The Spawning (38 page)

“I heard Hopper had a gun, Nicky.”

“He did. I have it.”

The Beav just stood there, staring at her screen, her eyes filling with tears. “When . . . when they come for us . . .”

“Beav.”

“. . . when they come for us, Nicky, do me a favor and use the gun on me. Don't let them get me. Don't let them take me to one of those cities. Please, Nicky. Please.”

So all in all, Clime was a bad place to be that day. The silence was too thick, too ominous, too charged with something that just did not belong.

In bed that night with Gwen, she said to him, “Do you believe in ghosts, Nicky?”

“I'm not sure. Hopper does.”

“We all will soon enough. Because this fucking station is haunted and it will be as long as Butler is here. As long as she's here, we're all in danger and I think you know that. If we don't get rid of her, she'll contaminate this whole place. At least, so says Locke. Those things have been reaching out to us in our dreams ever since we started this winter and it's about to get a lot worse.”

As it turned out, she was absolutely right.

EMPEROR CAVE
MARCH 16

“B
EEMAN'S GONE.”

Biggs opened his eyes, looked around in confusion. The digital said it was getting on 1:30 A.M. “Hell you say?”

“I said, Beeman's gone.”

“Maybe he went for a walk,” Biggs said, trying to keep his crusty lids open. “Why are you bothering me about that asshole?”

Warren figured he was a patient guy. He'd never liked confrontations, had never gone out of his way for a fight. The idea of striking another had never held any thrill for him. But right now, oh yeah, he wanted to punch Biggs right in the face and maybe not just once either. He took a deep breath, then he shook Biggs like he was trying to shake the skin off his bones. “Listen to me, you goddamn idiot. Beeman's gone. He must've wandered off. We have to do something.”

“It was on your shift, baby. You were minding the store. Not me.”

Warren thought:
Good God, how did I get stuck down here in the middle of this . . . this . . .
shit
with a guy like Biggs? No contact with Dryden's team from below in well over thirty-six hours. Some godawful horror down there they chopped from the ice. Beeman crazy. Now gone. And this fucking idiot compounding it all.

He released Biggs.

Figured he better before he hurt him.

“We have to go after him,” was all he said. “Now are you coming with me?”

“Somebody has to mind the radio.”

“Fuck the radio.”

“Damn, you
do
mean business, my friend. But so sorry. I'm not going down there and you couldn't fucking make me if you tried. So have a safe trip.”

Warren wanted to shout and stamp his feet . . . but what was the point? He pulled on his ECWs before he lost his nerve. Because, given time, he knew that he would. Biggs just laid there watching him with that cocky grin on his face as he pulled on his polar fleece, wool pants, Gore Tex parka, bunny boots and mittens.

“Hey, I'd go, Warren, but that place down there scares the shit out of me.”

“It scares the shit out of me, too. But somebody has to go,” he said, pulling on a balaclava and wool hat, strapping his Stabilicers onto the bottom of his boots. He grabbed a tungsten flashlight and his ice-axe off the wall. “I don't come back, Biggs, you better get on the horn with McMurdo. Tell ‘em the truth this time. We're in trouble.”

That cocky grin slid from Biggs's face as he went to the door. “C'mon, Warren. Jesus. Don't do this. We can survive together.”

“You just make that call when I don't come back.”

Then he opened the door and the cold found him and pulled him outside into the wicked, frozen world of the Emperor. He slammed the door shut and made his way for the passage like a man going to his death.

W
HAT HE WAS DOING was crazy.

But circumstances had gone beyond the point where such things as simple human fear and anxiety could stay him. Beeman gone now. Dryden and the boys not answering radio calls. No, he could not honestly think of anything, a blanket explanation, that would cover it all.

They were in trouble. Possibly dead.

And maybe something worse.

The idea of going down there terrified him . . . but how could he hope to face himself if he did not attempt to help them? What kind of man would that make him?

A living man, maybe.

A living, cowardly man who is afraid of the boogeyman.

