Category: Horror
Feedback: Please!
Disclaimer: Stargate:Atlantis does not belong to me and I make no material profit from this story.
Summary: A search party comes to the tower in search of a missing scientist.
A/N: I know I said I could not and would not write a sequel to this...but apparently my subconscious had other ideas, because I dreamed this last night.
OOOOOOOOOOOO
The search for Anders Hessling was well into its seventh hour, and John Sheppard had been, by turns, worried, irritated, scared, furious and resigned, and was now just plain tired. No one knew why the xenobiologist had wandered off on his where he had gone, only that he had to be somewhere in the city. Another scientist had just remembered Hessling's interest in the Northwest Tower, so Sheppard and his team – McKay, Ford, and Teyla – were headed for the tallest tower in the city. It was the last place they planned to look before going off-duty and handing over the search to another team.
"McKay, has anyone actually been to the Northwest Tower?" Sheppard asked. He was reasonably certain the answer was no. At this point, he was just making conversation to fend off the uneasy feeling that had lingered all day.
"No. We're actually trying to explore Atlantis in an organized fashion, Major. I realize the concept is as foreign to you as that of a hairbrush, but I assure you it will make things easier in the long run."
The words had the familiar ring of standard McKay snark, but the tone of his voice lacked the sharpness John expected to hear. He turned to look at Rodney in surprise, and saw the same expression of distracted apprehension he knew his own face bore.
But they'd already lost too many of the science contingent, and Sheppard knew it weighed as heavily on McKay as it did on himself, so he wasn't too surprised that Rodney was a little off-color now that another scientist was missing.
Ford and Teyla, on the other hand, seemed their usual selves, if tired from the long, fruitless search. They had spent most of the day discussing various aspects of Earth and Athosian cultures with little input from Sheppard or McKay.
It didn't take long to get to the base of the tower. The closer they came, the more animated – or rather, irritated – McKay became, frowning at the life-signs detector.
"What is it?" Ford asked, peering over Rodney's shoulder.
"It's not working correctly. See, those blips are us – but over here I keep seeing life-signs fading in and out."
"Where is that?" Sheppard was instantly alert.
"It should be the base of the Northwest Tower."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
He knew something was wrong the moment he opened the door. It was, oddly, not an automatic sliding door like every other one in Atlantis. A large bar swung across the door frame to keep it closed and locked, and Sheppard didn't miss the fact that the hinges were on the outside of the door. The bar itself was furred with dust – also unlike anything else in the city. The door was unlocked, the bar lifted out of the way, the dust obviously recently disturbed. When Sheppard touched the bar a spark of static electricity leaped to his skin, stinging and burning momentarily.
Nodding to Ford and Teyla to have their weapons ready, he carefully pulled the surprisingly heavy door open and peered inside.
The octagonal room was dimly lit, but completely empty save for the staircase that spiraled up the windowless tower. The stairs hugged the wall, leaving the center of the structure open, and there was no banister or railing to keep an unwary climber from tumbling off the stairs. Something else about the staircase bothered Sheppard, but it took a moment to figure it out: the stairs started on the left-hand side of the door and wound in a clockwise direction. Almost every staircase he could remember, both on Earth and in Atlantis, ran counterclockwise.
Sheppard stepped into the room and was immediately drawn to the steps. A nagging little voice in the back of his mind whispered don't, and he heard it echoed behind him in a groan that sounded like McKay. He wanted to look back and see what was wrong with the astrophysicist, but the compulsion to move forward was stronger. The world behind him and all the warrior instincts that should have been screaming warnings at him faded into a haze that left him feeling a dream-like detachment, all conscious thought filled with the awareness of the inviting stairs in front of him. He raised his foot, placed it on the first step and looked up…and up and up and up, vision focusing and narrowing, shadows swiftly creeping in at the edges until his sight was reduced to a tiny point high above him where some…thing…stared down at him. Then there was nothing but the shadows moving closer until he thought he could reach out and touch them. And then there was nothing at all.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
A stinging pain on his cheek pulled him abruptly out of a vertiginous darkness into spinning light that made his eyes water. He couldn't keep them open in the face of the blinding whiteness, and he flung up a hand to shield them.
"John? John, for god's sake…I want out of here, okay? I can't take much more of this…" The voice was familiar but it sounded oddly rough and desperate. He'd heard voices changed like that before, from throats damaged by screaming.
"Doctor McKay, please, you need to rest –" the smooth, low female voice was abruptly cut off by a gasp that he thought had come from his own mouth as his legs twitched with a renewed desire to climb those endless stairs. Without making a conscious decision he rolled over onto his stomach, rose stiffly to his feet, and staggered toward the steps. He had almost gained the first step when a sound caught his attention.
