by Aaron Bunce
Jacoby lurched forward and caught Janice by the wrists, using every ounce of strength to push her back towards the darkness. He locked his gaze onto her eyes, anything to avoid the wretched, bloody horror that was happening to the rest of her body. She bent and buckled, her feet sliding towards the shadows.
“W-o-r-t-h-l-e-s-s…s-h-i-t!” she moaned and shrieked, biting and snapping at him. It wasn’t Janice, however. It was her voice, but there was no humanity left in her eyes, just a swirling and dark malevolence.
He shoved her clear to the service entrance, but she splayed her legs and caught the sides. His momentum halted. Janice’s wrists popped, ropey tendrils bursting from her forearms and wrapping around his hands. She leaned back and started to pull him forward and into the darkness.
“You never fucking stop! Do you? ” Jacoby growled and wrenched his hand down to the handle of the stun baton sticking out of her chest, pushed the button in, and turned it all the way. Then he pulled the trigger.
A blue flash filled his vision, and a distant part of his mind screamed out. He felt his body go rigid, felt the heat and the pain, but couldn’t put it all together. It was just oddly detached sensations.
Then he was sliding backwards. He could see and hear again. He caught a glimpse of Lex smashing a service panel back over a hole in the wall, and people in dark scrubs and white jackets scrambling to pull tables and equipment in front of it.
He looked up and found Doctor Reeds’ face. The man was pulling him back, shouting at others, his differently colored eyes flicking quickly around the large space.
“Doc,” he said quietly, surprised by the strength in his voice.
Reeds looked down.
“Jacoby?” he said, and stopped pulling. “My god, I thought you…well, when that baton arced between you two, I was sure it killed you. That kind of voltage when it meets skin and bone…”
They stopped moving and Reeds helped him sit. Jacoby lifted his hands. The tips of his fingers were black, the burns extending up his hands and onto his wrists. The darkened flesh followed a strange, coiling pattern up his forearm.
“I think I’m…okay,” he muttered and patted down his arms and chest.
“The door is locked. It’s sealed. They did it. They sealed us in!” a woman screamed behind them. Jacoby couldn’t see her, but he could hear her panic, feel her fear through the air between them. He could feel Doctor Reeds’ fear, too, but it was different somehow…a small measure of control still in place that wasn’t there with the others.
“Well, unseal it! We need to leave…now before one of those things comes back!” Reeds yelled, pushing off and standing behind him. “Layla! Unseal the doors, Layla!”
Jacoby glanced around, taking in the chaos of the room as if for the first time. The beds were tipped over, the plastic tents torn and trampled. A massive bloody puddle sat not five feet to his right, the fluid smeared across the floor. He followed the blood trail over to where Lex and several others formed a barricade of medical equipment.
“Where is Doctor Misra?” Reeds called. Jacoby watched the small crowd look around. There were so few of them left, a handful of scared, disheveled people.
“She’s not here–” a nurse responded, shakily.
“Pamela is gone, too! She was hurt. She couldn’t walk. They took her. They took all of them. But why? What was wrong with them? What do they want?” another shrieked loudly.
Jacoby wanted to shush her, but a young man in a lab coat came forward and threw his arms around her. A duct overhead shook, the rectangular sheet metal distending loudly before quickly popping back into shape.
“Everyone…quietly and quickly, move to the lab. Now!” Reeds hissed. The doctor moved to help him up, but Jacoby waved him off. He pushed off the floor, a tingle shooting up through his legs.
It will take more than a little zap to kill us, the voice said, sweeping out from its hiding place in his mind.
“But why? And how?” he whispered.
Does it matter where strength comes from? Or does it only matter that it is strength? You owe me.
“I fucking hate riddles,” he spit back, wondering what kind of payment a disembodied voice in his head could possibly want. Was it part of him? Or was it something else?
Jacoby started to follow Reeds and the group towards the door as Lex and the others finished stacking the last of the tables against the wall. She turned, spotted him, and visibly started.
