The Kielder Experiment (Book 2): The Alaska Strain

by Fernfield, Rebecca

  The creature descends, jaws wide, and teeth, bone-white and needle sharp, sink into his broken shoulder.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Cold suffuses every cell in Rachel’s body as she moves from a blank darkness to consciousness. Brightness flickers. She squeezes eyelids tight to block out the light. The cold bites, but beyond that there is pain, and a heavy weight somewhere on her body. Water laps at her face, running up her nose, and she splutters, raises her head and spits. Snorting water, she swallows, bokes at the saltiness, and coughs. Opening her eyes to the light, she quickly closes them, then peers through her lashes at the sky. Around her is the sound of lapping water, and waves rushing over shingle. The cold recedes a fraction then covers her again with the movement of the waves. Through a fog of memory, she realises she is alive, and pushes against stones to sit. The pain in her leg is immense and, as she sits, blood mingles with the water. She shivers, and shuffles back from the sea until it no longer laps at her feet. Breathless with the effort, and the pain searing her leg, she scans the area. A curved and stony beach sits in a crescent. Behind her is a thick bank of pine trees that rise up on a hillside and before her is the sea, the vast, life-ending sea.

  Movement among the waves catches her eye, and Jean-Luc’s metal box bobs on the surface. She watches, mesmerised by its sway as it disappears, then reappears on the waves, edging closer to the shore with each movement. A memory stirs of Chris and his video. The footage was amateurish, clumsy, and she’d mocked it as a style he was trying to perfect to fit the ‘found footage’ genre until she’d realised that perhaps he was, in fact, scared shitless. The video had shown a curved inlet backed by a bank of trees. She scans the beach once more, following the same line as his video had done. The curve of the beach is the same, the bank of trees is the same, and as she makes a one hundred and eighty-degree turn, blue tarpaulin billows with the wind; Chris’s tent!

  She makes an effort to pull herself up, but the pain is too much and she sits back down with a thud. Torn jeans blossom with blood as the wound on her leg bleeds. Steeling herself, she stares at the wet stones on the beach then back to her leg, fingers the edges of her torn jeans, and pulls. A jagged wound leaks blood at the centre of her thigh. Pink flesh has been cut to reveal the subcutaneous fat beneath her skin. At one end of the nearly ten-centimetre wound is a jagged spike of metal. Only the tip of the grey shard sits above her thigh, the rest seemingly buried in the muscle. She sucks air between her teeth; she’s seen this kind of scene before, most recently in ‘World War Z’ where Brad Pitt had a massive shard of metal straight through his side, metal that had also plane debris. She knows what to do. Taking hold of the shard, she grits her teeth, expecting the pain to be overwhelming. She pulls, and a slice of metal no longer than the tip of her index finger slides out. Horrified that the shard had penetrated her body, but surprised at how small it is, and how easily it comes out, she throws it down. It lands beside the water, and waves wash away the blood.

  Bobbing on the water, the box is now only five feet from the shore.

  She pushes up again, this time managing to stand, and takes tentative steps towards Chris’s tent. The sides flap and billow. To the left, only a short distance from the tent is a bucket and the remnants of what had been the deer she’d seen on the film. Whatever flesh had covered its bones, was now almost entirely stripped from its carcass, and it lies strung up like some sort of gruesome, occultist’s warning. Behind her the box crashes against the beach, the metal clanking on the stones. She turns to watch it roll back then forwards as the waves lift it. She scans the horizon for evidence of any other debris, but the sea is clear.

  Scattered about the entrance to the tent are a number of items including Chris’ backpack. She pulls the flap back. Inside, although ruffled and obviously disturbed by some small mammals, is Chris’ sleeping bag laid out on a thin roll-up mattress. In one corner is a box of cooking utensils, complete with fire-lighters, lighter fuel, and matches. In another box is a stack of plastic food boxes, each one filled to the brim with cereals and protein bars. There are two boxes of long-life milk, tea bags, a kettle, a mug, and plates. The remains of a bread loaf are evidenced by the crumbs left scattered over his sleeping bag and the shredded paper bag it had been wrapped in. Whatever Chris had been doing here, roughing it wasn’t quite what he was prepared to experience.

