Everything Dies: Season 3: Everything Dies, #3

By T.W. Malpass

'HE IS THE FATHER, WE ARE THE CHILDREN.'

 

The survivors of the Lazarus Project research facility fire managed to find a new haven deep in the Canadian Arctic, shielded from the dead by the harsh winter. Almost completely cut off from the outside world, already fractious relationships become ever more volatile as the group desperately searches for food and resources.

 

Doctor Foster continues her work to find a cure for the Necro Virus in order to save her most important patient, while the others squabble over whether or not the science that caused the outbreak should be crushed into the ground.

 

Unknown to all of them, a sinister presence they have yet to encounter stalks the barren plains of the tundra, watching and waiting for the right time to strike.

 

This is the third and penultimate instalment of the Everything Dies series and contains 8 episodes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T.W. Malpass
• Release date: Oct 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393623991

Book preview

Everything Dies: Season 3

Everything Dies, Volume 3

T.W. Malpass

Published by T.W. Malpass, 2020.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

EVERYTHING DIES: SEASON 3

First edition. October 16, 2020.

Copyright © 2020 T.W. Malpass.

ISBN: 978-1393623991

Written by T.W. Malpass.

Table of Contents

Episode One - Isolation

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Episode Two - Flight 637

1

2

3

4

5

6

Episode Three - If I Cannot Inspire Love, I Will Cause Fear

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Episode Four - The Children

1

2

3

4

5

Episode Five - Eyes, Tongues, Cocks

1

2

3

4

Episode Six - The Lord’s Supper

1

2

3

4

Episode Seven - Reawakening

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Episode Eight - Lich King

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

EVERYTHING DIES

SEASON THREE

by

T.W. MALPASS

Published by Sericia

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Copyright © T.W. Malpass, 2020

Cover Art: Michael Buxton

Formatting: Guido Henkel

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.

Episode One

Isolation

1

The dual-seater snowmobile with the single rider cut through the barren, featureless landscape, heading for higher ground.

Its rider braced himself for the gravity shift as the vehicle approached a steep incline. He applied more pressure to the throttle and the snowmobile’s engine responded, groaning like it was in protest at being forced to do the extra work.

Because the summer months were drawing in, there was no fresh powder to struggle through, so the sled navigated the sloping ground with relative ease.

Once the rider had reached the ridge, he released the throttle and brought his vehicle to a stop. Still saddled, he reached behind him, and something moved to greet his gloved hand. The large Siberian husky lying across the seat nuzzled against it, and the man reciprocated the gesture by petting the animal’s head. He then flipped open one of the pouches attached to the dog’s harness to retrieve a pair of high-powered binoculars.

Peeling his goggles away, he held the binoculars up to examine the distance ahead of him.

He scanned the horizon right to left and traced his view back to the dome-shaped curve of a building. There was only a small portion of the structure visible from his position, but he also spotted the end of a long antenna that was obviously jutting out from a separate building he could not see yet.

The discovery was all the incentive he needed to put his binoculars away, reapply his goggles, and ride the snowmobile over the ridge.

He came to a halt a bit short of the site and climbed down from his vehicle. The dog followed, stretching out with its front paws so its chest was pushed into the snow and its backside was raised, tail pointed to the cloudless sky.

The man removed his goggles and unzipped the top of his fur-trimmed hood to reveal his face. It was difficult to recognise Salty under the straggly red beard he’d grown over the months spent in the frozen extremities of northern Canada’s Yukon, but it had helped to keep him warm enough to stay alive. He always prided himself on being a tough son of a bitch. The cold was just one of nature’s elements he could never get used to.

He turned his gaze to the husky, who looked up at him expectantly with its piercing blue eyes. He felt suddenly envious of the dense layers of soft fur. The breed was made for these kinds of conditions, and he was most definitely not.

‘I must be losin’ it, Anna. I was certain we’d come this way before but just never saw it.’

