Wright stepped forward into the light. “Listen, officer,” he said, “We’ve got to get out of here. Ippolito, for the love of God, open the door!”
“Just a moment!” said D’Agosta sharply. “Dr. Wright, please return to the group.” He looked around at the wide-eyed faces. “Are there any physicians here?”
There was a silence.
“Nurses? First aid?”
“I know some first aid,” someone volunteered.
“Great. Mister, ah—”
“Arthur Pound.”
“Pound. Get one or two volunteers to help you. There are several people who look like they got trampled. I need to know number and their condition. I’ve got a guy back at the exhibition entrance, Bailey, who can help you. He’s got a flashlight. We also need a volunteer to help collect some candles.”
A young, lanky fellow in a wrinkled tuxedo came out of the gloom. He finished chewing, swallowed. “I’ll help with that,” he said.
“Name?”
“Smithback.”
“Okay, Smithback. You got matches?”
“Sure do.”
The Mayor stepped forward. His face was smeared with blood and a large purple welt was emerging beneath one eye. “Let me help,” he said.
D’Agosta looked at him with amazement. “Mayor Harper! Maybe you can take charge of everyone. Keep them calm.”
“Certainly, Lieutenant.”
D’Agosta’s radio squawked again, and he grabbed it. “D’Agosta, this is Coffey. D’Agosta, do you read? What the hell’s going on in there? Give me a sit-ref!”
D’Agosta talked fast. “Listen up, I’m not going to say this twice. We’ve got at least eight dead, probably more, and an undetermined number of wounded. I guess you know about the people caught under the door. Ippolito can’t get the fucking door open. There’s about thirty, maybe forty of us here. Including Wright and the Mayor.”
“The Mayor! Shit. Look, D’Agosta, the system’s failed totally. The manual override doesn’t work on this side, either. I’ll get a crew with acetylene to cut you guys out. It may take awhile, this door’s built like a bank vault. Is the Mayor okay?”
“He’s fine. Where’s Pendergast?”
“I don’t have a clue.”
“Who else is trapped inside the perimeter?”
“Don’t know yet,” said Coffey. “We’re taking reports now. There should be some men in the Computer Room and Security Command, Garcia and a few others. Might be a few on the other floors. We got several plainclothes officers and guards out here. They were pushed out with the crowd, some of them got messed up pretty bad. What the hell happened in the exhibition, D’Agosta?”
“They found the body of one of my men stuffed on top of an exhibit. Gutted, just like the rest.” He paused, then spoke bitterly. “If you’d let me do the sweep I requested, none of this would have happened.”
The radio squawked again and went silent.
“Pound!” D’Agosta called. “What’s the extent of the injuries?”
“We’ve got one man alive, but just barely,” Pound said, looking up from an inert form. “The rest are dead. Trampled. Maybe one or two heart attacks, it’s hard to say.”
“Do what you can for the live one,” D’Agosta said.
His radio buzzed. “Lieutenant D’Agosta?” said a scratchy voice. “This is Garcia, in Security Command, sir. We got…” The voice trailed out in a burst of static.
“Garcia? Garcia! What is it?” D’Agosta shouted into the radio.
“Sorry, sir, the batteries on this mobile transmitter I’m using are weak. We got Pendergast on the honk. I’m patching him over to you.”
“Vincent,” came the familiar drawl.
“Pendergast! Where are you?”
“I’m in the basement, Section Twenty-nine. I understand the power is out throughout the Museum, and that we’re trapped inside Cell Two. I’m afraid I’ve got a little more bad news of my own to add. Could you please move to a spot where we can speak privately?”
D’Agosta walked away from the crowd. “What is it?” he asked in a low tone.
“Vincent, listen to me carefully. There is something down here. I don’t know what it is, but it’s big, and I don’t think it’s human.”
“Pendergast, don’t play with me. Not now.”
“Vincent, I’m entirely serious. That isn’t the bad news. The bad news is, it may be headed your way.”
“What do you mean? What kind of animal is it?”
