Tantalus (The Hidden Book 1)

by Phil Maxey

  The door was still open. She walked up to it, looking behind her as she went, and looked inside. As her light swept across the room, pushing the shadows away as it went, burnt human remains slowly came into view. Then she saw him and something else.

  She immediately fired at the black mass that was on top of his body, slowly devouring him, his helmet and face pulled into a distorted stream disappearing into the shadow thing in front of her. The room lit with blue fury as the plasma bolts moved across the space between her and the thing then were absorbed, being lost inside it, not to appear on the other side. “No! Fucking die!” She screamed as she kept firing.

  The black formless entity moved away from Holts lifeless body and became one with the shadows around her. She looked briefly at what was left of Holt, grabbed the door and slammed it shut. She had no idea if that would stop whatever she just saw, but her instincts were in control and they were telling her it was time to get the hell out of there.

  She turned and ran, trying to remember the order of corridors they had just come through. The image of what the thing just did to her friend kept blocking her mind from making choices and she stopped out of breath. She realized she needed to contact the others.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Slow down, soldier,” said Kurt leaning over Holland who was shaking, sitting with his back up against the wall, his words coming in fits and starts. They all stood on a gantry close to where they entered the docking bay.

  “Gibson—dead—reactor—shadows moved—”

  Kurt knelt by him grabbing him by the shoulder. “What do you mean, Gibson is dead?”

  Holland looked at Kurt. “We need to get off this station, there’s something here, something that’s—”

  “Holland, what about Wade?” Kurt shouted.

  Holland looked away, blinking. “He’s gone Kurt, something got to him, killed him.”

  Kurt stood up. “Gibson, reply. Over.” Frustrated at the lack of a reply, he knelt again. “Where did you last see him?”

  Holland got to his feet. “Kurt, you don’t understand, there’s an entity on this station, I don’t know if it’s—”

  “Hey, hold on, what do you mean an entity?” said Wheeler. “Like an alien?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know, there was something covering the reactor, it seemed to have been drawing the energy from it, but I have no idea how. And there were people in there, they were definitely dead, but reanimated somehow.”

  The word zombie flashed through Kurt’s mind, but he quickly pushed it away. It had no place in the real world.

  “We need to find the others, regroup, then come back with a larger force,” said Kurt.

  “What about the hauler and the patrol ship?”

  “We will have to check them next time, right now I just want to get our people and get off this station.”

  Kurt and Wheeler went to walk away.

  “Hold on. I’ll send you my feed.” Holland tapped his wrist screen and soon a recording of what he saw played out on a small screen on Kurt and Wheelers HUD. They both visibly staggered on seeing the bodies in the Reactor room and finally, Gibson.

  “What the fuck,” said Wheeler holding onto the guardrail with one of her hands.

  “Holland, we need to find Vargas and Holt, what’s the quickest route to the living quarters.”

  Holland tapped his wrist. “Back to the shaft I came in from, we just continue it upwards, but it’s going to be at least a twenty-minute climb.”

  “Okay, let’s move out.” As he passed Wheeler, he looked at her.

  “I’m okay, let’s go,” she replied.

  They ran to the shaft entrance.

  “Holland, keep trying to reach the shuttle we came in on, and Zeus, let me know if you get any success,” said Kurt beginning the climb upwards.

  After a few minutes, there heard a noise a few story’s above them. Looking upwards they could see somebody in a combat space suit climbing down, but not responding on comms.

  Each of them stepped off onto a small platform. “I think it’s Vargas,” Wheeler said looking up.

  Kurt raised his gun. “Vargas, is that you? We’re in emergency shaft four,” a garbled voice replied. “It could be her, I can’t tell, someone’s trying to talk to us. Take up positions.”

  Wheeler and Holland both backed off to opposite walls on the platform and aimed their rifles at whoever was climbing down.

  Soon, the persons visor and Vargas’s face came into view. She climbed down from the ladder, and approached Kurt pointing to her helmet.

  “I think her comms are down,” said Holland walking close to her, examining her helmet.

  “Can you hear me?” said Kurt, she nodded.

  Holland put his arm across her. “Here, use my screen, type out what you need to.”

  Vargas grabbed Holland’s wrist and started typing frantically. Even with the screen correcting her mistakes, her frustration was obvious as she had to delete and retype.

  “Holt dead. Killed by shadow thing. Plasma bolts don’t affect it. Other people on station, moving but—” she looked up as if trying to find the best way to describe what she had seen “—not alive, something else.”

  “Are you sure he’s dead?” said Kurt, she nodded again. Even within the partially lit interior of Vargas’s helmet he could see how red and wet her eyes were.

  “Okay, fuck this, we’re out of here. We go back down, and straight to the shuttle.” As he finished another sound drifted down from the shaft many stories above. They all instinctively pointed their guns upwards into the darkness above them.

  “Could it be Holt?” said Kurt.

  Vargas shook her head.

  “Let’s go, everyone climb down now.”

  Holland took point, followed by Wheeler and Vargas with Kurt leading the rear. As he climbed onto the ladder slinging his rifle over his shoulder he looked upwards but the dark seemed even more oppressive than before.

