OUTWORLD: Flying Fox pt. 9

“Furnival! Do you copy? Furnival! Do you copy?” Emerson kept hitting the call switch on his radio and yelling pointlessly into the mouthpiece. “Captain Furnival, if you can hear me, sound off!”
 Sadie ran a paw though her hair, the nerves returning with renewed intensity and hitting her like a fully-loaded freighter. “Please tell me I’m still dreaming,” she cried, wringing her paws nervously.
 “Don’t think you are,” Anton said.
 Emerson was fiddling with his radio, trying different frequencies. “Meggitt? Rowland? Koorlander?” Can any of you hear me?” he was yelling between switches.
 Sadie guessed that none of them could. What now, she thought despondently. Another tremor made its howling, screeching way through the room, and the deck seesawed violently under her feet. Cans of drink both sealed and otherwise took to the air, along with chairs, packs of rations and assorted items of literature; Sadie yelped as a copy of SmoothPelt Magazine broadsided her head and visually impaired her for a brief moment. She batted the offending publication from her face, but couldn’t do so in time to see the chair hurtling at her midriff.
 The chair hit her squarely and took her off her feet, sending her into the nearest hard surface – which just happened to be the Rocket Jenny machine. She slammed into the cabinet and gasped as her momentum brought her with a final thump to the deck, and lay winded and aching as the chair bounced away.
 “Sadie!” Anton cried, fighting to get to her over a mountain of tables and other items of furniture. The big Raccoon tumbled over the pile and smacked to the deck with a grunt, but otherwise seemed unharmed. Sadie rolled her head to see the rest of the room, and what she saw was not pleasant.
 Others had also been cannonballed by chairs and heavy objects, but from what Sadie could feel – and move – some hadn’t been as lucky as her. Emerson was already standing, but one other crewer, a hefty Doberman, was lying in a fairly unnatural-looking position, his right arm at a completely wrong angle, and lying under her own projectile was Sally Racket, clutching her stomach and moaning softly.
 Sadie righted herself and stood, bruises announcing their presence with a chorus of twinges, and tried not to see the small dent she had left in the cabinet. She had enough dents herself, it would seem. She looked up to see Anton reaching helpfully for her. “You alright?” he was asking.
 Sadie nodded, her neck stiff. “I’m fine.” She twitched a paw in poor Sally Racket’s direction. “She needs… help.”
 Anton followed her paw and sighed. “Oh, no.” He was at Sally’s side in a blink, asking her any number of questions in the vein of whether or not she was feeling well. From what Sadie heard of Sally’s whimperings, she wasn’t, and Sadie felt another stomach-rolling jolt of fear.
 “Emerson!” Anton yelled. “We’ve got someone injured over here!”
 Emerson looked pretty injured himself, but managed to limp over to where Anton was crouched over the hapless German Shepherd. “We’ll need to get her to the med-lab,” the Collie croaked, fiddling with an ear.
 “Yeah,” Anton growled. “The med-lab you can’t even contact.”
 “That doesn’t mean we can’t take your colleague,” Emerson shot back. “Consider the alternative, which is leaving her down here.”
 Anton nodded. “We’ll have to chance it.” He motioned to Sadie. “Sadie, I need you over here.”
 Sadie briefly wondered why she wasn’t over there in first place, and was at Anton’s side in seconds, helping him lever her off the deck by her armpits. The Shep squeaked as she was righted, but didn’t seem to mind being on her feet. “How’s that?” Sadie asked her.
 “I think a few ribs are broken,” Sally coughed.
 “We’re going to get you to the med-lab, Sally,” Anton told her. “Can you walk?”
 Sally nodded.
 Another crewer who had avoided the wave of furniture was seeing to the Doberman, who had mercifully passed out, and Julie and Les were shaken but uninjured. Sadie offered no comment as she and Anton carried Sally to the nearest exit, which led back out to the crew commons.

“Cor, what died out here?” Anton snorted, his nose twitching.
 The crew corridor outside was filled with a terrible smell, a mix of rotten flesh and dust that Sadie, through her sudden feeling of disgust and unease, recognized.
 It was the smell from her dream.
 “Oh, that’s disgusting!” Julie Meek coughed, covering her nose and mouth with a quivering hand. “What is that?”
 Emerson, as Sadie predicted, didn’t have an answer for any of the questions being asked. “I have no idea. It could be something to do with environmental control.”
 “Or someone’s left a dead chicken in the air shaft,” Sally Racket offered huskily from between Anton and Sadie’s shoulders.
