Below Zero

26 OUTPOST ZERO, ANTARCTICA ^NOW

So they ran.

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.

‘What if we can’t get inside?’ Zak panted.

‘What? Why would . . ? What do you mean?’

‘They can control the doors; they’ll stop us from getting in.’

‘No.’ May slowed down. ‘No way.’

‘Or they’ll be waiting for us, like before.’

‘They won’t be. We’ll get inside and find a place to hide and… just come on.’ She grabbed him and pulled him with her, dragging him the final few metres to the edge of The Hub and out into the open.

May didn’t waste any time. As soon as they emerged from beneath the building she hurried to the steps and climbed to the front entrance. Zak was right on her heels as she pulled the emergency lever and the door swished open.

The light and the blast of warm air were a welcome relief that lasted less than a second. In an instant, Zak caught a snapshot of the interior of the base, and put out a hand to stop May who was about to blunder inside.

At least fifteen of the red-jackets were standing by the spiral staircase. They were in a line, facing the entrance, eyes closed. As soon as the door opened, their eyes flicked open to stare at the two intruders.

‘Join us.’

The room was different from the way Zak had seen it before. Instead of being pale blue, the floor was now covered with large patches of shining black insects. They were on the furniture, on the walls, smothering the kitchen, covering the staircase. The smell coming from The Hub was musty and rank.

Almost immediately, the insects rose into the air as one – as if a silent communication had passed among them – and they began to twist and flicker in the light.

Zak pulled May back, and together they tumbled down the steps on to the ice.

Whatever those things were, they were overrunning the base.

They scrambled to their feet and sprinted into the night, heading away from The Hub. Zak could only think of one other place where they might be able to hide. ‘The plane!’ he shouted. ‘Head for the plane!’

So they tore across the open ice, terrified, running for their lives.

Zak didn’t look back. He didn’t dare. Instead, he concentrated on the shape of the wrecked plane on the dark airstrip. If they could reach it without being seen, they had a chance.

But, as if something had read his mind, the strip lights flared into life along the length of the runway. All at once, the powerful beams shone into the clear sky, glaring in Zak’s vision. Now it felt as if he and May were running towards a wall of bright light, but once they broke through it, the plane was within reach.

They raced past the bent door lying beside the discarded pilot’s chair, and hurried to the place where the cockpit was torn open. They clambered inside and scrambled along the metal floor, keeping out of sight.

When they reached the place where Zak had been sitting during their flight to Outpost Zero, he stopped and risked a peek out the window.

The Spider that was chasing them had now made it right around the base to the front of the Hub, where a black cloud of insects was pouring from the open door. They spun and twisted as if they were one creature, and as they moved, fluorescent yellow spirals flickered in the centre of the swarm.

‘They’re coming,’ May said. ‘They know we’re here.’

Zak watched them with horror, and the events of the past few hours burned through his head at a thousand miles an hour. There was something he had missed. Something important. Something that—

And then it came to him. As crazy as it sounded, it suddenly made sense. ‘They know what I’m thinking,’ he whispered.

‘What?’

Zak kept his eyes on the swirling mass. ‘When we first came here, and the lights were off, I was sitting right here, in this exact seat, wishing the lights would come back on… and they did.’

‘We were all wishing for that.’

‘But later, in the base, when we needed the power to come back on, the same thing happened. And just now, when I was thinking about coming to the plane, the lights came on, like they knew.’

By The Hub, the Spider stood beside a swirling mass that was growing more and more agitated. The bugs were probing out into the cold, moving one way then another. And as Zak watched, a group of red-jackets passed through them, coming down the steps and standing on the ice.

‘It’s a coincidence,’ May said.

But the red-jackets were coming in this direction, and Zak was more and more convinced there was something to it. They knew he was here. ‘I’ve been seeing things too. And it’s not my imagination. It’s real. It’s like something’s trying to get into my head. To tell me something… and… I think it’s the bugs. The visions are stronger when they’re close.’

‘The bugs, Zak? The bugs are talking to you?’

‘Not talking. They’re… look, I know it sounds crazy, but don’t some bugs have, like, a hive mind or something?’

‘A hive mind?’

‘Yeah, like one big mind made up of loads of smaller minds. Like a swarm of bees working together. They move at the same time, all go in the same direction… they all know what the others are going to do. You know – a hive.’

‘I know what a hive mind is, Zak. But bees use smells and funky little dances. They’re not actually—’

‘OK, so maybe these bugs do it in a different way. They use their minds to join together or… I don’t know, but we’ve seen what they do. They’re smart. So maybe they got into my head and now they know what I’m thinking…’ He shuddered. ‘Maybe I’ve got one inside me right now.’

‘If you had one inside you, you’d be like them.’ May looked at the red-jackets approaching across the ice. ‘And you’re not a bug, Zak, so why would they try to communicate with you?’

‘I’ve thought about that.’ He raised a hand to the side of his head. ‘Maybe it’s because I’m different. My brain is different. It’s sick.’

‘Oh, Zak.’ May shook her head.

‘Don’t look at me like that. I’m not making this up. It really feels like—’ He looked at the red-jackets advancing towards the plane, surrounded by a swarm of insects, and he had an idea. Maybe there was only one way to find out for sure. So he closed his eyes and emptied his mind. He pushed away his fear, and pictured himself and May in Refuge. It wasn’t difficult; they’d been there a few minutes ago. He was careful not to think about what had happened there, and instead imagined him and May going into the office. He imagined they were tired from running, feeling clever for having outsmarted the red-jackets. They went into the office and locked the door, ducking out of sight in the shadows.

‘They’re going away,’ May said.

Zak kept concentrating on the image. Him and May in the office. Safe. Warm.

‘They’re leaving.’ May nudged Zak and he opened his eyes.

It was difficult to keep hold of the image in his mind while he was watching from the window, but May was right. The swirling cloud of bugs was moving back inside The Hub. Some of the red-jackets were heading back inside too, while others were making their way around the base. Zak could see the Spider that had bashed itself dizzy. It was steadier on its legs now, scurrying back the way it had come.

‘Where are they going?’ May asked.

‘Refuge,’ Zak said. ‘Because that’s where I just sent them.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m imagining us being there, so that’s where they’re going. It really works. They really are reading my mind.’