Z-Minus Box Set 2

by Perrin Briar

  The others funneled off into the common room. None of them wanted to be alone right then, except Hamish, who needed to think things through. Something was plucking at him, something that didn’t feel right. He couldn’t explain why he felt that way, or even what it was, only that he did feel it, gnawing at the back heels of his mind.

  He sat at his desk and ran through everything that had occurred during the past twenty-four hours since he’d arrived. Saying goodbye to Captain Meadows, bringing in the freshies, meeting everyone, seeing his work desk, checking out the three sheds and Betsy with Kate, the storm descending upon them, heading out to rescue Ian, Ian’s developing illness, checking his blood, seeing there was something wrong with it, checking his room but finding nothing out of place, Ian awaking and attacking Jeff and Lindsey in his death throes, placing him inside a morgue-like shelf, locking Jeff and Lindsey in separate rooms… It was too much.

  Hamish brushed a hand over his neck. The hairs stood on end. He turned his head to the side. Why did he get the feeling someone was watching him? He turned in his swivel chair.

  The morgue drawers were firmly closed. Had he heard something rustling inside one of them? No. That would have been crazy. Hamish had never had a fear of dead bodies before. He’d seen them many times during his studies, and they never unnerved him. Why was this one any different?

  He didn’t know the answer, only that it did bother him. He tried to focus on the files in front of him, wanted to get lost in them, forget what was happening. But he couldn’t. He stood up and left the room. He joined the others in the communal area.

  The TV was on. An old episode of Friends. No one laughed at the jokes. It was entirely the wrong program to be watching, but Carl sat with a distant smile on his face, perhaps recalling a time when he didn’t have such worries to deal with, when life was simpler and death a distant concern.

  They all sat there, the wind and storm howling outside, reflecting the apprehension and dark thoughts eviscerating their hearts and minds. It was late by the time everyone fell asleep. Their dreams would prove no more a distraction than the comedy show had been.

  Z-MINUS: 2 hours 57 minutes

  Hamish opened his eyes. He was groggy with sleep but hadn’t managed to drop off yet, occupying that space between the two brain states. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and braced himself with his elbows. He looked at the blank wall opposite, listened, but heard nothing. He closed his eyes and fell back to bed. He got comfortable, burying himself in his blankets, curling up tight like a tick. His head was still cold, but that didn’t matter much anymore.

  The wind howled, making the structure groan with the effort of resistance. Hamish wondered how much pressure the shed could really take before it would get blown into the air like the house in The Wizard of Oz. It must have been what it felt like to the Three Little Pigs in their shacks, a pack of wolves outside, baying for their blood.

  But it was only the wind, Hamish told himself. If it wasn’t for the fact he was out in the middle of nowhere in an environment he didn’t know, he wouldn’t have much cared. He’d known strong headwinds before. He would have even found it calming, relaxing, knowing it was cold and windy outside and he had nowhere to go but a warm comfortable bed. No monsters resided in cities, besides the usual ones, anyway.

  A groan.

  It was at odds with the center’s groaning, which was more of a test of will. The second groan was deep, long, and mournful. It wasn’t loud, but reverberated through Hamish’s whole body, and that made it seem louder. It was terrifying.

  The wind’s groan, which, though terrifying in its own way, was without emotion. This second groan had soul, and it did not sound pleased, like something escaping the lips of a dying man, his final gasp before the end, and then silence, as his life force drained from him.

  Hamish’s heart rate kicked up a notch. He didn’t know what it was, but it was different, and the not knowing made it a threat.

  Hamish threw the blankets aside and got up, slipping his feet into a pair of thermal slippers. He wore his thick pair of training pants, the ones he usually wore when exercising outdoors in winter back home. He edged toward the door and paused, listening to whatever was outside it. Deciding there was nothing, he cracked his door open further and used his shoulder to brace it in case something tried to blast it open. The groan had put him on edge. He was ready for anything.

