Disclaimer: The Thunderbird Universe and all the characters I use in the story belong to Gerry Anderson. No infringements of these copyrights are intended, and no money is made with this fanfic.

This story was written for the TIWF Halloween challenge and took me to an unknown territory – once again – I've never written horror before. I tried to make it scary, but I don't think I succeeded; it's more weird than frightening.


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Flickering Lights

by kaeera

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Chapter One: Humming

Something smelled very, very nasty.

That was the first thing that came to Gordon's mind as he slowly opened his eyes. The stench made his eyes water and left him feeling nauseous. Gods, had he forgotten to take out the rubbish again? But no, it never smelled that bad; there was something akin to acid in the air, burning painfully in his nose.

With a curse he rolled around and winced as something sharp prodded in his side. Why as he lying on the floor? The last thing he had been doing – well – that was...he couldn't remember?

And were those glass shards?

Gordon's eyes flew wide open as his mind finally connected with the sensory input. In one fluid motion he sat up and regretted it immediately when a swirling headache threatened to let him see his dinner for a second time that day. He clamped one hand over his mouth and waited for the nauseous feeling to pass. Only his willpower prevented him from spewing all over the floor.

"What the hell?" he muttered, his eyes sweeping around the room. It seemed to be a lab of some sort, a scientist's dream come true: distillers, blinking screens, test tubes and Erlenmeyer flasks filled with obscure liquids, bunsen burners of all sizes, petri dishes with strange cell cultures, and other objects he dimly remembered from his own, long-passed chemistry lessons at school.

Gordon himself was sitting on the ground amidst a huge mess of glass shards and a puddle of some clear liquid. His hands were wet, as was one side of his face. The pungent smell seemed to come from the numerous chemicals around him.

Not the trash then. That was a relief.

A small cut ran along his left hand, not deep enough to be a bother, but enough to hurt. He frowned at it, as though it was solely to blame for his predicament.

There was no one around, he was all alone. That was strange; Gordon had always expected a place like this to be full of people who hustled and bustled and did all kinds of weird things, like sewing ears to mice and inventing unmeltable chocolate.

"Hello?" he asked, but his voice only echoed through the lab. No response.

Looking down at himself, Gordon realized that he was in his IR-Uniform, though it looked a bit worse for the wear. His torch lay not far away from him and he grabbed it, glad to have at least something familiar nearby.

So he was probably on a rescue, he reasoned, and had somehow passed out in this room. An accident? Maybe he had hit his head somewhere – that would explain the headache. But honestly, that was embarrassing! The others would never let him live that down. Well, not that he intended to tell them.

Climbing to his feet, Gordon grabbed the small headphones that had fallen to the ground and settled them on his ears. "Gordon to Mobile Control," his voice interrupted the eerie silence. But nothing came back, not even static.

"Great." He glared at the offending puddle on the ground, which must be the reason why his communication device wasn't working any more. Well, he could always use his wrist watch, that one should still be okay, though it wasn't as handy as the headphones.

"Gordon to Mobile Control," he repeated, while he was slowly making his way towards the door. The lab was creeping him out, even though he couldn't say exactly why. Maybe it was because he couldn't remember coming here; everything was fuzzy, as though he was seeing it through some sort of milky screen. They had been on a rescue, and it had been a fire, that much he remembered; but from then onwards it all became hazy, a sequence of pictures that didn't make sense.

His watch came to life with a crackling sound. He could hear Scott's voice, giving strict orders and sounding tense. "Mobile Control?" he prodded again.

"Sorry, Gordon, I'm rather busy – is it an emergency?"

Gordon blinked. "Naw, not really-"

"Then call later. I've got to deal with this first." The connection was cut before the redhead could even reply. Scowling at the watch, he grumbled to himself. "Great! Thanks a lot Scott, that really helped me!" But he couldn't help feeling a slight spectre of worry. What was going on that had made Scott sound so terse?

Well, he wasn't a Tracy for nothing. Standing around here and worrying wouldn't help matters at all, besides it would give him wrinkles and he really didn't want to have a permanent scowl attached to his face. And after all, he had a job, didn't he?

Damn right. He was here to rescue people, and that he would do, no matter how bad the smell. There had been no one in the lab and no sign of danger, but who could say that about the rest of the building?

