Robert W. Walker (7 page)

"
Helllllp
!"

The hull echoed with their shouts and at the same instant Stroud saw something leap onto
Wisnewski's
back. It was hairy and
multilegged
with enormous eyes that glowed red in the dark, its spindly claws and teeth trying to rend Dr.
Wisnewski's
suit as if it wished to burrow in. Stroud back-handed the demon and when his gloved hand touched it, it left a searing smoke on the glove. Stroud threw down the ax claw at it immediately, missing as it scurried into the blackness. A second such creature scampered over the bones and came at Leonard's helmeted face. Wiz lifted a femur and knocked the creature hard into the wall of the ship. A third demonic menace was now on Stroud's shoulder, digging in with its teeth for the throat. Stroud grabbed it about the scrawny neck and held it up for the point of the pickax that he rammed into its throat. This caused the thing to go up in a ball of flame that burned nothing but itself, a kind of spontaneous combustion, making Stroud drop it. No blood, no bodily juices, just this: flame that burned out as quickly as it appeared, leaving an ashen outline of the living thing that had attacked him.

"Jesus! Jesus!" Wiz was pulling Leonard free of the heavy bones and skulls covering him.

"
You getting
this above? Above, are you reading this?" Stroud pleaded without answer. "We've been cut off. We've got to get out of here, Dr.
Wisnewski
, retreat, now!"

"Better part of valor, yes, quite agreed."

Leonard regained his feet and his composure and they started back the way they'd come. All around them they heard the scratching,
ratlike
noises of the creatures that had attacked them. Stroud feared they would be defenseless against an army of such creatures, and he feared that the ones that had been brave enough to attack had torn a hole in one or more of their suits, thus exposing them to whatever deadly germ lay down here with the corpses of what must be literally hundreds of ancients.

"What the hell are those things?" Leonard wanted to know.

"Devils of some sort," said Wiz, breathing heavily.
"Lesser demons, the pets of a more powerful demon."

"Demons," panted Leonard, "demons protecting an ancient ship, cursing those who dare come near it, and we're inside the damned thing, breaking down walls ... my God."

"Hurry!"
Stroud shouted at the porthole, helping the others through as he looked back into the darkness where a thousand pairs of red eyes stared back at him. The eyes were dizzying in their number and movement, as if they were revolving, and behind each pair of eyes was a monkey-rat with six legs and horrid claws and gnashing teeth. Had these demons fed on the men whose bones had somehow come to this end? Who was this sacrificial crew placed aboard a ship sunk in the earth forever, until now?

Stroud, following the other two now, staving off the red eyes that moved on them, saw that Wiz held several of the bones in his hands as he rushed along. Leonard had something in his hand as well, some kind of parchment. Both men had noticeable rents to their protective wear, as did Stroud himself. They'd lost two of the lights and one of the picks inside the strange ship filled with apparitions and demonic creatures.

Just outside, at the tunnel mouth, they agreed to explain away their difficulties inside on the basis of structural collapse. At this point in time, it seemed useless to speak of demonic power emanating from the ship, so powerful that it could affect the human mind. What worried Stroud, however, was the very real possibility that they might all die with the information locked inside them, given the nature of the beast and the fact they had come into contact with it. Would they now become human vegetables like the others? Earlier, rumors had come that even more cases of the rare disease were quickly filling up the hospital beds about the city.
If so, they must put down their findings in writing, and quickly.

Yet Stroud felt no illness, no slowing down of his mental faculties. Still, as with
Weitzel
, it might come on gradually like a creeping disease, slowly taking over his mind. The idea was enough to frighten even Abraham Stroud. "If I become a zombie, please see to it that my life is terminated," he told the other two men as the crowd overhead cheered them on toward the decontamination chamber set up outside the pit.

Wiz and Leonard agreed, only if he'd do the same for them.

The light rain had continued, and for some unaccountable reason it was creating a misty steam about the three men as it made contact with their protective clothing. The fog seemed to be seeping from them, and it smelled rank with sulfur.

Wiz held tightly to the samples of bone he had in his possession, and the bones, too, were smoldering with a weird, unnatural steam rising off the surface. Leonard quickly tucked the parchment he held inside his clothing, trying to protect it from the rain, fearful of it going up in smoke.

They stepped into the decontamination chamber one at a time, as it was no larger than a telephone booth. Wiz went first, hugging his bones. The irradiation shower was quick and painless and a man on the other side
awaited
with clothing for Dr.
Wisnewski
, who'd packed his showered protective wear in a disposable box inside the unit. Wiz was talking animatedly, in "high gear" on the other side, when Leonard went through the shower. Stroud was fatigued and thought of a real shower of warm water, while he waited patiently for Leonard; but Leonard didn't come out when the door on the other side opened. Men had to go in and help him out. He was being placed on a stretcher while the terrified Wiz looked on, and while Stroud, taking a deep breath, stepped into the chamber.

Inside, Stroud was instructed to remove the protective wear. There was a cushioned hanger on which to place the suit, and a chute through which it was to be placed after the bombarding rays hit it. Stroud felt like a microwave meal as the machine burned away bacteria on his epidermis, in his hair and pores, leaving a layer of white dust--dead cells--all over his body, along with a tingling, burning feeling. He wiped his white-powdered eyelids with his white-powdered hands. A jolt of unspeakable pain tore through the passages of his brain.

