Robert W. Walker (27 page)

He held on to her, although she tried to pull free, angry with him. Taking her clumsily in his arms in the bulky protective wear with the oxygen tank and the other equipment on their backs, the shimmering
skull's
head poking from Stroud's pack, they looked an odd couple.

Wiz and Leonard were examining something on the ceiling, a part of the creature which had terrorized them. "Stroud, look at this," Wiz was saying.

Most of the creature had disintegrated with flame as the chemical reaction set it afire, but here was a portion that had been torn away and it was moving, dragging itself along the ceiling, weakened. Stroud grabbed hold of it and lifted it to the light. It was a small, evil
gnomelike
creature with its own set of little arms and legs, a furry, lice-ridden body, gleaming black eyes and razor-sharp teeth. It snarled at them under the glare, trying to tear open Stroud's glove where it was held.

"The larger creature was made up of hundreds, perhaps thousands of these damned sand crabs," said Stroud. "It's the same things that attacked us on our first visit to the ship, gentlemen. The creature covering the entranceway to the ship earlier, too, was made into whole cloth by an interlocking network of these dervishes piled one on another on another."

"They must interlock their bodies, creating the effect," said Wiz.

"Bloody little beasts," said Leonard.

"It will go to a stronger line of defense now," said Stroud as he squeezed the life out of the hateful beastie in his hand, tossing it up into the hole opened by the network of its brethren as it had relentlessly pursued them to this point in the tunnel system.

"Shine your lights here," said Stroud, pointing to the opening left by the creatures. "Damned thing is playing three-dimensional chess with us. No wonder we couldn't find the ship. We've been below it. The floor was on a slight slant the entire way, and we just came in, going deeper and deeper."

"And using up precious oxygen in the bargain," Kendra said.

It was a stalemate, unless Stroud's people could find a way into the sealed ship. "The damned ship is above us." He stared up at the ceiling and the hole with utter curiosity.

"This thing is playing us for all we're worth," said Wiz.

"It wants to play, and yet, growing bored with us down here, it's inviting us in," said Leonard. "Why?"

"The skull.
It wants the skull far more than it wants us," Stroud replied.

They all turned to him, staring. There was some new resolution in his voice. Kendra spoke their minds. "Did the skull speak to you again?"

"Weakly ... Seems the energy of the skull is being
sapped
down here, drawn off by this thing, only adding to its power."

"Then perhaps it was a mistake to enter with it," said Kendra.

"No, we've made the right choices," he told them, "but now perhaps you should all wait at this juncture. I will go on from here with the skull."

"We're in this thing together, Stroud," shouted Wiz.

"We've come this far," agreed Leonard.

"Bravery becomes you both," he said to them. Then he turned to Kendra. "And you?"

"You don't think for a moment I'm going to wait here alone for you, do you?"

"Then let's move on. We've got to get up there."

"I'll go first," said Leonard. "Drop a rope down."

Stroud nodded and helped Leonard up to his shoulders, where he got a firm hold on the level above. He was soon tossing down a rope which he had tied firmly to a stone outcropping above. Wiz started up after, followed by Kendra and finally Stroud.

As soon as they were on the next level, the light in the crystal skull grew stronger. Everyone noticed the change. Kendra wondered again if perhaps they ought not to fear the skull itself, the way the eyes looked at her.

Aboveground, Commissioner James Nathan and his men watched from the rooftops, the distance too great to be of much use, yet there was a definite change in the zombies since Stroud's arrival. It was uncanny, mysterious and a great deal frightening to think that one man, that Stroud, somehow could control these numbers. At the moment, the army of unseeing, uncaring semi-dead just remained frozen in step, as if waiting for a signal from the pit--or from Stroud.

Nathan no longer knew what to believe. All around the mile-wide perimeter of the zombie army, the U.S. Army was being stationed.
More men and more weapons.
The war would continue here aboveground soon; if the zombies did not end it, the U.S. Army would.

Nathan had spoken to the commander. He had spoken to the mayor, and Bill Leamy had spoken to Washington, D.C., the President.

At the moment, all was poised to give Abraham H. Stroud his chance. Failing this, they'd move in and wipe out every man, woman and child who stood protecting and feeding the heart of this evil.

Nathan had tried on several occasions to contact Stroud's party, to no avail. Something kept jamming the communication line, and so far Stroud had not contacted him. Nathan was growing jumpier by the minute. But the damnable, murderous zombies were as still and as stiff as cut-out cardboard people, like the things Nathan fired on at the range. More and more, Nathan felt he'd have no trouble using a bomb on them.

But now he had the Stroud party in there, in the core of this unholy reactor, and he didn't know what to do about that.

He tried to hail Stroud again. He got a faint voice, going in and out with the static. It sounded like Stroud.

"How are you progressing?" he pleaded.