The doors that led out of the room were thick and sturdy; it was apparent that they had been designed to withstand fire and explosion. With all the chemicals Gordon had seen in the cupboards, this didn't come as a surprise. Chemistry had never been his favourite subject, but he knew that even the smallest amount of some rare materials could wreak havoc. They didn't even need to be rare, just the right combination of some household items was enough to create a bomb – as Alan could prove formidably every time he managed to bring a kitchen utensil to the point of melting.

Gordon chuckled to himself. Okay, he had to admit that the last kitchen explosion had been halfway his fault as well, after all he had placed the firecrackers in the toaster; but Alan's face had been worth it.

The door wasn't locked, but quite heavy to open. Gordon pushed with all his strength and slid through the opening.

The hallway that greeted him was dimly lit (was it already dark outside? How strange. The windows were black) and empty as well.

"Anyone here?" Gordon called, but with the exception of the echo of his own voice there was nothing to be heard.

The fluorescent lights hummed above him; one of them was damaged and flickered on and off. Gordon sent it an annoyed glare. He hated it when those things got damaged; the flickering was enough to make him aggravated. John had once told him that some people could get epileptic fits from watching a stroboscoping light too long. Seeing it now, Gordon could perfectly understand why. Even when he wasn't looking at it, he sensed the flickering and it was driving him nuts.

"Such an expensive building and they can't even afford proper lights? What a waste." It was a relief to talk, even if he was only addressing himself. With a shrug, he walked down the corridor, suppressing the feeling of unease that grew in his stomach.

The stairway was separated through a fire door. It was unharmed, like the rest of the building, and no smoke could be seen. Gordon sniffed the air, but found that his nose was still blocked by the acid smell. That was strange. What was the rescue for if not a fire?

He pushed the doors open and stepped into the stairway. This one was brightly lit and none of the lights flickered, much to his relief, though the humming sound stayed. It was almost like a beehive from far, far away; threatening and moving.

The stairs went downward quite a bit, and yet there was no sound. It was almost eerie.

Gordon couldn't remember the last time he had had a silent rescue. There were always people screaming in pain and fear, buildings groaning, things exploding, the noise of the machines, the orders over the communication link and all kinds of random noises that simply belonged to a rescue.

But silence? No. Silence meant death. If things were silent, then that usually meant that International Rescue had come too late. So far, Gordon had only witnessed that twice, and he really didn't want to experience it again.

"Hallo?" he asked again, just for the sake of hearing his own voice.

The lights hummed constantly. It was really getting on his nerves, that constant humming sound, and that was strange, because he was used to the waves on the shoreline and this really wasn't all that different...Gordon paused in his tirade. Something had caught his attention.

And then he saw the handprint.

It glistened in the bright light, a sharp contrast to the stark white wall. He narrowed his eyes and stepped closer. It was indeed a handprint; smaller than his own, but no doubt there, wet and slick and burning red.

Red. With a sick feeling he realized that it was blood, not dirt or mud or something else, as he had first assumed, and he wondered where the unfortunate person was that had left it. Maybe he – or she? - was lying somewhere in this stairway, unable to move, because he, Gordon, had managed to knock himself out somehow? This was unacceptable!

"Hello?" He started down the stairway, spotting another handprint at the corner. "I'm from International Rescue, I've come to help."

Humming.

Gordon glared at the lights. "Shut up, you, I'm trying to do my work here."

One of them flickered. He passed it with his gaze firmly fixed on the floor.

The handprints led him three floors down and then they stopped. Gordon looked at the closed door and at the stairway. He had two possibilities; either the injured person had gone into the corridor, or he had followed the stairway further down. Without any more prints to follow, he had no other option; he had to check both.

Feeling bone-weary, Gordon pressed down the handle, using all his strength to push it open. Damn it, why did those doors have to be so heavy, anyway? He wasn't exactly a weakling and yet it seemed impossible to open them with one hand only. Softly complaining about stupid architects and fate that chose to put him in such a situation, he entered the hallway. Like the one above, it was dimly lit. Most of the overhead lights had stopped working, but there were a few that continued humming, and one of them – flickered.

