I don't own seaQuest, and I'm not making any money from this.

Big thankyous are in order to:Yury, dreamofshadows, Karel, Vampy, kas, Mar, sara, pari106, Teresa, TeacherTam and KatKnits00. Glad you're all enjoying it so far!

I realise putting this up so close the "The Station of Pure Evil Horribleness" might be foolish (that's a great story btw, you should all read it), but hey, maybe we can start a whole "seaQuest horror" subsection :). Sorry it's been a bit of a while coming, I can't promise the next one will be quicker, but I'll do my best...

Cabin Fever

Chapter Three

Hitchcock shifted her position and sighed. "Just one more wire," she muttered to herself, reaching for her soldering iron. There! She crawled out from under the generator and stretched her aching shoulders, grimacing as the muscles complained. "Damn, it's cramped down there," she muttered.

Suddenly she remembered Lucas. He'd been gone for – how long? She realised she wasn't sure. She'd been so engrossed in her work on the generator that she had no idea how much time had gone by. Still, how much trouble could the kid get into between here and the shuttle anyway? It was only a couple of rooms away. He'd probably got freaked out and decided to stay in the shuttle, where there was light and warmth. She didn't blame him.

Shivering, she moved over to the area he been working in. There was something very creepy about this place, and it wasn't just the knowledge that somewhere just around the corner were six rotting corpses. That she could cope with, even the smell, unpleasant as it was. But she had a disconcerting feeling that she was an intruder into the space of someone – or something – very old.

That was it. The place felt old. It felt that way, even though she knew it was the latest in undersea technology, a more or less self-sustaining colony at depths that had never been colonized in this way before. An experiment in itself, as well as a military outpost. Looks like the experiment failed, Hitchcock thought.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move.

She turned sharply, swinging the beam of the flashlight round wildly. There was nothing there but an innocent looking fire extinguisher, its label bleached slightly by the white glare. She shook her head, and a shiver ran down her spine. Hunkering down, she peered at the section of generator that Lucas had been working on. What had he gone back to the shuttle for anyway? She was pretty sure she had all the tools she needed to finish this job right here. And the sooner it's finished, the sooner we can get out of this place, she added mentally, casting a quick glance around her into the gloom. Taking a deep breath, she set to work, trying to shake off the feeling that she was being watched.

It was a few minutes before Lucas realised that the raspy breathing he could hear was his own. By that time his heart had almost stopped with fear. He swallowed, hard, and closed his eyes – not that it made any difference in this lightless world – shifting back to sit on his haunches. He felt the sweat that had pooled at the nape of his neck begin to trickle down his spine. Get the flashlight working and get out of here, his brain commanded. Obediently, he began to fumble with the casing, but his fingers were trembling, and, although the breathing no longer terrified him, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was something behind him. Find a wall. Right. A wall. Something to put his back against.

He started to crawl forwards through the darkness, groping for something solid. After For a horrible moment he thought that maybe the darkness was infinite, that there were no walls and he would be groping around for something solid for the rest of his life. Then his hand connected with a flat metal surface at right angles to the floor. At first he thought it was the wall, but then he realised it was a horizontal strip a few inches wide. Below it was empty air. Above it was something soft and yielding.

A mattress.

Lucas was on his feet in a second and backing away, his mouth dry. Backing through an unfamiliar pitch-black room was pretty damn stupid, but there was no way he was turning his back on what he had just felt. Because he knew what it was. He knew that somewhere in front of him in the blackness were six empty beds, their hospital corners and spotless linen somehow more chilling than anything a horror movie director could have come up with. And so he backed up, until his heel struck against the door sill and he stepped carefully over it and turned, leaning against the wall by the door and trying not to think.

His whole body was trembling now, he realised. Even his teeth were chattering. That's no big surprise, he told himself. It's like the arctic down here. Still, he found himself somewhat unnerved by how loud his chattering teeth sound in the silence, and he clamped them together, hard.

Flashlight, flashlight, flashlight. He began to fumble with the casing once more. The tips of his fingers were almost numb, and he shoved the flashlight back in his belt and rubbed his hands together, trying to put some life back into them. It hadn't been this cold when they'd arrived, had it? He remembered noticing with surprise that he hadn't been able to see his breath, and assuming it was some function of the decomposing corpses that he knew were here somewhere. He couldn't see his breath now, but then he couldn't see his hand in front of his face either. He'd never realised how much he relied on his eyes before.