 “Sure doesn’t smell like chicken,” Sadie mumbled, not caring if anyone heard her. And if it is, she thought, I’m off chicken for life.
 The smell grew worse as they approached the crew commons, and Sadie was at a crossroads – either tell everyone about her dream and look like a plank, or keep quiet and withhold potentially valuable information.
 Not to mention the fact that she felt utterly nauseated.
 There was a heaving from the back of the pack. “Oh, man!” Les Sandeep cried, and Sadie swivelled her head as far it would go to get a view of what was happening back there. One of the crewers, the one who was handling the injured Doberman’s left arm and helping him along, was being violently sick.
 “Chalk another one up for the med-lab,” Anton muttered.
 Emerson went back to assist the stricken crewer. “You feeling alright, Hunnibell?”
 The Raccoon shook her head, and Emerson took the Doberman’s arm. “Don’t worry, we’ll sort you out,” he said; Sadie was unsure whom he was referring to.
 The crew commons was a shambles. Sofas and tables had been upended and tossed about like dolls’ house accessories, and appliances had either been shoved aside or smashed against the deck. All of it was bathed in that sick red lighting, and the stench was overpowering.
 “I can’t breathe,” one of the crew members said indistinctly, trying as best he could to inhale through his paw. Sadie’s addled memory drew her attention to a bulge in her dungaree pocket, and she recalled the breath mask she had taken from the Forever Autumn with her. She fished it out and handed it to a rather surprised recipient. “Here.”
 The Husky smiled appreciatively. “Thank you.”
 “Got any more of those?” Anton chortled.
 Sadie gave him an apologetic quirk of the muzzle, and he nodded with a grin – which faded when the smell hit him again. “This is revolting,” he gasped.
 Emerson was trying his radio again. “Rowland, do you read me? Rowland, answer if you can!” He got no response. “Looks like the med-lab’s a possibility rather than a certainty.”
 “As it was several minutes ago,” Sadie mused, again not giving a flick of her fur if anyone heard her.
 The rumblings hadn’t done extensive damage to the crew deck, if one discounted the stink, the lights and the displaced furniture. The deck and corridors were still intact, and there didn’t seem to be any failures in the atmospheric containment department. Sadie had barely reflected on this when a drawn-out metallic yawn made everything vibrate. Trust me to jinx it, she thought morosely. Her shoulder lamp cut a thin white cone through the red gloom, offering her some comfort.
 “Everyone who isn’t injured, stay here!” Emerson ordered.
 The med-lab was up a short, wide stairway from the main crew area, through a crew access wide enough to fit emergency cases and a pair of swinging doors that could be sealed by a descending shutter in case something got loose. The faint whiff of antiseptic and chemicals temporarily overrode the horrid smell in Sadie’s nose, for which she was grateful for a few seconds.
 Then on to the med-lab itself – which was empty.
 Emerson muttered something that sounded, to Sadie, like a despairing plea to the heavens. “Where is Rowland?” he hissed. “Rowland!” he yelled.
 Sadie looked around. The hideous stench was very much present in here, and due to the lack of space it was concentrated. She coughed.
 “Captain?” a new but familiar voice called out from behind a partition, and a Rabbit in medical uniform emerged. He looked shaken and ruffled, but otherwise unharmed. Like everyone else, he looked disgusted by the foul smell. “What just happened? The place starts falling apart and I black out – when I woke up, it looked like this.” His muzzle wrinkled. “And smelled like it too.”
 “We couldn’t contact you,” Emerson said. “I’m guessing the radio is out?”
 Rowland nodded. “I tried the link after I woke up. It’s stone dead.”
 Emerson nodded. “Anyway, I’ve got a few injured here. We’ve got some physical injuries and some nausea, three patients in all, and I’d like you to look over the rest.”
 Rowland surveyed the influx. “Right. I’ll have to see what I can do with what I’ve got.” He gave the LieutComm a long-suffering look. “That Meggitt and her lot are useless.”
 “Especially now that I can’t raise her,” Emerson sighed.
 Sadie sat on one of the low-hung beds, not particularly wanting to be ‘looked over’. She watched as Sally and the Doberman – Trent – were ladled onto respective exam tables and the sickly Raccoon was given a scan for possible contagion due to the alert. She had merely been made queasy by the stink, but Rowland insisted that everyone be scanned. Sadie glumly let the medtech scan her, and she came back negative. Sally had suffered severe internal bruising, and Trent’s arm was splinted; both of them were ordered to remain in the med-lab, but that was the extreme of the worst cases. Sadie’s fur hummed from the effects of the scanner, but otherwise she felt fine. “Not my worst day on the job,” Rowland said cheerily.