  Sinking down to her knees at the entrance, not wanting to wet the sleeping bag and fleecy blanket she can see poking out from inside, she pulls the large holdall pushed up against the side of the tent’s inner layer. Inside are clothes; thick socks, pants, a thermal vest, long johns, spare jeans, and walking boots. There is also a micro-fibre towel, deodorant, teeth-whitening toothpaste, and toothbrush, along with mouthwash, a mirror, hairbrush, concealer, beard shampoo, condoms, and half a tube of haemorrhoid cream complete with applicator. Her nose wrinkles with disgust, but she takes the towel, wrapping it around her dripping hair, then strips off her wet clothes, throwing them onto the stony beach outside, before turning the lamp on, and zipping the tent shut. She shivers as she replaces her own clothes with Chris’ thermal vest and socks - she can’t bring herself to wear his pants – then turns her attention to the still bleeding leg. Finding a small first aid kit in his rucksack, she places a sterile dressing over the wound then wraps it with a bandage. Blood quickly seeps through. Taking another bandage, she unrolls it and ties it as a tourniquet, another technique she has seen on film, and hopes that it will slow the flow of blood. It may need stitches, but sewing it up would be a step too far, even if she could find a needle and thread.

  The wound dressed, and the blood seeming to have slowed, she pulls on his jeans. Chris is a slender build, and Rachel more curvaceous, and the pastries, crisps, and alcohol overindulged in the months since her career took a nosedive, have found a new home around her belly and hips, but the zipper does up, and the muffin top that spills over the waistband is camouflaged by the baggy Under Armour hoodie that she pulls on over a layer of t-shirts and thermal vests.

  Dressed, she sits with head reeling, still only barely able to comprehend the last hours. She checks her watch, but the face is cracked and water sits beneath the glass, the hands unmoving. She removes it and drops it at the side of the mattress. Despite the layers of clothing and thermal underwear, she shivers, so pulls the micro-fleece blanket around her shoulders. Wine. What she needs is a large glass of wine, it always takes the edge off, but alcohol seems to be the one luxury that Chris had denied himself. She reaches for the box of supplies and brings out a chocolate bar. It shows a bear on its back legs to a backdrop of pine trees. A cluster of nuts sits at its feet. She bites into the chocolate, savouring the taste, clutching the blanket around her, unsure of what she should do. She mentally scans through the survival shows she has seen. Images of Bear Grylls scaling a steep rockface and Ed Stafford, naked except for a skirt of leaves he has made as he catches fish in a pond he has created in a stream, come to mind. She sighs, pulling the blanket tighter, and wonders if Peter, Jean-Luc, or the pilot, Mackee, have survived. She should find them, and help them if they’re alive. Perhaps one of the men would know what she should do? She takes another bite of chocolate, chewing on the nuts and caramel at its centre, and pulls the fleecy blanket tighter. Should she stay put and wait to be rescued, or try to make it on foot? But on foot to where? Chris had arrived, and left, by boat. Sure, but the lodge is on the island on the other side of the forest, her research had shown that. Plus, it wasn’t a huge island, just twenty-nine miles by thirty-seven. It was time to put her rudimentary orienteering skills, those learnt at one of her three Girl Guide sessions, to good use. She scrabbles through Chris’s belongings, sits back with a disgruntled sigh, and in frustration shouts, “You have Corn Flakes, and Frosties, chocolate bars, and Peanut Butter Cups, but you don’t have a map, or a compass, or a pencil and paper! Bloody hell, Chris Miller, you were a twat!”

  “Hello!” The voice from outside the tent makes her heart skip a beat.


  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After recovering from the embarrassment of being overheard, thankful that it was not Chris Miller himself come back from the dead, Rachel had unzipped the tent with an emotion tantamount to joy.

  “Peter!”

  His face had been grim, his lips blue with cold, his face colourless.

  “Peter!” She had repeated, and stopped herself from flinging her arms around him because a) he didn’t look the touchy-feely type, and b) she didn’t want to get wet and cold again.

