by Greig Beck
After another few moments, he vanished into the forest.
“Got something?”
“Jesus!” Carter jumped at the voice from behind and turned to see Red and Mitch entering the mill house.
“Bit jumpy, huh, boss?” Red grinned. “Or did we catch you watching porn?”
“Idiot.” Carter sighed and went back to looking at the screen. “I’ve got something and nothing. We had a visitor into the camp again last night, wandered around but damned if we caught it on film.” He scoffed. “But then I got one of the Russians coming out buck naked and walking off into the forest.”
Red shrugged. “Meh, in Sweden they cut holes in the ice and go swimming in it.”
“They do that in Australia too—they even have swimming clubs where they throw ice in the water. It’s traditional,” Mitch agreed.
“It’s madness,” Carter added. “Maybe Dmitry…” He sighed and paused. “No, I don’t know. Bottom line is, I’m no wiser on what has been triggering the sensors.”
“Maybe the cameras aren’t looking in the right place. Did you ever think it might have flown in?” Mitch asked matter-of-factly.
Hmm, no. Carter hadn’t thought of that. “Good point.” He straightened. The door opened again as Stefan and Nikolay entered and bade everyone good morning. By then, Red had coffee on and they waited on their Moscow guests to make an appearance.
Carter glanced back once more at the camera feed, and his brow remained pinched. There was something he was missing, and it set warning bells off in his head. He folded his arms and continued to stare at the small screen for a few more moments.
“You know what?’ He turned to his men. “Why don’t we take a walk up there and see what that crazy Russian has been up to?”
*****
Carter was first to Dmitry’s door, with Red and Mitch at his shoulders. The first thing he noticed was a speckle of frozen blood on the wooden porch. It immediately put him and his team on alert.
The door was closed but unlocked and he pulled his handgun, and then turned to his men, counting down. Red and Mitch also had their weapons ready.
Carter shouldered open the door and went in quick and low. Red and Mitch came to the door and each leaned around the frame, pointing their weapons inside, one low, one high. They knew the room was too small for all of them, so they just covered the room.
It was empty, and Carter quickly darted his eyes over every surface, dark area, or open door. He quickly went to the small washroom and eased around the corner.
That’s when he saw it.
“Goddamn.” He narrowed his eyes and gripped his gun a little tighter. He quickly looked about. “Clear.”
“What you got?” Red and Mitch entered and leaned into the washroom.
“Ah, shit.” Red’s mouth turned down in disgust.
On the bathroom floor was a pile of viscera—ropes of green, grey, and red intestines, bright red liver, heart, pink lungs, and the small bluish-green bag of the stomach.
“What the fuck,” Red repeated. “That’s fucking human.”
All three men had seen the insides of people, so they knew immediately what was laid out before them.
“Disemboweled,” Carter said. “And more.” He crouched beside something that looked like chopped oatmeal. “That’s brain matter.”
“Boss, this is bad,” Mitch said. “Real bad.”
“No, this is bullshit. We saw Dmitry walk out of here,” Red fumed. “Maybe he murdered someone.”
“I don’t think so.” Carter holstered his weapon. “I think this is Dmitry.”
“But we saw…” Red began and then his face dropped. “Ah fuck. Just like the damn bear.”
“Looks like it,” Carter said and went to the door, peering out. “We’ll put this on ice.” Carter turned to his friends. “Then we need to work out what the fuck is going on, fast.”
CHAPTER 34
Mikhail pushed on the large doors of the mill house and held them open for Anna. “Good morning,” he said loudly as he dropped his bags.
“And to you.” Yuri came forward, already beaming. “Mr. Stenson is just doing another job and should be with us soon. Mrs. Stenson is in one of the laboratories. Let me get you both some coffee and you can warm up a little.”
Mikhail and Anna went to talk to Stefan and Nikolay. Mikhail shook hands again. “So, our resident science team… things are well?”
