“Take the suit off, Naish. We’ve got work to do.”
“I don’t mind keeping mine on. Really.”
“It makes your ass look big.”
“I’ll take it off.”
Kelty took another deep breath and unzipped his suit. “Seems like we’re safe and I can’t collect samples wearing a pair of damned oven gloves.”
Under the hazard gear both doctor and assistant were wearing olive overalls with military insignia. Kelty’s denoted the rank of Colonel. Now that their helmets were gone they could hear the wail of Klaxon horns echoing round the deserted complex. Kelty signalled to the other members of the party to follow his actions and, reluctantly, they removed their biohazard suits.
Without the protective gear the doctor could see who was who. Those with guns were wearing US army uniforms. The members of his research team were unarmed and had olive coveralls similar to his own.
A tall lieutenant with cropped blond hair marched over and saluted briefly.
“Orders, Doctor? I mean, Colonel.”
Kelty nodded towards the boxy buildings in front of them.
“The fire must be localised or the whole place would have burned down overnight. Lower levels, most likely. Send some men down with respirator gear and make sure it’s out.”
Sheridan Research Base was still brightly lit – the complex had its own power supply - and strip lights shone in sickly lines through smoke drifting across the ceilings.
Doctor Kelty was correct. The occupants of the base were all dead.
Researchers in white lab coats lay at strange angles in the antiseptic corridors. Uniformed soldiers were draped over consoles. Legs stuck out from under tables in thickening pools of blood. And each body was covered with swarming black dots.
“Jesus, Doctor, what caused this?” The Lieutenant sidled up, looking distinctly queasy. “Was it the fire? Was it the ants?”
Kelty turned over the body of a researcher with his foot. A kitchen knife protruded from the man’s chest.
“Don’t think so lieutenant.” He turned dispassionately to Naish. “I want blood samples from a couple of these bodies.”
But Naish was staring at the dead researcher.
“Dr Kelty. Look at his face.”
Kelty felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. The man’s eyes were wide open and so was his mouth, white spittle crusted around the lips.
It was a look of absolute terror.
“He’s got a knife stuck in his chest.” Kelty strove for composure. “You expect him to look pleased?”
“It’s not just one man.” The Lieutenant was inspecting another body. “This guy’s got the same expression.” He moved quickly to the next corpse and turned it over. “This one too.”
He stood up wiping grimy hands on his jacket.
“Doctor. If I didn’t know better, I’d say some of these men died of fright.”
“You leave the diagnoses to me,” Kelty snapped. “What are you waiting for Naish? The poor boob to show you his organ donor card?”
Naish knelt resentfully beside the nearest corpse and opened a medical kit. Her long dark hair swung round her face, hiding a grimace, as she injected a syringe into the body’s stiffening thigh.
“Notice something odd about these ants, Naish?” Kelty bent down and peered at the scurrying insects.
“They’ve all got dead bodies under them?”
“There’s half a dozen different species. Species that don’t normally mix.”
“Ow!” Naish jerked her hand back, releasing an arc of crimson from the syringe. “You little….”
“Yeah. Some of them are bull ants. You wanna watch those suckers.”
The lieutenant’s walkie talkie crackled. He held it to his ear and listened for a few seconds.
“The fire was in the research labs below, Dr Kelty. You were right. It was extensive but it’s pretty much burned itself out.”
“See if your unit can salvage anything. The computers up here are just for administration and the ones below are probably reduced to ash. So tell them to look for classified file cabinets or any hard data that might have survived – not that it’s likely.”
He took Naish by the arm and pulled her into one of the offices lining the corridor.
“Get one of these PC’s up and running. I want a list of all personnel on this complex, and that includes the prisoners in the lower levels.”
He stuck his head back into the corridor.
“Lieutenant, I need a body count. And it has to be accurate.”
“The soldiers have dog tags but my men say the other staff on the bottom levels are too charred to be identified. ”
“We’ll cross that hurdle later. For now, I just need to know if anyone got off this base.”
