Signs of Life on the Horizon

“We should never have come back here” I thought to myself. Although I wanted to voice my concerns to the rest of the group, I could tell they were already unsettled and didn’t need me planting more seeds of doubt. We continued trudging along on the dusty surface. Each step kicked up a cloud of grey dust that nearly eclipsed the way forward when it met the light of our headlamps. We were surrounded by total darkness, barely able to make out the silhouettes of the rest of our group who had hurried on ahead of us.

“We better tell them to slow down” I yelled to Dr. Reed beside me. He nodded in agreement and started messing with his equipment. After a moment he sighed, took a deep breath, and replied “I think their radios might be down”.

“So, then we will have to pick up the pace and catch up” I said as I hurried my cadence, as did Dr. Reed.

Ahead, the rest of our group had widened the gap. The only sign of them was the blurred and dim light projected by their headlamps bobbing along in the distance.

We carried on in silence for what seemed like hours, hurrying to try and catch our companions.

“It looks like they are already ascending the wall of the crater” Dr. Reed said, gesturing at the trail of footprints in front of us leading up the mountainous hill.

“I don’t know why they’re in such a hurry” I said, disgruntled at their impatience.

“I think they’re just excited to bring back what we found” suggested Dr. Reed as he got down on all fours and began to crawl up the steep incline.

“What did we find?” I asked, prodding the scientist for more information. I was just a pilot after all. Sometimes it felt more like a taxi driver for these scientists than anything.

“We won’t know until we’ve gotten a chance to analyze it, but this could be the biggest scientific discovery of all time”, came Dr. Reed’s reply over the radio, nearly drowned out by a crackling we had been hearing from the rest of our group for quite some time.

I kept my eyes on the ground in front of me, using the limited light of my headlamp to find reliable holds so I didn’t get sent tumbling down into the bottom of the crater like the rocks giving way beneath my feet. Reaching the top of the enormous hill, I rolled onto the flat terrain and gasped desperately for air. For the first time in the entire journey, I was thankful for the metallic and unnatural smelling oxygen in my helmet. Upon catching my breath, I sat up and glanced around trying to locate how far the group had gotten.

Through the crackling on the radio the brief sound of labored breathing cut through the background noise before it was muffled again.

“That’s not your breathing is it?” I asked turning to Dr. Reed.

“I haven’t had to breathe that hard since the last time I ran a marathon in Boston” he replied.

“Well at least it sounds like the radios may be working again” I suggested.

“Maybe” he said while deep in thought. “It sounds like they’re rushing”

“Just excited to run some tests?” I inquired.

“I don’t think so” Dr. Reed answered. “We had better get moving”.

Both of us rose to our feet and again quickened our pace, following the footsteps of the others. Either the air in the helmet or the pace we were moving at had begun to give me a headache, but we continued, desperate not to let the lights ahead of us vanish into total darkness.

Despite our best efforts one of the lights marking the location of one of our companions faded from view. The two other lights began to oscillate even quicker.

“It looks like they’re really moving now” Dr. Reed said in a worried tone.

As if to accentuate his point, the labored breathing cut through the crackling of the radio. It no longer sounded like exhaustion. It sounded like panic.

A second light cut out in the darkness, leaving one lone light to guide us. The light paused briefly.

“They must be waiting for us!” I exclaimed before the final light vanished.

“Keep moving” Dr. Reed ordered.

With nothing to guide us now but our headlamps we carried on forward to where we had last seen the lights of the rest of our group. Each step we followed the trail left by the others, although we could only see 3 or so stride lengths before the trail was obscured by darkness.

Dr. Reed had taken the lead. His superior physical fitness meant he could have easily outpaced me if he chose to. I was thankful that he was kind enough to stick with me. He stopped for a moment to consider the ground in front of him. A moment later he recoiled in shock and blindly threw his hand behind him to stop me moving forward. His hand landed in the middle of my chest and brought me to a rapid halt. I followed his gaze to a dark red fluid pooling in the dirt in front of us. The blood flowed calmly into the footprints left behind by our group.

The ground surrounding us had changed from the undisturbed dust of the last several miles into a pockmarked terrain bearing long, straight, triplets of three-inch-wide grooves gouged deep into the dirt. Sitting partially submerged in the largest pool of blood was a shattered head lamp.

Both Dr. Reed and I stood in shock until he snapped out of it and in a low, serious tone his voice came over the radio. “Move”.