Nikolay gushed a little and seemed to have trouble keeping his eyes off Anna, but Mikhail was impressed with his competence. The older of the two, Stefan, was a little more reserved, to the point of sounding a little bored. Together, the pair related their work with the sturgeon breeding program, the hatchings, and other details of their work.
Mikhail nodded patiently, and though he was a supporter of their program, it wasn’t why he and Anna had flown all the way down here.
“And so,” he announced with a clap and rub of his hands. “The sample you sent me. First, I would like to examine the carcass of the animal you caught where the sample was taken from.”
“Caught?” Yuri raised a bushy eyebrow. “Blew up more like.” He held out an arm toward the inner laboratories. “Stefan, Nikolay, please take our guests through.” He shrugged. “It is limited space, so I will wait for Mr. Stenson out here.”
“This way please.” Stefan paused. “There is no real need for biologically sealed garments, but we recommend gloves and masks only as we think the cellular material is still viable.”
“We have our own equipment,” Mikhail responded.
Mikhail and Anna then followed Stefan and Nikolay into one of the side laboratories, and through the glass partitions he saw Sara Stenson who turned and waved.
He and Anna donned their full disposable bio-suits regardless of what Stefan had told them. He looked back and saw that Sara had slid out a gurney containing a huge body covered in a sheet from the freezer. It was still an amazing sight as the sheeted mass lumped on the steel table was nearly to her chin. Nikolay then took them in.
“Mikhail, Anna, welcome.” Sara had a paper mask over her face, and her eyes looked wearied.
He nodded and then walked toward the massive lump. Sara immediately drew the sheet away, revealing the mass of dark fur with the huge rent down the middle. The bear was lying on its side, and the top of the skull was placed beside it like a stained porcelain bowl.
Sara stood back. “The strangest thing I’ve seen in my life.”
“Indeed.” Mikhail walked around the table and Anna moved to the top to peer into the empty skull cavity. Even though it was kept extremely cold and the smells were locked up, for the moment, Mikhail held his breath, not wanting to inhale the thing’s fumes
Anna straightened and turned to Sara. “In your report, you said the brains were already removed, yes?” She raised her eyebrows, watching her.
“Yes, removed, but not by us,” Sara replied. “The cranial cavity was empty when we opened the sealed skull.”
Anna’s eyes narrowed a little as she looked back down at the empty cavity. “And it was ambulant, you said. Without a brain. You saw this?”
“No,” Sara replied. “According to Carter, it wandered into an explosive. When they got there, it was torn up. The stomach cavity was already empty as well.”
“So, it could have been killed by another predator? Maybe a pack of wolves who ate the innards,” she asked.
“It’s possible.” Sara shrugged. “And they did find a blood trail of something that led from the carcass to the frozen lake, where it kept going all the way into the water.”
Anna stared for a moment before shaking her head. “I know of no animal around here that would take the offal back to the water. The biggest aquatic creature is the male nerpa seal, and though they can get to 140 pounds, they would not drag away a bear’s intestines.”
“We don’t think it was a seal either.” Sara might have grimaced behind her mask. “This might sound dumb, but it looked to us like something else was in the body, som
ething not bear, and once forced out by the explosion, made its way to the water.”
Anna fixed Sara with her gaze for a moment before turning to Mikhail. The Russian scientist just grunted without saying a word. “Let us begin.” He moved to the torso cavity, gripped it with two hands, and pried the ribs apart. “Could I get some light here please?”
Nikolay brought a flashlight and held it up over his shoulder. He stared inside for many minutes and then backed up. He took off his gloves and dropped them in a bin, and then went to one of his cases, where he took some more gloves, placed a headlamp on his forehead, and switched it on. He returned to the carcass.
“Into the belly of the beast,” he said softly.
Mikhail breathed evenly. He had seen the holes in the flesh. They weren’t wounds but looked more as if they belonged there. He reached in with a probe, feeling their depths, and saw they sunk right to the ends of the extremities—as if they were spaces to insert hands or fingers. Ridiculous, he thought. But then he remembered… Something in there. Something not bear, Sara had said.
