by North, Geoff
A dozen little hands were pulling him onto the cold surface. “You tricked me—got inside of my head…”
“You know you’re not really here, don’t you, Great-Gramps? You’re not back in Germany during the war. You’re writhing on a stairway, shitting your pants, deep in the ground halfway around the world a thousand years later.”
Their fingers were poking into his mouth and tugging at his nostrils. Cold teeth bit into his shoulder. “Make them stop! Make them stop!”
“You know what children are like—full of energy. They never get tired. Just go with it… Let them play.”
She slammed the door shut and Lothair started to scream.
Chapter 60
Lawson still couldn’t understand what had possessed Eichberg to run down the stairs instead of finishing them all off in front of the big metal door. When they heard his screams in the distance, the lawman decided he didn’t want to know.
They still had Leonard Dutz to deal with.
“Try it again,” Willem insisted.
Jenny tapped the six number combination into the keypad again. The door spoke back to her.
“Incorrect.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” the cryer said, smacking the side of her fist against metal. “548773—those are the numbers my Mom said, I’m sure of it.”
They were all clustered around her, willing the giant surface in front of them to open. Lawson crept back to the junction in the corridor and looked down on Leonard. He was still sitting on top of the dead cryer, picking away at its face and shoving the pieces into his mouth. He looked up and saw the lawman staring.
“Hurry up with the numbers,” he called out to Jenny.
Leonard stood up. “Why hasn’t Eichberg killed you yet?”
Cobe was standing next to Jenny. “Try talking to your ma again.”
She shook her head. “She’s gone. I think she’s dead.” Both of her parents were gone. Jenny realized she was alone. Both gone… Both…Two…
“There are two doors—my mother gave me numbers to two doors.” Her fingers went back to the keypad.
Leonard was walking slowly towards Lawson. He could hear Eichberg crying off in the distance. “What…What did you do to him? Why does he sound like that?”
Lawson heard Sarah shouting for him. The door was opening. He wouldn’t make it back to them in time. Leonard was less than ten feet away, his wet hands clenching and unclenching. The lawman curled his into fists and considered how he would fare against the creature. Not well. It was like the Rites all over again—stuck in a hole and preparing to die.
Something made a terrible hissing sound and a flash of orange dropped out from the wires over Leonard’s head. It clawed into the skin of the cryer’s scalp, tearing away skin in strips. Its yellow teeth sank into his skull.
That gawdamn cat followed us the whole way down.
Leonard tried batting it away with his fists. He tried grabbing into its greasy fur, but the animal was too fast for him to get a grip on. Too fast, too strong, and too frenzied. It clung to the front of his face as Leonard spun around in circles. Claws sharper than needles burrowed into one of his eyeballs, and Leonard howled.
Lawson left them there and ran for the big door that had started to close back up on its own. He squeezed through the last bit remaining open and it sealed shut with a resounding thud.
“Leonard?” Cobe asked.
“Our old friend Smudge dropped in for a visit.”
Jenny had just finished punching the other set of numbers into the second door’s keypad. There was a click, and a metallic wheel with three spokes running out from the center popped out of the door’s surface. She turned and rested her back against it. “Spin that wheel, pull, and the door will open.”
“Get out of the way then,” Willem said.
“The air in there might make you sick…It could even kill you. I don’t know how to explain it any better…I just thought you had a right to know.”
“We didn’t come down here to escape, did we?” Cobe said. “We’re bringing the whole place down, aren’t we?”
Jenny nodded.
Lawson pulled her away from the door gently. “Then it don’t make no difference if the air makes us sick. Let’s get this over with.” He turned the wheel with both hands and pulled. The door opened with a deep groan and the seven stepped inside.
Jenny expected the air to be a creeping green fog. She thought breathing it in would burn at her nostrils and throat. She had seen too many old movies as a child. The air was clear and it smelled clean. The room was small and featureless, not some sprawling center lined with dozens of control desks and hulking computer banks. There was one chair, one desk, sitting in the center of an airtight white-walled, white-floored, and white-ceiling room.
