Below Zero

by Dan Smith

  ‘What?’

  ‘You are brave. The bravest person I know.’

  ‘But?’ Zak was still trying to imagine him and his sister in The Hub, hiding from the bugs.

  ‘But nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s true. What you’ve got. The . . . you know. In your head.’

  ‘The cancer.’ Zak said it for her.

  ‘Yeah. That. If I had that; if I was told about it like you were, I couldn’t deal with it the way you did. You just got on with it, but I’d have been unbearable.’

  ‘You already are.’

  She snorted a short laugh.

  ‘You’re still my favourite sister, though.’

  ‘You took it all in your stride.’

  ‘It only looks that way,’ Zak said.

  ‘No, you accepted it and now look at you. You’re being brave again. You’re not scared; you want to fight these things. You’re brave and you’re tough.’ May gave her brother a thin smile. ‘Like Jackson Jones. I wish I was like that.’

  Zak could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘You wish you were like me? No way. Those girls at school – Vanessa Morton-Chandler and the ones who hang around with her – they’re mean to you all the time, but you just deal with them. I wish I was like you!’

  May sighed. ‘It’s just an act. I pretend it doesn’t bother me, them saying things and making stuff up, posting things online, but it does. It makes me feel . . .’ She searched for the right words. ‘Angry? Upset? I dunno. Embarrassed sometimes.’

  ‘You don’t let them see that, though. You don’t give them the satisfaction.’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Same for me. I might not look scared but I am scared. I’m scared all the time. When I woke up in the French lesson that day, lying on the floor, seeing everyone staring at me, I was SO scared. The look on everyone’s faces; they were . . . it freaked them out. It freaked me out. And then the doctor, and the drilling and . . . what if the treatment doesn’t work? What if this thing keeps getting bigger? What if it fills my head? What if the doctors are wrong, and I die from it tomorrow?’

  ‘Oh, Zak.’ May’s eyes glistened.

  ‘But I hate being scared. I hate it. And the only way to stop being scared is to fight. So that’s what we have to do now. We have to fight and—’

  ‘What?’ May turned to the window and saw what her brother had seen.

  A group of red-jackets was advancing across the airstrip. Behind them, the Spider was making its way closer. Tick-tack-tick-tack.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Zak said. ‘I lost concentration. They’ve found us.’

  OUTPOST ZERO, ANTARCTICA

  NOW

  The monsters were coming.

  A line of red-jackets was moving towards the plane, while the Spider waited by The Hub. There was nowhere left for Zak and May to run. There was nobody to help them. They might as well have been the only people left on earth.

  May was swearing. A lot.

  Zak gripped the shovel in both hands and moved along the plane. He was determined not to let anything happen to her: not just for her sake, but for his sake too – the last thing he wanted was to be left out there alone. He went to the ripped-open cockpit and squinted at the airstrip. The red-jackets were close, and Zak could hear the sound of their boots shuffling on the ice. It formed a kind of ugly beat along with the tick-tack-tick-tack of the Spider.

  Zak leant the shovel against what was left of the instrument array and tugged one of the flares from his pocket. He popped off the cap and used it to scrape along the top of the red stick, as if he were lighting a giant match. The flare sparked first time and burst into life. It fizzed and hissed like a firework, bathing the cockpit in bright red light and white smoke. Zak threw it out on to the airstrip in front of the army of red-jackets who stopped as soon as it hit the ground. Zak lit two more and threw them out. They sputtered and popped, shedding a sinister red light across the ice. The smoke engulfed the red-jackets in an eerie, swirling cloud.

  ‘The flares make them stop,’ Zak shouted to his sister as he grabbed the shovel and planted his feet firm. He swung the weapon back over his shoulder, like a baseball bat, ready to smack the first person who tried to climb on board the trashed aircraft.

  He watched the line of monsters standing in the red light and the churning smoke and, for the first time since seeing them, he realized they were not all wearing red jackets. Two of them were wearing orange jackets, just like his, and when he looked closely at their faces, his heart faltered.

