He was making a harsh noise deep in his throat. Not an attempt at speech, not anything she had ever heard, a noise so atavistic it made the hair on her scalp rise. She glanced at the hotel; the porch continued around the corner, a deep veranda for wicker chairs, where guests could rest at leisure and sip lemonade in the heat of the day. There were more stairs on the side. She edged in that direction. He followed, getting nearer, the animal sound growing louder. He would lunge, she knew, and then she would run. Not until then. She wanted to be closer to the sanctuary of the building first, but he was getting nearer. On the porch if he made a grab for her, she could handle it and flee, but here in the snow that was growing deeper with every step, even if she threw him, she would still be nearly helpless against his greater size.
She was within ten feet of the side steps when he screamed and rushed her. She plowed through the snow, then her foot caught on something covered in a drift and she fell down; he grabbed her by the ankle. She kicked out with all her strength and her boot hit him on the shoulder, sent him sprawling backward. She scrambled up the stairs and raced toward the door that had been forced open; she could hear him clambering up the steps. At the door she looked back and moaned. He was dragging the suit.
Charlie walked in dread. Distantly he heard the truck revving, then silence again. They must have driven it out to the road to allow a different vehicle to try to get through. He paused, listening, but could hear nothing. He walked on. Then he reached another drift, this one more like an avalanche that had swept down the hillside, into the valley proper. He tried to see past it and failed. It would stop a car, he decided, and felt a tension within him relax a little. Carson’s footprints went around the drift, down the hillside, into the woods. He started after them, and stopped again. There was a tree limb crossing Carson’s trail. The snow was trampled all around the area; Carson had found the branch, had dragged it here, and placed it very deliberately across the route he had taken. Charlie’s mouth went dry as he considered it.
He heard someone calling him and looked about, settled for a mound of snow to duck behind. Not much protection, but better than out in the open. He sat down and examined the gun he had taken from the agent. A .45, good gun, three bullets gone.
“Charlie? You hear me?”
“I hear you, Fred.”
“We’re getting a jeep from town, Charlie, and we’re taking it in there. And we don’t want any trouble. You hear that?”
“Loud and clear. I won’t let it pass, Fred.” He could see for about fifty feet down the driveway where several men appeared slogging through the snow. “You can’t get around the drift here, anyway,” Charlie called. He could tell by the way they were looking around that they did not know yet where he was.
“Charlie, for God’s sake, what are you trying to do?” Byron called. “Is Constance in there? You know the danger! Charlie, we can’t let Loesser burn it out again! God knows when and where it’ll turn up next.”
Charlie knew all that. He did not respond this time. They were close enough now that they could locate him by his voice, close enough to see the mammoth drift that would block even a jeep. Of course, he thought, they didn’t realize how near the line was. Could a jeep drive through the snow and cross it? He was afraid so.
“Charlie, give it up,” Fred Foley yelled. “I’ve got men coming down the hill behind you. For Chrissake, just come on out and give it up!”
Charlie felt his stomach tighten. “Call them off, Fred. Not over there! They shouldn’t be over there!”
The cluster of men moved toward him: Fred Foley, Byron Weston, a third man who was unknown. Charlie looked behind him at the hill, hoping Fred had been bluffing. He had not been. At least three men were slipping and sliding in the snow on the hill above the drift.
“Send them back!” he yelled. “Byron, tell him! They’re within range if they come down there!”
Byron hesitated, started to reach out to touch Foley’s arm, then drew back. One of the men on the hill screamed hoarsely and let go of a tree he had been using to ease himself down. He began to slide, yelling. A second man was doubled over, holding his head. The third one stopped in his tracks, then slowly, very carefully began to back up.
The man who had slid down the hill came into view, walking like a blind man in the direction of the hotel. Blood was shiny red on his face.
“Selene!” Foley yelled. “Selene!” He took a dozen steps that brought him close enough to talk in a normal voice to Charlie. “What’s the matter with him?”
“Sometimes they are called in,” Charlie said. “At least he’s not homicidal. Sometimes they are.”
Foley looked about almost wildly. Now he could see Charlie sitting with his back against the hill. Charlie waved the gun, then rested it on his knee. “Who’s the new kid on the block?” he asked, motioning toward Byron and the other man.
