There was no sense in what Kyle thought he had seen; nothing to compare it to. It had been a split second thing, a flash of movement of something dark and shiny. It had blurred out of the hole, grabbed Stan and yanked him in there and the man hadn't even made a peep. And how could he have? It had happened so fast, Kyle had no reference for what he had seen, wasn't even sure the thing had been solid. One thing he did know, though, was that Daniel had just saved his life. The close proximity of whatever had shot past his ear proved that all too clearly.
They turned and hurried after Bark, and covered the distance to the now open door to the storage room quickly. They stepped inside and Kyle squinted in the gloomy light, trying to see the other man. "Bark?" he called.
"Over here," Bark's voice rang from the left.
He turned that way and felt a wave of relief wash over him when he found Bark leaning against the wall there. Before he could open his mouth to comment, though, Daniel suddenly shoved him forward against the shelves and away from the open door. At the very same instance, Kyle felt a sudden burst in his gut instinct, and he dropped everything he was holding. He only barely managed to grab hold of one of the shelves while staring wide-eyed at the open door for a moment.
"What?" Bark demanded.
Kyle squinted at what he could see of the corridor outside, his heart racing in his chest. Daniel barely dared to breathe, his gaze locked on the doorway as well. "What'd you see?" Kyle asked quietly.
"Something," Daniel nearly whispered. "It just ... flitted past the doorway. Didn't get a good look."
"What?" Bark repeated. "Is someone out there?"
Kyle blinked, sneered helplessly and took a hesitant step forward. "I don't know," he finally said and shook his head without taking his eyes off the door opening. "Maybe it's just nerves? I am gonna get so fucking drunk, I won't be able to see straight for two days when we're back home. This shit demands some serious drowning."
"And after the booze wears off?" Daniel's voice cracked with tension.
Kyle focused on him and nodded. "You're right," he agreed and tried a halfhearted smile. "Knee-jerk reaction," he added, hunkered down and once again picked up what he had dropped. "Let's stay away from the door for now."
They hunkered down around Bark, who even managed to eat one of the sandwiches, but he constantly looked like he was going to be sick, and he kept glancing back toward the doorway.
"How much longer?" Kyle finally asked. "Has either of you been keeping track?"
Bark gave him a tired look. "Dude, we don't have any watches. It's all guesswork. Your dad's posse may have come and gone while we were out there, fucking around with whatever the hell is oozing around under our feet."
"Three hours," Daniel said, and gave the sandwich Kyle had shoved into his hands a disgusted look before putting it down.
"Give or take?" Kyle asked and Daniel nodded in reply. "How long until the room shuts down again?"
"About two hours," Daniel said. "It'll close down for one hour after that."
Kyle sighed lightly and wondered what the hell to make of all this. He felt completely out of his depth here, but he also had the odd feeling that there was some sort of intelligence behind all of this. "Something not of this world," he whispered, his gaze locked on the door opening. There was something picking at his subconscious thoughts right now, something he couldn't identify yet. It was a growing urge to do something, to change the course of things. He just wasn't so sure what he could actually do. Maybe he could motivate his father into action? If the man believed him, of course, and looking back on their past encounters, he had little faith in that anything he told his father would be seen as truth.
They sat around, waiting, listening, tense and anxious. All of them refused to turn their backs on the doorway.
This time around, Kyle felt the change in airflow. He glanced up at the ceiling, then at Bark and Daniel. "Time to leave?" he asked.
Daniel glanced up at the ceiling too, and then briefly squinted at him before glancing toward the door. "I don't wanna go out there," he confessed.
"We don't have a choice," Bark said and rose. "Unless you've developed the ability to survive complete vacuum, of course," he added sarcastically.
Kyle didn't say anything. Instead, he held a hand out to Daniel and boosted him to his feet, then nodded toward the door. He stepped through first, making sure the coast was clear. Not that he actually thought they'd see this thing coming if it was lurking around somewhere, waiting for them.
