Cold Hell - 27. Chapter 26

At first Calvin had been worried about Danni, but now that worry had turned into outright panic. He backed away from Danni’s door and stepped out into the night. The weather had calmed down for the moment; several groups of people were walking in between the dormitories, either going to the pub or the sauna. After four days of being cooped up due to the blizzard, the people of Clan Wuxia wanted to let off some steam.

Calvin scanned the hooded faces, looking for the familiar glint of blue eyes, the flash of blonde hair caught in the beam of a light; hoping against hope. But of course none of them were Danni. Calvin already had an idea of where Danni had gone but didn’t want to admit it. Because if it was the truth then the chances of Calvin being able to make up for the terrible things he’d said to his best friend were very slim.

When Danni didn’t answer the door the first day or come to the processing plant, Calvin initially assumed Danni was upset with him - and why wouldn’t he be? But then Rhys, the man Danni and he had helped when the cow gave birth, had told him he’d seen Dinah, Danni, and Everest get into a truck. “It looked like they were packing some pretty heavy weaponry,” Rhys had said.

“Did they say where they were going?” Calvin asked. He remembered how his mouth had gone dry, as if all the saliva in his body had dried up - the same way it felt now.

Rhys shook his head. “Nor did they say what they were doing or when they’d be back. But judging from the way they were armed it must be serious. Maybe it’s a good thing we don’t know.”

Now Calvin bit his lip. Danni had to have said something to somebody, or maybe Everest had. There was no way they would leave without telling someone. Surely not. He was determined to find out. Guilt as much as fear and determination kept his mind spinning, trying to come up with a plan. Someone has to know something. I can’t leave things the way I did with him. Oh God, what if something happens to him and he thinks I hate him?

There were only two people he could think of to ask; he hated himself even more for only just now thinking of them. First he would head home long enough to warm up and get something to eat. He’d been running all day, nonstop.

To his immense surprise his mother was standing at the stove when he came home. She wore a long blue, shabby bathrobe; her salt-pepper grey hair was tied into a tangled ball on top of her head. When she heard Calvin come in she looked at him with a keen awareness. She actually smiled at him. “Calvin, you look about frozen to death. Want me to fix you some hot chocolate, baby?” Baby came out sounding like baba.

“That’s okay,” he said, looking at her dispassionately. He no longer felt hungry. He should have been ecstatic she was up and walking around, but his heart had gone cold. He didn’t even feel angry towards her, just numb. “You’re up and walking around, Mama.”

She chuckled, easing herself slowly in the chair across from him. She winced as she did so but she still looked good-humored. “Today must be one of my good days. Lord knows I don’t get them very often.”

“Hmmm.” Why did Calvin feel nothing but callousness towards this woman? Was it because Anastasia had raised him most of his life, working her ass off to take care of him? Was it because the accident at the processing plant had taken her mother away from him the same way it had taken Steig Evreux’s leg?

“Did you just get home from work yourself?” Minerva sipped at a mug of hot, herbal-smelling tea. She looked at him avidly. It was so strange to see her up and walking around, not fast asleep and oblivious in her threadbare armchair.

‘’No,” Calvin said grudgingly. “I’ve been looking for my friend.”

“Your friend?”

“Yes, Danni. We work at the processing plant together.”

She nodded. “Are you worried about him?”

Calvin let out a sigh, forcing himself to stay patient. “I’ve been trying to talk to him for the last couple days but he hasn’t answered his door or shown up for work.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” she said with a cheery smile that showed rotting teeth.

Are you mad, woman? Calvin wanted to say to her. Still in your own little world? Clearly you’ve forgotten how things are here on Planet Redemption. They haven’t changed. He knew she was incapable of understanding. Perhaps the accident and years of drugs had rotted her brain beyond repair. He felt a pang of sadness for the woman sitting before him. Had it not been for the explosion at the processing plant things could have been very different. Anastasia wouldn’t have had to work so hard to keep their little family afloat. Minerva wouldn’t be just a husk who was only aware of things half the time.

