Dead Space: A Short Story (3 page)

“Where’re you going?” Avery yelled.

Willmore turned around to face them. “What if we are the only survivors left in the human race? What if this was some sort of nuclear attack, not just one, but several?”

“We would have probably seen something from here,” Avery said. “This wasn’t a nuclear attack.”

“Whatever the case,” Willmore continued, “At least one of us needs to survive to keep the human race alive.”

“And you volunteered yourself?” Avery asked.

“I’m getting some supplies ready and heading to the escape Soyuz,” Willmore said.

“What happened to waiting for the Russian crew?” Avery asked. “You said we couldn’t leave them behind. Leaving in the Soyuz was my idea.”

“That was before we knew they were going to crash into us,” Willmore said. “I am not dying up here, thousands of miles away from my kids.”

After saying that, Willmore disappeared from Avery’s view. Ryder then got up and sat on Willmore’s post. He put on the headset.

“Commander Ivanov, or whoever is in control of the Soyuz, if you can hear me, you need to perform the side maneuver now or you will crash into us.”

“Ten seconds before impact,” Samantha said.

“I repeat, you need to change your orbital plane slightly or they will be a collision. If anyone is hearing this, change your course right now!”

“Eight seconds left,” Samantha said as she did the sign of the cross. Then she counted down. “Six, five, four, three…”

The Soyuz changed its orbital plane. If it hadn’t done so, it would have crashed directly into the ISS in the next orbital cycle. Willmore would have had only a few minutes to make his planned escape. Now he had more time, but if he took the Soyuz, Avery and Samantha would be left stranded, at least for a while until the incoming Russian crew’s Soyuz was replenished with fuel. Of course, they didn’t know what state the Russian Soyuz would be in. Given the day’s nightmarish turn of events, anything was possible.

“The computer should have locked into the KURS by now,” Samantha said. The KURS was a radar system that the Soyuz computer locked in to, making the rest of the docking process an automated one. Even if the Russian crew was incapacitated, the Soyuz would automatically take care of the rest.

“Can you take over from here?” Avery asked Samantha.

“Yes, I got it. What are you gonna do?”

“I’m going to make sure that Willmore does not take our ride home,” Avery said.

Avery headed over to the crew quarters, where he saw Willmore sitting down, and his hands covering his face. He looked up at Avery.

“I’m sorry Ryder. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I just panicked,” he said.

“You didn’t want to die,” Avery said.

Willmore nodded. “I’ve prepared for everything, my whole life. I’ve prepared for everything but never for something like this. This was never a possibility.”

“Commander—”

“Drop the Commander, you’re right,” Willmore said. “There’s no order anymore.”

“No, I was wrong. There still needs to be some order and a chain of command. We don’t know what’s happening. But whatever it is, the Russian crew may have answers. Besides, you can’t leave Samantha and me up here.”

“I know, I know,” Willmore said. “I’m sorry, Ryder. I know don’t deserve the title of Commander.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, sir,” Avery said. “These are extraordinary circumstances. But Sam and I need you. We need to focus on our mission and right now the best chance to help our families is to talk to the Russians and find out if they know what happened down there.”

Willmore stood up, or rather floated up a few inches. “Let’s go,” he said.

They made their way back to Node 2, where Samantha was. She smiled when she saw that Avery returned with Willmore, who now had a determined look on his face. She knew that Avery would make him come around. He had the quality of a leader, of a man who can inspire others and see qualities in themselves that they didn’t even know they possessed.

“Glad to see you Commander,” she said.

He nodded. “Rogers, what’s the status of the Soyuz?”

“They made their final fly around. They should be docking in a few minutes.”

“What’s their speed?” Willmore asked.

“About ten centimeters per second,” Samantha said.

Despite his brief pep talk to Willmore, all Avery could think about was his wife. Veronica seemed terrified. He had never seen that look on her face before. Is that what the scientists and others at the Mission Commander Center looked like before they were attacked? Avery understood why NASA didn’t want to warn them about whatever wa.s taking place around the world, but it was an obvious mistake. The situation they thought they could contain was something that proved to be beyond their grasp.

“We got a docking!” Samantha yelled and they all high-fived each other. This was their first moment of joy since their whole world had crumbled just a few hours ago. The docking of the Soyuz brought a brief sense of relief for the mentally exhausted crew.

However, now came the menial but important task of making sure that there weren’t any gaps between the hatches. This process of checking for leaks and depressurization would take at least an hour. Usually, only one crew member was assigned to this task, but Avery and Samantha tackled this together, squeezing next to each other by the ISS’s hatch. While they were doing this, Commander Willmore kept trying to reach Houston.

Veronica’s horrified look was burned in Avery’s mind. He had to get to her, no matter what.

ATTACK – DEAD – CAREFUL

Her final words were a warning to him. He hoped those weren’t her last words ever. He hoped the distorted image of her face was not the last time he would look at her beautiful semblance. There was still so much more to experience together. They wanted to have kids, lots of them. They wanted to travel to Paris and London. They wanted so much from this world.

