the feeling someone was watching him? He turned in his swivel chair.

  The morgue drawers were firmly closed. Had he heard something rustling inside one of them? No. That would have been crazy. Hamish had never had a fear of dead bodies before. He’d seen them many times during his studies, and they never unnerved him. Why was this one any different?

  He didn’t know the answer, only that it did bother him. He tried to focus on the files in front of him, wanted to get lost in them, forget what was happening. B
ut he couldn’t. He stood up and left the room. He joined the others in the communal area.

  The TV was on. An old episode of Friends. No one laughed at the jokes. It was entirely the wrong program to be watching, but Carl sat with a distant smile on his face, perhaps recalling a time when he didn’t have such worries to deal with, when life was simpler and death a distant concern.

  They all sat there, the wind and storm howling outside, reflecting the apprehension and dark thoughts eviscerating their hearts and minds. It was late by the time everyone fell asleep. Their dreams would prove no more a distraction than the comedy show had been.

  Z-MINUS: 2 hours 57 minutes

  Hamish opened his eyes. He was groggy with sleep but hadn’t managed to drop off yet, occupying that space between the two brain states. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and braced himself with his elbows. He looked at the blank wall opposite, listened, but heard nothing. He closed his eyes and fell back to bed. He got comfortable, burying himself in his blankets, curling up tight like a tick. His head was still cold, but that didn’t matter much anymore.

  The wind howled, making the structure groan with the effort of resistance. Hamish wondered how much pressure the shed could really take before it would get blown into the air like the house in The Wizard of Oz. It must have been what it felt like to the Three Little Pigs in their shacks, a pack of wolves outside, baying for their blood.

  But it was only the wind, Hamish told himself. If it wasn’t for the fact he was out in the middle of nowhere in an environment he didn’t know, he wouldn’t have much cared. He’d known strong headwinds before. He would have even found it calming, relaxing, knowing it was cold and windy outside and he had nowhere to go but a warm comfortable bed. No monsters resided in cities, besides the usual ones, anyway.

  A groan.

  It was at odds with the center’s groaning, which was more of a test of will. The second groan was deep, long, and mournful. It wasn’t loud, but reverberated through Hamish’s whole body, and that made it seem louder. It was terrifying.

  The wind’s groan, which, though terrifying in its own way, was without emotion. This second groan had soul, and it did not sound pleased, like something escaping the lips of a dying man, his final gasp before the end, and then silence, as his life force drained from him.

  Hamish’s heart rate kicked up a notch. He didn’t know what it was, but it was different, and the not knowing made it a threat.

  Hamish threw the blankets aside and got up, slipping his feet into a pair of thermal slippers. He wore his thick pair of training pants, the ones he usually wore when exercising outdoors in winter back home. He edged toward the door and paused, listening to whatever was outside it. Deciding there was nothing, he cracked his door open further and used his shoulder to brace it in case something tried to blast it open. The groan had put him on edge. He was ready for anything.

  But nothing happened.

  He stepped out into the corridor. It too was silent. He checked both ways, but there was no one there.

  The sound came again, a low drawn-out moan like an ancient door that hadn’t been opened for generations. And then a small sound underneath it, what sounded like a whimper.

  Draughts squeezed through the window frames and tickled the hairs all over Hamish’s body. The corridor was dark with shadows. The human mind had the remarkable ability to see what it wanted to see. Each shape was a monster, a demon from another world. A flash of lightning illuminated the hall for a fraction of a second, and then fell to darkness once again. Nothing was inside it.

  But that didn’t mean nothing was there.

  He was beginning to regret getting out of bed. He could have stayed there, letting someone else take care of whatever was happening. But he daren’t. He needed to keep going, keep investigating the unknown.

  Hamish came to his office. The room was again cloaked in shadows. He edged inside it, pressing the door open with his finger, keeping an eye out both inside his office, and to his left, at the communal area. The door, thankfully, was silent as it opened.

  Hamish edged inside, hopping forward to keep anything from attacking him from behind. He checked behind the door first and then, finding nothing there, turned and surveyed the rest of the room.

  It was as he’d left it. His desk was untouched. His files – Dr. Scott’s unorganized files – were piled up, ready for him to sort through later.

  Hamish took a deep breath and let himself relax. He shook his head. What was he thinking? Here he was, a scientist, thinking the bogeyman really existed, jumping at his own shadow. How old was he? Did he really think monsters were real? But it was easy to believe, being in new surroundings, not knowing what was happening elsewhere in the world, cut off from modern society. He had let that part of his brain that believed in hocus pocus and superstition override his logical scientific mind.