High-pitched and eerie, the keening filled the tower and drew echoes from the nearly sound-deadened walls. He wanted to turn and see what was making all the noise in this silent place, but the compulsion gripped him with renewed strength, almost drowning out his hearing, pulling him forward, urging him up. But at the same time the voice behind him turned into shrieks of unbearable fear and pain. He knew the voice that was making those awful, inhuman sounds, knew that no human throat could sustain them for long before giving out, and that the mind would probably give out before the throat did.
With a wrench that left him feeling like he'd torn something loose inside himself, he turned away from the steps. What he saw made him almost wish he hadn't turned.
McKay lay on the floor, writhing and convulsing and screaming, the thin-lipped mouth a huge red hole in his face. Ford and Teyla struggled to hold him down, but the thrashing was so violent that their efforts were barely effective.
Sheppard forced himself move back down the steps, even though every muscle, every nerve in his body, even his own thoughts, was urging him back to the stairs. He dimly noticed that he'd gone farther than he'd realized, counting eleven steps back down to the floor. Rodney's screams abruptly cut off and he lay gasping and trembling in Teyla's arms.
Ford jumped to his feet and reached for Sheppard, then hesitated.
"Sir? We can't get the door open. It closed by itself. I think you need the gene to open it."
He could see the whites of the Lieutenant's eyes and the quiver in his voice told John that the young man was terrified and barely holding himself together. He looked beseechingly at Sheppard, silently begging his CO to save them.
The several steps to the door were the hardest John had ever taken in his life, each one a struggle against the compulsion that wanted to turn him back to the steps, but he focused on the harsh gasps coming from Rodney. Halfway there he paused, nearly giving in to the pull that felt like hundreds of fish hooks embedded in his skin, tugging him back, but a single sob from McKay gave him the resolve to push forward.
When he touched the door he heard a clunk from the other side. It swung out reluctantly, and he tumbled through the doorway with a falling sensation like gravity had just shifted. Moments later Ford and Teyla were dragging Rodney after him, and he grabbed the door to shut it. For just a moment, he thought he saw something rushing down the staircase, and he shoved the door closed and swung the bar down across it, backing away swiftly.
Several minutes passed before he could tear his gaze from the door, and when he did he found his team staring at him with eyes like frightened children.
"Let's get out of here," he told them hoarsely. McKay was the first one to push himself unsteadily to his feet, using the wall as a prop. He accepted Teyla's steadying hand under his elbow when she smoothly moved beside him, but refused to meet Sheppard's questioning gaze.
"He was in a lot of pain, sir," Ford told him quietly. "Every time you moved up the steps, the doc was in agony."
"I don't remember," Sheppard said softly. "What the hell happened in there?" They followed Teyla and McKay back towards the populated area of the city.
"He said something was calling you…a voice that wasn't a voice. He said it hurt to listen to it, but I didn't hear any voices in there, sir. When you started climbing the steps, I called you but you didn't answer, and McKay was screaming his head off…so I grabbed you and pulled you back down the steps, and you fell…and the doc was okay again. Then you got up and headed back up the stairs…jeez, sir, I've never heard anyone scream like that. It was horrible, and then he started thrashing around." Ford shook his head. "I think maybe it was something to do with the ATA gene, since Teyla and I weren't affected. And the doc's gene is artificial."
"A big assumption there, Lieutenant, but sound deductive reasoning nevertheless. There's hope for you yet." McKay's painfully hoarse voice floated back to them. "Now come keep Teyla company and let the parents talk for a bit." He leaned wearily against the wall and waited for them to catch up.
"You okay, Doc?" Ford asked dubiously.
"No, I'm not okay. I don't think any of us are particularly okay. But we'll worry about that later, alright, Lieutenant? It can wait until we reach the relative comforts of the infirmary and Carson's needle-happy nurses."
The young man nodded and moved ahead. Sheppard just stood there, waiting, while McKay looked everywhere but at him.
"I won't ask you what you thought you were doing. It was clear enough that you weren't in control of yourself. I just want to know what you saw before you shut the door." McKay's tone was flat and painful. "And don't try to deny it. I saw your face when you turned around."
"I don't know, Rodney. I just caught a glimpse of something…but it was big. Very big and very fast."
"I suggest you tell Elizabeth that the tower is damaged. Mark it off-limits to everyone. Tell her we found Hessling's body there, but the structure was too unstable to retrieve it."
"How do you know Hessling was there, Rodney? I didn't see anything that might indicate that he went up the steps."
McKay was silent for a long moment before managing one last sentence before his abused vocal cords gave out altogether.
"I recognized his voice, John."