“You’ll know when it’s near. The smell is unmistakable. What kind of weapons do you have?”
“Let’s see. Three twelve gauges, a couple of service revolvers, two shot pistols loaded with capstun. A few odds and ends, maybe.”
“Forget the capstun. Now, listen, we have to talk fast. Get everyone out of there. This thing went by me just before the lights went out. I saw it through a window in one of the storage rooms down here, and it looked very big. It walks on all fours. I got off two shots at it, then it went into a stairwell at the end of this hall. I’ve got a set of old blueprints here with me, and I’ve checked them. You know where that stairwell comes out?”
“No,” said D’Agosta.
“It only has access to alternate floors. It leads down into the subbasement, too, but we can’t assume the thing would go that way. There’s an egress on the fourth floor. And there’s another one behind the Hall of the Heavens. It’s back in the service area behind the platform.”
“Pendergast, I’m having a hard time with this. What the hell exactly do you want us to do?”
“I’d get your men—whoever has the shotguns—and line up at that door. If the creature comes through, let the thing have it. It may have already come through, I don’t know. Vincent, it took a .45 metal-jacketed slug in the skull at close range, and the bullet grazed right off.”
If anyone else had been speaking, D’Agosta would have suspected a joke. Or madness. “Right,” he said. “How long ago was this?”
“I saw it a few minutes ago, just before the power went out. I shot at it once, then followed it down the hall after the lights went. I got off another shot, but my light wasn’t steady and I missed it. I went down to reconnoiter just now. The hall dead-ends, and the thing has vanished. The only way out is the stairwell leading up to you. It may be hiding in the stairwell, or maybe, if you’re lucky, it’s gone to a different floor. All I know is that it hasn’t come back this way.”
D’Agosta swallowed.
“If you can get into the basement safely, do it. Meet up with me here. These blueprints seem to show the way out. We’ll talk again once you’re in a more secure place. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said D’Agosta.
“Vincent? There’s something else.”
“What now?”
“This creature can open and close doors.”
D’Agosta holstered his radio, licked his lips, and looked back toward the group of people. Most were sitting on the floor, stunned, but a few were trying to help light the armload of candles the lanky guy had scrounged.
D’Agosta spoke to the group as softly as he could. “All of you, move over here and get down against the wall. Put those candles out.”
“What is it?” somebody cried. D’Agosta recognized the voice as Wright’s.
“Quiet. Do as I say. You, what’s your name, Smithback, drop that and get over here.”
D’Agosta’s radio buzzed into speech as he did a quick visual sweep of the Hall with his flashlight. The remote corners of the hall were so black they seemed to eat the beam of his light. In the center of the hall a few candles were lit next to a still form. Pound and somebody else were bending over it.
“Pound!” he called out. “Both of you. Put out those candles and get back over here!”
“But he’s still alive—”
“Get back now!” He turned to the crowd that was huddling behind him. “None of you move or make a sound. Bailey and Ippolito, bring those shotguns and follow me.”
Recognizing Coffey’s voice on the radio, D’Agosta switched if off with a brusque movement. Moving carefully, flashlights probing the darkness ahead of them, the group crept toward the center of the Hall. D’Agosta played his beam along the wall, found the service area, the dark outlines of the stairwell door. It was closed. He thought he smelled something strange in the air: a peculiar, rotten odor he couldn’t place. But the room stunk to begin with. Half the damn guests must have lost control of their plumbing when the lights failed.
He led the way into the service area, then stopped. “According to Pendergast, there’s a creature, an animal, maybe in this stairwell,” he whispered.
“According to Pendergast,” said Ippolito sarcastically under his breath.
“Stow that shit, Ippolito. Now listen up. We can’t stay here waiting in the dark. We’re gonna go in nice and easy. Okay? Do it by the numbers. Safeties off, shells in the chambers. Bailey, you’re gonna open the door, then cover us with the light, fast. Ippolito, you’ll cover the upward staircase and I’ll cover the down. If you see a person, demand identification and shoot if you don’t get it. If you see anything else, shoot immediately. We move on my signal.”
