Chill Factor: Ice Station Zombie 2

by JE Gurley

The garage they had just left collapsed. The Otter bounced as the road cracked.

  “We don’t have much choice,” Brad said. “Gun it.”

  Lester looked at him, swallowed hard, and nodded. He pushed the throttle forward and the Otter’s two engines roared into life. It rushed down the road toward the truck, which loomed larger and larger. Beside them, more buildings shook themselves to pieces. The Otter bucked and canted until the wings almost touched the ground, but Lester leaned into the wheel and held it straight. Two hundred feet from the truck, the wheels of the Otter finally left the ground, but only a few inches. Liz sought Brad’s hand. He clasped it tightly and held his breath as Lester fought to bring the plane up. At the last moment, it rose, but the plane shuddered as the landing gear struck the roof of the truck. The Otter veered to the right as the landing gear sheared away, but Lester quickly corrected. They were airborne at last. Brad released his breath.

  “We’ve lost the landing gear,” Lester said. “I’ll have to bring it in on its belly.” His voice was a mixture of relief that they had taken off and fear that he would crash.

  “We’ll land in the snow,” Brad said. “We’ll be alright.”

  As they gained altitude, Lester kept Mt. Discovery to their left as he aimed for the Koettlitz Glacier to take them over the Transantarctic Range, beyond the Dry Valleys, and to the coordinates that Bain had provided. Behind them, one of the three columns of ash collapsed, and a massive pyroclastic flow raced toward McMurdo at a hundred miles per hour, wiping out Scott Base on the way. It swept over McMurdo less than six minutes later, inundating it with hot ash and boiling water from superheated snowmelt. Nothing remained. Where once stood a hundred buildings, the flow had scoured the ground of all ice and snow and any traces that man had ever set foot there. It was a patch of barren rock. With a mighty shudder, Mount Erebus finally relented to the growing pressure within its cone. The lava dome beneath it collapsed, allowing millions of gallons of seawater to pour in. The resulting explosion as water flashed to steam cracked the volcano’s base, shattering the entire island. Shock waves rippled across the frozen sea for miles, radiating like a spider’s web in all directions.

  The concussion hit them a few moments later. The Otter dove for the ice as the air supporting the plane collapsed. Lester managed to bring up the nose as the ground rushed toward them at a dizzying rate. They passed over the ice so close that Brad could look into the frightened eyes of Adelaide penguins staring up at them.

  “We made it,” Bain said with relief.

  Brad released Liz’s death grip on his hand and reached into his pocket. He held out Malosi’s Android phone and examined it. It looked no different from any other cell phone he had seen. He switched it on and scanned the song list until he came to one titled marked simply with an asterisk. He turned the volume to full and hit the play button.

  “Let’s see if this works.”

  Even over the roar of the engines, a shrill series of chirps and whistles filled the cabin. The sound vibrated Brad’s chest. He felt as if his ears were bleeding. The sound lasted less than five seconds. He looked around at the others.

  “Is that it?” he asked. He felt no different. Had Malosi lied to them again?

  Liz leaned into his arms. “I hope to God it is.”

  Brad shoved the Android back in his pocket, leaned back against the fuselage, and let Liz rest her head in the crook of his arm. His leg throbbed, his cheek burned, but he was alive. They were all alive. If Malosi was right, they might remain alive.

  24

  Sept. 21, Melbourne, Australia

  Val Marino stared out the upper floor window of the Crown Plaza Hotel at the Yarra River slicing through the heart of Melbourne like a dirty knife. Fires had burned away entire sections of the city and parts of the surrounding countryside. Runoff from recent rains stained the river brown. Things floated with the current, the flotsam and jetsam of a dead city. Some of them were human or had once been human, making the river a stinking cesspool, but as badly as the river smelled; the city itself reeked far worse.

  The group had been in Melbourne for less than a week, little enough time to begin the long process of revitalizing a city so large. Securing Melbourne had gone much more smoothly and with less risk than they had encountered in Port Augusta. This time, they had used helicopters to place the EMP devices in the proper locations and had detonated them by remote control. Afterwards, the military swept the city for survivors and began the grisly task of collecting zombie corpses. An acrid black haze from the corpse fires burning day and night in parking lots and empty lots across the city hung like a dark rain cloud, reminding Val of the smoke covering the city of Adelaide when he and Elliot Anson had first arrived from Antarctica.

