Sunspots

by Gary Martin

  “Fucking stop that,” she hisses at him.

  “I probably won't. And it sounds to me like you haven’t learned a thing from my little lesson. I don't like being interrupted. Besides, I haven't got to the best bit yet.” He stares at me while continuing to walk. Click … Click … Click … Click …

  “Have you ever killed a man, John?” I look back at him, still not knowing why he’s so interested in me. What have I done to pique his interest?

  “No.”

  “Neither had I until earlier. It turns out to be an exquisite feeling. At first, I didn't want to go through with it, I wasn't sure that I could. But when I thought about what I would lose if I didn't, I realised that I had to. As Tom was peering into the crate asking questions for his report, I used this knife.” He pulls a sixteen-centimetre hunting knife out of his inside jacket pocket.

  “And I sliced it through his throat. With the micro chain blade, it was like cutting through butter. I could feel a slight resistance as it cut through his jugular and windpipe, and I did it slowly to savour the feeling. The amount of blood surprised me, it sprayed in all directions. I've never felt so powerful, John, so sexually aroused. I couldn't help it, I had to release my seed onto his still twitching, gushing corpse.”

  I can see that he's got an erection again just thinking about it. I feel shell-shocked and sick as I suddenly realise what the slime around the ship was. I can’t believe I didn’t realise. My numbness has gone, and the edges of fear come crashing down all around me. No one deserves to die like that. He walks past Kerry again, this time instead of running his fingers though, he pulls her hair tight and cuts a chunk out of it with his dry blood-stained blade and throws it in the air. With pure rage, she uses her whole body to try and shake herself loose from the chair but, as before, she still can't get free.

  “You stay the fuck away from her!” Mark shouts desperately.

  “What exactly are you going to do to stop me?” Mark stares at him with fire in his eyes, but Tim stares back and the fire quickly goes out. Mark drops his head and doesn't reply. Tim continues around the table. Click … Click … Click … Click …

  “I then had to go about getting rid of the rest of his shift, there would be too many questions, too much snooping, and I really didn't need any more of that. Sam was alone in the engine room, she was a very pretty thing. It was a shame. I told her Tom wanted to see her on the bridge. When she was with Will and Ian, I shut the hatches and trapped them all up there. From the console in the cargo bay I opened the bridge airlock and they were all blown out into space. Bye bye, no more questions, no more snooping. I then had to go about getting rid of the evidence. I'm quite proud of this, as I was now carving new ground, making it up as I was going along. I re-pressurised the bridge and looked for something I could use, plans or blueprints, but the computers were empty, no schematics, nothing at all. I went into your office and found the maintenance manual, or the bloody instruction manual as you called it, John. It was gathering dust at the bottom of a cabinet. It was so satisfying blowing the dust off it though, it felt like I'd discovered a relic from another era. I ripped out the pages I needed and put it back where I found it. I closed the hatches behind me, because I felt that it would be good to leave you sleeping beauties a mystery to wake up to. With the ripped-out pages I went about stopping the engines, releasing the hangar deck, and removing the release controls.”

  “And I guess you just happened to masturbate all over the ship to add weight to this mystery of yours, you sick bastard,” Kerry says, then spits on the pool table.

  “Not exactly, it’s more of a problem I’ve always had, but it did seem to work out that way. I think John knows the reason I did that.” He looks at me and smiles. “He must have heard the rumours at least.”

  “Why didn't you kill us as well?” I ask, ignoring the connection that is beginning to pop into my head.

  “You must know this by now, John. There are two reasons I didn't kill you. One: I didn't think there was a chance that your sub-standard shift would be able get anything working again. Unfortunately, I underestimated your ability to make things much worse. And two: I have too much respect for Ez to kill you outright.” I stare at him. The connections are shouting at me, I just don't want to join the dots.

  “… You know Ez?” I ask, pretty sure I know the answer.

  “I was in charge of the project we were working on. She was one of the best scientists I had working under me. She was the only person I worked with that I considered a friend.”

  “You're …”

  “Rupert Rawling. I'll let that just hang there.” He does, and the fear that was crashing around me starts to turn into a red mist.

  “If she was such good a friend, why did you destroy her life by leaving?” I shout.

  “Someone's found his confidence. Good, John, good. I didn't destroy her; how could I have? I wasn't this person then. If anyone did destroy her, it was Skylark. But I see that you're here, and not back on Earth helping her. I'm sure you must feel good about that.” I just stare at him. I have nothing to say. Nothing to defend myself with.

