Murmansk-13

Tor felt his blood cool. “Who are coming?” But the fear in Jamal’s face was all the response he needed as the first monotone yowl drifted down the trunk and was swiftly amplified in concord.

Jamal grabbed Katja’s wrist, she struggled against his manful grip, pulling back. “Infected,” he said through gritted teeth. “We need to go. Now.”

Tor’s paternal and protective ire rose at the sight of Katja, so fragile, being handled so roughly. Her skin stark and ill juxtaposed against Jamal. “Ease the hell off.”

“There’s no time,” shouted Jamal, trying to pull Katja with him. “Run. All of you.”

“Oh God,” Tala said, taking a step back. “There’s more of them.”

Tor twisted, still grimacing at the impertinent scene below. Suddenly the caterwauling became deafening.

“Lots more of them.”

Emerging from the dim and dust were countless milky eyes, pale and opalescent, foreshadowing the arrival of their deathly housings. The noisome stench of decayed flesh, only just cleansed from Tor’s palette, wafted sickly down the stairwell. Dryly he wretched as he joined Tala, stepping backward. Only Mihailov remained stationary on the landing, his sights on the approaching horde.

The concussive report of rifle fire snapped in the confines of the stairwell. The round ripped into the approaching crowd. They kept coming. Mihailov released a second, then third round. The rounds chipped at papery skin as the emaciated, some near-skeletal, figures closed in, spent .22 cartridges whirled from the breach, chinking around his feet. The small survival rifle looked a pathetic match to the inexorable, innumerable foe.

“We have to move, Mihailov!”

Tor watched helplessly, his ears rushing as Tala shouted at Mihailov beside him. Tor saw a decomposed hand close over the muzzle of the rifle as the Bulgarian pulled the trigger once more. The hand atomized in a plume of mummified flesh, sinew and bone chips, joining the dust motes swirling in the air around them. The attacker curled its other intact hand around the gun barrel, pulling it from the receiver with a rictus grin splayed across its desiccated face. Disassembled and useless, Tor heard Mihailov grunt as he threw the twisted remnants of Nilsen’s rifle into the face of the infected, the Bulgarian realizing too late how close they had drawn as his awareness expanded beyond the rifle scope.

Beside him, Tor felt the rush of movement as Tala darted past and up. “No!”

Mihailov was stumbling backward, as clawing, emaciated hands reached out longingly toward him. Yellowed fingernails tore into the Bulgarian’s flailing gauntlets. Unconsciously Tor found himself scaling the steps towards his second mate.

Three steps back he heard a metallic pop, the gold couplings of Mihailov’s EVA suit deforming as he tried to pull away. Two steps away teeth joined fingernails around the gauntlet as others slowly closed on Mihailov’s flanks from the crowd. Tala was already behind him, adding her weight – pulling him back and away.

A step behind, Tor heard the couplings buckle, the gauntlet twirled up into the air, rotted teeth and cracked nails still imbedded within the fabric as it disappeared into the darkness of the trunk. Tor watched as Mihailov fell awkwardly, pushing Tala backward, his ankles hyper extending as he tried to release his mag boots. A grim face emerged from the ranks, jellied eyes sunken into calcified flesh. It moved deftly considering its advanced decomposition, ribs visible through ragged green flesh and tattered grey jumpsuit. It fell down upon Mihailov; its jagged, smashed teeth sinking into the exposed flesh of the Bulgarian’s right hand as he tried to push its widening maw away with his left.

Mihailov’s elemental yell cut through the frenzied keening that buzzed around the trunk. His boots releasing as he squirmed in agony, Mihailov managed to kick out at the cadaverous attacker, but couldn’t lever it away. Tala, who had regained her balance, swung her heavy mag boot into the face of Mihailov’s foe, it’s face stove inward with a dry crack, like the snapping of a saplings branch. The incapacitated attacker fell atop Mihailov with a lifelessness to match its exterior.

Mihailov shucked the corpse from his body and looked stupidly at his degloved hand, blood welling around the visible musculo-skeletal structure. Tor and Tala grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him backward as the gathering horde smelt the metallic tang of blood. Tor could see their eyes widen with hunger as he pulled his crewman down the stairs, degenerated mouths began clacking as if testing their atrophied muscles. Jaws opened cravingly beyond their living extent.

Jamal was suddenly beside them as the infected began pincering their flanks , moving like a festering wave, lapping up and down over the stairs on calcified limbs. He grabbed Mihailov’s helmet coupling. “How bad?”

Tor was abruptly aware how exhausted his arms felt as his body tensed with fear. “Hand. Think he’s in shock.” He replied, insensate.