Salty turned back in the direction of the site. ‘Looks like a satellite station. Let’s go take a little look-see. There might be somethin’ we can salvage.’

Salty trudged to the snowmobile and collected a long-barrelled hunting rifle from its rear and an empty holdall bag. His weapon was unusual in the sense that its scope appeared to be out of place with the rest of its design, as though it had been customised to fit. He hauled the rifle over his shoulder by its strap, and Anna leapt to attention, ready to follow him.

‘We’re gonna approach on foot, girl, just in case anyone’s waitin’ for us when we get there.’ Salty raised his eyebrows and smiled. ‘Chance would be a fine thing, huh? Anyways, I know you don’t mind the exercise. It ain’t your joints that are stiffening up in this weather.’

Although the silent approach was the most sensible, the flat, snow-driven land left nowhere in particular to hide. If someone truly was lying in wait for them and they had their eyes to the perimeter, they would be expecting company.

Before Salty and Anna could reach their destination, the early morning sun breached the horizon, and a blinding white light spilled out over the frozen ground and reflected from its surface.

Salty had no choice but to move forwards, shielding his eyes and trying desperately to see beyond it.

Eventually he reached a point where the structures were close enough to block the rays, and he was able to make out the building that housed the antenna he’d spotted through the binoculars and two reasonably sized portable cabins, each with a set of steps leading up to their entrances.

The large drifts climbing to about one-third the height of the outer walls indicated they had not been attended to for some time.

Salty paused to examine the signpost at the edge of the site. He reached up to dust away the snow so he could read it properly.

‘Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in Partnership with Stanford University (USA).’

Salty pulled his rifle from his shoulder, keeping a close eye out for any sort of movement in or around the buildings they were passing.

Anna trotted along by his side, sniffing the air as she detected the scent of man-made materials.

Over to their right, a large stack of oil drums lay on their side, bound together with rope to protect them from the harsh winds.

Ahead, just beyond the research cabins, were seven electronic devices positioned side by side in the shape of a semicircle. The plate-like structures were mounted on stands fixed into the earth.

Salty wasn’t exactly sure what they had been used to measure, but from his experience with technology, he recognised that they were a part of some type of high-powered radar system.

Anna’s ears stood to attention at the sound of the open door to one of the cabins as it swung back and forth on its hinges.

Salty decided to search the opposite cabin first, certain that if the door to the other one had been left open, no one could have been alive inside. Not that it would be a great deal warmer in the second cabin, the generators long since dead.

He climbed the steps and had to tug on the door handle several times before there was any kind of movement. He started to wonder if it was locked and he would have to use the rifle, but eventually the ice that had embedded itself into the door’s seal cracked away and he managed to prise it open.

As soon as they entered and Salty closed the door behind them, the unmistakable stench of death turned his stomach. He zipped his coat farther up to his face so his mouth and nose were covered again. He could only imagine how it smelled for Anna.

Her hackles rose, and she tucked her tail between her legs. She instantly recognised the danger such a scent could pose.

The width of the cabin seemed even narrower than it looked from the outside, and Salty knew it would be difficult to manoeuvre if they encountered any trouble farther ahead.

‘I know how much you hate these things and I don’t want you performin’ any heroics today,’ he whispered. ‘You stay right here, understand? Only come if I call you.’

Anna gazed up at him with her pale blue eyes and then moved into a sitting position as he’d asked.

‘Won’t be long,’ he said, followed by a wink.

He proceeded with caution under torchlight and used the barrel of his rifle to ease open the door to the first room. It was the medical bay. It seemed undamaged, aside from the bed being angled in an unusual position and close to the door.

Salty focussed on the pharmacy cabinets at the back and quickly unzipped the holdall so he could pillage whatever was left.

There were enough antibiotics, painkillers, and anti-inflammatories to keep them going for a couple of years.

