When the Night comes out presents the Hive Part four. An alarm. Kettinger
shifted in his sleep and threw his arm across his eyes. Somewhere an alarm
sounded. Who could that be? Everyone else should either be at work or
asleep. Wasn't time for a shift change? No? Wait, that isn't
an alarm, that's a siren. Kettinger sat up in bed, his eyes
wide, his hair standing up all over. He looked to his right.
Of course, it was impossible to tell the time from the artificial light of
Hive City. He turned to look at the clock. He had been asleep
for about three hours, deep in sleep and deep inside a dream. When
the sound had come, Kettinger felt his blood turn to ice. The alarm
what Kettinger asked the moment he leaned over to pick it up. Explosion was
the reply. Kenninger felt his guts churn at the word. I'll be right
there. Kettinger flung the sheets aside and got to his feet. He was
dressed seconds later, and jammed a baseball cap on his head as he raced
out the front door. He got into his cart and sped off towards the
gate. Others were emerging from their homes. The rest of the night shifters.
All of them were running for their carts, some of them just outright
running, figuring they could make it faster on foot than they could the golf
carts. Kettinger figured. No one spoke, and all of them had a
look of fear and panic on their faces. Bad day at the office,
Kettinger thought. Kettinger reached the administra rate of building fifteen minutes later. He
had been hoping to get there faster, but there had been a log jam
of people at the gate, and Kennenger had to calm so many of them
down while at the same time pulling rank to get him into the police first.
The place was in chaos. People ran everywhere, all of them talking
at once. Others were shouting. The alarm went on and on. God
damn it, Kennenger screamed. Once he got inside and started making his way
toward his office. Turn off that fucking alarm. We all know something's wrong.
By the time he reached his office, the alarm had stopped. Jennifer
was at his office door in minutes. She was calm, but there was
worry hidden behind her eyes. What have we got, Ketnenger asked as he
entered his office. Where's Q. He's at the mine. Jennifer said it
was in the new tunnel. Ten trustees were starting the new tunnel. One
of them broke through into an empty space. Something happened and there was an
explosion. What happened? What did he hit? We're not sure from what
I can gather. Q went down there to see what he could find out
casualties. Not sure yet on that either, Jennifer said, studying her handwritten
notes. The emergency medical team is headed for the scene. Are there are
people trapped? We are assuming that there are. Keednger rubbed his eyes and
sighed. There had been one of these a few years back that had turned
out pretty well. His team knew how to deal with this stuff. Still,
he was worried. I'm headed down there. Jennifer looked seriously worried.
Now that's not protocol, Mike, you need to be here. I need
to be down there. Q is down there, Jennifer replied, standing in
the doorway and trying to block his exit. Let him handle this and report
back. It could be dangerous. There could be more explosions. Kennenger cursed
under his breath and began to pace and his office. She was right,
of course, he was the man in charge, and being right down next
to the place that had just exploded was stupid. He had people who knew
how to handle this sort of thing, and truth be told, he would
just get in the way of things. Still, Kenninger was a man of
action. He did the administrative work because it had to be done, but
he hated doing it. He wanted to be out there and see what his
people were doing, how his prison was doing. Kennenger walked over to the
window and opened the curtain. From this vantage point, at this time,
it looked almost normal. All of the emergency crews were already down in the
mines. The medical crews were all down there as well. Right now,
there were just prison cells, probably lined with sleepy prisoners who were awake and
wondering if their friends and coworkers were dead. They were all in the same
boat. Okay, Kennenger said, get me reports as fast as you can
when they come in. I don't care if I'm on the phone with the
Pope. You come in with them, got it. Jennifer nodded and walked
back to her desk. Kenninger sat down with his ramone and started turning on
the monitors. Most of his monitors were from within the prison, but he
had a few that showed him the minds. He turned those on first.
People were running everywhere. There was no sound, but Kenninger could tell that
people were shouting. Huge boulders and pieces of rock were being shoved aside,
broken up and removed. He could see no bodies, nothing that showed that
anyone was heard, but he could see that there had been at least a
partial caven. That meant that there were likely people trapped behind that wall of
rock. Damn it, Kenninger murmured and tried to will his phone to ring.
Come on cue. It was a risk, of course, everyone knew
that kave were part of the game. When you started mining, you could
hit pockets of gas and other nasty things, and the slightest spark could turn
the air into fire. Still, the hive had such a stellar safety record,
and they had tried too hard to make those things less of a risk.
