He heard a sobbing, then he felt a key being pressed into his palm. He swiftly locked the door.
“Let’s go,” he said, guiding her away from the door, past the clawed foot of the tyrannosaur. They moved deeper into darkness. Suddenly, Cuthbert pulled the Public Relations Director to one side, then guided her into a crouch. He peered into the gloom, senses straining. The Hall of Cretaceous Dinosaurs was deathly silent. Not even the sound of the rain penetrated this dark sanctum. The only light came from rows of high clerestory windows.
Surrounding them was a herd of small struthiomimus skeletons, arranged in a defensive U-shaped formation before the monstrous skeleton of a carnivorous dryptosaurus, its head down, jaws open, and huge claws extended. Cuthbert had always relished the scale and drama of this room, but now it frightened him. Now he knew what it was like to be hunted.
Behind them, the entrance to the Hall was blocked by a heavy steel emergency door. “Where’s Winston?” Cuthbert whispered, peering through the bones of the dryptosaur.
“I don’t know,” Rickman moaned, gripping his arm. “Did you kill it?”
“I missed,” he whispered. “Please let me go. I need to have a clear shot.”
Rickman released him, then crawled backward between two of the struthiomimus skeletons, curling herself into a fetal position with a stifled sob.
“Be silent!” Cuthbert hissed.
The Hall lapsed again into a profound stillness. He looked around, probing the shadows with his eyes. He hoped Wright had found refuge in one of the many dark corners.
“Ian?” came a subdued voice. “Lavinia?”
Cuthbert turned and saw to his horror that Wright was leaning against the tail of a stegosaurus. As he watched, Wright swayed, then recovered.
“Winston!” Cuthbert hissed. “Get under cover!”
But Wright began walking unsteadily toward them. “Is that you, Ian?” Wright said, his voice puzzled. He stopped and leaned for a moment against the corner of a display case. “I feel sick,” he said matter-of-factly.
Suddenly an explosive noise rocketed across the hall, echoing crazily in the enormous space. Another crash followed. Dimly, Cuthbert saw that Wright’s office door was now a jagged hole. A dark form emerged.
Behind him, Rickman screamed and covered her head.
Through the skeleton of the dryptosaurus, Cuthbert could see the dark shape moving swiftly across the open floor. Straight for him, he thought—but it suddenly veered toward the shadowy figure of Wright. The two shadows merged.
Then Cuthbert heard a wet crunching noise, a scream—and silence.
Cuthbert raised the gun and tried to sight through the ribs of the mounted skeleton.
The silhouette rose up with something in its mouth, shook its head slightly and made a sucking noise. Cuthbert closed his eyes, squeezing the trigger.
The Ruger bucked in his hand, and he heard a blast and a loud clattering. Now Cuthbert saw that the dryptosaurus was missing part of a rib. Behind him, Rickman gasped and moaned.
The dark shape of the creature beyond was gone.
A few moments went by and Cuthbert felt the hinges of his sanity begin to loosen. Then, in a flicker of lightning through the clerestory, Cuthbert clearly saw the beast moving swiftly along the near wall, coming directly toward him, its red eyes fixed on his face.
He swung the barrel and began firing wildly, three quick shots, each white flash illuminating rack upon rack of dark skulls, teeth and claws—the real beast suddenly lost in this wilderness of savage extinct creatures—and then the gun was clicking as the hammer fell harmlessly on the expended chambers.
As if from a half-remembered dream, Cuthbert heard the distant sound of human voices, coming from the direction of Wright’s old lab. And suddenly he was running, heedless of obstacles, through the ruined door, through Wright’s lab, and into the dark corridor beyond. He heard himself screaming, and then a spotlight was shining in his face and somebody grabbed him and pinned him against a wall.
“Calm down, you’re all right! Look, there’s blood on him!”
“Get the gun away from him,” someone else said.
“Is he the one we’re after?”
“No, they said an animal. But don’t take any chances.”
“Stop struggling!”
Another scream rose in Cuthbert’s throat. “It’s back there!” he cried. “It’ll kill you all! It knows, you can see in its eyes that it knows!”
