Below Zero

25 OUTPOST ZERO, ANTARCTICA ^NOW

‘What on earth were you thinking?’ Mum called as she and the others ran to where Zak was standing.

Zak had been so worked up, so crazed, he hadn’t realized how far out he’d come. Now that he turned to see them rushing towards him, he realized he was halfway along the walkway. The wind was whistling around him, snatching away his cloudy breath.

‘What were you thinking?’ Mum said again as she threw her arms around him. ‘You could have been—’ She stopped, but Zak knew what she had been about to say.

Killed. You could have been killed.

‘You went completely nuts,’ May said. ‘I mean, brilliant, but bonkers.’

Zak grinned at her, adrenaline still firing through his body. He was on a high now, feeling strong. On top of the world. He felt as if he could take on a whole army of those things. Just him and his fire extinguisher.

‘Don’t run off like that again,’ Dad told him. ‘I think you’re starting to enjoy this a bit too much.’

‘Someone had to do something,’ Zak said.

‘Yeah, well.’ Dad shook his head. ‘It should have been me.’

‘I was fine. Look what I did.’ He pointed to the smashed-up Frankenstein’s monster lying at his feet. There were bits and pieces of it scattered across the walkway.

‘I guess we know what happened to the plane,’ May said.

‘How many more of them d’you think there are?’ Mum asked.

‘We need to check the other back-up files.’ Dad turned towards Refuge. ‘Maybe find out what happened to Sofia, see if there’s anything about BioMesa. We need to find a way to stop this.’

Mum followed Dad back to Refuge, but Zak and May stayed where they were, fixated on the dead monster.

‘I really kicked its butt, didn’t I?’ Zak said.

‘Hey, don’t get cocky. The fire extinguisher was my idea.’

‘True,’ Zak admitted. ‘You were totally owning those creepy little things.’

‘I just imagined it was Vanessa and her clones.’

Zak looked up at her. ‘You really hate her.’

‘Hate’s a strong word,’ May said. ‘But don’t forget, we’re talking about the girl who posted that picture of me all over social media. The one where I was dressed as Angelina Ballerina when I was, like, five or something.’

‘Good point.’

‘You did good, though, little bro.’ May punched his arm. ‘Come on.’ She shivered. ‘Let’s get inside.’ But when she turned to head back to Refuge, she stopped and reached out to grab Zak’s arm.

‘What?’ Startled, he spun around and immediately saw what was wrong.

There were two people inside Refuge, heading along the corridor towards the office – but it wasn’t Mum and Dad. From their build, Zak thought they were both women, and they were wearing the same red jackets he had seen the settlers wearing in Sofia’s video. They must have climbed up the stairs from the ice, without anyone noticing.

Zak looked at May, and she looked at him. She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. The two of them stared at each other for several long seconds before May managed to get her words out. ‘Mum and Dad.’

And that broke the spell.

Zak dropped the fire extinguisher and they started to run, clomping along the walkway.

‘Hey!’ Zak shouted. ‘Mum! Dad!’

They raced towards the two figures in red jackets.

‘Behind you!’ May yelled.

When Zak and May were level with the steps descending to the ice on the right, the red-jackets reached the office.

A few paces closer, and the door slipped open.

By the time Zak and May reached the entrance to Refuge, the figures had entered the office and the door had closed behind them.

‘Mum! Dad!’ Zak’s voice was ragged from shouting. He thumped along the short corridor and slammed into the office door. He punched the button, but the door remained shut.

‘No! No, no, no, no!’ Zak hammered at the door opener.

May banged her fists against the window.

‘No!’ Zak fumbled to pull open the emergency manual release, but still the door remained shut. All he could do now was watch helplessly through the window at the horror unfolding inside.

Sofia’s mama and papa were inside the office, along with her brother, Pablo, and another one of the red-jacketed zombies. Crammed into the small space, two of them had grabbed Dad. They were holding him tight, as if they were hugging him. Or trying to squeeze him to death. Another two were doing the same to Mum. Both Mum and Dad were struggling, trying to move and shake them off, but the red-jackets were too strong.

‘Stop!’ May was shouting. ‘Please!’

Zak yanked the emergency lever again and banged on the release button, but nothing worked. Giving up, he joined May, hammering on the window, but the red-jackets were not distracted from their task.

‘Break it,’ May shouted at Zak. ‘We need to break it!’

Zak grabbed the fire extinguisher from beside the entrance. He turned it endways on and smashed it as hard as he could against the window – THUD! The reinforced glass was too strong, and the fire extinguisher bounced back, hitting him in the face.