There’s no sense in waiting for the dead to come back to life - not when there’s someone out there who needs you, who isn’t just a waste of time. Calvin felt this was something Danni would have said to him, a bit of advice from his endless repertoire of wisdom.

“I have to find him,” Calvin said more to himself than to his mother.

“Won’t you stay and keep me company until your sister gets home?” The look of desperation and loneliness on his mother’s face tore at his heart for a second. He almost gave in.

“I’m sorry.” Calvin backed towards the hatch. ”I have to find him.”

He went to the first person on his list: Steig Evreux. Unfortunately the old man was no help. He leaned against the hatchway, looking at Calvin helplessly from behind his wire-rimmed glasses.

“You know where they’ve gone,” Everest’s father said, looking around to make sure no one was listening. “To go investigate the alien city Adwele said he discovered underneath the ice.”

Calvin sputtered, exasperated. “But that’s fucking insane! Why would they do that? Not only would they be walking in blind but they’d be crossing the line, violating the peace treaty. Who knows what shit that would start.”

“What can we do?” Steig asked. The helplessness in his voice made him seem small and feeble, something Calvin hadn’t seen him as, crippled or no, until now.

“I don’t know.” Calvin hung his head, feeling very tired. “Probably nothing.”

Steig smiled, stepping forward to place a hand on Calvin’s shoulder. His touch was surprisingly steady and warm. “Why don’t you come in and keep an old man company?”

Calvin backed away, overcome with guilt. The wind had been taken from his sails. “I’m sorry, Steig, I don’t mean to be rude but I can’t. I think I’m going to go to the brothel and have a drink or two.” And so he left the old man standing there, looking after him in silent surprise.

Ten minutes later Calvin reached the brothel. The inside was packed, pungent with the spicy smell of booze and warm bodies pressed together in a tight space. He smelled sweat, mixed with the same meaty smell from the sauna. He pushed his way past the thrashing bodies, flashing lights, and teeth-rattling bash of the music. Prostitutes lingered in the corner, some of them half naked or wearing nothing at all; one of them, a woman with pink hair bared her breasts at him, making duck faces. She screamed something after him when he didn’t pay her any attention; of course he couldn’t hear her over all the commotion but he knew it was something profane. He ordered himself a drink, ready to feel the burning sting of whiskey numb his gullet.

Calvin was about to down it when he noticed the person sitting next to him from the corner of his eye. It was Natalia, the head of the clinic. She was staring morosely at something he couldn’t see; she held a glass half filled with amber liquid. He gawked, surprised. Natalia was the last person he would have expected to get wasted at the brothel. All the times she had come to his apartment to check on his mother she’d seemed like the kind of person who would much rather be in a quiet place, where she was in control, rather than a chaotic place like the brothel.

She looked back at him with eyes that looked bloodshot - it was hard to tell exactly with the lighting. She leaned forward so her lips were almost touching his ear; when she spoke he could smell the whiskey fumes on her breath. It made his eyes water. “How’s your mother?” she asked. Her words were garbled.

“I guess she’s doing good. Today she was up and walking around. I can’t remember the last time she did that.”

Natalia nodded, apparently happy with the news.

“You look like shit!” he shouted back.

She nodded. “Feel like it too.” She held her glass up as if to make a cheer. “Bad times.”

Calvin didn’t want to push her too quickly, not when she herself looked so miserable, but the need for confirmation of Danni’s whereabouts took precedence above all else. “Where did Danni and the others go? I haven’t been able to find him for the last couple of days and we’re starting to worry. I said some pretty awful things the last time I saw him. I’d give anything to take them back.”

Natalia nodded emphatically; her lips sagged at the corners. “We all say things we regret...and unfortunately we’re capable of doing a hell of a lot worse. I’m not innocent either.”

Calvin could tell from the glazed look in her eye she was starting to lose the thread. He’d seen it on his mother’s face many times. He wanted to slap her. Instead he grabbed her arm. She looked at him, eyes wide, but made no move to pull her arm away. “Where did they go?”

Natalia squinted at him as if only now truly seeing him for the first time. “You know where they went - to that place Adwele talked about. Didn’t Danni tell you?”