They had barely cleared the doorway before the door whooshed shut behind them, and at this point Kyle realized how scared Daniel was; not that he couldn't ascribe to the same fears, but freaking out about it now would do none of them any good. "Danny, look at me," he said quietly, which Daniel did. "The last thing you want to do right now is panic, you hear me?" Daniel stared at him, his pupils dilated to the point where they almost covered the iris while the tender skin around his eyes had turned a pasty white. "You wanna get out of here, right?" Kyle pushed and that earned him a jerky little nod while Daniel chomped down on his lower lip. "Then pull yourself together. One more hour. That's all we gotta do here. We're on our way back home in one hour."
"What if it comes back? What if it digs a hole right under us?" Daniel asked, his tone a little shaky.
"Then there's not a fucking thing you can do about it," Bark said helpfully, his tone flat. "I'm guessing here, but if that thing grabs you, you're dead. So keep it together, stay frosty and alert. This is the final stretch, kid, and if you wanna make it through this, you gotta stay calm."
Kyle nodded. He wasn't entirely in favor of Bark's almost callous words, but the man had a point. "Listen to him. It would be the worst way to go out with only one hour to go," he said.
Daniel's gaze shifted from Kyle to Bark and back again. For a moment Kyle was convinced that the kid would panic, but then Daniel's pupils contracted a little and he drew in a deep breath, held it briefly and then exhaled slowly. "Okay," he finally managed. His voice was still shaky, but he looked like he might actually be able to stay the course for now.
Kyle took a step back. "Just stay calm. And no loud outbursts either. No walking around. We stay here, we stay still and we talk as little and as quietly as possible."
"You think it's attracted by vibrations?" Bark asked, consciously keeping quiet.
Kyle leaned against the wall next to Daniel and folded his arms over his chest. "I don't know, but it would seem so. It's worth a shot anyway."
Truth be told, Kyle wasn't feeling too steady himself. His heart was hammering away in his chest and he could feel the steady pulse of a vein in his right temple. It struck him that he had never really been scared before; not like this. But he was now and he was feeling every bit of it. It wasn't exactly a feeling he liked. Some people got off on being scared, of being in pain, but he definitely wasn't one of them. Putting himself in harm's way for the thrill of it wasn't something he could relate to. He had never taken unnecessary risks or done things others might consider daredevil acts. In his opinion, there were enough things in life that could kill you without you adding to them.
That thought made him smirk halfheartedly. He might not be the type of guy who jumped out of a plane with a parachute, or took a dive off a bridge with nothing but a flimsy rubber band attached to his feet, but he had taken drugs that could kill him and he had spent most of his adult life drinking his brains out. His was more of a passive kind of slow suicide. He had been flirting with disaster for most of his life. Only never in the heads-on way, but in the creeping slow way that had killed so many people over the course of mankind's existence; the way that did not immediately feel dangerous. Drugs and booze offered release rather than adrenaline rushes.
"What?" Bark asked, obviously having noticed the smirk.
Kyle shook his head, dismissing it without saying a word. He actually did feel that the monster from dome 6 - whatever it was - would come after them if they made too much no
ise. Better safe than sorry, he figured, and tapped the side of one finger against his lips, urging Bark to be silent.
The other man nodded once and lapsed back into whatever thoughts preoccupied him.
Daniel just stood there beside him, hugging himself, his eyes on nothing. He was far from through being scared, but he was reigning it in and Kyle silently applauded him for his stamina. Now if only the time would move a little faster and that fucking door would open again, he would feel a whole lot better.
***
Final Step – The Homestretch
With no way of telling time, Kyle felt more anxious by the second. He tried counting in his head, but lost track when other thoughts crowded in and broke his pace. It was only when he felt a thump in the wall that he finally moved; all three of them did.
As if the wall behind them had suddenly turned flexible and snapped them away from it, they all jerked forward at the same time and swirled to face the wall. Kyle wasn't sure what he expected, but he expected something, some kind of sign that the wall was coming apart. But there was nothing to be seen.