It had worked so well. Just from the look of the collapsed rock,
Kettinger could tell that this one was much worse than the cave in a
few years ago. He expected fatalities yes, it's pretty bad, Boss Q
said. From the other end, Kettinger could hear noise in the background,
like people yelling and the sound of drills and jackhammers. We still don't know
what they hit, but at least twelve people are trapped behind that wall.
Almost all of the trustees on the day shift were working on the new section,
and all of them are stuck. We think it was Tristan who hit
the empty pocket, but we have no idea what he hit or what happened
Tristan, damn it. Kettinger thought he was one of the best, and
despite being a criminal and a murderer in his surface life, a good guy
in the hive world. Any other injuries, There are about twenty others who
managed to get out before things collapsed. Q reported. They're all in the
hospital area right now with burns and other injuries. It looks like we got
lucky there, though, as the medical team thinks that all of them will
recover. However, some of them are bad enough that they'll have to spend
time in the prison hospital. It was good news, not great, but
when things like this happened, it was the best he could hope for.
Okay, C Kettinger said, keep me updated every fifteen minutes. If you
can, I'll do my best. The phone went dead. Kettinger spent the
rest of the day sitting at his desk and answering the phone. Q did
his best to call him back every fifteen minutes. It just about drove him
crazy. He wanted more than anything to run down the hall and down the
spiraling walkway to the mines. He wanted to stand with his people and pull
the rocks away. Instead, he settled for The reports were almost through,
Q said, at last, the man sounded exhausted. Kennenger was already planning
on giving him two days off after this. We should be able to see
who's alive and who isn't in just a few minutes. We've got more than
twenty injured, though, and in the hospital. Kettenger acknowledged the report,
and then dialed up the hospital. Doctor Bellinger picked up the phone on the
second ring. How are they Some of them are pretty bad, mic,
he said, the sound of nurses and medical staff running around and barking out
orders behind him. Some of them may not make it. Take go Blan
to hell. And most of them have burns. And some of those as
averst Those that survived may not be able to work in the mines again.
We'll be able to handle it, but it's going to access to the limit.
Thanks, Rick, Kenninger said, and put down the phone. Then
he cursed and was very tempted to throw the phone across the room. Instead,
he forced himself to take deep breaths and sat down behind his desk and
put his head in his hands. Mike Kettinger raised his eyes and saw Jennifer
in the doorway. She had a bottle of water and a handful of aspirin
in her hands. Kettenger gave a weak smile and gratefully took both. You
know that the corporation needs to know about this, she said quietly, once
he had taken the aspirin. I know, but I want to give them
the totals. Kennenger lied in truth, he was afraid of making that call.
He was miles below the people he was supposed to talk to, and
he was admittedly afraid to speak to them. He did not want them to
call him back to the surface for a meeting. The last time that had
happened just over six months ago. Kenninger had gotten ill. He was me
to live beneath the ground. His immunity had changed. You're full of shit,
Mike, Jennifer said, but she put a reassuring hand on Mike's just
call them. Kennegar said nothing, and Jennifer took the hint and walked out
of the office. Kennenger sat there for another moment, watching the monitors.
He could see that the rock wall that had fallen was almost gone. He
could see the dark tunnel beyond, and people were reaching inside. Bodies would
be coming out soon. Kennenger picked up the phone and dialed the home office.
It took another three hours, but the bodies did come out. Finally,
Kenninger felt it was time to head down. Despite Jennifer running after him
and shouting the company regulations, Kennenger got his suit on and headed downstairs and
out into the hive. Kenneger managed not to run, but he moved fast.
He got down in minute, then got his helmet on and was headed
for the mine. Moments after that, the sounds of his bosses were still
ringing in his head, blaming him, arguing with him, trying to make
him feel guilty about something that quite obviously was not his fault. He had
saved them just the night before, and now they wanted to dump this shit
on his head. He needed to get away. He arrived at the accident
sight and found the men who had pulled the bodies out still standing around the
area on the floor where the men had been laid. All ten of the
trustees were there, not moving, covered in white dust. Their eyes were
closed, and the pallor indicated that they were long gone. Strangely, they
did not look burned. Rick, what can he tell me, Kennenger asked
the doctor, who immediately looked surprised to see Mike there. Mike, you
shouldn't be spare me. I've heard enough from Jennifer, Kennenger said, with
a wave of his hand. Had to get out of that fucking office.
