Ripper (52 page)

Virginia tried to bring up the inventory secured inside vaults 0001-1000 from memory to see if anything stood out. She shook her head. “I don’t know, Will. We just moved new artifacts in four days ago. Hell, my mind isn’t working.”

“Can’t say as I blame you for that,” Mendenhall said as he cracked the stairwell door and looked through into the darkened corridor. He saw the security arch leading
to the vault section. He could see the dead laser grid and darkened arch, meaning they could enter that section without getting zapped by ten thousand volts of electricity.

“Lieutenant, I think locking ourselves inside one of your magnificent vaults is a very good idea at this point. I prefer it to running aimlessly in this dark stairwell,” Henri said as he tightened his grip on Sarah, who returned
the gesture. He was beginning to like being the helpless one in the group.

Mendenhall looked back at the five people behind and above him on the stairs. Gloria looked at him with the hope that he knew what to do. He was loath to disappoint the doctor, so he nodded his head.

“Okay, Colonel, I think you may have something. But the electricity is out, meaning that the vaults are all open. But maybe
we can find one of the larger ones and barricade ourselves inside until the cavalry comes.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Virginia said.

“Let’s do it. I have a real bad feeling our luck on this stairwell is fast running out,” Denise offered, looking nervously up into the darkness.

Will again pushed the door open and stuck his head out. He waited for something to rip it off, but nothing came out of
the dimly illuminated corridor. He cautiously pushed the door open all the way and at the same time waved the others forward.

As they exited the stairwell next to the elevator tube, Sarah stopped and hushed everyone. They all heard it immediately. It sounded just like the muffled voice and yell of Crazy Charlie Ellenshaw coming from inside the elevator tube. But they all knew there wasn’t an
elevator for Ellenshaw to ride. Then the sound vanished just as fast as it took for them all to stop and listen more closely.

“That was weird,” Sarah said as she took a stronger hold of Henri and started to move again.

Mendenhall held out the nine millimeter before him as he made it to the security arch. He cautiously leaned over the desk where a guard would usually be stationed to cover that
level. He looked at the screen and quickly saw that it was still blue. Europa was still down.

“Damn it,” he said as the others approached.

“Has anyone checked the old girl’s batteries,” Henri said as he slumped a little further against Sarah.

“Good one, Colonel. I’ll remember to tell Dr. Golding of your comment. I’m sure he’ll make allowances for the next monster invasion,” Will said as he
took Gloria by the hand and moved off into the long and curving corridor that housed the vault area. Mendenhall thought he had made a good return quip when he realized that he and Gloria were the only ones going inside the security arch.

“Uh, Lieutenant, our company has arrived,” Farbeaux said as all at once all four people turned and ran through the arch past Will and Gloria.

As Mendenhall
peered into the darkness where they had all been just a second before, he saw it. The beast, the glow of its eyes visible, was just standing by the stairwell, or
floating
would be a better word as the beast dipped and rose as it continued looking at him and Gloria.

“As I was told earlier, there is now nowhere to run,” said the deep and raspy voice. The creature started forward at an easy gait,
knowing the six men and women had no place to go but farther back into darkness.

As Virginia led the way, she turned suddenly to the left into a vault she had most recently been inside of just three days before. She stood at the front of the twelve-inch-thick steel door and waved everyone inside. Sarah and Farbeaux tripped over the steel threshold and went down, causing Will, Gloria, and Virginia
to crash into each other. Mendenhall made a quick decision and pushed everyone farther inside and then just as quickly stepped back out of the vault.

“What in the hell are you doing Lieutenant?” Virginia shouted angrily as she pushed through the others to try to pull Mendenhall back inside.

“Giving this thing two targets instead of one. Seal this up as best you can,” Will shouted as he pushed
the two-ton steel door closed, effectively shutting out the cursing from those inside.

