by JE Gurley
Bain nodded. “I see your point. I’ll caution Shimoda to keep quiet, but if the levels get any higher, we might have problems.”
“One problem at a time,” Brad replied.
After Bain had left, Liz confronted Brad with her fears. “Do you think what happened to the Russians and what Ian just told us are related?”
Brad winced. “Don’t you? First, we receive news of a mysterious outbreak at McMurdo; then all communication ceases. Next, we discover dead Russians who revive as zombies and infect some of our people.” Liz noted that Brad now had no problem using the term ‘zombies’. Like her, his mind had come to grips with the impossible. She also realized that he had carefully avoided suggesting that all of them were infected. “Now, we learn of some kind of nuclear exchange, but we don’t know how involved it was, or is,” he corrected himself. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “They’re all part of the same disaster, whatever that is.”
She was out of her league. Her specialty was colds and broken bones. Most of her job consisted in prescribing vitamins and treating frostbite. Epidemiology was not her field. If the disease that had struck the Russians was part of a widespread epidemic, she could well understand the rise in radiation levels. She had once read in some medical journal of a controversial protocol using nuclear weapons as a last resort to sterilize infected cities or populations. At the time, she had dismissed the report as conspiracy theory. She couldn’t believe any civilized country would do such a thing to its own people, but many less ethical countries now had nuclear arsenals and would have no qualms about using them on its populace.
She glanced up and noticed Brad staring at her.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Just frightened.”
He forced a smile to his face. “That makes two of us.”
* * * *
Shelia Meyers sat naked on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms clasped tightly around them. Her blue eyes were red and swollen from crying. She hadn’t brushed her short brown hair for days, and it stuck out at all angles. She no longer worried about her appearance, just survival. She had lowered the shades on her window because staring outside into the constant darkness only deepened her growing depression and sense of despair. The love of her life was dying, and she couldn’t bring herself to visit her. She wanted to hold Barbara in her arms; offer her encouraging words. Instead, she was cowering in her room afraid. Uneaten scraps of food and empty water bottles littered the floor. She hadn’t eaten a hot meal in two days, sustaining herself on protein bars, potato chips, and cold cereal. The room stank of perspiration and urine. An uncovered bucket sat against the door containing her waste. She couldn’t bring herself to leave her room long enough to go to the bathroom.
Meyers had watched in disbelief, and then in horror as the Russian had attacked Pirelli. She had seen Walls partially eaten corpse, but still she found it difficult to believe in zombies. Barbara had been bitten, losing two of her long, beautiful fingers in the attack, and now she was dying of whatever disease had killed the Russians and Pirelli. The thought of her lover turning into one of those lifeless creatures dismayed her. Was it wrong of her to hope that Barbara died quickly and painlessly?
A disturbance in the corridor drew her from her lethargy for a brief moment. She listened with mounting fear as footsteps approached. She tightened her grip on the ski pole she had taken to use as a weapon, and then relaxed as the footsteps receded. She had ignored repeated attempts to coax her from her room. Now, they no longer bothered her. She didn’t know how much longer she could hold out. She was almost out of food. She couldn’t face her fellow over-winterers. She couldn’t face her lover. She couldn’t even face her own image in her mirror afraid of what she might see. At first, she had examined her body every few hours for telltale signs of black lines. Now, she didn’t bother. She expected to die.
This was her fifth year at Amundsen-Scott. She had helped to build the base. As an electrician, she had prowled the frozen bowels of the base running wiring and chasing down electrical shorts. She thought of the base as home. She had given up her apartment in Chicago and had made no real plans for a return to a normal life. Finding love with Barbara changed all that. They had discussed moving to Tucson and working for Raytheon. As an engineer, Barbara was well qualified to work anywhere she chose.
More footsteps. This time they stopped outside her door.
“Shelia. Please come out. We need to talk.”
She recognized the voice of Brad Niles.
“No. Go away!” she shouted.
Brad paused. “Barbara’s dead. I’m sorry.”
