Adam Baker - Outpost

She stepped closer. She saw the bloody, bandaged stump where an arm used to be. And she saw the face. One eye was jet black. The other eye looked at her in cold calculation. She felt herself appraised by a keen alien intelligence. She backed away and ran.

They searched rooms and passageways near Medical. They found the airway tube. Rawlins had pulled it from his throat. It was lying on the deck plate. It was glazed with frozen saliva.

‘We better split up,’ said Ghost. ‘Cover more ground.’

‘Hold on a moment,’ said Jane. ‘This has to be the same shit we saw on TV, right? Drives you nuts like rabies. Maybe Frank is okay. But maybe not. We have to be prepared.’

‘What do you have in mind?’ asked Punch.

‘I think you should go back to the accommodation block. Warn the others and barricade the door.’

‘What are you and Ghost going to do?’

‘Head to the island and fetch the shotguns.’

Ghost hauled open the bunker door. His flashlight lit shelves and boxes, and the snowmobiles shrouded in tarpaulin.

‘Okay. Better be quick.’

Jane unboxed shotguns.

‘Give them to me.’

Ghost checked the breech of each weapon and dry-fired to make sure they were safe. He zipped the guns and their cleaning kits into a holdall.

‘Get the shells.’

Jane snatched boxes of 12-gauge shells from a shelf and stuffed them into her backpack.

‘There’s a sell-by on these boxes. I didn’t think ammunition expired.’

‘Let’s get going.’

Rawlins found he could see in the dark. Not clearly. Not well. But he could make out shapes.

He stood naked at the centre of the dive room. He wondered how he got there. Self-awareness came and went. Sometimes he was Frank Rawlins. Sometimes he was something else.

He lit a Tilley lamp so he could see better. Benches. Racks of diving equipment. The white, steel bubble of a hypobaric chamber.

He opened a locker and examined his reflection in the door mirror. One eye was as black as onyx.

Rawlins took a dive belt from a wall hook. He unsheathed the knife and used the tip to prise the eye from its socket. He did it left-handed. He sawed through the optic nerve. The eyeball plopped at his feet.

He stared at his reflection. The empty socket wept blood. He took a scuba tank from a wall rack and pounded the mirror to glass-dust.

Rawlins’s office. A sign on the door:

Punch switched on the lights. It felt like trespass.

‘The desk drawer,’ said Sian. ‘That’s where he keeps it.’

Punch levered the latch with a screwdriver. He took the Taser from its case.

‘It feels like a toy. Should stop him dead, though.’

‘Then what?’ said Sian. ‘If he has this infection we can’t lay a finger on him.’

‘Improvise a straitjacket. Tie him up in a sleeping bag or something. Lock him in a freight container. Quarantine, until we see what’s what.’

Sian examined the desk screen. A couple of clicks brought up a floor plan of the refinery.

‘He’s on C deck, right? We can track him.’

Punch leaned over her shoulder. The C deck schematic was speckled with red dots.

‘We dropped some of the blast doors when we powered down the rig. The doors show up on the status board. Keep watching. He might betray his location.’

‘Don’t move from that chair, all right?’ Punch gave Sian his radio. ‘If you see movement, shout.’

Punch lowered the blast door, sealing himself inside the accommodation module.

He was armed with a pool cue and the Taser.

He slid down the wall and sat on the corridor floor with the Taser cradled in his lap.

‘How’s it going?’ Sian’s voice. Punch took out his radio.

‘Sentry duty.’

‘Can we lock the hatches? Can we stop him moving around?’

‘The blast doors seal tight in an emergency. Otherwise anyone can raise them. Only the airlocks have keypads. Protection against piracy.’

‘We have to assume he is infected .’

‘What else can we do? We have to treat him as hostile until we know better.’

‘I wish we could be sure. Severe blood loss. He’s going to freeze .’

‘I know. I know.’

A thud against the door. Punch jumped to his feet. ‘Frank? Is that you?’

Punch trained his Taser at the door. The hatch began to slide upward. He hit Close.

He pressed the intercom.

‘Frank? Are you okay?’

‘I’m cold. Very cold.’

‘Are you infected? Your arm. Can you tell me? Did it halt the infection?’

‘So cold .’ Rawlins sounded weak, delirious.

‘You’ve got to tell us, Frank. We have to know.’

‘So tired.’

‘We can’t let you in, Frank. Frank? Are you there?’

He waited a full minute. He hit Open. The door slid back.

Nothing beyond but an empty corridor.

Punch called Sian.

‘Frank just tried to get in.’

‘Is he still there ?’

‘He’s gone.’

‘ Wait. Someone just entered an airlock near Medical .’

‘Did he go outside?’

‘No. He just opened the interior door .’

‘Anyone heard from Jane and Ghost?’

‘No .’

‘We need those shotguns.’

Rawlins ransacked the airlock. He struggled to pull up trousers. He shrugged on a coat. He stepped into boots.

He searched the rig for cigarettes. He dragged himself down dark, frozen passageways. He slid along pipework for support. He hugged the stump of his right arm, sheathed in an empty sleeve, to his chest.

Cigarettes were forbidden. Big red signs in each recreation area. ‘ No unauthorised sources of ignition.’

When Rawlins took control of the rig five months ago he smuggled cigarettes aboard. Two a day for the duration of the tour. He used to sneak outside and light up. He knew most of the crew smoked weed but he didn’t care. It kept the men occupied. It kept them sedated. But he was the installation manager and couldn’t be seen to break the rules. He kept a pack of cigarettes and a Zippo hidden among fire equipment near an airlock. He couldn’t remember which airlock. He couldn’t remember much at all.

He sat in the gymnasium for a while, one of the few rooms on the refinery with a large window. Weak daylight. It was noon, and the sun was barely above the horizon. Rows of cycles and treadmills glittered with ice. Centrefolds blurred by frost. He pulled up his sleeve and examined his bandaged stump. Metal spines protruded from the gauze. The skin surrounding his elbow had started to blacken.

‘So here we are,’ he thought. ‘My dying day.’

Frank once saw a man clutch his chest and collapse while queuing in a bank. He guessed it was the same for most people. Walking round with a head full of humdrum until a terminal diagnosis or myocardial infarction struck out of the blue. Was it October? November? Hard to think straight. He was pretty sure it was Tuesday.

He lay on a sunbed for a while and woke up shivering. His parka had fallen open. He couldn’t work the zip.

He remembered where he hid cigarettes. Airlock 63.

Jane and Ghost arrived back at the rig. They winched the zodiac into the boathouse.

Ghost showed Jane how to operate a shotgun as they rode the freight elevator to habitation level.

‘You’ve seen it on TV a million times. Slot five shells into the receiver. Pump the slide. Pull it all the way back. Nice, firm stroke. Set the safety to Fire. And for God’s sake don’t put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot.’

‘Cool.’

‘Press the gun to your shoulder. Brace your legs. Boom.’