by Brian Lumley
Then, across the room, someone — something — said, 'Ahhh!'
'Jesus, Jesus!' Litve cried out, going into a crouch and whirling to look across the room. Khuv turned with him, his eyes bulging to penetrate the gloom. The last two coffins lay there, their contents as yet uninspected. But even as the two men clung together and stared, so there was movement. A tiny plume of air rose up from the first coffin, and another from the second. And Andrei Roborov and Nikolai Rublev sat up in their boxes and stared back at them!
Their injuries, visible even in the poor light, said that this could not be. But it could be, it was. Rublev's cheek was absent from the left side of his face, so that the left eye gazed from a bony orbit; the cadaverous Roborov's skull dripped pus and brain fluid, which crept like wax down his pallid cheeks. They sat there in their coffins, stared, then smiled — and their upper eye-teeth curved down like fangs over their lower lips!
Khuv tried to gasp, 'Oh God — oh, my God!' but his tongue had stuck to the roof of his mouth. The eyes of the dead men — no, of the corpses, the undead men — were pits of glowing sulphur cratered with blood, and they continued to smile.
'Burn them!' Khuv finally managed to gasp. 'Quickly, man, burn them!'
'Oh?' said a sly, familiar voice from the door. Then you must hope that your flame-thrower is not one of the many which I have emptied!'
They looked that way, saw Vasily Agursky step back out into the corridor and close the door. His key grated in the lock. 'Agursky, wait!' Khuv yelled after him.
'Oh no, Major,' came Agursky's faint answer. 'You've found me out, and so there's no more time for waiting.' His footsteps rapidly faded.
Meanwhile, Roborov and Rublev had climbed out of their coffins. Khuv saw them, ran for the door. Astonished that his legs obeyed him, he hoped his hands would do the same. As he went he took his keys from a pocket, trying to distinguish the right one from its feel.
At the door, fumbling with the bunch of keys, he glanced back. The two dead men (and for the first time Khuv thought of them as vampires) were advancing on Litve, their hands starting to reach for him. Khuv shouted from a sandpaper throat: 'What are you waiting for, you idiot? Burn them! Burn the fucking things!'
Litve came out of his trance, aimed his weapon and squeezed the trigger. Nothing! The flame-thrower hissed but that was all. The pilot-light flickered. 'Jesus.r Litve screamed. He came scrambling, dodged Roborov where he went to grab him.
Khuv had tried half of his keys. In the near-darkness he couldn't make out which was which. He wrenched the ones he'd tried from the key ring and hurled them down. Litve clawed at him, gasping: 'Open the door! For God's sake open the door!' Khuv shoved him away, thrust his remaining keys at him.
'You open it!' he shouted. He cocked his sub-machine gun, turned it toward the vampires where they came almost mincingly forward out of the mortuary's shadows. Roborov's smile was malicious as he said:
'Why, Comrade Major! I do believe that this is the first time I've seen you in a real flap! Has something upset you?'
'Get back,' Khuv shrilly warned.
'Back?' Rublev seemed to mimic him. 'Have we offended in some way, Major? But that's too, too bad…'
They were almost within arm's reach, and still Litve babbled and cursed while he tried to find the right key. Khuv fired, a deafening cacophony of sound in the enclosed space. He squeezed the trigger of his gun and kept it squeezed until the stink of cordite stung his eyes and clawed the back of this throat. Then he released it, and as the fumes cleared saw the two where his sleeting lead had picked them up and hurled them half-way across the room. They lay there moaning, but even as he stared in disbelief they were struggling to rise up again.
Litve gave a sobbing gasp — and the key he was trying turned in the lock. He yanked the door open, stumbled outside. Khuv was right on his heels. As the Major came he stooped to retrieve Litve's discarded weapon. Litve locked the door and both of them leaned on it, Khuv scowling while he checked the flame-thrower over.
'You can tell by its weight that it's loaded,' he said. 'What?' He pointed a shaking finger at the mix-lever on the stock. 'Look! You were giving it too much air and not enough juice. Fool!'
He adjusted the lever, aimed the weapon along the corridor and fired. A jet of flame instantly roared out, white at its core and tapering to a shimmering blue tip. He killed the flame, said: 'Now open that door.'
