Alex Gore - The Cube

A shot blasted and Norman fell abruptly on the floor. “What the hell are you doing, have you gone mad?! What are you doing, for god’s sake?!” Marcela was shouting hysterically at Babyface, who bent over the dead body and took the goggles off.

The bloodred pupils shone even after death as hot embers.

Babyface leaned and took out the M11 from the double’s belt, handing it to Michael with its handle forward. The young man hesitated, looked at Marcela and Hans, then took it awkwardly and started examining it.

“Whoa, be careful, this is not a toy! Have you ever practiced shooting?”

“Yeah, once, last year. Me and Mary Ann went to an amusement park in Miami, there was an enormous shooting gallery and I won for her a stuffed dinosaur.” The memory of that day made him smile.

“Okay, when it gets heated, try to stay behind me and not to shoot, if possible. Except in extreme situation. Understood?”

Michael and the Lieutenant were moving slowly, almost glued to the ground. Luckily the weather was bright and sunny, so they could see all the way to the horizon.

However, this also meant that they were easily noticeable too. They were not talking, the Lieutenant giving directions to the young man only with brief gestures. Now he waved to him to follow track. Both men went around the burned ruins of the two domes and reached the remains of the watchtower.

Then they saw the first explosives. They were half-buried in the base of the watchtower. Babyface stopped abruptly and Michael almost fell over him from behind.

The bomb was as big as a stack of cigarettes and perfectly placed under the thick metal column. Exactly on the place where it would cause maximum of material and human damages.

Complete annihilation. The plastic explosive under the base of the tower would fry everything alive at a distance of a mile just a moment after the detonation. The Lieutenant and Michael exchanged glances.

The digital clock was changing the figures inexorably.

00:54:48

00:54:47

00:54:46

00:54:45

The red lamp was blinking at an interval of one second. There were no wires or buttons. Professional work with remote control for activation.

The Lieutenant gestured with his hand for Michael to wait for him there and started crawling forward.

The young man was not particularly happy to remain in the company of that hellish blinking contraption, but just nodded affirmatively.

He looked at his watch every twenty seconds. Almost ten minutes passed and there was no trace of Babyface. Michael started really worrying, he tried to scan the entire place but was rather turning like a steering wheel without being able to focus.

He felt far more confident with the little man next to him and now those ten minutes seemed to him an eternity. He took a relieved breath when he saw the small blond head approaching quickly.

He gave him a sign. They were going back to the bio lab.

There was no trace of Norman.

They approached tentatively and were so near, that they heard Marcela’s and Hans’s voices, talking inside. They huddled behind the remains of one of the Rovers, who had burned to the iron base. But the storm had brought in sand and it was the the perfect cover.

They noticed a low shadow that walked quietly along the main dome, stopped by the small window of the bio lab, and watched the shadows inside.

Suddenly a shot fired that hit the double in his left thigh. His body did not react, no cry of pain or surprise was heard, it just turned to them.

Mike was aiming at the shadow. The double ducked and managed to avoid the shot. The student was pouring a raging rain of bullets at the small silhouette. He was absolutely sure that he hit him at least three times in the back, the chest and the legs, but the creature seemed to feel no pain and continued running fast towards the fence. Babyface shouted:

“What are you doing, for god’s sake, we have no more bullets, stop shooting!” The Lieutenant ran after his own double with surprising speed.

The creature made a sharp stop and started in the other direction, while the Lieutenant lost his balance and could hardly twist his body.

“Fuck you, nasty freak!” he cried loudly, feeling that he was outrun.

The double turned his head to see where the shouts were coming from and did not notice the body in front of him. He stumbled and fell to the ground. This momentarily devoid him of his advance and turned the tables in favor of Babyface who with a lion jump threw himself against his back.

He managed to pin him to the ground, then, quick as a lightening, took out the huge knife from his belt and dug it in the double’s neck.

He was trying to cut his head but the double’s tissues were resisting under the knife, unnaturally wiry and stubborn. He cut the front part of the neck, the wind pipe and the gullet, while the metal blade touched the hardness of the cervical vertebrae.

He raised his whole body, sweat was pouring from his brow, all the muscular fibers of his short arms were exerted to the limit. He pressed all the weight of his body over the neck bones and in just a second the head separated from the shoulders.

The creature continued fighting as if nothing had happened, while its pale face was tumbling on the side. Its red pupils had occupied all of its eyes and its twisted blue lips were torturing the air like a fish, squirming on the hot sand.

Babyface took a breath, released his hold, then pushed the decapitated body away and left it move chaotically its limbs in the air. It resembled a cut chicken with a carcass, twisting in death convulsions.

He went to the head, pressed the nozzle of the gun to the forehead of his own self, and fired.

The limbs of the headless body dropped dead on the sand.

There was no blood.

The Lieutenant got up, shook off his clothes and asked unperturbedly:

“Mike, how many are left with you? The bullets are precious, there is one more of these fuckers. Alan’s double.” The Lieutenant got up, shook off the sand from his trousers and leaned over the object in which the double had stumbled.

It was Norman’s body.

Babyface put his finger on the carotid artery. He did not feel anything.

“I know, but I believed I could shoot him in the head. I’m sorry, I was carried away”, Michael could not stop excusing himself.

“Okay, Mikey”. The Lieutenant knelt by the body and brushed the face with his palm, closing the eyes. “That’s the Major’s dead body.”

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant”. Michael also knelt by Norman’s body.

“How many more have you left, Mike?”

“Just one.”

“What about the carabines?”

“The carabines are missing.” Mike pointed to the hole in the dome. It was torn and near the ground a big opening gaped.

“How much fuel have we got left, Hans?” Marcela was sitting in front of the computer but her glance was lingering somewhere away from it.

“For not more than an hour and we have a little for the Rover’s tank. If we manage to fix it at all. Now our life depends on it.”

“Hans, I don’t want us to spend another night here, we are not going to survive.”

“That’s right, but if we go walking through the desert, we are doomed. Better to wait for the night to pass and start early in the morning.”

“We are not going to make it till morning, Hans, what are you talking about? You know we’ll be attacked after the sun sets.”

The door opened abruptly and Michael and the Lieutenant rushed into the room. Babyface was almost breathless.

“Quickly! We must leave now!” He was almost stuttering, being so much in a hurry. “There are explosives everywhere.”