***

Finally, the last pressure checks were performed. Samantha and Avery then slowly opened the ISS hatch, exposing the Soyuz hatch. They stepped aside so that Commander Willmore could perform the traditional last step, that of knocking on the Soyuz hatch and listening for a knock in response.

Willmore knocked three times. There was no response. He knocked again, but the only reply was that of utter silence, an ominous silence that spoke louder than a knock.

“Let’s get this over with,” Avery said.

Willmore opened the Soyuz hatch, eager, waiting to hug his Russian cosmonauts, but there was no one coming to greet him.

“That’s weird,” Samantha muttered.

Willmore faced Avery and Samantha and shrugged his shoulders. He was about to turn around and enter the Soyuz when Commander Anton Ivanov growled and bit Willmore on the neck. It wasn’t a superficial bite; Ivanov took a chunk of Willmore’s flesh, arterial blood spraying Avery and Samantha. Willmore floated aimlessly, holding his neck as his life expired from him.

“What the hell!” Avery said.

Avery’s outburst caught Ivanov’s attention, or whatever this thing was that looked like Ivanov. His face was covered in blood, but not just Willmore’s blood. Avery noticed some blood that seemed dry around his right cheek. He could only imagine the horror that took place inside the Soyuz.

“Run!” He told Samantha, and although she couldn’t technically run, she knew what he had meant.

“Head to the Kibo,” Avery instructed her. That was the furthest place from this point, besides the pressurized mating adapter, which was a dead end. As soon as he finished saying that, he noticed that a second Russian cosmonaut stepped out of the docked Soyuz. Yuri Leonov, a Russian scientist, came out stumbling. Avery noticed he had bites on both his arms and legs. Anton had apparently attacked him, but had not gone for the fatal blow because Yuri was still wearing his helmet. He must have been the one making the final docking maneuvers while somehow fending off Ivanov’s attacks.

Ivanov noticed Avery looking at Yuri, so he turned around and viciously attacked his Russian comrade. He, or rather it, attempted to bite Yuri on his face, but its sharp teeth kept striking the protective helmet. Whatever had happened to Ivanov, it had turned him into a beast filled with rage.

“Leave him alone!” Avery said, looking around for something he could use as a weapon.

Yuri screamed as Ivanov started biting him on his stomach, the space suit giving away, exposing the cosmonaut’s skin. Ivanov wasn’t just biting him; he was eating Yuri’s intestines.

In the middle of that horrible scene, Commander Willmore sat up in a jolt.

“Commander Willmore!” Avery shouted over Yuri’s agonizing screams.

Willmore’s head snapped to face Avery. But it wasn’t Willmore anymore, not really. His eyes looked blank, devoid of any humanity, devoid of any vestige of a soul. He started to growl. Willmore had become one of those creatures in less than 30 seconds after dying. Avery kept that number in mind.

There were no weapons in space. Avery thought that if his 3D printer had been finalized, he may have been able to print a large and sharp screw driver, or a similar tool that could be used to stop Willmore and company. Of course, printing such a weapon would have taken a least a couple of hours and by the look on Willmore’s face, Avery didn’t have that kind of time. In a flash, Avery headed to the Kibo.

He flew by Node 1, and then past the Destiny Lab, where he had spent most of his time for the past five weeks. He could hear Willmore growling, not far behind. Part of him wanted to stop and give in. Part of him wanted to give up and give in to fear. But then he thought of Veronica and of his aging father who was in the early stages of dementia. He had to keep going. He made it to the Columbus lab, the pride of the European Space Agency, then through Node 2, or Harmony as a group of students from the United States had named it, and finally, he saw Samantha at the Kibo lab.

“They got Willmore,” Avery said.

“He’s dead?” Samantha asked.

“No, I don’t know.”

“What does that mean? What do you mean you don’t know?”

Avery sighed. “It means that Commander Willmore turned. He turned into whatever Ivanov is. After her got bit and died, he turned.”

“Is this what your wife was trying to say? Is this what happened to Houston?”

“It must have been,” Avery said.

“My husband! My babies! Oh my God. My boys!” Samantha wailed.

“Sam, get it together!” Avery said, shaking her. “Get it together! We don’t know that anything bad happened to them.”

Samantha nodded and slowly calmed down. “What do we do, Ryder?”

“We need to get to the other Soyuz,” Avery said.

“But that’s all the way by the Zvezda module. Those things are in the way,” Samantha said.

Avery thought for a second about the word Samantha had used, “things.” That’s really what they were. Commander Willmore had been turned into a “thing,” into a savage with an appetite for human flesh.

They could hear them now, closing in. They were perhaps only a minute or two away.

“We need something to defend ourselves,” Avery said.

“What about the tools in Unity?”

Avery had passed right above the tools when he was fleeing Willmore.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think about that on my way here! Yes, there’s a hammer, there’s a crowbar and a few long screwdrivers,” he said.

They were about to head back to the Unity node, when they saw Willmore, Ivanov and Leonov. Leonov had his entrails dangling, and yet, he was still walking. The three creatures were in between the Destiny Lab and Node 2.