“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”
Urgency overtook him, causing his teeth to chatter. A sense of tranquility followed, as if he’d been placed in a pipeline to the center of the Cosmic Consciousness. The meaning of everything opened up for him; the pyramid, the Earth’s acerbic coat of white, the collapsing space station. Calmly, he slowed down his breathing. His fingers found purchase on the handle adorning the side of the power module. He lowered himself down, feeling lightheaded, and got to work.
6
Nikolay stared at the knife. Even in zero gravity, it felt heavy in his hand. He’d taken it from his bunk for self-defense, but the drumbeat of logic in his brain asked, defense from what, defense from whom? Unable to find an acceptable answer to those questions, he tucked the knife in the back pocket of his new jumper.
It concerned him that circumstances dictated they place the jettisoning of the strange black pyramid on the to do later list. He found it hard to concentrate with that evil thing still inside the station.
He heard a tapping sound above him. He took the knife back out, floated to the ceiling, and rapped the blade against the steel. A hollow clang echoed through the aft corridor. The strange tap-tap-tap answered, further along the corridor this time. He swiveled. It seemed to come from the energy quad, a mountain of computers, sensors, hoses, and machinery that converted the sunlight collected by the massive solar panels.
Tracing his hand along the ceiling as he glided along the path at the edge of the passageway, he had to bite his tongue to keep his nerves in check. His body jittered and his heart pounded.
An ear-splitting crash rang out behind him and he jumped. A serpent-like hiss followed. He turned around and stared down the dark channel, squinting, trying to force his eyes to adjust in the darkness. A hatch door appeared to open a ways down, to his left. He approached it slowly, hands shaking. A quick movement, like the snap of a whip, flashed across his vision. He grabbed a light fixture to stop his forward momentum.
A pair of tentacles emerged from the hatch. They gyrated against each other with the grace and rapidity of mating snakes.
Nikolay couldn’t move. He held his breath. A single thought repeated, over and over again, in his mind.
They are finally here.
First his father, now him. They’d robbed him of his youth, forced his mother to raise he and his sisters by herself, and now they’d returned to finish the job. He wouldn’t let them.
Anger coursed through him. He steadied his breathing, hoping the creature hadn’t seen him yet, and tried to think. How had the thing gotten in there in the first place? He couldn’t see its body, which was still hidden inside the hatchway, but judging by the size of the tentacles, it had to be huge. Something – or someone – allowed it in.
He knew exactly who that had been. There were only two options, after all.
Nikolay drifted backwards without a sound. The alien presence continued to lash out with its feelers, oblivious to him. As he retreated down the tunnel, it faded into nothing. He couldn’t even hear it any longer.
He came upon the entrance to the Genesis Pod. He yanked the lever and the hatch violently swung open. It struck him on the side with such force he was sent careening down the corridor. He bounced off a crate and a row of light fixtures, spinning. The air became hot, his skin blistered. He smelled his hair burn. Finally, his desperately flailing hands found something to grab hold of. His twisting ceased.
It took a moment for his vision to come back, and when it did he realized the flashing lights he saw hadn’t come from a bump on the head, but instead were the result of the dancing flames that materialized through the now-broken Genesis Pod access flap. He stared at it, awed. He’d never seen open flames in zero gravity. It was beautiful and strange, a ballet of light and shadow.
He inched forward, body held tight to the wall to avoid the pulsating threads of fire, and made his way through the hatch. Once inside, he found its source – through another hatch on the other side of the Pod, in the room housing the motor assemblies.
Flames trickled in from there like a thousand fairies. He kept his distance and looked around. The panel into the North Corridor had been left open, which could mean only one thing.
The traitor had gone back to The Wheel. The Major was in trouble.
Nikolay put the alien creature he left behind out of his thoughts and scurried to the portal. Fireballs lashed out at him, singeing his hair, hands, and coveralls. He put the knife between his teeth, bit down, ignored the pain, and closed the hatch behind him. Free from the fire, he climbed the ladder.
