Despite Mihailov’s injuries, they had put some distance on the clamouring infected, their animal desire a continued hindrance in the tight stairwell. Behind the white reception desk and stout fire door Tor could hear the muffled metallic advance of shambling footfalls and sombre lust. Beyond the atrium, the station opened out into cheerless wide service corridors where the infected’s movement would be unfettered.
“Gotta keep moving,” said Jamal, gravely.
Adrenaline had long been exhausted as the group retraced their own footsteps in the silence and greyness of the curving corridors, leaving their bodies spent and quivering. Tor felt his mind willingly numb to the metronomic beat of mag boots, heart aching in his chest and his eyelids heavy despite the imminence of the threat.
Tor imagined each of them had winced when the first screeching sounds were heard. The distant scratching of the District Three reception desk as it chipped across the once pristine and purposeless tilling. Office supplies, so long in service to time, scattered across the atrium.
Mihailov was still laying a trail of blood droplets from his ruined hand as they past the stations schematic. Reticent for anyone to touch the sensitive and exposed bones and arteries, Mihailov had finally relented when Jamal tore a strip from his hoodie to bandage the wound. “They will find us quicker if we don’t cover it,” Jamal informed. As he secured the strip of dirt covered fabric, Mihailov bit down on a further rag of Jamal’s clothing.
The bandage stemmed the flow for only a while and as Mihailov’s blood renewed its steady trickle to the deck, Mihailov became pallid and listless. Once more Tor and Tala were called upon to guide their crewmate as the drifting calls of the infected echoed along the tube of the service corridor.
“How long till they’re on us?” Asked Mihailov vaguely as his breathing grew shallow.
Nobody chanced an answer, time became meaningless. A lost concept on a station frozen in quarantine, surrounded by seemingly infinite darkness and discarded by its custodians. Tor looked at the time readout embedded on his suit. It had stopped at twenty four hours, he wondered if that had been the point they’d slipped into purgatory. Would the Riyadh still be there?
Brooding quiet prevailed for the longest time; the group listening as the progress of the stations macerated denizens became louder and louder until even thought became impossible.
“You should go ahead,” said Tor, his voice hoarse with disuse. First to Jamal’s back, then Tala. His heavy breaths fogging the dimming corridor before him. “We’re not going to outrun them.”
Tala looked grief stricken, her bruised cheek streaked with tears. Jamal simply shook his head. “I can’t. I am not alone on this station.”
“There are others?”
“Yeah, I am an envoy of survivors,” Jamal looked at the gooseflesh that prickled his exposed arm, trying to reconcile his thoughts. “A messenger, for those seeking passage. From this Hell.”
“I hate to break it to you, kid,” Tor said, over the din. “We’re no rescue party. I mean, look at us.”
“That don’t matter. You got a ship, don’t you?”
Tor laughed, despite himself. “Barely.”
Jamal squared his shoulders and spun to face Tor. His face etched with fury. “This ain’t a game to me, man. This ain’t a fucking daytrip for me. You know how fucking long I’ve been stuck on here? In this Limbo, with these freaks for company?” As if on cue, a nerve shattering bray occupied the emptiness between them.
Drained by the innumerable hours of effort and of fear and flight Tor stared at the youth, Mihailov heavy on his shoulder and Peralta lost. The answer to all Jamal’s questions were that he didn’t care, even though he imagined they both wanted the same thing. To be home, with their loved ones and not on Murmansk-13. But Tor said nothing, he eyeballed Jamal and realized that the unseen advance had stagnated behind them.
A fragile, shivering sob; soft and human shredded the tension. Jamal’s eyes grew huge with Tor’s “Katja.”
Katja’s diminished and shuddering form looked tiny. Her atrophied leg muscles had deposited her in the centre of the corridor, her pale skin like a pearl against a backdrop of mottled brown and decaying flesh. Beyond Katja, the infected had stretched to the farthest extent of the twelve foot wide corridor, their depth of ranks hidden by the gloom. They lurched forwards as Katja scrabbled in the direction of Tor, her gown torn, their stiff steps matching her pace, playing. Primal grunts seemed to thicken the gelid air, voracious eyes catching the flicker of dying lights.
Tor’s chest tightened. “Oh God,” he murmured, struggling against his expended lungs. “Where did she come from?”
Jamal was looking wildly around the corridor for what, Tor did not know. His furious glancing stilled for just a second. “I have a plan, but the girl comes with me.”
“Katja?”
“No, her,” Jamal pointed at Tala, the Filipina scowled back at him.
“Impossible, I can’t relinquish another…”
Jamal cut Tor off in mid-sentence. “We haven’t got time to argue.” As he started speaking one of the infected pitched forward, warranting a yelp from Katja. Others held the decomposing attacker at bay as if coordinating a unified charge. “I need two to rescue Katja, I can’t do it alone and the girl doesn’t have a backup suit does she. It’s damaged isn’t it?”
Tor paused, processing the scene before him. “It’s damaged,” he replied, detached. “Tala, go with him. And be safe.”
“Captain?” Tala pleaded, dropping Mihailov’s remaining mass on Tor.
“If we’re going we’re going now.” Jamal was growing antsy, limbering up.
“We’ll be back,” Tor turned toward the Riyadh, refusing to look Tala in the eye. “Back with help.”
“Come on, Tala, the grate.” Tor heard Jamal say, then two sets of footsteps, one purposeful – the other uncertain – sprinting toward Katja and the baying crowd of infected.
She’s bait. The thought bolted through Tor’s drowsy brain like backdraft. As the hammering footfalls rushed away from him, Tor whirled around. Fervently, the infected were surging forward, their keening ululating and ferocious. “It’s a trap,” yelled Tor, or he thought he did, the once silent corridors were dense with the cacophony of the infected. Helplessly he watched Tala once more finding unorthodox use for her mag boots, kicking in a large metallic grate as Jamal grabbed Katja. The surprised girl wriggled in Jamal’s grip, but exhausted she could do naught but yield.
An unsure step forward, Tor watched Jamal purposefully turn to him and mouth, “run.” The seemingly silent word rushed toward him, a toneless order as Jamal yanked the near limp Katja toward the recess, Tala rushing to help apparently successful in decimating the grating. Gagging on terror, Tor watched the clamorous wave of clawing limbs and snapping jaws descend upon them, the two parties meeting at the low entranceway. Where Tala, Jamal and listless Katja had been mere seconds before were now feral bodies twisting and hacking at one another, each trying to wriggle into the conduit access, each trying to feed.
Paralyzed, Tor watched until Mihailov stirred beside him. “Captain,” he slurred, turning his head like a souse. “I think we better move.”
The infected’s rearguard had halted their attack on the recess apparently conscious that further assault would be to limited gain. Instead, numerous viscid eyes turned to Tor and Mihailov, the unmoving pair the subject of their renewed desire. The wizened, skeletal figures began marching inflexibly toward them from the dim, breaking from their fellow afflicted at the recess.