Colony by Benjamin Cross (best way to read books .TXT) 📕

traced his eyes across the surrounding landscape. The place looked less hospitable than ever, barren, hostile and eerily still. The glare from the midnight sun was blinding. Even the darkest stone seemed to reflect the rays directly up into his face. With a sigh, he pushed his shades firmly back against the bridge of his nose. If it wasn’t shades, then it was LVV. If it wasn’t LVV, then it was shades. Sun glare, mist, sun glare, mist… And then the rest of the year it’s pitch fucking black!

“If ever a place didn’t want to be seen,” he mumbled to himself.

“Starshyna?”

He looked around and saw Orlov staring over at him. He was an ugly one. Big nose. Buck-teeth. Ridiculous mousy sideburns. “I said we should never have come here.” Orlov pursed his lips; they were cracked and bulbous. “I thought that the moment we arrived, Starshyna.”

“What are you talking about?”

“A feeling I had. Something isn’t right.”

“Not right? I’ll tell you what isn’t right, Orlov, the Albanov’s gone and the creatures living on this island keep eating members of my team.”

Orlov turned his attention back to the mounted gun. “There’s something else, Starshyna. Something bigger. I can’t put my finger on it, but—”

“You keep your finger on that trigger, Private.” In truth, Koikov sensed it too; this place was making puppets of them all. But there was no time for daydreaming.

Bringing the Czilim to a halt on high ground, he raised his binoculars. From here, he could pick out most of the team as they disappeared off along the winding valley that arced towards the island’s heart. They were progressing just as he’d ordered, in a series of four- and five-man teams at hundred-metre intervals. With few exceptions, they looked alert and battle-ready. Still he was uneasy. Clustered, linear movement was inadvisable in hostile situations; it presented a soft underbelly just crying out to be assaulted. And the image of what could happen to soft underbellies was still fresh in his mind.

The reinforcement team had brought considerable firepower over with them that morning, but he wasn’t about to let his guard down. All the weapons in the world wouldn’t be worth dick if Harmsworth turned on them. And he still didn’t have any clear idea how many of those things there were. He prayed not many, but deep down he feared the worst.

He lit a papirosa and scratched at his scar; the cold had caused it to swell and he could feel his pulse, hard but steady, beneath the scabrous tissue. Inadvisable or not, the situation was what it was. There was no alternative. They needed to get to the compound and get there fast.

A sudden burst of static flared up in his ear. It was Marchenko: “Starshyna, you should check out Hjalmar.”

Koikov cast his gaze up over the Hjalmar Ridge. The ever-present spine of rock towered to his right. Banks of scree, tinged green with lichen growth, were piled against its flanks, and pats of remnant snow and ice clung to cavities in the shadows of the rockface.

“What is it, Starshyna?” Orlov asked.

“Shit!” Koikov raised a hand to his throat. “Spread the word. From the looks of it we don’t have long.”

“Starshyna?”

Koikov spun around. “Goddamnit, Orlov, would you use your eyes!” He pointed up towards the top of the ridge, beyond the glacier. But it was no longer visible. A dense blanket of mist that had been teetering on the edge had now tipped over the side and was flooding towards them like fumes spilling from a volcano.

“Marchenko, get the men to find cover, now! Something tells me we’re gonna have company.”

2

“Did he say anything else?”

Zakrevsky slotted the remaining rounds into his magazine and clipped it back into his rifle. “Koikov? No. Just got me and Orlov to take out the roof.”

“Waste of grenades if you ask me,” Tsaritsyn replied.

“Keep your voice down, Private,” Corporal Yevtushenko snapped. “The mist amplifies your voice. They can probably hear your whining back on the mainland.”

Tsaritsyn went to reply. Then he closed his mouth. He looked around. The three of them and Private Ilyn had taken cover beneath an overhang. They were in the middle of the caravan, and they had been passing over a low rise when the mist had flooded over them. The call had gone out from Sergeant Marchenko and within seconds the world had become a very different place. The vast, sweeping landscape that they had been traversing had vanished from sight, and a new and claustrophobic one had squatted. It felt heavy, drizzly, like millions of tiny raindrops prickling at his skin. And it was freezing. He could feel it heavy in his throat and lungs with every breath, and when he exhaled, the same oily grey cloud escaped his lips.

Through the haze, he could barely make out Yevtushenko’s features, though the man was perched right next to him. The others, sitting with their backs to the rock opposite, were visible in outline only. In truth, it was the closest thing to a thrill that Tsaritsyn had felt since being posted to Harmsworth: a foreign location, near-zero visibility, a state of high alert and the threat of ambush, no matter how far-fetched the supposed enemy.

“So you think the Starshyna is imagining these creatures?” Ilyn asked.

“Of course he’s imagining them,” Tsaritsyn replied. “Lizard monsters with feathers and killer claws? I never heard such fucking nonsense.”

Yevtushenko grunted. “So what killed Dolgonosov then? And Sharova? And Yudina?”

“Either it was a polar bear, or…”

“Or what?”

Tsaritsyn pulled his hat down over his ears and scratched at his patchy stubble. “Or it’s not a question of what killed them.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m not suggesting anything,” he replied. “I’m just saying that something really fucked up is going on. First people start getting killed, then the Albanov explodes and we’re stranded. Then we’re on a monster hunt. I’m telling you, something’s going on and we’re being kept in the dark about it. It’s a conspiracy.”

“Well, I’m with Koikov,” Ilyn said. “He’s straight up. Always has been.