Kenopsia (Book 1 of Pandora's Wake: The Nomad Chronicles)
Second Decent

“Looking at this map, the pharmacy is right here,” Joanas tapped the screen with his finger to show Knut where the pharmacy was located on the plan, “directly under the northern annexe of the east wing. It looks large on this map as well, so if we finally have some good luck, we might still replace it stocked with what we need.”

“Excellent, Joanas.” Knut peered over his shoulder, “Where are the creatures, in relation to that?”

“Well, sir, that is the problem. They are in this corridor here,” he waved his finger over the map, showing a long hallway that ran most of the length of the hospital’s basement level – and right past the pharmacy.

“We were here when we made contact...” he pointed at the eastern end of the passage, where it joined the basement of the east wing, “At this point, where the passage turns.”

Knut took in a deep breath then blew it out slowly,

“I see.” he peered at the plan on the computer screen as if hoping that just looking at it would change what he was seeing. There was no way to reach the pharmacy without going through the passage that they knew was crawling with the bugs.

“Look here though. There is a set of stairs...” Jonas pointed at a stairwell on the screen that linked the ground floor of the west wing to its basement. “If we take those and follow this passage north, we come out here.” He tapped the screen again where it showed what seemed to be an open waiting area just off the bug-infested passage and near the pharmacy entrance.

“Yes,” Knut agreed, hesitantly, “But that brings you out right in the middle of them. I don’t see how that helps you at all?”

“Well,” Joanas had heard the implication in the sentence that it was going to be his job again to lead the raid but chose not to comment. After all, it was his plan and he was the most experienced, probably the best man for the job. Or at least, the best they had.

“If we can draw the creatures off up here – to where we were shooting at them, then we can come in behind them. Set up a firing position here and have that cover us while we make a run to the pharmacy here.”

“You think that will work?” Knut asked, doubtfully.

“I don’t know sir, but it’s that or fight our way down the length of this corridor and hope we don’t run out of ammunition before we reach the pharmacy.” he pursed his lips and thought a moment, “Yes, I think it can work.”

“And how do you draw them up the passageway, exactly?” Knut asked dubiously.

“Well, they seem to be attracted by sound – when we started the generator they came to investigate the change they could hear – at least that’s how it seemed to me. If we can make enough noise then they will do the same thing again. I think.”

“You think?” Knut looked uncertain but nodded. “If they hunt by sound, won’t they be swarming the generator even now – well, once they get through the door at least?”

“I think,” Joanas paused just long enough for Knut to interject,

“There are those words again – I would be happier if we knew!”

“Agreed, sir, but with the intel we have available, certainty is a luxury we do not have!” Joanas was quoting something he had heard a senior UNCAIF officer say when he was still part of a major United Nations reaction force, but it seemed just as appropriate now.

“I think,” Joanas continued, ignoring Knut’s worries for the time being; he was on a roll here and needed to hear the idea out loud to see how it sounded once given voice. Sometimes that helped him see flaws in a plan. “that animals that hunt by sound usually notice a change in sound – but after a while, a new noise becomes just background noise. Like a cat, the everyday household noises become second nature to it but if it hears something new – or something changes,” he shrugged for emphasis,

“Are you sure about that?” Knut asked.

“No.” Joanas admitted, “But I am sure I read it somewhere and it seems to make sense.”

“You read it somewhere?” Knut pursed his lips, “It could have been somewhere like Wikipedia and for all we know the entry was put there by some teenage computer enthusiast with no life experience.” Too late he remembered Delphine was standing at his elbow. He turned and sheepishly added, “No offence intended, young lady.”

“None taken, old man.” The young French girl narrowed her eyes dangerously and Knut had to suppress the urge to chuckle. Had the girl’s mother, Madame Monnier heard her tone she would have had something to say. The older French woman hated it when her children spoke up to adults in such a way. In truth, Knut rather liked that Delphine stood up to him, and she was rarely actually outright insolent.

“You might be right, sir.” Joanas shrugged, “And if you are, it is only a matter of time before they disable the generator. That being so, we need to come up with a plan as quickly as we can, and I think I may just have one. Here is the laundry room we found, it will have power now as well. If we send a team to fill some of the machines with...” he shrugged. “Bricks, cutlery, tyre irons, tools, anything heavy and loud, and then turn them on, that should draw the creatures to investigate, buying the strike team time to get into the pharmacy, replace what we need and get out. We put fire teams here, and here,” again he tapped the screen, “Just in case the insects don’t react exactly as planned and try to make it up these stairs...” he jerked his head towards the flight of stairs he and his team had used earlier, “Or they double back on us at the waiting area.”

