A/N: Things start to go pear-shaped down in the Antarctic.
Howlround (Chapter IV) by frostygossamer
Timeline: Huge Attraction Ice-station - Today
First thing after dawn, the main building's entrance door opens and mechanic Walt stumbles out into the bitingly cold and blinding wind. He is going to wake up cousin Roy, who he assumes clearly fell asleep in the snowcat garage last night. Walt wants to inspect Roy's progress on the defective tractor before bringing him back inside for breakfast.
Walt tromps through to crunchy snow to the Quonset. Opening the garage door he steps in, stomping loose flakes off of his boots, and shakes himself, looking around. He tuts when he sees Roy slumped in his chair, head on the table, apparently fast asleep. The next thing he spots is the frozen mass in the corner has almost completely melted. All that is leftover is a crumpled and sopping tarpaulin. Walt walks over to take a look.
"Hey, Roy," he calls. "Don't say you haven't noticed this thing's totally unthawed overnight."
Lifting the tarp, he peeks underneath. All that remains of the object they dragged in yesterday is a large, limp, marmalade-coloured wet thing like a huge deflated balloon. He picks one edge of it up in both hands to examine. It looks like it is made of some high-tech elastic stuff with a tough fish-scale style protective surface bonded to what he guesses is some kind of heavy-duty thermal insulation. Walt's seen nothing like it before. It seems to have been jaggedly ripped open by something incredibly sharp and pointed.
An alien CLAW maybe? If there was something inside it, it has gotten OUT.
He turns around and yells, "Hey, Roy? Whaddya reckon to this?"
Roy doesn't reply, which spooks him a little. He drops the soaking artefact, which hits the floor with a slap. Walking over to the table, he shakes his cousin by the shoulder. Roy's body slumps lifeless onto the floor. There is a ragged rip in his shirt, a gaping wound to his chest, blood soaking the flannel.
"What the hell? Damn it, man!"
Walt pulls out a knife and nervously scans the scene. He notices, for the first time, the place isn't in only its regular mess. There are signs of struggle everyplace. A couple chairs lie on their side, papers from the desk are strewn on the ground, a box of tools has been knocked over shedding its load. Roy didn't die without a fight.
He doesn't know how fast to get out of the place. Walt bolts back to the admin block to raise the alarm, leaving the garage door swinging unlatched in the polar squall.
Silence descends again.
~O~
A frigid breeze stirs the abandoned paperwork around the body of Roy, cold on the cold snowcat garage floor. All is stillness, broken only by the sound of the garage door swung shut. Clunk!
Five minutes later Walt is back with reinforcements, Doc Crowley to pronounce on Roy and deputy leader Sam to observe. The dead man's cousin looks on as Crowley kneels beside the body, checking its lack of pulse and temperature.
"The man's dead. That's plain enough. Bit late for ME to do anything for him. He's so cold he's practically solid."
Roy's fatal wound penetrated his heart. The doctor casually probes it with the end of a ballpen. Sam winces internally and wanders over to the tarp in the corner.
Crowley gives his professional opinion. "No sign of forced entry," he observes.
"Sheesh," hisses Walt, an expression of disgust crossing his face.
The doc rolls his eyes. "To the HUT, you moron. Not suggesting a bloody SEX crime here. Roy wasn't exactly a blushing daisy and we've none of us been stuck here quite THAT long."
Sam can't help a smirk at the doctor's uncompromising attitude pulling at the corner of his mouth as he busies himself examining what remains of the ice block.
"Deep wound," continues Crowley. "Maybe an ice-axe? No. Too jagged. More likely some sort of hunting knife, I'd say."
Walt gives him a hand up and he stiffly dusts off his knees.
"Who the hell coulda done this?" Walt chokes out. "We were all in the admin block together. Weren't we?"
Sam is bent over examining the damp, torn, deflated balloon-like thing. All that is left of their ice block of yesterday. He prods it with the toe of his boot.
"Looks like some kinduva placenta. Hey, you think there was something IN here? And whatever it was coulda gotten out and-? Nah, couldn't be. That thing was DEEP frozen."
