When Sullivan reached the bottom with the others close behind, he turned his light each way along the corridor and called out, “It’s clear for as far as I can see.”
Colbert pulled the image of the map into his thoughts and pictured the staircase they had just climbed down. “Head right.”
Sullivan and Cleveland led them along the corridor.
Another boom like the sound of a distant explosion vibrated through the ship, a reminder from the iceberg that they were at its mercy. Creaks, groans and the distant sounds of collapsing metal followed in the wake of the disturbance.
Sullivan nudged Cleveland with his elbow. “I know this mission has turned out to be the shittiest one yet, but if we ever get out of here we’re going to have a great story to tell our kids.”
Cleveland humphed. “It’s alright for you, you’re white. I’ve seen the movies. The token black man never survives.”
Sullivan laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t stand so close, collateral damage and all that.”
“Quiet you two and concentrate on the mission,” Colbert ordered. He knew it was only nervous banter, a way to push aside their anxiety, but he needed his men to stay focused.
“Sir, I think we have a problem,” said Cleveland.
“You ain’t farted again have you Cleve?” asked Crowe.
“You’ll wish that was the problem,” replied Cleveland, stepping aside so those behind could see the mass of wreckage blocking the corridor.
It looked like a couple of floors had collapsed. The floor they stood on sagged on one side towards the buckled wall and creaked unnervingly when they approached the blockage. Pieces of unrecognizable machinery lay entangled in the twisted lengths of metal and floor plates.
“I guess we go back and search for a workaround,” said Stedman.
Colbert stepped nearer the barrier and examined the wall for a few moments before he knelt and aimed his light through the small gap caused by the buckled wall panel. The beam penetrated a space that might be a room. He slung his weapon over his shoulder. “Sullivan, give me a hand. I want to see if we can enlarge this hole.”
The two men gripped the loose edge and forced it back with a protesting groan until the gap was big enough to crawl through. Colbert crouched and again shone his light into the room. “Hold here until I’ve checked it out.”
After crawling through, Colbert swept his light around the room. He searched low, high and everything in-between. Only when he was satisfied it was free of any monstrous threat, did he start taking in the room’s details. The beds situated at each end of the room were surrounded by strange mechanical arms. Cables hung from the circular pieces of equipment against the wall that looked like it might be some type of scanner that could move the length of the bed. Broken monitors and pieces of medical equipment were strewn across the bloodstained floor. The floor-to-ceiling transparent walls once forming what might have been a quarantine compartment lay in pieces on the floor. Even in its current state, it was obvious this room had once been a sterile environment and probably an operating theater, or some kind of medical facility. Screens as dead as the ancient corpse in the corner―patient or medical personnel was impossible to tell from the disarrayed skeleton―were placed around the room.
“You okay in there, sir?”
Colbert turned to see Crowe’s head poking through the gap in the wall. “It’s clear. Tell the others to come in.”
As Crowe disappeared to inform the others, Colbert crossed to the double doors, each set with a window in the top half, and peered out into a corridor vastly different from the others they had journeyed through. Apart from being wider, everything was white―the floor, ceiling, doors and every pipe, cable or fitting fixed to it. Colbert briefly focused on the identical set of doors opposite before glancing at the exits at each end of the short corridor that led left and right. All were closed. He moved to the door control and pressed the button. He wasn’t surprised it didn’t open; the whole level seemed to lack any power. He turned on hearing the others enter. “We need something to jimmy the door open.”
The men glanced around the room for something suitable.
Cleveland picked up a tool with one flat end and the other shaped like pincers. He held it up as he crossed to Colbert. “This should do it.”
Colbert glanced at the tool. At about eighteen inches long, it wouldn’t offer much leverage. “Give it a try. Ramirez, Stedman, get ready to pull the doors open.”
Cleveland forced the flat end between the doors and was surprised by how easily they parted when he pushed the lever to one side. Ramirez and Stedman pulled them apart wide enough for them to fit through.
Colbert stepped into the sterile, white corridor and looked at the door that led back to the corridor with the blockage. It was obvious from the bulge in one side of the door, the frame and the wall that it wouldn’t open. The door at the opposite end of the corridor would take them away from the corridor and their route to the armory. That left the door directly opposite the medical room. He stepped back, glanced at Cleveland and nodded at the door.
The men set to work and it was soon opened, setting free a fetid whiff of decay and acrid-scented air that wafted over them. The vision that greeted them was equally unpleasant. Though the bloodstained beds that lined each side of the room and the skeletal remains of long dead patients that occupied some of them were a concern, it wasn’t these that caused them the most alarm. This honor fell to the large, brown cocoons hanging from the ceiling throughout the room.
Not one of the men believed it would be a good idea to go anywhere near them.
“Close the door,” Colbert whispered.
The men were glad to do so and slid them together.
Colbert nodded at the door along the corridor. “Let’s try that one, but only open it a crack until we find out what’s on the other side.”
As soon as the door was open a few inches, Sullivan aimed his light through the slit. At first he saw nothing, but as his eyes adjusted he glimpsed something―two small points of lights.
“What do you see?” asked Ramirez, placing his eye to the gap when Sullivan moved.
“A couple of lights, so maybe the power’s on.”
A rhythmic thumping emanated through the door gap.
Ramirez saw the lights now bobbed up and down and were growing bigger and then the monstrous head rush into the light.
Sullivan looked at the floor when it started vibrating.
Ramirez stepped back. “I suggest we move as that direction is definitely not an option.”
Cleveland peered through the gap. “What did you see?”
“What do you think I saw, a bunch of pixies sitting on toadstools singing a merry song? It’s another damned monster, and it’s coming this way.”
“Do you see it, Cleve?” asked Colbert.
Cleveland stepped back from the door. “It kinda hard to miss, it’s a bloody big ’un.”
Thumping footsteps approached the door.
“Everyone back,” ordered Colbert.
The men retreated from the door but kept their eyes and weapons aimed at it.
A loud crash rang out when the monster struck. The force was enough to buckle the door slightly and send vibrations rippling along the floor, walls and ceiling.
As if in competition to the noise, another crash came from the medical room.
Colbert glanced behind. “Ramirez, Sullivan, check it out.”
The two men rushed back along the corridor.
The remaining men gazed at the damaged door.
A loud snort that sent a jet of misty breath through the breach was followed by a scraping sound and then a large eye peered out at them, glowing brightly in the reflected flashlights aimed at it. A thick black tongue snaked through the gap and waggled at them, as if it tasting their scent, before being pulled back inside its owner’s mouth. The eye disappeared from the gap and heavy footsteps moved away from the door.