Mikhail felt his heart rate pick up a little. He then probed the hole leading up to the skull that they claimed had already been empty. The idea that something had been inside the huge beast filled him with both professional curiosity and base human revulsion.
Exactly what could have been in there? he wondered. That question and the dozen others forming in his mind were exactly why he was here.
“Anna, the lights—the special ones.”
Anna nodded, went to another case, and opened it out. Inside was another box that contained what looked like flashlights and bulbs, but had weird funnels and the globes were a dark purple.
“Bring it here and hold it up as I open the body cavity.” He turned to Nikolay. “I need a strong arm to open and hold this ribcage wide.”
“Yes, sir.” Nikolay gripped the bear’s flesh and lifted. Stefan crowded in behind them as Anna flicked on the light.
It was a weird purple.
“Wow, blacklight,” Sara observed.
“Yes,” Mikhail said while leaning into the cavity. “Ultraviolet radiation is invisible to the human eye, but it has other scientific uses.”
He leaned further into the carcass. “And the most striking example of fluorescence occurs when the absorbed radiation is in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum, and thus invisible to the human eye. We humans can’t see it, but we can get it to reveal itself when we use black UV lighting.”
“Good thinking.” Sara strained to see.
“Some things can hide from our primitive vision.” Mikhail turned to Stefan. “Quick, my bag, there’s some forceps and a collection tube.”
Stefan went and opened the bag that had multiple slots for medical equipment and test tubes. He grabbed what Mikhail has asked for and returned to hand it to the chief scientist.
Mikhail reached in and grabbed something. When he pulled his arm out, in the blacklight, it looked like a glowing blob of gristle. He dropped it into the test tube.
“Now, watch this.” He turned to Anna. “Turn off the UV lights.”
She did as he asked. The glowing blob of flesh vanished before their eyes, leaving a greasy but empty glass tube.
“Amazing.” Sara’s mouth dropped open.
“Now you see it, now you don’t,” Mikhail said with a smile. He lifted the empty tube up and gave it a shake as he stared into it. “We’ve been waiting for you for over a hundred years.”
The Russian scientist lowered his hand and the tube, and then turned to the group. His face became serious. “What I am about to tell you is of the utmost secrecy. And I only tell you because I need your assistance with what’s about to happen next.”
Anna stiffened and quickly turned to face him with an expression that held a warning.
Mikhail waved a hand gently in the air. “It’s okay, Anna, we’ll truly need their help, and they must know what we all are potentially dealing with here.”
She nodded but Mikhail could tell she wasn’t really convinced. Mikhail handed the tube with the blob in it to Sara.
“I’m sure you’ll find this is similar biological material with identical genetic structure as the black fluid you gathered. Except it only reveals itself under UV light.”
Sara held up the now empty-looking tube. “You know what it is, don’t you?”
“You said you believed that something was inside the cavity. And all evidence points to that being true.” Mikhail turned to look again at the massive carcass. “The bear was moving around, even though its extremities seemed to be necrotizing. Like it had been dead for days, weeks, or maybe even years in this freezing climate, yes?”
“That’s correct,” she said.
“All mammalian bodies function through chemical processes—fluids, sugars, adrenaline, and hormones actually drive our muscles.” Mikhail began to pace. “Blood is the fuel for our bodies that keeps our physical machine working. But when the heart stops beating, the blood stops flowing. No blood, no fuel, and the machine breaks down.” He paused. “That black fluid was a manufactured substance to keep the bear carcass fed, mobile, and I guess you could say, lubricated. So, to answer your question, Sara, that black substance is like blood, but just not the bear’s.”
“Stefan, do the honors.” Sara handed the sample to the young Russian.
“Excellent.” Stefan prepared the sample as Anna came and held the blacklight up over the microscope. He then slid a sliver onto the microscope plate and bent over the eyepiece. Nikolay watched, looking transfixed.
“Mikhail, what do you mean when you said you’ve been waiting for this for a century?” Sara asked.
