Tor took two backward steps to confirm his fears before wrapping his arm around Mihailov’s lean frame and turning tail.
The grey curve of the corridor felt like an endless visual dirge, the edge of Tor’s vision darkening as he and Mihailov stumbled away in the flickering shadows. The monotonous coronach of the infected chasing them, somehow disorientating them, despite the seemingly infinite straight plain before them. Tor thought about the hard empty vacuum of space mere metres away as his feet pounded down the service corridor, the pain in his ankles, his calves, his whole body the only indication he wasn’t asleep, or in a coma and instead just trapped in a waking nightmare far worse. Mihailov’s agonized breathing provided a rhythm to their movement.
They gapped their pursuers, or at least it sounded so. Tor could no longer judge, could barely breathe. He just knew he had to keep moving, he’d lost Peralta, he’d lost Tala and he’d lost Falmendikov’s daughter. He couldn’t let another crewman down.
The interminable curve of the corridor was punctuated abruptly by the emergency airlock. Four primary life support systems lay discarded in the dust beside Falmendikov’s EVA suit, never to be required again. Peralta’s leather cam bandolier lay beside his helmet, sentiment required he recover the bosuns personal items, practicality demanded otherwise.
Ignoring the effects of his lost party, Tor rested Mihailov against the bulkhead and punched the airlocks entrance, the opening door causing a spindrift of dust to flutter at the threshold. Dispassionately, Tor began loading the airlock with two helmets, two life support systems, a roll of gaffer tape they’d used half of to create Mihailov’s rifle scabbard and a small motorized emergency pulley that he liberated from the bosun’s bandolier.
“We’re not going to have an awful lot of time.” Tor said as Mihailov absently watched his preparations.
The shuffling, keening sound of the infected became exponentially louder as Tor turned to his Second Mate. Mihailov was drawn and sweating profusely despite the cold. Quaking as if fevered within his EVA suit. Tor could see the first flickering shadows of their pursuers perform a ghastly dance across the opposing bulkhead, seconds later their skeletonised forms rounded the gentle curve.
“Time to go, Mihailov,” Tor said, he tried to heave the Bulgarian to his feet, but the ailing Second Mate was a deadweight. “Mihailov!” Watery, confused eyes like those of a senile relation peered at Tor. Summoning what little strength remained in his body, Tor hauled Mihailov to his feet, almost dragging the larger man to the airlock and shoving him in.
Mihailov fell heavily and sideways into the dark chamber, yellow and black warning lines helter-skeltered in disorder around the bulkheads. For a panicked second, Tor couldn’t find the interior locking mechanism, he’d been unconscious the last time he was in the airlock. As the twisted wreckage of anthropoid faces faltered toward them, their jaws at their inhuman extent, Tor managed to find the control protected beneath a thin Perspex cover. He felt relief wash over him as the ardent wailing that had so long accompanied their journey was cut off by cast aluminium. Desiccated bodies and rotten limbs pounded dully on the airlock door.
Tor didn’t savour the relief, nor let it take a hold of his exhausted body. How long until the infected found the controls and re-opened the airlock? Whether sentient or not, the control lay just beside the door and soon one of the massing throng would trip it. Tor knew the only way to secure his and Mihailov’s escape would be to begin purging the airlock, the interior door would then be failsafe closed. It would give him thirty seconds to dress himself and Mihailov and re-pressurize their suits. He felt his cramping stomach flutter as he hit the purge control.
The deafening klaxon, designed for helmet wearing space walkers and hiss of decompression suddenly drowned out any thought of the infected, now sealed just feet away. With his gauntlets clasped to his head, Tor stumbled to Mihailov, the Bulgarian curling up at the noise enveloping them. He strapped the primary life support system over Mihailov’s shoulders, roughly handling the Second Mate on his back to attach the colour coded components to their matching ports on Mihailov’s breast.
Fifteen seconds had already passed, Tor could feel the moisture on his exposed skin freeze evaporate, ice crystals started congealing on his eyelids as he cinched Mihailov’s helmet secure. Mihailov’s suit began pressurizing as the life support system took over, the missing gauntlet causing the pressure to vent into the lock, riming ice over the ad hoc bandage.
Tor had to dress himself quickly, oxygen was becoming thin within the airlock and he could feel the skin of his face begin to bloat. In the deafening chamber, Tor realized he was screaming as he pulled his own life support system on, every joint on fire as if being quartered by horses. His hands, swollen within the gauntlets, shook violently as Tor secured the life support tubing to his chest, fumbling with each feed as his dexterity was lost. He could feel the frozen flesh of his lips crack as the final component clicked into its port.
The klaxon stopped before Tor could recover his helmet; his body already weightless and exposed to space as he pushed from the floor despite the agonies wracking his flesh. His fingers had become useless lumps of meat within his suit as he struggled blindly, ice forming like cataracts over his eyes, grasping for his helmet. He was still screaming, even as the hard vacuum of space stole its method of propagation, numb and ruined hands finally cinched the helmet to his suit.
Mercifully, his suit hadn’t fully depressurized. Momentarily deaf, the first tinny sounds Tor heard over the helmet intercom was his own agonal sobbing and Mihailov. Forgotten in his own personal terror, Mihailov remained floating on his back, drifting to the now activating exterior door of the airlock. Pressurized oxygen still venting from the lost gauntlet, jetting crystallizing vapour and coagulated blood into the haze of dust motes.
Within the multitudinous layers of his EVA suit, Tor could feel his haggard flesh slowly deflate, the air bubbles within his joints diminish. As he pushed toward Mihailov, his crippled crewman’s screams causing the small intercom speaker to crackle with static, Tor felt the hoar frost melt against his skin and knew the fundamental torture his Second Mate was experiencing.
“Hang in there, Mihailov.” Tor’s synthetic voice sounded fatigued, barely cutting through the harrowing sounds of the Bulgarian. Grasping the emergency pulley and gaffer tape floating inanimately beside Mihailov, Tor began securing the gloveless sleeve of Mihailov’s suit, relieved pragmatic Peralta had had the presence of thought to leave an significant length of gaffer tape edging free.
The roll of tape expended, Mihailov’s suit was barely jettisoning gas, but Tor knew there was little he could do for Mihailov’s exposed hand, the edges of the ragged wound hardened with ice – bone and sinew freeze dried. The Second Mate slipped into thankful, silent unconsciousness.
Checking the motorized pulley was still affixed to his suits belt, Tor turned to see the cadaverous faces of the infected, noiselessly clawing at the airlock view port and pressing their hungry maws into the plexi-glass. He stared into their rabid eyes for just a second, but as he turned away, Tor felt the image burn indelibly into his mind, tearing at the threads of the memories of his life in space.
Gently shaking his head, free arm wrapped around his stricken colleague, Tor kicked off the exterior bulkhead toward the gash in the docking ring. Before, the hole had promised darkness as Tor tumbled toward the jagged metal teeth. Now, as he emerged from the maw of Murmansk-13, he felt the warm play of the red supergiant across his visor and the total emptiness the station had left him with.