Rescue Party

The zip ties were holding the barbed wire to my feet quite nicely - I was surprised. A week ago we had sent out as many men across the frozen lake as we had pairs of crampons. Frivolous the mysteries of the bog on the farside now seem. Having skipped sleeping the previous three nights, I should be just a day's walk behind the scouting party. The marks in the ice corroborate.
The same storm that flashfroze Large Lake brought the hellcats south. I’ve spent a lot of this time in my own head debating. What’s scarier: a village, knowing there are hellcats just behind the treeline, left without its bravest? Or a brave group, susceptible to ambush on all sides, unaware their scent has been picked up by the foulest beast conceivable. There isn’t much on this barren plane to distract me from these thoughts; my inner monologue, my only company. I suppose it is poetic. Man’s own hubris ended the world one time, why would our small village be any different? It’s just a microcosm of the society that stood before it. I suppose this one has more hope.
Had.
Lack of sleep really has a negative effect on me it seems - there’s still hope. If there wasn’t I would have turned around; I would have never come. I catch a glimpse of my nose around sun up and sun down every day, before the sunlight on the ice makes my reflection too glaring. The tip has gone black. This makeshift face mask isn’t as effective as the barbed wire crampons it seems. It’s ironic really - everybody always telling me to get outside and not spend so much time in the lab. Look what it got me. At least I’ll still have ears once this is all said and done, thanks to the hellcats. Suppose those creatures aren’t all bad - they make a good parka. The heavy winds carried snow. They were a relief from the blinding sun. The blinding sun was a relief from them. Large Lake was always an impassable body until the great storm blew over. No lives were thankfully taken by the storm, the town was just presented with a new channel of exploration. The wonder distracted us.
I let the rest of the town revel in it a little while longer. Worrying about the uncontactable scouting party on the ice wouldn’t do anybody any good anyways. Perhaps it was a bit dramatic to leave under the cover of night however, and with rudimentary equipment no less. What was it that compelled me to do this? My thoughts always did tend to scatter in the late hours of the evening.
Good parka. I guess the lack of sleep hasn’t completely killed my sense of humor. That’s good. In a weird sort of way, this reminds me of road trips from when I was a kid. Fighting off sleep, but instead of watching streetlights pass its vaguely foot-shaped patterns of cuts in the ice. It’s almost hypnotic.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Wait.
That’s blood.
The muscles on the back of my neck were stiff from looking down all morning. The sun wasn’t as bright as it was reflecting off the powder blue laketop. The red started off as little speckles, soon turned to puddles as my own pace quickened. The blood wasn’t frozen yet. The trail led up a large snowdrift and from there its source was clear. A mass toppled over at the far foot of the drift. Sliding down on my thigh probably wasn’t the best idea but I was overtaken by an odd excitement suddenly breaking up the monotony of the past three days. It wasn’t the only thing that overtook me. The moment I saw that white-tailed deer carcass I was reminded my last real meal was even longer ago than my last real sleep. I’d like to think knowledge that I couldn’t light a cookfire on the ice was my reasoning, but deep down I knew solely instinct drove me to tear into the lukewarm hide. As I feasted, instinct also alerted me to creeping footsteps over my shoulder.
—
That of course is where the memograph ends. As is the nature of these old world devices: once the embedded battery stopped receiving brainwaves it no longer could transcribe thought into prose. I didn’t have the strength to carry Dr. Sharin’s body back to town, having just fought off four hellcats that took the lives of my other compatriots. The least I could do was bring back his last thoughts.
Bullets, as was food, were scarce after the ambush. The deer had taken off after I landed my first shot, and knowing it would eventually bleed out, I didn’t risk wasting another bullet on a moving target. But when I saw that unmistakable hunch of reddish brown fur over my kill, this bullet was worth the risk. I fired directly into the heart. A man as intelligent as Dr. Sharin should have known not to dress like a hellcat, but I suppose having to make a rash decision to save our lives would cloud anyone’s judgment.
I feel oddly closer to Dr. Sharin, even being the cause of his untimely death. The path of the head researcher and lead guard didn’t often cross. One night, a few years back, we bonded over learning our parents both put us through the same procedure to get these devices installed. Drinks fogged up the preceding conversation. We joked that we wouldn’t check our logs to see how we got on the topic. From time to time after that he’d let me use this memograph reader; the last working memograph reader in town - maybe on Earth.
These things were supposed to be office tools, then they were repurposed by helicopter parents. “It’ll help you do better in school” my dad would always say whenever he caught me scratching at the procedure scar. I knew it was just his way of keeping tabs on me. Suppose it worked out for Dr. Sharin in that way. What a brilliant man.
Now I’m just rambling. I’m leaving this upload on the drive in case anybody ever finds me here in Dr. Sharin’s lab. The hellcats have encroached on the town and it was a hefty gamble just getting here. Hopefully this recording will only ever be seen by me, Captain Jared Eldridge, but if that’s not to be the case, let it be known I spent my last hours scanning for information on how to fend off these beasts. With any extra time I’ll begin preparing a eulogy for the late Dr. Sharin.