by JE Gurley
12
August 29, 2013 Oates Land, Antarctica
“We’re going down.” Anson’s calm voice belied the frenzy of his hands as he fought the controls. Val Marino tried to match Anson’s unruffled manner, but his fear oozed from his pores, beading on his forehead and coating his hands with a sticky sheen.
“Here comes the water,” Basky quipped from his seat at the navigator’s station. His voice, Marino noted, had an edge of hysteria tinged with serene acceptance. Basky’s mind had been deteriorating almost as rapidly as his body. Marino imagined imminent death meant little to him.
“What can I do?” Marino asked.
“Pray,” Anson replied.
“I’ve been doing that since we took off.”
“We’ll never make Australia. The ACC is driving this storm like a banshee wind from hell. We’ll be lucky if I can keep it in the air long enough to return to Antarctica and crash on something solid.”
“The ACC?” Anson asked. “What’s that?”
“The Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The water surrounding Antarctica flows west to east between Antarctica and the Southeast Cape like water squirted from a hose. Normally, the wind would help us. With this storm, it’s driving us back south toward Oates Land.”
For just a moment, Marino felt a spark of hope. One of his deepest fears was drowning, though he realized he would freeze to death in the icy water before he drowned. It then struck him that Anson had said ‘crash’ not ‘land’.
“Crash?”
Anson glanced over at him. “I’ll never make Casey. That leaves the ice. With no runway, this baby takes a lot of ground to set down. If I find a smooth spot, we might make it. Otherwise . . .”
Marino nodded. He didn’t need Anson to finish. His own frantic mind was drawing a picture of the likely outcome of 34 ½ tons of steel meeting the ground at over 200 knots. It was not a pretty picture. When Anson banked the Hercules sharply to nurse the crippled plane back toward Antarctica, the engine rpms dropped, as did Marino’s heart. As the giant C-130 leveled, the two remaining engines, still laboring, slowly lifted the plane higher above the still too close waves.
“Noo!” Basky began to howl when his befuddled mind realized their destination. He rocked violently in his seat, drooling.
“Can you shut him up?” Anson shouted.
Other than knocking Basky out cold, Marino wasn’t sure what to do. Finally, he settled on stuffing a rag in Basky’s mouth. He continued to struggle against his restraints but didn’t try to release them.
“Thank God,” Anson said. “Now I can think.”
Marino looked out the window at the wind driven whitecaps uncomfortably close beneath them. “Where are we?”
“Judging by the compass, we’re near the magnetic South Pole. I saw Belleny Island before we turned. I guess we’re at about 1500 longitude off the coast of Oates Land.”
Marino knew that was Australian territory. “Anything there?”
“There’s a base, but we won’t make it that far.” He hesitated. “There may be one place.”
“Where?” Marino burst out, grasping at any faint hope.
“Australia leased an old abandoned base to the U.S. a couple of years ago. I don’t know what goes on there. They’re pretty closemouthed about it, if you know what I mean. They expanded their strip for larger planes. It’s our best bet.”
“It’s better than swimming.”
Anson smiled. “I’ve always wanted to land one of these things.”
“I’m glad you’re delighted.”
The Hercules lost altitude suddenly and Marino grabbed onto his seat as his stomach tried to climb up his throat. He could almost smell the salt of the waves outside the window.
“If you get us down in one piece, I’ll buy the first beer,” he said, hoping Anson would take him up on his offer.
* * * *
Gilford was freezing to death but he could find no compelling reason to get up from the frozen ice and return to the lab. The corpses and ghosts of his dead companions bore mute testimony to the folly of his work. They had attempted God’s work and God had smote them not with a big stick like Teddy Roosevelt’s, but a microscopic one, unintelligent but just smart enough to destroy the world. He thought again of the pistol in his office but why bother. The cold had numbed his body to the point his empty belly no longer clamored for attention. He could just sleep his way to oblivion, join his friends and colleagues, and let God sweep him in to His forgiving arms. He could use some forgiveness. His intention had been to aid Dr. Cromby in his quest for tissue regeneration, mainly for the military but the applications for civilian use had been staggering. He had not believed he would become the instrument of God’s destruction of the world.