  He looked below and started climbing down. “Holland, any luck in reaching anyone?”

  “None.”

  As they all descended as quickly as they could, the sound from above increased.

  Kurt stopped and looked up slowly. The light from his helmet only traveled a few meters before hitting up against a wall of darkness. He continued to stare into the black, trying to understand why what he was looking at was wrong, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Instead of light gradually falling away, his helmet’s beam just stopped a short distance above him. He felt like he should reach out and touch it. He went to raise his hand, when something heavy fell past him, almost knocking him completely off the ladder.

  A loud knock echoed around the confined vertical chamber.

  Another thing dropped from above, this time though he was tighter in to the ladder and it flew past him. “Something’s falling from above us. Is anyone hurt?” he shouted.

  “Vargas has fallen, I don’t know how far, something fucking hit her from above us,” said Wheeler out of breath and with panic in his voice.

  “Just climb down!” shouted Kurt in reply as even more dark ragged things fell from above them.

  Frantically they all climbed down keeping as close to the ladder as they could.

  Holland jumped down before the ladder reached the bottom, falling on his back on something soft which slowly writhed. Shit, I’ve landed on Vargas. He pushed himself off to the side, but just fell against another thing that was moving as well. The others are above me? Turning slowly, his beam illuminated the half missing face of a man, with white eyes. “They’re here!” he screamed, scrambling to his feet, pushing the undead thing away from him. “The dead people, they are falling from above!”

  Wheeler jumped down onto the platform, and immediately pushed herself away from the corpses trying to stand on shattered limbs on the floor. She spotted Vargas unconscious half laying underneath one of creatures that just fell from above.

  “Vargas is unconscious!” she said as Kurt climbed down.

  Upon seeing
Vargas lying on the navy-blue grating he grabbed the closest undead creature slinging it against the wall. “Help me get her up.”

  Wheeler and Kurt picked up Vargas. Kurt placed her over his shoulder. Another body that should have been dead, tried grabbing at his feet, Holland hit what was left of its face with the butt of his rifle but it still clawed forward.

  “We need to go,” said Kurt as more noise echoed from above.

  They ran through the already open doorway, and into a corridor. Their helmet light beams barely making an impression on the dark around them, and their heartbeats thundering in their ears.

  “Holland, lead the way!” shouted Kurt.

  “Umm, two more corridors, this way,” he said, walking quickly.

  “Zeus shuttle, we are need of medical attention and we require immediate evac. Over.”

  “This is Zeus shuttle, we are prepped and ready to leave as soon as you get here, what’s your ETA? Over.”

  Kurt sighed in relief. “We are almost with—”

  They ran around a corner of a junction and stopped.

  In front of them, at the limit of their beams range, was a wall of damaged bodies from floor to ceiling, crammed together so completely that it looked like each one had been placed individually. Most were standing, propped up by the ones around it, while others were crawling on their shoulders. Most of the creatures were pointing in their direction, their heads flicking towards them when the group appeared.

  “What—” It was all that Kurt could think to say. He instinctively turned and looked in the opposite direction, then staggered back. It was the same in that direction as well. He wilted slightly under the weight of his comrade. “Holland, find me another route.”

  Wheeler whipped her rifle from in front of her to behind her in quick succession. “What—What do we do, Kurt? There must be hundreds packed into this corridor, it makes no sense, how did they get there? Are they alive?” she said her voice on the edge of panic.

  “The corridor to our right, leads directly to the shuttle, if we go back from where we came, it’s a fifty-minute route back around to the shuttle, if we can even get through that way,” said Holland anxiously.

  “Fuck,” said Kurt.

  Arms and legs amongst the mass of creatures on both sides of them started to extend out in their direction, and the heap of lifeless things shifted, moving forward. The small group of marines walked backwards in unison. Kurt turned around to the way they came. The darkness that he saw in the shaft was now behind them, it was as if they were being stalked. His helmet’s just beam spread out a few meters then slammed up against intense black.

  “To hell with this,” he said, more to himself than anyone around him. Moving back to the junction, he raised his rifle and started firing. The plasma bolts tore through the bodies in front them while the other marines also fired. The creatures continued to move forward even when there was very little left of their bodies, but slowly the wall collapsed leaving a half-meter high layer of charred human body parts on the corridor floor.

  “We have to push through!” shouted Kurt, as he charged forward into a melee of arms clawing at him and Vargas. Firing and pushing with his rifle, he finally made it through to the other side, but even there, more undead were walking slowly towards them from further down the corridor.

  “What the fuck?” One of the pilots from the shuttle was standing in the doorway to the airlock with a plasma rifle in his hand, looking at the creatures slowly walking towards them. “What’s going on?” he said as Kurt ran up to him carrying Vargas.

  “We need to get off this station, now!” Kurt shouted.

  He, the pilot, and the others ran up to the air lock, closing it behind them as quickly as they could.

  Running back into the shuttle, Kurt laid Vargas down on the floor as gently as he could, collapsing on the floor next to her.