A few minutes into it, the Hypertats and everything else were gone as the passage twisted and turned. Warren was alone. Just him and that tunnel of glowing blue ice. The incandescents strung out reflected back light that was indigo and aquamarine, phosphorescent and unsettling. He was very aware of the flashlight in his pocket and how dark it would be if the generator and its back-ups suddenly puked out.

Easy. Just take it easy.

God, he'd been so afraid of losing his nerve, he hadn't even taken an emergency radio with him. Then he laughed at the idea. His voice echoed out with a hollow, disembodied sound in the ice cave. Radio? What for?

Even if you get in trouble, Biggs won't come after you.

He's a goddamn coward.

And Warren knew that he was, too, waiting so long to come down here. But . . . well, it was nearly impossible to put into words the effect that
specimen
had upon him. How do you wrap a nightmare into a cohesive thought? How do you frame a child's instinctive fear of the dark with anything so empty as words? The horror that thing inspired was not just psychological, but spiritual, racial, and physical. Looking at it was like peering at the accumulated traumas and terrors of your race crawling forth at you out of formless, supernal blackness.

Unspeakable.

When he saw it that first time, it made him sick to his stomach. Made his head scream with alien noise. Flooded his soul with primal, abhorrent memory. Filled his brain with disjointed images of people, things
like
people, stampeding in pure infectious terror while creatures like that one in the ice filled the skies, swarming and winging and buzzing and–

God in heaven, stop it! Just stop it!

Warren leaned there against the ice wall, making himself breathe, making himself forget. And all the while a voice that was primarily concerned with preserving his own feeble life cried out in his head for him to turn and run before it was too late.

He went on.

Around him, the glacier cracked with sharp reports and muted grindings. His boots echoed out with odd, almost musical reverberations like steel drums as his cleats bit into the ice. His breath came out in white clouds. A skim of white ice frosted his mustache even beneath the balaclava.

“Close now,” he whispered under his breath. “Real close.”

He studied the walls as he moved ever downward. The ice was irregular, but shining pure like flawless crystals, sapphires and blue emeralds. He was beginning to feel that same hideous magnetism of what lie below. Already it was getting inside of him, crawling like worms looking for warm meat to nest in.

He knew he had to fight it.

He could not lock-up down there.

Ten minutes later, the passage opened up into the mammoth ice cavern in the belly of the glacier. Everywhere, delicate crystalwork on the walls, towers and flows and rivers of ice. All of it that startling blue that took your breath away. The lights were still strung on their poles, lighting up the underworld, the illumination gleaming and sparkling and glittering.

Other than the glacier itself, he heard no sounds.

Just that silence that was bigger than anything he'd ever known in his life, a thrumming and immense sound of absolute . . . emptiness.

Now's a good time to get the hell out of here,
he told himself one last time.
Forget this. If they were down here, you'd hear them. If they were even alive, God, you could hear them breathing. Just turn around and walk away.

But it was too late for that and he knew it.

Sucking frozen air into his lungs, Warren called out: “Dryden! Stone! Kenneger!” And when that got no response: “Paxton! Reese! Are you there?”

The sound of his own voice was so loud in the emptiness something clutched tight in his belly. His voice echoed through the cavern, bouncing off that ancient ice and through the network of icicles hanging high above, coming right back at him with a dry, mocking assurance that no one was alive down there.

He heard a sudden peal of shrill noise like squeaking.

He spun around, dizzy, shocked, breathless . . . but there was nothing there.

But he had heard something.

A chitinous sort of squeaking.

He knew there was nothing down there that could make such a sound . . . like a crab moving over the bodies of other crabs, shells grinding against shells.

The Polar Haven.

The lights were on.

The Polar Haven was where the scientists ate, worked, and even slept sometimes. It was a red, tent-walled, barrel-shaped structure. Cramped, but efficient. He stepped carefully over the numerous electrical cables snaking over the ice. Gripping the door latch, he threw it open.

Empty.

