Venom #1
Shiver Part One
Thirty miles from the Arctic Circle in Northern Canada, Patricia Robertson — a communications specialist for the United States Army — arrives at a facility operated by the Ararat Corporation by dog sled to return some movies she borrowed from the people operating the facility. When she tries to reach the staff over the intercom, someone responds by calling for help. Robertson tries to call it in to base but something is interfering with her radio signal. Tossing the radio aside, Patricia pulls her gun out of the dog sled and goes heads toward the facility to investigate.
As she approaches the building, her dogs start getting tenser and tenser. Opening the door, Patricia notices a strange black fluid splattered on it and then finds a dead body on the floor. Startled, Patricia stumbles backward and falls on another body, this one buried in the snow outside. She is about to flee when someone from inside continues to fall for help. Patricia gathers her nerve and goes back into the building and begins looking around. Entering the kitchen, she is shocked to discover it is the scene of a slaughter, causing her to throw up. Drawing her weapon, Robertson searches the facility telling whoever is alive to come out with their hands up. She eventually finds someone hiding in one of the utility closets. Pulling the man out of his hiding place, the man asks her if it is gone, although Patricia doesn’t know what he is talking about.
She drags the lone survivor back to her dog sled and loads him onto the sled. Trying to get the dogs to get moving, they resist at first, barking at something behind them. Eventually, Patricia whips them into compliance and they head back to base unaware that they are being observed by someone lurking in the thick snowfall.
Patricia and her passenger soon arrive at Christmastown, a radar station operated by the United States Army. The whole way the lead Husky on her dog sled team, Ivan, continues to act strangely. Once they have stopped, Patricia drags man she rescued inside and reports to her commanding officer Colonel Michale Malone. After ordering Jerome Delacroix and Daniel Jackson to treat the civilian, Patricia tells him how all the people at the Ararat facility are dead. After explaining the scene of horror back at the facility, Colonel Malone figures that they must have been attacked by polar bears. Ths theory is also believed by Harold Saunders who relates a story about a friend of his at a station in Greenland who was attacked by a polar bear, saying it took five heavily armed men to take the beast down. Michael reminds Patricia how dangerous the arctic is, saying that it is home of two things: those who eat, and those who get eaten. That’s when the Colonel asks if Patricia is certain that this man is the only survivor, pointing out that if he was barricaded in the kitchen, he wouldn’t have been the one who spoke to her over the intercom. That’s when the man she saved starts to convulse as his body goes into a seizure. [1]
Recurring Characters
Patricia Robertson, Michael Malone, Jerome Delacroix, Daniel Jackson, Harold Saunders
Continuity Notes
Although not clear here, the symbiote that is obviously responsible for the murders is not the Venom symbiote. As explained in Venom #11,-14 this is actually a clone of the Venom symbiote. That story details the clone’s origin and how it found itself at the Ararat facility seen in this issue.