Gordon sighed, ignored the light pointedly and switched on his torch. The beam, though small and narrow, comforted him somehow; after all, it was his light and he could control it as he wanted to. Glancing around, he discovered a huge sign right beside the doorway. "Biomedical Research Department" it read, and under that, in smaller writing, "Professor Humphrey's office is temporarily located in Room 213". Hm, maybe Professor Humphrey was the one that had left all the bloody prints? It seemed highly unlike for a professor to do, but then again, people that were injured rarely acted in a reasonable manner.

Once more, Gordon called out, received no reply, and entered the first door of the hallway.

It led to a broom cupboard.

"Nothing in need of rescuing in there." He closed the door again and continued his search.

The next door was big and heavy again, probably leading to another lab. When he opened it, it revealed a dark room full of shadows. Pressing the light switch didn't help much; only one of the rows lit up, the others stayed dark.

"Is there anything working in here?" he frowned at the ceiling. "Hello? Anyone here? I'm from International Rescue, I'm here to help." He was slowly growing tired of shouting at empty air. Maybe he should ask Virgil to make a scan of the building to discover thermal activity, then he could save himself from all the trouble...speaking of that, why hadn't he thought of that earlier? It was a damn good idea!

Then he saw the handprint.

This time it wasn't on the wall, but on the floor, the blood already drying. It seemed as if the mysterious person had pushed himself up; the blood was smeared along the ground and small, red droplets were splattered all over. Gordon frowned and knelt down to examine the tracks. How weird.

"Hello?"

The humming of the lights began to seriously irritate him. Was it only his imagination or was it becoming louder? It became almost a buzzing sound, like a bee that was somehow caught in his eardrum. Gordon felt his eyebrow twitch as he passed by a window that led to an adjoining room. Goddammit, what kind of hell-hole was this? Man, was he looking forward to going back to Tracy Island.

"Scott?" he spoke into his wrist device, but received only static. Uh-Oh. That was weird. Those things were designed to withstand thunderstorms.

"Oookay." No need to get afraid. He'd just look around the room, find the injured person and carry him or her out to the rescue site. Gordon nodded, glad that he had established a plan of action.

"If there's anybody here, could you please reply? Or make a noise?"

Gordon stepped around a row of tables full of incomprehensible apparatus. The room was huge, but due to the various machines and glass walls, it was impossible to see the other end. Manoeuvring around the obstacles, he felt like walking through a labyrinth; and a damn eerie labyrinth it was. Places like this were supposed to be brightly lit and full of people in white coats. Seeing them gloomy and full of shadows only reminded him of old horror movies.

There were quite a few items laying around that indicated that someone had been here recently. A half-filled cup of coffee; scribbled notes, interrupted in the middle of writing; a sandwich, shoved hastily in a drawer (probably due to the big sign 'No Food allowed' that was featured an almost every wall; scientists, so Gordon deducted with an amused smile, weren't any different from normal people); and a computer that was still running, the screen saver blinking at him in an almost mocking fashion. Out of curiosity he moved the mouse, but a password request popped up, so he left it as it was.

With a half-smile he turned around (John would have loved the challenge, given the time) and froze in shock. There was another handprint.

"What the..." Gordon stepped backwards, narrowing his eyes in suspicion. The handprint wasn't on the floor this time, but on the window that allowed the scientists to look into the next room. However, Gordon had walked past that already – but he was sure that it hadn't been there at the time!

Which meant that it must have appeared while he had been playing around with the computer.

And that, in turn, was seriously creeping him out.

He swallowed through the lump in his throat. There's no need to be afraid, Gordon told himself. I just didn't see it. I must have been occupied with something else. Yeah. I must have overlooked it. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for all this.

Clutching the torch tighter, he made his way towards the door that led to the adjoining room, his eyes never leaving the bloody print. Illuminated by the torch beam, it seemed almost black, mocking him in his nervousness.

"Don't be such a chicken," Gordon reprimanded himself, not liking the fact how he was reacting. With a resolute frown on his normally so cheerful face, he almost yanked the door open and pointed the light inside. "Hello?"

No reply. His fingers searched for the light switch and found it almost immediately. A soft click, and then brightness filled the room, so hard and white that he had to close his eyes against it. The humming sound hurt his eyes – as if the lights were about to explode at any given moment.

