‘We have the core.’
She sighed with relief. The story was harrowing, but the lives of a million people depended on their success. ‘What’s your ETA?’ she asked solemnly.
‘I’m not sure, the storm is slowing us down. We’ll keep you up to date.’
‘Do that. The weather will get worse before it gets better. We might lose contact altogether for a while. Get home safe.’
She hung up.
Aaro exhaled slowly and realised his heart was beating hard. She’d have more questions when they got back. Why did Sam get killed when he was supposed to stay in the truck? How did Sabina get shot at all and by who? What was she doing leaving the truck? But the answers to those questions weren’t to be explained to her now. The mission was almost complete, and that was the important thing. They were expected to die, to fail — the fact that some had survived and they’d even managed to secure a core was the best news they could have hoped for, regardless of the losses that came with it.
They closed on Rovaniemi as the storm reached breaking point. The wind had built to nearly a hundred and twenty kilometres an hour and battered them from all sides it seemed.
Robin slowed the truck and changed down through the gears.
‘Why are we slowing down?’ Aaro yelled, getting up and moving towards the screen.
‘You want to take a look at this.’
‘At what?’
‘There’s movement up ahead.’
Aaro ignored the searing pain in his face and blinked to clear his eyes, staring at the screen. ‘What is it? I don’t see anything.’ He grabbed the remote and cycled through the feeds. The night vision camera showed a green blizzard, the thermal showed only white, but when he got to the motion sensor, he saw. It was going crazy.
The blizzard was filling the screen with golden rain, but dense clusters of sparks moving alongside them were clearly visible. Dozens, hundreds possibly. It was hard to make out but Aaro knew what was happening. The Varas were converging on Rovaniemi, taking refuge from the storm in the ruined buildings that made up the town.
‘Stop,’ Aaro called in reflex.
Robin stood on the brake and the truck ground to a shuddering halt.
Aaro stopped and thought. ‘How far outside the town are we?’
‘Less than half a click.’
‘Find us an alternate route.’
‘There’s a turning ahead with a road headed south, but it’s a hundred kilometres out of the way and everything other than a highway will be suicide in this weather — buried under snow and ice — we’d never keep her on the road.’
Aaro ground his teeth as Robin stared into the camera, right at Aaro.
‘What else is South?’
Robin pulled the map off the dashboard and ran his fingers over it in the dim cabin lighting of the cockpit. Alva was still asleep next to him, huddled against the door in a shivering ball. Robin shook his head and shrugged, offering his hands. ‘Nothing. There’s nothing south of here. No major towns or roads until Oulu on the coast, or Kuopio by land. This is the only way through.’
‘Where’s the storm headed?’
‘South by Southwest.’ Robin said, squinting at a screen in the centre console that was feeding him weather updates in text from Stockholm. There hadn’t been satellite coverage for years.
‘Will it hit Kuopio?’
‘The tail end might,’ he replied, shaking his head again. He didn’t know what Aaro was asking.
‘Raise Kat.’
‘What?’
'Get Kat on the line,’ Aaro yelled.
‘Okay, okay,’ Robin grumbled and hit a few buttons, rubbing his eyes.
‘Hello?’ came Kat’s crackly voice once more.
‘Kat,’
‘Aaro?’
‘We’re heading south. The town up ahead is overrun. This storm will slow us down and we’ll never make it through.’
‘What? I’m struggling to hear you,’ she shouted, dipping in and out.
‘We’re heading to St.Petersburg,’ he said flatly, leaning his hands against the wall either side of the screen.
‘Did you say St.Petersburg?’ she yelled back. The storm was ruining the reception.
Sorina fired him a scornful look from her cot.
‘Yeah. Get them on the line, tell them to expect us within twelve hours.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s the only way — Robin, take us south. Head for Russia.’
‘Aaro…’ he said, unsure.