Thank God he still had his tool belt. He began to grope for a small screwdriver. His legs were pretty shaky, so he sank to the floor, but generally he was feeling much better now that he had something solid to work on. He wasn't going to think about the fact that the cold seemed to be emanating from the doorway just beside him. He was going to think about how to fix the flashlight.



A few minutes later, Lucas cursed under his breath. One of the tiny screws that held the flashlight casing closed had fallen from his clumsy fingers. He had heard it hit the floor, the ring of metal on metal sounding incredibly loud. Well, if there really was anyone here looking for me, they probably would've found me hours ago, he pointed out to the part of him that was still refusing to come out from its hiding place under a psychic bed. Hours? He realised he had no idea how long he'd been wandering around this place. Hitchcock must have realised he was missing by now. Why hadn't she come to find him? Unless something had happened to her... He pushed that thought away. She was probably just too busy to notice the passage of time. Because time was still passing, right? No matter how much he felt like he was in some kind of hellish limbo, in reality he was in a small metal capsule deep under the sea, and seaQuest with its light and comfort was only a few hundred metres away. Right? Right.

He groped on the floor for the screw, but it quickly became clear that there was no way he was going to find it in the dark. Well, it wasn't that important anyway. The important thing was to get the flashlight working, then he could look for the screw. Although, to be honest, if he couldn't find the shuttle or Hitchcock in a complex this size, he didn't hold out much hope for finding anything else. Except maybe a room with six empty beds...

Shut up Wolenczak, you freak! Can't you damn well stop thinking for one second? He snapped the wires of the flashlight back into place, praying that the connection he'd fixed had been the only fault in the thing, and flipped the switch.

A bright white beam of light shot out in front of him, dazzling his eyes and creating dancing shadows at the edges of his vision. He blinked, and his eyes focussed once more on what was in front of him.

It was another pair of eyes.

Lucas wheeled, his heart in his throat, adrenaline pumping through his veins. Run! But he couldn't run, not that way, because that way were the beds, the snowy-white linen gleaming in the circle of light, menacing, their shadows looming large on the walls.

He wheeled again, desperately searching for a way out. The eyes were still behind him, dead eyes staring from a rotting face, but watching him, he was sure of it. He saw a doorway beyond the eyes, but as he swung the torch beam that way he saw that there were more. Three sets of eyes. Three corpses. All between him and the doorway. All staring sightlessly towards him, as if waiting to see what he would do next.

This wasn't the layout of the station, he was sure of it now. The freezer unit didn't connect to the barracks. He could see the blueprints in his mind. Nonetheless, this was his reality, and he had to do something.

He was going to have to jump over them.

Lucas put his shaking hand over his mouth, clenching his teeth together so hard that his jaw began to ache. His heart-beat sounded like thunder in his ears. Slowly, he backed away from the corpses, backed up to the doorway. He could feel the cold coming from behind him now in waves. But this room is supposed to be the freezer unit, not that one, he thought as if in a dream. It wasn't far enough. He was going to have to start his run-up from the barracks.

Swallowing hard, he stepped over the sill. He felt the pressure of the air around him increase. He thought he could hear whispering, barely audible, but he didn't look behind. Three more steps back. Two. One. He felt the bedstead against the back of his knees and fought back a wave of terror that threatened to paralyze him where he stood. No way am I staying here any longer than necessary. Tucking the flashlight into his belt, he took a deep breath, and started to run.

It could have only been a couple of seconds before he jumped, but it felt like hours. The beam of the flashlight was pointing at the ceiling now, dazzling his eyes, and wavering shadows flew in all directions. He counted the steps in his head, and when he knew he was there, he jumped.

He could feel the malevolent gaze of those three pairs of eyes watching him as he flew over them, and for a moment he was sure that he would feel a bony grip on his ankle that would bring him crashing down. But there was nothing. He hit the metal deck hard, stumbled, righted himself, and, giving in to terror, kept running, as fast as he could. The darkness seemed almost worse now that the flashlight was working again, he could feel it pressing up behind him, pushing him forward almost. He was breathing hard, and suddenly he had a vision of the darkness reaching down his throat with his breath, curling inside of him, brushing against his heart.

His foot hit something and he stumbled, putting out his hands to catch himself. The flashlight flickered off again and he cursed the lost screw. His left hand hit the metal deck hard, but his right one hit something soft and strange. Suddenly there was a rumbling hum and the station lights flickered on, dazzling him once more.

His face was inches away from a dead man. His eyes stared straight into an answering pair, half eaten away by who knew what parasites. But that wasn't what made Lucas' blood run cold. That wasn't the worst of it. Because his hand was.

His hand was.

His hand was inside the corpse's rib cage.

And Lucas screamed.