by Aline Riva
“Sofia's been wounded... I have no idea how this thing spreads. I know the dead make the dead come back but she's alive and has a tiny scratch...could be nothing but we should keep an eye on her.”
He was now looking at the straight road ahead, here the bleak landscape broke up into shades of white and freezing blue while up ahead on the left, azure water was broken up by floating ice as penguins dived off an icy bank. The sky was blue and white streaked and the sight under other circumstances would have been breathtaking, but now it spelled all manner of horrors he didn't focus on thanks to his military training. To think about how trapped they were, how they could be the only humans left, how the rest of the occupants of the Arctic wasteland could have turned into those thing, or how maybe back home, everyone had become undead, was enough to drive the strongest of minds to insanity. But that road was long and mostly straight and had to end somewhere. David focussed only on that road as he heard Tara ask if Sofia might be infected, giving no answer as he watched the road, thinking only that it had to end somewhere, and any place had to be better than the hell they had just left behind...
Then as David noticed fuel was running low, he looked again to Tara, who had noticed it too, she scanned the landscape, a brief glance over wild frozen territory that showed no sign of life, then fear shone in her gaze.
“There has to be another station close by!”
“Or maybe not, we might have to walk for miles... there's no spare petrol on board that I can see....Wait...What's that?”
They had just cleared a slight climb in the road, taken a small curve downward and now in the distance was the unmistakeable sight of buildings in the distance, their bright colours standing out against the landscape as further up, out on the ice, stood a gleaming silver plane, the sight of it made hope spring to life in their eyes as David and Tara exchanged a glance.
“There's our plane!” she said, and laughed out of sheer relief.
Then the petrol gauge dropped, a light blinked and the engine spluttered and died, the truck slowed to a crawl and he looked in horror as he realised the tank was now completely empty. The tyres came to a slow stop on the gritted road, the engine dead in the middle of the Arctic as a light snowfall drifted down, puncturing a sky where the blue was deepening as the light began to fade and dusk beckoned, sending ghastly shadows growing up the walls of ice fashioned by nature as the landscape took on new shades of light and dark, turning from brilliant white to something more sinister as the darkening seemed to make the world around them fall to something hellish by dies, suddenly this place seemed so fitting to be holding the lurking threats and horrors they had witnessed...
“I'll have to fill the tank,” David said, “We might be in luck if there's a spare on board somewhere...” he opened up the window and leant out, looking back at the others who were cold and huddled together as Sofia shivered, clearly in shock from the creature's attack.
“Is there a storage unit that you can see?” he asked, “We need fuel or we can't get to the plane without walking it and I don't fancy that any more than you lot do!”
They shifted about, searching the back of the truck, then Ryan dragged open a hatch, reached deep inside and drew out a red plastic can.
“Should be enough to get us across the ice!” he announced, sounding relieved, and Sofia gave a sigh as she rested her head on his shoulder.
“Are you okay?” Tara called back as she looked out of her window.
Sofia nodded, holding her scarf to her throat, and then she closed her eyes, wishing she could shut out the reality of this nightmare situation.
Then David got out of the truck and went around to the back, where Ryan passed him the can of petrol.
“Won't take long,” he said, going back around to the tank and taking off the petrol cap, “Ryan, is there anything else in there, like a funnel or something? I need to transfer the petrol, there must be something.”
“I'll take a look,” he called back.
Then as he reached down, Sofia's eyes snapped open and Holly and Lauren screamed as she lunged at Ryan, sinking her teeth into his jacket as Alex grabbed her and tried to prise her off, but her grip was like a vice as the young woman seemed filled with superhuman strength. She gave a dry, unearthly shriek as she threw her head back sharply, impossibly far back and then forward again, darkened eyes blazing as blue vines snaked across flesh that had taken on a hue reminiscent of the Arctic itself.
Ryan was frozen by fear.
“Sofia?” he whispered, “Please.. you know me...”
She met his gaze as the others scattered from the back of the truck and David yelled at them to keep back, for a moment he looked in fear into the blackened eyes of the thing that used to be his friend, then she lunged and he screamed as she slammed him to the floor of the back of the truck, blood spurted warm and steaming in the frozen air and spattered the truck with crimson splashes as the creature-Sofia fed for the first time.
“But she wasn't dead... it just caught her, a scratch....” stammered Holly as she looked on in fright.
David looked back, across the ice, where he saw the opening to an ice cave, glowing eerie blue in the half light, its entrance almost barred by long solid icicles.
“Get the others to the cave,”he said to Tara.
“What about you?” she asked, as the creature screamed again and rose from the back of the truck, covered in blood and grinning insanely as it eyed the humans and lusted for more.
“Virus obviously killed her and took over,” David said quickly, glancing to the petrol then drawing matches from his pocket, “What did the news report say, burn your dead?”
“Oh my god!” she gasped, eyes wide as she realised what he was about to do.... Sofia was alive, at least, what ever Sofia had become...
“Get them to the ice cave!” David said urgently, and then as he dashed off, urging the others towards the cave, he took the cap off the petrol can and walked towards the back of the truck, where the creature was still feeding, as flesh tore and bones audibly snapped.