Gilford looked up through ice-rimmed eyes as the Prophet Elijah slowly descended in his fiery chariot to transport him to heaven. The chariot was loud and shook the ground as it approached. Gilford gazed at it and wondered why a fiery chariot would need wings.
* * * *
“There’s the strip!” Marino shouted as he glimpsed the narrow band of scraped ice between gusts of blown snow. “And there’s the base.”
“Hold on,” Anson warned as he pulled back on the throttles to slow the C-130. “This isn’t going to be easy.”
To Marino, the runway looked far too short to accommodate the bulky behemoth. The jagged rocks at the end rose from the ice like dragons teeth ready and eager to rip the belly from the plane, but Anson, despite his lack of training, eased the C-130 down on the ice with only a slight bump and shudder as the wheels touched down.
“Help with the brakes!” Anson shouted and Marino obligingly pressed the brake pedals with all his weight. The C-130 slowed and stopped just short of the rocky spine thrusting up through the ice. A dozen Adelie penguins watched unafraid from atop their rocky perch. Marino exhaled slowly, unaware that he had not drawn a fresh breath during the entire braking procedure. Anson turned the ponderous plane and taxied back to the base. As they drew abreast of the hangar, Marino spotted movement and at first thought it only more penguins. Then the figure moved again.
“There’s someone on the ice,” he yelled. “He’s alive.”
“Or a zombie,” Anson reminded him.
“No look, he’s waving.”
“I’ll be damned,” Anson replied and laughed.
Almost before the C-130 had stopped, Marino was lowering the cargo door. He leaped the last two feet and rushed to the man, now slowly collapsing onto the ice. As he grabbed the man, he spoke to Marino.
“God’s angels,” he whispered, and then passed out.
Marino picked him up and carried him back to the plane. Anson was waiting for him.
“Is he still alive?” Anson asked.
“Barely,” Marino replied as he lay his bundle down on the deck of the plane. “He’s suffering from hypothermia. What the hell was he doing out here?”
He removed the unconscious man’s gloves and began briskly massaging his deathly frigid hands to warm them. He turned to Anson. “Bring me a blanket and raise the cargo hatch. We need to get some heat in here.”
Anson nodded and grabbed a blanket from a basket on the wall. “I’ll make some soup. We could all use some.” He glanced toward the front of the plane. “I’ll check on our other ward.”
After massaging his patient’s hands, Marino started on the man’s feet. Ten minutes passed and Marino was beginning to wonder if they had arrived too late. Just then, the man moaned and opened his eyes.
“You’re not an angel,” he whispered.
“Not according to my mother.”
“You’re American.”
“Yes, Val Marino from Arizona. My partner is Elliot Anson, an Australian.”
“Did you . . . did you see anyone else?”
Marino shook his head slowly. “No, Anson and I were out on the ice. We checked Vostok and Casey. We didn’t see anyone, living that is.”
“My fault,” the man said and slid back into uncon
sciousness.
Anson returned with soup. He handed a cup to Marino and looked down at their new passenger. “Anything?”
Marino took a cautious sip of soup. Letting its warmth spread through him. “He regained consciousness for a moment. He seemed lucid, but he said something odd.”
Anson’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“He said, ‘My fault’.”
Anson nodded. “Keep an eye on him and you had better take a look at Basky. He’s in a bad way.” He picked up the AK-47 and checked the clip. “I’ll have a look around the base.”
Marino watched his friend pull out a rope ladder, open the side door and lower it to the ground. As the top of Anson’s head disappeared, Marino called out, “Be careful.”
With their new passenger asleep, Marino went forward to check on Basky. Basky’s eyes followed Marino into the cabin. He removed Basky’s gag. Basky smiled.
“She won’t let us go.”