“It’s a bold plan!” Knut rubbed his bearded chin for a moment. “I’ll admit Joanas, I have a lot of concerns, but I don’t have any other ideas, and you are right about us not having much time.” he cursed under his breath, “If you can replace volunteers, then...” Knut left the sentence hanging. It wasn’t lost on Joanas that while everyone else got to volunteer, he seemed to have been drafted. Still, as he had told himself before, it was his plan and he was the best person to carry it out. Probably.

“I’ll go!” Delphine volunteered, brightly, to the surprise of both men.

“Oh no you won’t!” Knut shook his head emphatically, “Besides, you can’t shoot.”

“Well, not on the pharmacy run then, but I can help fill the washing machines as part of the distraction!” she said, hopefully.

“Absolutely not Delphine, your mother would...”

“I’m old enough to make my decision!” she snapped – the eternal cry of the teenager, trapped in that awful limbo between childhood and adulthood, “My mother can’t tell me what to do anymore!” She involuntarily crossed her arms and tapped one foot, a comical gesture. Both Knut and Joanas knew better than to let any amusement show though Inside Delphine cringed as she realised she had done it, cursing herself for being a caricature of a pompous teenager having a tantrum.

“That might well be Delphine, but she can still tell me what to do, and frankly, I’m more afraid of her than you are!” Knut pitched his objection perfectly, snatching the wind from Delphine’s sails.

She nodded, silently. It was clear she wasn’t happy about it, but at least she was willing to accept the situation as it was.

“You want to learn?” Joanas asked. Delphine looked back, puzzled, then realisation began to dawn across her face,

“To shoot?” She grinned, “Could I?”

Joanas shrugged. Glancing at Knut he could see he had the old man’s support.

“This is a dangerous world we live in now. I think it best you learn when you are young because one day Kurt and I might not be around.” He didn’t add “If we keep taking on all the dangerous jobs.” although it ran through his mind.

“Best I teach you when I am here so you can defend yourself and your brother and sister when I’m not. I’ll start teaching you tomorrow if you want – but you must promise to do exactly as I say and you must respect the weapon, yes? It is not a toy, it is very dangerous, it is important you understand this!”

“I do,” Delphine nodded, “and Joanas, thank you.”

He nodded, “I too am afraid of your mother, but I will make her understand it is best you know – you and everyone else if you are all going to survive”.

He smiled, although it was a grim smile of resignation rather than one of warmth or humour.

With that, he excused himself and began to look for volunteers.

Ashley took three deep breaths to steady her nerves. Despite her fear, she had volunteered to join the group who would provide the distraction. The moment in the woods still plagued her conscience and she was determined to make up for what she saw as her moment of weakness. She had spent almost every moment of her life in a state of terror since the Pandora Event. She didn’t want to be that timid little thing anymore. She always marvelled at how women like Ember, Esther and Magda seemed to swallow down their fear and soldier on – in fact in Esther’s case, Ashley wasn’t even certain the Israeli felt any fear! She envied them that, she always seemed to be on the verge of dissolving into a gibbering wreck and she hated herself for it.

It was that sense of self-loathing and her determination to be more like her heroines in the group that had brought her to where she was now, standing at the top of the stairs with a backpack full of old tools, broken bits of metal and other garbage, with three other nomads, waiting to descend into the monster-riddled basement.

At the head of the group was Kurt Balchmire, the most heavily armed of their small party. Kurt was in his fatigues and combat armour, with as many spare magazines as his MOLE vest would hold, along with two of the same smoke grenades that Joanas had used to such effect in the earlier expedition into the basement. He caught Ashley looking his way and smiled broadly before mouthing,

“You will be fine!”

Ashley smiled back at Kurt, all the while hoping she would be able to live up to his expectations of her. He seemed to have absolute faith that his small team would do the job they were sent to do.

Behind Kurt was Davil Fohn, one of the Swiss nomads. His face was pale and drawn, although he held his stubby assault rifle (had Ashley heard it called a Bullpup?) like a man who knew how, hunching very slightly, the weapon at low ready and his finger on the trigger guard. Like all the Swiss, or at least all of them old enough to have served, he had done his national service and the training showed. Despite this Davil would not have been Ashley’s first choice, or Kurt’s either she suspected. Even from here Ashley could hear Davil muttering,

“I don’t understand why we have to do this, we should just go and look for another hospital while there is time!”

