Last Gasp (73 page)

All the same they held on to each other, keeping up a steady pace across the rocky terrain even though the air was stifling and their bodies were running with sweat. It seemed as familiarly grotesque as a nightmare, this endless walking through a lost landscape and getting nowhere, being pursued by a nameless horror. Something less than human—subhuman—whose only instinct was to destroy.

They passed the gray squat shape of a blockhouse, which told them that the nearest entrance was within a mile. The steel doors of some of the entrances had been welded shut and Dan hoped and prayed this wasn’t one of them. Another fear, so disquieting that he didn’t dare voice it, gnawed at the edge of his reason. What if there were things living in the abandoned tunnels? Creatures who like them had sought shelter and protection underground. There were over two hundred miles of tunnels outside the Tomb’s sealed enclosure that had never been explored since the day the scientific community moved in.

Dan timed their progress and after seventeen minutes he knew that the entrance had to be in the immediate vicinity. All they had to do now was find it.

Jo sucked in a shuddery breath as the cry came again, this time on their left, to be answered by others on all sides. In the darkness Dan thought he saw ghostly white shapes closing in, floating like wraiths, making no sounds. Disembodied. Living dead. Zombies.

Perhaps Jo didn’t believe in zombies, or her reactions were sharper than his, because she was already down on one knee, rifle leveled, and had fired three times before Dan had unslung his from his shoulder. He fired and saw one of the white shapes fold and crumple. Another drifted into view and he fired again, seeing it spin and wobble to the ground.

Crouched with her back against his, Jo said through gritted teeth, “There are more of them than we’ve got ammunition for. Is the entrance around here somewhere or isn’t it?”

Under the circumstances it was ridiculous to feel annoyed, but Dan felt it. What did she expect, that the entrance would stand up and wave to them? But dammit she was right. They had to find it and damn quick. The more of these white shapes they killed, the more of them seemed to pop up out of the ground.

“Keep firing while I search. But please, please don’t hit me!”

Jo pivoted on one knee while he scrambled about on all fours, his face inches away from the ground. They could be right on top of the entrance—quite literally if it was covered with sand—or a hundred yards away, in which case he’d never find it. He circled around like a mole, thinking it funny and pathetic and yet unable to find a grain of humor in the situation. In a few minutes his gloves were in shreds and tatters, his knees raw and bleeding. What the fuck were those white things? Where had they come from?

There were three of them directly in front of him, about ten yards away as near as he could judge, pale and hairless and bloblike, and then he got a real shock. They weren’t ten yards away at all but only a matter of feet. In the darkness it was so difficult to scale things that he’d assumed they were roughly human-size when in fact they were less than two feet tall. These bloblike creatures were almost on top of them!

Dan scuttled backward and cracked his shinbone on a sharp corner. He cursed through clenched teeth, unslung his rifle, and then he paused. Feeling behind him his bare fingers touched concrete. It had to be the edge of the parapet, almost completely buried in sand. A shot whistled over his head and the nearest white shape fell over with a tiny plaintive cry. Good old Jo was keeping them at bay, so now it was up to him.

Belly-down he slithered into a shallow depression, feeling the edges of the steps beneath the sand. He slid further down, the edges scraping his stomach and thighs, and began scooping desperately at the windblown sand. He’d found the entrance, but could he get in?

As he burrowed deeper the soft sand sucked him in until he was almost completely submerged. He reached behind him for the rifle and after a struggle was able to use the butt to dig his way through. Holding his breath and flailing away with all his strength, Dan felt the metal butt guard strike steel—he was through, but now he had to get the door open. Christ, if it was welded—

In this position it was almost impossible to exert any leverage, and in a panic he wondered whether the door was hinged or sliding. He pummeled the door in a frenzy now, but the clogging sand frustrated his efforts and dulled the blows. He could feel his strength failing and he was breathing in as much sand as air as it cascaded down on top of him. Finally there was movement and the creaking protest of hinges, and then he was down in a long cool slide on a pillow of sand, gasping and choking as he fought to keep his head clear.

A moment later he struggled to his feet and waded knee-deep through the half-open door and crawled up the steps, cautiously poking his head above the concrete emplacement.