Crowley gives a wry laugh. "You're saying something was ALIVE in there? Oh, come off it, Sam."
"Turner said it coulda been a spaceship we blew sky high," suggests a worried Walt.
Sam wants to dismiss that wild idea out of hand. Anywhere else but Antarctica no one would give a moment's credence to the idea that a spaceship could have landed and done so without alerting any of the world's ever vigilant surveillance systems. It is plainly ridiculous to believe for an instant that its pilot could survive being frozen rock-hard for God knows how long only to dethaw and attack the first sucker it comes across.
Hell, this isn't science fiction. This is real life. There has to be a more rational explanation. Anyway, if it did, where is it? And thinking more logically, where is the murder weapon?
"Let's look around, Walt. See if we can find the weapon they used. Then maybe we can trace it back to whoever did this. Find the knife; find the killer."
He and Walt search the whole garage end to end while Crowley sits at the workstation and writes up his brief report, but they come up with nada. Whoever, or whatever, offed Roy took the weapon with him. Or with it. In the end they give up the search and Walt reluctantly follows Crowley back to the main building. Sam switches off the electrics, locks up the hut and joins them.
They leave Roy's body to the cold.
~O~
Back in the admin block, Sam brings project leader Campbell up to speed. Campbell puts the station on red alert at once. There is someone, or something, murderous at large. Everyone needs to be on the ball. The team arm themselves with whatever they can find, which isn't much, seeing as theirs is a non-military, peaceful operation. Monkey-wrenches, ice-axes and flare guns are the best they can do. There are no firearms on this pacifist and vegetarian station.
They all meet up in the mess hall to plan their next move. Campbell addresses the crowd.
"Under normal circumstances I woulda radioed the mainland about this incident. Sadly this had to happen while our communications are out. So I guess we'll have to deal with the situation ourselves for now."
The others grumble unhappily. Campbell ignores them and continues.
"First of all, no one else in the snowcat garage. It's a crime scene, so we'll leave that for the authorities. Second of all, consider yourselves on lockdown. We're gonna sit tight until help arrives. Meanwhile-"
Singer hefts a heavy wrench. "That ALIEN FREAK had better not try anything on me. Damn it! It'll get more than a piece of my mind!"
Crowley butts in. "As team physician, I'd like to point out that we're all getting a little cabin-crazy here. Alien monster? Really?" He chuckles. "Isn't it more likely one of us has simply snapped? That we're even contemplating an extraterrestrial perp here suggests some of us aren't exactly playing with a full deck."
Campbell agrees. "You're right, Doc. We're all a wound a little tight and we don't want anyone getting hurt on accident. We need to keep calm and wait this out."
He looks to his deputy Sam for agreement. Sam stifles an ill-timed yawn. His disturbed sleep has left him a little tired.
"Why don't we pair off?" suggests the deputy leader. "That way we can keep a closer eye on each other."
Campbell nods curtly so they shuffle around until they have gotten themselves in twos. Singer and his pal Turner partner up, Walt takes the doctor, Ellen grabs Sam, and Campbell winds up with Walker.
Ellen remains uncomfortable. "Dunno about you guys, but I'd feel a lot safer if we made DOUBLE sure there isn't anything OTHER than us on the station."
Some of the others nod and mumble in agreement. Campbell sighs and gives in to the majority.
"All right. We'll form two groups and check the place inside and out THEN we'll dig in to wait for the airplane."
Leader Campbell and Walker remain inside with Singer and Turner to inspect the admin block and accommodations annex. Sam, Walt and Crowley, already dressed for outdoors, head outside to check access points and outbuildings as soon as Ellen has gotten outfitted for external weather conditions. Sam strides through the snow on his long legs while the rest of his group stumble along behind in close order, shivering.
Not simply from the cold.
~O~
After about an hour in the steadily worsening blizzard, Sam's group have found everything correct in the diesel store and Turner's explosives store, both situated a safe distance from the main building. But when they make their way back toward the tractor garage, they are in for a surprise. The door, which Sam himself locked, is hanging open, swinging in the blustery wind.