Mikhail sighed, moved to the edge of the room where there was a single chair, and sat down heavily, clasping gloved fingers together.
“In 1908, there was an incident in Siberia… a massive explosion about 100 miles from here over the Tunguska region.”
“I’ve heard of it,” she replied. “It flattened hundreds of miles of forest.”
“A meteorite explosion,” Nikolay added, now listening over his shoulder.
“That’s right,” Mikhail said. “An object exploded in our atmosphere. It was some sort of astral body we believed, but thankfully, it never made landfall; otherwise, it might have left a crater the size of Moscow.”
“But what has that got to do with us?” Nikolay clicked his fingers and turned to Sara. “The big wave. From the cave.”
Mikhail turned to him. “The big wave? What is this?”
“They found a cave,” Sara answered. “With some early human remains, possibly tens of thousands of years old. They were sealed in by a rockslide. But before they were entombed, they created a pretty vivid cave art story telling us what they saw.”
“A time capsule,” Mikhail whispered.
She nodded. “It showed their land being inundated by a huge wave from the lake…” She looked into Mikhail’s eyes, “…generated after the lake was struck by an object from the sky.”
Mikhail snorted softly. “Of course—the lake.” His eyes lit up with excitement. “The Tunguska region was flattened and nothing remained of the object. Or so we thought. Under blacklights, just like the ones we are using here, we found something—biological samples from the crash site that didn’t match up with anything known in our massive genome databases.”
Sara’s mouth turned down. “But I bet they matched up with what we just dug out of this bear’s gut cavity, right?”
Mikhail nodded slowly and turned to her with a flat smile. “What we found at Tunguska was merely fragments; little more than scattered specks. And what you have found is something else entirely. Something unique to our planet, or perhaps, not of this planet at all.”
“Not of this planet? An alien?” Nikolay chuckled. “Seriously?”
“Maybe,” Mikhail said without humor. “Maybe the detonation over landfall was a failure. But over the water, it was a success. A successful touchdown.”
“The lights under the
water. The legends.” Nikolay drew in a breath. “Something crashed, or landed. And it’s still down there.”
“This is just conjecture,” Sara observed.
“Of course. We have more to learn before we call it one way or the other.” Mikhail turned to Stefan. “What can you tell us?”
Stefan leaned back from his microscope. “The material is certainly biological, but it seems to be free of bone or cartilage, and nearly all striated muscle mass.” He leaned back over the eyepiece and moved the slide a little. “However, there is something a little more solid in there, and if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a little like chitin.”
“What’s that?” Nikolay asked.
Stefan looked up. “Exoskeleton, shell, like on a lobster or insect.”
Sara tilted her head. “What would that be doing inside the bear?” She looked to Mikhail. “Could it have been a scavenger? On the corpse?”
“Interesting.” Mikhail stared at the floor, his eyes not quite focused.
“Bears eat insects, and insects eat bears—there are plenty of beetles and other insects that scavenge on flesh. But not in this type of cold, and also none that I know of that are invisible to the naked eye or glow under ultraviolet light,” Nikolay said.
“Yes, there are,” Anna replied, turning to him. “Scorpions—all of them fluoresce under ultraviolet light, such as an electric blacklight or even natural moonlight. The blue-green glow comes from a substance found in the hyaline layer of their shell.”
“So that blob of flesh was from something like a scorpion?” Nikolay’s brows were up.
“I didn’t say that.” Anna turned to Mikhail. “I didn’t even say it was from a land-based organism.”
“You might be on to something there.” Stefan leaned back. “There was something else in the sample—zooplankton fragments. Mainly Filinia rotifers, and also Epischura bacteria—from the lake.”
“Is that good or bad?” Sara asked.
“Hmm, not exactly something I’d expect to see inside a bear.” Mikhail turned away as though thinking.
“Everything comes back to the lake,” Anna said. “I think whatever failed to come down at Tunguska, seems to have successfully arrived in the water.”
