The Suicide Exhibition

by Justin Richards

  “Whichever way is clear of those things,” Davenport shouted back.

  “Follow Henderson,” Guy ordered.

  There were fewer of the Vril closer to the mound, and Henderson’s Chevrolet was heading at speed for the entrance cut into the landscape. It was almost there when the ground seemed to explode under it. More of the Vril erupted from the desert, right beneath the vehicle. It crunched and bounced over them, but then slewed violently to one side.

  The Chevrolet skidded, rolled, ended up on its side. Henderson and the surviving soldiers were thrown out. One of them was immediately covered with Vril. A line of the creatures scuttled hungrily toward Henderson and the last three soldiers. They fired shot after shot, but still the creatures kept coming.

  Guy yelled at the driver to accelerate. But they could all see there was no way they would reach Henderson before the Vril overwhelmed them. One of them was already clawing its way over the end of the truck. A sharp tentacle skewered into the back of one of the soldiers—erupting from his chest in a shower of blood and tissue. Henderson stuck his revolver into the creature’s body before it could withdraw, and fired three shots. The Vril collapsed in a deflated heap, dragging the man it had impaled with it.

  Then the creatures exploded, one after another. The desert sand was strewn with suddenly visceral slime and severed limbs. The deep roar of another engine made Davenport turn—and see the radio truck racing toward them. Its big Vickers machine gun was trained on the advancing Vril, the heavy .303 bullets ripping them to pieces.

  “They’re giving us covering fire,” Guy realized. “Get to Henderson!”

  They skidded to a halt beside Henderson and his men, who quickly clambered into the vehicle. The driver accelerated away as a Vril leaped at them, slamming into the side of the truck. One of the soldiers rammed his submachine gun into the dark body and fired. The Vril shrieked, and exploded into pieces. A single twitching limb remained hooked over the side of the Chevrolet. Davenport prised it loose with the end of the rifle he still held, and it fell away.

  “Head for the entrance,” Guy said. “It’s the only cover.”

  “Unless there are more of those things inside,” Henderson told him. “What are they?”

  “I wish we knew,” Davenport told him. “But apart from ‘nasty’ we don’t have a lot to go on.”

  “And what’s this place?” Henderson said as they raced toward the dark hole cut into the desert.

  It was easily wide enough for the Chevrolet. There seemed to be no Vril close to the mound, and they drove inside, the radio truck close behind. Its Vickers gun swung to cover the desert outside as it slowed to a halt behind Guy and Davenport’s vehicle.

  “This place is why we came here,” Guy said. It seemed eerily quiet after the sounds of the battle outside. “We’re hoping to find answers to your question in here.”

  The Vickers gun was ready to blast away at any of the creatures that came close. But for the moment they seemed content to keep well back.

  “They know we’ll have to come out again at some point,” Davenport said.

  “We should call up air support,” Henderson decided. He looked to Guy for agreement, and he nodded his consent.

  Henderson’s suggestion that there might be more of them inside made Guy and Davenport cautious as they left the surviving soldiers with the trucks and made their way along the tunnel. Guy had a rifle slung over his shoulder and two grenades hung from his belt. Davenport wore a handgun in a holster, his hand never straying far from it. Before long they were out of sight of the entrance, and their flashlights gave the only light.

  “Streicher didn’t make this tunnel,” Davenport said. “He cut a hole into the end of this passageway, like a door. Like he knew it was here.”

  “Maybe he did,” Guy agreed. “He was an Ubermensch.”

  “But how? He was human enough when I met him in France, I’d swear to it. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “When I pulled him out of the burial mound,” Davenport said. “Maybe something happened to him then. He breathed in the gas or whatever it was. Or perhaps he was bitten or stung by one of those creatures. I did see … something. Something in the tomb, just from the corner of my eye.”

  The passageway sloped down into the ground. There were openings off, each of them giving into a large chamber. The first few were empty.

  “It’s a different layout to the other sites,” Davenport said. “But we should be careful. There may still be traps.”