"What the hell was that?" Bark hissed quietly.
Daniel drew back another step, but Kyle lashed out and grabbed his arm. "Stop moving," he said quietly, when the idea of what that thump had been suddenly struck him. "It's the suits," he added and gave both of them a meaningful look.
"The suits?" Bark asked, a little confused.
"The space suits are being delivered," Kyle elaborated a bit sternly. "Someone bumped against the other side of the wall."
"Or something," Bark said matter-of-fact-like. "The way things are going, I won't believe anything until I see it with my own eyes."
Daniel stepped forward again and placed a hand on the wall. He stood still for a moment, listening and then glanced at Kyle. "The hour's up," he announced quietly.
As if in reply to this claim, the door next to them whooshed open.
Kyle experienced a kind of split personality right then where one part of him expected tentacles to slap out at them and drag them screaming into darkness, while the other part expected to see men in white space suits.
For a moment though, there was nothing but the gloom of the storage room beyond the threshold of the door. Then a shape appeared in the doorway and Kyle couldn't help a smirk.
The man in the spacesuit, helmet under one arm, stopped just inside the door. "Time is of the essence, gentlemen," he said.
"Let's go," Kyle said and ushered both Daniel and Bark forward.
They all crowded into the storage room and were helped into the suits by the two other men waiting for them.
The first one, an older man with white hair and stark blue eyes watched them for a moment. "I was told there were four of you," he said.
Kyle paused, the suit almost on. "We lost one on the way," he countered and left it at that.
The white-haired man regarded him solemnly, and then made a move for his men to finish the job. Within moments, they were all dressed up in the spacesuits with the helmets on as well. Their rescuers also donned their helmets again and once one of them gave a thumbs-up, the white-haired man turned to the wall inside the door. He placed a gloved hand on it and the door slid shut.
Just as it closed, Kyle thought he saw movement outside and he instinctively took a step back, somehow expecting whatever was out there to attack the door, pry it open and kill them all. By doing so, he backed into Bark, who warded him off by pushing him aside a bit.
The door, however, closed without incident and the air was instantly sucked out of the room, creating a vacuum, but not suspending gravity.
The white-haired man waved a hand to attract their attention and pointed to an oversized button on the front of his suit. They all found theirs and pushed it.
"Can everybody hear me?" he asked.
"Clear as crystal," Bark replied and gave him a thumbs-up.
"Good. Let's move. We have a very narrow window of opportunity here. If we're not out of the room in half an hour, it will re-pressurize and that gives us a cycle of two hours before we can try this again. Personally, I'd rather be out of here by then," the white-haired man said. "By the way, I'm the captain of this little cruise. Stelling's the name."
"Good to meet you, Captain," Kyle said and laid a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "Could we just move then? I think I speak for all of us when I say that we really want to get off this rock."
Stelling nodded inside his helmet. "This way," he said and led the way to the other end of the room, past the scanner and into a narrow tunnel that led outside.
Kyle figured that he would have been awed by the fact that he was standing on the Moon, if it hadn't been for his past however many months he had spent in this hell hole. Right now, he couldn't care less. All he had eyes for was the shuttle waiting for them.
Outside, gravity was suspended of course, and Stelling reminded them to move carefully since any erratic movements could send them hurtling of into space. Daniel came to a stop just outside the tunnel, blocking Bark's path, and just stood there. Kyle turned back toward him. "What's the problem?" he asked.
"That's space," Daniel said needlessly, his eyes fixed on the blackness above them. His breathing was getting faster.
Kyle opened his mouth to say something, but Stelling turned up next to him and took a hold of Daniel's shoulders. "Son, you're gonna have to calm down. You'll knock yourself out with too much oxygen if you keep breathing like that," he said. "I know it's scary, but you'll be fine. The shuttle's right there. A few more steps and you're safe. Can you make that?"