“Knows what?”
“Don’t bother talking to him, he’s raving.”
Cuthbert suddenly went limp.
The Commander came forward. “Is there anyone else back there?” he asked, shaking Cuthbert’s shoulder.
“Yes,” Cuthbert finally said. “Wright. Rickman.”
The Commander looked up.
“You mean Winston Wright? The Director of the Museum? You must be Dr. Cuthbert, then. Where is Wright?”
“It was eating him,” said Cuthbert, “eating the brains. Just eating and eating. It’s in the Dinosaur Hall, through the lab there.”
“Take him back to the Hall and have the medics evacuate him,” said the Commander to two members of his team. “You three, let’s go. On the double.” He raised his radio. “Red One to Dugout. We’ve located Cuthbert, and we’re sending him out.”
* * *
“They’re in this laboratory, here,” said the spotter, pointing at the blueprints. Now that the penetration was complete and the team was deep inside the Museum, the two had moved inside the mobile command unit, away from the hammering rain.
“The lab’s clear,” the Commander’s monotone came over the radio. “Proceeding into the Dinosaur Hall. This other door’s been broken down, too.”
“Go in and take that thing out!” cried Coffey. “But watch out for Dr. Wright. And keep a clear frequency. I want to be in touch at all times!”
Coffey waited, tensed over the set, hearing the faint hiss and crackle of the static over the open frequency. He heard the clink of a weapon and a few whispers.
“Smell that?” Coffey leaned closer. They were almost there. He gripped the edge of the table.
“Yup,” a voice answered.
There was a rattling.
“Kill the light and stay in the shadows. Red Seven, cover the left side of that skeleton. Red Three, go right. Red Four, get your back to the wall, cover the far sector.”
There was a long silence. Coffey could hear heavy breathing and faint footfalls.
He heard a sudden explosive whisper. “Red Four, look, there’s a body here.”
Coffey felt his stomach tighten.
“No head,” he heard. “Nice.”
“Here’s another one,” whispered a voice. “See it? Lying in that group of dinosaurs.”
More clicking and rattling of weapons, more breathing.
“Red Seven, cover our path of retreat. There’s no other way out.”
“It may still be here,” someone whispered.
“That’s far enough, Red Four.”
Coffey’s knuckles whitened. Why the fuck didn’t they get it over with? These guys were a bunch of old women.
More rattling of metal.
“Something’s moving! Over there!” The voice was so loud Coffey jumped, and then a burst of automatic weapons fire dissolved immediately into static as the frequency overloaded.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Coffey began saying, over and over. Then for an instant he could hear screaming, and then more static; the even cadence of machine-gun fire; then, silence. The tinkling sound of something—what? Shattered dinosaur bones dropping and rolling on the marble floor?
Coffey felt a flood of relief. Whatever it was, it was dead. Nothing could have survived the shitload of firepower just unloaded. The nightmare was finally over. He eased himself down in a chair.
“Red Four! Hoskins! Oh shit!” the voice of the Commander screamed over the frequency. The voice was suddenly buried by the staccato of gunfire, then more static. Or was it a scream?<
br />
Coffey surged to his feet and turned to an agent standing behind him. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. He read his own terror in the agent’s eyes.
“Red One!” he yelled into the mike. “Red One! Do you read?”
All he could hear was static.
“Talk to me, Commander! Do you read? Anyone!”
He switched frequencies wildly to the team in the Hall of the Heavens.
“Sir, we’re removing the last of the bodies now,” came the voice of a medic. “The rear detail of the SWAT team just evacuated Doctor Cuthbert to the roof. We just heard firing from upstairs. Are we going to need more evacuation—?”
“Get the hell out!” Coffey screamed. “Get your asses out! Get the fuck out and pull up the ladder!”
“Sir, what about the rest of the SWAT team? We can’t leave those men—”
“They’re dead! Understand? That’s an order!”
He dropped the radio and leaned back, gazing vaguely out the window. A morgue truck slowly moved up toward the massive bulk of the Museum.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. “Sir, Agent Pendergast is requesting to speak with you.”