They heard the beast laughing as it reached the very threshold of the vault Will had just left, or at least they hoped he had left. Virginia knew the vault door wouldn’t lock as she spun the security wheel in the center of the stainless-steel door. Just as the wheel locked, Virginia felt the beast outside start
to turn it back to the open position. She looked around in a blind panic, and it was a shocked and stunned Gloria who came to their rescue. In the light of the single emergency bulb in the back of the steel-encased room Virginia quickly saw what the young scientist was carrying. Dr. Pollock nodded her head vigorously as Gloria, tears streaming over Mendenhall’s sudden departure, placed the short-shafted
spear through the wheel’s spokes and then secured its bottom half against the metal framing crisscrossing the door. She made sure the sharpened point was secure against the steel bracing at the top just as the beast outside pulled heavily on the vault’s door and tried to turn the wheel from the outside.

Gloria and Virginia stepped backward with a start when the door was hit, sending dirt and
small rocks down from the ceiling. The thick shaft of the spear held even though it bowed to the left, almost to the breaking point. Just as the wheel was about to turn, snapping the small spear, Denise and Sarah were there with two more of the short throwing spears copying what Gloria had just done. Now there were three of these small spear shafts holding the door’s locking wheel closed against the
onslaught from the other side.

“Where would I be without you guys?” Virginia asked as she backed away from the steel door, watching the spears rattle and bend and then become still.

*   *   *

Will regretted not having at least perused the list of new artifacts now being stored on the newly constructed vault level. From behind him in the dark corridor with gleaming but at the moment dull stainless-steel
vaults running along both sides of the wide hall, Mendenhall heard the scream of the creature as it attacked the vault he had just left with all of the women and a wounded Farbeaux inside. He was relieved when he failed to hear the screams of his friends after the first assault on the steel vault.

“Hey you ugly son of a bitch, I’m down here!” Will shouted back into the darkness. The move had
caught even himself off-guard. He shook his head as the beast situated around the bend in the hallway ceased moving and attacking the vault. Will just knew it was now looking down the once-gleaming corridor trying to discern where his prey was situated and what trap could possibly be waiting for it.

Then Mendenhall heard what he feared most—the creature turned on its heels and started his way.

“Well, this is what you wanted,” Will mumbled to himself as he turned into the largest vault on the brand-new level sixty-one and closed the giant door behind him, shutting out the running footsteps of the creature as it came on.

*   *   *

Inside vault number 0001, things had calmed when they felt that the beast had left the vault door. As they relaxed momentarily, everyone fought for breath
and as they did they all noticed for the first time what vault Virginia had led them into.

“I’ll be damned,” Gloria said, wiping her eyes dry as she staggered over to assist Sarah in getting Henri to his feet.

Farbeaux whistled as he took in the artifacts he could see with the single light bulb at the back of the vault.

“You people never cease to amaze, I’ll give you that.”

Arranged around
the large vault were riches and artifacts that had once belonged to a Zulu king known to the world as Cetshwayo—the man who brought down British forces in the largest defeat of a modern well-equipped army by native tribesmen in history. That battle brought on the legend of the Zulu Dawn, a historical fact that the trapped men and women inside vault number 0001-61890 had in common with the British
Empire on January 22, 1879. They were in danger of being trapped and wiped out without mercy.

11

Niles ran so fast around the blind corner that his black shoes caught on the carpet and sent him flying to the floor within sight of the computer center. He cursed his own clumsiness as the radio flew from his hand and smashed against the far wall. He quickly tried to rise as he heard the creature slam into a wall as it negotiated its huge body around the bend in the hallway, taking the
turn too fast. Compton hurriedly tried to raise himself from the floor, and as he collapsed back down he knew that he had broken his left ankle. He tried once more and finally made it to his knees and then to his right foot. He hopped three feet before he had to reach out and take hold of the plastic-lined wall. He shook his head in anger and realized he would never make it the thirty feet to the
bulletproof computer center.

Suddenly and frighteningly hands were on him lifting him up, and for the life of him he couldn’t help it—he screamed. It was a high-pitched sound that he couldn’t believe had emanated from his own mouth.