Both of us broke into a run following the two sets of footprints still ahead of us. The gouges in the dust encompassed both edges of the trail of footprints and dug deeper into the ground, creating even longer stretches of disturbed dust. Whatever had been creating the marks appeared to be moving faster, and in the same direction as at least two members of our party.

It wasn’t long before we stumbled upon a corpse laying face up. Their helmet had been smashed and the face underneath smeared with blood but the nametag on the breast of their suit was still legible.

“Watson” said Dr. Reed. “The engineer”.

This was far from the first time I had stumbled upon the body of a close friend. In Vietnam I had seen the horrifying things that modern weaponry can do to a human body. This body, however, turned my stomach. It had not been shot or burned. It bore no obvious signs of trauma at all until I rolled it over with my foot. From the base of the skull down to the lower back, Watson’s body bore a wound matching the marks on the ground around us. It took all my fortitude not to vomit inside of my helmet but thankfully Dr. Reed grabbed my arm and pulled me forward in the direction of a lone set of footprints. After another minute or two we found the last member of our team. This body was mutilated more than Watson’s had been and was unidentifiable yet bore the same wounds. Still clutched in their arms was the briefcase that contained the strange sample we had found in the bottom of the crater. The reason we came on this mission in the first place. To find evidence of life.

Dr. Reed pulled the briefcase from the arms of our fallen team member and their limbs came to rest gently on the ground. Small clouds of dust kicked up and then settled on their sleeves and gloves.

“It should just be up this hill in front of us” I said to Dr. Reed. The terrain illuminated by our headlamps arced unmistakably upwards into the darkness.

“Almost there” he replied. Again, we set off running towards our destination. Dr. Reed let the briefcase swing by his side as we ran.

In my peripheral vision a dark silhouette rushed by on my left just outside of the arc of light projecting from my head lamp. Then another to the right of Dr. Reed. Then another directly ahead. The only sound was the blood pounding inside my own head. I could not directly see or hear anything, but both Dr. Reed and I knew that we were being watched.

Suddenly Dr. Reed came to an abrupt stop and I heard his voice come over the radio. “Keep going” he said confidently. “I think they just want the sample”.

“Let’s get out of here then!” I shouted back, faltering in my pace, and stumbling forward up the hill.

“No” he replied. “They don’t want you they just want the sample. They don’t have to take us both. You can still make it. Tell people what we found here. Life”. With a caricature of a proper salute, a decent attempt by an academic, Dr. Reed turned and rushed back downhill again. Before I could protest, I heard a click on the radio and realized that he had shut his off. Now everything was truly silent, and I was truly alone.

The silhouetted figures at the edges of my light source swiftly retreated and appeared to be heading back downhill, undoubtedly following Dr. Reed. I forced myself to turn and continue climbing uphill, tormented by the idea that Dr. Reed had sacrificed his life for mine, but not wanting his sacrifice to go to waste. I carried on through the darkness although my legs were screaming for me to stop. Even the pure oxygen in my lungs seemingly wasn’t enough air to match the effort of the climb. I ignored my body’s protests and dropped to all fours and continued upward. I had no idea how much time I had or if Dr. Reed’s theory that they were after the sample was correct.

At last, ahead of me I could see the hill ending in a sharp grey peak. I reached out to grab the top edge and the rocks gave way under my hands, tumbling harmlessly down the hill into the darkness below. I adjust my grip and heaved myself over the edge onto a small plateau. Below me I could see the barren, grey, and featureless landscape with our lunar lander sitting peacefully where we had left it.

Nearly 250,000 miles away I saw the Earth. Our little blue dot. Our home. A planet swarming with life. Its pale glow was a comforting contrast to the darkness behind me. The sun was beginning to emerge from behind the planet and cast light across the empty plain below me. Its warm glow reflected into my eyes off the metallic panels of the lunar lander. Apollo 18, the final mission to the moon, was nearly complete. We had been sent back in secret one last time to search for signs of life on the dark side of the moon. Even without the sample, life was undeniable.

I caught my breath and stepped forward to descend into the empty plain below as the warmth of the sun washed over me. Then I felt it. That feeling as if I was being watched. As if something was right behind me. I glanced up once more at the Earth. Home seemed so close but was so far away. As the stalkers from the darkness raised their claws to strike, I closed my eyes, enjoyed one last moment of sunshine and thought “we should never have come back here”.