“Oi,” he said darkly.
It looked around. He couldn't think of the thing that was eating Ryan's corpse as Sophia, or as any kind of her, just an it, he was going to burn it...
He splashed the petrol over the creature, then again and again as it blinked, looked back to its meal and wondered why the stink of petrol now covered the human flesh that had been so inviting.
There was a scrape and a spurt and the creature looked back to see David, wrapped up against the cold with his dark brown eyes meeting the jet black of the infected without so much as flinching as the match burned brightly in his raised hand.
“Go back to hell or where ever the fuck you came from!” he said, and tossed the match.
The fire engulfed the creature, burning it up as it screeched and twisted, covered then devoured by orange flame that leant a hellish splash of colour to the pale landscape as the burning then spread to the half eaten body on the floor of the trunk. David stepped back, watching it burn as it looked back at him through flames that melted its flesh as it writhed, then fell, and burned away with the corpse of the devoured student, two bodies burning as the flames lowered and ugly stinking smoke went up dark against the patterned sky.
They were looking on in horror. Lauren, Holly and Alex were staring towards the back of the burning truck where Sofia and Ryan had been soaked in petrol and torched.
“She was alive!” Holly cried as she stepped away from the long shards of over hanging ice at the entrance and took a step towards David, “You killed her!”
Tara caught her arm and pulled her back, holding her firmly as she met her gaze.
“She was one of those things, she killed Ryan, we couldn't save either of them! We just need to reach the plane now, then we can get away from here!”
Alex was pale and shaking as his gaze stayed fixed on the truck, where the flames were dampening down as the stink of burning flesh filled the air, carried skyward by a plume of blackened smoke.<
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“No,” he whispered, shaking his head, “No..they're dead... all dead... and they come back and they kill the living we're all going to die! There's no way we will get out of this alive!”
“We just need to get to the plane!” David said firmly as he rejoined them, “What else can we do but get on that plane, you tell me? The pole is way out out there if you want to keep walking away, shall we go to the pole and freeze to death? Because that's the only alternative to taking that plane! And if one of those things comes near us I will do it again, I'll stab shoot or burn the fucking thing to keep us alive, it's what we have to do, it's an extreme situation and we have to adapt and do what ever we have to do and get the fuck out of here!”
Alex was still trembling.
“I've seen them die,” he whispered, “So many of my friends...”
“And it ends now,” David promised him, “We're staying together, we're walking across the ice to the station and we are taking that plane, okay? It's happening. Nothing will get in our way.”
Alex nodded, then shivered, stumbling as he stepped back into the shelter of the ice cave where he joined Holly and Lauren as Tara glanced to David.
“We need a moment,” she said, “Everyone is in shock.”
“Yeah,” he muttered as she turned her back and followed them inside, “I just burned two of my students to death, someone ask me how I feel, please just fucking ask...”
The ice cave was glowing blue in the fading light, looking beautiful yet terrible as if the frozen land was wrapped in death and seemed to hold the promise of yielding more of it as they stood together in the cave, Holly wiping tears from her eyes as Alex shivered in shock and Lauren stood there in silence, looking to David and Tara but saying nothing.
It was Tara who spoke first, cutting through a silence colder than the Arctic as the air seemed filled with the air of death, as if it lurked in the walls of the cave itself, frozen and lifeless, ready to embrace the living and squeeze the breath and heat from every human body.
“This is an extraordinary situation,” she said as her voice echoed in the hollow space where all around them other caves branched off darkly and above them, long icicles hung clear and glowing with the blue tinge of the cave passing through them, making the ice shine sharp and pretty like beautiful but deadly spears, “And it's worldwide but we have to hope that in the wider world the army has contained the threat. There's no reason to think this isn't the case. But here, where we are isolated and have little defences I'm sure it's the exception and not the rule. The virus seems unpredictable...there is no way of telling how long before contact causes infection, but after what happened to Sofia, we have to make sure those things – if there are any more of them – don't break our skin. Not even a scratch. We'll make a plan and go for the plane, and everything will be fine.”
She looked to David.
“Hopefully everything will be fine,” he added, looking to the survivors as he thought of those who had not made it this far, “And Tara's right – out here we have little defence. The wider world has adequate defences to hopefully contain the threat – we have to believe that will be the case. This was caused by a vaccine and a virus mutation of some kind, which means there has to be a cure out there somewhere, at least for the living victims of this plague.”
He paused, looking to each of them, then looked to the mouth of the cave where beyond and partly obscured by icicles, stood the plane in the distance.
“All we have to do is cross the ice. I see no threat and perhaps this place is safe, maybe the infection hasn't spread this far. We just have to stick together. I want you all to stay behind me and follow my lead, okay? It's as simple as that.”
Tara nodded, so did Lauren.
“Okay, got it,” said Holly.
Finally Alex spoke up.