He pretended not to notice and walked slowly, rubbing the tips of his fingers together. The blackened skin crumbled off, falling away like ash collected from a spent campfire. Pink, fresh skin lay underneath, soft and unblemished.
“Impossible,” he breathed.
Lex appeared next to him, her movements lithe, graceful, and her steps quiet. It was clear she knew how to move.
“You’re okay…” she breathed, as if the concept was abstract…absurd. “When my baton discharged…well, the way it arced between you. I thought you were dead.”
“For a moment there, I thought I was,” Jacoby responded honestly. He looked into her green eyes, the fear and concern worn openly. He held her gaze, the sparkle inciting something deeper inside him. The pressure mounted in his head, a vibration coursing down through the rest of his body. He suddenly had an idea of how the other part of him might expect payment.
Jacoby looked away as the air started to grow thick around him and he was immediately reminded that he was only wearing a hospital gown.
Lex sniffed and coughed, but fell into step next to him as they walked into the lab. Jacoby turned away from her, trying to put a little distance between them. He could feel the accelerating beat of her heart, the air charging in and out of her lungs, but also the warmth blossoming inside her…
Jacoby walked behind a row of tables, the rows of glass beakers and computer equipment helping to hide his growing excitement.
He turned to find Lex fidgeting with the motorized door, then heard it click loudly. They moved quietly through the long lab room together as a group. The lab equipment only seemed to get larger and more complex the further they went – centrifuges holding dozens of clear ampules giving way to sleek, blade-shaped machines covered in glowing displays.
Jacoby silently wondered what a mining station would need with such advanced scientific machinery. The lights went out on the left side of the room, bathing Jacoby into darkness. He stopped, a voice echoing quietly ahead.
Jacoby felt his way through the shadows, moving between tables and following Doctor Reeds. They reached the end of the lab and found an office to the right. The voice echoed out from the narrow door, the glow of a screen dancing in the window.
“Did you seal the lab?”
“Yes, I think so. I mean, probably. Doctor Misra told them to do it as soon as they went crazy and started attacking us. They weren’t responding to the drugs anymore. They couldn’t keep them sedated. That has to be it. I mean, you should have seen it. I barely got out of there alive.”
Doctor Reeds settled in the doorway and cleared his throat quietly. Jacoby caught a glimpse of a man sitting in a chair, facing away from them, a data point held up before him. Another man’s face filled the small device’s screen before it went black. Manis Nazzar swiveled around in the chair to face them and then stood. He was lanky, but impressively tall, towering a full head or more above Reeds.
“You all aren’t, well, you aren’t authorized to be in here…any of you. Where is Layla? Where is Doctor Misra?”
“She’s dead, I think…like most of her staff. You know, the ‘ones that went crazy’ and dragged them off into the ventilation ducts’ while you ran in here to hide,” Reeds responded, “I think you should tell me what is going on.” Then the physician lifted something before him, and for a heartbeat, Manis’ eyes widened, betraying him.
Reeds’ body blocked his view, so Jacoby leaned around him to see. He was holding a smashed Palmer Module…the very one Jacoby had ripped from his own body.
0405 Hours
Anna was well into the dark ladder shaft before plastic and electronics rained down on her head from above. She heard the hatch open, the noise echoing oddly down the tight confines.
A glimmer of light reflected off the rung of her ladder, and despite her reservations, she looked up. A light shone from somewhere far above. A man’s voice echoed down – although she couldn’t understand what he was saying.
She began to descend again. She couldn’t stop…she wouldn’t.
A banging noise sounded below, followed by another, and then a third. She dropped her leg onto another rung and looked down. A square of light broke the darkness. Anna climbed, the ladder slippery in her sweaty palms. Damn it was hot. Why was it so hot?
The diffuse light below grew brighter, the frame and rungs of the ladder now a shadowy outline. Her heart wasn’t beating quite so fast, the gut-tightening sense of claustrophobia and panic lifting just a bit.