Daniel's gaze shifted from Stelling to the shuttle and back again a few times, and finally he nodded and forced himself to calm down.
"That's right, son. Slow and easy. You're almost home," Stelling persisted.
Somehow that did the trick. Daniel stopped breathing for a second and then picked it up again at a much slower pace. Kyle gave Stelling a thumbs-up and took a hold of Daniel's arm. "Let's go, kiddo. It's time we got the hell out of here," he said, to which Daniel nodded.
Kyle knew that he would not feel safe until the shuttle had left the lunar surface. And even then, he wouldn't be entirely happy until they could see the Moon dwindling in the distance. At the same time he felt the oppressive guilt of leaving everyone else behind to a fate that could be considered worse than death. Of course, he didn't know what happened to those the monster took, but it was a fairly safe bet that they weren't being taken away for a nice cup of tea.
He sneered at the barbaric humor of that thought, and kept moving himself and Daniel toward the alluring shuttle. It was a struggle to not start running, to keep the panic he felt surging just under the surface at bay.
Once they reached the shuttle, Stelling ushered Daniel and one of his men into the airlock. It took only two at a time and the man was bright enough to realize that getting Daniel out of harm's way was the top priority right now.
Kyle shifted around, feeling both light and heavy in the bulky suit, and focused on the dome they had left behind. Dome 2 was still brightly lit. So was dome 1. But domes 3 and 4 were both dark. "Fuck," he whispered under his breath.
"What the hell is going on in there?" Stelling asked.
"I don't know. It's all gone to hell," Kyle countered and shifted around to face the man.
Just then, the airlock opened again, and Stelling ushered Bark and his second man into it, and waited for it to cycle shut before shifting around to face Kyle again. "Your father was very specific about this mission, Mr. Whitmore," he said, his expression serious. "The message was that we shouldn't bother coming back at all if we didn't find you waiting for us."
"Makes me think my father knows what this is about," Kyle said and sent another look back at the domes. "There are hundreds of people in there," he added and grimaced. "At least there were."
Stelling eyed the domes too for a moment, and then sighed. "Let's get you home. Whatever needs to be done about this is best done wit
h us away from here," he said.
Kyle nodded, turned back to the airlock and found it cycling open again. "I can't wait," he admitted and stepped into the airlock, followed by Stelling. He turned back to the window showing them the lunar surface when the airlock closed again, and couldn't help a heartfelt groan when the lights in dome 2 flickered and died. "Hundreds," he whispered.
EPILOGUE
Terra Firma
If he had expected a hero's welcome, he would have been disappointed, but Kyle was realistic about this whole thing, and wasn't the least bit surprised to find only his father, Marie and a few suits waiting for them, when they finally set foot on terran soil again.
Daniel had slept most of the way back and still looked like he could have slept a few more hours. Bark had stilled his hunger, then spent an hour or two being sick, and had eventually joined Daniel in taking a nap.
Kyle had remained awake and aware the whole trip. He had eaten a little, downed a lot of water despite the presence of alcohol, and had mostly spent the majority of the trip sitting by a window and watching space glide by, while he tried not to think.
Jonathan Whitmore, III, stood there, back straight, face expressionless, his eyes on Kyle. He had no obvious interest in either of the others. "Kyle," he said as ways of greeting. If Kyle had received more from him, he would have assumed his father had either suffered a stroke, that had radically changed his behavior, or he was a shape shifter who was now posing as his father. Jonathan Whitmore just wasn't into showing feelings.
"Dad," he countered just as evenly.
The once-over he got from his father was filled with disapproval. "You look like crap," Jonathan announced. "What have you been eating up there?"
"The same crap everybody else eats," Kyle shot back. He was tired, worn thin, and so not in the mood for sarcastic banter. "This reminds me … I don't think there's anybody left up there."
Jonathan's eyes narrowed. "First things first," he said dismissively, and then focused on Kyle's companions.
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