7
Tom had been tinkering with the navigational controls when he heard the blast. It started as a steady stream of air sucked through small hole, then progressed into an extended boom. He cracked the panel to the window beside the computer console and peered out. His position in The Wheel was now on the underbelly of the station. He saw nothing but gray steel and black space.
Closing the plate, he dashed to the communications post. He smacked the COM lever and yelled into the speaker.
“Is anybody bloody out there!”
Static answered.
His nerves rattled, threatening to send him over the edge. Keep it together, Thomas, he thought. There is nothing to fear here. Some debris probably struck the hull…
A hollow clank interrupted his thoughts. Again he darted to the window and opened it. He craned his neck, trying in vain to see more than the tiny opening allowed. The patter grew louder and louder until finally it sounded as if the station was being struck by hailstones. Streaks of light rushed through space. Something smacked the window. The six inches of reinforced glass fractured. Tom slammed the panel shut and fastened the latch. He pressed his body against it, fearing a loss of cabin pressure. Thankfully, the plate held firm.
Confusion overwhelmed him. He breathed in short bursts. The not knowing squeezed his chest in panic. Those loud, metallic pangs echoed all around him. He felt close to passing out.
His world then lurched, throwing him against an instrument panel. His elbow struck it hard, sending needles of pain up his forearm. He curled into a ball. His fingers went numb.
He felt woozy, and then what he sensed could only describe as lessening, as if the progress of his world had slowed down and thrown of his center of gravity. Gravity. He curled his legs under him and stood with ease. It felt like he’d lost twenty pounds. He braced his arms by his side, closed his eyes, and focused on The Wheel’s movements. Sure enough, the spin was winding down.
Yet another thud came next, followed by a scream. These two sounds hadn’t come from elsewhere; they came from inside The Wheel. Tom removed his Browning 9MM from its holster, ducked down, and crept from the command center.
Again, someone screamed. Tom moved faster.
8
Uche stood on the observation deck and hovered over the black pyramid. His hands lingered inches from its surface. He felt the vibrations coarse through him. The horseman cometh, he thought, and his name is Famine.
He turned. Stacked on the other side of the room were crates of food – the pre-packaged kind he removed from The Wheel’s kitchen. The crates began to shimmy, as if dancing. He braced himself, and the floor shook. His task in the engine room of the Genesis Pod had come to fruition. Soon, The Wheel would stop spinning. What happened after that he still had to figure out. The stabilizers had been damaged for some reason, which was an obstacle he’d have to overcome if he wanted to crash the station into the Earth.
When the shaking subsided, he stepped around to the mound of crates, popped the top of the Major’s precious bottle of scotch, and poured its contents over the pile. When the bottle emptied, he took the lighter from his pocket, flicked it, and set the stacks of cardboard boxes aflame.
He stepped back and admired the flames as they rose. He’d been able to gather most of the supplies he could find in the kitchen in a short amount of time. Sure, there were more in the cargo hold down below, but when the charge he set in th
e life support subdivision went off, the rear of the station would likely collapse upon itself, rendering any additional supplies a moot point, because they’d be floating around in space by then.
All in all, not such a bad plan. Perhaps it didn’t matter if he couldn’t crash the station, after all. The Archangel would understand. He was a man at the mercy of the tools at his disposal. Some things could not be helped.
The flames rose higher, sucking oxygen from the corridor and causing a brisk chill to brush against his neck. He shivered and backed up a step. His foot bumped into something and he turned around. It was Jean-Pierre, still in the seat where he’d been found, strapped in, a blackened husk. Uche glanced from the dead Frenchman to the fire and back again. It seemed appropriate that the provisions should share his fate, seeing as Jean-Pierre had cooked the majority of their meals over the past year.
Uche smiled, clasped his hands, and knelt down. He lifted his eyes to the viewing window and prayed. He thanked the Lord for not abandoning him, for allowing him the opportunity to receive His judgment.
