Дэниел Смит - Below Zero

There was nothing else for them to do.

Zak and May left Mum and Dad behind, and they ran for their lives. With insects filling the air behind them like a diseased cloud, Zak and May retreated through Refuge and burst out on to the walkway. It was difficult to run in heavy boots and layers of clothing, but they were fuelled by the terror of what would happen to them if they stayed still. The thought of those insects crawling on them, working their way inside them.

The clatter of wings was drowned by the sound of their boots on the metal walkway, but Zak knew the insects were there. He knew they wouldn’t stop until everybody at Outpost Zero was… what? Infected? Controlled? He had no idea what the insects were trying to do, but he was sure of one thing: if he ended up like the red-jackets – like Mum and Dad – there would be no one to help. There would be no one to put this right. So Zak pushed himself as hard as he could, trying to keep up with May. But as they came close to the end of the walkway, the door to The Hub slid open and light spilt out towards them.

May came to a stop, her boots skidding on the icy metal, and Zak collided into her, getting a faceful of his sister’s coat. The two of them stumbled forwards, grabbing the railing for support, startled by the red-jackets waiting for them inside The Hub. Zak reckoned there must have been at least ten of them standing there, all with their hands out, insects crawling over their arms and necks.

‘Why won’t you leave us alone!’ May screamed as the red-jackets stepped out of The Hub and into the cold.

Zak’s first reaction was to run the other way, but when he turned round, he saw Mum and Dad, and the others advancing towards them, insects swirling above their heads in a cloud.

‘We’re trapped,’ Zak said.

‘I’m not going to end up like them.’

Zak scanned in both directions along the walkway, then leant over the handrail beside him. ‘Only one way out of this.’ The ground was about five metres below and looked like a bed of snow.

‘Over there?’ May said. ‘You’re serious?’

‘You got a better idea?’

‘I guess not.’ May pulled up on to the railing and swung her legs over. Zak climbed up beside her.

They sat on the railing with their legs dangling over the long drop to the ice below.

‘You ready?’ May asked.

‘No.’ Zak forced a smile. ‘Definitely not.’ Then he pushed himself off.

The fall was brief. There was just a moment of weightlessness before Zak hit the ground. He had expected it to be soft, but he was wrong. The wind had blown some of the snow into shallow drifts around the walkway supports, and Zak was lucky enough to land in one of those, but it wasn’t much more than a few centimetres deep. As soon as he touched down, he bent his knees to absorb the impact, letting his energy take him forwards into a roll. But what he thought would be cat-like and agile, actually turned into a face plant. His legs crumpled, his arms folded beneath him and he slammed forward into the shallow drift.

A second later, May came down with a thump and collapsed on top of him, knocking the air out of his lungs. ‘ Oof .’

As soon as he regained his breath, Zak pushed his sister off and got to his feet. He held out a hand to help her up. ‘You OK?’

‘I think so.’

His knees ached from the landing, and his ankle was hurting from a mild twist, but he had other concerns. Above them, the sound of boots on the metal walkway had stopped. Zak stood back and craned his neck to see the underside of the punched metal, the dark shapes of the red-jackets.

‘What now?’ May said. ‘Where do we go now?’

‘Hub.’ He turned to his sister. ‘Yeah. The Hub. We’ll go underneath, then in through the front.’

Zak glanced up at the walkway one more time, and began trudging across the snow as quickly as he could. May hurried alongside him as they headed towards the struts supporting The Hub. To their right, the Drone Bay skulked like a shadowy presence, and Zak half expected the lift to whir into action, but it remained silent.

‘Are they following?’ May looked over her shoulder.

‘I don’t think so.’ Zak picked up his pace, pushing himself harder. The thought of those zombie people out there, hiding in the shadows, filled him with terror. He and May had to find somewhere safe and warm. Somewhere to hide. Somewhere to defend themselves.

But as he grabbed May’s coat sleeve, encouraging her to hurry, he heard a steady rhythm beating on the ice. A Spider.

Tick-tack-tick-tack . Tick-tack-tick-tack .

‘Oh my God, it’s coming!’ May’s voice was tight and high. ‘It’s coming!’

They thought they were already moving as quickly as they could, but when they heard the sound behind them, they found something extra. They pushed themselves harder and fixed their eyes on the nearest corner of The Hub.

The sub-zero air hurt Zak’s lungs with every breath he sucked in.

Almost there.

The Spider was gaining on them.

Tick-tack-tick-tack .

It was so close now. Zak could hear its metal parts working; the hydraulics pumping in and out, the joints clicking and clacking.

Keep going.

Ahead, a thick steel strut rose from the ice, supporting The Hub a couple of metres above the ground. All Zak had to do was get to it. Not much further and he would be safe for a while at least. The Spider would be too big to follow them under there.

Usually, Zak laughed at May’s peculiar, legs-out-to-the-side running style, and she laughed along with him, exaggerating it when they played on the field near their house. But right now, the unusual running style was helping her. Instead of having to drag her boots through the snow, she was clearing it with every step, and she managed to forge a few paces in front of Zak. When she reached The Hub, she threw her legs out in front of her and skidded to safety.

May picked herself up and turned to watch Zak approach. ‘Run!’ she screamed at him. ‘Run!’ She waved her hands, beckoning as if it might somehow make him run faster.

But Zak didn’t need May to tell him. He could feel the Spider coming closer and closer. The ground was shaking beneath him; the sound of its clicks and whirrs were echoing in his ears. He felt the warmth of its batteries and the approaching darkness of another vision just before he planted both feet on the ground and pushed off with as much force as he could muster.

Zak put out his hands and dived under The Hub. He landed in the snow and skidded to a halt beside his sister. Behind him, there was a heavy thud as the Spider collided with the lowest edge of building, and the dark vision that had threatened to suffocate Zak disappeared. He sat up to see the machine reeling as it tried to maintain its balance.

In the light from the now clear sky, he could see the muscle and sinew glistening on the underside of the Spider.

‘We have to keep going.’ Zak took May’s hand and they helped each other to their feet. ‘I’m not waiting for that thing to come to its senses.’

They left the Spider reeling from its collision, and hurried along beneath The Hub, heading towards the front where it faced the airstrip. When Zak had been inside the building, it hadn’t felt so big, but now he was outside, and in a hurry, it seemed enormous. Zak felt as if he was in a bad dream, running towards something that never gets any closer.

Halfway across, Zak heard a thump and glanced back to see the Spider scurrying over the ice behind the Hub. It was too big to crawl beneath the buildings, and had to make its way around the entire base, but it was still desperate to catch its prey. It moved quickly, so close to the back of the Hub that it banged against it with every third or fourth step, skittering and slipping as it changed direction to stumble past the Science labs. But it wouldn’t be fast enough. Zak and May would reach the front before it completely regained its senses and caught them.