  “Look at this.” Guy shone his flashlight through another opening. “This is more like it.”

  The pale light picked out broken glass and pottery strewn across the floor. A pile of bracelets, like the one Sarah had found in Suffolk, lay close to one wall. They picked their way through the chamber, and Guy stuffed one of the bracelets into his pocket.

  “We should gather up as much of this stuff as we can,” he said.

  “Best check what else is down here first,” Davenport cautioned. “We want to make sure we take the most useful things. Who knows what’s farther inside?”

  “Nothing good, I suspect.”

  They found a chamber of empty glass jars, identical to the ones that had housed Vril creatures at the other sites.

  “The ones outside, do you suppose?” Davenport said. “You think maybe they burrowed their way out of here?”

  “No,” Guy said. “Look at this.”

  At the back of the chamber, two small circular openings were cut into the wall, close to the floor. Guy shone his flashlight into one of them, revealing a round tunnel. There were grooves cut into the sides, like small steps.

  “That’s how they get out,” Davenport realized. He shone his own flashlight into the second cylindrical tunnel.

  A dark tentacle lashed out from inside the tunnel, whipping across in front of Davenport’s face. He cried out and leaped back, fumbling for his gun.

  “Christ—they’re coming back in!”

  Guy stepped in front of him, dropping his flashlight as he unslung his rifle from his shoulder and brought it to bear. The Vril was right in the opening now, gaining purchase from the narrow step-like ledges inside to pull itself up and out. Its dark eyes glinted in the erratic light from Davenport’s flashlight.

  The rifle shot tore through the creature’s outer skin. It deflated, screeching—falling back into the hole. Tentacles scrabbled round the lip of the tunnel. Then Guy fired again, and the bulbous body exploded. He grabbed a grenade from his pocket, pulled out the pin and threw it into the tunnel opening. It rattled down the shaft.

  He repeated the process with the second tunnel, then turned and ran. Davenport was right with him as they charged out of the chamber and took shelter to the side of the doorway. There were two explosions in rapid succession. A blast of heat swept past them. Smoke drifted out into the passageway.

  When the sound had died away, they cautiously made their way back inside. The two small openings were blocked with rock and debris, the tunnels collapsed.

  “Let’s hope there’s no other way for them to get back inside,” Davenport said.

  His words were punctuated by the distant rattle of gunfire.

  “Sounds like they’re trying the main entrance now,” Guy said, leading the way back out into the main passage. “We’d better get a move on. Let’s see what we can find, then organize getting the hell out of here.”

  There was a glow coming from farther down the passageway. Pale light spilled out from an entrance into another chamber. Guy and Davenport warily stepped into the light, peering into the vast space beyond. The walls were covered with strange equipment—lights glowing, dials and readouts giving information in runic symbols that neither of them could decipher.

  “What’s it for?” Guy wondered aloud.

  “Buggered if I know,” Davenport replied. They were both speaking in hushed voices.

  “You think Streicher found this?”

  “If he did, then why didn’t his men remove anyth
ing?” Davenport asked. “They found their way in here and then … Nothing. If it was me, I’d have been loading up the trucks outside. There’s something wrong about this place.”

  Guy laughed. “You can say that again.”

  “No, I’m serious. I mean…” He shook his head. “Ignore me, I don’t know what I mean.”

  Thick metal mesh hung down like spiders’ webs from the arched roof. Guy’s flashlight picked out the bulbous shape of a Vril hanging motionless in the netting.

  “It’s dead,” he realized.

  The body was a pale, withered husk.

  Davenport had a small camera. Neither of them thought the pictures would come out in the dim light with no flash, but he took pictures anyway. They worked their way through the cavernous chamber, and finally pushed past the last of the hanging metal mesh, to discover what lay beyond.

  “My God,” Davenport breathed. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “We’d need to ask someone who’s seen one,” Guy replied, equally awestruck. “But yes, I think we’ve found a UDT.”

