Once inside, Mueller and Hoffman repacked the hole with dirt and the blanket until there remained only enough room to slip an arm through and sweep snow down from above the hole. It didn’t matter if any dirt was still visible, because in five minutes it would be covered with fresh snow. By morning no one would know there had ever been an opening.
Finished, Mueller drew in his arm and looked around. Hoffman had a candle lit. Dortmunder was lighting another. The chamber they had entered was littered with rubble. They had to crawl over twelve feet of it until they could stand, and then only in a crouch. The shaft was low and narrow. “Dug by elves,” snorted Hoffman. The beams and braces were old and far from sturdy. There was only enough room to move through in single file. But at least they were in and dry, and they had provisions and tools and light. They looked at each other and grinned. Two minutes later, with the gear hoisted on their backs, stooped low, they started up the tunnel.
The nightform found the armhole left by Mueller. It spilled into the shaft and nosed up after the flickering lights.
Chapter 23
Gripping his wrist and applying intermittent pressure to the artery just above the bandage, Bauhopf managed to reduce the pain in his hand. “Keep doing that,” von Lechterhoeven said quietly, “and it will rot and fall off.”
“Who died and made you medic?” Bauhopf growled. Slipping the back door of Hut 7 open an inch and disregarding the blast of cold air that ripped at his eyes, he gazed over at the silent Krankenhaus. Nothing had happened over there for quite a while. There was still a light on in the front of the ward, but in the back it was dark. Cuno and Heilbruner must have gone to bed. And Kirst—if he was anything but unconscious, there would be a light burning in the rearmost cubicle. There wasn’t.
“Those MPs should be good and tired by now,” Bauhopf said.
“I’m good and tired,” von Lechterhoeven replied.
“Where are the others?”
“Gone to bed. I don’t think anybody’s up for a midnight raid. What if we... ?”
“Shh!” Bauhopf held up his bandaged hand. Von Lechterhoeven fell silent and watched him stick his head out the door. “Someone’s out there.”
“Who?”
“Can’t tell.”
There was a long pause with the only sound the wind whistling through the door, then Bauhopf abruptly shut it, leaving just a crack to look through. “It’s an MP. That sergeant, I think.” He turned. Von Lechterhoeven watched his eyes work thoughtfully. “He’s alone. I think we can take him.”
“What?”
“He’s got a weapon—we need it!” Bauhopf opened the door.
Von Lechterhoeven shut it and grabbed him. “Wait a minute.”
“Let go of me.”
“Use your head! Think for a moment! They don’t let anyone patrol the compound alone when there’s a storm!”
“Their mistake—”
“So if he’s not authorized, what’s he doing here?”
Bauhopf stopped struggling and looked at von Lechterhoeven a moment, then he edged the door open again and peered out cautiously, shielding his eyes against the snow. The MP was gone, had disappeared around another hut most likely, and with him had gone Bauhopf’s chance.
“He’s up to no good,” said von Lechterhoeven. “Maybe Hopkins sent him.”
“All the more reason...”
“... to be careful.”
Vinge’s goggles were icing up. He looked back up the slope from his position behind Hut 9 and could vaguely make out the gate and the guard post next to it. But he couldn’t see Cokenaur and assumed he was back inside the booth, smoking another cigarette. The wind changed and blew snow up Vinge’s nose. Cursing to himself and shivering against the biting chill, he turned his back to the wind and let it propel him ahead.
There was no sign of that shadow and, now that he was back here among the huts, he was even less sure that it had been his elusive wildcat. Maybe it was a German making a latrine run. Or it could have been one of the MPs from the Krankenhaus.
What would make that damn fool cat come down in this weather anyway? Why wasn’t he up on the mountain in some nice warm cave, hibernating with the rabbits and squirrels?
Hearing an unfamiliar noise, Vinge stopped to listen. But all he heard was the wind howling between the huts and loose tar paper flapping on the roof of Hut 9. Wait—there was another sound. Wiping his goggles, he looked around and saw only snow covering the compound and the dark huts. The wind changed again and swept off to the east, up the side of Blackbone Mountain, rattling the chain links on the back fence. He struggled to separate sounds and finally he caught it—a hollow sort of rush. He tensed and looked up at the mountain.