Calvin felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He’d heard this from Steig of course but without confirmation he could deny it; Natalia had just confirmed it...and he could no longer deny it. He felt himself nod shakily.

Now Natalia pulled her hand away. She drained the rest of her glass, coughed once, and set her glass down, waving for the bartender to pour her another drink. Her expression was one of great misery. “I don’t know when they’ll be back - if they’ll be back.”

Having lost the last of his patience, Calvin waved the bartender back. “She’s had enough! Don’t let her have another fucking drink!” He grabbed Natalia's shoulders and shook her so hard her head flopped backwards and forwards. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you!” he shouted at her through gritted teeth. “I know you’ve been through a traumatic ordeal, believe me I have too! Two of them in less than two months! I know you broke up with Dinah - big fucking deal! Now she, Danni, and Everest are walking into a death trap and no one else but you, Everest’s father, and me know what’s going on. They have no back up. What’s going to happen if they need help and can’t get anywhere because they’re stuck? Are you just going to sit here and get drunk off your ass?”

Her face crumpled up. She was in great pain, not physical but mental and emotional. Her body was shaking so hard he could literally feel it vibrating; perhaps Calvin had done more damage than he’d meant to. Tears streaked down her reddened cheeks like liquified diamond. “What am I supposed to do? I’m just a clinician.”

“I don’t know what we can do,” Calvin said. “Probably not a lot. We’ll all probably just end up getting killed - but it’s better than just waiting. Don’t you think?”

Her head bobbed in a shaky nod. “Yes. If we’re going to die I’d rather it be sooner rather than later. But how would we get to them? It takes two days just to get there. Do you even know how to drive a truck?”

“Uh...a little bit.” Calvin chuckled. “Do you?”

“Some,” she said. “I’m not great at it.”

“We’ll figure it out along the way,” Calvin said, trying to be encouraging. “It’ll be better than doing nothing.”

“Yeah,” Natalia said, “and it might be the last thing we ever do.”

…

Danni felt as if someone - a particularly cruel someone - was pushing hot nails through his eyeballs into his brain. His stomach cramped and for a terrible moment he thought he was going to shit himself. He squinted, half blind. The colors around him were blurred, as if he was seeing everything through a filthy lense. At the moment he was half-blind and deaf. The emotions whirling around him numbed all senses except feeling. If he could, Danni would have exchanged all five of his senses not to be able to feel emotion at all.

He had to lean against the wall to keep his balance. He saw brief flashes of images, too quick and loud to truly be able to make anything out of them. He thought he heard Adwele’s voice but couldn’t be sure.

After a moment, he fought it, crawling through a minefield of terror and agony. A small fraction of it was his own but the rest of it belonged to people he’d never met. Because all of those people were dead. At last his vision cleared completely and he found himself gaping, his face matching the wide-eyed expressions of shock on Everest’s and Dinah’s face.

They faced a long corridor with white steel walls; the floor beneath their feet was made of metal treading. Lights flickered from above them. Wires hung from a tear in the ceiling like innards hanging out from the sliced belly of a pig. Worse yet were the smears of blood marking the walls. One of them started as the shape of a hand before turning into a bloodless streak almost half a foot long. But there were no bodies - not that he could see so far. The absence of dead bodies frightened him more than anything. The scene assaulted him with a dizzying sense of deja vu.

No one seemed willing to step forward.

We could turn back, get in the truck, drive away, and try to forget we ever saw this place, Danni thought. But he knew he couldn’t. Not if he was going to try to keep the infection from spreading throughout the rest of the planet.

Danni took the first step in front of them. “Hello?” he said, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

Behind him Dinah hissed, a cat-like sound that made him think of air being sucked through a tiny hole.

He waited, feeling a vein pulse in his forehead. Nothing moved to attack them. He glanced over his shoulder and nodded at Everest. All clear so far. Everest nodded and he stepped off the lift, with Dinah tiptoeing uncertainly behind him.