  The craft hung suspended below the roof of the cavern—though it was impossible to see what held it in place above the floor. It was as big as the Avro Anson that Guy and Davenport had arrived in, but unlike a conventional plane it was circular, like an upturned soup bowl. The only wings were stubby fins that projected from one side of the disc. The underside was patterned with circular recesses that gave off a faint, yellow glow which was just enough to blur the shape of the disc and make it hard to discern its color. It looked like a dull silver or possibly gunmetal gray, but it could really have been anything.

  “Engines?” Guy wondered.

  Davenport shrugged. “It’s almost like it’s on display, isn’t it. This whole place could have been designed to lead us through to this finale. The great reveal at the end of some bizarre freak show.” He raised the small camera and snapped two pictures. “A couple more for the family album.”

  “How do we get that out of here?” Guy asked.

  “Short answer is, we don’t. Though—how did they get it out of here I wonder?”

  “They flew it.”

  “Yes, but where? Streicher made the entrance hole, and anyway that thing’s too big to fit down the passageway … Unless the roof opens up somehow?”

  “No sign of that,” Guy said. He raked his flashlight across the roof. The light barely touched it, but the whole structure seemed to be solid.

  “We should get back,” Davenport said. “See if Henderson has any ideas.”

  “Let’s see what we can take back with us.”

  As Guy was speaking, there was a loud scraping sound from somewhere behind them, followed by a dull thump that echoed round the chamber.

  They ran to see what had happened—and found that a screen had slid into place across the opening into the passageway. It was textured like stone, but warm to the touch and slightly spongy.

  “Someone shut the door,” Davenport said.

  “Maybe it was automatic.”

  “Doesn’t much matter, does it? However it happened, we have to get it open again.”

  They put their shoulders to the huge door, but it refused to move in the slightest.

  “There’s a panel here with some sort of markings on it,” Guy said.

  The panel was set into the frame of the doorway. It was made from the same material as the shutter, and there was a pattern inlaid into it, like the silver tracery on the bracelets. A spiral pattern of intersecting lines.

  “Looks like a maze,” Davenport said.

  Guy traced his finger across the panel. The lines glowed as he touched them.

  “You suppose we solve the maze and the door opens?” he said. “Or is that too obvious?”

  “Got to be worth a try.”

  It took three attempts before Guy—encouraged and distracted by Davenport’s constant advice—solved the puzzle. They both looked expectantly at the door. Nothing happened. In frustration, Guy thumped his fist into the panel. It juddered under the blow, skewing sideways slightly.

  “Hang on,” Davenport said. “Let’s see if we can lever it off.”

  Together they were able to ease their fingertips behind the panel and ease it away from the wall. Behind was a recess, filled with filaments like the tendrils that emerged from the wounds of an Ubermensch, only thicker. The panel remained attached by one of the filaments, which split into narrower fibers just before it reached the plate.

  “Big help,” Guy said. “Now what?”

  “No idea,” Davenport confessed. “But if these tendrils are like wires in an electrical circuit, maybe we need to connect them up in a particular way to open the door.”

  “Or maybe none of this has anything to do with the door.”

  But Davenport was already pulling out strands of the spongy, organic material and touching the ends together. He was rewarded by a sudden hiss and a flash of sparks. Guy shone his flashlight into the recess to give more light over and above the ambient glow from the equipment around them.

  “Try that one,” Guy said, pointing to one of the strands. “It’s the same shade as the one you’re holding.”

  Another flash of sparks. Then the panel across the doorway slid slowly back.

  “Well done!”

  Guy’s relieved congratulations were curtailed by a wail of high-pitched noise. The control plate was suddenly pulled back to the wall by the tendril, snapping into place. The silver tracery on the surface had shifted into another shape, like a Celtic cross. The wail died away, then started again, falling and rising regularly. And with each burst of sound, the runic pattern on the plate changed—to a similar symbol but with one of the arms of the cross shorter. A second later, it changed again, the arm shortening still further.