‘Do it!’ he yelled. ‘If you don’t, Sab is going to die. And there’s no way we make it back to Stockholm through this. It’s the only way.’
Robin sighed, locked his jaw, and pushed the truck into gear. The engine growled and they trundled forwards.
‘Kat, let them know,’ Aaro said. ‘We’ll refuel there and make the trip down to Denmark and then up to Stockholm. We have to keep moving. If we stop here we’ll die. And if we don’t make it there, we won’t make it at all.’
‘Okay, I’ll get them on the line. Keep me posted,’ she said sadly. The hope that was in her voice during their last conversation had now waned.
‘Yeah, we will,’ he said, cutting her off.
‘Robin, you alright with this?’
‘Do we have another choice?’ He was really asking.
‘If you have any ideas, please. Now’s the time. If not…’
He nodded gravely and they set off south, pulling onto the other road, the storm still hammering them.
‘This is suicide,’ Sorina muttered, her breath misting in front of her face.
The temperature in the trailer was steadily dropping.
‘Yeah, probably,’ Aaro muttered back.
‘You’ll kill us all.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Aaro growled, tired of her anger. ‘If it comes to it, I’ll make it quick for you.’ He said it without any remorse.
He was done with being the good guy.
He was evil through and through after everything he’d done — he realised that now. It was only thinly masked by that facade. He was crusading to save the city, the girl, himself.
For a moment, he thought he was the hero.
But heroes fail.
Heroes die.
And he wasn’t ready to die.
Not yet at least.
FORTY-SIX
PLAYING GOD
2108 AD
The power was out.
The gas was depleted.
Coldness seeped into the house like a virus.
Food was running low and the little group of survivors spent their days huddled in a corner for warmth. Max. His wife. His daughter. Angela.
But not Gertlinger.
He spent what little time he had left in the basement, under the light of a little battery lamp, scrawling in a notebook — the dying thoughts of a man soaked in guilt and whisky.
He was recording everything. From the day it had all began, until that very moment. If someone ever found their way to this place, he’d leave behind his story so that the people who found it, if anyone ever did — be it in ten, a hundred, or a thousand years, if this ever stopped — would know what happened, how the world came to the brink.
He dotted the last sentence and closed the book. ‘I lived my last days at home, with my family. Don’t be sad for me. Just accept my apology — for this is my fault. It’s all my fault. I’m sorry. To whoever finds this, and for whatever your world is like. I am sorry.’
Gertlinger stood, and took the long walk down the tunnel to the garage door.
He punched in his code and the door slowly creaked open.
He stepped into the cold afternoon air and he took a deep breath.
The bleak sun hit his thin, old shoulders, and he basked in the silence of the mountains.
The door closed behind him and locked.
He paced across the road and stepped over the crash barrier.
He leaned back and sat on it, staring out at the valleys that he’d enjoyed so many times before,
back when things were okay. Back when they were normal. Back when he was happy. If he ever was.
He enjoyed it now possibly more than he ever had before.
He smiled to himself and a single tear rolled down his cheek.
He dug in his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Inside it, there was one left.
He’d been saving it for months, for this very moment.
He pushed it between his quivering lips and lit it.
He took one slow, despairing drag as an eerie, haunting howl sustained in the stillness around him, and echoed.
FORTY-SEVEN
THE VEIL
2122 AD
Bad was a vague and ambiguous word, and it didn’t even come close to describing the situation.
The Varas had not let the truck go unnoticed for long. From above the storm howled, and from the sides, so did the monsters.
Aaro had taken up the mounted gun and was firing blindly into the storm, but the bullets were lost amidst the snow and seemed utterly useless.
The Varas hurled themselves tirelessly and endlessly against the hull. The dull clunks of their heavy bodies hitting the metal was like a chorus of drums.
The truck took a bend and headed up an incline.