Jenny walked up to the desk and pushed the chair off to one side. It wasn’t really a desk—it looked more like a slab of solid white marble carved out from the floor into a perfect cube sitting four feet high. They gathered around her and stared down through a small circular window set flat into the surface. A black pea-sized sphere hovered two feet beneath the glass. It appeared to be jumping around slightly— side to side, up and down—as if cupped inside an invisible shaking hand.
Willem sounded disappointed. “That’s a nukebatt?”
“A nuclear battery… a controlled black hole suspended in a field of anti-gravity… That’s how my mother explained it.”
The word OPTIONS was printed under the window. Jenny touched It and a small door slid open beside it. There were four buttons to choose from:
POWER DOWN REMOVE POWER UP COLLAPSE
Jenny pressed the last one and the little ball stopped jumping around. The light in the room grew dim. A woman’s voice started counting down numbers.
“Five-hundred ninety-eight… Five-hundred ninety-seven… Five-hundred ninety-six.”
Jenny went to the chair and sat. She rested her face into the palms of her hands and waited. Lawson put his arm around Sarah and held his other hand out to their daughter. Cobe saw Angel staring at him. He wrapped an arm around Willem.
The boy looked up. “I still don’t get it. What’s happening?”
Cobe knew two things for sure. One: he knew how to count. Two: in less than ten minutes his counting days would come to an end.
***
Edna had barely emerged from her final encounter with Eichberg before the second arrow could pierce her heart. She shifted the upper half of her bent body and it struck her in a lung. She opened her eyes and saw the old hag called Gertie leering down at her.
“You’re a mess, girl,” she leaned down and spat in Edna’s face. “Uglier than ol’ Dirty herself.”
A figure emerged from the drifting smoke behind her, readying a third arrow into the string of his bow. There was an obscene growth protruding from his neck. It wiggled when he spoke. “She’s the last of ‘em, Ma. We been all through what’s left of the town, and there ain’t no one left. They all been burned.”
Edna could hear fire raging all around them; she could feel the rumble of it underneath her. There was a cracking noise to the right and a dozen sparking embers descended across her legs. The pain it caused was considerable, but turning her head was agonizing. They were less than twenty feet away from a burning house preparing to collapse.
“Put the last arrow in her face, Boy.” The woman’s face was pink and dripping with sweat. She placed a dirty finger nail between Edna’s eyes. “Plant it right here and we’ll leave this town fer good.”
Edna jerked forward and bit into it. Gertie screeched, attempted to pull her hand free, and Edna clamped down harder. Boy dropped his weapon and tried pulling his mother away. Edna could hear the structure next to them begin to groan. A blast of hot smoke blasted into her face. She felt along the ground with her fingers and found Boy’s ankle. Gertie fell forward onto Edna’s chest. The old woman wheezed dryly in her ear, gasping frantically for a breath of clean air. Edna yanked on Boy’s leg and he toppled down
onto his mother.
The fight had gone out of them now. Edna could feel them hitching for oxygen but their lungs only filled with smoke and ashes. The house let out a final deafening roar and came crashing down. A section of wall slammed into Boy, and Gertie’s hair burst into flames. The old woman screamed soundlessly into her face.
Her dirty green tooth was the last thing Edna would ever see. She closed her eyes and went back to her daughter one last time.
***
“Five-hundred thirty-four… Five-hundred thirty-three.”
Jenny shot up out of the chair. “There is a way out!”
She spun on the wheel in the door and pushed. They followed her out through the second door and rushed along the corridor, towards the stairway Lothair Eichberg had disappeared down. The siren had been silenced and the red emergency lights pulsed less frequently.
Lawson trailed after the others. He peered down the long hallway where Smudge had attacked Leonard and saw the glowing eyes of a dozen more ABZE clients running their way.
Angel tripped on the first step leading down and the lawman scooped her back up. “Watch them feet of yers, girl. Another stumble like that will be yer last.”