“Michael Newhouse,” the man said, joining Foley. “Physicist. Meiklejohn, we have to have the opportunity to study this phenomenon. You’re not an ignorant man. You should understand the importance of this thing.” Too cool, too self-assured, almost movie star good-looking, except for his dark eyes, which glittered and were too small.
“Charlie,” Byron said imploringly, “don’t make trouble. If Loesser burns it out, we’ll just have to go to the next place it turns up. You know that. We can’t let this opportunity escape us. You know that, too. We’re going to bring in the jeep, and now that we know about where the range starts, it should be fairly easy to get the machine close enough to shut everything down long enough to get the area cleared. If Loesser’s in there, we want him, Charlie. He’s the only one who can go in and do the tests that Newhouse thinks might answer some questions. Think, Charlie, if it’s an alien artifact, what that could mean to the world.”
“What is that, Byron?” Charlie asked pleasantly, listening hard for the sound of another engine.
“Charlie! We have the tools to trace it back to its source, to communicate with them, to establish contact. It’s the breakthrough every scientist on earth has been waiting for.”
“What if it doesn’t want to be probed and tested?” Charlie asked. “What if it has a defensive system your tests might trigger. You know what it does to people now. What if that’s just a side effect of
its
tests?”
“Meiklejohn, believe me, we know how to take precautions,” Newhouse said with a touch of irritation. “That’s why we want this whole area cleared, to protect the innocent. We work with very dangerous materials all the time and to date our accident record is unblemished.”
Charlie laughed. “What if poor old John Loesser doesn’t want to be your errand boy? Volunteers? Would you volunteer to go in there, Newhouse?”
“Loesser will agree,” Foley said. “You know what kind of prison term he’ll get for all those fires?”
“You have proof?”
“We have your evidence,” Foley said vicious
ly. “Remember?”
Charlie shook his head. “I don’t believe I ever did make a written report. Seemed little point to it, actually. And I do recall some speculative, rather idle conversation, but not much more than that.”
Foley faced away with a disgusted look. “He’ll cooperate,” he said.
They all heard the jeep and no one moved as the sound came closer. Then Charlie raised the gun. “Fred, if it gets this far, tell him to stop, or I’ll shoot the driver and the gas tank. You know I can do it, Fred.”
Fred Foley studied him, expressionless. “What are you up to, Charlie? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Later. Just flag him down if he gets in this far.”
Foley shook his head. “You son of a bitch! You know I won’t.”
Charlie knew. He had known Fred Foley for a
very long time. Sussman might have agreed, not Fred. He sighed tiredly and stood up. They heard the safety being released. What the devil was Constance doing in there? And Carson? Why didn’t something happen? There had been time enough, unless neither one had ever reached the damn hotel. Maybe she had taken a fall in the woods and lay unconscious? She could have broken a leg. What if she had been wrong about being immune? Too late. Too late for second-guessing her. She was in there by now, either immune or insane.
He would have stopped her if he could. Now all he could do was make certain no one turned on an engine, not until she was out of that goddamn place. If they trapped her inside that black door to hell, he would kill the lot of them. His hands were moist. He shifted the gun and wiped one, then the other. If she had got through the black door, the abyss, had pulled the ring, and then the jeep went through and the door slammed behind her, she would be there when the device went off. It could not be stopped once the reaction began. The three men watched him holding the gun steadily now. They waited for the jeep, listening to its laboring engine as it came through the snow.
Then he felt it. Not now, he wanted to cry out, aware of Foley and the others, but more aware of the call of the abyss. He could almost understand what it wanted of him, almost hear real words, almost name the sensations that swept him. He felt his head turning in spite of his efforts to resist, and from a great distance he could hear Foley speak.
“Jesus Christ! What’s wrong with him?”
He started to move, one foot, the other, the gun forgotten, dangling as he felt himself drawn stronger than ever, a filing being taken to a magnet. He stumbled against the snowdrift, fell, and someone jumped on him, tried to get an arm around his throat. The shock of the snow on his face, the attack, made the summons fade; this reality took precedence. He half rolled against the snow, enough to dislodge Foley. Charlie sank down against the drift and raised the gun.
“Back up,” he grunted. “Just back the hell up.”