  “We have to get out of here,” Guy said, staring at the plate. “Now!”

  “You can read those runes?” Davenport said, surprised.

  “No. But I know a countdown when I see one. Come on!”

  They ran, flashlight beams dancing round the walls and floor as they raced back up the passageway.

  “You could be wrong,” Davenport gasped.

  “Then we can come back and salvage that equipment.”

  From deep behind them came a low rumble. The ground began to shake.

  “All right,” Davenport shouted above the growing noise. “You’re not wrong.”

  A dark figure was coming toward them. A silhouette in the dim light now visible from the end of the tunnel. It slowly resolved itself into Henderson, running toward them.

  “Thank God,” he said. “What’s going on? It sounds as if the whole place is going to blow.”

  “I think you’re exactly right,” Guy told him.

  “Did you get through to base?” Davenport asked as they ran back toward the two trucks parked inside the end of the tunnel.

  “We did,” Henderson told him.

  “And you called in air support?” Guy said. “Because God knows we’re going to need it.”

  “There is no air support,” Henderson said.

  “What?”

  “Rommel’s heading toward Benghazi. They’ve got the whole of the Desert Air Force on standby to support our troops. The DAF can’t spare anyone to come and help us against … against whatever it is out there we’re fighting.”

  They reached the trucks. The Vickers gun opened up, its violent chattering echo adding to the deep rumble growing inside the tunnel. Abruptly it cut out again.

  “That’s it, sir,” the gunner shouted to Henderson. “That’s the last of the ammo.”

  “They’re coming!” one of the other soldiers shouted. Outside the tunnel, a dark mass was swarming and scuttling across the sand toward them.

  From deep down the tunnel, there was a violent roar of sound. A huge detonation. A rush of hot air blasted over them.

  “We’ve no air support and we’ve lost the Vickers,” Henderson shouted above the increasing noise. “But believe me, sir—we have to get the h
ell out of here now!”

  His face was glowing in reflected light. His eyes widened as he stared past Guy and Davenport. They both turned to see a huge ball of flame and smoke roaring up the tunnel toward them.

  CHAPTER 48

  With nothing else to do, Sarah spent a lot of her time in the radio tent. Whenever the set crackled into life, she hoped it would be Guy and Davenport calling in. But the news from farther west and updates on Rommel’s advance consumed the airwaves.

  She was about to leave and get herself a cup of tea in the mess tent when Henderson’s signal finally came through. She listened in horror to the message sent back by the DAF commander—that no help would be coming. She could see from the faces of the soldiers and airmen that it wasn’t a decision they liked, but outside the planes were already being fueled and readied for reconnaissance and possible action over the Afrika Korps.

  From experience, Sarah knew there was no point in arguing. So instead she slipped away to look for Jimmy the ground crewman. Speed was vital, so she asked the first Desert Air Force man she saw. And kept asking until someone directed her to a maintenance area.

  “How about you show me that Hurri-bomber?” she said when she found him.

  “Sure.” Jimmy grinned. “Maybe this afternoon if they’re not needed. There are a few of them.”

  “I only want to see one. But I want to see it now.”

  “I’m kind of busy.”

  “Oh.” She deployed her best disappointed pout. “That’s a pity. Still, maybe one of the other boys can show me. There’s a few who have offered. Just a quick look, mind, because I know everyone’s got a lot on.” She undid the top button of her blouse and shook the material gently. “Hot, isn’t it?”

  It wasn’t especially warm, but Jimmy didn’t contradict her. He wiped his hands on an oily rag. “All right, all right. But we’ll have to be quick.”

  There were half a dozen planes arranged at the end of the main landing strip, concealed under camouflage nets. They passed several Kittyhawks before reaching a Hawker Hurricane. It didn’t have the elegance of the Spitfire, but poised on the sand the harsh military menace of the aircraft was unmistakeable. The only difference that Sarah could see from the normal Mark II model were the bombs, one slung under each wing.