Outpost H311

by Sara Jayne Townsend

  Ellen peered into the room.

  A stone altar stood in the middle of the room. A giant pentagram was painted on the floor with fluorescent yellow paint. Several strange symbols were painted inside the pentagram. On top of the altar was something that looked like an iron cauldron, and it was from here that the green light emitted. The light was so bright Ellen turned away from it, staring down at the strange symbols on the floor. She stayed in the doorway, shielding her eyes from the glare. “I think we should get out of here. Whatever they were doing in here, it wasn’t good. And we still need to check out that boathouse.”

  Neeta ignored her, pushing past her to step into the room. Neeta stared at the cauldron, transfixed. Her pupils were dilated, despite the brightness of the green glow. Neeta stepped over the boundary of the pentagram painted on the floor.

  “Come on, Neeta, let’s get out of here.” Ellen grabbed Neeta’s arm and gasped at the coldness of it. Neeta kept walking, oblivious to Ellen’s grasp.

  It was like trying to stop a tank. Neeta kept going, dragging Ellen behind her. As Ellen’s arm was dragged into the pentagram, the temperature plummeted. She felt like she’d just put her arm into a deep freeze.

  Her feet neared the pentagram’s border and Neeta wasn’t stopping. Ellen let go of her and staggered back, trying to reach the door.

  Neeta walked straight up to the altar and gripped the sides of the cauldron with both hands, leaning over to plunge her face into it. Her head disappeared from view, shrouded in the green light.

  Ellen stepped back into the doorway and raised her gun. She kept her gaze riveted on Neeta’s feet, making a point of not looking directly into the green light.

  Neeta stood up and raised her head from the cauldron. Slowly she turned around. She stepped off the altar and towards Ellen. Her eyes were red, her skin grey, her face twisted into a demonic grimace. She shrieked hysterically and raised the shot gun, pointing it at Ellen.

  Ellen’s brain froze in fear but then as Neeta fired, she threw herself to the floor. The shot took a big chunk out of the wall behind her, showering Ellen with chunks of ice and concrete.

  Neeta screamed and re-aimed the gun. Raising herself to her knees, Ellen brought up the revolver and fired before Neeta got off a second shot.

  Ellen’s shot got Neeta in the right shoulder. She staggered back, screaming in rage but still managed to keep hold of the shot gun. Ellen raced down the corridor.

  When she got to the door that led to the boathouse, she stopped and looked back. She raised the revolver and stared at the door from which the green glow still emanated. Her hands shook so much she couldn’t hold the gun steady. Ellen choked back a sob, hoping Neeta wouldn’t reappear.

  But she heard footsteps and a low groan. Neeta emerged from the doorway, an inhuman grin on her face, red eyes glittering. She held up the shot gun. Before she could pull the trigger Ellen fired first.

  Neeta was blown off her feet, a hole opening up in her torso in a spray of red gore.

  Ellen approached Neeta’s body. She had landed on her back, her mouth open in a look of surprise. Her eyes were brown again, staring unseeingly at the ceiling.

  “I’m so sorry, Neeta,” Ellen whispered. She brushed Neeta’s eyes closed with a hand, and picked up the shot gun from the ground.

  Ellen trudged up the corridor, towards the door in the north wall. It was just dawning on her that with the lift door still sealed and the crowbar inside, she was stuck here. And who knew how many zombies were in the boathouse?

  She stopped short, suddenly aware of a noise behind her. A low growl, and a shuffling sound. “Oh please no,” Ellen said. She turned around.

  Neeta was on her feet, coming for Ellen. Her eyes were dead, her mouth open in a snarl, her arms outstretched. She moved with an awkward shuffling gait, like she’d forgotten how her legs worked. The hole that Ellen had blown in her chest was lined with tatters of bloody flesh, ribbons of lung tissue dangling from the cavity.

  Ellen stared at Neeta shuffling ever closer. Reluctantly, she brought up the revolver and aimed it at Neeta’s face. She gripped the gun with both hands, but they were shaking so much she struggled to aim. She fired. Neeta crumpled to the ground, the top half of her head blown away.