Brushing snow away, Foley backed up, cursing. Charlie glanced at Byron and Newhouse. Neither had moved. Byron was staring at him with a shocked expression. “He’s been affected by it!” he whispered. Then he turned frantically to Newhouse. “He’s been affected. We’re not in range here. If his wife’s in there, and Loesser, they must have a plan to really destroy the source of the radiation this time, not just burn it out. We have to stop them!”
“How’s Polly?” Charlie asked, and realized he had turned the gun to point it directly at Byron; it felt right aimed that way.
“I don’t know. She’s dropped out for the rest of the year. Listen, Charlie, tell us what they’re up to. If you were attacked and survived, and Loesser can go in and out at will, and maybe Constance, you must see that it’s not as dangerous as we all thought before. We’ll lick it.”
“Tell that to Polly,” Charlie said. “And Mike and poor Mrs. Eglin up at Orick, and the sheriffs men at Old West. Tell that son of a bitch wandering around in the woods, and the one they found crawling in the snow—” He stopped. The jeep was coming.
Chapter 21
Constance ran across
the room she had en
tered and ducked through an open doorway, where she stopped to listen. She could see the irregular entrance with pale light beyond, and then the boy’s figure eclipsed it. His steps were heavy and loud on the bare floor. She did not move as he swung his body this way and that. Looking for her? Listening? His movements were not human; it was impossible to guess his intentions, if he even had intentions now. Again he made the hair-raising animal noise deep in his throat and lurched forward. He was still dragging the suit.
The hotel was very dark away from the lobby area. She could see nothing in the room behind her, and very little of the lobby that the boy was crossing, the insane noise echoing, reechoing until it seemed sourceless. He passed from her line of sight. Now, she thought, she probably could outrun him, get outside, get her skis… . The other boy must have tried repeatedly to get away, and each time this one had heard, had seen, had known, and had given chase. She bit her lip, listening for his receding steps. What if he caught the ring pull on a nail? Hearing him made her realize how vulnerable she would be if she moved. Soundlessly she took off her own boots. She nearly dropped them when there was a new noise. She peeked around the door frame and could see nothing. It sounded as if he were kicking a wall, maybe trying to kick it down, and his guttural voice rose to a near scream, dropped, rose. It was inhuman, full of pain and fury.
She closed her eyes hard and took a deep breath, then another. She knew she could get to the door without his hearing her. The other boy must have pounded like an elephant across the lobby each time he made a run for it. And then? She knew that was no good. She had to find the doorway to the alien mechanism. She had to stay alive, with a chance of escaping after the device had been delivered.
When she opened her eyes, only a second or two later, they had adjusted to the dimness enough for her to see mat she was in a large room with boarded up windows, completely bare. The strippers had been here. Hardwood flooring had been removed, exposing the rough underfloor. Paneling must have been peeled off the walls, leaving lathwork, with gaping holes in it. Pencil-thin lines of light revealed the outside wall and windows. She looked again into the main lobby where the boy was howling, and this time she could see a figure trying to climb the skeleton of a staircase. The strippers must have taken the stairs away. Hardwood, carved, whatever, they must have had value, and now there was no way for him to get to the second floor. She shuddered. He wanted to go home to it and he couldn’t, so he howled his frustration. The realization struck her that she could not reach the doorway to the abyss either.
For an instant she knew there was no point in staying here, that the only sensible thing to do was run to the porch, put on her boots, find her skis, and get away. The boy was trying to climb a long narrow board that had been left standing when the stairs were removed. He got up a few feet only to slide back down, screaming. She could almost see Charlie in the bulky figure, and knew it might become Charlie if they didn’t stop the thing here in this place.
Back stairs? Servant’s stairs? There had to be service stairs, and they would be plain, not tempting to strippers. Silently she left her refuge and crept around the wall to a spot close to the entrance where she put her boots, to be picked up on her way out, she told herself. She began to search for back stairs. She had thrust the flashlight in her belt, and now took it out, but did not dare use it until she had crossed another room. The boy’s cries were distant now. Another dining room? Another door. Another room, smaller, darker. The slivers of light coming through the boarded up windows were growing paler. And the cobwebs were everywhere, brushing, pushing, trying to get in. She imagined them seeping through her eyes, entering her ears, her nostrils, her mouth. Shuddering, she stopped, forced herself to breathe deeply, then went on. Another room. Suddenly the boy’s voice was close, and she drew back, afraid he had noticed her movements; then she realized that she had made a circuit of half the lower floor, unless she had missed part of it in the darkness. Had one of the rooms been a kitchen? She was almost certain she had not yet been in a kitchen; there would be signs even if everything had been taken out. Cabinets, a pantry, something would be there, and the back stairs would be nearby.