  But nothing happened.

  He stepped out into the corridor. It too was silent. He checked both ways, but there was no one there.

  The sound came again, a low drawn-out moan like an ancient door that hadn’t been opened for generations. And then a small sound underneath it, what sounded like a whimper.

  Draughts squeezed through the window frames and tickled the hairs all over Hamish’s body. The corridor was dark with shadows. The human mind had the remarkable ability to see what it wanted to see. Each shape was a monster, a demon from another world. A flash of lightning illuminated the hall for a fraction of a second, and then fell to darkness once again. Nothing was inside it.

  But that didn’t mean nothing was there.

  He was beginning to regret getting out of bed. He could have stayed there, letting someone else take care of whatever was happening. But he daren’t. He needed to keep going, keep investigating the unknown.

  Hamish came to his office. The room was again cloaked in shadows. He edged inside it, pressing the door open with his finger, keeping an eye out both inside his office, and to his left, at the communal area. The door, thankfully, was silent as it opened.

  Hamish edged inside, hopping forward to keep anything from attacking him from behind. He checked behind the door first and then, finding nothing there, turned and surveyed the rest of the room.

  It was as he’d left it. His desk was untouched. His files – Dr. Scott’s unorganized files – were piled up, ready for him to sort through later.

  Hamish took a deep breath and let himself relax. He shook his head. What was he thinking? Here he was, a scientist, thinking the bogeyman really existed, jumping at his own shadow. How old was he? Did he really think monsters were real? But it was easy to believe, being in new surroundings, not knowing what was happening elsewhere in the world, cut off from modern society. He had let that part of his brain that believed in hocus pocus and superstition override his logical scientific mind.

  He smiled and shook his head. You idiot, he thought.

  He turned to leave, and felt something graze his arm. He jumped, hopping forward, banging his leg against the desk. It was painful, but he barely noticed. He turned to face what had touched him.

  A plastic bag lay discarded to one side like a snake’s outer skin. Hamish bent down to pick it up. There were small beads of condensation where water had been dropped onto it, as if something had been defrosting…

  Hamish dropped the bag and spun around, expecting someone to be standing over him. He raised his arms to protect himself in a gesture of protection. No blows rained down. Nothing stood in the middle of his office floor. But he didn’t relax.

  He stood up, too fast, remembering only at the last moment to duck his head down. Too late. His head slammed into the metal drawer that hung open. Hamish rubbed his head and breathed in through his teeth at the pain. He checked his hand for any blood, but there was none. Luckily, he’d hit his head on the flat underside of the drawer, not the sharp corner.

  “Idiot,” he cursed himself again.

  His eyes latched on the plastic sheeting. The body bag. That wasn’t stupid. He hadn’t imagined that. He stood up, more carefully this time, and found the bed of the morgue drawer was empty. Hamish leaned forward and peered at the drawer’s innards, as if the body had somehow managed to slide to the back. Nonsense, of course, but he still had to check.

  Small drips speckled the floor, a trail of soggy breadcrumbs toward the door. A shiver rose up Hamish’s spine. What would anyone want with a dead body? And why would they want it in the middle of the night? Perhaps some
one had had a change of heart and wanted to bury it outside in the snow to a spot beloved by Ian? But why now? Why in the middle of the night? And why during a powerful storm? Hamish had no answer to cover all those bases.

  Surely only an obligation would force someone to take that kind of action. But why keep it a secret? And would anyone here really make a promise like that? They all seemed to understand the concept of keeping the Antarctic uncontaminated an important one. No. Hamish couldn’t bring himself to believe that, not of those working in there now.

  The sound came again, distant, muffled by the thin walls. It stirred inside Hamish an alternate theory, one he could not yet bring himself to express, but possible all the same.