They moved down the hallway as a trio. There were more drops and puddles of blood on the floor. It ended at the elevator and moved backward in the direction they were heading. Follow the blood red road, Danni thought. For the first time he noticed a video camera in the corner of the ceiling to his left. A red glowing dot marked the fact it was recording them. Was anyone watching them on the other side? Judging from the look of the place the chances of finding survivors were very slim.

He stopped beside a desk. The desk was oddly neatly organized with pencils, pens, paperclips, and slips of paper for notes stashed inside a slotted wooden tray. A computer monitor took up most of the space, the screen dark. The computer monitor was nothing fancy, a twenty-first century model - still Danni marveled at the sight of it. He’d seen two at the clinic but it was still strange to see one on Planet Redemption. He was still trying to process the design of the place. It was a fortress. The people of Planet Redemption were more than just barbarians.

Danni nodded at the desk, communicating to Everest his intention to search it. Everest nodded, rifle pointed at the hatch ahead of them. There was only one at the end of the corridor. Aware of every passing second, Danni pulled the computer chair and quietly pulled open the drawers of the desk. Inside were files and binders: on the tabs of the files were summaries written by security guards, who sat at the desk monitoring who came in and came out. Inside the binders were what appeared to be instruction manuals, passcodes, and protocol lists as well as a map of the compound. The pages were laminated and hole punched.

Danni removed two of the pages - the map and a page of passcodes - and slid the binder back in the drawer. He contemplated taking the binder with him but then decided he didn’t need another thing to carry. Should something happen he would need both hands to be able to shoot his rifle at all times.

According to the map in Danni’s hand, the hatch led to the mess hall on the second floor. He found the appropriate six digit access code and typed it in. The hatch opened with a deafening hiss of air.

At the top of the stairs Danni, Everest, and Dinah were greeted by another chaotic scene. The mess hall was a large room. Towards the back was the kitchen, separated by a long chrome countertop. A hatchway marked the kitchen. Blood splatters and what looked like the work of absurdly sharp claws marked the hatch, tearing all the way. With an almost human moaning sound, the hatch slid halfway open before falling back down again. Chairs and tables had been flipped over. The smell of rotting food and spoiled milk made Danni’s nose twitch.

Still no signs of bodies or of the aberrations.

This isn’t right - where the hell is everyone?

“I think we want to head here,” Danni said, pointing at a blue level pentagon. “They’re both on the same level two floors above us.”

Dinah and Everest peered over his shoulder at the map. “What are the two floors beneath us?” Dinah asked. She squinted slightly.

“Security and the control room..”

Danni thought he saw a crafty glint in her eye. He wished he could tell what she was thinking but there was too much activity going on in the room already. His brain was filled with a smoke screen of static; the radio waves of her thoughts simply couldn’t break through. He made a mental note to watch her closely. He tried not to think about the actions he might have to resort to should she do anything to force his hand. He glanced at Everest: would the man stay out of his way or would he only make it more difficult?

I hope not.

“We should take the lift,” Everest said tensely. “I don’t like the idea of climbing up three flights of stairs. This just doesn’t seem right to me. Where is everyone?”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Dinah, casting a glance around the room. “There’s signs something bad happened: there’s blood, overturned chairs, and everything else but no people.”

To Danni the answer was obvious. He only had to think of the Adwele and the two dead men they’d found in the truck on Delivery Day. How long ago it all seemed now. Even though he was only in his mid-twenties - late twenties if you counted the year he’d spent on ice - he felt much older. We’ll find them soon enough, Danni thought. Or they’ll find us.

…

The lift jolted and shuttered. Danni forced himself to take deep breaths, his eyes fixed on the ceiling above his head.

Everest leaned towards him. “Are you alright?”

“I will be,” Danni said through gritted teeth, “when we do what we came here to do and get the fuck away.” Everest leaned back. Danni’s eyes swivelled to Everest apologetically; a fresh sheen of sweat had broken out on his forehead. “I’m sorry. It’s just you have no idea what it’s like being here. I can hear a thousand tiny little voices but can’t understand what they’re saying. And I keep seeing brief flashes of what happened but they’re so jumbled together and quick I can’t make sense of them. It feels like my head is coming apart - ”

He stopped suddenly, looking up at the ceiling. The premonition was quick; he saw a flash of red in his mind’s eye and felt goosebumps break out on his skin. He grabbed his rifle and pointed it at the ceiling of the lift.