Many doors had been removed; a few still in place would not open, and the darkness grew deeper, windows smaller, with less light penetrating the gloom. Offices? She jerked her foot when a splinter dug in and she realized that she had not heard the boy’s voice for several minutes. Had he fallen, hit his head? Made it to the top finally? Resting? She listened, then shook her head and went on to the next room. She did not believe he could move silently; he was not capable of thinking of the consequences of making noise, alerting her. But he might have glimpsed her light, she thought, although she was using it as sparingly as possible, guarding it with her cupped hand. She brushed invisible cobwebs away from her face, listened, crept across one room after another, through narrow halls, and at last she knew she was in the kitchen. There were cabinets—no sink, no appliances or table, but there were cabinets with doors ajar. She hurried across the space, through an opposite doorway, and found the back stairs, intact. The boy was still quiet, or tricks of architecture swallowed his voice. The thought struck her with sickening force that he might be handling the suit, tearing it apart, that he might have enough mind to wonder about the ring.
Her hands were shaking so hard, the spot of light danced on the stairs. “Stop it!” she said under her breath, and gripped the light with both hands until it steadied. She went up the stairs. Here were the bedrooms, an eight foot wide corridor, closed doors on both sides. The blackness was complete; her flashlight the only light. Somewhere near the center, Carson had said; that’s where it always was. She started with the door to her left, opened it, shone the light around the walls, closed it again. Nothing but cobwebs, both real and invisible, charged cobwebs. The next door. The next. She crossed the hall to look inside the opposite room before moving farther down.
The light revealed the ruined walls, with their exposed plaster and lathwork and peeling wallpaper. Very pale slivers of light cut across each room, across closed closet doors, or sometimes doorless closets. She opened another door, began her quick sweep of light over the walls, and stopped. The light was absorbed by a blackness more intense than any she had ever seen. Before, the light touched a surface, reflected something back. But this time, it stopped dead. She caught her breath sharply. The light swerved; she brought it back and trained it along the outline of the black abyss. Too large for a closet door. A door connecting two rooms. She backed out into the hallway. She had closed each door after looking inside, but she left this one standing open. She made sure it was the only open door near the stairs, and then started back down. Now she had to get the suit away from the mad boy.
Constance made her way back to the lobby. She located the boy from the noises he was making, but she could not see him yet. Near the destroyed staircase was all she could tell, in a shadow that hid him thoroughly. The light coming through the broken door was almost gone, too pale to reveal the boy. But did he still have the suit? If he had dropped it, maybe she could creep in close enough to snatch it away and run.
She took a step into the lobby, the hall to the kitchen behind her, and then she aimed the light at the spot where the sounds of his breathing originated. When she turned on the flashlight, he was not there. She had to sweep the floor back and forth before she came to him, in a fetal position, sucking in great, choking gasps of air, the suit held like a blanket against his chest. As soon as the light was on him, he screamed and jumped up, clutching the suit. She turned and ran, and he followed, his boots thundering on the wooden floors. She did not dare enter any of the rooms along this hall; many of them did not have another exit and he was still coming. Over the thumping of his boots, and the hoarse, inarticulate sounds he made, she thought she could hear the air tank thumping also, and her heart pounded even harder. The suit would be useless without air, if the tank were damaged, which seemed likely. She reached the kitchen and darted across it, crouched near the door on the far side, and waited. He came a second or two later, blundered into a wall, into a cabinet. He was barely visible in the failing light, no more than a great hulking shape. In despair she hung her head, trying to catch her breath. If only she could get close enough to hit him with the flashlight. Even as she thought it, she knew there was no point in it. She would need a sledgehammer to stop him. As a weapon the flashlight was useless, but suddenly she thought of how Candy, their cat, could not resist chasing a light, and she shone it against the far wall. His shape moved toward it. One of his hands tried to grab the beam, then smashed into the cabinet the light was on. She moved the light; he followed, futilely trying to snatch it. She turned it off and he bellowed.
