Chapter 6
1709 Words
Logan was twitching in his sleep, he dreamed everyone’s dead bodies at his feet. Someone was standing a few feet away from him, it was the girl at the cargo drop.
She stood there looking at him,
“You don’t belong here.”
Before Logan could say anything a loud buzzing sound woke him.
Logan jumped up.
“It’s ok it’s just the radiation alarm, the cloud has passed. It’s safe to go back out now.”
Said Amy placing a hand on Logan’s shoulder.
Logan nodded, Connor pressed the button to open the door.
Logan threw his hand up trying to block the light shining in his eyes. Everyone brought all the supplies back to the tents and continued working, before Logan stepped out someone yelled for him,
“Hey Logan got a second?”
It was Russel one of the engineers who was looking over the ship.
Logan nodded and walked over to him, he was standing with a group of people who were in charge of looking over the ship.
“We think we may have the answer to what happened to the ship but it only rises more questions.”
Russel said crossing his arms.
“What did you find?”
Logan asked.
Russel looked at the other engineers and took a deep breath,
“It was a bomb, there was some residue left behind. But who ever made this bomb didn’t want to leave any trace of it behind, hence why it took us so long. We think there was supposed to be two bombs but luckily for us the second one malfunctioned or something and didn’t go off. The second bomb must be on the front of the ship or fell off when the first one exploded.”
Logan crossed his arms,
“Who would want to sabotage this mission?”
Russel and the other engineers shook their heads.
“I don’t know, someone who doesn’t want to return to Earth. But see now that The Nautilus is on its last legs and we have no choice but to come to Earth makes no sense. Which raises more questions, unless they were targeting a specific person.”
Logan nodded his head,
“But who?”
Everyone shrugged.
Logan took a deep breath,
“Thanks guys, let just keep this between us. We don’t want to start a panic down here.”
The engineers nodded and walked off through the camp.
Logan looked around the camp watch some of the people thinking to himself.
*Who would want to sabotage this? It’s our only chance for survival. If they were targeting one person who would it be?*
Connor walked up to Logan with a piece of meat in his hand.
“Here you need to try this. It’s amazing totally different from the artificial stuff, it’s so juicy.”
He said handing Logan a big chunk of tiger meat.
Logan took the meat and gave it a sniff, it smelt funny. He took a little bit, his eyes widened and went in for a bigger bite. He moaned with satisfaction, the meat was indeed juicy and tough. It was much better then the artificial packs they have.
“How much is left?”
Logan asked chewing the last piece savoring it in his cheeks.
Connor shook his head,
“None, everyone got a few pieces, we’ll have to adventure out find more non mutated animals.”
Logan nodded swallowing his last piece,
“Ok in 15 minutes get the same group ready for another hunt, I’m going to try and contact The Nautilus again.”
Connor nodded and went to get the group.
Logan went in the ship and got on the radio,
“Ground to Nautilus, come in.”
Logan waited a few moments nothing.
“Ground to Nautilus, come in Nautilus!”
A few more minutes
“This is Nautilus, we were having some technical difficulties with the power. Did you get our supplies?”
“Yes we did they helped out, what kind of technical difficulties? Is everyone ok?”
“ The lights and commes went dark for a bit, nothing to worry about we got them back up and running. Is there anything you need?”
“Just wanted to check on my dad, Miles Russo. Last I knew he was in the medical bay.”
“He recovered and is back on duty, I’ll have him call you back when he gets some down time. It’s been crazy up here since the stations status was revealed.”
Logan sighed and rubbed the back of his head,
“Ok well is Angel Jackson available?”
“Let me check give a minute.”
Logan waited about 5 minutes.
“Logan?”
A big smile ran across Logan’s face with a small tear falling from his eye,
“Hey Angel baby, how you holding up?”
“It’s getting kinda scary up here, with all the riots. Some are saying we’re all going to die up here, that we’re not going to make it to Earth.”
