Marc Cerasini - AVP - Alien vs. Predator

Most eerie was the dark pall that hung over the place. Bouvetoya Whaling Station was built at the foot of the mountain, and at this time of year a permanent shadow fell over the desolate ghost town. Sebastian and Miller were tempted to use their flashlights to illuminate the main street as they moved through town.

“This place looks like a theme park,” said Miller.

“Yes,” Thomas replied. “Moby-Dick World.”

As the others looked around, Thomas spied Adele Rousseau. The woman lit a cigarette and took a long drag.

“Hi,” said Thomas.

The mercenary took another puff and said nothing.

“Be honest,” Thomas teased. “You’re a little disappointed that you didn’t get the yellow jacket, aren’t you?”

Adele turned and faced him. She was not smiling.

“They give the newbies the yellow jackets so that when you fall down a crevice and die, it’s easier for us to spot your corpse.”

Thomas swallowed, nodded, and moved on.

“Spread out,” Max cried over the howl of the wind. “Locate the structures that are most intact. We’ll use this place as a base camp—our tents won’t last long if this wind keeps up.”

Then Stafford faced the roughnecks. “Mr. Quinn. You’ll begin drilling operations as soon as possible.”

“I’m on it.”

Lex walked past Quinn and continued along the shadowy main street. Miller and Sebastian caught up with her at the deserted harbor. There was a ramshackle wharf and a long dock that stretched far out into the bay, but the bay itself was frozen solid.

A giant black cauldron dominated the harbor from a high cliff. Forged of iron fifteen feet high and thirty feet across, it stood tilted at a crazy angle. The wooden legs under the vat had long since collapsed. Only ice and snow and a single wooden leg prevented the heavy iron pot from rolling over the cliff and tumbling into the harbor below.

Sebastian wondered about the vat. “Witch’s cauldron?”

“The Separator,” Lex replied. “Throw whale blubber into it, heat it, separate out the fat. Whale oil was big business back then. Almost as big as petroleum is now.”

While Miller pushed open a door and wandered inside one of the buildings, Sebastian walked carefully to the edge of the partially shattered wharf, checked the thickness of the ice, and asked, “How did they get ships in here?”

“The station only operated in the summer, when the pack ice melted. It was abandoned in 1904,” Lex replied.

“Why?”

She frowned. “Nothing left to hunt, I guess.”

She found a harpoon leaning against a dock post and tried to lift it, but the object wouldn’t budge. It remained frozen to the ground.

Meanwhile, inside one of the largest buildings, Miller discovered a frozen mess hall. Long wooden tables and rough-hewn benches were sheathed with thick, blue-gray ice. Metal cups and plates, whalebone forks and spoons, even a coffeepot were frozen to the spot where they had been abandoned one hundred years ago.

Miller tried hard to lift one of the cups. With a metallic clink the handle came away in his hand, the cup still stuck to the tabletop. Grinning, he stepped back and raised his camera. “One for National Geographic.”

When the flash exploded, the sudden light disturbed something in the far corner of the room. For a split second Miller spied a shiny black shape. There was movement, and he heard a weird, scraping sound, like the pincers of some improbably large insect scurrying along the plank floor.

“Hello,” Miller called into the shadows.

The movement ceased, but Miller could sense that he was not alone—that something was in here with him.

“Hello!”

Louder this time, Miller’s voice reverberated inside the mess hall. He strained his ears but heard nothing. He turned to go when the scrabbling sound returned. This time the noise seemed closer.

Feeling a little anxious, Miller puffed out his chest and thumped it with his fist.

“Come out of there or you’ll be wearing your ass for a hat!” Miller shouted in a fair imitation of Verheiden’s booming voice.

The noise stopped.

Swallowing hard, Miller’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

Suddenly one of the tables was knocked aside by something below eye level. Miller stepped backwards—to collide with someone behind him as a hand grabbed his shoulder.

“Jesus!” Miller squealed, throwing his hands up.

“What’s the problem?” Lex cried.

“There’s something in here!”

Lex looked doubtful. “Like what?”

“Over there—” Miller pointed to the spot where the table fell.

Lex stared into the gloom, her flashlight beam probing the darkest recesses of the mess hall.

“Listen,” Miller hissed.

Lex heard it. A scratching sound, like claws on a blackboard. Something was crawling across the ice-covered floor, something small enough to move unseen under tables and between benches.

And it was coming closer….

“Watch out, Lex!” Miller cried.

Suddenly a black shape scrambled out from under a table accompanied by the now familiar scrabbling sound. Lex shone her light on the creature.

“For God’s sake, Lex!” Miller cried, shrinking back.

“It’s a penguin!” said Lex, stifling a laugh.

“I can see it’s a penguin,” he replied sheepishly. “I thought it might be—”

The penguin waddled right up to Miller and cocked its head to stare at the shaken engineer with one beady eye.

“Careful,” Lex warned. “They do bite.”

Lex and Miller heard shouts as they emerged from the frozen mess hall.

“Over here! You’re not going to believe this.”

It was Sebastian calling. Hearing him, Quinn and his partner Connors dropped what they were doing. Weyland hurried forward, too, with Max Stafford at his side.

Lex’s gaze followed the billionaire as he moved across the snow-covered ice. He was moving with some difficulty, she noted. He seemed breathless and was leaning heavily on his ice pole. Yet when he spoke, his voice had lost none of its forcefulness. “What is this, Dr. De Rosa?”

Sebastian led all of them around the corner of a dilapidated processing factory and pointed. There, in the ice, was a gaping hole ten feet across. The pit was perfectly round, and if there was a bottom, it was lost in the shadows far below.

Perplexed, Weyland looked at Quinn, then at the mobile drilling platforms that were still being unpacked and assembled.

“How the hell did this get here?”

Quinn crouched on one knee and examined the pit. “It’s drilled at a perfect fifty-five-degree angle.” He pulled off his bulky glove and ran his hand along the sides of the shaft. The icy walls were perfectly smooth—almost slick to the touch.

Lex peered over Quinn’s shoulder. “How far down does it go?”

Sven ignited a flare and tossed it into the pit. They watched it bounce off the smooth walls and fall for many seconds, until the flare’s phosphorescent brilliance was swallowed by the dark.

“My God,” Weyland said softly.

Max Stafford looked at Dr. De Rosa. “Are we expected?”

Weyland dismissed that notion with a wave of his hand. “It must be another team. I’m not the only one with a satellite over Antarctica. Maybe the Chinese… the Russians…”

“I’m not so sure,” said Lex, staring into the abyss.

“What other explanation could there be?” Weyland insisted.

Lex looked around at the ghost town and the barren glacial ice fields all around it. “Where is their base camp? Their equipment? And where are they ?”

Max Stafford shrugged. “Maybe they are already down there.”