The creature skittered over to the lip of the well and plunged into the darkness.
Nulce gave a little start. He stood up, patted snow from his uniform and looked up at the sky. Smoke had blocked out all the stars. With a last glance into the abyss, he slid the cover back over the well and pressed the recall button on his handcom.
“All right Colonel,” he said. “I completed the mission. Now get me out of here.”
There was silence. The only sound was his own breathing.
“Colonel? Colonel Cruikshank?” He shook the handcom. “I completed the game! I completed it with forty seconds to spare!”
There was no answer.
Wind blew through the trees. Nulce stood up and began to curse. Then he pleaded. Finally he raised his hands above his head and screamed his rage.
He was still railing into the black night when an enormous ball of fire tore Pinewood apart and whisked him out of existence.
-PART 6-
Pinewood Military Installation
December 24th 2039
The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
20.00
Heavy equipment had been excavating the ground all morning and soldiers with scoops, spades and drills swarmed over the area like termites, hacking at the soil and carrying it away. The atmosphere was tense. The old well had been hidden for twenty years, buried by an explosion that destroyed the original Pinewood base. Now, for no reason that any of his men could fathom, Colonel Cruikshank was trying to uncover it and had put everyone on high alert.
They obeyed him without question, however. Everybody knew that the Colonel was no fool.
Whenever the soldiers encountered large rocks, they used blasting caps to shear them apart, and frequent explosions scattered rooks from the surrounding trees. Once darkness fell, poles were erected around the area and massive floodlights attached so the excavations could continue.
Cruikshank was in the command tent when his handcom bleeped.
“Yes?”
“Sappers have found the well, sir.” It was his Second in Command. “They’ve removed the iron cover and I’ve sent one down to make sure there’s no blockage in the shaft.”
“I’ll be right there.” Cruikshank donned a helmet with a Davy lamp on the front and left the tent. The well was surrounded by curious soldiers but the Colonel waved them away. He lowered himself over the lip of the hole and grasped the rope ladder his men had fastened to the side.
“Don’t touch anything!” he shouted to the bobbing light below. “I’m coming down.”
A lone Sapper was crouched at the bottom of the well. He too was wearing a helmet light, sifting through the dirt with a hand trowel and sieve. A pick, shovel and bag of blasting caps were lying next to the wall.
“Brought my gear just in case, but the shaft’s completely clear.” The Sapper gave a preoccupied salute and played his light around. A tangle of withered brown stalks tipped with thorns latticed the walls of the ancient stonework. “Apart from those bloody bushes, though. They’re all over the shop. I’ve cleared the worst of them away but they cut me to ribbons doing it.”
“You find anything unusual?” Cruikshank said curtly. He was quivering all over in anticipation.
“A small lead box, with a code lock on the front. But it’s open.”
“Open?” Cruikshank felt his heart lurch.
“Yeah. Hasn’t been forced or anything.” The sapper shifted his light to a dark square shape lying in the dirt. “No sign of damage, so it must have been opened using the combination.”
Was there anything inside?” Cruickshanks mouth was so dry he could hardly talk.
“A reinforced glass vial. Looks like it had a seal or a stopper in it at one time, but it’s been… eh…”
“Been what soldier?” Cruikshank snapped.
“Looks like it’s been chewed through,” the sapper said. “Must have been this fellah, I guess.” He shone the beam a few inches to the left.
Cruikshank almost fainted.
Poking through the earth was the skeleton of a mouse.
“Don’t see how a mouse could have used the combination though, not unless he punched in the numbers with his wee paws.” The Sapper gave a soft laugh. “That’d have to be an awful smart mousy, eh? But whatever was in the vial has leaked away into the soil.”
The Sapper went back to sifting through the dirt with his trowel. Cruikshank leaned against the wall of the well, fist pressed to his mouth.
It was like a bad dream. His whole life had been an obsessive search for the contents of that vial. He didn’t know why and never had. And now those contents were gone.
He felt a jab in his leg and looked down.
He was leaning against one of the thorn bushes. The hairs rose on Cruickshank’s neck, as he realised what the Sapper had been saying.
- Whatever was in the vial has leaked away into the soil.
- Bloody thorn bushes all over the shop. They cut me to ribbons.
Cruikshank slowly took a step away from the thorns and the Sapper. He tapped his earpiece to make sure it was working.
The man was still crouched on the ground, but something about the shape of his shoulders had changed. He looked as if he were tensing his muscles, ready to spring, like a cornered animal. He slowly turned his head, eyes hidden by the shadow of his helmet rim. Then he grinned, a huge smile that glowed in Cruickshank’s flashlight beam. He looked like he had too many teeth..
“You came back for me after all,” he said.
The Sapper’s voice sounded very different from a few seconds ago. It was the same voice the Colonel had heard coming from May Rose twenty years before. He remembered what she had said as if it were yesterday.
- YOU COME BACK! COME BACK AND SAVE ME!
And, finally, Cruikshank understood.
Understood why he had been driven to make a time machine. Understood his lifelong obsession with recovering May-Rose’s genetic material. Understood that he could never disobey that terrible command.
Cruickshank had done exactly what the voice had told him. He had gone back and saved the DNA of whatever May-Rose had become.
So, at last, he was free.
“This is Colonel Cruikshank,” he bellowed into his headset mike. “A plague virus is loose in the bottom of the well! Evacuate and blanket bomb this whole area!”
The Sapper scuttled sideways and grabbed hold of his pick,
“DON’T YOU MO…” he began, but the Colonel lashed out with his boot. The kick caught the Sapper in the face and he fell backwards with a furious screech.
“Sir?” His Second in Command sounded both terrified and disbelieving. “We can’t do…”
“That’s a code red order!” Cruikshank screamed, pulling his sidearm from its holster. The Sapper lunged forwards, swinging the pick with all his might.
As the blade embedded itself in Cruickshank’s chest, the Colonel discharged his pistol into the bag of blasting caps.
Cruickshank’s Second in Command threw himself to the ground as the earth shook and a ball of flame blossomed out of the well. He got to his feet and ran to the edge of the shaft, dodging clods of falling earth. But he knew nobody could have survived down there. He stopped at the blackened rim and peered into the darkness.
The Colonel’s last words had been a direct order. Blanket bomb the area, an order that would mean the destruction of a multi-million pound research facility. It was an impossible directive.
But his Second in Command had heard rumours about why the original base had been destroyed. Whispers that had something to do with an outbreak of plague.