"Stroud is your enemy,"
said the voice.
"Do not trust him."

"Who is this? Who's on this line?"

"My name is unimportant,"
came
the wavering whisper.
"Do not trust Stroud"

"Bastard, identify
yourself
."

But it was gone. Nathan shouted for Stroud to come in. Suddenly Stroud's voice came over, saying, "We've had some difficulty down here."

"Anyone hurt?"

"All are fine, and we're pushing on."

"Where are you? Have you penetrated the ship?"

"Not yet."

"What? You've been in there an hour."

"We've met with several obstacles thrown up in our way."

"Are you near your target?"

"Why, is there a problem up there?"

"Army is here, and chomping at the bit, ready to open fire, and I can't blame them."

Stroud hesitated at his end. "You've got to give us time, Commissioner. We're closing in, but--"

"You've got till dawn, Stroud."

"Dawn?"

"Three hours. And then we unleash the heavy artillery."

"I can't promise we'll be out by then."

"And I can't promise you that it will make a damned difference, Stroud. Too many people up here have lost too many friends and relatives to this thing. They want action, not a ghost hunt on a ship buried below the city."

"We're wasting time, then.
Stroud out."

Nathan frowned. He'd hoped that he could convince the fool that he must get his people out of there now. But Stroud was a stubborn son of a bitch. And either brave or stupid. Either way, James Nathan had come to admire the man.

Abe Stroud clicked off the communicator, their only link with the outside, informing the others that they had less than three hours before the Army meant to flatten the place. "Can't stop ignorance," he told the others. "Everyone thinks the disease can be ended if they just bomb the site. We know better."

All of them felt it now as Stroud had felt it right along; they were not alone. They could not see it so much as they could feel it: the definite presence of
Ubbrroxx
. It was like the fire of a furnace. You didn't have to stand at the furnace to feel the heat.

And the temperature was rising in the pit, rising by leaps and bounds. Inside their protective wear the temperature was rising to ninety, ninety-five and a hundred. Kendra was the first to notice her temperature gauge and ask the others if they were also experiencing difficulties.

They were.
All of them.
And the tunnel they had chosen to step into was now a river of superheated air. Stroud shouted for them to form a circle, to huddle together and hold on.

The others, not knowing what else to do, did as Stroud instructed. Holding firmly to one another, Stroud shouted, "No one must break the circle. Hold on! Hold on!"

The heat flew over and around them, swirling in a torrent of electrified hatred from the thing in the ship.

Inside the circle of their bodies, Stroud held the skull at the very center of them, which had suddenly become a freezing orb, an icy vapor rising from it. It was a silent conversation to them all, not just Stroud, a visual dialogue among them all as the others saw what Stroud saw: the skull was fighting the fire wind of the damnable tunnel with a preternatural wind of its own. Stroud understood the magical power and sanctity of the
circle, that
it closed out evil and kept in good. The church with its brethren of believers was the circle.

There were, apparently, all manner of nasty creatures in this underworld, many of which had taken up a long residence here in the pit. Abe had learned of his ancestry, of his special genetic makeup, which had only been enhanced by the steel plate in his cranium. He knew that he alone had the capacity to detect and put an end to the creature in the ship, and that he was indeed the distant ancestor of the brave and curious
Esruad
.

Abe smelled smoke and saw that their protective wear was being seared by the heat, a thin smoke rising off them all. It threatened to burst the material into flame. The shield of safety around them seemed to be eroding, when suddenly the threat retreated and the air cooled.

"You like it
coooooold
?"
came a voice that barreled down the cavern just before a rush of frigid air, followed by demonic laughter.

"Hold to the circle, all your hands on the crystal!" Stroud shouted, and the crystal turned warm and then hot beneath their touch until they could hold it no longer, and Stroud bent to place it at their feet. The circle crouched with him and withheld the freezing temperatures hurled at them, although their protective clothing was laden with ice.

"It's expending a great deal of energy over this game," said Stroud.

"So is our skull," said Wiz.

Then the brutally cold storm was suddenly lifted. There was not
so
much as a sensation it was ever there, save for the falling glasslike pieces of ice as their suits thawed. The skull, too, returned to normal.

"Uncanny," commented a shaken Leonard, "simply uncanny."

An unearthly, ungodly stench began to filter through the tunnels. It was so ghastly that they could even smell it through the protection of the oxygen masks they wore.

"What the hell is that?" asked Wiz.

Leonard was pointing a bony finger at the things that now suddenly appeared to block their way. Stroud saw
what was to him a nightmare, the vision of several vampires that he had personally killed in Andover a year ago
. Their bodies were fully intact, but they walked upright with the metal stakes he had driven into them. The sight unnerved Stroud as he watched the white maggots feeding on the wounds of the vampires who now opened their mouths wide, baring their fangs.