‘Shit!’ cursed Robin from the cockpit, throwing the wheel left and right to try and maintain control. Alva was up now, navigating as best she could as they steered blindly through the night. The wall of lights that filled the front of the truck and blazed into the storm seemed to do nothing for the visibility. The snow was thick and heavy, the air hazy with ice and monsters.
‘What’s wrong?’ yelled Aaro, his finger still locked on to the trigger, the numb rattle of gunfire filtering back into the trailer.
‘We’re slowing!’
‘Why?’
‘I’m trying to keep pace but this hill is too much for her. I’ve got no traction. We’re going to slide out at any second!’ Robin roared, fighting the wheel madly on screen as it bucked under its own free will, the tires spinning and surging under them.
‘Do what you can! Turn round if you have to, but we can’t stop.’
He cursed loudly from the cabin and tried, but it was useless. Aaro could feel the weight shifting, the momentum dying. The hill was long and shallow, but in the snow, the wheels couldn’t find any grip.
From all around the Varas swarmed, hungry for a warm meal in the storm.
Sabina had fallen unconscious, moaning in delirium as the infection took hold.
Sorina had done what she could but she wasn’t a doctor and the bullet had done its work. Aaro wouldn’t let her suffer much longer and he wouldn’t let her get ripped apart either.
The trailer began to slide as Robin gave up. He stopped turning into the hill and threw the wheel full lock in the other direction.
The truck’s engine revved to the redline as the wheels spun wildy, trying to drag the trailer around. Head down, find another way — it was their only option, but it was too little, too late. As the truck turned, the trailer did too, but the smoothed underside transformed it into a toboggan on the hard packed snow that the cowcatcher had shunted onto the other side of the road. The truck and the trailer jackknifed and began to slide, deep in gravity’s hold.
Aaro cursed as the shift threw him off balance.
All the bags and everything else not bolted down began to slide to the side of the trailer, piling the weight on the low side.
They were out of control.
Shouts from the cockpit echoed through the back and Aaro clambered desperately over the cargo to stay afloat.
Sorina clung to Sab’s cot and hung there on the high side of the trailer, trying to keep her on the bed.
The road was buried, the cameras showed only white. They were deep in the Finnish wasteland now, a hundred clicks from everything with nothing but trees to break up the featureless tundra.
The truck dropped and bounced as they left the raised roadway, the steel belly of the truck grinding across the corner of the asphalt. Everything shook and then they were sliding again, spinning into the grassy ravine that lay beyond the shoulder.
Everyone screamed as the Varas continued to hammer the truck.
‘Robin!’ yelled Aaro, trying to leap over a mountain of duffle and kit bags. ‘Get Kat on the line!’
‘I can’t!’ he screamed, holding onto the wheel for dear life.
‘It’s too far gone, let her slide! Call Kat! We need to relay our position—’
But before he could finish, a deafening crunch of metal rocked the truck and Aaro was thrown like a ragdoll into the wall, along with all the cargo. The truck had caught a tree on its descent and had split in two, cleaving the trailer from the cab.
The trailer dug in and began to roll. The low centre of gravity that kept it steady on the road now hurled it into the air. As it pitted, the force of the roll swung the heavy bottom upwards, the momentum catapulting them down into the trees.
A moment of stillness swallowed the trailer as it careened through the air, it smashed into the ground and buckled. Aaro bounced around, watching as everything span in front of him. Freezing wind filled the space and what little heat there was left was snatched away, the cold raking at their exposed skin like claws.
The hull was breached.
Snow spilled in through the cracks in the walls and the split seams in the corners and poured down over the debris in the trailer.
He looked around desperately for Sorina but in the blur of the tumble, he saw nothing but darkness. The lights strobed as they rolled, over and over, tossing him like a ragdoll.
And then nothing.
He opened his eyes and dragged in a frozen breath.
The trailer had settled at the bottom of the slope, on its side. Everything was upended. Every piece of cargo was battered and overturned, lying in a heap on the side of the truck.
The only light came from the emergency lamp under the roof hatch.