  Tears pricked Ellen’s eyes. She looked away, unable to look at what had once been Neeta.

  The door to the boathouse was sealed. Ellen pressed her ear to it, trying to listen. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she could hear the gentle lapping of waves. And the sound of shuffling feet. And a rumbling sound, like guttural voices growling.

  She backed away from the door and turned around, making a point of not looking at the end of the corridor where Neeta’s body lay. She ducked back into the hangar, uncertain at that stage of what her next action was. If she yelled loud enough at the lift, would the men hear her?

  A horrific scraping noise sounded then, deafeningly loud in the eerie silence. It came from the direction of the lift. Ellen raised the handgun and crept cautiously towards it, trying to still her shaking hands enough to fire the gun if need be.

  When she reached the lift, she understood what the noise was. Jake and Pete were in the lift, having managed to get the doors open. Jake was putting the crowbar in place to prop them open. When she saw Jake, biceps bulging as he held the door open, Ellen felt like all her insides crumpled up like tissue paper. She couldn’t stop the tears from flowing and she began to sob, throwing herself at Jake and crying into his chest. He put his arms around her as she sobbed out her grief for Neeta; for David; for the hopelessness of their situation.

  CHAPTER 34

  Nathan’s latest argument was that they should have someone on guard outside to call for help should a plane pass. Allison told him that wasn’t likely to happen, that planes weren’t likely to pass over.

  “You’re an expert on air traffic in the Arctic now, are you?” Nathan asked.

  Allison rounded on him. “No. But neither are you.”

  “All I’m saying is that while we’re all stuck underground, we can’t be seen. Should a plane happen to pass by, it might be our only shot at rescue and it’ll sail on by without seeing us. At least if someone is watching the skies outside we’ve got a chance of being spotted.”

  Allison went into the kitchen area and lit the gas stove under the kettle. “Anyone sitting outside for hours at a time will freeze to death,” she said.

  Nathan stood in the doorway, arms folded. “We’re all dead men walking anyway. Being down here just prolongs the agony. Oh, I’m sorry, dead persons. I keep forgetting we’re stuck down here with a feminist.”

  “Believe me, if I thought your plan would get us out of here faster I’d be all for it,” Allison said. “I’m really not relishing your company, you know.”

  “Just because I refuse to lie down and be a doormat.”

  “Just because you’re too pig-headed and stubborn to listen to reason.”

  “There must be jets in this air space all the time,” Nathan said. “I know that planes flying from London to the US fly over the Arctic. The earth is a globe. It’s quicker to fly over the poles.”

  “I’m not doing all this just to piss you off, you know. I’m trying to keep us alive.”

  Nathan turned around and stomped out of the room, back towards the bunks. He pushed past Daniel, who was entering the kitchen. “What’s his problem?” Daniel asked, staring after Nathan.

  Allison raised her eyebrows at Daniel. “How come you can walk?”

  Daniel crossed the room without so much as a limp and entered the refectory. He pulled two chairs out, sitting in one and propping his leg up on the other. He pulled away the filthy bandages to reveal a calf that was healthy and unmarked. “Our theory on that machine was correct. I could feel my leg healing by the minute as I lay there. Now look at it. It’s completely restored. Not even a scar.”

  “That’s amazing,” Allison said. “So the Nazis’ experiments in preserving things has healed you?”

  “Unf
ortunately I think this contraption is also what’s bringing people back from the dead. It doesn’t just restore damaged flesh. It regenerates dead cells as well and re-animates corpses. But things come back less than human.”

  Allison stared at Daniel. “Does that mean there’ll be a side effect from this healing process? Are you going to turn into a zombie?”

  “I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.” Daniel put the books he’d been carrying on the table. “I read a bit more of this journal. He’s talking about a summoning. He keeps referring to the Great One, as if it’s some kind of religion. I’m deducing from this that the Nazis performed a ritual in an attempt to summon something supernatural.”

  “So did it work?”

