Forecast by Chris Keith

Author:Chris Keith [Keith, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bookpal
Published: 2008-03-30T05:00:00+00:00

The image of burning bodies and the anonymous cremator might have been the reason why Matthews forgot to close the elevator hatch on his return to the White Room. He didn’t know it yet, but that little slip of the mind was about to prove disastrous.

Inside the White Room, he refused to talk about what he’d seen, said nothing was wrong and that was the end of it, but everyone knew he had been affected by it. He was aware of the value of keeping the details of the mystery woman to himself. But for now, all was quiet. Faraday had her head buried between her knees. Sutcliffe and Hennessey sat beside each other on the bench, just thinking. Everyone was quiet with the same thoughts playing in their minds. Silence, no conversation, only thinking and Sutcliffe realised there had not been a single sound from outside in all the time they’d been in the White Room. He realised it because there was a sound now.

Thud…thud…thud.

Sutcliffe and Hennessey both shot looks at the door. Faraday pulled her head out of her knees, convinced she’d heard something, and Matthews froze. Someone was out there, knocking. Who? A survivor? There were other sounds. Scratching on the metal door and a deep moan. There it was again.

Thud…thud…thud.

“Keith!” said Faraday, jumping to her feet. “Thank God.”

The crew had unintentionally neglected to think about Keith Burch, mainly because there were so many other things to think about. But Sutcliffe and Matthews were vigilant, conscious to the fact that Burch’s oxygen supply would have expired over fourteen hours ago and he would have had to have taken off his helmet to breathe. That being the case, he would have inhaled radiation from the contaminated air. Though radiation sickness was not contagious or infectious, caring for someone with radiation sickness would be extremely difficult without the appropriate medicine or professional capability. The men approached the door with caution, as if the entire area was primed to explode. Sutcliffe released the lock at the top of the door, which he had fixed not thirty minutes earlier, and slowly pushed it open. The area in the lobby was too dark to see.

“Hello?”

He pushed the door open further.

“Hello, is anyone there? Keith, is that you?”

“Someone get the helmet,” Matthews ordered.

Faraday went to the corner of the room, collected the helmet and passed it to Sutcliffe, who lifted it up and steered the headlamps into the lobby. No one there. They had all heard it, the unmistakable sound of someone knocking on the door. He was about to step out of the White Room when, all of a sudden, a ghastly, malformed face appeared in the light, the black eyes of a genderless creature with blistered skin staring back at them, frightening the life out of both Sutcliffe and Matthews, whose reaction was to scoot a few steps back. Sutcliffe almost lost the helmet and just about managed to keep the headlamps on the monster’s face, which looked like an unfinished sculpture of clay with deep impressions and ridges in its melted skin.

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