  In Port Augusta, they had encountered the surviving remnants of the military that had grouped on the outskirts of Melbourne, and together they had swept Adelaide of zombies. Now, groups were working to clear both Melbourne and Canberra. As effective as the devices were against zombies, Val was disheartened at the number of survivors they had rescued so far – less than eight hundred from Port Augusta, two thousand from Adelaide, and just over twelve thousand in Melbourne, a city that once boasted a population of over four million. He knew he should have expected such numbers. Surviving the Demise was far easier than surviving the zombie onslaught that came afterwards.

  He had a vague grasp of the science involved in the EMP devices, but mostly he did the grunt work, like Alex and Nicole. He was, or had been, a climatologist. Alex was an opal miner, as was Nicole. Jeffries, Ivers, and a handful of scientists working out of Camp Rapier in Woomera had developed the device. Their dedication had allowed them to continue their labors even as members of their own group turned into zombies, creating threats both inside and outside their labs. Now, the occasional treatment with EM waves kept them alive, but until they could develop a network large enough to sweep the entire planet clean of the nanite infestation, people would die.

  Jeffries walked over to the window and stood beside him. In the fading light of day, the scientist looked much older than his fifty-two years. He stood stooped-shouldered and back bowed with the responsibility of his task. His gray eyes were weary. Val had noticed that Jeffries never smiled. At five-feet-six-inches tall to Val’s six-feet, Jeffries had to crane his head to look into Val’s eyes as he spoke.

  “I had a report from Ivers in Canberra. They will be ready to begin operations in two days.”

  “How does Canberra look?”

  Jeffries shrugged his shoulders. “Who can say? They saw signs of survivors, but the city and the surrounding countryside are teeming with zombies. We can only pray that it fared better than Melbourne.”

  “Or the rest of the world,” Val added. He had heard nothing of his own home of Tucson, Arizona or most of America for that matter. A U.S. government still existed and Jeffries had radioed details of the EMP devices to them, but he didn’t know how well they were managing to utilize the information. He removed his Stetson and stared at it, his only memento of his home. It had once been white, but now it was filthy from red dust, soot and blood. He wiped a smudge from the silver and turquoise hatband with the edge of his hand. He could always find a new hat, but continued to hold on to it like a dream that might fade if he opened his eyes. He would get a new one at Cowtown Boots when he returned to Tucson. He set the hat back onto his head and nodded at the smoke rising from dozens of fires. “We don’t have enough people for this. It will take weeks to get rid of the corpses.”

  “What can we do? Many of the survivors are helping gather corpses, but to move them, we must first clear the roads of rubble. It all takes time.”

  “Corpses draw scavengers and disease. Hell, Doc, the smell alone will draw zombies for miles. They’re like vultures. We can’t keep zapping everyone with EM pulses. Hell, I light up a lamp when I walk by now.”

  “You must have patience and faith. We are making progress.”

  “Faith? That’s in short supply around here. Ellio
t …” he stopped. It was too painful to continue.

  Jeffries reached out and grasped Val’s arm. “I didn’t know your friend, but I, too, have lost friends and colleagues. No one has survived untouched by Death’s whisper. If you have no faith in God, then have faith in science. In the end, we will succeed.”

  “I hope so.”

  Alex and Nicole had accompanied Ivers to Canberra. Though he had known them only a couple of weeks, he missed their company. Alex was hard and determined, like Anson had been, but without the extra years of wisdom to temper his rashness. Nicole was hard in her own way, but her pregnancy had softened her and thrilled Alex. Val hoped Nicole’s impending motherhood would keep Alex out of trouble.

  An explosion in the distance lit up the fading twilight and sent a dark cloud of smoke into the air.

  “They are using explosives to remove rubble from the streets,” Jeffries explained.

