Go For Stories

They were silent. Nobody looked at anybody else. The decision they had made weighed on them all. It was a decision to not only kill themselves, but anybody else that may still live. Nigel didn’t like it. He couldn’t bear the thought of all those deaths on his conscience, but he knew what was coming. He knew how serious the situation really was.

“We’re sure we want to do this?” asked Milly.

Nigel nodded and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

“We have to, Mill.”

“Okay.” Bec clapped her hands and rubbed them together. An attempt at not showing her fear. “How do we do this?”

They all looked at Jacob, who looked down at his watch, his gaze distant.

“Jacob?” Nigel prodded Jacob with his foot.

“Huh?” Jacob jumped as if woken by an alarm, jabbed a couple of buttons on his watch, and looked up at Nigel. “What?”

“How do we do this? How do we-”

A chime rang through the PA system. It was not a pleasant chime. It rang high and burrowed deep into the ears. They all looked instinctively at the speaker in the corner of the room, as if it would stop if they glared at it. It did not.

“Warning! Core destabilisation imminent. The facility is no longer safe. Proceed to the nearest exit in an orderly fashion and your security personnel shall instruct you in evacuation procedure. Warning! Core destabilisation imminent.” The computer’s voice was no longer that of a friendly helping hand. It had now taken on an authoritative, sinister tone. “The facility is no longer safe.”

Nigel looked at Jacob, who gave a sheepish smile, then raised his hands shoulder height and shrugged.

“It’s done,” he said.

“When did you …”

He turned his left hand over and tapped the watch. “Set this up when we left my workshop. Just in case.”

“Just in case what? In case we decided to kill ourselves?”

“Pretty much.”

“And when were you going to tell us?”

“Hey,” he didn’t hide the hurt in his voice, “I’m not the only one keeping secrets here.”

“What does that mean?”

“Umm, Nigel,” Milly said.

“No really, Jacob. What does that mean?”

“Just what it says on the packet, mate. You’ve gone into the toilet, stayed for at least as long as an autopsy and come out screaming about some big ooky. Big enough for you to want to blow us all up. Big enough for us all to sacrifice our lives. So, what is it?”

“Nigel.” Milly grabbed his shoulder.

He peeled her fingers from his shirt, his eyes fixed on Jacob.

“You want to know?” he asked. “You want to know why we’re killing ourselves? I can tell you straight off that you won’t believe me.”

He knew he was right. Nobody would believe what he had to say, but he wanted to get it off his chest. Besides, whether they believed him or not, it didn’t really matter now. They would be dead within the next couple of hours anyway.

“Yes, I want to know why we are dying.”

“Nigel!”

Milly grabbed Nigel by both shoulders and spun him around. She pointed him straight at Bec who was hunched over and sobbing in the corner, next to a cage full of wild eyed rats. She seemed unaware of their reaching claws and their hungry squeals.

“Oh, shit.” Nigel abandoned his discourse with Jacob and rushed over to Bec. He knelt down beside her and placed a nervous hand on her back. “Bec? Are you okay?”

She turned on him with such ferocious speed that he fell backwards, imagining talons that weren’t there raking at his face. Her eyes were red and tears and snot ran down her face.

“No,” she said, her voice raw. “Of course I’m not okay.”

“Hey,” he affected his gentlest voice, sitting back up on his knees. “I’m sorry, that was stupid.”

“Yes, it was really fucking stupid.”

“What happened?” He held up his hands before she could snap at him. “I mean, I know what happened, it’s just … I thought you wanted to do this.”

She laughed. “You thought I wanted this? Why would I want this?”

“Okay, that was dumb again. Sorry.” He looked for Milly. He needed bailing out. She stood back, letting him take the lead. “Listen, I know this is shit.” She laughed again. There was no joy in that laugh. “I know it’s shit, but we’re doing the right thing.”

She sniffed and swiped her arm across her face in a failed attempt to clear it of the snot at the very least.

“I’ve got a son.”

“You what?”

“I’ve got a little boy. Up there.” She waved her hand in the general direction of outside.

“A son? You never mentioned a son.”

She sniffed and pulled a face at him. “When would I tell you that? You hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“It doesn’t matter. I know what I can be like. Yes, I have a son. He’d be about six by now. I couldn’t look after him right; I had my career and my stupid pig-headed idea of freedom and I gave him up. I don’t even know where he is, but I always held onto the idea that I might see him one day, you know? Even after I abandoned him, I thought we could meet and he’d love me and we would be okay.”

“Oh, Bec.” Milly sat beside her, tears in her eyes. “I didn’t know.”

“Nobody did. I had to keep it a secret or I wouldn’t have gotten this job, would I?”

“That’s not-”

“True? Yes it is. Anyway, I thought we could be a family one day. I thought …”

“Warning! Core destabilisation imminent.” The speaker broke through her thought. “The facility is no longer safe.”

She wiped her face again and stood up in a single, fluid movement. “But that’s not happening now,” she said in a mock uncaring voice. “We’re gonna die down here and be buried in a big, forgotten hole. Just the way I deserve.”

“No, that’s-”

“It is and I won’t hear otherwise. But who cares, right?” What are we going to do for the next hour or so? We gotta entertain ourselves somehow.”

What were they going to do?

Nigel hadn’t really thought that far ahead. There was no point attempting an escape. Despite what the announcement said, the security personnel had no evacuation instructions to give.

“Proceed to the nearest exit.”

That was a simple ruse to keep the people from panicking. There was no way past the albinoids and, even if there was, there was no way out of the facility. Nigel was unsure how many people had read all of the fineprint in the employment contracts, but they were locked into a timed safe. The facility had five years to complete its research. Then it would either release its findings or destroy evidence of their failure. There was no escaping. Perhaps that was for the best. They had created this nightmare, the least they could do was go down fixing their mistake.

It’s just a shame the people truly responsible aren’t caught down here too, thought Nigel.

Then it hit him. They were down here. Or at least the big man was. Murchison himself. Not only was he down here, but he could very well have started the whole cascade that led to this decision. And if he got down here while they were under lock and key, then perhaps there was a way for him to get out.
Nigel jumped to his feet.

“We might be able to get out of here.”

“What?” asked Milly. “What do you mean? There’s no way out.”

“There might be.” He was already kicking himself for saying it out loud. The last thing he wanted to do was give the others false hope. “I mean, there’s a chance. It’s not great, but there’s a chance.”

“Great,” said Bec in a sarcastic voice. “We can get out. First, we need to get through a gauntlet of monsters and three hundred metres of rock. At least we have approximately, what, one to two hours to do it in?”

“No, there really is a chance. Mr Murchison is down here.”

“He is?” asked Milly.

“He is. And if he is down here, then…”

“Then he must have gotten here somehow.”

“Exactly. And if he could get in, then we can get out.”

“That’s a long shot,” said Bec.

“Yeah, but it’s a shot.”

Jacob, who had been quiet since Milly’s interruption, spoke up.

“You know, for us to take that shot, we’d have to get past that.”

“Past what now?” Nigel looked up at Jacob. He stood with his arm outstretched, his finger pointing. Pointing, but at what? Nigel followed the line of Jacob’s finger. Milly screamed and Bec whimpered quietly in her throat.

Nigel knew before he saw it, he knew what stood before them. He swallowed and looked up at the black beast that glowered down at them from between two outstretched wings. It licked its elongated maw and lowered on its haunches. Pointing its scorpion’s sting their way.

“Core destabilisation imminent,” said the speaker in the corner.

“Food,” the beast taunted them as saliva dripped from its wide, hungry mouth.

“The facility is no longer safe.”