Well can he tell me about these men? Not much, Mike, the
doctor sighed, I have no idea what killed them. I mean, yes,
Zeva's an explosion, but my initial check of Zibadi's doesn't indicate the blunt
force trauma you'd expect. They aren't burned either. Even those amends that are
all around them were burned. I'm going to have to do an autopsy.
Kettinger nodded to all of this, but his insides felt like they were burning.
He wanted to hit something. God damn it. He wanted answers.
What about the mining operations? We have to shut down this tunnel, Mike
Rick replied, we have no idea of what's in there, and until I
know more, this tunnel is unsafe. Any of Ziaza tunnels can be mined,
but not this fun Kettenger cursed for the umpteenth time in the last half
an hour. This mine was supposed to be the one that paid off.
He was not happy thinking about the report he would have to make back to
the corporation. Okay, Kenninger said, at last, we'll move over to
f tunnel. I'm giving everyone the rest of the day and tomorrow off.
God damn it. This is not a good timing for the shit. Kettinger
realized he sounded like a cold blooded asshole by putting numbers and business behind this,
but he had just had his ass shoot out, and fuck anyone who
wanted to call him out. He had families to call, funerals to plan,
and possibly more dead people in the next few hours. This was the
worst disaster in the history of the Hive, and dealing with that was more
than he could handle right now, so he reduced it to numbers. I'll
take some to Zumorg and start on the autopsies tomorrow, Rick said quietly.
He knew Kenninger and knew that the man was not really a numbers guy.
Kettinger was hurting about the men that he had lost. I needed to see
to Zuvunda tonight. Kettenger agreed, and then headed back towards his office.
He was exhaust and wanted to go back to bed. He wanted to start
this day over again. Now he'd have a hospital full of wounded people,
and just next door to where the men would be recovering, he would have
a morgue full of dead people. A bad day at the office, he
thought, a really, really bad day. The cleanup efforts took the rest
of the day. Ketninger spent the rest of it on the phone going over
the details with the Gemini Corporation. Now the big brass were a little more
calm and understanding that accidents do happen and that there was little that Kennegar could
have done to prevent things. That relieved Ketnenger, But there was talk that
he might have to come to the surface and to the corporate headquarters in Chicago
to make a report in person. Kennenger agreed, but was hoping that maybe
they would decide against it. There were a total of thirty five injured people
who were injured seriously enough that they required extended stays in the prison hospital.
Ten men were there had been at least fifteen more injured, but would be
sent back out into the general population and after days of recovery, back to
work. None of the civilian managers had been killed, but two were among
the injured. No guards had been hurt in the explosion or the recovery operation.
REDG reported that the rest of the prisoners were worried about their friends and
coworkers and the mines, but that there were no rumblings of rioting and everyone
seemed well behaved. The loss of the trustees is bad, Ketnenger reflected.
These were the guys he had come to rely on the most. They were
the ones who had worked the hardest, learned the most about the operation,
and seemed on a path to becoming key parts of the mining operations. Now
they were gone, and all of that training would have to start over.
The night shift had another ten trustees, but the day shift was now wiped
out. Plus Kenninger thought he knew those guys and had spoken to them.
He was far from calling them friends, but they were about as close as
he ever got to the prison population. It was late when Kettenger finally got
back to his house. He could barely see. By that point, his
body and head ached, he lost all sense of time. He climbed up
the stairs and into his bedroom, managed to get his shirt and shoes off,
but then fell into his bed and was asleep in minutes. Doctor Bellinger
was tired as well, but he looked out at his rows of hospital beds
and sighed, then wiped a hand across his forehead. Most of the injured
were now out through heavy doses of sedatives, but there were few, and
such pain from the burns that they just kept tossing and turning instead of dozing.
It was going to be a rough ride for most of these guys.
Those that were not burned had broken limbs and massive internal injuries. Of the
thirty five people now in his care, he felt fairly certain that at least
six more would die in his care. That was a tough pill to swallow,
but when he worked underground like this, you had to learn to accept
certain realities. There was no help to get here fast, and that meant
Rick Bellinger was on his own. He was good, but he was far
from a god and could only do so much. Bellinger made another pass through
the room where fifteen of the men lay. There were more in another large
room right next door. Then five of the worst were in a separate room
next to that. They had hundreds of rooms in this part of the hospital,
and then there was the civilian hospital in Hive City, which had enough
rooms to provide buds for the entire town if need be. The medical facilities
here were unlike anything Doctor Bellinger had worked with at any other person, and
he had worked at four before coming down here. He had been given carte
blanche to order whatever equipment he felt was necessary to have a fully staffed and
equipped hospital down here, and they had all been granted amazing and yet when
things like this this happened, it reminded him of how helpless he really was.