It was Blackbone itself, howling back at the storm. Wind blasting through the mountain’s secret orifices, rushing through the old abandoned shafts and emerging somewhere above so that the sound was directed back at the camp. Vinge shuddered. Even the goddamned mountain was creepy.
Sweeping the flashlight before him, Vinge tramped off, warily keeping an eye out, promising his frozen legs he would give this only another few minutes.
Hunched over, Mueller moved up the shaft. His candle cast an eerie glow on the dry dirt walls and rotted timbers around him. Carefully, he tested the ground before putting his foot down. Each step took several seconds, but it meant avoiding a fall through a rotted floor or a shift in the timbers that might bring the whole shaft crashing down on his head.
Hoffman and Dortmunder were right behind him, the gear on their backs making it difficult for them to move. Dortmunder had resorted to a crab walk. Hoffman, who was taller, had shifted the weight higher on his shoulders, almost up on his neck. He moved apelike, walking with his knuckles dragging.
Mueller carried very little gear. If a beam fell or the floor gave, somebody needed both hands free to rescue the others. As his cautious forward movement became more automatic, Mueller listened to the wind howling somewhere above him through an open shaft, turning the entire mountain into an echo chamber.
They had traveled about fifty yards up a twenty-degree incline. Suddenly there was a sharp left turn and the shaft switched back steeply, up into the heart of the mountain. Mueller stopped, worried. If that was a permanent bend in the shaft and it didn’t switch back the other way somewhere up ahead, then he was wrong and they wouldn’t exit on the northeast slope of Blackbone Mountain. This detour would bring them out on the northwest side, visible from the camp.
Mueller extended his candle around the bend, casting light on the nearby rock walls. Ten feet beyond that, all was blackness. Dortmunder and Hoffman caught up mid asked what was wrong. “Nothing,” Mueller said, frowning to himself. They had to give it a try. There was no other choice. He took a step forward, again testing the ground. It was solid. But glancing at his candle flame, he saw something peculiar. The flame was angled toward him, bent by an almost imperceptible force. Putting his face close to the flame, he felt a gentle breeze cool against his cheek. It grew gradually.
Dortmunder and Hoffman felt it too. “God,” Dortmunder said gratefully.
Hoffman laughed. “It’s the old man of the mountain breaking wind!”
“We must be near an exit,” Mueller said, relieved. He stepped forward. The breeze was still angling his candle flame, making the light flicker on the walls. Hoffman and Dortmunder followed, anticipating freedom only moments away. Then Mueller noticed that, though the breeze was still gentle, it was getting colder. Surely that meant they were almost out. His excitement grew, although practical reality nagged him that it would be dangerous to emerge within view of the camp.
The incline got even steeper, thirty degrees now. Tougher for Dortmunder and Hoffman. Mueller’s candle flame was bent almost horizontally. The breeze was like ice on his cheeks.
He stopped.
Something was happening to the light. Before, the candle flame had illuminated almost ten feet ahead, but now blackness crept down the incline, swallowing the light. The breeze stung his fac
e. The candle flame whipped.
Dortmunder grunted as his light went out.
All three stopped and watched, fascinated, as blackness engulfed everything in their path—walls, ceiling, and floor. The wind rose abruptly, tore at their clothing, and put out the two remaining candles. Mueller held his ground, straining to see in the dark, but the wind pushed him back. Or was it the wind? It felt like a huge hand against his chest. He stumbled and heard another sound, a distant howling. It built from somewhere up ahead and grew in volume. They backed away.
Mueller fumbled in his trouser pocket for matches and lit one. Something black brushed his hand and put the light out. Behind him, he heard Dortmunder struggling with matches that wouldn’t catch. Mueller flung himself against the shaft wall, cupped his hands, and struck another match. It flared briefly and, in that instant of illumination, he saw what the blackness was.
A thick, oily, smoky substance that curled over his hands and snuffed out the light.