At the absence of all sound Dan’s heart contracted. Jo had run out of ammunition. The white shapes had closed in on her. He called out her name in a rusty whisper, spitting out a mouthful of grit.

“Jo, it’s here, I’ve found it!”

Silence.

“Jo, where are you? Jo!”

A white shape rose up inches in front of his face and he gagged in fear. A clammy hand closed on his wrist and Jo’s voice, thick with pain, said, “One of the little bastards got to me before I got him ... bit me ... can’t walk.”

He dragged her over the parapet and got a firm grip around her waist just as a dozen white shapes materialized from the darkness, uttering little mewing cries like babies demanding to be fed.

Chase looked up sharply as a siren welled through the peaceful laboratory. For several seconds everyone stood frozen, heads raised, eyes locked in their sockets. Threats from outside were something that everyone had learned to live with, a fact of existence, yet it still caused a tremor of shock whenever the alarm sounded.

Everyone knew the drill: Return to living quarters for essential personal belongings, account for members of the family, and assemble in the mess hall on Level 2. On average there were three or four alerts a year, usually false alarms caused by an animal triggering the electronic warning system.

Chase hurried to the operations room, worried because Dan’s party was still outside and might have run into trouble. It wasn’t the first time they had failed to meet the deadline, though this time the alarm made him doubly anxious. The duty officer told him that they had an unauthorized entry in one of the sealed tunnels. Somebody had located an access point and was approaching the Tomb underground from the west.

“How near are they?”

“The last sensor to be activated was here”—the duty officer put his finger on the map—“about a mile from the enclosure.” He traced the grid to an area shaded in orange. “If they keep to the same tunnel they’ll come up against a sealed entrance down on Level Four.”

That was one of the lower levels no longer used, a warren of empty corridors and rooms, once the living quarters and dormitories. “Is that entrance permanently sealed or is there access?” Chase asked. Some of the tunnels spreading out into the wider complex had been filled with concrete blocks, while others had steel doors.

“There’s access.”

“Have you posted men there?”

“Yes. We’ll be ready for them.”

“Tell them to identify the intruder before taking any action. It could be one of our parties.” Chase paced up and down, kneading his hands. The duty officer watched him circumspectly and raised an eyebrow at one of his colleagues; under normal circumstances the director would have left security to the men whose responsibility it was, but now he was clearly agitated.

Chase stopped pacing and said abruptly, “I think we ought to send somebody out to investigate. If it is the reconnaissance party they might need help.”

The duty officer shifted uneasily to another foot. “That’ll mean opening the doors. They’re our last line of defense.”

“Listen, there are five people still outside somewhere. It could be them in the tunnel. Send three men to take a look—if they run into trouble they can get back and seal the doors. It’s a risk we have to take.”

Still reluctant, the duty officer relayed the order while Chase brooded in a corner. It wasn’t a risk they had to take at all, he knew damn well. Not when set against the lives of the 130 people in the Tomb. For all anyone knew the tunnels could be swarming with mutes or prims—there could be an army of them. Anyway, they’d soon know.

By the early hours of the morning the Tomb was buzzing with rumors. They had been attacked via the underground complex and six men had been killed. There was a huge encampment of prims on the surface, waiting for someone to emerge. The UFOs had landed and they were surrounded by aliens....

It was unusual for an alert to last more than a couple of hours and the atmosphere in the crowded mess hall was tense and edgy. Nick, Jen, and Ruth sat together, surrounded by people who were dozing fitfully. Some were playing cards at the tables and others standing in line for coffee and sandwiches.

“What did Gav say?” Nick asked Ruth. He tried not to let his voice betray the fear that was like a cold lump in his stomach. “Is it an attack?”

“He doesn’t know. Somebody or something triggered a sensor in one of tunnels, which they’re investigating. He thinks it might be Dan, Jo, and the others.”

Jen looked at her husband, troubled. “Why come back that way? It’s easier and faster on the surface. Besides, they could get lost.”

Easier and faster, Nick thought, unless you’re hiding from someone, but he didn’t say anything.

In the operations room Chase was having to deal with a fraught Ron Maxwell, concerned about his daughter.

“It’s been over an hour since we sent three men to check it out, Ron.” Chase tried to sound reassuring. “We should know something soon.”