  “The project was my brainchild. It wasn't until it was nearly finished that I started to realise the implications of it and got cold feet. I was so absorbed with it, I couldn't think about anything except getting it done. Ez was involved with the project’s subsystems, and didn't know what the final outcome would be. It was always best that way, everyone had plausible deniability. Except, of course, me and those in charge of Skylark’s weapons division.”

  “So that's what's in the hangar. A weapon? You did all of this to dispose of a fucking weapon?” I ask. Loudly.

  “A weapon? Unfortunately, no. It's so much more than just a weapon, John, it's the first actual doomsday device. Never to be used, but always there to keep any threats at bay. When Skylark realised that I wasn't going to complete the project, they decided to kidnap my family and force me to finish it. But you now know how that ended. This situation, here and now, really is completely your fault, John. Ez told me what you did for a living, how you dump waste on the Sun, how proud she was of you. She wouldn't shut up about you. It was always John this, John that. Look at you, John, you didn't deserve that level of commitment or love. When Skylark killed my family, they lost all their leverage on me, and I may even have lost my mind for a while. I decided that I had to get myself, and the project, onto your ship any way I could.” Kerry looks up at Rupert.

  “So, what John said was right then, you fucking prick,” she says.

  “No, quite the opposite. I don’t want to destroy it. The project was code-named the Forever dark. Once it's fired into the Sun it will extinguish it within six months. Or make it go supernova. It was fifty-fifty on the simulations. Skylark wanted something special. It was only a matter of time before they had control of all the United Governments. This would have sealed the deal. No one would dare go against them. When they killed my family, I lost everything. I made the decision that they'd lose everything as well, everyone would lose everything. A race that could build something like this deserves to be wiped out by it. But you four have ruined everything. You've managed to completely cripple the ship, and now there's no way for me to get the Forever dark to the Sun. It was all going so well, and now I really don't know what to do next.” Kerry's face drops, and she turns to look at me wide-eyed. He doesn't know that the hangar is still set to dump the waste, he must assume we're just holding position, and waiting to be rescued.

  “What's that, Kerry? You look like you have something to say,” he says, and walks around the table to stand behind her. Click … Click … Click … Click … I look around; Robert and Mark know nothing of this either. If I mention it, will it be enough to give us time? It's the only play I have.

  “Rupert, I guess you don't know what happened when Kerry and I went on board the hangar deck, do you?” He looks at me and his eyes thin.

  “Go on.”

  “We didn't want to go back, not after what we'd seen: thi
s Forever dark, or whatever the fuck it’s called, and what was left of Tom. Kerry has set the hangar to dump everything when it hits its co-ordinates, and then it takes us back home. Your plan is still in play. Unless anyone wants to get suited up and do another spacewalk to the hangar’s forward airlock and stop it,” I say.

  He stands up straight and smiles widely, and lets out a huge sigh of relief.

  “Thank you, John, that has made my day. Am I correct in assuming that Kerry is the only one who could stop it, if she went across there?” She nods her head.

  “I could kiss you,” he says to the back of her head and wraps his arms around her shoulders in a hug. He smiles and starts to pull away. I notice he's still holding the knife in his right hand, and in one quick motion he pulls it through her throat. Her eyes open wide as blood starts to seep from the wound, followed quickly by a constant spurt that covers the green felt of the table and splashes over Robert’s face and beard. She lets out a quiet gurgling sigh, her head slumps, and she's gone.

  “No!” Mark shouts, helpless to do anything. Rupert walks around the table and does the same to him. I watch as the life drains out of Mark’s eyes, all the while Rupert is staring at mine. I look down at the bloody felt of the pool table, and then close my eyes. I’ve killed them both.

  “What did you expect, John? Were you hoping that would buy you some time? Save your lives maybe? No. I was always going to kill you. Whether it be freezing to death on Earth or here like this. You weren't going to survive this, John, no one was.”

  I start to struggle with my bonds as he slowly walks over to Robert. Click … Click … Click … Click … Robert seems to have given up entirely. He hasn't moved since the pool cue was repeatedly hit against his back and neck. Rupert puts his left hand on the top of Robert’s tattooed head and slowly pulls it back, all the while looking at me. Suddenly, from nowhere, Robert’s hand moves up and grabs hold of Rupert's tie, and pulls it down with a jolt. Rupert's nose hits the edge of the pool table hard and explodes. He screams loudly and drops the knife. With a loud groan, Robert stands up out of the chair he was tied up to and pushes it back. Rupert is now staggering backwards and holding his bloody face. Robert moves behind him and picks him up by the back of his trousers and the neck of his jacket and lifts him above his head. Rupert's arms and legs are flailing around in all directions as Robert just holds him there. He turns around and walks to the chair he was tied to, and with a sickening crack, Robert drops him on the back of it. With a terrifying scream, Rupert falls to the floor, with his spine bent in on itself, but he's seemingly still alive. Robert picks up the knife and cuts my binds. Shakily I stand up, and survey the awful scene.