  He smiled and shook his head. You idiot, he thought.

  He turned to leave, and felt something graze his arm. He jumped, hopping forward, banging his leg against the desk. It was painful, but he barely noticed. He turned to face what had touched him.

  A plastic bag lay discarded to one side like a snake’s outer skin. Hamish bent down to pick it up. There were small beads of condensation where water had been dropped onto it, as if something had been defrosting…

  Hamish dropped the bag and spun around, expecting someone to be standing over him. He raised his arms to protect himself in a gesture of protection. No blows rained down. Nothing stood in the middle of his office floor. But he didn’t relax.

  He stood up, too fast, remembering only at the last moment to duck his head down. Too late. His head slammed into the metal drawer that hung open. Hamish rubbed his head and breathed in through his teeth at the pain. He checked his hand for any blood, but there was none. Luckily, he’d hit his head on the flat underside of the drawer, not the sharp corner.

  “Idiot,” he cursed himself again.

  His eyes latched on the plastic sheeting. The body bag. That wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t imagined that. He stood up, more carefully this time, and found the bed of the morgue drawer was empty. Hamish leaned forward and peered at the drawer’s innards, as if the body had somehow managed to slide to the back. Nonsense, of course, but he still had to check.

  Small drips speckled the floor, a trail of soggy breadcrumbs toward the door. A shiver rose up Hamish’s spine. What would anyone want with a dead body? And why would they want it in the middle of the night? Perhaps someone had had a change of heart and wanted to bury it outside in the snow to a spot beloved by Ian? But why now? Why in the middle of the night? And why during a powerful storm? Hamish had no answer to cover all those bases.

  Surely only an obligation would force someone to take that kind of action. But why keep it a secret? And would anyone here really make a promise like that? They all seemed to understand the concept of keeping the Antarctic uncontaminated an important one. No. Hamish couldn’t bring himself to believe that, not of those working in there now.

  The sound came again, distant, muffled by the thin walls. It stirred inside Hamish an alternate theory, one he could not yet bring himself to express, but possible all the same.

  He left the morgue door open. It would make explaining his story easier to the others. He edged out toward the door and leaned forward, peeking out from around the doorframe. His eyes trailed up and down the corridor. The little moonlight there was reflected off tiny droplets of water. But they did not lead toward the communal area like he’d assumed they would. Instead, they headed in the opposite direction, toward the accommodation area.

  Earlier, he must have strolled right past where someone had been taking the dead body, blithely unaware. They must have taken the door from the changing room at the end of the hall. It was the only thing that made any sense, though even that was a bit of a stretch. Why now? Why go out into the storm?

  The corridor was smothered in shadows, like the darkness was trying to hide something from him. The grumbles
were low and indistinct.

  A flash of lightning illuminated an empty corridor. Hamish edged down it, toward the bedrooms, his body tense. Amongst them was a grave robber… Or, rather, a morgue robber… But who? None of them fit the ghoulish stereotype.

  Hamish leaned up close to the walls. It sounded like it came from one of the rooms… In fact, it was coming from one of the rooms…

  At close quarters, the moan almost sounded like words. If you could listen a little closer, it would be intelligible. In fact, they were words.

  As Hamish approached the wall, he could hear the voice inside, talking. Whoever they were, they were still up, no doubt unable to sleep after all the events of the day. It had been stressful, and Hamish didn’t even really know the deceased. To the others, it would have been the worst thing imaginable. They had become a family here on the bottom of the world, and a member dying like that, under mysterious consequences, was bound to make them all very nervous.

  Hamish was certain the voice he heard belonged to Kate. Another voice answered. A man’s voice. Presumably Daniel. Who else would Kate be talking to about upsetting and frightening things?

  Hamish couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. He wanted her to come to him if she had any problems or issues. But instead she’d gone to the guy she was seeing. The guy she was bonking. The idea of them doing that just a few feet away from where he slept made him feel physically sick.

  They were an item. Hamish had been too late, just as he had been his whole life. He turned to walk away.

  Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.

  Outside, the wind howled as if in response. In response? The groans did not originate with the wind, were not part of Kate’s whispers. They belonged to something else.

  The hairs over Hamish’s body rose, like a threatened cat in a corner. He felt threatened enough to go into protection mode, to make his outline fuzzy and look bigger and larger than he actually was. But apparently no one else had noticed the sound. Were they all used to it? Was it something that happened to the center they hadn’t mentioned to him before?