The X-ray machine and the ECG looked like they would work just fine, but they were too heavy and cumbersome to transport back on this trip. If they wanted them, he’d have to bring at least one more body with the Snowcat.

He returned to the corridor and carefully made his way to operations, where the bulk of the research would have been conducted. The surface of the one-piece desk stretching the circumference of the oval-shaped room was clear, save for a few keyboards and monitors. Papers containing images of radar readings and schematic overviews littered the floor space.

Through the condensation of an exhaled breath in the torchlight, he noticed he wasn’t alone anymore. Over at the other side of the room, in the raised central operations section, a body sat slumped in a chair with its back to him.

Even though Salty knew there was no way any blood could be flowing through its veins due to the sub-zero temperatures and the body’s lack of clothing, he lifted his rifle as he crept forwards.

The beam of the torch glided over the shirtless man. Deep, unclean cuts had been made to his wrists, right down to the bone, and the knife used lay propped against the man’s right boot.

The blood had coagulated on the hard-carpeted floor, crystals of frost glinting within the red rain of his demise.

The poor soul’s mouth was open, as if petrified in a yawn of complete despair. Salty brushed a hand down the surface of the man’s face, but such was the cold, his eyelids refused to close.

Salty moved around so he was face to face with the corpse and, in doing so, almost stepped on an object just underneath the swivel chair. He reached down and picked up the pair of glasses. The left lens had a crack running through it, unlikely the result of the short fall they had made.

He leaned into the chair and carefully slipped the glasses into the dead man’s breast pocket so they could sit alongside the two ballpoint pens.

There was no more to salvage here and nothing else Salty wanted to see. He traced his way back to the entrance, but when he got there, Anna was nowhere to be found.

His face soured.

‘Damn stupid dog. One word from me and she does as she likes,’ he hissed under his breath.

He flung himself into the winds outside and began calling for her.

‘Anna! Anna, goddamnit, get your ass back here!’

Visibility was good and he still couldn’t see her. The snowmobile was where he left it, but she hadn’t started making her way back.

His only option was to search the second cabin, which he assumed was the researchers’ living quarters, and to hope her curiousness had gotten the better of her.

He trudged through the snow, angry and more than a little distracted. He probably would have fallen anyway, but his lack of focus made him that bit more surprised when he tripped and face-planted, dropping his rifle as he tried to brace himself.

He’d stumbled over something large buried under the snow. His first thought was Anna, and he scrambled back and began cupping large handfuls of powder, digging like a demented rabbit.

Once the black, charred tangle of a human being had been revealed beneath the drift, the relief superseded any shock he felt due to the discovery. He sat up for a moment to catch his breath, until the frustration of his insolent companion kicked in again and he staggered to his feet, picked up the rifle, and prepared himself to enter the second abandoned pod.

The door was open, so the snow and the ice had encroached inside, making it hard to tread without slipping, even in heavy boots.

Though the snow eventually dissipated by the time he reached the living quarters, the air was still dense, almost crystallised by the intense cold.

Fire extinguishers were fixed to the corridor wall outside each room. The living spaces were cramped but functional, with compact bunk beds fitted into the corner next to a single window. On the opposite side sat a desk that housed a landline phone and a laptop.

He searched every cupboard and behind every bookshelf—nothing more than a few keepsakes and family photos. He did come across the odd fictional novel, which he packed into his bag.

It wasn’t until the penultimate room that he hit the jackpot—a bottle of premium Russian vodka, two-thirds full.

He caught sight of movement in the next section—the flash of a figure. He raised his rifle, only to realise he had trained it on his own reflection in the countertop hot food display of the cabin’s stainless steel kitchen.

He made a beeline for the storage cupboards with a flutter of anticipation in the pit of his stomach. By the time he knelt down and pushed the sliding cupboard doors aside, his excitement evaporated.

There were a few cans of food and packs of dried noodles—not substantial. Dejected, he lazily unzipped his bag again and reached in to slide the cans from the shelf.

