Outpost

Jane climbed into the platform lift. She dragged Punch’s backpack on to the deck. She pressed Up. She collapsed against the railing and sank to her knees. Movement out of the corner of her eye. An infected man in a white tuxedo had gripped the platform lift as it began its ascent and was hauling himself over the railing.

Jane aimed the flamethrower and pulled the trigger. Dribble of fuel. No fire. The wind was too strong. The igniter flame wouldn’t spark.

She aimed Punch’s shotgun. Click of an empty chamber.

She struggled to her feet and backed away from the advancing man, holding the shotgun by the barrel and swinging it like a club.

Ghost sat in the observation bubble and watched the storm. He listened to Mahler.

‘Hey, Gee: Sian’s voice.

‘Yeah?’

‘ They’re coming up in the platform lift.’

Ghost waited in the south leg airlock. The airlock was a padded chamber lined with lockers and snow gear. A porthole in the door allowed Ghost to examine the underside of the refinery, the girders and pipework lashed by the gale. Floodlights strung beneath the rig glowed through the storm like a row of weak suns.

A yellow warning strobe above the airlock door began to revolve, accompanied by an insistent warning beep. The platform lift was active. Ghost watched through the porthole as the elevator cage drew level with the door. Two figures crusted in ice. One figure was wearing a tuxedo. He had a melted face.

Ghost grabbed a snowboot from the airlock floor. He hit Open and reeled from the sudden wind-blast. The lumbering mutant reached for Jane as she crouched exhausted and helpless on the platform deck. Ghost wore the snowboot on his hand like a boxing glove. He punched the infected man in the face. Repeated blows. He drove the man to the edge of the platform and kicked him over the railing. He threw the blood-spattered boot over the side.

He dragged Jane inside and hit Close. The door slid shut and the roar of the storm was silenced.

Jane shrugged off the flamethrower and slumped to her knees. Ghost pulled back her hood and tugged off her ski mask. Her skin was blue. Her eyelids drooped like she was half asleep.

‘Jane,’ shouted Ghost. ‘Hey. Come on.’ He gently slapped her face left and right. ‘Come on, girl. Focus.’

She coughed back to life.

‘Get the pack,’ she said. ‘It’s out on the lift.’

Second blast of blizzard wind as Ghost retrieved the backpack. He emptied it on to the airlock floor. Explosives. Detonators. He examined the shoulder straps. They had been cut with a sharp blade.

Jane had dropped the shotgun. Quick inspection. Burned stock. Scorched metal. The gun beyond use.

He checked the breech. No shells. He s niffed the gun. Pepper smell of cordite. Recently fired.

Jane’s eyes fluttered like she was struggling to stay awake. ‘Jane? Can you hear me? Where the fuck is Punch?’

Ghost helped Jane to her room. He helped her strip and stood with her beneath the shower until she revived. She stood beneath a torrent of hot water and basked in the heat.

She got out, towelled and dressed.

‘So we are down to three,’ said Ghost.

‘Nothing I could do,’ said Jane. ‘Nothing at all.’

‘Nail?’

‘He’s turned that bunker into a fucking abattoir.’

‘I hope he comes aboard. I really do. I’ll make it slow. I’ll make it last days.’

Jane took a mug of coffee to the observation bubble.

Sian was watching the blizzard scour the tanks and gantries of the refinery. She was weeping.

Jane put a hand on her shoulder.

‘Easier if we just died,’ said Sian. ‘It would be better than this. A moment of fear, a moment of pain, then nothing. This is worse. This is slow torture.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Everyone I ever knew is dead. Family. Friends. But I had Punch. I was all right as long as I had Punch.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’ve got nothing left. Absolutely nothing. Bit by bit it all got stripped away.’ She gestured to the snowstorm. ‘This place is hell. Barren. Sterile. It’s like the universe has taken off its mask and we can see its true face.’

‘Want to open a bottle of wine?’ asked Jane, and immediately regretted the lame suggestion. Failing as a priest, failing as a friend. Absurd to think there was any consolation she could offer in the face of absolute despair, some combination of words that would make it all better.

She sat down.

A few nights ago, she and Ghost lay in bed and planned the future of the human race.

‘If there are kids,’ said Ghost, ‘will you tell them about Jesus?’

‘No,’ said Jane. ‘I’m happy to be the last Christian. If they come across a Bible I will tell them it’s all fairy tales and nonsense.’

Jane put her arm round Sian’s shoulder. They sat in the dark as the Arctic storm raged around them.

Jane visited Rawlins’s office. She thumbed through the personnel files. Gary Punch. She snipped his picture from the front page of his file.

She took the picture to the improvised chapel she had established in one of the dormitory rooms. She taped the photograph to the memorial wall.

She sat and contemplated the mug shots.

Crew who left aboard oil supply vessel Spirit of Endeavour:

Rosie Smith.

Pete Baxter.