part 5: a blood-smeared passageway

[Mantafin]

part 1: his namesake was a fallen reclaimer
part 2: a different light burns the spirit
part 3: gathering a situation
part 4: where steel meets bone

Maybe he could plead temporary insanity. He just popped out of his pod,
what, one and a half hours ago? In addition, he was all hopped up on
whatever these drugs were that he needed for his pod recovery.

Oh yeah, the drugs. He needed to find more drugs before anything else,
because he had no idea what would happen if he didn't inject himself. He
leaned over and pushed himself off the bloated corpse of former BMP
Johnson.

They must have kept these drugs available in the BMP office in case of
an emergency. Purcell glanced at the cupboards and shelves present in
the small and blood-stained room in which he stood. The shelves didn't
look like they had anything he needed, because they mostly displayed
items that didn't need very careful handling such as bandages and
splints.

Purcell walked over and opened a lower cupboard, to the left of the sink
in which he'd been pouring water for Johnson a couple of minutes
earlier. He looked over at Johnson to remind himself of what he had just
done. This was a nightmare. Purcell crouched and leaned his head inwards
to get a glance at the items in the cupboard. Tongue depressers. Cotton
swabs. Ah, syringes. He pulled out two of the sterile, shrink-wrapped
syringes from their box.

He had the apparatus, now he needed the purpose. He closed the lower
cupboard and stood up to open one of the upper cupboards standing above
the sink. The open door revealed several containers in formation, locked
to the wall and surrounded by padding due to the unpredictability of
space travel.

Ah, they were in alphabetical order, the drug he needed would be in
about the third cupboard. He closed the first and opened the third.
Bingo, they were both there. He uncapped the first syringe and stabbed
the bottle, taking a large pull. He pulled it out.

Now for the second one, same procedure. Uncap, stab, pull, cap. Food.
Why in God's name was he still thinking about food.

He was lucky to have found the drugs. He would have been screwed if the
ship had been cleaned out like it could have been. He looked back at
Johnson's bloody mess laying on the floor.

"What am I going to do with you, good buddy?"

Purcell had a thought. He knew it was a long shot, so he had to fight
down his excitement. The doors to the crew quarters at the fore section
of the ship were locked with a biometric scanning system that only
recognized ship personnel. BMP Johnson was ship personnel. It could
work.

Purcell put the syringes in his pocket and walked over to grab Johnson's
corpse by the shoulders. This was going to be a task and a half,
dragging his body all the way to the entry of the crew quarters.

He had to get this monster past the surgical table blocking the entrance
to the pod bay. He strained and struggled, and finally lifted the beast
onto the table. He edged his way around the side of the table until he
was standing in the entry to the pod bay.

He tugged on Johnson's body until it crashed onto the floor, the boots
creating a metallic ring to the sound. Purcell glanced over his shoulder
to take in the length of the pod bay. Oh boy, this biometric thingie had
better work.

Purcell almost giggled when he saw the blood that was being dragged
across the floor. He was losing his mind. He shouldn't be having
thoughts like that. He kept pulling.

Half-way there. Sweat was starting to form all over Purcell's body. He
was going to need that sandwich after this. He kept pulling.

Three quarters. Almost there. Purcell wished that Johnson would have
used an exercise machine once in his life. Fat bastard.

Finally. Purcell sat down with Johnson's bloody head in his lap. He
started giggling. This had better work.

After a couple moments of rest, Purcell set about to lift up Johnson's
body to the biometric scanner. The reason Purcell was even attempting
this scan was that it used a momentary pulse to scan the body, and it
was a well-known flaw that it couldn't determine the difference between
a still, dead heart or a live, beating heart.

Purcell hit the button with his elbow. Bing. Green. The door unlocked,
and Purcell was in. Thank God.