‘Give it to me!’ May told him.

THUD! This time Zak was ready for the impact but still the window wouldn’t break.

Inside, the red-jackets held on to Mum and Dad as insects began to emerge from their cuffs. Black and shining, the first ones scuttled out from Pablo’s sleeve and ran across his hand.

Zak hit the window again.

Insects crawled out from the neckline of their jackets, from beneath the hems, pouring over their bodies, covering their arms, turning them black.

THUD!

The bugs scurried over Mum and Dad’s shoulders, rushing up their necks and smothering their faces.

THUD!

More and more of them poured out from inside the red-jackets’ clothes. Some of them took to the air, shimmering in a translucent dance, swirling together, moving in the same way Zak had seen inside the lab. Like he had seen in his vision. And after a few seconds, some of them displayed fluorescent yellow spots and began to move faster and faster, creating a hypnotic double spiral pattern.

THUD!

‘What are they doing?’ May shouted. ‘What’s happening?’

The bugs on Dad’s face began to shed their hard casings, the armour falling away to reveal the ugly translucent things inside. Narrow, soft and segmented, with too many legs, and an earwig-like pincer at the end of their bodies.

The same was happening to Mum. The insects crawling over her mouth and nose began to emerge from their armour. Mum and Dad were shaking their heads, fighting against the red-jackets, but neither of them could break away, neither of them could dislodge the creatures clinging to their bodies.

Zak was filled with horror and revulsion when he saw one of the soft insects try to push into Dad’s mouth. Dad bit down, cutting it in half with a splurge of goo, but when he tried to spit it out, another slipped between his lips and disappeared beneath his tongue. Beside him, one of the monsters extended its segmented tail into Mum’s nostril, the pincer-like tip feeling its way into her nose. It latched on and constricted, pulling itself inside.

Smash! The window gave in, shattering tiny fragments into the office and letting out a blast of warm air, but Zak was too late.

The red-jackets released Mum and Dad, leaving them both standing bolt upright, arms by their sides. Their eyes were wide, their chests heaving with fear and exhaustion as the remaining armourless insects pushed into their mouths, disappearing from view.

The rest of the insects spread their wings and joined the others in that hypnotic, spiral dance.

Dad tried to speak. His mouth opened and closed, like a fish out of water, gasping for life. His eyes bulged, his body trembled and… he stopped. His eyes softened and he stared ahead, his face blank. His breathing slowed to a steady beat, and his jaw slackened. ‘Join us.’

‘Oh no.’ May stepped back. ‘No. Please. No.’

Mum’s breathing returned to normal. Her expression relaxed and her eyes glazed over. ‘Join us.’

Zak couldn’t move. His mind was swirling. His muscles were numb.

‘Join us.’

‘Stop saying that!’ May screamed.

The black cloud of insects buzzed and clattered and flickered with colour. It spun in the air inside the office, gathering itself together, shifting direction and swarming towards the broken window.

Zak’s thoughts darkened. An ache pulsed deep inside his head, beating in time with his heart. The world around him began to disappear and he saw faded images in his mind. He saw a sea of writhing insects begin to form. He saw ancient explorers on the ice, beckoning to him. He saw mountains and forests and creatures crawling from boiling seas.

The feeling in his legs began to slip away, his body becoming weightless and—

May wrenched the fire extinguisher from his grip, her sudden movement breaking the spell that held Zak in place. Without even thinking, he moved out of her way as May lifted the nozzle of the fire extinguisher and pointed it at the jagged hole in the reinforced glass. She stepped back and squeezed the handle.

As the insects streamed out into the corridor, May hit them with a long jet of carbon dioxide. The force of it was strong enough to break up the swarm, scattering bugs everywhere. They pitter-pattered like hard rain as they spun away into the walls and fell to the floor.

May didn’t stop until the extinguisher was empty and the corridor was filled with a fog of carbon dioxide. The white cloud surrounded them, but it quickly dissipated into the cold air, revealing the insects on the pale blue floor – some crawling in a daze, others on their backs, struggling to turn over. Zak crushed two under his boot, but before he could do it again, May dropped the spent fire extinguisher and grabbed him by the arm, trying to pull him away.

‘No, wait.’ He pushed her off. ‘We have to kill them.’

‘There’s too many,’ May told him. ‘And look.’

Zak glanced into the office and saw the red-jackets advancing towards the door. Mum and Dad had joined them, blank-faced and terrifying.

On the floor, the insects were recovering, opening their wings and buzzing like wasps as they began to take to the air once more.

‘We have to run,’ May shouted. ‘Now!’