Litve unlocked the door, kicked it open and stood back. Roborov and Rublev were on their feet, advancing. Behind them, the young soldiers were also out of their boxes. Khuv didn't wait for further developments. He turned all four to shrieking, crackling torches, burned them until they collapsed, melted them to bubbling, crumpled, stinking piles of fused flesh. Then, as Litve once more locked the door, he turned away and fought to retain his control, fought desperately not to be ill.
'Grenzel wasn't in there,' said Litve. That pulled Khuv out of it.
'That's right,' he choked the words out, holding up a hand to his mouth. 'Which means there are two of them on the loose!'
'Where to now?' Litve was in control of himself again; and now that the immediate horror had been dealt with, Khuv's mind got back in gear and began working with its usual efficiency. Perhaps too efficiently. His bottom jaw fell open and he grabbed Litve's arm, then released him and set off down the rock corridor at a run.
'Where to?' he called back. 'Where would you go if you were Agursky, or Grenzel? What would you do?'
'Eh?' Litve came running after him.
'We know what they are,' Khuv cried. 'He knows we'll burn him if we can. He can't let any of us live. There's only one place he can go!'
Of course. Failsafe Control!
24. Inferno — Harry and Karen
Chingiz Khuv and Gustav Litve raced for their lives, for the lives of all concerned, through the serpentine bowels of the Perchorsk Projekt and toward Failsafe Control. At any moment they expected, dreaded to hear the failsafe klaxons starting up; they realized what would happen when the klaxons did sound — the panic, horror, the mad, futile scramble — and mainly the nightmare of more than one hundred people waking, staggering from their beds, opening doors to see liquid death spraying from the sprinklers, and hear the roaring of a rushing, all-consuming inferno.
For if Vasily Agursky, or the thing he had become, got to Failsafe Control before them… it was obvious what he would do. Save himself and burn them. Burn the entire Projekt.
And yet, for all their terror, the two KGB men weren't without courage. Twice at telephone points, Khuv skidded to a halt and tried to phone ahead. On the first occasion the phone was dead, and on the second he noticed the cable sliced through, trailing its severed ends down the wall. Agursky had outmanoeuvred him. Litve, where he ran on, as he reached the scientific accommodation section, thought to re-check Agursky's room; on the way out he roared like a bull, kicked doors, screaming hoarse-voiced for everyone to 'Vacate, vacate, vacate!'
Khuv, every forty or fifty paces, would pause briefly to fire a deafening burst from his gun into the ceiling; which he continued to do until the magazine was empty and he was left with only his issue automatic. But those shells he reserved. It was as much as the two men could do, for not only the telephones were out but also the everyday corridor alarms. Agursky had taken care of everything.
Finally they climbed a spiralling ramp to the upper level, where they encountered a lot more activity. Obviously Viktor Luchov had managed to pass on something of a message, for here at least the manhunt was underway. Maybe a dozen or more soldiers searched rooms, patrolled at the double in pairs along side corridors, used walkie-talkies to keep in touch and loud-hailers to muster people from their beds or their work. This last was against Khuv's advice to Luchov, but the Major was unsure which way events had moved since then. In any case, the measures were having an effect, however disorderly. Late-shift staff were spewing out from laboratories, jamming themselves in the corridors and tunnels, on the move without really knowing what they were doing
or where they were going. Khuv and Litve couldn't talk to all of them; they simply howled their warnings as they battled a way through them.
'Get out!' they yelled. 'The place is going to go up! Get out now or you'll all burn!' It worked, but only served to slow them down as the struggling crowd began to move with them, in the same direction. And it dawned on Khuv: in the crush of frightened people Agursky would be that much harder to spot. But as it happened, Agursky wasn't the one they had to worry about. Not yet.
Up ahead, with maybe only thirty metres to go to Failsafe Control, corridors converged at a bulkhead door. Khuv and other high-ranking Projekt officials had their quarters in one of these corridors; Luchov and various heads of his staff were accommodated in the other. Further into the complex, the corridors put out smaller branches which led inward and inevitably downward, but here at the end closest to the exit into the Perchorsk Ravine they came together, forming something of a bottleneck. Worse, there was the bulkhead door, of dense metal set in concrete, which when shut formed in effect an airtight seal. Ever since the introduction of Luchov's failsafe, the door had been kept permanently open, firmly clamped to the wall.