The man yelled something above, his voice rising in a loud shout. Anna stopped just above the open hatch and listened, pausing to hold her breath. No, he was screaming.
A loud noise drowned out his voice – a sharp popping staccato that filled the shaft around her and seemed to echo endlessly.
My god, is that a gun? she thought.
The screaming abruptly stopped, a chilling silence drifting in after. Anna hung there for a pregnant moment, holding her breath, and listened. She looked up just as something blotted out all of the light from above. Someone was in the shaft with her, moving down the ladder.
“Move!” she hissed and peeled her hands off the rung, dropping the last three lengths to the ground. A vibration shook the ladder as she let go, the metal rails thrumming and shaking.
She didn’t want to think what it would take to shake such a sturdy ladder so much. Anna ducked through the hatch and promptly slammed it closed behind her.
“What was that? I heard something loud?” Soraya asked, moving in behind her and helping close the cogs.
“I don’t…I don’t know,” she stammered, turning from side to side. “Why isn’t there a lock?” she yelled, punching the thick metal.
Move, the impulse coursed through her just as Soraya grabbed her shoulders and pulled her around. They ran by the elevator, the glowing display above the doors just catching in Anna’s peripheral vision. The elevator was moving, the down arrow hologram flashing and the numbers dropping.
“We need to get out of here now,” she croaked.
They ran around the corner, voices immediately echoing up the habitat ring’s main passage. Anna spotted a pair of security personnel moving away from them down the curving hall.
“Hey! You!” she screamed.
The two men directed a pair out of their door, one of the men talking loudly to a couple emerging from their door across the hall.
“Take only what you can carry! Station Directorate has ordered the temporary evacuation of station housing from Delta and Charlie rings…no, ma’am, we don’t know for how long. This will only be until they can get systems repaired and make sure life support station-wide is safe and functional. Yes this is for your protection and wellbeing. They have opened up the commissary, recreation center, and cafeterias for you.”
“Hey!” Soraya screamed, her much louder voice almost immediately catching one of the security officers’ attention. He nudged his counterpart with an elbow and pointed in their direction.
The two men guided the personnel off down the hall, before turning and moving in their direction.
“Officers, please, we need your help!” Anna called, a stitch forming in her side.
“Woe-woe-woe, wait just a moment, ladies. Where did you two come from, and in such a hurry? Haven’t you heard…?” the shorter of the two men said, leaning to one side and puffing out his chest. Anna ignored his posturing. They just didn’t have time.
“Please, you have to listen. There is something going on…uh…” Anna stammered, a creeping sensation crawling up her back.
“…there is something happening…something wrong with people. A sickness…it’s changing them, turning them into something else. They’re hurting people…killing them. One of them, my…my husband, he attacked us,” Soraya said, chiming in right where Anna left off. Anna took her hand, but Soraya’s usual strength wasn’t there. Instead, all she felt was bone-chilling fear. She felt the need to move, but the two men blocked the hall.
“Wow…wow. Slow down, ladies,” the officer on the left said, turning and sharing a smile with his counterpart. The tag on his armor read “Blake”, while his taller counterpart’s name appeared to be “Garrett”.
“Did you say your husband attacked you? Where is he now? Have you reported this yet?” Blake, the shorter man, said. The white and gray padded armor didn’t quite conceal the bulge of his belly. His graying hair was short, but combed neatly over to the side. Anna’s gaze flicked from his dark brown eyes, to a baton hanging at his waist, over to his counterpart, and to the other man’s hazel eyes. She could feel it. They didn’t believe them.
“No, you need to listen. It wasn’t him! Something happened to him. It changed him. He was bleeding, and coughing, like really sick. He got suspicious, but then just snapped and sort of went crazy. His bones…his bones were…moving, but it was his face…the skin on his face…” Anna said, but realized how crazy it sounded. Hell, she wouldn’t believe it if random strangers ran up to her and started spouting off similar gibberish.