  Thirty minutes later, they are both sitting inside Chris Miller’s tent, sharing a cup of black tea (Chris had only packed one cup and she can’t stand milky brews), and eating bowls of his cereal. Peter has exchanged his wet and salty clothes for the remaining pair of jeans and fleece, and his padded coat has been thoroughly wrung out, and is now hooked over Chris’ makeshift slaughter-station, drip-drying. The deer’s carcass had been deemed unfit to eat and unceremoniously tossed into the sea. The metal box is now stranded half-way up the beach, left there by the receding tide.

  Through a mouthful of super-sweet ‘Frosties’, she says, “It’s too late to try and find our way to the lodge now.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Kind of. I was doing some research, trying to piece together Chris’ last days and hours, so I know that it is on the other side of those trees.” She points a thumb at the tent wall.

  “That’s one hell of a hill to climb! Isn’t there a route around the edge?”

  “I have no idea. I just know that the lodge is on the other side of the hill.”

  “More like a mountain.”

  She glances at her socked feet and then to the pair of walking boots tucked beside the mattress. They weren’t a good fit, would probably cause blisters, but they were at least dry. “Well, we could stay here? I’m sure the coastguard will be searching for us by now.”

  “That’s if anyone has noticed that we’re missing.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  He shrugs, the glum façade dropping down once more.

  “It’s getting stuffy in here. If we’re going to stop, we might as well make the most of it,” she smiles, pulling out a large bag of marshmallows from the box of supplies.

  Peter’s face brightens, and then he laughs. “That box is like the bloody Tardis!”

  She chuckles. “It is. I don’t think Chris was the off-grid, live-from-the-land, kind of guy. So, shall we?”

  He offers a questioning frown.

  “Make a fire and toast marshmallows?”

  His smile broadens. “Yes, let’s.”

  Thirty minutes later, a ring of rocks has been made at the edge of the beach, logs and kindling found from a pile that were possibly collected by Chris, and a fire has been lit. Orange flames dance in the stone circle.

  “Let’s make it a big one,” Peter says throwing more logs into the circle. “It’ll keep away any nasty beasties.”

  “Nasty beasties?” Rachel asks with a laugh.

  “Bears, wolves, and other horrifying predators,” Peter says with exaggeration.

  Rachel shivers and nods her head. She has no idea about ‘wolves and other horrifying predators’, but according to the lodge’s website, the island was popular with hunters and it claimed to have procured a record number of bear-hunting licences last year due to an explosion in the brown bear population. Peter throws another log on the fire. Sparks fly, eddy, then disappear. Between them they pull up two larger logs as seats then sit before the fire, each with a marshmallow on a stick.

  “I’ve never had toasted marshmallows before. My mum always said they’d rot my teeth.”

  “Me neither. What we really need are crumpets.”

  “Ooh! Now you’re talking. I love toasted crumpets with real butter.”

  “My Granny used to sit beside the fire of an evening and toast them for us,” Peter beams, obviously losing himself to memory. “Once the council put gas into the property, it was never the same. You know, sometimes progress isn’t so great—evenings lost all their charm after that.” He sighs then looks out to the sea. Dark blue and grey beneath the darkening sky, it is once again placid. “The storms here practically come out of nowhere.”

  “Hmm,” Rachel murmurs through a mouthful of blackened marshmallow. She quickly spits it out.

  “Hot?”

  “Uhuh! Bloody hot.”

  “Exactly. It’s crumpets all the way for me.” Peter pulls his own marshmallow from the flames, placing it beside him to cool.”

  Rachel takes a sip of long-life milk from the carton. “I think that’s what happened to Chris.”

  “Death by marshmallow?”

  “No!” Rachel laughs. “The storm. It caught him by surprise.”

  “Chris is the man who left this camp?”

  “Yes.” Rachel bites her next words, remembering the odd-looking woman who had been at this very beach, and gives the shoreline and bank of trees behind them a quick glance. There is nothing untoward among the trees although the lowering sun has deepened the darkness between their trunks to black. She swallows. If they had to stay here tonight, at least she has Peter for company, surprisingly good company if she’s honest. She returns her gaze to the older man, appreciating for the first time his aquiline nose, the flash of grey at his temples, which she now realises gives him an air of the silver fox, and smiles. His eyes are a bright, and intelligent, blue. “So, Peter, before you worked at the zoo ...”