But now, as Khuv and Litve outdistanced the bulk of fleeing personnel and came round a bend where the corridors merged on the approach to the door, so automatic gunfire sounded from up ahead. Approaching a second bend more cautiously, they came in sight of the door, saw what the shooting was about and took cover in an alcove in the wall.
Leo Grenzel was at the door. He had unlocked two of the three clamps and was working on the third, which appeared to be jammed. Every time he stepped into view to put leverage on the clamp, soldiers in the alcoves closest to the door would open up with their guns, driving him back under cover. The thickness of the door itself, and an alcove directly behind it, shielded him from the worst of their fire; but even as Khuv and Litve arrived on the scene they saw him hit, saw him stagger back out of view. In another moment he reappeared cradling a machine-gun, opened up and sent a hail of lead sleeting the length of the corridor. Two soldiers toppled screaming out of their alcoves where ricochets hit them. Their comrades dragged them moaning out of sight.
'You up there,' Khuv called during the lull. 'Who's in charge?'
'I am,' a Sergeant stuck his head out, snatched it back as Grenzel opened up again. Khuv saw him briefly before he, too, ducked back: his white face and staring eyes, their glazed look. And he could well understand that look. It was unlikely that the Sergeant knew Grenzel was dead, but it must be very hard to him to understand why he wasn't! The soldiers kept hitting Grenzel but they couldn't put him down! As Grenzel appeared yet again at the door, tugging furiously at the last clamp, the damage he'd suffered was obvious.
He was lopsided in his stance; that will be from his snapped spine, Khuv supposed. And he marvelled at his own ability to accept this impossible thing, just like that. A broken spine, and Grenzel still mobile, however awkward. But why not, for he was also dead! Nor was that the end of it. He was wearing white coveralls. They smouldered down his right side, where they hung in rags. Tatters of flesh hung with the rags, grey and red, but there was very little blood in evidence; these things didn't bleed too readily. There were three small holes in Grenzel's right shoulder, neat as the dots on a dice, where a burst of bullets had printed full stops on his coveralls; but at the back the holes were the size of small apples, coloured a ragged, reddish-black. Grenzel hung his shoulder on that side, adding to his lopsidedness. His difficulty with the clamp was that he worked at it left-handed.
Khuv took Litve's flamethrower, called out to the men ahead: 'Give me a burst of covering fire when I call for it — just a concentrated burst — and I'll deal with this bastard. But first of all, can one of you boys take out that light?'
'Are you sure you know what you're doing, sir?' a shout came back. 'I mean, this one hardly seems human!'
How right you are! 'Yes, just put out that light.' Above the door was a lamp in a wire basket. On instructions from the Sergeant, one of his men shot it out. There was a crack! — a tinkle of glass — and the buckled wire basket was torn from its housing. The light in the corridor was at once reduced, turning the place to a smoky tunnel.
'When I yell "now",' Khuv reminded, 'one burst and then keep your heads down.'
Grenzel had vanished for a moment, but now he reappeared, stood half-silhouetted in the doorway. He had his gun with him, which he propped against the wall before returning his attention to the clamp. Behind Khuv and Litve the converging corridors were suddenly full of milling people; their hushed yet massed voices were like the susurration of a congregation in a great sounding church. Litve called back: 'Stay still! Be quiet. Just wait where you are.'
Khuv checked that his weapon was primed and ready for action. It was still fairly heavy, indicating that there was no lack of fuel. Then he shouted: 'Now!' There came an answering burst of fire and Grenzel staggered back. Khuv crouched down, ran forward. Grenzel sensed or saw him, grabbed up his gun, fired a short burst and ran out of bullets. Khuv heard the whip and buzz of angry lead, heard voices back down the corridor cry out their agony. Then he opened up with his flamethrower, stabbed its blade of near-solid heat right at the yellow wolf-eyes burning in Grenzel's silhouetted face.