  Daniel looked at Allison, a grim expression on his face. “Let’s say it did. It might explain what’s going on with these zombie creatures. So dead bodies are re-animated but the soul has already left them, they are empty shells. And there’s an ethereal immortal entity floating around, just looking for bodies to occupy.”

  “You think the undead Nazis are possessed?” Allison said in disbelief.

  Daniel shrugged. “It might explain why they are so hostile.”

  “They’re zombies! Of course they’re hostile.”

  “And how do you know the nature of zombies? Have you ever met any before?”

  “Of course not. I never thought they existed. They were mythical creatures.”

  “Exactly. We’ve all read zombie stories, but zombies aren’t real. Now we meet creatures that appear to behave the way we expect zombies to be, but we have no way of defining that parameter because it doesn’t exist. What we’re dealing with are creatures that are dead but have been preserved and regenerated and brought back and they are behaving in a hostile manner. We don’t know if they’re zombies or demons.”

  A noise in the corridor outside made Daniel start. He stood up, and they both turned to look at the door, as Jake strolled in. He frowned. “I thought there was supposed to be a guard rota. How can I just get this far without anyone noticing? Where’s Nathan?” Ellen and Pete followed Jake into the room. Ellen’s face was pale and her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying.

  Allison sighed. “He’s gone off in a sulk somewhere. We were arguing about putting someone outside to watch for planes.”

  Jake snorted. “Anyone outside would freeze to death long before a plane came.”

  “That’s what I tried to tell him.” Allison frowned at the threesome who’d just entered. “Where’s Neeta?”

  Jake sighed. “We need to talk about Neeta. And a few other things. It’s time for a de-briefing.” To Daniel he said, “Why are you standing up? I thought your leg was fucked.”

  “We’ve got a few things to tell you, too,” Daniel said.

  CHAPTER 35

  They sat around the table in the refectory with mugs of tea, the six of them, the only survivors from the Arctic exploration team: Allison, Ellen, Nathan, Jake, Pete and Daniel. On the table in front of them was the map of the base. Pete for once was not behind his camera. Upon being told of Neeta’s death he’d put it down and had been subdued ever since.

  The first person to speak was Daniel, explaining his miraculous recovery. Silence fell for a while, as everyone tried to process that information.

  Then Pete looked at Ellen. “You still haven’t told us what happened to her. To Neeta.”

  Ellen sat for a while trying to compose her thoughts before answering, acutely aware that every eye in the room was on her. “There was a room. It had strange markings. It looked like it had been set up for some sort of ritual. There was a glowing light coming from the altar in the middle. Neeta seemed transfixed by it. She walked straight across the pentagram and stared right into the middle of the light. I tried to stop her but she was determined to get there. When she looked up again she was like some kind of monster. Vicious, inhuman.”

  “You mean she turned into one of the zombies?” Allison asked.

  Ellen shook her head. “It was more like she was possessed. But she had a gun and tried to shoot me, but I got her first. And then she got up again, and this time she was a zombie.”

  “Where was this ritual room?” Daniel asked.

  Ellen pulled the map closer to her and pointed at it. “It’s here. There’s German wording on it. I don’t know what it means.”

  Daniel pulled the map over and scrutinised it. “It means ‘holy place’. This doesn’t come as a surprise since I’ve been studying the journal we found. The Nazis were doing more than just researching regeneration. They were also trying to summon something. I think they succeeded.”

  Jake picked up the map. “I had a quick look at the plane in the hangar. It’s a Dornier DO 24. It looks to be in fairly good condition.”

  “I didn’t switch on the engine, but the gun turret works fine,” Ellen said. “The hangar was crawling with zombies. I used the plane’s gun turret to take them out.”

  “If we can get it flying, then that’s our ticket out of here,” said Nathan.

  “What about the boathouse?” Pete asked. “If the plane doesn’t fly, can we take a boat out of here?”

  “The door to the boathouse is sealed,” Ellen said. “I couldn’t go in to check. But I could hear groans from the other side of the door. I think it’s safe to say there are more zombies in there.”