“Will do, Doc.” The lieutenant turned sharply and strode away. Naish sat down in front of a computer and dropped the syringes into her medical kit.
“Well, it looks like the Stopwatch Project is an unmitigated failure,” she grunted, turning on the machine.
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Doctor Kelty stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I’d say we got exactly what we were looking for.”
4
Kirkfallen Island, Eastern Atlantic Ocean
2000
Gene Stapleton sat at the edge of his world, legs dangling over the cliff top, watching the sun rise. In front of him the Atlantic Ocean rose and sank in muscular green swells, buffeting the rocks below his perch and showering him with misty droplets of freezing water. Guillemots screamed overhead, angered by the boy’s closeness to their nesting area, circling above his head in flailing clouds of frustration.
Kirkfallen Island, or ‘Fallen’ as the inhabitants referred to it, was the only home Gene had ever known and its isolation was near absolute. Four miles long and two miles wide, it was hours by boat from the Outer Hebrides, a cluster of larger islands off the West Coast of Scotland. And the Hebrides hardly constituted a bustling metropolis – the only inhabitants lived in a few villages or made up the personnel of Radcliff US Naval base.
Gene had never really minded the remoteness of his home. Sure, it could get boring. The land was an unbroken expanse of brownish green, as if the island wore camouflage, and a peculiarity of its location meant Kirkfallen was almost permanently shrouded by low-lying clouds. TV signals didn’t reach that far into the Atlantic and the island’s electrical generators were for essentials - Gene didn’t even have a computer, never mind internet access.
But Kirkfallen housed a small self-sufficient community and he had lifelong friends he had grown up with. Gene could catch a fish with his hands, gut and cook it. And, though he was only fifteen, he could shoot like a marksman and do a hundred yard wheelie in the communal land buggies – though he wasn’t supposed to touch them at all.
If he had to describe Kirkfallen, Gene Stapleton would have said harsh but idyllic - words he had looked up in the big dictionary in the information hut.
Until three days ago.
Three days ago a young married couple called the Orbisons, the newest addition to the island community, had committed suicide. They were found on the rocks below Pittenhall Ridge where, it appeared, they had jumped to their deaths.
The Orbisons had arrived the month before, on a trial period, to see if they could handle the rigours of an island existence. At first they had kept themselves to themselves. But recently they had taken to life at Kirkfallen, praising the inhabitant’s uncomplicated ways and joining in with communal activities. In fact, they seemed delighted to be there.
It looked like their happiness had been an act.
But there was little time for mourning on Kirkfallen. Life here was a continual struggle to wrestle a living from the land and it had to go on, no matter what disasters befell the inhabitants. Some even muttered that the Orbisons had brought disaster on themselves by being at Pittenhall Ridge in the first place. It wasn’t exactly off limits, but few adults ever ventured there and the children were forbidden t
o go near it.
Because Pittenhall Ridge ended at the Fence.
The Fence had been there when the first islanders arrived. According to dilapidated warning notices it was once electrified and still posed a formidable barrier - ten feet high and topped with broken loops of rusted barbed wire. The Fence separated the bulk of the island from a small but towering promontory known as Jackson Head and the only gate was padlocked. A square sign, faded by the weather, read
Property of the
United States Navy
Trespassers will Incur
the Severest Penalty
A few hundred yards further on were the remains of a low concrete building, now crumbling and overrun with weeds. It was a place that inspired rumours. Some kids theorised that scientists conducted secret experiments there, until a massive explosion destroyed the place. Others swore the promontory was haunted.
Whatever the truth, Jackson Head was an absolute no go area for a very practical reason. The cliffs just behind the abandoned complex were sheer drops and the land at the top was dangerously unstable, often jutting out over the ferocious Atlantic waves. The whole promontory had been deemed unsafe, riddled with caves and holes, some of which plunged in deadly funnels down to the jagged rocks at sea level.