Her heart pounded in her chest. She clenched her fists until her knuckles ached, but she found she could shed no more tears. She was all cried out.
“Shelia?”
Meyers shook her head. “Go away.”
As Nile’s footsteps faded, she thought, why go on? She eyed the sharp tip of the ski pole. We’re all going to die. She crawled off the bed and stood in front of the mirror, wincing as her aching muscles sent bolts of pain though her body. As she feared, fine black traces of lines circled her right breast and down to her belly button. They itched but didn’t cause her pain. She rubbed them gently with her finger, smiling that the blackness did not rub off on her fingertips. She jabbed her left palm with the tip of the ski pole, wondering why she didn’t feel the pain it should have caused. She dipped her right finger into the welling blood, and then wrote ‘Barbara’ on the mirror, using her blood. She smiled at her handiwork and positioned the tip of the ski pole against her skin just beneath her right breast, above the heart. She lowered the grip end until it rested in the corner formed by the desktop and the wall. Satisfied it wouldn’t slip, she leaned forward until the ski pole buried itself in her flesh. Surprisingly, she felt no pain.
“I’m joining you, Barbara,” she whispered.
She lunged forward, feeling a brief moment of pain as the sharp tip pierced flesh and muscle, and then slipped between her ribs into her heart. Her blood, strangely dark and viscous, splashed onto the top of the desk and sprayed across the mirror. She raised her hand and placed it against the glass, leaving a bloody handprint. Goosebumps rose on her arms, as if a cold breeze had entered through the unopened window. Her body shuddered as she fell to the floor. It did not move again – for days.
8
August 26, McMurdo Base, Antarctica
Malosi edged carefully around the side of the storage shed that he had made his home. Zombies were everywhere and he didn’t wish to become their meal. An unlucky Adelaide penguin made an appearance, distracting the horde of zombies long enough for Malosi to slip beneath the floor and push through the floorboards he had loosened instead of risking using the door. He deposited his armload of food and bottled water on the floor, and warmed his hands over the small propane heater he used for cooking. The constant stream of volcanic smoke and ash from nearby erupting Mt. Erebus disguised the odor of his cooking and made it difficult for the zombies, who he had discovered had an acute sense of smell and hearing, to smell him.
He was the only living soul at McMurdo. He had discovered a brief note in the radio room during one of his earlier explorations explaining what had happened and describing the survivors’ exodus via the same C-130 that had brought death to them. He doubted their chances of reaching civilization, if indeed any still remained.
His six-day journey from Resurrection City had been an ordeal for one not used to harsh Antarctic conditions, but he had survived. It was during the last leg of his journey that disaster had struck. Exhausted but unwilling to stop so near his destination, he had hit a partially snow-covered rock with one of the snowmobile’s front skis. The Yamaha tumbled, dumping him on the ground. The sled he was towing almost doomed him. It flipped, landing on his right leg. The pain had been excruciating before he blacked out. He regained consciousness an hour later, trapped beneath the sled. It had taken an hour of digging to free himself. The leg wasn’t broken, but
his knee was badly swollen and too painful to support his weight. He packed as much food as he could carry and extra ammunition into a knapsack and, using the broken ski as a walking stick, hobbled the five remaining miles to McMurdo.
The sight of the abandoned base, many buildings fire ravaged and damaged beyond use, with throngs of zombies prowling the deserted streets, was a sad one. He had expected no rescue but had hoped to avoid a repetition of his harrowing experiences in Resurrection City. Surviving would be a difficult task, especially for a crippled man.
Even now, his knee still plagued him, aching badly at times. He was certain he had torn some cartilage, perhaps even chipped the patella, but it served him well enough to keep him ahead of the zombies. He opened a can of soup, poured it into his pot, and set it over the stove to heat. While he waited, he sipped the last dregs of cold Rishi green tea. He had found only Lipton tea in his canvass of the base’s food stores. It would have to do.