He dropped Johnson's corpse like a sack of potatoes, and opened the door
to the crew quarters. He rushed inside with a feeling of glee flowing
through every blood vessel in his entire body. Maybe it was the drugs,
but he was in Heaven, Mount Olympus, and Valhalla combined. He yanked
open the door to the 'fridge' and tore open a box of rations.

Sandwich! Purcell bit into the sandwich straight through the packaging.
He felt like a demon, like he was possessed. Finally, the food which had
become his purpose had been granted to him. He ate like the sloppiest,
fattest, engineered pig back home.

Then, he was full. He looked around at the five empty ration boxes
scattered on the floor around him, and felt good. He was ready. He knew
where he was, he had his recovery drugs in his pocket, and he had
feasted like a pig in shit. With most of his problems solved, he turned
to the issue of Johnson's unfortunate passing. He was a UN marine and he
knew what they did to people who turned on their own. He also knew how
he would be hunted if he tried to escape.

He knew the game, so he decided to play it. The cockpit of the transport
was wide open for anyone inside the crew quarters, so he decided to step
inside, and sit at the pilots controls.

Sitting in the captains chair reminded him of learning to fly back in
Nevada. These interplanet transports were geared like average planes to
ease the training process for pilots coming straight out of the air
force, so Purcell knew he wouldn't have a hard time piloting one.

His eyes focused out the window of the cockpit, and he noticed things
looked very different than Mars. The sky looked like the night sky back
on Earth, and the terrain didn't have all the distinctive red rock of
Mars. He decided to check this ship's computer to see where they had
actually landed.

Just then, he saw a shadow pass over his controls. He turned around to
see Johnson rushing towards him. Without a single thought, he tried to
jump out of his seat and hit his head on the cramped roof of the
cockpit. He turned to try and free himself from the tiny, enclosed space
but it was too late. Johnson hit him in the back of the head with a
force that the wickedest of children would never know.

The pain was unbearable, and Purcell's eyelids fell heavily. His last
conscious thought was the realization that Johnson had sunk his teeth
into Purcell's shoulder.

---
THE END

[Mantafin]

well, that's it. i'd really appreciate comments from anyone that has followed this story.

i feel it was the weakest in the first part, due to reasons already discussed. i'd go back and re-write it but i'm just lazy. if i had to write it again, i'd probably split it into two more parts, the first describing an experience of purcell's grandfather, and the second describing an experience of purcell's father. i think it would be easier to work in backstory while describing something immediately interesting.

as for the rest of it, i'm sure you all realize by now that Johnson had obviously become a zombie. as for the location, purcell was actually on phobos, not mars. if the story had continued he would've eventually ended up in some very familiar situations. there was a pistol waiting for him in his foot locker in the storage bay, in addition to a green spacesuit...


aaaaaaaaaaaaaanyways

edit: oh yeah and the reason he was discharged a month after everyone else on the transport wasn't actually a BMP fuckup, it had something to do with an intelligence officer that purcell would have met later on, a guy who knew about the experiments that were going on on phobos. that would've made an interesting and long-ass story.

[Little Faith]

Why in the hell do you want to discontinue the story already? You are probably one of the best writers around here and you seem to have a definite idea about where the story is going.


You get us all hooked up on an excellent beginning and the n you just say, Bleh! and stop.

[dsm]

I too feel that you just cut off the story - Purcell just got something to eat at last and should be ready move on....
And then he dies.
This leaves me like "wtf? Already?" and is kinda dissatisfying.

I don't care if the story ends with Purcell's death, but at least let him kill some more stuff first and get more of an overview of the situation.

Apart from the sudden ending, this part was as good as the others.

[Guardian]

Yeah kindah sucks --- but hey, 'least he went out with a full stomach, right?

Right?

Eh-heh . . .

[Mantafin]

bleh!

[Ultraviolet]

This story is SO not finished.

[pritch]

Heh, I actually quite liked where the story cut off. I'm never really one for long endings :)

The informal style kinda reminds of the Doom novels, except it's better, and I think it works for Doom where it wouldn't in a conventional story.