They found Lothair Eichberg at the bottom, sitting up against a door. His eyes were open and vacant, a trail of drool hung from his chin. Jenny stared down at the terrible man and tried to imagine what her mother had shown him. Cobe opened the door and his body fell into the next room. They stepped over Lothair and saw three hulking monsters sitting before them.
Chapter 61
“They aren’t rollers,” Jenny explained to Willem. “They’re armored tanks, plugged into the main power supply and left fully charged. They can only be activated in case the power is cut or the nukebatt has collapsed. She went to the one in the middle and pulled a cable thicker than her arm free from its recessed socket. The big green machine rumbled to life. A door popped open from one side and twin lights on the other end flooded a section of the underground garage in brightness.
Cobe saw a rectangular section of wall forty feet away begin to rise from the floor in front of the tank. A hole into utter blackness waited beyond.
“Four-hundred ninety-seven… Four-hundred ninety-six.”
Jenny pulled Willem and Kay towards the tank. Come on, this thing will get us out of here!”
Willem tried digging his heels into the floor as she dragged him along. “How’s it goin’ to do that? We supposed to ride on top of it like a horse?”
“You ride inside it.”
Sarah had already climbed in after Kay and Angel. Cobe helped Jenny with his brother, lifting the squirming boy into Sarah’s waiting hands.
Lawson was still with Lothair. He’d dragged the comatose body all the way into the garage and was bracing the door shut with his shoulder. His hands were gripped around the handle, holding it in place. Something banged against the other side—moments later a dozen more pounding fists joined it.
Cobe was already stepping up into the tank; he hesitated when he saw the lawman losing his battle with the door. Jenny pushed him all the way through. “He’ll make it.”
Lawson’s boots slid against concrete. The door was opening, and grey fingers had taken hold along its edge. A nose was wriggling its way in through the crack.
“Four-hundred eighty… Four-hundred seventy-nine.”
He gave it one last mighty heave and pushed himself away. Lawson stumbled over Lothair and crashed down. He was grateful Angel hadn’t seen him trip.
“Where is he?” Willem yelled. “What do you see?”
Jenny started pulling the hatch-door down. Cobe could hear the creatures screaming—running wild throughout the garage. They thudded into the tank’s back end. He thought he could feel the entire machine shift slightly under the weight of bodies climbing on top. A grey-skinned face appeared in the last three feet of open door. It bit into Jenny’s arm and she tried to dislodge herself by smashing its skull into the thick metal frame.
The thing fell away and Lawson started climbing in. Cobe and Sarah helped her drag him all the way in.
“What’re you waitin’ fer?” He said breathlessly. “Make this thing move!”
Jenny jumped into the single-seat cockpit and studied the controls. She hated driving. A car accident had started her down this path, and a thousand year gap between joyrides hadn’t made her feel any better about it.
But this isn’t a car, she thought. This a tank and tanks don’t roll over. I’m not a stupid, drunk kid anymore, and I’m not afraid. She didn’t need her mother to instruct her how to drive the thing. Once she got past all the switches, buttons, and screens clustered around the front window, and settled on the big steering wheel and gear-shift, Jenny figured she could manage just fine on her own. She pulled the shifter into D and the tank jumped forward.
Everyone else settled nervously into the six bucket seats behind her. Lawson, Cobe, and Willem sat across from the girls. They stared at each other and listened as bodies continued to clamber over their heads.
Cobe started leaning to one side. Willem had to grab a metal bar above his head to stop from sliding into his brother.
“We’re headed up,” the lawman announced.
“And goin’ faster,” Angel added. “How does this thing move?”
No one could answer. They continued their ascent in rattling silence through the angled tunnel. Jenny found it hard to keep the machine in place. The big steering wheel seemed to have a life of its own, vibrating away beneath her fingers and sending the tank dangerously close to the walls. There was a dull growl as the metal side scraped against reinforced concrete. The tank lurched slightly but kept climbing.
Jenny clutched the wheel tighter and looked at the instrumentation around her. Something beeped at her and a message lit up in orange on a screen above the window.