He had fled Resurrection City for fear that some military, the US or other, might target the base in an attempt to stem the plague. Now, he considered the opposite tact. It was possible that survivors aware of the base’s existence might launch an expedition in search of a cure. His chances of survival were greater at McMurdo than in Resurrection City. When an expedition came, they would undoubtedly radio ahead. He would monitor the radio and wait for their call. He need only survive until someone came. He pulled his Sony Android from his pocket and frowned at the low battery light. With no electricity, his charger was useless. He would have to find a way to recharge it soon.
9
August 31, Amundsen-Scott Base, Antarctica
Brad scratched at his itchy beard. He was certain it was just his imagination, but it felt as if cooties were running amok in it. He hadn’t bothered shaving or bathing in days. There was simply too much to do. Mostly, it seemed as if the effort was for naught. The somber pall of a funeral parlor had descended over the base. Five more had died. Shelia Meyers, distraught over her lover’s death, had committed suicide, as had Leland Greene, one of the cooks. Nattie Mullins had found his body in the kitchen lying face down in a pool of blood, his wrists sliced to the bone with a paring knife that he still grasped in one lifeless hand. Adler and Connelly had finally died, having never regained consciousness. Another person complaining of chest pains and dizziness had also died. Their bodies joined the growing display of corpses outside in a neat row beneath the building. The infirmary was full to overflowing. Liz was overworked. He tried to help her as much as possible, but he couldn’t stomach long hours of watching people slowly die.
Hughes and Mclean had disappeared. Brad suspected they had retreated to the Ice Cube lab, but he hadn’t found the time to go check on them. His own duties at the telescope had taken a backseat to his efforts to keep the disparate collection of tortured souls of the base functioning as a unit. In this, he was failing. Keeping them from closing themselves away entirely took up most of his time. Each day he walked the corridors knocking on doors. Each day, fewer people answered his knocks. He felt impotent. He could offer them no encouraging words. He just knew that if they were to survive, they would all have to work together.
As if the rising radiation levels weren’t enough to worry about, the outside temperature had gradually increased. Whereas the normal average temperature for late August was minus fifty-five degrees, the thermometer now stood at minus forty. In most cases, the temperature didn’t reach minus forty until November. Whether it was a natural phenomenon or, as Bain postulated, a result of the nuclear blasts, didn’t matter. Brad was afraid that a temperature increase would thaw the now safely frozen bodies. He didn’t want to see if they became zombies as the Russians had. His repeated attempts to recruit more people to help him burn the bodies had failed, and it was too big a job for him alone. Simply dousing the corpses in diesel and setting them afire without benefit of ceremony or decent burial seemed too cold and unsympathetic.
Twice, the power plant had shut down when the generators ran out of fuel. It seemed that of the three power plant engineers, only Warren Feinstein still bothered to show up for work. Without power, they would have no electricity, and since their only source of heat derived from waste heat from the generators, they would be without heat as well. Mullins, working alone, continued to cook meals for which very few showed up. Brad was afraid that most had given up hope. The loss of Tony Pirelli had been a hard blow to base morale. Pirelli, for all his blustering and pretentiousness, was an efficient administrator. He would have recruited work crews to man the generators and people to see that meals were prepared. He would have been able to berate or cajole enough people to burn the corpses. Brad knew he wasn’t the man for the job, but no one else had stepped forward. He was beginning to regret his decision.
As he strode down the corridor toward the communications room to see if there had been any change in their isolation status, he heard someone in the science lab. Peeking inside, he saw Daryl Overton, his astronomer partner, bending over a keyboard. Overton’s disheveled appearance shocked him. Overton, normally excessively neat and well groomed, was wearing a dirty, wrinkled tee shirt, equally filthy boxer underwear, and socks. Nothing else. His face bore traces of some past meal and smudges of printer ink marked his hands.
“What are you doing, Daryl?”
Overton leaped from his seat and stared wildly at Brad, brandishing a length of two-inch-diameter pipe that had been resting beside him on the desk. When he saw that it was Brad, he smiled and lowered the pipe.
“Jesus, Brad. You scared the crap out of me.”