Puzzled, Marino asked, “Who’s she?”
“Antarctica. We’ll die here.”
“When the storm blows over, we’ll head for Australia.”
Basky laughed. “When the storm blows over, they’ll start to walk again. We’ll never see home.” Basky held out his frostbitten fingers. “She wants to keep us here. She has part of me already.”
“We’ll get you to a hospital soon. They’ll fix you right up.”
Basky shook his head. “We’re dead already.”
Marino considered stuffing the gag back in Basky’s mouth. Marino considered the situation depressing enough without Basky’s morbid comments. Instead, he handed Basky a cup of soup and returned to his patient. Their new guest was still unconscious. Marino checked his wallet for ID.
“John R. Gilford, age 35,” he read. “Boston, MA. Hmm. Harvard, no doubt.”
He replaced the wallet and sat down to finish his own soup, now grown cool. Still, it was nourishing. By the time he had finished, Anson returned. Anson entered the door, pulled up the ladder and sat down on a bench.
“Find anyone else?”
Anson shook his head. “Not alive. It’s the same here as at Vostok and Casey. This place was apparently some kind of medical research center.” He held out a black spiral-bound notebook. “I found this is the office of a Doctor Willis Cromby. He was the Director.” He paused. “He shot himself.”
Marino winced. “That’s one way out.” He nodded at the notebook. “Find out anything?”
Anson placed the notebook on the bench beside him; then slid it farther away, as if its proximity bothered him. “It all started here.”
Marino sat up. “Here? How do you know?”
“They created some type of nanite virus trying to regenerate tissue growth. It mutated. Cromby speculated some general carried it straight to Washington.”
Marino thought of Washington, D.C. – the Potomac, the Tidal Basin, the Lincoln Memorial, the Capitol – all derelicts by now, crawling with zombies, the Rotunda littered with corpses. “I visited Washington once,” he said.
“There are direct flights from Washington to Sydney every day, from Washington to everywhere. It would have spread before they even knew what was happening.” A sob escaped Anson’s lips, the first emotion the Australian had shown since Marino had known him.
“Family?” Marino asked.
Anson nodded. “A brother and sister in Adelaide. They thought Antarctica was too dangerous,” he snorted. “They wanted me to move back to Adelaide.”
Marino decided to change the subject. He glanced at the motorcycle. “Why the motorcycle? Even with the sidecar three people wouldn’t fit too comfortably.”
Anson looked up. His face was grim. He jerked his head toward the front of the plane. “Basky’s a goner.”
“You don’t know that?”
Anson rolled his eyes. “You’ve seen him. He can’t walk. He’ll be dead in a week without extensive medical help. Where do you think we’ll find it – the bloody Royal Melbourne Hospital in Melbourne or the Flinders in Adelaide?”
Marino stared at Anson, disturbed by Anson’s raised voice, but turned away before the guilt in his eyes betrayed the fact that he had also considered Basky’s condition as terminal.
“There may be emergency medical centers set up,” he answered, unable to put much conviction in his words.
“Yeah, maybe,” Anson growled.
Marino let it drop. “When can we leave?”
“When the storm lets up – a day or two maybe.”
“Two more days.” Marino mulled this unwelcome bit of news over in his mind. Two days could be two too many for Basky and he wasn’t certain if Gilford would hold out that long. “What about fuel?”
“We’re okay on petrol but we’ll need food.” He looked over at Anson. “I’ll go back inside and search for some. Later.” He lay down on the bench and, within minutes, was sound asleep.
Marino took two blankets from the stack in the basket on the wall, laid one over Anson and, taking a bench on the opposite side of the cargo area, followed Anson’s example. Sleep wouldn’t come. Anson’s math still didn’t add up. Even if Basky died, they now had another person to see after. Anson’s motorcycle would still be crowded.
13
Aug. 30, 2013 Coober Pedy, Australia
Alex Nelson turned to Nicole Blalock sitting in the seat beside him and jabbed a spot on the map she held in her hands. The jeep sat idling at a crossroads with no signs.