Mueller dropped his matches. Hoffman swore. All three were hurled back by a fierce gust of frigid wind. Then Mueller heard footsteps retreating—Hoffman charging down the incline. Dortmunder fell to his knees, murmuring a prayer. The howl grew louder, deeper, throatier. Then sound erupted around them. They were assaulted by deep, cavernous rumblings, cackling, echoing quakes, and the edgy strain of cracking wood.
At that moment, Mueller knew they had not entered a mine shaft at all. They were in the mouth of hell, about to be devoured by blackness.
Dortmunder frantically shrugged off his gear and flung it to the ground then ran down the shaft toward the bend. In the darkness he couldn’t see and smashed into a brace, which exploded into dust. The crossbeam dropped and shattered his shoulder. He screamed and dodged a hail of falling rock.
Following the sound, Mueller ran to it, ran through the cave-in, holding his gear over his head, ignoring Dortmunder on the ground screaming about his shoulder, gagging on a mouthful of pebbles. Mueller found the bend and whipped around it, losing his footing on a river of gravel, hitting the ground and sliding down the incline. A scream tore from his throat as sound rose behind him—the roar of an avalanche, a breaking, spilling, crashing sound as of a mountain giving way. He hit the side of the shaft and grabbed a brace beam to stop his slide. The beam came away in his hands and he slid on, at any second expecting to be crushed by collapsing rock. He struck the side again and jammed the brace beam into a protruding boulder. He stopped sliding, scrambled to his feet, and ran. As behind him the sound swelled to a demonic shriek, Mueller’s fear took a quantum leap to terror.
He threw out his hands in the dark, beating against the walls to keep himself centered in the tunnel. “Hoffman!” he called, his voice drowned out by a roar that shook the entire shaft. He heard worm-eaten braces give way behind him and a distant scream cut off by a crash. Dortmunder.
Hearing sharp grunts ahead, Mueller charged on, feeling the uneven crunch of the spill underfoot—the dirt and rock pile left when the American engineers had blown up the entrance. Then he cracked his head on the low ceiling. Ignoring the pain, he dropped on his belly and crawled up the spill to where he knew the hole must be. He thought of the storm out there, the welcome difficulty of plowing through deep drifts to return to his bed. The grunts came from Hoffman, trying to claw through the dirt.
“It’s me,” Mueller called. “Where are you?”
“In front—”
Aiming at the voice, Mueller sprang forward and landed on Hoffman, who yelled. His voice was picked up on the wind coming from back in the shaft and was bounced around the walls beside them. It came back intensified. And with it came the demon’s roar, rushing toward them on a black cloud that now they could even taste—like sulfur on the tongue. It burned their throats and clogged their lungs. They began to cough. Then it reached into their minds and laid bare the raw nerves of terror.
Oh God, Mueller thought. Not in here! Please not in here!
Gasping for air, feeling his heart pounding in his chest, he grabbed Hoffman’s trousers and yanked him out of the way, kicked him down the spill. Then he pulled himself forward and clawed at the dirt, with the blackness stinging his eyes and filling his brain with an icy coldness. The mountain creaked around him. His fingers found the loose dirt and the edge of the blanket. He tore at it, shoved it aside.
Just as Mueller’s hand punched through and he felt the relief of cold snow on his fingers—snow he recalled from his boyhood—innocent, heartwarming, holiday snow—there was a sharp crack above him, and then the ceiling dropped. Something incredibly hard and sharp bit down on his neck.
In the last second of life, Mueller thought the beast from hell had taken off his head. But then he felt the cold weight of rock against his ear and knew it was nothing quite so terrible.
Only death.
Over the wail of the storm, Vinge heard a crash up on the slope behind Hut 10. Stopping with his legs sunk calf- deep in snow, he played his beam around the corner of the hut and up the slope to the fence, but the driving snow reflected the light back at him. Hoisting one leg up at a time, Vinge plowed through the drifts, crossing the broad empty space toward the base of Blackbone Mountain. Reaching the bottom of the slope, he played the light in a side-to-side arc, working slowly upward. He held the beam on something dark that looked like cloth. Two colors. Blue and gray. The Germans wore gray.