“No no babe that’s not true, we just have to do something’s first before we bring the rest of you guys down. Don’t tell anyone this but we found some survivors, their primitive but they might be able to be reasoned with. If we can form an alliance with them then the rest of you can come down. Oh you’ll never believe what I did the other day, I hunted a Tiger! A real life tiger and it’s meat tasted amazing you’ll have to try it when you get down here.”
“Sounds good.”
Logan could tell something was off in her voice,
“What’s the matter Angel?”
“ I’m just scared The Nautilus is going to go into failure before we make it to the ground or people are going to start going crazy and hurt people.”
Her voice started to crack.
Logan swallowed the hard lump in his throat, if he started tearing up it make it worse he had to be strong for her.
“Don’t worry babe you’ll be fine, Chris is there to protect you til you make it down here.”
There was a silence for a while,
“Ange are you there?”
“Yea I’m here, Logan there’s something I have to tell you.”
Logan felt his heart get heavy for some reason,
“What is it Angel baby, is everything ok?”
Silence.
“It’s… Your birthday coming up what would you like for your birthday?”
He can tell that’s not what she wanted to say,
“For you to be here by my side right now.”
“Hopefully it will happen soon. I have to go, I’m going to be late for class.”
“Ok babe, I love you.”
There was a pause,
“I love you too.”
There was something different in the way she said it this time, he could tell she was hiding something.
“Logan, the hunting party is ready whenever you are. Let’s go while we have daylight!”
Yelled Connor.
Logan shook his head and grabbed his stuff, he meet with the hunting party by the gate.
Kari, Vinny, Henry and Kyle stood there with their guns ready to go out.
“While we’re out keep an eye out for two missing soldiers, they may have gotten lost.”
Logan said taking an extra gun from Kyle, they all nodded and headed out.
They wondered for about an hour, the didn’t come across any animals.
“Maybe we should try somewhere else.”
Said Henry taken a sip of water.
“We don’t want to go to far from camp, we don’t want to run into any mutants.”
Said Logan.
There was a rustle in the bushes, everyone stopped and rose their guns. Logan slowly walked over to the bushes and pulled back a branch, it was one of the soldiers he sent back to camp.
His skin was melting off and bubbling,
“H..help.”
He managed to whisper, reaching out his hand the skin and muscle falling off the bone.
The others slowly walk up,
“My God, what happened to him?”
Kari asked coving her mouth.
Logan went to reach for him when his radiation reader started beeping like crazy, Logan pulled back his hand.
“He must have got caught in the radiation.”
Logan said.
“N..no. Mut..ants fo..und me. Th..ey to..tor..tured me, th..en thr..ew me in t..he cl..oud.”
He said with pieces of skin falling off his face when he talked.
“Did you say anything about our base?”
Kyle said with a bit of panic in his voice.
“I..I’m so..so..rry. I.. I tried.”
“Logan, there’s no saving him. He has way to much radiation for us to carry him, he’s not going to make it anyway. We should put him out of his misery and hurry back to base.”
Whispered Kyle to Logan.
Logan ran his hand though his hair,
“What did you say about our base?”
The soldier shook in pain,
“Ev..ery th..ing”
Panic waved though Logan’s chest.
“We have to get back to base, now.”
Logan said heading towards base,
“What about him, want me to put him down.”
Henry ask.
Logan nodded and walked away.
Henry aimed for the head,
“I’m sorry.”
A loud gun shot echoed thought the woods, Henry shot him clean though the skull and followed the rest of the team back to camp.
They quickly ran though the woods watching their surrounding, it was very quiet.
A scream filled the air from the direction of their base. They ran as fast as they could back to base, they came to the wall.
They saw a few people standing on the wall pointing to the trees crying, Logan followed there gaze.
Up in the trees he saw the other soldier strung up by his neck, his eyes and tongue were ripped out along with his heart, and lungs. Logan looked closer and realized he was hanging from his own intestines, something was carved on his stomach.
*LEAVE*
- Writer
