Philip Hemplow: Sarcophagus

Victoria did not hesitate before pressing ‘Send.’ She had typed the message on her phone, while drips of water from the branches overhead beaded the screen. It beeped, to let her know the message had been sent, and then again to tell her she had a new text message. It was from Malcolm, again. She deleted it.

It was two weeks since her return from the Zone. The VV had found her lying in the snow where she had fallen, and had brought her round just in time to see the giant louvre doors of the Carapace close forever. The bodies of thirteen men had been locked away inside it: a baker’s dozen of involuntary apostles to the force that stirred within.

Yosyp had been lying nearby, haemorrhaging onto the snow and into his brain. He had died half an hour later, resisting every attempt at resuscitation. They had medevac’d Victoria, despite her protestations: bundled her into the Hip and flown her back to Kiev. Given a private room in the hospital there, she had slept for the rest of the day, slipping out that night and heading straight for the airport.

Since her return to the UK, she had avoided everyone—made easier by the fact that Malcolm was away in Majorca now, having his budget Christmas in the sun. For Victoria, left alone in her flat, the days had passed in abstract. Long days, and longer nights, punctuated by bad dreams, flashbacks, and crying.

The decision to resign from her job had been taken that morning, as the result of a radio news bulletin that she had heard in the taxi to the station. She had found herself avoiding the radio and television since her experiences in the Zone, so it was the first time she had been exposed to the news. The inappropriately and insincerely upbeat newsreader had recited details of a massive cult suicide at the Fukushima powerplant in Japan, punching straight through the fragile wall of denial that Victoria had begun erecting in her mind.

That had put paid to any doubts that had lingered regarding the appointment she was about to have. She was early, having caught the first train of the day into central London, and, finding herself near Brompton cemetery, had settled on a bench among the graves and mausolea to draft her resignation e-mail.

She checked her watch. It was nearly nine o’clock now. She had taken the first appointment of the day, choosing this expensive, private clinic because it could offer her one sooner than the local NHS one. There would be an ultrasound, of course, and an interview—gently probing questions, alternatives suggested—but she was prepared for that. Then they would give her mifepristone, to block the hormones that were sustaining her pregnancy. In a couple of days, she would take a second drug, misoprostol, to induce abortion.

She wondered if Wolfgang would have been able to understand. He had encouraged her to keep the baby so strenuously, seeing that it was right for her even before she could herself—but that had been before. Before the world was revealed as a factory, a machine, churning out emotions and intellects to be tapped by hideous, primordial gods. Now when she looked about her at the tombs, and the grass, and the trees weeping with rain, she saw a prison. A cell, with walls of coldness and darkness and gravity. A sarcophagus.

She stood up and walked unsteadily back towards the iron gates of the cemetery. It was time for her appointment. The embryo inside her was six weeks old. Neurogenesis would be well under way, the rudiments of a brain starting to form as cells differentiated and migrated. She would not bring it into this world to be mocked and devoured by tyrannical, alien intellects. She would spare it that. With its destiny in her hands, and the knowledge she had, there could be no choice. She would save it from the darkness before it could see the light.

She felt too numb to cry as she crossed the road to the clinic. She walked with her eyes down, and stared at the ground with fierce concentration—because she knew that in the shadows of the cemetery would be a black-robed figure, beckoning to her and waiting.

Thank you for choosing to read Sarcophagus . I hope that you enjoyed it reading it, and that you feel your investment in it was rewarded. As always, honest reviews and ratings by readers remain the only real source of legitimacy for independently published writers, and are always appreciated. I would also like to express my thanks to my editor, Toni Rakestraw, for her invaluable insights and patient corrections, and to Jordan Saia, who’s cover illustration has once again blown me away.

In case you have been left with any residual curiosity about the technology and folklore incorporated into this story, I would also like to take this opportunity to provide some context.

While the ‘Carapace’ in this book draws heavily on the proposed design for the real New Safe Confinement for Chernobyl, I have taken some distinct liberties with it for storytelling purposes. I should also make clear that ‘Octra’ is a completely fictitious consortium, and not meant to represent any company that might be involved in that project.

Czernobog, the Black God, is the name of an actual Slavic deity, about whom very little is known and much controversy seems to exist. I am far from the first writer to have used him, but he is probably best known today as the demonic entity in the ‘Night On Bald Mountain’ segment of Disney’s Fantasia .

The Kaptar and other cryptids alluded to in the text are also not original to this story, but exist as part of the modern nuclear folklore of Eastern Europe and Russia. Similarly, the `Black Bird of Chernobyl’ and the stories surrounding it are something that I imported rather than created from scratch.

Finally, I think that it would be in very poor taste to set a story in and around the Chernobyl reactor and not take a moment to pay tribute to the many people who sacrificed their health, and, in too many cases, their lives, to mitigate against the worst effects of the 1986 disaster. Amid the uncertainty and secrecy that still surrounds aspects of the aftermath, the exact extent of their sacrifice may never be clear – but their courage can hardly be questioned.

copyright 2012 by Philip Hemplow

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronical or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system without prior written permission of the author. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

All characters in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cover art by Jordan Saia http://www.jordansaia.com