by Steven Bird
���We���ll have to explain what we���ve seen to Linda when we get back. She���s the astrobiologist. Having studied the strangest forms of life on Earth, if anyone has answers, it will be her. For now, let���s just keep that in mind. We need to avoid being seen at all costs. We also can���t afford to make any assumptions about their capabilities.���
Looking down at Neville, who was obviously in severe pain, Mason said, ���Maybe we need to get the others and bring them here? I don���t think we can move him.���
���Just go,��� Neville said through gritted teeth as he fought through the pain.
���You know that���s not going to happen,��� Dr. Hunter replied. ���Just get those thoughts out of your head.���
Interrupted by the horrible shriek of one of the infected just on the other side of the window of the back room, Mason said, ���Shit!��� as he jumped up and pulled one of the space blankets over the already closed Venetian blinds that covered the window. ���One of them must have seen flickers of light through the blinds. Damn it!���
Hearing replies off in the distance, Vasily said, ���More are coming. We must go.���
���We can���t!��� Mason said frantically. ���We can���t run with Neville. It would tear his wound back open.���
���Those things will tear more than his wound open if we do not go,��� Vasily said with a look of seriousness on his face. ���We go!���
���Just go,��� Neville said. ���It hurts too bad. I can���t run, and you can���t run with me. You don���t have a choice. Maybe they���ll follow you away and I���ll be fine.���
���We can���t do that, Doc,��� Mason said, giving Dr. Hunter a defiant look.
Hearing a thump against the back wall from where the shriek had come, Vasily insisted, ���We go! We go now!���
Shouting through the pain, Neville said, ���You do not understand! I feel it. I feel it growing inside me. I am not going to survive this, and before long, I will be like them. You have got to leave. You have got to follow Vasily and do what he says. There is nothing you can do for me now. All I ask is that you leave me the shotgun.���
Holding the candle close to Neville���s face, Dr. Hunter could see that what Neville spoke was the truth. He could see the swollen blood vessels in his eyes, as well as the beginnings of what appeared to be traces of gray on his skin near his jugular vein.
As beads of sweat ran down his forehead, Neville begged, ���Go. Please.���
Before anyone could answer, a fist smashed through the stained-glass window of the back room. The hand reached blindly into the room, dripping blood from the slicing action of the thick, jagged broken glass.
Handing the shotgun to Neville, Vasily said, ���You are very brave man. I am honored to have met you. Godspeed.���
Simply nodding in reply, as if he was unable to speak, Neville took the shotgun and held it close to his chest.
Pausing as the others ran for the front door, Mason looked at Neville, who was too consumed by his own pain and emotional agony to return the glance. Saying, ���Sorry,��� Mason turned and ran, catching up with Dr. Hunter and Vasily at the front door.
Pointing, Vasily said, ���Sun is beginning to rise and storm is subsiding. Crary Lab is that way. When door is open, run. Do not stop. I distract them if necessary. I catch up if fall behind. Get to your friends.���
Nodding that they understood, Vasily swung open the door to see a crazed figure standing before them. It was a man in workman���s clothes and a hard hat.
Mumbling, ���Tom,��� Vasily raised his rifle and fired one shot directly at the man, causing his head to whip back violently as blood and brains sprayed onto the snow behind him. As the man���s body fell back onto the ground, still and lifeless, his hard hat came to rest in the blood-splattered snow several yards away, revealing the name Tom.
Turning to Dr. Hunter and Mason, Vasily waved his arm and shouted, ���Go!��� sending the two men running in the direction of the Crary Lab.
Standing his ground for a brief moment, seeing another of the infected begin to follow Dr. Hunter and Mason, Vasily took aim and fired into the man���s torso, dropping him to the ground.
Vasily���s feeling of relief as he watched Dr. Hunter and Mason slip past the McMurdo Operations building and toward the Crary Lab soon turned to horror when he saw a horde of at least twenty of the infected as they began pouring out of Ops with their attention focused squarely on him.
Vasily���s memories flashed through his mind. He remembered his earlier concerns that the shots fired in the air traffic control center would attract more of the infected. That concern was now validated as the operations building was now overrun.
���If this is how it ends, so be it,��� Vasily mumbled through a clenched jaw. ���Lord,��� he said, looking high into the heavens. ���Bless Dr. Hunter, Mason, and their friends. Help them. Help someone escape this evil that has been unleashed upon us.���
Seeing the horde of the infected breaking into a run toward him, screaming with their teeth exposed and with hunger in their eyes as they ran, Vasily raised his rifle. Just as he began to pull the trigger, he heard a shotgun blast from over his right shoulder as one of the infected dropped to the ground. Turning quickly, Vasily saw Neville charging the horde, racking another shell into the shotgun���s chamber, screaming, ���Run Vasily! Run!���
Firing into the crowd again and again, taking out as many as he could, Neville���s weapon soon ran dry. Stopping just shy of the horde, he slammed the pump action open, pulled a single shotgun shell from his pocket, slipped it in the chamber and closed the action. Just as the horde of infected reached him, Neville looked back to Vasily, raised the shotgun to his head, and fired as they overtook him and began tearing his body to shreds.
