No Man’s Land WIP

II

“Remember O’Hare?” Peter asked suddenly. My gaze turned from the surrounding starscape to focus on Peter. We had been in space for a few months now, and our morale was dropping by the day.
“Yeah, of course I do. Why’d you bring him up?” I knew full well why Peter had mentioned him, though. Duncan O’Hare used to work for NASA with us, that is until they sent him on a Mars mission. He had left with one other man almost two years ago, only to never return.
“They say their radios cut out shortly after they landed,” Derek interjected quietly. “What if ours do the same?”
Johnnie scoffed. “It’s been a few years, Pete. NASA’s upped their tech since then.”
“I’m not Peter,” Derek retorted wearily, as if he had said that sentence countless times during his lifetime.
Johnnie said nothing, keeping his eyes ahead.
“Johnnie’s probably right. We’ll be fine.” Even though my statement was directed towards the twins, I was mostly reassuring myself.
An uncomfortable silence filled the shuttle until Peter spoke up again, a hint of amusement in his voice.
“What if there are aliens?”
Derek’s eyes lit up. “Did you guys ever see Dreamcatcher?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” I shuddered, thinking about that movie. I had never been fond of suspenseful horror movies in the first place, but I had gone to see it with friends anyways when it first came out and God, did I regret that. That movie had scared the bejeezus out of 16-year-old me and I didn’t sleep well for days.
“Ooh, somebody’s scared,” Peter teased, wiggling his fingers at me. “Mr. Grey’s gonna get you!”
I swatted his hands away, putting up a bothered façade. Truth be told, I was grateful for the change in topic as it lifted up the gloomy cloud that had been hanging over our heads.
Johnnie rolled his eyes at Peter’s antics, grinning, and began to hum the first few bars of “Under Pressure” by Queen. I smiled and joined in, and the twins followed soon after. We sounded so terrible that Freddie Mercury would’ve been ashamed to call that his song, but we didn’t care. Life was good for the time being and we were halfway to our final destination.

III

The seven-month trip was finally drawing to a close as the red surface of Mars came into view. Johnnie let out an excited whoop as he piloted the shuttle towards the planet. A nervous energy was stirring in my stomach, making me want to hurl as I made sure that my helmet was on tight. My hands gripped the armrests of my seat as our shuttle touched down on the ground. While I was looking out at our surroundings, a small chill traveled down my spine and I shivered involuntarily. There was something incredibly eerie about how deserted Mars appeared, even though that was how it should be.
Derek tapped the side of his helmet as he checked for a connection. “Hello? Can you guys hear me?”
His face lit up with relief when a static voice responded. “Yeah, we copy.”
“Does the camera work too?” Derek waved his hand in front of the helmet and Johnnie turned around to wave at the camera.
“All of your communication equipment works,” the voice said back.
Peter grinned widely. “Looks like everything’s in order, gents.”
“Thank God for that,” I muttered, unstrapping myself from my seat.
We filed out of the shuttle one by one, eager to begin our exploration. I paused when I reached the bottom rung, looking down hesitantly at the rocky ground.
“What’s the matter, Brian?” Peter called down to me, his voice coming over the radio in my helmet.
I tilted my head up towards him and gave him a thumbs up. “Nothing. Everything’s peachy.” A surge of adrenaline rushed through my veins as I then touched the barren surface of Mars for the first time.
Johnnie and Derek had already started to head west of where we landed, so I followed after them, Peter catching up to me. We walked for a while, picking up and turning over rocks, poking our heads into small caves that littered the planet’s surface. I don’t think we really knew what we were searching for, but it didn’t matter because we were making history with each step we took.
After a large amount of uneventful adventuring, I noticed a cave that was somewhat noticeably larger than the previous ones that we had found. “Hey guys, let’s go over here,” I suggested, gesturing to the cave.
The three other men joined me as I walked into the cave, the light attached to my helmet illuminating the space. I couldn’t see the back of the cave from where I stood at the entrance. Must be deep, I thought as I walked further into the cavern. Derek sped up his pace, passing me as he tried to search for the back wall. A startled yell sounded after a few seconds, and Peter rushed forward, becoming extremely worried as he recognized the voice of his twin.
“What is it, Derek?” Johnnie called out, also moving ahead of me.
I quickened my steps, catching up to the others. All three of them were staring at something slumping against the wall with expressions of fear and shock decorating their faces. I stifled a yelp as my gaze drifted down to what they were looking at. The decaying and scattered bones that belonged to the skeletons of two humans were lying against the rocky cave wall, their creepy skulls leering up at us.
“Oh my God…” I murmured. I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing. Although no words were spoken between us, we all knew who those skeletons had belonged to.
“O’Hare and Milton,” Johnnie finally said in a hoarse voice.
The voice crackled back over the radio, startling us. I had nearly forgotten about our colleagues watching back at NASA. “It has to be. Nobody else has been sent to Mars,” the voice said, the connection cutting in and out.
“I think we might be losing you,” I said, still in a state of shock.
Peter’s finger raised towards the wall. “Look there.”
My eyes followed his finger to where he was pointing, hearing a involuntary gasp from those safe back on Earth. There were four words etched into the wall with what appeared to have been some sort of stone or other remotely sharp item. The hauntingly crude message read: “we were so wrong.”