  Mum and Dad.

  It was too horrible to think about. Attacked by his own mum and dad. The two people who were supposed to protect him. The people who should be keeping him safe. How could he defend himself against them? Would he be able to use the shovel against his own mum and dad?

  It’s not them, he told himself. They’re not Mum and Dad any more.

  Except, they were still Mum and Dad. And maybe this could be reversed. In his vision he had seen something big, a vast sea, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that, whatever it was, it was under the ice. There was something down there that was doing this, controlling his mum and dad. And if he could find out what it was, if he could stop it, perhaps he could bring them back.

  ‘Join us.’

  Zak felt a darkening around the edges of his thoughts. A pain tightened behind his right eye. His vision wavered like he was dizzy, and he blinked hard, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Not now.’

  The pain softened to an ache and Zak felt something probing at his thoughts. It was them. It. The hive. Whatever was under the ice was reaching out to him again, shuffling over his thoughts, trying to control him.

  ‘Join us.’

  ‘No.’ He wouldn’t join them. He refused. He tightened his grip on the shovel and concentrated on pushing the darkness away. ‘Get out of my head.’

  But it pushed harder into his mind, like a black sheet pulling across his thoughts. The ground fell away from beneath his feet as the familiar woozy floating sensation began to take over.

  ‘Get out!’ he shouted. ‘Leave me alone!’

  A blinding white light flashed in his mind and the darkness receded. Zak felt something trying to keep hold of his thoughts, but he was forcing it away, taking his mind back.

  ‘We can’t fight them,’ May called from inside the plane. ‘There’s too many of them.’

  On the airstrip, the flares were beginning to fizzle and die. Zak shook himself back into action. He held the shovel under his arm while he pulled another flare from his pocket, lit it, and threw it out on to the ice.

  Only three left.

  ‘Get up here quick,’ Zak shouted to May as he struck another flare and threw it out. ‘The flares are keeping them back. We still have time to jump down and run. If we can get to The Chasm, to the BioMesa place—’

  ‘We don’t know where it is!’

  ‘What else can we do?’

  The red-jackets stared at Zak. Their nightmarish slack faces, their skin tinted red in the light from the flares, their blank eyes reflecting the glow.

  ‘Join us.’ When they spoke, their words came out as one. Their breath puffed out around their heads and mingled with the smoke spiralling around them in the cold, cold air.

  ‘Get back here,’ May shouted. ‘There’s a door.’

  Zak heard his sister moving about and he snatched a glance back into the plane. He could see her silhouette at the far end, struggling to push open the rear door.

  Zak watched her for a second then turned back to the red-jackets. He pulled out one of his last two flares, preparing to light it.

  ‘Mum.’ His voice sounded small. As if Antarctica swallowed the words the moment they left his mouth. ‘Dad. Please. Please stop doing this. It’s me. Zak. You’re scaring me. You have to fight it. Whatever’s controlling you, making you like this, you have to fight it.’

  Nothing. There was no change in their expression.

  ‘The door!’ May sh
outed. ‘Come on!’

  The flares stuttered and died and the ice was dark once more. The monsters took a step forwards. Advancing. This was the final attack.

  ‘The door!’

  Zak stuffed the unlit flare back into his pocket. He held the shovel tight as he ran along the length of the plane towards May. Skidding to a halt, he put his shoulder to the door and, together with his sister, they pushed as hard as they could. With a click and a thump, the door swung out and Zak and May tumbled on to the airstrip.

  As soon as he hit the ground, Zak felt the pain probing in his head again. It was like a thick, blunt drill grinding into his skull, vibrating through his body. He tried to shake it away as he stumbled to his feet, reaching out to hold on to May. He grabbed her arm, hauling himself up, but when he opened his eyes, he saw he wasn’t holding on to his sister.

  Dima stared at Zak with a blank expression. ‘Join us.’

  They were waiting for us!

