Hazmat

The clean room was a sterile space. As sterile as one could get in a pop-up tent in the middle of a swamp. Thick plastic yellow walls ballooned with air. Words and symbols were stamped on every wall, detailing procedures in case of punctures, deflation, or other failures to clean or quarantine. There were only two doors, both thick heavy military grade metal doors. One lead in, one lead out. In the middle of the room, four dark orange rubber suits hung on rounded hooks, wedged under the arms of each suit. It looked like a deflated human was standing, staring at the wall.

I grabbed what was to be my suit off the hooks. The rubber flesh sagged and pooled around my feet as I slipped into the skin. When I got the suit over my arms and legs, and up to my shoulders, I turned and waited for Simmons- She was the leader of our expedition- to secure my suit for me.

She pressed the thick velcro over my body. I secured a gas mask on my face as Simmons stretched the hood over my head. She velcroed the hood of the suit to the sides of my head. Then she took duct tape- Sorry, environmental sealant- and wrapped the seams where the suit met my boots and gloves. Then she taped over the velcro path crisscrossing my body. They'd need to cut me out of this suit.

Wasteful, but safety was worth the growing pile of skins behind the tent. Sometimes, late at night, I'd think of that pile. I wondered if there were real bodies, still in their enviro suits, buried somewhere within. I wondered if maybe they were trying to crawl out, fighting against a suffocating tunnel of rubber that bent pressed around them. The pile was so large now, nearly twenty feet tall, and easily twice as wide. Anything could be hiding in there. Maybe somewhere in all the sagging folds of inch thick hides, claws or beaks poked through, trying to cut through the heap. I wondered what could survive in such harsh artificial conditions. Then I thought that plenty of new things could live within- and none I'd want to meet.

My mind wandered as my hands went through the sealing ritual. I patted down Simmon's folds, then taped the gaps between their gloved. Circling once, twice, then thrice before ripping off the ends. Simmons turned, and I verified the integrity of their suit. No rips. No tears. No weird folds. Except maybe... A shadow. Probably nothing. Just the lighting.

The airlock hissed, the ritual was entering its final stages. In a moment, the safety light would change from flashing red to a steady green. The strong lights made the room, and our suits into eerie shades of grey and blacks. I stared at the shadow on the back of Simmon's knee. I was certain it was nothing. We'd done this ritual dozens of times now. It'd be quick. Another jaunt into the knee deep waters, scouring the wetlands for signs of foreign fauna. Three trips back, we brought back a vial of water filled with strange rainbow tinted isopods. They looked like a mix between rollie pollies, and sea monkeys. They glimmered like oil mixing with water on the pavement. Still not sure if they were something new or not.

Today we were to spend four hours sweeping through quadrant K7. This was one of the last quadrants in our sector. Unless we'd found something interesting worth further investigation we'd probably tear down this site and be relocated to a new quadrant. If I was lucky, I'd get paired with Simmons again, or someone else I knew. The two other people on my team, Gray and Parks, they were new. Newer. I think the novelty of the job hadn't worn on them yet. They were quiet, but they always stood in the field too long. Lingering, double checking, transfixed by this place. And that was almost more dangerous than rushing it. If you kept moving, whatever new thing spotted us probably wouldn't have enough time to get a read, which meant it'd keep it's distance. There was safety in that mutual apprehension. We'd lost others for lingering too long.

It wasn't a shadow. Something had burrowed into our clean room and latched itself to Simmon's suit. I tried to help, but it was too late. Simmons fell, and hit her head on a rock. They tell me she died instantly. Maybe that was preferable.

Whatever had been on her suit lunged at me. I could feel the weight of it pressing against my suit, trying to find a way in. First it tried burrowing into my shoulder, and when that didn't work, my abdomen. It must have found a seam, it's think spider-like legs poking through the tape. I don't know what happened next. There was searing white hot pain. I heard Gray and Parks over the intercom. I felt the cool water outside my suit, they felt relieving over the pain.

I remember movement, feeling my limbs being picked up, then strapped down to a gurney. I felt the release of air when someone cut open my suit. There were screams, and flashing lights- but they felt distant, like they came from the end of a tunnel. I was so cold, but I felt a sweltering heat on my gut. The kind of heat your body makes when a wound is festering, or is fighting off a virus. I don't know how long I laid there, but the alarm was still blaring, and my suit was still cut open, but my gas mask was on, the suit hadn't been fully removed. I could only make out the shaky silhouettes of people as they walked by. Every could of hours, I'd feel my face jerk as someone grabbed my gas mask, and replaced the filter.

The pain got worse...