IV

The silence was deafening as we stood rooted to the point, each individual running endless possible scenarios through their head as to what could have happened. Peter licked his lips nervously as he broke the quiet atmosphere. “What were they wrong about?”
His twin shrugged, seemingly over the initial surprise. “Beats me. Any ideas from you guys back on the mothership?”
There was no reassuring response from the static voice. My heart sunk and I desperately hoped that we had just lost the connection for a brief moment. But unfortunately my hopes were all made in vain as after our several attempts to reach the staff at NASA all failed.
I glanced back at the unsettling message. “I think we should head back to the shuttle for now and figure out where to go from here. Maybe we’ll get a better connection there.” Even though I tried to keep a positive mindset, I had a gut-feeling that we weren’t going to be hearing from NASA anytime soon.
The twins nodded simultaneously as Johnnie took one last look at the skeletons of our predecessors. “Good idea,” the blonde man spoke up, his expression worryingly grave in contrast to his usual small smirk. “Lead the way, Brian.”
I gave a slight nod in acknowledgement of his statement and headed out of the cave at the best fast walk I could manage on Mars, eager to get away from the macabre sight that lay inside. My companions seemed to feel the same way from how they rushed out after me.
When we made it inside the shuttle, I took off my helmet and sat down in my seat, drumming my fingers on its domed surface. Peter began to pace back and forth slowly, running his hands through his dark hair. Johnnie sat down slowly with a sigh as Derek stood awkwardly near the door with his hands clasped in front of him.
“What could have possibly happened?” I wondered out loud. “Or rather, what could have done that?”
Peter’s head snapped up to look at me, his anxious fear peeking out through his eyes. “What do you mean by that?”
I shrugged, setting my helmet down on the ground. “Well, I’m not sure that O’Hare and his pal Milton could have ended up like that by their own doing.”
“All I want to know is what they, or maybe all of us, were wrong about,” Johnnie said in a quiet tone.
Peter appeared to not have heard what Johnnie said, his attention fully focused on me. “So what you’re saying is that there’s something out there, something that could possibly be dangerous?”
“Yeah, I suppose I am.”
“Like what?” Derek asked from where he was standing. “Aliens?”
The atmosphere tensed up at that word, for none of us were willing to think about the possibility of extraterrestrial life that could be a threat to us. “Now I didn’t explicitly say aliens,” I clarified. “But yes, that might be something we’ll have to consider as a realistic option.”
“Jesus,” Johnnie muttered. “You can’t be serious.”
“He’s right, though,” Peter piped up, sounding extremely stressed. “We can’t rule that out completely.”
I stood and picked my helmet up, putting it on tightly. “We’re going to have to go back. We can't just stay in this damn ship until kingdom come.”
Derek sighed. “As much as I hate to admit it, Brian’s right.”
“Someone should stay behind and I’d be willing to do that,” Peter suggested. I couldn’t tell if he was only saying that to get out of our little mission or if he genuinely thought that that was necessary.
“No way, buddy.” Johnnie clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ve got to stick together.”
From the look on Peter’s face, I guessed that he desperately wanted to stay behind for personal reasons instead of the well-being of us as a group. I couldn’t really blame him, for a part of me felt the same way.
“Ready?” I asked, my hand extended to the door and ready to open it.
All three of the other men nodded, each looking as if they signed up for death itself. Taking a deep breath, I opened the shuttle door and climbed down the ladder. Once my feet touched the planet’s rocky and barren ground, a feeling of dread rose up in my chest instead of the exhilaration that I had experienced earlier. Only God knew what was in store for the four of us, because we definitely didn’t have the slightest clue.