As the cans fell and clanged against each other, the large door to the walk-in freezer began to open. The creature that emerged was barely recognisable as a former human being. It had clearly been in a deep freeze at some point and had thawed over time. Its slick flesh hung from its bones like thinly pressed dough, grey and oedematous.

Salty’s rummaging around for supplies masked the wet slap of its footsteps as it followed the unmistakable scent of living tissue. Only when it let out a slow, gargled groan of excitement did Salty turn to see it.

He dropped the bag and snatched up his hunting rifle. As he tried to stand and face his attacker, he felt the downwards tug on the weapon and realised he’d accidentally placed his leg between its shoulder strap.

Before he could untangle himself to take aim, the creature was already on him, and Salty was forced to use the edge of the rifle to shield against its lethal bite.

Even though the monster was anatomically falling apart, it exerted a surprising degree of strength to keep Salty on the ground. Stuck in a sitting position, he couldn’t gain any leverage to force the creature back and get to his feet.

Its teeth gnashed inches from Salty’s face, and he stared directly into its discoloured eyes, unflinching.

Something struck the creature around its flank, knocking it down and pinning it to the floor. Anna stood on its oozing flesh with all four of her paws and held its left wrist between her teeth, dragging its arm behind its exposed shoulder blades.

Salty rolled out from the confinement of the kitchen area and lined up the fallen creature in his rifle sights.

‘I got it, girl. Let it alone,’ he said.

The dog either didn’t hear his command or chose to ignore it and continued to try to rip its arm from its socket.

‘Get out of there, goddamnit!’

This time, Anna responded to his raised voice, released its wrist, and scampered clear.

The rifle shot’s sound rang out and bounced around the narrow spaces of the cabin. Unlike the sound, the actual bullet was straight and true, shattering the creature’s skull.

Salty pushed himself up against the side of the countertop display to catch his breath.

‘Jesus Christ, Anna. Why don’t you do what I tell ya just one damn time?’

The dog scuttled over and immediately started to lap at his face and nuzzle up to him.

Her touch disarmed him, and he massaged the flesh on the back of her neck while checking the rest of her body for bites and scratches.

‘Curiosity ain’t so kind to dogs either,’ he said.

After a couple minutes resting on the floor, Salty gazed over to his current salvage packed into the canvas holdall, and a realisation came over him.

‘Come on, girl. We gotta make sure no one has designs on settin’ up camp here. This place is a little too close to home.’

Salty and Anna ventured back out into the snow. He loaded the salvage and as many fuel cans as the snowmobile could hold and then returned to both cabins, soaking their interiors in gasoline.

Once the structures were alight, the man and his dog stood on the outskirts of the site and watched it burn, the flames consuming any form of sanctuary for potential passing travellers.

2

Raine and O.B. lay behind a snow bank, white sheets draped over their heads and bodies to blend into the landscape.

O.B. shifted slightly to adjust the aim of his long-barrelled rifle, and Raine positioned herself beside him so she could whisper in his ear.

The thick fur of the female polar bear’s back appeared just over the rise. The hyper-carnivore stopped in its tracks to sniff the air. She turned her head and stared in their general direction with her black eyes, and Raine was convinced she had detected them.

After a few moments of examination, the bear puffed out an indignant snort and continued on.

‘Remember to hold your breath in just before you fire like I showed you,’ Raine whispered.

‘I know what I’m doing,’ O.B. said, pulling the rifle stock tighter to his shoulder and caressing the trigger. His delivery was cold, apathetic.

Raine trusted in the training she had already provided and turned her attention back to the majestic mammal, still searching her territory for potential danger.

Raine took no pleasure in what was about to happen. It sickened her to think about taking down a member of a species already close to extinction, but they were hungry and the bear’s flesh would keep their bellies full for a long time. Besides, nothing that lived was thriving anymore. Every species aside from the dead was on the brink.