  The shuttle door closed with a deep clunk and a hiss of air, then the whole ship shuddered as they detached from the airlock.

  Holland tapped Vargas’s wrist screen then reached up and lifted off her helmet. “Help me get the suit off.”

  “Have you been able to reach Zeus?” said Kurt to the pilot, while helping Holland.

  “Yeah, we have been in constant contact with them, they were freaking out about not being able to reach you, were just about to send a rescue mission.”

  “Tell them, we have two casualties and one injured. We were not able to get to the casualties to bring them back. Tell them the station is dead, and that no other ships should dock there.”

  The pilot looked at Kurt confused.

  “Tell them now!” Kurt shouted.

  The pilot started to relay the message.

  “How’s she looking?” said Kurt to Holland.

  “Just a concussion by the looks of it, she should be fine.”

  The shuttle left the station, heading towards the cruiser.

  “What the fuck happened back there? Those … people,” said Wheeler, still inside her combat suit, but with the helmet off, her hands still clenched around her rifle, her hair damp and sticking to the sides of her face.

  Kurt looked at Holland.

  “I don’t know what we saw back there, maybe a kind of infection spread throughout the stations population, giving them a kind of life after death.”

  “What about the darkness? There was something wrong with the shadows,” said Kurt.

  “An energy absorbing life form? I dunno. I need to run tests when—”

  “Wait. Infection? Are we infected?” said Wheeler, looking at her suit anxiously.

  “Our suits should have protected us, but we will need to be quarantined when we get back to—”

  All the lights in the shuttle cabin dimmed then came back on.

  “No—” said Holland.

  The shuttle shook, making Kurt lose his balance momentarily. “Everything alright up there?” he said to the pilots.

  “We’re having communication problems with reaching the Zeus, and the energy output from our—“

  The cabin plunged into darkness.

  Kurt reached for the interior railings and ran up the small stairs to the cockpit, removing his helmet as he went. As he approached the pilots the Zeus was visible in the distance through the shuttle’s window.

  “We’re dead in the water,” said one of the pilots. “I don’t understand what’s—” He stopped talking and his mouth fell open as he looked out into space.

  “What is it?” said Kurt following the pilot’s gaze, then he saw it too. The stars were slowly turning off. A shadow was moving from behind them, towards the Zeus.

  Kurt grabbed the pilot’s shoulder. “Did you transmit the message? Did you tell them about the station?”

  “I—I, tried, but the message wouldn’t go through.”

  Kurt looked back at the large ship, whose lights were now spluttering and blinking.

  CHAPTER 10

  “What can I do for you, Warden?” Captain Taylor sat in the officer’s break room, drinking some coffee examining the large screen which doubled as a table. Her mug stood to one side, steam curling up from the contents. Displayed was a map of the solar system.

  Murlock smiled and stood on the other side of the table. “Are you aware that Luke Carter became one of our … guests today?”

  “Fully aware,” she said while still looking down.

  “Well he’s creating a lot of friction between the syndicates, he seems to be of some ‘value’ to them.”

  “And what concern is this of mine?” Her fingers traced over a dashed line which ran from Earth to Mars on the chart below her.

  “It’s all our concern, Captain.” His words came out staccato, with emphasis on each.

  Taylor looked up. “What do you want, Davin?”

  He looked around the room, before focusing back on the captain. “I need more allocated time with the IMs, they need to be seen more by the prisoners.”

  “Okay,” said Taylor waiting for a more compelling reason.

/>   “We need to stop any problems before they start.”

  Taylor looked back down to her map. “As you know, the IMs are what keep Tantalus running, they handle the engineering as well as more functional roles. If the ship isn’t running, Warden, there is no prison for you to reside over.” She sighed. “I guess I could look into it, see if any time can be freed up.”

  Murlock smiled and went to leave when he stopped as if someone was talking to him.

  Taylor went to ask if there was a problem, when Elisa’s voice came through her comms.

  “Captain, I have an urgent message from EC.”

  Taylor tapped the back of her wrist. “Patch it through.”

  Static burst into her mind, making her grimace. “Hello?”

  The static quietened, replaced by a male voice. “Cap—Captain Taylor can you hear me? Over.”

  “Yes, I can hear you, go ahead. Over.”

  “There’s something happening in the European and American federations. It’s affecting communications in those areas and between Earth and off world locations. Over.”

  “Happening? You mean the storm? It’s the cause of the interference?”

  His voice faded out once more.

  “Lieutenant Honer can you boost the signal any?”

  “Trying, Captain.”

  The man’s voice faded back in. “Energy shortages—attacks in some of the municipalities.”

  Attacks? Had to be a large-scale syndicate attack, but energy shortages? “Honer, can you bring up any video from the ground in those areas?”

  The table she was leaning on, now changed to show a city in blackout, hidden in deep shadow. She placed her hand on the image, and spread her fingers causing the view to zoom inwards with complete fidelity. Soon the scene was just above a street. Some of the autonomous vehicles had crashed. That’s strange.

  “Look there,” said Murlock, who she hadn’t realized was standing behind her.