D’Agosta switched off his flashlight, slipped it in a pocket, and tightened his grip on the shotgun. Then he nodded for Bailey to direct his own light onto the stairwell door. D’Agosta closed his eyes and murmured a brief prayer in the close darkness. Then he gave the signal.
Ippolito moved to the side of the door while Bailey yanked it open. D’Agosta and Ippolito rushed in, Bailey behind them, sweeping the light in a quick semicircle.
A horrible stench awaited them inside the stairwell. D’Agosta took a few steps down into the darkness, sensed a sudden movement above him, and heard an unearthly, throaty growl that turned his knees to putty, followed by a dull, slapping sound, like the smacking of a damp towel against the floor. Then wet things were hitting the wall around him and gobs of moisture splattered his face. He spun around and fired at something large and dark. The light was gyrating wildly. “Shit!” he heard Bailey wail.
“Bailey! Don’t let it go into the Hall!” He fired into the darkness, again and again, up the stairwell and down, until he was pumping an empty chamber. The acrid smell of gunpowder blended with the nauseating reek as screams resounded in the Hall of the Heavens.
D’Agosta stumbled up the stairs to the landing, almost tripped over something, and moved into the Hall. “Bailey, where is it?” he yelled as he jammed shells into his shotgun, temporarily blinded by the muzzle flare.
“I don’t know!” Bailey shouted. “I can’t see!”
“Did it go down or through?” Two shells in the shotgun. Three …
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
D’Agosta pulled out his flashlight and shone it on Bailey. The officer was soaked in thick clots of blood. Pieces of flesh were in his hair, hanging from his eyebrows. He was wiping his eyes. A hideous smell hung in the air.
“I’m fine,” Bailey reassured D’Agosta. “I think. I just got all this shit on my face, I can’t see.”
D’Agosta swept the light around the room in a fast arc, the shotgun braced against his thigh. The group, huddled together against the wall, blinked in terror. He turned the light back toward the stairwell, and saw Ippolito, or what was left of him, lying partway on the landing, dark blood rapidly spreading from his torn gut.
The thing had been waiting for them just a few steps up from the landing. But where the fuck was it now? He shined the light in desperate circles around the Hall. It was gone—the huge space was still.
No. Something was moving in the center of the Hall. The light was dim at that distance, but D’Agosta could see a large, dark shape crouched over the injured man on the dance floor, lunging downward with odd, jerking motions. D’Agosta heard the man wail once—then there was a faint crunching noise and silence. D’Agosta propped the flashlight in his armpit, raised his gun, aimed, and squeezed the trigger.
There was a flash and a roar. Screams erupted from the huddled group. Two more shots and the chamber was again empty.
He reached for more shells, came up empty, dropped the shotgun and drew his service revolver. “Bailey!” he yelled. “Get over there fast, get everyone together and prepare to move.” He swept the light across the floor of the Hall, but the shape was gone. He moved carefully toward the body. At ten feet, he saw the one thing he’d wanted not to see: the split skull and the brains spread across the floor. A bloody track led into the exhibition. Whatever it was had rushed inside to escape the shotgun blast. It wouldn’t stay there long.
D’Agosta leaped up, raced around the columns, and yanked one of the heavy wooden exhibition doors free. With a grunt, he slammed it to, then raced over to the far side. There was a noise inside the exhibition, a swift heavy tread. He slammed the second door shut and heard the latch fall. Then the doors shuddered as something heavy hit them.
“Bailey!” he yelled. “Get everyone down the stairwell!”
The pounding grew stronger, and D’Agosta backed up involuntarily. The wood of the door began to splinter.
As he aimed his gun toward the door, he heard screams and shouts behind him. They’d seen Ippolito. He heard Bailey’s voice raised in argument with Wright. There was a sudden shudder and a great crack opened at the base of the door.
D’Agosta ran across the room. “Down the stairs, now! Don’t look back!”
