Outpost

Nail and Gus were lost in the fog. Their flashlights lit snow and curling mist. Frozen beards. Clothes crusted with frost.

‘We’re lost.’

‘We’re not lost.’

Gus was badly burned. He leaned against Nail for support.

‘Wait,’ said Nail. ‘Hold on.’

‘What?’

Nail took a red bandana from his pocket and held it up like a wind sock.

‘I think we’re heading the right way. We just need to keep the wind behind us.’

‘Then what? We’re royally fucked.’

Nail’s flashlight had started to fail.

‘We have to keep moving. We have to find shelter.’

Hyperion had been overrun. Nail and Gus fled during the attack. They slid down knotted rope as the ship burned. Quickly rappelled down the smooth white hull to the ice. They didn’t have coats. They each wore a T-shirt and fleece. They could survive maybe fifteen minutes before succumbing to the cold.

Gus sagged like he wanted to sit down.

‘Keep moving,’ commanded Nail, his voice flat and muffled by the fog. ‘It can’t be far.’

He was starting to shake.

They stumbled over snow and rock. Deep thuds behind them. Explosions aboard Hyperion.

Concrete jutted from the snow. The high arch of the bunker entrance.

‘This is it,’ said Nail. ‘We made it.’

They reached the bunker door. An infected crewman stood sentry in front of the entrance. It looked like he had been there a while. Snow had collected on his head and shoulders. He was knee-deep, his uniform frosted white. He stood quite still, staring into the mist. He slowly came to life like a rusted robot. His clothes crackled with ice as he moved. He stumbled and reached for Nail and Gus. His face was frozen. His eyes couldn’t turn in their sockets.

Nail kicked the crewman’s legs from under him. He pushed the fallen man down the bunker steps with his foot. The body rolled into the fog.

Gus passed out. He fell against the door and slid to the ground. Nail tried to slap him awake but got no response. He checked for a pulse. Still alive.

Nail looked around. He glimpsed figures, grotesque silhouettes lurking in the fog.

‘Gus. Wake up, man. We’ve got company. They sniffed us out.’

No response.

He checked the bunker doors. The padlock and chain were gone. He tried to pull the doors wide. They opened a few centimetres then jammed. They had been lashed shut from the inside with rope.

He searched Gus’s pockets. He found a lock-knife. He flipped open the blade. He threw his flashlight into the mist to lure away the prowling figures that encircled them.

He worked by touch. He reached through the gap in the doorway and sawed at the rope.

‘Gus? Still with me?’

No reply.

‘Come on, dude. Don’t check out on me now.’

He cut through the rope. He hauled open the door. He set his lighter to full-flame and dragged Gus into the bunker. A dark tunnel mouth.

He scanned shelves, picked through clutter. He found a lamp and switched it on. It was styled like a hurricane lamp, but had an LED bulb and a couple of Duracells.

He knotted the doors closed with scraps of rope.

He tried to wake Gus.

‘Can you hear me? Can you hear what I’m saying? You have to focus, Gus. You have to listen to my voice. Shock and cold. Don’t give in to it.’

Gus opened his eyes but couldn’t focus. Semi-delirious.

Nail looked around. He had to create a fire or they were both dead.

Shelves against the tunnel wall loaded with Skidoo components. A few empty crates and fuel cans stacked by the wall. The snowmobiles themselves were under tarpaulin.

Nail swept the shelves clear and tipped them over. He stamped and smashed. He slopped a capful of petrol from a jerry can and set the shelves alight. He sat cross-legged in front of the fire and hugged Gus. He rubbed and slapped his companion until circulation returned.

‘Christ,’ murmured Gus. He struggled to sit up. He spat in the fire and watched spit fizzle.

‘How are you feeling?’ asked Nail.

‘The pain comes and goes.’

Half Gus’s face was scorched black. Cooked skin. Cracked and flaked. His hair was gone. His right shoulder was burned bare, scraps of polyester fleece fused to charred skin.

‘Did you see Yakov?’ asked Gus. ‘Did you see him die?’

‘Fucking horrible. Worst thing I ever saw in my life.’

‘I didn’t know a person could make that kind of noise. That’s going to stay with me.’

The infected passengers had broken through the barricades at midnight. Somehow they circumvented locked doors, blocked corridors, and men on patrol. Hordes of them choking the passageways, some in fancy dress. Nail had been standing on the upper deck sharing a joint with Gus. They watched fog eclipse the moon and discussed girlfriends and heartbreak. If they’d been asleep in their cabins they would have been cornered, overwhelmed and ripped apart.

‘We should go back,’ Gus had said, as Nail pushed him across the Hyperion deck. The Rampart crew had prepared knotted ropes in case they needed to make a quick exit from the vessel. ‘We should go back for the others.’