Eri Kamei
Antarctica, Facility
October 10, 2:01 PM
A short climb later and they were at the next door to
try, actually double doors set in a little ways from the
walkway. Also locked.
Risa offered to try and kick it in,
but Eri suggested they try the others first. She was feeling
more and more uneasy about how quiet things were,
and didn't want the echoing thunder of a door being broken
down to announce their presence,
though they'd
have to be comatose not to have heard or felt the
crash . . .On to the next, the only other door before an opening
in the wall with a flight of stairs going down. Eri jiggled
the handle and it turned easily; she and Risa readied
their weapons just in case—and at a nod from Risa,
Eri pushed the door open—
—and felt her mouth drop open, totally shocked.
What are the odds on that?It was a bunk room, dark and reeking, and at the
sound of the door opening, three, four zombies turned
and started for them, all of them freshly infected, most
of their skin still attached. At least one of them was
starting to go gangrenous, the noxious smell of hot, rotting
tissue heavy in the cold air.
Risa had gone pale, and as Eri slammed the door
closed, Risa swallowed, hard, looking and sounding kind
of sick. "One of those guys is wearing a Rockfort uniform. Looks like
a cook."
Of course! Eri'd thought for a second that there'd
been a spill here, too, but that really was too giant of a
coincidence. At least one of those planes outside had
come from the island, probably a bunch of panicked employees—
presumably not scientists—
who hadn't realized
they were carrying the infection with them.More sick and dying viral cannibals...
and what
else? Eri shuddered, trying to imagine the kind of
soldier Japan would be trying to invent for an arctic
environment... and what natural animals might have
been infected before their arrival.
"We definitely gotta get out of here," Risa said.
Well, maybe Niita got eaten, anyway, Eri thought.
Wishful thinking, though they certainly deserved a
lucky break. "Let's go."
The last place to check, a set of winding stairs, marked
the end of the walkway, descending into a near total darkness.
Remembering the matches she'd found at Rockfort,
Eri handed Risa her gun and fished them out of her
pack, giving Risa half before taking her weapon back. Risa
took the lead, striking two of the matches about halfway
down the stairs and holding them up. They didn't give off
much light, but they were better than nothing.
They reached the bottom and started to edge forward
down a tight hall, Eri on high alert as the darkness
closed around them. Something smelled bad, like rotting
grain, and though she couldn't hear anything moving,
it didn't feel like they were alone. She was
generally big on trusting her instincts, but it was so still
and silent, not even a whisper of sound or movement...
Nerves, she thought hopefully.
They could only see about three feet in front of them,
but they moved as quickly as possible, the feeling of being
totally exposed and vulnerable pushing them forward.
A few steps more and Eri could see that the corridor
branched, they could keep going straight or turn left.
"What do you think?" Eri whispered—and the hall
suddenly exploded with movement, wings flapping, the
rotten smell gusting over them.
Risa cursed as the
matches suddenly went out, completing the darkness.
Something brushed past Eri's face, feathery and light
and soundless, and she reflexively flailed at it in
loathing, skin crawling, not sure where or what to shoot.
"Come on!" Risa shouted, grabbing Eri's upper arm
and yanking her forward. She stumbled after Risa
breathlessly, and again, something fluttering touched
her face, dry and dusty—
—and then Risa was pulling her through a doorway
and slamming it closed behind them, both of them sagging
against it, Eri shuddering, totally disgusted.
"Moths," Risa said, "Jesus, they were huge, did you
see them? Big as birds, like hawks—" She could hear
Risa spit, like she was trying to clear her mouth out.
Eri didn't answer, fumbling for a match. The room
was pitch dark and she wanted to make sure there
weren't more of them flapping around,moths, eeww!
They somehow seemed worse than any zombie, that
they could brush right up against you, flutter up against
your face—she shuddered again, and struck her match.
Risa had pulled them into an office, one apparently
free of giant moths and any other Japan unpleasantness.
Eri saw a pair of candlesticks on a trunk to her
right and immediately grabbed them up, lighting the
half burned tapers and handing one of them to Risa before
looking around, the soft candlelight illuminating
their sanctuary in flickering shadows.
Wood desk,
shelves, a couple of framed paintings—the room was
surprisingly nice, considering the utilitarian feel of the
rest of the place. It wasn't as cold, either. They quickly
checked around for weapons or ammo, but came up
empty.
"Hey, maybe there's something we can use in these,"
Risa said, moving to the desk. There were a number of
papers, and what appeared to be a collection of maps
strewn across its top—but Eri was suddenly more interested
in the whitish lump stuck on the back of Risa's
right shoulder.
"Hold still," Eri said, stepping up behind her.
There was some thick, web-like gunk holding the
thing on, the lump itself about six inches long and
kind of misshapen, like a chicken egg that had been
stretched out.
"What is it?
Get it off," Risa said tensely, and Eri
held the candle closer, saw that the white form wasn't
entirely opaque. She could see inside, a little ...
... to where a fat white grub was squirming around,
encased in translucent jelly. It was an egg case,
the moth
had laid an egg case on her.Eri wanted to vomit but held it together, looking
around for something to grab it with. There was some
crumpled paper in a wastebasket next to the trunk, and
she snatched up a piece.
"Hang on a sec," Eri said, amazed at how casual she
sounded as she pulled the case off Risa's shoulder. It didn't
want to come, the wet webbing tenaciously holding on,
but she got it, instantly dropping it to the floor. "It's off."