“Sorry. I was just seeing who was working.” He nodded at the laptop. “What are you doing?”
Overton dropped the pipe on the desk, sat back down, patted a loose stack of printer paper, and began typing on the keyboard. “Getting our notes together on 3C-367.”
Brad nodded. 3C-367 was a superluminal quasar situated near the center of the Lesser Magellanic Cloud that had been the focus of their observations. He read the screen over Overton’s shoulder. The text was a poorly worded, rambling essay about stars and Vincent Van Gogh. Most of what he had written made no sense.
“Why bother?” Brad asked.
Overton looked up at him with a pained expression. “Why? It’s why I came. We’re leaving in a few weeks. I want to have a paper ready for the fourth-quarter issue of Astronomical Review.” He smiled. “I hoped you would co-author it with me.”
Brad rubbed his temple where a sudden throbbing had started. He worried for his friend. Overton knew that any paper would have to go through numerous peer reviews before publication. Even if he submitted a paper in September and it was accepted, it wouldn’t appear before late the following year. As written, his paper would invite only ridicule.
“Maybe it should wait,” he suggested. “We have bigger problems to deal with. Why don’t you get some rest? We’ll discuss it later.”
“No,” Overton snapped. “I have to finish quickly. They’re coming.”
“Who’s coming?”
Overton pointed outside with one hand, waving it around wildly. He didn’t take his eyes from his keyboard. “Them. Can’t you hear them?”
“Who do you hear, Daryl?” Brad asked carefully.
Overton stopped typing and stared at him. His eyes were wild and unfocused. “The dead. They want in. They’ll be here soon.”
“The dead won’t hurt you.”
Overton laughed and shook his head. “They’re not really dead. They’re just pretending. They come to me when I sleep, mocking me for being alive, but that’s okay; we’ll all join them soon. It’s the Armageddon.”
Brad shuddered with the realization that Overton’s mind was slipping away. He wondered how many of the others, unable to cope with the isolation and the threat of death, were following Overton’s example.
“Why don’t you come with me, Daryl? We’ll get something to eat and then get some sleep.”
Overton leaped from his seat, grabbed the pipe, and backed aw
ay from Brad. He pointed a finger at him. “No. You’re one of them. I see that now. That’s why you’re so calm. The dead have nothing more to fear. Stay away from me!”
Before Brad could stop him, Overton swung the pipe at Brad’s head. As Brad ducked, the pipe brushed his hair. Overton raced out of the room and down the corridor. Brad followed, but Overton was too fast. He raced to the Beer Can and through the door.
“You fool!” Brad yelled at him. “You’ll freeze to death.”
By the time Brad reached the stairs, Overton was gone. He could do nothing more to help his friend and colleague. Overton could have gone anywhere.
Passing back by the galley, he saw several people inside eating. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was almost twelve o’clock, but he didn’t know if they were eating lunch or a midnight snack. Time seemed to hold little relevance to him lately. Mullins and one cook stood behind the hot line. He had eaten only twice in the past forty-eight hours, and the aroma of roast chicken, stewed vegetables, and hot rolls made his mouth water. Deciding to take his own advice, he passed through the hot food line and loaded a tray with food. Mullins seemed glad to see another patron in her domain. At least she still had a function. Brad was jealous of her.
He chose a seat beside Charles Lester. Lester nodded politely as Brad glanced around the room. Of the seven people seated at tables, he knew only two by name, Faith Menendez and Lester. The other faces were familiar, but even after nearly six months, he hadn’t bothered learning their names. He felt a momentary twinge of guilt at his lack of camaraderie. Menendez, contrary to her usual habit, sat alone, eating quietly. Brad watched her as she finished her potatoes, moved on to her beans, and then her corn, followed by her dinner roll before starting on her chicken. She took small bites, chewing thoroughly before swallowing. Her expression never changed. Her eyes remained focused either on the darkness outside the room, or on her reflection in the glass. The other faces in the room mirrored her cataleptic expression. Only Lester seemed unaffected as he dug into his food with a hearty appetite.