  Zak pushed him away, sending the pilot stumbling into the other red-jackets trying to surround him. He whirled around to see May struggling to free herself from the grip of two teenagers – a boy and a girl not much older than fifteen or sixteen. Already their jackets were writhing with movement and the bugs were beginning to emerge from their cuffs and hoods. They swarmed over their faces, pouring out from the warmth of their jackets and smothering Zak’s sister.

  ‘Help me!’ May was shouting, but already the bugs were on her face, shedding their black armour, searching for a way in.

  Zak shoved at a red-jacket who tried to attack him, and swatted at the bugs swirling in the air around them. He dropped low to grab the shovel. The blackness pushed into his thoughts again, the sound of the bugs amplifying by the second until his head was filled with the terrifying scuttle and buzz of a thousand legs and wings.

  ‘Get out of my head!’ he screamed as he swung the shovel hard.

  The flat side struck something solid, sending a shock wave through Zak’s body, but he didn’t let it stop him. He swung again and again, turning in circles, insects thudding off the blade. ‘Leave us alone!’

  But there was no ‘us’. Now there was only Zak.

  May was gone. In his mad crazy dance of twirling and swiping, surrounded by insects, Zak saw May stop fighting. He saw the bugs push into her mouth and nose, and within seconds, she was one of those things like Mum and Dad.

  He fought harder. He was the only one left now. With his mind, he tried to push out the darkness that wanted to take him away and hang him over the awful sea of writhing insects. And with the shovel, he swatted the bugs out of the air in front of him. And when he felt hands grabbing for him, clawing and pawing, he turned and hefted the weapon as hard as he could.

  Zak hit one of the red-jackets square in the chest and the air went out of her. Her legs collapsed and she fell to the ice.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ he shouted as he swung at Dima, hitting him hard in the shoulder, the shovel sliding up and catching him against the side of the neck. The pilot’s head snapped to one side and he collapsed like a felled tree. For an instant, Zak thought he had killed him, but as soon as he was on the ground, the pilot tried to get to his feet once more.

  ‘Join us.’

  Zak spun round and stared at his sister.

  May’s expression was blank. She was covered with bugs, but they were slipping inside her jacket, searching for the warmth.

  ‘Join us,’ she said again as hands reached for him, grasping at his arms.

  The darkness was back, spreading over his thoughts. He was too close to them. He had to get away. He had to.

  Zak turned and swung the shovel once more. He hit a teenage boy hard in the stomach, sending him reeling back. A girl came in to take his place, so Zak hit her and moved forwards, swinging the shovel left and right, whacking the flat of the blade against whoever or whatever got in his way. And as soon as he was free of them, he ran out on to the ice.

  Escape. Escape.

  He ran and ran and ran.

  OUTPOST ZERO, ANTARCTICA

  NOW

  Zak Reeves was utterly alone.

  He blundered away from the airstrip. His boots crunched icy snow, the crump-crump-crump the only sound in his head. Or rather, it was the only sound he listened to, because he blocked out the soft chanting of the red-jackets. No. Not just the red-jackets. May too. Mum and Dad. Dima. Their faces blank, their eyes empty, their bodies crawling with bugs.

  He ran and ran, trying so hard to push their tortured faces from his mind. His legs moved as if they were on autopilot, because he needed all his mental strength to force the darkness from his head. It clouded in at the sides of his vision, made the world swim in front of him. The ground was hardly beneath him any more; it was softening, trying to fall away as the thing beneath the ice invaded his mind.

  Zak had no idea he was shouting.

  ‘Get out of my head!’

  Over and over again.

  ‘Get out of my head!’

  Then it was gone. The probing fingers withdrew. His legs grew heavy – so, so heavy, like they were encased in concrete – but he continued to push across the snow, one foot at a time until he couldn’t move another step and he fell to his knees and hung his head. His chest heaved, the cold air saturating his body, every breath blowing out his precious body heat. He let the tears flow, pooling in the base of his goggles, freezing solid on his cheekbones. He cried for Mum and Dad. He cried for May, and he cried for the hopelessness of his situation. There was no one to help him now. There was nowhere for him to go.