Gordon blinked until the red spots disappeared from his eyes. He switched off the torch and hung it on his belt, taking the time to look around the room he had discovered.

Everything was white, even the cupboards. The floor was made of grey concrete, with a huge metal sink in the corner and a table in the middle.

His eyes widened as he realized what kind of table it was. "Shit."

There was a cloth covering the whole length, and as his eyes became more accustomed to the light, he could recognized faint outlines under it. Outlines in a human shape.

An examination room? Or...one used for autopsy? Or maybe a victim had tried to hide in here and lost consciousness?

Gordon wasn't afraid of the dead – he had seen far too many of them for that to happen. So he crossed the room in three swift strides and lifted the cloth of the body.

Sightless eyes stared back up at him. Once he must have been the same age as Gordon; now he was a symphony of marred flesh and lacerations, the blonde hair matted and filthy, green eyes wide open and glassy looking. Even though it was obvious that this person had been dead for more than a couple of minutes (the stink of formalin filled the air), the aquanaut checked for a pulse and was disappointed when he didn't find one.

But then...who had left the handprints? The blood had been fresh, they could be barely more than thirty minutes old! Yet there wasn't anybody else in this room. It couldn't be...

Gordon took a step backwards from the corpse. No! Dead people didn't walk around and leave prints all over the building. There had to be an explanation for this. Maybe the victim was confused and wandering around aimlessly...but why had he come in here? And where was he now?

The questions ran in a circle in his head. As much as he usually liked figuring out mysteries, this one was growing a bit crazy. He wiped sweaty hands at his trousers and pulled the cloth back over the body.

Glancing around once more, he made sure that there really was nobody else in the room (he even opened the cupboard, though no one could be hiding in the small space unless he suffered from serious anorexia). Then he made a swift exit and locked the door shut. Only after his fingers had snapped the bolt into place, he realized what a foolish action that had been. There was no way in hell that the dead man could get out of there. So why had he done it?

Shaking his head, he cut off that train of thought and consulted his wrist comm again. It took his fumbling fingers a while to find the right switch (for a moment he even forgot which one it was; now that was strange), but then the comforting crackle of static filled the air, sounding sharp and loud in his ears. "Scott, you out there?"

To his profound relief, a voice immediately answered. "Gordon! Where are you? You didn't reply!"

Gordon raised his eyebrows. First Scott brushed him off and now this? "I'm okay, Scott."

"Good." His older brother actually sounded relieved. "Listen, you'd better get out of there. Virgil has finished evacuating his part, and you were finished as well, weren't you? Things are getting a bit hot out here."

"I can't. I think there might still be a person inside."

"What?" Scott sounded confused. "But you said earlier that you had brought everyone out of the building!"

Had he? Gordon couldn't remember. That was really strange. "Maybe I did, but I've seen signs of someone running around. There are some really strange things going on here-" A sharp noise startled him out of his explanation. It was an almost clacking sound, so loud that it pounded in synch with his heart.

Scott didn't get it. "Strange things? Gordon, are you really okay?"

The clacking intensified. Gordon tensed. "Sure. Listen, Scott, I gotta go, there's something happening."

"What? You can't just cut off-"

But the redhead did exactly that. After severing the conversation (oh man, Scott would be furious), he made his way towards where the noise was coming from with determined strides. What kind of sound was that? It seemed like rhythmic tapping, something musicians did unconsciously whenever the listened to some music. It followed a certain pattern, one Gordon couldn't figure out, because really, music was Virgil's thing and not his.

Tapp – tapp-tapp – Tapp.

"Where are you?" he questioned, switching on his torch again to help him look. A soft giggle weaved through the air, raising the hairs on his neck.

Over him, the lights flickered. Gordon flinched and covered his ears as suddenly the humming seemed to increase tenfold and then it – stopped. What...? He looked up, but the lights were still on, and if he listened closely, they were humming, just not as loud as before. Had he imagined it?

Throwing a suspicious glance over his shoulder, he quickly finished his inspection of the room and stepped out on the hallway to go to the next one. The whole building was a maze, the rooms twisting and turning in themselves so that one could never be sure where exactly one was, especially with the light that bad. Gordon did the sensible thing and followed his hearing; the noise became louder as he made his way towards it.