“The map shows the railroad due north, just past this town, but Gore drove straight ahead.”
“He said he knew the way,” she replied.
“Yeah, he did didn’t he.” Alex took the map from Nicole, refolded it and placed it between the seats. “Okay, we follow him.”
As he put the jeep in gear, Nicole stared at him. “You don’t trust him, do you?”
Alex returned her gaze. “No, not really.”
“Why? He seems nice enough.”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but there’s something in his manner.”
“He’s been through a lot,” she said.
“We all have. Maybe I’m just being overly cautious. We’ll see.”
Gore’s van was waiting for them at the next dirt road turn off. Gore leaned out the window. “The bridge was out just past that last intersection. Someone blew it with explosives. This road leads to a side road that parallels the tracks. The train is about ten kilometers ahead.” He smiled at Nicole.
Alex thought about the town. When they had made their plans, Gore hadn’t mentioned a town nearby. “The people from the town may have already found the train and stripped it.”
Gore smiled again. “Not likely. There probably weren’t fifty people living there before the plague hit. There weren’t any survivors.”
“Someone lived long enough to blow the bridge,” Alex countered.
“Fat lot of good it did them,” Gore returned. “Let’s go.”
“Lead on then.”
Gore pulled back onto the dirt road. Alex waited until the dust cloud the van kicked up settled somewhat before following.
“You look like you don’t believe him,” Nicole commented after they had driven a few kilometers in silence.
“I was just wondering why they bothered blowing the bridge unless it was to isolate themselves from the main highway. That would indicate that at least enough of them were alive to organize a job like that.”
“Maybe they died later, like he said.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“Do you want to go back and check?”
Alex detected a touch of fallaciousness in her tone. “No, I believe Gore. They’re dead.”
She crinkled her brow at him. “Then what’s the problem?”
“I was just wondering how they died.”
Nicole said nothing more. She simply turned away in her seat, engrossed in the passing countryside. Alex didn’t bother trying to start a conversation with her. It seemed obvious she did not appreciat
e his unsubstantiated suspicions of Gore and likely attributed them as a symptom of his overall distrust of everyone, even her. He couldn’t ignore his nagging doubts. Little pieces of Gore’s story didn’t fit into the picture he was trying to paint, but Alex couldn’t find anything he could use to confront him. If the trip to the wrecked train proved worthwhile, he would have to rethink his opinion of Gore. Nicole obviously believed Gore’s story and probably thought Alex was just being jealous because Gore paid attention to her. The last thing he wanted to do was to drive her away from him and into Gore’s arms, at least not until Gore proved trustworthy. Then she could make up her own mind.
The train wreck was just as Gore described it. Twin locomotives pulling a long string of flatcars loaded with containers and boxcars had been unable to negotiate a sharp bend and derailed, piling containers atop one another like Lego blocks. Smashed boxcars spilled their contents across the tracks and onto the dirt road paralleling it. Most of the contents were heavy machinery and new automobiles and containers filled with tennis shoes, clothing, and electronics. A few, however, were refrigerated cars loaded of foodstuffs. Gore had zeroed in on these, backing his van to the edge of the tracks.
“I told you!” he exclaimed as Alex and Nicole climbed out of the jeep. “Mana from heaven!”
Nicole rushed to the broken crates of fresh fruit but stopped short. Clouds of flies swarmed the crates of rotten fruit. Once the refrigerant had dissipated, the heat had acted on the fruit very quickly, spoiling it all.
“It’s rotten,” she moaned at the sight.
“Never fear,” Gore said. “I’ve got the key to the other cars.” He held out a pry bar. As he pried at the door of the next container car, a cloud of CO2 began to hiss through a crack. With a snap, the lock broke and Gore slid the door open. A cloud of white mist rolled out the door and across the tracks, briefly cooling the air. He reached inside, pulled down a box of bananas and tossed one to Nichole.