The day after the Orbisons died, a helicopter from Radcliffe naval base airlifted the bodies out. Then life on the island had continued. Nobody wanted to dwell on the tragedy.
But Gene Stapleton couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Because he didn’t believe the Orbisons had committed suicide.
He was sure they had been murdered.
5
Northern Mohave Desert
1980
The sun was beginning to crumple the air into a shimmering haze, as the jeep reached the foothills that marked the northern fringe of the Mohave. Louise lurched down a ravine and brought the vehicle to a halt by crunching the front into a rock face with a jutting overhang.
“Brake’s the middle pedal, Louise,” Dan offered dryly.
“Last few minutes in the shade.” The woman unzipped her parka and pushed back the hood revealing curly black hair. “Make the most of it. Time to lose the sweater and pants. There’s a shirt and shorts under the passenger seat.”
Dan Salty jumped out and went behind a rock to change. When he emerged Louise was also wearing shorts with a light purple top. He watched with macabre fascination as she pulled the stiffening bodies of the soldiers into the driver and passenger seat.
“Should take the army a while to find these fellas and, if we’re really lucky, they’ll think they killed each other.” She manoeuvred the men so they were face to face. “Though I gotta tell you, good luck has never really run in my family.”
“Is everyone back at that place dead?”
“Far as I can tell.”
“What caused it?”
“They did, honey.” The woman hauled a small rucksack onto her knee. “C’mere.”
The teenager sidled over and Louise pulled a tube of sun tan lotion from her pack.
“Better get this on.” She squeezed ointment from the tube and began to smear it on his arms, legs and face. Dan remembered his mother used to do the same. He looked into the bag. It was filled with bottles of water.
“You’ve thought of everything,”
“I was always an outdoor type, son.” The woman applied lotion to her own face and arms. “It’s just a basic survival kit. Easy to put together.”
Dan stuck hands in his pocket and squinted at the sun.
“Louise. How come you and I are still alive?”
“That’s something I ain’t figured out yet.” Louise tucked the empty tube into her pocket. With a rag she wiped the interior of the jeep to remove any fingerprints, stuffed the extra clothing into her rucksack and shouldered it.
“This way. Stay off the sand and on the rocks until we’re a goodly distance from here, so’s not to leave footprints. We don’t want to broadcast the fact that we even exist, never mind the direction we’re heading.”
They walked at a steady pace, never getting too far from some sort of shelter. Twice they heard the noise of a helicopter and scuttled under the nearest rock formation until the sound was gone. After a while Dan tried to start a conversation but Louise dismissed this with a wave of her hand.
“Save your breath, son. We ain’t done walking.”
Before long the boy was glad to heed her advice. Sweat slicked every inch of his body and his breath came in short searing bursts. But he kept pace with his long legged companion, who seemed unfazed by the heat or her pregnancy, which hadn’t even begun to show. Partly Dan kept up from pride. Partly it was because he suspected Louise would leave him behind if he started to flag.
Slowly the foothills levelled out and rock was replaced by scrub grass. Sequoia trees began to dot the landscape. Forty minutes later they came to a road. Louise sank to her knees and Dan collapsed beside her, panting with exhaustion.
“Highway 58. We can hitch from here. Driver asks? You’re my son and we were on a camping trip. Couldn’t get our car to start. In fact, don’t say anything at all. I’ll do the talking.”
“Can’t speak anyway,” Dan rasped. “Feel like someone’s stuffed a pair of Jockey shorts down my throat.”
Louise gave a chuckle. In the distance they saw a plume of dust moving slowly across the deserted landscape.
“That’s a car.” She struggled to her feet. “Could be you’ve changed my luck, honey.”
The Lieutenant marched into one of Sheridan’s sparse living quarters and saluted. Naish was asleep on a bunk but Kelty was alert as ever, sitting at a table, studying files.
“We’ve gone over the base with a fine tooth comb, Sir.”