"There's something really, really wrong." he told himself and shuddered. Maybe it was some kind of prank, played on him by his brothers? But no, they'd never do that on a rescue, never mind how furious they were. "But damn, I'm going to find out what it is."

The hallway ran past another door. The sounds seemed to come from within the room it led to. Ignoring the dreadful feeling in his stomach, he put his hands on the cold metal and pushed.

The tapping stopped just as Gordon hurried through the opening. The green emergency light was the only thing glowing in the room; that and the beam of his torch. It seemed to be a storage area of some kind – shelves adorned the walls, and there was a thick door at the other end that looked as if it might lead to a giant refrigerator. Well, he certainly hoped that his mysterious victim hadn't shut himself in there. But there were no bloody prints to be seen at all, so he guessed he was safe.

There were all kinds of boxes, glass jars and containers, some see-through, some made of solid metal. It was difficult to make out what exactly they were, but Gordon didn't really care anyway. No signs of a living person; so what the hell had produced the noise?

"Gordon!"

The bodiless voice made him jump so that he stumbled forward and almost crashed into the rows of shelves. Then he realized that it came from his wrist and felt a bit sheepish.

"Yes?" He answered, trying to calm down his racing heart. Gordon didn't like to admit it, but the surroundings scared him more than any earthquake disaster scene. Seriously, he wanted to get out of here.

"What the hell are you doing, cutting me off like that! And why weren't you responding before? Are you in trouble?"

It was amazing how Scott managed to change from severely pissed to extremely worried in the span of mere seconds. Gordon blinked in a daze. "I don't really know," he replied in a distracted fashion, still looking for anything that could have made the tapping sound. Maybe one of the lids wasn't screwed on properly so that something was falling on the ground? But no, that wouldn't be so rhythmical. So, what else? It had come from in here, and it had stopped just when he entered...maybe something in the ventilation shaft?

"Gordon!"

Once again, the voice shocked him. "What?!"

"Were you spacing out?"

He blinked. "Ah. Not really. It's just that there's...something...strange..."

Something flickered at the edge of his vision. Gordon narrowed his eyes and inched closer.

Now the worry in Scott's voice could be felt even over the long distance. "Gordon, did you get hurt? Where are you? I want you to come back right now!"

"Sure," he replied automatically, his mind going into the being-lectured-at-mode, which meant that his mouth made appropriate comments while his mind focused on different tasks. He was absolutely sure that there had been something moving...

"Tell me where you are!"

That was a command, and commands were to be obeyed. "Uh...somewhere in the Biomedical Department," was Gordon's vague reply. He peered around a big box and saw a row of glass containers. Scott continued babbling into his ear, but he ignored him, intent on finding out what was annoying him so much.

But there were only glass containers. Nothing could move...

And then it happened again. Something swished just before him, a mere flicker in the half darkness. Gordon whirled around and pointed his torch into the direction it had come from. He froze. There was indeed something moving. And it was. Inside. The. Containers.

He stumbled backwards, eyes wide, before he recovered himself and laughed nervously. "Ah – I bet I know what it is...it must be fish, an aquarium."

Yeah, because, well, it couldn't really be anything else, could it?

"What?" Scott, obviously, didn't understand anything. "Gordon, that settles it, I'm sending someone in after you, stay right where y-"

The rest of the sentence was drowned out by the sudden rush of noise in his ears. Gordon inched closer to the container, trying to prove himself that it was only fish – only to find out that there weren't any fish, nor an aquarium for that matter.

Instead he found himself staring at an oblong glass container with a face in it. And the face was looking at him.

Something very cold trickled down his back. There was no denying it. The face stared right back at him, hell, it even blinked! A slow smirk spread over it. A long, thing finger appeared out of nowhere and tapped against the glass.

Tapp – tapp-tapp – Tapp.

So that had been the noise. Gordon's hand startled trembling. The smirk grew wider, and then the face opened its mouth, as if it wanted to say something and...

"Gordon!"

A voice, so horribly distorted that it was impossible to make out whether it was male or female. He yelped in fear as it went right through him, to his very core and seemed to shatter something inside his heart. Suddenly, he smelled acid and the nauseous feeling came back.

The face giggled. He had never heard a more hollow sound in his life.

Gordon did the only thing he could think of. He bolted.

To be continued.