Ice Rift - Siberia

by Ben Hammott

  “But the creatures...”

  “Trust me, when my life’s in danger I excel at surviving,” reassured Richard.

  “Ramirez. Change of plan and warn Colbert he has an alien about to pay him a visit from the escape chute.”

  “Copy that,” replied Ramirez.

  “On it,” replied Colbert, who had been listening in.

  Richard exited the escape chute and crossed to the door the creatures scratched at, searching for a way in. The air tight seal held them at bay. His glance at Krisztina detected the fear in her eyes that for the moment self-preservation kept from his own. He also saw her determination. Like him, she was desperate to survive. “Do exactly as I say, and we might yet live through this.”

  With the insistent self-destruct alarm continually warning them of their imminent deaths if they didn’t escape, Richard grabbed a glass flask from an open box and thrust it into Krisztina’s free hand. “Throw it across the room when I open the door.”

  Shocked he would do such a thing but aware they needed to get past the creatures somehow, she joined Richard against the wall behind the door. She raised the flask as Richard reached for the handle and threw it when he yanked open the door.

  Creatures eager to be first to reach the food, rushed in and headed for the sound of breaking glass. When the last of the small hoard had entered, Richard pulled Krisztina through the exit and yanked the door shut.

  “What now,” asked Krisztina, pointing her weapon along the dark corridor.

  “The elevator. It’s our only option.”

  Krisztina sprinted alongside Richard. “Isn’t the elevator broken?”

  “If it’s the same as the other elevator on Level 4, there’s a ladder in the shaft we can climb to Level 1 and from there we head for the exit elevator.”

  “Oh!” uttered Krisztina. “More climbing.”

  “ARE WE CLEAR, RAMIREZ?” asked Richard, rushing through the facility.

  “I don’t know how you did it, but it seems to be. Did I hear correctly, you’re going to climb elevator shaft to Level 1?”

  “Affirmative,” replied Richard. “What’s it like up there?”

  “Crowded and I’ve been unable to find a clear path.”

  “Don’t think we could afford the delay if you had. We’ll have to fight our way through. Be grateful for any assistance you can offer from your end.”

  “I’ll do what I can, which won’t be much.”

  “Understood.”

  When they reached the corridor junction, their heads darted left at the sound of metallic clinks making themselves heard above the warning alarm. They briefly focused on the two creatures Richard had riddled with bullets a few moments earlier, reforming and shedding bullets from their small masses.

  With no time to waste shooting them again, they sprinted for the elevator. Amongst the many brittle pieces of dead Black littering the floor, were splatters of fluid Black flowing towards one another and reforming.

  Ignoring the danger that might be waiting for them inside, they climbed into the shaft and onto the ladder. Rung by rung they rose towards the elevator hanging high above them.

  Richard notified Ramirez—the only person who might be able to help them—of their progress. “Climbing elevator shaft. Colbert, I know you’re listening. Don’t you dare leave without us.”

  Colbert promptly replied. “We leave at three minutes to detonation whether you’re here or not, and that’s cutting it fine to be clear of the blast. Good luck.”

  “We’ll be there,” said Richard with more confidence than he felt.

  “Warning. Evacuation protocol in process. Ten minutes until detonation.”

  “Ten minutes,” translated Krisztina, practically running up the ladder. “Seven until our ride to safety abandons us.”

  “Then we don’t stop for anything. We blast everything that gets in between us and the exit. Understood, Sweet Cheeks?”

  “Da. Whatever it takes, and I’m not Sweet Cheeks.”

  Richard had a perfect view of Krisztina’s rear as he climbed. “You don’t have my point of view.”

  PEERING THROUGH THE wet streaks left in the wake of the juddering worn wiper blades, and snow whisked across the tundra by the biting wind, Mason noticed Sullivan sprinting for the smaller building attached to the side of the main construction, Mason steered the tanker into the compound and skidded to a halt beside the Russian transport truck. He killed the engine, climbed out and crossed to his commander.

  “Good, you made it,” greeted Colbert. “Go help Sullivan. There’s something climbing the escape chute.”