“Oh, hang on you sissy!”

Niles realized that the tall and lanky Pete Golding, who hadn’t lifted anything heavier than a stapler in the past ten years, had actually
picked him up and placed him over his slight shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He was running down the carpeted hallway to the sanctuary he called home. Before Compton realized what was happening they were through the double six-inch glass doors and he was roughly thrown onto a large desk as Pete swung around and manually locked the doors. As Golding backed away he saw how close they had come to
a bad end. In his efforts, through his grunting and his yelling, he hadn’t realized how close Niles’s pursuer had been to catching them from behind.

“Oh, shit!” Pete yelled as he backed away from the glass so fast that he crashed into the desk where Compton was fighting to rise. The desk tilted and Niles went flying off onto the risers above the computer center floor.

The beast hit the glass
wall just to the left of the double doors. The impact into the bulletproof glass sent a wide, streaking crack snaking through the reinforced wall. The beast rebounded and then fell to the floor, surprised that it hadn’t crashed through this glass like any other in the complex. Pete watched in stunned silence as the former mercenary shook its head and jumped back to its feet. Instead of backing away
and gaining momentum for another charge, it took two steps to the left and started to examine the wall. Its head tilted right and then left as it studied the problem before it. The two men saw the wide swath of blood as it coursed down from the left ear of the giant.

“Jesus, Niles, it’s using problem-solving skills,” Pete said as he backed farther away from the glass. “It’s that advanced even
though the massive dose it ingested is at this moment killing its brain cells, the very ones the drug just activated. If these men had taken a normal dose, a dose intended in actual combat, they would have just been unafraid to die; still thinking, just a want of killing slicing through their expanding brains.”

Niles looked up at Pete as if he were crazy.

“Perhaps it would be better if you filed
your report on Perdition’s Fire later, when we have more time?”

Pete knew he had started running on because he was so frightened at what was happening. Explaining something to Niles allowed Pete to slow his mind and get a better grasp of the situation. He cleared his throat and moved his weight away from the director.

The creature stopped examining the crack in the window for a moment as Pete’s
movement caught its glowing eyes. It watched the thin computer director for a moment and then like the others before it, it smiled. It slowly placed a hand near the spiderweb crack and ran one of its elongated, trunklike fingers over it.

Pete turned to look at the computer center’s main viewing screen and saw the ticking down of Europa’s power system. She had forty-four seconds of life left to
her.

“Europa,” Pete called out loudly, hoping her internal systems could pick up his voice, “are you still with me baby?”

After examining the glass and probing the crack, the beast closed its hand into a ham-sized fist and hit the broken glass precisely where the riverlike crack formed, sending small pieces of clear material onto the carpeted floor inside the computer center. The smile widened
as it caught sight of Pete once more. Then its eyes moved to Compton as the director finally managed to stand on one leg and use the desks to hop away from where he thought the mercenary was going to crash through the wall.

“Yes, Dr. Golding,” Europa finally answered.

“Tell me you came up with something while I was out?” Pete said as he reached out and helped Niles down the steps leading to
the center’s floor.

“If you are referencing our earlier discussion on power replacement, yes, I have a solution, but it involves a major shutdown of all civil systems.”

“What in the hell does that mean?”

“Europa, commence implementing your plan immediately!” Niles called out loudly.

“Yes, Dr. Compton.”

“For God’s sake, hurry before you’re dead in the water!” Pete added as the beast hit the
wall again, this time with both hands, fingers entwined. A plate-sized hole appeared in the wall as glass cascaded into the center.

“Well, we gave it a hell of a shot, Peter,” Niles said as he hopped in time with Pete’s movement to the floor.

“Yeah, we did boss,” Golding said as he watched a third blow shatter ten feet of wall.

The creature smiled broadly as it stepped through the hole it had
just created, its bare feet crunching through the thick glass as it did so.

Niles Compton and Pete Golding watched as their fate stepped toward the large aisle leading down to their location on the center’s floor.