FACILITY DOOR
OPENING
PROCEED WITH CAUTION
A tiny sliver of bright light appeared ahead. It grew larger as the second giant door opened further and the tank climbed higher. Jenny couldn’t help herself, she giggled for the first in she didn’t know how long. “I can see the sky! We’re going to make it!”
They were less than two-hundred feet away. The others left their seats and tried to see for themselves. Cobe looked over his brother’s head and saw the light. It grew darker before his eyes. Dry earth and slabs of concrete were tumbling in over the door. When it had finally stopped, a small patch of grey light remained.
Jenny’s heart sank as she pushed up on the shifter bringing the tank to a halt.
“What’re you stoppin’ fer?” The lawman asked.
“Look at it,” Jenny snapped back. “A small dog couldn’t squeeze out of there now.”
“We ain’t no small dog. A bit of dry soil and cracked rock won’t be much trouble for this thing, I’m betting.” He pulled the gear back down into drive and the tank thundered on. He yelled at everyone to get back in their seats. Angel and Sarah were the only ones that made it before the machine punched into the obstruction and ground to a halt.
Jenny’s nose had broken against the steering wheel. She wiped blood away from her lips and stared out of the cracked windshield, waiting for the cloud of dust to settle.
“Did we make it?” Kay asked, untangling herself away from the others.
Angel swore somewhere beneath her. Cobe pulled Willem off of Sarah. The lawman was jammed up against the hatch in an uncomfortable position. “I guess dry soil and cracked rock can stop pretty much anything if there’s enough of it.”
Grey fog appeared before Jenny’s eyes. A gust of wind blew it away and she could see a sky filled with clouds. “Open the door—I think we can make it the rest of the way on foot.”
Lawson’s elbow was resting against the handle. He pulled up on it but the door only opened a foot. Dirt spilled in over his shoulder. “Too much rock in the way. Can you bust yer way out through the window?”
Jenny punched it and the crack spread. She hit
it again but the fractured glass remained in place. Cobe could hear the distant echo of the automated voice counting down outside the door.
“Two-hundred one… Two-hundred… One-hundred ninety-nine.”
Something scratched Lawson’s leg. He looked down and saw grey fingernails tearing into his pants. “Gawdamn… Don’t these things ever quit?” He crawled away just as a head popped up into the opening. The thing’s teeth sank into the leather toe of his boot. The lawman kicked out with his other leg and shattered its jaw. More faces appeared, covered in dirt and dust. Grey arms worked at the concrete chunks, shovelling debris away in effort to open the space further.
“Try this,” Willem said.
He was on his knees near the back of the tank. A cabinet had opened during the collision and a litter of weapons had spilled out onto the floor. Willem was holding an assault rifle in his hand, offering it up to the lawman.
Lawson took it and blasted the first grey face into red mist. The sound it made inside the tank’s confined space was deafening. Cobe felt the following gun shots more than he could hear them. Thump. Thump. Thump. He kneeled down and helped Willem pick more weapons from the floor. They shoved boxes of ammunition into the waists of their pants. The lawman continued firing and the creatures kept coming.
Jenny had broken through the window. She was climbing up into the jagged opening, pushing more of the shattered material back along the way. Cobe picked one last heavy hand gun up and shoved it into his armpit. He helped the others along and climbed out of Big Hole for the final time.
Lawson exited last. Cobe’s hearing had returned. He could just make out the sound of fingers clawing against rock and dirt. The remaining ABZE clients still trying to dig their way free wouldn’t make it any further.
They stood together in a dirty, exhausted huddle away from the twenty-foot high pile of collapsed concrete and dirt. The crater wall of Big Hole stretched across the horizon two miles away. The exit-ramp bunker had stood there for centuries, waiting to open its steel mouth in case the disastrous happened far below. A hundred tons of wind-blown dirt had accumulated on top, and the whole thing had caved in once the door started to open. It looked like a giant, smashed gravestone dedicated to all those buried underneath.