  Val nodded. They had entered Melbourne by air, but he had seen the man-made barricades authorities had erected in a futile attempt to stop the advance of the zombies, little realizing that those standing beside them were infected as well. He could imagine the horror they felt as they saw friends and acquaintances die and come back to life as flesh-eating monsters. At least fate had spared him and Anson that gruesome memory. Marooned on the South Polar Plateau, they had missed the orgy of destruction and death at Casey Base, had not witnessed friends turning zombie.

  As the last rays of light spread across the carcass of the dead city, the lights in the room came on.

  “Let there be light,” Val said, smiling. Ironically, he remembered that today was the first day of full sunlight in Antarctica after six months of darkness. Part of him regretted that he had not been there to witness the dawn.

  “Yes, the generators are working here, but it will be some time before they restore electricity to the city,” Jeffries said.

  “I don’t think anyone will notice, do you, Doc?”

  “I suppose you’re right. We will concentrate our efforts on the airport and the docks along the river. The movement of supplies takes priority over raising the city from the dead.”

  “We don’t need more zombies.”

  “No, I …” Jeffries mumbled something inaudible and turned away.

  Val realized he had touched a nerve. “I’m sorry, Doc. I’m being a dick.”

  “Eh?”

  Val remembered the difficulties he had translating idioms from American to Australian. “You would call it a wanker.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  Still he brought no smile to Jeffries’ lips. They seemed permanently pressed together from the hardships he had gone through and the deaths he had witnessed. “I find myself becoming morose lately.”

  “It’s quite understandable. Some days it seems hardly to be worth the effort of rising from bed.”

  Val stared at Jeffries. “Why so glum? I mean, I’m trying to cope with the fact that everything I knew and everyone I cared for is gone, but you’ve created a device that can turn the tide on the plague. You should be dancing a jig.”

  Jeffries returned to his former seat on the sofa. An untouched glass of scotch and soda sat on the table beside him. Val had poured them both a drink earlier. He had quickly finished his, but even now, Jeffries ignored it.

  “We have reached the point of diminishing returns on our EMP device,” he said. “I thought that simply creating more powerful ones would allow us decontaminate larger areas. It isn’t working out that way.”

  This was the first Val had heard of the problem. “What’s the holdup?”

  “The device seems to work well when covering areas a few kilometers in diameter, but the effectiveness drops off sharply. The frequencies we use are too muddled. Larger devices won’t work. Neither will broadcasting the frequencies from satellites.”

  “What about Gilford’s flash drive and Cromby’s notes? Don’t they help?”

  “It gave us a starting point. In his notes, Cromby mentioned a kill switch but offered no details. It would seem that either they had no time to employ it, or it did not work.” He sighed. “If we knew how to engage it, and if it were possible to disseminate the information widely enough, we could end the threat of repeated infection.” He wrung his hands together and shook his head. “Without it, I’m afraid we can never rid ourselves of the nanites.”

  Val felt his stomach tighten. “Boy, you really know how to rain on someone’s parade. Do you mean we’re all doomed?”

  “No, we can periodically subject ourselves to EM radiation to cleanse ourselves, but eventually it will take its toll on our bodies. More importantly, what about the millions we cannot reach. A civilization cannot exist with such a constant threat looming over it.”

  “What about setting up a research center? We could …”

  “I’m afraid such a task would be impossible. No one alive knows anything about these nanites. I don’t know where to start searching for a kill switch, if one even exists. It could be a certain frequency, a predator nanite, or some simple chemical harmless to humans.”

  Val returned to the window. Night had fallen and the city was a black smear. The dark band of the Ybarra River flowed silently past the hotel. Scattered fires throughout the city marked body disposal sites. His gaze turned south. He couldn’t believe the path his thoughts were taking. After a few moments, he made a fist and pounded the windowsill three times.

  “There’s only one place where we might find that information.”

  He saw Jeffries’ reflection in the glass as Jeffries stood. The expression on his face was one of disbelief. “You mean Resurrection City? That would be … suicidal.”

  He turned to Jeffries. “You said it yourself, Doc. We’re all on a slow road to suicide now. We have to go back to where it all began. If there is an answer, it will be there.”