  Jake stared at the map. “I think I’m starting to get a picture of what went wrong with these guys. Their experiments went wrong and they started murdering each other, and then the dead bodies were rising and creating havoc. Maybe they sealed up the infirmary first, realising that the dead bodies in there were going to rise. Then they sealed off both of these corridors to trap more zombies, and the survivors tried to escape on the plane.”

  “But they never made it,” said Ellen. “Because there were more zombies in the hangar.”

  “Something else happened and they didn’t manage to get out in the plane. The rest of them died and were wandering around aimlessly until you opened the door.” Jake tapped his fingers on the table thoughtfully. “That plane’s going to be our best bet out of here. We shouldn’t need to access any of the other sealed areas.”

  “But how are we going to get past that ritual room?” Nathan demanded. “Ellen said just walking into it turned Neeta into some kind of possessed entity.”

  “I didn’t quite say that,” Ellen said. “I was in there too. But Neeta stared into the light, and then she crossed the pentagram on the floor. I made a point of not looking. I think if we stay out of that room we should be OK.”

  Allison turned to Daniel. “Dan, you said the journal refers to experiments in summoning. Does it give any clue as to what was summoned?”

  Daniel put a hand on the journal, lying on the table in front of him. He paused before replying. “The journal indicates a preoccupation with Nordic mythology. The commander of this base was a good friend of Hitler’s, apparently and shared his obsession with the paranormal. He wanted to get in touch with the Nordic gods.”

  “So we’re talking Thor, Odin, that kind of thing?”

  “The wording of the ritual suggests that the Nazis were trying to summon Loki,” Daniel said. “And I think they might have succeeded.”

  “Loki?” said Allison. “You mean like the character Tom Hiddleston plays?”

  “The Loki of myth is nothing like the way Hollywood portrays him. He was chaotic and malicious. In Nordic myth he is referred to as the God of Evil. He also commanded the Frost Giants. I think the Nazis here were trying to raise an army of Frost Giants. They thought if they could command such a formidable army, they would win the war.”

  “But the base was built before the war,” Ellen pointed out.

  Daniel picked up the journal. “It was planned before the war as a research station. The Nazis built a lot of such stations, and many them were top secret. I think this one was planned to do research into preservation, initially. But when Germany started to lose the war, the Nazis started focusing
on ways to win. This base’s proximity to Norway probably sealed the deal. The new commander came in with new orders. To win the war by any means necessary.”

  “By summoning the Nordic god of chaos and his army,” said Pete.

  “But the Nordic gods aren’t real!” Nathan protested. “They’re just myths. Everyone knows that.”

  “So are zombies, but the ones we’ve seen have been real enough,” Ellen said.

  “I think if the ritual was successful and the spirit of Loki was raised, it’s what made the Nazis turn on each other,” Daniel said. “It’s probably also what possessed Neeta and made her turn on Ellen.”

  “So our priority is to get that plane flying and get the fuck out of here,” Jake said. He looked at Ellen. “You and me are going to go back to that hangar and I’m going to see if I can get that plane started.”

  “Why does that take two of you?” Nathan asked.

  “Because no one goes anywhere alone, we’ve already established that. I need to take a closer look at the plane, and I need someone watching my back. Ellen’s already familiar with the layout on the lower level.”

  “Why can’t we all go?” Nathan demanded. “What’s to stop you from starting the plane and buggering off, leaving the rest of us stuck here?”

  Jake stared at him. “Because I wouldn’t do that. No matter what.”

  “Jake has a point. We can’t leave the rest of the base unattended,” Allison said.

  “Why not?” said Nathan. “If the plane starts, we all get on it and get the hell out of here.”

  “And what if it doesn’t?” Jake said. “What if, in the time we’re down there, more zombies break out, or Loki or whatever the hell else the Nazis were messing about with over-run the base? We’d be stuck down in the hangar with no food, no heat and no way out.”

  “That’s a risk I’d be prepared to take,” Nathan said.

  “If the plane starts, then we come back for you and we all get out of here,” Jake said. “I think it’s unlikely, though. But hopefully I can figure out what we need to get it started.”