“Thanks,” he said as he looked to David, “I know you're keeping us alive...and what I said before... I'm sorry, you...you didn't kill her. I think the virus had already done that..she didn't even look like Sofia any more -”
As the deathly pale hand reached around from behind him, grasping on and cutting off his words, it tore out his throat, sending a spray of blood across the crystalline cave, screams echoed as Alex bled out and the dead worker in the bright orange padded jacket stuffed the flesh into its mouth, then as it gave a low inhuman cry, it lunged at the others with lightning speed.
Chapter 8: To the Skies
Out in the frozen depths of the Arctic wastelands, another occupied cave had long since fallen silent as Samantha's cries had gone unheard. As she curled in a corner, stroking the piece as the water ran down from above, the snowfall that escaped in becoming frozen in seconds, her hands worked, drawing down the ice to fashion bars about herself, as Justin looked on, now wearing his balaclava as amusement shone in his demonic eyes.
“No bars can keep me from you,” he hissed, as in his mind he recalled the wash room and the water hot on his back as he buried himself hard and deep inside her formerly human body...
“You will never have my heart,” she vowed as hatred burned in her eyes, “You turned me into this...this.... thing! I hate you for that!”
He stepped closer, looking down at her as he held out a gloved hand.
“This is our world now!”
She was on her knees now, pale hands clutched about the bars of ice as she looked up at him, smooth and hairless and pale as the white-blue tint to the ice, her eyes baleful as she glared at him.
“I could fuck you all over again,” Justin murmured.
“And I will kill you if you touch me!” she vowed.
“But I chose you...look what we have!” he exclaimed, “This is our world, we are New! The New kind!”
She shook her head.
“You,” she stated, “Are a fucking freak! And I want to be dead, yes, yes I do...but forever, the old fashioned way, I want to be dead and away from you!”
He stepped back, hurt flickering in his gaze as he looked to Samantha and wondered why she was so ungrateful for the gift he had handed her.
“But Samantha -”
“Get away from me!” she hissed, “I hate you! I will hate you forever!”
He drew in a breath, a sharp response that drove the pain deeper as he blinked away tears from his darkened eyes.
“How could you be so...so...” he paused. Something was tugging at his mind, and he knew it felt right: They were calling him, his people were calling...
“I must go,” he said, “But I shall return.”
“And I shall still hate you,” she promised.
Justin walked away, through the cave and across the narrow pathway between the overhanging icicles, then stepped out into a frozen pre-dusk world where shadows fell on to the strange landscape, making the Arctic wasteland look almost alien.
He followed the silent calling, up a steep hillside encased in ice, where fresh snowfall glistened as he left boot prints behind him, going to the top of the hill then stopping short of the steep drop on the other side as he looked down into the valley and smiled beneath his balaclava:
There they were, his people, the dead, seeking out their leader.
“I am here!” he yelled as his voice echoed across the ice, and he held his arms outstretched, victory shining in his gaze as in the distance, they heard and the dead began to slowly move in from every direction, drawn like a magnet to the one they knew as leader of their kind...
Far off across the ice and near a landing area, the ice cave where the survivors had sheltered was spattered with blood and Holly and Lauren screamed again as Tara grabbed at their jackets, pulling them clear as the creature dropped the body of Alex and made a lunge. David reached up, snapped off an icicle and blocked the creature's path, there was a soft puncture as the reanimated man ran into the spear, then the body jerked as it struggled, impaled all the way through yet still alive.
David turned his head and looked to the others.
“Give me another one!” he yelled, and a scattering of sn
ow and tiny traces of ice showered down from the ceiling as Tara snapped off a second frozen spear.
David let go of his weapon, the body fell, still jerking, bloody mouth gaping as dead eyes looked up and the corpse grabbed at the icicle that impaled it.
Tara handed him the second icicle. It was heavy and sharp and she turned her head away as did Lauren as Holly looked on in horror as he brought it up, then down hard, driving it through the head of the reanimated corpse. The shattering of bone and leaking brain matter that spilled into the cave saw the creature fall still.
David paused to catch his breath, his arms still aching from the after shock that had shuddered through from the sheer force of driving the icicle through the corpse's skull.
“Everyone out of here now,” he ordered, looking to the others, “Let's go. We need to board that plane!”
David led the way, followed by Tara as they made their way across the ice. As they began to quicken their pace, breath making icy clouds in the air, David held up his hand, turning back to the group.
“We have to slow our pace - the freezing air will wipe us out if we try and make a run that far. There are none of those things in sight...let's take it slow and careful, okay?”
Tara nodded. Fear reflected in the eyes of every person he had just addressed. Then he turned towards the plane, now closer, and began once again to lead the way.
All of the group kept their sights set on the silver plane, its body and wings catching the fading rays of sunlight as day edged closer to dusk. The plane was the only focus, that and thoughts and hopes of home as all tried to keep their fears at bay as they took one step after another across the frozen landscape, heading for their only way out of hell.
As the landing sight drew closer, the plane loomed large and suddenly real to those who had focussed on the distant silver shimmer and held such hope for escape. The site was deathly still and silent.
“Oh no,” Tara whispered, turning her head and looking to sight of dead bodies littering the ground, dead workers in their orange snow jackets, the once pristine ice stained with blood.