Murmansk-13

The other men had donned their helmets, even Sammy, who appeared close to a panic attack when Diego affixed his. Only Nilsen and Tor were helmetless. Tor worked to secure the final cinches in the lifeline that would tether them. They’d put Sammy in the middle. “I know, I lost it there for a while. I just hope you’re happy taking this much responsibility for this fucking mess.”

“I’m not,” said Nilsen, securing the line to a karabiner at his belt, he and Tor would bring up the rear of the line, “but I have a wedding waiting for me and a daughter. A life. We have to try something.”

The airlock was cramped with so many crewmen in it and two hover dollies. For those unaccustomed to spacewalking, the claustrophobia of the airlock and the suits would do little to stifle their fears. In the tight space, Nilsen took Tor’s helmet. “What made you think about… Sammy found a noose in your cabin.”

Tor winced, his breath caught. “My boys grown up without me, Jan. My wife loves my wallet and what awaits me if we even get home? Dead crewmen, a ruined cargo, a smashed up ship. It’ll be years of enquiries, criminal negligence cases and prison,” a nascent tear glistened in the corner of Tor’s eye, “what I saw was bad, Jan, over there, but this whole fucking thing has ruined me.”

“So why come with us now?” The other crewmen had turned to look at Nilsen and Tor talking, the interminable wait for whatever was aboard Murmansk-13 being drawn out further.

“An old Captain once told me, you’re always one bad trip away from a prison cell or a coffin,” the teardrop slid from his eye as a smile curled Tor’s lips. “What else do I have to lose now?”

Chapter 17

Numb, the survivors of District Four listened in apathetic silence as the sepulchral moans of the infected shivered through the grating and into the wiring conduit where they sat. For Oleg and Jamal, their haven of safety for the last four years was gone, buried beneath a roiling sea of decay. The man they’d looked toward for leadership and direction dead.

Gennady had died to save Tala, in doing so he’d charged her with leading the remains of his men to safety and to care for Katja. Barely alive, the porcelain faced girl stirred against Tala’s shoulder, but remained senseless, oblivious to the countless infected yearning to reach them just meters away, unflinching to their calls. She trembled in a mind space far away.

They sat insensate until Oleg observed the hoard, recklessly piling on top of one another, their rotting bodies forming a clamouring putrescent pyramid in their desperate attempts to pry open the grate. As the first skeletal fingertips feathered the aluminium access panel, they decided to move. Gently, Tala woke Katja, her eyelids fluttered open to reveal unfocused eyes. “We have to go, Katja.”

Without direction, they wended through the tight conduit, their pace set by Katja, her body ravaged. All of them just wanted to be away from the essence of putrid flesh, the metallic tang of freshly spilt blood and the ceaseless drone of the massed infected. Incrementally they headed downward.

Katja was painfully slow on point and hours seemed to pass before they reached merciful quiet. As the noise from District Four faded into the darkness behind them, it was replaced by the static accumulating scratch of velour against insulation. Several times Katja was forced to stop, her arms shaking as she braced them across her chest, her pale flesh now deathly white. Katja had lost a lot of blood, so much so that her lips bore a bluish hue in the weak light and her forehead was clammy despite the cold.

At each rest, Katja stared into emptiness, her head sagging atop her neck. Once, Tala had asked if she could administer her wounds, Katja refused with a harried shake of the head. While the bleeding appeared to have abated, Tala found little heart in the inanimate expression Katja wore. When they’d first traversed the conduits of Murmansk-13 together, Tala had found the confused girls sobbing irritating, now she longed to see or hear some evidence of emotion. Instead, Katja was like a wiped video tape.

In silence, Tala seethed. Beside Mihailov and Captain Tor, she’d revived Katja, brought the girl back from her frozen oblivion, and for what? Since waking she’d been subjected to one torment after the next and for her part, Tala was responsible. She’d failed to protect Katja against Ilya in District Four and now she wondered how much more of Katja had eroded in his hands.

Tala found tears forming when she thought about the alternative. The poor girl would have been better off if they’d left her asleep, forever entombed in the station morgue.

“What did Gennady give you?” Tala jumped, Jamal’s voice boomed after the protracted quiet. “Before he… died.”