“We don’t know if we will replace another one.” Father Businger answered him with a thin smile. The clergyman was checking the chamber of his pistol and adjusting the straps on his backpack – which he had borrowed from Ember. She had wanted to come but doctor Allmendinger had forbidden it due to her recent injury. Although Ashley always felt better when one of the strong, capable women was along for the trip, she was glad the doctor had stopped Ember from joining them. The punctured eardrum had left her temporarily partially deaf and she would only be a liability as far as Ashley could tell.

Ahead of her the two men were still speaking,

“We don’t know that for sure!” Davil complained,

“No, we don’t, but we are here now.”

“The pharmacy here may not even have what we need for all we know!” Davil interrupted Father Mathias Businger, who seemed, at last, to have run out of patience,

“You didn’t have to volunteer!” his tone was tainted with a slightly harder edge than Ashley had ever heard from the usually easy-going clergyman – it seemed the prospect of venturing downstairs was working its insidious magic on everyone’s nerves.

Davil seemed to take being chastised better than Ashley would have expected. He sighed deeply,

“Yes, I know, I’m just nervous, and when I’m nervous, well, I can be...”

He never finished his sentence, as Knut gave the team the signal to go ahead and without looking back, Kurt began to descend the stairs, his rifle brought up and into his shoulder. Silence descended on the group as they followed.

The small party moved slowly up the concrete passage. A faulty fluorescent tube flickered on and off at irregular intervals. Ashley was reminded uncomfortably of numerous horror films she had covered her eyes whilst watching, but the others didn’t seem to mind much as they moved slowly up the passage, each of them covering their allotted area. Kurt faced straight ahead, with Davil covering the front left and Father Mathias the front right, their eyes seeming to take in everything at once. It was all Ashley could do to keep from dropping her pistol as her palms slicked with sweat.

At the front of the group, Kurt Balchmire dropped to one knee and held up a hand – the others stopped and copied his posture. He cocked his head very slightly to one side as if listening for something.

The seconds seemed to stretch on unendurably before Kurt, satisfied that he had heard nothing to alarm him, waved the group forward and rose to his feet, stalking forwards like some kind of predatory animal on the trail of game.

They passed the first few doors in the passage quickly and quietly, pausing only briefly to open each and make a quick visual reconnaissance of the room to be sure they remained as devoid of life as they had when the first mission had passed this way earlier. Each one seemed safe.

After what seemed to be an infeasibly long time they reached their goal – the laundry room doors. Kurt signalled for Father Businger and Davil to cover up the corridor and for Ashley to open the door to the laundry room as he moved his finger inside the trigger guard. With his other hand, he counted her in from 3 on his fingers. As she heaved the door open he swung in, quickly and smoothly, scoping the room with his rifle at the ready and tucked into his shoulder ready to fire.

“Clear!” he half whispered to Ashley, who stood in the doorway motionless for a second.

“Go!” Davil said from behind her, snapping her back to reality. She dashed into the room and over to the closest of the washing machines. Pulling it open, she tipped the contents of her backpack in as quickly as she could.

In the silent, concrete chamber the sound echoed.

She felt Kurt’s hand on her collar dragging her back to the door. Once outside, he pushed her down to a kneeling position and pointed up the passage.

“Go Father!” he tapped the clergyman on the shoulder and in a second father, Businger vanished into the laundry room. The sound of metal hitting the inside of the washing machine’s drum echoed out to where they waited. As soon as it stopped Davil dashed in to do the same, passing Father Businger on his way out. The clergyman knelt, smiling ruefully at Ashley, his expression saying “I’m used to this.”

From somewhere in the distance a spine chilling sound found its way to their ears. Ashley could not suppress a shiver as she recognised it as chittering.

“Davil! I think we have company coming! Hurry!” Kurt called.

“Why did it have to be me that was last in?” Davil grumbled as he emptied his own backpack into one of the machines and set it to on. The machine rumbled noisily to life, water flooding into the chamber. Davil didn’t wait for it to begin its spin cycle. He raced up the row of machines they had filled with debris, setting one after the other going.

He had barely reached the third machine when Kurt’s head appeared around the door,

“Schnell!” he barked. “We have to go!”

Redoubling his speed Davil dashed for the door and into the passage where he was brought up short by Kurt’s hand in the middle of his chest,

“Withdraw!” Kurt ordered the others, “Slowly, and backwards. Any sudden movement might draw them to us.”