Risa turned and crouched next to the paper, holding
her candle out—and stood up abruptly, looking as sickened
as Eri felt. Risa brought her boot down on it, hard,
and clear jelly squirted from beneath the sole.
"Oh, man," Risa said, her mouth turned down. "Remind
me to blow chunks later, after we've eaten. And next
time we go through there, no matches."
Risa checked Eri's back—
clean, thank God—and then
they split up the papers on the desk, Risa taking the
maps and sitting on the floor, Eri looking through the
rest of it at the desk.
Inventory list, bill, bill, list. .. Eri hoped Risa
was having better luck. From what she could gather,
they were in what Japan was calling a "transport terminal,"
whatever that was, and it had been built around
an abandoned mine—she wasn't clear on what had been
mined, exactly, but there were a number of receipts for
some newer spendy equipment and a crapload of construction
materials.
Almost enough to build a small city.She found a series of memos between two extremely
boring gentlemen, discussing Japan's budget allotments
for the coming year. It was all the more boring because
everything appeared to be perfectly legal. The office
they were in belonged to one of them, a Tomo Oda, and
it was from Oda that she finally ran across something that
caught her eye, a postscript on one of his lengthy accounting
reports dated from only a week before.
PS—by the way, remember the story you told me
when I first got here, about the "monster" prisoner?
Don't laugh, but I finally heard him myself, two
nights ago, in this very office. It was just as frightening
as the stories say, a kind of angry, moaning
scream that echoed up from the lower levels.
My foreman tells me that workers have been hearing it for
something like 15 years, almost always late at
night—the most popular rumor has it that he screams
like that because someone missed his feeding time.
I've also heard that he's a ghost, a hoax, a scientific
experiment gone wrong, even a demon.
I haven't formed an opinion myself, and since none of us are
allowed down there, I suppose it will continue to be a
mystery. I have to tell you, though, after hearing that
horrible, insane howling, I have no interest in going
below B2.
Let me know about that stem bolt shipment.
Regards,
Tom.It seemed that the workers upstairs didn't know much
about what was going on downstairs.
Probably better for
them, Eri thought... although considering the current
situation, maybe not.
Risa laughed suddenly, a short bark of victory, and
stood up, grinning widely. She slapped an Antarctica political
map across the desk.
"We're here," Risa said, pointing to a red spot that
someone had penciled in, "about halfway in between
this Japanese outpost, Dome Fuji, and the Pole itself, in
the Australian territory. And righthere is an Australian
research station—we're looking at ten or fifteen miles,
tops."
Eri felt her heart skip a beat. "That's great! Well,
we could probably hike it if we could find some good
gear.. ."
...and if we can get out of this basement, she
thought, some of her enthusiasm dying down.
Risa unfolded a second map, spreading it out. "Wait,
that's not the good part. Check this out."
A photocopy of a blueprint.
Eri studied the handdrawn
diagrams, side and top views of a tall building
and three of its floors, the levels and rooms neatly labeled—
and stood up herself, too elated to stay still. It
was a comprehensive map of the building they were in,
not tall but deep.
"This is where we are at now," Risa said, pointing
to a small square labeled "manager's office," on level
B2. Risa traced her finger down and left and down again,
stopping at an oddly shaped area at the bottom of the
diagram, like a big quotation mark lying on its side.
The tiny black letters read "mining room," and there
was a lightly penciled tunnel extending out of it with
"to surface/unfinished" written next to it, also in pencil.
"And there's where we need to go," Eri finished,
shaking her head in disbelief. The map Risa had found
would probably save them hours of wandering around,
and with as little ammo as they had, it might also save
their lives.
"Yeah. If we run into any locked doors, we break 'em
down, or shoot the locks, maybe," Risa said happily.
"And it's like a one-minute walk from here. We'll be flying
the friendly skies in no time."
"It says the tunnel is unfinished—" Eri started, but
Risa cut her off.
"So? If they're still working on it, there'll be some
kind of equipment laying around," Risa said happily. "I
mean, it says mining room, right?"
She couldn't argue with Risa's logic, and didn't want to.
It was almost too good to be true, and she was more than
ready for some good news ... and though it did mean
another run through mothville, this time, they'd be
ready.
"You win the prize," Eri said, giving in to her own
enthusiasm.
Risa raised her eyebrows innocently. "Oh, yeah?
What's the prize?"
Eri was about to answer that she was open to suggestions
when an unexpected and alarming noise stopped
her, coming into the office from nowhere and everywhere.
For a split second she thought it was some kind
of an air raid siren, it was so loud and penetrating, but
no siren started so deep and low, or kept rising like that,
or conjured up such feelings of dread. There was fury in
the sound, a blind rage so complete that it was incomprehensible.
Frozen, they listened as the incredible, grisly scream
stretched out and finally died away, Eri wondering
how long it had been since feeding time. She had no
doubt that it was one of Japan's creations. No ghost
could produce such a visceral sound, and no human soul
could encompass such rage.
"Let's go now," Eri said quietly, and Risa nodded,
her eyes wide and anxious as she folded the maps and
tucked them away.
They readied their weapons, laid out a quick plan,
and on the count of three, Risa shoved the door open.
Topic: Eri Kamei vs. Morning Musume (Read 84912 times)