  He left the morgue door open. It would make explaining his story easier to the others. He edged out toward the door and leaned forward, peeking out from around the doorframe. His eyes trailed up and down the corridor. The little moonlight there was reflected off tiny droplets of water. But they did not lead toward the communal area like he’d assumed they would. Instead, they headed in the opposite direction, toward the accommodation area.

  Earlier, he must have strolled right past where someone had been taking the dead body, blithely unaware. They must have taken the door from the changing room at the end of the hall. It was the only thing that made any sense, though even that was a bit of a stretch. Why now? Why go out into the storm?

  The corridor was smothered in shadows, like the darkness was trying to hide something from him. The grumbles were low and indistinct.

  A flash of lightning illuminated an empty corridor. Hamish edged down it, toward the bedrooms, his body tense. Amongst them was a grave robber… Or, rather, a morgue robber… But who? None of them fit the ghoulish stereotype.

  Hamish leaned up close to the walls. It sounded like it came from one of the rooms… In fact, it was coming from one of the rooms…

  At close quarters, the moan almost sounded like words. If you could listen a little closer, it would be intelligible. In fact, they were words.

  As Hamish approached the wall, he could hear the voice inside, talking. Whoever they were, they were still up, no doubt unable to sleep after all the events of the day. It had been stressful, and Hamish didn’t even really know the deceased. To the others, it would have been the worst thing imaginable. They had become a family here on the bottom of the world, and a member dying like that, under mysterious consequences, was bound to make them all very nervous.

  Hamish was certain the voice he heard belonged to Kate. Another voice answered. A man’s voice. Presumably Daniel. Who else would Kate be talking to about upsetting and frightening things?

  Hamish couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. He wanted her to come to him if she had any problems or issues. But instead she’d gone to the guy she was seeing. The guy she was bonking. The idea of them doing that just a few feet away from where he slept made him feel physically sick.

  They were an item. Hamish had been too late, just as he had been his whole life. He turned to walk away.

  Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.

  Outside, the wind howled as if in response. In response? The groans did not originate with the wind, were not part of Kate’s whispers. They belonged to something else.

  The hairs over Hamish’s body rose, like a threatened cat in a corner. He felt threatened enough to go into protection mode, to make his outline fuzzy and look bigger and larger than he actually was. But apparently no one else had noticed the sound. Were they all used to it? Was it something that happened to the center they hadn’t mentioned to him before?

  He turned to knock on Kate’s door, but his hand hesitated, freezing an inch from knocking. No. He wouldn’t knock. To knock meant he needed help – from Daniel. He didn’t need his help. He didn’t need to look afraid of a bump in the night like a child. He would handle this himself.

  He turned and proceeded down the corridor toward the origin of the low groan. It was muffled by a wall, coming from the bedroom before him, on the left hand side. Lindsey’s room. The door was ajar. The lock lay on the floor, discarded. Safety gone.

  Hamish pressed the door open gently, preparing to see what might be on the other side. The blood fell from Hamish’s face. He dreaded going forward and seeing what was behind the door. A dead body. The infected Lindsey. Nothing good could come from entering the room. But he did enter.

  And he soon wished he hadn’t.

  Z-MINUS: 2 hours 47 minutes

  The blood smears on Lindsey’s door should have been a clue, but it was dark and they were difficult to see. The discarded padlock could have provided another clue. It wouldn’t have taken Sherlock Holmes to know a creature such as the one currently inside the room was incapable of unlocking, much less picking, a padlock. Events are always easy to reconcile in hindsight. But when you’re in the moment, when terror confiscates your senses, there’s really no other way for the moment to proceed than the way it did. Otherwise, Hamish wouldn’t have had to do all those terrible things over the next few hours.

  Z-MINUS: 2 hours 44 minutes

  Hamish gripped the doorknob. He didn’t need to – the door was already standing ajar, but he needed to cling onto something. His heart raced a mile a minute, and a cold sweat broke across his brow. His body was in full flight or fight response. He’d never shied away from danger before, had never turned down an argument when one was before him and needed to be carried out. He was terrified.