“Are they in radio contact?” Maxwell’s tall thin figure was hunched as if he carried a millstone on his back. He cracked his bony knuckles distractedly.

“It isn’t possible in the tunnels. They’ll have to investigate and then return to the Orange Sector entrance on Level Four and report on the internal phone.” Chase gripped his shoulder. “They’re capable men, Ron. If it is our party in the tunnels they’ll bring them back safe and sound.”

“And if it isn’t?” said Maxwell bleakly. “Will you send a surface party to look for them?”

It was a demand rather than a question. Chase nodded. “As soon as we know,” he said quietly.

“For Christ’s sake, take that light out of my eyes!”

Dan held up a shielding hand, his face behind it contorted with irritation and fatigue.

The beam swiveled away, striking blank concrete, and two pairs of hands took the burden of Jo’s weight from his shoulder. His knees buckled and he collapsed in a sweating, shaking heap. He’d supported her, sometimes carrying her, for almost four hours through the labyrinth. Sometimes he thought they were staggering into the bowels of the earth.

The man with the flashlight lifted him and asked him a question. It sounded urgent but the words had no meaning. The man had to repeat the question twice more before he understood.

“Dead,” Dan said wearily. “The others are dead.”

“Are they following?”

“No, I just told you.” Dan’s head lolled. “They’re dead....”

“Not your friends—the ones who killed them!” the man said tersely. “The mutes or whoever they were. Did they follow you into the complex?”

Dan nodded weakly. “I think so. I’m not sure.”

It took forty minutes to make their way back to the safety of the Tomb. Once inside the doors were sealed and barred. Then the man who had helped Dan grabbed the handset from its wall cradle and reported to the operations room.

As they listened over the speaker Chase saw Ron Maxwell’s face lose color. He was bowed, the millstone a crushing load, the green-shaded lights deepening the etched lines on his forehead and in the corners of his eyes. He put a trembling hand to his mouth and the Adam’s apple in the beanstalk neck jerked convulsively.

Chase leaned over the bed in the sick bay and shook his son into consciousness. “How many? Twenty? Thirty? Dan, how many of them were there?”

Dan struggled to open his eyes. He felt light-headed, a pleasant dreamy torpor pressing him down and down into the infinitely soft mattress. His lips formed words that sounded in his own ears as if they’d come from a great distance.

“We never saw them clearly ... too dark.”

“Did they come after you into the tunnels?”

Dan opened his eyes and tried to focus. “We heard them crying.”

“Crying?” Chase stared at him, two deep frown marks rising vertically from between his black eyebrows. “You heard them crying?”

“Like babies. They were white ... all white ...” Dan closed his eyes and seemed to fall asleep, but after a moment he said, “We killed some of them, ten or more, but it didn’t seem to matter. They fell down and others kept on coming. They didn’t care.”

Chase straightened up. He couldn’t decide whether Dan was delirious or was relating what had actually happened. They sounded like mutes, but he wasn’t sure. White things that cried? “Were they armed, did they have weapons of any kind?” he asked.

“Didn’t see any,” Dan mumbled. “Babies ...” He was breathing in long moaning sighs, fully asleep.

Chase turned to the doctor. “There’s nothing seriously wrong with him, is there? Anoxia?”

“He’s exhausted, that’s all. Breathing in rarefied air saps all the strength. If we let him sleep undisturbed for ten hours he’ll be fine.”

“Let’s hope we can,” Chase said, and with a last look at his son went out.

In the corridor he found Ruth, Nick, and Jen waiting for him. From their expressions he knew that Jo too was going to be all right. Nick confirmed this by saying that her wound had been dressed and she was sleeping peacefully.

They went along the corridor and Chase discussed with them the wisdom, or otherwise, of taking the initiative and launching a counterattack.

“How dangerous are they?” Ruth asked him. “Have they got weapons? Explosives?”

“Not according to Dan.” Chase combed his fingers through his beard. “I’m wondering how many of them are in the tunnels. We’re safe enough inside the Tomb with the access points sealed, but if we don’t clear them out it’s an open invitation to every mute and primitive within a hundred miles to move into the complex and set up house.” He glanced around grimly at the others. “How do you feel about living next to a city of freaks?”