 Sadie decided that she really didn’t want to see or hear about his worst day.
 All activity in the med-lab abruptly ceased as a grumble of static played from the nearby communications desk. “Don’t worry about that,” Rowland told everyone present. “I’ve tried answering, but I can’t get a clear signal. It’s happened three times now.”
 “No, I’m hearing something,” Anton said, ears twittering. “Hold on.” He ventured over to the desk and twiddled a few controls. “Let’s see if I can adjust… ah.”
 The transmission sounded a little clearer, but there was too much noise on the line, and it cut out. Anton shrugged. “Hmm.”
 “See?” Rowland muttered. “Like I said.”
 Suddenly the comms desk squealed again – and Sadie wished that the line had stayed indistinct. It was now very recognizable.
 “What the…” Emerson went to stand with Rowland near the desk. “What’s… happening?”
 Sadie’s hand went to her mouth as the transmission played without a single crumb of interference or distortion.
 Someone was screaming.
 For help.
 “Answer it,” Emerson breathed.
 Rowland moved hesitantly over to the radio and picked it up. “This is Med Tech Rowland, uh, speaking.”
 There was a protracted scream of horror from the other side, a terrible, ululating sound that seemed as if it would go on forever. Abruptly, the speaker – definitely female – composed herself and spoke, though her voice was high and unstable. “This is Engineer Meggitt!” The words tailed into another shriek.
 “What is your situation?” Rowland called, sounding as if it was taking all of his being to stay calm.
 “We’re in Engineering!” Meggitt wailed. “Why haven’t you picked up before?”
 “Radio problems,” Rowland responded. “Repeat: what is your situation? I need more details.”
 The transmission dipped out into another wash of noise, then returned clearly; Meggitt was sobbing hysterically. “They’re still alive,” she blubbered, obviously out of her mind with whatever was afflicting her.
 “Repeat,” Rowland said, frowning. “Still alive? Who’s still alive? Meggitt?”
 “They’re still alive,” Meggitt sobbed.
 Rowland shook his head. “Emerson?”
 Emerson took the radio. “Meggitt, this is Emerson in the med-lab. Please tell me what’s going on.”
 “The smell,” Meggitt moaned. “The smell.”
 “Smell?” Rowland hissed to Emerson. “Aren’t Meggitt and her lot in suits? Most of Engineering got blown to space.”
 Emerson growled impotently. “We’re getting a contagion reading all over the ship, Meggitt. Do your suits read anything? You shouldn’t be smelling anything, either.”
 There was nothing from Meggitt’s end but a low, drawn-out moan.
 “Meggitt? Meggitt!”
 “They’re still alive,” Meggitt whimpered. “The smell is them.”
 “The smell is who?” Emerson yelped. “Meggitt, I’m going to need more sense out of you than that. Is anyone else with you?”
 “There was Mandy, and Harvey, and Yvonne,” Meggitt replied, her voice still high and unhinged. “But they went away, and now they’re them. They’re them!” Her declaration devolved into a messy chorus of sobs.
 “Meggitt, please listen,” Emerson said patiently. “Is anyone still with you?”
 “Cerys is here,” Meggitt whimpered. “But she won’t be one of us soon. She’ll be one of them. They’ll take her like they took the others.”
 “Who’s ‘they’, Meggitt?” Emerson pressed on.
 “They,” Meggitt giggled. It was apparent to any listeners that the engineer had officially gone over the edge. “They’re still alive.” She giggled some more, as if she were sharing a childish secret. “Still alive, still alive.”
 Emerson shook his head. “Meggitt, hold it together back there!” His raised voice caused a flurry of screaming from the other end, and he lowered his voice when he was next able to speak. “Meggitt, just calm down.”
 Meggitt began to sob once more. “They’re here,” she whispered. “I couldn’t hide from them.” She giggled. “I see them. They’ve come for Cerys.” Another giggle. “And… me.”
 There was another scream from nearby, and another voice entered the mix, female. “Meggitt? Oh, no. Oh, no! Meggitt! Oh, no. Meggitt, they’re still after us! What are you standing there for? Come on, we’ve got to – oh, Meggitt! No! No, Meggitt!”
 “What is going on back there?” Rowland growled.
 Cerys continued to howl. “Meggitt! What are you…? No! Don’t just stand there – dammit, Wendy! I… oh! No! No! NO-”
 Wendy Meggitt’s transmission ended, leaving the radio, and its listeners, silent.