Someone has been inside.
They investigate and Walt immediately checks out the two cats, now noticing BOTH have been cleverly disabled at sometime. Even he can't figure out how to fix them without the missing parts.
"Crap! that's our only transport down the can."
Disturbing as that is, nothing much else seems to have been tampered with, so they plod on back to the admin block.
Part way along, Ellen spots something. "Hey! Prints. And they're fresh."
She points to long, slim tracks in the fresh powder. From their crisp outlines they could only be minutes old. The party follow the new marks back to the main building where they find the fire exit from the accommodations annex has been forced open. They go inside but see nobody, or thing, suspicious around.
Indoors, Singer, with Campbell's group, has discovered the walkie-talkie base-station booster in the radio shack has been trashed. So now even HT calls are limited to short distances. Someone wants to make it harder for them to keep in contact. The group run into Sam's people in the accommodations annex.
"This door's been forced," Sam tells Campbell. "It's never left open."
"Everyone!" Campbell commands. "Check out your rooms. Lockers. Under the beds. And check if anything's missing while you're at it."
They check. Several report their stuff has been monkeyed with, moved around, rummaged through. Singer's spare pair of snow boots and an old weather-proof parka and pair of mittens from Turner's room are gone. Crouching to look under his cot, Sam's supporting hand slides under his pillow and makes contact with something cold and metallic. Shocked, he plunks his butt on the bed and pulls out whatever it is to take a look.
It is a KNIFE.
To be precise, it is a big-ass hunting-style knife with a cruel point, a nasty serrated blade and a crudely finished handle. It looks exactly like the kind of weapon used to kill Roy. But what is it doing under his pillow? Sam pulls in a sharp breath between his teeth. Someone must have hidden it here in his room to incriminate HIM in Roy's murder.
Not knowing what to do with it, he speedily sticks it in his belt, covers it with his shirttail and leaves the room. Outside in the passageway he almost walks into Campbell.
"Everything all right?" Campbell eyes him narrowly. "You got anything missing?"
Sam shakes his head. "Nah." Not a lie. "But someone has been in here for sure."
Before Campbell can say anything else, there is a scream from one of the other rooms. Walker's.
~O~
They all rush toward the cry to find Ellen staring at Walker who gives one gurgling last gasp and expires right as Sam arrives. He has an ugly slash wound to his throat and his scarlet blood is splattered all over the bed he is lying on. Ellen turns pale. Sam grabs her by the shoulders and pulls her away.
"Th- the window was open," she stammers. "Went to close it. Then I saw..."
A roaring wind is slamming the open window back and forth against the frame. It looks like something left by the fastest route and is now out there in the snow. Sam looks outside, and before the falling drifts can cover them, he notices fresh tracks plus a thin trail of blood-red droplets on the pure white snow. Whatever it was, it didn't come away totally unharmed from its encounter with Walker.
"It's wounded," he murmurs, to no one in particular, shutting and locking the window.
Turning around he notices they are all now watching each other with anxious faces. Where was everyone when they were supposed to be checking their quarters alone? Which one killed Walker? It could have been anyone. Whoever left by the window could have come back in via the fire door.
"Uh, I vote we regroup in the mess," he suggests, as calmly as he can.
The others mutter nervously among themselves.
"Yeah," Campbell agrees. "Everyone keep quiet and remain calm. We'll get back to my office and decide what we're gonna do next. OK, get moving."
The tall, older man shepherds the others back toward the mess hall. Sam follows, inwardly pondering, fingering the strange knife in his belt.
Who, or what, is the killer and will anyone believe it isn't him?
~O~
A half hour later, Campbell stands in front of the whiteboard while everyone else is squeezed into the limited space of his small office adjacent to the mess hall.
"Right," he begins. "This is what we know so far."
* Object from Site 43
* Communications
* Transportation
* Security
Their leader has already put bullet points on the whiteboard. He taps the board with the cap of his green marker as he reads out his list.