“No,” screamed Wright, who was blocking the stairwell. “Look at Ippolito! I’m not going down there!”
“There’s a way out!” shouted D’Agosta.
“No there isn’t. But through the exhibition, and—”
“There’s something in the exhibition!” D’Agosta yelled. “Now get going!”
Bailey moved Wright forcibly aside and started pushing people through the door, even as they cried and stumbled across the body of Ippolito. At least the Mayor seems calm, D’Agosta thought. Probably saw worse than this at his last press conference.
“I’m not going down there!” Wright cried. “Cuthbert, Lavinia, listen to me. That basement’s a death trap. I know. We’ll go upstairs, we can hide on the fourth floor, come back when the creature’s gone.”
The people were through the door and staggering down the stairwell. D’Agosta could hear more wood splintering. He paused a moment. There were thirty-odd people below him, only three hesitating on the landing. “This is your last chance to come with us,” he said.
“We’re going with Doctor Wright,” said the Public Relations Director. In the gleam of the flashlight, Rickman’s drawn and fearful face looked like an apparition.
Without a word, D’Agosta turned and followed the group downward. As he ran, he could hear Wright’s loud, desperate voice, calling for them to come upstairs.
49
Coffey stood just inside the tall archway of the Museum’s west entrance, watching the rain lash against the elaborate glass-and-bronze doors. He was shouting into his radio but D’Agosta wasn’t responding. And what was this shit Pendergast was slinging about a monster? The guy was bent to begin with, he figured, and the blackout sent him over the edge. As usual, everyone had screwed up, and once again it was up to Coffey to clean up the mess. Outside, two large emergency response vehicles were pulling up at the entrance and police in riot gear were pouring out, moving quickly to erect A-frames across Riverside Drive. He could hear the wailing of ambulances frantically trying to nose their way through the steel grid of radio cars, fire engines, and press vans. Crowds of people were scattered around, crying, talking, standing in the rain or lying beneath the Museum’s vast awning. Members of the press were trying to slip past the cordon, snaking their microphones and cameras into faces before being pushed back by the police.
Coffey sprinted through the pelting rain to the silver bulk of the Mobile Command Unit. He yanked open the rear door and jumped inside.
With
in the MCU, it was cool and dark. Several agents were monitoring terminals, their faces glowing green in the reflected light. Coffey grabbed a headset and sat down. “Regroup!” he shouted on the command channel. “All FBI personnel to the Mobile Command Unit!”
He switched channels. “Security Command. I want an update.”
Garcia’s voice came on, weary and tense. “We still have total system failure, sir. The backup power hasn’t kicked in, they don’t know why. All we have are our flashlights and the batteries in this mobile transmitter.”
“So? Start it manually.”
“It’s all computer-driven, sir. Apparently there is no manual start.”
“And the security doors?”
“Sir, when we took those power dips the entire security system malfunctioned. They think it’s a hardware problem. All the security doors were released.”
“Whaddya mean, all?”
“The security doors on all five cells closed. It isn’t just Cell Two. The whole Museum’s shut down tight.”
“Garcia, who there knows the most about this security system?”
“That’d be Allen.”
“Put him on.”
There was a brief pause. “Tom Allen speaking.”
“Allen, what about the manual overrides? Why aren’t they working?”
“Same hardware problem. The security system was a third-party installation, a Japanese vendor. We’re trying to get a representative on the phone now, but it’s tough, the phone system is digital and it went out when the computer shut down. We’re routing all calls through Garcia’s transmitter. Even the T1 lines are out. It’s been a chain reaction since the switching box was shot to hell.”
“Who? I didn’t know—”
“Some cop—what’s his name? Waters?—on duty in the Computer Room, thought he saw something, fired a couple of shotgun rounds into the main electrical switching box.”
“Look, Allen, I want to send a team in to evacuate those people trapped in the Hall of the Heavens. The Mayor’s in there, for Chrissake. How can we get in? Should we cut through the east door into the Hall?”
Relic (Pendergast, Book 1) Page 28
