I requested to join a company research trip to the Arctic, all the way from civilization to here, a small little outpost in the middle of nowhere. I was getting sick of my usual research job in the office, and so I went to meditate and try to find my true calling in life.
The Arctic outpost was a job nobody wanted, really. From what I had heard, it was mainly used as a threat to get scientists to work faster, harder. Nobody wants to study ice.
Hell, studying ice wasn’t even what I’d learnt in college. I didn’t know a single thing about core samples, microbes frozen in the ice for millenia or whatever. But since they did technically have a position to fill, and I was the only person to volunteer, I was sent here.
I thought I’d be alone to finally relax for a few months with my only company being polar bears, but APPARENTLY, the last two people went insane cooped up in the Arctic, so they finally decided on sending three other people.
There was this Canadian guy called Josh.
“Nice to meet you, my name’s Josh and welcome to the Arctic,” he said the moment I stepped into the outpost. “Enjoy your stay here, it’s a nice little place.”
He was nice but maybe a bit too nice.
And then there was Anya, who had a distinct Russian accent and seemed to never say anything. On the occasion she did, it was succinct, tart, and piercing. Quiet, and to the point. Perhaps my favourite colleague on the outpost.
Last but not least was Maximilian, a big Swedish guy with a fluffy beard. He never seemed to be in a good mood at all. Apparently, he had messed up something so important elsewhere he’d been stationed in the Arctic as punishment. The rest of us tried to keep our distance from him to avoid him breaking our bones.
You can’t go wrong studying ice, apparently. Not that any of us actually knew what we were doing, save for Anya- who was the only one doing work.
But apart from that it was a dream job. I spent most of my days in my room doing absolutely nothing of value. And playing my all-time favourite game, Google Docs. And it was great.
All until the night the power went out.
“Who the hell turned the lights out?!” came Maximilian’s infuriated voice from the makeshift bathroom. He sounded like he was on the verge of slamming one of us into the ice
We were idly playing cards in what was supposed to be the laboratory.
“Power just went off by itself!” Anya shouted back.“Let’s draw cards to see who goes out to fix it,” I suggested, selecting a king, a queen, an ace, and a joker. The others agreed, and we waited for Maximilian to come out of the bathroom. When we were all set, I set the cards all face down on the table. “Whoever picks the ace has to fix the power?”
“Sure,” Anya agreed. “And we better fix it fast- before we all freeze to death.”
“Let’s draw,” said Josh. We all looked at Josh, and he pulled the first card- the queen.
“Me next,” I decided, drawing from the deck. I got the king.
“Two more,” Anya murmured, going next. She paused, and then drew the card. “Ace.” Anya got up to leave, to go get her parka and head into the icy cold world.
“Fix it fast, will you?” Maximilian demanded, already shivering.
We all put on our parkas. I checked my old watch. It was 11 p.m. We waited for the power to come back on, now only a few torches lighting up the darkness.
We waited and waited. But the power never came back on. We had been waiting about a quarter of an hour now, and we were all getting impatient with how long it was taking. The power had been having issues since day one, but it always took a simple switch or push to get it back running.
Maximilian got impatient and finally picked up his radio. “Anya? How’s fixing the damn thing going? It’s freezing here.”
No response. He tried again. A whole minute of silence passed before we got something. It was a subtle change to the static, like Anya was trying to communicate with us, yet her words seemed like gibberish. Or maybe it was Russian?
“Anya?” Josh asked, concerned. “You need help out there?”
“Help,” Anya, on the radio murmured, still sounding far away. “Out there.”
We could barely hear it. “You need help?” Josh asked. “Is something wrong with the machine?”
“Help,” Anya repeated, the static almost obscuring her voice entirely. “Wrong with machine…”
She was Russian, but she still spoke coherently, like any old English speaker, although with a slight accent. She should have said ‘something wrong with the machine’, or clarified, and something about that didn’t sit right with me.
“Can you say that again?” Josh asked in concern. “We can’t quite hear you- and what’s wrong with the machine.”
Static. Then her voice. “Need help. Something wrong with machine.”
“Ugh, I’ll go and deal with this crap,” Maximilian loudly declared.
“No,” Josh cut in. With the way Maximilian had been acting since we’d all got here, we’d both silently wondered if today would be the moment he’d snap. “I’ll go.”
“Get it done quickly,” Maximilian fumed, his fists balling up and sweat trickling down his forehead.
He left quickly, and he’d forgotten his radio. “Josh, wait!” I called. He was already out by then.
As soon as the door shut, Maximilian slammed his fist into the table, sending vibrations that caused the cards to fly into the air.
“Calm down!” I told. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Well it is-” and then he stopped as the lights flickered back on, and the temperature started to rise. His anger shrinked back, and he calmed down, relaxing in his seat. “Never mind.”