“Everest, something’s coming,” he said. He waved a hand at Dinah. “Get back against the wall as far as you can.”

“What is it?” Everest asked.

“What do you think?” Danni said impatiently.

Just then the lift stopped with a dying groan and the flickering lights died, leaving them in darkness. Danni was already prepared. He pointed a flashlight at the ceiling, face pale and eyes wide with fear. His throat felt dry as if all the fluids in his body had dried. Just then there was a loud thump as something landed on the outer top of the lift. Dinah cried out, a hand cupping her mouth. Her expression reminded Danni of a fish out of water, flopping around helplessly to get back in the water.

The sound of several more feet struck the top of the elevator. Danni thought he heard the sound of barbaric growling coming from outside. The ceiling shook as something tried to break through.

“Dinah, see if you can get the elevator doors open,” Danni said through gritted teeth.

Dinah threw herself across the elevator and slammed her palm into the green OPEN button. The doors slid half open, revealing a large slab of concrete. Half a foot up was the lab floor.

“I think I can fit through!” Dinah cried.

“Do it!” Danni shouted, ducking as a spray of glass showered down on him; he felt a stray shard slice his cheek hard enough to draw blood. “Hurry it up!”

With a terrible screeching sound part of the roof was pulled apart by human hands. A human face snarled at him, the eyes filled with empty malice. Writhing appendages shot through the hole towards him. Danni ducked, stepped back, and fired his rifle twice. The reports were deafening in the small confines of the elevator. The shots hit their target in the face; the aberration fell back, out of sight, taking it’s sentient limbs with it. The creature was replaced by a woman. Her face had begun to mutate, grey-blue moss covering her cheek and forehead, the skin turning into the same color.

Danni squeezed off three more shots before his rifle clicked dry. He cursed, glanced towards the others. Everest was hoisting Dinah up effortlessly.

“Go!” Danni shouted when Everest turned to him expectedly. “I’m okay.” He slung his rifle back over his shoulder and pulled out his handgun. Blinding red-white fire filled the darkness, illuminating faces that then fell away under the damaging barrage of fire.

Once Everest was clear of the lift doors, Danni flung his weapons through them and pulled himself dexterously out of the lift just as several bodies dropped into the elevator.

They ran across the large room towards the door when it suddenly opened. Danni stopped as a man stepped through the door, dressed in a white lab coat. Everest was raising a rifle, about to shoot, when the man raised his arms and shouted, “Wait, I’m not infected! I can take you to safety!”

Everest put his rifle down, looking at Danni, eyebrows raised. Danni looked over his shoulder. The infected were beginning to pull themselves out of the lift. There was no time to come to a real decision for it had already been made for them.

“Lead on,” said Danni.

The man nodded and turned through the door he’d just stepped out of. He slammed it shut behind them. “Without a passcode the door has hinges that clamp shut,” he informed them. “They’ll have a hard time getting through it.”

“You’re sure?” Dinah demanded in an authoritative voice. “They seem to have no trouble tearing through elevators.”

“It will at least buy us time to get to engineering,” said the man; he spoke with a strong accent. “The lab is on the same floor with a reinforced steel door. It’s kept us safe.”

Us? He’d said us, Danni thought, which meant there was more than one survivor. Maybe they were in luck after all, though he didn’t dare let himself hope too much. However many survivors there are we’re now just as stuck as they are.

The man was looking at him funny through the lenses of his small glasses. He was short, with reddish-blonde hair and almond-shaped blue eyes. A beard covered the lower half of his face. Danni was sure he’d seen him somewhere before but couldn’t think of where - the man had a tattoo of an M on his face, which meant he was a clansman Mureen. Was it possible Danni had glimpsed him. At the moment it didn’t matter.