  “Such an undertaking would require the military’s approval. It would require planning and an allocating of resources …”

  “Hell, Doc. Elliot and I stole a C-130 that he could barely fly and made it from Casey to Adelaide. Returning should be a cinch, especially now that the sun is coming up there. As far as the military approving, what choice do they have?” He turned back to the window. Instead of a dark city, he saw an endless plane of dark snow and ice. “I’m tired of sitting around anyway. A vacation will do me good.”

  “Was anyone left alive in Antarctica?”

  Val shook his head. Roger Basky had been near death when they found him at Casey. Anson had killed an insane John Gilford when he had tried to murder them. They had left Basky and Gilford’s bodies at Resurrection City. “No, no one.”

  “What about the American base, McMurdo?”

  Val shook his head. He tried not to dwell on the fate of his fellow Americans. “I don’t know. They probably suffered the same fate as the others.”

  “Perhaps not. Perhaps someone survived.”

  Val thought about anyone trapped in Antarctica over the winter with zombies to contend with. “Then God help them. They’re living in hell.”

  25

  Sept. 22, Resurrection City, Oates Land, Antarctica

  The flight from McMurdo had been a harrowing one. Lester was a novice pilot, unused to the vagaries of air currents of Antarctica. The warmer air along the coast, colliding with cold air pouring off the Plateau, produced pockets of disturbance that jostled the plane’s occupants and eroded Lester’s confidence in his flying abilities. Now, he would have to land them safely with no landing gear in the dark.

  Malosi had been right about one thing – Resurrection City was dead. As Lester circled the base in the Otter at an altitude of two-hundred feet, he dropped a flare. Outlined in the ghostly glow were dozens of zombies craning their necks to search the night sky for the airplane they heard but could not find. The buildings looked intact, but the sprawled outlines of corpses on the ground told of the true horrors the base’s personnel had endured.

  “Just pick a spot and set her down,” Hughes said on their t
hird pass over the base. His irritation at Lester’s procrastination was evident in his voice.

  “She may flip,” Lester warned.

  “We can’t stay up here forever,” Hughes reminded him. “We have to take our chances.”

  Lester nodded, took a deep breath and reduced speed, lining the nose of the Otter with the runway. “I’ll land us as far from the buildings as I can. There’s a twenty-knot crosswind. It’s going to be bumpy.”

  Brad grabbed the side of the airplane to brace himself. “Hang on,” he urged Liz. He wrapped his arms around her and pushed his good leg against the rear door.

  The engines changed pitch as Lester reduced power. Lester had explained earlier that the Otter had a stall speed of less than sixty miles per hour. That meant he could land at a lower speed without the plane dropping out of the sky like a brick. Brad was all for not dropping like a brick.

  “Extending flaps,” Lester called.

  The Otter shuddered as the nose pitched down. The winds blowing across the runway dropped the left wing. Lester fought the controls to keep it level. He began pulling back on the steering column. The plane dropped suddenly. He pushed the column forward to bring it up slightly.

  “Too much,” he said. “I’m flaring now to raise the nose a bit.”

  The plane danced a jig in the air. Brad raised his head to look out the side window. Even in the darkness illuminated only by starlight and the spotlights of the plane, he could see that the ground was coming up quickly. The runway beneath them was a sea of half-frozen slush.

  “Almost there,” Lester warned.

  The Otter hit the icy runway and slewed sideways. With no way to steer, that they didn’t tumble seemed almost a miracle. The Otter’s props struck dirt and bent. The engines screamed as gears ground against one another and teeth sheared away. Both engines died. They were now a three-ton toboggan hurling down the runway at sixty miles per hour. The Otter bounced into the air with each bump it encountered, but just as Brad believed they would become airborne again, the plane settled back onto the runway. The screeching of the remnants of the undercarriage tearing away as it dug into the ground became a high-pitched scream that resonated in his teeth. The Otter veered to the right and began spinning like a carousel, flinging passengers and freight against the walls. A large crate struck Brad’s ankle. He suppressed a yelp of pain, though it would have been inaudible in the death throes of the Otter.