As Vasily began to run, he noticed that as quickly as they began attacking Neville, the violence ceased. It was as if they realized that he, too, was infected. He was one of them, or soon would have been.
~~~~
Crary Lab
Reaching the Crary Science and Engineering Center, Dr. Hunter and Mason began scanning the area for any sign of threats before attempting to make entry into the building.
Peeking around the corner toward the direction from which they had come to see if they had been followed, Mason said, ���Did you hear those gunshots? There were quite a few as we ran.���
���Vasily must have gotten into a bind,��� Dr. Hunter said. ���That, or he was trying to create a distraction.���
���Those weren���t all from the same gun,��� Mason replied. ���Some of them sounded more like shotgun blasts.���
���Neville?��� Dr. Hunter replied with curiosity in his voice.
���I dunno, but I hope Vasily got away.���
Pulling his goggles off his face and resting them on top of his head, Mason knelt down and looked closely at the fresh snow from the previous night���s storm. Pointing, he said, ���There sure are a lot of tracks here. And most of these look as if they were made during or after the storm. They would have been covered up or at least filled in a little, otherwise.���
Looking up at the second-floor windows, Dr. Hunter pointed and said, ���That���s the lounge, there.��� Looking around carefully, then taking a few steps back away from the building to get a better look, he said, ���I don���t see anything.���
���You���d think they���d be keeping an eye out for us,��� Mason replied.
���Yes, but their night could have been as eventful as ours.���
���There���s only one way to know for sure,��� Mason said as he stoo
d and placed his hand on the door.
���Well, there���s still no sign of Vasily,��� Dr. Hunter said as he looked around the corner of the building once more. ���I guess we better go in and see. Vasily knows where we were headed, so if he made it out of there okay, he can find us.���
Nodding in agreement, Mason turned to the building, and said, ���Here goes,��� as he pulled the door open slightly, taking a look inside. Seeing no threats, he opened the door and motioned for Dr. Hunter to follow. Holding his rifle at the low ready position, Mason worked his way up and around the steps toward the second floor. Reaching the upper landing, Mason pushed the door to the mezzanine open slightly to scan for threats.
���Holy shit,��� he whispered.
���What? What is it?��� asked Dr. Hunter.
Pointing, Mason opened the door further to allow Dr. Hunter to see the macabre scene of blood and bits of flesh scattered on the mezzanine.
���Oh, my God,��� Dr. Hunter replied. ���Do you think���?���
Closing the door, Mason interrupted, saying, ���Let���s just keep looking.���
Moving to the lounge door, Mason waited until Dr. Hunter was in a position to provide covering fire if need be, then pushed open the door. Entering the room, they could see that it was in terrible disarray. Furniture was strewn about, the carafe from the coffee pot lay broken on the counter, and all the books from the casual reading corner had been pushed onto the floor.
���They didn���t make this mess themselves,��� Mason said, dismayed by what they had found.
Looking around the room, Dr. Hunter said, ���Well, I���ll be damned,��� as he pointed to the dry erase board. ���They left us a message.���
Turning to the dry erase board, Mason saw the note:
Things got ugly here. Went to Gallagher���s Pub. Graves, Bentley, Perkins, and Thompson are okay.
After taking a moment to digest the message, Mason said, ���They didn���t mention Jenny.���
���I noticed that, too,��� added Dr. Hunter.
Looking around the room, attempting to process everything that had appeared to have happened, Mason said, ���We���d better get a move on. If they had to leave, and with only the improvised weapons we���d made, they may need us sooner rather than later.���
���Agreed. What about Vasily?���
���Let���s leave him a message on the board like they left for us,��� replied Mason. ���There isn���t anyone on this base as capable as Vasily, even before this all went down. If he���s still out there, he���ll find us. I have no doubt of that.���
Chapter Eighteen
Crary Lab
Slipping quietly out of the Crary Lab, Mason and Dr. Hunter were both caught off guard by the silence of McMurdo Station. Now that the storm had given way to a beautiful, calm morning, they heard nothing. The machinery noises and other sounds of the normally bustling research station were no more. They had felt this level of serenity while out in the field studying Mt. Erebus, but never here.
���Unreal, isn���t it?��� Dr. Hunter said as the two soaked it all in.
The week before, McMurdo was a thriving research station at the bottom of the world, buzzing with activity as the seasonal research teams packed up their gear for their return to their homes and universities, preparing to turn the place over to the wintering-over crew.
And now, here they stood, with their rifles held at the ready. Weapons were previously thought to be non-existent at McMurdo, a place virtually free of crime as everyone who made the journey to work in such a place, no matter how different, were all on the same sheet of music. Their love for their travels, their studies, and their work set them apart from most of the world���s societies. Perhaps if McMurdo had been fully populated year-round, it would have regressed into what the rest of humanity had become. But here, with the temporary nature of their secluded and unique society on everyone���s mind, it seemed to be an oasis, free from the dark side of human nature.