“Soon, my Savior,” he said. “I will be with you soon.”
“What the hell?” asked a heavily accented voice.
Uche stood up and turned. Nikolay loomed in the doorway, knife in hand. His coveralls and half his face were scorched. He held a knife, which he flicked back and forth between his hands like it was too hot to handle. Uche raised his arms.
“Brother,” he said with confidence, “I am glad you decided to join me.”
“What have you done, you bastard,” Nikolay screamed.
9
Nikolay couldn’t believe what he saw. The crazy, sickly Nigerian had set all their provisions on fire. Just seeing him standing there, with sweat pouring off his face and his black cheeks now pale ochre, provided all the evidence he’d needed. It had been Uche who communed with the alien beacon on the desk, Uche who let in the invader, Uche who set off the explosion in the Genesis Pod motor bay. He glanced at the crazy man and then at the black pyramid. Uche’s grin swelled.
It was more than Nikolay could take. He screamed and charged his former friend. Uche closed his eyes and spread out his arms. Nikolay crashed into him and they tumbled to the floor. The Nigerian offered no resistance at first. He allowed Nikolay to drive his head down, smacking against the hard steel. But when Nikolay drove his blade into his stomach, and blood poured out, his eyes widened. He shoved Nikolay off him – the Nigerian had at least fifty pounds on the smaller Russian – drew to his knees, cradled his arm against the flowing wound, and gasped.
“What…” Uche began. He looked at the red covering his hands and screamed.
Nikolay didn’t give him a chance to do more than that. He charged again, this time slashing the blade in a wide arc. It sliced through the Nigerian’s windpipe, releasing a geyser of blood that drenched Nikolay’s burnt coveralls. Uche grasped wildly at his throat, trying in vain to stifle the flow. His eyes bulged in their sockets. Bubbles of spit and blood popped on his lips. He choked on his own life’s fluid and collapsed on his side.
A lake of red expanded around him.
Nikolay stared down at his friend. He lifted the knife and considered its blood-smeared blade. As Uche gurgled his final death gasps, he turned to the table, where the Unknown Artifact sat, unfazed. He pulled up a chair, sat down, and bounced the tip of the blade off the steel table’s surface. He didn’t know what to do with the thing. He touched it, felt it vibrate, and tried to pick it up. It didn’t move, as if it had fused with the table. He slid the blade beneath it and attempted to pry it loose. It did no good.
There is only one way to end this, he thought. He slid off the chair and used the knife to loose the bolts that fastened the table to the deck.
Behind him, Uche’s stare followed that of Jean-Pierre’s. As the Earth again passed over the viewing window, the hazy white sphere reflected in his lifeless eyes.
10
Tom dashed down the corridor. Smoke billowed around him. He turned the corner, entered the observation deck, and stopped short.
There was a large pile of boxes blazing in the corner, only ten feet from where the corpse of Jean-Pierre still sat strapped into its chair. There was another body behind it. Uche. He was sprawled out, lying in a pool of blood. Tom raised his pistol and proceeded cautiously into the room.
He heard a sound to his left and swung the weapon in that direction. He spotted the Unknown Artifact, mocking him from with its black malevolence from its spot on the table. Nikolay then rose from beneath. He held a bloody knife in his hand, likely the same blood that was smeared all over his jumper. Uche’s blood. His russet hair had been singed. The left side of his face was a mess of blackened tissue. His eyes reflected the lashing flames on the other side of the room. When he looked at Tom, his stare was both shrewd and insane.
Tom leveled the barrel at the Russian. He couldn’t stop shaking. “What happened here?” he asked.
Nikolay sneered. “Don’t point that thing at me,” he said.
For a moment, Tom thought about dropping the gun. But the look in Nikolay’s eyes held him firm, and all it took was another glance in the direction of the dead Nigerian for him to not relent.
“So they got to you, as well,” said Nikolay with a shake of his head.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you would say that. You cannot fool me. And you cannot take me.”