Trying to make no sound, she edged along the wall to the nearest cabinet. She placed the flashlight on a shelf, aimed at the opposite wall, and then turned it on. He ran toward it, still dragging the suit, the air tank scraping the floor with every step he took. When he stopped at the spot of light, she started to crawl toward him. He banged his fist into the cabinet again and again, yelling, sobbing. If it didn’t move soon, she knew, he would lose interest in it. She crawled faster until she could reach out and touch the suit. She did not try to take it from him, but found the air tank and let her hand slide around it, under the suit to the pouch strapped on the chest. She moved as cautiously as she could, but tried to hurry. Any second he might jerk away, go back to the lobby. Her fingers found the pouch, and she felt around it until she came to the cold metal of the ring. She pulled it.
He felt that and roared, kicked out. His foot caught her in the thigh; she stifled a scream and scrambled away. Her leg had gone numb. If he had groped for her then, he would have found her, but his brain was issuing no orders, reasoning nothing. When he heard her, he tried to smash her. If he saw her, he would follow. As soon as she was silent and invisible, he forgot her. He went back to the light, but only for a second this time. She could see the darkness of his shape moving away, heard his boots, his screams. She couldn’t let him go back out there to the lobby, start his useless assault on the old stairs again. She forced herself up and hobbled to the cabinet that held the flashlight, reached it and took it out, waved the light in a circular pattern, then lowered the beam to the floor. He came after it.
She knew he would not let go of the suit. It was a pattern of behavior that some madness induced. A patient sometimes grasped an object from morning until night, until sleep relaxed the fingers enough for a nurse or doctor to take it away. She led him from the kitchen, playing the light on the floor, on the wall, on the open door. She led him to the stairs and started to back up them. He was coming faster now, spending less time trying to catch the spot of light, his animal noise louder. He would run over her, she realized, and swung the light around, shone it in his eyes. He screamed and kept coming. She turned and ran up the last dozen steps, ran to the open door, where he caught up with her and hit her on the side of the head with the back of his hand. He knocked her across the room, into the wall. She hung for a moment, then slid to the floor unconscious.
She stirred and moaned with her eyes closed. As soon as she cut off the sound, silence returned. When she opened her eyes a wave of nausea swept her. The light was still on, halfway across the room, shining at the hole where a baseboard had been. Groggily she crawled to it and picked it up. Still on her hands and knees, she hung her head trying to remember what it was she was supposed to do. Memory hit her and she snapped her head up. Pain followed so sharply it brought tears to her eyes. He was gone. She turned the light to the abyss, still there. How long? She had no way of knowing how long she had been unconscious. Steadying herself with one hand on the wall, she forced herself upright and started out, trying to hurry, but very aware that her leg was dragging, that she was mired in one spot, that there was no way she could negotiate a flight of stairs and get out of the hotel.
The jeep stopped twenty feet away from Foley. Two men climbed out; one remained behind the wheel. Foley looked from the jeep to Charlie. His face was set in hard lines, his voice grim. “It’ll be dark very soon, Charlie. We’re going in while there’s still light.”
“Someone will be hurt,” Charlie said softly.
“Then someone will be hurt,” Newhouse said in a clipped voice. “Send them in.”
“Is that how it is?” Charlie asked Foley. He examined Newhouse with more interest. Foley waved to the man behind the wheel of the jeep, and Charlie raised the gun.
“He’d better get out and look over the situation first, don’t you agree? He might not be able to get around this drift.”
“I’m tired of stalling,” Newhouse said and, turning his back on Charlie, went to the jeep and got in. The driver shifted gears. Foley started to say something, but Charlie tightened his finger on the trigger. And then everything stopped.
It was like being caught in a hurricane, but without wind, or in an electrical storm without lightning. For a second there seemed to be no air, as if a giant vacuum had sucked them all in. Then the charged cobwebs were everywhere, pressing hard against everyone simultaneously, at the same time sucking them empty. Charlie dropped to his knees, both hands over his ears, as if what he experienced was pure sound. Foley fell down twitching. Byron staggered a few feet and fell face first into the snowdrift. Newhouse clutched his head and screamed.
Carson Danvers and the boy were knocked down by the effect. When Carson began to stir, he thought he heard Gary sobbing. He crawled to him and cradled him in his arms, saying nonsense words over and over, rocking him.
The boy sobbed against his chest. Not Gary, just
a hurt kid, Carson thought finally, but he did not release him until they were both ready to stand up and start moving together.