Freeing himself from his thoughts, Mason said, ���You ready?���
���Yeah,��� replied Dr. Hunter. ���Do you want point or rear?���
���Where is all that tactical talk coming from?��� Mason whispered jokingly.
���I���m just trying to rise to the occasion, I guess,��� replied Dr. Hunter. ���Like most people, outside of my profession I���m a product of the movies I���ve watched. Unfortunately, that���s the extent of my tactical vocabulary.���
With a smile, Mason replied, ���In that case, I���ll take point.���
Carefully working his way around the corner of the building, Mason looked across the snow-covered area between Crary Lab and the cluster of buildings that held Gallagher���s Pub. Signaling for Dr. Hunter to join up with him, he pointed at the ground and said, ���This may be their tracks. It looks like they followed the shadow of the building to those pallets of gear. They probably cut across from there.���
���If they crossed during last night���s storm, that must have been tough,��� Dr. Hunter replied.
���Yep. Let���s make our way to the pallets and see if we can pick up their tracks from there. Just because they set out for Gallagher���s doesn���t mean they didn���t have to divert along the way. There���s no reason to enter a building and deal with what may be inside if they aren���t there.���
���Agreed,��� replied Dr. Hunter, and with a nod, the two men moved carefully forward, scanning for threats as they went.
Reaching the pallets, Mason pointed at a cluster of recent tracks and said, ���Right across the middle.���
Taking another look around, he motioned for Dr. Hunter to follow as they continued across the empty expanse toward Gallagher���s. Feeling vulnerable from being in plain view with no visual cover, they hurried as best they could without making noise.
Stopping halfway across, Mason pointed down in the snow, and said, ���An extension cord. What the hell is an electrical extension cord doing way out here? It���s on top of most of the snow, too, so it was dropped or tossed fairly recently.���
���It looks like the tracks get a bit muddled up here as well,��� Dr. Hunter remarked.
���Someone fell here,��� Mason said, pointing several feet to the left. ���I don���t see any blood or obvious signs of trouble, though.���
���It looks like their tracks veer off that way,��� Dr. Hunter said, pointing to the northwest. ���Surely they didn���t go toward the berthing buildings. The last place I would want to be is where everyone on McMurdo lived. There are bound to be infected there. You know people probably went to hole up in their rooms while waiting on help to arrive when it all started going down.���
���Let���s follow them and see,��� replied Mason as he continued, following the path of the tracks.
Looking up from the boot prints he was following, Mason���s heart skipped a beat when he saw a figure standing directly in front of him, about fifty yards away. ���Holy shit,��� he muttered as he quickly raised his rifle.
���Infected?��� asked Dr. Hunter.
���Dunno,��� replied Mason.
���Where the hell did he come from?���
���Dunno,��� he again replied, holding his sights on the figure.
Waving his hand at the man in an attempt to determine his condition, Mason watched as the man continued to stand still. What the hell? he thought.
Hearing the pounding of footsteps behind him, Dr. Hunter turned to see three figures running toward him at a full sprint, ���Shit!��� he said as he quickly raised his rifle, uninten
tionally discharging it before getting on target, and striking one of his attackers in the knee.
Falling onto the snow-covered ground, the figure quickly got back to its feet, limping and bloody, but still moving forward. The other two were nearing Dr. Hunter as he swung his rifle to meet the targets. He fired two shots into one before moving to the other, sending multiple shots into the attacker���s chest, causing him to fall to the ground mere feet in front of him.
Hearing a shot behind him, Dr. Hunter swung around to see Mason firing into the man who had previously been standing alone, but was now almost upon them as well. ���Come on!��� Mason shouted, leading Dr. Hunter toward the cluster of buildings just ahead.
Running as hard as they could to find visual cover behind the buildings, Mason and Dr. Hunter knew their shots would attract more unwanted attention. Reaching the clusters of buildings, they ran between the fire house/telephone exchange building and Gallagher���s Pub.
Seeing the side door to the pub open with a hand reaching out to wave them inside, they ran for the door, ducking inside as it was quickly closed behind them.
���Holy shit!��� Mason shouted. ���Am I nuts, or was that a trap?���
Leaning over and placing his hands on his knees to catch his breath, Dr. Hunter then stood up, removed his goggles, and said, ���No, you���re right. That was a coordinated effort.���
Looking across the room to see Dr. Graves, Dr. Hunter ran to her, took her in a tight embrace, and said, ���Oh, thank God you guys made it here safe.���
���I take it you saw our message?��� she asked.
���Yes. Yes, we did,��� he replied.
Looking into her eyes and with reluctance in his heart, he muttered the question, ���Jenny?���
Shaking her head ���no��� in reply, tears welled up in her eyes.
���Where is Neville?��� asked Dr. Bentley.
���He��� He������ Mason stammered.
Interrupting before Mason had to explain too much, Dr. Hunter said, ���We were attacked. He didn���t make it.���