Nikolay danced from behind the table like a predator, cold, calculating. He held the knife out and ran toward him. Tom took a step back.
He pulled the trigger. Twice.
One slug buried itself into Nikolay’s chest. The second clipped his cheek, peeling back a flap of skin and shattering his teeth. He collapsed in mid-stride and rolled on the floor, clawing at his wounded face. Tom held his breath and stood there, staring. Nikolay let loose the yelps of a wounded animal.
Tom approached him and got down on one knee, close enough to see the extent of the damage done to the crazy Russian’s body but far enough away to stay out of arm’s reach. He kept the gun on him just in case.
Nikolay got up on his elbows and glared. One side of his mouth twisted into a scowl of pain; the other, a sickening, fleshless grin. The Russian growled and started to crawl towards him. Amazingly, he still held the knife. Tom inched backward.
“Don’t come any closer, Nikolay.”
The Russian kept coming.
“I said stop. We’ll get you help. We’ll sort through this.”
“There is no help,” he replied through his ruined mouth, and lunged.
Tom fired again. At close range, the bullet pulverized the top of Nikolay’s skull. What hair he had left caught fire as a torrent of blood and brain tissue ejected from the back of his head. Everything fell silent; the sound of the flames crackling behind him, sucking up most of the oxygen in the room, was all he could hear.
Tom stood up, rolled Nikolay onto his back, and crossed his arms over his chest. He did the same with Uche. Then he walked to the row of seats and took the one next to Jean-Pierre. He strapped himself in and threw an arm around the charbroiled Frenchman.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
Jean-Pierre’s empty eye sockets stared straight ahead.
Tom leaned his head back and gazed through the window, feeling defeated. There was Earth in all Her billowing white hideousness. He thought of his wife and daughter and cursed the fact he’d been too attached to his job, to a need for adventure, to be with them when The End came. He thought of all the empty cities down below, littered with corpses much like those that now surrounded him. Jean-Pierre’s esoteric words came back to him. In the end, we’re all alone, he’d been fond of saying while they sat drinking scotch during their much-too-brief evenings together. He chuckled at the quirk of fate those words implied.
He lifted the Browning, aimed it at the thick window above him, and fired five shots into the glass. It started to crack; long, snaking lines that crisscrossed b
efore him. He checked the gun. One bullet remained. For a moment he considered riding out the end, watching the porthole collapse and allow the emptiness of space to consume him.
That seemed like a melodramatic way to go.
He stuck the pistol in his mouth and blew out his brains, instead.
11
The Unknown Artifact sat on the desk. The Wheel had stopped spinning and the observation window had shattered. The fire had dissipated with no oxygen to feed it any longer. Boxes and instruments drifted through the space around it, as did the frozen bodies of Uche Mononye and Nikolay Rasmanovic.
The Unknown Artifact had not the ability to feel. If it did, it might have felt sorry for the men who’d surrounded it while it stayed hidden for so many months and prayed that their souls would find a place of rest in the lands beyond time and space.
But it did not.
If it had studied biology, it might have been privy to the symptoms of oxygen deprivation and over-exposure to carbon dioxide that two of its shipmates were demonstrating.
But it did not.
If it understood chemistry and the workings of the universe, it would have been able to stop the sense of doom that had developed by explaining the massive solar flares that had erupted from the sun’s surface more than a month ago, flares that reacted with the Earth’s atmosphere and created an impassable ion cloud. It would also be able to disclose how the planet’s surface would remain relatively unharmed, that all the world’s populace had to do was wait out the storm and allow the clouds to dissipate naturally.
But it did not.
It also might have been able to tell the crew that a second round of solar flares had licked across the universe the day prior, that Jean-Pierre had been unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time; that the flares, their heat heightened in intensity by the thick glass, had fried Jean-Pierre, changed the physical properties of the artifact, itself, and bound it to the table.
The Gate: 13 Dark & Odd Tales Page 12