“You didn’t feel that?”
“Feel what?”
“There’s something under the floor. I felt it tapping under there.” Like all the buildings in Antarctica, the lab was suspended on posts. Traditional foundations were not feasible on top of the ice. Nobody was pouring a cement wall down here. This created a small, open crawl space under the structure.
Konstantine wanted to grin, sensing a joke in the making, but the contrast of Hamlin’s grim expression led him elsewhere.
“What? Just now? Under this floor?”
“Yes! For God’s sake Konstantine! Stop responding like someone with a single digit I.Q. I’m serious.”
And then it happened again. This time it was two distinctive thumps, loud enough to be heard. Hamlin sought Konstantine’s face for confirmation. By his shocked expression, clearly he had heard it too.
“There, you see? What could it be?”
The stocky young man’s face slowly softened, and then finally mellowed into a smile.
“It is a joke! What else? Some of the others are trying to fool us.” He dropped to his knees and pounded on the floor with his fist. “Hey! Bugger off! We know you’re there. I’m telling Sokolov if you don’t stop. Come in and see us, you stupid bastards, before you freeze under there.”
There was one resounding thud in response. Then it was quiet.
“There, you see. I told you.”
Hamlin was horrified. He envisioned some sort of monster breaking up through the floor in response to Konstantine’s flippant response. But as they stood waiting, nothing happened.
Before he could stop him, Konstantine strode over and opened the outside door.
“Come on in, dumbasses! At least it’s warm where we are. Come on!”
There was no sound; no response at all, just a very cold breeze wafting into the room.
“Close the door, Konstantine.” Francis tried not to sound panicked. “You’ll freeze us out.”
He closed the door. “Lunatics. Do we have a flashlight here? I’m going to go out and kick their frozen asses.” He started to rummage through various drawers.
“Don’t do that. What would be the point?”
“I want to confirm my theory. Then you and I can plot some revenge before Sokolov comes to pick us up.”
Hamlin didn’t want to fully reveal how fearful he was becoming.
“Just don’t, okay? This is the most work we’ve done in over forty-eight hours. We really should stay on task.”
“Since when did you become such a company man? Or are you giving up on open democracy and embracing the Russian way of doing things?” Konstantine reached into a drawer and extracted a long, black flashlight. “Here we go! Just what the doctors ordered, right?”
A sudden deafening crash made both of them jump. What followed was a rapid-fire series of thumps against the back wall. It sounded like several men hitting it with clubs. It stopped as abruptly as it started. Then came the scream.
It sounded like a man, starting loud and getting higher and higher; the sound of someone being severely burned or slowly crushed. It was so penetrating, so immediate and so real, Francis found himself chilled to the bone. When it stopped, he found himself incapable of doing or saying anything.
“Did you hear that?” Konstantine spoke barely above a whisper.
“Of course I heard it. How could anyone scream so loud?”
“Not just that; listen.”
Hamlin heard it too. It was the sound of the Cat approaching.
“Damn, it’s Sokolov. Do you think we should warn him?”
“Wait. Let’s throw on our coats. Quickly! We can just run out to meet him before he gets out. Hopefully that keeps all of us safe.”
“Or sets us up to be ambushed. Shit!” No knowing what else to do, Hamlin joined his working partner in throwing on his outside clothes.
Konstantine was scampering toward the door. “Come on, move! Let’s get out of here.”
“Wait! Check the window first!” Hamlin urged. Konstantine had gone from one extreme to the other.
“No time!” Konstantine flung the door open. He ran out without as much as a perfunctory glance. Hamlin saw him take several steps successfully and decided upon impulse to follow. He almost forgot to shut the door in his haste. He flung it shut and joined Konstantine in running pell-mell toward the Cat and the perceived safety it may offer.
“Good heavens!” Sokolov said with a smile as they jumped in and slammed the door behind them. “Are you really that anxious to quit for the day?”
He saw the looks on their faces and immediately turned sober. “What is it?”
“There was somebody outside the lab,” Hamlin said succinctly.
The lights from the Cat illuminated the front of the building quite well. There were no signs of anyone or anything out of the normal. Sokolov turned so he could see Konstantine in the back seat.
“What are you talking about? When did this happen? How do you know someone was there?”
Konstantine pointed, his expression one of pure horror. “Look there.” His voice cracked when he spoke.
“Good Lord,” Sokolov gasped.
There, on the edge of the light provided by the idling Cat, appeared a solitary figure. Hamlin, unable to stop himself, strained for a better look. It was Pechkin.
He now stood perfectly motionless, his hair blowing in the frigid wind. He was slightly stooped over for reasons that weren’t immediately clear. And he was naked in the ferocious cold.
“How is that possible?” Konstantine whispered in complete revulsion. “He died.”
Hamlin was trying to make sense out of it. “Are we absolutely certain he was dead?”
“He had no pulse and wasn’t breathing. What other conclusion could there be?” Sokolov said.
“I don’t know. Maybe the virus did something to his metabolism to slow it down.” Hamlin had no other ideas.
“How do you explain what he is doing now?” Konstantine screeched. “Let’s get out of here, just to be safe.”
Sokolov hesitated. “What if we could save him? He’s alive now.”
“How can he not be freezing without any clothes on?” Hamlin asked. As he looked closer, he thought he actually saw little vapors of steam emitted from his uncovered skin.
“Lock your doors, Doctors, if you please.”
“Why?” Konstantine gasped. Francis simply complied.
The Cat began to roll ever so slowly closer to Pechkin. He didn’t appear to react in any way. Hamlin could see that his skin was a natural healthy orange, not the mottled white and blue you would expect from someone exposed to this cold air. As they got closer, he could see that it was almost a little red. The heat must have been radiating off him in a big way, as the puffs of blowing snow not only melted but seemed to transform to vapor almost immediately after landing on him.
The Cat stopped rolling. Sokolov started to roll down his window.
“I don’t think that is a good idea,” Hamlin said. Konstantine was too terror stricken to even vocalize his concerns. He actually started to slide up the back of the seat as his feet pushed against the floor in an involuntary attempt to get away.
The pane of glass was only open a couple of inches. Sokolov strained to get his mouth in position.
“Pechkin! Can you understand me? We want to help you.”
Pechkin stood motionless, but his mouth began to move. It looked for all the world like he was speaking.
“Can you see this, Dr. Hamlin?” Sokolov asked, ignoring the panicked Konstantine.
Francis, to his chagrin, couldn’t find a way to tear his eyes off the stricken man.
“I see it. Is he talking?”
“It would at least appear so. I can’t hear him at all—we’re still too far away.”
“Wait,” Hamlin said abruptly. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but before you get any closer, keep in mind how strong and wild he was when he first got ill. If he was in his own sound mind, don’t you think he would have approached us by now?”