All shadows fled as the flamethrower roared. Grenzel was scorched, and screeched like a run-over cat. He dropped his useless gun, and in the next moment Khuv was on him. He hosed him down with fire, burned him to a blistered crisp that burst into flame and stuck itself to the metal wall. Then Grenzel slid down the wall, toppled over and lay still. Khuv stopped firing, stood back. The flames gradually died down and Grenzel's remains hissed and crackled, issuing vile black smoke.
Then Litve came forward with the Sergeant, and Khuv told the latter: 'See that all of these people get safely out of here. They're not out of the woods yet.' Without waiting, he and Litve went on to Failsafe Control.
With frightened people hurriedly filing past them, they stood in the corridor and banged on the metal door.
Luchov's voice, shrill, terrified, came through to them: 'Who is it? What's happening?'
'Viktor?' Khuv answered. 'It's me, Khuv. Open up.'
'No, I don't believe you. I know who you are. Go away!'
'What?' Khuv glanced at Litve. Then he guessed what had happened. Agursky had been here. He banged again on the door. 'Viktor, it is me!'
Then where's your key?' All of the listed Failsafe Duty Officers had keys to this room.
Litve still had Khuv's keys. He took them from a pocket and handed them over. Luckily, Khuv hadn't thrown the Failsafe key away with the others down in the mortuary. Now the Major turned the key in the lock, pushed the door open — and at once gasped and stepped back!
Luchov stood there, eyes bulging, veins pulsing in the seared half of his head, aiming the hot muzzle of a flamethrower straight into Khuv's straining face. 'God!' he gasped, lowering the weapon to point at the floor. 'It is you!' He staggered back, collapsed into his swivel chair in front of the TV screens.
He was a wreck. A trembling, panting, completely terrified wreck. Khuv carefully took the flamethrower from him, said: 'What happened, Viktor?'
Luchov gulped, started to talk. As he proceeded some of the wild, frightened look went out of his eyes. 'After you left, I… I started to phone. Half the lines were out. But I got the guards on the entrance, in the ravine, and told them about Agursky. Then I got through to half-a-dozen other numbers, too, and passed on the message. I said everyone should evacuate, but as quietly as possible. Then it dawned on me how crazy that was. Agursky was out there somewhere and he'd see them leaving. He'd know the game was up and God only knows what he'd do! I managed to raise the military and told them to see to the evacuation, also to hunt Agursky down. I said the phones were out of order and that they should alert all the people I couldn't reach. I spoke to everyone I could, but so far I haven't been able to reach the core.'
Khuv and Litve glanced at the screens. All looked normal
down there; faces were strained and nervous, but there was no sign of any unusual activity. 'What about Agursky?' Khuv asked. 'Did he come here?'
Again Luchov gulped. 'God, yes! He came, knocked on the door, said he had to speak to me. I told him I couldn't let him in. He said he knew I knew about him and he could explain. He said if I didn't let him in he would do something terrible. I said if I did I knew he'd kill me. Then he said that he knew we planned to burn him, but that he was going to burn us — all of us! In the end he went away; but I thought: if he kills any one of the Failsafe Duty Officers, and takes his key…
'I had an automatic, but I knew that those two dead soldiers hadn't been able to stop him with their guns. So I waited a little while, sneaked out and took the nearest flamethrower. I came back and just as I was letting myself in…oh, Jesus..''
'He showed up?' Khuv took the other's elbow.
'Yes,' Luchov nodded, gulped. 'But you should see him, Khuv! It's not Agursky. 1 don't know what it is, but it isn't him!'
All three men exchanged glances. 'How do you mean, "not him"?' Litve asked, sure that he wouldn't like the answer.
'His face!' Luchov's lips trembled and he shook his head disbelievingly. 'It's all wrong; and his head, the wrong shape. The way he moves — like a great sly animal. Anyway, he came at me at the run, loping toward me. He didn't have his dark glasses on and his eyes were red as blood, 1 swear it! I got inside, slammed the door and somehow managed to turn the key. And outside… he was a madman! He raved and threatened, hammered on the door. But eventually he went away again.'