O.B. held his breath and lined up the crosshairs right between the animal’s eyes.

Before he could fire, a single cub climbed the ridge to catch up to its mother.

He released his breath and took his eye from the sight, considering the new element introduced to the hunt.

Raine assumed that, like her, O.B. had lost his appetite for the kill. To her surprise, her young protégé relaxed back into a firing position and lined up the target again. As she watched the cub doubling its strides to chase its parent, the screams of the Iraqi children she’d killed echoed in her mind, and her blood ran cold.

O.B. knew it was the right moment to fire and squeezed down on the trigger.

The deliberate nudge from Raine was just enough to alter the shot’s trajectory by two inches. It struck the ground just ahead of the mother’s paws, puffing the snow into her face.

She grunted, turning quickly in the direction she’d come from. The cub reacted to her alarm and followed her back over the ridge until they disappeared from view.

O.B. sprang up from his hiding spot, casting the white sheet from his body, leaving the rifle on the ground.

‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ he said.

Still dazed from her flashback, Raine got to her feet to face him.

‘There’ll be other bears—ones that are alone.’

‘Are you kidding me? We’re rationing tinned peaches and you’re all for animal welfare now?’

‘I made the call. I’m not asking you to like it,’ Raine said.

O.B. unzipped his hood and snatched it away from his head. His face had altered significantly. It was elongated due to his loss in weight, emphasised greatly by the buzz cut that had removed his spiked, blue-tinted hair. The light of his previous innocence had long since faded from his eyes, replaced by an absence Raine recognised all too well.

‘I don’t get you, Miller. You teach me all this shit, and then you do the opposite.’

She held back on her response while she examined him further, acknowledging what he had become.

‘Maybe you’ve misunderstood what I’ve been teaching you,’ she said.

O.B. reacted with a bitter smirk. Then he turned his back on her and stormed off towards the Snowcat, still carrying the limp from his old gunshot wound.

Raine collected the rifle and the white sheets they’d used as camouflage. She gazed down to the ridge, the only trace of the bear and her cub the paw print trail in the snow.

3

Jason saw the Snowcat approaching from the kitchen window. He set his half-eaten bowl of cereal down, grabbed his fresh cup of coffee, and headed into the main hallway.

Over the past six months at the outpost, he’d grown an impressive and dense beard that now touched the top of his chest.

On his way outside, he remembered he’d left his coat in the infirmary, so he went by the rec room to collect a blanket to wrap around his shoulders before he exposed himself to the harsh temperatures of the Canadian Arctic.

He stepped out onto the concourse and waved towards the vehicle as it turned in the direction of the garage and helicopter repair centre.

O.B. didn’t wait until Raine had parked, jumping out while the Snowcat was slowing to a stop and walking to the entrance where Jason waited. He’d left the hunting rifle for Raine and just carried his own pack on his back.

‘Hey,’ Jason said to greet his return. ‘How’d it go?’

Blank-faced, O.B. barged past him to get to the door, colliding with his shoulder and causing Jason to spill some of his coffee. A small amount ran over his fingers, reacting against his cold skin.

‘What the hell?’ Jason said as he flicked the hot liquid from his hand.

O.B. never flinched and disappeared inside the station and along the main hallway.

By the time Jason had composed himself again, Raine was almost at the entrance.

‘What’s up his ass?’ he said.

Raine shook her head.

‘He’s sick of living on rice and beans, like everyone else.’

‘So, you found nothing?’

‘Not a thing,’ Raine said.

‘I thought things would be better after the thaw,’ Jason said.

‘Yeah? Tell that to the local wildlife.’

Jason shrugged and took a sip of his coffee.

‘Rice and beans it is, then.’ He offered some of his drink to Raine in the hope that it would warm her up, but she declined.

‘Salty back yet?’ she asked.

‘Nope. Haven’t heard from him since he set out this morning.’

‘No need