Outpost

‘Amberley. West Country. A cute village on the side of a hill. That’s where I’ll go when we get home.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Everyone has their heaven. Amberley is mine.’ ‘Right.’

‘There’s a house at the end of a long, country lane. I glimpsed it through trees. Ivy and Tudor beams. That’s where I’ll go.’

‘But Duke?’

‘Our old lives are gone. We can be whoever we like. A lord. A duke. A prince. Who is left to say No?’

Gus fell asleep an hour later.

Nail put more wood on the fire. He took the strip of chewed leather from his mouth and threw it into the flames. The leather crisped and curled. Nikki sat on the other side of the fire.

‘Hell of a way to check out,’ said Nail. ‘Stuck down this hole, swigging our own piss.’

Nikki ignored him.

‘So how about it?’ asked Nail. ‘Do you actually want to live? Do you actually want to get out of here? Or is this your new home? I know why I am hiding in this fucking mausoleum. But I don’t fully understand why you came back to the island, and I don’t understand why you are lurking down here instead of back aboard Rampart. You deserve desolation? You deserve hell? Is that honestly the reason?’ She didn’t reply.

‘Canada,’ said Nail. ‘That’s what I reckon. If a person took one of the snowmobiles they could get a long way before the fuel ran out. They would need stuff from Rampart, though. Food. Better clothes. You could tag along. Surely you don’t want to stay here and starve?’

Nikki pushed more wood into the fire.

‘I wish you could understand what we have here,’ she said. ‘Every one of you aboard Rampart was on the run, fleeing the world. Why are you all so anxious to get back home? It’s all here. Everything we need. You just need to embrace the silence. Let it enter your head, fill your thoughts.’

‘Everything we need? We’re sitting here eating a leather jacket. You want to join those fucks out there? Get yourself bitten or something? Is that your big plan? Whatever. You can stay here if you like. Hang out with your invisible friend. But I want to live. I don’t want to die in this sewer. I want to live.’

They sat in silence. Nail winced and clutched his stomach. Cramps. He stretched. Hunger had intensified from vague discomfort to an acute, stabbing pain. He hated himself for what he was about to do.

He struggled to his feet, careful not to look at Gus. He took a burning chair leg from the fire.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said. ‘I’m going to look around for anything useful. I might be gone a while.’

Nikki nodded and smiled.

He headed into the darkness of the tunnel mouth leaving Nikki alone with Gus.

Nail returned an hour later. He sat by the campfire. He looked into the flames.

Nail was a murderer. He had stabbed Mal in the throat, then crouched over the dying man and begged forgiveness. He tried to stem the flow, got sprayed as he tried to patch the slit jugular with bloody fingers.

Scrubbing in the shower. Blood on white porcelain. Scrubbing for hours.

Now this. Step by step into hell.

He gestured to Gus’s immobile body.

‘How’s he doing?’

‘Dead.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well,’ he heard himself say, ‘then I suppose he won’t mind.’ He sat and stared into the flames.

Nikki flicked open her knife, slit the fabric of Gus’s trouser leg and cut strips of flesh from his thigh.

They roasted flesh over the campfire. Nail wept as he ate.

The Vault

‘There’s no reason all four of us should travel to the island,’ said Jane. ‘I’ll take Punch for company.’

‘I should go,’ said Ghost. ‘I know the bunker.’

‘No point,’ said Jane. ‘My plan, my trip. Let me achieve something for once.’

Ghost drew a map.

‘All right. The explosives are five levels down in a storage vault. You’ll pass plenty of side tunnels. Ignore them. Stick to the main passageways. I spent two days down there exploring the bunker. Seemed like there was no end to the place.’

Jane folded the crude treasure map and tucked it in her pocket. They were sitting in the observation bubble. It was late January. A faint azure tint to the southern sky.

‘Spring is coming,’ said Ghost. ‘We should have our first real sunrise in a couple of months.’

‘Hyperion will float free. What little is left of it. Probably sink like a stone.’

‘All those guys who died. None of it is down to you. They made their own luck.’

‘How much explosive do you reckon we have stored in the bunker?’

‘We used up the grenades. Used some C4 out on the ice, but there’s still a bunch left. Couple of cases at least. Thirty or forty kilos. Enough to put an office block on the moon. You’ll need a backpack.’

‘I’ll take the flamethrower as well.’

‘I doubt you’ll have much use for it. Most of the infected crowd from Hyperion fried aboard the ship. The rest seem to be succumbing to the cold. As long as you keep running, you should be okay. Once you reach the bunker you’ll be home and dry.’

Jane and Punch dressed in the airlock. Ventile over-trousers. Heavy snowboots secured by ankle latches. Triple-seal parkas: zips, toggles, Velcro.

Jane shrugged on the flamethrower harness. Punch unsheathed the shotgun and chambered rounds.