“And?”
“As far as we can tell, four people are missing.”
Kelty slammed his palm flat on the table. Naish’s eyes shot open and she sat up quickly, wiping saliva from the corner of her mouth.
“Do we know who they are?”
“No sir.” The lieutenant smelt of smoke and his cheeks were streaked with soot. “There are about twenty bodies in the lower level, too badly burned to identify. Some of the corpses are the prisoners - they couldn’t get out of their cells - but there were only twelve of them so the rest must be personnel.”
“Are you searching the surrounding area?”
“The choppers are doing aerial sweeps in a fifty mile radius of the base but there’s no sign of life anywhere.”
“Which means they left in a vehicle. Aren’t there tyre tracks out there in the sand?”
“Hundreds,” the lieutenant replied. “Base security patrols this area three times a day in jeeps to make certain it’s secure.”
The Doctor shut his eyes.
“Then tell the choppers to look for the only tracks going in a straight line,” he sighed.
“Yessir.” The Lieutenant saluted and turned on his heel. Then he stopped. “Excuse me sir. What do we do if we spot the fugitives?”
“You do not land or approach them under any circumstances. Shoot them down where they stand.”
“Sir?”
“You heard me.”
The Lieutenant swallowed hard. Then he saluted once more and barrelled out of the room. Dr Kelty lowered his head into his hands.
“Shall I get us some coffee, Sir?” Naish leaned over his shoulder, yawning. Her eyes were bleary and gummed with sleep. “The vending machines on this level still work.”
“Get back on the computer,” Kelty barked, holding up a clipboard. “Match every identifiable body on the base to this list of personnel and prisoners.”
“And then?”
“Find out the name of everyone you haven’t ticked off the list. Then check if they were billeted here or not – I know some staff were bussed in from the towns on the fringe of the desert. If any outsiders are unaccounted for, send what limited forces we have left after this debacle to find out if they’ve shown up at home. If they haven’t, c
heck the houses of relatives, friends, lovers, workmates… their favourite store where they like to go get an ice cream soda.”
Kelty thrust the clipboard into Naish’s arms.
“I want the survivors who got off this base found.”
“That could take weeks!”
“Good job you got some precious shut-eye then.” Kelty’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Cause you’ll be awake till this is sorted.”
“Can’t remember the last time I had an ice cream soda,” Naish said wistfully, then scurried out of the room before Kelty found something to throw at her.
6
Kirkfallen Island 2000
Gene Stapleton ate lunch with his parents in their stone croft, like always. As usual it was simple fare – potato salad and smoked fish. As usual Gene’s curious nature got the better of him and he asked his daily awkward question.
“Shouldn’t we be saying Grace before meals?”
“Say what?”
“Thanking the Lord for the potato salad and that kind of thing.”
“Well it is good.” His father ladled a large helping of white mush onto his plate and offered some to his wife. “You want to say Grace, Annie?”
“Not really,” Gene’s mother gave a serene smile. “I’ve never been much of a public speaker.”
“Me neither. You’re outvoted son.” His father gave a sympathetic shrug. “God bless democracy.”
Gene’s mother sniggered then quickly straightened her face.
“Don’t make fun, Eddie,” she scolded. “The boy’s entitled to his views.”
“You’re right, of course.” Edward Stapleton took a swig of water and stretched. “Say Grace if you want Gene. Just do it in your head. Some of us are trying to eat.”
Gene Stapleton, Poppy Ainsworth and Millar Watt sat in their gang hut, the spot they considered to be the centre of the island. As huts went, it was pretty impressive - designed to stand up to the biting Atlantic wind and rain. Roughly hexagonal in shape and set in a protective hollow, it was made from nailed together chunks of driftwood secured by strands of discarded rope. Buttresses gave the building added resilience, cracks in the structure were filled with dried mud and the whole edifice was topped by thatched sea grass.
The Kirkfallen Stopwatch Page 2