The man turned and led them up the stairs. The muscles in Danni’s legs and back groaned at the prospect of more climbing, but he pressed on. After passing through another door they entered another large room. The diesel smell of oil was strong. Tools lay on metal tables with equipment in various states of disrepair. A middle-aged woman stood expectantly in front of another door, her bright green eyes filled with a mixture of excitement and fear at the sight of the new arrivals.

“You’ve come to help us?” she asked, then stopped when she saw the tattoo on Everest’s and Dinah’s face. She looked to the man who had led them to safety. “What in God’s name are Clan Wuxia people doing here, Brantov?”

The man shrugged. “For now it is not important, Ulana. It can wait until we have more doors between us and the infected.” He walked at a brisk place, stopping before another hatch - this one was wider and much thicker than the others they had passed through - and quickly typed in a passcode.

The woman named Ulana cast the people of Clan Wuxia one last lingering glance of suspicion and malice before following Brantov into the beckoning hallway beyond. Danni and his group followed. The door closed behind them with a heavy droning sound, before hissing with a finality Danni hoped signified safety. The group passed several offices, the interiors dark. Danni was relieved to see there were no splashes of blood or the insidious blue-grey filament that was capable of mutating the infected.

At last they stepped into a recreation room complete with two sofas, a round table, kitchen, sink, oven, refrigerator, and counter space. The two sofas had been turned into beds with white blankets draped across the top and pillows resting up against the arm. A large window dominated the wall to their right, showing a clear view of the frozen valley in which the station sat; considering the horrors they’d witnessed since stepping out of the lift on the first floor, the view was quite arresting.

The room was comforting in its illusion of domesticity. Despite the dire situation they found themselves in, the man and woman did not look hurt. Though there were dark circles under their eyes, they looked quite clean. The same could not be said for us, Danni thought. He could smell the stink of his own odor and his hair felt oily and itchy from going multiple days without being washed.

The sense of relief he’d felt was quickly replaced by anxiety as battle lines were drawn across the middle of the room: the people of Clan Mureen stood on one side closest to the sink, the people of Clan Wuxia on the other.

“I think you people have some explaining to do,” said Ulana. “What the fuck are three people from Clan Wuxia doing here? You must have crossed the border, which means you’ve violated the treaty.”

Dinah puffed her chest up, looking indignant and self-important. “I am the clan leader of Wuxia...”

Ulana cut her off with an acid-green look; her German accent sharpened derisively. “Lady, I don’t really give a shit. I just want to know what you’re doing here.” Shit came out sounding like sheet. Danni chuckled, doing his best to make it sound like a cough. Finally someone beside myself is putting Dinah in her place, he thought.

He stopped. Again he noticed Brantov watching him. "Is something wrong?" he asked a bit too harshly.

"At first I wasn't sure it was you - or perhaps I just didn't want to believe it - but now I am sure it is you, Danni Aamodt the V."

Danni felt a violet streak of alarm pass through him; he knew this man for sure but could not remember how. He flipped through the catalogued pages of his memory but came up blank.

Brantov smiled a bit smugly; when he spoke his voice was soft and sure. "You don't recognize me? Don't worry, I won't hold it against you even though you ruined my life - then again, I suppose it's hereditary. Your family is quite good at ruining peoples' lives."

Danni could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on him. His mind floundered helplessly, trying to make sense of what was happening here. "Who are you?" he asked, his voice a hoarse croak.

Brantov's smile hadn't left his face, but only seemed to grow wider, more crafty. "Still don't remember me? Let me try to jumpstart your memory? It was two - maybe three years ago in Mexico. I was the assistant of Ustin Yegrovich. You and your little ragtag team of miscreants broke into the building, and you shot him right in front of me. I felt his blood splash my face…"

Mexico...two years ago...Ustin Yegrovich…

These words echoed inside Danni's mind, bouncing off the wall of a cave. He remembered.

He remembered.

A heavy, hot weight sunk to the bottom of his stomach. He felt his hands clench into fists and his eyes narrow in on Brantov like the scope of a gun. "You son of a bitch," he said. Then he reached for his handgun and aimed it at Brantov's head.