Page 112 of Stars
Sasha backed up to Mark. They each peered down the stack, their heads on a swivel, trying to take in every direction. Dread slithered through Sasha’s veins, a heavy slipperiness that tasted like premonition, like blood and acrid smoke. His gut clenched.
Unity, and the rest of the station, was nearly pitch black, main power shut down. Only emergency lighting was on, soft ruby bars over the airlocks and hatches. The corners of the station, of each module, were drenched in darkness.
The crimson gloom threw shadows across the dim command consoles, shades of gray and black that hid more than they revealed.
Something shivered on the bulkheads, liquid clinging in zero g. Sasha reached for it—
Mark stilled his hand. “What’s that smell?”
Sasha sniffed and gagged. Something hot, and musty, and tangy. Like a hot penny under the tongue or licking a battery in winter. Blood, but something else. Something wet and putrid. Something rotten.
He eyed the droplets coating the bulkhead. In the emergency lights, they were the color of garnets, of liquid rubies dancing in starlight.
Movement from the corner of their eyes made them turn. Shuffling echoed out of the darkness down the stack.
“Sarah?” Mark called. “Sarah, where are you?”
Silence.
“Get the flashlights,” Mark whispered. He hovered, staring into the darkness as Sasha pushed to the emergency locker and tore through it, not caring about the detritus he was flinging into the air. He tossed an emergency beacon to Mark before gliding back to his side.
Mark flicked the light on and pointed it down the stack toward the noise.
A shadow slipped out of view, ducking down and away, towardColumbus. “Sarah?” Mark shouted. “Joey?”
They’d left Joey tucking himself intoFreedom, listening to him grumble about how he’d feel safer next to an armed nuclear warhead than a station full of corpses and an outbreak. Before the EVA, Mark had movedFreedomto the middle airlock, hanging oppositeIndependenceoffDestiny, to stabilize the station’s lopsided spin.
Another shuffle. A groan. The sound bounced off the dark bulkhead, swam through the gloom, and rose up from the stack like it was growing in volume, like it was crawling out of the darkness. “What the—”
Something roared behind them. A hand grabbed Mark’s waist and yanked, ripping him from his hover in the middle ofUnityand dragging him to the bulkhead. One moment he was next to Sasha; the next, he slammed into the console, his elbow cracking a computer screen and his head ricocheting off a storage locker. Mark’s flashlight spun, arcs of white light painting the module like a broken disco ball.
“Mark!” Sasha lurched, spun, and pointed his flashlight—
He froze, every atom of his being seizing. Time stopped, his brain short-circuiting as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
Michaela tried to crawl up Mark’s body. Her legs were tangled in the cargo netting spilling out of theZaryatunnel. Her blood-covered hand scratched at Mark’s jumpsuit, seeming to try to rip the fabric off him and gouge through his skin, tear his limbs from his body. She snarled like an animal, primal and untamed. Her jaws snapped, hard enough to break teeth and snap bone.
There was a wildness to her, an absence of sanity—an absence of humanity—that made every hair on Sasha’s body stand on end.
“Fuck!” Mark shouted. “Sasha!” He reached upward, grasping for Sasha’s hand.
Sasha snapped back to himself and grabbed Mark, somersaulting until he slid his feet into the bulkhead restraints. He yanked as hard as he could.
For a moment, Mark didn’t move, and Sasha had a split-second vision of him and Michaela ripping Mark in half as they played human tug-of-war.
Mark grunted, and then there was a kick, a wet sound, and a snarl. In the spinning light of Mark’s flashlight, Sasha saw Mark’s boot slam into Michaela’s face, once, twice, and then a third time before Michaela let go and retreated.
Someone had tied her into the cargo net. One strap was looped five times around her calf before winding through and around another cargo net, securing her in place. One of the tie-downs cut into her leg, digging through her flesh and muscle almost down to the bone. Michaela tried to lunge for Mark again, but the restraint held. Blood oozed from her leg, bubbling on her skin and drifting into the module.
Mark crashed into Sasha, both of them slamming into the far bulkhead. He spun, keeping his back against the module as he stared down at Michaela. “What the fuck,” Mark gasped. “What the fuck!”
Sasha turned his flashlight on her—or what was left of her. Michaela thrashed side to side, arms swinging wildly, trying to claw her way to them. She snarled at them both. Crimson blood coated her lips and pooled on her face, like she’d bitten into the flesh of a juicy plum. Her hair stuck out, swimming around her head in the shadows. Mixed with the strands, threads of blood danced in the emergency lighting, thin wisps slipping from the hole in her skull Mark had drilled only hours before.
“Michaela?” Mark whispered.
She screamed, a noise that pushed through her ravaged throat and destroyed internal organs, something wet and whistling and raw. It was a hollow sound, air passing over and through something unnatural, the wail of an animal in its most primal state. She lunged for them again. Blood droplets flicked off Michaela’s fingers and soared throughUnity, splashing on the command consoles.
“That is not Michaela,” Sasha said.