Leaving the carbine slung on his shoulder and holding the flashlight in his left hand, he started up the slope, figuring that if it was a German, and he was unconscious or dead, he would be easy to deal with. If he was faking, Vinge could hit him with the light to get him under control.
Struggling for footholds in the snow, Vinge worked up the slope toward the blue and gray cloth. Stopping to aim his light at it, he realized it was nothing more than a blue blanket. But the gray thing—that looked like a coat sleeve.
Something growled at him.
Vinge froze. Only his eyes moved, darting around and—It growled again. Then it snarled.
That’s no goddamned fucking wildcat.
He flicked the light around quickly. The growl came from above and to the left. There, in the bushes up against the fence, he saw two jewel-like eyes glinting back at him. And beneath the eyes were snarling lips and slavering teeth. It crept forward a couple of feet, shoving the bush aside, scattering snow, and coming into the beam of Vinge’s light. It was a wolf, the biggest one Vinge had ever seen or had ever even dreamed about. It was immense and black, and its hide was slick with melted snow as steam rose off its back. The jaws opened wider, exposing sharp yellow fangs. The wolf cocked its head to one side and roared at him.
Wolves don’t roar, Vinge thought, as his knees buckled and he slid backward. Wolves howl. What the hell... ? Bracing his legs, he quickly unslung the carbine, snapped off the safety, and took aim. When he fired, the weapon bucked, and he knew a bullet had gone right for the animal’s heart—
Then why was it in the air, leaping at him? No. Not leaping. Flying! He fired again. The wolf roared in midair and slammed into the snow. For a second, Vinge felt a thrill of triumph. He had killed it. He lowered the weapon and took a step forward and, as he did, the wolf sprang to its feet.
Vinge turned and bounded down the slope into the drifts. In eight inches of snow it was hard going, but he refused to stop. Glancing back, he saw what he already knew: the wolf was coming after him. He stopped to fire again, missed, then yelled, “Goddamn it, help me!” He stumbled and nearly lost the carbine, recovered and kept moving, urged on by the sound of the wolf behind him, growling wetly, slobbering with hunger.
Glancing back again, he stumbled sideways and crashed into the side of Hut 7. He stopped and realized he was foolish for running. Scrambling to the door, he turned the knob. The door was stuck. He shouldered it but it wouldn’t open. Something was braced against it on the other side. Using the butt of his carbine, he bashed it and kicked it at the same time. It swung open. Vinge was startled to see Bauhopf sprawled in the corridor,
staring at him in surprise.
The roar sounded above him. Backing up a few steps to glance at the roof, Vinge saw the wolf crouched to spring. As he raised his carbine, Bauhopf, convinced he was the intended target, slammed the door. Vinge fired. His shot tore away a chunk of tar paper directly in front of the wolf. It didn’t budge. It only roared at him again.
Whimpering with fear and cursing his aim, Vinge turned and plowed away from the huts. To reach the gate he had to negotiate the snow-covered slope, all of it uphill. Looking back, he saw the wolf leap off the roof of Hut 7 and come bounding after him.
He fired into the air to attract attention, hoping the nearest sentry would swing his light and see the wolf and cut him down with submachine-gun fire.
At the gate, Cokenaur heard the shots. He bolted from the booth and over to the gate, clicked off the safety of his carbine, and raised it to his shoulder, aiming the barrel through the fence. He heard somebody yelling and saw a shape bounding toward him through the storm.
Vinge is after someone, he thought. Flushed out a German trying to pull some stunt. Cokenaur watched the approaching shape. It was big and black, and it loped through the drifts, ignoring the storm.
That’s no German.
He saw the teeth, the steaming hide, heard the rising frenzied roar. Twenty yards away and closing, it looked big enough to crash through the gate. Mixed in with the roar, he thought he heard Vinge’s voice yelling for help. What’s the asshole in the tower doing with the light?
There was no time to think anymore. The wolf was ten yards away and as big as a tank. The eyes blazed at him. Cokenaur fired.
The last shot woke Gilman up. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was as he stared at Loring Holloway’s body curled against his under the covers. She was awake, too, her eyes working with fear. “Was that shooting?” she asked.
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