  Her words falter as his eyes widen, a startled deer.

  “Did you ... were you a ...”

  He cocks his head as though trying to hear something, then holds a finger to his lips. She quiets, zoning in on the noises around. A tap, tap, thud, is followed by another thud, and the sound of metal clanking on stones. Movement catches her attention and draws her eyes to the metal box still sitting on the beach. It rocks. Peter turns to follow her gaze, and groans.

  “It’s not Jean-Luc’s brother, then.” Rachel stands, and a howl rises from the distance. She twists to the sound, catching Peter’s look of dread, then returns her attention to the box. The thudding continues, more insistent this time.

  Another howl, and the hair on Rachel’s neck creeps. “I guess there are wolves here as well as bears, then. It didn’t mention them on the website.”

  Taking one of the longer branches that lies half in and half out of the fire, she uses it as a torch and walks to the box. To the background of howls, she shivers. Water laps at the end of the box. “The tide’s coming in.” She turns to Peter who hasn’t moved from his spot beside the fire. “Help me drag it up the beach,” she calls. She forces the torch into the ground then tries to lift the box, but it is too heavy. Escaping from the drilled holes, a shitty stench rises to her nose. It reminds her of her Aunty Sheila’s Labrador after a walk in the rain; the geriatric dog, fat and cancer-riddled, with a mouth full of rotten teeth, over-indulged and spoilt by her childless aunt, had stunk even before it had become wet, but afterwards, the stench was overpowering.

  Each side of the box has a handle for carrying, and beside one is a small flap, beneath it is a key. “The key’s here!” She pulls the key from its clasp.

  “Don’t open it!”

  “But it’ll drown!”

  “You don’t know what’s in there. It could be dangerous!”

  She bends to the holes, peers inside, but sees only black. “I can’t see anything, but something’s alive in there. I knew he was lying!” She places the key in the lock, and twists. “We can’t leave it to die.”

  It releases with a click.

  “Rachel!” Peter calls. “Don’t!”

  From the hills comes a howl.

  The thudding in the box returns, followed by a long and electronic beep.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “They sound closer!” Peter replies looking across his shoulder to the hills with their thick blanket of massive pine trees.

  “No, the beep. Something inside beeped. Maybe it’s somet
hing mechanical?”

  She moves along the box, unlocking five of the six locks. At the sixth she falters. The thudding, howling, and beeping have stopped, and only the thudding of her own pulse rises above the lapping of waves.

  A crunch of gravel beside her. She twists to Peter standing no more than two feet to her right. He holds a large branch in his hand as though holding a baseball bat.

  “Lock it back up, Rachel.” He says through gritted teeth.

  “No, Peter, whatever’s in here could die.”

  “Perhaps that’s for the best.” He takes another step closer as she places the key in the final lock.

  “Of course it’s not! I thought you liked animals? You work in a zoo.”

  “Yes, I work with animals, which means I know exactly how dangerous they can be.”

  “But ...” Rachel falters, pulling the key from the lock, then replaces it. Peter raises the branch.

  She raises an arm in defence. “Don’t hit me!”

  “It’s not for you! It’s for that thing!” Peter gestures at the box. “Haven’t you wondered why Jean-Luc lied and said it was his brother?”

  “Yes! No. Well ... I guess it’s a rare animal, or something the lodge doesn’t have a permit for.”

  Peter sighs, and lowers the stick. “It’s not for the wilderness lodge.”

  Rachel frowns. “Then what’s it doing being shipped to Volkolak island?”

  Peter fills his lungs, then says, “It’s for the Institu- ...”

  “Institute?” Rachel finishes his word. “What Institute.”

  He doesn’t reply.

  “There isn’t one on the island. I did research; there’s only the lodge here.”

  “It’s a ...” Peter falters again and doesn’t explain despite Rachel’s prodding.