There was just only so much you could do, he reflected, Nature
had to take its course. They had numerous individual rooms in both the prison
and civilian hospital. Rick figured he would head down to one of those and
catch some sleep before starting on the autopsies in the morning. Wait, was
it morning already? Bellinger looked at his watch. Yes, it was just
after five am. Bellinger left the room with the men. He stopped to
talk to some of the nurses, telling them that they should get some sleep
as well. They all nodded and said that they would. Then he moved
down and checked on the other two rooms, more men, more of them
sleeping or in pain. Doctor Bellinger walked out of the final room with the
most injured and headed to his left. He had in mind one particular room.
This one was closest to the morgue and was rarely used out of superstition
about being close to the dead. He figured that closeness would allow him to
get some sleep and then get to the autopsy's first thing. He walked slowly
down the hall, stretching his neck and then his arms. Already he could
feel sleep overtaking him. He would be in a deep sleep soon and was
looking forward to it. He hoped he would not remember his dreams. Doctor
Bellinger found the room, pushed through the door, and began stripping off the
scrubs he was wearing. He turned on the light in the room and went
into the bathroom to splash water on his face and wipe some of the dust
off of his skin and hair. He turned on the water and then cupped
it in his hands and splashed it across his cheeks. Doctor Bellinger froze,
What the hell? Something had fallen, that was certain, but he was
sure that his keen ears were now playing tricks on him. It sounded like
something had fallen over in the morgue. Had one of the nurses gone in
there. If so, why there was no reason for them to be in
there, and he didn't want anyone messing with the bodies before he did his
examination in the morning. Damn it, he whispered. Doctor Bellinger stepped back
out into the room and listened. He heard nothing else save for the distant
beeping of the machines that were tracking the vital signs of the men under his
care. He couldn't hear any footsteps inside the morgue, nor in the hallway
leading away from the morgue. He looked longingly at the bed to his right,
so inviting sleep was so close. It might have been nothing. He
was exhausted, and maybe he just imagined the noise. But no he had
always trusted his hearing. Hell he had been tested and shown to have excellent
hearing. Something had fallen in the morgue. As the head of the hospital,
the buck stopped with him and he should check that out. Groaning at
the unjustice of it all, doctor Bellinger picked up his shirt and put it
back on and stepped back out into the hallway. He looked to his left
and saw that some of the hall lights had been turned out. He couldn't
see any nurses, although he knew at least a few of them would still
be around. The hospital was now on a skeletal staff while people got sleep.
Doctor Bellinger turned to the right and pushed open the two swinging doors that
led into the morgue. He was immediately assaulted by the smell of death.
That sickly sweet smell that came from freshly dead bodies was everywhere. The men
were already crossing over from resembling human beings to being plain old corpses. Behind
that smell were the smells of the chemicals that were used and embolbing, since
that was eventually what would be done here. Once the autopsies were over,
then the bodies would either be wrapped up and sent back to the surface,
or cremated and taken care of down here. Doctor Bellinger walked in, looking
around, trying to see if he could figure out what had caused the noise.
It didn't take long, and it didn't take much detective work. Next
to the one trustee, Tristan, Bellinger thought, I think his name was
Tristan, A good guy. A tree full of autopsy tools had clattered to
the floor. The autopsy tools looked nasty in the dim light, super sharp
and shining from the overheads. Hello, Bellinger called, He got no response.
There weren't many places for a person to hide in here anyway, but
there were some closets and a few nooks and crannies. He thought maybe a
nurse had come in here for some reason and knocked down the tray, then
maybe gone around the corner into the small utility closet for something to clean things
up. Of course, as he studied the mess, there were just tools
on the floor and nothing wet, any vun in here, nothing but silence.
Doctor Bellinger frowned and then walked over to the table where Tristan lay face
up, eyes fixed and staring at the ceiling. He leaned down and righted
the metal tray table, and then went back down to start picking up the
tools. He didn't bother putting them back in the right order in which he
would use them in the morning. He just put them back on the tray
in a pile. He was setting down the tool he used to slice open
the chest cavity when he heard a very soft sound to his right. He
jumped. It sounded like Tristan had shifted on the table, the fabric of
the suit he still wore, making noise. Doctor Bellinger looked at Tristan.