"One. It looks like the object melted almost clean away. What little's left needs forensic examination and for that we need the mainland." Ellen raises a hand. "And no, we're not set up for that kind of critical investigation here, Ellen."
"Two. Currently, we can't raise the mainland because the radio's out. We have no spares to repair it. Isn't that right, Singer?" Singer nods. "Until the supply plane arrives and that's not due till next week. The walkie-talkie base-station has also been destroyed."
"Three. Both cats have been disabled, so we can't leave the station." They all grumble.
"Last of all. Roy and Walker were presumably killed by the same unknown assailant. We found ONE set of tracks. And before you butt in, Turner," Turner feigns innocence. "There's NO evidence the assailant was extraterrestrial."
Campbell expects a laugh, but he doesn't get one. He puts down his marker and folds his arms.
"The current situation is the assailant appears to have left the station temporarily by the window in Walker's room - although, of course, that could be a ruse - and it appears he's now wounded. So we all need to remain watchful. OK?" He scans the group. "Everyone on the same page?"
The others mumble grumpily among themselves. Only Ellen again raises her hand.
"Why don't we check each other out for injuries? Whoever, or whatever, killed Gordon is hurt."
Campbell nods. "That's a very good idea, Ellen. Now, who's gonna be the first to get their clothes off?"
As he scans the room for a volunteer, there is a murmur of discontent until Singer speaks up.
"Dunno about you but I'm not about to strip down to my shorts in front of the whole station. I may not be a nervous virgin but an old man needs to keep what dignity he has left."
Turner agrees. "My ass ain't for public display either. Hell no!"
Sam makes a compromise suggestion. "Suppose we split into our pairs and go check each other over in private, huh?"
This sounds a less off-putting option, so they all disappear in twos into different corners of the station to comply. Ellen remains with Sam. Faced with seeing Ellen naked, Sam can't stop himself reddening a little. Ellen notices him look away as she peels off her warm top layer.
"Listen, Sam. This isn't gonna work if you're gonna be shy about it. I guess I've got nothing you've not seen on a woman before. And I guess you're built like any other guy, right?"
Sam laughs uncomfortably. "Yeah, sure. I'm being a doofus, huh?"
He soon gets down to his shorts, taking care to roll up the implicating knife in the soft folds of his undershirt. Ellen in her sport bra and shapewear panties - sensibly and flatteringly black - looks damned attractive for an older female. Sam can't help but think she could have had a successful career in the movies if her mind hadn't been all science and 'Save the Whale'.
She chuckles as she runs her hands searchingly over Sam's chest and shoulders. His eyes are riveted to a large modelled crucifix on a fancy gold chain bumping between her ample bosoms. The tiny Jesus looks happy to be there.
"Impressive, right?" She smirks up at him. "It's the real deal. Genuinely blessed. Nothing false on this honey."
She does a little shimmy, being deliberately suggestive, and Sam's eyeballs are out on stalks. He tries to think of something else. Anything else. If he gets visibly aroused by this he will never be able to look the woman in the face again.
"Great muscle definition." She walks around him to examine his back view. "You work out?"
Sam shrugs and deflates a little. "When I can. Helps me keep warm and passes the time. Oof!"
Ellen has slipped her fingers in his shorts to check out his butt. For flesh wounds. She slaps him hard on the right ass cheek, making him bite his lip.
"All good. Looks like you're not the guy."
He gives her a less hands-on once-over, his fingers ghosting just above the skin, like he is capturing a 3D image of her body. Her hips shiver beneath his palms. Her bosom quivers under his not-quite touch.
She draws in a sharp breath and sucks her lip as he leans in to shadow the plump rounds of her derriere. He can't help noting her skin's absolute perfection. Maybe he has been celibate too long.
Sam coughs and pulls away too fast. She smirks, not fooled for a minute.
"You too. You're good. Not that I woulda believed-"
His words are cut off by another shout.
TBC
A/N: Things are warming up now. Mwahaha! More soon.