  And when there were no more tears, Zak felt the cold tighten around him. He shivered hard and lifted his eyes to stare into the unforgiving desert.

  Ahead of him, there was nothing.

  Literally nothing. He heard May’s voice as if she were right there with him.

  The world stretched out for ever. On and on. Flat and cold and grey. If there had been enough light, it would have been brilliant white, but for now it was grey, grey, grey. To his right, another eternity of snow and ice. To his left, the same.

  From somewhere out there, a rumbling reached out to him. The sound of an engine? Or was it something new? Something he hadn’t seen? Perhaps it was another biomechanical monster, created by the Spiders. Or maybe it was help. Someone was coming? The sound grew louder as if it were approaching, but it passed to his left, too far out for him to see anything.

  Zak sat up and listened, allowing himself a brief moment of faint hope, but as the sound faded to nothing, his hope of rescue faded with it. And when it was gone, he sat back in despair, wondering if the sound had even been real.

  In the distance behind him, the base looked small. It looked alien, like he had run out on to a faraway planet. The lights were out again, so Outpost Zero was nothing but a series of shapes. Behind it, above the mountains, the sky was clear. A sickle moon sat low and bright, casting its silver light across the base. Ice and snow glittered like riches.

  The moon was surrounded by a billion billion stars, burning through the atmosphere, bringing light that was millions of years old. But even that was nothing compared to the colour. The sky was full of colour. Pink, purple and yellow streaks shone upwards like searchlights, shifting and swirling among the stars. They swam across the heavens in moving shafts, filtering the glow of constellations, colouring the sky like a bioluminescent alien landscape.

  The Aurora Australis.

  Zak could hear Dad’s voice in his head telling him what caused it. Something about electrons crashing into atoms in the atmosphere, but that made it sound so much less than it was. It made it boring. Actually seeing it was pure magic.

  Zak shivered and tore his eyes away from the spectacle. He was wearing layers, good protection, but no kind of protection would last for ever out there. Already the cold was finding its way inside his clothes. He was losing body heat with every breath, and he could feel himself beginning to shiver more and more. He had to get inside. If he didn’t find somewhere soon, he would f
reeze to death.

  Zak got to his feet and turned in every direction. Nothing had changed. The landscape was still endless. It was still empty. He looked back at the base and wondered if there was any part of it that was safe, but he knew they were waiting for him. Wherever he went, whatever he did, they would sneak into his thoughts and they would know. The only place for him to go was towards The Chasm. Follow the arrow he had seen on the map. There had to be something there. If he could reach it, he might be able to find out what was happening here. He might be able to stop it.

  So he checked his bearings with the silhouette of the base, and began walking out into the endless desert of Antarctica.

  The cold was worsening. It stung his lungs and numbed his fingertips. He pulled his hood tighter, banged his hands together and rubbed them hard as he dragged his heavy feet on and on. His movement was slow and his steps were clumsy. And when he glanced back again, the base was tiny. If he lifted his hand he could pinch Outpost Zero between his finger and thumb as if it were a million miles away. There was no going back now, he would freeze to death before he reached it, but there was nothing ahead, either. Nothing but ice and snow and wind. And the realization crept over him with a deep feeling of dread. He had been wrong. The icy desert was as endless as space. He might as well have been searching for a single snowflake.

  His mind was woozy, his thoughts confused. Everything was beginning to shut down. His senses were failing, but Zak knew enough to understand what was happening to him. Hypothermia was taking him in his grip. Killing him slowly. It was grinning as it wrapped its arms around him, squeezing tighter and tighter.

  Come on in, Zak, it said. Everyone’s safe and warm in here.

  ‘Head back,’ he mumbled, but Outpost Zero was nowhere to be seen now. He frowned and turned on the spot, watching the horizon, but there was nothing other than grey snow and black sky. The Aurora Australis was gone. Outpost Zero was gone. Zak had no idea which way to go.

  Panic clutched at his heart. He was going to die out here. Like Scott of the Antarctic, he was going to freeze to death.