  The shadows moved, bobbing up and down in a gesture made obscene by light from the waxing moon. The mind makes up images it wants to see, as well as those it doesn’t. That was why so many horror movie directors moved the camera off to one side to rest on something else, something innocuous like a blooming flower or an industrious ant on the windowsill during horrific scenes – because the director knows the viewer’s imagination was a far more potent agent of horror than the images the filmmakers themselves could conjure up.

  And so Hamish saw horrendous things in that gentle bobbing movement on the floor. He almost grabbed the door to begin closing it, but morbid curiosity had him by the balls. He couldn’t take his eyes off what was before him. The faint tint of iron seized his nostrils. The mind can only process so much, and Hamish’s was focused entirely on the figure before him, the dark shadow.

  The bobbing stopped, seemingly aware it was being watched. The shape turned toward Hamish, cut in profile against the winter window frame. Hamish knew then that it was a person. He feared seeing its face. Lightning flashed. Just a flicker of white. That was all it took. But it was enough. Hamish had seen more than he needed. He began to back out of the room.

  He saw in his mind’s eye, as brightly and clearly as if the room were flooded with light, showing him every part of the figure in monstrous detail. The gaunt eyes were hidden by a ridge of shadow from the protruding eyebrows, the bloodshot eyes of the inebriated, the smeared blood around his mouth, at odds with his pale skin, made glowing in the lightning’s obscene harsh flares.

  The figure had been crouched over another figure. Hamish’s eyes didn’t need to move from the figure’s face to know who it was. Her stockinged legs were enough to identify her.

  She lay prostate, a thin blood-caked hand resting ineffectively over her forehead in a failed attempt at self-protection. The man’s face had been buried deep in her abdomen. He still slurped, licking at the entrails dangling from his mouth. He clamped his teeth shut. Lindsey’s intestines flopped to the floor.

  The shadowed figure stood over Lindsey almost at his full height, save a few inches where he was stooped over. The figure’s head leaned back, his mouth opening wide with the motion. He let out a groan that vibrated through every particle of air, every inch of the small room. The figure lumbered forward, toward Hamish, who was backing out of the room.

  The creature lurched toward him, his arms and legs rigid. His head flopped to one side as he stumbled forward, his weight carrying him. He had to catch himself to keep from falling over. The reeking stench of innards filled Hamish�
��s nostrils. He snapped awake.

  He raised his arms and caught the approaching creature’s outstretched limbs. The man leaned forward and bit, snapping at Hamish’s face. Hamish pushed it forcefully away. The figure stumbled, his head leaning far back, his arms by his side. He somehow found his balance before straightening up to make another pass at him. From that angle, with his chin facing the ceiling, Hamish recognized the man’s features.

  “Ian?” Hamish said.

  Ian grunted as if he understood. He leaned forward again. Hamish grabbed an incense candleholder and swung it at Ian. It bounced off his head. He rocked back. Hamish swung at him again, but this time only caught the man’s chin, knocking it out of joint. Ian didn’t seem to notice. This caught Hamish off guard. He raised his arms as the figure fell on top of him, pushing him down onto the ground.

  Hamish instinctively knew to keep his hands away from the man’s flapping jaws, and though they were weaker now they were dislocated, they bore down on him without pity. Hamish grabbed Ian by the hair and pulled him aside, but the man was heavy. His legs kicked, his hands gripped. It was nigh-on impossible to get him off.

  “Get off me!” Hamish shouted. “Get off! Help! Somebody!”

  Ian dragged himself up Hamish’s body until they were face to face, his mouth mawing wide open, black and gaping like the depths of hell. In it, Hamish saw his end. He was going to become one of these creatures. His number was up and there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn’t going to be able to fight this creature off, this shadow of Ian. He was doomed.

  Thunk!

  Ian’s body went limp. His teeth did not pierce Hamish’s skin, and instead he just lay on top of him, motionless.