The man lay the way he had always laid. He laughed at himself.
He was getting jumpy and he needed sleep. He should have known better,
because, of course, humans made noises when they were dead. The body
was filled with fluids and then filled with gases and other things that escaped until
embalming had been accomplished. Doctor Bellinger leaned over Tristan's body. The dead eye
stared back at him. The lips had been pulled back from the man's teeth.
Another thing common among dead bodies the guys who ran the funeral parlors and
made the bodies look palatable for the humans attending the wakes and funerals did things
to the mouth to prevent the pullback from happening, but nothing had been done
to these bodies. Rick was about to turn back around and leave when he
paused in mid turn. What He turned back around and looked down into Tristan's
mouth. What the hell? The man's teeth They had all formed into points,
every last one. Doctor Bellinger leaned down and then used his fingers to
pry open the lips from the back teeth. It was as if Tristan had
somehow grown an entirely new set of teeth, or somehow transformed his teeth into
these things. Was this a joke? The doctor had studied these men when
they lay down in the mines, and he was certain that Tristan had not
filed his teeth down to points at some point in his life. Well,
he was almost certain. Maybe. Bellinger studied the skin around the mouth.
The lips were purplish, The skin was gray and definitely looked dead. The
eyes had a weird, whitish look to them, as if he were wearing
contact lenses for some kind of costume. There were even cuts from the explosion
across the man's forehead that were still open and ragged. This was a very
dead man. So if Tristan had not done that in life, had someone
come in here and done it, how would that have been possible. People
had been in and out of this room all afternoon, and from what doctor
Bellinger could tell, they had all been people he trusted. There was that
soft sound of movement again, time from behind him. Doctor Bellinger turned to
see what that was and saw the trustee lying on the table behind His arm
had fallen away from his side. Bellinger moved over to that table and leaned
across the body. Once again, the lips had been pulled away from the
teeth. The skin was gray here too. Bellinger gasped. The teeth on
this one had been filed down to points as well, one row on the
top and one on the bottom. It was like staring down into a shark's
face. I'm too tired, doctor Bellinger thought, I've been up too long,
and I am hallucinating. He had never wanted his bed as much as
he did right then and there. The thought of it was an aching need,
like when you were starving or in desperate need of a drink. He
decided that he would just head back to that room and get some sleep.
Once rested, he would take a fresh look at this weirdness. He was
certain that it would look normal in the morning. He almost succeeded in completely
convincing himself. When doctor Bellinger turned back around, he froze. Tristan was
sitting up on the table. Bellinger backed up, his mouth open, saliva
dripped from his bottom lip, his eyes wide. He wanted to scream,
but all that came out was a soft hissing sound. Tristan's white and milky
eye stared at him from beneath his heavy brow. Bellinger backed into the table,
holding the body of the other trustee. A hand clamped down on his
arm. Bellinger looked down and saw that the trustee behind him now held him
in a vice like grip, and this one was sitting up too. Then
came other soft sounds, as one by one, the other trustees sat up
on their tables. No Bellinger managed to squeak. Tristan was trying to stand
unsteady, wobbling as he got to his feet. Then he took a step,
then another, shambling forward, arms outstretched. He looked like an old
time movie monster. Doctor Bellinger discovered that had he not been held tightly by
the body of the supposedly dead trustee, he still would not have been able
to move. He was frozen to that spot. All around him were grins
filled with sharp pointed teeth. Now all of the trustees were getting to their
feet. They all shambled. Tristan, meanwhile, seemed to have figured out
how to walk. He moved fast, and a blink of an eye was
right in front of doctor Bellinger. Tristan raised his hand and grabbed Doctor Bellinger
around the throat. No, Bellinger, repeated. Tristan grinned a toothy smile,
and his head shot forward. The last thing Doctor Bellinger truly saw was
a section of his own throat vanished down the ghoul's throat, and then a
jet of his blood erupt from the wound and spatter across Tristan's chest. You've
been listening to When the Night Comes Out the Hive. Tune in next time
for the Hive Part five written by Brian w Alaspa, narrated and produced by
Ali James, Music by bevek Abishek. Catch up on the first four seasons
of When the Night Comes Out now. Support us on Patreon for more terrifying content.