  “It's over,” Robert says to me, his face and beard covered in Kerry's blood. I stare at him. There's nothing else to do. I put my arms around him, and bury my face in his chest. He holds me back, and we allow ourselves a moment to break down.

  There is a deep rumbling from below us, and the lights start to flicker. We stand apart from each other, both realising what this means.

  “Oh no, we’ve got to get to the bridge,” I say. We waste no time climbing up there, to get away from the horror on the rec deck. We both look out of the tinted viewports as hundreds of seemingly tiny cubes are heading towards the Sun’s corona and one by one we watch them burn up. The Sun then slowly starts to move out of view as the thrusters from the hangar set us on a course for home.

  I pull out the chair from behind Kerry's console and drop down into it, and hold my head in my hands. Robert puts a hand on my shoulder, and then sits down at Mark’s console. We don't talk. We don't need to. We're alive, and the rest of our crew is dead. I’m pretty much responsible. There is no upside. We are at least on our way home. But if Rupert's claims were true, we'll have nothing to go home to.

  “The device wasn't finished,” I say after a while, breaking the silence. “Maybe it didn't work. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary as the containers burned up.”

  “We'll hold on to that thought for now. I hope you're right, I really do, but we have other things to worry about now. Kerry and Mark. We have to say our farewells.”

  33

  After the awful, soul crushing job of cleaning up the rec deck, we carefully place Kerry and Mark into the main escape hatch in the cargo bay. I felt obliged to be the one who looked through Kerry's quarters. In there I found a photo dated a month before we set out on this trip. It’s of her and what appears to be a pair of young adults, a boy and a girl. They’re all laughing and look like they’re having fun. I well up when I realise who they are, but am also glad to know that she had managed to patch things up with her children after all. I decide to put the photo in the body bag with her. I don't know if that's what she would have wanted, but it seems like the right thing to do.

  Robert did the same for Mark, as they were close in and out of work. He found some medals for various sporting achievements that he’d got in his youth, but not much else. I don't even know if he had a family.

  I slowly type in my code, and Robert and I watch as the body bags with our friends inside leave the ship for the very last time. We bow our heads, and think about everyone we've lost today. After a while, I close the outer doors and there is only one thing left for us to do.

  I really hoped that he'd died while Robert and I were on the bridge watching the waste container dump. But we weren’t spared this new horror. Now, even after everything he's done, neither of us has the stomach to kill him. His spine has been snapped, and he's paralysed from the waist down. We don't have the equipment or the drugs on board to ease his pain, and he's delirious with it. The only thing we've been able to do for him is leave him in a bath tub in the washroom, and periodically shower him off after he's pissed or shat himself. The high-pitched howling noises coming from that room make my blood run cold. I don't imagine he'll survive the extended journey home. At least, I hope he doesn't.

  EPILOGUE

  Robert has managed to get the radio working, but only one way. We can now receive signals, but not reply to them. Everything was sounding good during the first couple of weeks of listening in; there was nothing at all about the Earth cooling off.

  We kept that hope alive until eventually there were reports of icebergs appearing in the Mediterranean and sinking cruise ships. After that, everything seemed to go crazy. We heard reports of nuclear explosions, countries going to war with each other, oceans completely freezing over and mass evacuations of the rich and powerful. Soon after, we lost the signal and there was nothing left but static.

  For days after that, Robert tirelessly tried to fix it, until he realised that it was working fine and there was no signal to receive anymore.

  We really don't know what we'll find when we get home, but it's very likely that almost everyone we know and love has perished. I hold out hope that Ez's parents were rich enough to be among the few who managed to get their families evacuated. If Ez is still alive, I will spend the rest of my days trying to find her.

  I don’t think I can hold out the same hope for Jacob and Terrell though. Even with Tommy around, who’s a born survivor, I can’t see any way they could have made it. I'd like to imagine they saw the world out in a drink- and drug-fuelled haze. The thought makes me smile, and that's how I want to remember them.

  Even though the worst has happened, and I've been forced into spending the rest of my possibly short life with Robert, a spiteful bastard who is now my only friend, and a crippled mad scientist who took it on himself to end everything, I'm actually glad to be alive.

  Who'd have thought it?

  THE END

  The story continues in

  FOREVER DARK: SUNSPOTS BOOK II

  Out now on Kindle and Paperback.

 

 

 
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