Coffey slowly shook his head. “No. I don’t want to talk to that fuck, you got that?”
“Sir, he—”
“Don’t mention his name to me again.”
Another agent opened the rear door and came inside, his suit sodden. “Sir, the dead are coming out now.”
“Who? Who are you talking about?”
“The people from the Hall of the Heavens. There were seventeen dead, no survivors.”
“Cuthbert? The guy you took out of the lab? Is he out?”
“They’ve just lowered him to the street.”
“I want to talk to him.”
Coffey stepped outside and ran down past the ambulance circle, his mind numb. How could a SWAT team buy it, just like that?
Outside, two medics with a stretcher approached. “Are you Cuthbert?” Coffey asked the still form.
The man looked around with unfocused eyes.
The doctor pushed past Coffey, sliced open Cuthbert’s shirt, then inspected his face and eyes.
“There’s blood here,” he said. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know,” said Cuthbert.
“Respiration thirty, pulse one-twenty,” said a paramedic.
“You’re okay?” the doctor asked. “Is this your blood?”
“I don’t know.”
The doctor looked swiftly down Cuthbert’s legs, felt them, felt his groin, examined his neck.
The doctor turned toward the paramedic. “Take him in for observation.” The medics wheeled the stretcher away.
“Cuthbert!” said Coffey, jogging beside him. “Did you see it?”
“See it?” Cuthbert repeated.
“See the fucking creature!”
“It knows,” Cuthbert said.
“Knows what?”
“It knows what’s going on, it knows exactly what’s happening.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It hates us,” said Cuthbert.
As the medics threw open the door of an ambulance, Coffey yelled, “What did it look like?”
“There was sadness in its eyes,” said Cuthbert. “Infinite sadness.”
“He’s a lunatic,” said Coffey to no one in particular.
“You won’t kill it,” Cuthbert added, with calm certainty.
The doors slammed shut.
“The hell I won’t!” shouted Coffey at the retreating ambulance. “Fuck you, Cuthbert! The hell I won’t!”
57
Pendergast lowered the radio and looked at Margo. “The creature just killed the better part of a SWAT team. Dr. Wright, too, from the sound of it. Coffey withdrew everyone else, and he won’t answer my summons. He seems to think everything is my fault.”
“He’s got to listen!” roared Frock. “We know what to do now. All they need to do is come in here with klieg lights!”
“I understand what’s happening,” said Pendergast. “He’s overloaded, looking for scapegoats. We can’t rely on his help.”
“My God,” Margo said. “Dr. Wright…” She put a hand to her mouth. “If my plan had worked—if I’d thought everything through—maybe all those people would still be alive.”
“And perhaps Lieutenant D’Agosta, and the Mayor, and all those others below us, would be dead,” Pendergast said. He looked down the hallway. “I suppose my duty now is to see you two out safely,” he said. “Perhaps we should take the route I suggested to D’Agosta. Assuming those blueprints didn’t lead him astray, of course.”
Then he glanced at Frock. “No, I don’t suppose that would work.”
“Go ahead!” Frock cried. “Don’t stay here on my account!”
Pendergast smiled thinly. “It isn’t that, Doctor. It’s the inclement weather. You know how the subbasement floods during rainy spells. I heard someone on the police radio saying the rain outside has been approaching monsoon strength for the last hour. When I was sprinkling those fibers into the subbasement, I noticed the water was at least two feet deep and flowing quickly eastward. That would imply drainage from the river. We couldn’t get down there now even if we wanted to.” Pendergast raised his eyebrows. “If D’Agosta isn’t out by now—well, his chances are marginal, at best.”
He turned toward Margo. “Perhaps the best thing would be for you two to stay here, inside the Secure Area. We know the creature can’t get past this reinforced door. Within a couple of hours, they are sure to restore power. I believe there are several men still trapped in Security Command and the Computer Room. They may be vulnerable. You’ve taught me a lot about this creature. We know its weaknesses, and we know its strengths. Those areas are near a long, unobstructed hallway. With you two safe in here, I can hunt it for a change.”