The people who'd been monitoring their progress through the ship, having been cut off as they had, were taking no chances with them, or the items they brought back with them, Leonard's parchment, Wiz's bones and Stroud's pickax--everything had to go through the chamber.

Even the metal in my head, he thought as the radioactivity began to create a ripple fluke through his cranium. He had been terribly worried about Leonard; now he worried about himself. His skull seemed suddenly afire with a bright, blinding light which triggered a total blackout, causing Stroud to fall out of the chamber when it was opened on the other side. Caught by a technician who had been holding his clothing, Stroud looked to have been converted into a wide-eyed zombie.

Wisnewski
suddenly snapped
,
his bone samples flying as he grabbed the pickax that had fallen beside Stroud. Lifting the pick over his head, he was about to bring it down into Stroud's heart--in a blinding rage--when a policeman clubbed him into unconsciousness.

All three of the men who had dared the ghost ship below the earth had succumbed to its curse.

-4-

Sir Arthur Thomas Gordon moved quickly for so heavy a man. He instantly rushed from his limousine to that of Commissioner James Nathan where Nathan contemplated the scene that had exploded in his face. Knighted by the Queen of England, a self-made man after his father had
pissed
away the family fortune, Gordon didn't like standing down to any man. He'd wheedled his way in close to Nathan, buying off his man Perkins, and Perkins had kept Gordon apprised of Nathan's every move, and in turn Gordon had thought to use it against Nathan when he brought in this charlatan Stroud. Gordon was way past going through channels. He had been on the phone to every public official in the city, including the mayor, and he had been made to stand here and watch this ridiculous affair while the construction of his tower was held up for days. The costs were astronomical.

"Now, Nathan? Now will you bloody well listen to reason? Look at all you've accomplished with this vaudeville act! I hope you're satisfied."

"Shut up, Gordon!"

"Shut up? Shut up?"

"You heard what the fuck I said!"

Camera crews and microphones were jammed in at Sir Arthur as he lit into the commissioner of police. Questions flew from the reporters.

"What're your next plans, Sir Arthur?"

"Has anyone other than Stroud's party offered to go into the pit?"

"Will you blow the place now?"

"Commissioner Nathan? Will the city give in to Sir Arthur's demands at this point?"

"Get these damned reporters back!" shouted the C.P. to his uniformed officers, who moved in, barricading the press even as they snapped pictures of Stroud,
Wisnewski
and Leonard being carted off to waiting ambulances by men wearing protective gear. Another man entered the
decon
unit, retrieving the protective wear laid aside by the three archeologists. The tears in the clothing worn by the trio that had gone into the pit were noticeable, and Nathan shouted for this man to hold as he examined the rents. They looked like the work of sharp-toothed animals, shrews or minks.

"What the hell's down there?" Nathan wondered aloud in a whisper to a beat cop his own age, an old friend by the name of Harry Baker. Harry never had what it took to rise in rank, primarily because he was so damned pleased with doing what he was doing that he didn't want any of it ... didn't want the headaches and heartaches of command. Smart move, Nathan had told him many times over. Now Harry looked back at him with a queer, questioning look and said, "Jimmy, what's really going on here?"

"Wish to God I knew, Harry ... wish I knew." Then Nathan ordered the medics out. "Go ahead, get these men to St. Stephen's; see that they get into the hands of a Dr. Cline there. She's with the CDC." Nathan felt energized, standing in the rain in the dark, the street lit with police lights, a barricade thrown up. It was like old times, too, seeing Harry. Nathan felt like a detective again. He'd missed being on a street team and he was sick of having to deal with men like Gordon. And he was sick of the treatment shown him by people around him, kowtowing and bootlicking. Good
ol
' Harry never knew how. Nice to know some men always stayed the same...

Lloyd Perkins rushed along beside him now with a wide umbrella, trying to cover him. Nathan angrily pushed him aside, saying, "Lloyd, get the shit
outa
my way."

But then Arthur Gordon stepped into his way, spoiling for a fight, getting right into his face like an angry baseball manager at a Mets game, spittle foaming at the edges of his mouth. "I'm ordering my men in
now
!"

"You'll do no such thing, Gordon!"

Perkins was in James Nathan's ear, whispering, "Maybe we ought to let Gordon
go ...
let the bastard hang himself."

"Shut up, Lloyd! Now, you, Gordon,
old chap,
listen
good
, because I'm only saying this once--"

"Whom do you think you are speaking to?"

"A royal pain in the ass, asshole, now--"

"Just who do you think you
are!
"

"I'm the highest ranking officer in New York City! Do you have it straight now? Damn you!"

Gordon was visibly shaking with anger. He was not used to being treated this way. For a moment, he looked as if he might explode.

"You can't talk to me that way!"

"Is that all you can say?" Nathan burst out laughing at the man. "Listen, asshole, your money and influence do not change the fact I am in control here;
I
give the orders."

"Don't be so sure I can't buy you straight out of a job, mister!"

"Damn you, Gordon, this city and decisions affecting the welfare of the people in it are not up to you, and so help me, if you--or anyone in your employ--goes near that damned hole in the ground--"