  Not quite understanding everything that was happening here but certain he was about to find out, Mason held his questions in check and rushed across the compound to help Sullivan.

  Sullivan entered the generator hut and moved cautiously to the open hatch his rifle pointed at. Gusts shook the heavily insulated hut and swung the single dim bulb hanging from the ceiling, which eerily moved the shadows it cast. Snow, more ice pellets than fluffy whiteness, pinged off its sides. He shot a glance behind at Mason when he entered and indicated the hatch with a slight movement of his head.

  Mason switched on his rifle light and focused the beam on the hatch. He moved a few steps away from Sullivan and matched his footsteps moving nearer to the uninviting hole in the floor. When they were a single step away, both men darted forward and aimed their weapons into the hatch. Their twin beams probed the empty chute.

  Mason glanced at Sullivan questioningly.

  “One of those alien things was climbing up, but it looks like it went back down,” explained Sullivan. “Probably hunting Richard and Krisztina who went below to reconnect the self-destruct bomb to get the device working, which they succeeded in doing, but when they reconnected it, the timer was initiated.”

  “Richard went below?” asked Mason in surprise. “Doesn’t sound like the sort of thing he’d do.”

  “It wasn’t entirely voluntary,” informed Sullivan, roaming his weapon around the hut furnished with few places where something might be concealed. The swinging light imbued the inside of the hut with shadows that seemed to move as his eyes roamed over the large fuel tank and rested on the darkness behind the back-up diesel generator.

  “Ah,” uttered Mason. “Didn’t think it would have been. Where are they now?”

  “Making their way to Level 1. They were supposed to exit via this escape ladder but were unable to because one of the alien creatures was in it. Ramirez is also down there, on Level 1, presently clearing their route out to the exit elevator.”

  To check the alien wasn’t hiding somewhere in the room, Sullivan pointed at the generator and signaled for Mason to work his way around the far end.

  Mason nodded and moved into position.

  Something leapt from the darkness, bowling Sullivan to the ground. His head struck the generator during his fall, dazing him. As he began to lose consciousness, the rifle slipped from his grasp, landing with its beam aimed across the floor.

  The fast-moving creature jumped into the air. A limb slashed at the light, shattering the bulb. The thump of feet landing on the floor, a scampering, then stillness.

  With his ears straining to pick out sounds of movement against the creaks of the hut, Mason’s flashlight erratically roamed the darkness. When something swift, dark, little more than a blur, passed through Sullivan’s dropped rifle beam, he fired. Bullets pinged off the floor, ricocheted off the metal hatch and struck the walls. Mason spun on hearing a noise behind him. Something grabbed his rifle and shoved the stock hard into his face. As he staggered back, the creature ran for the door and dashed through it. A little groggy from the blow, Mason set off in pursuit.

  COLBERT GLANCED OVER at the generator building as shots erupted from inside. Hopefully that would be the end of the creature and they could now concentrate on their evac. Concerned that time was running out, he was about to contact Ramirez for an update when something burst from the hut—a chimpanzee. The primate glanc
ed around the compound and then behind at Mason when he rushed through the door brandishing his weapon. The chimp rushed around the side of the hut and disappeared into darkness shed by the dark gray clouds filling the sky. When Mason set off in pursuit, Colbert called him to a halt.

  “Let it go, Mason. It’s only a chimpanzee.”

  Mason halted and looked over at his commander. “How do you know? I thought that the alien could change form?”

  “It can, but the chimp is real,” stated Colbert.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “It wasn’t black. “I don’t think the aliens can do colors.” Colbert glanced at the hut door when Sullivan staggered out rubbing the side of his head. “You all right, Sullivan?”

  Sullivan winced when he nodded. “Throbbing headache, but nothing that will kill me.”

  Their eyes turned to the hut’s doorway when screeches drifted out.

  “You did close the hatch?” questioned Colbert.

  Cursing, Sullivan and Mason rushed back inside.

  SULLIVAN AND MASON crossed to the hatch and peered down. Beyond the reach of their flashlights, shapes darker than shadows shrieked amidst the clatter of small feet climbing the chute. They flipped down their NVGs and observed the spectral lit monstrosities climbing towards them.