“No,” said Margo. “You can’t do it by yourself.”
“Perhaps not, Ms. Green, but I plan on making a fairly good imitation of it.”
“I’m coming with you,” she said resolutely.
“Sorry.” Pendergast stood by the open door to the Secure Area expectantly.
“That thing is highly intelligent,” she said. I don’t think you can go up against it alone. If you think that because I’m a woman—”
Pendergast looked astonished. “Ms. Green, I’m shocked you would have such a low opinion of me. The fact is, you’ve never been in this kind of situation before. Without a gun, you can’t do anything.”
Margo looked at him combatively. “I saved your ass back there when I told you to switch on your lamp,” she challenged.
He raised an eyebrow.
From the darkness, Frock said, “Pendergast, don’t be a Southern gentleman fool. Take her.”
Pendergast turned to Frock. “Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own, Doctor?” he asked. “We’ll need to take both the flashlight and the miner’s lamp if we’re to have any chance of success.”
“Of course!” Frock said with a dismissive wave. “I could use a bit of rest after all this excitement.”
Pendergast hesitated a moment longer, then looked bemused. “Very well,” he said. “Margo, lock the doctor inside the Secure Area, get his keys and what’s left of my suit jacket, and let’s go.”
* * *
Smithback gave the flashlight a savage shake. The light flickered, grew brighter for a moment, then dimmed again.
“If that light goes out,” D’Agosta said, “we’re fucked. Turn it off; we’ll switch it on now and then to check our progress.”
They moved through the darkness, the sound of rushing water filling the close air. Smithback led; behind him came D’Agosta, grasping the journalist’s hand—which, like the rest of him, had grown almost entirely numb.
Suddenly, Smithback pricked up his ears. In the dark, he gradually became aware of a new sound.
“You hear that?” Smithback asked.
D’Agosta listened. “I hear
something,” he answered.
“It sounds to me like—” Smithback fell silent.
“A waterfall,” D’Agosta said with finality. “But whatever it is must be a ways off. Sounds carry in this tunnel. Keep it to yourself.”
The group slogged on in silence.
“Light,” said D’Agosta.
Smithback turned it on, played it down the empty hall in front of them, then switched it off again. The sound was louder now; quite a bit louder, in fact. He felt a surge in the water.
“Shit!” said D’Agosta.
There was a sudden commotion behind them.
“Help!” came a feminine voice. “I’ve slipped! Don’t let go!”
“Grab her, somebody!” the Mayor shouted.
Smithback snapped on the light and angled it quickly backward. A middle-aged woman was thrashing about in the water, her long evening dress billowing out across the inky surface.
“Stand up!” the Mayor was shouting. “Anchor your feet!”
“Help me!” she screamed.
Smithback shoved the flashlight into his pocket and braced himself against the current. The woman was floating directly toward him. He saw her arm lash out and felt it wrap around his thigh in a viselike grip. He felt himself slipping.
“Wait!” he cried. “Stop struggling! I’ve got you!”
Her legs kicked out and wrapped around his knees. Smithback lost his grip on D’Agosta and staggered forward, marveling at her strength even as he was pulled off balance.
“You’re dragging me under!” he said, toppling to his chest in the water and feeling the current sucking him downward. Out of the corner of his eye he saw D’Agosta wading in his direction. The woman clambered onto him in a blind panic, forcing his head under water. He rose up under her damp gown, and then it was clinging to his nose and chin, disorienting him, suffocating him. A great lassitude began to sweep over him. He went under a second time, a strange, hollow roaring in his ears.
Suddenly he was above the water again, choking and coughing. A dreadful shrieking was coming from the tunnel ahead of them. He was held in a powerful grip. D’Agosta’s grip.
“We lost the woman,” D’Agosta said. “Come on.”
Her shrieks echoed toward them, growing fainter as she was swept farther downstream. Some of the guests were shouting and crying directions to her, others sobbing uncontrollably.
Relic (Pendergast, Book 1) Page 34