We heard a knock on the door, and I went out and peered at the peephole to see who it was.
But there was nobody there. Probably an animal who’d scampered away.
I started to go back to my seat when another knock appeared on the door, and this time, I heard a voice. “Josh? Maximilian? Carol? I’m back- could you let me in- there’s something out here.” Anya paused. “I think it might be a polar bear.”
I raced back to the door, looked out to see Anya and opened it. She hurried inside, and we closed the door. It activated its automatic lock- the metal thing was broken, and our key cards- which should have been able to open it from outside, didn’t work, and now it required one person to be inside at all times.
But it wasn’t like we were ever outside, so we didn’t complain about it.
“Anya,“ I began, confused. “Where’s Josh?”
“Wasn’t he inside with you?” she replied, raising an eyebrow.
“No, you called him to come and help you.”
“I didn’t? One of the levers broke and I had to walk all the way to the maintenance shed to get a replacement- that’s why it took so long. But I didn’t have any problem with it.”
“But we heard you ask for help on the radio?” I inquired. Something wasn’t right here. “And did you see anything knock on the door before you came?”
“No, but that reminds me,” Anya continued, shaking her head. “When I was out there, I felt like something was watching me. I tried to look for it, but whatever it was, it would always duck out of view. I’d just see a flash of something running.”
“An animal, probably?” Maximilian theorised, overhearing the conversation as we entered the lab-turned game room.
“It was too big to be either of those,” Anya pointed out. “But too small to be a bear. It was almost… human sized?”
“Maybe it was Josh?”
“But why would he do that? And you said you never asked for help- so- who did?” I pondered.
Before any of us could say anything, the radio crackled to life, and we heard Josh’s voice on the radio. “Need. Help. Something. Wrong. Machine.” His voice was far away, and the way he stopped to pause before saying the next word made me feel a touch uneasy.
“Josh?” I began. “The machine’s fixed. Are you okay out there? Anya’s back- I just let her through the door, and-”
WHAM! There was a knock on the door. And then we heard a scraping noise, like metal rubbing against metal. The radio started up again. “Machine. Okay.”
WHAM! “Door. Through. Machine. Bear. Help.” Josh continued. I was starting to wonder if it was really Josh out there, and I edged to the door. “Something okay. Door.” I peered out and saw Josh outside. Except he was only wearing his thermals.
“Josh?” I stammered. “Are you not cold? Do you want to come in?”
Josh’s voice appeared again on the radio. “Through door. Josh okay. Want come in.”
“Wait,” something important suddenly came to my mind. Josh hadn’t brought his radio with him, and I still saw it back on the lab table, “Josh didn’t take his radio-”
“So how the hell is he talking to us?!” Maximilian retorted.
“Cold,” Josh echoed. “Josh cold. Through door.” His words on the radio were starting to sound closer now. It was more fluent. It was like a young child learning how to speak true sentences.
Anya began to edge towards the door handle, unsure if the door should be opened, or not. A moment later she withdrew.
“Is that really you, Josh?” Anya asked. “What’s your full name?”
“Josh. Is really Josh.”
“I don’t think that’s Josh,” murmured Maximilian. The burly man edged closer, and shouted. “Go away!”
“Josh. Away.” and then we heard a final slam on the door, and something heavy walking away. I looked through the peephole and saw nothing but cold ice.
We collectively sighed and retreated to the game room.
“What the hell was that thing?” Maximilian growled. “Some sort of impostor?”
“I don’t know, but my mother worked as a Soviet scientist,” Anya began. “She told me stories of this creature, brought back from the permafrost. She called it Самозванец- I believe it means impostor. My Russian isn’t that good.”
“An impostor?”
“I never thought her stories were true, but now…” Anya solemnly murmured.
Maximilian excused himself and said he had to go to the toilet. With nothing to do we resumed our card game, until at last we started talking about why we came here.
“When I told my mother I was heading to the Arctic, she warned me,” Anya murmured. “I wanted to take the job because there was too much drama at home. My husband had recently gone MIA- he was a soldier, and my sister had been caught having an affair with her boss.”
“That sucks,” I noted. “I’m just here to meditate. Find my true calling, write my book, read everything I’ve ever wanted. That stuff. I wonder why Maximilian’s here, though. I just heard terrible stories.”
“Those stories are probably true.”
And that’s when we heard it. A soft, fleshy squelching coming from all around us. And the distinct sound of radio static, even though none of our radios lit up.
“What the hell-”
WHAM! But this time, the sound didn’t come from the front door. It came from inside the bathroom- and then a guttural, primordial scream. There was a scuffling noise, and a second WHAM, and then there was silence.