  “They look like giant alien centipedes,” uttered Mason, shocked by their numbers.

  “That’s probably their least monstrous form,” said Sullivan. “Let’s shoot a few and then shut them in.”

  Their rifles spat short bursts of bullets at the oncoming hoard. Shrieks and squeals indicated some had found a target. Mason passed his rifle to Sullivan and slammed the lid shut. When he went to spin the wheel, it refused to turn. He increased his effort, but it still wouldn’t budge. He raised it again and flipping up their NVGs, used their flashlights to examine the hatch lid. The root of the problem was a bent locking rod damaged by one of Mason’s bullets striking it earlier. It no longer lined up with the hole it was meant to slide into.

  “Hold the lid, and I’ll try to straighten it,” instructed Mason.

  Sullivan gripped the lid with both hands while Mason kicked at the rod with the heel of his boot.

  Sullivan glanced at the bent rod and then down the chute at the approaching hoard. “It’s not working.”

  Mason joined Sullivan looking at the climbing creatures. “Any ideas?”

  Sullivan pulled a grenade from his ammo vest. “Explosions kill them.” He held the grenade over the chute, released the arming clip and counted to two before dropping it.

  The two men stepped back from the hole to avoid the explosive blast that erupted from the chute. When it had settled, they returned to the hatch and aimed their flashlights inside. The swirling smoke slowly cleared. Their anxious gazes detected no movement and no sounds apart from the distant warning alarm drifting up from below.

  “That seems to have done the trick,” said Mason.

  Though it couldn’t be locked, Sullivan reached for the hatch to close it. He froze when a clacking drifted up the chute. The single clacking quickly changed to a cacophony of click, clacks, squeals and shrieks. Flicking down their NVGs, they gazed down at the army of small, rat-size ant-like creatures covering the circumference of the chute for as far as they could see and flowing towards them like an insidious oil slick.

  “Now what?” asked Mason.

  “Fire!” stated Sullivan. “We’ll burn the evil fuckers.” His eyes flicked to the diesel tank across the room. “I’ll try and hold them off while you see if you can get some fuel out of that tank.”

  Mason glanced at the tank and the level indicator close to empty. “I have a better idea. There’s a tanker full outside.”

  Sullivan nodded. “Let the commander know what we’re doing, but hurry. I’m not sure how long I can hold them back.”

  When Mason rushed from the hut, Sullivan dropped another grenade into the chute.

  Mason veered his sprint towards Colbert and before he reached him shouted out the plan. “Hatch is damaged, won’t lock. Sullivan is holding back the creatures. Going to use fuel from the tanker to burn them.”

  Colbert nodded. “Do it!”

  Mason headed for the truck, climbed inside and brought it to life. He crunched it into reverse and, narrowly missing the helicopter rotors, gunned it around in a semi-circle to the hut. He leapt out, grabbed a long thick hose from the side and attached it to the outlet at the rear. As gunshots rang out from inside, he opened the outlet valve. With fuel gushing from the end of the hose, he picked it up and rushed into the hut.

  Eyes watering from the overpowering stench of noxious fumes choking the air and his lungs, Mason sprayed the volatile fuel around the sides of the chute and over the evilness intent on reaching them. When he was confident the creatures were covered, he dropped the diesel spouting hose into the hatch.

  Mason dragged his tear-streaming eyes away from the hundreds of snapping mandibles and evil eyes looking up at him and turned to Sullivan standing by the fresher air at the entrance. “Light them up.”

  As Mason went outside to expel the fumes from his lungs with clean air, Sullivan pulled the pin from his last grenade and lobbed it at the opening. It bounced off the hatch frame and dropped into the chute. He joined Mason outside and they moved to a safe distance.

  A loud whump announced the grenade’s detonation and the igniting of diesel. A whoosh of flames shot from the chute, filled the hut and sprayed out the door, setting the spilt fuel around the tanker on fire.

  Colbert joined the two men staring at the flames. “It probably would have been a good idea to move the tanker to a safe distance before lighting the fuel.”