The trailer was bathed in bloody red.
Sabina. Her limp body was face down between boxes.
Sorina? Where was she?
Aaro struggled to his knees and clawed his way over the bags and boxes, bruised and breathless.
‘Robin!?’ he yelled to no answer. The screen was cracked and black, hanging lopsided off one mounting bolt.
The trailer had separated from the cab. It could have been anywhere. He couldn’t go out to look, not in this weather, not with them outside — and if the trailer had buckled in the roll, with all its reinforcements, then the cab must have too — and if it had, then they’d be dead in minutes if not already.
The temperature in the trailer plunged as Aaro clambered forwards, already shivering. He rolled Sabina over and checked her pulse, his fingers stiff. She was still breathing, but barely. The fall had opened her wound and blood was pouring onto the bags around her, shining like ink in the half-light. He pulled her upright and tugged a toolbox out of the way so she could sit.
He shook her but she wouldn’t wake.
Her head lolled limply on her shoulders.
‘Sorina?’ he called, turning to the darkened space.
There was no response.
A thin layer of snow was beginning to settle on the cargo, the flakes glistening as they drifted down.
‘Sorina?’ he called again, louder now.
There was no reply, not from her anyway. Instead, a snarl and grunt rose from outside the walls. The wind licked at the hole in the hull above him and sang a long, warbling note. Clawed feet crunched in frozen snow. One leapt up and scrabbled onto the roof.
He glanced up and kept moving, aware suddenly of the volume of his voice, his breath, his heart.
‘Sorina!’ He hissed this time, pushing boxes and bags out of the way. Sabina was now a lost cause, he knew that. She was losing more blood, and if she hadn’t already, she was about to go into septic shock. There was nothing he could do for her.
He kept digging.
‘Sorina!’
There. T
here she was, lying crumpled on her side. He scrambled forwards and rolled her over. She lay there, still. Eyes open and glassy. For a second he thought she was dead, but then she calmly turned her head towards him.
‘Sorina?’ he whispered, trying to hold her, to gather her in his arms.
‘Don’t touch me,’ she said back, her hushed voice devoid of any emotion.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked his voice shaking as badly as his hands. He was shivering violently.
She smiled sadly at him. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘What’s wrong!?’ he muttered quickly, running his hands over her legs and body, checking for injuries.
She didn’t push him off, she just turned her head away. ‘Just let me die,’ she said, tears forming in her eyes.
‘What? No. We can get out of this!' He tried to pull her up again but she shrugged him off, pushing away his hands.
‘Just let me die!’ she shrieked without warning, flinging tears into the darkness.
‘I can’t!’
‘Why?’ she screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘Why? I don’t want to live anymore! Everything I ever believed in is gone. Let me die! I want to die!’
‘I can’t.’ he croaked, falling backwards, sitting on his heels, his hands laid on his thighs, soaked in blood. His. Sabina’s. He didn’t know. It was pouring from his nose, his head now.
Rumbling hisses echoed through the hole. More were coming. The scent of blood was thick in the air.
‘I love you, Sorina.’
‘And I loved you. You were all I had.’
‘You still have me,’ he pleased. ‘I’m right here.’
‘No, you died the second you raised your gun against Ek, or Bjork, or whoever you killed first. The second you pulled that trigger the barrel might as well have been in your own goddamn mouth.’
‘No.’
‘Yes. You shot four people in cold blood. Murdered them. The Aaro Emmerson I knew, the Aaro I loved — he wouldn’t do that. He’s gone. And he can never come back. I don’t know who you are!' She swiped at him with her arms, snatching at his face, and he fell backwards to get out of the way.
She locked eyes with him — hateful, regret soaked eyes.
The Varas above had swarmed, their claws and bodies dancing across the metal, scraping and scratching to get in, digging at the steel. It groaned under their weight as they pressed down on the trailer.
The Veil Page 31