He stepped in there, closed the door behind him. The space heater was going and it was warm in there. He pulled off his mittens and warmed his hands. The bunks looked slept in. Laptop computers on tables. He found a couple coffee cups and the coffee in them was cold. It had been poured many, many hours ago. Notebooks. Graphs. Books. A portable drill. Ice saw.

The radio.

Warren went over to it and saw that it was perfectly operational. He picked up the mic. “Emperor One, this is Emperor Two. Do you copy?”

“I copy,” Biggs said. “Anyone around?”

“Not a soul.”

“Warren, listen to me. Get your ass out of there.
Now.”

Warren could hear the fear in his voice. At least he wasn't alone. “Emperor One? Kiss my ass.”

“I'm serious, Warren.”

“Why don't you come down here? Why don't–”

Warren almost fell on his ass. A shape passed by the window in his peripheral vision. And as warm as it was in the Haven, his skin went cold. He could hear Biggs calling to him over the speaker.

Screw Biggs.

He threw open the door and jumped out on the ice, almost went on his ass. There was no one out there. He looked all around the Polar Haven, but there was no one. Nothing.

He could've turned back then, but he didn't.

For a yellow tent had been erected in the distance. If anyone was hiding from him, it would be in there. Gripping his ice-axe very tightly, he went over there. The tent flaps were blowing around soundlessly. He could hear a space heater running. A cord led over to the tent.

That's where it would be.

Dryden's specimen.

He went over there and ducked inside, his ice-axe raised to strike. There was no in there. No one or nothing alive . . . just the thing. He couldn't say how long it had been thawing, but long enough. Most of the ice was gone and here and there you could see the creature's flesh which was gray and rubbery-looking. A single wing was beginning to unfold. Water dripped from it, going to slush on the ice beneath. He jabbed it with his ice-axe and the exposed flesh gave a bit. Ice fell away in a sheet.

Warren fell back, that terror filling him.

He heard something like a low, almost musical whistling in the back of his head.

Very aware of just how bright the thing's red eyes were, he reached down and unplugged the heater. Right away, the cold rushed in. For one feverish moment, he thought the cilia-like growths on the creature's head were moving.

He stumbled from the tent, trying to catch his breath.

No, not as bad as last time, but only because he was prepared for it this time. Regardless, he was still struck by the feeling that the thing was not as dead as it should have been.

He moved over the jagged ice where it rose into a sort of low ridge. He climbed up it. There was an incline on the other side that led to the numerous crevices that Dryden and the boys had been exploring. Some of which were taped with yellow streamers because they led to crevasses.

He saw no one.

Steeling himself, he moved down the incline over the glossy surface of the ice, digging his cleats in. What brought him down there was something that had not been there before . . . a perfectly symmetrical round tunnel that angled down into the ice. It was artificial. He was certain of it.

He moved towards the crevice where he knew the creature had been found.

There was blood on the ice at its opening. Not a lot, but enough. A trail of it led into the crevice and, turning on his flashlight, Warren went after it, completely certain that he was making one of the biggest mistakes of his life. The crevice was about four feet wide, the floor glossy blue ice. After being in the cavern, the crevice was close, suffocating, claustrophobic even.

More blood.

A smear.

A speckling of it on the ice wall. It looked black in the bluish glow.

The crevice moved to the left, then the right. Anyone could have been hiding just around the next turn. He stopped. He heard something ahead. A quick furtive shuffling. Moving again, his blood running hot and fast, he was certain he was not alone now. He could sense someone ahead.

Waiting.

Deadly.

He raised the ice-axe, the flashlight shook in his hand. He slid around a corner and a hulking, dark shape moved away from the light.

Warren screamed.

It had been a reflexive action. For that shape was
manlike,
without necessarily being a man. It moved with a slithering sound. And for one panicked, impossible moment he'd caught a glimpse of a face behind the hood-fringe of a parka . . . something like pink and undulant wax and eyes, red-litten eyes leering at him.