The bathroom door handle was turning now, and it wiggled this way and that.
“Maximilian?” I wondered. “Are you-”
The door opened softly, creaking, ajar. There was a figure behind it, illuminated by the bathroom lights. It looked like Maximilian- but there was something else, something fleshy and bloody behind him.
It almost looked like… Josh.
Our radios crackled to life. “Maximilian. Okay.” It was Maxmillian’s voice, now, and it sounded like it was coming from both the bathroom and the radio at the same time.
Maximilian- or whatever had replaced him stood silently in the bathroom, not moving a muscle.
“I don’t think that’s Maximilian,” I murmured.
“Is,” the thing that was not Maximilian replied, “Maximilian.”
The door opened slightly more. I gasped. Josh’s body was on the floor, beside Maximilian, half inside the toilet. It seemed empty of flesh, as if it was just a skinsuit for something that had lived inside.
“Jam the door!” I shrieked.
“With what?” Anya replied, backing away. I noted how both Josh and Maximilian’s eyes seemed to follow her. She pushed the table over. “Maybe this.”
“Door,” Maximilian’s voice monotoned. “Really.”
We grabbed hold of the table and pushed it forward, slowly, pushing the door back into its closed state, all while the thing that had replaced Maximilian continued to remain still, and smile.
“Okay, I think we’re safe now,” Anya sighed.
“Head to the safe room!” I decided, gesturing at a room across the hall. It was there in case a polar bear got in, and we’d had to use it once or twice before.
“Right-”
WHAM! We turned to see a dent on the door. And then this inky black substance that almost seemed like blood leak out it. The substance seemed to digest the hinges, and suddenly, the door fell onto the table, its large metal crushing it entirely.
The imposter began to walk, jankily, as if it had just learned how. There was a mesmerising quality to how it dragged itself closer to us.
“Run!” Anya yelled, and then we were off, running to the safe room that seemed almost an eternity away. We heard loud, heavy footsteps, as if it were some sort of giant chasing us.
But it was only Maximilian, or the thing that had replaced him. And it was gaining speed, somehow- for every time I looked back it was getting closer.
And then we were at the safe room, trying to get in. “What’s the code?!” I screamed.
“I- I don’t remember- it might be-” she thought quickly as Maximilian advanced. “F302?!”
I typed it in and the mechanical door groaned, slowly opening as Maximilian appeared just behind us. As soon as there was room I entered, and then Anya-
“Help!” Anya screamed, halfway through as an arm far too long shot out and grabbed her. “It’s got me!”
I grabbed hold of Anya, but the thing was too strong. The door was fully open now, but now it was going to close again- a safety mechanism so that the safe room remained ‘safe’.
The door slowly closed.
I tried to pull Anya closer- but all that did was pull Maximilian closer as well. And that would mean I’d be stuck inside the safe room with him too. He was too strong and yanked Anya away.
I took the moment and slammed the door. There was a scream, and then silence.
There was static on the safe room’s radio. “Anya. Help. Door. Open.” It was Anya’s voice, but I knew it wasn’t her.
“What the hell are you?!” I snapped.
“Hell. You.” WHAM! And then I heard heavy footsteps walking away.
And then I heard all the radios turn on, now being tuned to public frequencies. I heard the chatter of news outlets, advertisements, and music on the radio. What the hell was going on- was the monster doing this.
“Breaking news,” the radio chattered. “Fire downtown sighted- emergency services on the way.”
And then I heard Maximilian, Anya, and Josh’s voices, all at once, repeat the words on the radio.
“Breaking news. Fir downtown sighted.”
And then I realised what it was doing.
“My god,” I murmured. “It’s learning.”
“Learning,” I heard it smile on the radio. “Correct.” And that was a word I swear it hadn’t ever heard before.
I realised then I could call for help. The safe room had a long range radio that could allow me to contact company headquarters. But I wondered if I really should. It was learning now, and it getting smarter.
If anyone came to the base it could manipulate them into bringing it back to the outside world. And if it was getting smarter- there was no telling what chaos it could. And we had no idea where it had come from.
Had the melting of the ice caps freed it? Or had it always been in the Arctic, replacing, hunting, learning?
I began to type a message to send back to headquarters- this very message you’re reading right now. If anyone reads this- don’t come this outpost. It has to remain stranded.
And that thing is definitely going to learn how to communicate with you. It’s going to want to leave. This is a warning. Nuke the outpost or something.
Wait. Something’s wrong. The chatter of the radio had stopped. “Hello?”
I heard a squishing, fleshy noise from above me, from the vents that that supplied air to the room. I heard an echo. “Hello?” It’s here.
Send help. Machine broken. No Самозванец. Josh okay. Maximilian okay. Anya okay. Carol okay. Send help. Machine broken…