  “We didn’t have time, sir,” answered Mason. “The creatures were almost at the top of the hatch.”

  To avoid the tanker’s imminent explosion, they moved away.

  Sullivan glanced over at the helicopter where Kelly had binoculars to his eyes gazing out at the horizon. “No sign of the others, yet.”

  Colbert shook his head. “Richard and Krisztina are making their way to the exit elevator where Ramirez will meet with them. Dalton is waiting in the building to send the elevator down when they are near it so it’s ready for them to ride up. As soon as everyone is here, we leave.”

  They instinctively ducked when the tanker exploded, lifting the wheels off the ground and sending shrapnel and pieces of unrecognizable metal high into the air to rain down on the compound. When gravity had forced everything back to earth, the men looked at the burning wreckage, its large tank ripped open, the cab relatively intact. They turned their gazes to the partly destroyed generator hut when the roof collapsed.

  “Hopefully that will be the last we’ll see of the creatures,” said Sullivan.

  “Amen to that,” said Colbert. Heading back to the main building, he contacted Ramirez for an update on the situation below.

  CHAPTER 28

  EVAC

  THE LARGER PUDDLES of fluid Black, remnants of their kind decimated by the blasts from Krisztina’s grenades, flowed together into an oily pool of sludge and pulled in its edges, bulging its middle. Fueled by Black seeping into its mass, it rose to form an irregular cohesive form that morphed into a creature with a stocky body the size of a Rottweiler. Double-jointed legs formed at its rear and folded beneath its haunch. Spindly arms longer than its body stretched from its shoulders and grew three long claws jointed like fingers. A head, elongated, pointed and sporting a jaw lined with short, dagger-sharp teeth, rose from middle of its back on a sinewy foot-long neck. Its eyes, small, red and sinful, glanced around at the brittle chunks of Black littering the floor, all that was left of its dead brethren.

  Its head turned and observed two of its kind skulking warily along the corridor. It shifted its gaze to the elevator door and narrowed its eyes at the sounds coming from within. Growling a command for its two smaller brethren to follow, it rose on its haunches, poked its head into the shaft and gazed up at the humans responsible for the carn
age the brood had barely survived. Its long slender arms reached for the ladder and hauled its body onto it. Letting out a low rumbling growl, it headed up the shaft.

  The two smaller creatures leapt through the hole and reformed in flight, landing on the walls as the many-legged centipede creatures adept at climbing sheer surfaces. Fearing their vicious, larger brethren would perceive them as a threat for the food on offer and retaliate mercilessly, they were careful not to draw ahead of it and scampered up the shaft at a slower pace.

  THE DEEP MENACING GROWL drifting up the shaft sent a cold, clammy ripple down Richard’s spine and filled him with dread. He glanced down. A strange creature poked its head into the shaft and looked up at him. As its long claw-tipped arms reached for the ladder, he returned his gaze to Krisztina. “We’ve got company. Move faster.”

  Krisztina glanced down the shaft and immediately regretted doing so. A fresh infusion of adrenalin recharged her tired body and spurted her up the ladder.

  REALIZING THERE WAS nothing more he could do to help Richard and Krisztina from inside the control room, Ramirez grabbed his rifle and dragged the cupboard away from the door.

  “Ramirez, what’s your situation?”

  Noticing his commander had dropped their call signs, he answered. “Up Shit Creek without a paddle in a boat full of holes and starving piranha in the water.”

  “We’re coming to help.”

  “Not advisable, sir. I will clear hostiles from my end and head for the elevator corridor to wait for Richard and Krisztina. Be ready to send elevator down on my command.”

  “Understood. Dalton is waiting. Good luck.”

  Ramirez put an ear to the door. Frightening shrieks drew closer. He was running out of time. When he reached for the handle, the shrieks outside ceased. Straining to hear anything above the insistent alarm, he placed an ear to the door again. Nothing. He grabbed a corner of the poster covering the window and pulled it aside. Fear crept over him. Like faithful puppy dogs, the smaller creatures were gathered around the larger one currently impersonating a human female. All stared directly at him.