“Communications are still down station-wide, so you wouldn’t have been able to report it even if you’d have tried,” Garrett, the taller of the two, said. The elevator dinged somewhere behind them, the tone sharp and abrupt. Anna and Soraya both stopped and turned.
“We need to go…now! They’re dangerous,” she said just as the lights flickered, the power cascade flowing all the way down the hall in a wave, before stabilizing again.
“This shit bucket is really fucked now,” Blake cursed, then swatted his baton and moved between Anna and Soraya. “Station code requires we check on and report any threat of domestic violence. Is he down here, your husband? Was anyone else involved?”
“Wait, no. Don’t go back there. Please. We just need to go,” Soraya said, but Garrett moved around her.
“It’s okay, miss. You’re safe now. You just stay behind us,” the larger man said, moving to follow his counterpart.
“No…please. We just need to get out of here. You don’t understand,” Soraya argued, but the men wouldn’t listen.
Anna grabbed her hand and held her back, turning to look down the long, curving hallway. The people that had left their quarters stopped before disappearing around the bend, stacking up behind what appeared to be a sizable line.
“They’re evacuating the habitation rings, sending people down to public sectors on A ring. That means they have to shuttle everyone in the transit elevators. You can only fit what, twenty in at a time?” Soraya asked.
“What if someone down there is infected?” Anna asked, watching the two security officers walk away.
“We need to stop them!” Soraya hissed, and before Anna could argue, she pulled her after the two men.
“…we get a lot of these calls, surprisingly. I guess being way out here doesn’t stop people from bringing their spouses, or keep them from fighting. Is he close? Are you on this floor?” Blake asked, evidently unaware that the two women hadn’t immediately followed when they walked away.
The two men turned left and disappeared into the elevator corridor, the shorter man’s voice echoing behind him.
“What…in…the…shit-stained sheets?” Blake cursed just as Anna and Soraya slipped around the corner. The two men pulled the batons free from their belts, the pronged ends crackling blue in the dim corridor.
“Soraya, we need to go,” Anna whispered as they cleared the wall. The service hatch came into view, the door swung wide against the far wall.
“Call it in, man. Call this shit in right…now!” Blake said. Garrett hovered in the doorw
ay for a long moment, the baton twitching at his side, before finally moving off to the side. He fumbled for a mic built into the chest pad of his armored suit.
As soon as he moved aside Anna saw what they did, and a sour pit formed in her stomach. The elevator doors were half-open, the single, dim interior light swinging by a wire from the ceiling. The white light flickered dimly, stretching shadows over dark spatters on the walls. A large smear ran down the elevator’s right wall, swirling in a mess of footprints and puddles on the floor. Long, stretched fingerprints marked both doors, as if someone had grabbed on and been pulled free.
“Security alarm station,” Garrett said, talking into his mic. “Say again, I can’t understand you.”
A buzzing sensation crept over Anna’s skin, crawling down into her arms and legs, like squirming bugs were dumped all over her. She looked to Soraya, the other woman turning at the same time. She felt it, too.
“Ain’t right. Nothing right about it,” Blake mumbled, leaning tentatively towards the elevator. Then he spun on Anna and Soraya. “Was this you? Did he do this…your husband? Where’d all the…who’s blood is that?”
“Security alarm station, come in! This is Officer Garrett. We’ve got a situation here and need immediate support, over.”
The buzzing sensation grew more intense, fluttering her stomach. She felt sick, but why?
“That wasn’t there. I don’t know…I don’t know who’s blood that is,” Soraya said, and pulled Anna back. “This is bad. I feel it. Feel the bad. It’s close. We shouldn’t be here. Any of us. We need to get out of here.” Soraya and Anna backed away from the grisly elevator.
“You two stop right there! We’ve got a fuckin’ killer on the goddamn station, and until we figure out who is responsible and what is going on, no one is leaving this spot!” He circled around, tapping his counterpart on the shoulder, before settling in the hall behind them, cutting them off. “No one leaves until we get ahold of someone.”