His order was answered by a series of grunts as the distraction party began to withdraw, their weapons facing down the passage in the direction from which they expected the threat to come.

Pace after pace they inched their way down the passage, back towards the stairs with terrifying slowness. Ashley’s heart pounded in her chest as she expected that any moment she would see the alien insect-things come round the corner.

Two things happened at once. The washing machines began to spin, the heavy debris crashing around noisily, echoing down the corridor with a calamitous racket. At the same time, the doors to the laundry swung shut.

“Scheiße!” Kurt swore explosively. With the doors closed, the creatures would congregate in the corridor, just briefly perhaps, but just possibly long enough to notice the nomads and to attack. With a sinking feeling, Kurt knew that those doors had to be open. He turned to the others,

“Get to the holding position, I’m going to chock those doors open!”

“Are you nuts?” Ashley gasped.

“Just do it!” Kurt snapped, before setting off back down the passage, muttering more profanities in German under is breath.

He reached the doorway at the same time as the first of the scuttling, armoured insect-things rounded the corner at the far end.

“Ficken!” Kurt slid down the door frame as slowly as he dared. The snapping mandibles of the enemy drew ever closer, their scuttling mass now moving down the corridor in ever increasing numbers. As he slid down the door frame Kurt pushed the door open slowly and carefully with one hand, his rifle now dangling from its sling as he drew a combat knife from his belt. As he reached sitting position, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and jammed the knife in between the floor and the bottom of the door to wedge it open.

Slowly and carefully he rose, taking half steps backwards, back towards the stairwell and what he hoped would be safety. His pulse quickened, for every half step he drew backwards, the alien insects drew nearer. He fought the urge to run, knowing that if he did, he was bound to draw the attention of the insects to him and they would surge, faster than he could escape. Worse, the others, now kneeling at the base of the stairs in case things went catastrophically wrong, would most likely open fire. If they did, then all had been for nothing. The creatures would ignore the sound of the washing machines rattling themselves to death with drums full of debris and would instead charge the firing line. If that happened, Kurt doubted the three of them – four if he survived long enough to help – could turn the swarm back before they were overrun.

Kurt risked a look over his shoulder at the others. They were grouped at the bottom of the stairs, weapons raised and pointed in his direction, or at least up the passage. Their eyes were wide and staring, their faces drained of colour.

He slowly raised one hand and signalled them to hold their fire.

Turning his head back to face the oncoming bugs, Kurt froze. They were faster than he had expected. The forward elements of the swarm had already reached the door and were scuttling inside. Behind those first few bugs, more of the creatures came down the passage as Kurt backed up.

“They’re too close,” he thought, “any moment now they will notice me.”

As if in answer to his thoughts two of the bugs detached from the main body of the swarm and began to scuttle down the passage in his direction. Kurt struggled to resist the urge to turn and run. Instead, he took the only course of action he could and froze in place. He watched in horror as the two bugs approached, slowing their pace as they drew closer to him. Was that caution they were displaying? If so, they had learned a thing or two since the encounter with Oberfeldwebel Ulrich and the first reconnaissance.

The notion that the creatures were learning and worse still seemed to be doing it quickly, alarmed Kurt. Most of the enemies from the Other-Verse that he had fought were larger than this and more powerful, but they were barely any smarter than a dog. It took them longer to learn their lessons than it seemed to take – whatever these things were. That was the primary advantage humans had over them, that and technology. Even then, the United Nations Counter Alien Incursion Force had been having precious little luck in containing the creatures that poured through the tears in the skin of our reality. If they began to learn quickly as well then perhaps it really was the end for mankind.

The sound of chattering from the laundry room reached a fever pitch as if all the insect-things within were clicking their mandibles together at once. It joined with the sound of the machines washing their cargo of debris to form one horrendous cacophony that Kurt thought would bore through his skull and drive him mad.

As if in answer to the din, the two creatures that had been approaching Kurt turned about and raced into the laundry room, the strange bipedal form that was Kurt seemingly forgotten. His eyes widened in a moment of astonishment and then he let out a breath that he hadn’t realised he had been holding. He immediately began walking backwards as quickly as he could as the last of the little monsters disappeared into the laundry room.

“Send the signal!” he stage-whispered to the others as he drew nearer.

Father Mathias leant around the stairwell and looked up. Curling his thumb and forefinger into an O, he sent the Okay signal to the nomad above, who replied in kind before disappearing from the landing to tell the Pharmacy raiding party to start their part of the operation.